Thoughts ? — kindred

When someone starts a discussion, it is expected they will participate in it. People have put significant effort into their responses. Time for you to put some more effort in too.

@Tom Storm @Count Timothy von Icarus
This is a great discussion. Even our arch-atheist @180 Proof Is playing nice.

I suppose this might take us back to classical theism, as opposed to a more contemporary theological personalism — Tom Storm

I find this sort of discussion frustrating for some of the reasons I think you are getting at here. To me, there are two types of relevant question. First - does it make metaphysical sense, can it be useful, to see the universe as having human characteristics - a personality, a purpose, goals. Second - is it factually true that there is a conscious, aware, powerful entity who, perhaps, created and has control of the world. To the first question I would answer a strong "yes." To the second I would give a shrug.

In contrast, more nuanced conceptions of God, such as Paul Tillich’s idea of God as the "Ground of Being" or David Bentley Hart’s articulation of God as Being itself - represent attempts to have this conversation in metaphysical terms rather than anthropomorphic ones. — Tom Storm

I think the approach you're describing is just a way of addressing my first, metaphysical, question while ignoring my second, factual, one. Which is ok with me. In Taoism, the Tao is not usually thought of as an anthropomorphic god but as an ineffable, impersonal, nonliving ground of being. Really, no kind of god at all. Verse 4 of the Tao Te Ching is one of my favorites. This Stephen Mitchell's translation.

The Tao is like a well:
used but never used up.
It is like the eternal void:
filled with infinite possibilities.

It is hidden but always present.
I don't know who gave birth to it.
It is older than God. — Tao Te Ching - Verse 4

So, there is the Tao, the one, undivided, which manifests as the 10,000 things, the multiplicity of the world we live in, one of which is god.

was it easier for you to do such work when you were younger or do you feel your years have improved your thinking? — Athena

It's not that it was easier when I was younger (and four years is not much younger.) It's that I've spent a lot of time thinking and writing since I joined the forum. In that time, I've answered, or at least laid out the answers to, the philosophical questions that are at the heart of my understanding of how the world works. I've said everything 15 times and it's hard to keep saying them. So, I have less energy to contribute to my participation here. More and more, as I start to respond to a post, I find myself stopping and saying to myself - I don't want to have to go through that argument again.

the image is a meditation on freedom, violence, and authenticity in a world emptied of clear moral direction. It echoes Nietzsche’s self-authoring hero, Sartre’s free agent, Camus’ absurd man, and Baudrillard’s hyperreal cowboy — praxis

Yes, I know all that, but I still think it violates the new policy. Let's ask the moderators. Wait...no...let's not.

Does this violate the new no embedding rule? Probably.

If you are using a mobile or similar device, switch the screen to "desktop" or whatever it is called in English. — javi2541997

it's clear on the home page on desktop. Not so easy to find on mobile — flannel jesus

Thanks y'all. Yes, I was using my mobile. I found it on my computer. Javi - I looked for the "desktop" switch on my phone but I don't see it.

0.88

How do I know how many mentions I’ve had?

That was a lot of work defining different aspects of consciousness. — Athena

As I noted, most of it was from an OP I wrote four years ago.

I’m not sure I know exactly what consciousness is or what is happening to give rise to conscious experience. — kindred

If you've ever participated in other discussions here about consciousness, you might have noticed that they often - almost always - break down because people don't define what they mean carefully. "Consciousness" and related words can have many meanings. I'm going to plagiarize from something I wrote a few years ago. These are definitions of some words related to consciousness I got from the web.

Consciousness

• The fact of awareness by the mind of itself and the world
• Sentience or awareness of internal and external existence
• Our personal experience of the world. The movie playing in our head.
• Everything you experience; the tune stuck in your head, the sweetness of chocolate mousse, the throbbing pain of a toothache, the fierce love for your child and the bitter knowledge that eventually all feelings will end
• What it is like to be _?

Self-consciousness - Most of the definitions and synonyms relate to shyness or social anxiety. In the context of this discussion, it might be considered awareness of how other people see you or your behavior. It is also used as a synonym for self-awareness.

Attention

• Relatively low level behavior used to focus the senses, from sight to hearing and even smell.
• A selective narrowing or focusing of consciousness and receptivity
• The ability to actively process specific information in the environment while tuning out other details

Awareness

• Perceptions of the world as a whole rather than our own internal experience.
• The ability to register and interpret sensory information from the environment.
• The perception or knowledge of something.

Self-awareness

• Conscious knowledge of one's own character, feelings, motives, and desires.
• An awareness of one's own personality or individuality
• An awareness of our own values, passions, aspirations, fit with our environment, reactions (including thoughts, feelings, behaviors, strengths, and weaknesses), and impact on others.

Sentience

• Feeling or sensation as distinguished from perception and thought
• Sentience is the capacity to be aware of feelings and sensations
• In modern Western philosophy, sentience is the ability to experience sensations (known in philosophy of mind as “qualia”).
• In the context of animal welfare, saying that animals are sentient means that they are able to feel pain.

Mind

• The element of a person that enables them to be aware of the world and their experiences, to think, and to feel; the faculty of consciousness and thought
• The element or complex of elements in an individual that feels, perceives, thinks, wills, and especially reasons
• The set of faculties including cognitive aspects such as consciousness, imagination, perception, thinking, intelligence, judgement, language and memory, as well as noncognitive aspects such as emotion and instinct.

Sorry. I'm not sure if this is helpful or not. There's a lot of overlap and circular definitions, so it's not hard to understand why there is confusion.

So, depending on what definition we use, certainly we could function without consciousness. Could we function without self-awareness? Well, most animals do. Some psychologists and cognitive scientists believe that certain non-human animals do have some self-awareness. If you like science fiction, I recommend "Blindsight." It's about intelligent aliens with advanced technology but no individual self-awareness. Trying to figure out what it must be like to be one of those aliens is interesting and provocative.

It's not a democracy and I never asked for anyone's opinion.

I informed people about the social media change. — Benkei

I know it's not a democracy and I don't want it to be, or I might be expected to do more than just complain. But when you open a thread, you're asking for our opinion. Plus, your pugnacious response to criticism is annoying.

I'm all set. You can have the last word.

I've been drawn away from the forum due to a rise in low quality — Christoffer

I don't disagree that the quality of the forum has gone down. The first cause I think is that we've lost some heavyweights over the years and other strong posters participate less. I know I make fewer posts and start fewer discussions because I get tired of making the same arguments over and over, even though the subjects still interest me. That's not the forum's fault, but, given that I've solved all the major issues in philosophy, it's hard to stay interested. I only do because I know you all need me.

The quality of the forum is lower than it used to. Instead of leaving I decided to do something about it. — Benkei

To tell the truth, I don't give a ding dong about the Trump thread and I'm only a bit irritated by the social media change. What bothers me is the way you've gone about it. You start a thread telling us you've already made the change and don't intend to remove it. Then, when there is criticism, you say "buzz off fuzz nuts." It doesn't make sense. Don't ask our opinion - it's insulting. Alternatively, ask our opinion before you make the change. Then you can pretend to listen to us before you implement.

In retaliation, I've talked to President Trump and he's going to put a 34% tariff on all posts from the Netherlands.

The moderators seem to be making a lot of unnecessary changes to a system that’s worked pretty well so far. Let me see… who else is doing that recently? Politics is specifically identified as one of the categories to be discussed on the forum. Are you moving all the other politics to the lounge? Or only American?

People can do what I do, just avoid the thread.

Accordion to the web, “aversion” means “a strong dislike or disinclination.“

Again, you and I don't have enough in common to have a fruitful discussion.

For those who have had formal education in philosophy, it's hard to grasp a novel definition of an old term. I have had no academic instruction (indoctrination) in philosophical vocabulary. — Gnomon

I have no formal education in philosophy either. Your use of "indoctrination" in this context shows why it's hard to take your philosophical opinions seriously.

Nuff said.

The world as experienced by humans is obviously "half human" — Janus

I don't think it's obvious to many, most, people that this is true. As I understand it, the implication would be there is no objective reality, only a mixture of our internal and external worlds. I endorse this view as a metaphysical position, a perspective.

I'm not that conversant with the intricacies of scholastic philosophy. And I don't think that there's any 'going back' to an earlier time. What interests me is the point about how we (unconsciously?) depict substance in objective terms, which in my view renders it oxymoronic (e.g. as 'thinking stuff'). Something very important has been lost in translation, as it were. — Wayfarer

I remember thinking that the world is fundamentally human, or at least half human. Theoretically, there is a world out there, but our only access to it is through our interactions with it. We can’t really separate ourselves and what we know from the world and we can’t really separate the world from ourselves and what we know. I think that’s why Taoism felt so familiar to me when I came across it.

Very good and right on point! — Wayfarer

Being very much a resident of the 20th and 21st centuries and an engineer to boot, I find myself very much at home with Burtt’s understanding of modern science. I struggle with imagining the world in the terms of scholastic science, including substance has described in your OP.

More and more these days, and thanks to you, I find myself quoting “The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science” by E A Burtt. This came to mind while I was reading your OP.

“In particular it is difficult for the modern mind, accustomed to think so largely in terms of space and time, to realize how unimportant these entities were for scholastic science. Spatial and temporal relations were accidental, not essential characteristics. Instead of spatial connexions of things, men were seeking their logical connexions; instead of the onward march of time, men thought of the eternal passage of potentiality…

…Instead of treating things in terms of substance, accident, and causality, essence and idea, matter and form, potentiality and actuality, we now treat them in terms of forces, motions, and laws, changes of mass in space and time, and the like. Pick up the works of any modern philosopher, and note how complete the shift has been...”

when scientists go beyond compiling facts to explaining their significance, they are straying into metaphysics, and doing Philosophy. — Gnomon

You and I have always had different ideas of what is metaphysics and what isn't. It makes it hard for us to have a fruitful discussion.

someone has had that thought before — jgill

Probably 2,500 years ago.

Yet, a cosmic explosion of matter & energy that continues to this day is an effectual event that deserves some kind of explanation. — Gnomon

This is something I've been wrestling with. My first intuition is that, no, it doesn't need an explanation - at least science doesn't require one. It only needs a description - this is what happens and this is the process by which it happens. Is Newton's law of universal gravitation an explanation? It says there is an attractive force between any two massive objects that is directly proportional to their masses and inversely proportional to the distance between them. To me that's a description.

So how about general relativity, which supplants Newton's law in extreme situations? Is all the talk about curvatures in space an explanation? That's the question I'm wrestling with. I want to say that's just a story we tell ourselves. The real theory is the mathematics that goes along with it, which is only descriptive. The same issue arises when we talk about quantum mechanics. Are all those different interpretations competing explanations or just stories, with the math doing all the real work?

Is everything we call scientific explanation really just metaphysics?

This is not a proof, it’s a definition. The word “magic” has a specific meaning which you’re ignoring.

Only those who allow AI to think for them ask such foolish questions. Jesus, it will be worse than I expected. — javi2541997

I like your new feistiness, but many of the questions were reasonable.

There go my pig videos. — Shawn

No. Those will be allowed in the shout box.

You say that this has been discussed before. Where have people discussed crytpo-enforced taxation? I have never heard of it before. Did you just read, "voluntary taxation" and immediately think that meant anarchy and that you've seen it before and you didn't read the rest of the post? — Brendan Golledge

I went back and reread your OP. It's true, in my response I wasn't dealing with the specific technological way you proposed to run and fund the government. But the reasons I don't think your system will work are not technological. They're psychological, sociological, and political. As I see it, when a society gets above a certain size, it is no longer governable by direct means.

In my opinion, our earthly powers of logic and reason are insufficient to answer such a question. — an-salad

What is the basis for you opinion? Is this a subject about which you have specific experience or education? Is this a scientific judgment? A religious one? A philosophical one?

As for me - It's not clear the big bang was caused at all.

For anthropological, or possibly psychological, reasons I'm interested in your reasoning steps from "no social media" to being "part of Trump's project 2025 program". — Benkei

Here in the US, and I assume elsewhere in the world, everything we don't like is Trump's and Musk's doing.

↪T Clark No. — Benkei

This is clearly part of Trump's Project 2025 program. Did Musk set you up to this?

Not sure why it even matters to my argument as I didn't even use/discuss it, — DifferentiatingEgg

I misunderstood. You wrote "To dismantle this pathetic fallacy, I've devised a thought experiment." You meant a pathetic fallacy, not the pathetic fallacy. That being said, I would characterize calling an argument pathetic as what you call "cheap rhetorical tactic." Pot criticizing kettle, philosophically speaking.

As for the rest of your OP, you haven't addressed the substance of my comment. Looking back, I think I wasn't clear enough. My basic point is that an appeal to emotion in this particular case is appropriate. It's not a fallacy at all. Your inability or unwillingness to acknowledge that highlights the smug hollowness of your argument.

I'm done there. You get the last word.

It certainly covers YouTube shorts. — Benkei

I suggest also allowing it in the Lounge.

no social media links or embeds outside of the shoutbox, the news thread or in your profile. — Benkei

I hope this doesn't include YouTube. I embed a lot of short clips from there.

Also, please add this change to the site guidelines page.

I do give intuition a lot of weight, but I don't think its much more than preconscious statistical analysis (or something similar.. that's probably not quite right). — AmadeusD

You just validated my understanding of intuition. I drew a conclusion based on a "preconscious statistical analysis (or something similar." but, since I didn't go to the trouble of examining it more closely, it was poorly justified, but that's ok because the consequences of being wrong were not significant.

This post is dedicated to collecting pathetic arguments often used by objective moralists, you know the kind who make fallacious appeals to what is unequivocally "Good" or "Evil." — DifferentiatingEgg

The idea of objective morality is not one I have much use for, so I'm not here to discuss the merits of whether or not it is ever acceptable to kill babies. Instead, I want to focus on the arguments you have used to make your case.

I'll start with the unimaginative low-hanging straw these moralists love to grasp for when making the foundation of their argument—the claim that "killing babies is objectively evil."

The argument is a cheap rhetorical tactic, relying on multiple logical fallacies, including: Appeal to Emotion, Appeal to Popularity, Begging the Question.

To dismantle this pathetic fallacy, I've devised a thought experiment: The Contraption of Moral Failure — DifferentiatingEgg

Here's what Wikipedia says about the pathetic fallacy.

The phrase pathetic fallacy is a literary term for the attribution of human emotion and conduct to things found in nature that are not human. It is a kind of personification that occurs in poetic descriptions, when, for example, clouds seem sullen, when leaves dance, or when rocks seem indifferent. — Wikipedia - Pathetic Fallacy

So, as far as I can see, the pathetic fallacy is not a logical fallacy as we usually think them and it doesn't apply as an argument against moral objectivists. The logical fallacy that might apply is, as you note, appeal to emotion or pity, but I don't think it applies to this situation either. Here's what Wikipedia says about appeals to pity in philosophical arguments.

An appeal to pity (also called argumentum ad misericordiam) is a fallacy in which someone improperly appeals to pity or similar feelings like empathy, as a method of persuading someone to agree with a conclusion. It is a specific kind of appeal to emotion. This fallacy can happen in two ways: 1) when an appeal to pity (or a similar emotion) has nothing to do with the actual point of the argument, or 2) when the emotional appeal is exaggerated or excessive compared to the situation being discussed. Not all appeals to pity are logical fallacies. When the feelings of pity are directly related to the conclusion and help support the argument logically, they can be reasonable. For instance, appealing to pity when asking for help. — Wikipedia - Appeal to Pity

As the text I've bolded indicates, an appeal to emotion isn't necessarily a logical fallacy. I would argue that, in this particular situation, it isn't. As I see it, it is a fundamental human value that we protect the vulnerable members of our community, especially our children and more especially babies. There are all sorts of rational arguments I could make for this, but as I understand and experience it, it all comes down to human nature. It is a fundamental biological, genetic, psychological, emotional, and social fact that we care for our children. We love them. We want to protect them and see they are happy. Saying that isn't a fallacy, it's an acknowledgement of fundamental human values and nature.

Are you suggesting there is some other type of knowledge that approximates truth? Or is the breadth of 'scientific knowledge' peculiarly narrow here? — AmadeusD

I got a little behind here.

I think most of what we know is not specifically justified. In my personal experience, most of what I know I know by what I would call "intuition." It has no specific source, although it is based on my general understanding of the world and how it works. As I understand it, that general understanding is something we build for ourselves over a lifetime of experience in the world.

Here, now I'll give you an example. Judging by what I've read of your posts, I think, believe I guess, you are someone who does not hold much truck with intuition. Under normal circumstances, I probably wouldn't bother justifying that. That's consistent with my way of seeing knowledge, since the consequences of being wrong are probably minor. The important thing here in the context of this discussion is that my belief is not based on any specifical evidence or reasoning.

Another related way of knowing - trial and error. "Screw it, let's just do it and see what happens." In engineering we pretty that up and call it the "observational method." Justification and action are an iterative, circular, process.

Is nothing ever conformant to what is real? — javra

We can never be certain any particular thing is true except that, perhaps, we exist.

Nothing is true? — creativesoul

As Descartes told us, there is only one thing we know is really, actually, for real true.