You are talking about status...but what type of status are you talking about? People apply measurements, but the measurements themselves have absolutely no objective value. I personally don't want to go down your train of thought of trying to impose an objective truth, to me that's really depressing, because i can no longer judge a situation for myself. I can't go through my life using the opinions of others as a reference ONLY, while assuming that i can't know or judge at all. That's pretty viciously masochistic yet seemingly common. — ProtagoranSocratist

Here's the thing: How do you cope with blatant injustice done to you, and you have no recourse for rectifying it? Without becoming cynical and jaded?

Oh, somebody noticed this bit ...

I was hoping to indicate that interaction with other beings does not have to always be on a utility basis. It is possible that we can interact even with inanimate objects on and I-Thou basis and there are tremendous benefits from doing so. Try it with an AI and see what happens. — Prajna

What happens is that one can end up with a false sense of respect, which makes the objectification of the other more subtle -- and more insidious.

Religion/spirituality is a prime example of such subtle and insidious objectification of others: there is a whole doctrine of telling others what they are supposed to think, feel, and intend (not to mention do, physically). They are eradicated as persons, their actual thoughts, feelings, and intentions rendered worthless, irrelevant. While all along they are referred to with "Thou". You might as well take a cardboard box, fill it with your own thoughts, feelings, and intentions, yet write on it in big letters, with a permanent marker, "Thou".

The thing is, I've never met anyone who truly doesn't believe in God (what they call transcendence by another word doesn't count), except perhaps philosophers who are capable of transcending these boundaries for a moment, after which they always return.

Most people, even when professing disbelief, often replace God with other "absolute" concepts: science, progress, morality, or personal mission. — Astorre

It's strange to equate belief in God with some other belief in some "higher entity" or some "higher power" and to then call the latter "theism". The worshippers of the golden calf are not theists.
Yes, people have highest principles etc. other than God, and they worship entitites or things other than God, but to call them "theists" is to render the term "theism" meaningless. If everyone is a theist, then nobody is.

Of course Universal Reconciliation is an official heresy but what can you do. — Colo Millz

But it's not a religion. So what good is it?
Who is David Bentley Hart that we could put our trust in him as far as our eternal fate is concerned?

How time flies!!

I haven't encountered a classification of types of individualism. — Astorre

It's simply an observation of mine.

There is a lot of criticism of individualism going around, especially from religious/spiritual circles. I find, though, that much of that criticism is cruel and heartless, as the religious/spiritual refuse to acknowledge that individualism is a much more complex phenomenon than they give it credit; and more, that it is precisely the religious/spiritual with their practices (or "malpractices") that are in part or fully causing this same individualism that they are so criticial of.

At the same time, let's try to connect these levels. For example, the "defensive" type is possible precisely in societies where individualism is already ingrained: in a primitive community or collectivist culture, self-isolation would lead to exile or death, but in a liberal world (where "I don't care what John does"), it becomes a rational survival strategy. Thus, even defensive individualism rests on the same foundation—freedom from collective obligations.

Defensive individualism is a consequence of when the collective refuses to take any obligation toward a particular individual or a particular category of individuals. Illegitimate children, orphans, widows, the poor, people who, often by no fault of their own, ended up on the "wrong side of the track".
It's when the "community", the "collective", "society" ostracizes a person or a category of persons that these ostracized people resort to a defensive type of individualism. They're not happy to be individualists at all, but they have no other choice, as society has rejected them.

This type of individualism has an entirely different motivation than the entitled individualism ("I'm so wonderful, get out of my way, you worthless bug") that people usually mean when they criticize individualism.

In general, developed countries' propaganda toward their geopolitical rivals is based, among other things, on the idea of ​​conveying to citizens beliefs about personal uniqueness, inimitability, and individuality. For example, Voice of America and Radio Liberty, US-funded broadcasters, broadcast programs emphasizing individual rights, freedom of speech, and personal success. For example, they told stories of "independent" Americans who achieved success without state control, contrasting this with the Soviet system, where "everyone is responsible for everyone else."

Such American propaganda in favor of individualism is, in my opinion, actually just another effort by the upper class to absolve themselves from any and all responsibility toward the lower classes.

This sowed the seeds of rebellion: "Why should I depend on the collective when I can be independent?" Such broadcasts reached millions of listeners in the USSR, contributing to the rise of dissidents like Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn.

Somehow, I'm not convinced by this explanation. I've lived in a country that used to be "socialist/communist" (with a strong " "). Now that the country is not in that system anymore, it's evident what many people hated about it and what they really want. Many want the same old overt class system that has existed for centuries (and even during the time when the country was nominally "socialist/communist").
People, especially those of the upper class and those trying to become the upper class do want to "depend on the collective" -- but only as long as it is within their own upper class. They don't want to show any respect to someone who is of a lower class than they are.
It's always about classism.

Today, a similar tactic is being used against China and Russia, where the emphasis on individualism is being used to criticize authoritarian systems. Propaganda focuses on "personal uniqueness" as a universal value to provoke internal conflict: "Why should I be responsible for the affairs of the state or the collective?"

But these Western propagandists don't seem to understand that esp. a culture like the Chinese has no beef with either individualism or collectivism. These nations are extremely mercantile, competitive, capitalist to the extreme, and they have been this way for millennia. The reason these people at large don't feel responsible for the affairs of the state or the collective isn't individualism (for they're not individualists of this kind), it's that their primary focus is on making money, and they're not shy about it. In those cultures, money is no something dirty, the way it is often portrayed in the West (although recently less so).


The Western idea of individualism usually conjures up an image of a solitary person, somewhere alone.

If an average Westerner sees images like these:







they probably think how these people are "sheeple", a "nameless mass", people with "no individuality".
And yet what such a Western view fails to acknowledge is that in order to successfully participate in those mass dances where everyone is doing the exact same thing, or in order to practice religious worship in such mass events, one needs to be able to be supremely focused on one's task at hand. One cannot do those things by following others; if one did that, the whole performance would fail.
I think that those Easterners are actually far more individualistic than Westerners, for they are able to perform their tasks and duties, successfully, while surrounded by others, without allowing themselves to be distracted by them. This requires a kind of focus and ability that we in the West are just not trained to have. For us, in order to focus, we normally need physical solitude (which can be very expensive and hard to obtain).

As a further example, I have heard that in a classical Korean music school, all musicians practice in the same big room at the same time. They train themselves to focus on their own instrument, their voice -- while in the middle of everyone else doing the same thing for themselves. Imagine the noise that one needs to block out! What could be more individualistic!

In so far as 'thinking' helps one to thrive over above one's mere survival, I agree. — 180 Proof

This also explains the trend of anti-intellectualism and anti-philosophy. People who are actually living in constant state of existential anxiety due to the pressures from trying to earn a living cannot add to this same existential anxiety by thinking about it without this somehow hindering them in their efforts to earn a living. Perhaps counterintutively, this can apply to people of any socioeconomic class; living paycheck to paycheck is not limited to the poor, not by far.

Which is why I say that philosophy is and should be the domain of the leisurely elites.

The reality is that there is often immense pressure to not think about things. For many, thinking about common ideas that hold society together is dangerous. It is 'immoral' to think in the minds of many. — Philosophim

I've always thought that the reason why people don't think much (or at least don't seem to) is because they've already figured it all out, are beyond uncertainty and doubt.

In so far as 'thinking' helps one to thrive over above one's mere survival, I agree. — 180 Proof

Exactly.
There is such a thing as idle doubting.

I didn't mean to be offensive when I said earlier that you have a low treshold for what passes as theism.

Your ideas of theism seem to be quite innocent and benevolent. Obviously, they are quite different from what many other people are used to understand by "theism" where God is the ultimate threat and danger. It's easy to understand that people who grew up around Western Christianity and Islam are uncomfortable about thanking God because it feels like thanking a monster.

This is why I believe it is important to have someone or something to thank.

Gratitude by its nature seeks relationship; it wants to move outward, to acknowledge a giver.

Otherwise gratitude becomes diffuse.

Theism transforms gratitude from a mere mood into a relationship. — Colo Millz

Exactly.

However, quite a bit depends on the type of monotheism in question.

For example, what goes on in the mind of a Roman Catholic when they feel thankful to God for something, while being fully aware that their salvation is not guaranteed?

Things seem straightforward enough for, say, a Jew or a traditional Hindu, ie. religions where there is no notion of eternal damnation and where mistakes on one's part are not eternally fatal. Also those Protestants who believe that by one act of faith on their part, their eternal salvation is guaranteed seem to have it easy.

But in a religion like Roman Catholicism or Islam where one's life and one's eternal destiny are always precarious -- how do their members and prospective members cope with the precariousness of their situation?
It seems hard to thank God when this same God is someone who could make you suffer forever.

This is also relevant for anyone contemplating conversion to a religion, but also to someone trying to understand religious people.

It's not black and white overall because I agree that AIs can be used positively, and they've been very helpful to me, especially in long philosophical back and forths that aid in clarifying certain ideas etc. That has made me more productive — Baden

More productive?
What gets to me is that consulting online sources like LLMs takes so much time. Who has the time and the will to study thousands of words spat out by a machine? I'd rather think things through myself, even if this means spending the same amount of time, or even more. It will be time well spent, it will feel like quality time, a mind well used.

By that criteria, even philosophically, I'm not banning LLM's insofar that it fits that goal. And really I don't see what you've said as a harmful use --

i.e. checking your own arguments, etc. — Moliere

But this is what conversation is for. I think it's appealing to put oneself out there, understanding that one may have possible vulnerabilities, gaps, etc. That's when one can learn best.

namely the valuing of human interaction (and the definition of human interaction). — Leontiskos

Once, in the very distant and very romantic past, philosophy was about having conversations; it was about what each participant could bring to the discussion, on the spot. The proverbial Rhodus was everywhere, and a philosopher was expected to be able to jump far, right there and then.

When I was going to school, at all levels, there was at least one teacher each time who insisted that we must master (parts of) the subject matter so thoroughly that if someone were to wake us up at 2 AM and ask us about it, we'd needed to know it.

There was this focus on mastery and on being able to demonstrate it on the spot in a conversation. But lately, this doesn't seem to be the case anymore. Now it seems to be more about being able to produce a lengthy text, while a conversation seems to be primarily about how to beat down your opponent with any means available.

If we don't know why we want to engage in human-to-human communication, or if we don't know what the relevant difference is between humans and AI, then we will not have the capacity or endurance to withstand the pressures of AI. We need to understand these questions in order to understand how to approach rules, guidelines, and interaction with respect to AI. — Leontiskos

Absolutely.

Part of why it seems appealing to do philosophy via internet forums like this is because the people one is conversing with don't seem exactly real, or to matter all that much (one can, after all, just put other posters on ignore, and people also get banned altogether). In such an online setting, one can speak and behave in ways that one can't IRL. For one, since the communication is time-delayed, one has time to look up relevant facts etc. to strengthen one's arguments; or if things get inflamed, take a break for them to cool off. But also feels a bit freer to say things that might be too controversial to say IRL. And then there's, of course, the factor of indugling in bullshit. All this reflects the general trend of avoiding commitment. The things one can (or at least could) get away with on te internet would cost one one's job and friends IRL.

Sometimes, I think it's rather sad to talk philosophy on an internet forum. Perhaps the fact that, for whatever reason, one cannot do that IRL, then one, perhaps, should not try to talk philosophy at all, but instead attend to whatever are the pressing matters in one's life.

Then why did you ask earlier:

If someone gave their life to save you, would you think them less than yourself? — Prajna

in reply to my saying:

To begin with, it's hard to kill and eat a being, on a daily basis at that, or take their land or possessions unless one thinks of them as somehow significantly lesser than oneself. In order to evolve, one needs to survive to being with, and surviving requires taking -- taking lives, possessions, rights, status. — baker

*double post*

It's not idealism to know that the hierarchically powerful are not all powerful or godlike.

Maybe you can't assassinate a president and expect to get away with it, but i would suspect a president's cabinet members do hurt them sometimes, but in a much more minor way. I would argue that believing in the social infallibility of leaders is crazier than thinking it's impossible to harm them without getting away with it. — ProtagoranSocratist

They're not necessarily considered infallible, they're untouchable -- at least for those low enough in the hierarchy.

I was once talking to a Catholic priest. I gave a real-life example of one person causing great material damage to another person, namely, making the person homeless by destroying their home (and everything that comes along with experiencing that damage). Curiously to me, he replied, "We cannot understand evil."

So, to revisit:

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

To which I replied that the socioeconomic status of myself and the other person respectively plays the determining role in how I would think about such a person's actions.

I still think it's naive and idealistic to think a person of low status could correctly measure or evaluate the words and actions of a person of high status. It's naive and idealistic to think that the same measurments apply to everyone, regardless of status. This doesn't mean that one must think of the higher-ups as infallible, but that one is not in a position to judge them. A quietism as summarized by the priest above seems to be a much more viable way to live, in contrast to wasting one's resources in a futile pursuit of "justice", or becoming cynical and jaded (and worse) upon realizing that one's sense of right and wrong cannot be acted on in cases that seem to need it most.

I was using my analysis to determine if it is Divinely Revealed in the first place. — Bob Ross

No, that would require a divine revelation of your own, ie. God revealing to you, personally, whether something you wondered whether it is a divine revelation or not, is in fact divine revelation.

Your approach lacks the fideist element so typical for traditional monotheistic religions.

The atomized utility maximizer of liberal economics is not an empirical fact,
but an interpretive lens. — Count Timothy von Icarus

What isn't an interpretive lens?

If someone gave their life to save you, would you think them less than yourself? — Prajna

So what is happening in slaughterhouses is that all those cows, pigs, goats, sheep, chicken, and whatever other species,
are in fact
giving
their lives
to save humans (from hunger)?

Where i will push toward religion is to say you are always of infinite moral worth — Hanover

Then why isn't everyone born into the Jewish religion?

And why do the Jews outkill them by a magnitude of 65 to 100?

This is a derailment, though. Personally, I am a Christian now; but none of the above is required in order to live a sufficiently good life.

Natural theology is sufficient. — Bob Ross

Thus you have a theism on *your* terms, *not* on God's terms. That's the problem with "natural theology".
Divine revelation, even if accepted merely as a concept, is necessary in order to overcome "natural theology". Because "natural theology" is self-centred with God merely as an object in it. Not only is in existing monotheisms theology structured top-down (God reveals himself to his underlings), it also logically follows that if one is to consider God properly (in his almighty creative and controlling power), then one's religiosity has to be on God's terms (ie. involving revelation), not on one's own.


This is also why you have a problem with "Old Testament evil": You're evaluating God on *your* terms, not on God's terms. If you accept that God is the Creator of the Universe, the Lawmaker, then you have to accept that he can do with it as he pleases, including killing infants.

There has to be a point where a monotheist says something along the lines of, "Surely God had a reason for doing what he did, and even though I don't understand it or personally approve of it, I still have faith in him and submit to his will."

If all one ever does is rely on one's own reasoning about God, one doesn't actually believe in God, or one's idea of God is god as an impotent and inconsequential being.

Why do many people belive the appeal to tradition is some inviolable trump card?[/quote]
Because for the foreseeable time, it is precisely that: an inviolable trump card.

I was going to say earlier that for me, gratitude feels like an indebtedness to a mystery for this fragile state of good fortune, which could disappear in a nanosecond.
— Tom Storm

Sorry, but I remain skeptical about your calling yourself an atheist. — Astorre

I think you have a very strange idea of what passes for "theism", such a low treshold that it seems meaningless.

Oh, I get my "best ideas" while cooking and washing the dishes and when working in the garden. Neverthelss, this seems mostly just like "the churning of the mind", production of thought for the sake of production of thought.


To say nothing of how dangerous it is to allow oneself to be distracted while out hiking.

Interesting that you raise this. I was going to say earlier that for me, gratitude feels like an indebtedness to a mystery for this fragile state of good fortune, which could disappear in a nanosecond. There is in fact a vulnerability built into it, and a deep sense of precariousness. But I guess my experience of gratitude doesn’t accord precisely with the classical use of the word; there’s also, built into it, an appreciation.

Do you feel gratitude? — Tom Storm

I often thank people.
But I don't feel grateful for life, or for good weather, or that I didn't get electrocuted nor fell from that tree. To whom should I be grateful for these things? To whom could I be grateful for these things?
For me, losing or nearly losing something doesn't lead to appreciating it, it just leads to a painful realization of vulnerability and fragility. Sometimes, it leads to becoming disenchanted with the entire life project altogether.

Why??
I mean, why not focus on one thing at a time?
It mars the hike to do something else while on the hike.

If the research necessary to ground a thesis is too "tedious," then the thesis is not something one can put forth with integrity. — Leontiskos

It all just goes to show once more how plebeified higher education has become.

I write most of my forum posts on an iphone while hiking. — Joshs

You hike a lot!

What is the telos of TPF? — Leontiskos

A pissing contest, combined with quasi-efforts at healing existential anxiety.

Even the serious folks here aren't all that serious, or at least the serious ones aren't serious enough about posting much.

There goes your use of AI! Heh.

Given the sense of your sentence, it should probably be "over" instead of "soccer".

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.