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> Because, using a story that did not happen like Icarus to justify your world view is hubris. The story of Icarus, written by a human within his own world vi

> Because, using a story that did not happen like Icarus to justify your world view is hubris. The story of Icarus, written by a human within his own world view, is part of our collective history. The events in the story not being real has no relevance at all on its philosophical implications.

Retric 9y ago
The events in the story are physically impossible. But still, using the plot line of The Walking Dead to justify yourself feels silly, but somehow old story's are given a free pass. Sorry, using a collection of meaningless words to justify thoughts or actions is irrational.
- SCHiM 9y ago
  Exactly, it's fine to make a point with a story, but it should not provide justification only clarity. To go back to the original point, I've never understood the problem with 'hubris', it's not as if we have evidence for something or someone taking offence and then taking it out on us. There's no reason to believe we wouldn't be able to terraform a planet eventually. Even if we do screwup a couple of times, there's enough resources in the solar system to try again a bunch of times once/if we can get to them. There's something to be said for a human locust swarm over the milkyway. Just imagine one day in the future having an internet connection between earth and mars. For some reason imagining operating those links is even more exiting to me than the original colonization (which I'd partake in given half the chance). How would be deal with the immense latency? How would facebook or google sync their datacenters? Once a day? A private uplink with 30m lag? What?
  - mvindahl 9y ago
    They'd place the conservatives on one planet and the liberals on the other. With filter bubbles being fully separated, they can shard the database :-P
- Bakary 9y ago
  >Sorry, using a collection of meaningless words to justify thoughts or actions is irrational. Any action we take is irrational at its root. If you remove emotions, there's no compelling rational reason to do anything or favor one action over the other. In that case, a person can very well decide to reject Icarus as being meaningless, but they will not be able to remove all such meaningless thoughts from the way they live their lives, or even a small fraction of the stories they live by. There will always be numerous narratives and mental models of varying accuracy that will determine our choices and actions. Anything from a sense of our own self and memories, to beliefs in some exterior entity or cause, to even abstract thoughts about the world itself that we came up with or received from others. On this basis, we use reason to move towards our goals but the goals themselves are still irrational. Icarus itself isn't even a bad story, as far as tales go. There are several examples in human history where our ambition and drive caused enormous suffering. Looking at the twentieth century or even the last six thousand years can make you wonder whether it wouldn't have been better for us to stay in small tribes until the Sun burns the planet to a crisp. Is the current and marginally less awful world worth all the misery that came before it? Hard to say for sure, even if I do fully agree that we should be as hubristic as possible in today's circumstances. It's too late to go back so we must move forward.
  - Retric 9y ago
    Except such stories are meaningless because they are random in nature. Unlike in the Icarus story, air gets colder with altitude so does that suddenly reverse the meaning of the story? Now, we can use a real world example like car accidents as traveling 35+ MPH is unsafe. But, now the counter arguments are obvious because in the real world there are trade offs and meaningful stories are more open to interpretation.
    - Bakary 9y ago
      I don't know why people take the Icarus story at face value instead of seeing it as a colorful metaphor. I'm not sure how the Greeks considered their own stories but it seems doubtful they would believe them in as literal a sense as the monotheists who succeeded them.
- enugu 9y ago
  Dismissing most of the world's heritage, because one is a literalist, is what is irrational. By this logic, mathematics discovered for curiousity would not have applications, something which is not at all true. Number theory is just one example. There are many others like using 'imaginary' numbers used for solving polynomial eqns, later becomes basic to engineering.
- coldtea 9y ago
  >The events in the story are physically impossible. But still, using the plot line of The Walking Dead to justify yourself feels silly, but somehow old story's are given a free pass. Sorry, using a collection of meaningless words to justify thoughts or actions is irrational. Sorry, but the story of Icarus is loaded with meaning, a meaning which has been examined, discussed, and argued about for two millennia by some of the greatest thinkers. Most of myth, just like cautionary tales and proverbs, is meaning concentrated. It is an observation/insight/point made into story. It's your comment that rather seems devoid of meaning, seeing that humans have been able since forever to construct stories, metaphors, and examples from both real and non-real-world-events to convey particular ideas, concepts and worries. There would be nothing silly to "using the plot line of The Walking Dead to justify" one's self if it works for making their point. What would be silly would be if someone conflated Icarus or the Walking Dead plotline for something that actually happened. But nobody does that -- they recognize it for what it is, a metaphor, and are able to see the point being made, regardless of if there are wax wings or zombies in real life.
  - Retric 9y ago
    In a modern context it may seem like nobody could ever have believed Icarus, but that's unlikely. People look back on the 'great' thinkers for what they got right and ignore thinks like a great logician comparing volcanoes to the bowel movements of animals. Consider all of the outrageous things people firmly believe in a religious context (not pointing fingers there is plenty of things to go around even if you exclude whatever your personal faith is.) So, unless you have very firm evidence the tale may have be out before the moral. As to using the walking dead to make a point, think this through a little more. Because it's pure circular reasoning. A is true because of A.

Retric 9y ago

The events in the story are physically impossible. But still, using the plot line of The Walking Dead to justify yourself feels silly, but somehow old story's are given a free pass. Sorry, using a collection of meaningless words to justify thoughts or actions is irrational.

SCHiM 9y ago
Exactly, it's fine to make a point with a story, but it should not provide justification only clarity. To go back to the original point, I've never understood the problem with 'hubris', it's not as if we have evidence for something or someone taking offence and then taking it out on us. There's no reason to believe we wouldn't be able to terraform a planet eventually. Even if we do screwup a couple of times, there's enough resources in the solar system to try again a bunch of times once/if we can get to them. There's something to be said for a human locust swarm over the milkyway. Just imagine one day in the future having an internet connection between earth and mars. For some reason imagining operating those links is even more exiting to me than the original colonization (which I'd partake in given half the chance). How would be deal with the immense latency? How would facebook or google sync their datacenters? Once a day? A private uplink with 30m lag? What?
- mvindahl 9y ago
  They'd place the conservatives on one planet and the liberals on the other. With filter bubbles being fully separated, they can shard the database :-P
Bakary 9y ago
>Sorry, using a collection of meaningless words to justify thoughts or actions is irrational. Any action we take is irrational at its root. If you remove emotions, there's no compelling rational reason to do anything or favor one action over the other. In that case, a person can very well decide to reject Icarus as being meaningless, but they will not be able to remove all such meaningless thoughts from the way they live their lives, or even a small fraction of the stories they live by. There will always be numerous narratives and mental models of varying accuracy that will determine our choices and actions. Anything from a sense of our own self and memories, to beliefs in some exterior entity or cause, to even abstract thoughts about the world itself that we came up with or received from others. On this basis, we use reason to move towards our goals but the goals themselves are still irrational. Icarus itself isn't even a bad story, as far as tales go. There are several examples in human history where our ambition and drive caused enormous suffering. Looking at the twentieth century or even the last six thousand years can make you wonder whether it wouldn't have been better for us to stay in small tribes until the Sun burns the planet to a crisp. Is the current and marginally less awful world worth all the misery that came before it? Hard to say for sure, even if I do fully agree that we should be as hubristic as possible in today's circumstances. It's too late to go back so we must move forward.
- Retric 9y ago
  Except such stories are meaningless because they are random in nature. Unlike in the Icarus story, air gets colder with altitude so does that suddenly reverse the meaning of the story? Now, we can use a real world example like car accidents as traveling 35+ MPH is unsafe. But, now the counter arguments are obvious because in the real world there are trade offs and meaningful stories are more open to interpretation.
  - Bakary 9y ago
    I don't know why people take the Icarus story at face value instead of seeing it as a colorful metaphor. I'm not sure how the Greeks considered their own stories but it seems doubtful they would believe them in as literal a sense as the monotheists who succeeded them.
enugu 9y ago
Dismissing most of the world's heritage, because one is a literalist, is what is irrational. By this logic, mathematics discovered for curiousity would not have applications, something which is not at all true. Number theory is just one example. There are many others like using 'imaginary' numbers used for solving polynomial eqns, later becomes basic to engineering.
coldtea 9y ago
>The events in the story are physically impossible. But still, using the plot line of The Walking Dead to justify yourself feels silly, but somehow old story's are given a free pass. Sorry, using a collection of meaningless words to justify thoughts or actions is irrational. Sorry, but the story of Icarus is loaded with meaning, a meaning which has been examined, discussed, and argued about for two millennia by some of the greatest thinkers. Most of myth, just like cautionary tales and proverbs, is meaning concentrated. It is an observation/insight/point made into story. It's your comment that rather seems devoid of meaning, seeing that humans have been able since forever to construct stories, metaphors, and examples from both real and non-real-world-events to convey particular ideas, concepts and worries. There would be nothing silly to "using the plot line of The Walking Dead to justify" one's self if it works for making their point. What would be silly would be if someone conflated Icarus or the Walking Dead plotline for something that actually happened. But nobody does that -- they recognize it for what it is, a metaphor, and are able to see the point being made, regardless of if there are wax wings or zombies in real life.
- Retric 9y ago
  In a modern context it may seem like nobody could ever have believed Icarus, but that's unlikely. People look back on the 'great' thinkers for what they got right and ignore thinks like a great logician comparing volcanoes to the bowel movements of animals. Consider all of the outrageous things people firmly believe in a religious context (not pointing fingers there is plenty of things to go around even if you exclude whatever your personal faith is.) So, unless you have very firm evidence the tale may have be out before the moral. As to using the walking dead to make a point, think this through a little more. Because it's pure circular reasoning. A is true because of A.