Descartes famously said Cogito ergo sum, I think therefore I am. — Arcane Sandwich

I think therefore I am whatever I think. I am the thought of myself. I am the result of the distinction I make between myself and the world. But this is obviously wrong. I am, therefore, whatever I mistake myself for.

But in being someone, I am something. I am something in the following sense:

∃x(x=a) - There exists an x, such that x is identical to Arcane Sandwich. — Arcane Sandwich

Will you say, "There exists an x, such that x is identical to a named hurricane."? We talk about them as objects for convenience, but we do not draw the boundaries or wonder where they go when they dissipate. The problem with formal logic is that it cannot deal with time.
Yesterday, there existed an x, such that was identical to unenlightened.
Today, there exists a y, such that y is now identical to unenlightened, but somewhat changed from x.
Tomorrow, who knows, there may exist a z such that z is then identical to the mortal remains of unenlightened, but is radically different from x and y in being lifeless. Or maybe z will be enlightened. :joke:

We can't record it really, and the defense of poetics falls to the same narcissism as the defense of science.

Yeah? Or naw? — Moliere

Yeah.
"The record that can be recorded is not the continuing record."
"Work is done and then forgotten; therefore it lasts forever."
ETC.

What would a non-narcissistic philosophy look like, in your opinion? — Moliere

Lao Tzu.

↪Arcane Sandwich unenlightened -- looks like we've come to a similar path you've described: that identity serves as a kind of "center" for philosophy at large. — Moliere

Hmm. "Philosopher" is an identity that identifies itself as central. But then that goes for any old narcissist too. But that's ok with me, because I am happy to say that I am the real Donald Trump, or a 17thC French playwright, or a harvest mouse. I am any centre anywhere.

Likewise, the world exists with no colour changes, whether you wore brown sunglasses or not. — Corvus

Again your expression equivocates; The world does not have any absolute colour independently of the visual apparatus and the ambient light. When I am a bee, I can see ultraviolet, by starlight I can see only monochrome. Colour is not a term of physics, but of vision. Looking through a microscope does not change the world, but it changes what can be seen; colour is a feature of what can be seen and it changes.

Endo-symbiosis. Feel the love.

Some cases of sensory disorder of few folks shouldn't change how the the external world objects look and smell in general. Should they? Of course, if you wear brown sunglasses, and look into the world, it will look brown. But you wouldn't say, now the whole world is brown, would you? — Corvus

No, I would say the whole world looks brown, not the whole world is brown. You are equivocating here how things look and how things are, which is exactly what the language is distinguishing. :yikes:

We don't say my experience looks red, or my nose smells nice. — Corvus

And yet some of us are colourblind, and some have lost their sense of smell and we do not blame the rose. Normal people talk about the world directly, and not about their experiences at all. One often talks about experience as a non-philosopher when one begins to doubt one's senses. "A common symptom of covid is the experience of a smell of burning." This does not mean that spontaneous combustion tends to occur around covid sufferers.

I already argued for beauty and ugliness to be an intrinsic feature of experience in OP so they are objective (person-independent). What is left are like and dislike that are subjective so person-dependent and therefore extrinsic. — MoK

The redness of the rose belongs to the rose, not to me or my experience.
— Corvus
No, the redness of the rose is constructed by your brain. The flower does not have any particular color at all so it is just the feature of your experience. — MoK

The aromatic hydrocarbons belong to the rose, but the smell belongs to the nose. The reflective and absorbent signature belongs to the petals, but the redness is in the eye of the beholder.

But here, I think you have gone astray right at the beginning by talking about "experience". Surely experience is always at least mediated by senses, sensitivities and sensibilities?

I think that attractiveness is the extrinsic feature of the experience whereas handsomeness is the intrinsic one. — MoK

Well yes, I assumed that was what you wanted to say. But I was hoping you'd have some argument or rationale for saying it.

What sets aesthetic experiences apart from other experiences is not intrinsic and extrinsic features but the fact that some experiences are attractive (or deterrent) for their own sake regardless of whether it serves other interests. — jkop

Yes, I've heard that before in latin — "De gustibus non est disputandum" But that is rather wider than is being suggested here, and still both too vague and too unreasoned to be very helpful.

I'm tempted to suggest that the distinction being groped for here is between subjective and objective, such that matters of taste are to do with the subject, whereas matters of fact are features of the object. But therein lies a whole can of worms if not a pit of vipers.

That is an excellent question! I think like and dislike for example are extrinsic features of our experience. Let me give you an example: A man could be handsome but he would not be sexually attractive to you since you are straight. Does that make sense to you? I am open to discuss this. — MoK

Great example! I feel the same way about goats. But is it that I am blind to the sexual attractiveness of goats, whereas other goats can appreciate the intrinsic attractiveness, or is it that attractiveness is in some essential way relative to the observer, where handsomeness is not? How can one tell the difference?

As distinguished from extrinsic features of our experience? What would they be?

It seems to me that if the argument works for beauty and ugliness, then it works for any other features of experience - veridical and illusory, or married and unmarried, for examples. Which would be inconvenient, if the intention is to say something about aesthetics that distinguishes it from science or mundanity.

I see this discussion as highlighting Trump the person. I see Trump as symptomatic of the control of our political system by large corporations. — alleybear

That's about right. Government reduced to entertainment "The Economy" reduced to "The Oligarchs".

Thought rather tends to confuse itself with awareness; but one can be aware without any movement of thought, and one can think without much awareness too.

Of course, if you haven't been turned on, you wouldn't know, so no blame:

In both a racially diverse community-based study and a large nationally representative study, we observed that early life exposure to structural sexism negatively impacts late-life memory trajectories. For women, greater exposure to structural sexism was associated with faster rates of memory decline. The difference in the rate of memory decline between being born in the state with the highest structural sexism versus the state with the lowest structural sexism was equivalent to 9.1 to 9.6 years of cognitive aging. These findings are consistent with previous studies showing that unequal access to sociopolitical and economic resources has a detrimental impact on women's health outcomes.5, 6, 9, 10 This work adds to the literature by showing that these macro-level structural inequalities also influence late-life cognitive health outcomes.

Taking a lifecourse perspective, exposure to high levels of structural sexism in early life may have direct biological consequences that increase a woman's risk for cognitive decline later in life.24 This risk may remain despite exposure to lower levels of structural sexism throughout the rest of the lifecourse. It is also possible that the downstream consequences of structural sexism trigger a trajectory of social exposures (e.g., educational and occupational opportunities, income, etc.,) that alter risk for cognitive decline at later life stages.11 Future studies should test these specific pathways to identify the distinct contributions of policy exposures across the life course.

Structural sexism also had cognitive health consequences for men in both studies. While estimates for men were not significantly different from zero, associations between structural sexism and baseline memory performance were similar among men and women. These findings suggest a potential pattern of universal harm associated with exposure to structural sexism.5 Cross-national studies have demonstrated that gender equity is associated with greater economic growth, poverty reduction, and health improvements at the population level.

https://alz-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/alz.14410

Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Hesse at 12, wow. — Rob J Kennedy

Yeah, not normal I know. I was brought up with 4 older sisters and was reading fluently by 3. No telly in the house, but plenty of books, and I devoured them by the dozens (without understanding everything obviously). The kids around me at school were struggling with Enid Blyton. :groan: So I was a bit of a loner...

Philosophy has taught me more about life than anything I have studied, or experienced.
— Rob J Kennedy

That's an amazing thing to hear, and I say that as a professional philosopher. I can't believe that someone actually gets something that useful out of philosophy. — Arcane Sandwich

That surprised me too; but I'd guess you were learning all the time, even if you weren't being well educated, about people and life, so that you could recognise those principles as valuable.

↪unenlightened Do you recall the first time you encountered philosophy and what was it? — Rob J Kennedy

A hard question. When I was 12 ish, I was reading Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Hesse, and considering what I should do with my life. I put it in a juvenile poem as a choice between love and non-attachment. But I had no idea at the time that any of this had any relation to 'philosophy'; rather, it was an exploration forced on me by the awareness of the complete falseness and hypocrisy of the moral and social system of the all male boarding school I found myself condemned to.

So at least for me, I began to ask deep questions because of the inadequate answers that society was providing. But I didn't call that philosophical until I had been at university studying philosophy and psychology for a couple of years more or less by accident. :grin:

I often wonder, what makes a person interested in philosophy? What is it about them that draws them to read, study and discuss philosophy? — Rob J Kennedy

I generally like to think that it is philosophy that makes me interested in it, but there is no necessity that all philosophers have the same motivation. And there are grades of horseshit n'all. But if I had to speculate and generalise, I would invite philosophers to look for some circumstance that caused them to question their own identity; identity is the origin of world view, and it is when one cannot quite make sense of one's world view that one falls unwilling into philosophy. And because identity is entirely fabricated, there is no escape.

More for playing than for listening to; or you may dance.

Source: other people. Believe everything they say. — NOS4A2

You are an other person, and you are completely incredible.

Speaking of pants, and kicks... Source: The guy's parents, his uncle, his manifesto...

This doesn't belong here; It's political analysis. So start a new thread with it.

Try and ignore the bizarre subtitling.

I'll say some rather obvious things, that haven't been plainly said thus far.

War requires a broad consensus on both sides to the identity of the parties. Everyone, or at least most people involved, have to know which side they are on and who is the enemy. Without such agreement the best that can be managed is a free-for-all brawl.

In order for the separation of identities to occur, or another way of describing such a separation, the term 'polarisation' can be employed. The 'normal', ie 'stable' situation for any society is that folk's identities are not aligned, and as long as there is no great alignment conflict will tend to be internalised within the individuals, and social relations will be largely peaceful.

A classic case of polarisation leading to open conflict was the troubles in N. Ireland. The society became polarised such that religion, class, political party, political party, exact location of home, all became aligned, such that to know one vector was to be able to predict all the others with almost complete certainty. It is this alignment that allows the externalisation of the conflict and the absolute identification that leads to violence.

My source? You’re talking to him. I prefer my own conclusions to the conclusions of others, especially authorities. If I’m wrong I’m wrong, but if you’re wrong it’s because you’re credulous. — NOS4A2

You're my source too, but unlike you, I check my sources bit and confront them with contradictory sources. And when their response is to behave like big floppy dick and admit that they just spout whatever they like to imagine to be the case, I draw the appropriate conclusion.

And your impeccable, fair-minded, and honest sources are?

One cannot blame Trump because some of his followers are violently inclined and irrational; oh wait, actually one can and should, because that is exactly what his message advocates and encourages. It is not remotely surprising that the violence ends up turned against him, and it has already happened more than once. But yeah the FBI are making up these stories because deep state lizard pedophiles are trying to control our brains.

“The subject held no animosity towards the president-elect,” ..
... he had cast his vote for Trump in November's election.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/tesla-cybertruck-driver-matthew-livelsberger-had-no-animosity-towards-trump-suffered-from-ptsd-fbi/articleshow/116933571.cms

Another broken anti-Trumper self-immolating upon his beliefs in an act of terrorism. — NOS4A2

Yeah, but no, but. Just edit out that "anti-".

Reasonable Insanity.

Latest progress and prognosis on AI and robotics. above my pay grade of course, but I like to keep my ignorance up to date.

Begin the exploration of identity with a process - of identification. A process of creating boundaries between self and not-self, and identifications of self and 'other-like-me'.

Obviously, there is a broadly informational fundamental reality in play here; a rock is what it is, but has no identity to itself true or false. I identify as a shit hot philosopher, and that can be true or false; either way it is a belief held by either a shit hot philosopher or a self-deluded being.

You may identify me as a shit hot philosopher, a self-deluded being, or a dangerous radical or whatever, and your analysis of my identity is obviously heavily dependent on your own self- identification, and the identification of you made and communicated to you by significant others.

Thus real and fake, true and false, public and private are all valid aspects of an identity formed through multiple interactions, and clearly there are strong aspects of 'reality' to even completely unrealistic self-identifications that people make of themselves and of others. I can think I'm a very stable genius and live in the world as if that is true, even if a more truthful assessment is that I am a narcissist fantasist living a fantasy life.

These ideals have only become more extreme with the advent of social media and the rise of influencers. — Benkei

Are you sure? My own memory is that gender stereotypes were much more rigid back in the fifties. My mother was forced to give up work (in a bank) on marriage as a 'natural' policy and custom. The hippie men growing their hair was seriously transgressive in the sixties.
Indeed gender stereotypes go back to Samson and Heracles, at least. It seems to me that these identities are being questioned and resisted by modernity rather than exaggerated.

Long and a bit vague. Just how like my paradigm shifts.

Found that quote: — Wayfarer

That is a case at best of two minds sharing the one thought. I have other read your man at all

How may the development of ideas about 'gods' or one God be understood in the history of religion and philosophy?. — Jack Cummins

To understand the development, one has to understand the intuitive rationality of animism, and the counterintuitive nature of the modern, dead world. One has to disabuse oneself of modernity.

Any sailor or fisherman can tell you that the sea is sometimes calm, and sometimes playful, and sometimes angry. Who could not take being struck by lightening personally? Who is not afraid that their local dormant volcano will one day wake up? Even the rocks grow hair; what kind of fool thinks they only are alive and the world is dead?

from this rational position, try and justify modernity.

Climate change causes inflation; inflation causes populations pain; pain produces populist governments. Populists deny problems or blame 'others'; globalised trade is threatened by both climate change and populism, and the reduction of trade leads to inflation.

This video could have been in the Grump thread, or one of the several other unrest threads, but I guess the connection between the political climate and the climate is a bit abstruse for the political mind to encompass.



I think we have reached psychosocial tipping point into a self-destructive politics, that will continue to worsen our prospects until the destruction of our infrastructure and governance becomes complete enough that local community is all that is left, and gardeners rule, ok.

Aliens As Soon As Theoretically Possible.

There is no evidence because the conspiracy covers everything up.
Therefore not believing the conspiracy is compliant with the conspiracy.
If the committee cannot get to any real evidence, it is either because the committee is being duped by the conspiracy, or because the committee is part of the cover up.
There can never be a resolution, because the absence of evidence is evidence of the conspiracy.

The intelligence industry is the natural home of the paranoid, just as philosophy is the home of the gullible. And yes there is an overlap. And just because I'm paranoid, that doesn't mean there's no conspiracy; on the contrary, the paranoid are always conspiring, so nothing to see here.

The question I have for the aliens, not knowing if they are benevolent or malevolent, is why they are cooperating with opposed and secretive governments to hide their presence from folks that would be willing to cooperate with anyone who wasn't the current government of whichever country? It makes them look weak; and surely they are not weak?

I remembered this song, reading this thread. The early days of LSD as recorded by the good old BBC. I am a baker too - the dough is in tins as i write, and I am waiting the hour to put it in the oven.




I'm cluttering up the thread with meaningless stuff, because everything is meaningless, and i am an idiot. Or as I would rather put it, making a performative affirmation.

"Hi there. Why do you imagine any of us gives a flying fuck whether you are kind or not?" He says, unkindly.

OK, you win, I'm an idiot. I'll just point out though that as long as you're judging it on whether or not it 'works', you're still only thinking about yourself and haven't tried it yet.