If one allows themselves to cherry pick what luxuries one sacrifices and what luxuries one chooses to keep, it quickly begs the question "Why?" — Tzeentch

Simple. If you have two harmful luxuries and you 'cherry pick' one of them to eliminate, that's halved the amount of harm you're causing, which is a good thing. You appear to be raising the property of consistency above the property of causing harm. Not sure why you would want to do that. Is a person who consistently violent towards everyone a better person that one who is occasionally violent but restrains themselves in certain circumstances?

THIS IS MY ARTICLE - How could any one believe they KNOW God doesn't exist. — Gardener

Interesting. I don't think anyone's really tackled such a niche topic before.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with my form of the argument at least. — khaled

I think that's abundantly apparent.

emember the other thread? Where you kept saying “If I have unreasonable premises I end up with unreasonable conclusions” in reference to my argument? That means not even you think there is something wrong with the form, just the premises. That is a failure to show that there is anything wrong with AN. — khaled

How so? There have been several arguments put forward, that was an opposition to one of them.

Sure, technically true, but that doesn’t make any difference convincing. Or reasonable in any traditional sense. — khaled

What does make a difference convincing or reasonable?

I would be interested in what features about malicious genetic engineering and birth make one ok and the other not, for you. Because all the features I’ve heard so far have seemed ridiculous to me. — khaled

I find this quite disingenuous since you've literally had to make a moral judgement in order to even describe the situation. 'Malicious genetic engineering'. One is malicious, the other isn't. Maliciousness is a bad thing, it's what the word literally means. If you really are so sociopathic as to need a fuller explanation (which I don't believe for a minute) -

In the example of malicious genetic engineering there is an intention to cause harm above a threshold level of non-triviality without a counterbalancing intention to mitigate harm and a reasonable expectation of compensatory benefits.

With birth, there is no malicious intent to cause harm above a threshold level of non-triviality, there is a counterbalancing intent to mitigate harms and there is a reasonable expectation of compensatory benefits.

If you can't see that those factors make the two situations meaningfully different with regards to the premises of virtually all ethical approaches, then I can't help you.

The defence say he wasn't killed. The defence say he overdosed. The autopsies are evidence - the value of which is yet to be determined by the jury. Saying he was killed is therefore, to assume guilt, and to broadcast an assumption of guilt may prejudice the trial. — counterpunch

The only two experts currently available to the BBC on the matter of his cause of death both concluded he was killed. In such circumstances the BBC are well within their journalistic impartiality to state the conclusion of the sum total of expert opinion at the time. It is not their responsibility to preempt any possible defence. You're confusing impartiality with scepticism. Journalist need not reserve judgement until 100% certain, they only need reasonable grounds to draw the conclusions they draw. The conclusion of the only two medical experts involved are reasonable grounds.

If a jury convict, how does the further opinion of twelve members of the public add some magic level of certainty to the situation? The jurisprudential means of securing conviction and the journalistic standards of impartiality are not the same, nor even much related, and for good reason.

So are all the other alternatives. Which makes the statement “There is something wrong with antinatalism” false. — khaled

Despite the title, the OP makes it clear that it is the form of argument, not the subjectivity of the premises which is being taken issue with.

don’t think anyone here is willing to say something like “Birth, although similar to malicious genetic engineering in every respect, is fine because it starts with a ‘B’” — khaled

You can't be seriously saying the only difference anyone could point to between malicious genetic engineering and birth is the initial letter? Ridiculous.

I don't know why posters are assuming that any argument can't be debated on a philosophy forum. — schopenhauer1

As I said quite clearly, it is not the fact that an argument is being presented that I take issue with but its form. Are you seriously suggesting that all argumentative forms are value regardless? That would leave us with very little to do by way of analysis.

The two autopsies are contradictory. — counterpunch

Irrelevant. Both conclude he was killed, which is the statement you took issue with. Nowhere did the BBC state that the autopsies contained no contrary information.

I've only been able to determine that there are two contradictory autopsies, — counterpunch

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/sep/25/blog-posting/two-autopsies-found-george-floyds-death-was-homici/

Phew, now I'm absolutely exhausted. All that research... Now I see why people are so reluctant to do it. I'm going to have to have a lie down.

But again, khaled and I have been agreeing with this sentiment. — schopenhauer1

All your arguments are of the form " but you wouldn't do x, which is similar to conceiving children in ways a, b and c...so you're obliged by reason to not conceive children"

Either you need to claim some objective validity to features a, b and c, or you have no argument (of that form), because the ways in which x is dissimilar from conceiving children could otherwise be held as rational reasons to absolve such an obligation.

Protestations to the contrary aside, your approach implies an objectivity you've not demonstrated to be there.

everyone deserves a fair trial - and that prejudging what happened, doesn't allow for a fair trial — counterpunch

Look up what a Medical Examiner's job is. For fuck's sake. Do at least the bare minimum.

There is no easy way to bridge that conceptual chasm. — Echarmion

We could start an interminable series of threads sneeringly implying that anyone thinking the opposite "just doesn't get it" for 27 pages before finally admitting it's just a personal feeling without any objective validity. That might work...

What I am saying might make more sense to you in ten or fifteen years. — synthesis

Why on earth would it?

I know I come from a very different place, but isn't that good? — synthesis

I don't see how on the face of it. Some differences are good, others bad.

Give me an example of something I should take as a "given" in your world. — synthesis

That you'll not simply float away. Gravity

I think what is meant by good is "human flourishing" coined by Sam Harris, positive states of consciousness of humans. — dazed

Right. So how do you measure that?

yes it's complicated, but I think you know what I mean

are you a theist? — dazed

No and no. I neither know what you mean, nor am I a theist.

Have you actively sought to abandon your assumptions and base your arguments in solid realities, like epistemology, evolution and physics, and then see if your philosophical favourites can be sustained in those terms? — counterpunch

Yep.

are you looking down the wrong end of the telescope - starting with some metaphysical concept, like being, or some moral purpose - like equality, and bending the world around it? — counterpunch

Nope.

Do you have a tendency to think in terms of superlatives - highest, fastest, biggest, strongest? — counterpunch

Nope.

Are you unreasonably attracted to nihilistic despair? — counterpunch

Nope.

All these, and a thousand other things - I've had to force my way past. Have you? — counterpunch

Yep. 1001, in fact.

So...how many years?

do you honestly believe that the good gained by saving the lives of those over 80 (whose quality of life is obviously significantly diminished by that point) outweighs the suffering of the billions that covid lockdowns and restrictions cause? — dazed

How are you measuring 'good'?

But it is simply publicly not palatable for a politician to come out and say "we need to limit our medical resources to protect the lives of those under 80 to preserve our way of life and society for those under 80"...and why is that not palatable? — dazed

Because most normal people under 80 don't really want their way of life bought at the expense of the deaths of huge numbers of people over 80. Why are you finding this so hard to understand?

Then for how many years do you imagine your interlocutors have worked to obtain their knowledge? What is the exact difference in years worked between someone who will discover the truth and one who will not. I'm interested because I've put in a few years myself - am I nearly there yet?

I accept lots of philosophical propositions that are denied by many able, well-trained philosophers. Am I to believe that in every case in which I believe something many other philosophers deny ... I am right and they are wrong, and that, in every such case, my epistemic circumstances are superior to theirs? Am I to believe that in every such case this is because some neural quirk has provided me with evidence that is inaccessible to them? If I do believe this ... is it the same neutral quirk in each case or a different one? If it is the same one, it begins to look more a case of “my superior cognitive architecture” [but i]f it is a different one in each case –well, that is quite a coincidence, isn’t it? All these evidence-provoking quirks come together in one person, and that person happens to be me. (2010, p. 27) — van Inwagen, P. (2010), “We’re Right. They’re Wrong,” in R. Feldman and T.A. Warfield (eds.), Disagreement (Oxford University Press), pp. 10-28.

you thought I was postulating a way that humans empirically do tend to think, rather than suggesting a useful way to think. — Pfhorrest

Interesting. So how are you measuring 'useful'? I kind of presumed that any assessment that a way of looking at things might be useful would at the very least be based on the idea that it might somewhat reflect the way things actually are.

Whichever of our mental processes you're describing a 'useful way of looking at', they are carried out by a real and actual brain, and if the workings of the real actual brain preclude the mechanism you're advocating we imagine, I struggle to see how you might still judge it likely to be 'useful'. I would have thought a fundamental conflict with the way things actually are is a pretty good indication that a way of looking at them might not be so useful.

I'm not sure if you're talking about me in particular here — Pfhorrest

No, just your comment as quoted.

I'm happy that they're interested in a topic — Pfhorrest

...is the element I'm having trouble with. To me 'interested in a topic' starts with reading a book about it, or some journal articles. It doesn't start with presuming whatever I happen to reckon about it after a few minute's thought is probably right and I'd better broadcast it publicly.

when someone proposes a philosophical framework as an interesting or useful way of thinking about things, you seem upset that they're not aware of empirical psychological research to the effect that people tend not to think about things that way, when those two things are not in conflict. — Pfhorrest

Not sure I understand what you're saying here. That there's a distinction between how it might be useful to think and how people actually do think seems trivially true. The whole of clinical psychology is based on the premise. But these are not the claims I'm interested in at this level. I wouldn't respond to any claim of "we ought to...", with "you're wrong because people don't... Do your research!".

Interesting. What's odd about that phenomenon, if it's true, is that the condescension (perceived or otherwise), would be presumably based on exactly the course of action the offended parties then pursue in response to it - to make claims without research.

It's not as if the academic elite are above having to research and cite sources (albeit each other).

I don't doubt that there's snobbishness in academia, but it seems rather a bizarre wish that one be welcomed into a group for behaving in exactly the opposite manner to the accepted behaviour of that group. It seems a bit like being offended at being chucked out of a football club for carrying the ball.

Thanks for the book recommendation though. It does sound like an interesting read.

I see. So basically a difference between a consequentialist ethic and virtue ethic, I guess. I wouldn't disregard their contribution, not because they can (or do) actually read what I write, but because it's not polite to do so, regardless of the circumstances limiting the consequence. Same reason I wouldn't condone shouting racist expletives into an empty room. It's not right regardless of the fact that no-one can hear them.

Your second reason seems more odd though. I find it difficult to understand the seemingly contradictory stance of being interested enough in a topic to formulate a theory, refine it (evidently) and post it to a public forum, but not interested enough to type the question into a search engine (or better still a preprint server) and see who else has already put the time and effort into researching it.

There is a happy medium between making stuff up without a shred of preliminary research and doing a "a thorough survey of all the most cutting-edge research".

you're bothered that people who aren't perfect experts are talking about things, and basically want places like this to stop existing — Pfhorrest

I'm neither.

My interest is twofold. Firstly, I think there are circumstances where promulgation of ideas without evidence can be harmful and I'd like to see that minimised, but that's a fairly limited set. Secondly, my interest is in how people think. When I see some behaviour I think might have an interesting mechanism, I like to pursue it. This idea of wanting to discuss a topic with lay people but not wanting to read what experts have to say about it is just such a behaviour. I simply cannot fathom why anyone would want to do that, yet evidently it is very popular. That intrigues me.

I'm guessing people want to give their ideas validity but without the risk?

That's exactly why an important part of rhetoric is communicating to the audience that you are a good person who's on their side, trying to help them think through something, rather than attacking them. — Pfhorrest

It's funny you should say this because it's pretty much the same reason I use to reach the conclusion about academic precedent which you evidently don't agree with, so it'd be interesting to hear how you manage to reach such a radically different conclusion from the same premise.

In science, there's probably a few score researchers in any specific field that might intersect with a philosophical outlook, maybe even into the low hundreds. In philosophy, lower numbers, but still relevant. All of them putting a considerable amount of effort into the "thinking through something" you're referring to. How much indication do you think it gives to them that you're on their side if people completely ignore all of their efforts when positing their 'theory', in favour of blank-slate declarations of what they 'reckon' is the case?

If you want people to read your arguments and say "me too..." then why not extend the same courtesy to everyone in academia who have been wrestling with the same topics your arguments relate to or touch on?

I was enjoying the responses haha — StreetlightX

Really?

Why? — Isaac

I see. — Isaac

You have quite a low threshold for entertainment.

Still...just for you...

I believe Freud's ideas are still relevant to psychology today.

(should be hilarious)

What on earth is the matter with chatting over a beer that should be disparaged? — Bitter Crank

Did I disparage it in some way? So far as I can tell I only said that this [the forum] was not such a thing.

So I guess you think membership into another group? Thats a superior remedy in your view? — DingoJones

Yes, to a very great extent. Although in such large amorphous groups as we move in nowadays, it's often virtual or imaginary social groups constructed by media.

But it being a criteria for social group membership isn't the only reason for adopting an idea. I'm just saying it's a very significant one among those who adopt ideas which, on the face if it, are very difficult to support rationally. Having adopted such an idea is a fairly strong indication that such a person isn't particularly swayed by an idea's being easy to support rationally. If they were, they'd unlikely have adopted the one in question.

And that's really the key problem By debating with such people, you're giving them an extra reason for holding their idea - it's taken seriously enough to be discussed by pseudo intellectuals - now they get to be members of both social groups, whatever one had the idea as its membership criteria, and those people serious enough to discuss ideas, it just makes them think "well, at least I'm being taken seriously, there must be something in this".

What's worse for a would-be intellectual, being disagreed with, or being ignored? Why validate the idea with a back-story that it might actually be one of the viable options in the great 'marketplace of ideas'?, even if the the satisfaction is double-edged (there've been numerous posts I've made that I would have preferred a full-throated attack on to the disinterested atrophy of mutterings that actually followed)?

I think that's the reason behind the phenomenon. As @Echarmion put it, which I pretty much agree with...

They all seemed to have a very rigid position with respect to some topic, or a style that would lead to never ending discussion.

My guess would be that getting banned was the only way they could claim they upheld their position "to the end", without giving ground. After all, when you're banned, you can't reply, even if you want to. — Echarmion

... like a junkie looking for an ever bigger hit, there's a desperation not to lose the attention the posts are getting from the illuminati, and to ensure that, the unreasonableness which caused the responses in the first place has to be constantly ramped up until it's eventually too much for the rules to accommodate. You see the same among the 'celebrity' polemicists, an ever increasing extremity to maintain their position in the spotlight.

You are very serious about these conversations, me, not so much. I am here to relax and enjoy other people's views. — synthesis

Again, seriousness has little to do with it. Even if I considered these conversations to be the most trivial matters in the world, the opinions I express in them would still have causes, and where empirical, would relate to evidence from experience.

I can't see what is so 'friendly' about claiming that BLM doctored the mobile phone footage of an arrest to make it look like murder, which then suddenly becomes fusty and academic when the actual source of that claim is added.

Science (like all knowledge) changes constantly, correct? Why should I take anything postulated out there seriously if it is only going to be dis-proven? — synthesis

Really? You're seriously asking that question?

They are both generalizations. This, that. Something, nothing. — Pantagruel

So you're saying that the properties of a generalised set can be used to infer the properties of any member of that set simply by virtue of its membership? Seems rather a weak argument to me. If I were to say "this elephant has a trunk because elephants generally have trunks" I think you'd be hesitant to agree.

So why is it any different when you say "this thing (consciousness) came from something because things generally come from something"?

for nothing to become something there must be an impulse within nothing. — EnPassant

You know this how?

So your superior remedy is...? — DingoJones

If writing it three times in three different ways isn't doing the job I think we're not going to make any more progress with a fourth.

Right wing ideas are very intellectual and serious — Maw

I see.

we need to engage with ideas from the right — Maw

Why?

I dont follow why that answer challenges the assertion I made about discourse being the best remedy. Non-sequitor I would call it, but maybe Im missing something.
So do you have a superior remedy? — DingoJones

the point is that people, in the main, neither adopt nor reject ideas on the strength of rational argument. It's simply to easy to construct a rational argument to support too wide a range of possible ideas. By and large people adopt ideas as a kind of membership criteria for the social group they might wish to affirm their membership of, so if you want to change the ideas someone has you need to address the reasons why they're attracted to the social group which those ideas represent the membership criteria for.

Presenting a rational argument can help, of course, but only in that being able to muster rational support is an appealing characteristic of a social group. But it's only one appealing characteristic among many.

The point, I think, with the adoption of 'bad' ideas is that, the very fact that they lack rational support (they're 'bad' after all) is strongly indicative of the fact that people adopting them probably haven't done so because they were attracted to that characteristic. So appealing to them on those grounds is unlikely to succeed.

I suppose, if you two are arguing, and don't feel that listing academic sources is any way to resolve the issue - you could each put your cases to a neutral third party and agree to accept the verdict. — counterpunch

Again, if you can't tell the difference between an opinion which is relevant to the framing of beliefs and a statement of fact then there's little hope for you. That we should support our empirical claims is an opinion of mine, it requires no evidential support. That BLM fabricated the mobile phone footage is a statement of fact (and an pernicious one at that) it requires evidence.

There are two types of conversations you can have. One a friendly chat over a couple of beers type of chat and another where you are attempting to prove a point (for some academic or professional reason). I kind of approach this forum as a friendly chat. No need for the drama. — synthesis

Firstly, it's not about the nature of the conversation, it's about the nature of the beliefs. Why would anyone have such beliefs unless they had some evidence for them? Surely you don't just adopt your beliefs at random? The point is, that even for a 'down the pub' type of conversation, you should have the reason for your belief ready to hand. If you don't have a reason, then why tell everyone about it?

Secondly, this is not a 'chat down the pub'. We're not friends, I' not interested in your opinion for it's own sake - why on earth would I be? I'm interested in the stuff other people know, and the way they might frame it, but I can't see the interest in just knwing what version of events some random people have pinned their flag to without cause.

science is quite political and therefore subject to all the nonsense that goes on in that sphere. Many times when researchers discover better ways/problematic issues that do not serve the primary interests of TPTB, it becomes difficult to move forward. — synthesis

I fail to see what that's got to do with failing to present any evidence. There's been not a single scientific revolution which was not accompanied by, motivated by, evidence. Scientists do not just randomly decide the status quo has got it wrong, they do so on the basis of evidence.

What is your superior remedy to a bad idea? — DingoJones

Address the reason why someone is attracted to it.

Well, a premise contains what it contains, so saying that ex nihilo nihil fit doesn't refer to consciousness is like say quid pro quo doesn't tell you what is being exchanged. — Pantagruel

That doesn't make any sense. Quid pro quo isn't about what's being exchanged, so we woudn't expect it to tell us. Ex nihilo nihil fit is about {all the things}, so we'd expect it to tell us about one of the things. Consciousness of one of the things in {all the things}, so any conclusion drawn from {all the things} must include consciousness.

Ex nihilo nihil fit is intuitively, logically, and scientifically satisfying. — Pantagruel

Firstly, if something's being intuitively satisfying is a measure of it's adpotion, then why not just introspect about the question at hand and see what conclusion is intuitively satisfying? Why the song and dance going through all these post hoc rationalisations?

Secondly, how can Ex nihilo nihil fit possibly be scientifically satisfying? We've just established that there are things the origin of which you don't know, so what is satisfying about a theory the postulates nothing comes from nothing?

What about the suffering experienced by those under 80 at the loss of their beloved over 80 community? Or, for those less well-connected, the suffering caused by the guilt they'd feel at having bought their economic well-being at the expense of a whole sector of society?

Which is why we don't just have a utilitarian ethic. It leads to some horrific act and then when everyone is miserable as a result the ethicist says "oh yes, I'd forgotten to include that in my calculations".

Actually the final premise was cogito ergo sum. So far from excluding consciousness, it was (is) integral to the argument. — Pantagruel

I was referring to your first premise, as I had hoped was made clear by me quoting your first premise.

What did I exclude? — Pantagruel

Consciousness.

You either knew all along that it didn't come from nothing, or your premise "nothing comes from nothing" is speculative because there exists a known thing whose origin is unknown.

As an example. I can't say "all swans are black" and use it to conclude that some new swan I've never seen before must be black. Simply by virtue of there being a new swan I've never seen before, I've rendered my "all swans..." premise over confident at best.

You cannot say that for all things they do not come from nothing and use it to conclude that some thing whose origin is unknown must therefore not come from nothing. At best you must conclude there exist things whose origin you don't know and as such any conclusion about the origin of "all things..." cannot be properly established.