What happened to the Weltanschauung thread?

Bylaw January 31, 2023 at 12:38 8100 views 40 comments
Did Agent Smith withdraw it? Was it deemed too floppy? Did a fight break out?
In any case I found it interesting, despite it's possibly being floppyish. Some people wrote a bunch of terms that I wanted to look up: positions that I'd never heard of. Further, modeling my answers after Agent Smith's categories was interesting mulling, even if it wasn't quite Weltanschauung-mulling. It was interesting seeing people label themselves and what batches of positions they held. I also thought one or two side musings were interesting, like the issue of doing versus saying around philosophical positions.

Comments (40)

Agent Smith January 31, 2023 at 12:44 #777563
Reply to Bylaw

It was there just a minute ago, now it's gone! It's probably in the lounge. Try there if you would like to post.
Bylaw January 31, 2023 at 12:46 #777566
Reply to Agent Smith I don't see it there.
Agent Smith January 31, 2023 at 12:46 #777567
Reply to Bylaw Then it's been deleted. :sad:
Baden January 31, 2023 at 12:48 #777568
There was nothing philosophical about the OP, so I deleted it. (This is a pattern with AS in OPs and posts, which is why he's been suspended several times.) @Agent Smith Please stop spamming us with low effort OPs or you will be banned.
Agent Smith January 31, 2023 at 12:49 #777569
Your own worldview is interesting - the one salient feature I recall of it is that you seem to be trying to solve a deep mystery. You have multiple leads, tying them up into a coherent belief system is not going to be easy.
Agent Smith January 31, 2023 at 12:50 #777570
Quoting Baden
There was nothing philosophical about the OP, so I deleted it. Agent Smith Please stop spamming us with low effort OPs or you will be banned.


Okie dokie mon ami.
Bylaw January 31, 2023 at 12:55 #777573
Reply to Agent Smith Thank you. Yes. I mean, yes to the category of value I think the thread lead to. It lead to seeing people sum up their positions on a number of philosophical areas. It was interesting to see what got batched in a single person. And then also some of the terms people used were either coined or new to me and I wanted to explore those. We don't really get to see that kind of information batched like that about people. Which I think gave the thread value. We tend to encounter indlvidual positions from individual posters. I liked seeing overviews. Might not have gone anywhere, but I thought it already provided value. That you got threatened with banning seem a stretch. Also, it seems like my asking about what happened to the thread led to your getting a threat. Though perhaps you got a pm or something. Anyway, I liked it. And despite seeing how it didn't lead to a traditional discussion, I thought it led to interesting crossections and information.

I'm not sure coherence is one of my goals for my philosophy (ies). I would like to find out deep stuff and perhaps solutions to how to live and live well. Those can be coherent (or not).
Baden January 31, 2023 at 13:10 #777579
Reply to Bylaw

The OP consisted of writing a list of five or six fairly unrelated categories, e.g. classical logic, pessimism etc., called doing that presenting a "weltanshauung", and then asked posters to make a similar list. That's not philosophy and it doesn't invite philosophical thought. E.g. Does "My worldview is classical logic" make sense to you? It's more "I like these philosophical flavours; what philosophical flavours do you like?"

A worldview would be less a list of unrelated philosophical stuff and more an orientation towards the world that integrated philosophical ideas in an individual way. If he had done that, it might have been a worthwhile OP. Otherwise, it's Lounge or bin and seeing as AS has been asked many times to rein in his tendencies towards this type of thing, I'll be choosing bin more often than not.
Baden January 31, 2023 at 13:19 #777582
I'll add that being apparently very cooperative in this way:

Quoting Agent Smith
Okie dokie mon ami


as AS usually is, is nice, and he certainly comes across as a nice guy. But it has to be followed up with actual changes in posting behaviour. We're not being unreasonable to ask for that.

Baden January 31, 2023 at 13:24 #777587
And if someone wants to present a worldview in an OP, try this. That might be interesting.

"a worldview is an ontology, or a descriptive model of the world. It should comprise these six elements:

An explanation of the world
A futurology, answering the question "Where are we heading?"
Values, answers to ethical questions: "What should we do?"
A praxeology, or methodology, or theory of action: "How should we attain our goals?"
An epistemology, or theory of knowledge: "What is true and false?"
An etiology. A constructed world-view should contain an account of its own "building blocks", its origins and construction."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldview

But six words in a list, no.

180 Proof January 31, 2023 at 14:07 #777596
Agent Smith January 31, 2023 at 14:34 #777602
Quoting Baden
as AS usually is, is nice, and he certainly comes across as a nice guy. But it has to be followed up with actual changes in posting behaviour. We're not being unreasonable to ask for that.


Socrates did accept the verdict of the Athenian court. Not that I compare myself to Socrates. It's just that I should meet the standards of the community I'm part of. I hope the charges against me are limited to quality issues.
Agent Smith January 31, 2023 at 14:45 #777604
Reply to Baden Reply to 180 Proof

I have no option but to agree with your appraisal and recommendations. My mappa isn't going to help us navigate the territoria in any meaningful way.

Last I checked, Pyrrhonism was in and of itself a weltanschauung and my agnosticism dovetails into it.

My pessimism may be peculiar to me though - haven't had much luck in life.

Nihilism is arrived at via elimination/cancellation - 180 Proof very often points out how all religions cancel each other out, leaving nothing but nothing.

Virtue ethics is my preferred ethical theory for a simple reason - the sage is moral.
Agent Smith January 31, 2023 at 14:50 #777607
Reply to Bylaw Gracias for the kind words.

My Pyrrhonism, intended/accidental, makes me what in the world of espionage would be called a double agent, a traitor to both sides, just like @Gnomon, who's facing a lot of flak from the very people he wants to serve ... in good faith, presumably.
180 Proof January 31, 2023 at 14:50 #777608
Quoting Agent Smith
Last I checked, Pyrrhonism was in and of itself a weltanschauung and my agnosticism dovetails into it.

And yet ataraxia (or wu wei) and eudaimonia eludes you, amigo. Maybe your skepticism is postmodern (or Gorgiasian) rather than Pyrrhonian?
Agent Smith January 31, 2023 at 14:54 #777609
Quoting 180 Proof
And yet ataraxia (i.e. wei wu) and eudaimonia eludes you, amigo. Maybe you're skepticism is postmodern (or Gorgiasian) rather than Pyrrhonian?


Correctamundo señor! I haven't been able to make the connection between aporia and ataraxia. I believe I must've read some St. Augustine/St. Aquinas whomsoever of the two mocked/critiqued this claim by Pyrrhonists.
Baden January 31, 2023 at 15:06 #777611
Quoting Agent Smith
I hope the charges against me are limited to quality issues.


Other than that, you're charitable and friendly in your interactions and we would like to be able to keep you here if we can.
Agent Smith January 31, 2023 at 15:23 #777614
Quoting Baden
Other than that, you're charitable and friendly in your interactions and we would like to be able to keep you here if we can.


Much obliged!
unenlightened February 01, 2023 at 08:49 #777859
Reply to Agent Smith Quoting Baden
Other than that, you're charitable and friendly in your interactions and we would like to be able to keep you here if we can.


[quote= Heart of Gold computer]This is Eddie, your shipboard computer, and I'm feeling just great, guys, and I know I'm just going to get a bundle of kicks out of any program you care to run through me.[/quote]

Agent Smith February 01, 2023 at 08:57 #777862
Reply to unenlightened

Rubbin' salt on an open wound? Youch!

I could be considered an older, glitchy, version of ChatGPT. :cool:

unenlightened February 01, 2023 at 09:17 #777868
Reply to Agent Smith I just don't see the sinister or aggression of an Agent - no insult intended.
Agent Smith February 01, 2023 at 09:26 #777869
Quoting unenlightened
I just don't see the sinister or aggression of an Agent - no insult intended.


Muchas gracias. No offense taken.
Baden February 01, 2023 at 10:21 #777871
Reply to unenlightened

Too early in the morning for this. I'm sure you're right though. ChatGPT writes at least half my mod posts.
Agent Smith February 04, 2023 at 08:13 #778549
@Bylaw it is, after all, a war of worldviews.
Bylaw February 04, 2023 at 09:55 #778556
Quoting Agent Smith
Bylaw it is, after all, a war of worldviews.

I'm not sure what the 'it' refers to.
I have a sense that people have official worldviews and then often something else and/or something more complex going on (underneath, sometimes, on the side). We want to varying degrees to be seen as (including by ourselves) Good, Rational, Smart, on the Right Team, Spiritual, Not Fooled, Brave, Noble....The 'wanting to be seen as' is like a virus in our worldviews, how we deal with other worldviews and what we choose to say is our worldview.

Like the older brother is not going to admit that he disagrees with his sister about school, music, films, etc., because he loved it before she was born when he was an only child and she came and ruined it. (that's a metaphor. I'm not suggesting Freudianish reasons for all these splits.) He might not even know or be able to call it up. And there are all these old battles two between 'sides'.


Agent Smith February 04, 2023 at 10:00 #778557
Reply to Bylaw Indeed, worldviews may not be well-articulated, giving an illusion that it either doesn't exist or is ill-formed. By "it" I mean life. You have a point as to what I interpret as putting on a show, but don't be so quick to dismiss/judge a professed weltanschauung as a farce. It could be that no worldview is gonna is gonna make the cut.
Bylaw February 04, 2023 at 10:04 #778558
Reply to Agent Smith I don't mean it's a farce. I think there may be significant overlaps with what they actually believe. I just mean that I don't assume it matches, and often behavior and things said in other contexts show these other views seeping up to the surface or not hidden well.

I mean, it would be a kind of fascistic self-relation to eliminate all of this. I am not trying to put people down for inconsistancies in a general way. But I do think that there is a lot of explaining our positions after the fact of having them or wanting to have them.
Agent Smith February 04, 2023 at 11:06 #778562
Reply to Bylaw :up:

Then I was mistaken, apologies. Do you agree/disagree that what the world is going through is a war of worldviews?
Bylaw February 04, 2023 at 12:35 #778581
Reply to Agent Smith There are certainly conflicts between worldviews, but I suppose if I were to generalize I would say there is a war between people with no empathy and everyone else. The everyone else is involved in a lot of paradigmatic conflict. Which helps the people with no empathy.
Pantagruel February 04, 2023 at 12:57 #778586
Quoting Bylaw
I would say there is a war between people with no empathy and everyone else


:up: :up:

Yes. We are faced with the challenge of achieving a new kind of social consciousness whose operation is predicated on empathy.
Joshs February 04, 2023 at 13:40 #778594
Reply to Pantagruel Quoting Pantagruel
Yes. We are faced with the challenge of achieving a new kind of social consciousness whose operation is predicated on empathy


Is empathy possible without first being able to understand what appears to one initially as a dangerously alien worldview? In other words, does empathy come first, or does insight come first and empathy follow? Religious traditions tend to fetishize free will and value-formation without understanding their origins, and so argue that empathy comes first.
Bylaw February 04, 2023 at 14:48 #778606
Quoting Joshs
Is empathy possible without first being able to understand what appears to one initially as a dangerously alien worldview?
I don't think we need to restrict empathy to situations where we have a worldview difference. Do you wince when you see someone get hurt? Does it disturb you if your actions or the actions of those serving you (in some way) lead to the suffering of others? Then we can start to see if this doesn't happen when the other people have other worldviews or races or cultures. Of course, I am reacting to the use of the word empathy in the way that I meant it in the post PG was responding to. He or she may be using it differently. Whether I am correct or not in my sense of today's situation, I meant people who really do not care at an abstract level or should they actually see it happening if other people suffer, even if it is due to them (the empathyless ones). I actually don't think they care about worldview. I'm not sure they care about each other very much either, but have common interests.

Bylaw February 04, 2023 at 14:50 #778607
Quoting Pantagruel
Yes. We are faced with the challenge of achieving a new kind of social consciousness whose operation is predicated on empathy.
And in those who weild a great deal of power. IOW it's not something that printing books on parenting or changing pedagogical practices, I think, will change in the least. Using just a couple of ways one changes social consciousness. I don't think most of the common methods - protests, op-ed pieces, social media campaigns, legislation, movies, documentaries - will make any dent on this 'faction'.

On the ground, between groups with different worldviews, there is a lot of propaganda (not using that term pejoratively or not pejoratively) and a lot of suggestions, demands for changes in the various ways of raising/changing social consciousness. And, the differing ideas about this is often part of the conflicts.

And those I see as lacking empathy are lovin' it.

I don't think any of it matters to them, except to the extent it keeps people divided and focused on the bad attitudes and behavior and nature of other people with little power.

Agent Smith February 04, 2023 at 14:56 #778610
Quoting Bylaw
There are certainly conflicts between worldviews, but I suppose if I were to generalize I would say there is a war between people with no empathy and everyone else. The everyone else is involved in a lot of paradigmatic conflict. Which helps the people with no empathy.


Yep, an aggravation that isn't an aggravation. Go figure.
Pantagruel February 04, 2023 at 16:09 #778626
Quoting Joshs
Is empathy possible without first being able to understand what appears to one initially as a dangerously alien worldview?


I think that the whole point of empathy is that it is a reaching out beyond the personal. You don't need to understand a different world view to help someone who is in need.
Joshs February 04, 2023 at 18:20 #778668
Reply to Pantagruel Quoting Pantagruel
You don't need to understand a different world view to help someone who is in need.


You don’t necessarily recognize them as being in justified need before understanding their perspective.
Joshs February 04, 2023 at 18:26 #778670
Reply to Bylaw Quoting Bylaw
. Do you wince when you see someone get hurt? Does it disturb you if your actions or the actions of those serving you (in some way) lead to the suffering of others? Then we can start to see if this doesn't happen when the other people have other worldviews or races or cultures


Wars often exemplify clashes of worldviews. As a solider in battle , I am not only not going to come to the aid of an enemy soldier in need, I actively try to induce their suffering. Their needs represent for me the desires of an alien and hostile worldview, and thus what benefits them causes me suffering. One can extend this to political and religious clashes.
Pantagruel February 04, 2023 at 20:40 #778699
Quoting Joshs
You don’t necessarily recognize them as being in justified need before understanding their perspective.


I think that the nature of needs is that they are very universal in character. Certainly with basic needs, which is a great starting place for some empathy.
Bylaw February 04, 2023 at 21:15 #778712
Quoting Joshs
Wars often exemplify clashes of worldviews. As a solider in battle , I am not only not going to come to the aid of an enemy soldier in need, I actively try to induce their suffering. Their needs represent for me the desires of an alien and hostile worldview, and thus what benefits them causes me suffering. One can extend this to political and religious clashes.

Sure, a soldier is in a specific situation, though even there some show mercy to wounded enemy soldiers. What I was saying about empathy was that one need not have insight to feel it. One can see-feel. Even other social animals show this kind of reaction.
Agent Smith February 05, 2023 at 02:11 #778760
Reply to Pantagruel Reply to Joshs Reply to Bylaw

Empathy is a significant factor in life as a whole. When weltanschauungs encounter each other, empathy is one of the first casualties and hence the usual - brawls, wars, and all.

[quote=SYT]Live and let live.[/quote]