The Mises Community
An online community for fans of Austrian economics and libertarianism, featuring forums, user blogs, and more.

Heya! More Gordon

rated by 0 users
This post has 92 Replies | 5 Followers

Top 10 Contributor
Male
Posts 3,043
Points 43,485

Alice:

vitalism is logically inconsistent.

this isn't about vitalism

this is about referring to life and a rock so now it's about reasoning, but if you can focus and intellectually apprehend life instead of jumping to reasoning (dividing and trying to make compositions of the two) between your introduction of a rock into the equation

"I used to see a mountain as a mountain.. Thereafter.. when I saw a mountain; lo! it was not a mountain.. yet now of final tranquillity: I see a mountain just as a mountain as I used to.." - Master Yuan; molon labe

  • | Post Points: 5
Top 500 Contributor
Female
Posts 38
Points 700
Alice replied on Tue, Aug 18 2009 7:07 PM

nirgrahamUK:

 

thankfully emergentism is not vitalism.

unfortunately emergentism is just as unworkable.  there is no logical coherence to the higher 'levels' of processes or objects, these themselves can only have influence and exist as the actual constituents, therefor their entire action and reaction is (in principle) entirely explicable in terms of their minimal constituent parts

"The first Accounts we have of Mankind are but so many Accounts of their Butcheries.
All Empires have been cemented in Blood..."

- Edmund Burke, A Vindication of Natural Society

  • | Post Points: 5
Top 25 Contributor
Male
Posts 1,174
Points 24,320
Moderator

Laughing Man:

laminustacitus:
No, we cannot absolutely know what are the ends that other strive after for such knowledge is limited to their own thoughts, and whatever they say about the ends they strive after may very well be a lie.

Their means work to illuminate their ends such as thus:If my end is supposedly non-violence, my means would not be the murdering of all life.

The means still do not inform us of what ends a man stives after.

 

Laughing Man:

laminustacitus:
When a man is without uneasiness that does not mean that he is happy, he may very well be unhappy in such a scenario, but we cannot know for sure for man is always with uneasiness, and individuals may respond differently. The two cannot be equivocated.

Man is certainly more happy then they once were before the action which is why  the action was conducted in the first place.

Just because as action is fulfilled does not mean an individual is more satisfied with the state of affairs afterwards than before for man can be mistaken as to what actions he should take.

 

Laughing Man:

State A --- Action --- State B

State B is a reduced uneasiness [ a state more satisifactory then State A ]

State B is ideally reduced uneasiness, but it often is not.

 

 

I am becoming a Burkean Whig.

          - F.A. Hayek

  • | Post Points: 35
Top 10 Contributor
Posts 4,109
Points 66,090
Moderator

Im not sure what lam is trying to teach us? is there a book he thinks we should read for background?

Where there is no property there is no justice; a proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid

Fools! not to see that what they madly desire would be a calamity to them as no hands but their own could bring

  • | Post Points: 5
Top 10 Contributor
Male
Posts 2,802
Points 49,845
Moderator

laminustacitus:

The means still do not inform us of what ends a man stives after.

Yet they give indication, supplement that with the exclamation of the ends.

laminustacitus:

Just because as action is fulfilled does not mean an individual is more satisfied with the state of affairs afterwards than before for man can be mistaken as to what actions he should take.

Yes it does or else why act? We act because we perceive it to bring a better state, even if our act fails we are still sustained with the bettering of knowledge concerning the action at hand. You look at this as a 'If I don't achieve everything then I have gained nothing' that is simply not the case.

 

'It is difficult to imagine any normal person wishing to meet Marx for a third time.' - Alexander Gray, The Socialist Tradition

  • | Post Points: 35
Top 10 Contributor
Male
Posts 4,247
Points 65,050
ForumsAdministrator
Moderator
SystemAdministrator

It's amazing how much this topic diverged from the OP.

To darkness I condemn you...

  • | Post Points: 35
Top 10 Contributor
Male
Posts 2,802
Points 49,845
Moderator

Jon Irenicus:

It's amazing how much this topic diverged from the OP.

I think it is a rather intelligent discussion.

'It is difficult to imagine any normal person wishing to meet Marx for a third time.' - Alexander Gray, The Socialist Tradition

  • | Post Points: 5
Top 100 Contributor
Male
Posts 294
Points 4,990

Jon Irenicus:
It's amazing how much this topic diverged from the OP.

I have defiled this thread with my idealism :)

  • | Post Points: 5
Top 25 Contributor
Male
Posts 1,174
Points 24,320
Moderator

Laughing Man:

laminustacitus:

The means still do not inform us of what ends a man stives after.

Yet they give indication, supplement that with the exclamation of the ends.

We still are left with no absolute knowledge, and that is undeniable.

 

Laughing Man:

laminustacitus:

Just because as action is fulfilled does not mean an individual is more satisfied with the state of affairs afterwards than before for man can be mistaken as to what actions he should take.

Yes it does or else why act? We act because we perceive it to bring a better state, even if our act fails we are still sustained with the bettering of knowledge concerning the action at hand. You look at this as a 'If I don't achieve everything then I have gained nothing' that is simply not the case.

Action does not always bring a better state, and we do not always better our knowledge concerning the action at hand when we do an action for there is absolutely no absolute correlation between doing an action, and learning more about the situation for we could just be faced with knowledge we already know.

I am becoming a Burkean Whig.

          - F.A. Hayek

  • | Post Points: 20
Top 10 Contributor
Male
Posts 2,802
Points 49,845
Moderator

laminustacitus:
We still are left with no absolute knowledge, and that is undeniable.

And yet again we are at the claim which I constantly say on these forums. Simply because we don't have absolute knowledge does not mean we cannot predict what is likely to occur or to be. If a meteor is screaming towards the planet, are we to just sit there and be unable to predict what will happen next?

laminustacitus:
Action does not always bring a better state, and we do not always better our knowledge concerning the action at hand when we do an action for there is absolutely no absolute correlation between doing an action,

Then why would we act if it didn't bring a better state? Are you trying to argue that action is not purposeful? And yes it does better our knowledge for even if we fail, we experience that which is wrong and are more easily deduce what the right course of action is. That is for all purposes a betterment of knowledge.

laminustacitus:
and learning more about the situation for we could just be faced with knowledge we already know.

If we are faced with knowledge we already know then we are more likely to know the outcome and therefore if we continue to act we greatly expect a purposeful outcome. To know what we already know from an action we previously committed and expect a different outcome every single time [derived from the same action ] is in fact the clinical definition of insanity.

'It is difficult to imagine any normal person wishing to meet Marx for a third time.' - Alexander Gray, The Socialist Tradition

  • | Post Points: 35
Top 75 Contributor
Posts 406
Points 7,880

wilderness:

laminustacitus:

Man is denied knowledge of what others strive for; ergo, there is no method by which we can discover the highest end that every individual strives for.

And yesterday you denied man can know anything... so you don't even know what you wrote is correct or not.

 

Don't be an ass. 

existence is elsewhere

  • | Post Points: 20
Top 10 Contributor
Male
Posts 3,043
Points 43,485

Wilmot of Rochester:

wilderness:

laminustacitus:

Man is denied knowledge of what others strive for; ergo, there is no method by which we can discover the highest end that every individual strives for.

And yesterday you denied man can know anything... so you don't even know what you wrote is correct or not.

Don't be an ass. 

I wasn't...lol  If you ever figure out what principle is let me know.

"I used to see a mountain as a mountain.. Thereafter.. when I saw a mountain; lo! it was not a mountain.. yet now of final tranquillity: I see a mountain just as a mountain as I used to.." - Master Yuan; molon labe

  • | Post Points: 5
Top 25 Contributor
Male
Posts 1,174
Points 24,320
Moderator

Laughing Man:

laminustacitus:
We still are left with no absolute knowledge, and that is undeniable.

And yet again we are at the claim which I constantly say on these forums. Simply because we don't have absolute knowledge does not mean we cannot predict what is likely to occur or to be.

You cannot claim that you know the ends which an individual strives after.

 

Laughing Man:
If a meteor is screaming towards the planet, are we to just sit there and be unable to predict what will happen next?

Meteors are not men.

 

Laughing Man:

laminustacitus:
Action does not always bring a better state, and we do not always better our knowledge concerning the action at hand when we do an action for there is absolutely no absolute correlation between doing an action,

Then why would we act if it didn't bring a better state? Are you trying to argue that action is not purposeful?

The fact that our actions do not always bring about the intended results is an economic fact.

I am becoming a Burkean Whig.

          - F.A. Hayek

  • | Post Points: 20
Top 75 Contributor
Posts 406
Points 7,880

wilderness:

Alice:

And your head makes an unsuitable foundation for a house.  Rocks aren't constructed properly for certain technical processes, it doesn't mean they operate by different fundamental principles.

sure they both are being - yet life is fundamentally different than a rock.  You can point out the rocks and life genus, but that doesn't mean rock and life do not exist in and of themselves.

Assuming Kant, I don't know if we can safely say that rocks are  fundamentally different than life. We can say that our observations of them tend to show it, but the fundamental seems inherently unknowable. 

existence is elsewhere

  • | Post Points: 20
Top 500 Contributor
Female
Posts 38
Points 700
Alice replied on Tue, Aug 18 2009 8:09 PM

Laughing Man:
If we are faced with knowledge we already know then we are more likely to know the outcome and therefore if we continue to act we greatly expect a purposeful outcome. To know what we already know from an action we previously committed and expect a different outcome every single time [derived from the same action ] is in fact the clinical definition of insanity.

Or one can simply commit frequent errors and fail to grasp particulars of a historical event.  And whether or not we do in fact learn something new (other than sheer experiential changes which may imply nothing in particular) is not a matter within the scope of praxeology, it only involves that men may form ideas, not that any given event actually causes them to form ideas.

"The first Accounts we have of Mankind are but so many Accounts of their Butcheries.
All Empires have been cemented in Blood..."

- Edmund Burke, A Vindication of Natural Society

  • | Post Points: 20
Top 10 Contributor
Male
Posts 3,043
Points 43,485

Wilmot of Rochester:

wilderness:

Alice:

And your head makes an unsuitable foundation for a house.  Rocks aren't constructed properly for certain technical processes, it doesn't mean they operate by different fundamental principles.

sure they both are being - yet life is fundamentally different than a rock.  You can point out the rocks and life genus, but that doesn't mean rock and life do not exist in and of themselves.

Assuming Kant,

Is it?  I don't know.  I only read one of his books years ago.

Wilmot of Rochester:

I don't know if we can safely say that rocks are  fundamentally different than life. We can say that our observations of them tend to show it, but the fundamental seems inherently unknowable.

That simply means no intellectual apprehension of this being a rock and this being life.

"I used to see a mountain as a mountain.. Thereafter.. when I saw a mountain; lo! it was not a mountain.. yet now of final tranquillity: I see a mountain just as a mountain as I used to.." - Master Yuan; molon labe

  • | Post Points: 20
Top 75 Contributor
Posts 406
Points 7,880

wilderness:

That simply means no intellectual apprehension of this being a rock and this being life.

What it means is that debates about existence are moot because we don't know anything outside of our own observations in the first place. It's kind of tautological, yet also very insightful.

existence is elsewhere

  • | Post Points: 20
Top 10 Contributor
Male
Posts 3,043
Points 43,485

Wilmot of Rochester:

wilderness:

That simply means no intellectual apprehension of this being a rock and this being life.

What it means is that debates about existence are moot because we don't know anything outside of our own observations in the first place. It's kind of tautological, yet also very insightful.

It's moot that a rock exists even though I observe that it exists.  whatever floats your boat

"I used to see a mountain as a mountain.. Thereafter.. when I saw a mountain; lo! it was not a mountain.. yet now of final tranquillity: I see a mountain just as a mountain as I used to.." - Master Yuan; molon labe

  • | Post Points: 20
Top 10 Contributor
Male
Posts 2,802
Points 49,845
Moderator

laminustacitus:
You cannot claim that you know the ends which an individual strives after.

By examining the means by which they act and asking 'What ends do you have?', yes...yes I can.

laminustacitus:
Meteors are not men.

Fine, if presented with their death, what is an individual more likely to do? Beg to live or plead to be killed?

laminustacitus:
The fact that our actions do not always bring about the intended results is an economic fact.

Yet we act purposefully in order to enhance ourselves. Again, you postulate then if we can't have everything then we have achieved nothing. If I walk to my deli to buy a sandwich and the deli is having a buy one get one sale then I get what I want and more. If the deli is closed that day, then I receive the knowledge that I cannot buy sandwiches that day and for the future know that.

'It is difficult to imagine any normal person wishing to meet Marx for a third time.' - Alexander Gray, The Socialist Tradition

  • | Post Points: 20
Top 10 Contributor
Male
Posts 2,802
Points 49,845
Moderator

Alice:
Or one can simply commit frequent errors and fail to grasp particulars of a historical event

One can fail to achieve the exact means but if one continually does the same exact means hoping to achieve a different end then before then one is insane, literally.

Alice:
And whether or not we do in fact learn something new (other than sheer experiential changes which may imply nothing in particular) is not a matter within the scope of praxeology, it only involves that men may form ideas, not that any given event actually causes them to form ideas.

It is implied with the means/end scheme by use of reason. It would be illogical to state that in failing to achieve an end through specific means that one has learned absolutely nothing. One certainly has and it will cause them to reevalulate which means are best suited for their end. That is all contained in the means/end scheme which is apart of praxeology.

'It is difficult to imagine any normal person wishing to meet Marx for a third time.' - Alexander Gray, The Socialist Tradition

  • | Post Points: 5
Page 4 of 5 (93 items) < Previous 1 2 3 4 5 Next > | RSS

Ludwig von Mises Institute | 518 West Magnolia Avenue | Auburn, Alabama 36832-4528

Phone: 334.321.2100 · Fax: 334.321.2119

contact@Mises.org | webmaster | AOL-IM MainMises

Mises.org sitemap