Yeah, so I'll ignore you from on. :up:

Yeah, actually you did intend that.

Having a bad day, Cobber? — Tom Storm

Me? You're the one spitting on other people's experiences.

Yep

Yeh, pretty sure they have advertising in Indonesia. Very nice this time of year. — Tom Storm

Yeah, your experiences of life are likewise some bullshit off the television, I'm sure.

The idea that life is a competition just sounds like the dull and inchoate musings of advertising folk. — Tom Storm

It's in keeping with what a Korean guy told me about life there. Maybe the same is true in Indonesia.

Tyre Nichols was beaten to death by five police officers in Memphis, TN on January 10. All of the officers have been charged with second degree murder. All of the officers are black.

One of my favorites is the kind that Abraham Lincoln grew up with. It dictated that every person is born for some reason.
— frank

And more broadly, everything occurs for a reason. — Hanover

Yes.

Why do you ask if I'm open to it unless you think I have a choice in the matter? — Hanover

I don't know whether you're open to it, though I suspect not. I don't see how choice is involved here.

While determinism might demand that there be just one possible world, I don't see why it must demand that that one world consist only of that that who don't doubt determinism. — Hanover

You're free to believe whatever you like. You can't choose what you like, though.

The point here is that free will is a necessary prerequesite for the organization of our thoughts and our understanding of the world, without which nothing makes sense — Hanover

Because morality is fundamental to identity, I agree. But note that here, we're focusing on the way we're bound to think.

If you were open to it, I could show you why hard determinism is also indubitable (I'd stick to Schopenhauer).

What's left is to just be amazed that there is an insurmountable conflict within our intellectual make-up. I'd leave it Schopenhauer again, to point to what this implies.

But at the end of our Schopenhauer journey, we'd have to face the fact that we never strayed beyond noticing what we're bound to think. What does the way we have to think have to do with the way the world is? For that, we'd turn to Wittgenstein and become mystics.

You're saying that knowledge requires judgement, and judgment requires freedom to choose a direction.

The determinist would say that though the judge may sway back and forth, giving each account a fair hearing, being devoted to rendering judgement with no prior bias, he can ultimately only make one choice.

That choice is what he or she was always going to conclude.

It means you were going to do X. You have know way of knowing what you did, why you did it, or whether it was learned or always known. — Hanover

Why couldn't you know what you did and why you did it? Determinism just means there was always a 100% chance you would do x, realize y, etc.

Look at you with your JSTOR access. I can't read that until I go to work.

think you may be right about adversity being a good motivator. I am concerned that Christianity has hindered us in the need to learn of virtues and intentionally act on them until doing so becomes a habit, because Christianity is about being saved by the Savior, instead of being saved by our will to develop virtual habits. — Athena

Christianity is a platform for a multitude of outlooks. One of my favorites is the kind that Abraham Lincoln grew up with. It dictated that every person is born for some reason. It's up to the individual to discern what that purpose is by listening for the voice of God in the events that unfold around one. Lincoln was apparently sustained by this belief, I'd say in a way an atheist couldn't be.

Sure, and you were forced to say that by these constraints and me to say otherwise, which is the meaninglessness of determinism and which is even more meaningless to suggest we've figured it out, considering whatever we figured out was what we had to think regardless. — Hanover

How does determinism make it meaningless to learn? It just means that you were always going to learn x at time y.

When life hands you lemons, make lemonade.

but I've always been treated with courtesy and friendliness, and it was just better than I expected. — Wayfarer

I'm glad to hear that. :up:

as I now have two American grandkids (although they will be dual Australian citizens.) I get the Wisconsin is kinda dull, but Lake Michigan is something. — Wayfarer

True. I used to live in Ohio and I was enchanted by Lake Erie. I would so move to Australia if I had dual citizenship.

Cheese is important. Do you have something against cheese? — BC

I love cheese. NY style sharp cheddar is my favorite.

Who doesn't want to visit an ice castle made out of cheese curds? — BC

Good question. :chin:

Then there is bratwurst and beer. — BC

Columbus, Ohio also prides itself on its bratwurst. They have a festival and everything. It's so exciting.

Hey, let's not be denigrating the upper midwest. Wisconsin has several points of interest. — BC

Do they involve cheese?

I have family in Wisconsin. Lovely place, hope to be back there again in August. — Wayfarer

It's kind of unfortunate that you travel all the way to North America to visit Wisconsin. :confused:

If I want a laugh I might pop on Blue Velvet. — Tom Storm

There might be something wrong with you.

90 seconds to midnight. The closest it's ever been. Posted by people who are not idiots by the way. This cannot be forgotten, regardless of who one "supports".

It can tend to fade into the background given immediate deaths, but, it's a real problem. — Manuel

It's winter. We'll start back up in the spring.

Man on the Moon was pretty good.

The Shining
Hero (with Jet Li)
Young Frankenstein
Apocalypse Now
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
It Follows
Pandorum
Solaris (American version)
Adaptation
House of Flying Daggers

What? We can use the James Webb, land on the moon, calculate the age of the universe and the distance of galaxies all on the basis of the little we do know. Is this not real knowledge of the universe even if the science is incomplete? — Manuel

Telescopes and moon landings are engineering feats and it's a pet peeve of mine to assign their victories entirely to scientific knowledge. It's doesn't actually work that way, but that's beside the point. :smile:

There's no scientific findings published by Nature that address mind independence. This is an assumption arising from your worldview. I've said this several times now. I'm not sure why it's unclear.

So is there mind-independence in your view, or no? Like, do you believe all these is to the world and the universe are our thoughts about it? That's perfectly fine if it is your view. — Manuel

I have the same worldview you do. I'm just clearer on the arbitrariness of it than I think you might be.

Since Newton at least, physics has not been wrong — Manuel

Yes. My point was just that since it's incomplete, the claim you're making isn't really about science. It's a philosophical bias that's common during the time in which you live.

There's weight to scientific findings. You can't really borrow that weight to say there's a mind independent world.

To some extent it's a hinge proposition that there are mind independent things, but I don't know how much of your behavior really revolves around that hinge. I don't know how differently people behaved 5000 years ago.

I don't think these theories will be shown to be wrong (as was the case with Newton's theories), but obviously incomplete. — Manuel

We might be in a black hole. Physics isn't slightly incomplete. It's very incomplete. Physics doesn't indicate any particular ontology.

The alternative is that we created everything, including the world and that all we know are our ideas and nothing else. That's an extreme form of Berkelyianism. — Manuel

Plato would say we forget most of the Soul's wisdom when we're born. There are all sorts of alternatives. There's nothing wrong with our present worldview. It works well for us. But there's no telling what people will believe in a thousand years.

So you think the stuff physics describes wouldn't exist if we were absent? That is, there would be no such thing as an age of the universe, nor would there be things we call planets (after we arise and call them this) and events that led us to our evolving? — Manuel

Notice that in your previous comment, you added the caveat that our theories may have to be revised. Physics is in such a state that we really don't know how far from reality our intuitions are.

That means your claim pretty much reduces to: there is non-mental stuff that preceded us. That's not a conclusion drawn from any facts. It's an interpretation that's rooted in our present worldview.

Ok, so we have the same meaning of terms. So what's extra mental, like, if you look outside your window or go woods or something - what's extra mental in this environment? — Manuel

"Extra mental" would be anything that's beyond mental. It's an idea, not something you witness with your eyeballs.

I don't understand. What is extra mental, when we look at the world?

No, culture has nothing to do with my view. — Manuel

I just meant "not mental stuff."

I think your worldview is the basis for your belief that the world existed before there was anything mental.

This is all mediated by mind, but there are glimmers that we are seeing something extra-mental. Having a degree of confidence is the best we can do, given the circumstances. — Manuel

I don't think the glimmer of the extra-mental is seen anywhere. It's part of the structure of our worldview that we look out at a non-mental world. A few thousand years ago that would have sounded absurd. So the ground of your claim is cultural, right?

The problem is in most cases we can never know what might have exised in that gaping hole. — NOS4A2

Fire!!!

Acceptance

By all means, continue believing that nuclear devices can cause tidal waves then — Tzeentch

Ok. Thanks.

He doesn't mean that we are doomed or that we don't also do magnificent, selfless things, but this dark patch is there, waiting, and history tells us it doesn't take much to be activated. — Tom Storm

Right. Aggression is a two edged sword. We didn't take over the land surface of this planet by being model, moral creatures, although that has a place.

The question that's left is whether you can accept that, or does it make you grind your teeth to know that it will all happen again? Because that's wasted grinding, isn't it?

Well, had you asked me in 1944 or 1968 maybe I would have answered you differently. — Tzeentch

Physics hasn't changed that much since 1944, Tzeentch. You don't know what you're talking about.

well said

You tell me. — Tom Storm

How am I supposed to know? :grin:

Because the power of a nuclear device is dwarfed by the power required to cause tidal waves. — Tzeentch

But apparently the US military thought it was possible.

Only someone who knows absolutely nothing about military hardware would think nuclear torpedoes can cause tidal waves, so don't worry. — Tzeentch

They can't? Why not?

:up:

In organizations/governments there need just be factors/ideas overriding (positive) ethics, and atrocities can take place. — jorndoe

What kind of factors cause that?

Killing Jews was a crowd pleaser well before the Enlightenment. The Crusades had people doing it at home as well as abroad. — Paine

I know. But I think the average human would be left speechless by Dachau. It was just in another level. Although, people who witnessed conditions in Brazil during the slave trade reported Holocaust-like conditions where there was brutality for the sake of doing it. As @jorndoe pointed out, it's group think that does it.

"A pro-Vladimir Putin TV host, Dmitry Kiselyov, said in May last year that these torpedoes would be capable of causing a 500-meter [1,640 feet] high tidal wave of radioactive seawater, and that they could "plunge Britain into the depths of the sea". Newsweek

I'm starting to wonder if there's a big disaster at the end of this tunnel. (One which Russia won't survive).

Totalitarianism was a completely new phenomenon in the beginning of the 20th century, so it was not "business as usual" - something clearly changed.

Scientism may have played a role with its promise of final answers and singular truths. It is a way of thinking which is apparent in especially the Soviet system, where society as a whole was treated literally as a scientific equation with their planned economy. — Tzeentch

Exactly. This wasn't something that had ever happened before. Was it?