Great question! How familiar are you with the Tao te ching? Chapter 42 goes into Yin and Yang or Dark and Bright.

So long as you avoid and reject the gender role stuff, Taoism has aged pretty well. The core of Taoism is to reject hatred and intolerance of human differences and live with balance, harmony, perspective, and compassion.

In western philosophy, you might say this is recognising the need for balance and diversity within our moral ecology.

I don't hold with everything Taoism has to offer but it is a core part of my practice of adaptive pragmatism and adaptive ethical pragmatism. Simply in that I define the good as that which is in balance. I suppose where I split with Taoism is that I'd pursue power if it meant I could provide more balance than others who currently hold power however I have to be very careful that this is in service to life and not my own ego. However, I shall not worry if I never attain it as it probably means it isnt part of the flow of the universe. I shall only seek it if the opportunites for seeking it, flow my way.

:up: :strong:

Just trying to burn down this straw man that he set out hereabouts. — Wallows

I completely understand that desire, however it is already ashes on the ground and he's staring longingly at a photo of it pretending and telling himself it isn't.

Oh and in case you are wondering why I have such a problem with him; He asked me a few months ago why we shouldn't sterilize our own population and all other animals too in a debate about antinatalism. I literally suggested that he wanted to do this because of his antinatal views, thinking it would turn out to be a straw man on my part but he actually likes that idea and asked me "Why not?".

It's always the people with skeletons..

Seriously you are far too intelligent Wallow, to let someone like Bartricks get under your skin. He will be banned soon, the moderators are discussing his behavior as we speak.

He Genuinely doesn't. I told you already he's not here to debate or give you a fair shake. He's here to force us to capitulate to his views and he will just try and make you feel lost in order to believe of himself that he's "winning" the debate.

Asking a Buddhist for meaningful evidence that their fundamental views are correct is like trying to get water from a stone because the stone doesn't believe in MEANING. This guy is still arguing from a point that he feels any philosophy should be able to justify itself with evidence yet doesn't describe what he feels evidence should be. This guy will just move the goalposts every time so you really are wasting your time.

Says who? — Wallows

Him of course. Weren't you reading? Bartricks is the judge of all and should be praised is what he is trying to really say. Anyone who disagrees with him gets labeled as uneducated or not doing philosophy right.

He literally told me to be "More like me" earlier. You are wasting your time with him. You are a philosopher, he is a subversive. Don't stoop my friend.

Yes, lets all bow and capitulate to what someone without a degree thinks is evidence of actual training.

The reason I'm not engaging with you or discussing this with you is it would genuinely be a waste of my time because you won't get it. Because you lack the education. I'm sorry, that's just a fact. You aren't here to argue in good faith you're here to force us all to agree with your views.

I tried discussing antinatalism with you once before and I can see for myself the way you interact with others. I don't have the patience to teach you why you are wrong amd you'll just reject it all anyway and you'll be rude at every step of the way.

I'm sorry, but your personality is just too abrasive for me to have an adult conversation with. You don't get it and I'm over it.

You should ignore Bartricks. Psychology used to be a branch of philosophy and moral psychology is a field which is a collaboration of Philosophy, psychology and ethics. Anytime anyone tries to use the whole "No psychology" arguments is a, ignorant of the history of psychology and b, even more ignorant about the history of philosophy itself.

In fact you should be wary of anyone trying to place themselves as the moderator of the content of your argument. Quite frankly ive noticed that individuals can get really angry when you bring up an empirical field of study to contradict them as if philosophy isn't allowed to use empirical evidence.

Also as someone who actually has a degree; if your argument needs to address psychology then you should address it while keeping your conclusion philosophical. You can have psychology as part of premises in an argument so long as the conclusion logically follows and you arent talking out the side of your neck.

That was genuinely what I had elected to do awhile ago. Was going fine until he stsrted trying to muscle into conversations I was having with other people and tagging my responses to someone else who I do actually enjoy speaking with.

Evangelists: Those who must convince everyone that their religion, ideology, political persuasion, or philosophical theory is the only one worth having.

@Baden So he's not breaking this rule with his views on antinatalism? He's not going to convince anyone with that and calling people stupid for not agreeing to me fits the definition of this rule break very neatly.

Not the same at all. It's really not anyone heres problem that you have such a jealous reaction to anyone with a degree. If you are that jealous then go and get one for yourself and stop flying off the handle whenever people correct your uneducated assumptions about things. I got high marks for my essays about stoicism all through out my education when it came up so I'm sorry if I'm not willing to entertain your ridiculous opinions about stoicism or accept your appraisal that I don't know what I'm talking about.

I did learn about stoicism and I learned about Antinatalism too and have probably read far more on both those subjects than yourself, else I wouldn't have gotten my degree. Get over yourself and give up your ridiculous fantasies about convincing the world to stop breeding. It is impossible to achieve without viciously and maliciously sterilising everyone against their will. Whatever reason you have for being jealous of children you should drop it. It's astounding to me how transparent antinatalists are on this topic. You don't like kids, you dont like that children steal attention away from your problems or you don't like that no one would want to have a child with you. Its most likely one of those. I have wrote more than a few pieces on the psychological motivations for negative affect ethics and all the motives come from a place of selfish, irrational egoism. So you've been traumatised before? Who hasn't? After all the shit my family did to me I can think of plenty of horrible shit that I could use to justify anger and revenge on the rest of the world but I don't because I promised myself I'd never blame those who arent responsible and I know that I can be better than all that shit and I refuse to become just as bad or worse than the people who made me suffer before. Then you have all the amazing individuals who have went through far worse than I that still don't turn into vicious, hateful, jealous and spiteful individuals like the people that hurt them. Get some therapy mate, seriously.

Sincerely hope you are banned from the site soon. I've nothing against Autodidacts when they actually demonstrate ability but from you I've seen none. You're just another dogmatic ideologue trapped by their own warped logic and I feel sorry for you.

The way he speaks to people is intolerable and lacks respect and whenever he hears an argument that stumps him he tells the person to relearn even though hes the one who doesnt seem to undertsand what he is talking about. His pathetic stoicism critique comes from a misunderstanding of temperence and that misunderstanding has not been shown to be being practiced by any stoic that I'm aware of. Only reason he is here is to try and convince people not to have babies.

He breaks the rules on tone with almost everyone that speaks to him and meets the site definition of evangelism by being a hard dogmatic ideologue. But sure, lets all just ignore the rule breaks and let our community descend into chaos all to defend one arrogant and belligerent narc. Why not? Its only our community right?

Seriously wayfarer read the rules again and look at his responses to most people. Tone Matters, incendiary personal arguments are not philosophy. In fact, ad hom is the surest sign of a weak argument. If he can dish it out like that then he should be banned.

Would you like to explain how he hasnt broken the rules? Am I missing some line at the bottom of the guidelines that says "These arent really the rules we just put them here as a joke"? You really think he hasn't broken any rules? Read his last ten comments to people that arent me and you'll see exactly what I'm talking about. Why are you covering for him?

Tell me about it, did you know that the FB block list has a set amount so you can only block so many people?

We don't even get the option to block anyone here. He has been told to stop speaking to me or I will call my lawyer. Freak keeps talking about my kid now and for some reason is assuming my child is a girl which is disturbing enough.

I already have got my counter arguments. I'm choosing to not wasting my time arguing with the immoral about what morals are.

Besides the point though, rules are being broken and I'm sick of it. He needs to go.

its applied ethics, not business ethics so I'm not even the butt of your joke there. Well done on being wrong as per usual. I'm not going to bother debating with you, I'd rather debate with my five year old as I'll probably hear something intelligent from him. You however, yet to see any sign of intelligence from you. Just nastiness and insults thrown at everyone who disagrees with you. Enjoy your sad little life and I'm honestly so glad I dont have to tell you not to breed.

The bigger joke is someone without a masters jealously knocking them because he cant hack it in school when the teacher easily makes him look like the fool that he is.

Bartrick why are you still around? I thought you didn't want to be alive so why are you speaking?

I don't even believe in a soul but I do believe in the existence of the mind being rooted in our very physical brains.

Sorry if my grasp of philosophy is too far ahead for you to even understand what I'm talking about. Maybe when you get your masters we can talk again. :)

Do your own. Thankfully, no one needs the Antinatalist view of stoicism. This entire discussion is a joke started by someone who doesn't even want to be alive so excuse us if no one takes it seriously Mr Subversive.

Sorry ran out of data a few days ago and just topped up now.

Glad to find somebody who gets the math! I hope you understand it better than I do because it still crunches my head sometimes; before we carry on though, are you familiar with the concept Supervenience? X Supervenes Y; meaning X can change when Y has changed?

What makes me say QM is subjective is probably me mispeaking or not being specific enough. QM is a field of Objective human inquiry. However the Quantum Realm is subjective and as everything outside of the quantum Realm supervenes on the quantum realm; coupled with the new quantum coin inquiries leads me to some questions. Mainly how is a subjective quantum realm creating what seems to be a physically objective reality?

The reason I asked about Supervenience is that the link you shared reads as if it has forgotten Supervenience as it orders things strangely through the linear human discovery as opposed to the real orders of Supervenience.

Its kind of like using Atom to write code. Imagining atom as the universe, Sure the code you are writing is physics, but atom is written in Java (Quantum Mechanics). physics as we knew it before has kind of had a hole blown in it if you keep attempting to declare its dominance over QM.

So please tell me you are aware of Supervenience?

What is your logical non monologic argument for that? Or are you just good at mystical bs?

I thought you said the Mind was the illusion before? Okay then. I'm done, you're not taking this seriously.

Stoics think grief is irrational. — Bartricks

No we don't. Look up what Temperence actually means before you start mouthing off about things you know nothing about it would seem. Stoicism would be awful if it was anything like you described. Fortunately it isnt but that just means either you refuse to learn enough about it to effectively critique it or you do but are misrepresenting it in order to trick people into your perspective. Either way this is my last comment on such a churlish and incorrect response to stoicism.

Maya Shanka, Mohini Lanka, Tyagam Tyagam Om.

The illusion as ive already said, is thinking you know anything about illusions.

Still not seeing an argument from you and one worded responses are boring to me.

Almost as ignorant as your answer. We live in a physical universe and as far as we know everything is composed of physical elements. I'm sure if you had a good counter you would have shared it right away. Good luck not crashing into the iceberg.

Oh, if you're talking about principles of QM being objective certainly although you've given a very watered down interpretation (As is any attempt to describe QM with language as opposed to mathematics.) Of those principles ans quantum phenomena.

However I'm thinking more of narrow subjectivism within paramaters of probability. I should have been clearer.

It still doesn't take away from the fact that if you read the link I shared and do some thorough research of the concepts contained within, you'd find that the conceptualization of a Subjective Fact within QM is entirely consistent with experimental data we currently have.

Some other good material to read up on; Quantum Eraser experiments and their variants plus the myriad of different double slit variations. Then you have the curious behaviour of light somehow bending around a galaxy only on one side only to be viewed later as bending around the opposite side with no explanation of how the light could have made it from one side of the galaxy to the other faster than the speed of light.

I don't claim to make any assumptions about your familiarity with QM but I'm very aware of my own and I'm up to date enough to know a curveball to my own understanding of QM when I read it and what I shared is definitely a curveball. What do I know though? Just relaying what the experts in QM are currently saying and matching it with the things I've already learned over the years.

Care to expand on that claim when I've actually brought evidence to the contrary to the discussion? Or is lack of effort your personal philosophy?

I think charecterising this as intuitive doesn't really reflect the reality that is Quantum mechanics.

Your response doesn't answer the fundamental question; How does a subjective microverse create an objective macroverse?

A coin is partially symmetrical, such that it lands most often heads or tails, but it can also rarely land on its edge. Yet you can construct a deterministic system in which it always or almost always lands on its edge (make a system in which the coin bounces or slides on inclined surfaces so that it ends up in a groove the same width as the edge of the coin). In this case the deterministic system prefers a particular symmetry of the object. In that system the coin wouldn’t land heads 50% of the time and tails 50% of the time. And just because you can say that in this system the coin lands on its edge about 100% of the time, using probability jargon, that doesn’t mean that the deterministic system exhibits non-deterministic behavior, just like when a coin lands heads or tails about 50% of the time that doesn’t mean that the deterministic system exhibits non-deterministic behavior, just like when a dice lands about 1/6 of the time on a given side that doesn’t mean that the deterministic system exhibits non-deterministic behavior, with the dice too the system can be configured so that some particular side/sides is/are preferred — leo

What about a quantum coin or a quantum dice? Get ready for the deep mindfuck that is the quantum world of "subjective facts"

So I have some questions for you; What are you views on the consent problem with regards to being born and vice versa the exact same problem with regards to dying?

I did not consent to have life, neither did I consent for life to one day end.

Then as with all ethical principles; we have to justify to ourselves whether or not a demanding principle will ever be universally applicable. If Antinatalism is ethical, why not genocide or mass sterilisation? Come to think of it, in order to really eliminate pain and suffering, (important distinctions which I'll get to in a moment) doesn't the problem demand a universe ending solution? Is that not a little too demanding of a principle for our small little species to have?

Finally on the difference between pain and suffering. We have very little control over whether we feel pain. Pain is a cold hard objective truth about the human experience. Suffering however, that is letting the abstract self via esteem or ego be harmed is entirely within ones own control. You can just not put your sense of self value on such shaky pedestals that bodily pain has any bearing on them. You dont have control of your body, it's out of your control. Bacteria doesn't ask our permission to make us sick its just trying to live itself. You can make choices which contribute towards positive outcomes but the outcomes themselves are mostly out of your control. You can be healthy as a horse and still fall and break your leg.

If we want to go into the deep why of why we believe or do anything then maybe I'll claim to be a complete fatal asteroidist and claim that absolutely everything is pointless because tomorrow might be Asteroid impact day. Or as the Gauls would say, "The sky will fall on our heads tomorrow, but tomorrow never comes."

The key thing to remember is that humans are getting better at reducing pain inducing environments.

Can I ask you something which I feel is very important? How teachable is Antinatalism to a child? How would a child feel if they were told that having children is the worst thing a person could do? Pretty sure the reaction would not be a good one.

You seem to know a lot about your ethical principles, but what about your metaethical ones?

Sorry, misunderstood discussion. Delete comment please mods

Hello, you might be interested to read some of the arguments and poll data contained in this discussion.

The conclusion I drew was that a balanced response is probably be the best. Be pessimistic about the future but optimistic about your ability to act in the present to make that future a little better. Narrow pessimism and narrow optimism are two extremes it is best to steer clear from.

Some of @Pfhorrest contributions to that discussion were extremely helpful.

Due to the timing of some of my other reading I am (Again) having to re-examine my beliefs about quantum mechanics. Someone just tossed a quantum coin into the mix and yet again the counter-inuitive and probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics is taking my brain for a rough ride. I never thought I'd ever have to realistically use the phrase Subjective Facts but quantum mechanics has somehow managed to do even that and now the only question I want to know the answer to is; How in the hell a subjective microverse creates an objective macroscaled one when apparently everything has the potential to be an observer? Quantum mechanics is absolutely maddening to me sometimes. One minute you think you're getting the hang of the backwards logic and boom! Dizzy punch from QM and a man is down for another round.

its an illusion that i am a soul with free will inside, and controlling, a body

yet this is what most people believe

its the ignorant naive view of self — OmniscientNihilist

Is it an illusion? It seems to me that words like soul, consciousness, mind, will; whether they are monological or dialogical are all words in the toolbelt that are used to describe existing physical phenomenon we do not yet fully understand or comprehend.

The real illusion; is thinking we can know or understand what the illusion is. How can I know how big the iceberg is when I can only perceive what is on the surface? Which makes up just a small percentage of the true scale and depth of it all.

Or if you don't like the iceberg metaphor; There is the argument by dimensions; Imagine that the universe has 9 dimensions represented as a room with 9 sides. You inside the room only see a triangle shaped room with s tv screen showing you live footage of a small part of one of the other walls(Time wall) after another.

Abstract Love: what is the love we have for aesthetics?

Consider the feeling when we look at an object, thing, person, an idea, agreement, et al. and we say 'I love that', what kind of truth is that? — 3017amen

Firstly, I just want to say I think you are brilliant and I am greatly enjoying this dialogue. So, I'm going to use our conversation as our object of examination and evaluation here. So why do I love this conversation? Expectation I feel has a lot to do with it as well as Truth. Love, at it's core; is the feeling one gets when the object of love is matching with our best expectations of it. Symmetry between expectation and reality. This goes to the heart of art and aesthetics in a way, all love is aesthetic appreciation, of aspects of the universe captured by the artist and observed by the appreciator. Now, a structured and symmetrical piece is usually pleasing to most people who feel it matches with their internal perceived truth; that there is a structure and order to the universe. Now keep in mind, it isn't the object of love itself we are all trying to find symmetry in (After all, Assymetry can be beautiful if it's still true) but we are always looking for symmetry between expectation of reality and reality itself. Nothing feels better than when reality matches up to our best expectations of it, but that also means nothing feels worse than when reality matches up to our worst expectations of it.

So to me, in identifying what is good and bad art; Bad art is something you are indifferent too or annoyed at because it captures no truth that you can identify, good art is something that makes you feel strongly towards something you believe to be true of reality in some way. However, some pieces inherently mean nothing, because some people believe there is no meaning to anything. I imagine a few moral antirealist artists just laugh at every single person who sees meaning in their piece.

Anyway; that was a good side avenue into love and art!

I'm going to start a discussion soon about existential love :) will probably quote you heavily in the OP and look forward to further contributions from you there. You have excellent Socratic methods that I find absolutely refreshing.

This sounds like a really great opportunity!

I'll break out my questions here and edit the detail over the next few days until I think I have something that is good enough.

First question; is the Stoic Dichotomy of control, complete? What I mean by this; is it correct to say that we only have control over some aspects and not others? I suppose what I'm noticing is that; while outcomes are for the most part out of our control, our faculties and our choices are some what a contributing factor to outcomes.

Second question; is stoicism compatible with systems theory? I have taken stoicism deep into the heart of my application of pragmatism but I'd be very curious to hear what you think about what you feel are potential shortcomings of stoicism? Is there a scenario you can think of where a stoic approach is problematic? Pros and cons of stoicism?

Third question; a great difficulty my partner is having in applying stoicism to her life is, that due to a traumatic childhood without a father and an abusive mother, she greatly reocognises the need for role models but she doesn't know where to begin in finding a role model. I doubt she is the only one so hers and my question to you on this subject: How should one evaluate potential role models? Maybe you could also share a small list of female Stoics you believe are good role models?

Now for something where you can freely expand; What does it really mean to be temperate? What is the Stoic perspective on Emotion and application of emotion? What are the social and societal duties of a philosopher and an ethicist? What does a good philosopher look like? What do they believe/say/do?

Thank you very much to our moderators for organising this opportunity to speak with such a prestigious mind and thank you Professor Pigliucci for taking the time out of your busy schedule to engage with our community.

Best wishes and warmest Regards

M.A.D.

Yep, or the Meinongian jungle!

What does this do for pragmatic utility? How much pragmatic thinking grounded in rules? — Mww

Well for me, it helps to think of the concept creations as discoveries. Did Kant create Kantian ethics or did he recognise the existence of these values already and try to linguistically map them?

Are we creating language or discovering it? These are just a few of the questions in my head relating to this. If we are discovering instead of creating, then it helps to think of the abstract world as a vast ocean, waiting to be fished. Whether they are existing or subsisting values. Do we purely create stories or are we discovering narratives to base stories upon?

In effect, we knew all about how to treat each other, except we didn’t know it was ethics?

Am I understanding better? — Mww

Yes. Kind of, or that different ethical values are at play absent definition and that the study of ethics too spent time undefined. Take my work with Generationism or ancestor morality for example; it's one thing for me to say that this value exists, its another thing entirely for me to say it is defined. Looking at history, we can see countless behaviours that reflect someone trying to be a good person by being a good ancestor, however other than the Hebrew writings of Pentateuch, not much has been philosophised about this observable at play value.

Another more personal example for me is pragmatism; I spent a lot of my life not knowing to define myself as such even though I displayed those value behaviours and thoughts.

So collectively, we attempt to anchor a priori abstracts but individually we are anchoring them posteriori.

I hope this has somewhat made it clearer. Apologies for not managoing to do so earlier. Enjoying the conversation though.

Interesting thought there. Your first two paragraphs capture the classic Existential angst that one, at some point, will encounter during life's sojourn; intrinsic fear and anxiety. How can we mitigate that? — 3017amen

I'm glad you asked! Answer me this, how would you react if you were transported to a universe which is composed entirely of air? You are floating there in the air weightless in the dark, no stars, no ground, no gravity, nothing but the air to breath and you have no way of getting back to our universe. How do you feel?

Then imagine at the point where you accept you will never escape this place; you are back here in our universe? What is your reaction to it then?

I've got my answers to those questions but I'd like to hear yours first and see how close they match.

That notion makes me think whether humans encounter metaphysical phenomena everyday, without realizing it... ?

In the alternative we're back to trying to define one of the greatest metaphysical abstracts of all called Love.

What is Existential Love? What is Love? A mixture of joy, gratitude and care of the object of love? Does all life, love something the universe contains? Do all humans?

Pragmatic utility in the distinction? I would have to say no, because of the way they’re defined. Purely abstract, the unknown, unnamed, realistically non-affective conceptions, is never even presentable to our attention, so can’t have any practical use. It seems irrational to infuse an unknown with purpose the fulfillment of which could never be shown. It follows that if half of the content of a distinction is unavailable for any practical use, the distinction itself disappears. — Mww

I think you're misunderstanding what I mean by pure abstract. This isnt Noumena its phenomena. Pure abstract is just unamed and unnoticed until someone, anyone names and notices it. Ethics as a word, was pure abstract until someone conceptualised it. Don't know how to make this any clearer.

I will. Keep fighting the good fight!

Maybe it can be said then our encounter with a priori mathematical abstracts is all part of another phenomenon? — 3017amen

That's what I'm feeling too, for example we might say that confronting a priori truths or discovering them is satisfying to us. The emotions you describe could definitely be attributed toward success in those endeavours, but what about when you are struggling or failing in them?

However this isn't always the case, sometimes the truth hurts, sometimes it is scary and ugly. It gives me no satisfaction to be correct and truthful when I say "I will die one day as will everyone and everything I care about."

So I'd say all those emotions are reactions to a priori knowledge. Some people deny the truth, they do however deny it differently than they deny the untrue I think. The emotions behind denying the untrue and denying the true are different.

Would you agree that calm rationality is as much an emotional state as anger, anxiety, love, joy, etc? I often feel that people get into the notion that calm and rationality is an absence of emotion when really it is just one of the least negatively stressful and materially and emotionally lucrative emotional states to be in. Born of a desire to be part of a collective which perceives itself as rational above all other things because it owes a lot of its success to rationality.

should hopefully be the max sentence to make an example of chaotic tricksters like him.