Comments

  • Belief (not just religious belief) ought to be abolished!
    What's relevant is whether the belief is correct, not whether the person has it.BlueBanana
    I think the religious types would disagree.
    And that is another reason why the abolition of belief is a good idea.
  • Belief (not just religious belief) ought to be abolished!
    De facto, de facto, de facto. I'm not pretending its a definition. I am simply insisting it is a fact. As any fool can see, by the context.
    Cars take petrol is true, even though cars take diesel is true.

    As I said above "yes, but...
    Belief is also accepting as true regardless of the facts."
    FFS
  • Science is just a re-branding of logic
    These axioms should be ideally be grounded in the scientific method.MonfortS26

    Line 3 is where you fall down...
  • The Socratic attitude and science.
    Socrates is perhaps most famous for stating that he was knowledgeable about not knowing much or nothing.Posty McPostface

    If people know anything about Socrates, they know that. But what did he actually say, and where is it reported?
  • On anxiety.
    The anxiety is unreal.Posty McPostface

    SO is pain. It's all in the head - what's your point.
    People still get anxious when all those needs are met.
  • Belief (not just religious belief) ought to be abolished!
    ↪charleton
    No, I should have quoted this:
    Belief is also accepting as true regardless of the facts.
    I was saying you were conflating "belief" with other ideas like denial and confirmation bias.
    x260ad8c12

    No.
    There is no confusion.
    What I said was de facto correct; 'belief is used for taking as true regardless of evidence'.

    e.g. I believe I am Napoleon, can be true de re simply because a person says it.

    Were they to say "I know I am Napoleon", then you can challenge that claim.
  • If Hate Speech Doesn't incite Hatred, Then Where Does Hatred Come From?
    QED hate speech works.

    Hitler had over 36% of the voters with 13 million behind him.
    The Nazi party numbered 800,000 members.
  • If Hate Speech Doesn't incite Hatred, Then Where Does Hatred Come From?
    No, broadcast speech doesn't contribute much to languageBitter Crank

    Please cite. "much" is subjective, and I would imagine that the degree of this "muchness" would depend on exposure.
    I know many parents who "don't know where they get their ideas from"!! If you take my meaning.
  • Trump and "shithole countries"

    The US seems to be in a most tragic decline.
    I just watched David Letterman's latest. He interviewed Obama for his first programme.
    This is no reflection on Obama, but he represents the failure of the US system. A man of intelligence, who genuinely cared about inequality and poverty found himself impotent to do anything about it.
    He was pilloried and traduced for eight years whilst the media grilled him over hot coals.
    And the US's response to the end of his term is a megalomaniac, narcissistic moron, who is now taking credit for what little Obama was able to do in re-booting the economy, and giving his family a massive inheritance tax-break, at the expense of the poorest.
  • If Hate Speech Doesn't incite Hatred, Then Where Does Hatred Come From?
    Broadcast speech does not significantly contribute to language acquisition in young children.
    Advertising speech is not highly effective in changing consumer behavior; it is modestly effective at best.
    Bitter Crank

    Is this evident? Or are you just making it up?
  • If Hate Speech Doesn't incite Hatred, Then Where Does Hatred Come From?
    "Hate speech" clearly exists, and "hatred" clearly exists. Violence based on hatred clearly exists, but is there a causal progression from hate speech —> hatred —> violence? No.Bitter Crank

    Dah, yes. Hate speech gives people license. Rhetoric works.
    Hitler did not get to power because most of the German people were rabid antisemitic, nationalistic bigots. He convinced many, and others who were on the brink of bigotry found the spirit of his speeches, and that of the crowd stimulating.
  • On anxiety.
    If I allow the anxiety to well up, I may be overcome by irrational thoughts and beliefs.Metaphysician Undercover

    Yes this can be most debilitating.
    When I lived in the US near my Dad in the 80s, he would all of a sudden just get anxious. He found himself gripped by utter panic, and for no apparent reason. These got so bad that he consulted a doctor who suggested that his addiction to speed (that he was prescribed for weight loss), 20 years earlier may have been to blame. It seems that it was a well documented response.
    Other's I have known have got the same response to heights, crowds, and some animals.
    I invited a friend to follow me in his car to my local University. Despite leaving at the same moment as me, the journey of 2 miles took him at least five more minutes. When I asked him what happened he said he had to avoid the overpass as he was scared of heights. The same guy disappeared one day when us a group of his friends went to the end of Brighton pier. I was left with strangers since he could not stand to see the water through the cracks in the boardwalk! Panic had made him flee!

    For each of these examples no belief had any bearing, they being rational persons, whose fears were contrary to reason.
  • Why should you feel guilty?

    I don't forgive either.
    If people deliberately try to stitch me up then they do not deserve forgiveness; if they had no intention of wronging me then they don't need it.
    For them my comment is "no worries".

    I don't know about other people, but such instances where this might be apposite are so rare in my life I just do not have much interest, and tend to dismiss all this nonsense and peri-christian ideology.
  • Do you consider yourself a Good person?
    Depends whose asking.
    But as Socrates says, no one knowingly decides to be a bad person. Even Hitler justified his actions as doing the right thing, for what he believed to be true, and decent.
  • On anxiety.
    I would not agree with this. I would think that anxiety is deeper seated than beliefs. Having an anxious condition, or disposition, leads one to feel anxiety toward certain beliefs, not vise versa. Anxiety is probably developed directly from the condition of one's metabolic system, and manifests, or in some cases festers as anxiety concerning specific beliefs.Metaphysician Undercover

    Indeed. Anxiety may not relate to any knowledge, belief or information. It can come seemingly uncaused, but due to chemical factors in the brain, or can even be induced electromagnetically.
    Coffee and other stimulants can cause anxiety. Other drugs can make it go away.
    Feelings are always deeper that thoughts. Thinking can offer the conscious mind a reason for the feeling of anxiety, and can help to alleviate those feelings; but there is a good physiological reason that the passions are more fundamental.
    Anyone whose been in love with the wrong person knows this. Reason can cure the feeling, but it can take a long time. And there is no way you can simply decide with reason to fall in love.
  • Belief (not just religious belief) ought to be abolished!
    Wouldn't that just be "denial" or "confirmation bias"? Rather than belief, I mean.x260ad8c12

    If by 'that' you mean belief as a wished for, no. It may have nothing whatever to do with bias.

    If by 'that' you are talking about knowledge, no. There is a good body of study to nail down knowledge claims, which is distinct from belief.
  • Belief (not just religious belief) ought to be abolished!

    yes, but...
    Belief is also accepting as true regardless of the facts.
    Whilst 'belief' is a marker for such a huge range of meanings it makes sense to use alternatives for "accepting as true regardless". This is a thing I like to called knowledge.
  • Why should you feel guilty?

    I think I answered the question.
    Guilt is for children.
    Growing up is about learning to forgive yourself for things you are never going to be. It is knowing that as long as you live to your ability as a person who is growing, and satisfy yourself that your efforts meet your aspirations, you have nothing with which to turn in on yourself. Self guilt is regret - neither are useful emotions and eventually, I hope, you just leave them behind.

    Irritation of others has noting to so with guilt. I see you trying to make the two things the same, but they are not.
  • What is the use of free will?
    Everything is entangled.Rich

    Then why call it free will?
  • Determinism must be true
    It's for me to decide where you seem confused.
    And immortality is that area
  • Determinism must be true
    Clarify your immortality???
  • Belief (not just religious belief) ought to be abolished!
    If you throw dice 100 times and get a six 99 times, that's evidence the dice are rigged, and those 99 times are evidence for that.BlueBanana

    What has this got to do with anything?
  • Belief (not just religious belief) ought to be abolished!
    For example, the existence of one's physical body, the existence of other people, the existence of any reality outside one's self.....,BlueBanana

    It's called knowledge and requires no belief.
  • Belief (not just religious belief) ought to be abolished!
    Doesn't mean it isn't evidence.BlueBanana

    Yes true. religious evidence is evidence that people are gullible and generally stupid.
  • What is the use of free will?
    Will is an energetic force just like any other force in nature. The Mind produces and stores it in the body by normal process of eating, drinking, and breathing. The body is a tool of the mind.
    2 hours ago ReplyShareFlag
    Rich

    OF what, exactly is it free?
  • Determinism must be true
    Ah yes, the ancient Egyptian writings of BlueBanana conjuring things by the power of his will. Am I time traveler or immortal?BlueBanana

    Neither, just a bit confused by the sound of it.
  • Determinism must be true
    What is any of this based on? If you want to keep your comments brief, so be it, but don't fill them with ad hominems or unrelated and unbased claims.BlueBanana

    It's called induction. And despite its failings, as taken humans from primitive animals to technological experts, masters of the world.
    I have the entire history of civilisation on my side as evidence. What do you have Depak Chopra and his gay band of mystics.
  • Why should you feel guilty?
    WTF are you talking about?
    Have you lost the plot?
    I do not feel anger at other people. I can get bored with people, find them irritating. But these are my feelings. Why would I direct them at people for being who they are? Unless I am in some sort of imminent danger I tend to let people do as they please and except that same for myslef.
    I find this line of questioning a bit puzzling, given the thread subject.
  • The 9th question
    He is regarded by most of today's edifice of social science as the ground from which sprang naturalistic science of biological diverisficaiton and evolution, human cultural change and economic and political development, and psychological and psychotherapeutic dynamics, as well as liberal theology.Joshs

    You have no evidence here that Hegel or any one of your list of thinkers (presumably pulled out of the Table of Contents of "The Ladybird's Book of Clever Blokes for Girls"), would refute Kant's excellent idea that Space and Time are necessary preconditions to ask any question.
  • Determinism must be true
    So when a radioactive atom decays, are you saying that was determined by a cause? Something suddenly made its decay more probable, nay inescapable, in that moment rather than - as inductively confirmed in the study of these things - that the decay probability does not vary with time? The chance was constant, therefore the determinism was - measurably - zero?apokrisis

    Predictable; caused. Deterministic. What is your problem?
  • Determinism must be true
    You only have that evience about non-conscious objects. You can't apply those conclusions to include people.BlueBanana

    This is utter nonsense. It's nonsense for the simple fact that it is false. But more ridiculous in that your use of this claim is offered in some sort of mystcal claim that because a person is conscious they can exist outside the realms of cause and effect.
    I bet you believe in the myth of positive thinking, where you just have to dream up something in order to have it.
    Well DUH.
    If you want something you have to DO SOMETHING to cause a thing to happen.
  • Is Calling A Trans Woman A Man (Or Vice Versa) A Form Of Violence?
    it would teach us all a great deal if we had to spend a week in another persons shoes.
    — charleton

    A whole week! I thought walking in somebody's shoes for a mile was enough.
    Bitter Crank

    For some it can take a week to cover a mile.
  • Determinism must be true
    sun has not turned into a melon
    — charleton

    That's a strawman, indeterminism in no way implies those kinds of events happening.
    BlueBanana

    I'm sorry to have to inform you but it does imply that.
    Every day to go and expect your car to start you are relying on determinism. And if he fails to start then you rely on determinism to find a solution, such as you forgot to put petrol in it; or you need to change a spark plug.
  • Determinism must be true
    Determinism is a fact of the universe it does not have an opinion. It's true whether you believe it or not.
    — charleton

    So you believe.
    BlueBanana

    The fact of determinism is knowledge. Knowledge is contingent on evidence; in this case inductive evidence. When you come up with some inductive information that contradicts determinism I'll be happy to assess it.
    Until then I know determinism works. I have no need of belief.
  • Determinism must be true
    Quantum indeterminism, which you do not understand relies on a deterministic universe too.
    Quantum phenomena are predictably unpredictable; like the fall of a dice. But observation of the dice is not enough to be able to predict the outcome with each throw. But when you know what all the causative factors are you can make a dice throwing machine that helps you score more predictably.
    None of this invalidates determinism in any way. It just means we do not yet have all the information necessary to predict 'stochastic' events.
  • Is Calling A Trans Woman A Man (Or Vice Versa) A Form Of Violence?
    Rachel Dolezal: ‘I’m not going to stoop and apologise and grovel’Bitter Crank

    Obviously she was deliberately deceiving. She did not have a genuine reason to identify in that way.

    That does not change to fact. On a side note I think it would teach us all a great deal if we had to spend a week in another persons shoes.
    Were her motives a genuine reason to witness prejudice first hand?
  • The 9th question

    No Kant's work remains a good body of theory. Hegel is regarded as a mystic.
    Every without Kant, what I said remains a good idea since the Idea that Kant had to assert time and space as necessarily grounding all other knowledge remains a good one.
  • Determinism must be true
    You believe magic, I get it. But how do you think it works?
  • Determinism must be true
    Nope. I do not have to hold a belief for determinism to be true. I just have to wake up every morning and note that the sun has not turned into a melon