Personally, I side with those who think that it is not solvable in a manner in which we would like the answer to be, namely, to explain how matter produces experience. — Manuel

What makes you pessimistic?

Included in all this is suffering in general: it's very hard to measure. No one doubts it exists. — Manuel

Would you agree that most living philosophers accept the hard problem in some form? Maybe the conflict is over whether it is solvable at all?

Yeah, so are flying spaghetti monsters. — 180 Proof

Correct.

Yes, China is also trying to make its economy sanction-proof.

Okay. Well, to my mind, such "god/s" are impossible (0%). — 180 Proof

It's metaphysically possible.

Of all possible worlds, maybe 10% have gods. I can't see why they're needed.

For us as well. The Fed is expected to slam the breaks on the economy. China is still ailing from covid. Russia is... well, Russia. The EU isn't looking great either.

Even if they are building something, it heavily relies on foreign components. Like the Kamaz trucks having a US build engines and German transmissions. Or their Sukhoi Super-Jet having French engines and US avionics, etc. They can get some parts from the grey market, but the final product still won't be exportable. — M777

I don't think many countries make their goods all the way up from raw materials. Maybe China does?

But I get your point. Manufacturerung isn't their forte, but they do meet a lot of their own needs through their own industries.

Glance at the Britannica article.

but now there is none. — M777

They don't export a lot of manufacturered goods, but they do a fair amount of manufacturing.

Britannica

paying reparations — M777

I hadn't thought of that. Jamie Dimon has said the US is headed for an economic "hurricane", so we may all be hurting shortly.

I meant if he died, Russia would probably go back to what they had before the war. I don't think anyone will have a grudge, except Ukraine, which will never trust Russia again.

I don't see a big difference whether he dies on his own or is killed by his cronies, after Russian economics are rolled back into the 1980s. — M777

They still have oil and coal. I guess the tsar/oligarchs system will just reset?

The CIA thinks he's got cancer and that there's a scramble going on in the Kremlin to find his successor. They don't want to put to much weight on that though, because they've been burned before from high level sources of information.
Newsweek

Cynicism is prayer to a godless universe: look at me, I'm hurting.

but maybe we could just be open to not fully knowing.
— Tate

But only for as long as we're relatively healthy and wealthy. — baker

What happens if we're not?

the openness to the other is the source of every chance and every threat,
which is why openness may give rise to the most generous welcome as
well as the most paranoid suspicion and why there can be no such thing
as a purely calculated hospitality.

Isn't part of the calculation our own pessimism or optimism?

The more deathly pessimistic a person is, the more they'll attribute evil to the path that has brought us here, to what's happening now, and what kind of ethics we need, specifically, they'll say we need an ethical outlook that rains hell and brimstone down on everyone and everything just for good measure.

The optimist would obviously see a different picture, but maybe we could just be open to not fully knowing.

What is "human nature"? Who is the authority on deciding that? — baker

I can't help you with either question. I can just say that there have been those who found the kind of labor exploitation that took place in the 19th and 20th Centuries to put people in situations that were counter to human nature.

Whether that's really what Marx meant by "alienation", I don't know.

And what if he was wrong about that? — schopenhauer1

What do you mean?

So what? Ethics is concerned with the turning of the tide, not what happens after. — Banno

Large scale change happens because of seismic shifts in political, economic, or natural environments. Somebody invented iron, or a new trade route to India opened up, things like that.

You can enjoy your own local utopia, but if you want to see change in the world, you have to wait for something to trigger it. Planning for utopia is a good idea, though. When the change happens, then people will reach for an ethical anchor. It's nice if there's already one there.

No, it doesn't. It works for the status quo. — Banno

True, but if the tide turns in favor of progressivism, inertia will support that, for better or worse.

Alienation isn’t the feeling of estrangement, but an act of hostility that causes someone to feel estranged. So an unalienated worker is someone who doesn’t face such hostilities. — NOS4A2

Marxist alienation is when a person lives contrary to human nature. I think.

If rivers and mountains are persons, a fortiori animals are too and where there are persons, there are rights! — Agent Smith

So we should save the elk from being eaten by wolves?

Yes, there is: inertia. — Banno

Inertia works for both sides.

If anything is permissible, then there is no reason to change what we are now doing.

Expressed as an aphorism: If anything goes, then everything stays.

Hence far from being progressive, post modernism becomes a model for conservatism. — Banno

If anything is permissible, there is no reason to preserve the status quo.

Expressed as an aphorism, if anything goes, there's no telling what we'll do next.

Hence far from being conservative, we have a model for progressivism.

Obviously, it's neither.

may be that people strive to come up with ideas and conceptual thought, but that emotions lurk behind the scenes more than many would care to admit. Likes and dislikes as attitudes and values may have such a strong power and influence in the development of rational thought. — Jack Cummins

I think this is true. If you think about your own metaphysical leanings, do you detect emotion? What are they? What are they connected to?

I think Russia's goal may have been to lower their unemployment rate.

I try not to, especially in Bloch's sense. — 180 Proof

You're either delusional or enlightened, but too cryptic to tell.

Hope' is just lipstick on a nightmare. — 180 Proof

You don't hope for anything?

:cool:

Since the war started at the end of February, Ukraine has destroyed about 10 Russian tanks per day.

I agree archetypes are important. It's a good idea to take them to heart when they appear - typically in dreams. Or literature. — ZzzoneiroCosm

They can be detected while you're awake. Wars break out between them. It's bad joo joo.

That's my experience anyway. They aren't two dimensional. They're living aspects of you.

put my finger on it: That's the collective UNconscious. Jung's idea. — ZzzoneiroCosm

Right.

I have trouble with the notion of collective consciousness, as the range of ideologies, cultures, behaviors, propensities of thought is vast and baffling. I think almost exclusively in terms of a personal evolution. — ZzzoneiroCosm

But dramas involving mothers and fathers are much bigger and older. My persona is tiny by comparison.

If you see a symbol of one of those cosmic sized beings and find yourself arrested by it, it's good to pay attention.

Bloch was a staunch supporter of Stalin up until Kruschev's denouncement of the monster.

Somehow that's part of his philosophy of hope, isn't it?

Was the point that Trump isn't responsible for Jan 6?

'In the past philosophers had invented concepts expressive of moral belief and presented them as if they were facts concerning the nature of the mind and the world.' — Jack Cummins

I agree. The basis of metaphysics is often emotion: the hidden fuel that drives philosophical conflict.

Philosophy without metaphysics might be philosophy without this driving force. I can imagine arriving at that point, but it wouldn't last for long.

The US has a lot of undeclared wars all over the planet. — Jackson

Yea, but they fight them with drones.

Yes. Guns are part of a culture. Gun people think slaughters are acceptable risks. — Jackson

If we had conscription and more conventional wars, the number of school shootings would decrease (in the US anyway).

I think you're wedded to the idea that there is one “Christian" metaphysics (unless I'm misunderstanding you.)

Early Christians lived in the so-called "age of essence.". Think Plato. Christians just absorbed the science of the day. They didn't really bring any new innovations to it.

That era gave way to the "age of mechanism.". Aquinas was in on that as he inducted Aristotle into Christian thought.

Mechanistic metaphysics died when Newton introduced the idea of gravity, and again, Christianity went along for the ride.

With all due honor and respect to Hegel, I think sometimes he was trying to do something that doesn't really fit the facts.

Ancient Greeks had doctors and were not mystics. — Jackson

How is that related to what I said?