. I like knowledge but you can overrate it. — Cartuna

There's such a thing as information overload. There is also some truth in the saying that "science sans conscience n'est que ruine de l'âme" (Rabelais).

People rarely know the limit of their knowledge, their blind spots are by definition unseen. Hence they tend to overestimate their knowledge, and yes, this may contribute to the phenomenon of abrupt end of conversation that I seem to notice.

And yet there is no true knowledge without such an awareness of the necessarily limited domain whence this knowledge comes and where it applies. No true data is without metadata (data about the source of the data, who collected it, when, where, how, and its limitations...); similarly it could be said that there is no true knowledge without metaknowledge (ie knowledge about the source and limits of the knowledge). No true knowledge without some doubt about knowledge.

There's an English saying about that. Something like the wise doubts while the ignorant is full of certitudes.

Yes, the yellow jackets. Burn la Bastille! — Cartuna

Or take over the US Senate... People are dreaming of revolution again.

There is too much knowledge. — Cartuna

That made me laugh. I take it you are being sarcastic here.

. It seems the subject matter of science, especially physics, leads to such doom. — Cartuna

I think it's more general than that. Have seen it happen on a variety of topics, as if it was somehow becoming fashionable to diagnose a communication failure...

Originally I thought maybe it's an an effect of the US blue/red divide, but a similar collapse of societal common ground took place during the Brexit debate, and in France we had the yellow jackets episode, also with a collapse of national discussion into bickering disputes where people talked passed one another...

So what's happening? Am I just inventing a trend? Or are Western societies (or folks) getting sick of their own endless blah? Are we growing tired of always having to share the agora with others?

the conversation is doomed. — Kenosha Kid

So many threads end up like that. Doomed conversations are in the zeitgeist. It seems we cannot do better these days.

Most welcome, you misunderstood quite well too.

Let's just remember the religious wars that rocked the Christian world back then at the time after Gutenberg. — ssu

That's an interesting parallel, thanks.

an undifferentiated potential matter capable of taking on any and all forms — Book273

Still, form is different from substance.

I had not realized the discussion had "practical for society" as one of it's fundamental tenets. Hard to capture a universal truth theory that also caters to the whims of a human creation. I will move forward from my position and will file "society" under irrelevant with respect to it's place in my theory. — Book273

The discussion is whatever we want it to be. To me, the question of ethics is important so I discuss it. If you don't think ethics are important, talk about whatever you think is important... Though I suspect that nothing is really important in a monist view, nothing is salient, hence nothing is really worth saying. Everything is irrelevant to your theory, and vice versa your theory is irrelevant to anything or anybody else than you.

. I find it a very liberating perspective. — Book273

Oh I'm sure it is liberating to have no value at all. It's just
not practical for a society though.

I saw the translated poster at the theatre, no lie. — Book273

No, you did not.

To get back to the OP, what is your stance exactly? — Book273

My world is dualist, or rather pluralist. There is more than just one kind of stuff in it, or dimension or whatever you want to call it. It's a diverse world, where ideas coexist with matter. I take the particle-wave duality as being an indication that things are more complex than reductionists think. Also a big fan of the form-substance duality of Aristotle.

The French poster for that film had the film as "Les Jeunes qui porte des lunettes de Soleil." — Book273

That is simply not true. The film was released in France under the English title "Matrix". By the way, your absurdist French title up there is also grammatically incorrect, on top of being a lie.

Yes, that is correct. — Book273

I thought as much. Yours must be a very boring world, where everything is in the same shade of grey.

As a Latinist, feel free to offer a better translation.

How to read a jellyfish's mind
by Lori Dajose , California Institute of Technology

The human brain has 100 billion neurons, making 100 trillion connections. Understanding the precise circuits of brain cells that orchestrate all of our day-to-day behaviors—such as moving our limbs, responding to fear and other emotions, and so on—is an incredibly complex puzzle for neuroscientists. But now, fundamental questions about the neuroscience of behavior may be answered through a new and much simpler model organism: tiny jellyfish.

Caltech researchers have now developed a kind of genetic toolbox tailored for tinkering with Clytia hemisphaerica, a type of jellyfish about 1 centimeter in diameter when fully grown. Using this toolkit, the tiny creatures have been genetically modified so that their neurons individually glow with fluorescent light when activated. Because a jellyfish is transparent, researchers can then watch the glow of the animal's neural activity as it behaves naturally. ...

With a new genetic toolbox, researchers can view jellyfish neurons as they light up in real time. ...

Rather than being centralized in one part of the body like our own brains, the jellyfish brain is diffused across the animal's entire body like a net. The various body parts of a jellyfish can operate seemingly autonomously, without centralized control; for example, a jellyfish mouth removed surgically can carry on "eating" even without the rest of the animal's body.

This decentralized body plan seems to be a highly successful evolutionary strategy, as jellyfish have persisted throughout the animal kingdom for hundreds of millions of years. But how does the decentralized jellyfish nervous system coordinate and orchestrate behaviors?

After developing the genetic tools to work with Clytia, the researchers first examined the neural circuits underlying the animal's feeding behaviors. When Clytia snags a brine shrimp in a tentacle, it folds its body in order to bring the tentacle to its mouth and bends its mouth toward the tentacle simultaneously. The team aimed to answer: How does the jellyfish brain, apparently unstructured and radially symmetric, coordinate this directional folding of the jellyfish body?

..., though the network of jellyfish neurons originally seemed diffuse and unstructured, the researchers found a surprising degree of organization that only became visible with their fluorescent system.

"Our experiments revealed that the seemingly diffuse network of neurons that underlies the circular jellyfish umbrella is actually subdivided into patches of active neurons, organized in wedges like slices of a pizza," explains Anderson. "When a jellyfish snags a brine shrimp with a tentacle, the neurons in the 'pizza slice' nearest to that tentacle would first activate, which in turn caused that part of the umbrella to fold inward, bringing the shrimp to the mouth. Importantly, this level of neural organization is completely invisible if you look at the anatomy of a jellyfish, even with a microscope. You have to be able to visualize the active neurons in order to see it—which is what we can do with our new system."

Weissbourd emphasizes that this is only scratching the surface of understanding the full repertoire of jellyfish behaviors. "In future work, we'd like to use this jellyfish as a tractable platform to understand precisely how behavior is generated by whole neural systems," he says. "In the context of food passing, understanding how the tentacles, umbrella, and mouth all coordinate with each other lets us get at more general problems of the function of modularity within nervous systems and how such modules coordinate with each other. The ultimate goal is not only to understand the jellyfish nervous system but to use it as a springboard to understand more complex systems in the future." ...

https://phys.org/news/2021-11-jellyfish-mind.html

WTF is a Christian translation of Latin?

You see nothing.

Greco-Roman paganism never speaks of helping the weak. For instance. Rather, they were thrown into the circus. — Primperan

Which is one of the reasons the Christians screwed them in the end. The pagan Roman's lack of empathy for the weak was their weakness.

But it does not follow that the Romans of old had no interest in duty, or had no moral values. They just had different values than the Christian ones... As often the case with Indo-European cultures, the Roman values originally were very warlike. They started with the general concept of virtus (from which comes the English word "virtue"), meaning 'manliness' (vir=man).

Then this concept evolved overtime and expanded to become lists of several virtus.

The Roman state, be it the Republic or Empire, never issued a formal, codified list of virtus, nor much definition of the concept, which was from old time religion and probably so ubiquitous that no one needed a definition or a list. Therefore any such list is a modern construct patched together from various ancient authors. This caveat said, here is one from wikipedia:

Abundantia: "Abundance, Plenty" The ideal of there being enough food and prosperity for all segments of society. A public virtue.
Auctoritas – "spiritual authority" – the sense of one's social standing, built up through experience, Pietas, and Industria. This was considered to be essential for a magistrate's ability to enforce law and order.
Comitas – "humour" – ease of manner, courtesy, openness, and friendliness.
Constantia – "perseverance" – military stamina, as well as general mental and physical endurance in the face of hardship.
Clementia – "mercy" – mildness and gentleness, and the ability to set aside previous transgressions.
Dignitas – "dignity" – a sense of self-worth, personal self-respect and self-esteem.
Disciplina – "discipline" – considered essential to military excellence; also connotes adherence to the legal system, and upholding the duties of citizenship.
Fides – "good faith" – mutual trust and reciprocal dealings in both government and commerce (public affairs), a breach meant legal and religious consequences.
Firmitas – "tenacity" – strength of mind, and the ability to stick to one's purpose at hand without wavering.
Frugalitas – "frugality" – economy and simplicity in lifestyle.
Gravitas – "gravity" – a sense of the importance of the matter at hand; responsibility, and being earnest.
Honestas – "respectability" – the image and honor that one presents as a respectable member of society.
Humanitas – "humanity" – refinement, civilization, learning, and generally being cultured.
Industria – "industriousness" – hard work.
Innocencia – "selfless" – Roman charity, always give without expectation of recognition, always give while expecting no personal gain, incorruptibility.
Laetitia – "Joy, Gladness" – The celebration of thanksgiving, often of the resolution of crisis, a public virtue.
Nobilitas – "Nobility" – Man of fine appearance, deserving of honor, highly esteemed social rank, and, or, nobility of birth, a public virtue.
Justitia – "justice" – sense of moral worth to an action; personified by the goddess Iustitia, the Roman counterpart to the Greek Themis.
Pietas – "dutifulness" – more than religious piety; a respect for the natural order: socially, politically, and religiously. Includes ideas of patriotism, fulfillment of pious obligation to the gods, and honoring other human beings, especially in terms of the patron and client relationship, considered essential to an orderly society.
Prudentia – "prudence" – foresight, wisdom, and personal discretion.
Salubritas – "wholesomeness" – general health and cleanliness, personified in the deity Salus.
Severitas – "sternness" – self-control, considered to be tied directly to the virtue of gravitas.
Veritas – "truthfulness" – honesty in dealing with others, personified by the goddess Veritas. Veritas, being the mother of Virtus, was considered the root of all virtue; a person living an honest life was bound to be virtuous.
Virtus – "manliness" – valor, excellence, courage, character, and worth.

You cannot reproduce if you're dead. Not dying is paramount. Avoiding death, or causes of death, is paramount. I am not, and have not been, saying that life is merely all about avoiding death above and beyond anything else. I have been saying that anything else life might have to offer only matters if you are not dead.

This is quite simple yet maybe too obvious. — I like sushi

Similarly obvious is the fact that every living creature ultimately dies. Nobody actually avoids death.

Hence reproduction is the only way to 'stay around' a little longer, vicariously through your offspring. Reproduction trumps death.

An organism is not typically trying to "sustain life", period. Rather it is typically trying to sustain life long enough to be able to reproduce.

In order to reproduce, one generally needs to find another organism with whom to mix up one's DNA. One can't do that just by being afraid of dying. One has to want to live, love, fuck and kiss babies...

Fear not.

You keep avoiding the point I am making.

Why focus only on fear, at the exclusion of all other emotions?

Are you a fearful person? Do you often feel afraid? If not, why the fear fetishism?

Does it make sense to view 'fear' as 'maximally efficient avoidance of desire'? If it does to you then I'd have to call you the negative ninny :) — I like sushi

No, it does not make sense. But to define desire as avoidance of fear is equally ridiculous.

There ARE several different emotions. They do exist, and there is no reason to see one type as trumping the others . So why focus only on fear?

But we don’t come to the opinions we care about by ‘desiring’ we come to desire by way of maximally efficient fear avoidance. — I like sushi

Would you have any evidence for that, or it is just the way it looks like on your end? Why attribute to fear (or anger, in other posts) a sort of privileged place at the top of all emotions?

Do try and broaden your emotional palette. It's not all about fear.

A fear is in place to avoid harm/hurt/death. A desire is not necessarily about avoiding harm/hurt/death — I like sushi

Indeed, a desire is rather an attraction for pleasure, confort or happiness. Think positive!

Perhaps you should try to address what I am saying, and not something else altogether... Or just try to understand what I say; that'd be a start.

If it's all the same stuff, is there anything that matters? And if yes, what would that be? IOW, can monism sustain a hierarchy of values? It seems not. If "everything is of equal value" then nothing is of any particular value...

paganism doesn't seem interested in duty either — Primperan

Paganism? Can you be a little more specific? The voodoo? The norse gods? The cult of Isis? Hinduism?

nobody said life was fair. — Primperan

Not even me! What I am driving at is that a philosophy should not just be about what is the case, which is rather the domain of science, but also and primarily in what ought to be the case, which behaviors are desirable and which are not. What goals should we pursue? etc.

For me, a decent philosophy cannot be value-less.

Exactly. A figurative use is born every second, but the literal meaning is usually one.

Why, the reference is evidently to Tolkien, made humorously by paleontologists, who are all geeks, and all geeks love Tolkien. This said as a geek myself. :nerd: I confess that I never heard of Kriple but to me, calling H. floresiensis "the Hobbit" is just a figurative use of a word to mean something else than its original meaning (but related somehow), a time-honored practice.

Fear is a negative tropism, while desire is positive one. — Olivier5

More generally, you may be interested in any of the versions of the "wheel of emotions" out there, to broaden your emotional palette. The concept is from psychologist Robert Plutchik.

:heart: :100: :flower: :clap: :up: :ok: :fire:

don't really see how 'love' or 'desire' is a natural response to 'fear'. I want you to argue the point in more depth if you can as I am sure there is weight to it.

If you're using 'love' then I think it would help to outline how this works in the initial stages where fear has a grip of us. — I like sushi

It's not a natural response to fear. It is the polar opposite, conceptually. Think of it in terms of tropisms, a term from botany which means "involuntary orientation by an organism that involves turning nearer or away from some simulation. AKA a positive or negative response to a source of stimulation. Fear is a negative tropism, while desire is positive one.

I am talking about 'anger'/'annoyance' which is not the same as 'being angry'.

I furthered my proposition by stating that 'fear' is the core and that 'anger'/'annoyance' is how we deal with fear in a 'progressive' manner (as in productive rather than curly up in a ball and dying). Something akin to cognitive flight or fight; as an analogy. — I like sushi

Ok, in general terms then, my first reaction is that you have to include positive tropisms, not just negative ones, among the motivating forces for expressing opinions. Emotions like desire or love must account for something too.

, I am not advocating for the blatant killing of people. — Book273

What are you advocating for, then? Anything? Nothing?

As I keep telling my staff: when you feel angry, ask yourself why. Assuming that you are not mentally imbalanced, paranoid or disturbed, your anger may be telling you a message, that something is awfully wrong. Go to the bottom of it; find what's wrong. Then channel your anger, use it to communicate clearly what you think is wrong.

In short: emotional intelligence is about using your emotions, their energy and wisdom. It's not about suppressing our emotions, nor is it about taking them at face value. It's about unbundling them and understanding them.

So what is your anger telling you about the kind of exchanges that happen here on TPF? What do you expect of them, that you are not actually getting? Try and be specific. Are you just angry at a mere disagreement, eg like a believer faced with incredulity? You seem to be saying so in your OP, but surely you must know that philosophy, like politics or religion, is a domain where disagreements are always a plenty, and where disagreement is to be expected, not agreement.

So why are you angry, really?

My minimal conclusion here is that being completely rational beings would make us stagnated and unable to move forward or backwards. The rational mind without an irrational nature is utterly useless. — I like sushi

IOW, reason is a slave to passion (Hume).

so really, squish a mosquito because the itch is inconvenient, or kill the guy ahead of you line, because he is slow to make up his mind...both ways a life is ended for your comfort. The second involves a human, so we attribute more value to it, but there shouldn't be. — Book273

By this reasoning, it's a-okay to kill people... Hence your monism cannot support a healthy human society but may be useful philosophy for serial killers.

This would seem to be the case in order to make sense of the statement, "Hobbits do not exist." In other words, for a claim to have meaning it must be about something, but since Hobbits don't exist, what could the statement be about? Simply put, it's about the concept, Hobbits. Thus, existence is not something individuals possess, but is rather, a way of expressing something about concepts. — Sam26

I guess you're right: it's all about concepts. Hobbits do not exist in our present reality, if by "Hobbit" you mean:

a member of an imaginary race similar to humans, of small size and with hairy feet, in stories by J. R. R. Tolkien.

Note that this definition (from Oxford Languages) of the concept is explicit about the imaginary nature of the beast, and its inventor.

If on the other hand you mean figuratively something like "a very small adult man or woman", they do exist. If you mean instead "another species similar to modern man, but smaller", they did exist way back: various Australopithecus sp., and closer to us Homo floresiensis ("Flores Man"), actually nicknamed "the Hobbit" among paleontologists. We don't really know if he had hairy feet but the odds look good enough to me.

Sure, but what status does life has in a monist system? If seen as good, why? If it's all just one stuff, why care about life? What's so special about it?

And you know there is no ghost of the universe because...? — Book273

I actually don't know that for a fact. It's a belief, a dear assumption if you prefer.

Yes, actually. As is everything else. The "stuff" is merely differentiated, but fundamentally remains the same "stuff". A rock, space, time (arguably, time does not actually exist, it is a perceptive tool used by an observer, remove the observer and "time" is meaningless, ceasing to exist), a duck, this computer, all of it...same stuff, different packaging. — Book273

Would you mind if you were repackaged as, say, a lifeless corpse? Or would you be indifferent to it?

And we are left in much the same position as I have pointed out in the thread on Being: things that exist because they are the presumed individuals in the domain, and things that exist because they are the subject of a predicate. — Banno

To simplify even further: things are always presumed to exist. Existence cannot be proven.

When people say things like "X exist", they usually mean "I cannot think through this issue without making the assumption that X exists." Or simply: "I would rather make the assumption that X exists." They are positing the existence of God, the mind, the Higgs boson or true love. And oftentimes they know perfectly well it is simply an assumption, rather than some deep ontological commitment.