Eudaimonic

Jim Penman's Biohistory: Decline and Fall of the West may be interesting to you.

That's a good point. Intellectual masturbation? A desire to corner a theist? Curiosity as to an argument for God I haven't thought too much about? Your point is entirely correct though, now that you've pointed it out, it was a silly question to respond to... I have been in a few threads with Donna though, perhaps I just wanted to see the extent to which I could have a rational conversation because I try not to dismiss theists out of hand and will have a few conversations before I start to ask about the extent of their involvement. Or it could be less virtuous motives, thats something I'll have to explore in myself, but thank you for pointing it out, I appreciate the clarification.

I can definitely see how it may of come across to you that way and I'm happy to explain my reasoning. The reason you ask questions like that (after you've gone back and forth on a subject for awhile with no budging on a concept that is contradictory on it's face or which requires the person to move the goal posts) is too see if a rational conversation with that person is likely possible. I asked those questions to gage how emotionally embedded Donna may be in religion and God so that I could gage the likely hood that s/he would be susceptible to a reasoned argument. It's essentially a time saver, Stefan talks about the concept a lot. I'd be curious to see the reasons as to why it's nonsensical or irrational to do this.

Sorry to ask personal questions and of course you don't have to answer them, but it'll help me to gage how much I want to participate in this conversation, if that matters to you at all. How long have you been Christian, Do you go to church, to what degree to you participate in that church if you do and do you have children?

That fact that it has location is what is constant (everything is location; it will never come out if location; imagine a circle, it may move in the circle but never out, it's constant to the location.) There's no such thing as nothing, only existence which runs through Time ad infinitum. Time is the "æternal." Time does not imply a beginning and end, only progression; infinite line. The gap here doesn't justify God either, only points to human ignorance. You need emperical data to show the existence of a Creator. I'm curious to know your relationship to religion and God, if you don't mind telling.

So many God arguments seem to be goal post moving mixed with justification for why the last 10,000 theories on God didn't hold out. What emperically shows God is outside of time and how can you know given that you are inside of time and have no experience of and no method of detecting something "outside of time?" No one has ever been able to verify the existence of God through any detectable means, he's constantly pushed further and further into the realm of abstractions and the extent to which God can be argued for is the extent to which Humanity is simply ignorant of the mechanics of reality. It's truly a God of the Gaps.

Matter is stored energy. Even if you don't want to concede matter as a constant, energy can be considered the constant. I'd don't see how changing location makes it a non-constant if all existence is location. Energy = existence. Existence is the only thing we can point to emperically, not something outside of time. Why does being outside of time mean God doesn't have to create itself? As well, it would seem to me either time is objective, which would mean it would apply to God or time is relative or subjective in which case you can't posit knowledge because you're viewing reality through a false lense.

Try an Internal Family Systems Therapist. Self Therapy by Jay Earley is a good introduction to the concept.

Doesn't that just shift the argument from "how did the universe create itself" to "how did the creator create himself?" And then any justification for the latter means you could've used the same justification for the former, Occam's razor, and wallah, we've cut a creator out of the question? As well, I don't think matter or energy change, doesn't this elucidate a constant?

I would be interested in the definition of God here; classically he's define (in his most basic) as an aware being which created existence. Doesn't this shift the argument to desiring to "realize that you don't have to desire because you're okay the way you are?" I suppose my objection is with the idea that we can escape desire or the ego (though I don't see how these can be seen as objective values anyway.) One must act, otherwise one is dead. Action implies a value which in is acting for, in can't act for something they don't value. Therefore all action requires desire and action is nesseccary to be alive. Therefore you are either desiring or you're dead (or unconscious/brain dead.) I don't think this is what you're advocating?

These are interesting theories, don't get me wrong, and a lot of it sounds valid so maybe this is missing the picture, but my question would be: Why are you hanging out with people where this is what you have to do to influence their minds? It doesn't really sound like a fun experience, buy a tense potentially painful one, and I'd be more concerned about my relationships here. They don't seem friendly to me, if that matters at all to you.

I think it would be more interesting to look at the practically of trolling through a short term lense (in which case I think we can leave the work, and possibility of becoming a bully, to Reddit and 4chan) because I think it can be effective if you want to sway a population to a politically dichotemous side. Combine this with a community with a long term view (therapy, self work, peaceful parenting) and I think you've got a recipe for success.

I hate to be a thorn in the side of this discussion on trolling efficacy, but I really have to disagree here. Firstly, IFS doesn't really work that way. If you haven't accessed your True Self (which usually only happens through therapy or self work,) healed your exiles, and have moved your parts into more productive roles, you are almost always in the grip of a protector (managers/firefighters.) When you humiliate someone, you're right a firefighter will protect them, but later in when the firefighter is not longer active the person isn't in True Self, but in the role of a manager. In this scenario you might have a rationalizer or a prideful part. Unless the person who has humiliated you is someone a part needs you to love or care about (parents) a person will almost never admit that their wrong or question their views and will more likely than not seek to vilify the person by calling them a jerk or a term more apt here, a Troll. The system seeks to maintain itself as for decades it adapted to a situation of immense harm (abusive childhood/adolescence) which it developed that system in in order to survive, to give up it's "opinions" you're trolling is often like putting the person (from the perspective of the parts i.e false self) in mortal danger and in fact the body registers it this way. You are a threat and the system seeks to eliminate you from the environment like a psychological virus, no matter how reasonable your position it. It will in fact seek to reinforce itself. "Learning" and changing ones beliefs can only come in when the system doesn't feel threatened or when the system perceives the information to be vital to it's survival ("learn this or else.") This is why the Stefan/Dale Carnegie methods work well (as the information is presented in a way which isn't threatening or distracts the False Self) as well as when the information is presented in a funny way (a combination of both; the reason you can convince an audience through humiliating another person) and many effective teaching strategies are centered around this. Thats an interesting definition of humiliation and perhaps valid, but holding a person to their own standards, in my experience, doesn't change them either. They just end up qualifying their actions or beliefs. Causing valid internal value-conflict I agree can caused learning if in fact the person can rationality analyze separate values and understands their value heirarchies, but a system lives and dies on maintaining value-conflict. Again, the only "convincing" that I see coming out of trolling is the kind that comes out of convincing your audience that your opponent is an idiot and hoping they adopt your ideas by proxy, which seems to only be more likely if you have a dichotomy type society (conservative vs liberal.) Emperically you can see how trolling had an affect in the United States where this exists predominantly, but not so much in Europe where there is more diversity of view.

Sorry, I don't have access to high speeds in order to watch this video (no wifi and slow phone data to save money,) would you mind just explaining the concept for me? I'd really appreciate it. Thank you.

I would think that the fact that humans need a highly complex, deeply psychological and subtle method in order to make other humans submit is a testament to human evolutionary superiority and adaptability. It's actually incredibly hard to subdue and exploit us; this is why morality, religion, state and the family structure (all incredibly creative methods) were invented and need to be used in tandem. The fact that we feel the need to subdue others actually comes from our evolutionary ape brethren, so I would say if it wasn't for the violence apes used against their young ten thousand years ago, no one would use violence today. Non-violence coupled with reason is evolutionarily superior for intra-species survival, as is a testament to capitalism.

Not really an argument, but this sounds a lot like what a person who wants to commit or justify unspeakable evil against another person or justify unspeakable evil which was committed against them would want to believe in. Either that, or a person who wants to escape self-ownership, self-responsablity and/or pretend that his/her evil actions doesn't have consequences, aren't harmful or won't corrupt them. God is concept which justifies abusers and pacifies the tormented abused. Essentially, one of more sicker forms of evil. I'd rather worship Satan, if the whole concept wasn't a mythology to begin with. Disgusting.

I would say humiliation and exaggerating is central to the whole art; by pointing out their irrationality you humiliate them by basically pointing out that they're dumb/ignorant/indoctrinated and no type of sympathy usually follows this. This is where my problem is, I'm not sure how you can troll without humiliation and if you start to humiliate people, in my view, you run the risk of becoming a bully, which can be self-corrupting. I also don't see how this convinces your opponent of anything (at least I've never seen someone change their views, only harden, when they get trolled, but perhaps that's just my experience.) The only benefit I can see is that by humiliating your opponent you gain the favor of those who are either leaning in one direction or the other, or those who are neutral. I think this is okay for the sort of emergency situation we're in, but in the long run the people you won over will simply change allegiances when you get trolled (or will at least begin to doubt their loyalty.) It also doesn't seem to me that the position that's being trolled needs to be irrational, anarchists experience this all the time.

I really appreciate you sharing this with me, it reenforces my confidence that what I'm doing is right, that what I'm doing is wanted and may help and it is brave of you to share something that personal with me and other board members. I can really empathize with you, not nesseccarily with the Stalin like camp your childhood seemed to be, but with the absolute violence, evil and longing for someone to tell em that what was happening was wrong that comes with a childhood like that. I'm absolutely and terribly sorry for what happened to you and wish I could convay that in stronger words to you. You mention that you think this is the bare minimum. What else do you think I could do? Especially when it comes to verbal abuse or physical abuse that is societally accepted (like dragging a kid by the arm, at least that's accepted here) which would essentially get laughed at by child services if I brought it up. To be honest, I've never even seen a parent out right physically harm their child that wasn't in a way that is legal/accepted. I'm really eager to do more in this area but am blanking in what more I can do in the real world when confronting abusive parents and would love for any advice. Again, I really appreciate you sharing this with me, I admire you for that.

I think we also might consider that, even if he does live in United Emirates States, that there is most likely either a culture or a religion which would tell you that abusing your siblings is wrong, but perhaps I'm just ignorant of that region. As well, by the time he was 16 or so, he would have the capacity to abstract and universalize his actions, if he's smart enough to comprehend this show I have to guess he's smart enough to do the pretty basic moral calculation that abusing someone so innocent is wrong. To be perfectly frank however, I haven't listen to the video and don't know the whole context, I'm only working with the base facts provided by you, so I apologise for my ignorance on that part but don't feel particularly inclined to watch it. The concepts are certainly interesting to me though.

You guys in here seem really smart, and maybe you've experienced this yourself. I'm wondering if you can give me your perspective on how my girlfriend and I confront abusive parents and let me know any tips or advice from your own experience if you do the same. About a year back me and my girlfriend decided that when we see a parent abusing a child, either physically or verbally, we would confront the parent (making sure to do this in front of the child) and calmly but sternly point out that what they're doing is wrong and why repeatedly until the parent either admits fault and apologizes or walks off taking their child with them. This is a very scary process, especially for me, and I'm ashamed to say that I've chickened out on a number of occasions when abusive parenting was going on in front of me, however, I'm currently going through Internal Family Systems therapy which is helping me to manage that fear. We felt that we couldn't physically do anything unless the abuse was something more universally accepted as abuse, as though we want to live our principles we don't want to be arrested or dragged into court. We also don't confront parents like this at work as we don't want to run the risk of being fired and need our jobs to support ourselves. We felt this was the best way to pursue our value of peaceful parenting as we believe it at least gives the child the idea that there is another perspective out there and shows them how their parents react to calm and assertive criticism. We don't go into it intending to change the parents mind as this almost never happens and in fact we've never gotten a parent to apologize or admit fault. Does this sound like a solid approach to confronting abusive parents? Is there anyway to do it more effectively? What are your own experiences confronting abusive parents? Is there a way we could confront them at work without risking losing our jobs? Is there a way you've found to manage your fear (if you have it) when confronting an abusive parent? I would really appreciate any and all responses to these questions. Thanks!

That sounds like a pretty positive (and funny) way to bring up an objection, but is that trolling really? I mean, it's certainly exaggerated, but not really sarcastic, more infantalizing than anything to me (not to say that's bad) but still relatively true. It doesn't attempt to humiliate her in any way. Perhaps I'm wrong, but doesn't trolling involve an undercover attack on your opponent through humiliation which the opponent can't rebut or attack without coming off as "too sensitive" because essentially the troll can run back to "it's just a joke" and in fact wants a response so as to continue it's trolling? As well, it did in a way seem to alienate your opponent and, at least if that happened to me and I was offended, I'd just write the comment off as weird and probably get confirmation from all the other women around me rather than looking at your arguments. Oh yeah, Internal Family Systems is an amazing insight into human psychology, I recommend it for anyone going through healing, it's been the most effective for my own healing at any rate. I would say that the best way to influence someone (and you can sort of see the way this is done in Stefan's earlier podcasts; again he's very skilled at it or just skim through Dale Carnegie's book) is to talk and act in a way towards that person which doesn't activate any of their reactive parts (which have developed due to childhood trauma and don't realize that your situation has changed; that you can afford to be more rational which is the job of the True Self) and allows you access to the rational True Self which guides action and holds the fundamental values of the system. Some methods include using 'and' instead of 'but' when debating or smiling, excitement, 'it seems to me' 'in my view,' showing appreciation for their thoughts, coming off as simply ignorant and wanting to learn rather than trying to force your opinions on them, all things which say to that person's parts "it's okay to listen to this person." This is all stuff you can be genuine in doing as well so it needs not to be manipulative.

Thank you for clarifying you position, it makes the whole discussion smoother for me and I appreciate that. I'll state my own post on each contention and then state my thoughts on each of yours. 1.) Mind denotes the human capacity to be self-aware i.e aware of it's own processing and it's own preceptually and sensual awareness. If you could imagine it, the brain represents human function, sensual and preceptual awareness (input/output processes) and then there is a "flashlight" which shines over specific parts of the brain, becoming aware of that part if the brain. It does this in fairly rapid succession, for instance, when you talk, each word you're communicating is the "light" of awareness shining on a different part of you brain. Mind is ultimately a conceptual tag which relates to physical process in the interaction between the prefrontal cortex and the rest of the brain (which we are not entirely aware of) but is not something individual or separate from the brain. The Emotional Brain by Joseph LeDoux talks about this a great deal and is a good read I to the phenomena if you have the time to browse it. 1b.) This is an interesting theory but I would prefer a bit more empericalproof or logical requirement as it is essentially a speculative metaphysical theory, which are hard to show due to the fact that we aren't objective to existence. How can I know that everything is a monad? As well, if monads = material reality are you as well saying that material reality is aware of itself i.e everything is aware? If monads are both physical and aware of themselves, my prior argument would still have to stand. It would first have to have Existence and then become aware of itself as the monads awareness could only come about as a result of it's initial Existence. Therefore Existence has primacy. If you move the argument to the creator, the same criticism stands. Awareness can't come before Existence or simiotantious to it because it requires existence to arise (i.e the reason why God is a self-contradictory concept) 2.) Matter (and it's unstored equivalent energy) is the physical i.e. the real. Existence = Matter/Energy. There's nothing else which you can point to emperically as the essence of everything which is. If it's not composed of matter or energy it doesn't exist. Why this is, I couldn't tell you, but it's the only thing we have emperical validation for and it seems pretty universal. 2b.) It seems to me that you're defining matter as a monad, but as there's nothing to point to to say "this is an aspect of a monad which is neither matter nor energy" that either there is no emperical basis for a monad or monads = matter in which case we can just call it matter. 3.) Knowledge represents awareness of what it real which has been reached through emperical validation and logical consistency, both of which are derived from metaphysical axioms i.e what cannot be metaphysically refuted. 3b.) How or why would a mind create ontological paradoxes for itself to figure out and why is this process higher than say, emperical sense data or logical derivitaion of principles based on that sense data. As well, if reality is simply an aspect of a monad, what would be the reason for sense data or any pursuit of knowledge? 4.) Free Will is an aspect of evolutionary development which represents the human minds capacity to predict possible potentialities of reality and the actions which would derive each potential within a set of universals. A reflection happens back to it's conceptual values (which are structured around several heirarchies based in the individuals psychological parts i.e internal family) if the values are not in conflict (though they almost always are) automatical action based on what is valued highest occurs, if they are in conflict choice is available to the True Self among the various values, as it must act, but no one value is valued more than any other. 4b.) This seems dulistic because there is one aspect of the monad which is material and another which is free will, how is knowledge obtained with two separate metaphysical realities to contend with and/or how is free will connected by the monad?

I'm not really sure as to the practically, for sure there's a danger in it as you could alienate your opponent or come off as a jerk to your audience (which may push out any rational argument except to those who support you) while at the same time you may just as well humiliate your opponent and win people to your side (however this comes with the risk of becoming a bully, which isn't necessarily bad to those who are evil, but risks corrupting yourself) but the people you win to your side will be those who change their minds based on who's being humiliated at the moment, not people who are convinced by rational argument which in my opinion are the people you really want to influence. In my experience it's better to come off as curious and understanding, sort of the Socratic method, which disables the parts of that person who have ego-identified with their argument and thus enables you to reach the "true" or rational part of the self. Stefan is very good at this, in my view, and did it very often in the earlier podcasts but lately I do think he's been using the more sarcastic approach, though I couldn't tell you the reason why except that it's quicker (and more temporary) which may be better for the emergency situation we're in as a community. Dale Carnegie's classic book How To Win Friends and Influence People is very good, in my opinion, at showing some basic ways to interact with people and debate that can maneuver around the defenses of their respective parts. I've actually take their course through my job and it's been very helpful in convincing generally irrational people to at least take a look at their more strongly held beliefs (as well as oiling more positive interaction with people,) which is all I think we can ask them to do. Please let me know if this is helpful or answers any of your questions.

I suppose then that I am confused at to what your definition of mind is, for that, again, I apologize. According to your definition, is the mind a physical entity or something else? Perhaps just give me a full definition. Mechanistically speaking, a mind can become aware of itself by awareness first arising from an existent and then this existent becoming aware that it is aware of other existents. I believe hypothesis can only be validated through submitting that hypothesis back to one's sensual data/logical validity. Incomplete sensual data -> Attempt at derivation of principle -> Hypothesis based on principle -> Logical Validation/Disproof via Internal Consistency -> Empirical Validation/Disproof via Universalization of Principle to know Sense Data -> Truth/Falsehood of Hypothesis. I'm not sure what you mean by "highest knowledge" here or how such knowledge is separated from sense data (a valid mechanistic reality) which is valid (indicating an external reality.) Also this doesn't seem to resolve the dulistic/platonic necessity of splitting knowledge, either knowledge is based in reality or it's derived from two realities (invalidating knowledge) or it's derived from another 'more real' reality (invalidating any knowledge we could posit.) If there is higher knowledge, we don't have access to it. That objects absorb all colors except one and that the one color which bounces off the object and reflects into our eyes (which color it bounces is determined by it's nature) is an objective fact measurable through the senses and validated by the scientific method i.e. universal principles (which is derived from the senses.) A wavelength is something objective which can be detected through multiple methodologies which confirm each other and which have all be developed relative to sense data and empirical testing. To say wavelengths don't exist because they can only be represented on a machine and not directly with the human eye is akin to saying, in my view, that length doesn't exist because it can only be represented as numerics on a ruler. A wavelength means something because it is a measurement of something objective. The concept 'wavelength' represents the unit with the measurement omitted; this is how we save brain energy because otherwise we would have to spend all out time remembering every instance of 'wavelength' individually instead of grouping it together under one term. This is why math has always been important to philosophy because math represents this concept formation of objective reality in it's most basic form: 1+1+1+1+1 = 5 = 3+1 = 4+1 = 6-1 ...... we remember 5 better than we remeber 1+1+1+1+1. See Unit-Economy. I'm not sure of your definition of mind anymore, but if the Mind is something the it must be composed of something and must exist in an objective existence. If it is made of something than that something must exist objectively. Well, I'm not sure how free will arises in a materialistic reality (again I have a theory of value-conflict I've half worked out) but we can say that within universals one thing could've been another if it were able to choose between two alternatives. There's nothing which can do that, I would argue, beyond humans. How they do that I'm not sure, but I'm saying that if they could this wouldn't contradict a materialist reality based on universal. But, again, it could never be a soul due to the epistemological problems a soul sets up against it's own proposition. You can't posit a truth without claiming that reality is monistic, objective and that we can know it through our senses without invalidating objective, universal truth. A soul requires either a dulistic or platonic reality (or non-reality). I kinda feel like we're running around in circles here though and I'm not sure where exactly your objection is. It looks like there is a significant disconnection, it seems to me, in the connection between your epistemology (which seems sense-based) and your metaphysics (which seems idealistic.) Could be me though...

For me, it would be interesting to ask whether all abuse is habitual abuse, it wouldn't make sense to me that you would just suddenly start abusing people in your late teens or adulthood without it being habituated in your mind at some point prior. At the same time, it's not like the knowledge that abusing people is wrong wasn't around this person, at the very least it's all over media, I don't think many people claim to support openly abusing people. It would also seem likely to me that he would have several emotional signals that were telling him that the abuse was wrong, then again where would he get the knowledge to understand those emotions from? I think it's reasonable to say that the older a person gets the more moral responsibility he has and while you couldn't well blame him for the abuse from 9 to say 15 from 16 to 18 I think you could reasonably say, considering the culture he's grown up in, that he knew what he was doing was wrong and even if it was a habit, he had the ability to change. Perhaps I'm wrong though, just my thoughts, let me know I what you think!