What else can it be? — NOS4A2

We're all baffled. :grin:

What is the view of Sunnis towards Shias? Do they reject entirely Shia Imam authority, or do they find them persuasive but just not binding? — Hanover

Various aspects of Shia Islam are deeply offensive to Sunnis. There's widespread mistrust of Iran among Sunnis, because they fear that Iran is trying to help bring Shias to power. Violent conflicts between them erupt from time to time, with abuse leading to more abuse ad infinitum.

There are pockets of progressive Muslims, like the one you quoted, who want to move toward interfaith, but that can only happen in societies that have separation of church and state.

(1) it's a radical Shia thing that the Sunnis are so divorced from they see no reason to respond, and (2) the Sunni structure is so localized and non-hierarchical that they lack the means to present an official comprehensive response. — Hanover

I think it's both.

Say there's an odd Jewish sect that does something bizarre. How would global Judaism respond? American Judaism?

But can we cope with it on the short-to-medium time range? — ssu

Yes. What I've been wondering for decades is whether civilization will survive the next 10,000 years. I feel broken hearted imagining that we're living at the end of an age, but on the bright side, it would give other lifeforms a break.

You've drawn a distinction here between the reactions of the Sunni and Shia but I can't find support for that anywhere. Do you have cites? — Hanover

The blurb you found from a Sunni imam was nice, but Indian Sunni imams are just respected elders. Their opinions are valuable, but they don't render binding rulings. To find something like that in Sunni islam, I think you'd need something like Saudi Arabia's type of Islam where the government backs the dictates of a particular family of clerics.

One of the reasons for this shortage of authority is that Sunni islam sort of froze doctrinally around the 10th Century. There's no way to update policy. If the Prophet waged war (which he did), you can't really say that violence is prohibited.

Here's a thing on imams:

"What is an Imam?
For Sunni Muslims, an Imam is typically the name given to the leader of worship in a mosque. These Imams would lead worship services and prayers, as well as serve as leaders in the community. Sunni Imams also take on the role of providing religious guidance to those in need of it. The only requirement for Sunni Muslims to become Imams is to study the basic Islamic sciences.

"For Shia Muslims, on the other hand, the role of an Imam is much more exclusive. Imams in Shia Islam are the unerring leaders of the community, second only to the Prophet Muhammad. What’s more, unlike in Sunni Islam, an Imam is not something that Shia Muslims can just become. This is because they believe that only members and descendants of the Ahl al-Bayt, the family of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad, can take on the role. In Twelver Shi'ism, which is the biggest branch of Shia Islam, there are only 12 Imams, the last of which is Imam Mahdi who they believe will return at the end of times.

"How is an Imam selected?
Again, the process of selecting an Imam differs depending on the sect of Islam. For Sunni Muslims, an Imam is chosen at the community level. This essentially means that the members of the Muslim community choose someone who they deem as wise to be an Imam. It is a requirement that all Imams have a good knowledge and understanding of the Quran. This includes being able to recite it correctly and eloquently.

"In some cases and communities, Imams are specifically trained and recruited for the role. However, in other, typically smaller, Muslim communities, Imams are simply selected from the pre-existing members of the community.

The supervision of Imams is also done at a community level, as there is no appointed governing body to do so. here

But the stuff you've presented and referenced, in this thread, if it is claimed to be science, is really pseudoscience — Metaphysician Undercover

If it was published in Nature, it's science.

The fatwa was from a Shia. 15% of Muslims are Shia, the rest are Sunni. I don't know if Sunnis would feel the need to address a Shia issue. Sunni leaders don't have any authority over Shias.

Having the moral higher-ground is of what value if our efforts don't ultimately matter? — Hanover

The Chinese are building lots of nuclear power plants, which everyone should be doing. If Europe actually does wean itself off Russian oil and gas, that would help.

I agree that democracy isn't the organizational structure for this problem. Totalitarianism would work.

Philosophers fear being deceived more than others ? — Pie

The only people who don't worry about being taken for a fool, are fools.

What I am saying is that language has social utility, but only to the extent that meaning is retained, and meaning is only retained as long as most people tell the truth most of the time. — unenlightened

True.

For the believer, the world 'is' P. — Pie

The believer should probably recognize that P could be false, else she'll have no chance of avoiding being a victim of a big fat lie.

But that's what I was saying earlier; that sea ice formation increases salinity and drives circulation and sea ice melting reduces salinity and slows circulation (other things being equal). — unenlightened

Yes. I'll have to look into further.

Thus to the extent that we live in a world of language, we live in a moral social world in which the truth has value and falsehood is destructive of meaning of society and of our world. — unenlightened

But where I live, it's common to see birds feigning injury. If you walk near their nests, they'll try to lead you away by flapping on the ground. They're just protecting their offspring. So maybe it's not always evil.

This is another interesting factor: brine rejection

Pay attention to his solution, which I find interesting as it acknowledges an almost impossibility of universal political agreement. That is, it's not clear that complete elimination of green house gasses from the West will do anything without the same by China and Russia. You can't dam half a river. — Hanover

If you look at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research website, it looks like the articles discussing adaptation to climate change are quite a bit more prevalent than articles about stopping it. I think both avenues are important, though.

Here are some tidbits from the article in Nature that we were talking about:

"The possibility of a reduced Atlantic thermohaline circulation in response to increases in greenhouse-gas concentrations has been demonstrated in a number of simulations with general circulation models of the coupled ocean–atmosphere system. But it remains difficult to assess the likelihood of future changes in the thermohaline circulation, mainly owing to poorly constrained model parameterizations and uncertainties in the response of the climate system to greenhouse warming. Analyses of past abrupt climate changes help to solve these problems. Data and models both suggest that abrupt climate change during the last glaciation originated through changes in the Atlantic thermohaline circulation in response to small changes in the hydrological cycle. Atmospheric and oceanic responses to these changes were then transmitted globally through a number of feedbacks. The palaeoclimate data and the model results also indicate that the stability of the thermohaline circulation depends on the mean climate state.

"Most, but not all, coupled GCM projections of the twenty-first century climate show a reduction in the strength of the Atlantic overturning circulation with increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases13—if the warming is strong enough and sustained long enough, a complete collapse cannot be excluded14,15. The successful simulation of past abrupt events that are found in the palaeoclimate record is the only test of model fidelity in estimating the possibility of large ocean–atmosphere reorganizations when projecting future climate change.

"Paradoxically, although the THC in current models responds to freshwater forcings without delay, the largest deglacial meltwater event on record, referred to as meltwater pulse 1A (MWP-1A), occurs more than 1,000 years before the next significant change in the THC associated with the Younger Dryas cold interval39. This paradox may be resolved, however, if MWP-1A originated largely from the Antarctic Ice Sheet40, where its impact on the Atlantic THC would be substantially reduced.

"Some modelling experiments find that during the next few centuries, the THC moves to an ‘off’ state in response to increasing greenhouse gases14,15,65. A reduction of the meridional heat transport into the circum-Atlantic region would partially compensate the warming due to increasing greenhouse gases, although such a change could have serious climatic consequences for the climate in the circum-Atlantic region through modifying long-established regional air–sea temperature contrasts, seasonal variations in the direction and strength of wind patterns66 and the location of convective areas67. The implication of such changes on regional climate remains largely unexplored. Reorganizations in the THC would also change the distribution of water masses and hence the density in the world ocean. A warmer and more stratified North Atlantic would also take up less anthropogenic CO2 (ref. 68). On the other hand, other experiments suggest little or no reduction of the THC to the same greenhouse gas forcing13. This indicates the possible dominance of negative feedback mechanisms such as changes in the amplitude and frequency of ENSO69, or modifications of atmospheric variability patterns in the Northern Hemisphere70.

"The fate of the THC in the coming century largely depends on the response of air–sea heat and freshwater fluxes to the increased load of greenhouse gases. Uncertainties in modelled responses are particularly large for the latter13. Moreover, the threshold for the occurrence of an abrupt change in a particular climate model depends on poorly constrained parameterizations of sub-grid-scale ocean mixing57. Because a complete THC shutdown is a threshold phenomenon, the assessment of the likelihood of such an event must involve ensemble model simulations71, as well as continued efforts to simulate past abrupt climate changes that so remarkably affected the global climate system.

The role of the thermohaline circulation in abrupt climate change

It's slowing down now. here
— Tate

That's highly speculative — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't know about highly speculative, since there's a consensus that it's slowing, but you're still making an important point: everything talked about in this thread is pretty speculative. There are a variety of reasons for that, but one of the big ones is that we still have unanswered questions, such as a solution to the 100,000 year problem.

That's how science rolls, though. Speculate, model, test, repeat.

Read this article, exploring the possibility that the THC (thermohaline circulation) is responsible for longer and shorter term changes in climate. It also talks about the debate about how the Younger Dryas actually started.
— Tate

The problem with this sort of so-called "science" — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm going to push back on this. Climatology is science.

Yes so the effect of circulation is to cool surface water and allow increased absorption. So why the claim that it does the opposite? — unenlightened

Circulation brings warm water up from the tropics. When the circulation stalls, it ceases to be a heat conveyor. Is that what you mean? I'll look at it again. I may be missing something.

Your first article makes this claim, but does not explain it. On the face of it, one would expect vigorous stirring to facilitate absorption of CO2 from the atmosphere. and lack of circulation to impede it. Any explanation? — unenlightened

When water absorbs CO2, it makes carbonic acid. A bottle of soda water has a high carbonic acid content until it's either warmed or shaken, both of which will make the water lose it's ability to dissolve CO2.

The second link is not accessible to the Institute for Retired Busybodies, unfortunately. — unenlightened

That's the one from Nature. I'll copy out the good bits. I've been wandering around the Potsdam website for a while. Fascinating stuff.

All in all, the more I find out, the more the whole affair looks like humanity as a mad scientist in the process of blowing up his laboratory and speculating about whether he will be roasted or frozen or both. — unenlightened

That's the reason I found the article about how we might have been tweaking the weather for the last 6000 years to be intriguing. It could be that something as fundamental to who we are as agriculture could be at odds with climate stability.

The NY Times has a copy of the search warrant used to search Trump's home in Florida, if you have a subscription.

I'm not a fan of passing over anything, or much of anything, in silence. — Sam26

That's the intellect's motto. It thinks it can understand everything.

But this means that his theory doesn't even include its condition of possiblity. A theory of language and meaning that must exclude that theory itself ...fails? — Pie

We've built a ladder to nowhere.

Propositions can be a model of reality, — Sam26

I think in the Tractacus he's presenting that as the way we normally imagine things: propositions corresponding to the world the same way a photograph corresponds to a scene.

But the picture can never be in the picture. When we present a theory of propositions, we've strayed beyond what language good for, into nonsense. We're just so enthralled by the theory that we don't realize this. We've forgotten that some things can't be explained. We should pass over them in silence.

And look at this one.

Thanks for engaging. I appreciate it.

Isn't the point discussion ? — Pie

Sure. My point is: you can do whatever you want.

*flees over the field*

How's this ? The meaning of the assertion, the sentence in use, seems to simply be the world(-as-understood). If we jettison apparent nonsense like the world-in-itself...the world is just that which is the case. To me this is not correspondence. There's just use/mention. 'P' is a string of letters. P is piece of a world, a truth (or an attempted truthery.) — Pie

As I've said, you can do whatever you want.

Ah, thanks for the indulgence but no, it was just, why should I answer yours if you won't answer mine. — bongo fury

Yea, I was just trying to figure out what the hell you're asking.

Ah, solving that question
Brings the priest and the doctor
In their long coats
Running over the fields. — bongo fury

What?

OK, hold up. Tell me what you think correspondence theory says.

I do not see how a slowdown caused by the melting of polar ice can result in increasing polar ice. I am looking for links that support your claims, and not finding any. — unenlightened

A slow down or shutdown will be associated with a reduction in atmospheric CO2, resulting in cooling. But what's becoming apparent is that there isn't one magic bullet that initiates reglaciation. It happens when a number of factors are all in alignment: orbital forcing, precessional forcing (the Milankovitch cycle), and more broadly, just the fact that the climate is prone to glaciation for the last couple of million years.

Read this article, exploring the possibility that the THC (thermohaline circulation) is responsible for longer and shorter term changes in climate. It also talks about the debate about how the Younger Dryas actually started.

Here

It's slowing down now. here

I'm not sure what you're saying.

Did you want to explore the articles that say the slowing of the thermohaline might be the trigger for reglaciation?

I posted about why the previous explanation, which has been primary to long range modeling up till now, has been called into question. Did you see that post?

Still? You're still saying the disquoted part of a sentence is a disquoted part of the world, whatever that means? — bongo fury

Lol. I'm not sure why this seems mysterious to you. I don't think anyone is well advised to use the t-sentence rule as correspondence theory, but it happens. If that boggles you, just ignore them.

What would? What you're calling "the disquoted part"?

Some state of the world is a disquoted part? Part of what? Part of the world?

So "part" didn't mean "part of the T schema"? — bongo fury

This is Aristotle's formulation of the correspondence theory of truth:

"To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false, while to say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not, is true."


This is the t-sentence rule:

"P" is true IFF P.

If you wanted the t-sentence to express correspondence theory, how would you work it out? I'd say the quoted part is some specific act of assertion, and the disquoted part is a state of affairs that corresponds to the assertion.

refer to the sentence constituting the second part of the biconditional or to some corresponding event or relation, or something else, or all 3 (because it doesn't matter)? — bongo fury

It would be some state of the world.

It is bizarre to suggest that something caused by loss of ice will cause an increase in ice. — unenlightened

The shutdown of the thermohaline is caused by a loss of ice. It leads to an increase in ice. Scientists believe this has happened multiple times in the past. I think it makes more sense if you consider the wider context: that we're in a large scale ice age, stuck here by ocean currents that maintain deep water that never sees the light of day. Does that make sense?

don't say it is impossible, but it at the least demands a very detailed explanation of the mechanism, and how it is powerful enough to overcome the positive feedbacks of ice loss already discussed above. — unenlightened

Shutdown of the thermohaline is proposed as the cause of the Young Dryas. Do you want to look at whether anybody has tried to model that?

But of the links you have provided so far, there is not one I have seen that remotely suggests that a new ice age is at all likely in the next few thousand years. — unenlightened

That's not true. There are a couple of articles that propose thermohaline shutdown as the trigger for reglaciation during the 100,000 year cycle. I posted one of them.

It's a remote suggestion.

Rather they all seem to suggest that a new ice age has already been prevented by the rise in CO2 levels. — unenlightened

That's just the one that says the Anthropocene started 6000 years ago. That's a cool one.

He's saying we've already passed one trigger point.

refer to the sentence constituting the second part of the biconditional or to some corresponding event or relation, or something else, or all 3 (because it doesn't matter)? — bongo fury

You have to specify the context in which you're using the T-sentence rule. Is it Tarski? Redundancy? Are you try to make into correspondence theory?

The answer to your question will vary depending on how you answer that.

You seem to be suggesting that the slowing of the circulation may trigger re-glaciation. but this looks to be backwards. Rather it is the melting sea ice that is reducing the salinity and thus the density of the water and so slowing the circulation. Re-glaciation would increase the salinity and thus strengthen the circulation. — unenlightened

But once reglaciation starts, it's self reinforcing, whether the thermohaline starts again or not. Ice sheets are considered by some scientists to be the most powerful force in the climate.

We deny that truth is a property. — Pie

Deflationists don't deny that truth is a property, btw.

I was asking how you were trying to use it. Whether

the disquoted part
— Tate

refers to the sentence constituting the second part of the biconditional or to some corresponding event or relation, or something else, or all 3. — bongo fury

I wasn't trying to use it. I took Banno to be asking if we should interpret the quotes as signaling a specific act of assertion. My answer was that you can do that, you just need to explain that to the reader.

There's a difference between questioning a prevailing view and irrational questioning out of group think and biases, especially if the bias is highly politically driven or based on emotional instability. — Christoffer

I couldn't agree more.