Comments

  • Superficiality and Illusions within Identity
    Right, but the proof at which it says x = x I'm unsure with. — john27

    I didn't say x = x and if I did, it's exactly what I would say:

    I am that I am. — :fire:
  • What is the root of all philosophy?
    Yin contains yang and yang contains yin, so in what way are they "mutually annihilatory"? — 180 Proof

    Theism and Atheism cancel each other out, oui? Unless you mean to say there's theism in atheism and atheism in theism (@Gnomon :chin:)
  • Chess…and Philosophers
    Nah— just having fun. — Mikie

    :smile:
  • What is the root of all philosophy?
    ↪Gnomon
    Oh! So you mean to say both our subjective side and our objective side have to be taken into consideration to complete the picture (of reality)? Neither trumps the other, they're both equal even if opposites.
  • Ahmaud Arbery: How common is it?
    ↪180 Proof
    :ok:
  • Superficiality and Illusions within Identity
    ↪john27
    Do the math! If the math says x then x it is, oui?
  • Superficiality and Illusions within Identity
    ↪unenlightened
    As I said we could be, probably are, deluded. The self is non-predicable. It can't be said to be this or that, it just is (patior ergo sum) ... as a/the thinker, a thinking thing.
  • Superficiality and Illusions within Identity
    I'd say sure, if by "thinking thing" one would include all forms of awareness as thoughts; thereby, for example, granting that lesser lifeforms are also thinking things. (I'm not big on Cartesian implications of the cogito.)

    At any rate, good enough for me to agree.     — javra

    Well, looks like you have an agenda mon ami. Go right ahead.
  • Emergence
    ↪Gnomon


    I don't understand how people can be receptive to the idea that the universe could be a computer simulation and at the same time deny the possibility of God. Programmer(s) = God(s). A distinction without a difference in your favor mon ami.
  • Truths, Existence
    ↪Hallucinogen
    :ok: I'm tired. You win by default. :smile:
  • Superficiality and Illusions within Identity
    ↪javra
    The self is not predicable i.e. it can't be said of the self that it is wise or foolish. It is only and nothing more or less than a thinking thing.
  • Ahmaud Arbery: How common is it?
    Not to downplay the tragedy of black lives lost, but I strongly feel that we need to understand the mindset of the men in blue. What goes through the mind of a police officer when he sees a black man/a white man/etc.? Math (statistics and probability) may be able to aid cops make good decisions e.g. if they were told that not every black (non-white) person is a (potential) criminal these sorts of events wouldn't occur or would occur fewer, more understandable, times. There seems to be some kind of obviously flawed heuristics which the police seem to be employing when on patrol which results in a disproportionate number of innocent people from the black community being injured/killed.
  • Superficiality and Illusions within Identity
    illusions to whom? — javra

    Good question! Illusions to the thinker (the true self).
  • What is the root of all philosophy?
    ↪Gnomon
    Both can't be right because they're mutually contradictory. As part of yin-yang duality, they're mutually annihilatory, not complementary. What we can do is find the middle ground i.e. find a compromise and say that the subjective and the objective are two very different windows to reality with no overlapping magisteria. So if I say God exists, I don't mean it in an objective, provable sense and when I say God doesn't exist, I don't mean it in a subjective, unprovable sense.
  • Superficiality and Illusions within Identity
    ↪javra


    As you can see we run into trouble in trying to get a fix on the self - it's in the simplest sense the thinker and I'll leave it at that.

    As for the equation, are you denying that the self to the self is the true self and also that the self to others is the true self? What's left then to be the true self? In me humble opinion combining the two selves makes more sense than opting for either alone even though both could be are illusions.
  • Descartes and Animal Cruelty
    Cogito Patior ergo sum — :cry:
  • Is this answer acceptable?
    North Korea — Baden

    Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)! :lol:
  • Superficiality and Illusions within Identity
    ↪javra
    No, I'm not advocating a Berkeleyan perspective. The self may exist even when not perceived for all we know. However, knowledge (epistemology, not ontology) of the self consists of the self to the self or the self to others; there's no third alternative, unless of course, the tertium quid is God who, as is rightly thought of, possesses true sight (YHWH/Allah knows the true identity of each and every one of us).
  • Superficiality and Illusions within Identity
    ↪javra


    That be true. We could all be delusional, rendering my equation useless. What's the alternative then? As far as I can tell, terium non datur, either I in my own eyes or I in the eyes of others. If both are wrong then that's all there is, case closed, oui?
  • Gettier Problem.
    ↪Ludwig V


    The crux of the problem is

    1. A premise is false (in this case Brown is not the man who'll get the job)

    and yet

    2. The conclusion is true (coincidentally Smith has 10 coins in his pocket)

    This happens with invalid arguments. In short the conclusion isn't justified and so, there's no problem at all, oui? All we have is an invalid argument.
  • Deaths of Despair
    ↪Mikie
    :blush: I deserved that!
  • Superficiality and Illusions within Identity
    ↪john27
    Do the math!
  • Truths, Existence
    ↪Hallucinogen
    I don't feel the need for math (fields) to explain/discuss religion unless it clarifies the matter instead of obscuring it (further). In a universe consisting of 2 points, a god that's omnipresent is in both points. That's all there is to omnipresence. Since we're discussin' the god of religion, and you insist that He's in hell too, point me to a passage in scripture that says God is in hell.
  • Life is a competition. There are winners, and there are losers. That's a scary & depressing reality.
    Luckily my loaded question has no efficacy as to affecting someone’s life as compared to the reality of our social existence, oui? — schopenhauer1

    Oui! :rofl:
  • Superficiality and Illusions within Identity
    There are 3 selves (identities)
    1. Who others think you are (So)
    2. Who you think you are (Ss)
    3. Who you really are (Sr)

    Sr = So + Ss

    Do the math! Quite interesting.
  • Emergence
    ↪180 Proof


    I read those links to TPF posts you provided. Indeed, if @Gnomon claims his Enformationism Theory is scientific then the theory must entail some observables (it should be falsifiable thereby). However, it appears that Gnomon is using science to support his theory of it from bit while his theory itself is nonscience.


    How does Gnomon's theory differ from ID/Creationism in, most importantly, non-trivial ways? He's made it amply clear that he's not propounding a deity behind the curtains i.e. the ordering principle which he calls Enformy is not God as is found in religion. This distinction is critical to Enformationism Theory if it's to avoid being identified as some spinoff of, or god forbid nothing but, religion. However, is this a distinction without a difference? That's I reckon the right question to ask. Is Enformy just another name for God? Hence, I suppose, your misgivings that Gnomon is guilty of sophistry. Is it just wordplay?
  • Descartes and Animal Cruelty
    ↪Vera Mont
    You're bang on target mon ami!
  • How can metaphysics be considered philosophy?
    Well, as seems to be most prevalent, the definition of truth philosophy is most concerned about is one that appears in the correspondence theory of truth (a proposition must match with reality).

    Metaphysics, on the other hand, subscribes to the coherence theory of truth which is about finding a model that fits the facts (as usually determined by observation). Mirabile dictu, metaphysics is one of two components in science viz. hypotheses generation, post-observation.

    In conclusion, it depends on which theory of truth one is employing.
  • Descartes and Animal Cruelty
    I think it’s possible to be critical without being totally cynical. I am disappointed to learn about this aspect of Descartes’ character, but that doesn’t mean I want him struck from the history books. Understanding something of Descartes’ philosophy is important for understanding modern culture. But I agree, there’s plenty to be critical of. As that passage says, at the very least, Descartes ought to have known better, and many purported devotees of his ‘mechanist’ philosophy used it to justify enormous suffering.

    (By way of antidote to the above, see this tear-jerker:

    https://wapo.st/3Y1hqOb     — Wayfarer

    Here's what to me is a point in favor of Descartes - at least he was being consistent. We, on the other hand, allegedly love dogs and cats, but meat is on the menu. Perhaps this is a transitional phase, we're moving towards a more enlightened ethics and part and parcel of that is the meat paradox (our love of animals while we farm them in what can only be described as cruel conditions for meat).
  • Chess…and Philosophers
    ↪180 Proof
    I suspect the OP is trying to correlate the (possibly imaginary) high IQ of chess players (amateurs and pros) with the superior (post-training) analytic skills of philosophers (neophytes & veterans).
  • Deaths of Despair
    ↪Mikie
    My source is my intuition, but that's not what's important - what is is that you cited some statistical studies to back up your claims. :up:

    Now the bad news - you haven't been able to identify neoliberalism as the cause of the social maladies you talk about in your OP. There should be a multiplicity of other causally-potent forces correlated with suicide, mass shootings, drug overdoses, etc. and you've decided to point the finger of blame on a probable, not a certain, at most contributory, cause (neoliberalism). This is a fallacy, the fallacy of oversimplified cause.

    That said, we can, for the moment, ignore these flaws in your thesis and still have a fruitful discussion.
  • Convergence of our species with aliens
    A crutch that only cripples you. :pray: After all, philosophical suicide is painless, no? — 180 Proof
    Gaslighting. Making someone think s/he's sick when actually not and then prescribing him/her medication to get better? :lol:
  • What is the root of all philosophy?
    ↪"Gnomon


    As a human, I'm inclined to agree, we have both objective and subjective aspirations. However, the objective and the subjective sides tend to contradict each other e.g. the classic case of belief in a deity in the absence of evidence and just like that we're faced with an intractable dilemma, a choice hasta be made between the two and it's an either-or, not a BothAnd.
  • Deaths of Despair
    Suicides, drug overdoses, mass shootings. They call these “deaths of despair.” — Mikie

    You've identified a particular period of time (now as determined by neoliberalism) as being characterized by the above mentioned phenomena. You'll have to make the case that these occur at higher rates than they did in the past. In other words you need statistics to back up your claim i.e. your claim that things have worsened since neoliberalism is statistical.
  • Deaths of Despair
    Really? Fewer people are dying? What's happening to them instead then? — Isaac

    The death rate now is lower than that in the past. We're getting the longevity bit right; now to work on happiness. The objective: A long, happy life.
  • Descartes and Animal Cruelty
    As a supplement to the OP: Vivisection.

    From the article above it seems that at least in the medical profession there was an attempt to justify animal vivisection as a "better" alternative to human experimentation; unlike Cartesian vivisection which was based on the belief that animals were mere automatons, medical vivisection acknowledges that animals do feel pain, but that must be ignored for the greater good (humanity's well-being).

    That said, opposition to vivisection came from the public and even from within the medical profession; in the case of the latter, some scientists were of the view that it (vivisection) was/is unnecessary. :up:
  • Deaths of Despair
    No. I think the word 'statistics' used without any statistics or reference to statistics is bull. Hence my, by my own criterion, unbelievable comment — unenlightened

    Fair! :up:
  • Truths, Existence
    ↪Hallucinogen
    Well, we haven't even agreed on what God or hell is then, have we? Your idiosyncratic God could exist in your, again, idiosyncratic hell.
  • Homeless Psychosis : Poverty Ideology
    ↪BC


    You know what I realized is absolutely amazing about the US of A? If you can justify (forgive me Agrippa) a proposal well (read profitable) the powers that be will give their nod of approval. So someone's got to work it out, do the math as it were, and show how bad homelessness is for the US economy (GDP takes e.g. a hit of a coupla billion dollars, money that the country is losing). or, on the flip side, how good, monetarily, solving the homelessness problem is for the US of A. We can't just shoot our mouths off - we need to back up our proposals, speak the language people who call the shots understand. Everybody understands money, oui mon ami?
  • Homeless Psychosis : Poverty Ideology
    ↪unenlightened


    I did say that homelessness is a problem, just not for the government. The people out on the streets doesn't seem to negatively impact the country's GDP and that's why the government doesn't give a rat's ass about the destitute. This I feel is the hard truth we all have to come to terms with. Some of us are expendable or don't count in the grand scheme of things.

    You made a good point in the other thread about statistics. The US government must be placating Americans by responding to their complaints by saying that though there's poverty in their country, the rate of poverty (probably measured per 100,000 people) is the lowest in the world or, even better, below the global average. Some problems are not about numbers now are they? The army motto, if it's true to its word, is what's needed - leave no man behind.
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