our text for today

[David McDivittt]

> 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

As an antirealist, subjectivist, relativist, whatever, I'm often averse to
reasons given by people for why stuff is what it is. But we still have
stuff. Though I don't like physicalism I may still bump into a solid
object here and there if not careful. Why is that? A realist wastes no
time pointing that out.

The difference is whether things have essential qualities on their own
accord, or whether we acknowledge we make all that up as we go about
defining and categorizing our world. Once we do have things defined, yes,
let's go ahead and use that. It's OK to have values. It's OK to say how
things should be. It's OK to have moralisms. The point is knowing where it
comes from, that it doesn't come from god, that we are not defining or
discovering anything we are supposed to.

Today there's a faddish idea of innerconnrectedness. This is connected and
related to that which is connected and related to that, etc., etc., until
conceptually we have a giant nebulous structure once more, and we're
unable to move because we've locked ourselves yet again into intellectual
authority structures greater than ourselves.

You have your thoughts. I have my thoughts. You do what you do. I do what
I do. We are connected only if we want to be. What functionality
represents this magic of connectedness? Can anyone say what it is? The
most anyone can do is make a statement within a given context to sway
opinion. Why? Why do that?

If there was a god there might therefore be a god perspective, and it may
be possible for some people to share looking at the universe from that
stance. Otherwise there is no essential nature to anyone's reasoning and
we each connect the dots however we want to.

Ontology can kiss my ass.