• Plato’s allegory of the cave
    What does this thread have to do with Plato's cave allegory?

    First, he does not say that all of reality is a prison.

    Second, one must escape the cave to know what is outside.
  • Neuroscience is of no relevance to the problem of consciousness
    It's hard enough when we try and respond to what people actually say.bert1

    For what it's worth, you are not alone. Rather than address what was actually said he accuses you of saying or meaning or thinking something else and argues with an imaginary interlocutor.

    When you address his specific claims, claims he cannot support, he simply ignores it.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Bragg is keeping his cards close to his chest. It seems likely that his decision not to discuss the second crime is strategic. Not disclosing it at this time is standard practice in such cases. The fact that the charges were brought against Trump does not change the rules and practices applicable to such cases.

    As Trump is (or was) fond of saying: "we'll see". Perhaps he no longer says that is because he is afraid of what we might see.
  • Reasons to call Jesus God
    If I understand anything at all about this great symbolist .. — Nietzsche

    So sayeth Nietzsche, this great symbolist and ironist and inverter of values.

    This “bearer of glad tidings” died as he lived and taught - not to “save mankind,” but to show mankind how to live. It was a way of life that he bequeathed to man — Nietzsche

    What is this way of life?

    ... a new way of life, the special evangelical way of life. It is not a “belief” that marks off the Christian; he is distinguished by a different mode of action; he acts differently ...

    The life of the Saviour was simply a carrying out of this way of life—and so was his death.... He no longer needed any formula or ritual in his relations with God—not even prayer.

    ... he knew that it was only by a way of life that one could feel one’s self “divine,” “blessed,” “evangelical,” a “child of God.” The deep instinct which prompts the Christian how to live so that he will feel that he is “in heaven” and is “immortal,” despite many reasons for feeling that he is not “in heaven”: this is the only psychological reality in “salvation.”—A new way of life, not a new faith....
    (33)

    The question immediately arises: can we live this way? Such a way of life, if taken literally, is a turning of the will to power, the will to life, against itself.

    But let us be careful not to see in all this anything more than symbolical language, semantics an opportunity to speak in parables. It is only on the theory that no work is to be taken literally that this anti-realist is able to speak at all.

    ...

    The idea of “life” as an experience, as he alone conceives it, stands opposed to his mind to every sort of word, formula, law, belief and dogma. He speaks only of inner things: “life” or “truth” or “light” is his word for the innermost—in his sight everything else, the whole of reality, all nature, even language, has significance only as sign, as allegory.
    (32)

    Nietzsche's Jesus, the only Christian (39) is Dionysian.
  • [Ontology] Donald Hoffman’s denial of materialism


    I play guitar and upright bass, mostly the jazzy end of blues. I read but too slowly to play at tempo.

    I built a couple of guitars from parts, Tele style. I built a couple of amps from kits.

    But lately I'm in an extended slump and haven't done much of anything. I used to do the local jams before we moved. Then COVID.

    Wait. What's the topic?
  • Reasons to call Jesus God


    It is in direct contradiction to the Sermon on the Mount and the letter of the Law. My guess is the influence of Paul, which can b seen throughout the synoptic gospels.
  • Reasons to call Jesus God


    Based on past conversations, you know much more about this. A few general comments on gods and men. The status of some divine or semi-divine being is not clear. There is mash ups - did Jacob wrestle with God or an angel or a man (Genesis 32:24-30)? And smash ups - the sons of God and the daughters of men (Genesis 6:2).
  • Reasons to call Jesus God
    Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.plaque flag

    This sounds like Paul. It claims that the Law and the laws of Kosher are not important. Jesus' disciples split with him over this. They reached a compromise in which Paul would go away and preach elsewhere.

    Did Christianity contribute to a tradition of radical interiority?plaque flag

    I think the majority of influence came from the various Greek and Roman schools of philosophy and Judaism. The latter at least in part due to persecution.
  • Pop Philosophy and Its Usefulness
    I suppose I just feel the need to stick up for the institution of philosophy, and the work of academics.Moliere

    One serious criticism, not just of philosophy, but the humanities, is that the universities keep churning out PhD's in the face of bleak job prospects. It serves them on both ends, paying students who become exploited as TA's and adjuncts.

    I always advised my students to not seek advanced degrees unless they had other sources of income when the got out.
  • Reasons to call Jesus God
    but let's not anachronize it to Jesus' timeschopenhauer1

    I agree. It was intended as a follow up to my comment:

    while others still wait.Fooloso4

    The hope for a messiah, whether it is the second coming, or even a bloated orange savior, is still with us.

    Anyways, my point here is don't discount apocalypticism as an important element of even mainstream "Judaisms" of 1st century Judeaschopenhauer1

    Yes, this was the Messianic age. But I think it was Jesus through Paul's Christ who reversed this from the few who are righteous to all who have faith in and are saved by Christ. It was, I think, because of this that Jesus was believed to be the true messiah and all the others false. Without Paul I think it very likely the movement would have died out.

    Paul kind of took smatterings of Greco-Roman gnostic / Platonic ideas along with a good dose of Greco-Roman-Near Eastern resurrecting god cultic practices that were popular around the area of Tarsus and beyond.schopenhauer1

    Plus a great talent for synthesis and rhetoric.
  • Reasons to call Jesus God


    With regard to an alternative I was thinking of a movement in American Judaism beginning in the 19th century: "tikkun olam,” a Hebrew phrase meaning “repairing the world.”. Rather than a messianic figure who arrives, it is up to the people to act.

    Whatever Jesus might have taught, the crucifixion became the central focus, and Paul's Christ the central teaching. It was a much more attractive story promising Heaven on Earth to everyone without requiring any of the work or effort of following the Law.

    However, his message of the Son of Man, and better days at a future Kingdom of God that will be ushered in "very soon", seem to undermine his more earthly efforts to establish proto-communes of sorts (if he did that at all).schopenhauer1

    I agree. I think this is why Paul closed his eyes and turned his back. He decided the Law does not matter. Do your best, which is not much given his opinion of man's weakness and sinful nature, but don't worry. Be joyful it is all about to end at any moment and the faithful will be saved.
  • Reasons to call Jesus God


    I agree. Jesus did not start the messianic movement. It is a mode of escapism that was transformed into what some of the hopeful took to be the truth in action, while others still wait.

    There is what I take to be a reasonable and not necessarily secular alternative, human responsibility.
  • Bunge’s Ten Criticisms of Philosophy
    I am not interested in tap dances....have a great evening sir.Nickolasgaspar

    But you should be interested in what those who you rely on actually say. Or not. That's up to you. The problem is your repeated criticisms of others based on your misunderstanding of the sources you rely on.
  • [Ontology] Donald Hoffman’s denial of materialism


    I thought you might appreciate that.
  • [Ontology] Donald Hoffman’s denial of materialism


    I think it might help to put aside the question of a private language for a moment. If I point to a mark '7' and ask what you see and you say "the number seven" then there should be no problem of agreement. But if I ask if it is purple you will either see it as purple or not. This much we agree on, we see the mark and identify it as the number 7. If I hold up some color samples we are likely to identify the same chip as the purple one. Of neither of these would we say that what we see is in our head in distinction from something we can point to and others can see as well?

    What then is the difference between me seeing the sample as purple and seeing 7 as purple? Have I added something in one case and not the other? We might say that the difference is that only I see the 7 as purple, that I am seeing something that is not there. But is it the case that I am adding the color to the 7? Perhaps that is simply the way I see it. Is what we all see public and what only I see private? Or is there perhaps something wrong with this whole way of looking at it?

    What would someone who did not know our number symbols see when the saw '7'? Would the see the same thing or different things if the font changed? Would we see it differently or would changes in some aspect of its shape escape our attention because we see 'seven'? Do we see two different things, the number and the shape or three, number, shape, and symbol? Is seeing the number in our head? Is what we see culturally conditioned? Is what we see something added?

    All of this makes clear that what we see is not simply passive reception of things in the world. But neither is it, as Hoffman would have it, an illusion.
  • [Ontology] Donald Hoffman’s denial of materialism
    I don't see red when I hear C♭Banno

    On a piano I hear B. But that is a story for another thread.
  • Bunge’s Ten Criticisms of Philosophy
    Yeap treat systematic knowledge as ordinary opinions is your thing, you made it clear.Nickolasgaspar

    Once again you create a straw man to attack. I said nothing about ordinary opinions. Systematicity, as used by Hoyningen-Huene, is not itself a system or method. It does not contain steps. In his own words:

    Thus, the unity of science consists in family resemblances that hold between different branches of science, resulting in a very loose network represented by the abstract concept of systematicity. — The Heart of Science: Systematicity 

    That's not the criterion for pseudo philosophy....
    I quote form the same source:
    "What is pseudo-philosophy?
    Philosophy that relies on fallacious arguments to a conclusion, and/or relies on factually false or undemonstrated premises. And isn't corrected when discovered."
    Nickolasgaspar

    It seems as though there is another participant here that only you can hear who you choose to respond to instead of me. I have not given any criterion for pseudo philosophy. If you think that Wittgenstein is pseudo-philosophy as you have defined it my comment stands:

    Dismissing what you have not read or have not understood as "Pseudo Philosophy" does harm to your credibility.Fooloso4

    maybe you can also tell Paul to change the name of his youtube channel ...because it only goes by Paul Hoyningen)Nickolasgaspar

    He can call it whatever he wants. What it goes by and what he goes by are not the same. But I suppose you can call him whatever you want.

    So you don't know the difference between Physics and Aristotle's Physika ...proud to be ignorant I guess.Nickolasgaspar

    What???? It would be helpful if you silenced that voice in your head and responded to what I have actually said instead of to it.

    'Physika' is the Latinized spelling of the Greek Φυσικὴ, transliterated from Latin to English as physics. Aristotle's Physics differs from modern physics in significant ways, but what does this have to do with what is under discussion here?
  • Does Consequentialism give us any Practical Guidance?
    Consequentialism is related to practical wisdom - however, that's as far as it goes. They commonly aren't taken to be the same thing.RolandTyme

    One is a theory the other is not.

    But, in this case, if things can be aggregated, and are commensurable,then you can freely substitute them for each other.RolandTyme

    What different medications have in common is that they promote health. They are in that sense commensurable, but that does not mean they are interchangeable.

    but think ideally you should do bothRolandTyme

    I don't follow. Birthday card vs. charity? All your money to charity vs. some of your money? All of your money vs. birthday card? The only case in which it is possible to do both is the first one. What you should do is limited by what it is possible to do.

    None of this should be taken as a defense consequentialist moral theories, or any moral theory for that matter.
  • Bunge’s Ten Criticisms of Philosophy


    Thanks for your advice, but I prefer to think rather than follow the misguided idea that there are steps that are not even steps.

    Dismissing what you have not read or have not understood as "Pseudo Philosophy" does harm to your credibility.

    By the way, it is Paul Hoyningen-Huene not Paul Hoyningen. His use of the term science is not limited to physics as you have it in your chart, bur rather it applies to each topic in the chart and much more. I don't know if he shares your disdain for Wittgenstein, but he makes use of Wittgenstein's notion of "family resemblances" with regard to the meaning of systematicity. You brandish this term about but give no indication of understanding what he means. By linking it to a step by step process it seems you do not understand it.
  • Bunge’s Ten Criticisms of Philosophy


    These are not steps in a philosophical method, they are branches of philosophy, areas of philosophical study. What you might find in a college philosophy course catalog.

    There are philosophical methods not one single method.

    I appreciate your desire to have a step by step guide to philosophical thought, but that ain't the way it works.

    When you are philosophizing you have to descend into primeval chaos and feel at home there. — Wittgenstein, Culture and Value
  • Pop Philosophy and Its Usefulness


    Much has to do with preferences both for the philosophers I want to read and interpretive practices. Others, of course, might see things very differently.
  • Pop Philosophy and Its Usefulness
    The academics are those who dedicate their professional life to it -- which is important! ... Without academics I wouldn't be thinking what I think today. I owe an intellectual debt to the institution.Moliere

    I agree. Having been in academia for many years I have some criticisms of it, but learned to separate the good from the bad.
  • Neuroscience is of no relevance to the problem of consciousness
    Trying to introduce the supernatural in a discussion about a property of mind is a pseudo philosophical practice.Nickolasgaspar

    You keep making claims that have nothing to do with what I said. What supernatural claims have I introduced?

    And this is something that is still poorly understood and subject to substantial revision.
    — Fooloso4
    You need to educate your self on what we know, how we know it and how our Technical applications verify our current knowledge.
    Nickolasgaspar

    If you think we are anywhere near an adequate understanding of consciousness, matter, mind, brain, then you do not even know enough to know what you don't know. But go ahead, show me that I am wrong. Identify where there is widespread scientific consensus on any of these things.

    In the opening paragraph of his review of Solms' book "The Hidden Spring: A Journey to the Source of Consciousness", Anil Seth says:

    Despite a revival in the scientific study of consciousness over recent decades, the only real consensus so far is that there is still no consensus.
    Link


    I can easily detect vague bovine manure when I read it. (i.e."(And this is something that is still poorly understood and subject to substantial revision)".Nickolasgaspar

    Show me the consensus on this:

    Different properties of Mind have distinct causal mechanisms in our brain.Nickolasgaspar

    Identify the properties of mind and the distinct causal mechanisms in the brain.

    Although I responded to your post where you told someone else:

    You are confusing different properties of mind with Consciousness. Consciousness, according to Neuroscience is the third basic mental property./quote]

    my response was general. But let's look at what Mark Solms says in this video:
    Nickolasgaspar
    293.5
    I’m going to argue that this something else, this third defining property of a mind, is intentionality, intending towards something, aiming toward an object. This is possible to do without being aware that you’re doing it. There is such a thing as having unconscious intentions, unconscious aims, unconscious volitions.

    According to Solms in this video, intentionality not consciousness is the third property of mind, a property he says that does not require consciousness. Solms is not "Neuroscience". There is no ordinal properties of mind. Solms himself notes that there is not widespread agreement with some of his ideas.
  • Pop Philosophy and Its Usefulness
    An unpopular opinion of mine: you're not truly an educated Western citizen unless and until you know Greek and Latin.Mikie

    At the risk of admitting I am not truly educated I am somewhat in agreement. But knowing the languages is not enough. One must know and read the literature in those languages.
  • One Is One Around Here
    The old bachelor wasn't so clueless, I assure you.green flag

    Perhaps. I am addressing what was posted.

    I don't think Brandom is so naive to think we tend to live up to our wonderful aspirations.green flag

    Ditto.
  • Neuroscience is of no relevance to the problem of consciousness
    This is your argument to dismiss Systematic Knowledge of specialized authorities????( 35 years of advances in rapid pace).Nickolasgaspar

    I have not presented an argument and I am not dismissing systematic knowledge or the work of specialized authorities. Those who are worth their salt are in agreement with me as to the state of the art.

    The ultimate nature of matter is irrelevant to the field of Neuroscience.Nickolasgaspar

    What is the "ultimate" nature of matter? How do you know it is irrelevant? The best approach to neuroscience is multidisciplinary. Solms agrees. To disregard the question of what matter is and what it does is to cut your legs off.

    Different properties of Mind have distinct causal mechanisms in our brain.Nickolasgaspar

    And this is something that is still poorly understood and subject to substantial revision.

    ...to post your ignorant critique against their Systematic KnowledgeNickolasgaspar

    Take a deep breath Nicky. Go to your happy place and calm down. I have not given a critique. Ask someone you recognize as an authority how far along we are in our understanding of neuroscience, consciousness, the brain, the mind.

    Since you don't accept any type of EpistemologyNickolasgaspar
    .

    This seems desperate and is wildly off the mark. I have said nothing at all to indicate that I don't accept any type of epistemology.

    I never do philosophy on the vague foundations of "all opinions are equal".Nickolasgaspar

    A good policy but again, off the mark.
  • Pop Philosophy and Its Usefulness
    And whether those interested in philosophy proper are in any better shape.Noble Dust

    Many are disappointed with and turned off by philosophy because it is not what they expected it to be. What they find are concerns matters of language, concepts, and argument, and little or nothing about the self, or, more precisely, themselves. They regard it as abstract, lifeless, and sterile.

    They are, to a large extent, right.

    People need to be met where they are, with their limited abilities and resources. Pop philosophy has the virtue of addressing them at a level they can understand. It is true that a lot of it is garbage, but then again, so is a lot of traditional and academic philosophy.
  • One Is One Around Here
    Kant understands judging and acting as applying rules, concepts, that determine what the subject becomes committed to and responsible for by applying them.

    Seems more like Kant's misunderstanding. Abstract and bloodless. The distinction between humans and "merely natural creatures" looks like a denial of the fact that we are merely natural creatures. Creatures that are not free of or fully in control of natural desires and passions.

    The process by which the whole evolves and develops systematically is a paradigmatically rational one, structured by the rhythm of inhalation or amplification by acknowledging new commitments and extracting new consequences, and exhalation or criticism by rejecting or adjusting old commitments in the light of their rational relations to the new ones.

    We are not the rational beings Brandom imagines us to be.
  • [Ontology] Donald Hoffman’s denial of materialism
    The good beyond being or something ?green flag

    This might be of interest. It is, as I piece it together, Plato's argument against knowledge of the Good.
  • Neuroscience is of no relevance to the problem of consciousness


    That others may share your opinions does not mean that they are more than opinions. Neuroscience is in its infancy. Our understanding of what matter is and what it is capable of continues to develop.

    The question of what matter is capable of is related to but not the same as the question of what minds are capable of.

    I have not provided a critique of your opinions. I simply pointed out the fact that those opinions are not facts.
  • Neuroscience is of no relevance to the problem of consciousness
    You are confusing different properties of mind with Consciousness.Nickolasgaspar

    You are confusing your opinions with facts.
  • Pop Philosophy and Its Usefulness
    I don't see the harm. There is, after all, a line of cosmetics called Philosophy. Admittedly I was upset to learn that after years of difficult study I could purchase Philosophy for $29.99, but as I say in my forthcoming pop-philosophy book, life is not always fair.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    DJ Trump spins another: the first time ever a porn star is paid to keep her mouth shut.
  • Neuroscience is of no relevance to the problem of consciousness
    What would it be like if human beings shewed no outward signs of pain (did not groan, grimace, etc.)?green flag

    This should not be skipped over. There would be no public expression of pain. But there are public expressions of pain. And when someone expresses pain we know that they are in pain, unless they are faking. But there could be no faking if we did not know what it was for someone to be in pain.

    Assuming a tribe could survive without eyesight (maybe they live in a system of caves), I don't see why they should have a problem learning about the color concepts in the English language.green flag

    Wittgenstein's thought experiments using tribes assumes isolation.

    They could understand that a man got a ticket for running a red light.green flag

    They might understand that there are others who see something that they do not. Something they call colors, and that they are able to distinguish differences between them. The one they call red means stop and that a man who did not stop got a ticket.

    I am going to leave it here.
  • Reasons to call Jesus God
    Jesus often spoke with the authority of someone who had direct knowledge of God,Wayfarer

    We have no knowledge of how he spoke or what he said.

    Paul spoke with what he claimed was the authority of Christ but did not call him a god.

    He challenged the traditional interpretations of the Jewish Law, emphasizing the spirit rather than the letter.Wayfarer

    This was common practice for the rabbis's dialectical interpretations. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus stressed the letter of the Law.

    He welcomed all people, regardless of their social status or background, whereas the rabbis tended to maintain the social heirarchy.Wayfarer

    More than likely this was the influence of Paul on the gospels, and reflected the split and growing animosity between Jesus' Jewish disciples and the followers of Paul. In addition, there were several Jewish sects with different social and religious beliefs and practices.

    love for one's neighborWayfarer

    This is from Leviticus 19:18.

    Jesus performed miracles, such as healing the sick and raising the dead, which were not part of traditional Jewish teachings, and which the Rabbis didn't or couldn't do.Wayfarer

    There were stories of other Jewish miracle workers in addition to the stories of Jesus.
  • Neuroscience is of no relevance to the problem of consciousness
    'Pain' is not the name of a beetle. It's the name for a situation approached with aspirin and Novocain and hugs.green flag

    It is the name of something felt, the name of something that leads us to reach for aspirin and Novocain.

    I'm frankly surprised to hear that claim from you. I thought you were down with Wittgenstein.green flag

    He is not proposing a theory of pain. He asks us to look at what actually happens. This is why I said that a concerned parent has a better idea of what pain is than someone whose concern is conceptual.

    You won't like me saying this, but I don't think you've understood the beetle analogy.green flag

    Unlike the beetle in a box we do not know what pain is only from our own experience. Why would anyone not confused by philosophical confusion think otherwise?

    I suppose those born blind don't know anything about color ?green flag

    If everyone in the tribe was blind what would they know about color?
  • Neuroscience is of no relevance to the problem of consciousness
    It's the grammar of 'pain,' yes, that it tends to belong a particular person.green flag

    The grammar is based on the fact that I don't feel someone else's pain. It does not "tend to" and does not "belong" to a person. It is not a possession.

    But we don't know from our own experience what it means to be in 'pain.'green flag

    Of course we do. Imagine a tribe where no one feels pain. The would have no idea what you are talking about.

    In other words, the concept is conventional and public.green flag

    It is, but only because we experience pain. There would be no conventional and public concept of pain in a tribe where no one experiences pain.
  • Neuroscience is of no relevance to the problem of consciousness
    I would like to emphasize that you seem to be quoting my paraphrase of another poster in order to correct me. (?)green flag

    I took it to be in accord with your earlier claim:

    If your pain is radically yours, radically private, then I cannot 'rationally' comment on it at all.green flag

    Your use of paraphrase is suspect. Several times you attribute something to what was said that was not. In this case that it is "the same pain", which can cause all kinds of mischief and misunderstanding

    Elsewhere:

    Perhaps you are implicitly assuminggreen flag

    What you want to say,green flag

    You are assuming that 'pain' is like a labelgreen flag

    Most of us have experienced something we call pain. Pain is "radically private" in that when I am in pain it does not hurt someone else. Pain is public in that we know from our own experience what it means to be in pain.
  • Neuroscience is of no relevance to the problem of consciousness
    If 'pain' does not refer to different private experiences but rather to the same private experience, then I can sensibly talk about your pain, because it's the same as my pain.green flag

    It does not matter if it is the same or not. What matters is what caused it and how to alleviate it.
  • Reasons to call Jesus God
    There are reasons he is called God, but that does not mean they are good reasons or even reasonable reasons. They are, however, reasons why Jesus would be pissed off if he knew someone was calling him God. But that's another story for another thread.

    What is in the teachings of Jesus that are not in the teaching of Jewish scriptures and works of the rabbis?

    I’m webmaster, zoom operator (services are online), and general tech resource. People often thank me for doing what I doArt48

    The problem arises when they thank Jesus for what someone does.