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Bertrand Russel's message for the future

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
This was suddenly in my recommended list on youtube. Not sure why it showed up, but it's a fine message indeed... The guy manages to say more in 2 points then some others say in entire books.



Wasn't quite sure in which forum to put this.
Though I was wondering what other people, theists specifically, think about the message.
Especially those who think the moral argument is convincing. Does one truly need anything more then Russel's simplistic take on it to have something to work with?
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
This was suddenly in my recommended list on youtube. Not sure why it showed up, but it's a fine message indeed... The guy manages to say more in 2 points then some others say in entire books.



Wasn't quite sure in which forum to put this.
Though I was wondering what other people, theists specifically, think about the message.
Especially those who think the moral argument is convincing. Does one truly need anything more then Russel's simplistic take on it to have something to work with?

In practice it is a bit more complicated than that. That is how in certain parts of the world you have professional educations to learn to do that and those takes years. At least some people would fail having responsibility in an asymmetrical power relationship, even if they accept Russel's advice.
 
Does one truly need anything more then Russel's simplistic take on it to have something to work with?

I know I post this ad nauseam, but his friend John Maynard Keynes provided the most pithy summary of the problem with his view:

"Bertie [Bertrand Russell] sustained simultaneously a pair of opinions ludicrously incompatible. He held that human affairs are carried on in a most irrational fashion, but that the remedy was quite simple and easy, since all we had to do was carry them on rationally."
 

stvdv

Veteran Member
This was suddenly in my recommended list on youtube. Not sure why it showed up, but it's a fine message indeed... The guy manages to say more in 2 points then some others say in entire books.



Wasn't quite sure in which forum to put this.
Though I was wondering what other people, theists specifically, think about the message.
Especially those who think the moral argument is convincing. Does one truly need anything more then Russel's simplistic take on it to have something to work with?
I like it simple:
Love is wise, Hatred is foolish

Even this is not always easy:
Love Putin is wise, Hate Putin is foolish
 

MikeF

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
This was suddenly in my recommended list on youtube. Not sure why it showed up, but it's a fine message indeed... The guy manages to say more in 2 points then some others say in entire books.



Wasn't quite sure in which forum to put this.
Though I was wondering what other people, theists specifically, think about the message.
Especially those who think the moral argument is convincing. Does one truly need anything more then Russel's simplistic take on it to have something to work with?

Man, I hope our distant decedents will have already integrated that advice into their society. That message seems geared towards us today in our current primitive state.
 

Evangelicalhumanist

"Truth" isn't a thing...
Premium Member
I like it simple:
Love is wise, Hatred is foolish

Even this is not always easy:
Love Putin is wise, Hate Putin is foolish
I think it is quite easy to wish to STOP Putin without giving in to hate. Hate could easily lead to taking actions to stop him that might result in a nuclear war that would annihilate tens of millions. Trying to stop him without hating him may be harder, but less dangerous in the long run.
 

1213

Well-Known Member
...
Though I was wondering what other people, theists specifically, think about the message...

The problem with that is, who can define truthfully what really are facts. Nowadays facts seem to depend on what is the political subjective opinion of the ministry of truth at the moment.
 

Yazata

Active Member
I basically agree with everything that Russell says there. Entirely in the abstract.

Unfortunately, he doesn't tell us anything about how to put his two points into practice. And as Mikkel says, it gets complicated fast when we poke into it.

If intellectually speaking we are to concern ourselves only with the "facts", Russell must have some definition of 'facts' in mind as well as some way of recognizing them when we stumble over them. That's easier said than done, and gives rise to no end of problem cases. As 1213 says, the "facts" too often become 'Whatever my political side says' or 'Whatever those I recognize as authorities say'. (And that applies to science as much as to religious revelation, given that science has become an increasingly authoritarian social force in the last 20 years.)

Russell himself was known for a logicist sort of philosophy that by way of people like Quine, shaped much of 20th century 'analytical' philosophy. First order predicate logic was conceived as some sort of ideal logical language and it was held that philosophical problems of all sorts could be solved by restating ordinary language sentences into logical symbolism and then reading off not only what they do and don't imply, but also more technical things like what variables their bound quantifiers range over (which supposedly define our ontological commitments). The obvious question that arises with that kind of philosophy is what is the "factual" status of logic itself?

And what are we to make of ethical, aesthetic and even cognitive values? (Truth is a value after all.) What about goals and purposes? We typically perform actions in order to achieve ends. But how does our choice of future ends relate to whatever the physical (and abstract?) facts supposedly are today? We will probably inevitably be sneaking all sorts of feelings, desires and personal evaluations into many of our decisions.

Russell may or may not be right if he's saying that it's best to try to minimize these. And he almost certainly is right that it's best to make these evaluative factors in our thinking explicit when and where they exist and not to confuse them with "facts" (whatever 'facts' are).

And I do agree with Russell's last point that tolerance for differences of opinion is fundamental for living in a diverse community. As Elon Musk recently (and correctly) said, it's fundamental to the continued existence of democracy. And it's increasingly under threat in our ever more authoritarian contemporary world.
 
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stvdv

Veteran Member
That is what Modi says. See it from Russian angle.
That's what I also do.

The West made 1 big mistake, not keeping their verbal promise. I do understand Russian angle.

I hope Russia and NATO still can work it out together. Much better than a Big Bang (a cornered cat can go crazy)

Because then all are losers
 

Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member
I read quite a bit of Russell in my youth, but mainly more out of interest than being for study, and finding his style quite likeable. His heavier works might have put me off, even if I did buy some, and would have required more concerted study and education than was available to me then, along with the necessary motivation. Along with Tolstoy (non-fiction works), the two of them perhaps formed the options to my spiritual life ahead - fortunately Russell won. :D
 

Sheldon

Veteran Member
I know I post this ad nauseam, but his friend John Maynard Keynes provided the most pithy summary of the problem with his view:

"Bertie [Bertrand Russell] sustained simultaneously a pair of opinions ludicrously incompatible. He held that human affairs are carried on in a most irrational fashion, but that the remedy was quite simple and easy, since all we had to do was carry them on rationally."

Whilst I see the paradox, I am not sure Russel was claiming this was a likely, or even probable remedy, only that he believed it could be a solution. I'm inclined to agree with him, but also see how it might be borne more from hope, than expectation.

If the world were populated by Russels, well that's a different matter. That said, I can't help but imagine what we might achieve, if we taught children informal logic and critical thinking from an early age, instead of indoctrinating them into archaic superstitious beliefs, that contain pernicious and divisive doctrines.

One can hope after all, it seems to me to be one of life's saving graces. :cool:
 
Whilst I see the paradox, I am not sure Russel was claiming this was a likely, or even probable remedy, only that he believed it could be a solution. I'm inclined to agree with him, but also see how it might be borne more from hope, than expectation.

I'm with Keynes here.

Human irrationality is hardwired into the species, rather than something we can "grow out of". Hope in this regard is no different from hoping for the 2nd coming of Jesus: a comforting illusion.

That said, I can't help but imagine what we might achieve, if we taught children informal logic and critical thinking from an early age, instead of indoctrinating them into archaic superstitious beliefs, that contain pernicious and divisive doctrines.

We do teach them that from an early age in many countries, it's just that we cannot escape our nature any more than other animals can.

Humans aren't divided because of pernicious doctrines, we are divided because we evolved living in small groups mediated by personal relations while being frequently threatened by outsiders. Unless you start from the irrational perspective that humans are, by default, united unless there are things that divide us, religions, ideologies and nationalities are massively unifying forces. The problem is humans can only be unified so far before coalitions and identities fracture again.

Humans aren't irrational because they are indoctrinated into irrational beliefs, irrational beliefs are ubiquitous because humans are irrational (or, at best, only intermittently rational).

This is what Keynes was getting at: We can't solve problems by expecting people to behave rationally.
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
The problem with that is, who can define truthfully what really are facts

Those things in the world that can be independently verified by others and which don't change regardless of opinions.


Nowadays facts seem to depend on what is the political subjective opinion of the ministry of truth at the moment.

Can you give an example?
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
For example how Nazis are bad, unless they are Azov Nazis and working for us.

That's not how I see it.

To be honest, I know rather little about what the whole nazi azov thing is all about.
I don't see whatever their role in the current conflict is, would change anything about the ethical implications of their ideology.
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
I'm with Keynes here.

Human irrationality is hardwired into the species, rather than something we can "grow out of". Hope in this regard is no different from hoping for the 2nd coming of Jesus: a comforting illusion.



We do teach them that from an early age in many countries, it's just that we cannot escape our nature any more than other animals can.

Humans aren't divided because of pernicious doctrines, we are divided because we evolved living in small groups mediated by personal relations while being frequently threatened by outsiders. Unless you start from the irrational perspective that humans are, by default, united unless there are things that divide us, religions, ideologies and nationalities are massively unifying forces. The problem is humans can only be unified so far before coalitions and identities fracture again.

Humans aren't irrational because they are indoctrinated into irrational beliefs, irrational beliefs are ubiquitous because humans are irrational (or, at best, only intermittently rational).

This is what Keynes was getting at: We can't solve problems by expecting people to behave rationally.

Here is a fun example of what we are fighting for with an I/we.

It is a case of in the end different cognition and feelings.

Someone regardless of religion or not: I/we can for all humans for all time do the universal right/correct behavior for all case of human behavior.
Me. I can't
That someone: Then you are a negative/a negative will happen to you.
Me: No, not in all cases.

That is in a sense the end game, and for some religious people it is about an eternal negative, Hell.
For the non-religious Ayn Rand did a simple one:
"All thinking is a process of identification and integration. Man perceives a blob of color; by integrating the evidence of his sight and his touch, he learns to identify it as a solid object; he learns to identify the object as a table; he learns that the table is made of wood; he learns that the wood consists of cells, that the cells consist of molecules, that the molecules consist of atoms. All through this process, the work of his mind consists of answers to a single question: What is it? His means to establish the truth of his answers is logic, and logic rests on the axiom that existence exists. Logic is the art of non-contradictory identification. A contradiction cannot exist. An atom is itself, and so is the universe; neither can contradict its own identity; nor can a part contradict the whole. No concept man forms is valid unless he integrates it without contradiction into the total sum of his knowledge. To arrive at a contradiction is to confess an error in one’s thinking; to maintain a contradiction is to abdicate one’s mind and to evict oneself from the realm of reality."
—Ayn Rand Lexicon

The beauty of that one is, that you are not supposed to ask the following question: If you are in reality and I am not, how do you know from being in reality that I am not in reality?
That answer is that I am not really objectively relevant because I am irrational. :D
 
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