Comments

  • Biggest Puzzles in Philosophy
    That person at the party who always behaves as if you have been best of friends for a long time — Tobias

    That might be me! :lol:
  • Whole Body Gestational Donation
    What happens to one's corpse? It's either buried/cremated and in both cases, perfectly working organs are destroyed when they could actually save lives. I say we harvest organs of dead people. Why would they mind at all?
  • What happened to the Weltanschauung thread?
    There are certainly conflicts between worldviews, but I suppose if I were to generalize I would say there is a war between people with no empathy and everyone else. The everyone else is involved in a lot of paradigmatic conflict. Which helps the people with no empathy. — Bylaw

    Yep, an aggravation that isn't an aggravation. Go figure.
  • Emergence
    ↪universeness
    If you insist.
  • Biggest Puzzles in Philosophy
    What if the biggest puzzle is there's no puzzle. A puzzle solver (h. sapiens) with no puzzle to solve. Precisely what Albert Camus was referring to, whether true/false - the meaninglessness of life. The puzzle is there's no puzzle. We want to understand, but there's absolutely nuthin' to understand, only stuff to misunderstand.
  • Gettier Problem.
    ↪Ludwig V


    Well, the question boils down to certainty, oui? The kinda logic that gurantees certainty is deduction, but then Agrippa's trilemma + good refutations. What hope is there for other logics? The obvious and most reasonable response is fallibilism, oui?
  • What happened to the Weltanschauung thread?
    ↪Bylaw
    :up:

    Then I was mistaken, apologies. Do you agree/disagree that what the world is going through is a war of worldviews?
  • What happened to the Weltanschauung thread?
    ↪Bylaw
    Indeed, worldviews may not be well-articulated, giving an illusion that it either doesn't exist or is ill-formed. By "it" I mean life. You have a point as to what I interpret as putting on a show, but don't be so quick to dismiss/judge a professed weltanschauung as a farce. It could be that no worldview is gonna is gonna make the cut.
  • Biggest Puzzles in Philosophy
    I consider them escape artists (à la Witty's "flybottle" ... Epicurus' "tetrapharmakos" ... Plato's "cave" ... the Upanishad's "moksha" ...) :smirk: — 180 Proof

    :up: Let me add to that most illuminating list ... nirvana. We're all tryin' ta flee from it all, but we forget it's a treadmill, we never get anywhere but where we alreasy are, oui monsieur? But be still, mon ami, but be still! :cool:
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    ↪javi2541997
    :ok:

    Wealth, Fame, and Power, the 3 (modern) transcendentalia. I intelligo.
  • What happened to the Weltanschauung thread?
    @Bylaw it is, after all, a war of worldviews.
  • Biggest Puzzles in Philosophy
    @ucarr considers philosophers as detectives attempting to solve a puzzle.
  • Any academic philosophers visit this forum?
    To collect samples, perhaps.

    I'm sure a logician might wanna include some of what we say in here in their book as exercises (find the fallacy).
  • Brexit
    A good documentary. Shows just how long it takes for the effects to be noticed — ssu

    Shouldn't there be some time limit to causation? I haven't heard of cases where a man hit on the head 50 years ago pressing charges against the assailant for a brain hemorrhage now.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Is Donald Trump a typical (American) billionaire businessman? Loose morals, domineering, money-oriented, etc.? :grin: Those are not my words, haven't met the man, so not my call. That's the impression some have of him.
  • How can metaphysics be considered philosophy?
    To say that nothing is everything, is to state a self-contradicting misconception — Metaphysician Undercover

    :up: It seems that you're not wrong but without being right.
  • Greater Good Theodicy, Toy Worlds, Invincible Arguments
    ↪Astro Cat
    Well, what about pain & pleasure as a guidance system? Axiology 101.
  • Emergence
    We're only talking past each other. Let's not ... :confused: — 180 Proof

    How can that be, mon ami? However ... you're better in all this than me and so we probably are talking past each other.

    By the way I prefer duotheism to monotheism - makes more sense to me.
  • Greater Good Theodicy, Toy Worlds, Invincible Arguments
    ↪Astro Cat


    Congenital Analgesia. A curse/a gift, both, neither?
  • What is the root of all philosophy?
    Appears to me skepticism has a mathematical structure akin to the cancellation of opposite charges resulting in zero. Since zero in isolation is impractical, philosophy with practical content must be irrational. — ucarr

    Exactamundo!
  • Emergence
    ↪180 Proof


    Opposites do cancel each other out e.g. fire boils off water and water douses fire. More to the point, I was referring to the inadequacy of monism as an explanatory framework as whatever the arche is, it has to possess opposite properties which in me book is saying something is both good and bad. (vide the problem of evil, a not all-good god; we need the devil).
  • What is the root of all philosophy?
    I like Tallis' response best.

    "In the beginning was astonishment."     — Manuel

    In Egyptian math the glyph for 1,000,000 is a sitting man with his arms raised above his head (in astonishnment), I can picture Jeff Bezos :yawn:
  • Emergence
    I'm sure I've pointed out to you what's wrong with that interpretation. The dao is an exampke of what western philosophers term "dialectical monism". Like entropy (i.e. disorder-order) — 180 Proof

    Yep, dialectical monism and hence, inter alia, monotheism - instead of two entities, one with two mutually cancelling properties, which of course leads to a problem (Epicurean riddle vis-à-vis the problem of evil).
  • Greater Good Theodicy, Toy Worlds, Invincible Arguments
    Plants don't have a nervous system i.e. it's impossible for plants to feel either Algos or Thanatos. Instead of modifying the laws of physics, God made adjustments to plant biology. May be God created the universe with plants in mind and not us. Remember Moses and The Burning Bush. God is a plant! :lol: That make us ... (bad) gardeners. :lol: Re: Garden of Eden.
  • Greater Good Theodicy, Toy Worlds, Invincible Arguments
    @Astro Cat, does pain make sense to you in evolutionary terms? Why did we evolve to feel pain and why is pain so damn unpleasant?
  • Emergence
    IMO, dao = entropy. (YMMV) — 180 Proof

    I thought the Tao was a dualistic entity consisting of two opposites.
  • What is the root of all philosophy?
    ↪ucarr
    :lol:

    The Pyrrhonist argument is quite simple and as powerful. For every thesis an equal and opposite antithesis (adiaphora). The scale of truth is perfectly balanced at the center. Hence epoché, post-aporia.
  • Emergence
    ↪Gnomon
    @universeness

    As far as I can tell, as Gnomon has done his homework well (he deserves an A+). The only ethics that's compatible with Enformationism is one in which evil is what good'll have to deal with and vice versa (harmony of opposites).
  • Emergence
    ↪Gnomon
    @universeness

    Gnomon's Enformer has all the qualities of God (as a creator/creative force, Eros aka life drive), but Gnomon stops short of claiming it is God. Much like in Taoism, it is one half, the ordering principle, of a pair of opposing forces, the other half being Entropy (destructive, Thanatos aka death drive). Enformationism also bears a resemblance to Empedoclean Love (uniting) and Strife (dividing).
  • Gettier Problem.
    That implies that most of what we think we know, we do not know. — Ludwig V

    :chin: Intriguing. Leads to fallibilism.
  • Greater Good Theodicy, Toy Worlds, Invincible Arguments
    Left to the reader as an exercise.
    — Agent Smith

    As a physics grad student I'm going to need you to put a trigger warning on this please     — Astro Cat

    :smile:
  • How can metaphysics be considered philosophy?
    ↪180 Proof
    :up:
  • Color code
    My friend, we'd known each other for only about 6 months or so then, was an Oxford University fanboy - he couldn't stop talking about how great Oxford is - once, only once, to prove his point, asked me an Oxford-level question which was why is grass green? I was flummoxed of course, being only 19 that time.

    @BC, informative post!

    Has anyone come across aposematism (warning colors in animals)? A life-saving rhyme for the layman re venomous and nonvenomous snakes is red touch yellow will kill a fellow (venomous coral snake); red touch black, safe for Jack (nonvenomous king snake).

    There's also the unkenreflex when animals assume a certain posture to display warning colors to show would-be predators that they're venomous.
  • Emergence
    Note -- The Enformationism thesis does not claim that materialism is "false", but merely that it does not explain everything of interest to philosophers, including ideas about matter & mind. Ironically, enformed dumb matter seems to be capable of self-reference : Aboutness. — Gnomon

    :fire: I like the all-inclusive (BothAnd) nature of yer philosophy.

  • Response to Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism
    Philosophy aspires to something more than utility. — Wayfarer

    :chin: That which is without purpose fades away (re vermiform appendix, which'll be gone in another thousand or so generations). Uselessness is a ticket out of this utility-oriented world. Let's be of zero utility and get the hell outta here! :grin:
  • How can metaphysics be considered philosophy?
    What Aristotle proposed as the fundamental question of metaphysics, is the question of why a thing is the thing which it is, rather than something else. He dismissed the question of why there is something rather than nothing as somewhat incoherent, unintelligible, and replaced it with the question of why there is what there is instead of something else, as the fundamental question of being. This puts causation into its proper context by recognizing that the idea of something coming from nothing is fundamentally flawed. — Metaphysician Undercover

    As @apokrisis once said, nothing is not nothing, but actually everything. Something can come from everything which to those who don't know of this equivalence is nothing. Creatio ex omnia (syn. nihilio).
  • Gettier Problem.
    ↪Ludwig V


    I would beg to differ. Smith is categorically not justified to conclude that the man with 10 coins in his pocket will get the job, because a shaky premise is always shaky, even if Jones does get hired.
  • Greater Good Theodicy, Toy Worlds, Invincible Arguments
    The pleasure-pain system is, in me humble opinion, our primary guidance system. We're supposed to do what's pleasurable and not do what's painful. That, of course, would require that this guidance system be well-calibrated i.e., ethically, good must be joyful and ethically bad must be sorrwful. This, however, isn't the case - the world's problems can be traced back to defects in this guidance system - and I suspect this is because, at least in part, it's been rigged for maximum selfishness and minimum altruism (just enough good to get along in what's a fragile community of others, people, animals, plants). A fine balance must be maintained between self-interest and other-interest i.e. the Goldilocks zone/aurea mediocritas/sweet spot is a really narrow band between too good and too bad and hence, few of us if ever succeed in walking this tightrope and make it to the other side unscathed.

    Ah, but I digress ...

    Our options
    1. An inept god, the bumbling fool
    2. Si comprehendis non est deus (self-sealing tyres are gonna sell like hot cakes)
    3. Malus deus
    4. Some viewers may find this disturbing
    4. Left to the reader as an exercise.

    @Astro Cat :rofl:
  • Response to Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism
    I'll admit I'm lazy any day of the week — Astro Cat

    :rofl:
  • Philosophy Is Comedy
    A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes. — Ludwig Wittgenstein
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