all the events in life can be seen as the enfoldment of mythic possibilities. — Jack Cummins

What do you mean by this? (re: archetypal psychology à la James Hillman ... C.G. Jung ... Joseph Campbell ... :sparkle: )

Hegel sees history as a realisation of potential[destiny].

Ex post facto teleological historicism (i.e. eschatological rationalization) aka the old Crusaders' "Deus vult!" :pray: :eyes:

Interesting: so it sounds like you are a bit of an Aristotelian too. — Bob Ross

In what way do you think so?

How would you define Justice?

:chin:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/955844

Do you see any solution to the A and B conceptions of Justice that I noted?

I don't. Your concept concerns 'what persons deserve' 'rights' or 'needs' but by justice I understand 'nonzero sum conflict resolution' (i.e. fairness) as a community policy priority / standard.

Wouldn't you agree, that justice has a normative and applied aspect? There is what is just ideally (which is normative ethics), and there is what can be applied in practical law (which is applied ethics)---no?

No. The latter pertains to community policy whereas the former pertains to interpersonal conduct. "Justice" is a policy priority, not a habit / rule of conduct.

Also, why would "macro top-down" justice require consequentialism?

I don't understand what you mean.

Addendum to
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/954898

@Brendan Golledge

Please explain why do you assume that a so-called (un-knowable, ubiquitously nonevident) "Deity" can be "the uncaused cause of all other causes-effects" and yet also assume that the (know-able, inescapably evident) universe itself cannot be "the uncaused cause of all other causes-effects". :chin:

The 13th century Cosmological Argument, making a distinction between Necessity and Contingency, was scientifically supported by the Big Bang theory. — Gnomon

False.

Actually, your statement is not even wrong. :roll:

Multiverse Theory[MWI of QM], which is just as un-falsifiable as the God Theory[mythology]

Incorrigible nonsense. :zip:

knowable Cosmos* is finite

This idealist (antirealist)-solipsist-creationist (fabulist) assumption is both incoherent and factually incorrect: as aspects of nature, all that we (can) know cannot exhaust, or encompass, the whole of nature. To wit: based on current astrophysics, the observable cosmos is only a finite region of an exponentially larger, unobservable – i.e. we know that light from over the Hubble horizon (13.8 billion light years (re: CMBR) has not had m o r e than 13.8 billion years to reach terrestrial instruments – ergo in-de-finite (possibly infinite) cosmos. Pay attention, Gnomon: the "BB" is as much the "beginning of the universe" as the South Pole is the edge of the Earth. :smirk:

[deleted]

We are clearly in bodies. And it is because we are in bodies that we have a reality. — Questioner

– ergo reality is necessarily more-than-subjective.

So you're a 'disembodied subject'?

We're just 'disembodied subjects'?

What "demon"?

:up:

:up: :up:

... ethical androids (i.e. androids with substantial moral beliefs [habits (i.e. priorities-constaints]) — ToothyMaw

I.e. AGI (neural network (not program)) that learns (to mimic?) empathy, eusociality, ecology and nonzero sum conflict resolution (e.g. fairness) for discursive practices and kinetic relationships with other moral agents¹/patients²...

Okay, maybe; but why would any for-profit corporation or military organization ever build an "ethical android" that would be useless as either a slave or a killer?

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

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

:nerd: :up:

I am of the view that inner as opposed to outer, objective aspects of 'reality' are important here in the tradition of human understanding. Science, similarly to religion may be embedded in mythic understanding. What do you think, especially in relation to the concept of myth?. — Jack Cummins

A topic-adjacent interview you might find interesting:

Re: the relevance / significance today of (German) Idealism?

https://philosophynow.org/issues/165/Robert_Stern

:up: :up:

Addendum to
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/947477

You'll know AGI is here when the exercise of creating tasks that are easy for regular humans but hard for AI becomes simply impossible. — François Chollet, author of ARC-AGI and scientist in Google's artificial intelligence unit

https://www.zdnet.com/article/openais-o3-isnt-agi-yet-but-it-just-did-something-no-other-ai-has-done/

:nerd:

:lol:

:up: :up:

He does not even attempt to answer, but rather just ignores the question.

No doubt Woo-farer doesn't even understand the question. :smirk:

Welcome to TPF!

Consider the following post from a (2022) thread On the beautiful and sublime

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/722906

also a (2019) post from a thread The Goal of Art

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/345235

Are you saying my thought experiment was invalid (on grounds of some sort of conflation)? — Bob Ross

Yes, because, as any experienced attorney or judge will attest to: "justice" is not normative (re: micro bottom-up –> well-being (i.e. utilitarian)) as you seem to conceive of it, Bob; in a naturalistic moral framework¹, "justice" is applied (re: macro top-down –> nonzero sum conflict resolution (i.e. consequential)).

(2023) first 2 sentences ...
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/857773 [1]

An excerpt from p.14 ...

The notion of a "blind spot of science" is, at best, a worn-out, old romanticist caricature or otherwise, worse, akin to a polemical categorical mistake: science no more engages in (explicit) philosophy or mysticism / subjectivism than jack-hammers are used instead of chainsaws to cut down trees; in fact, it's the best tool(kit) humanity has ever devised insofar as natural science is the attempt to (abductively, fallibilistically) solve more-than-subjective problems, which is a feature, IME, and not a bug (i.e. "blind spot"). — 180 Proof

[W]hat kind of fool thinks they only are alive and the world is dead? — unenlightened

Well, I'm the kind of fool who thinks the world is undead: a shambling zombie that appears to be moving inexorable towards oblivion as every part(icle) of the cosmic corpse (including maggots like us) burns out, rots, decomposes, cools ... Ask any virus (or Schrödinger's Cat) – for (late) moderns "dead" & "alive" are indistinguishable. :smirk:

Fyi – I've not read this thread but, fwiw ...

You & co seem to be conflating normative ethics (re: interpersonal harms) with applied ethics (re: structural/policy injustices), Bob. Consider this post reply to @Leontiskos from the thread The Breadth of the Moral Sphere
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/899132

:smirk:

I enjoy mythic fiction, including Marion Zimmer Bradley and Bernard Cornwell. Being half Irish by descent, I am particularly interested in Celtic and British legends, including those in the Magbinon, Arthur and those surrounding Glastonbury. Tolkien also presents a fascinating journey into the mythic imagination. — Jack Cummins

:nerd: :100: :sparkle:

22Jan69

Thanks for Billy, George! :up:

"You're in the group!" :cool:

What is meant by the universe being non locally real? — Darkneos

Suppose spacetime is fundamentally entangled ...

[Religions] also have associated metaphysics that guide people's understanding of the universe ... — T Clark

I think rational-pragmatic philosophies aspire to much more than 'superstitiously living according to the folk stories of miracles and magic' canonized by religions (& cults).

@Jack Cummins

Apologies if the following rambles too far off-topic ...

An excerpt of a post from a (2022) thread The Philosopher will not find God

Recognizing that "God" does not explain anything (re: mythos) is what motivated the Presocratic proto-scientists (physiologoi) in Ionia & Elea to speculate on rational explanations (logos) for nature (phusis) and our minds (nous). — 180 Proof

In other words, it seems g/G is just a primitive – atavistic – personification of (an) unknowable-inexplicable power(s), likely beginning as animism (i.e. the world is enchanted aka "magical thinking"). Later Mythos had been invented to ethno-narratively memorialize such personified – anthropomorphized – power(s) by and around which (the) cultus formed and then, iirc, medieval scholars had called "religion" (from religare). For two and half millennia the Western philosophical tradition has striven to exorcize, or domesticate (deflate), ineliminable Mythos (i.e. narrative g/G-of-the-gaps pathos) by making explicit – reflectively meditating on – (its) Logos. :fire:

(2020) An excerpt of a post from your thread What is the purpose of dreaming and what do dreams tell us?

Logos confronting, or reflecting on, mythos (but within the hermeneutical context of mythos) was once the grounds for doing philosophy and, I think, still is; otherwise, Jack, why bother? — 180 Proof

Also, Jack, from your (2021) thread To What Extent Does Philosophy Replace Religion For Explanations and Meaning?
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/614799

We wanted to fix what was wrong with Deism, ... by determining why it failed. — Gnomon

Afaik, deism is just 'the god of theism' on its day off (or on vacation), and so, if the latter is a fiction (e.g. ontologically separate – "transcendent" – from existence aka "nonexistent"), then the former must also be fictional. :chin:

Alternatively, by analogy, just as "the big bang" is a (measureable by current physics) twist in a Möbius-like loop process that marks only a (ca.13.8 billion year old) developmental change to the latest version of the universe and not "the beginning" (à la Hartle-Hawking), pandeists speculate that 'the current phase – observable, explicable nature – in the eternal cycle of existence (à la Laozi, Epicurus, Spinoza, Nietzsche) is only an undead-like decaying corpse of (the) deity that will reincarnate and subsequently destroy itself (à la P. Mainländer) and then reincarnate again infinitely many times (à la the multiverse and/or R. Penrose's conformal cyclical cosmos). Imo, this myth of ontological immanence is much less unintelligible (i.e. question-begging, evidence-free, nihilistic) than typical transcendence – dualist / supernaturalist – myths, and thereby more rational. :fire:

I think the UFO/alien folks are looking for meaning beyond the mundane. — schopenhauer1

Yes, that's why I wrote

"UFOs" = angels & ghosts — 180 Proof

As far as the relationship between ethics and religion (including esotericism) the two evolved together. — Jack Cummins

:chin: Why do you believe this?

For instance, the ancient Hebrews would not have survived as a "people" – viable social group – "wandering for 40 years in the wilderness" had they not (usually) observed moral prohibitions against murder, lying, theft & adultery BEFORE they had received "commandments" (and subsequent Mosaic Laws).

As a reasonable generalization, h. sapiens must have survived for at least a hundred millennia or so as a eusocial – instinctually moral – species BEFORE they had invented "religion", so why do you say "the two evolved together"? Clearly, religions much later had coopted ethical norms, no?

Pandeism (as I've explicitly pointed out) means that 'the deity' BECAME the universe and therefore 'the deity' does not exist while the universe exists. "Everything is holy" is either animism or pantheism, not pandeism. Your supernatural-bias blinds you to what I've actually written – unless you haven't even read or comprehended my posts (& links).

I agree with you both but iff the "Roswell, NM '47 crash & Area 51" 1950s era flying saucer (+ alien abductions) myth happens to be true. IMHO, the "UFO scare" was a mass psy-op product of 'Cold War nuclear war anxiety and espionage paranoia' to distract the public from – then officially cover for – various covert military and surveillance test aircraft (like today's drones, etc) or LEO sats. Contra the prevailing anthropo/geo-centricity, I'm skeptical that Earth is exo-scientifically worthy of any interstellar traveling ETIs survellance / contact efforts (e.g. "UFOs"):

(2022) Convergence of our species with aliens ...
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/774893

(2022) UFOs ...
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/814458

Before the beginning, there was God. — Brendan Golledge

"Before the beginning" = north of the north pole :roll:

Nothing was before God, and neither does God depend on anything else.

Again, it makes more sense – cogently, parsimoniously, naturalistically – to substitute existence (or laws of nature (à la Laozi or Epicurus, Spinoza or Einstein)) for "God".

Fwiw, my own No Creator Myth, etc ...
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/569517 (further links included)

How is it that "creator" is not merely an unwarranted anthropomorphization / personification of chance? Or that cosmos is not one of countless phase transitions of chaos? :chin:

To infer 'intentional agency' from current cosmology is, at best, unsound (i.e. :sparkle: -of-the-gaps).

:up:

NB: Nietzsche's suggestion that belief in life after death, being an immaterialist or being religious (e.g. a Christian) is nihilism – this life, this world, Nature-devaluing – makes sense to me.

I don't see what your response has to do with the substance of my previous post. In reference to the thread title (topic). As a moral naturalist¹ I find "esotericism" like Buddha's "Middle Way" – though it can be somewhat interesting – useless "for thinking about ethics".

(2023)
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/857773 [1]

You made the claim so you have the burden of proof. Believe whatever you fancy, sir – apparently, you don't understand the argument from poor design. or why your "belief" is fallacious as I've pointed out .

My beliefs are based on observation of the natural world which as I’ve stated before shows signs of intelligence, design whatever you wanna call it. This to me constitutes evidence of God. — kindred

Compositional fallacy —> (believer's) confirmation bias. Also: your "creator deity / intelligent design" belief, sir, is refuted by the argument from poor design.

Just not possible.

How do you/we know this?

Yes, I don't see why 'Spinoza's God' (i.e. natura naturans) could not have produced – evolved-developed within the constraints of its 'physical laws' – superhuman beings (with technoscientific mastery (perhaps several orders of magnitude more advanced than our own today (re: Clarke's Third Law)) which h. sapiens have worshipped – superstitiously misrecognized – as "gods".

Why assume existence "comes from" anything else or is "created"?

Yet in God, in the abstract, exists all else that could be. — Brendan Golledge

It makes more sense to me – cogently, parsimoniously, naturalistically – to substitute existence (or laws of nature (à la Laozi or Epicurus, Spinoza or Einstein)) for "God".

I do appreciate the idea of 'the middle way' in Buddhism as a basic point for balanced approaches to ethics. It looks beyond the idea of 'perfectionism' in morality and ethics as being about real life dilemmas. This goes beyond the idea of ethics and morality as being about salvation on a personal level. — Jack Cummins

Afaik, "perfectionism" & "salvation" are religious ideals, not ethical principles. For avoiding extremism (or dogmatism) in moral judgment, I prefer more naturalistic (adaptive) approaches such as Aristotle's aretaic golden mean, Epicurus' disutilitarianism and/or J. Dewey's pragmatic ethics to the esoteric "middle way" of Buddhist practice.

Oldies and Some Goodies

Side One

1956


https://youtu.be/cXXw_5G7Fhk?si=iuFXB1S5KNJDw-DQ

1957


https://youtu.be/no-nuFTHetE?si=BNmAgY6FwUyv7cbq

1958


https://youtu.be/HbsyDHxca7Y?si=02vgpqJFsLvWSo0r

1960


https://youtu.be/6AJGrcx_PIY?si=KH_r3JBUT3NG37By

1961


https://youtu.be/EDtBq6FnlCY?si=wz_4mhaVb-Yhk5As

1962


https://youtu.be/FZy3T0IhQ2o?si=7wH7D87AF5mBi0zc

1962


https://youtu.be/7yVM4LrWTl4?si=1oQBbSYMJpyuGahH


bonus:

1970


https://youtu.be/o6iaSWSB7rE?si=3_J_6j9rcLVjn7vC

Just as atheists are less likely than religious people to "believe in" angels & ghosts. As you're well aware, we (confabulatory metacognitive) h. sapiens are quite often (virally) delusional. :pray: :nerd:

"UFOs" = angels & ghosts :roll:

Is there a distinction in quantum theory between "nothing" and "nothing-ness?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

I do not think either term is used in QT. Afaik, "nothing-ness" is a nonsense term only used in naive metaphysics.