I actually changed my mind about the truthfulness of my OP after having a conversation with darthbaracuda. I think he/she pointed out a meaningful practical difference between incest and homosexuality. Just out of curiosity, what downside do you think comes with incest that you think would tip the scales to make incest worse than homosexuality? — TheHedoMinimalist

I can't quite put a finger on it but the closest moral transgression incest commits that makes it worse than homosexuality is betrayal!

Personally I don’t see men as straight lines and angles at all, and I think that’s a rather limiting perspective that excludes more men than it describes. Plus, I find that men have the potential for some pretty impressive and even enjoyable arcs and curvature! — Possibility

:smile:

All I have to say about metaethics, something that's close to my heart, is the feeling, ,something's wrong! - nature, life, people are like this but they should be like that! You get the idea.
— TheMadFool
The issue, then, goes to what it is that runs the argument, "it shouldn't be like that." Why not? The answer then goes to an experience that is perceived in some way to be uncomfortable, distasteful, horrible, and the rest. Here, we have arrived: no need to argue about whether this can be universalized. It already is, for we should not ask if the matter is relativized to one, single agency of suffering, just wht the matter IS upon analysis. We are not here concerned with how one should behave as a matter of rule and principle, for such things are entangled with morally arbitrary conditions, facts.

We are only concerned with a phenomenological analysis of the pain there, at hand, occurrent. What IS that? is the question. It is not constructed, like a concept that fits ONTO the world; it IS the world doing, if you will, this to me: this thirst, hunger, this misery, joy, thrill, adn so on. — Constance

Pain & suffering, their antipodes, joy & happiness, are the core elements of some moral theories. They constitute the grounds, I now realize, for the feeling/thought that something's wrong! (with the world) - either the mere fact that there's suffering or the disproportionate amount of suffering prompts us to feel/think that way. It ought to be different - this single sentence encapsulates the moral universe!

Metaethics is the study of morality in terms of not specific theories like utilitarianism or deontology but instead delves into the very nature of morality - What's common to all moral theories? Can we/how do we know anything at all about morality? What are the underlying presuppositions in ethics? Etc.

All I have to say about metaethics, something that's close to my heart, is the feeling, ,something's wrong! - nature, life, people are like this but they should be like that! You get the idea.

If a person drives an automobile they are at risk of getting hit by another automobile.

If a person walks instead of driving an automobile, they are at risk for getting hit by an automobile. — Sha'aniah

Fantabulous!

Risk though is part of life. Everything involves some degree of risk and if one is completely risk-averse, one would be like this :point:

perspectives — Jack Cummins

Then we have nothing more to discuss, no?

Is The Glass Half-full Or Half-empty?

Anekantavada (many-sidedness).

Postmodernism (relativism)

I'm beginning to sound like a chatbot! :scream:

ego — Jack Cummins

will to power — Jack Cummins

annihilation — Jack Cummins

effects — Jack Cummins

predicting — Jack Cummins

extremely complex — Jack Cummins

Au contraire, I've changed my position on how complex things are, it's rather very simple. The ego does two things simultaneously - avoid annihilation and will to power - the second of the two is about effects i.e. predicting. It is extremely complex extremely simple! No?

It's not a contradiction if they are in the afterlife. :P — Nils Loc

Afterlife adjustment issues, eh?! :smile:

From personal experience, it takes some getting used to, myself being a patient of Cotard delusion! :lol:

Wait, wait, blast me in the arm [...] or else they'll know. — General Hux

Netflix itself is a culprit!

I know, I know, conspiracy theory!

seeing our place or role within it — Jack Cummins

My thoughts exactly, Jack Cummins! What role does our egotism have in nature with special emphasis on balance as pertains to the way nature pulls it off?

Confucius — Apollodorus

Yes there's violence in China but we have fantastic roads. — Confucius

I suppose it all boils down to the kinda relationship we want with nature. Do we want to be nature's humble subjects like we were before the industrial revolution? Or are we content with how we've usurped the throne, stolen nature's crown as it were and made her our subject, an unruly one at that?!

We were better off with the old arrangement despite life being, in Thomas Hobbes' words, "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short". Now life's become "overcrowded, still poor, still nasty, still brutish, and unbearably long" - sounds like a description of a cramped prison in Thailand or Madagascar where criminals are packed like sardines! :chin:

Good point! Then again, no one ever accused me of being a sage. — T Clark

Isn't that like saying, no one ever arrested me for being good?

You don't accuse sages just as you don't arrest good people!

You may have a point though. :chin: Hmmmm

Certain groups of people who perhaps have more time and energy can shake us all out of complacency.
Also, they are armed with knowledge...from scientists.

The experts warn that just months before a crucial global climate conference due to be held in Glasgow later this year, it is more important than ever that these groups are able to put pressure on politicians and highlight the role polluting corporations are playing in the escalating ecological crisis.

The letter states: “It has become abundantly clear that governments don’t act on climate without pressure from civil society: threatening and silencing activists thus seems to be a new form of anti-democratic refusal to act on climate … [we] therefore urge all governments, courts and legislative bodies around the world to halt and reverse attempts to criminalise nonviolent climate protest.”
— The Guardian — Amity

Warriors Of Peace! :chin: It's come to that, eh?

Dr. Sun Tzu, professor of polemology from the Red Planet claims that Earthlings were at one time so violent that their peace movments were carrying out an armed struggle, their motto being, si vis pacem fac bellum. :chin:

Already joined :broken: :up: :rofl: — javi2541997

I'm gonna f**k your dreams until they wish they were your nightmares! — Sonia Kincaid

Women (curves) & Men (straight lines)

Please lay off the idiotic youtube artifacts, they sometimes have their use and I sometimes post them but in your hands they might as well be grafitti. — Wayfarer

:lol: Can you be like, "we'll just have to put up with TheMadFool's shitty videos!" Puhleeez!!

It's not inference, it's a matter of fact. They were aural traditions for centuries, until being codified in various Indic scripts, of which one early extant version is Pali — Wayfarer

The Chinese Whisper Problem

The Buddha (bad pronounciation): [blah blah blah] This ire is the cause of suffering.
Eager Disciple (hearing impaired): Yes, yes, desire is the cause of suffering.

:lol:

To be honest the ancient texts I like most are the early Buddhist texts but I’m trying to broaden my base. — Wayfarer

Early Buddhist Texts (Wikipedia)

The early suttas also almost always open by introducing the geographical location of the event they depict, including ancient place names, always preceded by the phrase "thus have I heard" (evaṃ me sutaṃ). — Wikipedia

So, are we to infer that the Buddhism predates the written word and it was transmitted orally until India invented a script?

Telephone (game) :point:

Thank you so much! I have in mind many weird aspects about "changing the world" but I end up unmotivated due to how drastic and cruel the world can be. — javi2541997

Cruel? That means you're no longer a dreamer pal! Join the :broken: Dreams Club.

Ancient Wisdom For Modern Readers :point: HOW TO end violence?

Probably you can call me a dreamer — javi2541997

For God's sake,



being a dreamer!

I must be a revenant several times over. :broken: — 180 Proof

Welcome to the ♧!

We could just ask someone with cotard's delusion what it is like to be dead — Nils Loc

I wonder how Cotard delusion patients make sense of the contradiction inherent in their condition.

Last I checked the logic of the aforementioned delusion goes like this:

1. Impossible/improbable that any person could've survived such a horrible accident (this delusion is allegedly more common among accident survivors)

Ergo,

2. I (the sole survivor) must be dead/can't be alive!

Ergo,

3. I am dead! (Cotard delusion)

I provided the link to the Princeton Press series for those interested. I am interested in authors such as Cicero, Plutarch and Seneca, never having studied such texts at school or University. It seems a gap in my education which modern editions like these might help to fill. — Wayfarer

We're in your debt! It's not easy to know what to look for but to know where to look, like you do, is taking the notion of search to a whole new level. Kudos, Wayfarer. I'll be keeping an eye out for your particularly informative posts. :up:

Social Distancing!

This — 180 Proof

Shit! :rofl:

wut? — 180 Proof

Wut wut? :chin:

Ancient "wisdom":

1. Slavery

2. Sexism

3. Tyranny

4. Child/Human sacrifice

5. Torture

6. Woo-woo

7. Genocide

etc.

Please name your top five "ancient wisdom" reads for modern (beginner) philosophers. The Mad Fool and I both could probably use the encouragement. — 180 Proof

I second that motion!

in general adult males look like apes and adult females look like angels — 180 Proof

:monkey: :heart: :halo: :point: :broken:

:lol:

Men are straight lines and angles. Women are arcs and curvature. I suppose a lot of male and female attractiveness has to do with geometry. Straight lines and angles are easily "measured" (a scale and a protactor is all we need). Women, if they play their yin card well, are a different story, "measurable" only with indirect methods and that too only approximately. A lot of male casualties have been reported while trying to negotiate the curves of the female form.

I just don’t think that incest is inherently bad in any way — TheHedoMinimalist

I have no issues with that. However, your OP is about justifying incest using homosexuality by claiming the two are equivalent and if one is permissible, there are no grounds on which to object to the other. This argument is unsound because homosexuality isn't equivalent to incest.

The best (anal)ogy I can muster is theft. A court of law doesn't make a distinction between stealing from family and stealing from strangers - to Justitia they're both theft. However, if you dig a little deeper, pilfering from family is in addition to theft a kind of betrayal. A similar line of reasoning seems applicable to homosexual incest, this then demonstrating the two (homosexuality and incest) are distinct entities.

'the idea of the Good' — Wayfarer

Sold separately.

But do we do that before or after we learn how to drink, how to be a farmer, and how to be a bad emperor? — Apollodorus

:up:

I now pose the question. Does different levels of intelligence mean different levels of consciousness and self-awareness? — Maximum7

Excellent question. I'm beginning to doubt the alleged link between intelligence and self-awareness. I say this because intriguing & equally if not more puzzling is the fact that to the best of my knowledge IQ tests don't assess self-awareness. I'm frankly shocked to discover this! :chin:

What's all the fuss about the Turing test?!

Curious, very curious indeed!

I think that's a very shallow reading. Many of those kinds of texts are far from self-help or how-to in any modern sense. I put that link up for reference, it's a good source for those materials. — Wayfarer

Noted for future reference! :up: :ok:

to try and get this back on track — Wayfarer

Now I know how fragile even the most robust of threads are. Derailment is just one shallow-minded poster away. Apologies.

I suppose, I can concede there is a sense in which these could be 'self-help' books, with the caveat that there is no 'quick and easy' method. Takes reading, concentration, and patience. Also interpretive skill - the ability to take into account the very different cultural background of ancient texts. — Wayfarer

As I tried to convey in my first post, as one advances from beginner to expert in any discipline, including philosophy, one realizes there's a difference between method (any ol' way of doing something) and technique ("...quick & easy..." = efficient & beautiful way). Self-help books are about the latter - reading them will enhance the reader's experience in whatever subject the books are on.

My two cents!

Let's just leave it as-is for now. — Wayfarer

Copy!

In actual fact, I think his comment was directed at the post he replied to, which I realised after I made that snide remark, which is why I removed it. — Wayfarer

So, I can restore my post then!

You will note that I amended my very snide post immediately after making it, I would be obliged if you removed the quotation of it. And please don't litter the thread with pointless youtube rubbish. — Wayfarer

Done! Youtube videos are more expressive than I can ever hope to be. Hence, my fondness for videos from said website and others. Your post wasn't snide enough to require an edit/deletion. Nevertheless, different strokes for different folks. :up:

Del

But that's because you don't have the Holy Spirit inside you and you don't understand things properly!$#632""!!! — baker

Likely! Very likely!

Every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world. — Arthur Schopenhauer