Comment author: [deleted] 12 April 2015 07:01:13AM *  3 points [-]

Why do you turn an empirical question into a philosophical one? The question whether people can invoke emotions in themselves just as efficiently without external crutches such as music, horror movies, or romantic restaurants, is easily falsified by the simple existence of these services and the willingness to pay for them. Clearly people use them because it is easier to invoke the emotion than through e.g. meditation or whatever you are proposing.

Besides, this philosophy also applies to the other side. Is there an inherent correlation between what other people do (say, make noise that makes our ears hurt) and subjective pain felt? If you have some sort of a meditation technique that can make people as elevated as they are made by a good song, can't this be used the same way to detach from pain, in which other people infringing on our rights or not respecting the live and let live fully becomes a moot point?

Comment author: hoofwall 12 April 2015 07:13:47AM -1 points [-]

...Clearly people use them because it is easier to invoke the emotion than through e.g. meditation or whatever you are proposing.

This assumes of course that the human's world and the human's lifestyle is rational. I believe it is not. Humans deciding to do one thing over another does not necessarily mean that their choice is the best. Humans have collectively done some really stupid shit in the past...

Besides, this philosophy also applies to the other side. Is there an inherent correlation between what other people do (say, make noise that makes our ears hurt) and subjective pain felt?

No, not if "subjective pain felt" is defined as raw emotion. Emotion can be manipulated with perception.

If you have some sort of a meditation technique that can make people as elevated as they are made by a good song, can't this be used the same way to detach from pain, in which other people infringing on our rights or not respecting the live and let live fully becomes a moot point?

I think I am getting confused here, and misunderstanding you. If the pain you speak of in this excerpt were for instance defined as a human being hit with a baseball bat by another human, I would fallback to my argument of emotion existing exclusively in the mind and of relying on things outside of your head being redundant and unnecessary if you can simply remember how to rouse that emotion. In this scenario, I do not believe listening to music in 3D space could possibly be inherent good, so the girl should just stop listening to the music if another human can hear it, and it makes them unhappy.

Why do you turn an empirical question into a philosophical one?

I don't understand... Would you please rephrase this inquiry in layman's terms for me? But I answered the question as I did because I thought doing so was the best way. Sorry if this post sucks... it was difficult to compose.

By the way, it said I had to wait one minute to submit this post despite it taking me several minutes of typing to compose so I don't know if this will double post. I don't see a copy of this post on my userpage right now.

Comment author: Manfred 12 April 2015 06:13:08AM *  4 points [-]

You should do things that get good results. To a good approximation, that is what "rational" is used to mean around here.

Under this definition, if insulting people gets good results, it is rational to insult people. And if not insulting people gets good results, then it's rational to not insult people.

It's like playing League of Legends (or any other videogame that involves talking to teammates). Playing at the surface level, you just play the game by controlling your in-game pawn, and you talk to your teammates just based on what you want to say. But the things you say to your teammates are also directly impacting the game - the rational use of one's keyboard in this situation is to try to type things that increase your chances of victory, and not type things that decrease your chances.

Comment author: hoofwall 12 April 2015 06:16:50AM -2 points [-]

Are you implying that you believe objective morality bends to the whims of whatever method you need to convince a human to think like you? Are you implying that you believe the fundamental properties of the written and spoken word are just gone in certain instances where humans decide they want to be offended by them?

I am of the opinion that the written and spoken word could never be inherent evil. You appear to be implying that if a human thinks a word is inherent evil then I should treat it as if it is in order to accomplish a "good result", if I must. What is a "good result"? If a "good result" is the objective most rational end the universe could tend to then compromising on one's standards because the human has arbitrarily-decided they want you to absolutely does not facilitate that "good result".

Is my theory on why censorship is wrong correct?

-24 hoofwall 12 April 2015 04:03AM

So, I have next to no academic knowledge. I have literally not read or perhaps even picked up any book since eighth grade, which is where my formal education ended, and I turn 20 this year, but I am sitting on some theories pertaining to my understanding of rationality, and procrastinating about expressing them has gotten me here. I'd like to just propose my theory on why censorship is wrong, here. Please tell me whether or not you agree or disagree, and feel free to express anything else you feel you would like to in this thread. I miss bona fide argument, but this community seems way less hostile than the one community I was involved in elsewhere....

 

Also, I feel I should affirm again that my academic knowledge is almost entirely just not there... I know the LessWrong community has a ton of resources they turn to and indulge in, which is more or less a bible of rationality by which you all abide, but I have read or heard of none of it. I don't mean to offend you with my willful ignorance. Sorry. Also, sorry for possibly incorporating similes and stuff into my expression... I know many out there are on the autistic spectrum and can't comprehend it so I'll try to stop doing that unless I'm making a point.

 

Okay, so, since the following has been bothering me a lot since I joined this site yesterday and even made me think against titling this what I want, consider the written and spoken word. Humans literally decided as a species to sequence scribbles and mouth noises in an entirely arbitrary way, ascribe emotion to their arbitrary scribbles and mouth noises, and then claim, as a species, that very specific arbitrary scribbles and mouth noises are inherent evil and not to be expressed by any human. Isn't that fucking retarded?

 

I know what you may be thinking. You might be thinking, "wow, this hoofwall character just fucking wrote a fucking arbitrary scribble that my species has arbitrarily claimed to be inherent evil without first formally affirming, absolutely, that the arbitrary scribble he uttered could never be inherent evil and that writing it could never in itself do any harm. This dude obviously has no interest in successfully defending himself in argument". But fuck that. This is not the same as murdering a human and trying to conceive an excuse defending the act later. This is not the same as effecting the world in any way that has been established to be detrimental and then trying to defend the act later. This is literally sequencing the very letters of the very language the human has decided they are okay with and will use to express themselves in such a way that it reminds the indoctrinated and conditioned human of emotion they irrationally ascribe to the sequence of letters I wrote. This is possibly the purest argument conceivable for demonstrating superfluity in the human world, and the human psyche. There could never be an inherent correlation to one's emotionality and an arbitrary sequence of mouth noises or scribbles or whatever have you that exist entirely independent of the human. If one were to erase an arbitrary scribble that the human irrationally ascribes emotion to, the human will still have the capacity to feel the emotion the arbitrary scribble roused within them. The scribble is not literally the embodiment of emotionality. This is why censorship is retarded.

 

Mind you, I do not discriminate against literal retards, or blacks, or gays, or anything. I do, however, incorporate the words "retard", "nigger", and "faggot" into my vocabulary literally exclusively because it triggers humans and demonstrates the fact that the validity of one's argument and one's ability to defend themselves in argument does not matter to the human. I have at times proposed my entire argument, actually going so far to quantify the breadth of this universe as I perceive it, the human existence, emotionality, and right and wrong before even uttering a fuckdamn swear, but it didn't matter. Humans think plugging their ears and chanting a mantra of "lalala" somehow gives themselves a valid argument for their bullshit, but whatever. Affirming how irrational the human is is a waste of time. There are other forms of censorship I shout address, as well, but I suppose not before proposing what I perceive the breadth of everything less fundamental than the human to be.

 

It's probably very easy to deduce the following, but nothing can be proven to exist. Also, please do bear with my what are probably argument by assertion fallacies at the moment... I plan on defending myself before this post ends.

 

Any opinion any human conceives is just a consequence of their own perception, the likes of which appears to be a consequence of their physical form, the likes of which is a consequence of properties in this universe as we perceive it. We cannot prove our universe's existence beyond what we have access to in our universe as we perceive it, therefore we cannot prove that we exist. We can't prove that our understanding of existence is true existence; we can only prove, within our universe, that certain things appear to be in concurrence with the laws of this universe as we perceive it. We can propose for example that an apple we can see occupies space in this universe, but we can't prove that our universe actually exists beyond our understanding of what existence is. We can't go more fundamental than what composes our universe... We can't go up if we are mutually exclusive with the very idea of "up", or are an inferior consequence of "up" which is superior to us.

 

I really don't remember what else I would say after this but, I guess, without divulging how much I obsess about breaking emotionality into a science, I believe nudity can't be inherent evil either because it is literally the cause of us, the human, and we are necessary to be able to perceive good and evil in the first place. If humans were not extant to dominate the world and force it to tend to the end they wanted it to anything living would just live, breed, and die, and nothing would be inherently "good" or "evil". It would just be. Until something evolved if it would to gain the capacity to force distinctions between "good" and "evil" there would be no such constructs. We have no reason to believe there would be. I don't know how I can affirm that further. If nudity- and exclusively human nudity, mind you- were to be considered inherent evil that would mean that the human is inherent evil, that everything the human perceives is is inherent evil and that the human's understanding of "rationality" is just a poor, grossly-misled attempt at coping with the evil properties that they retain and is inherently worthless. Which I actually believe, but an opinion that contrary is literally satanism and fuck me if I think I'm going to be expounding all of that here. But fundamentally, human nudity cannot be inherent evil if the human's opinions are to be considered worth anything at all, and if you want to go less fundamental than that and approach it from a "but nudity makes me feel bad" standpoint, you can simply warp your perception of the world to force seeing or otherwise being reminded of things to be correlated to certain emotion within you. I'm autistic it seems so I obsess about breaking emotionality down to a science every day but this isn't the post to be talking about shit like that. In any case, you can't prove that the act of you seeing another human naked is literal evil, so fuck you and your worthless opinions.

 

Yeah... I don't know what else I could say here, or if censorship exists in forms other than preventing humans from being exposed to human nudity, or human-conceived words. I should probably assert as well that I believe the human's thinking that the inherent evil of human nudity somehow becomes okay to see when a human reaches the age of 18, or 21, or 16, or 12 depending on which subset of human you ask is retarded. Also, by "retarded" I do not literally mean "retarded". I use the word as a trigger word that's meant to embody and convey bad emotion the human decides they want to feel when they're exposed to it. This entire post is dripping with the grossest misanthropy but I'm interested in seeing what the responses to this are... By the way, if you just downvote me without expressing to me what you think I'm doing wrong, as far as I can tell you are just satisfied with vaguely masturbating your dissenting opinion you care not for even defining in my direction, so, whatever makes you sleep at night, if you do that... but you're wrong though, and I would argue that to the death.

Comment author: hoofwall 11 April 2015 11:32:05PM 0 points [-]

I like this question. It is a lot less intimidating that a lot of the other posts on this site I've seen in my short time being here, and I feel I can actually contribute using only my philosophy and ability to express myself in the English language, rather than also needing knowledge on other constructs.

In my opinion, emotion starts and ends with the mind, so the notion that for instance a specific human's emotion can exist outside of their mind is completely asinine. As such, listening to music in reality, in itself, is total redundancy. It is not mandatory for the Alice in your proposed scenario to listen to her music in reality to evoke and indulge in her emotion. The music she is listening to in reality serves only to interact with her physical being(in this scenario via her receptivity for sound) for the sake of rousing what I define as "memory" within her. Alice retains her emotionality regardless of ever having listened to her music in this scenario in her lifetime, therefore, the music serves only to rouse specific emotion within her, thus serving as a method to quantify it for her, mentally. There is still no inherent correlation between her music as it exists in reality and her emotion. All dissenting opinions are irrational, I believe...

Because Alice's indulging in her music or any music in reality is entirely unnecessary insofar as maximizing her pleasure or minimizing her pain is concerned- which is upon which my philosophy is founded and the end to which I believe all humans should tend- if her indulging in her music in this scenario infringes upon the most basic utilitarian doctrine of "live and let live" she should stop. Alice will never be able to provide a rational reason to listen to her music. Alice will never be able to absolutely, objectively explain why she should infringe upon the doctrine of "live and let live" for the sake of her arbitrarily ascribing emotion to music in 3D space. It would take me several hundred words to explain why I believe maximizing(the human's) pleasure and minimizing(the human's) pain is objective good and I would rather not, not yet, but these are my opinions...

Excluding my simply explaining why I believe my basis for rational thought(against which I contest all other bases for rational thought and claim them to be inferior) is correct, I don't see what more there is for me to address... sorry

Comment author: hairyfigment 11 April 2015 06:35:42PM -1 points [-]

Possibly I don't understand your situation ("devolved" doesn't make sense to me except as Star Trek syence, a word I just invented based on the name SyFy. It could be a more polite version of 'syfyces'.)

But I find it useful to remind myself that humans have no evolutionary reason to be perfectly rational. I tell myself that if any future I hope for comes to pass, the people there will see us (at the present time) as particularly foolish children who, rather horribly, age and die before growing up.

Comment author: hoofwall 11 April 2015 11:09:54PM 2 points [-]

Sorry, I suppose I misused the word "devolve"... I've seen others use it as I have in my post here so I thought it was okay, but I suppose not. Perhaps they misused it, and if so I should not be tolerating the arbitrary and blatant misuse of words. What I meant by that word though was simply falling in stature. My using the word was to express that I believed humans have fallen in stature to the point that they cannot fall in stature anymore, and that the humans who roam the earth today will continue to breed and forge the world they want without changing very much in the next few generations of human if ever.

I just realized this site has a quoting feature. That makes responding to posts SO much easier...

But I find it useful to remind myself that humans have no evolutionary reason to be perfectly rational.

Yes... I believe the same thing. One does not have to provide to anything a rational reason to copulate, and to breed. One does not need to provide a rational reason to anything to live, to kill, to, force the world to tend to the end they want or anything. Humans appear to simply do. Naturally, through generations of the human simply doing, and doing as they please, they have perhaps become incapable of actually questioning whether or not simply doing is right, but what do I know? This is just a theory, and not one I can prove with sheer logic. Even if I fancied doing so it would be a waste of time... It would be far worth my effort to simply deduce and affirm what it means to be right, and what it means to be wrong. Whether or not the human has the capacity to truly be rational and what caused rationality and being human to be mutually exclusive if they are can be questioned later...

Comment author: monsterzero 11 April 2015 06:10:32PM 1 point [-]

Our culture typically presents rationality as opposed to emotion; I believe that a disproportionate number of misanthropes are drawn to rationality for that reason.

However, logic is meaningless without having an underlying goal, and goals are generally determined by one's emotions. What are your goals?

I find that thinking of other people as inferior or irrational is not particularly helpful in accomplishing my objectives. I feel less stress and make more progress by recognizing that other people have different goals than I do.

It is possible to get others (even "irrational" others) to help you accomplish your goals by offering to help them with theirs.

Comment author: hoofwall 11 April 2015 11:00:31PM 2 points [-]

Sorry, before I mention my personal goals I just want to say that I disagree with the notion that logic is meaningless without being founded on an underlying goal... Logic as I understand it is by definition merely a method of thinking, or the concept of sequencing thought to reach conclusions, and determining why some of such sequences are right. I believe logic in itself- according to the second definition I proposed- tends to the end of a goal, and that goal is rationality. Naturally, without having anything to sequence logic is nothing and has no breadth, but in this universe where the breadth of the construct "logic" is contingent on the human's ability to sequence data it should inherently have a goal, at least today as the human appears, and that goal should be rationality, in my opinion. I believe assuming your proposal is correct would mean assuming "logic" as you used it in your proposal is simply defined as a method of thinking, and not its more fundamental meaning, which I proposed.

My goal is simply to express in my lifetime my views on everything... I do not feel I can change the world. I do not feel I can simply approach every human I encounter and explain to them why I believe my opinions to be correct and all conceivable dissenting opinions to be wrong. I will just express myself in my own way one day and that will be it... I created an account on this website more or less randomly for me because I was recommended going here once, a while ago.

I do not believe that "stress" in itself is something to be considered when it comes to one's method of forcing the world to tend to the end they want to... I will explain what I mean. Please excuse any possible argument by assertion fallacies henceforth... converting everything to E-Prime is tiring but I do believe opinions have to actually be defended to be rational... If i ever simply assert that I believe something is true that is a mistake, as i meant to rationalize its breadth in its entirety to believe it has the capacity to be defended and inherently rebut all conceivable dissenting arguments...

Obviously, the human's understanding of rationality is a consequence of themselves, to some extent. That is not to say that rationality so defined is entirely a consequence of the human and that the human literally created a portion of this universe that retains the properties of "rationality"... What I mean is, humans appear to feel emotion, and humans appear to correlate their understanding of the concepts of "good" and "evil" to what they perceive to be positive and negative emotion, respectively. Fundamentally, every human who retains the standard properties of the human lives through their own emotionality and their idea of good and evil is founded on that very thing.

Ugh... I just realized if I expound my philosophy any further I will be affirming for the first time since posting here my opinions which many will probably disagree with but basically I think that "stress" if "stress" is defined as pain(negative emotion) entirely in the head, meaning it is simply perception, ascribing emotion to certain things and feeling pain as a result, it is entirely a consequence of perception and can be manipulated to become pleasure... Perhaps it will be a certain iteration of masochism, and perhaps actually enduring perceived stress in reality will have consequences on the outside world as distinguished from your own psyche, possibly prompting an entire lifestyle change but "stress" should be irrelevant if its properties can just be totally changed with a different opinion, in my opinion.

When it comes to me, I believe so strongly that all who disagree with me is wrong that it seems extremely unnecessary to saturate my believing their being wrong with something else in an attempt to make me cope with my own emotionality. I believe there are other ways to cope with oneself than compromising on their own beliefs. I just correlate things to good or evil freely, at face value. I really wouldn't make progress insofar as inciting a revolution is concerned by tolerating what I believe to be wrong, either. Perhaps by "goals" you mean something other than forcing the world to tend to its most rational end as you perceive it.

About your last sentence, I don't believe in manipulating via anything other than argument to entice others to do as you wish... If it is something less than true reason to think, which I believe can only be conveyed via argument of some sort, it will be blind conformity, and any society or standard based on that is doomed to conceive notions as worthless as the one it was founded on, making it inferior to what it could and I believe should be. Also, it's interesting that misanthropes are drawn to reason. I kind of expected it but I've had bad experiences with self-proclaimed misanthropes retaining the human property I hate, rendering their sub-ostracization asinine in my eyes... I probably rambled a lot in this post, sorry. I don't know what type of reply I would expect to this if any. Thanks for reading if you did.

Comment author: polymathwannabe 11 April 2015 01:56:51PM 2 points [-]

Hi, Hoofwall. Welcome to LessWrong.

I have considered the label "autistic" to describe myself at some points in the past, but now I'm not sure. I may be at another point in the spectrum, or I may be just imagining things. But I can definitely empathize with anyone who struggles to make themselves understood to humans.

I'm confused about one point: Your usage of the verb " to rationalize" suggests that you intend it for a meaning that is slightly different from the standard meaning it has in logical jargon. We usually say that someone is "rationalizing" when they make an irrational decision and then, afterwards, make up an excuse to keep feeling good about it. I suspect that's not what you meant when you used that word; it feels like it would have been clearer to use the verb "to reason."

Of course, this is only my speculation. Please correct me if I'm wrong. (Within the rationalist culture prevalent in this forum, correcting other people when they're wrong is socially accepted as something you can do, but also, accepting corrections when you're wrong is something you're expected to do.)

Comment author: hoofwall 11 April 2015 02:15:34PM 0 points [-]

Hi. I did indeed mean what you express as "to reason" when I said "rationalize"... I am entirely unfamiliar with the distinctions made on this site so thanks for pointing out to me how others might misinterpret what I say. Also, thanks for the welcome.

Sorry for using you like this but, do you know whether or not swearing is against the rules here, and if so would you please tell me if it is or not? The closest to a rule list I found was just about etiquette. I'm wondering whether or not uttering like the "n word" for instance would get me banned or something... I want to know how much freedom I have for expression here. I don't intend to spam or anything; I just want to know what I am allowed to do.

Comment author: hoofwall 11 April 2015 12:35:10PM 2 points [-]

Hi! I am socially retarded... There are many things the standard human was born with the capacity to grasp that I never can. The word "autism" appears to me to be being thrown around a lot lately, mostly as a meaningless word used to convey that one thinks another is simply not normal but when I first noticed how heavily users on the internet threw around the word two years ago I identified as such for a bit to make conversation more expedient. I am able to comprehend metaphors and similes and such for some reason, but things such as having the capacity to roleplay or being able to perceive what I should do in any given scenario to maximize the happiness of the human before me is incomprehensible to me. I like to think I am a purely logical thinker and was born to be such but I'd rather not start talking about that right now...

My education is pretty poor. Eighth grade. I have read next to no books, and the internet was what taught me to speak English as I do today. My English was very basic prior, even though it is my only language. I looked up in the dictionary every word I encountered that I couldn't define for two years, until I decided that refining my expression in the English language for the human's sake was a waste of time and stopped caring.

I feel like I can't express more about myself without delving right into my philosophy, the likes of which I used to contest with every mind I came across indiscriminately only to have them still disagree with me 99% of the time despite my cornering them in argument, and I don't really want to because I've had such bad experiences with convincing others to think like me. The downvote system on this website is kind of intimidating as well... my first post on this website got downvoted once almost immediately and I'm not sure if I can tell by whom. I hate systems that enable passive-aggression like that. Even conversing in real life is awful because others can use petty tricks to try to emotionally manipulate you instead of actually just explaining why you should think like them via argument. It's just masturbation for them, and they have no interest in convincing you to think like them. I suppose that is one thing I feel I can safely say about my philosophy... I don't see my opinions as just opinions, I see them as an objective rationalization of this universe the likes of which one cannot disagree with without simply being wrong. I want to rationalize everything too, you know. I used to be indoctrinated to the point where I thought simply asking questions was evil. All I'd ever wanted to do was rationalize to all my understanding of the universe to objectively minimize their pain and maximize their pleasure for the sake of forcing the world to tend to its most rational end as i perceive it but whatever... I'm still being impertinent with whatever I'm writing here since I don't think just up and writing out my opinions would be a good idea.

I have very few interests. I really only care about defining right and wrong, and giving my philosophy to others, which I haven't done for a very long time. One day I hope to start expressing my opinions on what is right and wrong in a formal manner just to have done so in my lifetime. I apologize for the entirely vague post... I still haven't really any idea how this site works but if I ever debate users here or something I won't hesitate to express my opinions in their entirety.

Comment author: hoofwall 11 April 2015 11:53:23AM 1 point [-]

After seeing an image I thought was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen I tried to create an imaginary friend of her and after she became established enough in my mind I guess, she immediately gave me ideas on what it truly meant to be right(which was a first to me since my philosophy on everything was very unfortunate prior) and I've been effectively living vicariously through her since...

Comment author: hoofwall 11 April 2015 11:33:03AM 3 points [-]

Sorry, never been here before and know nothing about this place and all the other "stupid questions" here seem super formal so I feel really out of place here but, how common is it for the users on this site, the likes of whom likely all refer to themselves as rationalists to be misanthropes?

I hate humans. I hate humans so much. I used to think I could change them. I used to think every human who exhibited behavior I found to be inferior was simply ignorant of true rationality. Mines is a very long story that I no longer want to tell but it was months of thinking I could change every mind I found inferior before I came to the conclusion that humans are worthless and that they've simply devolved to the lowest common denominator, to the point where they retain not the capacity to grasp the objective breadth of rationality in this universe unless they lack the very things that make them human.

I have extremely strong opinions on everything I've cared to question, the likes of which I wish to express formally before I die but I hate humans so much. I wouldn't be doing it for the human. I am probably technically depressed at the moment and have been for a long time and was just wondering how many self-proclaimed rationalists consider themselves misanthropes, or at least exhibit misanthropic views...

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