in that most folks don’t ever give ontology or cosmology much thought at all, if ever. — snowleopard

While I agree that formally speaking such thinking is unpopular, I'd say that informally it is not. People talk about their beliefs regarding the world and its beginning quite often, in the right setting. And I'm not so sure that people, at large, lap up scientific theses as a Biblical truth, either. Some people do -- it's something which some groups have fallen into the habit of doing without much critical reflection -- but I'd be pretty hesitant to say that there is a successful brainwashing program based on the sciences in practice, and much less so that it is successful even if there happens to be one.

This is 4 years old, but I don't think things have changed much: http://news.gallup.com/poll/170822/believe-creationist-view-human-origins.aspx

Evolution is one of the most well founded scientific hypotheses. But in the U.S it's regarded with suspicion by a very large percentage of the population.

I find it hard to reconcile the notion that science is a priesthood brainwashing the population with facts like that.

Scientism is off the mark. But that doesn't mean that the dominant pardigm is scientistic either.

Yearp. I agree.

On "soul":

I sort of take inspiration here from Aristotle, but my best understanding of the term is the wholeness of a person -- so that includes my mental life, my emotional life, my physical life, my social life. And as much as I am philosophically inclined to avoid the word in the everyday use of the word I have encountered expressions that couldn't be expressed better without the use of "soul" -- "You and I have seen eachother's souls" is such a sentence that could not be translated into another sentence. It was the perfect expression.

It goes against my intuitions, but there does seem to be something to the word in the everyday sense that gives me pause.

I'd probably fall closest to number 3. Seems about right to me.

However, with respect, that doesn’t seem reason enough to stop reading at that point. — snowleopard

I could be more fair than what I was, I agree. But I'd have to want to :D. There's a lot of junk out there so sometimes I'll be less-than-fair to an author if I start to get the feeling that the argument isn't going to address what look to me obvious flaws in it and continues to move forward as if they just aren't there.

Anyway, my intention here is not to defend his ontology on his behalf, but rather to get input on his version of idealism, and idealism in general, so as to make some sense of it, one way or the other. The main reason being that my intuitive feeling, being more mystical than analytical, is that materialism, as the prevailing metaphysical model, fails to adequately explain even ordinary experience, never mind extraordinary or paranormal experience, and hence the ongoing search for an alternate model -- e.g. Idealism. Clearly it is predicated on the premise of the primacy of Consciousness, as the ontological primitive, and thus avoids the ‘hard problem’ faced by materialism, as there is no longer any need to explain its emergence, there being no ‘prior to’ Consciousness, and therefore no point of origin or causation. From there -- this being an admittedly simplified synopsis -- as the word idealism implies, it posits the emanations of the ideations of Consciousness (Platonic forms/ideas), akin to a Cosmic Mind, as the basis for the phenomenal experience of the individuated loci of Consciousness, i.e. sentient beings, which comprises one’s apparent subject/object perception. Our thoughts then become the recapitulation, or iterations, of that greater cognitive process. But of course one realizes that, while this avoids the so-called ‘hard problem’, it has its own hard problems, the challenge being to tie it in with the findings of quantum theory, evolutionary theory, the origins of life, etc. — snowleopard

Cool. Idealism is an interesting topic to me, at least historically speaking.

I don't believe the world is only consciousness in some ultimate sense. But then, I have deep reservations about positing any sort of ultimate ontology -- be it physicalism or idealism or neutral monism or dualism or whatever. Not that I haven't believed some of these to be true at some point. But I've become more skeptical with regards to fundamental or foundational ontology, in general.

Why would you say that the hard problems of idealism are reconciling it with science? I guess it depends on the idealism, but it would seem to me that you could fashion an argument from the findings of science to idealism. If the world were consciousness then it would explain how we could know about the world -- there is no disconnect between our minds and the world, in that case. True beliefs would just be micro-reflections of the world we inhabit. Correspondence could make more sense -- to correspond is just to equal a true statement. So when I believe a true statement it corresponds to a fact in the world; that the Earth revolves around the sun. I believe "The Earth revolves around the sun", "The Earth revolves around the sun" is true, and The Earth revolves around the sun = The Earth revolves around the sun.

Theoretically we could come to know everything because everything just is the set of true statements. (in this hastily constructed kind of idealism)

So you could actually say because we know the world through science we can infer that the universe is ideal as it explains how we can come to know the world -- the world is made of propositions so we should expect our knowledge to reflect that.

Nonetheless, it somehow seems important to conceive of an ontological/cosmological model upon which to base a cultural ethos. The question becomes, which one? — snowleopard

If that's the motivation for constructing some ultimate ontology, then wouldn't it depend on the ethos, first, and then hashing out which ontology to believe based upon how believing in it practically effects the actions of human beings?

Oh, hey. That is a "who" there. Whoops! Sorry. I read "Would", for whatever reason.

Yes and no at the same time. I love Kant, but we all still argue over interpretation, and interpretation is a big part of Kant scholarship. So yes, it's interesting. But if you haven't read much else in terms of philosophy, then no. It's dense and difficult and could turn you off. If you have that "spark" then that's not going to stop you, but there are definitely other interesting philosophers who talk on the same topics who aren't as dense.

It is mentioned in the CPR. But if you're hoping for something in the affirmative, then you should look for another writer.

I think translations are roughly sufficient. Or semi-smoothly sufficient. I don't think you need to read the original to understand the arguments, especially on a first reading. It's only when you delve into the nitty-gritty of argument for particular interpretations that translation becomes an issue.

So at an intro level, or even just undergrad level, you're fine. At a doctorate level you'd want to learn the language, but you're talking some odd 4-8 (sometimes 12) years of commitment there.


Since you mentioned Kant I'll note that I think Werner Pluhar's translations are on point. It comes with a particular interpretation of Kant, of course (as would be necessary with any translation) -- but he's the translation I read for clarity and an excellent index.

For a rigorous, analytical summary of his philosophical ideas, see this freely available academic paper: http://www.mdpi.com/2409-9287/2/2/10

I took a gander at the paper he linked in his 'books' page.

I stopped reading at this point.

Let us start by neutrally and precisely stating four basic facts of reality, verifiable through observation, and therefore known to be valid irrespective of theory or metaphysics:
Fact 1: There are tight correlations between a person’s reported private experiences and the observed brain activity of the person.
We know this from the study of the neural correlates of consciousness (e.g., [5]).
Fact 2: We all seem to inhabit the same universe.
After all, what other people report about their perceptions of the universe is normally consistent with our own perceptions of it.
Fact 3: Reality normally unfolds according to patterns and regularities—that is, the laws of nature—independent of personal volition.
Fact 4: Macroscopic physical entities can be broken down into microscopic constituent parts, such as subatomic particles.

Seeing this I sort of gathered that the man is just not versed in philosophy very well. You can't just neutrally and precisely state four basic facts of reality without having at least some notional commitment to a metaphysics. "Fact" is even a controversial word. You can be precise, but why the claim to neutrality? And if something is verifiable by observation alone, then you haven't contended with philosophy of mind or science, by my lights. Surely you have to have a sort of idea, at a minimum, about perception (mind), or have a way of dealing with the underdetermination of evidence (science).

I don't think he means badly, at this point. But I also don't think he's really delved much into philosophy.

It might help, too, to note that beliefs of the form "does not exist" or "does not necessarily exist" would also count as metaphysics, in my view. So we might talk in terms of forces but believe there is no such entity, but it is a convenient shorthand for describing the behavior of fields. Or we might take an instrumentalist approach to scientific discourse and claim that while it works it does not speak of what exists, even while making what appear to be existential claims.

Perhaps you could say you are a sort of agnostic and say that all entities named by science may or may not exist, but even this sort of ploy seems to me to take a sort of skeptical stand towards metaphysics -- which is either a convenient opinion which suits one's feelings, in the absence of an argument, or a sort of belief with regards to the knowability of entities in the presence of an argument, and would count as a kind of commitment with respect to metaphysics because it deals with entities and our minds relation to said entities in such a case.

Unless science, in spite of appearances to the contrary which seem to make claims about what exists and how it exists, could be construed to somehow be about something else in actuality -- sort of like an error theory of science -- science talks about what does or does not exist, therefore is discussing metaphysical topics. And any argument which says science does not deal with entities would itself be a metaphysical thesis, so I don't see much escape from the charge of "doing metaphysics" here.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, by my lights. I don't think there's anything useful to be had by trying to separate the two. Science is just a bunch of arguments, in part empirical and in part more a priori. It's a hodge-podge of impurity interested in asking and answering questions, not some sort of regimented methodology followed with ritual precision to obtain the pure stuff of nature.

I agree there's a difference between those two, but I don't know why you'd think science is restricted to one or the other.

How would a biologist work under such a regime? "We agree that yeast exist, but we do not characterize them" isn't exactly what microbiology looks like.

So, on that angle at least, only regularities are required, without which everything would be incomprehensible chaos anyway. — jorndoe

Regularities may be all that are required, but even specifying some belief in regularities is already a commitment. And if scientists said all things were made of pixie dust, rather than particles, then these would also be commitments. Since they are commitments about what exists, they are metaphysical commitments.

A commitment can be changed, of course, upon pain of further reasoning or new discoveries. We could just as well use "belief" for "commitment", I'd say.

I guess my thinking is this -- if you can model a physical system without reference to the principle of least action, then in what way must we be committed to whatever metaphysical commitments which come with it? With a system as simple as a javelin being through we certainly can do so -- and just because we can derive equations from some principle that does not then entail that we must do so.

I guess the example is just meant to be illustrative, though, rather than definitive. And yeah, it does seem more general. I had myself a bit of a wikipedia reading session after your reply to check myself and see if I was mistaken, and I was indeed ignorant of it being present in physics at a higher level. So I could be speaking a bit too ignorantly here, after all.

It seems, though, that the point could be made more simply. We don't need the most general form of physical theory to demonstrate that metaphysical commitments are part of physics. Interpretation of force, gravity, inertia, mass, and so forth fall squarely within the realm of metaphysics, by my lights.

I doubt that it's central, but I know I'd just say that I find it fun and interesting -- and that's enough for me.

This sort of thinking is a kind of madness which arises when we decide to accept what is unacceptable, to my mind. Prison is a good thing which cures me of what I am inflicted by. My brother only hits me because he loves me so much. Work is actually necessary for freedom. The peasants need the nobles to structure their lives and give it meaning.

I can acknowledge you may be different. But I'll gladly forgo that need and suffer the horrible bondage that comes from not having to clock in -- were it consequence free, at least.

I believe there is no meaningful difference to be made between scientific and metaphysical beliefs.

That being said, I have to echo some of what StreetlightX says above. The blog post does come across as a bit odd. In particular...

This physical system has a kinetic energy, determined by the velocity and mass of the javelin, and a potential energy, fixed at any moment by the javelin’s height above the ground and its weight. The physical quantity known as the action of this system is defined by physicists in terms of changes in these two quantities of energy over specific periods of time. The Principle of Least Action requires precisely and only one thing: that the actual value for the action of this system during any such interval should be the smallest it could possibly take. In this particular case, this translates into the requirement that during any period of the javelin’s flight, out of all the possible paths between its initial and final location for that period, the javelin must follow the path that ensures the action of the system will be zero. As it turns out, only one path meets this requirement, and it is the one that Newton’s laws of motion describe. So, Newton’s laws follow from the Principle of Least Action.

is just a bad argument. There is no such thing as "the action of this system", and the Principle of Least Action is something the writer is importing here. There isn't anything to be said about paths in basic energetic modeling, only that energy is neither created nor destroyed. So Kinetic Energy is converted into Potential Energy as the javelin travels to its apex, and converted back into Kinetic Energy as it descends to the Earth where it is transferred to the Earth upon impact. Further, motion is different from energy in that it has a direction that is specified, and deals in forces rather than in energy.

If the principle of least action requies that the actual value for the action of the system during any interval should be the smallest, such reasoning doesn't enter in arguing where the javelin is going to fall or what is going to happen. The writer may see something of his principle in basic motion puzzles, but I sure don't. It just seems inserted in the middle of a text-book problem meant to explain the basics of motion without doing any argumentative work, and then is assumed to be required.

If that be the case then the rest -- possibility, actuality, paths -- are likewise not really part of the reasoning, since they all follow from this principle.

While it's the case that metaphysics is part and parcel to science -- or so I believe -- I'd say the writer here is way off, and hasn't really done the work necessary to understand the science.

Hahaha. No insult intended. Sorry :D

tldr: It's reasonable to look at hunter-gatherer societies as affluent, rather than simply eking out a mediocre existence because as noted in this thread there are two sides to the problem of scarcity -- there's production, but there is also desire. There are still limitations, but the characterization of hunter-gatherer economies as purely limited to physical existence is too far a stretch largely rooted in our own theories of economy developed with our own particular social expectations.

A bit off the beaten path, but a good read when considering older economic forms: https://libcom.org/files/Sahlins%20-%20Stone%20Age%20Economics.pdf

EDIT: I realize that's a whole book. But chapter 1 suffices.

So I think my response depends a little bit on whether or not what you propose as solution is a strict rule, or more of a suggestion. As a suggestion I'd probably find little to no disagreement -- I have my own set of little rules I try to use to think through questions that crop up based upon my own tendencies or errors past. And, sure, often times we simply need to rephrase our question to make it more specific because we may just be following a bad habit that leads nowhere, after all.

As a rule, though, I think I'd disagree. I'd go to Heidegger to do so -- heck, one could argue that Being in Time just is a circle where Heidegger is clarifying what he already believes to be the case, chasing his own tale, but I'd still say it's good philosophy.

But before saying much more I'll just wait and see in what capacity you mean your solution.

Indeed, I don't agree with the phrasing. The way I see it, it can be both the very question and what we're asking for. But acknowledging at least part of the problem is a start. — Sapientia

M'kay, maybe there is more disagreement after all then.

At risk of committing the error you're after I'm tempted to ask: What is the problem?

I wonder what sort of pretence, exactly, you think philosophy might invite. Like, that we are just pretending that we do not know something, maybe? Sort of like a parlor game rather than something we are asking?

The mistake, as I gather so far, has something to do with the habits of the philosophically inclined, and something to do with how they formulate questions, and in particular their usage of questions of the form "What is [x]?" -- that when the philosophically inclined ask such a question perhaps they are sort of deluding themselves into thinking they do not know what they, in some sense or other, know. Or that they are playing a game of making the obviously false appear true to them, at least for the moment, because they are in some kind of habit whereby they believe they're digging deeper into truths but are actually just chasing their own tail and rehashing what it is they already believe.

That's my closest guess.

And I think, if I'm reading you right, your solution is to rephrase questions of the form "What is [x]?" to be more specific, or to reflect on whether or not what you're asking after is actually something easy to answer without anything more deep or profound to it.

I can sort of relate to what I'm critical of here. I'm certainly not suggesting that I've never been guilty of it myself. It's just that, with hindsight, I look back at it differently. We experience these moments of realisation from time to time, and they don't always cast things in a good light - or at least they shouldn't, otherwise I'd think that there's something wrong with you: a chronic case of naivety, perhaps.

I once - "famously" :joke: - asked, "What is an apple?". Although, even then, there was part of me that thought, "Do we really not know?", and that's quite a forceful impression. It's a question I think we - those of us with a philosophical bent - could do with asking ourselves more often. — Sapientia

I think I'd just say that it's part of the practice of philosophy to route out our own ignorance -- so even when a question ends up being a bit silly, it's actually in line with what I'd still consider good philosophy. We're just identifying yet another time where we're making some sort of mistake. (since we'll never actually be free of intellectual mistakes)

And then there are the times when I'd say that when something may look silly on its surface it actually ends up interesting. "What is Google?" actually struck me that way -- on its surface its sort of silly, but understanding the ins and outs of an algorithm is actually kind of interesting.

Or, to use a classic question, "What is the meaning of being?" inspired some really great philosophy.

Not that I'd say every time you or I happen to ask seemingly simple questions we'd be able to then write good philosophy :D.


But I think I can dig the gist of what you're on about here -- or at least this is how I'd put it, while uncertain that you'd agree with this phrasing -- that sometimes the problem isn't what we're asking for, but rather the very question we are asking.

Is there something about philosophy which invites or attracts a sort of pretence? Is there something about it which opens up for debate that which we already know? Is everything really a matter of personal opinion? — Sapientia

I think philosophy can invite a sort of pretence -- but I don't know I'd say that said pretence is unique to philosophy. I think that simple questions like the one's you use as examples can be asked earnestly. I'd say there are times that what I thought I knew appears, for whatever reason at that time, to be something I don't know -- and so I ask something along the lines of...

What is faith? What is education? What is the purpose of education? What is scientism? What is a philosophical question? What is common sense? What is Google? — Sapientia

... which is not to say that said question is necessarily profound. Sometimes the reason I might ask such a question is something as simple and boring as self-deception or confusion.

but not always.

I'm not sure I follow why you're asking if everything is a matter of personal opinion, though. If it were, wouldn't the simple questions have whatever answer we wish, after all? It seems to me that in asking a question that seems a bit silly -- if we are asking earnestly -- we are hoping for something more than mere personal opinion, even if the answer doesn't quite reach the demands of knowledge.

I'd say limiting work hours is more realistic. One, it's a demand that's worked to build a movement before. And two, there are large sections of the economy which are superfluous. We produce enough goods and services to meet people's needs. We just don't distribute those goods and services equitably.

I think I have already addressed this, but I will try again. "Equality in treatment in all men" means that, for a given situation, the treatment you choose must apply to yourself, and to others, and from yourself, and from others. With this, the treatment "do as you please, and only as you please" cannot be just, because what pleases you does not necessarily please others. So there is a contradiction, both when you apply the treatment to others, and when others apply the treatment to you. — Samuel Lacrampe

I feel we're kind of going around the circle, too, but I'm willing to keep it up to see if something latches on.

My rejoinder here is that the same can be said for the golden rule you propose. "Do unto others as you would have done unto you" leads to a contradiction -- because what you want may not be what someone else wants, especially if the standard is necessity.

To contravene this sort of criticism of the golden rule others have developed the platinum rule: "Do unto others as they wish to have done unto them" -- but this likewise does not meet the standard of necessity, because you may not wish to do what I want you to do for me, and I likewise. It would not necessarily please any of us, though we may find ourselves pleased by others.

Even so, I would also say that justice isn't about pleasing others at all. Justice is about fairness. It's different from moral goodness, as I see it. They are actually very often in conflict with one another.

And I want to add a side note to the conversation: I realize that the topic is really about the objective/subjectivity of morality. But I think the meta- position on morality is better reached in the weeds, so to speak, rather than in yet even more abstract arguments regarding the objectivity/subjectivity of morality. My long term strategy here is to explore one of the main arguments for moral nihilism -- the argument of diversity in ethical commitments leading to a reasonable inference that there is nothing objective about them. I think a flip side of this argument is: even if you come up with something that sounds universally agreeable, that we only do so by abstracting moral norms to a point that they say virtually nothing about proper conduct.

While I know the response to this argument, from the moral realists perspective, is to point out that no subject matter has agreement, I wonder if there might just be degrees of agreement/disagreement which makes the inference to objectivity/subjectivity reasonable.

At this point I'd settle for the 20 hour work week without reduction in pay. It's not the sort of goal I dream of, but it's good.

I was wondering what other members think about college, if it's worth it, the reasons why one should go to college, and some such matters? — Posty McPostface

I think it was worth it. It costs a lot of money, but that can be managed. I wouldn't know the things I know without having had that time to study -- I'm still an autodidact but I learned more with access to knowledgeable people and adequate time to put into studying and learning. I think more clearly and rationally -- and am able to communicate those thoughts -- better after having learned in college than I could before.

It so happens to look good on a resume, some of the time. But good connections and experience look even better than an education on a resume. What I got out of college was knowledge, and I think that a worthwhile pursuit unto itself.

Economically speaking? I'm not so sure. But that was a secondary reason for going, from my perspective. I hoped it would help out, but I primarily chose to study things which I found difficult to study on my own, and felt rewarded for it after putting the work in; not because I have a piece of paper that says so, but just because I learned while there.

I think the price tag is too large. From an economic perspective I sort of wonder if it was worth it. But that's more politics, from my perspective, than whether or not I should have gone. I come from a family that values education unto itself, and it's one of the values taught that happened to stick with me.

As mentioned above, the golden rule is directly linked to justice; so much so that one cannot be followed without the other. Your behaviour of "treating everyone as some sort of means to whatever happens to please me" clearly breaks the golden rule because you would not want this behaviour from others onto you. And if the golden rule is broken, then the behaviour is unjust. — Samuel Lacrampe

Leaving aside what I want for now, and whether the golden rule follows from justice...

I would say that on the formal level, if not in spirit, my maxim follows your definition of justice. But that's what I was trying to get at in the first place; what you state justice is -- the equality of treatment of men -- is not robust enough. The formal statement is too permissive, because it clearly allows for things which are not just, at least as yours and my intuitions would have them (since I don't think that the maxim I produced is exactly just, either, merely something which follows from your formally stated definition of justice). There must be more to justice, in that case, than merely the equality of treatment between persons.

To generalize: "Equality in treatment in all men" means that for a given situation, a just treatment is determined such that all men must follow it for others and themselves, as well as from others. This is really nothing more than the golden rule. — Samuel Lacrampe

They are connected, because both are derived from justice. Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have done unto you" is the only way to preserve equality in treatment when interacting with others. Just War Theory: how to conduct a war while preserving justice. If you are in conflict with a neighbouring country, how would you want to them to behave towards you in order to resolve the conflict? E.g., you would likely want them to first use peaceful acts before resorting to force. As such, to preserve justice, you ought to behave the same way towards them. Thus the Just War Theory is related to the Golden Rule — Samuel Lacrampe

If they are both derived from the golden rule then then golden rule would differ from justice. In which case I'd be back to your original definition --

Justice is defined as: equality in treatment among all men. — Samuel Lacrampe

In which case I'd say that my principle is derived from your notion of justice. Or, at least, is compatible with what is stated by your definition of justice. So if I treat everyone as some sort of means to whatever happens to please me, then everyone is treated by the same rule, and would at least count as equal treatment.

Your counter-example to this was a person who wanted to kill a person who wanted to live. But this doesn't show that my principle isn't derived from your definition of justice. It's in line with it just as much as the golden rule is. Unless any conflict in desire counts as a counter-example?

In which case the golden rule also wouldn't count. What if I don't want to be treated like you want to be treated, after all? Or, in the so called platinum form of said rule, what if treating me as I want to be treated goes against what you want?

I'd like a massage, after all. Why aren't you giving it to me?

No, I don't think a mere conflict in desired outcomes would be enough to invalidate a principle, given the principles you've lain out here. After all, even if it is a just war, we both want to win it once it starts.


Which is just my way of saying that you need a more robust theory of justice than the preservation of the equality of treatment. It is too permissive to count for justice.

.

Yes, I think that's a good start and we'd need to delve into what property means as well. — Benkei

I'm going to have a go at answering "What is property?"

When I own something -- be it a parcel of land, a book of family photographs, a company, an insurance policy, a ticket for transit, a certification -- I have a claim of some sorts as to how that owned something is to be used. I may do with it as I please, and can even allow others to do with it as I please. So if I own a sizeable portion of land that is fertile and could produce good crops I may use a portion of that land to feed my needs, and allow the rest of it to lay fallow -- say I enjoy walking through the countryside. Now supposing I have a neighbor who also has fertile land, but not quite as much, because they do not own my land they could not plant in it.

Now suppose one season my neighbor decides that this isn't exactly a fair arrangement, since I'm not doing anything with good land anyway, and they could use said land to benefit themselves and even others (by producing good crops, rather than just let the land go to waste). So they decide to plow my land and plant the crops there, come what may.

What am I to do?

I think that in a positive sense we may direct what we own. But the character of property really comes out when our claims to it are violated by others. Supposing there were no state then I would have to find some means of recourse by negotiating with my neighbor. At the end of the day we may not ever see eye-to-eye, but I'll then have some kind of feeling that I have a claim to that land anyways, and will do what I need to do to enforce said claim -- bandy together with fellow neighbors to apply social pressure, burn the crops of my neighbor when they grow, salt the fields, or by the use of militant force.

In some ways property, of this sort, is before the state. But this kind of property preceded capitalism. Feudalism, for instance -- while it did not always rely upon war to solve issues -- certainly did resolve disputes over property by means of war.

What is especially significant about capitalism is that there is a state to back up said claims. There is a law in place and a process backed up by the eventual use of force to enforce claims. Property, state, and the law are all bound together in a capitalist economy.

In some way, then, property actually becomes a limited dictatorship over whatever set of things owned, but delimited by the power of the state (since the state is what enforces said claims in the first place). How said laws and states are arranged -- and even economies, as even this form of property is not what makes capitalism, but is the kind of property which capitalism relies upon -- can differ dramatically, and need not reflect our current societies.

But the point I want to drive home most is that in order for the kind of property which capital requires to exist there must also exist a state which enforces the claims which make property. Mostly because I think it's naive to look at capitalism, corporation, private ownership, and the whole lot of industry under capitalism as somehow opposed to the state (as is often conceived in popular imagination, but I don't think that capitalists are unaware of this -- just something worth noting because of said popular imagination, and also because 'property' often goes undefined and presumed as well understood)

So much more understandable than what I said, not — unenlightened

Heh, naw. I was hoping that last paragraph might be.

The bit that is harder to get my head around, though is the idea that complexity and disorder are somehow the same, and the nearest I can get to this is in terms of information. — unenlightened

Complexity I'm less certain on. But I can speak to the notion of "disorder", at least -- disorder, I think, is a bit of poor wording.

Consider a more simplified system: two jars connected by a small tube. The initial condition of said jars, for purposes of this thought experiment, has 10 molecules in the left-hand jar and 0 in the right-hand jar. Given time what you would expect is for there to be 5 molecules in the left-hand jar and 5 in the right-hand jar. This is because the entropy is increasing -- "disorder". But it's not exactly like disorder is chaotic or unstructured. It's simply the direction, meaning time-direction, in which we observe energy to flow.

In another theoretical world we could reverse the thought experiment, with 5 molecules in each jar and we would expect to find 10 accumulate in one of the jars -- in this world the arrow of time would be observed to flow in the opposite direction from the world we actually live in.

In one sense of the word "ordered" it would be more ordered. But not necessarily in a way that relates to complexity and simplicity.

I'm not sure how you would actually relate the two. Like, what would unpatterend or unstructured information be, exactly? Would it just be unspecified? Or would it be exactly analogous, in that the states we might find any given bit are greater than they were before?


My class on Statistical mechanics is what really helped me wrap my head around the 2nd law of thermo, especially the concept of entropy.


One thing I want to note though:

Somehow this is equivalent to the energy thing, because it is the structure in the distribution of energy that allows for some 'free energy' to be released in it's dissipation. — unenlightened

Free energy actually works on a system -- where a system is just anything that happens to be under consideration, and the universe is everything else (usually a room or a building, but it could also be the actual universe too). Not sure if it's pertinent here, but it's not being released from a system as much as it's either preventing or allowing some process to occur within the system under consideration.

But, yes, the structure in the distribution of energy is what allows (or prevents) some process to occur.


But I'm not read up enough on information theory to be able to say how these two things relate. Just trying to lend a helping hand where I can.

I'm not sure what you mean by this — JJJJS

What came to mind for me was Gibb's Free Energy. -- I linked the section without all the mathematical whatzits because it seems more pertinent, one, and wikipedia is horrible for actually explaining this stuff, IMX. It's written by people wanting to show off their knowledge rather than transmit it :D.

Oftentimes what looks like a decrease in entropy for a given system (say, a body) is an increase in entropy for the universe.

The phenomena of life is like that. At least, so the story goes. I'd be all for reading something more precise than the hand-wavey (though admittedly readable) section on wikipedia.

What are some examples of masculine traits? — Roke

I think that's a tricky question -- not that I couldn't list things that come to mind, but I'd temper any such list by noting that traits are historically fluid. What counts as masculine changes depending on when, where, and who.

But, to use part of my little frame, I'd say that social impression (which, naturally, derives from my own upbringing and the particular sub-culture which that upbringing took place in) makes these sorts of traits masculine: Protective of the people you love, actively listen to your wife, earn enough money to support your family, make the first move in courtship, remain faithful to God, never give up, never complain, work hard

Some of these traits could been seen in the feminine as well. They are not mutually exclusive, per se (and I would say that my particular sub-culture is strongly structured around a binary of gender, where the two are treated very differently). But they are bound up in the identity as a man within this particular sub-group, rather than as bound up in a feminine identity. So it's not the traits, per se, which define the masculine and the feminine. In some sense identifying as a man is just as simple as that -- you are identified/identifiy within this particular gender, often but not exclusively bound up with sexuality, and finding what it means is actually a part of a journey (like a lot of parts of ones identity); there are general characteristics which we can talk about, but even within a particular category one is on a journey of discovery/creation of what it means to be said gender.

For those who agree with Marx and Freud do they believe that Popper's criteria of demarcation for deeming something unscientific wrong? — Purple Pond

Freud I can't speak to as well as Marx. But, yes, I believe that Popper's criteria of demarcation is wrong. There is no hard-line demarcation between metaphysical and scientific propositions, which was sort of what Popper was trying to get at -- not to deem metaphysics as useless or inferior, but simply to draw a line between what is properly scientific and properly philosophical. (after all, Popper held certain metaphysical theses to be true, if not scientifically supportable)

On to Marx -- I don't agree with his theory of history, at least in the robust sense. One can provide a Marxist historical analysis, but there are other theories for writing history too. It is not a science -- it's history, which is methodologically different from science.

Where I agree with Marx is in his analysis of capital as outlined in volume 1 of Kapital. It gets to the heart of some classical economic questions -- such as the origin of wealth -- better than its competitors.

While Marx is often offered as writing down the Newtonian Laws of economy, I would digress on that part. Marx was a modernist, through and through -- he thought that just as the motion of bodies could be explained by scientific analysis so too could the motion of social institutions. I don't rule these things out a priori, but I also don't think that there is a single social theory out there now which can claim to provide the same sort of precise predictions which physical theory provides.

So Marx overstates his case, IMO, largely because he was a product of his own time. But he still provides a meaningful explanation of how capitalism works, and the origin of economic value. By studying Marx we can gain an understanding of how economic institutions operate, what they are motivated by, how they generate wealth, and even economic collapse.

Why do people still hold on the these theories?

For Marx, at least, I'd say that it describes work-place politics better than any competing theory. I don't think it can stand alone, as I noted I don't think any social theory is as precise as physical theory. Other factors can come into play. But the base of institutional motivation in capitalism is well described by Marx.

It could not be global because change would be provoked by the crisis in capitalism, but this would only come about in advanced capitalist societies. — Londoner

Capitalism itself is a global phenomena. I think in that sense, at least, the aims were global. Capital would spread across the world, and the contradictions of capitalism would be its undoing on the global scale.

I think I'd prefer to proceed by way of example rather than definition. There is a frame from the comic book Watchmen that I rather like. It's been more than a minute since I've read that so I had to google the quote. https://coolpeppermint.wordpress.com/tag/watchmen/

“Thermodynamic miracles… events with odds against so astronomical they’re effectively impossible, like oxygen spontaneously becoming gold. I long to observe such a thing.

Until your mother loves a man she has every reason to hate, and of that union, of the thousand million children competing for fertilization, it was you, only you, that emerged. To distill so specific a form from that chaos of improbability, like turning air to gold… that is the crowning unlikelihood. The thermodynamic miracle.

But…if me, my birth, if that’s a thermodynamic miracle… I mean, you could say that about anybody in the world! Yes. Anybody in the world.

But the world is so full of people, so crowded with these miracles that they become commonplace and we forget… I forget. We gaze continually at the world and it grows dull in our perceptions. Yet seen from the another’s vantage point, as if new, it may still take our breath away. Come…dry your eyes. For you are life, rarer than a quark and unpredictable beyond the dreams of Heisenberg; the clay in which the forces that shape all things leave their fingerprints most clearly.”

In this sense of the word then I think it quite plausible to believe in miracles. The miraculous is something similar to the wounderous or that which inspires awe.

But I did vote "no", because there are other senses of the word. Rather than what is awe-inspiring miracles are acts of magic. Magic inspires awe, but so do non-magical events. Magic is a very interesting topic, in my opinion. Understanding magic is a way at understanding our collective sense of the world -- I won't marry a Pisces, because people born under that star sign have such and such qualities. I will fight this fight because I feel that fate is on my side tonight. I will work hard because it will pay off in the long run.

These are magical beliefs -- beliefs which have no reason outside of themselves. We can build large scaffolds of justification to hide the tenuous relationship to reality that they have -- look at astrology. But, at bottom, there is no factual reason to the belief. It can be based on any number of things -- feelings, traditions, preternatural knowledge, intuition, and so forth -- but these are all just names for beliefs without a factual basis. They are magic, where the words we repeat become and create the world.

I tried very hard to avoid anything religious in this definition. While the religious and the magical often do have an interconnection of sorts, I don't think that interconnection is necessary. I am an atheist, but I've known believers who were believers not because of magical thinking. I hope to lay all that aside for the purposes of your query.

And I haven't lain out sufficient and necessary conditions, exactly. My hope is that by way of example we can have a better understanding than the usual route wherein counter-examples are easy to come by.

And in this sense of the magical, rather than the wounderous or awe-inspiring, I'd have to say that I do not believe in miracles. I believe that the miraculous, in this particular sense, is the result of psychological phenomena -- mistaken beliefs and desire being the primary culprits of said psychological phenomena.

It depends on the communist. But if we go with what's most influential now, Karl Marx's communism was the end-goal of his revolutionary program. The states established along that revolutionary program only reached the stage of socialism (again, as defined by Marx -- since that word also depends on the socialist who uses it :D). Communism would be achieved after the state withered away. It's a social condition without either economic class or authoritarian state.

In some ways the end-goal of Marxists and Anarchists is very similar. Their main disagreement is with respect to methods.

That there is a text book non sequiter inference, as it stands. "Do unto others as you would have done unto you" does not just automatically lead one to just war theory. I didn't say it leads to extreme pacifism, either. What I said was it is silent on such matters.

I mean you may prefer just war theory... but if you can accept those terms, then I don't see how you would be able to dissent from the example I used earlier. It was a similarly loosy-goosey principle that can be interpreted in any number of ways, without it sounding quite so nice. And even then I don't see how, of all doctrines, just war theory somehow naturally flows from the golden rule. You'd have to, at the very least, argue the case.

Can you elaborate on what gender means to you? Expressions and impressions about what? Is my affinity for pinstripes part of my gender? — Roke

"Gender" means reference to an aspect of identity. Identity is both expressed and impressed upon us -- it is expressed socially and expressed to ourselves. It is impressed socially and also impressed by our self. So when a person expresses masculine traits to the world they are expressing an aspect of their gender which is an aspect of their identity. But they can also express these traits to themselves: reflecting upon how, as a man, they feel that....

And we are also impressed by others as well as ourselves. We are impressed, as men, to... ; we are impressed by our self to act as...

I think identity has this two by two aspect where it is expressed and impressed, and that expression is to others/self, where impressions is from others/self.

As to whether your affinity for pinstripes is part of your gender, I'd ask -- how do you feel about it?

I think of gender as having two sides of identity -- a social identity and a personal identity. They aren't stereotypes as much as they expressions and impressions; expressions to others and expressions to self, impressions from others and impressions from self. Depending on how fine we wish our gender categories to be we could actually generate numerous such groupings depending on how people express and are impressed upon by others and their self.

It's also a much more complex and bigger question than even triadic or quarternary designations really imply. Gender is an aspect of identity, and so is actually a topic worthy of study because of this complexity and our general ignorance of the phenomena. (that is, it's more than just how we use words, it's an actual phenomena that can be studied)