• What are you listening to right now?
    T.G.I.F.


    "Talk to Me Baby (I Can't Hold Out)" (2:12)
    A-side single, 1960
    songwriter Willie Dixon, 1959
    performer Elmore James
  • A Thomistic Argument For God's Existence From Composition
    I don’t see how I’m committing a fallacy. — Bob Ross
    :roll:
  • Questioning the Idea and Assumptions of Artificial Intelligence and Practical Implications
    Is mind a necessary condition for intelligence? — RogueAI
    No. They seem to me unrelated capabilities.
  • AXIARCHISM as 21st century TAOISM
    I don't think we can avoid a human-centered morality, even if we avoid putting what is good for humans at the center. It is human beings who judge questions of morality. — Fooloso4
    :up:
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    ↪praxis
    :up:

    ↪Relativist
    :up: :up:
  • AXIARCHISM as 21st century TAOISM
    The Tao does not replace god, it comes before it. God is just one of the 10,000 things - the multiplicity of phenomena in our world brought into being by the Tao. — T Clark
    :100:
  • AXIARCHISM as 21st century TAOISM
    ↪T Clark
    :sweat: :up:
  • AXIARCHISM as 21st century TAOISM
    Though these questions aren't addressed to me...
    Does atheism entail that the category of 'the sacred' is meaningless? — Wayfarer
    I don't think so. For us, 'this world, this life' (i.e. nature red in tooth & claw) is "sacred" insofar as existing is tragicomic – the power to de/create "meaningful" lives (relationships).

    Does it entail that the 'mokṣa' of Hinduism or the 'Nirvāṇa' of Buddhism have no transcendent referent?
    Atheism, as I understand it, denotes (at minimum) lack of belief in any literal "transcendent referents" such as supernatural entities (or ideas) like god/s, angels/demons, miracles, curses, spells, heaven/hell, reincarnation, nirvana, etc.

    ↪Moliere
    :cool:
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    United States of Kakistan
    22January25

    No mercy ...


    Speaking truth to power: "Have mercy".
    https://www.democracynow.org/2025/1/22/bishop_budde
  • AXIARCHISM as 21st century TAOISM
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiarchism :sparkle:

    ... reminds me of @Philosophim's old thread

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/15203/in-any-objective-morality-existence-is-inherently-good/p1

    A couple of thoughts:

    Given that the universe, or nature, has a causal aspect does not entail that the whole universe, or nature, is the effect of a (prior) cause. (pace Aristotle et al). Likewise, just because physical laws, for instance, are computable does not entail that the universe, or nature, is a "computer" or output of some (metaphysical? e.g. @Gnomon's quasi-creationism?) "program". Same goes for "meaning, purpose, value": there is an aspect of the universe, or nature, that instantiates "... value" doesn't entail that the whole universe, or nature, has "... value" as so-called axiarchism posits. This sort of invalid reductionism is a consequence of an (unwittingly) assumed compositional fallacy.

    From the dao (Laozi-Zhuangzi) to logos (Heraclitus) to swirling atoms in void (Democritus-Epicurus-Lucretius) to natura naturans (Spinoza) to the absurd (Zapffe-Camus) to the real (Nishida-Nishitani / C. Rosset) ... to the (modern) pandeus¹ is, so far, the least irrational as well as most scientific evidence-compatible (or soundest) speculative path I have found to reflectively explore nature (i.e. surface of the real with which (we) natural beings are inescapably entangled – ergo embodied – and that fundamentally encompasses – enables-constrains – whatever is knowable (by us) including reason itself). YMMV

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandeism [1] :fire:

    For an alternate atheistic take on Taoism , especially the thinking of Zhuangzi, I highly recommend the recently published book by Brook Ziporyn, one of the top translators of ancient Chinese texts. It is called ‘Experiments in Mystical Atheism: Godless Epiphanies from Daoism to Spinoza and Beyond‘. — Joshs
    Much thanks for this and the podcast interview (I'll listen later)! :up:
  • On religion and suffering
    ↪Astrophel
    Non sequitur.
  • US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
    I don't think that white supremacists liking his salute means he himself is a nazi. — Christoffer
    I don't think he's a nazi either (btw, why does it matter?), just an über-rich, sociopathic, racist provocateur.
  • Questioning the Idea and Assumptions of Artificial Intelligence and Practical Implications
    ↪Jack Cummins
    Interesting, but your post isn't a direct reply to anything I've written on this thread as far as I can tell. And afaik Ai research / development has nothing to do either with "consciousness" (i.e. phenomenal self-modeling intentionality) or directly with B-M-I (transhumanist) teleprosthetics, etc. In the near term, AI tools (like e.g. LLMs, AlphaZero neural nets, etc) are end user-prompted autonomous systems and not yet 'human-independent agents' in their own right (such as prospective AGI systems).
  • On religion and suffering
    the definition of classical theism, which is considered rationally coherent — Tom Storm
    And yet it's only a "definition", not a publicly corroborating, sound argument that warrants believing "classical theism" is not just a (dogmatic) myth.

    ↪Astrophel
    :pray:
  • On religion and suffering
    God is good. — Astrophel
    Which "God" do you mean?

    Btw, is this "God" all-good (loving) and all-powerful (just)?

    If, however, this "God" is not both all-good (loving) and all-powerful (just), then why call it "God"? And what makes it worthy of worship?

    Lastly, how do we know these things?
  • US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
    77 million Americans (+ 6 million Dems who stayed home), many knowingly but most ignorantly,voted for:

    Sieg Heil 2025!


    Former illegal immigrant from White South Africa and so-to-be trillionaire welfare queen & wannabe Bond-villain Elon Musk bought the US Presidency and took a huge step closer to Making Apartheid Great Again. Will there be blood after all? TBD.

    update:

    Far-right wingnut (racist, nativist) groups in both North America and Europe praise Elon Musk's "salute" ...

    https://apnews.com/article/musk-gesture-salute-antisemitism-0070dae53c7a73397b104ae645877535
  • Questioning the Idea and Assumptions of Artificial Intelligence and Practical Implications
    An excerpt from one of your recent threads, Jack...
    I imagine that AGI will not primarily benefit humans, and will eventually surpass us in every cognitive way. Any benefits to us, I also imagine (best case scenario), will be fortuitous by-products of AGI's hyper-productivity in all (formerly human) technical, scientific, economic and organizational endeavors.'Civilization' metacognitively automated by AGI so that options for further developing human culture (e.g. arts, recreation, win-win social relations) will be optimized – but will most of us / our descendants take advantage of such an optimal space for cultural expression or [will we] just continue amusing ourselves to death? — 180 Proof

    ↪Jack Cummins
  • Questioning the Idea and Assumptions of Artificial Intelligence and Practical Implications
    ↪Jack Cummins
    Get back to me when "AI" (e.g. ChatGPT) is no longer just a powerful, higher-order automation toy / tool (for mundane research, business & military tasks) but instead a human-level – self-aware or not – cognitive agent.

    ↪Vera Mont
    :up:
  • A Thomistic Argument For God's Existence From Composition
    [C]omposed beings that are concrete are either composed of an infinite regress of concrete things or there must be a first cause which is not concrete. — Bob Ross
    The suggestion that an abstract¹ – "not concrete" – being has a causal property, or causal relation to anything concrete (e.g. is "a first cause"), is a reification fallacy and thereby a misconception of an abstract (i.e. "not concrete") being.

    Also, Bob, you (Aristotleans, Thomists & premodern / pseudo-science idealists) assert a false dichotomy: A Third Option – in fact, demonstrated by quantum field theory (QFT) to be the case at the planck scale – that "composed beings" are effects of a-causal, or randomly fluctuating, events (i.e. excitations of vacuum² energy) as the entire planck-radius³ universe – its thermodynamically emergent constituents of "composed concrete beings" – happened to be at least c14 billion years ago.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_and_concrete [1]

    :smirk: kudos to classical atomists ...
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horror_vacui_(physics) [2]

    https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_epoch [3]
  • US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
    United States of Kakistan
    20January2025 (pm)


    :fire: :death:

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/963735
  • Questioning the Idea and Assumptions of Artificial Intelligence and Practical Implications
    I don't think it [AI, LLMs] does raise any questions about intelligence or consciousness at all. — Manuel
    :100:

    ↪Vera Mont
    :up: :up:
  • On religion and suffering
    The choice can never be arbitrary, precisely because our attitudes, values and actions must always conditioned [...] — Joshs
    Arbitrary doesn't imply 'unconditioned' so your point, sir, is a red herring / strawman. My point: a 'consistent relativist' forfeits all standards for deciding between competing or incommensurable truth-claims, ergo her preference is arbitrary.
  • A Thomistic Argument For God's Existence From Composition
    ... the OP is only targeting concretely existent objects. — Bob Ross
    So then your conclusion ...
    41. The composed beings must subsist through an absolutely simple and actual being.
    42. Therefore, God exists.     — Bob Ross
    ... means that "God" is a "concretely existing object", which contradicts both theistic and deistic conceptions (Aristotle, B. Pascal, P. Tillich).
  • On religion and suffering
    ↪Astrophel
    I'm just pointing out that it appears you have plenty of nothing – nonsense – to say yourself, sir.

    ↪Joshs
    Relativism (radical or otherwise), like nihilism, refutes itself insofar as it is self-subsuming; to wit: all contrary truth-claims are valid including that 'relativism is not true' (e.g. the meaning of deconstruction defers / is deferred).

    I'm a 'radical pluralist' for whom it is logically possible (N. Goodman) that there is more than one way to express, or make explicit (R. Brandom), the world – with metaphors, maps, models (which presuppose it is ontologically necessary that there is more than one way the world could have been (re: actualism conta possibilism)) – and that different expressions convey different degrees, or approximations, of epistemic fidelity to – 'truth about' – the objective (i.e. subject / pov / language / gauge-invariant) world (Spinoza).

    In other words, to my mind, relativism says 'in a maze there are only non-critical paths' whereas pluralism says in a maze there are critical and non-critical paths and that critical paths vary in length; ergo the latter rewards discernment and the former does not. IMO, the relativist sees 'many paths to many mountains and therefore arbitrarily choses between them' whereas the pluralist sees many paths up the mountain s/he (we) cannot escape from and seeks the shortest to the summit (C.S. Peirce ... D. Deutsch).
  • US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
    [deleted]
  • US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
    The United States of Kakistan
    20January25 (am)

    Again, less than a majority of "We the Sheeple" have ignorantly voted for the Felon-in Chief (FOTUS) "they deserve" – shame! So now the hostile takeover of this moribund 'constitutional republic' (1787-2024) is on the verge of fully establishing an oligarchic kakistocracy (with "tech bro" stooge Vance-in-waiting with his finger on the "Twenty-fifth Amendment trigger). :mask:

    Though a speculative singularitarian, IRL as a Black American activist I've never been tempted/persuaded by accelerationism (why?); but ...
    • Carter-Mondale's Legacy –
    Reagan (& Bush), 1981-1993

    • Clinton-Gore's Legacy –
    "Dubya", 2001-2009

    • Obama-Biden's Legacy –
    Trump The Clown, 2017-2021

    • Biden-Harris' Legacy –
    Trump The Convict, 2025-TBD     — nails in the republic's coffin
  • A Thomistic Argument For God's Existence From Composition
    What is an unbound surface? — Bob Ross
    A surface without edges.

    Can you give a concrete example of that?
    Earth.

    What is a fractal? Ditto.
    Consider this article ...

    https://fractalfoundation.org/resources/what-are-fractals/

    Real number series are not concrete entities, so they are not a valid rejoinder to the argument from the composition of concrete entities.
    None of the premises of your argument refer to "concrete entities" – goal post-shifting fallacy, Bob. Here's what I'm addressing that you've repeatedly referred to:
    1. Composed beings ... — Bob Ross
    Numbers¹ are "composed beings" (i.e. sets²
    [whole [integer [rational [real [complex ...]]]]] – "composed" being synonymous with divisible), what A. Meinong refes to as sosein (i.e. being-so, or essence).

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_types_of_numbers [1]

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuum_hypothesis [2]

    [A]n infinite regress of contingent beings is actually impossible.
    False (e.g. negative integers, fractals).

    How would you define change?
    Impermanence, flow (i.e. flux), becoming, transformation, energy (i.e. activity) ...

    How would you define causality?
    By causality³ I understand non-random (i.e. conditional-constrained) sequential patterns of events (i.e. effects).

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_causes#Efficient_cause [3]
  • On religion and suffering
    You're some variety of a naturalist or a physicalist, right? — Astrophel
    Yes.

    So, brain here, tree there: how does the latter get into the former as a knowledge claim?
    :sweat: It doesn't.

    But what if no certainties can be assumed?
    Well, then that would be a certainty.

    Because this is a structural feature of our existence.
    Thus, a certainty ...

    When any and all standards of certainty are of no avail, we face metaphysics, ...
    i.e. another certainty, no?

    ...real metaphysics.
    In contrast to 'unreal' (fake) metaphysics?

    It is an absolute, inviolable.
    Ergo a certainty – a conclusion which contradicts (invalidates) the premise of your 'argument'. Another wtf are you talking about post, Astro?! :shade:
  • US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
    [deleted]
  • Fascism in The US: Unlikely? Possible? Probable? How soon?
    It can't happen here? :brow:

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/962250 (loads slowly)

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/962520 (loads slowly)

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/962668 (loads slowly)
  • Skepticism as the first principle of philosophy
    ↪Wayfarer
    :up: :up:
  • The Philosophy of Alignment, Using D&D as an Example
    Back in the day (1977-85_Bx, NYC), my geek-bros and I didn't use "alignments" (or THACO, HP, XP, classes, levels, static defense or Vancian magic for that matter) in our games because "good, evil, chaos, law" seemed useful for OOC (non-diegetic, bird's eye view) storytelling but not useful for PoV (diegetic, frog's eye view) roleplaying which was our focus – pretending to be Adventurers (anti-heroes mostly) exploring an Earth-like, post-Imperial collapse, dangerous & fantastic world (much closer to Howard & Leiber than Tolkien & Moorcock).

    Once we'd found that "alignments" in play restrict characters (& threats) to being stereotypes or cartoons, we had to ditch them and instead we used the Adventurers' oaths versus local customs-taboos (with risks of magical / spiritual consequences for either keeping or breaking them). We'd discovered that the more down-to-Earth (i.e. quasi-historical) the fantasy tropes were in our games, the more fantastical our roleplaying experiences tended to be. :nerd:
  • On religion and suffering
    I don't understand what you mean by "about". — Astrophel
    I don't understand what you don't understand about how I use "about" in that sentence.

    ... how do "natural" objects get into knowledge claims when causality, the naturalist's bottom line (just ask Quine) for everything, has nothing epistemic about it?
    I don't understand the question or its relevance.

    Or, if you prefer, how does any thing "get into" a brain thing such that the what is in the brain is "about" that thing?
    I have no idea what you are talking about, Astro.

    But what is religion apart from the bad metaphysics?
    A community of ritualized reenactments of an epic myth (i.e. folk anti-anxiety placebo-fetish aka "magic show") ... no doubt based on "bad metaphysics". :sparkle: :pray:

    And what is NOT a "denial of reality" and that is the true ground of religion?
    Uncertainty.

    You mention suffering, but what is this?
    Useless hope (i.e. attachments) ...
  • A Thomistic Argument For God's Existence From Composition
    ... an infinite series of beings ... — Bob Ross
    Like real numbers series (i.e. continuum), like unbounded surfaces, like fractals ...

    ... lack the power to exist (i.e., are contingent)
    "Exist" is not a predicate of any subject but instead is merely a property (indicative) of existence like wet is a property (indicative) of water (such that whatever is in contact with water is also wet). Aristotle's notion of "contingency" (accident) fallaciously reifies predication, or conflates his abstract map(making) with concrete terrains.

    By cause, I mean it in the standard Aristotelian sense of that which actualized the potentiality.
    Okay, and yet another anachronistic metaphysical generalization abstracted from pseudo-physics – of no bearing on contemporary (philosophical) usage of "causality" ...

    https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/causation-metaphysics/

    ... spatiotemporality implies[affords] divisibility.
    Again, conflating (a) map(making) with a terrain further confuses the issue. :roll:

    Certainly, the Thomist "Five Proofs" are not sound.
    — 180 Proof

    Why not? What false premises do they contain, if they are not sound?     — Arcane Sandwich
    Principally because the Aristotlean
    premises used by Aquinas     (& other Scholastic apologists) are metaphysical generalizations abstracted from (his) pseudo-physics (e.g. universal telology, absolute non-vacuum, absolute non-motion, etc) which are not factually true of matters of fact (or nature). Consider the following further objections to "the soundness" of Aquinas' Quinque viæ (by clicking on my username below) ...
    ...from an old thread concerning Thomistic sophistry:

    [ ... ]

    And [another] excerpt from an old post objecting to the soundness, etc of "the cosmological argument":     — 180 Proof
  • Believing in God does not resolve moral conflicts
    Thus, believing in God does not resolve moral conflicts. — MoK
    Plato says as much in his dialogue Euthyphro.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthyphro_dilemma
  • A Thomistic Argument For God's Existence From Composition
    Higher being lies in the future.

    The Ground-Of-Determination', G.O.D., underlies all, but it isn't a God Being.     — PoeticUniverse
    :fire: À la natura naturans ...

    That doesn't mean that they're not valid or sound. — Arcane Sandwich
    Certainly, the Thomist "Five Proofs" are not sound.

    34. The purely simple and actual being is the ultimate cause of all actualization of potentials.

    But deism

    42. Therefore, God exists."

    False. Thomism is inferior philosophy     — Gregory
    :up: :up:
  • When you love someone and give to them, should you expect something in return?
    @Dmytro
    Love is Joy, accompanied by the idea of ​​an external cause ... [and] ... All happiness or unhappiness solely depends upon the quality of the object to which we are attached by love. — Benny Spinoza

    I fell in and out of love when I was nineteen. I gave my love all I had to give at that age and yet, after several months, it wasn't enough to keep her. Why? Because she needed love from a man and I was – like almost all nineteen year old males – still a boy in a man's body. IME, most women (at all ages) need – desire – men and not boys.

    When does 'a boy become a man' in the context of romantic love (eros)?

    As a generalization, IMO, at the stage of experiential development (usually mid-twenties to mid-thirties) once a boy learns how to avoid 'falling for' (in order to protect his life from) selfish¹ women of any age; in this regard, absent 'paternal' guidance, a gauntlet of heartbreaks and rejections usually does the trick.

    How does you recognize a selfish woman before you fall for her into that 'love trap'? :confused:

    While getting acquainted or dating, pay close attention to both how she behaves around others, especially her girlfriends, and, without asking more than once, what she doesn't tell you about herself; being money-fixated, entitled/bossy, never mistaken/wrong, always a victim/blame-shifting, gaping holes/inconsistencies in her upbringing & romantic history, etc are also tells of a selfish¹ woman (ergo maybe a 'lover' :yum: , but evidently a bad risk for romantic love :hearts:)

    Anyway, philosophers and psychologists opine about "love" in theory² but practice – "romance" – in a concrete social-cultural context is much more insightful. (Fwiw, my insights (scars) I'd acquired from 'loving' (mostly) middle class women in the Northeast US while in and out of university and bartending, etc during the 1980s.)

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selfishness [1]
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love [2]

    Love, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage or by removal of the patient from the influences under which he/she incurred the disorder. — Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
    :smirk:


    Welcome to TPF!

    ↪T Clark
    :up:

    ↪Vera Mont
    :fire:
  • Is China really willing to start a war with Taiwan in order to make it part of China?
    ↪T Clark
    :up:
  • Is China really willing to start a war with Taiwan in order to make it part of China?
    Yes, of course. Taiwan is, after all, "a part of China", but the political class in Taipei are just living in denial. Like Cuba (or Canada :sweat:) in relation to America. I think the more germaine question is: Will the US abandon Ukraine (& Eastern Europe) to Russian aggression and thereby give the PRC a green light to invade Taiwan without risking a catastrophic (world) war? :monkey:
  • What are you listening to right now?
    ↪Amity
    Enjoy the tunes! Happy 2025 :sparkle:
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