All posts by Argo

Why a Political Candidate Asking For Your Vote is an Exercise in Logical Fallacy

Authority, government, individualism vs collectivism, Metaphysics, Violence, Voluntarism, , ,

A person cannot ask an individual (such as you or me) to vote for them for a position of authority (rulership) over a given collective (e.g. the “People”, the “Nation”) because:

1. Individuals are not collectives, they are not groups. What is good for the group (e.g. “common good”) can never simultaneously be good for the individual. Because the definition of “good” is utterly dependent on which metaphysical paradigm you are using:

a. The group as a direct function of the individual–which is rationally consistent and makes ALL interactions within the group voluntary and mutually beneficial, because the individual is recognized as the moral and epistemological Standard.

Or b. The individual is a direct function of the group–which is rationally inconsistent, and is the premise upon which ALL authority/submission  models, like governments, are based. Individual will is subordinated to the group (again, the “common good”); and this always requires force because it renders individual will, and thus individual thought–which is in fact the moral and epistemological frame of reference all people necessarily possess–irrelevant. This nullification of individual will makes individual choice moot, which makes it necessary and incumbent upon the Authority (e.g. the State) to use force (violence and threats) to compel moral behavior…where again morality is defined according to the group (the good of the group, or again, common good); and where the “group” is necessarily defined by those who force the compliance of individual behavior to its promotion.

Why?

Because individuals cannot define it, because their minds and wills are antithetical to the group metaphysic (the individual as a function of the group). Thus, those in charge of forcing individual compliance to the group become those who define the group…essentially by default.

2. Force and Ideas are mutually exclusive. If an idea is to be implemented by threats and violence, then the idea itself–more specifically, its rationale (that which makes it true, and thus good, and thus efficacious)–is completely beside the point. Convincing someone of the efficacy and logic of your idea is irrelevant when your ultimate goal is to occupy a position of power by which you will give them no choice as to whether or not to comply with it. And this exclusiveness between force and ideas means that no candidate–no would-be agent of State FORCE– can give you an actual reason to vote for him. For the office he seeks denies the relevancy or even the possibility of your ability to understand and choose right and good things. And this being the case, how can this would-be agent of State force make a plea for your vote where he offers you an idea, which involves a rationale, which rests upon on the assumption that you can in fact understand and choose right and good things?

The answer? He cannot. It’s a contradiction. And there is no contradiction which can ever  be effectively applied. Running for public office is about deception in order to acquire votes, and this to attain the power to do nothing more than receive a specious legal pass for doing violence, even for the most well-intentioned politician.

Modern Science’s Metaphysical Failure: When the Observer Becomes That Which is Observed (PART 1)

Determinism, Epistemology, Ethics, General Philosophy, Metaphysics, reason, scientific determinism

The observer must be distinct…that is, autonomous and not subject to–and rationally understood and defined as such–that which he observes (i.e. processes and objects). To reject and deny this necessary fact, and to launch into a philosophy (an explication of axiomatic Truth with respect to existence) based upon the objects and the processes which “govern” them, and this absent a rationally consistent definition of “observer” which does not subordinate him in the metaphysics sense (meaning he has moral and intellectual autonomy) to these objects and the processes which “govern them”, is the apogee of laziness, pseudo-intellectualism, and irrational, hypocritical, and self-nullifying mysticism. And worse yet, this will and must wreck the very thing–the only thing–which guarantees morality and therefore life and liberty: moral and intellectual awareness via absolute agency referenced to the individual (metaphysically singular–one’s “oneness”, you might say). And agency implies an agent, and by  “agent”, I mean: the Self. That is, he who observes and, more importantly, conceptualizes what he observes in order that he may cognitively (which means, practically speaking, intellectually and morally) organize his environment to the promotion and perpetuation of the Self–himSelf and Other Selves.

And what is the Self?

The Self is the conceptualization of, again, one’s “oneness”.  The Self is he who is inherently Able to define life–“life” being the practical manifestation of one’s will and choice via his ability to conceptualize his existence within a distinct environment–by referencing it to his own  moral and intellectual agency. Further, by this ability to define a moral and intellectual reference for life–for existence–which is himSelf, distinct and autonomous from the objects and processes he observes (from the environment, that is), he may recognize both its truth and goodness, and therefore quite naturally carry a desire to possess it. For he knows that HE is True and Good. And this Truth and Goodness are axiomatic and irreducible; not subject to the objects and processes he observes and conceptualizes, a subjection in the metaphysical sense which would wreck any distinction between himSelf and his environment, thus nullifying the only rational reference for existence at all, which renders moot his ability to conceptualize, which nullifies his ideas, which destroys morality and truth.

Aphorism of the Day: Scientists are the Court Jesters of Philosophy

Aphorisms, General Philosophy, reason, scientific determinism, , ,

In the capacity of science, scientists are brilliant, and hard and tireless workers. But as philosophers they are the most intellectually lazy and obtuse bunch of rubes I have ever come across; for even the most basic rational contradiction seems entirely beyond them.

🍀

Sam Harris: Science’s Satanic High Priest

Determinism, Physics and Metaphysics, scientific determinism

To claim that will and choice are illusions is to claim that thought itself is an illusion. To claim that thought is an illusion is to claim that the Agent who necessarily must exist in order to think and to will and choose is likewise an illusion. This equation is inexorable, and quite frankly, obvious to anyone not a rank pseudo-intellectual determinist ideologue.

And once the intellectual Agent (the Self) is claimed illusory then morality must likewise be illusory…for the intellectual Agent is also the moral Agent.

And therefore, make no mistake and do not be fooled. Any scientific determinist like Sam Harris who argues that will and choice are an illusion is wrecking not only an aspect of man’s mind, but all thought itself, which thus denies the truth and validity of the Self…the individual human being. And once the Self is declared merely a figment of infinite universal cause and effect then morality is obliterated. And what follows is a torrent of bloodshed.

In my next article, I will make my case for what I consider the root flaw of scientific determinism: the subordination of the Observer to that which is observed. In other words, the absence of any rational metaphysic.

 

 

 

Force and Ideas are Entirely Incompatible

Authority, Ethics, government, individualism vs collectivism, reason, Violence, Voluntarism, , , , ,

Your intellectual and/or moral agreement with an idea is entirely irrelevant if those who are not in agreement are forced to submit to it. Once force is used to implement an idea, the idea no longer matters. Force becomes the sole point and purpose, and death becomes the sole outcome. This is axiomatic. Force nullifies choice; and choice–between good and bad, and truth and falsehood, for instance–is the product of conceptualization, which is the root and efficacy of thought. And ideas are a function of thinking.

And thinking is how man defines Self, via his powers of conceptualization. And the definition of Self necessarily implies the relevancy and purpose of Self, which is thus the relevancy and purpose of the existence of the Self.

Therefore, use force, destroy ideas, which destroys the Self; that is, Humankind.

🍀

 

The Ability of Men to Communicate Means that Force Must Mean Tyranny

Authority, reason, Violence, Voluntarism, ,

If you intend to force your opponent to comply with your idea, you don’t actually need the idea, all you need is force.

You see, having an idea is fundamentally an appeal to reason–i.e. this is true because of this rationale, which also must be true because of this premise…etcetera, etcetera. And reason is a function of concepts men use in order to communicate with one another. Communication (or more precisely, the ability to communicate) then is proof that all men possess an equal and singular frame of reference by which communication is made relevant and efficacious: One’s Self. I. The I Am inside of each human being.

Therefore, to force men to comply with ideas is a contradiction in terms which inevitably turns rulers (those tasked with forcing compliance) into brainless killers, and the ruled into trenches full of ashes.

Aphorisms: On the underlying fallacy of governments

Aphorisms, Authority, government, Violence, Voluntarism, , ,

Apologetics for government begins with the right of the good man to be protected from the avarice of the evil. From this we can directly extrapolate the following equation:

The right of the virtuous to be protected from the non-virtuous = the vast majority of men shall be subject to the authority–that is, the coercive violent force–of a tiny minority of men.

This is a logical fallacy.

*

To protect virtue by compelling all men through violence entirely wrecks virtue by nullifying moral and intellectual agency and is a contradiction in terms.

Which is why all governments are simply degrees of tyranny.

Aphorism of the Day: Faith and Reason

Aphorisms, reason,

Faith absent reason cannot provide an answer for itself–that is, its purpose and relevancy–which means it cannot be considered in any way efficacious.

And the answer to a question cannot be redundant or a contradiction, because that’s not an answer, it’s merely a priggish regurgitation of the question. So when you are asked the reason for your faith, use reason to answer. Otherwise you are nothing more than that kid in middle school who bragged about having a girlfriend in Canada. All claim, no dame.

 

Aphorism of the Day: Violation of identity, the mortal sin against reason

Aphorisms, General Philosophy, Metaphysics, reason, , ,

A thing’s identity–whether that thing be an abstraction or a concrete–is violated when it is said to be or do two mutually exclusive things at the same time.

(Examples: God is infinite and God is distinctly Himself; man may choose and man is governed by God’s will/natural law; the Big Bang began with an infinitely dense and infinitely hot singularity (what is infinite cannot be valued and thus it cannot be measured, you see, and it also cannot be compared, so it is impossible to claim it “hot” or “dense”–appeals to a thing’s infinite existence preclude appeals to any specific properties); God created everything from nothing (ex nihilo)–nothing by definition cannot beget something–“is not” and “is” are categorical antipodes; time has a beginning (time cannot be subject to itself–logical fallacy); space can be folded (implying that there is space between space which must be mitigated via folding it–again, logical fallacy.

These are just some of my favorite specimens.)