In a way, the Enlightenment was more about what is, than what ought be. — jorndoe

That's what I was getting at. The particular kind of immorality that created the Holocaust, for instance, could it have been related to a weak moral anchor?

In the big picture, people have not changed. — BC

Yep — Banno

Humans are killer apes — Tom Storm

So we're just in a lull? We can expect 100s of millions to die violent deaths at the hands of their relatives sometime around the corner?

Or could we find a way to channel our aggression with less bloodshed?

It's the accountability — Outlander

How would you assess accountability?

Machine guns. Bombs and Missiles. Industrial Project Management. Mass Media. The shrinking of the world as a shared — Paine

I assume you agree that these things were to he result of science and technology. Do you agree that scientism was also a factor?

Ennui — Paine

How so?

There's a similar list for the United States. Right? Genocide and chattel slavery aren't ancient history, either. — Moliere

The US came into existence in 1776. It was on the back end of both of those crimes.

If you check your source again, I think you'll find that he or she was assigning blame to Europe, not the US.

How could the West not foresee Putin was dangerous!? Look at this highly specific analysis using only points which lead towards the conclusion of Putin being dangerous, it was all there for anyone to see at any time! — Judaka

Since he had been repeatedly aggressive to his neighbors, I don't think anyone thought of him as benign. Plus, remember that when the US tried to persuade China to ask Putin to back down from invading Ukraine, they publicly scoffed in a way that wasn't particularly graceful.

I don't think this one counts as hindsight analysis.

Or are you the special one? — Isaac

No, that would be Geoffrey Hoskings, who spent time in Russia examining records from the Soviet era.

Aren't you banned yet?

That's why there are historians which are both pro and anti — Moliere

The 20th Century events in the USSR and China are unique in human history. It was mass insanity, not evil. No other country can compare, including the US.

Although, crediting capitalism for the robustness of the western economic scene is over simplifying. The west received a boom of energy through emancipation from religious tradition, which acted as a cap on progress. Descartes' works on philosophy were partly an attempt to pull the Church out of the mud so as to enjoy its blessings on scientific and mathematical advancement. Capitalism funded the Reformation, so together, they crushed the opposition. Science and capitalism have been joined at the hip ever since.

That hinges on knowing the outcome. If I turned history into a video game, you could "backtest" your prediction skills to see if you're using your analytical tools correctly.

It's not slight. It just seems like a simple acknowledgment that Stalin has secured a place in history far worse than any US leader would be a simple thing to do, with the understanding that that doesn't mean the US hasn't done bad things as well. — Hanover

I agree. So would the average historian. Westerners don't have any frame of reference for understanding what happened in the USSR.

It’s just dressed up Ayn Rand — i.e., an excuse to be a selfish asshole. That’s the “theory.” — Mikie

That's kind of a childish attitude. The world isn't black and white. It's shades of grey.

The reason owners get to be owners and maintain a higher percentage of profits is because it works better that way and people want it that way. — Hanover

It is very effective and efficient. It's also volatile and occasionally crashes, so a little of both sides of the spectrum is a good thing.

So last Great Depression it didn't happen here, but it did happen in Russian and millions died. So, sure, this time it will happen in the right way, or whatever Marxist thought says. — Hanover

I don't know if the next economic crash will take out the US government. I hope not. I just meant we'll probably renew socialist measures that were enacted during the Depression (and dispensed with starting with Reagan), and probably do further steps to the left.

The subsidization of farming is to protect a dysfunctional industry that society isn't willing to allow to adjust to true economic forces. — Hanover

I think it's that rich farmers know how to lobby. I don't think the average American knows how much they're actually getting. In some cases they're being paid to withhold planting. It's state sponsored price fixing.

All of that started as an attempt to help small farmers, but the wealthy quickly turned it to their own advantage. That's happened over and over, which is one reason to let the poor starve: if the state tries to help them, it just ends up making the rich more powerful.

I know. The revolution is at hand. — Hanover

It will happen eventually.

The other idea is that we can collectivize the farms so that all the food belongs to society so that we can all share in the profits, but instead we all starve. — Hanover

American farms are pretty heavily subsidized, and we haven't starved. It actually doesn't make sense to pay CEO's the bizarre reimbursements they get.

That will change in the next big economic adjustment. We always lurch toward the left when the whole system starts breaking down, as during the Great Depression.

This is an old union song sung to the melody of an Appalachian spiritual.

C'mon all you working people
Good news to you I'll tell
All about how the good old union
is coming here to dwell

Which side are you on? (sung four times)

Rich man say he's gotta put us down
and educate his child.
His children live in luxury
and ours are almost wild.

Which side are you on? (sung four times)

Now we got the good fight
I know we're bound to win.
Cause we got those gun thugs
looking mighty thin.

Which side are you on? (sung four times)

It appears that a lack of regulation inevitably leads to disaster in markets of this type. Or do you think some entities are just more upstanding than others? And if so, how would you identity them?

Not to mention the wars on the First Nations, colonialism, manifest destiny. Collectivism, through and through. — NOS4A2

American collectivism came originally from the need for defense.

I suspect through family and kinship. — NOS4A2

In a number of ways the English North American colonies were deeply divided and distrustful of one another. The South had a different type of economy from the North, along with slavery, the small colonies were defensive about being bullied by the larger ones, and for whatever reason, Massachusetts and NY just hated one another.

Family ties? No.

But collectivism isn’t. — NOS4A2

How did we end up with a collective with no collectivism?

Individualism demands that you be a selfish asshole who doesn’t give a damn about the world outside the self. — Mikie

Not really. A strong argument against collectivism is that information is used more effectively in a free market. Concern for the welfare of both individuals and society is in play in this theory.

Striking out against it as selfish assholedness is a waste of time. Counter the argument by pointing out why it's wrong, or even if it's right, why there's a better idea.

What role does science play from that perspective? — Paine

I don't understand the question.

It means to me that individualism is more inclusive, that it concerns itself with more human beings, even all human beings, whereas collectivism is exclusive, that it inevitably pits individuals against other individuals. — NOS4A2

Strictly speaking, no. A collective of some sort is required for the defense of civil rights.

When you say: "There isn't any phenomenal aspect to the third person account, that is to ignore the role of paying attention to phenomena has in moving toward that prize of objectivity. One can recognize the difference without pitting them against each other in a zero-sum game. — Paine

I wasn't pitting them against one another. Hyperion was saying that when you look out at the world, this is third person data. It's not. It's first person.

Third person data has no POV per se. It's usually thought of as a construct.

We have very different views of that issue. :chin:

Are there any objections to this? — NOS4A2

I'm just not sure how this observation is significant. Maybe you could share what it means to you.

On the far end of the spectrum of individual freedom, we have, say, feudal Europe, where there aren't any cities to speak of. There are individual manors which are so isolated they're like tiny worlds until themselves. All industry takes place in these small holdings and there's little in the way of trade. Travel is so dangerous that you'll have to be armed. The only libraries are in monasteries, which have thick walls to withstand raiding.

You can see from this picture that a lack of any collectivism, or as you say, submission, means that might always makes right. There are no civil rights because there is no government capable of assuring them.

Collectivism comes to Europe in the 1000's. Trade routes open back up and communities of free tradesmen come into being. These communities build cathedrals, which stand as symbols of collectivism. The cathedral is the town hall, the university, the theatre, and of course, the house of God with windows that let light in from the outside world in a marked contrast to the dark, closed monasteries. Rule of law isn't here yet, but civil society has appeared which will act as the foundation for forms of government that can ensure rule of law and human rights.

The world we live in has both of these as its heritage. The pendulum keeps swinging.

When we observe anything in the world, we are observing it from a third person perspective. That is a component of our first person perspective, what it is like to be us. — hypericin

There isn't any phenomenal aspect to the third person account. It's the God's eye view. If you read a novel that's in third person, it's from a POV that no individual could have. Like:

They all knew that sooner or later the aliens would come back. What none of them realized was that the aliens were already among them, having shed their exoskeletons and invaded the local chickens.

That's third person.

So the multitude goes – like the flower and the weed
That wither away to let others succeed;
So the multitude comes – even those we behold,
To repeat every tale that hath often been told.

For we are the same things that our fathers have been,
We see the same sights that our fathers have seen,
We drink the same stream, and we feel the same sun,
And we run the same course that our fathers have run.

The thoughts we are thinking our fathers would think,
From the death we are shrinking from they too would shrink,
To the life we are clinging to, they too would cling –
But it speeds from the earth like a bird on the wing.

They loved – but their story we cannot unfold;
They scorned – but the heart of the haughty is cold;
They grieved – but no wail from their slumbers may come;
They joyed – but the voice of their gladness is dumb.

They died – ay, they died! and we, things that are now,
Who walk on the turf that lies over their brow,
Who make in their dwellings a transient abode,
Meet the changes they met on their pilgrimage road.

Yea, hope and despondence, and pleasure and pain,
Are mingled together like sunshine and rain:
And the smile and the tear, and the song and the dirge,
Still follow each other like surge upon surge.

‘Tis the twink of an eye, ’tis the draught of a breath,
From the blossom of health to the paleness of death,
From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud –
O why should the spirit of mortal be proud!

William Knox

Epiphenomenalism asserts that metal events are caused by physical events in the brain, — Joshs

Epiphenomenonalism appeared in the 19th Century before we clearly understood that physics is unfinished. I don't think it violates the spirit of epiphenomenonalism to allow the explanation for consciousness to stray from the little spot between our ears. We can still call that cause, whatever it may be, physical, if that's important to someone. The point is that we end up with property dualism. The only question is whether an individual human has the power to alter the course of the universe, or if the universe is an unchanging block. I think I know your view on that.

Enactivist approaches to cognition informed by phenomenological philosophy reject this ‘mind-mind’ split. — Joshs

That's their prerogative, but I don't think their view is the only workable one. Do you?

Hard determinism has worked well for the natural sciences , but it isn’t such a great fit for elucidating psychological processes such as intentionality, mental illness, motivation, affectivity, empathy and learning. — Joshs

What part of the psyche doesn't fit with epiphenomenalism? I mean, when does freedom of the will become necessary to understanding?

If communication requires common experiential ground, this seems to rather imply the privacy of experience. If experience were communicable, then the relevant experiential background could be communicated. — hypericin

Well... it's that we couldn't communicate all without any preceding common ground. There may be little nuances about your experience of say, seeing the stars at night, that I don't and possibly couldn't know about, but I must largely know what that experience is like in order to talk to you about it, right?

Aphantasia is kind of a special case. Our experience of our inner world echoes our experience of the outer world. Our inner monologue echoes the sound of us (or someone) talking, and our inner visualization echo (faintly,to be sure, for most) the experience of seeing. — hypericin

I see what you mean. I think Chalmers is including all of that as phenomenal consciousness, of the outer world and the realm of imagination.

Experience is only revealed from the internal, first-person perspective. That is, to the organism. — hypericin

Would you agree that the third person view is a construction?

I'm a hard determinist, so I don't share that concern.

Science is ok. :up:

So do you experience them as public, external, effable? — hypericin

Are you familiar with Meno's paradox? It basically concludes that communication is always a matter of pointing to facets of your audience's experience. You can't really communicate something that's outside their available data because communication is a matter of pointing. Explanation is a matter of channelling focus.

In short, communication requires a common experiential ground. There could be cases where experience varies significantly, as with people with aphantasia, but knowledge of that implies some commonality in order to communicate it.

So if experience is truly private, there's no way we could know that. See what I mean?

As for "internal". I just don't understand what it's supposed to be internal to. My skull?

doubt this will convince you. But this is my view, and it is quite hard for me to think outside of it. Especially the denialists, they are incomprehensible to me. — hypericin

And that's what's interesting to me. When we scrub the conversation of animosity and distrust, we come up on the ways that we differ in terms of conception.

Science, as a practice, developed through a lot of discussion about separating causality from coincidence. Given that we are creatures who base much of our knowledge upon lining up what happened at the same time as evidence of a cause, it was only through suppressing this tendency that we became aware of systems that were not simply extensions of our assumptions. Establishing what is happening and building models for why it did was the beginning of looking for functions rather than accepting we have been shown what there is to know.

After some time of doing this, the method starts to consider what it dismissed at the beginning of its enterprise; The inclusion of observations made isolated from other people. — Paine

It's as if we started creating a documentary film, then forgot about the guy behind the camera. We wanted to remove personal bias from the account, and we ended up removing the person altogether.

Now we want to put the cameraman in the documentary?

How do you experience it? I don't ask that as a trick question. I am not accusing anybody of misrepresenting their experiences. — Paine

I just meant that I don't grasp what it means to call experience internal. I'm not trying to be a pain in the ass when I say that. I just really don't.

Something deliberately built to avoid a problem was turned upon the potato deemed too hot to pass around. — Paine

Could you expand on that?

Something odd I've recently noticed is that I don't really understand why people say phenomenal consciousness is private, internal, and ineffable. I really believed Dennett was being disingenuous when he assigned those properties to it.

Now I'm starting to realize that many people actually do experience things that way. I think now that Dennett was being honest, so it's easier for me to believe now that NOS is being honest.

I think maybe all the people who say they don't know what phenomenal consciousness are telling the truth. They really don't.

Gotcha. Maybe someday down the road you'll return to it and it will all click into place, but not now. :up:

I think you don’t have any evidence and are holding out for some odd reason — NOS4A2

I don't play dirty. I'm telling it straight. If you follow Chalmers' and Dennett's works, you'll find that both are pretty heavily preoccupied with who has the burden of proof.

The point of the p-zombie and other thought experiments is not about proving a difference between experience and biological function. They only prove that we can't assume they're the same. It's a subtle, but ultimately slam dunk point regarding the hard problem.

You have to face the fact that we don't know what causes phenomenal consciousness. You can insist that it's equivalent to biological function, but you'll need to provide evidence, ideally of a type that would be published in Nature. You can't just assume it. Do you see why?

I am willing to change my mind upon further evidence, but there isn’t any. I can only observe and conceive of what it is that you are talking about, and all I can see and all I can conceive of is the biology. — NOS4A2

I'm thinking you saw Pinocchio as a child and said, "This is inconceivable!"

How do you know that?

We’ve looked. — NOS4A2

Among the many accounts of gravity on the table is that our gravity is bleeding into our universe from another bigger one. Some scientists noticed that the big bang has some of the characteristics of black hole, leading them to wonder if we're actually in one.

This is the way science works. We don't settle on a conclusion because it seems like the last resort, exclaiming, "We looked."

Do you find p-zombies convincing? I don’t even find them conceivable. I can’t even think about how such a being could be possible. — NOS4A2

This is metaphysical possibility, not physical possibility. An evil demon or a god could have done it. It's just a test for conceivability. Santa Claus is conceivable, though we would all struggle to explain how reindeer could act as an engine.