These quotations are not in the order they came in your messages. I hope that doesn't make anything difficult to follow.

Mussolini defined fascism as the merger of state and corporate power. — fishfry

Point taken. If Government and Corporations are collaborating, normal people don't stand a chance.

Comes down to what responsibility platforms have. Being litigated all over the world at the moment. — fishfry

There was a landmark case in the US about this. The difference is that platforms (internet, phone, slowmail and, I think, couriers) are not responsible for the content of what they carry, only for delivering it. But Government can intercept and read them. Newspapers and publishers in general (broadcasters as well) do have responsibility for the material they publish; I think the difference is that they have editorial control over it, i.e. pick and choose what they publish. The point about platforms is that they don't pick and choose. The internet providers won the case, and have been dodging the small print about Government access ever since.

I like Nigel. He's fighting the emerging globalist government, as is Trump. — fishfry

Nigel is indeed very likeable when you first meet him. When you get to know him better - not that I know him, but I have followed him and had him pushed in my face for quite a while - you may well decide that he is a sleaze-bag. I doubt if he seriously cares about anyone but himself.

I see no checks on his power at the moment. — fishfry

Checks on the power of the Prime Minister in the UK are mostly behind the scenes.

When they came for the trade unionists I said nothing, etc. — fishfry

I'm very mindful of that.

People thrown in prison for tweets the government doesn't like? — fishfry

That would be worrying. But people setting up a meeting with the intention of rioting - those I worry less about.

Some happy medium. Fewer social services in order to discourage people from showing up who can't support themselves. With that proviso, I'd let everyone in who can make a contribution. — fishfry

Happy medium is exactly right - but also the problem. You do know, don't you, that illiterate people can also make a contribution? Not sure that reducing welfare for everyone in order to discourage immigrants would play very well in politics.

Then again there's that German stabber. Islamic terrorists have taken credit. — fishfry

IS have claimed responsibility for events that they had no hand in. On the grounds that anyone who does something they approve of is a supporter. I'm not sure where that issue has got to now.

God is a joker. — fishfry

Yes, indeed. It's not a popular theology, but the ancient Greeks believed it and the Vikings had a special god, Loki, for mischief. They reckoned that one of the primary functions of human beings is to provide amusement for the gods. Not a bad idea. Conventional heaven seems rather boring.

In the US, direct incitement to violence or unlawful action is illegal. Just about anything else, no matter how vile, is legal. — fishfry

I'm not surprised. But once you have conceded that, it's just a question of what and where. Not that it's an easy question.

I hope you know, and as a professional philosopher you should know, that this is a bad example, was never a principle of law, — fishfry

Well, I was never talking about the law as such. I didn't know about the Supreme Court. My intention was to use a cliche as a quick way of making a point.

there are scenarios in which intentionally lying about a fire in a crowded theater and causing a stampede might lead to a disorderly conduct citation or similar charge.

This was more what I was gesturing at, but more as a moral criticism that a matter of legal action.

Still others have categorized hate speech in a similar way.

I do have a problem about restricting that. Freedom of speech includes the right to give offence.

I don't like online abuse. — fishfry

And I agree with that. It's not contradictory. The reconciliation is that it seems only natural that if someone insults and abuses me, I would want to deck them, but that would be to lose the argument, so instead I would try to make them shut up. In a democracy, if that's the will of the people, I won't object.

Does physics ground mathematics?
— Ludwig V
Do the smallest scales of existence ground our use of math?
Absolutely. — Apustimelogist

You rephrased the question. Surely, applying math to the smallest scales of existence implies that physics and math exist independently. So I'll take that as your answer. Which I agree with.

I am not going to be able to make you understand what I am saying without you giving up this kind of dualism. — Apustimelogist

Would a Popperian ontic triadism be better? I doubt it. I suppose it is time to come out. I do have a view of this. I see your claim as the classic philosophical mistake of thinking that a grammatical device, which is purely rhetorical, has some philosophical significance. "Brains do plus tasks" is synecdoche for "People do plus tasks". You may not know what synecdoche is (I had to look it up to be sure).

Synecdoche refers to a figure of speech in which the word for a part of something is used to refer to the thing itself (as "hired hand" for “worker”), or, less commonly, the word for a thing itself is used to refer to part of that thing (as when society denotes "high society"). In metonymy, a word that is associated with something is used to refer to that thing (as when "crown" is used to mean "king" or "queen").

I just mean mechanistic in the sense of one event causing the next event and the next event in a way that is divide of any kind of extra meaning. — Apustimelogist

Yes, I understand that. So the language that you use to describe the brain process excludes the possibility of describing a plus task. So in what sense can it explain or cause a plus task?

I know Apustimelogist already answered, but I want to add the following link to flesh out the very literal sense in which synchronization occurs: — wonderer1

Thanks very much. Very thoughtful of you. I did know about this, but I saw the reports so long ago that I have completely forgotten where. I noticed that in this report, there is no suggestion that A's brain is in love with or trusts B's brain. I'm completely relaxed about the idea that brain mirroring is among the symptomatic criteria for love and trust, along with heavy sighs, big smiles, dilated pupils, raised heart rate, the release of oxytocin and, on occasion, mild insanity. Yes, I realize I'm channelling Wittgenstein here.

The kind of synchronication between internal and external states as described by active inference / free energy principle. — Apustimelogist

However, the synchronization that is involved here (mirroring) is not obviously the same as the one that @Apustimelogist is concerned with. But I don't know what the active inference/free energy principle is, so I could be wrong.

As an engineer I'm a complicator. I have to consider a multitude of details, about the ways physical things interact, in order to do my job well. — wonderer1

I liked this distinction. I'm happy to admit that as a philosopher, I'm usually a complicator. But I don't deny that simplification has its uses and it would be hard to do without it. We need both, each in their place. It takes all sorts...

But you said all the complex behaviours of neurons emerge from lower level physics which is quite wrong. They emerge from the information processing which entropically entrains the physical world in a way that brains and nervous systems can be a thing. — apokrisis

I think you are saying that the a physical process can (under the right conditions) be interpreted as an information processing process, and conversely. If so, that's very nearly what I was getting at. Thank you.

Complex dynamical systems exhibit nonlinear effects and a type of causality called causal spread, which is different from efficient causality. The interactions and connectivity required for complex systems to self-organize are best understood through context-sensitive constraints
I suggest that such non-linear reciprocal affecting between cause and effect is more fundamental than the mechanistic billiard ball or domino form of description we might try to foist onto neural processes as their ‘real’ basis. — Joshs

That's all very helpful. I do think it is high time that philosophers took seriously modern developments in the sciences and abandoned the concept of causality that developed in the context of 17th century science, with its Aristotelian heritage. (Not that the classical concept of causality was ever completely satisfactory; I'm sure you are aware that the concept of gravity was an exception.)

It is not the non-linearity that is particularly problematic when trying to grasp minds/brains. It is the complexity, and lack of anything remotely approaching a detailed account of that complexity. — wonderer1

It isn't just the complexity. The relation between minds and brains is cross-categorial, which means there can be no relation, which is absurd. There are other situations when we ache to understand different categories in relation to each other, but lack the conceptual resources to do so. I doubt that philosophers will find the way in this case; practical science seems already to be making progress, mainly by simply ignoring the problem.

I don’t favour computer analogies but what do you think causes the state of a logic gate to flip. Is it the information being processed or the fluctuating voltage of the circuits? — apokrisis

For my money, it depends what you mean by "cause". The system can be described as a physical process or as a information process. Both categories apply, so both the information and the voltage cause the gate to flip. If a physical bug is interfering with the process, you will apply the physical description and deal with the problem. If a software glitch is the problem, you'll apply the information description and deal with the problem.

A logic gate flipping is a physical process with emergent properties which allow us to treat it as if logic determines the results, by imposing additional constraints by only sampling the output of the logic gate on clock edges. — wonderer1

This made be realize why I'm so uncomfortable with the idea of "emergent" properties. It still locates the physical as original or fundamental. But, in the case of the logic gate, the gate emerged from the information process. I don't deny that it can work the other way round, of course.

I think the utility, beauty, and sustainability of a building are Emergent Properties, and the parts, features, and configurations from which they emerge are not so distinct. They can depend on each other, or emerge from one and the same part. — jkop

I agree with what you say. Indeed, it seems obvious. At present "emergent properties" seems to be pretty much a label for the undefined. I think the most useful approach is not to affix a label and try to answer the question "what is an emergent property", but to consider and understand cases and then work out how they are related. Then we'll know whether to pin one label on all the cases or maybe different labels for different, but similar cases. So your comments on reinforced concrete slabs seem entirely appropriate. The label doesn't help and can get in the way
d

This question directs some light onto what makes Tarskian's definition of philosophy interesting: — ucarr

I have many problems with this - and with self-reference. Not the least of which is that I'm inclined to think that if a language cannot talk about itself, then there is something it cannot talk about, so it is incomplete. Nor is there anything wrong with self-reference. Some specific uses of it are problematic, but since I'm not committed to avoiding all logically problematic uses of language by ruling them out of court in advance, I'm not much bothered by them. I don't think they give rise to any major problems of philosophy. Logicians and mathematicians have adopted the project of constructing a language with a grammar that rules such statements out. That's their choice. But it seems clear that a language that include those possibilities is perfectly workable.

I am wondering, however, whether self-reference may not be part of the distinction between science and the humanities. There is history of history, literature about literature, philosophy about philosophy. Metamathematics is presumably about mathematics, but I'm not sure whether it is mathematics or not. But there isn't physics about physics or chemistry about chemistry. More than that, can there be science of science. I doubt if it could follow some version of scientific method, including the experimental method, so would such a discipline be scientific?

A statement is philosophical, if it is a statement about another statement. For example: It is irrelevant that it is raining today. — Tarskian

I'm afraid I'm completely stuck in my opinion that the example is not a philosophical statement, unless you mean that it being used as a philosophical example makes it a philosophical statement. Which I think would be unduly stretching the scope of philosophy.
For another example "This work is copyright". I think that's legal and not philosophical at all. Yet it occurs in (or at least around) philosophical texts and is about them.

In what sense do you mean that physics does not ground everything? Physics describes the smallest scales of existence which grounds everything else and upon which all higher scale behavior depends and emerges from. — Apustimelogist

Does physics ground mathematics?

Of course, words and concepts must be inherently evolved, developed, learned, used in a social context. Brains in some sense synchronizing with other brains as well as other parts of the environments they navigate. — Apustimelogist

H'm what does "in some sense" mean? Brains no doubt navigate their environment - the body. But I don't navigate that environment (under normal conditions); the environments I do navigate are all "external" to the body.

what neurons are doing in my brain are not related to the semantics of "plus" and you don't need the semantic notion of 'plus' to explain how mindless neurons do 'plus' tasks. — Apustimelogist

I know what a "plus" task is. Hence, I know that brains/neurons don't do the plus tasks that I do. I don't understand what you mean by "the semantic notion of 'plus'". Are you by any chance saying that brains/neurons do plus tasks without knowing what they mean? Somewhat as a small child might move a chess piece without knowing the rules of chess?
In that case, though we might interpret what the child does as a move, it isn't a move in the sense that I might make the same move as part of a game of chess. To put the point another way, the child doesn't know what they are doing and isn't playing a game of chess. Similarly, the brain/neurons doesn't/don't know what it/they are doing and isn't/aren't performing a plus task.

I didn't mean mechanistic in such a narrow sense as you do here. — Apustimelogist

Can you explain in what sense you do mean "mechanistic"?

Looking at the level of global self-organizing processes of a living system will reveal a non-linear reciprocal causality that moves between the global and the elemental. — Joshs

I expect it will. One of the obvious features of life in general and people in particular is that they are autonomous. Whether those systems approaches can answer all the questions is another issue. On the surface, it looks as if they leave out the notion of a person, which implies that their scope will be limited.

Thank you for the link. I think (hope) that we don't need to get into the weeds here. Simpson summarizes his argument at the end of the article and I think that may serve our purposes. I think it will help if I copy it here.

The natural masters are fundamentally the virtuous or those who have been or those who have been perfected in their development and the natural slaves are fundamentally the vicious, or those who have been damaged or corrupted in their development. Many barbarians are in this condition, to be sure, but there is no need to suppose that all of them are. More to the point, some Greeks will be in this condition, in particular the many and (sc. those) whom the many admire. These views fit in with, and may in fact be said to fall out of, the teaching of the Ethics (where the many are certainly characterized as slavish and bestial (references to the text omitted). They are not views peculiar to the ancient Greeks or to Aristotle. — Simpson pp. 13,14

They are certainly not peculiar to Aristotle. The parallels with Plato's argument about the leadership of the ideal society are inescapable. The common theme is the central importance of reason. They share the view that the critical feature required to qualify one for leadership is reason. (Admittedly, Aristotle, unlike Plato, distinguishes between theoretical and practical reason, and that is an important distinction.)

Aristotle says that Greeks are fit to rule because they have x, y, and z characteristics. He does not say that Greeks are fit to rule because they are Greek. — Leontiskos

Aristotle says that most Greeks are not fit to rule. It is implied that some are. Nothing is said or implied about all Greeks - or barbarians. On the other hand, there is nothing to rule out the possibility that some random group of people may turn out (empirically) to share some characteristic which makes them all natural leaders or natural slaves. In fact, he proposes just such a group of people - "the many". One is inclined to think that "the few" must share the characteristic of being being leadership material.

Aristotle gave an empirical case for inequality qua ruling, and I don't see how serious-minded individuals can oppose Aristotle's arguments without making their own empirical case for equality. — Leontiskos

The first sentence of Simpson's summary makes it quite clear that Aristotle equates the natural with the moral. So Aristotle's empirical case is not what we would call an empirical case at all. It is built round his moral principle that the rational should rule over the irrational. I'm sure he would accept that that is not always the case in practice. He would say that when it is not the case, something unnatural is going on, meaning that something wrong is going on. So his claim is fundamentally a moral claim, not empirical at all.

Whenever I think about whether some group of people is better off or not due to a social action I think to myself: would I be willing to be on the receiving end? — Moliere

That's a very good test. It's not perfect. Some people have very poor imaginations and worse memories. I remember, in the small town that I lived in a while ago, there was a recession and a number of people lost their jobs. They got very annoyed about the welfare system - not much money, ill-mannered and unhelpful staff. When they got jobs, they forgot all about it and reverted to moaning about high taxes and the idle poor.

anarchy is not opposed to power at all as much as wants it to be directed according to what human beings want, rather than a class of deciders. — Moliere

That seems reasonable. But I feel that they are rather weak on the role of co-operation in making life worth living.

the desire to dominate will lead to endless suffering that need not be. — Moliere

That's quite obvious. And yet people still try that way. They see themselves as the winners, but mostly end up as losers, because there's always a bigger dog round the corner. It's the same syndrome as the gamblers. They think about what they're going to win and never about what they're losing.

Greece may have been given a Mediterranean empire for free, but if I were greek I'd have preferred to not be dominated. — Moliere

I'm still trying to work out what that refers to. It doesn't reflect anything I know about and I can't find anything obvious in what the reference sites say.

Though, of course, the Greeks had already accepted this sort of conquer-or-be-conquered ethos; in some sense it's deserved because it was the same thing they'd do to others. — Moliere

Well, everybody accepted that. The point of war was to get rich quick.

My suspicion is that ethos still has reflections today which, rationally speaking, need not be the case. — Moliere

Of course. Nothing changes, except the way people dress up what they're doing. Hope is all there is.

This might be a clue. I am enjoying the discussion by the two of you. Better by far than what is found on the visible pages. — jgill

Well, I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this. I've looked at some of the clips, none of which I trust because they are clips and context is always important.
It looks much like what goes on here. More and more people come. The policies make precious little difference. Politicians spend their time bickering and trying to invent quick fixes. No-one really cares about the problem.
I'm glad you are enjoying our conversation. We are trying to demonstrate a better way.

This just came across the wire. The head of Telegram was just arrested in France, for a "lack of moderation" on the platform. Europe is cracking down on free speech. I think that's very bad. — fishfry

The question is whether Telegram is facilitating free speech (good) or facilitating criminal activities (bad). I think that if he couldn't help the bad people taking advantage of Telegram. But he could at least try to prevent them or at least help police and prosecutors nail them.

Didn't Socrates run afoul of the Starmer types? — fishfry

Not really, though politics played a big part. Prosecutions in Athens were only brought by private citizens; there was no such thing as Government legal action. It was a very different world. The real problem that many of his followers were right wing. But there's no evidence that he agreed with them and some evidence that he believed in the Athenian constitution, which the right wing opposed.

If he's enabling illegal activities, that's different than if he's only enabling free speech. — fishfry

There's something we agree on.

I find it hard to believe that he didn't realize he was liable to arrest if he went to France. What were his people doing? It looks as if he and they just assumed that because he was OK in the USA, he must be OK in France. That's the kind of attitude that seriously annoys the rest of the world.

The emerging globalist government is cracking down on free speech. You and I are not on the same side of this issue. Perhaps we can agree to disagree. I'll go with the First amendment to the US Constitution. I'm burnt out on this topic, my apologies. — fishfry

OK.

Well authoritarianism doesn't always look like jackboots. — fishfry

True. But fascism does.

But still ... arrested for what is in your thoughts? — fishfry

I don't know about that case. I agree it looks bad. But on the principle, the difference between murder and manslaughter is your intention i.e. what is in your thoughts.

I think we should drop this. You know the kind of scurrilous literature I read. Since we talked last I've got 20 articles about the repression of speech in England. I won't bore you with them. — fishfry

Fair enough. I don't expect us to agree about much. I'm quite happy to understand what you think and find out what we agree about. After that, agreement to disagree is fine, and certainly much better than exchanging abuse.

Actively trying to destroy free speech. I say that's bad. Bad choices. — fishfry

You seem to resent any restrictions on free speech. The classic question here is whether you have no objection to someone shouting "fire" in a crowded theatre or stadium when they know darn well that there is no fire. (Thus causing mass panic and distress, injury and death) Nobody doesn't limit free speech. The only question is what limitations are appropriate.

Not so. Trump's Remain in Mexico policy was keeping a lid on the problem. You don't need a police state to simply defend your own border and enforce the laws already on the books. — fishfry

I gather that the numbers were down and have gone up since. I don't know why.

I can live with open borders as long as nobody gets government services. But that's not workable, because people get sick and need health care. Kids need education. It's a thorny problem.. — fishfry

It is indeed.

I believe it was Milton Friedman who said you can't have both open borders and a welfare state. That's the mistake the US government is making. — fishfry

That's what I call the honey-pot effect. That's a thorny problem too.

But your question is analogous to asking, "Since you're against bank robbery, why are you against bank withdrawals." I'm fine with legal immigration. — fishfry

What if you disagree with the existing laws about immigration? People who have a problem with immigration want restrictive laws as well. Most people expect some level of control. The really thorny argument is how much control should there be. (At one point, the law in the UK did not allow any immigration at all. It didn't work very well.)

I may be exaggerating about the police state, but how would you feel about employers having to get government approval before offering anyone a job? Or hospitals having to check your status with the government before treating or even examining you? Or hotels, landlords and restaurants contacting the police before letting you have a room? Schools asking permission before they take on your child? Have a look at what China is doing on the surveillance front.

Your government is way over the line these days. But like I say, I have my hands full fighting off the censors in the US. Hoping for the best for our British cousins. I hear Starmer is letting hardened criminals out to make room for the posters of mean tweets. — fishfry

Whose line is it over? Yours? But you are not living here and you are not a citizen. The job of the UK government in the UK is to keep in line those who are way over the UK lines (by law). That's what they are doing.

I don't spend much time following the Royals, but they're in the news and hard to miss. Meghan and Harry and all that. England's gift to the US. — fishfry

There's a paradox. In the UK, there is practically no coverage at all of what they are doing at the moment. They are invisible.

So far Kam still hasn't announced any actual policy stances, nor sat for an interview or press conference. She might get away with it. Trump looks tired and out of it these days. — fishfry

She does seem to have got the Democrates back in contention. She seems to have worked out that joy and confidence are more attractive than fear. It's a brilliant move against Trump.
I'm also wondering if his age is catching up with him, and whether it will create difficulties for him when it comes to voting. That would be ironic. There's a rather old-fashioned phrase in English English "hoist with his own petard" it means roughly "blown up by his own grenade". Very satisfying.

One can only hope. — fishfry

Well it will help if, in the mean time, we do not treat as terrorists people who are not terrorists. Islamic terrorists are a tiny minority of Islamic people. The vast majority of them disapprove of them. Other Islamic people have suffered from them as well, you know.

I hope your buddy Starmer is as open-minded :-) — fishfry

I'm sure he will, and if he doesn't, there are plenty of his supporters and officials who will sit on his head.

Well your side is going to soon crush my side. I have no doubt that bad days are ahead. You might call them good days. No unapproved thoughts. — fishfry

On the contrary, I'm seriously worried that the whole world is moving to the right. The dictators (Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and all the small fry) think things are going their way. They recently had a global conference to swop tactics and sympathy - somewhere in S. America, I think. The UK, I believe, was represented by Nigel Farage! Talk about the emerging global government. It's quite likely to be a right-wing government.

These processes are not meant to explain the rules, they explain our behavior despite underdetermination. — Apustimelogist

Yes, and they explain in a proximal sense all our rule-following behaviors in principle. — Apustimelogist

what neurons are doing in my brain are not related to the semantics of "plus" and you don't need the semantic notion of 'plus' to explain how mindless neurons do 'plus' tasks. — Apustimelogist

I'm sorry. I really don't understand what you are getting at. We are agreed that we need functioning brains to do plus tasks. I don't understand anything beyond that.

you don't need the semantic notion of 'plus' to explain how mindless neurons do 'plus' tasks. — Apustimelogist

Can you explain what the semantic notion of "plus" is?
I don't need to explain how mindless neurons do plus tasks, because they don't do plus tasks. Saying that I act blindly when I do a plus task is saying that there is no need of and no room for an explanation how I do them. So I don't know what my neurons are doing while I am blindly doing a plus task, either.

I think you believe a philosophical thesis that physics is the ultimate grounding of everything, and that you therefore infer that my neurons must be doing something relevant. My problems are first that I don't accept the philosophical thesis that there is/must be an ultimate grounding of everything and second that you don't seem able to explain what the relevance of my neurons is.

know-that is a special case of know-that - or at least that is how it is implemented. Know-that is enacted. — Apustimelogist

I hope there's a typo there and you meant that know-that is a special case of know-how. I would agree with that. Articulating one's knowledge is also a case of a know-how that is quite distinct from the know-how that one is articulating. Quite a surprise - especially to philosophers!

Aristotle says that Greeks are fit to rule because they have x, y, and z characteristics. He does not say that Greeks are fit to rule because they are Greek. — Leontiskos

You did indeed say that. Not quite oops! but nearly. Could you give me the reference?

It's a complicated question. The issue that provoked it was:-

whenever a civilizer comes along somehow the civilized end up worse off and helping the civilizer live an easier life — Moliere

This was based on the standard narrative of the civilizing imperial missions of some of the European nations in the 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries.
But the question doesn't really apply to the conquest of Greece by Rome (between 146 and 31BCE).
During the Hellenistic period (between 323 BCE and 30 BCE) Greek cultural influence spread through the Mediterranean and beyond. There was a good deal of fighting during that time; I don't know how far that actually affected the Greeks. Yet it seems that prosperity and progress reigned. The Romans, therefore did not bring peace and prosperity - the Greeks were doing quite nicely on their own, thank you. In fact, there was a kind of reverse take-over. Greek culture dominated native Roman culture, to the point that there is very little left of what went before. How far that benefited the Greek in the street is hard to discern, but some Greeks did; Greek people were much in demand as tutors, doctors and administrators.

I just want to say, that I appreciate your thoughtfulness. — wonderer1

It's very kind of you to say so. The fact is that most of the time I feel as if I'm wading through mud. A lot of struggle for rather meagre progress.

From a point of view, it seems unproblematic; from another point of view, it would then be puzzling why Aristotle said that Greeks are suited to rule the world — Lionino

Forgive my ignorance. I must have missed something. Did Aristotle say that Greeks are suited to rule the world? Reference?

a dogma which says that no race or people has any characteristic which makes it better, in any way, than any other race or people. — Leontiskos

Well, that is indeed a bit sweeping. It may well be that people with a black or brown skin are better suited to living in a tropical country. Evolution would see to that, just as it has, no doubt, seen to the colour of people living in temperate countries. Do we think that is particularly relevant to the practice of enslaving them? I hope not.
But I'm not sure that's what anti-racists are/were on about. I think that they were on about the idea that people with a black, brown or yellow skins were suited to being dominated by people with white or pink skin. They may have suspected that people with black, brown or yellow skins were not dominated by people with white skins because of some inherent characteristic but because of the more effective technologies of the white people. But I think they were more bothered by the idea that it was morally acceptable to maltreat any human beings simply because of the colours of their skins. Doing that seemed incompatible with the mission of civilizing and Christianizing non-European and non-Christian countries - as indeed, it was.

"anti-racists" have a difficult time even with saying that Greeks are fit to rule because they have x, y, and z characteristics, and this is because the "anti-racist" holds to a dogma which says that no race or people has any characteristic which makes it better, in any way, than any other race or people. — Leontiskos

I suppose you understand that sentence is itself an example of a tendency much criticized by anti-racists and other people opposed to prejudicial discrimination - stereotyping. Some racists may have a problem with the idea that Greeks, as such, are fit to rule and yet be completely at ease with the idea that people with x, y, and z characteristics are fit to rule. If all Greeks turn out to have x, y, and z characteristics, so be it. But they will not be willing to assume that they do on such fragile grounds as the fact that they all speak Greek or live in Greece. There is no rational connection between speaking Greek or living in Greece and being fit to rule.

I can generally agree with this. I think there has always been a disparity between those with knowhow and those not, but the information age has caused something of a hiccup I feel. — I like sushi

I'm sure there has, but that it is more a question of degree than have/havenot distinction. In the context of education policy, there are three questions:-
1. What is required to function at a minimal level?
2. What is needed to function well and effectively?
3. How much can we instil into children before they become adults?

It's pretty clear to me that what happened in WW2 blew apart the conventional argument that the humanities have a civilizing or moral force, even if we include science in the list. My suspicion is that a practical (as opposed to theoretical) understanding of civilization and morality is not gained in any classroom or theoretical study, but only by living in such a society with civilized and moral people - and even that is not a guarantee.

This opens up a huge debate. Bringing up good citizens (let's suppose that this society is at least on some winding pathway towards civilization.) is a complicated and messy business. Formal education, as we understand it, is an important part of that. Don't think that I'm trying to disparage it. But play-time and parenting are important parts as well. Beyond that, I'm very confused.

Don’t forget Nietzsche here.…and Heidegger’s interpretation of Nietzsche: — Joshs

As if.... !
I did think about them. But, given that I wasn't citing anybody else, I couldn't be confident that I could summarize them with reasonable accuracy. I reckoned that my argument was inclusive enough to include them. If it was, then well and good. If it wasn't, then I couldn't be confident about whether they would support what I was trying to say. I'm quite happy that you seem to support at least the drift of my argument.
But, in both those quotations, I don't find my human beings, and I miss them. :smile:
More seriously, I think "actual human beings" are important because this is about the humanities, which are about actual human beings, as opposed to the abstract ones that Nietzsche and Heidegger seem to be talking about.
I'm not saying that they are wrong, because I don't even say that I properly comprehend what they are saying.

the adverb reveals how an action is performed by an individual person with his/her unique Point Of View being the adverbial force that determines the "how" of the doing of an action — ucarr

Suddenly, I understand what you are saying. :grin:
I was interpreting "how" as asking a different question. How you got home, or How a computer works or How to make glass.
I see your point. I'm not sure what I think about it yet.

"Point of view" is an interesting concept. I think it's paradigm use is as in movies, when one talks about the camera's (audience's) point of view. The first use, of course, was in the context of (realistic) pictures and the theory of perspective, which has its place in geometry. It also occurs, I understand, in the Theory of Relativity, which proves its universal theses by proving that they are true of all possible points of view (sometimes they talk about observers). None of these uses is about actual people.
A point of view is an abstract of possible observers and ideal observers; it isn't about actual human beings. History, literature, and some approaches to language are about actual human beings, not abstract concepts. Linguistics is another interesting case that straddles the divide. (Is philosophy included here? Depends on what you mean by philosophy. Much philosophy presupposes an abstract observer, but Wittgenstein, of course, challenged that.)

Architecture consists of its components, but there are causal relations between them and the composition. — jkop

"utility, beauty, and sustainability", I would say are not components of the building, but aspects (properties) of the whole. So I agree with your sentiment, but am inclined to think that "causal relations" - which implies that they are distinct parts (components) of the whole - is not quite the right way to articulate the point.

If you go down that road then everything relates to everything. Colin Renfrew is a pioneer in Cognitive Archaeology, for example. — I like sushi

But, in the end, everything is related to everything. The test of Cognitive Archaeology is what it produces. There's no true or false here, only pragmatics (where the criterion is not the useful, or even the true, but only the interesting or profitable.) The issue I skated over is that subject divisions are not only about subject-matter and methodology, but also about practicalities and administrative convenience.
Then there is the issue that any subject needs to make its bread and butter. That means that ideas about education and research are essential to survival. The origin of the idea of the Humanities is the idea that there are some things that one needs to know in order to be a human being (a decent citizen of a civilized society). So their educational role was fundamental to everything else. What has changed is that nowadays, one needs to know about science in order to be a decent citizen of a civilized society.
(I'm not pretending that the concept of a

Science is what you study to get a high salary job. The Humanities (and the Arts) is what you spend your high salary on. — LuckyR

Neat, but wrong. If you want to get a high salary, Technology and Engineering or Business is what you need to study. But if you want to make real money, don't worry about studying, just get your hands on as much capital as you can, by any means possible. Science, Humanities and Arts are what make life worth living.

However, the distinction is not a simple binary, b&w polarization, and so the two modes can sometimes be made to work side-by-side. — ucarr

I agree. I was trying to outline an idea and left that point out for simplicity. Once you start looking, there are a good many disciplines that need to combine and mesh rationales and causal accounts. Indeed, the two are both useful in the ordinary, "common sense" explanations of actions. Though, admittedly, we appeal to causal explanations most often, I think, when something has gone wrong. Some actions are habits, which tremble on the brink of addictions. But addictions are not purely causal, since an addict is perfectly capable of rational action; it's just that the values that are prioritized are incomprehensible to us - no, that's the wrong word.

Discovery of "how" is rooted in the adverbial modification of the predication of the fact of existing things. — ucarr

Yes, you've said that before. But I don't really understand what you mean. Are you getting at what I would call levels of description? So, for example, a person is a human being (animal), a body (biology), a corpse (physics). Another example would be walking down a street as exercising or getting in the beer or starting a journey of 1000 miles. To me, adverbial modification means walking purposefully, or ambling or wandering or limping. But you might mean that interpretation is much more important in humanities disciplines than in the sciences. (Actually, I wouldn't take it for granted that physics means the same thing by "interpreting the evidence" as a historian does.)

To the main point, "how" drags [personal] consciousness into the frame of the lens of discovery. — ucarr

That's true, but it's not all always about what's conscious. Tacit knowledge is one example. The sub- or un-conscious seems to be a real thing. And there's all the process of data from the senses, which clearly enables consciousness, though it isn't available to consciousness.

There are fields that are an tightly meshed combination of both, — Tarskian

That's true, and we might learn a lot by seeing how such fields cope. Sometimes, I get the impression that they simply ignore the distinction, which sounds impossible, and yet, perhaps, it may be.

Yes, in the sense that architecture causally emerges from the building's practical, aesthetical, and sustainable qualities — jkop

I don't quite understand "causally" here. Surely, any building "consists" of practical, sustainable, aesthetic qualities among others; architecture is the art of combining them to meet various criteria. There needs to be a discussion about aesthetics that gets over the crude observation that aesthetics is "subjective" meaning that there can be no meaningful way of understanding aesthetic qualities. There are mathematical techniques for turning subjective opinions into data, but they are only a beginning. The traditional ideas that there are certain proportions of buildings that make them beautiful are another approach.

Maybe a lesson here is that reductionism can be a good tactical maneuver while the researcher is in the thick of the hunt for discovery - — ucarr

That may be true. I would hope it was more a matter of focus, of attending only to the context that is relevant to the task at hand.

It is true that the work on-site is the most visible and possibly most exciting phase of the archaeologist's work. The stuff back home is less visible and possibly less exciting; but it is where the objects begin to tell their story, so it is where the finds have value. So I prefer to include both phases under the heading of archaeology. There is no other source for pre-history, so once the narratives begin to appear, history and archaeology overlap, in my view. But it's really not worth arguing about.

Historians deal with the written word. I was pointing out this clear distinction as whoever posted what they need seemed to think historians were archaeologists. They are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but they operate on completely different levels of investigation and data collection. — I like sushi

That's true. The complication is this. For periods and places where there are no contemporary text sources, there is no other source than archaeology. Where both archaeology and texts are available, the two overlap, collaborate, and supplement each other. So I would want to say that where both are available, it is not important to distinguish between them, except in respect of the objects of study - differences in method are just the consequence of that. Both aim to tell a story of what happened.

Archaeologist. That is a science. — I like sushi

I have always thought of it as much more complicated than that. Something along the following lines:-

Archaeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. ... Archaeology can be considered both a social science and a branch of the humanities. It is usually considered an independent academic discipline, but may also be classified as part of anthropology, history or geography.

(That is actually a quotation, which I give because it saves me time and effort. I haven't given the source because authority is irrelevant, so it would be a distraction from what matters here.)

he comes up with a causal mechanism and looks to disprove it which is much harder because the event was singular in the past — Johnnie

This is not wrong, of course. But the use of the phrase "causal mechanism" here is an example of what happens when we get hypnotized by physics. Either questions about human behaviour are being pressed into the mould of what is appropriate for answering the questions of physics. Or the idea of a causal mechanism is being stretched to cover kinds of explanation that physics is designed to exclude. Either way, it is not helpful.

I'm sure that trotting round the argument about physicalism is great fun, but it seems like a well-known dance rather than a collaborative search for truth. I don't think it is helpful. Why don't we look at specific idea which is an interaction between a science and the humanities? That focus might allow us to see their differences more clearly.

The focus I suggest is the idea that the sciences are, in the end, social/cultural practices, as indeed the humanities are. To put it another way, the foundation of science is scientists in their social and cultural context. To put the point yet another way, physics is indeed everything, so is politics and so is economics, so is mathematics and so are art and ethics. The difference between all these approaches is not just in their subject-matter or their method; it is in what is important to them - the kinds of questions they ask and the kinds of answer they seek. Their objects of study may differ, and they may even work with different ontologies, but those differences are far from the only consideration and certainly not the predominating consideration. Understanding those differences may not answer all the questions, but I think it might enable us to ask questions more intelligently.

“Can human behavior be studied scientifically,"

It depends what you mean by "scientifically". If your paradigm of science is physics, then the answer will be that you can, provided you give the kind of answer that physics requires. But that kind of answer is not available in mathematics, so the paradigm is a bit embarrassing. You need to broaden your scope to allow different ways of studying things, without worrying so much about physics or even, perhaps, what is to count as scientific.

Once you have allowed that, it becomes possible to consider what ways of studying human behaviour are appropriate, and recognize that what we accept as an explanation of human behaviour is different from both physics and mathematics; one might characterize it as the search for the reasons for behaviour, for a rationale. (Causal explanations are also sometimes appropriate here, but not necessarily of the kind that physics recognizes.)

This opens up a more interesting question than the original one, because it identifies explanation as simply the search for understanding and explores what provides understanding of each question, rather than trying to press all questions into the mould of some paradigm - or even a small number of paradigms - in favour of pursuing our real needs.

Falsifiability is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for science. It must also be possible to experimentally test the falsifiable hypothesis. — Tarskian

Astronomy seems to be a purely observational discipline, though tests are indeed possible by means of prediction. It's just that experimental tests are not possible.
Ethology seems like another candidate in which experiments are not to be expected. This is partly for methodological reasons, because the behaviour to be studied needs to focus on animal behaviour in the context of animal lives, rather than a cage in a laboratory. Again, testing by prediction is possible. Ethology does not restrict itself to explanations of the kind required by physics, but often develops what I would call rationales, rather than causes. Perhaps you don't consider it to be a science. There are studies of animal behaviour that are based on experiments, but I think you'll find they are classified under the heading of psychology.

What are you an expert in?
— Ludwig V

Synthesising expertise.

Yes, they are.
— Ludwig V

It seems you think you are the expert after all. And you have only just heard of Turchin's work. Probably not even read the paper yet. :up: — apokrisis

I'm sorry you have decided to give up on our discussion. I thought there was a reasonable chance that we might end up with an understanding, if not an agreement. Still, it has been of interest, so thank you for your time and effort.

Not sure that is how it works. Seems it ought to require being expert across all fields. — apokrisis

The days when that was possible are long gone.

What are you an expert in?

But they are not different approaches. — apokrisis

Yes, they are. One respects the data and draws some worth-while conclusions. The other distorts the data by enforcing a single model on it.

I would have thought you could work out my interests by observing what I take in interest in. Equally, I would have thought that you could work out my expertise by reading what I say. Actually, my main interest is philosophy, which involves being interested in everything and having limited expertise in anything. Like many philosophers, I don't like being categorized.

This is much more interesting that hierarchy theory. The results are not very surprising, which leads me to give them considerable credence. Three comments:-
1. Statistics are of great value in suggesting where to look for the causal narratives that explain the observed correlations. They do not explain the associations they identify. So we should not go overboard about their value.
2 The proposition that this is an evolutionary process is interesting. It neatly avoids the need to consider what the agents involved were thinking when they act - as when they adopt agriculture or iron weapons. But nonethelss they were thinking something when they adopted agriculture and iron weapons. It is easy to imagine that they recognized the advantages of these new inventions and that's why they adopted them. There is a back-handed recognition of this in the last paragraph:-

Although factors such as infrastructure provision, market and monetary exchange, and ideological developments do not appear to play a significant causal role in propelling subsequent advances in social scale, hierarchical complexity, or governance sophistication, they likely are integral elements that support and maintain the results of that growth, which would account for the relationship observed between these factors in previous scholarship.

3 (Added after posting) It's also worth pointing out that the data on which the project relies is not gathered in any of the ways familiar to us nowadays. It is deduced from the clues available to us. Very often this involves reconstructing the lives and habits of the people. So narrative history is still needed as a basis for the generalizations.


So thank you for drawing my attention to this. I did tell you that I am not in principle opposed to these approaches. This one is much better than the other one because it seems capable of dealing with the data without unduly distorting it.

Hierarchy theory in the systems science tradition is at pains to show how constraints are the reason there can even be freedoms. — apokrisis

Well, that's very kind of it. But it's not very meaningful in the context of water or electricity systems. Both do whatever they do. They are not constrained or free (except metaphorically).

It is about the dialectical interaction between parts and wholes. And the two have to complement each other for the structure to persist.

Yes, some philosophers are very keen on parts and wholes and dialectical relationships. But everything depends on what kind of part and what kind of whole. The relationships between the two are different in different contexts. For example, what are the parts of a rainbow? Of a number, say 3? Dialectical relationships in causal contexts are simply causal loops, but in Hegelian philosophy quasi-logical relatioships and in human beings conversations.

So wholes are more than just the sum of their parts ... in that wholes shape those parts to serve their higher order purposes. Wholes aren't accidental in nature. They produce their own raw materials by simplifying the messy world to a collection of parts with no choice but to construct the whole in question.

Well, it's perfectly true that if you lay out all the parts of a car on a work-bench, you don't have a car. If you have to add something, you didn't lay out all the parts. If you don't, what more do you add? Hint - what do you mean by "more" and what do you mean by "sum"?
I don't see many wholes about producing things or simplifying things? So where does all that activity take place? To put it another way, Before the whole is produced, it cannot create its parts (because it doesn't exist). So the whole cannot produce it's own parts.

So where does sand get its shape so that it might compose a beach? How does it get roundish, smoothed and graded by size? What higher constraints lead to the formation of every particle of sand.

Well, a beach is produced because the weather and the water erode rock into separate pieces, which then are eroded into small and smaller pieces (the action of wind and weather now includes causing them to physically erode each other) and are eventually collected together to form a beach, which is shaped mainly by the water in the adjacent lake or sea. What is "higher" about weather and water? There's no "higher" constraint. A school of sardines is formed in different ways, and a glacier in what that are different again. No "higher" constraint is involve. You are confusing the process by which human beings (and some animals) make things with the inanimate processes that make inanimate things. You seem determined to see hierarchies in everything, rather than considering whether each thing has a hierarchical structure or not.

An army has to meet its purpose. So there is a Darwinian selection principle that produces the constraints which an army - as a human institution with regulations, history, a social memory - embodies.

Yes. There are circumstances when it makes sense for us to form a hierarchical social structure. Closely co-ordinated action and fast decision-making are obvious factors. An army needs its hierarchy in order to fulfil its purposes. What are the purposes of societies in general? There are different societies that exist for different purposes, and they will adopt the structure that suits their purpose; that may or may not require a hierarchical structure. Let's say that the purpose of Society is to provide "life, liberty and the opportunity to purse happiness". The key point is that it exists for the benefit of its members - (if it does not, then it is tyrannical, unless the members have volunteered and can leave - neither of which is true of a state). So who is in charge? The top of the hierarchy? Or the bottom?

But that was because economics lacked the larger constraint of a historical perspective on social order. — apokrisis

Ah, so pure form is not enough on its own, and that pesky unmathematical history turns out to be essential.

Economics too is being pulled into this new cross-disciplinary exercise of applying the lens of dissipative structure to an understanding of why our historical arc of development has been what it is. — apokrisis

What do historians say about the usefulness of that lens in understanding a historical arc?

I think that the vast majority of academic papers are considered to be irrelevant. In that sense, it does not matter if the justification supplied is solid or not. Nobody cares anyway. — Tarskian

An academic paper is a terrible way of publishing research. Nobody really knows, but it seems likely that more than half of academic papers published are never read by anyone except the author and a journal editor or two. I just feel pity and admiration for the editors (and referees).

I saw one estimate that 90% are never cited by anyone. Reading a paper to your own colleagues will almost certainly get more exposure than sending it to a journal.
Of course, there's a lot of argument. I couldn't find any attempts to measure how many are irrelevant.

(Numbers are indicative only, based on the first page of a Google search)

Pretty much the case in mathematics. One result is that even competent referees skim over details too often, especially if the author is a respected academic. Lots of mistakes are published, mostly non critical.

We searched Scopus for authors who had published more than 72 papers (the equivalent of one paper every 5 days) in any one calendar year between 2000 and 2016, a figure that many would consider implausibly prolific1. We found more than 9,000 individuals, and made every effort to count only ‘full papers’ — articles, conference papers, substantive comments and reviews — not editorials, letters to the editor and the like. — Ioannidis, Klavans and Boyack - Nature.com

Nobody wants academic posts to be a sinecure. But it would be nice if we could incentivize them to spend their time usefully. How about rewarding them better for being good teachers than for producing research that no-one wants?

I was just trying to hit home that meaning behavior comes from processes which are independent of our own notions of meaning. — Apustimelogist

Yes. In a sense, the processes act blindly. But that implies that they follow rules, which they don't. They do not differentiate between following a rule and not following it. They don't recognize rules. So they don't explain them - any more than they explain why 2+2=4 and not 5.

By physical laws I just meant the way the world tends to behave independently of perspective; obviously this is not coherently accessible, but we infer that there id a world that exists and behaves consistently regardless of who is looking. — Apustimelogist

If "the world" is not coherently accessible, our inference that it behaves consistently regardless of who is looking is a hope, not a fact.

Physics is the ultimate grounding since brain dynamics, computational behaviors are in principle implemented in the entities of physics. — Apustimelogist

How is that not reductionist? The bitter truth is the physics is just another way of conceptualizing the world, another lens through which to survey it. And that conceptualization cannot recognize rule-following behaviour. Causes are not correct or incorrect. They just are what they are.

know-that is a special case of know-that - or at least that is how it is implemented. Know-that is enacted. — Apustimelogist

I hope there's a typo there and you meant that know-that is a special case of know-how. I would agree with that. Articulating one's knowledge is also a case of a know-how that is quite distinct from the know-how that one is articulating. Quite a surprise - especially to philosophers!

mindless algorithms — Apustimelogist

Forgive my ignorance, but I had this naive impression that an algorithm is a rule.

The systems view is now moving from thermodynamics and biology to social science and human history. It claims to add mathematical rigour to the conversation. — apokrisis

You make it sound like the weather. But what you mean is that systems theories are now trying to apply it to social science and human history. Judging by some people, they are more likely to try to impose it. There is always a danger with these projects that you will fit the data to the theory, rather than the other way about. If you start off by saying that only systems theory knows what a hierarchy is, you're in trouble already, because you have defined your data out of existence.

You might like to think about the history of economics. For a long time, it clung to mathematical rigour. But now the limitations are being recognized and different, more humanistic approaches are being developed. Mind you, economics has an inherent limitation, that its predictions are known to the actors and affect their behaviour. The same will apply here.

Mathematical rigour is all very well. In its place.

Mind you, I'm not opposed to systems approaches in principle. So I'm quite happy to await results.

The character of the Irish is that they are lazy and so must have their land taken from them so that English capitalists of better character force them to be productive for their own good. — Moliere

Yes. They used the same argument to justify enclosures in England as well. It's a case of finding a weapon, not the truth.

I don't think that we make the same judgment of another person when we say they are incompetent because we're not judging whether their character is such that they are naturally incompetent: it leaves open the possibility of learning, as well as not making inferences about people who are of the same kind having such-and-such a character. — Moliere

"incompetence" is a legalistic term, but it includes permanent conditions like Down's syndrome as well.

But I am talking about hierarchy theory as a branch of science and not in that everyday sense. — apokrisis

Yes, you said that before. "pure form".

This paper compares the two known logical forms of hierarchy, both of which have been used in models of natural phenomena, including the biological. I contrast their general properties, internal formal relations, modes of growth (emergence) in applications to the natural world, criteria for applying them, the complexities that they embody, their dynamical relations in applied models, and their informational relations and semiotic aspects. — your link

Not being a mathematician, I'm not qualified to talk about that. But you seem to be talking about applying that pure form to social structures, though I notice that the article considers only applications to the "natural world". I think I'm qualified to talk about social structures, in a philosophical way. Is that not a basis for a conversation?

this polarity is reflected in the design of a rational political architecture — apokrisis

Well, a lot of people have had a go at this. The first person who tried it is probably Plato. It's called utopianism and it is very dangerous. Next thing you know, you will be telling us that it should be imposed on us for our own good. The fact (if it is a fact) that it is a structure that occurs in nature is not a good argument that it should be replicated in human societies. On the other hand, if it is inevitable, in some sense, then it is already here and we can all go home.

This is very helpful.

This everyday kind of ethological hierarchical organisation – the one discussed in its genetic and evolutionary sense of the dominance-submission hierarchies found in social animals – is then sort of hand-wavingly exported — apokrisis

This is not helpful. In the first place "hierarchy" was invented to describe a human social structure. In the second place, it doesn't matter much where the term came from and what it meant in its original home, if the export proves helpful.

You have this notion of "power" as the social good to be distribute. And you mean power in the restricted sense of the power — apokrisis

Well, that description of power is yours, and I'm not at all sure that it is appropriate.

It is just weird how hierarchy is a term of abuse in the anglophone world. — apokrisis

Not all that weird. The term hierarchy most often encountered, as here, in the context of social hierarchies and, in that context, is very often associated with what one might call "one-way", "top-down" hierarchies. These posit one-way communication and control and that is, indeed, at least very often, tyrannical in a social hierarchy. When our leaders stop listening, they become ill-informed and make worse decisions. "Bottom up" communication and support is essential for such structures to work.

You are right that hierarchical structures can be found beyond the context of the social and indeed, the ethological. And its relevance should be evaluated in context. It is not difficult to see that a hierarchical structure might well be the most efficient and effective way of distributing or collecting goods, and so it would not be surprising to find structures like them outside the social context. But a structure that is an efficient and effective way of distributing or collecting things is not necessarily an appropriate way of organizing a society. In fact, the varieties of hierarchies once one starts looking round is positively dizzying; many of them are quite irrelevant to the issues of social hierarchies. I accept that they can work well and are even the best way for us to organize ourselves in certain situations. But in other situations, I very much doubt it.

Western social democracy had this vision of self-actualisation as a cultural good to be distributed evenly to all. Creating a social safety net was what ensured that every person had the same opportunities, if not the same outcomes.
Obviously then along came neo-liberalism as a corruption of that approach. Agency became such a one-sided concept that the social safety net could just be abandoned. A cost to strike off the balance sheet and so leave "everyone richer". — apokrisis

I agree with that analysis. There does seem to have been a crisis in the 1970's, and I think the arrival of neo-liberalism hi-jacked the post-war arrangements. That deserves an account to, though I haven't got one. Perhaps one day. Not that the world is waiting for it.

Human civilisation has raised the game still higher as we now can aspire to delivering "civilisation" as the scalefree good. But then we have to start digging into that to discover what it really means to us. — apokrisis

Yes. I describe that as liberal over-reach. It is a painful echo of the rhetoric of the imperialist age and it's no wonder there has been a push-back, leading to the crisis that we are now living through.

At least until someone comes along with another dumb one-note "good" such as happiness, or virtuousness, or being ethical, or whatever else tends to crop up in utopian fantasies of how a society ought to be run if only they were its dictator. — apokrisis

Yes. Prescriptions for the good life should only ever be offered as recommendations. Modesty, and a genuine interest in the other guy's point of view and respect for it. That builds community, which builds peace, which gives at least the opportunity for people to work out what is the good life for them.

It’s from Is Internal Realism a Philosophy of Scheme and Content? — Joshs

Thanks very much.

In any case, I am not interested in discussing physics with anyone before the moment of force of this high school problem is presented to me in Cartesian coordinates: — Lionino

That's a pity. I'm not interested in discussing philosophy with anyone who expects me to pass a test of any kind before they will engage. That will save me a lot of time.

Life, especially intellectual life, is messy and often annoying. But it's a lot better than an ivory tower.

Most people would use the word physical here, and then add their preferred term. Many non-dualist philosophers, however, would insert their preferred term in place of ‘physical’ in order not to perpetuate a dualism implied by physicalism. — Joshs

Oops! Not well written. Perhaps the problem of finding a suitably non-committal way describing the role of physics here was clear enough? Or perhaps I shouldn't try to describe that role until I have worked out what it is.

Data on how much of the scientific literature is reproducible are rare and generally bleak.

Yes, I had heard about that.

73% said that they think that at least half of the papers in their field can be trusted, with physicists and chemists generally showing the most confidence.

I'm not surprised that people were more optimistic. There must be a lot of resistance to accepting that the system is that bad. The cost of research is going to sky-rocket if all experiments have to be done twice, by different laboratories and people. But the incentives to be careless or reckless are very high. Too much competition.

Of course physics isn't concerned with explaining abstract reasoning. — Johnnie

Wouldn't that be circular?
Most people who are not dualists accept that there is a physical <insert your preferred term> of abstract reasoning, music, laughter &c. To deny that seems inevitably lead to dualism. The difficult issue is how to think of that relationship. "Cause", for example, implies reduction, "Foundation" is little better, because it is suggests "emerging", but that is hand-waving until some agreement about the phenomenon has been developed. I prefer "substrate" because that seems to involve minimal commitment.

Complex phenomena are by definition a result of simpler things combining. — Johnnie

That's a truism. The interesting question is whether you want to add "... and nothing else". As it stands, it suggests some version of atomism. But there is the question of what usually referred to as Gestalts, which has much to recommend it.

Thank you. :smile:

Thanks. I hope you won't find a final comment on common sense boring. Common sense, it turns out, has a philosopohical origin and a certain level of philosophical importance. Who knew?

The original historical meaning is the capability of the animal soul (ψῡχή, psūkhḗ), proposed by Aristotle to explain how the different senses join and enable discrimination of particular objects by people and other animals. This common sense is distinct from the several sensory perceptions and from human rational thought, but it cooperates with both.

The second philosophical use of the term is Roman-influenced, and is used for the natural human sensitivity for other humans and the community.
...............
It was at the beginning of the 18th century that this old philosophical term first acquired its modern English meaning: "Those plain, self-evident truths or conventional wisdom that one needed no sophistication to grasp and no proof to accept precisely because they accorded so well with the basic (common sense) intellectual capacities and experiences of the whole social body." .... In the opening line of his Discourse on Method, Descartes ..... stated that everyone has a similar and sufficient amount of common sense (bon sens), but it is rarely used well. Therefore, a skeptical logical method .... needs to be followed.... In the ensuing 18th century Enlightenment, common sense came to be seen more positively as the basis for empiricist modern thinking — Wikipedia - Common Sense

I realize that Wikipedia is not the most authoritative source, but I think it is likely more authoritative than I am.