The Big Bang isn't, to my knowledge, a cause as much as it's the purported beginning (of our universe), oui mon ami?

As for singleton events, like for example this: 2, the question of pattern and therefore cause is moot.

When x participates in resemblance with y, z, ... , it means there's soomething common to x, y, z, ... and that something, a property p, is what a universal is. In short resemblance and universal are the same thing or, more accurately, they don't seem to be different enough to justify the kind of distinction the OP wishes to make. Just saying ... I dunno!

understandings of causation — invizzy

My own views on causation, in response to the issue you raise, is that it's a pattern:

1. sunlight + water + soil + seeds $\to$ germination of seeds

2. Ditto

3. Ditto

.
.
.

This pattern consists of antecedent conditions (sun + water + soil + seeds) and consequents, here one (germination of seeds). As (just) patterns in nature, causation is as simple as that.

Well, I don't know. My bucket list is surely going to be very different from my day-to-day to-do list.

Freddy is talking about the religious, or priestly, valuation of "good and evil" – to move "beyond" the other-worldly back to this-worldly, naturalistic good and bad (i.e. virtuous and vicious cycles/habits). — 180 Proof

Much obliged for the short & sweet explanation mon ami.

Are we referring to God as a person here or god as the universe?
Because god as a person could be just. They have free will to make good or bad decisions. God as the universe cannot be just as the universe is everything: thus including both justices and injustices as a whole. — Benj96

@ToothyMaw $\uparrow$ See?

Then I'm not alone here. — ToothyMaw

I trimmed down your argument to a bite-sized chunk of awesome wisdom, yours of course.

That said expect constructive and destructive criticism from better & more experienced thinkers. Injustice is ...

1. If God is just then there should be no injustice
2. There is injustice
Ergo,
3. God is not just [1, 2, MT]

:up:

choose — Benj96

:cool:

He is not a philosopher really. He is a neuroscientist with an interest in politics regarding the atheist movement (which was certainly called for in US). — I like sushi

Socrates was charged with impiety which probably means he made some rather snarky comments about god(s) [re Euthyphro's dilemma] which was a polite way of saying god(s) is/are either unnecessary and/or undesirable i.e. atheism.

determinism is impossible — Gnomon

Most interesting. — Ms. Marple

Definitely irrationality/ queen, to the extent of having a grandiose delusion of being the most powerful unit in the game but in practice so out of control i am vulnerable. — introbert

:cool:

Long live the Queen!

Did you know, Queen = Bishop + Castle? Of course ya did!

The relationship between the subject you mentioned and the scene from "Monk" you just posted eludes me. — Seeker

:zip:

Why should we be governed?

A good criminal would surrender his weapon, would thrust both his wrists forward to be handcuffed, and walk quietly with the prison guards to his cell! :cool:

I cant find much about it, apart from the local burial traditions, which makes sense to me honestly.

So I'm curious — Seeker

Votre essayer a Francais parler sont tres annoying. Je voudrais si vous les arrete.

Pardon my very bad French. — T Clark

:lol: A million times better than my smattering of French.

I haven't read what Nietzsche wrote. — T Clark

Don't worry: Agent Smith hasn't either. — Jamal

:grin:

Book titles, I hear, are crafted to grab your attention; as they say, don't judge a book by its cover, oui mes amies?

It's not a word I use very often. — T Clark

We need to look Beyond Good And Evil (Nietzsche)? :chin: I wonder ...

Personally I consider it to be equally unwise dismissing such phenomena out of hand as to blindly accept them to be true. — Seeker

Good call!

I wonder if scientists who're researching immortality ever read about Iceland.

All I know is I feel like a pawn. So which piece do other posters identify themselves with?

Obviously, despite how bad it looks, to be g***erned is better than not to be or, more accurately, it's the lesser evil. @schopenhauer1, this should be right up your antinatalism/pessimism/Schopenhauerism alley!

I have a position on this. I always treat the dream as real until I wake up. — unenlightened

:cool:

[...]I only care about what makes sense.[...] — Bartricks

Magnifique!

@Bartricks

Two ways to tackle this: 1) a given philosophy is deemed useless, or 2) a given philosophy is deemed bad. — Moliere

Superb!

@Moliere

The word 'opposite' has caused problems in this thread because it is not been defined. — TonesInDeepFreeze

:cool:

No one who knows anything writes:

p is true iff p.

The formulation is:

'p' is true iff p. — TonesInDeepFreeze

I stand corrected!

Since posting my opinion of Harris a week ago, my Youtube feed is suddenly full of Sam Harris clips. — fishfry

The Youtube AI knows ... you inside out! Run (for your life)!

This site uses Google Analytics, which places a tracking code on every page, so that every time you visit a page, Google knows about it. Google also indexes page content, and of course Google owns Youtube. I don't know much about this technology, but theoretically, putting all this together, it is possible that the pages that you browse affect the choice of suggested videos. (I block google-analytics.com, and I keep Google login confined to those instances where I actually need it - although Google also keeps track of IP addresses.) — SophistiCat

:scream: and also very :cool:

As for Sam Harris, I'd say his rhetorical skills are over the top! He's also proficient in logic and that makes him a worthy opponent.

With g/G, scripture says "evil is sin against g/G". However, with or without g/G, evil is also sin against all descendants. :mask: — 180 Proof

You have good taste in music mon ami! I wish I'd made time for all these other aspects of life - music, literature, etc. - that make bios worth living.



mon ami!

The pessimism-optimism life span paradox

1. Pessimists live longer (they don't walk into traps as easily as optimists) [and procreate more @schopenhauer1]

2. Optimists live longer (their happy disposition means a healthy mind and body).

3. Pessimists die early (their negative attitude affects their health).

4. Optimists die early (they walk into traps).

WTF? :chin:

I don't want to dieee! :cry: — SYR

The evil in me was foul, but I loved it. I loved my own perdition and my own faults, not the things for which I committed wrong, but the wrong itself. — St. Augustine (Confessions Book II, section 4)

:snicker:

What is luck anyway? Is it the name we give to the set of variables tha we have no control over or is it just a synonym for our blind spot? Sometimes these uncontrolled/unforseen factors can work in our favor (good luck) and at other times they foil the best of plans (bad luck).

I have a family member who's a fruitarian (subsists, at least tries to, only on fruits) and no she didn't know that's the most ethical diet ever. Why? Fruits are meant to be eaten - their sweetness is a reward for aiding the plant in seed dispersal - and so there really is no sin involved in consuming fruit. We should all adopt fruitarianism - its healthy too say nutritionists.

Me two cents ...

@OP

First off, it's rather intriguing that your response to the end times is precisely what a person diagnosed with cancer would (decide to) do.

Secondly, I have to say your plan is good but ... not original. You get a gold star nonetheless for confirming human intuitions on how best to deal with our mortality. What I find odd is that with or without a fatal illness/global catastrophe, death is certain and yet to "spend away my savings travelling, extracting what joy and fulfillment in life remains" isn't on your average Joe's to-do list. I guess what I'm saying is everyone's to-do list = bucket list.

Never mind. — 180 Proof

:smile: Too much, eh?

:up:

You speak the truth! For instance a computer engineer must know machine language (1s and 0s), but here I am, typing on a virtual keyboard on my phone, utterly ignorant of the mechanics of displays and touch screens and so on. It does make one wonder about who's running the show, who's calling the shots, who's in charge, if you catch me drift.

Technology seems to transform our lives drastically and one way it does that is by making us so dependent on it that a rollback would be catastrophic to civilization as we know it. We're, to that extent, invalids.

I just read in Werner Heisenberg's book, Physics and Philosophy, that "causality can only explain later events by earlier events, but it can never explain the beginning". The First Cause. :smile: — Gnomon

:up:

If everything happens for a reason then, everything is meaningful, oui mon ami?



I get where you're coming from, but in my humble opinion the reason why x happens is to be found in the future (light cone) of x and not in the past (light cone). For instance John missed his plane because he was supposed to meet Jane, the woman he has to marry, on the next available flight. So, the reason for the random (acausal) origins of our universe will/can only be known when the universe meets its very own Jane so to speak.

Excellent post! Math has a greater range than any natural language, penetrating much, much further through the veil of Isis. It's like as if languages like English need to catch up with math.

What's your take on how gravity work? Newton famously confessed his ignorance (hypothesis non fingo) in re how mass attracted mass. Albert Einstein came along, 3 centuries later, and explained the mechanism viz. that mass warps spacetime.

That out of the way, it's true that the mechanisms of causation themselves are a series of intermediate causal claims. Interesting.

No — 180 Proof

You get full marks for confidence, but what about the PSR (principle of sufficient reason)?

:snicker:

I've lost touch with my poetic side it seems. :sad: