I don't know man. It's Jack fucking Nicholson, so who gives two shits? — Shawn

Shit, I always thought he was a fuckin' genius; and now I'm confused. :yikes:

It's hilariously banal to apply this old word to someone who merely aces an abstract pattern recognition test. — hanaH

Yes, both banal and arbitrary I'd say.

:up: I can relate to that!

I think my "body of work," if I may laughingly call it that, shows I am not afraid to do my own thinking, for better or worse. — T Clark

I would have said so. In general I think it's better to do your own thinking and worse to let others do it for you. Although just to be inconsistent, I'll let Blake do my thinking for me on this: "If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise." Sometimes I think our own resident fool @The Mad Fool is getting there.

Yes, and that's what I'm trying to get a handle on. Take Kant for instance. I think he is one of your insistent poets. I've tried reading him and haven't gotten very far. But people I respect keep saying his work is central to intellectual history and the scientific revolution. Again, I worry I am missing something. — T Clark

Kant is hard to read. I think it's true his work is central to intellectual history; not sure how much it has mattered to the scientific revolution. ( That said, I seem to recall reading that Kant was the first to arrive at the current theory of the formation of nebulae). According to my limited understanding most of modern philosophy consists in, one way or another, of rejecting Kant. But I also think that most of modern philosophy is, one way or another, of limited relevance to the examined life. It can even be a distraction form self-examination. I like the adage: "The unexamined life is not worth living" but I also like its reversal: "the unlived life is not worth examining". I only worry that I might be missing something if there is something I really want to explore, but there are other things I want to explore more, and I simply don't have enough time.

As I noted in my previous response to Manuel, I take Kafka seriously and, mostly, literally. I'm sure Kafka was well-read in philosophy, but in the end, is our own experience we have to understand and be aware of. — T Clark

I agree with this wholeheartedly. Since the age of about 16 I have, off and on, written poetry. The writing of it has always been an attempt to flush my experience out of hiding and understand it. Since I began writing I have always read, desultorily, the few poets that attracted me. Over the last few years I have begun writing more, and due to a small group of fellow poetry enthusiasts I meet with every week, have begun to read many other poets, which has led me to realize that all poets are dealing with basically the same perennial themes in their own different ways (and the same may be said of philosophers). Self-awareness, self-examination and understanding is far more important than erudition (erudition may or may not be an aid to this). Everyone is the same, and yet different.

Does the perpetually nodding imbecile there have a high IQ?

it is the well above average level of stupidity endemic in the intellectual (bureaucratic) & decision-making classes that is chiefly responsible for the persistently deplorable state of many developed societies (re: climate change, WMD proliferation, human trafficking, neoliberalization, etc). :mask: — 180 Proof

Most likely that and the well above average level of complacency and corruption in those classes. That said, I guess complacency and corruption could arguably be seen as functions of stupidity. :wink:

:up:

Have you heard of John Von Neumann? — Shawn

I have, but I know little about him. I think I have a book by or about him somewhere on my shelves, but I haven't read it.

I've always felt it's counterintuitive that one person in fifty would have a genius level IQ.

On the other hand, when you've come to an idea you think is original and then discover someone had said very much the same thing hundreds, if not thousands of years ago, then I suppose that is a sign you may be headed in a good direction. — Manuel

:up: There's also something to be said for the process of arriving at such realizations yourself; regardless of whether others already have. It's not a matter of competition, but of grappling with the human condition. No hard and fast rules.

It would be strange to say that a pragmatist would argue against inquiry or thinking when only presented with problems. — Shawn

True, and pragmatists (or at least pragmatacists) certainly valorize the community of inquirers.

Sure.

I guess I'm tying myself into knots thinking how can someone have an original uncontaminated idea? These days it's very hard. — Manuel

I think you could have the idea without ever having encountered it elsewhere; but chances are that someone else already had it, and perhaps even 2000 or more years ago. One of the arguments I've heard for familiarizing yourself with the tradition is that you don't want to waste years coming up with ideas that you could have encountered in hours of reading. But it also depends, as you've already noted, what your aim is.

Yet, it seems true that Newton, Spinoza, Shakespeare, and Aristotle had very high IQ's. — Shawn

That is probably true, although we cannot get them to do a test. I have read that Einstein's IQ was "only" about 160, but I don't know if he was tested or if it is an estimate. I remember when I was a kid I read a book that estimated the IQs of some of the greats. From memory (take the precision of the actual figures with a grain of salt, but I think my memory of the order is right), I think they scored da Vinci at 170. Goethe at 190 and Leibniz at 210.

So he was in the world. — hanaH

True, and being in the world intelligently would certainly seem to be a prerequisite for genius. But no doubt there are many different ways.

Imagination is spurred and provoked.

This idea of cloistered genius demiurging their way to brilliance is just neoliberal entrepreneurial values transposed into philosophy like a virus. Self-aggrandizing laziness arrogated to the status of virtue. — StreetlightX

That's one side of the polemic. As usual both sides have their truths.

It is not necessary that you leave the house. Remain at your table and listen. Do not even listen, only wait. Do not even wait, be wholly still and alone. The world will present itself to you for its unmasking, it can do no other, in ecstasy it will writhe at your feet. — T Clark

Of course this is Kafka's original thought not T Clark's. I wonder why Kafka thought that. Was he recommending avoidance of literature? Seeing is one thing; if you want to be good at communicating what you see, then obviously some familiarity with the ways other's have expressed their seeing will no doubt be helpful

Sure, if you just make things up. — StreetlightX

Not everyone can; it takes imagination, which the regurgitators commonly lack.

I scored very high on IQ tests in school and I didn't even really try; parents were told near genius. I've done online tests and scored between 140- 160. I came second last in the year in the higher school certificate exam (spent half of year 11 and all of year 12 experimenting with LSD and Psylocibin).

I don't set much store in IQ tests though. Someone said "intelligence is the ability to grasp complex relations". That says nothing about the speed required by IQ tests, and it also obviously requires a good memory. The other important thing about intelligence that IQ tests cannot measure is the ability to see what's salient and having a good imagination.

Apes together strong. Ape sitting a room ruminating on air, utterly moronic. — StreetlightX

Much more pertinent to the empirical fields of inquiry than it is to philosophy (unless you mean academic philosophy, of course). I do agree that it always helps to familiarize ourselves with interesting minds (although which minds are interesting remains matter of taste).

I want to make it clear that I wasn't criticizing people who find their way in philosophy through the writings of the great philosophers. Actually, I'm hoping that someone will make a good case that I should be reading those books. I wonder what I'm missing, but my understanding of the world doesn't feel like anything is missing. — T Clark

I've read a few of the "greats"; it's sometimes like peering into an over-stimulated, obscenely fertile, profligate mind teeming with insights and associations. Likewise with poetry; at least as to the insights and allusions; but poetry is all the greater because it does not insist.

So the great philosophers are like insistent poets, quite often fucking annoying; but if you are in the right mood to brook the insistence, and flow with them where they want you to flow; something may come of it.

Whatever, we are never absolved from doing our own thinking if we don't wish to remain igorant. Nobody loves a regurgitator or an insistent mediocrity.

But we don't know how common that is because we can't recognize those people. — baker

Which is just what I've been arguing and you've been disagreeing with: that "those people" (if they even exist which we have no way of knowing since we cannot recognize them) cannot demonstrate their knowledge except to others who purportedly share their talent or suitability for it. Or it could be that they share a common delusion.

I don't wish to sound patronising here but I need to highlight this. This is the typical attitude of western living. In the parts of the world that matter people cannot CHOOSE between private and public transportation because they reside in countries that are too poor to accommodate this option. — I like sushi

I'm suggesting that we in the developed nations should scrap cars, in the third world there are not nearly so many, and many people use bicycles, small motorcycles, tuk tuks and so on for transport. Turn city lights off at night. Restrict plane travel to what is necessary; no more indulgent overseas trips for the prosperous.

All of this of course to be phased in, not instituted overnight. Not that I believe any of this will happen. We will most likely just muddle along blindly, as usual. At least it looks like wind, solar, hydrogen might be given more support than the fossil fuel industry, and hopefully some good will come out of that.

Anyway the very idea that we should be going full steam ahead with economic growth and burning fossil fuels to power it is ridiculous in my view. Given you seem to be supporting what I consider to be a absurd strategy, there is little point in me saying more than that now.

OK, but by that logic I can say that the headache I had last second was not the same headache as this second. Or we could say that it changes by the nanosecond, or Planck length. Luke and I went through this already. — Metaphysician Undercover

I haven't read the whole conversation between you and Luke. If you've been through it already, then you've come out the other side no wiser. it seems. If I can make a reasonable distinction between the headache I have now and the headache I had then, then they are different instances of headache. There is no point bringing up nanoseconds; we don't distinguish nanoseconds.

If I have a headache now and I had one five minutes ago in the same region of my head, then it is probably the same headache. I may have become distracted and didn't notice it in the intervening five minutes. I could still say the current episode of pain is distinct from the episode of pain five minutes ago, just on account of the fact that there had been, for me, no continuity between them.

The headache I have today cannot be the same headache as I had last year, or when I was five years old, because I have not had a headache all that time. This is all so obvious that I can't imagine why you would want to argue against it.

They came here; I'm not chasing them, just asking them to explain themselves. — Banno

What I meant was more along the lines of if you were interested in phenomenology then you might find they do have something interesting to contribute. It is a given that if you are not interested in phenomenology, then anything anyone says along those lines will likely leave you cold.

Elon Musk knows that solar and wind power are not particularly useful in their current or near-future states. — I like sushi

Then why is he promoting battery-powered cars? If batteries are charged using fossil fuel derived energy they would be, due to efficiency losses at every stage, less green that fossil-fuel powered cars.

Also, nuclear energy is arguable undesirable as it is dangerous on account of the more enriched uranium you have the more potential there is for more nuclear weapons, and waste disposal is an
unsolved issue.

Also decline in reproduction rates due to increased prosperity will arguably be too little too late, even if the prediction panned out, which it may not In different cultures, places and circumstances.

I think the most likely scenario is that we will continue to use fossil fuels, and if it is viable, wind and solar along with perhaps hydrogen will gradually replace their use. What we should be doing is scrapping all privately owned cars that are not needed for practical purposes (trades, transport, agriculture etc), using public transport and electric powered bicycles, turning all the lights out at night, and adopting any measure we can, fuck the inconvenience, to reduce fossil fuel use; but I won't hold my breath expecting it to happen.

We may be lucky enough that there will be some super viable technological breakthrough in either cheap energy production or carbon sequestration, but we would be fools to depend on it.

You seem to have bought into the fantasy of scientism, but you're by no means unique in that. I don't share your optimism, but then I also think that, if there is to be any solution, it will have to come from science, because very few will be willing to downscale their lifestyles.

No, because no pain exists as "an Instance", so it's equally wrong to say that different pains are different instances of pain. We do say things like this though, but Wittgenstein is demonstrating that this is a way of speaking which is like an illness that needs philosophical treatment. — Metaphysician Undercover

That seems absurd to me. Say last week I had a headache, and now today I have a headache. They are two different occasions or instances of having a headache. They are not the same headache, as they would be if it had persisted the whole time.

I doubt Wittgenstein would agree with you on this; but even if he would, that is no reason to accept something that seems so absurd.

I think we often use the word faith in various imprecise ways. Normally it refers to the process by which people believe, not the content of the belief. As in Hebrews 11 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. At its most charitable, faith is understood as an intuitive or personal understanding (if not certainty) of a god. — Tom Storm

Perhaps I should have said that an elaborate metaphysics can be an article of faith? I think your reference to intuition is appropriate; it seems natural enough to have faith in our intuitions, in our gut feelings, to what seems right,

Don't you constantly say that metaphysics is 'like poetry'? Moving but not a sufficient basis for knowledge? — Wayfarer

That's right, an elaborate metaphysics may be a faith, but it is not knowledge.

...phrenologists... — Janus


Yeah, them. :wink: — Banno

The spectres of predictive text...

Therefore there is a spoon. — Banno

Of course there is a spoon. It's the implications of there being a spoon that phenomenologists and metaphysicians are interested in. You don't have to be interested, though, if the basic spoon is good enough for you. It's perfectly adequate for baby food. :wink:

On the one hand, 'faith' says 'simply believe! — Wayfarer

I think you're working with an impoverished notion of faith. Faith can consist in an elaborate metaphysics as much as it can consist in simply accepting Jesus into your heart.

Just to be clear, I'm saying that he argues for scientism. Or, knowing the term is used pejoratively, he defends a data-driven, scientific approach to answering big questions. — hanaH

There seem to be many other ways of thinking about the "big questions", but no other way but science that seems to have any chance of delivering any definitive answers. I agree with Popper that sometimes those other metaphysical ways of thinking, apart from their poetic rewards, may also be inspirational to the abductive thought processes of scientists.

All right, I'm not worried, I've hit myself with a hammer enough times to know what it feels like, and also to know that there is never any tokens for me there. — Metaphysician Undercover

Is there not a different instance of pain each time you hit your hand with the hammer?

OK, thanks. I.m happy to take your word for it, anyway.

Another blindspot: the pleasure in secular humanism may depend on invidious comparison and therefore on the superstitious that it perhaps only pretends to want to convert. — hanaH

That's an interesting possibility! You make some good points; I'm no fan of scientism. but I haven't read Pinker so I can't comment on whether his arguments are scientistic.

I have heard at least three our of the four horsemen (esp Dawkins) talk specifically about not wanting an end of all religion and also venerating religious architecture and hymns and writings as being fundamental pillars of civilization. — Tom Storm

I haven't found any of this in what I have read of Dawkins. Perhaps you could cite something? I agree with you about Harris; he is into meditation; but from the little I've read i think he advocates it as a means of stress reduction and perhaps introspective self-knowledge, but he has not truck with anything supernatural; and he even rejects free will. Dennett wants to reject all "folk psychologies" and I'm sure this would include religion. Hitchens was out out and out, unequivocally against religion.

Oh, thanks, massa. — baker

I am not your "massa", nor anybody else's, nor would I want to be. I don't have sufficient energy to continue; you're too "high maintenance".

I find nothing to disagree with in what you say here; which is bad news for discussion. :wink: :smile:

I asked how this is viable. The reply was not given (avoided). — I like sushi

I don't know how it is viable, but I do know continued growth is not. Hopefully a solution will present itself.

When it comes to economics and resources the key factor regarding the ecology is to provide as many people as possible with cheap energy so they can more easily get out of poverty. The point being that burning more coal and gas in the short term is actually the best way to protect the ecology of the planet. — I like sushi

Burning more coal and gas is indeed the most likely near future scenario. Transition to green technologies cannot be achieved overnight. And there is probably a lot of fudging of the figures in claims to have achieved "net zero emissions". What we will be doing by burning more coal and gas is not protecting the ecology of the planet, quite the opposite, we will be attempting to protecting our prosperity, comfort and convenience; our current lifestyle to which we feel entitled, and we will be attempting to bring billions of others up to our level of prosperity, all to the detriment of the ecology of the planet and our long-term well-being.

What will happen is what will happen, unfortunately; there is no halting the juggernaut. The idea that we are in control of our destinies is absurd. What we should be doing is putting all our energy into trying to use less resources individually, to transition to non-growth economies, to genuinely non-carbon polluting energy technologies; but I believe that in order to do that we would need to accept a fairly reduced level of prosperity, comfort and convenience. Do we have the collective will? Only time will tell..

It does not follow from something being desirable, that it is therefore viable.

Yes, I agree that politicization of the whole issue of covid (not to mention any other domains similarly affected) has considerably muddied the waters.

The recognition that this 'G' is a letter G no matter what font it is written in, is a skill that is a layer above the basic pattern recognition and into the more Bayesian modelling (though we didn't think of it in those terms then). It's as much about suppressing extraneous data as it is about processing relevant data. — Isaac

Gs written in most fonts are still recognizable as a particular configuration or pattern.