|
LASub4Real -> RE: Is it the Pain or the Act of Submission??? (8/5/2006 1:36:15 PM)
|
quote:
But it isn't the case that my friend cannot go to the theatre alone. You smuggled that in. For shame!. He simply chooses not to. Maybe he's a cheap-ass and won't buy his own drinks at intermission, or maybe he made a promise to his dying mother. But honest to God when he settles into that seat he looks neither left nor right but just really plain and simple likes to watch plays.
Yeah, as I composed my response to you I referenced the old brains-in-vats argument for epistemological skepticism but wouldn't you know it the guy who owns my vat made me delete that part.
There is really no reason to accept your reductionist theory of human motivation. That is to say no formulation of logic would compel it in that your argument in favor of it is fatally flawed. You may certainly have your own personal psychological reasons to accept it, which are none of my business. You even pointed to the reason why there is no ((non-psycho) logical) reason to accept your argument when you said something like: "you can't wiggle out of it".
Let me back up a moment and point out that what is being relied upon at this point is analytic philosophy (whereas the main thrust of my post was a linguistic, not an analytic point--but hell you seem like a decent sort; we can talk this way for a bit if you like.) Analytic philosophers and scientists--people who rely on this modality to approach truth--have long recognized that any argument (or theory) must be in principle falsifiable to have probative value (be worth a rat's ass.) Yours, as you so generously reveal, is not in principle falsifiable. So it has no probative force. For the unwashed voyeurs in the audience, that means that when formally analyzed it don't prove nuthin'.
That isn't just this carpenter's opinion, all you uncritical relativists out there. It is an explanation of how one must proceed if one wants to call upon analytic philosophical moves to buttress a claim about what is true. Just like it wouldn't be a statement of opinion if I said you don't get five strikes at bat and double rent on Park Place in baseball.
That's the nature and failing of all reductionist arguments. They set the terms a certain way so that if you accept the terms the conclusion is not in dispute. It really isn't an argumentation at all. It is a kind of intellectual ambush for the unwary. I'm not calling you names or anything, because reductionist claims are often made by the unwary as well.
They look like ass-kicking arguments. But when looked at closely they yurn out to suck dead monkey dick. (It isn't that unmentionable practice if the monkey is dead, right? Or is that other practice unmentionable too?)
This is not to say that the claims made based on reductionist arguments are therefore false. They might just happen to be true. The point is that the argument made in favor of the claim is not actually supporting it. Like if I made some cockamamy theory about how my black rooster makes the sun appear over the horizon by crowing each morning, and then conclude that if my rooster crows tomorrow at first light then the sun will indeed rise. My claim about the sun's appearance may be right as rain but my argumentation is way fucked and lends no probative (proving-ish) force to my claim about the likely progress of tomorrow morning. (LASub4rEAL that digression was not intended for your benefit; please don't take offense.)
But if we're gonna dabble in analytic philosophy we had orta {I'll bet Hugh Laurie's character never says "orta," eh? though he may say aorta} confront its entire legacy, part of which is to refrain from accepting any truth claim on the basis of a reductionist argument.
I could just as well say that every time you THINK you're doing something for selfish reasons, deep down you are doing it to please someone else. If I decide to hold this, no counter-example will defeat me because what I call a conclusion is really just a premise appearing out of place and in a silly moustache. You can't wiggle out of it of my theory of altruism any more than I can wiggle out of your theory of selfishness. Not becaue "my" theory prooves shit--which it surely doesn't--but because it is no more than a little parlor game, a maze with no exit except the door you came in through, just like your theory.
I could reject your free-will universe in the same sort of way (as many have tried to do.)
We are made of physical stuff.
All stuff obey laws of physics.
Every thought and wiggle is the only thought or wiggle that could possibly follow the previous thought/wiggle, based upon the operation of those laws.
One can bring in post-newtonian physics to cloud the issue but it only moves the problem back behind one more curtain, to put it in FrankBaumian terms.
And it certainly holds no interest for me as a guy who rejects the theory of causation, but that's another thread.
Presented with two equally valid (?) arguments: your's for selfishness and mine for altruism, absent a good reason (objectively good, formally probative ... as opposed to "aligned with one's prejudice," for example) to prefer one we must either reject both or admit that we accept one for reasons that we might call pre-logical or supra-logical or whatever, but dispassionate reason, exercised to the extent of it's range, can't conclude that your reduction to selfishness is the deal.
The stab at argumentation which you and others make along your lines is as I said not an argumentation at all, in an important sense. Instead it cashes out as a statement of opinion dressed up in logical looking clothes.
So when we notice that both (your and "my") arguments are fatally flawed in their reductionist nature we must in good conscience reject them both--or admit to ourselves and others that we are taking the conclusion (which is really a premise, on faith.)
And this is cut and dried. The argument has NO probative value. It cannot even be entertained as one constructive element in an inductive proof.
The argument may serve to convince someone unclever or unschooled enough not to recognize its nature, but then a missionary's card tricks might serve to help convince a gullible convert. That doesn't mean that card tricks actually demonstrate the existence of God (though I could whip you up an unassailable reductionist argument to that effect if you are that masochistic.)
So you see, I also favor calling a thing what it is.
And yeah, this is philosophy we're doing now. And it is the crappy kind, in my opinion. I don't look to analytics for anything constructively worthwhile. But to use analytic tools to refute an analytic claim seems fair game. It is just good form to take your opponent on his own ground when you can, yeah?
By the way, we're doing analytic philosophy but some of us are trying to draw scientific conclusions about human psychology based on it. That's another sketchy enterprise, in my view.
But what the fuck; a subbie with a dexterous mind. That's the kind I like.
I'm confident that under the right hands you could be taught to think with precision--if your pride didn't get in the way. Since I've seen no evidence of anything but straightforwardness and a keen mind on your part I'd say the prognosis is encouraging {oops; that was probly way House-ian.}
I look forward to your future posts on whateverthehell takes your interest.
Aha! You HAVE been philosphying!! Brain's in a vat indeed... Descartes Demon revisited? Obviously the beneficiary of classical education. Unless of course, the low enzym levels in our brain cannisters are playing tricks on our minds, and we're not even having this dialog :-)
But I agree, of course, that we are now demontrating the weakness of philiosophical arguement. It all collapses in upon the language in the end and the context in which the language is both meant and understood. Is the sky blue? Or does the atmospher simply filter out the longer wavelengths from our eyes leaving us with a perception of blue? Is El Capitan solid rock? Or should we argue that it is more air than atoms at a sub-atomic level?
It puts us into the unfortuante circumstance of having to answer every question both "Yes and "No." So language becomes less meaningful rather than more.
Yes you like giving pain, but then, no you don't either (if you look at it another way).
Yes I like giving pleasure, unless of course, I really don't (because there's a whole other way to understand it).
So is it reality that is imprecise or is it just the language?
Thank you sir, for a rigorous intellectual workout!
I'll have to more careful when making philosophical arguments as I know you will always be more than ready to keep me honest! lol!
LaSub
|
|
|
|
