How to Figure out Gnon's Will

A basic idea of this blog is that people don't choose ideas according to the merits or the logical value of those ideas. People have different personalities, different status-seeking dispositions, so to speak. Some people desire a lot, some people are content with less, some people are willing to go further in order to attain it, others don't. Given that basic foundation of personality, people then choose the ideas that think can better aid their status-seeking plans. Ideas spread or don't spread according to how well they fit the wider aggregate status-seeking dispositions of the population. Which of course is affected by the current idea landscape of the culture.

This is why rabid leftists become rabid rightists, or viceversa, while seldom becoming apolitical. They're just into politics, period, so they get behind whatever is fashionable or suits their background better. Understand this point and you'll understand much better how the ideological landscape in the West is going to change in the next few decades. For instance, take a look at this:

A tale of two white British brothers who took VERY different paths: One supports right-wing EDL - while the other has converted to Islam

How can they be so different? Well it's quite obvious. The guys just aren't into mainstream crap. They're edgy, as brothers they share those edgy genes, they just happened to stumble into different edges.

But of course ideas have consequences. Not ideas themselves; but different ideas help different groups get together, and social circles have big consequences. Social circles are everything, really.

Another point of this blog, of course, is to look at human behavior from a biological perspective. Richard Dawkins was able to write his masterpiece The Selfish Gene, because he was a zoologist. Everybody should be a zoologist. Everything makes much more sense when you look at stuff like that. Gnon is a zoologist. He really is. Now let's look at the British brothers as zoologists. One looks happy, has two children, an obedient wife. The other has... his pub mates. Doesn't look very content, does he?

Now I could start with that and start with the sociological consequences of that... but you already get it, don't you? Again, I'm no apologist. I completely agree with this post by Jim. This is the solution we don't want. But I'm not sure Gnon cares about what we want.

[…] How to Figure out Gnon’s Will […]

You have returned to this interesting theme repeatedly. Today you state the theme explicitly, so I'll bite. Was Plato wrong? If so, how? Okay, that's much too big a question for a blog. I couldn't answer it, either. However, suppose that you illuminated just one angle of the question—an ontological angle, an epistemological angle or a teleological angle. You choose. For example, if you said, "Teleology is bunk," I would disagree, but those three words would still help to clarify your position to me. Then you have truth, beauty and right, where Jordan Peterson (whom you have recently introduced; thanks, he is most interesting, and my wife who does not even read your blog then watched his videos for hours) seems to say that truth does not really exist, and even if it did, you and I aren't evolved to recognize it; whereas Peterson seems pretty deeply concerned with right. But today I do not ask what Peterson thinks. I ask what Spandrell thinks. Is there a circularity in your philosophy? A because B because C because A? Or is it A because B because C because Q, where Q is a mystery? Or is it A because B because C because Z, where Z is a logically coherent unmoved mover? I can't quite trace your circle, but neither can I identify your Q or Z, so this is why I ask. Of course, it may be that you represent the Q, in which case you will not answer my question at all. That's as may be. Thanks for the article.

Or is the very point of the concept of Gnon this: that it is unprofitable to try to answer questions like the ones I have just asked? That's what Peterson seemed to be saying. To me, that was the single weakest point of his otherwise enthralling presentation, but perhaps you have another view.

[…] Source: Bloody Shovel […]

I'm glad you and your wife liked Peterson. I'm not quite sure what you're asking me here, though. Yes, Plato was wrong. There's no good reason to think there's a "world of ideas" beyond the real world. There is a real world. We can perceive it. Other living things can perceive them (according to their perceptual apparatus). But that's all there is. "Ideas" are just hearsay. I disagree with Peterson on truth, and I made that point on my earlier articles on him. Of course truth doesn't exist in the same way an apple exist. It's not a physical object. Truth is a mental tool that we use to track our memories (and other people's memories as deduced from their statements) and compare them with the real world. If it fits, it's true. If it isn't, it's false. It's a very, very useful mental mechanism to have. I'm sure even animals have that. Say a cat faintly sees a rat running towards a hole. He didn't see it very well so he isn't quite sure, but he goes check it out. Once he does find the rat there, the confirmation of his hunch is an experience of truth. Of course social animals have a much more developed truth mechanism because we can get information from others, and there's always the potential for deceit. So again, things like truth, beauty or justice do not exist in the same way that physical things exist. They are abstractions. Truth does not exist, but true statements exist. Beauty does not exist, but beautiful things do. It is indeed not very accurate to talk about abstractions using the same language patterns that we use to refer to physical objects; but language is about getting by, not about philosophical accuracy. As you see it's very hard to write philosophical arguments in a way that makes sense, given the way the language works. Which is why most philosophers just end up playing politics with their arguments. That pays better too.

I completely assent; I've seen Alt-right individuals and honest fascists join Islam as well. There's clearly a personality that is opposed to liberalism, and will find any avenue to express it. How it is expressed can be quite varied.

Let's see what the Brits did in India. In 18th Century India, the Hindus led by the Marathas were finally counter-attacking successfully and it looked like Muslims would finally be displaced from power all over India and finally dispatched to beyond Afghanistan. It looked like a 1100 year Hindu-Muslim Struggle was finally coming to an end with a Hindu victory. What happens then? Oh Yes! the friendly neighborhood fresh-faced Brits defeat the exhausted Marathas, conquer India and start favoring the Muslims as they have favored them all over the world from Cyprus to Bosnia to Crimea to Burma and what have you? A Bloody partition of India follows and the current Indian Muslim population stands at 15%, double of what it was in 1948. I'd say the Brits gave us a gift that keeps on giving. Can't say I feel sorry for the Brits. Thought you Limeys could ride the Tiger forever, didn'tja? Suck it up, you Bastards!

No, that quite clarifies, thanks. All your points are well taken, especially your point regarding language patterns. I won't say that I yet see it quite as you do (for, so far, Edward Feser has rather persuaded me), but it's an interesting vein that you are mining, nevertheless. Keep at it. One appreciates your story about the brothers. I too have a brother who, I had thought, had followed a much different path than I in life; but not that different!

Can I play Devil's Advocate? Plato and Aristotle, the philosophy of ideas and the philosophy of particulars, are not contradictory, they are complimentary. We all subjectively experience both the ideas and the particulars. Your insistence that Gnon made the particulars but not the ideas is radical materialism philosophically. And religiously the insistence that man made the ideas, not gnon, is the deadly sin of pride. I don't know how much I really agree with all that, I'm more just trying to exercise my metaphysics muscles.

France had no role in India? US had no role in promoting the break up of the GB empire and pressuring the UK to deal with Muslims in India? US deal with the Saud family in 1942? Which country with its anti-imperialism imperialism has engendered anti Western feeling across the world.Septics have it coming, and I cannot wait.

Platonist ideas come up all the time in different cultures. They obviously serve a purpose in social life. Or at least in political life. But I'm trying to call a spade a bloody shovel here and I just don't see it. I'm quite happy to be called a radical materialist. Or at the very least I refuse to talk about non-material things. I don't deny their existence, I deny my (and your) ability to know about them. I'm a metaphysical agnostic, by which I mean I firmly assert that metaphysics is nonsense but I'm quite ready to accept any metaphysical system if you can prove that it's on my interest to do so. Just don't expect me to write about it, I'm just not very good at it.

It's only natural that the Brits found the Muslims more congenial than Hindus. Abrahamic religion and that. I recall reading Richard Francis Burton and man, he really didn't like you guys. That said, the Muslim population in India since 1948 is completely your problem, not Britain's. If you wanna show the world how to deal with the Muslim problem, you are most welcome to do so. The Chinese are doing a decent job at that.

Oh look, http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/03/15/16/3E4DCD8E00000578-0-image-a-32\_1489594362419.jpg, a fate worse than death. Chomp on that carrot, destroyed-bloodline-man of the incompetent sons. Let me know when the elite converts to Islam. Spoiler alert: never. The purpose of the Moslem immivasion is to carrot and stick the lower classes into submission, pun intended. Divide et impera. Oldest trick in the book. Also, newsflash: shriveled-up childless woman lawyers in the grinding gears of the Washington bureaucracy aren't the elite.

You are the Platonic idea of a pragmatist;)

Any ideological Schelling point that's going to rally enough people to its cause, it must be Platonic. It has to peddle ultimate ideals and universal Goods of some sort. That's why leftism works so well: it gives people a Platonic vision of The Good toward which to strive, just as Christianity does (and, of course, leftism is just Christianity minus the sexual morals). The Truth of Universal Equality . . . all that stands in our way is our own ignorance! We must educate ourselves and all the ignorant fools who disbelieve in Equality! We must extricate ourselves from the Cave and turn toward the light of Equality. Mankind can be perfected and attain The Good! I'd die for that ultimate truth. Or, at least, I'd go protest for it. You're right that it's idiotic to search earnestly for Platonic truths; however, it's a great idea to create Platonic truths for other people to search and strive for. That's how you start a movement, gain power, and get chicks.

I'd've been glad not to see the blog of somebody with serious mental issues (related to women, and not only) not be linked to, but hey, one can not be made glad all the time. "There is a real world. We can perceive it. Other living things can perceive them (according to their perceptual apparatus). But that’s all there is." There is no way you, or I, can say what "there is". Plato's ideas were a product of his mind, like the idea that those were a product of his mind is a product of your mind (and my mind). But so is the "real world", and surely so is what we perceive. "Given that basic foundation of personality, people then choose the ideas that think can better aid their status-seeking plans. Ideas spread or don’t spread according to how well they fit the wider aggregate status-seeking dispositions of the population." Fully agree with the first sentence if "normal" is put beside "people". Many geniuses, plus all who should honestly be called philosophers and scientists, only care about their truth (ie: perceptions). We could say that we are so in love with ourselves that we resign social rewards in order to keep our self-love story pure? Society demands you to conform. To leave whatever different is in you than the (exhibited) average outside the club house before stepping in. The more independent your mind is, the more you have to resign. The more in love with yourself you are, the less disposed to resign yourself and wear a costume you are. Let's not forget that you'll succeed at the ball inside the club house only if you are good at self-deception (deception goes without saying), so the resignation is a radical act. You really have to forget yourself. It's not like once you leave the club house you'll find your natural dress there where you left it, waiting for you. You find nothing in its place. A gift box is now in your hands: inside lies a note, signed by The Group, saying "[thanks for yielding, now] you are someone" (my integration in square brackets). On the second sentence. No, ideas are spread by the elite, and they spread according to how well they assist the elite in the enlargement of their dominance and control (don't ask me "of what?", the answer is obvious; of everything available). The operations and ideas of any group, over a reasonable span of time, will take the shape that best helps the elite's wants and interests. That human vanity will keep each cog proudly confident that what they sing 'n recite is "their ideas" and "everyone is unique" is a monument of nature's irony, or its ability to make social species hold together if you will.

And I wonder why one should wish or wishfully foresee a shift to Islam instead of Judaism, provided he doesn't suffer from particular mental affections concerning women. You want a cohesive, well ordered, stable 2,5th world civil. in place of what most advanced is there? Why would you? Somebody wrote Beauty would save the world. Another that Shame would. Literacy, and a neurotic ever knowledge-hungry mind has saved the Jews for the centuries. I'd go with their way instead of nurturing nostalgia of pre-advanced settings. If the only reaction to the age of technology and its challenges (including that women can no longer be a target for frustrated cavemen's need to have somebody beneath their heel. Jewish women aren't, and that's no coincidence. You don't need to bully women to keep a culture in great shape; you need to bully women when you are an hominid under the need to bully someone, who can't bully other males)) the West finds will be going backwards, the Light unto the nations will be the only light left. Sorry if this comment is oversized, I didn't know how to make it less long.

Well when there are 20 millions Jews in Europe out breeding the natives perhaps the forecast will change.

IIRC, Pakistanis don't have genotypic low IQs, the real problem for them is inbreeding. Might be wrong about this.

I actually found Jim's explanation of the trinity compelling. There's a similar concept in Judaism, but less explicit. In defense of my thede over Islam, I will say that Islam doesn't seem to have found a way to negotiate modern technology and keep fertility rates up. High TFR exists in third world Muslim hellholes (Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc.), but much lower in places with civilization (Persia, Saudi, etc.). The Jewish setler types live a fairly modern lifestyle, and have very healthy TFR. Other more modern orthodox groups have lower TFR, but always above replacement. To my knowledge, the only other thede at or around replacement is the Danes (not sure if they still are, though).