if I was an atheist, morality and truth talk would seem pointless.
— Fire Ologist

I'm unsure it would. Its just far less high-stakes, i think. — AmadeusD

That makes sense. So, an atheist can have an interest in talking philosophy, truth and ethics, but in the end, as soon as they hit that pointless wall, the atheist can deftly switch to sports, the weather on upcoming vacation, and needing new shoes - higher stakes conversations. I get that.

Free thinking, free living. — 180 Proof

Lots of evidence there is no such thing as free will. The biggest proponents of free will are people who believe in good and evil objectively and a free agent who gets to choose among them, like a Christian does.

In order to flourish more than languish. — 180 Proof

If there are no rules, we can’t languish in the anxiety of breaking the rules. Why invent rules that can be broken and put yourself in a box of broken people. (Find a lot of people in there - maybe the music is good.)

Ethics is like a clear roadmap for how to walk to your best life, then we take a look and see that we are in a boat with no sail. Totally delusional along with the God that doesn’t exist.

Seems philosophy and ethics would be annoying and tiresome.
Perhaps to a child ... — 180 Proof

Fairly adolescent response. The premise here is there is no god, no objective truth, and this will all be over soon enough. So let’s see what we can agree on and use it to help inform choices that might go against our instincts. And I’ve met a lot of annoyed atheists stuck in pointless (to them) conversations. I get that. They were “adults” too.

correcting falsehoods. — 180 Proof

You sound like the God of Abraham. Or Socrates. Or Descartes. Or the ministry of truth.

All humans can do (whether theist or not) is develop a system and hold a conversation in collaboration with the community to work out what we think is reasonable in the space of morality. — Tom Storm

I agree that is what we do.

But if I thought that was all we could do, I would see it as futile. I see in every age, the same outcomes of all of our politics, all of our civil codes, all of our aspirations for a better world - we get murder, lies, rallying cries for war, etc.

Democracy and capitalism were once the greatest hopes we crafted as collaborations for the community, and today, many think they are evil and doomed to corruption.

It’s all bullshit we tell ourselves.

Unless there is a measuring stick that is real that we are collaborating to find and emulate.

I’m not saying if I was atheist I would be an anarchistic, hedonistic sociopath, but I’m saying I wouldn’t bother to try to explain why not or tell some else they were wrong about whatever they did.

To me, it’s because we collaborate at all about anything that we experience the possibility of God. God is in the collaboration. So you take God out of it, the collaboration falls with it.

And there are a lot of cooky Catholics - AND, for all I know Peter Singer is a saint. I’m not judging him (or the nun and priest) - I’m just saying if I was an atheist, morality and truth talk would seem pointless.

Yes it's about suffering. Duh. But it's not suffering "tout court" in this case. It's about what surrounds it. The context. In this case the context that occurs when deciding to procreate. — schopenhauer1

Suffering itself is a physical, mental lived experience.

The context around suffering, to me, would be the body and its environment, or the psychology - both interacting between the suffering subject.

The deciding to procreate doesn’t make sense to me as the context surrounding the suffering. You need to be more precise.

Do you mean some suffering is neutral, not good or bad, but other suffering, like future suffering cause by procreating is good or bad, and in the CAE of AN, bad?

Don’t follow needing to think of the context of suffering to understand the arguments.

Link to a post where you think I’m not responding to you. The clear “here is the AN argument and here is why it is the most logical ethic” post or posts.

I don’t see why you think the things I’m saying are not relevant or in bad faith. Spell it out or give up.

I keep rephrasing what I think you are saying to show you clearly what I think you are saying, and then I post my objections.

I’m playing as fair as I can despite your accusations.

You just respond to my objections by calling me names.

How about laying out your argument, or linking to something you already said the for Nth time.

I’ll try it again anyway.

Is this AN??:

1. Living entails suffering.
2. Causing someone else to suffer (without their consent?) is bad (immoral, unethical), and preventing suffering or future suffering is good.
3. Procreation brings about new life, and the suffering entailed in that new life.
Therefore, procreation is a violation of the ethical rule stated in 2, procreation causes unconsented future suffering, and AN is the more ethical stance.

Is that AN? I am not sure whether consent is needed in the ethical rule of 2.

And instead of jabbing at wherever I have it wrong, show me where it is wrong, incomplete, unclear, but leave in the parts where it is right or clear (if any) so this can be a discussion that builds on prior assertions we’ve made. Lay it out so that I say “Wow, I did sound like I was in bad faith. I did have it all wrong.” Or really the point of any conversation, show me so I say “Schop was right, AN makes sense.”

Work in the asymmetry. I’m sure I would screw that up if I tried. Maybe it’s not essential to sure up the argument.

Work in the fact that specific future people do not matter to take the AN ethical stance towards them (as you said to correct me), but that the dignity of future people is the point of AN (as you said to correct me). And maybe address the issue of these two seeming (to me) to be incompatible.

Honest question - if I knew in my heart of hearts that the idea of a god, and the practice of a religion, were completely fabricated, wish fulfillment delusions, I would run from philosophy and ethics discussions.

I’m not saying anyone is wiser than anyone else, or anyone is or is not good - I’m saying if I knew there is no god, who cares what anyone else thinks about anything that is not testable in a lab, why ever discuss ethics if there is no measuring stick we all have to follow?

I’m not saying you can’t discuss ethics as a hobby, or because it’s just fun to look at all the people struggling with their fabrications called “the good” and “virtue” or “objective value” or “natural law” - but if none of these held any weight, why take any of it seriously?

Many atheists, like Peter Singer for instance, develop whole ethical systems and rules and judgments on other people’s behavior. I would just be reminded of Nietzsche’s opening lines to “On Truth and Lies in a Non-moral Sense”: “After nature had drawn a few breaths the star grew cold, the clever animals had to die… There have been eternities when [the human intellect] did not exist; and when it is done for again, nothing will have happened.”

No God, no hope for anything more than nature drawing its breath. Why be ethical at all? Seems philosophy and ethics would be annoying and tiresome.

So maybe atheism is not only rational, but accurate, but if it is so, aren’t ethics and truth irrational? And by extension, all discussions about these fabrications wastes of breath?

How do you explain people who value being "child-free"? — schopenhauer1

There is no need to. We are are discussing the logic of ending procreation to make the world more ethical and prevent future suffering.

There is a law that murder is wrong. The fact that I am never inclined to murder and likely never will be makes it easy for me to follow that law. That’s a different conversation than whether “murder is wrong” is a good law, is something universal everyone should follow, and something we should teach all to understand. Even if we logically showed “murder is good” I still wouldn’t murder.

The question is only is AN sound ethics?

I can only present the argument faithfully and to the best of my ability and they can do whatever they want. They can handle snakes, pray to their god, say their holy Hosannas, spout out nonsense, red herring non-sequitors on an internet forum — schopenhauer1

I am trying to use logic only. I never raised any of these non-sequitors. You did, which makes it a non-sequitor to the conversation I’m having.

I only point this out to show you how much I’m trying to avoid bad faith. I’m sticking to the text and bringing up logical issues with it and new premises (like suffering is of less import and less valuable than the life of the one who suffers). I’m not resorting to anything else but my observations and wits - no insulting references to religious practices.

I’m not belittling the AN person - I’m attacking the logic behind the conclusion that in order to be ethical, we should not procreate.

If AN is an issue of personal faith, like other “holy hosannas and spouting out other nonsense, then I wouldn’t be arguing the way I am. But it’s a logical, ethical stance. One that doesn’t seem sound to me.

It's NOT about the dignity of the PARENTS. Rather, it's about the dignity of the (future) child. — schopenhauer1

When I was arguing that we can’t be ethical towards a future person who does not exist, you went on and on about how it was not about the child. You said it was about the parent who was not inflicting suffering and preventing suffering and the non-presence of the child as recipient of the ethical behavior was irrelevant.

Now when I argue that (because there is no child) the human dignity AN ethics is trying to preserve has to exist in the living person who acts ethically (by preventing suffering and not procreating) you say it’s about the dignity of the future child.

I could level accusations of bad faith around too, but I’m just trying to point out the logical inconsistencies and am open to reasonable opposing views.

For instance, instead of thinking I know how the never going to Chicago scenario is so different than the never having children scenario, why don’t you lay it out? I think they are similar.

And instead of thinking I am fully aware of what I’m saying and acting in bad faith, show me how what I’m saying is not reasonable. Don’t just say it’s bad, show me.

I don’t think you are acting in bad faith towards me - I think you are being illogical and I’m trying as many ways as I can to show you why it’s illogical. I could be wrong about what AN really is, or I could be wrong about how my arguments are unsound or invalid in themselves. But you haven’t shown me otherwise. And instead like calling me a bad faith straw man builder. Over and over.

Are you really going to leave this conversation without showing me MORE CLEARLY how I am wrong?

Schop,
I’m not trying to be uncharitable. I’ve told you that anyone who wants to prevent suffering has their heart in the right place.

Answer me one question, is the fact that life is suffering a key premise to your argument or not?

Or better is the fact that some degree of suffering is entailed in every life a key premise to your argument or not?

Frankly don’t know why this is antagonizing. I’m trying to debate the logic of AN. It’s all so clear to you that you think I’m acting in bad faith because I’m not just following along the path that follows from the premise “life is suffering” but “ethics are good for people” and “preventing suffering is good ethics” so “never procreating is living ethically.”

To me it seems you are saying “there is enough suffering in every life that it is not debatable to evaluate that suffering as anything other than bad, harmful, fruitless, and unethical to inflict on another to any degree.

I’m trying to debate that. You think that’s bad faith for some reason.

It's not my job to try to convince every Harry, Dick, and Jane of their intransigent, unsound beliefs. — schopenhauer1

It’s not my job to demonstrate that the suffering that exists in life is only animating factor of ethics. That’s your job as an AN proponent. By simply avoiding the issue you sound like a flat-earther.

The earth isn’t flat. I can argue that, point.
Life is waaay more than suffering. I argued that. You don’t respond.
Preventing suffering is NOT the highest good of ethics. I argued that, you failed to respond.

If you are frustrated with me, I think it’s because you cherish suffering too much.

Life is suffering is your strawman.

The 'suffering' part is A factor not THE defining facto — I like sushi

It’s THE defining factor. Take out that life is suffering, you take out that procreation causes life which causes suffering, AND you take out the ethical ideal that it is wrong to inflict suffering and good to prevent suffering.

Take out Suffering, and the whole AN argument collapses.

what right you have to bring someone into the world in the first place. — I like sushi

What right do I have to make someone else late for work by driving too slow? What right do I have to cause a car accident? None. So if preventing suffering in some possible scenario is the highest ethical ideal, then I shouldn’t leave the house.

You didn’t answer the question.

I can have a baby and “do my best” not to cause any harm to that baby. So if merely having the baby sets up the conditions where I didn’t prevent suffering, so does leaving the house and involving anyone else in my actions.

can you imagine certain extreme scenarios where you would look more favorably on the AN position — I like sushi

By favorably you mean see the logic, because AN is all gloom and doom about all of life and what is the best thing to do about it - doesn’t do any of us any favors. But If this world was a living hell, I and all I could see around me was great suffering, and I knew my child would have it as bad or worse, with no hope for anything worth all the pain and suffering, then maybe.

You didn’t answer my scenario about leaving the house being likely to cause additional suffering in the world. How am I any less immoral by having a baby or leaving the house? If I leave, I am likely to cause some suffering to some potential person, just like if I take steps to procreate I am likely to cause some suffering, therefore yo prevent suffering and be an ethical person, I shouldn’t leave the house or procreate.

measures' the valuation between 'pain' and 'no pain' as a meaningful point — I like sushi

So if life only had a little bit of suffering in it, for everyone, the AN argument would fail? That’s not what Schop is saying. And it opens the whole AN argument up to attacks regarding the value of suffering.

Which to me shows its weakness.

If I leave my house tomorrow and go driving, I’ll accidentally cut someone off, or miss a green light and cause someone to be late for work, or maybe hit someone, so in order to prevent suffering, shouldn’t I never leave my house? Isn’t that the same logic being applied to procreation?

I think there are many more fundamentalists — I like sushi

No one has explained how it is logical for an AN person to say “thou shalt not procreate” but, after a person breaks that rule and gets pregnant, how they can also say “it is permissible to get an abortion.” That would mean, it is wrong to create a newly conceived fetus, because that causes suffering, but once you create one, you can still kill it. Where is the internal logic there?

Unless AN’s define procreation as bringing a baby to viability. In such case, another sub rule under the AN ethic is that “if you are newly found pregnant, you should always get an abortion, or you will fail to prevent suffering.” See, I answered it for the AN enthusiast. More abortions to save world from all those mothers and fathers who don’t seem to care about all of the suffering they failed to prevent.

this idea stemmed from a staunch opposition to 'Pro Lifers — I like sushi

Interesting. Maybe. But says nothing about whether it’s a good idea and a sound moral position to take.

let us assume — I like sushi

No. That life is suffering, and no more needs to be said about this life we are each forced to live? No, I don’t assume that.

It’s a small minority position in philosophy, an already small subset. — schopenhauer1

I can’t believe it’s even a small subset, because it’s illogical to me to promote an ethic that defeats the existence of all ethical subjects.

I’m just talking to you. I’m not trying to save the world. I know nature will never give AN much traction. Maybe it’s not a good thought, despite the goodness of trying not to cause harm. AN defeats it’s own good, which are ethical human beings.

the asymmetry of preventing suffering and not preventing suffering — schopenhauer1

So any degree of suffering is bad. I get that about your argument.

common notions of deontology about the dignity of people, and how they aren't to be used or "messed with". For example, non-harm, and autonomy seem to be pretty essential to the dignity of a person — schopenhauer1

Not preventing suffering via procreation, will lead to the violation of this ethic (non-harm, autonomy). Procreation leads to harm/suffering. — schopenhauer1

I get it.

Dignity is preserved in the person who prevents suffering by not procreating.

I get it.

You dont get that I’m still not persuaded by the logic.

If I go to Chicago, there’s a chance I cause somebody in Chicago to suffer. So if I never go to Chicago I have prevented all of that possible, likely (because life is so full of suffering) suffering. Therefore, I should never go to Chicago.

These aren’t strawmen. These are individual lives living out their free moral choices, using logic and judgement. In the judgement of AN, all human procreation is worth ending balanced against all human suffering.

The main argument is not about "How much suffering" per se. That can be a dimension, but only after the core — schopenhauer1

Suffering is close to the core of the argument. Very close. The AN person is not preventing happiness, or boredom, they are preventing suffering, and suffering caused by one person to another person is the thing that goes against human. Suffering is really bad, bad enough to prompt moral laws and new choices. According to the AN position.

It’s not convincing to keep saying discussions about the suffering prong of the argument are strawman arguments.

you should not force recruit people who will be harmed — schopenhauer1

So what if you come from a long line of procreators, all of your parents and grandparents were all procreators (weird how that works) and all you want to do is spread a little love and joy and hope for a better future around like your mother did….. Don’t you think you will cause fresh new suffering to make this person doubt procreation? You are saying “it’s for your own good, despite all the people on your family tree who love and admire, for your own ethical good you should not cause suffering, so you should not procreate.” The rule itself as a thought causes suffering too, to someone who had long plans of a family and grandkids one day. It’s nice that no one is talking about actually forcing people not to procreate, but that’s not the point; even asking (most) people to reconsider any more procreation, is going to cause suffering. How do you answer that without being paternalistic, and without:

YOU deem the game necessary for someone else to play based on your personal estimation. — schopenhauer1

The game in your estimation is never causing suffering. But you never entertain thoughts of suffering being not just tolerable, but able to be made part of our dignity.

Not causing suffering isn’t strong enough of a moral code versus the chance at bringing about a human good through that suffering.

Suffering matters greatly to your argument and you take it for granted that everyone should know this suffering, and that no one could dignify this suffering, and instead call it a strawman.

to the point where they would enforce this by law — I like sushi

Call me an idiot but I thought we were talking about ethics, a moral law.

If all the people who were thinking about procreating asked “what ought I do? What’s the right thing to do? Should I procreate?” The AN believer would say to everyone “You shouldn’t procreate because that would cause suffering.”

No one is talking about “enforcement” of some criminal statute or something. Missed my point.

Why is your experience the tell-all for humanity? — AmadeusD

It’s not. I’m saying, to convince me of the premise that my life is mostly suffering, you will have to add some suffering to my life.

I’m not fashioning any new law based on my experience of suffering or happiness, or my judgement of how other people should rationally balance the scales of suffering and joy in their experience, in their lives.

AN is fashioning a new law. AN says to me “because your life is mostly suffering, you should not procreate.” AN is the tell all.

I’m just saying to Mr. AN enthusiast, “procreate if you want or don’t procreate if you don’t want, but telling all of us, including me, not to procreate based on the fact that all life, including mine, is on balance over full of suffering, doesn’t make sense to me at all.” My kids love life too much. One’s a nurse (surrounded by suffering), one is a welder (gets burned everyday), and one is a struggling artist (who needs a job). They are all glad I “inflicted” life on them.

Its aggregation that matters — AmadeusD

There is no aggregate until there are individuals to pile up into that aggregate. An aggregate construction doesn’t get off the ground without constructing all of its individual stories first.

most people would come out in the negative yet claim the positive. — AmadeusD

Two things: 1. I think most people overlook the positives and would errantly come out with mostly negatives. So I personally think most people would be wrong about their own lives too - if they said their lives were over full of pointless overwhelming suffering. But 2. What does it matter what anyone else thinks about anyone else’s lives but their own? I can’t tell you what pink looks like to you, or what hot feels like to you, and I can’t tell you how much you should be suffering or how much you should think you are suffering, or what you are feeling when you suffer painful feelings. So unless we all of our own wills each agree that “life is basically suffering” none of us should be basing a law on this premise. Who is anyone to tell me or anyone else but themselves, how much they suffer - that is not possible.

What happens here is that, even if objectively speaking “life is mostly suffering”, we can only test that by asking each person, and the vast majority of people will say (as you said above), on balance, life is worth all of the suffering. Suffering, like the qualia of any experience, can’t be determined or imposed from without, and the value of that suffering in developing laws like AN, should not be imposed either.

I answer that, Nothing hinders one act from having two effects, only one of which is intended, while the other is beside the intention... — Aquinas, ST II-II.64.7: Whether it is lawful to kill a man in self-defense?

The principle of double effect points to where intention exists. In one single act, having multiple effects, intention can lie in all, or only one, or some of those effects. Intention draws a direct line from a precise agent to his/her specifically intended effects, and that line may not exist in all of the effects that exist.

I have changed my mind — Bob Ross

That is impressive in itself - intellectual honesty on display. Cudos to you, brother Bob.

And the dialogue between you and Leontiskos has been very instructive.

I agree that the PDE is instructive of good morality when making certain decisions. But I also think one needs to be rigorous when essentially justifying bad effects. It’s a real tightrope with real pitfalls.

I like the pilot problem (to crash where less people are or not) or the car crash problem (4 or 2 must die) better than the trolley problem to think through the PDE.

For the trolley fiasco, I still think it is ridiculous to suspend the rest of the context and hand the lever or the seat over to someone on the trolley and ask them what is the right thing to do.

My inclination is that, without some context the choice of tracks cannot be made morally - neither is the right move. You need context, like for instance, the trolley driver passsd out, you happen to already know how to drive a trolley so you take control, which basically puts you in the same seat as the car driver and the pilot. NOW you see 5 people on one track and 1 on the other and can be asked - what would you do? That’s enough to ask a question like this. Because without the context, you have to decide to take any control and responsibility for any outcome by becoming a trolley driver. You have to instantly become a trolley driver and choose who dies all at once. That’s dumb. Like being pushed out of an airplane with 5 other people and four parachutes, with no prior experience and being told it’s all up to you who lives and you have to be one of the people who lives. Just ridiculous, and if that situation actually arose I would never blame any of the falling people for any outcome. Too surreal to inform a question of morality.

If I was magically placed near the helm of an out of control trolley and saw all of these people on the tracks, the moral decision is to yell “who is driving this trolley - what is supposed to be done - what do you want me to do!” And with no answer, besides a moral dilemma (you get to decide by pulling that lever or not), why would anyone have a duty to make any decision on that trolley? The trolley problem is too unrealistic and so presents an unfair question. It’s like a trick question where the answer should be “I wouldn’t do either, which although it has the effect of not pulling the lever is not my intended outcome.”

So maybe the PDE sneaks in as a justification for choosing not to participate in the trolley problem. You aren’t morally responsible for choosing to let 5 people die or choosing to kill 1 person, you are morally responsible for choosing not to take on a duty to make any decision given those facts, and the bad effect of 5 people dying is not intended by you. The right thing to do is say “I reject this demand which up until I was asked belonged specifically to the trolley driver and what the hell is with all of the people on the tracks - is that normal for trolley drivers??” The outcome is bad effects either way, but none are the intention of your decision to reject that there is any sense at all to asking you to jump up and grab the lever and decide any next steps.

So I don’t pull the lever not because it commits an act of killing one, and I don’t think pulling the lever is justified by PDE either. But the act of rejecting such a crazy scenario that results in 5 people dying, may be justified by the PDE.

I don’t know. I may never take a trolley ride. Because if I do, it seems I might have a duty first to learn the controls and levers, and learn how to manage foot traffic on the tracks in case of emergency - because I like being moral.

Good conversation.

Curious if I’m still way off in either of your estimations.

reality not in general a balance of logos and flux — apokrisis

Flux contains the paradoxes. The Logos is not within it, the Logos is about the paradoxes flux brings.

balancing of stability and plasticity? — apokrisis

Yes he got it. Nothing was dropped out of the vocabulary. The river and the not-river both are, or neither are.

Antinatalists don't claim their lives are horrible, and you've got to stop insinuating there's some personal judgment going on. It's not relevant to me whether someone claims they have a good life individually - the argument is about lives to come. — AmadeusD

But the argument is that the lives to come will be full of suffering, and the evidence that the lives to come will be full of suffering is gleaned from those living now, who are suffering. So the judgment: "my life and those of others, are full of suffering," IS relevant. The argument is made FOR lives to come (or for NO lives to come more precisely), but the personal experience of lives now is one of the premises of the argument.

If you suffer too much, whether you're preoccupied with it isn't relevant. Those who aren't have the 'polly anna syndrome' and those who are are simply in touch with reality (this being a take - not my position on every human's psyche lol) — AmadeusD

Seems like you are basically saying either you know your life is full of suffering, or you are living in LaLa land. I don't know why we would speak so generally about billions of lives in such simplistic terms, especially to support a logic that ends procreation as if it was just some other behavior.

Look, I agree that suffering is everywhere that there is a living conscious being. I disagree the suffering is all of the time for every living being. And I think the non-suffering is well worth the suffering, for the vast majority of living beings. So I would need to be tortured and watch my family tortured for a few days at least before I would throw away all of human history and its future. I know there are those who have been tortured for years. I know for many, anxiety and depression are worse than physical pain - mental illness may be the deepest and sharpest of all suffering there is (and it can be accompanied by physical pain and physical sickness).

But still, for most, much of the time, life is worth it. It's not LaLa land to take your suffering medicine like a badge of honor and greet each new day, each new birth, as something better, again, and again and again.

Just using your words.

“build a social system that is on average fair and just?”
— apokrisis

Three things: fair/just, unfair/unjust, and on average.

Without any one of these, all three drop out. That’s what average is built of, and what the extremes build.

The resolution is not a new unity that dissolves the others. Its paradox, that is the impossible that is actual.

Heraclitus’ Logos did not resolve the paradoxes; it simply related them to each other. Identity, truth, the one/many, motion/stillness - these paradoxes relate to each other as spoken in a Logos. The logos can’t resolve the paradoxes (nor would he seek to resolve them.) “It rests with change” mean what it means without redefining “rest” or “change” - the opposites remain. The rest comes after change AND the change comes after rest (unchanging stillness). If we resolve this, we lose both and have said nothing, provided nothing for the Logos to speak of.

Yeah, nah. — apokrisis

Too extreme?

a discussion of moral extremes — apokrisis

Then what are we in the middle of? How is it a “middle”? Between extremes?

towards the balancing middle — apokrisis

Middle? Middle of what?

You can’t say “middle” anymore without saying more than the middle, and you wouldn’t say “mid” if not in between two others. Three things where there is a middle. You need them all to have one or the vocabulary you are using has no sense.

You can live in the middle, and never attend the extremes, but without the extremes you can’t call it a “middle”.

If evil drops out, so does the good.

baseline of a middling balance is what is "good". — apokrisis

How can you say “middling” if you place something at the far ends of the middle (where good is not evil and evil is not good), in the middle? The nuanced middle is not the same as either extreme at the ends; it’s a third thing of them both (paradox).

If good versus evil become good in the resolved middle, then what happened to evil? Why isn’t the middle just as evil as it is good? In which case good and evil have no meaning and there never was a paradox to resolve?

We don’t resolve paradoxes. If we could, they wouldn’t arise in the first place.

The mature world is no longer Good vs Evil, but a nuanced environment that can be managed by rational actors into a worldview where we can look forward to waking up tomorrow in a familiar place with new challenges to manage.
— Gnomon

Yep. — apokrisis

I agree too. But would you also agree with what follows:

That leaves three things - the good, the evil, and the nuance in between.

To have mature, reasoned nuance, and create a familiar, balanced starting point to make the simplicities and complexities out of the past and the future, even if nothing in the nuanced middle demonstrates anything that is absolute, we have to know good in itself (as best we can), evil in itself (as best we can), in order to claim some character to the nuance. The nuance can’t now be absent the good and the bad.

We still have to define or assume the form of the “good” and “evil” to fill the form of the “nuanced” to be a mix (a third thing). So there are three parts to this explanation of how to live.

What I am trying to say is that. if we live in a world of nuance, we don’t just live in a world of nuance; a world of nuance can only be so nuanced with it’s good and bad, and so these two are NOT nuanced but absolute.

And we can replace “good” and “evil” with “reality” and “appearance” (not that reality is good and appearance is evil, but utterly displacing “good” and “evil” such that reality is neither good nor evil, and appearance is neither good nor evil).

So we can say:
if we live in a world of nuance, we don’t only live with nuance; a world of nuance can only be so nuanced with its reality and appearance.

Always needing logic to make these simplicities and complexities unified in the nuance.

We can’t have the nuance without the absolute. Just as we can’t have the absolute because of all the nuance.

To have either nuance, or absolutes, we have both.

Both is a third thing. This third thing is a paradox.

So is the world fair and just? We have to find that in some senses the world is fair and just, and in other senss it is not, and we have to find what “fair” means and what “just” means (which I don’t address here in the hopes of keeping up with the conversation).

The world is fair and just if you detach everything into individuals, and then reattach them to the whole again (detach to examine and reattach to let them be them). This is a physicalist, scientific, currently predominant worldview - it is just for steel to cut flesh, for the moon to orbit the earth, as it is for the electron to orbit the proton; all is fair and just, following along as if in perfect willingness to follow every law to the letter. You cannot detach any one thing from the law. Motion and its effects can never, so will never, be denied, for any motion, against any motion, all is unfolding as it must, or all is behaving justly as each is necessarily treated fairly.

But the world is NOT fair and just if you focus on what is “fairness” and “what is justice” first. Now we set impossible (absolute) standards first and value “this one is good” and “that one is not” - and with reason and conceptualized versions of “fair” and “just” in hand, we secondly see how our reasons apply to the world of acts and mixed nuances of moving things. If we impose judgement and value on the things, the world is clearly full of injustice and unfairness. Our idealizations of “good” and “bad” are used to make our ideals of “fair” and “just”, and only now (secondly) can we see the INjustice of a particular act, or its UNfairness.

If we try to take the world first, physicalism says yes, all is just as it must be for all the same. Similar to fair, justice.

If we take the fair and the just first, this conceptualism (idealism) says no, NOT all is just, and for some, unfair portions of this injustice are born.

AND, to have this second view (where one can see the necessities of the world as unjust), one must have the three things in hand, these being absolute good, absolute bad and nuance.

In other words, we can’t even get to the question “Is the world fair and just” without there being fairness, justice, unfairness, injustice, the world, and the judge (agent), or the particular act in the world.

It’s all there in the nuances.

Is the real world fair and just?
— Gnomon
Yes. Humans, however, are too often not "fair and just". — 180 Proof

In a way, that reflects what I was saying. In a physicalist sense, yes, the world is fair and just. (In this sense you don’t really need the words fair and just anymore.)

But humans, we construct good and bad, fair and unfair, just and unjust, and act back in the same world that was otherwise beyond these constructions, and so we now add to the mix unfairness in the world, injustice in the world, goodness in the world, justice in the world, etc.

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I think in many ways a philosopher is somewhat of a mystic, wouldn't you say?
— Outlander

simplistically, they seem the opposite ends of a telescope or like complementary photo negatives of one another.
— 180 Proof

I do agree with both of you — ENOAH

I look at it like this. There is one subject. One object of experience.

The philosopher takes this subject, and with reason, cuts it apart to understand it.
The religious person takes this same subject, and, without understanding it, calls it God in the hope of becoming part of the subject.

The mystic, sees the subject, and leaves it be, so that there is only the subject, and not the self facing it, and that’s how the subject is experienced (not known or understood).

So the philosopher and the religious overlap in that they remain apart from the subject.
The mystic and the philosopher overlap, in that the subject can be so empty of personhood, the honest philosopher will doubt all metaphysics and language about the subject (the human understanding), and both the mystic and the philosopher might say they know nothing at all.
The religious person and the mystic overlap, in the joy that is the subject, the experience of the subject.

The scientist, like the philosopher, uses reason to break the subject apart, but then the scientist takes one part of the subject (say, the physical), and calls that part the whole subject. Like biology does not sit in physics, or physics is not “being” physics.

So the religious approach is the only that truly preserves the person, and the mystic approach is the only that truly preserves the subject.

But it’s all one conversation, just that the mystic can’t use words or even needs to speak. The mystical experience is truly singular, like the object of scientific inquiry is particular. But the mystical experience is the singular experience of “all” or “one” or “nothing” or “ing-ing” or “the infinite” and the scientific particular is as demonstration of the the universal, the laws of physics, the certain mathematical truth.

PS. I should add that the artist also deals in the one subject, but the artist takes from the philosophical, the religious and the mystical as he or she sees fit, and yields crap, or a reflection of wisdom and beauty.

It is only upon re-entry into the constructed atmosphere that variations start to project. — ENOAH

That is both spot on to me, and could easily make no sense to somebody. Re-entry from a mystical practice. In fleeting moments or longer breaths. I like it.

And if that atmosphere is constructed with a man on a cross and a dove, the one re-entering might fall back into the Catholic, whereas if that atmosphere is a Chinese monastery, one falls back into that, and we all fall back into hunger, sleep…

That’s the thing about the mystical, it doesn’t exclude anything. Or at the same time, it excludes everything besides it (and it may just as well be God). It begins when all is let go of completely, and at that exact same moment all fills up and carries away completely. It is paradox, so it is both impossible to say, and impossible to be, but it IS, sometimes, for fleeting seconds, if lucky, or blessed, if you will.

In Catholic terms, it is God not conceived as Father, or Son. Maybe the Holy Spirit, but really enough is said when the Catholic mystic conceives of God as God. The One. Like Being itself unified as one being. The not-Me (this is where God remains personal, though not “my” self.) Consciousness. It alone. Where “there-ing” is “here-ing” and “I-ing” is not. God overlaps precisely with those fleeting moments where the mystic would say the word “all” or “one” or even “nothing”; there can still be mystical behavior, without rejecting or refuting anything Catholic.

I’m no mystic. And I’m no saint. And I ain’t no philosopher, but…now I forget what I was trying to say.

I think that today genuine mysticism is more difficult than in the past, because it cannot escape the challenges coming from radical criticism — Angelo Cannata

I do see what you are saying, but I think I disagree with that. Criticism has become popular, but is not new. The mystic doesn’t make less sense today, when to simple logic, they never made any sense ever.

And in some ways, mysticism actually makes more sense now, with the total deconstruction of the “self” being a big part of philosophy of mind, and with “illusion” being the substance of any identity.

And the religion that attaches to mysticism, it seems to me, is utterly non-sectarian. An orthodox Catholic mystic might say the same thing about the mystical as a non-theistic Taoist. The differences between the churches are somewhat cleared away from a mystical point of view (which is why various churches are too skeptical to embrace it, along with the fear people will be led to confusions that obviate the need for a personal God, which is the opposite of what religion is supposed to foster.)

- People taking one aspect of another person, one impression even, and judging the whole person and their whole life based on that, and judging them to be a bad person, or a loser, or whatever.

It’s just annoyingly boring. And the comments are almost always unoriginal, stereotypical, shallow and a waste of everyone’s time.

If a guy voted for Trump, you still need to know more before you can hate them. Same for guy who voted for Biden. Sorry folks, we all need to give each other way more credit than one issue, or even 10 issues. It’s true. No two facists or communists are the same.

- And upgrades to apps that just make them more cumbersome and stupid. Fixing what ain’t broken (or its cousin, upgrades to software.). Annoys the s out of me. Just leave some shit alone for a few years once in a while.

we can — Janus

We certainly can. But too few of us do.

Love your enemies. Turn the other cheek. 2000 year old quotes.

I wouldn't call this optimism. :wink: — Tom Storm

Valid observation. I’m actually optimistic. Just not in our ability to truly care for one another on any kind of scale larger than the people we happen to like in our living rooms and backyards.

There is no mental anything at the physics level. I'm talking about territory here, not map. Map is our only interface from mental ideals to territory. — noAxioms

If you say there is any level where there is “no mental anything” aren’t you pointing out a non-ideal thing, an object in itself regardless of the mental? Haven’t you admitted there is a physical (non-mental) world where objects (particles) speak for themselves?

If I reach out and touch the bark and ask how large 'this' is, am I talking about the twig, branch, tree, forest, or something else? — noAxioms

Why did we ever conceive of the notion of “object” in the first place? Why did we not always know “when I reach out and touch, I am touching one giant dinstiction-free object?”

Why would a “twig” or a “tree” confuse us when we touch “this”?

Are we constructing the problem AND constructing the objects that purport to solve the problem?

Objects are at best particles interacting with each other according to physical law. — noAxioms

Physical, not mental, basis?

And I guess the distinctions between psychology and biology and physics are ideal only?

My point is, you cannot speak, we cannot form an ideal, without some real distinctions apart from the mind on which we make any move, perform any act, posit any field, say anything like “particle”.

We may always be wrong about the separate mind-independent object, except that it is there, otherwise we cannot speak. Speaking places the ideal back into a separate world of objects (letters, words, sentences, paragraphs), where, like the other objects, they can either float freely among, or butt up against, or connect with, the world. These words only express their meaning in other minds. But they are still particles, or in a distinct field that is there regardless of my idealistic abilities.