do not study philosophy. do something more interesting / worthwhile. — The Great Whatever

I feel like what happens a lot when people study philosophy is that they don't actually really learn anything, but somewhere along the line they get this idea that not knowing anything is actually a virtue and then they become arrogant douchebags. Philosophy, studied by itself and only itself, probably turns people into assholes who have to compensate for their lack of any real knowledge by being an asshole.

I suppose the main reason why I continue to study philosophy is because I find most everything else to be boring. Philosophy is pretty silly all things considered but at least it's interesting, to me at least. But I'm also kind of an asshole sometimes too so maybe I should go on a diet.

The problem is there is not one shred of evidence to support such a view other than faith. Such a belief is exactly equivalent to Calvinism and other fated religions. — Rich

No, this is wrong. Are you seriously telling me Nietzsche advocated his metaphysical scheme based on faith?!

Determinism on the whole is destroyed by quantum physics. — Rich

No, this is also wrong. Quantum mechanics is difficult to predict but that does not make it necessarily indeterminate.

This convoluted explanation of how the human mind makes choices wreaks with religious flavor and dogma. — Rich

The same could be said about libertarian free will, which is overwhelmingly argued for by religious believers.

Why is the human brain being made into a computer is the critical question? — Rich

It's not. Computational theory of mind is more of a folk-psychological notion these days. Nobody really takes the idea seriously, that the human brain is basically a computer. That, and the representational theory of mind, have been blown out of the water by phenomenology and contemporary cognitive science.

If you check out evolutionary biologists like Nick Lane, there are much more sensible stories than this "unwanted over-powering" scenario of yours. — apokrisis

Not mine, don't kill the messenger!

But if you are talking about Homo sap specifically, what might appeal to your anti-natalism is the incredible violence foisted on the human female body by having to give birth to a monstrously brained infant through an inadequately designed bipedal birth canal. — apokrisis

No, please don't start this. I want scientific theories (which you graciously provided), not a debate about antinatalism.

This is hilariously awful, DB. I recall an article a couple of years back about the dangers of zoos reinforcing gender stereotypes in visiting children. — Wayfarer

lmao

Does the "planning" determine your action, or is the "planning" already determined? If the conscious planning is already determined, is it then merely a way of understanding your actions and communicating them to others? — Daniel Sjöstedt

I have thought about this before as well. The phenomenology of planning is that there are multiple options, choices, that are possible.

So the question seems to be, what exactly is a possibility in a deterministic system? If there is only one single path that a system can proceed in, do possibilities actually exist?

I can't help but think of Nietzschean psychology - "I" am not the originator of my thoughts, my thoughts come on their own terms. That which influences my actions is precisely that which is the most powerful. The most powerful thoughts are those which come to my attention and direct my action. It is not that I "choose" to do some action but rather a thought commands me to do something and I obey it - willing is the combination of command and obey.

But I think intuition by itself does not constitute an argument for the reality of an objective moral realm. — Modern Conviviality

Might want to look into Simon Blackburn's quasi-realism. It still runs into the difficulty of justifying how exactly morality is objective, but it manages to seem to fuse projectionist and non-cognivitism into a distinctly cognitivist morality. Our attitudes towards things are projected onto the world and in turn we "perceive" this very projection and formulate truth-apt statements.

But in general with a lot of philosophical debates and meta-ethical ones you get four camps, some form of non-naturalism, naturalist reductionism, expressivism and eliminativism, the former two being realist and the latter two being anti-realist. It's not perfectly cut like this in real life but in general it's a basic template that most issues end up being structured as.

I know that studying philosophy is no game even though it might seem so, reason why I am curious how you started studying it — Abeills

It's really the only thing that truly gives me an enduring sense of satisfaction and fulfillment, other than close friends and family. I came across it sort of by accident and almost instantly knew this is what I wanted to do with my life (which, unfortunately, I am not currently doing).

or if any of you has any schedule regarding this — Abeills

Basically I just read or "do" philosophy when I have the time, which is becoming increasingly difficult to find.

I thought that science, therefore, just focuses on what is and ignores or dodges "Why?". — WISDOMfromPO-MO

No, science does not dodge "why" questions, it just traces the answers as far back as is needed to make the model work. There's no need to insert some metaphysical theory to explain why some phenomenon happens the way it does. "Why do we perceive color light?" can be answered by "because we have cones in the backs of our eyeballs, and because color would have made it easier to differentiate things in our visual awareness way back in time." "Why do the waves on a beach change throughout the day?" is answered by "because of the moon's gravity." "How come the 'quality of life' apparently increased in the 1860s?" is answered (??) by "because of the industrial revolution, capitalism ( :-} ), technological innovations, etc."

In fact, why-questions typically end up being teleological which is not all that helpful to scientists, at least not in the traditional way. Why-questions are blurred into how-questions.

But to say philosophy studies the "why" questions is not only excluding many other things it studies but also seems to beg the question.

Intuition. Moral naturalism is a lost cause, and divine command theory is either ad hoc or fails from Euthyphro.

I'm not finished reading Braver's book yet, but as I recall Dummett equated realism with the principle of bivalence because he wanted to steer as far away as possible from "metaphysical" notions. So once I finish or get around to Dummett maybe I'll have more to say. But for now:

Dummett then goes on to claim that the principle of bivalence – an essential part of realist metaphysics – requires that what happens outside the simulation does have something to do with the meaning of the words inside the simulation. As an example, the statement "there's a cat in the cupboard" is either true or false, even if the inside of the cupboard isn't being simulated. This only works if the world outside the simulation has something to do with the meaning of this phrase when used inside the simulation. But the argument above is that the outside world is irrelevant. As such, the statement cannot be either true or false as nothing in the simulation determines it to be one or the other, and so the principle of bivalence fails, and along with it realism. — Michael

What does it mean that the "external world" is "irrelevant"? If we're talking pragmatic use, then truth claims are valuable only by how they help us accomplish our goals. But something can be useful and yet still be completely wrong. Or we might have purely accidental knowledge, and not even realize it.

So if we talk about it raining, our behavior might be identical regardless of how the external world actually is, but it still stands that our belief, that it is raining, is either true or false. True knowledge just becomes epiphenomenal.

Sure, science has done a lot of nice things. But it's still pretty boring.

In many (most?) cases, philosophy is born from a certain desperation. Wittgenstein seemed to be aware of this, but so was Heidegger, and Descartes' was anxious enough that he formulated an entire philosophy in order to combat this.

Philosophy is not a discipline. It is an activity that is basically between poetry and science. Making it into a discipline loses the original essence that drives philosophical inquiry. It's laughable, and a little pathetic too, to see philosophers scramble to justify their "discipline" by trying to make it a scientific-like discipline.

In my opinion, if a question or problem is anxiety or curiosity-inducing (both a form of desperation), then it's probably philosophical. Science is actually really boring for the most part. Nothing too exciting comes from it, in general.

This means the lemons must exist prior to the making of lemonade. — Thorongil

This is wrong. Lemons only need to exist at the moment of lemonade-making.

Wow. You must be trolling me. I don't know how else to account for such brazen stubbornness. — Thorongil

I don't know how else to account for your inability to comprehend a very simple issue. But oh well.

Lemons do not need to exist before making lemonade — darthbarracuda

Christ, be charitable. Lemons do not need to exist beforehand in order to make lemonade, if that clears things up. They need only exist at the time of lemonade-making.

If "at the moment" still presupposes the lemons' prior existence in your mind, it doesn't. — Thorongil

???

Darth, I refuse to accept that you are this daft. The I just made to you was that, if you acknowledge ANY duration of a lemon's existence BEFORE making lemonade, then you have contradicting the following statement: — Thorongil

How does acknowledging a lemon's prior existence contradict my claim that the only thing that matters is that the lemon exists at the moment of lemonade-making?

Here you acknowledge that lemons do need to exist before making lemonade. The duration of their existence is irrelevant. Whether they existed a million years or a millionth of a second before making lemonade, they still exist before. — Thorongil

No, that's not what I meant at all. I said the duration doesn't matter because it doesn't matter at all whether or not lemons exist before lemonade-making.

I said, explicitly and many times now:

Lemons do not need to exist before making lemonade, they only need to exist at the moment of lemonade-making. — darthbarracuda

You have made both of the following statements:

1. Lemons do not need to exist before making lemonade

2. Lemons do need to exist before making lemonade. — Thorongil

No, I haven't, where are you getting this from?

These are mutually incompatible statements. It's not possible for them both to be true at the same time. Only one option is true, which is the second. Therefore, you need to stop making the first claim. — Thorongil

Honestly can you stop being an ass. That doesn't even follow either. If I really was making those two statements, I would need to stop making either the first or the second claim.

To be harmed requires that a person exist. — Thorongil

Right.

Things that are nonexistent do not die. — Thorongil

But they can be born?

You said:

I said that lemons need to exist before making lemonade. You disagreed. But then you contradicted yourself and agreed with me that, to make lemonade, the lemons need to exist "before" doing so (whether by two seconds or a century). — Thorongil

Implying that I said lemons do not need to exist before to make lemonade, and then said they do. But this is false because I explicitly said:

It doesn't matter if it existed for a century or two seconds before. — darthbarracuda

I did not contradict myself. I have been consistent. Lemons do not need to exist before making lemonade, they only need to exist at the moment of lemonade-making.

Because there is no person to harm, prior to it, like there is in the case of death. — Thorongil

Yet the epicurean position is precisely that death cannot harm the person themselves because a person does not exist after they die. It seems ad hoc to require someone exist before a harm for something to count as a harm but not require that they exist after a harm for something to count as a harm.

Consider again, for a moment, the reason for my emoji. I said that lemons need to exist before making lemonade. You disagreed. But then you contradicted yourself and agreed with me that, to make lemonade, the lemons need to exist "before" doing so (whether by two seconds or a century). — Thorongil

No, I didn't. Read that again.

It doesn't matter if it existed for a century or two seconds before. — darthbarracuda

You're asking how nonexistence can harm them, and I agree that it can't. Death itself harms the person, not the after death state, of which you refer. — Thorongil

So why cannot birth harm a person?

Nothing you've said has caused me to doubt it. — Thorongil

...okay? How is that relevant?

On the other hand, death is clearly different from birth in that an individual does exist prior to its occurrence. In that sense, death cannot but be a harm to that individual, since it results in that individual's bodily extinction, at minimum. — Thorongil

Right but a person doesn't exist after they died so how can it harm them. This whole "argument" is going in circles, punctuated by emoji's and sarcastic poems.

:-} — Thorongil

???

As for the first question, that depends on context. I agree in principle with the death penalty, for example. So I do think people can benefit from the death of an individual convicted of a serious crime, those people being the criminal's potential victims, were he not punished. I also think that some wars can be justified, in which case the people on the just side of the war would benefit from the enemy being killed. As for harm, I think a suicide's death, for example, can harm the friends and loved ones of the person who took his or her life. Fatal accidents can do so as well. — Thorongil

I meant specifically the person dying, not those around them. So you're taking the epicurean stance on this.

And your definition of harm is incoherent for this reason. — Thorongil

Yeah...no.

It feels like you're pulling my leg now. If they exist at the time of making lemonade, then they existed before one made lemonade. — Thorongil

No that's not right. The history of a lemon's existence is irrelevant at the time of lemonade-making. It doesn't matter if it existed for a century or two seconds before. All that matters is that it exists at the moment lemonade-making occurs.

Now that you've have time to think, I'll ask you again: do you think people can be harmed or benefited by dying? Do you think it might help someone to be euthanized if they are suffering terribly? Even if they don't exist after the fact?

I've made it clear that my definition of harm does not require there to be an actual person existing prior to the harm. It requires only a counterfactual hypothetical person, "if there had been".

I agree, it is well-written and very interesting.

Because it's self-evident. You might as well ask why lemons need to exist before making lemonade. — Thorongil

Lemons don't need to exist "before" making lemonade. They just need to exist at the time of making lemonade.

And it seems that you, apparently tendentiously, left off the 'or helped' that should have been included at the end of your sentence. — Janus

It wouldn't be "helped", it would have been "benefited". Helped implies there is something harmful that needs to be removed.

If you meant the latter, then we're not talking about any person that exists, for there can be no person that exists before existing. — Thorongil

I mean, no shit. But why should I believe someone needs to exist before in order to be harmed?

If I snapped my fingers and instantly fully-grown people appeared and were instantaneously tortured, would it be harmful to these people, since they previously did not exist? Would it only be a harm if, say, the came into existence, and then after one second began to be tortured? Why is prior existence so important?

Well, actually you are not necessarily harming a child by not making them wear a seat belt, so I can't see your point with that analogy — Janus

:-| Criminal negligence is a thing.

Be that as it may, existence cannot be seen to be either a harm or a help, per se. Of course, if you don't exist then you cannot be harmed because you cannot be anything. — Janus

This makes it seem like existence does, in fact, help or harm someone by enabling them to be harmed.

There is a being who might be harmed by not wearing a seatbelt. But there is no being who might be harmed by being born. — Thorongil

But there is - the person who is being born. They are being born. Birth is happening - to them. If a person cannot be harmed by being born because they don't exist prior, can a person even be born at all, since they don't exist prior to being born?

Existence per se does not harm anyone; it merely provides the conditions, so to speak, for help or harm along with anything else to be. — Janus

That's like saying you aren't harming a child by not making them wear a seatbelt, you're just providing the conditions that enable the child to be harmed. If a person's existence requires them to be harmed, then their existence is harmful to them. This should not be difficult to understand.

And, for some people, existence is equivalent to suffering, which is seen as harmful. There is no difference.

I don't know what to say. One sentence says you can't be harmed before existing and the other says you can. — Thorongil

???

You can't be harmed if you do not exist.

Coming into existence implies you now exist. If this existence harms you, then you have been harmed by coming into existence.

A Thing of This World: A History of Continental Anti-Realism by Lee Braver.

No. What was it? — Thorongil

That coming into existence can be harmful.

Again, incoherence. These two statements are flatly contradictory of each other. — Thorongil

You're going to need to explain why.

Your position is utterly incoherent. — Thorongil

:-}

No, this doesn't follow at all. If you don't need to exist in order to be harmed, then what is being harmed? — Thorongil

No, obviously you need to exist to be harmed. You just don't need to exist before the harm occurs in order to be harmed. There's nothing incoherent here.

I took "birth" to refer to "coming into existence," not "exiting a mother's birth canal." — Thorongil

Right, I think you get what I meant though.

The fact is that birth harms no one. To say that it does requires that people exist before they are born, which is to say that people can exist before they exist, an absurdity. There's no getting around this. — Thorongil

Hardly, for we don't need someone to exist before they're born to be harmed. If something is bad to experience, then it is harmful for a person to experience it, even if they don't exist before. Especially if we define harm in the way I did in the first premise: something counts as a harm to a person if this person, if they were rational and well-informed, would prefer not to experience it.

Unless you honestly, truly believe it is not a harm to a baby to be tortured as soon as they're expelled from the womb. It's not a persuasive line of reasoning. If, for some crazy reason, people actually did exist in some pre-natal otherworld before they were born, would that suddenly make coming into biological existence a harm?

(I'm sure you'll agree that at least some people are better off dead, even if this means they don't exist to recognize that they're better off.)

As a side note, I am using deontology in a broader sense than Kant's ethics. Common sense ethics is often deontological.

I'll take a swing at it, although my take is more ethical. Here's the argument I give in the book I'm writing:

"
Premise 1: If a person has an experience that a rational and well-informed person would prefer not to experience, then this person has been harmed (definition of harm).

Premise 2: But life as an experience is not something a rational and well-informed person would prefer (the negative perspective).

Conclusion 1: Therefore, life is harmful to a person.

Premise 3: But the life of a person depends on them having been born (self-evident truism).

Conclusion 2: Therefore, the birth of a person is harmful to this person.

Premise 4: But it is wrong to hurt other people (the fundamental ethical articulation).

Conclusion 3: Therefore, it is wrong to give birth to a person.
"

This is what I call the fundamental argument for antinatalism.

And while I agree with you that there is a fundamental "uncalmness" to phenomenal existence, I'm specifically focused on the anxiety produced by our inherent moral disqualification. We have to make do with the "lesser of all evils", go for the "greatest good", oftentimes solve difficult problems by appealing to the majority, and inevitably hurt or manipulate other people simply because we feel the need to live, progress, survive. We feel forced into political discourse, dirtying our hands and getting pissed off. We have to make exceptions to the fundamental ethical articulation, we can't get bogged down and worry about the "little things" we do that hurt other people. They are expendable and forgettable, apparently.

I happen to have consequentialist leanings but only because I believe the world we live in is incapable of sustaining a more natural, primordial deontological ethic. Deontology is often criticized for not addressing the problems with agent-relative reasons (refusing to hurt one person to prevent five more from equal treatment - it has an air of irrationality to it) - but that's not really the fault of deontology per se as much as it is the fault of those who decide it's okay to sustain a world in which we have to substitute this ethic for another one. In my view, the existence of substantial moral disagreement is a very troubling thing.

Therefore I believe that life is structurally negative and is morally disqualifying. We will never have a satisfactory ethic that affirms life, and this produces an anxiety in us. There's no such thing as "the good life", and everyone is guilty of doing something wrong. Most of the time it's not even our fault.