del

That depends. If it's on fire than it's probably the end. The fire causing it though — Prishon

Can't argue with fire.

PS.
I meant to say 'flip book'

Pondering this question, the idea of sophistry expanded for me.
I suspect most politicians, philosophers, religious leaders, the news, media, is run by sophists. In other words, its all propaganda.

What is the right question?

Science needs critical reasoning, data, and peer review — Wheatley

I doubt it's impossible to do good science without peer review. Peer review might help reduce the odds of error, but it doesn't guarantee it.

Peer review could also lead to infinite regress. Every peer review would itself need to be peer reviewed, and the reviewers of the peers would need to be reviewed ad infinitum.

Then the models can be tentatively presumed to correspond to what is now labelled reality. — magritte

Are you saying we have a model of reality, and then theories about the model? And the model is constructed based on experience and interpretation, and experience is something internal and cannot be know-ably of external origin?

What do you mean by consistent? Because if you mean repeatable then I’m afraid there are myriad examples of phenomenon and things in the universe that can never be repeated more than once. That doesn’t make them false just exceedingly rare or “unique”. — Benj96

Does anything ever repeat? I doubt it. However, I suspect core principles, and reality itself at its core, don't change.

Consistent: compatible or in agreement with something.

Chaos, on the other hand, I understand as something that is incompatible or in disagreement with something. How can Reality act in a way which is incompatible or in disagreement with itself?

Reality is consistent with our model because the model is our reality. That's truth. — magritte

So there is nothing but models of models of models ad infinitum>?

Reality cannot be inconsistent.
Reality is the standard by which we measure if something is consistent or not.
What ever is consistent with reality, is true. Whatever is not, is false.
We create maps that are either consistent or inconsistent with reality.
If our map of reality leads us to the conclusion that reality is itself inconsistent, it means our map is inconsistent with reality.

I think it's only Christianity that states the Golden in the positive. I think it's less confusing stated in the negative.

Golden
In the same way that you don't want to be harmed, you yourself should refrain from harming others.

Diamond
In the same way that you don't want people to ignore your preferences, you yourself should not ignore the preferences of others.

In this case, the diamond rule seems to clarify what not harming entails. It entails paying attention to other people's specific needs or preferences.

You think corporations are bad? Ha! You clearly haven't been around non-governed human nature. Watch Lord of the Flies for a minuscule taste. — Outlander

The biggest threat are un-governed people with great power. Who governs the government? If we are capable of governing the government, then shouldn't we be able to also govern ourselves?

Ironically, I think a lot of the world's problems are due to people trying to 'help' others by meddling and violating the will of other people.
So first, mind your own business. Then, only help those that can't help themselves, and want to be helped. And even then, aim at helping them help themselves.

So...safety and efficacy have already been established. The FDA is just making extra sure, even though we are already quite sure. We just gotta go through this beaurocratic process to make extra sure even though we are already quite sure.
Again, we are already quite sure. Therefore you should just get the vaccine now, even though we haven't got the extra bit of sureness from the FDA yet.
Is that basically what you were trying to say Fooloso?

Like a serial killer? :scream: — TheMadFool

Serial killers treat people the way they want to be treated to make them trusting and vulnerable, so that they can eventually treat them as they(the serial killer) wants to treat them.

So maybe the golden rule is better?

:up: Great manifesto. Where do I sign up? :smile: — TheMadFool

No membership required. However, consider purchasing a good plated dime online to serve as a memento.

Golden Dime rule:
I want others to treat me as I want to be treated, therefore I will treat others as they want to be treated

Farther away in space and it doesn't even exist.

Farther away in time, back or forward, and it also doesn't even exist. — hope

No relative point of view can give a complete view of what reality is.
This is like the parable of the blind men trying to describe what an elephant is, each one grasping a different part of the elephant. Except, even with sight they wouldn't know what the essence of an elephant would be by that alone.
I theorize that intuition alone can grant essence realization.
Empirical science is a false God.

Google definition of earth: the planet on which we live; the world. — TheMadFool

Ok you win. Independent of any observer, the earth is round enough in my opinion. G'day

My basic view is
The majority is always wrong
Reality is stranger than fiction

Life is an amazing mystery, but we insist on reducing it down to our size.

pp

The earth is flat at the human scale but the earth is defined at planetary scales not at atomic or cosmic scales and at that level of detail, earth is round (enough). — TheMadFool

The earth is both what we see and walk on, which is somewhat flat and bumpy etc, as well as the round object we view from outer space.
Science investigates the earth from the human, atomic, and planetary scales. Neither geology nor cosmology have a more objective definition of the earth.
You would be right if the question is simply what shape is the earth from a planetary scale.
I didn't really answer the OPs question in the spirit it was asked.

Distance is about the observer, not the Earth which is round. — TheMadFool

Round or roundish?

How so? The earth is the planet we're on. Is it flat or is it round? — TheMadFool

If we are super exact, it is neither flat nor round. Just look at it closely. It only appears flat or round from a distance. Distance blurs the fine details, giving the illusion of a simple shape.

Interesting. Flat-earthers claim is earth is flat. Is it? What do we mean by earth? — TheMadFool

All definitions break down when we exercise rigorous precision. There is no meaning that is not vague.

Which point of view is more objective.
The microscopic or macroscopic.
Far enough a way the earth looks like a shapeless blip
Closer, like a sphere
Closer, flat
Closer, neither flat nor curved exactly

How can you escape subjectivity? If there is no observer, which of the above perspectives would be true?

If you ask a native speaker the rules of their language, they may have trouble articulating them because for them they follow the rules automatically. They don't consult the rules consciously.

Likewise I know how to use my legs, but I don't know how I know.

I think this pattern applies to philosophy generally. We implicitly know the laws of logic, the laws of mind, etc, and we use philosophy to make the implicit explicit.

. I'm supposing that the roundness of the cup is not itself conscious of anything. — Cuthbert

I agree with that
Being consciousness is different than having consciousness. I doubt anything has consciousness. Consciousness is like the cinema screen, and objects are like the light projected onto the screen.

To be is to have quality.
Can we at least agree on this?
Then, we can ask: Is quality a feature of matter, or is matter a kind of quality.
If quality is more fundamental than matter, then matter is an emergent quality of being, rather than the essence of being.

We can likewise question, is quality a feature of consciousness, or is consciousness a kind of quality. To me I can't imagine a quality without consciousness, consciousness seems fundamental to all qualities. But I guess materialists don't agree.

Freud's theory is, as I've now repeated for the umpteenth time, based off of Oedipus — TheMadFool

Even if the theory is based on the myth, which I doubt, I don't see how that makes it a myth nor reliant on the myth. I don't get you at all.
The Oedipus complex and the Oedipus Myth describe the same thing, that's all. The myth doesn't explain the theory, it describes it. (Although technically description is a preliminary step in the explanation process)

Camus' Sisyphus on the other hand is merely an analogy employed to illustrate the futile nature of human existence. — TheMadFool

The myth of Sisyphus is a metaphor.
The myth explains why human life is futile. It doesn't just fit a description, it explains the reason.
Camus explanation of WHY human life is futile is analogous with the explanation of the futility of Sisyphus' predicament.

Do you see the difference now? — TheMadFool

Oedipus complex ≠ Myth of Oedipus
Human futility ≠ Myth of Sisyphus
This is why I asked what the difference is.

Camus' myth of sisyphis is an illustration. Freud's Oedipus complex is an explantion — TheMadFool

Myths are illustrative, yeah. I don't agree Freud would think myths are more than that. But I'll let it go.

Naming something from mythology is not the same as relying on it produce an explanatory hypothesis. — TheMadFool

Sorry to keep harping on this but how about Albert Camus and the myth of Sisyphus? Will you call out philosophy as being a mythology?

Naming something from mythology is not the same as relying on it produce an explanatory hypothesis. — TheMadFool

Correlation with myth doesn't tell us anything about reality or viability. Myth can be based on reality and reality can be based on myth. Hence my science fiction - science reality comparison.

if it looks like a duck (mythology) and quacks like a duck (mythology), it must be a duck (mythology). — TheMadFool

Many inventions started out as science fiction. Eg, cordless phones, and video calls. If modern inventions sound like, look, and behave like science fiction, it's therefore science fiction?
How about astronomy. The planets are named after Roman Gods. Is astronomy therefore based, in part, on mythology?

Natural science assumes internal correlates with external (sense perception correlates with an external physical universe)

Psychology assumes additionally that certain external realities correlate with certain internal states (brain activity etc corresponds to mental states)

For peer review to work, you also have to assume a psyche, and trust your peer's behavior correlate with their psyches.

The mind is not a physical object. Thus psyche is not amenable to scientific study; rather it requires insight. It is the absence of insight that makes this appear controversial obscure and difficult to make sense of. The education system teaches the ignoring and denying of insight as "unscientific" - which of course it is. — unenlightened

I don't get why it has to be one or the other. By observing people's behavior and analysing it, and testing my analyses, I can arrive at insights, indirectly, about the psyche. There is no strict formula for arriving at a discovery. It requires both rigor as well as flexibility. It's an art and a science. I think this is true of any field of inquiry.
Only replication is strictly rigorous.

And it seems like throwing out the baby with the bathwater. If psychology can't be a strict science, then it is merely an art? Or what would you call it? A path to insight?

So psychology is a pseudo-science, soft science, non-science?
Which is it?
If psychology is not scientific at all, does that mean there are no psychological facts?
If so, how do you explain psychological patterns? Eg, research shows overwhelmingly that serial killers are psychopaths. Is "psychopathy" just a theory?
This is starting to sound like an anti-science person who says evolution is "just a theory"

I can make sense of a hierarchy of believe, or of justification. Not so much a hierarchy of truth. Isn't something either true or false? — Banno

I think hierarchy of understanding vs truth. Truth is binary and can't be understood, while understanding can be more or less...understood, but isn't true.

Consider:
Experiencer of emotion- feelingness- emotion felt
Is the emotion seperate from the perception of it? What is an emotion like when it's not being felt? What does it even mean for an emotion to exist without being felt?

Another example:
Thinker-thinking-thought
Which came first. The thought or the thinking of it. Is there difference between the two? What is a thought like independent of thinking?

Most people will acknowledge the questions as nonsensical. Having a thought is the same as thinking. Feeling an emotion is the same as emoting.
It's clear to most that thoughts and feelings are subjective experiences...and there doesn't seem to be a good reason to suppose thoughts and feelings could exist independently of thinkers and feelers.
When we try to imagine what a feeling is like when it's not being felt, we imagine no feeling at all. And what do we imagine a thought is like when it's not being thought about? Like nothing at all?

But imagine if everyone thought that thoughts and feelings had independent existence. They are out there waiting to be felt and thought about before being felt and thought about. Imagine asking them what a thought is like independent of a thinker. They say the thought has any number of qualities, and that the only difference between a thought in consciousness and a thought outside of consciousness, is consciousness.

Well, the idealist has examined more than his thoughts and feelings. He has examined all his experiences, smell, taste, touch, sight, hearing, and determined in each case that the same formula applies to these as to thought and feeling...all can be reduced to subjective experience
What is a flavor? A flavor IS tasting. What is an image? And image IS seeing.
Broadly, the perceived IS perception. In other words, to be is to be perceived.

They are the same thing. That was my point! — TheMadFool

Of course as a materialist you believe that.
You say I can't distinguish between non-existence and immaterial. In their ontological status, of course I can't. Both are absences of something. But there is a difference in what they deny, in scope. Non existent means no existence at all. Immaterial means no material existence. That's all. It doesn't mean no existence.
Therefore, it's possible something may exist without having material properties.
Again, hallucinations exist, and are immaterial.
However, it's true that I can't distinguish a hallucination from a non-hallucinstion. And we are back at the cogito. This a epistemological limitation. It's equal for a materialist and an idealist. The difference is the idealist doesn't assume there must be something independent of consciousness.
As far as I know, everything is immaterial at its base. I can't tell material from immaterial. Can you? If you can't, then is it possible everything is immaterial?

In other words, if perceived then either exists (like a stone) or doesn't exist (like a dream/hallucination). — TheMadFool

You are equating existence and materiality. I only said dream objects are immaterial. I didn't say dream objects don't exist.

There's nothing to disprove since the consequent is a tautology (exists or doesn't exist) — TheMadFool

To exist is to be perceived means if it's perceived, it exists. Where are you getting "or doesn't exist from"?

As I said, the idealist, through perception (percieved or not perceived) alone can't tell the difference between existent things, nonexistent things, and immaterial things. — TheMadFool

For an idealist existence=perception. Therefore, if perceived, exists. If not perceived, non-existent.
For material vs immaterial we have not yet agreed upon a definition.
You said in the last post that, off the top of your head, to be perceived is to be material.
To me, there is nothing self-evident about that in experience nor logically necessary about it.
Further, it leads to a problem. By definition hallucinations would be material. In other words hallucinated rocks would be made of matter because they are perceived...
I can try to offer my own definition of matter if you'd like.
I think the most important thing is we are clear about our premises and definitions. I can steel man what I think are your definitions and premises, after I have enough info.