Chapter 2.

In which it is discovered that not all words are nouns, and the discussion becomes 'heated'.

Perhaps an expedient question to ask would be, when was the last time US party politics had a significant influence on matters that also greatly impacted the 'powers that be', ergo the BlackRocks and Vanguards, the large banks, the US military-industrial complex, etc.
— Tzeentch

No one? — Tzeentch

I think I could make a case for this:

Passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, and ratified on December 6, 1865, the 13th Amendment abolished slavery in the United States. — Google

It’s clearly not a one party state otherwise it would be dictatorship but it’s evidently a constitutional democracy, and to claim that this democracy is illusory is to be dealing in conspiracy, simple as. — invicta

Now that's what I call polarised intolerance. You disagree? you must be insane!

Noam Chomsky maintains that the US is a one-party state. The Business Party rules, and maintains the illusion of a two party system through the continual jockeying between its two very similar wings. — BC

I wonder if anything more than the illusion is even possible, short of civil war? The US and the UK versions of democracy effectively limit parties to 2. Multi-party systems are available, and may be more 'representative' of the diversity of interests and views. It would clarify the argument if Chomsky could point to, or at least provide criteria for, a non-one-party state.

I think conflict theory is a useful way to look at societies. The assumptions that there are always conflicting opinions, loyalties, and interests in any society to do with issues of class, race, culture, religion, gender, profession, age-group, etc. The recipe for a peaceful society is that these conflicts are internalised within each individual, such that the individual identifies with many different groups according to the particular issue.

Violence becomes more likely when the society becomes polarised. That is when there is a strong correlation between various divisions, for example when one race is overwhelmingly poor, of the same religion, working class, they will form a faction that agrees with itself about everything and opposes a similarly factionalised polar opposite group. When a society is polarised, people live more in an echo-chamber of similar views, and become more intolerant of what they think of as deviant views.

In these terms, to claim that the US is a single party state seems to suggest that it has become polarised and intolerant, and that the same faction controls both parties - in this case white, wealthy, male, Christian, old ... leaving the 'two' parties bickering furiously about which end to open their boiled eggs.

Taxes are necessary for any regime that cannot generate its own revenue. — NOS4A2

A communist regime owns the means of production, and generates income thereby, It therefore does not need to tax, like the kings and barons of the good old days. Once everything has been privatised, then taxes are needed.

But, but but,... is not tax only possible if there is private property? And therefore a feature of non-communist regimes?

it's about whether the chance of achieving those preferences by use of conventional land war is worth the cost. — Isaac

That's a difficult calculation, and no one can be sure of the numbers that lie in the future. But given the particular history of Ukraine under Soviet rule, I can understand any Ukrainian's calculation that a few million dead is a price well worth paying. And if that was my history and someone was offering me some arms, I wouldn't be questioning their motives before accepting the offers.

The hiddenness of nothing is what allows movement and interaction. Thus the more one fills the emptiness of awareness with the images of self, the less emptiness remains for the world to unfold itself in.

We join spokes together in a wheel,
but it is the center hole
that makes the wagon move.

We shape clay into a pot,
but it is the emptiness inside
that holds whatever we want.

We hammer wood for a house,
but it is the inner space
that makes it livable.

We work with being,
but non-being is what we use. — Lao Tzu

As for consumerism it cannot be stopped i — invicta

Nay, lad. It will stop, and that right soon. And if the politicians cannot manage it in good order, it will end perforce chaotically, with much suffering. It would help if we could stop electing bullshitting narcissists and bullies though.

Or, perhaps it is the imagining self that dies. — Fooloso4

The imagining self is the imaginary self. That's what it means to imagine oneself.

Waves don't think. — Heracloitus

Hence the technical instruction – "Imagine ..." It's a brain exercise achievable only by the fleet of mind.

Unfortunately, humans can think, and because they make an identification of themselves as individual beings, they find themselves with the prospect of dying. This gives rise to anxiety and suffering. Fortunately it is only the imagined self that dies.

as I recall Slavoj Zizek once warning the Occupy movement: you need to know exactly what you are doing if you want to make radical changes - even if those changes seem, or really are, necessary. — ToothyMaw

I wonder why he said that to the Occupy movement, and not to their opponents, that they are already knowingly making radical changes to the environment that are clearly not necessary or desirable?

I have not proposed changing consumerism at all — invicta

Well you should start proposing it.

Governments are well used to using the tax system and regulations to rebalance the economy and change people's behaviour. If they cut the taxes on insulation, subsidise recycling, subsidise public transport and penalise private transport; subsidise the provision of allotments, and tax asphalt and concrete upgrade building regulations to net zero energy, and subsidise the building of new homes away from floodplains, they can incentivise a population-wide change in behaviour, that would make a deal of difference. They don't, and haven't, and show little inclination to begin. Instead, they subsidise oil companies and then further subsidise consumers to use the expensive energy and throw-away products produced.

Hey, let's ban single use batteries from next year. Instead, install charging points in cafes, banks, and charity shops, and offer a few pence trade in on dead lithium batteries so school children will collect them for pocket money. It's really easy to change people's behaviour en mass, with simple incentives and disincentives, and simple changes to the rules of the marketplace. But the governments are too busy persuading us to blame the climate refugees, and finding ways around the annoying human rights act.

It's idiotic expecting individuals to make changes that the organisation of society has arranged to be difficult and expensive. That is why environmentalists are better employed making protests to government than agonising over their individual carbon footprint.

These days, I say we put them in the world. — plaque flag

Yes, quite possibly. But not phenomena. If you go putting phenomena in the world, what are you going to do with the noumena?

It's all Kant's fault. It's nearly always either Kant or Descartes, But this is Kant. The whole point of talking about phenomena was to be as vague as possible about what he was talking about; that is to say NOT to make any assumptions. So I talk about a phenomenon that occurred in the desert, that might have been an oasis, or might have been a mirage. If it was a mirage, it would be odd to ask where it is.

What phenomena are in the brain and if so how? — Andrew4Handel

When one locates something, it is not the phenomenon, but the cause or origin of the phenomenon; which is to say the noumenon. the phenomenon is the appearance, and has no location. The rainbow is not in your head, because then I could not see it, but nor is it there where we see it, otherwise we could find the pot of gold at the end. It's 'a trick of the light' – a phenomenon.

A vivid memory of a deceased relative can be so vivid that one seems to see them in the world, or hear their voice, or catch their scent. Call them a 'trick of the brain' if it pleases you, or be satisfied to call them phenomena, but I would say that the phenomenon is no more in your brain than the phenomenon of the tree I can see at the bottom of the garden is in my brain. Brains are wrinkled rubbery phenomena, not recommended eating.

"Where are hallucinations?" is a wrong question. One might want to say that they originate in the brain, but they are not experienced in the brain but in the world. Yet they are not in the world either, they are nowhere - they are hallucinations.

Mirages, rainbows, memories, trees, brains, movies, hallucinations phantoms, as phenomena are appearances that are if anywhere, exactly where they appear to be and what they appear to be; the function of talking about them as phenomena is to talk about the appearance of things and not the reality of them.

That's called 'leaving the work for someone else" better known as laziness. — Metaphysician Undercover

Thank's for the compliment. Laziness is the engine of civilisation. The wheel was invented by someone who found dragging stuff a drag.

I don't know much about souls... — Average

Well nor do I. I'm waving in the general direction of how you might feel about this

there is something I am supposed to do with the life I have been allowed to enjoy. — Average

I understand. But the way you put it is as if there is someone - God? - who has allowed, and who supposes you. I think it is rather difficult to talk about purpose without something of an implication of 'beyond' the mundane world. But I'm just exploring something that is maybe quite nebulous.

Perhaps we can call this thing instead a moral sense of owing to others a duty to improve life for everyone, or even a duty to the environment – to life itself – I don't know if any of this resonates with you at all? or perhaps there is a duty to oneself to live one's best life what ever one finds that to be. I think in general I would put learning to love at the top of my list. That's an all day thing that I fail at nine minutes out of ten. But perhaps you have a particular vocation - I envy such as musicians or doctors who find their purpose and never hesitate.

Anyway, there is a philosophy that will declare any talk of purpose to be nonsense, though, what the purpose of following such a philosophy might be, I cannot fathom. So let's ignore that at least, and get on with whatever we can discern to be of value, to ourselves, or others, in this world or the next.

I've come to the conclusion that my life has a purpose. — Average

That is interesting, I wonder if you can say more? I can imagine at least two different scenarios in which this makes sense. the first is the sense in which, for example, Winston Churchill felt he had a destiny to fulfil for which he spent probably most of his life preparing. In such a case, there is a purpose in the world and for the world. The other scenario presumes a soul incarnation to experience a particular life as a learning and development of the soul; thus a purpose relating to beyond this world.

for my own part, I have long felt i was here on holiday, and the real work will begin post mortem.

Why, is a matter of poor philosophy no doubt encouraged by powerful interests.

Oh wait, you mean why do I think differently? why do I question accepted dichotomies at the heart of the thread and the usual parameters of political discourse? I don't know, perhaps it's the influence of T.H.White, or George Orwell, or Aldous Huxley, I'm really not sure.

As per usual, the state (the collective) is the problem, and not the cure. — Tzeentch

I think you're confusing the collective with the state. As per usual the individualist denies their responsibility for others and ignores their dependence on others. Social networks are the collective, as is "the market". The state is just the controlling interest of capital.

I think communism is opposed to individualism, not to capitalism. Capital does not mind who owns it, government, mafia, narcissist or philanthropist.

What we are suffering from is the cult of the individual masking itself under the guise of democracy. It's the fucking enlightenment again Sam. The individual cannot survive. Even Bear Grills cannot last a year without a camera crew, support vehicles, the global network of trade in survival equipment and a large audience to finance his exploits.

And yet, the very idea of collective action is considered treasonous. Until it's time for war. As soon as one takes off the blinkers of political rhetoric, it is obvious that individuals are powerless, and communities are powerful. Individualism does not work and cannot work and will never work. Communism is all there is to politics, and its just a question of who runs it.

And so on. — Banno

Literally disproving the metaphor.

Next you'll want to demonstrate that rivers do not actually have mouths.

Because, (private language argument) the subjective (private) end of the relation of observer and observed can only be spoken of by means of simile and metaphor. If you see what I mean, it may be that that seeing is conducted via a text to speech synthesiser, because you are blind. But to suggest that the blind cannot see what someone means is ridiculous. Not that folks generally are not prone to take their own experiences literally, and mistake hypoxia for insight, but not all who wander are lost.

We all got fed up with drinking hemlock, and caved in to the polis.

Engrossing means you are not content now, but you need to "catch the rhythm" to go with your music analogy. — schopenhauer1

Indeed, but that's not how it happens. If you set out to become engrossed, you never are, because you're always thinking about being engrossed, like Bart Simpson in the car endlessly asking, 'are we there yet?' There is no thought that will end the train of thought, but the train of thought can end.

That was an interesting video. I'm not usually excited by the recitation of a series of big cheese names and the ascription of -isms. But I like the way he is generous and respectful to everyone he mentions, and even-handed in his criticisms. I also find much resonance in the project to integrate ethics into the understanding of language, something I have been incoherently banging on about for some time. The idea of the language game - the use of it, must be to communicate the truth and not to deceive, in the sense that though the business of a stick insect is to project "I am a stick", the business of the predator is not at all to understand, but to see through the visual claim.

But in relation to the topic of this thread, it is evidence that philosophy has not at least gone more wrong than usual. "Naturalism" to my understanding is a position that denies the meaning of its name, in the sense that the claim his that everything is natural and there is nothing unnatural or supernatural. This reflects the sad fact that one needs ones' enemies to maintain one's identity.

And hence, every philosopher who wishes to say something, must begin with "where philosophy went wrong". My own position is that the rise of patriarchy was where it all went wrong, about 10,000 years ago. :blush:

And here's a new article: https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/what-the-discovery-of-massive-early-galaxies-could-mean-for-cosmology/

In which it becomes clear that the standard model of cosmology is already in trouble over the Hubble constant, not to mention the dependence on dark matter and dark energy. So we might be almost ready for a whole new model. When you have constants that won't remain constant and undetectable matter and energy inserted to make the numbers come right - you have a problem, Houston.

God did it.

Just for balance, this is not a new problem. This from Jan 2021 —well before the launch of JWST.

The number of elements in C1-23152 that were found to be heavier than hydrogen and helium—which astronomers collectively refer to as “metals”—hinted at its strangeness. Metals are produced by star formation, which jettisons them into a galaxy’s interstellar medium through supernovae—making them available for next-generation stars to use. More metals equal more cycles of star formation, and it took present-day massive galaxies many billions of years to become metal-rich. C1-23152’s spectrum revealed the galaxy to be a veritable metal bonanza back in its early days, which means it made a lot of stars very rapidly not long after it first formed.
How rapidly? The spectral features of stars can answer that question, too, because they reveal which ones have elements typical of younger or older stars. The youngest stars in C1-23152 are roughly 150 million years old. The most ancient are about 600 million years old. That means the galaxy made some 200 billion solar masses in just a half-billion years—a rate of 450 stars per year, more than one per day. The figure is almost 300 times greater than estimates of the Milky Way’s current output. If most galaxies are slow-burning log fires, with new flames popping up every so often, C1-23152 is a gasoline-soaked bonfire.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/giant-galaxies-from-the-universes-childhood-challenge-cosmic-origin-stories/

something [that] cannot be experienced and cannot be exactly defined, — ClayG

Is that an exact definition?

But they seem to be sort of polar ends of the self-help / guru mill of philosophy, therapy, and the like. You better find something that engrosses you! You better be more mindful and at peace with just being! — schopenhauer1

I disagree. The shallow end of flow is music and dance. Breath and movement and sound are the same rhythm, and thought is absent. Meditation is the same thing a cappella. To be 'in time', moving at the speed of time is to be fully present, whereas to be in thought is to be absent, in the past, and in the imagination of the future. Wanting is the centre of thought, wanting to be elsewhere and elsewhen, doing and being and having what is not.

How about none of it? — schopenhauer1

How about none of that?

https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/08/05/1006008/ai-face-recognition-hack-misidentifies-person/

It's the entanglement. I remember the middle ages when a chap was known to his bank-manager. The other day I went in to register a mobile number and was told 'You could be anyone'. Nobody knows me, and my identity is entirely electronic. My laptop already has one of my fingerprints, my face, my voice; it can also have my DNA. and my bank details. The collective survival risk is of drowning in our own bullshit, magnified and fed back to us by the indifferent machine.

I think perhaps a philosophical discussion needs a linguistic hierarchy of three classes of words. Most words being working class, taken for granted, over-worked and underpaid attention to; then some middle-class words, pedantically defined, and always following the rules of logic; and finally some few aristocratic words that are what the discussion is all about.

Which might suggest that one's philosophical instincts in this discussion are somewhat indicative of ones' class loyalties. Or it might just be a big tease.
———————————————————

I propose poetry as the "art" of language, and naming of ships, species, infants and philosophical -isms as acts of poetry. Here is my argument and reference:— Henry Reed, Naming of Parts.

Art is indefinable as to substance or function because it does not operate in the world, but in the mind, to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Poetry restores meaning to language traumatised by politics, advertising and philosophy, and now by robotic abuse too. The business of philosophy, then is to sharpen the tools provided by the poet, not to say anything for itself. That is mere politics –

The confusions which occupy us arise when language is like an engine idling, not when it is doing work. — Wittgenstein, PI

That is to say, when the engineer of language is tinkering and tuning.

Of course. Philosophers are the thought police.

Meaning is use, and lies are only useful if they are understood and believed. Therefore the thought police must enforce truth-telling, and arrest the lies, because if lies prevail, all meaning is lost.

Pointing is just a particular kind of handwaving — unless it means something, of course. Then it is sign language.

4: Homosexuality goes against procreation — Katiee

Does it? Does resting on the seventh day go against creation? Does a celibate priesthood go against procreation? Killing goes against procreation, destroying goes against creation.

One might consider that God in His wisdom, knowing that childbirth is risky for the mother, has provided a surplus of effeminate males who will not themselves give birth, but stand ready to take on the responsibility for orphaned children and generally support the community. I don't have chapter and verse for that, but I think He is merciful and wise, so ...

Some people support the local football club and never waver, through good times and bad. Others wonder and question, and others again look for a winner and support that.

Asking a philosopher whether or not to question, is like asking an alcoholic whether rum is good. There is surely goodness in the child's simplicity and trust, and goodness too in the agonised questioning of youth. But with or without questioning, one has to hang one's hat in some hallway or other. The hall I will choose is a place where authority is diffident, and kindness and forgiveness abound, and folks support one another, and are generous to strangers. The logic of their talk is less important.

What would a life without any wants look like? — schopenhauer1

Even jellyfish want light. — Banno

And yeast wants sugar. But there is a difference between the wants that are cellular urges towards needs, and wants that are ideas of the mind created by thought and projected as a better life.
It is the difference between 'enough is as good as a feast' and 'enough is never enough'.

The wise therefore rule by emptying hearts and stuffing bellies,
by weakening ambitions and strengthening bones.
If people lack knowledge and desire,
then intellectuals will not try to interfere.
If nothing is done, then all will be well — Tao Te Ching, ch3

You are holding now to the standard of necessary truth, not objective truth.
If I take my keys out of my pocket in front of you, then I have demonstrated that my keys were in my pocket; I do not have to prove that they couldn't have been anywhere else. I'll leave it there though, as I don't think there is much to be gained at this point.

It's a metaphor, Jim, but not as we know it. Even the blind are aware of the business of day, and the quiet of night. Looking inward, one sees nothing; one sees the shallowness of self and personality, and at the centre a void, or sometimes the metaphor is a mirror. The mirror reflects everything and is nothing, awareness like the mirror cannot reflect itself but always what is outside and beyond – the world.

If I was the blind leading the blind, i would speak of the un-touched toucher, or the unfelt feeling, the still small voice, the inner warmth, the beating heart, or some other relation, that we might share in our solitary awarenesses.

If only the thread could have been closed after the op.

But now we have to confront the very real possibility that a dick can be excellent when it feels the urge.

And this means that dicks have options that the excellent do not, and the excellent have restrictions that dicks do not. and that results in the triumph of the dicks, and the happy ending of excellent adventures is a fairytale of wishful thinking, or the cover story of a couple of dicks.

If everyone is capable of lying about morals and society doesn’t crumble (but could actually flourish), then I think that a pretty large exception to the so called rule. — Bob Ross

I agree with you. but I do not believe in the flourishing society of liars. You would have to show me a real example, that is not a sub-culture exploiting the majority.

I still don’t see, if I am being honest, how your view has any objective moral judgments in it. — Bob Ross

That's fine with me, I'm not much enamoured of the objective/subjective distinction in the first place. I tried to explain myself in your conceptual language and failed. Or maybe I'm just confused.

According to the video China contained AI, and somehow they are bad guys in the presentation while attaining what the researchers want. — Moliere

Well I think that is good rhetorical tactics; rather than get into an argument that China might be a more peaceful, internationalist, and socially responsible society, just suggest learning from the enemy because they are certainly learning from you. When one has an important truth to tell, one should not cloud it with other controversies unnecessarily. Anyway, the containment is only a keeping hold of the power in a small circle - that might be worse. But now Bob's going to say that I'm promoting deception for the greater good. And i might be, but only as the exception, not as the rule.

Which is pretty much straightforward Kant. Lies need to be justified, and the truth does not.

If your child walks into the road in front of a bus, it's ok to jerk them back to the pavement so violently it dislocates their shoulder. But if you do something like that because they are using the fish knife when they should be using the butter knife, that's child abuse.