Fair to say that at a certain level free will, chance, and determinism break down. What if we could determine down to a science what 'causes' you're consciousness to make decisions, why you like Corn Flakes instead of Captain Crunch? Then your will to know or determine would then turn in on itself and determinate and chance would both make no sense. You were in a sense determined to be free to choose, which is not in my view as contradictory as it sounds. This union actually makes perfect sense if these aren't absolute qualities of things.

@TheMadFool

Good or not, chance is a factor in life. It just IS. What is bad is ignoring the part that chance events play

I thought it's a rock-paper-scissors arrangement we have in the natural world

It sounds like you are both making a similar point if I'm not misreading it. That to a certain extent chance is a phenomena that occurs external to an individual, and separate from weakness. What does 'chance' itself really mean? Are you talking about events of which we have no control or simple discontinuities in our free will? It seems evident to me that both 'free will' and 'chance' are not words for things in themselves, but a sort of human technology. It is a process of quantification of internal and external causes into a black-box mechanism to be controlled, something that in the 17th century turned into probability. Take any example no matter how extreme, if I knew enough of the details I could argue equally well for either being of pure causation in a simple desire-to-end-result causation. It would be a little unbelievable to say free will should ever be truly discontinuous.

But it seems worth mentioning here because if we take the viewpoint that the failed animal has no free will in choosing to die, we are subject to saying "it was strength that overcame weakness." Weakness then is just an empty negation with no choice-value but to be avoided - this makes some sense for the individual interest, but terms of higher philosophy wouldn't it be something of a scapegoat?

But is it good that chance play such a role? Or good that we think it does? As opposed to the viewpoint of, say, believing the squirrel to be weak and incapable of survival by view of lacking the will to exist?

I suppose we're getting into an area where I've seemed to find the philosophy of Nietzsche difficult to accept. Does our weakness make our existence a crude reality, or is it fundamental to our animal nature that we be submissive, fail at things, imperfect in different ways; Is that a core component of who we are or our real nature?

Death by shotgun... seems excessive, but maybe that's just me.

As an individual the failure could be weaknesses in one instance are strength in another. Or the qualities could very well rest in behaviour with the highest probability of success.

To make an analogy with the human being, a businessman with an excellent business idea and strategy could fail nonetheless; That the act was chosen to be imparts some of the weakness and not only the result or the causa finalis of the act. Similarly, we could compare human actions with the animal who does not choose it's own death, but acts it out; in the process allowing another species to survive by balancing the population numbers.

Here are a few examples of similarities that have been observed in animals that parallel human weaknesses:

1) Actions that counter animal's individual interest
2) Success in such as way as its interests or needs could be better satisfied
3) Individual interest that counters possibility for survival, or sexual selection

Since it doesn't get us anywhere to view only from the animals perspective, we can instead talk as in, the animal is chosen or selected to be weak in the same vein as it chooses to be so; this contradiction is left in-absolute in the form of present discussion. From this point of view, we could say the animal may do a service to the others and to the entire ecosystem through it's physical weakness.

Well if we can manage to both agree that it would likely not be good for those animals not to exist that were 'imperfect': inattentive animals, ones that die and allow scavengers food, etc., then to what extent is weakness good in this sense?

Maybe you could clarify a bit. Are you saying that when an animal makes a wrong judgement about where to hunt, how to catch prey, or falters allowing it to escape they are displaying traits that were beneficial to them at some point but now not so? Is your point that all these traits at some point were naturally selected and are now dying out? It makes more sense that we could posit one possible cause in part in creating a greater predator/prey equilibrium, because we can observe negative effects of overly successful predators in certain populations.

I am not directly attributing depression and anxiety to evolutionary causes without evidence - that would be very lazy reasoning. I am attempting to form an analog between human weaknesses and animal weaknesses. If you don't believe humans can be overcome by failure and weakness in the same way as animals, then we are really going into evolution-denying territory; by claiming that humans have complete discontinuity with the entire animal kingdom.

OK sure, not all. It has the advantage of being convenient though because it places our intellectual coordinates according to a very fixed set of points. It also seems to satisfy a sort of scientific fixation of a phallic order in my interpretation - the John McLeans of evolutionary theory, not the lightweights.

They tend to have very fixed ideas about things. Anything that interferes with that scientific belief is a threat. You could say that maybe it has come to supplant creationism in a pseudo-genetic kind of way as something many people cling to with strong emotional feelings?

I have a sneaking suspicion that this forum is tied in with some other biology-related forum, because everyone on here is a die hard Darwinist. Just the Us and Them instinct kicking in again I suppose, nothing personal.

As ↪Olivier5
pointed out, strong hunters do not proliferate at the expense of their prey in nature, rather, there is a dynamic balance between the two groups that ebb and flow.

It isn't a contradiction to claim that both are somewhat true. Mostly, predators and prey don't obey linear increasing/decreasing rules, but in many cases if they over-hunt to the point where there are no prey left - such as in the case where interaction rates are too high - they experience a larger reducing force, sometimes to the point of extinction; you don't tend to observe this as often because over time the probability of it reduces. The equilibrium seen in Olivier's graph is one example of a time that it doesn't occur, but not really a proof of why.

I don't see why it would, but there is zero likelihood of our species always making the right choice -- or even always choosing the lesser of two evils.

Right, and being a die-hard believer in Darwinism as you alluded to earlier, don't you think that there is a reason why our species like others is designed like that -- a reason that has a firm basis in natural or sexual selection? Why would a female mammal specially choose a mate that is weak? So our attention would then understandably turn to the selection of the natural category.

Let's be realistic though and boil it down to the absolute most weak person. They're not smart, physically fit, they fail at everything they try, no achievements, no social skills; they've effectively 'turned off, tuned out, and dropped out.' Would you then at least say it were fit to call this person weak in a comparable manner to what we deem as animal weakness (which is not by any means rigorously understood)?

We're both in agreement that there is no truly absolute quality of weakness we can point to. If Mr. Veblen failed miserably in his attempts to monetize lawn-care analysis, and he were still a social outcast, we could say he probably has a weakness: a type of epithet for incongruity between his desires and his reality, mostly as a result of a tendency towards being overcome. By the same approximation, we project that the animal desires it's own survival and it's failure to live is a result it's weakness.

I see your view as ends justifying the means. If someone is successful, they are strong, if they fail they're weak. In this judgement I feel like we are losing a core quality of weakness: the tendency. That is, their vulnerability. The sense that their weakness is a result of free will, choosing a course that will tend towards their downfall. If we as species and not as individuals did always make the right choice, don't you agree that it would kill us?

Thanks for sharing that, it seems appropriate. Interesting how the ancients in all their technological inferiority still seem to the ones who have their heads on the straightest.

In your response, you said "you'd reproduce more just the same as a predator would prey more". Kudos, if you want to talk about human existential questions, morality, and the like, then leave the biological alone (because they misdirect the reader).

So your main point is to say that the weakness of an animal is of an altogether different kind from the weakness of a human being, is that what you mean? In terms of the weaknesses that predators exploit versus the weaknesses that other human beings exploit are incomparably different?

But what is the main difference you are referring to, isn't weakness itself known as a kind of tendency to be exploited in some manner? Even in the comedic sense, where we say "I have a weakness for steamed salmon," don't we mean that we allow our natural fondness for the salmon overcome our rational thinking? A physically weak person is someone who, relative to others, would be subject to being overcome by force of another, and hence exploited physically.

But we are just deflecting the meaning onto another set of determinations of what we mean by 'exploitation,' and we can go on ad infinitum in this sort of circular peeling away of the layers of language, probably winding back up where we began. This is why I was trying to avoid the analogy, because it is often subject to this fault, but I meant it as it was said.

Maybe we're getting a little hung up on the biology analogy. We can all agree that if all predators of a certain species were to perform flawlessly, perfectly, the perfect killing machine, with AI, laser-heat vision, and so on, they would wipe themselves out because they'd perform so well that the prey wouldn't stand a chance to survive long enough to sustain their growth and reproductive cycles.

By weakness I mean the common usage, making the wrong decisions, failing at things, self-destructive behaviour, depression, anxiety, being a nerd, a loser, a freak, and so forth - even disposition towards actions such as being overly generous, trusting, or gullible. If you were perfectly athletic, charming, and happy, you'd reproduce more just the same as a predator would prey more. However, that might not necessarily be 'strong' in the sense of the strength of your species, and as an individual act couldn't it also be considered weakness?

It's obviously not wholly weak to be strong, these terms have meaning though about these sorts of 'weak' people maybe they command some amount of respect just for their courage and strength in having weaknesses?

I suppose the question isn't is weakness good, but is weakness also strength in a dialectical kind of way. Like the same way it could be judged as good for a species, it could be viewed as bad. Our sense of it's 'badness' doesn't exist in itself but is sharply contextual.

I wouldn't call it uniquely human as an observable trait, but certainly as a judgement. We can see animals that possess the equivalent of what we judge as weakness, like the inability to demonstrate intelligence, physical weakness or uncoordinated motions. I don't mean that the weakness is embedded in the person in themselves and inseparable from their inner being; but failure, inadequacy, error, all these undesirable traits, are they 'bad' because they are undesirable? Don't they also command a certain respect?

At the theology end of the spectrum, there appears to be zero evidence. It's all hearsay. The only way to philosophize, then, about theology, is to consider it, and all determinate subjects that have no evidential base, as ideas and speculation about ideas.

It seems to me as though the philosophy of ‘keep things as simple as possible, but not more so’ aims ultimately to destroy itself when adopted mechanically by the masses. Separation of church and state so to speak will disarm religious ideas, but cannot cleanse us of their residues. If we could organize a standard category of evidence for rationalizing philosophical hypotheses, what is there about philosophy based on evidence that would be extricable from centrism with regard to the theology, culture, socio-economic environment, class, of the individual doing the rationalizing?

Who would be allowing it? You and me, people with brown hair? If you are referring to 'the globalized masses,' sometimes it feels like the question of approval of new technologies is sort of a sacred thing in global culture, like rites and rituals in tribal life. Which makes a sort of sense, because technology seems to act as a sort of rite of passage into adult life.

Prove, as I've come to know it it is a series of sensual experiences, ideas, or concepts that are taken initially in separateness and then implied as part of a formal and logistical unity. It represents the aforementioned unity that is reached in a way that any other rational person devoid of partiality could use it to observe the same formal conclusions and to be satisfied.

In synthetic sciences proof is treated with more rigor, which is justified if you consider that it requires greater abstraction, and if subjects accepted weak ideas without justification there would be debilitating consequences. Proving something in a court of law on the other hand, will be less rigorous due to limiting circumstances, and its arguments will rely to a greater extent on formal inferences between content as a means towards its finished concepts.

That being said, proof is a valuable concept not just for its results, but by making clearer the proper way of reasoning, that both sustains and justifies the rationing of formal and logistical unity between social and cultural institutions.

Couldn't the same example hold true for court cases, individuals suffering persecution, authoritarian governments, etc? I put it in mathematical terms to make the distinction being made in clearer terms. Change it to a more practical case such as global warming, nobody benefits from dealing with the truth of this issue, and yet most ordinary citizens still believe they must do something. Why? If someone were to know the truth about a situation like this, I think most people might still favour expressing it.

Interesting, so you're saying that inclination should play a major role in the decision. Whittling it down further, I suppose the main question could be demonstrated by an example. Person A says, "one plus one is two," and then another says, "you can never have two ones exactly, I say one plus one does not always equal two." Are these two statements both equally worthy of being called the truth? One is being claimed as true primarily of its use of form and the other by primarily by use of content.

In response, mostly lower case. The word 'duty' being taken to mean not solely as in social duty, but also duty to oneself. If the moment escapes me where I have the opportunity to express what appears to be the real truth against false notions, would you say that I have ultimately still won the war but lost the battle? Or maybe you would say that passing up such an opportunity is always unwise, immoral even.

I suppose we ought to differentiate a model that works on the basis of pure logic, and one that is built upon a narrative that tries to offer an explanation and is, as Hegel puts it, finite and determined. That’s more or less what I was defining to be the ‘narrative’ versus ‘historical’ of the sociological/individual. The idea that values can be expressed as pure determinations themselves or as a possible explanation, and both are either believed or desired to become reality.

Take the issue of abortion. One might say, “60 million dollars were generated from the industry last year,” another might say, “what about X women who were forced into pregnancy.” Both carry respective cultural values though the content of the second tells a narrative of women who occupy such and such circumstances, and its variable of power is intertwined with already-established emotional structures in society. The first claims mostly to fact and logic, though it has discursive meaning in it’s context.

Certainly there is an element of losing one's self or losing identity in attempting to define an individual existence according to their place in a type of universal web of consciousness. It would be sort of like trying to seek perfection, or attempting to fully realize something beyond capability. I do not agree that they are selectively psychologically-driven processes (social and individual perspectives), though certainly they are well informed by psychology.

Psychology is an empirical science, and thus can describe and analyze our behaviour, but it cannot fully be used to understand meaning. That's why I say that yes, the concept of the self or 'I' is maintained through deterministic processes, but what it is not is any type of explanation for our social phenomena. I think being a science, it is more useful for explaining anthropological forces. It is obviously essential for analyzing the motivations of the individual. Trying to integrate this method into collective society presents many difficulties based on the diversity of conditions. You could though, as physicists are prone to do attempt to create a theory to go with certain observations, but a theory is just that and not really a complete explanation.

If there is a conflict between the personal unconscious and persona, the conflict must be pushed deeper into the bag to avoid emotional trauma. The deeper it is pushed, the more it becomes part of the universal unconscious shared by all people. One should note, if you are familiar with the Freudian model, that the Jungian model does not consider 'subconscious' as valid conceptually. The unconscious comprises not 'suppressed' thoughts, but thoughts which should rationally occur, but don't.

Thanks for the response. I didn't quite understand what you meant by this, as I haven't really ever heard anything in Freud's work to suggest that subconscious thoughts were real comprehensible thoughts. Could you explain that point a little more?

Your reference to Jung sounds essentially analogous to this case, supplanting a description of self knowledge for philosophical knowledge. I do not see modern psychology as in any manner replacing Hegel's point of view on conceptualization of the self. I assume that it was not meant in this way, but couldn't tell if it were a subtle point you were making.

When I read 'G-d-given rights,' I'm inclined to read it as men are a creation of G-d and they have rights. That is, including with it an idea that in the natural state into which G-d made them they should have rights. For most Christians would think that everything comes from G-d and not just their rights. It could also mean that G-d is responsible for their rights, but if it was meant that way it probably would have explained more about how they were more important than other G-d-given things.

Could you rephrase that? I'm not sure what you're getting at.

To me, rights are like laws, completely useless and worthless unless they can be enforced by a given power when they are breached.

I agree partly, but if power were the only determining factor regarding rights validity, then why wouldn't a monarchy be the best choice? Concentrating all power in one omniscient individual that is more or less held above the people as a ruler? Couldn't they enforce this concept in its most pure form?

I don't think anyone would disagree that someone with this much power would be subject to corruption of the law to suit their own interests. And I think this is why having rights is superior to just a body that has ultimate power to enforce the law on a large number of unwilling subjects.

Rights being G-d-given seems to be just a way of saying they apply to every person regardless of their wealth, race, gender, and to carry with it the connotation that rights are part of the will of the people and liable to go away once they are no longer valued by them. It would be sort of laughable to actually think people thought G-d literally descended from the heavens to bequeath them rights in some type of material form.

I think you’re onto something with this. What the artist creates is not art proper, but, to paraphrase Kant, the arts in traditional western thought draw from something ‘before experience.’ Expression is one of its subprocesses where it joins with the human will. But art seems to be a composite of experience, or consciousness (not sure what the difference is in this context) including a type of rational framework and isn’t really ‘owned’ by any one particular.

If that's true then we should look to AI software, it would allow us to comprehend art better than our selves alone because it can better make use of information, data, and correlations to make inquiry into the nature of things. Nobody would take this claim seriously, because it misses the mark completely. It may perhaps not be what is meant, it would be clearer but less dramatic to say 'Artwork includes information about the artist's consciousness.' Information is power they say, and if this summarizes the concept of art then why would anyone just give power away to someone else for nothing? There must be more to it than that alone.

The idea that "Art work is information about the artist’s consciousness," is sort of difficult for me to accept without qualification. If this were true, how could there be such a thing as art work to begin with? Because there would be no necessity for the artist to share information about their consciousness beyond some type of perversion. In addition, without some contribution from outward there can be no 'cast' of art in which to apply it's form.

We're on the same page that art (as it is commonly conceived) is something more introverted than extroverted. But the end result of it's form is in some part incidental, beyond being measurable from outside it is also a type of activity and not only a process of production. The 'work' part of artwork is not normally taken to refer to actual work or physical work, but seems to attribute a quantitative measure of it's end result thus allowing for the practical survival of the artist. It doesn't seem obvious to me that measuring the work itself could in any way derive the complete nature of art.

Thanks for posting this it is very interesting. I read something from the author St. Augustine about the word 'expression' that stuck with me and it is reminiscent of this,

What a quantity of such items my memory is stocked with, things discovered and kept ready for use, the kind of things we say we have learned already and continue to know. Yet if I forgo their retrieval, even for brief intervals, they sink out of sight again, sliding deep into some inner windings, and they must be pressed up out of that place and pressed again into knowable form. We must, that is reconnect them after their dispersion. This is what we mean by 'expression,' which comes from pressing, as 'exaction' comes from acting or 'extension' comes from tending.

In your view, does art include meaning, or is it separate from it? IE: are you only occupied with the meaning of art to the artist his or her self?

A wonderful idea juxtaposes two great things obsolete from the past apes and typewriters. But how do you cat by author?

True, being a human god would be boring, and there would be self-confidence issues b/c half of us wouldn't believe in ourselves.

Yes no what you’re saying makes total sense, our experience of time is certainly in part derived from such an external phenomena that relates to changes of states, that is a position that has been held from the very beginning of the use of the word. And that physics is so well advanced it can be reframed in such definition is really cool. Imagine if only you could fully understand and predict this you’d truly be all-powerful!

So you’re certainly not suggesting that through nature there is a comparison of entropy and time that is full and complete. It sounds as if your point is that through time this structure of entropy takes shape and vise versa that through entropy time takes shape. Right? So they must be very closely related, which is definitely true. It doesn’t seem to follow from there that our experience of time is entropy in the strict sense, but if it’s a case of reading between the lines, then yes. It’s an example of how these faculties present themselves with an inherent bias to certain structures of descriptions extending from the fact that they are the only faculties that happened to exist.

Does it then follow that time is fully encapsulated in the word ‘Entropy’? Surely not, since time is thought by some to be a partially external, part apparatus-related idea. Or maybe you have evidence that entropy is part experience part physical phenomena?

It’s very late here and I can’t sleep so this is bound to make less sense as we go.

But it absolutely makes sense it’s not evolving from cells that’s the thing in doubt, but the ideology behind it. The contributions from scientists has been of huge importance and thats not coming under scrutiny...

I’m not quite sure how to explain myself, but that in some words it seems as though the way we see our past, present and future is just a mutation of the time that was necessary to produce it. That in fact this whole point of view is in many ways tautological.

That time is just a form of entropy is interesting, you should explore this further. How are you coming to this conclusion?

What about it? You tell me.

Why would someone believe that?
...
I can only imagine you mean ‘abstracted from’ rather than ‘outside of’. If not that’s basically nonsense so I’ll assume you meant ‘abstracted’.

Suppose it’s not a proposition, but a social ideology to have these types of thoughts. That random formation of cells led to the creation of life and your being is fully surmised through a series of semi-random statistical problems.

If you take time out of the picture, which is not altogether nonsensical, or spacetime, this all starts to make a lot less sense. Consider these cells, did they have a notion of time? Was time simply ‘there’ and they didn’t know of it until animal brains were highly constituted enough to appreciate it? If so, what would be the need, when animals fighting for survival really only makes sense as an afterthought?

Keep in mind this random process thing is simply one example but others could be made.