Notice what I said: it isn't a theorem. It's not giving a logical definition. — ssu

Again, then what is it? Turing's whole paper was basically saying, "This isn't a test for machine thinking, but it's a test for machine thinking."

Turing Test is more like a loose description of what computers exhibiting human-like intelligence would be like. That's not a theorem, yet many people take it as the example when computers have human-like intelligence. — ssu

You are saying something similar, "This isn't a test for machine intelligence, but it's a loose test for machine intelligence."

If you actually read Turing's paper it's pretty clear that he thinks machines can think, and that his test is sufficient to show such a thing, despite all the sophistical evasions he produces.

Turing himself thought that this would take about 200 years. — ssu

Nope:

I believe that in about fifty years' time it will be possible, to programme computers, with a storage capacity of about 109, to make them play the imitation game so well that an average interrogator will not have more than 70 per cent chance of making the right identification after five minutes of questioning. — Alan Turing, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, 1950, p. 442

Simply put it: The Turing test isn't at all a theorem about consciousness. — ssu

Perhaps, but then what is it about? Turing was playing with the idea that machines can think, but even that question was largely avoided in his paper. I think you find the same sort of confusion in Turing that you find in the world today, namely an unwillingness to think carefully about what 'thinking' or 'consciousness' means. Still, one of her points is very interesting, "On this illusion, we have created a technological empire..." We benefit a great deal by pretending that something which is not true is true (e.g. pretending that machines can think or are conscious).

Notice that OP was published five months before ChatGPT went live. — Wayfarer

I don't think the advent of ChatGPT changes anything in her article.

ChatGPT has the largest take-up of any software release in history, it and other LLM's are inevitable aspects of techno-culture. It's what you use them for, and how, that matters. — Wayfarer

I think this is more a mantra than an argument. For some reason, many people don't want to consider the fact that we have a choice when it comes to technology. I think it relates to libertarianism and a culture enamored with technology.

(Incidentally, I think the "inevitability" was shown to be rather brittle when Michael Burry placed a short against the AI industry and the tech giants exploded with fear and anger.)

A great piece: "Debating Whether AI is Conscious Is A Distraction from Real Problems," by Giada Pistilli.

But we need to take a step back. First, it is true that Turing's writings have been interpreted differently and have conditioned an all too anthropomorphized field of computer development. For example, we refer to "intentions" when sending requests and talk about "neural networks" and "learning." Yet, in that famous article, Turing discusses the "Imitation Game," and he talks about "illusion". The goal is to delude the person being experimented on into believing they are talking to another human.

From a philosophical perspective, focusing on the illusionary part and not the intelligent one is intriguing. On this illusion, we have created a technological empire... — Pistilli

- Sure. :up:

I said I would use explicitly rationality to try to get people to act in certain ways, rather htan moral reasoning. I am quite sure I fail constantly, lol. — AmadeusD

Okay, so then your whole position is apparently that you would attempt to rationally persuade people to act in certain ways, but you would not call that sort of rational persuasion a moral argument? If that's it, then I think this goes back to our old conversation where you were unable to define what you mean by "moral." In my book if you are rationally persuading someone to behave in a particular way, then you are offering a moral argument by definition.

I think compassion is a driving force behind progressivism (and at times this is perhaps more aptly called "empathy"). But I disagree with this:

Therefore, progressives who have no compassion are fooling themselves. They're just trying to own the higher moral ground without the morality to go with it. — frank

Of course one could make such an argument, but every group value is susceptible to being transformed into untethered taboo, and this is also true of compassion. So if a group of compassionate people win the day and their program becomes established as a societal norm, then the reification of compassion will begin to present the same problems that attend the reification of any other societal norm.

As an example, a group or individual might become vegan on the basis of compassion, but then once that connection between veganism and compassion becomes ossified such people can easily fall into the trap of imposing their veganism on communities which are reliant on animal products. The taboo ushers in black and white thinking, "Everyone who is vegan is compassionate and therefore good; everyone who is not vegan lacks compassion and is therefore bad," and this in turn provides the groundwork for the second-order virtue signaling that you reference.

In that example there ends up being a limited compassion (i.e. compassion for animals but not for the communities that rely on animals). That double-standard endpoint can be extrapolated, and this is because "compassion" is too vague and undirected to function as a sound value (or in Aristotelian terms, as a central virtue). In real life to be compassionate towards one group is also to be uncompassionate towards an opposed group, at least where political action is concerned.

...and I should add that although the modern mind balks at the explicit claim, "Everyone who is X is good and everyone who is not is bad" (even though that claim is constantly being made implicitly), the formula itself is not the problem. The problem is a superficial X. For example, Aristotle's X would be "just, temperate, prudent, and courageous," and it is precisely the complexity and robustness of the cardinal virtues that make such an X plausible. "Compassion" is too one-dimensional to serve that role.

It just seems odd to me, as if you're trying to "shut down" a conversation after the two relevant parties basically agreed it to have already been over. — Outlander

Mmmk, Outlander. :roll:

What country are you from that makes all the above disappear in favor of blind following toward a total stranger who just so happens to be in charge? I seriously need to know. — Outlander

If you seriously needed to know you could have tried exerting an ounce of research effort by pulling up my bio. @Jamal is not "a total stranger who just so happens to be in charge." He is the guy who has dedicated countless hours and lots of money to TPF, and has spent over a year researching a cutting edge, new platform which will be even more expensive. It's nothing short of a miracle that there exist people like Jamal to run sites like this.

I've never said that objections are impermissible, but there really is such a thing as too much.

People with too much time on their hands "looking out for the best interests of others" cause a great deal of problems in the world. Two pages of ill-informed posts on a tangential topic seems plenty sufficient here. And it would not be "authoritarian" to encourage people to think a bit before posting. Pointlessly and endlessly fatiguing moderators is not something that should be encouraged.

Giving advice unasked is rude. Doing it over and over for two pages is highly objectionable.

It sounds to me as if Jamal and others have thought through these problems much more thoroughly and with much more research than @boethius has:

It is also worth recognizing how much forethought has already gone into this decision on the part of Jamal and others. — Leontiskos

I myself had thought about inquiring about this issue, but I abstained because it is not my place. Now that it has taken place I can say with confidence that the people who made the decision did so responsibly, namely by carrying out the requisite research and planning. This is not surprising given the commitment they have to the website.

@Jamal summed it up aptly:

Rather than an argument against forming a UK company, this seems to be an argument against existing at all. — Jamal

The logical conclusion of someone who endlessly points to fantastical risks and counterfactuals is that one should not have a forum at all.

Pure fantasy. — Jamal

Yep.

Incidentally, this is a good test case for why I favor posting limitations (e.g. one cannot post twice in X amount of time, or something like that).

You wrote a of 33 words, and received a much a much of 224 words 5 minutes later. Then you wrote a post, and received of 291 words 10 minutes later. Of those two posts, @boethius is averaging 34 words a minute and posting constantly (including short after-thought posts). In my opinion this sort of thing is what leads to low quality discussions, and this case does not seem to be an exception.

I've done some research quickly on this topic.

[...]

I'm pretty confident it would be the same in the UK. — boethius

You did some quick research about some other legal system and then assumed that it would also apply to the UK?

It seems like you are not a legal professional, and you are trying to offer @Jamal legal loopholes to evade UK laws, or else suggesting that he cede ownership of the site to some other individual in some other country. That seems worrisome, and I think you will find that loopholes are not so easy to be had. Further, your arguments don't make sense to me. Many of your suggestions actually seem counterproductive, such as your suggestion that Jamal should ditch what is apparently the UK equivalent of an LLC (limited liability company). As has been pointed out, this would saddle Jamal with more liability than not.

At some point you have to say, "My suggestions have been heard, they have not been heeded, and that's the end of it." Continuing to spin up long posts one after another is not helpful in the overall picture. It is also worth recognizing how much forethought has already gone into this decision on the part of Jamal and others.

Good answers all around. I had been wondering about some of the same things. I think @boethius raises an interesting general concern, but I don't see that his particular arguments are cogent.

That paper is narrowly focused on a particular set of issues. The Metaphysics draws sharp differences between the ease with which we can observe kinds as a grouping in a system of classification and what might be an understanding how those species came into being. The many discussions concerning the "actual" in relation to the "potential;" are problems that cut across all enquiries of the nature of beings. The methods of analysis in the biological works are attempts to apply the ideas of causality developed in the Metaphysics to figure how particular beings come into being. — Paine

Well said.

I'm not sure I would put it in just that way, but I don't disagree with you. It seems to me that the difficulty of characterising it shows that metaphysics is not a discipline or subject like any other. That's why, in my book, presenting actual metaphysical discussions is the best way of introducing it to people. — Ludwig V

Sure, I agree with that.

Well if you look at the paper they are primarily drawing from Aristotle's zoological works, and the Metaphysics is more subsidiary:

In part 1 of this study, these questions are addressed via an examination of aspects of Aristotle’s zoological works, specifically his use of the logical terms genos (genus) and eidos (species) in those works, and his brief discussion (in the Metaphysics) of the male-female difference in relation to species definition. — From Aristotle to Contemporary Biological Classification: What Kind of Category is Sex?

But the thesis of the paper is salutary. Sex is a cross-species or meta-species classification. It is something that subdivides species of animals, and therefore requires a level of abstraction and generality beyond zoological studies considered according to species. In a philosophical and theological sense sex has always been somewhat elusive in that way. This elusiveness of sex is therefore in some manner a metaphysical issue, given that it requires a reconceptualization of the whole in light of some common aspect. Even current day disputes between different schools of feminism could be cashed out in terms of this elusiveness, where "TERFs" will tend to emphasize sex as being more than a kind of accidental division subordinate to the animal species.

(This is incidentally why is mistaken when he views metaphysics as merely a matter of "height," as if it were a hermetically sealed compartment at a certain "altitude" of thought. That is a very common misunderstanding.)

When the sidebar is collapsed it's pretty distraction-free, no? — Jamal

Yes, I think so. That ability to collapse the sidebar is what I was thinking of. :up: — Leontiskos

Just to note, I've learned that there is an undisclosed shortcut to hide/show the Discourse sidebar ('=').

If you're interested, the main software requirements to accommodate the new laws are more configuration, crucially including the configuration of the sign-up form, and more moderation tools, crucially including the flagging and moderation of direct messages. — Jamal

Interesting. That's the sort of thing I was wondering about. I know it can also get tricky running an international website.

I notice you didn't wait for an answer and just went ahead and did it. So preoccupied with whether or not you could, you didn't stop for more than a moment to think if you should (to paraphrase Michael Crichton). — Jamal

What you point to here is significant beyond belief.

A more imaginative approach would be to stare into the beauty of one's own reflection until they pine away, perhaps with the help of an LLM. :wink:

The question is, how to make best use of the dump? What are other ideas? — Banno

The end is first in the order of intention. Or: someone should know why they want their posts before they ask Jamal for their posts.

The most common purpose would seem to be archival. For that, the text document is itself searchable. If one wants better search functionality they could load it into a database for more complex searches, as you did. Beyond that, I think it's just meant to sit in the attic along with everything else we've hoarded over the years.

3. Legal security: To make the forum legally secure and sustainable, in line with new UK online safety laws. — Jamal

Out of curiosity, I am wondering whether Discourse was the only option able to accommodate the new laws. Were other options also capable?

But you can have a look at the archive site, built on a data export from a few days ago.

https://tpfarchive.com — Jamal

Good stuff, Jamal. :up:

Because philosophy primarily speaks of things in generalities as well, but ignore that comment, i was just thinking aloud — ProtagoranSocratist

But this is correct. Metaphysics and philosophy do have a strange overlap; a strange redundancy.

Yep, that's aristotle's book "metaphysics" in a nut shell, an early version of taxonomy in biology and chemistry classifications. — ProtagoranSocratist

Actually Aristotle's Metaphysics is precisely not about classifications in biology or chemistry. In some sense, for Aristotle, metaphysics is about the sort of classifications that apply equally to biology and chemistry (and physics and every other particular area of study). Metaphysics is about the non-particular. What sort of things tie all particular disciplines together? Things like 'being', 'truth', 'God', etc. So metaphysics can reasonably be understood as the "height" of generalization and abstraction, where we are considering concepts that are applicable to literally everything (i.e. being qua being). Yet my point was that every time we shift in the direction of increased generalization and abstraction (or "depth"), we are shifting into a more metaphysical mode.

Metaphysics is about the nature of reality. It's pretty simple. — frank

That's sort of right, but the reason it's not simple is this. If metaphysics is about the nature of reality, then what is not metaphysics? What activities do we engage in that are unrelated to reality? Or that are not about reality or its nature?

Given that everything is reality and nothing is not reality, if metaphysics exists at all then it must represent a more subtle distinction. Or else it must distinguish the more real from the less real (or something like that).

When people say "that's meta" in daily usage, they're usually talking about something in a philosophical sense...like the general characteristics, or the bigger narrative behind something. If that's what metaphysics are in philosophy, then metaphysics is a rendundant term. — ProtagoranSocratist

Why is it redundant?

Metaphysics is truly a tricky concept. There is actually a short clip where Michael Gorman talks about waiting in line at the store: 23:55. That is one example of a shift into a metaphysical mode of thinking. Although metaphysics has lots of different related definitions, it has to do with thinking about real things in a deeper way, and this means thinking about their deeper commonalities. So when you are at the store and instead of just grabbing, buying, and leaving, you stop to think about the whole concept of a market, or of trade, or of money, etc., then you are shifting into a more metaphysical register. Metaphysics is not some hermetically sealed compartment that is distinct from all other compartments of thinking. It is more a kind of valence or mode or abstraction that occurs in thinking.

(Different thinkers cash this out in different ways, but given what I infer about your background I think Gorman's example of standing in line at the store might be more helpful than a deep dive into Husserl, for example.)

Thanks for your forensic analysis of my summary of anti-foundationalism. — Tom Storm

Sure.

I’m arguing that in anti-foundationalism all justification occurs within our own systems, even for statements about justification itself. — Tom Storm

Then there is no possibility of saying that one system is better than any other, or that the claims of someone within one system are any better than the claims of someone in another system. See, for example, <this thread>.

I may not have done much of a job of articulating this and have tried to be more precise as I go, But philosophy is Leontiskos interest and so he has more tools at his disposal. — Tom Storm

In order to do philosophy you really just have to be honest with yourself. You have to very honestly ask yourself, "What am I saying and why am I saying it?"

The motive in all of these "anti-foundationalist" projects seems quite simple to me. Some person or some group of people appear overconfident, and the goal is to cut them down to size. "I think you are overconfident, therefore I am going to set out some thesis to support this." The problem is that the theses of the folks on TPF "prove too much." They prove that the objector himself is working with undue certainty, given that certainty itself is abolished in the attempt to prove overconfidence.

You can understand why people find theism attractive in all this, since it seems to effectively provide a grounding that resolves the confusions and tautologies created by anti-foundationalist views. — Tom Storm

All you have to do is stop contradicting yourself. No one is asking you to become a theist.

The issue is realism vs nominalism, not theism vs atheism - as much as many of our members wish to make every difference of opinion about theism vs atheism.

-

Instead, it’s saying that whenever we justify something, we do it using the tools and standards we already have: and that’s true even for this statement itself. — Tom Storm

But is this a valid argument?

1. Nothing we justify ever rises above our own ways of justifying
2. Therefore, Truth claims are always context dependent

In fact (2) does not follow. So did you mean to support (2), or are you abandoning (2)?

The deeper equivocation at play here is between <truth claims always emerge from a context> and <a claim is never true beyond a subset of contexts>. If (2) means the former, then it is innocuous and easily admissible, not to mention not self-contradictory. But (2) does not mean the former. (2) is meant to limit the "power" of truth claims, not merely to explain something about them that bears in no way on their universal validity. What is at play here is Motte and Bailey.

(Else, if (1) is meant to support the substantive version of (2) then it must rely on the invisible and contentious premise, <...and our own ways of justifying/reasoning never achieve universality>. But in that case the self-contradiction applies not only to (2) but also to this premise which (1) depends upon.)

Thomas Nagel's 'The Last Word' is devoted to this topic. — Wayfarer

Yes, and Nagel is fairly cognizant of the problem I am talking about. For example, he says this in his chapter on ethics, and there is an analogy between "subjectivism" and "relativism":

The situation here is like that in any other basic domain. First-order thoughts about its content—thoughts expressed in the object language—rise up again as the decisive factor in response to all second-order thoughts about their psychological character. They look back at the observer, so to speak. And those first-order thoughts aim to be valid without qualification, however much pluralism or even relativism may appear as part of their (objective) content. It is in that sense that ethics is one of the provinces of reason, if it is. That is why we can defend moral reason only by abandoning metatheory for substantive ethics. Only the intrinsic weight of first-order moral thinking can counter the doubts of subjectivism. (And the less its weight, the more plausible subjectivism becomes.) — Nagel, The Last Word, 125

In general Nagel is good on the manner in which second-order claims cannot simply reign over first-order claims (and "Truth claims are always context dependent" is a great example of a second-order claim in the context of epistemology).

Or from the introduction:

Claims that something is without relativistic qualification true or false, right or wrong, good or bad, risk being derided as expressions of a parochial perspective or form of life—not as a preliminary to showing that they are mistaken whereas something else is right, but as a way of showing that nothing is right and that instead we are all expressing our personal or cultural points of view. The actual result has been a growth in the already extreme intellectual laziness of contemporary culture and the collapse of serious argument throughout the lower reaches of the humanities and social sciences, together with a refusal to take seriously, as anything other than first-person avowals, the objective arguments of others. — Nagel, The Last Word, 6

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Here I am assuming I have avoided stating the relativist fallacy. — Tom Storm

You must argue rather than assume. You have made a claim of the form, "X is always Y," and yet you want to claim that this does not imply that X is Y in every context. I've given many arguments showing why it does imply that. Now it is your job to respond to those arguments.

Nothing we justify ever rises above our own ways of justifying and that includes this statement. — Tom Storm

Fallibilism arguments suffer the same self-contradictory fate. See, for example, Simpson's discussion <beginning on page 103>.

I don't want to offer a new set of arguments against your new thesis, given that you have yet to answer my old set of arguments against your old thesis. If I do that then every time I respond you will just offer a different thesis, but Simpson's analysis should suffice for your new thesis.

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How does "there is a truth claim that is not context dependent” not imply a view from nowhere, or sideways-on, or God’s-eye? — Joshs

Perhaps it does, but that is not my concern. I mostly think that people end up not knowing what they mean by such terms. They are just labeling and then morally distancing themselves from labels. Arguments become unnecessary.

I already agree with you that "Truth claims are always context dependent”’takes itself as a predicative assertion. The key word here is ‘always’, because it makes a claim to generality or universality. — Joshs

Okay good, we agree on this.

I am making a distinction which is invisible to you, probably similar to the distinction between ‘continuing to be the same’ and ‘continuing to be the same differently’. — Joshs

Or are you making a distinction that is specious? And how do we tell?

I am well aware that you are trying to distinguish two different senses of "always context dependent," and thus object that my argument is equivocal between the two distinct senses. But I don't see that you have succeeded in that task. Indeed I grant that there are different conceptions of universalization, but I am in no way convinced that one of the ways of universalizing escapes the problem I have pointed up. So one could universalize in the sense of "continuing to be the same differently," but it's not clear how this form of universalization does not suffer the same fate. (Indeed, I think "continuing to be the same differently" is just what universalization means in the first place, and that your other conception is a strawman of the tradition of universals.)

By contrast, relativist enaction is not attempting to represent anything. It is instead bringing something new into existence. While the foundationalist uses the representationalist nature of their ‘enactivism’ as a cudgel to coerce conformity to what is ‘true’ in a correspondence sense, the relativist can only invite others to see things in a new light. — Joshs

You are moralizing and you are introducing factionalist camps. "Foundationalist," "Representationalist," "Enactivist," "Cudgel," "Coerce," "Invite," etc. I've made an argument and I am interested in arguments, not labels and emotivism.

I am glad that the current pagination will be turned into a single document for the archives. The "Find in page" browser function will make searches one-stop shopping. — Paine

Non-paginated threads are nice insofar as they can be printed to a pdf in a single move, as @Jamal pointed out. Nevertheless, Discourse does not load the entire thread at one time if it is large thread (see <this thread> for an example). So you will still have to use a search for large threads.

The seem to constitute the origin of acts. — AmadeusD

True, but I think you need something more than but-for reasoning to establish such a thesis.

It makes me feel good (emotivism). Again, hard to explain that - but I think this answers the question you're asking. — AmadeusD

Okay.

This is what I was getting at earlier - I don't. I try to get them to understand my reasoning. They might still morally disagree, but accept that, perhaps their act is likely to land them in prison, and so resile. That would be a result for me. Sometimes its fun to try to put the moral argument ot people, but its make me personally uncomfortable as I don't feel I have the right. These discussions are where I get most of my 'talk' out in the moral realm. It should also be clear that I only ever try to get people to either act or not act. I don't care much what their moral position is. — AmadeusD

I feel as if you're trying to hold back the tide with a sand castle. The water creeps in at every point, and therefore so many different questions pop up:

• Why does it make you feel good to convince others to do something that is not rational to do?
• Why do you want them to understand your reasoning?
• Why would that be a (good) result for you?
• Why is it fun to put the moral argument to people?
• Why do you try to get people to act?

Each answer you give makes three more questions pop up like weeds.

Part of the crux is that every reflective person cares about the way that other people act, given that we are social beings who live in social arrangements. So I don't think a move like, "I just don't care what other people do" holds water (whether or not you have been claiming that per se). Now take a second premise: coercion is generally inappropriate (or immoral, if you like). With those two premises in hand, obviously we would like to be able to use rational persuasion in the moral sphere, because it would allow us to influence the actions of others without coercing them.

I don't know if you disagree with much of that? Perhaps you would just say that moral persuasion would be nice but it is not possible?

As I understand it, this objection misunderstands the claim. Saying "truth claims are always context-dependent" is a way of describing how claims function within particular social, historical, and conceptual contexts. This description is itself situated and arises from those contexts. I'm, nto sure there's a contradiction in making this statement because it does not claim to exist outside or above context. The objection only seems persuasive if one assumes that all claims must be judged from a perspective beyond any context, but anti-foundationalism does not make that assumption. — Tom Storm

But you're failing to address the objection. It can be set out inferentially:

1. If <Truth claims are always context dependent> then <Every truth claim, in every context, is context dependent>
2. "Every X, in every context, is Y," is a claim that is not context dependent
3. Therefore, <Truth claims are always context dependent> entails that there is a truth claim that is not context dependent

Your response is to try to tidy up Y, but the nature of Y is irrelevant to the objection. Again, it is the word "always" that causes you to contradict yourself. If "always" involves "every context" then you are contradicting yourself, regardless of what X and Y are.

(You are attempting to exempt yourself from your own rule, hence the self-contradiction. In effect you are saying, "No one can make claims of this sort, except for me.")

Another way to put it:

1. X is always Y
2. Therefore, every X, in every context, is Y
3. Therefore, the truth of (1) is not context dependent

The person who utters (1) is committed to at least one truth which is not context dependent.

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I agree with you that if the relativist-postmodernist is treating their assertion that “truth claims are always context dependent” as itself a truth claim, then they are attempting to achieve a view from nowhere. — Joshs

Good, but note that my argument says nothing about a so-called "view from nowhere." The reductio does not arrive at, "there is a view from nowhere." It arrives at, "there is a truth claim that is not context dependent."

It seems clear to me that "learned" relativists still contradict themselves, they just do it with a bit more style and rhetoric. That @Tom Storm lacks the style and rhetoric to contradict himself more persuasively is not at all a bad thing. For example:

Enaction is speculative and experimental, not assertoric. — Joshs

Sorry, but this makes no sense. It is an attempt to have one's cake and eat it too. You are basically trying to assert without asserting, and then call this "enacting." One can have all the experiences they like, but the assertion of a predication is the assertion of a predication, whether or not it is believed to be based on those experiences. "Truth claims are always context dependent," is an assertion. Style, rhetoric, and neologisms don't change this.

When I then express this to you, I am reporting gmy experience as it renews itself moment to moment and extending an invitation to you to experience something similar. — Joshs

You are equivocating between experience and assertion. We could construe an assertion as, "Reporting my experience and extending an invitation to you to experience something similar," or the "foundationalist" could simply take your equivocations into his own mouth and respond to your objection with similar fiat, to the effect that he is "enacting" and not "asserting," so there is no problem to begin with.

The attempt to pretend that, "Truth claims are always context dependent," is not itself a truth claim does not even rise to the level of plausibility.

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No, they are merely noting that no one has ever produced a context-independent truth claim. And that noting is itself not context-independent because it is made in relation to and within the context of human experience, language and judgement. — Janus

If that is all they are doing then their argument is invalid:

1. No one has ever produced a truth claim that is context-independent
2. Therefore, truth claims are always context dependent

This is the same fallacy that you make regarding issues such as slavery. Even if we grant that you have never seen a black swan, or even that there have never been any black swans in the past, your conclusion still does not follow.

(Bound up in this is the incoherence of induction within a Humean/modern epistemology.)

I personally find the "if but for" type of reasoning helpful here. "If but for the belief that negroes are inferior to whites, the defendant would not have carried out X, resulting in the wrongful death of a" — AmadeusD

The question is how to justify this claim:

The wrong-maker appears to be the thoughts. — AmadeusD

This is because but-for causation casts a wide net. We would not want to conclude that knives are evil from the claim, "But for the knife, he would not have murdered." Nevertheless, what I think your argument does demonstrate is that thoughts constitute an important causal aspect of acts.

More-or-less correct, yes. I imagine there's edges to it, as there are with almost all claims to a moral system, that don't quite fit into a description of same, but yeah overall. — AmadeusD

Okay.

No, not at all. If people resist my attempts to 'enforce' my moral take *on that specific thing that I have deemed action is required in response to* then that's fine, and I can't say they're 'wrong'. Just that they are counter to what I think is best. I don't think my wanting to take the action I feel is 'right' goes against accepting that it is subjective and i can't justify getting anyone else to agree with me (although, when they do, it's good. That might be harder to explain). My reasoning is what I am trying to get other people to assent to in those situations. — AmadeusD

Focusing on the bolded, I would ask 1) why is it good when you convince someone to agree with you, and 2) why would you try to get other people to assent to your reasoning if moral issues are not susceptible to rational assent?

That i personally would want to see X happen or not happen, and carry on my life under those beliefs doesn't seem to me to run into any obstacles insofar as claiming I don't impose on others.

Maybe there just needs to be a concession/caveat that carrying on ones life will implicitly, "accidentally" impose ones morals on those around them. I can accept that. But i active attempt not to do this, where ever there is no clear legal rights violation. Even some situations where there is, I don't feel that simply believing A or B is a better response gives me any truck in trying to get other people to do so. — AmadeusD

Okay good, and you state your position clearly and cogently.

I will just stick with the question I've already asked rather than complicating it further. If you don't think moral positions are susceptible to rational inquiry, then I don't understand why you would try to rationally persuade another person to adopt your own moral position.

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Mostly, but i don't equate evil and "absolute worst" in how i understand the terms. "evil" almost 100% of the time in modern english indicates some extreme moral wrong. For example, rarely does anyone say something like "that couger attacked the man on the hiking trail, that couger is evil!" because we all seem to assume that a couger cannot make moral decisions of right and wrong, but people use "evil" all the time to describe serial killers, politicians, and business men. While I don't like the term evil, I would have absolutely no problem with saying "Hitler, John Wayne Gacy, and Caligula acted in some of the absolute worst ways imaginable", but the thing i don't like about calling them evil is that we assume they could have acted in a different way with better morals, which is something I disagree with. — ProtagoranSocratist

Okay, so it sounds like part of what you are saying here is that someone's act can only be evil if they were able to do otherwise than they did in fact do. You don't believe Hitler could have acted otherwise, therefore you wouldn't call him evil.

I'm now getting dizzy with the curlicues of argument. — Tom Storm

Let's not lose sight of the central argument which is this:

But if you are speaking from a single context, and that single context does not encompass all contexts, then you are not permitted to make claims about all contexts. And yet you did.

You contradict yourself because you say something like, "Truth claims are always context dependent." This means, "Every truth claim, in every context, is context dependent." It is a claim that is supposed to be true in every context, and therefore it is not context dependent. If you want to avoid self-contradiction you would have to say something like, "Truth claims are sometimes context dependent." But that's obviously less than what you want to say. — Leontiskos

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Being “bound by water” does not make the water invisible; — Tom Storm

Do you think water is visible to a fish?

The broader question to me seems to be, is anti-foundationalism a foundation? Is it a performative contradiction? I suspect it isn’t on the basis that anti-foundationalism is more a lens or a stance toward foundations than a foundation itself. It discourages the search for an ultimate grounding, but offers no ultimate principle to stand on. — Tom Storm

Well, what do you mean by "anti-foundationalism"? Is it just something like, "Truth claims are always context dependent"? If so, then we're right back to the original argument.

The new site will have an export feature built in. I'd be surprised if it is possible here.

Another way to do it here would be to search for all of your posts... Nevermind. The search caps out at 1,000 posts.

Without having the site do that, it is easily done by copy/pasting from the comment collection under one's name. — Paine

I think this might be the only way. Note the url parameter at the end of the url, "https://thephilosophyforum.com/profile/comments/11883/paine/40". That number indexes the posts. So if the parameter is 40 then it is showing you your most recent 40 to 79 posts (i.e. X to X+39). You can manipulate that parameter to access older posts, or to begin where you left off copy/pasting.

You could also use my tip <here> to ditch the side column and use ctrl-a to save time.

- :up:

But saying “everything comes from social practices and chance factors” doesn’t mean we’reclaiming to stand outside of all that. — Tom Storm

It would be a bit like the fish saying, "Everything is water." If the fish knew that everything was water then he would not be bound by water. The metaphor about fish and water has to do with the idea that what is literally ubiquitous is unknowable.

There very well may be evil -- there are certainly things that are horrible or very bad. It doesn't take much effort to find these things, especially in human activity and behavior. Ideas themselves hardly fit the bill for being the absolute worst, because clearly people say and think a lot of things just as an emotional reaction, and emotional reactions are too pure for such heavy-handed blame and moralization implied when calling something "evil" in my opinion. — ProtagoranSocratist

So would you say that "evil" means "the absolute worst," and one must be careful about calling something "the absolute worst" given the way that emotion often misleads us? Nevertheless, you do think there are things which are bad, and knowably so?

For my part, I think that's fine. The older understanding of "evil" is not as extreme as "the absolute worst" (and 'bad' has a curiously recent etymology). Still, the common English meaning does differentiate bad and evil in something like the way you indicate.

You make a common enough criticism of Thompson's position (and I guess that of many pragmatists and post-modernists) and it is a good one. All I can say is I don’t see it as a contradiction, because I’m not claiming (nor would Thompson) to step outside all contexts while saying this. [...] So when I say truth claims are context-dependent, I’m also saying this one is too. That doesn’t make it collapse, it just admits that I’m part of the same situation I’m talking about. — Tom Storm

But if you are speaking from a single context, and that single context does not encompass all contexts, then you are not permitted to make claims about all contexts. And yet you did.

You contradict yourself because you say something like, "Truth claims are always context dependent." This means, "Every truth claim, in every context, is context dependent." It is a claim that is supposed to be true in every context, and therefore it is not context dependent. If you want to avoid self-contradiction you would have to say something like, "Truth claims are sometimes context dependent." But that's obviously less than what you want to say.

My understanding is that Thompson sees reason as emerging from our everyday experience and the ways we engage with the world, not from a detached, universal viewpoint. — Tom Storm

This looks to me like platitude-language, and it is very common. My point is that the relativist contradicts himself, and that is the argument that is relevant. I don't know what these supposed, "detached, universal viewpoints," are, nor do I know who is supposed to have promoted such things (apart from some moderns, who I also reject).

It is a form of strawman to say, "I reject a detached, universal viewpoint, therefore every truth claim is context dependent." For my part I don't see that I am permitted to contradict myself, regardless of what I wish to reject. I think we should be less willing to contradict ourselves than we are desirous to reject some particular doctrine. Of course if someone thinks they cannot affirm that language is partially relative to culture etc. without also claiming that every truth claim is context dependent (and thereby contradicting themselves), then they are surely in a pickle. But I would suggest they examine their conditional premise to see whether it is actually true.

We develop our thinking through action, conversation, and the practices we inherit. He rejects the notion that this makes him a relativist: being aware that reasoning is 'situated' doesn’t mean all ideas are equally valid or that anything goes. — Tom Storm

My point is that the person who says, "Truth claims are always context dependent," is engaged in a form of relativism, and that form of relativism is self-defeating.

Can you explain in simple terms why Thompson might be wrong? — Tom Storm

Hopefully I did this above.

For me, personally, I find "evil" pretty empty. In terms of how personally arrange my moral judgments, yes. But I don't think this means much at all. It's just hte convenient semantic way I work out how I feel about things (or more properly, whether I should feel that/some way or not). An action which is aesthetically/prima facie disgustingly malicious and inhumane, let's say, whicih accurate reflects the actor's intention and ..i don't know.. world view? Could be considered evil to me. That's a practical notion, though, so I think I may not be saying what you're asking for unfortunately lol. — AmadeusD

Okay, and is there a particular ethical system you hold to in this? Am I correct in recalling that you are an Emotivist?

Yes, definitely. I think this is one of the unsolvable problems of modern, pluralistic society. I, at least, remain humble in my moral positions and don't pretend that they need apply to anyone else. — AmadeusD

Okay, but let's probe your claim that you don't pretend that your moral positions need to apply to anyone else:

I will try to enforce mine where i am not obviously violating rights (which are a legal institution) — AmadeusD

So you will try to enforce your moral positions, as long as you are not violating civil rights? Wouldn't enforcing your moral positions involve applying your moral positions to other people?

It's been awhile since I read it, but C. S. Lewis' argument against moral relativism in Mere Christianity is quite good. He points up the way that people who claim not to impose any morality on others are very often doing just that.

Sometime in the next week I hope to begin a reading group on the first chapter of Peter Simpson's Goodness and Nature: A Defence of Ethical Naturalism and a Critique of its Opponents (link). The chapter is devoted to G. E. Moore's Principia Ethica (link). The general topic is Moore's arguments for the thesis that goodness is indefinable, and the way that Locke's epistemology and understanding of definitions relates to this.

(I am tagging @Hanover, who has shown interest in the topic in the past)

But my Christian cultural heritage has instilled in me a conviction that reason is somehow knitted into the grand scheme, not that there aren’t also things beyond it. — Wayfarer

I want to say that anyone who holds that there is a "grand scheme" will tend to see reason as bound up in that grand scheme. Stoicism is a clear example of this, but it is also present in the various forms of Platonism and Aristotelianism.

I'd probably share Evan Thompson's view that reason is situated, embodied, enactive and emerges from our lived, affective engagement with the world. Reason is not a detached faculty that can apprehend universal truths on its own; it’s shaped by biology, culture, experience. Truth claims therefore are always embedded in context, practice, and perspective. — Tom Storm

I think this is soothing contemporary boilerplate. As you say, it is what resonates with contemporary intuitions. It is also the overcorrection from Enlightenment rationalism.

Reason and universalization are more or less the same thing. To be fully situated and not universal or general is not to be reason at all.

The clearest problem with relativism is that it is self-refuting. When you say something like this:

Truth claims therefore are always embedded in context, practice, and perspective. — Tom Storm

...Are you making a truth claim that is embedded in context, practice, and perspective, or not? If you're not, then you're engaged in a performative self-contradiction. If you are, then it's not clear how you can make a categorical claim about, "context, practice, and perspective," in the sense that your truth claim intrinsically purports to "stand over" such realities and account for them in a universal way. If one talks about a reality with the word "always," then they are "standing over" that reality in a universal way.

More simply, if you say, "Truth claims are always context-dependent," then you've contradicted yourself, because you are uttering a truth claim that you believe is not context-dependent. This sort of self-contradiction is inevitable for anyone who tries to make reason non-universalizing.

Maybe we could trial downvotes? They have a harsh side where immature people downvote to signal disagreement, but they can also be an effective means of community self moderation. — frank

Agreed.

When I was thinking of making a forum I wanted to have it so that each user gets X points per day, and points can only be spent on upvotes and downvotes - votes which have no further, instrumental use. An upvote would cost one point and a downvote would cost three points. So if you get four points per day you decide how to use them, but downvotes would cost much more. The scarcity of points was meant to make the votes more meaningful. Long-time users would have more points per day than newbies, etc.

I think downvotes would be useful, especially if they could be disincentivized in a way like this. I actually think many of the interpersonal problems that come up on TPF occur because there is no communal outlet to express satisfaction or dissatisfaction with a post.

(With that said, Reddit is a bit different in that it engages in automatic soft-censoring against strongly downvoted posts. If that is allowed, I think it should be left to the user, and should not be automatic.)

We wouldn't allow a perfectly valid albeit controversial claim to be replied to with "Yeah, well, I don't like that idea", as if it contributes anything to logic or reason and human understanding—which it doesn't. So why allow it in the form of trivial, faceless "down votes" devoid of any reason or explanation? :chin: — Outlander

Ideally a downvote signifies poor quality, not dislike. Non-verbal interactions and communal consensus have existed for all of human history. Upvotes and downvotes are just a way to introduce such things online.

He's a white nationalist Christian fundamentalist who hates Jews. — RogueAI

Sure, but when I say that as someone who watched a few minutes of his clips or read an article that pulled a few paragraphs out of a single episode, his followers tell me that I am engaged in confirmation bias. They will say that the guy has many thousands of hours of video, and that it is misleading to approach his position in such a reductionistic way.

And so I am trying to avoid the reductionistic confirmation bias. In doing so I find that it is harder to understand Fuentes. Basically I think Bret Weinstein is correct in the video from my last post. Fuentes' views and especially his rhetoric are problematic, but the shibboleth approach is not realistic with someone who is so popular. Indeed, Fuentes' whole persona seems tailor-fit to preclude his (second) cancelation, and this includes his whole audience. Trying to ostracize him would be like throwing extra antibiotics at a bacteria that has already become resistant.

I agree with Fetterman. There's been a strain of anti-Semitism on the Left for my whole life. People like Louis Farrakhan have been tolerated when they shouldn't have been. The Left is terrible about calling it out. — RogueAI

Okay, and I agree too.

That being said, I always wonder why the right-wing, which is dominated by Christians who have traditionally been hostile to Jews, loves Israel so much. There's something nefarious about it: [ChatGPT content] Many Republicans—especially white evangelicals—support Israel because their end-times theology says Israel must exist and be defended for biblical prophecy to unfold. In this view, the return of Jews to Israel and Israel’s survival are prerequisites for the Second Coming. The motivation is religious prophecy, not affection for Jews. I wonder how prevalent that view is. — RogueAI

There are differing theological views that put different Christians in different positions vis-a-vis both the Jews and Israel.

O'Reilly, who is Catholic like Fuentes, actually identifies some of the historical background much better than others have done. European Christendom had anti-usury laws for Christians, and so usury fell to the Jews. This created long-lasting hostilities towards Jewish people. Presumably Fuentes ends up drawing on that historical animosity.

MAGA is extremely white-nationalist. Did you mention you don't live in America? — RogueAI

No, I live in America. Trump has done better and better among non-whites as time goes on (link).

Well, that's what should have happened. What actually happened was Tucker fawned over Fuentes, and now Trump is coming to Tucker's rescue. There's an old saying: the fish rots from the head. — RogueAI

Well, Tucker isn't capable of that sort of thing. He is a domesticated pundit who would have died in the wilderness if not for his prior following. His unintelligence is striking.

Regarding Trump, even if Fuentes were a one-dimensional Nazi Trump would not go out of his way to disavow him if it would mean hurting his base of support. Trump always has his finger to the wind of public opinion (on the right), and that's generally how he makes decisions. At the same time Trump is strongly pro-Israel, which is why he is at odds with Tucker and Fuentes.