• Masculinity
    Does a man and a woman have total equality under the label human or humanism, in your view? — universeness
    Maybe under the modern label of libertarian socialism there is "total equality" ...
  • Masculinity
    My earnest answer to 'what is a man or what is masculinity,' lies within the answer to 'what is a human or what is humanism.' — universeness
    In this context, terms like "human" and "humanism" seem to me about as useful as "earthling" and "geocenrrism", respectively.
  • Masculinity
    What is a real man? — Moliere
    As opposed to a "fake" man ... :confused:

    Perhaps a more probative inquiry:
    What are the functions, or duties, normatively expected of men at (this) historical moment and by (this) culture / in (this) society? And what does such an expectation 'to be a man' mean to (for) each concretely situated person?
    A socio-psychological topic, however, rather than philosophical aporia, no?
  • Pointlessness of philosophy
    Insofar as philosophy is suppositional and critical, it is not propositional or theoretical (e.g. science, history). So when did the praxis of personal reflection called-into-question by interpersonal dialectic become "pointless"?
  • Does ethics apply to thoughts?
    How you conduct yourself is what matters. There are psychopaths who are very moral people because they choose to live by an ethical code. — RogueAI
    :100:

    Does ethics apply to thoughts? Is a man evil if he has evil thoughts, and good if he has good ones? — NOS4A2
    No.
  • Masculinity
    ↪180 Proof If I'm reading you correctly you're making a hard distinction between the biological and the social in how you treat the two nouns -- a man is biologically defined, and masculinity is defined in this more psychological, spiritual, ontological, or social sense. — Moliere
    :up:
  • Is our civilization critically imbalanced? Could Yin-Yang help? (poll)
    ↪0 thru 9
    All things being equal, we're probably fucked (e.g. anthropic climate change).

    An excerpt from a thread on "The Future"...
    In a century, civilizational collapse on a global scale – population crash to below 2 billion – due mostly to catastrophic climate instability and consisting mostly of failed states and "floating" transnational corporate enclaves. — 180 Proof
  • Is our civilization critically imbalanced? Could Yin-Yang help? (poll)
    ↪0 thru 9
    My question suggests that civilization is inherently unstable; once they reach stability – equilibrium – they tend to (suddenly) collapse. Analogously, IMO (on geological scale), cultures are like ecological niches and civilizations are like pandemics.
  • Is our civilization critically imbalanced? Could Yin-Yang help? (poll)
    ↪0 thru 9
    I think it's more intelligible not to conflate culture with civilization than to conflate them.
  • Masculinity
    ↪T Clark
    :up:
  • Is our civilization critically imbalanced? Could Yin-Yang help? (poll)
    I’d offer the Australian Aborigines.
    65,000 years of continuing existence in the same place is a damn fine record.     — 0 thru 9
    For me, 0 thru 9, this example stretches the notion of 'civilization' into incoherence.
  • James Webb Telescope
    https://www.space.com/universe-expansion-could-be-a-mirage :eyes: :yikes:
  • The Argument from Reason
    Life is short, 180. — Wayfarer
    And denial is long.
  • Is our civilization critically imbalanced? Could Yin-Yang help? (poll)
    ↪0 thru 9
    Other. :chin:

    Cite an example of a "civilization" which was not unbalanced.
  • The Argument from Reason
    ↪Wayfarer
    And yet, besides a disapproving squeak, you cannot point out my error/s. :roll:
  • Masculinity
    So the opening question: What is a man? — Moliere
    An adult human with XY chromosomes.

    And the titular question: What is masculinity?
    Yang (re: taijitu). Unbalanced, tends to break before bending (contrary to / complementary of Yin which tends to bend before breaking). :fire:
  • The Argument from Reason
    So do we blame old Franz for creating all of this confusion? — wonderer1
    Blame millennia of folk psychology (e.g. Scholastic psychologism).

    Next you'll be telling us qualia is nonsense... — Tom Storm
    Not "nonsense", just (adaptive?) phenomenal noise in mammalian cognitive systems.

    So how did this entry become written? By mistake? — Wayfarer
    It was written – as our exchanges are written, Wayf – by deterministic nonlinear dynamic system-agents which reflexively confabulate ex post facto intentions-of-the-gaps. :sparkle: :eyes:
  • UFOs
    If UFOs are "alien spacecraft", I suspect that they are AI-machine probes and that their parent species are either extinct or postbiological. — 180 Proof
    Addendum to the post excerpted above: a SciAm opinion piece by Martin Rees & Mario Livio ...

    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/most-aliens-may-be-artificial-intelligence-not-life-as-we-know-it/?fbclid=IwAR0dyFVyIjr_xqXDklbyBdW3qzSW5WpkWV77t0s6_i-X34_aDlyIzm7qMdg#
  • Juneteenth as national holiday.
    ↪BC
    :up:

    ↪Ciceronianus
    :up:

    In an era of deliberate, wide-spread voter suppression by GOP legistlatures, it would be far less of an empty, symbolic gesture to celebrate Voting Rights Day (August 6, 1965) rather than the folkloric "emancipation" of Juneteenth (1865), which was followed by a century of jim crow segregation – de facto disenfranchisement – which had required a federal statute to establish enforceable liberty for blacks, browns & women (that's been strategically under legistlative and judicial threat for the last two decades). Also, get rid of both "MLK, Jr Day" and "President's Day" too and at least establish a federal Election Day holiday instead.
  • US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
    ↪RogueAI
    :up:
  • US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
    ↪Benkei
    That ain't news, B. For decades now national politricks in the US has been as legitimate as professional wrestling. :mask:
  • US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
    ↪Wayfarer
    :up:
  • Themes in Rock and Roll
    Since the 1920s, uptight religious folks have called Blues (& sometimes Jazz) music "the Devil's music". Decades later, Rock-n-Roll mainstreamed the Blues mixed with teenage rebellion and transgressive irreverance, which shocked suburbanites & tempted rightwing televangelists to the point of equal parts hypocrisy & condemnation. :naughty:






    :fire:
  • The Argument from Reason
    Do the outputs of ChatGPT have intentionality? — wonderer1
    Well, it's not altogether clear even that human thoughts "have intentionality" ... :chin:
  • The Argument from Reason
    ↪wonderer1
    :up:

    ↪I like sushi
    :up:
  • US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
    ↪frank
    :up:
  • The Argument from Reason
    ↪Wayfarer
    Back in the day, I couldn't find a copy of A Materialist Theory of Mind, but I'd eventually learned much from Armstrong's A Combinatorial Theory of Possibility and Sketch for a Systematic Metaphysics which, IME, are far more consistent with both formal and natural sciences than any 'immaterialist, antirealist or supernaturalist' speculations on the world, mind, etc I've come across.
  • What is a "Woman"
    IMO, the most equitable solution would be to provide three public, multi-occupant, wheelchair-accessible restrooms designated for Men, Women & Unisex. Someone has probably already pointed out that considerations of 'chromosomal biology' or 'gender self-identification' are too reductive for pragmatically providing disambiguated public accomodations.
  • The Argument from Reason
    ↪Tom Storm
    :up:

    ↪Wayfarer
    At most (being charitable), the "argument from reason" only narrowly applies to reductive physicalism, otherwise a broader conclusion presupposes a false dichtomy (i.e. either "reductive physicalism" or "nonphysicalism") fallacy which invalidates the argument.
  • Juneteenth as national holiday.
    What is the reason for Juneteenth to be a national holiday? — TiredThinker
    In 2021, the holiday was signed into law by newly elected President Biden in order to pander and/or keep a campaign promise to Black Americans who'd voted him into office in 2020 and are needed for his reelection in 2024.
  • US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
    All decent families are alike; each corrupt family is corrupt in its own way.

    Sleepy Joe's family:

    • Hunter Biden
    e.g. 2013 energy industry (China) & 2014 "Burisma" (Ukraine) – more than $10 million (investigated by DoJ special counsel since 2018 that has resulted in guilty plea (pending as of 20Jun2023) to two misdemeanor tax charges plus five years probation on an unrelated firearm charge)

    Traitor/Seditionist-1's family:

    • Ivanka & Jared Kushner
    e.g. $640 million jointly reported "investment" income while both were employed by the WH 2017-2021 (re: deals in China, etc – yet to be investigated)

    • Jared Kushner
    e.g. $2 billion from Saudi Arabia in 2021 for ??? (yet to be investigated)

    • Ivanka Kushner, Donald Trump Jr & Eric Trump
    e.g. along with their father, they are principles of the Trump Organization, currently facing civil lawsuit by NYS AG for over 200 documented cases of (state & federal felony) tax fraud, etc from 2011-2015 for at least $250 million (trial begins 2Oct23)

    @NOS4A2 – Like Hillary's emails, IDGAF about Hunter Biden's laptop. :victory: :mask:




    @Hanover @Wayfarer @Maw @Mikie @frank
  • It's Amazing That These People Are Still With Us
    [ ... ] Dion
    Julie Andrews
    Bob Dylan
    Frankie Valli
    Paul McCartney & Ringo Starr
    Mick Jagger & Keith Richards
    Van Morrison [ ... ]     — Mikie
    The only name of the still-living that surprises me on this list is Keith Richards. :death: :flower:
  • Science as Metaphysics
    [deleted]
  • What's the implications of this E.M. Cioran quote?
    ↪schopenhauer1
    Well, we're not talking about the same thing.
  • Science as Metaphysics
    I can think of no examples of metaphysics becoming science. — Janus
    :up:
  • What's the implications of this E.M. Cioran quote?
    ↪Janus
    :up:

    ↪schopenhauer1
    'One suffers much more from one's attitude towards suffering than from the mere fact that one can / does suffer.' That is what I meant – paraphrasing the insights of thinkers I listed in my previous post. And IME I've found that this is more often than not the case.
  • Science as Metaphysics
    ↪Pantagruel
    Aristotle's First Philosophy (i.e. classical metaphysics) is my point of departure and, in that light, I disagree with your assessment and your (mis)reading of my previous post.
  • Science as Metaphysics
    ... we may need to specify whether we are talking about Physics (science ; energy [experimental transformations]) or about Meta-Physics (philosophy; enformation [reflective interpretations]). — Gnomon
    In other words, we're talking either about hypothetical explanations for physical systems¹ or about categorical interpretations² of those explanations, respectively; the latter (metaphysics) says nothing about the objects¹ of the former (physics) but only about how to construct² a 'coherent, presuppositional / systematic synopsis' of the former. Any attempt to say 'more than physics about phusis' rather than 'generalizing from² physics about phusis' is pseudo-physics (woo) rather than metaphysics (reason). Like all X-of-the-gaps fiats (& other crackpottery), Gnomon, your so-called "Enformer" does not solve any problem in fundamental physics or cosmology and, in philosophy, merely substitutes an unknowable for a known unknown, which via infinite regress, only begs the question (Why is there anything at all? "Because the Enformer enforms all". :roll: :shade: :sweat:)
  • Culture is critical
    Maybe a new animated B5 movie will be better than no new B5?
    — 180 Proof
    I do think Mr Straczynski is trying to protect his 'baby' from the corporate profiteers, but I suppose it's hard to know who are the true good, bad and ugly characters in that world.     — universeness
    "They" all are. Though I'm not a fan of B5, I nonetheless tip my glass to Mr. Straczynski's creative struggle against Mammon.
  • Currently Reading
    ↪Maw
    Damn, man, I'm kinda jealous. :cool:
Home » 180 Proof