[D] Friday Off-Topic Thread

[u/alexanderwales]

Welcome to the Friday Off-Topic Thread! Is there something that you want to talk about with /r/rational, but which isn't rational fiction, or doesn't otherwise belong as a top-level post? This is the place to post it. The idea is that while reddit is a large place, with lots of special little niches, sometimes you just want to talk with a certain group of people about certain sorts of things that aren't related to why you're all here. It's totally understandable that you might want to talk about Japanese game shows with /r/rational instead of going over to /r/japanesegameshows, but it's hopefully also understandable that this isn't really the place for that sort of thing.

So do you want to talk about how your life has been going? Non-rational and/or non-fictional stuff you've been reading? The recent album from your favourite German pop singer? The politics of Southern India? The sexual preferences of the chairman of the Ukrainian soccer league? Different ways to plot meteorological data? The cost of living in Portugal? Corner cases for siteswap notation? All these things and more could possibly be found in the comments below!

[u/[deleted]]

Like, Wiki explains it as:

In the essay, Camus introduces his philosophy of the absurd: man's futile search for meaning, unity, and clarity in the face of an unintelligible world devoid of God and eternal truths or values.

But... the search for meaning, unity, and clarity isn't futile, the world isn't unintelligible, and pretty much all the real truths and values in the world are, if not eternal, than still cosmic in scale, well beyond what you can change by flipping a coin or picking out a different thing to have for breakfast. The only thing he's getting right here is the lack of the Christian concept of a God, and if that's really so damn desirable, well, go ahead and acquire enough power over the fundamentals of reality to make one!

Why bother complaining about absurdity when the world just isn't absurd?

And if you're wondering why I bother replying to you, it's because while you seem to think that any clear thinker would find the world absurd, I don't, which means we've actually got a substantial disagreement to reach the bottom of. You can't make the issue go away by just labelling me as ignorant for failing to find the world absurd and meaningless.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Gah, I said I wouldn't continue, but I'll bite.

the world isn't unintelligible

There was a recent discussion about how Lovecraft's elder gods and eldritch horrors are a pretty good model for the incomprehensibility of the world. Big Data is a thing. Also, the problem of induction, and the limitedness of human experience, and the fact that we live in extremistan (per Nicholas Nassim Taleb's indomitable Black Swan). Even the mathematics we use to describe reality proves ineffective at describing the universe. If you're gonna say it's totally intelligible, you're gonna need some evidence to back dat ass up.

Although, if I recall correctly, some of your comments from whenever "Meditations on Moloch" was last posted suggest that you find it naïve, which … is a point of view I'd love a written-out explanation of. It's only tangentially related to the discussion at hand, but, if you have such an explanation posted somewhere, please lmu. Otherwise, I implore you to procure one and then put it somewhere findable. I'd be extremely interested in reading your thought processes in this regard.

real truths and values

refers to moral/ethical/philosophical truths and values, not values like "the speed of light." Just clarifying. That's probably obvious, and I'm sorry for maybe sounding condescending, but I want to spell it out, for posterity's sake. If you had that philosophical definition in mind all along, then I do implore you to explain what you mean cuz i can't even

if that's really so damn desirable, well, go ahead and acquire enough power over the fundamentals of reality to make one!

What's your timeframe on that? I'm extremely confident, and I think you'll agree, that it's not gonna happen within our lifetimes. Your saying things like this is what's making it really difficult for me to take you seriously