Can an uneducated person be wise?
— Tom Storm
No. — L'éléphant

That’s ridiculous. I think it shows, perhaps, a lack of wisdom.

I’m interested in reading member's thoughts on wisdom. — Tom Storm

Of all the personal qualities that a person can have - intelligence, character, integrity, experience, wisdom, temperament, maturity, personality, virtue - what wisdom and maturity have that set them apart from the others is distance, dispassion. They’ve seen everything before. I was thinking for a minute that maybe wisdom and maturity are the same thing, but that’s not right. I guess it’s more that maturity is a prerequisite for wisdom. Wisdom stands back and sees everything at once, how everything fits together, what’s going to come next.

Without looking it up on Google, here’s my definition off the top of my head

A system is a group of elements or components that interact to behave in a characteristic way.

I’m reading a good book - “The Smoke Thieves” by Sally Green. A fantasy. It’s very well written. I’ve read other books by her and they are also very well written. Sometimes when I’m in the middle of a book and the quality of the writing draws me in and moves me along, I think to myself - what makes this writing good? And I don’t really know. I guess I should spend time figuring that out.

And then there are other books I’m told are very well written, but which don’t move me or draw me in. And I can’t tell you why that is either.

One of the more graceless posts I’ve read here on the forum.

Not even old-old but after 20s people are generally removed from the main stage to accept smaller and smaller roles. — unimportant

I doubt you would find many people in their 20s who agree with this. Older people have the money and the power. Older people are the bosses, younger people are the wage slaves. Older people are the politicians, younger people are the canon fodder.

Dimension is about the unsearchable fact of existence: transcendental being — ucarr

It looks like you’ve just restated Zeno’s paradoxes.

He told me to "ruck off". — Baden

Are you sure you didn’t just ban Scooby Doo?

@Wayfarer @Janus @jorndoe

I wasn’t able to find the David Pakman commentary you discussed, but I did find this essay from the Brookings Institution that I thought was interesting. It’s an overview of DOGE written in June. It seems fairly evenhanded, although clearly skeptical of DOGE’s immediate and long-term effectiveness.

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-will-we-know-if-doge-is-succeeding/

I don't really know enough about economics and specifically American economics to know how accurate what he was saying was but it sounded impressive and Pakman is a stand up guy generally isn't he? — unimportant

Thanks, I’ll see if I can find the commentary you’re talking about.

Radical changes like that are bound to cost a lot in the short term. Which is not to say I think the DOGE was a good idea. — Janus

Yes, I agree on both points.

I am skeptical. I don’t doubt that the way they went about making the cuts was inefficient and clumsy. I don’t doubt that the billions of dollars pointed out in this article represent poor planning and implementation. What I don’t know - what I have not seen described anywhere - is how much money will be saved over the upcoming years by the reductions in the number of federal employees and programs. Maybe none will be saved. Maybe costs will increase rather than decrease. I just haven’t seen any evidence one way or the other.

when I first realized that Christians lied, I was upset. — Paula Tozer

Welcome to the forum.

I am not a theist - I have no particular religious belief. I was raised a protestant until my early teens, when my mother died. Since my father was not religious, I fell away from the church. I married a Catholic and we raised our children in the church. I didn't go to church regularly, but I supported my wife in her and my children's involvement. There was never any serious religious conflict between us. When my children got older, they moved away from the church also. I think that bothers my wife, but I have never seen it cause any conflict between her and my kids. I respect my wife's beliefs and I can see the value it has for her.

Clearly, your experience has been much more painful than my family's. I know lots of people who have experiences that are more like mine than like yours. I'm sure you know lots of people who have experiences more like yours. I guess I would say that the religious believers I know don't lie about their beliefs. I'm sure some, perhaps many, are hypocritical, but I don't think any more so than many of us are hypocritical about our principles and ideologies. Many of us don't always live up to the standards we preach.

I'm sorry you've had such a hard time with this.

From Steven Mitchell’s translation of the Tao Te Ching:

The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.

The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.

The Tao gives birth to One.
One gives birth to Two.
Two gives birth to Three.
Three gives birth to all things.

One clear example of possible panpsychism is 'sick building syndrome', in which it as if the energy fields seem disturbed. Here, it would suggest that matter has some inherent consciousness. — Jack Cummins

In my understanding, this is not an example of what most people would call panpsychism. I don’t think it includes actual behavior by or changes in inanimate objects. A rock is just a rock sitting there being conscious. Clearly, that is a different meaning for the word than what we normally use. Perhaps I’m wrong about this.

He's Jor-el. — T Clark

Sorry - Kal-el.

He's not? — frank

He's Jor-el. Also - Lois Lane believing Clark Kent can or cannot fly is not a property of Clark Kent. It's not a property at all.

Superman is not Clark Kent.
Istanbul is not Constantinople.
The number of planets is not three squared.
It is not contingent that the number of planets equals nine, even if there were nine planets.

About as likely as monkeys typing Shakespeare. By which I mean, not even worth thinking about. — T Clark

Hey @Hanover, I want you to see this. I’m so fucking brilliant. I want you to seeth with envy.

About as likely as monkeys typing Shakespeare. By which I mean, not even worth thinking about.

Whether I was wrong to do so, I interpreted T Clark to be referring to innate racial differences. — Jamal

You understood me correctly.

Aren't there multiple studies showing that, for example, Asians have a higher mean IQ than other races? Wikipedia catalogues the general issue of race and intelligence. — Leontiskos

As I noted, I’m not interested in starting a discussion on this issue. I had a specific question I wanted an answer to and I got it. I’m done.

Yes. — Jamal

Thanks

And without stating it explicitly he implied that this greater aesthetic ability of whites was connected with higher IQ. — Jamal

I’m not looking for an argument or even an explanation. I’m just curious. Is expressing the opinion that white people are more intelligent as a class than black people cause for immediate banning?

It is a matter of fact that the mind is not an object in any sense other than the metaphorical, such as ‘the object of the argument’, ‘the object of the question’. — Wayfarer

I agree it’s not an object, but it is a thing. Now you and I will probably get in an argument about whether a thing has to be an object - something physical. I say, “of course not.” if you look at various dictionaries, there is some ambiguity, but there is a general acknowledgment that a thing does not have to be a physical entity.

Lao Tzu and I agree - anything that can be named is a thing.

you make a very valid point about how the soul is basically just the body. — Null Noir

I said the soul, as I see it, arose from the body. I didn’t say it is the body or is the same as the body. Those are completely different things, which we don’t need to go into here unless you want to.

It's fascinating, really. I have nothing to add since I’m still at my humble beginnings of philosophy and I would still like to learn. — Null Noir

As I noted in my post, the central issue you’ve raised is known as the mind-body problem - how does the soul or consciousness influence, operate, the body. It’s one of the biggest ongoing arguments in philosophy. I suggest you do a little reading on that. Look it up in Wikipedia or the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

My claim was the mind is not a thing. Doesn't mean it's nothing. But it's not a thing, it's not an object. Your 'experience of the mind' is not an experience at all mind is that to whom experiences occur, that which sees objects, and so forth. It is not itself an object. That's one of the things that makes philosophy of mind such a big and elusive topic. — Wayfarer

This has the hallmarks of our usual discussions. We use the same words in different ways - give them different meanings. And then we argue about who’s definition is correct.

And, you see the philosophy of mind as a much larger and more elusive topic than I do.

Speaking figuratively, of course. — Wayfarer

My experience of my mind is just real as my iPhone. I was going to say my experience of my mind is just just real as my experience of my iPhone. I guess both are correct.

is that it is not any kind of thing. Nowhere, in the vast inventory of things we find in the world, will you find 'mind'. — Wayfarer

That’s an odd thing to say. I have my mind here right now in front of me. It’s as real as anything else in the world. It’s as much a thing as anything else in the world. As real as a 1909-S vdb penny.

Oops, I forgot - welcome to the forum.

How do you think the soul works? — Null Noir

I’ve always thought of soul as a near-synonym for mind, self, identity, ego, psyche, consciousness, or spirit. They each mean something a little different - they have different connotations and contexts - but I think when we use those words we’re talking about the same thing.

If there is such a thing as a "soul," where did it come from? — Null Noir

Many of us believe it arose from our physical bodies - our nervous systems - just like life arose from inorganic matter.

If the soul and the body are one and the same, how would that even work? Is it something akin to "you are the soul piloting a human body" type situation, like some spiritual people say? — Null Noir

You have laid out the mind-body problem, usually blamed on Descartes. It has been causing problems and undermining the credibility of philosophy and philosophers for hundreds of years.

Is "If P then Q; P; therefore Q" about events or propositions -- or both? It can be given either a causal or a logical construal. — J

OK, let’s be specific. Question - What caused the crash? That’s an important question and its correct answer is useful. Answer - the frange punctured the kambo which severed the gringle cord. That’s a proposition that is either true or false. And it would be true or false whether or not it was useful.

That’s enough here. I don’t want to go back-and-forth on this any more. You can give your response and we’ll leave it at that.

I don't quite see this. Aren't you saying that the statement "{some set of Xs} caused the plane crash" has to be true, in order to be of use? How then is causality an "apple" in regard to such a statement? The predication seems the same as in any other similarly phrased statement, and would follow the same inferential rules. — J

I think we’re just getting tangled in language here. Causality is not the same thing as truth. Causality is a relationship between events. Truth is a characteristic of statements - propositions.

When an investigation determines the cause of a plane crash, this is of course useful. — J

Yes, this is exactly the kind of situation I was talking about - where the idea of causality is useful.

But I'm confident the investigators also mean it to be true. Is there any reason to withhold that designation, in such a case? — J

Causality and truth are apples and oranges. An understanding of what caused the crash is useful for figuring out how to keep it from happening again and for figuring out responsibility and liability. In order for that understanding to be useful it must be correct - true.

I reject it too. — I like sushi

I think the concept of causality can be a very useful one, depending on the situation. At other times, it can be misleading.

Welcome to the forum.

, I need somehow to justify this eternal suffering. — kirillov

I don’t want to distract from your subject matter, so I’ll just say this and then begone - Not everyone sees life and the world this way.

Like all good philosophers, I will answer the question I want to answer rather than the one you asked. As a frame to the question you’ve asked I’d like to point out that many philosophers reject the idea of causation entirely.

It is not my intention to cause any disruption to your thread, so I will not take this any further.

Howse about you give us a brief summary rather than leaving half a response.

Clever. Obviously everyone could do that to their own eye. That's another loophole answer though - the real answer doesn't involve a loophole — flannel jesus

I’ve given up on being correct. I’m working on being amusing.