. I struggle with unclear English.
— Tom Storm
wahhhhhhh :cry: — Kizzy

Any particular reason for your fatuous rudeness?

(I'm bracketing this response as I don't want to derail the conversation about the OP. The popular image of God as a kind of cosmic director or literal sky-father is deeply entrenched in culture and is typically the target of athiest polemics. — Wayfarer

Thanks for this and nicely put. I am aware of this more sophisticated account of god and probably first encountered this through Tillich.

My point when I said -

-

If god is the creator and sustainer of our reality then it must be that case that before creation, before existence and causality, there was nothing but god. — Tom Storm

- was simply trying to enter the sprit of the argument as generally presented, as understood by Aquinas and others who use the argument from contingency. But perhaps Aquinas changed his view as he became older? The sky father version, which transcends atheist polemics, does remain popular and I would imagine is in the minds of the vast majority of believers. But I get your broader point.

My intuition about Aquinas is that at the end of his career, when he fell into an ecstatic state and declared 'compared with that I have seen, all I have written seems as straw', it was because of direct realisation of that reality. — Wayfarer

I wonder if this Aquinas would have found his Five Ways lacking.

That's a good wrap up of the issue. :up:

The problem with this discussion may be the various understandings about what counts as 'elite'. Does it mean the rich and powerful - the corporations and their privileged servants, or do we mean the educated and professional classes, whose expertise used to matter? The former are less likely to be the latter. In Australia we have often had educated progressives labeled elites by right wing politicians. Mainly because their views required nuance. I think this has neatly distracted people from the real debate; who are the people in charge?

Any thoughts about this distinction?

Why is it good to have language that devolves into ambiguous personal opinion, versus language that is clear and unambiguous?" I think this is a very important question. Why do you think undefined and opinionated words benefit the community? — Philosophim

Oops forgot this point.

You seem to be universalizing my response about one aspect of one issue in order to dramatist a point. I make no such claims about language generally or the community - only what I said about this one matter. And I have already stated that this is my position and others may not like it. It requires no more than this.

See previous.

Ha! Ok

I’m not here for interminable arguments, I’m here to arrive at tentative positions. It seems you now want to gate-keep this site?

Seems important enough for you to have waded in — Philosophim

Yes, but there’s no need to stay in any one thread once a point is made. I wish more would do this but it’s not my call how others behave.

You seem to think that the community needs ambiguous and opinionated language. Why? — Philosophim

I have explained my position. Not sure it needs further clarification. As I said, not everyone will agree and the matter isn’t significant enough to pursue.

This is avoiding the question once again. — Philosophim

From my perspective you’re avoiding my answer.

This didn't answer my question. My question was, "Why is it good to have language that devolves into ambiguous personal opinion, versus language that is clear and unambiguous?" — Philosophim

My answer is an attempt to supply you with a different frame for this matter. What I guess I am saying is that your demand for clear language to me seems like it's trying to fence in some complex ideas that have no convenient solution. I fully understand that this might not satisfy everyone, but that's were I sit with this. Maybe there is a more open ended set of descriptors we can use to broaden the language for trans? Either way it isn't really a critical problem from my perspective.

If you are going to quote someone highlight the words wanted and then click on the 'quote' option which comes up. Much easier to read.

Yes, limitations, he thought he knew that he knew nothing in certain areas, not that he thought he had faith that he knew nothing in certain areas. I'm not an idiot, — Echogem222

:up:

I do not believe I gained awareness of logic and other things through free will, since I don't believe in free will, so now, after being exposed to such things, I feel influenced to believe such things are true because I have no influence swaying me to think differently, and I see no benefit in doing differently. So, I believe I started out my beliefs with zero certainty because I lacked the free will to do differently, and since my faith in anything was originally started out with zero certainty, everything I have faith in is founded on faith of zero certainty, disproving your reasoning. — Echogem222

Sorry too many double negatives and disordered syntax for me to follow. I struggle with unclear English.

You say you are not an idiot - are you certain? Is that faith based?

I'm unclear, what is it you are certain you are uncertain about?

That's a personal anecdote, not a fact. According to Trangend Health — Philosophim

It's a trend I'm seeing in a city of 5 million working in psychosocial services and hospital partnerships where we have around 4% trans clients. But yes, it is my anecdote. My experince tells me this will increase.

Doesn't that sound like opinions? Everyone can have their own opinion, but if we are going to use language that asks us to accept facts, we need words and definitions that are more than personal feelings. Especially when we have decisions such as medical transition, sports participation, and a whole host of laws being made.

I'm going to ask you this then: "Why is it more advantageous to have language that isn't clear and ambiguous?" How does this benefit any community? — Philosophim

No, I do not believe you can categorize people into neat boxes like this. I would not support trans groups who say only one way to be trans either.

As others have posited, what makes us gatekeepers in this matter? Sports and schools and prisons and changing room owners can work though this issue as they need.

To add to this from some personal experience, I have a friend who is transgender. They mistakenly thought that this meant they needed to transition using hormones and surgery. The reality is they liked dressing up in women's clothing, painting their nails, and putting their hair in a pony tail — Philosophim

More trans people I've known these days don't undertaken the operation or use hormones. Certainly not for the first years.

People within the community should want clearly defined words and concepts that they can make good decisions with. — Philosophim

Like every other community there is no one codified approach to all this. I'm not sure it would be realistic to expect this. People have different views and self-images in every community.

I agree that Socrates was wise in many ways, — Echogem222

You can't be 'wise in many ways' without knowledge.

When I studied Socretes at university we were taught that the claim was not to be read as a concrete absolutist proclamation, but a poetic expression about the limitations in Socrates' knowledge.

He obviously knew things or he wouldn't have been able to forensically drill down into people's claims using provocation and irony to make his points, which were obviously predicated on the knowledge of the limitations of other's presuppositions.

So, how then do we believe we know anything? It's through faith that we believe we know things, as faith is belief in something without evidence. We lack evidence to assert that our awareness of anything is truly awareness of anything with 100% certainty. — Echogem222

No. There are things we can have confidence in and things we don't know. Faith can be left to religious claims. There's a continuum from total ignorance to certainty. If this wasn't the case, you wouldn't be typing your response on a website based on technology maintained by knowledge and then reading and responding. Sure, we know nothing with absolute certainty, but we don't need certainty.

Try cutting off your hand off with a power saw. I bet you'll form an opinion pretty soon that you are certain there is pain and that you have done something injurious to yourself. To deny this would be decadent and even childish. Thoughts?

Answering your question: It is an instrumental ought regarding which moral principles to advocate and follow in a society given any and all of these goals:
1) Increase the benefits of cooperation within and between societies
2) Maximize harmony with everyone’s moral sense.
3) Define a moral code based on a principle that is not just cross-culturally, but cross-species universal — Mark S

I may be reading you wrongly but here's my take.

To me it seems as if point 1 potentially contains your overarching idea - the need to promote human (or conscious creature) flourishing (found in your word as 'benefits').

There is no intrinsic moral reason to promote cooperation or cross cultural agreement. Who cares?

You first need to establish some foundation for moral concern for sentient beings it seems to me. You then build the system towards this goal by arguing that the best pathway to promote human flourishing is through cooperation.

You might then argue that you can objectively measure cooperation strategies when applied in moral situations.

Otherwise it seems to me your moral concern is for the fidelity of a system. A concern with systemic neatness rather than with flourishing.

But perhaps this is what you mean already and I have missed it.

Does he say 'there could have been a time when nothing existed?' or are you imputing that to him. The argument, as you've provided, and which is a fair paraphrase, doesn't claim that.

We find in nature things that are possible to be and not to be, since they are found to be generated, and to corrupt, and consequently, they are possible to be and not to be. But it is impossible for these always to exist, for that which is possible not to be at some time is not.

He's simply observing that all things 'found in nature' are temporally de-limited, i.e. they have a beginning and an end in time. They don't exist 'by necessity' but only as a matter of contingency. He goes on:

Therefore, if everything is possible not to be, then at one time there could have been nothing in existence. Now, if this were true, even now there would be nothing in existence, because that which does not exist only begins to exist by something already existing. — Wayfarer

That's interesting. It would be good to get this right since my limited understanding has always been the contingency argument and Third Way presupposes nothing existed until the unmoved mover engaged in creation. If god is the creator and sustainer of our reality then it must be that case that before creation, before existance and causality, there was nothing but god.

The above framework is the best I have been able to do so far. If you or anyone else can improve it, I would be most grateful. — Truth Seeker

I hear you. I have not attempted to identify what I know for certain. I also take the view that absolute certainty is not available. However I hold that I have no alternative but to accept that I operate in a physical world that I share with others. To not do this would likely result in catastrophe. The rest is blundering through. While there is no argument against hard solipsism, I don't think it is worth being concerned about, nor is the idea that there is no 'I' at the foundations of 'my' experince.

"Make America Great Again"

What do you think? How do you interpret Aquinas' argument? I am interested to hear from both critics as well as supporters of Aquinas' Third Way argument. — NotAristotle

Is it not just the argument from contingency? There are threads on this argument here. Something from nothing.

I have never found it convincing (along with his other four ways). But it is one of the prominent classical arguments for theism and David Bentley Hart - a progressive Christian thinker and philosopher, writes to this very well.

We have no way of knowing if there was ever nothing. We are not even able to provide an example (for obvious reasons) of nothing even being the case. Might there not alwasy have been something - even before our particular singularity? How do we know that the universe isn't eternal? (If you look it up, some interpretations of quantum cosmology, particularly those based on theories like loop quantum gravity or certain interpretations of quantum mechanics, propose that the universe has no distinct beginning or end. Instead, time might be cyclical or have no boundary, allowing for an eternal existence.)

Our own localized experince points to contingency, but we do not have all the information. We have no way of investigating this matter except through speculative theory of a highly specialized nature. So no real role for the average person here.

But even if we accept that there was once nothing and now something - this does not get us to a necessary being or god. Certainly not a particular god of a particular contrived human religion. We get causation but to move from this to a being which made a choice to create a universe sounds to me like an anthropomorphism of reality.

The people who accept this argument on Aquinas' terms tend to already believe in god and those who reject it tend to already think of god as fictive and of no explanatory power. For me this points to the general impotence of classical arguments for or against god.

Ok. And do you feel this framework helps? What comes next?

I would guess, because you don't pay attention to them. Perhaps you have a trouble-free life with few difficult challenges. — Vera Mont

As I said, I enjoy dreams. So I do pay attention to them. And I tend to remember some of them. I just have no additional use for them. I can’t imagine a situation I would be in where a dream would provide anything of use. I am not engaged in creative ventures or at a loss for solutions in life, so maybe it’s just down to being boring.

Given the factcity of disvalues (i.e. whatever is bad for – harmful to – natural beings)^^, it is a performative contradiction not to reduce disvalues; rationally, therefore, disvalues ought to be reduced whenever possible without increasing them. And, insofar as exercising this ought reinforces habits (i.e. virtues, customs (mores), commons capabilities (agencies)) for reducing disvalues, this ought, at minimum, is moral.

Makes sense or not? :chin: — 180 Proof

You're talking to a non-philosopher, so I have no problem acting on that which I think is beneficial. :wink: I also think that one ought not do a lot of things - like cause suffering in others. I'm comfortable with this solution to moral problems for me. But I would never care to develop a comprehensive theory of morality like Mark S.

What is universally moral – strategies that solve cooperation problems without exploiting others
— Mark S

Why would this be an Ought? — AmadeusD

That's what I keep coming back to. It seems there is an assumption that cooperation strategies are good and therefore ought to be obligatory or foundational to any moral system. Sam Harris did the same thing when he proposed that 'wellbeing' is good therefore it ought to be obligatory as the foundation for moral decision making.

I'm basically pointing to the ancient debates regarding the question as to what grounds personal identity. — sime

Ok.

Does the ground consist of essential criteria, or not? — sime

I'm not an essentialist. I'm not sure what ground you are referring to. Are you asking what is the foundation of personal identity grounded in?

And is the ground context-independent or not? — sime

As per previous answer. I'm not sure anything is context independent.

The ghosts of folklore suggest to me, that humans ordinarily do not appeal to essential criteria when identifying a person. — sime

This sentence isn't clear to me. What are the ghosts of folklore? Do you mean traditional accounts of ghosts?

When you say 'humans ordinarily do nto appeal to essential criteria when identifying a person' This isn't clear.

I also don't understand what this has to do with the next bit -

Isn't our very concept of a person made entirely out of the clothes of contextual accident? — sime

I am not aware of anyone made entirely out of clothes. Do you mean people wearing clothes? And what is a contextual accident?

Is this question open to the public? — Vera Mont

Of course. I was asking Jack mainly because I know of his fondness of Jung and Jung's work on dreams.

Your response is very interesting. We're all different. I dream a lot and I enjoy dreams, but from memory, I have never received an idea or learned a thing from a single dream I've had.

Isn't our very concept of a person made entirely out of the clothes of contextual accident? — sime

I'm not sure I follow. Can you reword this?

:up: I guess it all depends upon whether we think a ghost is a person's soul trapped between worlds, or some other (incoherent?) idea like an energy or spirit or ectoplasm.

No idea why you're taking this as some kind of an attack — AmadeusD

No idea why you're taking this as some kind of response to an attack.

Your assorted responses seem more like you're arguing for the sake of arguing. A game, perhaps? Just looks that way, but I don't know you so context isn't available.

This -

Around where? Czechnia? — AmadeusD

That's a nice line. How do I interpret this? You think Chechenia is deserving of being described as one of the last bigoted places on earth? Is that the gist, or are you just trying to say that trans people don't regularly face bigotry and assaults just for being trans? I'm basing this claim on our own service experiences. Perhaps trans people are safe everywhere on earth except where I am?

I am putting forward that your version of trans experience is entirely incomplete, and is leading you to an inaccurate view, necessarily missing parts of the global situation. — AmadeusD

So fill me in on the part I'm missing, then perhaps we'll be able to tell if I am indeed telling story.

As compared to? And in light of?

I also have many trans friends. I have worked with trans people. I simply do not care what the think and feel in their minds about their own identity. How could I? But even these, trans, people understand that your version of this story is inccomplete. — AmadeusD

I don't really understand your response.

1) I am not comparing the hatred of trans people with the hatred of any other groups. What is this, a hatred competition? I've seen plenty of trans phobia and it is unsafe to walk the street as a trans person around here.

2) My version of the story? What 'story'? I already said 'I have no theory of trans' so I have no 'story' I just have how I conduct myself in relation to the matter.

I simply do not care what the think and feel in their minds about their ownn identity. How could I? — AmadeusD

Well, I don't care that you do not care. :wink:

So, I am asking whether dreams are a mere exercise of little significance in human understanding or as central as aspects of the themes and dilemmas of life? Also, how important is the development of one's inner life as an essential narrative aspect of mediating the dramas of outer and inner life experiences? — Jack Cummins

Sounds like you have made an assumptions about dreams and inner life having some kind of important or sacred connection.

I've alwasy thought dreams were like a mental bowel movement. I guess it is important to be regular but I would not consider the content of dreams to be of much use to us, nor can they be readily interpreted. But humans, being meaning making creatures, have always gone in for this kind of thing, as though dreams can be read like a kind of text about our inner life and our external choices.

What have you learned about yourself or your life from a dream?

Aren't they presumed to be ethereal? — Wayfarer

But the so-called ethereal realms, akashic records, and the like, are of a different order of being, not detectable to scientific instruments which are ultimately just extended versions of our natural senses. — Wayfarer

Got ya.

But would clothing and machines also have ethereal versions? I am assuming that this other plane where ghosts 'dwell' the might simply be a parallel world where the reality looks something like our own. That could be a rich source of speculative pondering.

Notwithstanding such exceptions, I do think we would like people to be better informed about the world than misinformed about it. I think we can explore ghosts and fairies and much else as experiences, which says a lot about us and the ways we interact with the world, thus treating it seriously, but not literally. For if they are taken literally, I think they are making a mistake. — Manuel

I think this is an interesting frame. Take it seriously, but not literally. In other words, don't be dismissive, but seek to understand and expand our insight.

The logic of hauntings is interesting. Mostly it seems variations of the restless sprit inhabiting a space with unresolved issues - grief/anger. Which fits with many first nations ideas of spirits as I understand it.

In interviewing people who have experienced ghosts, what I find interesting is how often hauntings come with sound effects and beings present as fully dressed, often in period clothing. I get the theory behind a spirit appearing in some form, as an entity, but in clothing seems a stretch to me. Why would clothes also survive death? And sometimes there are ghost trains, cars and horses and dogs with their drivers or masters. What makes animals or machines come along for the undead journey?

S/He doeen't "decide", s/he conforms (even obeys) instead. The tried and true path of least mental effort, no? :sparkle: — 180 Proof

I think that's right. But if you are a Christian, say, which bits of the Bible do you obey? There's a cornucopia of contradictory moral advice in those books that still requires discernment, even a form of reconciliation. Which is why we face churches that fly the rainbow flag of diversity, or maintain that 'fags will burn in hell'. Either way can be justified as god's will and therefore The Good. And numerous other variations in between.

And if you're one of those sophisticated theists who hold that scripture is allegorical (and that all the terrifying judgments in scripture can be ignored) then how do you identify the good? You are in the same space as a secularists - having to decide what is right.

Agree totally. The Spinoza quote is a lovely one. And no doubt we'll be seen as unfairly hating of religion, crass, modern-era physicalists.

But the problem for theists remains that there are many immoral acts theism has sanctioned (and continues to do so). I remember discussing apartheid with some South Africans back in the 1980s who took it on faith that apartheid was morally right.

Some theists are smug about morality in as much as they imagine their god is foundational to goodness itself and thus as believers they have a superior pathway to morality from all others - not just dreaded secular humanists, but other religions.

But the problem remains, what version of the good does theism exactly identify? How does a theist decide this? Clearly theists, even within the one religion, are inconsistent and diverge on key issues like war, abortion, gay rights, trans rights, the role of women, wealth accumulation, euthanasia, medical treatment, taxation, etc, etc. In other words, theists are no closer to the good than the unbeliever. We can still only arrive at moral choices through investigation and conversation and no one has access to goodness in its pure form.

And as I read that I can't help but notice your need to obfuscate rather than explain.

To profound to be of much use. — Banno

Does this mean wrote a response that for you is an unassailable novelty? :wink:

I don't think Josh's reply answered your question. — Philosophim

I thought it was fine. Josh's answers are quite sophisticated and anti-essentialist. I have sympathy for this approach, but as a non-philosopher with an abbreviated attention span, I like to cut to the chase.

My response to the trans issue is minimalist (like most of my approaches to life). I accept trans men and women as men and women. I have encountered no good reason not to.

I think your description is the standard one I have heard around the place. But I was particularly keen to hear Joshs on this given his perspectival, postmodernist orientation.

Nice. Thanks.

I have some trans friends, a few trans colleagues and have worked with trans people. I have no theory of trans, I just tend to respond to folk as requested by them. I tend ot think of gender as performative. The bigotry and hatred this community face is exceptional.

Can I ask you, setting aside the complex theory, if you had to explain trans to a group of people with no understanding of the issue, how would you frame it?

In any case, the idea of justification by faith alone was revitalized by Luther in the 16th century (imho his thinking on this topic is an accurate representation of Christ's own teachings) — BitconnectCarlos

But can we really say that the history of theistic morality is much good? Take Luther, who on the one hand extolled the moral teachings of Christ yet found it entirely Christian to preach a virulent form of antisemitism. His treatise 'On the Jews and Their Lies' (1643) reads like an instruction manual for Kristallnacht. If Luther can get here as a foundational figure and leading exponent of Christianity, what does this say about the nature of good through theism? The problem with religious based morality is its notion of the good and its ongoing support of immoral ideas like misogyny, homophobia, slavery, genocide. Some modern humans, with modern ethics now cheerfully cherry pick the 'nicer' parts of religious morality, perhaps pretending that the appalling material isn't there and that god does not condone slavery, etc.

Male kangaroos fighting.

People sentimentalise kangas, but really they are vicious thugs and can grow taller than a human male. Recently I watched a mob of kangas in the bush. I was reminded of this clip from David Attenborough.

:up: Thanks - will check this out.