If you were to successfully disbelieve the world we live in, then there would be no way for you to communicate with others or, really, do anything. I consider that an ill effect.
Functionally, this is true, at least within the short term view of a single generation. In the long term, over many, many, many generations, I don't thin that they are identical as generations allows for slow changes in how we, as a society, view the world around us, thus changing the world around us.
Not really. Justice is an idea that doesn't manifest, but, at the same time, it is impossible to deduce from our senses. We cannot see a murderer being imprisoned and, from that alone, come to the conclusion that this is justice. We need the concept of justice to come to that conclusion.
And, by this definition of fundamental needs, I again say that self-awareness is the only fundamental need. Every other need or desire can be changed.
Even so, every aspect of everyone's personality was created through interactions with other minds and introspection and every aspect of everyone's personality is adjustable. As such, nothing from them are fundamental needs, even if they are needs.
Ourselves and discourse between minds.
I am well aware. That doesn't mean I shouldn't try.
...So? That doesn't make it impossible for people to pursue their needs without limitations. That just means there are some extra tools to use for pursuing them, metaphorically speaking.
And this I disagree with the majority of people on. We don't need to do that in order to pursue our needs. Indeed, that gets in the way of pursuing our needs because, to many, these life-choices that appear to be destructive are, in fact, necessary to pursue their own needs.
Yeah, and that works out wonderfully.
And there is conflict now. There is conflict in everyone's daily lives. Restricting our choices doesn't make the contradicting interests go away or stop conflict. It does, however, deny many direct ways of resolving conflict and often leads to the conflict simmering under the surface of our interactions with other people, souring everything we do. It is better to just get the conflict out there and resolve it than force ourselves to suppress it.
"And, by this definition of fundamental needs, I again say that self-awareness is the only fundamental need. Every other need or desire can be changed."
Well, we may have to agree to disagree here, because I dont believe this. Not that you cant change at all, but certain aspects of the self are so difficult to change, that most people will choose not to.
"Even so, every aspect of everyone's personality was created through interactions with other minds and introspection and every aspect of everyone's personality is adjustable."
These two statement dont link to one another. The personality may or may not be solely the result of socialization, but whether it is or isnt, that implies nothing about how "adjustable" it might be. The only things that you know you can change are the things you consciously choose. People do not consciously choose what they need, anymore than they choose their sexual orientation.
Your sarcasm pothole brings out another disagreement. Actually, our social norms and expectations appear to work wonderfully well. I'm going to quote something I wrote on another thread where I was describing how I think politics work, but it applies here as well:
"Take any city. Every day, within a city, tens of thousands of people must function together as a self-governing system. I happen to live in Detroit, which politically is considered with good reason as a catastrophe, yet… Every day traffic is directed, crime is prevented, streetlights function, potholes are fixed, the electrical grid, the water mains, the sewage system, the gas, the radio, and the television services all deliver more or less successfully. Businesses open and offer goods and services. Employers direct and employees follow. People meet, and make decisions. Every morning there must be hundreds if not thousands of staff meetings, executive meetings, conference calls and multi-way chats to review and select courses of action to follow during the rest of the day. Even in Detroit the Catastrophe, the self-governing system functions.
Politics is nothing more than the deployment of power in group decision making settings. Thousands if not tens of thousands of people participate in such group decision making settings every day. I said that 80% of them work, but I’m certain that’s low- it’s more like 95%. It must, or things wouldn’t work.
Compared to other animals, the human potential for group dynamics is nothing short of staggering. Our social relations are orders of magnitude more complex than the next most intelligent animals. I fully believe that this aspect of our behavior is responsible for most of our competitive advantage as a species. It’s the reason we have taken over the planet. We organize ourselves into groups, and simultaneously distribute ourselves in a power hierarchy. This is how we get things done."
My point was (and is) that an uncounted multitude of informal collaborative activities everyday go off more or less without a hitch. Any political model that you want others to adopt has to offer at least this much success or better. Given what we have agreed on so far (the unchangability of aspects of the environment, including other people and their needs, The fact that people have divergent and even competing interests, and that people can change their interests and needs only slowly if at all) and I fail to see how what Stirnir is offering is any better than what we have. It would almost certainly be worse.
"And there is conflict now. There is conflict in everyone's daily lives. Restricting our choices doesn't make the contradicting interests go away or stop conflict. It does, however, deny many direct ways of resolving conflict and often leads to the conflict simmering under the surface of our interactions with other people, souring everything we do. It is better to just get the conflict out there and resolve it than force ourselves to suppress it.
I cant see anything in that statement to disagree with, but obviously you dont have to be a radical anarchist or anything like that to agree with it. People already agree under the current system.
V
Including the need for food and water?
Keep Rolling On
If people choose to, they aren't as difficult as they would think.
Which is why I said "and" instead of "so" or "therefore." I'm saying they are both true, not that one comes from the other.
I agree with this, but I fundamentally disagree with,
We can change everything about us and the world around us if we were to really put some will behind us. Some things are more difficult than others, but needs are not among those things.
Except, our societal norms and expectations create a lot of conflict and prevent much cooperation. If anything, successes of the current system are despite, not because of, social norms and expectations. Like, take marriage and general monogamy. This is an omnipresent social norm in the western world, yet it creates more conflict than it solves. People become unhappy, and get stuck in relationships that have outlasted their welcome, trapped by the expectation of forever, leading to argumentation and conflict and to breaking trust. Most monogamous relationships, in my experience, end with both parties unhappy and no longer friends, often forcing their friends to take sides, while break ups where both partners stay friends are considered abnormal. That's hardly "a minimum of conflict and inconvenience" to me. And it's not just that. Heteronormativity creates bullying, unhappiness, and broken families, law prevents a lot of self-help and conflict resolution, and the norm of a competitive and hierarchical work environment leads people to distrust their coworkers and work against their achievements. Social order creates conflict and inconvenience rather than solving it, or, where it does solve it, it is a racket.
This is plan human chauvinism. Look around in the world, and you'll see animals with a vast variety of complex and amazing group dynamics which are all achieving great and wonderful things. Heck, just look at a single ant colony to see the vast power behind animal group dynamics. Humanity isn't some sort of special and amazing animal that has, as you put it, "taken over the planet" any more than any other animal. Like, to take the example of ants, they become sort of the masters of the area they cover, learning the ins and outs of it through mass cooperation and creating massive colonies that they build from the material of the world around them. It is frankly simply speciessism to ignore the achievements, complexity, and brilliance that all sorts of animals have achieved.
But are they really succeeding because of, and not despite, social norms?
First, I am the one offering it right now, not Stirner. I may take a lot from him, but a lot of this is stuff he never spoke of and which came all from me, and, indeed, I do disagree with him on some issues. Second, I am offering something that doesn't constrain and control us. That allows us to work with anyone and do what we need to do to satisfy our needs and desires. Something unconstrained and unmolested by social order. Without social order, we would be able to do much more as the constraints of it would allow for more things to go off without conflict. Social order doesn't help things happen without conflict, it hurts them.
Absolutely. I even said that quite explicitly earlier.
Why think the world is made of ideas to begin with?
A claim is complex if it can be broken up into many independent subclaims. Since they're independent each subclaims probability has to be multipled to get the probability of the main claim.
God is a bad explanation because it is more complex than what is meant to explain, and that's while being vague. It replaces 'why this universe' with 'why this god'. It's simpler to suppose the universe is the uncaused cause.
You could question why humans exist instead of paperclip maximizers. I strongly suspect that any strictly mental explanation for this is only a little simpler than what it is trying to explain. While evolution is far simpler
in general simple ideal universes are more complex then simple material universes.
(Slightly meta post, sorry if this is the wrong place for it.)
I seem to recall there's a rule on these forums against 'importing arguments from other sites'. Would it therefore be inappropriate for me to post a link to a philosophical discussion I'm involved in elsewhere on the Web? Because I found some guy on Reddit who claims to take the Chinese Room Argument seriously (if he's trolling, he's doing a pretty meticulous job of it), and I was wondering if it might help to get a second opinion on his points.
Join my forum game!
FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC!
Maybe you should introduce the Chinese Room thought experiment to this thread and say what your opinion of it is, and then we could have our own discussion about it.
I don't think it's generally a good idea to carry a discussion from one site to another but using the other site's discussion as an inspiration for a conversation here (without copy-pasting arguments between sites) can work.
Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.
I think it's been brought up in this thread before. Personally the scenario seems rather unrealistic to me, but it does potentially highlight the need for more in-depth interactions than simple converstion when determining a system's understanding. Asking it to form opinions on a previously unseen topic, for example.
edited 6th May '14 7:36:47 AM by Elfive
FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC!
We had a discussion about it starting in page 28, so it might be worth checking that before we start again (I just finished re-reading it myself.)
Having a new conversation about it might help uncover new approaches to it, though.
Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.
@Deathpidgeon: I'm not ignoring you, its just that real life intervened, and I havnt had the time (or mental energy, frankly) to reply properly. I'll try to get back on it tomorrow.
"If people choose to, they aren't as difficult as they would think." Depends on what the characteristic is. I doubt very many people could talk themselves into switching sexual orientation, for example. Other things might be changable but would take a significant years long commitment to do it- becoming less ambitious or competitive as a person for example. To the extent that your program relies on such transformational personal changes, it becomes less likely to succeed.
"Even so, every aspect of everyone's personality was created through interactions with other minds and introspection and every aspect of everyone's personality is adjustable."
I disagree with both halves of this statement. I think that a considerable portion of our mind is present at birth, and that such core traits are difficult if not impossible to choose to change (although I guess it depends on what you mean exactly by "adjustable" How adjustable are they? How adjustable do they need to be to make your program work?).
"We can change everything about us and the world around us if we were to really put some will behind us. Some things are more difficult than others, but needs are not among those things."
We are just going to have to agree to disagree here, but I know of no data to indicate that this is true.
"If anything, successes of the current system are despite, not because of, social norms and expectations. Like, take marriage and general monogamy..."
Most marriages I am familiar with seem relatively happy to me, including my own. This seems to be true of all our social institutions.
"Most monogamous relationships, in my experience, end with both parties unhappy and no longer friends, often forcing their friends to take sides, while break ups where both partners stay friends are considered abnormal." I am afraid that this may say more about the people you hang with than anything else. I assure you that this isnt universally true.
"Look around in the world, and you'll see animals with a vast variety of complex and amazing group dynamics which are all achieving great and wonderful things."
Sure. But "great and wonderful" is one thing "comparable to humans" is something else. Ant colonies, fascinating as they are, are not in the same league of complexity as even a small human city (how many different types of specialize ant are there in a colony? How many different processes, procedures, tasks, and activities do they undertake?). As for having taken over the planet, you are aware that we have ourselves begun the next great extinction event? That we are changing the climate? Poisoning the seas? Sadly, I'm afraid that we have taken over, and are not doing a terribly good job at taking care of it. So yes, we are the single most successful species in terms of our collective productivity, although that has not been an entirely good thing.
"But are they really succeeding because of, and not despite, social norms?"
I'm not sure how to make sense of this question. To me, a "norm" is a standard, socially shared way of doing things. So if there is a particular way that people have of, say, conducting a meeting, then that is the "norm". If the activity is successful, we can presume that the norms which guided it are successful as well, otherwise how else would the activity have been successfully conducted?
"First, I am the one offering it right now, not Stirner." My apologies, I misunderstood.
The basic problem I see with your program is that it depends on people changing what they think they need out of life and from each other, in order to avoid destructive conflict and facilitate collaboration with each other. I still dont see any reason why people would be willing to do that.
I'm not sure that we can talk ourselves into or out of any facet of our personality, but I do think that, through applied force of will, alterations in the environment we create around us, and probably other stuff, we can change anything about us.
Yet, it doesn't require much of that. I'm not saying we should or have to transform our individual needs and desires. I don't think I have made that argument, in fact. I'm arguing that we most certainly can change those, and, as such, none of them are fundamental needs. Indeed, this argument came from our argument over what are fundamental needs, not on what is to be done. I don't honestly care what the needs and desires are in their specifics. I care that everyone is able to pursue them without any limitations. If people want to change them, then I wish that they have no limitations for that either. Everyone should pursue their own self-interest, and, thanks to our needs and desires being different, that's different for every individual and I have no wish to dictate that for other people, just let them do it unrestrained. And the political side of things is attempting to achieve everyone being able to pursue their desires unrestrained, not change them.
Not really at all. But they are adjustable enough to be non-fundamental, which is what I was arguing.
Most marriages are happy. Most marriages also are filled with conflict. The conflict, I would argue, comes from the monogamous social norms being forced upon people and the norms of marriage being imposed and the happiness is achieved despite it. As such, by getting rid of those social norms, they would have less of the internal conflict.
These are trends I see in cultural stuff as much as in people I know. And of course it isn't universally true. I never said it was.
I'd say they're as comparable to humans as it is possible for us to compare these disparate forms and see them as better, worse, or equal rather than simply different.
My understanding of what this abstract is saying indicates there is a lot of it.
There is a species that accounts on their own for more of the gasses creating climate change than all of human transportation, including cars, planes, etc, who has successfully grown its population into the billions by getting another species to service to their needs and take care of them, who I believe have made it to every continent, except maybe Antarctica. I'm speaking of cows. What makes our effects on the wold "taking it over" and theirs not? Heck, there are over a quintillion bugs on this planet and they are everywhere. How is that not taking over the world? Even plants have done what we're doing right now, but I don't see anyone saying that plants took over the world when they did so.
...Why can we presume that? Certainly it could be the individuals who successfully conducted the activity who might have conducted it without the norms, possibly better, possibly worse, or possibly the same. They might not have conducted it successfully without the norms, but I don't see why we should be presuming that they wouldn't have. So I don't see how the question doesn't make sense. It's asking, essentially, if people could've done these things better without social norms, which you are arguing yes, and I am arguing no, but we can't simply presume that it had to have functioned because of social norms.
No. It doesn't. Heck, what I said back here was:
That is quite decidedly opposed to the idea that we need to change what we think we need to create what I'm suggesting.
Destructive conflict will still happen. As will collaboration. Just as both occur now. I'm not going to, nor do I even really aim to, eliminate destructive conflict, at the very least not entirely when it comes to aims, or make collaboration universal or some bs like that. Both destructive conflict and collaboration happen now, and both destructive conflict and collaboration will happen when we tear down these spooks that control us and dominate us along with the social order they create. What I seek to create isn't some magical utopia where there is no conflict or bloodshed and everyone holds hands and sings kumbaya. I'm seeking to create total liberty, and all the conflict, peace, competition, and collaboration that will come along with that. Because, yes, total liberty will resolve some conflicts. It will probably make some new ones as well. It will certainly make every individual conflict smaller in scale as we tear down large institutions that are even capable of large scale conflict. But small scale and destructive conflict will still continue, just as it still continues now with these large scale institutions that engage in large scale conflict and even with large scale institutions putting a lot of time, money, and energy into attempting to eliminate small scale conflict, oftentimes engaging in conflict to eliminate it.
My goal is to end group identity, which I feel is harmful and unnecessary to cooperation, large, formal institutions, hierarchical relationships, and agreed upon unmanifested ideas that control us and dominate us, such as race, justice, social norms, and stuff like that. Notice how destructive conflict and individual needs are not on that list.
"My goal is to end group identity, which I feel is harmful and unnecessary to cooperation, large, formal institutions, hierarchical relationships, and agreed upon unmanifested ideas that control us and dominate us, such as race, justice, social norms, and stuff like that. Notice how destructive conflict and individual needs are not on that list."
Huh. To be fair, you could have been a little clearer about that at the beginning. I'm having trouble seeing how the philosophical stuff is connected to your political goals. One can want to end group identity without proposing that there are no fundamental needs other than awareness, or that any aspect of reality beyond "manifested" phenomena. Since interpersonal and social conflict are not on your list, I'm not sure what value your program has for me. Outside of creating unnecessary conflict, in what way is group identity harmful? Of what value is "total liberty" if it doesn't address destructive conflict?
In any case, my primary objection still stands. You seem to be counting on people re-defining their interests in such a way that they will no longer make confining demands on each other, except as independent individuals. But why would they do this? What matter if I am oppressed by an elite economic class or by my neighbor across the street?
My journal is ready
I've been thinking... What is the measure of a nice person?
I mean, in order for a person to be nice, must she be a goody-two shoes at all times? If she does some morally questionable things if the situation calls for it, will she stop being nice? (As in: I Did What I Had to Do).
Have you forgotten the face of your father, troper?
Honestly I think "nice" is such a generic, fuzzy adjective that there's no real answer to this one.
I didn't intend to go down that rabbit hole. We went down there because I think I was unclear with my wording or something.
Why does it need to address destructive conflict to have value? I mean, I don't believe it will make destructive conflict worse, so I don't see how that's a negative. Heck, while I hardly think it will eliminate or even reduce destructive conflict, it will certainly change the nature of destructive conflict by bringing it all to a personal, rather than group, level which I believe will make the destructive conflicts less destructive. How much less, I don't know or really care. It's better, even if it isn't perfect and destruction free.
But I'm not. I have made no mention of what people's interests may be. I have talked about what sorts of things get in the way of people pursuing their interests, but I haven't defined what those interests are. This is because that's unique to the individual. However, group identity gets in the way of this. Group identity creates sacred ideas which cause people to override their personal interests in favor of the interests defined by these sacred ideas, thus preventing them from pursuing their own, rather than the group's, interests.
It doesn't matter. In both cases, I'd engage in insurrection against them to free myself from their oppression and take things to sustain myself and promote my self-interest as my own, thus liberating me. Heck, it doesn't even matter if I am the one oppressing myself. Who is doing the oppressing isn't important.
No putting the conflict on a personal level makes it worst. Large nation states have bigger but fewer wars. Scaling for population the 20th century was the most peaceful in history.
Just the fact that inpersonal courts are far better at being objective, then people directly tide to the crime, helps to keep the body count down.
And as long as you have multiple groups, there's going to be conflict between them. If there wasn't there would be one group. But without those groups knowledge (medical, moral, farming ect) can't be gathered or held on to nearly as well.
Well, to be frank, if your political program doesn't even address conflict and attempted aggression, then it doesn't seem relevant to most people's everyday concerns. The thing that keeps my neighbor and I from fighting each other over our property line is the existence of a court and laws that govern property rights.
I think you're demonizing the group. People form groups because it gives them a competitive advantage and provides a level of security they cannot achieve by themselves, as independent individuals. In the absence of law and order, I'm safe from my neighbor until his friends outnumber mine. Then my food goes toward feeding their children. Your insurrection wont last long if you're outnumbered.
Yes, without ever getting rid of minor destructive violence, I should note. And every war kills many more people than two people getting in a fist fight, which doesn't necessarily even kill one person.
Yet they are deciding on something that I don't believe to be objective at all, that is what should be done. They might as well have a court to objectively say how beautiful some art is.
And conflict within groups. And conflict between people. My changing of the nature of groups from large organizations to unions of egoists will probably not get rid of this, but it will reduce the size of groups to sizes where they affect much fewer people than large organizations and the nature of union of egoists, that is being made up of people who join together for mutual self-benefit and break apart when the self-benefit for the individual goes away, it avoids the problem of the fights becoming ideologically charged feuds like conflicts between large organizations tend to be since, when a conflict starts to get bad, the group simply dissolves and finds something better to do with their time.
Both functions that unions of egoists can do. Heck, insurrectionary anarchists, who form groups in the same sort of way that Stirner describes, do so all the time.
...But it does address it. Heck, I gave an explanation of how I think it would be dealt with back
Here. However, addressing it and giving a proposed way to deal with it is most certainly not the same as eliminating it. Back with,
That it would need people to change completely to avoid destructive conflict, but there will still be destructive conflict, just as there is still destructive conflict now. It will have measures to deal with it, and, again, as I have said again and again, there is no need to change our needs for this and I have never once argued for changing our needs for it, but it won't "avoid" destructive conflict. Destructive conflict will probably, though I don't say this with any certainty at all, always be there.
"And conflict within groups. And conflict between people. My changing of the nature of groups from large organizations to unions of egoists will probably not get rid of this, but it will reduce the size of groups to sizes where they affect much fewer people than large organizations and the nature of union of egoists, that is being made up of people who join together for mutual self-benefit and break apart when the self-benefit for the individual goes away, it avoids the problem of the fights becoming ideologically charged feuds like conflicts between large organizations tend to be since, when a conflict starts to get bad, the group simply dissolves and finds something better to do with their time."
That doesn't work. Those union will have smaller wars, but they will have more. The majority isn't just going to let the minority leave.
"Yet they are deciding on something that I don't believe to be objective at all, that is what should be done. They might as well have a court to objectively say how beautiful some art is."
While what should be done isn't objective. An AI could certainly be built that would have an objective answer for what it should do. All you would need to do is give them a consistent utility function. Alternatively you could make them want to have a different utility function and let them rewrite themselves until they had a consistent one. Or shatter a utility function into a 1000 vague impressions, that could easily take 1000s of years to straighten out.
I think humans are functionally in the latter group.
My journal is ready
Zzzzzzzzzz
The reason for this thread is to have a conversation, Persistent Man. That post was singularly non-contributive, save as flame bait.
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
My journal is ready
"This post was thumped by moderation ..."
Oh dear, the irony. I guess I deserved that.
Have you forgotten the face of your father, troper?
True, but 50 separate fights between 2 people each will probably kill less than one large fight between two groups of 50 people each. It's an economy of scale issue. Two on two can kill more efficiently than two one on ones can.
If what should be done isn't objective, which you have conceded, then no an AI can't. If shoulds aren't objective, then it is impossible to objectively say what anyone should do.
Which would only allow it to have utilitarian reasoning which doesn't account for the uniqueness of the individual, venerating the utility in the individual rather than the individual itself. The individual only has value in utilitarian reasoning according to how much utility they produce, so, under utilitarian reasoning, it would be less wrong to kill someone producing, to put numbers on things we probably can't put numbers on, 4 utils than to kill someone producing 8 utils. To me, and to other egoists, people have value for who they are. I love the individual as an individual, irregardless of the happiness of that individual.
"Unless you think that the lack of existence of a material reality would mean that everything is an illusion, but, if that is true, then calling everything an illusion is useless. It's still the world we live in, even if you would call it an illusion."
The point of calling it that is you can disbelieve an illusion with no ill effects. Is that true of "the world we live in"? If not, if you cant just change what you perceive by deciding not to believe in it anymore, then it's indistinguishable from an external material reality. Functionally, a perception that is beyond your control and an external material reality that is beyond your control are identical. That's my point.
"Going by this definition, I am not a spook. I manifest in my self-perception."
Ah, I see now. You make a distinction between things that "manifest" to your senses, vs. conclusions we that deduce from those sensations (such as "that person has power over me")? In that case, my objection regarding the general need for social structure still stands: fundamental needs are those that manifest themselves within your mind, you can detect them with introspection, but you cant change them, at least not easily. Aspects of your personality are not spooks, any more than a chair is or another person or the laws of physics are.
Just to be clear, I'm drawing a parallel between not being able to fly and not being able to dispense with a core element of your personality.
By the way, if you dont believe in an external material reality, where do you think these "manifested objects that are not spooks" come from?
In any case, I'm not sure you see the full implications of people possessing different fundamental needs. I'm suggesting that enough people are different enough that recruiting them (indeed, persuading them not to actively resist) this political program you propose will be extremely difficult. What you want to do will seem to violate the needs of a great many people. Pursuing your needs without limitations is generally considered to be impossible, because too many people believe that they cant pursue their needs without the active collaboration of other people, and without protection from people whose life-choices appear destructive. This is what shared social norms and expectations do. They ensure that people can work and live together with a minimum of conflict and inconvenience. If people are acknowledged to have different interests, and those interests contradict or compete with each other, then everyone cannot be free to pursue their interests individually- there will be conflict. To avoid this conflict, and ensure collaboration toward common goals which are considered necessary for survival and maintaining a certain standard of living, we find it necessary to suppress certain individual interests, such as a desire to destroy property. Stirner's program is impractical.