I have nothing against what you said. And you are correct, there are mysteries in science too. But I do think that many of the classical philosophical questions are so hard, we don't even know how to go about even giving a good answer. Free will, for instance, or how can matter think? We know it can, but have zero clue as to how it does this.

Yes, it is true that religion and philosophy can be ridiculed and that some of that ridicule is at times, relevant. I love navel gazing, so I'm restricted to phenomenology and better descriptions, it does it for me. But it won't fulfill others.

As for questions that get answered, that's correct. I suppose it depends on what you mean by "philosophy" and what kind of questions you have in mind. If you mean, say, political philosophy, then yes, I think you are correct.

I too value empiricism and empirical evidence. Incidentally, as a side note, Locke and Hume were MUCH more sophisticated than many so called "empiricists" today, but, there are things we know with little evidence or were we only have intuition or best guesses.

That's fine. Where does one go? Depends on each person, I personally like descriptive generalization that make sense to me, that can help elucidate what I experience, obviously inadequately, but it's an approximation.

Others will deny that the self is a problem at all.

Some think science offers all answers.

Some become mystics.

I think the topics I listed are a mystery and are studied (or discussed and elaborated) and we still debate them, with no resolution on the horizon.

Religion is very complex and I would probably say that it's even impoverished by the Western entanglement with Christianity, which, compared to other religions, is pretty boring. At least to me.

But existence can be looked at through many lenses, not limited to religion.

Screw it, I'll go radical: In general the tradition of philosophy is to be the Mother of the sciences, but current philosophy is, by and large, the study of mysteries.

We still are debating a huge swath of traditional questions in which we have not managed to advance one iota. What is the self, how can matter think, what is mind, what's the good, is there only one thing in the universe, do we have free will, etc.

Sometimes we get lucky and manage to bring some of the classic philosophical questions into the arena of empirical research, and then we get a science.

I don't think anybody really knows what's going to happen next. We hear reports that Russia is re-grouping to the eastern parts of Ukraine, so they can focus on those areas. Others say they think Russia is regrouping to launch another assault on Kiev.

Meanwhile, more and more sanctions are being dished out. What the hell's left to sanction? Only gas and oil for the Europeans. If they do sanction that, then Russia will barely have any income left.

The question is, will they mind losing more soldiers for no discernable reason?

Now the Pentagon is saying Ukraine could "win" this war. I think that's highly unlikely, but, they are defending themselves rather well. But as to the future of this, we don't have a clue at the moment.

Sure. Ukraine might be a little different, but I do think that the global response to the pandemic shows how badly we cooperate with each other. Had we a more rational society, we could have finished with this pandemic in a year or so, not having it still raging on.

But you are correct about having to constantly analyze various complex circumstances changing in real time. As mere individuals, the chances of despair are much, much higher than if decisions are done in a large scale manner, which signals to a bigger "amount" of power that one can use to pressure for some kind of change.

But @Xtrix this is not about giving in to despair, per se. It's about looking at the evidence right in front of our face. If the evidence says, we have even less time that previously estimated, and the previous timeline was bad enough, are we just going to lie to ourselves? It's like we have gangrene in our legs, but we won't chop them off because there's still a chance it won't spread or something.

But what I want to stress is that even if we cannot avoid the worse scenario, this doesn't mean we don't try to mitigate the oncoming damages, there has to be stuff we can do to reduce or resist what's coming.

We also have to think, if we do pass the projected deadlines, which seems likely (but not certain - yet), what then? If we give up, despair will creep in. But if we say we've got to keep helping the situation, we'll be called liars for being alarmists.

So it's not easy in any situation.

Sure, but so did every other field.

But they do have more in commons than what one might first think of. In so far as they both study the mind, it is hard to distinguish. Once it gets to therapy or medication, then the differences are more obvious.

Well man, I mean, not too long ago Saudi Arabia was a member of the Human Rights section in the UN. The Council on Human Rights (?) or something like that.

That's extraordinary. I agree with @Bitter Crank that hypocrisy is a built in feature of people and states, but, even here, some examples are quite baffling.

It's best to be an equal opportunity offender when it comes to foreign policy, meaning, call out each state for the crimes it does, while not discounting that some states do much more harm, because they have much more power.

One thing's certain, there are no saints in international relations. There are victims and aggressors, but states all have heavy criminal components.

Civilian killings where? Yemen? Iraq? Other conflict regions we cannot name because the news does not name them? — FreeEmotion

And this can't be stated enough. Yemen is the "worst humanitarian catastrophe" according to the UN.

Afghanistan is starving too.

But we seem to care less about them. It's sad.

On the other hand, it is legitimate to be extra worried about this, because it involves a nuclear power in a very delicate situation. So there's that.

It stirs the passions, quite understandably, but it's very reactionary and does more harm than good. Plus, we seem to have ADHD brains in the West. Remember that Syrian refugee boy who drowned trying to reach Europe? That picture of the boy was massive, but it was forgotten quite quickly.

As you say, this is very, very ugly and one would not be so analytical if we were inside the war, but, what do they expect? Dodgeball?

The point is to stop this, by doing more sanctioning, we are further isolating them.

Hey neomac.

It would be easier and quicker if you just quote whomever. All you have to do is highlight the posters sentence and/or paragraph and click the black "Quote" box, and you'll see that segment quoted in your post.

Fighting a war over a flag is without doubt immoral. — neomac

Like so.

In other news, the UN says:

‘Now or never’ to avoid climate catastrophe: UN

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/4/4/now-or-never-to-avoid-climate-catastrophe-un

I mean, honestly, I think it's likely game over. Which does NOT mean that we stop doing something to help alleviate the situation, but the timescale is waaaay too tight compared to the lack of commitment shown by many countries. It's tragic.

Evolution is often a "just so" story and is used way too much for higher cognitive faculties. We obviously laugh, but we don't know why it's beneficial for survival, bacteria don't laugh and they survive better than us.

I think it sensible to argue that laughter is a form of alleviating stress and dangerous situations. But if it arose for those specific reasons, as opposed to reasons of bonding or anything else, who can say? It's a great topic.

Philosophical contributions of new atheism? Virtually zero. There's no content here, just mediocre arguments rehashed thousands of times over and over again.

I think it's perfectly fine to have people learn about atheism and the irrationality which religion often does to people, but it's not much better to create militant atheists who are fanatical and just like to make fun of other people.

I think Harris is extremely bad. Hitchens was very good, but became garbage after 9/11, Dawkins is a good science educator. Dennett is very polite, at least.

But as for substance, not here. There's far more to be learned in Hume on this topic, than these four combined.

And, for something more modern than Hume, yet still quite rational and humane, Bertrand Russell also far exceeds them all.

The example of Afghanistan and Yemen too, are quite illustrative. They say a lot about "the West".

Not that this should mean we should not care about Ukraine. We should extend that care to others who are in an even worse situation, however hard that may be to imagine.

You're quite right about sanctions being related to moral outrage. But it's a bad reaction to have, because it increases tensions even more. These damn calls for no fly zones that keep popping up are a damn problem.

If I were Ukrainian, I would likely (maybe) call for them too. But I doubt they truly understand what this entails. It is not smart to isolate an enemy and try to embarrass them.

I don't like Putin. This war is a total catastrophe. But we should approach this level headed, too much is at stake.

It's an interesting take. But, I think we are forced into the conclusion that whatever we end up doing or believing, is all an outcome of our the way we interpret the world, meaning, we can't help but "delude" ourselves in a way. I don't think anyone is exempt from this, though "sages", may be less liable into falling too deeply into whatever they believe.

So I think that even in belief, a mitigated skepticism is the best bet we have of being somewhat "on the right track".

Yes.

In this case, many oil companies are very very happy. Not to mention Lockheed and company.

And seeing as this war may escalate again, they are even happier. It's savage.

Sure, matter leads to life, in certain configurations. But why this happens, is a mystery.

It's a case of radical emergence. Vitalism may now be obsolete, but our understanding of how non-living matter leads to living matter leading to experience is still extremely limited.

I took my rhetoric too far, I did not intend to literally suggest that many people love war.

The point was to express that those in power who argue for war, that it's a noble cause because of "democracy", "unification", "de-Nazification" and so on, will enthusiastically continue supporting the war, that other people pay with there lives.

I think one can make a case that there is a certain "ideal" element to this, who is against "democracy" or for Nazis? But more often than not, the arguments are bs or vastly exaggerated as is the case now .

Really? I think it's pretty evident and frequent.

The late Christopher Hitchens, most of the Bush Administration. The Kremlin now.

Basically those initiating a war, who don't have to participate in the field of battle. It's quite common.

Sure.

Just like those who love war (or romanticize it) are willing to shout and support it till' the end of other people's blood.

They are. No doubt about it to my mind. Perhaps isolate sanctions to oligarchs and Putin, try to make these bite, other sanctions only hurt the population.

I think that having a cursory glance at 20th century history shows that sanctions haven't prevented a war from occurring. Nothing comes to mind, though someone here may point one out to me.

I mean, would it make sense to sanction all of France for its savagery in Algeria? Or sanctioning all of Indonesia for East Timor? Etc., etc.

You have to deal with those who have power, which are the leaders.

I think it depends on the circumstance. If you are in a state of dreamless sleep, you can't say you have a self, but another person who is awake would surely consider you (the sleeping you) to have a self, despite the absence of thoughts.

But if you take a somewhat similar situation, and make it worse, like permanent brain damage and being in a vegetative state, then it seems to me that outside of a few religious people, no one would say you have a self, you won't have any thoughts anymore.

Then there's everything in between. You could be doing an activity, like walking or playing a sport and be "in the moment", very little of this is explicitly thought out after a point, but we'd say you'd have a self in this situation.

The connection is not easy to state in detail, but they do seem to require each other.

They could bomb government institutions and try to spare "civilian areas" - unlike what they did in Mariupol. Then again, they'd lose plenty of aircraft.

Well, to be honest - besides capturing those two "separatist areas", everything else is diminishing returns. Just rubble and death. Unless they're doing this to extract a lot from Ukraine.

It's not worth the price. So, you have a point.

I mean I would imagine this depends on strategy. I don't believe (but lack evidence here, because info on the state of the Russian military is highly unreliable now) they have used all there might (not meaning nukes) - for instance they could, use the airforce and flatten Kiev.

But maybe not.

Except for Sam Harris, — 180 Proof

:lol: :rofl:

:clap: :clap:

I don't know about Mearsheimer, I think I remember him saying something about the conflict, but don't know specifics.

Chomsky has mentioned a few things, but not those details you mention. More so the foreshadowing of such a conflict by leading figures back when the USSR collapsed.

I think it is legitimate to have NATO being a concern for national security. No powerful country would willingly allow a hostile military alliance in its border. And while it may be true as SSU says, that NATO was not the only thing that motivated Putin, it clearly was a cause for concern - for decades in fact.

"Existential threat" is perhaps used to frequently, as I don't think NATO would reach for nukes immediately even if Ukraine were a member. Nevertheless, it's a massive risk that could lead to the destruction of the world - hate to harp on the same point, but, that's how I see it.

So there's that one issue. Other threats are much less severe, Chechnya, internal dissent and so forth. Not existential in terms of the country being gone, but in terms of the Putin regime losing legitimacy if enough dissent occurred.

How to avoid a war? It's a bit tricky. Forgot who said this, and I'm going to probably phrase it badly, but, after a certain point, it can no longer be avoided. What that point is, is obscure-ish in terms of timelines.

I mean, how many ways do you tell the "West" that you will not tolerate NATO on your border before things go badly? The "West" is not used to countries refusing to take orders. Hence the hate of China too. It's not because of "authoritarian regimes" (which they are), it's because they don't follow orders.

Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Brazil are very authoritarian now, the West doesn't really care about them, they're obedient (mostly or by and large).

So, having said all this. Taking these two regions somehow and saying, if you send troops to Ukraine, we will invade the whole country, might have made this go a bit differently.

Or maybe not.

A full scale invasion is just the very last option that should have been pursued.

Sure. It may not work. Crimea did, but that doesn't attach to other territories by necessity.

But it would have been much better, in terms of less human suffering.

Well, IF it was planned, then there's going to have to be some serious thinking about what a "rational actor" is supposed to be in international relations.

Not that it was entirely clear before this war, though getting your country kicked out of the financial system is not very sensible.

There's a lot to your interpretation, I think by and large, rather sensible. The problem we share here, is that we cannot enter Putin's mind and most info on him right now is extremely unreliable and subject to extremely fierce ideological impositions from the "West" and Russia too.

Now that they're in this, they're going to have to make the best of it, as in, get as much concessions as they can get and declare a victory. Sure, Russia is now more closely aligned with China, but Russia isn't a massive market for China at all - perhaps the Taiwan issue is also one reason China is being diplomatic. But that's speculation.

As it currently stands, Russia simply has more to lose than prior to this war, as I see it. But. But, once we get verified, good data, then we may say with more confidence, how much of this went as planned and how much of it was a surprise.




Sure, I saw that report too. Meaning I saw it reported on some of the podcasts I watched, it's rather shocking. But shouldn't be, it's very, very rare for war to go as planned. Way too many variables.

You are certainly correct about denying reality and being inside a propaganda bubble. But it can only last so long before it bursts. Then again, North Korea exists...

Either way, if this drags on for too long, Putin is just going to have to swallow "reality", however he chooses to interpret it.

What's going to be surprising to see is how Germany and the like will react after Putin is gone (if we are still alive), he's not going to stay in power forever.

Ah. Concrete evidence... yeah, that's a problem during a war, it is hard to know what's going on. Once this passes, we'll have the facts.

What you say about proximity and people talking to each other and all the rest, yes, this makes the whole situation even more strange. But then there are reports of many Russian soldiers entering Ukraine simply not knowing what they were doing there, approaching civilians and asking for directions and the like.

There are also reports - which again, taken with lots of salt - which say that Russia expected this thing to last about 2 weeks. Now, this may all be fake.

My problem is that a nation knowingly going to war with these kind of sanctions, does not fit into the "rational agent" idea, as in I don't think Putin would've been that irrational. After all, NATO now has a reason to exist, whereas it was struggling before.

But since I don't know the facts, I'll just have to wait.

I mean, yeah, countries will imagine certain scenarios if they go to war and will have a plan - or an outline of one and then proceed.

One such scenario is literally blowing the world up with nuclear war. Of course, this option is given low credibility due to its insanity, but it could still happen.

I'm not saying Russian elites were completely clueless or had no idea, but, I do think they very much over-estimated how easy this would be by a lot.

They will achieve some goals - given something of this size, it would be hard if they didn't. I too think they would probably ask for even more in negotiations and we'll see how that goes. But I find it hard to concieve that they would have done this as they are doing, if they knew for certain what the outcomes would be.

Including re-strengthening NATO, isolating Russia globally, etc.

However, I may be totally wrong, I'll admit.

I think China did know about Russia's plans concerning Ukraine, there's some evidence to back that up. Probably China did not expect the war to be this long, but that's irrelevant, so you're right here.

The other things mentioned, like alternatives to Swift, nationalizing foreign companies, etc., look to me to be more of a reaction than pre-planned. It's not as if they have many alternatives, they couldn't well not do anything.

Yeah, agreed, about these social media companies, don't really care if they get in trouble or lose money, they're pretty annoying and problematic, in many instances.

The issue is not: being surprised vs. not being surprised at the sanctions, it's being surprised by the extent of them, which is a different issue.

I suppose their worries per se are sanctions, economy, and losing face, ...? — jorndoe

Yeah, losing face is probably the biggest problem now. They can't go home humiliated, or to state it another way, they will not.

Hence the tension of this war.

Seems Ukraine may have retaliated inside Russian territory, which will likely lead to further escalation.

What a mess.

That's quite a stretch and not relevant here. Taking these two territories "only', would have been much less deadlier than a full scale war.

I agree that this goes beyond a mere flag, but the cause is security concerns mixed with nationalism.

It makes sense to wait for the data, clearly.

As for least bad choice, well, the one in which least amount of lives are lost.

Doing nothing in effect gives free reign to the West to do whatever it wants wherever in wants and no regional power of any kind, will do anything about it. In effect, it sends a signal to other countries you'll take what we give you and you can do nothing about it.

Having said that, the miscalculation on this war is pretty insane and does not justify this scope or scale. Something much more reduced and quick, would have been the least bad realistic option.



Given what has happened, I think it's not illogical to assume Putin had very misleading info about what would happen in this war.

Sure, you can say, and are likely correct, that NATO was not the only factor that led Russia to do what it did. But it was one reason they kept pointing out, so if anything else, expanding NATO much beyond Germany was never going to be a good idea.

Yes this has strengthened NATO - for now. Once Putin is gone, who is going to be the big enemy, China? Or is Russia now condemned to being a pariah state forever? Long term thinking is usually not considered in these situations.

Ukraine certainly developed very good defensive capabilities, and that this was either overlooked or downplayed is surprising.