This is the problem typically with conspiracy theories. Everything that happens has to have been planned by someone, who basically is against the "ordinary" people. It has to be the Jews, the Illuminati, the Freemasons, the Globalists, the Communists, the Cultural Marxists, the liberals, whoever acting as the instigators and following their hideous sinister plans.

The idea that large changes can happen without someone having planned them is far too difficult to understand. — ssu

Uh, except there are literally documents which show that there are things that are planned. Many of them. For example, the 1954 coup in Guatemala was planned to destroy the government, and kill the population to protect US crop interests. That's not a conspiracy theory, it's a fact. Another one, is MKULTRA. The government released the public documents of the secret mind control program. Again, not a conspiracy theory. And there are dozens of examples. Sir Rothschild said that he didn't care who ran government, as long as he ran the nation's supply of money. That's a conspiracy.

↪h060tu Not sure what you mean, but I said "blamed" because crazy conspiracy people think that everything that has happened to weaken the church and state since the 18th century is the fault of the Illuminati, despite them not having existed for anything but a tiny sliver of that time. But hey, their agenda continued anyway, Enlightenment spread across the world, so I guess in the eyes of paranoid religious freaks, the Illuminati must have secretly continued in the shadows pulling the strings on all the world leaders ever since their supposed "destruction", since there's no way crazy ideas like critical thinking and freedom could have caught on without some kind of nefarious agenda like that. — Pfhorrest

No, but the Illuminati had a role to play. Just as Rockefellers, Morgans, Rothschilds, Cecil Rhodes, the British Empire, radical revolutionaries etc. etc. did. There's not just one shady group behind everything. There's multiple interest groups involved. Always are. That's how statecraft works. How empire is forged. How the elites run the show.

Godel proved that first order logic was consistent and complete, you dummy. This discussion has nothing to do with Godel's theorems. — SophistiCat

It's called the Incompleteness theorem.

Anyway, no point talking to people who don't understand what they're talking about.

OK, but it is more physical-evidence-based than philosophy, no? — bert1

No. Physical evidence is just a abstract concept. It's not an actual thing. 'Physical evidence' is just as metaphysical as 'God' or 'soul' is.

scientific questions get actually decided fairly regularly in the light of evidence. — bert1

What science are you talking about? Scientific questions are never settled, and can never be settled by definition. Science is based on the current level of human knowledge. Tomorrow that level of knowledge will change. Yesterday it changed. Thousands of years before and after, it will change. Science is never settled. Science is always evolving.

You can't prove it objectively either, because objective means self-evident. It's obviously not "self-evident" to me that I don't exist, and only you do. In fact, it's the opposite in my case.

All you need to do is define "infinity" in such a way that you can produce them, and voila, you can produce infinities. It's a very simple trick which the mathemagicians do with their axioms. — Metaphysician Undercover

No. You can model a system that produces infinities. But you cannot actually create an abstract thing that is infinite. That's a different thing. I mean technically, replaying a video game each time will produce an infinite number of different conditions in the game, being different each time. The game isn't infinite. That's the system that is modeling infinity, not the actual thing. Simulation vs simulator. Not the same thing. I keep having to repeat this difference.

That´s a very esoteric view. We have no way to think that consiousness is at the basis of anything. — InfiniteMonkey

Of course we do. It's all we have. Literally. There is nothing that can be understood, known or experienced outside of consciousness. Therefore, consciousness is all that exists. What's your evidence for an external world OUTSIDE OF consciousness? Less evidence for that.

What is it that lovers of totalitarianism need? Order? — frank

There is a massive difference between totalitarianism, and the belief that the average person has the capacity to govern a country.

I don't believe in order, I believe in competence. Do you think a janitor can run a country? Or a sports player? Or a Hollyweird actor? I don't think so. I'm in favor of a benevolent dictatorship, of the oligarchic, autocratic, authoritarian sort. Not the incompetent oligarchic pseudo-democracy we have now. Put the most reasonable, upstanding, informed and meritocratic people in charge. Not the most garbage people, which is basically how it works currently. Creepy uncle Joe, Killery, Make Israel Great Again Trump, Obomber, Good ole' boy George Bush. Whatever.

No, I didn't prove that at all. That's totally a non-sequitur. So, just because I use language doesn't mean I created English does it? Obviously not. You can talk about infinities all you want to. But you cannot produce one. For you to produce something that would go on forever, you yourself would have to live forever to do it. That's the whole point.

lol So, Kurt Godel who was one of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century didn't know propositional calculus existed? Who's more likely to be right?

And yes, theory of everything would fit the definition of a closed system. So, you don't know what you're saying. No reason to continue talking here.

Francis Yates’ scholarly work on him is pretty interesting if you’re interested in this area. — I like sushi

Yes. Good book.

Democracy is silly. And America is a Republic, not a democracy. Though, that too, is silly.

It's not semantics. There are very serious differences between Republic and democracy. Plato vs Aristotle.

The obvious one is that a Republic is not a democracy, but an Oligarchy. It's ran by the "philosopher kings" not by the people.

Thus begins somewhat of an inquiry as to what exactly is meant by nothingness, and the nature thereof. — CorneliusCoburn

Actually, the ancients really took a while to grasp the concept of nothing. Basically zero is the only coherent understanding of nothing that has ever been formulated. Apart from that, there's always something.

Why did human language evolve? How was this process affected by natural and social selection pressures? What was the sequence and combination of mutations/cognitive features that produced its modern forms? — Enrique

Nobody knows. We have a lot of linguists working on it. A lot of what you're asking sort of assumes Neo-Darwinism. I would personally bet that language evolution was unrelated to genetics. Maybe not totally, but more or less.

What impact did language have on the character of human behavior as well as our rationality and irrationality? Along more philosophical lines, what is the relationship between language and logical thinking? — Enrique

Now that has been a subject to quite a debate. The strong version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, namely linguistic determinism, has been debunked. That hypothesis holds that different languages are so vastly different that it's basically like totally different worlds of reality. Now, obviously anybody who knows more than one language (comme moi) knows that there is some degree of maneuverability from one language to the other. It's not totally different. But most people do subscribe to a weak Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, linguistic relativism, which says that your language does have an impact on how you understand and perceive the world. I subscribe to the weak version.

1) How would a Keynesian and Classical economist differ in their view of government spending and aggregate demand and aggregate supply?

2) I have a premise: Inflation is due to micro-decisions of greed on the part of the supplier to maximize as much profit as possible without pricing themselves out of the market.


1) A pure Keynesian believes demand creates supply. Effective demand is what supply *reacts* to. When there are less customers, the employer orders less for distribution and hires less workers. When there are more customers, the employer orders more for distribution and hires more workers. Ergo, demand creates supply. Which just means that supply reacts to demand, demand is the deciding factor in the economy. And that's why the role of the government is *essential* in Keynesian theory. Effective demand isn't a number, it's the life-blood of the economy. The deciding factor in a market system. Therefore, the government's role in printing money, keeping people employed, keeping credit stable etc. has a direct implication on the spending/investment rate in the economy, and therefore effective demand.

A neoclassical believes the market is efficient (efficient markets hypothesis) so the government usually gets in the way more than helps. And a classical economist sees aggregate demand and aggregate supply as two separate things. Not bound up together like a Keynesian.

2) It's certainly an aspect of real-world inflation. But you don't get taught that in the textbooks.

Communism is perfect in theory, but terrible in practice. And it's terrible in practice because a) it was bankrolled by capitalism from the beginning, b) egalitarianism is false, c) human nature doesn't accord with it.

Main reasons.

3. The whole economic bread and circuses was just that, an illusion. This system is as fragile as it's ever been. The economic system is for the elites' GDP, not ours.

Consciousness didn't evolve. It is the basis of all things. No matter how many times you reboot your computer, it will not become conscious.

Blamed? It's in their Constitution. The Illuminati were actually the apotheosis of the whole revolutionary Enlightenment political ethic. The whole idea is to use reason to achieve enlightenment. Robespierre wanted to build a temple of reason where the Cathedral of Notre Dame was.

But yeah, the revolutionary and insidious nature of the Illuminati is evident not only in their Constitution, but actually by Thomas Jefferson, Franklin, the Founders, who themselves were Freemasons many of them, publicly warned against the threat of the Illuminati.

Yes I do. Freemasons come out of the Enlightenment, and base themselves on Hermetic and Esoteric philosophy.

Manly P. Hall, a great intellectual and philosopher, was a Freemason of the 33rd degree. Recommend his work.

Totally agree. 100%. The Enlightenment mythology about finding "the laws of the universe" (based on Rosicrucian, Hermetic and Occult mysticism btw) is just that, a mythology. We don't need to posit "laws of the Universe" when all we see are patterns of perception anyway. A pattern is a pattern. Not a law of nature. Just like a turkey ringing a bell and getting fed every day at 11am isn't a law of nature. Just an inference based on a pattern of perception. One day, the turkey rings the bell, no more food for him. Same thing with "laws" of nature.

I actually do believe in laws of nature, but I don't believe our limited human knowledge can adequately account for or describe what those laws are. Our descriptions of those laws are the like the turkey getting fed.

If I get my stimulus check, I'll vote for Trump. Otherwise, not worth voting.

I think you'd be correct. But that would perhaps make my point. Godel's theorem is related to closed systems, not dynamic open ones like the real world. All the more reason why a description of reality cannot ever be complete. It will always be a description, limited by the human words that are used to describe them and measured by the limited human intelligences behind the computer.

It's confusing the simulation for the simulator. The description for the thing described. The signified for the signifier. The thing-in-itself with the thing being perceived. Blah blah blah.

One thing that's being assumed, that isn't remotely proven to be concretely a thing, is induction. Quine's "Two Dogmas of Empiricism" as well as Hume's "Human Understanding" have shown that induction is just assumed. We assume ceteris paribus. We assume that things behave the same every time, every day, every second. Totally unjustified assumption. In fact, one that scientists have identified as possibly being the case recently.

I already did. Any set of propositions can either be 1) incomplete and coherent or 2) incoherent and complete.

That's been proven with mathematics by Kurt Godel. Disagree? Then disprove his theorem. Or prove your own mathematical theorem.

That's not "my logic" that's his. I'm just repeating it. It's all I'm good for. Repeating things other people say to sound smart.

Maths aren't things we find? Fractals and the Mandelbrot set seem to disagree with this. We cannot "do" infinity by definition. Finite beings cannot create infinities. Only infinite beings can create infinities. Which is one of my arguments for God, ironically.

1) Infinities exist.
2) Finite entities cannot create infinities by definition, because finite beings are limited, infinities are unlimited.
3) Infinities are caused by infinite beings.
4) Infinite beings exist. Ergo,
5) God exists.

Based on my metaphysics "1" does exist. Because everything exists within the mind of God. Everything, conceptual, actual, potential, possible, probable etc. exists in the mind of God. Nothing exists outside of consciousness, which is God's mind.

I'm sorry, but there's no way to refute Solipsism. However, I think merely through intuition we can see that it's false. For example, you are a human being. I am also a human being. By analogy, if you experience the world, it seems like I would the same because I share the same essence/universal as you do.

It's not a refutation, it's an inference to the best explanation. Now, if you're opting for Ockham's Razor, I think Solipsism is better than multiple consciousnesses. However, if that's the case, then the idea that's there is only consciousness itself, that is my view, Idealistic Monism, would be more parsimonious.

I dunno. Debate which sounds best.

I don't agree at all. What determines the alleged "truth" of science is just whatever prevails at the common wisdom of the time. For example, recently a planet "disappeared" from the Universe. Did the planet really disappear? No. It never actually existed. The scientific theory was just wrong. Theories very often do not fully integrate the complete level of human knowledge. And actually cannot by definition, because the level of human knowledge constantly changes and is limited. So what I'd argue is, Evidentialism is not how science actually functions. That's certainly what the scientific ideology is though.

That's literally not my logic whatsoever. That's totally a strawman.

So, I am an anarchist. I think all states and institutions are a joke, and they should be rejected. But they won't. Moreover, I don't think people can live together peacefully with or without a government. Sort of a cynical type of anarchism, but that's what it is.

The European Union was a failure from the start. And now we're seeing it. It's a total fantasy project.

So, that's science in theory. But in practice, a lot of evidence is ignored by the scientific community for plenty of phenomena which would constitute science. So, actually science doesn't have this problem. Michel Foucault, Thomas Kuhn and others discuss this in their books.

Of course it is. Science isn't about ethics. Science is about studying the world. And, science in the context of society, is generally how the elites, politicians, ruling class use science to study the world to maintain their own power, conquest, authority and domination over other people.

So, of course they ignore ethics.

So Kurt Godel has already refuted the theory of everything. You cannot a theory of everything (what he calls "completeness") without having a incoherence at the root of the system. Moreover, you can opt for a coherent system, but it would lack completeness. It's been mathematically proved that a theory of everything is impossible, unless it is likewise incoherent to some measure.

Okay, so mind is fundamental. There is no brain that exists without mind. You cannot see, touch, taste or look at any brain unless you have your subjective conscious experience. Done. In assuming materialism, you've refuted it. Because even a materialist assumes his own subjective conscious experience in an attempt to refute it. It's a self-destructive argumentum ad absurdum.

So I disagree. The Laws of Physics themselves are prescriptive. The way we describe those laws is descriptive, by definition. But the actual laws are prescriptive.

What I think is that you're putting the cart before the horse.

All that exists is consciousness and things within consciousness. Then you don't need to posit free will or dualism unnecessarily. Ockham's Razor suggests we start there.

What type of creationism?

I don't think the methods of philosophy are problematic. I think philosophers are problematic. Human limitation and the human condition cause people to make errors, or to use emotion rather than reason or make assumptions that other people don't make.