/lit/ - Literature

>>18679311
Rousseau view of the world implies objective morality. Obviously, there is no such thing.

>>18679311
Hobbes and I'll kill you if you say otherwise.

>>18679317

On the contrary, and as God obviously demonstrably exists, charade you are. You mistake small happenings on the ground for arbitrariness, Truth.

>>18679311
Bellum omnium contra omnes

Used that in my book from 2013:

https://www.amazon.ca/City-Singles-Jason-Bryan-ebook/dp/B00BDYI9D2

*fights everyone ITT*

>>18679327
I do not see how the existence of god bears any relevance to the existence of an objective morality.

>>18679339

All right, wow. In fact, I'm an atheist myself and I made the above post for a bit of fun. But if you can't see the concept that you just wrote then you're a straight-up idiot.

>>18679339
The spirit world is a constant battle, Earth is a neutral ground and we are all dancing to the spirits pulling at our minds at all times.

Where does creativity come from? The spirit, or higher-consciousness world, of course.

>>18679351
Explain to this straight up idiot, and all the other idiots in this thread, why the existence of god automatically leads to the existence of an objective morality.

Man is born corrupt and society corrupts him further

>>18679357
>>>/x/

>>18679317
No it doesn't.

>>18679311
Evil is much better than whatever slaves think is "good" .

>>18679311
Personally, I side with Calvin. Peeing on the truck logo is very funny.

>>18679311
https://ourworldindata.org/ethnographic-and-archaeological-evidence-on-violent-deaths

tl;dr, primitive societies were on average far more violent, Hobbes is closer to the truth than Rousseau

>>18679311
You don't look to outdated demagogues to find truth, but Hobbes is the abomination of the two, as he originates the every man as an atom myth when it's obvious to anyone who didn't spend their life as a shut-in incel NEET that people are first and foremost social
>>18679317
>>18679327
And morality is based on sociability, which is why it has ever been a mystery to shut-in autistic "philosophers"
>God obviously demonstrably exists
Fuck off with your dribble

>>18679311
Evil is much better than whatever slaves think is "good" .

>>18679369
No, this is totally a part of creativity and writing.

Our minds are antennas.

Seriously! Where do you think your creativity and CONSCIOUS thought comes from?
>be me
>read this multiple times
>do DMT
>do mushrooms
>do e
>do tons of drugs over years and probe the limits of my consciousness

Spirituality and other levels of consciousness are directly responsible for writing original works of art. This is NOT /x/ material.

>>18679311
mostly hobbes as only the genetically fit end up surviving and perhaps enslaving the weak to serve the purpose or will of the superior.

>>18679369
Umm sweetie it's called the ungrund.

>>18679384
All of the goodness, beauty, and innocence in this world that still and ALWAYS will exist are proof that this is not hell, it is simply a spiritual battleground.

>>18679388
Your schizo babble is /x/
This whole thread belongs on /his/ not /lit/

>>18679402
Read "Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" and come talk. Do you know anything of the ancient sumarian period?

>>18679388
This thread are talking about Rosseau and Hobbes, and you barge in here babbling about spirituality and drugs (common /x/ talking points). So once again:
>>>/x/

>>18679410
It is a fun theory but it's not hard science or anything, it's really not even falsifiable

>>18679410
Perfect schizo comeback

>>18679311
they're both stupid

>>18679382
>All examples from the neolithic or after

>>18679383
>people are first and foremost social
Do you think schizoids and the antisocial are social?

>>18679421
Embracing the schizo was the best thing I ever did!

Hobbes was right about man in the state of nature and Rousseau was right about man in society. Man is just an evil species.

>>18679311
Hobbes was exoterically right, Rousseau was esoterically right.

>>18679311
>Hobbes is famous for his assertion that the state of nature was a state of war of "every man against every man."
He took this from Plato. What a hack.

>>18679480
There's obviously a reason they are abnormalities and we have specific names for their conditions, and if you engage with anyone of either type, they are mostly very unhappy, exactly because they are unable to form meaningful relationships
>>18679490
Good for you, but if you chose to embrace a subjective reality, don't expect to put the burden of interacting with you on others

>>18679311
Inter-specie cooperation is an evolutionary winning strategy and thus it's everywhere.
Warring cultures may emerge but they'll be stuck forever in some pre-Neolithic stage and face the constant threat of total self-inflicted annihilation.

>>18679527
It is literally illegal in my country to call a man in a dress delusional.
Why is the burden on me to ignore reality and FAKE IT for the normies?

>>18679543
Fuck off with your polshit crying

>>18679311
Neither of them are right. The state of nature has always been a state of society. War and peace have always existed next to each other as long as humans have existed. Read pic related instead of the Enlightenment pseuds.

>>18679357
>ooga booga i don’t understand things so supernatural it must be

>>18679584
No one understands anything, he at least has the decency to admit it. This is why I respect the religious more than your type.

>>18679588
>No one understands anything
...?

>>18679311
Hobbes is closer to the truth than Rousseau, but he's still wrong. While there is competition within society, we're not at war with everyone in an individualistic sense.
Rousseau's belief that primitive men were peaceful is just fucking batshit. Primitives were/are extremely violent

>>18679602
You're starting not to understand.

>>18679311
That's the most idiotic understanding of the 2 and it's promoted by the same idiots who divide enlightenment in rationalists and empiricists. It's dumbed down philosophy to a point that YouTube commentators can pretend to engage with it. You also haven't read either of them.

>>18679607
Maybe one day he can fully not understand like Socrates.

>>18679584
Have you gone on a paranormal investigation?

>>18679311
Rousseau was a proto-fascist.

>>18679618
ive read hobbes

here is something else ive read:

Hobbes is far closer to the truth, albeit with the important qualification that violence took place not between isolated individuals but between social groups

>>18679311
>so many people get Hobbes wrong
The state of war is not a constant urge to kill another person or to do something harmful, it has nothing to do with violence.

State of nature is security in the rights of one's person and property. State of war is the infringement of those rights.

>>18679527
Either way, you cannot claim that people are first and foremost social when there are people that are both asocial and antisocial.

>>18679311
Both are wrong

>>18679658
I saw it as a warning that the basic state of mankind is total corruption, and that through the virtues he speaks of in Leviathan, the empowered man could rise above those who chose the route of the dishonourable.

The Hobbes way is a way of honour, without honour, you have clown world.

At the same time, a culture of honour is culture of total conformity or total violence.
>inb4schizo

>>18679661
I.e., we exist in a perpetual state of war against our own governments.

>>18679311
Both are wrong, hobbes could be seen as more right. Human aren't predisposed to be living individualistic lives. They evolved to live in tribes and familes, and now live in nations. Therefore violence mostly occured between groups like this anon also mentioned >>18679639

So a more interesting assertion would be that the state of nature was a state of war of "every human group against every human group". I think this one holds, unless both groups have developed cultures to prevent this violence.

>>18679588
>he at least has the decency to admit it.
When did he admit that? All I see is him giving supernatural reasons (who knows if they're actually real) for objective morality. And yes, I agree that nobody 100% knows anything.

>>18679359

Best post.

>>18679311
People who think Rousseau actually believed in a good savage emerging from the state of nature are idiots. For Rousseau, it’s just a thought experiment allowing him to make a point about what a society should be. Read him, retards.

>>18679480
Yes. Unless the the individuals in question are ferals of some kind entirely deprived of language.

>>18679359
Savage redpill

>>18679359
>t. never had children right there

>>18679578
>Just kiss priest feet bro

>>18679311
Rousseau was simply stupid. Hobbes was better for his decisionism. >>18679578 is the real deal though.

>>18679578
But I don't want to have to kowtow to a pope who kisses the Koran and bans the Latin mass, and does everything in his power to shit on the religion that he's supposed to lead.

>>18679848
>it’s just a thought experiment (ie totally unreal)
>allowing him to make a point (which becomes real)
That's exactly why Rousseau is full retard.

>>18679848
>The first man who, having fenced in a piece of land, said 'This is mine', and found people naïve enough to believe him, that man was the true founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody.

Rousseau didn't mean it, he wasn't retarded, I swear!

>>18679956
Continental "philosophy" in general is fucking garbage that belongs in the bin and its proponents belong in a big hole.

>>18680068
Pleb comes out of nowhere in a thread not about him.
People that aren't "continental" are the biggest fans of "thought experiments". The specific thing in the previous post was not only coopted but made much worse by Rawls, an "analytic".

>>18679311
Hobbes' "war against all" means that people by defauly have zero obligations to each other, not that they're corrupted savages who want to kill for no reason.

>>18679311
How can Rousseau seriously write something like that and people take him seriously when they could have gone to America and seen those "noble savages" slaughter entire villages and kidnap schoolchildren for scalpings by themselves?
Thats really what continental Philosophy entails for me; just write what you feel like and hide your lack of evidence or any kind of source behind some elaborate prose.
Well, I guess thats why they say Belphegor is the ambassador to Paris, everything that comes from there is just lazy.

>>18679311
None of them

>>18679311
Hobbes didn't ponder the motive and means for imposing infrastructure on the natural world quite deeply enough to be interesting on the subject of statecraft, while Rousseau was simply too mad to be interesting except as a lolcow to the intelligentsia.

>>18679311
I think Rousseau is the first sign of the intellectual decline of Europe. After the Peace of Westphalia, in Europe they basically decided that civilization is good and savagery is bad. Rousseau reintroduced wildness into fashion. Although, of course, it is not he who is to blame, but his audience.
Hobbes went too far.

ROusseu wasn't replying to Hobbes, but to Locke. He basically went reddit smart ass on him just to be special boy

>>18679393
>only the genetically fit end up surviving
That has never been true.

>>18679311
Clausewitz lays outs in a single sentence what both of these midwits took whole essays to try and explain:
>"War is merely the continuation of diplomacy by other means."
Humans fight each other when comprimise cannot be reached. Read about the great conquerors of history. Most of them offer clemency and better treatment if the enemy doesn't wait until after all the bloodshed to surrender. Violence, at least for people without chimp-brains, is just a means to an end.

>>18680068
You're projecting a 20th Century term which is simply a negation of another 20th Century term onto 18th Century philosophy. It's a more or less empty term that simply means "philosophy not in the tradition of Russell and Moore". Even looking at "Continental philosophy" as it's carried out today, Rousseau isn't a particularly prominent figure: "Continentals" are more concerned with Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault, Deleuze, etc. none of whom are particularly reminiscent of or influenced by Rousseau's work.

>>18680296
>diplomacy is a negotiation of interest between separate parties
>parties are an agglomeration of separate individuals
>Individuals are humans
>thus humans, on an individualist basis, operate according to diplomacy whilst outside of civilisation
So your view is that Clausewitz believed in a war against all.

Neither was right. They both had good insights for their times.

>>18680543
>parties are an agglomeration of separate individuals

>thus humans, on an individualist basis, operate according to diplomacy whilst outside of civilisation


I'm not an expert, but that's pretty tendentious. Parties are just as well regarded as emergent entities not properly reducible to the individuals involved. Language, kinship, environment, etc. seem to be pressures uniting people on a quite fundamental level with individualism being a later arrival. Even then, individualism / egoism only operates against something culturally determined in the interest of something else culturally determined. When I speak about transgressing a law for my own enjoyment, my enjoyment and my status as an individual is as loaded with cultural significance as the law I'm breaking. People underestimate the extent to which radicals draw on a real or imagined tradition in the fight for a future and how rare it is for someone to even have the pretext of "rip it up and start again".

Reminder that Rousseau, the only intellectual proponent of democracy, only thought democracy applied in limited situations and most certainly not at a state level.

Democracy, intellectual speaking, is a joke. Yet here we are.

>>18680677
>Rousseau, the only intellectual proponent of democracy

Come on, man. Like it or not, it has more than Rousseau as intellectual proponents. Kant, Mill and Dewey, for instance, were all quite active supporters of various forms of democracy

What an abysmal thread. I'm sick of talking about Hobbes and Rousseau so i'll make it brief. State of nature arguments are not anthropological accounts of the development of human societies or their foundation. Both Hobbes and Rousseau state this explicitly
Hobbes:
>It may peradventure be thought there was never such a time nor condition of war as this; and I believe it was never generally so, over all the world.
Rousseau:
>We must not take the investigations that one could enter into concerning this subject for historical truths, but only for hypothetical and conditional arguments, more suitable for illuminating the nature of things than for showing the true origin
They are hypotheticals used to demonstrate an argument. Hobbes' autism spurred him to try and demonstrate what he considered a kind of geometric proof from atomic propositions of the nature of man towards the necessity of the state. He is trying to show the interest in peace under authority is universal and overrides the specific normative ideals of political faction (religious or political ideals of his time). Rousseau's state of nature argument is targeted against this method—to set up a series of atoms which, through interaction, produce a certain outcome. What he is demonstrating with amour propre is that the qualities that Hobbes imposes on his atoms necessary cannot be presupposed because they are the product of interaction between atoms. That is, that pride and greed and envy and such, which spur the Hobbesean man into conflict, are themselves 'vices of comparison' and thus cannot predate the conflict that they are supposed to cause. All the features of the 'noble savage' are just a dramatised presentation of characteristics which do not exist in interaction or a set up for his later argument against Locke. To read the first half of the second discourse beyond this, as some specific statement of human nature or human history, is to miss the point entirely.

>>18680661
Even if social cohesion is a necessary emergent property of the Human's innate makeup, that doesn't mean that diplomacy, the thing to which I was referring, is not equally an aspect of the war against all.

How does one, as an individual (which must be the base makeup of any multiplicity), navigate oneself within that group? For the individuals comprising the parties can't have entirely homogeneous interests—then it wouldn't be a party but a multiple instances of a single thing—,so they have to manoeuvre their own interests within the group; this is accomplished through the aforementioned diplomacy; which is synonymous with war.

>>18679662
That's like saying that I can't claim people are first and foremost sentient when some people are comatose

>>18681042
>Even if social cohesion is a necessary emergent property of the Human's innate makeup

Sorry for this confusion. I was arguing that certain groups and interests could be taken as emergent entities. My view on sociality is that it is in some form or another fundamental and that the individual (or "self" as contrasted with the numerical individual) emerges later. Groups may arise and fade away, but nobody ever exists prior to or outside of culture (barring oddities like feral children).

>How does one, as an individual (which must be the base makeup of any multiplicity), navigate oneself within that group?

The way that a member of that particular group generally does, I guess.

>For the individuals comprising the parties can't have entirely homogeneous interests—then it wouldn't be a party but a multiple instances of a single thing

Individuals can have more or less homogeneous interests when acting for a certain purpose. Unanimity is a helpful word in its capturing of agreement as many becoming in a sense one.

>they have to manoeuvre their own interests within the group

Yes, but their own interests are not so radically separate from the interests of this or that group. "We" (that is, our selves as distinguished from our numerical individuality) are social "all the way down" and our conception of our individuality or self is always a socio-cultural product. This is what I was trying to get at with my example of transgressing a law for my own enjoyment. Let's say that I enjoy casual sex, find a certain married woman who's to my liking and set about trying to get her into bed. The conflict is not society represented by the laws supporting monogamy and fidelity and especially condemning adultery, etc. versus a radically separate "me": as much as part of the equation is my instinct to breed, my culture also ascribes value to romance, beauty, excitement and individual happiness, in addition to helping shape what traits I value in a partner.

>>18679732
redpilled

>>18681213
This is a big question, of immense import and interminable debate—it would be difficult to solve it on 4chan. But, saying that:

The individual must necessarily precede the group; you yourself:
Individuals can have more or less homogeneous interests when acting for a certain purpose
'More' and 'less' here both denote a difference from absolute equanimity; there can be groups of differing levels of homogeneous interests but, by definition, unless these interests are absolutely homogeneous, then the individuals—again, the only parts of the whole that is the group in its totality—must have, to some degree, diverging interests—the fact that the relative quantity of the divergence might be relatively small (which perhaps it may!) in comparison with OTHER groups interests is irrelevant: there must be disagreements within the group.

Now the question of 'genus' vs 'gene'—group vs individual—is one of game theory and, in this instance I believe, the tragedy of the commons.

You state that the group precedes the individual. This is impossible; it could only, and even then only tenuously, be maintained in regard to animals such as Ants or Bees: swarm based creatures with innate hierarchies; and then, not as Humans have innate hierarchies but absolutely necessary ones where they are completely unable to reproduce without their particular Queen. For creatures such as these the individual—that is the drone or something—can and must throw away its own resources for the sake of the group.

This is simply not how Humans work though. Bees do not steal the food out of the mouths of their impotent young; Humans do. All Humans, by carrying all the prerequisite necessities for perpetuating their genes, are always striving against one another; as such, when one acknowledges a lack of homogeneity in their interests, however large, that must necessarily lead to them striving against one another and the bounds that they and their comrades are collectively ensconced by seeking whatever advantage the individual can gain from betraying the collective.

>>18681609
>unable to reproduce without their particular Queen
I see what they did there; why not simply call this individual a Mother for example. The statist, hierarchical propaganda goes on and on.

>>18679358
You don’t need any God to understand that an objective morality exists, anon, and the answer is quite simply because you, in fact, exist. Because you, in fact, exist, that quite simply must mean that there is a reason/benefit/purpose for your existence and, therefore, you know that an objective morality exists. For only if you and/or nothing existed would there remain a question of an objective morality. But you, me, and many other things do, in fact, exist.

>>18681609

>The individual must necessarily precede the group

I get at this in my distinguishing of numerical individuals and "selves" (for want of a better term). You could argue that the former predates the groups of which it is a part, but the self, the part of interest when discussing human action is as much a product of socialisation as it is of genes. Ultimately the nature vs. culture thing is very much a chicken and egg scenario: imitation and social influence must have as an object something primary, lest we fall into an infinite regress. That's why I mentioned instinct playing a part in my sex example. Crucially though, we don't have access to some hermetically sealed realm of pure instinct: there is always the environment, social and otherwise and with human beings, ignoring this is particularly problematic when trying to understand them.

>'More' and 'less' here both denote a difference from absolute equanimity; there can be groups of differing levels of homogeneous interests but, by definition, unless these interests are absolutely homogeneous, then the individuals—again, the only parts of the whole that is the group in its totality—must have, to some degree, diverging interests—the fact that the relative quantity of the divergence might be relatively small (which perhaps it may!) in comparison with OTHER groups interests is irrelevant: there must be disagreements within the group.

I'm glad that you brought up the nature of parts and wholes. I'm against your notion of individuals as fundamental entities because of this question of emphasis: groups can come into conflict with each other, individuals within a group can come into conflict with each other and arguably, and individual (or the parts of him) can conflict with himself. Freud's model is the most well-known formulation of this latter notion, but the point is not dependent on his work. Why is the boundary of skin so important for you?

>You state that the group precedes the individual. This is impossible; it could only, and even then only tenuously, be maintained in regard to animals such as Ants or Bees

>This is simply not how Humans work though.

I find it interesting that you're not mentioning any of my points about the influence of socialisation on human beings and associating group behavior merely with a herd or swarm instinct and accusing me of having a warped understanding of human action when my fairly simple example illustrates my point that human action always takes place within a cultural environment. I find it highly implausible that many cases of taking food from impotent children is solely the product of instinct and not reflection rather implausible. Similarly to what I mentioned earlier, while I may have a "will to live" motivating me to take food from a child, I'm also acting with a host of cultural assumptions about the worth of my life as an "individual", future possibilities, the ethical status of the act, etc.

>>18679383
No, anon. You’re correct that Man is social but his sociability is only secondary to his self-interest. His social development is a direct effect of his primary self-interest. Even a caveman understands this instinctively. He is/was social to help make his day easier but if another would go against his self-interest he would not be social with that other.

>>18681931
Apologies for the many typos in this: it was rushed and hastily-edited.

>>18681518
>Marxism but dumber is being "redpilled"
Lolberts are truly special.

>>18679311
>who was right?
Rousseau. Confirmed by Guenon and the entirety of the Indian canon.

>>18679317
Does it? Been awhile since I read him, but from what I remember he argues for the universality of pity/compassion, a feeling which has been suppressed by the development of civilization. I
I guess it depends on how you define objective.

>>18679480
This is the problem with any state of nature claims as it's clear people can be anything and everything depending on their upbringing, the society around them, and the limitations of their personal constitution.

>>18682147
>Lolberts are so dumb xD
>(can't explain why)
Keep popping those blue pills anon. It's probably for the better.

>>18679578
Agree. There has never been a time where humans havent existed in some kind of social group/organization. This is confirmed by primatology. Chimps our closest cousins exist in groups with complex social dynamics. It's reasonable to think that it was the same for early humans.

>>18679848
Really doesn't seem like. I've read both The Discourses on the origins of inequality and the social contract and from what I recall he raises examples of contemporary tribes to prove his point about natural man. Really doesnt sound like something you'd do if you meant it only as a metaphor.

>>18679311
Looking at how Chimpanzees behave, am going with Hobbes

>>18681931
>response to the first third of your post

But we can attempt to trace back to the centre, to the chicken and egg. The answer is of course that genes precede memes; this is when you think of it obvious: socialisation necessarily requires a means of socialising—something not necessary in a life-form. Now, your response here could be 'but if we were to abstract that far we wouldn't be talking about a social-animal, about a Human, at all', and no, we wouldn't; we'd be talking about a creature designed solely through an evolutionary egotism that was required for the thing's creation in the first place; the various efficiencies that (do in fact) arise out of the ability to socialise, come later. The gene necessarily precedes the meme; and, given the fact that Humans existed under the conditions as just stated, longer than they existed under conditions on (relative) socialisation, result in my belief in the innate superiority of the statement: 'a model with a bias towards genetics over memetics is superior in predicting future events .' Of course, this is all the even bigger question of mind or matter; essence or existence—a question for another day perhaps.

>response to second third

Now, this gets into a more personal and less known problem; given that I haven't actually told anyone of my views on this matter I doubt you'd know them, but to quickly give you my views:

You're right! Skin deep views of evolution ARE banal and incorrect; all is always at war with all, and we can't decide on any arbitrary categories where these wars take place: they're everywhere!
My belief is that, whilst the hand cooperates with the arm, chest and brain, it too attempts to gain and advantage over the rest of the body it's attached to—in fact, the fingers fight the palm; the nails the fingers; and so on and so on. The difference being that, whilst all fights all, they fight some at different scales of intensity; the hand might fight the body of its owner, yet it fights THAT body's enemies even more.

So, whilst the skin deep analyse is too simplistic, my greater explanation would take too long. For now: the individual Human's body is the most directly sensitive to evolutionary impulses: to rapid, direct and substantive change; thus it is the most useful proxy to consider questions of this kind.

>response to last third

The last part simply doesn't consider that Humans are intelligent and aware of the problems you've posed.

I might not steal from a baby if I were likely to be discovered and ostracised from a high-trust rich society—I would rather attempt something more audacious and profitable. Yet, if we consider a situation where there is, say, a poor high-trust environment where there and easy and illicit pickings to be had, standing directly opposite to a rich high-trust society with no barriers to entry, wouldn't it be sensible to exploit the innate level of social trust in the former locale, then jump ship and enter into the latter?

>>18682327
Of course, if I were in a situation where there were no alternatives, or perhaps the barriers to entry were to steep, of course I would, in my illicit and predatory behaviour, take that into account and temper my actions accordingly, that is not in dispute; the question is: 'given the constraints that all life-forms necessarily exist under, do they behave in a way that would conform to enduring socialisations, or, do they behave in a way that would seem to tend toward always taking advantage.'

If I lived in an ancient and enclosed society which puts to death thieves with no trial, of course I shan't thieve' if I live in the US or EU, why shouldn't I, in one of the more lenient jurisdictions, commit a theft and then, before being discovered, jump the border?

Anyway, this has been a pleasant exchange; I'm going to bed now. Have a pleasant day!

>>18682327
>Now, your response here could be 'but if we were to abstract that far we wouldn't be talking about a social-animal, about a Human, at all', and no, we wouldn't; we'd be talking about a creature designed solely through an evolutionary egotism that was required for the thing's creation in the first place

>You're right! Skin deep views of evolution ARE banal and incorrect; all is always at war with all, and we can't decide on any arbitrary categories where these wars take place: they're everywhere!

I don't like this talk of "egotism" when we're talking about a level of existence where there is no "I". Similarly, I dislike this talk of "war" on a level of existence where it's as good as meaningless. I don't feel like these analogies have any place. I can't comment on your memetic talk as I've always been discouraged from looking into it by unfavourable words from people I respect and my overall dislike of reductionism.

>The last part simply doesn't consider that Humans are intelligent and aware of the problems you've posed.

You seem to be missing my point: not everyone is the kind of psychological egotist that you describe. There are some people who would consider it reprehensible to steal from a baby regardless of the negative consequences that befall them. Most importantly, however, the ones that have no qualms about stealing from them are not purer, acultural humans, they are ethical agents part of a tradition extending back to at least Ancient Greece that takes the concept of the individual's desires to be paramount.

>>18680755
Yeah, you're right. I worded my post very badly. That is to say, none of those guys would support democracy as we see it today.

>>18682349
>the question is: 'given the constraints that all life-forms necessarily exist under, do they behave in a way that would conform to enduring socialisations, or, do they behave in a way that would seem to tend toward always taking advantage.'

What I have been getting at time and time again is that you cannot oppose socialisation as egotism as egotism has no real meaning divorced from culture. My example with the adultery was intended to illustrate precisely that: even when I'm supposedly acting egotistically, I'm doing so within a culture affirming certain aspects of it. It's not just a breeding instinct that's the real me clashing with imposed falsehoods around fidelity and monogamy, I'm affirming the importance of my own happiness (Eudaimonia has been a fixture of Western Philosophy since the Greeks), affirming the importance of romance and the largely culturally-sanctioned beauty and virtue of the woman I'm pursuing.

>If I lived in an ancient and enclosed society which puts to death thieves with no trial, of course I shan't thieve' if I live in the US or EU, why shouldn't I, in one of the more lenient jurisdictions, commit a theft and then, before being discovered, jump the border?

This question, like your handling of the baby example, identifies a developed ethical view centred on the value of the individual as a self and its interests with an imagined "pure" man free from the delusions of socialisation. I believe that this is untenable for the reasons I have given. While these developed views may be continuous with instincts for self-preservation, sexual desire, etc. they are not one and the same, and importantly, their contraries are no less continuous with our instincts.

>>18682349

>Anyway, this has been a pleasant exchange; I'm going to bed now. Have a pleasant day!

And thank you for the all-too-rare civility you have displayed in our disagreement. A pleasant day to you, too.

>>18679311
I agree with hobbes to the extent of the nature of the normal state of human being, but I strongly disagree with the idea that a strong system of governance can rectify it. There is no rectifying the hobbesian state. It just persists in various forms regardless of legislation and government.

>>18679639
If you had actually read Hobbes, you'd know he didn't talk specifically about "isolated individuals"

>>18679311
>Rousseau
>"before the white man came to america with meh rules, all the natives werent killing each other. They were just wandering around, eating berries and sleeping in a lush paradise"
>Hobbes
>"without a ruthless king killing you all whenever he needs to, everyone will kill each other all the time"

I cant seem to agree with either worldview honestly.

>>18679311
They both believed primitive humans were isolated. Hobbes war of all against all assumes 100% detached individuals drifting around and mostly hurting each other, Rousseau disagreed with the latter. For an actual total opposition you should instead pick de Maistre vs. Rousseau.

nobody in this thread has ever read a book

>>18679311
Rousseau might be mostly right, around the early stone age, early men was primarily at war with the animal kingdom, with any other human tribe being fairly rare and thus a source of genetic diversity.

With the increase of human technology and the extinction of a lot of mega fauna, humans became the top dog and interspecies competition became more common.

>>18682961
I've read Mr. Nice several times.

Hobbes was right, but the original source of his correctness is from the Bible - humans have a corrupt and fallen nature, which is why God revealed Himself to humanity to show them how to live such that they transcend their fallen natures - which is ultimately fulfilled in the example of the objectively highest life ever lived, that of Jesus Christ, and the church which he created to be an eternal and final revamping of the Mosaic court.

>>18683273
100% based divine anon.

>>18683047
That is most unlikely. The most primitive tribes we found (judged by various technological milestones) have often been the most violent.
Large scale intra-species massacres is common among chimpanzees who can genocide the neighboring clans (with cannibalism common in those instances). Sure chimps are not direct ancestors but that's a good indicator. Other primates are not as violent within their species as chimps but still very far from peaceful. Intra-species warfare far precedes hominisation.

>>18682813
This, although Hobbes was the least wrong of the two

>>18679311
Both. Man will always be in a state of conflict over something, whether it be resources or social hierarchy. When basic needs are covered, men will vie internally for the rarer pleasures. When resources are scarce and the opponent is nature, men will band together to procure the resources from the clutches of nature. When resources are scarce and the opponent is another society, men will band together to kill/enslave the opponent society and lay claim to their resources.
It is the Monty Hall problem, where objectives change in the middle of the game, depending on the circumstances.

>>18684083
Wow great post!

>>18679311
For me? Whatever the libertines believe.

>>18679311
hobbes is by essence an athiest, Rousseau is by essence a christian. this is why hobbes informs the right and why Rousseau informs the left

Neither, they both deny that man can be anything more than a creature of nature, they are both foolishly materialist.

Bump

>>18681067
And you would be correct in saying that.

>>18679311
Hobbes. I feel that by looking and experiencing nature you just know hes right instinctively.

Didn't Rousseau basically form one of those early new age religions that worshipped reason or something silly like that? Seems like he basically just bungled Christianity and tried to fit it into some sort of broken civic framework. You could almost say Marxism did the same thing.

Also what did Rousseau mean by primitive man? I think earlier down the evolutionary level but I think that's probably an anachronism since Darwin hadn't come along yet.

>>18682639
I've woke.

Our entire point of dispute is that we've been coming at the question of nurture/nature from too low down the sequence of thought; we need to go back up a bit and examine why we each have faith in our own view: genes vs memes.

Thus I'd like to inquire into why you seem to place such capacity on memes. Now, perhaps this is unfair; you haven't actually stated, beyond that you believe they play some moderately large role, how much you believe is memetics vs how much is genetics. I, on the contrary, have stated quite clearly my view in the (general) impotence of memes. I'll try to explain, in brief, why I've come to the view that material is superior to ideas; genes to memes.

Now, we're all aware of the way in which people engage in motivated reasoning. That is, how people, whilst pretending to themselves and others that they're reasoning from a completely unbiased view, actually come to whatever conclusion favours their own interests. Example: tell someone that X group has been selectively pushing forward their own interests at the expense of all other groups, they shall tell you that is immoral; now, tell them that group X actually encompasses them, that they, through either your poor explanation of the group or their ignorance, are actually a core part of it. See how quickly they will change to now believing that that group is rather admirable—nothings changed except their view of their own self-interest.

This is because, I believe, when people reason, 90% or so of their views and beliefs are necessarily derived from their genetic make-up (and the things downstream of that)—a thing of course capable of changing peoples, say, propensity towards altruism—, and the material circumstances they find themselves in. People will reason in such a fashion as to ensure, from these 2 bases, that their own self-interests are always paramount. Consider the last time you've changed your mind, was it a bolt from the blue? did you suddenly swerve, from an issue you're at least somewhat familiar with, to the contrary direction? I doubt it. The bedrock of a persons psyche is made up of a mostly intractable set of core desires. What does change is the 'icing', the little bits on top: Ideas. When I change my mind on a topic generally I have a pretty good idea as to what I'm dealing with. What always happens is a straw that breaks the camel's back, in the form of an idea, pushes me either one way or the other. Imagine a deep swirling sea, under-water currents are fiercely flowing underneath a seemingly placid surface. We can't really know which way the surface will move, so we put a boat on top, to see which way the out of view currents shall send it. The under-water currents are the material base; the boat the idea that pushes us one way or the other. The difference is that the currents, the thing which provides the impetus to will the action, necessarily precede the boat, the idea that pushes us one way or the other.

>>18685622
Hello again.

I don't talk about memes because I know little about memetics: it's always been described to me as bordering on pseudoscience and all definitions of "meme" that I've heard are incredibly vague (as I understand it, there's fundamental disagreement on whether memes are something physical or just a biologist's version of anthropological terminology that's far more nebulous about their ontological status).

>Now, we're all aware of the way in which people engage in motivated reasoning. That is, how people, whilst pretending to themselves and others that they're reasoning from a completely unbiased view, actually come to whatever conclusion favours their own interests.

Hypocrisy and self-deception are not so omnipresent. I find this notion that there is always a hidden "selfish" motive unhelpful in that it arbitrarily erects a sharp division egotism and altruism when the two are continuous just as the self and society are as I've been arguing. In doing so, it deprives "selfish" of any substantial meaning beyond "acting according to one's will", covering everything from an imagined man with no connections who will tread on anyone and everyone to get what he wants to someone who sacrifices their own life for the sake of another.

>The bedrock of a persons psyche is made up of a mostly intractable set of core desires. What does change is the 'icing', the little bits on top: Ideas.

I've not been arguing for free will. I believe the notion is incoherent. What I have been arguing is that high-order concepts (as concepts informing our action as opposed the mere behaviors these words designate) such as self, self-interest, individualism, egotism, etc. are social products regardless of their origins in instincts of self-preservation and the like. I'd argue the same about concepts like altruism, empathy, compassion, etc. deriving from "nurturing" or "sociable" instincts but being modified by socialisation.

>>18685911
I would merely define meme as an equivalent of gene. A gene is a parcel of information that seeks to propagate itself; a meme is the same. A gene shall attempt to do that, an individual gene, by being, well, good, utilitarian, A bird with alleles that give it heavy bones is no good, it needs light ones to fly well. A meme propagates itself by being useful too. A society living on a small island isn't very well going to adopt the meme of: 'don't eat fish it's unclean' is it? The criteria of gene and meme are both, in my view, that of efficacy. Darwinism and Social Darwinism. I don't particularly consider that to be a pseudo-science, though I'd be interested in your defense of such a statement.

If you don't believe in free-will (something I of course agree with you on), how would you define selfishness? I'd define it as you've said I have: it's people acting according to their will; the will being a composite of gene and meme, or if you'd prefer, mind and matter. Those who's selfishness is too focused on the group's good and the expense of their own, shall inevitably be, over time, filtered out of both the genus, the group, and the gene-pool, the individual perpetuation of the person's genes.

Again, they, the 'higher-order concepts' are, even if they are products of socialisation, necessarily capable of self-perpetuation—survival; otherwise they would die off.

All existent things must be measured by their efficacy; and, in this Darwinian world, that is propagation of individual packets of information , the information itself being what defines its propagation's success.

>>18680774
we need more posts like this on /lit/. We have to start shaming those who do not effortpost

>>18679311
Human beings started off as being one with nature which is violent and chaotic but not evil. Then with knowledge and technology developed humanity becomes separate from nature and more like Gods. Things become more orderly and less violent but also the capacity for evil increases because of being separate from the innocence of nature. If technology and knowledge keeps increasing we will become one with the universe again through a singularity event thus recapturing our innocence and ending evil.

>>18686387
>I don't particularly consider that to be a pseudo-science, though I'd be interested in your defense of such a statement.

I don't really have a view on memetics, I've spoken about essentially hearing some cursory, dismissive arguments and hearing about how its not really a booming field (i.e. contentious within biology, met with derision from the social sciences and more or less ignored by philosophy). The quick rundown on what I've heard is something like this:

1. Postulating that memes are physical entities is presumptuous given they have yet to be observed (unlike with DNA and genes).

2. Postulating that memes are not physical entities leaves a notion too vague and ill-distinguished from philosophical, sociological, and anthropological talk of concepts, habits and cultural traits.

This is ultimately besides the point, however, for reasons I'll clarify below.

>If you don't believe in free-will (something I of course agree with you on), how would you define selfishness?

I wouldn't really. As I've said, the self and society / culture or even simply the "not-self" are continuous with the self. While conceding that the term has its use in common parlance to differentiate the types of behavior that I mentioned, I'd accept the same definition. My objection to the term has to do with the problem of emphasis and anthropomorphism. Finding supposedly "selfish" motivations underlying supposedly "altruistic" behavior is tendentious in pushing the "red in tooth and claw" view of nature to the detriment of views that acknowledge cooperation. It also smacks of Christian moralism with loving one's neighbour being an ethical injunction.

Second part incoming

>>18686387
>Again, they, the 'higher-order concepts' are, even if they are products of socialisation

As I mentioned earlier, the whole nature vs nurture, chicken and egg issue is only a subsidiary issue for me here (I'm neither interested enough in it, nor well-versed enough in it to have a conversation about philosophy of mind). My mentioning of socialisation was not to erect a barrier between man and society, but to erase it. I mentioned a supposedly selfish action, ostensibly deriving from a mere instinct to breed being enmeshed in a culture in a kind of feedback loop. I was showing a socially-sanctioned "selfishness". I've hinted at the existence of the a kind of instinctive or "selfish" altruism, too.

>>18680048
>impostor

>>18686502
*While conceding that the term has its use in common parlance to differentiate the types of behavior that I mentioned, I'd accept the same definition when "on-duty", while admitting that it's pretty useless.

>>18686550
I think we're reaching the limit of productive discourse. To my mind the contention in dispute is clear: as stated earlier, once we acknowledge a difference, no matter how large, between the group and the individuals comprising that group, we have immediately 2 separate sorts of actions: those that benefit the group, and those that benefit the individual, and of course, the actions that benefits the group mostly and the individual secondly and vice versa, etc. and so on.

It's impossible for an action designed and perpetrated to benefit, say, the individual (and remember I'm not saying that all actions MUST benefit the individual, in that case no society whatsoever could exist) should not in someway impinge on the group negatively—this being a result of opportunity cost: if someone, a member of the group, should have a particular skill and he chooses to act in a way that benefits himself MORE than the group, then he is directly foregoing the possibility of using his skill do benefit solely the group.

So a selfish act must necessarily harm the group, and cannot be a 'validation of that particular culture'. Again, this given the confines of the material and memetic habitation the the individual is immersed in.

So, someone engaging in Homosexual behaviours in a society that accepts this as a less-than-marvelous-yet-still-acceptable kind of way is still harming the group even if he is engaging in a vice that it somewhat acceptable. It is the fact that he is doing one thing whilst the most advantageous thing for the group would be for him to do something else. It's normal for groups to have outlets that don't necessarily require a supreme 24/7 minmax behaviour—they must, human beings as designed aren't capable of it—yet, up to that very limit of 'capability' (the closest to the group all sharing one interest and all its individuals pursuing that interest) every act other than one which favours the group is selected against by the group; and likewise, every act up to the (separate) 'capability' of the group (THIS capability being the groups continued existence), which is, for the individual, a requirement to live (humans are social creatures), is selected against, by the individual.

>>18679311

Seems like 2 extremes neither of which was probably true
Anyway you can just look at apes and get a rough idea of how primitive humans probably lived

>>18686623

Likely so. I'd still protest that talk of "war or all against all" is unhelpfully anthropomorphic and open to kinds of is-ought confusions that arise when attributing a robust ontological status to radically separate individuals.

>So a selfish act must necessarily harm the group, and cannot be a 'validation of that particular culture'.

Your example of homosexuality (or at least as its presented) as accepted misses what mine about adultery expresses: you can affirm aspects of a culture and that in human action, you essentially must affirm some aspects of a culture and indeed the value of certain other individuals. In my example, there are surely "losers" (both rules that I've broken and people I've hurt), but the winner isn't a radically separate, "pure", individual "me", it's me the individualistic, romantic, lover of beauty who will inspire not just lamentation, but the possibility of my culture's ethical development through reflection.

Second part / summary incoming.

>>18679311
Both are wrong. There is no such thing as a primitive human. To be a human is to be civilized and to be not is to be an ape. There is no anarchy or serenity that once upon a time vanished into society, society is all there ever was, be it at the tribal or national level.
>>18679578
Ah you beat me to the punch!

>>18686623

To sum up, I return to your original post.

>diplomacy is a negotiation of interest between separate parties
Sure.

>parties are an agglomeration of separate individuals
>Individuals are humans
>thus humans, on an individualist basis, operate according to diplomacy whilst outside of civilisation

These three taken together are the bones of contention.

We do not have access to sufficient grounds to ascribe action on an "individualist basis" (as a thick concept or supposed instinctive substrate) to "individuals" (either numerical individuals or selves) outside of society. Conceding that selfishness is essentially acting according to one's will complicates the notion of egotism versus altruism by, for instance, making altruism a form of egotism in certain people with certain instincts.

As you mentioned earlier on, eventually we were bound to get to a level where it becomes a talk to big for 4Chan. We do, however, agree on a great deal, as we've come to discover. I think that both of us would accept that human interaction has a strong foundation in instincts, drives and will (regardless of the contrasting biological / psychological formulations), and in your acknowledgement that the notion of "war of all against all" being applicable to levels both below and above the "individuals" that we're discussing, you articulate (even if I object to the specific language for the reasons I've given) a view of the world that I'd agree with to some extent: that the world is a play of different forces, regardless of what they may be.

It's a shame we couldn't get further than this, but it's at least been a pleasure.

>>18686694
*but the winner isn't a radically separate, "pure", individual "me", it's me the individualistic, romantic, lover of beauty and my partner who will inspire not just lamentation, but the possibility of my culture's ethical development through reflection.

>>18686623
You should frame your comment more that the negatively-selfish act is one that harms the group. The survival/harmony/whatever of the group is practiced selfishness, but positive for the group as each person within it, ideally, benefits: mutually-beneficial.

If individuals do not benefit, there is no motivator for group hegemony; this is where the turn would eventually be to negative selfishness since the group isn't meeting their wants.

Jane Goodall believed in Rousseau and was shocked to see monke go to savage war. Hobbes was right.

>>18679311
>Well /lit/, who was right?
They were obviously both wrong.

>>18679317
>Rousseau view of the world implies objective morality.
In a way they're both implying this, which is why they're both wrong. Both of them were staking out a personal claim about "nature." "In nature" we can find cases that validate or invalidate either of them. Nature is something that is evolving, it is turbulent and malleable.

>>18679317
Define your terms. What does objective morality mean?

>>18686820
But anon is specifically defending a notion of "war of all against all".

>>18679311
Indubitably Hobbes. Homo homini lupus, man is wolf to man. Just look at various aboriginal tribes in the Amazon, who live like humans did in a state of nature. They are at perpetual war with each other, headhunting etc. In the Yanomamo tribe, you must kill a rival member of another tribe as a rite of passage into manhood. War has been endemic and universal since the earliest days of recorded history. It's our chimp DNA.

>>18679382
that's not 'every man against every man' it's small tight knit groups furthering their interests with very small scale violence.

>>18686694
>>18686765
I agree that we've reached the end, but just to provide some food for later thought:

A group is defined and constrained by certain laws. These laws are immutable; if the do mutate, for instance, by one who, through his actions adopts new and 'progressive' actions, and, in doing so, changes the laws, then that still is the destruction of the original laws as constituted. The group, past, has been destroyed by the group, future; facilitated by the individuals that comprise group, past, performing actions that are dissonant with the group they embody.

And lastly on selfishness as professed as solely a manifestation of the unrestrained will of the individual, as constructed of whatever mix of mind/matter:

A human cannot be 100% altruistic, otherwise the human would perish. A human cannot be 100% in betraying his group, otherwise the group would kick him out and, shorn from the necessary social fabric that humans require, would die. So we can't have a group where everyone is maximally altruistic, nor its opposite, but a mix. For, if the individual sacrifices himself wholly, the group will perish—for it is an agglomeration of individuals. And, if the individuals are maximally groping, then the social ties that connect the group will be cut—the group will cease to be and the individuals the composed said group will. as themselves, perish.

Thank you for your time.

>>18686820
That's just the Smithian concept of enlightened egoism; it's not necessary to hold such a view of group dynamics.

Enlightened egoism says that by working together for our own interest we prosper more than some theoretical commune style arrangement; this says nothing of whether there is in fact a necessity of groups functioning in such a way—which is to say, whether there is even an alternative way for groups to function.

>>18679732
not even close, Rothbard is literally just trying to twist Locke's ideas into their most retarded possible configuration. Locke literally disproved 'anarcho-capitalism,' which is both an oxymoron and the intellectual equivalent of sucking your own dick in public.

>>18686982
>A group is defined and constrained by certain laws. These laws are immutable; if the do mutate, for instance, by one who, through his actions adopts new and 'progressive' actions, and, in doing so, changes the laws, then that still is the destruction of the original laws as constituted. The group, past, has been destroyed by the group, future; facilitated by the individuals that comprise group, past, performing actions that are dissonant with the group they embody.

Aren't groups, like human beings with their decay and regeneration but retained identity over time, better thought of as processes than as stagnant entities?

>>18679311
Rousseau did not explicitly argue against Hobbes' view, he was an ironist at heart and his most extreme assertions must be taken with their intended humour. And even Hobbes' arguments were informed by his personal travails due to the English Civil War.

People are clearly too stupid to read them these days. That's what we get for turning over education to the Hebraics.

>>18687345
For practicalities sake yes, but literally no. I'm not the same person I was a moment ago, and I, by not immediately destroying myself, am complicit in the destruction of my former selves, both their bodies and views.

My point was that in sacrificing the groups' interests for the individuals, the individual, a member of the group, destroys it, by changing himself.

>>18687434
Is destruction the right word here? Transformation is perhaps more faithful to the notion of process as something gradual. It's not past self being obliterated by a radically discontinuous future self, it's the slow process of becoming wherein the latter is born of the former.

With groups for instance, when I look at the history of Christianity, there are both schisms and reformations more in line with the "destruction" or "break" view of the change of a group, but there's also the gradual development of long-lasting individual traditions like the Catholic Church. It seems a bit exaggerated to say there have been however many distinct Catholic Churches because of the slow changes to the institution in doctrine and membership and perhaps better to view it like the self example.

>>18687423
This, Hobbes was only trying to find what led his country to the Civil War that he so much feared. Rousseau at least tried to come up with some possible solutions.
In between those hundred and a half years that separate Rousseau from Hobbes, everyone else that tried to "confront" Hobbes, especially Locke, was a fucking idiot that couldn't understand his incredibly simple logic.

>>18687345
>A group is defined and constrained by certain laws. These laws are immutable; if the do mutate, for instance, by one who, through his actions adopts new and 'progressive' actions, and, in doing so, changes the laws, then that still is the destruction of the original laws as constituted. The group, past, has been destroyed by the group, future; facilitated by the individuals that comprise group, past, performing actions that are dissonant with the group they embody.

Surely if the group can be defined as an agglomeration of individuals in addition to rules of conduct, etc. It (or rather "they") cannot have identity per >>18687434 as its (or rather "their) members don't and cannot be said to exist substantially enough to be destroyed by its (or rather "their") members' actions as its (or rather "their") existence is the process of its (or rather "their") destruction(s).

>>18679311

>>18679383
>>18679527
>lmao ur an incel
The absolute state of bunkertrannies.

Bump

>>18687849
what is this supposed to prove?

>>18687635
Exactly, this is a difficult question that conjures up images of Scholastic disputes over universals. There are many valid views—this is mine; proffer your own if you wish, I'd certainly be interested.

Personally I believe that by defining the group it gains a (non-physical) 'substantiality'—again not as one would usually conceive as 'substantial'—where, whilst being solely existent through the individuals the compose it, it still is capable of a type of 'being' that allows it to influence material bodies. A good example being state bureaucracies. I believe that they can, without the 'direct' willing of the bureaucrats themselves, increase the bureaucracy's 'power' merely by their own 'existence'. As in, these entities attempt to assume as much power as existent entities. The same is true for countries for instance; they are not comprised of a single set of persons yet can claim a sort of continuance outside of their constituents.

>>18687523
That too is a perfectly adequate view; I merely disagree.

If a being could, in its ever-moving progression, have the option to go back, to reset its progress, then yes it could be called development. But the fact that it is impossible to go back to the exact same state means, to my mind, that it is a complicity in its own destruction. Where is the continuity in the maggots the swim in the guts of a dead deer? There is a seamlessness there, yet one would not call it a 'progression' of the Deer's existence; it's a break, a destruction; as are all changes in my view.

>>18681911
What lazy reasoning. My birth could've just as easily been facilitated by subjective morality.

>>18682299
Chimpanzees aren't human beans. This is like a tranny making a justification for their androgyny because it is fucking hard to identify Spider gender or something

>>18680048
>The first man who, having fenced in a piece of land, said 'This is mine', and found people naïve enough to believe him, that man was the true founder of civil society.
This retard actually thinks Rousseau would believe in such a simplistic take on the invention of private property. Jesus Christ, /lit/

>>18679311
The development of the social contract only makes sense as a model of how governments came about, we have no explicit recorded history of early extra-familial incorporations began, and they likely occurred spontaneously without neatly fitting into either classification.

>>18691616
Personally I believe that by defining the group it gains a (non-physical) 'substantiality'—again not as one would usually conceive as 'substantial'—where, whilst being solely existent through the individuals the compose it, it still is capable of a type of 'being' that allows it to influence material bodies.

The issue is not really one of universals (to my mind anyway as this concerns not groups participating in the form "group" but the identity and definition of a particular group) but one of identity. How can "the group" be itself when the things that make up the group cannot be said to be themselves? It seems that there is only, (tentatively) "Group 1" constituted by say Individuals A, B, C & D, followed by "Group 2" constituted by individuals A2, B2, C2, & D2. Surely "a group" is so dependent on its unstable members that it can't be said have a stable enough existence to be changed by "progressive" action when it is itself a mere flux.

>>18691616
>If a being could, in its ever-moving progression, have the option to go back, to reset its progress, then yes it could be called development. But the fact that it is impossible to go back to the exact same state means, to my mind, that it is a complicity in its own destruction.

This is a very eccentric definition of "development", which I have never known to imply reversibility.

Where is the continuity in the maggots the swim in the guts of a dead deer? There is a seamlessness there, yet one would not call it a 'progression' of the Deer's existence; it's a break, a destruction; as are all changes in my view.

I would call it a progression. Having one's guts eaten by maggots is the inevitable conclusion of expiring in a location accessible to flies. The deer's existence is as much about its environment as it is about its body and its position is as much a necessary part of its history as its internal processes.

>>18691667
Communists really believe it, Rosseau is probably just as retarded given his general take.

>>18679311
>Primitive human beings were peaceful
Retarded belief with no actual foundation. The entire recorded history of man is filled with violence until relatively recently when modern weaponry made it too destructive.

>>18681911
You are not very good at logic.

>>18691700
The individuals that comprise the group are most certainly things in their own right, they just also partake and comprise the group. Consider it like this: in usual parlance there is no absolute definition of a group, it is merely an thing as a phantom in the minds of all—both those who are in it and those who are merely aware of it; and not one of these people has in their mind the perfect idea of the group, merely their own personal view. So if we were to take the existence of the group as a real thing, our only option would be to view it as an average composition of all the things, humans, that are aware and ascribe and existence, and as such qualities, to it.

Now I'm not saying this is exactly what I believe, but I think it shows how an entity can exist by an agglomeration of disparate views that aren't homogeneous, yet coalesce into a coherent entity that can have an identity, goals and a 'will'.

>>18691765
It's not matter of necessary mechanical causes but one of definitions. Thus it's basically impossible to bridge a gap in our views here.

The universe, viewed in its totality, always moves forwards. Even if a being could maintain itself exactly as it is, unless it encompassed the entire universe, it would not be the same, since its relations to other things would be changed. The group, being solely comprised of individuals, but necessarily continually change—for that is how individuals exist; even if the 'group' itself is not an existent being capable of itself undergoing material alteration. The destruction is inherent, as flux, in existence; and the existent things, as existent, must necessarily, to continually allow the existence of the 'group' that they comprise, must, what I call, 'Fall forwards' perpetually.

The 'destruction' is of a prior state of the individuals, and as such the 'group', that cannot be gone back to. Yes, one could, if so inclined, call this development or progress or whatever; I just personally think this is a slightly inaccurate term, at least as I conceive reality. But again, this is terminology, and I completely accede to someone using their own, provided they give a explanation to the best of their ability. I'm not disputing a mechanical and causally deterministic view of: 'deer mustn't necessarily be eaten by maggots' —if that is mechanically the necessary result then I grant and believe in it; I just think that it's an almost impossible mission to attempt to identify a 'I' which can go through separately defined causal stages.

>>18692213
>The individuals that comprise the group are most certainly things in their own right, they just also partake and comprise the group.

I understand what you're talking about regarding the group's conceptual status. My issue is not about realism and nominalism: my issue is not that the individuals are concrete and groups are abstract.

Your response to the >>18691765 gets at what I mean.

>I just think that it's an almost impossible mission to attempt to identify a 'I' which can go through separately defined causal stages.

If the "individuals" as part of the group lack both personal and physical identity, how can the group itself have identity?

How many people itt do you think have read hobbes and rousseau?

>>18692213
>It's not matter of necessary mechanical causes but one of definitions. Thus it's basically impossible to bridge a gap in our views here.

So it seems. Though I must add.

>I just think that it's an almost impossible mission to attempt to identify a 'I' which can go through separately defined causal stages.

I wasn't so much arguing for this with my distinction between schisms and the development of a tradition. I guess it's just a reflection on the Sorites paradox. Identity over time may be a problematic notion, but abandoning it is equally problematic with the way language works.

>>18692255
The individuals – DO – have a distinct physical existence; the groups identity is, in some difficult (as can be seen!) to explain manner, existent, though not itself physically. It exists solely in the minds of those who comprise it, or are aware of it, yet it does now itself have a physical existence—but yet can still influence corporeal things.

I can't define the individual, thus all must be individuals, and the groups the compose therefore are both real and imaginary. Real in that they exist and can create effects; imaginary in that the solely reside in the minds of things.

>>18692296
>language is problematic
And there we agree! I've abandoned the idea of a composite 'I' that takes precedence over any of its constituent 'I's; this is obviously not linguistically useful and as such not easy to communicate.

>>18692390
>The individuals – DO – have a distinct physical existence.

I'm not talking about existence, I'm talking about identity. How do individuals conceived of as physical objects not run into the same issue as selves and personal identity? My body is just as much a flux as my self is. The group may exist, but it, like its constituent parts, is a flux. Talk of rigid definitions of a stable, particular group, immutable laws and the transgression of these by individuals within the group seems very problematic. What does it mean to say that a part of a flux (which is itself in flux) changes the change?

>It exists solely in the minds of those who comprise it, or are aware of it, yet it does now itself have a physical existence—but yet can still influence corporeal things.

This is a separate problem. Disregarding the aforementioned difficulties of identity and reference, the group as conceptualised as anything beyond "this collection of individuals" (itself a problematic notion) is not the same group in the minds of its members.

>>18679311
Both talked out of their asses and it’s embarrassing that some people still consider their theories valid.
>>18679480
> schizoids
Probably the most social type of humans since they entirely rely on society for survival.
>antisocial
This word is specifically for people who are slightly less social. They are still the product of their upbringing in human society, though.

According to the book 'Witness to Witchcraft", the primitive tribes (at least the ones that existed in 1950s) were pretty chill but were capable of severe brutality when needed.

Hobbes and Rousseau are both exaggerating faggots incapable of nuance.

>>18679311
I'm convinced that Rousseau was actually Satan. Rarely has a greater enemy to all of humanity appeared on earth.

Reminder that Marx and Engles proved the existence of primitve communism with scientific accuracy. This is not up for debate. Read The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. Anything else is pure bourgois ideology.

>>18692471
Atomic individualism. The 'I' is a monad. The 'I' that arises out of a collection of monads is equally as valid an identity as the 'I' of the individual monad. The monad is in flux, yes, but it is a flux, a movement, that is 'constant' in the sense that it is defined by specific and concrete laws, or law.

Exactly, there is a difference between the concept of the group in the minds of the separate individuals (as much as you can grant my definition of individual) and those who are aware of the group.

I think you're getting confused as to my definition of the separate 'group' entity, seemingly capable of having a will and desires of its own. It's not that the 'group' is in anyway unique, but that it operates under the same principles as the monads: exerting the force they possess of themselves to perpetuate their own existence. The monad works to preserve its own independence; the group comprised of monads works to preserve its own 'independence'.

It's not that is has, say, its own being, but that, through existing through others it has being. The group is a means by which the individuals collectively act, and, through that collective action—a melding of interests to some extent—the 'group' gains an almost tangible entity.

Again, to go back to my first example. A bureau is staffed by bureaucrats who, to accomplish their goals, bureaucracy, they create the group: bureaucracy. This group then also through its members, seeks its own power and self-preservation. Imagine the way in which government agencies are said to multiply of in themselves, despite their members all claiming that they don't want a worthless proliferation of red-tape centres.

>>18692543

I can't see that your atomic individualism makes any difference to the problem. We may be approaching the end and starting to talk past each other. My problem is:

>What does it mean to say that a part of a flux (which is itself in flux) changes the change?

in relation to

>A group is defined and constrained by certain laws. These laws are immutable; if the do mutate, for instance, by one who, through his actions adopts new and 'progressive' actions, and, in doing so, changes the laws, then that still is the destruction of the original laws as constituted. The group, past, has been destroyed by the group, future; facilitated by the individuals that comprise group, past, performing actions that are dissonant with the group they embody.

It seems to me that groups (even taking the minimal notion disregarding things like creeds, self-conceptualisation and hermeneutics) are too unstable to be spoken about in the way you have spoken about them.

Second part incoming.

>>18692539
>bourgois ideology
Doesnt exist.

>>18692632

>A good example being state bureaucracies. I believe that they can, without the 'direct' willing of the bureaucrats themselves, increase the bureaucracy's 'power' merely by their own 'existence'. As in, these entities attempt to assume as much power as existent entities. The same is true for countries for instance; they are not comprised of a single set of persons yet can claim a sort of continuance outside of their constituents.

>Again, to go back to my first example. A bureau is staffed by bureaucrats who, to accomplish their goals, bureaucracy, they create the group: bureaucracy. This group then also through its members, seeks its own power and self-preservation. Imagine the way in which government agencies are said to multiply of in themselves, despite their members all claiming that they don't want a worthless proliferation of red-tape centres.

This right here is my issue. You seem to be attributing both a substantiality and continuity to groups and radical discontinuity. You both affirm atomic individualism (and importantly and relatedly that the individuals have no personal identity over time) and say that state bureaucracies "are not comprised of a single set of persons yet can claim a sort of continuance outside of their constituents".

Third part incoming.

>>18692663
>Again, to go back to my first example. A bureau is staffed by bureaucrats who, to accomplish their goals, bureaucracy, they create the group: bureaucracy. This group then also through its members, seeks its own power and self-preservation. Imagine the way in which government agencies are said to multiply of in themselves, despite their members all claiming that they don't want a worthless proliferation of red-tape centres.

In using "bureaucracy" you're eliding the difference between various bureaucracies. You reacted to >>18686694 claiming that some stable, defined group that is "destroyed" by one of its members even though they were acting according to certain norms (though in violation of certain others) of that group in the interest of their continuation. Could not the same be said of your expansion of bureaucracy example? Bureaucracies don't merely expand by doing exactly what they've been doing: they innovate and in doing so, on your view, destroy themselves.

>The group, past, has been destroyed by the group, future; facilitated by the individuals that comprise group, past, performing actions that are dissonant with the group they embody.

This "dissonant with the group they embody" is particularly salient when talking about the continuity-of-a-group or cycles-of-groups-rising-from-the-destruction-of-the-former-and-being-destroyed-in-turn views. When is a group ever clearly defined and totally unanimous? Likely never. Even taking something like a creed, there is nigh-infinite reinterpretability there (as noted by >>18687523 's example of the Catholic Church). Why is it that a bureaucrat creatively utilising legislation in defiance of the old ways to further expand "bureaucracy" is continuity but the example in >>18686694 is destruction?

>>18692632
They are supremely unstable—that's the point. Yet if we were to be able to freeze reality—time and space—for a moment, we could individually count atoms (as conceived in physics today), their locations, future movements and so on. Likewise, whilst, no, we can't really feasibly count groups, or define them, we could theoretically if we were to have infinite time to do so. Thus if it is possible in such circumstances, there is a finite and set quantity we can define the group as—even if, again, it isn't realistically possible. It only exists in the individuals, and is thus countable.

>>18692730
>innovate and in doing so, destroy themselves
Exactly! You got it! I'm happy that you were able to work and this despite my not necessarily telling you—it means there's some reason in it.

This is why I called it 'falling forwards', action is inherently what agglomerates the monads, but is also what necessitates their eventual dissolution. Just as humans 'fall forwards' when they walk, until eventually they fall down for the last time and cease moving; so too is orbiting an act of 'falling forwards', whereby a thing, through its movement, presages and precipitates its own destruction. This too can be seen in politics; Machiavelli stated his view that there must be a continual churning between the various separate types of government by necessity; that the very success of those governmental types is what destroys them. Consider that a substance that is capable of absorbing all impacts into itself, and then neutralising them, in doing so, forces only large impact upon itself—for the forces that would usually attempt light attacks, realising their ineffectiveness, are forced to store their energy for fewer, larger attacks: its success is its own downfall.

And to reiterate concerning the question of epistemology of defining groups: no, it's not possible; yet this is to be taken as a question of epistemology, not reality; we can't discern the underlying forces as we can't discern quantum states—but they exist.

Thank you for listening to my schizo ramblings; it's nice to be able to get it out.

>>18692836
>They are supremely unstable—that's the point. Yet if we were to be able to freeze reality—time and space—for a moment, we could individually count atoms (as conceived in physics today), their locations, future movements and so on.

Issues of reductionism, which I cannot broach, aside. I feel that this underplays the differing conceptions of the group by its members, contradictory interpretations of the definitions and rules according to which the group operates and so on. Your remark about Machiavelli seems to partially acknowledge at least some form of internal contradiction (e.g. police being so effective that they render themselves redundant), but what have you to say about a group that holds contradictory beliefs / beliefs that are in tension: even with your time example, you could theoretically have a group that is indeterminate at a frozen point in time.

>It only exists in the individuals, and is thus countable.

Shouldn't that be "they"? Surely in being destroyed by the even the slightest modification of the physical constitution o, it becomes "an almost impossible mission to attempt to identify a 'I' which can go through separately defined causal stages", or at least an equivalent substrate.


>Exactly! You got it! I'm happy that you were able to work and this despite my not necessarily telling you—it means there's some reason in it.

So I'm to take your claim that state bureaucracies "are not comprised of a single set of persons yet can claim a sort of continuance outside of their constituents" as a mere infelicity of common language? That your distinguishing between destruction in the example of >>18686694 and continuity in >>18691616 was unintentional or arbitrary?

>Thank you for listening to my schizo ramblings; it's nice to be able to get it out.

No worries.

>>18692836
Apologies.

>And to reiterate concerning the question of epistemology of defining groups: no, it's not possible; yet this is to be taken as a question of epistemology, not reality; we can't discern the underlying forces as we can't discern quantum states—but they exist.

I was unaware that one could speak of reality apart from epistemology. You seem to be both affirming a position and upholding agnosticism about it at the same time. You've spoken about having "abandoned the composite 'I' that takes precedence over any of its constituent 'I's': but having obvious difficulties communicating your meaning due to the nature of language. Do you mean something along these lines with the term group being problematic but pragmatically useful?

>>18692539
>Marx and Engles proved the existence of primitve communism
http://libgen.gs/item/index.php?md5=1815C6C08C70CDE1012A1000C60D9067
Except that, even primitive tribes do have kings and aristocracy. Which renders marxists' rant about "muh production" shit effectively null.
No "base and superstructure" => no historical materialism => shove your inevitability of communism in your ass.

>>18692995
My point of bringing up Machiavelli is simply using politics as an empirical example of the way groups form, subsist and dissolve.
For instance: a Democracy is the form of government most receptive of change; it accommodates disparate views. Yet, by this receptivity, it prevents and sizable change. A democracy moves inch-by-inch rather than in great strides. I believe, as Machiavelli, that polities require a substantial re-jigging every now and again to persist. A democracy, capable of moving in small steps—so as to avoid being forced into making large steps—forces those who wish to make substantive changes to hold back the strength, focus it, and then strike a single hard blow. Like if you wish to destroy a sponge you can't just lightly punch it; you much obliterate it in one strike. Contrariwise, an Autocracy, in its unyielding and un-receptive nature to change, is destroyed by its inflexibility. As a, say, cast-iron pan won't give way to a a certain degree of forces at all, then suddenly shatter into pieces.

If a group hold contradictory views:
A. It is unlikely to form a group; but mainly
B. It doesn't matter. Why would it? Contraries work in absolute terms; it's impossible to have a melding of separate ideas in one group for they would destroy eachother.
All the group's ideas are abstracts of the movement of the monads; the monads seek to, in a seemingly contradictory manner, both maintain their own independence (by throwing of monads that have been forced on it), and, to preserve the separate 'I's the form by the agglomeration of monads. It's all force; the ideas exist to manifest force on one another.

The substratum is the monads and the various 'I's that the agglomerations of monads form.

I think you're taking my usage of the term continuity wrongly. I'm using it in an abstract way. All is moment to moment to destroyed—thus there can be no direct continuity as such. The way I was using the term was to refer to our object-level views of a continuity of action. As an animal perpetually seeks its own advantage inspite of the fact that, per my views, it is merely one of myriad 'I's that exist in the agglomeration of monads that compose 'it'. The continuity in the bureaucratic example is that there is a continuity in that the 'group' continues to work in a manner that strengthens itself, as separate from the individuals that comprise it, yet still owing its existence to the individuals that comprise it. Ideas, as present in the minds of creatures that attempt to gain power at every turn, also gain such an inclination—though due to the laws of the universe, not that they are made by humans.

>>18693015
The groups are real things. The 'I's are, as built up from the separate monads (the substrate 'I') real. The 'I's of the separate monads are just as real entities manifesting the desire to gain power as the composite 'I's that the monads build up. The key point being, as I mentioned earlier (with you?), CONT

>>18693227
that the composite 'I's are myriad. If we take 'I', myself, the human writing this, my 'I' takes no precedence over the monads the compose the hands that I use to type this, they too have equally valid 'I's; as do my fingers, nails, parts of those nails and so on—all are equally valid 'I's that can compose groups and so forth.

I deny the mind; it's merely an agglomeration of the monads 'I's the each possess some kind of consciousness.

Epistemology, as accepted by most today (not that I necessarily agree with them), is not positivist in nature; to measure something we must first fire a thing at the thing we seek to measure and, in doing so, change the result of the measurement. I simply deny that we can properly penetrate to the absolute substratum in a way that's 100% accurate—of all my statements I would suppose this to be the least controversial.

>>18693227
>B. It doesn't matter. Why would it?

It mattered to me because I wasn't assuming your "individuals" were merely physical objects given that you appeared to be talking about the group's existence as a seemingly causally-efficacious abstract object ("non-physical 'substantiality'"... "capable it a type of 'being' that allows it to influence material bodies" , "it is merely an thing as a phantom in the minds of all" and "It exists solely in the minds of those who comprise it, or are aware of it"). If individuals comprising the group have that double-barreled body / mind distinction, it only follows that the group can be described similarly and that its conceptualisation and meaning as an institution to both its members and any observer is just as important as its physical constitution. If we've come to a conversation about reductionism, and it appears that we may have, I'm afraid that I'm of no use.

>it's impossible to have a melding of separate ideas in one group for they would destroy eachother.

Any group that has more than some imagined extremely simple, single goal necessarily has a melding of separate ideas. Western Culture has placed paramount emphasis on both goodness and beauty on one hand and truth on the other. These were values to the Greeks but also values to the Christians (who considered them in some sense united). Western Culture is so large and complex that while these two things are paramount, there is no universally agreed upon answer to which should be cast aside if they're found to be incompatible. To choose one as correct is one thing, but deeming the other choice "Unwestern" when the choice draws upon just as established tradition wouldn't make much sense.

>Epistemology, as accepted by most today (not that I necessarily agree with them), is not positivist in nature; to measure something we must first fire a thing at the thing we seek to measure and, in doing so, change the result of the measurement. I simply deny that we can properly penetrate to the absolute substratum in a way that's 100% accurate—of all my statements I would suppose this to be the least controversial.

I don't have any objections to what you've said here, it's just that before you seemed to use epistemological terms (or at least quasi-epistemological terms) like "reality" and "existence" in a strange way as if they were somehow disconnected from epistemology.

>state of nature

>>18679311
Both are right. Hobbes was talking about the kal-yuga where every man is indeed against every other man, and it shall be so until Kalki saves us.

Rousseau, other other hand was talking about the Sat-yuga where all human beings were just and peace prevailed.

>>18692539
there was war and peace in primitive communism

>>18679311
>Hobbes is famous for his assertion that the state of nature was a state of war of "every man against every man."
Okay that's not true. First, inside a tribe, there wasn't war. People were participating in the hunts, and shares hunts and food.
Secondly, some tribes were mortal ennemies. Indeed they were deadly ennemies, and would shoot arrow on sight, without any warning. However, some other tribes were friends, and parties happened between allied tribes.
So no, Hobbes didn't know shit about antropology. Which is normal, since this discipline only appeared in the 19th century, with Lewis H. Morgan.
Hobbes is obsolete.

>>18679900
Those men got to live and die in the world they were made for. They got to enter glorious battle with their ancestors smiling down upon them. In victory they feasted upon their enemies for, took the puss and cunny of their defeated rivals' wives and daughters, as well as the bussy of their weak sons. They gloried in their power until they were defeated and lived like brothers in honor.

Instead, we have inherited slavery.

>>18693711
We're probably done here; thank you for your time.

I've probably been misleading you, I reject 'mind'—all is matter; ideas are just a form of matter interacting. The monads are capable only of knowing other things by interacting, and agglomerating with them. Thus the memories and ideas of a human are merely the agglomerated monads that comprise that human each seeking to maintain its own existence. There is no continuity in the 'unity of apperception', merely various instances of time where the individual in each instance deterministically does what is best in that instance. For instance, if I throw a punch at someone, I begin a wind-up for the throw; once I've actually started to swing, each instance is separate, there is no 'I'm going to punch this person', but a multitude of sequential 'in this instance the best thing to do is to continue throwing the punch' over and over again, until the punch has been completed. There is no single 'punch him' idea, merely a cost benefit analyse of each moment which leads to the best decision being to continue throwing the punch.

All ideas—Read: manifestations of power, for that's all they are—are matter; they don't influence anything insomuch as they are just means to manifest will-to-power. They are the same; just coming at the same thing from different angles.

I'm sorry if my talking of epistemology was poorly explained; this wasn't a planned discourse and I was just throwing out terms that seemed to indicate the right sort of idea; I didn't think anyone would actually try to dig into them!

>>18693828
We probably are indeed. And thank you.

>I reject 'mind'

I (tentatively) reject mind as a substance. I don't know enough about philosophy of mind to have a much more developed view than that, although brief readings about intentionality, multiple realizability, etc. in philosophy of mind have reinforced my constitutional dislike of reductionism. As I said before, though, I'm of no real use here.

Thank you again: as you hinted at earlier, it's always good to have some friendly disagreement even if the only outcome is a superior understanding and articulation of one's own position.