it depends on what you mean “done right”. what does being passionately angry at people achieve? isolation? pain? bitterness? productiveness? outspokenness? activism? what?
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a wild ozy appears wrote:
it depends on what you mean “done right”. what does being passionately angry at people achieve? isolation? pain? bitterness? productiveness? outspokenness? activism? what?
By done right I mean has it been a productive use of my time. As for what passion achieves, all of the above and more.
eternalstudent wrote:
How can it be wrong to be passionate about reason?
I don’t know how it could be wrong, but the world has started to confuse me. Why does it frown upon standing for truth by denouncing its advocates as intolerant or insensitive?
then it depends on how you use that passion. if you use passion to be hurtful and bitter, then i’d say that i pity you. but if you use that passion to be active and grow stronger, then i’d say that i admire you. it all depends on your choice.
a wild ozy appears wrote:
then it depends on how you use that passion. if you use passion to be hurtful and bitter, then i’d say that i pity you. but if you use that passion to be active and grow stronger, then i’d say that i admire you. it all depends on your choice.
That sounds reasonable :)
Well Verge, since we briefly touched upon philosophy in a previous post, I will bring some to the table here.
What really broadened my intellectual horizons was when I realized that there is actually no such thing as disembodied reason or an impartial spectator. There is no cold, pure, mathematical way to interpret the truth of the world.
The concept of pure reason or a rationality is one that arose from the enlightenment, but was also heavily challenged during that period. Foundationalist thinkers like Descartes believed we could sit in a room and work our way down, mentally, to the foundations of all thought and truth.
But then we have minds like Hume and Rousseau who tell us that no! Human’s don’t work like that, there is no be-all-and-end-all faculty for interpreting the world. Rationality doesn’t exist in a vaccumm it is tempered and filtered through emotion and passion.
This is all to say that: those dumb people in your life may have an excess of passion, or emotion and this may trump their faculty of reason, BUT do not be so quick to think that rationality can exist without these passions and emotions.
Thank you for taking the time :)
Even emotion and passion are parts of the whole truth, the rules of the universe. I quite understand what you are saying, I don’t see anymore how one can view passion and emotion as independent from reason, when they are tools of our survival and came to be because they were important to the survival of our race. Evolution, just another rule, brought us consciousness, therefore reason must coexist with passion and emotion. But I think that the human mind can interpret the truth of the world, if not in an entirely cold, pure, mathematical way. I’d argue that humans do work like that because our brains were created by the same laws that govern the universe and humans have been logical enough to recognize this. Physicists are unlocking the secrets of the world and universe as we speak.
You really did clear some things up for me, I appreciated your response. If I’ve missed any points, I’d be grateful for an explanation.
I think you need to try to, again try, to balance truthful facts and passion so that you can make sense of your own perspective. It also helps to be patient and educate those who have close minded perceptions. But, at the same time, I guess it’s also good to listen so that you can have a better understanding of other’s opinions.
andrew281 wrote:
I think you need to try to, again try, to balance truthful facts and passion so that you can make sense of your own perspective. It also helps to be patient and educate those who have close minded perceptions. But, at the same time, I guess it’s also good to listen so that you can have a better understanding of other’s opinions.
Thank you for your input :). I usually try very hard to understand everything.
truth is not something worth fighting for because one person will define truth differently from another. lives, property, security, etc. are what really matter, not some esoteric concept.
how do you prove the statement, “this is mine”? you can’t, thus the only resort is to force (i.e.: government). so truth is subjective, and not worth the time. it is an error to abstract mathematical descriptions of the universe to be the actual definitions of existence.
our science merely describes what we observe. if we cannot observe something, we cannot describe it. since we cannot in seriousness make the statement, “all things are observable”, we must conclude that science cannot explain all things. thus it is insufficient, and lacking.
if you’re just one of those atheists that go around arguing with christians you should stop, it’s silly to fight faith with logic because faith requires nothing more than itself, whereas reason requires the burden of proof.
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I mean truth as it pertains to things such as lives, property, and security. Right and wrong. I mean things as simple as it is wrong to kill or to destroy or steal another’s property. For the sake of my own welfare and the welfare of those I love where these things are concerned, I do believe that the truth is worth fighting for, it is absolutely worth taking time to educate others about it. What do you mean by saying truth isn’t worth fighting for because people define it differently? There is such a thing as reality! People with ideas that are completely ridiculous or unrealistic can hurt people, they can hurt me! At the risk of having an offended crab on my hands, I have to disagree with you.
Also, you said “how do you prove the statement, “this is mine”? you can’t, thus the only resort is to force (i.e.: government). so truth is subjective, and not worth the time.”
People come together to form society because being a part of it is beneficial to them, in societies, we create rules and government to help everybody to live together in peace. The fact that people formed things like police to punish wrong behavior completely goes against your argument that something like “this is mine” is subjective and not worth fighting for. Most people believe that their things are worth fighting for, and would even begin to argue that the truth was worth fighting for as long as others began taking their **** saying everything was subjective and they couldn’t say that anything really belonged to them. Not where I live where people earn money by providing a good or service that society finds useful, and are given money in return so that these people can buy things.
Also, I think the truths of the universe, the rules that define it, are worth searching for precisely because these rules extend to the way that life on earth is ruled. Why can’t existence be boiled down to math and science? I don’t need a supernatural explanation, I think that the ways that things really work are cool enough. Just because we lack information, doesn’t mean we have to fill the holes with magic. I don’t know whether I can convince you of this, but I am not an atheist who argues with people of faith. I don’t even answer them to the best of my ability when they ask why I believe what I do because I see no issues with the ideas that many religious people have. I find no faults with religions based on ideas like you shouldn’t hurt others, or steal their things, or be cruel. I try only to argue with people who have ideas (religious or not) that are dangerous.
sure there’s “truth” within a given society, but then you’re talking about agreed upon societal norms rather than truth.
for example: Argentina claims the Falklands belong to them while the U.K. says it’s theirs. What’s the truth? force of arms decided it last time. there is no truth in this case, only reality on the ground.
right and wrong are very subjective and vary from culture to culture. while almost all societies agree killing should not be done, they most certainly do not agree it is “right and wrong”. more like justified vs. unjustified.
pursuing truth is probably the wrong goal. maybe justice is what you’re thinking of, which is indeed something worth fighting for.
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Why should justice be a more worthy goal than truth? If nobody can agree upon truth, if it is subjective, then how would justice ever be achieved? Are you saying that serving society’s existing norms by carrying out justice against those that do not adhere to them is better than finding out whether those norms are reasonable? I think educating people about the best ideas to have in society, that would benefit all of the people within it, is a better idea than just serving norms that are old and not necessarily right, like throwing a pot heard in prison instead of legalizing it as well as educating people about its dangers.
I had to think hard this time :) You confused me with your difference between fact and societal norms, but I guess what I’m saying is that the two should have a lot more to do with each other.
justice involves our morals. claiming “killing is wrong” as a universal truth goes against everything we see in nature. but we can say that “we as a people agree that killing is wrong” we involve our morals and establish a code of conduct complete with punishments.
“educating people about the best ideas to have in society”
it’s simply not possible to make people believe one thing is truth and another is not. that’s actually a dangerous statement. what do you do when someone refuses to accept the state approved version of truth? again you have to resort to force.
but people can agree on what is just and unjust. and yes, some things are very clearly true and untrue. an apple is red. a car has four wheels. but when you come to questions of “should we execute murderers?” and “should we pay money to this group of aggrieved individuals?” there really isn’t a truth to be found.. only justice.
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Haha I finally get what you are saying about justice, just that some version of it is always there. But I think just because it is always doled out doesn’t mean it is right. I think you are not communicating very effectively or you are confused because how can you possibly say that justice is a worthy goal when you don’t believe in the things that establish that code which decides what justice is. You say our justice serves our morals, and it is worthy, when you think that morals are subjective and unworthy somehow? I say that morals reflect our truths and need to be adjusted time to time as we learn more about reality, and by educate, I mean just that, educate, not brainwash.
Okay, so the place where we diverge is that you believe truth and morality are subjective and I do not. I think that you can start with the most obvious facts and work your way up. I think that this is what got humanity where it is today. What do you mean it is impossible to make people believe one thing is truth and another is not? Thats usually the way it works, people don’t usually believe two completely opposite things at once like it is raining and not raining. You can’t force, but you can ask them to use their brains.
people sure can believe opposites: certain muslim societies don’t believe women should be educated. the amish don’t believe in the use of technology. some people believe in UFO’s. etc.
i dunno. i guess i believe truth to be something different from morality. it’s a moral judgement that hurting someone is wrong, but to elevate one’s own belief to the level of truth is to profess religion.
certain scientific statements are borne out by physical evidence. planets orbit in paths we can model with mathematics. chemicals react in predictable ways. but these things have nothing to do with human behavior.
for people, there is really only morality and justice, which they fashion into laws and societal norms (”don’t walk around naked”). truth is just one person attempting to say their belief system is superior to another persons.
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Sure different people believe opposing things. That isn’t what I meant, I meant one person can not believe two opposing things that they acknowledge to be contradictory to each other. If they are confronted with undeniable facts , they often reform their views to fit the facts. A good reason to believe things is because you think there is truth to them. This is a good thing. You say truth is different from morality and I say again that morality should serve truth in order to benefit everyone.
These rules do have to do with human behavior, humans are a part of nature, they behave rationally.
Yes truth is saying that, but it is saying that because their ideas about the world have been backed up by their observations.
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