p2 What is beneficial to a human is that which is of no harm to mind and body.
p3 Good moral choices are those that do not harm the mind and body of self and/or others. — Christoffer

In another possible world people play Tetris all day. They are otherwise physically and psychologically healthy people, but they make the decision to play Tetris, in a room by themselves, for 10 hours per day. Now, this decision doesn't seem to harm their mind or body, nor the minds or bodies of anyone else; however, making the decision to play Tetris all day doesn't seem like the sort of decision we would normally categorize as "moral" either. But by the lights of your own theory, we would have to do that. How would you account for that?

Heidegger seems to be trying to say the world has existence but not being until we bring being to it. But existence is manifested being. I don't see how someone can make a distinction between existence and being, but that seems to be Heideggers major thought. Any ideas? — Gregory

It might help to think of dasein in terms of dealing or coping with things at the most basic level; that is, a level involving unreflective, unthinking, totally absorbed activity. This level of existence does not necessarily involve contemplating/imagining, rather doing (though the latter exhausts the former). Thus existence is said to manifest itself.

Many philosophers prior to Heidegger thought that we could give an exhaustive account of the world by explicating substances and their properties. It was thought that by using a predicate calculus, we could formally represent everything intelligible in the world. But Heidegger claims that the world does not consist merely of the sum of all entities (i.e. of all self-sufficient substance, as Aristotle, Descartes, or Spinoza would refer to it) and their properties (though this is one mode of being -- presence-at-hand), rather it also includes two other modes of being that allow us to deal with the world and make sense of it. There are more holistic ways of being that can't be explained in terms of substances:

1. There is also zuhandenheit or 'readiness-to-hand,' a kind of availableness for 'equipment.' Certainly we could think of a hammer, for example, in terms of its physical constitution (e.g. having a wooden handle, a metal head, and being of such-and-such dimensions), but that kind of description does not seem to exhaust what it means to be a hammer. What it means to be a hammer is to be a part of a complex network of associations that involve cultural practices, skills, purposes, and so forth. If there weren't things that needed hammering, or people to use the hammer for the purpose of hammering, then we wouldn't have hammers, rather just pieces of wood with metal heads attached to their ends. Heidegger doesn't think adding properties to an object (e.g. being heavy, long, metal, wooden, or even "for the purpose of hammering") completely explain what it means to be a hammer. Hammers and hammering are culturally defined, and there is a kind of normative element involved with them. We could use a hammer as an ice pick, for example, but that wouldn't make a hammer an ice pick. What it means to be a hammer is to have a place in the practices of a culture in which it is related to other equipment and the goals and skills of people within that culture.

There is also such a thing, for Heidegger, as being 'unready to hand,' in that if a hammer is too heavy, too flimsy, or too unbalanced for you to do a job with, it becomes a "thing." So there is a kind of situated holism that goes with equipment, and it involves not only the the thing you are hammering with, but the nails, the wood, the situation you find yourself in, and so on and so forth.

2. The other way of being, going more to your question, is dasein; that is, being a human being -- being us. Human beings aren't merely objects or equipment, nor are they thinking substances (pace Descartes), transcendental subjects (pace Kant), or self-sufficient minds that just happen to have mental states and intentional contents (pace Searle). Heidegger doesn't think that a substance ontology is equipped to uncover what it really means to be a human being, because we aren't states, substances, or consciousnesses. Our way of being is more aptly described as an activity or process. We give ourselves an identity by taking up certain practices, and taking a stand on what it means to be the kind of being we are. Heidegger calls dasein's way of being existence. But 'existence' has a very specific connotation in his metalanguage. It doesn't refer to existence in the way we ordinarily think trees, tables, and physical matter exist. For Heidegger only human beings exist. That is to say that only human beings are concerned in their activity such that they can take a stand or have an interpretation of what it means to be a human being. Basically, what it means to exist isn't to be rational, or to be a thinking substance, or to be a creature of God, rather it just means being able to have those culture-relative interpretations in the first place. We're in an understanding of being before we even consciously think about it, and we're already acculturated and socialized before we can even be cognizant of that fact. We have a certain style of existence that we cannot step out of, and we are always manifesting that existence no matter what kind of activity we are doing.

I can agree with that. Ridicule is appropriate as long as we are able to grasp the nuance I stated in the last post. Otherwise, using it as a form of argumentation is poor form, or even fallacious.

I agree. But despite our goodwill toward Trump on this matter, he reacts to the unfair reporting by lying, claiming he was being sarcastic.

No, he wasn't recommending people ingest bleach. He was making a naive extrapolation from what he had just heard about the effectiveness of various methods of killing the virus on surfaces. But he just can't bring himself to admitting that, so he has to lie. — Relativist

Yes, well, there was one time where he admitted he was wrong about something while in office; but he made such a big deal about it that you couldn't help but get the impression that it was a calculated admission, meant to mollify his detractors and portray himself in a gracious, sympathetic light.

In any case, notwithstanding any intense dislike we might have for an individual, I think it is important to render an accurate account of events. We can do this by not (a) misconstruing obvious things, (b) abiding by the principle of charity, and (c) avoiding gratuitous hyperbole.

A recommendation to inject bleach into your veins is something different than, as you say, "making a naive extrapolation." But as philosophers we should be able to grasp this nuance, and set aside any feelings we might have that have no bearing on what actually is the case. There's no reason to blur the lines. The search for truth is vexing enough as it is.

Yeah, I looked over his posts in the last several pages of this thread, and I don't see that at all.

Is there a reason why NOS4A2 is being treated like this? I searched his post history expecting to find him trolling or flaming, but his posts have actually been rather cordial and subdued. While I disagree with almost everything he says, there's enough anti-Trump people here such that we don't need to resort to bullying. Yes, Trump and many of his supporters often do it, but we're not them either.

Yeah, well, people tend to be easily swayed by rhetoric and celebrity. Living in Northern California you get the impression that everyone hates Trump, but people forget there's a whole other country out there filled with people who think just like him. There's also a lot of silent voters who share Trump's values but will never admit to it in public.

I think these warnings have more to do with (a) them knowing that there are a lot of stupid people in the country, and (b) liability (moreso in Lysol's case), than the accuracy and/or intent of Trump's statement. I think if you watch the press conference, you don't really get the impression that Trump is recommending injecting ourselves with disinfectants.

In any case, this point really just serves to reinforce the conclusion in my second paragraph -- that his "spitballing" should have never been done during a public press conference.

I don't really have any interest in defending a person I vehemently dislike, but I do like to try and strive for honest discussion.

You are a Dutchman, and the Dutch are on balance smarter than Americans. Plus, you are smarter than the average Dutchman, so this would practically make you Albert Einstein over here.

:razz:

When I first heard Trump at the press conference, it seemed like he was taking a more questioning tone than anything else. He said disinfectants hurt the virus, as do heat and light, and he wanted to know if there was a way to replicate these effects somehow in the form of a treatment. "Maybe we can, maybe we can't. I'm not a doctor... But maybe it's worth looking into." I'm not a Trump apologist either, but I think if a normal person hears that such and such has been found to hurt the virus, their next thought might be, "I wonder if there's a way we can use that somehow." I think the idea that he is suggesting injecting bleach into people, or something like this, is an uncharitable, not to mention inaccurate, interpretation of what he was saying. It doesn't really add anything to the discussion unless the goal is to just pile more hate onto the bandwagon.

In any case, Trump is probably the most imprudent, undiplomatic, egotistical president we have ever had. He needs to have these kinds of discussions in private with his medical advisors as opposed to out in the open during a press conference. There are some extraordinarily stupid people in this country, and while I don't particularly care about them misinterpreting his words and introducing cleaning agents into their bodies, I am concerned about them maybe doing it to their kids.

One of my previous jobs involved working with Kamala's DA office. She's the type of person who will say one thing and do the complete opposite. I think she has integrity issues. My politics don't perfectly align with Tulsi's, but I think she is a better strategic choice.

I hear what you're saying. A couple anthropology professors I've spoken with have told me that although the term "ape" technically includes homo sapiens, they don't often use the term as such -- even among their colleagues -- as the term has come to connote something different in ordinary non-scientific discourse. Usually what I'll hear is, "Humans and apes share a common ancestor," but 'ape' here just means non-human hominoids. In any case, I suspect this is a semantic disagreement.

I might go with Tulsi Gabbard. I think the Dems should try to reach across the aisle as much as possible, and also try to snag up right-leaning independents and moderates. The vast majority of Sanders and Warren people aren't going to vote for Trump anyway. I think Tulsi appeals to the on-the-fence demographic more than any of the other female candidates. War veteran, pretty smart, hip, command presence, etc. It might not make a huge difference who he picks, but sometimes these races boil down to a game of inches.

Aristotle's conceives of different causes as different explanations; or more precisely, different "whys" or "becauses."

Matter (hyle) is an "out of which" that a thing consists of or comes out of (i.e. potentiality) -- the letters of syllables, the brass of a statue, the parts of a whole, etc.
Form (eidos) is the thing conceived as a whole; that is, its essence or composition; the organization or function (i.e. actuality)
The moving cause, or efficient cause, is that which does something or starts something (e.g. the doctor, the plotter, the father, the seed, etc.).
End (telos) is the "for the sake of which" something is or happens; that is, what something is for, or what is good about it, in relation to itself and other things.

*End and form often coincide. Not all natural changes are generations; there is also growth and decay, quality change and locomotion

I have, my struggle is fully understanding the connection between Aristotle’s four fold distinction and his three degrees of soul.. — Millie Regler

For Aristotle the connection is this: a soul's essence is defined by its organic composition (i.e. self-nourishment, self-movement, intellect, etc.), and its organic composition can be analyzed, determined, or explained in terms of its causes.

I don't think so. Many Japanese Buddhists, for instance, also revere? (worship?) traditional Shinto 'deities'. — 180 Proof

Yeah, I think that's right. I have Taoists in my family, and a couple of them would pray to deities like the "kitchen god," Guan Gong, Guan Yin, etc.. They would also do ancestor worship (bai sun). But most of them just thought of those deities as mythological characters. They would still do the ancestor veneration rituals (mainly for Chinese/Lunar New Year) but it wasn't to worship, rather to pay respect and continue the tradition. Some Taoists have a more pantheistic conception of God (with or without the minor deities). Others believe in a "Jade Emperor." And yet others still will say they don't believe in a god at all.

It's never gonna happen, but I'd like to see Yang as VP. Exceptionally smart guy who avoids all the mudslinging. If he wasn't seen as the crazy UBI guy, I think he'd be able to garner a good amount of bipartisan support. Take a look at his some of his interviews with Ben Shapiro and Tucker Carlson.

External objects must exist for us to have true or false perceptions of them. — Samuel Lacrampe

Yeah, whatever it is you're doing, it's not philosophy :roll:

Well I thought that since you were defending Hume's position, you agreed with him. My bad for assuming. Bonus, I didn't know about this Principle of Charity. That's a good one. — Samuel Lacrampe

OK, let's take a look at the OP.

The Principle of Universal Perception (PUP) states that if a large majority of subjects perceives the same object, then it is reasonable to conclude that the object perceived is objectively real. It links the metaphysical with perceptions. [Note that even though I came up with the name, this principle has been used implicitly before by philosophers like by C.S. Lewis and Peter Kreeft. — Samuel Lacrampe

It seems to me this statement can be viewed in one of two ways. (1) You are either making a claim about how we already do things (i.e. using witness testimony to corroborate facts), or (2) or you are concluding from your argument that philosophical realism holds.

In the case of the former, this is a trivial claim with little philosophical import. In the case of the latter, the argument is fallacious because it is begging the question. Your premise already assumes that external objects exist; it's just that whether something is objectively real or not depends on the number of people who saw it. But you haven't even established that external objects exist in the first place, so your argument is non sequitur and begging the question. I suspect your reply will be something like, "If it looks, sounds, and feels like a duck, is it not reasonable to believe it is in fact a duck?" Well, you should know that practical considerations involving how we normally do things (e.g. using witness testimony to corroborate facts) are inadequate to substantiate robust philosophical claims. This debate would have been over hundreds of years ago if it were that easy.

On the contrary, I find the Greek concept just as open to the same criticisms. Being content with the way things are 'meant to be' and being the person we are 'meant to be' is every bit as much a life of denial as happy, clappy ignorance of all that assails us. — Barry Ethridge

The ancient Greek philosophies on life were wide and varied. But assuming you are referring to the Stoic tradition, this is not at all a charitable interpretation of it. Contrary to encouraging apathy and laziness as a life philosophy, the Stoics taught forbearance and emotional mastery, self-knowledge and determination, and fortitude -- to endure those circumstances which lie outside an individual's control. Actually, if you take a look at the writings of some of the great Stoic philosophers, they sort of encourage taking life by the horns and living a fulfilled life. Determinism, for the Stoics, did not entail, nor suppose as a logical consequence, indifference.

Consider:

"Do not act as if you were going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over you. While you live, while it is in your power, be good." - Marcus Aurelius

"Every day as it comes should be welcomed and reduced into our possession as if it were the finest day imaginable. What flies past has to be seized at... Begin to live at once, and count each separate day as a separate life." - Seneca the Younger

"How long are you going to wait before you demand the best for yourself and in no instance bypass the discriminations of reason? You have been given the principles that you ought to endorse, and you have endorsed them. What kind of teacher, then, are you still waiting for in order to refer your self-improvement to him? You are no longer a boy, but a full-grown man. If you are careless and lazy now and keep putting things off and always deferring the day after which you will attend to yourself, you will not notice that you are making no progress, but you will live and die as someone quite ordinary. From now on, then, resolve to live as a grown-up who is making progress, and make whatever you think best a law that you never set aside. And whenever you encounter anything that is difficult or pleasurable, or highly or lowly regarded, remember that the contest is now: you are at the Olympic Games, you cannot wait any longer, and that your progress is wrecked or preserved by a single day and a single event. That is how Socrates fulfilled himself by attending to nothing except reason in everything he encountered. And you, although you are not yet a Socrates, should live as someone who at least wants to be a Socrates." - Epictetus

What will you do to make this work? What you wouldn't? But even this is not enough... At the very same time, keep fighting and climbing to get and keep that high prestige job. Run circles at home, run circles outside home, but this is how things work, just follow the process, follow the rabbit. Not all will make it, actually the vast majority will fail at some point. This is, because they don't have enough power, they are just weak. But when you get there, on the top, it will all worth it. Or will it? — interim

I used to be an avid MMORPG player. The one commonality I found among every game was that once I reached the highest level, amassed the most wealth, and collected the most sought after items, I became bored. Sometimes I would start new characters just to repeat the process.

Whenever I find myself alone in a contemplative mood, wishing I had more power, or wealth, or something of the sort, I think about this. I usually come to the conclusion that eventually, after the monotony of being rich and powerful wears off, I would be bored again, and I would resume the search for whatever it is I think will make me happy -- whatever it is I think will fill the void of that existential vacuum.

The life of a dog, I think, is not so different from ours. It lays around the house all day, takes care of its bare necessities, and tries to occupy itself with a toy, or a bone, or whatever it can get its paws on. Granted, our interests seem to be more complicated than a dog’s, I think the search is similar. In a sense we are all chasing our own rabbits, that take the form of wealth, or power, or the latest mechanical amusements.

Somewhat paradoxically, people pity the dog's life, whilst simultaneously wishing to enjoy that kind of freedom. In Office Space, Lawrence asks Peter what he would do if he had a million dollars. He says, “Nothing… I would relax [and] sit on my ass all day. I would do nothing.” To which Lawrence replies, “Well, you don’t need a million dollars to do nothing, man. Take a look at my cousin. He’s broke, don’t do shit.”

I used to live in Downtown Los Angeles. Sometimes I would stare out of the window and look at people walking around on the street below. Who are these people? Where are they going? I could never be sure, but sometimes they would seem to be in quite the hurry. To them I’m sure wherever it is they were going, and whatever it is they were doing, was very important; but to me, they look like ants scurrying around in an ant colony. It depends on your perspective I suppose. Astronaut Edgar Mitchell once said that from up on the moon, “you develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.’”

At any rate, human beings seem to have some innate proclivity for categorization – for filing things away tidily so we can retrieve at a later time. When we get into a hotel room, many of us have to unpack our clothes and put them away in drawers, put our toiletries in the bathroom, put our keys, wallet, and phone in some particular area, and so on and so forth. Until then we aren’t really at ease. I think the same is mostly true for how we treat concepts. We like to label things, compare them, and file them away. We also like to give opinions. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a sort of preeminent example of this, when he attempts to describe what self-actualization consists in.

I’m currently reading a book called The Blue Zones by Dan Buettner. It’s a book that details the lives of people, from different cultures all across the world, who live in areas where there is the greatest concentration of centenarians (people living to the age of 100 or older). He found that besides having a very healthy diet, all of these people -- whether from Okinawa, Sardinia, or Icaria -- lead active, social lives, and put an emphasis on family and spirituality. In Okinawa, they have what is known as an ikigai, or life purpose. In Nicoya it is called a plan de vida. But what every blue zone society has in common is that they live relatively simple lives (by modern Western standards). They also happen to have lower rates of depression, stress, heart disease, cancer, dementia, and the like. If this can tell us anything, it’s that the paths to self-actualization, if such a thing exists, are wide and varied, and need not include the possession of great power, or riches, or fame, or anything of that sort.

In any case, it is evident that we each are allotted only a certain amount of time on this earth. The most rich and powerful among us share something in common with those perceived as the lowliest among us; that is, when the sickle of death comes down on us, we’re stripped bare of our possessions, our ego, and accomplishments, and returned to the earth from whence we came. Our children will remember us, and perhaps our grand-children and great grand-children, but eventually, our memory will fade, and it will be as if we never existed. Even the “great” accomplishments of people like Alexander the Great, Gandhi, or Einstein, will eventually be forsaken to the desolate sands of time. This is a sobering thought. But as long as we are not vain or take ourselves too seriously, it shouldn’t be a depressing one.

EDIT: Btw, good posts, guys :cool:

So you claim that when we perceive an object, it is never the object in reality. And why would that be? If it looks, sounds, and feels like a duck, is it not reasonable to believe it is in fact a duck, until given a reason to believe otherwise? — Samuel Lacrampe

Strawman. Given the context of my last post, it should be pretty clear that I'm explicating Hume's views, not mine own. You should abide by the principle of charity instead of cherry picking and coming back with this kind of response. In any case, whether Hume's theory of perception is workable or not is besides the point. The point is that the principle you're forwarding doesn't address Hume's point at all. This is not surprising since you have thus far demonstrated an inability to understand what Hume's position even is.

It's like one person saying, "God doesn't exist because of reason X," and another person saying, "But I can show you evidence for his existence. Just the other day he made the sun rise." But if person #1 is denying God's existence in the first place, then person #2's evidence is misses the point. This is because it presupposes the very thing person #1 is arguing against (i.e. God).

That's what you're doing. Your principle doesn't circumvent Hume's criticism at all, because it presupposes or takes for granted the very thing that Hume is arguing against. Your "solution" doesn't work because it's one step removed from where it needs to take place.

I guess, what I'm trying to say is that if morality is so rife with subjectivity, then ethics should be of greater concern than what one might consider as "moral". Returning back to the OP, we often can say that a person behaved immorally or was amoral towards what would have been concerned as ethical.

So, I guess what I am asking is that if nothing can be said about what is moral due to its subjectivity, then I suppose the point is that ethics should be of main concern when discussing about what is moral.

I hope that doesn't sound like gibberish. — Shawn

If I'm understanding you correctly, then yes, I think so. But let me say more...

That morality has a [inter]subjective mind-dependent element to it does not in itself license the conclusion that doing normative ethics is a mislead enterprise; nor that any of its conclusions are necessarily impractical or unworkable.

The modern moralist only became obsessed with action-based/consequence-based ethics rather recently, sometime in the last 300 years. But the term ‘moral,’ traces its roots back to the Greek word êthos, which just meant character. For the Ancient Greeks, there was nothing mystical or metaphysical about ethics, and there was no obsession with trying to produce definitive answers to irresolvable moral dilemmas, or trying to abide by some rigid, undiscerning imperative. They were more concerned with finding out what good character traits consist in, and then they taught them to people.

According to my view, the wisdom of the ages has shown us that there are some traits, or virtues, that are, on balance, better for people to possess -- that is, they are more conducive to our individual and collective well-being/flourishing.

What these virtues are is largely an open-ended question. But one thing is clear: we share a world with many other human beings. If we don’t teach these people, we must endure them, as Marcus Aurelius points out. Aristotle always maintained that ethics is a practical science, not a precise one; and so we should not expect mathematical certainty.

What problem would that be, that is not covered by the PUP? — Samuel Lacrampe

I thought you knew since you invoked Hume’s name at the start of the OP. In any case, on Hume’s account we can only perceive perceptions (i.e. impressions and ideas). Perceptions are momentary and fleeting; hence we cannot perceive anything that is not momentary and fleeting. Your “solution” misses the mark because it presupposes or takes for granted that which Hume is denying in the first place (i.e. the ability to perceive anything other than perceptions). Before moving on you would need to show where Hume goes wrong. An appeal to “reasonableness,” or the “common” way we think about things, is not an adequate response because Hume is making a substantive philosophical point in highlighting the insufficiency of perception. This is why you are guilty of shifting the burden.

Something that might help in general: The first line of the OP on Hume merely served as an introduction to present the PUP. I am not really looking to refute a claim by Hume, but to determine if the PUP is valid. — Samuel Lacrampe

I’m not sure why Hume’s name was listed in the “problem,” since everything you say consequently has nothing to do with any of Hume’s criticisms. As noted earlier, in the context of the ECHU, what Hume describes as “metaphysics” doesn’t align with our contemporary understanding of the term.

Thanks, all of you guys too :cool:

Howdy :victory:

I'm not sure I understand your first question. However, I will say that there is no consensus about what morality consists in, so any definition we supply must be rather vague and all-encompassing. On certain metaethical views, the existence of morality is questioned and even denied, so any sort of positive definition, for them, would just stand proxy for "what morality is generally taken to mean" in ordinary [philosophical] discourse. Where morality refers to a wide range of observer-relative phenomena, ethics just is a study of that phenomena. Morality, on this view, is to ethics as wealth, GDP, stocks, etc. is to economics.

Morality is an informal public system applying to all rational persons, governing behavior that affects others, having the lessening of evil or harm as its goal, and including what are commonly known as the moral rules, moral ideals, and moral virtues. Ethics is the philosophical study of morality. It is divided into the general study of goodness, the general study of right action, applied ethics, descriptive ethics, metaethics, moral psychology, the metaphysics of moral responsibility, etc.

The former is the latter's subject matter.

Why is this claim the most reasonable one? Appealing to the Principle of Parsimony, you (or Hume) have the onus of proof to defend it. — Samuel Lacrampe

You presented your OP as if it were meant to circumvent Hume’s attack on perception, but it doesn’t. This is because on Hume’s view, there is a problem with how perception operates in the first place. This problem makes it impossible to render an accurate depiction of any external reality, if such a thing should exist.

Hume’s defense is on record. He’s devoted several books to explicating it. The onus is on you to explain why is it insufficient. And you don’t do this by appealing to the very system he says is flawed, and then adding a number element to it. That’s like Mill appealing to the supreme principle of utility in order to argue with Kant about how we ought to measure morality. Kant proceeds from a different normative framework, so it would be curious to invoke a rule that he doesn’t accept in the first place.

To be sure, this race will be closer than most of those. But one thing I've learned is to never underestimate the power of lots and lots of stupid people.

No but levity aside, I’m a professional sports bettor; and while there’s a great number of variables I have to analyze prior to making a wager, one of the most difficult to quantify, and assign a percentage value, is the “X factor.” I think Trump has one and Biden doesn’t. Trump will be able to enthuse and galvanize his constituency in such a way that Biden will not be able to. Here in the SF Bay Area I’m well-insulated from right-wing politics, and I get the sense that most of us will vote for Biden because he’s the guy not named Trump. I think this will hurt Biden at some point during the election, though I cannot say when.

In February bookies had Trump as a clear favorite to win. Now both candidates are hovering around +110 odds. More fluctuations will occur, but I doubt Trump will drift much lower than this in the foreseeable future. I’ve been trying to place a large wager on Trump, but I can’t seem to find a book willing to take that much action (not for now anyway). The way I look at it is if I lose, then at least Trump isn’t in office. And if I win, at least I have some sort of consolation prize.

In any case, I suspect the 2020 election will look somewhat similar to the 2000 election, though perhaps not as close. I do hope I am wrong.

Well, those are all very compelling reasons. I think I threw my ballot away on accident, so I'll have to go get a new one. Unfortunately, the odds are pretty good he'll be re-elected.

Sounds good; I accept the correction on Hume's position. Then the PUP also solves that new problem; that the actual objects can reasonably be predicted if the perceptions are consistent among the subjects. — Samuel Lacrampe

This doesn’t avert Hume’s attack, because his very point is to highlight the insufficiency of perception in representing external objects. As such it makes little sense to invoke probability or numerics as a solution. Hume would simply say more people -- the vulgar as he terms them -- are mistaken. Hume is agnostic about the existence of external objects, but if they do exist, we could never know it since all we can perceive are our perceptions.

Can science study the mind? — Andrew4Handel

That the mind includes an element of ontological subjectivity does not preclude us from having an epistemically objective science of it. Money, assets, and wealth distribution, for example, are observer-relative phenomena that fall within the purview of economics. The problem you highlight is not so much a philosophical one as it is a practical one. There is further no reason to believe that having a science of the mind requires some ability to know/experience what someone else is experiencing from the inside, so to speak.

Problem: David Hume (non-verbatim) says doing metaphysics is impossible because what is beyond the physical cannot be perceived. — Samuel Lacrampe

This is a strawman.

In an Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Hume starts off by saying we “must cultivate true metaphysics with some care, in order to destroy the false and adulterate," but he then goes on to describe a problem that has less to do with metaphysics -- as we ordinarily understand it -- as it does our ability to perceive actual objects. Hume notes that the only things we can perceive are perceptions (i.e. internal and perishing existences), but the vulgar confuse perceptions with actual objects; that is, they confuse representations with what is actually represented.

I used to think that vagueness and subjectivity pervaded every statement to some small degree.

But, that's really a silly assumption. Is there any serious objection to my statement that I am currently using a computer? — Pneumenon

Yes, from the mereological nihilist. However, identity, to my apprehension, is not something that requires perfect physical continuity in order to be made intelligible or referable. The problem seems irresolvable until we abandon our Humean conception of identity and adopt a different ontology about what it means to be a computer; and that definition need not be restricted to some subset of particles assembled in some particular fashion.

The deliberate element was what threw me off as how can one do something deliberate if they are not given a second choice? — Lecimetiere

For Aristotle, deliberate acts presuppose at least one other choice. It is precisely the faculty of choice that determines, in part, whether an action is done in the furtherance of virtue or not. Absent of choice, virtue is an unintelligible concept. In the case of courage, for example, it is not enough that a soldier routinely does courageous acts, for he could just be well-trained or more afraid of his superiors than the enemy. The soldier who truly possesses the virtue of courage will first of all know what courage is, and what it consists in; and he will also know when he is acting virtuously (it won’t be by accident). Secondly, he will choose to act courageously for the sake of being virtuous, and not simply out of fear or because he is told to do so. If an agent’s primary motivation is something other than acting for the sake of virtue -- for example, acting primarily out of fear, or for glory, or for pleasure, and so on and so forth (or simply acting in some wholly reflexive, unreflecting way) -- then that act is bereft of moral significance.

Obviously, patience is the mean, and impatience is the deficiency, but what would you call the excess of patience? Is it lazy or forgetfulness, no that doesn't seem to correlate correctly. — Lecimetiere

Complacency.