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  • "Potential" as a cosmological origin
    ↪Count Timothy von Icarus
    I think you are (like most others) confusing nothing with nothing-ness (which is self-contradictory or impossible). I agree F. Wilczek is not talking about nothing-ness when he says "nothing" and neither am I in my previous post
    ↪180 Proof
    .
  • The case against suicide
    [No] reason to really struggle and fight for a place in the world. No reason to really pursue anything. One can just end [one's] life and be done with the pursuit and struggle. — Darkneos
    So be a bum. Many people give up, get off the hamster wheel and drop out of "the struggle" e.g. monastics, hermits, homeless, (RV) nomads, off-the-grid preppers, et al. Ancient traditions of (e.g.) Epicureans & Kynics celebrated this marginal way of life as attaining "ataraxia". For some, dumb animal "happiness" suffices. :strong:

    You (all of us) are going to die soon enough anyway so why the rush to end yourself? :eyes:

    As pointed out already, suicide is a permanent (non)solution to a temporary (non)problem – thus, irrational (or pathological). That there is no inherent reason to live demonstrates that there is no inherent reason to kill yourself. You were Born. You Learn. You Love-Lose. (You unLearn.) You will Die. No "argument" for or against "life" – or the lack of an "argument" – changes these facts of life, so stop whining and get over yourself, dude. :death: :flower:
  • "Potential" as a cosmological origin
    Addendum to
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/953124

    To go beyond the Actual (physical) to inquire into what's logically Possible (meta-physical). — Gnomon
    This assumes that "beyond the Actual" – possibilism¹ – makes sense whereas beyond the merely "logically possible" – actualism² – is a much more reasonable and parsimonious metaphysical approach.

    [1] countlessly many merely possible worlds of which the actual world is only one possible world (S. Kripke, D. Lewis)

    [2] factually possible ways the actual world could have been (or can be described / modeled) i.e. actual world-versions rather than "possible worlds"

    a more (orthodox) academic summary ...
    https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/possibilism-actualism/

    @Ben96
  • The case against suicide
    ↪unenlightened
    :100: .
  • The case against suicide
    This is the first and last question that philosophy must answer - 'What's the point?' The answer is "love". If you wonder what love is, I can only tell you that it is what you lack, whenever you ask this question. Suicide makes sense if there is no love, but only self. We are not here to be satisfied, but to become satisfactory. — unenlightened
    :fire:
  • The case against suicide
    I’ve struggled to find a good argument against suicide ... — Darkneos
    Well I have never found a "good argument" for suicide either. Afaik, empirically, suicide does not solve any unsolvable problems or change anything that cannot be changed (e.g. past events, past actions, persisting consequences) and often only deeply harms the suicide's own family, (former) lovers and/or close friends.

    If you are struggling, sir, seek professional clinical help ASAP.

    ↪T Clark
    :up:
  • Dare We Say, ‘Thanks for Nothing’?
    The human condition in a square bracket. We have caused most of our own misery - not entirely unknowingly, because there was always at least one 'enemy of the people' who warned us and was overruled for all the wrong reasons. — Vera Mont
    :100:

    Those who have almost nothing are usually thankful for the little they have.
    Those who have almost everything usually think they deserve better.
    — unenlightened

    The whole point of institutional religion.
    :fire:
  • Ontological status of ideas
    So, chairs exist and numbers subsist? Is that a common understanding? — Art48
    Yeah "common" for philosophers, iirc, since A. Meinong¹. Simply put: existents are causally relatable to each other and subsistents (which are only instantiable via existents) are logically / grammatically relatable but are not causally related at all.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonexistent_objects#Meinong's_jungle [1]
  • What are you listening to right now?
  • "Potential" as a cosmological origin
    Why is there something instead of nothing? — Benj96
    This is a pseudo-question because of its 'something/nothing' (fluctuation/vacuum) false dichotomy. The physical fact is 0.999 of every something (nonzero dimensional X) is nothing (zero dimension).
    'Nothing' is unstable. — Frank Wilczek, theoretical physicist
    Also, there is no ultimate "why" that doesn't beg the question except There Is No Ultimate "Why" – existence (i.e. fundamental disorder-dynamics-void fluctuations ... 'necessary contingency') is the brute fact.

    ↪T Clark
    :up: :up:
  • In defence of the Principle of Sufficient Reason
    Since the PSR is a first principle of metaphysics, like logic, then it is part of the fabric of reality. — A Christian Philosophy
    Fallacy of misplaced concreteness (i.e. mapmaking =/= terrain). At most the PSR is, "like logic", a foundational property of reason.
  • Cosmology & evolution: theism vs deism vs accidentalism
    NB: a cosmos (i.e. an emergent, autopoietic, dissipative fractal-structure) is only one of countless phase transitions of chaos (i.e. void, formlessness, randomness) – like sound in silence or a wave on the ocean or a cloud in the sky or a spot on the sun ... anthropic illusions of "design" :eyes:
  • What is creativity?
    I define creativity as producing intentional accidents (i.e. disciplined improvisation).
  • In defence of the Principle of Sufficient Reason
    ↪A Christian Philosophy
    So what is the sufficient reason (why) for the "PSR" (Why) or any so-called "sufficient reason" (why) as such?
  • In science there is progress and answers. In philosophy there is 2500 years of mental masturbation
    Modern science is an artifact of 2,500 years of philosophy.
  • How do you define good?
    How do you define good? — Matias Isoo
    In contrast to 'instrumental good' or 'aesthetic good', I define ethical good as flourishing (eudaimonia) from the moral conduct (eusocial habits) of non-reciprocally reducing harms (re: suffering).

    Read (e.g.) Epicurus & Philippa Foot ...
  • Philosophy, Politics and Values: Could there be a New Renaissance or has it gone too far?
    All that you touch
    You change.

    All that you change
    Changes you.

    The only lasting truth
    Is Change.
    — Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower
    I do think that there is likely to be a lot of population reduction through many factors, from war and inequalities. Of course, this is not the first time and the ability to cope with change is questionable. — Jack Cummins
    :up: :up:

    My (dark) forecasting ...

    (2023)
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/844458

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/841471

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/848035
  • How to account for subjectivity in an objective world?
    How to account for subjectivity in an objective world? — bizso09
    The former is in part constituted by the former just as higher dimensional spaces / bandwidths are constituted by lower dimensional spaces / bandwidths. Subjectivity (i.e. my view from here) is an emergent property – phenomenal-perspectival aspect – of objectivity (i.e. public view from anywhere).
  • Is the real world fair and just?
    @schopenhauer1 ...
    To prevent life =/= to prevent suffering just as to destroy the village =/= to save the village. Your ANist cowardice and hypocrisy are pathetic, schop, but it's not yet too late to redeem yourself à la Mainländer. :smirk: — 180 Proof

    ... a quick summary of a dark pandeism¹ (e.g. contra 'Spinoza's God') rather than mere bourgeois 'pessimism' (A. Schopenhauer) or ascetic 'nihilism' (Kitarō Nishida, Keiji Nishitani).

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/718054 [1]
  • Cosmology & evolution: theism vs deism vs accidentalism
    ↪180 Proof is making a statement of personal belief, not a fact of science. — Gnomon
    :roll:

    That so-called "personal belief" is an application of Occam's Razor, or a regulatory principle for abductive reasoning¹ (i.e. philosophy, not "a statement of fact" – like e.g. 'the uniformity of nature').

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abductive_reasoning [1]
  • Cosmology & evolution: theism vs deism vs accidentalism
    So you're saying the probability God exists is extremely low? — RogueAI
    Also, by implication, I'm saying that, while "God" and the universe are equally improbable, "God" is completely nonevident such that parsimoniously the universe (as e.g. eternal, cyclical, a vacuum fluctuation, etc) suffices both as a physical explanation and metaphysical presupposition.
  • Cosmology & evolution: theism vs deism vs accidentalism
    ↪Relativist
    :clap:

    He won't respond to your actual criticisms or arguments because he can't. IME, @Gnomon is as disingenuous as he is an incorrigibly poor thinker.
  • Evidence of Consciousness Surviving the Body
    ↪fdrake
    :cool: :up:
  • Cosmology & evolution: theism vs deism vs accidentalism
    ↪Relativist
    :up: :up:
  • The Self/Other Imperative of Wisdom
    Sumus, ergo sum. (Spinoza ... Buber, Levinas)
  • Cosmology & evolution: theism vs deism vs accidentalism
    ↪Janus
    :100:

    ↪Relativist
    :up: :up:
  • Philosophy, Politics and Values: Could there be a New Renaissance or has it gone too far?
    ... it is likely that the mythical idea of the 'end times' has an influence on the shaping of history and how people live. — Jack Cummins
    :up: :up:
  • Philosophy, Politics and Values: Could there be a New Renaissance or has it gone too far?
    ↪Outlander
    Pardon. It was your 'reasoning' that I didn't find relevant.
  • Philosophy, Politics and Values: Could there be a New Renaissance or has it gone too far?
    ↪Outlander
    I don't see the relevance of your post to either the OP topic or my posts.
  • Philosophy, Politics and Values: Could there be a New Renaissance or has it gone too far?
    ↪Outlander
    So what's your point?
  • Philosophy, Politics and Values: Could there be a New Renaissance or has it gone too far?
    I am just concerned that what is happening now may be the point of no return. — Jack Cummins
    Nothing new in this sort of "end times" anxiety except for the historical circumstances and particulars.
  • Philosophy, Politics and Values: Could there be a New Renaissance or has it gone too far?
    ↪unenlightened
    :up: :up:

    ↪Jack Cummins
    If you haven't already, consider this article on the impersonal forces which tend to collapse civilizations (or empires) ...

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/30/the-deep-historical-forces-that-explain-trumps-win

    My previous post makes a similiar point: the cycles of "rise and fall" are envitable.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Well, a chunk of Americans cared more about voting against a black woman. — RogueAI
    :mask:
  • Cosmology & evolution: theism vs deism vs accidentalism
    As described, the first cause is uncaused - but it's not an "accident", in the traditional sense as being synonymous with "contingent". — Relativist
    :up: :up:
  • Philosophy, Politics and Values: Could there be a New Renaissance or has it gone too far?
    Use your head, can't you, use your head, you're on earth, there's no cure for that! — Samuel Beckett, Endgame
    ↪Jack Cummins
    My reading of "great histories" informs me that civilization is always on the brink of collapse. Periods of long, gradual decline culminate in sudden unforeseeable crashes (à la chaotic systems (e.g. avalanches, cancers)). Besides increasing entropy (i.e. environmental degradation & destruction, runaway dominance of accumulated disinformation), endemic political and cultural corruption seems the recurring culprit.

    Recently in the late great XXth Century: both World Wars brought civilization conspicuously closer to the brink; both global pandemics (1918-20, 2020-21); "The Great Depression" (1929-1940); "The Cold War" nuclear brinksmanship – punctuated by The Cuban Missile Crisis (1962) – kept the (settler-colonizer "first") world on the brink (1949-1989); and, last but not least, rapidly accelerating industrialization-caused Global Warming primarily by former Imperial Powers across the Northern Hemisphere (1820s - present) ... to name a few rationally undeniable 'processes' which have been stress-testing modern global civilization (many roots of which are vestiges of premodern revolutions-schisms, imperial wars, "Dark Ages", migrations-diseases, etc).

    According to recorded history (ca 5,000 BCE), Jack, all civilizations have been built bricolage-like from and amid the ruins of previous civilizations. We are just "cursed", as the Chinese say, to be "living in interesting times" where the hazards – black swans – of collapse are observable and even measureable.
  • Cosmology & evolution: theism vs deism vs accidentalism
    Spinoza hedged his bets by labeling his pantheistic deity as Deus sive Natura. — Gnomon
    :roll: Incorrigible & lazy ...

    'Natura deus est' is pantheistic; however, (sub specie aeternitatis) Spinoza's concept is acosmist¹.

    (2023, 2020, 2021)
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/825698 [1]
  • An evolutionary defense of solipsism
    Is "mind" disembodied?
  • Cosmology & evolution: theism vs deism vs accidentalism
    In other words, the improbability that 'an uncreated, transcendent creator of universes' exists (e.g. Plato, Aquinas) is, at best, equal to the improbability that 'an uncreated, autopoietic universe' exists (e.g. Epicurus, Spinoza); however, the latter is more parsimonious (i.e. has fewer inexplicable terms/assumptions) than the former.

    @Gnomon @Wayfarer @RogueAI
  • Cosmology & evolution: theism vs deism vs accidentalism
    So we must start out by asking the question 'is this world more likely a product of intelligent design or chance'? Well, we are not allowed to start out by assuming a designer with a particular character. So, [to do] the calculation we must consider how many different plans and intentiosn a designer may have. And there's the problem: there are going to be a potential infinite number. Certainly the odds of there being a designer who wished to create a world such as this are going to be everybit as long as the odds that a world such as this arose by chance. And given that the latter is a simpler thesis than the former - it doesn't assume a designer - then the chance thesis is the more reasonable one, other things being equal. — Clearbury
    :clap: :100:

    IME, woo-woo warriors like @Gnomon can't grok parsimony in either science or philosophy.
  • Is the truth still owed even if it erodes free will?
    ↪180 Proof What a Kant! — Tom Storm
    :lol: :up:
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