Is it still anarchists fault Ron Paul isn't winning?

[newbitech]

You are quite correct. It is in the disbelief of belief, in the suspension of logic, in the juxtaposition of reason and in the acceptance of false truths that the seeds of the State find fertile ground.

The truth can be found with or without logic. If we use logic as our only tool, then part of the truth is hidden. I believe logic is based on the truths that we know. Logic can be useful for uncovering truths that we do not know. Truth hidden from logic is truth protected from evil men capable of sound reason. In this truth we find freedom. I do not reject logic, but I also do not believe that logic by itself leads to absolute truth. We must leave room for emotion, which may not adhere to logic, but is the part of truth that logic cannot seem to guide us towards or completely uncover.

 

[noneedtoaggress]

=

 

[A Son of Liberty]

The truth can be found with or without logic. If we use logic as our only tool, then part of the truth is hidden. I believe logic is based on the truths that we know. Logic can be useful for uncovering truths that we do not know. Truth hidden from logic is truth protected from evil men capable of sound reason. In this truth we find freedom. I do not reject logic, but I also do not believe that logic by itself leads to absolute truth. We must leave room for emotion, which may not adhere to logic, but is the part of truth that logic cannot seem to guide us towards or completely uncover.

Emotion must be tempered by logic, reason. Logic and reason make man superior to animals. Animals organize their social structures based upon emotion: fear, domination, pride, etc.

Logic and reason allow men to recognize certain existential truths that are beyond the abilities of animals.

There is of course room for emotion, but it must be tempered by logic and reason.

 

[newbitech]

Emotion must be tempered by logic, reason. Logic and reason make man superior to animals. Animals organize their social structures based upon emotion: fear, domination, pride, etc.

Logic and reason allow men to recognize certain existential truths that are beyond the abilities of animals.

There is of course room for emotion, but it must be tempered by logic and reason.

Yes I agree the two work together. One is not superior to the other in every way. After all, both reason and emotion start in the brain. I would encourage you to develop a better understanding of what emotions are and how they relate to human behavior.

Here is a little "flavor" for you.

http://www.cdl.org/resource-library/articles/connect_emotions.php

The Connection Between Emotions and Learning.

Emotional Intelligence
Dr. Daniel Goleman has written a book about "emotional intelligence". He distinguishes the ability to understand and manage our emotions from general intelligence or IQ. His concept of emotional intelligence helps us understand why people with high IQ's don't always do as well in life as those with more modest intellectual ability. Dr. Goleman has identified five qualities that comprise emotional intelligence: knowing our emotions (self-awareness), managing our emotions (impulse control), motivating ourselves to achieve goals (persistence, zeal and self-motivation), recognizing emotions in others (empathy) and managing relationships with others (social skills). He sees these as the steps necessary to achieve high emotional intelligence. Because emotional intelligence is learned rather than inherited like general intelligence, it can be nurtured and strengthened.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

The truth can be found with or without logic. If we use logic as our only tool, then part of the truth is hidden. I believe logic is based on the truths that we know. Logic can be useful for uncovering truths that we do not know. Truth hidden from logic is truth protected from evil men capable of sound reason. In this truth we find freedom. I do not reject logic, but I also do not believe that logic by itself leads to absolute truth. We must leave room for emotion, which may not adhere to logic, but is the part of truth that logic cannot seem to guide us towards or completely uncover.

This is bogus quasi-mysticism.

Emotions are a biological reaction of your body to your thoughts. One feels happy, or feels scared, or whatever, and it is indeed a feeling, a physical sensation in the body, but in reaction to what? In reaction to your thinking. In reaction to information your mind is processing, thoughts it is having, etc.

Emotions are the slaves of the mind. Thought rules all. Your consciousness is thought. That's what you are. You are what you think.

Your statements above say that one should take a "balanced" approach. We shouldn't be too rational. We should reverse cause and effect and attempt to make emotions a cause rather than an effect --though only partially. We should be blind slaves to our emotions -- to a reasonable degree. Moderation in everything. We should be partially accepting of our nature as rational creatures and perhaps try to use thinking sometimes, sure, but we should also be accepting of our nature as irrational animals and surrender to all our body's impulses, inclinations, and itches, even those which our minds would tell us are destructive or illogical. We should even, according to you, allow the most anti-rational of these bio-chemical reactions to lead us to conclusions, and then we should call these conclusions truth. Some of our conclusions should be derived from articulable thought, but others should arise from base or random physiological impulses. We wouldn't want to hone the tool of our mind too sharply, after all, by practicing precision and rigor in ratiocination. That would be... bad. Somehow. Unbalanced.

No, we need to have a good balance of cognition and non-cognition, of the rational and the irrational, of reason and of anti-reason. Only through giving proper respect and deference to non-cognition, irrationality, and anti-reason can we come to a true and full understanding of truth. Wouldn't you agree, newbitech? Or would you disagree? What is your liver telling you?

 

[newbitech]

This is bogus quasi-mysticism.

Emotions are a biological reaction of your body to your thoughts. One feels happy, or feels scared, or whatever, and it is indeed a feeling, a physical sensation in the body, but in reaction to what? In reaction to your thinking. In reaction to information your mind is processing, thoughts it is having, etc.

Emotions are the slaves of the mind. Thought rules all. Your consciousness is thought. That's what you are. You are what you think.

Your statements above say that one should take a "balanced" approach. We shouldn't be too rational. We should reverse cause and effect and attempt to make emotions a cause rather than an effect --though only partially. We should be blind slaves to our emotions -- to a reasonable degree. Moderation in everything. We should be partially accepting of our nature as rational creatures and perhaps try to use thinking sometimes, sure, but we should also be accepting of our nature as irrational animals and surrender to all our body's impulses, inclinations, and itches, even those which our minds would tell us are destructive or illogical. We should even, according to you, allow the most anti-rational of these bio-chemical reactions to lead us to conclusions, and then we should call these conclusions truth. Some of our conclusions should be derived from articulable thought, but others should arise from base or random physiological impulses. We wouldn't want to hone the tool of our mind too sharply, after all, by practicing precision and rigor in ratiocination. That would be... bad. Somehow. Unbalanced.

No, we need to have a good balance of cognition and non-cognition, of the rational and the irrational, of reason and of anti-reason. Only through giving proper respect and deference to non-cognition, irrationality, and anti-reason can we come to a true and full understanding of truth. Wouldn't you agree, newbitech? Or would you disagree? What is your liver telling you?

I am glad you responded. "bogus quasi-mysticism" ? So you are basically saying I am full of ____? That's ok.

Emotion are sourced in the brain. Just like thoughts. When you burned your hand on the stove or stepped on a rusty nail, that "feeling" you got didn't come from your hand or from your foot. It came from your brain. Logic did not stop you from running around barefooted, or putting your hand on red hot stove. You learned that through "feeling". To this day, you do not use logic to tell you that putting your hand on a red hot stove is going to burn the shit out of you. It was learned through experience and remembered with Emotion.

You say emotions are slaves of the mind, thought rules all. When you are driving a car down the road, and a little kid kicks a ball in front of you react because of emotion. You do not sit there and ponder. You think afterwards.

I am not even talking about taking a balanced approached in the sense of personal balance between emotions and reason. I am saying any conversations that focus ONLY on the logical aspects of human actions and fail to weave in the emotional side of human nature, AT ALL, are not going to resolve anything or come to conclusions that make "sense" for a many humans. ESPECIALLY conversations that believe human emotion is inferior to human reason. They are intertwined. Forever connected in the brain.

Reverse cause and effect? No. Emotions can be both, just like reason can be both. He was angry therefor he attacked his neighbor, which made his neighbor angry and he attacked back.

Blind slaves? No and no. We should recognize what emotions are and learn how to develop them. Just like we develop math skills etc..

Condescension at its finest.

You cannot imagine a world that is not so ordered and perfect as to have everyone understand it by simply finding the root cause. The world in fact is not so ordered and there is clearly a far more powerful layer underneath logic and emotion that humans are tapping in to. This layer cannot logically exist. Yet it does. Many things cannot logically exist, but they do. Your logic trail will take you to the road to infinity, but only your emotions will allow you to get on that rode and follow it and see where it goes.

 

[otherone]

Reverse cause and effect? No. Emotions can be both, just like reason can be both. He was angry therefore he attacked his neighbor, which made his neighbor angry and he attacked back.

As an aside, as fully-formed adults called upon to act in harmony with our neighbors, "therefore" doesn't exist. Feelings and thoughts are unimportant....behaviors are.

 

[newbitech]

As an aside, as fully-formed adults called upon to act in harmony with our neighbors, "therefore" doesn't exist. Feelings and thoughts are unimportant....behaviors are.

That point is well received. I have found that throughout my life I can follow a path that has lead me more and more to focusing on what someone does rather than what they might think or feel. I wouldn't say that thoughts and feelings are unimportant, yet. I still think that understanding behavior and what leads someone to acting out in certain ways is important. What drives someone to go and vote for a guy like Rick Santorum for instance? It won't change that action, but understanding the WHY can help us teach someone to NOT take that behavior in the future. So in the moment, yes behaviors trump and reason or feeling that may have lead to that behavior. It doesn't matter why the neighbor attacked. He will be judged for his action. The punishment though if any, greatly depends on his state of mind, if we can determine it, after the act.

 

[otherone]

I have found that throughout my life I can follow a path that has lead me more and more to focusing on what someone does rather than what they might think or feel.

I perceive this somewhat differently. I'm not so much concerned with what others are thinking/feeling/doing, rather it's my own behavior that I focus on. I'm only in control of my own behavior. Frankly, in life, it's the only thing we can be sure of....acceptance of this has helped me immeasurably.

 

[newbitech]

I perceive this somewhat differently. I'm not so much concerned with what others are thinking/feeling/doing, rather it's my own behavior that I focus on. I'm only in control of my own behavior. Frankly, in life, it's the only thing we can be sure of....acceptance of this has helped me immeasurably.

I agree with that. I understand how my own actions are the biggest influence on those around me. My feeling and thoughts are interpreted by others through my actions. When I went through DUI counseling (mandated by the state), I actually learned a few things about behaviors. One of the things I strive for is to behave rationally. The difference between good behavior and bad behavior in my actions is the difference between rational thoughts and irrational thoughts. Irrational thoughts for me aren't simply a failure of logic. I justify irrational thoughts with emotions. I feel a certain way and this informs my thought process. Even when those thoughts ultimately end in false conclusions, the feelings that drive those thoughts are real.

On the flip side of that. I have found that sometimes my irrational behavior is not always bad. So I cannot come to the illogical conclusion that ALL irrational thoughts or thoughts informed by emotions are bad and will lead to bad behavior. So for me personally, I have to develop my emotional intelligence. I posted a link that has a cursory introduction to emotional intelligence earlier. To develop my own emotional intelligence, I believe the 5 key areas from that link do a good job in pointing out the areas in my personal life that I must pay attention to. They are,

1.) self-awareness - knowing my emotions
2.) impulse control - managing my emotions
3.) self-motivation - setting and achieving goals with persistence and zeal
4.) empathy - recognizing the emotions of others
5.) social skills - managing relationships with others

Logic does help develop all of these key points for gaining emotional intelligence, but sometimes logic just doesn't explain the results of a behavior or action. Of course the outcome is how I behave.

Again, I agree that focusing on my behavior is more important that trying to interpret the behavior of others. I also believe, and I don't think that you'd disagree, that looking towards others behaviors in response to your own, or just as a way of gaining emotional intelligence, does help you control yourself better. Particularly with points 4 and 5 above. I especially try to focus on relationships with others. I believe that is where, as a movement, and in particular this philosophy of liberty stands to make the largest strides in the near term.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

You get to the heart of the matter and reveal our core disagreement at the end, so I will just skip there:

You cannot imagine a world that is not so ordered and perfect as to have everyone understand it by simply finding the root cause. The world in fact is not so ordered and there is clearly a far more powerful layer underneath logic and emotion that humans are tapping in to. This layer cannot logically exist. Yet it does. Many things cannot logically exist, but they do. Your logic trail will take you to the road to infinity, but only your emotions will allow you to get on that road and follow it and see where it goes.

You are here presenting for my consideration the idea that the universe is irrational. You are saying that the universe does not entirely follow natural laws or whatever you want to call any factor which can be comprehended by reason. Much of the universe violates reason and law and is thus totally out of the realm of the comprehensible and cognizable.

So what does that mean? Mysticism. This is the world-view which you are presenting for our consideration. "Emotion" is the label for the witch doctor with whom you consult to reveal things about this unrevealable realm of chaos which your mind cannot reach.

This is bogus. Of course, even the fact that you are presenting the idea for my consideration using a means of communication -- language -- which was invented by the rational and is entirely structured and rational, this very contradiction proves your claims bogus. You cannot make a defense of the worship of irrationality which you call "emotion" without using rationality. If you wanted to defend emotion using its own tools, without inherent contradiction that is, you'd have to do it using facial expressions and grunts. Just as a dog can convey his emotional state with such tools, you could as well, but you could not convey any abstract ideas. For instance, you could not even make nonsense statements such as "Many things cannot logically exist, but they do." Nope, to make such a statement you must use the tools and methods of reason, or "logic" as you call it. Internal contradiction.

So, in order to defend your thesis without simultaneously undermining it, you would in your next post need to reply using only smileys. And no using code, either, like smile for yes and frown for no. Such code makes facial expression no longer a conduit for showing raw emotional states, but a conduit expressing cognition.

Ultimately, what does it mean if the universe is partially incomprehensible? Not just incomprehensible because we haven't figured out how to comprehend it yet, but because it is, as you claim, literally impossible to ever comprehend? What if parts or aspects or "layers" of existence are logically impossible to exist? What would that mean? What would it mean for logically impossible phenomenon to nevertheless come into being?

It would mean that causality is being violated. It would mean we must throw out the law of causality. You likely do not realize what it means to throw out the law of causality, but let me assure you it isn't pretty. You get to have fun paradoxes like "Back to the Future" time-travel, sure. You also get not-so-fun paradoxes. You get any paradox possible, because they're all possible now, so they might as well start happening. That word "happening" becomes a problem, too. Since there was no possible causal path to get the universe into the illogical point in Hemn space it's now in at this moment, what happens the next moment? Clearly time flow can no longer be defined by causality if causality no longer is an immutable law, so...

So, well, in short, if the universe is illogical/impossible (even partially) you've deeply, thoroughly, and metaphysically messed up our entire existence and we're all hosed.

I wish your liver good luck refuting me with it's emotive states.

 

[otherone]

1.) self-awareness - knowing my emotions
2.) impulse control - managing my emotions
3.) self-motivation - setting and achieving goals with persistence and zeal
4.) empathy - recognizing the emotions of others
5.) social skills - managing relationships with others

I believe you are missing a key (if not the key ) component in self-awareness....motivation .
A big part of my inner dialogue is involved in trying to objectively understand why I feel, think, and behave as I do. Once the "why" is honestly (!!!!) determined, everything else falls into place. Once I understand myself better, I can then use those skills in interacting with others. I don't believe in Absolutes as Helmuth does.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

I don't believe in Absolutes as Helmuth does.

Yes, I am a very strong believer in the law of causality. If you are not, then... well then there is no "then"! Not for you, anyway. No "if" either. No anything, actually. No Cosmos. Only Chaos.

 

[otherone]

No anything, actually. No Cosmos. Only Chaos.

I would never make such an affirmative claim.

 

[Xerographica]

Yes, I am a very strong believer in the law of causality. If you are not, then... well then there is no "then"! Not for you, anyway. No "if" either. No anything, actually. No Cosmos. Only Chaos.

Speaking of causality vs chaos...can you do me a favor and reply to these two brief critiques of pragmatarianism?

1. Someone's critique of pragmatarianism
2. JeffLV's critique of pragamtarianism

 

[otherone]

Speaking of causality vs chaos...can you do me a favor and reply to these two brief critiques of pragmatarianism?

 

[Xerographica]

otherone, LOL, we couldn't ask for a more perfect example of somebody whose emotional response blocks their rational response. Maybe I'm wrong though! Here's a simple test. Can you tell me if those two critiques of pragmatarianism are equally applicable to anarcho-capitalism?

 

[Cabal]

Troll.

 

[Xerographica]

Troll.

How am I a troll? I asked helmuth_hubener to give me a hand combating the myth of command economies. Is it worth it for him to give me a hand? How could I possibly know that without asking him? How could I possibly know what he would have to give up in order to help me explain how resources are efficiently allocated?

Murray Rothbard...the guy in your signature block...was a big fan of Turgot. Here's what Turgot had to say about the subject...

There is no need to prove that each individual is the only competent judge of this most advantageous use of his lands and of his labor. He alone has the particular knowledge without which the most enlightened man could only argue blindly. He alone has an experience which is all the more reliable since it is limited to a single object. He learns by repeated trials, by his successes, by his losses, and he acquires a feeling for it which is much more ingenious than the theoretical knowledge of the indifferent observer because it is stimulated by want. - Turgot, The Turgot Collection

 

[robert68]

I believe you are missing a key (if not the key ) component in self-awareness....motivation .
A big part of my inner dialogue is involved in trying to objectively understand why I feel, think, and behave as I do. Once the "why" is honestly (!!!!) determined, everything else falls into place. Once I understand myself better, I can then use those skills in interacting with others. I don't believe in Absolutes as Helmuth does.

Are you sure? If so, then you believe in an absolute.