The point here (I presume) is that numbers and other mathematical entities are placeholders in systems that were originally set up because they were of cultural value. Stuff needed to be done. The system helped people to do it. The elements of the system arose from that process.

Why would they do that?

Funny you brought up Hilbert, who was a proponent of mathematical structuralism.

'Hilbert said that in a proper axiomatization of geometry, “one must always be able to say, instead of ‘points, straight lines, and planes’, ‘tables, chairs, and beer mugs’”'

"Every theory is only a scaffolding or schema of concepts together with their necessary relations to one another, and ... the basic elements can be thought of in any way one likes."

https://www.iep.utm.edu/m-struct/

@Banno You editing a wiki article again?

Not really, because it was a lie. Me and @NOS4A2 are unpredictable like that. High five, comrade N!

And I'll do my hoping eating a cheese burger at the fine in, not like you, all cooped up like a scared ass chicken. — Hanover

Yeah, my life has been turned upside down, I used to spend all day inside working on my computer and only going out to exercise, and now I spend all day inside working on my computer and only go out to exercise within 2km of my home. :lol:

OK, well, good luck. I'll come over for a visit when you've burnt the place to the ground and disinfected it. Time will tell.

And, in fairness, you said yourself your Governor was an idiot, so what are the chances of this working out well for you down there? Seriously?

Don't criticize what you can't understand. — Hanover

Please enlighten me, Coronayoda...

I'm from the state of Georgia in the US, not the irrelevant country Georgia. Our population is 10.62 million. Theirs is 3.7 million. — Hanover

There's my Trump Googling moment. :lol:

Incidentally, the US just recorded its highest number of daily deaths from COVID. Over 2,700 so far today.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

And how anyone can look at 2,700 deaths in one day and say, "Time to open everything up!" is just utterly beyond me.

A few stats show it's currently by far the leading killer in the U.S. Of course, unlike the causes of death below, it's highly contagious and likely to become an even bigger killer if the liberty nuts get their way.

Car crash daily deaths: ~100
Gun violence daily deaths: ~100
Stroke daily deaths: ~50
Heart diseases daily deaths: ~1,000
Cancer daily deaths: ~1750

I seem to recall you saying that you're retired. — praxis

Bot glitch.

Georgia has a larger population than Ireland. Might even have more Irish than Ireland — Hanover

Nope.

Georgia 3.7 million.
Ireland 4.9 million.

All the Irish are about to leave COVID country anyway. They may be thick, but they're not stupid.

You can go into lock down in the northeast or come down here for some Southern hospitality — Hanover

"Welcome to COVID country!" :death: :party:

Georgia already has more cases than the whole of Ireland btw. But, I'm sure everything will be fine. :meh:

Trump: "China has been working very hard to contain the coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well. In, particular, on behalf of the American People, I want to thank President Xi!"

Trump is clearly a politburo sleeper agent.

I suspect China will be a political cudgel this time around — NOS4A2

Yes, the Biden campaign are not going to let Trump's kissing up to China be forgotten.

To a large extent, Swedes are voluntarily social distancing. They are doing what other nations needed to be forced to do. When our government (in Ireland) told us to voluntarily social distance, thousands of fuckwits still crowded into pubs, and as a result the pubs had to be closed. Swedes have been leaving pubs virtually empty of their own volition. So, what's necessary is to a degree cultural, and there's little sense in pitting strategy A vs strategy B without interpreting what that will actually mean in practice. If it turns out that there's a significantly higher rate of asymptomatic cases than originally thought and that, unlike the flu, reinfection is not a serious risk then the Swedish model might retroactively look good for Sweden. Even then, we still won't be able to generalize that judgement in a decontextualized way.

now the science says we will be ready to open May 1st — ArguingWAristotleTiff

What science do you mean? Opening up everything on May 1st would be a self-destructive move in terms of the virus unless you have a proper system of tracking and tracing plus masks for everyone plus continued social distancing etc. Otherwise, you'll just go back to square one and have to face closing down again for exactly the same reasons you originally did. The sad part is as you indicated that even when you do open up, the economy will still be screwed apart from online retailers, distance services, and the like. I mean even apart from the problems you mentioned, no person in their right mind is going to go rushing to a ball game or a bar in the middle of a pandemic just because Trump or some other equally stupid official says its OK.

What 180 said. :100:

As I said (and which you dodged)...
...a "belief" that there are no gods...or a "belief" that it is more likely that there are no gods than that there is at least one...

...is an essential to cause anyone to use "atheist" as a descriptor. — Frank Apisa

I didn't dodge it. It's a false claim considering the definition of atheism is (for the very last time since I've said the same thing in different ways about five time already):

"Atheism for Beginners

Atheism is the Absence of Belief in Gods: The broad, simple definition of atheism is simply the absence of belief in gods; atheism is not the absence of beliefs generally. Normally called "weak atheism," this definition is attested to in most comprehensive, unabridged dictionaries, and specialized references. Disbelief in gods is not the not the same as a belief or as the denial of gods. The lack of a belief isn't the same as having a belief and not believing something is true isn't the same as believing it is not true.
...
Atheists use this broad definition not simply because it's what we find in dictionaries, but because the broad definition is superior. The broad definition helps describe a broader range of possible positions among both atheists and theists. "

That's what the word means; it subsumes your definition and that's the way I'll continue to use it, your ideologically based aversion notwithstanding.

ATHEISM is as much a product of "belief" as is THEISM.

Theists "believe" there is a God...or "believe" it is more likely there is a God than that there are no gods.

Atheists "believe" there are no gods...or "believe" it is more likely that there are no gods than that there is at least one. — Frank Apisa

Following that logic, agnosticism is the belief that there's not enough evidence to justify a belief in gods or a disbelief in them. Agnostics are at least as likely to be aware of gods as atheists are, so their orientation towards them is also based on beliefs about the probability of their existence.

In fact, to be agnostic requires some beliefs concerning the probable existence of gods. Atheism doesn't.

"Agnosticism is the view that the existence of God, of the divine or the supernatural is unknown or unknowable. Another definition provided is the view that "human reason is incapable of providing sufficient rational grounds to justify either the belief that God exists or the belief that God does not exist."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosticism

Making it in a sense more ideologically loaded than atheism. Though neither is necessarily ideological.

[Quoted you from the other thread as it's more relevant here. Though still not very on-topic re anti-theism, so I might leave it soon.]

You are an intelligent guy, Baden. You realize what I am saying makes sense...much more sense than "Atheism is only a lack of 'belief' in a god." Why do you not just acknowledge that? — Frank Apisa

I'll write it for you again:

"Atheism is the lack of belief in gods; the absence of belief in gods; disbelief in gods; or not believing in gods." — Baden

In practice, for obvious reasons, people who call themselves atheists are generally aware of at least some gods and other religious concepts And therefore do have beliefs about them. But none of that is necessary to be an atheist. Intelligent extraterrestrials who had never visited this planet nor heard of our gods and had none of their own could accurately be described as atheists.

Atheists claim that an atheist is simply someone who lacks a "belief" in any gods — Frank Apisa

I'll write it for you again:

"Atheism is the lack of belief in gods; the absence of belief in gods; disbelief in gods; or not believing in gods."

Are we there yet?

Who you do or don't know and what they think is irrelevant as is which kind of atheist I am.

Summarizing my understanding of this view: there's an interpretive conceptual layer not just through which emotions pass, but which in itself is a structuring element in the production of an emotion, such that emotions can't be considered primarily as biological effects absent of sociocultural context. In fact, sociocultural contexts expressed through individual brains shape the production of emotions (or more accurately, shape biological affects, the precursors of emotions, making these recognizable as such) and, in doing so, draw landscapes of rationality, which we then ironically sequester as conceptual buttresses against emotional impulses. So the folk view of emotion is partly the result of a process in which emotion, as more accurately understood, is always active, and this undermines the folk dichotomy between reason and emotion, concepts and feelings. Evidence from neoroscience lends weight to this view by showing brain activity involved in emotion to be widely distributed across modules traditionally associated with other aspects of cognition.

One might say: the meaning of emotions are their use. — StreetlightX

Or, going on the above, that the meaning of emotions are the context in which they are experienced and there is no clear division possible between "subjective"/internal context and "objective"/external context because the packaging of the raw material of emotion is dependent on both and without it there is no emotional shape definable (with emotional shape being translatable into distinct emotion, anger, sadness etc).

(I see @fdrake has just posted. Going to read that before writing more.)

Trump took credit in his news conference the other day for the streets of New York being completely clear due to the lockdown, said it was a great thing. In the same news conference, he supported people coming out on the streets to liberate themselves from these crazy lockdowns. Said that's a great thing.

Sadly, that probably won't cost him one vote.

Don't know how anyone could object to the freedom to kill the old and vulnerable with a deadly disease. That would kind of be like objecting to allowing dumb fucks to run around with automatic rifles. Did I mention FREEDOM? :party: :party: :death:

Yes. The following is fairly salient.

"No matter what their reasons or how they approach the question, agnostics and atheists are fundamentally different, but also non-exclusive. Many people who adopt the label of agnostic simultaneously reject the label of atheist, even if it technically applies to them."



Out of context quote. That's just one example of atheism.

"An atheist is anyone who doesn't believe in any gods. This is a very simple concept, but it's also widely misunderstood. For that reason, there are a variety of ways to state it.

Atheism is the lack of belief in gods; the absence of belief in gods; disbelief in gods; or not believing in gods.

The most precise definition may be that an atheist is anyone who does not affirm the proposition "at least one god exists." This is not a proposition made by atheists. Being an atheist requires nothing active or even conscious on the part of the atheist. All that is required is not "affirming" a proposition made by others."

>>@Frank Apisa

"As usual the major corporations are putting aside their copies of Ayn Rand and rushing to the nanny state to be bailed out. "

:fire:

Time for a steaming hot cup of... Nah.

Biden will be hit with some misleading ads, but there's plenty of fire behind the smoke.

:up:

I'm not going to allow @Merkwurdichliebe to troll here anymore and am deleting his posts. Replying to him is therefore probably a waste of time. Unless he comes up with a sincere contribution, which is unlikely.

Fair call. @Noble Dust Everyone involved in the conversation knows where it is. I don't see a big problem.

(To be honest though if the original OP hadn't garnered a few decent responses, I would have just deleted it myself.)

I don't know who moved it. You could start a feedback thread if you object.

Sorry, it's 6am, my COVID lockdown bedtime. I'll get back to this tomorrow.

You got your OP taken down because it was low quality not because you're a Christian. Be thankful we're allowing you to spout your ignorant religious bigotry concerning atheists on this thread.

Side-note: I don't want to disrespect those who are in extreme pain (though they represent a minority and not the "overwhelming majority" as javra claimed) and employ coping mechanisms to deal with it. That's a rational strategy. Though to a degree surface-level; there's a certain level of deliberate self-deception involved probably. Anyway, I'd jump on that bus too if I needed to.

How does "it not being possible to verify that moral claims objectively obtain" not matter? — Noble Dust

Because moral behavior is good in itself. The way to verify that is to experience it. If you experience it, then it obtains. Looking for some objective guarantee is futile and self-defeating.

Lemme try this: It's flippant to deny the possibility of life after death. — Noble Dust

My position, more precisely, is to deny that there is any reason, evidential or otherwise, to believe in life after death and that the concept is inherently contradictory.

And Jeff is cool but over-rated. Typical 27 club shit. — Noble Dust

The flippancy must be catching.

syphilitic — Bitter Crank

Anti-syphiliticism is not allowed here, I'm afraid.

And I thought music because you're the music guy... But that obviously fell flat... :lol:

I'm trying to get to where we're going to end up anyway. I reject the premise that it's ultimately possible to verify that moral claims objectively obtain. And I don't think it matters. In fact, I think that is what is playing politics with morality. Apologies, if I came across as flippant.