It does not need too much effort to find out the bad effects social media are having on people's mental health, especially the youth. — Eros1982

True. With a little more effort but still not too much we can also find out the good effects. With yet more effort we can find out the bad and good effects of not having social media. So we will have four categories:

With social media - good effects
With social media - bad effects
Without social media - good effects
Without social media - bad effects

Then we will have the information we need to evaluate social media. Until then, it's one-sided polemic without a comparison.

For example, when I was a kid I used to spend my down time smoking cigarettes and stealing from shops. My friends had problems with drugs, self-harm and being bullied for their sexual preferences. Nowadays I would be dressing up and making a Tiktok video about my gender identity and my friends would have problems with drugs, self-harm and being bullied for their sexual preferences. Which is worse?

"Are humans big in size?" — Skalidris

Yes. We know this because when we see humans from the top of a high tower we are amazed at how small they look. If humans were actually small then we would not be surprised that they look small. We don't view bees from a long way off and marvel at how small they appear, for example. Bees are already small and we know it.

I wrote the last para a few days ago and now realise that there are many counter-examples. We all know the Mona Lisa is small. It's still surprising when you see how small it is.

So I'm struggling with the question whether humans are big, in particular whether they are big in size. They are definitely big in other ways: they have had a big influence on my life and I suspect that if it were not for human beings then I might not exist at all.

this "right wing commentator" has a point — Agent Smith

Only to the extent that there are no black mermaids because there are no mermaids. But that's probably not what the commentator meant. There was a view that women should not be allowed to become bishops in the Church of England because there should be no bishops. That gay marriage is wrong because marriage is wrong. Etc.

The idea that God is not a personal being is widely debated:

Among philosophers and theologians today, one of the most important dividing lines is the one separating those who advocate a personal conception of God (personal theism) from those who embrace the idea of a God beyond or without being (alterity theism). There is not much dialogue between these groups of scholars; rather the two groups ignore each other, and each party typically believes that there is a fairly straightforward knockdown argument against the other. — Stenmark

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272037572_Competing_conceptions_of_God_The_personal_God_versus_the_God_beyond_being

Islam is another matter again:

The most striking difference between Christian and Muslim theologies is that while, for Christians, God is a person, Muslims worship an impersonal deity. — Legenhausen

https://www.al-islam.org/articles/god-person-muhammad-legenhausen

God as not a personal being is not a new concept. These thoughts leaped out to me from the OP link:

New Theology aspires to be a universal theology. [...] New Theology values a different type of faith: faith in the facts, faith in the truth no matter how unattractive truth may be. — D'Adamo - link in OP

Which makes it, from point of view of epistemic attitude, the same old theology as most others. "I have the truth. Believe it or be a fool."

About P1. We cannot deduce the existence of a belief from the truth or falsity of a proposition. Whatever beliefs a person must hold in order to qualify as a non-resistant non-believer, we could probably find someone who holds those beliefs - irrespective of God's existence or non-existence. There could be flat earthers and round earthers and flat earthers willing to be convinced otherwise and round earthers williing to be convinced otherwise - whatever the shape of the earth. *I just saw 180 proof said same thing only better..*

“the heart is functioning properly” is to say “the heart is functioning in accordance with medical standards”. — Cartesian trigger-puppets

Isn't there a problem with the 'naturalistic fallacy'? The medical standards may be too low or otherwise in error. In that case we could say without contradiction that someone's heart is functioning in accordance with medical standards but is not functioning properly. So they do not mean the same thing - if they did, it would be self-contradictory to say one and deny the other.

Play nice ethics are fine for the mundane business of rubbing along — 0 thru 9

Don't underestimate them. Epiphanies are rare. It's mostly about paying your bills, apologising for errors, letting go of grudges. I would pull out a story about a guy going to to the top of the mountain to seek the meaning of life and being told to stop blocking his neighbour's driveway with his car. But I can't think of one. There are thousands with that message.

The British royal family is a role model? But the words 'royal' and 'scandal' go together so well. The phrase is part of our heritage. Along with bishops suspected of not believing in God, bullying in the army, class prejudice, self-serving greedy politicians who turn out to have been respected and dedicated public servants after they die, funny dogs whose barks sound like words and soldiers who wear absurdly tall fur hats to draw the attention of the enemy. It's our fantasy. Let us live it our way.

So, once more, it obviously harms a person to kill them, and it harms them even if it deprives them of nothing - hell, it harms them even if it benefits them by depriving them of some great suffering. — Bartricks

I agree that we may sometimes reasonably wish to die. But death does always deprive us of something. It deprives us of every chance we have and of life itself, which is (amongst other things) the sum total of those chances and opportunities - even if we welcome death or are facing a 'fate worse than death'.

Now, she was not deprived of anything worth having. But she suffered about the same harm as Susan, yes? That's because the main harm is the intense agony they suffered, not the harms of deprivation. — Bartricks

If the main harm of death were the intense agony we suffer and not the harms of deprivation, then a painless death would be relatively less harm. But death's harm is equal. It's the loss of everything. The experience of dying - the ante-mortem harms and suffering - vary greatly. Dying happens before the moment of death. You are appealing to ante-mortem harms to make the comparison. But regardless of ante-mortem harms, death is a harm in itself.

The fact is that the harms that would accrue to you at taht point are trivial — Bartricks

That would be so, if it were trivial to lose every chance we might ever have without prospect of recouping any opportunity at all. It doesn't seem trivial to me. It sounds like the biggest loss of all, regardless of any present misery we endure. It's the loss that death visits upon us.

"not deprived of anything worth having"?

Sandra would probably think her prospect of endless accounting, however grim, is worthwhile. That's why she takes food and water and as far as possible avoids serious burns. As it happens, I am in precisely that situation. Another day, more accounts. But at least I'm alive (as I write).

You consistently seem to miss the point. — Bartricks

Rather, I'm consistently responding to the false dichotomy of the OP and showing that the response holds up so far against challenge.

don't relabel some inadequate harms 'point of death' harms and think that will solve anything. How? — Bartricks

It responds to the OP claim that if harms are not ante-mortem then they are post-mortem. It shows that it's a false dichotomy and that there is a third possibility. Then the explanation goes like this. We die. At that moment of death we lose all opportunities we ever had. Before we die, we have not lost them. After we die, we have nothing left to lose. If our life is taken from us, it is at the moment of its being taken that we are robbed of those opportunities.

The fact is that you are talking about antemortem harms and they are just not big enough to do the job. — Bartricks

If the words I use are 'at the exact time of death' and the fact is that I'm talking about 'before death' then I'd better brush up my communication skills. The loss of all opportunity is the biggest possible loss. That is why death is such a big deal. It's game over. So these are not ante-mortem harms and they are not small. And they are not post-mortem either. After we are dead we are beyond being harmed aside from desecration of the body, for example, or (arguably) perversion of a Will.

It's like distinguishing between harm suffered on monday and harm suffered on tuesday.

It's the Lady Macbeth defence. Macbeth thinks it's a big deal that he killed Duncan. Lady Macbeth says: "He should have died hereafter!" Meaning, we're all going to die so it doesn't make much difference if I die on Monday rather than Tuesday. But of course it's a big deal.

A bit more reflection on planless John. I wonder whether his plan is to stay alive. If not killed, he will take food and water, seek necessary shelter and protection. If that is not his plan, then he has very recently become planless. Otherwise he would already be dead. The really planless person is unconscious and on life support. In those cases there is great controversy whether killing or failing to sustain life are harmful or not. But granted that there is harm in those cases too, the harm seems to happen at the moment the switch is turned and life is ended - not beforehand, when the matter is raging in court, and not afterwards, when all is already lost to the patient.

@Bartricks You harmed John by depriving him of the opportunity even to be miserable and planless, just as the opportunity to take an artificially induced breath whilst unconscious is still regarded as an opportunity worth something or not exactly nothing. It was his opportunity and his misery and not yours to take. The deprivation happened precisely at the moment you killed him.

If I harmed him - and there is no question I did - yet antemortem benefitted him, then the harm I did to him was postmortem. — Bartricks

The times to consider are not just:

Before death
After death

There are three:

Before death
Moment of death
After death

The moment of death is the moment when we lose everything with no prospect of recovery. We don't lose it earlier because we are still alive. We cannot lose it later, having already lost it. So when you harm someone by killing them, the moment at which you inflict the harm is the moment at which you kill them. The point at which everything slips away from us in the course of nature is the moment of death.

You prove that the harms are not ante-mortem. Then you conclude, by elimination, that the harms are post-mortem. You have not yet considered the third possibility, which is the moment of death.

As I write, the time is not earlier than 9:08. I cannot conclude that it is later than 9:08. In fact, it is 9:08.

Why do you keep it, the book? — Agent Smith

Because I now know that I will miss it in the way described if I dispose of it. It's a harmless vice. I don't keep used syringes, love letters or anything else that might be a danger to health and well-being.

......don't you think they would mislead the students — Skalidris

If they are misled, then their answers will not be so good. The better they get at clarifying and explaining, the better their answers. I get one point for noting that the question is misleading and vague. Then I get more points for showing how and why it's misleading, what clearer questions are relevant and how to go about answering them. That's why it's easy to set exam questions but hard to evaluate the answers.

What do you do with a book that you've read — Agent Smith

Usually, I keep it. I still think about books that I did not keep. I miss some books from fifty years ago and I can still feel their heft and the scent of the paper, ink and glue. Well, you asked. But even I think I'm extreme...

There is a number that is neither greater than 7 nor less than 7. It is the number 7. There is a time that is neither post-mortem nor ante-mortem. It is the moment of death. This is the moment at which the harms of dying accrue to the person who dies. The harms are often described, especially in the case those who die young. "He would have been going to university this year if he had been still alive." Going to university is an opportunity he lost. He lost the opportunity exactly when he died because, before he died, the opportunity was still open to him and, if he had not died, the opportunity might still have been open to him. His loss is different from the grief of his parents who would have been proud of him going to university. They have lost a son and the opportunity of expressing pride and joy. But he lost the opportunity of studying. The fewer the opportunities foregone, the lower the harm. "He will never see Spring in his local park again. But he's had a good ninety seven years." Then there are extreme cases: "It is not worth preserving his life artificially because he is unconscious and has no prospect of recovery and is effectively already dead." Those cases are controversial because almost no opportunity is still opportunity. The opportunity to take another artificial breath is still a prospect. The visit of death removes even that. The relevant cliche here is: "While there's life, there's hope." I think we could have more to learn than we imagine from the hackneyed phrases of grief and condolence.

At what time are the harms of death visited upon us? They are visited precisely when death itself is visited upon us and not a moment earlier or later. Not earlier - because before we die we are still alive and not yet harmed by future events. Not later - because after death we are beyond the harm of losing life and its benefits, having already lost them.

(Our bodies can still be harmed after death, e.g. by desecration.)

Are humans selfish?
Are sciences objective? Is philosophy subjective?
Does free will exist or is it an illusion? — Skalidris

They read like exam questions. Vague and general, to give candidates the challenge of clarifying and explaining.

Do animals have rights?
What is truth?
Causes and co-incidences - what is the difference, if any?
Is democracy important and, if so, why?

And:

Did you know that after your philosophy degree you will spend the rest of your life making powerpoint slides to explain why previously optimistic forecasts should be revised downwards? If so, how?

I've never heard of this book! — Agent Smith

Ha ha, my bad!! I assumed 'Incidit in Scyllam... etc' was a quotation from Virgil's Aeneid, but I was wrong, it's a medieval tag. Book 6 of the Aeneid is about Aeneas's visit to the underworld and I meant that Virgil was the typing primate now inhabiting the hereafter...

I dunno where the other monkeys are? — Agent Smith

You'll find the current location of the main monkey in Book 6. Facilis descensus.

I got a call from Google Maps apparently from a friendly guy asking about office opening times. I tried to help and had a couple of questions. He repeated his original question and I wondered whether I'd gone on mute because he didn't seem to have got my last comment. So I tried again. Pause. Then: "I am having trouble understanding your answers. Please visit Google Maps to update your data." Man, I was spooked. Anyway, the point is - not only could we be living in a simulation, we actually are.

"having dark thoughts about Jews" — ThinkOfOne

the vicious ethics and deism of the Jews

that bit.

Jefferson to Charles Thomson

I hope Thomson reminded Jefferson that if we find ourselves cutting up Bibles to arrange the text differently and having dark thoughts about Jews then we may lose credibility on religious matters.

1. There is no set of all that exists
2. There is no powerset for every set — Kuro

I think you don't even need the set of everything to generate the problem. You just need any set that includes its own cardinality and it will blow up incoherently to a meaningless version of infinity.

He drunkenly stated, "Humanities and social sciences are no longer useful in academia." — Christopher

My usual response is to challenge the person to a fight, miss a couple of half-hearted punches, fall over, declare undying friendship, weep copiously, throw up and then pass out. It's not about the humanities. It's all about the drink.

Any thoughts on that semi-ramble? — I like sushi

I think you are saying something that I have been wondering how to say for a long time. I would say it's a whole topic in itself. For me the question came up again as I was reading recent threads about truth. The logic of truth presents difficult problems and fine surgery is needed. One point that does not tend to come up in discussions is that we have a fiery emotional attachment to truth, guarding it jealously for our own beliefs and resenting claims to it that we regard as undeserving. It is related to trust, social cohesion and sanity itself. I don't think this observation will help directly with unpicking the logic of truth. But there is an emotional background that lends an atmosphere, a flavour, to the discussions of logic. And there is something to explore about why our relationship with truth is both intellectual and so strongly emotional. I don't know whether I'm riffing to your tune exactly, but for what it's worth.

Sorry to disappoint you, @Agent Smith, as I am one of your biggest fans, but you might deduce from my handle here that my spiritual home is amongst seventh century monks on a remote island. Not that I'm against progress. Far from it. I hear that someone has invented a better method of trimming goose quills so they hold the ink for longer.

Or Achilles - confined to his tent and waiting for things to get bad enough for him to emerge triumphant and win the day.

I'm rather sceptical about historical timelines that suggest continual improvement towards a pinnacle of intellectual achievement that is - happily and co-incidentally - our own enlightened times and beliefs - which we may then enjoy contrasting with the benighted superstitions of the ancients. I wouldn't swap science for mythology. But I'm wary of hindsight and narrator bias. The ancients weren't dumb and we ain't too clever.

I had a dream a couple of nights ago, woke up, then I went back to sleep and dreamed about describing my previous dream to a group of friends. So I was aware in one dream that the other dream was a dream. Funnily enough, the people in my dream were just about as interested in my dream as people in real life. That is to say, not much.

I think we tend to make our own myths from the history of science and philosophy. Just as Aristotle looked at Thales's ideas about water in terms of his own concept of substance - perhaps not quite rightly - so we imagine the pre-Socratics discarding ancient superstition in a kind of early Enlightenment and the invention of pure science. We might see ourselves at the end of a great tradition originated by them. Should we be more critical of our hindsight? The texts are minimal. That leaves a lot of blanks for us to fill in however we want.

Whereas the philosophical mind demands a reduction to some common cause that stands behind all things. — apokrisis

Another kind of philosophical mind asks whether such a demand is justified. The world is as it is and if it turns out there is no common cause behind all things we just have to cope with that.

(A couple more posts and we'll be debating whether there is One or Many.)

What a great topic, thank you.

I have reservations about attributing beliefs to people on the basis of myths, poetry, painting, sculpture etc. I imagine archaeologists of the future finding the statue of Eros in Picadilly Circus and saying "Look, Londoners still believed in the ancient Greek gods!" I say 'One for sorrow, two for joy' when I count magpies and I have no doubt that the number of magpies is utterly unrelated to my fortunes.

This is what they thought in the bronze age about such superstitions:

You tell me to put my trust in birds, flying off on their long wild wings? Never. I would never give them a glance, a second thought, whether they fly on the right toward the dawn and sunrise or fly on the left toward the haze and coming dark! — Homer

Thales proposed a different account of earthquakes, that they are just when a wave in the cosmic ocean rocks the earth, which floats like a plate on the ocean. This explanation eliminated the actions or intentions of the gods — javi2541997

He also said the world is full of gods. Just as we know there is no Eros and still put up a statue to him.

In philosophy, subjective specifically means relating to an object as it exists in the mind, as opposed to the thing as it exists in reality (the thing in itself). — ArielAssante

My bike puncture 'exists in my mind' in the sense that I'm thinking about it. A puncture also, alas, exists in reality. So now I've got two punctures. Damn. This philosophy makes no sense.

Whenever I eat a madeleine cake I'm reminded of my over-privileged upbringing in the withered remains of late nineteenth century French aristocracy.

let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. — Dermot Griffin

I say it's a false trichotomy. Jesus could have been a great human teacher, and also not a liar, and also deluded that he was God's son. That would mean he said and thought wild things but that not everything he said and thought was wild. That would put in him the same bracket as many great people. "Either Newton was a great scientist or he thought there might be a way of making gold out of base metal." Well, both. "Either Conan Doyle was an inspiration for forensic science or he believed in fairies." Again, both. "Either Pythagoras was a brilliant mathematician or he thought that beans have souls." Both again. Lewis's trick is rhetorically persuasive but does not have a logical basis.

Thank you. You seem to be saying that we need to apply judgement in having children and give them the best chance we can and protect them from harm and suffering and to weigh up risks and opportunities. All that is fine. It is not antinatalism, and it is not a view I have any qualms about at all. Antinatalism (as I understand it) is the thesis that procreation is unethical and therefore we ought not to do it: it is an act of injustice and guaranteed to reduce over-all welfare in comparison with leaving uncreated a person who will (because uncreated) not suffer any loss at all. That means it's ethical not to procreate and unethical not to procreate. It doesn't mean we weigh up the pros and cons. That would be like deciding that slavery is unethical and so let's some of us try to cut down the number of slaves we own and not go over the top with enslaving new people.

As for the empty world, you are right that in the absence of beings to experience happiness or grief there can be no preponderance of grief over happiness. But still, perhaps a world with life in it is better than a world without. Then it would follow that happiness and suffering are important but are not the only measures of value that we are inclined to use.

Look around you. Is the extinction of the human race even a remote possibility today?

Clearly it is not, and it won't be tomorrow either.

If it even becomes a possibility, let the individuals that live then make their choices to avoid it, if they wish.

Finally, if by some unimaginable fluke all of mankind were to voluntarily decide that not procreating is indeed the moral thing to do, on what basis would you object to them making that voluntary decision? — Tzeentch

Yes, you are right about the human population. We can be as anti-natalist as we like and the world will go on. That was the answer to my problem that I summarised and said I found weak. If we depend upon other people behaving unjustly in order for our world to continue then we are in a poor position to promote justice. We would say: not procreating is just, right and beneficial - but thank goodness for all our futures that most people pay no attention to these moral claims. That seems a view that is odd, at best, if not inconsistent.

You are also right about decisions not to have children. God forbid that I should tell anyone to have children in order to sustain the race. And I don't do that. I respect my friends' views to apply anti-natalism to their personal lives. My problem is that if I say that, for example, murder is unethical then the result, if my view were ever to universally applied (unlikely), would be a happier and safer world. If I say that procreation is unethical then the result, if my view were applied universally (unlikely, again, as you say), would be an empty world. And an empty world, I cannot help feeling, might be a bad thing. I would be promoting an ethical principle which, if applied generally, would lead to a world without humans. That's my problem.

True. But people don't usually have children to save the human race. Nevertheless, if they didn't have children, there wouldn't be a human race. Personally, I have no children, nor any ambition to save the race. But if everyone was like me then there would quickly be no race to save.

I am veering towards anti-natalism. There are very good arguments for it which have been put forward cogently and persuasively by members of this forum like yourselves and others in this thread and in others on the topic. It is an injustice to expose someone to undeserved and unnecessary suffering without any plan or knowledge how great or small that suffering might be. It is a loss to general welfare to bring into the world a person who will undoubtedly suffer something (no matter how little) and who would not suffer any loss at all by not ever coming into existence. All that is granted. I have friends who plan to have no children for those reasons and I respect them for it.

My only qualm is this: if we all do the right thing and refrain from procreating then the human race will quickly cease to exist. And that (I'm tempted to believe, rightly or wrongly) is a bad thing. So by everyone behaving in a way that is beneficial, right and just - that is, by not procreating - then we would collectively create an empty world.

Conversely, if we don't want an empty world, then we depend upon people doing the thing that is not right, not just and not over-all beneficial, that is, procreating.

How can I overcome that qualm? One approach I have seen is - let justice be done and let the world be empty. I'm not ready to take that step. Another approach is - we know most people will ignore the moral claims of anti-natalism, so the world will go on anyhow. That is pragmatic but it does seem to undermine the moral strength of anti-natalism because it entails colluding with the harm and injustice of procreation. So although I am veering towards anti-natalism, I am stumbling over this last problem.

I'd love to work for your company and if it's the only company there is (the world) then I guess I'll have to take my chances and rely on your kindness to protect me as best you can.

It was just a rumour. I use my college alumni magazines to make filters. I've reached 2017, working through an article about the coat of arms.

If the human race is to continue then we could leave the morally compromising business of procreation to others and spend our time teaching them that their behaviour is unethical. We can enjoy our position on the anti-natalist high ground, not have to bother with bringing up children and all will be well. Yet there seems something faintly, I don't know, well, off about this, though I can't quite name it. Perhaps it's a scent of self-righteous free-loading hypocritical nonsense, or did I forget my after-shave?

Who is more philosophically significant in the modern world? — Bret Bernhoft

It's a question of practical application and the judgement of history. Rogan's theory of justice has been hugely influential in jurisprudence, whilst Hicks mainly concerned himself with a foundational theory of mathematics that was ultimately debunked. Hicks was extremely popular with students and a very entertaining lecturer. Hhis 'clubbable' nature sustained a reputation that his philosophy did not truly merit. He was certainly a kind man and would often give up his weekends to look after wounded kittens. Rogan, on the other hand, was notoriously irascible and provocative, sometime leaving his students in tears and alienating his colleagues. His philosophical insights, however, were original without being merely idiosyncratic, casting new light on old problems and opening up fresh lines of enquiry for a generation of thinkers.