Sound then, is resolutely anti-Platonic, to the degree that it militates against any notion of timelessness, eternity, or ’the unchanging’.

Socrates only spoke, his method of conveyance of his thought was sound, dialogue.

Not certain why he dismissed the flutes, but perhaps because they (similar to the Athenian conception of women) were thought to be structurally disproportionate, unlike a lute. Plato's works are all about harmony & rhythm and beauty.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon is a very progressive goat

Existence suggests something acting or being acted upon.
If existence has an essence it is differentiation.
— Cavacava

Is this different than what darthbarracuda said? Namely that to exist is to be causally relevant? What do you mean by the second sentence? Does it mean that since acting or being acted upon requires change and change implies differentiation then existence is about creating difference?

Causality is found in nature. Do you think Justice, Morality affect us? If so, their affects are not causal, but discursive, and they are as much a part of reality as a hammer or a goat.

I think differentiation (repetition of what is discriminated suggests sameness) is basic to being. Rest & motion are both necessary, otherwise our knowledge of anything is problematic.

Hello. What does it mean for something to exist? Does existence have an essence?

Existence suggests something acting or being acted upon.
If existence has an essence it is differentiation.

Language itself is a physical manifestation of the intimate connections between mind and body. Language enables the externalization of thought by use of sound designs which enables others to understand what we are thinking. I think mind/body dualism is a formal distinction (perhaps a necessary one) only, not a substantive distinction. A discursive distinction made possible by language which enables us to treat the mind as if it were separate from the body, while substantively there is no such distinction, mind and body are one.

Some thoughts on the topic:

Idols are images that arise from the stories and teachings of religion, they act like words & stories as symbolic what is believed. So in a sense the images, sculptures paintings which are common to all religions (even Jewish, though here God is not portrayed it does portray somethings, like the Ark of the Covenant, which are symbolic) arise from their dialogues and writings. The majority of the ancient Greeks put more sense of reality into their statues of the gods, perhaps treating them as direct conduits to the gods.

Pauanias:

When he [Theagenes] died, a man who had been one of his enemies while he was alive came to the image [memorial statue] of Theagenes every night and flogged the bronze as though he were causing pain to Theagenes himself. The statue finally put an end to this hybris by falling on the man and killing him, but subsequently his children proceeded to prosecute the image for murder. So the Thasians dumped the statue into the sea, following the judgment of Drakon, who, when he wrote laws dealing with homicide for the Athenians, banished every non-living things if any of them, in falling, happened to kill a man. After a time a time, however, when the earth yielded no crops to the Thasians, they send envoys to Delphi, and the god responded by telling them that they should receive back their exiles. But although in obedience to this advice they received them back, they obtained no relief from the famine. Therefore they went a second time to the Pythian priestess, saying that, although they had done what was commanded them, the wrath of the gods was still upon them. Thereupon the Pythia answered them: ‘You leave unremembered your great Theagenes.’ And they say that when they were at their wits’ end as to a means by which thy could rescue the statue of Theagenes, some fisherman, after putting out to sea in search of fish, caught the statue in their net and brought it back to the land. The Thasians set the statue up where it originally stood, and they now have the custom of worshipping him as if he were a god.” (6.11.2-9)

So then idols not as a deification of inert matter, but as the rectification of religious languages into images with shared meanings among the faithful, made to act as intermediaries between man & god.

Don't mind & body learn to cooperate over time.
Rug rats don't walk.
It takes time and lots of energy to learn how this apparatus works.

So an albino raven is not a raven?
https://youtu.be/EfYH7a4RBAo

Since inauguration, Amazon's #1 best seller is Orwell's 1984.

Animal Farm may also enjoy renewed interest.

The arrival of the pig-man embryo might suggest a progression from post truth to post human to post moral by way of pragmatics

I'am working my way thru Plato Sophist following is one of the 'god like' Stranger from Elea conclusions:

"Stranger: When we speak of that which is not,' it seems that we do not mean something contrary to what exists but only something that is different". 257b

Still thinking that there are two (or more) kinds of facts.

1) Our immediate perception of reality which is constantly changing
2) Habitual facts, facts that seem to stick around like the fact that when I push on the light switch the light comes on. This kind of fact is abased on a cultural understanding of how things works. Many of these actions, "I turn on the light" are automatic, they don't typically require any judgement (except when the switch doesn't work) they have become ingrained in us.

I think the perceptual fact that 'the cat is on the mat' is neither true nor false. The cat just is on the mat. But this fact could also be the answer to a question, where is the cat? "The cat is on the mat", which is either a true or false answer.

The 2nd kind of fact, is derived from a series of judgments (which can be true or false) whose conclusion has the same force for us as our perception of the cat on the mat. These conclusions are neither true nor false, they are about the state of affairs that are responsible for our phenomenal experience, their conclusions are ontologically prior to their consideration. Similar to our understanding of the composition of salt.

Still think use of the word 'fact' is equivocal. Sure I can accept that facts are neither true nor false, simply states of affairs, but who decides what are those states of affair. It is easy to determine if 'the cat is on the mat' is a fact is quite another thing to say that salt is comprised of sodium & chlorine.

It seems that I can easily tell whether or not the cat is on the mat, but in the case of what salt is composed of, I have had to accept a whole conceptual frame work to recognize that it is a fact.


Just noticed Question's '2+2=4' question. I don't consider it a fact, that is a true statement.

Yes, I think you can say that facts are always true. Determining what are the facts is not such a trivial matter in science, and politically at least here in US.

The new administration wants us to believe "alternate facts", that climate change is a myth, that twice the number of people showed up for his administration as reported....the ideological rendering of events... He has ordered all Federal agencies under the executive branch to stop communication with media. He wants all information to be channeled through his command structure.

Trump's press secretary suggested yesterday that Trump is a conspiracy theorist. He is an example of a person who can brush aside demonstrable facts for what he believes and many actually accept his view.

So I guess, at least in politics we need to ask, whose facts.

It is pausible to suggest that a person should not be judged morally culpable if his/her actions were beyond their control,
Thomas Nagel quotes Kant:
http://philosophyfaculty.ucsd.edu/faculty/rarneson/Courses/NAGELMoralLuck.pdf

The good will is not good because of what it effects or accomplishes or because of its
adequacy to achieve some proposed end; it is good only because of its willing, i.e., it is
good of itself And, regarded for itself, it is to be esteemed incomparably higher than
anything which could be brought about by it in favor of any inclination or even of the sum
total of all inclinations. Even if it should happen that, by a particularly unfortunate fate or
by the niggardly provision of a step motherly nature, this will should be wholly lacking in
power to accomplish its purpose, and if even the greatest effort should not avail it to
achieve anything of its end, and if there remained only the good will (not as a mere wish
but as the summoning of all the means in our power), it would sparkle like a jewel in its
own right, as something that had its full worth in itself Usefulness or fruitlessness can
neither diminish nor augment this worth.

Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, first section, third paragraph

We tend to question whether or not one has control over their actions, and Kant seems to deny this has any bearing on the morality of the action, which he thinks it is only based on what one wills. Nagel defines moral luck as

Where a significant aspect of what someone does depends on factors beyond his control, yet we continue to treat him in that respect as an object of moral judgment, it can be called moral luck

So to your example only with twin Nazis, one brother stays in Germany goes through the full Nazi indoctrination and is responsible as you have outlined, the other moved to Argentina and led a quiet 'moral' life. Can the life of one of these brothers more culpable or meritorious then the other? and how can that determination be made? Can anyone ever be in full control of their actions. and if not, then how does this not entail nihilism.

If a drunk driver returns to home with no issue, is he/she any more moral than a drunk driver who hits a child on the way home.

We tend to judge morality baed the results of actions. So perhaps Gauguin wasn't morally bad, we can see all the beautiful work he created. Or maybe he was just lucky. Our judgement would be very different if his works were flops.

Nagel questions whether or not we should give up the idea of control.

Trump's foreign policy is difficult to see. He is putting it all together as he goes along. But he seems too focussed on what he thinks is fair trade. He wants to negotiate deals: that's what he does, and that is what he has always done.

Mexico, his concern is with illegal immigrants and much how US corporations have found it to be a lower cost alternative to operation in the US. It remains to be seen what kind of relationship he will have with Trudeau, a liberal but perhaps Trump's kind of liberal. In any case he wants out of NAFTA.

He withdrew from TPP agreement today. He wants to negotiate. His dance with China ought to be one of the more entertaining aspects of the next 4 years. Trump has the upper hand, US GDP 18 Trillion versus China 11 Trillion. (2016 estimated)

He also has upper hand in regards to EU with 17 Trillion dollar GDP (2016) and with the loss of UK, now 14.4 Trillion. Trump needs May as much as May needs Trump.

Trump is the first US President I can recall that has put the US's Economic strength out there as the primary thrust of foreign policy. The US has always paid & played its part in world affairs, which has ended up with many countries supporting US policies. Trump's unwillingness to pay for more than what he thinks is the USA's fair share may ruffle some old allies.

Who knows with Russia? Trump and Putin seem cut from similar cloth and both seems to have similar lack of regard for NATO. Trump because USA pays around 75% of its cost, Russia for security reasons.

Mideast, he and Bebi seem to get along well, and we know that he likes Erdogan. I don't really think he has expressed much about the other Arab nations, beyond his claim that he will wipe out ISIS.

Of course Nigel Farage, Trump's unofficial European policy adviser ought to provide Trump with some interesting ideas. :)

OK, but he won, and his henchmen will be spinning "alternative facts" at us for the next 4 years. It may not affect all thinking people, but that said, how many in the general population think about such things? The majority accept what is said at face value.

It needs to be offset, otherwise misinformation will be taken as information by the many. The question is what can we do. I sincerely hope that Trump & the GOP get mired in litigation so deep that they cannot possibly act.

Ethical groups have already sued him for conflict of interest in regards to his Washington Hotel lease. He is in violation of lease terms, which prohibit political ownership. I think this is the tip of the iceberg.

Washington Post excerpted Chuk Todd (Meet the Press) conversation with Conway yesterday
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/01/22/how-kellyanne-conway-ushered-in-the-era-of-alternative-facts/?utm_term=.fb51df157064:

KELLYANNE CONWAY: Don't be so overly dramatic about it, Chuck. What-- You're saying it's a falsehood. And they're giving Sean Spicer, our press secretary, gave alternative facts to that. But the point remains--
...
“Alternative facts are not facts. They are falsehoods.” — Chuck Todd in his interview with Kellyanne Conway, Trump's top spokesperson

Fake news is a serious problem. Psychology Today (1/22/17) proposes that it might be treated as a disease. a disease which one can be vaccinated against.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes-way/201701/fake-news-vaccine-inoculates-against-alternative-facts The researchers used a fake news poll which indicated that

“31,487 American scientists have signed this petition, including 9,029 with PhDs stating there is no evidence that man-made carbon dioxide emissions will cause climate change.

The researchers found that the most effective way to inoculate someone to potential misinformation was to take a two-pronged 'vaccination' approach:

First, the general inoculation consisted of a warning: "Some politically-motivated groups use misleading tactics to try and convince the public that there is a lot of disagreement among scientists."

Second, another detailed inoculation picked apart the Oregon petition based on specifics. For example, by highlighting that many of the supposed signatories are fraudulent, such as Charles Darwin and members of the Spice Girls. Also pointing out that less than 1 percent of signatories actually had backgrounds in climate science.

The Inoculation Theory, which developed by social psychologist William J. McGuire in 1961 was proposed for multiple contexts including politics.

I thoroughly disagree. I've been there and done it. There is no way you want to put a child through the anger, pain, and turmoil of a bad marriage. Its adversely affects all the lives that involved, fuck traditional values.

I agree with Agustino on this,

You'd have to actually present an argument that acausality is logically contradictory.

Isn't this the problem. Causality can't be logically anything but the the way it is, to conflate it with reason is the problem Hume had with it. Nature is not set up to follow our logic.

I'll try and give you an analogy. Imagine two people A and B. A is wearing red filter glasses (i.e. allows only red light to pass through) and B is wearing blue filter glasses. Both of them are now shown a white object. As is expected A would see the object as red but would call this white while B would see it as blue and would only know it as white. In this case A's white is different from B's white and yet they'd both agree that the object is white.

What distinguishes a red-red object from a red-white object? Isn't the red-white object redundant? Or?

When you say "law" you mean whatever is subscribed to as law where you at, which in most cases already decided politically, historically, by statute. I think that means that law describes the normal scope or frame of reference of acceptable human behavior within a normative group.

Some, like Agamben, suggest that " the particular structure of law has as its foundations in the propositional structure of human language." apparently because language is "the perfect element in which interiority is as external as external is internal" (Hegel).

The law is not about sanction or punishment but about guilt.

If truth, then isn't it necessarily in us as part of a community that uses the same normative rules.

Hey TL, I like the music you posted. Both are lyrical poems set to music, laments about doomed love. "Dream Brother"'s music seems to act as the backdrop for the singer's voice, its music expands out from simple notes, its language is much more complex than "Heart's a Mess" which seemed to me to totally different, almost a comfortable/smooth rocking reggae/calypso back beat. "Heart's a Mess" music rocks its way though the song working its way into the connection that he is so desperate to make. His singing voice reminds me of Sting on this song.

A work of art mediates the strife between the form and matter. This strife is in every work of art, but strife is not the lyrical "I", which (I think) speaks to us from the work, the character of the work, the linguistic quality of the work, how it ties into the narrative we tell our self about how we live, what we desire.

I wonder about their honesty. "Dream Brother" is about abandonment and Heart's a Mess about inability to connect. What is the honest response to "Dream Brother"...maybe this separation is right for the children, an unhappy marriage can't be good for children. The song relates the singer's lack of experience with his father... his antagonism is because of his father's abandonment, which does not mean that his friend will abandon his children.

"Heart's a Mess" simple language is repeated and repeated, his voice almost sounds like Sting (to me) the power of the song is seems to lie in its motion and in the simple language of its refrains.

I like "Heart's a Mess" more than" Dream Brother", perhaps because I can relate to it better than I can to "Dream Brother". "Heart's a Mess" has an infectious beat that works for me.

Maybe you could post a song on TPF's creative thread, I would love to hear your voice.

Let's say an algorithm was discovered that would give machines the ability to have experiences of color, sound, or whateve

Inert things don't think or feel, and I think it is a mistake (voodoo) to attribute either property to inanimate objects. Pencil and paper are tools same as the computer. All tools have some designed function, pencil to write, paper to be written upon and computer to conserve paper and save tired wrists :). The fact that the computer has a drastically more complex design does not make it anything more than a tool.

The awareness of the sensation of a feeling.

"Where is the truth"

In history.

Note how there is only one experiencer per phenomenal world. Each experiencer is shut up in their own private phenomenal world and isolated from every other experiencer. This means communication between experiencers is impossible because there is no way to share experiences. I call this “group solipsism”

But we do talk in languages and we write. We follow along and reply to what others have said or written. If there is a technical reason why that's not sufficient then whatever that reason is does not live up to experience as we experience it, it can't be phenomenal. Don't we correct each others mistakes from time to time.

The world is not governed by men of power, but by economic necessity.

If "economic necessity" means pragmatic scientific reason, governing the world versus our current ideological morass then forget it. Those that survive the cataclysm will find no entertainment value if every issue is dealt with rationally. Humanity almost certainly (?) will not survive the sheer boredom of a world with nothing to do.

Entertainment value seems to have more ideological sway in our society than any rational argument. The drama of the times, the complete horror of Syria, is (I think) our version of the Roman's spectacles in the Coliseum. The recent trend in exchanging establishment figures for individuals who entertain the best, is only just starting, I think.

"Every idea or presentation which we acquire either through sense perception or imagination is an example of a mental phenomenon. By presentation I do not mean that which is presented, but rather the act of presentation.

Do you think we are passive conduits of experience to our self, that the act of presentation is something that we only can experience as an observer. Or do you think that our experiences are representative and that we are in some sense responsible for what we experience as that which we represent to our self.

For example say I want to know whether I should spend the day studying at the library or volunteering for a homelessness charity there is no right answer. I might have a subjective preference. Charity may be seen as morally preferable but more claims seem based on sentiment and seem to require teleology (i.e.ought's) to be compelling. I think emotions are probably the key motivator but I can't see a relationship between emotion and the truth.

I think there are different aspects to 'truth', where scientific 'truth' is one aspect, another is logical, another moral. It may be pragmatically right to study in the library, especially if you want to achieve excellent grades; at the same time it may good to be charitable. What can be described as the pragmatic right course of action may not necessarily be the morally good course of action.

While science rules out teleology, it is comprised of its own normative rules which are pragmatically useful if we wish to achieve certain results. I think somewhat of the same ground holds for human behavior. We act based on normative accepted rules, which we can either accept or deny. The laws (written & unwritten) of the society where one lives provide the basis for most normative judgments about what is right or wrong. These laws, similar to scientific laws, are neither good nor bad, but in either case there are undeniable consequences for denying either type of law. Reason and desire are inexorably enmeshed in all our actions and while desire may rule reason to find pragmatic courses of action to achieve its object, the decision as to which action is the most pragmatic is a rational decision.

I think moral laws involve what constitutes a good action not just for an individual but for an individual as part of the human race, i.e., as if it were a necessary action everyone ought to do given the same set of circumstances.

It's been awhile since I have read the Genealogy of Morals, but I recall that Nietzsche used a technical term "ressentment" a form of resentment. Wikipedia has pretty good discussion about it

Ressentiment is a sense of hostility directed at that which one identifies as the cause of one's frustration, that is, an assignment of blame for one's frustration. The sense of weakness or inferiority and perhaps jealousy in the face of the "cause" generates a rejecting/justifying value system, or morality, which attacks or denies the perceived source of one's frustration. This value system is then used as a means of justifying one's own weaknesses by identifying the source of envy as objectively inferior, serving as a defense mechanism that prevents the resentful individual from addressing and overcoming their insecurities and flaws. The ego creates an enemy in order to insulate itself from culpability.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ressentiment

I think we see this type of ressetiment occurring around the world today.

We all live in a society which is governed by laws. These laws help keep society ordered and functional. We learn at an early age that to kill, steal, trespass, and many other actions will put us in jeopardy with the prevailing laws. There are explicit rules, but society also has implicit rules, cultural imperatives that also govern behavior, and which vary from culture to culture.

Morality is not learnt like geometry. I think to a large extent we see how other people act, what the say about how they acted, and we assume some of these roles but not others, and we act according, that is normatively. Many times we don't appreciate the consequences of our actions, it is only in times of moral crisis that we actual give deep thought to the motives and possible consequences of our actions and in these cases I think we try to act in accordance with all we know, feel, and imagine.

"just a bunch of meeks

Possibly Bill Maher joke:' Who cares...they're just a bunch of meeks...we'll just take it back from them.Ba dum dum'

The origins of modern mass advertising & propaganda lie in national state's need for men, arms and investment in WWI & WWII. "the [First] World War led to the discovery of propaganda by both the man in the street and the man in the study," Harold Lasswell. The nation was desperate for its whole population to get behind these wars (same as it ever was but now supported by radio and film). It became advertising patriotic mission and media was given the responsible for giving advertising and propaganda its mass appeal.

These efforts in the USA brought about The Committee for Public Information (CPI) was formed by US Gov in 1917 Wikipedia:

The purpose of the CPI was to influence American public opinion toward supporting U.S. participation in World War I via a prolonged propaganda campaign. The CPI at first used material that was based on fact, but spun it to present an upbeat picture of the American war effort. In his memoirs, Creel [head of CPI]claimed that the CPI routinely denied false or undocumented atrocity reports, fighting the crude propaganda efforts of "patriotic organizations" like the National Security League and the American Defense Society that preferred "general thundering" and wanted the CPI to "preach a gospel of hate."

After the First World War consumer groups, consumer unions formed which "objected to the industry's reliance on image and emotions to sell products, and labeled many industry practices as business propaganda and even undemocratic [From review of professor Inger Stole, book "Advertising at War." 2012] Consumer advocates demanded advertising that provided only legitimate product information and gave consumers "their money's worth". There was even legislation proposed but it never became law.

Until WWII, and again the Government needed full support of the population and it got involved in propaganda and advertising for people to be patriotic and do everything they could to support the war effort. Stole stated that "advertisers turned a situation that by all rational accounts should have worked to their disadvantage into a priceless opportunity to cement their place in a postwar society." Governments found that advertising could sell both war and peace.

He was knocked around the ring.
He was KO'd ( knocked out-- abbreviation) in the third round
He delivered a knockout shot to the jaw.

though for it to strike them as it does, they must overlook the fact that if it makes sense to speak of an experience as veridical it must correspondingly make sense to speak of it as unveridical.

Hmm. Why does Sellars think this?

He wants to formally separate sense datum from our conception of sense datum, the former non-cognitive and non-intelligible and the latter both cognitive and intelligible.

So:

"I had experience x."
"I had experience x, and it was veridical."

Where "I had experience x", is a report. The actual experience, at its own level of immediacy has no valuation, no intelligible content. We may be unable to be wrong about having an experience, but that does not give it any value, only its report can be judged true or false. To claim that immediate sense experience has any true or false value is to commit the naturalistic fallacy.

(Y)

Facts are particulars. Re his examples of facts: (i) something's being thus-and-so, and (ii) something's standing in a certain relation to something else, those are both examples of particulars on my view.

Not sure I understand what you are referring to in regard to what he says. Seller's thinks that particulars are sensed. The problem he has, as I understand it, is that in that the sensation of sense datum can't act as epistemic knowledge of what is being sensed, sense datum itself is non-cognitive.

How do you conceive of sense datum?


My concern has to do with what is Given. Suppose I'm walking though a park and I say "that tree is green" did what I experienced (the green tree) demonstrate its presence to me as part of my experience of the park or does the statement "that tree is green" represent my experience, which in itself has no content.

The difference is that on the representational approach, I am to some extent responsible for what I experience and on the presentational approach I am somewhat passive in regards to the tree I experience.