:up:

Philosophically speaking I believe the desire to save the afterlife is more against the notion of philosophy -- living a good life with respect to the facts such that more of us can be happy, or some such thing.

And you're right to note that nonbelievers have sacrificed their life for an idea -- philosophically speaking: maybe we, as a species, could do better. No afterlife imaginaries there, simply the acknowledgement that you'll be over soon and you hope it matters eventually for the people you know.

Maybe, instead of a general "let's see who shows up" we could do something more limited and focused.

That'd actually be someting like Socrates' Cafe as we used to run it -- we'd try to come up with a question beforehand that seemed philosophical-ish but attractive, and then use that as a means to teach people philosophy through doing it together.

That's probably more fun than just saying "uhhh OK So what's up, huh?"

Here I think we're small enough, especially in terms of willing participants, we could probably even broach some fairly controversial topics just to generate interest. Existence of God, personhood, just war.... not sure exactly.

Finding the right topic would be the key, though, to having people actually participate.

. . .

Maybe even . . . in/direct realism. *gulp*

I liked it too. I just can't get into the main cast. Thimotee and Zendaya for main characters in a movie like this is just... — Lionino

Is there an actor or actress you would have preferred?

I'm not sure what I mean by "the first to capture the mood", but I did have a deeper emotional connection to the new film than the old miniseries, tho of course that's predicated upon being familiar with the books, the miniseries, and then coming upon this movie.

I really liked it a lot. The fist one more than the 2nd, but that's only cuz I had a few nitpicks on 2 -- overall it ought be watched together, like Kill Bill 1&2.

I will probably watch the miniseries eventually — Lionino

If you mean the Sci-Fi Channel miniseries I like it a lot. It's what inspired me to read Dune in the first place because I liked the miniseries so much.

It's a solid bit of storytelling.

This is a great intro to historiography. I especially like that he's using a narrative we USians are familiar with, but is not controversial in the political landscape to demonstrate his point.

:D

I thought it was great. I bought a popcorn so big I didn't finish it in spite of the length of the movie, and had a great time.

I think the new Dunes are the first to really capture my experience of the first novel. The focus on the emotive aspects through the creation of mood worked for me in 1, and it worked for me in 2 as well.

it should be comforting to know that one's beliefs and guesses about a potentially comfortable, earth-like afterlife are more likely to be correct than any given guess a magical supercomputer could make about a correct hell. If people know that, then there is less to worry about concerning what might happen when we die, and we can all focus on the important stuff. — ToothyMaw

One part of knowledge is belief. In order for someone to know something they also have to believe it, at least with respect to propositional knowledge.

That's what the "persuasion" part is about -- it justifies the belief such that a person is persuaded to believe it for such-and-such a reason.

But if a Christian believes in an eternal hell because this is what they learned at Church, and that's where you go to learn truths about the afterlife, and your argument is not persuasive, then they'll continue to believe in an afterlife that's not-earthlike, and thereby would not claim to know that earth-like afterlife guesses are more likely than non-earthlike ones. They'd claim to know, instead, that hell is an eternal torture, and you ought not do the bad things else you'll go there. (Basically, the magic supercomputer won't come into their reasoning at all -- it seems like a diversion from the truth)

Is it not the case that Camus and Nietzsche, start with nihilism, more or less as foundational - there is no inherent meaning, value or purpose - and then devise a response to this, which is essentially subjective or personal? Maybe I'm the only one who thinks this, but no matter what one does to rehabilitate the implications of nihilism, it remains in some way a nihilist project. — Tom Storm

I don't think they start there as much as reject nihilism -- but I'd still interpret them, personally, as meta-ethical nihilists. But I'm kind of mix-and-matching here -- meta-ethical antirealism is a very analytic position, and in analytic philosophy you often try to strip terms of their emotional valences in order to set out a clear set of logical relations between propositions so they can be evaluated.

Neither Camus or Nietzsche wrote in this style, so I'm kind of introducing an interpretive device to their works in calling them meta-ethical nihilists -- I think it's the appropriate categorization, but it's not the categories which Camus or Nietzsche are using.

For Nietzsche it's Christianity and its attendant slave-morality, in light of the death of God, that brings about the most decadent kind of nihilism. Even though his project is descriptive here I can't really read Nietzsche other than preferring master-morality over slave-morality, given his general criticisms of all the examples of slave-morality he puts forward.

That master-morality preceded slave-morality, and so in a way you can read Nietzsche as restoring the good, old religion in the face of the decadent religion of the last man: Though what he calls "good" isn't what Christian's call "Good", obviously, and has more to do with aristocratic self-overcoming in their pursuit of power to a point of overcoming even the overman -- the overman overcomes himself.

So meta-ethically I'd still classify him as a moral antirealist because he's not really the sort to propose true moral propositions -- but that's not the sort of nihilism he's rejecting either.
****

With Camus I think he considers the possibility of nihilism because of the absurd encounter, and begins with the only question that one need answer in light of the absurd: to kill oneself or not. But then through the process of thinking that question he arrives at a position where that even if there are no values (or God) suicide is not permitted at a logical level -- which seems to me to count as a pretty strong ethical belief.

For him there's the possibility of nihilism, the absurd encounter, but then heroic rebellion and acceptance of the absurd is the logical conclusion one should follow rather than the path of suicide -- a kind of ultimate nihilism where nothing matters, even subjectively, and so one kills oneself to escape the inescapable nothing.

****

So given all that I'd say yes, you're right, but there's more, and thanks for the prodding because it's helping me to think through these authors and try to make some distinctions in drawing out a "map"

I agree with you. However, Fooloso4's points about the way she makes her point are also important. The issue crops up all the time in reading texts from the past - and the present. Her ideas about marriage, family, maturity were pretty much conventional, though not uncontested, at the time and still exist. We need to be able to acknowledge both sides of this, though I haven't worked out how to do so properly. — Ludwig V

Nice.

I feel the same.

Including how to work out these points properly. The "meat" of the sandwich-article, to interpret the speech that way, was what I mostly skipped over and @Fooloso4 has criticized well.

Yes, they are linked to each other. Well, those approaches have a common concern and the latter is life. I also have my problems with discerning each of them. Sometimes, they feel closer than separated. Nonetheless, I still remain with the same thought that existentialism cares more about life than nihilism or other types of absurdism. If we compare different texts, I guess the differences are apparent. — javi2541997

Cool.

I have more positive feelings towards absurdism than the thread has so far expressed. I'm a lover of Camus -- at least what I've read, and I think he's the only one I'd say is an absurdist as opposed to an existentialist (though I'd classify him as an existentialist, in a historical sense)

This is very interesting! :smile: And we could spend hours and hours debating on this topic. Yet I think it is plausible how a text by an existentialist suffers from despair about doubting what is the right way to act. While a nihilistic jokes about this. — javi2541997

That's insightful! Though Nietzsche, with The Gay Science, would be an obvious example to bring up in terms of how you parse him into those categories. He can be read as both at once, or neither: he's no nihilist as much as an anti-nihilist, and is joyful in the meta-ethical anti-realist sense that @Tom Storm expressed (at least as I understand him), and uses that joy to counter the sad and somber nihilism that he associates with Christianity(socialism, etc.)

The notion of "suffering" makes sense as a uniting theme, even if there are more joyful existentialists (or, if we prefer, post-existentialists -- thinking Derrida and Levinas now more than categorical classifications)

Both K and N explicated some kind of doubt about what we believe we're doing and why, and the latter existentialists -- so I interpret them -- attempted answers to those questions. In this sentence I mean "existentialists" in the historical sense, rather than philosophical sense (the group of people we usually associate with the word, and the interpretations of their works)


Well -- that's enough rambling for now.

Yup. This speak to my doubts, though I'm trying to be as charitable as I can.

Oftentimes beliefs in an afterlife are harmful to this life; if you believe your kid will go to hell for sinning then you'll not care so much about the happiness of the kid in the here-and-now, but the long-term afterlife future -- and so they'll need to be taught, even if they are made unhappy by the teaching, how to behave properly. (Justification for all sorts of emotional manipulations that will yield the correct beliefs and behaviors)

And oftentimes a belief in an afterlife causes anxiety more than it helps anxiety -- especially because the belief does nothing to alleviate the fear of death. Most fear death regardless of their beliefs, yet people will also go against what makes them happy in order to appease the afterlife (and so they get both the anxiety of death and the anxiety of not doing the right things to alleviate death).

Though I think I'm preaching to the choir here.

You presume that I am trying to persuade people to believe in a certain account of what the afterlife is. What I might try to persuade people of is more specific, such as: you are more likely to be correct in guessing at whatever earth-like afterlife you might believe in than believing that there is a correct unknowable hell that might ever be guessed. People who believe in unknown hells might reconsider their beliefs with this knowledge - or so I hope. — ToothyMaw

Yes, I presume so.

I suppose I'm not the target, then, and I'm sorry for causing you frustration. I was just stuck on that point.

Honestly, I do not know what comes first. I think ethics is a very relevant element in existentialism, but I don't know which is the proper approach, whether ethics, metaphysics, or meta-ethics. — javi2541997

I think these interlink.

A metaphysic often implies an ethic, and vice-versa.

I've been chewing on how to write out a "map" of existentialism/nihilism/absurdism, at least for myself -- because I believe I have a grasp of these intuitively but I don't know how to make that grasp explicit.

I think said map would probably include all three when we make it explicit, though. And probably changes a bit depending on which authors we are considering, or emphasizing (or the readings of authors we are emphasizing, in the case of some)

Would you agree that if an earth-like afterlife exists, we could indeed make guesses at its contents? — ToothyMaw

Yes.

Your issue with my assertions about useful, relevant predictive models existing is that I am presuming that earthly events that can be logically connected have no particular reason to occur in the afterlife. — ToothyMaw

Yup, that's pretty much my contention.

If I grant the premise then sure I see a basic modus ponens and the logic works fine.

I suppose my thought now is -- OK, so what?

And what I meant was that my argument would hold if it were the case - and if it weren't the case, I grant that my argument would be faulty or incoherent. This is clearly a red herring. — ToothyMaw

M'kay. Then I think I've been misunderstanding you and just stuck on the part after -- let's grant the logic. Why would I believe it to be the case at all? If there's no reason then sure the argument works, but only at the level of a modus ponens rather than at a level that would persuade people who believe the afterlife to be different.

M'kay. And my bad on calling The Rebel a novel. You're better read than I in that case.

I have read The Myth of Sisyphus a lot though.

I suppose that's why I'd say he's more than a metaphysical thinker -- based on that reading.

I did not say "infinite" but rather "potentially infinite", which is different insofar as I when I use that term, I am denoting a set of unique events that are effectively unbounded in number, while if I said "infinite unique events" that would clearly correspond to the concept you are right to be wary of. I do not believe I have set up any antinomies, as I have made no references to anything actually being infinite apart from the potential different ways to be made to feel pain in an unknowable hell - but that is definitional and, thus, essential to any considerations of unknowable hells. — ToothyMaw

No I don't think you've set up antinomies -- I just mean any use of "infinite" in a philosophical argument -- "potentially infinite" would count from my perspective. Outside of mathematics it's a pretty fuzzy term. (EDIT: I ought say that I don't believe this means we should never use it outside of mathematics. Levinas uses "infinite" at times, and I think it works. But it's not like he's making analogies to calculus with it either)

The part where you seem to be relying upon the mathematical notion is where you say:

a perfect selector is selecting from a potentially infinite number of unique events to form guesses at an UH (unknowable hell), and the chances of guessing the right combination from this potentially infinite set of unique events approaches zero. — ToothyMaw

We can take the limit of a function as it's variable approaches some number, and sometimes we can take the limit of a function as it approaches infinite.

But how is that applicable to guesses being right? Are guesses a function?

The way I see it we either say something true, false, or nonsensical when making assertions about the likelihood of things.

So we can truthfully say "If I push the boulder it will likely roll down the hill" -- that's a true sentence. "Likely" here is not the "likely" of probability, but an assertion that, as long as we understand the situation correctly, then this is what is going to happen. It could be the case, perhaps, that the boulder is too heavy for me to push it and it does not roll down the hill. But we could still retain the belief that "If I push the boulder it will likely roll down the hill" as true, perhaps because we've pushed many boulders down the hill before and we just didn't realize that this one was particularly heavy (or, perhaps, not even a boulder -- but a boulder-looking jut)

A good guess isn't about evaluating the chances of being right. I'd say it's based upon what we know.

When we know about stuff we can make predictive models -- no problem. But when we don't I have a hard time judging one or another prediction as better or worse. On what basis? Why?

While the afterlife is essentially noumenal by virtue of us not being able to directly ascertain its details with our senses, that doesn't mean that what we can ascertain could never occur in the afterlife, or that phenomenal attributes perceivable in this life could not correspond to it. In fact, I argue that it is possible that we can predict some of these attributes, and I'll address your contentions about it further on in this post. But you are, at this point, making an argument against predictive models, not just predictable afterlives; just because we don't, or can't, know for sure, what is actually correct, doesn't mean no good guesses at what might be correct exist. — ToothyMaw

I'm more arguing for when a predictive model is appropriate. Sometimes they are appropriate, and sometimes they aren't. One of the times they aren't is when we know nothing on a subject. It's not so much that there's an infinite amount of possibilities here as we are simply unable to adequately create a predictive model.

It could be the case that an afterlife exists, that said afterlife is earthlike -- but that "could" is also true of an afterlife that is not-earthlike. Here I'd de-emphasize the "hell" aspect and focus more on the "afterlife" aspect. Since we are ignorant about the afterlife we cannot say which guesses are better. What we believe could be true, but we lack justification, and so cannot claim to know.

At least, this is my perspective.

***

If there is an event in this life that is logically related via its content to other events, and the content of that event does not change if it happens in an earth-like afterlife, then we know that the logical connections between that event and others that are similar in this regard are the same as they would be on earth, and we have no reason to think otherwise; therefore, if certain events on earth can be predicted via these kinds of logical connections, they can be predicted similarly in an earth-like afterlife — ToothyMaw

I can grant all of this.

I'd be a little picky in other contexts with respect to "logic", but right now I'm just trying to wrap my head around what you're saying and I understand and have little problem here.

That leads to my conclusion that, given these kinds of earthly events occur in the afterlife, certain combinations, based on the transcendent logic according to which the events are related, are more likely than others. — ToothyMaw

It's the "given these kinds of earthly events occur in the afterlife" that's snagging me, though now I think it doesn't matter to you whether or not they do?

I suppose I'd say a good guess has a chance at being true -- that is, if we make a good guess about the afterlife, and that good guess happens to be correct, then we'd also be saying what happens in the afterlife.

But I would not agree with the supposition "these kinds of earthly events occur in the afterlife".

We can make that claim because a perfect selector is selecting from a potentially infinite number of unique events to form guesses at an UH (unknowable hell), and the chances of guessing the right combination from this potentially infinite set of unique events approaches zero. — ToothyMaw

How do we know that?

Using "infinite" in a philosophical argument is always a red flag to me: it's easy to set up antinomies with respect to infinite space and time, for instance, as Kant explored.

It's his exploration of the question of the afterlife, in particular, that I'm drawing inspiration from.

He persuades me that such things are unknowable, and so we're free to say anything we like for as long as we like about the afterlife -- we will never know anything about the afterlife while alive in any sense. It is noumenal. We can believe in it for practical purposes, and a reality is, thereby, created by people living together in a community with similar beliefs about the afterlife, but that's not the same thing as to make claims on what makes a good guess on what the afterlife is like.

For instance, while I believe there is no such thing, I'm being careful in my replies here to claim I know there is no afterlife. (Though, surely, because I believe there is no afterlife, I'd contend that all guesses at an afterlife are simply false -- no probability involved).

***
That is all by way of trying to explain where I'm coming from for communication purposes.

I reread your OP, and thanks for pointing out the relevant paragraph so I can focus in on something.

when certain events occur on Earth, they are often followed by other events as reflected by consistent logic determined by the content of those events. For instance: if we mandate a vaccine for everyone in the US, we can expect a reactionary response characterized by vast protests and a general denigration of the medical apparatuses in place. This is because many people view it as a challenge to their autonomy, which is a consistent gripe. There is a clear logic to what might trigger that kind of complaint - in this case being injected against one’s will - and I can only imagine that the logic behind it would apply to a similar schema in an earth-like afterlife. If it would, then we know that certain combinations of certain types of events in the afterlife are more likely than others. I hope that isn't too reductive; I’m not saying we can extrapolate indefinitely far or even far at all from a given event, but rather that they might be able to be connected locally according to some inherent logic. Think something like Marxist critiques but in areas other than history. — ToothyMaw

Let's try to break this paragraph out into a syllogism or at least an informal listing of propositions which imply one another in some informal fashion.

1. when certain events occur on Earth, they are often followed by other events as reflected by consistent logic determined by the content of those events.

(Example to support 1)

2. There is a clear logic to what might trigger that kind of complaint - in this case being injected against one’s will - and I can only imagine that the logic behind it would apply to a similar schema in an earth-like afterlife.

When you say "the logic behind it", I read "the logic behind that kind of complaint", so it reads "There is a clear logic to what might trigger that kind of complaint, and I can only imagine that the logic behind that kind of complaint would apply to a similar schema in an earth-like afterlife"

3. If it would, then we know that certain combinations of certain types of events in the afterlife are more likely than others.

Which I'm reading as an enthymeme, so the implied premise is "it would", and therefore by modus ponens: we know that certain combinations of certain types of events in the afterlife are more likely than others.



Can you justify "it would" in premise 3?

Also, can you justify the analogy between government policy and potential afterlives? Why should the logic between those be the same? The logic for the afterlife that I'd choose is the logic of fiction: Bilbo Baggins is a Hobbit, and it's true because that's what the story says.

I think I'd put Camus' answer differently. Though perhaps this is part of the disconnect in the conversation between nihilism, existentialism, and ethical or metaphysical thinking.

I'd say Camus answers the absurd with heroism. It doesn't matter which role you take on, but this is still a deeply ethical thought about the world we live in: what do we choose in the absurd world?

The opening of The Myth of Sisyphus...

There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that
is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to
answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest—
whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind
has nine or twelve categories—comes afterwards. — Camus

And -- here's a quote from Camus in the preface to The Myth of Sisyphus to back up where I'm coming from:

For me “The Myth of Sisyphus” marks the beginning of an idea
which I was to pursue in The Rebel. It attempts to resolve the
problem of suicide, as The Rebel attempts to resolve that of
murder, in both cases without the aid of eternal values which,
temporarily perhaps, are absent or distorted in contemporary
Europe. The fundamental subject of “The Myth of Sisyphus” is
this: it is legitimate and necessary to wonder whether life has a
meaning; therefore it is legitimate to meet the problem of suicide
face to face. The answer, underlying and appearing through the
paradoxes which cover it, is this: even if one does not believe in
God, suicide is not legitimate. — Camus

Which also backs up your account -- that these writers are using an old philosophical conceit to write philosophy which is for the times and in response to their times.

Cool.

You list the novels. But have you read the essay The Myth of Sisyphus? That's where I'd draw from to point out his ethical thinking.

Are you referring to an unknowable hell or a hellish, earth-like afterlife here? If we are talking about an earth-like afterlife: I totally concede that an earth-like afterlife could be hellish, so that might be a misunderstanding. If we are instead discussing an unknowable hell in which cause and effect doesn't break down, then you are wrong: my argument is about guessing, and it doesn't say that the afterlife is not, or could not be, an unknowable hell just because the right one is virtually impossible to guess, but rather that we are much more likely to be right when we guess at an earth-like afterlife. — ToothyMaw

I'm referring to any hell at all, earth-like or otherwise. It's the part where you say "We are much more likely to be right..." that gets me. I just don't understand how we could make that claim.

I'm not sure what your position is, really, so I don't know what it would mean if you did move. Is it just that since there is no evidence for any afterlife we can't have better or worse guesses at it? — ToothyMaw

More or less, yup.

Only experience justifies knowledge, we don't experience after-life, and so we have not justification to claim knowledge about the afterlife. For less esoteric topics I'd be more willing to give leeway, but for claims about the afterlife I'm less inclined to grant charity because there are so many divergent accounts of the afterlife that cannot all be true, and people tend to insist that their version of the afterlife must be true in spite of this.

I'd extend this skepticism to guesses about the afterlife: it seems to me that the only way to find out is by dying. So since I am not dead I cannot say much about it. And if I were dead I couldn't say much about it either. So there's just not a good guess either way.

Did you read the OP? I specifically say that we could form predictive models for what could be the case in the afterlife from observing the relations between events in this life. — ToothyMaw

I did, though there are parts I scratched my head at :D -- it's pretty long.

You say we can form predictive models about the afterlife from this life, yes. But that's the claim I'm questioning. It doesn't seem to me that we can because we'd have to die in order to do so, and after we die we couldn't make many claims.

This is interesting. Existentialism comes in various forms, including Christian existentialism. But isn't existentialism of the secular variety built upon similar notions as nihilism? The absence of meaning. Nihilism holds that life, existence and reality itself are devoid of inherent meaning, purpose, or value. It rejects the notion of any objective significance or ultimate truth. Existentialism tends to identify same lack of meaning and then moves in to fill the void. — Tom Storm

Yes, I think there's a dialogue there, but a distinction.

I would often consider myself to be a nihilist. But I don't tend to see this approach as one of destructive apathy, or assertive repudiation, rather a more cheerful springboard to make decisions about what choices you will make and what you will do. I would not consider myself to be an existentialist.

Heh OK fair. I'll eat my words, then, because now that you say this I feel like I know what you mean, but I'd also say this isn't the position I had in mind. I was thinking more along the lines that nihilism is the end of value, and value is desired -- a kind of negative nihilism? Basically an extreme position that people wouldn't find attractive, but can serve as a conceptual benchmark.

EDIT: Though I'd still stand by my comment that Camus is no nihilist, I think, even of the sort you put here. I don't think a joyful springboard is what comes to mind when I think of Camus, but more of a resolute hero.

O man I read that in highschool and loved it. so so good.

Ultimately calling the existentialist approach to life “ethical” seems to misuse the term ethical to me. It’s not acting ethical to take responsibility for one’s absurd reasoning, it’s just the true nature of authentic acting. In the end, any particular act (murder or self-sacrifice, either/or) is meaningless in itself, beyond good and evil. — Fire Ologist

I'd say this is more the nihilist position.

Where I reject Camus is in his answer, but not in his question.

I think "taking responsibility" has a lot of ethical "weight", even if another disagrees with the reasoning -- even if they call it absurd.

The difference is that Camus answers his question, whereas you reject his answer and think everything is meaningless "in itself".

Let's see...

I think I'd make a pretty hard distinction between existentialism and nihilism.

Existentialism is the philosophical response to the necessity of nihilism: given how we've lived meaningful lives before, and given how things have progressed this world feels absurd: the absurd is always an encounter. And absurdism is different from existentialism in that absurdism is a little more specific -- Sartre was no absurdist, so far as I can tell.

Nihilism is something like solipsism, but in the ethical realm -- it's an extreme point that people diverge from in various ways, and few (if any) actually adopt it philosophically (though they may in practice).

This all depends what you understand a nihilist to be. I don't think all versions of nihilism preclude morality. It rejects inherent meaning and morality. — Tom Storm

OK cool. I wanted to note there are distinctions of nihilism, and so in some senses he's no nihilist and in others' he is -- the negative connotation of "nihilist" is mostly what I'm rejecting, at least as a way to say "nihilist" has shades.

I think you're doing a good job of comparing the texts to the summations.

But I very much doubt that the professor misunderstands Camus -- I think what you'll find, as you read more philosophy, is that there is more than one understanding of a text.

Keep at it!

But also remember that summations are meant to help you rather than the prove a point. To prove a point for Camus you'd have to write it in French ;)

I don't think I'd say that's his project, exactly. And I agree with -- Camus is no moral nihilist, and is a deeply ethical thinker.

In a rough-and-ready way I'd say sure to your description, but if I want to be more precise I'd say Camus is no nihilist, or at least would want to note distinctions.

Honestly, the most vulnerable part of my argument, as far as I can tell, is that there are, although not infinite, myriad ways of torturing someone by manipulating the chemicals in their brain, which inflates the number of earth-like events to gargantuan numbers if there is no limit to the unique causes of these painful neuro-chemical events. Not to mention the presence of these possible events in this life implies that an earth-like afterlife could consist of many of these painful neuro-chemical events if they are at all likely - although many of the worst ones would probably be very unlikely by virtue of being difficult to produce via events external to whatever is happening in the brain, i.e. even psychiatric medications, which are designed to produce certain mental outcomes, can only produce so many of these reliably.

That might still sound bad, but even in the worst-case scenario, there is a limit to how much pain you can experience via such manipulations, and there is no limit to how much pain you might feel in the kind of unknowable hell I talk about in the OP. So, the existence of brains kind of complicates things a little, but my argument remains almost totally unaffected. — ToothyMaw

OK so it sounds to me like you have a specific idea about what hell is not, and that this is what you're trying to get at.

I'm afraid I remain unmoved, though that's common in philosophy.

The only way we could ...

possess the means to follow the process of discovery through to its end or figure out its details — ToothyMaw

... is if we are alive after we die. To initiate the process of knowing what's after life is to end the process that is life, which makes it rather hard to know about while still alive.

Isn't the target here more the method to be adopted in doing philosophy?

Roughly, is philosophy to be public or private? — Banno

I agree with that.

Interesting that the text she wrote was forced private until now... tho unfortunate.

I believe philosophy ought be public. However we get that to be the case.

I think my reaction is mostly based from an "OK I agree but I'm an anarchist and you don't seem to understand I'm saying", but also...it was 70-ish years ago, I can't blame her.

She's a philosopher everyone ought to read.

I agree with your defense of Descartes.

But I wonder if Descartes is the target? Not really, I don't think. More people inspired by Descartes in a certain way?

Maybe not tho. What you think about that?

As I say in the OP, what makes one earth-like afterlife (even one you might call hellish) any more likely than another is how well it abides by the logical rules we might develop and whether or not it exists within the boundaries of possible human experience. So, if that is what you are talking about, then I would have trouble with that. — ToothyMaw

My interest here is in wondering how it might be possible to rationally think about such imaginings that are widespread in human culture.

So the more interesting question is where you have trouble. Obviously this is just a hypothetical since neither of us believe -- but I'd encourage you to talk more about where you have trouble in thinking through this thought. That's the best stuff.

I'd say it too, which makes it a "of course we would say that!" -- which of course we would. :D

I'm a Bachelor in the sense that all Bachelor's are unmarried men.

I voted yes all the same. Partially due to @Fooloso4 -- sex and family are not the same now, and I have kiddos in my life, and I have no doubts about others' existence or interiority.

So I thought "Yes" still qualified in the sense that she's designating, but then there may be an objection on the basis that I'm unmarried and so don't have a real insight into what she's saying.

Great men, simply by their ignorance of a topic, can lay a remarkably strong taboo on the mention of it even where it happens to be entirely relevant. I saw a singular instance of this lately in a correspondence about the law of abortion. A writer pointed out that many women who had wished to be rid of their child two months after conception were eager to bear it three months later, and finished apologetically, “Expect no logic from a pregnant woman.” But of course there was nothing wrong with the logic. The premises were changed. A child at two months feels like an ailment; at five months it feels like a child. The woman had passed from the belief, “I am not well” to the belief, “I am now two people”. And the only thing wrong with that belief is that it is one which is unfamiliar to logicians. That, I suspect, is an unphilosophic objection. — Midgly

I get along with the conclusion, though. And with the opening -- I don't think philosophy is an exercise in proving myself correct or the other person wrong or some such.

Let's take a practical example.

Suppose you present your reasoning to a literal fire-and-brimstone Christian where sinners go to hell for eternity unless they are saved by Christ.

The task for you, as I see it, is to argue how you can know any one afterlife is more likely than another while simultaneously denying others' appeals that likewise do not rely upon evidence.

Do you think your reasoning here would persuade someone with different good guesses?

OK no shows so I'm shutting it down now.

Probably gotta get more agreement on times and such to make it happen since we've just been picking times and nada.

I started the meeting early -- playing games until I hear someone hop on.

https://us05web.zoom.us/j/82479111508?pwd=5DIZCYRP7m2BSDHgj6ZK4DR2amD8xK.1

Meeting ID: 824 7911 1508
Passcode: 7RrQY2

Didn't see anything so I thought I'd make a link.

Heh you flatter me too much. I'm not sure what's going on in scientific circles, in such a general sense -- and I have no pretentions that I'm somehow influential or representative. It's just my day job that I like to do, and I like to think about that here since I've always liked thinking about what I'm doing or what's going on -- life, the universe, and everything, and all that rot.

Sure. I was specifically pointing out that it would be a misunderstanding to think that philosophy governs science. — wonderer1

Yeh, OK. I don't think there's a relationship of governance.

Popper and Kuhn elucidated things that have been valuable to scientific thought, but I'd say that if it makes any sense to talk of something governing science 'Mother Nature' is the one laying down the laws. — wonderer1

I wouldn't go that far, though.

I'd say there are no laws.

But that's at an abstract level.

In practice we have good enough measurements, theories, and predictions that make sense to enough of us to get along.

"laws", however, is a human concept we use to make sense of the regularity we happen to be able to collectively perceive. It's something of an interpretation rather than something that can be laid down, just as there is no mother nature that can lay it down.


At least to my mind -- tho this is getting to a level where I feel I'm just expressing what makes sense to me rather than arguing.

It appears to me that a substantial fraction of philosophers (or at least those who fancy themselves philosophers) find PoS to be justification for being pretty ignorant of science. — wonderer1

:sad:

I'm not sure how to parse philosophers from those who fancy themselves philosophers, but I'd say that Philosophy of Science is more like the Olympic sport of philosophy.

And those who wanted to remain ignorant had no need of phil-o-sci.

Philosophy of science does not govern scientific practice. — wonderer1

I'd push against this a bit.

It's not like scientists cite philosophers of science, of course, tho Scientific practice could have its own philosophy -- one which, I suspect, isn't so general as "philosophy of science" might suggest.

But perhaps there are underlying philosophical presuppositions to any given science?

In which case there'd be a philosophy of science ... tho not governing, at least influencing scientific practice.

The rocks, all along, were the most dedicated quietists.

The creation of this thread is motivated by a claim made by Chet Hawkins:

Knowledge is only belief.
— Chet Hawkins

Chet elaborates:

So I could/should rest on that statement alone as it is incontrovertible.

But the quislings out there will want to retreat behind 'facts' and 'knowledge' delusions. So, it's best I turn my hat around and address the concepts more thoroughly.

But let's take this outside.
— Chet Hawkins

I think there is a valid distinction between knowledge and belief, although I also think that much of what is generally considered to be knowledge might be more accurately classed as belief. It may well turn out that I am sympathetic to Chet's belief. Let's see...

Chet says that statement is incontrovertible. I would like to see an argument to support that contention. — Janus

I'm afraid I'm more inclined to these approaches:



And laid out an excellent argument against the statement "Knowledge is merely belief" -- sometimes, to expand on @fdrake, knowledge is action, and has nothing to do with what people say! A totally orthogonal category to yourthe notion that knowledge is merely belief.