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Bridging the gap
Is it possible to legitimately dissolve differences in values?

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Bridging the gap
Wosret
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Posted 10/31/09 - 06:18 AM:
Subject: Bridging the gap 		quote post
#1
How does one sway another to their values without appealing to emotion, or consequences? Can it be done? Should it be done? If it can't, then isn't even attempting to do this degrading oneself to the position of a philosophical Cagliostro?
"If you've got any last words, say 'em now." - Nadie.

"I am Horo the Wise." - Horo the Wise.
Cadrache
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Posted 10/31/09 - 07:12 AM:
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#2
wink The difficulty of the intelligence/emotional divisional is such that particulates in functions are neither inverse ratios or equivilant ratios.

If you want somebody to do something 'good' intellectually - you cannot choose an expressatory stimulus such as 'happy' to create the change for better living. Nor can you do it's polar opposite. In either case - it seems to close the reception halls.


Interesting question Wosret.
"...There was a writer who asked why it was that when we find positive experiences we say that only the physical facts are real, but in negative experiences we believe that reality is subjective. He made an example of those who say that in birth only the pain is real, the joy a subjective point of view, but that in death it is the emotional loss that is the reality." - Tony Ballantyne, Recursion.
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James S Saint
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Posted 10/31/09 - 07:21 AM:
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All of life is motivated by the perception of hope and/or threat.

The human has both conscious and subconscious. To "sway" behavior, one or both must be presented with a clear picture of hope and/or threat in the form of thoughts and/or feelings, logos and pathos.

The most common method for persuasion of a large mass is to use hypnosis, which allows for the persuasion of feelings regardless of conflicting thoughts. Such a method requires susceptibility and less consciousness, less ability to think and more emotionalism.

While others are being persuaded in such a manner, to try to use merely thought as in discussion, is walking against the wind. For thought to prevail again, consciousness must be restored. People would have to get out of their current environment and healed.

But then you would have to have a really sound logical stance to present so as to persuade them. You might have to persuade yourself first. smiling face
Wosret
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Posted 10/31/09 - 07:27 AM:
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Cadrache wrote:

Interesting question Wosret.


I'm not sure that you followed it -- as I couldn't make heads or tails of your answer.
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"I am Horo the Wise." - Horo the Wise.
Wosret
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Posted 10/31/09 - 07:31 AM:
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James S Saint wrote:

The human has both conscious and subconscious. To "sway" behavior, one or both must be presented with a clear picture of hope and/or threat in the form of thoughts and/or feelings, logos and pathos.


So, you don't think it can be done?

You might have to persuade yourself first. smiling face


And you'd think that would be relatively easy. sad
"If you've got any last words, say 'em now." - Nadie.

"I am Horo the Wise." - Horo the Wise.
James S Saint
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Posted 10/31/09 - 07:43 AM:
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Wosret wrote:
So, you don't think it can be done?


The only possible ways to sway anything at all are;

1) Mental
2) Medical
3) Military

Assuming you are not toying with the other 2, mental is all you have. Persuading the mind is merely an issue of presenting pictures of hope and/or threat. The common, less whole mind, is divided into emotional sub-influence and logical thought influence. As long as those are kept neurologically divided, emotions will have greater influence.

To heal the mind, you have to heal the brain, assuming that you actually wanted to "heal" rather than merely "sway".

But if you don't use emotionalism, the only alternative is to give authority to logic. That can be done through ethos and result in stopping all other ways of persuasion which would then yield the freedom to NOT use emotionalism (saved from the original sin). It can be done.

The problem is that You are not in charge of the Ethos. grin

..and are You the One to be trying such? cool

Edited by James S Saint on 10/31/09 - 07:49 AM
Wosret
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Posted 10/31/09 - 07:56 AM:
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James S Saint wrote:


But if you don't use emotionalism, the only alternative is to give authority to logic. That can be done through ethos and result in stopping all other ways of persuasion which would then yield the freedom to NOT use emotionalism (saved from the original sin). It can be done.


Can you give an example of such a syllogism? Remember that its premises either must be uncontroversial or demonstrable themselves, and the inference can in no way rely on emotional or consequentialist appeals. Thanks.
"If you've got any last words, say 'em now." - Nadie.

"I am Horo the Wise." - Horo the Wise.
atightropewalker
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Posted 10/31/09 - 08:11 AM:
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Wosret wrote:
How does one sway another to their values without appealing to emotion, or consequences? Can it be done? Should it be done? If it can't, then isn't even attempting to do this degrading oneself to the position of a philosophical Cagliostro?



I don't think you can. Should it be done? Yes, because our values are emotional and consequential, they are not previously decided facts. And I don't thing using emotion or consequence does degrade one's philosophy. (For me) Philosophy is trying to understand life better and life doesn't work like religion where everything is faith-based nor science where everything is fact-based. Life is exactly this problem and the weird mix of trying to prove beliefs and facts is what philosophy is. I don't agree with current philosophy's obsession with logos nor could I agree when philosophers told us that faith alone was enough. So I'd say realise that philosophy is this weird mix of belief and fact and don't be afraid to use it as such.
"An honest religious thinker is like a tightrope walker. He almost looks as though he were walking on nothing but air. His support is the slenderest imaginable. And yet it really is possible to walk on it." - Ludwig Wittgenstein

'It is the duty of the human understanding to understand that there are things which it cannot understand...' - Søren Kierkegaard
Wosret
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Posted 10/31/09 - 08:31 AM:
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#9
Thank you for the response. smiling face

atightropewalker wrote:

I don't think you can. Should it be done? Yes, because our values are emotional and consequential, they are not previously decided facts.


I like this answer... too much, I fear.

And I don't thing using emotion or consequence does degrade one's philosophy. (For me) Philosophy is trying to understand life better and life doesn't work like religion where everything is faith-based nor science where everything is fact-based. Life is exactly this problem and the weird mix of trying to prove beliefs and facts is what philosophy is. I don't agree with current philosophy's obsession with logos nor could I agree when philosophers told us that faith alone was enough. So I'd say realise that philosophy is this weird mix of belief and fact and don't be afraid to use it as such.


I'm just not sure that I am capable of jumping without a surface to push off of, let alone do I feel that I can jump higher than others.

When I have no facts that you lack, and yet our values diverge, and in such a way that it is distasteful to my silly sensibilities, then what am I to do? At this point, the style of discourse shifts from philosophical to negotiation, does it not?
"If you've got any last words, say 'em now." - Nadie.

"I am Horo the Wise." - Horo the Wise.
atightropewalker
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Posted 10/31/09 - 08:47 AM:
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Wosret wrote:

When I have no facts that you lack, and yet our values diverge, and in such a way that it is distasteful to my silly sensibilities, then what am I to do? At this point, the style of discourse shifts from philosophical to negotiation, does it not?


Philosophy is odd fellow... It presents beliefs as facts and facts as beliefs and vice versa - as we understand them. But at the end of the day I believe we should do as we understand. Either you negotiate them into your response to get the outcome you want or you leave it stand but either way it should be to get what you want. Don't let your decisions be decided by external authority instead accept that your philosophy should be constantly evolving and you can feel free to decide whether this is true of others (in which case feel free to argue) or not (in which case you would abstain from argument) or somewhere in between. I don't think it is negotiation because I have my philosophy and them theirs but all we can do is adjust our philosophy not reach a middle ground.

In the end I like to think of me reaching my ideal philosophy based on this weird conflict and others acheiving the same. I'd like to thing we're all evolving together to all our own separate causes. I think this paradox is what separates philosophy from science and religion.
"An honest religious thinker is like a tightrope walker. He almost looks as though he were walking on nothing but air. His support is the slenderest imaginable. And yet it really is possible to walk on it." - Ludwig Wittgenstein

'It is the duty of the human understanding to understand that there are things which it cannot understand...' - Søren Kierkegaard
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