It's important to keep in mind that for Schopenhauer, the will as thing in itself is the closest approximation to the thing in itself "unaltered" as it were, it's the closest approximation we have of it, but it's not the actual thing in itself - though he should be much more explicit than he was on this point, he does state this quite clearly in Volume 2, though the specific essay's title is currently eluding me.

The so called "referent" would be the simple act of will - energy in today's term - which can be felt all the time, made more explicit when, say, we move our arms or legs and focus on the act of moving it. Or if we attend to it by being observant of our breathing, and so on.

But, again, this is not exactly the thing in itself, just its closest approximation. — Manuel

:up: I think that's what's often missed about Schopenhauer's idea of will. You may think of it as your own, but it's something you share with Everything. I read that later in life he decided that the thing-in-itself is unknowable. Is that your understanding?

I don't think it was confirmed until they had super computers to run the models on.

If China can have a part 2, the US needs one. This aggression will not stand.

There was speculation, among some scientists, about the cooling effect of aerosols. — Mikie

It wasn't just aerosols, but that's beside his point, which was that he has doomsday fatigue from a lifetime of hearing about the end of the world.

That should be of interest to anyone who cares about the environment and wants to understand how people react to news of threatening conditions.

You may be thinking about this episode of Twilight Zone — EricH

Ha! Same plot. But mine was definitely in an anthology of old science fiction stories.

Scientists raised the issue of a possible pending ice age around about the mid 70's.

In a previous post I said that I remember the scare being in 1976 (my first year at university). — Agree to Disagree

I think that's because it was in the 1970s that historic geography took off. In the early 20th Century, they thought there had only been four ice ages based on what they saw in rock formations. By the 1970s they started understanding continental drift and seeing much further back. It was from analyzing the graphs of temperature undulations that they reasoned that an ice age was coming soon. They still didn't know what causes ice ages, though, so there was a lot of uncertainty.

Climatology has exploded since then.

Yes, I think that there has always been some level of doom hanging around for most of my life (I am now in my 60's). You don't really ever get totally comfortable with doom (because there is always a small chance that it might happen). My normal strategy is to ignore it or pretend that it doesn't exist. This explains why I was initially very skeptical about global warming. — Agree to Disagree

I'm guessing you'd have to buffer all that doom somehow: keep it at arms length to plan for your own future.

Yes, I lived through the fear of an impending ice age. — Agree to Disagree

I was reading some science fiction short stories and there was one where these people are struggling to survive the onset of an ice age, but then the protagonist wakes up and global warming is what's really happening. It was supposed to be about the psychological whiplash related to ice-age to global-warming news.

Yea, I don't think anyone thinks cattle farming is the culprit. It's fossil fuel consumption.

I remember in 1976 (my first year at university, doing Chemistry Honours, Physics, and Biology) when the news of a possible pending Ice Age came out.
— Agree to Disagree

:lol:

I think that’s climate denial bingo. — Mikie

No, that's you not knowing anything about history.

Most people do think that cattle farming is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. — Agree to Disagree

Mmm, I don't think so. Most people don't know the US government once did a massive study on cow farts to determine it's environmental effects.

But it's not true that their farts are absorbed by plants. Methane is lighter than air, so it travels from their butts straight up to the stratosphere.

The cow fart angle is still a current concern. Somebody has just developed a food supplement for cows that is meant to reduce methane by about 30%. — Agree to Disagree

I didn't know that. So they really think cattle farming is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions? As it turns out, there's another problem with American beef. They feed them corn, which makes American beef unusually fatty. It tastes good but it contributes to obesity, heart disease, and strokes. If they just stopped feeding them corn, Americans would be healthier, and not just slightly healthier, a lot more.

If cattle are also contributing to global warming, that would be another good reason to just cut back on producing beef. Or stop it altogether?

have seen (and lived through) many existential threats to humanity.
- All through my childhood the doomsday clock was sitting at 5 minutes to 12 (fears about nuclear war between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R) — Agree to Disagree

So you have literally never known a world that didn't have doom hanging over it. Does that mean you had to get comfortable with doom? How did you deal with that?

fear of the impending ice age — Agree to Disagree

Right. I've read about that, but you lived through it?

I think that the awareness of global warming grew out of the work of some scientists (e.g. James Hansen) and was picked up by the environmental movement that was already worried about (non-CO2) types of pollution and other environmental disasters (deforestation, mining, loss of habitats, extinction of species, etc). — Agree to Disagree

Was acid rain abd ozone depletion also part of it? I read that there was overlap with those things and an amplified greenhouse effect. Same scientists?

I'm contemplating a thread about Davidson's project. It would be a long one. — Banno

Nagase is a great resource for Davidson. We'd be lucky if he had time to stop by.

Isn't my initial example of methane from cows an example of the difficulty of fighting climate-change. — Agree to Disagree

Unless I'm mistaken, the cow-fart angle is from the 1990s? Or 1980s? This makes me think you've got some age on you?

My question is: do you remember days before people made a big deal out of climate change? Like a few people knew about it, but most people were completely unaware?

If so, what was that shift like: toward a kind of fervor developing around it?

Realism is the view that there are true statements that are unknown. — Banno

I'm sure you've addressed the issue of unstated statements and such. I don't remember how you did it though.

Yrs, in much the same way as Antigonish is about a little man who wasn't there. — Banno

But you didn't rule out the unknown or unknowable reality. You just said that talking about it is useless. Wasn't Wittgenstein saying that even addressing whether there is an unknown reality is language on holiday? Isn't that what getting to the top of the ladder means? Realizing that?

like most folk, agrees with you, but only when someone else is doing the cheap ad homs. — Banno

I don't how this happened, but everybody on this forum has decided to treat me like shit. What the hell?

Maybe I do and maybe I don't, but I get the feeling that you getting a feeling isn't terribly authoritative. It's a bit cowardly to resort to cheap ad homs instead of, I don't know, doing some actual philosophy. Fucking weak, bro. — plaque flag

Damn. Who peed in your cornflakes?

I get the feeling you don't know Hegel as well as you think you do. :wink:

I have been a steaming kettle of bad ideas which seemed like good ideas. — BC

I want this on my tombstone.

Never let a good crisis go to waste", but if global heating isn't a sufficient crisis what did you have in mind? Something spectacularly bad but which we still survive... — BC

I'm drawing a blank on what kind of crisis would do it.

If I can jump in, to me the big Hegelian insight against postulating a hidden Base Reality is that anything that's meaningful for us is caught up in our inferences --- the game of justifying our claims and explaining our deeds. If the Base Reality is given no inferentially significant relationship whatsoever to other entities, it's also given no meaning. If, on the other hand, it is caught up in such reason-giving, it's on 'this' side of 'appearance.' [ So we get a continuous flat ontology with no disconnected quasi-mystical disconnected points.] — plaque flag

I think the big Hegelian insight for postulating a hidden bass reality (I just prefer bass to base) is that the world we know is a dismantled cuckoo clock. That's all the intellect can deal with: partial truths.

The argument that seems salient to ↪vanzhandz's OP is that if one can say nothing about the mooted "base reality", then it is irrelevant to our conversations. — Banno

You aren't ruling it out, you're just saying you don't want to talk about it.

Meanwhile you are talking about it.

Yes, but if it happens it is global warming causing local cooling. Global warming may also cause more extreme weather; colder minimums and warmer maximums, but overall it is still global warming. — Janus

Yes. It would warm back up when it's over. It would be a local extinction level event for Europe.

Let that stand as emphasis. :lol:

That's why I think it's very difficult to see a clear path to a solution at this particular moment.... but you know, things can change quickly. — ChatteringMonkey

I agree. Also, philosophically speaking it's a case of Kierkegaard's sickness until death, which is that we can't carry certain aspects of who we are into this new world we imagine. We have to die to change, and it's hard to let go. A crisis would take that part of it out of the equation.

When it comes to massive efforts, what we're really good at is war. Society is reorganized top to bottom to find the way to survive. The population gives over easily to dictatorship, almost instinctively. Now it doesn't matter if people poo poo the effort. We've become a giant, intelligent, highly aggressive organism willing to sacrifice to achieve goals.

I think it would be in conditions like that that we would reorganize ourselves with a different energy source.

Still waiting for you to explain what problems exactly are unsurmountable. What "group" are you exactly a member of? Or are you just making things up in the hopes we take your unidentified problems serious? — Benkei

I haven't argued that climate change can't be addressed. I was simply explaining that this view is common, and that there are discussion groups where the general consensus is that we won't be able to avoid the worse case scenario.

I have no interest in convincing you of anything. You're free to believe what you like as far as I'm concerned. :up:

Somebody keeps making these kinds of news blurbs about Florida and then they're picked up. I've fallen for it too. In this case, if you look closer, you'll see that the PragerU videos that are allowed for young children are the ones that explain how the US government works. Their stuff does have a conservative bias, but nothing unholy.

The news in this case is that someone was concerned that this opens the door to the use of climate change denial stuff (not climate-denial, there's no such thing. :lol: )

The cost of winning an argument is that now they hate you because you made them lose.

Spell out that position more clearly because stated like this it's patently absurd. — Benkei

They think the challenges to avoiding climate change are insurmountable. They think we'll have to adapt.

You understand that "climate denial" is an umbrella term, that should not be taken absolutely literally? — unenlightened

I hadn't heard that term before. You're saying it includes people who accept climate change, but don't think there's anything we can do about it? And anyone who expresses that view is shitposting?

This conversation has made me sad. I'll probably not respond further.

Yes. We do not discuss flat Earth theory, because it is nonsense, and would prevent us from having sensible conversations. The climate 'debate' is as over as the flat Earth debate, and the smoking/lung cancer connection debate. To give the impression that it is not over will cost lives, and slow down efforts at mitigation. — unenlightened

So how about just walk away? Why mistreat the person? Walking away has the benefit of leaving the door open, should he change his mind and decide you're right. Attacking him just leaves a bad taste in the mouths of all who witness your abuse.

To give the impression that it is not over will cost lives, and slow down efforts at mitigation. — unenlightened

In this case, the person we're talking about has not given the impression that climate change won't cost lives. He hasn't denied climate change.

Can we let that sink in for a moment? He hasn't denied climate change. If you think he has, then you've bought into the words of a bully.

What he has done is express the belief that there isn't any way to stop it. A lot of people feel that way, and they have good reasons for it. If you feel that skepticism about avoidance is unworthy of consideration, then you'll have to exclude the IPCC from your sensible conversations, because they have now shifted to looking at the prospects for adaptation in the various global zones they consider. I linked the link earlier.

I belong to a science and technology group where the consensus has long been that there's no way to avoid climate change. If you came into that community demanding that people reconsider this, they wouldn't attack you as a naive fool. They would just smile. But if one of them did decide to attack you, I would stand up for you and demand that they treat you civilly.

That's all I'm doing here.

You appear to be rationalising that your interventions here will not hurt anyone, but you may be very wrong. If Mikie is right, then you are giving aid and comfort to those who for whatever reason are actively preventing people from reaching a consensus that would allow a collective response to a crisis that will cost many lives. A high price for us to pay for your delusion of innocence. — unenlightened

By this scenario, intentionally misinterpreting and belittling people is the way we achieve consensus. Do you really believe that?

The problem for me, is that I don't think I'm smart enough to know when I'm deluding myself.
— frank

But it doesn't stop you telling us how to behave. So it looks like your claim above is one of your delusions. — unenlightened

I could be deluded, yes. But if I am, I didn't rationalize that it's ok to hurt people.

Yes indeed. But, again, pretty standard (ie, average) for a climate denier. — Mikie

He hasn't denied climate change. I'd like you to stop bullying by intentionally misinterpreting him.

But in an emergency, what is moral changes — unenlightened

The problem for me, is that I don't think I'm smart enough to know when I'm deluding myself. I'm American. I have a heritage of rationalizing crimes because it was supposed to be necessary for survival.

I learned that it's better to die than to believe there are times when evil is ok. I think there are bullies in this thread who are unjustly attacking a person. I should speak up.

It is civility and civilisation that are under threat. Civility has to stop at the point where the conditions for its existence are threatened, just as 'freedom' does. Your moral scruples will not save us here, but are themselves out of order. It's a climate emergency, not a climate chat show. Let us resist catastrophe, by any means necessary, even including being a bit rude occasionally. — unenlightened

There is never a time when it's ok to be immoral. Never.

Yours is a god-of-the-gaps approach to climate denial, even going so far as using the fact that it’s WORSE than some scientists anticipated as proof that they may be wrong about all of it. — Mikie

That's not what he said. I'd like you to stop bullying by intentionally misinterpreting. Let's be civil.

It’s worth pointing out that ChatteringMonkey provided substantive responses to @Agree to Disagree, all of which was ignored in favor of other posts— posts that can be brought into the realm of subjectivity, where anyone can have an opinion. — Mikie

Again, he hasn't denied climate change. He just doesn't believe there's anything we can do about it, and he believes there will be some benefits from it, which is true.

Let's be civil, ok?

How is it winning exactly if I must spend resources on adaptation when I'd rather spend time on leisure? — Benkei

?

You have a right to think whatever you want.
— frank

Says who? And with what authority? It has always been the case and will always be the case that one does not have the right to think what one likes. If one thinks that all Jews should be exterminated, or that children need introducing to sex by pedophiles. one ought to be locked up, and very likely will be sooner or later.

I have no doubt peddling lies about the climate will be similarly regarded once the effects of climate change begin to bite and the megadeath toll begins to mount. — unenlightened

I probably should have said, "I respect your right to think whatever you like about climate change." Because I do.

Are you here pretending this hasn't been extensively dealt with in the IPCC? The limited local benefits are far outweighed by the negatives. It's not a balancing act at all. We overwhelmingly lose. — Benkei

If you look at the 2022 IPCC impact report, you'll see that they examine adaptation prospects. In other words, even the IPCC has begun to be skeptical about avoiding climate change. It may be that we win by adapting.

Well, you seemed confident! And one would have thought a global cooling event could at least serve as a counterweight to catastropic heating. — Quixodian

Yea, no.

I am more worried about population explosions, global famines, plagues, water wars, oil exhaustion, mineral shortages, falling sperm counts, thinning ozone, acidifying rain, nuclear winters, Y2K bugs, mad cow epidemics, killer bees, sex-change fish, and cell-phone-induced brain-cancer epidemics. — Agree to Disagree

Okey dokey.