A related false distinction is between "nature" and "society". Society is natural, and nature is social. Again, perhaps a useful distinction, but not so useful when people start to think it is really a true distinction. (E.g. people who think that they are not part of nature, and have somehow risen above it or removed themselves from it, when of course this is the case exactly 0% of the time)

I have no idea what Thucydides is talking about.

That makes two of you.

Happy to continue attempting to explain if of course you have the patience to ask any questions, rather than just saying you don't understand.

OK, I have a clearer understanding of what you're saying now because there is less mushy bullshit about being one with the universe.

Your point is that there is an objective reality independent of our perception, and all human attempts to define it are inherently flawed because we seek to divide where there is unity.

My counter is this: you are attempting to define it yourself by asserting that it (a) exists and (b) it is one with everything. We attempt to define things by dividing them so that they become clearer by this division. It is of course useful to consider factors/variables in terms of the entire system, but it is also useful to abstract them away to analyse their individual effects, ceteris paribus. If all we ever talk about is "the universe as one, man" then we're going to get absolutely nowhere in a discussion.

I think there is also weakness in your consideration of reality because you don't allow for the effect that we the observers can have on it. When we classify and label, we change the way things are, even if only limited to our experience. But that's a discussion for another day because I really want to talk about necrophilia.

Thucy,

Yes, the philosophical problem of the one and the many. It's been known almost since there was philosophy, and was one of the main things Plato engaged. I hope you aren't trying to pretend that it's a big discovery you're teaching us about?

One thing you're missing is that it's just as easy to say that it's IDENTITY that humans are creating artificially, not distinction. I point to tree A and tree B and call them different. You say that I am just imposing the concept of "tree," disjoining a unity into different objects.

But one can just as easily say, here are two obviously different things (different places, different atoms -- different in every way you can name); it is only by unifying them under the concept of "tree," unifying the atoms under the concept of "atom," etc., that I provide any relationship between them at all.

Not that I'm saying this is right either. I'm just pointing out that your argument establishes the one just as well as the other (and in fact, establishes neither).

What is there, is there, that much is clear. What's also true, though, is that I *can* create the word "tree" to refer to individual trees. Artificial distinction? Arguably. Artificial union? Possibly. But it doesn't matter. It's well-defined, and from then on, it's only a fallacy and a lie to say that two different trees are the same tree.

Similarly, different human beings are different human beings -- by definition; and so there is nothing even vaguely irrational in talking about whether they should pursue the interests of "themselves" or of others. Now, you may choose to argue that, on metaphysical grounds, they are unified in a profound sense, that their consciousness is one or many, or blah blah; but none of that changes the very straightforward, even tautological fact that it is well-defined to refer to the self, and only an habitual obscurantist would decide to try to prove his point by denying such a simple truth.

My first question to you is, why do you have the knee-jerk reaction that talk of oneness with the universe is bullshit? Is it just because, perhaps, you are unfamiliar with the very real traditions and schools of thought that have believed this? I grant you that in the mainstream society of the West it is not exactly received doctrine, but is that a good reason to say it's bullshit?

Let's segue from that into a related critique, which you seem to be implicitly making. It may be true that everything is unified, but it isn't a useful fact. Division is useful, unity is a dead-end. (Aside: this is similar to the equally-flawed critique of skepticism [the idea that nothing is knowable] on the basis that, while it is true, it is not useful. But that can be saved for later).

However it is not true that it is not useful. The examples are so countless that I almost am not sure where to begin. I'll just attempt an off-the-cuff list. Family disputes? Better to think of the oneness than the difference. Scientific inquiry? Better to understand the working of the whole system than to try to understand one of its constituent parts (I'm sure anyone who has taken a 101 class in any department has been taken aback by how many other departments' fields are interrelated to the subject. Creative writing, art, anthropology, biology, sociology, psychology, neurology, physics, mathematics, engineering, economics... perhaps there not fields, but just one Field?). Business: if you are a restaurant in a tourist town and you are not paying attention to the various professional conventions in town, the global economic climate, the Farm Bill, Obamacare, the personal lives of your employees, and on and on, you will not run a very successful restaurant.

I'll just stop there. You can name literally anything - a holistic view, if lost, will cause the enterprise to suffer. Your argument of course is perhaps along the lines of "jack of trades, master of none." This of course is true, no one can know everything, pay attention to everything, or encompass everything. But it is true everywhere, no matter how focused you try to be. Say you corner yourself into something very specific - screwing on toothpaste caps all day. There is a certain technique to that, different things to try to do it better - there is no end to the innovation you can attempt, and no end to the background information about your job (mechanics of your hand, purpose of toothpaste, cost of plastic, labor laws, and that perennial interpersonal relations). Again, on and on. Jack of all trades, master of none is true. But the fact is this is not a conditional statement, it is s descriptive statement of all our circumstances. All of us whether we like it or not are jacks of all trades, and masters of none. It's a birthright. We live in the universe. It's fact that can't be escaped.

You seem to be implying that if I had my way I would do away with distinction and difference entirely. Maybe I would, but I can't. So, abstract away, but if in the course of your abstraction you become forgetful of the truth that your abstraction is *just that*, then it will cease to be useful and become harmful. Take money for example. A great invention. Very good abstraction of value, that one is. It's hard to argue about how useful it is. We all use it.

And yet, when this abstraction becomes more than an abstraction, and crowds out everything else, and becomes your entire universe, we all know what happens. It becomes "the one who dies with the most dollar points wins." That's not a game that's very fun to play, as it turns out.

What else do we have here... ah, the effect observers have on the world. I don't deny it all. It's integral. We, the observers, are inseparable from the world just as everything else is inseparable from it. So I don't know what you mean by not allowing for that. "Real numbers" aren't *really* real, as we have discussed in weeks past, but they are real in the sense that you and I think about them and talk about them and make decisions based on them. Putin is an "eliminative materialist", but I am not, not at all in fact. Ideas are physical realities, even wrong ideas.

The reason your reversal doesn't work semck is this. (By your reversal I mean the attempt to say it is just as "arbitrary" to unify everything as it is to divide everything): case and effect. Everything effects everything else, and always has. The concept of an "indirect" influence is a falsehood. There is nothing indirect. The butterfly effect is real. Every physical entity has a physical footprint and legacy that it leaves that ripples throughout time and never ceases to do so. Thus, it is not true that the two atoms on the other side of the galaxy are "artificially" lumped into one universe. They share a single source, for starters, and secondly, they impact each other directly. These links cannot be broken. Nothing exists in a vacuum.

abgemacht: ""I agree with the idea of an inheritance tax for the most part, but only for money."

This wouldn't work at all. Everyone would just put their money into a physical asset right before they die." I did state that as well. Perhaps add certain forms of property to that, such as land?
Also, what exactly happened to this thread?

i bombed it lol crucify me

Thucy,

Causality is very hard to define, though, and could easily be argued to be (see e.g. Hume) just another humanly imposed concept on a universe that has no need for it.

Your assertions about there being no "indirect" influences are just that, unfounded assertions. Modern physics looks at most interactions as indirect, completely local ones.

Next, your physics is wrong. Two particles that exist on opposite sides of the galaxy for short times and which pass out of existence before their light cones ever intersect will never affect each other in any way.

In any event, as mentioned, your imposing unity on cause and effect is just more imposition by your mind. (And I'm not saying I disagree with it; I don't. But it doesn't come from the kind of just-look-around reasoning you're trying to do, which as much undercuts it as establishing it).

My knee-jerk reaction that you're spewing bullshit comes from my sensory perception that divides all that exists into two camps: bullshit and not-bullshit. I've constructed an identity for your words and foisted it upon you.

But mostly because it's easy for you to say "it's one with the universe, man" and then not clarify what you mean in any way. As I said in one of my above posts, there's nothing wrong with taking a holistic view of anything. The problem is *only* taking the holistic view and asserting that no other view is "rational". Let's recall what started this discussion: you said that "rational self-interest" is an oxy-moron.

After being challenged on your unsupported proposition, you fell back onto some generic "it's all interconnected, man" line of reasoning, only offering a semblance of justification in reaction to what others posted.

"What else do we have here... ah, the effect observers have on the world. I don't deny it all. It's integral. We, the observers, are inseparable from the world just as everything else is inseparable from it. So I don't know what you mean by not allowing for that. "Real numbers" aren't *really* real, as we have discussed in weeks past, but they are real in the sense that you and I think about them and talk about them and make decisions based on them. Putin is an "eliminative materialist", but I am not, not at all in fact. Ideas are physical realities, even wrong ideas."

Your fondness for chiasmus is tiresome. At any rate, I accuse you of creating an artificial division between what we create and everything else. If you're going cling to this idea of artificial divisions, at least remain consistent.

The point I was trying to make is that human beings, through our observation, our actions, our divisions, have a tangible effect on the objective reality that you say is indivisible.