Civility

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

1 hour ago, crenca said:

In the end, a call or demand for civility without an explicit or implicit commonality on the deeper realities above is just so much spitting in the wind...

 

Spitting in the wind would be uncivil .....(Yeh I know, not in all cultures)

 

 

1 hour ago, crenca said:

 

1)  No, there is very little universal "expectations" among mankind.  A (some would say "the")central myth of Western Civilization is that it's understanding of reality, god(s), man, politics, the good, customs, what is and what is not "civil" and "decent" and "respectful" is universal and catholic.  Today with an internal collapse of western civ, even within itself it does not have this catholic and common understanding.  

 

2) Do you mean to ask "why" I agree there can be a common and catholic understanding of civility?  Because I am a (Platonic) humanist.  However, there are those (such as materialists, radical subjectivists, those who hold to a confident scientism) on this very thread (and other kinds of philosophy not on display here) who are fundamental anti-humanistic.  This is not an insult, just a fact.  This means we do not common ground on which to agree on respect - because that rests on what you think a person is (anthropology), what reality is, etc.  How can  you respect what is not real, or fundamentally undermines humanity as you understand it?

 

3) Sorry, I used a specific American example.  In America we had a common understanding of civility that a strong majority agreed to up until the 1960's (putting aside what our civil war means in this context).  After that, religious, cultural, political developments (ones that had been in process for at least 500 years) split us fundamentally into tribes.  That is when the books started to be written about how to put America back together again culturally, politically, etc.  Almost all of these ideas however assume a universality to that author personal/group understanding that is simply not the case.

 

4) This is the crux of the matter - I suggest you dig a bit deeper.   Civility & respect rest on moral, metaphysical, philosophical, religious foundations about what a human is, his/her dignity, his/her value, on what that value rests, where it begins and where it ends, how that value is related to other values, how an individual's value is weighed against other values, such as the value of the group/community/sect/state/"common humanity".  Again, a central myth of the western civ for quite a while has been that its answer to these questions were universal - they applied to all mankind the world over.  When were all RCatholic, what civility was came from that worldview.  When were protestant, that was the answer.  When the State supplemented the Church (roughly 17th - 19th centuries) as the arbitrator and guarantee of the good, truth, "rights" and human dignity, it provided the answers.  Since the 19th technocratic, "scientific" progress and a "rational, pragmatic" view of man is (mostly) what western civ tries to universalize.  The 20th century however signaled an exhaustion, a lack of moral confidence and clarity within western civ.  Sure, our technology and our relatively efficient capital systems make it appear that we are "globalists" and have triumphed, but this is also starting to crack.

 

In the end, a call or demand for civility without an explicit or implicit commonality on the deeper realities above is just so much spitting in the wind...

 

 

 

 

Where in all of that does it say a humanist (Platonic or otherwise), Roman catholic (or Muslim or Jew or Buddhist), or the " moral, metaphysical, philosophical, religious foundations about what a human is", cannot be expected to conduct themselves in a civil and respectful manner?

Lets simply approach it from a linguistic meaning model :

Respect is a polysemant - in the context we are talking (not necessarily implying  esteem or admiration):

 

Respect

rɪˈspɛkt/

noun

1. noun: respect; plural noun: respects

due regard for the feelings, wishes, or rights of others

Synonym

due regard, consideration, thoughtfulness, attentiveness, politeness, courtesy, civility, deference

 

Civility

sɪˈvɪlɪti/

noun

noun: civility

1.       formal politeness and courtesy in behaviour or speech.

synonyms:

courtesy, courteousness, politeness, good manners, mannerliness, gentlemanliness, chivalry, gallantry, graciousness, consideration, respect, gentility; urbanity, cordiality, geniality, pleasantness, affability;

 

 

Ridicule

ˈrɪdɪkjuːl/

noun

noun: ridicule

1.       1.
the subjection of someone or something to contemptuous and dismissive language or behaviour.
 

synonyms:

mockery, derision, laughter, scorn, scoffing, contempt, jeering, sneering, sneers, jibes, jibing, joking, teasing, taunts, taunting, ragging, chaffing, twitting, raillery, sarcasm,

 

[Teresa]

4 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

If Respect and Civility are the issues here but someone makes claims that deserve no respect, what is the most civil way to deal with that?

 

Personally, I would deal with that by either making no comment, or saying my opinion is different. And I try to add either IMHO or YMMV.

 

By the way, what claim would deserve no respect? And how do you know a statement is a claim? Would you belittle someone who believed the Earth was flat to their face? Sorry, that just sounds cruel to me.

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

8 minutes ago, Teresa said:

 

Personally, I would deal with that by either making no comment, or saying my opinion is different. And I try to add either IMHO or YMMV.

 

By the way, what claim would deserve no respect? And how do you know a statement is a claim? Would you belittle someone who believed the Earth was flat to their face? Sorry, that just sounds cruel to me.

 

Teresa, I respect your opinion/s - not just politely, as in true admiration and esteem.

[christopher3393]

11 hours ago, mansr said:

In your effort to show that philosophy is not mainly an appeal to authority, you invoke no fewer than five authorities.

 

While I find some topics falling in the realm of philosophy interesting, I dislike the manner in which they are typically discussed, every statement framed as a reference to some authority or other. Besides imposing a needless barrier (reading all those books takes time), it tends to elevate the person above the idea, something I find repulsive. Granted, maths and the natural sciences often name theorems and "laws" after the person who proved or discovered them. Still, when referenced, it is the idea rather than the person which is invoked.

 

A similar cult of personality can be observed on various levels among audiophiles. Ideas are not permitted to stand on their own without the backing of an authority. Challenges to the prevailing dogma are dismissed unless your name is on the list of anointed ones. On this very forum, I have been chastised for daring to question the words of various established authorities.

 

Could it be that some view the audiophile pursuit through the eyes of philosophy, where any notion is acceptable provided it is delivered by an accepted authority, while others, myself included, favour a scientific approach in which persons take a back seat to the ideas under discussion, and these differing approaches are behind the many conflicts we witness here and elsewhere?

 

Nice post. You raise several significant questions, imo. Philosopher Michel Foucault explored  your main question in the essay "What is an Author?". This brief quotation sets the tone: "Beckett supplies a direction: ‘What matter who’s speaking, someone said, what matter who’s speaking.’ " :   http://www.english.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Foucault_Author.pdf

 

It is not lost on me that I have just quoted an author who was quoting an author to raise questions about authorship/ authority.   

[mansr]

7 hours ago, lucretius said:

I didn't say that.  I don't think you understood my response.  Although the same word "existence" is used, it is clearly not the same meaning in both the cases of physical things and ideas.

“Everyone knows that dragons don’t exist. But while this simplistic formulation may satisfy the layman, it does not suffice for the scientific mind. The School of Higher Neantical Nillity is in fact wholly unconcerned with what does exist. Indeed, the banality of existence has been so amply demonstrated, there is no need for us to discuss it any further here. The brilliant Cerebron, attacking the problem analytically, discovered three distinct kinds of dragon: the mythical, the chimerical, and the purely hypothetical. They were all, one might say, nonexistent, but each non-existed in an entirely different way.” -- Stanisław Lem, The Cyberiad

[mansr]

11 hours ago, wgscott said:

I think I understand your point, but I think in Philosophy it is more an attempt to give credit to the proponent of the idea, as well as a shorthand way of identifying the idea unambiguously.

 

If we say "Einstein's theory of the photo-electric effect" or "Maxwell's Equations" of "The Schrodinger Equation" or "Planck's Constant", aren't we doing the same thing?

There is a difference. No electrical engineer would describe himself as belonging to the Maxwell school of electromagnetism. Maxwell's equations would be as valid under any name.

[wgscott]

21 minutes ago, mansr said:

There is a difference. No electrical engineer would describe himself as belonging to the Maxwell school of electromagnetism. Maxwell's equations would be as valid under any name.

 

I didn't say it was an exact analogy.  But I think you are missing the point by fixating on something that is essentially an artifact.  

 

Let's forget about people's names, then. I agree, it is a distraction.

 

Let us say there exists a proof for a mathematical theorem, and that the idea contained in this theorem winds up being very useful for bridge design and construction.  After several bridges are built, they start to fail under certain conditions, killing several people.  A thorough investigation is conducted, and eventually it leads to the design of the bridge, and ultimately to re-examination of the proof, in which a small logical error is discovered as the ultimate cause.

 

Now, do mathematical proofs have an objective existence, apart from the books they are written in, or the neurological states of the people who have read and worked through the proofs?  You can't weigh the proof, measure an electronic signature of the proof, attribute energy to the proof, etc., so it is tempting to say the poof, which after all was created by (fallible) humans, doesn't have an objective existence apart from the paper it is written down on.  But if that is the case, how can the mistake in the proof have existed prior to its discovery?  If the mistake didn't exist in some objective sense, how could it be responsible for those people's deaths?

 

 

[wgscott]

3 hours ago, Teresa said:

 

Personally, I would deal with that by either making no comment, or saying my opinion is different. And I try to add either IMHO or YMMV.

 

By the way, what claim would deserve no respect? And how do you know a statement is a claim? Would you belittle someone who believed the Earth was flat to their face? Sorry, that just sounds cruel to me.

 

No, but I would argue with the person about the merit of the idea.

 

Isn't it more disrespectful to pretend there is nothing to discuss, and just secretly shake your head and say that the person is insane?  

 

Someone willing to argue (in the true meaning of the word) is, implicitly, willing to put the counter-proposal to the test, and is therefore at least entertaining the idea that the flat-earth proposal could be right.

[mansr]

2 minutes ago, wgscott said:

Let us say there exists a proof for a mathematical theorem, and that the idea contained in this theorem winds up being very useful for bridge design and construction.  After several bridges are built, they start to fail under certain conditions, killing several people.  A thorough investigation is conducted, and eventually it leads to the design of the bridge, and ultimately to re-examination of the proof, in which a small logical error is discovered as the ultimate cause.

 

Now, do mathematical proofs have an objective existence, apart from the books they are written in, or the neurological states of the people who have read and worked through the proofs?  You can't weigh the proof, measure an electronic signature of the proof, attribute energy to the proof, etc., so it is tempting to say the poof, which after all was created by (fallible) humans, doesn't have an objective existence apart from the paper it is written down on.  But if that is the case, how can the mistake in the proof have existed prior to its discovery?  If the mistake didn't exist in some objective sense, how could it be responsible for those people's deaths?

In some sense, one can say that logic, and with it every possible true statement, a subset of which might be termed proofs, "exists" implicitly. All we do is discover it. Then there's of course Gödel's incompleteness theorem to deal with.

 

In your bridge example, it wasn't the flawed proof that killed people, it was the flawed bridge. The mistaken belief that the construction was sound is coincidental.

[wgscott]

Just now, mansr said:

there's of course Gödel's incompleteness theorem

 

I wish the raccoon under my house was this easy to trap.

[lucretius]

4 hours ago, Teresa said:

And how do you know a statement is a claim?

 

What is the difference?

[wgscott]

10 minutes ago, mansr said:

In your bridge example, it wasn't the flawed proof that killed people, it was the flawed bridge. The mistaken belief that the construction was sound is coincidental.

 

So what caused the bridge to be built with the flaw, if it wasn't the undiscovered flaw in the proof?  If the flaw doesn't exist until it is discovered, how did the bridge fail?

 

(The point of my example wasn't to get an easy answer to the problem; I don't happen to think there is an easy answer.  But if has to do with ideas that aren't mine.  They could be attributed to Frege, or even Descarte, (or as you pointed out, Kurtie old boy. You made it too easy for me).

[jabbr]

34 minutes ago, wgscott said:

Let us say there exists a proof for a mathematical theorem, and that the idea contained in this theorem winds up being very useful for bridge design and construction.  

This is the very essence of Quine’s take home message. 

 

The folks interested in mathematical proofs and Godels incompleteness etc ought to read and be sure they understand the implications of “Two Dogmas” (which I consider the very best and most important philosophy paper of the 20th century)

 

For those who haven’t yet read, it addresses the question : what are the implications of the so-called a priori truth : “1 + 1 = 2” ... is it?

[jabbr]

22 minutes ago, mansr said:

In some sense, one can say that logic, and with it every possible true statement, a subset of which might be termed proofs, "exists" implicitly. All we do is discover it. Then there's of course Gödel's incompleteness theorem to deal with.

 

In your bridge example, it wasn't the flawed proof that killed people, it was the flawed bridge. The mistaken belief that the construction was sound is coincidental.

Does it? Is it? How do you know?

 

What are your assumptions? 

 

Start with: how have you determined that the bridge follows your rules of logic? Is your logical framework flawed?

 

(Eg you are Euclidean +/- aren’t using quantum effects)

 

Essentially Quines take home message, and how philosophy became relevant to physics again.

[christopher3393]

13 hours ago, wgscott said:

 

Indeed, I am.  Richard Dawkins is far too conciliatory when it comes to these kinds of things.  Nietzsche had a much more delightful and direct approach.

 

Isn't bigotry a form of intolerance? Does this bigotry imply hatred?

[mansr]

3 minutes ago, jabbr said:

Start with: how have you determined that the bridge follows your rules of logic? Is your logical framework flawed?

The bridge follows the rules of physical reality (whatever that is), whether or not we understand them.

[wgscott]

Just now, christopher3393 said:

 

Isn't bigotry a form of intolerance? Does this bigotry imply hatred?

 

I don't describe myself as a bigot.  You used the word, and the intellectual thug/poser who stalks me parroted it a few times.

 

But to answer your original question as honestly as possible, I admit that I am a bit of an anti-religious zealot.

[wgscott]

2 minutes ago, mansr said:

The bridge follows the rules of physical reality (whatever that is), whether or not we understand them.

 

Same problem:  Do those rules of physical reality have any objective existence, apart from the people who articulate and implement them?  Do the rules exist before they are discovered?

 

(I would say yes, but then I have to account for how their existence differs from that of gods and other such mythical constructs.)

[jabbr]

1 minute ago, mansr said:

The bridge follows the rules of physical reality (whatever that is), whether or not we understand them.

Ok, so where does a “proof”  come into this? That’s the crux. If a proof doesn’t create a perfect bridge, what is its “truth”?

[christopher3393]

15 minutes ago, wgscott said:

 

I don't describe myself as a bigot.  You used the word, and the intellectual thug/poser who stalks me parroted it a few times.

 

But to answer your original question as honestly as possible, I admit that I am a bit of an anti-religious zealot.

 

Thanks. Would you also describe yourself as a bit of an anti-subjectivist zealot, or is that too strong? I ask because I read you ask making a kind of correspondence between subjectivism and religion that at times appears to be quite strong.

[lucretius]

44 minutes ago, wgscott said:

 

So what caused the bridge to be built with the flaw, if it wasn't the undiscovered flaw in the proof?  If the flaw doesn't exist until it is discovered, how did the bridge fail?

 

(The point of my example wasn't to get an easy answer to the problem; I don't happen to think there is an easy answer.  But if has to do with ideas that aren't mine.  They could be attributed to Frege, or even Descarte, (or as you pointed out, Kurtie old boy. You made it too easy for me).

 

Why do you keep this line of reasoning up?  In the chain of causes and effects, the 'proof' doesn't fit in. It answers to 'why', not 'how'.

 

[wgscott]

13 minutes ago, lucretius said:

 

Why do you keep this line of reasoning up?  In the chain of causes and effects, the 'proof' doesn't fit in. It answers to 'why', not 'how'.

 

 

I would like to claim (a) the proof exists somehow as an objective entity, and (b) the mistake existed before it was discovered.  The "how" question is very much more difficult to answer, and I don't think I have a compelling answer.  (I think it is a good example of an open problem in philosophy that has very real implications for physicists and engineers.)

 

My original intention was to demonstrate to Mans that there was more to Philosophy than appeal to the authority of named philosophers (eg: Lucretius), but he beat me to it.

[wgscott]

6 minutes ago, christopher3393 said:

 

Thanks. Would you also describe yourself as a bit of an anti-subjectivist zealot, or is that too strong? I ask because I read you ask making a kind of correspondence between subjectivism and religion that at times appears to be quite strong.

 

I think it is too strong.  I think you can be a 100% subjectivist (whatever that is) and be an atheist, even a bigoted anti-religious zealot.  Similarly, I see no reason why someone cannot be an 100% objective realist and an ardent believer in a God.

 

I think there are some parallels, but conflating the two becomes problematic (as you imply).

[pkane2001]

Just now, wgscott said:

 

Same problem:  Do those rules of physical reality have any objective existence, apart from the people who articulate and implement them?  Do the rules exist before they are discovered?

 

A formal logic system is defined by a set of axioms and derivation rules. A proof consists of showing that a statement (theorem) can be derived from the axioms through the repeated application of rules.

 

Ignoring  Gödel's unprovable theorems for a moment, the other 'truths' within such a system are recursive, i.e., computable. Does that mean that each proof has an existence before it is constructed? Probably not in the physical realm, but certainly in a mathematical sense. All such proofs come into 'mathematical existence' as soon as the formal system is defined.

 

What is curious is that the physical universe appears to be extremely adverse to violating the truths that are derivable in any internally consistent formal logic system. That's why mathematics (a formal system) is such a great tool for modeling physical sciences. Why this is so, is unknown and probably unknowable. Is it by design? By accident? My guess is that the universe itself is just a dynamic formal system trying to randomly construct instantiations of all the possible theorems. In other words, a computer. But I have no proof

 

[jabbr]

5 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

What is curious is that the physical universe appears to be extremely adverse to violating the truths that are derivable in any internally consistent formal logic system.

 

What is your criteria for truth? Let’s say true = 1. In your logic system does 0.99 = 1? What formal logic system are you using?