If it be granted the senses inform but do not judge, the notion here of protection from mental uncertainty regarding mere perception, is moot. — Mww

That is true — I just felt the need to point it out anyway.

The physiological certainty on the other hand, manifest as an affect on the sensory apparatuses by real things external to those apparatuses, which just is that affordance, and from which sensations necessarily follow, is given and is thereby incontestable, insofar as the negation or denial of a given, is self-contradictory. — Mww

I don't fully understand this, maybe there are typos? Can you rephrase?

To even suppose the mind generates the very perceptions which occassion the pursuit of knowledge as a cognitive terminus, is to anesthetize the human intellectual system from its empirical predicates, which is tantamount to denying to Nature its proper authority as arbiter of human experience. — Mww

That is true, but it is possible to deny nature of its authority by doubting our access to it, in an intellectual exercise of skepticism (brain-in-a-vat as an example).

Hello from the future!

He does not doubt that there are: — Fooloso4

But then in later Meditations he does indeed, so then he gives arguments for the existence of the outside world (not of material things yet). One of the arguments is the origins of his ideas, which is also one of his arguments for God.

But how do I know that He has not brought it to pass that there is no earth, no heaven, no extended body, no magnitude, no place[...]

It is only then later that he tries to prove whether there are res extensae.

In the third meditation we see an argument that resembles what is said in the quoted paragraphy from the 1st Med., that if I don't see the objective reality of an idea anywhere (it is not me) in me, either formally (it exists as a thing, like thoughts) or eminently (it is less perfect than me, so it can extrapolated from), the outside world must exist so that there is something to cause that idea.

However, just one/two pages later, he throws that out:

For [even] when I think that a stone is a substance, or at least a thing capable of existing of itself, and that I am a substance also, although I conceive that I am a thing that thinks and not one that is extended, and that the stone on the other hand is an extended thing which does not think, and that thus there is a notable difference between the two conceptions—they seem, nevertheless, to agree in this, that both represent substances. In the same way, when I perceive that I now exist and further recollect that I have in former times existed, and when I remember that I have various thoughts of which I can recognize the number, I acquire ideas of duration and number which I can afterwards transfer to any object that I please. But as to all the other qualities of which the ideas of corporeal things are composed, to wit, extension, figure, situation and motion, it is true that they are not formally in me, since I am only a thing that thinks; but because they are merely certain modes of substance (and so to speak the way in which corporeal substance appears to us) and because I myself am also a substance, it would seem that they might be contained in me eminently.

And:

Hence there remains only the idea of God

I personally don't fully agree with the argument above; not with the conclusion, but with the way it is presented. Res extensa and res cogitans have different attributes, and so have different modes. It is a possibility that a res cogitans is born ex nihilo with the idea of extension (and in which case that idea of extension would not represent anything real); but without being so, it could not develop it by itself, as it does not have extension in itself. For the ideas to be contained in me, they would have to be simply a fortuitous result of the operations of my mind as it was born, in which case they are contained formally, not eminently.

It is also through God that Descartes "proves" in the 6th Med. that there is an outside world. But it has several problems.

On one kind of interpretation, Descartes relaxes his epistemic standards in the Sixth Meditation. He no longer insists on perfect knowledge, now settling for probabilistic arguments. — SEP's Descartes' Epistemology

So perhaps Descartes is never fully convinced that there is an outside world — I have some more reading to do to see if he says otherwise somewhere else. But he is not a skeptic, he does not need to be, he only finds many strong arguments for why there is an outside world.

As a curiosity, the bit on wax on the 2nd Med. seems to be somewhat of a proof of the outside world:

Is it not that I imagine that this piece of wax being round is capable of becoming square and of passing from a square to a triangular figure? No, certainly it is not that, since I imagine it admits of an infinitude of similar changes, and I nevertheless do not know how to compass the infinitude by my imagination, and consequently this conception which I have of the wax is not brought about by the faculty of imagination.

A very muddy, but wonderful book.

That’s not an argument. — Mikie

:chin:

Not a very flattering thumbnail. It doesn't portray Trump's imperial orangeness properly.

So idealists believe our perceptions are the objects? What brand of idealists does that? — Mww

Well, in broad lines, Berkeley. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/berkeley/#2.1.1

Perceptions are that which affords the immediate consciousness of the real, in a sensation. — Mww

Which doesn't protect you against the uncertainty of whether those perceptions are really of the outside world or generated by your own mind.

Does anyone in the west think that animals are soulless automatons nowadays? From that whole discussion around Descartes that we had, it seemed that that wasn't close to a dominant view even centuries ago.

Is NYU running out of things to do?

I find character.ai to be better than ChatGPT when it comes to having a back-and-forth.
You can try Claude too.

At over 200 posts, I'm not at all displeased with this thread — Banno

Of course you are not displeased that your trolling has garnered traffick.

She certainly succeeded in annoying Dawkins. — Ludwig V

Making a clown of herself in a field she claims to be a scholar of is far from "succeeding".



You are wasting your time. Some person's motivation to defend Midgley's confused nonsense is very apparent, as to the others', I can't imagine why they insist on defending such contrived rubbish.

tho maybe you could find a bit in the movie that proves it — Moliere

I got it from this article https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/a46972485/dune-part-2-movie-differences-book/

It seems that everybody in the thread agrees that there is a causal chain between outside objects and the contents of our mind when we say things such as "I see red" and "That smells great".

It also seems that nobody here believes that our perceptions are the objects (note that this is different from saying we perceive objects). But I imagine that is because no idealist has entered the thread yet.

Throwing out an accusation of "performative contradiction" (a mouthful instead of just "hypocrisy") does very little to defend the opposite side. A smoker claiming that smoking is bad for you with a cigarrette in his mouth is being a hypocrite, but that bears no relevance on the truth of his statements.

As a sidenote, in the last 5 out of 54 pages of discussion, it seems to me that a lot of disagreement is stemming from different interpretations of words that are being used — for example, some say "see" with an embedded unstated meaning of directness, others do not. Either look things up in the dictionary and stick to the agreed definition — and add the appropriate adverbs to the verbs and adjectives to the nouns —, or switch to drawings for communication instead.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13298521/Sweden-rocked-new-gangland-horror-father-39-fatally-shot-head-young-son-challenging-gang-youths.html

Immigrant gang shoots in the head Swedish man, 39, father of a 12 year old.

Christians getting hacked to death by Islamists in Nigeria — BitconnectCarlos

Protestant societies don't care about violence against Christians because they aren't Christian themselves :snicker: :snicker:
I only ever hear of massacre against Christians when I visit a Catholic church and the priest happens to be preaching.

So while you may have consistent borders due to the facts on the ground (like Portugal), they were not recognised by other countries. — Benkei

Portugal and Spain very much recognised each other's territory, and even as far as stipulating it, such as Tordesillas.

Just read up on the treaty of Westphalia if you're really interested. — Benkei

I know about it.

Some scholars of international relations credit the treaties with providing the foundation of the modern state system and articulating the concept of territorial sovereignty. — https://www.britannica.com/event/Peace-of-Westphalia

This seems unimportant to whether a sociopolitical structure actually existed, especially when it affected Central Europe especially — a region which was at the time very behind when it came to centralisation. Not only that, but even after the treaty many nation-States' sovereignity was not respected. If we allow the idea that the Westphalian system is the starting-point of nation-States, that leads to the absurd conclusion that to this day Portugal is not a nation-State.

The evidence supporting connectionism is growing at an astronomical rate these days. You can check out the SEP entry on connectionism although it was last revised in 2019, so can't be informed by recent developments in AI. — wonderer1

:up:

Glad to know another user who uses Celsius like me! — javi2541997

I thought that was standard. If someone tells me something is X many feet long, I assume the worst about the contents of his computer folders and walk away.

about minds in terms of Turing machines and computationalism is a bit behind the times — wonderer1

The computational theory of mind is pretty much still in vogue.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/abs/computational-theory-of-mind/A56A0340AD1954C258EF6962AF450900

Maybe this article is of interest:
Gödel and the fundamental incompleteness of human self-knowledge

If one does not know it has negative consequences (and they cannot be expected to know) then they do not have volition vis-a-vis the harm in question. Ignorance excuses because of a lack of volition. — Leontiskos

I don't know where you get this meaning of volition, as it really is just the French word for the noun "will", and for me the word does not imply anything about awareness or ignorance, only about intention; but, in this meaning, yes, it is true that the virtue ethicist and the consequentialist will agree that it is immoral.

although it would seem that you made a rather crucial typo in saying "aren't immoral" instead of "are immoral." — Leontiskos

Not a typo but I copy pasted straight from the OP's title when I shouldn't. You are right. I fixed it.

If this is right then "moral" in the colloquial sense falls far short of philosophical rigor. — Leontiskos

That is true when it comes to degrees. The point you make about telephone hogging for example. A philosophically rigorous theory has to make away with this arbitrary line. My point was more that consequentialism falls out of the common usage of "immoral" because it does not take intention into consideration, only act, making it seem like it is describing harmfulness rather than good and evil. This aspect of the common usage of the word seems, unlike the arbitrary line, acceptable.

If I understood it correctly, some consequentialists would be able to overcome that by putting their ground on decision-making, but it does not seem to be the case of utilitarianism, for example.

For example, by stipulating that morality is a species of decision making, and therefore the child who ignorantly places their hand on a hot stove has not made a decision with respect to moral categories, such as harm. If someone does not know that their act involves moral consequences, then they cannot be said to be making a moral decision. — Leontiskos

:up:

It comes from the same place as confusing a continent's name with a country with a broken identity. New Zealand is heading there, the brain damage can already be seen in England, Canada, and starting in Australia.

I will note however that I am quite confident most people criticising Israel here were supportive of it before 2023. And that they only started shitting on it after it became the Twitter-approved opinion.

Earliest nation-states are usually linked to the treaty of Westphalia — Benkei

That would make no sense. The treaty involved Spain, which by itself was already a modern nation-State, but there was Portugal before it, and also Georgia before it dissolved. France was also established as a nation-State before Westphalia. Regardless of when the political ideas around nation-States were developed.

A country is definitely not a nation-state — Benkei

The first dictionary definition for country tells me "a nation with its own government, occupying a particular territory", which is a nation-State. If you are using a different definition of country, I am willing to grant your point.

It is 4º here right now, so I will take the change.

1. We're switching to La Nina now, so the weather will be cooler than last year. — frank

That explains it. Goddamn it.

speaking of anime — Lionino

Although I don’t love leg extension machines… — Mikie

It really depends on the machine for me. The one at my gym uses cable tension for weight (it is digital), but the seat is nicely padded and the angle hits just right, good stretch too. Some gyms I have been to however have horrible leg ext machines.

I recommend you to search for futanari inflation — javi2541997

I know exactly what this refers to, so I will not. But speaking of anime, I learned of a very good website to watch it for free, lemonparty dot org

You cannot identify what is you and what is not, if there isn't anything besides you. — Bob Ross

So what is your ultimate defeater for solipsism?

The universe still makes sense even if there isn't "not-universe".

There is no "I" without "other" in space, for example. — Bob Ross

I don't see how that makes sense. You use the condition "in space" to prove that "I don't understand" implies space. I also don't see how "I" implies "other" in any situation.

I have never heard or read that word. — javi2541997

I am glad, I actually made it up. If you want to guess what it means, click here https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=futanari , but I recommend that you don't.

she may not be wrong about how the hegemony of the solitary white male has mislead philosophy. — Banno

Riddle me this, you claim to be enlightened, and that a particular group dominates philosophy (cuz oppression), and yet all you ever quote, all you ever bring up, and it seems that all you ever read are philosophers with English names. I don't see you quoting Italian names, or Polish names. Don't you think the hegemony of Anglos in your life has misled your philosophy?

In another post, you even went as far as claiming some irrelevant British academic from 60 years ago, called Ryle, had solved the problem of mind-body dualism.

You are just making it up as you go. You did not include this in the OP, not in the second page, not in the third. And the endeavor "place the concept of life at the centre of philosophical attention" is completely unrelated to Descartes and therefore the "argument" the unpublished "article" presents.

But bro... what if you know we are like literally the universe like experiencing itself. You feel me?

Isn't it wonderful that a dead, diminutive elderly woman can cause so much angst! — Banno

It is more that your trolling is seen as tiresome. When someone says something is garbage, nobody is getting angry, they are just saying is garbage because quite possibly it is. Your "u mad bro" is boyish.

As a point of attention, Midgley's argument is about lonesome, unmarried men, not about white males. You are trying to ragebait by LARPing as a SJW.

certainly since nations are a recent invention — Benkei

Hardly so, nations have "always" existed. Countries are much younger but not that young. The oldest nation-State (aka country) with unbroken continuity is perhaps Portugal, formed in 1139.

Jews are indigenous to the region — BitconnectCarlos

I guess they are, after all they are Canaanites, their nation originated there. But then you have little grounding to say Palestinians are also not indigenous, as they have lived there for over a thousand years, regardless of some Jihad 1400 years ago, to which they have little responsibility over. Not only that, but despite speaking Arabic and being Muslim, their genes also trace back to the region, more than any Ashkenazi or Sephardi, perhaps just as much as many Mizrahim. If a person born from Jewish parents is non-religious and does not know the modern, artificial Hebrew, does that mean he is a Jew or no? If yes, Palestinians are also indigenous to the region, because your criterion is not culture or language, but ancestry.

Consider the following:

Now go open your borders and welcome in more migrants. — BitconnectCarlos

Did you get that line from the Talmud?

I don't think "I don't understand" requires either space or time. Perhaps time on further analysis, but hardly space.

A thread with quite some bizarre posts I have to say.

I cannot doubt legitimately that 'a = a' — Bob Ross

Let me lazily link a article which might be of interest: https://thedangerousmaybe.medium.com/the-deconstruction-of-identity-derrida-and-the-first-law-of-logic-3a6246c42eb
The comment is also interesting.

Also Tones' comments in this thread strarting here https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/897006

Can you be certain that you are in pain? Or better, can you doubt that you are in pain? — Banno

:fear:

Hey man, don't be futaphobic

The idea of space is not required to say something is "beyond me", as one can simply understand that string of words to mean "I don't understand at all", which doesn't seem to require space. To understand the metaphor that this expression comes from, which is to interpret it literally then relate it to the new (figurate) context you are applying it to, that is when you need the idea of space.

It surprises me why the cartoonist didn't draw Salazar when he was alive in the same period as Franco... — javi2541997

Salazar ruled Portugal until 1968, so maybe bringing him up detracts from the point he is trying to make, rather makes it a null point lol

Is there an actor or actress you would have preferred? — Moliere

It is just that Timothee, despite pushing 30, looks very young and boyish, his skull is very neotenic. That some rugged old fundamentalist from a sand planet would have a kid with pristine skin and silky hair as his saviour comes off as a bit goofy, even if it makes sense within the plot. A young mature-looking guy would come off better. Off face alone, I would say Felix Mallard fits the look.
Aaaand, I just don't like Zendaya.

There is also the fact that in the new movies, Paul only spent one year (if that) with the Fremen in the desert. While in the books it was closer to 3 years.

Austin Butler however was excellent casting.

:lol: :lol:

Sorry to spoil this thread's 8 yr history of 0 replies — kazan

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Maybe this article is of interest:

Furthermore, if Lucas’s argument is correct, then “strong artificial intelligence,” the view that it is possible at least in principle to construct a machine that has the same cognitive abilities as humans, is false. — The Lucas-Penrose Argument about Gödel’s Theorem