Women's liberation did not liberate women to be true to their hormonal reality. Women's liberation made it taboo to be a natural woman, and it has demanded that she be like a man. — Athena

On point, Sis.

These morality thought experiments have variations to challenge one's answers to measure how consistent one can be. To me this is the only worthy point for spending time on these simulations.

The trolley, the bridge, organ transplant have layers of conditions such as, what if the 5 individuals in the tracks are criminals and the one person to sacrifice is a good man with family. Or what if the one individual is a family member.
The utilitarian answer will always choose the number of people saved, I suppose.

But, as I have always answered it based on virtue ethics-- maybe even deontology-- I will switch back and forth to stay true to the moral principles I follow.

One curious thing about these thought experiments is, they don't challenge you by asking, will you lay down on the train tracks to save 5 people, or let the doctor harvest your organs to save 10 people. I would answer, no. I would not give up my life except for loved ones.

I'm afraid you have to pay for the privilege. Only subscribers can upload their own avatars. — Jamal

Will you accept gift cards?

A lot of the good things in life are either "lies" or illusions. — Darkneos

All I know is I'm kinda short circuited because I don't know how to see or treat other people anymore, let alone myself. I don't know how to live, what's right, what to do, or....anything really... — Darkneos

I'm not sure if you should be in philosophy if this is how you feel. You have to have a grasp on the value of living before you can do philosophy.
I always say, develop some humility so that you're able to recognize life itself, its value.

A neighbor a few houses down waved at me while I was walking. He had in his hands a sealed bottle of wine. Could you help me open this please? His hands were red and swollen so that the fingers no longer bend. He was dying. I took him home to get the bottle opened. Then we walked back to his house. I continued my daily walk. A couple of weeks and I never saw him again anymore. A sister living in his house said good morning to me one morning. I never saw her in my life. But she saw me while peeking through the window, when her brother needed help with a bottle of wine.

So they would build something to protect and provide for is what you mean? I guess a business venture could function as a 'child' of kinds. Plenty of people refer to a business venture as their 'baby,' so perhaps there is something to this. — I like sushi

Yes. Many of them go for broke just to keep a business alive. And we don't have to think in terms of corporations.
Building a prototype is more than building a machine. It's their brainchild. It's emotional for them.

Protection of vulnerable/innocent. Seems like a reasonable substitute. Nurturing animals would seem like the most obvious substitute to raising children. — I like sushi

Yes, again.
Hint: motherland

- What happens if women do not want to be provided for or protected by men. Meaning, what do men do instead to fill this gap? — I like sushi

Then men build machines or corporations. Men are problem-solvers. Despite the popularity of money and wealth, men who build things do it for its intrinsic meaning and importance.

- What happens if women do not want to bear children or protect children. Meaning, what do women do instead to fill this gap? — I like sushi

They become rescuers of wildlife. They build wildlife conservation. They petition for the protection of natural habitats. They also fight for the preservation of natural landscapes.

@Gregory of the Beard of Ockham
Perhaps, a better way to explain intentionality is to contrast it with non-intentionality.
I am going to use a famous example, which in itself was not written as an intentionality thesis, but an epistemological one. The brain in a vat.

As you know, the brain is kept in a container and stimulated through artificial means, think of a computerized feedback. So the brain "thinks" of objects and feelings, but it does not have perception of these things. What ends up happening is, the relationship is only causally active one-directionally. This brain has no intentionality if the only thing (emphasis on only) that's keeping it active are the causal means.

Perhaps we are not understanding "intentional" in the same sense? As I understand the Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE), intention is what we want to happen. If the person throwing the switch wants F to die, that's murder. If he doesn't, that's another matter; the death is not intended. — Gregory of the Beard of Ockham

Okay, I see that there's quite a work needed to be done here. Intentionality is not what you think it is if we're going to talk philosophically. Intentionality is about our mental states when those mental states are directed towards, say, objects, events, fantasy, etc. If I have a concept of the train tracks, and it brings me the feeling of fear when I think of the train tracks, I have intentionality. That's why its narrative is that intentionality is mental. If you know what switching the tracks mean, and you don't desire to switch the tracks, you are exhibiting intentionality.

Notice that it assumes the existence of DNA and RNA, and therefore organisms. It's not a theory of how DNA came into existence nor is it a theory of organic chemistry. — Wayfarer

Eerrgh, DNA and RNA are molecules.

"Well, I mean, if the absolute worst pieces of trash are going to arm themselves no matter what, no reason to deprive the good people who are actually worthy of life from being able to defend themselves." — Outlander

Hah! My kind of thinking.

So..well..then, is that a no?

Molecules don't do that - organisms do that. Molecules are acted upon by external factors. — Wayfarer

So you haven't heard about molecular evolution?

According to PDE, an act which has both good and bad effects is permissible provided that:

The act itself is morally good or indifferent: it is not an evil kind of act.
The bad effect is merely foreseen, not intended; it is permitted, not willed.
The bad effect is not a means to achieve the good effect.
The good effect must be a proportionally grave reason for permitting the bad effect. — Gregory of the Beard of Ockham

This is a roundabout way of saying "the end justifies the means". If that's your idea, then you are correct, I misunderstood you. So, yes, I don't hold this principle.

Now, I would throw the switch from track 1 to track 2. This satisfies the four conditions because:

The action of throwing a railroad switch is morally indifferent (unlike, say, committing adultery or bearing false witness).
I do not intend the death of F. If it were possible to save F as well as A-E I would certainly want to do so.
The death of F is not the means of saving A-E. If the switch were thrown to track 2 and F somehow removed from danger, A-E would still be saved.
The saving of five lives is a sufficiently grave reason for permitting the loss of one life. We have a net "save" of four lives. — Gregory of the Beard of Ockham

But I disagree with your analysis here. Anytime we act knowing that our action will result in something, that's intentional. Intentionality is about directional action. Yes, you do intend to switch the track and yes you do know what would happen.

Sorry, but the death of F is a means of saving A-E. It is because the scenario makes sure that by switching the track F dies. If somehow you are adding a "chance" here of F surviving, then, you are essentially changing the rules.

And finally, morality by numbers is grave for me -- killing one person is equally as grave because F was not destined here to die if we allowed the trolley to continue its path.

Perhaps you felt uncomfortable because he used your nickname (not your real name or identity. It is just a forum profile) — javi2541997

Plot twist! His real name is Philosophim!

It costs less than an average first world country's hourly wage to purchase a web domain on the Internet. And not much more thereafter to set up your own forum. This can be done even with little to no technical knowledge often in under an hour. There is no one on this site who is withholding your potential to live your desire, if it's something you believe is not or cannot be found here. — Outlander

Speaking of which, have you set up your site yet?

The correct choice is saving the five if existence is good. — Philosophim

1. If there is an objective morality, a foundation is "Existence must be good." — Philosophim

This needs further discussion. I don't think the existence of objective morality, warrants the conclusion that existence itself is good. Existence cannot be judged as good or bad.

Does intelligence have an origin, a time when it first appeared or is it like the nature of reality timeless and uncaused ? — kindred

Hoyle proposes that the universe itself possesses intelligence (hence the title!) which engenders life through finely-tuned physical constants (e.g., Hoyle's discovery of carbon resonance). Evolutionary Input: Earthly evolution is not solely driven by natural selection, but by the influx of viruses and bacteria from space, which can introduce new traits or even explain the rapid development of human intelligence. — Wayfarer

Intelligence has an origin -- it did not exist before RNA and proto-life. I think the disagreement would be over our attitude towards intelligence itself. We judge it emotionally, I guess. So that only mammals, for example, are awarded this name.

On the other hand, just because a molecule had developed a self-replicating property, it doesn't mean it is intelligent. Molecules can evolve and react according to the condition of their surrounding, but this is also not intelligence.

Then what you are saying is having five people die and you feel better about is better than reducing the deaths to one person but you feel about about it? I see this as more of a feelings argument than moral calculation. — Philosophim

Not a feeling argument.
But there is a moral actor -- me. I am part of the scenario. Why can't I decide?
The corollary to it is, what if it was my child that I had to kill?
What if my child was one of the five?

1. A train is on a track to kill five people. You have the option to switch the track, but there is one person on the other track who will die instead. The capabilities or moral impetus of each individual is unknkown.
There are no social ramifications or consequences for your actions. What do you do?

Answer: You throw the switch every time. If the existential value of each individual is unknown, the only reasonable conclusion is to assume all are equivalent. Thus saving five people vs one person is the objectively correct choice each time. — Philosophim

Train track revisited.

I have answered this dilemma before. So, another look at it is good. I still answer, not to switch the track even if it means saving five people. Sacrifice of one life in order to save other lives is never, to me, a sound moral choice. The reason being that I would intentionally kill one person. So I am agreeing with .

Killing some individuals in order to save a number of people is never a good moral foundation. The means doesn't justify the end. If the principle of killing one person to save multiple lives is followed, cruelty would not need to be scrutinized. We have real life examples of it through human sacrifice of children entombed alive in the mountain for the welfare of the village. Yes, one blunt force on the skull while the child was intoxicated should be recognized as cruel.

Hoyle’s reputation is mixed - it was he who coined the term ‘big bang’, dismissively, in a radio interview, but I like his maverick streak, and this book always really appealed to me. — Wayfarer

:grin: Will check it out.

But we will not encourage the same intent again and warn them if they act in such a manner again, they will be dealt with next time. — Philosophim

True. The whole thing is a fluke.

I've always been drawn to 'panspermia'. I have the original book on it, by Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasingha, called The Intelligent Universe, published around 1989. They argue that life on Earth originates from, and is constantly influenced by, microorganisms or genetic material arriving from space. They say the probability of life spontaneously generating on Earth is to all intents zero, with Hoyle famously arguing that the complexity of enzymes makes it impossible. Hoyle proposes that the universe itself possesses intelligence (hence the title!) which engenders life through finely-tuned physical constants (e.g., Hoyle's discovery of carbon resonance). Evolutionary Input: Earthly evolution is not solely driven by natural selection, but by the influx of viruses and bacteria from space, which can introduce new traits or even explain the rapid development of human intelligence. His colleague Chandra Wickramasinghe is still active to this day, in his native Sri Lanka. — Wayfarer

Fascinating!
This is, to me, the most plausible explanation -- that microorganisms have been around.

Nihilistic should be on the list.

In the news were pictures of the perpetrator of a $750 fraud. A 19 year-old decided to take money from customers of a fastfood restaurant without their knowledge.

Anyway, the point is, what about the multi-million dollar scammers in professional white collar fraud sitting in their big shiny buildings that are not being plastered online so we could also have fun feeling good about ourselves.

Oh wait. They do. Bernie Madoff.

The short answer is, of course, we do not know. — Questioner

This is a scientific response. "We do not know". :up:

It's okay to question abiogenesis. Other theories say the origin of life came from outerspace and was brought here on Earth. But, then the question remains, how did life start in the universe?

I had no idea how traumatized some members here are about physicalism. I searched for threads created in the past, and they were just as harsh as they are now.

So, with that said, I have decided not to engage with this topic anymore cause I feel it is insurmountable given the strong objection to this thesis.

A person attempts to rob a bank for money. While holding up the teller, they don't realize that there was a bomb about to go off outside that would have killed lots of people leaving the bank. Ultimately, the outcome of their stopped robbery was that they saved lives, but their intention was still a harm.

Intention is more about consistency under the law. While a bad intention can sometimes result in a good outcome, that is mostly accidental. — Philosophim

I disagree that the lives saved by the robbers don't count in evaluating morality. Pragmatism accepts that between two undesirable choices, the one that causes the least harm must be chosen. Even if it is only accidentally that they ended up saving lives. We must at least acknowledge that the consequence of their action has led to a better outcome. Remember that a lot of scientific discoveries that have been saving lives were accidental -- with no intention by the discoverer for a cure.

I know it doesn't look rational to think that the robbers' action should be given credit. But a gratitude should, at least, do the job.
In this case, we should set aside the primacy of intention and deal with the outcome.

I feel that you didn't need to be so vulgar and abrupt in your comment on what is after all a philosophical topic discussion. — Corvus

I wasn't. And I don't know what "abrupt" when reading posts in forums like this.

I gave the most accurate and realistic account of consciousness. But you somehow sound not only negative but also rude. I can only assume either you are hurt in your feelings for some reason or you are just obtuse and pretentious in your comment. Maybe both. — Corvus

First, I'm neither of the above. But I didn't think your post, which I criticized, should even be the question -- meaning, I expected more from you than posting nonsense like that.

@Clarendon I will try to provide some passages from philosophers related to the Vienna Circle. Herbert Feigl probably. At the moment I don't have an access to their writings.

Your comment sounds like a pretense just like what the politicians do and say. There is no logical or factual content in it. — Corvus

I'm glad you picked up on what I was trying to tell you about your comment. It's just nonsense.

First, physicalism does claim that everything that exists is ultimately physical, in the sense that all facts supervene on physical facts. Denying that physicalism is committed to this simply misunderstands the position. — Clarendon

Please provide me with some references to help me better understand. What is this "ultimately" you speak of?

Second, appealing to supervenience does no work here. Supervenience states a dependency relation; it does not explain how a wholly new kind of property could come into existence from a base that entirely lacks it. It is irrelevant, then, to the issue at hand. — Clarendon

I am not appealing to supervenience. This IS what physicalism is about. I did not invent it. The reason why you don't understand it is because you haven't read about it.

Third, nothing I have said denies that external stimuli affect the brain, or that there are correlations, mechanisms, and bidirectional interactions. Such observations are beside the point. They do nothing at all to explain how consciousness could arise from combining objects that entirely lack it. — Clarendon

Right. Keep on denying facts and place the domain of science into the hands of amateur philosophers.

So unless you think that supervenience allows you to get out what was never put in, you have not yet engaged with the argument. — Clarendon

You haven't been engaging in any meaningful argument in your own thread. What you do is keep denying facts and the proper argument to use.
You cannot ignore advances in science. You keep on using ultimate reality which has no sense when it comes to physicalism.

First, you misrepresent their view.
Then, from this misrepresentation, you created your own unsound argument.
Finally, you're going around in a circle.

I want you to provide citations since you're the one who bear the obligation to show that you are, in fact, presenting the view of physicalism in good faith.

It's not that hard.

You can study consciousness by science. But the problem is, you will not see or observe actual consciousness itself, no matter what you dissect and look into. It is not in the form of matter.

You will only observe the telltale signs, functions and behavior of consciousness from the conscious living people and animals. — Corvus

I don't know what else to make of this comment, Corvus, but to simply say if an opinion could be marked "Fail", this is it.

No one here, or in any philosophical writing I've read, is asking to observe the embodiment of consciousness. What would that look like? A square-triangular oblong?
And what does "You will only observe the telltale signs...from the conscious living people and animals" mean? Our whole constitution is conscious! It is certainly not just telltale signs.

First, I take it that 'problems' of consciousness only arise if you assume that physical things are what ultimately exist, such that consciousness has to be found a home in that picture (a project that is then problematic).

This is already problematic - for if making a particular assumption generates problems that would not have arisen otherwise, then the sensible thing to do is to give up the assumption, not double-down on it! — Clarendon

Clarendon, may I interest you in going back to your original post and provide me the opportunity to dissect it?

When you start your OP with First, I take it that 'problems' of consciousness only arise if you assume that physical things are what ultimately exist,, this is already problematic and doesn't do justice to the principles of physicalism. Physicalism is a supervenient principle -- the proponents of physicalism never claimed that the physical is what ultimately exists. I stand to be corrected if you could point me to the right direction.

A supervenient thesis doesn't claim that there's ultimate reality represented by only one entity -- that job was done by the pre-socratics. And we're not in that epoch anymore.
What physicalism claims is that there is causation, there is energy, there's science to support the entailment of consciousness. We have progressed so much in science that we can absolutely claim that the external stimulation can change our brain. Consciousness is not one way -- it is a bidirectional interaction between the external stimuli and the mechanisms in the brain.

↪Tom Storm
Maybe there is nothing to understand. If no one can lay it out, we might conclude that there is no argument―that is what I've been leading up to. You can't debunk or refute an argument that doesn't exist. — Janus

This is also an unacceptable admission. Consciousness is not some funky revelation that no one could produce a convincing argument.

First, let me say for the record that I sympathize with physicalism. No, in fact, I side with them and agree with their argument.

There is, after all, energy that drives all entities. If you actually listen to neuroplastic outside-in explanation of how, even old people's brain could create new neural connections and reinforce existing ones by doing increasingly complex tax, in which, learning gets difficult progressively.
So outside-in means there is an outside input of a challenge to perform certain tasks, and this input has been proven scientifically to have a profound effect on the wiring of our brain. And what's the common denominator between input and the physical brain? Energy. Energy is the driving force in perception.

Funny thing is, we unquestionably accept gravity as a fact -- we ourselves didn't even witness it. We were taught by people who observed that apple falls down, not up, from its tree.

If minds and meanings arise from purely blind physical processes aimed at survival rather than truth, then the fact that our thoughts reliably refer to the world and track its structure appears contingent or unexplained. Naturalism can describe how cognition functions, but it seems less able to explain why cognition should be about reality at all, rather than merely useful for navigating experience — Tom Storm

Yes: the purpose of this discussion is to focus exclusively on intentionality, without getting bogged down in the weeds of related material. If intentionality can’t be explained by a naturalistic view, then we don’t need the endless, tedious debate about consciousness which has been addressed on the forum in numerous ways already. This is about taking one small argument and trying to understand it. — Tom Storm

Okay, I get you.

The frustration with naturalism is that that their principles are not about intentionality, but causality. As you have already laid down on page 1 of this thread.

If you actually search among the mind philosophers where intentionality came from, you'd find yourself back again to the causal connection of our cognition with the structure of our brain. But intentionality, as you might have already pointed out, is not (or if you want to be argumentative, should not be) a necessity resulting from the causal relation. (We could have perception, but in the form of irrational or intractable occurences that don't give us meaning). It is its own principle and processes.

But I disagree with this view.

The autonomic bodily functions drive our intentionality also. We do not have much control over the arrival of hunger or thirst or fatigue. So, what to think about these bodily functions that make us want to eat -- and not just eat, but to choose what we want to eat?

He was also talking to those he was more positively inclined toward, such as Kierkegaard and James. — Joshs

Okay. :up:

I’d like to better understand the argument that intelligibility cannot arise through purely naturalistic processes. Some naturalists will react to this idea, and I fear the discussion may end up in the somewhat tedious “how is consciousness related to a physical world?” type of threads. — Tom Storm

But your OP is about that -- how is consciousness related to the physical world, only that you stated it as if intelligibility could be extracted out of consciousness.

So, you've written a very good OP in terms of the naturalistic view, but you haven't really isolated anything from the hard problem of philosophy which is this: consciousness and the physical make up of the brain. If we could explain this, then we could explain intelligibility as it relates to the world.

Who is he talking to in the Philosophical Investigations? — Joshs


Himself — frank

I thought he was addressing the analytics. He had grown discontent towards this movement.

Stereotypes are only bad if they are inaccurate. In which case, they are not really stereotypes at all.... — Pantagruel

lol. :sweat: One of the most blatant double-talks I've read.

The reason why stereotypes are discouraged in social interaction and in formal analyses or studies is because it fixates people into a characteristic and turning this characteristic into their identity. Stereotype = identity.

People are more complex than their stereotypes.

But doesn't that just beg the question? — Arne

In what way it begs the question?

Spiritual meditation, while it does have the word spiritual in it, is the purification of mind and body, achieving the connection with the divine by letting go, momentarily, of the worldly/materialistic connections.

When we pray, we are actually acknowledging that we are human, with all our faults, trying to communicate to God for something. In fact, our prayers consist mostly of praying for success, for health, for a goal to come true, for happiness, for world peace, for safe travel. These are all worldly desires -- not saying they are bad, just that they are human desires. When we give thanks in our prayers, we are actually thanking God for the good things that come to us.

Even if they're not exactly the same, I'd say they're quite close. — Tzeentch

Jesus. Did you measure the distance in kilometers or feet?

I say, this is one of those cases where any difference seals it, and no amount of negotiation as to how far or close the definition is should change the nature of each.

Is the idea of 'philosophical counselling', a
wasteful project or something that acts
as a basis of potential?

Would you be content to rent an office and
get a signwriter to place your name next to
the title, 'philosophical counsellor'? — Alexander Hine

The ancients did have this. They were called sophós. Other names for other culture existed too.
So, in modern times, the nameplate on the door of your office should simply be "Sage".
If you were a sage, you had reached the pinnacle of virtue and wisdom and other thinkers or philosophers would pay you a visit to hear you speak.
I think you should try it. Good idea.

A friend once said, "Men are dumb and women are selfish".

That's a view the sums up her opinion of people. It's a very one-dimensional thought.
So, I responded: What are things that think with their dick? She said, "Yes."

In the news, a mother that lived with her children in squalor had one child born with a deadly SCID (severe combined immunodeficiency), though perhaps a milder form. So imagine the irony of the situation.

Without a proper facility in which to place the child, the mother decided to create the child's own bubble free of infection. All white, sanitized, bleached, dust free blankets within their tiny home -- all the rest of home could go dirty, but this child's space was kept immaculate twenty four hours a day seven days a week. The child at the time had reached the 5th birthday, and counting.

Any insights you can shed on this subject is valued. — Bret Bernhoft

I answered no. They are not the same thing. With prayers, we take our chances, with humility, to be heard. We acknowledge the power and graciousness of the God. So, whatever we pray for, asking for help or giving thanks, we are exposing our vulnerability and fears while being aware that we might not be heard after all because God has other plans for us.