Some of us might be in modes to reject some readings as out and out false. But if we do that, our search for the ‘true’ interpretation may incline us to shape our prompts away from variety of readings and toward tunnel vision.

Apart from our biases, our lack of exposure to certain influences on a philosopher can limit the range of prompts we can think of. — Joshs

Are students at schools nowadays, at any level, actually encouraged to have their own opinion about philosophers?
Are they encouraged to think in terms that there may be several valuable interpretations?

Back when I went to school, we weren't expected to have our own opinion about anything, and there was this belief that there was only one true way to understand something.

Most people I know, including Americans, think this way: there is only one true way to understand something. An "interpretation" is something that needs to be overcome. "I don't interpret, I don't take a perspective, I tell it like it is" goes the maxim.


I'm getting at a more fundamental issue here: If people generally think this way, their use of AI is only going to strengthen them in their single-mindedness.

But, of course, that means each of us will prefer certain reading soccer others. — Joshs

How did this come to be?
Are you using a voice-to-text app?

Hold on. Are you an AI?

Faith translates into Russian as "VERA."
And it's a very broad concept. It encompasses both a female name and the feeling and concept of a vast number of Russian philosophers and writers who have attempted to understand this word. There's no consensus on this. As a native speaker of Slavic languages, I think you're probably familiar with all of this.

I myself use this word to describe my sense of aspiration toward the transcendental, which is impossible to comprehend, know, or justify. — Astorre

It's an interesting discrepancy: Etymologically, Latin "fides" means 'trust', but Slavic "vera" (related to Latin "verus") means 'truth'.

It can indicate that adult converts are supposed to take something as truth what would/should otherwise be a matter of trust. They are expected to take something for granted, as true, despite the lack of trustworthiness.

You provide a very Kierkegaardian and therefore Christian view of faith. — Hanover

Not every Christian has a Kierkegaardian view of faith, though.

In particular, faith is not a lonely, individualistic venture necessarily, but Judaism sees it as communal.

Christianity is a religion of adult converts, and it teaches individual eternal salvation or individual eternal damnation. As such, it is necessarily a lonely, individualistic venture.

The idea that humans are born into sin in need of salvation could not be more foreign to this concept, but instead it speaks of a divine soul, nothing wretched about it. — Hanover

What is the Jewish explanation as to why are there people who are not Jews? How did those other people who are not Jews even come to exist?
Why are only Jews God's chosen people?

(Do you speak German? I remember a nice passage from Thomas Mann on this topic.)
— baker

No, I don't speak German, unfortunately. — Astorre

Earlier, I was referring to this passage by Mann, when I was talking about how things almost magically work out for some people:

Es gibt eine Art von Menschen, Lieblingskinder Gottes, wie es scheint, deren Glück das Genie und deren Genie das Glück ist, Lichtmenschen, die mit dem Widerspiel und Abglanz der Sonne in ihren Augen auf eine leichte, anmutige und liebenswürdige Weise durchs Leben tändeln, während alle Welt sie umringt, während alle Welt sie bewundert, belobt, beneidet und liebt, weil auch der Neid unfähig ist, sie zu hassen. Sie aber blicken darein wie die Kinder, spöttisch, verwöhnt, launisch, übermütig, mit einer sonnigen Freundlichkeit, sicher ihres Glückes und Genies, und als könne das alles durchaus nicht anders sein...

http://www.buecherlei.de/fab/split/thommy.htm

From: Thomas Mann: Der Bajazzo

Do you guys ever experience hypobaric hypoxia from being so high above everyone else? — Athena

Now what did I just say about cultivating good character for oneself?

I am frequently grateful: for clean water, heating, food, for living without earthquakes, fires, floods, for my (so far) robust physical health, and for any material comforts I have. — Tom Storm

To whom are you grateful for all these things?

Or do you merely appreciate them?

Expressing gratitude is quite popular these days (google "gratitude journal"), yet most often, what these people are talking about is appreciation, not actual gratitude.

Gratitude is painful, uncomfortable. To be grateful is to be grateful to someone, and this puts one into an inferior position. To be grateful means to acknowledge one's indebtedness. To acknowledge one's insufficiency, one's dependence. To be grateful means to acknowledge that one's position in the intricate web of dependecies is precarious.
With that, gratitude evokes a sobering emotion toward life, a disenchantment.




That has go to be a fake.

however, i think this would be too self-limiting, to think of this in absolute terms: it's rather easy to "punch up" in some circumstances, it doesn't even always get met with retaliation. There's also a big difference between criticizing what someone does/says (for example, i do it all the time on here, as i think it's necessary for philosophy), and criticizing them as a person, the latter often being counter-productive. — ProtagoranSocratist

It's not sustainable to ascribe to and abide by a moral system that disregards how the world really works. Idealism like that drives people crazy.

I think a discussion on revenge and punishment could be interesting, yet I'm not so interested in the technicalities of that due to the emotional affect of it, and the one who punishes tends to entrench themselves in their own justifications (i think as the Joshs post shows),

so it doesn't make for great discussion...

This strange idea that philosophy should be cut off from real life ...

Saint Francis, Laotze, and the Desert Fathers flourish in the wilderness with nothing. — Count Timothy von Icarus

If that's flourishing ...

Luckily, i do not have any anti-freeze (what would i use it for, and aren't there alternatives?) — ProtagoranSocratist

Where there are cars and other motorized vehicles and machines with internal combustion engines, there is antifreeze. Cats sneak into people's garages and sheds, and find all kinds of things there, some of them not safely stored. To say nothing of cars leaking antifreeze.

In a philosophy forum, though, caution makes sense. Most participants lack grounding in epistemology, logic, or linguistic analysis, so what passes for argument is often just speculation dressed up as insight. Honestly, you could gain more from interacting with a well-trained AI than from sifting through most of what appears here, it would at least give you arguments that hold together. — Sam26

Which is easily remedied by cultivating good character for oneself.

People of substance don't post much on internet forums.

I think, given the dangers of AI, and the ways in which prominent members of this site have used it to make themselves look smarter than they really are, that its use should be banned altogether on this site. — Janus

I say outsmarten the AIs and their faithful users. That doesn't necessarily mean stop using AIs altogether, but only using them sparsely and deliberately. Most of all, it means lowering or otherwise changing one's goals in life.

To me, using AIs, especially LLMs for everyday things or for work is like using drugs to get the energy and the focus necessary to do one's work. Occasionally, this can be a last resort, but is not sustainable in the long run. If one cannot do one's job on one's own, consistently, then one has a job that is too demanding and that will eventually get one into trouble in one way or another.

It's quite pointless to discuss the ethics of using AIs, because people will use them, just like they use drugs, and once it starts, it is impossible to rein it in. But what one can do is rethink whether one really wants to spend one's hard earned time with people who use AIs, or drugs, for that matter.

There are those, Hinton being one of them, who claim that the lesson to be learned from the LLMs is that we are also just "arranging words as if it were saying something", that is that we don't have subjective experience any more than they do. I remain skeptical, but I entertain the possibility that there might be something in that. — Janus

Yes ... reminds me of school, and later as well. Many teachers and the whole approach to education considered us to be basically things, automata, robots. And then later, in the early days of internet forums, there was this in-your-face atmosphere of, "You can't think for yourself, you're just parroting others, you can't produce anything original". That line, "Please, Blue Fairy, make me a real life boy (girl)" was oddly relatable. Come to think of it, it still is.

So when I now read criticism of AI/LLMs, I'm reminded that those were the exact things we were told.

Ai demonstrates that self-reflection isn't needed for a comptent peformance of philosophical reasoning, because all that is needed to be an outwardly competent philosopher is mastery of the statistics of natural language use, in spite of the fact that the subject of philosophy and the data of natural language use are largely products of self-reflection. So it is ironic that humans can be sufficiently bad at self-reflection, such that they can benefit from the AI reminding them of the workings of their own language. — sime

Thanks for this comment.

Yes, this is an important point that people fail to appreciate about our thinking machines. They understand the role of simple labor-saving devices, but when it comes to a.i., they think it’s a zero-sum game, as though whatever the a.i. does for us takes away some capacity we possessed.

What’s the difference between using a calculator and using a shortcut like long division? — Joshs

The difference is in knowing how much you can rely on yourself. (There are also practical aspects, like how do you calculate something when you don't have a calculator.)

AI/LLM's seems to be useful for some, mostly urban uses. Like computer programming or writing school papers. But beyond that?

What I’ve learned in comparing the forum with a.i. is that, unfortunately, the majority of participants here don’t have the background to engage in the kinds of discussions I have been able to have with a.i. concerning a range of philosophers dear to my heart, (such as Husserl, Heidegger, Derrida, Deleuze, Gendlin and Wittgenstein), especially when it comes to comparing and contrasting their positions. — Joshs

Then you're in the wrong place, no?

The level of discussion you're looking for is the domain of fancy university debate clubs. Why not attend those?

How can you account for the exponential progress humanity has made in the past few centuries compared to the first several thousand years of our existence. — Harry Hindu

The details and the superficialities have changed, sure, but the exploitative nature of relationships between humans has not changed.

I’m more interested in what you feel like doing, what you would do if allowed to, than in what you can or can’t get away with. — Joshs

It's absolutely vital to know one's place in society, and to actually internalize it. The criticism whispered quietly to the side with one's face down is a sign that one hasn't accepted one's place in society.
Those below have no business criticising those above.

What matters to me is how you personally are led to behave towards someone who you perceive as deliberately thoughtless, rude, careless, negligent, complacent, lazy, self-indulgent, malevolent, dishonest, narcissistic, malicious, culpable, perverse, inconsiderate, intentionally oppressive, repressive or unfair, disrespectful, gluttonous, wrathful, imprudent, anti-social, hypocritical, disgraceful or greedy. Do you not feel the impulse to knock some sense into them , give them a taste of their own medicine, get them to mend their ways? Do you not aim for their repentance, atonement and readiness to apologize? — Joshs

That depends entirely on our respective socio-econimic statuses and the relative positions we hold in the power hierarchy. If the person is above you in the hierarchy, you better keep your nose down, or face retaliation.

Get enough people using a word in a different-than-normal way — Michael

Exactly. The thing is: According to you, so far, the trans community and its supporters are free to advocate for their particular language uses. But other people are not supposed to advocate for their own particular language uses??

@Michael

*sigh*

But it's bizarre to suggest that other people are wrong if they do use it that way. — Michael

Earlier, you talked about being a fool for battling others on how to use words. Then, given your contibutions here, you must be talking about yourself ...

It is a readily observable fact that people fight over what a word means. And despite what might be new trends in lexicography, some people still believe that dictionaries should have a normative function, and that a word shouldn't mean whatever anyone chooses it to mean.

And yet so many religious texts devalue these, and so many key figures eschewed them and gave them up in life. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Have you noticed how it is typically the wealthy who give up their wealth for the ascetic life, and not the poor?

No religion encourages poor people to stay poor. Not to mention that no religion appreciates the poor, at best, they are pitied.

Also note that the majority of monks and "ascetics" live a materially better life than the majority of the human population.

There are those that have benefitted under the medical model — Hanover

The question is, how exactly have they benefitted under the medical model.
The medical model probably helps those who already believe it.
It can also help in a "reverse psychology" kind of way, in that it helps people realize that the only thing worse than their suffering are the medical methods that are supposed to alleviate that suffering.

I suggest that this is the basis for the deception. I don't think sympathy is necessarily the best move. It would be far more reasonable and sensible to simply be more demeaning of bullies. Make it easier to call people out, and easier for those 'in charge' to make a move. It shouldn't be possible for a person to make fun of you for being feminine and not being told that's wrong - if they do it again, up the ante. — AmadeusD

How do you up the ante??

Pretty much everywhere, people operate by the principle "Casting the first stone makes you innocent".
How do you propose to defeat that?

It shouldn't be possible for a person to make fun of you for being feminine

Just you look at the sexism: Women are constantly being criticized, and often told they don't look feminine enough. And this is never such a problem as when a man is told that he's not looking masculine enough. Women are expected to hate themselves by default; you can't be a good girl unless you hate yourself. But the same does not go for men.

Modern culture, especially American culture as the forerunner, appears to be obsessed with quantification, normativization, standardization. A person can only be this or that (or the other), and they have to decide right now, and this decision has to stick forever and in all contexts.
— baker

Wildly, the fact that the opposite of this is the case is one of the biggest reasons I've bene intent on movinv to the US for some time. As a third party looking in, it seems to me that takes such as this come from being embedded in the extant information ecosystem present in the US (well, present if you've bought in). I could always be wrong, just thought it interesting to note my diametrically opposed view on that lol. — AmadeusD

I'm in Europe. Modern culture, and esp. American culture as its forerunner strikes me as extremely puritan and totalitarian. Sure, they encourage diversity -- but only under the condition that the differences are skin deep.

Americans invented the multiple choice test. They invented the extreme quantification and statistics in sports. All those checkboxes on insurance forms. Itemized medical bills. The DSM. Those social games where you're supposed to choose between just two options. Massively drugging little children with Ritalin and such so that they would appear more "normal". Forcing little children into medical chemical and even surgical procedures, so that they could fit neatly into either category "male" or "female". Denoting weight on personal documents. Denoting race on personal documents. Expecting from people to know their "net worth" at all times. Calculating a person's credit score. Measuring a person's attractiveness on a scale of 1 to 10.


What is this, if not evidence of an obsession with quantification, normativization, standardization?

This is very important. This is exactly what I am talking about at the start: Not "what I am," but "how I being." It is in this act that our above-mentioned reflections are realized: Substantia is not a noun. Being is not a noun. (which, in my opinion, is a given for languages that do not require a copula)

Is it possible to identify a process? Rather than identify, it is more accurate to compare. Compare, but not with a thing, but with a process. — Astorre

I don't want to sound too simplistic, but this topic seems to conflate questions about at least a few grammatical phenomena:

full verbs vs. auxiliary verbs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auxiliary_verb

grammatical aspect and lexical aspect
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_aspect

deverbal nouns/gerundiums
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verbal_noun

analytic vs. synthetic languages
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic_language

It would be too much to go into each of these topics here in one post. And while studying general grammar theory doesn't necessarily resolve these questions, it can take away their mystique, or at least some of it.

For example, "being" is a noun; it's a noun derived from a verb, and as such it retains the semantic characteristics of the verb from which it derives, hence its verb-like meaning, even though grammatically, it's a noun.

Sort of like the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis for philosophy? It's an interesting though. However, it seems to me like Sapir-Whorf has fallen into ill repute in its stronger forms and the empirical support mustered for its weaker forms is, from what I can tell, is quite modest. Certainly, a lot of people have wanted it to be true, and I can see why, as it would suggest that merely speaking differently would open up all sorts of new horizons, but I am a bit skeptical. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Becoming fluent in a few languages, understanding the grammar theoretically for each of those languages, and having some knowledge of grammar in general kills the magic, in my experience.
And makes it harder to relate to ordinary monolingual people! Oy vey!

We can illustrate the problem of “mistranslation” with the example of Parmenides’ statement: “Being is, non-being is not.” In a language with an obligatory copula, this phrase sounds like a final statement fixing being. In contrast, the translation of the same phrase into Kazakh and Chinese, suggested at the beginning of our discussion, completely changes its meaning: “Becoming is, non-becoming is not” (Bolý bar, bolmaý joq) or “The Way exists, the non-Way does not” (dào yǒu, fēi dào wŭ). These translations turn a statement about a static entity into a dynamic statement about a process and a relationship. This is a clear example of “mistranslation” as a conceptual act, not a grammatical error. — Astorre

Theoretically, it is possible to translate anything from any natural language to any other natural language. The formulation might be clumsy, but it should be possible.

In the example above, it's comes down to a well-known problem of trying to translate the specifics of grammatical and lexical aspect esp. from a Slavic language to other languages that don't have simple equivalents.

As a speaker of both two Slavic languages as well as two Germanic languages, I wouldn't make too much of this, though. What Slavic languages can do with aspect, other languages can make up for with tense. (My native language has an elaborate system of verbal aspect and 4 tenses. English has 16 tenses.)

In the previous text, I distinguished between the concepts of rational knowledge and faith. — Astorre

This is a popular dichotomy, yes, but it's a false one nonetheless. It's a dichotomy that holds only when one attempts to justify religious faith to an atheist, on atheist terms.

Now why on earth should one do that??

The moment one starts to justify religious belief/faith/dogma is the moment one disbelieves it and demotes it.

Religious dogma is just that: dogma. There is no argument for it, no rationalization, no support. It just is. That's the whole point.

It's no wonder people are not convinced by all those "reasons for belief in the existence of God". Reasons actually detract from such belief. It's just bizarre that religious people are the ones offering them.

It's only through imposing an anachronistic definition of faith onto the biblical narrative — Hanover

Indeed. So often, when the word in the translation is rendered as "faith", it should probably be "faithfulness" or "loyalty" instead. "Faith" is a word that currently typically denotes something like 'a state of cognitive uncertainty, but also hopefulness'.

Similarly, "to believe" etymologically means 'to hold dear'; historically, it doesn't have this exclusively cognitive meaning it tends to be ascribed today, especially in secular circles.

In Russian, there is a special word for "sufficiently justified (for the subject) knowledge" – "pravda." — Astorre

Speaking of words in different languages:

What is the Russian word for "faith"? And what does it mean etymologically?

For them they are happy being male, they just want the gender acceptance of sexual expression and attention that they see women have. — Philosophim

But that's highly biased, based on an idealization of a very particular category of women. Statistically, it seems few women get that kind of sexualized attraction you mention above that these men are seeking.

They want to be treated like the other sex by society, so changing their body will hopefully do so. — Philosophim

But why??
It would be understandable if transgenderism would be primarily the domain of artists, actors, performers, who, simply due to the nature of their work, are trying to be special and provocative somehow. But so many cases of transgenderism are perfectly ordinary people of one sex who medically transform themselves and who then look like perfectly ordinary people of the other sex.
Why would anyone go to such lengths just to be -- ordinary??
Why would anyone go from being an ordinary guy to looking like an ordinary gal?

Because it's pretty much stereotyping. We're stereotyping sexes here. — Copernicus

Not just sexes, pretty much everything is being stereotyped. Modern culture, especially American culture as the forerunner, appears to be obsessed with quantification, normativization, standardization. A person can only be this or that (or the other), and they have to decide right now, and this decision has to stick forever and in all contexts.

While it's understandable that quantification, normativization, standardization are done for administrative purposes, legal purposes, liability purposes, insurance purposes, they seem to easily lead to absurd consequences because of the simplification they entail and because of the weight they carry.


Just the other day, a male relative of mine commented that he has "legs like a woman". He's very athletic, and some forms of exercise can lead men to have legs that seem more typical for women. But he certainly didn't think, much less have I thought, that this somehow means he's "a woman trapped in a man's body". I think that in a normal culture, it's normal to have such "cross-gendered" observations about oneself and others without this leading to doubts about one's sexual or gender identity.

In contrast, in modern culture obsessed with quantification, normativization, standardization, and with sex/gender issues, such observations are not innocent anymore. On the internet, there are these heartbreaking videos of mothers basically forcing their young sons into thinking they are really girls trapped in male bodies and that a gender-reassignment surgery is in place -- and all this because the boy was a little curios about dolls.

This eagerness to jump to conclusions happens with so many things, whether it's placing children on the "autistic spectrum" or with the "epidemic of ADHD" or transgenderism.


It seems that transgenderism and the increase of people with mental health diagnoses are actually at least in part a consequence of the urge and pressure to stereotype.

This completely ignores the fact that society's expectations have changed. Having long hair and wearing earrings is no longer considered feminine, so a man that grows their hair long and wears earrings is no longer transitioning because those traits have now been taken off the table of transgenderism. The members of Motley Crüe were not transitioning to females. They were going against the grain (the social expectation), breaking down the sexist barriers and making a statement that MEN can have long hair, not that they are now women with long hair. — Harry Hindu

This is only so in a temporally relatively short time-frame. Prior to this, for centuries, both men and women wore long hair, earrings, elaborate clothing, and high heels.

Social norms seem to have a tendency to be extremely short-sighted.

No. I seem to be incapable of believing in any god variations. So 'right one' is not on my radar. It’s probably a matter of disposition. Are you a theist? — Tom Storm

No.

That we should push the religious/spiritual to sort things out amongst themselves, until only one religion/spirituality is left.
— baker
I’m not sure what this means. A fight to the death until only one theism is left standing?

Of course, this is a pipe dream, but yes.

And if one religion or spirituality remains, are you saying that this one represents the truth, or merely that it's the one that survived?

It would be a trial by combat:

Trial by combat (also wager of battle, trial by battle or judicial duel) was a method of Germanic law to settle accusations in the absence of witnesses or a confession in which two parties in dispute fought in single combat; the winner of the fight was proclaimed to be right. In essence, it was a judicially sanctioned duel. It remained in use throughout the European Middle Ages, gradually disappearing in the course of the 16th century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_by_combat

The Thirty Years' War and the wars immediately connected to it were a form of large-scale trial by combat. The combatants, Catholics and Protestants, decided to force God to show his hand, with the agreement being that whoever won was right about God, had the right religion. Unfortunately, they ran out of soldiers, and the war was never properly finished to the point where there would be one clear winner.

And what if there are multiple paths and spiritual truths and the human urge for simplifications and reductions not applicable?

That's irrelevant. The option that needs to be ruled out is that only one religion is the right one, because this is the most immediately and long-term dangerous one. If only one religion is the right one, then failure to join it on time will have eternal irrepairable consequences. If more religions are right, then it doesn't really matter what we do, and we can just go about our lives as we see fit.

I'm inclined to think that the whole point of religion/spirituality is the pursuit of wealth, health, and power.

All spirituality? Including the aforementioned Meister Eckhart or Hildegard von Bingen?

I'm especially wary about people like Eckhart and Hildegard. My experience has consistently been that religious/spiritual people who through their public writings and talks seem especially sensitive, sensible, empathetic are nothing like that in how they actually interact with people. It's like dealing with two different persons.

Given what you say, where do you think you could find a source of benign, non-authoritarian people who meet your standards?
I'm not looking for "benign, non-authoritarian". If anything, I want people who are straightforward and can be relied on.
— baker
Do you mean that you prefer people who aren’t hypocrites and are predictable, so that if they’re bad, it’s all out in the open?

That can hardly be called a preference.

You didn't read the link, did you?
— baker
I read the I-message statement link. I also attended a seminar on this.

But it doesn't seem to resonate with you?

So long as the recipient understands that the conveyance of faith is only a shadow and a sign, there is no danger. — Leontiskos

They can only understand something is "only a shadow and a sign" (or the "finger pointing to the moon") if they also know what it is that casts that shadow and what the sign stands for.

I encountered the preacher's paradox in my everyday life. It concerns my children. Should I tell them what I know about religion myself, take them to church, convince them, or leave it up to them, or perhaps avoid religious topics altogether?

I don't know the right way. I don't know anyone who knows. I'm the father. I'm responsible for them (that's my conviction). — Astorre

I think it's irresponsible to bring children into this world without first being sure of metaphysical issues first. But what's done is done, so, moving on:

Based on my personal experience, I think it's best for a parent to consider the possible social and economical ramifications for not raising their children in a religious way. If you live in a country/culture where the majority is religious (and it's irrelevant if they are only Sunday saints) and send their children to church, then it's best to do so as well. It's not worth it to be a pioneer. If your particular decisions regarding religion could lead to your children being ostracized and stigmatized, then you need to make other decisions.

If because of this, the religiosity you teach your children seems shallow and worldly, so be it. They can improve on it later, if they have the time and energy and inclination. But right now, they need to train themselves to become socially and economically successful. Because without that, religosity is in vain.


And don't ask the local priest or other religious people where you live for advice. Don't let them know your deepest doubts, fears, concerns. Because this could backfire horribly, for you and for your children.

It means that wearing a skirt is now gender-neutral. — Harry Hindu

Only if one is in some position of power or a member of an elite. Like there are photos on the internet of some fancy banker who is evidently a man and goes to work in a skirt and high heels; or some male members of the elite who wear high-end fashion skirts.

But if an ordinary man were to wear an ordinary skirt, it would be just foolish, inappropriate, certainly not gender-neutral.

Things that are okay for the upper class are not automatically okay for everyone.