Certainty itself is an emotional state, not an intellectual one. To create a feeling of certainty, the brain must filter out far more information than it processes, which, of course, greatly increases its already high error rate during emotional arousal. In other words, the more certain you feel, the more likely you are wrong....
...Life is hard for the certain whenever reality crashes upon them. But it's abundantly exciting and filled with value and meaning for those who embrace its inherent uncertainty.
Conviction is the strong belief that a behavior is right, moral, and consistent with your deeper values. It offers a kind of certainty, not about the world, but about the morality of your own behavior. — Psychology Today
I believe that thinking there is no way to be 100% certain is a belif too. Consider me to be the particle in the QM wave. With hidden variables though. And you are the wave (nice analogy!). — Prishon
Assume, Possibility, let's go hog wild, you're totally uncertain, say God's existence is 50/50. Do you pray or not? Why? — TheMadFool
If I pray to God Im 100% certain He exists. I dont pray (I dont care about Him). But if I did I would do it with full conviction. Not while thinking there is a 63% chance he doesnt get my message. — Prishon
Correct the scenario then - make it better, add/delete as it seems fit; remember, you have to be agnostic about some claim and make a decision based on that uncertainty, then compare that too how you would make the decision based on knowing i.e. you have to be certain about whatever it is that you're agnostic about. — TheMadFool
So, not knowing whether it'll rain or not tomorrow means you'll take your umbrella.
What about if you know it'll rain tomorrow. You'll take your umbrella, right?
Being agnostic about tomorrow's precipitation status is the same as knowing tomorrow will be a rainy day. What's the point of being an agnostic then? After all, an rain-agnostic taking the umbrella is equivalent to assuming it'll rain and doing the same. — TheMadFool
This isn't an analogy. It's a real-world example of how being agnostic won't cut it when it comes to decision-making. — TheMadFool
It seems I've failed to make my point. If you don't know whether it'll rain or not tomorrow, what do you plan to do the coming day with your umbrella or Mackintosh? — TheMadFool
No, It takes a** third person perspective and first person perspective into account and I can see the abyss at its end. Hence my conclusion with the anthropic principle doing the thinking.
This is a forum. I try to simplify and reduce things to a minimum of wordage. I cannot do what Joshs and Apo do, it would take me all day. Misunderstanding results from this, but I cannot see a way around it. — Pop
No not faith. Just take a look around yourself and understand all this was once quantum foam. — Pop
The Order of Time’ is a good starting point, because it explains why it makes sense todescribe reality as consisting of interrelated events, not objects.
— Possibility
Please reread my previous post to you, and point out where I am not describing this. — Pop
I said that form can appear to develop through spontaneous change, depending on your intentional embodiment as observer
— Possibility
This was Apo's defence with the epistemic cut. Please yourself, but understand that your subjectivity is not ungrounded, but grounded entirely in information, in the sense I am describing it. — Pop
Right! So something without form - without any characteristics or perturbation or properties can interact? — Pop
This notion of self-organisation is your personal focus. You could just as easily say no interaction, no universe. Or no change, no universe.
— Possibility
You totally misunderstand. It is all evolution, not arbitrary change. A primer in systems theory would fix this.
Self organization is what makes systems organize. Everything is a self organizing system in systems theory. Please catch up on it and we can speak again. — Pop
You are looking for inconsistencies in my argument, and I appreciate it. Testing for inconsistencies and cracks is so difficult to do on ones own. However, insisting I should know how QM works is a little unreasonable. Who knows how QM works? But clearly form arises from it. No? — Pop
How can it occur through spontaneous change? — Pop
Everything is articulated, interrelated, and situated within the progressive forming of the universe. as illustrated in this graph. We are situated somewhere in there evolving interrelationally with everything else. The variety of form is open ended. The variety of forms of life is open ended, and the variety of forms of consciousness is open ended. If you accept consciousness is integrated information, you can appreciate the form of the integrated information is progressively evolving and can have no end. — Pop
Everything exists as a self organizing system formed bottom up, where the underlying layer creates the layer on top. It is all vertically and then also laterally informationally connected. All the complexity of this can be simply represented by the form of one system interacting with the form of another system ( this captures everything - all the articulations). Information describes the process of form enabling the interaction of form. That something has form, enables it to interact with something else that has form. It does not enable it to interact with something else that does not have form, for our purposes at least since we can never know about it. The Definition information enables the interaction of form captures most of the facts: that things have to have form to interact, and that what is interacting is the form of the things. — Pop
Why only form? It could just as easily be about the creation of an interaction, or of change.
— Possibility
Form represents the underlying self organization that creates order in the universe. No form, no order, no universe. — Pop
I would say you do not play a stable part. You evolve interrelationally with everything else. In the variability of this dimensional arrangement, the multiplicity of causal factors converge to allow the emergence of random novel form. Because of the role the novel form plays in future integrations novelty of form is assured......... But for the most part I would agree with this paragraph. Intentionality is variously construed, particularly in phenomenology - can you be more specific? — Pop
I'm not getting this. Change would be form(1)--->form(2), or f(2) - f(1), right? Is this supposed to be tied to something in the physical world? Can it be multi-dimentional? Does it handle the 'non-physical'? Can you give physical and non-physical examples to show that it works. Maybe something like process notation would work better. Does interaction imply brain presence or not? — Mark Nyquist
I get what you are saying but I'm not convinced by this. I think that metaphor is off the mark. For one thing, lions exist and we can readily test if they are in a cage or not. — Tom Storm
You either believe or you don't believe. The 'don't know' option doesn't address belief, it addresses knowledge - a separate dimension to this matter. Like many others I would consider myself an agnostic atheist. I don't believe in God, but I am agnostic about its existence. — Tom Storm
How do you make decisions when you don't know (something)?
Say you don't know whether it'll rain tomorrow or not. How will you plan for the morrow? You have to assume either that it'll rain or not, right? — TheMadFool
The fundamental problem with agnosticism seems to be that it can't be used to guide our actions, make decisions, to name a few.
Take prayer for instance. The decision to pray or not is a question of whether you believe God exists or doesn't. Being an agnostic - to hold that one doesn't know if god exists or not - can't in any way help to take a stand on prayer.
It appears that agnostics are in some kind of ontological cum epistemological limbo that precludes any sort of decision-making on other related beliefs/actions.
Thus, necessarily that the agnostic has to pick a side - become an agnostic theist or an agnostic atheist.
It's kinda like not knowing what's inside a cage, recently arrived from Africa. Is there a full-grown, hungry, lion inside it or not. That uncertainty will not allow you to decide how to deal with the cage and its contents. You'll have to assume either that there's a lion or not to inform your approach towards the cage. In other words, being agnostic about what's inside the cage is a dead end insofar as your subsequent actions are concerned. You'll have to be either a lionist or an alionist. — TheMadFool
The theory is that through random interaction form develops. Daniel posted a video earlier of one way it might happen. — Pop
Without form there is no information, so no interaction is possible. — Pop
But what about what we don’t know that we don’t know?
— Possibility
I don't think it is about us Possibility ( nonanthropocentric ). I think it is about the creation of form. In the creation of more and more complex form, new function arises. In the case of our interaction, random elements will click, but we will maintain the momentum of our personal knowledge Juggernaut. Its direction and momentum cannot shift drastically, but will shift in some small respect in the process of interaction, even if only in understanding each other. — Pop
Form is endlessly variable. Form varies, but the underlying informational process is constant. — Pop
This is an assumption, that a system is already recognised and distinguished prior to interaction (by whom?). It’s the interaction that exists prior, and these properties that interact consist of unattributed quality, taking on form only with interaction, by structuring different quality according to pre-existing logic.
— Possibility
This is true, but we have to describe it somehow. There are certain attributes necessary before information can take place, such as form, interaction, and change. Of course we don't find ourselves at the beginning of any process, but in the midst of it. — Pop
The quantum foam has to develop to form. Without form there is no information, so no interaction is possible. — Pop
So we can look at a rock without experiencing any change in neural patterning that would amount to information at that level.
— Possibility
No, I don't think so. Try shutting your eyes and opening them. Or turn your head to the side. Its quite different. Of course the environment is probably memorized and so you will not see anything new that can draw your focus. — Pop
A system ( or any object / being ) has its properties, perturbations, characteristics, persona, etc without which it couldn't be recognized and distinguished from other systems. These properties are the things that interact, when interacting with another system ( or person or object or anything ). — Pop
These properties can all be reduced to the concept of form. So form is a precondition of interaction. Without form there could be no interaction. Without form a substance can not be! — Pop
From there we have an interaction, and this interaction causes a change in form ( change in the properties of the system ) - when we look at a rock, we experience a change in our neural patterning. — Pop
We cannot extract ourselves. The exchange and ourselves, to some extent, become one. — Pop
The intersection is the relationship of two systems exchanging information. The systems are mutually changed in his exchange.
Please see my post above regarding enactive world. I would love a comment? — Pop
A metaphysics of stuff can't account for its own origin. It leads to the irresolvable paradox of getting something out of nothing.
A metaphysics of statistically emergent regularity can replace that by starting with the "everythingness" of a vagueness or uncertainty. Anything at all might be the case. Then the mathematics of patterns tells us the kind of determination in terms of self-consistent form that must then constrain that everythingness to a more organised somethingness. — apokrisis
If you have time would you want to disambiguate the various kinds of information? It does seem like there's a common thread through them, so it's easy to just end up sliding them altogether. — frank
(@Possibility - sorry if I sound like I’m lecturing you here. I just like your comments and wanted to see if I could make my own position more clear.) — apokrisis
So you would advise that we specify what kind of information we're talking about? What modifiers should we use? — frank
Information and the speculative sense of information. — Cheshire
even though no answer can be given for “what is not information?”
— Possibility
Hey. I am interested in knowing why you think no answer can be given to such question; it's just curiosity. — Daniel
Call me stubborn, but I keep thinking of information as being subjective; with that I mean that it is not a quality of an object, but it is instead (in its basic form) the effect caused by a given object onto another (the amount of change depends on the "strength" of the effect and on the amount of change the affected object is able to support). Thus, information is a quality of an object if and only if it is caused by something else [and information is not a quality of the object that causes the change but of the object(s) on which the change occurs]; this way, I think information is not a fundamental quality, for in a universe in which there is only one object, information would not exist (although the object does?).
Edit:
We could say information is potentially a quality of an object if such object has the capacity to interact with other objects. But information can only actually be a quality when it has been caused by another object (it is the result of an interaction). I dunno, what do you think? — Daniel
Feldman Barrett’s constructionist theory, in which consciousness is constructed as an ongoing predictive event from incomplete, potential and affected ‘information’.
— Possibility
So you would agree with the view that we are a body of information integrating more information in our path? :up: — Pop
"our model challenges prominent theories on philosophy of mind, which assume that consciousness is a continuous stream." - Time Slices: What Is the Duration of a Percept? — Pop
Why does it have to pertain to interactions? There's 8nformation associated with a particular photon whether it I teracts with anything else or not, right? — frank
IIT is panpsychist. Mass - energy - information is the new way forward. — Pop
And why does every 'thing' need to irreducibly contain information? So would you say something elementary like a hydrogen atom has some information pixies hanging about. How does that work. Why not make it easy on yourself and identify it as a hydrogen atom, period. — Mark Nyquist
Those who speak do not know. Those who know do not speak
— Lao Tzu
Mighty interesting, once you compare the above to,
The limits of my language means the limits of my world
— Ludwig Wittgenstein
Lao Tzu seems to be saying that there are things you can know but can't put into words.
Wittgenstein seems to be saying that what you can't put into words, you can't know. Socratic!
1. If you know then you can word it (False as per Lao Tzu, True as per Wittgenstein).
Contradiction!
Both Lao Tzu and Ludwig Wittgenstein seem to be doing a dance around, this is important, ineffables. The former claims that the ineffable is knowable while the latter claims that the ineffable is unknowable. — TheMadFool
If there is a problem with how women are judged and valued by men, then this implies that changes must be made in the way men view women.
Men in general. Not all men, because some men, myself included, do not have any problems with women. I do not go around attacking women, disrespecting them, asking them to cover up or whatever you are accusing me of. — Apollodorus
Well, I never said that she cannot be. What I am saying is that those shows do not have that sort of effect on me. If as you say, male viewers’ assumption is supposed to be that a singer’s intention is “to make herself available to you - that by writhing around in her underwear, she’s obviously asking for it,” then that is a total miss because it doesn’t work that way on me at all. — Apollodorus
Other than that, I tend to agree with Wayfarer. Either someone is alluring or they are not. They don’t need to be in their underwear. :smile: — Apollodorus
In addition, the female performers do not always appear to be be "in charge" or "empowered" at all. In many cases, they seem to suggest the role of street girls whilst male singers appear in fur-coats, expensive cars, and exaggerated jewelry. — Apollodorus
And for some reason the female body tends to be the center of attention as exemplified by the growing trend for female pop singers to perform on stage in their underwear whereas males tend to cover up. Apparently, this is supposed to be an expression of "female empowerment", though it is rather difficult to follow the logic of it .... — Apollodorus
I like the way you think. I agree with what you are saying. Unfortunately society puts a lot of pressure on how women look. — Maximum7
I don't think you are mistaken at all. I don't know about "objectifying", I don't believe it is happening to the extent that is being alleged, in any case. But I fully agree that it has something to do with fragile male egos. If something is aesthetically attractive then one should be able to say so, irrespective of whether it is the body of a woman, man, horse, dog, cat or anything. — Apollodorus
I am a heterosexual male and find the female form to be amazing. When I was in college, one of my professors said that everything in media was through the male gaze. I definetely see this in movies and TV. A woman in a bikini always elicits a strong response from men and even non-gay women as well. The female body is objectified and obsessed over. Most people who watch porn are men and most nude photos of celebrities we want are women celebrities. Why is this so? Who decided the female form was more alluring than the male? I know men were dominant in ancient times but I never got the reason why female bodies are considered more coveted. — Maximum7
Men are straight lines and angles. Women are arcs and curvature. I suppose a lot of male and female attractiveness has to do with geometry. Straight lines and angles are easily "measured" (a scale and a protactor is all we need). Women, if they play their yin card well, are a different story, "measurable" only with indirect methods and that too only approximately. A lot of male casualties have been reported while trying to negotiate the curves of the female form. — TheMadFool
Is Nietszches attack on the value systems of traditional philosophy correct, not only Christianity but on secular ethics of both ancient and modern philosophers. He attacks The whole Enlightenment tradition of the values of freedom, liberty and equality and democracy. He thinks they are part of the herd mentality, or offshoots of the slave morality of Christianity. — Ross Campbell
but why can't Nietszche express himself more clearly and if he has a positive view of women why didn't he just make that clear instead of leaving himself open to misunderstanding. As far as Im aware most other famous thinkers throughout history from Plato and Aristotle to Hume , Betrand Russell, Stuart Mill, Satre and Camus, and many more , all of them express themselves clearly, they are not readily open to misunderstanding, and thinkers like Camus use fictional techniques , like philosophical novels to express their ideas. Yet it's clear what all these thinkers ideas are. Why Nietszche has to be so ambiguous . Every time I read an article about Nietszche it says some scholars interpret Nietszche this way and then there's another camp who interprets him in a different way. Who are you supposed to believe. — Ross Campbell
I was puzzled why such a brilliant genius like Nietszche who is so popular today would make such statements. I Know it's taken out of context but nevertheless if a philosopher today was to make such pronouncements I think he/she would be severly attacked for what seems discriminatory. And the argument that Nietszche is a product of his times doesn't hold water for me because other 19th century thinkers like John Stuart mill expressed more enlightened views about women. — Ross Campbell
”A closer examination of his book Beyond Good and Evil will reveal a different picture. There is a different exegesis of Nietzsche which exonerates him from the charge of misogyny. Properly construed, Nietzsche is revealed as a man who appreciated the natural instincts and potential power of women, and who, through his use of irony and his criticisms of both ‘woman as such’ and women, wished to educate women on approaching the emancipation issue more effectively without losing their inherent femininity. He in fact implored women to cease in the cannibalization of other women and ‘woman as such’ in order that they could better achieve their goal of emancipation or even better, from Nietzsche‘s perspective, to achieve a goal of self-overcoming, and in so doing become free spirits.” — Joshs
So you're saying I shouldn't be blogging on this site because I'm giving opinions without hard evidence. I find that an unfair comment. Show me please where it says in the administrators ground rules on this blog that people are not allowed express their OPINIONS on this site unaccompanied by hard evidence. — Ross Campbell
And here we have Nietszche, one of the most important and influential philosophers of the 20th century saying that he would prefer to fall into the hands of a murderer than a lustful woman. That sounds like an attack on the secular Enlightenment and progressive philosophy which was trying to usher in a more Enlightened culture free from the Catholic misogynistic culture of the old older in Europe. — Ross Campbell
So what does the quote really mean in the context of chastity? Isn't it a description on how Christianity formed a notion that it is better to be a murderous person than to feel sexual lust? That when you stigmatize sexuality and lust to be a form of sin while speaking of killing and murder almost as a lesser sin, it robs man of sexuality as a form of love. That those choosing chastity shouldn't be forced to it, but that they themselves choose it for as long as they feel it is good for them.
He speaks of how Christianity suppressed sexuality down to a sin worse than murder and how the form of chastity they conduct within the church only pushed the bestiality further by suppressing people's urges. He speaks of a balance where choosing your own chastity, but not be bound to it, makes you a balanced person capable of not giving in to be beast of lust nor the suppression of irrational religious belief.
How is this in any way the same as a literal interpretation of the cherry-picked quote you chose? This is why I think that for someone who points out having a degree in philosophy, but not knowing how to read and decipher Nietzsche, it is irrelevant how many years you've been involved with philosophy and I'm a bit concerned that you actually teach philosophy. Is such a literal interpretation of a cherry-picked quote from Nietzsche's writing something you teach your students? Because that is pretty far from philosophy. — Christoffer
I made the SUGGESTION that Nietszche hates the virtues of Love, compassion and kindness and pity — Ross Campbell
Now that's not a bias or a misunderstanding of Nietszche. I'm merely making a statement of fact. — Ross Campbell
But I disagree. I think I'm entitled to have that opinion. I'm sure there are millions of others who would share that opinion. I don't think I need to back up my view about the merit of these virtues with Philosophical argument. — Ross Campbell
Ok Here's a Friedrich Nietzsche Quote:
“Is it not better to fall into the hands of a murderer, than into the dreams of a lustful woman?” — Ross Campbell
I'm simply giving you what seems to be a famous quote from Nietzsche and giving you my opinion that it's a rather inane statement also seems a rather misogynistic comment. I'd like to know what women would think about it. As far as I'm aware Nietzsche didn't have a very high opinion of women anyway. — Ross Campbell
Suppose that truth is a woman - and why not? Aren’t there reasons for suspecting that all philosophers, to the extent that they have been dogmatists, have not really understood women? That the grotesque seriousness of their approach towards the truth and the clumsy advances they have made so far are unsuitable ways of pressing their suit with a woman? What is certain is that she has spurned them - leaving dogmatism of all types standing sad and discouraged. If it is even left standing! — Nietzsche, ‘Beyond Good and Evil’