If one is not interested in convincing people ...good for him...the idea remains fair game for dissection — Nickolasgaspar

Of course you can dissect whatever is presented. If you criticize ideas for not being rationally justifiable, however, when they were not presented as such; then you are merely sniffing up the wrong trail.

-I prefer to hold true beliefs, its my vice.....so personal preference. I find being informed to be helpful. — Nickolasgaspar

Helpful for what?

Pragmatism. What use is knowledge that ain't useful. — apokrisis

A mere tautology?

Even poetry is supposed to be useful according to its promoters. — apokrisis

Assuming this is correct, do you think their notion of 'use' is equivalent to yours? Is personal transformation or even mere pleasure a use in your book?

what is your point? — Nickolasgaspar

That people have different motivations for presenting their ideas.

I hold irrational beliefs,but in contrast to those who you defend, I am interested in identifying and correcting them.
Try addressing the points made by your interlocutor...don't' construct accusations out of thin air mate. — Nickolasgaspar

The points you make are based on a narrow conception of both people's motivations for presenting ideas and the epistemological status of the ideas they present. Don't worry; if I think that people are incorrectly imagining that the beliefs they are presenting are rationally justifiable, I will be the first to let them know,

No need to be defensive; what are you trying to defend? I haven't constructed any accusations, out of thin air or otherwise, that I am aware of.

Just out of interest, what is the assumption upon which you base your belief that it is necessary or desirable to identify and correct all your irrational beliefs?

So we wont find any of those in philosophical forums debating their beliefs.......oh wait!
lol. — Nickolasgaspar

Of course you will find many who feel compelled to argue that their beliefs, although neither logically entailed by anything, or empirically evidenced by anything; are nonetheless rationally justifiable. Others may just present their ideas (whether they count as beliefs or merely entertainments) in case someone may find them interesting or inspiring or whatever. You know...like poetry...

independent of their intentions,from the moment they share their views we have to inform them that they hold irrational beliefs. — Nickolasgaspar

We all hold irrational beliefs; or at least beliefs which are not strictly rationally supportable. If you think you are exempt from that, then there's an irrational belief right there.

Those who accept a claim as true need to provide justification for it. — Nickolasgaspar

Only if they wish to convince others that their beliefs are true.

The contradiction is that we assured by naturalism that the Universe has no inherent meaning, that the idea that life has a reason for existing is an anachronistic throwback to an ignorant age. Whereas it was assumed by pre-modern philosophy that things exist for a reason and that the rational faculty is what enables us to grasp it. — Wayfarer

But it is an impoverished naturalism that is not replete with meaning. Not sure what "inherent meaning" would be implying since meaning is a function of percipients responding to signs, as I understand it. So meaning is contingent on percipients and the signs that they find meaning in, isn't it?

I don't know what "things exist for a reason" could even mean. Things exist and we find meanings in them. Are you suggesting that the existence of things has some absolute purpose? Of course we can kind of imagine that it does, but that imagining is ineluctably vague, since we cannot rightly say what that purpose could be. If we do say what that purpose is we will inevitably be wrong because we would be indulging in fundamentalism.

So much for the sovereignty of reason, then. Rather vitiates philosophy, doesn't it? (Oh, the irony.) — Wayfarer

Well, the point is that we do philosophy regardless, and we take ourselves to be making sense. How do we know that is not compatible with our intellects having evolved naturalistically? To say that it is not may be a mistake we make on account of not being able to understand how the two facts (if they are facts) that our intellects have evolved and that they make sense, could be compatible.

It seems obvious that our intellects have evolved, and it does not seem obvious they have been designed by a transcendent intelligence; reason is sovereign for us regardless, simply because it seems self-evident that it must be, on pain of absurdity.

In other words, what if our convictions are not nothing more than instinctive responses, but are instinctive responses, and validly, or not, reasoned conclusions? Must it be either/ or?

But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind? — Charles Darwin, private correspondence

Presuming that our convictions are nothing more than instinctive responses, the idea of questioning the morality of a purported higher authority really is incoherent, because the whole idea of a higher authority, and the question itself, would also be nothing more than instinctive responses.

:up: Nature looks horrible when the assumption is that it has been intelligently designed. Then individual disapprobation does not look absurd because an intelligent designer would naturally be presumed to be ethically aware and motivated.

So, on reflection I see that it would be absurd to invoke a higher authority as support for one's disapproval of nature unless one followed the Gnostics in believing that the world was created, not by the highest god, but by another power such as the self-deluded deity they called Yaldabaoth (if memory serves); an unintelligent designer.

I think almost everyone has the capacity for atrocity. It simply takes the 'right' situation or triggers - war; holocausts; dictatorships, extremes of poverty, prison... — Tom Storm

I agree and hence the caveat "self-motivated atrocities", which was meant to make the distinction from being sucked into mob thinking or performing an atrocious duty out of fear, and so on.

The fact something is natural doesn't give it a free pass... — Tom Storm

"Free pass" just according to you, or are you invoking the idea of higher authority? If it is just you; I have to say the idea of an individual disapproving of nature seems somehow absurd.

Yes, chimps beat, kill and sometimes cannibalize from their own tribe. — Tom Storm

I wasn't aware of that. I searched and could not find any reference to that behavior. Can you point me to one?

I didn't mean morally wrong. I meant wrong in the sense of disordered.

I wonder if our capacity for atrocities is simply the shadow side of our intellect.

It's understood chimps murder. They also patrol their boundaries and tear apart intruders. Dianne Fossey documented this and it shocked her.

Nature itself seem radically disordered - a suburban backyard is a bloodbath - insects and animals eat each other alive. Even the idea that food means eating another living thing seems perverse.

In relation to virtue ethics, I was pondering if this might be a third option as a source of ethical behavior or is it just an example of cultural values being interpreted by an individual? — Tom Storm

We all have intellects, but by no means all of us have a capacity for atrocities; at least not self-motivated atrocities.

Do chimps murder others of their own troop?

Eating others is necessary; it is part and parcel of the natural order; so I don't see it as disordered; it is, I think, by mere definition, not disordered.

I am not very familiar with the idea and tenets of virtue ethics, so I am probably the wrong person to ask about that question. I will say that I think all our principles and beliefs are pretty much examples of cultural values being interpreted by individuals.

Ethics are either a code of conduct set by a culture, based on values, traditions and evolving attitudes, or they are handed down by a transcendent source - (deity or idealism).

What are the other options? Does virtue ethics operate in the context of cultural values interacting with those of the individual? — Tom Storm

Other options? Perhaps, since we don't see other social animals murdering their fellows, there is also, at least in regard to murder, an instinctive anti-disposition. Should we think of anyone capable of murder as being somehow radically disordered?

I'm not clear on what your question regarding virtue ethics is; do you want to elaborate?

Surely there must be a reason not to murder, else what makes it wrong? — Hanover

The fact that it is, at the very least, a radically antisocial act? Would you not consider it wrong if any social animal killed its fellows?

Efficient cause can't explain anything all on its lonely ownsome. A holism which can provide the context is always going to be the other half of the story that completes the causal picture. — apokrisis

I see efficient cause as being both a necessary and sufficient (given the presence of the other necessary conditions) condition for any event. The three other kinds being necessary conditions.

:up:

Nothing is truly random and uncaused. Even that is a relative judgement. — apokrisis

I could equally say that nothing is truly determined and caused, and that a claim that it is is also a relative judgement.

Sure I understand that, but even if we could establish initial conditions, if some events are truly uncaused and random, then the unfolding would never be the same; and the less so, the longer the timeframe, no?

If you could set up exactly the same circumstances twice, the outcome ought to be exact. But because you can't, you can only get arbitrarily close to making history repeat. — apokrisis

Can't see why that would be so, given Quantum indeterminism.

(can one hand clapping make a sound? — Agent Smith

Indeed it can; try it and see.

One day someone will explain to me how handing someone a gun while they are in the middle of a child murdering spree - and profiting from it - is somehow less contemptable than giving someone money so they can buy their own gun to murder children.

Presumably this someone will be a shameless apologist for murdering children. — StreetlightX

It all depends on the situation, and on who knows what about what. I'm not saying what the US has done in contributing to the oppression, suffering and killing of the Yemenis is justifiable.

But even there, merely selling arms to the Saudis and the UAE, while being able to claim (whether plausibly or not) "plausible" deniability is not the same as financing them specifically in order to attack and kill Yemenis.

The point is, turning a blind eye to something terrible (as terrible as that is) is not as bad as actively promoting it.

In your example it would depend on whether you gave money to someone on condition that they use it to buy a gun and murder children with it, or just gave them money to do whatever they want with.

In any case, why are we talking about that when the specific topic here is the question of whether Putin's actions in Ukraine are justifiable? The situation in Yemen has no bearing on this; each should be judged in its own right (or wrong).

It's a distinction without much of a difference. Yemeni civilians are being killed with US weapons and the US is profiting from them being killed. Whether the support is direct finance or sweetheart weapons deals doesn't mitigate the ethics of the situation a whole lot, does it? — Baden

Financing shows a vested interest in the outcome. Selling arms show opportunism. It's a distinction with a difference, ethically speaking.

Ergo, 45% of people alive today are 'pieces of shit'? — Theorem

A bit of an underestimate, I'd say... :razz:

For countries that are democracies, it follows that people want war. — FreeEmotion

No, it follows that people want security. It's totally wrong-headed, I know, but as long as there are countries who continue to develop arms and increase their military capability, other countries prosperous enough to do so will follow suit.

What can be said? We're a fucked-up species.

Putin is a piece of shit. — frank

All the empty smart-arse rhetoric from the Putin apologists in this thread, and yet that is indeed what it comes down to.

I'm making the same point as our friend Galuchat: the meaning of

I

is not in the line, it's in our minds. — Daemon

I wouldn't say the meaning of that mark 'I' is in our minds, rather the range of possible meanings is dependent on its culturally embedded associations.

It could represent 1, capital i, or a small L. It could be a stick figure of a tower or an erect penis, or a tree with all it branches removed. If you use your imagination you might find many other things it could be taken to represent.

When it comes to deciphering hieroglyphics it is not individual symbols which possess meaning (although they might be iconic insofar as they might have originally pictorial represented something human, animal, or plant figure, and so on; the meanings is in the individual's place within the referential totality of symbols it belongs to. I believe that is how ancient symbols have been deciphered. The same goes for cracking codes.

Your critique is analogous to looking at a painting through a high-powered microscope and saying, 'there's no Mona Lisa here, just a bunch of organic compounds'. — Theorem

Or saying "there's no organic compounds there, just a bunch of bosons, leptons and quarks.

Right, I probably framed that backwards. When I am not calm (stressed) the mind is racing. But that is not the characteristic state which tends more towards the calm.

And that possibility obtains also in the empirical sciences, which are perennially defensible. — Janus


No, I do not. Coffee is my vice, and that's it. I also want to apologize for that response yesterday, it was out of line and rude. — Philosophim

Hey no worries, man; I didn't take it as being rude, anyway; more as just an expression of exasperation. By the way that should have been "perennially defeasible".

Human intuition and feelings are often wrong. However, there is nothing wrong with being honest that it is only human intuition and feelings. As long as you state, "Yes, there's no evidence for this, but wouldn't it be fun to explore!" there's no issue. Its when people start claiming that their intuitions and feelings are true claims about reality without any evidence, but claim there is evidence as I've defined, that the exploration has become dishonest and outside of the realm of truth. — Philosophim

Human intuitions and feelings about empirical matters are often wrong. When it comes to intuitions about metaphysical matters we don't really know.

All I've been saying is that inter-subjective evidence has to satisfy inter-subjective criteria; whereas someone can count their intuitions or experiences as evidence for themselves alone. Such "subjective" evidence can never be counted as inter-subjective evidence, though, because "intuition" is not a satisfactory criterion for inter-subjective evidence.

Built into the very meaning of the entity as I experienced it right now is its particular relevance to me. Relevance is covered over by the third person mode of thinking. — Joshs

Now this I can agree with.

When I perceive myself as ‘stilling’ or quieting my mind, I am not reducing thoughts. — Joshs

My experience is that when I am calm the mind is not "racing". For me it is the difference between a raging torrent and a gently meandering stream. But there's nothing to say we are all exactly the same.

I'm certainly no longer interested in heroic doses. :smile:

:smile: Cheers, I'll check those out.

Thanks ZZZ, I've had plenty of experience with Psilocybe cubensis (but not for about 8 years and then it was "heroic doses", not microdoses); they grow abundantly in cow shit in the area I inhabit.

I had some wild experiences with hallucinogens 20 years ago so now I only microdose. Not sure I've seen the same pit but I've certainly encountered a pit or two of my own. The microdosing is an interesting solution to the bad-trip issue. — ZzzoneiroCosm

I haven't tried microdosing; do you find it different/ more interesting than cannabis?

There are a few more or less scholarly works on lucid dreaming that can help, I'll send them your way if you're interested. A Google search would do it too. :smile: — ZzzoneiroCosm

I'd be interested to take a look at he works you recommend. It's always good to start with recommendations, f you name them I can search for them. :cool:

No. It confirmed to me that the whole thing was pretentious bullshit. But still, it was another thing that got me in interested in the real story of how it all works. — apokrisis

I don't think it is pretentious bullshit, and I don't claim that sustaining those states is impossible (LSD works well for that for many hours at least), but it is the impossibility of substantiating claims that it is possible that lead me to believe that it is always a matter of faith. I don't believe any determinate and CERTAIN knowledge of anything (like the nature of reality, the existence of god and so on) is possible, despite claims of "perfect enlightenment" and so on.

I do think that is a myth, or at least that if it is possible or even actual, it can never be demonstrated to be so. On the other hand it cannot be demonstrated not be so, either, except in the intersubjective context it can be demonstrated to be undecidable. In other words it is always possible there is a god and that some people do know it directly, but whatever claims they might make about it are subject, just like everything else, from the discursive point of view, to being defeasible.

Instead of meditation, I like to get "in the zone" playing sport. And that is of course more in keeping with my enactive metaphysics. Transcendence as a flashing down the line backhand. :wink: — apokrisis

I can relate to that; I do it with woodworking, painting, playing the piano and writing poetry. I don't meditate much these days.

Except the mind isn’t a mirror of the world, it’s a reciprocal interaction with an environment. Thoughts don’t appear before an unchanging theater of the mind , they transform the experiencer. We come back to ourself from out of what we perceive. — Joshs

I wasn't making any theoretical claims about the relation between mind and world or that there is a mental theatre. I know from experience that I perceive things with greater clarity and vividness the less my mind is agitated by thoughts; that's all I was referring to.

That's what I've been working toward in my practice lately: bridging the gap between meditation and lucid dreaming. — ZzzoneiroCosm

OK, I've not tried lucid dreaming much. Except I remember many years ago when I read the "don Juan" books by Castaneda, the instruction Don Juan gave to Castaneda was to find his hands in his dream. I used to try that and I once found them, but then I descended into a kind of "pit" of paralysis accompanied by an intense grinding sound, where I felt I was about to die and I had to struggle back to normal consciousness. This same experience used to occur to me at a time I was taking a lot of hallucinogens when I was on the edge of falling asleep; instead of falling asleep I would fall into the pit instead, always with the grinding or roaring sound. Weird!

I'm chary of the word "stillness" vis-a-vis the human mind. I don't think literal stillness is something the mind can do. After 20 years of meditative practice, the pursuit of stillness strikes me as a major, possibly the preeminent, pitfall of meditative aspiration. — ZzzoneiroCosm

I also meditated for about 18 years, and my experience was that "stillness" consists in resisting the movement of thoughts; in not following them. I agree that total cessation of thought and imagery is probably impossible; but then who's to say? Neuroscience would presumably show that total cessation of neural activity is impossible (I mean that's all it could show, all that's measurable).