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  • James Webb Telescope
    More astra ex machina :nerd:

    re: Voyager-1
    https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-68881369
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    I don't know enough ... — tim wood
    Yes, that's why i linked you and others to this video
    ↪180 Proof
    on 'the history' of Israeli oppression of Gazans et al.

    Also this (in case you missed or willfully ignored @Tzeentch's) post ...
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/898196

    ... representation that Gazans are simply innocent victims and responsibility-free.
    Strawman, of course. 'Collective punishment' (e.g. domicide¹) and 'disproportionate retaliatory slaughter' of a several decades-long captive population for "October 7th" by (US client-state) Israel are, at least, ongoing war crimes.

    https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-01-04/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/amid-israeli-destruction-in-gaza-a-new-crime-against-humanity-emerges-domicide/0000018c-d585-d751-ad8d-ffa5965e0000 [1]

    https://fnl.mit.edu/january-march-2024/domicide-the-mass-destruction-of-homes-should-be-a-crime-against-humanity/ [1]
  • What Are You Watching Right Now?
    18April24, Avenue C, NYC
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    Ceasefire NOW. Free Palestine!

    Depose, Arrest, Prosecute & Punish the war criminals Netanyahu & his regime's leaders!

    @BitconnectCarlos @tim wood @RogueAI & other zionfascist apologists ...
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    Palestinian [oppressed] kills Jew = Resistance. Jew [oppressor] kills Palestinian = war crime.
    — BitconnectCarlos

    That's how it works when one party is oppressed and the other is oppressed. That has nothing to do with identity.
    — Benkei
    :100: :up:
  • The Breadth of the Moral Sphere
    ↪Bob Ross
    :up:
  • RIP Daniel Dennett
    ↪Wayfarer
    If you believe Daniel Dennett was "the most consistent representative of scientism" (which he wasn't), Wayf, then it's quite likely you haven't studied Dennett's work or read the philosopher Alex Rosenberg's pro-scientism work e.g. The Atheist's Guide to Reality.

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/898001
  • The Breadth of the Moral Sphere
    Is harm thought to be synonymous with justice? — Leontiskos
    No. However, injustice is a kind of harm perpetrated by a group (i.e. its institutional functionaries) against individuals.

    For example, if someone enters your house with a gun and you sneak up behind them and knock them unconscious in order to incapacitate them, would the negative utilitarian say that you have harmed them? If this does not count as harm ...
    Not if "incapacitating" the gunman is the only or least harmful way to prevent the gunman from doing greater, perhaps lethal, harm (e.g. like surgically removing a malignant tumor or severing a foot caught in a bear trap or terminating an unwanted pregnancy before viability (or an unviable pregnancy that is more likely than not to kill the pregnant woman)).
  • The Breadth of the Moral Sphere
    I don’t follow your objection. — Leontiskos
    What I mean is this: to say that "all human actions are moral actions" (dogma) in effect negates itself (dialectically) by entailing that there are no non-moral actions to distinguish from, and thereby identify, "moral actions". Thus, for me at least, your OP's premises are incoherent.

    Also this, Leontiskos ...
    The desire for what is good does not mean that the good will be found in our practices. What the good is remains highly problematic.

    Reading Aristotle as if his work is not dialectical makes it hard to see that he is guided by unanswered questions rather than dogmatic answers.
    — Fooloso4
    :fire:
  • Currently Reading
    Revolutionary Jews From Spinoza to Marx: The Fight for A Secular World of Universal and Equal Rights by Jonathan Israel — Maw
    :up:
  • RIP Daniel Dennett
    I am surprised no one has started a thread on this — Manuel
    A post from yesterday ...
    He just died. Surprised there was no mention here.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/19/books/daniel-dennett-dead.html

    RIP
    — fishfry
  • Ukraine Crisis
    Slava Ukraini :fire:

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/20/us-house-approves-61bn-aid-ukraine

    Fuck the GOP (Gimps Of Putin)!
  • Daniel Dennett interview
    ↪fishfry
    From this morning ...

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/898001

    No more 'resting in peace' than there would be for cars cut up for scrap. — Wayfarer
    Ergo ... :death: :flower:
  • The Mind-Created World
    Our interpetations are constrained by the nature of the world including ourselves, so it's not right to say that we create the world. — Janus
    The bodymind interprets what is given to it precognitively. It doesn't create what is given ... — Janus

    :100: :up:
  • What Are You Watching Right Now?
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Atheism_Tapes



    Daniel Dennett, d. 2024
    Jonathan Miller, d. 2019
  • Currently Reading
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/897768

    Remembering Daniel Dennett 1942-2024 (whom I had the honor of meeting after public lectures in 1987 (Boston) and 1994 (Minneapolis)), I'm rereading ...

    • Darwin's Dangerous Idea
    • Mind's I
    (w/ D. Hofstadter)
    • Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon
    • Inside Jokes: Using Humor to Reverse Engineer the Mind


    ... for now.
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    ↪Mikie
    :up:

    ↪BitconnectCarlos
    :up: :up:
  • The Mind-Created World
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/897768 :fire:
  • TPF Quote Cabinet
    One of the surprising discoveries of modern psychology is how easy it is to be ignorant of your own ignorance.

    Like many other natural wonders, the human mind is something of a bag of tricks, cobbled together over the eons by the foresightless process of evolution by natural selection.

    Philosophy is to science what pigeons are to statues.

    There’s simply no polite way to tell people they’ve dedicated their lives to an illusion.

    The task of the mind is to produce future, as the poet Paul Valéry once put it. A mind is fundamentally an anticipator, an expectation-generator. It mines the present for clues, which it refines with the help of the materials it has saved from the past, turning them into anticipations of the future. And then it acts, rationally, on the basis of those hard-won anticipations.

    The mind is the effect, not the cause.
    — Daniel Dennett, d. 2024
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    I'd wager less than 10k civilians killed. — BitconnectCarlos
    Of course you would ... just like any other deluded holocaust denier.
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    open supporters of terrorist groups — BitconnectCarlos
    like you, BitC, et al (re: Netanyahu's 'mass murdering + mass starvation strategy for settlers lebensraum' regime).
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    ↪BitconnectCarlos
    FOX Noise and other right wing propaganda media are disinforming you, BitC. :mask:
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    ↪BitconnectCarlos
    Non sequitur nonsense.
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    You're an atheistic materialist. No? The universe has no real meaning/value save what we choose to impose? — BitconnectCarlos
    :roll: C'mon, dude, for fuck's sake. Atheism =/= nihilism. Materialism =/= nihilism. Anti-zionism (i.e. anti-greater israel fascism) =/= nihilism. Anti-oppressors =/= nihilism. Anti-Netanyahu's regime =/= nihilism.

    Opposing systematic military slaughter of an apartheid-corraled, ethnically cleansed civilian population without any Bronze Age religious cult's "promise of eternal reward" (or "promised land"-grab!) exemplifies historically-situated moral goodness (and courage) in contrast to theo-fascist apologia like post-1967 zionism-über-alles. After all, "faith" has always been a blanket rationalization for moral cretinism – in effect, nihilism. :shade:
  • The Breadth of the Moral Sphere
    I am a moral realist[naturalist] who disagrees with both theses — Leontiskos
    :up:

    Thesis 1 and thesis 2 represent two categorical claims:

    All human acts are moral acts
    All interpersonal acts are justice acts
    I don't think these statements make sense or are useful (re: if "all" x = y, then ~x = y).

    What is the breadth of the moral sphere?
    In the metaethical framework of moral naturalism, I think "the moral sphere" consists of natural creatures (i.e. any sentient species) which can suffer from – fears of – arbitrary harm (or injustice), especially, though not exclusively, moral agents who are also moral patients.

    Anyway, my objections:

    Some human acts are not moral acts
    In the normative framework of negative utilitarianism, I think only judgments/conduct which (actively or passively) (a) prevents or reduces harm or (b) inflicts or increases harm are moral; however, those activities which are neither (a) nor (b) are non-moral (e.g. phatic, instrumental, involuntary) so that most "human acts", in fact, are non-moral.

    Some interpersonal acts are not justice acts
    In the applied framework of negative consequentialism, I do not think "interpersonal acts are justice acts" because "justice" pertains to impacts on individuals by institutional or group practices (i.e. policies) and not "interpersonal" – what happens between individuals.
  • What Might an Afterlife be Like?
    What are your thoughts on self-sacrifice in this instance? — BitconnectCarlos
    :roll: This ...
    I do not see how "the afterlife" is a primary motivating factor. — 180 Proof
  • What Might an Afterlife be Like?
    Do you understand the scenario? — BitconnectCarlos
    Yes. Do you? Apparently you don't understand this dispute.
  • What is the true nature of the self?
    ↪Metaphysician Undercover
    No. Read my exchange with bert1 again.

    ↪bert1
    Nevermind.
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    ↪Benkei
    :smirk: :up:
  • What is the true nature of the self?
    ↪bert1
    "Consciousness is the capacity" =
    structure and function — bert1
    "to feel" ... so you're contradicting yourself :confused:
  • What is the true nature of the self?
    Consciousness is not structure and function. — bert1
    Okay, so then what is "consciousness"?
  • What is the true nature of the self?
    So, if I've understood your question properly, consciousness abstracted from any functioning system is indeed impersonal, in that sense. — bert1
    Ergo the implication is that subjects are not conscious (or impersonal)?
  • What Might an Afterlife be Like?
    All true. But what of self-sacrifice in an instance where, according to the social reality, it would seem completely futile? [ ... ] Do we still self-sacrifice here? — BitconnectCarlos
    This depends on the particular persons engaged that "futile" situation. I do not see how "the afterlife" is a primary motivating factor
  • What Might an Afterlife be Like?
    ↪Tom Storm
    :up:
  • What Might an Afterlife be Like?
    ↪Moliere
    :up: :up:
  • Is there a limit to human knowledge?
    I can't subscribe to a philosophy that doesn't know what knowledge is; it would be contrary to my daily experience. — Vera Mont
    :up: :up:

    [W]hat is the point of doing philosophy? — Angelo Cannata
    Well, to begin with it seems, "the point" is to interpret questions we (still) do not know how to (definitively) answer and thereby reason towards more probative questions. Or, in other words, "the point of doing philosophy" is learning how to overcome (or, at least, mitgate) the ignorance of one's own ignorance.
  • What Might an Afterlife be Like?
    ↪BitconnectCarlos
    Throughout history and across cultures many many nonbelievers have sacrificed their lives in order to protect their families / communities and/or to oppose various tyrannies. "Belief" in some "afterlife" – or any fact-free, faith-based story – in order to gain a "reward" (or punishment) isn't a necessary motivator and, IMO, more often than not, is only useful for deluding weak minds into throwing away their lives "in the name of (the cause)". Ethically, as a rule, martyrdom isn't an argument (& ends don't justify means – especially those means which undermine or negate their ends). Just my 2 shekels. :victory:
  • Is there a limit to human knowledge?
    Are there things in the physical universe that we can never find out? — Vera Mont
    Humans will probably never know.

    If so, is that due to our limitations or time constraint?
    Both.

    Are there things beyond our range of perception, ...
    Yes: planck and relativistic phenomena ...

    beyond our ... imagination or
    I can't imagine it.

    our ... ability to devise instruments?
    Certainly (re: technical impossibilities).

    Or are there things we are not meant to discover ...
    How about a "God" that hides from us?

    or not able to comprehend?
    Well, 'narrow AI systems' like AlphaGo neural nets play the strategic game Go in ways which are incomprehensible – black boxes – to the best human players and students of the game. I suspect in the coming decade or so we'll encounter many more 'black box solutions' – rendering our species cognitively obsolete – in disciplines automated (colonized) by AGI such as finance, engineering, computation, molecular biology, nanotech, neuroscience, chemistry, fundamental physics, ... public administration, etc.
  • US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/896858

    16April24 – $22.84 per share
  • An Analysis of Goodness and The Good
    It seems like you are anchoring your ethics in reducing harm, and not progressing towards flourishing. — Bob Ross
    On the contrary, I propose that moral agents flourish to the degree effectively 'preventing and reducing harm and/or injustice' become habits. This form of moral naturalism I call aretaic disutilitarianism (i.e. agency-cultivating active opposition to both (agency-disabling) harms and injustices).
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180 Proof

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