Definition is the intellectual description or explanation of a thing. The Form is a supra-mental idea or pattern of which mental and physical objects are copies.

in descending order:

1. Supra-mental Form present in the Cosmic Mind.
2. Mental object and definition of it in the individual mind.
3. Physical object. — Apollodorus

I thought as much but, in my defense, the gap between the physical and mental seems to be greater than that between the mental and the form. I feel that way, could be wrong though, but if my instincts are correct, mental and form maybe the same thing.

Not quite. Wombs and tombs are dark places, Fool, and light (reasoning) waxes and wanes by moving between them. One pauses to philosophize at "noon: moment of the briefest shadow" and then carries further this promethean fire in order to make (reflect) a path (life) by walking (thinking).
All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.
— Twilight of the Idols
Again ... — 180 Proof

As has become customary for you insofar as I'm concerned, you've blown my mind...again. Keep it coming, keep it coming!

What do you make of my rather dangerous and yet intriguing suggestion to "turn off" reason, dim the light as it were, in order that we may see other sources of illumination, other ways/techniques/methods of getting to the truth? This is old news of course - religion (faith: to believe sans proof) - but because religion has lost all credibility in some circles, we should explore other rationality-independent avenues to knowledge, assuming such exist. It would be a whole lot of fun, no?

Pragmatism seems to be a rather simple and yet powerful technique to trim the tree of philosophy down, specifically the branch of metaphysics. Given any single philosophical claim, if the practical consequences are the same irrespective of whether that claim is true or false, we can safely ignore it.

This might be relevant :point: Noble Silence

it is simply false that Socrates in say, Euthyphro, is just a philosopher concerned only with the search for universal definitions and oblivious to metaphysics[52]. For example, Socrates in Euthyphro does not just want to know what the Form of Piety is; he also believes that there is such a thing as Piety that is the instrumental cause of the piety in pious things — Apollodorus

The form of piety seems indistinguishable from the definition of piety to me. The former is what the latter describes. What, for example, is the difference between the form of a triangle and the definition of a triangle?

But I don't agree on the chaos/disorder aspect. I can't see too much of that where I live in any case. It all seems pretty orderly to me. Perhaps not 100% perfect, but could be worse, so why complain? — Apollodorus

I wouldn't count on personal experience to draw any conclusions about the state of the world. World wars (2 of them and the 3rd on fhe horizons), the 1918 flu pandemic and the ongoing COVID-19 one, crime rates are appalling in some parts of the world, climate change issues, etc. In short, disharmony is the name of the game.

So, the whole idea of philosophy is to dismiss the very question that birthed it? How fascinating! It's like reading a book in which the last sentence on the last page in the last chapter reads, "you should've never read this book!" I want to write such a book one day.

Oh, come on. — bongo fury

I'm sorry it wasn't to your taste. Speaking for myself, it feels right.

I will think about it in the light of day( and perhaps again in the twilight). — Jack Cummins

ok.

Recently, it dawned on me that [...] — TheMadFool

Definition of "dawn": become evident to the mind; be perceived or understood. "the awful truth was beginning to dawn on him".

Is there something going on here that we should be concerned about?

investigate both what is real and what is moral. — Pfhorrest

:up:

Wisdom is knowledge of what is true and good. — Some guy

I think that it gives a really unusual metaphorical slant to the whole question of logic — Jack Cummins

Expose every belief to the light of reason, discourse, facts, scientific observations; question everything, be sceptical because this is the only chance at life you will ever get. — James Randi

If we would guide by the light of reason, we must let our minds be bold. — Louis D. Brandeis

Is the analogy still "unusual"?

the hidden aspect beyond the light of logic. — Jack Cummins

Irrationalism. Sorry for sounding like a broken record.

All philosophy is a tribute to rationality (not just logic).
All rationality is a tribute to truth.
Thus,
All philosophy is a tribute to truth.

I'll stop there, it's a decent syllogism. Someone might want to attempt a sorites.

Like that old blues song says

"Everybody wants to go to heaven
But nobody wants to die"

which is the essence of the transhumanist daydream. — 180 Proof

That single sentence is the logic bomb designed to blow up in theism's achilles heel (the unverified/unverifiable nature of its claims); upon detonation, the blast radius should be big enough to obliterate the entire theistic world.

As for transhumanism, they, at the very least, are doing the utmost to keep it real! Kudos to them.

There really was no surprise, everybody knew the Germans were about to invade Russia, except apparently Stalin. — Foghorn

:rofl: The last one to find out was supposed to have been the first one to find out! How ironic!

life — Shawn

An excellent question and just the right word, "life", to bring out the Wittgenstein in us. Did you check? The word "life" doesn't have a good definition, "life" is like a small suitcase - all of our stuff won't fit in it and we have to make tough choices regarding what we want to put in or keep out. A pinch of sodium chloride recommended!

Transhumanism: Treating death as a problem

My mind is blown! What an awesome statement this is. This belongs into the category of assertions that upend established norms - ways of thinking that's become so ingrained in people that we can't, as some say, see past the majority opinion on them, that itself being a function of tradition, culture, mindsets, and so on. It appears that humanity has spent the better part of its existence on this planet either complaining about death or, some would say, doing something about it. In other words, there really was no doubt that, we were all 100% certain that, death was/is/will be a problem. I wouldn't go so far as to say mortality isn't a thorn in our side but, all things considered, some of us, like the OP, had the good sense to get up and ask, in a crowd convinced that the Grim Reaper is enemy no. 1, "are we sure?"

I won't go into the whys and hows Thanatos isn't the dreaded foe we make fae out to be; others will do a better job of it. Instead I'll tell you a thought-provoking joke (its a spinoff of another I listened to on TikTok). This is going to sound slightly wicked but I have no choice. The joke: We all want our enemies dead. That simply means we want death to, well, work for us and that, in a sense, simply means death is the enemy of my enemy and as the ancient proverb goes, the enemy (death) of my enemy is my friend :rofl: Death could be a powerful ally, no? :rofl:

Food for thought: Whatever else wars have been about, it all boiled down to space. One of Hitler's (the alleged culprit behind WW2) main motivations was the so-called lebensraum ideology (living space for Germans/Aryans). A similar argument may apply to all other wars that were ever fought till date that is...conquest meant land i.e space

What if...just what if...WW3 will be fought over time? I know the idea seems outlandish but consider the following scenario: Imagine the global ecology has collapsed and the earth's ability to sustain life is damaged beyond repair. Some benevolent aliens come to the rescue and open a portal to an inhabitable planet where we can start afresh. However, this portal is open only for a short duration (say 30 minutes at some specified location). Barring some kind of agreement between the nations of the world to maximize the chances of a favorable outcome for the human race as a whole, there's a non-zero probability that a world war (WW 3) will erupt for that 30 minutes the portal will remain open. War, not for space but for time!

Come to think of it, this isn't as crazy as I thought it was. Don't we all compete (a "war" by any other name smells as "sweet") for each other's time? :chin:

World War II. Reminds me of this:

12 hours every year of legalized crime (well, actually 6 whole years 1939 - 1945) if we want to save our country, we must release all our anger in one night...tonight we'll see the good and evil in everyone...at the siren, all crime, including murder will be legal for the next 12 hours (6 suns) [...]your government thanks you for your participation. — Government Announcer (The Purge)

I do enjoy porn very much though. — TheHedoMinimalist

:rofl: This is the highlight of my day! Kindred spirits sharing their darkest secrets on a public forum. :rofl:

Jokes aside, advertisements seem to be a very significant aspect of life in the so-called civilized world tailored along the lines of European and American (US) ones. If I'm not mistaken, my hunch is, living in Europe or America means coming into contact with at least one adveritsement every day and sometimes more. Such a frequency of advertisement to people contact indicates, to me, the magnitude of the phenomenon - to those who think nothing of it or treat it as a non-issue, the apt response seems to be, "it's a serious!" or "this ain't a joke!" That said, those who talk like that might be making a mountain of a mole hill.

Insofar as the dark side of commercials go, all that concerns me is the alleged nexus between psychologists and ad creators or if such is a mere myth, the psyhcological aspects of ads. I'm sure anyone can connect the dots as to what I'm implying here.

Now, the good of ads. A few words should suffice to again point in the general direction of how I feel about the matter. Creativity (I hear there's a premium on it), Cultural value (ads are short snippets of culture), Satire (pokes fun at established customs/norms past/present), Education (some ads seem to be based on facts/truths), so on.

We do know — Joshs

Ok. So, what's understanding? Your entire post contains nothing about what understanding is despite beating around the bush for two paragraphs. :smile:

You are, in fact, equating, or confusing, the non-physicality of thoughts/ideas with their alleged immortality. Why should this be the case? Thoughts/ideas may be non-physical, but they are not immortal, because they do require the existence of a mortal mind, or minds, to think about them and to comprehend their meaning. Without the latter, they are absolutely useless.

Thoughts/ideas have an ersatz immortality only, because they are preserved in the written works of human beings.

And, by the way, you never clarified your understanding of the meaning of the term immortality. — charles ferraro

I merely posited the possibility of immortality but never claimed it to be so.

I'm not really claiming that ideas are immortal — TheMadFool

:up:

What logical necessity is there for all gods to be "omnipotent" and to all want contradictory things at the same time?

I think it is perfectly possible for there to be many lower gods ruled by one supreme God and each fulfill his or her own function in harmony with the others. — Apollodorus

Agreed, the thousands of gods that are, for example, part of the Hindu & Greek pantheon are not omnipotent, in fact their powers need a lot of help from cunning I'm told - reminds me of Superman and Lex Luthor. Might want to initiate an inquiry in that direction - brains vs brawn.

Also true that for things to get done, assuming there's some kind of committee/council of gods, harmony is a must. If not, any plans they have won't see the light of day.

In short, there really is, at least based on my previous arguments, no logical necessity for monotheism.

What I want to do now is to offer a different argument that just popped into my head.

First a few things that need to be clarified:

1. Polytheism, by my reckoning, makes a lot of sense. Look around you - there's one word to describe the situation earth is in, "chaos". There's one possibility that could explain it - many gods (polytheism) vying for supremacy or simply disagreeing with each other over the world and how it shoud be run.

2. Atheism: There are no gods. What's mighty interesting is a world without any god would also be chaotic. In other words, having many gods bickering over the world is equivalent to a world in which there are no gods, the results in both cases are identical - disorder.

Polytheism = Atheism. It's a paradox!

Suppose now that a believer is given the options:
1. Polytheism
2. Monotheism

The believer can't choose polytheism (1) because that can't be distinguished from atheism. Hence the believer will opt for 2. Monotheism. Put simply, if you must believe in the divine, you have to subscribe to monotheism (2).

One might then conclude the monotheist is not yet out of the woods because one god is incompatible with the facts of the world (the chaos/disorder therein). That's a (small) price monotheists are willing to pay so long as they can be distinguished from atheism which isn't possible if they were polytheists.

Make any sense?

An omnipotent god could make another omnipotent god. So there can be two omnipotent gods. There isn't- there's one. But if there's one, it is possible for there to be more.

People routinely underestimate what an omnipotent being can do. — Bartricks

It seems the argument for monotheism has nothing to do with the God's powers. See my argument in my reply to Apollodorus.

I just thought Christopher Hitchens' quote might just spice up the debate. See vide infra.

From a plurality of prime movers, the monotheists have bargained it down to a single one. They are getting ever nearer to the true, round figure. — Christopher Hitchens

Unfortunately, for the late great Hitchens, having zero gods (atheism) is a gateway to having not one but many gods (polytheism).

This is an adequate model if youre programming a computer , because computers don’t have to understand what is programmed into them. We do. What you described is merely computation . Computers aren’t capable of affective, goal-oriented relevance, which is essential to the understanding of language. — Joshs

Ok but what's understanding? Is there a good, working definition of it? Last I read about it, there are multiple definitions, all of them only half-true as it were. This video seems relevant:



Replace "consciousness" with "understanding" and you'll get the idea.

To cut to the chase, we don't understand what understanding is.

I think that Ouspensky suggested that certain minds would be able to survive if they were developed in such a way to be distinct. Of course, Ouspensky's ideas were based on the ideas of Guirjieff, and focused on the idea of waking up beyond robot consciousness. However, I was not really sure what to make of the ideas that certain minds might exist beyond death, but not all, and it is so different from the idea of the eternal soul, or spirit — Jack Cummins

Now that I think of it, the distinct/unique ideas, attributable to single individuals, as indicative of but not necessarily ironclad proof of the nonphysical nature of mind has universal scope. For instance, Socrates has survived death because we have an idea [Socratic Paradox] unique to him but, here's where it gets interesting, a person who's never had an original idea in faer life can think of, ponder upon, mull over the Socratic Paradox. In short, what Socrates can do anyone can do too and for that reason, all our minds are identical. If then Socrates' mind can survive death like it does, anyone's can too in spite of that anyone never having an idea that it could call its own. :chin:

This is the issue that Derrida went on and on about.
Spoken and written language, and all other sorts of gestures and markings which intend meaning, exemplify bound idealities.Even as it is designed to be immortal, repeatable as the same apart from any actual occurrences made at some point, the SENSE of a spoken or inscribed utterance, what it means or desires to say, is always tied to the contingencies of empirical circumstance. Language is designed to transmit intact the pure meaning of a thought. But it is also the nature of language that it be expressed. And because it must be expressed it must expose itself to interpretation and new context. — Joshs

I don't know what you're on about but I believe language is simply a way of capturing sensory data (5 senses) and/or superimposing data sets so obtained and averaging them as it were to extract patterns from them. In both cases, words, nothing more than auditory/visual/tactile symbols, are assinged either to individual sense datum or to the pattern observed in them. I guess what I'm trying to say that language ain't that important - it's there for some reason (convenience probably) but it isn't something that deserves the amount of attention you/we are giving it. What am I saying?! I might have to eat my words.

Empirical verification of a mortal's ability to experience the existence of immortal ideas would require prior empirical verification of that mortal's ability to experience the existence of an immortal mind, or minds. — charles ferraro

You're on the right track but you need to work on it a more but only if I'm correct of course. I'm not really claiming that ideas are immortal - what happens to them, for example, when all living organisms capable of thinking about them die?

What I find intriguing is that there's something, (an) idea(s) to be precise, that survives a person's physical death and it appears, unfortunately for most of us including myself, this idea has to be unique to the individual as Khaled was kind enough to point out. If an idea that's, let's just say, the intellectual property of a person can continue on even after that person has met his end physically then, we're warranted to conclude that the idea is nonphysical; after all the person in question is physically nonexistent. If so, there's a strong possibility that the mind, since it deals with nonphysical ideas, could also be nonphysical. Common sense is often unreliable and, luckily or unluckily, in this case it seems to be telling me/us that just like if a certain machine churns out triangles, there's something triangular about that machine, a mind that continuously produces nonphysical ideas, must also itself be in some way nonphysical.

Here's another way to look at it:

The concepts alive, living, live, and others that I might've missed belong to the category life

The concepts die, dying, dead belong to the category death

In accordance with Sextus Empiricus, life and death are mutually exclusive categories.

Socrates could've been alive or dead admits Sextus Empericus.

Sextus Empiricus isn't sure whether Socrates died or not.

What does died mean, restricting our choices to the ones Sextus Empiricus himself provides viz. dead or alive? It surely can't be alive because alive belongs to the category life and died is about death. Thus died means dead. We know Socrates is dead and so, necessarily, Socrates died.

I'm afraid what you said there at the end makes no grammatical sense: “Socrates died when he was die” — Amalac

I'm sorry for that grammatical goof-up. It slipped past my grammar checker. :smile:

Please note that there has to be a difference between die and dead because if not the word "died" doesn't make any sense. "Died" definitely isn't the same as "die" (tense difference) but it can't be "dead" if "dead" is the same as "die". That would mean the word "died" is meaningless since it isn't "die" and nor is it "dead". What is "died" then? For the moment set this rather interesting puzzle aside and suppose that we had to match the word "died" with either "die" or "dead." My intuition, for what its worth, recommends that I should consider "died" as equivalent with "dead" and definitely not "die". This intuition may need further investigation but that's a topic for another discussion.

Returning to the Sextus Empiricus' paradox, he freely admits that Socrates is either alive or dead. Given that "died" is equivalent to "dead" as we found out in the previous paragraph. Socrates then must've died because he's dead! They're the same thing. :rofl:

When Socrates asks: "what is piety?" or "what is justice?" he is not simply asking for a dictionary definition. The question "what is X?" is the question of what it is by which we can know that in all cases something is or is not X. If we know what a triangle is then we are able to identify whether a particular figure is a triangle. If Euthyphro knows what piety itself is then he will be able to determine whether what he is about to do in the name of piety is pious or impious. If we know what justice itself is then there would be no dispute as to whether some action is just or not. — Fooloso4

You're going round in circles I'm afraid. Socrates wants to know what piety is? Another way of asking the same question is, what is the definition of piety?

If it's any help, look here :point: Prehistoric female hunter discovery upends gender role assumptions.

Women actually hunted and, sorry guys, prey may have included men. :heart: :death:

In some ways the philosopher and the sophist are the same. I think the key difference is with regard to intention — Fooloso4

I thought it was the fat paycheck!

Aristophanes makes Socrates the leader of a group of sophists at his "thinkery". — Fooloso4

Come to think of it, Aristophanes may have had his own (hidden) agenda in painting Socrates as a sophist. I don't care to get involved in personal feuds but I'm convinced that nobody's perfect or in the words of Voltaire, "meglio è l'inimico del bene."

The definition of “the pious” (to hosion) depends in the first place on the definition of “the Gods” and in the second on the definition of the “divine work” (to ergon) that piety is supposed to assist. — Apollodorus

My sincere thanks go out to Daniel Bonevac for teaching a very crucial fact regarding the very first steps taken by the Greek philosophers, particulary Socrates, the founding father of Western philosophy. Bonevac in a video, sorry the link to it is unavailable at the moment, were in, not surprisingly, linguistics, to be precise definitions. What use is thinking/talking/writing if we're, well, talking past each other and every disagreement we have is merely a verbal dispute as opposed to a genuine/authentic one?

Socrates was mostly concerned with definitions - piety, justice, to name a few. This might please @Banno to no end but did Socrates anticipate Wittegenstein and the linguistic turn in philosophy? Bonevac's assessment suggests that though he doesn't seem to realize that's what he's doing.

Just curious but have we talked about this before? Some of the posters here seem to have the ability to anticipate my thoughts! How remarkable. I'm going to sign all of you up for paranormal experiments. :joke:

Knowledge of his ignorance is the beginning not the completion of his wisdom — Fooloso4

:fire: :clap:

First, something that I want to throw out there for comments. Could it be that Socrates was actually a sophist who didn't charge the usual exorbitant fee for his wisdom sophistry? Something worth pondering upon. I recall reading somewhere in Wikipedia about how some Greek thinkers thought of Socrates as a sophist par excellence. No smoke without fire? Slander?

Regardding knowledge, I'm afraid things don't look so good. See below:

Definition: Knowledge is justified (argument), true belief (JTB)

Agrippa's trilemma argument:

1. All arguments are one of the following:
a) Infinite regress: each premise requires an argument and the premises of the argument requires another ad infinitum.
b) Circular: The conclusion appears in the premises.
c) Axiomatic: We accept sans justification the truth of the premises.
2. None of a), b), or c) are acceptable
Ergo,
3. Sound arguments don't exist


Knowledge is impossible, argument I:

1. If knowledge is possible then sound arguments exist. (JTB)
2. If sound arguments exist then Agrippa's trilemma argument is a sound argument. (look at Agrippa's trilemma argument)
3. If Agrippa's trilemma is a sound argument then sound arguments don't exist (the conclusion of Agrippa's trilemma argument)
4. If sound arguments don't exist then knowledge is impossible. (JTB)
5. If knowledge is possible then Agrippa's trilemma argument is a sound argument (1, 2 HS)
6. If knowledge is possible then sound arguments don't exist (3, 5 HS)
7. If knowledge is possible then knowledge is impossible (4, 6 HS)
8. Knowledge is possible (assume for reductio ad absurdum)
9. Knowledge is impossible (7, 8 MP)
10. Knowledge is possible and knowledge is impossible (8, 9 Conj: contradiction)
Ergo,
11. Knowledge is impossible (8 - 10 reductio ad absurdum)

The point is if one assumes knowledge is possible (line 8), one arrives at a contradiction (line 10). Therefore, 11. knowledge is impossible.

It would now seem that 11. Knowledge is impossible is true but hold on! Isn't statement 11 itself a JTB i.e. isn't statement 11 knowledge? Yes it is, no doubt.

What follows?

Argument P

11. Knowledge is impossible (JTB)
12. Statement 11 is knowledge
13. If statement 11 is knowledge then knowledge is possible
14. Knowledge is possible (12, 13 MP)
15. Knowledge is possible and knowledge is impossible (11, 14 Conj: contradiction)
Ergo,
16. Knowledge is possible (11 - 15 reductio ad absurdum)


Looks like Agrippa's painted himself into a corner. He proved that 11. Knowledge is impossible but, sadly for Agrippa, 11. knowledge is impossible proves that 16. Knowledge is possible.

I'm left scratching my head at this point. All I can say is, the entire set of arguments above can be summarized as,

18. If knowledge is possible then knowledge is impossible (argument I)
19. If knowledge is impossible then knowledge is possible (argument P)
20. If knowledge is possible then knowledge is possible (18, 19 HS)
21. Either knowledge is not possible or knowledge is possible (20 Imp)
22. Either knowledge is possible or knowledge is not possible (21 Comm)

Statement 22 is a tautology, it's always true but that's not it's selling point. Statement 22 simply means that knowledge maybe possible/impossible but we can't establish which and that, in my book, is just another way of expressing uncertainty/doubt. That's skepticism! QED. Though Agrippa might've shot himself in the foot at some point in this long argument, it all worked out in the end for skeptics. Agrippa (skepticism) proved his opponents (those who think knowledge is possible) wrong but in doing so he proved himself wrong but then after all that, Agrippa clinched the argument by demonstrating it was never about right and wrong but about not knowing. :chin:

Historically many philosophers who are considered great have been monotheistic and their philosophy geared towards a hierarchy with God at the top. Plato,aristotle,descartes,Berkley,kant,newton,and others.
How do you view this?
Where these guys deficient in their logic or where they on to something? — Trinidad

I guess it all boils down to the question, what's the difference between many gods, each with faer own specific mood and one God with different moods?

An explanation is in order: In polytheistic traditions, each god has a specific mood by which I refer to those qualities that are unique to faer e.g. in Hinduism, the poster child of polytheism, Vishnu is the preserver, Brahma is the creator, and Shiva's the destroyer. However, if you take a close look at such schema, all these qualities (creating, preserving, destroying and others) can be found, in varying degrees, in single individuals. A similar pattern can be found in the Greek pantheon I'm told. I suppose that someone, at one time, found out that the Gods were simply personifications of qualities that can be found in one person...monotheism is just a stone's throw away from there.

Another issue is a logical one. Suppose there are two gods, mutatis mutandis my argument should work for greater number of gods. One god, call it A and the other god call it B. Since both are gods then everything true about A should be true about B i.e. A is omnipotent, B is omnipotent; A is omniscient, B is too; and last but not the least A is omnibenevolent just as B is. According to the Leibniz's (controversial) law of the identity of indiscernibles, A = B i.e. there's only ONE god.

A different problem would be this: Imagine if more than one god is possible. All are omnipotent of course. If one commands there to be rain in Seattle and another commands there be no rain in Seattle then, it would have to both rain and not rain in Seattle. This is a logical contradiction. Our assumption that more than one god is possible is false. There can be only ONE god. QED.

I suppose by "prove" you mean the formal sense, rather than just convincing someone? That does seem like an impossible bar to meet. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm not sure but the word "prove" seems to encompass both the rigor of deduction and the uncertainties of induction and abduction. Your objection seems unfounded and, may I add, too pedantic; nevertheless it's good to know that technically, "prove" is reserved for deduction. By the way what word would describe abductive and inductive inferences? Any ideas?

It must've come up in the preceding discussions but here's what I like about science. There's an almost obsessive desire to legitimize one's work by giving it a scientific character. Most of the time this takes the form of mathematizing a subject of study and while some are amenable to quantification to some degree, others seem resistant to such attempts but all is not lost, there's always statistics to save the day given that its scope of application is almost universal.

However, this thirst for mathematics discernible in every field might be overdoing it a bit. Granted physics has worked its way up to the top of pecking order precisely because it's mathematical to the extent of being a dependent rather than a patron so to speak. There's so much more to science than just fancy arithmetic and geometry. What's non-mathematical about science, to me, is what it has in common with philosophy - clear language, logical rigor, to name a few. We could focus on this non-mathematical side to science too you know.

Sextus says: assuming Socrates died when he was dead, then that necessarily implies that he died twice (that is to say: he couldn't have just died once if he died when he was dead, if he died when he was already dead, then he must have died twice). But those who assert Socrates died (the dogmatists, those who assert that they know Socrates died) hold that he must have died only once, not twice. Therefore, since the assumption that Socrates died when he was dead leads to a contradiction with the dogmatists' claim that Socrates died once, and only once, the dogmatists must grant that if their beliefs were true and consistent with each other, that means Socrates couldn't have died when he was dead.

Suppose a dogmatist (someone who is not a philosophical sceptic like Sextus) presented that part of the argument instead of Sextus, surely they would think: it can't be the case that he died twice, he died once and only once; therefore the assumption that he died when he was dead must be false, since that would necessarily imply the falsehood that he died more than once. Thus he, the dogmatist, wouldn't say: “well if he died twice, he must have died”, because he won't accept that he died more than once. Sextus is trying to use the dogmatist's assumptions/beliefs to show how they seem to contradict each other.

And the other option is that Socrates died when he was alive which, Sextus claims, is contradictory since it implies that there was some moment in time in which Socrates was both alive and not alive.

If according to the Law of the Excluded Middle, if Socrates died then one of those 2 options must be true, and yet they both lead to what dogmatists consider falsehoods, then either the Law of the Excluded Middle is false, or the assumption that Socrates died is false. — Amalac

@Amalac

Now I get it. Apologies if I've hampered the discussion.

Sextus Empiricus seems to be saying this:


1. If Socrates died then either Socrates died when Socrates was alive or Socrates died when Socrates was dead (premise)
2. If Socrates died when Socrates was alive then Socrates was both dead and alive (premise)
3. If Socrates died when Socrates was dead then Socrates died twice (premise)
4. Socrates died (assume for conditional proof)
5. Socrates died when Socrates was alive or Socrates died when Socrates was dead (1, 4 MP)
6. Socrates was both dead and alive or Socrates died twice (2, 3, 5 CD)
7. If Socrates died then Socrates was both dead and alive or Socrates died twice (4, 7 conditional proof)
8. False that Socrates was both dead and alive pr Socrates died twice (premise: the first disjunct is a contradiction and the second disjunct can't possibly be true)
Ergo,
9. Socrates didn't die (7, 8 MT)

Speaking for myself, Sextus Empiricus has committed the fallacy of false dichotomy or false dilemma. There are actually 3 option, 1 more than those provided: alive or dead or die. Though life seems to be ambiguous as regards whether it's a state (alive) or a process (living), to die is usually considered a process as opposed to a state. Death, surprisingly, isn't ambiguous on that score, it's a state.

Thus,

10. Socrates is alive or Socrates is dead or Socrates did die

is the real truth of what Socrates experienced: alive (470 - 399 BC), died (399 BC) and dead (399 BC - end of time).

As you can see, Sextus Empiricus' argument fails when all possibilities are considered as I've attempted to do above.

However, it seems to have made sense to Sextus Empiricus and by all accounts he was no fool. We're tempted to come to the conclusion that Sextus Empiricus was resorting to cheap sophistry against the dogmatists but what's more intriguing is how the Greeks in Sextus Empiricus' time saw/thought about death.

Go back to what I said about our intutions regarding life - is it a process (living) or is it a state (alive)? Both views seem not to raise any eyebrows as far as I can tell. How does this state/process ambiguity in re life affect our intuitions of death? We seem oddly certain that it's a state as opposed to it being a process. What if it too is seen as a process? Is Socrates still dying at this very moment and...let's face it...till the end of time? Under this interpretation, just as I'm living and alive (as of this moment of course), is Socrates both dead and dying? It's puzzling. Nec caput nec pedes, I'm afraid! The Greeks were onto something, we just don't know what!

↪TheMadFool's wording of the relationship -- seeming to identify Consciousness with Mathematical patterns -- has the direction of perception backward. Patterns (forms), mathematical or otherwise, are what we are conscious of. Patterns are the external "objects" that our subjective Consciousness interprets as meaningful, including mathematical values & social relationships. — Gnomon

Excuse me! In my defense, the current mathematical, scientific and neuroscientific paradigms can't seem to be able to get the study of consciousness off the ground sans a plausible model one of which is consciousness, thoughts to precise, are so-called brain states. To my knowledge brain states are generally construed to be patterns in the neural network. It remains a matter of debate whether such neural network patterns can be captured in a mathematical formula or not but I'm sure there's a neat little math trick you can employ as a workaround. I'm fairly confident, based on the history of Newton' & Leibniz's calculus, that if the aforementioned task seems impossible, all that would be needed is a brand new mathematical tool that'll do the job in a manner of speaking.

If Socrates was dead when he died, then, Sextus argues, that must mean he died before (before dying) since otherwise he would not be dead when he died (when the process of the death of Socrates began), rather he would be alive.

Oh, wait! Sextus Empiricus is dead!
— TheMadFool

But he couldn’t have died twice, surely... — Amalac

Sextus Empiricus' argument is vacuous if he states that Socrates died twice is entailed by it. Died twice implies he already died once and the ball is now in Sextus Empericus' court - how did Socrates die once if Sextus Empiricus' conclusion is that Socrates didn't die? Sextus Empiricus has shot himself in the foot - self-refuting argument!

died twice — Amalac

Could Sextus Empericus kindly expand and elaborate on the "died twice" bit please. Oh, wait! Sextus Empiricus is dead!

Yeah, that made sense. Perhaps an objective math formula can bring about a state of synesthesia in a blind person so that their processing of the equation brings about a mental state that is similar enough to seeing so that they know what seeing is like. Although, in that case, some kind of experience is still necessary for knowing what seeing is like- the formula, if there is one, would simply act as a bridge allowing the blind person to make a "what is it like" realization about seeing without ever seeing. I don't know how much sense that made. — RogueAI

You read my mind! :up:

If I may be allowed some further speculation, the mind seems to be capable of so much more than we give it credit for. The "...bridge..." you mentioned in re a vision-impaired person is exactly the metaphor I'm looking for. The mind can, if we allow it to, bridge the gap between objective knowledge and the subjective knowledge that it allegedly lacks. Reminds me of phenomenology whose goal is, if memory serves, to bring descriptions up to the level of experience