Hey mate - I'll go in reverse, as that seems to make sense..

This is an armed conflict. Both sides attack. Hamas has launched thousands of rockets into Israel since 10/7. — BitconnectCarlos

This doesn't have anything to do with which individuals are liable to be attacked. But i understand the emotional behind that fact. It just isn't what i've asked about.

Netanyahu is the head of state, Hamas is the governing organization of Gaza. Ismail Haniyeh is the leader. — BitconnectCarlos

You've glossed over what i've said. Hamas is an interloper, not an actual Government and Ismail is not an actual head-of-state. I did point this out...

There are innocent Palestinians and there are guilty Palestinians. Some legitimate targets of war, others not. Israel does not indiscriminately target all Palestinians — BitconnectCarlos

I find this wanting of fact. I do not see any clear-cut policy whereby this is actually happening. Particularly given the Israeli propensity to literally refer to Palestinians as animals and worthy of eradication..

This is probably the single occasion i have seen on this forum on which a very curt "piss off" is 100% justified. So, there we go.

Genuine question, not loaded with anything more than exactly what it asks: Should I expect that this, lets say orthogonal mode of interaction from you generally? Would like to know how to approach you efficiently.

agitprop — Paine

I don't engage with ridiculous nonsense. Sorry mate :)

I think an act is right or wrong, not subject to my subjective definitions or beliefs. — Hanover

(not related to any foregoing discussion) Do you have a basis? Or is it more an intuition that there must be some basis, unknown or indescribable?

No one is getting out of bed to vote for Joe, not even Joe. — Hanover

Octogenarian Politicking at it's finest LOL

Not trying to stir anything up, but surely this kind of thinking also exculpates all Palestinians who would not be represented by Hamas? I'm not pretending you don't see the distinction, but in the Israel case, Netanyahu is the actual head-of-state, not an interloper, which Hamas can be seen as.

Surely, the proportionality question, comes, in some sense, down to who is actually liable to attack?

Sure. Trump spent huge amounts of time in his last months in office assembling success stories, so-called, but his legislative record was extremely thin — Wayfarer

Interestingly, the vast majority of his legislative wins he never mentioned publicly (such as historically high funding of HBCUs and other minority community funding, signing millions of sq mi into natural reserves etc.. but, in a large sense, what you've said is entirelty true and adds (particularly), in light of the above, to my take you've quoted there. He's a total knob.

Absolutely not, no, while I also understand what you're getting at - Facts don't care about feelings, haha. But sources matter - and each decides their source is reliable, despite pretending tha t there's an absolute answer - it's all spin. It's all paraphrasing, interpolating and media horsecrap from top to bottom - eg, its extremely shaky ground to attribute inflation changes to Biden during this term. From 2020 onward, so many machinations of hte world would outstrip the ability of governmetn action to affect things like employment and inflation. You may disagree, but having watched from afar this seems inarguable. It's happened everywhere. But i'm sure there are plenty of articles claiming its Biden's doing (which is patent, inarguable nonsense).

Additionally, Biden has been found to have fabricated his educational history in public, among other things. There is absolutely no basis to be pretending Biden is a clean-handsman. He made plenty of utterly absurd votes throughout his career, including opposing desegregation efforts that were working.

https://www.mic.com/impact/the-moments-from-joe-bidens-political-career-that-have-aged-the-worst-22914332

https://macleans.ca/politics/washington/taking-stock-of-those-47-years-of-joe-biden-that-trump-keeps-mentioning/

https://www.aei.org/op-eds/the-10-worst-things-president-biden-did-in-2023/

I may have to duck out, because you are clearly committed to a certain view, and while i respect that, I don't, overall, respect approaching politics in the way you are. It seems to be counterproductive, and at times outright ridiculous (not you; the approach). My take; that's all. I can conceive of choosing to lionise a politician. If, for whatever reason, you are convinced Biden is not, as a career politician, an absolute crank, I don't know what to say.

Ftr, i think both are precluded from being reasonable candidates. They are both, for different reasons, completely inadequate to be in charge of anything reasonably important.

That isn't how either side gets their emotions in place. And in either case, the other side can point to as many:

This appears to be an unsympathetic source trying to be balanced.

Also, My point was, and this is undeniable: It is incomprehensible to the other side. The mere fact that Biden has said such utter, and complete shit as accusing blacks who vote for Trump of not being black wouuld lead to this. I'm not saying their right, or across the issues.

I think he's doing a quite exceptional job. — Wayfarer

And in this, consists a claim that is entirely incomprehensible to anyone who disagrees.

Unsure it's smart for anyone to be determining entire life-long projects based on that type of thing (not aimed at you, Wayfarer - just a ocmment on why most of this discourse is laughable to me).

He's seen the same on the othe rside. Dishonest, manipulative, fraudulent, hell-bent on harming America and f**king with elections etc...

Not a problem - very much enjoying. Feel free to spam my inbox if you need somewhere to lay thoughts down, anytime. I will always attend.

letting the transcendental side be merely of some relative interest, as in God, freedom and immortality and such, but not much else. — Mww

Having just got through (i.e between our earlier interaction today (my time, anyway) and now) Kant's breakdown of the three arguments for God (A583-ish, i think through A630-ish) have me in this sort of mindset, now. Though, It is still just as unsatisfying to me.

Why not the people and the psychological and sociological causes of their behavior? As I see the mess in Israel and Palestine millions of people of just trying to live their lives and a handful of people have brought them to war. — Athena

Your final sentence can be true, regardless of my assertion - and I agree - but in reference to those who have "brought them to war": Because the crucial difference between analogous situations in which people are not committing theocratic war crimes, and this one, is that the ideology doesn't demand it in those others, whereas in this one, it does. That's why i noted its not an indictment of human nature. People react to their environments - granted. But people are only driven to the type of irrational acts of war, with the addition of a commanding ideology. WRT other Abrahamics, Judaism is famously amenable to update and has had many. Christianity, partially the same, but partially the Enlightenment has acted as a shield against runaway Christianity for the most part. We have nothing similar for Islam given it's self-imposed exile from Western thought.

I don't think ideology is the point of power but male egos — Athena

You realise Judaism is based almost solely on the teachings and exemplars of patriarchs, right? I don't have much more than an eyeroll here, tbh. Such a tired way of assessing complex ideological threads. No offense meant, that's just my take.

The Muslims who are in favor of war are the same as the Jews and Christians who like to believe they are doing to the will of God whenever they engage in war. — Athena

Except, the latter aren't actually doing that any longer, almost universally. Their ideology has been amenable to update and has removed the irrational, self-defeating policies of the 'Angry God' origins of their faith. They are not promised Paradise for killing innocents, and themselves.

@Tom Storm

If you check episode below ("Does Tuvix Deserve To Die?"Jason expounds on his position at about 46min forward regarding why he doesn't drink, on a Parfitean account of identity
.

honest observations of what is going on. — Christoffer

Wild....

general view is that it's not synonmous, but that Kant was rather inconsistent with his usage — Wayfarer

That is satisfying.

'the object of nous' was explicitly not a sensible object, but the Idea, Form, or Principle of an object (that which makes the particular what it is). — Wayfarer

Certainly helps clarify the lineage Kant was working from - and why he just redefined it.

But in the earlier philosophies, what was 'an object of thought' was not some unknown thing, but an Idea or Form which could only be grasped intellectually (or 'noetically') but which didn't exist on the plane of sensible (or sense-able) objects. — Wayfarer

Does this rely on that Platonic conception of the 'real' though? If so, I can see why Schop is considered wrong there, given that particular version of things doesn't really work for anything beyond Platonic discussion specifically (i.e Platonic forms tend to only be used as an exemplar or metaphor, rather than an example of anything actually being discussed - in my experience./reading).

do not deserve — Leontiskos

On what basis, universally applicable, are we basing deserts on? Would this also apply to precluding a desert from a one?

We end up with a causal relation between the thing and the thing-in-itself, a relation between the thing and us, without the need of a relation between the thing-in-itself and us. Everybody goes home happy. — Mww

This is what is expressly unsatisfying to me. But, I do think this is what the CPR is meant to be indicating. That we can't reason to satisfying explanations of our phenomena, despite the previous two millennia attempting it... that we are destined to be frustrated by efforts to understand what's really going on.
Having made some headway in sorting out how to think about these things, this seems to be the 'cosmic joke' at the base of attempts to "get into" Kant.

Oh, I see what you're getting at. Yep, for sure I agree there.

Lying is definitely intentional. It's the difference between being misinformed (and passing that on) versus knowing you are misinforming the person you're passing the information on to, intended them to believe it to be true, or correct.

Absolutely. Certain moves almost seem like a wind-up LOL. But there we go - such is discussion of belief and knowledge :) Enjoying it, despite hte headaches.

Not so much. Most common entities without evidence for their existance are in the "I don't believe in it" category not the "well, it's possible" category of most. — LuckyR

I don't see how this is not the same thing, without expressing the same.
Anyone who claims absolutely that unicorns are not possible, is kidding themselves.

But that number is severely diminished in intellectually rigorous circles (such as here). — LuckyR

I am not convinced this is either true, or matters. Not considering something seriously isn't the same as positively affirm disbelief that it is possible.

— OkAy, do you have evidence it is not there though? — Lionino

A good example. The jury is out. Out of hte building. No energy spent on the proposition. But affirmative disbelief is not there. It's merely not engaging.

The harmony is not the vibration. The strings will vibrate whether they are in harmony or not.
The harmony or ratio of frequencies is what causes the vibration of the strings to function in a certain way. — Fooloso4

Sympathetic vibration tells me this isn't the whole story.

Instruments have been designed in a way (John McLaughlin's 13-string guitar when playing with Shakti comes to mind) specifically so that a harmony in the strings played, causes the strings not played to vibrate sympathetically. I believe sitar behaves this wY too.

You're not saying the jury's out on the existance of gods, you're saying in the absence of evidence I don't believe in any gods. — LuckyR

Can you figure how these are different?

IN the absence of evidence, not believing amounts to the jury still being out. But perhaps out of hte building, rather than still in the deliberation room. I can't see any practical difference.

I think not accepting p and not accepting not-p is much more than a fine lin — Ludwig V

They are fundamentally different things. I think one of the sophistical tricks of (perhaps the religious?) some in this thread is to pretend that not accepting p is the same as accepting not-p.

In the former, the subject may not know about p. In the former, the know, and reject it positively. Very, very different situations. The misuse of these words hurts my head, and the weak defenses of their misuses even more so.

The root of our discussion is here, from pg 12, with which I disagree: — Mww

I have not seen you disagree with this, really. You've helped me see where I was misusing words and concepts because I don't understand what I'm doing all that well (which i am extremely appreciative of. This isn't easy LOL) but I can't see that you've disagreed that Kant gives us an unavoidable causal relationship between thing-in-itself and our sensible intuitions. It appears your most recent response (prior to this) laid it out in explicit terms - that you agree with it?

1. Thing-in-itself appears to us as an unknowable entity;
2. ????;
3. Something is presented to our sensuous organs; — AmadeusD

The "?????" I think, is the Noumenon of whatever object. At the time, I had entirely misunderstood what the Noumenon is meant to represent, and where it fits in the relationships of thing-in-itself, conception, and intuition. I am now under the impression that 1. The thing-in-itself, somehow, in some unknowable fashion, instigates appearance - but that the Noumenon is that which, in some sense, exists between the two in a sort of semi-focus, as compared to the total blank of the thing-in-itself.

what do you think all that really says, — Mww

Well, I don't think anyone really knows - but its relevance here, is that Kant appears to very directly note that the thing-in-itself is in a causal relationship with our sensible intuitions. There is thing-in-itself, and the phenomenal appearance in intuition - and that there is, unavoidably, a causal relationship between the two - Otherwise, as noted, we are left with intuitions of nothing. Its just unsatisfying because we can never have any knowledge of that which 'causes' the appearance of any object of intuition.
The over-all thesis of that section, i'm yet to parse.

I'm about 90% of the way through this book, and i'd say i grok the overall thesis in a pale reflection, and about 15% of the actual content. Doing my best.

While we cannot conceive of things entirely askance from any empirical intuition, these are merely representations belonging to the internal human system, hence have no concern with external causal conditions, which belong to Nature itself. — Mww

I agree - but this goes to the previous thing we're trying to come to terms on.
That causal relationship is necessary, if unknowable and unconcerning to us in general. But if we have never been caused to undergo the experience of a phenomenon, we can't conceptualise it, i think.

Edited in later, so apologies if missed: It seems really, really clear that most thinkers consider the thing-in-itself noumenal. Can you help me understand how this is the case, with Noumena/on being different from the thing-in-itself? It is just Kant being annoying and confusing"?

You're not even wrong. And that's kind of the problem (though, I would have to remove all the hyperbolic WWII comparisons for this to be acceptable lol).

Hence, I am in no place to make a call.

Yeah, i'm understanding i've gotten the TE wrong - but i also can't work out why it's the way it is.

It makes little sense because it's importing all of the requirements of success into the experiment. I don't see how that matters - the issue, surely, is whether or not a physically identical being would be conscious, or not. So, a p-zombie, to me, should be conceived as physically absolutely identical but not conscious. To me, that's the bullet to bite. I don't really grok how one could, or could not, confirm or deny the potential for a being acting fully conscious, yet not being so. Begs the question, surely.

the governing structure that is intent on the destruction of its neighbor — BitconnectCarlos

It simply isn't that simple, imo Particularly the prolonged nature of dealing with these things. I find it extremely hard to pretend to know what's really going on, or pretend to read the minds of governing collectives (which i find incoherent, anyway).

What must be done to those who vow to murder innocent civilians? They must be killed. — BitconnectCarlos

I also get your position, but it's entirely incompatible with how i see thing in general. This logic leads to killing every person who makes a semi-credible threat of death on anyone (you've deemed innocent). I can't take that seriously, i'm sorry. Again, I understand the position but it appears to me an attempt to signal an emotive position rather than a rational one. We must just disagree... And that's fine :)

Yup - the entire situation is novel. Exactly as i said.

Do you have the actual speech, or just interpolation ;)

None of them were previously President either though - the entire situation is novel.

Absolutely - no ill will whatsoever. I really appreciate the exchanges, and that recognition of same :) Thank you.

As some Muslims are peaceful people some Christians and some Jews are peaceful people, and some of each are the enemies of peace on earth and we need to be honest about this reality. — Athena

The problem, I think aptly identified by Sam Harris, is the ideology, not the people. There are varying degrees of commitment, but the further from a true commitment we get, the less problematic things become. Which is a serious indictment of the ideology, rather than elements of human nature. You can get almost every positive aspect from religion (particularly the Abrahamics) without it, or at least without the type of commitment religion requires.
Conversely, you can't randomly get the type of despicable behaviours we see out of the depths of religion (particularly hte Abrahamics) without that kind of commitment, and in most cases, without that particular ideology.

I've a love/hate (take those words very lightly) relationship with those who 'adhere' to a religion by bastardizing it - they avoid the negatives, but also avoid a genuine commitment.

Its going to be extremely entertaining.

Fair enough; I guess i've misunderstood the TE. Whoops lol.

I don't really see those elements as relevant (at least certainly not necessary) to the Hard problem. For my part, when i consider this TE in the HP context, I imagine a being, physically exactly the same as a typical human but without conscious experience (i.e, that's the only difference) meaning there is no sadness or happiness. They do not have the experience required to inform that. It can't be 'shown' without hte experience. My job is to figure out the difference between the p-zombie i've described, and a human with conscious experience.

I am under the impression that this requires biting the "consciousness is not emergent from neural activity" bullet hard, but nothing else - only serves to preclude a fully physicalist account of consciousness, and all the interesting questions are still in the air (what, where from, how, why etc..) about consciousness.

They wouldn't, of course — RogueAI

No, they wouldn't, but I don't understand how its possible it could be contended that they're 'supposed' to . So, I have no idea where to go with this now :lol:

an Axis victory would have been so much worse. A "lesser of two evils" thing. Am I right? — RogueAI

I simply don't know. Nor could I. Preposterous. We already know exactly what the one option gets us - we are essentially blind to the other, and I wont speculate. Not going to entertain this one again.

You're correct. You did not accuse me. I misread this post

“The unexamined life is not worth living.” — RogueAI

You're asking me to forego the examination of my actual life to examine an impossible life. And in fact, a situation in whcih i am not alive. Ironic in the extreme.

So, behind the veil, you would prefer the Allies won even knowing they killed hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women, and children in indiscriminate bombing raids? — RogueAI

I wont play 'gotcha' games. Particularly not with someone who accused me of the same.

I just said: I would prefer the Allies won - I didn't try to change the realities of WWII.

But this is a ridiculous thing to imagine and so i place no seriousness on that answer. If you want a "why" you wont get one. It's an intuition. Which is my point.

Don't you think that he's a real threat to society? Not trying to pick a fight, I'm just trying to understand people's attitudes. — Wayfarer

Hmm. Yes, but I don't think that's his fault per se. It's the fault of everyone being so intensely divided and willing to lose huge parts of their humanity in service of an opinion - which is certainly taking opportunity in.
As much as he lies, he's lied about a huge amount too so I find it hard to take it more seriously than any other situation of media-driven horseshit in politics. But, to be clear this post (to you) outlines my position on Trump.