He (and you, though this more an addition than critique) are also missing that government speech by way of legislation is clear, highly-effective coercion.

Genuine question (i.e mods, just don't be dicks) for those on the "Trump=faciscm", "Climate change=literal doomsday" type of takes: What are you going to do/say when(in the 'if' sense) none of these doomsday predictions come true? Is this something which would move you, or something that would just further entrench some theory about kicking the can, or hiding the ball or some other prevaricative thing? I am genuinely asking. I cannot understand finding myself in such a position, so it's interesting to see those who hold positions that might turn out that way speculate (though, i understand you may not think it could turn out that way - It could. That's why i'm asking).

I guess I need to also add that the bolded should be read as insinuating a situation where you have clear knowledge, and have had to face the reality that say, with Trump, his term ends, and the economy is better off, less wars etc... (this is a hypothetical, to be sure) and everything is, in the round, either fine or better than under Biden at least.

I cannot see how this would be 'moral' in any sense other than taking 'moral' to mean 'other-regarding' and simply widening it out without any actual analysis.

'Progress' is such a stupid term for moral workings. There's no such linear description of morality available to us without first ascertaining and objective, goal-oriented basis for morality. We could then try to figure out which goals are to be aimed at in an objective sense.

The above seems a subjective, hypericin-centered goal. That's fine, and that's how morality works on my view but I don't think this gets us anywhere near a reason to strive toward that goal, or any other tbf.

It would be pragmatically untenable to include several types of out groups (predators) within the centered group. I also think tihs runs against the nature of competitive speciation.

Yet this evidence completely contradicts your claim that “it is an empirical fact that we do persuade, convince, provoke, incite, coerce, teach, trick, etc. with our words” — NOS4A2

No it doesn't. Yet another absolutely inane non-sequitur.

Knowledge can lead to understanding. And understanding is something philosophy can provide — J

Think I agree with this rough-and-ready take.

Oh, I'm a massive Les fan. Been listening to Primus since Pork Soda :P

I don't think time is something which has properties. It is a situation of 'everything else', individually, in relation to all of those other 'else's (from each perspective).

Seems inapt for discussion other than as a relation between objects. I don't think, for instance, imagination engages time other than as a relation to the world going on outside the mind imagining whatever..

Approaching ethics from my own perspective, I find the field deeply problematic. Unlike other branches of philosophy, a systematic and formal treatment of ethics seems impossible — Showmee

This seems true, and the basis of most moral debates.

Yet, note how in ethical discussions, the validity of an argument or position is largely grounded in emotions and intuitions. — Showmee

I think this is going to ruffle feathers. Plenty here who are very sharp, well-read thinkers will balk at this, despite it being obvious from s 3p perspective. It almost always boils down to "Here's a proposition. If you disagree, i cannot understand your moral position". This is well captured by most non-cognitive theories. Very uncomfrotable for those deeply tied to their emotional reactions.

often take the form of examples, analogies, or metaphors. — Showmee

IN fairness, even in light of your observations (which i largely can get on with) this is the only available way to talk about morality - testing intuitions. Principles wont/don't do despite kicking and screaming cognitivists. The 'principle' boils down to the above in every case I've ever seen. Carlo Alvaro has a paper about the 'incoherence of moral relativism'. It may be the worst paper i've ever read and I cannot understand how it was published - and this, largely, because of the two elements I've outlined here being ignored.

Establishing a robust non-cognitivist stance requires not only destructive arguments, but also constructive ones—something current accounts fail to deliver satisfactorily. — Showmee

I think you're overdoing it. If the above observations (yours or mine) are right, then this is a non-interesting point to make. non-cognitivism doesn't require destructive arguments, other than comparatively. The arguments themselves are constructive, and obviously account for things like moral disagreement better than cognitivism. I also think this leapfrogs the problem. If there are to be moral 'facts' there must be a way to ascertain them. There isn't. So even if cognitivism about morality were, somehow, from a 'nowhere' view, correct, we couldn't actually argue for it as best I can tell.
I agree we shouldn't overreach, but we are more than welcome to reject clearly untenable positions. All i think taking a non-cognitive approach to morality does is dispel the need to explore failing theories.

But I do think we should all only have tentative moral positions, because of the above (which is not meant to be prescriptive, I just can't think of a better phrasing).

More than likely. Thanks for your time - always a very involved, well-explored discussion with you :)

I suppose that's roughly what I'm driving for. The former is an imaginative, 'what would i feel?' and the latter is being capable of actually feeling some degree of the person's state. So yeah, i agree :)

ooof. Good stuff

If this doesn't move you, I have literally no clue what could.

Havent read the thread, but as far as I can tell they are used interchangeably most of the time, but each is distinct in semantic terms.

Sympathy = hypothetical/imaginative empathy
Empathy = actually understanding what someone is dealing with.

That may not be entirely accurate, as I think i've imported some of my own use here. It's probably two lines similar, but weaker than the above.

100%. This isn't an actual conversation anymore.

Yeah, nothing much to add here. I'll just make explicit what I think is the case as between us again:

This also strikes me as strange, namely your idea that some facts are true and some facts are false. I would say that facts, like states of affairs, are not true or false. — Leontiskos

I may be misusing the word 'fact' here, but it is synonymous with 'state of affairs' for me. If the facts aren't to obtain, but the belief is sound (in the sort of JTB (or adjacent)) sense then I'm happy to call the belief true. I don't feel the need to restrict use of truth to apply to facts only.

Yet I showed that in that moment of duress I made a decision that did not play into the terrorists intent. — Harry Hindu

No. No you didn't. As explained above, and dismissed by yourself. Again, this comes across so intensely removed from what's happening in this conversation that you must be trolling. I don't suggest you are - but i do suggest you perhaps review your repsonses to avoid seemingly like a totally out-of-touch interlocutor. Aside from this, what you hypothetically think has zero bearing on the actual situation of coercion being real. If you could please quote where it was somehow requisite that coercion worked in every case, that would be helpful. But you wont, because I've already noted that some are resilient to coercion and would rather die than acquiesce. So much is true, and has nothing to say about the existence and reality of coercion. If you do not understand this basic delineation, you are inept for this conversation, sorry to say (and not to be mean, but to let you know that you aren't making any sense).

I will simply ignore the totally irrelevant parts going forward, after elucidating above.

Those two sentences contradict each other. — Harry Hindu

They quite clearly, and obviously, do not. Coercion is a use of force or threat to obtain behaviour from another person. If you do not think this can be done, you may need to see a psychologist (or an historian, at the very least). It happens. It constnatly happens. Its a social and legal norm. You are out of step with literally everything in the world relevant to the topic. That you are metaphysically capable of making other decisions is the entire basis for coercion. The dilemma caused is that you could choose otherwise, at risk of a much worse outcome.

If you did not mean "force" as a synonym for "coerce", then what do you mean? — Harry Hindu

The absolute irony:

The force would be whatever is causing the dilemma. — AmadeusD

This, because you asked this question:

What "force" would their words have if they spoke in a language I did not understand? — Harry Hindu

Showing me clearly that you do not know the difference between emotional weight, and force. That is not something (other than pointing it out, which I did) I can help you with. Emotional weight and coercive force are very different things that do not rely on how i am using the word. So... This becomes an obvious troll:

I did what I wanted in the moment of duress, so you have failed to show that coercion is real, or at least not as "forceful" as you claim. — Harry Hindu

False. You made an unlikely hypothetical declaration that doesn't touch on either of your purported conclusions. If you making a truly random, and unlikely hypothetical up constitutes proving coercion doesn't exist, you're not in the realm that critical thinkers are. I haven't made a claim about how forceful coercion is. I have claimed that it is real, serious and social/legal norm. It is. I have also said it is effective. It is. . This is also a decent (I wont say good) read.

What does "highly effective" mean in this context? — Harry Hindu

It means it is effective, to a high degree. It can cause otherwise 'good' people to do extremely bad things, in order to avoid what they perceive to be worse outcomes threatened in lieu.

Separately, you can have a read of this if you like. It's a pretty good overview and explains why most people take this very seriously, as against your responses that quite frankly don't engage the issues, and often aren't sensible.

When does speech become coercive - only when people respond in the way you intend? — Harry Hindu

Assuming you mean the person trying to coerce someone?? Because what i think is not relevant. I am running hte facts by you to gauge your reaction. You are not disappointing, I can tell you that.

On this basis: yes, obviously. I cannot see that you aren't trolling here. That is the definition of a success, in this context. Asking this is like asking "So, why is water wet then?".

What makes some people respond in the way you intend and some not? — Harry Hindu

I would assume their moral fortitude (or, that they have a better risk assessment mechanism than those who don't). But, in reality, it is the degree to which the threat outweighs the requested action. If you are to kick a puppy in the head, or have your entire family tortured**, and you choose the latter, you can simply sit down for the rest of time and never make a moral comment again, in my view.

**You made a point earlier about doubting whether the threatner would make good(here, to torture your family - let's say to death, to make it juicy). That is not your decision; it is theirs and you must make a dice-roll with regard to that factor. However, if you doubt, resist, and you're wrong - your family are all tortured to death while you watch - I presume you will wish you made the other choice (i.e gave in to coercion). That's, in some respects, how it works. Again, if you would not, and are happy with your choice to have your family tortured to death in front of you because you wanted to doubt a strong man's conviction, well... I repeat: Sit down and never make a moral comment again (obviously im not seriousl.. this is hyperbole).

What percentage of the people that hear the speech and respond as intended qualifies as "highly effective"? — Harry Hindu

This is not the correct way to think of it. Let's pick an example where A addresses some crowd of supporters. He is, using serious and credible threats, requesting this group assassinate lets say three opposition leaders in order to... whatever, really.
Ok. A single person can carry out that request. That single person is the success, if they do it due to the coercion. As noted earlier, this would be a definition for success here. Over-determined success is just a piling up of successful instances. It's not an accumulative issue. 'Effective' must be read as 'effected it's intended outcome'. What you're trying to do is play a numbers game, which is intuitively fine, but that's not how this works at all in the world.

Suffice to say you are at odds with basically all theorists worth their weight, the actual history of humanity and possibly the functions of the human brain (this one I say less-strongly, as I can only somewhat understand the neuroscience here, but there are clearly situations of neurologically irresistible requests from those in power to those without. Further than this, I won't comment).

You intended to elicit a type of response from me in writing what you just did. — Harry Hindu

No, no i didn't. I explained to you the concept of coercion and gave you the leading example. It is a legal and social norm that you seemed to be unaware of. I don't really care what your response is.

I could then take this information and instruct my family that if such a situation occurred that I would give a signal that we would then fight our attackers at once. — Harry Hindu

Feel free. This has precisely nothing to do with what is being discussed. Coercion is real, and in most cases you have no lead-in time whatsoever. That's why its a legal and social norm to expect bad behaviour from those under duress.

But the point is that I did something with your speech that you did not intend. I used it for my own purposes. — Harry Hindu

This makes no sense in light of what's being discussed. You can do whatever you want. Coercion is real.

Which I showed I cannot be coerced and would have good reasons to not do what they said. — Harry Hindu

No you didn't. You didn't even touch on either of these. If you think you did, I have literally no clue what to say. You also, were not talking about this - as explained in the very quote you've used.

Sure it is. In talking about "weight" and "force" of speech, you are talking about its coercive power. — Harry Hindu

Which is not, in any way, represented by your example. I get the feeling you're trolling here? Sorry if not, but this is so far removed from actually engaging the content in this exchange I can't see much else.

What "force" or "weight" does a known liar's speech have? — Harry Hindu

This isn't a sensible question. It also leapfrogs every bit of important content in the previous exchange. So, i wont be engaging that.

Look, the fact is that coercion exists and is highly effective. It is a recognized social and legal norm. Bite the bullet.

The difficulty with your position as I see it, is that it posits the falsification of "states of affairs" apart from the falsification of beliefs. — Leontiskos

As I see it, this is both not a difficulty, and in fact, the crux of our disagreement (such as it is.. It's increasingly clear (to/for me, anyway) we do not disagree about what's actually happening in these scenarios).

Humans cannot access "states of affairs" without beliefs, — Leontiskos

Disagreed (unless you mean prior beliefs, enabling us to 'trust' our apprehension of a state of affairs... but that itself, is a state of affairs as Sam Harris has quite well demonstrated with his talk about the inarguable nature of consciousness). So maybe there's a deeper disagreement :)

I think belief in a false proposition should not be called true. Take a false proposition, "2+2=5." Curt says, "I believe that proposition." You say that Curt's belief is true. How so? It doesn't seem strange to you to say that Curt's belief that 2+2=5 is true? — Leontiskos

This is a good example, but the response wont be satisfying: That example is not apt to the case i/we've put forward. "2+2=5" is a logical truth, so can we set that aside? I don't think it's apt. That said, I'm going to try to at least 'treat' the example, on my view:

I do think its odd. That doesn't make it wrong. Your "How so?" would require that Curt has given me his reasons for believing it, and I cannot find a way to falsify his reasons for belief. As noted, these often have nothing whatsoever to do with the state of affairs. Again, i don't think logical/mathematical props are apt for this problem, but that requirement would be ...required... in any other cases where it is apt. I understand that your view is that the belief should be considered false, as long as the state of affairs doesn't obtain. I don't think that is the best use of these words, myself.

But the point is: — Leontiskos

Weirdly, the exact point I have made (but I guess I'm separating them in the opposite scenario - i.e, state of affairs false=/=belief false). Does this not seem so to you?

Your comments on Gettier are understood, and were never in question. But Gettier cases give us pause to understand how one's reasons come apart from the facts. Someone can have a 'true' belief in the sense I mean, despite the facts not being true. The reverse is also true as I pointed out using the sheep-in-field example.

The force would be whatever is causing the dilemma. The classic example is that someone has a gun to your head, and either you commit some heinous crime (say mutilate your wife) or your child dies, and they also have a gun to their head. No one would genuinely fault you for mutilating your wife to save three lives, over losing all three but refusing the coercive force of the guns and demands.

What "force" would their words have if they spoke in a language I did not understand? — Harry Hindu

This is a little stupid. Coercive force doesn't obtain in the way you want. Though, if terrorist were screaming invectives at me (unbeknownst) and indicating what they wanted from me, I can do that, and probably should (given the same example as above or similar).

When someone that doesn't know you calls you a "selfish ass" as opposed to someone you know well calling you a "selfish ass" - which one has more "force"? — Harry Hindu

The latter. But that isn't the type of force being spoken about here. I think what you mean is gravity/gravamen. Someone closer to me would weigh heavier on my heart saying that, as I could assume they have a decent basis. The stranger holds no weight at all as they have no basis to say so.
But again, this isn't coercive in any way.

Those that committed the crime. In all cases I'm aware of. Incitement doesn't reduce culpability for the act (other than for minors, i suppose).

Otherwise, I see no disagreement. That there are some who are not incited to violence just evidences the differences in people's ability to deal with various kinds of biographical information in the fact of some novel event. This is also true of what we would call coercion. Some will allow themselves to die before becoming a peeping tom. Others make a reasonable moral trade off. IT says nothing for the inciter/coercive force.

Rivers aren't moral beings. I do not think anything non-conscious has 'rights'. Conscious beings have obligations (on that model. Not sure where I fall).

I certainly generally agree with all that!

Flint....Dibble?

So finding moral conscience awareness in evolution or survival, finding moral facts outside of human beings, overlooks the fact that only a human mind can sense or detect the difference between what is and what ought to be. — Fire Ologist

Yep, at least empirically. Once we find non-human minds, this is going to get very interesting.

No, not at all. Incitement is a one-level relationship. Incitement to incitement isn't a real thing, as best I can tell. It does not create that kind of society, as proven by our incitement laws being in place for about 100 years through most of hte west, no?

I no longer care if you do or not. It became clear the only thing I can do with those exchanges is point out how utterly delusional they are with facts and move on. If you don't want to read a post because its directly critical, why even respond at all. Sheesh. Figured facts about history correction an erroneous high-level belief would be your bag...

I don't see how that is misleading. — Leontiskos

Yeah. I'm unsure what to do about that. It seems (even on this description) that my take was accurate. So be it!

"So, the subject isn't involved in that knowledge-having." But he is. — Leontiskos

Not really, no. What you set up was a situation with B brings to A something such that they now know that the video was fake (so, their belief can be considered falsified). But if Trump actually had dyed his hair, aside from this video fiasco, then the state of affairs hasn't be falsified if the belief is restricted to the result, not the process. You could even go as far as to say that A's belief in this video has now been falsified. There may be another, real, video of the same thing happening. All I've set up here, is that you can falsify a belief without falsifying hte state of affairs in the belief, and vice verse. I seriously cannot see anything in any of this exchange which has anything to say about that, other than a claim that evidence against x is also evidence against any given belief in x, which it plainly isn't. Is there something else going on? If not, we're probably talking in circles now.

If he didn't possess that knowledge then those two options would make no sense. — Leontiskos

It isn't 'knowledge'. On your, or my description. This is misleading.

Because it strikes me as uncontroversial and even vacuous. — Leontiskos

If that were the case, I wouldn't have needed to say the bold above, I think. I have now several times tried to boil this down to a disagreement in terms: Someone can have their belief falsified, but not disbelieve the content of that belief. Someone can believe x, even when there exists incontrovertible evidence to the contrary. You're right - these are somewhat vacuuous. I somewhat noted this earlier, and tried to boil it down. Here we are - you seem to be very nearly getting it in the next part of your reply. Let's see,...

Do you really think we should describe his belief as "true" rather than "justified but false"? — Leontiskos

Yes. For reasons I've put forward, but again, this just illustrates exactly what my above is somewhat impatient about: You don't like the sentence I use to describe what's happening for A - I don't like yours/ I don't think we're saying something different from one another. I would only note I don't think it can rightly be called 'implausible' to use words in various ways.

in the JTB schema — Leontiskos

I don't particularly think the JTB schema is a great one, and this would be a bit of a modification to it representing perhaps a second track of assessment in belief v knowledge. It is only hte belief part I'm concerned with at this stage. The 'knowledge' part can remain in the air. It just doesn't make me at all intuitively uncomfortable to say belief in a false state of affairs can be called true belief (this, i suppose, in contrast to 'belief in something true' which would make some of what we're saying redundant).

Does the fellow at that point in time have JTB? On your view he must, — Leontiskos

No, and No. As above. My view doesn't run with JTB particularly squarely, here.

How does B present evidence against A's belief without presenting evidence against x — Leontiskos

Really? You can't understand having the reasons for your belief removed, without necessarily having hte state of affairs affected? Gettier cases are prime examples. If after passing the field with the sheep statue (which had a real sheep behind it), you are then later told it was statue, your 'knowledge' doesn't change but the reasons for at least thinking you have it have changed. There was a sheep in the field. But you would have considered it false unless also told "but there was a real sheep behind the statue". The point here being completed different reasons result in the same 'knowledge' despite one being 'false' on that account. Conversely, you could convince someone the source of their information, on good grounds, is shoddy enough to reject the belief. This wouldn't touch whether or not the state obtained. Yes? This doesn't seem at all controversial to me. I do note why someone would have an issue with calling, in that reverse scenario, a belief for good reason, in a false state of affairs a 'true belief'. I don't, and think it works well.

Good evidence that proves either erroneous or deceptive would justify a belief in a false state of affairs. In the scenario where hte evidence is bollocks, justification is not open.

I think you've picked up tihngs I didn't not intend from my post.

In the first instance, I was not suggesting that we can get anywhere on the facts we see. "that a lot of people agree" is simply no way to establish a fact. And morality has nothing better. In fact, it has worse, because that can only be applied 'locally' in most cases. The cases which aren't that specific (kicking puppies is wrong) speaks out an emotional response, not a fact of any kind. No one loves kicking puppies, but says it's also wrong.

In the second instance, No. It is explained by those individuals deeply-held belief that the Divine revelation is, inarguably, the only source of moral guidance and is infallible. This has lead to the least co-operative aspects of the entire human project, consistently.

I take almost everything here (and its underlying discussions in things like Boethius and Aquinas) as essentially post-hoc nonsense justifying what is self-evidently bad reasoning. These are all aspects of a belief system which relies on Divine command for its supporting structure. There is no kind of reasoning that can get us to a Divine morality without a Divine source. Otherwise, you're talking about something other than Divine Revelation as a basis for morality among hte religious. And that's fine too! Just not at all what I'm talking about. The vast, vast, vast majority of religious people are not theologians and base their morality on an instruction booklet written by morons.

Your first comment: Yes, not only strong, semi-nonsensical. But this second one clarifies, so...

it's the apprentice who moves the block, yet under another description, it's the master? — Banno

I would be hard pressed, but i can certainly see my way to it, yes!

I disagree. There is nothing beyond "I should now do x" contributing to the game, in my view. Moving blocks is not something we do with words (other than to denote what was moved, in the case of a discussion about language games hehehe)

I find it really hard to get through any arguments for/about morality that are not amorphous evolutionary claims (given it's an intangible, basically). Most claims to 'moral facts' rely on a shared acceptance of same. But that's not quite how facts work.
If morality is conceived as just that, sure. I don't think anyone means that when they speak about morality though. I mean, most people think it comes from Divine Revelation, so there's that spanner .

Even in my original scenario the knowledge that the video is a deepfake is shared by both parties. — Leontiskos

This is misleading. The example showed a third party falsifying the subjects belief on the basis of the facts by persuading the subject of their truth. But two different things are going on there, as noted so I think its a little misleading to simply state tha hte facts themselves are what brought S to change their belief (or, should have).

I also said it explicitly: — Leontiskos

What you said here is exactly why the above. S wasn't convinced by their own encounter with the facts (though, that probably rarely happens in such a closed type of scenario - I did note that its only hte logical situation that matters there, not that no one would likely hold on the belief).

Presumably you are not just saying, "They truly/really believed something false." — Leontiskos

Why would you presume that? That is exactly what this entire exchange has been trying to set up. I have to say, this is.... really weird lol.

If I understand this, then I think we should say that the belief is justified but false. — Leontiskos

Yep, I can tell. Have been able too for a while now. That's why I said this:

Maybe you don't, and that's the issue. If something crucial has been missed by me, I would assume it was something around this. — AmadeusD

The semantic schema is wrong, on my view. But that can't be any kind of objective claim, so sleeping dogs can lie. I don't think we're disagreeing on much here.

What we are talking about here is a case where one sees that the reasons for their belief are false, and nevertheless the belief itself (and the proposition, if you like), remains undecided. — Leontiskos

This doesn't seem to change anything?? That's what was set up in at least one of my run-throughts of hte possible scenarios.

A believes x.
B presents evidence against A's belief (not against x).
A no longer believes x, as it has been falsified by B.
whether x obtains is undecided.

Yeah? If "yeah", then we're not disagreeing. I just add this to explain my discomfort with how this has been run by yourself:

I can't understand 'true belief' in light of a bollocks set of evidence (for instance). — AmadeusD

This to say if:
A believes x, and
C (an audience, let's say) has direct, incontrovertible evidence that x obtains
but A is drawn away from their belief by B's evidence against the belief in x (not x)

A doesn't then magically hasn't let go of a 'true belief'. They have let go of an erroneous (false) belief in something true. I can't see that htis is problematic other than disagreeing on terms.

Let's not get into the gutter with the gettier mess as to whether they may be justified. — Janus

I guess in that example justification isn't open to S anyway, so that's fine hahaha.

More that it can not be done well by a dilettante. But also, it is not served by elitism, but discipline. — Banno

Bang on. toe-dipping philosophy is invariably embarrassing, but so too is the tendency to dismiss on that basis, rather than the fact that some particular work is embarrassing.

Edit: That said, it;s always going to be reasonable to dismiss on the basis of a preceding pattern of bad work. But i submit we should still give some room for unusually good work popping up in unexpected places.

Ok, fair enough. Yeah, i think we are 'agreeing'. I just find that ... let's say... semantic schema, a bit wanting. To me, the belief is false in that scenario. I can't understand 'true belief' in light of a bollocks set of evidence (for instance).

This is quite a can of worms. You'll have one camp laughing at the question because "use your eyes". Another camp (the one i'm in) wants to say "No, obviously not. None of sensations are generated by the world, but instead are generated by our minds" which is physically true.

but ultimately what we derive from them is again coded through symbolic language — Nemo2124

I don't quite think tihs is true. I think the PoMos get this totally wrong. The symbolisms are overlaid, not constitutive, other than of our internal world. Symbols themselves obviously constitute parts of the world but these are also internally generated and effigized for lack of a better word.

But they sort of do, was my point. The leap is so large, it amounts to receiving a fully-formed building tech from nowhere. Gobekli tepe and Karahan Tepe in Turkey speak to the same. This is a different area of enquiry obviously, but i wanted examples to be clear.

This seems to treat no-thing as a thing, a reification. — Relativist

Yes, I believe this is dealt with by my noting hte problem of using something like 'was' about literally no-things. That is a language problem, but I am very much hoping that can be set aside based on the elucidations you seems to grok fairly well immediately above this. I disown treating 'no-thing' as an object other than an object of conceptual thought. It is a blank thought, though.

If there is some-thing, then nothingness does not obtain. — Relativist

I agree but (noting the problem with a temporal assessment here - language problem again) they would not 'come together' as it were. At the 'time' that there was no-thing, our world did not obtain. That's the mystery - hypothetically - in the theoretical transition from nothing to something. The mere state of some-thing does give us the state of no-thing to consider, and that's roughly where I leave it. Again, I just have fun with these things - similar to de Grass Tyson saying "once you're in a black hole, go wild. We don't know what's going on" about Interstellar's later scenes.

Because we have a name for it, it's tempting to treat it as a thing; this error leads to apparrent contradictions. — Relativist

Yes, i agree, but I do not think this is a fault of the thinker, and more a fault of the facts. 'No-thing' can't be held to be an object other than one of conversation/thought (as above). But in that, also as above, the mystery obtains (to me).

I think Dave Matthews Band's The Space Between is a great song. — Patterner

Yessir.

This sounds like using language itself is a game (maybe because it comes with syntax, or subject/predicate functioning)? — Fire Ologist

This seems true even without Wittgenstein's insights. We play games with our interlocutors. Some explicit uses would be sarcasm or hyperbole.

Yes, i am familiar. I agree, but the actual moving of the object doesn't seem to me part of the game. Like orange slices at half time.

Absolute nothingness is conceivable and it is logically possible, but it is metaphysically impossible in a world in which things exist — Relativist

This is bizarre. If no-things is logically possible, then that's the end of that. Our world wouldn't have been involved and I don't posit (and I don't take others) to posit that it is.

IMO, time initiated FROM the initial state of affairs. So that state of affairs had the potential to do so, and it is the cause of time/change. But it's not at all clear what time IS, so deeper analysis is on shaky grounds. Anyway, that's my position, and I can't make sense of you claim that "no-thing" could have caused anything — Relativist

That's fine, probably closer to my view on Time. As to the comment on my position - that isn't my position. The point is that if ever there was no-thing (noting the problem using "was" here) and then some-thing, that's all we need. There is no claim to causality in that, at all. It's an open question of 'how', or whatever.

So the notion that "no-thing" could be a cause makes no sense to me. But you must mean something else. — Relativist

Not really. I just don't mean anything by that. Which is the required position to talk about no-thingness. There is no way no-thing could cause something. That's actually where the mystery lies in considering this issue. If I have intimated (or even outright said) that there's some causation required, I resile and admit that was wrong (and dumb). It is not my position.

Maybe. I believe there's a better reason to think the past is finite than infinite, but lots of smart people disagree with me. — Relativist

I agree with that (both parts). I just like entertaining shit I don't believe more than most.

@Gnomon I'll have to get to this later - sorry you've fallen out so badly with 180. He and I just don't get along, not a huge deal I don't think.

Oh, I don't think 'moving blocks' is a language game at all. You can do that without any form of language. That's probably what prompted language to occur - the need to systematize bare action.

I don't think its arguable, either. The use of the words (or, the fact of, i guess) is clearly a language game. Simply moving objects isn't. No?