Veeky Forums

The stress would be compounded by breaking the pencil, that was my point. Destroying personal objects does not relieve stress. The temptation to break the pencil (irrational) does not benefit me at all. And yet, call on me it does.

Emotion should only play a role when it correlates with reason. When it doesn't it is wrong. The ape tugs you to murder your neighbour and rape his wife. Don't listen to it.

Ghost in the machine eh? Never read it, any good?

Thank you.

I also have never read it. Are we experiencing exactly what I said above? I'm inadvertently quoting from things?

That...Really made me think thoughts!

I'm sure I can trust your deep analysis because clearly you analyzed thousands of historical documents to produce such elegant, thoughtful 'theory'!

Congratulations, OP: you've discovered the Enlightenment.

Check out Nick Land, Mencius Moldbug, and Ray Brassier.

No, but read here to see how its relevant
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ghost_in_the_Machine

>Right-wing "intellectuals"

The Age Enlightenment happened years ago. And yet society is plagued with fucking idiots who can't even think properly.

Cool.

That should tell you something about what an optimistic overdependence on reason and clarity to resolve societal et al conflicts will actually accomplish.

No. It tells me that the vast majority of people are simply not educated correctly.

When you say "logical, rational thinking", does it imply knowledge ? I guess not (if it does, though, then that's more or less Plato). An idea close to this would be Hannah Arendt's ramblings about the "lack of thought", even if it's not exactly the same.

How would you go about educating them 'correctly'? What does your curriculum look like?

No, it does not imply knowledge. Plenty of incredibly good thinkers who can't name the Brazilian president.

If we're talking knowledge, then you could say the internet is the best thinker. It has the most knowledge. Obviously, it can't do shit with it.

>Hannah Arendt
>rambling

I will sock you in your mouth, and you will stay plastered.

Good question.

I suppose greater onus on critical thinking generally. Giving people the tools to learn, as opposed to actually teaching them things.

School is mostly what to think, hardly any details on how to think.

Someone equipped with a grounded, logical ability to process information and evidence is capable of learning anything knowable. If someone can't grasp the basics (and I would say lots, maybe even MOST people can't) then they're stuck forever. Like an error in a line of code, or a default in a manufacturing robot - every process is hindered from then on.

Eradicating faith and indoctrination is obviously a by-product of this.

To tell truth, I'm not a natural English speaker, and I wish I knew what "ramblings" exactly means.

Step into reality OP and start reading psychology

Indirect speech, going on and on, not really with a point, like maybe Donald Trump speaking. It's quite simple really to understand if you consider it, or look in a dictionary or even ask a friend. There are plenty of ways to learn what it means. It's quite simple. Rambling. Rambling on. Rabbiting on about something.

(Get it?)

Yeah, recommend me some? I actually studied it at college, but was stoned off my fucking face so didn't listen.

Got it, thanks. Rabbiting seems great too.

I guess Arendt wasn't rambling, then, since I mainly remember reading these ideas in her correspondence with Jaspers.

It's exactly the opposite, you moron

The Moral Discourses of Epictetus

>rational

As in the classical definition of opposite to empirical then yes. As in the current definition of dude chemicatoms if you think about it lmao then NO.

Care to elaborate?

People don't often acknowledge when they use emotions, ideology, irrational influence, or even logic etc. It's like there is no reason for people to consciously identify factors that effect the decisions they make. Which is fine sometimes but, unfortunately this isn't fine all the time.

No I do not know of, own, or care to recommend any of those books to you. The only reason I don't care to is because I don't think my input is necessary regerdin' yer bewks.

>you moron
So you tell him he is wrong and then insult him. Yeah, I'm sure that if we were only government by our emotions that that would be a good thing. You're a prime example. I wish I could be like you.

Adorno and Horkheimer's Dialectic of Enlightenment

Every totalitarian regime is based on an excessive reasoning and on the tendency to found irrational convictions on logical conclusions (and this is the actual meaning of the word "ideology"). The biggest crimes of History were perpetrated on the basis of alleged rational philosophies or misinterpretations of other people's thought. If you'll notice, those countries where, traditionally, there's a lack of philosophical speculation (and maybe a larger flowerig of visual arts and poetry) have always been the most innocuous and the lesser harmful for the balance of the world. Take the homeland of philosophy, instead – Germany – and look what they've done in the 20th century. Take England, the country of Rationalism, and consider what was Imperialism. Take the USA, homeland of computer science and Postmodernism, and look at the damage caused by Capitalism, Vietnam war, atomic bombs.

>inb4 "but emotion tells me to snap my pen when I'm angry, logic tells me not to"
try to think bigger, son. Logic is most of the times a way to justify evil.

Read Kant.

Correlation and causation. Name me a totalitarian regime that did something amoral (gassing Jews, marauding over the world to create an empire, whatever) and I'll illustrate where they went wrong.

Look at what Germany did in the 20th century? OK. Let's go in with the obvious. Hitler. Is his a rational conclusion? Was the final solution a logical thing to do? Maybe. But was morality factored in? Again, maybe. Maybe his vision, on a long enough timeline, would have been a net positive gain. If so, let's honestly discuss it. Was the price too great? I think so. But why throw the baby out with the bath water. Good uniforms and discipline are still great things, even though Hitler loved them.

I argue that a truly logical population simply can't do "evil" - or the definition of it would change.

When you factor in harm, suffering caused to conscious creatures and so on, there isn't a totalitarian regime that has committed any atrocities without sacrificing the fundamentals of what I am advocating, ie truly honest, rational, logical discourse and pursuit of knowledge and maximum well-being.

Would love to discuss further the meaning of the word evil, because I'm guessing a lot of your claims hinge on it.

That's only partially true. People still need good motivations.

Is it not logical to want to create a world in which people are largely happy and suffering is largely reduced?

It's not clear that we can logically derive what's valuable.

I think a read through Nietzsche from young to old is a very good look at critical thinking, and how ideology/morality can be dependent on what crutches you force yourself to use.

Why? Are you asserting that some states of being are not better than others?

Thanks.

The respect for life and human dignity does not hinge on reason. It hinges on emotion.

Even an SS general would have cringed and cried at the sight of the piles of corpses in the death camps, if he wasn't brainwashed by the nazi ideology.

If we analyze a state of being, we cannot logically conclude whether it is good or bad; we must intuit that it is either good or bad. Though of course, logical scrutiny may change how we see the situation, and so change our intuition.

I have a theory that your theory is a result of a lack of logical, rational thinking.

The concepts of logic and rationality are a spook anyway. For most redditors logical means atheist and rational means whatever overlooks empathy to support the corpocratic status quo.

I'll say it again, "Is it not logical to want to create a world in which people are largely happy and suffering is largely reduced?"

Can you not see how that might be beneficial? To say there is nothing irrational about what the Nazis did omits quite a chunk of reality. Why was it an irrational thing to do in the real world? Because Russian and the Allies will come and fuck you up. That's off the top of my head.

And you're inadvertently siding with me. Sometimes violence IS necessary. Only logic and reason can tell us when.

Of course we can conclude whether it's good or bad. What do you think your brain is made of? Stuff.

If we had the requisite knowledge to determine a desirable state in which that stuff could be arranged and stimulated (which I'm not saying I know, but I am saying is knowable) then we could scan a brain and tick a box. This brain is in a better state than that brain. Admittedly it gets complicated when you factor in everything else, not least time.

I'd like to hear more about your theory. I'd also like to hear HOW you reached it. I have a feeling it'll help my cause.

>Sometimes violence IS necessary
Sure as hell, that's not the case of nazis crimes. Maybe if a delinquent attacks you in the street you're right, but otherwise NO.

Well scale that up. A delinquent attacking you in the streets? How about a delinquent attacking someone else? How about an army of them attacking an ethnic group?

I'm missing your point chief.

>wow user sounds like you have a good understanding of what postmodernism is, ur clever
was it really that hard to avoid using a term you know jack shit about in those 2 sentences?

Yes, but the only reason you know that a certain brain is in a better state than another is because you've correlated certain brain states with certain subjective experiences, and the experiences were found to be good or bad through intuition, not logical analysis.

My point was pretty clear. Violence is necessary only when it's a reaction to another (arbitrary) violence. And I'm talking about physical violence, period; so please don't reply with examples that have nothing to do with this.

Everybody has the right of self-defense. But most of the time wars and genocides don't hinge on that, but on alleged logical beliefs that are built to justify something else, usually a fear or a personal weakness.

Wrong again.

Positive brain states are physically, chemically, X. Negative brain states are physically, chemically, Y. We can work backwards from intuition if we must. We can take every factor of reality into account if you insist. We can even test it all introspectively. The point still stands.

Subjective relativism is largely irrelevant here.

And other minds have to be included. Let's say someone's brain is in state X when they are murdering children. Would it be logical for them to murder children? No.

I'm confused by your definition of intuition too. What magical processes do you think your subconscious is doing down there?

Everybody has a RIGHT to self defence? What could that possibly mean? Not sure where to take that.

Let's take WW2 for an example. Are you saying that British involvement was only justified when national interest was at stake?

Random example = irrelevant post.

I'm not talking about Britain. I'm talking about Germany. THEY were not supposed to start the mess.

That's not exactly my point.

Let's say there is a room with a green light and a red light inside, where only one light can be on at a time. Standing in the room, you can see through a window into another room with a screen inside. When the green light is on, you observe that the screen in the other room has a picture of a dog, and when the red light is on, you observe that the screen in the other room has a picture of a beetle. Now you go into the room with the screen, and the window between the rooms is blocked off. The screen shows the image of a dog, so you figure that the light on in the other room is the green one, even though you can't see it.

The only way you ever knew that dog=green light is because you observed a correlation. It could have never been determined by only ever seeing the image of a dog on the screen.

As for intuition, that need not concern us here, because that is an empirical psychological question. All I know is that I have immediate knowledge of whether something is good or bad.

It's not a random example. We were talking about Nazis. It's totally relevant.

I'm asking you to talk about Britain. Their engagement wasn't overtly self defence, so was it unjust?

Like the dog and beetle situation, but I guess that's the problem with subjective consciousness. In the real world we can observe the room, the picture. We can communicate. We can analyse.

As for intuitively knowing what is good and what is bad. Take anything you think is intuitively bad, and look at it logically. Does it hold up to scrutiny?

Had you been born in a different culture or era, you might intuitively feel that burning witches would be a good thing to do. You would be wrong.

>look at it logically.

What does that mean? Do I formulate a syllogism? What if it's valid and sound, but still contrary to my intuition of right and wrong? Like, what if I determine logically that killing other humans for sport is a-ok?

shut up cuck

>this thread
I remember when I was this idealistic. RIP my innocence.
Good luck OP, make careful memories of these days and cherish them. They will not be around forever.

yo dawg you would fucking love Feyerabend

user your response is lazy and you should feel bad about yourself for making this board a little worse.

K A C Z Y N S K I

...how new are you, my man

>I have a theory that a wide spread lack of logical, rational thinking is responsible for nearly every wrong thing on earth.

Why g Matters: The Complexity of Everyday Life
www1.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/1997whygmatters.pdf

...

>The biggest crimes of History were perpetrated on the basis of alleged rational philosophies or misinterpretations of other people's thought.

The biggest and most impactful acts, period, are those which were motivated by ideology.

>If you'll notice, those countries where, traditionally, there's a lack of philosophical speculation (and maybe a larger flowerig of visual arts and poetry) have always been the most innocuous and the lesser harmful for the balance of the world.

Nice correlation but that's probably because they're literally not smart or competent enough for philosophy and so their evils are on a commensurately smaller scale.

>I argue that a truly logical population simply can't do "evil" - or the definition of it would change.

You're basically arguing that if

- everyone was a consequentialist utilitarian
- everyone agreed on broadly the same utility function
- everyone was perfectly rational

then by the same consequentialist utilitarian standards there would essentially be no evil, which is pretty obvious. You're practically assuming the conclusion.

Is self interest illogical

Logic is a pretty weak process in humans
Your own conception of logic can change depending on your mood
Is having children logical?

The world is not neutral, neither is perception.
Your "tools of learning" will only remain untainted for as long as no human uses it.

Emotion should have absolutely no baring at all.

Sort of, but logic is incomplete. Postmodernism is morally abhorrent, but logically sound. Nihilism is almost impossible to escape with sheer logic. You need something beyond that which makes you human, all while cultivating honesty. So really, unless you want to be a transexual communist, you end up back with the idea of logos, and the word. Meaning you ought to start with the Greeks, and read the Bible.

>Guy who defends postmodernism on Veeky Forums #382

Why are there so many people on Veeky Forums that defend this trash?
I can understand people talking positive about postmodern litreature as an art style, but surely no one is dumb enough to think postmodernist philosophy of political theory is any good.

>that's probably because they're literally not smart or competent enough for philosophy and so their evils are on a commensurately smaller scale.
You're just repeating what he said in his post, but in a very arrogant way. What does it mean, "smart"? You're smart if you're inclined to philosophy, and you're not smart if you're inclined to poetry? Don't waste a post the next time.

Well I can't see how you could reach that conclusion unless you were wrong about some things. See my witch burning scenario.

If witchcraft was real, if a witch was ruining the harvest, bringing disease and so on. If she was enacting actual harm on people on a huge scale, and the only way to stop her was to kill her, then it seems logical to do so. In the same way if a man with a machine gun storms into a school, it is logical to shoot him.

Now we know that witchcraft is not true, or very unlikely to be true, we can say it is illogical to burn witches.

Your intuition should correlate with logic. I feel intuitively that murdering women accused of magic is wrong. I cross reference it with conscious, logical reasoning. Hey presto, we have a bingo. Let's not burn women. Hurray. Progress.

I just don't see the value in the divide. What is it you think intuition can do, that logical reasoning can't?

I remember when I was this pessimistic. Don't worry user, keep learning and thinking and these days will be over soon.

Cherish them though, it'll be good to reminisce.

Yes.

Nihilism is not impossible to escape with logic. Admittedly with human values stripped out it could be, but it's not logical to do that. Why? Because we're fucking humans.

It's not actually that difficult to lean away from nihilism.

I am not going to argue against the merit of rationality but rather its existence.

Rationality implies a deterministic mode of thinking where the framework of solution-seeking is conceived pre-factum and can be applied to any scenario. As it follows, any and all scenarios must be translatable to a language on which rationality operates on, and the translation should be singular. Here it must be noted that no two scenarios are exactly alike, and one can't assume that they possess the same parameters (just with different values) before the act of translation - which means "The Dictionary" has as many entries as there are possible scenarios; consequently, strong rationality does not differ from acting on case-by-case basis when dealing with the reality, and is only applicable for the problems already formulated in the syntax of rationality (i.e. math problems for classical-logic-based-rationality). It may be that the exact isomorphism is assumed to exist between a certain set of scenarios and the language (again, math), but not only it eliminates completeness - one must recognize the isomorphism is inductive which weakens the concept of rationality even more. Worse yet, as you'll see below, rationality often becomes abductive.

Broadly speaking, any functional (complete) system of weak rationality pigeonholes the reality within very few categories, which causes the vagueness of language, which in turn makes it possible to comb a translation of most scenarios in such a way that any given solution can be reached. This is this principle on which ideology functions - its method of approach is seemingly universal but requires "solution" first, as interpretation becomes the actual solution. I.e. "what way can I look at this event/concept/thing so that I come to conclusion X?" is the problem.

Say I'm a neo-marxist and I want to analyze the NEET phenomena through my relatively formal system of logic. If I try to translate it into available terminology - "group identity", "performative behaviour", "practice of power", et cetera - the ambiguity will emerge; are NEETs the result of opression or a part of the opressors (will not detail it here, but you can certainly fit them into both definitions)? Eliminaiting the ambiguity either requires specification (can't do that, rationality is pre-factum) or just picking what feels right and tracing the formal solution backwards. Now say I'm a Fascist who considers himself rational and approach the similar problem of opression - who is to blame for the state of the nation? One may even suggest that being purposefully non(ir)-rational can cause more evil short-term, but less long-term, as non(ir)-rationality offers a chance to repent or shift your position.

And, of course, that's just general rationality - utilitarianism is such a pile of non-functioning cowshit that you can fill a library with critiques of it.

This is all wonderful. But in the real world, with real world issues, it's essentially nonsense.

Admittedly there are limits of logical reasoning, it's a rule of thumb. But as a universal rule of thumb it works.

People who even approach the foundations of scientific reasoning with anything less than total admiration are confused. It's all very well to question these modes of thought, but planes fly, cars drive, medicine works, men walk on the moon.

All this can happen while people twiddle their thumbs and flirt with the borders of epistemology.

None of this is to discount your comments entirely. Just almost entirely.

To put it shortly: logic doesn't provide content, only the rules of valid inference. Determining the content of your logical deliberations is a matter separate from the deliberating itself, and it is typically informed by interests--that is, motivations that are not necessarily explicable, e.g. 'intuitions' about how to comport oneself toward others.

It only gets more complicated from here.

That's true. Logic doesn't provide content. But that's like saying cars don't provide roads. Wheels are still great ways of getting around.

Maybe so. The story of the American interstate highway system is an interesting one. Largely pushed by the automobile industry, against the move for mass interstate transit through railroads-- which have been in decline for decades, ironically in tandem with America's automotive industry. Every wonder why GM has an independent financial department?

Roads are nice, yes. But the more 'philosophically' interesting thing might be to ask: why roads, and not something else?

Yeah. Sure. It might have been more logical to build railways. Didn't really think we'd end up going down this road (ha), I was just using that as an analogy.

Are you on my side now?

>What does it mean, "smart"? You're smart if you're inclined to philosophy, and you're not smart if you're inclined to poetry?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_(psychometrics)

For the record, I think the idea that places with less philosophy have more poetry and art is ridiculous and plainly wrong. I should have been clearer about that in my post, which didn't do a good job of explicitly disclaiming that part of his assertions.

Levinas

>Rationality implies a deterministic mode of thinking where the framework of solution-seeking is conceived pre-factum and can be applied to any scenario
Wrong
> any and all scenarios must be translatable to a language on which rationality operates on, and the translation should be singular
Wrong

vastly underrated post; what's your background?

>but surely no one is dumb enough to think postmodernist philosophy of political theory is any good.

I'd love for you to explain what you think 'postmodernist philosophy of political theory' means, because progressivism ain't it. In fact it's unclear if there even is a positive postmodernist political praxis (holy alliteration!). The movements you most likely have in mind still adhere to some grand narrative and a mind-independent ontology of truth and morality, and that ain't postmodernist, my dude.

Elaborate.

A mind with logic is not even a man but a beast. Only through a unity of spirit, belief and flesh can man achieve a higher state.

Not an argument.

>responsible for nearly every wrong thing
dropped

Economics.
Sure - in the realm of scientific reasoning rational thinking actually exists/works (although it can also fail or get confused - see post-real economics or string theory). But you must agree that "how to govern a country for the maximum benefit of its populace" is not a scientific question.