Ok, but how would you answer the question?

Is the suggestion that these two worlds might be identical? — Banno

How does the Holocaust being inherently evil show up in something I can sense? What would I see that tells me I'm in the world of inherent evil? What would I hear or taste? Smell or feel?

I'm just thinking that the Kremlin can't be that dumb. — jorndoe

If the US has left NATO it would make a little more sense. I think you missed our discussion about how the US congress has just passed a law to make it harder for a US president to exit NATO. They did that because Trump is expected to try.

Once the US has left NATO, it will make more sense to use funding from oil sales to enlarge Russia's territory. Maybe Poland first.

it seems unlikely that Russia will attack NATO countries. They're more likely to insert covert operatives/agents in such cases. — jorndoe

Why do you say that?

The difference would be exactly the truth of the obligation...

Michael seems to imply that there might be no other difference. First, the existence of the obligation is sufficient to differentiate the two words; — Banno

I think he's looking for a difference beyond those two things, though. Think of these two situations:

Situation 1: The Holocaust was inherently evil. It's evil in all possible worlds because there just can't be a Holocaust that doesn't have the property of evil.

Situation 2: The Holocaust is evil because we think of it that way, not the other way around. We could presently live in a world where the attitude behind the Holocaust (eugenics) prevailed, and everyone thinks of it as a great thing that made the world better. We just happen to live in the one where it's viewed as unbelievably horrible.

What practical difference is there between situation 1 and 2? How would your life be different? How would anybody's life be different?

There's something specious in the question Michael asks about how worlds differ given moral truths. they differ specifically in the truth of those moral statements... — Banno

I don't quite follow.

but once it is found that one ought not murder babies, the alternatives are pruned from the tree of possibilities — Banno

I think so, yes. So if you've found that murdering babies is immoral, you might read about the history of infanticide in a purely moral light.

Or is there a way to introduce the modality of "ought" into a possible world semantics, other than using accessibility? — Banno

There's this SEP article about deontic logic. There's some mention of possible worlds, but I think moral commitments come first. If P is the proposition that it's immoral to kill babies, and you believe P, then you will say P is necessarily true. You'll say that anyone who believes there's a possible world at which P is false is deluded.

Notice that toward the end of that article they allude to the fact that normativity is a pit with no bottom. If you jump into that pit, you may never be seen again.

It will all be over if Trump wins.

How do the people feel? How will they feel long term? How closely aligned are the perception and the reality? — Fooloso4

I don't know. You'd have to ask a Russian resident.

You can look it up; Biden, Nuland, Sullivan, Blinken, they all were. — Tzeentch

We've been through this already. I'm not going back through. :wink:

The entire current administration was involved in the Maidan. — Tzeentch

Probably not.

A resolution calling for a cease fire is not a cease fire. Both sides in the conflict must agree to a cease fire. It is not as if they did and the US blocked it. — Fooloso4

Apparently Putin has been fishing on back channels for a cease fire since practically the beginning of the invasion. He's still doing it, but in public he never says anything like that. US military intelligence has assessed it as part of some strategy to cause confusion on the battlefield?

Anyway, at this point the Russian economy has become dependent on the war. It grew by about 3% last year in spite of the heavy sanctions. This is partly because of oil sales to China and India, and partly because they have a booming war economy. So it wouldn't be to Putin's advantage to stop the war in Ukraine. He wants people at home to feel like everything is fine, and it's not going to be without that boost to the economy from the war.

His strategy vis-á-vis NATO was probably to pressure the Europeans to stop freeloading. I don't think he would actually leave. And honestly in terms of European freeloading behavior he has a point. — Tzeentch

He despises Europe because he sees them as weak. He likes dictators because he respects them.

The underlying reality is that the US was allied with Europe because of the cold war. That era is fully gone now and Europe is just dead weight to the US. NATO no longer makes sense. This and abiding American isolationism will probably result in the demise of NATO. The Germans understand this. I don't know if anyone else in Europe does.

That does sound a bit far-fetched. — Tzeentch

Everything about Trump is far fetched. :razz:

The US congress just passed legislation making it harder for a US president to withdraw from NATO. That kind of legislation doesn't usually work though. The SCOTUS will declare it unconstitutional.

The reason for this attempt is that everyone expects 1) Trump will be reelected, and 2) he's going to withdraw form NATO and basically join BRIC. No, it doesn't make much sense, but such is life. :grin:

The links between the Biden administration and Russia's invasion are crystal clear. — Tzeentch

The link between another Trump administration and a Russian invasion of Europe are also pretty clear. Neither Trump nor a large swath of the American population would care.

As if "physical or emotional injury" were not evil. — Banno

Most societies identify circumstances in which it's good to do physical and emotional injury. Plenty of moral codes identify actions as evil even if there's no associated harm.

This is not to say you can't decide that evil and harm are coextensive, it's just that you're not reflecting what social groups usually say. You're just pedaling your own religion.

The idea that Russia will attack Europe is extremely silly — Tzeentch

Famous last words

Germans believe Russia will attack Europe if Trump is elected.

:meh:

:up: :up: :up:

True.

What would you do if you had to either save two strangers or your wife or daughter? I'd choose wife or daughter. It's a question of the type of history that brings us to this moment of choice. — kudos

Exactly.

That is because it is not something that is experienced. It is an "idea". And there is no moral imperative to believe or agree with an idea. If an idea cannot compel assent on the weight of its own merit but requires coercion and ridicule to enforce, there is an obvious problem with the idea, and a bigger problem with the people that want to impose ideology upon others. — Merkwurdichliebe

Read what you wrote as if you were talking about money. Money is a successful social technology. So is the legal apparatus that allows us to do rule of law. We just don't have any social technology for orchestrating events beyond about a hundred years.

"Why should I care about what happens to other people in other places and times, such as after I am no longer alive?" — kudos

Great post. The question you point to is a philosophical challenge covered by global warming text books. The issue is that we don't have any experience with "caring" on the temporal and geographical scale of climate change.

The p-zombie argument is an argument against physicalism. If you're a panpsychist then the p-zombie argument is irrelevant. You already accept the conclusion t — Michael

Or the p-zombie argument shows that we would need to expand the concept of physical in order to accommodate phenomenal consciousness. It also puts the burden of proof on a reductive physicalist.

Yes. Entities that do medical research take suggestions from the public, and I asked for that one: the effect of microplastics on the lungs.

Because having plastic in our system is not healthy? Microplastics are painting an apocalyptic future more than any +1 degree Celsius climate shift. The climate can be fixed, microplastics cannot ever. — Lionino

There are all kinds of indwelling plastic medical devices. Plastic is ok. Your approach is kind of lacking in justification.

But when we comes to things that are killing us in real time, such as microplastics and hormones in food, they stay really quiet because it is not a topic covered by the BBC or New York Times. — Lionino

Why do you think microplastics are killing us?

What does any of this mean? — Jamal

You know, you could contribute to what it means if you had any thoughts about language other than irritation about what other people know about it.

For instance, Arabic became the language of science, philosophy, and poetry among post 9th Century Muslims, even though they were Iranian and mostly spoke Persian. At the hub of the world's overland trade routes, they had long been polylingual, but there was something about Arabic that they particularly loved. So yes, a language can be viewed as superior for certain activities. And please stop being a butthead.

Right; I guess it's the idea that we've got >100 years to go that's a hard sell. — AmadeusD

It's not likely that humans will become extinct due to climate change. Could the present global system fall due to climate change? Sure. When exactly? Don't know. It will be the third large scale collapse since humans invented civilization.

The latter-most seems to include the former-most, to those like Mikie. The facts of the matter entail the impending end of the world (as least in some sense). — AmadeusD

The world is going to end in some sense no matter what we do. But toward the beginning of the thread Mikie warned that the earth will soon have a climate similar to that on Venus. I wouldn't listen to anything he has to say, tbh.

More people have turned to denialism and wholesale derision as a result of Greta's presence. I think it's been a detriment. — AmadeusD

I agree. She's a sideshow.

But i don't think denialism is a legitimate reaction — AmadeusD

If the topic is: the world's about to end, then denialism is fine. If it's: if you buy this type of lawnmower, you're being eco-friendly, then denialism is fine. If the topic is: anthropogenic climate change, then denialism is just ignorance of the facts.

But if you're genuinely under the impression the world is about to end, you've fallen victim to a grift — Tzeentch

It's been making excellent click bait for thousands of years. 'Course one of these days they're going to be right. :grin:

I'd just say Chalmers has bad epistemic hygiene. Inflationism might be handy for making weak arguments appear strong, but I'm not seeing a good reason to take it seriously based on what the SEP says. — wonderer1

How would you explain the difference between logical and metaphysical possibility?

Putting people in the intellectual foetal position by convincing them the world is ending smells of grift to me, though. And I have no doubt certain uncouth agendas have inserted themselves into the climate debate. — Tzeentch

Definitely.

"Inflationists, such as David Chalmers (2002), hold “Modal Monism”, the view that there is only one modal notion or primitive, such that metaphysical and logical modality coincide."
SEP

Since the p-zombie argument is associated with Chalmers, we might want to consider the way he uses "metaphysical possibility."

How do you get from being able to imagine something, to that thing being metaphysically possible? — wonderer1

Logical and metaphysical possibility amount to the same thing. A thing is metaphysically possible if some god could make it so.

Doomsday prophecies and claims to esotheric knowledge are signals to me that certain folks have been sent off the deep end. — Tzeentch

Do you think it's a hoax?