Glen -
But the two of, I think we like to argue, or at least stridently offer
alternative views.
Yes!
I think we are about to bore the shite out of the rest of the crowd, but
as you often remind me (them?) the delete key in their mail is nearby...
You can't be rational without a ratio.
I like the ring of this... can you unpack it more, or is it just a jingle?
...
Now, with that background, I consider the word "rational" to mean
weighing multiple options and deciding on one based on that
comparison/contrast measurement. Obviously, there have to be at least
2, but I consider rationality to be directly proportional to the number
of options available. Atheism being the _only_ option, is just as
irrational as, say, Heaven's Gate being the only option. If, however,
we compare atheism and Heaven's Gate, then we're infinitely more
rational than those convicted of atheism alone. After that, each
additional position considered increments the rationality. (Note that
you can only eliminate options by falsification. Mere implausibility is
not falsification.)
Of course, whether your comparison/contrast (e.g. cost-benefit analysis)
includes division and multiplication is a bit of nit-picking. I don't
_require_ you to quantitatively divide one by the other or normalize to
[-1,1] or anything. 8^) The complications of the comparison/contrast
depend on the domain, how much time you have to think, etc. So, "ratio"
is a bit of a stretch. But it's more ... lyrical than other words or
less dense ways of saying the same thing.
I thought perhaps you might have meant approximately this... and of all
the choices I can think of right now, it seems to carry the most weight,
as it were. However, I myself don't really think so much in terms of
decision trees or cascading multiple choice questions, but something
more in terms of navigating a landscape where the decisions are
multi-resolution. I *may* choose to step over a given rock rather than
around it or onto it, but it is likely I spied it several steps before
that choice was required and added it's presence into some kind of
weighted heuristic. *IF* I find myself at the rock having to decide the
trinary, over/around/on it is likely that I had already queued up the
most likely decision ahead of time when first I noticed it and later as
I navigated deliberately toward (or at least not away from) it. I find
thinking about complex problems "rationally" to be something like this
navigation I describe. Of course, making a *rational argument* involves
retracing many of the steps I took while thinking my way through the
landscape and explaining each one (in painful detail I'm sure) to anyone
who is interested in the landscape (and will listen... e.g. isn't prone
to TL;DR ).
What I think I value most in any discourse with another is their
perspective. I might lead them through one of my metaphorical
landscapes, describing the motivations for my path (and the
rationizations I perhaps did at each discrete choice point) but I also
hope that if they have traveled the same (or recognizeably similar?)
territory that they will offer their own heuristics and even more
importantly. For example, when a fellow traveler might point out to me
that a particular hillside can be traversed entirely by hopping from
rock to rock, the whole journey changes in my mind. Especially if I'd
only considered rocks as obstacles, not waypoints.
Well, like the balance of matter and antimatter in our known universe, I
think the road to hell is paved with both good and bad intentions, but
somehow a flutter in the statistical variance makes *this* universe one
where Hell is what you get for consistently being an arseh*le, while a
bumbling hero still gets the pearly gates. Of course, I have no
literal binding of this mythology, but do take it fairly seriously
metaphorically... another thread in it's own right to drive Doug (and
many others?) right up into the tree.
Well, I usually have trouble finding bad intentions, by definition of
"intentions". The only intentions that can be seriously judged "bad"
are those falsified by the most minimal reality check. E.g. drinking
competitions. It should take only a second's worth of thought to
realize that competing in how many shots of tequila you can slam in the
shortest amount of time, is a _bad_ intention. But most intentions seem
good, at the time, from that perspective, by the person who thought it
up, etc.
Ok... as often happens, I think you got me there. I admit that a great
deal of the intentions which are ascribed to others as "bad" are not
necessarily so not unsurprisingly conversely so. I've recently reviewed
the period from around 1900-1950 in world (particularly European/WW1&2)
history and recognize the moral ambiguity of war in particular. Often
war is the consequence of two parties feeling aggrieved and trying to
set things right, usually first by economic/social means but eventually
this escalates until military means are employed.
However, in response to "good" and "bad" intentions... we do have
various social contracts which help to define aggression from defense
for example. The Nazis in Germany simultaneously (with a distribution
over the population who thought of themselves as Nazi) were righteously
indignant about the *successful* Jewish population in their midst
(bankers and such) who in fact may have been acting in "usurious"
(biblical sense) ways, while they were also looking for a scapegoat to
focus the wrath of the common man against, possibly as a consequence of
the humiliation of their defeat in WWI. Whether you agree with the
specifics of how all that came down, I think you *might* be able to
separate into two clusters, the intentions based on an assumed harm done
by another which suggests a response, and the recognition than another
is not in a good position to defend themselves and has something you
want, suggesting some form of violence or threat of violence as a course
of action.
In support of your point, in our movies, when we see American or
European soldiers (or spies) held prisoner by "the enemy", any attempt
to coerce information from them is repugnant and considered "torture".
When the identity of the characters are turned, what we see is a
dangerous terrorist/criminal trying to harm us and our loved ones,
requiring "enhanced interrogation" methods to be applied to mitigate
said harms, real, potential or imagined.
Hence, your assertion that the road to hell is paved with both,
ass/u/me-s some sort of objective/subjective cut, or at least a
perspectival cut that may not actually be there.
I did presume in that point (as does any discussion of heaven and hell?)
that there is some objective measure of good and evil... which I admit
gets slipperier and slipperier as one slides off the slope of asking the
question of whether that is an illusion or no.
The real issue you highlight with your @ssh0l3 vs. bumbling hero
archetypes is _transparency_. E.g. is Obama a bumbling hero for
ObamaCare (especially his pants-on-fire assertion that you can keep your
plan if you like it)? Maybe. Is he, however, an @ssh0l3 for killing
people with drones, assassinating US citizens, keeping Gitmo open,
colluding with banksters, etc? Maybe.
Picking on poor Barry here, mainly because he is so squarely in the
spotlight with almost precisely the circumstances we speak of: I think
it is pretty obvious (to those sympathetic with him?) that ObamaCare
springs from his good intentions, not a deliberate attempt (as those
unsympathetic with him often suggest) to bankrupt/ruin this country. I
think it is also obvious (with the same caveats) that he really did
think he could shut down Gitmo and Get out of Afghanistan... and his
failure to do so at worse reflects a lack of cleverness, real clout or
both. Is he colluding with banksters or merely negotiating with them as
one would with an extortionist? I'm not a fan of Drone Strikes in the
least (with or without US Citizens in the line of fire, presumed baddies
or not) but I think I prefer them for their relative transparency over
other forms of CIA wet work. I'm sure others before him have ordered
or at least known about assasinations of US Citizens and the fact of
"collateral damage" against civilians. Many things make me want to
give Barry the benefit of the (Intentions) doubt... if he were not "My
Guy" as none of the last 45 years of presidents have been, I would tend
toward a more cynical view and assume collusion, lack of respect for
human life, elitism, etc. for him.
This can of worms is an important but IMO difficult one to sort fast
enough to ever get done. It seems to often require (recursive)
splitting of hairs and knowing things one generally cannot. So I have
to concede that good/bad intentions is at least very impractical to sort
out, if not the outright illusion you seem to suggest?
I think the answer to those
questions, for me at least, lies in the transparency associated with
each decision he makes. If it's opaque, then I have no chance to judge
his intentions and all I see is the irreparable damage he's done. He
relies on my own willingness to do mental gymnastics in order to give
him the benefit of the doubt.
Since I am intrinsically sympathetic with him (not just my alignment
with his policies where they align) I do find myself either "doing
mental gymnastics" or more often just a simple grunting brushoff of the
facts as presented... "whatever..." Not terribly rational by either of
our definitions! I have not been so sympathetic with a President before
in my lifetime, I do wonder at that. In retrospect, I might have
granted the same to Jimmy Carter if he hadn't looked like such a doofus
to me at the time (imagine Billy Carter instead to get the image), but I
didn't. I voted for Reagan under the principle, "Yeah he's an @ssh0l3,
but at least he's MY @ssh0l3" (see earlier rants on why I believed in
MAD for reference). I never thought George Senior was anything other
than that and by that time, I'd learned that I didn't want one of those
as my president and I was losing respect for the conservative platform
as well... Billy Clinton was a very intelligent/clever sleazeball who
happened to support a platform which I had come to respect... George
Jr... well... I think it has all been said. Then along came Barry... he
hadn't been married to slick Willy and he wasn't a whackadoodle
"Maverick" so there was no contest, and as I listened to him, I began to
believe in his (wait for it!) "good intentions". Maybe I just
swallowed his koolaid packet whole and can't get it out of my system.
And if we do that, how much hand-wringing is enough to argue that the
changer is responsible in their actions?
Switching from the Literal to the Figurative, I take your use of "hand
wringing" to be perjorative and suggest that such a colorful display of
worry is "all for show" to relieve the hand wringer from any
responsibility for their actions. I'd offer "careful consideration" in
place of "hand wringing".
Well, it's not all for show. You must purposefully exhibit your careful
consideration, just as Obama must exhibit his hand-wringing about
killing people with drones. If he doesn't exhibit the hand-wringing,
then his potential victims have no choice but to consider him an
@ssh0l3. So, transparency isn't "just for show", it serves a useful
purpose, even when that purpose is just to cover your @ss.
Ok... so anytime I use the word "Just" I should cringe... it IS "for
show" but you do make a good argument (as you often do) that "for show"
has it's merits. I suppose the problem I have with "for show" is that
it implies *false transparency* to use your terms... so, instead of not
knowing someone's intentions or deliberations on a decision, instead we
have a projected story of them?
Then it is NOT free-will... it is a random twitch (unless you've packed
something more into the word "generative" than I can unpack).
You say "potato" ... I define free will as a type of randomness.
We'll revisit this a few more times I think, before I quit exercising my
random twitch known as "free will" and trying to make sense of it, and
trying to appeal to your ability to use your "free will" to try to help
me understand your point of view.
/Po-tah-toe!/
Any apparent purpose, color, or bias that results is purely a
function of the constraints in which that twitch takes place.
I don't disagree that this is entirely possible, but am still left with
my own "illusion of free will" and no good answer to the question of
"who is this *I* with the illusion of free-will?"
Hm. It seems clear what "I" refers to, the [entero&proprio]ceptive
self. Free will is the same as any other feeling (hate, love, etc.),
it's the abstraction or compression of the patterns exhibited by the
[entero&proprio]ceptive signals.
I get that, but I can't separate "free will" from a sense of identity.
I guess I've not practiced thinking enough impossible things before
breakfast because an "I" without a free will seems... empty?
BTW, it turns out to be hard to push Ants into any
kind of futile cycle... and when one does bluntly (put an ant in an
empty jar and watch him try to climb the sides until he's
exhausted/depleted) it feels very much like torture (by any definition,
even Rummies?).
We could honor Rumsfeld by parsing torture, if you want. I think the
S&M crowd might help us blur the lines between torture and ... "normal
life" just as they do with pain and pleasure.
And I think they could also help us dabble and play at the boundaries of
"intention"? I can't say I've donned leathers and put any devices to
work on my loved ones (yet) but I do recognize that there is probably a
reason people play up against those (seeming?) paradoxes, and I'm not
ready to discount it as simple pathological thinking/behaviour, though I
*can* imagine how many would.
Yes, I might have stayed if I had been professionally "fulfilled". I
wouldn't have stayed simply due to family or a tightly knit group of
friends, though. I'm a firm believer that friends and family (or any
group) is more valuable if the members of the group have access to as
much knowledge/experience as possible. Hence, I encourage even my
closest "others" to go, now, and keep going until you can no longer
go. Then find me and tell me about it. So, to "stay" because you
cherish your group seems contradictory to me.
I myself am fairly rootless by nature, and in my youth especially opted
for adventure and exploration. My parents both left the bosom of their
families and culture to move to Montana soon after WWII when it was
still a frontier of sorts, so I understand the feeling. At the same
time, I have come to value the embrace *of* culture and family as well.
I strongly encouraged my own daughters to go out and see and be in the
world. They may choose to return to something more familiar or I may
choose to follow them to their adopted communities, their mother already
has followed one of them to Denver (which might be enough to make me
head for Portland instead?).
I do appreciate how you can play both directions on this field... you
seem to be adept at dismissing reductionist analysis at times and
invoking it at others. I don't mean this dismissively, even though
often it loses me like the game of "crack the whip". I believe there
is continuity, but at my end of the "whip" I fly off the end and tumble.
If you agree with yourself too much, too often, then it's time to buy
the farm. The end of the whip is where the action is!
That is why I choose discourse with others of like enough mind to allow
a conversation but a penchant for argument and a distinct enough mind to
make it interesting. While I can be provoked into arguing with myself,
it is much less interesting and disturbs the animals in the house.
- Steve
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