I said it was a rumor, not that it was God's Truth. — praxis

It's opposed to evolutionary biology. That trumps whatever God was going to say.

That's pseudo-science

Rumor has it they tend to be selfish. — praxis

Humans?

Do I? — unenlightened

You overlooked the possibility that our demise might allow some other species to flourish, and therefore the airplane very well may be a stepping stone to something amazing. I think that's because you think the end of us is the end of everything.

As I see it humans are making progress like Dutch Elm disease, thriving and growing and spreading until it wipes out all the Elms, and then itself. — unenlightened

You talk of humans as if they're the epitome of life. Who knows what glorious six legged creatures require our particular ashes in order to take off and become galactic explorers?

You aren't truly pessimistic until you rejoice in it. You're just jaded.

if the starting point is the extended family/tribe, the smallest viable group, there are only extinction, stasis, or enlargement as options. — unenlightened

But for hundreds of thousands of years, our species acquired skills only to lose them again. Stasis was the rule.

Something unusual happened about 60,000 years ago so that we started maintaining skills over time, allowing for accumulation and advancement.

So instead of developing the smelting of iron, only to lose it in the face of environmental disaster, disease, or war, we kept that skill and then went onto invent airplanes and so forth

I don't expect a response, just pointing out that progress isn't accidental for us. The conditions that set us in the path to progress may have been accidental, but ever since then, we've been taking the world into our own hands.

I'll just be over here in the corner.

Ok, cool. I don't know how that affects the discussion. The word used to mean that, now it means what it means now. There's no special mojo that makes the original use of the word have some power after that use has fallen out of favor. — Noble Dust

True. Today they take it to mean submission to God. I just meant that it doesn't come from their fiber, it comes from their heritage.

Again, the word Islam means "Submission"; it's in their very fiber, it would appear. — Noble Dust

That word is an inheritance from the Arabian culture that produced Islam. It was originally an agreement between traveling merchants and raiders. A merchant could "submit" to a raider a gain protection. Muhammad was a merchant at one time, and then he became a raider.

A faithful muslim obeys and honors their religious authorities — Noble Dust

They don't have religious authorities that compare to Christian ones. There's no Muslim pope. There are guys who serve the community, there are Muslim scholars of various schools, but none of those exert authority per se. So in Saudi Arabia, the power behind the Wahhabi family is the monarchy. In turn, the Wahhabis assure the legitimacy of the king. It's a very stable relationship.

Christian authorities don't need that kind of backing, which makes separation of church and state a little easier to accomplish.

I think the archeology associated with early humans shows pretty clearly that what marks us as different from other hominins is that we have the ability to hold on to skills and therefore progress. Whether it's something that should be happening or not, we do, and one assumes we will continue to until circumstances make that impossible.

There is a strain of counter sentiment in us. It's the part of us that looks fondly at the past, as if the past was the golden age, and everything has now gone to shit. I think this is a manifestation of essential conservatism in the face of rapid change. It's the tug of an anchor, and so a good thing.

My water heater recently stopped working and I've been too busy to replace it, so I've been experimenting with living without running hot water. I've actually been amazed that I don't really need it. I can heat up water to wash the dishes and bathe. Why on earth does anyone need the hot water to come out of the faucet? Cold showers are actually really refreshing, btw. Plus they're associated with an extended dopamine release. Just imagine you're in the woods at a waterfall.

Not only that, but the narrative offers either the present day or a future utopia as a stand-in for the Day of Judgement, or perhaps for heaven, and it begins to look like a matter of faith. Faith that progress can redeem humanity, that everything will be worth it in the end. — Jamal

According to John Kenneth Galbraith, progress, as an ideal, is rooted in Zoroastrianism (nod to Nietzsche). It's supposed to coincide with the uncoiling of cyclical time so that we're now headed into the unknown. In other words, it's not a stand-in for Armageddon and Judgement Day. It's the same thing showing up in the clothes of the present age.

We're in the world. We're part of reality. It isn't something separate from us, that we observe. But this is old stuff. — Ciceronianus

Panpsychism. :up:

Yes, there are many of those too. When the context is Western metaphysics, the use I've been arguing for seems to be the main one, and it's the minimal, most neutral sense, in line with the grammatical basics: a being is what can be said to be. — Jamal

Oh. Ok. Thanks

Oh. Ok. I didn't see that post. I could probably do a long list of philosophical citations where "a being" means a person. I guess it comes down to context.

No, that’s not true, unless you mean “a human being.” — Jamal

Or divine being. I don't know of any cases where "a being" isn't a person.

A victim need not be helpless — Hanover

Maybe not utterly helpless, but the point is that victimization means one's will was thwarted. In whatever way you've been a victim, you were powerless in that area.

Even in philosophy "a being" usually refers to a person of some kind. It's the capitalized Being that Wayf has mistakenly read to mean consciousness. The occasional off the wall misreading of this it that philosopher gets thrown in.

The injustices of the present can be so enormous and it can create hate. — ssu

And the cost of one act of violence is much bigger than the immediate victims. One man is murdered and his younger brother goes off the deep end and ends up with a failing heart from drug use. One bullet hits the whole family.

Being in uniform for your country doesn't make oneself evil in my view. — ssu

There's evil in there somewhere, isn't there? What do Ukrainians think when they see Russian soldiers coming their way?

Yes, according to Deleuze. — Joshs

And Hegel.

This can be seen from the way in the US a veteran having a Purple Heart is quite respected. Nobody (perhaps with the exception of the draft-dodger Donald Trump) will think a Purple Heart receiver is a loser. Or a helpless victim. — ssu

Trump was talking about John McCain, who was tortured for five years as a POW. It left him with a limp and unable to lift his arms above his head.

McCain was part of a force waging a proxy war in Vietnam. He's a good example of how we each have the potential for evil and good. He was an American soldier on the wrong side of history, so evil, he was white, so a beneficiary of evil, he was a POW, so powerless, he was a senator who helped outlaw torture by the US government, so a hero.

:clap:

This person is not afraid to meet the people or to enter into dialogue with them. — Paulo Freire

What an amazing idea. We can shut up and listen.

What do you purpose? Leave the victim alone in his/her suffering and trauma? — javi2541997

No. Beware labeling her as a victim though. That label is helpful for defending her and prosecuting her abuser, but if she keeps that label long term, it's crippling to her. Let her tell you what she is. Allow her to heal. Allow her to leave behind helplessness.

It's a subtle ethical point, but as long as you look at her as helpless, with you being the strong hero, you're helping yourself to honor you don't deserve and blocking her path to freedom.

Is that how Kant would have looked at it? That was my question. — Paine

Kant would have to travel to the early 20th Century to understand Jung's interest in alchemy. Spiritualism was really popular throughout the US and Europe. People were fascinated with contacting the dead and using magic.

Jung treated astrology as if it was a blueprint for the psyche. I was reading something by Jung one time and it occurred to me that he was a product of his times. And then he actually said that! It blew my mind that he knew that about himself. How aware are we that the world we see is shaped by our times?

To repeat my point for anyone interested: a being in pre- and non-analytic philosophy is anything that is—anything that can be said to be.

This is not an attack on any worldview or ontological claim; it is information. — Jamal

:up:

The interest Jung took in Alchemy would be close to dark magic from that perspective. — Paine

I don't think so. He was just drawing out the psychology inherent in esotericism. Check out "The Stone Speaks.". It's all about the astrological symbol of Mercury and the image of the Hermit. Fascinating stuff.

I like donuts

Granted it's unlikely the South would have ever won but if they did I don't think that Lincoln would have remained in power. — praxis

? My point was that the opinion that the US government was responsible for freeing slaves was a rare one. A tiny minority believed that.

said that the EP and the civil war is an instance of responsibility being imposed by force. — praxis

I still don't know what that means

The majority of the people and government won, fortunately. — praxis

The EP was issued per the constitutional war power of the president. It was Lincoln's call. The rest of the government wasn't involved.

The only people who believed, like you, that the government was responsible for securing the freedom of slaves were abolitionists, about 3-5% of the white population.

Just prior to issuing the EP, Lincoln had taken a carriage ride with a prominent abolitionist named Charles Sumner. It's believed that the conversation they had convinced Lincoln to go ahead and issue the EP. It had been drawn up, waiting in his desk for two years.

I think when you said the EP imposed responsibility, you meant the government was taking responsibility for securing liberty.

In a way, that's true. :up:

I don’t think you can claim to value liberty if you deny it to others. — praxis

I agree. I was asking how the EP imposed responsibility by force.

Is Richard Dawkins an example of New Atheism?

The Emancipation Proclamation and the civil war is an instance of responsibility being imposed by force isn’t it? — praxis

How so?

IMO, there is something missing in this schema. It takes abstractions that exist as part of mental life to be more fundamental than the rest of mental life. However, these abstractions are just parts of mental life, formed from subjective observation and reasoning. A full explanation needs to also explain how the reasoning subject constructs the model and the bridge between the model of the objective that is an element of subjective life and the external world simpliciter. In general,I think this requires subsuming the subjective and objective into a larger whole, not one subsuming the other, as in physicalism and many forms of idealism. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The bolded part would be an exit from philosophy into mysticism a la Wittgenstein. Right?

Being" presupposes non-being, it's an incoherent concept otherwise, but consciousness as simply sensation precedes any such distinctions. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Heidegger hammers this home in "What is Metaphysics.". The advantage of his account is that it doesn't position us in some unobtainable position beyond our own subjectivity.

The headline "scientists discover beings from outside the solar system," implies alien life not meteors passing through our neighborhood. The common usage of the distinction is simply based on "does it have first person subjective experiences." — Count Timothy von Icarus

That's true, but when Hegel or Heidegger talk about "Being" they're just talking about existence, they aren't talking about consciousness.

We just need to clarify.

can see the argument for consciousness being primary. If you think of it psychologically, consciousness, as sensation, is prior to the abstraction of being and of the recognition of the external world as external.

"Being" presupposes non-being, it's an incoherent concept anyhow, but consciousness as simply sensation precedes any such distinctions. — Count Timothy von Icarus

:up:

That doesn't change anything about the pursuit of equality being anti-liberal in nature. — Tzeentch

It's not anti-liberal.

But the pursuit of equality is anti-liberal by definition, so it makes no sense that those who campaign for ever more equality should call themselves liberal. — Tzeentch

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..."

These are the words of a 19th Century liberal. A 20th Century liberal sounds like this:

"This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day."

I don't know of any definition of "liberal" that isn't essentially about equality of some kind.