why is it that mathematical predictions so often anticipate unexpected empirical discoveries? He doesn’t attempt to explain why that is so, as much as just point it out.
— Wayfarer

Apparently he has some ideas concerning why that is so.
Wigner wrote:

“It is important to point out that the mathematical formulation of the physicist's often crude experience leads in an uncanny number of cases to an amazingly accurate description of a large class of phenomena."He adds that the observation "the laws of nature are written in the language of mathematics," properly made by Galileo three hundred years ago, "is now truer than ever before.”

I myself am a critic of ‘scientism’, the attempt to subordinate all knowledge to mathematical quantfication, but I don’t think that invalidates Wigner’s point.
— Wayfarer

If Wigner’s point is that the laws of nature are written in the language of mathematics, then that’s precisely what I’m trying to invalidate. It’s the human-constructed norms of nature that are written in the language of mathematics, not anything to do with nature ‘in itself’. — Joshs

I find this some of the most interesting ideas on the forum. The notion that scientific laws and maths are contingent human artifacts rather than the product of some Platonic realm seems more intuitively correct to me. But as an untheorized amateur, I would say that.

I guess Argentina would just be Spanish Texas then, or something like that. — Arcane Sandwich

Most Australians tend to see themselves as sophisticated city folk, urban hipsters, etc, emulating New York and London rather than any hic desert state. If you travel around Melbourne, most people see themselves in terms very similar to Californians. Ditto Sydney. In fact, I think there used to be an old saying that Sydney is the better half of California.

But up North we do have a Texas-like culture, everything is big and the ideas are often small (with apologies to Austin).

The other aspect of Australia is that the country is so big that most of us never travel to parts of it. I have never been to the North or West of the country. In Melbourne and Sydney you will meet many people who have been to Argentina or France but never been to Darwin or Perth.

Then it's oxymoronic because it can't be dysphoric and be good. — Hanover

This sounds like you're just playing word games. The bigger point isn't about the word 'dysphoria' but the concept of transitioning to a desired state—the idea that happiness, or even euphoria, can be achieved by changing gender and thereby feeling normal. I would take it as good that more people are able to identify a problem and be supported in the solution rather than spending their lives suppressing who they are.

There simply is no good logical explanation — Hanover

I make no comment on any so-called logic or attempts to paint transitioning as somehow deviant or unnatural. And I won't enter into yet another futile anti-trans debate masquerading as a search for truth (not that you necessarily approach it like this, but many do.) My point was a simple response to whether it is on the rise. And it may be on the rise because more people feel brave enough to express their identity, and take action - not because the commie, woke, progressives have done something nefarious to our youth... :wink:

I'd respond by saying that we shouldn't allow the Nordic person to be accepted as Asian. If you don't agree with me, why not? — Hanover

Your argument sounds like a case of false equivalence or a slippery slope style fallacy.

How is this not like the response to the 'love is love' argument for gay marriage: 'Next thing they'll want to marry a fridge or an animal'? How is this not like the response on homosexuality that permitting it is the slippery slope to bestiality or paedophilia? All familiar 'arguments'.

And who knows, maybe in the future the notion of gender and race will be be abolished and we may well be able to chose from many identities.

:up:

I'm glad to hear you experience this differently. — Benkei

:up:

The OP maybe is as much about my own biases as anything else — Benkei

Cool. Yep, and all I'm offering is my observations and built in biases too.

How can more options lead to more people being unhappy with their selves? — Benkei

I think more options mean there are likely to be more ways of being authentic (in the West), which is likely to promote more potential satisfaction. We are no longer limited to mainstream looks, orientations, lifestyles or cultures. When I grew up it was harder.

Gender dysphoria is on the rise and this is not driven by the availability of sex-change operations; and that's for me the main hint something is not going well. — Benkei

I'm no expert but it may be a positive sign that gender dysphoria is on the rise. Perhaps it shows a truer figure of the issue's prevalence, which was suppressed for so long. People often point to how a hundred years ago left handed people were rare, maybe 2%. Once it was accepted that being left handed was not a sign of evil or a bad practice, the percentage increased to maybe 12%. As it happened, I used to try to write left handed and I remember the teacher slapping my left hand and intoning, 'That's wrong!' That was 1970.

Nowadays, nobody is allowed to be ugly. If you're a teenage boy and don't have a six-pack and spend 3 days a week in the gym, you're not meeting the expected standard. — Benkei

I can see why people might think this, but it's not what I'm seeing. Maybe it's different in Australia. Unfit and perhaps unattractive people don't seem to find it hard to make friends and get laid, from what I can tell. And it's even cool to belong to the nerd group, which definitely wasn't a thing when I was 15. I think it may well be true that certain subcultures and occupations have set standards which may be unattainable to some others, but I recall that being a thing 40 years ago too. Overall, I think self-confidence and purpose will get you almost anywhere. Always have.

When I say that violence of war is out of date I am thinking of how many people see the use of war and violence in religion as being something to be avoided. — Jack Cummins

I understand that, but I don't think this matters. Many soldiers I've known feel this way too and yet were committed to conflicts when they were called to them. How do you think we would ever arrive at a time when humans won't fight over territory and values? I am not a utopian or a pacifist nor do I make any comment as to whether war is natural or whether nature can be overcome. Not sure if notions of essentialism or 'human nature' give us anything.

I think war is simply a part of being human. What could be more natural than seeking to expand territory and values and finding enmity along the way?

It is natural in that way, but could be seen as a rather outdated approach to life if it is about literal violence. — Jack Cummins

What would make 'literal violence' out of date: do you mean by this physical violence? Do you have a model of progress which can demonstrate that violence is less intrinsic to human behaviour over time? I know this is a popular view among progressives.

There is also the evolutionary possibility of people thinking of avoiding destruction. — Jack Cummins

I'm not a big fan of projecting untheorised interpretations of evolutionary theory upon behaviours. But if you must say this, then we can also sat that there is also the possibility of people thinking of more destruction in order to gain control over land and values.

If there were weapons that could vaporise people but leave all buildings and infrastructure in place, that could be viewed as less destructive and yet be more deadly.

:up: Thank you. Plato's one thing, but what do you think? Later is fine. Personally, I struggle with theories. I just intuit my way around. I'm rarely caught short. :wink:

All goodness, even the good of mere appearances, is a reflection of the Good, like light refracted through different mirrors, some more smokey than others. We see now "through a glass darkly." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Is this your belief too?

The transcendent, to be properly "transcendent" cannot be absent from what it transcends. Likewise, the absolute is not reality as set over and against appearances, but must encompass all of reality and appearances, both what is relative and in-itself. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I get the theory. How would we demonstrate that this is the case? It also seems kind of circular: claiming that the absolute encompasses all reality and appearances, doesn't it take for granted what it is supposed to establish?

What I am interested in is how we might defend the idea of an absolute goodness which somehow is the grounding for all instantiations of goodness. I get the various schools, but they take this axiomatic. How could it be demonstrated? But let's not get into too much detail, a rough sketch would be perfectly adequate.

I don't think greed explains anything much. We need to look at what underlying needs are being met. Greed itself isn't a need, it's a downstream response. So, the real question is: what are greed's drivers?

I find this to be useful for thinking about the nature of the philosophy of war (and peace). Understanding and reflecting on the nature of war may helpful as a stepping stone towards thinking beyond it. I wonder if this applies to current situations of wars in the world in the 21st century. Any thoughts? — Jack Cummins

Isn't war (armed conflict) in general about gaining territory and control of values? What could be more natural to humans? I don't think people's inner turmoil tells us much about war. I also think we throw the word 'war' around with cavalier imprecision because it has (or use to have) a journalistic gravitas: as in the war of terror, the culture wars, the war on poverty, etc.

Oh, to be in Times Square in 1963!

What is the cause of your lack of curiosity? — javi2541997

Probably just getting older I have less motivation to explore the world through books and am more interested in people.

Who knows! Maybe you could end up having curiosity in Hispanic literature — javi2541997

I read Lorca poetry in the 1980's (he was being rediscovered here) - my girlfriend was obsessed with him. Pretty sure we saw his play El maleficio de la mariposa. Wonderful rich stuff. I adored Cervantes - some of the story digressions in the Don are a bit much. The Lost Steps by Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier was really memorable. Not an easy book to find these days. Perhaps this is a gauche comment but Spanish appears to be the most euphonic and beautiful language for literature.

Agree, nicely put. What might be an example of such an absolute good and how might we demonstrate this?

You might take it that far, but it can be far more concrete. Consider picking out a school for your kid or buying a car. You want a school/car that is truly good, not one that merely appears to be good, or one which is said to be good by others. Likewise, if you have back pain, you want a treatment that will truly fix it, not just one that appears good or is said to be good. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, although I might say this is a contingent form of good as it would be 'truly good' for a specific purpose - my back - and such an efficacious approach may not work on other's backs or even mine, a year later. So the good is relative to a set of circumstances.

But I get what you are saying.

The desire for what is truly good is what takes us beyond appearances (generally the purview of the appetites) and "what others say" (generally the purview of the "spirited part of the soul," particularly our concern with honor, status, reputation, etc.). It's the desire for what is really true and truly good that consistently motivates us to move beyond current belief and desire. — Count Timothy von Icarus

But wouldn't the search for such good generally always be a good which is fit for practical purpose founded in experiential practices, rather than a platonic notion of good?

t's also reason that allows for us to have coherent "second order volitions," i.e., the desire to have or not to have other desires. E.g., "I wish I didn't want to x..." It is what allows us to ask "I have a strong desire for x, but is x truly desirable?" Or "I am enraged with Y and have a strong desire to vent my wrath, and to restore my honor, but is this truly good?" The target of these questions lies outside current desire and belief. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, I can see this.

Might it not also be argued that reason itself is a part of human practice and shaped by history and culture, so when viewed from this perspective, reason cannot take us entirely "beyond" our current contexts. In other words it can't really take us to the 'truly' part of truly good... Thoughts?

In the modern tradition, reason is often deflated into mere calculation. So, the desire aspect tends to get lost. IMO, this is precisely what makes Hume Guillotine even plausible in the first place. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, as a person of the current time and place I do tend to regard reason as a tool or calculating mechanism. It helps us to solve problems - which may just be expressing a low-rent form of pragmatism (my specialty). And defending the use of reason raises problems of self-referential circularity.

It also seems to me that reason can be blunt and often abstracted and that the matters of importance, such as aesthetics, values and belonging are beyond reason and are more like sense making via affective responses. And yes, we all know the risks inherent in this. I guess reasoning can help us develop balance and perspective. It also seems to be that idealizing reason can swiftly lead us to scientism or fascism or any number of isms.

I guess this all goes to your point

So, the desire aspect tends to get lost. IMO, this is precisely what makes Hume Guillotine even plausible in the first place. — Count Timothy von Icarus

This is because reason is, in an important sense, transcendent, which is precisely what allows it to take us beyond current belief, habit, desire, etc. in search of what is truly good and really true. — Count Timothy von Icarus

What do you mean by reason being transcendent?

Do you mean by this that reason provides a universal framework, which transcends our personal and cultural beliefs, and therefore is able to facilitate a dialogue about what is "truly good" or "really true" ? Or do you mean that reason may function as a conduit for us to access a 'divine' realm? Do you see reason as having limitations?

Guess I am thinking about this, so well summarized by @Wayfarer in another thread.

I’ve become very interested in (although not very knowledgeable about) the idea of the ‘divine intellect’ in Aristotle and Platonism generally. The basic thrust is that the power of reason is what distinguishes the human from other animals - hence man as the ‘rational animal’. It preserves the tripartite distinction in Plato's diaogues of the rational element of the soul as being the highest part. @wayfarer

Yes, hypothetically I acknowledge I am a very poor reader. — T Clark

I’m a poor reader too. I had a period of 25 years where I read a great deal. These days I lack curiosity.

In December I did read Erotic Vagrancy: Everything About Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor by Roger Lewis, described as a epic poem about vulgarity and old school fame culture. I was fascinated by Burton for a while and read everything on him. Lewis' book is an unorthodox, shamelessly personal, highly literate and quite bitchy biographical account of the doomed couple. It's not the book he thinks he wrote. We know this because he keeps telling us about his intentions. He says he doesn't want to judge the dysfunctional duo, but he can't help evaluating choices, actions and behaviors. The book is fun but lacks coherence and is somewhat repetitive. Lewis leaves us with a familiar albeit vividly realized lesson: fame can fuck you up.

Not only is it a personal reaction to which definition of the word "sublime" one accepts, but even if accepting one particular definition of the "sublime", it remains a personal reaction to one's experiences of the "sublime" as defined. — RussellA

Yes, and what I'm saying is I have not had that reaction. By any definition I've seen. :wink:

I feel like one could argue that both, in a way, could be transcendental, but also not. Not sure what you'd think of this separation of beauty into a subjectively and a more objectively based and shaped beauty and the thought of it being a transcendental. — Prometheus2

I definitely think one can argue this and many philosophers appear to do so (Roger Scruton seemed to be a particular enthusiast) - the transcendentals being truth, goodness and beauty.

While I don't argue that transcendentals do not exist, I don't believe the case has been made that they do exist. How would we demonstrate them? My own bias is that the idea of the divine (which can mean a plethora of things) has also not been demonstrated.

In the meantime, I see no reason to consider beauty to be more than a contingent factor of culture and experince. Certainly there is intersubjective agreement on the subject. Hardly surprising that cultures/communities share views on beauty. This all seems rich enough to me.

When a good aesthetic becomes a great aesthetic then it becomes sublime.

The aesthetic, being a certain combination of balance within variety of form can apply to all disciplines, whether painting, dance, music, architecture, as well as the design of cars. — RussellA

I don't really subscribe to this idea of the sublime (awe and wonder?). I'm not sure if I have experienced this.

I see things which have impact - and I greatly enjoy them (if that's the right verb). This is about as far as I'd go.

I may well quiver with pleasure when I see the facade of a particularly extravagant art deco building lit by moonlight, but my companion may look at the same edifice, shrug and say 'whatever'. The experince is not transcendental. It's a personal reaction.

Not sure if this is sarcastic, as if to imply everyone thinks they know right from wrong, yet no one does. — Hanover

No, I meant that you are one of the minority members here who believes he can identify a true morality.

I think it's clear I used the term metaphorically and hyperbolically, referencing those immoral things we wish to keep out of our society — Hanover

Like you above, I wasn't clear how to read you. Thanks for clarifying.

And, if I've got this right, that moralizing resulted in your seeing a Republican in your midst and so you called me Trumpesque. I'd have preferred Jefferson. — Hanover

Not really. I was wondering if you were a conservative. I imagine some conservatives are Democrat too. Your comments were a bit puzzling to me, that's all. I misread your metaphor for absolute certainty which seemed at odds with your general approach (such as I have understood it).

As for me, I don't believe I have a set of coherent beliefs. I just act on intuition. I guess mostly I am a typical product of time and place - atheistic, secular, and inclined towards relativism.

I am curious what others think and why. Especially those who are certain.

My first vote is to end the use of the term "demure." — Hanover

Noted. I wasn't aware it was being used much these days. I was reaching for a word along the lines of 'mild' and demure slipped out.

The OP implies an abandonment of unified values leads to fragmentation and alienation. — Hanover

Yes, which is a familiar trope doing the rounds and a bit Jordan Petersonesque. I'm not sure I agree, as stated. My memory before Fox News, identity policies and social media (which seems to be the putative causes of this) is that society was fragmented and alienated already. A lot of this can also sound like, 'Society was a lot better when women and minorities knew their place.'

I am still curious as to what you count as barbarian, even if the word is hyperbole.

That is, I don't fall back to my traditional systems because I can't take my neighbor's chaotic system, but I stand firmly in my traditional system because it's the correct way to think and to act. That is, by doing right, one ends up without the psychological stresses of those who do wrong. — Hanover

One of those rare people who 'knows' what is true and good. Would you also consider yourself a conservative (socially/politically/culturally)?

My metaphorical point here is that we ought re-erect those fences not just because we wish to find personal peace, but because those barbarians are evil, not just an inconvenience we don't know how to accomodate. — Hanover

Nice to see Chesterton's Fence getting an outing.

So essentially you believe in tanscendent notions of truth and good and you see these as stemming from God? What would count as an example of barbarianism?

I do think though we've reached a point that we might be finally be relenting from where we could not even question whether every personal expression is a good one. — Hanover

That would align with the Trump movement too, but I understand you may be ambivalent about that.

And don't misunderstand all this to mean I'm looking to force certain behaviors out of people. People get to celebrate their uniqueness and ultimately make their own decisions how they see fit, but they don't necessarily get to be saved from hearing the commentary regarding their behavior from their opponents. — Hanover

This sounds demure. Wouldn't we require barbarians to be vanquished?

isn't the objective much the same - to bring about some set of beliefs that are at least a bit more functional? — Banno

I think so. Easier said than done, given psychiatric services here often no longer choose to treat complex people, so their psychosis becomes so foundational to them that even basic communication is often impossible.

to bring about some set of beliefs that are at least a bit more functional? — Banno

But this phrase might well describe the function of philosophy for me. It isn't so much a search for truth or a quest for self-knowledge, it is rather a hope that I might bring some more useful frameworks and capacities to my thinking.

Have you found philosophy useful?

No problem. We’re all just trying to figure things out.

What more is said by "It is objectively true that you are reading this screen"? — Banno

Agree. People seem to want to identify the really real. It’s surely a kind of god surrogate.

Objective reality, in some sense, would be different from subjective reality.
— Arcane Sandwich

Can you say how?

But also, you now have two realities. Contrast that with the view that there is at most one reality. Which do you prefer? — Banno

Yes. This may be boring but I think the issue is I have known many people with psychosis whose reality differs. And less dramatically, people with vastly different values and presuppositions appear to inhabit a different reality to mine. Their world is unrecognisable to me. There may be one reality but how does this help us in practice to make assessments of such experiential differences?

No, objective reality is just colourless atoms and molecules together with energy interacting. Not my reality at all. — Questioner

That's one way of looking at it.

Our experiences are our reality. — Questioner

That's another.

I think it's objectively true that I am typing this answer. Whatever ontological/metaphysical matters exist to bring this about are possibly irrelevant. You can always unpack any idea and assumptions further and this process may well be endless. Perhaps reality is just an infinite regress of contingencies.

So far this sounds like a fairly commonplace observation. When I've heard this argument proposed, generally people talk about selves rather than identities, but it is the same phenomenon. What about this do you find intriguing?

No offense, but I feel like the treatise has several already, Alchemy being the main one. — MrLiminal

I'd say you need a better example than alchemy - which is not relevant today. If this problem still exists then you shouldn't have a problem finding good current examples to demonstrate your point in action.

And I'm coming at this as a hard-skeptic/atheist perspective, I just feel like scientific inquiry should also extend to religious claims. — MrLiminal

What does that really mean? Do you think that science hasn't investigated religious claims? What would this look like today?

If I mix two things together, and consider the result science but someone else considers it a function of the unknowable divine, who is to say who is wrong? — MrLiminal

Isn't one answer generally going to be demonstrable and more useful than the other. Example? Let's take thunder. Is it the rumbling wheels of Thors chariot? Or is it the rapid expansion of air surrounding a lightning bolt? How helpful is it to believe in metaphysical chariots?

I'm coming at this as a hard-skeptic/atheist perspective, — MrLiminal

Are you, perhaps, an atheist who comes from a religious background?

My argument is that religion, science and art are all frameworks for explaining reality that use different processes and vocabulary, but are ultimately concerned with parsing truth and meaning out of the chaos of reality. What one practitioner considers practical magic would be explainable science to someone else, but they are both *talking about the same process* just from different frames of reference. — MrLiminal

Most atheists would probably argue that one set of claims is closer to being true and can be of use to us and the other set of claims is not true and leads us into false beliefs and (often) harm. Now I grant you that most religious beliefs are probably benign. But religious ideas do cause harm. Ask those effected by the Taliban or many of those who watched Trump gain massive support from evangelicals. :wink:

In recent decades, media, including movies, series, and magazines, have driven unattainable archetypes of masculinity and femininity. — Benkei

Hasn't this been the case for at least a century? The primary difference being how those 'archetypes' are distributed to target audiences?

We live in a world increasingly defined by individualism, where traditional societal units such as family, community, and religion have significantly weakened. This vacuum leaves people seeking identity and validation in narrower, more fragmented categories: gender, sexuality, political affiliation, or other micro-identities. While individualism seduces us with promises of freedom and self-definition, it often breeds insecurity in a world stripped of clear anchors. — Benkei

I don't know about vacuums. Isn't another way to frame this that there are just a lot more possibilities and more ways to be mainstream today? I doubt that community or family or religion are much weaker today than they were 40-50 years ago. They've been in transition a long, long time. If anything, back in the late 70's we thought religion would be gone from society by now and, if anything, it seems to be having a revival.

Community and family? Traditional forms may well have atrophied but other forms have developed - same sex parent families, for instance. I see a lot of additional inclusion in the country I live in - input from First Nations people, lived experience informing social policy in the areas of migrant communities, homelessness, mental illness, etc. There seem to be as many improvements as disappointments.

:up:

What reason do you have for assuming that we can ever know the ultimate truth about reality? — RussellA

Yes. But I wonder also whether the quest to identify the 'really real' might not just be a secular replacement for god.

It is a commonplace, legitimate, and useful metaphysical position that an objective reality doesn't exist. From that point of view, there is no ultimate truth about reality. — T Clark

I have sympathy for this frame. The notion of reality is a human construct and seems to be tied to our sense making capacities. While I agree that there are realities about certain matters - temperature, facts, dates, places, the fact that I am typing - these are all contingent. Once we try find the ultimate reality above and beyond the contingent, we are probably just chasing our tails.

Does every generation finally get to the point where they don't recognize the world anymore? — frank

I would think so. I remember my grandmother saying that culture no longer made sense to her—she was a fundamentalist Christian born in the 1890s. The moon landing and the hippie movement shook her reality. In the 1980s, my father made a similar observation during the time of glasnost. Now, I find myself telling young colleagues that I no longer have a clear understanding of where I stand on culture or politics, and I hope they can make sense of it all. I suspect this feeling of disconnection is one of the defining phenomena of modernity.

I guess my ultimate frustration is that sometimes it seems like science and religion are essentially talking about the same thing/process, but then get hung up on the specific details. — MrLiminal

It would really help if you gave a recent example and stepped it through.

You mention getting 'hung up on details'. The devil is in the details. Isn't it the case that often what is most important is not the problem we are trying to solve, but the way we approach it? Method and approach are everything. For instance, I watched someone die of cancer because they believed that prayer and god would heal them. They refused to accept medical treatment.

And that said, I am not convinced that religion and science are talking about the same thing. You would need to provide examples. I have a close friend who is a Catholic Priest, in his view religion is about higher consciousness and connection to the transcendent, while science is to get work done in the physical world. He sees both as critical but separate. Perhaps along the lines of the Nonoverlapping Magisteria (NOMA), introduced by Stephen Jay Gould.

In combination with the song I had on, I was somehow deeply moved by this seemingly simple, urban view before me.

"Beautiful.", was the first word that came to my mind then. However, what I had felt and seen seemed much more profound than just one word, which I would say only captured/described but a fraction of this moment. — Prometheus2

Sounds like you had an emotional reaction. I have felt that way about peeling paint on a mental fence when lit by a setting sun. Does it mean anything more than the experience you had?

The significant question about beauty is whether it is a transcendental or not - does it reflect fundamental properties of being, e.g., truth, goodness and beauty? Do they reflect in some way a divine reality? Do you think beauty is something that transcends contingent human experience and says something deeper about reality?



I prefer that Picasso to many more sentimental paintings others might readily call beautiful. I struggle with the notion of art as beauty. I generally think the best art has vitality and a visceral impact. Beauty (as I see it) generally seems soft and cloying.

What frustrates me is the way science and religion so often approach similar truths but refuse to work together because of their ideological differences. — MrLiminal

Is this the core of your argument? What is the nature of your frustration here? Just because two approaches attend to the same matters does not mean that they need to be integrated. Fascism and democratic socialism might consider the question of immigration (or for that matter, government). Does this mean they can or should work together?

Why not take us through a specific example in more detail so we can understand how you see this working in practice. Dot points might be best.

Some random reactions. Atheism only refers to a disbelief in one thing. Gods. Some atheists believe in ghosts, astrology or even Bigfoot. Additionally, an atheist need not say there is no god. Many atheists, like me, simply look upon god as a concept that doesn't seem coherent or useful. Arguments are moot. Whether one believes in god may function more like sexual orientation - you can't help what you are attracted to. Although many of us use post hoc arguments to justify our position and in a world which often privileges faith, atheists can find they need to defend their disbelief.

to a person who has “experienced” a ghost, they have experienced magic. And because I also cannot explain it, I can only assume that my only somewhat informed explanation is correct, when it may in fact not be. — MrLiminal

Not necessarily. Some people see unexplained phenomenon and do not come to any conclusions about what they saw. The 'ghost' part is a post hoc label we don't need to use. This is the most interesting thing about supernatural claims. Are they nothing more than linguistic crutches (a sketchy heuristic) for phenomena we can't yet explain, rooted in our fear of admitting uncertainty?

From what I understand most religions tend to have, as a central tenet, a figure (or figures) that exist outside of the laws of the world we live in ie. God creating the world supernaturally, an angel speaking through a donkey, etc. This, by scientific standards, is simply not logical — Outlander

I think many people have in mind a cartoon version of god - the bearded sky wizard who magically creates stuff. But if you consider more sophisticated theology, such as that of Paul Tillich, then god is not a person, but the ground of being. God transcends the subject-object divide and is the foundation of all experience. God doesn't magically create the world we live in, God is the ultimate reality that makes all being possible. This sounds mystical and ambiguous and is much less easy to understand and, perhaps, harder to dismiss than the cartoon god. And can easily mesh with some of the speculative quantum physics mysticism that has excited so many science nerds.

Ok. It's just that the words 'personal transformation' sound a bit more serious than just amusing oneself.

but I do believe in the possibility of personal transformation, as in altered states of consciousness — Janus

Perhaps an aside, but I am curious. To what end? What is the point of the personal transformation you are thinking of - where does it lead?

Then you're obviously conversant with the data, which (as far as my contribution to this thread is concerned) can be summed up thusly: — LuckyR

No, the data is not generally relevant to the practice of suicide intervention. It's also understood that the data on suicide isn't accurate. Deaths by suicide are often misclassified and underreported.

It's true that for many people suicidal ideation appears to be situational and may be crudely described as temporary. But most people I've seen in this space seem to have persistent triggers over a given year for many years. In other words, the temporary is recurrent. Birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas, etc are regular triggers for some.

But even where suicidality is temporary, this doesn't generally assist the person experiencing the emotional pain. The reality is that at the time people feel a chronic emptiness and/or hopelessness. To tell someone that this is temporary and they will feel better later may be experienced as unhelpful or irrelevant. People sometimes try to use this approach in counselling and the results are somewhat haphazard.

It reminds me a bit of Gnosticism. Gnostics had secret knowledge only the initiated can understand fully. — schopenhauer1

Yes. However it seems to me this principle seems to operate in almost any arcane 'knowledge' area, whether it's Platonists, Scientologists or QAnon.

Is there just one example of good evidence amongst the thousands of claims and tall tales that the UFO brigade have generated? I notice you haven't gone down the Bob Lazar rabbit hole as yet. :wink:

:up: