--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Robin Carlsen" <maskedzebra@...> wrote: > > > Robin2: I don't care MAYBE. But you *do* care, Curtis. I am, I declare this > on point of death, unreservedly "open" to any and all reflections you might > have about me personally--that is, turning a judgment on me the way--you > insist--I turn a judgment on others. Out with it, Curtis. I have put myself > on the line here. Test me. I AM OPEN. > > There is one catch, however: I am not open to being told something about > myself that I know you do not believe is true. In that sense, I suppose I > could say, I am not open. But open I am. To reality. Just give reality a > chance, Curtis.
Nice loophole of you need to back in a truck. You get to decide what I believe. Has this kind of thinking really ever worked for you? Snip > > Robin2: Well, at least in the case of yourself, is is not at all delusional. > The deliverances offered up by reality in the presence of your tactics in > argument, Curtis, make me an even stronger believer in the intimate interface > of reality and Robin. As far as I am concerned--except at the beginning--I > don't remember any posts which fulfil your claim that you having "spent a > lot of time examining your articulation of your epistemology"--and so I can't > "know of [your] view of this claim". > Right, I can see how you missed this one for example: -- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Robin Carlsen" <maskedzebra@...> wrote: > > How to Know Reality's Point of View > > There is a notion of life that many posters on FFL have never considered once they are engaged in argument, insult, and acrimony. And what is that notion of life? M: Maybe we have or we think of it differently. Let's see what he's got. > > Well, for me, it seems very empirical and experimental. It is this: truth is an objective thing; it can defend itself. No matter what is in dispute--Raunchy's honour being slandered, the matter of Sal's sincerity and intention with regard to Jennifer, the accusation of three women on FFL being C's, the TM credentials of Vaj--it doesn't matter what the topic is: there is a single principle which I believe almost every poster misses--at least consciously. M: This is a mish-mosh of logical levels. He is collaging together the idea of "truth" as an objective thing and then gives all subjective opinion examples that no system of epistemology would or should combine with the concept of objective truth. But he will try... > > Let me put it this way: I contend that the reality out of which we came, exist, live, and choose--the very identity of ourselves as distinct persons utterly unique in our experience of being the me we are--an experience that no one will have ever except us--I contend that since that reality was smart enough to bring us into existence with this complex thing called free will, that THIS REALITY, IN ANY DISPUTE ON FFL, HAS A POINT OF VIEW. Now since this reality is more powerful and necessary than any of us are, it must mean that the point of view of reality is where the truth lies. M: Again the collage. He is mixing up the definition of a God here with our personal existence by his oblique reference to something smart enough to "bring us into existence with this complex thing called free will." Leaving for now the neurological data that seems to say that free will is an illusion, I will focus on his personification of the concept of a "reality" that can be personified to having a POV. Even if this assumption were true, it would not preclude the necessity for one of us to claim to know what that was. Anyone? Only Robin? OK let's see if he can make his case. > > The unconscious assumption of most posters on FFL is: NO ONE CAN KNOW WHAT REALITY'S POINT OF VIEW IS. So we just go it alone, determined to uphold our own first person perspective (that's for you, PaliGap) regardless of the Platonic notion of the Form of the Good--or whatever we want to call what is metaphysically ultimate: why there is something rather than nothing. M: This is now approaching word salad. He has introduced the concept of reality having a POV and is now building assumptions on top of that. Plato's ideas have been modified through years of philosophy and one of the first ideas to get the boot was his assumptions about the forms having an ontological reality. They are a good starting point for a more advanced lecture on linguistic philosophy because philosophers discovered that we cannot discuss concepts without first understanding the limits of our language itself. So a phrase like "Why there is something rather than nothing" can be seen as an inappropriate use of language outside the realm of advanced physics. When laymen use this phrase they are usually trying to smuggle in a bunch of assumptions about a version of God. R:> But here is where I believe something so critical is being overlooked: If reality created us,> M: No need to assume this. By not using the term God here I suspect Robin is trying to avoid assumptions about his argument. The problem is he is using "reality" as an obvious substitute for the things the definitions of most gods claim to have done, created us. There is an alternative which is the primacy of material existence itself without the need for any creator. It assumes less. R:why should it not have some desire to let us know WHAT IT (SHE) THINKS?> M: Equally valid along this line of personification, why can't he have hair and a beard and occasionally feels his serpent uncoiling in his naughty parts when a particularly hot angel flies by in their Victoria Secret wings. (You pick your angels, I'll pick mine.) R: I like to think of reality in the feminine gender. And if reality does in fact have some point of view THERE MUST BE SOME WAY THAT SHE MAKES IT POSSIBLE TO GET A SENSE OF WHAT THAT POINT OF VIEW IS. What possibly could be the method--applied by ourselves--to somehow, however faintly, make contact with the point of view of Lady Reality? M: Ok so you have taken the field of epistemology and thrown it away for literature and art. I love art. But you don't get to make the claims that philosophy makes, or at least you don't get to use language that seems to imply you are using a rigorous philosophical method when you are really just winging it. Making shit up as you go along. Which I am in favor of if it is properly labeled and doesn't claim to produce objective truth. R:> I am audacious and presumptuous enough to go against the consensual metaphysic of the postmodernist universe, and say, *I know exactly what is required to know not just some semblance of the point of view of reality, but, more importantly, how to determine the extent to which one's own point of view is in agreement with the point of view of reality*. M: This is not just audacious and presumptuous Robin, it is pure bullshit. I know you got some people to fall for this once. That ship has sailed. R:> I say: reality will teach you how to do this, if you let her in. If your subjective first person experience of yourself was not created by you--and it wasn't--then the reality which created that first person point of view must know: 1. what your point of view is going to be; 2. the extent to which your point of view is accordance with the point of view of reality; 3. what it is about you which is blocking the promptings, urgings, hints, stirrings of reality SUCH AS TO LET YOU KNOW THE TENSION YOU ARE POTENTIALLY CREATING BY FORMULATING AND EXPRESSING A POINT OF VIEW WHICH IS HEEDLESS OF AND PERHAPS EVEN RESISTANT TO THE POINT OF VIEW OF REALITY. M: Right Allah Akbar. Got it. > R: > How can one discern and perpetually calibrate one's own point of view such as make sure one is not entirely estranged from the point of view of reality? Or better yet: How can one adjust, adapt, modify, improvise one's point of view in perpetual dynamic interaction with the point of view of reality?--for, of course, reality will not just despotically impose its point of view upon the FFL poster; there is not going to be a Road to Damascus reality here. There is an art to this, I believe, but it is very straightforward. M: I wish I had a teacher, a guru to show me this path of knowledge...Oh YOU Robin, figures. R: > > Here, IMO, is how to maximize the chances of increasingly aligning oneself with the movement and intention of reality. > > 1. Look for the truth separated from your own subjective desire for what that truth should be, what you want that truth to be, what you insist that truth *will* be. M: Sounds like good advice. > R: 2. Pretend to take a position which is against your own position as you formulate your argument: How could I argue against what I am saying here with sincerity and intelligence? Become a devil's advocate for your own point of view--and do this *at every stage of the development of your argument*. M: Thesis, antithesis, I know what is coming next, synthesis right? All good stuff. R: > 3. Consider that this conflict, dispute, disagreement *exists for the benefit of your own evolution* as a person; that the last thing to read it as is the means to fortify your standard and habitual point of view; but that instead this debate is to throw you into the unknown, to subvert your point of view, to undermine you and release some fresh understanding and experience into you so that you walk away from this encounter altered in some way. Turn the circumstance into one of personal growth and maturation as a person. Not, then, as the means to reinforcing the rightness of your own point of view. Winning as an object is inimical to this more creative way of proceeding. M: Little New Agy for me. All ideas from all sources don't deserve this much credit. But I can't argue with it if someone had the time. > R: > 4. Always try to see what really is going on inside your experience of quarrelling with someone: what does my reaction to this person tell me about myself? Why am I reacting the way I am? Do I have a choice about the reaction I am having to this person? What other point of view could I possibly have about this issue if I were someone other than myself? M: Little self help advice in discussions. I follow this on a case by case basis. I would not assume this of every single thing thrown at me. R: > 5. Seek above all one experience and only one experience: the experience, sensation, feeling of reality touching one, stimulating one, informing one--to whatever extent this is possible--as one writes and argues. The experience of feeling isolated from reality, defending the citadel of self against everything that seems opposed to one: this is the very situation most to avoid. Why? Because the extent to which we are committed to this orientation is the extent to which reality can never gain entrance into our consciousness, so as to allow us to be moulded and shaped by reality. A glorious experience. M: Sounds like an argument for the primacy of mystical experience to me. I'm not sure the first phrase has meaning for me. I would substitute: do your best period without all those assumptions about "reality". It seems naively unaware of how our cognitive gaps shape all that. I am reading a great book called "What Makes Your Brain Happy and Why You Should Do the Opposite" about bad we are at this, especially by using feeling as a guide. We totally suck at what you are claiming to do here. > > 6. Look for, in argument, the highest experience you can get: concerns about triumph, your own ego, reputation, status: these are just the potential enemies of making contact with truth. Ultimately, in my opinion, the only philosophy which survives--and I believe will survive right through the experience of dying--is that philosophy whereby *one is willing to do anything in order to know and represent what the truth is*--but not conceptually, dogmatically; rather through experimental knowledge. *What reality wants one to know and experience as the truth*. This is purely experiential. But it is that extraordinary confluence of the objective and the subjective. M: Last sentence does not fly for me at all. This is mysticism. I do not believe that Robin or any other human has achieved this. > R: > 7. Consider then there are always three points of view extant in any argument between two parties: the point of view of one person; the point of view of the other person; and the point of view of reality. M: Your imagination of "reality". R:Meaningful conversation about topics where there is profound disagreement can only move forward if both diverging parties conceive of the possibility of bringing their point of view into alignment with that third point of view.> M: In most of my discussions with you, you are claiming to represent this third and that I am not. You have co-opted its imagined authority into your subjective opinion and claim that you are expressing more than that. This is a tiresome habit for me to respond to. It has the ring of "God told me" when we are just expressing our personal opinions. You are claiming higher ground by assumption. It is also why you often come off as condescending. R: I say that reality seeks to make each human being aware of this approach, and it is there for those willing to be humble and innocent enough to make contact with this living energy and grace. M: You know God, I don't, got it. R:> > Now the question comes at this point: Robin, did you represent the point of view of reality in giving us this disquisition on how to conduct a debate about some controversial issue--like Raunchy's honour, the use of C word as it applies to three women on this forum, the TM credentials of Vaj, the validity of the defence by Curtis of his friend Sal? Well, that is the question: Is what I have written blatantly and ironically *Robin's own personal point of view* about reality's point of view, or is it indeed a fair and honest and more or less accurate representation of what reality would like to be known about its own point of view? > > For those who respond to this post necessarily--*from my own point of view*--put themselves into an experimental situation whereby it may become possible to make a determination of the viability and plausibility of my post. M: These ideas are not so hard to understand or evaluate. You have attempted to make a case that your subjective opinions are more than that. You have not succeeded with me. I believe that a discussion of epistemology is inappropriate in analyzing the very subjective judgement calls employed in your examples at the beginning and end. It is perfectly reasonable that there could be many POVs on any of them and the idea that one or more is more aligned with "reality" seems absurd. I am not making a case for the relativity of all knowledge and therefore saying that we cannot be confident about any knowledge. It is just that you are attempting to apply standards of truth that have no place in the kinds of interpersonal interpretations involved in those discussions. I think we had the same argument when you tried to apply this to art interpretation. >
