An atheist simply lacks a theistic worldview. S/he might, however, have a 'Platonic worldview' or 'Buddhistic worldview' or 'animistic worldview' ... Just as bald is not a hair color, atheism is not a belief about g/G (color) but about theism (hair). — 180 Proof

:lol: but it is a belief (about theism - that it's false). Ergo, atheism can't say of itself that it's a lack of belief, oui?

This issue must be setttled once and for all, to the satisfaction of both parties (theists/atheists) involved.

:up:

The difficulty arises when the ends and the means have opposite moral valence. This is precisely what ends justify the means is all about.

1. Bad means, good ends
1a. Kill 100 to save 500
1b. Kill 500 to save 100

2. Good means, bad ends
2a. Save 500 to kill 100
2b. Save 100 to kill 500

Morally speaking ...

i) 1a > 1b
ii) 1a = 2a
iii) 1a > 2b
iv) 1b < 2a
v) 1b = 2b
vi) 2a > 2b

In short
1a/2a > 1b/2b [depends on the context]

So it was all hype, no substance, but then the absurdity.

Let's do a recap. A Gettier case is a justified, true belief that isn't knowledge. However, in every case we've analyzed, we've always found that there's an issue with justification i.e. the person in question isn't justified to believe whatever it is that he believes. In short Gettier problems are pseudoproblems in re the JTB theory.

Well, yes, Noah's idea of companionship seems to be reproductively oriented, but I've heard men and women say "my wife/husband is the best friend I've had."

This may sound a bit puerile but in Marvel/DC superhero comics, teams and romantic relationships play a big part in the narratives e.g. poor Bruce Banner has Betty Ross and there's The Avengers and the Justice League, you get the idea. However, a big however, most of these relationships (friendship and love) eventually crack and sometimes turn into rivalry and even open animosity. What's the takeaway? Find companionship when you can, but don't be surprised if relationships hit the rocks, and you're back to being alone?

We do experience Being, both in others and ourselves. I am and I can see you are. What's amness and areness?

Yes, so we either have two or more worlds in a box, or they’re not really worlds. Either way, it’s different than there being just one state and we just don’t know.
OK, they’re not actually going to do it with a cat because there’s no way they’re going to get a live cat state to interfere with a dead cat state. The cat may be both dead and alive in the box, but superposition is more than that, requiring some sort of interaction (interference) between the two states. — noAxioms

I'm just surprised that the statement that describes the Schrödinger =n isn't that of ignorance (The cat may be dead or the cat may be alive, we don't know) but of knowledge (the cat is both dead and alive, we know).

@Gnomon

Last time I checked, Planck units were proposed to bring some naturalness to our units. The SI and the English FPS systems are, as you all know, arbitrary i.e. there's nothing about a meter or a foot that would make us go "Aah! That's why the meter/foot was chosen!"

Moreover the Planck units, their size, is some kinda lower limit for science, anything smaller is indiscernible; it's the highest resolution science can offer.

I'm not sure if the universe is analog/digital, but lengths of lines, I've heard, are continuous as opposed to discrete.

Well, one thing's for sure, ChatGPT is smarter than me!

One simple test, I'm sure extremely difficult to perform given the volume of literature out there, that could tell a person from an AI is to calculate a novelty index for answers to questions put to it. It looks as though ChatGPT is merely regurgitating information it has encountered i.e. for every answer it gives you'll find a person, living/dead, who gave that exact answer at some point in time. Of course, it needn't be mentioned, some humans too will fail the test, but we're talking about humanity as a collective.

From Ben you can leap to Soren borrowing from William:

"Better well hung than ill wed." — Paine

:lol: Allah Rahim.

Noah took two of each animal on his Ark.

Other than that, you're charitable and friendly in your interactions and we would like to be able to keep you here if we can. — Baden

Much obliged!

And yet ataraxia (i.e. wei wu) and eudaimonia eludes you, amigo. Maybe you're skepticism is postmodern (or Gorgiasian) rather than Pyrrhonian? — 180 Proof

Correctamundo señor! I haven't been able to make the connection between aporia and ataraxia. I believe I must've read some St. Augustine/St. Aquinas whomsoever of the two mocked/critiqued this claim by Pyrrhonists.

Gracias for the kind words.

My Pyrrhonism, intended/accidental, makes me what in the world of espionage would be called a double agent, a traitor to both sides, just like @Gnomon, who's facing a lot of flak from the very people he wants to serve ... in good faith, presumably.

I have no option but to agree with your appraisal and recommendations. My mappa isn't going to help us navigate the territoria in any meaningful way.

Last I checked, Pyrrhonism was in and of itself a weltanschauung and my agnosticism dovetails into it.

My pessimism may be peculiar to me though - haven't had much luck in life.

Nihilism is arrived at via elimination/cancellation - 180 Proof very often points out how all religions cancel each other out, leaving nothing but nothing.

Virtue ethics is my preferred ethical theory for a simple reason - the sage is moral.

as AS usually is, is nice, and he certainly comes across as a nice guy. But it has to be followed up with actual changes in posting behaviour. We're not being unreasonable to ask for that. — Baden

Socrates did accept the verdict of the Athenian court. Not that I compare myself to Socrates. It's just that I should meet the standards of the community I'm part of. I hope the charges against me are limited to quality issues.

No I don't. IMO, Gnomon hasn't made a logically valid or conceptually coherent case for his "ideas". This is why I question them. — 180 Proof

I understand.

Well, don't hold me to this, but I probably won't respond again until Gnomon addresses the questions I've put him. That Gnomon can't, I believe, confirms in the context of this philosophy site that he is, in fact, a pseudo-philosophizing charlatan – a crypto-aristotlean fantasist who copy & pastes out of context passages from mostly derivative science writings – whose self-proclaimed "Enformationism, BothAnd & Meta-Physics" are based on his miles wide and barely an inch deep incomprehension of both philosophy and science (which quite a few other members have constructively pointed out to him over the years). I like to rodeo clown bulls***, ... though Gnomon is probably one who will get away. — 180 Proof

@Gnomon is, ex mea (humble) sententia, constructing a more elaborate interpretation of The Matrix which is itself based off of The Simulation Hypothesis (Nick Bostrom et al). What I mean to say is if you find Gnomon's Enformationism to fall short of the philosophical mark, you need to have a strong argument against The Simulation Hypothesis. Didn't you like The Matrix movies? I did although I'm deleted in the end. :cool:

There was nothing philosophical about the OP, so I deleted it. Agent Smith Please stop spamming us with low effort OPs or you will be banned. — Baden

Okie dokie mon ami.

Your own worldview is interesting - the one salient feature I recall of it is that you seem to be trying to solve a deep mystery. You have multiple leads, tying them up into a coherent belief system is not going to be easy.

Then it's been deleted. :sad:

It was there just a minute ago, now it's gone! It's probably in the lounge. Try there if you would like to post.

Ah I see your problem.

Well I gave a number of examples. John want to save one person - Mark. This is an end, do you agree?

To do so he kills 100, this is the means to his end, do you agree? Each time he kills someone, he says "for Mark!"

He now comes to you and wants your advice - does his means justify his end. What do you say? — PhilosophyRunner

An attempt at a resurrection of our discussion. I believe you're on the right track. Items 2 and 3 on my list are a bit off, but I tell myself all moral theories are ... a bit off and that makes me feel so much better. How would you have it be then? Should I swap 2 and 3?

I read that argument somewhere, probably in a half-read book on philosophy. It does have a point to it - the extension of the word "equal" is the same as the extension of the word "unicorn" to wit the null set $\phi$. Nothing in reality is equal. How then do we have the concept of equality? It can't be a form extracted from real instances. Whence then equality?

That said we do think in terms of hypotheticals - we have a powerful imagination - the movement from very different to a little different to equality may not be as difficult as it's made out to be or impossible.

I learned — unenlightened

Superb! I really am happy for you mon ami. Few people can say that, loneliness killing them off. Have you tried looking at it from an evolutionary standpoint? Who said united we stand, divided we fall? What about Ben Franklin who uttered "we must hang together or assuredly we will all hang separately "

That's there, true. I don't deny there are some coming-of-age rituals in many traditions that involve solitary trips into the unknown. However, the objective here seems to be to teach a lesson to wit that you won't last 5 minutes in the wild unless you have someone watching your six. Our ancestors were no fools, mon ami.

Jannat = Summa Cooperante!

:rofl:

Neoliberalism obviously can't surgically separate, for it, the conjoined twins (economic growth) and (guns, drugs, suicides, mass shootings).

Al-haqq (The Truth), what is it?

No one really knows exactly whats going on at the quantum level. If you simply follow the math and avoid all this metaphysical stuff, you do well at predicting. Apparently. Once the science popularizers get into the game, however, you see the Earth in basketball nets. Best to let the Q-physicists argue it out. My opinion. FWIW. Not much — jgill

Danke! I recall saying that Schrödinger's =n is not a mathematical contradiction but is an English (natural language) contradiction.

Well it's an optimistic attitude. Actually it was advocated by Augustine, although it's fallen into disfavour since. — Wayfarer

I like it nevertheless.

according to some doctrines, there evil cannot be absolute, for it comprises the privation of the good — Wayfarer

Somehow I believe you. :up:

:rofl: Absolute evil is the reflection/mirror image of Jesus in Christianity and the Buddha of Buddhism. Moses and Muhammad, although good, were quite ambiguous, speaking from the standpoint of modern ethics, oui?

Hadta post this somewhere! :lol:

Well then what explains all the Sturm und Drang mon ami?! Why the hullabaloo if the cat is simply dead OR alive?

By “thought system” do you by chance mean science? Science is more of a method. — praxis

:up: Like philosophy is one.

I agree with this, but it doesn't mean that self can't be studied like any other mental process. It's just a bit more difficult. — T Clark

The Hard Problem of Consciousness! :up:

The subjective nature of our experience of our selves precludes any attempt to analyze it objectively. I feel most studies on Being end in tautologies like Being is existence.
— Agent Smith

You can't really talk about the nature of reality without talking about the nature of the self. This goes back to that whole consciousness thing. People seem to think it is impossible to understand, but I don't see it that way. — T Clark

One has to understand oneself and reality in a way that is unique to onself. We're all wearing, how should I say this?, a pair of unique-to-us tinted glasses. The hue of the universe is determined by those glasses and when we self-reflect, as by looking in a mirror, the effect of the glasses is still there. This is what I mean by subjective view of the other and the self.

Any thesis is significant to its antithesis and vice versa for a simple reason: they contradict each other. In terms of the ideaverse, the mental counterpart of the physical universe, two opposing ideas/philosophies can be construed as two different alien species coming into contact with each other. I guess the conflict that characterizes such encounters is actually (good) practice - how we resolve our differences becomes important - for future interaction with real ETI.

You thought correctly. And importantly this is a testable hypothesis that has been experimentally verified. — PhilosophyRunner

I should've worked harder in high school.

I hope that some sneaky internal group of Russian dissenters, have 'knobbled' any such clock on the Russian side and have some plans to do something similar to whatever long term intentions Putin and his cronies have. — universeness

As we can see whomsoever it was that, long time ago, claimed nuclear weapons are pointless, is right on the money. Nobody can use it. It's just there for show - a weapon that can't be used is useless, oui?