Polemics are my favorites... people come here for a good debate and disagreement... Philosophy in many cases is merely the feigning of civility, the toying with truth and purpose of meaning for what is rhetoric and debate and intent.

One should not fear the man that scowls at him for you know where you stand fear the one that smiles while hiding a knife behind his back.

I don't need it to be illegal in the actual sense, I just need to tie you up in so much bullshit you don't want to say it.... Do you know how many big businesses have destroyed small businesses by taking them to court and just drowning them in legal fees.... Such a point neglects Machiavellian strategy of speech codes, fine, contempt, social pressure, social media neighbourhood complaints procedures, court cases, appeals, your cash and time.... All the things I can do to bully you with authority to make you comply... I don't need you to agree only your silence...

I just need you to 'choose' the right to remain silent rather than speak. That is the project of the bullshit SJW city councils.

I don't agree with this approach to things at all, but this is the kind of political atmosphere we are dealing with now, less over the table and more rules for radicals.

Alright I'll make you a deal you point to me to the specific non-Eurocentric scientific theories and scientists. That is not only in race, but by tradition also do not draw on European concepts to define their science.

In the meantime I will look for the borrowers by the skirting boards and we can have a contest to see whose findings are more productive. I might knit some 'small peoples clothes' as annecdotal theatre to the quasai-pseudoscientific examples sure to be produced and argued.

Scientific theory as distinct from technology as the challenge, we can all look at China and say they had gunpowder and mathematics.... We want non-eurocentric science, as in competing hypothesis with the theory of the atom, the periodic table for chemistry.... the entire field of microbiology... these are the Traditional European Sciences.

In order to decolonize it we must get away from the evil white man science. So go and do it... I have found a sock I am turning into a dress by cutting holes in it... I am winning the race to find the borrowers.

If religion or religious apologetic has come to the grounds of confessing it is a fiction there is hope for our species, although I doubt any religion in all sincerity is willing to be or wanting to be contextualized as a natural phenomenon to deal with the difficulties and struggles of life.

I'm reminded of the Orthodox Jews who refuse to write the name of God in a non-religious document because the name itself is holy. They write God as G-d, and have their own way of changing the word in the Hebrew as well. The word itself seems to be a deity. It's said that the correct pronunciation of Yahweh is now unknown due to it never being spoken. Perhaps that one day will become the fate of the N-word.

My question is whether this social convention of never uttering the N-word is a reasonable act of respect or whether it's simply a politically imposed rule that can be used to divide and destroy? — Hanover

The difference with the Jews was this is something internal to their own community. I am not in the U.S. now and have only ever been a tourist but when I was there last New York had just banned the N word from use and black artists had to fight for their exception for it to be used. The debate of the N-word goes back not only to the inflammatory/derogatory Ni... distinction being the devolved form of the more neutral Ne... distinction it is characteristic to hear Martin Luther King or Malcolm X use and that was only in the 60's. So it is safe to assume that the language as well as the culture is changing.

As for the entire question of the N-Word I come from a country where it was taboo to say it for decades so it is normal to me. I think the political division honestly comes from playing up the value of the word itself... whether you say the word or not it doesn't address educational or economic equality. It just seems like a left vs. right identity politics game, that will escalate when the white population becomes a majority minority in the U.S. I feel that the entire conversation of racism in America is absurd because of the conceptual impossibility of it for other races to be racist against whites.Wait until it becomes white people get hate speech laws too and black people can't call them cracker arguments...

Moreover the fastest demographic growing are mixed races how are you goig to tell someone 'you can't understand black people' when they have white skin but their mother or father is black. Flip side how are you going to tell someone of color that 'they are not one of your people' when their parent is 'not one of the people' you assumed them to be ? Does that then make them half a person...

What will kill the country and true inclusion isn't a word but a diversity that is skin deep.

I am sick of conversations of race and immigration in Australia it is about the rise of unemployment of Muslim refugees. Alot of these refugees are asylum seekers who are unable to speak English, I am sick of pretending they came here of their free will and volition and can be considered job ready members of a society from the get go. A refugee is by definition in plight and desperation, as one seeking refuge.

I am a little more left leaning in that in my empathy of value, but rhetorically the political left and right I find both repugnant and disgusting.

I think capitalism will come undone because of 2 reasons
a) the efficiency increase.... Having machines and tech doing everything they want them to do now will just eviscerate the middle class.
b) The Debtor state/Business welfare.

If it was just b) there would be the possibility of a global financial reset and mass debt forgiveness and moving on. If it was just a) we could have more debt to ramp up educational opportunities and create a temporary cashflow to a new economy adaption. You could literally run up the trillions we had now in small boons to everyone to give them a solid bottom and a little (probably not alot) of money so they could continue to buy/sell pay debts etc.

But because it is both where you are looking to destroy many channels of distribution of a dollar whilst simultaneously being unable to forgive debt you are fucked. However capitalism is a system which is meant to have rises and falls by now it is an intentional and observable process. Having an economic collapse is good for the investor, it is economic opportunities. You put 1000 dollars into starbucks in 2012 you give or take double your money today.... But you put it in just after 2008 your money goes closer to 10 times in value....

This is Capitalism.

The fact consciousness is contained in an independent observer or experience of phenomenon does not lead to the verificationalist fallacy being a legitimate premise or fallacy. Not if one wants to consider language be it all words and math somehow being shared and not independent, assumes one learns and imparts understanding in the exchange of ideas....

The usual toolbags who would argue for the extreme idealist position using such a concept out of one side of their mouth would argue for sociohistorical and socioeconomic/cultural conditioning. The kind of person who wants to eat cake and not get fat.

The only thing a verificationalist needs to do is argue he believes in atoms, molecules, DNA, cells and physiology all by his own self without it being contingent on the projects of biological sciences and then we can talk about the credibility of such a false premise. Moreover how he himself would argue react to the position of someone arguing the world is flat in 2019 without appealing to Naturalism. Until then I can only maintain a healthy skepticism of such a position.

You are so eager to disagree when you quoted one premise you missed the "I wrote the above some time ago as a sort of aphoristic exercise I am trying to undertake to sharpen my prose.In all seriousness,"

So in your relativism where you can define right or wrong based on context how do you feel about misquotation? More so how do you feel about misquotation as an issue outside of context? Does relativism as a moral theory give you your feelings about misquotation? Or is it more you deciding right or wrong in any specific situation and bartering relativism as an extension of your identity?

Is it like me, myself and I
but you get me, myself, I and irelativism

I might be getting jealous.

I think it would be hard to argue one is only a mind or a body. But putting the context into a more philisophical sense I often see a theoretical premise argued but could use the same evidence to support either hypothesis.

E.G. I am particularly interested in the idea of phantom limbs, that is a severed limb having a 'sense' of being there. This has been used by materialist proponents to argue the illusion of consciousness and self whilst more idealist proponents have used it to argue for their own position as well. I am a bigger fan of the computational and informational theory model of biology coming out that more or less assumes phenomenal experience is physically contingent. I have plenty of evidence for this like being blind removes conscious experience of vision and dementia makes one very much less conscious. This burden of proof of a 1:1 correlation is just bogus.

The question of the reducibility of consciousness to pure materialism can be equally applied to a piece of paper with words on it, wherein one must argue there is discreet information written on it let's say "the cat sat on the mat" purely in terms of the atoms with paper and ink. Below I put a link highlighting the difference in terms of 'phantom limbs' that elucidates that I think framed in the right way means we could argue the self is a reference for an internalized information system of self-regulation produced by our biology. In that sense, we have an integral dimension of the psyche, conscious processes, non-conscious processes, and physical biology that within the experience of a phenomenon and our environment.

Below I put a ted talk which talks about the advanced prosthesis but the lecture hints at two different types of amputation, one with the nerve endings severed and one without and the differentiated results.

https://www.ted.com/talks/hugh_herr_how_we_ll_become_cyborgs_and_extend_human_potential

The consciousness conundrum has to be the most absurd twenty-first century problem in philosophy or sciences.
First define it…. From there we can talk about a problem.
Second imagine this 2 idiots arguing about a car
Tweedle Dee is only saying about the feeling, joy, experience, and act of driving a car, pointing out that one cannot just ram up the backside of a car, the space around the car is as much the experience of driving. A full diatribe of the horse and rider as one, Jinba Ittai.
Tweedle Dum, on the other hand, says without the schematic, of the car, the chemistry, physics, engineering and all the parts coming together to give you a machine one doesn’t have a car to drive. It is meaningless to talk about the fiction of a driver without the vehicle itself because there is nothing first to contain it. Pointing out that one learns to drive a car from exterior sources and the validation of being a legal driver is one of pure bureaucracy.
Both Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum understand each other implicitly but from a point of self-invested emphasis, talk right past one another. Imagine really sitting there listening to this conversation….
Would you be interested? Would you find it insightful?
Insofar as I am concerned
Tweedle Dee of consciousness can go get a lobotomy and let me know how that worked out for their conscious experience of the world.
Tweedle Dum of consciousness can go and catch a thought and show it to me.
The entire topic of consciousness is complicated enough without this being the frame of the debate.

If comedy has ontological value and

if you like the tongue twister

how many sets could the set of all sets set if the set of all sets set sets

then it holds without possible objection the set of all sets has ontological value

Quick question to the thread some time a go I watched something on TED (link below) where someone with a phantom limb had an augmentation that preserved the nerve of the severed limb. When they added the prosthesis that essentially mimics what would be a natural foot he could stand up almost immediately.

So my question is does the immaterial phantom limbs count as evidence for conscious illusion for physicalism? or did the old phantom limb is an illusion count as evidence for physicalism?

Because I could run this case used to argue the irreducibility argument of consciousness too... I am unsure if it has already been used to do so as the only thing I need to prove in my mind the reducibility of consciousness to being based in a physical phenomenon is how lobotomy, dementia, brain injury and dementia clearly makes you significantly less or detectably non-conscious.

https://www.ted.com/talks/hugh_herr_how_we_ll_become_cyborgs_and_extend_human_potential#t-518741

The Argument....

A Moral Theory needs to be able to distinguish good and evil
Relativism holds what is true for one is not true for another unconditionally and is thus relative
The Hollocaust perpetrared by Nazi Germany is Evil
Relativism cannot Condemn the Holocaust
Relativism Cannot Distinguish Evil
Relativism cannot be considered a Moral Theory

Normally I wouldn’t try to make arguments like this as ipso facto things but…. this is a total write off, why on earth would you want to start with such a bizarre position by the time you waste your life caveating this and arguing it to somewhere in the realm of a functional moral theory that emphasizes inclusion do you know what you will get?

Pluralism.

I wrote the above some time ago as a sort of aphoristic exercise I am trying to undertake to sharpen my prose.

In all seriousness, if relativism holds any interest in philosophy it would probably be, behind morality and ethics what I would call values (not sure of the technical terms in the philisophical literature...) That is to say 'why be a good person at all?' why be a moral agent? or strive to be good? what is so good about being good? can you eat it? can you pay your bills with it?

Relativism holds to this line of reasoning namely the principle of reasoning without an objective basis has an arbitrary foundation. There is some serious work in philosophy still trying to argue for different forms of non-relativist principles trying to argue for objective forms of ethics... Others would counter that the lack of values objectivity does not make them arbitrary... It exists more as I understand it as a type of literary tradition that contains the question, the critique, the cross-cultural comparison, the historicity etc...

I don't think any serious philosopher is specifically using relativism as a methodological application to civics and laws legitimately arguing as it were by rights instilled by philosophical premise anything and everything is permissible. No serious moral philosopher has seriously argued that it is okay to take an elderly lady out into the street and bludgeon her to death with a big stick. So understand the theoretical projects of philosophy like foundationalism is an attempt to reach at something theoretically that then can be used as a conceptual schema for ethics and morality to sit upon it. Just as the relativist critique to point out the death of god, failure of philosophical foundationalism and such makes relativism hold purpose and meaning.

I personally think this kind of moral objectivism and relativism are a waste of time and if you are looking for some kind of moral certainty look at Philip Pettit "The Inescapability of Consequentialism" for half an hour of your life you end up with a devastating ethical and moral claim that can take an ostensibility test and actually survive.

There is a continual push for the people with wealth to keep growing and becoming more powerful at the expense of the ordinary citizens. Whether this is simply greed, the 'system' is geared so that those who are 'successful' trample over everyone else and grow in influence whilst those who show philanthropy and care for humanity have their wealth eroded. — Jonmel

So the watered down Marxist narrative goes..... But in the end, I want to see if these people want to go on to a national system of food stamps and rations... This shitty system is the same thing which mass produced the 'means of production'...
Insofar as 'the revolution' it was the insurance companies that more or less got a UN hearing which would have forced Big Oil to justify their 'global warming science' the same as the tobacco industry. On the other hand, the left seems more than happy to condemned anorexia and high fashion but seem more than willing to sit on Body Positivity or the non-empirical assertion one can be healthy at any size. Ronald Mcdonald will be happy to hear it...

I think it is more complicated than 'The Man' or 'The system' vs. 'the little guy' to be honest... also people can invest in themselves to get further ahead... I am less interested in everybody and making sure that someone who is happy and healthy who suddenly gets a cancer diagnosis gets told... "oh you can't afford it that's unlucky" than I do

I think there is a misreading of classical liberalism in that its Rhetoric and the Idealism it was written in were a profess of Transcendental Values or Idealistic Principles....

That is to say, not everyone is as smart, or born as wealthy whatever... But it is to say just because you are stronger than a woman you don't get to beat her with a stick.... Right because she has rights and dignity as a person that one elevates.

Below from the United States.... You can see the admission of assumption or more precisely the axiomatic basis of values with the "WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF EVIDENT,"
That was the initial justification, the deliberation and the conclusion by saying WE TAKE THESE VALUES AS AXIOMS... life, liberty etc etc.

The truth is as entailed to rights that someone with down syndrome doesn't get treated as a non-person and someone who is poor doesn't get cut from the right to vote or due process of law. I think the question is a misreading intentional or otherwise if you think people some 300ish yrs ago believed for so many reasons a one legged man had an even chance in an ass kicking contest.

The advanced form of human understanding and kept secret to a certain extent to function without a doubt. The problem is the proof positive claims on tendency tend to be wrong and rather than hidden some of the most horrendously disgusting things are kept in plain sight.

For instance operation, Northwoods is perhaps some of the most Machiavellian and disgusting examples of this.... or the 'advanced interrogation techniques' at Abu Ghraib if one is capable of empathy... The court case of the humiliating photos that came out of there as well the defense that got alot of people off was more or less... The purge of information, the way that prison was run dehumanized them anyway, the advanced interrogation techniques and body bags from CIA interrogations more or less made it a dehumanizing pit of despair... A basic understanding of markets knows that there have always been patterns of wealth accumulation and crisis points.... The wealthy get fair weather capitalism year round while most folks who try to live an American Dream assets take a real hit..... The circle of absurdity continues we all argue 'something must be done' and slowly and painfully this change occurs.

When I was younger (definitely not now) I wished there was an Illuminati and by that I mean a friendly dictator taking the unwashed masses forward as the hand behind the curtain only because we are dealing with the potential deaths of millions of people maybe billions depending on how bad the impact of global warming is and how unreasonable people will be about trying to seize assets. There is a sense as well where a conspiracy could take place much less as an agreed upon principle, a club we all go to but more so an understanding. In that sense 'the breakaway civilization' or the 'party of Davos' rhetoric of national populism makes more sense.

BUT..... when I look to the far political left of the country having a fair few anti-globalist leanings in terms of international monetization and socialism then I look to the far right that has a fair few anti-globalization pro-nationalist capitalisms....

I find myself more perplexed and suspicious that these general sense impressions of much of the political sphere are a joke, that poorly organized sporadic groups of people who often have poorly expressed, highly exaggerated rhetoric and often non-rational basis of justification leaves a questionable basis for throwing them into boxes marked Left and Right hoping to make sense of it....

Applying this to big business and the wealthy I can see clear divides and competition particularly in the recent attacks on social media or say insurance companies being instrumental in taking Big Oil to task the value of these pejorative and generalized distinctions.

If your naturalism wants a reductionism of substance that corresponds to principles of understanding physicalism is incompatible namely because the principles will eventually become mathematical abstraction and mathematics.

I think physicalism or material reductionism is best considered an educational tool, organization/contextualization... It is infintely important to have an educated public that knows for instance the cell, DNA and genes are basic units and concepts that relate to biology and know what the are.
In terms of the grand philosophy I think as we move forward we will be looking at more computational/information based theories because it actually reflects our understanding and practice. In particular synthetic biology is much more focused and defined as a methodological approach to biology understanding and utilizing it as a technology than it is any overarching concerns like the origin or meaning of life...

Postmodernism managed to make a devastating critique to the Humanities notion or ability to get to Truth when Derrida ran over Structuralism. But the entire essence of that critique was the certain arbitrary notions of texts and readings. As it were the theoretical problems of distinguishing what constitutes more legitmate and better readings in theoretical principles.

But these criticisms just do not hold water in Science and everyday life...

The statements I need to put on a red shirt vs I need to stop at a red light....

do not declare the same kind of meaning through the use of the word need and one as an ethical/functional statement, one is matter of fact in import the other is not. Postmodernism assumes a false relativism of hypothesizing 'theory' can be applied as a Worldview and it can't....

If it did these people would treat turning on the television as an equal danger as putting metal in the microwave and scissors in plug sockets.... I wouldn't have a postmodern condition because an evolutionary principle would have taken over. The entire thing about postmodernism is it isn't interested in truth or sincerity at all.... Because everything in some sense or another is a game of language... Ironically taken out of context from Wittgenstein who was a person deeply concerned with sensitivity of language, talking passed people and so on.

So discussing how the critique of structuralism cannot be applied to Science at a base level of natural laws and quantification that is 7 yards not 7 miles and there is no real opinion on that which will change the factuality... All you will get from the postmodernist typically is the skeptical theory of signs and deconstruction that says something obscure but in English means.... Facts and Truths are only so because of their building parts...
Completely agree.... 7 yards is true because 7 cannot be 6 and yards cannot be inches or miles.... now back to my question of the unarbitrary nature of meter? The question goes nowhere instead the more successful attempts of postmodernism seem to ignore, deviate or best con the materialist into trying to defend 7 and yards in some platonic sense.... NOPE the language is not the thing I agree but the distance from point A to point B in the world of the phenomenon is a completely different order of truth than one's reading and opinion about Shakespeare...


It assumes all language is a game in a very arbitrary way to the idea a postmodernist wants to debate you fairly, has or is capable of sincerity or is interested in any way of defining themselves positively is already ascribing a kind of decency I have no reason to presume exists. I am not saying that genuine people who call themselves postmodernists exists... I am saying the position allows for these kinds of toxic shenanigans so rather than try and debate them the best thing you could do is put them in a dog house until they actually show they are somebody or a group of people who actually want to talk and reason like human beings. Because based on the descriptor postmodernist you can't be sure of really a much of anything.... unlike materialist it is safe to assume they believe in gravity, Copernican model of cosmology, an atom, a base 10 number system and so on.... A postmodernist.... can you really assume the same thing?

Being a science teacher and having to put up with this nonsense coming into my classroom I have seen the advocates of Michael Foucault and Derrida come in the form of 14 yr olds that don't know Michael Foucalt criticized Derrida of obscurantism more than Chomsky did.... I am also to skeptical to simply say 'these are kids' .... because I have seen adults as inexcusably ignorant on their own self ascribed position.... But in the post-truth and politically correct age where a duck cannot be a duck how can such a person be considered a shallow thinker?