Those are all good examples and points. What I wonder about is whether. assuming all but necessary wastage could be eliminated, even distribution of prosperity at the present total level of consumption would be sustainable, or anywhere near sustainable.

Exponential population growth has been made possible by the exponential growth in technologies, notably medical technology. I think it is arguable that this exponential growth on technologies has been possible on account of fossil fuels (cheap energy) but the whole process, which has included a massive burgeoning of wasteful consumption, is "all of a piece", and the question seems to be whether it would have been possible without that wasteful consumption.

Human life is so unimaginably complex that I'm not confident that the whole can be understood sufficiently to answer such questions. It also seems impossible to separate considerations of over-population from thinking about excessive consumption, or any level of consumption. Every organism is a consumer when it comes right down to it.

The upshot seems to be that it is not merely a political problem we face—we may just have been too clever, technologically speaking, for our own good. At the same time, it seems impossible to see how more technological innovation, however brilliant, will be able to halt the damage being done to ecosystems, the degradation of which is proceeding apace and not, overall slowing down, but rather accelerating.

1. A belief is a (cognitive) stance taken on the trueness or falseness of a proposition; and
2. Beliefs make moral propositions true or false. — Bob Ross

You seem to misunderstand moral subjectivism. Beliefs do not make moral, or any other, propositions true or false per se, but moral subjectivists may assert that their believing what they understand to be a moral proposition makes it true for them. It doesn't follow that the propositions they hold to be true are truth apt—propositions may or may not be truth apt, regardless of whether or not they are believed to be true or false.

If there were life on millions or billions of planets and we were somehow able to study the evolution of life on all those planets, would we even then be able to show whether or not evolution is "directed"?

Since any putative "director" logically must exist outside the system to be directed, and thus beyond our capacity to detect it, I think the more relevant question is as to whether we have any good reason to think evolution is directed.

On the other hand, some say that continual and unending growth is required to supply a growing population with the means to live the kind of life we live now, or even a better life. — BC

If the population grows must not the economy grow with it if prosperity is to be maintained? If current consumption was evenly distributed how much of a reduction would average Western consumption experience? Would that redistributed consumption be sustainable? Probably not. Even if it were, would we vote for it?

That they have a common reference, that the value of a number is not a matter of opinion or choice. — Wayfarer

I agree. We can all immediately recognize a small number of whatevers. Larger numbers of things we can count, and there is no room for disagreement. Each number is a kind of recognizable pattern or configuration. So, I would say number is real because it is instantiated everywhere. But I can't imagine any sense beyond that in which we could say numbers are real.

I wonder what you mean when you say that numbers are real. Can you explain?

I do understand your perspective. I don't think there is any determinate fact of the matter to be discovered. Our scientific theories tell us the Universe is much older than humanity. You can try to get around that by saying that knowledge and understanding is all in the human mind. but for me, that strategy doesn't hold water. We simply see it differently and neither of us can demonstrate the truth of their position or the falsity of the other— which means it comes down to personal preference and/ or faith.

I also don't think that how we might prefer to answer that question matters much in relation to the far more important matter concerning how to best live. You probably disagree with me on that too, as it seems to me you treat it as a kind of moral crusade.

We’re the only ‘tiny fraction of the cosmos’ who know what that means. It’s amusing in the extreme that objective science, which is a cognitive mode only available to h. Sapiens, then declares its authors insignificant in the ‘grand scheme’ - a grand scheme that is their own mental creation! — Wayfarer

I doubt many scientists think in terms of a grand scheme, since as I already pointed out, the idea implies the existence of a grand schemer. So, I agree that a grand scheme would be a human conceptualization. much like the idea of 'laws of nature'. You could argue that the idea of laws implies the existence of a lawgiver, but it seems to me it is just the human way of conceiving of what seem to be the strict natural regularizes that are observed.

Obviously, we are not insignificant in the world, when that is conceived as the human world, including all of science and all the other human understandings. That is one perspective. But science presents us with a cosmos that seems to be almost infinitely older and larger than humanity, and as far as we can tell we occupy only a tiny corner, both in time and space of this vast universe.

Thanks it seems I misunderstood the Kantian idea of intuition.

:up:

:up: Far be it for me to tell someone they shouldn't spend time on something interesting to them. The time-wasting part would be thinking about something that is unknowable in the hope of getting to the truth about it.

Things that grab the creature's attention 'stand out'. Anything external to the creature may 'stand out', given the creature is capable of perceiving it. Those things that 'stand out' may already be meaningful to the creature. They may not. That's often the first step in becoming meaningful. — creativesoul

Do you count anything which does not stand out as being perceived? Per the question I asked you above, everything perceptible in your external environment is currently broadcasting information in the form of light, sound, smell, and tactile sensation to your eyes, ears, nose and skin. Would you say all that counts as being perceived merely by virtue of that information affecting the body?

How does anything become meaningful before it is ever perceived? — creativesoul

From my post above:

So, on that account perceptible things become meaningful, and are thus perceived. On this account there must be some pre-perceptual interactions already going on of course, and of course they involve the objects and the senses but are yet to reach the status of perception. I think Kant refers to this as "intuition", but Mww may correct me on this. — Janus

But again, if you want to use "perception" in a different way, then your point might stand.

However, I could ask as to how anything can be perceived if it doesn't stand out for the perceiver, and on account of what could it stand out if not on account of it being already of some significance or other.

Here's another question: imagine your total external surroundings right now including everything that potentially could be seen, heard, smelt, touched. On your use of 'perception' would you say that you are perceiving all of that?

Does the bear perceive the cave as a place to sleep? Bears go there to sleep, but unless they think about the cave as a subject matter in its own right, they do not perceive it as anything. They perceive the cave. The cave is part of the bear's experience. The cave is meaningful to the bear. Going back to the cave is a meaningful experience to the bear. How does it become meaningful for the bear? — creativesoul

See my post above yours. We agree that the bear does not conceive of the cave as cave, It may in some pre or proto-conceptual thinking of it as a place to sleep—we don't really know.

So when you say they perceive the cave that is a kind of "mixed metaphor" because you are just saying they perceive what we would call a cave. They perceive something and conceive (or if that word seems wrong then substitute "imagine") that something (the cave in this example) as of some use or other. I think this qualifies the claim that the cave has meaning for them

We don't really know what bears specifically experience, but it seems reasonable to think they can imagine even if they cannot conceive, because we think of the former as involving images and the latter as requiring linguistically mediated ideas.

So, only previously meaningful things are perceived? — creativesoul

I think that's right. But it might not be the only way to use the term, and this can result in confusion. Can we say that a percipient has perceived something if it does not stand out in some way? If not, then the question would follow: 'On account of what do things stand out for percipients?'. I tend to think it is because they are of some interest, concern, significance, meaning or whatever you want to call it to the perceiver.

So, on that account perceptible things become meaningful, and are thus perceived. On this account there must be some pre-perceptual interactions already going on of course, and of course they involve the objects and the senses but are yet to reach the status of perception. I think Kant refers to this as "intuition", but @Mww may correct me on this.

:up: :100: I like the idea that things stand out from their surroundings for percipients as gestalts. The question is what drives gestalting? I think it could be many things for animals and many more things for humans on account of language, as you say.

Nevertheless, 'dharma' is both 'duty' and also 'law'. In other words, it's not simply an individual prerogative or obligation, but is inherent in the natural order (the original root being 'what upholds' or 'holds together'). — Wayfarer

Why is it "duty and also law"? I would say it is because we conceive it as such or because it is simply the way things work best. If animals instinctively follow "the way" then that would explain why they are so much less fucked up than we are. I can accept the idea that to go against what is naturally the best way for us would be a negative. Perish the thought that we might ever do that! :wink:

How do we find out what is the best way for us? Perhaps introspection, self-awareness and self-knowledge, that is what we call "the examined life", might help. When it comes to the best way to treat the environment and other animals, I would say science and compassion might come in handy. Of course, the best way for us and the best way for the other animals and the living environment arguably cannot be two different ways.

The other point I would make is that dharma and Dao are earthly law—we know little about the rest of the cosmos. We might assume that other galaxies and the far corners of the cosmos have the same or similar ways as we do. It would seem that only once life arrives can there be not merely a way, but a best way. And what makes that way best? Well, of course animal and human (and perhaps plant) flourishing, what else?

Sometimes. Not all the time.

Perceiving the tree in the yard does not require perceiving it "as a tree". Surely, we perceive the distal objects being named, right? See it "as a tree" presupposes naming and descriptive practices. Cats interact with trees all the time. They do not perceive the tree, "as a tree". That invokes a middleman where none is necessary, indeed where none can be. It could be that the tree in the yard is being directly perceived in direct relation to the rest of the hunters' mind, the tree is what the mouse is hiding behind. That's all it is at the time. It is and remains the tree, nonetheless.

Perceiving a tree "as a tree" only makes sense to me when we're referring to those who know how to use the phrase. — creativesoul

Perceiving something-you-know-not-what that might turn out to be a tree in the yard does not require perceiving it as a tree. Perceiving the tree in the yard would require perceiving it as a tree by mere definition I would have thought.

I have not said that cats perceive trees as trees, but they perceive trees as some kind of affordance or other (although I am not saying they could conceive of it linguistically as an affordance or as anything else).

I agree that for a creature to have a meaningful experience, such creature must be able to at the very least describe the conditions of that experience, even if only to himself, in order for the meaning of it to be given. — Mww

I have to say I find this questionable to say the least. Animals can recognize this as food, that as shelter or a source of warmth and so on. They can recognize their own offspring and kin. If these don't qualify for you as meaningful experiences, I'd be interested to hear why not.

All experience is meaningful to the creature having the experience. Perception is necessary but insufficient for attributing meaning to different things; meaningful experience. — creativesoul

It depends on how you are using "perception". For me, seeing something is always seeing something as something. So I think anything perceived, in the sense I use the word, is always already something interpreted, and I think that interpretation is not dependent on language, and that in fact language could never get started without it already being in place, and I think it is the case with the other animals just as it is with us.

So, I would say, to reverse what you have said, that attributing meaning to different things, in the sense that they stand out for an organism as meaningful, is necessary, but not sufficient for perception.

But there's something even deeper than that, but more simple: the resonance of mind and world as I tried to convey in that overlooked quote from David Bentley Hart - that 'the natural order was seen as a reality already akin to intellect'. — Wayfarer

Since the idea of the natural order is an idea of the intellect by definition as are all other ideas, it is hard to see how it would not, as an idea, be akin to the intellect. As a reality for us it remains an idea. What it might be as mind-independent reality is of course unknowable (per Kant).

That might be due to your cultural heritage, might it not? Buddhists have no such difficulty. Granted, they would also probably not talk in terms of a 'cosmic purpose', but it is at least implicit in their cosmologies, without a director to supervise the whole show. But in Western culture, we're caught up in this kind of Hegelian dialectic of theism (thesis), atheism (anti-thesis) and an emerging synthesis (whatever that turns out to be). — Wayfarer

I have never encountered an idea of "cosmic purpose" in my readings of Buddhist texts, I don't think my association of the meaning of 'purpose' with a purposer is any kind of scotoma due to "cultural heritage", I think the idea of cosmic purpose has always been associated with a god or gods who are the intenders and givers of the cosmic purpose. Without that idea of intention, the notion of purpose seems reducible to simply the way things behave, or a kind of immanent cosmic balance as presented in the notions of dharma and Dao.

I agree with you that we are justified in believing that things must have significance (meaning) for other animals, simply on the grounds that we can tell by observing their behavior that they can recognize environmental affordances enabling them to survive. They must be able to do that, or they could not survive.

According to our current understanding the rest of the galaxy is so far away that it would have very little effect on our solar system and our solar system would have a virtually negligible effect on it. Not to mention the rest of the universe.

OK, but you haven't even attempted to answer the questions i posed.

But I've always been drawn to cosmic philosophies, which are somewhat religious in nature. Not necessarily theistic, and in the sense of a cosmic-director God not at all, but something nearer the convergence of dharma and logos - that by discovering and being true to your purpose, you are doing your part in the grand scheme, and also discovering the reason of existence in a sense greater than the instrumental. — Wayfarer

I think it's easy enough to make sense of Aristotle's notion of the way in which beings when flourishing do so by actualizing their specific potentials. And that idea can be aligned with, for example, the notions of dharma or dao, when those are understood as naturally immanent to the beings themselves, as opposed to something "given from above", that is, when understood as natural as opposed to supernatural.

So, I can understand the idea that "by discovering and being true to (actualizing) your" potential (instead of "purpose") you will be living your best possible life. Whether this somehow benefits the universe in any way other than it possibly leading to you directly benefiting other proximal beings and/ or your environment, remains obscure to me. Would even benefiting the whole Earth make any appreciable difference to the Cosmos as a whole? I can't see any way to coherently understand how it could. Perhaps you can enlighten me?

The other thing that puzzles me in what you say is that, although, you don't (apparently) believe in a grand schemer, you believe in a "grand scheme". I can make no sense of a grand scheme without positing a grand schemer, a grand designer without a grand designer or a grand purpose without a grand purposer. Care to unravel it for me?

:up:

Or cold, mean and indifferent. It doesn't matter which, unless and until the universe reveals its preference and purpose in action - and we probably wouldn't recognize its intent even then. — Vera Mont

Well, yes, but you had already more or less said or implied the possibility that if the universe had a mind it was more likely to be "cold, mean and indifferent", and I was merely presenting the other possibility. But as you suggest the question is pointless anyway as we cannot know, and I would add that we could not even calculate the probability of it being one or the other.

We might care about the Earth ones. I did say Centaurian termites: we don't know whether there is any such thing. — Vera Mont

Ah, I wasn't paying attention, I just assumed it was a species of Earth termite that I had not heard of before.

Well, yes. A market can only exist in a legal framework, which is a form of regulation. I'm only referring, n short-hand to the movement at the end of the 19th century to palliate (welfare) or control (additional regulation) some of the anti-social consequences of capitalism. — Ludwig V

Totally agree—unfettered capitalism would be a disaster for all but the few.

Far more overt control, yes. Capitalism is subtler. I prefer the second, of course. — Ludwig V

As do I. I am no fan of Churchill, but I tend to agree with the statement (probably falsely attributed to him and loosely paraphrased) "Democratic capitalism is the worst of all possible systems, apart from all the others".

So either the people who control the money or the people who are members of the CCP are in charge. It doesn't look like a particularly exciting choice. Who looks after your interests and mine? — Ludwig V

Those who do, or us, or perhaps no one, I guess.

That is true when trying to grasp the identity of anything. Everything is moving.

So I’m not disagreeing with you, but I would not conclude from the difficulty of holding an identity fixed and unchanging that there is no self to seek to identify. — Fire Ologist

Right, I agree the identity of anything is as difficult to grasp as our own and I haven't suggested the self is not real either—as I said before we have a sense of self, and a consequent idea of it. That it is not determinable does not entail that it is not real, although we might say that it cannot be as fully real to us as our experience is. That said, experience itself (:wink:) is determinable only in terms of identity, and anyway what do we mean by 'real', so where does that leave us?

Probably. I don't claim that the universe has a mind of its own; I just don't know that it doesn't.
If it does, it's as unlikely to care - crave or miss - our poetry and cruelty, as we are unlikely to crave or miss the cultural touchstones of Centurian termites. — Vera Mont

If the universe has a mind of its own, might that mind not be vaster, more capacious, more compassionate than our own. If it were aware of our poetry and our cruelty, might it not value the former and lament the latter, far more so than we do ourselves?

How would we possibly assess the likelihood of either possibility? As to us valuing or caring about termites, it would seem that it is not outside the realm of human possibility.

Well, yes. The universe is whatever it is. I don't know that it's blind and stupid, but I know that we alone care about the things we care about. If our minds didn't exist, who would miss the poetry etc?

Also, we humans, who think so very highly of the mind don't seem particularly concerned with preserving or supporting even the minds of our species, let alone all the other kinds. — Vera Mont

Are you suggesting that perhaps the Universe absent any and all percipients might not be blind and might even be intelligent? In that case would that not qualify it as being somehow mindful?

And yes, I agree that we who do understand ourselves as possessing minds are in many ways blind and stupid—far more so than the other animals it would seem.

:up:

There are many hypotheses that can't be tested e.g. simulation hypothesis, illusion hypothesis, dream hypothesis, hallucination hypothesis, solipsism hypothesis, philosophical zombie hypothesis, panpsychism hypothesis, deism hypothesis, theism hypothesis, pantheism hypothesis, panentheism hypothesis, etc. Just because a hypothesis can't be tested it does not mean it is true or false. It just means that it is currently untestable.

If these "hypotheses" are untestable then not only can they not be proven, but even their likelihood cannot be established, so of what possible significance could they be to our lives? Even if they were true what would that change? On what basis are they even interesting? Why should be waste any time or energy concerning ourselves with them?

You might have fear when you assert something you don't have concrete knowledge, evidence or experience, so you don't know what you are talking about. — Corvus

Chet, if consistent, would have to be the first to admit that. Which should leave us wondering as to what purpose he thinks his taking at all serves.

Knowing the self is a curious thing.
— Fire Ologist

We only know the self inasmuch as we have a sense of self, and a consequent idea that there it is an entity with an identity. When we try to determine the nature of that identity it eludes our grasp.

But then, I'm no longer sure that you refer to "the world" not as the universe, but as some image or model that doesn't exist.
I mean that minds are minuscule ephemeral sparks in a vast cosmos of billions of suns. Minds are dependent on the bodies that contain them and those bodies are dependent on their ecosystems which are dependent on their planet, which are dependent on their sun. Minds are trivial. — Vera Mont

That is one way to think about it. The other is that absent minds the Universe is 'blind'—there is nothing that can experience anything—there is no beauty, no poetry, no compassion, no love and also no ugliness, no doggerel, no cruelty, no hatred. In a way the mindless universe would be as good, or bad, as non-existence.

Man is that part of reality in which and through which the cosmic process has become conscious and has begun to comprehend itself. His supreme task is to increase that conscious comprehension and to apply it as fully as possible to guide the course of events. In other words, his role is to discover his destiny as an agent of the evolutionary process, in order to fulfill it more adequately — Julian Huxley, Evolution and Meaning

This is a way of looking at human consciousness and intelligence, but it doesn't mean much since we are such a tiny fraction of the cosmos, Animals too are arguably conscious, so it could be said that life itself is, or that percipients constitute, that part of reality in which the cosmic process has become aware. But even life as far as we know is a vanishingly tiny part of the cosmic process.

The idea that humanity could "guide the course of events" presents us with a type of scientific hubris or scientism. Humanity cannot even begin to imagine a plausible way to guide the evolution of the entire cosmos.

There have been unconvincing attempts, for example, see The Physics of Immortality by Frank Tipler

Think also of Teilhard de Chardin. Unbridled anthropocentrism, anthropomorphism and scientism seem to go hand in hand.

Then there's the question of whether evolution was always bound to produce rational sentient bipeds such as ourselves, and, if so, why? — Wayfarer

If causal determinism based on the invariances we refer to as laws of nature were the actuality, then life would be an inevitable part of the unfolding of the cosmic process.

Then what is it that provides ‘direction’? — Wayfarer

Under the deterministic scenario what appears as direction is just the result of the inevitable unfolding of the cosmic process. But this would not imply any externally or transcendently imposed intention or "telos".

I don't think it matters what you focus on, or what thoughts or feelings you have that motivate you to make a conscious decision, a commitment, not to smoke, provided you care more, are more motivated by, those thoughts and feelings than you are by your desire to smoke. It obviously won't work if you are more motivated to smoke.

What red tape is designed to hamper small business?
Is it, perhaps, that legislators try to make regulations for all businesses, and the big corporations can get around the regulations, while the small ones get caught?
(I don't know - I've only been involved in a tiny business and had no trouble with red tape.) — Vera Mont

I guess it depends on the business, but in the building and home improvement trades, there is licensing, ongoing training requirements, quality assurance documentation, insurance and superannuation, which together require significant financial and administrative resources, and make it ever harder for small businesses to compete with the larger ones. The trio of supermarkets have pushed out a large proportion of small shopkeepers and the same goes for the building and hardware suppliers. I have no doubt the same applies in many sectors of retail as well as primary production.

Large corporations are also notorious for being able to deploy the financial and legal resources to avoid taxation, which throws the burden back onto the average wage earner and small business and although our governments frequently make noises about their intention to do something about that it never happens. It seems it's just virtue signaling designed to net votes—our governments certainly appear to be bought by the plutocracy..

In whose movie? — Vera Mont

Well, I should have said "capacities and circumstances"—by " capacities" I really meant to include circumstances. I don't know how it is in the US, but in Australia that's basically how it has been, but government red tape is making it ever harder for the small entrepeneurs. Those who have the capacity to deal with that red tape can get ahead. I don't deny it is barely possible for many—equal opportunity has been a dream and is becoming ever more so.

Under capitalism, you think that people get things from an entirely passive system, and under communism, the system dishes things out to people who are entirely passive. That's far too simple. — Ludwig V

I wasn't implying that under communism or capitalism people wouldn't try to play the system. I have no doubt there is criminal activity, for example, under both systems. I can't think of any totally unregulated capitalist systems. On the other hand, communist systems, insofar as they are anti-democratic (which most seem to be and to have been) exercise far more control over their citizens.

I also did not want to imply that the differences between the systems is black and white. In the modern world it is money which effectively rules, and governments are, to a large extent, bought. The CCP on the other hand controls the money because it effectively owns the business it seems.

A consensus would be a good basis, but one would probably have to settle for a majority view that is acquiesced in by those who don't agree. — Ludwig V

Yes, it's either that or it is imposed by the authority of power, and that goes for any society, whether capitalist or communist.

One question is what level of needs is appropriate - the level of bare survival or the level required to function as a member of society. Is health care part of the package or not? — Ludwig V

But isn't that the same question asked now, when allocating resources and remunerations under capitalist organization? Somebody always seems willing to decide who is worthy of what. — Vera Mont

Under a capitalist system, apart from whatever welfare state is in play, people end up getting whatever their capacities enable them to. Under most communist regimes, people simply get what they are given by the powers that be.

Marxism isn't bothered by inequality, but by unfair exploitation. The slogan "from each according to their ability and to each according to their needs" is not about equality. — Ludwig V

Who decides what the needs of each are? Perhaps the same question could be asked of abilities.

William Blake said "He who desires, but acts not, breeds pestilence."