/lit/ - Literature

>>11066230
the man who starred in Night at the Museum

>>11066238
Is it oldfag night? I cracked up at this

>>11066230
post times Harris got BTFO

https://youtu.be/elMi_IzlD40

>>11066283
i want more MOOOOOREEEEEE

>>11066283
>links to the two podcasts with JP where they somehow both end up losing the debate both times

>>11066992
>>11066283
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxwjTcPW_78

>>11067020
thanks anon

>>11067004
>where they somehow both end up losing the debate both times
that is really funny

>>11067025
of course pal; stay coZ

>OBJECTIVE A PRIORI MORALITY BASED ON PURE REASON ALONE

>>11066261
remove your name. I cringe every time I see it.

Sam “all identity politics is bad but white identity politics is the worst" Harris?

This jew needs to be airmailed to Israel.

>>11067141
Wut?

loel muh stove on hand morals realsm

>morality is objective
>how do you know?
>it's obvious, duh

Twitter is the modern day Lyceum.

>>11068706
Everyone thank Sam Harris for utilizing the Petito Principii he committed to try and prove someone wrong.

>>11068706
>and they don't just suck as a matter of cultural convention or personal bias - they really and truly suck
That simply isn't true though.

>>11068724
What, are you some kind of stove denialist?

>>11068706
>let's assume
Stopped reading there.

If your philosophy requires assumptions you have failed to prove anything, because all of your work can be undone by simply pointing out there is no evidence to support the assumption and so everything that follows can only be hypothetical.

Cry more, philosophylets, but positivism is the only God.

>>11068756
Can't believe we've actually found someone more retarded than Harris himself.

>>11068706
I haven't even read Hume, and it's obvious that this does nothing to solve the problem he brought up

>>11068769
Nodd an argooment

>>11068706
Brain/lit/s literally can't fathom this man's genius.

>>11067131
>OBJECTIVE

>>11068706
I've never read this guys books, are they as retarded as this?

>>11066283
>dennis prager winning any debate
doubt.jpg

>>11066283
Here’s another. For all you fucks who subscribe to >muh bell curve
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/2018/4/9/17210248/sam-harris-ezra-klein-charles-murray-transcript-podcast

What is it about jews that lead them to claim a fellow jew "solved" some aspect of European philosophy? Same thing gets said for Wittgenshit. Seems like pure chutzpah but where's the meme come from?

>>11066992
https://shadowtolight.wordpress.com/2015/01/07/neuroscientist-sam-harris/

>>11068756
Give me an example of a philosopher whose work relies on zero assumptions.

>>11066283
Prager is a halfwit. I listen to about 15 minutes of this, and it’s pretty clear that he isn’t going to “win.” He sounds like he’s genuinely confused about the topic.

>>11069014
What alternative is there to the bell curve? Ezra didn’t move the dial at all in that debate. Sam was saying something uncontroversial, Ezra was attacking a straw man, and neither of them actually made contact with the other’s point of view throughout.

>>11069099
No one here actually thinks that Sam Harris solved moral philosophy you fuckin goon.

What happened, /lit/? Like three years ago I thought you people were smarter than me.

>>11068706
What about people who willingly and enthusiastically undergo physical torment, Sam? What about those suicide bombers who are euphoric about death that you’re always talking about?

I owe Sam a lot because he woke me from my dogmatic slumber, but god damn is he a shitty philosopher. He is the king of motivated reasoning. If you guys really want to hear him get btfo, listen to his episode with Sean Carroll, specifically when they talk about compatibilism and later the is/ought gap.

>>11069310
Ask them to keep their hand on a hot stove (this is literally Sam's argument btw)

>>11069273
There are none.

It's almost as if the field is worthless.

>>11069321
I'd put my hand on a hot stove just to prove him wrong.

>>11068769
I think there should be a basic logic test for posters to be able to post on /his/ and /lit/.

shit like
>>11068756
is just beyond ridiculous.

>>11069493
Nob an addumeeg.

>>11069498
NOABAMGUG

>>11069514
reee argument reeeeeee

>>11069413
It is, but not for that retarded reason.

>>11069702
the most /lit/ post in this thread

How far along are we in implementing "Sam's Stove" or "Harris' Hotplate" into the mainstream ala Plato's cave?

>>11069413
Okay, so give me an example of a field which doesn’t also require a few axioms.

>>11068706
>1709 likes
The absolute state

>>11069321
I am positive that there is someone out there who just loves to put their hand on a hot stove.

>>11071227
DuDE its like so obious, look at the dirt and TreeS and Einstiein bruoh

Do'nt u knowe whut SCiENce IS????

>>11071227
There isn't one, but fields like science don't proclaim to espouse concrete knowledge.

>>11068756
>If your philosophy requires assumptions you have failed to prove anything, because all of your work can be undone by simply pointing out there is no evidence to support the assumption and so everything that follows can only be hypothetical.
True, if you want to go full sceptic.

>Cry more, philosophylets, but positivism is the only God.
Positivism is one of the examples where the shoddy assumptions are among the most obvious actually.

>>11066230
This man already BTFO compatibilists and free will, what more do you want? It's nice to see a scientist come in and destroy inane arguments philosophers have made for centuries.

>>11073389
see
>>11069264

>>11067020
>WLC

>>11069321
If your life is inherently negative for the rest of the world and suffering makes you yearn for death/suicide, then putting your hand on the stove is a good thing for the world

>>11073535
Trust me, I know.. Sam Harris did get btfo by wlc though

The is-ought gap is certainly a problem for a guy like Harris since he rejects final causes or teleology but why should I also reject it? I don't think Hume ever attempted to justify his anti-Aristotelianism.

>>11068706
Isn't he just describing traditional Greek hedonism?

>>11069014
Vox journalist sound so annoying and whiny I feel like becoming a white supremacist just to spite them.

>>11068706
soooooo utilitarianism?

>>11072714
But it does though. Material reality is the only reality with science.

>>11074016
literally

>>11073535
What's wrong with him?

>>11074016
utilitariasm doesn't pretend to have solved the is ought gap you mongoloid

For anyone interested, here's a ~2 hour panel with Stiller, Singer, Pinker, Krauss, Churchland, and Blackburn.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtH3Q54T-M8

Haven't listened to it in a while, but from what I remember Harris presents his slippery thesis from the moral landscape, and Blackburn raises some great points re: the ambiguity of what the 'well-being of conscious creatures' entails. Harris, of course, does not address these.

I think I remember Singer doing a good job of addressing Stiller's whole science of medicine being sufficient despite health not being totally demarcated.

The first ~15 minutes of this is the best and most simple refutation to Harris' bullshit with morality that I've found on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TR5N1XyUco&t=29s

>>11074054
>a ~2 hour panel with Stiller, Singer, Pinker, Krauss, Churchland, and Blackburn.

Why in the fuck would anyone ever watch this?

>>11074030
theistic personalism, monothelitism, Protestant.

He's a a popular theologian like a pop scientist and he describes the God that Atheists know of—theistic personalism God—, but in reality, the God of classical theism logically makes sense and actually puts God at the position of where God should be.

>>11074030
>>11068706
Darwinism allows the bourgeoisie to see themselves as the glorious culmination to all existence. Despite their contrarian, anti-PC posturing, the expressed goal of muh enlightenment post-nu-atheism pop intellectuals lies in the preservation of the status quo. Harris has embraced a secularized 'Buddhist' ideal of the annihilation of the self that seems more like a ready made ideology for an information intensive disenchanted world, forget yourself and what makes you conscious for the rational bliss of 'waking up' and being an unthinking puppet of chemicals and market forces. Pinker and Harris may have little to do with Peterson's suburban evopsych jungianism, but notice how they all retweet the gates foundation on how the world has never been better and is actually getting better every day. See also Macron's speech warning against the dangers of 'illiberalism': there is a spectre haunting the 'free world', the spectre of '68. Even 'woke' liberals have come to rely more and more on neuropolitics and dubious psychological studies. The internet and neuroscience derive from cybernetic presumptions of control. What if we were to leave science worship and 'rationality' behind and retake a romantic, promethean vision of life, what if we were to break the social contract and start anew? muh sjws( or rather, the electric extension of the central nervous system) managed to undermine the individualistic/protestant ethic of capitalism to such an extent we are now seeing a reaction, public intellectuals flock to defend liberalism before the actual attacks arrive. The most extreme 'rationalists' tend to fetishise 'AI' as an autistic God-substitute, and their rationality is always a purely economic rationality, cue James D'Amore going on about the need to maximise his employer's profits. The reason why Peterson is able to epic own the libs is because at least he is consistent, libs mix up ahistorical individualistic economic rationality with the historical, therapeutic logic of identity politics. Neither reject the paradigm of labor, the firm and endless rationalised technoprogress. What's even the point if all those STEM jobs are getting automated or priced out of the middle class by an influx of third world code monkey labor? I think the real danger is total enslavement and cybernation, the reasoning away of the human, you can see the begining of this with things such as China's social credit system, Palantir(ironically Thiel is one of the backers behind the free speech muh classical liberal crowd) the so called 'internet of things', Amazon, Google.

>>11074030
nü-atheism is a relic of the Bush era, ie. muh fundie religious right and the need to convince liberals to get on board with another round of imperialism, sorry, ''humanitarian intervention''.

>>11074034
No because that would be moronic, yet what he is proposing here (striving for the most good for the most people, avoiding zero sum games) is pretty much utilitarianism.

>>11074075
Can you expand on this?

>>11069297
>What alternative is there to the bell curve?

IQ is the capitalist machine measuring people for its own narrowly defined purposes. what is gonna happen when everyone is rendered obsolete except for a tiny minority of technocrats and engineers?

>>11068706
lol ive never bothered to read harris but if this is it he is literally retarded popshit
>assuming universal values
>completely blind to the question of forming meaning and understanding
>doesn't suck
i'd rather put my face on the stove

>>11074154
strong post, here is a (you), too bad the marxists were run off this board by stupidity. not that i agree with you faggots but I lean towards strasserism and lib socialism far more than i do fascism or liberalism

>>11074351
Excuse me? What? What’d you say? What program? The worst nightmares, you know, are often the metamorphoses of a fable, fables PEOPLE tell their kids to put them to sleep and perfect their moral education. The new conquerors, who we’ll call the cyberneticians, do not comprise an organized party — which would have made our work here a lot easier — but rather a diffuse constellation of agents, all driven, possessed, and blinded by the same fable. These are the murderers of Time, the crusaders of Sameness, the lovers of fatality. These are the sectarians of order, the reason-addicts, the go-between people. The Great Legends may indeed be dead, as the post-modern vulgate often claims, but domination is still comprised of master-fictions. Such was the case of the Fable of the Bees published by Bernard de Mandeville in the first years of the 18th century, which contributed so much to the founding of political economy and to justifying the advances made by capitalism. Prosperity, the social order, and politics no longer depended on the catholic virtues of sacrifice but on the pursuit by each individual of his own interests: it declared the “private vices” to be guarantees of the “common good.” Mandeville, the “Devil-Man” as PEOPLE called him at the time, thus founded the liberal hypothesis, as opposed to the religious spirit of his times, a hypothesis which would later have a great influence on Adam Smith. Though it is regularly re-invoked, in a renovated form given it by liberalism, this fable is obsolete today. For critical minds, it follows that it’s not worth it anymore to critique liberalism. A new model has taken its place, the very one that hides behind the names “internet,” “new information and communications technology,” the “new economy,” or genetic engineering. Liberalism is now no longer anything but a residual justification, an alibi for the everyday crimes committed by cybernetics.
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/tiqqun-the-cybernetic-hypothesis

>>11074346
Here's a good video on it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJv40SOaNzA

>>11067137
this

>>11066283
Give me tl;dr of their argument. I hate listening to either of them.

>>11066230
Lel no. This faggot got butthurt when, after saying that a truly objective science of morality needs be developed, got told that Ayn Rand had already suceeded.
This faggot is too wrapped up in his socialist politics. He treats them as a primary and erroneously starts there.
Rand was the one who solved Hume's guillotine.

>>11074024
Only because you can't test for any other reality. And I have yet to hear a good argument for investigating something you can't test for.

>>11074408
>Sam: I hate you guys and I hate Islam
>Dennis: I hate you guys and I hate Islam
repeat ad infinitum

>>11074419
>There isn't one, but fields like science don't proclaim to espouse concrete knowledge
This is what I'm replying to. Scientists do proclaim scientific knowledge to be concrete quite often

>>11074414
>Ayn rand
>succeeded
You're really not welcome here

>>11074454
t. r/philosophy

>>11074054
>For anyone interested, here's a ~2 hour panel with Stiller, Singer, Pinker, Krauss, Churchland, and Blackburn.
the ultimate hackfest, jesus christ

>Ought questions are really just is questions regarding what happens to all the relevant minds

Isn't that just basic utilitarian ethics? The real problem is why conscious beings ought to feel pleasure or ought not suffer. Obviously it's self evident from the inside perspective, but that was never the issue.

>>11074468
this tbqh

so many spooks itt

>>11074485
I know so many /pol/ spooks, this place has turned to shit.

>>11068706
As much as memerson has made him a cliche, this nigga needs to read some Dostoevsky and learn that people will do things that "suck" purely out of spite and can gain enjoyment or fulfillment out of doing them

>>11068706
>place your hand on a hot stove

Some people enjoy hurting themselves though. Not even his most basic example isn't universal.

>>11068706
premise 1 and 4 are false, so its unsound, 6 can defeat the previous premises if taken to an extreme, 7 is false and retarded, 8 doesn’t follow

everyone who donates to his podcast should be euthanized

>>11074589
There are oughts and shoulds in the universe? How do you justify that?

is posting broken why the posts so slow yo

>>11074623
because I exist as do they and I have them and so do other people >>11074629
fuck off

>>11074645
What determines them?

>>11074623
If there's any sort of purpose to be found in anything then it follows that there are ways those things should be. An acorn is and it ought to grow into a tree. One of the purposes or "ends" of life is to grow and find happiness so it would be wrong for somebody to frustrate that purpose by killing you for no good reason. In other words, you are a human so it is wrong to murder you. These purposes or ends are known by the intellect and we can discern them though argument.

>>11074659
will, biology, environment, unknowable externalities, entropy/luck, selection machine dynamics and irreducible complexity of living systems creating novel necessities for thriving life forms. If you want to engage please do so, im not the Phaedrus to your Socrates

>>11074683
>>11074708
you haven't even read Hume you fucking braindead imbeciles

>>11074683
Why do you assume there is purpose to be found? What determines purpose?

And if purpose can be anything that is possible to be desirable, then how things should be varies widely. The list of possible shoulds is at least for human understandings a virtually limitless set with entries that are often contradictory to one another.

An acorn happens to grow into a tree as a function of its "is". That doesn't mean it should or ought to do it. It assumes intend where there is none. And the functions of different life forms contradict what you see as an ought. An acorn would grow into a tree under the right circumstances, but a hog will eat the sprig as a function of its own "is". Their functions are in direct conflict.

>>11074736
not that anon, but you should look into Alain Badiou's ethics of the event as an alternative to both postmodern relativism and analytic neo-positivist pedantry

>>11066230
>is-ought gap
This distinction doesn't make sense after you've debunked free will so I suppose he has.

>>11074710
I'm aware that Hume rejects any sort of purpose but he never gives a good reason for doing so. I think it was wishful thinking, that he was irrationally anti-Aristotelian and he sincerely wished that there was no purpose to anything which is a notion that even the most hardcore modern skeptics will not go along with him on. All of us accept some sort of purpose even unconsciously in our language, even in your post. You say we haven't read Hume as if we should or if we ought to.

>>11074736
As I said already we all recognize purpose even if we don't want to. If an acorn grows up into a raccoon then we would know that something didn't act the way it ought have. It didn't fulfill it's purpose because it should have grown into a tree but it didn't. If you want to reject all purpose as Hume did then you have to account for this. Why do acorns in ideal circumstances always grow up into trees and not raccoons?

I didn't say that purpose can be anything that is possible. I have no idea where you got that from because that's completely contrary to what I'm saying. Things have certain purposes and finite beings would have finite purposes. We may not know them or we may think we know them and get it wrong, but neither means there is no actual purpose.

>>11066230
Steven Pinker and Sam Harris are shills for Bill Gates' NWO antichrist depopulation agenda. ''The Enlightenment'' is and has always been a luciferian and masonic psy op.

https://naturalfamilyblog.files.wordpress.com/2017/08/img_1682.jpg

>>11068706
>how to get from "is" to "ought"
>step 1: assume there are no "oughts"
confirmed retarded

>>11074761
are you one of those Ayn Rand fans? you sound like one. funny how anglo ''rationalism'' is inseparable from the political and economic assumptions of bourgeoisie liberalism and propertarianism. If anything autistic libertarians make me feel better for being a Marxist, it's not just another political position but a transgression of the very laws of liberal reality, a rejection of the compass and the boardgame, a superhuman assertion of will against everything that exists. What if I (or we) are something ''more'' than a simple individuals or rational utility-maximising gene transmision units?

>>11074419
You can't even test for physical reality. It's just assumed that what we experience corresponds to some physical reality. The reality that can be known to exist is the mental.

>>11074761
>we all recognize purpose even if we don't want to
The point of philosophy and logic is to argue beyond instincts and feelings. Just because all or most humans share a certain sensation about seemingly unnatural phenomenons, that doesn't mean the seemingly unnatural phenomenon "ought" not to happen.

If an acorn grows up into a raccoon, then something occurred that contradicts our scientific (or more basic, our natural) understanding of reality. And we would investigate it on a level of correcting our understanding of the "is". We would not investigate it on a level of morality or ethics. Which is what "oughts" are about.

>Why do acorns in ideal circumstances always grow up into trees and not raccoons?
They are machines that grow into trees. They don't grow into racoons because they lack the necessary means and the programming to do it. At least that is our current understanding. There is no reason to assume there is any other driving force behind it.

>Things have certain purposes and finite beings would have finite purposes. We may not know them or we may think we know them and get it wrong, but neither means there is no actual purpose.
Where do you get this from? How do you know this? Do you extrapolate all of this from people feeling "wrongness" when something seemingly unnatural occurs?

>>11074419
science is not reality but rather a 'picture' of reality, sterile and frozen in time. humans exist 'in' tim, and the elevation of 'testable' science to the be all end all of reality is ultimately an ideological and political choice, one that closes off all the doors that really matter.

>>11074817
>>11074829
Jesus Christ this place is awful. I'm out.

>>11074780
Pinker and Harris are shills, but not for that. They are shills for jewish interests.

As a matter of biology, our nature requires us to do certain in order to continue as ourselves. If you take the simple premise that you want to remain human, which everyone does and if you don't you can fuck off, then there are a million things you should do such as breathing, shitting, and being nice to your mom. Why can't we just be more practical about this stuff and look to biologists and physicians to tell us what to do because they have our best interests in mind. What's the point of abstracting into complex shit and making up things like ethics and rights when we already know what we want and should do.

>>11074838
How do you determine what is real without tests? I am not arguing for science being the only possible way to investigate reality. I am arguing that nobody offered a viable alternative.

>>11074839
Feelings got hurt?

>>11074853
>How do you determine what is real without tests?
How do you determine the ability of tests to prove what is real?

>>11074849
>Why can't we just be more practical about this stuff and look to biologists and physicians to tell us what to do because they have our best interests in mind
1. As humans, and ironically because of their biology, they have other interests in mind
2. If you give them the power to decide what we ought to do then they will be corrupted by people who want to decide what we ought to do
3. Your biological urges and needs are often contradictory to the long term survival of your genes and the species as a whole

>>11074865
Pragmatism. The method produces stable results.

>>11074873
>The method
there's no single method for testing things, and testing in and of itself is not a method
>stable results
elaborate on this

>>11074853
Experience is the only thing that's real. Everything one does is an exploration of reality. We barely now anything more about the nature of the universe than Heraclitus did 2600 years ago. Just try and listen to Neil DeGrasse Tyson go on about black holes and 'logic'? Is that really what you call truth? If so, I honestly feel pity for you. Like the well intentioned liberal managers and the marketing execs, the rational skeptics want to regulate and quantify Being out of existence reduce man to pure animality, an eternal present of mechanistic rationality and medicated contentment. And sorry, but I simply can't have that.

>>11074817
He may or may not be but I am. Let me give you my answer to the guillotine Marxist.
Ayn Rand identified that the Hume guillotine was a fallacious thing to posit as a problem in the first place. Her solution to it was to validly dismiss it.
Hume, who raised the issue, said that no number of non-evaluative premises (is-statments) could ever yield an evaluative conclusion (ought-statement). But to say that a set of premises can't entail what's not implicit in the premises is a tautology.
A more interesting question is whether evaluative statements can be like is-statements, i.e. claims of fact that are either true or false. In more modern terminology such statements are natural statements, and the question is whether or not ought-statements can be natural.
Rand's essential bridge from is to ought is the ethical axiom of life. To be moral, being alive is the ultimate irreducible requirement. The concept of "life" is where all ethics neccessarily reduce to. Only a man who does not desire to live and intends to commit suicide cannot derive an ought.
It is impossible to deduce ought from is but it is possible to induce it. But the problem of induction was and is actually the least understood area of logic and philosophy. Which is because it is an order of magnitude more difficult and complex.
Leonard Peikoff made great strides in this area.

>>11074896
Being is closer to their conception of mathematical reality than the becoming of dynamic physiognomically activated lifestyles you’re just a christfaggot watching becoming and being taken away from your onto-theological monopoly

>>11074869
>1. As humans, and ironically because of their biology, they have other interests in mind
Yes, but this is inextricable from anyone. At least with people who study humanity there's an orientation toward our fixed, biologically determined interests rather than contrived ideology motivated by God knows what toward idealistic ends that can't exist.

>2. If you give them the power to decide what we ought to do then they will be corrupted by people who want to decide what we ought to do
We can still be democratic about these things, but with our attention fixed on biological and medical facts.

>3. Your biological urges and needs are often contradictory to the long term survival of your genes and the species as a whole
I don't know what this has to do with anything. Having to shit isn't merely an urge, it is necessary to being human therefore we should do it.

>>11066238
>hurr Harris looks like Ben Stiller
wow you're fucking hilarious dude.

>>11074896
>Science is Neil de Grasse Tyson
I thought it wasn't possible to be dumber than positivists, yet here you are.

>>11068706
>getting from is to ought
>step 1, assume there are no oughts

Then what's the fucking point you jewnigger?

>hurr is/ought is literally unsolvable
Is statement->if statement->ought statement
Wow real hard problem fags

>>11068706
>brainlet
Why the fuck are you on lit?

>>11074888
You have an assumption about reality and you gain greater certainty about it being accurate or not by observing reality to see if it holds true over time. That is the method. And it is the same for all tests. Science is a formalized version of this method.

An alternative method would be something like "assumed knowledge". You just assume something is true without testing it.

>>stable results
>elaborate on this
According to my experience the results of properly thought out tests hold true over time. While unproven assumptions do not. The battery on my desk does not shock and kill me because I have tested its output and handle it accordingly. So far that holds true. Once I assumed the output of a battery without testing and shocked myself. On a pragmatic level the testing method is superior.

>>11074838
bahahahha brailets genuinely believe their concept of time affects their reality or most "science"

>>11074909
> Having to shit isn't merely an urge, it is necessary to being human therefore we should do it.
Eating is also necessary. Why don't you just kill and eat the people around you? Because that would produce unstable societies and as a result lead to lowered life expectancy, quality of life and survival of your genes. Therefore we decide on rules based on other criteria than what is biologically necessary.

>>11074957
how do you account for change, then? What if truth and rationality lie not in this received picture of reality but in our ability to negate it? There's also the implication the current state of things represents the most rational and thus the most perfect of all worlds and there is nothing we can do to change it because we would be sinning against logic and reason somehow.

>>11074980

You control your interactions with the subject of study, and the conditions imposed by the other variables of causality you observe in the world to the strictest conditions possible and you record those variables within the small controlled quantity you observe while performing your experiment.

>>11074957
Fair enough, but what makes you think only physical reality is testable?

>>11074980
>how do you account for change, then?
You can also test for the existence and the nature of ongoing processes that would produce the changes. If that is what you mean. That way you would be prepared for them and you can update your models of reality accordingly.

>What if truth and rationality lie not in this received picture of reality but in our ability to negate it?
I don't really understand this part, can you elaborate? What does negate mean in this context?

>>11074976
>Why don't you just kill and eat the people around you? Because that would produce unstable societies and as a result lead to lowered life expectancy, quality of life and survival of your genes.
Yes, this is still biological and a matter of continuing ourselves as human based on facts of biology.

>Therefore we decide on rules based on other criteria than what is biologically necessary.
Yes, a lot of which are exploitative and motivated by idealism.

>>11074414
>Rand was the one who solved Hume's guillotine.

>>11075004
bafflement is the beginning of all science and philosophy. We are questioning and anxious animals, never entirely satisfied with 'what is'. That's what annoys me about Harris, he has dedicated all his life to the apology of 'what is'. The nu atheists aren't skeptics but protestants, their worldview is ultimately totalising and totalitarian. See this for a particularly embarrassing example. 'Rationalists' are ultimately the worst and most obtuse moralisers of them all
https://samharris.org/the-limits-of-discourse/

>The French philosopher Jean Baudrillard gives these themes an especially luxuriant expression, declaring that terrorism is a necessary consequence of American “hegemony.” He goes so far as to suggest that we were secretly hoping that such devastation would be visited upon us

why won't people go back to sleep? what is it that calls us away from the passive 'logical' acceptance of 'what is'?

>>11075002
For the sake of argument propose another reality besides the physical one. Then we can discuss it.

If we are talking about something like a spiritual reality that exists outside of physical reality (not a sub-set) and which cannot be detected by anything in the physical reality, then I could not possibly test for it with any testing instrument, since all my testing instruments exist in the physical reality and they detect physical phenomenons.

>>11075108
our initial understanding of reality is not 'rational' but metaphorical and poetic,read Bruno Snell's The Discovery of the Mind for a good philological/psychological exploration of the origins of 'western' thought. Everything crystalizes around the Illiad and the Homeric simile. the worldview associated with western 'science' and 'rationality' emerged in the 17th century, a time of great theological and political conflict: Calvinism and the Counterreformation actually represented a loss and an impoverishment of thought compared to Renaissance humanism. (see Cosmopolis by Stephen Toulmin). Even the great 20th century physicists had widely differing views on philosophy and the nature of reality. Reified 'science' borrows the glow of the altar and the organ music from christianity. But another, romantic, view of existence is possible, instead of dismissing as 'meaningless' anything we cannot 'falsify' why not embrace the meaning inherent in the unsayable, which, as Wittgenstein said, is all that matters in the end. Harris remains committed to a narrow economistic and psychologistic ideal of rationality. Are there any other ways to constitute oneself as a subject besides being a positivistic liberal neo-epicurian rationalist? if so why are they morally wrong?

>>11074420
Islam>>>>>>>western civilization and reason

>>11075108
>propose another reality besides the physical one
the mental

>>11075153
So you are talking about the same reality, just a different way of conceptualizing it?

I think the romantic story telling way of describing reality is deeply flawed. The stories grow naturally over time together with human civilization, like a co-evolution, and if you live your life according to the stories and understand them correctly, then you will most likely live a successful life since the people who told these stories survived to tell them. Successful narratives survive just like successful gene lines survive. I give you that.

So yes on a pragmatic level your alternative approach enables you to live your life successfully, but only as long as your surroundings stay static and the circumstances don't change. Because you are not looking for truth per se, you are looking for "what works" and you don't really understand why it works. It is the same problem that traditionalism has. Your wisdom breaks down once the circumstances change dramatically and then you are ill-equipped to adapt because all of your tools have become obsolete.

>>11074913
lol you must be having a bad day

>>11075217
>So yes on a pragmatic level your alternative approach enables you to live your life successfully, but only as long as your surroundings stay static and the circumstances don't change. Because you are not looking for truth per se, you are looking for "what works" and you don't really understand why it works.

isn't that what paradigm shifts in science are all about? Aren't you indulging in narratives as well, telling yourself useful stories about 'science' and naively assuming there is a 'rational' telos to it all? How is that any different from people who tell themselves stories about Christ, Muhammad, George Washington or the October Revolution?

>you are ill-equipped to adapt because all of your tools have become obsolete.
Isn't that what 'rationalists' fear most of all? being left behind by a world that refuses to conform to their narrowly defined standards 'reason'? He who wins is not who's most rational, but whoever's able to tell the most persuasive stories. What about those tools which cannot and will not be reduced to reason? even the most 'rational' can't prescind with them.

>>11075256
>How is that any different from people who tell themselves stories about Christ, Muhammad, George Washington or the October Revolution

In a few thousand years when Christ, Muhammed, Hitler and Gandhi, all of your gods and stories are forgotten, then water will still be made of one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms, apples will fall down with 9.81 m/s^2 and a light bulbs will start glowing when you send the right amount of electrons through their wires.

>>11075256
paradgym shifts aren't real read Feyerabend brainlet

>Individuals of the basketball complexion, or niggers as I like to call them, suffer from a genetic smallbrain syndrome. In other words, they're fucking retarded. Compared to their fair skinned brethren, they trail behind so far intellectually that one can hardly consider them human. Which is precisely why I cringe when referring to them as "brethren" - they are like plants, or fauna maybe, but certainly not kin.

jesus christ sam

>>11066230
You are a cocksucker and a shill OP, kys.

>>11075275
and dinosaurs will still be reptiles

>>11075217
the problem with your worldview is that it doesn't allow for pluralism or even competing visions of what humans are or should be. everyone should assume its place as a rational utility maximising gene transmission unit subject to the instrumental reason of 'what works according to the people who know best' and stop complaining, forever. say what you say about 'sjws', 'fundamentalists'. 'postmodernists' 'marxists' and the other straw enemies of 'rationality' , but at least realise there is a problem.

>>11075324
I do not hold such a world view

>>11075297
I feel like this pasta has become better over time

>>11074527
bye

>>11075090
See >>11074899

>>11074952
How do you arrive at your "if" statement? Brainlet.

>>11066230
Did Ben Stiller really solve these problems?

>>11074347
IQ is an exceptional predictor for all sorts of things.

>>11075279
>”paradgym shifts aren't real read Feyerabend” — brainlet
ftfy

>>11075603
It's only a factor though. Europeans were smarties when they weren't backward pagan tribes

Images are back yo

>>11068706
>life sucks because stoves killed many jews
>therefore goyim should serve us

>>11066261
I love you're namefig

>>11067131
>A PRIORI KNOWLEDGE
>IMPLYING
>MUH SPRINGS

>>11074899
>to say that a set of premises can't entail what's not implicit in the premises is a tautology.
it's valid of itself, ok
>The concept of "life"...ethics
Being...meta-ethics--depends on the active connotation
>induction
so, falsification of the manifold "is"?

this is why dialogue>syllogism

>>11069297
I think you really missed what happened in that Klein-Harris debate.

>Harris spends the entire time saying stuff like "I don't agree with Murray's politics but you have to respect the science"
>Ezra spends the entire time trying to explain to Harris that people criticize Murray specifically because his conclusions (which are almost entirely directed at social policy) are way out ahead of the data and poorly substantiated.
>Harris then says "there's some confusion here" and keeps repeating his initial statement.

Basically, Harris is a baby that becomes incredibly threatened when someone suggests that he doesn't actually have the right context to understand the things he's discussing and that he really likes to attribute malice to people that try to call him out for that.

>>11066230
>giving a shit about what a kike has to say about morals
we did it 2000 years ago and look us now

>>11074373
i have had this open on my desktop for some time, just about halfway done, I suppose I will finish it now sperg

>>11074899
I will never understand why people spend time on specious nonsense like this when they could just read Kant.

>>11066230
Truly

http://sapardanis.org/2016/04/02/the-impossibility-of-wittgensteins-ethics-and-a-solution-by-sam-harris/

>>11074623
STOOOOOVES

>>11066230

He can't even close the gap between his buttcheeks.

>>11074347
t. Brainlet

>>11074347
>what is gonna happen when everyone is rendered obsolete except for a tiny minority of technocrats and engineers?
paradise

>>11068756
>>11069273
I'll do you one better. Give me an example of a mathematician or physicist or engineer whose work relies on zero assumptions.

>>11076875
Not all assumptions are created equal

>>11076325
Kosher sandwich, don't be fooled.

>>11068706
>pain avoiding act-utilitarianism
It's not new and it's not good.

>>11066230
That would have required him to actually be a philosopher or, for that matter, to have ever done anything relevant in his field.

How is this successful, it's almost like he's a J

IF I TOUCHED YOUR STOVE, WOULD I DIE?

Free Will is self-evident.

>>11074844
>muh antichrist
>muh Joos
>muh NWO
>muh haloominati
>muh gay frogs

>>11076933
Ok so how doesn't the same "all your work can be undone by simply pointing out there is no evidence to support the assumption and so everything that follows can only be hypothetical" point apply to these 'lesser assumptions'. Or are we just assuming that because they're arbitrarily decided to be 'lesser assumptions' the point doesn't apply?

>>11077633
I'm just going to reiterate this point. What he's saying is just pain-avoiding act utilitarianism. How do people think this "solves" the is-ought gap?

>>11075108
The example you used by definition can't be tested, but it doesn't prove your claim that "you can't test for any other reality".

To use a relatively well-known example, the astral plane. Testing whether or not it exists is simple: get two people who can induce the experience commonly referred to as astral projection, put them in separate rooms, have them project and meet up, then have each of them write their experience down before getting together and comparing notes. If the experiences coincide that's pretty strong evidence in favor of the existence of an astral plane.

>>11077753
That would indeed be an experiment. It would have to be more specific though to make sure they actually experience the same reality and not just share a similar hallucination, which would be the more likely explanation.

For instance if they would see each other in that proposed astral plane and can describe each other afterwards or they exchange information without having seen each other before, then that would be evidence. If you can repeat that experiment a few times then it would be strong evidence.

>>11068706
He seems to be proposing some sort of utilitarianism even though he did nothing to get beyond individual weal and woe.
His petitio principii is "everyone should care about what sucks for others".

Relativism is the moral-philosophical equivalent of being a centrist in politics

>>11076942
Please just die in a fire, m8

>>11078786
How about you and your people stop shitting up white countries and move to Israel.

>>11068706
Literally goes form is to ought in the 3rd tweet lmfao

>>11066230

I just want to compliment you on what a wonderful clause you wrote:

>The man who closed the is-ought gap

Something about that phrase makes me feel equal parts mocked, baited, and challenged to respond. I think Sam would feel the same way.

>>11071235
There are. When I self-harmed one of my favorite ways to do it was to heat the knife with a lighter so it would cut through the skin easier. The pain felt good compared to the blankness of depression. I would've happily held my hand on a stove because the suck of depression made the suck of pain feel relatively good.

>>11078771
Using labels instead of arguments is equivalent to being born with an extra chromosome in a chess tournament

>>11078805
>>>/pol/

>>11078771
This. Centrism and extremism are both anticoncepts

>>11079200
>>>/oven/

I think Harris is worthless but he chooses to have a moral system that is openly stated and has its bullshit / axioms clearly stated. So he is more honestly worthless than other moral philosophers.

Fine, Harris is bullshit, I agree. But will anyone seriously claim that any other philosopher has anything to offer that isn't bullshit?

>>11067004
>they somehow both end up losing the debate both times
holy shit there is literally no better way to describe it

>>11079675

>>11079675
You don't like such great moral systems as "listen here, god said it" and "just do what you feel like lol"?

>>11079178
It wasn't an argument. It was a passing observation. I couldn't care less about raging trash fire that is this thread, and whatever premature abortion of a point it may have had.

>>11078771
Relativism - The truth about truth is that there are no truths.

>>11066238
fpbp

>>11079753
The truth is the there is no such thing as "truth." Humans have a construction of ideas in their head that corresponds to the category of "true things," and when call things "true" which belong in that category. True is no more implicit in an object then ones opinion of it. Any statement about truth is thus vacuous.

>>11079745
>It wasn't an argument

Yes

>>11079823
I'm really just here to throw rocks

>>11079783
>Any statement about truth is thus vacuous.
I'll compromise by agreeing that your statement is vacuous.

>>11079846
>>11079753
this sentence is false

>>11079850
That was my point. Relativism hinges upon a self-defeating central axiom.

>>11079675
Unironically

>>11067004
lmao I always shill for pragmatism but u got me there

>>11079855
it doesn’t because once its accepted its truth infects every other statement, just like skepticism, you lose all ability to find ground immediately after accepting the conclusion and you can’t return to the original deconstructivist standpoint
>>11079920
go away lol

>>11079950
But if I do that, how will I teach you about Objectivism? The first successfully formulated meta-philosphy and guide to a productive, happy, and non-contradictory life?

>>11079950
>its truth infects every other statement
What truth? You're asserting that there is an objective truth about truth: that there is no objective truth. Your position is paradoxical therefore false.

Or, rather than denying the existence of objective truth, you're asserting that humans can't find objective truth with certainty, in which case you're defending skepticism in a debate on relativism, which makes you stupid.

>>11079695
Calling Jesus a philosopher is an understatement; I get what you mean.

>>11080035
There is an objective physical construction to the universe; calling it truth, or putting it in any other category, is where subjectivity enters.

>>11080511
>There is an objective physical construction to the universe; calling it truth, or putting it in any other category, is where subjectivity enters.
>There is an objective physical construction to the universe
>[The truth is that] there is an objective physical construction to the universe
>[The truth is that] some things objectively exist
>[The truth is that] objectivity exists
>[The truth is objective]
Stop BTFOing yourself.

If there is an objective physical construction to the universe, and someone says, for example, that the Earth is smaller than the Sun, what they have said is either objectively accurate or objectively inaccurate. In other words, true or false. Subjectivity doesn't have a thing to do with whether or not the Earth is smaller than the Sun.

Good lord relativism is stupid.

>>11080724
Not him, but the truth is universal, the real is objective. That "a = b, b = c, therefore a = c" is not an objective judgment, it's a universal and abstract one. There are some judgments that base their truth on certain objective facts, but the difference nevertheless remains. Subjectivity does have a bit to do with whether the Earth is smaller than the sun, since the subject is the basis of all knowledge, and without it, there could be no Earth, or Sun, or anything else.
>Good lord relativism is stupid.
I could say the same of your materialism

>>11080751
I'm not a materialist, I just adopt materialistic rhetorical techniques when dealing with relativists because it seems to be the only way to get through to them.

Isn't truth merely "the way things are"? I don't know what you're on about with a=b=c and subjects and Earth. Without the subject there could be no Earth? Why?

I use the term "objective" to articulate that something _is_ in a way which is independent of observation, judgement, preference. If a=b, and b=c, a=c, whether or not there are any creatures capable of comprehending that a=c.

I suppose if you're alluding to the metaphysical necessity of a knower in order for something to be known we're likely going down the route of metaphysics/theology.

>>11080310
I meant no disrespect of course

>>11080837
The subject is that which knows. It is the very condition of any object, just as the object is the very condition of any subject; one cannot have one without the other. There was no Earth until it was perceived; only after the perception of it, and the understanding of it, could the causal series be traced back to a point in time where there was no living thing on Earth; but the understanding that such a state existed could only come about after knowing subjects had understood the temporal regression of causes that proceeded from such a state up to the present.
>I use the term "objective" to articulate that something _is_ in a way which is independent of observation, judgement, preference.
This is not what the term "objective" means. This is a common misconception. If something exists "objectively," this means nothing more than that it exists as an object of perception, i.e. it is empirical. The ease and certainty with which most objective judgments are passed (e.g. I am sitting in a chair) has lead to a confusion of this term with "certainty." But not all certain judgments are objective, although all objective judgments (properly so called) are certain. An improper judgment regarding objects is the product of an inability or refusal to move from the data of sensation to the intellectual process of causally ordering these data.

Adopting the standpoint of a materialist in order to break someone of dogmatic relativism is very much like dressing up as a giant spider and hiding under your child's bed in order to break them of their fear of snakes.

>>11080906
>There was no Earth until it was perceived
From a theistic standpoint I can't name a point at which the Earth existed and was not perceived, but then you said
>the understanding that such a state existed could only come about after knowing subjects had understood the temporal regression of causes that proceeded from such a state up to the present
which makes me think that you attribute some kind of reality-generating property to human sentience. I suppose I'd appreciate some more elaboration because frankly this sounds like hippy-metaphysics.
"Certainty" isn't the right term for this purpose, because certainty places the knowledge in question along the axis of assumption. I am not attempting to describe a level of surety, I am attempting to describe the fixed nature of things beyond the bounds of consciousness (with the caveat that God's consciousness encompasses all). Objective is the wrong term, but I can't think of a better one at this time.

The impression I have, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that your perspective is that there is nothing beyond consciousness, yet you do not seem to believe in omniscience. If that is the case there is a real ontological barrier between the concept I'm attempting to describe and your perspective.

>>11080980
It isn't that the subject generates the object, a la Fichte, it's that subject and object are obverse sides of the same coin, related in their opposition to one another but not otherwise. The subject does not act, otherwise it could be known causally, and would then be an object. The thing which "houses" the subject, the body, is that which acts, and which can anticipated to act in certain ways more or less objectively.

There is a "real ontological barrier" between what you are attempting to describe ("the fixed nature of things beyond the bounds of consciousness") because you are attempting to describe objects as they would behave as things in themselves, a term which Kant interchanges with "noumena" (those which are thought). But such objects are inconceivable to us because we can never understand an object (in the strict sense) otherwise than situating it within the forms of perception (space and time) which are the conditions of all possible experience. Even the most abstract thoughts (being, becoming, nothing, etc.) have experience as their kernel. Any thought with no basis in experience, separated entirely from the presuppositions of consciousness in the world, is nothing but a chimera, a hobgoblin, a phantom.

>>11080906
After re-reading your post, I see now that what you're saying is that if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, there is no sound. Lol. Okay bro.
>Adopting the standpoint of a materialist in order to break someone of dogmatic relativism is very much like dressing up as a giant spider and hiding under your child's bed in order to break them of their fear of snakes.
Does it work? They always seem to lose the argument. Relativism is such a garbage-tier philosophy that almost any philosophy they move on to would be an improvement.

>>11081038
>a chimera, a hobgoblin, a phantom.
A form.

>>11081038
I understand your position better now, but it seems to me that you're arguing from a materialistic perspective despite lightly chastising me for temporarily adopting the rhetorical strategy earlier.
>"Noumena" (those which are thought)
>such objects are inconceivable
?????

>>11081044
>I see now that what you're saying is that if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, there is no sound.
Not what I'm saying. Anyway, if no one is around to hear it, how exactly does anyone know it fell? If someone comes upon the tree afterwards, don't they infer that it did make a sound when it fell, given the circumstances of its displacement, without actually being there to hear the sound itself?

>>11081063
The nearest thing to a Platonic form is the direct apprehension of an empirical thing that is an exact representation of an abstract idea. But this still has reference to an object to some degree, as e.g. beauty does.

>>11081082
Kant believed that noumena, i.e. objects as they exist in pure thought, completely removed from the empirical, were inconceivable, yes, this is the point of his philosophy. I think it's better to use the term "thing in itself" because this avoids confusion.

>>11081088
>The nearest thing to a Platonic form is the direct apprehension of an empirical thing that is an exact representation of an abstract idea.
Didn't Plato say as much? Look, call me a brainlet if you want but Kant seems massively overrated to me along with much of enlightenment philosophy.

>>11081093
So in other words Kant thought that we can't directly see things themselves in the sunlight, we can only piece together their nature from their shadows on the wall? Sounds familiar.

>>11081099
>>11081095
>>11081082
>Philosophy discussion
>They haven't even studied Kant
den of pseuds

>>11081114
I haven't brushed up on all of Plato's footnotes, no.

>>11081095
>Didn't Plato say as much?
Yea, that's why it's wrong to say the forms are completely "free" of experience.
>Kant seems massively overrated to me along with much of enlightenment philosophy.
That's your prerogative. I agree with you in the case of Hegel.

>>11081099
Not quite. This was a problem for Plato because he was under the impression that we could see things "in the sunlight," which in this case would mean as they are absent human perception. Kant maintains that the idea of objects outside of human perception is a nonsensical one, and that all objective, true, and valid judgments that have ever been made or ever will be made function only in reference to the modes of representation to which human beings have access prior to experience.

>>11081123
>all objective, true, and valid judgments that have ever been made or ever will be made function only in reference to the modes of representation to which human beings have access prior to experience.
Omniscience really throws a wrench into the works here. God sees things perfectly as they are, and while man can't reach the same level of perception, if he isn't a merely bestial creature it's reasonable to assume that he could perceive things with some degree of similarity.

I'm gonna get off, I really appreciate the convo, I learned some stuff about Kant and for that I thank you.

>>11081136
Kant was a theist, and he considered God to be the only being capable of grasping the thing in itself. I'm disinclined to agree with this because I am not a theist, and I think Kant's arguments against the proofs of God are irrefragable. At least, I haven't seen anyone to date give a compelling argument against them, not that this hasn't been attempted by speculative theologians of all sects.

>>11081144
>and he considered God to be the only being capable of grasping the thing in itself.

Source pls

>>11074347
t. didn't read the bell curve

>>11081157
He makes a cursory discussion of the idea that God should, if he is omnipotent and omniscient, be able to comprehend things on the basis of pure thought in "Critique of Pure Reason," but I'm having a hard time finding the exact page. If you want a reference to him stating that humans cannot comprehend objects on the basis of pure thought, or as they are in themselves (which for him are slightly different things), I could adduce plentiful and redundant examples of both from throughout the Critique.

>>11079753
Combat relativism as a belief, not as a Truth

Relativism- the belief that there is no single objective Truth.

Of course instantly the rational reasonable man of science dismisses belief as nonsense(magical thinking, delusion, etc). He doesnt want to perceive a world in which he believes in an objective cold reality and poof there is an objective cold reality. Einstein spent most of his life attempting to uncover the clockwork he believed was underneath our experience. When quantum mechanics reared its both satanic and angelic face, Einstein muttered something about god n dice, as if he and god were on speaking terms, and Einstein knows the Truth- its just a matter of time before he finds scientific proof of it, surely

What is the central thesis of relativism? The recent spat of relativist threads make it out as half-a-dozen different ideas under the same label.

>>11081277
Cntd:

Even if you believe in an objective underlying reality, you still face Wittgensteins problem, namely communicating anything is always limited because the tools we use to communicate are not the things themselves. Tools can be speech, text, math, etc anything we use to communicate with is always lacking somewhat in its ability to describe another thing

Essentially because of Wittys problem you can communicate the objective reality somewhat, but not entirely

I however propose there is no single underlying reality. We can talk about truths, but not the Truth. Its a belief i have come to, im not saying im correct. Its merely a lens to apply to the world

Relativism in general makes a lot of sense to me intuitively as a result of this lens, everything that happens experientially is a free flowing interpretation and reaction to the interpretations, rinse repeat

It seems to me the fear of relativism is particularly noticeable when you combine morality and relativism

I think this is why sam is so popular, because most rubes find morality to be a hard yes or no this is right that is wrong, we can find the truth, braindead moral determinism, simple, clean, no blurry lines between all things (funny that sam dropped acid and couldnt see the grayness of morality)

>>11066230
>the man with a degree in neuroscience who seeks to do absolutely nothing with his life but simultaneously make everyone else believe hes actually doing something

>>11074913
Anon everything is going to be fine and you’ll laugh again

>>11081512
>man with a degree in neuroscience

ROTFL

>>11066230
Pretty sure Ayn Rand got there before him, and probably others before her.

He also doesn't follow through on the thinking... If we can determine (at least heuristically) objective morality by way of utilitarianism, then it follows that genetically divergent populations will have somewhat different utility calculations (therefore different moral sweet-spots). Furthemore, as populations diverge in their intellectual abilities, so will they have varying capacities for moral calculation & agency.

>>11068739
Maladaptive. If you look at morality as a measure of collective utility:
-couldn't survive without enablers/help
-(greater) burden to family/society
-compromises health/survival so couldn't be normative among people at large

>>11074754
Thank you, some sense in this thread!

Although, he's just repackaging and presenting the analysis in popular format -- I wouldn't credit him with having broken much philosophical ground.

>>11074817
Oh my god, imagine being this fucking deluded
Do you have a mental problem or are you larping?

>>11077671
IT OUGHT TO BE VERY PAINFUL

>>11081359
>morality is just like, your opinion, man, stop harshing my mellow, you just don't get it because you're a sheeple

>>11082688
I mean, there certainly is a moral relativism. But a majority of this thread is discussing the relativity (or rather, the lack thereof) regarding truth.

>>11066230
He really destroyed Jordan Peterson.
Peterson is mentally sick gamma promoting existentialist relativism

Convince me that moral relativism is wrong.

>>11084284
If your telos is mutable, it essentially defaults to a proactive suicide being the objective telos of man. Healthy people naturally don't want to die, so ya gotta have a telos rooted objectively.

>>11084311
You make contradictory assumptions: At once that the telos is mutable, and then that it is objective. You have not convinced me.

>>11084284
Depends on your definition of moral relativism.

There is no objective basis for any moral system, but that does not mean all moral systems are equal. Individual moral systems are better at accomplishing predefined goals than other moral systems.

>>11082608
YOURE A PRAGMATIC GUY

>>11084284
Morals are obviously relative between animals as a cat and dog don't even have similar shape, let alone the same obligations. However, within local groups (communities) there are binding features which if neglected through debauchery result in imminent discontinuation of the unit. In order to maintain coherence of oneself you have to act within parameters of preceding and subsequent character or you cease to exist. Existence is a universal value of all terrestrial things therefore this deontological ethic is objective to our locale.

>>11085520
for you

>>11086112
I've been checking back in this thread every now and then hoping for someone to respond to me thank you for finally allowing me to close the thread

>>11066283
>Prager

>>11084284

Morality is only relative because moral agents are objectively different. So in the same way 'subjectivity' is abstract short-hand for objective differences between observers, 'moral relativism' is a way of saying that divergent collectives will have different utility calculations (and thus moral guidelines).

Unfortunately, most people seem to take the notion of 'subjectivity' literally as opposed to the abstract representation it is.

>>11074849
>What's the point of abstracting into complex shit and making up things like ethics and rights
because not all people live uncomplicated and comfortable lives like people of middling intelligence, such as sam harris, often do.

>>11074069
Someone who "fucking loves science" and unironically calls themselves an anti-theist probably.

>>11086270
>my fringe interpretation is the real one, everyone else is misinterpreting it

>>11068706
>implying people don't do deliberately masochistic or sadistic things on the basis of ego reduction or ego fulfillment
>what is BDSM

>>11086677
>what is BDSM
pornography

>>11066230
He did neither of those, is your post a reference to someone else?

>>11086684
Not if it isn't documented

>>11066283
Why does he only refer to Islam when speaking about the dangers of religion?

There are more Christians than muslims.

>>11086701
it's another thinly-veiled anti-Muslim post

>>11076325
Klein critiqued the claim that black people have a lower average IQ than white people for at least partially genetic reasons, which is a claim that can only be dealt with empirically. Klein ALSO critiqued Murray's political prescriptions, but that wasn't the entirety of his critique of Murray.

>>11086704
Muslims need to come to a restructuring of their religion. It was literally written by a warlord in the desert who raped underage girls and beheaded women.

>>11076325
>Harris is a baby that becomes incredibly threatened when someone suggests that he doesn't actually have the right context to understand the things he's discussing and that he really likes to attribute malice to people that try to call him out for that.
A behavior that I've seen many times on the internet

>>11086750
Religion is not the problem, semitic genetics are.

>>11086701
Because Islam is more dangerous than modern day Christianity and the guy is a Jew himself, which are the people most in danger by Islam.

>>11086387
Right, so they make things up in order to justify their biases and help their self-interests.

>>11074849
Too many our of desires fall into zero-sum contests, so we have to come up with a system that takes not just individual biological urges into consideration, but also long term social cohesion as well

>>11086775
>>11086770
My point was that he uses Islam as a scape-goat for his flawed argument.

>>11068756
look at this dude

>>11086775
If Islam was a danger to jews, jews wouldn't be the main proponents of muslim immigration into the west. The two groups are cousins and jews and muslims have a long history together, the jews having of course fought WITH the muslims AGAINST the Christian Spaniards before both were expelled in 1492. ALL semites, jews and arabs, are the problem, and the former has always let the latter into western nations when they've gained power.

This muslims hate jews bullshit is due to Israel ganking land 50 years ago, but part of the reason jews are so gung-ho about promoting arab immigration into the west is to clear out more land for Israel to take -- Oded Yinon. Why do you think all these fighting age males are pouring into Europe? Jewish neocons are destroying their countries, jewish NGOs are escorting them into west, jewish media in the west are calling whites racist if we don't want to accept them, and jewish Israel takes more of their former homelands by the day.

That's how this works. They've talked about it openly for years, too.

>>11068756
(you) because why not

>>11086792
>long term social cohesion as well
Still biology, see: E.O. Wilson. Maximizing social capital would actually be much easier through a biological lens considering it accounts for everything that matters to humans, rather than narrow political idealism and economists who are acting in pure self-interest. We have to be at the end of an era, Hillary Clinton is a parody of a human being.

>>11086869
>If Islam was a danger to jews, jews wouldn't be the main proponents of muslim immigration into the west.
>the reason jews are so gung-ho about promoting arab immigration into the west is to clear out more land for Israel to take
>This muslims hate jews bullshit

Contradicted yourself there, not that your /pol/ conspiracy theory has any merit beyond that. Any theory that relies on a huge number of media personalities and politicians to be in a secret cabal full of absolutely loyal and discrete people that somehow never leaks concrete evidence of their sinister plans to the outside and never has any defectors either is a pretty poor theory.

>>11086938
that's not e.o. wilson

>>11066230
Step aside... a real public intellectual is coming through.

>>11086946
Why do you think that it would be?

>>11079783
So is 1+1 always 2 or not

>>11086952
why do you have a picture of bret weinstein saved on your computer? were you a student of his?

>>11086938
Individual freedom and group cohesion are often at odds. How do you determine which value a social system should select for? How do you determine how much a culture should tip in favor of stability and how much it should tip in favor of dynamism?

>>11086948
Honestly he's better than Harris. At least he talks and cares about literature. Sam Harris is barely human.

>>11086973
I hope you don't actually think like this

>>11086944
You're an idiot (or more likely a jew). There's no contradiction or conspiracy, it's just jews working toward jewish interests.

>>11086977
Harris is a parochial robot who has never held an interesting opinion in his life.

>>11086981
Jewish interests aren't one thing. Because Jews like all groups are made up of individuals and your Jewish master plan contradicts the interests of western Jews. They would import people who hate them for the benefit of people in another nation.

>>11086996
Because Jews also have a turf war going between different sects, besides Jews are known for destroying the host nation it is their nature

>>11086996
Jews are not individualistic in any sense; they are the most tribal people in the world and literally refer to themselves as 'the tribe.' Jews are also Israel firsters in every regard, they have no problem importing their sand monkey cousins to destroy western countries because they have no loyalty to our countries. And this behavior is why jews are going to get expelled yet again down the line here.

>>11086959
No, I've watched a few of his lectures/interviews and they made me totally re-think some of my positions so I saved his picture in order to not forget the impact he's had on me. His ideas for how we should approach policy-making are utterly practical and have made me completely disgusted with the current American political system.

>>11086969
It's a matter of values which are mostly arbitrary and relative to preference. Concocted systems that are "philosophically" derived are just reflexive narratives that favor the interests of their creator, i.e. complete bullshit that's inherently oppressive when institutionalized. A scientific approach is as indifferent as we can be in determining what's optimum for large scale economic apparatuses, biology being chiefly capable considering we're animals after all. Value prioritization of particulars should be left up to communities of freely associated people via decentralization which has never been easier thanks to digitization. Everything else is noise.

>>11086780
>so they make things up in order to justify their biases and help their self-interests.
bioethicists do the exact same thing.

>>11068706
>this sucks so I ought to do something about it
so this is the power of atheism

>>11086944
>Any theory that relies on a huge number of media personalities and politicians to be in a secret cabal
they don't need to be a secret cabal they just need to hold compatible views and cooperate from time to time.

>>11074565
He is jewish and is promoting atheism. It's unlikely that he doesn't know, it seems to be his modus operandi.

ought precedes is
there is no "is" without aim

>>11087430
Aim assume intend. Natural processes don't have intend. A rock does not roll down a cliff because it intends to roll down a cliff.

>>11087444
Put it like this.
There's no perception without aim.
Life only see what matters to it.

>>11087444
>Natural processes don't have intend.
You got that answer out of your own intent.

>>11087458
As in, If you could see everything, you would see nothing (everything would be white).

>>11087458
I can not only perceive reality with my senses. But I can also perceive it with instruments that pick up reality neutrally. Beyond that the filtering process for what matters and what doesn't is not perfect and I will inevitably perceive things that do not matter to me. And my brain cannot decide what matters and what not before perceiving things that do not matter. So your statement is wrong for many reasons.

>>11086869
>ALL semites, jews and arabs, are the problem
Armenians are semites, are they the problem too? Aren't they Christian?

>>11087474
>>11087471
Perception is the thrall of need.
Evolution can't see the future, that's why it's imperfect, but the need was to see many things.
A blind man cannot comprehend vision, it doesn't exist/it isn't.

>>11087519
Or put it like this.
If it doesn't matter to us, it doesn't exist/it's the same as nonexistence.

>>11087519
>Perception is the thrall of need.
Then why can we see our needs?

>>11087527
Our perception is adaptive for a reason. Take psychedelics and see where that takes you.

>>11087529
Oh you, you mean I ought to take DMT in order to see more?

>>11087532
I don't know. I haven't taken it yet - very hard to find in this part of the globe.

>>11087519
Let's say someone is deaf. He cannot perceive sound with his sound-based sensory organs (generally ears). Naturally he would not know sound exists. Yet sound can be measured by tools and translated into a facsimile that someone who cannot perceive sound can comprehend, e.g. as waves on a screen or skin touch.

The same is true for all natural phenomena that we cannot perceive naturally. To come back to the original analogy, what matters not can be translated to what matters.

>>11087539
>Yet sound can be measured by tools and translated into a facsimile that someone who cannot perceive sound can comprehend, e.g. as waves on a screen or skin touch.
Sound is very different from air vibration or the abstractions of it. Listen to a song, and you're supposed to find out why.

>>11087552
All translation comes with a loss of precision. A deaf man can still understand music and even compose it. The emotional response could be simulated by brain stimulation. All of this is irrelevant though. The point still stands that something that was in the category of "matters not" was brought into the category of "matters" and your statement is still disproved.

>>11087572
>A deaf man can still understand music and even compose it.
Only if they used to hear.
>The emotional response could be simulated by brain stimulation.
You can even damage the brain enough to make people atheists. However, this is irrelevant. A radio can be used to modify the sound, but the broadcast wouldn't change. So if music is archetypal to our very being and our needs, you're still stuck with Heidegger.

>The point still stands that something that was in the category of "matters not" was brought into the category of "matters" and your statement is still disproved.
I'm not that guy. I even responded to him.

>>11087583
>Only if they used to hear.
Wrong. Even mindless machines can create songs by means of algorithms and analyses of existing songs.

>So if music is archetypal to our very being and our needs
Prove that

>>11087539
You just prove ought precedes is.
A machine can only see what we program it to see (otherwise it sees everything/can't discern or map anything, or simply doesn't exist cause we don't want it to).
I don't mean something literally doesn't exist, but it only exist to life if it affects life, and the more it matters the more it is.
Like when you focus your vision on an object, it becomes "more-ly".

If it doesn't matter, it's the same as not existing,

>>11087605
>Wrong. Even mindless machines can create songs by means of algorithms and analyses of existing songs.
They don't create music. We do, out of the noise they produce and can't understand. Music isn't just sound. You have no listener, it's not music.
>Prove that
Why? It's an 'if' structure. It'll handle reality on its own.

>>11087610
>If it doesn't matter, it's the same as not existing,

True, but thanks to science and technology all that influences reality in a measurable way is in the category of matters. Which makes it a pointless distinction.

>>11087610
Is/ought is a false-dichotomy (to us, to philosophy, to life), meaning causes all action, all interpretation and perception. Ought is the most is there is.

>>11087632
Separate people from their value hierarchies, and watch the ought disappear.

>>11087678
There's nothing without value, it's called severe depression and eventually leads to death; unless their instincts (primordial oughts) take over control.

>>11087723
It's true you can't get an ought from an already established is.
But there is no is (to us and everything lives) if you don't first have an ought for its "existence".

>>11086958
Arithmetic is an adopted framework

>>11087062
Yeah, but the starting point for them is a scientific approach rather than ideology.