The biggest problem is how the Dunning-Kruger effect plays out. — I like sushi

How is the Dunning–Kruger effect tied to persons leisurely discussing some lighter Philosophy? Remember my ”not stupid” in the heading. Only a stupid person should feel fully informed by a pleasurable discussion as such. The one’s I have irl, have quite the opposite effect on me. I get a teaser to learn more.

something like that. And the more notable pro philosophers do in no way refrain from that. The philosophy history of Russel is great and amusing reading, with every German philosopher being a member of the opponent team, Kant’s suggestions for eternal peace is as cunning as entertaining. Poppers critique of Marx et al is no heavy reading. And at least in my Scandinavian home county, the more prominint philosophers do not refrain from a pleasant and easily available manner in books and radio programs not aimed for their academic peers. Martin Hägglund, supposedly known in the USA would be one. Fellow shit suburb Stockholmer. And hey, the Republic…

Another Idea is that people stay in the Bourdieuan habitat where they know the rules of that playfield and work with what they do best. An idea proven successful. Granted, not as easy now to make that work with the global economy (capitalism, if you like that better), but a system worth keeping, fosters a reliable and bullshit free culture.

This is supposedly in line with what working class and lower middle class people do prefer, in comparison with the suggestions of OP, which is more in line with the ideas of progressive people of more prosperous beginnings.

What haven’t I read?

Therefore, Pinker resists "casual analysis"; either you repeat what Pinker says completely oblivious to all the moral, political, ecological, statistical collection and analysis methods, qualitative, issues Pinker never addresses, or then even the smallest analysis immediately starts to encounter questions and problems that just lead to more questions and problems, which is not a leisurely task to get through, and you just end up in those debates of those issues which Pinker ignores, and the whole point of Pinker's proposition is to encourage ignoring those issues; but if those issues aren't ignored, then in those "actual debates about stuff", Pinker's work becomes purely ornamental to the discussion. — boethius

Sure he can be casually analyzed. There are a heck of a lot in between repeating and scrutinizing everything with indignation cause what the dude says is not in your echo chamber, if it isnt. Actually, "enlightenment now" was suggested to me by a "progressive" friend in our local uni and its one of the books we do discuss.

Thats a relief

One of the biggest gripes of philosophers is that folks like to cherry-pick what they write. I admit to it in this case, but I also found a reason: as a rule, intellectually informed people don’t discuss leisurely. — Mww

Of course they do. There are times, like at work or in serious situation when you certainly do stay focused but my experience with friends being professors and scientists with papers cited in the hundreds is that the do very much love a leisurely discussion. And well, I love to see myself as pretty well intellectually informed, but I do not love arguing with people.

It's why you're not a rocket scientist or nuclear engineer. You're barking up trees whose fruits would (rightfully) kill you. Stop trying to grandstand. Some people are great. You're not. No amount of force you can apply will ever change this fact. Just turn on HBO or Netflix and live your life. You'll love it. I promise. — Outlander

This bloke has 2,7k posts here... suppose he's the little sunshine of this forum.

Pinker was just an example. Read Enlightenment now. Just any kind of books not written for academy or wannabe academy. I’ve read throug stuff like S und Z and Tractatus and such has affected my view of the world all right, but what I really search for is to read easier books, and discuss them in a friendly manner. Not to win the Nobel prize in Philosophy but to enrich oneself and others in a generally intellectual manner. And have a pleasant moment doing that.

Factfulness by Rosling, The Open Society and its Enemies by Popper, bur preferrably newly released books like that.

Am I the only person alive that want to read something and discuss it leisurely rather than in search of the Truth and in order to display superior intelligence?

Question 1: If there is such a thing as a "soul," where did it come from? Did God or any other diety create it?

Guess evolution

Question 2: If there is a "soul" inside your body, is it seperate from you or is it the same as you? In other words, who is in control of the body? Is it like a "Player vs. Vessel" situation as we see in the games created by Toby Fox (Undertale and Deltarune)? "Are you truly in control of yourself?" is the question I am trying to ask, I suppose. And let's say hypothetically, that Christianity is true, would that mean that You would go to Heaven, or "you," the soul? Since those are two separate things.

Brain produces soul somehow and it plays its little tricks. The Freudian superme have pretty good control, but not ptotal control.

Question 3: If the soul is seperate from the body, why even bother to be a good person? You wouldn't even go to Heaven, your SOUL would. Would you even bother to be a good person?

Brain kinda produces soul, and that produces the person, that is resposible for its little naughty scemes.

Question 4: If the soul and the body are one and the same, how would that even work? Is it something akin to "you are the soul piloting a human body" type situation, like some spiritual people say?

They aint the same to me, to me the soul is a brain process and the brain is a part of the body

Been away half a year, saw this interesting thread start and went to the last page only to find people building drone view pyramids of arguments and counter argument and well, ”I missed this one” . Would be neat with an AI thing that could summarize what have been said in this 25 pages…

This bit about possibility and accomplishment... Silence can just be the current process. One want to comfortabily shut up. Gag the yapping neighbor toy poodle and just enjoy the sounds of silence (gonna do just that when job is finished today, wife's gone skiing. Won't say a word until she comes home sunday evening)

According to service for humankind. Intelligence and work ethics.

Guess the richest guy or girl should be able to buy a kickass Mercedes and a Lambo, Have a nice villa of say 250m2 and one really nice or 2 pretty nice summer homes. Making say one travel yearly to an exotic place
Nothing more than that. No yatchs or private jets. And massive propaganda not to spoil kids but making them equal in opportunity save the gene material.

But when the lambo rolls down the street it would be accompanied by commoners taking their hats off and bowing in revere for someone that produces real miracles, not the fake miracles of Gods.

But Socrates really had a better suggestion sketched out 2k+Ys ago.

Italian is the best language I’ve stumbled on so far, stringent, clear in pronounciation and well sounds pretty nice too. Like it more than French or Spanish. French sounds nice but its a language for talking, not for communication(pretty much the sister language of Danish in the latin language group albeit beautiful). Spanish is such a mixture of arabian, germanic and latin, very hard to get a grasp on. And well not as cute as Italian.

We get saturated in English from early age. Few things are dubbed except toddler tv programs. And we think american sounds kinda cool so yes we probably speak English better than most born with uncouth languages.

I’d imagine if I was an African man struggling to eat this would be the last question on my mind. It’s the spoilt westerners that have this sort of nihilistic outlook about life. Life’s too easy or comfortable is why this question gets asked — simplyG

You don’t have to travel that far. Being a habitat journeyman from a lower tier Stockholm suburb one to an academical one will see that meaning question multiplied. Where I grew up we just lived on without too many questions asked. No meanings of life, no wants to do with our lives. We also became, imho, not less valuable for mankind, doing what we do best to put milk on tables, and to get some comfortability.

At least, some channels claim to have neutral ambitions. Like our public media. It isn´t, in my opinion, bad at all. BBC, like.
Unherd is another. I have both neoliberal and socialist friends liking the material published there.

The truth must always be the goal...
— chiknsld

I genuinely agree with you. The truth is the most important objective here, or anywhere in life really. — Bret Bernhoft

Whats the truth about being able to do good computer programs? Or discussing say politics wisely? Whats the truth about abortion being right, handling climate crises or determing the number of immigrants to be admitted to a country?

Is Wisdom and Understanding not beyond seeking truths, is it not about being able to manouver in the messy place called world? Where nice little facts and truths certainly become helpful in those processes?

Understanding something includes knowing when to take shortcuts. That AI example, ”a good chunk” of code (say a complex regexp) can be handed over to the AI, at the same time as knowing what need to be done by oneself.

Understanding take the time it takes, and no medals are given to the say effort. On the contrary, its often when one takes on the problem area playfully and open minded that you get to the understanding. Which includes knowing what you don’t need to understand.

Just throwing in a few things, like my 25c’s:

- Laws of physics seem to be pretty universal. Reliable and boring. They seem to sum up all the stuff about matter and energy pretty well and boring and just the fact that those laws seem so stable is the only thing at least I see as philosophical interesting about it.

- Our individual thinking seem, on the contrary to be pretty peculiar. Quite singular, both in terms of isolation from the outer world, and in the fact that its perceived as lack of parallelism. I think what i think right now, I cannot think two things at the same time.

- At the same time our collective thinking seem to be a realisation of a multi-processor computing thing. We’ve kind of invented materialism together. And well, the Gods too.

- But few will allow our individual thinking to be a strictly materialist stuff, just a lot of little electrons running around in the brain. There some mystical thing about the self that remains.

But doesn't empowering someone on merit naturally lead to disequilibrium? To anyone who argues against them do you merely say "shhhh" or do you entertain their qualms? — Benj96

Of course, what "merit" is, would have to be defined and accepted. What a corntribution is and how valuable it is to society and mankind.

To back up to the OP, could there, even if all studied politics and so on exist anything as - a people?

In something as big as a nation, even the small one I am a Citizen of, there will be very different habitats depending on the fortunes of different people. And is there any chance that an immigrant in a no-go area stuggling to make ends meet taking multiple jobs, a striving family father in a lower middle class area, an a middle-aged woman, born in a habitat rich on cultural and social capital having chosen an occupation of interest and following progressive values to do something good with her life, could three persons like that be unified as a ”people”?

"Enforce meritocracy" sounds like a contradiction of terms. As does "induce embracing".
It sounds like "totalitarian/autocratic free will" which don't seem to go hand in hand.

Essentially, in summary, enslaved to doing right by others (merit) and forced/induced to only think in fun ways. Totally controlled in essence. No free will to be bad, selfish, or boring and thus no meaning to their opposites - good, selflessness and fun. — Benj96

Enfore meritocracy is by no means a contradiction, remember I am God. My goal is not the pleasure for mothers of rich cultural and social captial to “make offspring happy” and “seeking life fulfilment”. There is a good portion of coercion and conformance in meritocracy. If you “feel enslaved” by being lazy and letting the others do the hard work its your funeral. Or rather, you lazy, you serve. That’s the choice you have. A fair race. And of course, everyone works office, hospital, factory hours.

But sure, the ones spoiled rotten by mothers that “just want to see their offspring happy” will, lets say, feel a decrease if own free will exploitation. Thats what happens when a guy with working class roots becomes God.

during my time of studying art therapy — Jack Cummins

What is art therapy?

I come here because I have a naive love of knowledge. I don’t come here very often since the meticulous arguing and the logic part of philosophy is so boring, I hate details, when I hear people say something, I look for the wow in what they say, not the logical fallacies,

I love to read books by philosophers aimed at the “intelligent layman”. I sometime read philo papers as a Sudoku, but sudokus are way more fun.

For guys like me, there’s nowhere to go.

But threads like yours here, is what makes me come here. And I love reading the answers.

God for a day, well first the normal stuff, erase poverty, clean endless energy sources to humans, enforce meritocracy worldwide and severe pain at lying for own profit.

But more controversial - I would induce an enzyme in the wise to embrace FUN knowledge. Not killing all happiness by striving for certainty, arguing, logic and all that kind of meticulous bs. But rather the “whats the 10 biggest towns in Mexico” thrill one had as a child.

On can chose not to accept it but solving anything non-trivial, one will bear it in mind. Was it Einstein that said “as simple as possible but not simpler”. Aesthetics sometimes is rather the opposite, guys wanting to make problems harder than they are because they like to solve intricate problems,

Two kids maximum is my policy, my wife raised havoc going for a third. But it seems probable that the world´s population should decrease nicely if you had a maximum of 2. A lot of gus would go for 0 or 1.

Any reasoning on whether people should live or not per se is beyond me. Sometimes I hate myselt and humanity and sometimes i love those two groups. Cant make up my mind. But 2, thats a good sound limit.

Until the charming teacher in first grade informs you that "santa does not exist", runing you whole day, sometime 1969 .still remember it, not with much pleasure.

Glad for you guys if you can choose your thoughts. Mine just kinda pop up. Then, the logical guy up there starts arguing. But I dont think I ever choosed one. Like mr elf just above here points out, the decisions might not just pop up unscrutinized, but the thoughts as such, at least for me, pops up from an uncontrollable, creative part of probably my amygdala

A lot of good stuff said here since I was here about a week ago(working man).
- uncertainties about the human part of the warming
- people’s will to make sacrifices for the sake of reducing warming. On a personal and governmental level.
- various links to for and against.

I feel tnere are too many hidden agendas in all these types of discussions.
The really toxic part is if some people want other people to make sacrifices that they do not see as sound. That really blocks all parts to common understandings.
I do not know, but suspect, that different habitats for upbringing can make people more or less apt to make changes.
And further, the climate discussions are not only questions of sacrificing or not. There are things like technology in the mix too. Eg Nuclear Power.
To philosohize is supposedly a very low emission producing activity. People should sit down and think instead of travelling all over the place… i find people rooting for the climate also loving travelling. Thats not so cool.

Just a take on this : Philosophy is the strive to think and speek good.

An absolutely vital part of any scientific project as well.

The “observe” thing in science is not aimlessly looking at whatever. When clever guys, as the mapping out of the world progressed, saw how well Brazil fitted into West Africa they started thinking.

Don’t really, as a non Academic know what Platonism is, but when I read the dialogues, those guys weren’t stupid, they just didn’t have the tools we have now. I see no direct contradiction with science, on the contrary they were well on the track. They used what they had and did a good job with it. And picking up where they started, it wasnt too long before philosophers like Bacon sent nerdier thinkers on the track to knowledge. Nerds are super useful.

Where’s that video btw?

I see it when talking to workers too — Xtrix

Who are "workers"?

Suppose most finnish people would have cheered at her sitting in a Sauna drinking from a bottle of Lapin Kulta and burping, while being whipped with a birch branch.

Suppose that stuff in the OP is not what is considered Finnish...

But admittedly, there is probably no PM in the world that dances better?

All we had to do to prevent climate change was to follow Aristotle's advice: aureum mediocritas (the golden mean) or nec quid nimis (nothin' to excess). These simple rules, if followed in the right way, would have worked like a charm - no wars, no global warming, no poverty, no nothin'!

Unfortunately our (human) nature got in the way - we drink until we pass out, we eat until we die of heart ailments, we drive past the speed limit and die in a collision, you get the idea.

Climate change in my humble opinion is nothing more than a manifestation of very human flaws — Agent Smith

This is actually pretty smart, and an antidote to what progressive kids from wealty or academical families tends to go on about, wanting working people to make their lives worse:

When you talk about our human nature, count me out. I just love lying in my bed reading stuff. Pandemics learned me to keep myself fit without any gyms and shite. I also work a lot from home and did not give my kids car rides to sport activities.

Be lazy, philosopize, read and watch the sunsets. That way you have a rich inner life and do not spend so much power.

The upper class kids, also those getting progressive and having environment things are really the driving force for the opposite. I’ve seen it plenty since i made the class journey from daytime work environments to a pretty area where all houses are nice. And getting to know a lot of people in the uni town I live in now - the class divider is all these life expectancies. Where I grew up noone really had any projects, plans for whatever. One was sorted into whatever one seemed to do well in and did it.

Where I live now all kids have all these projects. My own daughter claims to be an environmentist, leftist, everything ist but what did she do… go around the world, and she did not take the bicycle.

The gordian knot is to relax. And the guys that are born energetic can use that energy to invent smart solar cells, fusion power or whatever. We get happier and save the planet at the same time.

Pretty seriously.

This has scared me everyday since 1973. And it aint getting better.

Good intentions might not be enough but they are at least a very good start. To acknowledge difficulties as what they are is the sign of a person not living in some tinseltown.

Let's get down to the brass tacks, shall we? We know we have a problem (climate change), a huge one as a matter of fact. We know the aetiology (CO2
C
O
2
) as well! The solution, however, isn't as straight forward as we'd have hoped, oui? We're almost completely dependent on fossil fuel for our energy. So, the hard choice we've got to make: Freeze or Fry! :grin: — Agent Smith

And people, groups, nations, world haggle with that.

An Initial requirement is you have to have a pole up your behind.
— Ansiktsburk

A portrait of the earnest as a wrong man? — lll

Rather a man who puts on an image of being right. Or at least, talking right.

Where do you wanna start? — Agent Smith

Good question. Probably somewhere in the reigion of un-happyness and in the region of meaning. Maslow territory.