You're unable to prefer any other situation than the one you exist in? Suppose your kids died horribly in a fire. You're telling me it would be impossible for you to prefer an alternate timeline where you died rescuing your kids from the fire? Or suppose you exist and you live in unremitting pain and lack the ability to kill yourself. You couldn't prefer a situation where you were never born? — RogueAI

I bite the bullet. Yes. I am unable to prefer that world.
I also bite that bullet. I am unable to prefer that world.

However, I'm an anti-natalist so I think its best if people weren't born at base anyway. But once alive, that goes out hte window entirely. And i'm trying to restrict myself to the actual - not speculative nonsense about things that cannot possibly happen.

Of course you can. Pretend you're behind a Rawlsian veil of ignorance and you're looking at two possible worlds you might find yourself in: one is a world where the Axis won, and one is a world where the Allies won. Which world would you prefer to be in? — RogueAI

Understood, and I'm happy to answer the TE after a disclaimer: We have an actual result here. Any other result (other the course of events leading to this exchange) is utterly preposterous to imagine, for any reason other than fancy, to my mind. The TE isn't an experiment - it's a counterfactual - one which seems to be purely set out for the purpose of trapping someone who is attempting not to take something preposterous seriously.

I would prefer the Allies won. But i am actually IN this world, so I may not have the intellectual capability of truly imagining another.

Maybe from your previous quoted below, you were denying any knowledge of the external world due to the fact the perception happens via perceptual aggregates? — Corvus

I'm not able to read that into the passage quoted - but then, I wrote it with my intention so that makes sense :nerd:

I thought you were saying the empirical world is unknowable, because it is all Thing-in-itself. But that was maybe the claim of RussellA. I must have been confused between you and @RussellA. — Corvus

Ah okay, fair enough. It's also a fairly easy misreading of that passage. But i certainly meant to exclude them from each other, basically.

.......what?

I said reading this thread will be entertaining. Perhaps you meant to reply to someone who mentioned any of that?

I have to say, it will be very entertaining checking in on this thread if and when Trump wins.

That's the scenario we're given. P-zombies are supposed to act exactly like us. We would have no way of knowing that they have no consciousness. So they talk. And they answer questions the same ways we do. — Patterner

That is not how I've ever understood any version of the TE.

p-zombies are physically the same, yet unconscious. No idea why we are assuming they're behaving exactly the same? If i've got that wrong, then I have got that wrong.

Let me then ask you: was is it a good thing that Nazi Germany was stopped? Was the world better off for that happening? — RogueAI

Just as stupid as the previous question. We are actually in the situation where the Allies won, and I exist in it. I am unable to prefer else. It actually doesn't matter what I think about all you're trying to 'gotcha' me with - ironic, as below...

But here we are, having to deconstruct the question you refuse to answer because you think it's some "gotcha — RogueAI

No. I am unable to answer it. If you're not going to accept that, then just stop replying. You're not a psychic and your assumptions betray a lack of humility or even want of a decent exchange. You are exactly looking for a "Gotcha, you're a Nazi supporter".

That you think it wise to project that on to someone who is literally refusing certain propositions, and asking nothing of you, is bizarre.

Did you not say that you cannot conceive or access the empirical world because they are Thing-in-itself? — Corvus

No, not at all. The empirical object is not the thing-in-itself. Not sure where that came from. The 'empirical' world is the world of phenomenal sense perception. The thing-in-itself is beyond this, and entirely unknowable.

TII(unknowable)->Noumenon(merely conceivable)->Phenomenon (actual, as it were)

as we have literally no empirical indication of the thing-in-itself we can't conceive it — AmadeusD

This comports exactly with the above specifically noting that the thing-in-itself is outside the empirical purview. Nowhere in your quote do i indicate a conflation of the empirical and 'thing in itself'.

Let’s tackle this by analogy — Bob Ross

This analogy doesn't map on to the categories of Good and Bad at all.

There’s only one distinction which is valid. — Bob Ross

There isn't, though. You've just decided on a criterion randomly, basically. That appears to me an expression of your emotional reaction to that criterion. That you think it should be the moral benchmark. I remain unconvinced you have objective categories.

a much more reasonable moral realist approach would be to equate normative judgments with our ability to choose and let the moral facts be the categories of the good and bad — Bob Ross

I agree in principle, but as above, those categories themselves don't represent facts other than teleologically (i.e an authority dictating what fits in each category). There also remains the equivocal nature of Good and Bad, even under your view. Another reason your analogy doesn't hold at all.

By 'workable' I mean to say that if each person has differing categories (this seems empirically true) then there's no objective categories between people and is therefore not a useful or helpful framework. I would acknowledge there's probably a 'pregnant middle' of those categories that most do share, but that's immaterial if something like 4/10 instances don't come under that.

Historically, it seems like humanities efforts at ‘the good’ converges at promoting harmony, sovereignty, and unity. Semantically, I think this is what “the good” is implying. — Bob Ross

As has been the case (though, I don't think i've said this necessarily) this is a reasonable assumption to go on. But it's not objective. That's the point.

Because I see the good, and I want to do good. I am not just, in this theory, projecting my own psychology onto others: I am striving towards the good. — Bob Ross

Sure, but these pertain solely to your conception of the Good. And it's a good one by my lights too, generally, but even given that generally agree with the conception, I disagree the categories that result are objective. I also note, again, that your normative system is subjective - so no qualms with that.

Saying that Kant said that you cannot know thing-in-itself, therefore you cannot know all the objects in the empirical world such as cups, trees and books, the bent sticks (claimed by RussellA) sounds not making sense. — Corvus

No one, in any of these comments, has suggested this.

Thing-in-itself is something that you can think about. — Corvus

What are you thinking about when you do this?
Seems entirely incoherent to me.

Why are we assuming language? That seems a conscious ability, whereas we're talking about physically identical, yet non-conscious entities.

How would blacking out be different from sleeping? — Lionino

As I say, I cannot remember how he parses the different states.
An off-the-cuff note, would be that when 'blacked out' memories are not created, and you are not consciously aware. You can do both while sleeping (dreaming and lucid dreaming, particularly).

OK, who do you prefer should have won WW2, the Allies or Axis? — RogueAI

I'm not able to prefer anything other than the current situation, as it is the one in which I exist. Therefore, I prefer the Allies won because it results in my existence.

From a God's-eye view, I would ahve the innate knowledge of which course would have been 'just'. So, there's no reason for these questions or reasonable way to answer them. Which i've insisted on.

What a weird line of thought about this.

A193 doesn’t relate to the paragraph title you gave, which is found at A538. And I couldn’t come up with a reasonable connection between A193, A538 and your hesitations for accepting the differences in things-in-themselves and the empirical representations which regulate human knowledge. — Mww

I am reading the Muller translation of the A version (which was a rookie's mistake) and that's the page it's on... My mistake.
You've got the right section, though, for sure.

hesitations for accepting the differences in things-in-themselves and the empirical representations which regulate human knowledge. — Mww

Unsure how you have figured this, but I am actually insisting on the opposite. They are clearly different and the only thing I am insisting on is that the thing-in-itself causes appearance (hence my dealing with an incorrect use of 'appear'. We can actually speak about hte thing-in-itself, despite Kant's insistence we can't by virtue of its necessity to phenomena.

https://ia800706.us.archive.org/13/items/immanuelkantscri032379mbp/immanuelkantscri032379mbp.pdf This (Kemp Smith) version has a very, very similarly-worded section to the Muller translation at the same place. A relevant passage, for full clarity:

"Now this acting subject would not, in its intelligible character, stand under any conditions of time; time is only a condition of appearances, not of things in themselves. In this subject no action would begin or cease, and it would not, therefore have to conform to the law of the determination of all that is alterable in time, namely, that everything which happens must have its cause in the appearances which precede it. In a word, its causality, so far as it is intelligible, would not have a place in the series of those empirical conditions through which the event is rendered necessary in the world of sense. This intelligible character can never, indeed, be immediately known, for nothing can be perceived except in so far as it appears. It would have to be thought in accordance with the empirical character just as we are constrained to think a transcendental object as underlying appearances, though we know nothing of what it is in itself."

And shortly after at A545...
"In this way the acting subject, as causal phenomenon would be bound up with nature through the indissoluble dependence of all its actions, and only as we ascend from the empirical object to the transcendental should we find that this subject, together with all its causality in the [field of] appearance, has in its noumenon certain conditions which must be regarded as purely intelligible."

things-in-themselves exist and from that we can infer the necessity of a causal lineage from such external existence, to appearance, through perception, sensation, intuition, ending in internal phenomenal representation. — Mww

This has been my insistence. It confirms my position rather than is 'for the record', to my mind.

The claim that the external world is caused by the internal world is wrong, but that has nothing to do with the capacity for conception. — Mww

I'm not convinced. We cannot conceive of things entirely askance from any empirical intuition. They must be derivative, in some sense, best i can tell. I cannot think of something other than as derived from empirical intuition thought under concepts, which, in themselves, are nothing.

For you to suggest that we are unable to access anything in the external world, there must be reason for that, and it seems your definition of "conceiving" and "accessing" might be something different from the ordinary definition of them. — Corvus

I don't think this is a case, and to my mind, on a re-reading i did delineate out what i'm talking about.

In the most simple terms: Sensory perception is not access to the 'real' world. It is data mediated by the sense organs, and relayed to the brain/mind further mediating our access to it. We can only access our sensory data, via sensory perception. Therefore, we do not have any access to the external world. The 'thing-in-itself' is entirely, and necessarily inaccessible to human sensibility, and therefore, the human mind. My contention with Mww was around whether the thing-in-itself stimulates sensory perception, as an unavoidable inference - and i think this is correct, and your recent comments above this one outline that well imo.

In terms of my comment on 'conceiving', as we have literally no empirical indication of the thing-in-itself we can't conceive it. Where would you even start, to conceive of something you have literally no knowledge, and cannot have any knowledge? Assuming that that, per the above, is the case.

he has a view that any true discontinuity in consciousness per se is enough to end an identity. The reestablishment of consciousness is of a different identity inhabiting the same psychological setting. I forget how, but he does somehow parse out blacking out from merely being drunk and sleeping/dreaming. It’s possible I’ve misidentified his view and blacking out is required

yeah that’s a bit of a problem. I wasn’t under the impression that would need accounting for though. I can see the evolution side occurring in roughly the same way it has but I imagine we are still about 250,000 years ago culture-wise(I.e <1 - near zero) and obviously more like several million years ago in terms of actual behavioural capacities. It’s a very different world no doubt and would take some serious storytelling to get going

or murder any of its past inhabitants. — Luke

:lol: I like your faith in humanity, Luke.

does forward time travel necessitate a branch in timelines? — noAxioms

Surely, this is now talking about a "possible future" that you've gone in to - it may not be the actual future of your OG time-line. You being in the future isn't a contradiction here, though, as you're not in the OG timeframe. You just disappeared for a while in the OG one and reappeared at your 'destination' moment in time.
Then, the 'branch' would happen, I would suppose at a point in the OG timeframe that contradicted the future branch you've travelled to. This might create an alternate past, pro-actively (as far back as your moment of travel in the OG timeline) and I haven't considered if that's an issue. It seems unavoidable that there would be a branch, but not logically necessary. Very much happy to have this ripped apart though as i'ts taken me 10 minutes between settlements at work.

Can I, having just made the machine, branch a new line off some other timeline where I never existed in the first place, say some version of 1980 where my parents didn't survive WWII? — noAxioms

Surely this would just create a branch into which you've traveled regardless, leaving the OG timeline without you, or your parents, in it? A timeline into which you traveled and now exist rather than existing prior to the travel.

This doesn't appear to me as an argument against anything but aesthetic implication (it would be weird, no?).

It doesn't seem to address the fact that the Hard Problem and P-zombies are exactly meant to invoke the gap science is trying to fill.
Unless you can fully understand consciousness in physical terms (I do not believe this is hte case, but even if not, we don't ahve that understanding yet) then p-zombies are coherent until we do (and it excludes that possibility). 180 Proof made a similar error earlier in the thread (though, it was years ago). "identical" to a 'conscious being' would be a conscious being. Being "physically identical" is the actual case in the TE.

But i agree with Seth - it's a very weak argument against Physicalism, for sure. It's just that he assumes he's right:

is to consider the capabilities and limitations of a vast network of many billions of neurons and gazillions of synapses (the connections between neurons), not to mention glial cells and neurotransmitter gradients and other neurobiological goodies, all wrapped into a body interacting with a world which includes other brains in other bodies. Can I do this? Can anyone do this? I doubt it. — Seth

This precludes anything but a physicalist account for it to be a decent objection, i think. I also think Seth (among others) overblows the correlation we find between certain parts of hte brain and fairly imprecise conscious experience. If the brain is a receiver, nothing here has any really weight on the question/s. But it would certainly rule out an emergent (from neural activity) account of consciousness

Perhaps the real question of the OP is will America become an authoritarian state, a right wing dictatorship? — Tom Storm

I think this is a far more realistic position to consider. And, while I personally think its super-unlikely, it's way more possible that Fascism coming into play.

Of course for my friends in the Left, America has been an authoritarian state for many years, so even this will evoke a range of interpretations and definitional games. — Tom Storm

And herein lies the problem, right? From any standpoint of intrenched ideology, its almost impossible not to see yourself as the victim of 'the other side' - otherwise your ideology is 'in power' and defeats the point.

Perhaps communication with the general populations is a pipe dream of humble members of the elite who believe they are closer to the average person than the average person is close to an orangutang — and I don't say this as an insult, more as a bitter and unfortunate realisation. — Lionino

My wife and I recently came to this conclusion reluctantly. Most people are either not capable, or lack any inherent interest, in 'thinking further'. Makes life kind of hard when you're aware of it, but it instills a certain sympathy for a huge swathe of previously-irking behaviour. Part of my motivation to find this forum, in fact, was the abject failure to find people who want to discuss these things (or at least, are capable of doing so). Facebook seems to be a great aggregator of Dunning-Kruger effects, to the degree that that's an actual thing.

Orangutan* btw ;)

Again, you're not groking even the arena in which I made my comment.

There is an observable fact that we, by and large, disagree on what that threshold is. You cannot point to the law. It is transgressed every day, and there are entire movements (even out of Universities - point here being its institutional in nature) to upend the legal restrictions on 'annoyance' and 'loudness'.

The limits of protest, are one prime example where your type of sentiments just aren't palatable to most, and at the extremely worst are entirely unenforceable.

Some laws require arrest at the notion of 'causing offense' (Harmful Digital Communications Act here in NZ and a similar analogue in the UK as examples). But the concept of 'causing offence' is so wildly variable im not understanding how you can rely on the law, other than to discuss hte law.

My sentiment comes down to "What you consider offensive is not a good benchmark" and that all-too-often people think someone being offended is evidence of someone wronging them/whomever is offended.

I understand you may be stipulating that the behaviour youre talking about transgresses those legal benchmarks. I don't not appreciate that. It's just that's not what I was attempting to approach.

Your claim that the external world is caused by your internal world is wrong then — Corvus

I think the point, and I completely missed this with Mww, is that what you are capable or conceiving, is a result of your perceptions in aggregate. Therefore, you are actually entirely unable to access anything about hte 'external' world at all - so all conceptions of it are in fact, internal representations. Maybe that's not the case - but this solves the issue for me.

Gaiman's Norse Myths

Seneca's Letters from a Stoic.

Oh, so you're talking about crimes. Okay. Different discussion.

Oh, you're talking about physical assault. Nice. You missed my point, or I missed yours (both, it seems) and im bored now. I think your point is weak and doesn't address the problem that there is no broad agreement about annoyance or offense under a certain legal threshold. Whatever man..

I've been listening to Bernardo Kastrup's lectures, he's all in on analytic idealism — Wayfarer

Indeed i took a spot of advice and listened to five hours of Kastrup late last week. Id say my attitude is the same.

I mean, that's one thing which would come under that banner, imo.

Unsure what you're intimating though, so will refrain from comment beyond that.

a majority and largely agreed upon standard of social morals — Outlander

No idea why you've felt the need to say im 'playing dumb'. I think you've made a dumb point.

There is no 'largely agreed upon' standard for annoyance or loudness, particularly when it comes to issues that, to different people in different directionss, allows for some annoyance and loudness.

I have no idea what your attitude even is, let alone can i make sense of you. You made a silly point that speaks to your biases. I just pointed it out.

It seems you're relying on my disagreeing with you as an indication that im wrong. Wow.

"oh you just need thicker thin, there's something wrong you". No, there is not. You are simply an annoying dickhead and burden to enlightened, civil society the world would be much better off without. End of discussion. — Outlander

I'm unsure this is reasonable in any sense.

Your subjective assessment of 'being annoyed' or offended means literally nothing helpful here. Even collective versions mean almost nothing. We are well aware of plenty of collective social claims that are either entire untrue, or in fact ARE people overreacting. There isn't such a simple way to deal with this.

Weirdly apt - currently listening to this exact discussion between Josh Rasmussen and Alex O'Connor right now. Material from mind.

You may find it so. But I don't know enough to make a call. The current situation seems fine, but i have no basis for comparison.

A preference is very different from who should have won, by the way. I'd be happy to give a preferential call based on what I know, but i couldn't in good conscience say that's who should have won.

I'm sure as white, European male i'd have done alright had it gone another way; I just plum dont knoiw

"One thing that is very likely to happen is that the gains made in the past forty years by black and brown Americans, and by homosexuals, will be wiped out. Jocular contempt for women will come back into fashion. The words [slur for an African-American that begins with “n”] and [slur for a Jewish person that begins with “k”] will once again be heard in the workplace. — Gnomon

This plain and simple will not happen. Happy to 'suck it and see' on this one. More a prediction

Cool story? I don't mean to be dismissive, but this seems to just be an observation. I am neither of the things outlined, so doesn't seem to... relate. Your discussion of 'queer' isn't meaningful to me. I dont' care how homophobes use the word. I didn't mention the word.

I have many similar outlines of different conceptions of words that get used by various groups. Unsure what the point here was.

Is the issue with my use of 'appear'? I got through a passage this morning around A193 "Possibility of Causality through Freedom, in Harmony with the Universal Law of Natural Necessity" that made it quite clear my use of 'appear' is both incorrect and misleading in terms of what i'm trying to get across - and this section of CPR outlines it in a few ways..

Kant makes it clear here that we are free to infer, with some certainty, that objects in themselves exist and exert some 'causal lineage' with out phenomena insofar as, as in themselves, they cause something to undergo appearing to our senses.

Ok, that's quite clear - thank you!

A proportionate response.

Do with that what you will. I am also, extremely tired of people who think they have the answers to geopolitical issues like this :)

It's not my fault if you require an answer I am unable to give.

An atheist is simply not a theologian, atheists can still have faith in other things. "God" is just too clumsy of an answer for me. Gods were always created by man as a means to not have to explain things, but rather enforce. To justify actions taken to one's self. — Vaskane

That's fair; I should have restricted my use of the term. Thank you.

You're doing the opposite. Atheism has always meant denial of God's existence and it's only recently that new atheists began to popularise the "lack of belief and nothing else" definition. — Hallucinogen

I'm not. And that fact (though, I deny the truth of it) wouldn't change what i've suggested im trying to do.

Selecting any definition is selecting one that fits your point. If anything, this reveals that your original basis "Just look at the bloody words lol" was poorly-informed. — Hallucinogen

Hmm. I have a feeling this is going to go nowhere. I asked you to look at the word. Its structure, its etymology, its meaning. Not its (according to you, anyhow) use. You ahve done the latter, and ignored the former. Disagree with the method, sure, but don't pretend you're doing something you're not (and in turn. impugning my method, falsely). I'm more than happy to just get a 'yep, well that's dumb' but being wrong about what I've suggested pushes me to respond this way.

And you say this right after complaining I'm taking a definition that fits my point. It shows you're not sticking to your original basis, which you claimed was "just looking at words". Now it has to be from a specifically atheist source, all of a sudden. — Hallucinogen

False. As explained above, you're being dishonest about htis. The fact that I (on your method) invoked a more authoratative definition is not an indication i've ceased using the etymological basis. This is now the type of sophistical weirdness talking with apologists gets me. May need to duck out.

It doesn't, because as pointed out in the OP, defining atheism as lack of belief doesn't distinguish it from agnosticism, since agnostics also lack belief in God. — Hallucinogen

I've dealt with this, in detail, over two possible propositions. I am now ducking it. It's been.. interesting :)

es, you did. See the bolded statement, above. — Relativist

There are three examples of my expounding, and explaining this quote. The bad faith in this response is beyond my ability to parse. If you did not read my treatment of this issue (three times) between that bolded quote, and this use of it, I cannot bring myself to delve into such an out-of-sorts use of conversation.

Immoral only insofar as it is a non-normative moral violation. I can say “you did something (morally) bad, but I cannot thereby affirm you did something you shouldn’t have”. — Bob Ross

Ah ok, this is bringing a bit of focus for me - I supppose i would still, prima facie, reject the distinction - but this is much clearer for where you're intending to go. Onward..

Sure, I was not trying to imply that a psychopath will always acknowledge nor recognize the categories. — Bob Ross

I suppose what i'm pointing out here, is that each set of 'categorised acts' for want of a better term, would be peculiar to each person. There is no 'shared' Good or Bad ..Which lands me at 8billion individual 'moralities'. I'm unsure this is workable? But I could be missing a trick, as usual.

Technically speaking, under this theory there is a gap between normative and non-normative moral judgments, which can only be bridged by affirming a subjective moral judgment that implicates one to the other (e.g., “one ought to be good”). — Bob Ross

Right right. Yep, as with my first response here getting clearer what you mean by delineating between the two - but I am still unsure this move is open. I understand the categories are non-normative, but I still cannot see any gap between what is good, and how one should act. If an act is objectively a Good act, I understand this doesn't mean "one should be Good" but I can't understand how it doesn't imply this, without much wiggle room. Again, metaethics - noted - But i can't see the disjunction between an objective Good and an objective normative theory relying on that. I suppose we could say "Fuck the Good!!" but this seems, on it's face, an immoral proclamation. I note the different - But i see the transfer of valence from fact to intent unavoidable and essentially only semantic distinction obtains here.

I was talking about semantics there, not moral facticity. It is a moral fact that “torturing babies for fun is bad” because this action can be objectively categorized as under ‘being bad’. — Bob Ross

I just don't see how. Per the psychopath example above. Perhaps i get the concept, but reject that it's workable?

They are facts because the categorization is objective, insofar as the said action is either promoting depravity, disunity, and disharmony or sovereignty, unity, and harmony (or perhaps neither) and this is not subject to our opinions. — Bob Ross

Fair enough. But that does seem to be picking an arbitrary set of conditions to relate metaethical categories to.

I don’t think the way reality is entails how it ought to be; so I am going to deny the existence of normative facts. — Bob Ross

Ok. That's fair. I don't understand why you would want moral facts, if they don't inform normative expressions.