But but the invisible hand does wonderous things for us. Why shalt one bite it? — Wallows

Are you being sarcastic here? There is no such thing as an "invisible hand".

It matters that the efforts were funded by Clinton and sourced by Russian intelligence for the same reasons people have been saying Russian influence is a threat to democracy. It’s election meddling. It’s political dirt sourced from Russian spies to damage an opponent. It’s supposed collusion. It’s everything they blamed Trump for but perpetuated by the Clinton campaign. — NOS4A2

But a russian source is not Russian influence. If an FSB agent tells me Putin's favourite meal, that's information sources from russian spies, but basing a decision on it doesn't constitute russian influence.

For any true believer, or anyone interested in a perspective contrary the sensationalism regarding Russian collusion, read this wonderful article by Matt Taibbi.

It’s official: Russiagate is this generation’s WMD — NOS4A2

Interesting article. I read a few other bits and pieces, and the criticism of the way the media dealt with the allegations - and is dealing with the current ones - is at least worthy of serious consideration.

That question is loaded with a false premise. There are many times I observe counterarguments as not being demonic. But, even if a person does speak to me in a demonic spirit, the words can be useful to produce a better knowledge of the truth. — Serving Zion

What is evidence of a demonic spirit?

Ok, well we just need to see what prevents a person from accepting the absolute truth. Then, by removing those barriers, they can advance to know the truth. — Serving Zion

Sure, let's start.

that people can kill babies for unrestrained sex? — Serving Zion

Do you have a problem with unrestrained sex?

We will need to part ways over this. Nobody is born demonic, they become demonic by yielding their mind to the thinking that shields them from the conviction of the truth. — Serving Zion

If you're going to refuse every counterargument as demonic, what's the use talking to you, exactly?

and they don't have any strength when faith is involved — Serving Zion

This is a philosophy forum though.

It would perhaps good to discuss what this global debt actually means. After all, it's not like the planet is owning someone money. Quite the opposite actually, the more debt there is, the more money there is.

It seems to be the large amount of debt means a large amount of money is being generated. And that means inflation. Now limited inflation is desirable in a capitalist system in order to improve return on investment. Inflation is, however, a flat tax on everyone.

Therefore, perhaps the most significant effect of the rising global debt is rising inflation and hence stalling real wages.

So, we're experiencing the longest economic boom in modern history. Yet, most people aren't really feeling trickle-down or a rise in the tide that lifts all boats. — Wallows

Conditions have changed. The post-war boom was special in that it came with high levels of workplace solidarity and a reduction of wealth disparity. Meanwhile, recent economic booms have all increased wealth disparity, there is no comparable workplace solidarity. This might be mostly due to the availability of labor. Full employment no longer exists, and even if it did, there is now an international labor market that is a lot easier to tap since the fall of the Soviet Union.

I think it's better to say "how can we know the absolute truth?" .. is that what you meant? — Serving Zion

Yes, that'd be the more basic question.

Some people refuse to hear those voices (eg: 1 John 4:6), sometimes they adjust their moral compass to deceive themselves (thereby rejecting their conscience in favour of an alternative spirit). — Serving Zion

Sounds awfully condescending. Perhaps it's your moral compass that's in need of adjustment? A lot has been written on the topic, some of it very thorough. It's not a matter of willful ignorance or denial.

In those cases, the absolute truth yields itself to our support, because the aggressor was doing immorality to begin with - they were transgressing the moral law "do unto others as you would have them do to you". — Serving Zion

But, given that we accept limitations even to the right to life, it's no longer a simple question of whether or not the unborn child is indeed alreay a child or still a foetus. It's also a matter of what circumstances we are going to accept as justification for ending that life. It's not a black of white issue. Plenty of people who are "pro life" accept special circumstances, like danger to the mother or pregnancy as a result of rape. On the other side, plents of "pro abortion" people accept limits to legal abortion based on the state of the pregnancy or the circumstances of the decision.

It is just judgement of the absolute truth — Serving Zion

How do we know the absolute truth?

Actually, you are only able to say that because you do not acknowledge the complaint of the unborn: "they took my life". — Serving Zion

The unborn cannot lodge such a complaint, even in theory, though. So really it's you making the complaint, even though you don't have to bear any of the consequences.

Can you please explain why? — Serving Zion

It is sometimes necessary to kill in order to protect other rights. Like when we are acting in defense of ourselves or others.

Strict morality does condemn that though. — Serving Zion

What is "strict morality"?

Morality doesn't have an author as such, so it's pointless to ask who set up the goalposts. — Serving Zion

If you want to argue that someone is moving the goalposts, you have to establish what the goalposts are, first. Without agreed-upon goalposts, the charge makes no sense.

The point is, they will believe it is immoral to kill a breathing baby for convenience, but not an unborn. In making that distinction, they shift the goalposts (where "killing" is to take the life of a living, and "baby" is the one who is not independent/self-supported). — Serving Zion

That's just one way to draw the line. No "shifting" is going on here. You're also oversimplifying the issue to "killing is wrong, not killing is right". That's not a viable moral stance.

It is meant to show that the immorality relies upon moving the goalposts for the definition of life, so that they can believe themselves innocent of putting life to death. — Serving Zion

What goalposts though? Who set up the goalposts that are allegedly being moved?

It's not about "life" either. We kill lots of life all the time. No-one much cares about the billions of bacteria.

I don’t believe any of what the CIA says. — NOS4A2

So If the CIA says the sky is blue, you'll conclude it's red?

This is a terrible epistemological stance. Dismissing evidence is idiotic, no matter how morally righteous it makes you feel. This of course goes both ways, but given that you are constantly harping on about how we should be fair and consider the statements made by Trump as genuine, your stance on the CIA is incompatible with your stated principles.

It will be necessary to encode the text in formal language. — alcontali

To do that, you first need to interpret the text. And the interpretation itself will not be machine-verifiable.

"Additional value judgment" is exactly what we want to avoid.

I stick to the Church-Turing thesis in that regard. If there does not exist a purely mechanical procedure to verify a justification, then the statement being justified is not formal knowledge. — alcontali

It's impossible to avoid though. There is a reason the noun "judge" comes from the verb "to judge".

Therefore, it would be even possible to machine-mechanically verify these rulings. That is what I am really interested in: machine-mechanical verification of theorems/conclusions. It should be possible to achieve, and that is why I am really keen on it. — alcontali

Any system that relies on a text written in a natural language is going to require textual interpretation. Textual interpretation is never going to be machine-mechanically verifiable, because the text simply doesn't contain the necessary information.

When we get to legal matters, there is also the additional value judgement of applying a given law to a given set of circumstances, which is also not verifiable.

I understand these reservations. But I’m not advocating authoritative measures. I don’t see ethics as something dictated or enforced from above, nor from the future. We can’t control the actions of others - we can only have an effect on the world by increasing our own awareness, connection and collaboration. — Possibility

I'd still have an issue with personally adopting a moral system that is entirely outcome oriented like that though.

Like the bible? Like Trump’s tweets?

A report of an event is an expression of subjective experience. — Possibility

Sure, Trump's tweets and the bible are evidence. Not good evidence, but evidence nonetheless. We can say that a report is an expression of subjective experience. But subjective experience does indicate objective events, on average.

I remember asking how along the US should remain in that area, and you gave a great idea, broker a deal between Turkey and “the Kurds”, until they are able to escape or get ready for their defence. It appears Trump had pretty much the same idea. Broker a deal and get “The Kurds” out of the area. So now that that is over, what else do you suggest? — NOS4A2

Right now? Nothing. The ship has sailed, Russia has taken up the position of the US and it's not like further involvement now does anyone any good. That doesn't mean the initial decision was a good one, or that Trump can somehow take credit for salvaging the situation apart from brokering a ceasefire (at a point when the presence of Russian troops had already put the future of the Turkish offensive in jeopardy).

It’s not as obvious as you seem to think. A good deal of what we learn about the world as human beings is from the perspective of others - even something as simple as a child being told ‘don’t touch that oven because it’s hot’. These words provide new information about the system based on their relationship to the person speaking and the words they’re using, rather than to the oven itself or any direct experience of touching the oven. An actual experience of touching the oven that would directly provide such information may have been from the perspective of the person speaking, or from their parents, or the information may have been a result of inductive reasoning on the part of the person speaking (or their parents), based on their observations. The point is that the experiential source of the information obtained is not the child’s direct perspective. — Possibility

I would simply call that a form of indirect evidence for states of affairs. I base a lot of my knowledge/predictions on things people have said, because a report of an event is evidence the event happened. But all that evidence, and my notion of the event, happens in my perspective. If someone tells me they touched a hot oven and it hurt, I'll treat that as evidence that touching hot ovens hurts, among other things. I can also use my capacity for empathy to imagine the pain, but I can never actually feel their pain, nor experience the hot oven from their perspective.

The same thing occurs, for example, in the use of sentinel species such as canaries in coalmines, or when we observe from someone’s facial expression that a particular person has just walked into the room. We don’t need to directly interact with something in order to obtain relevant information about it. We just need to understand and value/trust the relational structures that provide that information.

The point is that we can and do obtain information from other perspectives, from interacting with someone or something that interacts with something else (and so on) - when we have sufficient information from the result of past interactions to confidently rely on how we’ve mapped the causal structures. So when I suggest that a microbiologist, for example, has the capacity to understand the universe from the ‘perspective’ of a bacteria - at least to some small extent in their imagination (based on information obtained as a result of many past interactions with the same or similar bacteria) - that’s not as ridiculous as it might sound initially. They may even come to admire the behaviour of bacteria, or to align their value structures in some respects. — Possibility

But knowledge about the outside appearance of a (supposed) subject doesn't tell us anything about their internal perspective. Only with other humans can we confidently make conclusions about their internal perspective based on their external behaviour, and even that is fraught with errors (like the fundamental attribution error).

And technically, our understanding of other human's internal perspective is fake, too, since what we're actually doing is imagining ourselves in their shoes. This works well enough for people we share a lot of common cultural ground with, and with very basic emotions. But Modeling the internal perspective of a chimpanzee is going to be a lot less accurate, to say nothing of housecats, fish or bacteria.

A moral subject is anything that can be harmed. You’re dismissive of bacteria as a moral subject, but I would argue that’s only because their value is considered to be negligible in relation to other moral subjects. This is not objective, but is an anthropocentric perspective. — Possibility

The problem I see with this approach is that, even if we profess to care about everything, our value judgements are necessarily anthropocentric. There is no way for us to actually judge the interests of a bacteria, and hence decide what counts as harm to then. What we'd actually do if we tried is to anthropomorphise the bacteria and assume it has human interests. This results not in a relationship of moral subjects, but in a kind of paternalism, where humans decide what they feel comfortable doing.

When you’re trying to determine the ‘moral standing’ of subjects, you’re positioning your experience of these subjects in relation to value. And we can’t overlook the evidence that this priority we attribute to ‘personhood’ and our qualification of the term is a feature of morality that has not only contributed to much of the oppression, abuse and hatred in human history, but has also brought us to our current environmental crisis. — Possibility

As a historical fact, this is true, but I don't think a different grounding of morality would have changed the outcome significantly. It's always possible to draw arbitrary lines if you really want to.

If an ‘objective’ moral standing is what you’re after, then you can’t restrict ‘relevant information’ only to that obtained from a person’s perspective. I recognise that this complicates our ability to establish any moral standing at all, given the lack of information we have about the perspective of future people or bacteria, for instance. But I think we need to be honest about these subjective limitations in relation to moral standing. — Possibility

I am not really sure what you're proposing here. Obviously all my information is restricted to my perspective. How could it be any other way?

Personally, I think we’re afraid to acknowledge the moral standing of future people, just as we’re afraid to acknowledge the moral standing of bacteria. Because to do so we would need to recognise that our own moral standing, objectively speaking, is not nearly as significant as we’ve been led to believe. And we’re just not willing to accept the discomfort of that reality. Ignorance is bliss. — Possibility

Well, to me, this is the problem. If we are willing to give all potential future people some moral standing, even if the standing is relative to the certainty we have regarding their existence, this potentially makes the interests of current people fairly insignificant. Without a clear grounding of the moral significance of the future, this could be used to justify all manner of measures, including fairly draconian restrictions. This seems to reduce everyone to cogs in a machine, forced by posterity to provide a more of less specific outcome.

I suppose the SDF general was lying, then. — NOS4A2

He didn't make a statement of fact at all. It doesn't make sense to say he was "lying".

No, Trump’s sanctions and ceasefire deal were separate from Russia and Turkey’s pact. — NOS4A2

They were separate, indeed. Mike Pence negotiated a five day ceasefire. Russia and Turkey negotiated a longer term solution. So, the actual progress beyond the short-term ceasefire was made without US involvement.

It will take time to see how this works itself out, but if it does work, the prophecies and hand-wringing of Trump’s opponents were for naught. — NOS4A2

You don't think that all the "hand-wringing" is the reason Trump has expended so much energy trying to get a ceasefire?

In other Trump news, Trump has claimed progress in Syria, claiming a “permanent ceasefire” along the Turkish border. — NOS4A2

The permanent ceasefire is based on an agreement between Russia and Turkey, without US involvement. So it's Putin, not Trump, who has made progress.

You don't understand the concept of "evidence". With your absurdly narrow view of evidence, no white collar crimes could ever be prosecuted. — Relativist

By the way, it seems that substantial evidence has just been provided by the acting ambassador to Ukraine.

In other words, a moral system in which everything is morally permissible unless we specify that it's morally prohibited? — Terrapin Station

That'd be one way to go about it.

Future me doesn't exist yet but I care about him. I also care about other people generally. It just follows from the two that I would care about future other people who don't exist yet. — Pfhorrest

The issue I have with this approach is that I think any moral imperative needs to reference a subject. If we are going with a consequentialist approach, the judgement of benefit / harm needs to be made concerning specific moral subjects.

For the future "selves" of present subjects, I can conceptualise their potential future interests as present interests referencing the future. But if I have no current subject to start with, how do I make sense of the notion that a given action harms someone?

IMO potential people have as much relevance as any other potential event that may not be as predictable as we’d like. We prefer to control for such uncertainty - to effectively ignore or factor out those variables we cannot control or predict. That’s all well and good, but we cannot pretend we are creating a future where people do not exist. We’re going to have to factor this potential in somehow, and be okay with the uncertainty. — Possibility

I agree with the epistemological stance here, but it's not just about whether or not we can reasonably predict future harm to future people. It's about what these future people are supposed to be. Moral rules concern the interactions between moral subjects. The problem I see is that future people aren't subjects at all. They're merely imaginations. Reasonable ones, sure, but that doesn't make them persons.

only bearers of a shared continuity of memories, relationships and embodied perspective (vide Parfit, linked previously). — 180 Proof

Sounds good. This nevertheless seems to supply us with a special relationship to our future selves that is absent when we consider potential future persons that are not part of this continuity.

How parents raise their children will impact any potential future grandchildren during the upbringing of their future selves by your present children's future selves, no? The moral concern of a present parent for a present child is compounded in large part by the prospective welfare of that future child who's potentialities include being a future parent, etc. Just as the future self does not exist presently yet as an extension of the present self concerns the present self ... I don't see how concern for presently nonexistent future grandchildren differs, except in degree. — 180 Proof

My issue is that before I can get into deliberations about how a given action might cause harm, I need to establish the moral standing of the affected subject(s). I don't worry about the effects my actions might have on various bacteria, for example, because bacteria aren't considered moral subjects (usually, anyways).

How do I go about doing this for potential future people? I cannot base it on some list of physical characteristics, or on some communicative act. I cannot engage in any form of reciprocal recognition process.

Sure, but what do you take to be an example of a system that would tell you even whether to murder someone else without it being a case where really you could interpret the system to recommend either a positive or negative answer?

The only way around that is to simply specify "Do not murder others" and so on, but you're not going to be able to specify every possible scenario. — Terrapin Station

Let's take positive laws as an example in lieu of a moral system. A given body of law can represent a legal system, and in that legal system there will always ultimately be an answer of whether or not an act is legal. That answer is not necessarily uncontroversial, but for a wide variety of cases, there will actually be uncontroversial answers.

Of course, a legal system can rely on a bunch more axioms than a moral system, but in theory you could have moral rules that operate in a similar way.

Can we not then, on the same temporal grounds, rationally generalize from this moral (i.e. intrinsic benefit of harm / helplessness avoidance & reduction absent, or independent of, extrinsic benefits (i.e. reciprocality (e.g. quo pro quo)) concern for our future selves [FuS] to moral concern for (our) future populations [FuPop]? — 180 Proof

Well, for one the whole notion would seem to require a consequentialist approach, since we are talking about benefit and harm, correct?

It seems convincing that any consequentialist system has considerations of the future states of current person's build in. To this effect, it requires us to consider persons as stable through time. However, is that consideration not based on the current personhood of the self? I view my Future self as an extension of myself, but I wouldn't view my grandchildren in that manner. They have no current personhood which I could extent into the future. I'd have to assume they have some ideal personhood based on their potential existence, but that seems at least a questionable assumption.

I'd start from the opposite assumption, that future people have as much standing as currently existing people, in theory at least. Because if you would know with certainty that you acting a certain way now will kill a person 100 years from now, that person will have been as real as people living now. — ChatteringMonkey

It might be real, but it might not be. The uncertainty can become a problem if we have to make policy decisions that might help people now, but might hurt people later.

I submit that we all act in consideration of future people all the time: our future selves. I keep going to work and doing other difficult adult things instead of goofing off enjoying myself all the time so that a future version of me who doesn’t exist yet won’t suffer.

I don’t think considerations of other future property are much different. Just a combination of that and a more general concern for other people at all. — Pfhorrest

But isn't there an extra step required to extend concerns from people who already exist to people who might potentially exist?


Thanks for the overview!

The question as to the "ethical standing" of future people, or of any duty owed to them, isn't really one of existence, but rather of the freedom to make a right choice in regard of it. Freedom as the ability to accomplish one's duties and obligations - isn't freedom something we're condemned to? The issue whether to do a good job of it or muck it up. — tim wood

I am asking what our duties actually are though. And there might be conflicting duties towards current and future people.

There's no way to ever get to a(n objective) fact that amounts to a valuation or prescriptive normative of any sort. — Terrapin Station

Nevertheless, moral philosophers have tried to establish systems for deciding how to act. I, personally, like to consider such systematic approaches.

There's an entire political school of thought that supports it: realism. — Tzeentch

Oh snap. I am thoroughly defeated by your command of one-liners.

It is counter-intuitive, but the statement is true both figuratively and literally, at least on the basis that no such people exist. On those grounds I don’t think the moral case for anti-natalism has any merit because it doesn’t deal with real people.

But when it comes to preserving the environment, it isn’t about one future person, but generations of them, to “posterity”, many of them born the moment I write this. So in a way, “posterity” exists and we can point out the countless pregnant and newborn people now existing in order to make it more concrete. For these “future people”, there must be some consideration of their future, at least to guide our actions in the present. — NOS4A2

Well, but this raises the question: If the single future person really is a non-entity, because potentialities aren't people, how do we construct a notion of "posterity"? Sure, unlike an individual descendant, which depends on individual choices, "posterity" as a whole depends on social factors, and is thus perhaps more predictable over long timescales. But we'd still need to ground that posterity on something. If it isn't personhood, what is it?

With other common moral theories, it seems to me that you could interpret things any way you like with respect to future people. For example, if you're a utilitarian, you could interpret any stance about the moral weight or lack of the same of future people as being or not being a benefit to people in general. — Terrapin Station

If you can interpret things any way you like, that would imply that you know nothing, i.e. that you system simply offers no solution to the question. Which is a flaw if you wish to base your behavior on that system. Now it strikes me you don't personally ascribe to a moral system, but if one wants to, the question of how to deal with consequences for possible future people or generations seems important.

My advice would be to read Albert Schweitzer’s Ethical vision. Generationism is highly influenced by his works and the empirical findings within Moral Psychology. — Mark Dennis

Thanks for the advice. Are you personally familiar with Schweitzer? Would you say his moral philosophy can be categorized under a broader heading?

Fascism aside, this seems like a pretty reasonable and accurate view of history to me. — Tzeentch

Which would explain a lot of your other views. It's not accurate in the slightest.

I think, on the face of, it doesn't imply that, there's nothing in the picture that says that that is the only contributing factor. And there's certainly nothing in the picture as far as I can tell that implies a certain kind of normative or political action (which is not to say that that wasn't the original intent).

I intended it purely descriptive, as I captures some element that I think is true of history... though I shouldn't have posted it on a philosophy forum, because ultimately it is a merely an oversimplification... and not all that clarifying really. — ChatteringMonkey

Fair enough. Since I know it's origins, I cannot really see what it would tell you if you didn't know it. I understand that viewing history as some kind of great cycle is appealing to many, though I don't think the facts actually support it.

No I wasn't aware of that... But does it matter where it comes from? — ChatteringMonkey

Not in and of itself, but in this case it directly supports a view of history of cyclic, where "strength" and "weakness" are the governing factors, and where men need to be kept "strong" by rigid discipline and hardship.

It also allows the government to collect lots of taxes at the source. That is what tremendously increases government power. In countries where people are generally not wage slaves, the government has way less power and way less money, which makes the government also way less intrusive. — alcontali

Which countries would those be?

It's not all that surprising... — ChatteringMonkey

You're aware that the picture you're sharing here is literally fascist propaganda?

Ideally, the natural evolution of culture would refine us all for the better. Cities would become better places to live, countries would prosper, and the world would be a better place. — Old Brian

In the last century, that has by and large been the case.

Earthquakes, floods and so on are natural calamities. Brutal dictatorships are perpetrated by humans. The former are unfortunate, the latter are intentionally evil. — Wayfarer

I'd agree with that from the standpoint of an atheistic cosmology, but in the context of the theodicy argument, I don't think this distinction holds. In a created, "designed" world, everything is intentional, and hence natural disasters are "evil".

Yours is the 'hotel manager's theodicy'. You expect existence to be like a well-run resort, where all the guests are happy, the service is always perfect, and there's never any illness or death. — Wayfarer

And no earthquakes, floods, genocide, brutal dictatorships etc. You seem to have left these out in your hotel description.

What's the moral? The moral is that a morally good being doesn't exercise the power to create innocent sentient life in a world like this one. — Bartricks

This is an interesting take on the anti-natalist position. There is one issue though: an omnipotent God has the option to bring people into the world without suffering. Humans do not. So, for your argument to work, it has to apply to non-omnipotent beings. And then we're back to the old question of whether or not existence is worse than non-existance.

There is a risk, the EU might not grant the extension, or they might say there must be a democratic event, or the meaningful vote must be held first, in which case we might see more chicanery. It's an unknown — Punshhh

Possible, but I think the EU's political leaders probably have enough political acumen to realize that they'd be playing into Johnson's Hands if they did.

The issue is that "autodidactic" is not an answer to the question of "how much" education you have. Reading a single book on your own is autodidactic education.

The structure of the poll also suggests that autodidact is less than "some college classes". Perhaps there should be different categories for "some eclectic reading" and "thorough studies"

Unless punishment is distributed according to the principle “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”, it’s completely arbitrary and offers no resemblance of what anyone might reasonably deserve. A god could perhaps perform the equation, but not a human being. — Congau

It seems absurd to me to claim that, unless punishment is exactly proportional it's "entirely" arbitrary. If it's a question of reason, then the reasonable punishment can be approached.

If the natural order of life is unfairness and chaos, why do we as humans live with unnatural principals such as harmony and and fairness in which mankind tries to create an artificial harmony when that type of life is a lie? — x11z6b3

To answer this, we have to first ask why we are so sure what the natural order is? Perhaps it is true that, as a matter of fact, life is unfair and chaotic. But does the fact that this happens to be so, mean that this is therefore a "natural order" and not just an accident?

Additionally, there is the fact that humans, as you acknowledge, are animals, and therefore part of nature. If humans have ideas about fairness and harmony, those ideas are, therefore, natural, part of nature. So, nature does include fairness and harmony.

Lastly, you later write this:

The rules of nature no longer apply to us. — x11z6b3

If that is so, then it seems we shouldn't concern ourselves with any natural order. Holding both ideas, that humans should conform to a "natural order", and that humans are above nature, is contradictory.

Why do we even allow ourselves to be held to back by thoughts that have no place in our world because that is what we live in. — x11z6b3

Thoughts is what we are. There is no way not to be defined - and thereby held back - by your thoughts.

When you later write:

Acting as one pleases(within reason and logic) and being themselves. — x11z6b3

You are accepting limits - reason and logic. So, it makes sense to be "held back" by thoughts. They just have to be the right thoughts.

In our modern age, aren't you tired of putting on a mask every time you step out of your room? A mask that others feel you should put on. A mask of who you should be. I challenge you once more to be yourself. Leave all popular "trend setters" behind and form your own opinion. Be yourself. Alas I will tell you the answer to the first question I asked you. We live in a factory-created harmony of mindlessness because that is what is popular. We are no different from the beasts of the jungle, because we are the beasts. Trapped in our own jungle. What is this jungle you ask. Our minds. We are limited to the confines of our own minds. — x11z6b3

Humans are social animals though. It's natural for us to fit in and to put on masks. This doesn't have to be a bad thing. You can put on a mask at work to get through a difficult task, and then take it off at home with your family. People always try to be individuals, but people also want to be accepted. It's thanks to this desire that we are able to cooperate so well.

1. Two billiard balls can occupy the same space. — Ron Cram

They can. Billiard balls aren't solid particles on a quantum scale. It's just spectacularly unlikely.

But, given that you are aware of the exclusion principle, how can one Billiard ball "hit" another if they cannot occupy the same space?

2. A flame does not require fuel to burn. — Ron Cram

A flame is[/] hot, radiating fuel, so this question is plainly nonsense.

3. A brick cannot cause a window to break. — Ron Cram

A brick on it's own certainly doesn't, or else how do houses have windows?

4. Decapitation does not cause death. — Ron Cram

Ever heard of a brain in a vat?

None of these questions are really related to causation, by the way.

He has got the EU to back down over the backstop and his take-it-to-the-wire negotiating strategy has thus been totally vindicated. — Tim3003

I agree with your analysis, but has the EU actually backed down? It seems to me they would have accepted this solution earlier, but the British didn't want it.

If you want to do Brexit, this seems the most sensible arrangement.

Somehow, I find the letter almost endearing. At least it's an initiative for peace, if one that sounds like it was written by a schoolboy.

I have. And I have asked you to refute me. You have not. — Ron Cram

No, you!

It is the physical necessity that points to the laws, not the other way round. Are you doubting that it is physically necessary for the head to be attached to the body for a person to be alive? — Ron Cram

Yes. I doubt that even having any biological body is necessary, given that "a person" is really just a mind.

Machines can keep the heart pumping and keep air going into and out of the lungs, but that isn't enough to sustain life for a person without a head. — Ron Cram

Right. And why would you? After all a body is not the person. What about the other way round though? Head without body.

The cause of the death is separating the head from the body. — Ron Cram

Really? Not the loss of blood pressure to the brain, or lack of oxygenation, or some form of trauma shutting down the nervous system?

This is not a refutation. It is not even a positional statement about what happened. — Ron Cram

It's a question. Given that you claim we can directly observe causation, you should be able to tell me what the actual cause is, in physical terms.

No, you turned around my example to no point at all. If you want to refute my point, then you would have to explain how the body could continue to function and live when the neurological pathway between the brain and the heart are no longer functioning. — Ron Cram

It could be kept alive by machinery. That's not difficult to imagine given we can stop people's hearts for surgery.

There is a physical necessity that the head and body be connected. — Ron Cram

Can you point out to me what physical laws make this a physical necessity?

There are many physical necessities that must be present in order to allow for the possibility of life. I'm simply pointing to one. — Ron Cram

So, if there are multiple, which one is the cause? Are all together the cause?