It may look as if pessimism's roots can be found in unpleasant personal experiences but @180 Proof said, not too long ago, that given that there are more ways for things to go wrong than right and given that there's an element of randomness involved in human affairs, creating the perfect conditions for probabilistic outcomes, one should expect the worst and prepare for it if one so wishes.

Optimism, on the other hand, ignores this simple truth and insists that despite all the myriad ways one experiences disappointment, one should expect the best. There's a noticeable touch of irrationality in such a mindset but hey, to each his own, right?

The whole idea behind it all is to keep the world running smoothly - the pessimist, believing disaster is imminent and almost certain, recommends that there always be a plan B and the optimist's raison d'être is to cheer up the pessimist and together they manage to do something neither of them could've done alone. I guess what I'm saying is that if you're Bruce Wayne and you tell me, "I'm putting together a team..." I'd recommend and perhaps even vouch for at least one optimist and at a minimum one pessimist.

To reiterate myself with some eloquence I suppose, an exclusvie pessimist will live but will want to die and an exclusive optimist will die but will want to live. Hence, to live we must be pessimists and to want to live we must be optimists. To want to live, we must first live, ergo, we must be both pessimistic and optimistic.

I often think about this question - Can you get something from nothing. Answer - Sure, QM tells us that particles arise in the quantum vacuum continually. Response - Well, the vacuum state isn't really nothing. — T Clark

I'm quitting the discussion until I can think of something substantive but I'll leave you with a joke:

What's greater than god, more evil than the devil, the poor have it and the rich want it?

Answer: nothing!

The Big Bang is the best theory we have of our universe's origin and the equations we use to study it are only good to about some billionths of a second after the actual Big Bang, beyond that, I'm told, the equations break down. When that happens, all bets are off, and the only thing we can do is to continue gathering data and hope that somewhere in there will be found the critical piece of evidence that can help solve this mystery.

It's odd that even though the accusation is particularised as a single conversation with one individual, and other relationships with the family are specifically mentioned as being close, still the accusation is taken to be of "the entire royal family".

Thing about institutional racism is that it is not personal. The policy is that the reputation of the Royal family is more important than the needs or comfort of the individual. This means in this case, that family is more important than race. That makes it institutionally racist, whatever the beliefs and other practices of any or all members are. Megan becomes "selfish" for finding that her race impinges on her life even in a life of privilege.

As Harry explained, the members of the Royal family are ALL trapped by the trappings of privilege. The cage is well gilded, and it takes another conflicting loyalty to even expose this, and thus open the possibility of escape. — unenlightened

First, the royals make a great show of welcoming Megan Markle into the family and in just a couple of years wants to expel her from the same. Why on earth would they do this, given the fallout would be worse? Something doesn't add up.

Another point to note: why is Harry's conduct in all this not being given due consideration? He's royal family too and seems willing to stand by Megan Markle come hell or high water. Commendable, no?

Just saying...

I see. What explains our innate susceptibility to deception of the kind that involves some degree of self-aggrandizement which I interpret as a, probably dangerous, proclivity on our part to build a world of sweet lies in which we happily live out our existence? And one fine day, we come face to face with the bitter truth and our world, the one made of lies, comes crashing down around our ears.

It's not about never having been exposed to the truth as you seem to think. It's about not being able to face it.

I love paradoxes and there seems to be one lurking in the background of all that's happening in the spotlight.

Typically, success is seen/projected as a team effort and failure as an individual slip-up. In this case, accusing the entire royal family is rather unusual don't you think?

Hence the necessity of Platonic realism to the natural sciences. — Wayfarer

I don't know how far this is relevant or true or reasonable but looking as math as "in the mind" as opposed to the world "out there" seems to be a misconception; after all to believe that would be to overlook a very conspicuous fact - the two seem to be "inexplicably" compatible with each other [ref: The unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences]. This can't be a coincidence, right? If math works in describing reality once or twice, it can be a coincidence but ALL the time (till date of course)? Smells fishy! :lol: We have, it seeems, in this the seed of a conspiracy theory of cosmic proportions.

Prove the following proposition, a necessity for your worldview:

1. All truths cause happiness

As counterexamples: disease, murder, apathy, corruption, rape, child labor, human trafficking, racism, slavery, discrimination, the list is longer but I'd like to see how you respond to these.

Bertrand Russell said that 'physics is mathematical not because we know so much about the physical world, but because we know so little; it is only its mathematical properties that we can discover.' — Wayfarer

Wise words there. I just realized that, although right now my mind draws a blank, there possibly are non-mathematical questions we can ask about the world or reality. For instance, off the top of my head, as a rocket blazes off in the direction of the red planet following Newton's equations of motion to a T, I could ask, "what does the rocket mean for humanity?" This is the best non-mathematical question I could think of at the moment, hopefully it'll do the job of illustrating the point that not everything about a rocket or anything else for that matter has to do with math. We're, as Bertrand Russell elucidates, perceiving only one facet of reality - there might be more interesting things going on in the non-mathematical domains of reality that we have absolutely no idea how to mine for valuable information. I could be wrong though as historians, anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, fields as yet to undergo a mathematical revolution could very well be the ones that have their own unique answers to the question, "what does the rocket mean to humanity?" Of course all this assuming our thoughts and thus the answers to the question themselves are irreducible to some equation involving biochemical molecules.

Saying the emptiness of a pot is similar to the emptiness of the Tao. The Tao is not nothing, it is no-thing. — T Clark

This squares with a paradox of nothing I discovered about 6 months ago.

Definition: Nothing is not anything.

Question: Is nothing "something" that we can define?

Answer: Since nothing can't be "something" and if nothing is "something" that can be defined, then nothing is "something". Ergo, nothing can't be defined.

The paradox: the existing definition of nothing is self-contradictory.

Conclusion: Nothing is...(unnameable) the eternal Tao.

The way it seems to me, we need to unpack happiness/suffering to get to the heart of utilitatrianism - what is it actually about?

Let's survey some things that make us happy/unhappy: a full belly, friends & family, good health, to name a few. What do all the items listed above have in common? It's obvious that they're all prerequisites for survival, not "just" survival but as achieving a state of being able to beget, provide for, rear, defend the next generation (our children) - this I'll call the state of wellbeing and it's linked to the emotion we recognize as happiness. Failure to or loss of the state of wellbeing causes unhappiness/sorrow.

As might be obvious to you now, happiness/unhappiness is all about the state of wellbeing which I alluded to above but in what way exactly? Well, being happy and sad - these two emotions alway succeed in grabbing your undivided attention - are like the LED indicators of a car's gas gauge: green (happy) means all ok, red (unhappy) means something's wrong. This rather crude analogy immediately brings to the fore the actual truth about this entire affair - to focus on the LED indicators (happiness/sadness) whichever of them lights up - is to completely miss the point that they light up only to pass on the message of success/failure in attaining the state of wellbeing and beyond that they're meaningless. It's kinda like the mistake you warned me about a while ago viz. mistaking the finger pointing to the moon with the moon.

To sum it all up, we need to move on/away from what, by my analysis, is a rather superficial understanding, perhaps even a total misunderstanding, of happiness/sorrow which is to think that happiness/sorrow are themselves objectives either to attain/avoid and arrive at the truth that the state of wellbeing is the real goal. With this realization we can perhaps get rid of the go-betweens viz. happiness/sorrow and all the complications/paradoxes/problems/dilemmas that go with them. Just a thought...

From the perspective of traditional cultures, both the desire for pleasure and the fear of pain are natural instincts that have to be moderated. In Greek philosophy, the appetites were to be subdued by reason which Christian philosophy inherited and modified. In Buddhism, there is an icon of the pig, rooster and chicken chasing each other, signifying want (pig), hatred (snake), stupidity (chicken). I read the other day the definition of asceticism as 'the skillful use of discomfort — Wayfarer

I fully agree that moderation is/should be a permanent fixture in all human affairs - the golden mean and madhyama pratipada make complete sense - but what I'm particularly interested in is hedonism's need for a, to use a computer metaphor, patch to make it morality-apt. Hedonism by itself doesn't cut it so to speak. There are other morally relevant elements as the right/wrong kind of pleasurable activities, the right/wrong kind of pain that are part of the picture of hedonic morality.

Interesting. I disagree. I think if we accepted truth wholeheartedly, we'd be much happier! — counterpunch

Truth is bitter. Why say that?

Intersubjectivity is simply the convergence of, sharing, broadly speaking, mental content shaped by particular worldviews that paint the world as of a certain character or being of a particular nature.

I was initially puzzled by the fact that intersubjectivity is based on multiple "observers" and the agreement of their thoughts and that's precisely how objectivity is defined.

How then can intersubjectivity be something different from objectivity?

I have overlooked a simple truth: people may simply agree on an issue without subjecting the issue to rigorous examination. A consensus can be arrived at in the complete absence of analysis. Ergo, the need to isolate this particular variety of agreement between people as an entity in its own right - intersubjectivity as distinct from objectivity.

it does have a pull, that's for sure. — Wayfarer

I wonder why? I've always been bothered by the fact that happiness and truth are not linked in a way we would've wanted. The truth usually makes us sad (the bitter truth) and lies seem to be very good at making us happy (sweet, little lies) and yet both seem to command equal respect from us. We seek happiness and truth with equal fervor but I believe one reaches a certain point on the journey to acquire happiness and discover truths where one of them has to go; we have to choose one to the exclusion of the other, both can't be had, and the fact that this is a dilemma, a tough choice to make, suggests something, right?

If you subscribe to total moral and intellectual relativism, then of course there is no such thing as a correct intuition. — Acyutananda

Perhaps Wittgenstein is the go to person here. Moral intuitions, their variety and seeming incompatibility, is probably due to the fluidity of the concepts good and bad as they participate in distinct language games. Moral relativism assumes, contrary to Wittgensteinian thought, that good and bad refer to the same things, hence the relativism; without that assumption, moral relativism would break up into separate entities which have nothing to do with each other. Right?

When I was at university, one of the books I loved to hate was B F Skinner 'Beyond Freedom and Dignity'. I always thought it called for a rejoinder named 'Beyond Reward and Punishment'. — Wayfarer

I'm not sure if I catch your drift but if you're referrring to what can be summed up with the notions of heaven and hell - the carrot of happiness (heaven) and the stick of suffering (hell) vis-a-vis morality - it's proof that hedonism-based morality had an irresistable appeal that people naturally gravitated towards but most such moral theories, religions inclusive, are quite vague and never got down to the nitty-gritty.

"Hedonism: the ethical theory that pleasure (in the sense of the satisfaction of desires) is the highest good and proper aim of human life. "

But intellect, rational judgement, and aesthetics need to be differentiated from sensation. Otherwise 'ethical hedonism' is reductionist in that it reduces every faculty to sensation and judgement to personal preference. Although of course in a consumer society there's really no alternative. — Wayfarer

Yes, these are few among many other elements that need to be incorporated into hedonism simpliciter for it to link up with ethics.

Fool's question was about "2", not 2 — Banno

I don't see how it could be otherwise.

Where do I begin? It seems Hedonism, in the Epicurean sense, is all about pleasure and pain, no strings attached, call this pure hedonism. The summum bonum, according to pure hedonism, is the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain and what's noteworthy is pure hedonism had nothing to do with morality and I think that's why the issue of what gives us pleasure and what causes pain never came up.

It was many centuries later that philosophers like Bentham, Mill, et al hit upon the idea of founding a theory of morality (utilitarianism) on hedonism and when that happened the need for caveats arose - a morality based on hedonic principles couldn't be based on the unqualified notion of pleasure (and pain) i.e. utilitarians now had to work out the details regarding "...what gives us pleasure and what causes pain..." The reason for this is obvious - the relationship between pleasure/pain and good/bad is, let's just say, complicated in the sense not all things that give us pleasure are good and not all things that cause pain are bad.

May I?

"Would you care for another glass of 'Two Barrels'*?"

*it's a brand of Whiskey. — Isaac

Great but "Barrels" spoils the show in a manner of speaking.

"2" could be code for my lawnmower. We do look to use to discern meaning. The notion that meaning is identical to use is wrong. Without some predetermined meaning, symbols can't be used for anything. — frank

I don't see why a symbol must have "some predetermined meaning". The algorithms for assigning meaning to a symbol and vice versa is as follows:

Algorithm A [When the symbol precedes meaning]
Step 1. Invent a symbol e.g. [imagine yourself coming up with a brand new symbol]

Step 2. Assign a meaning to the symbol you invented

Algorithm B [When meaning precedes the symbol]
Step 1. Meaning in need of a symbol because as when language first begins e.g. [that thing that flows down the mountain side, you can quench your thirst with it, it's transparent, etc.]

Step 2. Invent a symbol [water]

Step 3. Assign the meaning under consideration to the symbol

Plus, a symbol maybe given any meaning one wants: "2" could be code for my lawnmower and I have this feeling that language is, at the end of the day, code and the symbol-meaning relationship is completely arbitrary i.e. we have unlimited freedom as to what a symbol's meaning can be. Try it. Oh! You already have.

Strings are infinitely dimensional space
— simeonz

I have no idea what that means. — emancipate

:rofl:

What I'm trying to tell you is there may not be such a thing as a wrong intuition and therefore there's no "progression" such as that from 0% correct to 100% correct intuition. All intuitions, according to my "theory", are correct and reveal different aspects of an issue. A moral intuition, since you seem concerned about it, could shed light on different levels of thinking - from the behavior of individual atoms in a single neuron when one encounters the words "moral", "immoral", and "amoral" to complete, fully-operational, moral theories that could, in principle, being cosmic in scale.

1. "2 + 2 = 4" (with or without ↪simeonz's "cyclic group" qualifier) cannot ultimately be known. Its knowledge ultimately rests on a feeling of knowing, which is a kind of intuition, and intuitions are not objective [Edit: objectively] reliable as justifications for knowledge (because, for instance — Acyutananda

Intuitions can become more and more correct, — Acyutananda

How did you come to the conclusion that "Intuitions can become more and more correct" when you know that "intuitions are not objective [Edit: objectively] reliable"?

The way it seems to me, the two statements made by you (above) don't jibe.

There is another sense in which my 1. above is not trivial – the sense that admitting it motivates us to want to know practically how to avoid/prevent occurrence of the "feeling of knowing" neurological event when we are contemplating 2 + 2 = 5, and thus may lead us to learn how to avoid/prevent such occurrence. This is of epistemological significance — Acyutananda

Are you referring to wrong intuitions when you say, "the feeling of knowing neurological event when we are contemplating 2 + 2 = 5"? Well, I did touch on that and it's precisely because there are such "events" that we should be careful about relying on intuitions. Just so you know, 2 + 2 = 5 isn't always incorrect if you take into account, for instance, the fact that "5" is an arbitrary symbol and can be used, if we want, to symbolize the quantity |||| (four).

Perhaps, if you give this some more thought, intuition could be a mental process that arises from a deep understanding of how the mind works - its habits, its propensities, the capabilities and limitations of its constructs, its default states, its rhythms, its objectives - and that's why what we think are "wrong" intuitions may actually reveal very profound truths about the human mind.

I recall reading an elementary book on math for teachers and every chapter in it has a section on mistakes - what to expect, why children make such mistakes, what such mistakes reveal about a child's mind, and so on - and I think a similar approach should be used in studying "wrong" intuitions and even right ones too for unbeknownst to the conscious mind which works within mental constructs like logic and theoretical frameworks, the unconscious (intuitive) mind may actually be, in a sense, operating at the outer limits of such mind creations and "wrong" intuitions may reveal, in a manner of speaking, how we think rather than provide information on what it is that we're thinking about.

I think I'm off-topic but I had to share my own intuitions about intuitions with high hopes that it might shed some light on your concerns.

We can. — Banno

An example?

I don't see the relevance... — Banno

You have to be kidding me. If meaning is use, we should be able to use "2" in some way different to what it was intended for (counting) or, if we should forget about meaning and look to use, it must be possible to use "2" in any way we want. I ask you to summon your powers of imagination and use "2" in a way that doesn't have anything to do with counting.

Being clinically paranoid could also keep you from an untimely death. But the question for me isn't just whether you survive, it is what kind of life you live and what else you might be missing owing to such tendencies.

And then there's the issue of the jungle metaphor. Is that really a useful analogue for what we call real life? What is the equivalent of a dangerous jaguar? I can see some potential contenders but I really can't see a great advantage to pessimism. Advocacy for pessimism often sounds to me like the teenager who says, "I'm not going to fall in love so I can never get hurt.' — Tom Storm

Can you give me your email address? :joke:

A better way to approach it is to forget about meaning and look to use. Knowing what a number is consists in being able to count, to add, to subtract, to do the things that we do with numbers; not with a definition set out in words.

Wittgenstein wrote much regarding philosophy of mathematics, and considered it is more important work. — Banno

It does seem quite within the bounds of reason to "forget about meaning and look to use"; after all, humans and some animals like bonobos, ravens, etc. are seen as toolmakers and being so one entry in our list of priorities would be versatility in our tools. It's likely that we're more interested in how something, including words (and numbers), can be used rather than what they mean. Perhaps numbers too have uses outside their natural environment (mathematics) and can be put into service for other purposes for which they're, by a stroke of luck, well-suited for. Can you think of a non-mathematical use for numbers? I'll give it a shot, 666!

It all boils down to, is a matter of, life and death.

Pessism keeps you from an untimely death, optimism keeps you from a full life.

Imagine two people, X an optimist, Y a pessimist in a jungle. They hear leaves rustling in the bushes behind them. X, the optimist, thinks it's a cute little bunny rabbit and Y, the pessimist, thinks it's a ravenous jaguar. Who, X or Y, is likely to survive given this scenario repeats with a sylvan rhythm over the course of these two's jungle adventure?

That said, pessimism tends to wreak havoc on people's moods and I believe, some say, long-term melancholia shortens life-span. In saying this I'm bracketing out the benefits of never being disappointed that comes with adopting a pessimistic stance in life.

Did you notice that counting dashes or fingers is an act? It's not stating a definition as such, but rather showing how numbers are used.

The meaning of "2" is not set out in a definition, but seen in what we do with numbers. Meaning as use. — Banno

My understanding of Wittgenstein's idea that meaning is use is that a word's meaning is not given by a definition which purportedly captures the word's essence but by the context in which it appears. A word's meaning is given by how it's used which, to my understanding, is Wittgenstein's attempt to draw an analogy between words and everyday objects.

Take, for instance, a book. While some may be of the opinion that a book has some sort of essence which can be captured by a definition, Wittgenstein claims that a book - what it is? (it's meaning) - changes with how it's used. For example if I hurl the book at a person, the book is a weapon; if I keep a cup of tea on it, it's a saucer; if I cover a bowl of hot soup with it, it's a lid; if I read it, it's a source of information; you get the picture. Each situation for the book in my example corresponds to a context for a word. Just as the book's meaning is a function of how it's used (in these different circumstances), a word's meaning is also a function of how it's used (in differing environments).

On the matter of numbers, it looks like Wittgenstein is N/A. The meaning of numbers is confined to mathematics i.e. for a number, say 2, there are no other contexts in which 2 has a meaning. In short, the meaning of 2 isn't a use thing.

more curiosity about intuition itself, and discovery of the value of introspecting (prompted by trying to understand our intuitions) in terms of psychological well-being and development — Acyutananda

I have no issues with what you say and if I'd like to add anything it would be that:

1. Intuition deserves more of our attention because some of the greatest minds the world has seen have attributed their discoveries/inventions and whatnot to intuition and not mechanical, formulaic logical thinking.

2. Intuitions aren't always correct. Take for example the Monty Hall Problem. Per some sources, most people's intuitions tell them that there's no difference between sticking with one's first choice of door and switching doors after one of the doors have been opened but as it turns out that's wrong. This throws a spanner in the works for those who wish to examine intuition for its utility in cracking problems, easy and tough, because the success rate of intuition may be the same as that of guessing randomly. In other words intuition maybe just flukes.

3. I don't know how intuition and "psychological well-being and development" are related but we do feel upbeat when our intuition is right on the money, hits the bullseye, so to speak. However, when it's off the mark it can be very upsetting. It seems the knife cuts both ways.

more and more correct moral intuitions — Acyutananda

Perhaps this is related to your attempt to link intuition with "psychological well-being and development" and I agree to some extent with it. Back then, some 2,500 years ago or thereabouts, when people were just beginning to think about our sense of right and wrong logic was in its infancy and most of what they discovered about morality were/had to be intuitions rather than products of careful logical analysis. One exception though is Buddhism which comes off as a belief system that was founded on the bedrock of hedonism. I suppose the biggest hurdle in coming up with a sound moral theory was/is/will be our intuitions regarding good and bad as intuitions seem to bypass logic in most cases and that'll show when logic is brought to bear on our moral intuitions.

You're in some "mess", for sure, but leave me out of it. I'm moving on because you've made a fetish of 'inconsistent reality' for which you've not provided a single example. Well, good luck with that, Fool. Btw, Democritus & Heraclitus only propose descriptions of 'conceptions of reality' (not experimental models) which are not reality it. Again, your fetish makes you incorrigible with respect to this description-described (map-territory) distinction. :victory: — 180 Proof

:lol: It seems you've reached the end of your rope with me. My humble apologies if you found our conversation not as stimulating as you might've wished.

At this point, I suggest we disengage as our discussion is not going anywhere mutually acceptable. If I can think of anything that might end the deadlock and push the matter forward I'll let you know IF you're in the mood of course. Thank you! Have a good day.

You know what a parallax is, right? The visual object seen differently does not indicate that the object is inconsistent. Maps are not the territory, Fool; stop conflating descriptions with what they describe by assuming the descriptions are complete when they cannot be. — 180 Proof

You didn't reply to my second post about how reality is open to, squares with, multiple mutually inconsistent interprerations. Democritus, the laughing philosopher and Heraclitus, the weeping philosopher. Ring any bells?

That two models, each inconsistent with the other, are both, at the same time, perfectly compatible, with reality seems to point to a reality that plays both sides. Isn't that why we're in the mess we're in?

:lol: The photon's 'wave-particle complementarity' is no more of "an inconsistency" than is a coin with opposing faces because it's not "a wave" & "a particle", or "heads" & "tails", simultaneously. Photons are recognizable as such because, like anything else, they behave consistently — 180 Proof

:rofl: :chin:

You don't seen an inconsistency in light being a particle AND a wave? That it is both doesn't strike you as in the slightest bit odd? You're ignoring the fact that something can't be a particle and then, at another time, a wave. If it's a particle it stays a particle and if it's a wave it remains a wave. That light is a particle and not a wave or vice versa at different times (i.e. not simulataneously) doesn't, I'm sorry to say, help your case.

What is one? — Tzeentch

What is common to the sets {0}, {p}, {elephant}, {#}, {red}

I = ? — Tzeentch

I = 1 of course.

I would put exactly the same but as fingers. 2 plus 2 equals 4 because we literally count it with our hands. I guess this is the best proof. — javi2541997

:up:

2 + 2 = 4

I I [2] + I I [2] = I I I I [4]

:joke:

I thought we're at liberty to define mathematical operations to suit our needs. There's nothing true/false about a definition, it just is the way we decide it should be.

Also, to my knowledge, intuition isn't "rejected" outright in Western philosophy. It's validity as a useful tool in solving problems [what else is there for us to do? :sigh: ] is widely acknowledged even though we're completely in the dark about how intuition works. The fact that we have near-zero knowledge of intuition is a major stumbling block in advocating it as a reliable technique for problem solving. Nevertheless, some people seem to have a knack for it or perhaps it's just blood, sweat, and tears masquerading as intuition.

@180 Proof

The long and short of it is that reality sends us mixed signals i.e. it's consistent with mutually inconsistent descriptions which, to my reckoning, is a trail of crumbs that lead back to reality's doorstep. Reality is inconsistent as the fact that mutually inconsistent hypotheses (descriptions) may account for the same raw data we gather from observation attests to.

By the way can you cite some sources I can refer to? Thanks in advance.