• Ethical Principles
    Something is only then indoctrination when critical thinking is not allowed.Artemis

    Single-concern bullshit is not the same as critical thinking.

    Demanding evidence within a system for system-wide axioms is not the same as critical thinking. On the contrary, it is just stupid, infinite regress.

    Seriously, all of that amounts to system-less nonsense and not to critical thinking. What these people are doing, is easy. It does not require any skill. It is inferior nonsense.

    They think that they are doing logic, but they have absolutely no clue about systems of logic. Why don't they try to reason within or about e.g. Hilbert-Ackermann calculi, if logic is so important to them?

    These people are just a bunch of idiots.
  • Can reason and logic explain everything.
    How does empiricism play a role in the above? IOW one might think you mean via deduction alone.Coben

    In that case, the OP will have to scrap science, because it uses an entire bureaucracy of correspondence-checking formalisms that keeps scientific patterns in sync with experimental observations.

    Pure deduction, i.e. "pure reason", only deals with abstract, Platonic worlds constructed from a basic set of (possibly arbitrary, speculative) beliefs. Pure reason is not about the real, physical world at all.
  • How should we carry out punishment?
    What measures 'real'?Isaac

    That question translates into: How much of a fragment of the system is sufficient to still achieve the goal of adjudicating the question of halal (permissible) versus haram (impermissible) behaviour?

    Unfortunately, the exercise has never been done with Jewish or Islamic law. It would require a complete encoding of their foundational rules in an executable version of the language of first-order logic. This is considered "hard work":

    What is Coq? Coq is a formal proof management system. It provides a formal language to write mathematical definitions, executable algorithms and theorems together with an environment for semi-interactive development of machine-checked proofs.

    It is considered much "harder" than encoding the basic rules in traditional prenex normal form. Prenex is unfortunately not unambiguous enough to successfully achieve machine-mechanical verifiability.

    This exercise has been done, however, with the theory of arithmetic (which is simpler). The default, standard theory is Dedekind-Peano, while several simplified theories of arithmetic have been tested for their system-level properties, such as, Presburger, Skolem, and Robinson. The exercise was systematized into the Z2 second-order theory of arithmetic by David Hilbert. The Koreans have sponsored the entire encoding of Z2 (and its main subsystems) in Coq. It was undoubtedly a costly affair.

    If I could find sufficient funding to do this for Jewish law and/or Islamic law, I would certainly want to work on the project, and hire a team to try to pull it off. It is a "hard" project, because successfully encoding theory of arithmetic was already a feat.

    Even if you had your stupid machine someone would still have to program it and you'd still have to decide whether to trust this programmer or that one, each time they delivered an edict.Isaac

    A machine is a program, and a program is a machine. In this context, the term "machine" does not mean hardware. It probably means the Coq or Isabelle proof assistants. Coq is spearheaded by a French team and Isabelle by a German team. In my impression, Coq has gained more traction than Isabelle, but that situation could still end up reversed in the future.

    The profile for this kind of work is not really a programmer but a mathematician. Still, this person must be able to handle machine-verifiable formalisms, which are notoriously harder than standard prenex. Furthermore, unlike what you may expect, the scripts are not 100% declarative. The proof verification tactics have important imperative aspects. So, he will end up doing some programming too. In that sense, these scripts are not pure math either.

    Yes it does, the device in question is a brain.Isaac

    No, no, no. Atheism is system-less bullshit. There is simply nothing to encode in a proof assistant. So, what brain would you need for atheism? What skills? Atheism is stuff for idiots. Either you reason within a system, or else about a system, because in all other cases, you are doing system-less bullshit.

    How do you know the other systems have worked out the complete implications of what they say?Isaac

    Theory of arithmetic has important system-wide, emergent properties. Theory of logic too. You can check e.g. the Hilbert-Ackermann calculi for that.

    For example, Dedekind-Peano (=standard arithmetic) is semantically complete, syntactically incomplete, and system-wide consistent (according to Gentzen's proof).

    It is not sure what the "complete implications" would mean as a system-wide property.

    For example, statements in arithmetic are recursively enumerable at or below the maximum treshold in the arithmetic hierarchy. If the set of such statements is not even recursively enumerable (=above treshold), then their "complete implications" cannot be determined (meaning: the list of all statements provable in that system). There will simply be no algorithm possible to traverse that set.

    Religious law is a rigorous axiomatic system which rests on a finitary number of basic beliefs. Still, it may take even more work than for arithmetic theory or logic theory to uncover its formal system properties. But then again, that looks like an interesting challenge to me.
  • How should we carry out punishment?
    Anyone who shows such blatant disregard for the welfare of others as you show by your endorsement of a justice system which serves only the wealthy is a sociopath by definition. Asian, Greek, Jew, Christian, atheist... It's not the group identity, its the opinion.Isaac

    I never said that I endorse "a justice system which serves only the wealthy". I endorse serious religious law. Furthermore, I do not endorse needless or disparaging criticism on Asian, Greek, Jew, or Christian.

    What measures 'complete', what smeasures 'real-world mileage', what measures 'system-less'? These seem like terms you arbitrarily apply to give post hoc justification for your dismissal of ideas which make you uncomfortable.Isaac

    Jewish law is a real system. Islamic law is a real system. Arbitrary remarks about "serving only the wealthy" is not a real system.

    It's you reading the book, it's you deciding which imam to trust, it's you deciding how to interpret laws in each unique case.Isaac

    For a starters, Jewish law is adjudicated by Rabbis. It is Islamic law where you have Ulema and Mufti. I respect serious systems of morality. I have asked jurisprudential questions to serious religious scholars in the past, and I have received verifiable and absolutely satisfactory answers.

    You can't escape responsibility by hiding under the cowls of religion. You decided to adopt that religion.Isaac

    Unlike atheism, which is a non-system, these religious systems of law and morality offer documented and complete answers to jurisprudential questions. Furthermore, you can verify the epistemology of the answer by double-checking the methodology in the answer. E.g. usul al fiqh:

    Principles of Islamic jurisprudence, also known as Uṣūl al-fiqh (Arabic: أصول الفقه‎, lit. roots of fiqh), are traditional methodological principles used in Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) for deriving the rulings of Islamic law (sharia).

    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.

    Atheism does not allow for that. It is just non-system bullshit. Where is the system? No epistemology. No verification procedures. What can I do with that? Nothing at all !

    So we collectivise to put pressure on China too.Isaac

    Ha ah aha! Good luck with that!
    Maybe try with Russia too!

    I strive for what I think is right, not what I think is immanent.Isaac

    You have no real or serious system to determine what is right. You just raise some silly concern about wealthy people benefiting (who cares?) without complete system to figure out the implications or wider ramifications of what you are saying. You have no complete system as an alternative for Jewish law or Islamic law. That is where the bullshit is.
  • How should we carry out punishment?
    I don't give a shit how it's working out for you, this is a philosophy forum, not a tour guide for sociopaths.Isaac

    So, in your opinion, Asians would be sociopaths? Is that "philosophy" in your opinion? It sound much more like racist bullshit. I like Asians. I like their culture and their ways. Your racist views on Asians are despicable.

    The point was a moral one.Isaac

    Your point does not make any reference to a complete moral system with real-world mileage. Hence, it is just the system-less bullshit that is otherwise so typical of the godless vermin.

    Furthermore, as far as I am concerned, all morality and all legitimacy emanate from the laws of the Almighty. Therefore, I will only consider moral arguments within that delineation. I am certainly ok with the systems of Jewish or Islamic law, because I am familiar with them.

    Therefore, I do not consider your point to be of moral nature, because an atheist argument is not receivable in morality. On the contrary, it is always non-system bullshit.

    We collectivise and use our collective might to force them to give up their wealth, or adhere to laws which treat people equally.Isaac

    That is probably why such wealthy people have moved all their factories to China, just next-door from here. So, stop lamenting that they should "bring back our jobs" because I do not see them doing that any time soon. On the contrary, they will rather be moving even more business to this area of the world. So, what will there be to collectivize, really?

    Furthermore, it's simply more fun to live here. I enjoy it here fantastically well.

    So, yes, "collectivize" whatever you want over there, where you live. Just go for it. The more, the better. Arduously force things around and create a complete socialist "paradise" by forcing the matter!
  • How should we carry out punishment?
    ...and you call it "may somewhat favour the rich"?Isaac

    In the end, everything favours the rich. Well, it rather favours the ones with brains; but the (really) rich can always go on a hiring spree with their money.

    You can sometimes -- but less often than people seem to think -- get better doctors too, if you pay the money. A rich person may survive while a poor one may instead die.

    Still, "possibly favouring the rich" is just an isolated concern and not the description of a complete system. There is not much you can do with isolated concerns, especially, in the context of trade-offs.

    I have learned to appreciate the local legal system, quirks, warts, and all, just like I appreciate the local food, the weather, the language, the music, and of course, the women.

    All of that works absolutely fine for me.

    There are foreigners who do not like some of these things, but hey, they can always move on to another place, can't they? I have been here for over a decade. I find Asia fantastic. You will probably not find me anywhere else any time soon.
  • How should we carry out punishment?
    I wonder if you have been either a victim or a perpetrator in relation to this victim compensation system.Possibility

    I have only discussed a few cases with people who were involved in them. The people in this country tend to be Buddhist, but they also think of justice first and foremost in terms of victim compensation. The government official handling the case, usually the police here, certainly takes that into account. He will facilitate payment from perpetrator to victims, while taking a commission for himself to compensate for his effort. I cannot imagine people here handling such case in any other way.

    The point of North’s thought exercise was to illustrate that a victim compensation system, while it may have some success, like all other ‘crime and punishment’ morality systems in effect, is not the solution - it does not ‘work’ in isolation, and is just as prone to corruption as any other.Possibility

    Given the fact that people have been applying this system since time immemorial, we know in detail how it works. Furthermore, it is not even optional in an Islamic context, because the Quran etches the principle of victim compensation in stone (favouring diyya in lieu of qisas):

    Quran 2:178: O ye who believe! the law of equality is prescribed to you in cases of murder: the free for the free, the slave for the slave, the woman for the woman. But if any remission is made by the brother of the slain, then grant any reasonable demand, and compensate him with handsome gratitude, this is a concession and a Mercy from your Lord. After this whoever exceeds the limits shall be in grave penalty.

    Victim compensation is carried out in lieu of equal retaliation, only when the victims agree with that. Still, in my experience, a lot depends on the negotiation skills of the facilitating state official.

    You’ve demonstrated that the system ‘seems to work fine’ in tandem with both incarceration and forgiveness. Remove those options, and I dare say that the system won’t work so well.Possibility

    Incarceration is not considered a real solution to the problem. The Quran does not even mention it. Of course, forgiveness is a possibility, but it really depends on the ability of the victims to forgive. Demanding that they would forgive the perpetrator, is absolutely not an option. They are simply under no obligation to do so. The default position is still equal retaliation. Now, the job of the state official handling the case is to defuse that landmine and try to achieve to a compromise.

    Buddhists are happy with that system, and Muslims most likely too (given the fact that it is mandated by the Quran).
  • How should we carry out punishment?
    Have you read 84K by Claire North?Possibility

    No, but at first glance, it looks like a possibly interesting thought exercise. I have just read the summary here: https://www.kategriffin.net/books-by-claire-north/84k

    Legal systems that revolve around victim compensation seem to work fine, though. In some sense, they may somewhat favour the rich, but then again, the alternative is obviously even worse: no victim compensation at all.

    In Islamic law, justice often revolves around diyya, i.e. financial victim compensation, which may be used in lieu of equal retaliation:

    Diya (Arabic: دية‎; plural diyāt, Arabic: ديات‎) in Islamic law, is the financial compensation paid to the victim or heirs of a victim in the cases of murder, bodily harm or property damage. It is an alternative punishment to qisas (equal retaliation). In Arabic, the word means both blood money and ransom, and it is spelled sometimes as diyah or diyeh.[citation needed]. It only applies when victim's family want to compromise with the guilty party; otherwise qisas applies.

    It may happen that the victim's family really does not want financial compensation, as even the facilitating state official may fail at persuading them, and in that case, the State will have to keep the perpetrator in prison to protect him from reprisals by the family. In other cases, the family may just forgive the perpetrator, even without financial compensation.

    There is probably no urgent need for Claire North's thought exercise, because other parts of the world have centuries of experience with the principle of financial victim compensation. Her fantasy can never be as accurate as real, historical records.
  • Attempt at an intuitive explanation (ELI12) for the weirdest logic theorem ever (Gödel-Carnap)
    The seemingly natural solution would be to exclude Provable(%S) as a primary predicate (as with True(%S), per Tarski) thus preventing the Godel sentence from being generated via the diagonal lemma.Andrew M

    Gödel's theory T is an unholy concoction of pure logic + number theory.

    Take for example the sentence S1="Socrates is human". The truth status of this sentence is determined externally. In terms of the number theory in which we are operating, the truth of this sentence is just being axiomatized. It constitutes an axiomatic extension to the system. It has nothing to do with anything that would otherwise be provable from number theory.

    Theory T happily supports this type of sentences. Pure logic (as opposed to number theory + logic) does not try to figure out the truth of basic sentences. This information is always axiomatically supplied from outside the system.

    The sentence S2="12 > 3" is different. It is a sentence of which we can determine the provability in number theory itself. Its provability is not externally supplied.

    True(S) will actually work fine. It is True(%S) that does not work. Funnelling sentences through the number-theoretical module of the system in order to determine their truth is not allowed. However, you are still allowed to funnel it through the pure logic module of the system with True(S).
  • Can reason and logic explain everything.
    The Riemann hypothesis is concerned about the construction of an abstract object, and as such it does not necessarily have a resolution.
    When writing the OP I was referring to the understanding of the universe and its workings.
    staticphoton

    Agreed.

    Abstract, Platonic worlds are different from the real, physical world. Still, the real, physical world is to be considered more complex and more difficult to understand, if only, because unlike in the case of abstract, Platonic worlds, we have no copy of its construction logic.

    We cannot fully understand even abstract, Platonic worlds, if their construction logic is sophisticated enough. If it contains a sufficiently large fragment of number theory, it will defeat our ability to fully understand it.

    We cannot expect the real, physical world, in its full detail, to be easier to understand than a mere thought exercise. We will hit fundamental limitations in much, much simpler worlds already.

    Logic on its own is nothing. The premise is whether one believes logic and reason are sufficient tools to ultimately provide the means to model the universe as it actually is, and therefore going well beyond the mutually conflicting approximations we have so far been able to come up with.staticphoton

    Yes, logic alone is not viable as a tool in an empirical context. Science will demand real-world experimental testing. Merely calculations are not accepted for explaining anything.

    Furthermore, logic itself is an abstract, Platonic system based on the 14 basic, speculative, arbitrary beliefs of propositional logic. It is always the core axiomatic module (and language) of any system. However, these basic beliefs say more about us than about the real, physical world. They have helped us to survive on earth. However, they were never used to survive elsewhere in the universe; in which case these beliefs might have ended up shaped differently. Logic itself could easily be just a Platonic-cave shadow of an unknown, real, universal logic, which we don't know. We may not even have the capacity to deal with the remainder of the universe.
  • Can reason and logic explain everything.
    I assume on your first sentence you are stating that maybe some problems cannot be solved logically.staticphoton

    Even logical problems cannot be solved logically. They are pretty much always solved using other, unknown mental faculties.

    It is not because you know a particular conclusion/theorem, and that you also know the construction logic of the abstract world in which it applies, that you will therefore be able to demonstrate that the theorem logically follows from the construction logic.

    A good example is the Riemann hypothesis. Nobody has been able to find a counterexample. At the same time, nobody has been able to prove that it necessarily follows from number theory.

    If this problem were objectively solvable, i.e. if it were a logical problem to discover this proof, then we could just give the problem to a machine, and then the machine would figure it out. This is not possible. In other words, the discovery of the evidence that turns a claim into knowledge, is not a rational problem.

    Logic would be totally worthless and unusable without these other, unknown, mental faculties that allow us to discover a meaningful use for logic.

    The schools and the universities are not training people who will be able to solve problems, because there does not exist an objective procedure for doing that. Of course, that is just one reason why higher education is increasingly becoming worthless.
  • How much philosophical education do you have?
    What I take from modern philosophy is that most knowledge and the most important kinds of knowledge are not only not formal but not explicit at all. Formal knowledge is charming.jellyfish

    The problem with informal knowledge is that it has no objective justification. Therefore, its status as knowledge is necessarily uncertain.
  • How much philosophical education do you have?
    I know philosophers have fantasized about perfect languages which would allow for god machines with which we could crank out truth after truth after truth...jellyfish

    That would not be possible anyway. Knowledge cannot be discovered by machines. It can be verified by machines, however. Furthermore, only empirical knowledge purports to somehow correspond to the truth.
  • Can reason and logic explain everything.
    There is nothing in the universe that can't be understood by human reasoning and logic.staticphoton

    Science is merely a Platonic-cave shadow of the real explanation for the universe, i.e. the theory of everything (ToE).

    We will continually formulate more sophisticated models to explain the universe, however if somehow the true universal laws were presented to us, it would be beyond our capability to decypher them.staticphoton

    It is not even sure that "more sophisticated models" are within reach. They could be, but they could also not be.

    Concerning the ToE, i.e. the "true universal laws", Stephen Hawking argued that they were out of reach in his lecture Gödel and the end of physics. I am a bit uncomfortable with his justification for that view, because he readily mixes mathematics and physics:

    What is the relation between Godel’s theorem and whether we can formulate the theory of the universe in terms of a finite number of principles? One connection is obvious. According to the positivist philosophy of science, a physical theory is a mathematical model. So if there are mathematical results that can not be proved, there are physical problems that can not be predicted.

    This connection is not "obvious" to me. Hawking said all of that en passant between two other ideas, and he very quickly moved on to the next idea. I am not sure that it is that easy. Mathematics and physics are epistemically so different that it leaves a strange impression when someone shoots off that kind of statements between breakfast and lunch. Even though I do not reject Hawking's views, I think that they were said too easily, and absorbed by the audience too easily. As far as I am concerned, the link between mathematics and physics is not as simple as Hawking depicts it.
  • How should we carry out punishment?
    Why should we carry out punishment?Banno

    The first concern should be victim compensation.

    That is certainly the case where I live. If you pay off the victims, and you pay off the facilitating state official, you will go Scott-free, even possibly for murder (that wouldn't be the first time anyway). Still, if the victims refuse your money, you could be in trouble. But then again, they usually do not refuse the compensation if it is high enough.

    That is why the effective number of incarcerations is very small here. There are very few people in prison. Quite a few names are still registered as being in prison, but in reality, they are not incarcerated.

    However, this is very often not the case when the convict is a foreigner.

    As soon as the foreigner makes the cardinal mistake of notifying his embassy, he can no longer pay off victims along with some facilitation money. He will be the only one to actually sit out the prison sentence mentioned in the books, which is often very long.

    I have seen it many times over the last ten years: Americans, Germans, Australians, and so on, sitting out long prison sentences (often for possession of drugs) when a local would just have paid off the prosecutor and/or the judge. I have recently met an American, Andy, who a few months ago got released after five long years in the slammer. There are no locals who spend that long in jail. That just does not happen.
  • How much philosophical education do you have?
    I can't grasp its essence, because its essence, as per the Vikipaedia excerpt, is numerous.god must be atheist

    In its modern understanding, epistemology amounts to computability:

    Computability is the ability to solve a problem in an effective manner. It is a key topic of the field of computability theory within mathematical logic and the theory of computation within computer science. The computability of a problem is closely linked to the existence of an algorithm to solve the problem.

    Modern epistemology simply says that there must always exist a computable procedure to verify the justification of formal knowledge. Otherwise, it is not formal knowledge.

    Note that there does not need to exist a computable procedure to discover the justification of formal knowledge. From Gödel's incompleteness theorems, we know that such requirement would be impossible to satisfy.
  • How much philosophical education do you have?
    What does the word "epistemology" actually mean, alcontali?god must be atheist

    Let me check if I can agree with the wikipedia page on the matter:

    Epistemology (/ɪˌpɪstɪˈmɒlədʒi/ (About this soundlisten); from Greek ἐπιστήμη, epistēmē, meaning 'knowledge', and -logy) is the branch of philosophy concerned with the theory of knowledge.

    Epistemology is the study of the nature of knowledge, justification, and the rationality of belief. Much debate in epistemology centers on four areas: (1) the philosophical analysis of the nature of knowledge and how it relates to such concepts as truth, belief, and justification,[1][2] (2) various problems of skepticism, (3) the sources and scope of knowledge and justified belief, and (4) the criteria for knowledge and justification. Epistemology addresses such questions as: "What makes justified beliefs justified?",[3] "What does it mean to say that we know something?",[4] and fundamentally "How do we know that we know?"[5]


    Yes, I think that I am more or less ok with the definition proposed, but I also think that it can be simplified.

    Epistemology is the theory of knowledge, with knowledge meaning: justified belief. Hence, epistemology is the wholesale inventory of standard and accepted knowledge-justification methods.

    Question:
    Imagine that we have a claim Q. When can we say that Q is knowledge?

    Answer:
    Q is only knowledge, if there exists a statement P, as such that: P => Q, i.e. : Q "necessarily follows" from P.

    The term "necessarily follows" depends on the accepted knowledge-justification method for the epistemic domain of Q. For formal (=written) knowledge, the three main, dominant knowledge-justification methods are:

    Empirical (=real-world):

    Platonic (=abstract-world):

    Therefore, knowledge justification starts by pointing out the epistemic domain to which the question belongs. Next, we verify if the justifying argument conforms with the rules and regulations of the knowledge-justification method associated with the epistemic domain.

    In this view, a knowledge claim can be verified mechanically, i.e. "objectively". In that sense, modern epistemology harks back to the 1936 Church-Turing thesis:

    A claim is formal knowledge, only if there exists a purely machine-mechanical procedure to verify its justification.
  • Suicide of a Superpower
    A decade of bleeding with 8,000 U.S. dead, 40,000 woundedfrank

    These numbers do not take into account that most personnel are contractors, and that it is these contractors who get to do the really dangerous work:

    Report: Contractors outnumber U.S. troops in Afghanistan 3-to-1

    In fact, they even misreport the number of contractors, because not all such paid personnel are included in the statistics:

    The data, compiled by the Congressional Research Service ...

    There are no statistics on dead and wounded contractors. They avoid compiling that data, and they do everything to make it impossible to compile. The books are seriously cooked.
  • How much philosophical education do you have?
    I was going to respond to you, but that last paragraph disparaging trans persons made me lose my interest in anything you have to say.Artemis

    I do not have any opinion about them -- seriously who cares? -- but I would not agree that they lectured anything to my children. But then again, it is a non-issue because the other parents here wouldn't agree either, and since these schools are private, it is the parents who decide.
  • How much philosophical education do you have?
    As for methodology, most humanities classes depend on a textbook, discussion, a knowledgeable instructor, willing students, and some writing exercises. That hasn't changed for more than 150 years. It hasn't really changed since the Ancients. It's just not a wheel that needs reinventing.Artemis

    I believe that you either use the machine, or else you build or program the machine, because in all other cases, you are simply trying to be the machine.

    As a consequence, every time something else gets automated, particular classes no longer make sense.

    You know, back in the 1850ies, when the public education system first got developed, it really made sense to be good at manual calculations and arithmetic, because back then there were quite a few clerical jobs in which you had to be good at that. It also made sense to memorize textbooks, because they tended to be expensive and also difficult to get.

    I am not impressed with the amount of rote memorization that is still customary in public education. Furthermore, very few people who come out of that system have the slightest clue about epistemology.

    They may have read lots of other things, but they simply fail to distinguish between knowledge and non-knowledge. But then again, that is rather a feature than a bug in the public-school indoctrination camp. I do not believe for a second that they would even like it if these students were able to make that distinction.

    A lot of what the Ancients wrote, was not knowledge either. In fact, only some of it is worth reading today. But then again, the ability to determine that requires a good understanding of epistemology, and that is exactly what the public indoctrination camps will avoid.

    They want to be able to bring trannies to school for them to lecture the children on gender fluidity. If the kids were able to distinguish between knowledge and mere ideology, they wouldn't believe the trannies.
  • How much philosophical education do you have?
    Do girls receive education where you live? Just curious.frank

    Probably. There are different communities with different views on different subjects, of which I do not seek to figure out the nitty-gritty details because they are not my personal problem.
  • How much philosophical education do you have?
    But all that doesn't really lead to the logical conclusion that nobody stands anything to gain from studying and researching a subject intensely under the tutelage of people who've also studied and researched these fields intensely.Artemis

    Education hasn't changed for 150 years. It is still the same schools and largely the same curriculum. Every other industry has changed drastically. How comes?

    Of course, there's now Coursera, Udemy, Edx, and so on.

    Subscriptions are typically priced from $39 to $89 per month for access to one Specialization, with no long-term commitment required.

    The pricing for online education looks much more reasonable anyway.

    Furthermore, if you want to engage in cheap credentialism, you can "get a degree" in much cheaper countries. In some places, it's only $500/year. You may not even need to fly there (just do it online). Since employers in the USA happily hire Indian engineers with Indian degrees, why wouldn't they hire you with a cheap, credentialist, foreign degree?

    Or perhaps, when you have brain cancer someday, you'll prefer some random guy off the street to do your surgery over the doctor who went to medical school and was taught how to do it right?Artemis

    Maybe he will also prescribe me some opioids and make sure I join the breakfast club of dead bodies?

    My knee-jerk reaction is to engage extensively in jurisdiction shopping.

    If the situation is markedly different between two different countries, then the reason for that is almost always some government bullshit.

    You can fly to Vietnam or Mexico, have your operation in an upmarket private hospital over there, first-class everything, spend a month in a holiday resort for recovery, and then fly back, all of that for a tenth of the price that it would cost you to have the operation locally in the USA.

    And no, I do not necessarily trust doctors, or anybody else for that matter. Why would I? It is always necessary to do your research, ask for second opinions, and so on. If it becomes clear that everybody keeps saying something different, then that is indeed a problem.

    A medical opinion is not expensive here. They will diagnose your problem for $20-$50 including laboratory tests over here. All private service. If you don't like the first opinion, ask for a second one somewhere else.
  • How much philosophical education do you have?
    Hence my knowledge of how academia works.Artemis

    With how much student debt have they saddled you in exchange for their worthless paperwork?

    Expensive paperwork from the academia, which translates into enslaving IOU paperwork to the banksters and/or other scumbags of the ruling elite, does NOT signal that someone would be smart or competent.

    These days, it rather signals the very opposite.

    Furthermore, at least 80% of the subject matter taught at university does not satisfy the epistemic definition for the term "knowledge".

    What a ridiculous scam. A fool and his money are easily parted ...
  • Pride
    What are your thoughts about pride?Wallows

    Since the emotion exists, it undoubtedly has a role somewhere, but like all emotions, it needs to be strictly controlled.

    Religion warns against (uncontrolled) pride: Thirty-third Greater Sin: Pride or Arrogance

    The worst form of pride is the refusal to worship God, which is otherwise his due:

    Then there are individuals who do not deny the existence of Allah (S.w.T.) but they show their arrogance against Allah (S.w.T.) by not worshipping Allah (S.w.T.) and by disobeying Allah (S.w.T.)’s orders regarding obligatory and prohibited acts.

    On the other hand, it is not allowed to be humble with atheists:

    A disbeliever is not deserving of respect because he does not acknowledge Allah (S.w.T.), the Supreme Being and in effect has degraded himself to a despicable position of those who openly defy Allah (S.w.T.).

    Islamic religious law is adamant that other believers should be approached with humility while atheists must be despised.
  • How much philosophical education do you have?
    Of course, if this counts as education...SophistiCat

    Nassim Nicholas Taleb (NNT)?

    His wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb

    You can also try to check out his subreddit; https://www.reddit.com/r/nassimtaleb

    NNT has a similar history to Thales of Miletus:

    Taleb considers himself less a businessman than an epistemologist of randomness, and says that he used trading to attain independence and freedom from authority.[33]

    Until a few years ago, I could not easily afford to spend an inordinate amount of time on something like the epistemology of randomness. Back then, I still had to make money.
  • On beginning a discussion in philosophy of religion
    Let's start this way: three terms: god, religion, theology. Pick one, and start your post with "God is," or "Religion is," or "Theology is."tim wood

    Religion is a set of beliefs that consists of two parts.

    The transcendental part are rituals, prayers, festivities, and similar behaviours. The religous-law part is a set of rules that forbid particular behaviour types and from which the believer can derive the moral status of the behaviour he intends to engage in.

    It is the religious-law part that tends to cause political issues.

    Politicians may argue that their lawmaking activity would be above religious law, while religious communities will insist that it is exactly the other way around. Since I benefit from anything that damages the political power of the ruling elite, I definitely side with the religious view.

    In other cases, I do not even seek to side with one, particular party, because I already benefit from the mere existence of the conflict. I find the position of the arms trader to be the most interesting. That is especially so, when it is possible to simultaneously sell weapons to both sides.
  • How much philosophical education do you have?
    it's almost like you're vaguely characterizing capitalism? free enterprising → $s → power → influence (conspire?) → maintain (free enterprising etc) → ...jorndoe

    We have known for a long time now that capitalism is not the same as free enterprise.

    That confusion was deliberately introduced. Capitalism is about having two classes of people in the economy: the class that owns the means of production and the class that sells labour to them. What does that have to do with "free enterprise"? Capitalism is much more like feudalism, where the nobles owned the land, and the serfs worked it with their labour.

    The funny thing is that the so-called defenders of labour, i.e. the trade unions, have long ago been co-opted to defend capitalism.

    The trade unions want all employment in the economy to be funnelled through wage-slave contracts between capitalist corporations and the thoroughly individualized workers whom they would pretend to represent. The trade unions defend that view with deceptive and manipulative messages claiming that "Your wage-slavery is good for you". The trade unions want to prevent at all cost that employees, who are dependent for work and income on their employers, would become more autonomous or even self-employed.

    It is the wage-slave system that is the corner stone of capitalism.

    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.

    By collecting your income as a salary, you perpetuate this system of wage slavery. I never do that. I have always invoiced for whatever I sold. Since switching to bitcoin, I also refuse to accept payments into a bank account. By accepting that kind of payments, you perpetuate the system of bank slavery.

    I strongly believe that "the most intolerant wins".

    You change the world, bit by bit, by being stubborn, intransigent, intolerant, and recalcitrant. You win by defeating the adversary in nay saying. Never listen to any manipulative or deceptive messages, and always repeat your nonnegotiable position. That is how you make the other side cave in; or else, you just move on to the next potential trade. Don't look back.
  • How much philosophical education do you have?
    I would be interested to see how many works of philosophy people have actually read cover to cover with care whilst taking notes - I don’t include ‘guides’ in this.I like sushi

    I have found Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Incerto series of books a really good read: "Black swan", "Antifragile", "Fooled by randomness", "Skin in the game", ... I have also read many of his blog posts. His focus is on epistemology, i.e. the question, "What is knowledge?", always centred around, and starting from the question of how we deal with randomness.
  • How much philosophical education do you have?
    "Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful."
    ~Lucius Annaeus Seneca
    180 Proof

    Seneca was talking about the Roman imperial cult, which was an umbrella of numerous pagan theories, including the Greek pantheon, but of which the truly active element was to believe that the adoptive son of the previous emperor was the son of a god.

    It is a well-known consideration that you should not believe your own lies. That will obviously go wrong.

    Therefore, the youngsters of the ruling elite ("the (future) rulers") were be trained by Greek philosophers ("the wise") to disbelieve that lie, but never to express their disbelief in any way in front of commoners ("the common people"), who were supposed to, and nudged to, believe in the divinity of the emperor.

    Two religions were hated by the Roman imperial elite: Judaism and Christianity. These beliefs were throwing a spanner in the works.

    Judaism was staunchly monotheist and did not allow for any other divinity that the single one they worshipped. Hence, it was subjected to violent reprisals by the Roman elite, who even destroyed their temple. Still, the Romans acquiesced and compromised. They tolerated Judaism, on the condition that the Jews paid a heavy tax, the Fiscus Iudaicus, and that they henceforth refrained -- on a mos maiorum basis -- from converting anybody else to their religion.

    Christianity was possibly even worse. Christians said that the alleged criminal hanging from a cross was the true son of a god, and not that Roman emperor, who was clearly just an impostor. So, they worshipped the man hanging from a cross while refusing to pay tribute to the Roman emperor. In fact, this was the only firmly-enforced rule in early Christianity. The early Christians did not particularly care what else you did, as long as you did not pay tribute to the Roman emperor.

    Lapsi. After the 250 AD Decian Persecution, Cyprian of Carthage held a council sometime after Easter 251 AD, in which Lapsi were classified into five categories:

    • Sacrificati: Those who had actually offered a sacrifice to the idols. Christians that made sacrifices, especially to Roman gods, were only offered absolution on their deathbeds.
    • Thurificati: Those who had burnt incense on the altar before the statues of the gods. From Latin thurificare – "burn incense"
    • Libellatici: Those who had drawn up attestation (libellus), or had, by bribing the authorities, caused such certificates to be drawn up for them, representing them as having offered sacrifice, without, however, having actually done so. A two-year sanction was imposed as penance. From Latin libellus – "little book; letter; certificate"
    • Acta facientes: Those that made false statements or other acts to save their lives. From Latin – "those doing the acts"
    • Traditores: Those who gave up sacred scriptures, artifacts and/or revealed names of fellow Christians. From Latin tradere - "hand over; deliver; betray" (source of the English "traitor”).

    Early Christianity was anti-Statism on steroids.

    Unfortunately, its doctrines were sufficiently malleable for the ruling elite to shoehorn its imperialist principles into it. The very first principle issued under supervision of Constantine the Great was a complicated statement meant to disavow strict monotheism: the Nicaean trinity. Just like the Holy Ghost, the Roman emperor became an aspect of God, instead of a god in his own right. Christianity was simply re-purposed to allow the Roman empire to organize religious persecutions at a level never seen before.

    But then again, at that point, there was no place any longer for a conspiracy between "the wise" and "the rulers" on an atheist basis. There are modern attempts at resuscitating that practice by using atheist scientists to disparage contemporary religion to the youngsters of the ruling elite, but it certainly does not work as well as in antiquity.
  • How much philosophical education do you have?
    Agreed - not inconsistent with my previous comment. Btw, same here with property-rental juridiction 'shopping'. Left-Libertarian though.180 Proof

    The power of the ruling elite ultimately rests on the fact that you trust them, even though you have no reason to do so.

    Their power is generally exercised by broadcasting deceptive and manipulative messages that usually include some kind of fake morality, such as e.g. :

    "Pay lots of taxes to us because that is the right thing to do!"

    Yeah, why exactly?

    The fact that the ruling elite brandish their weapons and wholesale threaten violence is way less of a source of power than generally believed. It is the ability to fabricate morality, which the masses will then believe, that gives them their power.

    It is obvious why the ruling elite may not like religion. It is clear that religion can act as an impediment to fabricating new moralities. It could also assist in doing that, but that depends on the religion. Hence, the religions that the ruling elite dislikes, are always the good ones. There can only be some truth in them.

    So, you need to investigate every arrangement in which you enter and dig up the underlying, implicit assumptions of unwarranted trust that you would extend to the ruling elite. For example, do you trust your savings to the fiat bankstering system? Halt there, because doing that, is wrong. You should never trust the ruling bankstering elite.

    A ruling elite should always be treated with utter distrust, and all their messages should always be investigated thoroughly, in order to find new reasons to totally disbelieve them.
  • How much philosophical education do you have?
    A gloriously cynical half-truth. Perfect p0m0 ur-conspiracy fodder. Amen.180 Proof

    Well, knee-jerk distrust of the ruling elite -- an otherwise standard libertarian view -- has worked out really nicely for me. It has allowed me to dodge quite a few bullets, the most important of which is that you cannot, under no circumstances, organize your private life on the jurisdictional territory of a so-called western democracy. That is a gigantic bullet dodged.

    Jurisdiction decoupling -and shopping is simply a necessity.

    For example, do you buy the house in which you live?

    No. Never.

    Buy a house in another jurisdiction, rent it out, and with the proceeds, pay the rent of the house in which you live. You will still own a house -- if that is what you want -- but it will be several orders of magnitude more difficult to confiscate it from you.

    I totally distrust the ruling elite, and that view is not negotiable. Furthermore, I still need to run into the first person who will defeat me in stubbornly nay saying.
  • The Natural Order of Life
    If humans are technically animals too, then we are no different from the beasts that roam the jungles.x11z6b3

    Humans exhibit characteristics that are animal-like but also quite a few that are very unlike animals.

    Evolution theory has some merit in pointing out that biological history on this earth may actually match particular patterns. However, it is an unsound belief to think that the final word has been said about that. It simply never works in that way for empirical subjects.

    I intuitively believe that humanity has special status. I am certainly interested in new discoveries that could shed more light on the matter.
  • How much philosophical education do you have?
    How much philosophical education do you have?Pfhorrest

    I had some philosophy classes at university but back then they rather struck me as "unimportant".

    The issue got propelled to the forefront because of the ontological and epistemological questions that arose while being involved in software engineering projects: Is there nothing more serious than the snake-oil bullshit en provenance from commercial software vendors?

    With free and open-source software (FOSS) going mainstream, that particular problem got smaller. Still, FOSS tends to create its own trouble. It is still possible to start hyping nonsense and push millions of people in the wrong direction.

    What I learned from the issues in that microcosmos, is: If millions of people believe in nonsense, this is always the result of a small cartel having a vested interest, and spending a lot of money, in getting these people to believe that nonsense. The converse is also true: If powerful interests spend a lot of money on stamping out a particular, popular belief, then this belief is most likely truthful. In that sense, the beliefs propagated by the ruling elite is almost a perfect "How not to do it" manual.

    Therefore, the challenge is to learn how to reconstruct the truth from their lies.
  • Is physical causality incomplete?
    What do you think? Is this argument flawed?Matias

    If we assume that free will exists, then it is a rather unpredictable ingredient in the universe.

    The Theory of Everything equates to the Preserved Tablet in Islam:

    Predestination in Islam. Muslims believe that the divine destiny is when God wrote down in the Preserved Tablet (al-lawh al-mahfooz) (several other spellings are used for this in English) all that has happened and will happen, which will come to pass as written. According to this belief, a person's action is not caused by what is written in the preserved tablet, but rather the action is written in the tablet because God already knows all occurrences without the restrictions of time.[5]

    So, a theory based on a finitary number of principles would still be possible, not because it is this theory that would be responsible for what we do -- we still are ourselves responsible for what we do -- but because it is not constrained by the progression of time, and can therefore skip ahead to figure out what we will be doing, ahead of time.

    What we are about to do, is not determined by machine calculation using the Preserved Tablet, but by look-up operations in the future state of the universe, which reveal what we have done in the past. This is then projected back to the present. Hence, the Preserved Tablet still knows what we are about to do.

    Hence, in order to get a complete picture of the successive states of the universe, calculation is not enough. Gaps need to be filled by reading ahead. This device is therefore not operable from within the universe, since reading ahead from within the universe is not possible.
  • Why do people choose morally right actions over morally wrong ones?
    Why would you choose to complete a difficult but morally right task over an easier but morally wrong one?Seeking Wisdom

    I recently saw a pack of hyenas on NatGeo Wild which were busy surrounding a lion. One hyena would distract the lion's attention, while the other ones would attack and bite the lion in the back. Lather, rinse, repeat until the lion had lost too much blood and could no longer try to break out. At that point, the hyenas bit his throat and killed him.

    Hyenas are a collaborative species. Therefore, they have collaboration rules, i.e. a morality.

    A single hyena would never be able to bring down a lion, but an entire pack of them will trivially smash a lion to smithereens, and have him for lunch. They are not mistaken nor impressed by the lion's teeth or claws. Their collaboration rules imply that they have obligations towards each other that they readily accept. It simply the name of the game.
  • Attempt at an intuitive explanation (ELI12) for the weirdest logic theorem ever (Gödel-Carnap)
    Just in case pictures help anyone with the wiki proof, or are of interest. Grateful for notification of errors, or suggestions for further signposting or clarification.bongo fury

    I think that the idea of "bends" is certainly useful in helping to understand the proof. However, I think that a video with animation would be very useful to illustrate it, i.e. a youtube video or so. In my opinion, the pdf does not provide enough explanation nor visual feedback about the bends, actually.
  • Does the Welfare State Absolve us of our Duty to care for one another?
    Well, that speaks volumes. Come back to the conversation when you've managed to get laid, some of your misogyny might have worn off.Isaac

    For a starters, I live in SE Asia. Secondly, I don't "get laid". I do this things according to centuries-old traditions. You are referring to the habits of the godless vermin and other vile animals whom we spit on.
  • The Satisfied Slave Dispute
    What criteria would you use to distinguish good lives from bad lives?TheHedoMinimalist

    Not sure, really.

    I rarely dream up my own theories. I usually just read other people's theories and verify them for issues.

    So, the idea is that someone dreams up a theory. Then, a lot of other people poke it for inconsistencies. If it fails, go back to step one. If it succeeds, then we have something new that could be worthwhile!
  • The Satisfied Slave Dispute
    If a person has a high degree of life satisfaction, then his life must be good. If a person has a high degree of dissatisfaction with his life then his life must be bad.TheHedoMinimalist

    It is very related to the concept of utility in economics:

    Within economics, the concept of utility is used to model worth or value. Its usage has evolved significantly over time. The term was introduced initially as a measure of pleasure or satisfaction within the theory of utilitarianism by moral philosophers such as Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill.

    The problem is that this kind of views are circular:

    Cambridge economist Joan Robinson famously criticized utility for being a circular concept: "Utility is the quality in commodities that makes individuals want to buy them, and the fact that individuals want to buy commodities shows that they have utility"[12]:48

    In the phrase, "A high degree of life satisfaction would mean that his life must be good", how is the term "good life" itself defined? Well, obviously, a good life would mean that it has a high degree of life satisfaction.

    So, as Joan Robinson pointed out, that kind of views are way too circular to be useful.
  • Sorry for this newbish post.
    Since you seem to be interested in philosophy in general, can I assume that you're curious about "truth"? (as in: What is truth? How did it get there? What is it good for?). In this case, you should look for introductory materials (videos, essays, or texts) on the subject of "epistemology".VagabondSpectre

    if truth is about correspondence with the real, physical world, and if epistemology seeks to detect patterns of justification in the abstract, Platonic world of knowledge, then epistemology does not deal with truth.

    Knowledge itself, as a Platonic abstraction expressed in language, is never a true object or observable, because it does not live in the real, physical world. Language expressions cannot be intrinsically true. They can only be moderately true by correspondence.

    The map is not the territory.

    Knowledge does not gain its status by being true, but merely by being justified.