If find it hard to believe we're having a discussion about conspiracy theories and nobody has brought up Edward Snowden yet.

The man is wanted in the US for uncovering a "conspiracy theory" in which the US government and tech giants work together to spy on the American public. This happened in 2013, and if you asked the common person about the situation, they would probably tell you they thought it was one of the other conspiracy theories like aliens in area 51 or wearing a tin foil hat.

For the foreseeable future he's living in Russia, because if he ever returned to the US, he will face one of the most one sided trials of all time.

It seems that while a theory is still a "conspiracy theory", it is assumed false, and as someone above mentioned, that is how it should be. The burden of proof lies on those who make claims. But when those who make claims are correct, their theories are suddenly credible and they lose that "conspiracy" part of the name. The theory is given credibility, but its past is forgotten. It's a fundamental disconnect, sort of a doublethink, where one moment something is completely impossible, and the next it is the only way things have ever been. Maybe we forget the history because it's too painful to remember that we were wrong or that we could be wronged. That kind of thinking will only cause more pain in the long run.

What's interesting is how nobody seems to care about these kinds of situations, the above in particular. It isn't that they deny or accept, it's that they are unaware. Crazy things happen, people just don't see them. It's interesting how the world is so chaotic, history is unfolding right before our eyes, and you may have just been blinking when it happened.

Don't worry man, I've been playing lots of Fallout: New Vegas recently. I'll be right there with you blasting the heads off of raiders and taking the Vegas strip for myself. Yes man is the best ending, isn't it?

Just watch out for Caesar and the NCR. Of course, I'm sure your bunker will keep the meddling governments of our new world out, but all I'm saying is that it didn't work for the Brotherhood of Steel.

But that's true of most tools. You risk cutting your thumb off if you use a table saw. — frank

And table saws have helped to build many fine estates and family homes.

Perhaps you took me the wrong way. While I personally don't enjoy the media I consume to be censored in any way, (which is what I assume most people arguing against the usefulness of censorship really care about) I do accept it can be useful. However, I also see it as just a tool. It can't solve our problems on its own. A tool can only be used effectively by a skilled user. If the user of a tool isn't proficient enough, or maybe even unlucky, a tool can hurt them as well.

So, to put it in modern context, You say that Russia and China use censorship to their advantage and I agree. However, what happens when they begin to stagnate as all empires do at some point? Where will the innovation be? They ridded themselves of everyone who dared to disagree long ago.

As for the west, agreements are rarely made. Deep political divisions keep them from fighting off foreign threats. A chivalrous distaste for control weakens them.

Personally, I don't even care who comes out on top. As long as I can be a scientist when I finally grow up, it doesn't really matter to me. All I'm saying is that our leaders play with fire that they are almost never good enough to mess with. As of now, I don't think there's any strategy to keep an empire going forever. You can only prolong its suffering.

I would agree most of the time. However, if you don't worry about the present sometimes, you may not live to see tomorrow.

Just spitballing. The future is the only thing I tend to be optimistic about.

With this in mind, many people are wondering just what happens next. — Wallows

Hedonism, of course.

Sounds like the good end to me.

The West should meet foreign intrusion with censorship. Who disagrees? — frank

It's damned if you do, damned if you don't, I fear.

On one hand, censorship I think has value depending on the situation. If you are a dictator and need to maintain the people's vision of your rule, censorship is valuable. It can maintain order that way.

On the other, keeping your society in a state of submission keeps it from changing. When a newer people who accept the way the world is now gain strength from that, you will be vulnerable.

Of course, when things are not changing as much and the "free" people grow restless, maintaining order will be hard without censorship. They will be overtaken by those who have no problem with squashing opposition within their own borders.

There is a reason why no ancient empires still exist. It is this. The balance between telling people what to do and letting them tell you what to do is hard to keep. Cults of personality, religious fanaticism, as well as both the reverence and disgust of the past add to the difficulty of maintaining a people that can adapt when needed and stay the same when beneficial. On top of even that, how is one to even know when to change or stay the same?

Sure, taking a certain action today may keep you alive today, but what of tomorrow? Eventually you will make the wrong choice.

Did people who experienced the 1760's look back at those years in 1784 and think of them as self contained I wonder?

I think that perhaps the pace of progress was just right during the 1900's to foster a sense of what we would think of as a decade. Before it was too slow, and now I think too fast. Despite things not seeming different, I assume you as a computer dork that I would rather be living with today's tech than live with what we had in 2010. On the outside, your phone looks the same every time you get a new one, but on the inside things are very much changing.

While the outside of things used to change often but the function would stay the same, (fashion of the 60's vs of the 80's for example) now the outside of things is staying the same while the function is changing or improving. It seems that people have elected to reap the benefits of change without having to accept or even see it.

As for merit in what you're saying, I think there is. You notice something that, either intentionally or not, is supposed to be unnoticeable. Good job.

To briefly summarize this argument I will use an example my teacher gave me: would you rathe have a rock as a pet, who cannot move or sin, or a horse that can or will run away as a pet. The answer seems to be the horse, despite it's ability to sin, appears to be inherently more valuable because it has the free will to act, unlike the immobile rock. This is how humankind is, free to sin and yet more valuable due to said ability. Thus God allows us to have free will, knowing evil will happen as a result, because we are more valuable creatures for such a trait. — robbiefrost

This might just be my free will allowing me to disagree with god, but if I were god I would rather have the rock. As a god, one that I assume has a plan, I would rather put that plan into action in a way that is likely to succeed and not backfire. Adding unpredictable elements to my grand scheme would only add the unknown, eliminating a perceived advantage of being a god (to be all knowing). The only way I would prefer a horse over a rock is if the horse's free will was required for part of the plan.

If my plan requires that part of it may be evil, and I allow that willingly, am I good or evil?

I’ll be honest, I just thought that the Diogenes story was funny. Regardless, I think that as usual his crude way of doing things reveals some truth, this time being that actions speak louder and sometimes truer than words.

I did find it strange that his paradoxes contradicted each other.

From the Wikipedia page for Zeno's paradoxes-

In the arrow paradox, Zeno states that for motion to occur, an object must change the position which it occupies. He gives an example of an arrow in flight. He states that in any one (duration-less) instant of time, the arrow is neither moving to where it is, nor to where it is not.[15] It cannot move to where it is not, because no time elapses for it to move there; it cannot move to where it is, because it is already there. In other words, at every instant of time there is no motion occurring. If everything is motionless at every instant, and time is entirely composed of instants, then motion is impossible.

It's strange how different metrics of the same thing can not only imply different outcomes, but complete opposite outcomes.

Movement measured relative to other objects seems to imply that all things are moving, but movement measured as points in time rather than segments seems to imply that they aren't.

I don't know what I think about this problem. I actually don't even know if what you say and the paradox contradict in any way. All I can really say is this-

Diogenes is said to have replied to Zeno's paradoxes on the unreality of motion by standing up and walking away.

The biggest lightsaber

Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.

-Sun Tzu

Nobody feels as if this world is perfect, but all wish to change it in different ways. If you want your vision seen, you have to do the above better than anyone else.

As for ways to look at it morally, I think most people don't. The ends justify the means. You could call that maybe a bit reckless, but I think most people can think of at least one end they would be willing do injustice for.

Well, we're called 'beings', and computers are not. I say there's a reason for that, although it's very hard to articulate — Wayfarer

The reason is for some that a god decided it so, and for others that we decided what being is. Like I said before, believe whatever you want to believe, because I surely don't know the truth.

The point as far as the OP is concerned is that it injects a great deal of anthropocentrism into the scenario without really being aware of having done so. — Wayfarer

It's hard not to project onto software that can respond to you almost as well as a person can. Not that you would be right to do so, just understandably wrong.

The purpose of a machine is to serve whoever created it. If we want results that please us, AI should at least somewhat be able to mimic the human thought process. So while AI is certainly different from us, it would be wrong to say that its entirely different.

Corpses are not aware. That's how come they're called 'corpses'. — Wayfarer

Fine, then "everything we think might be aware is aware." probably works better.

You're thinking extremely broadly and speculatively without much research on the topic. — fdrake

This is true as well. The godlike artificial intelligence we see in media isn't exactly what we have now.

And I'd question whether artificial intelligence knows anything. It is a collection of processors that are processing binary code. Certainly the sheer computing power of large arrays is astronomical but it's certainly a moot point whether it corresponds to self-awareness. So 'it' doesn't think or, arguably, know anything. — Wayfarer

Unless you believe that humans have a special trait that makes them "know", (akin to a soul) then as far as we know, we would be as conscious as a computer that can do all the things we can do.

So, either nothing is "aware", which is kind of strange, considering we know of the concept of awareness but didn't come up with it by being aware of it.

Everything is aware.

Or awareness is something that specifically humans have and that isn't possible to replicate elsewhere.

Regardless, this post isn't really about awareness, and I don't want to go too far into it. It really just depends on your beliefs honestly, and I'm not interested in changing those.

Until an A.I. can determine whether it's in a simulation or not (and I don't see how that's possible) — RogueAI

With access to the most if not all human knowledge and the ability to gain more, I don't think it's exactly a given that this isn't possible. AI becomes a potential danger when given access to real world info for this reason.

There might also be an exception if the A.I. thinks its creators are going down a morally dangerous road. — RogueAI

Since we can set starting goals for programs that develop on their own (which is how most AIs are developed, if I'm not mistaken.) we can guide them towards any moral standing, be it nefarious or benevolent. Actually, if an AI's creators became evil in its eyes, that would probably be a dead giveaway that it was in a simulation.

@Wayfarer brings up a good point.

so you think it's simply a given that the Darwinian principles of natural selection will apply to computer systems? How does that work? — Wayfarer

It is not a given, but if we wish to develop AI via the method described above, it's likely involved. You give the computer a goal, then it attempts to reach the goal by trying different things. Eventually, it creates the most efficient program that accomplishes this goal.

If I'm not mistaken, sort of like this. (The video is definitely more casual than a college lecture on the topic, but also much more simple, so if anyone isn't familiar with the concepts involved they won't be left in the dust.) Don't feel bad about skipping through parts that don't pertain to the subject

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-wIZuAA3EY

Essentially, the best way to make sure your AI doesn't take control of all technology on the planet is to make it agreeable from the start.

You.. can be a millionaire.. and never pay taxes! You can be a millionaire.. and never pay taxes! You say.. “Steve.. how can I be a millionaire.. and never pay taxes?” First.. get a million dollars. — T Clark

And any aspiring millionaire wouldn't have it any other way.

The problem is not the uneven distribution in itself, it is that those who have the most resources actively act against those who have little resources, to prevent them from having more, in essence those who have little resources are enslaved to those who have more, they do not have the freedom to acquire them by themselves. In order to gain their freedom, they have to work much harder than they would otherwise, or they have to be lucky, or they have to be criminals, and even then they're still all enslaved to money. — leo

You act as if businessmen have no weaknesses. If there isn't a competitor somewhere, the problem is anti-monopoly laws where you live.

The one thing you can do to businesses is the one thing that hurts them most- leave. I highly doubt that most people are working the best paying job they can. Put in some applications and when the time comes, put in your two weeks. I've certainly done it before. The guy I picked up hours from last week certainly did. All you have to do is look around. Sure, you might still be enslaved to money, but nobody has any other choice, even those with all the money.

The only thing standing between the wealthy and poverty is wealth. If they stop doing what they're doing, they suffer. Their lives are significantly more extravagant, but they live in fear of losing that cash flow just as much as we do.

In nature, what's working against you is the predators, but you don't have an army of predators enslaving you, you can fight them and win, or you can avoid them much more easily than you can avoid the whole of law enforcement and the military. — leo

I would say oppression by predators is relatively equal to oppression by law. While predators don't enslave, they do kill at will. You can't have free time if you're dead. Any animal that is preyed upon typically doesn't have a fighting chance. If two evenly matched animals are fighting, it's over territory. This is because for an animal to be considered prey, it has to be a regular part of another animal's diet. You can't fight even fights on a daily basis and expect to live long.

Running expends immense energy and requires constant food. Like I said above, I wouldn't consider recovering from physical activity free time.

By definition if you only care about yourself you don't care about the benefit of others, you don't care about the greater good. I'm not talking about leaders who believe people are foolish without their guidance, I'm talking about people who actually don't care about hurting others for their own personal gain. You seem to believe such people don't exist, I disagree. — leo

These people consider their own personal gain the greater good. They believe that their position justifies their wealth and they use that position to gain the wealth they deserve. Whether they're right or wrong, they believe what they're doing is right. To them, hurting others is good if it meets this end. Nobody thinks that they're evil, or at least entirely evil. So no, I don't think that people hurt others without somehow justifying it in their mind, unless they're mentally ill or brain dead.

There is evidence that they did have a lot of free time. See the book Stone Age Economics for instance. There are some who say that agriculture was invented to fill the needs of a rising population which was itself the result of a lot of free time. It's surely not obvious at all that back then they had little free time, contrary to popular belief. — leo

I'm not one to rule out reading a book, so when I get around to it I'll let you know.

What I think to be likely is that what ancient people believe to be fun was in fact more work. People still hunt now because they think it's fun, but back then it was a necessary part of life, and it was something that people did all day. Fun work does not equal free time.

If I recall, the creation of agriculture is in most places considered to have likely been an accident. Someone dropping fruit somewhere near home and connecting the dots later on. These people didn't have the prior knowledge that we have now that seeds are what plants use to reproduce. If they did, agriculture would have happened sooner. It's something that you have to figure out. Even simple developments like spears took thousands of years and were also probably spurred on by accident.

Even the large population doesn't necessarily imply a lot of free time. I think looking at the logistics of reproduction proves that. One birth per 9 months per woman doesn't necessarily imply that there was a lot of time dedicated to making children. Especially when mortality rates in childbirth (for both child and mother) were so high, something that hasn't entirely gone away even today.

I don't know what else is provided as evidence of free time in stone age peoples. Maybe cave paintings, but we haven't found near enough of those to say that they had anywhere close to the amount of free time on their hands that we do now. In my free time I could paint more cave paintings in a year than there were made in thousands.

The people who get their research funded are believed by whoever funds their research. — leo

And they believe because those researchers promise wealth. It's an investment that those researchers are required to do good on.

I've lived in the city most of my life and it's the city that stresses me out, not nature. I feel at home in nature, I enjoy trying to survive on my own. Many city people find the city stressful and feel the need to be connected to nature. You're basically saying that we adapt well to whatever environment we grow up in and find difference always stressful, I disagree. — leo

Adaptation does not always mean happiness. You may not be happy in the city, but most city goers would likely die in the wild in a matter of days.

You say you like to try to survive on your own. I don't doubt this, but I would ask where you do this. A national park of some kind? It can't be on someone else's property because you seem to have a desire to avoid doing that.

National parks or campgrounds aren't really the wild. If you get lost or are in danger, people will be actively looking for you soon. You get to see the grass and start a fire or maybe see some animals, but you are very much still in the grasp of civilization. The park ranger is just up the road.

Maybe you do have some unwatched area of the world to truly explore, and that's great, but those people who find the city stressful only want a little less city, not all wilderness. They "feel connected to nature" in a place that isn't true nature.

The reason for this I think is that they've been told all their lives that nature is peaceful. The pseudo-wilderness that is these places only reinforces that notion.

What people want isn't primitive living, what they want is to escape to rebranded civilization. Somewhere they can feel like an outdoorsman without all of the actual stress and danger of being an outdoorsman. If people knew the reality of the wilderness as opposed to their view of peaceful "nature", they would stay in their homes.

Then you didn't address my other point, that they had to work much less to get food in nature than to get money to get food in the city. If your employer forces you to work 9 hours a day to give you your paycheck, you can't compress that time even if you become great at your job, whereas if you learn to hunt you can get food much more quickly. — leo

I don't know about you, but I can compress my work time. If I close quickly and well, I can get out of my job earlier. There is always a set amount of time you need to do a job, it's those time reliant things that make it quicker. I would assume those natives were working jobs relatively close in skill level to mine.

Also, typically (at least in the first world) people work 7-8 hours a day, only five days a week. It seems like a bit of a petty criticism, but that time does certainly add up. Especially with weekends, since if you have to hunt for your food, you have to do that every single day.

Of course, they could afford less food, but they had more of everything else. Imagine the first time they saw that they could just purchase a knife instead of taking all of the time to make one, or the first time they could just go buy a shirt instead of taking all day to make clothing. Creating tools and equipment without modern techniques is a painstaking process. Self made tools don't last as long either. That's just basic survival too, once they have all of the clothes and tools they need, they don't get as worn down from the rugged wilderness.

Of course, this all depends on the place they lived and at what time. Brazil I think you said? depending on the time period, they probably didn't have all of the modern necessities, but the problem was probably more just "civilized" people disrespecting their culture and looking down on them. I would hate going to cities if I associated them with that.

Civilization is usually defined as "the stage of human social and cultural development and organization that is considered most advanced". Even if in their group some went to hunt and others cooked, that doesn't mean they were forced to work 9 hours a day to get food or cook it. — leo

So civilization is ok if we do it in a way that benefits everyone? That sounds like what I was thinking. I think it isn't too far of a stretch to think that tribal living isn't the only way of life that can benefit everyone. Especially since it's hard to have tribes with large populations. A tribe of a million simply doesn't work.

I'm not a US resident, and in my country as far as I know there is no land the government gives freely. Many people successfully live on their own in the wild. Obviously it's easier to live in the wild when education is focused on living in the wild rather than on living in the city. But if you're a bed potato I can understand why you would find that to be unimaginable. — leo

I won't lie, I'm a bit of a sucker for the comforts of civilization. However, if it were all gone tomorrow and I had to work my fill, I don't think I would have a choice. I may be lazy, but I refuse to be a freeloader. I'll revert to a more primitive lifestyle, but only if absolutely necessary.

However, I can't help but notice that if I'm waking up before dawn to feed livestock, then going out to water crops, then scavenging for anything I can find to eat or kill, that's a majority of my day. Not to mention that if I'm doing that, I'm not actually preparing food for myself, so if I do have someone to do that for me, I need to bring home more food for them. Eventually, the sun is setting and I had no time to think about anything, let alone make paper so that I could write it down or use a rock to inscribe it into a tablet.

I think it unfortunate that you can't get even a small plot to live from. You seem like you might genuinely enjoy it. However, I cannot see under any circumstances you having time to do science, especially if you're starting from scratch.

It would be possible to have some sort of internet in a world without money. People would simply build and take care of the infrastructures that they find useful. And research could be carried out in the plenty of free time that people would have. — leo

If you are referring to a world without money where everyone does things for mutual benefit, that sounds like bartering. Mutual benefit is "If you want fish and I want eggs, then we trade what we believe is a equivalent amount of each", not "Hey, I want fish, can I have some? I know you don't like eggs, but you can have some of mine any time you want".

The problem with a "you scratch my back, I scratch yours" sort of system is that eventually, you have to scratch the other person's back, and that is essentially bartering. And I believe above you denounced bartering.

And what if only one person finds and infrastructure useful? I think you find yourself in a similar situation. You think your science can be useful but nobody who can fund it agrees. Nobody will buy the microscopes or test tubes or whatever you need. The problem at its very core is that at least right now, nobody of importance believes in you.

But I think I believe in you. I don't know for certain about any scientific inquiry. I know that what we have now works a good amount of the time. If you can do better, you can make the world better.

The fact that I think you may be on to something is why I'm telling you where I think the solution is not. Instead of going against the grain in a world you find yourself born into, you have to use the very systems you despise to change those systems. Otherwise, you will have no impact.

Come on, nature has been working without money for eons, people have lived without money for eons, it's not money that makes people move no, but in this ugly society it is, because of the few in power who force people to need money to get what they need, and indeed who have implemented it in a way that it serves as a carrot on a stick. — leo

Money is simply a tool used to represent value. Things of value exist in nature. Food, shelter, comfort, all of these things can be found in nature. We distribute these according to money. In nature, all of these are also unevenly distributed. Your problem with money is just the same problem we would have without money.

The current system is abused left and right in horrible ways and there is nothing you can do about it. The system isn't made to be efficient, it's made in such a way that the majority remains poor, so that they have to work hard every day, so that their overlords can enjoy the fruit of their labor, while most people earn just enough to get shelter and food and a tiny bit of fun to keep them motivated. Most people have to earn just enough to be slaves as efficient as possible, if they earn too much they work less and then money becomes less effective as a tool of control, while if they earn too little at some point it becomes unbearable for them and they revolt against their overlords. The system is like that by design, realize that. — leo

Originally, the system is built by those people who revolt. Therefore, it's a flaw in that very system designed originally for efficiency that is our problem. If we fix that problem, we have no problem.

If money was efficient it wouldn't take 30 years to pay for a house, because it sure as hell wouldn't take 30 years to learn how to build a house and to build one. — leo

I never said it was. I said it could be.

I find disgusting the very notion of forcing people to do something, I don't want to force people to wake up, I want to change what's preventing them from waking up. — leo

And in changing whatever is keeping them asleep, you force them to wake up. There is no wrongdoing in the action, only in the effects. Of course, I don't even think that's necessarily a bad thing.

I used to be naive like that. What some people see as the greater good is serving the Devil, literally, they don't worship God they worship Satan. Tyrants don't want the greater good, they care about themselves. — leo

My point was that they literally believe that the greater good is serving themselves.

I think world leaders believe that people are foolish without their guidance, and so they attempt to stay in power. Whether they are right or wrong is irrelevant, because years of skewing the truth has skewed their world view. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, whether they're yours or someone else's.

People had the time to paint in the Lascaux Cave 17,000 years ago, I guess they had some free time back then, they weren't constantly farming or hunting. — leo

Rome wasn't built in a day, and I assure you those cave paintings weren't painted in a day either. That was likely the product of multiple lifetimes of free time.

Other animals don't spend all their waking hours hunting for food. And somehow we're supposed to believe that without money we would never have any free time? Yea, no. — leo

You're right, they spend that time raising young, protecting their territory, and resting due to the immense stress that doing these things puts on any animals body. I wouldn't consider recovering from intense physical activity free time.

Some believe that it's cruel to keep animals in zoos because they can't "roam free". In reality, animals stay in a relatively small area their entire lives. Even birds stick to their migration paths.

Perhaps you see primitivism as some sort of escape to freedom. You would be wrong. Without the luxuries of civilization, life is only harder, more brutish, and much shorter.

Even if you are enslaved by corporate overlords, the alternative is even more suffering. I think it more reasonable to break a broken system if that system could be beneficial.

I would have free time on my own, and I would have more free time if some other people believed in me and brought me food. — leo

And why would people believe in you, when it is only in our nature to believe things that benefit us? Nobody ever gets the benefit of the doubt for this reason.

I was watching a documentary the other day about Amazonian people who get forced out of the forest so some big foreign companies can come destroy it and exploit its resources. In compensation these people were given small houses in a small city nearby, in essence they were forced into civilization. They were interviewed, and what did they say about it? That they much preferred the life in the forest, there they only had to hunt for a little while to get food, while in civilization they have to work all day long to get money to get food. And they said that in civilization there is constant stress, dangers everywhere, they have to watch out for cars and motorcycles on the road, people have guns, while life in the forest was much simpler and more peaceful, there they were connected to nature. — leo

Imagine living in the city your whole life, and then being forced into the wilderness. How stressful would it be to not know which berries will kill you? How stressful would it be to encounter even a small animal without a means to protect yourself? How stressful would it for your shelter to collapse because you didn't know how to build a sturdy one?

People operate best when they are in familiar surroundings. People fear difference. That is the source of their fear.

Furthermore, I would add that these Amazonians did have a sort of civilization. Surely they organized their labor, some going to hunt while others cooked, no? That organization is the basis of civilization.

I don't see modern civilization as a solution, I see it as the problem. — leo

Problems are caused when things are broken. The solution to eating healthy isn't not eating, it's eating the correct foods.

If you really believe you can live on your own somewhere, I think you should try it. There is unused land out there that no one checks on. In fact, I think in Alaska the government still just gives it out. If you make it out there and make any scientific progress, I would like to know. Well, if you can connect to the internet.

You're reasoning within the paradigm of money there. Why do we need certificates of work done? — leo

"Work done" refers to doing what society believes is work. In theory, everyone who contributes to society should get something out. However, it's entirely up to us to decide our goals and how we should reach them.

People don't like giving away their precious goods for less than they're worth. If they can abuse the system to be paid more than they're worth, they will, but almost nobody on the planet is ok with the opposite, getting less than they're worth.

You're right that the system is flawed, for sure, but the flaw begins in us. I think it would be wise to instead of completely abandon it, use the very problems to our own advantage.

Money is the carrot on a stick that keeps people moving. If you want someone to do something, money is probably going to be involved.

I think if you want change, your only hope is to monetize it. Even if it's an immediate life or death situation and everyone on Earth will die in two days, nobody will care unless they can make some cash.

There is no inherent wrongdoing in an action, it's the effects of the action that can be considered good or bad. If bashing people in the skull made them smarter, it would be recommended, but it doesn't, and so it's not. There is nothing morally wrong with the act of buying Nike shoes at low prices, the problem lies in the effects of that action, the effect being that child factory workers in the third world have to be paid close to nothing.

While if you carry out a criminal act for some powerful individual, you bring a little positive value to that individual, you bring a lot of negative value to potentially many people, and yet you get a lot of money, and then society values highly what you have done. — leo

And so comes the grand miscalculation. It's my belief that nobody does evil things on purpose. It's impossible to see everything and act accordingly, and so sometimes people make mistakes, and people don't like to admit their mistakes, even to themselves. When this "powerful individual" asks you to commit a crime, they're doing so because they genuinely think that keeping themselves in power is for the greater good. Whether they're wrong or not is entirely another matter, as it's not something that they or even their detractors can even really know. You would have to have the entire picture to always do the right thing.

I really don't see how you could do that. Once people are forced to need money for anything by the few people who have the most of it, money doesn't benefit the whole, because usually those who have the most power have a lust for power, and that lust for power transcends their desire to benefit the whole (which they usually don't have, they simply care about benefitting themselves). — leo

There would need to be someone who saw everything, believed that the benefit of all people was a worthwhile goal, and could keep everyone in check. God, essentially. Regardless of anyone's religious beliefs, I don't think one is doing any of this.

In a world without money I could build my own place and get my own food, and conduct my research the rest of the time without needing anyone. And then if people believed in me they could help me get food or bring me food so that I could focus on the research. No need for money. — leo

Would you have time for research when you're too busy farming, preserving, or hunting depending on where you build your shack? Civilization exists to solve that very problem. If you want to do this work, you'll absolutely have to rely on others.

Sometimes the example of Gandhi is given to show that a single individual can change a lot of things, while being peaceful, and without money, but the reason Gandhi changed things is that the revolt was already latent within the Indian people, and he was the spark that ignited it. — leo

Well, I would hope I don't have to do it alone, or without money. At the very least, you and I agree that this could be a problem, so there are at least two.

They don't see a problem, because they believe whatever the problem science will come to the rescue, meanwhile they can just be mindless drones enjoying themselves in runaway consumerism. The world won't be saved if they don't wake up. — leo

Perhaps "waking people up" isn't the right approach. People get upset (specifically at the one who awoke them) when they're woken up.

People chase after their desires. If we want people to do something, there has to be something in it for them, likely in the immediate future.

I actually think money is at the root of a lot of the problems we face, and that we won't change things if we don't question money. Money destroys relationships between humans and between humans and nature. Nature has lived without money for eons, but now human society prevents us from living without it. The land doesn't belong to all life, it belongs to a few people. If we want to use land or settle on land, we need first of all to have money, otherwise the self-proclaimed land owners force us out with the help of other humans called the law enforcers. To have money we have to work for the people who have money, and usually that involves helping grow an industry that contributes to destroying nature. So essentially money and the people who enforce it force us to perpetuate the very system that is destroying nature. — leo

Yes, but what of the positives of money? Currency, at least in the modern era, is used as a certificate of work done. Essentially, unless obtained illegally, what you're saying when you buy groceries is "somehow, human society has justified that my work equals this food". It's the somehow that is the problem.

A fair society without money would be a bureaucratic nightmare. It would take an immense amount of work to track all of the work a person does, give that work a value, and then also value the items they wish to obtain. It would be that, 7 billion times over.

People pursue money for pleasure and comfort. It's that "something in it for them" especially "in the immediate future".

Replacing money with bartering wouldn't help. Bartering rests on the notion that "if you do this for me, I do this for you, otherwise I don't do this for you", rather than on a notion of "let's help ourselves and let's help others", so in bartering there is still the implicit idea that the value of a human being stems from the resources he has, which leads people to accumulate as much resources as possible, and then the few who own the most resources can enforce their ownership and force people to participate in their own system, and since it is the lust for power that got them there, their system too would likely involve seeing nature as a tool to master and to use rather than seeing it as their own habitat and as something to respect and cherish. — leo

What if we could develop a system in which money was always made from benefiting the whole? What benefits the whole would be decided on by looking at scientific evidence as well as the goal as a whole being pleasure for all.

Of course, we need unbiased science and unbiased decision making. That seems to be the problem.

Newton's laws stood for several centuries until they were found to be flawed. I believe the foundations of electromagnetism and relativity and quantum mechanics are flawed, and all the modern theories are built on them. They work to some extent but that's it, and now we're in an impasse because questioning these foundations is frowned upon in the scientific community, aspiring physicists become professional physicists by spending years studying and mastering the content and application of these theories, their professional career becomes built on these foundations, they get funding for their research by working on developing the paradigm based on these foundations, they don't get published in professional research journals if they drift too far away from the status quo, so they have every incentive to not question these foundations. The paradigm doesn't change not because scientists of every generation question the foundations and agree that they are the best ones, but because they don't question these foundations, they grow up in a system that teaches them to accept them before they can become scientists. — leo

I agree mostly. Especially quantum physics seems to be flawed. I was referring more to basic things like how matter changes from gas to liquid to solid. Stuff that we've generally understood pretty well for thousands of years.

I would have loved to make a living working on my own theories based on different foundations, but academia wouldn't give me the liberty to do that, and I haven't found people who would believe in me enough to be willing to fund me, so it's something I did in my spare time. But then I grew tired of it, I thought even if I dedicate myself to it 10 or 15 years and I succeed then what? We would have a theory that is simpler and explains more, but people still wouldn't understand why it took so long for such a theory to appear, the fundamental issues in academia and in the scientific community wouldn't be solved, that theory would become the new oppressive paradigm that people aren't allowed to question, and the fundamental issues in our society and in our relationship with nature wouldn't get solved either. — leo

Whatever you would have come up with certainly would have been interesting. Again though, I think it's interesting how if there was money in it, you would have been able to conduct your research. It might be a bit against your nature, but if you still want to do that work, you would have to find a way to monetize it.

Even if I became famous and began writing on these issues, the world still probably wouldn't listen, because while people are willing to agree with a theory that makes predictions that are observed, they don't want to question their deeply held beliefs unrelated to that theory, they don't want to be told that they are responsible for where the world is going, and they don't want to be told that science won't save them. That's how the later writings of famous scientists get dismissed as the rants of old men who should have stuck to writing about their theory, when they say things that people do not want to hear. — leo

I don't think it's your fault people don't listen, but I don't think it's the people's fault either

We all see such a small amount of this universe. We are forced to make real decisions based on a fantasy we make up based on this small amount of observation. Everyone's vision is too narrow, and they are forced to walk only where they can see. If we could remedy that, I think most human problems would disappear.

People don’t know everything. There’s surely things out there that I would believe if I was just told them. Well, of course I don’t know for sure, but I would say there’s a pretty good chance with the thousands of years of human knowledge I haven’t touched yet.

Then I see no reason to convince people of something that isn’t true. I think this grey area is what we should be bringing awareness to, instead of changing names to better fit a compartmentalized view of a very non-compartmentalized world.

That's always the hard part. — Pattern-chaser

It isn't the hard part when you're convincing others of something that they want to believe.

I'm not talking about a "quick fix" or "temporary solution." Science was once part of philosophy, so let's make the philosophy of science part of science. But we won't call it that, we'll call it something not freighted with negative meanings for some scientists. I love philosophy, but that doesn't obscure the fact that it really isn't anything, at least not anymore. — T Clark

Where does science begin and philosophy end? If we don't know that, how are we supposed to know what we call science and what philosophy?

I'm not suggesting masquerading, I'm talking about unmasking. The philosophy of science belongs as part of science. Splitting it off is artificial and misleading. — T Clark

If true, I find it strange that philosophical ideas can be exclusively part of science and not of both.

Where are we drawing our invisible lines this time?

But we already have science with a purpose, that purpose is Progress or Truth, which supposedly will solve all our problems. Scientists believe that what they do gives us Progress and brings us closer to Truth which will solve our problems. But they won't acknowledge that their own beliefs may be partially responsible for our problems, and that they are not necessarily getting closer to Truth, and that their achievements do not necessarily have to be seen as Progress. Philosophy is sorely needed here, to think about what they are doing, but they won't have it. — leo

I think the purpose of science for most scientists is monetary gain.

Most people only listen to status and money, that's what runs the world. — leo

Is Truth really a motivating goal in itself? Only if you want it, I suppose, and you would only want it if you see it as something that would improve your life.

Most scientists I would assume take for granted the work of others before them in their field. This is understandable because they have very little to gain from uprooting what they've learned and very much to gain from discovering something new that confirms it. I would say that while they do find "truths" and often these truths are true, sometimes these truths are false, and only because the works they build upon are flawed.

As for progress, I think it's a mixed bag. Sure, pollution seems like a bad idea, and I think most people realize that, but perhaps it was a necessary evil? The industrial revolution was perhaps just the growing pains of a civilization that will eventually be great. Of course, we don't know that for sure, and of course, if that's the case, we should probably grow a bit faster.

I think almost every field facilitates progress. Even the lowly fast food employee helps feed the masses and keep them working toward some kind of progress. Every person who learns something new about the universe and every person who applies something learned about the universe is making some sort of progress for the human race.

You can only make progress towards some sort of ends. That ends should be what everyone on this Earth wants, and I think that is eudaimonia. The ultimate goal for the individual is a world where they can be fulfilled their entire life, and so that is what we all collectively strive for, fulfilment.

I disagree that science can fix any damage if we keep treating it as separate from philosophy, rather I would argue that seeing science as separate from philosophy has caused a lot of damage itself, but we still believe that we will fix our problems by applying what has caused them in the first place. — leo

We draw imaginary lines between our fields of study. Where does biology start and physics begin? If you could define that objectively, then you could narrow down how abiogenesis happened to far fewer theories than there are now.

The same with philosophy and science. Philosophy is the foundation upon which science is built, but where exactly does one begin and one end? They are fundamentally intertwined. All of our subjects are.

There is nothing isolated in the entire universe except in our imagination, and if we wish for our knowledge to be true, a good first step would probably be the breaking down of these invisible boundary lines between otherwise related fields. Sure, we could arbitrarily decide where the line is, but I believe that would be more of a hinderance than a boon too our purpose.

Science, generally speaking, is at the very least an attempt to know about the physical world, and at most actually knowing about the physical world. I think that it's reasonable to say that if we have a problem in the physical world, they're the experts.

They have a bit of an Iron Man complex as of late. Sure, they destroyed the environment to improve our industry, but they'll fix the environment too, eventually, when it becomes a big enough problem. That kind of foolhardiness is dangerous, and should probably be kept in check. Of course, part of the problem is that anyone can become a scientist now, as long as you're willing to carry a few thousand dollars of debt for a while. You don't necessarily have to have an appreciation for science to do it, just a desire for a paycheck. I won't lie to you, I'll do a lot for a big enough paycheck, not even necessarily just for indulgences. I've got stuff to pay for.

With knowledge of the physical world, you can do things in the physical world. The problem is with motivation. If scientists see no reason to fix something, they won't. To compound the issue, most are easily distracted from issues by a big enough paycheck. Scientists will do what they're paid to do, the problem is that no one want to pay them to fix environmental problems, and the reason no one will is that the people who have enough money to pay for them don't benefit from fixing those problems.

I get your point, but how do you get a cult to change their mind? It's as if you're looking at a child doing something stupid, and you can tell he's going to hurt us and eventually hurt himself, but no matter what you say to him he won't listen to you. And then it's not one child, it's a billion of them. You may spend enormous effort to make one change his mind, but meanwhile ten new ones have replaced him. I don't know how to wake people up, I just don't. Even if you find flaws they don't listen, so the flaws don't get fixed. — leo

You have to convince them that you're on their side, because you are. You have to not be cruel. You have to convince people that they want to be convinced. On the individual level, you have to relate and appeal to their worldview. It's easier said than done.

In making your comparison to children, you inadvertently make a point. I think the problem starts at a young age. Children are taught from a young age to shut up and listen to facts. They aren't necessarily told the significance of those facts. Of course, talking about the significance of color in art while teaching kindergarteners about colors is probably going a bit over their heads, but at the very least we can tell high school students why the quadratic formula is important, as opposed to a few of them finding out later and regretting not learning it. No one ever told me, and so I just didn't learn how to do the problems to be frank. I now regret that.

I know the kind of people you're talking about. I went to school with quite a few of them. I knew a math wizard who was incredibly catholic. He didn't even question enough to realize that the only thing in his life he did blindly was believe in god. Not that that's a bad thing or an unrealistic belief, but the level of self awareness in that man's brain was so damn low. I made fun of him accordingly.

But he never came around. The reason why is that I only wanted to make fun of him. My own selfish drive to assert myself as dominant was the cause for his stagnation. Not that I regret it too much, I had more fun doing that than he probably had in his whole life, but if I had imprinted some sort of appreciation for complexity instead of a slave-like obedience to it, that probably would have been a more responsible use of my time.

Of course, I'm not saying that you were making fun of anyone, what I am trying to say is that you have to be a friend rather than a rival. Offer your services, and if they say no, be their friend anyway.

And of course, it's difficult to appeal to many people on an individual level, but it's done all the time actually. No matter what you think of the intellect of most movie stars, people do genuinely seem to like them.

Years ago I had come to the realization that the only way they would listen is if we came up with a theory that is more simple than the ones we have now (for instance in fundamental physics), but that can explain more and predict more than the ones we have now. This way they would see the use of philosophizing about what they do, as it would be philosophy that got them out of their impasse. But then I thought, probably they still wouldn't see the use of philosophy, they would just say that whoever came up with that theory is a genius, a new Einstein, and they would misinterpret the concepts that the theory uses, and then they would build new theories on top of it while adding their own misconceptions and fallacies, and nothing would have fundamentally changed. — leo

Then there is a fundamental problem, no? I think it unlikely that the basis of physics would be flawed if it was done so long ago by such different people and still stands. The problem, at its source, seems to be in people.

The problem seems to be a lack of omnipotence. I highly doubt anyone is making up flawed science just for kicks. The people who put out that kind of stuff likely think they're doing the right thing. It isn't even really their fault, their mind just didn't see the whole truth. We all suffer from this.

I think a lack of omnipotence could be downplayed with a good amount of caution and skepticism, not only toward people that are obviously wrong, but towards everything. What we need to do is make it beneficial for scientists to do that, because if we're speaking honestly, I wouldn't go out of my way to do it either. Everyone loves being sure and hates doubting what they're sure about. People want structure.

Most people only listen to status and money, that's what runs the world. So I thought if I want to change things, I need to climb the social ladder and get a lot of money, and then I would have the power to make people really listen. But then I realized I'm not good at making money, I don't have the right mindset for it, I like to help people, I don't like to ask for something in exchange. And this society runs on people who want to take from others, not help others without asking anything in return. It's like a huge machine that can't be stopped and that will run its course until it has destroyed so much that it will die while taking almost everything with it, and meanwhile all we can do is watch. — leo

I don't think you would make people really listen, they would just do what you say without needing them to listen.

I too sometimes have an issue with taking money for things. I think this is something we need to get around. If you want to change anything, anywhere, you have to be able throw your weight around a bit. I think a good way to start justifying it to ourselves is by only using profit for the greater good. I've convinced myself that I don't need too much to live, so any profit I make is likely to go into an investment fund for compounding until later use.

I've spoken a lot of what others have to gain, but what of us? I think that if we aren't just talking nonsense, then saving a world headed for destruction is payment enough for me, even if nobody knows.

I think the real problem is taking a film out of its intended context. For most things, I assume you can translate relatively well, but art is intertwined with the culture of the artist. Problems and outlooks that are common in one place could be entirely foreign in another, and so marketing and translation teams often change names and sometimes plot elements. I assume this also isn't much of a problem for most films, but in films where this is an issue, it certainly is an issue.

Yes, but I think they should be called something else because of the disdain and lack of understanding felt for philosophy. — T Clark

Why not solve the problem at the source? In all my time fixing things, (fixing things is a large part of my current job) temporary solutions have only caused more problems. They're ok if you need a quick fix to get through a day, but they don't last forever. If you want to want a functioning system, you need to address problems directly.

Instead of masquerading useful philosophy as something else, we should instead prove that philosophy is useful. It's certainly possible to do so, we've already discussed the uses. The hard part is the convincing of others. I think rhetoric would be useful in this regard. We have to make people want to see, otherwise they will avert their gaze.

I don't really care if philosophy is respected. I come to it for my own benefit, for what it gives me. I got here from science and math. That lead me to want to look deeper into what stands behind it. — T Clark

Personally, I don't care much for respect either. What others think specifically about me is subject to change anyway. However, I do care for what a respect for philosophy in others can add to the world and in return benefit all of us.

When people think about why they're doing things, or what their goal is, they typically both work better and do jobs worth doing.

Those things that stand behind math and science are actually the things holding math and science up. Without the ideas that make science and math represent reality, they don't represent reality. As is said often in this thread, without philosophy, science is just another religion.

I don't think anything self-identified as philosophy will be able to make much of a contribution to science. Call it something else - scientific methodology, principles of science, goals of scientific investigations, the structure of scientific knowledge.

Moral and political philosophy might have more to offer. — T Clark

Aren't those things based in philosophical ideas?

Moral and political philosophy are also very important. I think people tend to stay to firm in their stances in those however. That's probably a similar problem to the one we're discussing for scientific circles.

I don't think hypocrisy is the right word. Lack of perspective is more like it. Lack of introspection maybe. Lack of an understanding of principles. — T Clark

Maybe they lack the perspective to see the hypocrisy? I think that it's hypocritical to denounce something that all of your work you stand by relies on.

In my experience in school, science and mathematics contexts often had no time for philosophy because a common approach was to simply not care about those sorts of issues. There was a purely pragmatic, instrumental approach most of the time--they were merely concerned with whatever worked, whatever accounted for data/observations, and whatever produced results in applied settings. Focusing on what was "really the case ontologically," how we could know certain things, etc. was seen as a waste of time that had no practical upshot. — Terrapin Station

I suffer from that approach to this day. If I was taught more than just what worked, I would have thought math was interesting a long time ago and became better at it.

I don't see it as an us vs. them, to me science and philosophy are inseparable, and trying to separate them makes science a religion and philosophy something irrelevant to most people. I see the whole endeavor of making observations and thinking about them and interpreting them and comparing them and connecting them as both science and philosophy, they didn't use to be separate in the minds of people, but now they are for no good reason in my view, simply because of confusions and misconceptions. — leo

No, no, that is further proof of the deep interconnection of science and philosophy. The "us versus them" argument refers to specifically people. You believe that philosophy is important and they disagree. That conflict is what I think the problem is, and I'm not disagreeing with you on the importance of philosophy. I'm sorry if that came out wrong earlier, because someone else also questioned that.

So whatever progress is a result of what I would call science-philosophy, even scientists who say they despise philosophy make use of it in their research, they just don't realize it, but that means they are often not aware of their beliefs underlying their research. Also I disagree that what we call 'progress' necessarily improve our lives, it seems to me we're on a course towards destroying life on Earth all while reveling in the idea that we're making progress. Maybe if we thought more about what we are doing, rather than just keep on doing whatever we're doing, we wouldn't be going that way. — leo

That is the very problem. If we have science without a purpose, science without philosophy, science will stagnate and any science that is done will be done without purpose or reason. science may have caused some of our problems, but I think it wrong to believe that knowledge can be evil in any way. It is the application of this knowledge that hurts us. I think that is one of the many places we find our use. We can use science to fix any damage we've caused to our planet, but only if we can justify doing so, of course, with a philosophical argument.

I don't have a disgust for scientists, I have a disgust for the idea that thinking about what we are doing is useless, that it's useless to think about the meaning of what we're doing, to think about how certain the results we get are, to think about the beliefs and assumptions underlying what we do, to think about other world views we would get by picking other beliefs or assumptions, to think about the consequences of what we do. The idea that the only thing that's useful is to keep doing whatever we're doing because supposedly we're making Progress and supposedly we're getting closer to Truth and supposedly Science will solve all our problems. We might very well go on to destroy the world while being stuck in that cult. — leo

This is what I was trying to get across before- don't let it happen. It will take more than just a handful of us, but we need to get across that this can and will happen. We can find the ideas of scientists disgusting all we like, but unless we work with them, they won't change, and we will suffer from the destruction of our world. Furthermore, if we continue to find flaws and fix them, not only philosophy in science but all of us finding flaws everywhere and fixing them, we can make this world a better place.

To scoff at the ignorant and be annoyed at their shortcomings may be amusing for a while, but eventually their problems become yours. We all live on the same planet, after all.

I think at this point of the discussion you seem to insinuate a belief that there aren't major issues with science, in that the philosophy community needs to do a better job at contributing to mankind, which philosophy hasn't been doing a good job in recent year which is why it has garnered a sort of status as a trivial discipline that is dead for the most part, which either philosophy has to be more like science in that it makes contributions that are equivalent to it (the sort contributions that science makes) or something else (which I'm trying to guess from your perspective at this point). Is this sort of accurate to your view? If not please correct me, and I do apologize if I am inaccurately portraying/strawmanning your position. — Shushi

I apologize if it came out this way. I meant almost the opposite. My point Is that there are major issues with science, (as well as most everything else) and the responsible thing for anyone to do (a philosopher or not) is to fix something when they can instead of dealing with it when the problem becomes larger.

I believe very much so that philosophy contributes to the world. I think that particularly philosophy helps us solve problems in systems we create but can't live without. The Theseus' Ship problem for example, of course a ship is just molecules assembled into a shape, but it isn't useful for us to think of the entire universe like that. We have to make decisions about when one thing becomes another and back up our thinking with philosophical arguments. These same man-made systems make up science itself.

If there was/is a fundamental problem with philosophy that we couldn't acknowledge, I would hope that someone somewhere would point it out before our discussions become too incompatible with reality, because that benefits everyone. We all rely on each other for this.

If people won't acknowledge that, if they are not willing to make the effort to see the importance of philosophy in science, what do we have to prove and what can we prove to them? They are not willing to accept the proofs, they just want to stay in their ivory tower and think they are better than everyone else while they are actually poor scientists and more like parrots who regurgitate what they have rote-learned. — leo

This sounds, at least to me, like an "us versus them" argument. I think it may be time to step back and realize what team we're on.

We rely on the progress science makes to improve our lives. If that progress slows or even halts because of a flaw in their ideology, we will suffer. All mankind will suffer. Under the right circumstances, it could even result in the regression or even extinction of our species.

This, civilization, is a collaborative effort. We must all bring to the table what we have, because if everyone does, the rewards will be greater than anything we've given up. If we can fix something now that may cause problems later, it is our very purpose to do so. Even if you refuse to accept an apology, even if your disgust towards these people never fades, you must at least acknowledge that a world without them is a world you don't want to live in.

There would be no issue if they didn't make metaphysical claims about what's possible and what's not possible, what the world is and what it isn't, what we are and what we aren't, where we come from, where we are going, and then ridicule or attack people who disagree with their metaphysical claims because supposedly these people don't understand 'physics'. If they don't know about things outside of their area of expertise, it might be better if they didn't claim to know about them no? The worst part is they aren't even aware they're doing it, so fundamentally they don't even know the limits of their supposed area of expertise, and so they aren't experts about physics either, but they believe they are, and that cult is widespread. — leo

This sounds like more of a critique on human hypocrisy than a single group. I think it's inevitable for people to have misconceptions on ideas they don't know of or understand, especially when the outstanding members of a community misrepresent the actual ideals of a community.

I think @StreetlightX said it best-

It is really any surprise? Science forums regularly get inundated with hacks trying to use 'philosophy' to prove whatever pet theories they have about the universe, or else prove [major and well-acceped scientific theory] wrong in some manner or another. 'Philosophy' being whatever tripe said person thought of in the shower 20 mins ago. We get that shit on a semi-regular basis. Not to mention that philosophers - professional and amateur - are notoriously undereducated with respect to science. Science is right to be weary of philosophy. That said, you'll occasionally get a science popularizer like Massimo Pigluicii or a Carlo Rovelli who argue for the necessity of philosophy in science, which is nice. — StreetlightX

I think if we want to be respected, it's up to us to gain that respect. We can't count on outsiders to just give us the benefit of the doubt when everything they see says otherwise.

For a long time Philosophy has been cast aside by most. At least in America, they don't even teach it in school. (outside of the occasional reference to philosophers that may have inspired the founding fathers, of course.) If we want to change that, we have to prove that it's worth it to change that. We have to present what our findings contribute to humanity and show that we don't agree with those who would manipulate our work to accommodate their delusional world view.

It is hypocritical to have physics without metaphysics, but those who live hypocrisy don't realize they're living it. I would assume even you and I live some sort of hypocrisy. We have to rely on others to make us question things we take for granted.

Also worth mentioning that the forum is (mostly) about physics. Makes sense to me that they might not know about things outside of their area of expertise, i.e. metaphysics.

it's usually helpful to examine the roots of an unfamiliar term. Try a search on "metaphysical etymology" .

Meta= beyond,
so what's beyond physical ? Philosophy, i guess, and maybe the occult

I think it's worth mentioning that they seem to separate Philosophy and the occult. If you say what lies beyond a fence is trees and flowers, you don't necessarily imply they are alike at all.

You're welcome, I suppose.

What I meant is that we draw some of the lines we draw because of the way our brains and minds have evolved. The way they are structured. We are not and never were blank slates. For some things, we don't have any choice where to draw the lines. — T Clark

I thought you may have been talking about that, but I wasn't sure. Sorry about that.

Anyway, I was actually thinking about including this. I'm not a biologist of course, but I would guess that identifying predators, prey, and mates developed into recognizing certain materials for making tools. Probably more complex than that, but that sort of division between things became more abstract with the development of a more advanced brain.

I think it is appropriately too broad. — T Clark

That's good. As I said above, I wanted to write more, but I wasn't sure about them. Maybe I'll gather my thoughts and write them some day.