[Wittrs] Re: Language games, html, and the Varieties of Nonsense

  • From: Sean Wilson <whoooo26505@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2011 15:49:36 -0700 (PDT)

Walter writes: "It's not the sincerity and honesty that concerns me--it's 
the certainty of being correct.  Especially, where the knowledge of what these 
other sorely "lacking" individuals actually believed and wrote is so slight.  
Pretty much everybody thinks he/she is right about pretty much everything.  
What matters are the arguments. Otherwise, it's just religion."

... alrighty. I actually see what you wrote here. Don't know how that went over 
my head, but it did. You are saying that I lack the knowledge of what "the free 
will debate" is saying back and forth. And that, as such, I shouldn't be so 
certainly dismissive of it.

I'll see your bet here and raise it. I don't have to know a thing about it. I'm 
quite confident that it is completely pointless. I'm so confident, in fact, 
that 
I await for you to show me otherwise. 

So show me what the big deal is here. I'd love to see whether or not my 
shunning 
of this conversation has saved me time or hurt my growth. My sense is that it 
is 
much like the shunning of the sides of cereal boxes, which I haven't read since 
about 5. In fact, I bet there is more there than here. Goodness gracious: there 
is much more value in what Tony-the-Tiger is doing these days than in what 
anyone's position is about "free will."

What is the difference between such positions and the position on the way they 
decorate bedrooms or the charities they favor? Actually, these things are also 
more relevant because they at least show some sort of taste. But if one were to 
say that they have chosen to do or not do X because of a position they had 
about 
free will, why wouldn't this not be akin to someone saying something like, "I 
am 
depressed."  You would never take the matter as a proposition; you would take 
it 
as asking for help of a kind you yourself really weren't qualified to give.

If a Mormon came to my door with bibles, I would leave him to his route. If a 
man offered me his eye for fashion, I'd throw it in my bucket. But if one said 
to me something like, "I've changed my stance on volition," I'd treat it as 
meaning the person was in need of a referral for counselling. Or I might treat 
it as a badge of his ideology, except that it isn't about the kinds of things 
we 
use ideology for (e.g., politics). If the person in any way became depressed or 
euphoric over such declarations, one would have no choice but to treat the idea 
as one belonging to the professional occupancy for those sorts of affects. 

The problem, really, is that there is NOTHING for me to do with it. At least 
with the Mormon, I know to send him on his way.       

Regards and thanks.

Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.
Assistant Professor
Wright State University
Personal Website: http://seanwilson.org
SSRN papers: http://ssrn.com/author=596860
Wittgenstein Discussion: http://seanwilson.org/wiki/doku.php?id=wittrs

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