Can infinity even be considered as possible or impossible? it's a concept. If an axiom calls it to be true/in need then I see no reason to assume otherwise. — john27

I haven't read the original argument made by Aristotle - Wikipedia offers only a rough sketch. It seems as though Aristotle considered real/actual entities as those that had an end; consider the process of constructing a chair. It begins (wood, nails, glue, etc.) and ends (a chair). If one is unable to complete the task, we have a potential chair and not an actual one. The same goes for $\infty$, it, by definition is endless.

Too bad Europeans killed most of those indigenous people. — Benkei

This used to hurt me, but then I realized the natives were killing each other anyway. Now that isn't too bad, it's worse!

The present is 2022 AD. I exist.

We're in the future relative to 1997. I exist.

We're in the past relative to 2060. I exist.

Yep, the past, the present, the future, all, exist!

As per the theory of relativity, there is no one NOW, there are as many of 'em as there are moments, each to be experienced from particular frames of reference.

Consider a loaf of unsliced bread (o, the horror, the horror) as the block universe, a corollary of relativity; each slice is a NOW and you can slice the loaf in any way you wish - if you cut the bread at any angle other than 90_o relative to the length of the bread, you might see a slice of the past or the future relative to the base NOW which is at 90^o to the length of the bread , that would be your NOW. So says Brian Greene. If you disagree, go take it up with him.

That's wonderful. :up:

All we need to get the ball rolling is 1.

Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved. — Charles Darwin

Le Monad.

nudity and masculinity and femininity. — Jack Cummins

Jeanne d'Arc dressing as a man was, to French soldiers, good enough for government work if you catch my drift.

Why do men have nipples? Just in case, eh? :snicker:

Dance of the seven veils? :smile:

I should drop everything right now and go to a strip club.

Nuda Veritas? Must ask her to be more oblique! Can't have a naked goddess on the premises. The men would go crazy! :snicker:

Apologies, the nude man & woman were on the Pioneer Plaque. Visit Wikipedia for more info.

There is no seed, it's a non starter and not to mention not even related to the behind you question — Darkneos

Ok!

I don't see how subscribing to a yin-yang model and then delegitimizing opposition to that model is being faithful to one's philosophy. Even this position I adopt, against you, is/should be part of the whole you talk about. It's actually in your favor to engage with your detractors - it reinforces your position, specifically its BothAnd aspect.

By the way, great post!

What's depicted as male & female on the Golden Record stored in Voyager II Pioneer Plaque that's, as of now, hurtling through the vacuum of space?

Let's start there ...

I don't consider that possibility valid — Darkneos

It is only an extension of your "behind us" idea which is basically a reserved skeptical argument; I just went the whole nine yards mon ami and let the seed you planted bloom in full glory.

inductive sense — Sam26

Hume's The Problem of Induction means that the so-called laws of nature aren't immutable. They could change at any moment as doing so doesn't entail a contradiction i.e. they're contingent truths, not necessary ones.

Solipsism says the universe exists in me. — Art48

The universe is inside Krishna (you)!

Solipsism can be refuted if you can prove the existence of other minds, but I'm afraid no one can do that! Even if "other people" behave in ways that displease you, indicating perhaps that they're distinct mental entities, there's a solipsistic alternative, to wit that you don't control the illusion your mind generates (people in your dreams seem to act as if they have independent thoughts and motives à la "other minds").

It might be worth looking into (super)models (men & women). Going by how the perfect male and perfect female are portrayed in magazines and movies, very few straight men are actually men and very few straight women are actually women. The bar is just too high for the majority and this might lead to an inferiority complex that then triggers a gender identity crisis.

Pretty sure we do. — Darkneos

Deus deceptor? The whole thing could be a one giant illusion (maya). Magick! The question of front and behind or on the sides is moot.

If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics. — Richard Feynman

The trilemma doesn't explain why Jesus of Nazareth was executed. Lunatics aren't put to death, neither are liars, and who would even dream of killing the lord?

The Romans clearly saw Jesus as something else entirely. Rebels were crucified, so were murderers and thieves (Dismas & Gestas) I believe. The tetralemma then is: Was Jesus a murderer, a rebel or a thief or worse? :chin:

You're going to have to spell out what you're thinking, because to me these just look like a handful of unrelated questions. — Moliere

A good observation mon ami!

There's this Wikipedia article on randomness that claims that true randomness is, get this, impossible. There's always a pattern and our job as inquisitve apes is to find it and collect our dopamine reward. :snicker:

Not trying to nitpick, but isn't your philosophy supposed to be like the USA is - welcoming to all, and I mean people from every corner of the world by that (inclusive)? Given so I find it hard to tally that with you engaging in arguments, even those involving naysayers (exclusive).

Some of us need to turn off our empathy, like soldiers, who do all the dirty work, do!

So, you are maybe writing for the same reason I do: for the pleasure of writing! :grin: — Alkis Piskas

Hypergraphia, graphorrhea in my case. Not so in your case of course! Keep writin' - practise, I hear, makes perfect.

An intriguing connection to make - that betwixt the paranormal & technology.



Debunking is painful, both for the debunker and the debunked!

Please don't mention it! I'm rather surprised that you/anyone find(s) me posts worth the read.

Are there any documented cases of a double negation (1^st negation, gender switched from male/female to female/male, 2^nd negation, back to male/female)?

Have you heard of online scams where grown men pose as girls/women to bait other men? I have a feeling that the metaverse - choosing one's online persona includes a gender/sex option - is going to nudge people who are still unsure over the gender line. Fascinating!

Would she know the value of Jack? — schopenhauer1

She might've if only she's been given the chance. There's more to it than just that though!

Maybe so. But that makes it paradoxical that the planet would be in a better state for life if we'd left the decisions to the less intelligent creatures. — Cuthbert

Aye, it is so! There's this awkward phase in life - adolescence it's called - everyone goes through. That be my best defense for intelligence.

:ok:

The only reason Judy married John was because she never met Jack?

Overheard a mother telling her son, "you can be whatever you want." The son, later, decided to become a woman! Can we really be whatever we want? I want to be ... a butterfly, but am I already one, just dreamin' I'm a man?

Basically, the cost is (just) too high! However, we're comparatively more gifted in the brains department, oui? Surely the problem isn't an unsolvable one - we could, if we play our cards right, find not one but many solutions. Imagine that! From having our back against a wall to being able to do what we need to want!

Meanwhile ... what do we do? Avoid talking about the elephant in the room (dukkha)?

So you believe that this is all politics! Is there a more fundamental point of origin, a radix, of our problems.

Did you know? Some say "suffering, what suffering?" Others, in the same friggin' room, go "this is hell!"

One of them is wrong! — Eddie Izzard

Earth is too big!

Is gender identity confusion part of a much broader psychological phenomenon of identity "disorders"? People would call the men in white in coats immediately if I ever said I'm Joe Biden.

It’s simply a political move. Someone envisions another person continuing on the current order and experiencing the current order. They voted yes to it. They voted for that other person. — schopenhauer1

Si, si! That you politicize antinatalism, probably other issues as well, hasn't escaped my notice. Perhaps because people's lives & happiness are at stake, they depend on, in a significant way, who calls the shots.

Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; — Exodus 20:3-5 KJV

A severe case of Othello Syndrome or perhaps just a dude, hopelessly in love.

Monogamytheism.

From a medical standpoint, having multiple sexual partners increase the risk of not only venereal diseases that can cause infertility (TORCH syndrome), but also fatal illnesses (Hepatitis B, AIDS).

There's an easy workaround though (Warning, not failsafe): condoms and/or antibiotics :snicker:

My two denarii. I feel Roman today!

How can we measure (keep time) something (Chronos) that doesn't exist? Isn't measurement N/A (mu) to nonexistent things? What would you say if someone came up to you and said "Santa Claus is 6 feet tall"? Is the present King of France bald?

How do we know there is a behind us? — Darkneos

The problem, mon ami, is we don't even know if there's a front us!

:cool:

Maybe we can meet in the middle: the past exists, but in the way you think, but as memories (lessons) and the future exists, again not in the way you think, but as expectations (plans).

As long as I can remember I've imagined Kubrick/Clarke's "Monolith" as the ultimate intelligent descendant of terrestrial life interacting with its primeval ancestors (us) in "higher dimensional" quantum-level simulations (e.g. "pocket universes"). Symbolically, the "Monolith" is both mirror and window (i.e. "film screen") of the unknown – e.g. individual death; species extinction; event horizon; cosmic horizon; heat-death of the universe – the a priori strange attractor that self-organizes intellect: nonbeing ... emptiness (à la Nāgārjuna).

When (movie) Dave Bowman transforms (chrysalis-like) into the "Starchild", the Monolith's simulation, I imagine, becomes aware of itself as (manifested as an avatar of) the Monolith's simulation. (Book) Bowman's last transmission as his pod falls onto / into the Great Monolith "My God, it's full of stars ..." in which "stars" could mean souls, or minds, or intelligences ... perhaps all there ever has been and will ever be ... simulated. No doubt, another inspiration for Frank Tipler's cosmological "Omega Point"?

Anyway, 2001 is stll my all-time favorite cinematic experience. :fire:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/741055

Time for bed. :yawn:
Will I dream?
— SAL-9000 — 180 Proof

Ati sundar mon ami, ati sundar!

Stanley Kubrick's monolith is as ambiguous & vague as a Rorschach test can be. It's intended to represent an advanced intellect and yet, since, as javi2541997 pointed out, Kubrick was trying to imagine the unimaginable, his experience & knowledge had to be swept aside as nothing in 'em made the cut - they were all too earthly, too mundane as some like to put it. He then probably went apophatic, as he sifted through all the proposals that were put forward, saying "neti neti" (not this, not that, no, not that either). He seems to have finally settled on a black, smooth, rectangular prism. It was, as the OP opined simple, rather anticlimactic you might say, but just consider for a moment the notion of divine simplicity, that god (the alien extraordinaire) is infinitely simple. Instead of trying to think of something mind-bogglingly complex, Kubrick chose something simple, with the same effect mind you, the head meets the tail, the ouroboros coiled.

Simplify, Simplify, Simplify — Steve Jobs

Wrong question.. Rather, when is it ok to ever assume someone else needs to experience X bad experiences because you have a notion for them of what one should be able to tolerate and deal with? — schopenhauer1

Everything hinges on the word "assume" I suppose. I believe there's actually a novel based on people making wrong assumptions about one another; the result is, you guessed it, disaster! If not, it looks a story plot Hollywood might be interested in (romantic tragicomedy).

Malus Deus?

Bingo. Life itself can be said to be immoral from the start. — schopenhauer1

So you've hit the bullseye! :up:

Question: Are antintalists oversensitive? On the flip side, do natalists have, as Hermione Granger says to Ronald Weasley, "the emotional range of a teaspoon"?

And we complain about cold, heartless logic.

I'll reconstruct Parmenides' argument as best as I can.

1. Becoming and Unbecoming are impossible because we can't get an x from what x is not and neither can what x is not get us to an x.

Ergo

2. The past did exist and so it can't not exist. It still exists.

3. The future can't come into existence, but we're traveling into the future as I write this and so the future too exists.

The long and short of it

1. The past, present, and future ALL exist.

:snicker: