{"id":15838,"date":"2012-04-09T08:56:43","date_gmt":"2012-04-09T15:56:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=15838"},"modified":"2012-05-03T15:02:18","modified_gmt":"2012-05-03T22:02:18","slug":"from-man-alive-the-nature-of-your-nature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/15838\/from-man-alive-the-nature-of-your-nature\/","title":{"rendered":"From Man Alive! – “The nature of your nature.”"},"content":{"rendered":"

From: Man Alive! A survival manual for the human mind.<\/em><\/a><\/b><\/p>\n

Extract from Chapter 2. The nature of your nature.<\/a><\/h3>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The general form of the specious appeal – this seems to have certain traits in common with that, therefore this is<\/em> that – is a comically obvious error when you state it plainly. The people who make these sorts of arguments can’t state anything<\/em> plainly, of course, so you need to train your mind to unpack their claims. If there are significant differences in kind between the “this” and the “that” – regardless of their seemingly “uncanny” similarities – the argument is most probably deploying the Specious Analogy Fallacy.<\/p>\n

As a sort of pocket-reference to the kinds of bogus arguments made about your mind – claims you will see everywhere if you look for them – take note of these three general categories:<\/p>\n

1. “We now know we know nothing!” Either your mind is inherently unreliable or the world outside your mind is fundamentally incomprehensible.<\/p>\n

2. “Your good behavior is not to your credit, but at least your bad behavior is not your fault!” The actions you think of as being morally good or evil are either causally unavoidable or are caused by something other than your free will – hormones, brain chemistry, genes, brain defects, drugs, diseases, your upbringing, your environment, your wealth or poverty, memes, etc.<\/p>\n

3. “Dancing bears are just like us!” Either animals such as apes or dolphins (or even “artificially intelligent” computer programs) are just as smart as you, or you are just as flailingly ignorant as an animal.<\/p>\n

Note that all three of these categories are self-consuming: To uphold them, necessarily, is to deny them. If we know we know nothing, then we must know at least that one something – begging the question of how we can know even that little bit of nonsense. If the human will is not free, I cannot will myself to persuade you of this claim – nor even simply to make<\/em> it – and you cannot will yourself either to accept or reject it. And if your mind works “just like” an animal’s brain, then you Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From: Man Alive! A survival manual for the human mind. Extract from Chapter 2. The nature of your nature. The general form of the specious appeal – this seems to have certain traits in common with that, therefore this is that – is a comically obvious error when you state it plainly. The people who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,212,29],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15838","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-egoism-in-action","7":"category-flourishing","8":"category-group-therapy","10":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":16134,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/16134\/see-man-alive-live-in-austin-august-17th-19th-at-the-21-convention\/","url_meta":{"origin":15838,"position":0},"title":"See Man Alive! live in Austin, August 17th – 19th, at the 21 Convention.","author":"Greg Swann","date":"July 27, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I will be doing an hour-long presentation on my book Man Alive! at the The 21 Convention in Austin. 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Not speech deployed to argue against them;\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Egoism in Action"","block_context":{"text":"Egoism in Action","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/egoism-in-action\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":15895,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/15895\/from-man-alive-the-high-cost-of-mindlessness\/","url_meta":{"origin":15838,"position":2},"title":"From Man Alive! – “The high cost of mindlessness.”","author":"Greg Swann","date":"April 16, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"From: Man Alive! A survival manual for the human mind. Extract from Chapter 9. The high cost of mindlessness. Because you never trained your mind to think about the ontology of human nature \u2013 don\u2019t fault yourself for that; no one else did, either \u2013 you thought they were just\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Egoism in Action"","block_context":{"text":"Egoism in Action","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/egoism-in-action\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":15854,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/15854\/from-man-alive-the-greatest-love-of-all\/","url_meta":{"origin":15838,"position":3},"title":"From Man Alive! – “The greatest love of all.”","author":"Greg Swann","date":"April 12, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"From: Man Alive! A survival manual for the human mind. Extract from Chapter 5. The greatest love of all. What\u2019s the purpose of life? Scruffy, bearded teenagers of all ages have been asking that question for thousands of years, and each one of them has come up with an answer\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Egoism in Action"","block_context":{"text":"Egoism in Action","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/egoism-in-action\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":657,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/657\/reagor-mortis-on-the-spot-real-estate-news-coverage-only-a-few-weeks-late\/","url_meta":{"origin":15838,"position":4},"title":"Reagor-mortis? On-the-spot real estate news coverage only a few weeks late . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"November 19, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"October 26th: NCRC files specious complaint against Zillow.com. November 19th: Crack Arizona Republic real estate reporter Catherine Reagor yawns, burps, goes back to sleep:The popular Web site zillow.com gets a lot of hits as people frequently check the values of their homes and their neighbors' in the fast-changing housing market.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":18359,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/18359\/overnight-news-laughing-all-the-way-to-the-morgue-with-the-breakthrough-superspreaders\/","url_meta":{"origin":15838,"position":5},"title":"Overnight News: Laughing all the way to the morgue with \u2018The Breakthrough Superspreaders.\u2019","author":"Greg Swann","date":"August 2, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"I've written a zillion very-short jokes in my life, many of them band names. \u2018The Breakthrough Superspreaders\u2019 is funny all the way to the morgue, but everything that claims to be leadership is fatally comical by now. The good news is the bad news: Insanity is always temporary: A moral\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Group Therapy"","block_context":{"text":"Group Therapy","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/group-therapy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Ya think it's easy?","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/BHBNewTopImage-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15838"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15941,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15838\/revisions\/15941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}