Comments

  • What Colour Are The Strawberries? (The Problem Of Perception)
    I'm convinced we're not going to find logical inconsistencies in each other's positions but different ways of describing the same thing that work on their own terms.
  • What Colour Are The Strawberries? (The Problem Of Perception)
    I wonder what else the act of perception inheres, aside from colour. Smell? Taste? Feeling? Shape? — Michael

    Stuff that can be seen.
  • What Colour Are The Strawberries? (The Problem Of Perception)
    ↪Michael


    They're seeing the same thing in different ways.
  • What Colour Are The Strawberries? (The Problem Of Perception)
    (Should I move these posts out of the shoutbox and into a separate discussion?) — Michael

    Go for it although I'm unlikely to go too far through this whole rigmarole again. The theoretical differences are mostly just going to boil down to parsimony.
  • What Colour Are The Strawberries? (The Problem Of Perception)
    ↪Michael


    The object of perception is blue pixels arranged in strawberry shapes. You see red strawberries rather than blue ones because the act of seeing inheres that transformational aspect in this case.
  • What Colour Are The Strawberries? (The Problem Of Perception)
    So I look at blue pixels and see red strawberries? Certainly does suggest that we can't reduce the objects of perception to the mind-independent things in front of us that causally explain the perception. — Michael

    The blue pixels arranged in strawberry shapes are mind-independent things which conjoin with the act of perception in which hue adjustment takes place and that state of affairs just is the experience, the seeing, of red strawberries. (Didn't we do all this years ago?)
  • What Colour Are The Strawberries? (The Problem Of Perception)
    ↪Michael

    Scientifically speaking, grey/green, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily a mistake to call them red. The illusion exploits a loophole in definitions of "red", which refer both to specific wavelengths of light and hues resembling those of blood/psychologically primary hues i.e. the definitions incorporate both non-cognitive and cognitive elements. These usually match up, but in this case our psychology adjusts the hue throwing a spanner into the works. So, yeah, they're red and not red. Take your pick.

    ↪Sapientia

    True, although you can take off your glasses, but you can't take out your brain.
  • Arguments for moral realism
    @The Great Whatever The statement "Torturing children is wrong" is ambiguous. It can mean torturing children is wrong in general, or it can mean torturing children is always wrong. In the former case, I would say, of course, the answer is "yes". In the latter, it's "no". If I am put in a situation where the only way to save five children from hideous torture is to torture one of them in a less hideous way then the ethical thing would be to carry out the torture. So, torturing children is not (always) wrong. And the problem of how much context you need to determine whether it's wrong arises.
  • Post truth
    We're not living in some apocalyptic, gas chamber filled Orwellian hellscape and nothing he's done even remotely suggests we're headed in that direction, despite the best efforts of the media and those on the left to say that we are. — Thorongil

    No, we're not and if you've read other stuff I've said about him, you'd know I know that. But you took the word tyranny that I used "hyper-literally" to use your own phrase, which is fine the first time - I knew when I wrote it it was somewhat of an exaggeration - but I did specify later that I meant it in the narrow sense of what he's doing with the media. He's not going to get away with much more.

    What the hell is your problem? I never implied, nor wish to imply, that Trump never lies. I merely wanted to point out that a lie is different from telling an untruth and that I thought Trump was guilty more of the latter than the former. — Thorongil

    The issue is not whether Trump ever lies, everyone lies sometimes, it's whether or not he can be characterized as a liar. You seemed to be suggesting that was in dispute. If you're not, fine.
  • Post truth
    No, it's a way of respecting the rules of the forums, whatever they are. I haven't set them anyway. But if you expect me to respect them, then you should respect them yourself. I can't delete your posts, but you can delete mine. — Agustino

    Pointing out that your posts are idiotic when they obviously are is not against the forum rules. And I don't actually want idiotic posts littering what is supposed to be a high quality forum. You are the one more in contravention of the rules with the low quality nonsense you peddle here. If you weren't in conversation with me, they might indeed get deleted. But because you are, I'm not going to touch them.

    So fine, you can go ahead with that if that's what you want, enjoy the authoritarianism. But I'm here just to discuss the ideas, not really trade insults anyway. — Agustino

    Well, I appreciate the personality transplant, but cry me a river. When it comes to politics it looks to me like you're not here to discuss ideas, you're here to evangelize.
  • Post truth
    ↪Agustino


    Why would anyone have respect for you when you come out with the stuff you do? You're lying through your teeth in a way that's insulting to the intelligence of everyone who reads your posts. And further, I presume this new found sensitivity of yours is just a way to avoid answering the question. You know you can't show those news stories are 90% false as obviously they aren't.
  • Post truth
    Then you'll start complaining "Argh Agustino, he's so nasty" — Agustino

    You're not nasty, you're just a very unintelligent liar.

    What I said can be translated in more accurate terms as most of what the media reports is false - say 90% false and 10% true. — Agustino

    For example, first you say that what 90% of the media reports is false, which is easily refuted. And even your BFF Thorongil isn't going to follow you down that rabbit hole. But look at your reason:

    No they're not, because they're reframing those events howsoever they want. There are no context-less facts. — Agustino

    You dismiss the sample stories I gave you as "reframed" and "context-less" as if that suddenly makes them false. How stupid do you think the people reading this are? Of course, there are no context-less facts, so therefore news stories have to be "reframed" but, guess what, by this definition everything is fake news. Not only that but seeing as the facts you are reporting here are reframed and are not context-less, everything you say is fake too. This is how trivially stupid your approach is.

    But let's again take you at your word that you really believe the idiotic things you're saying:

    I said they falsify the news that they report by exaggerating them, reframing them, and so forth. — Agustino

    Show me how those stories I quoted, for example, are 90% false through exaggeration and "so forth". I chose them fairly randomly from the news sidebar so if 90% of CNN is false they should be about 90% false and you should be able to show us why. Go ahead.
  • Post truth
    You didn't answer my question. Why did you choose to interpret his remarks hyper literally? — Thorongil

    Don't be so ridiculous. He said A. I interpreted it as A for the sake of argument as I explained in the post. When he answers, we'll see if you're right and he accepts that CNN mostly consists of real news about reality. I'll be happy if he does.

    It's my understanding that Trump uses this phrase to talk about the excessive vitriol and bias directed against him in the mainstream media. You seem to be taking it literally, once again. — Thorongil

    No, he's literally saying the stories are fake. Have you actually listened to him? This is the problem, you want to have your cake and eat it. You know very well that the lack of nuance leads to the conflation among his supporters of outlets like CNN with actual fake news outlets like the National Inquirer. And that's his intention. But again, you feel like you have to cover for him. So, it's highly ironic to hear you talk about bias. You're willing to say in less than a hot minute that Hillary is a liar because she's not on your team. Confronted with the reality that Trump is just as big and probably a much bigger liar, you have to find excuses for him like he's just too dumb to know what he's saying is false or he shouldn't be taken literally. Why? Because you're biased yourself. Can't you see that? I have no problem admitting that both of them are liars because it's demonstrable. You can take their speeches and find the falsehoods. They're right there. Why is it so hard for you?

    (And seeing as you're so obviously biased, I should follow Trump’s lead and start calling your writings "fake posts", right? :s )
  • Post truth
    Incidentally, the only potential "fake news" article about Trump and co. in the mainstream media that I can think of was the one in the UK's Daily Mail about Melania being a hooker. It's quite possible they or one of their journalists just made that up or relied on an unreliable source. A pretty reprehensible and disgusting thing to do to a public figure, particularly one who hasn't chosen to be a public figure. But the Daily Mail is a right wing conservative rag not a progressive lefty one. (And I hope she takes them to the cleaners with her lawsuit).
  • Post truth
    Why would you choose to take what he said that literally and then proceed to offer several articles covering certain events that happened today? Do you honestly think he's going to dispute that they are reporting on real events? — Thorongil

    If he's consistent, yes, and I'm taking at face value the words he said because he said them. I'm not interested in debating your interpretation of what he thinks. He said it. It means something. It's up to him to backtrack on it, not you. But let's see if he'll admit -according to your interpretation- that the vast majority of the stories on CNN are reporting real events. In other words, it's not a "fake news" channel, it's a real news channel if a somewhat biased one.

    No I didn't. — Thorongil

    You just did again. At least have the integrity to fully justify your own claims. Anyway if the mountain won't come to Muhammad...I'll take on one of your examples, the phrase "Muslim ban". There was actually a ban as you know; it did actually target countries which are predominantly Muslim; and Trump had actually specified in the past that Muslims were his target (though he knew the constitution prevented him from making that obvious in the legislation); so while calling it a "Muslim ban" puts a questionable slant on it, and could qualify as biased news, it doesn't qualify as "fake news". Besides, journalists speak in shorthand, they're going to talk about an X ban. What other adjective X comes closer to covering the spirit of what Trump was trying to do?

    Here's where nuance comes in. You can't put the kind of thing above in the same category as, for example, Trump's claim that Ted Cruz's dad was involved with the assassination of JFK. That was actually a fake news story; it was made up to discredit Cruz, and Trump (unless he's a complete idiot) knew that and knowingly spread the lie. So, while what the mainstream media does with their bias (on the left and right) is sometimes unethical, it's not "fake news", whereas the type of stories Trump himself has relied on to get him where he is, demonstrably, are. And his and others' claims that it's the other way around are lies.
  • Post truth
    Just to pop the caricature balloon peddled by Thorongil, the 'article he read' is from Victor Davis Hanson, in National Review - who says in the same article 'Trump’s edicts are mostly common-sense and non-controversial'. — Wayfarer

    Yes, @Thorongil avoided my challenge. Here it is again more clearly: Reference directly, let's say from the past week or so, some stories from the NYT, CNN or Washington Post, which are presented as real news not just opinion pieces, but are actually demonstrably made up, i. e. "fake news". This shouldn't be hard seeing as you think there are so many of these stories around.
  • Post truth
    Personally I think "post-truth", quite ironically, doesn't even refer to Trump, but rather to the media itself. The media is post-truth - what they report - most of them - has nothing to do with reality, it's like the media has created a fantasy world that people live in. — Agustino

    This isn't the Alex Jones Youtube channel, it's a philosophy forum, and it's this kind of low quality thoughtless statement that makes people put you on their ignore list.

    But OK, let's put that aside for a moment, and take you at face value. Let's presume you really believe that most of what news outlets such as CNN report has "nothing to do with reality" and is creating a "fantasy world".

    Here are some random headlines from CNN today:

    "Democrats elect new leader"
    "Trump to miss WH correspondents dinner"
    "Man drives vehicle into pedestrians"
    "Fleeing civilians killed by landmines"
    "Suicide attack kills dozens in Syria"

    So, your claim, according to the words you wrote, would be that most of this never happened. It has nothing to do with reality, it's "fantasy". These journalists didn't learn to report news at their colleges and universities, they just sit at home making stuff up, or what?

    So, did or did not Trump decline to go to the WH dinner? Did or did not a car drive into pedestrians in Germany? Were or were not dozens killed in a suicide attack in Syria? Etc. If your answer is "yes" to these questions, then guess what, this is not "fake news", CNN is reporting reality. If your answer is "no" then on what basis? And what would convince you are wrong? Do you need to see the TV footage of these events or what?

    Note that I'm not denying that the mainstream media is selective and biased in its reporting. I've been saying that for years, but that's a different issue. They are not just making things up and "creating a fantasy word". That's not how mainstream journalism works. They report reality (albeit selectively and with their own slant), because if they don't, they get caught, discredited, and have to apologize. And if you want to claim otherwise you need to provide evidence for your claim or look like a fool.

    (Cue evasive answer...)
  • Post truth
    However, I think it absurd to suggest that we're heading toward tyranny. — Thorongil

    I'm not talking about a full-blown tyranny as he won't get that far (though not for want of trying) but an attempt to destroy all media that is critical of the government is tyrannical, and he's got most conservatives right behind him.

    I think he believes a lot of the stories about him are fake news, about which he is right. — Thorongil

    Now he's even got you believing it, someone who is normally quite rational. Do you know what fake news is? It's news that is entirely made up. Like the story about Hillary Clinton running a nefarious business from a pizza parlour. It's invented, fictional, stories. And now Trump has you believing that the mainstream media is deliberately inventing fictional stories about him (and it's mainstream media outlets he has specifically targeted and named as "fake news"). How sad. But if you really believe that "a lot" of these stories about Trump and his administration are fake, name some of them. Name them, name the outlet and tell us how you know they are fake.

    (It's all deliciously ironic, of course, as Trump himself relied on National Inquirer conspiracy theories to discredit Ted Cruz (like his the one about his dad being involved in the JFK assassination). Now that was fake news and Trump knows it. Are your ideological blinders so effective you can't see that he's accusing real news outlets of making up exactly the same kind of stories that he uses himself to discredit opponents? And he is doing it deliberately, making him a stone cold liar. If you can't figure that out, you really are lacking somehow - although I think you can but just don't want to admit it.)
  • The terms of the debate.
    ↪unenlightened


    We agree on the moderating decision except for the timing (right?). I understand your concerns and I think I already made it clear I didn't intend to spoil your discussion. I didn't know you wanted to do an exegesis of the other thread at the time. Oh, and when I said that everyone knows what a shit storm looks like I wasn't belittling your efforts. Everyone does know what one looks like, in general, but that doesn't mean picking one apart couldn't be enlightening.
  • Post truth
    Trump is not a liar, or at least he does not give off that impression. To lie is to intentionally deceive, whereas I think Trump genuinely believes the things he says, some of which may not in fact be true. Being wrong does not make him a liar, though. — Thorongil

    He may have genuinely believed trivial falsities like his inauguration crowds were the biggest ever or he had the biggest electoral win since Reagan etc. Although I doubt even that. In these cases, it's more likely he didn't care whether what he was saying was true or not and was just bullshitting. But there's no question now that he is deliberately lying. I mean, do you think he really believes that all these press stories criticizing him and his team are "fake news"? Give me a break. It's clear his definition of "fake news" is any negative story about his administration, and he's making a deliberate and calculated effort to undermine the free media because being a narcissist he cannot stand being criticized. And the zeal with which he is doing this is absolutely without precedent. So, it's highly ironic that the same Republicans who regularly accused Obama of acting like a dictator because of a few executive orders are now lining up lemming-like to follow Trump off the cliff into tyranny.
  • Feedback: Off-Topic Posts and Deletion
    Maybe I should also start deleting my threads when someone disagrees with me, and go crying and protesting about how "bullied" I am... — Agustino

    I don't remember @Wayfarer mentioning the word "bullying". He doesn't sound intimidated to me, more annoyed, and in any case that wasn't why your posts were deleted. Your posts were deleted because they were disruptive and low quality.
  • The terms of the debate.
    ↪Wayfarer
    (Y)
  • The terms of the debate.
    Your moderating response to this thread illustrates that fact, and in so doing illustrates the very danger I was trying to indicate — unenlightened

    My moderating response was to the fact that the shit-storm didn't clear itself up, which yes, you did bring to my attention. But it wasn't because I thought you were requesting action as you made clear you weren't.

    I think your action was premature as a clamp down, and overly tardy as routine; it makes it more difficult for me, and probably others, to speak to the subject freely. — unenlightened

    What I'm concerned with is what makes it easy for people who write OPs to have their OPs talked about and what facilitates those coming to an OP for the first time getting involved with it. Yes, I could have done this earlier when you mentioned it in the mod forum or later if it went on more, but every moderator is going to have a different point at which they decide enough is enough. There are plenty of other examples of this sort of thing in the forum for those who want to look. I didn't consider that particular discussion crucial to this debate.

    So, what does a shit storm look like, and how can we all avoid contributing to them? — unenlightened

    I don't think it's that complicated. A barrage of traded insults (sometimes deserved, sometimes not) that goes on for several pages of posts is what I would term a "shit storm". They sometimes clear up, they sometimes don't. Reporting posts that piss us off and ignoring provocateurs are two ways of avoiding them. Even a quick trade of insults and then directly back to the matter at hand can work.

    Anyway, I took your OP to be about something beyond that. As you said yourself:

    I am hoping to look in a more abstract way at how our conversations need to be ordered to maximise freedom, given that absolute freedom is both impossible and undesirable. In this sense, it might be better classified under politics, or metaphysics than feedback, but I feel that the latter classification best communicates the particular knottiness of a discussion about discussion. — unenlightened
  • The terms of the debate.
    ↪unenlightened


    I think we all know what a shit-storm looks like. The topic is still worthy of discussion.
  • Feature requests
    ↪Mongrel


    Well, at least the conversation does give me some food for thought. It may be time to consider getting some published philosophers to contribute. I think we have the profile for it now.
  • Feedback: Off-Topic Posts and Deletion
    We're not real people. — StreetlightX

    That's a relief. :P
  • Feedback: Off-Topic Posts and Deletion
    ↪Agustino


    Well, because it seemed apparent you didn't have any intention of discussing the OP directly and the trajectory of your comments led to the ensuing ill-tempered argument, I didn't deem it unfair to simply wholly excise you from the conversation. My advice to you (and anyone else) is not to approach an OP unless you have some intention of dealing with it even if you do end up talking about something else. Certainly if the conversation becomes about you, you are likely to lose your contribution and the loss may not be one of surgical precision.
  • Feedback: Off-Topic Posts and Deletion
    chief moderator Baden — Agustino

    We don't have a "chief moderator". Or if we do, it's jamalgod.
  • Feedback: Off-Topic Posts and Deletion
    ...the fact that the conversation took a different turn wasn't the primary reason for the deletions, but the nature and tone of that turn was — Baden
  • The terms of the debate.
    ↪StreetlightX


    Yes, as in this case, the fact that the conversation took a different turn wasn't the primary reason for the deletions, but the nature and tone of that turn was. Speaking of turns, let's bear this in mind.

    But hopefully, this thread will not be diverted too much into a debate about that thread — unenlightened
  • The terms of the debate.
    I'm not talking about Father Richard Rohr at all... as I made abundantly clear: — Agustino

    For the record, I've now excised @Agustino from the discussion. That also meant excising other's in-discussion complaints about him valid as they may have been. Safest thing is probably not to engage with anyone who is off-topic (in an unacceptable way) as your responses to them need to be binned along with their posts.
  • Counterargument against Homosexual as Innate
    ↪Wayfarer

    Ok, we've established that @andrewk worships Aleister Crowley and is possibly on a mission to spread Satanism across the globe. Good for him. What exactly was wrong with his argument though?
  • I fell in love with my neighbors wife.
    Philosophy, as Marcus Aurelius would say to guide one's steps and path in such a torturous world full of lust, desire, and evil. — Question

    There's probably a half-way house between Marcus Aurelius's iron self control and Bitter's permissiveness (if I can call it that - BC has been fairly conservative in his advice actually). That's to say, the likely result of fetishizing self-denial as a means to avoid the evil in oneself is a psychological magnification of this "evil" into an unjustifiable level of threat i.e. you end up in a state of underlying fear that you can never shake. On the other hand, disregarding the potential damage that following your desires can do to your mental and physical health is likely to lead to a degeneration of both. The way out probably is to exhaust most of your energy in worthwhile work and to allow yourself to funnel what's left into the satisfaction of basic desires. In other words, make it so you don't need an iron will to combat your desires because there isn't enough surplus psychic energy for them to redirect in a damaging way.
  • Counterargument against Homosexual as Innate
    One of the major arguments for the acceptance of homosexuality is the fact that a person cannot choose to be homosexuals. — NukeyFox

    Choice is really only an issue due to religious objections, which are undermined by the acceptance that people are born that way and that homosexuality is thus a creation of divine will. For those who consider this state a perversion, the involvement of their deity in proliferating it causes a problem. Hence the denial of the natural state and insistence on the primacy of choice.

    For those who are not religious and focus purely on the ethical issue, none of this matters because, as has been pointed out, the question is only whether or not homosexuality causes harm (and here you can focus on actions rather than the state). So, you can render religious objections problematic to the extent that you can demonstrate homosexuality is innate and you can refute ethical objections by showing it causes no harm. In other words, it's important to disentangle the religious from the ethical and the state from the action in order to deal with objections to homosexuality, but once you've done this, it's straightforward enough.
  • Feature requests
    ↪Mongrel
    (Y)
  • Feature requests
    I'm getting a "Resistance is futile" vibe from Yaha. The Ask the Philosopher will just be some threads. No bother. — Mongrel

    I think there may have been some crossed wires there. Your idea sounds interesting. Just lay it out and we may be able to implement it.
  • Feature requests
    So it is doable, there just isn't anybody who has the time to do it. Thus I said keep it in mind in case that changes and someone wants to experiment with making the forum more attractive to reade — Mongrel

    I'm not an expert on this so I don't fully understand the changes you're talking about, but we can change the categories in which discussions are placed; we can add new ones or add sub-categories or combine categories etc. and that doesn't take long to do.

    Oh, and a couple of us are going to work out some sort of "Ask the philosopher" deal. Are you cool with that? — Mongrel

    If this means add a category called "Ask the philosopher" somewhere and you can explain more about it, it might be doable.
  • Quarterly Fundraiser
    I sent the money from a Swiss bank account. When do I get my moderator status now?! >:) — Agustino

    If this is just half a joke and you really sent a donation (from wherever), thanks (I don't know as I don't have direct access to the TPF kitty, i.e. the paypal account set up to pay the bills).
  • Feature requests
    So we really have no control over the format? — Mongrel

    Well, we can request new features but there's no guarantee our requests will be granted by the software designers.
  • Quarterly Fundraiser
    ↪Hanover


    Can we discuss our corrupt arrangements by PM in future? Cheers :-*
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