The "Intellectual Bitterness" Thread

  • 44 Replies
  • 21314 Views

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

dragharrow

  • *
  • Momurai
  • **
  • Posts: 93
    • View Profile
« Reply #15 on: February 25, 2014, 09:35:25 am »
Quote
Depression has far more to do with neurology, environment, genetic predispositions, etc. The idea that serious depression is around the corner if you pick up a Nietzsche book, and can be cured with a happy self-help guru book, isn't convincing at all.
I agree in part Phallus and Wilshire.

I definitely don't think a nihilistic philosophical argument is going to have a significant effect on most peoples emotional state. My experience has been that, for the vast majority of people, rational argument just doesn't penetrate very deeply. You can't argue someone into being sad for the same reason Bakker is unable to argue most people into accepting that free will doesn't exist. Most people's emotions and deeply held beliefs aren't founded on chains of logical justifications.

But that doesn't mean that it isn't possible to make someone sad, it is. You can't reason with someones emotions but many interactions don't try to. Emotional expressions -of affection, acceptance, exclusion, hatred- can definitely make someone depressed or bitter.

I think that intelligence does correlate with depression and bitterness, but not because the intelligent are realists or were converted to nihilism due to reading philosophy. And I'm with Wilshire, I definitely don't believe that it's because intelligent people tried to show everyone else the way and became bitter because everyone ignored them unfairly.

I know my read on this is silly and stereotypical but cut me some slack.

I bet higher intelligence tends to correlate with lower innate social skills. So young smart kids have a harder time on the playground than their less intelligent but more charismatic peers. Rejection reduces these nerd-children's confidence and conditions them to avoid risky social situations in the future. Exclusion and avoidance reduce the amount of practice they get socializing. Over time the social disadvantages compound and the kid ends up feeling isolated and bitter. They have trouble fitting in, relating to their communities, flirting with opposite sex, etc. It's a stereotype but it holds.

It doesn't happen to every smart person obviously. Plenty of smart kids are brave, or lucky, or grow up in less brutal social scenes, and they get the crucial social practice they need to fit in and be happy.

Others form counter culture cliques and find a comfortable niche there. I feel like I meet these kids all the time. They're generally happier than kids who fell into real isolation but they often harbor a general (and in my opinion, unfounded) resentment for popular society.

Why would more intelligent kids have lower social skills than their peers? Either: 1) Because the human brain has limits on the computational power it can alot to different processes. When we refer to someone as being intelligent we are communicating that they are good at a certain family of cognitive abilities; things like abstract thought, capacity for logic, memory, problem solving. Those skills are computationally expensive. So are social skills. It makes sense to me that brains "invest" in different areas of cognition, and that heavy investment in "intelligence" tends to reduce the allocation of processing to social skills.

Or, 2) Intelligent people are just less interested in socializing than less intelligent people. Maybe the whole world is just way more fascinating for smart people, and so as children they invest less time trying to figure their peers out, because they are focused on figuring everything else out.
 

Alia

  • *
  • Kijneta
  • ***
  • Of The Knife
  • Posts: 249
    • View Profile
« Reply #16 on: February 25, 2014, 11:38:13 am »
There is also a third possibility, which ties with the first one but does not overlap. And that is - Asperger spectrum disorders. There are plenty of kids who are somewhere on the spectrum, not with full-blown Asperger's but with some elements of it. They are usually very intelligent, process information easily, have a very wide vocabulary, which is surprising in such a small kid. They also have their own fixed interests, to which they devote most of their time and energy (for a kid on the spectrum it could be trains, dinosaurs, clockwork mechanism, does not matter). And they fail miserably in social life. Why? Because other five-year-olds around them are not really interested in trains, dinosaurs or clockwork mechanisms. And being different in a peer group is always a dangerous things. If you talk like an adult about T-rexes and pterodactils, while all the kids around you chat about TV cartoons, it's a recipe for disaster.
And I know what I'm talking about. I've been living with one Asperger spectrum adult for half of my life.
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom - William Blake

Royce

  • *
  • Old Name
  • *****
  • The Resplendent
  • Posts: 591
  • There are no facts,only interpretations- Nietzsche
    • View Profile
« Reply #17 on: February 25, 2014, 01:18:48 pm »
Quote
The most likely case still seems to me to be that there are no universals, no objective truths.

It does baffle me that from a subjective viewpoint we can imply that no objective truths can exist.
Can the subjective viewpoint be trusted though? If it cannot, neither subjective nor objective truths exist, so your statement is meaningless.

P.S love your posts man ;)


Alia

  • *
  • Kijneta
  • ***
  • Of The Knife
  • Posts: 249
    • View Profile
« Reply #18 on: February 25, 2014, 02:26:42 pm »
I don't know whether it is the right place, but here is a very interesting article about depression from an evolutionary point of view and the role of low mood in survival: http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/depression-re-examined-a-new-way-to-look-at-an-old-puzzle/
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom - William Blake

Kellais

  • *
  • Kijneta
  • ***
  • The True Old Name
  • Posts: 201
  • Damnation Dealer
    • View Profile
« Reply #19 on: February 25, 2014, 05:21:14 pm »
Quote
The most likely case still seems to me to be that there are no universals, no objective truths.

It does baffle me that from a subjective viewpoint we can imply that no objective truths can exist.
Can the subjective viewpoint be trusted though? If it cannot, neither subjective nor objective truths exist, so your statement is meaningless.


Lol..awesome, Royce ;)

Or you know, it is the other way around. If there obviously ARE subjective truths (as demonstrated by everyone of us) there HAS TO BE objective truth...because the universe just works that way...all has its opposite...everything needs to be in balance ( + vs -, high vs low, right vs wrong, right vs left etc ...  ;D )

@ dragharrow - I agree that a lot of discourse on a lot of topics will always be subjective...especially as soon as you discuss opinion! But at least in scientific fields, there are such things as truths. I really have a problem with most "all is relative" speeches, as most of the time, they are just used as a cop out. If you can't admit that you are wrong, you pull the "all is relative"-hammer. I'm not talking about your post, btw. As i said, i agree that in many discussion, subjective is all you will ever get.
But, for a trivial example, there is no denying that if you accept the foundations on which our mathematics stand (and if you say now that you do not, well, i refer you to my statement about the all-is-relative-speech ;) ), that you can construct a commutative ring where 1 + 1 = 0. Now, as i said, a trivial example and most probably not very helpful for the overall thread ( ;) ) but still, you would not believe how many less-than-helpful/useful conversations you can have with people who just claim this can never be right in any universe  ::) And this is the glimpse of bitterness i was trying to hint at...again, with a very crude example ;D
« Last Edit: February 25, 2014, 05:23:43 pm by Kellais »
I'm trapped in Darkness
Still I reach out for the Stars

"GoT is TSA's less talented but far more successful step-brother" - Wilshire

Royce

  • *
  • Old Name
  • *****
  • The Resplendent
  • Posts: 591
  • There are no facts,only interpretations- Nietzsche
    • View Profile
« Reply #20 on: February 26, 2014, 07:33:38 pm »
Quote
Or you know, it is the other way around. If there obviously ARE subjective truths (as demonstrated by everyone of us) there HAS TO BE objective truth...because the universe just works that way...all has its opposite...everything needs to be in balance ( + vs -, high vs low, right vs wrong, right vs left etc ...  ;D )

Yes, balance seems to be a key factor ;).

I am not convinced that there are subjective truths, as portrayed by us speaking our minds. As I have mentioned before, being convinced that you are speaking truth, does not mean that you are. If you believe something you are automatically precluded from believing its opposite. So if there is an objective truth(I am not saying there isn`t) we probably don`t have the faintest clue what that might be.

Quote
But, for a trivial example, there is no denying that if you accept the foundations on which our mathematics stand (and if you say now that you do not, well, i refer you to my statement about the all-is-relative-speech ;) ), that you can construct a commutative ring where 1 + 1 = 0.

I agree that stating that 2+2=5 is not very helpful. It works fine as it is. I do not see the point in restructuring and reorganizing every little detail about everything, just because we can(if we can, I am not a maths guy ;D).

The kind of relativism you describe(I think?), that every idea should be treated equally, is also not very helpful IMO. There should be room for calling an idea utterly useless. But again, I would never ever use the word certain about anything, because then you are not being honest with yourself IMO.

Kellais

  • *
  • Kijneta
  • ***
  • The True Old Name
  • Posts: 201
  • Damnation Dealer
    • View Profile
« Reply #21 on: February 26, 2014, 08:35:14 pm »
But, Royce, if you are convinced of something, then that is subjective truth, is it not?! By definition, something that is subjective has only to hold for one subject. Superb if it holds for many many people, but it already fulfills the definition if only one of us sees it that way and holds it for the truth. So i guess you are talking yourself into a dead-end, my friend ;)

About the objective truth...i guess it depends on how strict you are on your definition. I am saying that we have some fields of knowledge, where there is a clear wrong and right. But it is true that even in the purest, most logical science Mathematics, you have to first make some "assumptions" aka put up Axioms. But from there on out, you  can prove everything that follows as true or false.
People who now go "yeah, but you have those axioms and those are made up..." are a bit too hung up on nitpicking...because nothing exists in a Vacuum, right?! So you always have to have a starting point. And let me tell you, those axioms are much more complicated than something you can just make up ;)

So to end this post, for myself (and i guess every mathematician on this planet and most probably also all physicists) i can tell you that there are things i am certain about (concerning math - just to be clear....i don't want to sound like a pompous ass ;) ;D ).
I'm trapped in Darkness
Still I reach out for the Stars

"GoT is TSA's less talented but far more successful step-brother" - Wilshire

Wilshire

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Old Name
  • *****
  • Enshoiya
  • Posts: 5935
  • One of the other conditions of possibility
    • View Profile
« Reply #22 on: February 26, 2014, 08:37:52 pm »
Royce you did a lot of dancing to avoid offending anyone :P. The whole 'treat all ideas as equal' is nonsense. Truth/facts do exist and/or are generally accepted. They can turn out to be wrong, and then a new truth/fact takes its place, but the ability to correct mistakes or fix errors does not make every possible idea a viable one. Though that, in my observation, is a major difference between science and religion. Science (where most people find there facts, right?) is aware of its fallibility and adapts, whereas religion tends more toward absolute truths that are set in stone.

The existence of an 'objective' truth/fact is out there somewhere, but whether it can ever difinitively be labeled as such is doubtful. After all, if you subscribe to the multi-verse theory and infinite probabilities, there is a universe where every idea in our own universe could be found to be 'objective' in another. Then you beg the questions, what makes it objective then, if it only holds in a limited space-time (albeit a space-time the size of a universe...)
One of the other conditions of possibility.

Royce

  • *
  • Old Name
  • *****
  • The Resplendent
  • Posts: 591
  • There are no facts,only interpretations- Nietzsche
    • View Profile
« Reply #23 on: February 27, 2014, 12:02:51 pm »
Quote
But, Royce, if you are convinced of something, then that is subjective truth, is it not?

My problem with this is the word "truth". As I stated earlier what you are convinced of may change if you are convinced otherwise. Does "truth" change at all? If it does, it is nothing more than an opinion. So I would rather use the word opinion than truth. So in other words, subjective opinions?, ok yes, subjective truths? Well......

Another thing is, how can you be sure there even are subjects to speak of? If you for instance see all subjects as different expressions of the same thing, namely life, are there really independent subjects and objects? Aren`t we all evolutionary expressions changing along with our environment? Is there really room for subjectivity, when we really just are droplets in an enormously vast ocean of everlasting change? Is this philosophical nonsense? maybe so :) Imagination and possibilities has no end I am afraid ;)

One last thing Kellais. I totally understand your position as a teacher in mathematics. You have to accept a set of rules, because if you do not, you cannot function as a teacher. I am not at all attacking this situation. Like I mentioned earlier, it would not be helpful to anyone to refute this.

Quote
Royce you did a lot of dancing to avoid offending anyone

Maybe I did, but I try my best not to sound like a person who has the right answers. A little humility is helpful, because I would never ever say to a fellow human in any sense, that he is totally of mark, stupid etc. That leads only to obscuring the conversation and end up as a competition between ego 1 and ego 2. I try to avoid these situations.

Alia

  • *
  • Kijneta
  • ***
  • Of The Knife
  • Posts: 249
    • View Profile
« Reply #24 on: February 27, 2014, 02:57:35 pm »
Maybe I did, but I try my best not to sound like a person who has the right answers. A little humility is helpful, because I would never ever say to a fellow human in any sense, that he is totally of mark, stupid etc. That leads only to obscuring the conversation and end up as a competition between ego 1 and ego 2. I try to avoid these situations.

Which is probably very considerate of you. However, I do not have patience for that. And I feel that with some fellow humans this course of action is really not feasible. Sometimes you have to call a spade a spade - how am I supposed to react to some of my students' blatant xenophobia? Yes, I do tell them then openly, that they are off the mark and their ideas are stupid (not they - but their ideas).
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom - William Blake

Royce

  • *
  • Old Name
  • *****
  • The Resplendent
  • Posts: 591
  • There are no facts,only interpretations- Nietzsche
    • View Profile
« Reply #25 on: February 27, 2014, 03:56:07 pm »
Quote
Which is probably very considerate of you. However, I do not have patience for that. And I feel that with some fellow humans this course of action is really not feasible. Sometimes you have to call a spade a spade - how am I supposed to react to some of my students' blatant xenophobia? Yes, I do tell them then openly, that they are off the mark and their ideas are stupid (not they - but their ideas).

I thought I made this distinction perfectly clear earlier in the thread. When it comes to philosophical matters, relativism can be defended. When it comes to someone being xenophobic, well that is a completely different scenario. Then you affect someone directly through words or action. You could destroy a person uttering such hateful ideas, and I am almost offended that I have to point out this distinction to you.

Alia

  • *
  • Kijneta
  • ***
  • Of The Knife
  • Posts: 249
    • View Profile
« Reply #26 on: February 27, 2014, 04:33:03 pm »
Sorry, Royce, I did not want to offend you in any way. This example was not very well chosen, I admit. I'll write a bit more about relativism, but not at the moment.
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom - William Blake

Kellais

  • *
  • Kijneta
  • ***
  • The True Old Name
  • Posts: 201
  • Damnation Dealer
    • View Profile
« Reply #27 on: February 27, 2014, 05:33:19 pm »

My problem with this is the word "truth". As I stated earlier what you are convinced of may change if you are convinced otherwise. Does "truth" change at all? If it does, it is nothing more than an opinion. So I would rather use the word opinion than truth. So in other words, subjective opinions?, ok yes, subjective truths? Well......

I think we are getting into definition problems. For me, the emphasis is on subjective...therefore it is obvious, that the following word truth is not THE truth...but the truth of the one person fighting for his position, or if you want to, opinion. So i guess we kind of agree. Still, i will always talk about subjective truth...as most often, people who fight for something really hard consider that which they fight for for the truth and not just an opinion. And i think subjective opinion is a pleonasm anyway...opinions are always subjetcive.

Another thing is, how can you be sure there even are subjects to speak of? If you for instance see all subjects as different expressions of the same thing, namely life, are there really independent subjects and objects? Aren`t we all evolutionary expressions changing along with our environment? Is there really room for subjectivity, when we really just are droplets in an enormously vast ocean of everlasting change? Is this philosophical nonsense? maybe so :) Imagination and possibilities has no end I am afraid ;)

Well, this is too close to for me to a "all is relative" statement again ;) I mean i can't really argue with that ... and so far, it seems to me you have not put that forth as a truth (;)) but you are wondering about it...so...not sure how to respond to that ;D
For myself, i'd say that this is a bit beside the subject we were talking about (oh ups, i used subject again...does this kind of disqualify what i intend to write because..well...it is what you kind of call into question...or...argh...now you talked me dizzy... ;D ). Or to put it another way, i'd disagree that those subjects are all muddled into one big one and so can not be talked about and looked at seperately. Anyway...i still like your way of thinking ;D

One last thing Kellais. I totally understand your position as a teacher in mathematics. You have to accept a set of rules, because if you do not, you cannot function as a teacher. I am not at all attacking this situation. Like I mentioned earlier, it would not be helpful to anyone to refute this.

We are cool, Royce. I was not taking what you said as an attack on that. I also hope i did not give you any reason to think i am talking aggressively here. I'm still getting a hang of writing about such complex topics in english...so i might misstep sometimes. But normally, i am a quite nice person and try to discuss in a civil manner ;D
« Last Edit: February 27, 2014, 05:36:26 pm by Kellais »
I'm trapped in Darkness
Still I reach out for the Stars

"GoT is TSA's less talented but far more successful step-brother" - Wilshire

Alia

  • *
  • Kijneta
  • ***
  • Of The Knife
  • Posts: 249
    • View Profile
« Reply #28 on: February 27, 2014, 05:46:44 pm »
OK, now have a bit time to elaborate on my thoughts and hopefully express them better (assuming that the forum allows me to post it).
Among many different things I am interested in medicine. Which is interesting and relevant to this discussion, I think, because it's not exactly a hard science, not like mathematics, physics or chemistry. It changes much faster, popular therapies and medicines are disproven, new ones are introduces, one could almost say that a lot in medicine is in fact philosophy. And that's exactly the argument given by all those people who believe in unproven therapies (alternative medicine, complementary medicine, integrative medicine, you name it). That since so many things have changed within the realm of medicine, it's not really a science and therefore it is relative. Now, let's say I have a friend who is a fan of homeopathy. I am sure that homeopathy does not work, because for it to work most of fundamental laws of physics and chemistry, not to mention human physiology, would have to be fundamentally wrong. Am I right to tell my friends that he's wrong, that homeopathy does not work and he just wastes his money on sugar pills and water? Or is my point of view just my philosophy and he's equally right?

And this is something I am very passionate about, I admit. Because the spread of unproven, useless and sometimes even dangerous "therapies" is due to the fact that too many people are relativists, who claim that both sides have their truth and these truths are equal.
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom - William Blake

Wilshire

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Old Name
  • *****
  • Enshoiya
  • Posts: 5935
  • One of the other conditions of possibility
    • View Profile
« Reply #29 on: February 27, 2014, 06:39:41 pm »
I wasn't trying to criticize you Royce. Really quite the opposite, I applaud your efforts. I just don't have the patients to do that, and it can sometimes get to the point where communications breaks down, though I think you walked the line nicely.
One of the other conditions of possibility.