Yep. Totally refuted. :rofl:

:up:

Sure.

Wow, that's fascinating.

Sent to you — Agree to Disagree

Thanks. If anybody else is interested in an interesting discussion, let me know. I can add you on.

For me World politics looks more and more like in the 19th Century. — ssu

That's disturbing considering what happened next. Why does world politics look like the 19th Century?

You can defend yourself when someone wants to hurt you. But it should be quite clear that the person is really going to attack and hurt you. We know very well just how easy the wording "an existential threat" is used in politics even today and "pre-emption" is cherished. — ssu

Yes. I'm not sure we've learned anything after all our species has been through.

When the ends justify the means. Do you think there's a time when they do?

From the largest trade routes to the smallest transactions, from the global to the local level, pretty much any move we make is regulated by a litany of state policy. Vast legal systems, treaties, trade agreements, jurisdictions, global financial institutions—these are the fetters of state and statist intervention, and their combined reach is global in scale. — NOS4A2

Exactly. Socialism isn't at odds with capitalism. And there are no (real) leftists anymore, so the issue is settled for all practical purposes. For now.

What is truth (and what isn't?)

Is truth everything objective? Or can subjective things such as memories be truth as well?

Does truth have to be factual or could it be (partially) fictional as well? — Kevin Tan

Some think of truth as a predicate. It tells us something about a statement. It's troublesome to say exactly what it tells us because the concept is so basic. It seems you have to use the concept in the process of explaining what it is, so some would say we can just rest there.

For thousands of years, Aristotle's take has expressed what to some is intuitive: that to say that P is true is to say that P is the way things are.

Does truth have to be factual or could it be (partially) fictional as well? — Kevin Tan

A number of writers, Stephen King included, say that you can get closer to truth through fiction than you can by saying something straight out.

I wouldn't put Schopenhauer into the same "New Age" box, but I think his philosophy helps the move in that direction. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I agree. Schopenhauer influenced Nietzsche and Tolstoy, both of whom were pretty trippy.

Could you explain what you think this data shows?

I just wanted to thank both of you for showing that you can engage someone without anyone being called a "buffoon" or anyone being told to "shut the fuck up." That's great!

I didn't say what I thought the data means. I just asked, "What do people think that this data means?". — Agree to Disagree

What do you think it means?

“….. For although education may furnish, and, as it were, engraft upon a limited understanding rules borrowed from other minds, yet the power of employing these rules correctly must belong to the pupil himself; and no rule which we can prescribe to him with this purpose is, in the absence or deficiency of this gift of nature, secure from misuse….”
(CPR) — Mww

Quine later laid out an argument for this same insight. You can learn rules from other people, but the ability to apply those rules to new situations has to be innate. You can't learn it.

I am more than happy to discuss Christianity if you find it relevant to the OP: can you tie it back to the OP so I understand where we are headed with this? — Bob Ross

I think your point is that moral realism is associated with a conundrum: it assumes that we don't know right from wrong innately, so we need an external set of rules. But how do we know which rules to embrace if we're morally vacuous to begin with?

I was looking at the cultural roots of the conundrum, as opposed to trying to resolve it. I don't think it has a resolution. :razz:

Yes, it is almost totally meaningless. And it is totally negligible. Why should I limit my consumption for something that is totally negligible.

It also does not seem like "justice" that I make an effort when most other people don't. — Agree to Disagree

Yes. It's true.

To make it clear (with no sarcasm), I believe that people need to take personal responsibility for their own carbon footprint.

If Mikie and other people like him won't take personal responsibility for their own carbon footprint, then why should I.

Oil companies just supply us with what we demand. We are "oil addicts" who are blaming the suppliers for giving us what we want. I blame supermarkets for making people fat. — Agree to Disagree

I agree with you. I assume your point is that if the average person doesn't limit consumption, that makes your efforts to do so meaningless?

I am not sure what you mean by that Frank.

Please explain it to a foolish old man. — Agree to Disagree

You're off the hook for climate change. :up:

It is Big Oil's fault, not mine.
— Agree to Disagree

Correct. — Mikie

Well that was easy @Agree to Disagree

What's your next trick?

So I'll leave it there. — Banno

:up:

:grin: I don't much care what he thought.

The simple point is that the world is often other than what one might have willed. — Banno

Ok. I don't think that insight, awesome as it is, has anything to do with the OP.

Yes, it's no first person. — Janus

If you check out Schopenhauer's description, he's clearly referring to the first person experience.

the immediate first-person sense of being. — Quixodian

No, it's first person.

I agree that Christianity does advocate that we have the moral code written on our hearts, — Bob Ross

Not a moral code. Jesus claimed the moral code is summed up by the imperative to love.

Also, I don’t think Christianity argues that we are innocent, as most Christians believe in innate sin. — Bob Ross

Christians think they've been set free from innate sin. I'm sure neither of us wants to dissect Christianity, I was thinking more historically and culturally about whether evil is supposed to be innate in people. Western culture is diverse and complicated. There are a number of perspectives about evil that dance around one another, fusing here, at odds there. Christianity is a touchstone for the belief that you are or can be free of innate evil. The Christian figurehead also famously claimed that you aren't bound to specific rules of behavior. You can figure it out with love.

Trouble is, reality does not care what you will, — Banno

Did you think Schopenhauer thought otherwise?

the immediate first-person sense of being. — Quixodian

Yep.

What he really struggled with, is with the idea of how from one thing (will), many could arise. He used to be confident about this but appears later in life to become rather troubled by this issue. — Manuel

What I took away from it was an image of a diamond with many faces. Each face thinks it's unique, but logic leads to a collapse of the whole thing into a monolith. That's a side effect of determinism.

Unity and disunity are two sides of the same coin, though. It's mystical.

Without reference to the truthity of either, moral realism tends to be posited as better than anti-realism if it were true; for, in a moral realist world, there would be facts of the matter about morality that society could strive towards independently of tastes (i.e., non-facts). However, I have begun to be suspicious of the benefits of moral realism—to the point of outright claiming it is useless to the normative discussion even if it is true. Let me briefly explain why. — Bob Ross

If I could put your point in my own words:

A moral realist says that people are dependent on external rules for guidance. There is benefit to seeing things this way because people are vile, and hard rules draw them toward something better. We should encourage people to ignore their instincts and follow the rules.

The thing is: somebody is picking those rules. That somebody is human. How did they pick the right rules if they were born vile and have no innate sense of rightness?

Yes, so it appears we do claim for humanity the ability to choose the right path, it's just that some people have this special talent and everybody else just needs to follow them.

The most fundamental Christian view, like from the gospels, is that Jesus says you do have an innate knowledge of right and wrong. You have the whole of the law in your heart, since the fundamental rule is to love others as you love yourself. As Augustine said, "Love, and do as you will." In heavily mythical language, Christianity says you were not born vile. You were born innocent.

It's important to keep in mind that for Schopenhauer, the will as thing in itself is the closest approximation to the thing in itself "unaltered" as it were, it's the closest approximation we have of it, but it's not the actual thing in itself - though he should be much more explicit than he was on this point, he does state this quite clearly in Volume 2, though the specific essay's title is currently eluding me.

The so called "referent" would be the simple act of will - energy in today's term - which can be felt all the time, made more explicit when, say, we move our arms or legs and focus on the act of moving it. Or if we attend to it by being observant of our breathing, and so on.

But, again, this is not exactly the thing in itself, just its closest approximation. — Manuel

:up: I think that's what's often missed about Schopenhauer's idea of will. You may think of it as your own, but it's something you share with Everything. I read that later in life he decided that the thing-in-itself is unknowable. Is that your understanding?

I don't think it was confirmed until they had super computers to run the models on.

If China can have a part 2, the US needs one. This aggression will not stand.

There was speculation, among some scientists, about the cooling effect of aerosols. — Mikie

It wasn't just aerosols, but that's beside his point, which was that he has doomsday fatigue from a lifetime of hearing about the end of the world.

That should be of interest to anyone who cares about the environment and wants to understand how people react to news of threatening conditions.

You may be thinking about this episode of Twilight Zone — EricH

Ha! Same plot. But mine was definitely in an anthology of old science fiction stories.

Scientists raised the issue of a possible pending ice age around about the mid 70's.

In a previous post I said that I remember the scare being in 1976 (my first year at university). — Agree to Disagree

I think that's because it was in the 1970s that historic geography took off. In the early 20th Century, they thought there had only been four ice ages based on what they saw in rock formations. By the 1970s they started understanding continental drift and seeing much further back. It was from analyzing the graphs of temperature undulations that they reasoned that an ice age was coming soon. They still didn't know what causes ice ages, though, so there was a lot of uncertainty.

Climatology has exploded since then.

Yes, I think that there has always been some level of doom hanging around for most of my life (I am now in my 60's). You don't really ever get totally comfortable with doom (because there is always a small chance that it might happen). My normal strategy is to ignore it or pretend that it doesn't exist. This explains why I was initially very skeptical about global warming. — Agree to Disagree

I'm guessing you'd have to buffer all that doom somehow: keep it at arms length to plan for your own future.

Yes, I lived through the fear of an impending ice age. — Agree to Disagree

I was reading some science fiction short stories and there was one where these people are struggling to survive the onset of an ice age, but then the protagonist wakes up and global warming is what's really happening. It was supposed to be about the psychological whiplash related to ice-age to global-warming news.

Yea, I don't think anyone thinks cattle farming is the culprit. It's fossil fuel consumption.

I remember in 1976 (my first year at university, doing Chemistry Honours, Physics, and Biology) when the news of a possible pending Ice Age came out.
— Agree to Disagree

:lol:

I think that’s climate denial bingo. — Mikie

No, that's you not knowing anything about history.

Most people do think that cattle farming is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. — Agree to Disagree

Mmm, I don't think so. Most people don't know the US government once did a massive study on cow farts to determine it's environmental effects.

But it's not true that their farts are absorbed by plants. Methane is lighter than air, so it travels from their butts straight up to the stratosphere.

The cow fart angle is still a current concern. Somebody has just developed a food supplement for cows that is meant to reduce methane by about 30%. — Agree to Disagree

I didn't know that. So they really think cattle farming is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions? As it turns out, there's another problem with American beef. They feed them corn, which makes American beef unusually fatty. It tastes good but it contributes to obesity, heart disease, and strokes. If they just stopped feeding them corn, Americans would be healthier, and not just slightly healthier, a lot more.

If cattle are also contributing to global warming, that would be another good reason to just cut back on producing beef. Or stop it altogether?

have seen (and lived through) many existential threats to humanity.
- All through my childhood the doomsday clock was sitting at 5 minutes to 12 (fears about nuclear war between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R) — Agree to Disagree

So you have literally never known a world that didn't have doom hanging over it. Does that mean you had to get comfortable with doom? How did you deal with that?

fear of the impending ice age — Agree to Disagree

Right. I've read about that, but you lived through it?

I think that the awareness of global warming grew out of the work of some scientists (e.g. James Hansen) and was picked up by the environmental movement that was already worried about (non-CO2) types of pollution and other environmental disasters (deforestation, mining, loss of habitats, extinction of species, etc). — Agree to Disagree

Was acid rain abd ozone depletion also part of it? I read that there was overlap with those things and an amplified greenhouse effect. Same scientists?

I'm contemplating a thread about Davidson's project. It would be a long one. — Banno

Nagase is a great resource for Davidson. We'd be lucky if he had time to stop by.