• The Illusory Nature of Free Will
    ↪boagie
    :up: My position on "free will" is (mostly) consistent with what you've written here.
  • What exemplifies Philosophy?
    "What exemplifies philosophy?" :chin:

    For me: A praxis of ambulatory health, metacognitive hygiene and moral fitness.
  • The Unsolved Mystery of Evil: A Necessary Paradox?
    ↪gevgala
    There is no "problem" without the premise of an "All-Good God". I think the only concepts of "God" consistent with indifferent nature (e.g. all life feeds on life) and needless suffering are "God is a sadist" and "God is a fiction" – both of which are unworthy of worship – and consequently anti/a-theism is (like) a moral imperative.
  • The Illusory Nature of Free Will
    When one states that there is free will, one needs to ask free will from what. The whole idea is absurd. — boagie
    :up:

    Some creatures are not reactionary but creative … what is the question of the topic a reaction to ? — invicta
    It does not follow from your ignorance of the cause/s of your decision to post this "topic" that there was not any extrinsic (i.e. unconscious, involuntary) cause/s and that instead apparently it was only the effect of your spontaneous, or "creative", whimsy. Sorry, invictus, appeals to ignorance or incredulity are fallacious; and a 'transcendental (e.g. libertarian, ensouled) ego' is just another humunculus-of-the-gaps. :smirk:
  • How should we define 'knowledge'?
    ↪Cidat
    "Knowledge" is information useful for doing, or changing, something that can't be done, or changed, without it.

    NB: Information constituting well-tested, explanations is scientific knowledge.
  • Why should life have a meaning ?
    ↪invicta
    Unlike hairy apes, we baldies need to wear coats to keep warm. "Meaning" is a coat, a wardrobe, even tailored on occasion.
  • The Illusory Nature of Free Will
    ↪invicta
    Not at all. All that means to me is 'you assume – not know – you chose to choose' to post this "free will" topic. I just don't to see any grounds for you assuming this (or to assume you "know" this).
  • Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover: a better understanding
    ↪invicta
    I write posts fast on my cell while doing other things or getting around. Reread the post. I removed the typo.
  • Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover: a better understanding
    ↪invicta
    tyoo (corrected)
  • Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover: a better understanding
    ↪invicta
    Thus, your analogues do not work insofar as "the moth" is not "isolated" from either the "lightbulb" or "darkness" because it is affected by either of them. Aristotle (& Descartes) makes this mistake too (which Spinoza corrects).
  • Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover: a better understanding
    ↪invicta
    Your analogies fail to express what Aristotle thought.
  • Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover: a better understanding
    ↪invicta
    The analogy still doesn't work. In "eternal and unchanging" – primordial – "darkness" there is no energy available to "the moth" to "be moved" or, in fact, to move at all. :roll:

    ↪Paine
    I think Spinoza shows the implications of Aristotle's thought and corrects – reforrmulates – the classical concept of "substance" (as it comes down from Aristotle to . . Anselm, Ibn Rushd, Maimonides, Aquinas & Descartes).
  • Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover: a better understanding
    The other analogy being that of moths to a lightbulb. — invicta
    This analogy doesn't work because (1) someone has to make "the lightbulb", (2) connect it to a power source and then (3) switch it on – thus, it's neither "eternal nor unchanging". Also, it's "the moth's" genetic hardwiring for photosensitive attraction that moves it toward the switched on "lightbulb" and not "the lightbulb" itself which moves "the moth".
  • The Illusory Nature of Free Will
    The matter of creating this topic was a conscious choice to do so as it was not to do so. — invicta
    Sounds like an ex post facto rationalization to me. You don't know you had a "choice", just assume – confabulate – it, no? :chin:
  • Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover: a better understanding
    The eternal unchanging unmoved mover. — invicta
    Read Ethics, part I "Of God". (Re: Spinoza's substance)
  • The Illusory Nature of Free Will
    ↪invicta
    So you can't answer either of my questions?
  • Does anyone understand blackholes?
    ↪TiredThinker
    Here's a short Youtube by Nobel laureate physicist Kip Thorne on black holes ...
  • The Illusory Nature of Free Will
    It is clear to me that I made a choice (on creating this topic) — invicta
    How do you know you could have chosen to do anything else other than what you have done? And if you don't know it, what grounds do you have to assume that you could have not created this topic?
  • Judging moral ‘means’ separately from moral ‘ends’
    What is the difference between moral and non-moral "ends"? moral and non-moral "means"? Can "ends" be moral with non-moral "means" and/or vice versa? Are the relations of "means to ends" different when both are moral from when both are non-moral? Lastly, is tge distinction 'moral and non-moral' between independent, parallel concepts or is one concept dependent on – contingent to, or subset of – the other concept?
  • Nihilism. What does it mean exactly?
    FWIW: My bias is absurdist, not 'nihilist' or 'existentialist'. :cool:

    I take it most nihilists believe that nothing means anything? — TiredThinker
    Nihilism seems to denote that "meaning" is arbitrary, unneeded or ultimately meaningless; this implies that all beliefs and principles, even truthes, are illusions. Thus, nihilists believe "nothing matters"; however, then 'the belief "nothing matters"' itself also doesn't matter. :smirk:

    If nothing has any meaning why aren't more nihilists jumping off bridges and what not?
    I suspect nihilists usually rationalize that "jumping off bridges" is just as meaningless as not "jumping off bridges".

    Where do nihilists believe meaning comes from if it were to be legitimate?
    Make believe (i.e. wishful thinking). Or "God" (i.e. magical thinking).
  • What are you listening to right now?
    [The Beatles] can't exist with just the three of us, but at the same time, we could all be on the stage together I s'pose.

    As far as I'm concerned, there won't be a Beatles reunion as long as John Lennon remains dead.     — George Harrison, 1988 & 1989

    Meet The Threetles
    (tracks by Paul, George & Ringo together)

    "Act Naturally", 1965
    "Love You To", 1966
    "Long, Long, Long", 1968
    "Savoy Truffle", 1968
    "Golden Slumbers", 1969
    "Here Comes the Sun", 1969
    "Maxwell's Silver Hammer",1969
    "I Me Mine", 1970
    "All Those Years Ago", 1981
    "Blue Moon of Kentucky" (live), 1994
  • Our relation to Eternity
    Do you think it’s childish ?

    Grow up!     — invicta
    :lol:
  • Our relation to Eternity
    ↪invicta
    I don't dismiss the mere possibility of "non-physical eternal life", I just don't think it makes sense to say "I hope I never die."
  • Our relation to Eternity
    metaphysical realisation not realization — invicta
    The ultimate (excuse the pun :smirk:) "rationalization".
  • Our relation to Eternity
    ↪invicta
    My point is only this: while it makes sense to say "I hope I win the lottery", it does not make sense to say "I hope I never die".
  • Our relation to Eternity
    ↪invicta
    It also might be a "possibility" that a droplet from the spray of a crashing ocean wave lasts as long as the ocean wave or even the ocean itself, but that is, like the idea that you were never born, invicta, only a mere possibility.

    ↪invicta
    Category error – e.g. a metaphysical concept of "eternal life" in terms of, or equated to, a physical "likelihood".
  • TPF Quote Cabinet
    Literature must be written from the periphery toward the center, and we can criticize the center. Our credo, our theme, or our imagination is that of the peripheral human being. The man who is in the center does not have anything to write. From the periphery, we can write the story of the human being and this story can express the humanity of the center, so when I say the word periphery, this is a most important creed of mine. — Kenzaburō Ōe, d. 2023

    :flower:

    I would not recognize any authority, any value, higher than democracy — Kenzaburō Ōe (1994, referring to the Emperor of Japan)
  • The “Supernatural”
    Given any posited supernatural event, we can modify our understanding of the laws of nature in order to render the event understandable.

    Hence, the notion of a supernatural event is unintelligible.     — Banno
    Nice. :up:
  • The “Supernatural”
    ↪GTTRPNK
    :up:
  • The Dialectic of Atheism and Theism: An Agnostic's Perspective
    ↪GTTRPNK
    :up:
  • Our relation to Eternity
    Because atheists believe that it is only for a limited time. — Hallucinogen
    Yes, so our expectation is met and I, like most other nonbelievers, don't see only this one life as a problem. In fact, the low, or mininal, existential expectations of rational nonbelief cannot be disappointed, and only surprised if we're wrong. I like surprises. :wink:

    Why is it a problem for believers?
    Because all they have is a 'hope for more than this life' without any factual basis, just wishful thinking. Whatever seems too good to be true (e.g. "eternal life") is almost certainly not true. The believer's problem is (as always) s/he can't shake fearing what s/he undeniably knows: reality withstands faith. :pray: :eyes:
  • Our relation to Eternity
    ↪Hallucinogen
    Why would this topic of "being given existence but only for a limited time" "only a problem for ... atheists"? It seems only a problem for the believer who expects there to be more to life and nature than this life, which is generally not the outlook or hope of a nonbeliever .
  • Meditation, Monkey Brain and Mind Chatter
    ↪invicta
    Good old "monkey brain", we wouldn't be here now to navel gaze or "let go" without its incessant monkeying around. After all, primates chanting mantras are just relaxed primates. :sparkle: :monkey:
  • Is the future real?
    The future is not real because it never arrives — boagie
    Like the horizon, which is real (i.e. ineluctable)? :chin:
  • How do you give a definition to "everything"?
    ↪Vera Mont
    :blush:

    Now, how do we proceed as humanity with that in mind? — Benj96
    We continue putting one foot in front of the other through the darkness while providing our own light.

    If we cannot approach any clear grasp of the whole, if our reasoning capacity innately falls short of the true nature of things due to being a subset of it, what ought we do?
    Tell ourselves more probative stories which also challenge us to go on in spite of the not-All.

    Do we persist in understanding more?
    Maybe. I'd be happier just understanding better all that we already know.

    Where is the cut-off of futility where there little point in trying to delve deeper, know more?
    On the proverbial death bed. :death: :flower:
  • How do you give a definition to "everything"?
    How do you define the "whole" when the act of defining is intrinsically restrictive/reductive? — Benj96
    We philosophizers don't, wrong question. Rather "the whole" – universe – might be described as (the) observable, expanding, unbounded debris-field of exploding or colliding stars, galaxies-devouring super-massive black holes, extreme radiations, gravity waves, nebulae, micro-meteorites, dust, percolating vacua & intergalactic voids wherein all observers are part(icipant)s. Possibly there is no defined, or defineable, "whole", just an encompassing expanse infinite in all directions, and what's quaintly called "universe", or kosmos, is just an ocean-wave on the ocean of xaos (Hesiod) (or an infinite mode of attributes of eternal substance ~Spinoza). How do deep sea fish "define" the whole of the sea? :zip:

    Anyway, Benj, to quote a snippet of my own confusion on "the whole" (the real) itself:
    the real (e.g. existence) encompasses reasoning (e.g. naturalism); therefore, reasoning cannot encompass (i.e. causally explain) the real — 180 Proof, excerpt from profile
  • What exemplifies Philosophy?
    I would typify myself as a melioristic naturalist. — Pantagruel
    :up:
  • The Dialectic of Atheism and Theism: An Agnostic's Perspective
    There is something because there is nothing to prevent it??? — EnPassant
    ... and because "nothing" causes it to be.

    Existence/God contains all possibilities.
    Actuality consists of every possible way the world could have been and can be described. Actuality is the immanent, unbounded space of possibilities within which each instantiation of a possibility (i.e. each possible version of the world) is necessarily contingent. Actuality is necessary contingency.

    The power of reason in our minds is God. All mind is ultimately God's Mind.
    Mind-ing is what human brains do. Some mind-ing also reasons, occasionally exhibiting sufficient power to create knowledge. However, some mind-ing unreasons instead, dreaming "God creates human brains." (Buridan's Ass?)

    I guess we can make all sorts of claims about gods... — Tom Storm
    :up:
  • Arguments for why an afterlife would be hidden?
    ↪TiredThinker
    We matter to ourselves and one another because all those who came before us mattered to themselves and one another had existed. We will matter implicitly to all those who will exist long after we are gone and forgotten just as all who came before us and now are forgotten implicitly matter to us insofar they ineluctably had bequeathed to us our existence.

    Anyway. If you reflect on your mortality, Thinker, and it seems to you that ultimately nothing matters, consider that this nihilism – idea-feeling – also entails that "ultimate nothing matters" also ultimately doesn't matter, that is, nihilism is self-refuting nonsense. And this too: how would 'immortality' make your life feel any less "equally pointless and possibly random" than it feels to you here and now? :chin:
  • The Politics of Philosophy
    This task I hope to accomplish in the present chapter, and also to separate faith from philosophy, which is the chief aim of the whole treatise. (Theological Political Treatise, 14 - P02)

    The treatise is not simply theological or political, it is called theological political. But the chief aim [is] to free philosophy from the tyranny of both.     — Fooloso4
    :100:

    In all these cases there is on the one hand the attempt to protect philosophical inquiry, and on the other, to give those not well suited to philosophy a salutary teaching, something to stand on or hold on to that instructs but at the same time hides from them what is not suited to them by ability or temperament.
    This vaguely reminds me of arch-elitist Leo Strauss' advocacy of indispensible "political myths" & "noble lies".

    Far from a simple pursuit of the truth for the sake of truth, philosophy is politics by other means.
    Yes, in fact, philosophy, as the pursuit of wisdom (aretē, phronesis, eudaimonia), reduced to philosophy as "a simple pursuit of truth" (calculi) is, no doubt, "politics by other means".

    Philosophy does not serve the State or the Church, who have other concerns. It serves no established power. The use of philosophy is to sadden. A philosophy that saddens no one, that annoys no one, is not a philosophy. It is useful for harming stupidity, for turning stupidity into something shameful. — Gilles Deleuze
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