As I have said, procreation cannot (at least on naturalism) ever be performed for the benefit of another, since there is no child on whose behalf one is acting. — Thorongil

Can I not plant a tree for future generations yet unborn?

Or save a pension for a self not yet retired?

With the Enlightenment came a hardening up of the left-hemisphere point of view. Many of the aims of the Enlightenment were, of course, laudable, and much of what it brought we have to be thankful for. After all, the left hemi- sphere, the emissary of the story from which my book takes its title, is, at its best, the right hemisphere’s – the Master’s – faithful servant. But its problems are those of hubris: believing itself to be the Master, believing that it understands and can control everything, whereas in fact it is ignorant of what the right hemisphere knows. Thus the problem of the Enlightenment was its faith that, as long as we continue to think purely rationally, and prioritise utility, we can understand, and thereby come to control, everything.
With the rise of capitalism and the coming of the Industrial Revolution (both children of the Enlightenment), one sees a further cementing – literally – of the left hemisphere’s vision. The thinking they both involved is instrumental and competitive and they promote a more atomistic and competitive model of society, a more detached and manipulative stance in relation to one another and the world at large, which comes to be seen as just a heap of resources.

Well I was bound to pick out that bit, wasn't I?

There's a lot of brain-talk, scientific experimental hard-talk, directed at that way of thinking itself. A frantic left brain appeal to the left brain to shut the fuck up a minute. At least one of the 'reactions' seemed to take this as a contradiction, which I think is a mistake. One has to talk to the clever dicks in Cleverdish, because they refuse to speak Barbarian. But when not banging on about brains, my overall impression was, "I've been saying and thinking all this since '68 - what took you so long?"

One points out to the instrumentalist that his instrumentalism is disastrous, and he either demands or envisages a better instrument. When the controller is out of control, more control is the wrong answer.

There's a section on the mereological fallacy that might help with the unpacking.

Wait a sec: when a dude's been being studied by scholars for a thousand years or two, he might be wrong, but he's obviously not obviously wrong, right?

You raise complex topics that I don’t want to belittle—for they’re quite pertinent. Nevertheless, I don’t believe that insisting on physicalism can serve as a remedy to them. — javra

Amen to that, bro. So then one is left with an irreducible moral and aesthetic component to psychology, I think, in answering any question of the 'proper functioning' of the human psyche, or a supposed irreducible human nature. Which will be the less debilitating the more it is explicit in a theory.

It’s not that the philosophy of mind is directly formative of the psyche it seeks to explain. Rather, the ontology I subscribe to facilitates the significant possibility that there can be such a thing as formless awareness; this at what I hope is readily understood to be a metaphysical level of being—for both the physical and the mental are endowed with form(s). This would be a perfectly selfless being/awareness devoid of first personhood—due there being nothing other relative to it by which first personhood can be established. In using this significant possibility as a premise of what is metaphysically ontic, then it can be inferred that all selves are, if one likes, fragmented or divided parts of this formless awareness in various proximities to this ideal state of being. — javra

It's certainly not direct; I didn't mean to suggest it. If anything, the cycle is negative, such that for example, Freud has an insight into the psyche - " sexual repression leading to hysteria, bla, bla..." which transforms the psyche as it becomes well known, to the extent that sexual repression is so much reduced that hysteria ceases to be a thing, and Freud is left looking like an idiot. This is why psychology is more like a fashion show than a science, with every generation having a new, and properly scientific approach, and the previous approach is exposed as ill founded in some way. What you describe here is the ontology of 'mindfulness', currently being industrialised as the cure for ADHD, anxiety, depression, and other complaints of the age. Expect an outbreak of radical instability of personality to follow, already evidenced by renewed interest in exorcism. :sad:

information in-forms awareness—i.e., endows awareness with its form of first person selfhood, including that of its very being as an individual awareness within the universe. — javra

This is an annoying feature, that is a defeater of psychology as a science, in my opinion. A psychological theory, including its roots as explicated in the two posts above is formative of the psyche it purports to explain. It is as though in physics the properties of space, time and matter were composed of the theories we have of them. Change your theory, and the nature you are theorising changes.

So, I am inclined to say that semantic communication requires empirical (physical and/or mental object) communication. — Galuchat

In space, no one can hear you philosophise. Because there is no medium of transmission.

I can't really say that I disagree, so much as I object. I would like to hold a space for an interaction that is not mechanical, and that is not, as I see it, glossed over with the term 'semantic'. It's not that one cannot treat people as objects to be manipulated, but that one ought not.

If we were in the same room, our communication would be encoded in vibrations of the atmosphere. Or to put it rather more ordinarily, we could talk out loud. But if our conversation were recorded and then replayed to us, it would be an entirely different experience of the same semantic vibrations. Rather as I might look back at this exchange next week and realise, for the first time, where our communication had reached a real sharing, and where (and why) it had missed the mark. "Oh, that's what he was on about!", is a moment of understanding, of communication, that might come years after the transmission of data.

So, would it be your position that communication is the process of encoding, transmitting, conveying, receiving, and decoding, only semantic data (form)? — Galuchat

I don't think that's quite what I think. Because the data that is conveyed from me to you and back is exactly the data that is conveyed from computer to computer. I want to say rather that I manipulate my computer such that it manipulates your computer, in order to communicate with you.

I would not say that I communicate with the computer, or that the computers communicate though, any more than I would say that I communicate with a hammer so that it will tell the nail where I want it to go, or that when the bugger bends, it is correcting my grammar.

When a cat feels threatened it will stand sideways, raise its hackles arch its back, and try to look big and fierce. Intentional or not, one can argue it, it looks like an attempt to communicate - 'I'm more trouble than I'm worth'. It is because it is a communication that it is funny when the cat does it inappropriately - to one of those automatic hoovers for instance. It is inappropriate because the hoover is incapable of receiving or responding to anything but the press of the off button.

Martin Buber makes the distinction between I-thou relations and I-it relations, and it seems to me that communication is predicated on the latter, whether thou art a human or an animal. Communication is an attempt to persuade, engage, affect, another awareness.

So, should the notion of communication pertain only to organic objects? And if so, at what level(s) of abstraction (i.e., physiology and/or psychology)?

For those who would appropriately refer to the etymology of the word "communication" from the Latin "communico" (share, impart, make common), I would point out that what the process of communication shares between informer(transmitter, sender) and informee (receiver, recipient) is code, given:

1) Communication: the process of encoding, transmitting, conveying, receiving, and decoding, data (form).

2) Code: transformed, translated, or converted data (form).

3) Information: communicated data (form). — Galuchat

Sure, there is a sense in which my computer is 'communicating' with your computer, but I want to put some scare quotes around such usage precisely because neither of our computers has any idea what they are doing. It is I and thou that are communicating, in the same way that if we were sword-fighting, it is not the swords that would be trying to kill each other.

As a cat watches expectantly, but wordlessly by a mouse hole?

I don't know why you want to call it communication, though. One relates to the world such that one learns to expect, one learns to interpret a smell as mousey, or a lift number as an address of sorts. But it is by great contrivance that we can actually address Siri. Crusoe interprets a footprint to mean he is not alone, but he does not talk to it any more than I am talking to the words you put on my screen.

But there is a long history of thinking that one can talk to the world, that everything is animate and persuadable. It's very unfashionable these days though - we tend to call it magical thinking.

That is how I think of communication, anyway, that it is two-way (hence the 'co'), at least in principle, and so one can write to the book author, give feedback to the television, comment on the video, reply to the post. When I get off the bus I thank the driver, but when I get out of the lift I don't thank the mechanism. But perhaps one should give thanks whenever one breaks bread?

Hmm. It seems factually largely correct, but if anyone is studying at this level to advance their career, to become rich or famous, to influence the world, then they have made a serious miscalculation. But here is a counter- argument in favour of obscure, pedantic overspecialisation 'for its own sake'.

There's no law that prevents leaders from doing crazy despicable things against their own interest, but still motive is a sufficiently good pointer towards possible guilt that police often use it as a 'lead'.

It's always nice to see a bit of African philosophy creeping into the forums.

"It takes a village to raise a child."

If I may make so bold, it still takes a village to raise a child badly. If parenting is not valued by the community, if schools are terrible, if the police are corrupt or biased, if the women are all unmarried, and the men are all selfish, it still takes all these people and institutions to raise a child.

the approach you've outlined here, looks to me like one of social atomism, where it's some kind of ephemeral 'good psychology' ('interested, willing citizens') that counts as what motivates good societies. — StreetlightX

As if societies are made of individuals, rather than that individuals are made of societies. As if it takes a child, or some number of children, to raise a village. How can it have been so backwardly understood?

Jesus replied, "It is also written: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'" — Matthew 4:7

We are talking of something of supreme importance - 'the good'. We are talking of love. And it is abominable to reduce love to a piece of paper from the city hall. To measure the strength of love, as of anything, is to find its breaking point. And then it is broken. I'm sorry to resort to the religious, but the sacred is immeasurable.

There is a social cohesion that arises from fear and hatred of a common enemy; there is a social cohesion that arises from intolerance for difference. There are marriages sustained in hatred by fear of social ostracism. Is this what is being measured? Is this the social capital being lauded?

As Michael Rosen points out above, the measurement of education is the devaluing of education, and not the valuing of it. The measurement of your relationships is the devaluing of them, and in the end the destruction of them.

Test the love of your partner by seeing if they still love you when you are horrible: eventually you will reach the breaking point, and be left with no relationship and a habit of making a deal out of a gift.
Thou shalt not test love, nor measure it.

Here endeth the lesson. The choir will now sing:

Can someone send this to Trump, please?

I find myself imagining Bitter Crank's frustration at your and @unenlightened's unwillingness to discuss the issue he has raised and turning it into a discussion about language. You know what he's trying to talk about. Talk about it. — T Clark

It's a frustrating habit of philosophers to question the question, and problematise the terms of debate. But this is not mere political correctness. If I may make it personal for an illustration, I have at one time signed on as unemployed and worked for a charity without pay, and at another been employed by another charity. The former seems to count as a contribution to social capital, and the latter not. Frankly, it's bollocks. I do what I need to to live, and I do what I can to help. Why insist that they be separate?

we have an all-volunteer fire department, — Erik

My understanding of the term is that a volunteer fire service counts as social capital, whereas a paid fire service does not. This seems like an arbitrary moral distinction that makes paid work necessarily more 'selfish', and less 'social'. A society that institutes social care as an integral part of the economy has less social capital than one that relies on volunteers; a government funded and organised universal health system has less social capital than a pay as you go system with a bit of voluntary assistance for the poor.

The Social Capital Project is a multi-year research effort that will investigate the evolving nature, quality, and importance of our associational life. “Associational life” is our shorthand for the web of social relationships through which we pursue joint endeavors—namely, our families, our communities, our workplaces, and our religious congregations. These institutions are critical to forming our character and capacities, providing us with meaning and purpose, and for addressing the many challenges we face.

What is it about governments (and companies?) that excludes them? It seems to me that they have exempted themselves from all social obligations, and that use of the notion of social capital legitimises this. 'It's terribly important that we are kind to each other and cooperate, but this is not the business of business or government.' What? Really?

"Social capital". It sounds like trying to understand human relations in terms of money. Expect confusion. Instead, try it the other way about; how does capital become antisocial?

a bit of graffiti sprayed on an Auckland wall: — Wayfarer

Wall tampering - typical!

If one is alive, one is fit for life. Some people are not fit for life; they are dead. Personally, I try to to be completely useless, and that way I don't get used. This makes me better than you lot, or worse, depending. I'm sure Kant had something to say about this... or was it Lao Tzu?

I just presume that he doesn't want to be the President who ended civilization. — Arkady

But that presumes he knows what he's doing. If he doesn't know what he's doing, his not wanting something doesn't mean he won't do it. "I was just trying to get a good deal, honest."

Steiner is not much regarded in academic philosophy - a bit too weird. Wiki has a longish article on the book, bur Stanford studiously ignores him, and Stanford is our Bible.

So I can only recommend following some of the wiki links to other philosophers, and keeping a weather eye out for 'woo'.

Ambiguous - not sure what it means.
Ambivalent - don't care what it means.
Ambidextrous - opp of ambisinister. See also evenhanded and oddhanded.
Ambitious - not sure what to do.
Ambit - debatable ground.
Ambient - not sure where its coming from.

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

One myth is not enough, I need three.

I may be playing George or the dragon, but it matters how I play it.

that opposed to being captains of our respective ships, we're at the mercy of fate. — frank

Is it not that we are captains and at the mercy of fate? That there are storms is at least no reason to relinquish the steering entirely. Some captains are wiser than others, and some saints are less bloodthirsty than St George.

Well I'm still educating myself about British collaboration, and the holocaust seems to have given urgency to a Zionist movement that was already in progress.

But the Zionists did avert their eyes.

Their eyes were filled with the holocaust, and still are, and it is hard to reproach them for that. Perhaps it is time now, when there is less of a credible threat, to indulge in a little self criticism. But it is worth noting that all this dates back to a time when racial thinking was considered perfectly normal and legitimate. Cultures do not change very fast.

I never liked soya much, anyway.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/01/argentina-new-river-soya-beans?CMP=fb_gu

You're quite right. But it was a colony, and it was within a generation that the shit hit the fan, so it still looks like a botched withdrawal to me. But then there are those who would take the opposite view, that it shows the beneficence of the Empire that all these places fall into conflict without our supervision.

Really?? Check this out: — CuddlyHedgehog

Well that completes the set of failed Imperial partitions then. One could almost make an aphorism of it. "You can't unmake an omelette even if one of the eggs is fresh."

With such mentality, no wonder the old english imperialists felt entitled to help themselves to anything that crossed their path. — CuddlyHedgehog

The mentality of British Imperialism was an abomination. And the legacy in India, Myanmar, Africa, Ireland, and elsewhere is a series of lasting fuck-ups of Biblical proportions. Partition has been a source of conflict everywhere it has been tried. Except possibly Cyprus, for the moment, as far as I know. And the attitudes linger on, unfortunately. And there is no denying that Israel has 'made the desert bloom'.

But there is also a resonance of the imperialist attitude in that of Israel along the lines of, 'the Palestinians have done nothing with the land, they don't deserve it.'

OTOH, we might be just as well off eating, drinking and being merry, for tomorrow...

Anti Israel sentiment does smell of antisemitism because it is disproportionate considering millions of people have died in the Republic of Congo wars and received little attention or academic studies or appearances in The Lancet. People are clearly very selective about which cause to get behind. — Andrew4Handel

Yes, I am very selective. I am interested in conflicts that impinge on me. Whatever I posted about the Congo on one side or another, I doubt i would be accused of spreading propaganda or of racism. But the Congolese secret service is not very active in the UK, the policies of the Congo is not an issue in Uk politics. But here, it is a major issue which faction of Jews one spends passover with.

The smell of antisemitism, as I have shown in previous links, is not associated with people who give talks at meetings of avowedly antisemitic and white supremecist organisations, but rather with supporters of Palestinian rights. Now that is what I call propaganda.

Yes the horrible results of stone throwing were shown on the propaganda, and it needs dealing with, but by police and civil courts, because kids throwing stones is not an act of war, or even of terrorism. But children are not responsible for rocket attacks. It's still an insufficient excuse for the obviously disproportionate responses.

If we accept Israel's right to the land it occupies, it stands morally right. — Hanover

And I disagree with this. One can accept Israel's right to the land, and condemn its actions against people who helplessly and fruitlessly resist with stones against automatic weapons and tanks. One can in these circumstances well afford to respect the rights of one's enemies, and so hope to reduce the enmity.

How do you justify it? Or do you? What action should you be taking? — frank

I don't justify; I have been an explorer of ways to live, to an extent, and what suits a young man in a warm climate is less suitable when bringing up children, and so on. There is no special virtue in living without electricity that I can see; living without the world news for a while certainly sensitises one. If I was justifying, I'd probably go for urban, squatting running a whole food co-op, alternative schooling, and generally undermining society. A bit more getting amongst the problems rather than escaping from them.

Humility...

“I used to think that top environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change. I thought that thirty years of good science could address these problems. I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed and apathy, and to deal with these we need a cultural and spiritual transformation. And we scientists don’t know how to do that.” — Gus Speth

We’re saying, ‘You’ve got three years, then go home. Go to your natural homelands…We give you time to go.’ Then we’ll swing into action.

I think that’s the only way forward, if we want to save our cultures and our nations. Because these people are having children like rabbits. — a vile racist

'Natural homelands' 'we want to save our cultures', ' these people are having children like rabbits'. Listen out for these sentiments and epithets - this is how 'they' speak. Don't do likewise, learn to spot them in the threads and on the news. My homeland is the whole earth and none of it; my culture is their culture and I reject it; every child is someone's baby rabbit.

One major beef -- rather, the greatest beef -- I have with mainstream "environmentalism" is that it mostly replaces one ideological discourse with another, rather than encouraging awareness. — Mariner

But what else is there? I cannot do the gritty math, and I am myself reduced to ideological aphorisms; to eat local when possible to use public transport and travel less, to consume less, to recycle up down and sideways, to live frugally, to share facilities when reasonably possible, to heat one room rather than the whole house, to insulate. And then to support my best but unsure guess at what policies and industries will externalise the least.

But the situation is rather like the notion of a healthy diet; received wisdom changes its mind from one year to the next about butter, or wine, or carbohydrates, and that's without the cranks and weirdos. Stay off the beef though, it's full of hormones. :wink:

I don't know any anti-Semitic people. I don't think that's as much of a thing as it used to be. — frank

It is still a thing.

If you are aware... — Mariner

I have no disagreement with you. But everything, from the flush toilet to plastic packaging, to the extraordinary complex of transport system, seems by design to make one unaware. Whether the sewage treatment plant x miles down the road is adequately dealing with my waste or pumping it half treated into the sea, is not only invisible at my end of the pipe, but I am not even competent to judge at the other end, supposing I knew where it was and was permitted to investigate. I put my food waste in one bin and cardboard in another, as I am instructed, and then I have no idea what happens. I rinse out the tins and the bottles, but am unsure whether I am wasting water or saving glass and metal.

Such is the disconnect. And the wind farm out on the horizon, even that is controversial, not just for the view it spoils, but for the resources it consumes in relation to the power it produces. Even the experts disagree. I think I have also a duty to make myself aware, but it ain't easy.

I' m reluctant to leave it there, stuck in conflicting loyalties.

... but I also think special care should be made to avoid suggestions that the Jews are monsters or that the Palestinians are dogs, which are sometimes the unspoken thoughts of the advocates for either side. — Hanover

Circumstances can make us all monsters and dogs, and I have the luxury of sitting in my judgemental armchair at a safe distance, and the sad truth is I care more about the overspill into my local politics than any of the people over there. The conflict is older than me, and I am old.

Nevertheless, I have a principle that I hope is agreeable to most, that those with power over others are responsible for them. I don't think there is a question on which side the balance of power lies. And I don't think the film is mere propaganda; one can argue and question individual incidents, but there is too much, too well supported from Israelis as well as Palestinians, testimony from the Australian journalists, credible video evidence. This is not peace-keeping, this is not a measured response to threat, this is a terror campaign intended to totally subjugate demoralise and eventually evict or eliminate opposition. There is little sign of a will to reach an accommodation.

And that comes from a dreadful history - it is understandable. It is, in a sense, a continuation of WW2, itself the culmination of 2000 years of oppression. Psychologically, we are afraid to stand alone, and so we identify with the tribe, and the tribe demands loyalty unto death, that is the security it offers.

So between the dogs and the monsters, my loyalty is always with the dogs, and when the dogs become monsters and the monsters become dogs, I change sides. I am disloyal, I become a traitor.