Karl

Yes 'what should I do ?' (The third in the trilogy) already implicitly contains that decision. Yes it's a black box judgement to some extent, but only as far as you are already alive and conscious of your existence before you can begin to ask that question. Existence and cosciousness are axiomatic corollaries that cannot be subdivided or investigated further. You do not remember making the decision 'life' because you never made it. However, everyday you must seek to sustain your life, or not. Now you are making a judgement minute to minute in order to sustain your existence. So, now you reached the third question-what should I do ? However, you haven't asked the first two (this is your current black box) and that's 'where am I' ? And how do I know it ? Instead you rushed onto the third without knowing the other two. You never thought to ask. So, if you don't know the previous questions then what makes you certain that you can correctly answer the third ? The answer is that you can't. This isn't vital if one just bobs along with life following the flow as they see it. This is one approach which is valid for many. However you are not one of the many. You ask philosophical questions, you attempt to find a philosophy that works (the Dao). This is not irrational seeking, it is a genuine striving to know reality, to know something, to derive wisdom. It isn't your intention to remain ignorant, you have a thirst and a drive to seek something. Until you find a solid foundation of knowing where you are and how you can know it, then all your knowledge will be fog, other men's knowledge which you have adhered to blindly.

Why is it predestined ? A man is an operator, a causality in himself if you like. Man is a volitional actor. We can choose between man made and not man made. He throws the dice and chooses to throw it, but cannot determine its position and must guess-he does not guess 7 or -1 as these are not represented on the faces of the dice. Non mand made Causality might well be considered predetermined, but of a complexity that it denies man the tools to determine it precisely, but we can have possibility, probability and certainty. And that was a very good question if you take it as not being condescending. It gave me a bit of a laugh at how easily my reply could be misinterpreted as determinism and thus how difficult it is to write precisely-particularly for me as I'm big picture and not detailed, so good forcing :-)

First he has violated your rights to freedom by stealing your food. The constitution is about selfishness. Every man obeying the same constitution. Every man equal before the law. You can make the judgement call as I said. You don't automatically have to send the man to prison. The point of being human is not to have a machine mentality, but to apply empathy, mercy, understanding, kindness, compassion where we think it warranted. This is to make a judgement. However, the facts remain. If you had one chicken to feed your family and someone stole that chicken, then your family would starve. So, is it now right for you to steal a chicken ? Is it then fine for everyone to steal everyone's chickens ? Now, maybe you see where we end up-zero property rights, zero freedom to sustain life, zero pursuit of happiness-if we are all going to deem it acceptable to steal because of our need, then we deny everyone of a right to life. It is as if we had simply murdered the man we stole the chicken from and hence a society built on murder is obviously anti-life. Something is good which sustains, benefits and improves life and something is evil which denies, destroys or is not a benefit -theft is not a benefit.

:-) Value judgements, correct. How ? By whim, by throw of the dice, by someone who tells you he heard Gods voice. Your first choice that you make is 'should I live or die' ? You are alive, you made that choice. On what grounds do you continue to choose to live ? Then we get to value judgements.

That's beneath you Brian. I shall first explain why: you firmly believe in the rights of life, freedom, property and the pursuit of happiness. Stealing chickens contravenes all of those rights which you support. Either you do or don't support these rights. Secondly: it's a circumstantial ad hominem. I do not need to be a parent to understand that I hold a value, but I also know that it isn't right to deny one person a chicken to feed their child in order that I feed my own. The distinguishing difference is property ownership. Of course someone will say 'but he has plenty of chickens so surely it doesn't matter'. Which, as you well know, is exactly the argument employed by socialists in order to take from those who have produced and give to those who haven't produced. This is something you have always objected to. Now you have yourself in conflict with your views, you suddenly turned into a moral relativist and that compromise -that need/wishes/whims count for greater than objective reason do find you wanting. Dont you think that conflict requires resolution ? With the greatest of respect.

It woukd make sense for her to have a medical facility cunningly disguised as just a private family dwelling. Indeed it's almost inevitable that this is precisely what it is.

Well now you are talking about something slightly different: possibility, probability and certainty. However these things aren't grey, they do not 'manifest', they already are, or they are not. It is possible that we will be invaded by aliens tommorrow morning, but it is not probable, it is nowhere close to a certainty. This doesn't mean that aliens capable and willing to invade us do not already exist-that woukd be a certainty if they did. We aren't omniscient so we must deduce and induce in order to arrive at possibilities, probabilities and certainties. If we throw a dice we can know the probability and bet on it, but we can't be sure of winning. This isn't a grey area. The dice, the air, the table, the man who throws all have an exact nature and that dice will land as a result of all natures acting. There is no doubt about which way the dice will land according to the nature of causality, but as humans we are incapable of determining this, the best we do is guess a number from 1 to 6.

The starving man is evil. He should have begged for a chicken, or offered to work for that chicken. This is what honest men do, they do not steal. Of course the chicken owner may well be lenient and apply mercy to the thief, he may recognise that a mistake has been made and that the man will learn from his mistake- but this falls on the victim to decide what is just. The facts of the case are simple enough, a thief is evil. People obviously do have children in error, but that does not necessarily mean that no common values are ascribed. A mother, or father has the job of feeding and caring for infants the are tabula rasa. In other words children are truly innocent and lack complex values except for the need of food, protection and shelter. A parent isn't threatened by a child, but they might be threatened by the need to care for a child.

It isn't an uncomfortable question, I am uncomfortable entering into a discussion with you. It is a rock meeting a hard place and I know already where you will go and nothing you will say to me, nor I to you, will drive it on one bit. You firmly hold to your view as I do to mine and the result of the interaction is a car crash. The argument moves into ad hominems from which we both derive nothing valuable. I can ask you about physics and I don't feel pressured in the least. I can be Mr dumb because I'm trying to understand and learn, but philosophically I am not.

We can think they are gone.

Thank you, but no. :-) I won't be tempted. I enjoy our joint enterprise in other areas and dislike the arguments that spring from these kind of questions.

Only in respect of our conceptions. We can make a law which is bad through error, but we can't avoid the reality of the error. We can think that our vehicle can go around a turn at 60mph, but have ignored the road conditions, the mechanical condition of the vehicle, our skill, the severity of the turn, or an unpleasant surprise waiting around the turn. However reality is not grey. There is only so much traction- the laws of physics give us those. The laws of physics apply to the vehicle mechanical condition as does causality. We can over estimate our skill, but we cannot improve our skill simply by thinking we are more skilful. The severity of the turn does not change by thoughts of it being such, it is what it is. A trailer parked on the turn is there whether we wish it or not. If we crash, then we crash, if we do not then we do not. There is no half crashing, nor any half getting around the turn. It is what it is and there are no greys.

Of course, you lived in a family in which you had to live by the rules (parents values) because a child cannot easily survive until they are several years old at least. We adopt philosophies and to a large degree these philosophies determine our values. It is interesting to note that these values do not necessarily agree with reality, they might also be in direct conflict with other values that we hold but we manage to bury both kinds of contradiction under logical fallacies, evasions and foggy definitions. If we do not realise there are moral absolutes then we cannot begin to know what we should. If we believe existence is a manifestation of consciousness-that whims and wishes are more powerful than reason and logic, then we are morally adrift. This is why I continually refer to the 3 questions. No one has yet fully answered them, though some have attempted to they are unaware of the magnitude of the task, or perhaps they are aware but it suits them not to discover the truth. It is easier to evade, to create fluidity than to see the stark, unremitting beauty of reality. Others don't know that they don't know, they remain passively ignorant because they haven't thought to ask-some never will, they just get on pulling water out of the well and chopping firewood. It is only those that are capable of higher abstractions that begin to ask the questions that some others have never doubted.

Reality is reality, to say it's black and white would be to question existence.

:-) I know, but you do write 'notes to self' so I thought it might be a timely reminder in the heat of a discussion.

Reality is reality. What you directly perceive is reality. What you conceive may also be reality, but it is more error prone, hence the need for logic and reason. A dog does not question reality because it is only perceptually conscious, it cannot conceive all the possible numbers of bones, balls and dogs in the world. It sees what it sees and that's all it sees. It can make errors of perception, but these are because it cannot conceptualise, just as a fish will take a bated hook, or a dog will attack it's reflection in a mirror, but it is not capable of conceptual error.

:-) just as an aide memoir here Brian, for the sake of the solid ground on which we most definitely agree, please don't begin asking those kind of questions to me ;-) as mentioned last time, when we get to this X-over we will start a war and I've decided diplomacy is the saner approach.

Existence exists and consciousness is what we use to grasp existence. I argue that there is no subjectivity, we believe what we believe and that is an objective truth, even if that belief is in error it is true that we believe that error. An objective, concrete and absolute reality exists regardless of our ability to grasp it. It does not matter if consciousness were to cease, because existence would remain even without anything to be conscious of it. I don't like the term 'static' in terms of existence. Things are certainly not static, causality is a feature of existence, but should not be regarded as preventing consciousness grasping existence. This causality is due to everything possessing a nature which react and interacts with every other thing. These natures are the identity of entities. There are many parts making up an entity and human conception is to categorise the parts. Though our eyes cannot directly perceive the precise nature of the swirling, vibrating particles within a rock, never the less we still see them as a rock. We can conceptualise up down and side wards. The rock, to dust, down to its atomic level ingredients, or the rock to a mountain, moon or planet. We can conceptualise all the rocks there will ever be, all the planets and stars there will ever be right up to the conceptualisation of the universe. We cannot see the entire universe, neither all the swirling potentials in matter, but yet we perceive it all just by looking, by placing our awareness on rock, or universe we can perceive it all regardless of not being able to see to the end of the universe, or to those tiny particles. However our conception gives us sight beyond sight.

Do parents have children for fear of 'being alone' or, because they inevitably must share the values of their parents until old enough to differ ? In a tribal village these families are robust units with co-dependence due to these shared values. This is less so in modern societies because values can be pragmatic and the state is often substitute for a father, or parents. This is why we have so many single parent/no parent families. People have lost their way and pragmatism is winning. This is moral relativism practiced on a wide scale. Good and evil are no longer moral absolutes, but sliding doors of subjective whim. Everything is compromise, short termism, with little thought to the big moral picture. Instead of thinking logical and reasoning towards the long term, today it's whatever goes and if it doesn't quite work then try something else. Does anyone fear loneliness sufficiently that any kind of friendship, even one where no values whatsoever are shared ? Of course not-if we share zero values with another person they will represent a poor kind of friend or more likely a danger. In the near past I could not see it, subjectivism has been so well ingrained into our lives through state education, media, books and art that to question it is to appear square, narrow minded, taciturn, old fashioned, religious or even extremist. However, one the blinkers are removed be assured that the reality that one discovers (not rediscovers as today's living generations have not yet discovered it) is startling, bleak and frightening. Once the black and white nature of good and evil is seen as reality, then there is no going back. One cannot forget it, or evade it. To discover reality is to discover that we are already falling from a high place and are unaware of the precarious situation.

The good is anything that supports or improves life, evil is anything that does not. However, without a full philosophy you begin by trying to untie a knot in the middle. Does it support rights ? Life, freedom, property, pursuit of happiness ? If it breaks any one of those rights it is evil.

LoL pneumonia ! What a crock. My mothers had it twice so I know it's not that. You aren't up and walking about with pneumonia, it's like the worst flue. The most you can do is lift a head off a sweat soaked pillow. She has Parkinson's my wife's a nurse and has seen many patients with the disease. It's a best guess of course, but she was also very skeptical until she saw all the video evidence. And the Allergy cough thing. Well I used to get that, it's easily treated with a combination of asthma inhaler, nasal drip drops and anti-histamine tablets. However, you don't collapse, have seizures or any of those other symptoms. Her fall, subsequent brain damage due to concussion and six months to recover are enough evidence that there is likely permanent damage as a result of that fall, or that fall was a result of the opening stages of the disease and the fall compounded it. You aren't getting out and about for several weeks if you have pneumonia, all the excuse the campaign needs to hide Hillary away. It won't work, the alt press will rip it apart and so will Trump. She has to campaign now and hard, she has to go head to head against Trump, a frail old lady with Parkinson's isn't going to do it no matter how many green screen press conferences, drugs or things to try and keep her standing. She runs the risk of further seizures, falls and coughing fits. Damaged goods. That duck is shot.

I think this is likely the beginning of the end for her campaign. She isn't going to get away with saying it's hear exhaustion, it wasn't even particularly warm. It looks like Parkinson's according to the experts. The truth will have to emerge, she has two months left and the pressure will be unrelenting. Trump will capitalise on every no show and every blip. What's going to be more interesting is the aftermath of any revelation. Who knew and when ? If they didn't know then why ? In the aftermath of her coughing, seizures, memory loss and stumbling why wasn't something done ? The Democratic Party it's processes (after what they did to Bernie), vetting, integrity, truthfulness and reputation will be shot to bits. I don't know how recoverable that is ? It doesn't stop there either. What about the press ? They made no attempt to report anything other than whatever the PR campaign managers told them, yet clearly (if it comes out) there was an obvious problem which required reporting to the public. The MSN will have burned every scintilla of credibility in the process of effectively supporting an elitist cover up.

Where we flourished the most is where there was freedom and laws protecting inaliable rights for everyone equally. Love and tolerance don't build houses, create dams, build hospitals or put food on the plate. No one 'sacrifices' for their families unless they are mentally deficient. Families share the value of each other, that's the bond that hold them together, they do whatever they can to preserve the values that they love. That's what love is, a value/values held highest to the person holding them. There are bad families and good families. Until we know that they share our values then to judge all families as good would be a mistake.

Why would anyone do that, we already realise that black people and women have equal rights under the constitution. This isn't about reversing time. Just like we don't have to go back to Dickens the moment free markets are mentioned. This is typical of lefties, if someone objects to state education, then lefties imply that it means the objector is against education. It's poor argumentation.

It is, but for the sake of balance it should be stated that neither Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol pot or Mussolini could be bought. An ideologue can be just as dangerous as a corrupt leader, it all depends on the leader. Best that we don't depend on 'leaders' at all because it's dangerous to do so. A benevolent Tyrant is still a tyrant. Get your constitution back USA, for the sake of everyone on the planet.