The inability to argue with insanity.

originally posted by: BuzzyWigs

You won't remember it consciously, of course....(how convenient!)

Anyway, I don't regret my maternal/parental decision to prevent it. My son can have his body 'altered' any time he wants. I wasn't about to make that decision on his behalf.

Love you guys, though, (you and randy) ....you know that.

That's always been the part that is a conflict in addressing it too. Because I totally understand that making that decision for your baby isn't exactly a cool thing to do, even as the parent. But at the same time I wouldn't want it done once I became aware enough to remember it. I've heard guys talk about having it done later in life and those stories...Hell No!!!

So I'm torn ethically on the issue and can't figure out the best choice. I have yet to hear the argument that would push me one way or the other.

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

What I find from reading your post is that you are unaware of the programming/conditioning that has influenced you to hold your current views and mindset. You see, those of us that have grown up within a society have been influenced to think, act and feel in a certain manner due to the programming we have undergone.

In reference to your "torturing babies for pleasure is objectively evil" example, I would argue that the "objectivity" aspect of your argument is debatable. You see, that disgust you feel when you contemplate babies being tortured, the sickness in your stomach that you feel and the wrongness of even thinking about babies being tortured are the result of conditioning from the society in which you were raised.

If you were a dictator trying to silence any dissenters within the population under your control, you could torture their offspring as a means to deter others from dissenting against your rule. While initially disgusted by this act, any subordinates to the dictator might find this tactic useful themselves and soon employ these methods as a means to control the population. Over time, within this society, the act of torturing the young to maintain obedience (over their parents) would be socially accepted.

Another example, as others have mentioned, is that torturing/sacrificing the young for religious reasons is not unheard of, and would be socially acceptable as well as legal in a population that comprised a majority of these kinds of worshipers.

One of the mistakes people like you make when contemplating "subjective morality" is that you incorrectly focus on the individual and not on the communal (society). Most people who argue against "objective morality" don't assert that every person has their own version of morality, but rather that every individual's sense of morality is influenced strongly by the environment in which they were raised.

a reply to: Dark Ghost

that's because dictators are psychopaths.

i think what you're trying to describe is: we humans are all psychopaths at various levels of healing/degrading, the latter of which is brought on or sustained by lack of real knowledge to one degree or another (cause even if your environment sucked, you still might have the chance to learn better answers).

the more clinically psychopathic, we assume, are serial killers and people who can no longer function in society, at all. but most of the world's leaders are high functioning psychopaths who have convinced themselves that they have the right and obligation to rule other people, including genocide, elaborate plots, spying, micro managing other peoples lives, and all the trappings that go along with someone other than you, running your life, such as slavery, poverty, and so on. these people are more dangerous than the most destructive serial killer.

think about it: what does it take to be a ruler/president/king/queen/etc, in today's world?
-no empathy or sympathy
-habitual lying
-false belief that you are better than everyone you rule over even when it's obvious you're not
-will do anything necessary to gain power over others, even if it means hurting large swaths of other humans
-etc.

p.s. this doesn't include examples of people who have massive genetic damage that has lead to obvious psychopathy

originally posted by: ServantOfTheLamb
You simply cannot win an argument with a person who is insane. A sane person listening to your presentation may become convinced, but there is no way of convincing a person who is not sane of anything. For example, Lets say I am holding a pineapple in my hand and claim that it is a pineapple, but another person in the room instead claims that it is a tv remote. I would be completely incapable of refuting this persons claim as I would have no stronger proof other than a pineapple being in my hand. This person and I would have a fundamental disagreement about reality, and the only solution to this would be to the resolution of a mental illness. I find the above example, parallels to the discussions I have upon morality. For example I may say that torturing babies for pleasure is objectively evil. Yet there are those who would argue that morality is based on the subjective whims of each individual person. Those who argue this are simply calling my pineapple a tv remote. There is a fundamental disagreement about reality.

I have no stronger argument that the torturing babies for pleasure is objectively evil independently of anyone’s subjective preference than the self-evident fact that torturing babies is objectively evil. I cannot hope to convince anyone who disagrees with such things that objective morality is the truth behind reality as they simply are not in touch with reality.

I disagree. You said you are holding a pineapple. Maybe it really was a TV remote and you were wrong.

And lets explore that for a moment. You would assume that the person holding what they call a TV remote when everyone else says it is a pineapple is wrong. But they could be the only person that is right. Just because a majority says reality is one way doesn't mean anything. Some would say "OK...but the majority is more likely correct" and again I disagree. This assumes that the majority is sane. Look around...maybe the majority is insane. In fact, we may be so insane that nothing we see or do is real. We could just as easily be an insane lump of living, stagnant flesh that (for good reason) has gone insane and this is all a mental illness. The "truly insane" we know believe their world is 100% real. Those who see ghosts, monsters, UFOs, etc. believe they are real. Some believe in God as the most important reason to be alive. Who is right? Is anyone right? Maybe no one in the world knows how insane we are because there is no one sane to tell us what is reality.

It is such an interesting topic in that everything we think we know could be wrong or not exist. The mind IS that powerful. Even if we are only that stagnant lump of living flesh.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
a reply to: Bluesma

Then why should we believe Marcus Aurelius' opinion if it cannot be a fact? If it is a fact, and he is correct, then he is also wrong. Such a paradox proves its falsity. "Copper conducts electricity" is a fact, not an opinion, therefore, everything is not an opinion, nor a perspective.

I have no idea why you should believe Marcus Aurelius' opinion as a fact ! It sure doesn't seem to be a fact!
It is a lighthearted reminder that maybe it isn't that important to agree on everything, and try to force others to change their differing view. But that is just one opinion, and you are free to have another!

When my mom worked in a psychiatric hospital, I watched my stepdad have a conversation with a patient there asking him what the morse code was for SOS - he wanted to send a message to the Mothership. They got into a very thoughtful exchange on what the code was.

I work in a nursing home, and when I walk the halls, I often have a woman come up with her walker and ask me if I am passing by a nearby village. I tell her I'm going to a different village today, in a different direction - but there may be another taxi coming by soon....

Who the # cares if someone has a different view of reality?
If he point the pineapple at the tv and percieves the channel changing, good for him!
If he is actually thinking about torturing babies, put him in a cell, don't worry about his perception of reality.

a reply to: WeAreAWAKE

The problem with your theory vs. how it works in reality is that the Pineapple won't change the channels on your TV any more than the Remote is eatable and tastes like fruit.

Even if you say well your mind can make you think it tastes like fruit, that still wont change the fact your eating plastic and metal that will eventually kill you either by poisoning your system or starvation.

So you see, the facts in the end will always win and reality is what it is no matter how crazy someone is. Pineapples will be pineapples and remote controls will be remote controls and no amount of crazy will change that.

a reply to: mOjOm

But you're still missing the big picture...if you are insane thinking that the pineapple is a TV remote, then when you press the buttons the channels will change. If you are truly insane, it doesn't have to be one single object...it can very well be everything. Or at least everything you interact with. Assuming it was even a pineapple, or there at all to begin with.

a reply to: WeAreAWAKE

The pineapple may change the channels on the TV if you're crazy but eating the Remote Control will not feed you as if it was some fruit.

The point being that no matter how crazy your perceptions may be, reality is what it is and the part of you that is subject to reality's laws cannot crazy it's way out of them.

So even though you're crazy enough to believe that you're eating pineapple, the fact is that you're eating remote controls and reality will still kill you for it. The only difference is that you might think it's crazy that you're in such bad health even though you're eating plenty of fruit.

I already posted saying I used to be insane. If someone sees a pineapple in your hand even if they are insane might say,"that's a pineapple". I asked is this about religion cause you call yourself ServantoftheLamb. If the pineapple tv remote thing was just a metaphor. I keep following this thread every time it grows and....I don't know what else you can say. You argued that killing babies or torturing them is evil, for those of us with morals and ethics. But for animals some probably eat their young and the black widow as soon as it has babies they all eat the mother. So maybe not in nature. I was saying that ancient civilizations or lost tribes might have had different views of what we can all say today because of the times and cultures.

I think your metaphor of arguing with an "insane " person could've been worded more eloquently. Do you know an insane person? Are you always arguing over fruit and electrical appliances?

a reply to: Bluesma

I have no idea why you should believe Marcus Aurelius' opinion as a fact ! It sure doesn't seem to be a fact!

It is a lighthearted reminder that maybe it isn't that important to agree on everything, and try to force others to change their differing view. But that is just one opinion, and you are free to have another!

I’m not sharing my opinion. I am sharing the logical consequence of his contradictory statement. Was I wrong to raise that objection?

When my mom worked in a psychiatric hospital, I watched my stepdad have a conversation with a patient there asking him what the morse code was for SOS - he wanted to send a message to the Mothership. They got into a very thoughtful exchange on what the code was.

I work in a nursing home, and when I walk the halls, I often have a woman come up with her walker and ask me if I am passing by a nearby village. I tell her I'm going to a different village today, in a different direction - but there may be another taxi coming by soon....

If it isn’t important, why are they in psychiatric hospitals and nursing homes? Maybe it is important after all.

Who the # cares if someone has a different view of reality?

I do. Who the # wants to know?

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope

I’m not sharing my opinion. I am sharing the logical consequence of his contradictory statement. Was I wrong to raise that objection?

Did I say you were wrong to express your objection? No, I don't think so. But if you believe so, if you interpret my words to mean something I personally don't, that is your right. You have your own reasons for your perception of the world and others. Perhaps you want to feel someone (me, in this case) is trying to oppress your freedom of speech... perhaps you want to experience opposing that, so you create a specific perception which provides the appropriate context for that experience.
I don't know, that is just one off the hip guess, amongst dozens of possibilities. It's your business.

If it isn’t important, why are they in psychiatric hospitals and nursing homes? Maybe it is important after all.

If someone is unable to take care of their own needs for survival because they are insane, then putting them in such places is appropriate. As is putting a child torturer in jail. Arguing with them is the thing I said is not important. Getting frustrated because they do not change is a waste of your own energy and non-constructive. (my opinion, of course).


Who the # cares if someone has a different view of reality?

I do. Who the # wants to know?

The post you are responding to, and posing that question to, was written by me. You know me as Bluesma. I do not want to give out my real name or information here publicly- I hope you can understand.

Do you want to express why you feel it is important to argue their view of reality? Why you feel the verbal exchange is important to have? Do you feel it is possible to heal insanity with logical and reasonable arguments?
I'm perfectly open to listening (reading) your thoughts on the matter if you desire to do so.

originally posted by: ServantOfTheLamb
there are those who would argue that morality is based on the subjective whims of each individual person.

You are having a bit of confusion over "morality" and "ethic". They are not the same thing. It might be worth researching the difference!

a reply to: Bluesma

Did I say you were wrong to express your objection? No, I don't think so. But if you believe so, if you interpret my words to mean something I personally don't, that is your right. You have your own reasons for your perception of the world and others. Perhaps you want to feel someone (me, in this case) is trying to oppress your freedom of speech... perhaps you want to experience opposing that, so you create a specific perception which provides the appropriate context for that experience.
I don't know, that is just one off the hip guess, amongst dozens of possibilities. It's your business.

I was asking you what you thought, if you think I am right or wrong. I thought that was quite clear given that it was exactly what I wrote. Sorry but, I wasn't accusing you of anything. Of course it's your right to misinterpret, but I, unlike you, will not allow you to go on inventing a reality, and will reiterate the question if need be: Was I wrong to raise that objection? Or let me rephrase it: Am I right or am I wrong?

If someone is unable to take care of their own needs for survival because they are insane, then putting them in such places is appropriate. As is putting a child torturer in jail. Arguing with them is the thing I said is not important. Getting frustrated because they do not change is a waste of your own energy and non-constructive. (my opinion, of course).

Who the # cares if someone has a different view of reality?

I do. Who the # wants to know? (This is a rhetorical question. For once you'll take a question literally! Writing as if I was a dementia patient may perhaps be the best reaction to such a question. However, it was supposed to be a slight joke.)

You would know more about psychological and long-term care than I do. Is it that these patients are so far gone that you do not care what they think ( in terms of truth or falsity), and we shouldn't even bother?

Do you want to express why you feel it is important to argue their view of reality? Why you feel the verbal exchange is important to have? Do you feel it is possible to heal insanity with logical and reasonable arguments?
I'm perfectly open to listening (reading) your thoughts on the matter if you desire to do so.

I don't think arguing over their view of reality with logical and reasonable arguments will work. However, I think a coherent view of reality can be presented through a method of play and interaction with a little help of a comrade. I do not think pandering to their non-reality is constructive, and a verbal exchange with at least one party speaking truthfully of reality is important..

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
a reply to: Bluesma

Was I wrong to raise that objection? Or let me rephrase it: Am I right or am I wrong?

You are right, I totally missed your meaning! I never would have guessed, in a million years, that that was what you really, actually meant to ask!!

I cannot answer such a question, of course! I am not God! I am not a judge in any court, I am not a clergy of any religion.
Perhaps if you can specify under what system of ethic or belief you wish to use for that determination, I can look it up and answer?
I have no idea what is right or wrong for you to say in any general or universal fashion.

Who the # wants to know? (This is a rhetorical question. For once you'll take a question literally! Writing as if I was a dementia patient may perhaps be the best reaction to such a question. However, it was supposed to be a slight joke.)

So was mine. Guess the humor flew over. That happens in this medium.

Is it that these patients are so far gone that you do not care what they think ( in terms of truth or falsity), and we shouldn't even bother?

If we are talking insanity...mental illness, then the OP is right, it is a waste of time. Mental illness is not simply a matter of educating yourself, or having someone explain reality, in order to correct perception. You are free to try, of course. It is my opinion, based upon my own limited knowledge, that it doesn't work.

I don't think arguing over their view of reality with logical and reasonable arguments will work. However, I think a coherent view of reality can be presented through a method of play and interaction with a little help of a comrade. I do not think pandering to their non-reality is constructive, and a verbal exchange with at least one party speaking truthfully of reality is important..

Arguing, trying to convince a person they are wrong when they are mentally ill, is not the same as joining with them to increase their focus on our shared reality.

For example, the man who wanted to message the alien mothership forgot about that intent as the conversation wandered on to morse code, and how it was used in the war, how it travels along wires....

One of the residents at my work got confused and started wandering outside one day, panicking because her daughter was not visiting, and thinking she was in a different city, in her old home. (she is the same that thinks I am a taxi sometimes, in fact). So I talked to her about her home, about her flowers there, and told her I'd walk her back to her room. She thought I meant in that house, though I didn't specify.

As we got to her floor, we decided to go on the look out for a snack, and found cookies, and talked about the way they tasted, and looked, and where she used to get them as a child. It brought her into the moment, with real things we could both see and experience. The discussion about her childhood memories help place her within a timeline- she knew she was not that child anymore, it was in the past. Soon she was aware of where she was and her situation.

Instead of argue, simply find another point in common between your separate perceptions, and join there!
Yes, sometimes I don't have the time to engage with another, so I pass on by. But if you have the time to argue, then you have the time to bond.

But that is my view. I feel that in some things in life, there is the strange paradox in which the best way to get to a certain destination is to not look straight at it, but use your peripheral vision.

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

Walking away from writing that post I realize that it may seem infuriatingly confusing to you.

Though we diverge on some issues of consciousness,
There is something we have in common as well. The body. The body as a key to consciousness and "grounding".
We hold the marvelous ability of imagination, which seeds creativity. But when the body suffers, the mind wanders incessantly. It doesn't want to "be here now" because that is painful. It is the body that shares a collective reality, and if you want someone to join you on that shared reality, it is often through the senses and the memories they provoke, that you can find each other.

I love doing massage (I am an esthetician originally) but it is not at all about appearences for me. The pleasurable contact with another human being attracts the consciousness to invest and engage in the body. This is why people sometimes start crying during a massage- they suddenly have to face the experiences and memories it holds. Instead of arguing with a person about this shared reality and it's facts, it is more effective to create pleasure which brings the mind here and now.

People who are lost in their explorations of thought won't come back with further exploration of thought. Non-verbal sensation is the only path back, I think.

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

So does this mean you're done with this topic now??? I was having fun working on morality and if it's objective or subjective. Actually haven't you and I done this already a while back??? If it was you I believe we actually reached a point where we realized it is much more complicated that we first realized and that we needed to go back and define certain terms before we moved forward.

Mostly I think it was our terminology that was giving us problems.

Or are you just tired of talking about "killing babies for pleasure"??

originally posted by: ServantOfTheLamb
You simply cannot win an argument with a person who is insane.

Insanity is 'belief'.
Believing your imagination to be Reality 'beyond your imagination/ego.
Thus, it is not possible to win an argument (all ego masturbation) with a 'believer'.
Only a 'believer' would state, in an attempt to validate/feed his belief infection, that the insanity of morality is, rather than his own sinsanity, 'objective', an ignorant and belief-addled claim!
"Everyone does it , ma, so I must be right!"

Thus the saying that 'arguing' with a 'believer' is like playing chess with a pigeon; it knocks over the pieces, poops on the board and returns to the flock claiming victory! *__-

From a religious Perspective (and a dictionary), 'morality' is judging people/stuff as 'good' or 'bad/evil'!

This is exact manifestation of the stolen Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (Sin of Pride/judgment) in the Garden!

As a Xtian (or any other religion), we are warned against 'judging' others;
"Judge not lest you be judged!"
Such judgment (good/evil) is the sin of 'pride'!
'Pride' is the only sin (from which all others spring), yet the hypocrites flaunt their practices, joyfully, proudly, in the face of their god!

You are told that;
"If you judge, judge with righteous judgment!"
Yet goes on to say that;
"None are righteous, no not one!"

So you commit the only 'sin' of vanity/Pride in 'judging', and make the excuse that it is 'Universal', that 'everyone does it!
Does that really work for you?

'Morality' is the ego's conditional vain attempt to replicate 'ethics', unconditional, born of unconditional Love, not conditional vanity!


"A sane person listening to your presentation may become convinced, but there is no way of convincing a person who is not sane of anything."

~~~ What is your need to 'convince' anyone of anything?
Vanity!


"For example, Lets say I am holding a pineapple in my hand and claim that it is a pineapple, but another person in the room instead claims that it is a tv remote. I would be completely incapable of refuting this persons claim as I would have no stronger proof other than a pineapple being in my hand. This person and I would have a fundamental disagreement about reality, and the only solution to this would be to the resolution of a mental illness. I find the above example, parallels to the discussions I have upon morality. For example I may say that torturing babies for pleasure is objectively evil. Yet there are those who would argue that morality is based on the subjective whims of each individual person. Those who argue this are simply calling my pineapple a tv remote. There is a fundamental disagreement about reality. "

~~~ An illustration;

Seven blind men surround and touch/examine an elephant. The one touching his tail exclaims that it is like a hairy snake... etc... That perspective is actually correct, but it is also quite limited. If the man wished to move the elephant to the other side of a wall, he might be led to think that he can get it through a small hole in the wall. Obviously, he will run into trouble and, perhaps, frustration and anger...
All the time he has been arguing with the others around the elephant regarding their 'perspectives'. Ego declares 'rightness' which gives rise to 'wrongness', and everyone knows that 'I' cannot be 'wrong'.. etc...
The other fellows around the elephant are finding the same problems of 'their' perspective.

All perspectives are correct, all are limited/incomplete (some more so than others).

"There are no whole truths: all truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays the devil." - Alfred North Whitehead

If one of the men listened to the others and accepted the testimony (tentatively, of course) of another, experience will show that there will be less 'problems' with the elephant, the larger the perspective (inclusive of other perspectives rather than egoically contesting them).
The 'sum' of two perspectives = one new unique 'wider/deeper' perspective. Still limited/incomplete, but more 'useful' than either one of the component perspectives.

All Perspectives are unique every moment!

"For every Perspective, there is an equal and opposite Perspective!" - The First Law of Soul Dynamics (Book of Fudd)

"The complete Universe (Reality/Truth/God/'Self!'/Tao/Brahman... or any feature herein...) can be completely defined/described as the synchronous sum-total of all Perspectives!" - Book of Fudd
ALL INCLUSIVE!!!
Win/win!

"The acceptance and understanding of other Perspectives furthers our acquaintance with Reality!"


"I have no stronger argument that the torturing babies for pleasure is objectively evil independently of anyone’s subjective preference than the self-evident fact that torturing babies is objectively evil. I cannot hope to convince anyone who disagrees with such things that objective morality is the truth behind reality as they simply are not in touch with reality. "

~~~ Then you have nothing!
You are obviously part of a religion, and I smell a Xtian.
How it it that your very first and only sin has to do with the discernment of (Knowledge of) 'Good' and 'Evil', and yet that is exactly what you are doing, taking one more bite of the forbidden fruit, whacking one more nail into your Jesus!

All 'good' and all 'evil' (all 'values') exist in the (vain, judgmental) thoughts/imagination/ego of the beholder!
You!
And there is not anything 'objective' about that!