The world with God and the world without look exactly the same. And it doesn't look good in either version. Make of that what you will...

Yeah, what you describe looks to me like the most likely scenario. It's very bad. Insane even.

One is kind of at a loss for words to see these two guys being the candidates. Well, we shall see what happens now...

Oh sure. Vote for cow manure over Trump, that's easy.

But what an embarrassment. Trump is just garbage, and Biden is senile. Hard to believe that out of so many people, these are the two that are forced on to the voters - though this applies more to Biden than Trump.

In any case, this performance will hurt Biden. Let's hope there's time for a miracle.

Mostly at the end of explanations - in so far as we believe we are close to reaching this level. It's almost never satisfactory, in my experience, but we cannot keep going down a further explanation "down" rabbit-hole.

One must assume there are facts of the matter about many topics. And nature must be some way, rather than some other way. Or if "must' is too strong, then we have to say nature is, currently, this way.

It means a basis in something other than semiotics/language/convention. That doesn't leave much except for physics.
I mean, there is quantum physics, where there are these fundamental particles/field-disturbances. Those are pretty dang objective 'things'. It's when you start collecting them together into sets of multiple particles, where physics has little if anything to say about where the set of particles is bounded. Mathematically, any subset is as good as another, so there's no correct answer to 'what one subset of particles is this particle a member?'. Absent a correct answer to that, there doesn't seem to be an objective 'object'.

Note that I switched to 'objective' there instead of 'physical', which is dangerous because the word has connotations of 'not subjective' and has little implication of 'not subject to convention'. — noAxioms

Yes, there is always going to be a potential issue with any word we choose, but from my perspective the whole "physical" argument is so often repeated as if a substantive distinction is being made, I don't think that's the case.

There could also be issues with "objective" as you mention, but I think we should take it for granted that we are always speaking from a human centric viewpoint, we don't have an alternative, so in that respect it is less controversial.

I agree that plenty of our distinction are made by convention, you can use a knife as something to cut fruit and vegetables or you can use it as a weapon, or a pencil sharpener.

However, these conventions follow certain restraints: we could group together two books and call those two books taken together to be one single book (as an object), but there are quite practical reasons for treating books the way we do.

So yeah, conventions are always at play, what's curios is that they don't seem entirely arbitrary either.

Maybe. But since we are by and large visual creatures and we cannot well visualize how physics at the most fundamental level would look like, it's hard to see such a view spreading.

Who knows?

you have a mechanistic universe, which is part of our present worldview — frank

Yes. That is correct as a matter of intuition, or folk-psychology. It's built-in the way we interpret things.

Things like universals, ideas, abstract objects, etc. become ill-fitting phantoms . They aren't addressed by physics because they don't count as real in the sense an atom is supposed to be. So this worldview says the real is physical. It's contrasted to unreal ideas. — frank

Something like this seems to be the drive between such thinking. It's kind of curious then, when you consider what our most accurate physics says what an atom is, has nothing to do with the intuition that leads us to believe that atoms are these visible concrete things, that make the world up.

And atom is far from that, and perhaps should be considered more of a kind of "cloud" of activity, which is so far removed from anything we can visualize it starts to look like an idea of sort, which is NOT to say that the atom itself is an idea.

It's just Plato back again, right? — frank

Plato... I suppose it depends on how he is interpreted now. If the interpretation is that we have a single perfect idea of a horse or a tree, then that's too strict, imo. If he is interpreted more softly as ideas are the mediation through which we experience the world, that is better.

But yes, on the whole.

I mostly agree. I would merely add that if we keep in mind that what we are constantly dealing with are mental constructions, this should not be surprising that a lot of what we interact with is a matter of convention.

I would only quibble with the topic of a "physical basis". Does that mean a basis in physics? Well physics will tell you little about ordinary objects. Novelists and ordinary people may say more about these things.

If physical basis means something else, then I would like to know. Until someone can present a convincing argument as to what "physical" must contrast with (and why is this so) we may do away with "physical" and speak about "objective basis" of objects.

Well, there's a lot to say in favor and against of suicide. But, at a very fundamental level, if you don't have control over when you end your life, then what do you have control of? Why even speak of rights?

I think there are several situations that are worse than death. And many more that are better.

What age makes the break off point by which we can say: "I've lived 62 years - that's more than most intelligent creatures will ever get." Or "I'm 62, I've still got plenty to look forward to."?

What accounts for those cases in which a young person commits suicide or an old person is more energetic and excited for future prospects? These are all questions that can be discussed for a very long time, and answers will vary depending on personalities, viewpoints, etc.

As for the issue at hand, as I understand the issue, once the person is dead it is no harm or evil on said person. This is quite irrespective of how much they could have lived regardless of accident or an unfortunate situation.

The issue then is how those who are still around feel about him/her. I don't see how we can imbue anything "after the moment of death" with anything like feeling bad for this person. It's a problem for us.

But you could insert an exotic religious belief that complicates the matter.

My question is more about 2- the potability problem. In the DR, if it is known that the water is not very safe to drink without gastrointestinal problems, due to high rates of microbes, why wouldn't there be a country-wide initiative by political factions/politicians to rehaul the whole system? — schopenhauer1

I assume that it isn't enough of an issue such that it merits being taken care of. If the current system works for now, then that's how they'll do it. I don't think it's a massive issue for most tourists, so if they don't complain en masse, then there is little incentive to do anything.

Keep in mind that many governments in these countries tend to be significantly more corrupt than developed countries (generally speaking) such that any public initiative actually taking off and working, is a semi-miracle.

In short, there is (currently) no incentive to worry about potable water. It will become an issue when it is too late.

All of this is speculation.

I think that kind of depends on where you stay. We get lots of tourists going to the beach, if you stay at one of those resorts, the water would be good enough for teeth brushing, but not for drinking. For most other things, it usually safer to drink bottled water.

Last I heard, the capital here, Santo Domingo, will run out of water by 2050 if growth continues at the current pace, which is a lot. I suspect 2050 is kind of optimistic, honestly.

Not good in Brazil, nor in Mexico, nor here, nor in almost any place in the world. By the looks of it, the water crisis will be much exacerbated if nothing massive is done by governments.

Hey schopenhauer1. I am not from Brazil; I live in the Dominican Republic.

I do recall recently reading that Mexico City is not at all far from a severe water crisis. But I do not know much more than this.

No. Unless they are primarily focused on ethics and wishes to show how one's beliefs lead to a change in behavior.

That aside, it's a (near) complete mistake to associate the person who does philosophy with the philosophy itself. By that standard we wouldn't read anyone.

Most of the big names were either racist, sexists, imperialists, etc. I don't think past people should be judged by the standards of our time.

Apologies for the obscure formulation. But you interpreted correctly. Mainly granting the given in experience much more value or force than it merits. Because on closer investigation, a lot of these so called "empirical" things, turn out to depend on the a priori mechanisms we have. And we then attribute to objects things which don't belong to it.

It's an extremely hard topic that does not have empirical evidence by way in which a demonstration could be given that would settle the issue. So why bother when we have all this things we can check?

Of course, you and I will disagree and think that they are granting too much to the given which (actually) belongs to the subject. But then that's why we are around and will continue to be around for quite a bit more.

By non-systemic you mean non-systematic? If so, I think that it merely has to do with the fantastic advance of the sciences, by which one can spend one's whole career studying the neuron of a squid, without knowing much more about biology.

We no longer have people who are capable of knowing all the sciences very well - including mathematics, which makes serious system building extremely difficult.

As for your second question, that would be my guess.

He interprets the people he reads very well. Not only Hume, but also Locke and Descartes and Leibniz and others. Good stuff.

:scream:

Nope.

In defense of Hume! Against his mis-interpreters!

It's near the very beginning of his Prolegomena.

Wow, I got one point over you on Kant. This made my day.

:cool:

And he is correct.

Well, this is pure speculation. If nothing else, metaphysics teaches at least about how philosophers go about building mental structures which they believe latches on to the external world.

On a slightly more positive note, it does tell us quite a bit about "folk psychology/science".

Finally, it could be that one system is "closer to truth" than another one. But we have no possible way of finding out which one is correct. There is something here to be said about "common sense" here, of which your guy said:

"It is indeed a great gift from heaven to have plain common sense. But this common sense must be shown in practice, through judicious and reasonable thoughts and words, not by appealing to it as an oracle when one has no rational arguments to offer."

That's not trivial to do.

Oh, I metaphysics too. Quite a lot. But, as your mentor suggests, I proceed very little.

It is still fun.

The crazy view that there are problems and mysteries. Problems are those areas in which we can hope to get some insight, mysteries are those parts which we can't get insight.

:eyes:

A fellow... mysterian? Good to find one. We are a rare breed.

Please "do" so. But "show", don't "tell". Using words, not "words". :wink:

Extremely interesting discussion and I agree with many points on different sides. It is true that Wittgenstein does have a kind of school, in which people take the Investigations as if they were written by God. And I do think it quite annoying to have almost every issue in philosophy be "solved' (interpreted as: not addressed at all) by using our language careful within the context of what we are trying to say.

However, as others have said, this is not Wittgenstein's problem, but merely some who follow him in this manner. Many treat him respectfully without worship.

Lastly, there are others who have what I think are significantly worse "schools": Derrida, Lacan, Deleuze. But these are aberrations.

Anthony Nickels as many point out here, is fun to interact with and is quite interesting.

I find some of his discussions, especially his most recent one with Curt Jaimungal (a FANTASTIC podcast btw, Theories of Everything) to be very very good.

On other occasions, a bit less so, I'm not do drawn to the "meaning" crisis, as he uses the term and he is prone to use a lot of jargon in his papers.

But yeah, he has interesting things to say. :up:

Of course!

I don't recall if I discussed it much in that thread, but one thing that was very eye-opening for me was reading Galen Strawson's interpretations of Hume regarding causality and (especially) identity: The Secret Connexion and The Evident Connexion.

Though he can be quite dense in exposition, he's an excellent interpreter of those he discusses. It made me approach the Treatise with a different lens.

Yeah. That entire section is just amazing, so powerful and disturbing (in the good sense of the word).

Glad you like it too.

I also agree with you about that on Locke getting several things wrong. As for Hume, I like him at his best, which for me include his arguments on causality and the continued existence of external objects, in these sections, he is dreadful and provides some extremely strong arguments which we are still dealing with to this day.

Also, and it may sound kind of vulgar to say so, I think Chomsky is right here when he speaks about Locke and Hume (and others): they are not idiots. Meaning, no one of any sound mind could possibly deny the mind plays absolutely no role in structuring experience, because doing so is idiotic, it too evident that we have some innate stuff, how much of it should be considered innate and what it covers is what should be debated, not innateness per se.

So Locke may dislike innate ideas (of a very particular sort, again, Descartes does not argue that innate ideas arise the way Locke describes them), because they look lazy to him and have an appeal to authority he does not like. But he cannot possibly deny innateness completely, as evidenced by that quote I shared, or indeed, his famous discussion on personal identity, which is an innatist argument.

Fascinating discussion, I never did get around to starting a thread on Locke's "Essay", it is a wonderful book, perhaps my favorite one out of all the classics on the whole (Descartes through Kant).

Right now, I can't comment much on your reply other than saying that I agree that Locke is wrong here, and furthermore no rationalist (that I know of) argues for the kind of innateness Locke is arguing against.

But it is important to note, though Locke may want to downplay this, that Locke does believe in innateness. Just not those called "innate ideas".

As he says:

"Nature, I confess, has put into Man a desire of Happiness, and an aversion to Misery: These indeed are innate practical Principles, which (as practical Principles ought) do continue constantly to operate and influence all our Actions, without ceasing: These may be observ'd in all Persons and all Ages, steady and universal; but these are Inclinations of the Appetite to good, not Impressions of truth on the Understanding.I deny not, that there are natural tendencies imprinted on the Minds of Men; and that, from the very first instances of Sense and Perception, there are some things, that are grateful, and others unwelcome to them; some things that they incline to, and others that they fly: But this makes nothing for innate Characters on the Mind, which are to be the Principles of Knowledge, regulating our Practice."

Bold added.

(Book 1. Chapter III. 3rd paragraph)

This part is frequently overlooked.

Yet we dismiss a guy sitting on clouds causing thunder. In any case, primitive societies are animists. I remember reading good psychological investigation into animism — like how we see faces on rocks and clouds even though there are no faces —, without any appeal to the actuality of those beliefs. — Lionino

Sure. And these are quite interesting to discover out psychological constitution which could bear fruit in other areas of inquiry.

You are changing your terms. Empirical evidence doesn't go against the unicorn, there is a lack of empirical evidence for the unicorn. Likewise, there is a lack of evidence for a being outside of space and time. — Lionino

Ha, now I think this is semantic. Ok, there is lack of evidence for the mental entity unicorn. So it is a fiction, fine with that.

How do you know there is no evidence for something outside space and time? Can we go to this place to verify or reject such a claim?

Are you sure there is no heaven? It is outside of space and time as we know, too. — Lionino

The Christian tradition posits a person who raised from the dead and said there was a heaven. In this world, I do not know of any cases in which a dead person has come back to life after several days.

Ergo, I do not believe there is something called heaven based on this tradition. Such a person today would be called a charlatan, correctly.

Am I certain there is no heaven? I don't reach certainty, but if you like, I'd say I think there is a 99.9% chance that heaven does not exist.

You can't give me certainty. So let's just say we are agnostic about everything and call it a day. Deal? — Lionino

That's too hasty. But if forced between certainty and agnosticism, I think agnosticism is a safer bet. I cannot go outside myself, much less outside of space and time to see what may or may not exist.

Primitive cultures believe thunders are caused by a god's will. We know today it is not the case. — Lionino

Yes. The point is that there seems to be an innate mechanism that causes us to believe in these things, which is why I do not think they should be dismissed that easily.

I don't understand this. — Lionino

You said:

let's take a universalist generic theist: "I believe a personal creator beyond the universe exists — Lionino

This creator is personal, meaning applies to one person, the one who believes? Or does this refer to people who claim a creator creates everything?

These are not the same.

The first claim is significantly weaker than the second one.

In my understanding, this concept is of a mind (so it is personal), it is outside of space and time (and by that of course I am excluding hippie distortions like "the universe is god", not to be confused with Spinoza's pantheism), and it is the cause of the world we see — I think my rendition of the concept is minimal to all theistic religions. — Lionino

So it's a mental concept, which postulates something outside of space and time. Ok, a mental concept, is a mental concept if we can apply it to something empirical, we can either affirm or dismiss the claim.

If a person believes in Unicorns, but we find no unicorns in the world, then this belief is a fiction, because empirical evidence goes against such a claim.

If you speak of a being outside of space and time, how are we to verify or dismiss it? I don't know how, so I don't know if such a being exists.

If in addition to this a theist says, I believe this being is all good and all powerful then we have plenty of evidence to show that this claim is false, we show them the world.

My point is simple, this insistence on agnosticism applies not just to the God question but to most questions. Yet we reply to most questions with "yes" or "no". There are those that reply "I don't know", surely, but we don't say the people that said "no" are being unreasonable, especially when "yes" would be more unreasonable then. That much says that you are applying a special ad hoc epistemic standard to God. — Lionino

Most people say yes or now to these questions, but I don't think most people care much about epistemology, or if they do, it's to a quite limited range. But you are asking for certainty, I cannot give you that.

From B and D, when we ask someone whether they believe in God they should say yes or no, the uncertainty of the topic is already implied, stating whether you are an agnostic theist/atheit is redundant, and any gnostic theist/atheist has an almost impossible-to-meet burden of proof, so I say the gnostics here are either lying or confused. The agnostic label should be reserved for those who are truly divided (even if the evidence sways their mind in another direction) and prefer to suspend judgement in the await for more evidence. — Lionino

As I said, if you are speaking about the Abrahamic tradition, of which I belong to and whose arguments I understand to some degree, then I am an atheist. I don't believe in heaven, I don't believe in hell, I do not believe a person rose from the dead, etc. Those are rather specific claims, which are capable of being shown to be wrong.

As to whether there is such a thing as "God" or a higher being, I do not know, I cannot verify or deny this. Ergo, I am an agnostic on the God question.

Let's run the argument. "We don't know if god does not exist". The same argument applies just as well (more strongly in fact) to the theist. Ignore Christians or Baha'i, let's take a universalist generic theist: "I believe a personal creator beyond the universe exists". The atheist claims such a being does not exist. The UGT claims such a being exists. Who is more reasonable here?
Let's then say that "we don't know". Here is the problem: you don't whether you will wake up tomorrow, you don't know whether your HS history teacher was really licensed, you don't know whether your dad is really your dad, you don't know whether NASA is really saying the truth, you don't know whether you are dreaming as you read this, and yet you give a good, single-worded, definitive answer when you get asked about all of these matters. But somehow the God question is one of the very few questions where people feel the need to pontificate that we are aren't really sure. — Lionino

The goal is to seek better understanding. Perhaps the topic of God is not as simple as the "New Atheists" take it to be, for we know that most primitive cultures believe in such a "being" or "beings", so maybe there is a room for nuance here which would be slightly more problematic than claiming that I do not know if my father is really my father, of which more could be said.

If by God you are speaking about a "personal creator", by this you mean a being that has the power to give life to people? If that's what is being argued, then I do not think it is a strong argument.

If you mean that there is "personal creator" of some higher being who created the universe. Well, I would like to know some of the properties of said being. A higher being or a higher power is a very nebulous term, people like to hand-wave when asked about it.

But if it is given precision, maybe we can work it out.

Back to the problem of my father, yes, you are correct, I do not know with 100% accuracy that he is my father. I have plenty of evidence to suggest that he is, but pictures of me being a baby could be faked, maybe the baby in the picture is not me, etc.

Given the options I have, then I opt to believe that my father is my real father with, say, 99% accuracy. Hence, I have no good reason to be agnostic about this issue, because what my father is, is much better defined than God, or a higher being.

But God isn't an empirical hypothesis. It is how you frame your life. What God means, according to the religions, is how one should (try to) live one's life. (What science means is not just the philosophy of science, but how you do it in practice.) Admittedly, how that works out in practice can be a bit puzzling to outsiders, but that's how the ideas work. (The same is true of science) To put it another way, if you start by defining God, that may turn out not to be a hypothesis, but an axiom. And there's no arguing with axioms, except by their results. In this case, the argument has to be about what life the believer leads. — Ludwig V

It's not so clear to me, many people treat God as if it were something explanatory, sometimes even empirical, in the broad meaning of the term (which includes personal experience). Why did I get a bonus at work? God is gracious. What caused my existence? God. Etc.

But I do not think that asking for some properties or attributes or facets of God is asking for too much. The more which can be given, the better we can proceed. If it is limited to a Great Being, or a supreme force, then I do not know what this means, or at least, it is very nebulous.

So I think we can have arguments about God, even if there may be no chance of getting each other to agree.

But we would have way to check if this proposition is true, we can send a telescope to Jupiter, or several of them.

If you say that this donkey is immune to being captured by satellites, or that it is shy and only shows up once a year to one person who looks up at Jupiter at very specific instances, then someone is pulling my leg.

First, define what God is, then we can say if we know enough to say, with certainty, that such a thing exists or does not. Maybe we can't reach certainty, in that case we shift to probabilities.

I don't think it's illogical per se, in fact, today, maybe it's more logical that standard institutionalized religion, maybe not.

The issue is that it's a certainty claim: God does not exist.

If we narrow that down to saying something like, the Abrahamic tradition of God does not exist, then I think it makes sense to say one is an atheist in regard to that.

But to say that one is an atheist about any possible notion of God (which is very often very ill defined) assumes more than one can know.

I think agnosticism is better, with atheism being applied in specific instances.

That was remarkably well written M, even by your standards (of which I've always considered to be extremely high).

There's A LOT that could be said here in reply to what you said S and K and the unknowable and - I would add - even Hume and Locke, but, then we go back to Plotinus and even further back to Plato and then we don't get anywhere.

As I've said I think K's conclusions about the unknowable were very much anticipated and discussed very interestingly by others prior to him, though I suspect they did not notice the importance of what they were saying.

But. But. The emphasis Kant made on the given point of the unknowable was strong enough that the previously mentioned observations (made in a different manner), were finally taken to be as deep and as important as they should have been taken. Plus, all the other stuff Kant said about the synthetic unity of apperception, the synthetic a-priori and the law like nature of the "ought" among other things were also quite deep.

My own feeling is, that those who came after K (not S) were honestly more than anything bloated showmen, who sometimes said an interesting thing here and there, but otherwise presented other things so obscurely it was passed off as Hidden Truths.

As for the will not doing the job S wanted it to do, I would agree with you, tentatively.

Thanks for the clarification.

So you do like that Schopenhauer wrote what he did, or would have you preferred him not write?

I once thought I read you saying something along the lines of, Schopenhauer should've stayed quite or something along those lines.

But, you are also ironic so, it might have been that.



There's a lot of stuff in Schopenhauer and one need not take it whole. I think his pessimism has a grain of truth to it, maybe more than a grain, but I think he also exaggerates a little. I don't think life is THAT bad. But it can be very bad.

As for his metaphysics and epistemology, there's a lot of it which I personally find very insightful. However, having read Hume later than I should have, I am torn between S' views on the nature of the will and causality as opposed to Hume's.

So, it's complex. He is one of the last best system builders and one can only admire his honesty about many topics; while maybe thinking he was a not-so-nice person.

Yeah, I think so. My feeling is that we are by default Meaning Giving creatures, it's just what we do, we find it everywhere. So, to go on to say that such a thing is completely absent goes against our nature, in some respects.



At least a Pyrrhonian can be a big nuisance to other philosophers, which is always fun. :cool:

Solipsism is intellectually interesting, but as Borges pointed out, it admits of no reply but produces no conviction (echoing Hume's remarks on Berkeley.)

Nevertheless, I do think there is a connection between nihilism and depression and nihilism and anti-natalism too. The latter group especially are adamant that personal psychology has no bearing on the truth of the argument. Literally true, but misleading. If a person has a (decently) happy life, feels fulfilled and engaged, then that person would rather have life than not have it, if everyone had this view, who would think to come up with these "negative" argument in the first place?

This applies to nihilism too, while psychological states do not tell us if an argument is right or wrong, it does tell us about the motivation for such an argument. If one has not felt profound moments of meaninglessness for long stretches of time, or if one has not felt that life is just one damn sludge of pain, boredom and suffering, then who could imagine framing this argument?

It wouldn't occur to anybody to say these things. Still, I do think nihilism is more merits more respect than anti-natalism, because I do believe that most people have felt periods of meaninglessness, without going all the way to claiming that the whole of life is meaningless.