Right-wing women are the class traitors par excellence - willing to masochistically sacrifice their sisters at the altar of phallocracy, just to get the meager privileges and honors bestowed upon them by the patriarchs. Collaborationists and cowards to the core, right-wing women fiercely cling to their masters, and jealously despise any women who has the courage to live for herself. — _db

I think you're just expressing your own frustration here. Pro-life women are just people like everyone else. They are our fellow citizens.

Where's the combat mission?

A materialist proof for the existence of God would be wild. — Enrique

I think Aristotle's proof is amenable to materialism. I don't think materialism as we understand it existed back then.

Materialism has always had difficulty defining what it means to be material. If you mean what I think you mean by it - no "spooky stuff" - then that's just naturalism.

Besides this, probably the most significant challenge to materialism is the Kantian transcendental aesthetic, which holds that space and time are not things in themselves but are pure forms of sensibility. Pairing this with Kant's epistemology leads to the result that not only is the "external" and "material" world beyond space and time, it's completely inaccessible to knowledge, which makes metaphysical claims about its nature (like materialism) empty of any meaning. — _db

:up:

We seem to know about space and time a priori. This supports the idea that they're aspects of us rather than the world (as it is). But aren't their other possible explanations for this?

We can just use the answer "emergence," for all of these, but I don't think that's a particularly good answer. I'm not sure if emergence, as the term is generally understood, even applies for the interactions listed in #1 - #3, which is why I am skeptical that it is actually a good explanation for #6 by itself. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Can't we be Kantian about it and say that what we're observing is the mechanics of the mind?

If so, I would point to the Zodiac (don't throw anything at me, please), not for reading horoscopes, but to analyze the geometry.

For instance, there are cardinal signs that form a square. There are other groups called trines, which form triangles. Opposing signs are interesting because they're entirely separated. The only mingling is through the trines and squares. And it goes on and on, sort of endlessly.

Public transportation, electric cars, heat pumps, electric lawnmowers, solar panels, less meat consumption, etc. etc. A more sustainable world is possible. — Xtrix

Somewhere around 60 percent of electrical energy in the US comes from coal and natural gas.

accept the playing field is not level, but leveling it is far more complex than just dumping people into broad categories and going from there. — Hanover

What's your suggestion?

A description is knowledge.
— Tate

Really? Always? What could that mean? A description is always a justified true belief? — Banno

A scientific description is usually justified, ideally true, and believed, though that's not the only useful definition of knowledge.

I take it by "description", you include explanations, background concepts, and techniques of prediction. Sounds good. :up:

It's not just description, it's also explanations.
— Tate

Ok, so set out the detail this distinction. — Banno

A description is 'what', an explanation is 'why'.

You can't describe the future...
— Tate

Yes, I can. I will eat my lunch in a few hours. Are you claiming that this is not a description? — Banno

A description is knowledge. You don't know you'll eat lunch in a few hours.

...because you haven't seen it
— Tate
I haven't seen your liver; but I could describe it. So that doesn't look right. — Banno

How many ounces of fat are in my liver?

It's not just description, it's also explanations. You can't describe the future because you haven't seen it. Explanations allow you to predict, but a prediction is not knowledge.

Still, there must be aspects of the model that assume
chance, random and arbitrary features. Look to these for the impetus for better reformulations of the model. — Joshs

Like Brownian motion? Ok. I'll get on it. Nobel here I come!

Is this what they used to use to attempt to describe smoke and cloud patterns? When chaos theory was introduced it brought order and predictability to the modeling of such phenomena that the previous concepts could not. One has to be careful when one claims that a model is predictive as hell to take into account the extent to which it consigns aspects of the world to chance and randomness — Joshs

The CGL is for working with pressurized gas. It is wonderfully predictive. :smile:

What I meant specifically is that laws of physics are conceptual creations that may come to be seen eventually as a relic of a certain era of physics. — Joshs

I see what you mean. But think of the combined gas law. It works. What's the concept behind it? It has to do with kinetic vs potential energy. Maybe that will change, and maybe as it does our prediction skills will improve. But the CGL is already predictive as hell.

I think what we'll see there is an evolution. The same kinds of things are being explained, just explained differently.

Art48
The universe doesn’t obey the laws of physics; it merely does what it does.
— Art48

Or perhaps this is merely what WE do. — Joshs

We are part of the universe, Josh. Everything we do is the universe doing what it does.

Would it have been possible to avoid the ongoing horror in Ukraine? If Ukraine had yielded some territory and agreed not to join NATO - would that have led to a long term peace? Or would that have only been a temporary stopgap measure and eventually Russia would have invaded anyway? I don't know - and no one else in this forum can answer that question with any certainty. It's possible that even Putin himself could not answer that question. It's all too depressing. — EricH

Waging war has worked well for him in the past. It would seem reasonable that he would turn to that same tool again.

But I've also thought about the reasons wars happen. One is war profiteers. They can't start wars, but they can grease the tracks. Same with basic human bloody-mindedness. Or maybe it's not human. Maybe just the male part of the species is like that, and not even all of them, but again, that alone won't usually cause a war, but it facilitates.

The problem with looking at profiteering and aggression is that these elements are there in every war, so they don't tell you anything about specific wars. For that, you do need to look at personalities and recent events

My limited experience in life tells me people frequently fail to give weight to things like the whims and predilections of powerful people. No one wants to think it could be that simple and stupid. No, it has to be like chess or something.

Not really. Not usually. Often, the answers are right on the surface and if you look too deeply, you're getting further from the truth, not closer.

One of the things I notice is that people pour their own angst and fears into interpretations of events. Never a good idea, not if seeing the truth is the goal.

I think some of us are offering explanations prior to understanding what abstract objects actually are.

An abstract object is like a tree in that I can be wrong about it. Note the direction of fit. I learn about them. I don't make them up.

Let's get that straight first, then try to figure out what their basis is. Perhaps their roots are in my psychological make-up at a fundamental level. Maybe they're patterns in the universe that show up in the structure of my mind, for no other reason than that my mind is a natural thing.

Don't paint yourself into a corner before looking around the room.

I think that it is undeniable that without awareness the universe would be as good as nothing. It might be said to exist in some sense, but it would be an entirely blind, deaf, dumb and senseless existence, whatever we might dimly be able to imagine that could be. — Janus

I'm familiar with that weirdness. :grin:

Does this idea of the universe being aware of itself mean that the whole universe is aware of it wholeness, or just that some parts are aware of parts? Of course the latter is uncontroversial, as animals and humans seem to show various degrees of self-awareness. — Janus

I think of awareness as usually being like a flashlight in a dark room. I just meant that physicalism, to the extent that it's monistic, has to accept that the universe has awakened to itself. That's what we are.

But 'NO!' the physicalist will cry 'the view that the physical is primary is the more plausible'. Yet plausibility is not a precise measure and a sense of it is gained only by comparing many cases, and in this connection we have only the one case to consider. So, it seems that our sense of plausibility here is merely a reflection of conditioned habit and the dominant paradigms of our social milieu. — Janus

If you're a physicalist, you probably accept that in some sense the universe is aware of itself, so I don't know if it's more plausible. It's just the starting point our culture embraces.

I agree. We just encounter this and that, categorize it to fit our needs, and we proceed without filling in the blanks.

You don't wait until physics is finished before you dig a hole for a pond. You just dig it.

Most common versions of physicalism would agree that a truthmaker for their claim would be that, long before any experiencing thing had time to develop, stars were doing what physics describes — Count Timothy von Icarus

The truthmaker for physicalism (as a proposition) would be physicalism (as a state of affairs). Same with idealism.

The grey strawberry illusion for reference:. :grin:

I see problems with defining abstract objects in terms of sets — Art48

A set is an abstract object.

A paragraph or two is spared to identify that the author is aware of issues with the correspondence theory, they invoke pragmatism, and then promptly carry on using what is essentially the correspondence definition for the rest of their work.

And I can't totally blame them because for many topics it is the most straightforward definition to use. — Count Timothy von Icarus

That seems like a recipe for suspect metaphysical shenanigans, though. Do they faithfully adhere to the limits of pragmatism?

Or maybe don't have such a US-centric view of the world. The suggestion self-sufficiency expertise isn't available in rural France (of all places) is rather funny — Benkei

That's what the Europeans who come here tell me, although they're mostly German, so maybe they don't know much about France. Good luck with your endeavors.

Lol. I will never in a million years move to the US, the source of too many problems in modern times with one of the most corrupt governments to curse the western world. — Benkei

That's just where expertise in self sufficiency would be most easily and safely available to you. You can always move to Siberia instead. :rofl:

Your best bet might be to move to the US and find a commune devoted to self sufficiency. Few are suited to living off grid alone. Plus that's a dangerous path and not appropriate for children.

I would argue, are numbers abstract — Janus

That is the prevailing view in philosophy of math.

Truthmakers are components of the correspondence theory of truth. A truthmaker is not evidence. It's a state of affairs.

The proposition that idealism is the case would be true if that state of affairs obtains. This implies the dubiousness of correspondence theory, and why it's not a popular theory of truth.

Just keep in mind that if you find that your analysis of abstract objects contains the very thing you're trying to analyze (such as 'things we do', which is a set, and therefore an abstract object), you may take that as a signal that what you're dealing with is more primal than you previously may have thought.

But at least at this point, you've recognized that they exist and all that's left is to join the ongoing debate about how to understand them.

No, it's that a certain critical population level is required for the existence of a priestly, educated class. In Rome, just maintaining the population at a steady level required that every woman have like five babies (or thereabouts, don't remember the specifics).

But that wouldn't mean that "nothing comes before the Big Bang," even if the Big Bang was the result of a black hole in a larger universe. If that premise finds support it would mean our concept of time is parochial and needs expansion. And for myriad other reasons plenty of physicists have already come out and said there appear to be deep problems with our current space-time and that it may need to be overthrown. Like I said in my other post, plenty of now foundational discoveries in physics have previously been written off as "meaningless" or worse still "metaphysics," so our ability to conceive of such changes now doesn't mean that much. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I see. Thank you!

You'd be amazed at what's actually occurring. I solicit business from major corporations and am told very directly that they need a certain percentage ownership by minority and then I get these 10 page forms where I'm asked for specific breakdown of employee by race and sexual orientation. It's illegal for me to ask, and impossible for them to verify for accuracy. — Hanover

You just make up some numbers and turn it back in?

Or if you prefer, abstract objects do not exist. — Banno

The relationship between a circle's diameter and circumference doesn't exist?

And RMS doesn't exist! Those crazy engineers, using non-existent items to do their jobs. :cool:

In this way, many EQUALS one..... — Relinquish

Yes.

Abstract objects, last I checked, have been, at the very least, more closely associated with the mind than the physical world. — Agent Smith

They aren't mental objects.

Also, for the moment, ignore the notion of abstract(ion) and give me an example, if there is one, of an object that's exclusively mind, having no connection at all with the physical world. — Agent Smith

I don't know. Did you know Pythagoras didn't invent the Pythagorean theorem? It was known for ages before him by the Babylonians and Egyptians.

Abstract objects don't "exist" in any particular mind. Pi is an abstract object. It's not a resident of my mind in the way my grocery list is. I can't be wrong about my grocery list. I can be wrong about pi. It's that sort of thing.

Instead of questioning the existence of abstract object, perhaps we should apply our skepticism the existence of an exterior physical universe. — Art48

We can't really do without either of them, so skepticism is just a fun pastime.

But of course there is a difference as respects the question in the OP. If the Big Bang was a black hole then it might make plenty of sense to talk of time before the Big Bang. It could conceivably be a common textbook fact that we talk of something casually prior to that event, it just depends on what we find and how we come to think of it. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Say the black hole in the middle of the Milky Way is a baby universe and there are people in there. Is their time separate from ours somehow? Or how does that work?

Excuse me, but someone has to be the rabid angry sneering lefty round here or we'll all drown in our own reasonableness. — unenlightened

I already understand the deep abiding hatred you have for the millions of Americans you've never met, so you can leave that part out if you want to. :grin: