So this may be a collective dream. We don't know.
— frank
I don't think it is a question of whether it is or is not a collective dream, but of how one chooses to think about it or how one decides to approach and cope with the reality we experience. — Ludwig V

Still, it could be a collective dream. It really could be. We don't know. :grin:

I'm more a positive nihilist. A sad nihilist is trying, but failing to accept life on its terms.
— frank

A vestige of science's physicalism, which kills the soul. Defining the world according to empirical discovery (which usually carries with it a philosophy of foundational physicalism) is such bad thinking. Hard to imagine taking it seriously. — Constance

I'm not sure what you're talking about. My baseline view is Neoplatonic, not physicalist, although I think one ontology is as good as another.

but it does suggest that our ordinary tests are pragmatic rather than metaphysical. — Truth Seeker

:up: So this may be a collective dream. We don't know.

There's no criteria for testing which of your experiences are of something real and which are false, for instance, drug induced, right?

Maybe the first idea was money. Not bartering items, but coinage. It's a blank space that can be filled with a thousand things of value, so it's value itself, in the abstract. As you say, value is part of a web of ideas, some directly opposing and some kin, but different. No idea is an island. They always belong to a web, so it takes only one idea to establish all ideas.

You can only put off becoming fascist for so long until BAM! You're there. Deal with it.

You are full of surprises Frank. I took you for a cynic, a nihilist. — Constance

I'm more a positive nihilist. A sad nihilist is trying, but failing to accept life on its terms.

identify organizations that funded or supported violence against conservatives. — NY Times

The only people who believe there are organizations that would fund violence against conservatives are people like Kirk, who believed Jews are attempting to eliminate all white people by importing non-whites. So it appears the cabinet is being motivated by conspiracy theories, to no one's surprise.

See Kierkegaard's Knight of Faith in Fear and Trembling. — Constance

I have passages of that memorized. One of my favorites.

I think JTB is intended as a test for knowledge — J

I think it's just meant to express what we mean by know, especially if we're knowledge internalists, which means we believe knowledge requires access to justification. A knowledge externalist doesn't require that.

So if we say Bill knows that Carrie was written by Stephen King, it's implied that the proposition is true. We aren't worried about how we know it's true.

I don't see how it matters what we call it.

. I cannot know false propositions a priori. — sime

What does it mean to know a false proposition?

Jon Stewart
https://youtube.com/shorts/OvjsN7h1Zc8?si=ZdYk_0Rt6e0To95o

Yep. But isn't satisfaction fleeting? Pain endures, the pain of guilt, the pain of regret, the pain of resentment, the pain of longing for forgiveness.

Once the pain is gone, the mind wanders to find the next problem to solve. Pure, eternal satisfaction is the end of all quests. It's the end of the life of the mind.

Life is pain, satisfaction is death. More Schopenhauer.

These are negative. What about wonder, happiness, love, hagen dazs, Debussy, — Constance

I said engine of emotion. For that, you need emotional wounds. That's what morality is all about.

We need to clone that guy. He's amazing.

Sacrifices have to be made apparently.

I've noticed that everyone around me is happy Kirk is dead, not happy that people are going around shooting each other, just happy one jackass is gone.

If all it led to was something like what you say that'd be evil.

But that's not what happened. — Moliere

There was no massive retaliation from whites because there was no violence from blacks. You see, this is what's missed when you advocate violence: that it never ends with one event. It just goes on and on.

From my perspective he already accomplished many things, and died in that pursuit. — Moliere

He wouldn't have accomplished anything by instigating violence, other than to have numerous lynched black men in his wake, lynching involves torture, with a preoccupation with genitalia, burning, shooting, and hanging, all to the same bloody pulp of a human. That's what Malcolm X would have accomplished by making white people more afraid than they already were.

It sounds like your concern is primarily political.
— frank

Yes. — Moliere

We have different priorities. Politics doesn't mean much to me. People's lives do, whether it's one person or 9 million. I realize you care about people too, it's just it's the politics that motivates you to speak.

And Malcolm X was full of shit. He wouldn't have accomplished anything but to get a bunch of black people killed.

The reason Gaza "sticks in my craw" is because I went to a conference and spoke to various Palestinians there. I did this because I had a friend from Gaza and he suggested I go. I looked into the history and am basically on the Palestinian side in terms of rights, such as the right of return, though these things are so far off the table due to what Israel has done.

Now if Israel happened to be manufacturing their own weapons on their own soil by their own means it'd be just another genocide -- but it's a genocide the country I live in supports. Not in a small way either.

So the answer to your first question is "yes", but "political scene" denigrates the efforts of people in the United States who have pushed for non-violent change even in the face of genocide. Truly moral giants to my mind. BDS is such a movement, and the US equates it with "Hamas" — Moliere

It sounds like your concern is primarily political.

Did Nietzsche come to terms with our potential for horror? I'm not sure. If so, that's a shame that that's all we could come up with is an eternal return to the same. — Moliere

:meh:

There's a big difference here -- I'm not looking to honor death, since there is nothing to honor there. Remembering death is worthwhile insofar that we can prevent death. There may be other valences, spiritual respect and such. — Moliere

You like that word "valence" don't you? :grin: There's a big valence band around the whole nucleus of the situation.

The feeling of absurdity I have is with respect to the condemnation of such violence.

Biblically we have some planks in our eyes. And to see the amount of emotional fervor this assassination produced vs the lack of response in the face of genocide -- an absurd reflection, an uncomfortable aporia. — Moliere

I have a thing for unhonored victims. For instance, in the Atlantic slave trade, about 9 million went to Brazil and the Caribbean where they died young of disease and being worked to death. How often do you hear anyone speak of these millions of people? They aren't honored because most people don't know anything about them. And yet we despair to no end over 100,000 in Gaza? See how that works?

Does the fact that Gaza sticks in your craw have anything to do with the political scene surrounding it in the US? If so, you aren't honoring those victims anymore than anyone else is. You're just engaging in more tit for tat. Really coming to terms with humanity's potential for horror and bloodshed, now that's a philosophical problem. It's called Nietzsche's eternal return.

Also, Israel won't be there for long. In 2100, the only livable areas will be right on the coast. Soon after that, the final diaspora will take place silently. Only historians will know about Israel.

Like asking what if Christianity were actually true. Nothing woudl change, one would still do one's laundry, cook dinner, go to work, but the whole thing would be deeply meaningful. Physical death would still be imminent, pending, inexorable. But then, a human being never was a physical thing...was it? — Constance

I'm all for that. I think guilt and condemnation are the central engine of emotion in human life. It's incredibly powerful stuff. If finding a moral foundation helps finding a way into it, good.

If being distressed about Palestine leads to bloodlust for conservative assholes, it's probably time for a therapist and some meds.

So, yes, like a jellyfish floating inside the skull. — MoK

Ok.

The mind is an irreducible substance with the ability to experience, freely decide, and cause. — MoK

Like an invisible jellyfish floating inside the skull?

"In self defense only"? — Moliere

We're a violent species. Political violence is one of the many forms of jungle ape we manifest. Thus, there is no philosophy of political violence. Unless you know of one you'd like to flesh out?

I guess you're a deontologist on this — Baden

I'm a moral nihilist.

And I don't even know if I can agree with myself on the topic, — Baden

:grin:

An AI does not have access to ideas. — MoK

I don't know exactly what ideas are, but I think of them as something we're abstracting out of situations. They don't stand alone. I think some kind of reflexiveness (like turning back to be aware of oneself) is needed.

The assassination of political figures becomes retroactively justified and therefore simply justified depending on how history works out. — Baden

My view, for what it's worth, is that murder is never justifiable. Violence takes place in an amoral realm in which survival is the goal on both sides. The will to survive can't be justified and requires no excuse.

Sometime before we descend into bloody apehood, we have a chance to see if there is some better way to do things, or if we're going to need violence, can we at least coordinate it so that it's not doing more harm than good?

But thank you for not calling me a f***wit for expressing that. We had a mod who would have made any sane discussion of the topic impossible.

Could be

Donald Davidson says rationality requires understanding the concept of truth. I don't see how an AI would do that.

I'm trying to find a route to something rather coldly philosophical.) — Baden

Are you asking when it's appropriate to add violence to your political activism?

The wilderness awaits you, Buck. Flee.

Thanks, I really needed that. It is perfect for this moment in my life. — Athena

I learned that from a guy who was stationed in the Pacific during WW2. Glad to honor Wild Bill. :smile:

Trump is tearing families apart, just as the Civil War tore families apart. — Athena

Though there may be blood and guts and grand purposes all around you, you can just sit and stare at the sky if you want to.

I guess what I'm curious about is what motivates you to look for a moral foundation. Once you have the foundation, then what? What will be different?

The average woke individual wouldn't know how to get a sniper rifle, much less use it. It was either a veteran or a rival rightist.

If one votes he acquiesces to the system, and his own serfdom. — NOS4A2

My coworkers wanted to vote on what food to order, and I was like, I'm not a slave, damn you! They totally got my point.