Re: Intervention Theory: An alternative to Darwinism and Creationism
So the viewpoint I seem to be coming to is that religion is purely a matter of group evolutionary strategy choice. There can't be only one correct way. Religions are purposefully spreading erroneously selfish propaganda (that their way is the correct way) because it is necessary for the optimization of the group evolutionary strategy― refer to my prior posts yesterday on why we need to play this mind control game in order to control defection as an evolutionary strategy.
...
We can objectively conclude that leftism is a group evolutionary strategy which results in eventual (but delayed!) self-destruction of large portions of the group, but that doesn't mean it isn't an effective strategy because culling the herd is probably an effective means of refining the gene pool, i.e. by participating in leftism you can gain some leverage if your individual strategy within the group strategy is effective for your genes surviving the periodic culling of collectivism.
With this opinion you are making a "religious" choice of your own. You are committing yourself to the belief that religion is not an objective measure of Truth.
I am approaching ("seem to be coming to" which isn't entirely committed) committing myself to the impossibility of falsifying any total order of the universe and thus the impossibility of any objective measure of absolute Truth.
There doesn't seem to be any other choice if one is rational.
But please don't conflate...
This inevitably leads to moral relativism and it is moral relativism that can take you to acceptance of slavery or genocide or "culling the herd" as the effective strategy of alpha males. I do not deny that reason can take you to these conclusions. However, before reason and before logic comes a critical metaphysical choice! Make a different choice and reason will take you in a diametrically opposing direction! Other have highlighted this choice to you before.
I expected that "moralizing" (panic?) reaction from you and was waiting for a new opportunity to teach/share some of my different ways of conceptualizing matters once again. I hadn't done much high-level philosophical sharing since my prior seminal essays because of my chronic illness (which you know from private messages may be miraculously on the mend).
Afaics, you are conflating the logic of what is w.r.t. to a total universal order/truth, with my freewill to choose a personal strategy within my partial order. I exist not within the totality of the universe (speed-of-light is quantized thus not all of the information of the universe can reach to or from me, not in real-time nor even in my lifetime) but within the partial order that I have some freewill to choose to some extent.
Thus I am rationally free to choose a strategy which might for example include certain values/ethics because I feel/think they promote the existence that I not only prefer but also because I think it benefits me somehow and that can include the benefit of loving (needing) humanity. Without other people in this world, my opinion is I wouldn't have much reason to exist. It would be lonely and unimportant. I expect I would quickly tire of the AI virtual reality bots unless they were truly alive and in which case they take on all the attributes of people having their own freewill.
They will destroy themselves. No problem. Let them.
Those of us who are capable will side-step their system with a decentralized knowledge age.
This is evolution at work. Survival-of-the-fittest. The weak will cull themselves.
Those of us who are capable will side-step their system with a decentralized knowledge age.
This is evolution at work. Survival-of-the-fittest. The weak will cull themselves.
l3552 was not perhaps not very diplomatic but he was essentially arguing that your error is not one of intellect but of metaphysics.
It is entirely inefficient to bog myself down trying to convince leftists that their strategy is not humane, bankrupting, etc.. They are free to choose. I'd rather focus my effort on achieving and promoting the values that I think are valuable.
Quote from: http://www.coolpage.com/commentary/economic/shelby/Understand%20Everything%20Fundamentally.html
It amazes that otherwise bright people cant understand the simple concept that economic collapse doesnt convert collectivists into anarchists.
Fix your life? Fix your metaphysics
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2016/06/fix-your-life-fix-your-metaphysics.html
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2016/06/fix-your-life-fix-your-metaphysics.html
Quote
Metaphysics are your fundamental assumptions. These are chosen: they were chosen by you (although you probably weren't aware of choosing them, but just passively accepted them).
Fundamental assumptions are chosen - but they are not arbitrary; because the assumptions have consequences. You can choose whatever you want to believe - but sometimes you will not be able to make yourself live-by these chosen beliefs; and other times you will live by them (including thinking by them) such that they lead to nonsensical and therefore self-refuting outcomes.
The trouble is that in a world where people have stopped thinking- and when their assumptions lead to incoherent, nonsensical conclusions, instead of sorting-out their metaphysics - they just stop thinking (easier to do than ever before in human history - due to the ubiquity of mass media and social media).
Anyway - my point is that if you have certain (very common) assumptions, then you will either have a nihilistic, hope-less and despairing world view --- or else you will have to stop yourself thinking about anything serious.
There are innumerable commonly-held assumptions that lead to this: that Man has no free will, that the world is either random and unpredictable or else rigidly predetermined, that nothing exists except what has been described by 'science', that morality is a matter of opinion, that beauty is wholly in the eye of the beholder... oh, there are dozens of such.
Indeed, most of people's primary assumptions nowadays are of a type that lead to nonsensical or incoherent conclusions - so it is futile to complain about the low standard of rational public debate when rational debate is only possible on the basis that people are able and willing to examine and revise their assumptions when they lead to absurd outcomes.
Because perhaps the most absurd modern metaphysical assumption of all is that metaphysics is meaningless and all decisions should be made on the basis of 'evidence'!
Whereas (as quickly becomes apparent in any disagreement) unless there is agreement on metaphysical assumptions then the cannot even be agreement on what counts as evidence, leave aside the matter of evaluating the strength of evidence...
Fundamental assumptions are chosen - but they are not arbitrary; because the assumptions have consequences. You can choose whatever you want to believe - but sometimes you will not be able to make yourself live-by these chosen beliefs; and other times you will live by them (including thinking by them) such that they lead to nonsensical and therefore self-refuting outcomes.
The trouble is that in a world where people have stopped thinking- and when their assumptions lead to incoherent, nonsensical conclusions, instead of sorting-out their metaphysics - they just stop thinking (easier to do than ever before in human history - due to the ubiquity of mass media and social media).
Anyway - my point is that if you have certain (very common) assumptions, then you will either have a nihilistic, hope-less and despairing world view --- or else you will have to stop yourself thinking about anything serious.
There are innumerable commonly-held assumptions that lead to this: that Man has no free will, that the world is either random and unpredictable or else rigidly predetermined, that nothing exists except what has been described by 'science', that morality is a matter of opinion, that beauty is wholly in the eye of the beholder... oh, there are dozens of such.
Indeed, most of people's primary assumptions nowadays are of a type that lead to nonsensical or incoherent conclusions - so it is futile to complain about the low standard of rational public debate when rational debate is only possible on the basis that people are able and willing to examine and revise their assumptions when they lead to absurd outcomes.
Because perhaps the most absurd modern metaphysical assumption of all is that metaphysics is meaningless and all decisions should be made on the basis of 'evidence'!
Whereas (as quickly becomes apparent in any disagreement) unless there is agreement on metaphysical assumptions then the cannot even be agreement on what counts as evidence, leave aside the matter of evaluating the strength of evidence...
The above is all very true and entirely consistent with what I have clarified for you about my stance above. I had independently come to the realization that many of my failures in life were due to not clearly defending my values. I made compromises that seemed convenient but in the long-run defeated my value system (hopefully not for my entire life). Also my value system was wavering because it wasn't clearly conceptualized and articulated in my mind, but more of a defacto hodgepodge of my upbringing (which itself was a hodgepodge of value systems).
But I'm sorry to Judaism, but I just don't think whether a cheeseburger or shawarma are kosher has any relevance whatsoever to my choice of metaphysics.
I am not going to wrap myself in a silly set of arbitrary rules and rituals just for some group evolutionary strategy.
I also thought many times in the past about being part of some group, but I know that I will always be pressured by the group into some values which I don't agree with. I think this violates my optimum degrees-of-freedom. I understand the rationality of benefiting from a group... but I just was never a conformist. I both suffered and benefited greatly in my life from being very independent minded. It is a tradeoff. Some people like to be part of a well defined group. About the extent of that for me was being the team member on sports team. Team werk I like, but even then I like that I am free to exit a morass and find a better situation. However, that doesn't mean I didn't keep fighting hard on a team that was an underdog or underperforming. I often saw that as an opportunity for me to try to excel and carry more load for the team. But only if I could make a difference. I do exit true morasses wherein I can't get any ROI on effort. In sports, every great play is seen regardless of the outcome of the game.
And I am not going to be a preacher or a disciple who tries to teach others how to find a good metaphysics. No that is all too inefficient for me, because people don't change much and the process is more of a group effect over many generations, i.e. a culture. I am accustomed to impacting millions of people by programming code within weeks or months. And I will continue to try to impact humanity for the better that way. That is one aspect of my metaphysics. Note in my youth I was sort of a counselor and tutor to my friends. So there was a time when I did that, and I probably would do it to people very close to me. But taking that role to public scope is not my choice of vocation.
I have always and will always try to help people, but those who bog me down will get passed over because they are retarding me from helping many more others. So this means I am not likely to give my life to save the life of a single Jew in WW2 if I felt I could do more good more efficiently by not doing that action. Yet I would certainly donate money (within my means) to help those in dire need. Yet I would sacrifice my life without much thought, for those who are close to me. I certainly agree with the commandments to always be helping some of the poor and I have been doing that my entire life. Even entirely bankrupt now (and even when I had been so sick with no end of the tunnel yet in sight wherein I might recover and become financially viable again), I continue to help the poor every week.
We can observe this relatively of illusion (aka agreement) in the various interpretations of the Torah pointed out upthread. I find humorous that video cited by CoinCube, because the two Jewish sects interpretations of the Torah disagree on whether it is kosher to eat a cheeseburger or shawarma:
Edit: Here is an interesting little video that goes over the differences between Rabbinic and Karaite Judaism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRb7DhWS6Z8&list=PLhG1viERKhXfnbaJp2JlphCVX3OvewpFp
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRb7DhWS6Z8&list=PLhG1viERKhXfnbaJp2JlphCVX3OvewpFp
Your missed the most important difference here which is essentially one of centralization.
I didn't miss that, even though I didn't write it. How could I possibly miss that! You know I am all about identifying decentralization structure.
Judaism as opposed to most religions lacks a centralized authority.
Afaik most religions don't have a centralized authority
Christianity doesn't. Islam has different sects also. And apparently the Rabbis centralized one of the Jewish sects by controlling the writing down and the ongoing interpretation of the Talmud. Wasn't it that aspect which Jesus rebelled against?Although historically they once had a Great Sanhedrin which served this function nothing of the kind currently exists. Instead each synagogue functions independently under the direction of a Rabbi. Karaite challenges Rabbinic authority placing responsibility entirely on the individual.
Except when eating a Shawarma?
Note I realize that Jews may have a higher rate of success in life due to the strong self-discipline in their culture. I had been into self-discipline in many facets. For example I am probably more self-disciplined in correct diet and exercise than most people (including perhaps many Jews). But lapses in one area of self-discipline can crash one's life. I have experienced this failure, so it would be hubris of me to say that I don't need to be more aware of guidance on self-discipline.