acephalousuniverse posted:

youre a bunch of fucking dweebs with horrible, like unendingly horrifyingly bad taste in music

acephalousuniverse posted:

youre a bunch of fucking dweebs with horrible, like unendingly horrifyingly bad taste in music

radicalism and shitty music go hand in hand

roseweird posted:

jools i didn't really get a chance to respond to this since you declared victory while i was out for a walk however i think insisting on hard logical distinctions between the shades of multivalent words is really the shell game here. it is dishonest to the way people actually experience language, because hearing a word always sets off an array of related meanings.

this is what makes the invocations of wittgenstein so weird, because it's almost entirely in line with what he's saying. there's no ultimate definition of 'religion' in the sense jools and prop d want here, just different language games within which is it defined, and the language game that includes "private spirituality" or whatever is obviously a valid one. if anything it's way more widespread in our culture than the one they're using, which is quite obviously constructed and assumed for ideological purposes, and so they're much closer (though not all the way) to being in error by wittgenstein's standards.

roseweird posted:

Lessons posted:

roseweird posted:

jools i didn't really get a chance to respond to this since you declared victory while i was out for a walk however i think insisting on hard logical distinctions between the shades of multivalent words is really the shell game here. it is dishonest to the way people actually experience language, because hearing a word always sets off an array of related meanings.

this is what makes the invocations of wittgenstein so weird, because it's almost entirely in line with what he's saying. there's no ultimate definition of 'religion' in the sense jools and prop d want here, just different language games within which is it defined, and the language game that includes "private spirituality" or whatever is obviously a valid one. if anything it's way more widespread in our culture than the one they're using, which is quite obviously constructed and assumed for ideological purposes, and so they're much closer (though not all the way) to being in error by wittgenstein's standards.

yes, i mean on a certain (admittedly sort of esoteric) level of analysis all religion consists in atomized individual religions in various states of integration. i think jools and prop d are after a complete emptying of the soul in favor of an ideal communist worker's subjectivity of complete automatic usefulness and directedness, basically the kingdom of heaven. this is good when you are reading matthew but sometimes more subtlety is required, because planning occurs by recognizing, acting on, redirecting individual impulses (one's own as well as others) in tension with group impulses

look, don't trying to rope me in on any of your weird shit. i don't give a damn about any of this stuff. all i'm saying is you can talk about it meaningfully and that if you're going to accept the fucked-up and untrue assumptions of religion you can't do an end run around mysticism by claiming it's a grammatical error.

swirlsofhistory posted:

Lessons posted:

this is what makes the invocations of wittgenstein so weird, because it's almost entirely in line with what he's saying. there's no ultimate definition of 'religion' in the sense jools and prop d want here, just different language games within which is it defined, and the language game that includes "private spirituality" or whatever is obviously a valid one. if anything it's way more widespread in our culture than the one they're using, which is quite obviously constructed and assumed for ideological purposes, and so they're much closer (though not all the way) to being in error by wittgenstein's standards.

Wittgenstein's analogy of the language game is one of his weakest points, but even so, this is horrible misuse of it. Like it's as if you just read the wikipedia page and posted here.

this is how it was explained to me, that language games consist of community standards of language use that govern 'correct' usage and intelligibility. i haven't read the wikipedia, stanford ecyclopedia, whatever. if there's something wrong with that explain it.

Lessons posted:

swirlsofhistory posted:

Lessons posted:

this is what makes the invocations of wittgenstein so weird, because it's almost entirely in line with what he's saying. there's no ultimate definition of 'religion' in the sense jools and prop d want here, just different language games within which is it defined, and the language game that includes "private spirituality" or whatever is obviously a valid one. if anything it's way more widespread in our culture than the one they're using, which is quite obviously constructed and assumed for ideological purposes, and so they're much closer (though not all the way) to being in error by wittgenstein's standards.

Wittgenstein's analogy of the language game is one of his weakest points, but even so, this is horrible misuse of it. Like it's as if you just read the wikipedia page and posted here.


this is how it was explained to me, that language games consist of community standards of language use that govern 'correct' usage and intelligibility. i haven't read the wikipedia, stanford ecyclopedia, whatever. if there's something wrong with that explain it.

But what does that have to do with (private) spirituality?

swirlsofhistory posted:

But what does that have to do with (private) spirituality?

joools (and maybe prop d, i didn't ask her) were saying wittgenstein's private language argument makes private spirituality impossible which is stupid as hell.

peepaw posted:

babyfinland posted:

peepaw posted:

babyfinland posted:

peepaw posted:

babyfinland posted:

about 13 years ago i got into an email argument with that guy in the semi-official melvins listserv and he got so mad he ragequit a mailing list

did you ever post on bunglefever

nah my internet nerdery only goes so far but i did upload a bunch of soundboard shows to their ftp from ed2k plus i sent in a few corrected tabs to cv.org, but i don't think they're around any more

did you read it. remember rus

p. sure he used to post a lot on webofmimicry too

rus was cool

Lessons posted:

swirlsofhistory posted:

But what does that have to do with (private) spirituality?


joools (and maybe prop d, i didn't ask her) were saying wittgenstein's private language argument makes private spirituality impossible which is stupid as hell.

A private language is impossible for the reason that following any rule is impossible without some standard of correctness. This is because rules are irreducibly normative, they are either correctly followed or they are not. I think the point is that going along as if one is free to interpret meanings and practices as one pleases basically removes the standards of correctness, and thus going along as one pleases (in whatever) isn't following a rule at all. Maybe they claim to be following a private rule they laid down at an earlier date (assume their memory of this is correct). Is it really a rule? Wittgenstein has an answer to that:

265.

Let us imagine a table (something like a dictionary) that exists only in our imagination. A dictionary can be used to justify the translation of a word X by a word Y. But are we also to call it a justification if such a table is to be looked up only in the imagination? -- "Well, yes; then it is a subjective justification." -- But justification consists in appealing to something independent. -- "But surely I can appeal from one memory to another. For example, I don't know if I nave remembered the time of departure of a train right and to check it I call to mind how a page of the time -- table looked. Isn't it the same here?" -- No; for this process has got to produce a memory which is actually correct. If the mental image of the time -- table could not itself be tested for correctness, how could it confirm the correctness of the first memory? (As if someone were to buy several copies of the morning paper to assure himself that what it said was true.)

Looking up a table in the imagination is no more looking up a table than the image of the result of an imagined experiment is the result of an experiment.

Wittgenstein isn't expressing radical skepticism about memory here, but is criticizing the idea that a normative practice, which requires some independent standard of correctness, can be kept in line by appeal to itself (i.e. Is my memory of the departure time right? Let me check another memory...). I think that's the point being made about following a private spirituality, although it doesn't much matter since all mystical or spiritual pseudo propositions are incoherent anyway.