While we're at it:

A World Without Clouds

A state-of-the-art supercomputer simulation indicates that a feedback loop between global warming and cloud loss can push Earth’s climate past a disastrous tipping point in as little as a century.

Natalie Wolchover
Quanta Magazine
Feb 2019

Being informed isn't helping anything until it informs some action — unenlightened

:up:

Let's get to it! — unenlightened

:up:

Already on it.

Came across this one:

There's so much CO2 in the atmosphere that planting trees can no longer save us
Rob Ludacer, Jessica Orwig
Business Insider
Oct 2018

Alarmist panic isn't helping anything/one.
Being informed is a good first step, though.

The Trolley problem (and whatever variations) is good for some and bad for others.
Apparently it is good and bad. Or undecidable?

I could have all the preferences and opinions in the world, yet still not like getting hurt.

I'm willing to put up with the shorter discomfort of going to the dentist to avoid the possibly longer troubles otherwise.
My preference would be neither, but I ought go to the dentist (which presumably holds for most).

Are there moral truths that do not, in one way or other, depend on (experiencing) minds?
Seems odd if someone were to say "the hurricane ought not murder anyone", "hurricanes are immoral".

Hm maybe something's off with the subjective versus objective thing.

Here's one rendition of the Euthyphro, where G is whatever deity of relevance (like Aditi, Yama, Yahweh, Varuna, Allah, etc):

• G acts according to morality (independent morals) † or
• morality is acting according to G (dependent morals) ‡

† is a partial definition of G (not morality)
‡ is a definition of morality

They say theological moral voluntarism is a response. That would be ‡. Doesn't seem reasonable to me, also dehumanizing us some. So, there'd exist no morals outside those defined by whatever deity of choice, there can't be anything else to know/do in this respect, by definition. Unless whatever deity shows up and informs us we have nothing, except we do. Incidentally, I think it may run into the Torquemada problem.

Yahweh joins you for supper and commands you to kill your child. Some options:

• hold on a minute here (because that’s what any decent human being would do) †
• kill your child ‡

Would "do your own dirty work" be an appropriate response?

The court heard Carly Ann Harris believed with "absolute conviction" she was doing the right thing when she killed Amelia — https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-46592959

Another rendition:

I am not for the moment concerned with whether there is a difference between right and wrong, or whether there is not: that is another question. The point I am concerned with is that, if you are quite sure there is a difference between right and wrong, you are then in this situation: is that difference due to God’s fiat or is it not? If it is due to God’s fiat, then for God Himself there is no difference between right and wrong, and it is no longer a significant statement to say that God is good. If you are going to say, as theologians do, that God is good, you must then say that right and wrong have some meaning which is independent of God’s fiat, because God’s fiats are good and not bad independently of the mere fact that He made them. If you are going to say that, you will then have to say that it is not only through God that right and wrong came into being, but that they are in their essence logically anterior to God. — Russell (1927)

"Goodness" is a characteristic (or predicate) of some actions (or intentions), a bit on the abstract side, not a person.
The term "God" carries way too much baggage; Yahweh/Jesus, Vishnu, "greatest", infinite, simplest/atomic, triune, ...

Do Christians (still) take the likes of these to be fundamental?

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. — Genesis 1:28

And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein. — Genesis 9:7

One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever. — Ecclesiastes 1:4

Doesn't seem quite right to me.

Colloquially, isn't possible just self-consistent and either of non/hypothetical?
Self-consistent is at least the usual identity (ontological, propositional) and non-contradiction (propositional).
I guess that implicitly assumes our world is self-consistent, but that seems required for propositions to be meaningful anyway.

Doesn't "meaning" presuppose identity (the 1^st law)?
How would our talk have much meaning without self-identity (of some sort or other), including the posts in this thread?
Seems mostly like the only justification to abandon identity would be if we found that in the world.

, thanks for the article, looks interesting, putting it on the (way too long to-read) queue. :)

: ∞ ∉ ℝ
Cantor et al has shown there are meaningful ways of going about this, which is taught today in high schools and universities.

, it's been addressed more than once by others (including here).

I do not agree with the bijection procedure; it gives the wrong results; see Galileo's paradox. — Devans99

You can disagree all you like, but it does not give "the wrong results".

Galileo concluded that the ideas of less, equal, and greater apply to (what we would now call) finite sets, but not to infinite sets. In the nineteenth century Cantor found a framework in which this restriction is not necessary; it is possible to define comparisons amongst infinite sets in a meaningful way (by which definition the two sets, integers and squares, have "the same size"), and that by this definition some infinite sets are strictly larger than others. — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo%27s_paradox

No, it can't be thought of as a quantity; its defined as greater than any quantity therefore its is not a quantity. — Devans99

You switched to a different definition from a (less technical) dictionary that's quite informal. The colloquial definition above is somewhat better, and the two more concise definitions better still. If you just wish to show some sort of inconsistency with informal dictionary definitions, then have at it. Has no bearing on the mathematics. Sorry, there's more to it than what you suggest.

, I happen to know @Metaphysician Undercover (and @aletheist) from the old now-defunct philosophyforums.com.
Metaphysician Undercover tend to wander off in some direction of own makings, yet imposing own ideas on other things. :)
As far as I can tell, @Devans99 just doesn't have much familiarity with the mathematics.

@Devans99, FYI, some details about the real numbers, ℝ, that we use for modeling the world:

Zero is the additive identity:

• 0 ∈ ℝ
• ∀ x ∈ ℝ [ x + 0 = 0 + x = x ]

ℝ is closed under addition and subtraction (for example):

• ∀ x, y ∈ ℝ [ x ± y ∈ ℝ ]
• all "distances" are also reals

ℝ an Archimedean set:

• ∞ ∉ ℝ
• ε ∉ ℝ
• infinites (∞) and infinitesimals (ε) are not reals,
  do not involve them in addition and subtraction (for example)

Colloquially, ∞ could be thought of as a quantity that's not a (real) number.

Two more concise definitions of infinite:

• Dedekind:
  
  • |S| = ∞ ⇔ ∃ ƒ (bijection): S → T ⊂ S
    a set is infinite if and only if there is a bijection between the set and a proper subset of itself
• Tarski:
  
  • S is a set
  • P(S) is the set of all subsets of S including ∅ and S itself
    the power set, Weierstraß, Cantor
  • F ⊆ P(S) is a family of subsets of S
  • m ∈ F is a minimal element of F ⇔ ∀ x ∈ F [ x ⊄ m ]
    no smaller subset
  • M(F) = { m ∈ F | x ∈ F ⇒ x ⊄ m }
    the set of minimal elements
  • S is finite ⇔ ∀ F ⊆ P(S) [ F ≠ ∅ ⇒ M(F) ≠ ∅ ]
    a set is finite if and only if every non-empty family of its subsets has a minimal element, Tarski
  • S is infinite ⇔ S is not finite

They can be shown identical.

We understand plenty about infinites (cf the continuum hypothesis). Yes, ℝ is an infinite set, and any numbers therein are separated by another such (real) number. There's a lot more to say, including that ℝ being an infinite set is not contradictory. In fact, had it been, some rather significant problems would have come about. Archaic (Aristotelian) verbiage like "potential" and "actual" aren't of any use here. The standard mathematical modeling we use today is the best we know of as yet.

Let me just quote Eric Schechter:

Prior to Cantor's time, ∞ was
• mainly a metaphor used by theologians
• not a precisely understood mathematical concept
• a source of paradoxes, disagreement, and confusion — Eric Schechter

And that first bullet there is indeed an outdated tradition. Fortunately we know more these days. Cantor showed that there are infinite different infinites, no less; in a concise context, ∞ is ambiguous.

On the physics side we have general relativity, the Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker model, all that, and the evidence, all of which seems consistent per se. Well, we have no established unification with quantum mechanics, that is, we already know that there are shortcomings, limits of applicability, things we don't know.

You'll have to understand at least some of this stuff to comment.

Not sure it's worthwhile mentioning the obvious, but that's what a bijection does, @Metaphysician Undercover. Feel free to derive the contradiction you mention.

The problem being that we cannot pair them up because there is an infinite number of either one of them. — Metaphysician Undercover

It's called a bijection.
(Fairly basic high school mathematics, if memory serves.)
Kind of odd to just deny something without really knowing about it. :brow:

Berkeley shows that we cannot know material without a material object, force without something being forced, space without something occupying it and time without some agent passing through it. — Jamesk

In short, I can't perceive anything if I'm not around.
But that does not entail that anything isn't around.
Conflating epistemics and ontology (which, I think, has been pointed out plenty over time).
Similarly ...

We don't experience another's self-awareness — jorndoe

... even when around, hence ...

Berkeley shows that we cannot know — Jamesk

... another's self-awareness, which would then prompt Berkeley to deny existence (except by special pleading).
Solipsism by Berkeley's own line of thinking.
In fact, as indicated by the image above, knowing someone else's self-awareness is even harder than knowing the existence of their (object-like) hands, for example.
We encounter other people's "physical" bodies before their minds, we encounter their minds via their bodily goings-and-doings.

No you are not an idea, you are a mind / spirit. — Jamesk

Spirits dull or impair the mind. :)

Anyway, Berkeley conjured up his deity as a coat hanger for his world, a mental monism, like others have come up with whatever other things.
But it's the justification that matters.

I guess it's impossible to get things wrong, there's nothing more to things than the experience, there's no difference between hallucination and perception, for example?



We don't perceive and learn when unconscious.
We don't experience another's self-awareness.

There are few odd things by subjective idealism on its own, a kind of solipsism.

Terrapin Station Rocks are just ideas, man~

No one better give me grief about this — MindForged

Excuse me, I'm not just an idea of yours. How rude. :D

Then it's defined wrong. There is no value of x for which 1/x = 0. — Devans99

So? That's not what it means. Check the link, or some of the other online resources. — jorndoe

@Devans99, it seems like you're not reading (or understanding) the mathematics and/or definitions. There are reasonably good online resources, though it may take a bit of reading if you're new to this stuff.

That's impossible I'm afraid. Actual Infinity does not exist so negative Actual Infinity does not exist so past eternity does not exist (same structure). — Devans99

If it's impossible, then derive the contradiction.
After all, simply saying so doesn't make it so.
I tried (the former rendition) and failed (as shown with the latter rendition).

Are you saying the equal sign means 'arbitrary close' rather than 'equals'? — Devans99

No. The lim, as defined, is zero.

Then t1 is the first moment and the universe is temporally finite. — Devans99

No. The premise was "the universe was temporally infinite", "no 1^st moment".

Is this the sort of argument you're promoting, @Devans99?

1. if the universe was temporally infinite, then there was no 1^st moment
2. if there was no 1^st moment, then there was no 2^nd moment
3. if there was no 2^nd moment, then there was no 3^rd moment
4. ... and so on and so forth ...
5. if there was no 2^nd last moment, then there would be no now
6. since now exists, we started out wrong, i.e. the universe is not temporally infinite

Here's a more elaborate version:

1. if the universe was temporally infinite, then there was no 1^st moment, but just some moment, t₁
2. if there was no 1^st moment, then there was no 2^nd moment, but just some moment, t₂
3. if there was no 2^nd moment, then there was no 3^rd moment, but just some moment, t₃
4. ... and so on and so forth ...
5. there was a 2^nd last moment, t_{now - 1 moment}
6. there is a now, t_now

Notice how 4 masks a switch from non-indexical to indexical? Bad. :)
t₁ could be any past moment, and the duration between any definite t₁ and now is finite, there were just infinitely many past ts instead.
The former rendition misses the latter rendition, hence showing that 1 does not imply a contradiction.

But arbitrarily close to zero is not zero and is never zero. — Devans99

So? That's not what it means. Check the link, or some of the other online resources.

As an aside, these sorts of things are used all the time in physics and other areas (derivatives, integration, etc).
I can only guess how much throughout the cool InSight project - congratz to the team.

How about fractals with an infinite circumference and a finite area? :)

,

$\mathop {\lim} \limits_{x \to \infty} \frac{1}{x} = 0$

has a concise meaning, defined in terms of the universal (∀) and existential (∃) quantifiers for x ≠ 0:

$\forall \epsilon \in \mathbb{R} \gt 0 \hspace{8pt} \exists \delta \in \mathbb{R} \hspace{8pt} \left| x \right| \gt \delta \Rightarrow \left| \frac{1}{x} \right| \lt \epsilon$

"We can always squeeze the fraction arbitrarily close to zero."

Check (ε, δ)-definition of limit (Wikipedia)

The former is just a different, perhaps more intuitive way, of writing it.

What's the difference between consciousness and simulated consciousness anyway?
Simulated suggests crafted intentionally by someone else.
If that's the only difference, then "simulated" has little bearing on consciousness itself, just the circumstances.

As I said before, there is the fact of processes tending to determinate ends, and there is the conclusion that tending to a determinate implies a mind intending that end. There is a tendency to confuse these, but they are separate issues. Clearly, there are ends in nature: physical processes tend to well-defined final states; grains of wheat sprout wheat stalks, not oaks; spiders build webs to catch insects. These processes are part of nature, even if they point beyond nature. — Dfpolis

:roll:

... teleology ... "ends in nature" "final states" ruled by the lonely photon in deep cold, for unfathomable amounts of time (even compared to 14 billion years). Heat death, where perhaps even black holes have "evaporated".

Life, as we know it, has a window, somewhere between formation of solar systems and the beginning of the degenerate era, with ever ongoing energy dispersion, marching towards heat death.

I think we can both reason by analogy and make strict deductions leading us to an understanding of the existence and general character of God. Of course, a finite mind can't know an infinite being in any proportionate way. — Dfpolis

Cart before the horse?
One day it's "greatest", another "infinite", the next "simplest", the day after that "triune", ... One for each occasion. What gives?
How'd you came up with "infinite being" anyway?
"Simplest" is typically an assertion in response to an infinite regress (sometimes humorously called "simpleton").
It's almost like anything goes.
Personification fallacy.

Anyone see the verbiage used about Trump, and he's alive? :)
Anyone is free to defend Muhammad (and Trump), using the same thing: free speech.
Jerks can be ignored or told off with more of the same still.

As an aside, I know some lovely Muslims personally, though I suppose they're fairly moderate.
As another aside, my angle is European, and from a heavily freedom of expression oriented region; it's not a homogeneous sentiment throughout.

I was criticized on this forum several years back because [...] — Wayfarer

Most can be criticized one way or another (weaker or stronger or whatever).
It's more free speech. ;)

Not really about Anselm's ontological argument... — jorndoe

As an example of knowledge versus freedom (albeit somewhat distasteful according to some), consider:

1. if Trump knows that he'll run for president again, then Trump will run for president again (traditional definition of knowledge, knowledge implies truth)
2. Trump knows that he'll run for president again ((omni)science assumption)
3. therefore Trump will run for president again (1 and 2)

^{(yes yes, I know, Trump is not all-knowing, and distasteful was mentioned, but you get the gist) :)}

Trivial syllogism, no modal reasoning involved here for example.
We can make it more specific by year, or next election, or whatever, doesn't matter in this context.
We can also replace "run for president" with "not run for president", and the resulting syllogism holds.
Surely he will either run for president again or not (and not both).
Now we may ask: what does that entail in terms of Trump's freedom? ^{1, 2, 3, 4, 5}

4. does that then mean that Trump has lost the freedom to postpone a decision, the freedom to make up his mind later?

they say that one should never do today what may be put off till tomorrow — someone

As an aside, Trump may harbor justified belief, which may be true or false. For true it's knowledge. That's the ontological condition, truth.
Also, "free will" is a can of worms all by itself, so I'm trying to avoid that and just go by "freedom" in some sense.

^{(no no, I'm not trolling by mentioning Trump) :)}

Sorry, yes, I hadn't gone through the motions (and it's a bit old).
It's just that, among the things having come out of the White House, it seemed like yet another medieval'ification.

Not really about Anselm's ontological argument...

I guess, in this case, omniscience is not so much about causation as it's about truth.

1. suppose, for the sake of argument, that here in 2018 I know exactly how 2020 will unfold
2. knowledge implies truth, cannot be false, non-negotiable
3. come 2020, my foreknowledge can then not fail to occur, regardless of whatever else, everything must then occur as foreknown
4. everyone's goings and doings, my own included, are not free to diverge in any way, even if I had told everyone what would occur, since then my foreknowledge would be false
5. absence of freedom is seemingly contrary to free choice, including my own, throughout 2020

No particular dependence on causation, only on truth, as per the foreknowledge.

Stochastic terrorism as characterized by the Rolling Stone article below:

1. a public figure with access to the airwaves or pulpit demonizes a person or group of persons
2. with repetition, the targeted person or group is gradually dehumanized, depicted as loathsome and dangerous—arousing a combustible combination of fear and moral disgust
3. violent images and metaphors, jokes about violence, analogies to past ‘purges’ against reviled groups, use of righteous religious language—all of these typically stop just short of an explicit call to arms
4. when violence erupts, the public figures who have incited the violence condemn it—claiming no one could possibly have foreseen the ‘tragedy’

Not quite identical to hate speech I guess, but close.
Looking back, I don’t recall Obama having gotten into this territory, but Trump on the other hand...
More importantly, what do you think?


Trump’s Assassination Dog Whistle Was Even Scarier Than You Think
Republican nominee engaged in so-called stochastic terrorism with his remarks about “Second Amendment people” and Clinton
David S Cohen
Rolling Stone
Aug 2016

How about telepathy, telekinesis and black magic? :D

List of prizes for evidence of the paranormal.

"Supernatural" could just be advanced technology. Advanced technology can appear to contradict the laws of physics as we understand them. What would the essence of a supernatural thing be that distinguishes it from natural things? — Harry Hindu

Right, Clarke's 3rd law: any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
I'd probably bet on tech.

If this is true, then this is not — Mariner

I know dreams and hallucinations and such, like this discussion.
We already have verbiage like imaginary/fictional versus real, and the likes of that mentioned in the post above.
I'd have to say it works better than "being" versus "existence", but maybe that's just me.

I don't know of any purely deductive argument.

Wittgenstein's language argument is pretty good though.
Novelties indicate a larger world.
I'm not omniscient, since otherwise I'd know that I were (by definition).
A moral person will have to consider others real, cannot act as if others aren't living.

Whatever considerations like these point in one direction.

We have a non-sensorial property that allows us to distinguish between dream and non-dream, between hallucination and non-hallucination. — Mariner

Well, I can generally differentiate dream and awake when I wake up (☕ time).
I don't hallucinate often (I think) :) in some cases I can probably reason it out; in general, not so sure.

Anyway, I'd just call them more phenomenological (mind, self, occurrences).



Could perhaps be contrasted by extra-selves (empirical, perception involves phenomenologicals).
And maybe abstracts (numbers, Platonia, inert, lifeless, ideals).

Where dreams and hallucinations are imaginary/fictional, I guess non-dream and non-hallucination are intended to be real (in this context)?

The "being" versus "existence" thing just seems to add confusion.

Are you hearing them? Are you seeing them? Are hearing and seeing, sensations? Why assume anything more than what is clearly the truth? — Metaphysician Undercover

Solipsism isn't "clearly the truth", more like radical parsimony, haphazard reduction.

there's no distinction to be made there. Philosophers agree. — Metaphysician Undercover

They do not; your sentiment is towards the bottom.



Dead end.

We're talking about reality here, not your fantasy world. In reality, the word "neighbour" above just refers to some possibility you've created. — Metaphysician Undercover

Huh?
I chat with my neighbors all the time.
Why on Earth would they just be my sensations? :o