Yes, the only substantive issue on this topic is the pace of change - which is quick, granted, given what we used to have, but still not quick enough.

We gotta keep looking (and pushing) at the bright side, yes, cynicism only guarantees the worst possible situation as it just leads either to apathy or to pointless rage, in which one rails against everything while the world keeps humming along.

Yeah. It's not even the greed or corruption -- that's obvious. But do we have to bring the planet and future generations down as well? Can't you find someone else's bribes to take? — Xtrix

Yeah. That's the problem. There's plenty of ways to laugh all the way to the bank - sometimes people fall for dupes, and well, somebody ends up winning.

Not here. This money will be meaningless in too short a time. Shame Democrats couldn't get 4 seats or more in the senate, would've made a difference in the bill.

Now we face the prospects of the damn Republicans tearing the WORLD apart for money. It's bloody difficult when only one party does a little for the people, and the other one nothing but destroy.

Interesting times...

They have, to the extent that they're the dominant regional power. What they've done in HK is quite ugly.

At the same time, the way the US and NATO are escalating situation in Taiwan is truly horrific. Yeah, I'd much prefer Taiwan to be independent. Doesn't matter what I want, it's not worth a nuclear war.

the conversation is not going to go anywhere useful... up until the point of course we recognize our verbal misunderstanding, chuckle a bit about how silly we sounded, and THEN continue talking with a shared vocabulary. — Artemis

We can talk about cats and not pandas, no problem.

And yeah, lots of what we think we know is going to be proven outright wrong or tweaked along the way someday. You seem... more uncomfortable with that notion than you seem to have an actual reasons to dispute it? But discomfort isn't a good reason to discount something. — Artemis

I don't want to have a truth claim to what knowledge is such that if a person disagrees with my definition, I'll then say that they don't have any knowledge, when it is not clear what counts as knowledge or not. You seem to hold that knowledge is true by virtue of its relation to the world as well as it being JTB.

The first is what science seeks to do, always subject to revision, the second is more fruitfully thought of, for me, as claims about mind-dependce vs mind-independence.

I want to say that novelists, historians and philosophers can be very knowledgeable, as they are, without arbitrarily limiting the use of the word "knowledge" to mean, what exists absent us.

That does not mean that some people do not have more knowledge than others, they often do, or that what one counts as knowledge is on shaky grounds as truth claims, this happens frequently.

then that alone doesn't change the validity of our definitions thereof. That is, after all, why languages borrow from another: to fill gaps and needs in their own language. — Artemis

Sure, quite true.

I only know Spanish, besides English, and belief in Spanish is "creencia", almost always used for religious arguments. As far as I'm aware, it's very similar in French too.

I take this to suggest that our use of the word "belief" is an English peculiarity, which might not be the best word to discuss this issues. We could use "ideas" or "thoughts" instead and avoid religious connotations.

Ah, the retreat back to relativism. "You do you" etc. But the slippery slope you mentioned earlier lies precisely IN relativism. Relativism inexorably leads down to nobody being able to make any truth claims or claims at all without getting themselves endlessly riddled in self-contradictions. — Artemis

I very much dislike, and have said so numerous times here almost all French Postmodernists, I think calling Rorty a pragmatist is an insult to Peirce, James and Dewey.

I believe in science, though very much dislike scienticsm.

The "you do you" is meant as a suggestion of practicality, as we don't appear to be convincing each other, though we agree in some areas, such as in fallibalism and illusions.

:cool:

I don't see what is gained by insisting that knowledge must be thought of as so and so. The way I see it if that if we continue insisting on these criteria, we face the prospects of saying "We never had any knowledge of anything ever", because the details will change.

If you want to think of knowledge in this way, because it's useful to you, then by all means keep using it.

I agree with you on fallibalism.

If someone took LSD and told you they saw a pink, invisible unicorn in your house, you can BOTH acknowledge that they TRULY had this mental experience AND that there is no actual pink, invisible unicorn. — Artemis

As stated, no problems here, I agree. Well said. :up:

They do know that they had an experience of a pink, invisible unicorn. They do not know that there IS a pink, invisible unicorn. — Artemis

I think it is more helpful to keep the distinction between mind-independent and mind-depedent reality instead of knowledge. The way you phrase it sounds weird to me.

Yeah, there is a difference between belief and knowledge. Belief is rather English specific, it has strong religious connotations.

:rofl:

Nerds all of you!

Because it isn't true. The earth is not actually the center of the universe and nothing they believe would make it so. — Artemis

We can say that now. Back then they could not. It was the best theory they had for the time and not an unreasonable one at that, to me anyway. What would you expect them to say, "I believe the Earth is the center of the universe, but it is not true."

Sure it does. Once you realize that belief is not the same as knowledge. Belief is just one of the three components of knowledge. It is necessary but not sufficient. — Artemis

I am saying that people who studied alchemy, for whatever purposes, do have knowledge. They are knowledgeable about alchemy. Sure, alchemy is not true of the of the mind-indpendent world, but I wouldn't say that someone who is knowledgeable of alchemy only has beliefs. That sounds too religious-y for me.

Likewise, a reader can know a lot about 1984 by Orwell. But this of course does not mean that 1984 happened mind-independelty.

So which is it? Do you agree or disagree that truth is relative? — Artemis

That's a tough one. Initially I'd say that science aims at mind-independent knowledge, not dependent on our opinions or tastes. At the same time, science is dependent on human beings, who discovered it. So an element of subjectivity remains.

If a person claims to use personal experience as an argument for a truth claim about the world, I wouldn't accept it. But I cannot deny to such people that the experience they had is not true, if they limit it to experience alone, I don't have a problem.

Truths about the world are relative in a very different sense than personal truths.

Was going to recommend Wendy Brown's In The Ruins of Neoliberalism, but looks like I was beat to the punch. — Maw

I didn't look into that one because it did not look inviting for some reason. But if people here think it's good, then it probably is. Thanks.

:up:

Yeah it's pretty ugly. It's often boils down to money and power, not much more.

But it's far from unique to the US. The British, The Spanish, The French, everybody, did the same thing.

Well, then I don't have much reason to believe your statement and neither do you. — Artemis

If that's how you take it, fine.

Why in the world would that be JTB? It's not true and it's not justified. Just because someone believes their beliefs to be true and justified doesn't make it so. — Artemis

Really?!?

You're born in the middle of a tribe, you see this vast ocean of things in the sky. You have no access to telescopes, books or anything else. It surely seems like the Earth is the center of the universe. It surely looks as if stars are diamonds in the sky. It's not unreasonable at all to believe this at that time. It would have been knowledge for them, I don't see why not.

If you don't have any recourse for better data, I don't see why you wouldn't have beliefs you take to be true. What's the alternative? Have no beliefs? That's just not possible.

Yep — Artemis

That makes no sense at all.

Gettier came up with an interesting challenge to naive interpretations of JTB, but the literal title of his paper still doesn't actually dismantle JTB. You'll need to give more arguments than just "well Russell said it too" I'm afraid. — Artemis

Well, you've now introduced the idea of "naivety" to JTB's. Some some beliefs are naïve, hence not really JTB. What beliefs are naïve as opposed to non-naïve?

Which you still haven't thoroughly justified. — Artemis

I'm saying that knowledge does not have a strict definition, you say that it is JTB. I cannot give you a thorough justification of anything.

I can give you more examples: A person born 10,000 years ago has JTB that the Earth is the center of the Universe, that stars are diamonds and that when he dies he'll go back to a supreme being. That's surely JTB and knowledge for that time. We would not call it knowledge today.

What else? I mean, almost everything we thought of prior to enlightenment was false. Things don't go down because that's "the natural order", there are not corpuscles (miniscule concrete solid atoms), Kings do not have divine right, etc., etc.

Back then they were JTB, no question. Today we wouldn't say these things are knowledge. But what about our beliefs now? They could be rendered false in a few decades. So we would have no knowledge.

"But what does it mean to be justified? And that's a sticky question indeed. — Artemis

It is.

I'm familiar with Gettier's work. But as far as I understand it, it really challenges more the concept of justification and notions of absolute and absolutely ascertainable truth. — Artemis

There's a few ways to interpret the paper and much subsequent literature on it. But the title is literally Is Justified True Belief Knowledge? He gives examples with coins and a friend in Barcelona, but I think it is correct in saying that JTB is not knowledge, it's not the rock solid definition as was assumed. Though Russell pointed this out in the 1920's, and was mostly ignored.

you acknowledge fallibility when asserting knowledge claims. That doesn't mean you don't have strict criteria for "knowledge," but that you may or may not actual know what you think you know. — Artemis

That's good to me. It's a sound attitude to have.

It's not that we can't speak about knowledge or fallibility, it's just that these words don't have precise meanings. But we speak of things that lack precision very frequently. So it's not a problem for "knowledge" talk.

3. I'm not sure what you mean by alchemy. — Artemis

The beliefs that came prior to modern chemistry. Turning lead into gold, life elixir etc. Now considered mostly pseudoscience, though maybe not all of it.

And this one too:

https://www.amazon.com/Killing-Hope-C-I-Interventions-II-Updated-ebook/dp/B00HFA93N8/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=killing+hope&qid=1635633208&sprefix=killing+hope%2Caps%2C228&sr=8-2

It's excellent, but brutal. It's essentially Smedley Butler of over again, in MANY countries.

This is a week old but:

Imagine you watch the finals in the NBA and team A beats team B. You saw it and reached this conclusion. Unbeknownst to you, what you were watching was a replay of a previos game in which the same team wins (team A) against the same opponent (team B). In the actual finals team A does beat team B, but you were watching a replay, not the actual game. So you had justified true belief, but it wasn't knowledge. — Manuel

Mostly the latter, though. — Artemis

Outside of mathematics, I don't know of a single word which has an easy definition. A dictionary will give you the most simple idea, but the concept is extremely expansive.

Is my favorite colour knowledge? Does the itch I feel in my arm knowledge? Is alchemy knowledge? Do I know that a comet won't hit me (or anyone) in the head today?

Etc. It soon becomes way too slippery for a strict definition, IMO.

Why in the world not? — Artemis

What are you asking:

Why isn't knowledge justified true belief or why can't it be defined by a strict set of criteria?

Yes it is.

But I think we have to distinguish between the policy makers and those on the levers of power as opposed to the general population. It's those in power who set the agenda, regardless of what the people actually want.

Granted, there are times when the population can be stirred into hysteria (Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq) due to very tried and true PR methods. And there's obviously a very ugly history in terms of its foundations - and that goes for most of the Americas and much of the rest of the nation states in the world too.

But yes, it is one and continues to be the World's sole super power per military might. It was at its most powerful post WWII.

Pretty much. :up:

Currently reading:

My View of the World - Erin Schrödinger

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - David Hume

Almost done with:

Ducks, Newsburyport - Lucy Ellmann

Yeah. It's an important aspect of a massive change in political ideology that is still with us to this day. I haven't read the book yet, but know a little about such ideas, if a politician says he/she upholds "family values", then that's an excuse to not do anything for anybody in terms of implementing laws that could help people in need. Why? Because they have a family to support them.

But it's even deeper than that. I have to read that book to get a better understanding of what's involved.

No. It has to do with an economic system dating back to the late 70's in which economic policies were forced down people's throat under the guise of freedom, etc. And much more, long story.

The books I mentioned above, plus @Maw and @StreetlightX's suggestions will give you a good idea on neoliberalism, if you're interested.

Sounds right up my alley. :up:

Ah, cool. The idea of the family used as excuse for implementing market discipline kind-of thing?

I'll be sure to check it Cooper out.

Many thanks!

If I don't remember incorrectly, you read Quinn Slobodian's Globalists, which was an excellent dissection of Neoliberalism. It led me to other fantastic books on the topic, particularly Jessica Whyte's Morals of the Market and then Philip Mirowski's Never Let a Serious Crisis go To Waste as well as Wassernman's The Marginal Revolutionaries, which is an intellectual history of the Austrian School.

I got a decent picture on Neoliberalism. Nevertheless, I was looking to reading something similar to Slobodian's book, that kind of quality. Do any come to mind?

I like my phenomenology simple, which is why I really like Tallis here. He doesn't call it "phenomenology", but that's what he seems to do.

The problem from the outset is one that continues to plague us even if we know better already, for over 100 years: we assume that by "matter" we mean what was referred to as "dead and stupid" matter. We perceive matter as solid, when we see tables and chairs or trees and statues. Yet we know that deep down, matter is insubstantial not solid at all.

And then we have a brain, from which our minds emerge and we can do phenomenology. We discover that this specific matter "in the head" has intentionality, which can consider objects outside of the given context.

Furthermore we can "tear them apart" from where we see them (a flower in a garden) and analyze that flower in the context of its color compared to this other flower in some garden in a different part of the world.

The puzzles come in, at least for me, is when we try to think away these sense qualities and try to imagine what's left. It becomes an object of the intellect of sorts, but we intuit that there has to be something behind these qualities which we can't perceive.

In any case, there's lots of rich territory here to explore.

Wonderwall - Oasis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hzrDeceEKc

They've been toning it down as of late, it's more difficult to defend absurd claims in light of the evidence.

Subjective experiences are not evidential, not admissible in the Court of Mikey as evidence; the only evidence which is admissible is objective in nature, and perceptible by those other than the claimant. — Michael Zwingli

I agree.

Many people do not. You hear people speaking of "my truth" or "it's true to me" all the time. Yeah, such statements aren't suitable for logic, given the context. But people will continue to use it as evidence.

proof must be phenomenologically physical by definition, meaning that the phenomenon cited as proof must obey the laws of physics and be measurable by instrumentation, and so natural, — Michael Zwingli

Yes.

If there is a God it would have to be a natural and/or physical being.

I tend to agree. We seem to demand everything have a causal explanation. But what if something just don't have any? For example:

That something can come from absolutely nothing. We cannot conceive of how this could be possible, but it may.

But this would move us from your OP.

Manchin is real piece of shit.

Who gives a fuck if your laughing all the way to the bank if your daughter and/or grandkids are totally fucked. Because, baring a massive change, they will be.

He did. But common sense is not easy to tease out.

I think believing in God at one time during our evolutionary history made sense and was even rational. It's an attempt at an explanation for existence. Now those arguments aren't nearly as persuasive or good.

So early belief is in some respects easier to think about than modern belief in terms of what one uses to explain certain phenomena.

And I forgot to add, why don't people ask about the devil?

I mean really. The opposite of an all good being.

Yes. I mean, part of the problem is that if you "what is God? And please, don't give me the All Wise, All Noble argument." What they usual say, in my experience, are very, very, very nebulous ideas, that verge on not being meaningful at all.

Like the people who say "I believe in a Higher Power." "Ok, but what is that?" "Something bigger than me and you." "Uh, yeah, many things are bigger than me, what do you have in mind?" "Something beyond us", etc.

So yeah, something very nebulous, very weird and very big may exist. It doesn't make sense.

Well, to the extent that God is made up we can proceed down the following path:

I'll not go over the "flying spaghetti monster" argument, but let's say that I believe there's a Goddess not a God. My neighbor believes that there is a cosmic turtle. My other neighbor thinks we are in the dreams of giant. My friend thinks that there is a supreme number, which rules over all numbers, etc.

But then, who is right? They all claim to believe as strongly as anyone in the planet, and all have had profound experiences that reveal such truths to them.

So we can postulate an infinite amount of God(s), with the same legitimacy as the God of the Christians. The thing is, we cannot disprove things, we can say at most that they're extremely unlikely. I can't disprove we aren't in The Matrix, nor that the whole world came into existence 5 seconds ago. Why? Because they could be the case.

But if the "original God" is as likely as anything else I've said, then I don't think you should assign a good likelihood such a being exists at all.

They take him to be saying that he denies consciousness. Dennett always says, he's not, and adds "Consciousness exists, obviously, but it's not what most people think it is." So Dennett and those I mentioned must be talking about two different things.

Yeah, red or sour or music is nothing more than things we perceive as red, things that taste sour and things that sound like music, but I find them to be very important.

Honestly, it doesn't matter much to me, in the sense that I find other people much more interesting than Dennett. I think you are interpreting him a bit too charitably, but that's fine. I could be misunderstanding him like others.

It looks to me like Dennett style approaches, shared to some extent by the Churchlands and even more radically by Rosenberg, try to step over "the hard problem". But there's plenty of hard problems in philosophy, not "only" experience.

As I said I take him to be denying that there are experiential entities, qualia, over and above the qualities that we find in things. I don't see how Dennett could seriously be thought to be denying that there are qualities that we routinely encounter and are aware of; tastes. colours, textures and so on. To deny that would be insane, and I don't believe Dennett is insane. — Janus

What is "over and above" the qualities we find in things? Is there anything like that? All we can say about the world is going to be related to whatever happens to interact with our cognitive capacitates and sensations.

Clearly Dennett is smart, speaks well, gives good examples. But he's leaving plenty of room for doubt when he says "there seems to be qualia".

I take him to be just saying that those quantiies are not what we might think they are due to our intuitive tendency to reify and create superfluous entities via language. — Janus

What is the colour experience red, aside from our experience of it? We can proceed to speak of wave-lengths, but that's not colour experience.

Oh, well. On to more wine.

Cheers.

Before you know it you are up to your neck in metaphysics — Tobias

Get me out of here!

:joke:

"I am denying that there are any such properties [qualia]. But… there seems to be qualia.”

A bit later on Dennett states that, concerning colors and their subjective effects “colors…are: reflective properties of the surface of objects…” (Dennett, D. 1991 p.372)

Qualia, in contemporary analytic philosophy are instances of subjective experience. The subjective aspects of qualia are according to Dennett, due to evolution: “…there were various reflective properties of surfaces, reactive properties of photopigments, and so forth, and Mother Nature developed out of these raw materials efficient, mutually adjusted “color”-coding/”color”-vision systems, and among the properties that settled out of that design process are properties we normal human beings call colors.” (p.378)

Dennett says “…lovely qualities cannot be defined independent of proclivities, susceptibilities, or dispositions of a class of observers, so it really makes no sense to speak of the existence of lovely properties in complete independence of the existence of relevant observers.” (p.380)

So, sure, we can't say that qualia are independent of observers, true.

But then, aside from the things postulated by science, we can't postulate anything absent observers.

But he's denying qualia, clearly.

Yes, it's a big part. But the terminology is cleared so that the discussion becomes fruitful.

One thing is to be in similar terminological area, that is agreeing on what we are talking about, another thing is the phenomena meant by the use of the word. What matters to me is the issue at had: is experience what we have or is it illusory in some manner.

I think it should be evident that we have experience, as we think we have. Our intuitions are correct in this point.

Anyway, I'm off, it's kind of late here. We may continue talking this if you wish. Or not.

It's all good.