Please ask Banno. — Agent Smith

I'm asking you. You wrote it.

I'd probably try to fix it and remove the diseases and design flaws and weaknesses and predatory behaviours which abound in this current wonky, barbaric 'creation'. — Tom Storm

You would just fuck things up. Anyone would. I hope there's a reset button.

I would like to tender my Apology. — Agent Smith

How is this relevant?

There's also irony in the methodology of writing fiction. — Christoffer

Are you saying that all fiction is ironic? Let me think about that... Is it ironic that we know a character is not real while they have to act as if they are?

Your post reminded me of a movie - "Stranger than Fiction." In it, a man, played by Will Ferrell, finds that he is living the life of a character in a story being written by an author, played by Emma Thompson. They meet and discuss the plot and how it is affecting the man's life. A pretty good movie. Amusing. I guess that's dramatic irony, although in this case, the character knows things the author did not intend for him to know. Which brings up "The Truman Show."

There's another kind of irony. I'm not sure whether it would be considered dramatic irony or not. That's when a character, narrator, or plot device draws attention to the fact that this situation is artificial, e.g. if a character turns to the audience and makes a comment like Puck in "Midsummer Night's Dream" saying "What fools these mortals be." Or in "Blazing Saddles" where the characters ride out of the story and into the movie studio. I remember a great TV version of "Nickolas Nickleby" where a group of characters from the book look down on the action from above and make comments, including people who have already died in the story.

In that regard, are all musicals ironic?

I’m surprised that no one has so far stated this obvious definition: “Irony” means “having the quality of iron”. For example, “The Iron Age was very irony”. — javra

Yes...well...

“The Iron Age was very irony”.

Yes, this to me can be an ironic comment — javra

Perhaps I should have specified we are talking about a noun, not an adjective. Anyway, is your example irony? I don't think so. Maybe that's the best way of defining irony - by talking about what it's not.

Hey, @180 Proof, what's that word for defining something by talking about what it's not?

Sarcasm makes use of mockery whereas irony does not. — javra

Sarcasm is often ironic, but doesn't have to be. It only has to be nasty.

You described Irony as directed inwardly. — Gnomon

I see irony as an experience, something mental, not as an objective or physical event.

I don't quite feel any of those definitions are sufficient.

The disparity of intention and result; when the result of an action is contrary to the desired or expected effect.
— T Clark

That happens all the time and is not remarkable. They all seem to be missing a reflexive element that differentiates ironic disparity from any old mundane “The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft a-gley.” — Vera Mont

As I noted in my post, the definitions miss something I think is important.

I was taught (falsely perhaps) that in America the only people to understand irony and use it well in humour and art are the Jews. There is definitely a cultural aspect to its use. — Tom Storm

She has radical and continuing doubts about the final vocabulary she currently uses, because she has been impressed by other vocabularies, vocabularies taken as final by people or books she has encountered...

...Insofar as she philosophizes about her situation, she does not think that her vocabulary is closer to reality than others, that it is in touch with a power not herself. — Tom Storm

I recognize that other people think about the world and use language differently than I do and I don't think my language is more in touch with some sort of absolute reality than others. But that doesn't cause me any doubts about my language. I guess I don't see the irony in this. Maybe I'm misunderstanding.

Success is as dangerous as failure.
Hope is as hollow as fear. — Tao Te Ching - Stephen Mitchell

These have always been two of my favorite lines from the Tao Te Ching. I've never had any trouble dispensing with hope and understanding why that is important. Fear has always been my problem. Hearing they are the same has always given me hope. Oops.

Why should Logical positivism be itself justified? It's a method or system, not a statement or argument. Only the latter can be justified and prove to be circular, — Alkis Piskas

I agree with this.

The FCC already maintains some regulatory control over the airwaves because it considers them public property, but, even then it is very limited. — Hanover

I hadn't even thought about the FCC and similar agencies. Problem is, as you note, government has an ownership role in the airwaves that it doesn't with the internet.

Your opinion? — jasonm

Logical positivism is a metaphysical position, not an empirical fact. It represents what R.G. Collingwood called an "absolute presupposition." According to Collingwood, absolute presuppositions are not true or false. They have no truth value. They are more or less useful in particular situations at particular times. This makes sense to me.

I recognize this is not the discussion you are interested in having, so we can leave it there.

So, my point is that if we wish to extract the good from free speech, instead of treating free speech like a holy rite, we have to have institutions that are willing to enforce rules on that speech (much like our world class mod team here). — Hanover

I'm not sure how this fits into the discussion. It seems like governments in the US are turning toward more regulation for social media sites. I've heard that there is some talk about treating them as public utilities like the phone, electric power, gas, water, and sewer utilities. This would allow the government to have a role in how they are operated and who can have access. I don't know how I feel about that.

Makes a big difference to me. Specific details aside - one's an act of nature which could not be prevented. The other was a cruel and deliberate act by a human, designed to harm others and therefore, for me, more difficult to come to terms with because of its malicious intent and the possibility of its prevention. — Tom Storm

I recognize many people feel the way you do, but all I really care about is what we have to do to keep people safe.

“…we have strictures against killing innocent people; and we have strictures prescribing equal opportunity. These principles are grounded in reason and subject to rational debate. . But justice also requires passion. We don’t coolly tabulate inequities—we feel outraged or indignant when they are discovered. Such angry feelings are essential; without anger, we would not be motivated to act....Rage can misdirect us when it comes unyoked from good reasoning, but together they are a potent pair. Reason is the rudder; rage propels us forward.” — Joshs

I disagree with this.

So a car slides off the road and injures the passenger, the cause being low tire tread, a truly unfortunate event.

A mile away a speeding drunk driver injures another passenger to the same extent.

Do you not see how the first instance will not be reduced from societal anger and outrage but the second will? — Hanover

What benefit is derived from endorsing societal anger and outrage? On the other hand, it seems reasonable to me that the negative consequences for an action should be proportional to the responsibility of a person for the results of their actions. You and I would probably agree that the drunk guy is more responsible for the accident than the other driver, so their punishment should be more severe.

You jettison emotion as if it were not a critical component here. Emotion is is that which moves and motivates, the word itself referencing motion. That is to say, if you don't care, you won't do anything about it. — Hanover

If people I care about are hurt, what difference does it make whether it was something evil or just unfortunate? If a tornado kills 10 people, I care enough to act without blaming anyone. Why is 10 people being killed by a terrorist bomb different, at least in terms of the proper attitude required to make an effective response?

If we are speaking of therapeutic responses to victimization, I'd suggest forgiveness over bitterness and anger. — Hanover

I agree.

I’d be interested in comments about
1) the thoughts/theory presented
2) any experiences while practicing the meditation — Art48

tl;ra. Too long, read it anyway. I like this presentation. It's mostly consistent with how I see things. Perhaps you are a bit too definitive, certain, about what goes on in people's minds. A few thoughts:

Although I acknowledge the distinctions you make between internal and external, I don't really experience them that way, at least not strongly. I can recognize the difference if I look, but normally, they coordinate seamlessly.

In fact, we possess no special sense which detects chairs. — Art48

This may be true for chairs, although I remember reading somewhere that where we draw the lines to create objects may be structurally determined, at least partially, e.g. a lot of our experience of color is determined by the structure of the eye and the characteristics of the rods and cones. There are probably other things for which there are inborn "knowledge," e.g. it is my understanding even babies can recognize human faces and voices.

The ego is essential for survival; without a sense of self, there would be no reason not to cross a busy highway. — Art48

I don't think this is necessarily true. I assume animals, at least most of them, survive very well without egos. In some eastern philosophies, there is an understanding that our ego is an illusion. In Taoism there is the idea of "wu wei," action without action. Acting from within without intention or rational consideration. I think it would be reasonable to call that acting without ego.

Of the two views, the outer view is more pervasive. — Art48

As I noted, this isn't true for me.

As a little boy, I attended a Saturday matinee as a local movie theatre which had a water fountain in an alcove in the wall. The alcove has mirrors front, left, and right. The left-right mirrors reflected each other, giving an appearance of a series of mirrors going off to infinity. The point is that some self-referential processes naturally tend towards infinity. Another example is when a microphone picks up the speaker output, amplifies it, and sends it back out the speaker. The self-referential of the sound systems amplifying its own output naturally goes to infinity. It doesn’t reach infinity, of course, but merely creates the high-pitched feedback whine indicating the electronics are at their limit. — Art48

I like these images. I think your description says something important about how consciousness works, although I don't have any specific evidence for that.

Eventually, if my mind stills sufficiently, I have a moment where awareness is aware not of sensation but of itself. Awareness aware of itself...

...Awareness aware of itself. Pure awareness in the sense of awareness absent sensation, like a mirror in a dark room. — Art48

Seems to me this probably isn't true, although I'm not self-aware enough to be sure. For me, awareness is just awareness. I'm aware of whatever is there to be aware of. I don't think what you call "awareness of awareness" is any different in kind than all the rest.

As I said, good post and a good idea for a thread.

Moral condemnation versus punishments aimed a deterring future antisocial behavior are not mutually exclusive. That is, it is possible that the condemnation will result in deterrence and it is also possible that we can both morally condemn and additionally offer pragmatic solutions to deter the behavior.

If we do believe certain acts are immoral (and you indicate you do, in particular those that do not lead to a safe peaceful society), I don't see why it would be inappropriate to call it immoral, condemn it, and declare it bad if it in fact is. From there, I would agree, we now need to decide how to resolve the issue, but I don't see why identifying it and calling it what it is is a incorrect first step. — Hanover

Moral condemnation is easy and cheap, but I don't think it has any significant role in achieving the practical goals I identified. I would go further - I think it distracts from effective action. In order to effectively deter and prevent the harmful actions we want to address, it's necessary to come to an imaginative understanding of our enemies. In practice, that can come dangerously close to empathy. We have to be able to see our adversaries as people in order to combat them.

I don't have any criticism of people who judge and condemn those who have harmed them. I just don't think it does anything productive beyond helping them deal with the situation emotionally. There's nothing wrong with that, although I don't personally find any satisfaction in it.

I hear you. I'd privilege the first one over the second, but rewrite it as - a set of rules used to help keep us safe, implemented with minimal judgement and dogmatism. — Tom Storm

I don't disagree with this, although I have a somewhat different perspective. For me, the purpose of social control; including enforcement of rules, laws, customs, and etiquette; is to prevent people from causing avoidable and undeserved harm and seeing to it they face the consequences of their actions. If you want to call social control "morality," that's fine, but making moral judgements about people isn't an effective way to protect others. That's the important point for me - moral judgement leads to ineffective social control. Is righteousness and retribution more important to you than a peaceful, safe society? Not for me.

I'm not interested in people's personal codes — Tom Storm

This is the part of morality that interests me. The rest is just engineering, or at least it should be.

Sounds similar to Christianity where preachers will often say that morality is 'written on the human heart' by god. In other words, we already know what is right and wrong. I've worked with too many hard core criminals to accept this — Tom Storm

I think there are two ways of looking at morality 1) As a set of rules that we can apply fairly rigidly to other people to judge them or 2) As a set of principles we can apply to ourselves to guide our lives. I've never really felt the need for the first of these. I try not to judge people. I've never found it a very useful way of seeing things.

That morals must work is indisputable, but that some are inborn, or tied to human nature, and others learned, says little about whether or not those morals are justified. That is mostly what I am concerned with.
— ToothyMaw

Isn't the point that TC is arguing there are no moral facts, just ideas which work or don't in context? This means justification is moot and context dependent, for we do not have access to some transcendental realm of moral truths. — Tom Storm

I agree that we don't have access to transcendental moral truths, but we cannot rule them out, which is the point of my OP. Many arguments that are not as cogent as TC's misfire because they argue some newfangled combination of (1), (2), and (3). TC's argument is honest, simple, and makes sense. — ToothyMaw

Here's a broader perspective I find convincing. First, you'll have to put up with another quote from Lao Tzu. This from Derek Lin's translation of Verse 38 of the Tao Te Ching:

Therefore, the Tao is lost, and then virtue
Virtue is lost, and then benevolence
Benevolence is lost, and then righteousness
Righteousness is lost, and then etiquette
Those who have etiquette
Are a thin shell of loyalty and sincerity
And the beginning of chaos

To me this means we know the right thing to do from our hearts, from inside. When people lose touch with their authentic selves, they start to depend on more and more rigid customs, rules, and laws. Somewhere along the path down this ladder of increasing artificiality, the need for rationality, justification comes into play.

I don't want to distract from the questions you want to discuss, so I won't take this any further.

I have come across the claim in another thread that no moral claims are true because all extrinsic moral claims rely on unverifiable or untrue moral axioms and, thus, that the only truth moral claims are subject to is relational to other claims and the axioms those claims are based on; extrinsic justifications for moral claims just pass the buck until a(n) (incorrect) moral axiom is reached.

Therefore, if we cannot produce correct axioms, then we must have no objectively correct moral claims. — ToothyMaw

As I see it, morals mostly express human values, not facts. Morals are not true or false, they work or they don't. Where do those values come from? I think some are inborn and some are learned.

A functional human brain free of disease knows what is moral and immoral long before it is fully developed. It is ingrained and hard coded. — Outlander

I think this is overstating the case. There is evidence there is a gene-based tendency to make judgements about people, but there is a lot of morality that is learned.

Hey @Baden, @Hanover, @Jamal - To be fair, you should move this thread to the anti-natalism thread where all the posts that take a positive view of anti-natalism are sent.

This whole thread is a set up job to give smirky posters a chance to shit on anti-natalism one more time. If moderators were fair, they'd move it to the anti-natalism ghetto where they've put all the posts which take a positive view.

My favorite books, books that influenced me the most, and books that blew my mind:

• "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad.
• "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" and "Smiley's People" by John LeCarre.
• "The Tao Te Ching" by Lao Tzu.
• "The Panda's Thumb" and other books of collected essays on evolution by Stephen Jay Gould.
• "Freedom, not License" by A.S. Neil.
• "Subtle is the Lord" a scientific biography of Einstein by Abraham Pais.
• "The Collected Poetry of Robert Frost".
• "Life's Ratchet" by Peter Hoffman.
• "Self-reliance" by R.W. Emerson.
• "An Essay on Metaphysics" by R.G. Collingwood.
• "Foundation" by Isaac Asimov.
• "The Autobiography of a Slimy Weasel" by Donald Trump Jr.
• "The Origin of Species" by Charles Darwin.
• "The Culture of Narcissism" by Christopher Lasch.
• "Titus Groan" by Mervyn Peake.

I just became aware of this. A new survey of 1785 English-speaking philosophers from around the world on 100 philosophical questions. — Banno

As I went through the questions and answers, my main thought was "Geez, no wonder people think philosophy is bullshit."

I am clearly wrong — invizzy

Hey!! No fair. When you're gracious, I don't get to feel all smug.

These are my actual beliefs. — Leftist

I didn't doubt they're your actual beliefs.

I am looking forward to your thoughts and feedback! — AntonioP

Say what you will, large scale institutions, including societies and nations, can not operate without governance. It's not a matter of what's right and what's wrong, it's a question of what will work and what won't. If your solution is to somehow prevent development beyond the scale of a village, good luck with that.

There are no correct moral claims. People only have incorrect opinions on what's good/bad, what should/shouldn't exist. — Leftist

You are clearly just trying to raise a ruckus on your first post on the forum. Not a good sign. Still, welcome to the forum.

Moral claims are statements of value and as such have no truth values. "True" and "false" do not apply.
"Right," "wrong," "good, and "bad" do. Those terms are human normative judgements. You can disagree with them but, if things work as they're supposed to, the International Criminal Court will incarcerate your ass.

I think the difference between you and me on this issue is one of emphasis, not primarily substance.

What I don't know is who or what controls the community. — Vera Mont

The people who live there control the community. That's the point. Even if the choices the community makes aren't the ones we would like them to.

Of course, as is also the case with each locally administered system: it's designed on some philosophical basis; somIe central idea of the purpose of educating children. Hence the need for democracy without too much corruption and voter suppression, so that a true majority of the people decide. — Vera Mont

The point I've been trying to make is that each community, each school system, should have input in deciding what is and isn't taught in its own schools; what is and isn't included in its library.

the proposal I considered was not simply an isolated child sitting in front of a screen, as many students did under quarantine, but something far more sophisticated: — Vera Mont

I still think person to person, teacher to student, contact is needed for true learning.

I'm not rejecting the kinds of plans you and @universeness are discussing, but I am skeptical.

Is that a valid comparison or a valid standard to measure by? — universeness

I don't know.

As for your other responses to my comments, I remain skeptical, but I'm don't have any specific knowledge.

create a balanced, unbiased, virtual, educational, electronic system — universeness

Another thought. I think any centralized, standardized education program will be subject to political and social pressure to conform to a particular vision of what education should be. That's already a problem with regular school systems.

Do you think we could create AE systems (artificial expert systems) that could do a lot of the heavy lifting, when it comes to the balanced academic and social education that children need in today's world? — universeness

Some thoughts:

In the US, studies show that distance learning that took place as a result of the pandemic has seriously undermined the quality of education for students involved. I know of teachers who say the same thing. I think this has to be taken into account in any program that deals with learning from home.

I am skeptical that there is some sort of technological solution to improving education. It seems to me that a program generated and implemented by artificial intelligence would be more rigid and limited and less responsive to students than regular schools are. That's based on my own assumptions, not any specific knowledge.

When I think back to the good parts of my experiences in school, it is particular teachers that come to mind. Mrs. Coepcke, my 11th grade English teacher. Mr. Polychronus, my 12th grade biology teacher. Professor Deandre, my geotechnical engineering professor. I don't think any educational program will work without active involvement by adults who care about the students and their education and are prepared to provide the work and effort required.

I know no sane philosopher who claims experimental philosophy is not philosophy. — invizzy

So, someone would have to be insane to think experimental philosophy is not really philosophy? This from the SEP:

Finally, it might be objected that experimental philosophy simply isn’t philosophy at all. On this view, there are certain properties that differentiate work in philosophy from work in other disciplines. Research in experimental philosophy lacks these properties and is therefore best understood as falling outside the philosophical tradition entirely. Note that this last objection is not concerned with the question as to whether experimental philosophy has any value but rather with the question as to whether it should be considered part of a particular discipline. As one recent paper puts it,

… what is at issue is not whether there is room for such empirical study, but whether there is room for it now as a branch of philosophy. (Sorell forthcoming: 6) — Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

I don't provide this as evidence that X-phi isn't philosophy, only that there are sane philosophers who claim experimental philosophy is not philosophy.

True, I asked what you prefer. And you have been very clear. Thank you. — Vera Mont

What I meant was that what either of us prefers doesn't matter. It's the community's values that should be taken into account.

But encouraging basic civility is not out of place in a classroom or a textbook — Vera Mont

Schools should encourage basic civility by enforcing it in their facilities. Don't teach it. Do it.

I would prefer parents to teach values, courtesy and empathy, but I don't feel they are always the best source of useful information - especially on subjects of which they are either ignorant or ashamed. — Vera Mont

What you prefer isn't the question. In general, we have to trust that parents and families are the best people to look out for their children. I certainly believe that. Sure, there are bad parents. Human social behavior is not perfect. I still think it's our best bet.

As for biology, I disagree: it is just as factual as any other science, as factual as math. It can be very damaging - in some situations, deadly - for young people to be misinformed about the health and function of their own bodies. — Vera Mont

Teaching biology is fine, although I think there are limits to what should be taught at younger ages. Sex education, on the other hand, is not just biology. It also expresses values and may recommend practices that parents consider inappropriate. Community concerns should be taken into account.