I agree entirely.

ISIS is a common enemy of the US and Taliban. I expect some collaboration on this front at least. The CIA and co. are pragmatic folks, they speak with whom they need to speak.

What struck me years ago working there, was how puerile their political speech was; how manichean and crude (not unlike some MAGA-capped evangelicals mind you). They were seeing heros and vilains, where I was seeing just one big and raw power struggle. Alliances were temporary and fluid, frequently between past enemies. Of course foreigners have the luxury of not taking side, so there's that too: Afghans are part of the problem and part of any possible solution, in ways that foreigners will never care enough to be. It's their soddin' country after all.

Maybe they're better this time around... In my culture we have a warning against "insulting the future". Anything is possible, and this country has always defied prediction. Perfect peace is not achievable, there's always one jang somewhere or another in Afghanistan. But if the main cities / populated areas could be at peace, that would mean a lot.

Now the T. have no access to international banking. That should be a big deal for any government, even them. Alternatives exist of course, but costly. They will have to behave, at least nominally, in order to gain access. Or they will fail as a modern state.

I'm one who questions the value of metaphysics generally. It isn't clear to me that it consists of anything but speculation, and it seems speculation to no effect. — Ciceronianus

I agree it is speculative but do think that metaphysics affect us. I think of it as the axiomatics of our thoughts: the core, fundamental principles allowing for various types of thoughts to unfold from their combination. Philosophers have called them a priori, fundamental intuitions, or absolute presuppositions... Ideas like: there is a me, and a space around me, other people in it, a time that flows only one way, various objects, causality, meaning, etc.

Some of these axiomatics are better than other in that they solve problems. Science, as posted by @180 Proof, is metaphysics that works (generally). I agree with that, while of course others may disagree. Religion is another form of metaphysics, and some think it works and others disagree.

What seems certain to me is that those metaphysics that succeed value life, people, other species, and knowledge, and freedom, while those who fail value war, or obscurantism, or hatred, for instance. So there are differences between different metaphysical speculations, and there are consequences.

All that's available are a few, barely discernible clues left behind in ice, tree rings, etc. a — TheMadFool

I studied those clues and found them strong and consistent, not 'barely discernible' at all. The scientific case for anthropic climate change is extremely strong, and by now as close to absolute certainty as it will ever get.

I'm really not very optimistic of how the Emirate of Afghanistan will succeed. — ssu

As someone noted already, this depends on how you define success. If their goal is to maintain age-old traditions unaffected by foreign influences, they might do well.

For proof see...well almost every paper on the neuroscience of perception since the late nineties. — Isaac

No offense, but I seriously doubt that neuroscience can prove that tables are illusions.

The table is joint social object. — Isaac

This is a platitude but everything, including neuroscience, is a "joint social object". Tables are not the exceptions here, they are like everything else.

You seeing the 'reality' of it as entirely and correctly whatever it appears to you to be is very much a problem,

You are confusing empiricism with naive realism. Empiricism is a principle without which there would be no science, including no neuroscience, so you are professionally bound to respect it. And confusing empiricism with illusion is a road to nowhere.

your second layer of nodes can only infer their properties from your first layer because the signal from them originates outside of the Markov Blanket. — Isaac

In English, please. Also you may wish to connect this neuronal talk to the issue at hand, i.e. the reality of tables.

it's simply not true to say that there is a table because you see a table. I'd go as far as to say that we flat out know that to be false. Your world (that of tables, cups etc) is 90% made up, at any given time, entirely phenomena, no substance. — Isaac

Personally, I am fact-based. So if something in front of me looks like a table, feels like a table, and can be used like a table, then it is true that there is a table. You can argue that it's an illusion but you would have the burden of proof.

And yes, the table is 100% phenomenal for me, as everything else. I don't see that as a problem, more as a law of perception.

Of course the table is composed of smaller elements. How could it NOT be? But there is absolutely no reason to see the elements as more "real" than the whole. Truth is not small. Reality is not hiding in atoms.

Correct. They were forced to be tolerant. Arab culture was inadequate to support an empire and dominate the more advanced cultures of the conquered territories. The only medical system was that of the Greeks. The only philosophy going was Plato and Aristotle .... — Apollodorus

That is way too dismissive of the early Muslim genius. The early Muslim conquerors were committed to science, equality between races, and freedom of thought (within limits), contrary to a lot of the polities they overthrew. That is why the Muslim conquest happened so rapidly: the people like liberators.

why might it be hard for the Taliban or ISIS to bring Afghanistan to success today? — Athena

As far as the Taliban are concerned, that the invading NATO armies are out of the country is already a success. And for a majority of Afghans, it's a big relief. Foreign troops were consistently reported as the biggest danger for Afghans in annual polls of the Asia Foundation.

Now of course, the hard part is to govern this country. For that to happen, they will need to keep the movement together, defang ISIS, and find some agreement with non-Taliban forces. My money is on anarchy instead, but you never know.

Is there really a scientific tech solution for all problems? Dont think so! — Prishon

Agreed.

I hope they got good money for it...

Junk indeed, all paid for by big oil no doubt.

First, I would like to dispute that "fallibilism" is any better criteria of significance than verificationism, or even that it is mainstream today. It is true that most popular accounts of the scientific method mention Popper in this regard, but these accounts do not reflect mainstream thinking in the philosophy of science. If anything, mainstream philosophy of science today has largely abandoned the search for criteria of demarcation ... — Nagase

I am not certain that 'what is mainstream today in philosophy of science' means anything, but the fact that the debate has moved on may simply indicate that Popper's falsifiability prevailed over the LPs' verification formulation. Popper (on science) is basically a pessimistic LP: he says scientific theories are never verified, but can be falsified by empirical data. This is not exactly the way it works 'in the lab', but as a logical framework for the relationship between theories and facts, it solves a lot of problems, eg it cuts through Hempel's ravens paradox like a hot knife in butter.

I much appreciate the rest of your post, the historical part.

‘Philosophy buries its undertakers’ ~ Etienne Gilson.
— Wayfarer

That's deep. :nerd: — Corvus

Yes, that's a keeper.

Philosophy is all about flow. :-)

Logical positivism was too anal-retentive. That's why it faded away. One needs to losen up once in a while.

Too anal.

diagnoses materialism as self-contradictory. — Wayfarer

That would be because materialism is logically and objectively self-contradictory, as we all know. Reason for which there's no need for aggravation: why get angry at an irrational idea? It's like getting angry at a brocken clock.

I can't burn an idea for heat — Cheshire

Without the idea of 'fire', you couldn't burn anything for heat.

Those who don't obtain to the mainstream attitude that science is the arbiter of what is real are 'peddling woo'. — Wayfarer

Science deals with the way natural things happen to behave and evolve. At best it can say what is known about natural things and their behavior. That's an important function, note.

What is 'real' is an essentialist question, a question about 'being', which has limited practical utility. Who really cares about whether the real numbers are real or not?

So why all this increased aggro right now ? — Amity

Not a clue. I find it tiresome.

You need to notice that calling other folks’ philosophy « woo » is disrespectful, condescending and useless.

Truth is small.

The true nature of things is evident only at the bottom, that is, on the molecular level, and so life can only be understood in those terms, that is, from the bottom up. (This is what 'biological reductionism' means, and Dennett is acknowledgly and avowedely a biological reductionist.) — Wayfarer

Yes, reductionists believe that small things cause and explain big things, but never vice versa. I never really understood why.

There must be a reason why blasphemous jokes are funny... ?

In Afghanistan, the only jokes in circulation are about a certain Mollah Nasruddin.

Sorry.

And a new Mexican government is installed with Mexicans that have made their life in Washington, so they are trustworthy and fluently speak English. Because, that's more easy. — ssu

A lot of that happened. The Afghans have a nickname for all these expats who came back to Kabul to govern them after the US invasion: sag shui. It means "dog washers". I guess because in Afghan culture you don't wash dogs; they are impure by essence. Only a deeply Americanized 'Afghan' would have a pet dog, and wash it.

you've just misrepresented "compatibilism". — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't know that there is only one correct or normative version of compatibilism. What's your version?

A "non-fully predetermined" world is not compatible with a "fully predetermined world", so how could "free will" be compatible with both of these? — Metaphysician Undercover

It means that determinism is neither here nor there. It makes no difference to the issue of free will. It doesn't matter.

Compatibilism is self-deception. It's usually composed of a false representation of "free will", which makes free will an illusion, but it can also be composed of a false representation of determinism, like soft determinism, or its composed of both false representations. — Metaphysician Undercover

Compatibilism is perfectly fine and logical. There's nothing obviously false about it that I can see. In fact I see it as more logically coherent than the rather absurd idea that our minds are some useless dead end of causality.

This said, I don't believe in full determinism for a number of reasons. So I am an indeterminist compatibilist: I believe that free will is compatible with a non-fully-predetermined world (it would also be compatible with a fully predetermined world).

By and large Murdoch is to blame, because he is the singular reason why anglo-saxons in general and Americans in particular are so ignorant about climate change. Their ignorance is fabricated by FAUX News and co. And this fabricated American ignorance is what prevented the world from acting sooner.

My question: Will/Should the descendants of slaves (basically all of us) use robots? — TheMadFool

Thanks for the laugh.

I don't know about dice but a God who doesn't play at something would get very bored. Eternity is a long time, especially towards the end... Our Guy got to be playing games.

(See for instance the God Melichrone in Sheckley's Dimension of Miracles. He has abolished all his creatures and also deleted the Hereafter, because He needed time to think, and He has become very very bored as a result, so he wants to destroy the book's main character too, for the fun of it...)

Another reason is: why would a non-gamer create animals like us (or cats) who like to play so much?

"God does not play dice" because g/G is the dice — 180 Proof

So when God plays with Himself, He plays dice?

Great entry!

John Prine and Iris Dement - In Spite of Ourselves

One bit of cultural trivia this forum might find interesting is the Afghan (Pashto) female poetic form called landay. Landays are composed of only two verses, a bit like haïkus. 'Landay' means 'viper' in Pashto. A landay is therefore a short, poisonous viper of a poem. As such, the form expresses the Pashtoon women dry view of their world. Landay are oral literature only, songs in fact, although a few have been published. See this site for a more in-depth analysis and a rich sample: https://static.poetryfoundation.org/o/media/landays.html

Or read: Songs of Love and War, by Sayd Bahuddin Majrooh.

Your eyes are bees
I can find no cure for their sting

Embrace me in a suicide vest
Who says I won’t give you a kiss?

I recall during the early stages of the war hearing stories of women committing suicide by self-immolation in order to escape the Taliban because of that they had no other means to do so, and, so, I would caution against becoming too hopeful. Inheritance is a start for sure, though. — thewonder

It would be a start. I seriously doubt they will grant inheritance to women as required by the Shariah...

Tragically, Afghan women have used many ways to leave this world: their husband's gun, drinking pesticide, throwing themselves into a well, or setting themselves on fire... Yes, more of that is to be feared.

Why not just leave them to their own devices? — baker

The thing is: if Afghanistan neighbour X (say Pakistan) decides against meddling in Afghanistan, other neighbours (say India, China or Russia) might simply fill the void. The marches of empires are places like that, where influence gets sought and traded.

the Middle East — javi2541997

Not to be pedant but Afghanistan is a Central Asian state.

The problem in the region is not Afghanistan, it's Pakistan. — Apollodorus

That's what Afghans love to say. But the truth is that Afghan tribalism and factionalism have always attracted foreign meddling.