If I've learned anything truly useful in college it's that coffee doesn't give you energy, it just keeps you from falling asleep.

"“Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility.” - Sigmund Freud.

Unless you are Paris Hilton and have someone managing your life for you, being famous and great and all that is a lot of work and a big risk. Not many people want to do this, because most people aren't ambitious enough to really care about getting in the big leagues. So long as they get their morning coffee they are okay.

Even the engineers and scientists and whatnot that you mentioned are not usually "great". They're told what to study, what to build, what to invent. For every engineering team that comes up with a new fantastic invention, there's thousands of others that make your mouse-pad and your teacup.

Existence is a fullness which man can never abandon: to me that's what Sartre himself is trying to assert, through his character Roquentin, beyond the inner debate with reason and chance. — mcdoodle

Does Sartre find any way of overcoming the absurd, irrational character of life? His characters certainly seem to understand it.

Then you believe wrongly. It is not being dead that people fear but dying, the transition from life to death. The reason being that they expect it to be painful. This hardly suggests a deficient fear of pain. If anything we have an over-aggressive fear of pain which makes, as often as not, the anxiety about pain worse than the actual pain itself! — Barry Etheridge

It's probably both. People fear being dead and they also fear the process of dying. As for the over-aggressive fear of pain, I don't think it's the pain that is what makes people fear dying per se but the sense of loss and feeling that they'll "miss out" on everything else that makes people fear death.

It would be fun, maybe, if we had a month on the board where: — Terrapin Station

I would rather there not be requirements for membership apart from basic decency and respect.

If someone lives who is ignorant of the potential for great pain, and they live well, isn't their quality of life far better than someone who is acutely aware of every potential mishap and lives a life of fear? — Nerevar

Yes, I suppose this is correct. It is a double-edged sword. By understanding the possibility of horrible pain in the future, you might end up dooming yourself. But understanding also lets you live more ethically. So the acquisition of wisdom has an ethical side.

Yet remember that events that you once classified as horrible, like skinning your knee as a child, or being without a toy as an infant, can now be borne with ease, simply because you have endured so much worse as an adult. — Nerevar

It's also because we have an unconscious filter that prevents us from actually re-living these bad experiences, at least normally (see PTSD).

Experiences do not happen without your interpretation of them, so only you can determine if the pain of death will be greater or less than any pain that you have endured in your life. — Nerevar

It's not even just the pain of death, but any truly terrible pain. There is an obvious asymmetry in intensity between the possibility of pain and pleasure. Pain can get extraordinarily bad, and only relents when you fall unconscious. Pleasure doesn't do that to you. Nobody actually falls unconscious because of pleasure.

To put it another way, a person living in pain for much of their early life could find a partial cure for their ailment and live 60 years with only moderate pain, and be pleased and grateful that their suffering was lessened, even a little. — Nerevar

On the other hand, a person in moderate health could suffer from a debilitating disease for their final 60 years, in the same amount of pain as the first person, and be miserable the entire time. It's all a matter of perspective — Nerevar

I would say that horrible pain is not worth experiencing. But if you've already experienced it, it's over, you might as well move on. This doesn't justify the initial experience, though.

Yes.

Mass Effect.

So similar to how we assume there actually is an external world outside of our consciousness, or Hume's skepticism of causality?

This is the "seduction" of metaphysics that speculative realism talks about. Phenomenology is all cool and all, but what's really interesting is what the rest of the world is like, because the rest of the world could be radically different than anything we can imagine.

This doesn't follow. If our understanding of motion is of a particular kind of phenomena then even if this phenomena is caused by something "beyond" the phenomena, it would be a category error to say that this "something else" is motion. Rather this "something else" is just the cause of motion, with motion just being the particular kind of phenomena. Compare with being red and having a particular frequency of light. — Michael

I'm not sure I follow.

A ball moves towards me. In reality, this means that the ball is changing locations, traveling distance, in a specific discrete amount of time. But I do not actually experience the ball moving towards me, I experience a reconstruction of the episode, a painting of the real thing.

Consider how, if you cover up one of your eyes, it becomes much more difficult to see depth of field. The ball is still moving, but it's harder to register this because you aren't given enough information. Until it smacks you in the face, that is.

The phenomenal reality we experience everyday is a crude and limited reconstruction of the unknowable world beyond, a world apparently filled with mysterious dark matter and energy, curved space-time, and ruled by probability. Assuming there is such a world at all.

So what causes the experience of motion if it isn't necessarily actual motion? — apokrisis

The experience of motion is more like the experience of changing secondary properties. Sort of like how programs can model three-dimensionally but it's actually just a two-dimensional design with shading.

Isn't a change in our phenomenal world exactly how we understand motion anyway? Science is an empirical thing, after all. — Michael

Right, but if you don't move out of the way, that baseball is going to hit you. We register that there is a change going on in our phenomenal world, but we make a further assumption when we believe this change correlates to something actually moving outside us.

Apo's strange presentation of optical illusions shows this. We register change when there actually isn't any. There is a disconnect between what is the case and what seems to be the case. What seems to be the case are secondary properties. What is the case are primary properties.

No, again, motion is primary, but the experience of motion is secondary. All we're registering is a change in our phenomenal world.

So illusory motion and real motion look the same, but your primary and secondary quality distinction holds? — apokrisis

The appearance of motion is different than the actual motion itself.

So then, is motion a primary quality if what we experience doesn't have to be what is really there? — apokrisis

I mean, illusory experiences happen all the time. What is actually happening need not correspond to what we register, just as wavelength is not identical to color.

Clearly, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, because as part of the whole, nerve cells, flower petals, and so on can do things that they can't do alone. Actually, as parts, nerve cells can't do much of anything. — Bitter Crank

This, I would say, is contentious. We could be mereological nihilists and think that the parts of the flower are arranged "flower-wise", but not believe that there is such a thing as a "flower".

So are the arrangements of parts themselves something? Is an arrangement a thing? I would argue that perhaps we ought to see arrangements, or structures, as something parts do. Thus complex static objects don't exist, but what we commonly see as complex static objects are really processes of parts all working together. The act of working together is "something".

As such, there are no strict boundaries between systems. The world is messy.

So how do we experience motion illusions under this kind of property dualism? — apokrisis

Is this supposed to be one of those knock-down a-HAH! arguments?

Something can be seen to be moving while actually not moving at all. Something can also be seen to be static and yet be quite dynamic.

I would of thought that when we discovered that red is a certain wavelength of the EM spectrum that is exuded by the type of material light is reflected from it would've meant that we did away with thinking "redness" is something instantiated universally by objects, that it is a thing in itself rather than just a physical occurrence. ?? — intrapersona

Yes, well we can make distinctions between different sorts of properties. If we go the dualist route, we can plausibly say that there are primary and secondary qualities. Primary qualities are things like mass, volume, shape, distance to/from, velocity, etc. Secondary qualities are things like color, magnitudes of experience, etc.

"Red" is not an EM wave with wavelength 620-740 nm. That is what red is caused by, but the experience of red is something different. Again under a dualist schema. Red is not a property of an object, but rather a property that an object causes us to experience.

I am not a physicalist, so I can only continue to speculate. My guess is that mass-energy is not considered a (universal) property in the same way that existence is not considered a predicate. — aletheist

But we use mass and energy as predicates with power. Things have different amounts of mass, different amounts of energy. We can measure how much mass or energy things have.

But then we're back at square one, still. If they are nothing but concepts, then when does it end? What concept is actually referring to something that exists?

Say the physicalist argues that whatever is physical is whatever has mass or energy or what have you. Then we simply have to ask, well, what is mass, what is energy? What could mass and energy be other than a property something has, or a kind of "stuff" that everything has? And how is this not a universal?

Sorry, I meant matter in the broad modern sense that includes energy and space-time. The point is that the physicalist denies the reality of non-material forms. — aletheist

But this is exactly what I am disputing, how can physicalism have a coherent definition of what "physical" entails or what "mass" or "energy" entail without appealing to something other than the physical, the massive, or the energetic?

In your view, what's the difference for nonphysicalists, then? — Terrapin Station

Nonphysicalists are those people who reject the doctrine that everything is "physical", whatever that entails precisely. Dualists are not physicalists, nor are idealists or anyone else like that.

I'm a physicalists who doesn't at all deny that there are properties. It's just that properties are physical particulars. Re this: "It's not physicalism if it posits there there are things in the world that aren't physical (whatever a particular species of physicalism considers 'physical' to denote, exactly)," to which you responded, "If that is what physicalism entails then I doubt anyone would actually want to call themselves a physicalist," I call myself a physicalist in the sense that you're saying no one would want to call themselves. — Terrapin Station

I can't say I understand what motivation you could have to hold such an extreme reductive view.

If properties are physical particulars, then what does is mean that the property of being a physical particular is a physical particular? This seems circular.

On my account, it simply refers to the fact that what there is is exhausted by matter, relations of matter and processes of matter. — Terrapin Station

Yes, but are these different arrangements of matter themselves made of matter? That's what is at issue here. Matter can only be part of the explanation, there has to be a Form as well. Neither can exist without the other.

HD is a little clunky at times, yes, but mostly on multiplayer.

I'm not really familiar with that phrase, so I don't have an intuitive grasp for what it includes versus excludes. — Terrapin Station

Concrete particular objects, the subjects of predicate statements. If we predicate the mind as physicalists, then the mind is a physical object. There are no concrete subjects that are not-physical.

What are you referring to there--the word? The concept (or meaning as you suggest in the next sentence)? Are you positing a necessary, real universal? — Terrapin Station

Yes, I am positing the necessary existence of a property, physicality, for the doctrine of physicalism. If everything is physical, then it needs to be explained what makes everything physical. Doing so, in my view, can only be accomplished by positing the existence of some"thing" that is not a concrete, physical object but nevertheless is necessary for concrete objects to even exist.

So you've been thinking that "physicalism" simply amounts to people who believe that some, but not all, of "what there is" is physical? Contra people who think that nothing is physical, maybe? — Terrapin Station

I consider physicalism to be the doctrine that whatever exists "on the stage" so to speak is "physical", whatever that entails. "Physical" itself cannot be "physical" without being empty of meaning. It has to mean something, and it can only mean something if there are alternatives.

Okay this is the last time you play this trick before I call it quits. Yes, it is circular reasoning the way you phrased/reasoned it initially. Now you just rephrased it and pretend I did not notice it. — Emptyheady

Calm down, stop acting like I'm contradicting myself, and start actually presenting arguments.

Humans can suffer. Check.

Non-human animals can suffer. Check.

We treat others humans with respect because they can feel, just like we ourselves can. We also expect them to act accordingly because they are rational agents. Check.

We treat non-human animals with respect because they can feel, just like we ourselves can, but we do not expect them to act morally because they are not moral agents. Check.

The capacity to be a rational moral agent is not what is needed to be seen as morally important. That is what you need to respond to.

That is fine. Like I said our moral philosophies differ. The keyword here is "suffering." I care more about (individual) rights than suffering. — Emptyheady

And so you can just assert whatever the hell you want, but as soon as I say something you call me out on it?

Caring about individual rights instead of suffering is absurd. We care about individual rights in virtue of how doing so causally affects the welfare of those we deem worthy of having rights.

It's not physicalism if it posits there there are things in the world that aren't physical (whatever a particular species of physicalism considers "physical" to denote, exactly). — Terrapin Station

If that is what physicalism entails then I doubt anyone would actually want to call themselves a physicalist.

Like a dog chasing its own tail. I am a bit tired at this moment, is this circular reasoning or just an tautology... — Emptyheady

No, it's not circular reasoning.

Animals have the right not to be abused because they can suffer. The same reason why humans have the right not to be abused.

As long as you are a human being, you remain to have moral agency and therefore human rights. That is because humans have a special property of moral responsibility -- call them moral agents or moral actors if you'd like. — Emptyheady

And it is exactly this line of reasoning that I reject. You don't have to have moral agency in order to qualify for rights.

Okay, but if they're not physical, then it's not physicalism. — Terrapin Station

But it can still be physicalism, as long as we limit particulars that exist as being physical. The properties of particulars may not be physical themselves. But in order to talk about physicalism, we have to know what physical even consists in, and it won't due to simply say the tautology "everything that exists is physical, and what is physical is everything that exists".

Come now... such a rash and lazy reasoning. The fact that you can abuse animals does not entail that animals have rights. You can also abuse buildings, plants (e.g. trees) and cars -- you can even get legally punished by doing so, but none of this entail "rights" like human rights.

Note that this is an otiose point. This specific point is regarding its controversy. It adds nothing to the crux of this discussion, but I found it interesting to mention nonetheless. I took some classes in law. The fact that animals have no rights was uncontroversially true (legally). The moral case is easily made as well. — Emptyheady

You can't abuse something that doesn't have the right to not be abused. There's no "lazy" thinking going on here.

Suffering is not the basis of my moral philosophy. Besides, laws are more about rights than suffering anyway. — Emptyheady

I disagree. The capacity to suffer qualifies something as morally important. Things have rights in virtue of the fact that they can feel, or are related to things that can feel.

We might have to discuss some metaethics at a deeper level, but if we agree that humans are capable of acting morally and animals not without equivocating, then we can take it from there. If you disagree, then we should look where exactly we differ and how humans are morally different from animals. — Emptyheady

Not being a moral agent doesn't mean one isn't morally important. We can't expect infants to act rationally or morally and yet we treat them with respect. And yet many non-human animals have a greater capacity of rationality than human infants.

It sounds like you're saying that under physicalism, "universals" are simply the properties that obtain via particulars. But that's not realism on universalism at all--that's nominalism. — Terrapin Station

Not necessarily, realism about universals would be that these properties, obtained by particulars, are one and the same across particulars. They are not physical, they are properties, universals, just as physicality is a universal.

Your claims are controversial. Morally and legally speaking, animals do not have rights the way humans do. This is pretty much a consensus everywhere in the world. — Emptyheady

Yeah, no, this is completely wrong. Animals have rights, recognized across the (developed) world. Animal abuse is a thing because animals have rights.

Non-human animals might not be able to vote but they can certainly suffer.

Would that include fields? Fields are studied by physicists, their effects can be detected by instruments, but they have nothing in common with physical objects, because they're not physical objects, and some of them are not detectable except in terms of their effects. — Wayfarer

I mean that's generally why I don't see the point in calling things "physical", it inevitably leaves things out or is so broad as to be indistinguishable from simply "being" in the naturalistic sense.

But I believe that no matter how exotic things are, they nevertheless have properties that make them what they are.

Letters on a computer screen can only exist on a computer screen. It doesn't make sense to talk about the computational letter "B" in Times New Roman outside of its existence on a computer screen.

Similarly it doesn't make sense to talk of things like mass or shape outside of how they are instantiated by physical objects. I already said that physicality and other universals are not necessarily identical, but I also said that physical universals are "physical" in that they cannot be instantiated apart from physicality. They are separate properties but are unable to be separated.

Aristotelian substance is the name for the thing that exists without predicates, in which everything else is predicated of. You cannot have universals without substance, but without universals substance isn't anything discernible.

Easy. Animals have no rights and can therefore be used as property/utility by moral agents (i.e. humans). — Emptyheady

The exact same reasoning was used to justify racial discrimination, segregation, and extermination.

Okay, but you're positing an entity that's not identical to its instantiations in particulars, right? What I'm asking you is how that entity is physical. — Terrapin Station

Well, I mean, universal theorists don't have to be Platonists. We can be Aristotelian and believe that universals actually exist in the world and aren't just cheap knock-offs of the ones in the Platonic World of Forms.

So if I were a transcendental Platonist then yes, the Platonic Forms would not be physical, they would be "something else". If I were an Aristotelian immanent theorist, then universals would be physical if essentially paired with the universal of physicality.

Re the parts in italics above, and especially the terms in bold, how would the entities in question be physical? Where would they be instantiated first off? — Terrapin Station

So the question is, how are universals physical? I would argue that "physicality" is a universal itself.

There's no "physical" and then "everything else" on top of it. What makes a universal physical is whether or not it is necessarily instantiated only in cases in which the property of physicality is instantiated.

If we're non-physicalists, like dualists, say, then we would say that the property of "blue-ness" is non-physical, perhaps mental, in virtue of the fact that "blue-ness" does not exist outside of the mind, and is thus a mental property. i.e. a property of the mind, vs a property of the physical.

The Mongols and Spanish in AoE2 are so fucking OP.

Surely it would be that universals like "the perfect triangle" or "perfect body proportion" are just an ideas within our minds and hold no physical existence outside of our thinking of them. — intrapersona

You don't have to believe in Platonic universals to believe in universals. Nevertheless Platonic universals are quite helpful with many problems.

Why does it sound like philosophers are saying that certain ideas of objects and forms actually have an existence outside of the mind? That just sounds silly, yet I know I am missing something here...

Just to confirm, physicalism and universals are non-compatible right? — intrapersona

No, this is false.

All universal theorists are arguing for is the existence of an entity that somehow exists in multiple places at the same time. The red of that firetruck is similar to the red of that fire hydrant in virtue of the fact that both objects instantiate the universal "red-ness".

It can be helpful to think of properties as ways objects are. Universal theorists think that these "ways" are repeatable entities. Those with the same property are literally instantiating the same universal.

Furthermore, it should be noted that not every single property has to be a universal, or has to have a copy somewhere. The more complex systems become the more likely unique arrangements of atoms will occur, arrangements that may never occur ever again.

Thus similarity is oftentimes not literal same-ness but rather a close resemblance in virtue of instantiating a certain number of similar universals, but perhaps not all.

The irrationality of Pascal's Wager is that it doesn't follow in the way your A1 and A2 example does. It strictly assumes that a single God, usually the Christian God, is the only proper choice of theistic belief.

Indeed Pascal's Wager is often used as a trump card; when all other forms of argument fail, just claim that it's more reasonable to believe in God than to not believe in God.

Trouble arises when we realize that the Abrahamic God is not the only conception of God, and benevolence and rationality is not the only possible dispositions of God. In fact a cursory look at the world casts his benevolence and rationality into doubt.

Pascal's Wager is flawed because, like what others said, it discounts the existence of another different deity, or assumes the deity is reasonable and benevolent. The Wager is not rational.

Unfortunately death bed conversions are typically not rational either.

"Let us not pretend to doubt in philosophy what we do not doubt in our hearts." — aletheist

I like this quote but at the same time dislike it. It can be seen as a pragmatic way of bypassing tedious debates, or it can be a way of affirming the status quo. What we "know" in our hearts is oftentimes "socially constructed". We see this a lot in ethics.