Since whether or not there is an "afterlife" is unknowable, I think investing more, or all, value in the merely imaginable instead of in this life is literally to value nothing. As Freddy remind us
... man would rather will nothingness than not will
— On the Geneaology of Morals, Third Essay — 180 Proof

Okie dokie!

Agrippa's trilemma?

1. If I think then I exist
2. I think
Ergo,
3. I exist [1, 2 MP]

Premise 1 is shaky for the simple reason that it's derived from the more general premise every action has an actor (walk, walker; talk, talker; etc.) which in addition to being empirical is also derived from what Descartes considers could be an illusion created by a deus deceptor. In short, notwithstanding his brilliance, Descartes' drinking from the very well he just poisoned. Suicide comes in all shapes and sizes, eh?

Intresting post by my standards.

Perhaps we should look at the issue taking into account the following.

1. Regarding the Hebrew God any inconsistences having to do with God (omnibenvolence) and violence (as recorded in scripture to have been divine commands/permitted by God) were either absent (God is good)/ignored (it made zero sense, but the matter was swept under the rug)/unnoticed (no one checked).

2. Coming to the OP's main thrust, I'd say what we're looking at is inconsistencies were absent. God is both good and violent was the position adopted and the genocides committed were probably viewed as campaigns in a just war (ordered/permitted by YHWH Himself).

To get straight to the point, God fitted like a glove with reality.

3. That said, it's worth noting that God as an idea is one of the most powerful in the ideaverse. Imagine if God implied all swans are white. People see a black swan. Rather than admit God isn't real people would prefer to believe the black swan only appears black, but is actually white!

These are topics that I know very little of monsieur! Best I zip up lest I contaminate the thread with my foolery.

Nec caput nec pedes mon ami. I'm afraid I've wasted your time, but I remain grateful for introducing me to advanced concepts in linguistics. It appears that like how education is flagged off, with language first, with philosophizing too language is first.

Ok! My bad.

A more nuanced approach to suffering seems to be in order vis-à-vis aurea mediocritas

1. Excess suffering.
2. Moderate suffering.
3. Deficit suffering.

Both 1 & 2 are incompatible with life. Suicides & CIP (congenital insensitivity to pain) attest to that. Moderate suffering, hitting the sweet spot, where suffering is bearable and also does what it's designed to do, keep us safe and sound is not only desirable but also necessary given the givens of our mental & physical constitution.


So if we could find solutions to excess suffering, natalism has a shot or, inversely, antinatalism stops making sense and as for deficit suffering, current best practice in medicine is to restore the nociceptive system to level 2 (moderate suffering). Google "treatment" for CIP (naloxone) and leprosy (antibiotics).

The future, however, can be radically different - like how bioluminiscence has delinked light from heat, we maybe able to do the same with suffering, decouple the detection of injury from the unpleasantness associated with it.

Interesting!

On the contrary, the (canonical) Gospels are statements for nihilism insofar as they instruct us to prepare for "the resurrection" and "end of days" which, as Nietzche points out, places all value in "the afterlife" at the expense of completely devaluing – nihilating – this life, this world, nature. In other words, 'our (your) existence here and now is meaningless in comparison to the existence to come.' Escape from "existential angst" by denying, rather than affirming, existence – how the Shepherd pacifies the sheep into bleeting happily on their way to slaughter. :mask: — 180 Proof

:up:

This, in my humble opinion, boils down to gambling (à la Pascal's wager). The stake: This life (low value). The prize: Heaven (high value). Many people buy lotteries and this proves my point. In considering this life to be low value, religion is nihilistic. In considering the afterlife to be high value, it isn't nihilistic. If I reject silver, it may seem I'm not greedy, but if I do it so that I can get gold, I'm avarice incarnate! :chin:

Yes, but it adds the explanatory burden of new universes being created with every superposition collapse. — Hallucinogen

Indeed, it does! On target, mon ami!

So slipped between the horns of the dilemma, eh? All's well that ends well!

Joseph Rouse' take is intriguing to say the least. There's a sense in which science is subsumed by culture; science was at different times the defining feature of distinct cultures - Greek, Islamic, and the torch has passed onto Europe and from there on, it spread rapidly and now is humanity's crown jewel.

As for language and its role in science, I'd havta admit the former's limitations eventually bleeds into the latter. If the well is poisoned, so is every drop of water drawn from that well. For better or worse, I'm in the dark as to the nature of the poison Rouse seems to refer to. Something to do with semantics or truth or maybe something else eniterly? Whatever it is, my response is that Rouse did have a notion of meaning, truth, and other linguistic elements as he penned his thoughts on the flaws in language, but isn't that a paradox? You're using language in particular mode (combination of semantics, truth, syntax) to make the claim that such usage is not good enough. Doesn't that make the criticism pointless. Rouse and his ilk are drinking from the very well they say is poisoned. :chin:

What's the difference between a materialist and a monist then? — bert1

Materialism is a subtype of monism I believe. If there's monism of any other kind, they need to be asked the same question.

If, a big if, there did exist a finite number N_max that could stand in for, salva veritate, $\infty$, we could prove/disprove all mathematical conjectures via proof by exhaustion (brute search) with the help of existing supercomputers. Math would instantly become a boring subject, with no problems to solve, but it would be complete.

For instance take the Goldbach conjecture. If the N_max were 10, I would do the following

4 = 2 + 2. Check.
6 = 3 + 3. Check.
8 = 3 + 5. Check.
10 = 5 + 5. Check.

There, I just proved the Goldbach conjecture to/for kindergarten kids! :cool:

Not on topic, but related.

You are a slave to your programming which is your master.

---

Your programming (that determines your thoughts/words/actions)

1. Likes
2. Dislikes

---

If you

3. Do/like what you like
4. Don't do/dislike what you dislike

you're not free.

---

To be (truly) free you must rebel against your master (your programming)

To be free you must

5. Do/like what you dislike
6. Don't do/dislike what you like

Free will is then as per Buddhism one face of dukkhs.

Free willwon't. Negation (NO) is the secret to free will.

Note: One likes to be free. So in saying "NO!" you're following your programming, simultaneously saying "YES" to something else (freedom) i.e. we're not out of the woods yet! One might then believe we should reject freedom to in order to be really free, but then this is again because you like and want freedom ... the negation of freedom is an affirmation of freedom. It's a friggin' loop, oui monsieur?

It's kinda a paradox: What do you like the most? Freedom! Therefore, to be most free, one must reject freedom. What do you dislike the most? Slavery. Therefore, to be most free, one must embrace slavery. Still, one isn't free in that one is doing all this for the reason that one likes freedom. I tried to extricate myself from this vicious cycle, but I failed every single time.

Any color you like, they're all blue.

:chin: It appears to be one big scam or I'm missing something. The latter most likely.

Danke! I have a lot to work on.

The "PoE" belongs to poly/heno/mono/pan-en/pan-theism (re: The Riddle of Epicurus) and is not raised by deism, pandeism or acosmism — 180 Proof

Okie dokie!

:up:

---

The point to logic seems to be to come up with, to use a mathematical analogy, functions (argument forms) such that if the inputs are truths (the premises), the output is a ... further ... truth (the conclusion). The objective here is to grow knowledge as a farmer would pumpkins.

Better how? — GLEN willows

Great question. Well, if science could speak, it would say "I would looove to find truths!" Science's ultimate goal is to figure out, as some say, the true nature of reality. However, it can't - its mainstay, hypotheses/theories, are only instances of abduction and thus inherits the limitations of that method (it offers not truths, only good explanations).

The question then is ...

How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man? — Bob Dylan (Blowin' in the Wind)

In a sense science (induction/abduction/explanations) aspires to be philosophy (deduction/proofs)!

Logic of truth

How does a system of logic handle truth/falsity?

1. Consistency: The law of noncontradiction (LNC). A truth may not entail a contradiction (p & ~p) for if ut does, it can't be a truth.

Contradictions (p & ~p) can't be true, they're always false.

2. Some compound statements are tautologies, true always, not semantically, but solely due to logical form e.g. (p v ~p) [the law of the excluded middle]

3. Fuzzy logic: Degrees, on a continuum, of truth/falsity. The statement it'll rain tomorrow is (say) 90% true[/i].

4. Polyvalent logic: True/False/Unkown (trivalent system), an easy-to-grok variant.

5. :confused:

What I fail to understand is why is it necessary for at least one (I'm told this is {1, 2, 3, ... } , the set of natural numbers, probably the foot in the door) $\infty$ to exist for mathematics to work?

Does finitism mean some domains of math vanish into thin air?

Pandeism (or pan-deism), a theological doctrine first delineated in the 18th century, combines aspects of pantheism with aspects of deism. It holds that a creator deity became the universe and ceased to exist as a separate entity (deism holding that God does not interfere with the universe after its creation). Pandeism is proposed to explain (as it relates to deism) why God would create a universe and then appear to abandon it, and (as it relates to pantheism) an origin and purpose of the universe. — Wikipedia

Was Buddha a pandeist?

Can you make me one with everything? — Karl

Pandeist's should ... hate god? :chin: The problem of suffering/evil doesn't go away, that's what I think anyway.

different perspectives. — GLEN willows

I skimmed through the linked article. Personally, I'd say there's no issue as regards trying out new perspectives but ... with the proviso that they yield testable claims. Science is no longer science without experiments in my humble opinion. If memory serves one of the main problems with string theory is that it isn't experiment-apt. That being the case string theory is just a pretty face, lacking ... absit iniuria ... any substance.

Too, giving due respect to Massimo, the Antivax movement is weak evidence that there's something wrong with science. These folks are against vaccination less because science is flawed in some way but more because there are allegedly compelling political reasons. Science merely serves as a sidekick, a henchman to the Antivax political agenda.

That said, I would love to see a novel approach to our world, one that's nonscientific and equally or even more effective than science - a radical proposal compared to Massimo's rather conservative stance to only experiment with scientifically valid perspectives.

p v ~p is a tautology i.e. it's always true.

Al-Haqq = p v ~p

1. Ahura Mazda/Yaheweh

2. Angra Mainyu/Satan.

potential vs actual infinity — apokrisis

The distinction makes sense if we approach numbers as entities generated by a process, an algorithm. An instruction set that generates the natural numbers (vide infra) will go on forever, it's a task that's endless ($\infty$).

1. n = 1
2. print n
3. n = n + 1
4. goto 2

An actual infinity would be impossible, algorithmically speaking because for that, the algorithm must terminate, but as you can see it's a bloody loop.

It's a non finito and perhaps that's the whole point.

Philosophy of science (any errors can be faulted to my poor recall)

1. Realism: Science shows you reality as it is. Mass actually does warp space-time.

2. Anti-realism: Science doesn't do what realism says it does. Science is nothing more than a sense-making schema where hypotheses are generated to fit observational data and the best one, selected based on criteria other than truth e.g. elegance, beauty, simplicity (novacula occami), is given the stamp of approval. Mass warping space-time is the best explanation for the experimental findings, it may not.

[ ... ] what to do [next] — Moliere

:up: That's the million dollar question! How do/should I participate in the causal web such that I maximize the positives and minimize the negatives. What do you know, it's a bloody math question.

I'd reject the Many Worlds Interpretation on the basis that it adds ontic baggage without solving anything. — Hallucinogen

Doesn't it present itself as a way of handling paradoxes? If I say p & ~p, p goes "this town ain't big enough for both of us" to ~p and vice versa - one has to go! However if p in one town and ~p in another, there's no issue at all. If I say life's bitter sweet, I mean bitter from a certain perspective and sweet from another. Perspectives/angles are simply different towns (worlds). There's this idiom "from another planet" which is to the point in my estimation.

You have faith in axioms. :clap: — Nils Loc

:up:



Yep, we can start from axioms but then that would be merely exploratory (of possibilities) rather than determinative (of actualities/facts). Remember axioms are only assumed to be true and hence if one finds that one/more are false, the entire corpus of inferences that were made from them will implode. In other words starting from axioms is to build on sand. Perhaps that's the whole point, oui monsieur? If philosophers were engineers, no one would live in the buildings they construct (astathmeta/unstable).

On point señor!

What about the fact that when Lawrence Krauss' book A Universe from Nothing came out philosophers wasted no time in distancing themselves from Krauss, saying the nothing of physics is not the nothing of philosophy i.e. Krauss failed to answer the philosophical question why is there something rather than nothing?

But if a wave-particle duality is mere confusion and not real what then becomes of your BothAnd idea? It's all dressed up with nowhere to go!

:chin:

nihilism — Dermot Griffin

I suppose the human journey can be summed up as a struggle against nihilism. Some might even say it is the most dangerous idea to come out of the human mind - it rejects/denies/everything by definition and that includes the stuff close to our hearts and therein lies the seeds of untold suffering. :sad:

However ...

[ ...] from making the cure of the disease more grievous than the endurance of the same, good Lord deliver us. — Sir Robert Hutchison

It is possible that we've jumped from the frying pan into the fire!

To be frank I'm not worried as much about dying for x than I am about killing for y.

Later Jack. Enjoyed the exchange.

When the student is ready the teacher will appear. — Ashok Kumar/Jane Doe

God's hiding in plain sight! In other words He's here among us! We can't see recognize Him due to, some say, karmic defilement of our minds. :snicker:

Magnifique!

Something is wrong! :snicker:

I don't know about you but to my reckoning this thread is a one giant word salad. How did we get from a philosophical issue to reptiles? :chin: Maybe I did it. Apologies! There's a name for this phenomenon in psychiatry - derailment! Sound familiar? Intriguing, oui monsieur? I haven't checked but I'd bet all threads end up derailed by the time the last post is made.

:brow:

Anyway, reptilian brains; Caledonian crows? They possess meta-tool-making capabilities and its hardwired probably. No reports that I know of that they pass on the skills via language like us humans. Fascinating, but that probably doesn't mean anything.

Ok! You sound like an expert, I'll have to take your word for it!