Is Judith Thomson’s abortion analogy valid?

No, it isn't. It is a false analogy. In a false analogy, the two ideas share one common aspect, nothing else.

Through membership in organizations such as the United Nations, those in power get together and afford each other the natural rights that would make a lowly anarchist seethe with envy. Perhaps ironically, that dreaded State of Nature Hobbes so feared is regnant on the international stage, based as it is on his conception as the state as a person. — NOS4A2

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
A State has its own legal existence that the individuals that make up its population do not enjoy. I would say it's a naïve view, or even ignorant, to think that the nations exist purely to take care of its population -- food, shelter, well-being. Nations are political and governmental in essence. You must have forgotten that the memoirs of the ancient emperors were full of the rise and fall of their fortunes.

Like Von Miller and the assault charges against him, etc. — TiredThinker

And she was pregnant.

:sweat:

What did Aristotle have to say? — jgill

Have you noticed that there's no philosophy of risk because the point of philosophy is the contemplation of the world. It's a passive activity.

A nuclear plant disaster would vindicate both the stoics and the cynics. The former would accept it rationally and move on. The cynics would have plenty to write about.

I wish your team the best!

There is an inflated sense of belief in the power to measure risk, especially with technology, including artificial intelligence. From what I have seen, reliance on such technology often results in gross errors. It is likely that genuine risks are underplayed rather than overplayed. — Jack Cummins

Where then should we rely on?

Sorry, but 100% of all nuclear plant disasters were caused by human error and inadequate training. Ignoring warnings and complacence.

Honestly, we're doomed. We are the catalyst of our own extinction. At any given moment, we are building the AI to become our future's demise. Here's a thought experiment: imagine a world full of AI. No procreation needed as they could build their own family members and friends. They would be the aliens that we never had -- you know, the UFOs. We would be the creators of a population of aliens and UFOs. Problem solved.

One of the disadvantages for misuse which I see is the potential for identifying risk factors and seeing them in a concrete way rather than as possibilities. — Jack Cummins

Nuclear war comes to mind. Prevention is everything, because the actuality of it is the end of it all. So, we do not have the luxury of waiting for it to happen to assess how much risk we are taking. We need to have zero occurrence for it happening -- which means:

In particular, when risks are identified, especially in risks of human action is if the risks are taken too concretely. — Jack Cummins

We need to take the risks concretely.

It is in the context of actual and virtual possibilities that I am asking the question of the nature of risk. What is reliable and imaginary, and how do the two come together in proactive and preventative measures in sound philosophical thinking? — Jack Cummins

The central intelligence have the power to assess the possibilities. Of course you are asking in terms of philosophy. So, what then? Empirical tests and observations, which rests on what reality we're talking about. If we're talking about the ordinary world, then there's your answer. But if you're thinking about the reality of Schrodinger's cat, then you can have all the thought experiments you want.

Aren't you sort of generalizing that all self-destructive people are irrational? — kudos

Yes.

Most people who choose a path, destructive or not, have some grounds for doing so. — kudos

Now you're intentionally blurring the lines. I no longer know what you really mean here.

Carrying over to the mainstream of the conversation, in a climate where your freedom of choice were under arrest, wouldn't a rebellious path with aim of liberating the freedom of the individual be worth taking? — kudos

Meaning to self-destruct? If one dies for a cause, that's one thing. But if one just waste away because of discontentment, then that's a problem.

So the choice was between renouncing beliefs -meaning teaching truth, wisdom, and philosophy to Athenian youths - and death. So how was it not self destructive to choose death? — kudos

No, you misunderstood. To him, any of the choices of punishment is like death. I mentioned those already -- exile, renounce his beliefs, and death are all similar in effect.

See below, for javra's take on it:

Moreover, were he to choose exile and a renunciation of his beliefs rather than concede to his sentence of death, this would have served to obliterate the cause which he strove for. So, especially given that all choices pointed toward the destruction of his own identity, conceding to die was that one option what best served his cause. — javra

:100:

Hey, as to being debased by others, “javra” does translate into “cur” — javra

I see. :grin: I've never used this word before.

It would be appropriate at this point to ask you for clarifcation on what you mean by 'nurture and tenderness' and 'chaos and suffering.' This assessment would be opposite of someone who has achieved control over the 'will to power' as regards their attributed circumstances. Don't you find such individuals tend to come from backgrounds of adversity and pain? Would you represent this kind of character as common of someone who has been catered to every whim and pleasure their entire life? — kudos

Sorry, I still don't see how the "will to power" amounts to self-destruction and that the natural tendency to not choose chaos and suffering automatically betrays their background as the reason for being so. I was trying to tell you that even in the wild, they wouldn't choose self-destruction. Socrates was doomed and he knew it. Exile was not an option because he was old and didn't want to be separated from his loved ones. In essence, he was already destroyed by the powers that be. His choices -- exile, renounce his beliefs, or death -- all points towards the destruction of his identity.

Are we making up stuff as we go along in this thread? Because as I see it, statements like yours are generalizations with no basis.

I've sent them images of the process in the inbox, even how to quote. I think there's a language barrier. — Vaskane

:up:

-on the part of the little monkey, that is — Bella fekete

Tell me what you mean.

:lol:

I have no words at the moment.

If you want to alert a poster that you quoted them, click on the @ icon on the ribbon, just above, then type the first and second letter and you should get the correct hit for the poster's name.

The reason for ChatGPT’s inadequate answer the above mouse query (and to others like it that I have posed) is that ChatGPT is trapped in the Chinese Room. It has access only to arbitrary linguistic shapes. Because semantic regularities are often mirrored by linguistic ones, it can answer many queries in ways that seem eerily intelligent. Even so, it will always lag human intelligence. — Jonathan Waskan

This. The ChatGPT's first mistake is not understanding what a thing is -- it is carved out with holes for eyes and mouth. So its concern about the mouse not able to breathe is already misplaced. It's like talking to someone whose society did not know about jack-o-lanterns. Not bad at all, but there's the kink already.

But here's a real-life human interaction I just had. We went through a fast food drive-through. It was an AI that greeted us. We recited our orders and the AI responded accordingly. As with the human interaction, there's always a clear indication that one's order is complete. But then, the AI started asking if "we would like to order this, or that". We said no, that'll do it. However, it continued to offer a thing on the menu. So, my friend thought, how do we stop it from talking? haha.

One might think that the problem has to do with the expressions lacking ‘grounding’ in the real world. But purely from an engineering perspective, what ChatGPT lacks is internal representations that are more richly isomorphic to the real world. — Jonathan Waskan

This and other things.

Society runs on trust, and therefore needs to deter and prevent dishonesty. And this cannot be reversed because the dependence is one way, linguistically. — unenlightened

This is the key to the narrative regarding honesty (or dishonesty).

In my previous post, I maintained that honesty is a situational behavior, not a permanent trait. And that works with the fidelity of a given society or population.

Trustworthiness (fidelity) is, to me, the word more appropriate with a trait. (I can argue for this if anyone challenges it).

Yeah, but what was he accused of, and why didn’t he stop? — kudos

I'm not sure. It's a matter of debate as this is Socrates.

I was reluctant to address your observation about my writing; The idea that it might be better than it appears is encouraging. Is the deficiency a penchant for merely making connections between texts rather than explicating a thesis? — Paine

I wasn't talking about a deficiency. But yes, it is better than it appears to you.
Here's the full paragraph:

In the mythological explanation provided by Diotima in Plato's Symposium, Eros is the child of very different parents: — Paine

Truly, this, to me, is written by a writer, not by someone trying to submit an essay for a mark after having studied the recommended tone and population limit of undefined terminology and nouns squeezed within a paragraph, let alone a single sentence.

Keep writing.

Sorry to go off-topic.

What about who you’d call the grandfather of Western philosophy, Socrates? Someone who, as the story goes, chose execution over fear and groundless obedience to the natural order of his day. — kudos

I don't think you got the whole story of why he chose to drink the hemlock. It was a calculated decision on his part -- aging had a lot to do with it. His relationships with family and peers was very important. His identity was tied to his beliefs and how he lived. So, he was trying to avoid self-destruction by choosing, instead, to die.

This is interesting when looking at how Plato is working with Diotima's account. — Paine

I meant what I quoted. Your writing.

It is unfortunate that our language has taken to calling personalities 'illnesses,' and 'problems' because they are obsessive (could also be viewed as fore-thinking), depressed (could also be viewed as introverted and inventive), or anxious (could also be viewed as meticulous or full of creative energy). True, taken to extremes these become obviously problematic for society and the individual in question, but even then thinking of things as illnesses or problems is only moderately helpful as a metaphor to overcome, but this is not to be taken in the literal sense in my view; that would only serve to externalize things with no real hope of ever gaining any real closure. — kudos

It is not unfortunate, as you would like to see it. Observational approach to understanding the behavior or humans and animals -- in their natural order! -- points towards nurture and tenderness. We would not naturally seek chaos and suffering. So, establishing what's normal is really establishing the human psychology.

A baby monkey would cling to the terry cloth mother, than to a wooden mother. See Harry Harlow - The Nature of Affection.

"Problems" are meant to be solved, or analyzed. The human tendency to try to solve problems is part of continuation of life, as you say. If the word bothers you, then there are "cases" .

In the mythological explanation provided by Diotima in Plato's Symposium,.... — Paine

If I had written like this during my academic non-philosophy essay days, I would get a markdown -- in fact, anyone would have gotten a markdown. Those teachers did not know how the writer's mind works.

Can one still be deemed an honest person if they occasionally engage in deception? — YiRu Li

Honesty is a situational behavior, not a permanent trait of a person. Do not burden someone with that label because it isn't always necessary to be honest at all times. White lies serve the purpose of kindness. Of course, honesty serves that purpose as well.

Is 'honest' a noun or a verb? — YiRu Li

An adjective, if I take your question literally.

I am interested in a self-destructive individual, and how self-destructive tendencies can possibly be a source of spiritual pleasure that overcomes the pleasure of survival and subsistence. — kudos

It cannot possibly. You are conflating the symptoms with the cause. Self-destructive tendencies are a symptom of a deeper problem within a person, which is better relegated to the field of psychiatry and psychology. Instead of glorifying it within the philosophical discussion, we should understand that it is a problem.

Even the Cynics would not recommend for us to be self-destructive. The Stoics recommend a view of life in self-restraint. None of them specifically talked about "continuation of life", rather, the fact that you are alive still and has some work to do while alive. In other words, take care of the life you have by using wisdom. If living is tiresome for you, try to understand yourself.

I actually find BIV (brain in a vat) a boring thought experiment. It is because you are given a scenario already pre-arranged so that everything is as it is now, except you are actually hooked up in a machine simulation. And then the scenario asks you to argue whether your knowledge or belief is a true belief. To me it is a dumb thought experiment.

Isn't it because of the influence of materialism? That was the philosophical view which sought to understand the Universe as aggregations of physical particles. (As you probably know I'm generally critical of materialism, hence my OP The Mind-Created World.) — Wayfarer

:up: Yes, I agree. I also never agree with materialism as it removes the observer -- the sentient being -- from the narrative.

Yes, good passage. But what should we think of the thought behind it? That quantum mechanics removes the vantage point of the observer and presents the world as a collection of sub-atomic elements. We really have a "flat" earth without the interaction of the observer.

So, let's say that we should really think of the world in terms of atoms and particles, not the fabulous world we live in -- the trees, and the birds, and the bees. What does philosophy have to say about that? Because it would all eliminate the "illusion", the deception, or the errors in beliefs, or even the whole metaphysics itself. From now on, we have a one-dimensional reality -- it's all atoms and subparticles. No time and space to consider.

The truth is, we don't interact, or rather we don't act as if our world has no colors and dimensions. We make decisions based on the wholeness of existence, the three dimensional reality is what we see. We based our morals based on the whole people and whole animals. We have a sense of completeness or fullness or composition which the quantum world does not recognize. We think of ethics in terms of life, death, suffering, harm, pleasure -- which, again, the quantum world does not know about.

I don't understand why we are so torn apart because subparticles exist. They should be thanking us for being here in the universe. For the first time, someone had paid attention to them. People discovered them. That we aren't in a symbiotic relationship with them is something we need to keep telling ourselves. In the billions of years that organic life weren't here, nothing fucking happened. It's 80 billion years of blank pages. You can skip to the last page and it's still the same.

Stephen Hawking said 'whenever I hear of Schrodinger's cat, I reach for my gun.' — Wayfarer

Hahaha. :grin:

My take on that thought-experiment is that it was a rather sarcastic model to try and communicate the philosophical conundrums thrown up by this issue. It was kind of a joke albeit with serious implications. — Wayfarer

But isn't that exactly what you presented in your previous post?

And that ambiguity arises from superposition. This principle suggests that particles exist in all possible states simultaneously until they are observed or measured.

This concept challenges classical notions of reality and determinism. In classical physics, objects have definite properties and states at all times. However, in quantum mechanics, entities like electrons or photons exist in a superposition of states, with probabilities for each state, until an observation "collapses" these possibilities into a single state.

Does the act of measurement create the state of the particle, or does it reveal a pre-existing but unknown state? I had the idea it was the latter. — Wayfarer

Not ambiguity, but uncertainty -- the uncertainty principle. So, with that, the Schrodinger's cat experiment doesn't deny the definite properties and doesn't deny space time. It is actually more like a critique of the very notion of the uncertainty principle, which, in all fairness, is a principle about us! -- the observer. And it doesn't purport to state that all possible states exist, rather only two states -- is the cat dead because of the poison, or is the cat alive because the poison didn't detonate.

How is me suggesting that when conscious, intelligent life forms at any level. of the hierarchy - single cells, organs, people, etc. -- unite to form a larger entity, that that larger entity then that births a new singular identity in that unity, a higher consciousness. Gee, that seems to be the whole becoming greater than the parts. Your suggestion that the whole is greater than the parts seems to actually support my theory. — ken2esq

You seem to have missed the meaning of "The whole is greater than its parts".
Fractals being misused in biology.

There is scientific evidence for the notion that intelligence is fractal, that our cells are intelligent, that a collection of cells in a tissue is intelligent, that a collection of tissues in an organ is intelligent, that a collection of organs is intelligent (e.g., us), and that a collection of organisms in an organization is intelligent, and if organizations join together to work together (e.g. associations) those would be intelligent, too. — ken2esq

The whole is greater than its parts. We are called intelligent beings for a reason. An agent. If you're arguing that the parts make up what a human being is, then it sounds like you are committing the fallacy of composition.

What is the name of this study? — Saskia

Try Axiology.

I would say there's some truth in the first and a good basis on the second. An enlightened individual has an awareness of their own identity -- their way of thinking, their sense of morality and justice, and their own view of the world. There has to be some growth happening within the individual as time passes and as experience accumulates. The have to be changes taking place within the mind regardless of the external influences.

1.

This Enlightenment self is uninvolved with relationships to others, its critics claim, and is mistakenly held to be the creative center of its world and of meaning. This solitary self is an empty self, unencumbered and unsituated, an autonomous master of its own destiny through self-generated voluntary agency, by which it dominates reality. — Isaac Kramnick

2.

individuals as socially constructed, as never solitary but always involved in social relationships, selves shaped by history, tradition, and aspects of identity that society and social classes construct and over which individuals have little control. — Isaac Kramnick

The few individuals in history who we believe had made the world great have been made great because of the narrative that the great historians had written. True, these individuals had sacrificed greatly and made great contributions to the world than the average person, but because the spotlight was focused on them, we forget the others who performed the grunt work.

:blush: I know what you're referring to. I read your posts in this thread:
Culture is critical

And there's nothing wrong with your posts. You are writing with the knowledge of the American education system. I did understand what you're trying to say. One has to understand the competitiveness in that educational system to understand your posts. The background details are needed if others are to respond on point.

Yes, I can think of another way to begin the discussion but I am too discouraged. It is like I am coming from Mars with such a different point of view, no one can relate to what I am saying. I am criticized for not explaining myself but I have worked hours on those explanations only to have them rejected. I don't mean anyone is arguing against what I have said. That would require having an understanding of what I said, and there is no understanding of the information I have provided. So now what?

So what is the correct form for opening a discussion and what is the best way to keep a thread on topic? — Athena

So there, I just responded to the above question.

Suppose Camus and Sartre wrote great novels for expressing their philosophical ideas in them. — Corvus

I don't know. Accessibility comes to mind -- they want their works to be more accessible to their readers than writing nonfiction (which was peer-reviewed, academically, and published in journals). The cafè writers, as they're known, I guess.

That sounds poetic metaphor. — Corvus

It's more than that. It's actually a philosophical nuance of realism.

Can you re-state your original post?

There is a difference between your cup in the kitchen and the existence of the world. — Corvus

It only takes a grain of sand to know the world.

Does that mean that when observation is not operational, do you stop believing in the existence of the world during the time of no observation? If you keep believing in the existence when the observation stopped, what is it that forces you into the belief? — Corvus

When observation is not operational?
Sometimes the way you say things makes it a bit harder to provide an explanation. But yes, if I'm not now seeing the cup I saw in the sink earlier (because now I'm sitting in the living room), I still believe that it's in the sink unless someone else took it from there.
Nothing forces me to believe in this. It's the theory of object permanence. We naturally believe that objects continue to exist when we aren't looking at them due to our experience with the tangible world beginning at birth. Again, this supports the idea that observation is not based on logical thinking. While logic can help demonstrate that things exist, it cannot make us believe that things exist because this latter idea is developed in us overtime.

So what are our perceptions based on, if not on the logical inference? — Corvus

Ordinary observation. Or if you want a more formal word - empiric.

I don't have to refuse or agree to believe. But could I not just say I don't have a reason to believe, when there is no reason to believe? I don't deny my existence when I am awake and perceiving the world, because if I didn't exist, then the perception would be impossible.

But then again, when I am asleep, I don't have a ground to believe that I exist. Do you have reason to believe that you exist, when you are in deep sleep? If yes, what are the reasons for your belief? How can you think about the reasons that you exist while in deep sleep? — Corvus

Perception is conscious activity -- not in deep sleep. So, if you're asleep, you're not making a judgment like "I don't believe the cup exists when it's not in front of me." Let's settle on that. You're awake, and you're making a claim that you don't have a reason to believe an object exists when you're not looking at it. This is you admitting that you exist.