[MD] Anti-intellectualism revisited

[david]

Horse said:
...[John and Ian] are "the two that are having the hardest time getting their heads around the problem space/solution scenario that several people here have commented on, supplied evidence for and generally given a crystal clear explanation about! ...There is no problem here and as DMB has re-iterated over and over, stop confusing the problem with the cure! ...Until you get past this you ARE going to be stuck in the same place as when Bo left. No amount of evidence is going to shift you because you will just keep ignoring and/or denying it. There are none so blind.....etc."



John replied to Horse for the 2nd time:
I don't know what technical issues prevented me from reading this before, but this is the 1st time I've seen horse's comment.  So let me go slow and digest it.

A)  I'm being lumped in with Ian, which is odd since Ian thought I was a troll
B) The statement "there is no problem here" seems problematic in that, according to James, and any philosopher really, when there is no problem there is nothing to say.
C)  Evidence, imo, is logical rhetoric.  Not defamation and ad hominem attacks so point me to logic and I'll accede.  But until then, I'll raise the questions that ocur to me.  Or is it invalid to wonder?



dmb says:
Okay John, I'll illustrate a basic logical problem that's already on the table. One of the points you just responded to was my complaint that "you're not making any sense" because we cannot "talk about the meaning of Pirsig's terms without Pirsig's explanations of those terms". I was pointing out the logical impossibility of your proposal. How can we do that, I asked. But apparently you missed this point of logic entirely because your answer was, "By comparing them with experience, Dave. Again, this is logically impossible. How can anyone compare Pirsig's terms with experience without understanding Pirsig's terms? If you misunderstand Pirsig's terms, then you're only comparing experience with misconceptions of  those terms. This is just one recent example but there are many such points of logic that you failed to address.

As Horse, myself, Arlo, Ant, and others have repeatedly pointed out, we have already "supplied evidence for and generally given a crystal clear explanation" of the mistakes you are making. As we keep saying over and over and over again, you are stuck in the problem space and still fail to see the solution. There are many details but the basic criticism is simple; you're confusing the problem (SOM) with the cure (MOQ). 

Step back for a moment and examine your own words. Take a deep breath and think about what has transpired in this part of the exchange. Even though you already responded to Horse's comment once before, you begin by acknowledging that something prevented you from reading it before, that reading it again seems to you like reading it for the first time. Then you promise to slow down and digest it. What "technical issue" kept you from reading it before? I don't think there is a technical issue so much as a psychological issue, one that makes it almost impossible to communicate. You're responding to words and ideas that are right before your eyes and yet there is a certain blindness that prevents you from saying anything relevant about those words and concepts. It all just goes right past you, right over your head, and then you wonder why I'm getting frustrated and angry. But who wouldn't? This kind of bizarre blindness would make anyone think that you have some serious problem and issues that make you into an extremely poor reader, writer and thinker. If you keep doing this, people will conclude that you're just being dishonest, intellectually lazy and weak, or even that you'e mentally ill. If you continue to operate like this, your responses will continue to be pointless, irrelevant nonsense. If this blindness problem isn't fixed, then those who are capable of thinking their way out of a paper bag will have no interest in your ideas or opinions about anything. Nobody worth talking to is going to want to talk philosophy with a such a shitty thinker. It's obvious to us that you have no idea what a well-supported and carefully explained criticism looks like. (Hint: there are several dozen posts by several different MOQ that are directed at you and your repeated mistakes.) If you were a better reader and thinker, you would have already realized that your position has been completely defeated and the only ones who think otherwise, other than Ian, have all been removed from the forum for doing exactly what you're doing so badly. 

When you claim that Arlo, myself, Ron, Ant, Horse are all incapable "of stating clearly and logically exactly what my problem is," it makes you look quite delusional. People are increasingly frustrated with this level of blindness. This is the complaint that you promised to carefully and slowing examine but instead you're simply denying what Horse and others are saying, which is that the your problem has already been carefully explained over and over again. And yet you still seem to have no clue.  That's unbelievable. It truly seems that you have a serious psychological problem, one that keeps you from seeing what's placed right in front you many times.

As a result, talking to you is just an exercise in frustration. Every effort is completely wasted on you. As far as I can tell, you've never learned anything from anyone in this forum. And you certainly have nothing intelligible to say either. 

Please John, go away. Get a different hobby. This is NOT for you and you're only interfering with those who do want to have an intelligent discussion. It's really unfair to everyone else that one of the most prolific posters is so hopelessly confused all the time about everything.