Why is coercion bad?

Economics Political Theory
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[quoteuser=“tunk”]
I was asking you to try and rebut the laws of logic.
[/quote]

That is like asking me to rebut the laws of Scrabble. If logic is what you choose to utilize to attempt to discover truth, then fine. This begs the question,

“why do you consider logic a valid method of discovering truth?”

Which is what I’ve been driving at, and what you’ve merely shrugged off.

[quoteuser=“tunk”]
Now I apparently worship logic
[/quote]

No, you take Man as the giver of truth, apparently by utilizing logic. No more, no less. I’m not saying you “worship” anything, although I will say you engage in “magical thinking”, as much as some muttering Catholic when they ring the bell that turns crackers into Jesus.

“Let us celebrate the mystery of faith…”

[quoteuser=“tunk”]
Stop conflating them.
[/quote]

Hey, you started it. I doubted your premise, which certainly was the existence of objective ethics, by questioning the validity of your method (logic) as a method of discovering truth. What exactly am I conflating?

[quoteuser=“tunk”]
And I’m the one appealing to “faith”?
[/quote]

We both are, that’s why I’ve said so a couple times already.

[quoteuser=“Jackson LaRose”]
It is the individual which chooses, as a matter of faith, their ultimate goal.
[/quote]

[quoteuser=“Jackson LaRose”]
I also don’t blindly believe that I have accrued enough information to state that my method of validation are themselves valid.
[/quote]

[quoteuser=“Jackson LaRose”]
we both choose to ignore our respective begged questions as a matter of faith.
[/quote]

That’s the thing with you logic-bots, no understanding of nuance.

[quoteuser=“tunk”]
I don’t accept the authority of either scripture.
[/quote]

Obviously, only the “rational” (aka derived from Man) is to be considered valid.

“IT IS RIGHT TO GIVE US THANKS AND PRAISE!!!”

142

Centinel,

OK, you’re right. Liberal democracy is the best. I can’t wait to pay my taxes!

143

I haven’t “shrugged off” this question. As I say, I regard this question as ridiculous, because the words “validity” and “truth” and “rational” by definition refer to a certain interrelationship among concepts that has already been discovered and established as part of a body of categorical associations called “logic”. You are asking me why I regard 2 + 2 as a “valid method” of getting 4. Your very question presupposes logic, otherwise you could not ask it, just as denial of the “if-then” relationship itself requires the use of the if-then relationship. If this is too “unnuanced”, absolutist, dogmatic, blah, blah, blah, for you, it ain’t my problem.

I have absolutely no clue what you mean when you accuse me of “taking Man as the giver of truth”. “True” and “false” are properties of statements. And even to such a “nuanced” mind as your own, it should be clear that trying to argue that it is an absolute truth that nothing can ever be established as absolute truth is a pointless and self-refuting enterprise. Again, your argument presupposes such concepts as “truth”, or else you could not make it.

The rest of your comment is irrelevant. So I’m a “logic-bot”. Fine. Better than than being some mystical shaman hippy wannabe.

“I’m not saying your mother’s a whore, I’m just saying she has sex for money.”

144

Take it easy, Ralphie, you’ll bend your wookie!

[quoteuser=“tunk”]
I regard this question as ridiculous, because the words “validity” and “truth” and “rational” by definition refer to a certain interrelationship among concepts that has already been discovered and established as part of a body of categorical associations called “logic”.
[/quote]

Are you saying that if there was no one here to percieve it and then think about it, the universe would not exist?

“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

[quoteuser=“tunk”]
You are asking me why I regard 2 + 2 as a “valid method” of getting 4.
[/quote]

No, I’m saying 2’s, +'s and 4’s are abstract concepts formed in the head, like so many daydreams.

[quoteuser=“tunk”]
Your very question presupposes logic, otherwise you could not ask it
[/quote]

Yes, I can utilize the rules of logic to communicate with others. That does not mean logical thought is “true” thought, and illogical thought is “false” thought, in an objective sense.

Again, the realtive truth of our logical deductions is limited by our knowledge and cognitive abilities. One would have to be omniscient to be able to logically deduce a “truth”.

[quoteuser=“tunk”]
it should be clear that trying to argue that it is an absolute truth that nothing can ever be established as absolute truth is a pointless and self-refuting enterprise.
[/quote]

When did I ever exclude the possibility of knowing a “truth”? This is certainly a nuance issue,

“Beep, bop, boop, if proposition not utterly accepted, skeptic must hold completely contrary position, zfft, shoop, whirr”

I do believe knowing “truth” is possible, but I don’t think logic can get you there.

[quoteuser=“tunk”]
Better than than being some mystical shaman hippy wannabe.
[/quote]

LOL, I bet it isn’t!

Oh, and for the record, when I say you belive in ‘Man as the giver of truth’, I’m saying you believe that mankind is capable of discovering truth for themselves, rather than appealing to some deity or supernatural presence to reveal it.

[quoteuser=“tunk”]
“I’m not saying your mother’s a whore, I’m just saying she has sex for money.”
[/quote]

Oh, brother, lighten up. Just admit that you accept logic as valid on faith, I’ll restate that I believe in non-duality as valid on faith, we’ll shake hands and go our merry ways!

145

Wow, you correctly identified the character in my avatar. You sure are a sharp one. Ralph Wiggum indeed. Give me your sandal, hippie, and I’ll autograph it for you.

Oh boy, another BS point-by-point response. I’m going to have to give in to the temptation just a little bit…

I don’t recall saying that. If you can provide an actual instance of me saying that I’d love to see it. I was making the point that questioning logic presupposes logic.

Why is this supposed to be a shocking discovery? Everybody knows this.

It isn’t that you utilize the laws of logic only to “communicate”, it’s that you utilize to them engage in thought itself and thereby any purposeful action whatsoever. It’s rather pervasive, to say the least.

What does it means to say that “logical thought is ‘true’ thought”? Who ever said this? Why are you shoving words in my mouth? Logic simply identifies the coherence of relationships between various concepts. It is indeed another question whether those concepts correspond to anything in the real world. This is the difference between a sound argument and a merely valid one. Again, Philosophy 101.

Now, I’m sure you are going to paint what I just said as some stunning confession. It isn’t really. If when you said “the realtive truth of our logical deductions is limited by our knowledge and cognitive abilities”, you meant that the conclusions only hold if the reasoning is valid and the premises are true, then I certainly agree. But it does not follow from this that “One would have to be omniscient to be able to logically deduce a ‘truth’”. I don’t think Rothbard was in possession of omnisciency when he deduced time preference and marginal utility from the fact of human action. Some premises are necessary axioms and impossible to deny.

Translation:

“I do believe that sound conclusions can be drawn, but I don’t think drawing sound conclusions will get you there.”

What you have said here is very revealing. You denounce a priori reasoning, and yet you accept faith as the only means to knowledge a priori. Who can argue with this? When you have a hammer every problem strikes you as a nail. If recreational narcotics and Deepak Chopra is your thing, I can dig that, but I generally think life is better lived without illusions and superstition. (I imagine you’re going to reply to this that logic is a superstition. Of course, in that case, as I have repeatedly pointed out, you would merely be using modus ponens to reject modus ponens, and you would end right back where you started.) So I don’t see I have anything to “admit”.

146

Same old, same old, we are talking in circles.

I am bored.

I’ll just sum it up,

neither of us can be sure we have ever experienced anything “real”, so the material world you suppose you are experiencing may not be, making any sort of inferences you might draw from that observation and perception poentially false, and so render any sort of classification, characterization, discrimination you infer from that observation potentially false.

You don’t “know” you are experiencing anything, you “believe” you are experiencing anything.

This uncertainly can be “functionally ignored”, as when we engage in discourse, but when the “ding an sich” is attempted to be discovered, that uncertainty must be considered.

This is why I do not think that either of us are capable (as of this moment) to derive a method of “knowing”, relative to reality at large. It is beyond us, in other words.

As you say the best we can do in order to act, is to just accept our pet theories as true, because it is the closest proximation we are currently capable of. I do not think though, that should be cause to settle.

Oh, and I even understand your handle’s reference,

“I think he means trunk.”

147

Now you strike me as much more reasonable.

I agree with you that, as Ayn Rand says, our premises have to be constantly checked in order to make sure the conclusions are valid. It may be that the abstract premises we reason from don’t correspond to anything in the real world. Some things we can’t ever “know”. (Though saying all knowledge is impossible is itself a knowledge claim.) But Austrian economics & Aristotelian ethics are both deduced from the axiom of purposeful human action, which escapes the possibility of all skepticism by being a self-affirming proposition. You don’t reject Austrianism, as far as I know. Well, rational egoism is deduced from the same premise.

148

[quoteuser=“tunk”]
But Austrian economics & Aristotelian ethics are both deduced from the axiom of purposeful human action, which escapes the possibility of all skepticism by being a self-affirming proposition. You don’t reject Austrianism, as far as I know. Well, rational egoism is deduced from the same premise.
[/quote]

Wu Wei

149

…this is just semantics and wordplay. The decision not to act is itself an action. So long as you are conscious, you act.

150

Exactly. “Human” is an illusion.

Do without “Doing”. That is the Tao, also the Atman, also Nirvana. But none of that crap makes any sense, so they must be full of it!

151

Hey, if you like that sort of thing then you like that sort of thing.

152

I find it ironic that you are so quick to dismiss what is essentially an affirmation of your theory, put in different language.

153

Did I seem like I was dismissive? I didn’t mean to be.

154

“Meh, just semantics and wordplay”

“if that’s your thing, then whatever”

155

Well, the first bit is dismissive, admittedly. Sorry about that. But I mean, the decision not to pursposefully act is purposeful action. Unless you understand ‘action’ a different way, as I’m sure Taoism probably does. But yeah, to each his own.

156

The article explains it fairly well.

Do trees “act” by growing? Do planets “act” by orbiting? In other words, what makes humans the only “actors” vis avis the rest of the kown univers? Are we somehow seperate from it? is it because we can communitate linguistically? Why do we presume other animals aren’t “conscious actors”? Simply becuase they can’t tell us they are?

157

This is nice stuff but some things strike me as worth getting riled up over and being passionate about. I like to think I would die for liberty, should it ever come to that.

Animals might engage in purposeful action. I don’t know. All we know is that, were we to analyze their behaviour that way, we would be imposing a human concept on non-humans and engaging in the anthropomorphic fallacy.

158

It would seem that from your point of view, dying for liberty wouldn’t make any sense. Ending all liberty (secular death) for liberty?

[quoteuser=“tunk”]
All we know is that, were we to analyze their behaviour that way, we would be imposing a human concept on non-humans and engaging in the anthropomorphic fallacy.
[/quote]

Why do we treat humans as special?

This is the tricky aspect of interpreting non-dualism through a dualistic lens. If all is one, what is liberty? That presupposes something external that can restrict you. There is no need for passion, because all distinction has been removed.

Five Aggregates

159

Anyways…

It seems to me, Tunk, that you went from “ultimate end is survival” to “the ultimate end is to survive in the most optimal way.” Well yeah, now it really just is life advice. My continuing point is that there is no reason to evoke the extra “ethics” baggage and Randian objectivism and “flourishing.” Life advice is the clearest way to say it, so why not stick to that?

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