Silly question. Besides generational migration to space habitats, thinning the human herd is much easier and more efficient. — 180 Proof

People like to have children, and like to have a bit of room, so it's a bit silly is to imagine an end to all shortage and limitation. Perhaps we will start building ring worlds?

When are the robots going to start making more land?

I would appreciate a refutation — Piers

everybody is enslaved to either ego or conscience. — Piers

No they ain't.

Thinking can stop. In the silence of the mind is the freedom to respond, and in that responsibility is the creative freedom of the artist.

How can they expect to communicate effectively with others if they don't know the standard, common, agreed upon definitions/meanings of terms (with all their variations depending on context ) or if they have their own, personal, different definitions/meanings according to their own views and reality?
One can always of course describe one's own definition/meaning of a term --nothing bad about it-- but at least they should make that clear if that definition/meaning departs from the standard, common, agreed upon definition and meaning. Isn't that right? — Alkis Piskas

I am going to answer this question, or pair of related questions, without recourse to a dictionary, by way, in part, of illustrating that communication is possible without recourse to dictionaries. Indeed it must necessarily be the case that the meanings of words were already established and communicated before the first dictionary was created to record them. My answer will also give an answer in passing to your first question.

Fortunately, language has a large measure of redundancy, such that even if *unreadable splodge*, the meaning can very often be discerned quite easily. This means that an unfamiliar word can be guessed at from its context, and by triangulation with another occurrence in another context, a fairly clear idea can be obtained as to the meaning. And this method of providing uses in context is very often part of a good dictionary entry.

Because "meaning is use". Now a dictionary uses words, to define each word, and one has to understand the words in the definition to grasp the meaning of the word in question. So there is always more work to be done if one is sufficiently insistent, until as must happen, one finds that the dictionary itself loops around and the definitions become circular. At which point one has have recourse to familiarity with the language as used informally anyway. One does not learn to talk in the first place at least, from a dictionary, but from social interaction.

None of this is to denigrate dictionaries, they are fun and useful in equal measure. And if you want to reference one now and then, it can sometimes circumvent a deal of wrangling in philosophical discussion. But in my experience, it is the little common words like "I" and "is" and "thing", and "meaning" that no one defines or bothers to look up, that cause all the big philosophical problems, and here is exactly where a dictionary definition is no help at all.

https://edition.cnn.com/2017/08/17/politics/tbt-clinton-grand-jury-testimony/index.html

Mind you, if you want to really disappear down a rabbit hole of definitional circularity, I can recommend the classic text, The Meaning of Meaning. by Ogden and Richards, They find about 16 different uses of the term "meaning" by reputable philosophers, and discount a few more as illegitimate - as in 'the meaning of life', for example. I mean, why be satisfied with dictionary.com, when you can have a book length discussion of a word?

I prefer to start at the other end, and set a lower limit on the wealth of the least wealthy. and that limit would be sufficient to be fed, clothed and housed according to the acceptable standards of the society such as is conducive to good health, and further enabled to participate in and contribute to that society. Only after that, if you need a 40 ft yacht and the resources are available, will I merely pity your psychological inadequacy.

I remember when this was modern. All part of my indoctrination.

There are all kinds of indwelling plastic medical devices. Plastic is ok. Your approach is kind of lacking in justification. — frank

That has little to do with inhaled or ingested plastics that are liable I imagine to clog things up and reduce absorption of oxygen and food respectively. but there's not a huge amount of research and a good deal of complacency. Just another uncontrolled experiment with the biosphere.

here's a summary: https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/microplastics-long-legacy-left-behind-plastic-pollution

It's another unwanted pressure on an already critically stressed biosphere - not to mention the hormones that are an ever-present threat to the masculinity of the pure in cell.

I don't accept — Lionino

What are you denying about Dr John Christy? That the research has been widely questioned? That it is a minority view among climate scientists? That ExonMobil lobbied on his behalf? That he used to be a missionary? Your blanket rejection is of no value without some reason and evidence.

We know for a fact that the tobacco industry worked very hard to hold back the science on the extent to which smoking was lethal.
We know that the oil industry has been doing the same thing over climate change.

Yet here is a bunch of clowns pretending that there is a conspiracy of climate scientists and windmill manufacturers. They use words like "grifter" without identifying any actual case, cast doubt on the sanity of their interlocutors, make vague accusations of religiosity with no foundation, and then come up with Dr John Christy for fucks sake, ex missionary turned climate denier, supported by big oil, Trump's darling, and present him as legitimate mainstream science. And I am the one that is

...into too many layers of irony for me to understand. — Lionino

Also relevant: https://www.uah.edu/news/news/paper-on-climate-model-s-warming-bias-co-authored-by-dr-christy-is-top-download — Lionino

Yeah, No grifting involved at all there.

In 2001, ExxonMobil’s chief lobbyist successfully recommended that President George W. Bush’s administration choose Christy to review the submissions of the U.S. team contributing to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Third Assessment Report, an assignment that helped burnish his scientific credentials.

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/02112020/john-christy-alabama-climate-contrarian/

Exon Mobil lobbyists being unwavering seekers of truth and not at all partisan on such matters. He doesn't take their money, but he sure takes their lobbying on his behalf. but the reference has been very well trashed in any case over the years.

Goldie Lookin Chain has @NOS4A2's back.




One of those arguments that works forwards and backwards and belongs really in that Ryle dilemmas thread.

No Mikie, its about how you and I are grifters or grifter's suckers, or spouting pseudo-religious hooey, with uncouth agendas, and above all rude and therefore wrong about everything. It's all about us, because Climate change is unimportant.

Take this grifter, for example:

“The huge human cost of the climate crisis is being ignored. We hear of disaster relief, but the long-term costs are not being addressed. We must provide lasting support for people impacted by climate change,” said Ian Fry, UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change.

In his report to the Council, the Special Rapporteur outlined a six-point plan to address the human rights aspects of the problem.

Communities in vulnerable situations, including indigenous peoples, peasants, migrants, children, women, persons with disabilities and people living in small island developing States and least developed countries, are disproportionately at risk from adverse impacts of climate change, the UN expert said.

He also highlighted the many non-economic losses stemming from climate change and its consequences. “For instance, in countries where I have worked and visited in the Pacific for the last 20 years, people are witnessing the graves of their loved ones being washed out into the sea,” the expert said.

Fry noted that the key element of his plan would be to investigate the plight of people displaced by the impacts of climate change. The expert said that of 59.1 million people internally displaced in 2021 across the world, most were displaced by climate-related disasters. He noted that the number was far higher than displacement due to armed conflict.

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/06/intolerable-tide-people-displaced-climate-change-un-expert

Clearly angling for more research grants. None of that is happening.

You're such a sucker, frank, responding to our clickbait all the time. If only there were adverts on this thread you'd be making us a fortune.alas I'm not smart enough to be a real grifter.

It's kind of weak though isn't it? We know that Oil companies and oil exporting countries have been spending a great deal of effort and money undermining any suggestion that there is a climate crisis. So where are all these successful doom laden grifters making their money from? It's a fantasy - there is no market for them or their doom, because the market has long been cornered by the apocalypse and rapture brigade. Mundane flood and famine is boring.

That's a pretty classic example of grift. — Tzeentch

"They" the media? choose a child because that makes it more believable?

Rather than - a grown up climate scientist or someone like that.

That totally makes money! Absolutely classic!

___________________________________________________________

But if you're genuinely under the impression the world is about to end, — Tzeentch

I'm not. I'm under the impression that most of the world's mega cities are coastal and low-lying and will therefore be subject to major flooding within a century and in some cases within a couple of decades. The millions of resulting climate refugees will overwhelm the ability of governments to cope and a breakdown of civil society will almost certainly result. This will be exacerbated by a continuing decline in global food production, desertification and the added involuntary mass migrations that will result. Not the end of the world, just the end of your world. And it will not stop there, but continue to get worse.

If this isn't pseudo-religious hooey, I don't know what is. — Tzeentch

It's psychobabble Jim, not pseudo-religious hooey, and definitely not grift.

And the scattergun adhom epithets you are using are exactly what it explains. You have to defend your way of life. But you'll come around, or die in denial, I don't much care which.

WRT water, at a given pressure and temperature below the boiling point, the partial pressure of water vapour in the atmosphere reaches an equilibrium between evaporation and condensation known as saturation.

At the boiling point the saturation point becomes 100%, and above that point the vapour is superheated. (From ancient memory. You might want to check and correct a bit.) It is the result of the wretched internet, that implied adhoms are the first recourse of the wilfully ignorant.

There is a an important psychological aspect to climate change, that it demands a huge transformation in ones fundamental understanding of oneself, of humanity, of society and economics, and a change of direction away from endless growth that threatens ones' identity like no other issue. Denial is commonplace, and particularly denial that anything is happening that will radically change the way of life of the human world.

The acceptance of this as fact, involves first a shock and fear, and then a great mourning of the loss of a way of life and an imagined future. No more green and pleasant land, no more 2 .4 children, no more universal foreign holidays, the end of accumulation and consumption without limit. So of course the people who point this out become targets because shooting the messenger always works. This whole thing is @Mikie's fault, because he is insisting on things we don't want to be true.

When I was growing up, a government leaflet was sent to every household in the UK to explain what to do in a Nuclear war. Something about putting tape on the windows and hiding under the table with a bottle of water. We just hoped no one would press the button. But Climate change is not optional, we have already pressed the button, been pressing it for a Century and are knowingly keeping it fully pressed and even pressing harder. This is the despair behind the denial. This is the self-hatred that becomes hated of the World. This is wishing Gaza on the whole of humanity.

I don't really have time for an argument any more, this world is going to collapse, it is already collapsing, and no orange clown is going to save us. The great god Science has pronounced our doom, and your faith or lack of faith changes nothing.

The bottles stand as empty
As they were filled before
Time there was and plenty
But from that cup no more
Though I could not caution all
I still might warn a few
Don't lend your hand to raise no flag atop no ship of fools — Grateful Dead

Assembly language is the best.

Hey guys, take it to Marriage Guidance, and leave this space for the discussion of climate change, huh?

I gonna put this here as well as the shout box, because it's almost on topic and it is a refreshingly philosophical take on politics.

I am not a Conservative, but here is a rather long lecture by an ex conservative UK mp about world politics that I think is worth hearing. Apart from the insightful contents, the clarity and fluency is an absolute delight. I defy you to listen to it or to read a transcript and not learn something, if only the startling fact that Aristotle did not have an iPhone!

https://www.gresham.ac.uk/sites/default/files/transcript/2023-06-08-1800_Stewart-T.pdf



Actually, if conservatism was all like this, I probably might be a a conservative.

Well let us suppose instead, that whenever a woman conceives, the man responsible must attach himself to the woman via some umbilical type chord for the next 9 months in order to prevent a spontaneous abortion. Everyone stepping up to that plate ? And of course, if you refuse, it's murder.

Is this meant seriously? — wonderer1

Seriously, but not literally. just as philosophers can be likened to therapists, so they can be likened to the policemen of thought, keeping thoughts in order, and in this case trying to arrest perfectly ordinary thoughts going about their lawful business. Its an analogy, Jim, but not as we know it.

If one then says that the moves one actually made are now necessary, it looks as if someone is trying to deny that what was a possibility then, is not a possibility now. If that were true, one could not consider them after the game. Which is absurd. — Ludwig V

Absolutely. But it's interesting, because it is very unlikely that one will again come across the exact same chess position, and be able to make a different choice in the exact same situation, and yet one learns how to look, and how to analyse other positions and make other choices better. So counterfactuals function as useful notions here.

If the sperm that "won the race" in your case had not made it, someone else, not you would have existed in your place. — Janus

But What function does this counterfactual serve? And more, what rules does it follow such that the consequence can be drawn? The answer is none. and it comes down pretty much to If things had been different, they wouldn't have been the same.' I must remember to make sure the right sperm wins the race tonight. But how?

I am being told nothing useful, but out of that I am supposed to learn that I am not allowed to use exactly the same form of expression in ways that can usefully exercise an empathic understanding - "If i had been a soldier in Cromwell's New Model Army, I would have been having difficulty with the harsh discipline." - because "wrong sperm and egg".

No, not at all, I say! If I had been a soldier in Cromwell's army, then necessarily the right sperm and egg would have miraculously come together at the appropriate time to make that happen. And there can be no objection that imaginary miracles do not happen in reality, because we are not talking about reality, and imaginary miracles occur all the time - I wish I was on a Caribbean beach right now. This whole thread is a case of overreach by the thought police.

Very nice, I have no major complaints. But why so many Mentos?

It is somewhat cautious, and that is a good thing in places and times of some stability, reminds me of Hippocrates 'First do no harm' but perhaps in a crisis more might be needed, a risk might have to be taken, some positive action... There may not be one universal way to live in all circumstances.

Oh, and hi there, welcome to this place of much talk! :smile:

I have the best words, and the best words are whatever you want to hear... if you want to hear I am mentally challenged, you will hear it, but if you want to hear I am a very stable genius you will hear that. And that is why everyone loves to hear what I say, and they are all very special people.

So maybe I considered moving the bishop and decided to do something else. When I did something else, it was no longer possible. But it was possible when I considered it. Surely? — Ludwig V

Well yes for sure, back then I may have considered it, and back then I could have chosen it. But back then it wasn't a counterfactual, but an imagined future to which there was no fact for it to be counter to. Then I made my move. The constrained scenario of a chess game is quite instructive here because it is full at each move of imagined moves, and imagined countermoves, and it is very instructive to go through an old game of one's own with an experienced player who can point out problems one had not seen and possibilities one did not consider, and all of these are counterfactual, but constrained by the clear rules to possible legal moves and their outcomes. It doesn't change the outcome of the game one is studying, but it can potentially change the outcome of future games if one becomes a better player, and a better imagineer of move sequences. One sees how useful the imaginary can be, and some of the ways it can function in thought..

There are counterfactuals that may be possible. — schopenhauer1

I'm gonna stick my neck out and say that no counterfactual about the past (or the present) is possible. History can be rewritten, but the past is fixed and determined . Only what happened can have happened, and no amount of thought can change it. And of course the future is open just to the extent that there are no facts about it yet.

It is impossible that I moved the bishop and won the game, because I moved another piece and lost. What is being made clear is that it is very easy to get confused between the imagination and the real, and this is because imagination is in use all the time to model and predict the world as it unfolds. If I do this, you will do that, if I say this you will say that, If I go to the shop, I can buy some beer. If I hurry, I can catch the bus. and part of the learning process is to imagine past counterfactuals and 'run them'. If only I had hurried, I could have caught the bus. Next time...

The professional gambler has a talent for using the form book to imagine the race being run and pick the winner with better odds than the bookmaker; the amateur just guesses at random. The architect draws imaginary buildings that may sometimes be realised. Philosophers live almost entirely in their imagination, and get annoyed when reality has other ideas.

Given that I exist, my possible supposition that my gametes could have been different from the ones I actually have is hampered by the absolutely certain fact that they weren't. — Ludwig V

But this is a universal objection that applies to chess moves or anything whatsoever. If I had moved my bishop on move 17 thus and so, it would have been checkmate and I would have won. But I didn't, and it is certain that I lost. This is simply how counterfactuals work by imaging a world that is not this world and stipulating a difference and drawing more or less plausible and significant conclusions as to how the difference pans out. In saying "if I had been born in ancient Rome..." I am not saying anything about my DNA because I don't have a clue what it is. I am imagining having been in Rome at that time in the same way that I can imagine being a woman, or a dog, or Superman.

It makes a difference because indeterminate future is one without you. The five minutes changes the gamete to someone else’s genetics. — schopenhauer1

This is a stipulation of your own about an imaginary situation that didn't happen because - here we all are. You are free to imagine that happening, and someone else is free to imagine exactly that sperm and egg coming together at any other time they care to stipulate. What you cannot do is declare that your imagination is the only real one, without me at least saying, "yeah, as if..."

Stuff and structure. Stuff without out structure would be a universe of gunk; structure without stuff would be an empty idea. But structure is not more stuff, thus if I have bean bean bean bean bean, that makes five, but five is not more stuff, it is the structure of the stuff, not the beans and five, but five beans.

Structure, arrangement, process, are not materials they are aspects of material. Ideas are real but not material. a plague therefore on all your possibilities.

Does this change the fact that each organism has a unique genotype? — Janus

Hopefully, it means that one might sometimes survive gene therapy. But if I have established that there is never any difficulty distinguishing oneself from an imaginary person, then we can really drop genetic integrity as the necessary feature of identity, and stick with actual existence as the defining feature, which is easier to detect.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-43674270

What's up with all of this mumble-mouth crap? — GRWelsh

Incomplete sentences, because if you never quite make sense, you never actually lie. (First discovered by admen). Hope to have given a strong impression of exactly what I have definitely not said that you might think.

Some stipulated counterfactuals are more plausible than others, as here:

So when we try to say that some things that happen could have been prevented; that some drownings, for example, would not have occurred had their victims learned to swim, we seem to be in a queer logical fix. We can say that a particular person would not have .drowned had he been able to swim. But we cannot quite say that his lamented drowning would have been averted by swimming- lessons. For had he taken those lessons, he would not have drowned, and then we would not have had for a topic of discussion just that lamented drowning of which we want to say that it would have been prevented. We are left bereft of any 'it' at all. — Ryle

(my bold)

At this level of plausibility, such a counterfactual can function as part of an argument for - swimming lessons in schools, for example. And speaking of schools it a common part of history lessons to "Imagine you were a Roman citizen of the 1st century AD, and describe how you would have lived on a typical day" and similar counterfactual tasks. Counterfactuals can be instructive and interesting in spite of all being false.

Did y'all know, counterfactuals are all false? they have the form, If [false stipulation] then [false plausible consequence].

If [wishes were horses] then [beggars would ride].

But wishes cannot be horses {because they do not have the right DNA???}. and therefore, beggars go on foot unless they can steal a horse, and then they become horse thieves, not beggars.

It is in fact impossible for anyone to have been born other than how and when they were born simply because one is only born once. But this need not prevent me from declaring that 'if I were twenty years younger, I'd give y'all a good kicking to knock some sense into you.' because such counterfactuals are not claims of fact but stipulations of an imaginary scenario, which can be whatever the fuck I want to fantasise, thank you very much.
Unsurprisingly, I am not in fact twenty years younger than I am, so you don't have to worry about covering your arses.

Cool. But I won't be joining you there to discuss. Or possibly I will, whatever!

1. No morality but everyone believes that it is immoral to kill babies
2. It is immoral to kill babies and everyone believes that it is immoral to kill babies
3. It is moral to kill babies but everyone believes that it is immoral to kill babies

What is the practical difference between these worlds? — Michael

I can't make the possibility of any kind of moral obligation believable. T — Michael

I take it that you are someone. I take it that since you cannot make the possibility of any kind of moral obligation believable, you do not believe it is immoral to kill babies. Therefore there are no possible worlds in which we can discuss these worlds you propose as your presence makes them impossible.

In fact the moral world is a possible world itself, because we do not do what we ought to do, and so in a certain feeble sense you are right that the moral world is not the real world. Rather, it is an imaginary world like the plans of an architect are an imaginary building. And it is the business of ordinary brickies and plumbers etc to realise the architect's plans as it is the business of ordinary humans everywhere to realise the moral world as best they can.

No one suggests that architecture is not real, and no architect designs piles of rubble. But that is by analogy, what you are doing with this thread, especially when you suggest that possibly "...It is moral to kill babies".

I can't make the possibility of any kind of moral obligation believable. That's really what I'm trying to show here. — Michael

I pity you.

But I will just point out that you have undermined all of your thread which is based on various scenarios of "everyone believes..."

I read it, but i decided it would be a cold day in hell before your nonsense achieved much agreement. So I decided not to wait.

If it's not true by definition then it's not necessarily true, and if it's not necessarily true then it's possibly false. — Michael

Right. But you cannot make the possibility believable? Then I won't believe it. But i have made a suggestion of how it might be believable - it just requires a religion to be true. Shall we go with that?

there is a possible world (with humans) in which we do not have a moral obligation to prevent environmental catastrophe and population crash. — Michael

You would have to make that believable to me. Your declaration does not do it without some understandable detail. Perhaps it is a world in which humans have a more significant afterlife such that survival in this world is unimportant - something like that? I'm struggling... one can say there is a possible world in which humans are descended from insects, but I don't think it makes much sense.

Yes. I cannot make sense of

a world in which we don't have a moral obligation to prevent environmental catastrophe and population crash — Michael

I understand that an anti-natalist thinks otherwise, but I just think they are confused. Such a world would at least have to be a world without humans, and I am a human and so can have no perspective or judgement on such a world.

I would suggest that this is a gross misunderstanding of personal identity. Identical twins are not the same person, and if someone undergoes gene therapy they do not become someone else, in the sense that a sober person is likewise the same person when drunk or that the same person can be happy at one time and sad at another, or young at one time and old at another. Wrt. social identity, we can stipulate a genetic absolute in this sort of way, but in such case I am identifiable by my genetic code or equally by my fingerprints, but not as them.