Are there private truths (the pain in my toe) and public truths (I have a toe)?

The OP is a defense of metaphysics before epistemology. Heidegger was obsessed with 'being' - and considered it a fundamental concept. I don't. I think truth is fundamental. Hence my rebuttal of the idea that 'existence is everywhere' with reference to scientific facts. This example shows clearly how metaphysics is merely parsing language, and not reality. — karl stone

Actually it was the OP I couldn't make any sense of. The fact that atoms are mostly space, and particles are really transitory events and the missing universe are all very sensible. The purpose of speculative philosophy (metaphysics) as I understand it is to precisely develop concepts to help us talk about and think about our experience of the world.

Not actually ideas, but a composition, production process, machine, tool, new plant species, etc. — karl stone

As pointed out you don't really patent "ideas" you patent products, and there are a thousand "ideas" for every patentable product based on an "idea" and even fewer that get to market a fraction of which are a economic success.

But there must be mechanisms of guaranteeing the validity of given works. (I'm guessing -- are there? Yes? No?) — Bitter Crank

Well some works are difficult to reproduce (iPhone knockoffs are lesser quality), original Monet's (good copies but only one original) but books, videos, music and even patented drugs can be copied faithfully and enforcing US patent or copyright laws in say China or India (good luck).

If your research is supported by public funding, does it not seem the results should be available to the public?

Well you have to admit, he does make himself into an easy target.:wink:

That makes sense. It's the leap from universal 'dependence ' (and I agree with you there) to all-encompassing oneness that throws me. I can't quite get a grip on what 'oneness' means. It feels to me like an extrapolation of our mental capacity to take synoptic views of local situations - to apply that synopticizing to everything. But I can't figure ou how that would work. — csalisbury

Well, there are a couple of approaches. One is to think of the body, you have fingers, toes, ears, organs, they are all talked about separately, functions described separately but we know they are all part of a unified, integrated, system or process. The other example would be concepts like Gaia or the earth as an integrated, interdependent system. The scale is just larger but the principle is the same. Oneness does not mean uniformity, it means relations, interdependence, interaction.

About the only form of time travel I think is possible, is the form rendered in the twin paradox from relativity (take a trip at close to the speed of light and return), your friends will have aged or even died and much time will have passed on earth whereas you (theoretically) may have aged only a few biological years. Other than that I think it is all science fiction (with an emphasis on the fiction).

The real problem with intellectual property (patents, copyrights and trademarks) is enforcing them in a global economy and in a digital world where almost anything can be copied, mass produced and distributed through the internet.

I can not make any sense of the concept being put forward here (help anyone).

The real problem is voter suppression and voter non participation not voter fraud.
Voter fraud is virtually non existent. Efforts at indirect voter suppression have only increased usually led by republican majorities in state houses. There are many ways to suppress voters (polling locations, polling hours, polling staffing, voter ID, no early voting, no same day registration, removal from voter rolls, and they have all been employed). It is a travesty in the modern world that there are no federal requirements or quidelines for conducting national elections (federal elections are run by the states and the situation in Georgia is indicative of just some of the problems).

What is Indras net? — frank

Often it is just easier to look things up, google or wiki, than to request someone write them out. In any event the conception is similar (more developed) I would say than your description of Schopenhauer's notion.

Consciousness is unified. For that reason Schopenhauer said it is the One. The picture I got from reading Schopenhauer was like a diamond with many facets. Each facet is the whole diamond. The whole is in each of the parts. — frank

Ever read about Indra's net? Schopenhauer liked some Eastern religious conceptions.

Is that possible? I thought the standoff was precisely because Trump won't sign any funding bill unless it contains money specifically earmarked for his wall. — andrewk

The dems need to show they are interested in border security (just not a wall). The wall is a fiction anyway, couldn't begin to get it done for that amount of money and in the time Trump likely has left. Public opinion is not based on facts or reason but on perception and border security is an issue that the left cannot afford to look weak about.

The wall will also never be built. Ever. Even if the Dems did give him 5.7B which is just to kick-start it (actual projections range from $10-$60B) the wall will never be built within Trump's Presidency, even if we assume he wins in 2020 and serves a full second term. Any Dem president will immediately scrap it. — Maw

That's true. Even if the money was allocated 5billion is just a fraction of the 20 billion or so estimated cost. Not to mention the majority of the border property in Texas is in private hands and would have to confiscated under eminent domain (likely to be many long and costly court cases). So even if he gets the 5 billion only fragments of a wall would be constructed. There are already many segments of wall in place in Arizona, New Mexico and California where the land is mostly government owned. So give him the money if you can get something substantial in return (DACA and TPS).

Drugs come across in legal crossings, through the mail from China or in shipping containers. Drug lords do not transport their wares in backpacks across the desert. At least half of illegal immigrants enter the country on planes with VISAs and overstay and terrorists (with any training or funding) don't hike across the desert either. I have trouble dealing with this crazy situation where reason and facts just don't seem to matter.

My stumbling block, here, is the difficulty I have understanding what it means for everything to be 'one' or 'unified.' I have difficulty understanding this concept except through visual metaphors (such as an all-encompassing sphere.) — csalisbury

There is a conception in classical philosophy of "independent objects" with "inherent properties".
In truth no "object" exists independently of the world in which it arises and on which it depends. Properties are always relations and not independent or inherent. So the world is already much more unifed, interactive, and interdependent than our typical language and operational conceptions suggest.

Yes, I am afraid it is all PR, posturing, and politics. Very little thought about what is good for the country and the future, and both sides of the aisle are quilty. The Dems should offer border security (not necessarily wall) money in return for a meamingful solution for DACA and the TPS program (both supported by a majority of the public).

Trump offers temporary DACA relief for funding for a permanent wall.
I don't think that is a good deal.
Permanent DACA and path to citizenship might be something to talk about for partial funding for some physical barriers?

I do not think anyone gladly has an abortion. Generally abortion is undertaken for unwanted pregnancy and pregnancies may be unwanted for many reasons, inability to care for the child, unpreparedness in life, etc.

This implies that one way to reduce the number of abortions is to prevent unwanted pregnancy through sex education, ready access to birth control and other methods. Ironically many people opposed to abortion are also opposed to sex education and medical interventions to prevent pregnancy.

Does potential life (embryo, fetus) have the same moral or ethical value as established life (a four year old child, or adult)? I think not and anyone confronted with a fire in a fertilization clinic would easily save the children there instead of the frozen embryos. Potentials are not actualities or existents.

At some point the state does develop an interest in developing life and the religious (eager to count God on their side) always have an interest in other peoples moral and ethical decisions. Technology allows us to prevent pregnancy easily and conveniently, to detect pregnancy at an ever earlier stage and to terminate unwanted pregnancies more safely, and earlier making the health and ethical considerations less fraught all (in my mind) desirable goals.

I do not think old white men in the legislature or in religious trapping should be telling young women confronted with unwanted pregnancy that they must carry the pregnancy to term and raise an unwanted child. The social consequences of unwanted children are another thing to be considered and debated.
Even in an ideal world, where unwanted pregnancies were not a reality, nature would still confront us with fetal malformations, in utero deaths, genetic diseases, threats to the life and health of the mother and other difficult medical and ethical choices. These choices are best left to the individuals affected, their counselors and their medical providers.

In both cases, the monistic idea can only be precipitated out of a non-monistic stew. The intent of the monist is always to correct an error, to show how everything is actually one. But that intent can only arise from a situation in which there is, at minimum, a duality. The monist is always required to have some kind of 'fall' story. There was oneness, then there was duality. — csalisbury

“W. T. Stace nicely summarizes the matter :Neutral monism appears to be inspired by two main motives. The first is to get rid of the psycho-physical dualism which has troubled philosophy since the time of Descartes. The second motive is empiricism. The “stuff” of the neutral monists is never any kind of hidden unperceivable “substance” or Ding-an-sich. It is never something which lies behind the phenomenal world, out of sight. It always, in every version of it, consists in some sort of directly perceivable entities – for instance, sensations, sense-data, colours, smells, sounds. […]” From Wittgensteins Metaphysics, Chapter Two John Cook

“In the philosophy of mind, neutral monism is the view that the mental and the physical are two ways of organizing or describing the same elements, which are themselves "neutral", that is, neither physical nor mental.[1] This view denies that the mental and the physical are two fundamentally different things. Rather, neutral monism claims the universe consists of only one kind of stuff, in the form of neutral elements that are in themselves neither mental nor physical” Wikipedia Neutral Monism

I am familiar with the classical monisms, especially materialism or physicalism and idealism. The more interesting form of monism for me is neutral monism. A philosophical notion entertained or adopted by a number of famous philosophers including James, Russell, Wittgenstein and Whitehead.

I have perused most of the preceding discussion in the thread and frankly, I can’t make sense of the majority of it. I feel I do understand the above quotes on neutral monism.

I am drawn to the notion of neutral monism, because I am drawn to the notion of the universe as One, as Unity. In some ways I suppose that is a religious notion and in other ways a unified explanation seems more intellectually and scientifically satisfying than pluralisms. I find both idealism and physicalism as monisms to be inadequate to the realm of experience.

My current view is aligned with the type of monism that arises out of process philosophy. The fundamental units of nature are events which take place in the medium of spacetime. Events have both physical and experiential aspects, attributes or poles. In its basic conception I have yet to find a superior formulation of neutral monism and for me the process approach is superior to physicalism or idealism as a conceptual framework to explain all of our experience of the world. That is the goal of speculative metaphysics, conceptions to explain or help us try to understand our experience of the world.

↪prothero That's not true. For example, in QM the position and momentum of particles are continuous. Spacetime is also taken to be continuous, time is always taken to be a continuous parameter everywhere in physics. For all the effort out into making space or time discrete, such theories always turn out to be inconsistent somewhere. All (or nearly so) quantum mechanical theories treat spacetime as a continuous parameter, you'd have to go to something much more speculstive like loop quantum gravity to get a discrete structure. — MindForged

The issue is more contentious than that as perusing the physics stack exchange on the subject would show.
https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/33273/is-spacetime-discrete-or-continuous

I think quantum mechanics, taken seriously, is an argument against the continuous nature of reality period, including space-time. There are no dimensionless points and thus no durationless moments. Space and time cannot be infinitely divided and have any meaning to the terms remain.

It seems that in the more technological, more scientific, more educated societies, belief in supernatural theism is on a rapid and steep decline particularly among the younger population. This bodes poorly for traditional religion in the future and as of yet I see no significant or sustained effort on the part of religious authorities to respond to make religion believable without the suspension of reason and experience. God as working primarily through the suspension of the laws and processes of nature as opposed to God working through the laws and processes of nature is an unresolved religious tension.

Well the framers didn't intend for women to vote, slaves to become citizens or even for any but male business and property owners to vote (those with a stake in society). Clearly we can agree that they made a few errors and we are not necessarily bound by "originalism" in all its forms.

But all of human life and experience is not about science. Science addresses the measurable, the empirical, that which is repeatable and controllable and much of reality does not work that way. If we address only what science can measure quite a lot of human experience and perhaps even mind and consciousness seems left out. History cannot be repeated, evolution cannot be repeated and the list goes on. Science alone, like physical description alone leaves much out. If you don't wish to discuss any religious concepts, then what are you doing, just bashing any and all theistic belief?

No it is alternative facts and fake news. Reporting the facts would make you an enemy of the people.

They would have to see it the way I do and then take the leap of faith, never losing that unshakable doubt while holding belief.

There is faith and then you have a knockoff and the knockoff is actually just sloppy reasoning mistaken for faith. Most people go with the knockoff, since it is the simpler of the two.

True faith is having my level of doubt and still holding faith. — Jeremiah

Some I am curious.
Most of the discussions about God just assume God as a supernatural being with qualities of omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresent. Some assume the Bible as literally true, and the usual supernatural miracles like virgin birth, incarnation and atonement.
Science can tell us that the earth was not created 5,000 years ago.
Science can tell us that humans (like all other life forms) evolved and were not specially and individual created by supernatural interventions.
Science can thus pretty much exclude some forms of God claims from the realm of reason, experience or logic.
The question is can or does, science exclude all versions,notions, and concepts of the divine and holy from being held by rational and informed people.
Philosophy of religion gives us many versions and concepts of God not all of which involve supernatural or miraculous clams.
There are concepts in which God does not work through supernatural means but instead through nature and the processes of nature.
There are concepts in which God is not omnipotent (any actual entity has independent power), not omniscient (the future is open and cannot be known) and is not anthropomorphic or a being.
These concepts virtually never get discussed. So are you saying every single notion of the divine is contrary to science and to reason or just those commonly presented and discussed.

If you are going to call on Jefferson, you should remember he thought the constitution should be torn up and rewritten every generation.:smile:

Perhaps then we could get rid of the electoral college, winner take all states, closed primaries, lifetime tenures for the Supreme Court , states with 500,000 people having as much power in the Senate as states with 23 million people, voter disenfranchisement and creating "safe" districts for congressman through legislative gerrymandering (just a short wish list).

We all believe in "things" that we cannot measure empirically or directly study with science (love, beauty, value, subjective experience, etc). God is just another experience some believe in without scientific evidence. Of course we do not all conceive of God and God's relationship to the world in the same way.

Kierkegaard- So is it the leap of faith or the leap to faith which must be renewed and repeated?

Does God act in the world or not? and if so how?

Part of the problem is that human language is inherently anthropomorphic and anthropocentric. Common theological language is often even more problematic. God as Father is inherently anthropomorphic not to mention patriarchal and anti femimist. God as King is inherently authoritative, dictatorial and coercive, etc. etc. In fact a good religious exercise would be to update and modify theological language and metaphors to better reflect our modern understanding of the world and some degree of commitment to experience, science and reason.

"The smart man bets on God" little to lose, much to gain or so some summarize Pascal's wager.
In fact religious belief does play a valuable role in many lives in terms of providing a higher purpose or larger meaning to their lives. Many argue religion is an overall negative in human affairs but I don't think one could support that without controversy. I think it does matter how one conceives of the nature of God, of God's desire for the world and how God acts in the world and that is where philosophy of religion plays a role in providing us with different conceptions and models and discussing their implications and coherence with other ways we have come to view the world.

Perhaps your conception of God is just a bit too limited and too anthropomorphic and anthropocentric?
Perhaps you could start with something like Tillich "God is the ground of being, not a being"?

I hope what one looks for here is discussion not debate.
The difference being in debate the goal seems to be winning or scoring points and in discussion the point would be understanding other points of view and the people that hold them.

I wonder if you think there are any conceptions of the divine (God, holy, sacred, numinous) which are both theologically adequate (for worship) and intellectually coherent?

I think I am going to just accept the "reality" of an external independent world as an axiom, a hard core common sense presupposition inevitably involved in practice, and try to make progress from there.

But, I highlighted the fact that we use "God" and "the number two" as abstractions of the mind. If they exist, then, they exist as abstractions of the mind, and nothing else — Posty McPostface

Except any mathematical realist or devoted theist would take exception with the notion that God and Numbers are just "abstractions of the mind" as would any neo Platonist. Any good idealist would grant you your premise, but go on to state all of our experiences are "abstractions of the mind". So I am not sure where your premise gets you. You seem to wish to say you can somehow tell "abstractions of the mind" from other things which apparently have some other type of existence or reality. I do not think it is that easy, clear cut or agreed upon.

Nicely and succinctly stated.

I always take issue with the notion that divine omnipotence is a useful religious concept. I don't think it is. Some professional theologians and philosophers agree with me, hence process theology and process philosophy. See Charles Hartshorne "Omnipotence and Other Theological Mistakes". Anyway these sort of conundrums should cause you to question the conceptions of the divine which give rise to them in the first place.

I don't think Freud is entirely wrong. Many of our motivations are primitive and not necessarily known by or acknowledged by our conscious self reflection. Much of our behavior and many of our decisions are driven by emotional needs and only later rationalized by internal dialogue. It is not so much self deceit as it is a form of self ignorance.