Although I don't get too involved in political discussions, when my progressive friends ask why I oppose communism, that is just what I tell them. Utopianism ends up justifying too much. — Leontiskos

My mind implodes thinking through this because "progressive" is not "communism" to my mind. Just to tell you my feelings -- what I want to ask is "What are you thinking about the anti-utopian sentiments expressed which are still, more or less, Marxist?"

What I object to is the misuse of these historic and contemporary actions here to make the case that somehow the past was better than the present. — T Clark

I don't think I've said the past was better than the present. I've said things have gotten worse in various regards, but the idea that the 20'th century is not uniquely evil means that the past was not better than than the present. I agree with you here:

So, as I noted, saying that the 20th century is uniquely evil is a misrepresentation — T Clark

Rather than progress I'd say we're about the same, but with more ability to enact our will.

And humans will both good and evil, for better or worse.

I'd be interested in you laying out that argument, or at least the definitions you want to make the argument.

So explain your point. Put out the definitions and say your bit.

It seems like I ought read Adorno after all, given what you've said. Looks like we might share a perspective :D

I like the moral reflection. I feel empathy for that cuz I do it too.

But I want to provide a bit of caution to the idea that the 20th century was uniquely evil. The USA's extermination of the natives and exploitation of Africans and immigrants were liberal precursors to the evils of the 20th century; only the 20th century is more evil because of our abilities to continue the same with more firepower due to technological progress.

I appreciate the reflection you've given of Adorno, but I also think that maybe it wasn't just a rejection and rebellion leading to bad outcomes -- the bad outcomes are just what politics are in our age of the nation-state.

But a Marxist who likes anarchy would say that.

EDIT: In addition, it's worth noting how Locke himself oversaw exploitation in his later life when he abandoned some of his philosophical principles in the name of practicality. He has good arguments against church and statekingdom, but doesn't see what he proposes as possibly reinventing the same exploitation he hates by using the new values he puts forward of hard work as a basis of worth.

Another thing that I reflect on -- capitalism without a counterweight like the USSR is reverting back to what things were like in the 1800's. The labor movement was born out of nothing, and as things get worse it creates the material conditions for organizing once again. So there's a historical precedent of when things were even worse than now, and people could struggle and win.

It won't be easy or kind or painless, but it is still possible even in a world where fascism is making a comeback.

Interesting. So you're probably around ten or fifteen years younger than me. For me, my radicalization was curiously out of time, disconnected from the real world and in fact flying in the face of it, since it was the late eighties and early nineties. — Jamal

Yeah I'm about 10 to fifteen younger than you, as I recall you said you're in your 50's.

I wouldn't say that your views were out of time, though the popular conscious was definitely more optimistic and so would provide an odd sounding board. The reason I wouldn't say that, though, is that there's a historical through-line from Marx to today through the various struggles of the 20th century that took place "at home". The liberals like to claim the latter half of the 20th century as a kind of golden age of liberal capitalism, but as soon as the fascists were defeated we went about recreating the world in our image and then continued to try to dominate it and stay ahead of the USSR and China in terms of world influence, wealth, and military might.

In a way what I've seen is that it doesn't matter what the ideology is -- liberal or communist -- nation-states are only born through committing evil in the name of the good. In a sort of perverse natural selection the societies which valued peace were eaten up by the societies which value domination -- and just like the citizens of the USSR we have our own narratives that hide our evil from ourselves.

So out of time in the sense that the popular imagination wasn't paying attention, sure -- but there were still material reasons to be radical, even if there wasn't as many contradictions being actively expressed and seen by society at large.

I say that because I've heard many people say something along those lines back when doing my union organizing, and all it took was pointing out some facts to show them that their optimism is much like the optimism of my radical youth, when politics is very much a sausage-making process.

But if we want a good society, and if such a society cannot be born without pain, and if one has lost the willingness to countenance such pain on the way to the good society, then what is the Marxism for except an indulgence in a tragic hope? But that's a lot of ifs. — Jamal

Interesting way to put it, because I often try to think of an ethics without hope. :D

I think for me it's not much of a choice, exactly -- do I want things to continue being awful? No. Am I a worker in a capitalist society? Yes. I can give in to cynicism, and have wallowed in it from time to time, but what brings me back is reality: it continues to get worse, and no one is there to help me. So I can lay down in defeat and accept death, and in some sense have done so. But the only people who will help the working class is the working class itself. Politics is the sort of thing we ought not want to pursue, because it is more or less the exercise of necessary evil, but which is thrust upon us by the world at hand. I can make peace with this world for myself, but I cannot then truthfully tell people that we live a good life or in a good society.

And, on a personal level, last I visited the question of the ethics of my politics was when I resigned from being a union staffer. What I promised myself was that I'd remember what I learned from my organizing days, and continue to tell the truth that I know from that time. But I know that people around me aren't really ready for it. At most they are ready for is a kind of pseudo-socialism, which is basically just a liberal state with a robust safety net. But they don't actually care about a lot of the things I care about -- if totalitarianism gets them there they'll be content, so I imagine, given how easily it's been to persuade Oossians that it's OK for the government to play morality police and watch our every move.

There's a quote I often think of, and I think it's mostly a kind of secular Marxist prayer but it brings me peace -- Victor Hugo once said "There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come". And Locke set down the philosophical foundations for liberal capitalism against the church-aristocracy in the 1600's, and here we are still living in those values and their responses. Marx was only 150 years ago, and we have learned a lot since those utopian days. The struggle moves on because the oppressed still exist, and they are the ones who either will continue to suffer -- American slaves did the same at times, and rebelled, and were put down, and rebelled, and were put down, and so forth -- or find a way to look past their petty differences so that their children can have a better life than this.

Interesting reflection, Jamal. We have parallel thoughts that also contrast.

The horrors which humans are willing to do in the name of are disturbing, scary, and perhaps even unavoidable, given our history. But always worth remembering and reflecting on because once one has taken up the stance of self-righteous indignation one stops listening to others' -- including when they say things like "This is hurting me", and so forth. Reflecting on what it is we can become, even now, helps to keep one humble even while dreaming of something better.

There's something different in our histories that I'm not sure is worth investigating or not -- lots of my indignation came from not just my folks, who certainly didn't help things, but also the political changes that took place due to September 11th, which is when I was in my teens with nascent political thoughts. Things were bad then, in a manner which resembled the books we were assigned to read which warned against totatalitarianismtotalitarianism, like 1984 and Animal Farm, and they have only progressed in that direction.

So while I have no doubt that I have shared your flaws in being attracted to big projects and being caught up in self-righteous anger, there's also always been this reality which has only gotten worse, and which Marxism is capable of explaining better than the liberal theories I was brought up to believe in. So while no one would allow a precocious and vocal young leftist radical to say what I said and not know about the horrors of socialism, which I think are evil, there's also always been a practical element which these reflections could be applied to.

Which in turn is what lead me down various routes and is basically how I've arrived at where I'm at today, which is whatever it is. Some kind of Marxism, but without the rosey viewpoint or utopian zeal.

Heh, I didn't want to dissuade -- if anything I want to hear your feelings on it.

I imagine you'd hate it, but from my perspective of what I've read and understood of Deleuze.

I'd be happy if I were right, and if I were wrong. I'd be interested in your thoughts either way.

I agree with fdrake.

He's more of a Spinoza than a Nietzsche. Meaning he is creative, but wanting new concepts which somehow encapsulate The World, ala Descartes.

I think Nietzsche is appropriate here -- at least as a starting point. Given his perspectivalism I'm often uncertain how to interpret what looks like metaphysics in his writings. But I think he leans into the poetry of philosophy and uses that to his advantage in expressing his metaphysics, too -- so there's something there in terms of the relation between poetry and metaphysics in Nietzsche interpretation, at least.

I'm posting the submissions on June 1st of 2025, and the deadline for submissions is the day prior to June 1st.

Oh yes, I agree with your caution and approach. It's primarily a question of values, be they ethical or political or elsewise, but I'd welcome articles from climate journals or nature or some such too.

Ok, fair enough. Then I will also assume that for the sake of argument at least you also accept the images of a hothouse world, the disasters, droughts, changing weather patterns etc. that accompany this narrative. (I do not use 'narrative' pejoratively, as if it were 'just a narrative'; I mean it in the sense of a coherent set of storylines that present to us a problem, its origin, the solution, and its key protagonist.) There is little more we can do in terms of truth claims. We are philosophers and not natural scientists, so basically any prediction of what will happen in detail transcends the limits of our abilities. Questions of ontology and epistemology are then mostly sidelined and the issue becomes one of ethics. — Tobias

Yup -- though scientific papers and the like would be of interest, of course, the epistemology and ontology are largely decided and wrestling with the consequences is more what we can ask as philosophers in this thread.

In that vein we don't know the future, exactly, but we do know that none of the possible futures, given that the narrative is true, are good. I don't believe extinction is on the other end, but untold misery is in the cards -- at a minimum we're already seeing island nations being destroyed by rising sea levels. As things progress mass migration will become an issue, and that's concerning in a world with nations that are picky about who gets to cross the border, and who have large militaries to protect their various claims on resources that, given the scenario, will be dwindling.

I say "at a minimum" because these things are happening now, and if the narrative is true, will only get worse.

How long do we have to submit a paper? — Athena

May 31st, 23:59 GMT.

What are the philosophical questions you are after here? — Tobias

My intended role is to allow others to bring up the philosophical questions that ought be explored while maintaining a thread which basically respects the scientific consensus -- so less a contributor on where the conversation goes and more a contributor of where it cannot go (a moderator). We already have threads where the scientific consensus can be questioned, so this is a thread for philosophical questions under the assumption that the science is more or less right.

No.

Heh. Yes.

But, as I said, now that we have the record, no more.

That's actually an anti-scientific approach. Worse than asking silly questions, really. — frank

alas, such is the nature of forum discussions. The proper scientific discussion gets published -- we get to comment on it.

Surely it's appropriate to talk about what the science behind that says? Or is that approach not in keeping with the spirit of the OP? — frank

Yes it is.

In order that I might have a rule to point to the rule is -- there is nothing good about climate change.

So comments of the form "Have you considered that this might lead to a positive thing?" are what are off topic.

Agriculture is a big part of the OP isn't it? — frank

Sure.

Looking for silver lining in order to say that global warming is good, actually, is not.

There is nothing good about global warming, in this thread.

Are you saying that you want this thread to only consist of "wailing and gnashing of teeth" about climate change? — Agree-to-Disagree

I want this thread to consist of less trolling. After your first attempt I decided it was important to have a public record to refer to. From here out I'll be deleting comments related to how tundra will become arable, how cold kills, or other unrelated trivia that basically distracts from the topic at hand in order to ignore what's being talked about.

Or are we only allowed to talk about the negative consequences of Climate Change? — Agree-to-Disagree

Yes. "But did you think of this!" is pretty much off topic because, like any natural phenomena, there will be many things that relate to it -- we can talk about the effects of climate change on window prices in Paris, and prattle on forever on what is pretty much not the topic while appearing to be addressing the topic.

I have deleted comments regarding the effects of cold on human beings as off-topic.

Personally I'm fine with either formal or less formal writing. I'm not going to screen essays on that basis, anyways.

Part of writing philosophy is choosing your own norms. In a way to say that philosophy writing must be such and such is to already put a philosophy forward, to have already chosen norms. This is necessary in order to write at all, but it's because of this that I don't want to say anything terribly specific. Some will gravitate towards the formally structured essay and some will not, and both are just fine for the purposes of this exercise.

https://www.livescience.com/animals/giant-fungus-like-organism-may-be-a-completely-unknown-branch-of-life

I had never heard of this organism before reading this article, but I found the possibility of an unknown branch of life intriguing.

And there's a 1-to-1 correspondence:

(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,...)
(2, 4, 6, 8,10,12,14,...) — ssu

OK that makes sense seeing it like that rather than the muddle I wrote. (While it's interesting to me I claim little knowledge here)

OK, basically how Cantor showed that real numbers are uncountable is the way to do this.

Basically if you have a list where all the Moliere-numbers would be and then you show that there's a Moliere that differs from the first Moliere-number on the list, differs from the second Moliere-number on the list and so on. This way you show that there's a Moliere-number that isn't on the list. Hence there cannot be a list of all Moliere-numbers. The conclusion is a Reductio ad absurdum proof. — ssu

That helps me work through the wikipedia page on Cantor's diagonal argument. Thanks!


It's still a concept that confuses the hell out of me, but this gives direction if ever I'm tempted to talk on it again ;)

How does this enter into a discussion of these Zeno type paradoxes? Define the momentum of a point as it progresses to zero. Does the tortoise have momentum? Too much of a stretch for me. — jgill

I think it's because quantum stuff is based on the notion that reality is discrete vs the continuous reality of the block universe; but, yes, if it's just a logical puzzle then the science is irrelevant.

Ok.

If you think so, then wouldn't there be more natural numbers (1,2,3,...) than numbers that are millions? Isn't there 999 999 between every million?

No, similar amount, because
(1,2,3,....) can be all multiplied by million
(1000 000, 2 000 000, 3 000 000,...)

And because you can make a list of all rational numbers (as above), the you can fit that line with the (1,2,3,...) line in similar fashion. That's the bijection, 1-to-1 correspondence. — ssu

If you think so, then wouldn't there be more natural numbers (1,2,3,...) than numbers that are millions? Isn't there 999 999 between every million? — ssu

I'm not sure, actually...

That makes sense by what I said, but then your objection also hits home -- if there's a 1-to-1 mapping then really all I'm doing is performing some operation on one set to get to the other set, which is pretty much all a function is (by my understanding).

But then the set "Even numbers" is defined by whether or not they are divisible by 2. So if we have the set of all natural numbers and the set of all even natural numbers then, if there's a 1-to-1 correspondence, we ought be able to lay out a function like the above -- such as f(x) = x * 1 million

But suppose the number 3 -- does it yield 2 or does it yield 4? Once we decide that then we can say there's a function which maps, but before that it seems to me we have to make a decision.

Now that doesn't seem to make them uncountable, and perhaps the sizes of the sets are still the same -- the whole idea of infinite sets having different sizes is the thing that is confusing me. I'm just responding here in my own words and thinking out loud.

Let's say you have a set of numbers, let's call them Moliere-numbers. As they are numbers, you can always create larger and larger Moliere-numbers. Hence we say there's an infinite amount of these numbers. The opposite of this would be a finite number system that perhaps an animal could use: (nothing, 1, 2, 3, many) as that has five primitive "numbers".

If we then say that these Moliere-numbers are countably infinite, then it means that there's a way to put them into a line:

Moliere-1, Moliere-2, Moliere-3,.... and so on, that you can be definitely sure that you would with infinite time and infinite paper write them down without missing any.

If Moliere-numbers are uncountably infinite, then we can show that any possible attempted list of Moliere numbers doesn't have all Moliere-numbers. — ssu

Thanks for indulging my curiosity. If what I said above is entirely whack then feel free to just point me to a text ;)

But if you're willing to continue....

How could we show that Moliere-numbers are uncountably infinite?

In that case I'd say I'm in even less understanding of the difference between the "size" of infinite sets.

The way it was explained to me was the difference between the rationals and the reals -- my thought was to extend that to the rational sets "All Rational Numbers" and "All Rational Even numbers", and note how, intuitively at least, that the first seems to contain about twice as much as the second, even though both are infinite.

That's a paradox to me.

No. The measurement is true. Specifying the degree of error does not render the measurement untrue. The tank really does contain 25±1 litres. — Banno

Truth, so I'd put it, is a predicate which applies to sentences.

Measurements can be true, but it's not the same as "true" above.

I can be a true friend, and being a true friend is not the same as having a true sentence.

"The tank really does contain 25±1 liters" is true

Accuracy is the "25" and precision is the "±1 liters"

"The tank really does contain 25 liters", in this case, is true

"The tank contains '±1 liters' of what it reads" is also true

Does that confuse, or help, or do I need to say something else?

Physical measurements are not infinitely precise, nor is such precision needed. — Banno

Oh, definitely.

Or accurately? Precisely? :D

I think this lays out a good difference between truth and measurement -- we have to be able to say that the fuel gauge is precise, or accurate, in such and such a way in order to do the things we do. Thereby accuracy and precision get relegated to truth -- as the philosopher should want -- but then the truth of truth becomes wildly different from what the philosopher wanted.

It's due to the way that time exists, in conjunction with the limitations of our capacity to measure. We are limited in our ability to measure time by physical constraints. If we had a non-physical way to measure time we wouldn't be limited in that way. — Metaphysician Undercover

Heh.

Well, give it some time. Perhaps we'll figure out the non-physical way to measure time :D

I can't say I agree with your first statement because "the way that time exists" and "the limitations of our capacity to measure" are both things I think about with uncertainty all the time.

We're limited in terms of measuring -- but I want to say that Zeno's paradoxes are not problems of measurement at all. They are logical problems (which is why they evoke the difference between physics and logic and math, as the OP stated already)

I think it's a half-fib when I speak to people who really believe that what you measure is what you get.

You're right it's not a "fib" because measurement requires both, so as I understand it at least.

It's a half-fib because I know the person who thinks in terms of accuracy without precision will most likely not understand the difference. They'll understand that things can be uncertain, of course -- who doesn't? -- but probably doesn't understand that the reason this is uncertain is different from why the other things were uncertain.

There's that, and then there's the philosophically more interesting view expressed here:
Each measurement has a certain amount of uncertainty, or wiggle room. Basically, there’s an interval surrounding your measurement where the true value is expected to lie.
...the presumption that there is a true value; that given infinite precision we could set out the actual value as a real number. There is no reason to supose this to be true. — Banno

Yup.

The "accuracy" part of the distinction is what I consider to be a noble fib. Speaking to a person who believes that the gauge they've always used says exactly what's in there it's time to note a difference between accuracy and precision.

It's only a half-fib, because accuracy still ends up mattering. Using the fuel gauge example if you've used that fuel gauge so many times and know that when it says "a hair up from 1/4 tank" you can easily get from A to B and back to the Gas Station in time then it's accurate, if not precise. So accuracy is important -- it just has more to do with the reason things jump around. If a gauge jumps around over the usual precision limits you might have a problem with accuracy (i.e., the gauge is busted, most of the time -- or occasionally, from the history of science, you actually figure something new out)

Actual measurements fail beyond Planck's constants. These paradoxes are all hypothetical involving motions of dimensionless points along rational number scales. — jgill

Actual measurements fail far above Planck's constants :)

One of the concepts I've found hard to teach is the difference scientists attach to "accuracy" vs "precision"

Normally we'd interchange these words, which is the reason it's hard to differentiate. But they both deal with measurement, in reality, so are needed.

What you read on your fuel gauge on your car is a measure of how much fuel you have in your tank. The accuracy and precision of that gauge can be described as such -- suppose you have a particularly imprecise but mostly accurate fuel gauge, as I suspect most of them are. Then when it reads "1/2 tank" you know it's about, in terms of 16'ths, about 6/16's to 10/16's. Precision is saying "looks, you don't know between these numbers what it actually is" and accuracy is saying "it's definitely within this range that the precision says, and the "real" number is there but this is what you get"

****

What I'm asking is more about Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, which as he interpreted it meant that reality itself doesn't allow for a precision of both, but rather demands aprecision, or position,* of any one particle. But due to cuz that's how nature works, not cuz how we measure it.

*Blah. Speaking from memory makes me say wrong things. The precision of position and momentum are proportional to eachother such that a greater precision of position results in a lesser precision of momentum. Einstein interpreted this in mechanical terms, but the quantum scientists, at least of the time, interpreted this in real terms -- it wasn't the apparatus measuring but rather the behavior of the quantum particles which differed from the old billiard ball model.

More or less in the case of Zeno. Mathematics is often said to resolve the paradox in terms of the topological continuity of the continuum, by treating the open sets of the real line as solid lines and by forgetting the fact that continuum has points, meaning that the paradox resurfaces when the continuum is deconstructed in terms of points. — sime

The paradox between discrete and continuous seems a good example, to me on the outside, as something to treat Zeno's paradoxes as genuine paradoxes.

The way I put it to make it make sense to me: I can say there are "more" rational numbers than there are even numbers. Both sets are infinite, but it seems to me that the Rational Numbers > the Even Rational Numbers, as I understand the notions.

But that there can be "larger" infinites is a paradox to my mind.

In my view, Zeno's arguments pointed towards position and motion being incompatible properties, but the continuum which presumes both to coexist doesn't permit this semantic interpretation.

Is this in any way motivated by the uncertainty principle?

Mostly, though, I want people who are interested in the idea to participate; insofar that the "rules" enhance participation then thems the rules we should adopt.

In terms of choosing a topic: I think the format of "ask a question, answer a question" is good.

In terms of topics -- well, I already said I think it's a good idea to throw out topics. So say what topics you want! :D

"What is thinking worth in our political era?", "Why are we tempted to say that mathematics are universal?", "What are the reasons, if there are any, for our belief that Shakespeare is good?"

But we can still brainstorm topics here

It's not yet June ;)

And 500 words is a small ask. So treat this exercise as a small topic.

As having difficulty choosing a topic, I do wonder if having a theme (or several) would have made the activity seem less daunting. At one point, I remember that I'magination' was suggested but I think it was dismissed. Anyone could choose to use it as a prompt although it may be seen as unimaginive to do so. — Jack Cummins

I'm good with spinning out some possible topics for help here in this thread insofar that we all are thinking together.

Kant wanted to disprove metaphysics as a science with Newtonian materialism. What do you think? — Gregory

Not quite.

@Jamal robbed me of this notion once upon a time -- it's not Newtonian mechanics as much as the basis of natural science which contrasts with the philosophical history of metaphysics.

To break it down it's more like: Hey, you notice how we know shit about the world? And can predict it? And that the history of metaphysics, in comparison, is nothing but verbal disagreements?

Must be that the metaphysicians don't know as much as the scientists -- at least they can agree upon things I can't disbelieve, unlike the metaphysicians.

Hah! :D

And, also, I may be lost in the noise.