I agree, and I considered creating a very broad category of "Philosophical Systems" for such radically different thinkers as Hegel, Locke, Schopenhauer. Philosophies of great scope, depth and, well, systematicity. I am a big fan of a system. Even if it has flaws, a system represents a great investment of effort.

Because “exemplifies” and even “best exemplifies” are a bit vague, won’t this just devolve to picking favourites, or answering as to which is most important? — Jamal

I don't consider exemplification to be a vague concept. Wouldn't you agree that the premise of exemplification is to illustrate and clarify?

Hmmm. Maybe I should have said contemporary. Do you think there are any contemporary heirs to the tradition of Spinoza?

The reason I didn't pick metaphysical is that I think the phenomenological subject exemplifies the most metaphysically interesting aspects of reality. But then I think that subject is relevant through the mechanism of the social-weltanschauung.

Who would you cite as a modern exponent of the Metaphysical-Ethical tradition?

I wanted to pick Metaphysical because I have a sinister preoccupation with the ultimate nature of reality. But I also went the social route. As you say, elements of the various traditions comingle....

The rise of liberalism in Europe was clearly an egalitarian project in its infancy. Money was the great equalizer. Do you agree with that? — frank

I'm not sure that I do. By all accounts, things were a lot more equal before money. Money facilitated first trade, but then capitalism, which definitely does not contribute to egalitarianism through its own nature. Capitalism concentrates wealth through money.

As I mentioned elsewhere, it certainly seems like revolutions initially involve the hard-core "have-nots" and their ideological supporters who are better off. Then, at a certain point, when things start to get really messy, a certain class of people swing to the reactionary side (i.e. aligning with entrenched power and interests) to suppress the implementation of a more far-reaching equality.

I think these 'swing-votes' lie in the hands of what I would call the best-paid proletariat. Doctors, for example, have to work hard at what they do in order to be really good. If they didn't work hard, they wouldn't be good doctors. So as paid workers, they really are part of proletariat. And the elite (like everyone else) really needs good doctors. But medicine is about the care of the whole human. You really can't have healthy people in a sick society. So I'm good with doctors being well-paid, even the best paid. Just so long as they speak out for the welfare of their entire patient base when they are negotiating their terms.

I also think that the consequences of valuing labour more instead of capital, will engender more equality as, regardless of type of job, a decent living will be made — Benkei

But how is it going to come to pass that a society values labour more than capital?

Just now read Habermas' analysis of the formation of the 'bourgeois public sphere' by and during the rise of capitalism. He describes how the "interests of capitalists engaged in manufacture prevailed over those engaged in trade," specifically because the former were directly responsible for the "employment of the country's population."

So you can say that the legitimacy of whatever 'public authority' capitalists wield (inasmuch as they actually do have direct influence on the state), derives from their representing the interests of the working class. And yet the history of capitalism demonstrates time and time again that capitalists without fail will mercilessly sacrifice the health and well-being of their own workers, which they treat as a disposable commodity, unless aggressively regulated. Das Kapital reads like an historical catalog of the abuses of capitalist employers. And nothing has changed. Corporations are the bane of humanity.

I think the sad thing is that we are contentedly cultivating a culture of mediocrity. We just had a $60 lunch, no drinks. It was, meh, at best, if you ignored the fact that coleslaw was inedible. Lenovo refuses to assist with anything software related on their own brand new laptops, even thought it is their bundled software which breaks Windows, and which you can't remove without also breaking Windows. Unless I pay extra for 'software support.' Which I won't do, because I'm certain whoever does that knows absolutely nothing anyway, and I'm better off just fixing it myself (which I did). AI in general doesn't do a great job, it does a mediocre job. AI generated content is obvious. It may get the message across, it doesn't do it well, and it definitely doesn't do it with style. For the most part, the first word that leaps to mind in my day-to-day interactions with Alexa is...frustrating.

So if AI is destined to take over the world, it's only because human beings have become so apathetic that they no longer give a shit that it's doing such a mediocre job. Maybe some of them aren't even aware that things can be anything but mediocre. Ever see the movie "Idiocracy"? That's the future.

Exactly. But they couldn't succeed if the population at large didn't want to be led, right? — frank

Or if the elite weren't using the power of their resources to completely shred value of the information, to the point where most people are so obsessed with misinformation, and conspiracy theories about misinformation, that they simply have no idea what is going on, or what is actually in their own best interest. Per my post on the value and power of public information, which got zero comments.

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.