our text for today

[Emeka Nweze]

I am somewhat wary about using wikipedia as a single source. Better to read
the book than the wikipedia article. That way the bias of hagiography is
evaded. it might take longer but better to get the info from the horse's
mouth.


"If we're going to live and if we're going to have ideas, we may as well
rate
those ideas good, bad, and how well they serve us". - This John Stuart
Millishr statement sounds like something Hobbes could have written if
leviathan if he was not a bitch. But it still does not stand up to der
einzige.

Who is this WE and US you are referring to? I for one have no intention of
spending time "living, having, and rating ideas"

Instead of rating ideas, why not rate something more transient and
immediate? like the virtue of olivia olovely's errrr...


[image: 6006_big.jpg]

actually, that was a lot easier to "rate" than I thought.

When not purchase the klipsch image s4 headphones? I can guarantee an
incredibly biased opinion as to whether they are good or bad since I have
very few life chances or possessions indeed.  Headphones might be better for
your utilitarian cause than olovely's virtue since my hands will be less
occupied.

I apologize for if my style seems idiosyncratic. you are probably an Einzige
so to be polite would be condescending.

lastly, your axiom:
"It's very difficult for people to accept the universe has no authority,
meaning, or purpose except what we ourselves attribute to
it" - has great verisimilitude indeed.

Except for the authority part. authority is simply a euphemism for force and
has always been so.

Vee

On Tue, Dec 14, 2010 at 12:51 AM, David McDivitt <david at subjectivist.org>wrote:

> >From: Emeka Nweze <enweze at gmail.com>
> >Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2010 23:40:29 -0500
> >Cc: nonserviam at mailman.gramstad.no
> >
> >I concur.
> >Kant had a few gems, such as the noumena, but he switched the christian
> god
> >for the categorical imperative. The trouble is that der einzige is not a
> >category (a WHO?) but an undefinable je nes se quas (french for i don't
> know
> >WHAT)
> >
> >Kant was a courageous philosopher and had a healthy curiosity.
> >Unfortunately, most of his ideas are inadequate.
> >
> >In regards to the term "happy" even that is inadequate. Happiness is
> always
> >external, and all external ideas are conditioned by external causes.
> Acting
> >by one's own volition for transient advantage seems more prudent than
> >serving an abstraction.
>
> In reading more Kant stuff I read the "Critique of Pure Reason" summary at
> Wikipedia:
>
>  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critique_of_Pure_Reason
>
> This was good. The words "rationalism" and "realism" are used in their
> classical, proper context and meaning.
>
> I've read several pages on Wikipedia regarding rationalism, realism, and
> objectivity. The root idea of "object" is medieval, a thing, and a thing
> representing all attributes and characteristics as it should, as it's
> supposed to BE. From that, objectivity is to know truth as truth should be
> known. Objectivity then, was not the open mindedness the word implies
> today,
> but the ultimate in bigoted thinking, and an example of the interplay
> between reality, authority, god, and men who assumed power by speaking on
> behalf of god. Anyway, about Wikipedia, many articles on this subject were
> very accurate early on, but were edited to save realism, and might I say
> the
> authority of realism. It's very difficult for people to accept the universe
> has no authority, meaning, or purpose except what we ourselves attribute to
> it, and supposed physical law is not a special class of special authority,
> but merely a representation of our own intelligence and our own ability to
> predict the future based on past observations.
>
> If we're going to live and if we're going to have ideas, we may as well
> rate
> those ideas good, bad, and how well they serve us. Fantasy is merely an
> idea
> that doesn't serve very well. But name dropping god, physical law, and
> other
> forms of authority in an attempt to bolster the significance of an idea, is
> very poor reasoning, and many people still think that way.
>
> --
> yes, I dare to be subjective!
>