How does initial acceptance and transient rejection of a supposition help to understand anything? Its kind of like clipping the elevator cable when you are between floors.
Why would I care what an obscure contemporary of engels had to say about “all things”? Appeals to authority do not tend to go over well in this forum, additionally we are both anarchists after a fashion, I do not see why you think this wold be persuasive?
I was actually waiting for you to talk about stirner so I could show you that he employs the three fundamental laws of logic at least 90% of the time, elsewise you wouldnt think he made any sense whatsoever. So please let us know what you find so persuasive about max stirner.
theories tha are actually absurd do not require rejection of the law of identity to demonstrate their absurdity. When you gain more famliarity with the operations of your own mind, you will not consider it to be quite so spooky and consistency (after a fashion) will seem virtuous to you. It shouldnt surprise you or anyone else that immersion in nihilist literature would make nihilism seem natural and plausible. But even the nihilist philosophers believe in something, otherwise they wouldnt write books or advocate nihilism.
Perhaps for you. It helps me get a better grasp on the assumptions I have to make to hold a position.
As for the Stirner quote, it wasn’t an appeal to authority. It was just a quote that sums up my position fairly well.
I’m not saying Stirner doesn’t use logic. Like you say, it would be pretty hard to read if he didn’t! Please refer to my signature to understand his opinion on the matter.
I’m not sure why I find Stirner so persuasive. Reading The Ego and It’s Own was definitely a life changing experience. I guess because it laid bare all of the ideas I had been held captive by. It also helped reconcile the materialistic and the mystical worlds for me.
As far as nihilism being absurd, and action presupposing ideology, I’d have to say I hold an absurdist position. That is, we act for the sheer novelty of acting, not for any “purpose”. This can help to understand why nihilists might bother writing books.
at least now it should be obvious to you that socratic dialogue tends to require the questioner to hold (a) position(s) as well as the answerer. Ideally you would shift positions as you realized that one was untenable, rather than ask someone to elucidate a belief based on an assumption and then clandestinely withdraw that assumpton from your own questioning.
I was hoping that would come up. What quality, do you suppose, must an idea posess in order to be unsayable? More to the point, by what mechanism would a pattern of neurons firing, or a specific configuration of brain chemicals, prevent itself from attaching to a word or label?
I suppose I will take a look.
I thought you might go that direction. Please define “novelty.”
Isn’t that the same thing? As I said before, I tend to work off of what I’m handed. As we go along, the suppositions change as new concepts are asserted, or old ones withdrawn or modified. Just because no explicit position is taken by me, doesn’t mean that this process would not happen.
I don’t think Stirner means literally unsayable, rather the ideas he is attempting to express are on the ragged edge of languages ability to accurately convey a concept.
Novelty - newness, new experience, the “black swan”, change
“In order to draw a limit to thinking we should have to be able to think both sides of this limit (we should therefore have to be able to think what cannot be thought).” -Wittgenstein
I don’t know Stirner so I don’t know if he means the same thing, but when we talk about the whole, we speak as if we are outside of it, even as we say that all things are in it. Thus, we are saying the sayable.
it’s not. When you accepted an assumption at the beginning of the conversation it became effective until explicitly rejected. If we start out saying ““if “A” then “B””” and five minutes later you say “where do you get “B” from? Are you suggesting there is an “A” somewhere?” that would come across as trolling. Whereas if you had said "you realize everything we have said thus far is founded upon your axiom “there exists “A””, correct? That would be checking the premises.
Those withdrawals or modifications occur by mutual consent in order to assure that understanding has occurred. Unilateral and secret withdrawal of suppositions is considered an act of war among nation-states. Fortunately we are both anarchists.
but yah, the definitions of words are assumptions that cannot change without both parties to the conversation being aware. Otherwise it comes across as obfuscatory tactics.
well you are already familiar with the positional advantage of the questioner in a socratic type dialogue. Do you see how, if we are playing catch, it is one thing for you to put some mustard on it and try to sting my palm, or toss a curveball so I have to work to catch it. But if you are on a balcony throwing baseballs at me from behind cover, the additionally velocity and unpredictability become more significant to me, to the point where if we havent agreed that you would launch high-velocity, unpredictable missiles at me before hand, I might question your motives? I am still going to play catch, however I might explicitly query you about your intentions.
I dont know if the previous metaphor is useful to you or not. But if you are familiar with socratic discourse, you should realize a few things. Firstly, questions all contain implicit assumptions, to include definitions and premises. Second, some of the tenative argumentation positions of the questioner can sometimes be deduced by the answerer. Third, the answers by the answerer are guaranteed to also contain implicit assumptions, to include definitions and premises. Fourth, the definition of every word is a matter of which explicit definition is meant and understood to be meant (meaning definitions are intersubjective not objective), and which implications the audience associates with that specific verbum (meaning synonyms are not always synonymous). What this all means is that if you abandon an apparently minor assumption (one implication from one word) after that word has already been used in an exchange, it may confuse people and they might question your motives, including whether you were even engaging in good faith discussion. The fact that an explicit position was not taken by you does not mean that you did not take a position, and it does not mean that other people did not craft their answers taking into account certain implicit premises from the position they inferred from your question. You need to make these changes in definitions/premises explicit if you want to avoid confusion.
in that case, I agree that such a thing is possible and happens frequently-except that people tend to modify language so that it encompasses these concepts, with neologisms and new definitions for old words. So I wonder how something stirner said decades ago could still be unsayable in today’s language. But you restated the quote from stirner in much clearer language so I guess it just happened, and my skepticism is unwarranted. Thank you.
this implicitly recognizes the law of identity, because if “A” did not = “A” they would be unable to bring about meaningful new experience with the act of writing a book. The act of writing a grocery list would be just as novel.
I definitely incorporate premise checking. There are large amounts of “so, what you’re saying…” statements in my posts.
The rest of that post is understood, and duly noted.
As for your second post, Ithink we’ve reached the crux of the issue here. The identity axiom proves itself the moment I am attempting to convey an idea to you, since characterization, classifications, “selves”, etc. are necessarily supposed by the act of conversation. In other words, it is as impossible to “explain” how A does not equal A, as it is to explain ego death, or to explain the color “red” to the blind. That is a limitation of ourselves. Hence,
“What Stirner says is a word, a thought, a concept; what he means is no word, no thought, no concept. What he says is not what is meant, and what he means is unsayable.” - Stirner
Yes. That is enlightenment. Also known as Grace.
Mikachusetts,
That seems to be along the same lines, and I’ve heard and Wittgenstein can be considered “a chocolate/peanut butter type combination” with Stirner, so they must be quite complementary!
Looks like the forum cut off my response or something like that. Anyway, just in case:
Autolykos:
Yeah, that’s not even what I’m saying. And even if it were the reason I was giving, it’s not an absurd or uncommon line of thought.
What I am saying is that there’s so much interplay between “body” and “self” that the dividing line doesn’t really stand up. The interaction between a person and other things is a little more clear. Me and my room, for instance. Right now, this room is distinctly mine, and when I move out, it won’t be the same room again. But, the room itself doesn’t disappear, and hasn’t disappeared before or after my arrival in it. With the body and mind I’m not so sure.
I realize that was an interim post and your real arguments were afterwards, but I like to answer direct questions when it moves the discussion forward.
I reject the idea that a large majority is more likely to make a correct decision. Nothing I have been exposed to in my reading of human history or observation of human behavior would suggest such a thing. In fact, I would be more likely to endorse the opposite. The higher the percentage of a state’s population that supports a decision, the more likely that decision is to be foolish and counterproductive. Note that I dont explicitly endorse such a thing. But it is just as correct, imo, how are all those people supposed to be informed on all of the effects of that decision?
I agree that this is the crux of the issue. This is why deception is considered a type of psychic weapon in my system. Rejection of the identity axiom in intersubjective language outside of a philosophical discussion is immoral. However, it should not usually be considered illegal.
well the phrase “A =/= A” is a syntactical rejection of the logic system. There is no logical explanation, it explains itself.
“ego death” is best understood through the concepts of language, identity, and love. When subject loves object, subject identifies with object to such a degree that any event that affects object is emotionally perceived to affect subject to some extent. When subject rejects any distinction between himself and the universe as arbitary, subject identifies with all creation. This is said to be ego death. It can equally be said to be universal ego.
someone who is blind since birth still has the ability to perceive “redness” in his mind, but he may not do so. There may or may not be ways to convey this experience to him. You should know that one advanced segment of a specific martial art involves “sensing” colors without the sense of vision.
I dont consider the formality inherent in human thought where a concept is fixed until it becomes redefined, at which point it is fixed again, to be a limitation. I believe that if the universe did not conform to the laws of thought, then neither would our brains.
I am not buying that. Language evolves. Those concepts are sayable now. You did it yourself earlier.
We went back and forth so many times I am not sure if you got the point. Man acts to satisfy his desires. Reams have been written discussing the content and essential substance of those desires. You may wish to deny them all outright, I will not let you. Call it whim, novelty, nervous energy, primal drive, or anything you like. Everyone acts for a purpose. If you were suggesting that nihilist philosophers are in pursuit of enlightenment, I will agree with you.
“The most important commandment,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.” Mark 12.29-31
That is the end of distinction, the end of the observer-observed duality. “I” becomes “I am” A=A becomes A=w (that’s omega btw)
Exactly. Thats why my ego is like bam! everywhere.
and thats why karma is true, when you hurt others you are only hurting yourself. Which is one route to my theorem “all moral behavior is profitable behavior in the long term.”
Well if you posit the existence of black swans, the first thing I want to know is if this very swan is black. So your use of the phrase “of course” is interesting. I will read the links you provided and reply later.