I also liked "Pride and Prejudice". The scene in which the fallen nobleman proposes to the chick (I can't remember any names) and she starts sobbing is the emotionally most laden scene in any movie I've seen. I howl in tears as I cry every time I get to that scene when I watch that movie. Which happened about twice, I'd say. — god must be atheist

Are you thinking of "Sense and Sensibility?" The 1990s version has Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant, Hugh Laurie, Kate Winslet, Alan Rickman...

The Truman Show — Jamal

Should have been on my list.

The Fall — Luke

Is this the one with Lee Pace about the injured stunt man? If so, I agree. It really liked it.

Groundhog Day — Luke

This should have been on my list too.

Midnight in Paris — Vera Mont

Woody Allen has his ups and downs. This was definitely one of the ups.

1. Life of Brian.
2. Holy Grail.
3. Snatch.
4. 2001 A Space Odyssey
5. A Clockwork Orange
6. Bullets over Broadway.
7. Michael Clayton.
8. Jason Bourne (the first three of the Quatregy).
9. Fargo.
10. Badlands. — god must be atheist

Didn't see Michael Clayton or Bullets Over Broadway I liked the rest except 2001. I should have put Fargo on my list.

Not in order:

Wizard of Oz
Casablanca
The Graduate
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - the 1980s version with Alec Guinness. Ok, it's a TV series. So sue me.
LA Confidential
The Donald Trump Jr. Story
The Last Starfighter - It has sentimental value. I remember watching it while holding my infant son (now 37) as he screamed for the whole movie film at a drive in theater.
Tombstone
Annie Hall
Manhattan
Raising Arizona
Caddyshack
The Long Goodbye
Say Anything

More than 10.

Doesn't this belong in the Lounge?

Long gone. I revived this thread because it was relevant to the point I was making elsewhere. Prior to that the last post was 4 years ago. — Wayfarer

This is just a reminder of how good Streetlight was and how much he contributed to the forum.

And yes, it's just a description. — Bradskii

Doesn't seem like you and I disagree much. Things don't have to follow a scientific law, it just so happens they do.

Humans are killer apes. :wink: If I had to guess, I'd say people had diverse reasons for doing vile things, mild and terrible, even within the one egregious phenomenon like Nazism. Perhaps a web of interrelated factors. But I think it's fair to say that tribalism and our obsession with identifying ultimate truth, whether it be in politics or religion, along with our ready willingness to kill to defend such truths, seems to be at the root of many of these matters. — Tom Storm

It seems that the great majority of mass deaths of innocent civilians have been caused by the desire for power, land, and profit. Kings want to be emperors. Governors want to be president. Millionaires want to be billionaires. Same as it ever was.

"There are various estimates of the number of victims of the Spanish Inquisition during Torquemada's reign as Grand Inquisitor. Hernando del Pulgar, Queen Isabella's secretary, wrote that 2,000 executions took place throughout the entirety of her reign, which extended well beyond Torquemada's death.[20]" — jorndoe

From what I could see, including in the Wikipedia article you linked, there are differences in opinion about how many died resulting from the inquisitions actions. I think there would be agreement that the numbers were much less than those killed in the conquest of the new world, which was taking place at about the same time.

How is that idealism? You meant realism, yes? — Mikie

I call it idealism because it claims that there is some sort of abstract entity in the universe independent of actual phenomena. Something that we can't see or sense that somehow causes things to happen. Do these abstract entities control the behavior of matter and energy? I thought phenomena were caused by interactions between matter and energy.

I'd concur. For example, a body will remain at rest or continue in motion at a constant speed until it is acted upon by some force. — Bradskii

Why do I need some explanation for why something doesn't change it's motion? Even if I look at Newton's second law, it says that bodies will change their velocity if acted on by a force. The force causes the change, not some law. All the so-called law does is describe how it happens.

imagine if Torquemada had acquired logistics/resources we know of today, more power. I'm thinking cruelties would have been higher accordingly. — jorndoe

Looking on the web, it seems as though the number of people executed by the inquisition in a period of 300 years was in the low thousands.

I agree that reality/existence in day to day living can be taken at face value. This is the nature of culture, common ideation and the interpersonal utility of language.

It's surface level - vague, imprecise, unquestioned, unassumed and therefore useful in a day to day context.

However existence is not just surface level. It stems from the furthest/most distant origins. The most primitive, the beginning of all things. All encompassing.

Trying to apply specificity to a macroscopic scale is much more difficult then applying vaguery to the everyday microscopic scale. — Benj96

I think this undervalues the importance of everyday reality. All the other ontologies only have meaning in the context of this way of seeing things. They all have to take it into account. The fact that so many don't is a sign of a lack of insight.

It's also more than surface level. It encompasses everything that humans experience in all but the most extreme and exotic environments. It's also not in any way vague or imprecise. An apple is exactly an apple. I can measure it's location, motion, volume, mass, electric charge, sweetness, shape - all its properties, within precise tolerances. If it's unquestioned, that's because it works so well in so many situations.

In terms of scale, the greatest crimes of humanity against itself were during the 20th Century. — frank

I wonder if this is true. As @BC notes, wars that have killed millions of people, mostly civilians, have been taking place for centuries, millennia. I assume World War 2 had the highest casualties, but there are other, earlier wars that have killed 10s of millions. Those numbers are even higher when counted as a percentage of the people alive at that time.

I do think that the 20th century allowed the mechanization of war. Changes in weapons and transportation made it much more efficient. Communications has improved so we can know more about the bad things that have happened.

What is your explanation for existence? Why it occurred, what purpose or meaning it may or may not have? What are your ethical, epistemological or personal views related to existence? — Benj96

I don't see ontology as an explanation of existence, it's a description of the nature of existence, reality. It's a metaphysical concept. I've given my lectures on metaphysics before. At some level, we all have the same view of the nature of reality, the same ontology. The regular old day to day nature of reality we all experience all the time. Everyday reality. Maybe the right name is realism, I'm not sure. This reality is full of apples, Volvos, femurs, tree frogs, salt water, Cheetos, and Australia. Forgot cucumbers. Most people don't question whether or not their children are real or an illusion created by a Cartesian demon on a regular basis. Most people don't question whether their coffee is real or only the reflection of an inexpressible noumena.

It's only when we turn to philosophy that there is any mystery to ontology. I think we all pick them one based on our personality and temperament. I also think we apply different metaphysics and epistemology in different situations and at different times.

And welcome to the forum.

Assuming this empirical finding is correct and given its above limitations, do you think this observation about the function of moral norms could be culturally useful for resolving disputes about moral norms? And if not, why not? — Mark S

It's important to me that I respond in a way consistent with your intent for this discussion, but I have a hard time "assuming this empirical finding is correct," because I don't really understand it. It does not resemble any theoretical approach to morality I have any experience with. I don't really understand what "Cultural moral norms are arguably heuristics (usually reliable but fallible rules of thumb) for subcomponents of strategies that solve cooperation problems," means.

I'll just leave it at that.

Religion, sports, war, politics, business, news, cultural commentary, you name it, it's everywhere. — Judaka

I don't disagree with the points you've made, I just want to make sure a distinction is made between justifiable and unjustifiable uses of what I guess you could call "forensic analysis."

I'm talking about unproven logic formed during the environment created by hindsight being taken as validated by offering a reasonable, or unreasonable explanation of why something occurred. — Judaka

I'm ok with this, but I can't really think of examples where it applies. Take your example of Monday morning quarterbacking. Trying to blame someone for a single possible mistake in a game is probably silly and unnecessary. But evaluating performance when trying to decide whether to fire a coach might include incidents like that in an overall judgement.

On the other hand, there was a NE Patriot game this year with one play that had a disastrous result. The sportscasters felt they were qualified to blame Bill Belichick, one of the winningest coaches in NFL history, for the decision. I agree with you on something like that.

These so-called critical thinkers are at the mercy of what they're exposed to, they'll conclude in favour of whatever was the most recent outcome, based on whatever material comes their way. No need to convince with arguments, just show occurrences that conclude the way you want. The public will naturally process everything the way you wanted them to anyway. — Judaka

When something goes wrong, you get new information that might have affected the decisions you made if you'd known it before. Say an engineer designs a building with reinforced concrete floor beams. A couple of years later, after the building is complete and has been operating for a while, cracks are found in some of the beams. Examining the beams indicates that they are failing because bending stresses exceeded the allowable strength of the concrete or the amount of reinforcing steel. Based on observations you make hypotheses about what the failure mechanisms were. You rerun the calculations to see if the beams were designed correctly. You take samples of the steel and concrete to see if they met specifications. Based on that information, you make a determination about what went wrong.

why the galaxy needs to be valuable? I want the opposite. I wish the Galaxy is never occupied by us and it stays there, not caring about time neither the human's existence. — javi2541997

I read about it in Simon Conway-Morris' book, Life's Solution. — Wayfarer

I put it on my reading list.

Scientific materialism arises precisely in the attempt to apply scientific method to the problems of philosophy. Science is predominantly a method of acquiring knowledge but is not a worldview per se. In fact part of the implication of scientific scepticism is that it should not be taken as a worldview. — Wayfarer

Materialism is a metaphysical worldview. Science is a method or series of methods to gather knowledge. Materialism or something similar are, or at least have been, the absolute presuppositions, basic assumptions, which are the foundation for the scientific methods.

This is categorically wrong. In thinking that red, for example, only exists if there is someone around who decides it's red. But we don't do that. What we decide is that objects that emit a wavelength around 700nm we shall describe to each other with a particular sound we can make with our vocal chords. And scratch a few runes on a suitable material to represent that sound. But whether anyone observes the colour of the object, it still emits wavelengths at that frequency. — Bradskii

I'll say it again - the existence of objective reality is only one way of looking at the world. It's metaphysics. If you can't see that, or at least understand what @Wayfarer is trying to say, and it's clear that you don't, there is no way you he can come to any common understanding. You will bash each other for hours and days and never get anywhere.

The objective reality you propose is a creation of the mind. Of course the moon and the universe existed in some way before your existence, but the way in which it existed is entirely unintelligible, completely meaningless.

Imagine that all life has vanished from the universe, but everything else is undisturbed. Matter is scattered about in space in the same way as it is now, there is sunlight, there are stars, planets and galaxies—but all of it is unseen. There is no human or animal eye to cast a glance at objects, hence nothing is discerned, recognized or even noticed. Objects in the unobserved universe have no shape, color or individual appearance, because shape and appearance are created by minds. Nor do they have features, because features correspond to categories of animal sensation. This is the way the early universe was before the emergence of life—and the way the present universe is outside the view of any observer.
— Charles Pinter, Mind and the Cosmic Order — Wayfarer

This is just a bad translation of the Tao Te Ching without the poetry or soul. It shares with the Tao Te Ching the fact that it is metaphysics. If you insist that this is the only way to see things, you are just repeating the error you are arguing against.

Donald Hoffman: The idea that what we’re doing is measuring publicly accessible objects, the idea that objectivity results from the fact that you and I can measure the same object in the exact same situation and get the same results — it’s very clear from quantum mechanics that that idea has to go.

I know you disagree with me on this, but, for me, conflating the uncertainty formlessness described by Taoism with that described by quantum mechanics is mistaking a metaphor for reality. Up here at human scale, we don't live in a quantum world. We can know pretty exactly where baseballs are and how fast they are going at the same time. To say that the world we live in everyday is somehow less real than that found at the scale of subatomic particles makes the whole idea of reality meaningless, ridiculous.

Treating quantum mechanics as a single-user theory resolves a lot of the paradoxes, like spooky action at a distance.

Yes, but in a way that a lot of people find troubling. The usual story of Bell’s theorem is that it tells us the world must be nonlocal. That there really is spooky action at a distance. So they solved one mystery by adding a pretty damn big mystery! What is this nonlocality? Give me a full theory of it. My fellow QBists and I instead think that what Bell’s theorem really indicates is that the outcomes of measurements are experiences, not revelations of something that’s already there. Of course others think that we gave up on science as a discipline, because we talk about subjective degrees of belief. But we think it solves all of the foundational conundrums.

These don't seem like similar statements to me at all. I wonder if they would to Chris Fuchs.

I'm not assuming that physical laws exist. They do. And everything is determined by them. Why those laws exist as they do is an interesting question. — Bradskii

Saying physical laws exist somehow out in the universe somewhere without people is just old fashioned idealism. That doesn't mean it's wrong, it means it's metaphysics, not science. Physical laws were created by humans to document and explain observed regularities in the behavior of the universe. Calling them "laws" is metaphorical, as if these laws somehow cause things to happen rather than describing how they happen.

Not that there's anything wrong with any of that. The idea of laws of physics has been a useful and productive one.

I know this may be difficult to accept, but that is also the point at issue. You're speaking from a position of naive realism (no pejorative intended, it's a textbook description) which assumes the reality of the objective world (or the sensory domain, call it what you will). But precisely that has been called into question in the history of philosophy, and certainly also by more recent cognitive science and the philosophy of physics. It doesn't mean that reality is all in your or in my mind, but that the mind - yours, mine, everyone's - provides a foundational element of what we designate as real, but which we're not aware of, because it is largely unconscious, it mainly comprises automatic (or autonomic) processes. One version of this argument is The Evolutionary Argument against Reality, by Donald Hoffman - particularly apt because it is (purportedly) based on evolutionary theory. It actually ties in with some of what Robert Lanza says (although they're very different theorists.) — Wayfarer

This is a reasonable and useful metaphysical explanation of the nature of reality. But it's not the only one. I've made the case many times that objective reality and materialism are metaphysics, not physics. They also are very useful. They provide the foundation for science. I know both you and I recognize the limitations of a scientific worldview, but the reality you offer is not somehow more real.

There's a similar principle in biology concerning the protein hyperspace. That refers to the possible ways that amino acids can be combined, only a very small number of which will actually produce a protein. The numbers there also are astronomically minute. — Wayfarer

I was interested in this so I looked on the web. The explanation I found indicated that the proteins necessary for life can be very flexible. Many amino acids are interchangeable with others in proteins while still maintaining their function in living organisms. That reduces the unlikelihood of proteins needed for life "evolving" by orders and orders of magnitude and allows life to get started. After that the more limited range of proteins we find now could evolve.

But to extrapolate that to suggest that nothing is as we see it is truly bizarre. — Bradskii

I don't think it's particularly bizarre. It's useless philosophy flopping around like a fish in the bottom of the boat. That's not even all that unusual.

And what were the chances of some specific guy being born in 17th century England and writing out a play called Hamlet? — Bradskii

For what it's worth, we know of one person who wrote a play called "Hamlet," but he was born in the 16th century.

Thank you for reminding me to read that paper, i probably would have forgotten. — punos

I have to read it again. It's been awhile.

Nevertheless as this is a philosophy forum it is appropriate from time to time to at least consider philosophy. — Wayfarer

Yes, we should consider all aspects of philosophy, including it's misuse.

i don't see how it precludes derivability. — punos

This is from a well-known and influential paper by P.W. Anderson - "More is Different," written in the 1970s. The link takes you to an essay written about the paper more recently. The paper itself is appended to the back of the essay.

…the reductionist hypothesis does not by any means imply a constructionist" one: The ability to reduce everything to simple fundamental laws does not imply the ability to start from those laws and reconstruct the universe. In fact, the more the elementary particle physicists tell us about the nature of the fundamental laws, the less relevance they seem to have to the very real problems of the rest of science, much less to those of society.

The constructionist hypothesis breaks down when confronted with the twin difficulties of scale and complexity. The behavior of large and complex aggregates of elementary particles, it turns out, is not to be understood in terms of a simple extrapolation of the properties of a few particles. Instead, at each level of complexity entirely new properties appear, and the understanding of the new behaviors requires research which I think is as fundamental in its nature as any other. That is, it seems to me that one may array the sciences roughly linearly in a hierarchy, according to the idea: The elementary entities of science X obey the laws of science Y… — P.W Anderson -

the universe comes into being through the conscious experience of agents. That is why we are designated 'beings'. Time and space themselves are functions of the mind of observing agents, they have no intrinsic existence outside that. Yet we consistently and mistakenly project reality onto the so-called external world because we lack insight into the way in which the mind constructs reality. — Wayfarer

As a metaphysical position, I have no problem with this. It's one I am familiar with and sympathetic towards. Lao Tzu wrote that the multiplicity of the world is brought into existence by naming. As metaphysics it is fine and useful, but as a tool to help decide how to build a bridge or when to plant my crops, it is a romantic story.

I would. — Wayfarer

The main idea is that it's not just chemistry but there is another aspect apart from pure genetics and chemistry that is responsible for morphology. Genetics just produces the parts and the bio-electric activity determines how the parts organize themselves. At any level there are two aspects: stuff (atoms, cells, people), and then the forces that organizes the stuff (fundamental forces, bio-electricity, and culture respectively). If that doesn't make sense to you then just disregard it (no big deal), but i find that it gives me insight. — punos

The physics/chemistry/biology... hierarchy I described is an oversimplification. The important principle is that phenomena at one level of organization and complexity are influenced by phenomena at both lower and higher levels and are not derivable from the principles of lower levels. I don't see how the information presented in the video is relevant to that.

As we're into video show-and-tell, here's a presentation by Robert Lanza on 'biocentrism'. I'm not sure how he is regarded in the mainstream - I suspect not highly - but I find his attitude philosophically superior to your common or garden varieties of materialism. — Wayfarer

I started to watch, but stopped about 4 minutes in when he started hinting at a connection between quantum mechanics and consciousness. That is a red light, perhaps you would say a prejudice, of mine.

This is just a temporary state of affairs due to our limited but growing knowledge of these processes. On the specific issue you mention about the structure and behavior of cells; Michael Levin is at the cutting edge of that research, and we will soon know how that all happens. — punos

I watched the video. It was interesting and really impressive. I don't see what it has to do with the subject we were discussing - how to predict biological phenomena from chemical principles.

Consensus is not the criteria in science, that's called democracy and it's a whole different thing. Consensus is fickle and changes with the times as ignorance and knowledge ebbs and flows. — punos

Say what you want about truth, scientific consensus is the only criteria we have to determine the best way to use scientific knowledge to decide how to act. E.g. the fact that there is a consensus about the existence and significance of climate change gives us good reasons to change our behavior.

This is just a temporary state of affairs due to our limited but growing knowledge of these processes. — punos

I'm skeptical, but I don't have the background to make the argument. I'll watch the video.

I guess the question I’m angling towards is that of whether evolution is directional in nature — Wayfarer

No direction. Unless you want to claim a divine purpose. — Bradskii

There certainly is one directional aspect of evolution - it progresses towards complexity and diversity. There's no magic to it. The earliest life was as simple as it could possibly be. There was nowhere to go but up.

But the question is how did you come to have the trait of being a good runner? How can something be selected for if it does into already exist. — Andrew4Handel

Darwin was explicit and all other evolutionary biologists understand that Darwin's theory doesn't explain the origins of life.

I do sometimes ponder why evolution didn't simply come to an end with blue-green algae. Heaven knows they proven their ability to survive for near a billion years. — Wayfarer

That's almost what happened. The first single-celled organism is thought to have developed about 3.5 billion years ago fairly soon (500 million years) after the Earth cooled enough to support organic compounds. The first multi-cellular life is thought to date from about 600 million years ago.

Ahem. — Wayfarer

Don't you "ahem" me.

Survival of the fittest was introduced by Herbert Spencer in an essay on the principle of natural selection - Darwin later approved and adopted it (I think it was even in later editions of his book). — Wayfarer

Ahem... I didn't say Darwin or Wallace came up with the term, only that they used it.

If I add heat to the water, it is heated and the water molecule increase in kinetic energy. Since it is confined by air pressure, it's pressure increases (PV=NRT) and it's entropy decreases.
— T Clark

I googled it, what I find is the opposite: — Wayfarer

You're right. It's been 35 years since I took thermodynamics. I shouldn't be giving lectures. I'm setting about reedumacating myself.

I'm not sure what that means. What would be a specific aspect of biology that is not derivable from chemistry? — punos

If you used all of your knowledge of chemistry, you could not predict the basic scientific principles of biology, e.g. the structure and behavior of a single-celled organism. This is true even though every process that takes place in the cell would proceed consistent with the principles of chemistry.

I think this is absolutely true. There is bottom-up causation, and there is top-down causation which makes things more complex than just bottom-up, but that doesn't preclude derivability. — punos

If you're saying that biological processes are predictable from chemical processes, I think the consensus is that you're wrong.

No, selection happens at all levels. All that is needed for selection to occur are things that can interact or affect and be affected by other things in an environment or space. The selection process emerges out of complex interactions, and the probability distribution of all the possible interactions determines what gets selected. That is what selection is in general at any level, biological or otherwise. — punos

Perhaps. I'll think about it.