Think of a painting of a garden path. If you experience a suspension of disbelief and follow the path, a sense of reality is conveyed by the idea that something is beyond our sight. — frank

Speaking of garden paths, when I studied abroad in Austria, I had an experience of the kind you describe when viewing the following painting by Monet at the Belvedere:



For a moment, I felt I was on the path and inside its world. It seemed to me that, ironically, the non-realism of the piece made it all the more realistic, in the sense of inducing a suspension of disbelief and conveying something real beyond the painting itself. Life, I find, is a lot like the haze and fuzziness of an impressionistic painting most of the time.

Philosophically speaking, I agree with Schopenhauer that the genuine aesthetic experience transports one to reality at a higher pitch - that is, to the realm of the Platonic Ideas - which has a clarifying effect that cannot be put into words.

I hereby dub you T Snark.

Hypocritical mods gonna hypocrite.

Gotta keep winding up this topic.

Incidentally, Darwin cites Schopenhauer in The Descent of Man. It's brief, though. Anyway, from what I can remember from my list:

Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist by Adrian Desmond, James Moore

Asimov's New Guide to Science by Isaac Asimov

What Evolution Is by Ernst Mayr

Books by Michael Ruse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Ruse

(I posted this question earlier on today, but it disappeared. Since I have not received any communication to cause me to think otherwise, I am assuming that reposting it is acceptable) — jastopher

I made a thread that was basically identical to this one not long ago. That could be why.

Is freedom the capacity to do what you want, or to do what you should? — Mariner

Couldn't it be both? I'm glad you brought this up, though. If freedom is doing what you should, then no one sins freely. But if no one sins freely, then we cannot be held accountable for sin, thus making hell unjust punishment.

and does that reduce his freedom, or his dignity, or both? — Mariner

What say you to your own question here?

I didn't say that. I said that "the purpose of (some, at least) guns is for hunting or sport." — Michael

So you don't deny it either. Why not just come clean now?

It seems that you agree with me, then, that the primary purpose of guns used by the vast majority of lawful gun owners is not to kill or hurt people. So you were wrong, not us.

Talking about the various alternative ways in which a tool can be used does not change its primary purpose. — Sapientia

A gun's primary purpose (in the sense of what it was originally designed to do) would be to discharge a small projectile at great speed. Guns don't kill people on their own.

Imagine that humans went extinct. An intelligent alien species visiting the Earth, having no knowledge of the past existence of human beings, would not be able to conclude in coming across a gun that the purpose of this object is to "kill or hurt human beings."

I'm not sad to see him go, but this doesn't much improve my opinion of the mods here.

And, of course, to say that the purpose of a gun is to shoot bullets and not to kill and/or hurt people — Michael

A gun is an artifact. Human beings apply the form to, and therefore invent the purpose of, the objects we create. If a gun is used to fire bullets at another human being with the intent to kill or harm, that is the gun's purpose. If a gun is used to shoot bullets at a target or hammer nails, that is its purpose. No one would walk up to the target shooter or hammerer and say, "excuse me, you're using this object incorrectly." The "correctness" of an object's use is determined by the human being and his or her intentions, not by the object's nature (even though the nature of the object will place certain constraints on what the object can be used for).

Moreover, this is not to deny that artifacts have a typical purpose when being used. In the case of a fire extinguisher, it is most typically used to put out fires. But this example doesn't align with gun use in the US. The vast majority of gun owners do not typically use their guns to "kill or hurt people." Most gun owners use their guns to shoot targets at gun ranges or shoot non-human animals, either for sport, as population control, or for sustenance. As for human beings, the number of them killed or injured by guns is on par with the most conservative estimates of defensive gun uses, but most of the latter do not involve firing the weapon, whereas most gun related deaths and injuries are either suicides or accidents.

The problem, basically, is that one side wants to leap frog over trying to implement a bevy of reforms that could greatly reduce gun crime and mass shootings without violating the rights of peaceful gun owners. No nuance. No pragmatism. Just an inarticulate grunt to ban guns.

I understand that, but if you're someone that screams at the top of your lungs about "muh freedumbs" and how terrible the government is, then throwing money at gun violence - through the government - makes a whole lot of no sense. — Buxtebuddha

You're assuming it will cost an obscene amount of money. Have you taken a look at the US budgets recently? They run into the trillions of dollars. Exactly how much do you think the things I suggested will cost? Whatever the figure is, I'm quite sure there are some superfluous expenditures that can be cut to pay for such measures (if they even require federal funding).

And this looks like what? — Buxtebuddha

I would defer to the experts on mental health.

Are we to stereotype and shame every "mentally ill" person into some category that says, "likely to shoot up a Waffle House" or "drive a minivan through cafes"? — Buxtebuddha

Many mass shooters display these very warning signs. And no, this is not a "gut feeling" hunch. There are clear patterns to the behavior that leads up to mass shootings (assuming this is what we're concerned about here, as opposed to gangbangers in South Chicago).

Who also is going to provide mental health screenings and treatments? The government? Private health providers? Who's going to assemble and sort the information? What happens when professionals disagree on person x's mental health and danger to society? — Buxtebuddha

No law will ever be perfect. You apparently agree, though, I take it, that we ought to have better mental health screenings and treatments? If so, then you can go research such things yourself.

I agree — Buxtebuddha

Good.

I don't know what this is — Buxtebuddha

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/02/gun-control-republicans-consider-grvo/

What sort of reform on what existing laws? Will they be federally mandated or left up to the states? — Buxtebuddha

There are loads of gun control laws already on the books. They need to be better enforced, scrapped, or rethought based on effectiveness. I think it ought to be left to the states. New Hampshire doesn't have the same level of gun violence as California, for example, so a one size fits all approach by the federal government would be counterproductive.

what are the ways in which these people are to be dealt with? — Buxtebuddha

Better mental health screenings and treatments. Better policing. Universalized gun-violence restraining orders. Reform of existing laws. Etc.

Focused by whom? The government? And do you want the government going even deeper into the bowels of healthcare and what constitutes mental illness? — Buxtebuddha

Yeah (although I'm slightly unsure of the metaphor employed here).

Ah, yes, just throw money at the problem. I'm sure the government will spend it wisely — Buxtebuddha

Did you know that the government will be the one in charge of regulating or banning guns, if such things are passed? Your concern here works both ways.

Whereas the primary purpose of a gun is to kill and/or hurt people. — Michael

If it is, then you need to explain how exactly most gun owners don't in fact use it in this way.

(as if the pro-gun control argument is just that anything that can hurt people ought be banned). — Michael

I fail to have registered any other reason offered in favor of banning guns.

I'll let Sir2u handle that. I was shedding light on the frequency with which you accuse others of concocting strawmen of your position.

I once thought I straw a man made out of stalks of grain in the distance, but before I could confirm, 'ol Quick Draw gunned him down in a flash and then flew away.

Sapientia: the owl who cried strawman.

We call him "Quick Draw Straw." Let every outlaw of straw beware!

Knowledge without experience is empty. Experience without knowledge is blind.

Aristotle is to Plato as Schopenhauer is to Kant.

It's not all or nothing, and one doesn't have to commit to trucks being banned alongside assault rifles or firearms in general. — Sapientia

Nor does one not have to not commit to this either. :confused:

Nobody knows what they want because they do not know why they want anything to begin with. In finding what is sought, one seeks what is found. Desire is not exhausted in being once fulfilled.

A benevolent monarch is better than a corrupt republic, while a republic of benevolent citizens is better than a despot.

Now you're starting to see the absurdity of your original statement. :up:

They're weapons. — Sapientia

A truck can be a weapon, too.

You're right. His sentence applies to any vehicle. In fact, it applies to anything at all: "Mistakes involving X wouldn't happen if the Xs weren't there to begin with." This is just vacuous huff.

Find and you will seek.

Ignorance is a still pond. Learning is a stone dropped into it.

aren’t typically bought or designed to kill people — Michael

Neither are guns.

Yes there is.

Mistakes involving firearms wouldn't happen if the firearms weren't there to begin with. — Sapientia

Indeed. That's why it's time to ban assault trucks.

trickle down — SnowyChainsaw

Aaaand you lost me.

Here (since you cited youtube videos):

despite conservatives holding all three branches of Government — Maw

:rofl:

What was that about crass ignorance and hasty hyperbole? Why, it's the sound of your own words flying through the air like a boomerang, smacking you in the face.

conservatives have moved forward in sapping wealth away from the poor and middle class to the extreme upper echelons of society. They will further deplete needed social services in the name of balancing the deficit which they increased through tax cuts. They have split immigrant families, and gleefully dismantled regulations that protect the environment and curtail climate change. — Maw

Yes, we conservatives are a bloodthirsty lot. For it is written in the fifth book of the conservative: "put under the ban everything the poor man and the immigrant has. Do not spare him; kill men and women, children and infants, oxen and sheep, camels and donkeys, regulations and air quality. Thus saith the CONSERVATIVE."

And we get to make it what it is - for us - to an increasing extent. — apokrisis

No you don't.

Which is why, incidentally, I generally have no time for Nietzsche. To affirm optimism in the knowledge that pessimism is true is diabolical. It is an exercise in masochism and the repression of morality.

Conservatives Will Never Get the Respect They Crave. They Don’t Deserve It. — Maw

No, clearly not. Who would ever think that? The only question is what to do with the poor bastards once the glorious revolution ushers in utopia. Boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew. We shall have to decide, comrades.

As darth says, the problem of evil and suffering doesn't go away once God is rejected thereby. Instead of God, nature is placed in the dock and cannot but suffer the same fate. If God is to be rejected because of the problem of evil and suffering, then nature must be rejected too, and for the very same reason. This is a plea not necessarily for antinatalism, which requires additional arguments, but for asceticism, whose practical outcome is identical with the goal of antinatalism. Schopenhauer saw this clearly and was perhaps the first to say as much. This is also why he is regarded as the father of antinatalism, despite what is the anachronism and difficulty in cleanly ascribing this view to him.

Now, of course, Schopenhauer's philosophy I regard as possibly leaving open a backdoor to God, who, in turn, would ground the goodness of procreation. But this is the only feasible way that I would ever change my mind. The attempts of apokrisis are therefore quite futile, since he doesn't understand that his fundamental assumption of the goodness of nature is precisely what naturalism is incapable of grounding, according to the pessimist and, tacitly, by the atheist as well, if he employs the problem of evil and suffering in his rejection of God. This claim of the pessimist is the one to dispute. Antinatalism is peripheral to it, though related.

I said "quite reasonable," which would imply more than 50%.