Basic Human Rights

How should society be organised, if at all?

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RCSaunders
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Re: Basic Human Rights

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Immanuel Can wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 6:39 pm Well, for something to be "rational," all that has to happen is a proper connection between means and ends. What those ends are, or should be, rationality never tells you.
That may be what your view of being rational is, it is not mine, nor that of any truly rational individual.

Being rational means guiding every aspect of one's life by means of reason, not just when it's convenient to justify some immediate whim. It means everything one chooses to think, believe, and do must be based on their best possible reason from all available evidence without any evasion of fact and not allowing any feeling, desire, or sentiment to interfere or obscure that reasoning. That of course includes determining what one's ends, purposes, and goals are.

For the rational individual, the ultimate end or goal is one's own life and one's enjoyment of it, which is only possible by being fully the kind of being one is: a volitional being who must consciously choose all one does, an intellectual being for whom knowledge is an essential of life (like food, water, and air), and a rational being who must us knowledge to reason and make all one's choices. Since nothing is given and everything must be earned, the rational individual's practical goal is to learn all he possibly can, to use the best reason he possibly can, and work to achieve all he possibly can to be the best possible human being he can possibly be. It is a very difficult, demanding, often painful and frustrating life, but no other is so rewarding or can provide the kind of joy and fulfillment the rational individual lives for.
Immanuel Can wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 6:39 pm It's not "irrational" to want to be the Tyrant of Russia.
That certainly fits your other superstitions, I suppose.
It is irrational to want to be the tyrant of anything, a short-sighted ignorant childish fairy tale desire. I have no idea of how to reason with someone who believes whim and reason are equivalent.
Immanuel Can wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 6:39 pm Reason only supplies the connection between what you want and how to get there.
If that is all your reason is capable of, why bother? If your reason is incapable of figuring out what human nature is and what is required for that kind of being to live successfully as a human being and therefore what is good for him and what is not, what he should want and what he should not, then it is not worth bothering with.
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Re: Basic Human Rights

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Immanuel Can wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 7:00 pm But it's not at all apparent that reasons can help you if your first premise is, "The universe is a product of time plus chance."
Of course, but that's not my premise. Why bring it up?
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Re: Basic Human Rights

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henry quirk wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 7:09 pm You really believe the desire for, or pursuit of, evil can be rational?

If man is just a smart ape then I got no reason to believe otherwise.

If man is just a smart ape, ...
Are you an evolutionist? If not, why are you going on about this stuff?

Did you think I was an evolutionist? How many time do I need to say I'm not.

Here's what I just wrote to IC:
I do not hold any ideology and reject all, "-isms," which includes all political/social ideologies, all religious ideologies, and all pseudo-sciences like psychology, sociology, evolution, and cosmology. That does not mean I regard everything they say is untrue, even a blind pig finds an acorn sometimes. It means, as, "systematic explanations of reality," they all teach what is not true, (and most of those wrong teachings are very dangerous).
I just can't believe you believe the kinds of evil you described (or any evil) can be rationally chosen or justified.

I don't know what you think rational means, but no kind of correct reason could possibly produce evil by my understanding of rational, since, to me, irrational is whatever contradicts or evades correct reason and all evil is irrational.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Basic Human Rights

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RCSaunders wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 7:25 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 6:39 pm Well, for something to be "rational," all that has to happen is a proper connection between means and ends. What those ends are, or should be, rationality never tells you.
That may be what your view of being rational is, it is not mine, nor that of any truly rational individual.
Actually, it is.
Being rational means guiding every aspect of one's life by means of reason,

Reason has no particular opinions. It's a process, not any particular conclusion. It's like maths: maths does not tell you which equations you're allowed to do; but once you select one, it has rules for how you can treat it and still arrive at a mathematically correct conclusion.
For the rational individual, the ultimate end or goal is one's own life and one's enjoyment of it,
Well, that's pretty evidently not so. "One's enjoyment"? What interest has reason in one's "enjoying" things? "Reason" doesn't care about your pleasures or lack thereof.
Immanuel Can wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 6:39 pm Reason only supplies the connection between what you want and how to get there.
If that is all your reason is capable of, why bother?
That's all "reason" qua reason, is capable of. It's not "my reason," anymore than it's "my maths."

But please, if you consider, say, dictatorship "irrational," explain why it is not possible for a "rational" individual to choose it.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Basic Human Rights

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RCSaunders wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 7:35 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 7:00 pm But it's not at all apparent that reasons can help you if your first premise is, "The universe is a product of time plus chance."
Of course, but that's not my premise. Why bring it up?
What DO you believe? You don't say.

Instead, you say what you DON'T believe. (i.e. in any isms but skepticism). And you think "reason" is a set of propositions, apparently. You don't seem to realize it's a process instead of an ideology, and that different "reasoners" use actual reason to arrive at vastly different conclusions.

But that is clearly the case. You and I are both "reasoning" men...but we do not arrive at the same conclusions, because we don't have the same premises.

So tell me your first premises, and I'll know if you're being "reasonable" or not.
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Re: Basic Human Rights

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Immanuel Can wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 8:00 pm
Being rational means guiding every aspect of one's life by means of reason,

Reason has no particular opinions.
A flashlight has no opinions either. Do you therefore refuse to use one in the dark.

Reason is method of identifying the relationships between things in order to reach a conclusion. There is no other way to reach conclusions. "Maths," is just one specialized branch of rational methods, along with language and logic, by which all human reasoning is done and all knowledge is held.
Immanuel Can wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 8:00 pm
For the rational individual, the ultimate end or goal is one's own life and one's enjoyment of it,
Well, that's pretty evidently not so. "One's enjoyment"? What interest has reason in one's "enjoying" things? "Reason" doesn't care about your pleasures or lack thereof.
Duh! Reason is the method by which an individual makes right choices in all they think and do to achieve a life that can be fully enjoyed. "What interest does eating have in one's enjoying things? Well, none, but one won't enjoy much if they don't eat, and they won't enjoy anything if they don't think.
Immanuel Can wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 6:39 pm But please, if you consider, say, dictatorship "irrational," explain why it is not possible for a "rational" individual to choose it.
I already have, but if your question is sincere, it's because a rational individual cannot be a meddler in anyone else's affairs, much less a dictator in them as explained in, "Controllers, Meddlers and Individualists."

I don't think you'll understand it, but I'll quote this much:
It is because the free individual has no desire or interest in interfering or controlling anyone else, no need to be, "understood," or "appreciated," by others, and no requirement for their empathy, sympathy, or compassion that the individualist's relationships with others places no demand or expectations on them beyond mutually enjoying each other in normal human intercourse.
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Re: Basic Human Rights

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Are you an evolutionist? If not, why are you going on about this stuff?

Doesn't matter what I am: there are loads of folks who think you're just a smart ape and that it's perfectly acceptable, rational even, to treat you as meat.


I just can't believe you believe the kinds of evil you described (or any evil) can be rationally chosen or justified.

I don't. I think you're sumthin' more than meat, sumthin' more than a smart ape.

Others do believe it.


None of this...

For the rational individual, the ultimate end or goal is one's own life and one's enjoyment of it, which is only possible by being fully the kind of being one is: a volitional being who must consciously choose all one does, an intellectual being for whom knowledge is an essential of life (like food, water, and air), and a rational being who must us knowledge to reason and make all one's choices. Since nothing is given and everything must be earned, the rational individual's practical goal is to learn all he possibly can, to use the best reason he possibly can, and work to achieve all he possibly can to be the best possible human being he can possibly be. It is a very difficult, demanding, often painful and frustrating life, but no other is so rewarding or can provide the kind of joy and fulfillment the rational individual lives for.

...or this...

the free individual has no desire or interest in interfering or controlling anyone else, no need to be, "understood," or "appreciated," by others, and no requirement for their empathy, sympathy, or compassion that the individualist's relationships with others places no demand or expectations on them beyond mutually enjoying each other in normal human intercourse.

...will save your ass when, as I say elsewhere, agents of the state, armed with auto-shotguns, are in your livin' room, at 3am.

You're a rational individual, sure; how many of the seven billion millin' around you are the same?

Hell, in this forum, I'm probably the one who aligns most closely with you, and I probably don't qualify as a rational individual as you reckon it.

Man's direction, over the long haul, is alway's toward a recognition of individual freedom and common liberty, and away from enslavement and tyranny, but that progress is halting, uneven, and suffers setbacks. The world is in such a setback right now.

Well, that's not my problem, Henry, you might say.

You'd be wrong if you did. Whether you believe them rational or not, the tyrannt, the slaver, the murderer, the rapist, the thief, he believes he is, or he just plain doesn't give a shit if he is or not, or if you think he is or not.
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RCSaunders
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Re: Basic Human Rights

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Immanuel Can wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 8:04 pm
RCSaunders wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 7:35 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 7:00 pm But it's not at all apparent that reasons can help you if your first premise is, "The universe is a product of time plus chance."
Of course, but that's not my premise. Why bring it up?
What DO you believe? You don't say.

Instead, you say what you DON'T believe. (i.e. in any isms but skepticism). And you think "reason" is a set of propositions, apparently. You don't seem to realize it's a process instead of an ideology, and that different "reasoners" use actual reason to arrive at vastly different conclusions.

But that is clearly the case. You and I are both "reasoning" men...but we do not arrive at the same conclusions, because we don't have the same premises.

So tell me your first premises, and I'll know if you're being "reasonable" or not.
Oh, I've answered all these questions many times, but you either forget or intentionally evade recalling them. I don't believe you are sincere. If your really want to know what my premises are (which I very much doubt) I'll provide you links that document exactly what I believe. I am certainly not a skeptic for example because, unlike you, I believe in certain knowledge.

I do not have a, "first premise." I do not even know what that would mean--the first premise I ever thought of? a single premise on which I base everything else I know? (there is no such thing), a fundamental premise of logic (reason)? of ontology (material existence)? of metaphysics (existence itself)? Which, if any, would be a, "first," premise?

There are some fundamental principles that are axiomatic--that is, things which denied are self-contradictory, like, "existence is," and, "A is A," (ontology) and, A cannot be non-A (logic based on ontology) and every existent must be different in some way from every other existent (ontology, mathematics). I do not believe there is a single, "first," premise of everything else. The very idea is itself a superstition.

I somewhat resent questions like these (only intellectually, they arouse no feeling) because they are similar to all those false dichotomies people like to attack reason with, like. "are you an evolutionist or a creationist?" Since I'm neither, if I say so, I'm asked, "how did life come to be then?" as if I had to accept one of those false alternative if I didn't come up with my own explanation. I don't have or want such an explanation and think those who cannot be psychologically comfortable without one have some kind of psychological defect. I do not understand this apparent need by some for an ultimate answer for everything, a single premise on which everything can ultimately be explained. It's a disease and it is responsible for the worst ideologies in history.
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Re: Basic Human Rights

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henry quirk wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 9:05 pm Are you an evolutionist? If not, why are you going on about this stuff?

Doesn't matter what I am:
If you say so.
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Re: Basic Human Rights

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RCSaunders wrote: Sat May 15, 2021 1:04 am
henry quirk wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 9:05 pm Are you an evolutionist? If not, why are you going on about this stuff?

Doesn't matter what I am:
If you say so.
The important stuff (you know, the substance) came after the colon.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Basic Human Rights

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RCSaunders wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 8:47 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 8:00 pm
Being rational means guiding every aspect of one's life by means of reason,

Reason has no particular opinions.
A flashlight has no opinions either. Do you therefore refuse to use one in the dark.
I don't "refuse to use" reason. I believe in reason. I also believe in maths, and use maths. But I don't expect maths to tell me which equations I'm allowed and not allowed to do. And reason doesn't provide anybody with their first principles. It only helps them know what to do if they wish to act consistently and rationally with those principles.

Things are good when you use them for what they can actually do. But we mustn't suppose they can do for us things they just can't.
Reason is the method by which an individual makes right choices
No, reason is the means by which a person makes choices that rationalize with their suppositions and goals.
It is because the free individual has no desire or interest in interfering or controlling anyone else, no need to be, "understood," or "appreciated," by others, and no requirement for their empathy, sympathy, or compassion that the individualist's relationships with others places no demand or expectations on them beyond mutually enjoying each other in normal human intercourse.
What absurd leap of logic would convince you no "free individual" could possibly have a "desire or interest" in that? It must be patently obvious that if Stalin were "free," he'd still want to be a tyrant. And a "free" narcissist is still a narcissist. A "free" psychopath isn't even a good thing...and still a psychopath.

I think you're just rhapsodizing utopian dreams. There is no such "free individual." Are you thinking that if you talk like that, somebody will believe you and thereby become one? :shock:
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Re: Basic Human Rights

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RCSaunders wrote: Sat May 15, 2021 12:58 am I do not have a, "first premise."
Yeah, you do. You may not be conscious of what it is, but everybody has them.
I do not even know what that would mean
It would mean a fundamental supposition from which you begin your reasoning. A "premise 1," if you will. For everybody, this is something basic and ontological. "God exists," is one. "God does not exist" is another. Another would be "All is one." And so on.
I do not believe there is a single, "first," premise of everything else.
You do have one. Everybody does. But you may not have any idea what it is...that's possible, because first premises tend to be believed so firmly that the holder imagines no reasonable person could believe anything else. So they can be invisible to the holder. Like the familiar items in our bedrooms, first principles can be "hidden in plain sight," and it can take one an effort to consider what one's first principles are.

But you've got them.

Something about disbelief is probably one. And the way you talk about "reason" suggests you don't know your own view of that is even capable of controversy, so that might be part of the package. And you'll have some belief about origins, because you talk about "right" decisions...and you must have some moral presuppositions as well. But we'll see.

Maybe you can take inventory and figure it out. Or maybe you'll choose to continue to believe that what RC thinks is just "reason," and everybody else must be crazy. That will be up to you.
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Re: Basic Human Rights

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henry quirk wrote: Sat May 15, 2021 1:14 am
RCSaunders wrote: Sat May 15, 2021 1:04 am
henry quirk wrote: Fri May 14, 2021 9:05 pm Are you an evolutionist? If not, why are you going on about this stuff?

Doesn't matter what I am:
If you say so.
The important stuff (you know, the substance) came after the colon.
Well if what you are doesn't matter, I assumed what you had to say didn't matter either.

Actually what you said was irrelevant to my discussion with IC, which only concerned why a rational individual could never be a threat to others without the need for any concept of rights, not about how a rational individual defended himself against the irrational fools you described as a threat to an individual's freedom.

Only a rational individual will successfully defend himself against, "the tyrannt, the slaver, the murderer, the rapist, the thief," because he knows such are irrational, no matter what they think they are, and the irrational are always functionally disadvantaged.

If you examine what you wrote it looks for all the world as though you are saying being rational will not save you from those intending to do you harm. There may be situations in which nothing will protect from such evil, but I can assure, if you cannot use your reason to find a way to protect yourself, being irrational certainly won't protect you.

I'll let Bob Heinlein have the last word: Don't think. "When in worry or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout!" That will solve everything, especially if it's an "OMG, we're all going to die," situation most people spend their lives worrying about.
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Re: Basic Human Rights

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Actually what you said was irrelevant to my discussion with IC

Okeedoke.
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Re: Basic Human Rights

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Immanuel Can wrote: Sat May 15, 2021 1:38 am
RCSaunders wrote: Sat May 15, 2021 12:58 am I do not have a, "first premise."
Yeah, you do. You may not be conscious of what it is, but everybody has them.
Why do you ask someone what they think, if you have no intention of accepting what they think. It is not possible to have an idea and not be conscious of it.
That whole thing smacks of Freudian pschobable. There is no such thing as the, "subconscious," or, as Anna, put it, the, "unconscious."
I do not even know what that would mean
It would mean a fundamental supposition from which you begin your reasoning. A "premise 1," if you will. For everybody, this is something basic and ontological. "God exists," is one. "God does not exist" is another. Another would be "All is one." And so on.[/quote]
All reasoning? There can be no single supposition for all reasoning. Reasoning is just a method which deals with different things we are conscious of. And no right reasoning begins with, "supposition." Most reasoning begins with a question. Your confusing reason with, "logic," which is a specific rational method. Logic requires a premise, but not one that is just supposed, unless it is hypothetical reasoning. Only some reason requires logic, or mathematics, or any other specialized branch of reason.
Immanuel Can wrote: Sat May 15, 2021 1:38 am
I do not believe there is a single, "first," premise of everything else.
You do have one. Everybody does. But you may not have any idea what it is...
That's nonsense, but even if that psychobable could be true, if there is something in my mind I can never be conscious of, it is all the same as it would be if it weren't there. If I'm not conscious of it, I'm certainly never going to ever consciously consider it, am I. I cannot think about what I cannot be conscious of. The idea is idiotic nonsense.
Last edited by RCSaunders on Sat May 15, 2021 11:15 am, edited 1 time in total.
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