Why do these realisations lead to melancholy or escapism? Why don’t people change their expectations instead of being mad about human nature? Why isn’t there a discipline that aims to build concepts that are closer to reality? — Skalidris

We know that it is possible to live in peace, to care for one another and enjoy life. And yet we know that we do not do it. I don't see how this knowledge can not lead to melancholy or escapism. We are destroying the planet and ourselves for nothing. Hurrah???

I expect the extinction of human life, or at least 90% thereof this century. It makes me sad. do you think there is some non-escapist way I can find it not sad? I don't even want to not find it sad. surely the very least I can do is to end my life in tears.

Was he pushed, or did he change horses midstream?

https://www.ft.com/content/dd9ba2f6-f509-42f0-8e97-4271c7b84ded

Mostly, I fart around and make lots of mistakes. But sometimes I read the instructions or watch a video, when mistakes look like they might be expensive or painful.

Austin has argued that Ayer makes use of the Argument from Illusion, but that a closer reading shows Ayer does not actually believe the argument. That is, Ayer does not reach the conclusion, that what we directly perceive are sense data, as a consequence of consideration of the Argument from Illusion. Rather, Ayer has other reasons for his view, and uses the Argument for Illusion only rhetorically, as a post hoc justification. — Banno

The old "illusion" of a chequerboard with a shadow cast across it such that dark square A is 'surprisingly' shown to be "the same exact shade" as light square B ...

... seems to me to demonstrate that we precisely do not see the sense data, (patches of identical grey) but the interpretation thereof. We read the difference into the same data and see the result. One reads the flat screen as if it were representing the world. Just as one does not see the black worms all over the screen, but the meaning of the writing.

Likewise, I am told that the eye vibrates, and this produces a 'flicker' at the edges of objects that aids edge detection. One does not experience the vibration or the flicker, but the edges of objects.

Likewise a spear fisherman learns to see round the corner of the water's surface to where the fish really is so that when his spear bends as it enters the water, it will hit the fish. And the architect, the artist and the fashion designer all use 'trompe l'oeil' with equal proficiency. Only philosophers actually look for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Hume's scepticism is the scepticism of the power of pure reason. His fight is with a rationalism that tries to prove what cannot be proved but must be discovered. Reason cannot get an ought from an is, or a will-be from a has-been, or a world from experience. This is because it is limited to words and talk and can only keep language in order at best.

This is the sense in which it cannot affect the world. And the sense in which it certainly can affect the world is that when one orders coffee the waiter tends to bring one coffee. The tree is not listening, but the lumberjack is. Now if one cannot allow that both these senses are perfectly valid, then it is rationality that has a problem, because the world accommodates both with no trouble at all.

Thus Hume is rejecting rationalism in favour of empiricism, and it looks like Austin is doing the same, while Ayer and co are trying to rehabilitate a form of rationalism

This video is out of date. The climate has got worse, the political situation has also got worse. Extinction rebellion has failed. Emissions are still increasing.

And here's some mainly US history on the politicisation of the issue and the betrayal of the science.

It's what every decent human has to do, care for each other and reason our way to living together. "How" is with a deal of wisdom that is hard to find, and harder to practice. Doctors have to do it, especially surgeons. How does one kindly take a scalpel to another human? I don't know...

Here's a handy summary of roughly how very fucked we are and why we are not going to be unfucked by science magic or very stable geniuses.

https://www.okdoomer.io/10-reasons-our-civilization-will-soon-collapse/

The most common argument against the existence of objective morality and moral facts besides moral differences between societies is that they aren’t tangible objects found in the universe and can’t be measured scientifically. Are there any refutations or arguments against this?- — Captain Homicide

And if the lack of moral facts is true, and the argument is sound, does this make it a good argument? If it is a good argument it refutes itself, therefore it cannot be a good argument, therefore it is a bad argument. If there are bad arguments and good arguments, then truth preservation is good and there are moral facts.

It's hard to be specific. A history of philosophy is usually recommended, and some sort of dictionary is a great crib-sheet. Philosophers are all great name-droppers and jargon users, and something like this is really useful. http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/ Sort the Neoplatonism from the neologism fast.

Then Stanford (SEP) will give depth on anything that grabs you. Beyond that, it all depends on what has bitten you whether one might prescribe a dose of Rorty, or Nietzsche. or Ryle, or another. You're going to have to deal with Plato sooner or later, and my personal favourite starting point is The Trial and Death of Socrates -straight into the individual in relation to society and meaning worth dying for.

We are, alas, living with the consequences of rationalism. The enlightenment and the success of science make it seem as if reason has triumphed over emotion, but this cannot be, and even the terms 'success' and 'triumph' are emotional judgements.

But to reject rationality in favour of emotion would be as impossible and dangerous as the worst excesses of rationalism. Emotion in the broadest sense is caring about something some degree. To reject emotion is to pretend not to care about anything, and that is a recipe for failure to say no to absolute horror. But to deny reason is equally to deprive oneself of any ability to act effectively on one's emotions. Reason it is that demand, when emotion says no to horror, that one acts to end horror.

Not so much a Holy Grail, more a big box of snakes, all entangled with each other, most of them poisonous and slippery. Reach in at your peril and try to pull out one snake to examine it, and be-it the snake 'ontology', or the snake 'freewill', or the snake 'ethics', or whatever, you will find it so entangled with all the other snakes that it is impossible to get a clear view of it, and difficult enough not to get bitten.

What are the philosophical consequences of science saying we are mechanistic?

Thus the title, and we have a genuine scientist saying it; but what are the consequences?

On the face of it, the consequences are that, demonstrably, machines can produce moral systems, artistic traditions, religions, science, and philosophies. Who'd of thunk it? Well we would, apparently, because we are simply machines.

What I disagree with is the notion that the coming collapse, if there is one, will mean the end of the human species. I mean, it could, but there isn't reason to believe it has to. — frank

That is about where I am. A lot depends on all those tipping points and positive and negative feedbacks as well as what humans do in the next couple of decades. A runaway hothouse scenario is possible that would eliminate almost all complex land based life. 6°C is more possible, and would be unspeakably bad. But there is no precedent, so nobody knows.

I'd put my money on insect supercolonies to evolve into a new form of life. — frank

They'll use your money for nest material.

I would put my money on bacteria. — Agree-to-Disagree

They'll eat your money.

Descartes and Hume both distinguished beliefs produced by reason from beliefs produced by the imagination (i.e. by instinct, custom and habit), an imagination which we share with the beasts. In their view, a method of belief formation presents itself as a method of reasoning only if it appears to justify certainty about its conclusions. Any method of belief formation which fails to promise certainty must first be vindicated by a proper method of reasoning before we can rely on it. And if this can’t be done, we must admit that to form beliefs by that method is to yield to the workings of our imagination. Since induction could not be so vindicated, Hume made the required admission:

"the experimental reasoning, which we posses in common with the beasts, and on which the whole conduct of life depends, is nothing but a species of instinct or mechanical power that acts in us unknown to ourselves (my italics) (Hume 1975: 108)

And he thought the same applied to any method of belief formation. For Hume, ‘belief produced by reason’ is an empty category; for him, our beliefs are governed by the very principles of instinct and imagination which rule the mental lives of the beats. — D. Owens.

https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/1211/1/owensdj3.htm

Hume elsewhere confesses that he does indeed expect the future to be like the past, and the ground not to collapse beneath him. My understanding that he is not in fact attacking the common-sense understanding of the world at all, Rather he is attacking the over-reach of "reasoning". It is reason that is limited by not being able to get an 'ought' from an 'is' or a 'will be' from a 'has been'.

But humans are not constrained by reason, only philosophy students are, and then only in their academic productions.

The collapse you describe in the economy is not such a big threat. It will be painful and might required decades of authoritarianism and revolution. Or even a collapse in civilisation. But the threat from climate change is existential. — Punshhh

The economic collapse is part of climate change, just because the economy is predicated on the eternal expansion of fossil fuel consumption and waste dumping . When the burgers run out the white man will get angry. Angry toddler with nuclear arsenal may not wait for the seas to close over his head.

Is this headline intended to cause fear and anxiety? — Agree-to-Disagree

Of course it is. Headlines are designed to grab your attention, by evoking some emotion.

It is a tragedy that because such manipulation has been going on for a century and more, we have learned to ignore these things as the exaggeration has become wilder and wilder. The same thing happens with fire alarms. Too many false alarms result in folk ignoring them when the fire is real. Thus a whole academic discipline of climate scientists and Earth science researchers end up being treated like a hysterical headline writer.

I think the personality comparison is quite apt. Churchill was a privileged rabid factional racist obsessed with his own destiny in a declining empire of world exploitation. And Churchill was petty much a spent force, marginalised as the out-dated bigot he was until WW2 gave him an enemy to suit his rhetoric. Unlike Trump, mind, he was an actual soldier with combat experience.

The difference is that both Trump the US are fighting fantasy 'enemies within', and that is what puts them on the fascict side on this occasion. Identifying the real enemy is the crucial step that is lacking (hint: think oil).

I want to start from scratch and understand the first principles of philosophy so that I fight different theories while on solid ground. — T4YLOR

Alas, this is a recipe for disaster. Instead of starting from where you want to be, start from where you are, in the middle of a muddle. Instead of looking for solid ground, look for clear issues and questions, and and try to articulate what is personally at stake for you in answering one way or another. Read widely, and expect to change your mind a lot. Breathe...

The story of The Emperor's New Clothes comes to mind. The best protection is another viewpoint - a diverse community; the greatest danger the echo chamber of the party line. In this sense, one could say that taking stupid seriously is what keeps us somewhat honest, and to declare once and for all what is stupid it to stop listening to the dissenting voice. I keep meeting this circle in the topic ... Oh yes, poetry...

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? — WB Yeats

The poem declares its title and transcends itself in its self discovery. And the blank and pitiless gaze is surely the triumph of stupidity? As if wisdom must become stupidity for lack of conviction or an excess.

Well there would have been much more wisdom in a dignified silence; when I find my own stupidity, I have already transcended it. Finding it in others is a trivial pursuit.

Stupidity: n, thinking philosophy can be found in a dictionary. :wink:

Trump has the best words.

My main question is: What if there were greater existential threats to humanity than climate change, would the apathy on those issues not be good reason to be spiteful over all the climate change hype? — Merkwurdichliebe

There is no 'if' about it. The greatest threat to humanity is the collapse of the economy. The new industrial revolution combining 3d printing and AI mean that mass production and consumption are becoming unnecessary, as a means to wealth and power. The mass of humanity entirely lacks the wisdom to control the economy, and so mass production and consumption - and hence the mass of humanity - will end. The failure to tackle climate change is just a convenient means to accelerate things a little. "Keep calm and carry on", is all we know how to do, like our cousins the lemmings.

I doubt it was meant to remember the enemy combatants, like the axis power soldiers who lost their lives in commitment to the destruction of Britain. That is, it is not just a day to lament death, regardless of who has died, but those who died in war defending Britain. — Hanover

Well My state owned radio featured a reading of "All quiet on the Western front", a German story of lament for the loss of one German youth, and another program about the dreadful failure of the armistice to bring peace in the long term to either Europe or worse to the Ottoman Empire, largely due to its inequity as between races and nations. I find the suggestion that one is or ought to be partisan about the dead a bit offensive, not personally, but to the long tradition of using the poppy as a symbol of the common colour of all our blood regardless of flag or skin. It seems that even in death we are a long way apart.

But my main point was to expose the irony of the likes of Tommy Robinson defending Israel. and the dreadful fact of the British government encouraging him.

Remembrance day is a thing in the UK, stemming from WW1 and folk like to stand still and quiet for 2 minutes, to 'remember the dead'. This year there were also scheduled marches calling for a cease fire in Gaza. The Home secretary, Suella Braverman, a non-white person, who has oversight of the police amongst other political duties, was calling these demonstrators 'hate marchers' and demanding that the police ban the march as it would conflict with the remembrance day observances. The police declined to do so, and her displeasure was publicly displayed.

So today, we have the edifying spectacle of Right-wing Nationalists on a "counter-demonstration" turning up to the remembrance cenotaphs, getting drunk, and chucking stuff at the police in supposed protection of the sacred remembers of the fallen and against the pro-Palestinian marchers, (who were elsewhere, a mile or so away), and therefore in favour of Israel, all while giving a modified (with a pointy finger) Nazi salute, because such gestures can get you arrested.

Thus is the doctrine that my enemies' enemy is my friend played out in all its manifold hypocrisy, based on the contrivance that those who mourn the dead are the enemies of those who protest the dying.

It all fits neatly together with the observation made somewhere very quietly, that Palestinians are also Semites.

Have you seen a Ukrainian Maginot Line anywhere? — Tzeentch

No, but I have seen a Russian one.

The scenario where what you describe is possible (with the forces Russia commits to Kiev) is one where Ukraine forces essentially don't put up a fight and Russian tanks can roll into Kiev uncontested. Again, that would certainly be the ideal scenario for the Russians and they certainly would have done that if there was no resistance. — boethius

That's all I'm saying, they went for a quick decapitation of the government alongside a push for a land bridge and as much coast line as they could, including Odessa which would have given them control of the 'breadbasket', a powerful lever in international relations. Without that regime change, it looks like they are now resigned to at best a frozen conflict for the indefinite future, because they still don't seem to have the numbers to occupy and subdue the whole country.

I already addressed what you said, and my complaint that you quote is that you deal in innuendo and never even have a point to make. If you actually made an argument, I would do my best to address it, but since you confine yourself to 'whataboutisms' and feeble attempts to undermine climate science from a position of sublime ignorance, there is little but your personality to go at. But I don't blame you really, you are only a pawn in their game.

No one here is arguing the Russian invasion went perfectly according to plan, we're just pointing out Russian decisions do make sense. — boethius

The idea that Russia is an irrational... — boethius

No one here is is arguing that either, at least not any more than any human group is fundamentally irrational at any time.

So, assuming you're correct and Putin views Zelensky a puppet of the US, why wouldn't said US puppet do what he's told and implement US policy of rejecting peace? — boethius

I'm not a military expert, but what happened looks to me to be modelled on the WW2 German invasion of France, a high speed blitz takeover of the Capital avoiding the main defensive forces to remove the government and replace it with a Vichy style government of the strategically unimportant regions, and annexation of, in this case, the entire south coast. Zelensky removed has no chance to dance to anyone's tune. Given an ex comedian with no political pedigree in charge, that is not an irrational plan. That obviously didn't happen, and then there was a strange pause before the withdrawal and regrouping. It looked like a winning plan until it didn't, which was when the airport couldn't be secured.
There was even a Pro-Russian faction with support from oligarchs and security services waiting to step into the breach.

What were the Russians running short of? — Tzeentch

Anecdotally, they were running short first of fuel, then of personal equipment for troops, and then of munitions and tanks and even training facilities for the reinforcements. But perhaps that is all Western propaganda.

A quick negotiated settlement was obviously the preferred outcome, but I think it's pretty much unthinkable that the Russians did not plan for a situation in which negotiations failed. — Tzeentch

Then why did they have those long lines of stalled transport for a week or two, and why did they run short of so many things so quickly? Can they not count?

We used to have standards -- specifically to filter out the bogus stuff. — GRWelsh

Yes indeed; standards. It goes for anything. We have food standards, hygiene standards, safety standards, building standards, that we rely on; and, here on this informal site we still have standards of behaviour. Fake money is not tolerable why would we tolerate fake talk? Money is nothing but a promise that we trust. Counterfeit money destroys trust in the currency and inflation is the measure of the loss of trust. Civil unrest is the measure of the loss of trust in government.

And wacko conspiracy theories are the measure of the loss of trust in those institutions that have taken over from religion – Science and the Media.

Without trust there is no society, no government, no police, no army, "...and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short".

T I think such a puppet regime would last a few days at most. — Tzeentch

I think Putin thought the same about Zelensky. A puppet he could knock over in a few days.Do you think Russia began this prepared for a long war of attrition?

I think it is a reasonable supposition that Putin thought he was attacking a comedian of a leader, and could do what he liked in Ukraine at little cost, and I think it is also reasonable to suppose he wanted Odessa, and a puppet government in Kiev. I think he planned to be sucking the profits from the grain harvest by now.

We have been lied to and manipulated so much that trust has been lost in politicians, scientists, and the media. It is impossible now to trust authority, and so people are left rudderless, and prey to any fantastic conspiracy theory. To be contrarian is just another masquerade of sceptical rigour - the less one knows about something the more fair-mind one must be in opposing whatever is the consensus. Perhaps we never should have trusted them, perhaps we never did. I blame psychology as the science of lies; it has driven us all insane.

Apparently, you want to go further. You want government to sanction and discourage politicians from lying? I see enormous problems with that. — RogueAI

Of course there are problems with that. We are used to politicians lying and when caught in a lie, shrugging it off or doubling down (to hell?). Yes I want politicians to value truth and reject lies and demand some honour of each other. We are in the situation where that seems an impossible ask; we expect to be lied to all the time, and that is why many people fasten onto whatever conspiracy theory is current. Perhaps it will take another world war or an environmental catastrophe before folk will learn their mistake.

Yes, vote for the party that sanctions its own members occasionally for the most egregious bullshit. Support the Science foundations that expel the fakers of results. Frequent the philosophy forums that remove the proselytisers and crackpots. Do your own best to make the distinction and support others to make the same distinction. Do not vote for liars and charlatans. If you do not make the distinction and hold fast to the truth as best you can, then you cannot in good conscience complain when your democracy is subverted by liars and fascists.

There is no freedom in not being able to believe what anyone says; it is the end of the life of the mind, and the end of civilisation. I see that as an enormous problem.

Lovers of wisdom need to banish bullshitters from their midst. This is a moral imperative.

You. I answered the question first, and then criticised it. Do you think that repeating it makes it more cogent?

Who's going to be the arbiter of truth? Government? — RogueAI

If you maintain that it is never possible to distinguish truth from lie, you have already given up on communication, and there is no answer for you. You and I and others need to to do our best, and the law needs to do its best and professional bodies need to do their best, and it will never be perfect. But this is not some radical reform I am proposing; there have been prohibitions on fraud, libel, etc since a long while in many communities, because communication is founded on truth and trust.

Of course there is no one arbiter of truth - stop asking misleading questions and putting yourself on the side of the lie.

What we're experiencing with Trump, Fox News, Newsmax, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, this whole phenomenon of alt-right, alt-facts, conspiracy theorists, demagogues, etc. is all what I would call the necessary evil of living in an open, democratic society with free speech. — GRWelsh

The US democracy needs a cleanup — Christoffer

The lesson of the fascist movement that led to WW2 is a moral lesson, which has been forgotten.

We enter the Reichstag to arm ourselves with democracy’s weapons. If democracy is foolish enough to give us free railway passes and salaries, that is its problem... We are coming neither as friends or neutrals. We come as enemies! As the wolf attacks the sheep, so come we. — Goebbels

"Falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after it," — Jonathan Swift wrote in The Examiner in 1710.

With this in mind, it is certainly naive and imprudent to protect the right to lie. On the contrary, media that lie, advertisers that lie, estate agents, politicians, scientists, doctors, that knowingly lie and deceive, need to be sanctioned and firmly discouraged from doing so. Ordinary people can be easily deceived and persuaded by ranting demagogues when trust in the general honesty of leaders and professionals is lost. To mistake freedom of speech with licence to lie is to promote a destructive anti-social ideal, and welcome tyranny into the heart of the nation.

God knows it is easy enough to be mistaken, to misunderstand, to be wrong in what one believes and says unintentionally already, we need no help from purveyors of snake oil.