I haven't spoken with ChatGPT in more than a year. But back then, it was making mistakes. I pointed out factual errors occasionally, and it apologized, saying I was correc — Patterner

Ditto. It seems to confabulate.

Maybe I am missing something, that is why I am here asking? — Atrox

Yes. And if you have to ask, it's likely no one will be able to assist you in understanding. You either get it or you don't.

I consider kindness to be one of the most important qualities I value in both individuals and organizations. Not that I always get there myself. However, language is inherently imprecise and open to interpretation. When I say I prefer non-judgment, compassion, and empathy, that's essentially what I mean by kindness. It's all too easy to judge, criticize, and deepen the divide between people. Of course, this perspective can be scrutinized or criticized in ways that miss the point, but such an approach would be an unkind one.

Some suggestions for days to celebrate with harmonious intention are: Humanity Day, Inclusive Society Day, Scientific Discoveries Day, Technological Advances Day, World Peace Day, Hunger Eradication Day, and Equal Opportunities Day.

What else do you suggest? — Alonsoaceves

We already have an International Day of Peace - Sept 21 and look where that has gotten us. :wink:

My personal view is that celebratory days are probably vapid. In my own personal life I don't usually celebrate birthdays or anniversaries and do not consider dates to have any magical significance. I understand the urge some have to memorialize events (such as wars) they have a connection to, but that isn't for me. We also seem to be living in an era where every second day is set aside for some banal celebration, a pseudo event, which to me feel tokenistic and superfluous. Tomorrow, for instance, is International Mountain Day...

As to the broader question of what unites humanity and what role conflict pays, that's a vast quesion I have no substantive answers for. I am in favor of having a military force. I'm not in favor of invading other lands. It's a complex multidimensional question and I have no expertise in geopolitics.

Thanks.

Don’t you see in your own practice the handing down from one generation to the next patterns of abusiveness that result from the perpetuation through multiple generations of a failure to make sense of the others perspective?
6m — Joshs

Totally agree. I am frequently in trouble for trying to remove blame and judgement from worker discourse.

Rather than exploring alternative ways of understanding the actions of others, we blame them for our failure to comprehend. Much of traditional ethics is hostile in this way, blaming the intent, character, or will of others when they fail to meet the standards we have set for them based on our criteria. The more effective , but far more difficult, approach is to experiment with fresh ways of interpreting the motives of others. — Joshs

Fair enough. How would this work in practice, in the context of a man who perpetuates domestic abuse? How might such an approach bear useful results? The conventional view might be that the violent perpetrator who assaults his partner, is doing so to exert his power and control of them by using fear and force.

Perhaps that’s a precursor for what was to become the ding an sich of Kant (I don’t know if that’s a recognised theory.) The many arguments I’m having about idealism revolve around the idea that in the absence of the order which an observing mind brings to bear, nothing exists as such. Not that it doesn’t exist, but there is no ‘it’ which either exists or doesn’t exist. The delineation of forms and the differentiation of things and features one from another is what ‘existence’ means, it is the order that ‘brings things into existence’, so to speak. (For which the ‘observer problem’ is an exact analogy.) — Wayfarer

This is a helpful formulation of the idea.

We live in a society carved up into myriad communities united by their own systems of intelligibility. The fact that we are all able to share the roads together and communicate in public spaces on the basis of general and superficially shared understandings masks the extent to which our worlds only partially link up. When we fail to see this we force the ethical into the position of subjective will. The other falls short of our ethical standards due to a failing of ‘integrity’, a ‘character flaw’ , dishonesty, evil intent , selfishness, etc. In doing so, we erase the difference between their world and ours, and turn our failure to fathom into their moral failure. — Joshs

I find this particularly interesting. Does it follow from this frame that no one is ever knowingly dishonest or has evil intent and that the matter can always be understood as arising from incommensurate perspectives?

:lol:

Discussing the limits of language and logic is a legitimate subject in philosophy, and I don't agree at all that ' the transcendent can mean nothing to us'. — Wayfarer

Maybe, but it is far from demonstrable that you're correct on this. How would we know? (That's rhetorical, not needing a lengthy explanation of metaphysical answers.) view here seems entirely plausible and legitimate. What we simply have here is a disagreement about how the world may be. You both are aware of the same accounts, but your inferences take you to different conclusions. I tend to favour skepticism myself.

I know this. Still a smear, right?

Presumably a smear? :wink:

Insofar as it is mind-created it is delusory. Mysticism proper is seeing through what the mind creates. — Wayfarer

Yes, I am familiar with the belief and I was involved in these sorts of pursuits many years ago.

The mystical cannot yield discursive knowledge, it just gives us a kind of special poetry. It can be life-transforming, and that transformation does not consist in knowing anything, but in feeling a very different way. — Janus

That's an interesting way of putting it. I guess something similar to Wittgenstein's, "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."

‘Accessing reality’ sounds like something you need a swipe card for. — Wayfarer

Maybe that's were we've been going wrong. It might even be an app...

‘all I know is that I know nothing’, — Wayfarer

I'm pretty satisfied not knowing.

How do you get outside the human conception of reality to see the world as it truly is? That is the probably the question underlying all philosophy.
— Wayfarer

I don't think that is the most important question in philosophy by any stretch because the simple answer is "You can't get outside of human conceptions of reality". (There are human conceptions of reality, not just one conception). — Janus

Yes. It strikes me that much of the argument provided by can also be used to support a robust skepticism of the transcendent. Since we can't access reality, how do we know there is a reality beyond the reality we know? Perhaps it's perspectives all the way down. :wink: English philosopher Hilary Lawson makes similar arguments to Wayfarer, but is led to skepticism rather than mysticism - mysticism being just one more mind created reality and futile project to arrive at Truth.

It would be interesting to hear Harris respond to your concerns. I haven't followed his project closely enough to consider what his deficits might be. As a moral nihilist, I retain some interest in the subject, but only a mild one.

I'm actually writing a paper on this because, from my experience in government, it seems that something like Harris view is dominant amongst policymakers and economists (less the religious bigotry, which most don't share). — Count Timothy von Icarus

I've worked with a lot with policy makers in this country. Pretty much no one believes in god and their atheism is so ubiquitous in this largely secular country, that most don't even know what religion or theism refers to, except as the colourful beliefs held by immigrants. :wink:

In conclusion, having both subjectivity and objectivity co-exist in the same world creates a logical contradiction. — bizso09

Can you explain the contradiction? Isn't the subjective and the objective simply a description of the same reality seen from a different perspective? But if they are in opposition or some type of contradiction isn't it that case that opposites coexist and that they help to define and identify the other - no pleasure without pain, no good without bad, no wellness without sickness? It might be said, of course, that everything is ultimately subjective and that agreement or what we call objectivity is simply inter-subjectivity - a truth we manufacture together.

Nobody is obligated to help others, though it may be a good endeavour. — Barkon

This is why I tend to think of helping others being a potential example of good. Good often comes at a price. Good may have a personal cost. Good may be difficult and painful. Hence the association of self-sacrifice with good. If good is simply what pleases you, you might be a con-artist and thief.

Aristotle's example of what is sought for its own sake is eudaimonia—roughly "happiness," "well-being," or "flourishing." This appears to be a strong candidate. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Maybe. We're still left with the vexed act of interpreting what constitutes 'flourishing' and who gets to be a citizen in that model. For instance, does it fully include women? (Not looking for an answer to this)

On this one, I think I prefer Sam Harris' simplistic adaptation of Aristotle, which puts 'wellbeing' at the centre. Subject to the similar definitional and operational problems.

Why prefer some forms of social order over others? Presumably because we think they are truly better. — Count Timothy von Icarus

No, in my case because they please me and comport with my values. And I like predictability. Morality can greatly assist us to make plans.

it would be quite another to say that it is "intersubjective agreements all the way down," or not explicable in terms of anything other than such agreements. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Can we demonstrate that this is not the case? Circular reasoning like this seems unavoidable throughout human experience. After all we use logic to prove logic. Isn't the very idea that - an action is morally right if it maximizes flourishing because maximising flourishing is what defines morality - circular?

Some might say that humans, as social, tribal animals have evolved behaviours (norms, codes) which benefit groups. Don't fuck your sister's husband, don't steal stuff and don't kill - would make sense in terms of the continuity and thriving of the tribe. But there are some tribes that don't have the injunction against stealing because there's no private property in their culture.

Does goodness change, or beliefs about what is good? Beliefs about everything vary by epoch, culture, and individual... — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, I get it - the usual arguments against relativism, which I have put up myself elsewhere. I may start a thread on nuanced relativism. I'm not necessarily a proponent, just an admirer...

I am not sure 'good' means much without context and milieu. I'm not sure this is a resolvable matter. Relativism doesn't have to argue that all moral claims are equal, just that their status depends on the given social, cultural and personal context.

Likewise, the age of the universe is normally not taken to change when beliefs about this fact do, and this holds even though the specific measure of time we generally use to present and understand "the age of the universe"—the year—is a social construct. — Count Timothy von Icarus

This may be true about the universe's real age - if age even has meaning at this level. But I think the idea that the universe is the product of a singularity at a particular time is an intersubjective agreement held by certain parts of the scientific community. Is it not possible that one of those fabled paradigm shifts (so 20th century) might uncover a different cause and timeframe sometime?

But the age of the universe and how viruses work are surely of a different category to whether something is inherently good or bad.

:up:

So, one might assume that what the Good is sought for its own sake and that it must be a principle realized unequally in a disparate multitude of particulars (e.g. saddle making, painting, argument, etc.). One might also assume that other things are sought in virtue of the degree to which the perfect, possess, or participate in this principle. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don't understand how the Good would be sought for its own sake. Does this imply, as many used to believe, that goodness is a kind of transcendental, independent of contexts and intersubjective agreements?

Seems to me that goodness varies greatly over time. While I don't think I'm a total relativist, I don't see how we can move beyond the culturally located nature of goodness. I get that many of us believe in moral progress and argue for various positions (which implies better and worse morality) but is it any more than just pragmatically trying to usher in our preferred forms of social order?

I assume that you adhere to some form of Platonism and view moral truths as existing beyond human experience?

In summary, we know for a fact that consciousness exists. But regardless of whether or not there are consciousnesses individual from your own, and whether the “we” could or could not mean “I”, the notion that others might lack individual consciousness does not invalidate their possession of consciousness altogether. In such a case, that consciousness would simply be your own. — Reilyn

I've never been convinced that I can know I am conscious. Sure, I can say that I appear to experince consciousness. But to what extent is this consciousness my own? It's an assumption which seems safe within ordinary refection. But how do I know that I am not experiencing the thoughts of another being, or machine?

Having a good heart is having a heart filled with opportunity to create things that benefit you. You would have purpose, you would have opportunities to create a beneficent circumstance. — Barkon

That doesn't sound like 'good' that sounds more like narcissism. If everything revolves around you and 'opportunities' and what 'benefits you', where does the good come in?

Because of ignorance, of not seeing what is real, and being attached to what is unreal. And that goes for me as much as anyone else. — Wayfarer

How did you rule out that the world just is a miserable place?

Everyone reacts differently to what they see. To some extent we can choose how we react to things, how we choose to frame what we see. I tend to think this is a great time to be alive and I prefer life today to what it was like when I was young in the 1970-80's. I love the increased diversity and choices, the better food and the technology.

So I decide to build my own set of rules and values, this is my first attempt and I will need your help, so where should I begin? What question should I make? — Matias Isoo

This will always be contested space and I have never been too much concerned by notions of good or bad. It's slippery and imprecise. I generally hold that to deliberately cause or allow suffering is bad and to work to minimise suffering or end it is good. How we measure this and how we define suffering is where the fun begins. There are a range of foundations for defining the good - from that which promotes human flourishing to those who argue that good is contextually constructed - a product of human preferences and emotions.

This leads to the question of is it the end of civilisation or is there potential for transformation? Is the idea of transformation mere romanticism or have people become too engulfed by nihilism? I am asking about the nature of values underlying politics. — Jack Cummins

None of the above. Who can say what happens next? I am not even sure anyone knows precisely what our current situation is.

We do seem to be in the grip of nostalgia projects and a new age of romanticism. Every second pundit seems to want to restore Neoplatonism or God or make America great again. There's a prevailing narrative doing the rounds that we have 'lost something' and need to regain it. I'm not taken with this story.

But I think the evidence and arguments for the idea that things can be actually good or bad for people is quite strong. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, I think that's my main observation on this subject which is hardly original or revelatory. But I do think the quality of such people's lives can be much better than their nefarious activities might suggest. We don't want to think that such folk can get away with it and be happy.

For Aristotle, the virtues (excellences) are exactly those traits that allow one to achieve happiness. Eudaimonia is a virtuous life — Count Timothy von Icarus

An influencial framework. Do you personally accept it?

On the matter of pleasure/flourishing, I think I agree with Joshs -

Pleasure and what you are thinking of in ethical terms as ‘human flourishing’ are not independent entities. And given that all goals and purposes, including minor pleasures, are integrated holistically at a superordinate level, the depth of satisfaction of a pleasant life will be directly correlated with human flourishing. Of course, the other’s criterion of flourishing may not meet your standards, in which case you’re likely to split off their life of pleasures against what you consider robust flourishing, rather than adjusting your construal of their way of life such as to gain a more effective understanding of how they actually see things. That’s more difficult than carrying around a priori concepts of flourishing in your wallet. — Joshs

Nicely expressed.

The more general point is that it seems quite possible to have many pleasurable experiences and a "pleasant life," while avoiding the development of faculties and aptitudes that we tend to think are important for human flourishing. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'd say someone we might regard as evil is probably as capable of leading a full and rewarding life as anyone else. The point I made about the aforementioned wealthy swindler is that their easy access to life-enhancing, qualitative aspects—like healthcare, services, education, and culture—allows them to enrich their flourishing further. It’s not merely about Fabergé eggs and flashy red cars.

I guess the crux of this matter is the question - are some forms of flourishing more virtuous than others? I think this comes down to the values of the person making that judgement. If you are influenced by Aristotle or Christianity you will say yes.

To be sure, you might be able to attain some goods by acting unethically. An unethical businessman might cheat and manipulate his way into having wealth and status, the ability to procure all sorts of goods for himself. — Count Timothy von Icarus

But it's more than that.

There's nothing to prevent that wealthy businessman from not having a rewarding and happy life. Access to significantly better food, superior health care, services and accommodation. To be able to provide these for friends, cronies and family as needed. To have sick children obtain preferential treatment. To access the best art, travel, education and advice. To live longer, healthier and safer and to have everyone they care about provided with the best things available in the culture. These are non-trivial matters and while the saying 'money can't buy you happiness' is often provided rather wanly when talking about such folk, sometimes it's the case that precisely the opposite is true.

being good is about attitude — Banno

This seems right to me.

It seems to me that full-blown constructivism is not a plausible hypothesis, given that experience shows us unequivocally we and even some animals see the same things in the environment. We see the bees seeing the flowers just as we do, but apparently, they can see colours we cannot. — Janus

This is a fair comment. But I wouldn't argue that humans do not share some similar points of reference to animals. It's just that the meaning of what we see is clearly different and located in cultural and linguistic practices, which animals certainly don't share. Once we step away from bees and flowers and consider how we make sense of our environment and how we derive values and meaning, it's another world entirely.

I think that can only be a reference to claims about what is beyond or outside the domain of naturalism, which suggests the supernatural, hence 'woo' in today's lexicon. — Wayfarer

Well, I'm not going to call woo on this. I'm just working through the ideas. I guess my point, at the risk of repetition, is that in a sense, the act of positing transcendence—whether it be metaphysical, epistemic, or existential—may be just another layer of the constructivist project, a narrative that we generate rather than an actual escape from our contingent realities. Yet, there’s a paradox here: the very recognition of our cognitive limitations seems to point to a desire to grasp something beyond them. Does this suggest an innate tension in human thought, or is it simply a reflection of the inherent constraints of our perspectival existence?

Throughout the early Buddhist texts, the point that is repeated over and over is awareness of and insight into the chain of dependent origination which gives rise to conditioned consciousness. In this context, It's not so much a matter of 'getting behind' those patterns, as of seeing through them - which is an arduous discipline. — Wayfarer

Yes, that's my understanding as well, though I come at it from a much less theorised perspective. It strikes me that nearly every other post here delves into the idea of uncovering the deeper reality behind reality we inhabit. It’s fascinating how often discussions circle back to the notion that humans dwell on the surface of something and that there are ways to dive beneath.

:up: I think I am in agreement with your general thesis - the world is 'created' by our cognitive apparatus, our minds. We are the ones who provide the perspective and a series of contingent interfaces. Which is why for me it seems problematic to provide any totalising claims about meaning or transcendence. Is it coherent to suggest that we can get behind the contingent product of experience? If it is all an act of constructivism, then so is the notion of transcendence. Thoughts?

If one were to know the truth of a significant matter, would transparency and honesty be owed to the community on said matter, even if it meant many in the community would feel harmed/ disenfranchised by it? — Benj96

Truth can be overrated. There could be numerous reasons not to share truth. Where it might cause undue suffering or panic or create other dire reactions. Of course as humans we have to assess the potential impacts of unleashing truths indiscriminately. In life one might have small tastes of this - do we always tell people who are dying that they are dying? The ugly that they are ugly? The unintelligent that they are dim?

What a Kant!

I also spent 18 years participating in Gurdjieff groups and practiced meditation every day. — Janus

An aside - Did you ever get anywhere with, Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson? I kicked around with people in Melbourne who were into Gurdjieff and Ouspensky. I spent a lot of time trying to follow the works. Got nowhere. Can't remember a thing 45 years later... Talk of degrees of reality. I got the feeling I needed more knowledge of the Greeks to fully appreciate Tertium Organum.

Excellent points.

Who do we have up there? A more benevolent ruler along the lines of Ceasar Augustus or Trajan, or a Stalin? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Indeed and I've sometimes thought that the quasi ruling class (these days the Trumps and Musks ) are so desperate to hit the 'big time' but their glory amounts to being stuck in the same cave with the 'plebs' at the expense of transcendence 'outside'.

Right, there is also the question of people's aptitudes and interests too. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Indeed that's the big matter for me. And let's not forget innate intelligence too. Not everyone has the same capabilities.

But I think that in philosophy, as in science, a bulk of the work is digesting a new paradigm and making it easily intelligible and seeing how it can be applied (e.g. the whole Patristic period, with lots of great thinkers, is in a way synthesizing and digesting Plato, Aristotle, and Stoicism). If you want to read Hegel or Kant, great, but something like Pinkhard's version of Hegel is particularly valuable in that it isn't really a struggle to get through. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I like this idea a lot.

Cool. I don't particularly enjoy bickering with people and I really appreciate reading the different views here, especially those composed from careful reading and thinking. Which is the reason I joined.

Frankly, I can't help what I beleive. I have read enough to know something of what's out there and I was for many years connected to the Theosophical Society in Melbourne, so it's not like I sit with Dawkins.

For me, philosophy is not so much a search for truth or reality but a search for models and ideas that I can justify. Sure this is fraught. But so are most other approaches.

Do you agree with 180's slur that anyone who discusses the nature of Nature on a philosophy forum is a "New Age nut", or perhaps a "Muslim and Christian apologist". — Gnomon

This sounds defensive. You borrow my phrase here but I have not said anyone is a Muslim or Christian apologist, just that a few moves made here are reminiscent of their moves. does not seem to be saying this to me. He seems to investigate things and then assesses on the basis of his philosophical reading and understanding what fits into the bogus pile and what does not. Isn't that what you do? Don't most of us do this? The difference is that our piles (and the reasoning which built them) look different.

OK. I apologize for disturbing your "dogmatic slumber". :smile: — Gnomon

Hmm, the borrowed quote is not quite right. Slumber is fine - do you know how difficult it is to get a good sleep? Dogmatic - no. I have no inflexible commitments to any particular account of reality as explained.

Do you know any Atheists or Materialists, who would like to discuss the philosophical ideas in the OP, instead of just putting them in a pigeonhole that can be easily dismissed as bird-sh*t? — Gnomon

I don't think I know any materialists. I would avoid the word materialists and swap it with naturalists, as most would now describe themselves - materialism being understood as too reductive. I would probably consider myself a methodological naturalist but not a metaphysical naturalist. I have not ruled out idealism, for instance.

But for me as a non-scientist, non-philosopher, I do not have the luxury to speculate about the nature of reality. I leave that to the people with qualifications and stratospheric IQ's. My own preference here is that the nature of reality (which apparently is hidden) is mostly unimportant and has no bearing on how I conduct my life.