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>You seem to think of knowledge as something that has to be expressed in language to exist, whereas I do not. I think that's an independent issue. Whether or n

>You seem to think of knowledge as something that has to be expressed in language to exist, whereas I do not. I think that's an independent issue. Whether or not beliefs must be linguistically expressible and whether or not values can be derived from facts alone are two separate questions. >Values are rooted in biology. Facts are not prescriptive, but our biology is. I don't see why biology is prescriptive. I have biological impulses to do things all the time, and I often don't follow up on them because I know that what I ought to do isn't entirely dependent on what my biological state is. Suppose I have some kind of impulse to murder someone. Indeed, humans do sometimes have this kind of impulse. It's probably an impulse that one could tell some evolutionary story about---through some long chain of reasoning, this boils down to some kind of reproductive drive. Even if that's all true, that's all fine---but I have no trouble seeing that I ought not murder someone (barring extenuating circumstances), regardless of how strong my biological impulse is to do so. Suppose you were sitting around, bored one day. And you asked me, "Hey, what should I do today?" And I gave some detailed description of how evolution has sculpted you for reproduction. You would probably say, "Yeah, yeah, that's all true, fine---but what should I do today?" and rightfully so, because my explanation of evolution is a total non-sequitur, and doesn't seem to answer your question at all. And I don't see why blowing up the time scale from "today" to "my entire life" changes the fact that my description of evolution is still a non-sequitur. >You can find all sorts of words and facts to try to justify meaning, but meaning itself is ineffable; it is felt. Individualism will only get you so far. Sure. I still think we can talk about it and think about it to some extent, if not to a large extent. Just like I have no trouble justifying why I'm walking down a particular road if someone were to ask me---I have to get to the train station, so I can take the train to my job, so I can work, so I can earn money, so I can put food on the table, etc. It's true that these words don't convey the full experience of what it's like to be me, but I don't that has any bearing on the truth of those words in establishing why it is that I do what I do. >I think they were getting at how people chase after a simulation of meaning instead of acting in a meaningful way. I think you can seek truth without getting lost in language games. Well, I think the existentialists wanted to act in a meaningful way and seek truth without getting lost in language games too. What I'm objecting to here is that this entails a rigorous approach to seeking truth as opposed to seeking meaning (in the original poster's words)---to do so seems to lead to getting trapped in abstract epistemological thought and losing touch with the reality of needing to act in the real world.

HKH2 3y ago
Instinct is prescriptive. You can muddy the waters with impulses that have been conditioned by experience all you like. You can use your conditioning to override your instinct and do all sorts of unnatural things. That doesn't deny the reality of instinct. > And you asked me, "Hey, what should I do today?" You keep bringing up words and facts. Reality is more than words.
- knightoffaith 3y ago
  >That doesn't deny the reality of instinct. Sure. But I'm not denying the reality of instinct. What I'm denying is that instinct is normative. What is natural is not necessarily what is good or what we ought to do. >You keep bringing up words and facts. Reality is more than words. Sure. This "what should I do today" story isn't some linguistic sleight of hand. I told that story to evoke the intuition that there's a difference between instincts and values. It's really just that the claim that reproduction is our purpose appears unfounded. The argument seems to be something like: P1: The process of evolution has sculpted human biology for reproduction. P2: If human biology has been sculpted for reproduction, then we ought to reproduce. C: We ought to reproduce. P2 is simply unfounded - it just doesn't appear to be true. Perhaps what you're saying is something like "You're just playing a word game here. Saying that we are sculpted to reproduce is the same as saying that we ought to reproduce---these phrases have the same meaning." But these phrases don't have the same meaning. There are facts, and then there are values, and these aren't the same thing---not just linguistically, they really, in reality, are not the same thing. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ And suppose they are the same thing. So our purpose is to reproduce. Does this even mean anything in practice? I take it you believe your purpose is to reproduce. Why is it that you've typed text into a combox and hit "reply"? That doesn't seem conducive to reproduction. It's not just this comment; I suspect that many things, if not the majority of things you do, don't seem conducive to optimizing reproduction. Why would you do these things if they're not helping your purpose? Perhaps you'd say that "Well, it might not immediately seem like these things are conducive to reproduction, but there's a long story I can tell about how these actually are related to my reproductive drive." But if you start playing these kinds of games, it isn't clear that "our purpose is to reproduce" really means anything in practice at all. You can always construct some story about how your behavior is, through some long chain of reasoning, reducible to a reproductive drive. That still leaves us with the practical question of what our purpose is - what should we actually do? "To reproduce" just isn't helpful.

HKH2 3y ago

Instinct is prescriptive. You can muddy the waters with impulses that have been conditioned by experience all you like. You can use your conditioning to override your instinct and do all sorts of unnatural things. That doesn't deny the reality of instinct. > And you asked me, "Hey, what should I do today?" You keep bringing up words and facts. Reality is more than words.

knightoffaith 3y ago
>That doesn't deny the reality of instinct. Sure. But I'm not denying the reality of instinct. What I'm denying is that instinct is normative. What is natural is not necessarily what is good or what we ought to do. >You keep bringing up words and facts. Reality is more than words. Sure. This "what should I do today" story isn't some linguistic sleight of hand. I told that story to evoke the intuition that there's a difference between instincts and values. It's really just that the claim that reproduction is our purpose appears unfounded. The argument seems to be something like: P1: The process of evolution has sculpted human biology for reproduction. P2: If human biology has been sculpted for reproduction, then we ought to reproduce. C: We ought to reproduce. P2 is simply unfounded - it just doesn't appear to be true. Perhaps what you're saying is something like "You're just playing a word game here. Saying that we are sculpted to reproduce is the same as saying that we ought to reproduce---these phrases have the same meaning." But these phrases don't have the same meaning. There are facts, and then there are values, and these aren't the same thing---not just linguistically, they really, in reality, are not the same thing. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ And suppose they are the same thing. So our purpose is to reproduce. Does this even mean anything in practice? I take it you believe your purpose is to reproduce. Why is it that you've typed text into a combox and hit "reply"? That doesn't seem conducive to reproduction. It's not just this comment; I suspect that many things, if not the majority of things you do, don't seem conducive to optimizing reproduction. Why would you do these things if they're not helping your purpose? Perhaps you'd say that "Well, it might not immediately seem like these things are conducive to reproduction, but there's a long story I can tell about how these actually are related to my reproductive drive." But if you start playing these kinds of games, it isn't clear that "our purpose is to reproduce" really means anything in practice at all. You can always construct some story about how your behavior is, through some long chain of reasoning, reducible to a reproductive drive. That still leaves us with the practical question of what our purpose is - what should we actually do? "To reproduce" just isn't helpful.