As an outsider, who has spent significant time in the USA, I think the charges of the kind OP makes are over-blown, somewhat hangover concepts. Not many people care.
But not many people vote either. So, therein, the charge becomes palpably worth discussing.

AS such, booming voter numbers would make representational democracy more than a line on a page. I think the problem would vanish, in this scenario. Enough people with enough views voting can only be good, unless you're a 'for thee, not for me' type of person around views, and freedoms etc..

↪boethius :lol: I'm not even a "liberal" (or member of the Democrat>c Party). Pro tip: stop disinforming yourself with FOX Noise (or other MAGA media). — 180 Proof

You continue to astound.

Unless you can have indirect awareness of your perceptual experiences, then it makes no sense to say that you have direct awareness of your perceptual experiences. The "direct" qualifier has no contrast, so it doesn't mean anything. — Luke

This is clearly untrue, without much need to qualify that. We can understand 'direct' without a perfect conception of indirect and vice verse. Even a decent analogy makes this so, if you want to reject the brute fact. This smacks of a random limitation on concepts to service a particular view. The quote from ChatGPT makes it clear what each would consist in. We need not have experienced them to talk about htem with meaning. In any case, several possible 'more direct' types of perception have been put forward.

More specifically, they are of the same type constitutively, because they employ the brain's perceptual system unlike other types of conscious experiences, such as beliefs, desires, memories, imaginations. — jkop

Great point.

I have no clue what you're talking about now.

I didn't claim you lied. Not sure how your first utterance is either true, or relevant here.

I don't care, per se. I enjoy interesting exchanges. I don't even know who you are. You are responding to my comments. If you stop, it will mean only I have nothing to respond to. If you don't like how I play, that's fine. But it is entirely possible you're just wrong and don't like that.
No, that isn't objective or moral. It is.. your subjective emotional dummy-spitting. I acknowledged this earlier. ..

I simply do not care that you're frustrated. That's something for you to deal with in your own mind. The result may be refraining from responding. — AmadeusD

It has no moral valence. It just prevents you from adequately interacting with people who have an interest, and further knowledge, in a shared field of interest. And that's fine. No moral content there.

This misconception rests upon a failure of historical perspective. If Christianity today appears to be a benign and peaceful religion, it is because modern secularism and the rule of law have drawn its fangs. — alan1000

I think you're just wrong about people's thoughts. I don't think I've heard anyone make the former claim without acknowledging the latter. It's Islam's resistance to update that puts it in the position it's in, in this context.

At least a democracy, even a flawed and corrupt one, tends toward less autocratic laws - and makes it easier to change the laws. — Vera Mont

Thats true. I take Churchills line on this.

I will ask you to hold your opinion until you have read the book "The Science of Good & Evil- Why People Cheat, Gossip, Care, Share, and FOLLOW THE GOLDEN RULE by Michael Shermaer, or in some way validate the notion that you know what you are talking about when it comes what we share with other social animals. Right now you appear to be as someone who is practicing medicine despite having zero education in that field of knowledge. — Athena

You are free to ask. That may be your defensive position, but I don't take it all that seriously. I am aware of socialisation in many animal genii, species and groups. They do not have notions of 'good' and 'evil'. they are literally invented by humans. They may have analogous reactive states. And even that's not clear.

Excuse me, how can a completely ignorant person make moral decisions about how we live on this planet? We have destroyed much of our planet and may have caused the end of life as we know it because of our ignorance. The greatest evil is ignorance. — Athena

This is literally nothing but your emotional response to the idea that morality isn't objective. And that's absolutely fine. But it says nothing about my comment. Unless you have an infallible conception of an objective morality, knowing more states of affairs can't inform your moral judgements. I understand that we need guiding principles to make any moral judgements. But facts about oil don't do the guiding, morally. The facts guide us to solutions (or, not lol) once a moral jdugement and aim has been established. "saving the planet" seems a good moral aim, which would exist even if you were misinformed about Earth sciences. Alas, I personally just don't care. Let the world die. Or, to use your terms, kill it. Who cares. Its insignificant to me. It would be extremely hard for you to show i was 'morally wrong' without enforcing your emotional response as a moral benchmark.

" the science isn't moral, nor does it inform morals" your inability to grasp the meaning of what I say about moral judgment is a source of frustration for me. Let's see if you can follow this moral reasoning- saying that I lie is offensive and I take that as an invitation to attack. Can you see that cause and effect of having bad manners? If you can't get informed this problem might get worse. — Athena

The bolded is just you justifying your being offended. If you aren't lying, you'll ignore me. If you take it as an attack, that is not reason. That is emotion. I simply do not care that you're frustrated. That's something for you to deal with in your own mind. The result may be refraining from responding. That would be fine. As would many other responses. Continually being offended probably isn't going to help anyone in any way. I simply take the phrase 'bad manners' as juvenile.

to saying I have lied, — Athena

You'll need to point out where I said that before I can respond. I don't recall, and cannot see my doing so. Interestingly, your two overall objections (ignorance, hubris) apply equally to you in this instance.

1. You seem to think I must not know anything about this subject and have proceeded to make some sweeping, digging remarks based on that erroneous assumption - which stems from my disagreeing with you. That's wild. And extreme hubris.

2. You are, apparently, completely unaware of the maturity of this research which goes far beyond what you've just said. There are, in fact, more than 2000 flood myths around the world. Almost all of them point to a specific point in time (including the Atlantis Myth). We know exactly what happened at this point in time: the end of the Younger Dryas. A time when billions of gallons of melt water flowed into the oceans, swallowing up coast lines, creating the Arabian peninsula etc... The Comet Research Group have been working on this for quite some time.

The Garden of Eden was most likely in Iran. — Athena

It was far more likely in South Eastern Turkey. But also, it most likely did not exist and persists merely as a allegory to speak about a time when North Africa and parts of the Levant were lush and wet. (I'll add here I am biased toward that theory because I have been involved in in: I am cited as a reference in this book.

This is determined by evidence of the four rivers, a very long and harsh drought, and flooding. — Athena

The Biblical story of creation being a Sumerian story of many gods and goddesses and a river asking a goddess for help it stay in its banks so it would not flood her plants again. The goddess used mud to create a man and woman and she breathed life into them. — Athena

This is one theory, yes. It is more likely it is an amalgamation of several pre-Talmudic myths, not limited to Atra-Hatsis (Gilgamesh, Ziusudra et al...) but extending as far out as India (Manu), China (Nuwa) and many others. There is, in fact, an analogous myth carved into the walls of the Edfu temple in Upper (southern) Egypt. There is some, close-to-direct, evidence that the Atlantis Myth was derived directly from these writings originally found at Saiis.

I appreciate that this is something you are interested in, and have much to say and think on it.

I don’t quite recognise my claims in its responses to me.

True, of politics and legislation. But societies generally adhere to a single set of basic values, though the members may disagree on detail and there will always be transgressors who have to be dealt with in order that the society may continue to function. — Vera Mont

So, yes, rule of the majority. And it is tyrannous if the basis for that interference with 'transgressors' is violent or restrictive.

I do know, actually. I can ask any living human organism if he perceives and the answer is invariably “yes”. — NOS4A2

This doesn't establish any knowledge, my man. This merely puts you in the same position of 'other minds' worriers. It does not establish anything about what the perceiver actually consists in (necessary, sufficient). If the body is necessary for the perceiver to perceive that may well match your presumptions. But, if there is any daylight between the two (i.e brain in a vat being possible) then we can safely say this conception is misguided and a body is where a perceive exists - not in what it consists.

Since we don't really know one way or the other there, it's hard to say anything, one way or the other. It certainly seems the 'perceiver' can perceive regardless of the body's status and is therefore not accurately embodied(phantom limb eg). There's no reason, currently, to presume that a body is required beneath the brain to elicit perception per se - but perception of bodily sensation would require the body, for sure. I don't take the view that 'everything' is required for 'something' to be a perceiver, if that makes sense - I can't think of a better line right now.

I’m willing to hear your arguments and evidence that say otherwise, but to me this is more evidence of an attempt to smuggle dualism and idealism past the customs. — NOS4A2

I'm unsure 'otherwise' to what, you are asking for arguments to support? can you please clarify? The immediately preceding passage doesn't clarify for me as It isn't counter to anything i've put forth. It seems to just boil down to you having a very, very vague and undefinable conception of a 'perceiver' where I am trying to actually understand what is required, at base for a perceiver to exist. Not exist within a body. The human is the holistic, physical being - the 'perceiver' might not be. I'm not smuggling anytthing. That is the position.

It should be done by a consensus of the community — Vera Mont

I think this is a bit of red herring for Moralists.
There is never going to be a consensus. There is going to be a majority rule. I cannot see my way to thinking that's the best possible outcome. Particularly if we reject moral objectivity.

That's never a hard sell! — Vera Mont

Why do you think that is? My position (probably close to Joshs') is that they prey on the existing truth of these differences in morality. And, that's in aggregate. Plenty of gay conservatives, along with the homophobes for eg.

Note that none of the nouns used in this sentence refer to any person, place, or thing, so it isn’t clear what you are speaking about, if anything. — NOS4A2

Yet, you intuited it perfectly in your next paragraph? I smell nonsense.

Given your empirical facts you ought to be able to at least point to one of them. But we have examined the biology of animals and human beings and have found no such entities, nothing that any of those nouns refer to. — NOS4A2

I genuinely, given the above making little sense to me, don't know which aspect of the discussion you're referring to. If you're trying to say that I cannot point to an intervening element in the process of perception, the transition of light rays to electrical impulses is one. If you mean I can't point to "a perceiver", then again, you've already done my work for me by noting that 'you' or 'me' fits there- or, more accurately, made it clear that I'm doing nothing wrong by referring 'a perceiver' as you can easily note that this must be a human, in our discussion. It refers to anyone who could be perceiving. This is not ambiguous. and is not hard to determine, as you rightly did so while objecting.

Last I check we are a little more than brains, or some other organ, so I need not pretend the perceiver exists somewhere on the inside. And if your claim is that perception is mediated by our own body, which amounts to saying the perceiver is his own intermediary, I’ll just have to laugh it off. Sorry. — NOS4A2

Nothing in this passage has anything to do with any of my claims, besides you pretending that our sensory system is not mediated, heavily, between object and experience. Which it is. Plainly. So, if that's not your claim, you'll need to do a bit better than state something I haven't claimed, and laughing it off.
It is an empirical fact that our sight is mediated by parts of our body. You are not being serious if you rthink the body perceives. A dead body cannot perceive. End of discussion, as far as that goes. So I hope that's not your claim. I would further hope that you've noticed your version of a perceiver flies in the face of the majority of conceptions of identity or personhood. I would also hope you'd have noticed that I've addressed that unfortunate fact about the sum human knowledge - we do not know in what a 'person' or 'perceiver' consists. We simply do not. You don't. No one does. We do our best with what we have, and you seem to be rejecting that attempt on the basis that you have some secret, fool-proof conception of what a perceiver is. Given that you do not, i fail to see how these incredulous objections could go through.

That is a shame; it's been a long whirl :P MUch appreciated!

The science of good and evil can begin with studying animals. — Athena

No it can't. These concepts were invented by humans. Animals have no notions (possibly, at all, but at least) of these things.

Earth sciences are very important to moral judgments about how we use and dispose of resources. — Athena

No they aren't. They are important as to the empirical data of the same field. This is hte key distinction between morality and empirical investigation. EI gets us what is. Morality gets us what ought to be. That is, if you think there is such thing as morality above-and-beyond the human assertion of it, on it's own terms.

based a real climate event of a drought and flooding and return to a climate favorable to farming — Athena

This seems to run quite counter to the science, though.

The stories we tell ourselves are very important and a failure to include science in our understanding of reality is a serious mistake. — Athena

I think this is true. And is very, very important in noting the two above responses to you - the science isn't moral, nor does it inform morals. That is actually, why it's science, in some large part.
Social science is where it get's murky - as noted in the quote you've used, implicitly - is it right to continually point out the organisational failings of certain cultural groups? Is it right to point out the crime rates of non-oppressed groups? Is it right to.... Well, who knows? But in sociology, you at least have to consider this.
The facts behind it (i.e the statistical data) has no moral worth.

For me morality is a complete human invention (non-realism), so moral guilt has to be assigned, it is never actual — Lionino

:ok:

Thank you for saving me time lol

The question of "what perceives" absolutely relates to the discussion because If we don’t know who or what perceives we cannot say whether perception is indirect, direct, or otherwise. — NOS4A2

I don't think that's the case. And I addressed that. Nice.

If we don’t know, or refuse to say what it is that perceives, then it is impossible to distinguish between the perceiver, the intermediary, and the objects of perception. — NOS4A2

I don't think so, no. We do not need to know what constitutes the 'homunculus' to know about our visual system - and I both addressed that (as above) and noted what the perceiver is. If you missed that, do feel free to re-read the comment you've quoted from. I am not being facetious - it's easy to miss things when responding to multiple-point comments.

If we do not know where the perceiver begins and ends we cannot say where it ought to appear on the causal chain. — NOS4A2

We can know this without knowing what the perceiver is. We simply don't know what the perceiver is. No one does. We don't know. This doesn't preclude us from understanding that between the object and the perception (i.e perceptual experience - you DR guys use words quite badly in this discussion imo so im trying to get on board with your usage) are several instances of transfer from one medium to another, none of which preserve any visual image from the object. It is literally created in hte brain/mind. Yet, for some reason this just doesn't matter?

I'm fine with saying that through the direct perception of light we indirectly perceive the object — NOS4A2

Neat. I think anyone being honest would need to. And this would remove the disagreement between IR and DR.

I am indirectly perceiving an apple — NOS4A2

Sure, but that's doubly-indirect ;)

That is still direct perception because it describes a direct relationship between a perceiver and his environment — NOS4A2

As you have described, it clearly does not.

Indirect perception proposes the perception of a host of cognitive mediators, mental constructions, representations, and so on. — NOS4A2

It takes account of the many, empirically factual, mediations which cause a mental construction of a representation presented to 'the perceiver'. :)

You continue to equivocate on the meaning of “perceptual experience”. — Luke

No i don't, and I am utterly done with going int he circle you lead yourself in. Your words are getting you into a muddle that i have tried for two pages to bring you out of. I don't need to be correct to note this particular issue you're having.

It is only mediated in the production of the perceptual experience, not in the experience itself. — Luke

Suffice to say, as a final thought on the actual disagreement in position, that this line above is utterly incoherent and again, a perfect exemplar of what I have tried for at least two pages to avoid, directly addressing where your terminology is either 1. nonsense, or 2. unhelpful and attempted a coming-to-terms.

Far be it from me, Luke :)

:nerd: nice. I agree with those sentiments

None of this relates to the discussion/distinction we're talking about. We are perceivers - I was trying to avoid the chess move a lot like to make which is to retreat into the "No true homunculus" type of reasoning. I get that objection, but don't think its reasonable to then infer that there's no distinct perceiver. It wasn't at you, just to clear that up.

Light is of the world. Light is distal. We perceive light. Isn’t that so? — NOS4A2

Hmm. Kind of (imo), and I see where you're going (i think). Light can be distal (obviously), but even distant light physically enters the eye to produce anything in our mind. The light from a galaxy far, far away might have taking 10,000 years to get to your eye, but it still physically enters the eye to initiation perception of it (and visual experience of hte object which reflected the light).

Do perceivers have eyes? Human perceivers do. Light comes into direct contact with the eyes. So how is the perception of light indirect? — NOS4A2

I did not claim that this was the case, at all. The light directly entering the eyes is one of the 'way points' mentioned earlier, which, quite obviously, causes our visual experience to be indirectly of whatever objects caused that light to enter the eye/s.

If the position was that we 'directly perceive light, which represents distal objects, of which we have no direct perception' i'd be fine with that, because that appears to be the case. Again, the need to hold on to certain language, that doesn't not best-fit the position seems to be causing a big problem here.

I'm not sure which members you are thinking of. But I do agree that these days there is significant self-loathing in the West - we are often self-described as patriarchal, misogynist, war mongering, colonizing fascists and I can see why some people embrace 'strong men' and forms of nationalism, just to escape to a place of certainty and confidence, no matter how bogus — Tom Storm

Hey Tom - fwiw, my responses in that thread in which we had a disagreement are somewhat pursuant to the aim of not heading down this path of pathologising disagreements into 'bigotry' and 'moral failure'. Not in any way trying to resurrect that disagreement, just thought this a good, cooler scenario to point that out :) I had 'felt' we were somewhat close in terms of how to approach those issues, and this tells me I may have been right, and it was 'on the facts' that we had crossed wires.

That depends on what your conception of a perceiver is.
It is the experient. The consciousness who apprehends the end-result of the process of perception. It has a referent - if you're not able to adequately fine-grain your thinking here, I get that - largely, because whether fine or coarse grained, we could all be wrong.

The idea you're putting forward to seems to rest on the idea that we cannot pin-point a perceiver. If that were the case, we should be able to show that we share minds or experiences. We cannot.

We perceive light. Not objects. Quite literally, we see the converse of a shadow: a light-refracted image which represents the object enters our eyes. We don't even have the 'direct' contact put forward by DRs who seem to think an indirect sense system is directly perceiving things. It isn't, even on that account. But, I thank you for giving me a wider circle to walk around in. It is now clear that we perceive representations of a representation.

if a process which necessarily disconnects the end receiver from the distal object is “direct”, alrighty :)

that our perceptual experiences are of real objects — Luke

But they couldn't possibly be this. It isn't a move open to you, and you have rejected the two possible versions where it's true: physical objects in your mind, or non-mediated vision.

The issue is not whether our “perceptual system” is direct, as you seem to assume. The issue is whether our perceptual experiences are direct. — Luke

The circle grows ever-smaller.

Reducing the inputs of data to a system would probably reduce the instances of possible misfiring. This seems fairly normal inference to me..

Nope. — Luke

You have agreed with the description given by myself and others of the process of human perception. That description is indirect. So, I'm just going to leave that as I have seen you say this multiple times.

Direct realism is the view that we perceive real objects. We do have "a visual" or a perceptual experience of real objects. — Luke

I know. And we don't. So, same as above..I'll leave that there. This is a circle now.

Representations are required in order to have perceptual experiences — Luke

Yep. Which is why we have 'indirect' perception. The weird notion that I have to provide some actual perceptual system that is 'more direct' is a fig leaf to this. IN any case, telepathy would do the job.

To put it another way, a perceptual experience is a representation. For example, a perceptual experience such as a "visual", a sound or a smell might represent some distal object, but it does not represent a representation (unless the distal object itself represents something else). — Luke

I am unsure why you're pointing this out. It is implicit in aall the other agreed points of fact we've been over *yet you've denied above.

This is now a circle.

We all accept that vision is, literally, an indirect process from object to experience. That there is more to say for the Direct Realist is baffling and indicates fig leaves, at best, and dishonesty at worst. And, as I have multiple times said, and you've absolutely run-roughshod over in service of circling around an empty hole:

Had we agreed, at the out set, that your conception literally is indirect realism, and that a 'more direct' form of perception would be required for DR to make sense, we wouldn't have this problem (or, the reverse agreement, I'm just on 'this' side of it - but either way we would have had terms that didn't have you saying one thing and claiming another).

As noted, this is now all circles. I don't find them much fun.

. The kind of direct perception you seem to envisage involving no representation or process of perception is a fantasy; it's not possible. — Luke

Then I need not say more on the previous. You accept that our perception is necessarily indirect by understanding that our visual system doesn’t give us a visual of any actual objects, but representations of them.

By then for some reason claiming that this is direct, appealing to some fantasy about some nonexistent perception which is more direct you make a move I don’t think is open to you,

And I think you have, here, tacitly illustrated my assertion earlier / the direct realist claim is a bit of a fig leaf over that. This is the grammatical weirdness - yet again - rhar I was positing we could’ve avoided :sweat:

Saving this comment space for a full reply as it’s dinner time.

But, so that I can leave it off later - I’m not going to give an account of direct perception. That’s not relevant. If there is no direct perception for humans, then that’s the case. We need not a comparator.

The reply we are both referring to in turn here, is the one you have quoted. The passage is here:

It would have been good if either this, or your other conception of the conflict, were actually agree upon in the first pages of this thread. Read together, these two passages end the dispute. I have a feeling even Banno would be shown to be prevaricating on this account of the terms. — AmadeusD

Said where? — Luke

The point being, this wasn't to impugn anything particular you've said. I meant precisely what was said there - that an agreement on one or other of the (precedingly-quoted) conceptions you used could have prevented a huge amount of waffling in the thread. Banno particularly would probably need to adjust his veracious responses if one or other was nailed to the wall at the outset. It wasn't at you, Just an observation in geenral - and you're still here :P

Could you elaborate or clarify this? I can't make much sense of it. — Luke

Sure - Likely, the use of the word 'new' there could throw one. It was entirely erroneous.
The dispute i'm here calling 'dumb', can probably be understood by my cleaning up what I said:

(the dispute consists in) whether the inclusion fact that real world objects at the initiation initiate the process of of the process of perception constitutes a “directness” requires required for DR to make any sense. But it doesn’t viz. the fact that 'perception' the process, is initiated by an external, real-world object does not negate the several way-points that prevent our 'perceptions' i.e perceptual experiences being of the real-world object. It seems to me, that negation is required for DR to make any sense. There is no way to pretend that the perceptual experience is 'direct' in any sense other that it is an immediate apprehension of representations. If that's what a DR means, I think that would undercut the entire debate and reduce it to literally a problem of stubborn people (may be) misusing words.

Where did I say that our perceptions are of representations? — Luke

My position is that our perceptual experience typically represents real world objects. That is, our perceptual experience is typically of real world objects; we typically perceive real world objects. The perceptual experience is the representation. — Luke

^^ this seems to indicate, if one cuts through the grammar, to indicate from the bolded that position.. Unless there's some smuggling of the object into the mind going on in the intervening lines?

I see no inconsistency in maintaining that although the content of our perceptual experiences consists of representations, those perceptual experiences are of real world objects. — Luke

While I outright reject that there's no inconsistency between the two notions, this also seems to indicate the same. If the experience consists in a representation, it can't be a direct experience of an object. That much seems modally true. This, as noted, presents the exact problem my lament referred to.

If the above position is truly your position, this is, as best I can tell, an indirect realist position, with the line "Well, it a direct experience via representation" tacked to the end. I wasn't asking at the time, but it would be interesting to here how this can be made sense of. If i may quote myself:

If that's what a DR means, I think that would undercut the entire debate and reduce it to literally a problem of stubborn people (may be) misusing words. — AmadeusD

Both positions mean our perceptual experiences aren't of objects, but representations, no matter which tid bit is appended to that.

The dispute is over what our perceptual experiences are of, and whether they are of real world objects or are of representations of real world objects. Direct realists claim that our perceptual experiences are of real world objects. Indirect realists claim that our perceptual experiences are of representations of real world objects. — Luke

It’s possible my reply to you didn’t land because this was directly addressed, in relation to at least one other commenter. I invite you to reread what I’ve said there :)

It might be the naive realists' view that physical objects are in our minds, but I'm not defending naive realism — Luke

My response doesn’t suggest this of you :)

To describe what is part or is not part of the content of a perceptual experience--what is included in the experience--says nothing about whether that perceptual experience is of a real world object or is of a representation of a real world object. — Luke

Oh, but it does. And we’ve been doing so over these pages. One of the deeeper (and imo dumber) disputes has been whether the new inclusion of real world objects at the initiation of the process of perception constitutes a “directness” requires for DR to make any sense. But it doesn’t.

I see no inconsistency in maintaining that although the content of our perceptual experiences consists of representations, those perceptual experiences are of real world objects. — Luke

Then I couldn’t know what to say. This directly contradicts your earlier assertion that our perceptions are if representations. You are now doing exactly what my reply insinuated we could have avoided across the thread.

This is the claim made by indirect realists, not by direct realists. — Luke

It is not. My comment stands.

Not really. We’re presented with perverse incentives to purchase, but that’s more a matter of individual will.

when anyone claims to "understand" Nietzsche, I try not to make eye contact and slowly walk away. — Arne

:lol: Very real

But mostly, I believe that the dispute between direct realists and indirect realists concerns whether or not we have direct perceptions/perceptual experiences of real world objects — Luke

I also believe that a real world object is not part of a perception, and that only a representation of a real world object is part of a perception. I don't have physical (real world) objects in my mind; only representations of them. — Luke

It would have been good if either this, or your other conception of the conflict, were actually agree upon in the first pages of this thread. Read together, these two passages end the dispute. I have a feeling even Banno would be shown to be prevaricating on this account of the terms.

The reason for this is that, on my reading of the entire 35 pages, no one has been capable or even willing to deny the underlined above - but a swathe are still clinging to Direct Realism as if committing to the above account wasn't a fatal blow to DR. On the other hand, if the second conception:

whether or not we have direct awareness of our perceptions/perceptual experiences — Luke

Were the true dispute, viz. If DR amounted merely to a claim of 'direct perception of representations' it would be a useless term - a fig leaf.

Right, let's just ignore how the CIA literally trained the members of the al-Qaeda and the rise of ISIS was a direct consequence of Obama's policy. Stuff just happens for no reason. — Lionino

It wasn't a rational thing to do. You seem to want to be in this category of rationalising 9/11. That is your choice.

Being anti-USA enough to think that 9/11 can be rationalised is (particularly in light of the intervening years and what effect they ahve had on the region) to say the least, a random view to take.

while that country's people is completely subject to international corporations and Israel — Lionino

Nevermind.

I would suppose that I should not be referred to as 'your guy' in any sense that I am aware of. That turn of phrase seems like the pretentious equivalent of 'bruh'. But yes, quite serious. Is the entire universe not enough evidence? How do you define evidence? — Chet Hawkins

Are you serious, my brethren?

I have only begun to preen. The lightning and the thunder are coming soon. But, no, alas, I am only a humble philosopher, loving wisdom, and trying to help others understand what wisdom is, as many seem to have quite typical and pointless erroneous impressions of what it is. Of course, I admit freely that I am one such, just with less relative error than many and most in my asserted model. — Chet Hawkins

Im now simply happy to say the size of your ego is impressive.

Why bother to respond at all? — Chet Hawkins

Responses to your posts, from my estimation, are largely signals to other posters.

He goes on to say: — 013zen

I can't make a huge amount from those passages. I realise Frege is who he is in the history of Phil and particularly language use. So, may i despair a little...

:ok:

Have either of you read Process and Reality by Alfred North Whitehead?
You're coming eerily close to his method of trying to ascertain a moral calculation, though the entire book merely sets the 'staging'. Im sure his other works take it further.

Yankees and the Soviets used and abused the Middle East for a long, long time before nine eleven happened. And then they play victim. Whatever the motivation was, it is evil through and through. — Lionino

Anything that tries to rationalise 9/11 probably shouldn't be taken very seriously.

It was not a rational event, or action to take.

Deepak is not serious either, but as in a serious person. — Lionino

Oh, I see what you mean. Perhaps. I've spoken to him extremely briefly and he came across pretty robust, but wrong.

I also have no clue what this means. — Lionino

I think he's trying to say that perceiving reality pre-supposed reality, so the Cogito is a step ahead of establishing 'existence'.

I think this is a red-herring though.

two more pop up. — Lionino

Ah piss.

Nietzsche is not much to my taste, why do you dislike him? — Tom Storm

He comes across, to me, like an Emo lyricist of the 19th Century. It's mainly just him wallowing in his own filth and projecting on others. Not much philosophy in it. I can't get through more than a handful of pages without laughing out loud at how he is considered:
1. A philosopher;
2. Important; and
3. Interesting.

Though, I freely admit some of my bias against him is watching a number of my peers (in our late teens) get into to Nietzsche, become and remain insufferably narcissistic wankers who can't have a conversation without saying something extremely obtuse and pretending you're too dumb to get it. Which is what Nietzsche did, mostly. It got worse when they went to Uni and all the stupid uni kids were doing the exact same thing because they didn't realise the world existed outside of their parents ideas until then.
My account of this is that they are just not thinking properly. They seem to get to tier 2 of 10 and go "yep, I like those words, and it supports my broody, self-obsessed personality so, nice".