Zombie thread but let's milk it dry.

It all boils down to the much-discussed and highly-regarded notion of cooperation. Given a common pasture (resource), people who use it could do so productively and for a long time if only they work together - don't overgraze (limit consumption) among other things. However, even though we've defined ourselves as social animals and have attributed our success to being such, our cooperative behavior can't hold a candle to that of other social creatures like bees and ants.

Perhaps we need to put the notion of social existence under the microscope. Social existence is simply a group of individuals of the same species banding together in order that it gain a survival advantage over other species whether themselves social or solitary. In other words, social existence is designed to work against external threats and although this may require cooperation between individuals of a social group, the cooperative "spirit" that evolved in us is probably just that much as required to fend off external dangers and no more. What this means is the level of cooperation necessary to forestall/mitigate/end the tragedy of commons never evolved in us. That the protagonists in this tragic tale are all human doesn't help - we instinctively treat each other as allies and, implicit in that, is the assumption that no harm will come from doing what comes naturally to us, taking our cattle to graze for example. I guess what I'm getting at is that we're failing to notice internal threats to our social structure. The fact that such "threats" are subtle and not like the direct frontal assault of pride of lions, something our proto-social ancestors probably faced on a daily basis, makes it almost impossible to detect such threats and the risks involved.

Thus the tragedy of the commons is simply an indication that humans are somewhere in between a completely solitary existence (tigers, leopards) and a full-fledged social way of life (bees, ants)

thinking in continuums — Jack Cummins

That's interesting but binary thinking, if I understand what it really means, is still a problem. Imagine the usual way to break the habit of binary (black & white) thinking - point the person in its grips to the so-called grey area between black and white. However, if there's a grey area, there's a non-grey area. Every point in a continuum has points on that same continuum that are not that point. In other words, the notion of a continuum doesn't aid us in escaping dualism.

I read in a critical thinking book that the very idea of non-dualism is dualistic for it's the opposite of dualism. In other words, non-dualism and dualism are a pair that together reinforce dualism. It's like being a prisoner - attempt to escape and you're transferred to a high security block.

Well, no. You've framed the issue in an absurd way. Just go read some actual biological texts, and try to understand the topic before you expound on it. — Banno

It was worth a try. Thanks for the advice though. Good day!

Unfortunately, the people you are "reasoning" with do not accept the premise that Evolution is non-random and actually progressive -- moving toward some future state. That, despite scientific evidence against "blind chance" ruling evolution. It's as-if a designing Creator has been replaced with a random Robot. Evolution is cybernetic. But their random "creator" seems to be Blind Fate. :joke: — Gnomon

Too bad. I want to run something by you if you don't mind. First off, @Banno & @180 Proof claim that "evolution is non-random and non-teleological (no purpose/end)" = E. Now, E obviously needs an argument.

There's only one premise that can prove E definitively and that's the statement, "ALL non-random phenomena are non-teleological" = N. The argument would look like this:


Argument A
1. All non-random phenomena are non-teleological [premise]
2. Evolution is a non-random phenomenon [premise]
Ergo,
3. Evolution is non-teleological [conclusion]

Argument A however is unsound for premise 1 is false, the falsifying counterexample being humans who exhibit behavior that's non-random and teleological.

Premise 1 is unavailable (it's false) and that means the only statement that Banno & 180 Proof can use is, "some non-random phenomena are non-teleological" = S. This at least casts doubt on the claim that "all non-random phenomenon, are teleological" = T. The first order of business for Banno & 180 Proof is to prove S = "some non-random phenomena are non-teleological". A quick reference of Aristotelian categorical logic stipulates the following proof:

Argument B
4. All phenomena are non-teleological [premise]
5. Some non-random phenomena are phenomena [premise]
Ergo,
5. Some non-random phenomena are non-teleological = S [conclusion]

Notice, premise "4. All phenomena are non-telelogical" is false because of humans - we're phenomena and teleological. If this isn't obvious, it might help to know that "4. all phenomena are non-teleolgical" is logically equivalent to "no phenomena are teleological." What this means is Banno and 180 Proof can't even cast doubt on the statement, "all non-random phenomena are teleological" which is necessary for the argument below,

Argument C
6. All non-random phenomena are teleological [premise]
7. Evolution is a non-random phenomenon [premise]
Ergo,
8. Evolution is teleological [conclusion]

The main premise in argument C is, "6. All non-random phenomena are teleological" and this premise remains unproven.

To sum it all up, Banno & 180 Proof are wrong in asserting, "3. Evolution is non-teleological" via argument A because it's an unsound argument. Similarly, to claim, "8. Evolution is teleological" is also wrong. In other words, the matter of whether evolution is teleological or not an open and shut case as some might believe :point: Banno & 180 Proof

Time to get to the interesting bit now...

A scientific hypothesis, evolution is one, makes some assumptions and based on them some predictions. If the predictions bear out, the scientific hypothesis in question is said to have been confirmed and if the predictions fail, the hypothesis is falsified.

Now, let's suppose that evolution is teleological is a scientific hypothesis. We now need some observable predictions and that is nothing but non-randomness. Ergo, the following scientific argument,

9. If evolution is teleological then we should observe non-randomness in evolution [hypothesis & prediction]

10. If we observe non-randomness in evolution then the hypothesis that evolution is teleological is confirmed
11. We do observe non-randomness in evolution
Ergo,
12. The hypothesis that evolution is teleological is confirmed.

In essence, taking a legit scientific approach on the issue of teleology and evolution, we can safely say that the hypothesis that evolution is teleological has been confirmed.

:chin:

He's very sensitive about justification of his atheism — 3017amen

He comes off as a person of great erudition. It's great to have him in the forum. I hope to keep learning from him...and others too.

Unless I'm misinterpreting the analogy, generally speaking Turing machine algorithms (patterns) have a lower complexity (see OP) versus that of higher complexity. In theory, while biological systems can emerge from very long, complicated chain of events and evolutionary processes, we still have a very large leap from not only explaining why the laws of physics has no evolutionary competition, but to explaining how consciousness emerges from matter. — 3017amen

I've always maintained that the jump from chimpanzees to humans, two species that share 95% of their DNA some say, is one far greater in magnitude than the the jump from inanimate matter to life. It's as if creating life, the simplest cells like bacteria, is child's play compared to creating human-level consciousness.

Wouldn't self-awareness itself, be able to poke holes in the analogy? In other words, you would have to ask the AI thing-in-itself to prove it lives inside of a computer simulation. We then, are seemingly no better off in determining the reality of its existence, right? — 3017amen

I did think about that. There seems to be an unfounded assumption in thinking that AI isn't conscious because, as we all know, by that token even human consciousness is uncertain insofar as other minds are the issue. We infer consciousness in other people - other minds - not by some kind of direct access to their consciousness (impossible as of the moment) but through how they behave and of the the cues we keep an eye out for is intelligence. In other words, a big clue, at least we think it is, that indicates the presence of consciousness (minds) is intelligence. Compare this with the intelligence AI demonstrate by beating us at our own game as it were. Shouldn't we extend AI the same courtesy and deem them as conscious too? :chin:

my own trip on acid, which I took twice — Jack Cummins

Lucky you! Someone at least knows how to have fun around here!

I went up to a mirror and I expected to see a grotesque monster staring at me. But, instead, I could see the walls and the radiator behind me, but I was not there at all — Jack Cummins

At certain angles, your reflection falls outside your field of vision. The same may apply to self-reflection, temet nosce in that you either get a distorted image or you fail to see your reflection at all. A pity.

dualism — Jack Cummins

I never understood dualism. At first glance, it looks so easy, the basic idea being to view the world in terms of things and their opposite counterparts, the most common illustration of this being that of a man (active) and a woman (passive). However, I'm still struggling to understand the notion of oppositeness. I can't for the life of me figure out what opposite means and by that I mean its logical meaning if that even makes sense to begin with.

'Hitler was a bad man' is a true proposition. (He killed 6 million Jews, remember? This is not about a linguistic accident.) The challenge is to explain how it can be true. A good place to start would be to work out what property is referred to by the word 'bad' — Herg

I'm talking about moral injunctions and not about how adhering to/violating them reflects on one's character. Remember, which comes first - moral codes and these could very well be good but not necessarily true. So, Hitler could be bad but there's a slim possibility that there's nothing true/false about such a pronouncement.

It wasn't a joke. — Banno

If no ethical statements are true, then not only is it not true that murder isn't wrong but also: murder isn't wrong. — Cuthbert

This is getting really interesting. Your words, in my humble opinion, get to the heart of the issue in the blink of an eye as it were. Why should moral statements have anything to do with truth? The entire issue of moral realism and its detractors seem to revolve around the relationship between truth and morality but before we get our knickers in a twist and get all bent out of shape over this, shouldn't we ask the simple question, does morality and truth have anything to do with each other? I can't seem to think beyond this point though. All I can say with any degree of confidence is that morality may not be truth-apt, the fact that they're expressed in propositional form may just be a linguistic accident or perhaps is done out of necessity.

What pops into my head are commands like "shut the door!", "put down the gun!", etc. Commands, according to a book on logic that I read some suns ago, aren't propositions and so, can't be true or false. Divine Command Theory?

In a sense I'm envisioning, something that I don't do very often, a moral theory that can be right/wrong but not necessarily true/false.

I found something interesting on the Wikipedia page on Socrates, the father of Western philosophy. See vide infra,

According to Plato's Apology, Socrates' life as the gadfly of Athens began when his friend Chaerephon asked the Oracle at Delphi if anyone were wiser than Socrates; the Oracle responded that No One was wiser. — Wikipedia

:rofl: :clap:

No One

Scroll down to Favorite Philosophers and Favorite Quotations :lol:

So do philosophers have to accept the actual infinite? — spirit-salamander

If you ask me, we need to look at scientifically-confirmed physical limits. Take, for example, the speed of light. It is finite of course at 186,000 mph but nothing can attain that speed. Doesn't this bear an uncanny resemblance to infinity as something unattainable. This is, in my humble opinion, one of the many ways, infinity manifests itself in the universe. I like to call it, as oxymoronic as it sounds, finite infinity - the speed of light is finite but it's infinity as nothing can attain it.

Separating out ‘one-dimensional’ time from three dimensional space is a misunderstanding of dimensional structure. How do you think parallel processing occurs? Time is not one-dimensional - it already has a four-dimensional structure in reality. We just need to develop our awareness of this. — Possibility

If you say so! Out of curiosity though, are you a physicist by any chance?

Indeed, Indeed. No wonder you don't wish to address them. I think I've accompanied you far enough up your garden path for this evening. Cheers. — Banno

I'm sorry you feel that way. Give me another shot at this, if it's all the same to you.

First, the link between purpose (teleology) and the non-random has been established beyond a shadow of a doubt. You, yourself are proof of that, exhibiting as it were preferences which puts the probability of certain outcomes well above the random 50/50.

Secondly, if you haven't already noticed, the non-random nature of any given phenomenon (here evolution) forces us to entertain the possibility of a teleological factor in them for teleology manifests as non-randomness.

Thirdly, let me concede, if only for the sake of argument, that non-teleological non-randomness is a fact. If so, I present to you the following scenario for your consideration:

Measles (assume teleology) and German measles (assume no teleology)- both display the same symptom, red rash (non-randomness) - and so if I present with a rash to a physician, the physician won't know if I have measles or German measles.

https://www.livescience.com/48103-evolution-not-random.html
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13698-evolution-myths-evolution-is-random/
https://www.quantamagazine.org/yeast-study-suggests-genetics-are-random-but-evolution-is-not-20140911/
https://www.khanacademy.org/science/ap-biology/natural-selection/hardy-weinberg-equilibrium/a/hardy-weinberg-mechanisms-of-evolution — Banno

These are probably descriptive accounts of evolution but let's get down to the brass tacks, shall we?

1. You, yourself are living proof of teleology being associated with non-random phenomena. In other words, there's conclusive proof that purpose implies the non-random (some outcomes are preferred over others)

2. You claim that evolution is a case of the non-random not associated in any way to purpose. Ergo, it is the case that either evolution itself is the evidence for your claim or that there's some other instance of the non-random bereft of purpose. If it's the former, you're begging the question (assuming the very thing you're supposed to prove) or if it's the latter what might the counterexample that falsifies the link between purpose and the non-random be?

Evolution — Banno

Proof?

Repeating your mistake does not help your case. — Banno

No mistakes at all. You're ignoring my argument for reasons that I can't fathom. If you disagree, here's a challenge for you: name one non-random process that isn't purposeful.

Ok, you go for it. Dirt particles settle in a fluid how they want to.

If that's what you need in order to make your philosophy work, you are too far up the garden path for conversation. — Banno

Clearly, you've missed the point. Perhaps an analogy is in order. Imagine the situation where we have two distinct things AB and BC, where A, B, and C are components that make up AB and BC. Now, if I show you AB and BC in their entirety, or if I show you the A and C parts, you will be able to distinguish the two - one is AB and the other is BC. However, this is where it gets interesting, if I show you only the B part, I'm 100% confident that you won't know if it's either AB or BC.

Do the following substitutions:

1. AB = a person with a purpose (you, me, @180 Proof)
2. BC = something that lacks purpose (e.g. dirt in a jar)
3. B = non-random behavior of both AB an BC

Put simply, relying only on non-random behavior, no one can tell whether the system exhibiting such behavior is teleological or not. To think otherwise is a petitio principii if there ever was one. After all, I'm a person and I'm purposeful and my actions are non-random i.e. the link between persons, purpose and non-random behavior is firmly established. Now, when I observe similar non-random processes in nature, I have a very good reason to infer teleology. If you disagree, you'll have to provide at least one instance of non-random behavior absent purpose/teleology which you can't because any such attempt begs the question.

Put some dirt in a jar. of water. Shake it. The smaller particles will move to the top, the larger to the bottom.

The particles move in a "...demonstrably consistent manner. This pattern of preferences will ultimately lead to a specific endpoint and this endpoint is what teleology is all about."

On your argument, the particles in the jar have a purpose. — Banno

While I hesitate to say that's correct, I'm fairly confident that's not wrong.

Consider for the moment a normal person's behavior. Does a person not have an end in mind and doesn't that end manifest in faer actions as preferences, favoring one course of action over others, and is this not mathematically represented as non-random choices given that more than one exists and are offered.

Compare the above with your dirt in a jar. Assuredly, the behavior of the particles of various sizes, at least with respect to the layers that form, is non-random.

What should we make of this?

Simple. Confining our analysis to only the non-random nature of a person's teleological behavior and the non-random quality of the dirt particles, we can't tell these two apart at all. Are we not then warranted to infer teleology in the dirt particles? After all, both a person and the dirt particles are non-random.

Why? — Banno

Simple. Imagine you meet an alien from another planet. This alien's behavior isn't random i.e. given a set of possibilities, some are preferred over others in a demonstrably consistent manner. This pattern of preferences will ultimately lead to a specific endpoint and this endpoint is what teleology is all about. If the alien behaves in a random fashion each and every possible endpoint is possible i.e. the alien's teleologically neutral.

Why is this simple fact about evolution so difficult for some folk?

It's as if, given that the Irish Lottery is decided at random, MadFool were to conclude that the entire institution of the National Lottery must have come about by chance. Web page and all. — Banno

Random" (like mystery) = "god did it" in the back of most thick skulls. TMF just refuses to learn how the concept is used (and differs from "chance", etc) in mathematics, computational & information theories or in the sciences more broadly. An almost religious incorrigibility. — 180 Proof

If evolution isn't inherently random, we must conclude that evolution is teleological. Pray tell, what is the ultimate goal of evolution? Now, don't respond with "the perpetuation of life" because given the unpredictable circumstances in re selection pressure, the best way to do that would be randomness but you explicitly deny that's the case.

Well, by my account we are five-dimensional: we recognise that the passage of time is experienced differently according to perceived value/significance. Time is relative - both in quantity and quality.

It depends on what you consider to be ‘time wastage’, and what you consider to be ‘useful/productive activities’. The point I was making here in relation to ‘patience’ is that we are social creatures - we don’t make these ‘packing’ choices in isolation, as evident by the example given here of someone who wants another to ‘be patient’. The time we have is shared, and that awareness, connection and collaboration means that some activities which may appear ‘wasteful’ in isolation are more productive when viewed in a social context. — Possibility

Indeed, time is shared - between people that is - and that immediately complicates the packing problem vis-à-vis time; multiple activities, each with its own aims that are sometimes aligned and at other times diametrically opposed, need to be fitted in an alloted time.

The other problem with time in re packing problems is that time seems to be 1 dimensional unlike space which is 3D. 3D space allows us to do much more, much much more than would be possible in space of lower dimensions. That said, there's parallel processing which, in a sense, makes time 2 dimensional, allowing more to be done in a given time.

There is no love without something to hate. No joy without something to annoy. No fun without something to bore. Is this true or false, young David — Outlander

This gets more and more interesting but it's likely that I speak from ignorance rather than any real knowledge. The best way to express my concern here is to bring up the matter of duality. I hope we're all on the same page here. The only serious study of duality that has been undertaken in good faith and were/are by Eastern philosophers (Indian & Chinese). Of the Indians, I know very little but of the Chinese, Lao Tzu (Taoism) is quite well-known and by and large well-received by the West.

The gist of Taoism (Yin-Yang) is duality in that if there's something, say x, then there's always an anti-something (aniti-x) but that's not all. This particular point of view puts the Western notion of symmetry on a pedestal but given how things are, this seems fully justified. After all, every thing stands out as the thing against a backdrop of other things that are not that thing. How Yin-Yang is relevant to the issue at hand is that happiness wouldn't make sense without suffering and vice versa because each provides the contrast for the other, in effect making them both discernible to our mind.

Ergo, setting aside posthumans who have memories of suffering against which they could compare superhappiness to, those posthumans born after the abolishment of suffering ( :clap: ) who know only superhappiness wouldn't really be able to appreciate what they have. Perhaps such posthumans would create education camps for themselves where they're given small doses of pain to give them an idea of what suffering is if only so that they can see the true value of superhappiness which to their ancestors was the very definition of a perfect life. However, if we've modified pain systems in our brains to achieve superhappiness this doesn't seem possible and this takes us back to the statement Outlander seems to be interested in: superhappiness is meaningless without some suffering to serve as a foil in a manner of speaking.

Laughing, ok
— TheMadFool
:cry: — 180 Proof

:grin:

I indeed am weary of the accuracy of psychological testing, particularly IQ tests, but I won’t try to make the argument that their specific tests were inaccurate. However, given that these accuracy debates are still occurring, and that these tests were conducted roughly 40 years ago it’s likely that they weren’t as accurate as they may be today. So I think having some suspicion is warranted, but nonetheless I’m sure this testing was the best we could do at the time. At the very least I think it would be safe to say they were prone to delusional thinking, which could have had something to do with all the LSD they were taking, among other things. — Pinprick

Right! :up: I sometimes forget the 4th dimension (time) - things change, the new, allegedly better, replace the old, reportedly inferior. Perhaps this applies to us as well. Fast forward a 100 or so years, and people will probably mock/criticize us for how little we knew. Nevertheless, your comments are, like Shakespeare's plays, timeless - valid for all time as it were.

I don’t think it can be that cut and dry. Culture has a lot to do with it too. Mark Twain used a racial slur quite often in his writings. Does that mean he was racist? That’s a rhetorical question, but it would be easy to see how a reader may come to the conclusion that he was. Especially if they’re not informed about the author or when the book was written. But it’s ridiculous to expect Mark Twain to have the foresight to know how the word “nigger” would be interpreted 100 years after the fact. — Pinprick

I think the idea expressed in this paragraph has broad applicability. As I mentioned vide supra, we need to be alert to the temporal dimension, specifically the change that takes place in our knowledge - outdated theories are discarded as new, hopefully better ones, replace them - which gives us an opportunity to recontextualize old issues in a newer, more truthful, set of ideas.

an acid trip — Jack Cummins

Yes, My description of thoughts was metaphorical but it isn't completely wrong to look at it that way. Nevertheless, it probably isn't a definition a scientific, formal study of thinking would use. :grin:

However, the question is how accurate our mirror — Jack Cummins

My hunch is that just as mirrors come in all shapes and sizes, our minds too exhibit an immense variety, this being the result of thoughts themselves which, in a way, determines the qualities of the reflecting surface of the mind-mirror. Since each person's mind-mirror is unique to that person, the reflections/images of reality too will display commensurate variability - this is at once our greatest strength (variety is the spice of life) and our greatest weakness (which is the correct image?). In other words, thoughts, though the aim seems to be to form a faithful image of reality, modulate other thoughts in a continuous and complex web of interactions that ultimately become worldviews.

You've only got so long to live — HardWorker

efficiently — Possibility

It all boils down to Packing problems

The goal is to either pack a single container as densely as possible or pack all objects using as few containers as possible. — Wikipedia

The goal is to either pack a single time slot as densely as possible or pack all activities using as few time slots as possible — TheMadFool

The aim is to "pack" as many useful/productive activities into a given time slot, keeping time wastage at a minimum. I suppose such a perspective treats time and space as somewhat equivalent concepts. Come to think of it, we do experience time (we age), doesn't that mean we're 4-dimensional beings?

There is no set of local hidden variables that can reproduce the predictions of quantum mechanics. So (subject to the assumptions of Bell's Theorem) there's no information to know, whether for an observer or for God.

To see why that's the case, you'll need to work through Bell's Theorem. I attempt an explanation here, if that helps. — Andrew M

:up: Perhaps I read too much into the socks analogy. Thanks!

My assumption, and this will probably come across as a gross generalization, is that people who are “gullible” enough to consider Manson a god are probably mentally ill. And Manson can’t be held responsible for someone’s mental illness. — Pinprick

I'm fairly certain that Manson & his "family" were put through psychological tests of IQ, personality, schizphrenia, and the like. Given the court's verdict was guilty, it's safe to say they scored well on the IQ test (were not gullible) and the schizophrenia test was negative (they weren't insane). That you seem to think they were "gullible" and/or "insane" casts doubt on the validity of psychological tests, especially in borderline cases as must've been true for the Manson "family"

This also brings up the other issue of interpretation — Pinprick

Indeed, I believe there are many real life instances of misinterpretation. Someone could pass an insensitive comment such as, "Blacks are more violent than whites" and the audience might (mis)interpret that as "kill/jail Blacks" or something like that. I suppose the chances of getting the wrong idea is proportional to the rhetoric in a speech/text which makes the speaker/writer liable to some degree for the effects of faer words.

Can you elaborate on your notion of..." can't be told apart"? — 3017amen

A discussion in another thread with 180 Proof revolved around mind and intelligence. 180 Proof said something to the effect that evolution is intelligent in that it suggests an optimum strategy given the volatile situation of the enviroment. Nonetheless, he refused to accept the involvement of a mind behind evolution citing AI as instances of intelligence sans minds.

My response was to present a a gedanken experiment using the Turing test. Suppose you're interacting (say playing chess) with something that's hidden from view by a curtain. You examine the moves and come to the conclusion that your opponent is intelligent. Based on this piece of information (the entity behind the curtain is intelligent) alone can you infer whether your opponent has a mind (a human player) or doesn't have a mind (AI)? The answer is a big NO!. Why? Both humans (having minds) and AI (having no minds) possess intelligence and so you won't be able to tell which is which. Mind - No mind equivalency.

The same argument works for evolution which bears all the marks of intelligence and so, based on this single data point, one won't be able to infer whether evolution is the product of a mind or is like AI, mindless. Hence, with nothing to go on but signs of intelligence, evolution with a mind at the helm and evolution with no such thing "...can't be told apart..."

I can see the relevance of the idea of a mirror as a way of seeing the whole process of thinking. It is also easy to see the danger of thinking in a narcissistic way, or of just in ways which enable us to buffer up our own egos. I would imagine that the one way we have of preventing this from happening is that we share our thoughts through conversing with others, and this exchange of thoughts probably stops us from living in our own little thought bubbles. — Jack Cummins

We, in a sense, hold an image, understood in the broadest sense possible, of the entire universe, including ourselves and this image is made up of every thought you've ever had, you're having, and will ever have. Writing and speaking are media that capture these images for posterity if they're given the nod of approval by the quality police.

That is a common short-hand assumption, but it simply ignores the "artificial" in Artificial Intelligence. The artist, whose intelligence is imparted to the program, is the Programmer, who is seldom sans mind. And his intelligence is a product of eons of natural selection going back to the original Programmer of Nature. :smile:

Artificial : made or produced by human beings rather than occurring naturally, — Gnomon

Thanks for alerting me to that. Completely missed it. So, yes, we have mindless AI, at least rudimentary versions of it and let's not forget the chess grandmasters who lost to them, but they were created by humans with minds. :up:

The best goal is no goal — T Clark

:rofl: The best Taoist is no Taoist!? :chin:

Jokes aside,

1. Best goal: Don't cause problems.

2. Better goal: Solve problems

3. Good goal: Find problems (to solve)

4. Bad goal: Hide problems

5. Worse goal: Aggravate problems

6. Worst goal: Cause problems

My two bitcoins worth.

death and afterlife — Apollodorus

I don't know how tests/exams are conducted these days - the last one I took was at least a decade ago, excepting a COVID antigen test a few months ago - but my experience with them has been that most of us who did sit for an exam/test, wrote down answers that had, to use a statistical term, a very small standard deviation (very little variability). The reason - we all got the exact same questions/problems. I suspect that the Greeks, Egyptians, and Indians were all grappling with the same issue - death! Given this and ceteris paribus it would be more surprising if there were variations in the proposed solutions than if there are similarities. In other words, similar solutions or takes on the same question/issue/problem (here death) isn't remarkable in any way and to infer anything from it other than the obvious fact mentioned above might be a huge mistake.

Thoughts are, to my reckoning, reflections of reality on what is essentially an analog of a narcissist's favorite object, a mirror. The reflections either are hi-fi replicas of the original like that of the senses, especially the eyes, or are symbolic representations (language) of reality as we know it, the symbols themselves being products of thoughts, designed, I suppose, to make thinking, producing more thoughts, easier. A critical feature of human thought is that it's able to self-reflect i.e. it, unlike our eyes or a mirror alone, can see itself with itself - "Thinking about thinking" - which is akin to a mirror reflecting itself in itself.

What I don't understand is why you want to make a new interpretation and persuade us that you are telling a better story. — unenlightened

Principle of charity among other things I suppose. Put God and Abraham in the best light possible.

It's not that I disagree with your seven simple words, but that is obviously not what this story is about at all, because if it was about that and everyone had got it wrong up 'til now, it would be a crap teaching story. There are stories that teach ego renunciation but not this one. — unenlightened

Take a long, hard look at Abraham's story. The obvious conclusion is god is being a really big jerk and Abraham too in his own little way manages to make the situation from really bad to worse for Christianity/Judaism/Islam. My gut-instincts, for what they're worth, immediately inform me that something doesn't add up. The whole episode doesn't make sense at all - a good god telling a faithful, pious man to kill his son. All I did was added what I felt was necessary to make it all hang together as a beautiful moral lesson, fit for all generations.

Because, as God commandeth -- Thou shalt have no other gods before Me! — baker

:chin:

Thank you.
But the question is: All the main modern schools of Buddhism in China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Vietnam believe and teach that all people in our world, all the people we see, all the people we talk to have thoughts, consciousness, memories, sensations, feelings and emotions? — Johnny5454

The challenge for solpisism is this: granted that everything except one's own existence is doubtful but the catch is we simply can't distinguish minds that are real from minds that are not; after all, that is exactly the main premise of the slopsistic argument, no? If we could actually tell the difference between the two (real minds and unreal minds), solipsism would have been either vindicated or refuted decisively. Ergo, the real and the unreal can't be told apart and hence the distinction real-unreal is one without a difference. In other words, reality and illusion are one and the same thing and by extension, a real other mind is identical in every respect to an illusory other mind. Solipsism then is meaningless for the simple reason that though it casts doubt on reality, contemplates the possibility of it all being an illusion, it does so because it can't tell which is which and if that's the case, whence the distinction between reality and illusion?

Buddhists — Johnny5454

solipsists — Johnny5454

@Wayfarer Anattā

Buddhism has this concept of annatā, link above, in English, no-self. Taking this into account, solipsism which claims the self to be the only certain truth seems distinctly non-Buddhist in character. All is illusion (Maya) but the question is who/what is experiencing this illusion?

Spirit is one among many thousands, probably millions, of names for nothing.

This is the bible story that, even more than Job, popularises atheism — unenlightened

How unfortunate for it appears that it needs to be interpreted correctly for very important moral lessons in it to come through.

The very idea that there could be some principle adherence to which would be more important than one's own child's life is so repugnant on the face of it, that even in the bible, God has to relent once He has established His absolute authority. — unenlightened

First things first, why is taking "...one's own child's life...", as you put it, "...so repugnant..."? Let me answer that question for you. Would you feel the same way, "...repugnant...", if it were another person's child? No, of course not! You may empathize with another parent who's put in a similar situation but let's not delude ourselves, the emotions involved are of lesser intensity or, sometimes, even absent. However, if it was really about the child, the child as a thinking, feeling person, brimming with great potential, you should feel the same way about another child as you would about yours. This isn't so. Ergo, feeling "...repugnant..." isn't really about your child per se but about you. That Abraham's situation is described as a sacrifice betrays this fact - Abraham (you) is losing his child but, for reasons provided above, the loss isn't the child's but Abraham's (yours). When I say "...the loss isn't the child's..." I don't mean that the child involved has nothing to lose (a full life is definitely something to lose); what I mean is Abraham's (your) pain as you're asked to make the sacrifice is not about a child but about Abraham's (your) child. In other words, the sacrifice and all its emotional accompaniments are all about Abraham (you). So, don't try to give people the impression that Abraham/you care about Abraham's/your child. It's utterly false. I know this sounds harsh on a parent, I'm one myself, but at times one must call it as one sees it. What does all this mean? In seven simple words, "morality requires you to surrender your ego." Abraham has to eventually come to realize that his "love" for his child is but self-love, vanity, ego, in disguise and God wants him to see past that disguise and recognize fact for fact which is that so long as one's ego, self-love, is allowed free reign, morality is going to keep its distance from our communities, villages, towns, cities, metropolises, etc.

Secondly, my experience with hatred has been, quite evidently, very negative. I've heard people scream at those whom they hate (foes, enemies) with the words, "I'll kill you!!" What is god asking Abraham to do? Kill his son, right? With that one command, God puts Abraham in a tight spot - he has to treat that which he loves as that which he hates. After all, Abraham may have surely met someone whom he'd have loved to use his dagger on and relate that to what he's commanded to do, off his child with his dagger. God then is attempting to teach Abraham a moral lesson - treat the ones you hate same as the ones you love. Then God goes on to stop Abraham from actually following through with his decision to sacrifice his child. What this achieves is a sudden separation of hate (for your enemies) & love (for your child) from a point when the two couldn't be distinguished (kill your child as you would an enemy). This closing event in Abraham's tryst with God is surely going to send massive shockwaves through Abraham's sense of right and wrong and should've made him see the light as it were.

My two bitcoins worth. Warning! Idiosyncracy.

1. Can’t get something from nothing
2. So something must of existed permanently — Devans99

In my humble opinion, the above two statements can go towards formulating a good argument for why there's something rather than nothing?

1. Nothing comes from nothing
2. There's something
3. Something has to be/is eternal (from 1 and 2)
4. If something is eternal, nothing isn't possible
5. Nothing isn't possible (from 3, 4 MP)
6. If nothing isn't possible, there has to be something rather than nothing
7. There has to be something rather than nothing (5, 6 MP)

QED

To sum up, there's something and since nothing comes from nothing, this something must be eternal. If this something is eternal, nothing is impossible. If nothing is impossible, there has to be something rather than nothing.

There is a reason why there's something rather than nothing.