The principle of sufficient reason.

I am not a logician either, I think thought indicates being, but it cannot formally confirm any being beyond itself since our only access to being is though thought.

Chance:Randomness::Probability:Frequency

you lose dynamism as you age

and gain wisdom...bub

I think there is a close connection between desire as 'lack of' and progress as its fulfillment. The connection has to do with our attitude towards time, our cultural bias towards a linear future as the probable or improbable satisfaction of our desires.

“One thing only do I know for certain and that is that man's judgments of value follow directly his wishes for happiness-that, accordingly, they are an attempt to support his illusions with arguments. [p.111]”
― Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents

These arguments take the form of pragmatism, skepticism, stoicism, hedonism and so on.

My parents always had a glass of wine with their dinners, and at around age 7 they would mix a little wine in with some 7-Up and I could drink along with them. I've always treated wine primarily as a food accompaniment and I really can't drink wine and enjoy it without having something to nosh on.

I agree that liquor frees up inhibitions, that there is an immediacy which is not mediated. The things I say after a few drinks are more automatic. Of course in college beer was de rigueur and I did over indulge more than once or twice. It was a Catholic college, where the friars who were primarily WWII veterans would to go through an unbelievable amount of beer on the weekends.

It is said that Socrates could drink and drink and never get drunk, and I wonder if Aristotle ever did drink, but in ancient Greece drinking wine straight was considered barbaric. It was always mixed 2 to 3 times with water, which meant a lot of drinking was possible. In vino Veritas.

I think Charles Bukowsky was on to something when he said:

"Drinking is an emotional thing. It joggles you out of the standardism of everyday life, out of everything being the same. It yanks you out of your body and your mind and throws you against the wall. I have the feeling that drinking is a form of suicide where you're allowed to return to life and begin all over the next day. It's like killing yourself, and then you're reborn. I guess I've lived about ten or fifteen thousand lives now."

Suppose this is a matter of euthanasia. The patient may explicitly consent to it because they're in horrible pain, but does this violate their rights in any way?
If not, would we be violating their rights if they didn't consent (they wanted to remain alive, but they're still in pain)? If so, which rights?

A doctor makes a vow to do no harm. The patient in asking to be euthanized, asks doctor to void his vow, in order to help end the horrible pain, which both of you know will end in your death regardless of his actions. In many nations doctors who participate in euthanasia are guilty of a crime. The idea is that the right to life is not the right to death.

The doctor's vow not to harm understood literally, is the letter of the law. This vow has has a pragmatic component, such as not requiring extraordinary means to keep someone alive. It is in its pragmatic aspect, in its real life, lived aspect that euthanasia is in spirit of the law, where it is preferable to end a life to avoid a slow agonizing death. It ought to be allowed (with certain constraints) in my opinion. It's the spirit of the law which negates the letter of the law.

K, but

Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness

, includes life, I have the right to life. What does that mean to you John? My life is mine to do what I want with it? To end it if I want to? Don't rules, laws, morality, violate my right to live or not to live regardless of whether I consent to them or not.

I think you need to become clearer on what you mean by "rights" for example do I have the right to suicide, and do you have the right to assist or stop me?

Argument:Explanation::Reason:Cause

Money itself (fiat currency) is pretty much an abstraction; it's based on faith. Insubstantial. We hope to God that the faith in our money lasts. If not, we will be maximally screwed, and the screwing won't be at all abstract.

We as a nation confer certain values on currency, we give it a social reality, a social function, social power. It's has a subjective ontological reality. A stock index is a measure whose reality is derivative of the corporations it tracks for value.

Her mind is Tiffany-twisted, she got the Mercedes bends

I don't doubt the climate issue, but I wonder about the effectiveness of any international treaty of this sort. Sure there will be countries that will comply with the rules, but others will not comply, some have no intention of complying, hoping to take advantage of whatever low cost benefit they can derive from such a treaty. These countries can significantly undercut the efforts of the treaty. The free rider problem is real and it is problematic.

...the free-rider problem occurs when those who benefit from resources, goods, or services do not pay for them, which results in an underprovision of those goods or services For example, a free-rider may frequently ask for available parking lots (public goods) from the ones who have already paid for them, in order to benefit from free parking. At the end of the day, one may see that the free-rider have used the parking even more than the others without paying a single penny. The free-rider problem is the question of how to limit free riding and its negative effects in these situations. The free-rider problem may occur when property rights are not clearly defined and imposed.

Wikipedia

So, what do you think?

I think the butterfly effect is a reductio ad absurdam, an unending infinite regress.

The pressure to 'break' a news story, must be tremendous for news organizations such as the Washington Post, NYTimes, and the rest. It is not surprising that fake news gets reported. I guess the important thing is that the news organizations recognize that they were wrong and retract such stories, unlike many politicians who 'double down' instead or recognizing falsity of their own statements.

I have no special liking for Bezos or his retail outlet Amazon, which recently screwed up my account. It involved my moving and then trying to order something from them, forgetting my password. I went to their site, indicated that I forgot my password and they were supposed to text email me a temporary password, but none came. I called and eventually got to a person who told my that I was locked out because my account had been hacked. I asked why I had no been let know that someone had compromised my information, and the guy said they sent multiple emails which never came to me because of course my information had been hacked. I hung up on him and now bad mouth them whenever possible. >:O

The Washington Post indicates that

The United Arab Emirates orchestrated the hacking of Qatari government news and social media sites in order to post incendiary false quotes attributed to Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad al-Thani, in late May that sparked the ongoing upheaval between Qatar and its neighbors, according to U.S. intelligence officials.

UAE denies the story.

Fake news working, effectively causing the disruption it was meant to cause.

A sole proprietor owns all assets individually or with spouse. A sole proprietor can own multiple corporations, trusts and partnerships, and a corporation has same ability. I can't think of a difference when it comes to business insurance between what a corporation obtains and what an individual obtains...they are basically the same for similar sized protections. If I own a screw company individually or as a corporation and it is then destroyed by fire, I will want to collect either way.

Why do they have to? Why can't they act as a bunch of individuals within a hierarchical power structure, with responsibility and being commensurate with decision making power? What would the effects be if they acted that way?

The owners of a corporation do not have to be involved in the day to day activity of the corporation, although many are involved that way. The shareholders, those with the most to lose or gain, elect a president, and other corporate officers to operate the corporation because they have trust in these officers ability to generate a rate of return the shareholders finds commensurate with their investment.

They can act as a bunch of individual within a power structure (for instance as nodes), it all depends on how the corporation operating structure is established.

Regarding the liability issue, insurance is the answer. A sole proprietor buys insurance as does a corporation, in order to protect assets. Willful negligence may abrogate such protection.

The corporate structure has several advantages for stockholders. Sure protection of the shareholder from personal liability is important but I think corporate structure as a way of holding ownership is why people choose to incorporate. A corporation issues shares of ownership so that the risks and profits of the business can be shared among many owners on a pro-rata basis. It is also taxed differently than an individual, and is treated differently in bankruptcy.

Corporations are treated like persons in order for them to conduct business to enter into contracts, I don't agree with all the exceptions provided to corporations as you indicate, but they have long standing in courts. Corporations have to able to act as individual entities, but to what extent?

I've had good and bad customer service experiences. The fully automated systems make me peevish,
"I said no"..."what did you say, I think you said no...is that correct? Arrgh! Caught in a capitalist time loop. Or you get connected to customer service room located is some very foreign country where basic communication is challenged and you suspect it is a kind of revenge for asking.

Is there any answer to this objection?

If you accept that God is outside of time, that he knows everything that ever was or will ever be, then "whatever comes to pass" is memory for him, and as such he cannot change his own memories, therefore what ever we do is freely done.

Do you think reincarnation and eternal re-occurrence are different? Perhaps reincarnation suggests a history and eternal re-occurrence does not.

Also more mundanely :

On August 3, 2007, China's State Administration for Religious Affairs issued a decree that all the reincarnations of tulkus of Tibetan Buddhism must get government approval, otherwise they are "illegal or invalid". The decree states, "It is an important move to institutionalize management on reincarnation of living Buddhas. The selection of reincarnates must preserve national unity and solidarity of all ethnic groups and the selection process cannot be influenced by any group or individual from outside the country." It also requires that temples which apply for reincarnation of a living Buddha must be "legally-registered venues for Tibetan Buddhism activities and are capable of fostering and offering proper means of support for the living Buddha."

wikipedia

Wallace Stevens Six Significant Landscapes

Six Significant Landscapes
I
An old man sits
In the shadow of a pine tree
In China.
He sees larkspur,
Blue and white,
At the edge of the shadow,
Move in the wind.
His beard moves in the wind.
The pine tree moves in the wind.
Thus water flows
Over weeds.

II
The night is of the colour
Of a woman's arm:
Night, the female,
Obscure,
Fragrant and supple,
Conceals herself.
A pool shines,
Like a bracelet
Shaken in a dance.

III
I measure myself
Against a tall tree.
I find that I am much taller,
For I reach right up to the sun,
With my eye;
And I reach to the shore of the sea
With my ear.
Nevertheless, I dislike
The way ants crawl
In and out of my shadow.

IV
When my dream was near the moon,
The white folds of its gown
Filled with yellow light.
The soles of its feet
Grew red.
Its hair filled
With certain blue crystallizations
From stars,
Not far off.

V
Not all the knives of the lamp-posts,
Nor the chisels of the long streets,
Nor the mallets of the domes
And high towers,
Can carve
What one star can carve,
Shining through the grape-leaves.

VI
Rationalists, wearing square hats,
Think, in square rooms,
Looking at the floor,
Looking at the ceiling.
They confine themselves
To right-angled triangles.
If they tried rhomboids,
Cones, waving lines, ellipses --
As, for example, the ellipse of the half-moon --
Rationalists would wear sombreros.

'Special"'s root is 'species':

late as a classification in logic, from Latin species "a particular sort, kind, or type" (opposed to genus), originally "a sight, look, view, appearance," hence also "a spectacle; mental appearance, idea, notion; a look; a pretext; a resemblance; a show or display," typically in passive senses; in Late Latin, "a special case;" related to specere "to look at, to see, behold," from PIE root *spek- "to observe." From 1550s as "appearance, outward form;" 1560s as "distinct class (of something) based on common characteristics." Biological sense is from c. 1600. Endangered species first attested 1964.

Trotsky and the molecular structure of the revolution...“tobogganing towards catastrophe,”

All social changes, minute at first , accumulates unseen and unknown by most continuing to form until the quantity of this unrest reaches critical level, the tipping point, and they become a new quality, a new structure a social explosion of a revolutionary quality.

Kaboom!

It goes like this: factory farms, the extinction of many species, the way that animals are treated in scientific research and by the entertainment/amusement industries, and other atrocities leave no doubt that humans see animals only for their instrumental value and that humans' history of cruelty to and indifference to the suffering of other animals makes humans the worst beings ever in all of the universe.

Agree here with TS, very difficult argument if taken seriously. The analogy argument between human and non-human animal suffering, breaks down I think. Are the people: who produce food for us, who attempt to cure our aliments, who entertain us, and those who eagerly buy that Big Mack, complicit in a morally travesty that seems to have gone on for as long as humans walked about?

St. Paul said

For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

There is a difference between knowing something deductively and actually viewing the keys in the ignition.

Meaning is use.

A consequence of that view is that meaning is embedded in what we do.

It is tempting to say that language is both in us and in the world; but even that juxtaposes "us" and "the world" in an erroneous fashion. We are not separate from the world.

Hence, it would be a grievous error to suppose that all there is, is language. It would also be wrong to suppose that all there is, is things.

You're boobing and weaving here, "the something more going on here" is a claim which based on a deduction, and is not intrinsic to the situation of locking your keys in the car. The validity of your claim would be impossible with out a plurality of observes who can potential verify it.

Do you think that something is in us, language, the world or maybe in the relationship between these?

Sure

If the keys are locked in the car, they will be locked in the car regardless of how you present or represent them.

The second interpretation.

"If the keys are locked in the car, they will be locked in the car regardless of how you present or represent them"

has an If-then, inferential form. The fact is "...the keys are locked in the car..." the rest is deduced

If the keys are locked in the car, they will be locked in the car regardless of how you present or represent them.

Is a deduction not a fact.

" Con Te Partiro " sung by " Andrea Bocelli

b try John Searle's Social Ontology

Lacan is best read through secondary sources unless you are taking a course. I like Bruce Fink's interpretation, Fink is very clear.

Just a train:
A $5.00 bill is a real representation, I can hand it over to you in repayment for a debt. It has presence and functionality, and its value is generally acceptable.

Inner voice, is more like the trains that enter and leave the station...thought-trains.

I saw the Fisher King a long time ago. The scene at the station where everyone was waltzing, the disorganized crowd started to move to the rhythm of the music. I don't think sensations are a like a disjointed buzzing mass of a crowd. A crowd that we put into a dance. I think sensations come in pre-structured chunks, that they already by and large fit together, and we construct perception out of these chunks into a coherent whole,

Regarding the inner voice, Chomsky:

Now let us take language. What is its characteristic use? Well, probably
99.9% of its use is internal to the mind. You can’t go a minute without talking
to yourself. It takes an incredible act of will not to talk to yourself.

Thought train...woo, woo!

I think she did just say it, and she said it more than once, she knew what she was doing...she did a Trump. They are both despicable from my viewpoint. She's a cheat and she is in Wall Street's pocket, and he is a bore, an ignoramus, a "pussy grabbing" misogynist.

I think language constitutes thought, but I don't think it is thought, I think thought is the workings of that "grand central station".

Well you talk to yourself don't you. Something like 90% of our language use is our own internal dialogue with our self.

"what is thought.. concept or sensation?"

I think sensation is a two stage process. What we are aware of is filtered, we pick out what deem important but this occurs at a different level than our initial awareness, and both stages occur in millionths of a second. I think both are possible, the same tree I pass each and every day does not provoke any thought, it is simply given. The tree that just crashed into the house provokes all sorts of representations which I can't easily get out of my mind.

Perhaps the ordering of sensations give rise to concepts and the ordering of concepts give rise to thought, where intentionality is a product of our organism as a whole. I think the work of the intellect is done in an imaginary space, where reason, desire & memory interact. The vehicle for this interaction is language, which already is ordered, meaningful, already valued both rationally and emotively.

Is it possible to eliminate the conceptual element altogether?

We do have a lot of repetitive functions that seem to involve very little thought. Such as coming to a stop at a red light while driving. There must be some short cut processes in us.

Perhaps some seers had brain issues in the form of epilepsy. I recently read speculation that Paul had a form of frontal lobe disorder as explanation of why he fell off his horse, but this is not a very popular explanation in Christian circles.