And egalitarianism is the club we use to kill the elite so we can take their place. :up: — frank

Unfortunately, if we do not at some point figure out how to manage an equitable redistribution of wealth and educate enough people to ensure it stays redistributed, hard economic realities dictate that there will be a vicious clash between "those who have literally nothing left to lose" and "those who stole the basic necessities of life from everyone else".

You would think that 'enlightened self-interest' would rear its head eventually.

Think about it when it's your money, debts, financial investments, something quite important to you. Imagine your bank has no people that you can talk to. — ssu

Which is the reality. Which is why I now do my most important banking where there is decent brick and mortar access.

Company CEO's and organization leaders have a "revolutionary" idea: Let's replace ALL customer service with AI. The cost benefits are amazing! — ssu

Customer service - particularly technical support - is already in the shitter. Does it really matter if it drops out of the toilet bowl into the sewer?

There are some humans who will always look for and find the way to turn upheaval to their advantage, whether it's an invasion, a war, an economic disaster, or a revolution. When egalitarianism is a popular goal, these people will champion it, but they have no intention of being anywhere but at the top of the shuffled deck.

This is the main reason stratification has always followed the removal of a Czar, a French or English King, a Chinese emperor, and so forth. Every generation will have its sinful elite, not because the people failed to express the true ideals of liberalism or Marxism, but because we never escape our nature. — frank

I just finished a book that closely examined the series of European revolutions in 1848. The reality is that there are a variety of different strata or classes which, for different reasons can either become radicalized (tending to support the proletariat) or reactionary (tending to support the elite). Eventually, one class that ideologically supports revolution swings to the reactionary side to protect social stability (i.e. those who have 'something to lose'). Probably this is due to a failure to recognize the true extent of the proletariat and a wish to belong to the sphere of the elite (which by its nature has to be extremely tiny). But human greed, or human nature as you say, has a lot to do with that.

Mass (symbolized m) is a dimensionless quantity representing the amount of matter in a particle or object. — Gnomon

But on the other hand mass also represents that quantity of energy bound in a particle (or anything). Which is interesting because energy can be bound directly, as mass. But it can also be bound in more complex forms stored by complex systems, which adds to the 'merely physical' mass of the system.

Desiring what happens in congruity with Nature is one of the three Stoic Disciplines.

"Ultimately, the discipline of desire involves bringing our will into congruity with Nature. In this state of congruity with Nature, we will live every present moment desiring what happens rather than what we may want to happen."
Traditional Stoicism
The attitude to death would fit in this program nicely.

All creatures who are aware of life are likewise aware of death. We humble homos seek meaning and purpose and in the process project it onto the world and pretend that we have found it! This to most is not good enough, my own grandmother is close to passing and she is a devout Christian, and I can tell she is absolutely terrified of the end. I believe this is the case for all rational animals, it's never good enough. But what if instead of being scared of death we actively try to make ourselves suffer and seek pain with the purpose of trying to force ourselves to want death? — MojaveMan

Wanting what you are going to get could be viewed as a form of Stoicism.

I think mathematics is a REAL language. — universeness

No argument here. I was mathematically blessed. But I was a bit of a fanatical explorer also. I had a bit of a chemical-excess incident when I was sixteen from which I had to be resuscitated. I remember clearly after that, being dissevered from the mathematical language. I used to be able to read a page from a math textbook like you would read a page of a book. To understand math, all I had to do was read it a little more slowly, the concepts just explained themselves, or more like the pieces of the puzzle took shape. After, I could still 'do' math, and understand math, but the gift of the language was gone. Some lessons are harder than others.

Thank you!

You might find the Royal Institute series of lectures on quantum fields stimulating.
The Universe is made of quantum fields

As to the overall 'reality' of mathematics, reality is clearly 'amenable' to modification through mathematical means, so if the effects of (the application of) mathematics are real, so must mathematics be.

a quantum Field is not a physical Object, but a metaphysical (mathematical) Concept. — Gnomon

Well, hang on. If it is the direct 'cause' of there being physical objects, then isn't it in some strong sense 'entangled' with and by the concept of 'physical-objectness'? Perhaps physical objects themselves do not perfectly exemplify 'physical-obectness' either?

I had never thought of it as information until I read a couple of threads on this site on consciousness and information. To some extent, that perspective works, but what seems to be missing is both sentience and narrative identity in the construction of an autobiographical sense of self identity. — Jack Cummins

Not just information, though, embodied information. Substance is meaningless without some kind of form, form without some kind of substance. I see information as a constituent of consciousness, but I wouldn't reduce consciousness to information.

I definitely see links between Ryle's understanding of the link between mind and matter and the nature of embodiment. In the last few months I read a few works in the phenomenological tradition and embodiment as expressed here does seem to be about such a fusion. I guess the other side of the issue is whether there is any possible separation, which goes back to Descartes' own thinking. Of course, a dead body is a dead body but I have heard anecdotal stories of people sensing a spirit leaving the body, but what that represents is open to question. — Jack Cummins

I find information to be an illustrative analogy. Information can be encoded in any number of ways, so in some sense, the nature of the information is entirely independent of the nature of its encapsulation. Form versus substance. On the other hand, consider analog computers. In them there is a functional relationship between the nature of the information encoded and the physical form and the function of the information encoded - the embodied form of that information. Analog computers can be very efficient and very effective at doing specific things. They can instantly parallel-compute the solution to complex problems, as in fire-control systems, for example.

The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society
by Jürgen Habermas

The role of the sphere of intellectual discourse and literature in the context of modern governance. Looks good.

Is it fair to say the Ryle is attempting to conceptually synthesize matter and mind? In what way does this differ from "embodiment" (something with which I am quite familiar)?

Regarding inner-experience or the experience of consciousness itself, my own experience of that is clear and compelling. Your mileage may vary. I have no trouble at all when people claim there is no such thing as consciousness; speaking for themselves, I am sure they are correct.

I've not read Ryle, so in deference to the specificity of your topic, I'll get my popcorn.

When I joined this forum, being rather naive of the current state of philosophy, I was surprised to have my philosophical reasoning & conjectures challenged for empirical evidence, rather than logical reasons. I thought that was the whole point of Philosophy : to go where Science cannot. Yes, philosophies often evolve into restrictive religions, but they may also free us from misconceptions. — Gnomon

Ironically, science announces its own inherent limitations in the loudest voice of all. You can debate ad nauseum whether resonating waves of neurons amount to what we experience as subjective consciousness. Meanwhile, 95% of everything that is is, at the most basic physical level, a complete unknown to us. What are the implications of that? I wouldn't want to speculate, but it would simply be foolish to imagine that there aren't any. Or to think that the present state of our own scientific knowledge is anything but...very limited.

Specifically, all of the claims to reductively explain mind via matter are themselves just hypotheses. Moreover, since they are hypotheses, and hypothesizing exemplifies what we mean by thinking, they seem to be inherently and obviously self-contradictory. Which is more unlikely, that matter produces thought, or that thought produces matter? Most likely we are looking at the twin poles of a dynamic system, substance and form, or hylomorphism. At least that's the direction I'm looking.

Do you think the removal of the Stalin statues all across the USSR in the 1960s was wrong?

Statues are made to celebrate people, their actions and their ideology, and they don’t function as neutral historical documents even many years later. When they’re not worth celebrating any more, pull them down. — Jamal

As I said, I think the fact that societies can and do put up statues that are an active misrepresentation demonstrates the degree to which we are capable of being misled. In a general social revolution I can understand removing all the hallmarks of the former dictator. On the other hand, statues that were embraced by the society at large do serve as reminders that we need to be ever vigilant. I think statues of Columbus ought to have plaques added outlining the historical truths.

Or just tear them all down and build some equally misguided new ones. I don't know.

It seems to happen, as might well be expected, that social inequalities and prejudices are enshrined in the languages we inherit. — unenlightened

Indeed! And the way to understand that is by understanding language, not by trying to artificially constrain it. It's like the people who want to destroy the statues of the false heroes of the past. Those statues are the monuments to human stupidity, greed, and gullibility. We need to keep those statues around to remind us what to watch out for today, and tomorrow....

If you accept that, "liberally", one percent of the population identifies as transgender (how much of that is due to media is another question) that is still a very, very low number to allow to influence the structure, semantics, meaning, flow of something as huge, vital, and beautiful as language. I have not now nor ever have had a prejudiced bone in my body. I'll happily call anyone whatever they ask me to. But that's it. Language is an organic product of our collective minds. No one has a right to dictate its evolution out of an aggressive parochialism. Let them legislate. My use of language is who and what I am.

So what you are saying is that, in addition to whatever is encoded in the sentence, there is an additional element which only exists in the actual communicative event?

The logos has been hijacked by Christianity in which it's equated with Jesus; this proves how important the idea is, but unfortunately, not how true it is. — Agent Smith

Well, I know you're gone but your spirit lives on....I think of Spinoza and Leibniz's usage of "the divine mind" or the "the divine intellect." That's the only legitimate sense in which we can seek to conceive of the possibility of God. Maybe you will apprehend this somehow still, in your nebulous anonymity...

How can it be said the meaning is a property of the expression—its use, its context, its syntax, its content, its whatever—if Y could not derive from it its meaning, and if Z has not expressed anything? — NOS4A2

Are you differentiating meaning from information? Or can meaning be reduced to information in your scenario?

"If introspection and consequent judgements are unreliable, then our belief that we observed what we believe we observed, as well as our belief that we reasoned correctly in analyzing our observations, are
equally unreliable – for these are judgements based on introspection "

Yes, it seems unlikely that we can ever eliminate the fact that we are actually thinking from the analysis of what thought is, doesn't it?

"Either final causality is natural or we are supernatural"

:up:

guess not

↪Agent Smith It's just glorified predictive text. — Banno

:up:

I have to tell Alexa sometimes three or four times to play stuff on Spotify, and even them I'm lucky if it works. We're in no danger from AI any time soon....

I think fractals are a kind of encapsulation of holism - i.e. a general underlying universal characteristic.

It seems the more general and vague something is the more applicable it is to larger sets but also less informative to individual cases. And the more specific and defined something is obviously imparts more info about limited things. — Benj96

Like statistics. I often think about this in terms of cosmology. The unfolding of the various phases of the early universe was essentially statistical in nature, based on relative densities and dispersions of whatever entities coincided with a given energy-state. The transition from a stochastic to a material cosmos is interesting.

I wasn't familiar with "fractal attractors", and found only this paper using that terminology. I suspect what you mean is "strange attractors", which have been studied extensively. But thanks for piquing my curiosity. :cool: — jgill

You're welcome. Fractalness is basically a property of a strange attractor within the phase space of a system - viz. "strange attractors, which are described by a fractal structure in phase space"

1848: Year of Revolution
by Mike Rapport

I recently realized I know almost nothing about the wave of anti-aristocratic revolutions that swept mid-nineteenth century Europe. I hope in coming understand how and why these arose, but failed, I can help contribute to the success of the global revolution that is surely coming.

There are a lot of illusory phenomenon that arise from just the sheer complexity of variables that are at work within them. I suspect they can be broken down and fully predicted with enough/fast enough computing power. — Benj96

The crux. Laws by their very nature are highly specific - they apply only to a certain type of state of affairs. Boyle's law has nothing to do with Lavoisier's law. And there is a lot of ground in between, and around them. Are there an infinite number of unique laws? Or is there a general underlying Law?

By that I mean that any change at any level in the fractal will impact the entire fractal. — Benj96

Except that the universe is a collision between law-governed and non-law-governed events. So if a fractal structure evolves as a result of its fractal nature, then the changes will permeate. If it alters as a result of some locally contingent force, then not. It seems like your post assumes that everything must unfold according to a set of underlying laws, all or nothing. In fact, reality as we experience it is simultaneously law-governed and exceptional.

Fractal attractors are a common feature of complex systems, so most likely fractals do represent a significant feature of the universe.

À la recherche du temps perdu #3:
The Guermantes Way
by Marcel Proust

The mind-body problem is based on an apparent discrepancy between the evident nature of thought and the evident nature of the material body. Which is to say that thought has properties (perception, conception, will) which do not seem to accord with properties of matter (position, extension, substantiality). Except that physics has already demonstrated that all matter, in all of its most disparate forms, is itself a form of energy. So the notion of materiality itself (body) is, for all intents and purposes, completely plastic. In fact, any physical thing has really only a "comparative" existence, inasmuch as it exhibits certain properties in relation to some other physical thing (including the observer phenomenon). Quarks exist in the sense that they combine or entangle or are observed.

So embodied mind may indeed be a thing (I think it is). But so is coherent energy. Given that all matter is energy, and coherent energy is real, I see no contradiction in the hypothesis that consciousness is, at some level, just another form of coherent energy, and itself a "deep" feature of the natural universe (i.e. independent of any of its embodied manifestations).

You don’t necessarily recognize them as being in justified need before understanding their perspective. — Joshs

I think that the nature of needs is that they are very universal in character. Certainly with basic needs, which is a great starting place for some empathy.

Is empathy possible without first being able to understand what appears to one initially as a dangerously alien worldview? — Joshs

I think that the whole point of empathy is that it is a reaching out beyond the personal. You don't need to understand a different world view to help someone who is in need.

I would say there is a war between people with no empathy and everyone else — Bylaw

:up: :up:

Yes. We are faced with the challenge of achieving a new kind of social consciousness whose operation is predicated on empathy.

Do you have suggestions for how these differences can be reconciled or overcome? — Tom Storm

I do believe that the current partisan-tendency is a by-product of the way we sub-divide (and govern) our selves along partisan lines. I'm not exactly sure what the steps to the cure are; but I believe it starts with healthy political reform, so that our elected representatives can actually be said to represent us and not whatever special interests funded their election. Then a basic attack on things like really monstrous income and wealth disparity. It's all about the renovating the attitude of the average person, because that is who is going to dictate how things unfold (assuming that democracy works as designed).

I'd like to think this is true, but isn't the substantive problem that with different worldviews and values, people tend to have extremely different ways of understanding what productive and healthy looks like and how it should be achieved. — Tom Storm

Yes, that's a big one. To what extent are "different worldviews" archaic in light of our current level of cultural and technological development I wonder? Personally, I can't see allowing cultural differences to become an impediment to global cooperation. But then I don't have a competing agenda. And there are those out there too.

In a country like the US, it could be a lot more rare. Wouldn't you agree? — frank

I think from a technical perspective, humanity is fully capable of engineering a productive, healthy, balanced global society. It just needs to be established as a primary goal.