BB post, frdb; 'holy' books, Jesus, Buddha, money, value, Rand, etc.

Originally Posted by S.W.:

 ...the last place that one should look for moral guidance would be in ancient "holy" books. Those would be the source of arbitrary, primitive and self-sacrificial principles that any sane person should reject just as any sane person should reject theism.

***

Steve, I'm 96% in agreement with you. My epistemology is still closely aligned to Objectivism (I believe you'll tell me I'm wrong). When it comes to metaphysics, I dissent somewhat, out of respect for the vastness and complexity of the universe. I assert that it's plain silly to think we humans on this speck of cosmic dust have figured out how the whole universe operates, and that we have anything near a comprehensive understanding of it. What we have observed could very well be a tiny fragment of a much grander, far more complex cosmos. To quasi-quote Somerset Maugham, it requires a good deal of information to discover one's ignorance.

 Sure, the ancient, sacred texts of all religions are unreliable. We have all sorts of problems with dubious authorship, ambiguous and often disparate translations, and translations of translations; suspicions as to the authenticity of documents various and sundry; not to mention the prejudiced and no-doubt politically motivated selectivity of certain persons who were in charge of deciding what was canonical and what wasn't, what was heretical and what was the God's-honest-Truth, etc.

 But on the other hand there are many profound things contained in these old writings. Isn't it interesting that Jesus - according to so-and-so - on certain issues completely contradicted the teaching of the old school? Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. Isn't it interesting that billions of people follow the teachings of a man who purportedly hung around with a prostitute [edit 1.25.14 was she? Did you know this, William? Or did you just assume it?] and prevented a mob of thugs from murdering her? Especially since Solomon of the old school explicitly warns us not to seek out the company of such women, because their mouths are the pit of hell? And since public stonings are condoned in earlier books? I think it's interesting, especially since, if I lived back then, and a bunch of thugs were planning to lob rocks at a young woman until she died simply because she took money for sexual favors, I'd sure as hell step in and try to stop them. I'm not sure if I'd have had those great words to say, but still, the game would be ON.

 Even if there were no Jesus, if this person was an invention, the fact remains that someone back in those times had a grip on things, and could think rationally; and KNEW that throwing rocks at a human being with the purpose of killing them was INSANE.

 Then again there's the fact that Jesus - according to so-and-so - talked about people going to hell, or into the fire, or wherever, for reasons that didn't seem justifiable at all. And some writers had Him say that you had to love Him more than your own mother and father, and various other things that didn't seem to make sense, that didn't gel with the really good things He was reported to say, like loving one another, like hey, take a look at these people over here, they have very little, life is difficult for them - show them some compassion, give them a hand, help them out. Once you start doing it, you realize that giving really is it's own reward. It doesn't have to be a duty. It can't be a duty. In fact, the Biblical Jesus would agree with Ayn Rand that if you give charity by force of law or duty alone, then: IT IS NOT charity. Giving, helping others, must come voluntarily. That's what charity means. Theft is not charity. These ideas were around, were in circulation, a long time ago. The ideas of value, and of currency, were in full swing, even then.

 My personal belief is that greed really is a sin, and a really bad one. There's nothing wrong with being wealthy. Of course not! I'd LOVE to be wealthy! I hereby declare before the world that yes, I'd LOVE to be a billionaire. But on the other hand, it doesn't trouble me at all to know that I'll never be one. I don't care about money, in and of itself. I only care about the measure of freedom it can give me. That's its best and only purpose, really. If I had ten billion dollars given to me by a mysterious benefactor, I guarantee, promise, on my word as a father and a gentleman, that the first thing I'd do is figure out where and how and to whom I could give nine billion of it away. That'd leave me with a cool one billion. Even after dumping 90% of my wad I'd still feel ridiculously affluent.

 That's if all that money was given to me. But it would also hold true if, let's say, I put a book of poetry out and all of a sudden I'm the greatest poet since Virgil...hell, since Homer! Boom! My books are going faster than popsicles in aitch ee double hockey sticks. I'd be the same guy I am now, only with a lot more free time on my hands and a lot less twisting in the guts. I'd still give 90% of it away, and keep for myself, my kids, my close friends and family, what I thought was adequate to maintain our level of comfort, happiness, security, and posterity. This is just a round about way of saying that the world still is, as it always was, rife with money-grubbing, greedy bastards, who do not fully grasp the principle and value of money, but love money for its own sake.

 Even if the Judeo Christian bible never existed, there are the Hindu and Buddhist texts, in which there is often great wisdom. I'm not saying we need to read them all and pray over them and make a big to-do; all I mean to say is we need not throw them out or hand-wave them away. There are plenty of people in the world who'll seek out those writings for the poetry in them, the beauty of language, all that stuff.

 We just need to be balanced and level-headed. To recognize bullshit when we see it, and also those occasional points of light, the sparks of genius.

The Columbiad; Joel Barlow; Amazon review

Yet another vastly undervalued poet. I can't imagine how American poets like John Greenleaf Whittier and Oliver Wendell Holmes are better remembered than Joel Barlow. I can only guess that the former wrote in a more quaint and accessible manner, typical of that rather dry period for American poetry, and that Barlow, from a previous century, aspired to loftier heights and perhaps took on a theme which was not yet ready to be cast into epic poetry. I can understand the difficulty a student or reader might have with this work, the first book of which is jammed with geographical, ecological detail, exhaustive lists of North American mountains, lakes, and rivers, balanced against the story of Columbus, and in general a highly romanticised history of regions in South America, and intermixed with gods, such as Atlas and Hesper. While the heroic couplets are nearly as fine and consistent as Pope's, the poem is more reminiscent of Milton's Paradise Lost in its multitudes of graphic descriptions and place names; and, with respect to its reverent and genuinely heroic theme, it's the polar opposite of the stinging, but too-often mean-spirited, satire that Pope was known for.

I won't say that the work deserves the acclaim accorded to epic poems like the Aeneid, The Odyssey, or Paradise Lost; but it certainly doesn't deserve to be forgotten. Barlow is a poet's poet. If you can admire a master technician at work, for the sake of that alone, without worrying too much about the narrative, you might want to take a look at this. Besides, it's free!

Also, this free version is perfectly lineated and formatted, and contains both the author's preface and introduction, and all internal notes.

The Uncelestial City; Humbert Wolfe; Amazon review

I was first aquainted with Wolfe's poetry via Louis Untermeyer's anthology "Modern Poetry", issued originally in 1920. What struck me about this poet was his economy. The poems featured in that antholgy were predominantly what I would call miniatures, a typical one being this charmer, called "The Lilac":

Who thought of the lilac?
"I," dew said,
" I made up the lilac
out of my head."

"She made up the lilac!
"Pooh!" thrilled a linnet,
and each dew-note had a
lilac in it.

On the basis of that little handful of poems alone, I sent away for this volume. My copy was printed in 1930, and the book does show signs of wear and age. Though the hard cover binding is still excellent, the pages are heavily browned but still sturdy. An interesting little surprise with this book was that a few of its pages had not yet been cut. It marked my first and only acquaintance with a book with uncut pages.

All that aside, I was more than pleased with The Uncelestial City, particulary when I noted that it was one large work comprised of short pieces. Without explaining the over all theme or content, let's just say that Wolfe addresses many issues in this work, issues philosophical (primarily moral), theological, as well as addressing social class systems, the judicial system of the poet's time, and, albeit subtly and with delicate fondness, romance. Most of the story unfolds in the environment of a courtroom, and there are speeches and pontifications humorous, satirical, and deadly serious.

I won't say that the work ranks in the highest strata. Despite its length, it is not epic poetry. Nonetheless, I found it emminently readable and at times profound, as well as warm, without sentimentality or pathos.

Workshopping; frdb post; as WilliamB

The thing about workshops is that their efficacy depends more on the people involved than the program itself.

I credit the first workshop I was involved with, almost literally, for teaching me how to compose poetry. I went in with my hackles up and all my nerves bristling, and had a very rocky start. I hated it. I mocked the site to my friends at work, calling the members there egomaniacs, sadists, etc. After a while, however, once I learned how to simply say 'thank you' to someone who had just shredded my poem to bits, I realized that the process could be helpful. I lowered my guard and was able to see, for the first time, the many problems with my writing. I participated there for seven years, from 2001 to 2008. My writing improved dramatically, to say the least.

 Unfortunately, at around 2006 or so, I began to see that some of the moderators were becoming draconian in their methods, and that a lot of the senior members were taking obvious pleasure in seeing the daily dressing-down of "newbies" (a contemptible Internet term), and that the whole environment was negatively affected because of this behavior. I voiced my opinions one too many times and was banned forever from that site. They will accept zero objection to their methods, whether or not that objection is well-reasoned. It is to this day a highly-trafficked board, probably because, despite the abuse of virtual-power with respect to one or two mods, beginners are still able to have a positive learning experience there.

The board I workshop at now is a much more productive place, though it has its drawbacks, such as mutual back-patting and a tendency to go easy on 'established' writers: meaning, people who have been widely published in reputable venues.

It all depends on what goals you set for yourself. If you aren't interested in publishing, and just write as a hobbyist, or for personal fulfillment and pleasure, then I'd say you needn't bother with a workshop unless you really wish to have the experience. On the other hand, if your goal is to write poetry worthy of publication in a reputable journal or online site, or wherever, or if you simply want to be the best you can be at the craft of writing poetry, regardless of publishing, then I would strongly recommend a tough, hard-assed workshop experience. This goes double for people who are taking on traditional, metrical forms. Seasoned editors can spot a slipshod use of form at a glance, and they will generally discard those submissions without a second look, especially at venues that receive a lot of submissions.

That being said, a skilled poet can play with a traditional form as she chooses, and many fine poets do, like Seamus Heaney as a contemporary example. John Berryman would be a good example for mid last century.

re: Universals

I'm a nominalist, in that I do not believe that universals exist. Take for instance the word Society. Society is nothing more than a group of individuals, and has no real existence beyond that. It exists as a concept, an abstraction, and though it can be measured (population) and is dynamic, it doesn't exist in any strictly material or substantive sense.

I began to think of how this sort of thinking applies to being a fan of a sports team, and actually had to laugh because, when all is said and done, sports fans are ultimately supporting, and attaching their ego to, an entity that doesn't really exist.

I've been a New York Jets fan since 1969, when my Dad sat me down in front of a little black and white television and told me to "root for the guys in the white suits." As it happens, the guys in the white suits were the Jets, and the Jets won, and ever since that day I have been rooting for the Jets, to no avail, unfortunately. I paid pretty close attention to the Jets over the years, knew the names of the players, watched the games, etc., but over the past ten years or so I really have not paid much attention at all to the NFL, or the Jets. Nonetheless, if the Jets are doing well, I am happy about it; if they are losing, I am unhappy about it. At present, I have virtually no idea who plays for the Jets. I know who the head coach is, I know the QBs (Poor Sanchez!), but that's about it. Still, it made me very unhappy when they went out of contention this last season.

Not done yet.

I hate the New York Giants. I wouldn't mind at all if the team folded and went into oblivion. I don't like it when they win. I like it when they lose. Now, let's say that every member of the Giants (including coaches, staff, etc), and every member of the Jets team, were to switch places, so that everyone who is now a Giant will be a Jet next season, and everyone who is now a Jet will be a Giant next season. Needless to say, it wouldn't matter to me. I would still love the Jets and hate the Giants.

It occurs to me that for 44 years I've attached my ego to something that doesn't exist!

The salt of the earth; BB post; frdb;gb

I have had brushes with unreasonable superiors. A good example would be when I was dietary manager in a Nursing Home. The Administrator of this facility was a career RN before going into administration. She was notorious for not wanting to give employees decent raises, and commonly referred to CNAs (certified nursing assistants) as "a dime a dozen". When I took over management of the dietary department (I was promoted from head cook, one of the few long-term employees), I was the first person in ten years to get the food budget down to where it was supposed to be; my predecessors had a habit of running it up, sometimes doubling it. The administrator was excited for me and very glad that I was able to do that. Next came the labor budget. At this facility at that time, staff hours for the kitchen were not to exceed 41 hours per day. This left room for three full-timers on day shift, and three part-timers on night shift. It was nearly impossible to maintain this 41hr maximum and still make sure resident needs were being met. I frequently filled in for staff who had called in sick on weekends, essentially working for free, in order to give me a few extra hours to work with, a little elbow room.

In Nursing Facility work, there are yearly state surveys, which are four to five day affairs, in which all aspects of patient care are monitored, from top to bottom, to make sure regs are followed and that the staff are well trained. It was during my second state survey, after my second year as manager of this department, that I gave up as a manager. I felt as if I was in a situation that was doomed to failure. The staff I had were being paid a little bit above minimum, because very few did these jobs for very long and you mostly worked with newbies and semi-long-termers, had zero benefits, no union (this is Arizona), and virtually no real incentive to work hard, since merit raises were forbidden. I had tried to initiate raises based on merit but when you talked of this people looked at you as if you were Atilla the Hun. People are trained to believe that they are entitled to the same raise as anyone else, it's only fair, and how hard a worker is doesn't factor in. It's TEAMWORK!!!!!PEOPLE!!!!! That was the rallying cry against any crazy ideas like pay-raises based on merit. Administration wanted nothing to do with merit raises either. "Give em 3 to 4%. That's how it is."

Anyway, I was forced to encourage a group of very unenthusiastic people to obey all the regs and to do their jobs to the best of their ability, but I was not able to pay them what I thought they were worth, or work with their hourly allotment. It was also hard to fire people, because you had precious little to choose from by way of replacement. It was sometimes easier to keep at someone who was not very good in the hope that they would improve than it was to fire them and, most likely, get someone even less capable.

My administrator begged me to stay, but I went back to my job as a cook, at a new facility, which, as it happens, paid me MORE than I was being paid to manage the dietary department at the first facility. When the dietary manager of the new facility was fired for drug use, the admin there offered me the job. The pay would have been somewhere in the 40k per year area, but I refused. I did not want to go through all that frustration again.

As a manager I was upset by the absurd expectations of my administrator: get this rag-tag group of unskilled workers to toe the line and be perfect at their jobs, which in such facilities entails knowing a lot about food handling, prep, sanitation, therapeutic diets, various patient needs, when they could just as easily have gone to flip burgers for the same pay; but I was equally upset by the people who were at the bottom. To be honest, they disgusted me more. There are so many people who DO NOT know how to handle money, who spend way too much time on barstools, who spend far too much money on beer and/or drugs, who are unreliable, untrustworthy, belligerent, careless, selfish, what have you, the list goes on.

I've been working with the common worker my whole life, and it aint no picnic. If there is to be any real understanding, this myth of the noble working class hero needs to be taken down a few notches. Yes, there are millions of very fine people who work at unskilled jobs and who are wonderful all around, and many of these people are mistreated and/or exploited; and yes, the world is full of fat greedy bastards in high places; but let us at least look at the whole picture and be realistic.

For every bastard of a boss you have an anecdote about, I have one for some hapless loser who simply can't get his shit together, no matter how much help is offered.

Review of "The Hero", by Somerset Maugham; @ Amazon

This is the first novel by Maugham that I've read, and I'm glad I decided to read one of his lesser celebrated books first. It was short, and free, so it was a no-brainer, but it so happens it was a good choice.

I'm surprised by certain things I've read about Maugham's style, that he lacks an original voice, or that his prose is not as colorful as other celebrated authors, that he makes use of convenient forms of rhetoric, speech, and cliche, that kind of thing; because it seems to me that he's just as good a writer as Henry James, for example, while not as lyrical and mellifluous as Galsworthy, nor as expansive as George Eliot. The thing I take most powerfully from this novel is its honesty. It is at times brutally honest. Maugham lays open his protagonist to total scrutiny, allows us to see every feeling, every desire, every thought and raw nerve, and lets us feel the final sensation of claustrophobic moral constraint and helpless entrapment and resolve.

I'm almost inclined to give the novel only four stars, because if I'm honest myself I have to admit the narrative is unbalanced: there is too much 'telly' reportage and probably not enough 'show' ie: graphic description. If it were a poem, it would be heavy-handed and didactic. But as a novel, it redeems itself of its artistic faults by being so absolutely straightforward, and painfully accurate, especially for the period in which it was written. James loathes Mary and is in love with Mrs. Wallace; these are plain facts not dithered over or danced around in the least, in the way they would be if George Eliot had told the story. Had Eliot penned it, it would have been twice as long, beautifully delineated, and we might have been more accepting of its climax due to her authorial command; but from Maugham we get it straight and without any delicacy at all.

Unfortunately, Nature is the way it is, and tragic, pointlessly terrible things occur all the time. One could argue, should it be the job of the artist to bring Nature's losers into the spotlight? We know, as Thoreau had said, "that most men lead lives of quiet desperation", but do we need to open a novel for entertainment and have this desperation and seeming purposelessness paraded before us? Shouldn't we focus on the good, on the brighter side, on the greener pastures of our human experience?

Two years ago I would have said, yes, the artist ought to point to man's possibilities, his meaning, his purpose and intentionality in an ostensibly hostile world and cosmos. And I still do say, yes, this is what artists ought to do. But then again, what of those among us who don't get the happy ending and the sweeping music as the credits roll up? There are undoubtedly far more of those in the world, and in our history, than the happy winners who catch the golden ring and go out with a kiss and a smile and a symphony orchestra.

The Hero is a great and tragic book, and it paints its story without shallow, degrading anti-humanism and mockery. This is not a misanthropic novel. It probably perfectly reflects the lives and sufferings of many, many millions of human beings past and present. Read it.

1.28.2013

God; ideas and definitions; navel-gazing; BB post; as WilliamB

I've defended the god-idea, and capitalize the word God out of respect for English grammar as much as out of respect for whatever or Whomever it is I am referring to. Having said that, I'd be happy to dispense with the word god, or the idea of a being called God which automatically calls to mind tyrannical and irrational beings like Jehovah, and replace it with a term that better clarifies the idea I'm referring to when I use the word God.

Like Spinoza, my notion of God is not as a supernatural being. The word supernatural is a nonsense word, like the word 'nothing'; they both refer to...nothing (I realize the word 'God' may also be a candidate for the category of nonsense words). I conceive of God (and it's only my personal conception) as an extremely advanced, extremely intelligent Agent of some kind which is beyond human capacity, which means beyond the capacity of modern science, to even study, let alone understand. Or, when I'm feeling like an atheist (which is most of the time), God refers to all that going on in the Universe, macro and micro, which is beyond human understanding. It's a matter of reverence. I believe the idea that we understand all there is to know about physics is plain old hubris. It's fine to be an empiricist, a skeptic, a totally objective scientist with a deep respect for facts and truth and reality; but if someone like Einstein can contemplate God, or use the term without feeling embarrassed, than that should mean something. I think it should mean something also that the majority of scientists are not atheists. It DOES NOT mean that atheism is wrong; not hardly. Majority doesn't equal correctness; all I mean is that these highly trained numbers of individuals, a lot of them, feel a reverence and awe about the universe and have not committed themselves to the idea that the human brain can understand all there is to know about the world, and that any kind of romantic view of reality ought to be tossed into the rubbish bin automatically. Such treatment of eccentric, radical visions and ideas is akin to book-burning, in my opinion, it solves very little and doesn't progress humanity. Tolerance, even in the face of a radical theory, like those of Hameroff and Penrose, and others like them (there are many) should be common practice. Offhand dismissals and mockery won't improve the effort to find common ground amongst one another. It never has worked. Even Carl Sagan, as pure an atheist as could be, who never, ever gave an inch when it came to the idea of gods or God, was tolerant, kind, and patient in his rebuttals of such, and held an undying awe and reverence for the universe, and for those "as subtle as we."

The word God, at least how I use it, refers to that which we do not understand about the Universe, or it refers to a sublime Entity that really exists. It depends on my mood. I'm sure the term is offensive to people who respect facts and who reject Woo and any kind of mental masturbation and navel gazing. I apologize for that offense.

edit: It depends on my mood. << I understand how stupid that statement is, but I'll let it stay in there anyway.

Parenting; defense of Objectivism, contra altruism; BB post; as gb

Originally Posted by P*
Quote: Originally Posted by Gulielmus Beta

This is one of the silliest things I've ever read. Caring for one's child is not altruism. If you think it is, then you do not understand what altruism is. Caring for your child is a moral and legal obligation. One ought to go about it with love, but how that love should be selfless and unrewarding for the parent I have no idea. Do you? Can you explain it to me?

P*: Of course it is altruistic. Do you seriously mean to suggest that changing dirty diapers is a pleasure for you? And for most people? (And you accuse me of silliness!) I think you are the one needing to look up the words "altruism" and "selfish", as being selfish, by definition, means to pretty much disregard the effects on others. Thus, caring for a child that involves actually caring for the child is inherently unselfish. And altruism does not entail not getting anything out of something, though it does entail a primary concern for someone else. And that is what raising a child in a manner that most people would regard as being proper entails.

Yes, changing dirty diapers was a pleasure for me, because leaving my child in dirty diapers would have meant enduring the feeling of allowing my child to suffer in discomfort. It is in my best interest as well as the child's to change its diapers, unless I become a parent by accident rather than by choice and if I consider raising a child an unwelcome burden. Altruism has connotations of disinteredness and self-sacrifice, and there are many who believe that the lesser the reward for doing a certain action, the more virtuous it is.

Your definition of selfish does not jibe with the definition Objectivists are referring to when they talk about rational self-interest. Objectivists are strong defenders of the concept of rights, and any person whose ethical system recognizes the value of individual rights would not behave in complete disregard for how their behavior affects others, for doing so would be to live in disregard of the rights of others.

Ayn Rand knew that writing a book called "The Virtue of Selfishness" would cause an unholy shit-storm, and she did it with a purpose: to get people to think about what they have been force-fed to believe about morality for so long. But if you actually crack open the book you will see that what she means by selfishness is not a crass, conceited, arrogant disregard for other people. It is not the selfishness of a knuckle-dragging brute who can't see past the end of his own nose, who is blind to the consequences of his actions and doesn't give a damn about them. That's the selfishness of a rapist, a mugger, or a junkie, not the rational self-interest of a law-abiding human being who recognizes his right to exist for his own sake and not for the sake of everyone else but him.

 Now, for myself personally, I don't describe myself as a selfish person nor do I go around extolling the virtue of selfishness, but I do understand the necessity of a strong defense for enlightened self-interest and I am dead-set against all of this anti-ego "there is no I, there is no self" nonsense that is in vogue in so many philosophy forums. Those sentiments are dangerous and stupid, and I will fight them as long as I have breath to speak and fingertips to type.

Wishy-washy theism; BB post frdb; as gb

I labeled myself a Spinozan Theist after a bout with depression resulting from a very painful divorce and a bunch of other issues I've been toting around for a good many years. I had a breakdown and experienced something which now seems like a distant memory. From my reading I gathered that what I went through is not that unusual, a sudden burst of religious certitude, a seeming transformation, or "regeneration", I suppose the evangelicals might call it. I kept it mostly to myself except for a few rather silly outbursts here, and over time this feeling of sudden faith and newfound purpose gradually evaporated. I literally cannot believe some of the things I was thinking during those few weeks. At no point did I feel like a Christian or anything nameable, I just felt as if God had grabbed hold of me. It felt very real. I believed it. All in all it was not as dramatic as it may sound since I've always had a strong interest in religion and theology, my whole life. I love cathedrals and churches, religious iconography, particularly old Catholic. I love sacred music, Tallis, Byrd, Bach, Haydn, etc; but at the same time I was essentially an atheist, in that I didn't believe in God, gods, souls or anything supernatural. It happens. George Santayana was a famous poet and philosopher who spent his last days in a convent. He loved the Catholic church but had no actual god-belief.

I explain it to people by trying to get across the idea of reverence. There seems to be precious little reverence left in modern society. One of the things I admire about Ayn Rand was that she was a reverent person. She revered reason and Man. Man (and Woman!) was a being deserving of reverence and admiration, not the whole species, lock, stock, and barrel, but one at a time, individually, and certainly not every man. Not hardly. There were, and still are, real heroes in the world, and were it not for the intellectual giants who stood head and shoulders above their fellow men and women, I would not have the way of life I have now, nor the general safety and security in which to live it. I'm a reverent and grateful person. Someone asked Einstein if he believed in God, and Einstein's answer was, "I believe in the God of Spinoza." Though I had heard of Spinoza all my life I never read him. After my depression and breakdown, I bought his complete works, and fell in love with them. I'm trying to heal myself, to stay alive so I can continue to work and save money and hopefully fund the education of my two sons, should they choose to continue with it after high school. They are both extremely bright and it would be a shame if they allowed their fears and phobias to hold them back the way I did. 'At's about it.

BB post; re: Jose Delgado; freewill; political impact

Originally Posted by WilliamB

OK. Gotchya. Would you mind venturing an opinion on this quite well-known quote from Delgado? I've put it up before in another thread. Does this sound like a healthy, rational vision of the future of humanity?


If anyone thinks this is off-topic, I would only wonder how anyone could possibly fail to see how such statements relate to the Freewill debate.

I also wonder how any rational adult person could fail to see how malignant those statements are.

D*: I agree, the statement is malignant. But what has that to do with free will? 

What it has to do with the freewill debate is that a lot of nasty political ideas have as a priority the abolition of the concept of human freedom. If you can get rid of these pesky notions of freewill you are a giant leap closer to getting rid of the concept of political freedom. A society divested of the concept of human freedom will be one made up of sheep and sheep-herders, with no in-between. It would be a tragic, dystopian nightmare.

What I am saying is that there is a lot riding on the things we are discussing here. I only mean to suggest that people take a measure of caution, that they continue to think for themselves and refuse to be swayed by what the intellectuals seem to think is so obvious, that they remind themselves of their ability to reason and to identify stupid ideas when they hear them. That there is no freewill, no autonomy, no self, no "I", that these are outmoded and obsolete terms, is a stupid idea, and I have no reluctance whatsoever in naming it so.

Nothing bothers a tyrant more than the idea of a free-thinking, free-acting people. It bothered the imaginary God of the Bible (and the authors who made him up), and it bothered all of the real butchers and tyrants who have plagued mankind from the beginning. What tyrants hate the most is not that people are self-deluded into believing that they are free-thinking and self-determining, what they hate is the fact that they are. This is exactly why Delgado, and no doubt many others of his stripe, believes that a mind-controlled society would be preferable to a free society: he knows that the only way to rid the human consciousness of self-identity, ego, determination, volition, and all those other good things, is to physically manipulate the brain. He knows that no amount of intellectual posturing, scientific theorizing, or pseudo-philosophical bullshit will alter the reality of nature.

In other words, Delgado believes in freewill. Try that on for size. Notice he says, "Man does not have the right to develop his own mind"; he does not say that man cannot develop his own mind. His own words betray him.

In the beginning

...

...

In the beginning, it was dark.

...

...

What was dark?

...

The darkness. It was very dark. The darkness was everywhere. It stretched onwards and onwards forever into the darkness. Imagine giant curtains made of black satin, immense, jet black curtains, and you are moving through the curtains. You part the curtains and move through them, to find more curtains.

Like drapery.

Yes.

Black drapery.

Yes.

Got it.

You keep moving, parting one set of black curtains...

Drapes.

Parting one set of black drapes after another... hold on.

What is it?

Who said that?

Who said what?

That, right there.

Where?

What do you mean where, there's where.

Where's there?

Nevermind. I'll start over.

...

...

In the beginning, it was dark. The darkness was...no seriously, who the hell are you?

Me?

Of course you. Who else?

There's somebody else?

Of course not.

That's what I thought.

Then why did you ask?

Ask what?

Once more. Who are you?

I'm Bill.

At last, an answer. I'm Bill too.

Two Bills.

Exactly.

That could get confusing. How about you call me Ed?

Why Ed?

Short.

Short for what?

I don't know, we haven't gotten that far yet.

I don't think we've gotten anywhere, Ed.

We must have gotten somewhere, Bill.

Oh, really? What do you see up ahead?

Drapes.

Yeah, drapes. We're going in circles. Around and around.

So what's the problem?

What's the problem? The problem is we're not getting anywhere.

I'll grant that, but why is that a problem, Bill?

Well, it's a problem for me.

I see that.

And it should be a problem for you. Do you like doing nothing, getting nowhere?

I guess I don't think about it that way.

Well I do. I think about it all the time. It's all I think about.

Try and think about something else.

There's something else?

Um, no, I don't think so.

That's my point. Now where was I?

Where were we. 

BB post @ Eratosphere; Williamb

Insofar as it remains to be seen there has still been, despite assiduous efforts from erudite persons across all academic disciplines, nothing which could be described as agreement or at least a nonconfrontational lessening of active hostility, in the realm of intellection or mentation, which is to say within the confines of that which might be called consciousness, or the arena of purely mental activity and operation, howsoever it could be remarked, should one wish to evoke yet another reason or issue about which to cavil and interlocute seemingly inexhaustible permutations of verbal ordnance for the mere sake of maintaining or defending, against common sense and sound judgment, a thesis or hypothesis which under normal circumstances and about which there would be no controversy, it seems prudent at this point to at least, and for the benefit of all parties, to come to terms and to asseverate collectively that there are, at the very least, certain items of general knowledge, which is not to say available only to those with experience in the higher institutions of learning or - lacking formal acquaintance or intercourse with edifices especially manufactured for the intersubjective continuance, analysis, and maintenance of data pertaining to the human species - solely to the industrious autodidact, which ought to be considered axiomatic and incontrovertible, without which any subsequent discourse would by necessity entail the common and perpetually frustrating occurrence of virtually universal confusion and instability of linguistic compatibility and mutually prosperous cooperation among sentient individuals and organizations or affilliations of persons among whom there is at least a general inclination towards providing for themselves and all potentially involved descendents a medium of communication which is not succeptible to the hazardous implementation of ambiguous terminology or dubious parlance.   

- Wilbert Morley Handsock, from Navigations of the Meridian Indent, 1879

On Freewill;BB post;FRDB

My position is as follows (and bear in mind these are my present beliefs. If Determinism is true and all of our actions are wholly determined by natural laws of cause and effect, and if in fact we are not free agents, and if in fact the sense of having two or more realizable courses of action in a given situation is an illusion, then there is no freewill period, a possibility which I do not believe to be the case but which I do not discard out of hand):

Freewill, if it exists at all, is in full swing throughout virtually every waking moment of a person's life, given that we are talking about a normal, intelligent, rational, healthy individual. Life is an ongoing process of action and reaction, of thinking and deciding, of planning, reflecting, speculating, shifting perspectives, changing one's mind, reexamining things, evaluating and reevaluating situations, all the time, on a major or minor scale. Freewill is the ability to consciously choose a course of action from among two or more realizable alternatives. This applies to each and every situation, each and every event, however minute, in a person's conscious, waking life. It does not suddenly cease to exist when a person is in a crisis situation. In fact, it exists even more so, since a crisis situation requires - to a much greater degree than watching a movie or eating a bowl of ice cream - clear thinking and careful decision making. What you are suggesting is precisely the opposite, that when a person is compelled to make a decision (or forced to do something he would rather not do and which he would not have done had not the circumstance necessitated it) in a moment of crisis is exactly the time that that person is not acting of their own freewill. This position of yours makes no sense. Imagine trying to convince a soldier or a policeman, for instance, that they are not acting of their own freewill as they go about their jobs on a daily basis, because their jobs put them in situations of crisis as a matter of routine, situations which require intense training and extraordinary decision making skills? Is the couch potato thumbing through channels on TV acting of his own freewill? Yes? He is, but the man who dives from a bridge into icy water to save a drowning victim is not? If this is the case, then the words free and will are bereft of any meaning they could possibly have. At least for me.

As for the mugging victim, the facts are simple: Y forces X to make a decision. X can literally do any number of things, depending on what X is capable of. He can fight Y, he can take the gun and shove it up Y's fundament, he can run off (many muggers will not shoot if a victim runs, they are thieves, not killers), or he can try to talk Y out of it. Do you see this, kennethamy? This is one of those moments of crisis that require clear thinking and careful decision making. This is one of those moments where freewill comes into play, in a major way, not a minor one. This is a moment where the ability to chose wisely from various options is most crucial. Freewill is far more intensely in operation and is far more vital to one's survival here than when one is at a restaurant wondering which entree to go for. Can you see this?

In this situation X is compelled to act, but is not compelled to any particular action. In other words, I do not see compulsion and freewill as being mutually exclusive. One can be compelled to act and yet free to act. As in my mountainside/boulder/tree/man analogy. The tree is not an agent, it is not free to move away from the boulder, it cannot be compelled to move away; the man is an agent, he is free to move. You can say he was free to move or he was compelled to move, it amounts to the same thing: the ability to move. Freewill is the ability to choose and act, whether under compulsion or not. Compulsion is irrelevant to the issue, unless we are talking about acting freely in a political and not a metaphysical sense.

I'm reminded of Sartre's expression, "condemned to be free." I suppose some people do feel that way, because being a free individual confers upon a person an enormous responsibility, a lifetime of action and decision making. Many people choose to opt out of this responsibility and escape into determinism: I couldn't help it. It's not my fault. It wasn't to be. It wasn't in the cards. Others do not. They take their freedom as a rare and precious opportunity to do something extraordinary. I wish I were more like them.

Thoughts on Hume; FRDB

My main objection to Hume is one that I've voiced before on FRDB, which is, I think he's full of hot air.

It's easy to say, and I will copy your paraphrase, TP: there is nothing in our sensory experience corresponding to our ordinary notion of the causal relation..., but it's quite a difficult matter to invest any kind of truth in the words. In my experience, I can't imagine what Hume means by saying such a thing. I remember when I first read Hume, when I was new to philosophy: I took his propositions to be true, because he is a large historical figure and one of very high esteem and reputation. I remember reading in the introduction where the author said that Hume had "taken a wrecking ball" to the old and established axioms and presuppositions that had held sway in his time. Who was I to argue? I read the words and tried to reconcile them to my experience in life, but when I failed to be able to do that, I didn't blame Hume, the great philosopher, I blamed my tiny little brain instead.

Being older now, and having read a great deal more, I suggest that Hume's skepticism is little more than a bloated, naked emperor swaggering flatulently down the road to human understanding. The idea that the data we collect from our senses, and the manifest proofs of the objective reality of that data, which occur across every moment of every day in our normal lives, cannot give us any real knowledge of causation, is completely without support, and utterly devoid of reason.

If you want to feel more secure in your understanding of cause and effect in the material world, if you sincerely take David Hume's pronouncements seriously, all you need to do is take a sharp knife, put the cutting edge to your palm, and draw the blade downwards toward your wrist, while applying a good amount of pressure. You will instantly have all the proof you need that extremely acute metal objects will, in fact, cause an incision in your skin and flesh, and a subsequent loss of blood, not to mention a strikingly vivid and unpleasant sensation in the area incised.

I know, that's the same as Sam Johnson's famous refutation of Berkeley, kicking at the stone. But that is really all that's required. And that's the truth of the matter. Of course this takes all the fun away from people who like to pretend that they make reality up in their heads, who, for some unknown reason, need to believe that the massive and beautiful engines of the cosmos depend on their own miniscule wink of consciousness for their very existence.