• How does a naive realist theory of colour explain darkness?
    An inference from what? Experiences in your head lead you to infer that the things you experience as outside your head are experiences in your head?
  • Where is the meaning in Language?
    My wife and I have a relationship. Where is it?

    I beg of you in the bowels of Christ to consider that a ridiculous and meaningless question such that any attempt to answer would result in confusion and misunderstanding. Meaning is also a a relationship.
  • How does a naive realist theory of colour explain darkness?
    ↪Marchesk
    Is that a real head you're talking about, or an indirect impression as of a head? This is the problem I think you have, that I say there are red apples and I can see them, and you want to deny that using real heads, photons and cerebral cortexes. But I don't see how you can get to the reality of all these exotic materials when you cannot even find a red apple when it's pointed out to you.
  • How does a naive realist theory of colour explain darkness?
    3.8k
    ↪unenlightened So what happens when your visual cortex is stimulated directly, and you have a red visual experience? It is, after all, dark in the brain as you noted.     — Marchesk

    We realists call that 'an illusion'. It's not a real red visual cortex, the way a red apple is a real red apple. This is a very useful distinction for a philosopher, that allows us to admit the possibility of error. Sometimes, one might mistake a stick insect for a stick, or a mirage for an oasis, or a bang on the head for a red glow in the sky.
  • How does a naive realist theory of colour explain darkness?
    Because there's no color quale intermediary/representation we're aware of instead? — Marchesk

    Yes. If there was an intermediary representation, presumably in my brain, I wouldn't be able to see it, because 1. it's behind my eyes, and 2. it's pitch black in there.
  • How does a naive realist theory of colour explain darkness?
    You have to play a violin to see what sounds it makes. And you have to let the light play on a dress to see what colours it makes. — bongo fury

    Indeed. stuff is coloured in relation to light and eyes. But to say that one sees by means of light and using one's eyes, is not to say one sees indirectly, simply to explain what seeing is.
  • Zero & Infinity
    One of the important uses of zero is as a place holder; a ten and a unit is distinguished from a hundred and a unit by the insertion of a zero - 11 and 101. In this context it is as fruitful to wonder about zero as it is to wonder about a comma. If you read "Eats, shoots and leaves" you will understand the importance of the comma to meaning, but do not ask what the comma itself means - it means nothing. By which I mean that it has no meaning of itself, but modifies the meaning relation of the words it associates with, depending on its position.
  • How does a naive realist theory of colour explain darkness?
    "What's your argument?", says this naive realist. "Are you claiming that because I cannot see in the dark, things are not various colours?" We have various devices much loved by astronomers and other detectives that can 'translate' infra red and other EMR frequencies undetectable to our eyes (google microwave background for example). Such things are necessarily rendered in 'false colour' to make them visible. They are not really the colour they are presented as. Red apples, though, are not generally rendered in false colour, because there is a little light in the fridge that shows them up in their true colours - more or less.

    I say 'more or less' because Mummy always insisted on taking more important things, like clothes, to a window before she bought them, to check how they looked in daylight, shop lighting being somewhat deceptive.
  • What is the free will free of?
    Is anyone willing to learn here? Or are y'all determined to win. It does seem to me that the more one grits one's teeth determinedly, the less free one is.

    Play with the words a little Have you ever been weak willed or strong willed? Is one more free than the other? When do you feel freest? Alone or in company? Is it possible to be free one day and not the next? Can one be a slave to one's own desire or is one's desire identical at all times with one's will. Is addiction a state of freedom? Have you ever been to Alice's restaurant? Why is Alice the exception?
  • Is Carl Jung's Idea of the Shadow Useful?
    It seems to hint that psychological theory has a self fulfilling prophecy. — Jack Cummins

    Almost. I'm saying it has a self refuting prophecy. I'll try and explain very briefly.

    In most science, the situation is that the objects of enquiry do not adopt the theory we have about them; they ignore it and are unaffected. Atoms neither follow nor resist atomic theory, they just carry on regardless of what anyone thinks about them, and if the theory is good, it describes what they do and otherwise not. But when for example Freud studied hysteria and sexual repression in women, his theories became so well known that sexual repression could not survive the way he described it. Once the unconscious symbolism of trains in tunnels and collapsing factory chimneys becomes conscious, psyche simply cannot function that way any more. Eventually we have the sexual revolution, and now there is no such thing as hysteria, but instead we have an epidemic of anorexia. Anorexia is as it were, the shadow of female sexual liberation that replaced the sexual repression that had hysteria as its shadow.

    In the same way, the more you, personally, become aware of your 'shadow', the less it can function in the usual way, because it becomes incorporated into your self and part of your normal repertoire of behaviour. Psychological theory resides in psyche, in the conscious, and theorises the unconscious to explain itself to itself, and it needs to do this because it finds its own image of itself to be in contradiction to its behaviour. In Eastern psychologies this tends to be called dismissively,'polishing the mirror'( in the attempt to perfect the image of self). It is opposed to enlightenment, which is abandoning the image entirely.
  • Is Carl Jung's Idea of the Shadow Useful?
    I wrote the thread in order to create discussion of mass identity, because I think that cultural issues are an important matter. — Jack Cummins

    You might want to look at Reich's The Mass Psychology of Fascism. This sort of stuff is not much considered these days, because it does not sit well with the desperate consumer - one could say it is the "shadow psychology" of rampant individualism...

    I would even say that any psychology remains true only to the extent that it is neglected or rejected. This is because whatever the current popular theory is becomes incorporated into the mass identity, and so changes that psyche which it it is a theory of.
  • Is Carl Jung's Idea of the Shadow Useful?
    I think that many people choose to be blind, — Jack Cummins

    Jung wrote a lot, and I have read a little. If I understand it aright, then whenever one makes an identification - in Jung's case for example maybe, as a psychoanalyst, or in my case maybe as a philosopher, the process of identification creates a shadow, to which one is necessarily blind.

    The civilised man is blind to his own savagery, the pacifist to his own violence, the deal-maker to his deal breaking, the philosopher to his irrationality, the virtuous to their vices. These shadows are deleted from "me" and therefore projected onto "other".

    Where it gets more interesting is in its transpersonal aspects. War is not a matter of personal identity, but of mass identity, and therefore mass projection; not 'me' but 'us'.

    Hey, any relation to the engine manufacturer?
  • What is Faith?
    Like "my language", what does that mean? — 180 Proof

    Like I already said, it's what I do. Are you asking for an account of my life? It doesn't include a lot of church-going.

    Like trusting ... obeying ... submitting ... — 180 Proof

    I haven't noticed people doing a lot of this - especially not Abrahamic religionists. This is Christian theory, maybe, but practice is rather different. My claim here is that faith is practice, not theory. That's my theory and this is my practice.
  • Depressed with Universe Block (and Multiverse)
    Don't live in a world of thought. It is far too small.
  • The Practice of the Presence
    When thought does not look, then there is only observation, without the mechanical process of recognition and comparison, justification and condemnation; this seeing does not fatigue the brain for all mechanical processes of time have stopped. Through complete rest the brain is made fresh, to respond without reaction, to live without deterioration, to die without the torture of problems. To look without thought is to see without the interference of time, knowledge and conflict. This freedom to see is not a reaction; all reactions have causes; to look without reaction is not indifference, aloofness, a cold-blooded withdrawal. To see without the mechanism of thought is total seeing, without particularization and division, which does not mean that there is not separation and dissimilarity. The tree does not become a house or the house a tree. Seeing without thought does not put the brain to sleep; on the contrary, it is fully awake, attentive, without friction and pain. — Krishnamurti's Notebook
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    And what exactly were - are - those "material conditions"? — tim wood

    The deputy sheriffs, the soldiers, the governors get paid
    And the marshals and cops get the same
    But the poor white man's used in the hands of them all like a tool
    He's taught in his school
    From the start by the rule
    That the laws are with him
    To protect his white skin
    To keep up his hate
    So he never thinks straight
    'Bout the shape that he's in
    But it ain't him to blame
    He's only a pawn in their game.     — Bob Dylan
  • The Global Economy: What Next?
    The homeless will be {happy? amazed?} to know they get so much free. — Athena

    The homeless have been robbed of their home which is the same Earth that the rich think they have exclusive right to. Some people think there is some justice or morality in a few people owning many homes and a great number paying to borrow their homes and many more not having homes at all. I think is ridiculous and unneccesary. Everyone should have a garden, and everyone should have a home.
  • The Global Economy: What Next?
    I will argue we do not get things for nothing when we are no longer dependent children. Even what nature gives us, requires us to make an effort to get it. I think everyone should have a garden because gardens teach us a lot about life. A productive garden requires a lot of work, preparing the soil, planting at the right time, watering just enough and not too much, defending the garden from disease, pest, and animals that will gladly eat it and if you don't get it right, you starve. — Athena

    Indeed. I have worked most of a lifetime to afford a garden of my own. Up to now I have worked as a gardener for others, and borrowed or rented various patches from time to time. But in a couple of weeks God willing, we are moving to a new house with a small garden of our own. But bitter experience has taught me that a productive garden takes many many years of labour. We inherit the labour of the ancestors in creating a good soil structure, de-stoning, draining, clearing, terracing, developing the strains of seed we rely on, and building up the complex of knowledge from generations of experience so that we make fewer mistakes and can be more productive than our predecessors. All of this we get for free.
    And we are also dependent on our neighbours to keep their patch in good condition and not spread weed seeds or dilute our seed stock with cross-pollination from inferior varieties.

    ... we do not get things for nothing when we are no longer dependent children. — Athena

    You are completely wrong. Never mind the food itself, can you even make a spade? No, most everyone who posts here is totally dependent on a vast network of social connections without which they could not survive, let alone post.

    Head for the wilderness and divest yourself of everything made by another hand, and see how far your own work will take you.
  • What is Faith?
    It is usually said that faith is the motive why people believe and do certain things. However, I can't find any way for people to do things if they don't believe something. For example, they go to church on Sundays because they believe that God commands it. You kill infidels because you think God commands it. Etc.Behind acts that are not reflexes there is always a belief. Specially in the field of religion. — David Mo

    That is a very materialist view. I put my faith in truth and justice without having to believe they exist or prevail. If I lay down my life for my friends without believing it will profit me in the afterlife, that is why it is called the greatest love of man. It is exactly when one's god has forsaken one, that the faithful Jesus is distinguished from his treacherous followers.

    Actually, I think rather few church goers believe that God commands that they go. So they make no fuss when governments command that churches be shut for health reasons.
  • What is Faith?
    Like trusting ... obeying ... submitting ... — 180 Proof

    That's one religion... my religion is more pick and shovel.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    One suggestion is that he will resign early and Pence will give him a global pardon. Then he's free and ready for the next election.
  • What is Faith?
    Faith is what one does, not what one thinks.

    Some people faithfully go to every match of the local team. The faith that moves mountains consists of arising, taking up one's pick and shovel, and making a start.
  • Step Right Up!
    I fear what you are lacking is a contrasting un foolish everyday from which to celebrate a holiday.

    Perhaps we should rather institute a Feast of Wise Men, when we mock the impotence of reason and virtue.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    We have a very similar situation in our family — EricH

    One of our neighbours a few doors down likes our Boris.

    We're selling up and moving.


    Trump is the mother of all Trumps. Therefore @Jamalrob's wife is gay.
  • The Global Economy: What Next?
    Well, I do live in a welfare state where there is a) free education even to the university level, b) assistance to housing, c) perpetual unemployment benefits and d) universal free health care. When you have those, you already have been taken care of what universal basic income is for, especially with the unemployment benefit. Then for those who do have income and pay taxes, it is questionable if this is basic income is necessary as it's basically a payback of the taxes. — ssu

    Right. The difference is one of principle and psychology, rather than of mere economics, but I think it has important implications, and it is those implications that you resist. But you have dropped the 'we can't afford it' line at least, since it obviously costs almost nothing to give with one hand and take back with the other.
  • The Global Economy: What Next?
    A person who does something useful or worthwhile or creates something of the like should be rewarded. — Outlander

    Why?I just created that worthwhile post; reward me.

    Nothing is given for free. — Outlander

    Everything is given for free. We come into this world with nothing and helpless to even feed ourselves.
  • The Global Economy: What Next?
    And contribution we usually think as work. — ssu

    So a footballer who gets paid thinks football is work, and a footballer who doesn't thinks of it as leisure?

    And a charity shop volunteer isn't contributing, but commercial shop worker is contributing?

    The unfortunate fact is that a society can tolerate high unemployment because of this personal stigma, even if the unemployment is because of an economic depression. There are enough of annoying people that will say "anyone can get a job if they really want to work". Unemployment is seen as a personal failure. If you the welfare state does give protection and you don't find yourself in the street or living in your car as in the US one can find oneself, that doesn't help the motivational side. — ssu

    Can you just unmuddle this for me? I say that society doesn't need people to work very much because automation. So most employment is people scratching each other's backs and picking each other's nits. And if people do a bit less or a lot less of that, it needn't matter very much to anyone, as long as everyone still gets food and shelter.

    You are saying:
    1. society can well tolerate high unemployment - agreed.
    2..there is a social stigma to unemployment - yes, but there needn't be.
    3. welfare doesn't motivate employment - yes but that doesn't matter because 1.

    So what is your argument against a basic income?
  • The Global Economy: What Next?
    Who has talked about full employment or obligatory work? — ssu

    We do value work, — ssu

    You see you talk with forked tongue.

    I respect myself because I contribute to society; I get a job because I am hungry. I value people playing football because I like to watch it. I value paid work for me because it pays. You yourself talk about obligatory work, because you reject living without paid employment as a valid option. You conflate what is meaningful with what is profitable and it is offensive.
  • The Global Economy: What Next?
    Meaningful work brings meaning to life. — ssu

    Playing football is meaningful work?

    Dancing is meaningful work?

    Play is meaningful work?

    Then there is no need for employment at all, we can all choose our meaningful work for ourselves. I choose philosophy.

    But no the lie you want to convince us of is that working for the man is meaningful work. More work needed, sir.
  • Emergence
    He says it's when we see arrangements, especially ones we love, that's when we attribute the cause to something absent. — frank

    Thirty spokes share the wheel's hub;
    It is the center hole that makes it useful.
    Shape clay into a vessel;
    It is the space within that makes it useful.
    Cut doors and windows for a room;
    It is the holes which make it useful.
    Therefore benefit comes from what is there;
    Usefulness from what is not there.     — Lao Tzu
  • Emergence
    Arrangements emerge from there being lots of stuff.

    Thus: solidity, liquidity, gaseousness, are group properties. One molecule of H2O on its tod is none of these, because it is the relations between molecules that is the emergent property in question.

    You need three or more ducks to get them in a row, or fail to get them in a row. Rows emerge. From ducks. Or other stuff.

    People write books about all this.

    People even read them.
  • The Global Economy: What Next?
    https://aeon.co/essays/the-challenge-of-reclaiming-the-commons-from-capitalism?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB
  • Anger Management Philosophy
    Any tips and advice for managing anger? — healing-anger

    Make the world less bloody annoying.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    unenlightened's not very powerful open letter to Archbishop Vigano.

    Wat da fuck man? You bat shit crazy.
  • The Global Economy: What Next?
    I think it's fine to get some of these people to pick vegetables, or work in the care sector for a good wage. But somehow I doubt that they would see it that way. — Punshhh

    We just have to convince them of our generosity in offering them work. I find a leather bullwhip is persuasive.
  • The Global Economy: What Next?
    And is it wrong to value work. — ssu

    Yes it is wrong. It is wrong because it is contradictory as I pointed out earlier. The whole thrust of the development of civilisation has been from the beginning to work less. Work has negative value in the economy and always has had because it tends to be tiring, boring and unpleasant if not dangerous. Because it has negative value, employers have to pay. So we get animals and machines to work instead whenever possible, so we don't have to. And society literally does work that way, and literally always has, and the notion that anyone - meaning anyone working class - should be grateful for work being provided, is a foul and immoral lie. Only the devil makes work for idle hands.
  • The Global Economy: What Next?
    .you STILL do have all the expenses, don't forget them. — ssu

    You still have all the expenses either way. People got to eat. Most people these days are totally unproductive. They cut hair and play football. So if all those people stop work, hair gets longer and grass gets longer. And that's it. All the rest is just accounting for the food that they are going to eat in either case; there is no real difference.
  • The Practice of the Presence
  • The Practice of the Presence
    For when I say darkness, I mean a lacking of knowing: as all that thing that thou knowest not, or else that thou hast forgotten, it is dark to thee; for thou seest it not with thy ghostly eye. And for this reason it is not called a cloud of the air, but a cloud of unknowing, that is betwixt thee and thy God.

    HERE BEGINNETH THE FIFTH CHAPTER

    That in the time of this word all the creatures that ever have been, be now, or ever shall be, and all the works of those same creatures, should be hid under the cloud of forgetting.
    AND if ever thou shalt come to this cloud and dwell and work therein as I bid thee, thee behoveth as this cloud of unknowing is above thee, betwixt thee and thy God, right so put a cloud of forgetting beneath thee; betwixt thee and all the creatures that ever be made. Thee thinketh, peradventure, that thou art full far from God because that this cloud of unknowing is betwixt thee and thy God: but surely, an it be well conceived, thou art well further from Him when thou hast no cloud of forgetting betwixt thee and all the creatures that ever be made. As oft as I say, all the creatures that ever be made, as oft I mean not only the creatures themselves, but also all the works and the conditions of the same creatures. I take out not one creature, whether they be bodily creatures or ghostly, nor yet any condition or work of any creature, whether they be good or evil: but shortly to say, all should be hid under the cloud of forgetting in this case.     — Cloud 84

    Good luck proving a contradiction in a cloud of unknowing!

    BUT now thou askest me and sayest, “How shall I think on Himself, and what is He?” and to this I cannot answer thee but thus: “I wot not.”
    For thou hast brought me with thy question into that same darkness, and into that same cloud of unknowing, that I would thou wert in thyself. For of all other creatures and their works, yea, and of the works of God’s self, may a man through grace have fullhead of knowing, and well he can think of them: but of God Himself can no man think. And therefore I would leave all that thing that I can think, and choose to my love that thing that I cannot think. For why; He may well be loved, but not thought. By love may He be gotten and holden; but by thought never. And therefore, although it be good sometime to think of the kindness and the worthiness of God in special, and although it be a light and a part of contemplation: nevertheless yet in this work it shall be cast down and covered with a cloud of forgetting. And thou shalt step above it stalwartly, but Mistily, with a devout and a pleasing stirring of love, and try for to pierce that darkness above thee. And smite upon that thick cloud of unknowing with a sharp dart of longing love; and go not thence for thing that befalleth.     — Cloud 89

    And here, with all respect, I rest my case for the prosecution that all argument as to the mere existence or non-existence of that Beloved is guilty of utter triviality. What business is it of mine if there will ever be a reader of what I write? It is an act of faith to say and share my best truth with anyone or no one. And now read on at your convenience and explain it to me in turn if you will.
  • The Practice of the Presence
    God knows best what we need. All that He does is for our good. If we knew how much He loves us, we would always be ready to receive both the bitter and the sweet from His Hand. It would make no difference. All that came from Him would be pleasing. The worst afflictions only appear intolerable if we see them in the wrong light. When we see them as coming from the hand of God and know that it is our loving Father who humbles and distresses us, our sufferings lose their bitterness and can even become a source of consolation.

    Let all our efforts be to know God. The more one knows Him, the greater one desires to know Him. Knowledge is commonly the measure of love. The deeper and more extensive our knowledge, the greater is our love. If our love of God were great we would love Him equally in pain and pleasure.

    We only deceive ourselves by seeking or loving God for any favors which He has or may grant us. Such favors, no matter how great, can never bring us as near to God as can one simple act of faith. Let us seek Him often by faith. He is within us. Seek Him not elsewhere.

    Are we not rude and deserve blame if we leave Him alone to busy ourselves with trifles which do not please Him and perhaps even offend Him? These trifles may one day cost us dearly. Let us begin earnestly to be devoted to Him. Let us cast everything else out of our hearts. He wants to possess the heart alone. Beg this favor of Him. If we do all we can, we will soon see that change wrought in us which we so greatly desire.

    I cannot thank Him enough for the relief He has given you. I hope to see Him within a few days. Let us pray for one another.     — PTPG, 15th letter

    At the end of his life, it is still the act of faith that is of central importance, and both pleasure and suffering are 'trifles'. I think the nearest this secular age can get to an understanding is perhaps the loyalty one feels towards one's home country, or one's local team. It is not an identification, but a commitment to the other that is also 'within'. It makes no sense to the rational mind
Home » unenlightened