I can help you with that. Start with epistemology, as related to the philosophy of science, and stay clear of subjectivism and post modernism. It leads to toxic wokeness and performative virtue signalling - and you don't want philosophy to turn you into a weak kneed, perpetually offended knobhead!

How does it fit into your theory of European supremacy that Europe was hammered by the virus? — frank

Huh? I think you got the wrong fella, fella!

But, rather proves my point there's nothing left to say about Covid!

To my mind, the problem with Descartes epistemology is that it's sceptical doubt as opposed to reasonable doubt. He imagines an evil demon is deceiving him in order to cast doubt on everything that can be doubted. He doubts that the world he sees exists, or that he has arms and legs etc. That's unreasonable. Were it so, it would raise more questions than it answers.

Had Descartes stuck his hand in the fire - rather than a ball of wax, he would soon have discovered something prior to, and more urgently real than 'cogito' not subject to doubt - and that proved with painful certainty the existence of the physical self and an objective reality. Descartes doesn't recognise this problem.

But there is an epistemological triviality that follows from the text; in the fact that Descartes paints himself into a corner - having doubted everything that can be doubted, having established cogito ergo sum as certain, it is nonetheless, a solipsistic certainty - stranded in no space by the conditions of the thought experiment. No arms, no legs, no world - all is doubted away. His recourse is to God. From memory the passage reads something like:

"For light of reason tells us that God cannot be a deceiver" - and Descartes thereby rescues himself from the solipsistic corner of nowhere, where his certainty exists. That is the triviality of it. That it depends upon asserting the existence and nature of God - to rescue the conclusion from the limitations placed upon it by the sceptical conditions of its conception.

"Covid, covid, covid, covid, covid, covid, covid, covid, covid, covid, covid, covid, covid, covid, covid, covid, covid, covid, covid, covid, covid, covid, covid, covid, covid, covid, covid, covid, covid, covid, covid, covid, covid, covid, covid, covid, covid"

Will y'all shut up about Covid? What more could there possibly be to say?

Mask, Wash, Space, Jab - done!

thank you for making my case. — synthesis

There's no need to thank me for giving you an opening for one of your mad ideas. I was talking about the actual implications of causality. If that rings a bell that induces you to drool, it's purely incidental.

Cause and effect. Considering the idea that even the simplest of things is caused by an infinite number of events preceding, how can you possibly understand what brought this event into being? — synthesis

By controlling for causal factors. In medical experiments, for example - half a test group are given sugar pills and the other half a drug. The difference between them can thus be attributed to the presence of the drug. I would have imagined someone pretending to be a doctor would know this already.

This is one of the reasons why we can not understand anything (and especially why we cannot understand another person). — synthesis

I suppose it depends on what you mean by understand. Psychologically, a person is an incredibly complex thing. A person has unique qualities - not least, a personal history another person can never wholly appreciate. That said, we can say that human beings are a biological organism, that they evolved in tribal groups, and there are consequent psychological parameters. We can know there are 206 bones in their body, a cardiovascular system, a nervous system, a digestive system. We know they inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide, ingest food and excrete waste, and so on and on. Some people even have a brain!

And this has been understood for..ever. Wisdom from every culture includes the idea that "judging" is amoral (because you can not understand it or them). — synthesis

Amoral or immoral? Do you know the difference? I have my suspicions. It's only natural that I would, but expressing them....being judgemental, is probably what religions warn against.

So I am not denying that Reality/reality is causal, just that we have no access to its understanding. — synthesis

So explain traffic lights. Red - stop. Green - go. People see the signal and act accordingly. If reality is subjectively constructed how is that possible? Your experience must be the same as mine.

Why are you assuming that either of those explanations are correct? How about if the wave/particle theory of light goes up in smoke and is replaced with the ding/splork theory? Science is in its infancy, always changing like everything knowable. — synthesis

Because the explanation explains the evidence. If an alternate explanation explains the evidence better, then science adopts it. That's how science works. Consider this series: the Bible, Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Einstein. They each developed theories of planetary motion - each one an improvement upon the previous ones. Each theory explained more, with a greater accuracy of prediction. That's what science has been doing for 400 years; that's how science knows.

Here's the problem with the view you expressed in the OP. If reality is subjectively constructed, why didn't my brain synchronise the sight of the man hitting the stake with the hammer, with the sound of the man hitting the stake with the hammer? Why, if reality is subjectively constructed - does the sound of the train ringing its bell sound high pitched coming toward me, and lower pitched moving away? If reality is subjectively constructed, why doesn't my brain iron out these peculiarities? And why, does someone stood beside me experience the same thing? The only logical explanation is that they occur in reality, and both I and the other guy experience reality as it really is. It's how traffic lights work. Face it; subjectivism is unreasonably overblown. I know why. I also know it will kill us all.

I see science as a tool because it gets you part of the way, just like a hammer helps you build a house, it cannot preform all the tasks necessary. You should open your mind a bit and consider all things as part of the whole. I am assuming you are not a religious person, but do you have any spiritual stirrings inside? — synthesis

Science as a tool - of motives such as yours. That is our doom. Science used as a tool with no regard to a scientific understanding of reality. You are a fool. You are surrounded by technological miracles - technologies that work within a causal reality, and yet you insist science knows nothing - and then tell me to open my mind. It is beyond parody.

You should open your mind a bit and consider all things as part of the whole. I am assuming you are not a religious person, but do you have any spiritual stirrings inside? — synthesis

Very well; consider this. Life sprang into being as a consequence of the action of physical forces on chemical elements. (The first addition to the universe in 10 billion years.) Life evolved by means of natural selection - in relation to a causal reality. The organism had to be correct to reality or it would die out. Its basic physiology had to inhale the air, to extract oxygen, to decompose foods, to provide energy, to send signals along its nervous system, to move toward food and away from danger. The behaviour of the organism - like the way a bird builds a nest, (before it lays eggs; not because it knows and plans ahead, but because all the birds that didn't are dead, because they were wrong) - also had to be correct to reality.

Generation after generation a billion times over, life evolved, each little advantage saved in the genetic bank and passed on to the next generation - before one particular branch of one particular type of primate, about 200,000 years ago - happened upon intellectual intelligence. (The second addition to the universe in 15 billion years.) Generation after generation this animal struggled to survive, to breed, and to learn new things and pass on its accumulated knowledge through culture. Starting naked, with nothing but sticks and stones, humankind built all this using the knowledge accumulated - so that you could take to your computer keyboard, and insist, over and over again that we know nothing, and then imply that I am spiritually bereft because I think science is valid knowledge of the reality from which life springs, and that our species needs to be correct to a scientific understanding of reality in order to survive. I guess it depends on how you define spiritual.

The point is that your point is wrong. Facts outlast the moment. I can go back and read your post now - after all this time. I'm not going to, but I could, because the moment of its creation is not the only moment in which it exists. Reality is causal. Every effect has prior causes, which in turn have prior causes. Your argument, that we cannot access the real is clearly incorrect.

I once watched a man driving in a stake. He was some distance away across the railway tracks. He struck the stake with a hammer, and a second or so later the sound reached me, by which time he was striking down again. In fact, light travels faster than sound. In reality, the light reached my eyes before sonic vibrations reached my ears. My perceptions were not out of step with reality. I perceived what actually happened.

A train comes toward you ringing its bell. The sound is high pitched. It passes by and the pitch drops to a lower register. This is because the sound waves of the train coming toward you are compressed - whereas, the sound waves of the train moving away are stretched out. This really happens, in reality. If you did not understand this, you might conclude there were two bells. Yours is a two bell explanation of reality!

I want my penny up front!

Facts only exist momentarily (as all things are changing). This means that by the time you are able to conceive of such, then process such into a fact-being, it is already gone. POOF. — synthesis

Then there's really no point reading the rest of your post. Poof. It's already gone.

Counterpunch, I have been distracted from the site for a few days, but on returning I have been fascinated by your conversation, — Gary Enfield

I however, am not fascinated. I've tried to make myself clear. I do not believe anyone here has the ability to judge arguments about quantum mechanics or molecular biology on merit. I certainly don't, and I am not about to develop such an ability without many years of specialist education. It is therefore rather easy for people like Finopsicle, or Hoffman to make overblown claims they are very well aware - certain people want to believe.

"Is consciousness deepest reality, the ground of being of the cosmos? If the question is "What brought all into existence?" the answer is "Consciousness". Some say this is a 'cosmic consciousness' of which our personal consciousness is a small part. Others, that the ultimate consciousness is God. Others, that consciousness and cosmos are both deep reality."

I prefer to speak in terms of things that I am able to know - than imply what I want to believe from what I am not able to understand. Now let that be an end to the matter.

1. What is ultimate reality to you? God? Matter? Something else? — jjstet

1. I don't know. I don't think in terms of the ultimate. It's important to recognise what you cannot know.

2. Is truth absolute or relative? Are at least some truths absolute? Where do these come from? — jjstet

2. Truth is a word with many senses; and for that reason, it's not particularly useful.
There is binary truth: true/false.
Logical truth: if A then B.
Scientific truth: knowledge built from the bottom up, striving toward truth - it never presumes to attain.
Conventional truth: Paris is the capital city of France.
Truth as correspondence to reality: it is raining.
Conditional truth: it will rain tomorrow.
But absolute truth is beyond my knowing, and if it is relative; from another perspective, it is not truth.

3. Are moral values absolute or relative? Are at least some moral values absolute? If so, where do these absolute moral values come from? — jjstet

3. Morality is a sense; fostered in the human animal by evolution in a hunter gatherer tribal context. Morality was beneficial to the individual within the tribe, and to the tribe composed of moral individuals. Morality became explicit when hunter gatherer tribes joined together to form civilisation. There are no absolute moral values.

4. How would you answer the three great philosophical questions of life: Where did we come from? Why are we here? and Where are we going? — jjstet

4. Life on earth is the consequence of physical forces acting upon chemical elements. Human beings are a consequence of the evolution of life by means of natural selection. The occurrence of human intellect makes us special. Our ability to look back at reality and experience it, to understand it, is only the second addition to the universe in 15 billion years. (Life is the first.) We matter because we know; and knowledge can secure our long term existence in the universe.

"Professor Brian Cox builds sandcastles in the Namib Desert to explain why time travels in one direction. It is a result of a phenomenon called entropy; a law of physics that tells us any system tends towards disorder."

https://youtu.be/uQSoaiubuA0

To maintain the ordered structure of anything, from a sandcastle to a civilisation - it is necessary to expend energy. To strike a balance between a civilisation worth having, and a viable natural ecosystem - we need limitless amounts of clean energy to spend to extract carbon from the air - and bury it, to desalinate water to irrigate land for agriculture and human habitation, and to recycle waste.

The flow of heat from Earth's interior to the surface is estimated at 47 terawatts (TW). Current world energy demand is roughly 16 TW. The Earth naturally emits three times the world's energy demand as heat, and will continue to do so for a very long time to come. The limitless source of clean energy we need is right beneath our feet. That's the good news. The bad news is it's difficult to get to.

Drilling technologies developed by the fossil fuel industries, I believe, can be employed to tap into geothermal energy on a large scale, sufficient to meet and exceed global energy demand. This can only work at specific suitable geographic locations, and consequently, distributing this energy would require conversion of electrical energy to hydrogen, then piped as a gas, or shipped as a liquified fuel. Hydrogen fuel can be burnt in traditional power stations to produce electricity, thus utilizing the larger part of existing national energy infrastructures.

A lower energy "green" approach implies more disorder, and ultimately, the failure of human civilisation.

Mark Carney: Climate crisis deaths 'will be worse than Covid'
By Sharanjit Leyl
BBC News

The world is heading for mortality rates equivalent to the Covid crisis every year by mid-century unless action is taken, according to Mark Carney. The former central banker said the investment needed to avert millions of deaths was double current rates. But with governments ploughing billions into keeping economies afloat, a question mark hangs over whether the recovery will be green enough.

The answer lies in smarter investment, Mr Carney said.

Mr Carney, who is tasked with persuading policymakers, chief executives, bankers and investors to focus on the environment, said: "The scale of investment in energy, sustainable energy and sustainable infrastructure needs to double."

"Every year, for the course of the next three decades, $3.5 trillion (£2.5tn) a year, for 30 years. It is an enormous investment opportunity."

He said the answer lies in a global pot of $170tn of private capital which, he says, "is looking for disclosure". Banks, investment funds and individuals increasingly want to know how their money will be used.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55944570

I didn't say that truth doesn't matter. I just said there are different versions of the truth (aren't you married? :) You only see one truth. I see two. I hold myself to very high ethical and moral standards so it is not like I do not live truth, I just see its ever changing nature. The truth which is knowable changes like everything else. The Absolute Truth does not change because it is not knowable and exists in moments outside of time. Do you understand this? — synthesis

I have argued this thesis many times, and one of the regular objections I get is based in Hume's - is/ought divide. The 'is' are facts. The 'ought' are values. It is argued, regularly, that science 'is' facts. Facts don't tell us what we 'ought' to do. I disagree - because I understand the problem very well. But you simply disregard the distinction, and instead posit a distinction between knowable truth and absolute truth. Which one of these is it that you conflate with morality?

You won't find more than a handful of people who might agree with me, but that's ok. You are extreme only in that you have thought this out to a degree that few have. Most people (as you well know) don't spend a great deal of time thinking deep thoughts). And I do understand that you are attempting to show me the light, and I appreciate it; but that doesn't mean I am going to buy your version of reality. Why would I? Although you believe that you have "figured it out," soon enough both of us will resume our roles as so much dust in the wind. — synthesis

I can die content with having done my duty - even if I fail, and humankind blunders onward toward the abyss. It's not my fault. I prefer to belong to a species with a future in the universe, for then my existence would matter as part of an intergenerational chain - stretching back into the mists of history, via the evolution of life, unto the physics of the universe from which life springs. And stretching forward, into the future - following in the course of truth, to other stars? To other dimensions? Unto God? I don't know. What I cannot live with is being a willing member of a species that uses science for its own unscientific ends; a species that destroys its environment to pleasure itself, and so renders itself extinct. Such an existence is meaningless.

So fission and fusion is the end of the energy conversation? Seems unlikely. — synthesis

Fission and fusion are the beginning and end of the equivalent energy conversation. E=MC2. The equivalence of energy and matter. Fission or fusion; neither of which are the answer to our needs. The answer to our needs is the giant ball of molten rock upon which we stand. And, I think you'll like this - there's something spiritual about humankind intelligently employing the energy of the earth to maintain the balance of life upon its surface. Instead, it's very sad - that we decried science as heresy, shamed science to maintain religious, political and economic ideology, denied science any moral authority, even as we used science to drive industries that extract resources without regard to the balance of life.

you mistake words (thinking) for truth. The answers are not written down. Realization is non-intellectual. You know for reasons you will never understand. — synthesis

I don't claim to know what I don't know. I claim to know what I do.

I don't know anybody who does not take science very seriously (even the devoutly religious). Perhaps it is you who has raised science above the gods, themselves, made mere mortals appears heretical. What you misunderstand is not what I believe, but how I believe it (the nature of its truth or existence). — synthesis

I claim simply, that truth matters. Religious, political and economic ideologies are not true. Science is true. You claim truth is not possible. You're wrong for the reasons stated.

If your belief system is considerably different than the vast majority, you are going to have to understand that you are flying solo. It's that way for all alternative thinkers. You have to figure out a way to make a difference despite the fact that you are not going to be able to convince anybody that your way is, "The Way" (even if it is!). — synthesis

My concern is not so much that I will fail, but that I will succeed in inflicting a disenchantment that casts man into a nihilistic, anomic abyss. Your resistance to obvious logical inferences, and truth as a norm frightens me. Your attempt to cast me as some kind of extremist - when it's you who believe things that are not true, does not bode well. You see, I thought it would matter. I thought identifying the problem - which I have, and showing it's possible to secure a better future - would matter. But it doesn't, because you can't admit you're wrong.

If you buy what Einstein had to say, E =MCxC, then all matter is energy so this issue should be pretty low on the list of things to worry about. Technology should provide ways to extract energy (from everything) at a very low cost in the not so distant future. — synthesis

This is incorrect. There are two ways to extract equivalent energy from matter - nuclear fission and nuclear fusion. Fusion cannot work in earth gravity; at least, not in a way that produces more energy than it consumes. Fission is regular nuclear energy - with all the problems that entails. These are not solutions to our problems.

I get what you're saying but simply believe that your are doing a great deal of assuming. Prognostication is as difficult as it is because 99% of what determines future events has yet to take place. So that's why I tell you to relax. Things will work out like they will for an infinite number of reasons we are simply incapable of understanding. I know you believe that if humanity just does x, then y, then z, everybody lives happily ever after, but I don't see it that way. — synthesis

Don't pull that "I see what you're saying" bit now - because there's been no indication whatsoever that you do. According to you, EVERYTHING I've said has been wrong. There isn't one instance above, of you acknowledging a single point I've made. Which in itself is disconcerting. Either I'm completely delusional - or your resistance is unreasonable. And if your resistance is unreasonable, here, on a philosophy forum where discussing ideas like truth is our supposed purpose - how will I ever get through to anyone else?

What you don't get is that there's a mechanism; a causal relation between the validity of the knowledge bases of action and the consequences of such action. Acting on invalid knowledge, extinction is an inevitability. It's cause and effect. There's no way around it. The organism MUST be correct to reality to survive, and we're wrong. You insist on it!

So far, you have established that you are an expert in both Zen practice and medicine. I. OTOH, who have practiced Zen over three decades and medicine over four decades claim to know very little. What does this tell you? — synthesis

What this tells me, at last - is that you're evading the question again. You opened a thread specifically to cast doubt upon our ability to establish valid knowledge of reality. I explained why you're mistaken, remember; the evolutionary argument: the organism must be correct to reality or die out. The perceptual argument: we have traffic lights and art - and all sorts of objective, common meaningful signs symbols and experiences that refute utterly the idea of a subjectively constructed reality. The causal argument: scientific principles can be applied to create technologies that work within a causal reality, and so the principles on which the technology is based must be true to reality! So, what I'm asking is why you opened this thread - because I find it difficult to believe you can believe what you say you believe. I didn't ask you about Zen, and I didn't ask you about medicine. I asked you about what you wrote in the OP.

That's not Zen at all, but that's another story (it's barely what might be referred to as popular Zen). You have a lot of anger which is expected from someone who believes they know just about everything and confronts a world where (he believes that) nobody else seems to know much of anything. — synthesis

I do claim to know what I'm talking about with regard to this topic. I've been concerned with the question of the continued survival of the human species for a very long time, and have identified the causes of the threat we face - and what's necessary to address it. In short, our problem is that we have not recognised science as the ability to establish valid knowledge. We have used science as a tool, but our purposes are ideological, not scientific. We rejected science as truth in defence of primitive ideologies while science gave machine guns to monkeys! That can't end well. We need to recognise science as truth and act accordingly to survive. The 'you and I' of this, are irrelevant to me. I care as much about blowing my own horn as I do about hurting your feelings. There's so much more at stake.

I realize that you feel as if this is a prescient moment in the history of mankind on this planet (and maybe it is), but chances are that things are going to keep on going on. I think it's great that you are trying to help out in your way, but what I would say to you is chat with a bunch of older folks that have been around a lot longer than you and see what they think (and why). Although things are pretty screwed-up at the moment, the sky is not falling, so relax a little bit. The world needs calm, not more hysterics. — synthesis

The window of opportunity to address the climate and ecological crisis we face is closing fast. We seem to see progress on the issue, but sadly, Biden's approach is misconceived. It's an approach informed by left wing environmentalist - limits to growth theory, in turn informed by Malthus Essay on Population. Malthus was wrong. 200 years and 8 billion people better fed than ever before prove Malthus was wrong. Resources are a function of the energy available to create them. Yet Biden is about to spend $2 trillion on windmills and solar panels, that will not meet US demand for energy, less yet the rest of the world, that will barely take the edge off carbon emissions, and that will last 25 years - and then burn out, burying us in tech scrap.

Because the energy from wind and solar will be insufficient, it will be expensive, and because it won't reduce carbon emissions sufficiently, it will be necessary to reduce demand in other ways - by imposing taxes on food, energy, travel and so on. It will require increasingly authoritative governments to impose unequal burdens on society, and in the world - burdens that hardly touch the rich, who spend a relatively small proportion of their incomes on food, energy, travel, but that really hurt the poor - and seriously damage poorer countries. Poor people breed more, and so there will be ever less resources spread between more and more people by ever more dictatorial government. So yes, this is a prescient moment.

There is a better way - a way to secure a prosperous, high energy sustainable future for the human species. If only we saw ourselves as such - as a species evolved on this planet, with a common interest in survival. But because we ignored science as an understanding of reality to maintain religious, political and economic ideologies; even as we used science as a tool for military power and industrial profit - and have justified that by denying science as truth with all kinds of subjectivist anti-science, anti truth propaganda - it's very unlikely we will ever see beyond ourselves to the truth of reality, and agree to survive.

The energy is there, in the interior of the earth - endless amounts of high grade clean energy we could use to capture carbon and bury it, desalinate water to irrigate land - and so protect forests and natural water sources from over exploitation, we could produce hydrogen fuel to meet all our energy needs, recycle, farm fish - and our species could survive long into the future, maybe find out what this strange old universe is all about.

do you think it is a possibility that you just don't get what I am talking about? — synthesis

Do you think it's possible you don't?

Trying to explain Zen to somebody is like attempting to explain Love to somebody who has never experienced it. I apologize for doing a poor job. — synthesis

I didn't ask about Zen. I mentioned it only insofar as I'm trying to get past it to a place of honesty, and it seems to me - that Zen isn't honest. Admittedly, it's a behaviourist perspective - looking at the black box of Zen from the outside and implying thought from behaviour. I don't need to understand it because I see what it does to people. I find it immensely frustrating.

I am actually a physician and I deal with very serious health issues. Although I understand the science of my specialty, the most important part of my understanding is what I cannot understand, that is, there is very little known about how the body actually works, so even what is "known," is not known well. But (again), even this knowledge is changing, changing, changing all the time. — synthesis

Medical science seeks to achieve the impossible; that is, to defeat death - and it's only in that context you can assert very little is known. In fact, medicine has a very good understanding of how the human body works.

Zen act? There are very few people who delve deeply into Zen (it is a very arduous practice), but those who do are well-compensated. — synthesis

By becoming insufferable, dishonest, sidestepping, condescending apologists who are too "enlightened" to ever experience a genuine human moment? You're not the first practitioner of Zen I've encountered, so don't imagine this is directed solely at you - but what comes across is weird and creepy, like they have something to hide.

cp, first you might want to try and really understand where I am coming from before you assume you know anything about me. I've found that most people are actual pretty darn nice regardless of their philosophy or politics. After all, most are just trying to get by the best they can. — synthesis

I'm pretty damn nice too, but sometimes you've got to break things before they can be whole. That was far too Zen like for my liking, but it's true! So, what about it?

Do you really imagine the bacterial theory of disease, plate tectonics, thermodynamics, evolution etc - are going to be overturned? — counterpunch

would [you] walk humankind into an avoidable climate and ecological crisis and say to your children - sink or swim, because you think humankind will be better for it? — counterpunch

Let me answer your question, honestly:

Do you believe that people 200 years ago could have imagined what is thought to be true today? What do you believe it will be like 200 years from now? 500 years from now? 10,000 years from now? — synthesis

200 years ago - people couldn't have imagined an aeroplane. It is not honest to base your argument in the actual ignorance of ages past - and use the advance of knowledge over time, to imply that we still don't know anything. The aeroplane flying overhead is not flying on faith. It's science. A quick glance around your living room, at the electric lights, the TV, the telephone, the computer, the internet connection - should be sufficient evidence to prove we do know things.

Nonetheless, 200 years from now humankind may be extinct - because we have used science as a tool, and not acknowledged science as the means to establish valid knowledge of reality. 500 years from now, still extinct. 10,000 years from now, still extinct. This is our one shot to establish humankind as a long term presence in the universe, and recognising the truth value of science is our best bet - so why are you crapping on it?

You should read Mediations on First Philosophy by Descartes. It's not very long and quite comprehensible, because, no - that's not quite it.

Descartes is doing a thought experiment in which he sets out to doubt everything that can possibly be doubted in order to find something that cannot be doubted.

He doubts the world exists, or that he has a body - so, "I sneeze therefore I am" doesn't work. He arrives, eventually, at - I think therefore I am, as something that is certain.

Now we have arrived at the heart of the matter. "How do you know?" I don't know. But then again, I don't have to know. What you do know (getting back to the original point of this thread), you know before your critical thinking kicks-in so that's all you need to know. — synthesis

In science, we can say we know x within the parameters of hypothesis, experiment and observation. It's not a claim to absolute knowledge. Its logical form is akin to "if y then x" - and any decent scientist knows this. You say you're a scientist, but also a student of Zen, and you're on a philosophy forum. I think you're confusing senses of the word 'know' and arguing inappropriately. In practice, there must be a great many things you know - and rely on knowing in your work. Not in an absolute manner, but with regard to the contingent nature of the theoretical underpinnings of the facts in question. Come on, be honest - this Zen act is wearing thin.

All the rest is BS. Remember, people have lived for a long time and they made due with all kinds of explanations that were just as bizarre as the ones we spout today. All knowledge changes constantly. Nothing that is thought to be true today will be thought to be true tomorrow (literally, as some part of it [no matter how minuscule] has changed). — synthesis

Why are you doing this? You cannot believe that. Do you really imagine the bacterial theory of disease, plate tectonics, thermodynamics, evolution etc - are going to be overturned? Who's interest do you think you're serving with such nonsense? Is it a religious thing? Is it a post modernist thing? Wanna fit in with the cool kids?

What is knowable to our intellect is fluid, so those who excel at life have figured out how to go with the change (and thrive because of it). Those who attach to this, that , and the other thing, suffer. — synthesis

So you would walk humankind into an avoidable climate and ecological crisis and say to your children - sink or swim, because you think humankind will be better for it? That's convenient for you. I bet that takes a load off. And all you have to do is close your eyes and pretend its not happening because nothing is true - and everything else is BS. Seems less Zen and more - me first, and devil take the hindmost! Is that it? Are you a self serving greedy bastard, hiding your irresponsibility and savage appetites behind a thin layer of eastern mysticism?

You are an objective reality kind of guy but I ask you, what is objective reality when we can only perceive subjectively? — synthesis

When I use the term scientific truth, I refer to the body of knowledge, established through forming hypotheses and testing them in relation to empirical observation, and then refining those hypotheses, to better account for the observed results - and so on and so forth. Objective reality is the world at large, in contrast to subjective experience; the inner world. There's no great mystery to it. There are epistemic limitations I'm very well aware of, but science now constitutes a highly valid and coherent body of knowledge of the world we occupy, relevant to the sustainability of human existence.

The Zen side of me is where you are having difficulties. You have to understand the relative and The Absolute from this perspective. — synthesis

No, I don't. I positively eschew the absolute as superlativism. It's wrongheaded to race to the other end of the universe, look back at us - and tell us what's true. Truth begins at our fingertips - and is built from the bottom up. I'm not interested in speculations upon things I can't know anything about. If humankind lives long enough, maybe we'll find our way there eventually, but right now, it's simply irrelevant.

Not only that, we can't get anywhere close to any kind of reality for all kinds of reasons paramount among them being that we have no access to the present. — synthesis

That's a Zeno's paradox of an objection. Practically speaking, we have access to the present - if only because we can anticipate the future. Logically, the arrow will never reach the target. In reality it does.

What is referred to as Absolute Reality is that which is unknowable and unchangeable, e.g., Truth, God, Love, etc. These are things that can be sensed or perhaps felt inside but can never be subjected to empiricism. — synthesis

How do you know? I thought 'we' had no access? If it's unknowable, how do you know its unchangeable? Do you mean feelings? Why do you want to pull the esoteric wool over your own eyes? Is reality not special enough for you?

As mentioned, I understand science and use it professionally every day. I will always maintain that science is simply a tool that points the way to the truth of the matter but can never be the truth itself (as truth only exists moment to moment to which we lack access). — synthesis

Science is not just a tool. It's also an understanding of reality; one that's been decried as heresy since Galileo, forgotten and ignored. Even as we have raced ahead technologically - we remain ideologically primitive. Science as a tool of ideology gave us 70,000 nuclear weapons at the height of the cold war. Science as as a tool gave us climate change - and the McRib sandwich! Science as a tool is a menace - because our purposes are not scientifically valid. We need to be responsible to a scientific understanding of reality - particularly in our application of technology, in particular, energy technology!

quantum fields of entangled molecules — Enrique

Molecules are two or more atoms. Does entanglement occur in molecules? I didn't know you could just hop over the quantum/macroscopic fence like that! That changes everything!!!

I understand it. Does it make sense? That's a different question. But at least I can understand what you're getting at.

So, here's my question: are you saying the electric fields of the brain are effected? Or is it the quantum fields that register changes? Or the entangled particles?

I'm reminded of that famous old quote by Albert Einstein "If you cannot explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough."

Tell me how quantum mechanics explains how there's a 'something' looking out through my eyeholes.

What, in no more than a dozen words, is the relationship between the two?

Roger thinks that herd immunity works by the people with antibodies vacuuming up, and killing all the viruses so that they can't infect others. — Metaphysician Undercover

I know. I read the other thread. It was completely mental. I'm trying to get to his motives - because he obviously doesn't know what he's talking about, so there's some other reason he's doing this. Until we discover what that is (he killed grandma is my guess) all this is just rehearsing rationales of denial. It's not healthy!

Firstly, do you believe the concept of "herd immunity" is true? Do you believe there is such a thing as a "protective effect" by mixing healthy people into a group of vulnerable people? — Roger Gregoire

That's not what herd immunity is you utter flump! Herd immunity is when a large enough percentage of the population has got antibodies to the disease that it cannot spread!

Other than those five paragraphs of impenetrable jargon that just screams "look how smart I am mummy" we're really no closer to you giving an explanation of your quantum theory of consciousness.

Werner Heisenberg thought a potential subjective interpretation of the observer effect in the double slit experiment relevant to address. Perhaps...

qualia's causal influence in nature via the mind — Enrique

...was what he meant! But my guess is Heisenberg says what he means, and uses intelligible language to say it, and jargon where unavoidable. You, on the other hand give me five paragraphs of unintelligible jargon, that don't answer the question I asked. What am I to infer? Did you download a quantum mechanics jargon generator?

You're not a logician Roger. You're hiding your motives. Why are you doing this?

Did you kill grandma? Is your business going under? Do you just hate wearing a mask?

From what I've read, — Enrique

How could you possibly understand the concepts you're using, and not have heard of the observer effect? From someone who was really capable of understanding these concepts, I would have expected something along the lines of - "my theory of consciousness is not dependent on the observer effect. Rather, the quantum qualities of consciousness are ....blah, blah, blah." Instead, it's like you googled the observer effect, and quoted wikipedia. Who are you trying to fool? Yourself??

Without any supporting logic/rational, you are only exposing (to all of us) your lack of intelligence. For any unintelligent person can make this type of claim. So why not show us your intelligence and prove me wrong? Those that resort to casting insults are those that have nothing rational left to argue with. — Roger Gregoire

Firstly, rationale - with an E, is a noun that refers to the explanatory theme or logical underpinning of an argument. Rational is an adjective, defined as 'a capacity to reason.'

Secondly, I wholly reserve my right to be unintelligent on occasion.

Thirdly, I am assuming this thread got merged with your other "I didn't kill grandma" thread about Covid restrictions. Why not come clean about your rationale - because it certainly isn't based in a scientific understanding of microbiology?

There is, obviously, such a thing as quality. Why deny the obvious? But to my mind, the qualitative has always been a matter of judgement. A subjective factor that relates to the purposes I intend for the object.

For example; there are two loaves of bread in my fridge. One is stale and the other is fresh. Which is the better quality? If I want to make a sandwich - the fresh bread is better quality. But if I want to make bread and butter pudding, the stale bread is better. (And it really is - stale bread will retain its structure, whereas fresh bread turns to mush.)

The quality of the object is not inherent to the object, but to the suitability of the object for my purposes - and is therefore, a matter of judgement. It's like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, a terrible book, but just the right thickness to level my bookshelf. In that regard, it's the best book I've got.

If you would propose a theory of quantum consciousness can you explain why the observer effect in the double slit experiment occurs in response to experimental apparatus - as well as conscious observation. Inability to explain this would seem fatal to any such idea.

"Of course the introduction of the observer must not be misunderstood to imply that some kind of subjective features are to be brought into the description of nature. The observer has, rather, only the function of registering decisions, i.e., processes in space and time, and it does not matter whether the observer is an apparatus or a human being; but the registration, i.e., the transition from the "possible" to the "actual," is absolutely necessary here and cannot be omitted from the interpretation of quantum theory." - Werner Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy, p. 137

My immediate impression is that naturalism does not account for the reflective quality of human intellectual awareness - that stands apart from reality and observes it, and insofar as human awareness misunderstands reality, reinvents and deceives - it creates an unreality.

This un-naturalism is difficult to account for if the foundational claim of naturalism is that nature encompasses all that exists. The claim "nature should encompass all that exists" is arguable, but has less normative authority.

Skipping through the wikipedia entry - I'm okay with a lot of it, but for my money, everything begins with epistemology - and the questions; "what can we know?" and, "how can we know it?" ...that bring human intellectual awareness into accord with the naturalistic reality. Otherwise, the assertion:

"metaphysical naturalism rejects the supernatural concepts and explanations that are part of many religions."

...is similarly, open to rejection. If we begin with epistemology we are forced to agnosticism - because we don't know if God exists or not. We can know a lot of things, in their own terms - but we do not have to assert something we cannot know to be true, and therefore open the door to simple contradiction. Or so it seems to me!

No idea. All newspeak goes directly in the lefty hogwash bin!

My guess is it's something to do with not washing your under-carriage!

Kant is pretty difficult to read. This passage - link below, explains quite well:

"If then there is a supreme practical principle or, in respect of the human will, a categorical imperative, it must be one which, being drawn from the conception of that which is necessarily an end for everyone because it is an end in itself, constitutes an objective principle of will, and can therefore serve as a universal practical law. The foundation of this principle is: rational nature exists as an end in itself."

In short, what he's saying is that human beings are ends in themselves; not a means to an end - because they have a rational nature.

It's like, I go to the supermarket - and there's someone behind the counter. I completely forget they are a human being with feelings - (an end in themselves.) Gimme this, gimme that. I'd rather they had buttons so I could just poke them to get my stuff. (a means to an end.)

Human beings are an end in themselves because they are possessed of a rational nature, and that places a limit on your freedom as to how you act with regard to them. You can't just poke them.

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-classicreadings/chapter/immanuel-kant-on-moral-principles/

Figuratively, anything that shares a trait or two in common with something else is 'a form of' that thing. A road is kind of an artery, pumping the life blood of commerce into the heart of the city, figuratively speaking. My heating system has sensory inputs, it ingests energy and excretes waste, it has a circulatory system, and it knows what time it is - but it's not alive.

Evolution is not conscious. It's not trying to create anything. It's random genetic mutation - tested by natural selection in relation to a causal environment. If you're not correct to reality, then you're dead - rendered extinct by cause and effect. Human beings are the only intellectually intelligent creature ever to have existed on earth; perhaps, in the entire history of the universe. If we are not intellectually correct to reality we will die out - soon.

Quantum mechanics - not really understood, but used to undermine causality, and thereby truth, homolgous recombination - seeking to locate consciousness in molecules; it all has that same "I Want to Believe" vibe, that muddying the waters looking for a back door to reality vibe. Anything but the "looking reality square in the eye and doing what's right because it's true" vibe!

I'm interpreting your meaning to be that you have a different set of opinions. — Tres Bien

Ah, then you misunderstand! What I'm saying is that the OP is wrong, wrong, wrongy, wrong wrong! That's a technical term. It means "the scientifically invalid and potentially deadly, stupid opinions of a complete moron and/or vicious arsehole."

This is hardly the place to be offering up absolute declarations of fact and truth, especially with additional verbal abuse attached, would you say? — Tres Bien

I'm not sure. Let me check the title of this thread. Erm, actually - yes, this is the place to be making statements of fact and handing out abuse. People are dying - and this prick wants to muddy the waters with his.... "I didn't kill grandma" reinterpretation of the facts.

Yes, you fucking did Roger!

Nothing wrong with that. So many people have no idea what to believe in. You might want to balance that burden with something a bit lighter...nearly any distraction will do. — synthesis

Oh, then you mistake my intent. You are on a philosophy forum, making observations about truth, then you asked for it. Politics and economics - they too need to attend. But some little old lady been praying at the same Church all her life, I've no desire to disenchant her - even if I could. This is not about popular belief. It's about philosophy and political theory.

Like I said above, good for you. Please keep in mind that there are many paths on which people have been able live wonderful lives. Not everybody can be the Captain of Star ship Earth! (I say this with admiration for your tenacity). — synthesis

You didn't say 'good for you' above. I've no desire to disturb your life. If I have my way, I can save the world without ordinary people hardly noticing, but not you. The ideas you expressed above are part of a suite used extensively by the left; I actually don't know where you stand politically but you paint in their colours. The left are using the climate crisis an an anti-capitalist battering ram. They do want your wonderful life to change, for the worse.

People are incredibly diverse in every way. The biggest mistake we can make is to assume that our personal truth is The Truth, the quickest way to alienate others is in implementing this assumption by attempting to impose your reality on others. Let people find their way in their own time. — synthesis

I'm a philosopher; truth matters, and if you can't handle the truth - it's you that's alienating me. The normative value is with me here. Your attack on truth in the OP is why I responded to you - you need to stop that. Reality is NOT subjectively constructed, functional truth is possible - and it's important to the continued survival of humankind.

In the meantime, enjoy the conversations! There are a lot of really nice people out there even if they don't quite agree with your assessment of things. — synthesis

Not for long!

Evolution is not a form of consciousness. It's an algorithmic process where organisms that are correct to the causal reality of their environment, struggle to survive to breed, to pass on their genetics to subsequent generations - generally, through sexual reproduction that mixes male and female genetic information, and possibly gives the next generation some slight advantage, that allows it to survive to reproduce, and pass on that slight advantage. That's what I mean by crafted; not crafted by some conscious purpose, but by the blind forces of causality, genetic mutation and reproduction.

We have a new leader in the dumbest thing I ever read contest - and allow me to assure you that competition has been fierce. Roger Gregoire comes out of nowhere with his "healthy people remove virus from the environment" idea, straight into the lead - and he's leading the field by a country mile. That is astonishing stupidity. Really top class!

Everything comes and goes. Again, why are you so concerned with the longevity of our species? I've always seen our species as a pesky surface nuisance that the planet will deal with in its own time. — synthesis

Well then, that's where we differ. I see humankind as only the second qualitative addition to the universe in 15 billion years. We start with about 10 billion years of floating rocks, before life occurred, and in the last few thousand years, human intelligence - able to look back at reality, and experience it. I think that's special - and something that needs to play out. I think we have a duty to exist - a duty to our ability to know. If we are not intending to survive, then everything is absolutely trivial. In the absence of truth, human existence is just a nihilistic wank into the sports sock of oblivion - as opposed to a loving consummation for the purposes of reproduction.

It requires years of research, as what is at stake is Dualism vs Monism. — Pop

What's at stake is the existence of the human species. It follows from causality and evolution that the organism cannot be wrong, or it is inevitably rendered extinct. At the physiological level, and at the behavioural level - the organism is crafted in relation to a causal reality by the function or die algorithm of evolution. Just as DNA unzips down the middle and attracts its chemical opposite from the environment to reproduce, organisms ingest energy and excrete waste, and a bird builds a nest before it lays eggs - not because it knows and plans ahead, but because other behaviours were extinguished.

The organism has to be true to reality from the DNA up, and we are no different. We need to be intellectually correct to reality; but we made a mistake. We discovered the means to establish scientific knowledge of reality, and used that knowledge to create technologies - but did not observe a scientific understanding of reality. We applied technologies for military power and industrial profit - not as directed by a scientific understanding of reality. That's why we are facing extinction.

Believing any old thing was fine when we were running around naked in the forest, poking each other with sharp sticks, but we cannot believe the same silly ideas - and have the ability to blow up the world with nuclear weapons, or we will die out.

The Amish have got something right. They believe in God and they don't use technology. Fine. What's the worst they can do? Cut each others beards off? (That actually happened!) But we cannot have primitive pre-scientific religious misconceptions of reality as a basis to apply high tech technologies. We have to be responsible to the level of scientific understanding that allows for the technologies we employ, or we will inevitably become extinct. Cave men with machine guns won't end well.