I've got an issue with presuppositions with regard to free logic and the supposed circularity (question begging) in Descartes' argument and others like it.

You claim that I think, therefore I am is circular because I think, according to you, presupposes that I am.

I've always been a little confused by conditionals. Take the following two statements:

1. If it rains then the ground will become wet [classic entailment: rain makes the ground wet]

2. If you're relying on arguments to make a point then you endorse the utility of logic in making a point [presupposition: arguments presuppose logic]

Come now to Descartes' argument:

3. I think

Ergo,

4. I am

Is this conditional (I think $\rightarrow$ I am) an entailment or a presupposition? Both? Neither?

What is Being?

It's (as is obvious) a verb (being) cum noun (Being). Very much like Jogging, a verb (he is jogging) & a noun (he likes Jogging). :grin:

:ok:

How does economic growth actually work? Earn more a given year than the year before, inflation-adjusted, seems to be the motto. Since economic growth boils down to per capita income, it makes complete sense for developing nations with large sections of the population below the poverty line to aim for economic growth. Rich, industrialized, first world countries, what's their excuse?

Also as mentioned previously, that something exists cannot be the conclusion of an argument in free logic. Free Logic does not permit the expression of existence conditions.

So here we have the best attempt to formalise existence as a predicate for individuals. And it cannot be used to infer that some particular individual exists.

In particular, the logic shows that such arguments rely on question-begging.

Of the arguments of this type, two are of particular interest:

Any necessary being exists (argument for God)
I think therefore I am (Descartes)

Hence, another change of title for this thread. — Banno

From the title of the thread: Whatever thinks exists.

An excerpt from a book, to be precise a thought the fictional character Smith entertains:

"This looks like a lovely spot for a family picnic," thought Smith.

I think, therefore I am — René Descartes

Smith thinks, therefore Smith is (exists).

:chin:

Depression/melancholia is an extremely potent demotivator.

On the other hand, manic episodes are characterized by intense mental and, some times, physical activity/exertion.

The knife cuts both ways.

It seems indeed. Nothing les further from the truth. Global population has risen (multiplicated) only by facto 5 or so since 1900. Nature was fine. And just look now... — Cartuna

Reminds me of how many people have told me to exercise more self-control. Humanity, it seems, is running amok on planet earth. No sense of restraint, temperance, or moderation. We're multiplying like Fibonacci's rabbits. We'll eventually have to, as they say, pay the piper. For better or worse I probably won't be around when the shooting starts.

To the economists out there, isn't there a natural ceiling/limit to growth? If the global economy hits that upper bound before the earth dies on us, everything should be ok, no?

Hasty generalizations (at least). — 180 Proof

Where? I haven't made any generalizations unless you mean to imply that there are some among us who have a nonphysical self, something other than our trusty wetware.

What's wrong?

I am that which thinks, the brain is that which thinks. Thus, I am the brain!

That means if I'm unable to, or if I'm unwilling to, accept the argument above, either I'm suffering from a delusion or there's a good reason why I reject the argument.

Which is it? Please elaborate. Thanks.

(ZPG) — Bitter Crank

It seems as though population is the root cause of our problems.

1. Economic growth $\rightarrow$ (leads to) Population growth.

2. Population growth $\rightarrow$ (requires) Economic growth.

It's actually not growth unless you want to qualify that with "uncontrolled" like with cancer. It's more of a death spiral, wouldn't you agree?

By the way, rich countries have low birth rates. I'm probably off by a mile as to what's actually happening and what's wrong with our system.

I was just explaining what Josh posted, which would make no sense whatsoever if you didn’t know the German idiom Heidegger refers to. No, the point is not to study grammar to understand being. — Srap Tasmaner

So, I missed the point then?

You do admit though that compared to other branches of philosophy, ontology requires extensive knowledge of grammar, right?

A brain does not perceive itself to be a brain. — 180 Proof

The single most important line in your post. A brain fails to recognize itself even when all the evidence points to that simple truth: I/self = brain.

Why do you suppose this happens?

It's kinda like mirrored-self misidentification, not an exact match but good enough for government work if you know what I mean.

It is a delusion nonetheless.

Why does this happen? What's distinct/unique about Being that requires us to be, well, expert linguists with in-depth knowledge of, curiously, not semantics but syntax. :chin: The objective was to go into meaning (of Being) and instead we're neck-deep in grammar.

This is not an argument against monism. The fact that a circle is not a square is also no argument against geometry. Monism means that everything consists of only one substance. In the broadest sense matter is, what something weighs, applies also to light. — SolarWind

Just a thought, that's all.

I can sympathize with the non-monist point of view in that it's basically a solution to contradictions that are baked into systems that subscribe to some kind of unitary substance/principle.

One way to save monism is to rope in Cronus, Father time. Yes, he ate his sons but let's ignore that for the moment. An apple isn't, I've never seen it happening, both green (unripe) and red (ripe) at the same time but it does go from green to red as Cronus' heartbeat ticks off time but, it's the same friggin' apple. Thus, there's one substance/principle (monism) and it does assume qualities which maybe opposites but a contradiction doesn't occur because of temporal separation.

Another way of looking at that is that every time there seems to be multiple things that make up the world, they turn out to be made up of one thing. — khaled

:up:

A monotheistic point of view vs. a polytheistic point of view, an extremely fragile compromise it seems khaled. So instead of saying there's a Ahura mazda (+) and an Angra manyu (-), two distinct entities, there's actually only one Allah who has two qualities, peaceful and wrathful. I wonder if this logic can be applied to split-personality disorders?

So yes, there's an up quark, a down quark, etc. but they aren't separate things, as in they're all quarks.

It seems monotheism is Occam's razor in action - different qualities need not entail different entities.

That said, contradictions are a cause for concern.

The Similarities Between Words & Logic

Wittgenstein claimed that people use words correctly even when they don't know their definitions; the classic example being the word "game".

Likewise, people were using logic, quite well in fact, even before logic became a subject of formal study and its rules were explicitly worked out.

To The Mods

Do you all realize that bans in cyberspace are equivalent to capital punishment in the real world?

Bye, bye avatar. RIP all banned ex-forum members! :death: :flower:

@Banno @180 Proof & others

What caught my eye regarding the philosophy of Being

Every time Being is analyzed, it takes a distinct form, a linguistic one - necessary language concepts for such examinations/studies being verb, predicate, verbal nouns, pseudo-objects, to name but a few.

What means this?

It's as if Being is tied up with the structure of and ideas in lingua itself. We can't talk about the former without going into the intricacies (those pertinent) of the other.

Taking a scientific, materialistic, approach, monism seems untenable.

First, scientists claimed that matter is made of atoms. That didn't do the trick and upon further investigation, atoms were found to be combinations of protons, neutrons, electrons. With this monism lost ground. Not to worry for soon it was discovered that protons, electrons, neutrons were made up of quarks. Monism, the prodigal son, makes the comeback. Not so fast though: there were different kinds of quarks and monism again faded away into oblivion. What's next? Another particle but then if we look at the trend, every new particle seems to come in different flavors, we should give up the idea of a single fundamental substance; in other words, monism fails.

The pattern: Every time we reduce reality to a single substance, we're faced with the problem of having to reconcile contradictory qualities, something impossible. Does it make more sense to insist that monism is true and that all contradictions are illusions or to abandon monism as nonsensical. The choice: contradiction OR no to monism.

I would have to go back and re-read a lot of old discussions, but it seems like you have presented the "tension" argument before. You seem to suppose that a relaxed resting state is abnormal and that we generate tension to enliven ourselves and our social scene. Conflict, intense emotion, tension, etc. make us feel better. — Bitter Crank

War is the father of all and king of all; and some he shows as gods, others as men, some he makes slaves, others free. — Heraclitus

We must know that war is common to all and strife is justice, and that all things come into being through strife necessarily. — Heraclitus

This imaginary Me is a low-resolution construct abstracted from the complex web of inter-relationships — Gnomon

:up: Convenient fiction?

'I' — Jack Cummins

It all depends on how you look at it.

The most well-known philosophy that rejects the reality of a self is Buddhism but do keep an eye on how Buddhists define the I in particular and everything else in general: in Gautama's view, ontology is pointless/meaningless if not eternal (the anicca-anatta duo). From such a perspective, true, there's no I for it ceases to be at death.

However, a less demanding or more relaxed definition of the self - one that allows for its dissolution when we perish - admits of the existence of an I albeit only as long as we draw breath.

:up:

Nobody'll waste bullets. Shootings will be more organized: kill two birds with one stone :scream: I think Chris Rock's idea will backfire.

How in hell are you going to fight the War on Christmas if you can't afford the ammo? — James Riley

That, my friend, is the right question. — Dr. Lanning (I Robot)

I didn't realize till this quip, Fool, you're a closet-
Spinozist! How absurd. — 180 Proof

:grin:

I'm going to have to stay up with this thread. I love to laugh, even though I don't do it much. Anyway, I think that all stand-ups (the good ones anyway), are philosophers, in their own right. Some better and deeper than others, but all philosophers nonetheless. — James Riley

:up:

Thanks :up:

The self-reflection, reflexive relation, the mind is capable of solves the hard problem of consciousness. A mind is capable of studying itself à la Barry Marshall (Nobel Prize winner), famous for self-experimentation. A blend of first-person & third-person perspective is doable!

If mind itself is nonmind-dependent (i.e. not ideal, more-than-just-ideal), then neither mind nor nonmind are mind-dependent (i.e. both facts are external-to-mind); therefore, nonmind is mind-invariant and not "mind-independent" (or ontologically separate from mind) insofar as mind is an aspect, or phase-state, of nonmind (i.e. more-than-ideality aka "reality" ~Spinoza, Anselm). — 180 Proof's Prolegomena for the Fourfold Root of Insufficient Reason

:chin: Do you want to give me a stroke or what? :joke:

I have a rather intriguing "solution" to the gun problem in USA.

A long time back, I bought a Gillette razor, it came with the a blade attached and two extra. I was particularly happy with the purchase, it was well within the reach of my meager income.

A month went by, I'd used all the blades. "Time to get new blades," I thought to myself and went back to the same store. I picked up a pack of blades, took them to the counter. What happened next was one of the most unpleasant experiences of my life. The pack of blades was nearly twice the price of the razor! :gasp:

Guns, keep 'em cheap, no problemo, but bullets should have a price tag that'll make people think twice before they dig into their pockets for some. :joke:

A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

The funniest of the funniest are contradictions! :chin: Is Wittgenstein taking a swipe at philosophers who take their line of work (too) seriously.

P.S. Contradictions are hilarious when others do it. When you do it, it ain't funny, it hurts like hell!

When a superior man hears of the Tao,
he immediately begins to embody it.
When an average man hears of the Tao,
he half believes it, half doubts it.
When a foolish man hears of the Tao,
he laughs out loud.
If he didn't laugh,
it wouldn't be the Tao. — Tao Te Ching

What about Democritus, the laughing philosopher (cf. Heraclitus, the weeping philosopher). My take on the two diametrically opposite reactions to life and reality is that Democritus wasn't laughing because life is funny, he was laughing because life is sad and Heraclitus wasn't crying because life is sad, he was crying because life is a funny.

Vide infra (from the thread: Play: What is it? How to do it?)

Suppose God exists. You ask him "why God did you make the world as it is?" He responds "I was just playing."

What's going to be your reaction? [Choices not restricted to one emoji]

1. :rofl:

2. :angry:

3. :cry:

4. :meh:

5. :gasp:

6. :worry:

7. :chin:

8. :brow:

9. :confused:

10. :pray:

11. :roll: — TheMadFool

I choose #1 :rofl: — Athena

If philosophy is a joke, the punchline would be...Sophia doesn't love you back dear! :smile:

Spilling over from my previous thread, The Religion Unmarred By Violence: Jainism, it appears that, given the various ghastly, highly-detailed, descriptions of hell (the supernatural realm in religions), it seems possible to recreate it on Earth. All that's required is to implement, make real, the various tortures described in these descriptions. It takes a moment though to realize that hellish tortures are all practicable methods of inducing pain i.e. there's nothing supernatural, ergo impossible for us, about them. Hell is possible on Earth or this world.

Now take note of the fact that, unlike Hell which has been described in disconcerting detail, little information is available on what Heaven would look like. Aside from taking this as an indication of ignorance of what Heaven is, it could also imply that Heaven is an impossible world :sad:

Comments... — TheMadFool

According to the guidebooks, Cabo Blanco was unspoiled wilderness, almost a paradise. — Jurassic Park (book by Michael Crichton)

Unspoiled wilderness = almost paradise. What's missing? :chin:

I read a book on logic recently, called'The Art of Logic: How to Make Sense in a World That Doesn't,' by Eugenia Cheng(2019). The author shows how logic, including the basics of maths, is a foundation 'to verify and establish the truth'. However, the following statement may be applicable to this thread discussion on music in relation to emotions:
'Emotions and logic do not have to be enemies. Logic works perfectly in the abstract mathematical world. But life is more complicated than that. Life involves humans, and humans have emotions'.

So, music helps soothe emotions and can be cathartic. I often find some really dark music can be cathartic and uplifting, although I do like 'The Logical Song', by Supertramp — Jack Cummins

And so, The Hard Problem of Logic.

I've said this before and I'll say it again if it matters at all. Emotions, save, like always, in some cases, are usually effects. They do cause stuff (more on this later), but it's them as effects that I'll focus on. We experience all kinds of emotions - love, lust, anger, hate, and s on - and they all tend to be elicited by very specific stimuli which I'm sure I won't have to spell out as it's common knowledge. The point I'm trying to make is that there are patterns in emotions and their causes and just like there's a perfectly good reason why when we water a plant regularly, tend to its soil, and keep it in the sun, it makes for a healthy plant, there has to be or I suspect there is logic to emotions.

I once remarked in another thread that the most vital - mission critical - components of life seem to be reflexive i.e. consciousness is bypassed or short circuited. I suppose the rationale behind this is to buy us time for, in a very narrow sense, the fight/flight response. Emotions, under this reading, are like you crying "ouch!" and pulling away your hands from a hot pan in your kitchen. This is called, I think, the spinal pain reflex. There's a very good reason for this: The "ouch!" alerts others who might be able to come to your aid and the sudden, completely unconscious, withdrawal of your hand prevents severe injury. As you can see there's a really good reason we shouldn't be thinking in certain situations. Emotions could be just like that, there's a rationale to them; it's just that evolution, in its "wisdom", has decided that there really is no point ratiocinating on the matter, react instantly and with force is the rule in the emotional sphere.

Now to music as an cause. Play the right kind of music, I'm told, and you can make a man do anything. It sets the mood and mood has a huge part in motivation. Figure the rest out Jack Cummins, truthseeker.

Is this sarcastic? — schopenhauer1

No! It was meant in earnest. The issues that you raise bespeak a sincerity and dedication to a certain brand of philosophy and although I might disagree with you on that, I certainly am impressed by how deeply you've thought about the issues pertinent to it. Kudos to you.

It's off because people have no imagination and fear change. Your mortgage says, "Can't fight it!". — schopenhauer1

Yup! People are blind to the suffering they endure. I believe/suspect they've become habituated to it. I had a colleague who suffers from chronic migraine - he got used to it, so much so that he's restructured his life to factor in his rather debilitating ailment.

For my money, antinatalism is a philosophy, a way of thinking, that has a critical role in the way the world will look in the future. Being highly sensitive to pain/suffering, antinatalists seem to be just what we need - a reliable and powerful detector of problems humanity faces - and this would prove extremely useful to us in many different ways.

You guys have a nose for sorrow. The big issues - poverty, disease, aging, etc. - everyone notices but it takes a hardcore, true-blue antinatalist to sniff out the smaller but no less painful...er...difficulties we face. Keep up the good work.

Good day!

What a question! What a question! @schopenhauer1, I'm in awe at the breadth and depth your concerns. I have no problem imagining people raising issues that are, well, plain as the nose their faces but this matter of the workweek, only a person to whom details matter and who's genuinely interested in the welfare of people will notice. You're the real McCoy, I can tell you that. You should stand for president.

If you ask me, there's something horribly wrong with the 5 day workweek and 2 day weekend format. It seems to have been copy-pasted from a divine, Godly, work scehdule. God, as we all know, is omnipotent and we, lowly mortals, are, as far as I can tell, not! Something's off, don't you think?

Hence a thread about music, or a thread about poetry. Most advertising for example is deliberate nonsense because it aims to bypass the logical analyst and appeal to a nonlinguistic non rational aspect of humanity. You surely do not claim to be unaffected by anything but logic? — unenlightened

I'm always gonna be what people, derisively call, a wannabe. I think I'm a character simulator, I think such programs (I consider myself one in The Matrix :joke: ) are known around the world as actors.

I am not saying that logic and rationality aren't important because they are essential, but it does not mean that anything beyond that is 'incomprehensible nonsense to our minds. The various functions include sensations, rationality, emotions and imagination or intuition. Music appeals to parts of us that are not just logical but are important, especially the realm of emotions. Some people like very emotional music, like romance or possibly sad aspects of love. — Jack Cummins

How right you are Jack Cummins! It all depends on how you define stuff, I mean words. If I play around with the meaning of "comprehension" and "sense", we could very well comprehend and see sense in almost any damn thing we like. I propose a motion. Redefine "comprehension" and "sense" in a way that does justice to the true extent of human cognition and experience.

By virtue of endless repetition, we've begun to automatically associate comprehension and sense with logic, it's been drilled into us and we're now so habituated to thinking this way that no one, perhaps some, really asks if there's any necessary connection, a rationale to, this linkage.

Perhaps, taking a page out of David Chalmers' views on consciousness, the inability of logic and rationality to cover the whole gamut of human thought and existence, also reality itself, should be dubbed The Hard Problem Of Logic. :grin:

[...] But you cannot recall a new form of life — Erwin Chargaff (Epigraph of the book Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton)

Chargaff seems to have regretted his major contributions to the science of genetics as is clear from the tone and content of his quotes; you can be find them in his Wikipedia page (click the link for more). For him genetic engineering was mankind overstepping its mandate. His point was that humanity has no idea what it's getting itself into. A real-life repeat of Victor Frankenstein's disastrous experiment with nature's mechanisms, exclusively divine domain is a possibility that we can't rule out. We need to tread carefully, this is treacherous, unmapped territory. Even the smallest mistake can have undesirable consequences.

Maybe Chargaff is overreacting to the situation. I dunno! Only time will tell...as is always the case.

It's muddled thinking that paves the way to the biggest breakthrough. Together with fuzzy logic. It's an explosive cocktail. Fuzzy mud — Cartuna

Best leave it on the backburner for the moment. Good day.