Sure. Even mining for Bitcoins has an effect on the carbon footprint. I mentioned plastic because it's the most obvious example. I didn't mean to imply that it's the only example. I thought that much was obvious.

If it's so difficult, why do we teach that to students in their first university year? I don't think it's complicated at all. No one does. Have you ever come across someone who didn't understand it? I haven't. Think about it.

:up:

↪Arcane Sandwich


The climate is changing at a pace not seen in human history— and it’s because of carbon emissions from using fossil fuels. It’s not that complicated. — Mikie

I already addressed that point, Mikie:

Is climate change real? Yes, it is, because the climate exists, and it changes. Have we caused that change? Not all of it, but some of it. And yes, it has to do with the tons of plastic that pollute our oceans. Because those plastics were made despite the fact that massive carbon emissions would be required for producing them. — Arcane Sandwich

I have definitely been drawn to the idea, but I have never been able to believe in it. — Janus

Nothing wrong with that. You're under no obligation to believe in it. No one is. That's the whole point. The Absolute Spirit, as Hegel understands it, is Freedom itself. It's Liberty itself. At least that's my interpretation of it. I could be wrong, of course.

Same with religion and mythos in general. I love some of it as literature, as expression of the endlessly creative human imagination. That'll do for me. — Janus

I'm inclined to agree with you in general. I have some reservations about the specifics, though.

Theology is one aspect of the Bible. — BitconnectCarlos

What are the other aspects? To me it's 100% theology, but I could be wrong.

It's philosophy 101, right? That section of the Republic is plainly allegorical, with the Sun representing the knowledge of the Good, towards which all should aspire. The 'ascent' from the 'Cave' is 'painful', and should the one who has ascended return to the cave and try and explain to the cave-dwellers the magnificence of the outside world, they'll want to kill him. The mainstream interpretation is that the cave represents the world of sensory experience, the ascent to the Sun represents the insight into the forms or intelligible principles which are only discernable to the 'eye of reason'. It is followed by the 'allegory of the divided line' which describes the levels of knowledge, from (mere) belief or opinion, through mathematical knowledge (dianoia) and then noesis (higher knowledge.) — Wayfarer

Why would Plato need an allegory to say that? He could have just said it plainly, instead of resorting to poetic language. And even if he did indeed need an allegory to say that, why is he talking about a cave, specifically? He could have talked about a basement, or a dungeon, for example. Caves are natural, basements are not. So, why does he have a preference for natural subterranean prisons, instead of artificial subterranean prisons?

None of this makes much sense to us moderns, because being committed to materialism and empiricism, we're essentially cave-dwellers ;-) — Wayfarer

I think it's fair to say that I'm respectful of your idealism and spiritualism. Wouldn't you agree?

Yes, you're right; I goofed. — PoeticUniverse

You always do.

EL MORENO
Si responde a esta pregunta
téngasé por vencedor;
doy la derecha al mejor;
y respóndamé al momento:
cuándo formó Dios el tiempo
y por qué lo dividió.

MARTIN FIERRO
Moreno, voy a decir
sigún mi saber alcanza;
el tiempo sólo es tardanza
de lo que está por venir;
no tuvo nunca principio
ni jamás acabará,
porque el tiempo es una rueda,
y rueda es eternidá;
y si el hombre lo divide
sólo lo hace, en mi sentir,
por saber lo que ha vivido
o le resta que vivir. — José Hernández

And here's the English version, courtesy of Yours Truly:

THE DARKER-SKINNED GAUCHO
If you answer this question
consider yourself the winner;
I give the right to the best;
and answer me immediately:
When did God form time?
and why did God divide it?

MARTIN FIERRO
Moreno, I'm going to say
as far as my knowledge suffices;
time is only delay
of what is to come;
it never had a beginning
nor will it ever end,
because time is a wheel,
and a wheel is eternity;
and if man divides it
He just does, in my opinion,
to know what he has lived
or he has still to live. — Who would be the Author, Hernández or Arcane Sandwich?

Plato’s cave was never about actual cave-dwellers, or actual caves. — Wayfarer

Are you sure?

:rofl:

Isn’t it about our lack of insight? The absence of wisdom? Not seeing what is real? That’s how I’ve always interpreted it. I don’t think the ancient Greeks had much grasp of palaeontology. — Wayfarer

And you care about the interpretations of academic philosophers since when, exactly? Academia itself is just an institution, a human construct, if you will. Plato himself invented it. Caves existed before Plato. And the ancient Greeks did in fact discover Mammoth bones: they mistakenly took the hole for the trunk as one large, central eye: they thought they were cyclops bones.

It's a dilemma, Wayfarer: given the choice, would you rather live in a cave, or out in the Sun? I'd rather live in a cave. But that's to Plato's point: by living in a cave, instead of under the Sun, our insight diminishes, to the point that it becomes lacking. Our wisdom also diminishes, to the point in which it becomes absent. We forget what is real, since we are making cave paintings instead of hunting, we're making funny shadows with our hands and the cave fire, pretending that they're the shadows of different animals, like birds and rabbits. So, what's the remedy to all that? To step outside the cave, literally, and get some good old, fresh air, from the great outdoors, under the Sun.

Perhaps try reading your own citation — tim wood

I've read it many times, tim. I've also read Korman's book about it, and most of his articles as well. I've also been exchanging emails with Dan for years.

at least make clear to me why you cited it? — tim wood

Because you're asking textbook questions, that's why. This thread is not for discussing textbook questions about the metaphysics of ordinary objects.

If each "ordinary object" is a distinct philosophical substance, then what distinguishes object from substance? — tim wood

They are the same thing, tim. Nothing distinguishes them, precisely because they're not different sorts of things.

If objects share substance, — tim wood

They don't.

how are such objects distinguished? — tim wood

Again, you're asking a textbook question. There are better uses of my time.

It's the national poem of Argentina. It's part of my identity.

Martín Fierro, also known as El Gaucho Martín Fierro, is a 2,316-line epic poem by the Argentine writer José Hernández. The poem was originally published in two parts, El Gaucho Martín Fierro (1872) and La Vuelta de Martín Fierro (1879). The poem supplied a historical link to the gauchos' contribution to the national development of Argentina, for the gaucho had played a major role in Argentina's independence from Spain. — Wikipedia

Time flies like a bird — PoeticUniverse

Ok. Except that it doesn't.

fruit flies like a banana. — PoeticUniverse

Not all fruit flies like a banana. Some fruit flies like an apple.

(If you believe in 'time-flies' insects.) — PoeticUniverse

You mean fruit flies? As in, biological individuals of the species Drosophila melanogaster. What do they fly like? I'll tell you what they fly like: they fly like fruit flies.

But it is analogous nonsense. Plato had 2D and 3D going on. — PoeticUniverse

Not really. Plato is 4D, through and through.

EL MORENO
Si responde a esta pregunta
téngasé por vencedor;
doy la derecha al mejor;
y respóndamé al momento:
cuándo formó Dios el tiempo
y por qué lo dividió.

MARTIN FIERRO
Moreno, voy a decir
sigún mi saber alcanza;
el tiempo sólo es tardanza
de lo que está por venir;
no tuvo nunca principio
ni jamás acabará,
porque el tiempo es una rueda,
y rueda es eternidá;
y si el hombre lo divide
sólo lo hace, en mi sentir,
por saber lo que ha vivido
o le resta que vivir. — José Hernández

EDIT: Tagging @javi2541997

or, before they were historical humans. — ENOAH

Yep, that's a possibility.

Now you're a poet, too. — PoeticUniverse

:roll:

I already was a poet, and unlike you, I don't use Artificial Intelligence.

As when Einstein had sat next to a pretty girl and had noted the much quicker passage of time, over the slower passage of his instant of touching a hot stove. — PoeticUniverse

Mario Bunge is Einstein's greatest intellectual disciple, philosophically and scientifically. And the greatest poet that has ever existed is José Hernández.

I am not a philosopher by a physicist by training so I need the help of other philosophers to refine my ideas and make them concrete. — MoK

Well, then you might be interested in the work of Mario Bunge.

Thank you very much for your very positive contribution to this thread. — MoK

Sure mate, happy to help.

Cheers.

Plato's cave allegory — Arcane Sandwich


More like that we are 3D shadows of the 4D Block universe. — PoeticUniverse

That sounds like nonsense.

And yet, since anything and everything you might say, think, or cognise about it is or is informed by your perception, you cannot, have not, said anything about it itself. Calling it an ordinary object won't do, not least because it leads to the questions, how do you know? and what is an ordinary object? — tim wood

Well, see the SEP entry on Ordinary Objects, since it answers those textbook questions about the metaphysics of ordinary objects. I'll quote the opening paragraph:

Our everyday experiences present us with a wide array of objects: dogs and cats, tables and chairs, trees and their branches, and so forth. These sorts of ordinary objects may seem fairly unproblematic in comparison to entities like numbers, propositions, tropes, holes, points of space, and moments of time. Yet, on closer inspection, they are at least as puzzling, if not more so. — Daniel Z. Korman

And by this do you mean that philosophical substances are a many, at least as many as there are ordinary objects? — tim wood

That sounds like reasonable thing to say, even though I never thought about it that way. Sure, why not?

Or that ordinary objects are a one, being all the same? — tim wood

No, I'm quite sure there's many of them: my kitchen table, apples, computers, etc.

At this point in this specific conversation (which I've had many times, in the past), I would say the following:

Time is something that, figuratively speaking, we keep track of. When you say "I've lost track of time", it means that you don't remember what time it is (or was) that you've lost track of.

Time flies and so does fruit.
What flies? Fruit flies.
Time flies, in a figurative sense, when you're having a good time.
Time is slow, when you're going through some tough times.
Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.

And yes, I wrote the preceding verse myself. I don't use A.I. tools for generating poetry.

Sure, no problem. If you have any other questions, I'll try to respond to them, to the best of my ability. Which is proof of nothing, though. There are better philosophers out there.

This sort of analysis of I & II Samuel has fallen into disrepute, because of both the unity of style and dramatic elements use throughout the books of Samuel and because, if these stories are supposed to be "propaganda," they are pretty terrible at that role. The entire second half of the David story is a tragedy, one where David's shortcomings play the key role. Things like the literary echo of David, as a now feeble old man being confused by the sound of conflict outside during the coup attempt at the start of I Kings, as recalling/echoing the situation of the priest Eli at the opening of I Samuel, seems hardly the incidental work of "splicing propaganda narratives." — Count Timothy von Icarus


And deservedly so. Samuel is a rich text. It was originally one book. An unflinching look at David, for sure. If I had to pick a couple texts that could be closer to "propaganda" I would maybe say Joshua and perhaps 1 & 2 Maccabees. Still I hate that label "propaganda" because these texts are more complicated than that; still, when we compare Joshua to our knowledge of that period something's gotta bend. I do tend to be more on the historical-critical side of things but I do try to remain open to other methods. Conservative Judaism is more open to modern scholarship, while Orthodox Judaism is much more skeptical of the historical-critical approach and relies more on its own tradition. — BitconnectCarlos

@Count Timothy von Icarus, @BitconnectCarlos, I'm under the impression that the concept of propaganda is neither a religious nor a theological concept. Am I wrong?

Dude, I'm dying :rofl: :death:

Those fellas certainly do LOL. — AmadeusD

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

No, I'm not on about refuting "philosophical substances". I believe that they are real. — Arcane Sandwich

Great! Real is a qualification. And presumably common to all things that are. What sort of real thing, then, would it be? — tim wood

It's not common to all things that are. Basilisks are, since they are something (i.e., they are fictional creatures), and yet they're not real.

As to what sort of real thing they would be (the philosophical substances), they would be something like ordinary objects.

The difficulty with this is the need to be rigorously exact as to what exactly you're referring to. An apple - your apple - what exactly is it, where exactly is it? — tim wood

What is it, exactly? It's an ordinary object. Generally speaking. It's also a fruit, specifically speaking. It's also a physical object, again generally speaking. It's also something that you can buy at the supermarket, again specifically speaking. Etc.

Where is it, exactly? Well, there's one on my kitchen table, as well as a few others.

And how do you know that one thing only has perceptible qualities and the other both perceptible and imperceptible qualities — tim wood

Well, I think that ordinary magnetic phenomena show that magnets have real, albeit imperceptible, qualities. We simply intuit this fact. We have access to it, in an intellectual way. Yes, you read that right: it's intellectual intuition, something that Kant didn't believe in. More precisely, does the mind have such a faculty? Kant says "no", Meillassoux says "yes". Who do I agree with? It's hard to say. I suppose the answer is neither. The way I understand intellectual intuition is different from how Kant understands it, and it's also different to how Meillassoux understands it. My notion, or concept, of intellectual intuition is similar to Korman's.

Actually, what is an imperceptible quality? — tim wood

It would be an essential quality, as opposed to (or distinct from) an accidental quality.

There's a good chance the dispute - such as it is - arises from confusion, resolved or at least refined in careful definition. — tim wood

Sure, why not.

Not to say that definitions resolve all problems - pace all older Australians - but they make the way easier. — tim wood

Yeah I'mma (I am going to) let you in on a secret, mate. Australians in general aren't very good philosophers. I mean, the best that Australia has produced (so far) in philosophical terms is Australian Realism. And it's not a very good philosophy, compared to British Empiricism in the manner of Locke, or Scottish Common Sense Realism, in the manner of the Scottish Enlightment.

he has the awkward problem of most people reading him being dumb late-high-school, early-University edgelords who think his philosophy will deliver them from their internal shortcomings. — AmadeusD

:rofl:

You've been listening to -dare I say- too much heavy metal. :rofl:

Think of it like this, MoK. The title of this Thread is "God changes". That's an unproblematic claim for a Hegelian. Of course he changes, is what the Hegelian would say. Everything does. That's what Heraclitus meant with his example of the river.

21
Rescue me from the mouth of the lions;
save me from the horns of the wild oxen. — Psalm 22:1

It's talking about a memory as ancient as the Paleolithic, when everyone was a nomadic hunter-gatherer. This makes it more ancient than anything anyone else has to say. Bring your favorite poets to this discussion, quote Emily D. for all I care. I believe what Pslam 22:1, part 21 says: There was a time when lions were our natural predators, there was a time when the wild oxen could kill us when we were just minding our own business. — Arcane Sandwich


Right! I agree with this perspective. That's part of the awe. — Moliere

In that sense, Plato's cave allegory can be interpreted in a similar way. My personal interpretation is that Plato is almost literally recalling the time when the first men and women started to live like cavemen and cavewomen. Before that, men and women lived out in the open, like the rabbit, like the lion, like the wild oxen, like the fish, and so forth.

Plato's argument, then, is that cavelife corrupted men and women. It is better to live under the Sun, than to live in a cave.

You know what Plato's cave allegory might be really talking about, at the end of the day? Maybe it's talking about the time, before the Paleolithic (before cavemen) when men and women were not human.

↪Arcane Sandwich

I see and thanks for your post. — MoK

No problem, happy to help. :up:

Please correct me if I am wrong, so according to Hegel, the subject refers to self-consciousness and self-knowledge of a being. — MoK

That's an extremely complicated question as far as Hegelian scholarship is concerned. Why don't you tell me what you think about it, in order to see if your view matches Hegel's view?

Ok, I'll comply with your request.

Left and right extremists are in the process of merging (I think). — frank

Well, you're not wrong. And you should be. Why? Because the process of merging left and right is the process by which fascism is synthesized, in a Hegelian way. This is not a thesis that I defend myself, I'm against it. I've dealt with this thesis before. And I don't endorse it.

You would need a reason to do so. — tim wood

The reason has already been stated: one of them (the apple) only has perceptible qualities, while the other one (the magnet) has both perceptible and imperceptible qualities.

If you're on about refuting "philosophical substance," you're about 250 years too late. — tim wood

No, I'm not on about refuting "philosophical substances". I believe that they are real. Empiricism is wrong, because it's open to counter-examples, such as the case of magnets.

But also yours is a fallacy of false alternatives and amphiboly. — tim wood

I understand the amphibologies (of concepts) as Kant defines them. How about you? Let's see if we're on the same page, here.

You haven't defined "apple," and maybe as to what it is, there are other possibilities. — tim wood

Of course there are other possibilities to what it is. We're getting there, through this discussion. Have a bit more patience. Just a request.

↪Arcane Sandwich
pretty logical to assume since I said we can observe it Im attacking AE1 — DifferentiatingEgg

Then you should have said so.

... dork. — DifferentiatingEgg

You've been reported for trolling.

You bolded that portion yourself in your
, I simply formatted the quote in order to respect that. Because unlike you, I am indeed being charitable towards your intentions. e I will sense the
— previous comment — Arcane Sandwich


I don't know what you are trying to say there, or who you are suggesting that you were quoting. — wonderer1

Which is why I edited my original comment. Again, you've been reported for breaking the forum guidelines, since you are not being charitable towards my intentions.

...a child sliding down a plastic slide often has their hair stand on end... pretty sure it's detectable? You're basically playing "peek-a-boo" with magnetism and saying "empiricism doesn't exist" when you're not directly observing it... — DifferentiatingEgg

Choose a premise and deny it, or I'm reporting you for trolling.

I provided you with an opportunity to show that you weren't ignorant in relevant ways with my first response to you. — wonderer1

That's off-topic. This thread isn't about proving my non-ignorance to you (besides, why would I even want to prove a negative in this case?

Unfortunately it seems that you weren't able to take advantage of the opportunity. — wonderer1

Who cares? My alleged ignorance is not the topic of this thread.

You've been reported for trolling.

Or maybe one could treat apples and magnets differently, from a metaphysical point of view. Perhaps the apple is nothing more than a bundle of perceptible qualities. Perhaps the magnet is a bundle of perceptible qualities and imperceptible qualities. Neither claim involves or entails claiming that there are philosophical substances supporting those qualities, not in the apple's case, and neither in the magnet's case.