180 Proof - The Philosophy Forum

To put it plainly, an anti-theocracy is as bad as a theocracy. — Janus

False equivalence (like anti-fascism "is as bad as" fascism ... anti-sexism "is as bad as" sexism...) :roll:

Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)

↪Gnomon

:eyes: :lol:

Tommorrow. :cool:

↪Bob Ross

:roll:

Enformationism is an attempt to disguise religious beliefs with a scientific cloak. — Gnomon

I agree ...
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/792659

@L'elephant

An interesting Triad of relationships

This is the hard problem. — Benj96

For whom? Not scientists (because it's not even a scientific problem).

An interesting Triad of relationships

What might we say about object - object interaction? — Benj96

(Model-dependent) realism? or classical atomism?

What percentage of the population do you think can, and wants to, think for itself? — Janus

I suspect most want to, but not enough can.

↪RogueAI

:up:

'Thou shalt not think for thyself' – no thanks.

An interesting Triad of relationships

scientific method/objectivity — Benj96

"Subject-Object"

faith/belief/spirituality/Gods

'Subject-Subject"

ethics/immorality

'Social-Social"

How do we tie this into different philosophical schools of thought?

Broadly – instrumentalism? idealism? & pragmatism? respectively.

I do not agree with your [@Gnomon's] supposition that the information theory -- under the protection of science -- could actually be a metaphysical view. This is an abuse of philosophy. — L'éléphant

:100:

And so that's your dogma ... — Hanover

Not at all. I extrapolated from your "dogma" :smirk:

So even should a belief in God be entirely delusional, if it should lead to greater happiness, and should its disbelief lead to misery, you'd be hard pressed to explain why we should accept the cold hard scientific misery... — Hanover

How do you know that you aren’t a brain in a vat? You don’t. — Bob Ross

There are not any grounds to believe I am a BiV and compelling evidence that I am not. I take your evasive reply as you conceding the point, Bob, that without public evidence one does not "know" one is not hallucinating (e.g. sensory deprivation).

... mental properties ...

Other than ideas (re: "idealism"), to what does this phrase refer?

↪Hanover

Satisfied swine rather than sad Socratics? IMO, as a species, we owe most of the achievements of civilization to the latter and much of the incorrigible inertia / neglect to (the wallowing of) the former.

↪Noble Dust

As I'd pointed out (on the first page of this thread) the absurdity of the OP ...
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/811827
I assumed that by page fifteen a more defensible notion than "atheist dogma causes religious fundamentalism" was being discussed. My mistake for not reading the last several pages of the thread.

↪Janus

What about 'magical thinking' 'delusion' and 'willful ignorance' – you don't think they are "major contributors to the array of problems humanity faces"? And whether or not religion causes them, it exacerbates these atavistic tendencies, no?

↪Noble Dust

By "atheist dogma", are you referring to a critical rejection of literal theism and/or interpretation of "revealed" scriptures – or something else?

Is Star Wars A Shared Mythos?

Nostalgia. — Mikie

:up:

One does not have to have public evidence of something to know it necessarily. — Bob Ross

How do you know that you are not hallucinating "that you have thoughts"? or that those alleged "thoughts" are yours and not someone elses "thoughts"?

The idea is the the universal mind is what is metaphysically necessary:

I don't understand what you mean by "metaphysically necessary". At least as far as (e.g.) property dualism is concerned, the negation of "universal mind" – mental substance – is not a contradiction.

A universal mind is not an idea ...

... and yet you claim to be monist positing "mental substance" wherein there are only ideas. :roll:

TPF Quote Cabinet

If America is the culmination of Western white civilization, as everyone from the Left to the Right declares, then there must be something terribly wrong with Western white civilization. This is a painful truth; few of us want to go that far.... The truth is that Mozart, Pascal, Boolean algebra, Shakespeare, parliamentary government, baroque churches, Newton, the emancipation of women, Kant, Marx, Balanchine ballets, et al, don't redeem what this particular civilization has wrought upon the world. The white race is the cancer of human history; it is the white race and it alone — its ideologies and inventions — which eradicates autonomous civilizations wherever it spreads, which has upset the ecological balance of the planet, which now threatens the very existence of life itself. — Susan Sontag, Paris Review 1967

Accurate critique or posturing "white guilt"? Both or neither? I've no doubt what Fanon would say. :chin:

Irony of representation, I wonder what Ms. Sontag thought of this scene ...

↪Tom Storm

:up:

In my mind, the intelligible question was never "whether or not something comes from nothing?" but instead How ~X transforms into X and X transforms into ~X? For me, the answer We don't / can't know suffices – no (inexplicable) "god/mind"-of-the-gaps (fiat) required.

everything is fundamentally mind-dependent. A universal mind can be a part of a natural process, — Bob Ross

What "universal mind"? There is not any publicly accessible evidence for such an entity. And if "everything is fundamentally mind-dependent" (including this "fundamental", which I find self-refuting), then "a universal mind" is only an idea, not a fact or "natural process".

No. A much more so "weakly emergent" function like e.g. breathing or digesting or walking.
—180 Proof

How can mental activity be both weakly emergent and irreductive? — Bob Ross

Is breathing "reducible" to lungs, digesting "reducible" to intestines or walking "reducible" to legs? No, each is a function – "activity" – of the latter, respectively, just as mind(ing) – "mental activity" – is a (set of) function(s) of the brain-body-environment.

However, the ‘physical’ in a formal sense does not exist at all.

I don't understand what "in a formal sense" means here. The "physical" methodology certainly "exists" – and facilitates productive sciences and technologies – regardless of Analytic Idealists ignoring it "in a formal sense" or any other sense.

Mother Nature can smack you upside the head if you get it wrong. — wonderer1

:up:

Interesting: what would you say are the methodological distinctions between them? — Bob Ross

(I assume you meant 'distinctions between these methodologies'.) In sum, by methodological materialism I understand a criteria for eliminating 'immaterial entities' (e.g. non-instantiates) from observational / experimental data and by methodological physicalism a criteria for eliminating 'non-physical concepts' (e.g. un-conditionals) from the composition of explanatory models of (aspects of) nature; wherein the inclusion of 'immaterial Xs' and/or 'nonphysical Ys' are indicative of incomplete (i.e. untestable) data-sets and/or models, respectively.

Would you consider consciousness strongly emergent then (as opposed to weakly emergent)?

No. A much more so "weakly emergent" function like e.g. breathing or digesting or walking.

Since the reductive methodology doesn’t work on consciousness (which is, and correct me if I am wrong, what I am interpreting you to be agreeing with me on as a property dualist), do you deploy a different methodological approach that still retains (ontological) naturalism?

Yes.

If so, then could you give a brief elaboration thereon?

Nonreductive physicalism. I've previously (twice!) provided you a link to an article summarizing T. Metzinger's phenomenal self model which seems to me a highly cogent and experimentally supported research program within a nonreductive physicalist framework.

[ ... ] all of reality is of a mental substance—there is no, under Analytic Idealism, physical substance. With that in mind, do you still think it violates the law of conservation of energy (and what not)?

Well, "no physical substance" implies there are no physical laws to "violate"; and so, without physical laws, how do you suppose "Analytic Idealism" accounts for the fact of physical sciences and their prodigious efficacy in contrast to far less reliable (or probative) psychological / social sciences?

Or rather, how is it that "the physical" is publicly accessible if "all of reality is mental" and "the mental" is not publicly accessible? :chin:

PS___You shouldn't depend on ↪180 Proof for information about Enformationism. He seems to be well-read in ancient Philosophy, ~~but not in modern Science~~. Despite what he says, the Enformationism thesis is ~~compatible with Naturalism, all the way back to the Big Bang~~. Apparently, he has read the thesis & blog & post links, only enough to scan for hot-button terms such as "panendeism" (which is explicitly discussed, not disguised). Apparently the philosophical implications of the thesis are contrary to ~~his personal worldview (Parmenadean?) So, he has made it his mission on TPF to defend his fossilized belief system~~ (Naturalism, Materialism, Realism, you name it) from fresh new information . He thinly disguises his disgust ~~with sophistry. That's why~~ I no longer engage ~~in his word games~~. — Gnomon

:clap: :lol: Thanks for proving my point about you compulsively projecting your own defects on anyone who step by step calls you out on your BS, Gnomon. You "don't engage with" me because you have displayed these last few years how incapable you are of honest, informed & cogent dialectic. And your poor reasoning begins with your confessed god-of-the-gaps fallacy that's pointed out in a previous post...
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/812298

postscript (from four months ago):
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/775528

post-postscript: I'd love to formally debate you with a moderator here on TFP, Gnomon, on any philosophical and/or scientific points of disagreement ... Of course, however, you're too scared of submitting your dogmatic woo-woo to rigorous cross-examination, so ... :sweat:

↪L'éléphant

:up:

Is Star Wars A Shared Mythos?

↪Tom Storm

From a two year old post ...

... I'd come across the space opera novel Dune and had read it (maybe twice immediately), my grade school antipathy for Star Wars was confirmed – it'd seemed back in '77 that Star Wars was only a corny mashup of 1930s' era Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, Wizard of Oz & bad samurai flicks ... but, in fact, I found that George Lucas had filmed a highly derivative, dumbed-down, "adaptation" of the 1965 Frank Herbert novel. — 180 Proof

I haven't watched the latest film adaptation of Dune yet because I'd decided to wait for the second film (second half of the novel) to be released so I can watch Denis Villeneuve's complete adaptation (aka "Star Wars for grown-ups"). :nerd:

In my limited understanding matter is not inert stuff but actively forms self-organizing systems. — Fooloso4

:100: :up:

For example: thermodynamics, nucleogenesis, dissipative structures, chaotic systems, autopoiesis, etc And in philosophy: e.g. Democritean-Lucretian atomism, Meillassoux's speculative materialism.

Interesting. Let me phrase it a bit differently: what ontology of being/reality would you subscribe to (if any)? — Bob Ross

Ontological naturalism (à la Spinoza).

By ‘naturalism’, are you distinguishing it from ‘physicalism’ and ‘materialism’?

I conceive of the latter two as distinctly methodological approaches within the former's paradigm.

Are you referring to ontological or/and methodological naturalism?

Ontological (since that's what you asked about). However, I also "subscribe", as you say, to methodological naturalism.

Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems as though you may be a methodological but not ontological naturalist ...

Well, I "subscribe" to both.

Would you say that “consciousness” is reducible to the brain or is it just supervenient?

I've already answered this in my last post:

I think "consciousness" – phenomenal self modeling – supervenes on the brain's neurological systems bodily interacting with its local environment. — 180 Proof

Check out the linked article for more clarification.

Would you classify yourself as a property dualist (i.e., irreductive physicalist)? — Bob Ross

Yes, more or less.

Why would it ["Universal Spirit"] violate conservation laws?

If your "Universal Spirit" is conceived of as a separate nonphysical substance that interacts with (or even generates) a physical substance, then that would violate the physical law of the conservation of energy, etc.

↪Benj96

My question wasn't clear enough. How you know this

They are however "closer" to that which doesn't change - the singularity - a fundamental and unchanging rule. — Benj96

is this case? :chin:

↪Benj96

How do you know that?

https://www.dw.com/en/us-senate-gives-final-approval-on-debt-ceiling-bill/a-65800254 :up:

If that is the case how to we know the mass of the sun, the strength of gravity or the speed of light? — Benj96

Physical laws & constants are not "absolute truths". We "know" them only as structural invariants of our most reliable, provisional scientific models.

Who's to say these truth tellers weren't just philosophers?

IMO, anyone who denies that 's/he do not know that s/he do not know' by preaching some "absolute knowledge" is not an honest seeker (lover) of wisdom, whether s/he uses 'philosophical techniques' (e.g. sophist) or not (e.g. priest).

What Are You Watching Right Now?

Addendum to this post ...
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/714352

The Debt Ceiling Issue

Biden to sign the clean debt ceiling raise into law by the first of June.
No US Default – come hell or highwater! – is my prediction. — 180 Proof

↪Wayfarer Both Schumer & McConnell are nothing if not lifelong, loyal-to-a-fault employees of the billionaire political parties donor-class and committed to avoiding default on US Debt. The US Senate will easily pass the bill. — 180 Proof

↪Benj96

The closest thing to "absolute truth" is that such "knowledge" is either ineffable or unknowable. As finite, relative beings, we're no more capable of grasping the infinite and the absolute as a drinking cup can contain the Atlantic Ocean. "IMO, absolute truth"-tellers e.g. gurus, sages, prophets ... are immoral insofar as they preach 'illusions of "absolute knowledge"' – ignorance of ignorance – to their naive and gullible followers. Thus, philosophers (e.g. Socratics, Pyrrhonians) are the original cult deprogrammers.

:fire:

↪Metaphysician Undercover

:eyes: :rofl:

↪Vera Mont

:smirk:

Out of curiosity, what ontology would you subscribe to? — Bob Ross

By ontology I understand the constitutive, necessary and sufficient conditions of all human practices; therefore, it makes most sense to "subscribe" to naturalism (à la Laozi, Epicurus, Spinoza, Hume, Nietzsche, Dewey ... )

Do you think that consciousness can be provably determined as reducible to brain states?

I think "consciousness" – phenomenal self modeling – supervenes on the brain's neurological systems bodily interacting with its local environment.

What problems do you find with positing a Universal Spirit?

Well, for starters, I don't find any compelling reasons to believe that entities such as "ghosts" or "spirits" exist (except in fictions) and so "positing a Universal Spirit" seems to me merely an ad hoc projection of wishful or magical thinking akin to e.g. aether, phlogiston, chi, juju, mojo, astral planes, "The Force", etc. "Universal Spirit" certainly is not parsimonious, probably violates conservation laws and as a conjecture does not explain anything.