A rigid form of system that can only be changed by a large amount of all its citizens, say 90% of all people need to be behind it to make substantial changes. — Christoffer

Flexible governments survive where rigid ones fail.

I'm of the opinion that a government should be run by only the competent and one way to make sure of it is to ban anyone who can't form policy and politics that aren't for the benefit of the people and the nation. They need to show that they are stable individuals who work as actual representatives of their voters for the purpose of steering the ship with confidence and not malice. If people are angry about something, it does not help them whatsoever to align with someone who wants to basically take their voting power away from them. Sorry to say, but people are generally gullible and stupid and the only way to guarantee that they don't shoot themselves in the foot is to make sure that there's never ever any candidate who can take advantage of their gullible nature. — Christoffer

It's strikes me as very strange that you think you're a supporter of democracy when you think people are too gullible to make their own choices.

If people cannot imagine a society in which both freedom of speech, and an intolerance against the anti-democratic authoritarians can co-exist, then they're not really thinking beyond the shallow. — Christoffer

Maybe. Monarchy is a very robust form of government, even more so when linked to a state religion. We'll pretty much all go back to monarchies as climate change sets in. Democracy is just a tool. It's not a good in itself.

Number of deaths in WW2

What I meant was that the idea of speed running society to preferable changes by overthrowing democracy is what childish minds think leads to a better world. I'm not saying that such childish minds exist all over society, but it says something about the knowledge and intelligence of the population if such ideas remain into adulthood. — Christoffer

I'm not sure why you think this. All ancient democracies ended in tyranny. What makes you think we would be different?

The attitude of Putin towards democracy and democratic leadership with term limits is shown perfectly clearly in this comment. — ssu

He's right though, isn't he? The US makes a schizoid global leader when there's no existential threat to keep things on track. The world needs an emperor. Not exactly like a Dune emperor, but similar.

I want to be a reindeer herder when I grow up.

I think such thoughts are young thoughts of rebellion — Christoffer

I think it might be you who discounts the possibility of a US dictatorship, not Americans. A lot of Americans want it now.

Why play his game? — jorndoe

Because he's the president elect of the United States.

All cool stuff. Thanks!

What I know of Taylor appears in your quote, so feel free to fill in the details of what I don't know. — Hanover

Taylor was brought up by Joshs. I think the idea was crime and victimhood are sources of the idea and experience of the self.

The little book I'm reading was written by Hagberg and his focus is the autobiological self. He brings up Cartesianism because he wants us to wake up to the way that paradigm secretly influences the way we think about the self (which among other things, has us imagining that we have a vantage point on the self) and he wants to talk about the psychological reinforcement for the idea. He talks about how Schopenhauer shows up in the Tractatus and how things were tweaked later on. I'm a fan of both Schopenhauer and the Tractatus, so I'm digging it.

What I don't see though is why I could not be a Cartesian and fully agree with Taylor. Cartesian dualism posits a mind that has a free will that is subject to moral evaluation. Wouldn't Descartes agree with Taylor's assessment of the significance of understanding morality if one wanted to understand humanity then? — Hanover

That's a good question. I don't know. Thanks for the questions!

He could very well dismantle everything through legal means until it grants him the power to take the next steps. Seen as many Maga zealots would fight for him, he could install them as his own agency/force to do his biddings. — Christoffer

That's Project 2025, which is a plan for removing all opposition to Trump in the government. His VP endorsed it, but Trump hasn't. His VP embraces "dark Enlightenment" principles, which basically says the Enlightenment was bullshit and we need to go back to monarchy.

For some years now I've also believed the US has problems that would best be addressed by a dictator, such as changing social norms that result from neoliberalism. I'm starting to understand why Lenin was opposed to democracy. Lenin was a monster, btw, I'm just saying I'm seeing the dimensions of the challenges he faced.

But the question remains... where is the line drawn? — Christoffer

I don't think there is one. He was elected for a reason: because he represents what the majority of Americans want the USA to be. This isn't evil or unnatural. History repeats itself.

Nah, humans are incredibly adaptable and naturally migratory. It will be like the early iron age. The sea peoples will be cruising all over the place, raiding, having fun, going back to Greenland to party.

An upload is just a copy, it's not me. It's not like there's some physical substance that is literally removed from my brain and placed on a computer for safekeeping. — Michael

Physical substance is removed pretty regularly from your brain, though. Brain cells eat and poop like all other living things. Do little bits of you go down the toilet with the neuron poop?

Because I certainly wouldn't. I understand that this would mean my death. — Michael

What if they could upload your consciousness and store it until the new body is ready?

Apparently he's going to let Elon Musk fix it. This should be interesting.

We could start with three headings:

1. Consciousness is at least potentially explainable
2. Mysterian (it's not explainable)
3. Don't know or don't care

It would be normal for any scientist to pick number 1. We might divide scientists by whether they believe science as it currently stands is capable of explaining it, that is, do we just need to complete work on the models we have? Or are we going to need new paradigms?

I think most religions offer some type of theory of consciousness in that they explain why it's here and what it's for.

Mysterians are philosophers like Kant, Wittgenstein, and Chomsky.

Now that I've looked further (with help from my friends), I don't see Cartesianism lurking as profoundly as I thought.

How would you characterize the difference between Damasio and Seth?

Presumably you can be a registered republican and still vote dem if you want? — bert1

Yes. In a lot of states you have to be registered with a party to vote in that party's presidential primary. Probably most of the people who chose Trump as the Republican nominee were registered Republicans, so around 30% of eligible voters nominated him.

One assumes registered voters vote their party and they're amazingly close to the same numbers. That means presidential elections come down to independent "swing" voters. A few states known as "purple" states are balanced enough that it doesn't take many votes to push the state one way or the other.

When Biden was elected, it was super close. This time Trump won pretty comfortably. This surprised a lot of us because Harris seemed to be doing pretty well.

About 30% of Americans are registered Republicans. There are a lot of independents.

. I really had to listen myself with my own ears in the House of Representatives on Capitol Hill a Republican representative (who I had no idea who was) gave a speech to the empty hall about how a big threat the FBI was to the United States — ssu

Yes. We're in weird times. I haven't quite put the puzzle pieces together to understand what it means. I've considered the possibility that there's been a lot more lead in the drinking water than anyone realized.

Do you think that's because they don't believe he's as much of a scumbag as the corrupt dems and justice system make him out to be? — bert1

Some people think he was subject to politically motivated attacks, some people think he's a scumbag, but that's in keeping their values. Some people just genuinely like his smug, insulting, uncouth persona.

I don't think there's any way Damasio could be described as a behaviorist. — T Clark

You may be right. Would you say he's reductionist wrt consciousness?

Do you think Damasio's description is consistent, or possibly consistent, with each of the three views you described in the OP? — T Clark

It's sort of a third viewpoint. It's not mysterian or Cartesian. I guess my theory is that Cartesianism is lurking in the shadows unless he's a behaviorist, which he might be. I'll have to investigate further.

So, how, if at all, does this type of description fit into this discussion? — T Clark

It makes the diagram bigger. Damasio sees identity as an ever changing aggregate. For instance, if you're staring at a woman and you ask yourself who you are, the answer might include the idea of being male, because that's what you are relative to her (or the opposite if you're female).

But if you're staring at a butterfly, your identity might change to include mammal. A rock: you're alive, and so on.

This ever-shifting collage is identity, and it's somehow made available to the "main distribution board" called the core self.

I think Damasio would be across or orthogonal to Davidson, Chalmers, and Wittgenstein. I dont know if he would sit with the behaviorists or not.

By the way, if anyone knows of a book that has this kind of diagram in it, let me know. I'd like to see it.

So my goal will be to continue with both Taylor's and Hagberg's thoughts and see what happens to the Cartesian self as we go. Can I maintain Wittgenstein's mysterianism? What happens if I try?

Must it necessarily lack a theory? — J

No. We can hypothesize, theorize, draw diagrams with different perspectives about intention, we can get scientific, religious, etc. It's possible that every one of these trails will lead to insurmountable conundrums for the very reason Wittgenstein explains: Tractatus 5.632 "The subject does not belong to the world but it is a limit of the world."

What I'm curious about is the different dimensions to our myths about the self. Why do we always fall reflexively back to a Cartesian perspective? I agree with Taylor above that morality and the emotions associated with it are the real power source for the self. My question is: is that always going to be a Cartesian self? I think it might be that everytime we go to explain the self, we'll automatically conjure some kind of independent soul. What do you think?

Wikipedia says this about Taylor:

The best account of human life, Taylor argues, must account for the moral sources that orient our lives. Such an account should explain the strong evaluations we make about particular modes of life and seek to identify the constitutive good upon which such strong evaluations about qualitative distinctions in moral value are made. By constitutive good, Taylor refers to a good "the love of which empowers us to do and be good."[5] The constitutive good—whether it be a belief in reason over desire, the inherent benevolence of the natural world, or the intuitively benign nature of human sentiment—orients us towards the evaluations that we make and the goods we aspire towards. — wikipedia

I agree with Taylor here, but think about the way it conflicts with this passage from the Tractatus:

5.632 The subject does not belong to the world but it is a limit of the world.

5.633 Where in the world is a metaphysical subject to be noted?

You say that this case is altogether like that of the eye and the field of sight. But you do not really see the eye.

And from nothing in the field of sight can it be concluded that it is seen from an eye. — Tractatus

I think most Trump voters just don't take any of his faults seriously. If seasoned military officers warned that he's a danger to democracy, people ignored it. This is why it was unfortunate that the media exaggerated the small things for the sake of increasing readership. It all became a wall of anti-Trumpism in which significant facts got lost. It all fed into his persona as the victimized underdog.

At my workplace somebody changed the computer backgrounds to a fierce eagle in front of the flag. That's Trump. He seems fierce and proud in a way that Harris does not. I'm guessing some people voted for that. She's coastal. He's central, if you know what I mean.

The Cartesian outline of the self has obvious faults, so what does it have going for it? In the OP I say that Cartesianism gives us a self that's available for analysis, both philosophical and scientific

But probably the more powerful anchor to the dualistic self is morality. Morality places the lone self on a pedestal. It's the image of this isolated entity that forms the horror surrounding abortion. We imagine the powerful emotions of love and hatred must have a substantial seat and object.

Hopefully any use will be limited. It would be nice if Iran would stop instigating conflict though.

If Roe got re-introduced as law, then you can argue, with some reason that the US is to the left of other countries on social issues. — Manuel

There are only 13 states that have banned abortion. There are 8 states that have no restrictions at all. The rest are about par with European countries, so I guess you could say the US is mostly socially progressive, with a touch of hyper-progressive, and a bit of retrograde.

Are you taking your own thread off topic? — Banno

Could be. Another version of the self is the world itself. If you want to know who you are, listen to what you say about the world. The world is a mirror.

Science is also an essentially communal activity. — Banno

So is religion. If you noted Michael's support for indirect realism, it was based on science. Science bears the marks of its Cartesian heritage

All that silly stuff about starting with perception and the thing-in-itself only has traction if one ignores the fact that we are ineluctably embedded in community. — Banno

In a way, the Cartesian self belongs to both religion and science. When we want a theory about the self that goes beyond art and poetry, we immediately conjure this isolated Perceiver. It comes from wanting to say something. :grin:

He will back a lot of Netanyahu's reckless actions for the next four years. — javi2541997

Could be a nuclear war. We haven't had one of those in a while. :smile:

It's a complex subject. The way it is currently structured is based on a system which basically gives German banks the power to control the value of the Euro based on German elite financial needs.

In an ironic twist, the European Central Bank is worse than the Fed. The only mandate the ECB has is to control inflation. At least the Fed attempts to keep unemployment low as one of its mandates, in addition to controlling inflation.

So yes, it is an Oligarchy - as everywhere else, but it has a very strange dynamic to it. — Manuel

I've been reading about it and find myself confused. Even proponents of the EU claim there's a lack of accountability.

It's understood that Trump will back an Israeli attack on Iran.

I've started speculating that the EU is actually an oligarchy. Thoughts?

Enjoy the moment buddy. :grin:

This is why conservative women have more chances to get the male vote, — Eros1982

Like Margaret Thatcher, yea. I've long thought that the first female president would be a Republican, but I thought Harris would prove me wrong.

:up: