You can't see where a bird would fly until you've released it from its cage. — Judaka

Unless it's a crow. This morning I witnessed a crow trying to cross a crosswalk on a wide intersection. A driver trying to make a right turn couldn't wait until the crow was out of the way, so driver went ahead and took his turn. The crow sensing the car coming towards it took to the air and flew the length of that intersection at the height of 3 feet all the way. What a sight! The bird might be thinking, "I'm gonna cross this fucking crosswalk if that makes you unhappy!".

And after a while you start to ignore the bullshit and just do the job. — Metaphysician Undercover

It can be learned, yes. I reserve the special treatment of just quitting to a very few instances. The fight is not worth it. I pick my battle.

So what kind of philosophy helped you with that self control ? Was that something you read or something you learned over time by yourself ? — Skalidris

Would you believe Ethics and Metaphysics?

Ethics I don't need to explain further. But metaphysics -- well, appearances can be deceiving. I have treated "what's real" at the very moment with "this is my brain telling me what's in front of me, but there are other things going on that are hidden from me. I need to, also, assume the presence of certain things that's hidden from me." So far it hasn't hurt me, and it only helped me.

You mentioned rationality, but to me, you could be rational without caring about philosophy at all. — Skalidris

If you want to be a robot and be transparent, yes. That's to your own defeat, though. Rationality without philosophy will suck your soul. And I need to hold down a job. So, what's keeping me sane is my soul. When I abandon something, pangs of guilty feeling would creep up on me, but philosophical rationality would get me back from falling.

I must admit I'm biased to a more sustainable option. — ithinkthereforeidontgiveaf

Then that would be the men's decision. They're the ones who decide what's sustainable long term. And so we find ourselves in this reality that we're in now.

I find the very opposite. My dealings with other people cause me a lot of stress, and keep me awake at night. Then I need to deal with myself, so I pick up some good philosophy to read and I fall asleep almost immediately. So philosophy is really good for dealing with myself, by allowing me to ignore my dealings with others. — Metaphysician Undercover

We're not in disagreement. Trust me, I've met all kinds of people because of my work. If I did not use self-control and command of my emotion while sitting in front of them, I'd fall apart, too. I've walked away from a couple of jobs because the bullshit was just not worth my time.

If men wanted to, they could enslave women.

I know it reads really extreme. But it’s the truth. Men could do it, they just don’t.

So, if women are biologically more important than men, but men are stronger and could override that women superiority,

What is the most coherent way to conclude this? — ithinkthereforeidontgiveaf

Mass suicide.

Women could deny that important function, which is the womb.

You are forgetting that in nature, the need to carry something in the womb is fostered by the favorable environment. Females wouldn't want to bear children if it's not conducive in the environment they're in.

'm asking you : has any of your reasoning/reading made a big difference in your life ? — Skalidris

Yes. Mostly in my dealings with people. The rationality has a lot to do with it.

Argument:
1. The consumption of meat will never be perfectly ethical, but the consumption of well cared, pasture-fed animals, is much more ethical than factory-farmed animals and is beneficial to human health.
2. A vegan diet is directly morally ethical, as it does not involve direct animal suffering, however, it may have indirect ethical issues given the environmental and health impacts.
[For the sake of the argument, please assume the scientific side of premises 1 & 2 is true]
3. It is more ethical to consume humanely raised animal products for the sake of human health and the prevention of climate change. — Louis

There is a jump between 2 and 3. Where's the missing link?

I think it's necessary for, at least, lowering demands for food production (re: impacts e.g. agricultural deforestation) and depletion of highly-stressed fresh water aquifers and wetlands as well as the number and frequency of regional military conflicts (massive carbon emitters) over scarcer arable land, etc. — 180 Proof

Yes, this. But to lower demands, we must lower the population, or find substitute nutrients. (You mentioned reduce population in your earlier post). In any areas of people's lives, consumption has always been a linear increase, never a decrease, unless an item we're used to consuming in the past had been deemed poisonous or cancer-causing food. It would take a governmental action, such as in the subject of smoking, to stop the population.

So perhaps a better way to put it would be, "nothing ventured nothing gained, and that includes not gaining stuff you don't want," since when you do venture you might get what you want, but you also take the risk of getting stuff you don't want, namely pain. — HardWorker

Yes, you can put it that way. But, the word I had wanted to hear is vulnerability. When we ventured out to do something, we are exposing ourselves to the elements, so to speak, that is, we are vulnerable.

:razz:

You risk pain, that's how I see it. When you don't get the job promotion you wanted its painful. When you don't get into the college you wanted to get into its painful. When the girl that you wanted so much to have as a girlfriend tells you no when you ask her out its painful, ect. So I would say you risk pain. — HardWorker

Yes, this is the harm. But it's not considered a loss.

:up:

We tend to value the things culture tells us to value (unless we fancy ourselves as outliers).

There's that nice quote by Francois de La Rochefoucauld - People would never fall in love if they hadn't heard love talked about. — Tom Storm

This is good! But yes, there are outliers. I tend to be one. It's actually sort of empowering when you desire something that no one, or very few people would pay attention to. And don't get me started with attraction. I assure you that my taste is not your taste, or anyone here in the forum.

Is this correct? Can cravings or needs not be engineered by socialization or marketing which generate needs where naturally, there might not be any, or only a bud of interest that never sprouts? — Tom Storm

Are you talking about indoctrination? Like "subliminal message"? Then, no, I'm not talking about that, nor am I talking about brainwashing. And I think I misspoke when I said "psychological". Let me correct that -- I meant physiological need, like thirst.

And so the whole project of putting a positive spin on things. — schopenhauer1

No. It's where the emphasis is made: A wanting or a craving is a psychological need that one has no control over, like thirst. Deleuze, on the other hand, seems to have defined it as inspiration ("an inter play between positive forces). When one is inspired by a great writer, one desires to write a great book someday, like his idol.

Unlike computers which can generate self-reports, humans can't or if they attempt to, it all comes out wrong. — Agent Smith

Most likely.

To me, trying to deal with capitalism using various theories like Marxian, laissez-faire, socialism, communism, or free-market is like trying on different shoes hoping to alleviate the bunions that had grown so large and permanent. You can't excise it, and can't remedy it by trying on different shoes.

The best way to regulate a system, is when you have governance influenced by the people involved. — Philosophim

Yes.

It's not like, all of sudden, because of Laissez-faire, everyone's chance of peaceful success becomes equalized. No. Those at a disadvantaged would still be in that situation. Except now, you don't have the government to run to when you got screwed.

Do not believe this bullshit of the inequality of the economy would straighten itself out. It is never designed to be so. The rich would want more because when the prize is the moon, then a 100 billion dollar wealth wouldn't suffice anymore.

Better yet -- this is how things are now. Used to be the playground is the world, the grounded world. Then, we've expanded to the ocean and uninhabited frozen vast of lands. Finally, the space exploration. That's now a vacation dream.

Clever little devils!

I should've taken a picture pre-Covid and then one post-Covid. I would've got a rough idea about what Covid does to people. — Agent Smith

Okay that, too. But I meant to your mind or attitude.

I'll take what you said about me as a compliment! — Agent Smith

What has covid done to you these days?

Well, I just recovered from Covid (my 3 jabs helped) and now I have a mild bakcache. I hope the question wasn't rhetorical. — Agent Smith

Covid?

Of course that was not a rhetorical question. If I'd do that, I'd insult your intelligence first, followed by a jab.

How the fuck did you get covid by posting everyday on the philosophy forum? We can't breathe or sneeze at each other here, dude.

would it not be circular reasoning to suggest "existence is preferable over nonexistence because x", with x being a reason that pertains to existence e.g., "you can only experience happiness when you exist"? — ratgambling

Yes, this is actually a fallacy. I don't know the name -- maybe false equivalence. But yes, close to circular reasoning.

The correct way to put that argument is to put the subject, the person, in two different situations and argue that one situation fosters happiness, while the other does not. The incorrect way is the one you pointed out -- cancelling the subject altogether in one situation.

How are you doing?

False dichotomy — 180 Proof

Yup.

If you're right that everyone is wrong, then not everyone is wrong because you were just right. — Hanover

Genius!

There is no program to be found in the brain. Neither in nature. — Haglund

And not for the lack of trying. Some things aren't programmable. Dualism got it right The brain you can copy as it is physical. But the mind cannot be captured in a module or whatever medium it is you're thinking of.

I'd have said that it was a replacement of everything below the neck, not above it. You didn't get a new head. The head got your body. You're gone. — noAxioms

Funny you say this. Our identity is tied to a mirror, if I may say so. I almost agreed with you -- but then, first thing you look at if you want to know if you're still you, is your reflection on the mirror. You don't question why your mind has changed.

Just look at our societies -- a valid identification of your personhood is one that has your picture on it.

This is just a small side question, for my own internal databases. Do you think dualism is on the rise, stagnant or on the wane or does the number of others who hold a similar viewpoint to you, not matter to you, when it comes to dualism? — universeness

It doesn't matter to me the number of others who hold similar view. I don't check statistics like that. But maybe it's fair to say that science or scientism has always been the anathema as to why dualism might be treated with a lot more skepticism. Extra-physical claims such as those having to do with the mind are almost to be avoided if we are to remain the technology that we are already, right?. I mean trillionaires building their own spacecraft to go to space. Body or head transplant that totally ignores the mind -- this is the ultra-physical. Like, who cares about the mystery of the mind if we could transport ourselves across the universe.

Do we not 'extract' roughness from our mind by 'pattern matching,' it with smoothness.
I would describe roughness as bumpy bits and indented bits and smooth bits that you can feel when you touch the area with your skin organ. Would you describe 'roughness' (as applied to physical surfaces,) differently? — universeness

If we really could extract textures from our mind, then couldn't we just pass on this trait to our offspring and let them experience roughness without setting foot outside? Why, until now, the children could not have all the sensations that the parents had experienced and stored in their brains? Why do babies need to be trained in all aspects of their existence in order to become a normal human being, let alone survive?

I always ask a dualist if they are willing to give me their personal view of a physical location(s) for where they think the part of their (or all of their) mind exists outside of their brain.
In the past, I have had answers such as, In the heart, in the body, in superpositions, in gods database, with god, in an omniconsiousness. Do you hold with any of these? — universeness

There is no location of the mind, there is, however, a location of the brain. Now, obviously we can't crack open every human's skull to see if the brain is there. But for the many autopsies and studies done on humans, we know that the experts had identified the brain as that mass inside the skull of humans.

That's why it's always an error to compare thinking with computing. In computers, everything has a location. There is no "mind" in computers. Only humans, and some animals possess the mind.

A corollary to this is, "Would you mind if we use mice head on you since that's all we've practiced up to this point of your accident? Or a monkey, maybe you'd look better with a monkey head."

If someone told me they were going to duplicate and replace my brain with a mechanical one (and dispose of the organic one), I would consider that death. However, if they could replace it incrementally and guarantee I was conscious the whole time, I don't consider that death, Does anyone else share this intuition? — RogueAI

Are you asking this for purely philosophical inquiry, or for medical science and the public?
It always puzzles me whenever an attempt is made to transplant a head. Recently, they had transplanted mice heads. It lived for a day. But there's also a procedure done on monkey decades ago. The monkey survived for hours.

My question is, what is it that transplanting a new head to a person warrants the resources and difficulty and succeeding medical care for this person to make it worth it to transplant a head? It's not like humans are rare. Or one person is so unique that there's never gonna be another one like him to walk this earth.

I'd like to know the practical use of this. We know that face transplant had been done -- but note that these people who had undergone face transplant had a compelling reason: their faces were destroyed by their pets or some other entity, but they're pretty much alive and well. They could go on with their life after the face transplant.

But head transplant is another matter. If your injury is so horrific that your head was decapitated during the incident, the head transplant procedure would take too long to benefit you and success rate is worst than getting hit by a lightning 3 times.

First, where are they going to get the new head? Decapitate another healthy human being? It's not like we have a storage of fresh heads in the refrigerator ready to be transplanted in case one of us got hit by a scythe in one swoop making a clean, surgical cut -- and mind you, you can't use a scythe against your head, another person must perform the decapitation because it has a long handle and a long blade.

So then, say you are now decapitated and needed to be transported to a hospital -- you'd think the nearest hospital would do? No! It has to be a facility that performs regular head transplant. Ask where in the entire world this hospital is located? Nowhere. We do not have a facility that performs head transplant on a regular basis. It's not a cancer hospital.

I Am so boooooooooreeeeeeed out of my mind that mere thought of going to sleep hurts like needles and something like burning - specific feeling from boredom! I Am literally so bored, I Am trying to survive next smallest unit of time. — empleat

This is depression -- clinical. You should try to see a therapist.

That's another exchange! I don't hold with any posit that the human 'mind,' exists beyond the human brain. Are you a dualist? — universeness

Yes, I am. First things first -- materialism holds water, a lot of water. Perception won't be complete without body and mind. But the causality that happens with body organs perceiving, say, a color, or hearing a loud bang, come to us in a completely stripped down data. It's the mind that interprets what we perceive. Earlier I said, roughness can only be experience using our organs for sensing textures. Though it reaches our mind, we can't extract "roughness" from our mind.

I think that ends this thread for me. Thanks for the exchange. — universeness

Don't leave just yet. You'd lower the overall IQ of this thread if you did. :joke:

How is that viewpoint any different from those who claim that we can never know the full workings of the human brain or how consciousness is created and therefore be able to replicate it. — universeness

Correction. It's not the human brain that's being uploaded, per OP. It's the mind. Not the same.

My point is that what was once considered absolutely impossible, is emerging in today's world. Across the board, this is true. So while we may not be able to conceptualize (or even agree on) the potential ability for computers to capture, hold, move and evolve human minds right now, the future looks bright for these kinds of technologies. — Bret Bernhoft

It has nothing to do possible or impossible. You're still not getting the point. To this day, what have been made possible by science have always been grounded in material reality. The DNA structure was once unimaginable. But now we do have the structure. But only because it is grounded in physicality.

Let's discuss premise 2. Ehrman says that miracles "violate the way nature naturally works" and that "by definition, a miracle is the least probable occurrence." — lish

This is simply confused. "Probable" is not the same as possible. If something is probable, there is high likelihood it will happen. Possible is simply "could" happen, like miracles. Please get that straight.

:up:

Science needs to be put in it's rightful place. As one culture amongst many. It should absolutely not be given political power as it has nowadays. It's fun to do science but it has it's limits and certainly not the answer to all questions. — Haglund

Tell them, Haglund.

There. See above.

Just out of interest, what do you think Joshs has missed? — Tom Storm

I wasn't responding to Joshs. I was reacting to I like sushi.