There exist, as you say, many important and mysterious things we cannot explain. It does not follow that, for some important and mysterious thing we can't explain, that thing exists.

I cannot explain how my brother proved the Riemann hypothesis. The solution is a mystery. The solution is certainly important for many areas of mathematics. And lastly, the solution is wholly delusory, because it has not yet been found.

I cannot see that either atheism or theism lack logical coherence. One of them lacks religious faith; the other doesn't.

Benkei, no, no, at least mostly my fault - online discussion does not signal irony well...!

True, that's why I described the argument as 'false'. Just to make my opinion perfectly clear, there is genocide occurring in China against the Uyghurs.

Well, they are alive. Therefore (compare the false holocaust-denial arguments) there is no genocide.

Disruption for sake of disruption is no joy, but I'd say disruption can have a role and has a long history in dialectic. "Several times in the course of the discussion Thrasymachus had made an attempt to get the argument into his own hands, and had been put down by the rest of the company, who wanted to hear the end. But when Polemarchus and I had done speaking and there was a pause, he could no longer hold his peace; and, gathering himself up, he came at us like a wild beast, seeking to devour us." Thrasymachus attempts to inflict and then undergoes the kind of humiliation that is familiar in debating today. Arguably Plato's Socrates was himself a disruptor. "I know nothing" meant in effect "You know nothing - you just think you know something".

"I still don't care - but I want to ... attack - is that wrong..?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeGECVrclgM

I think you're saying that one condition of perception is material interaction. True enough. No eyes or no light, then no seeing. Then you seem to say that because these material interactions are everywhere, then perception is everywhere - 'suffused'. But that doesn't follow. It's like saying your post is made of words and my post is made of words, so your post is the same as my post.

I'm not sure perception has been explained in material terms. You might explain fractions by drawing a cake and showing it cut up into segments. But if someone concludes that without cake there would be no fractions then they missed the point.

I hate thought experiments. If I see a fat man on a bridge I run away. I refuse to listen to bat detectors in case they start sharing their experiences. I sign petitions to free people from rooms in which they have to translate stuff they don't understand. And all in vain, if I'm just a brain in a vat.

Even if God is omniscient and the rest the question remains: "Does God love X because X is good; or is X good because God loves X?" The problem is ethical naturalism. However we try to define 'good', 'right' etc as 'having quality X' then the question 'Is X good / right / etc.' remains substantial.

'Good' is a different kind of concept in that way from, for example, 'mammalian'. Humans are mammals because they give birth to live young etc. It is not the case that humans' giving birth to live young and the rest had the consequence of their becoming mammals.

"Infinite infinities equal finite space? How?"

Integral calculus is how. I think 3blue1brown's 'essence of calculus' is a really good exploration of the intuitions and the intuitive objections and shocking weirdness of calculus. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUvTyaaNkzM . "My iidea is for you to come away thinking you could have invented calculus yourself..."

As a footnote to some of this discussion, I would say that Aristotle did not subscribe to a theory of truth that could be well described as a 'correspondence' theory. He does not use any word that could be translated as 'correspond' or 'correspondence' or 'match' or 'fit' or a plausible synonym.

What is a correspondence theory? On the one hand, facts. On the other, statements. If they correspond, then truth results. Problems: truth of counterfactual statements and negative 'facts', where there is ex hypothesi no corresponding fact; individuation of facts and statements and deciding when one statement or fact is the same as or different from another when setting up a supposed 'correspondence'.

What is Aristotle's theory? Like a lot of Aristotle's words, each word counts. “To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false, while to say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not, is true” This formulation does not have the problems of correspondence theory. If it's true that I might have eaten an egg for breakfast (though I did not) then I might have eaten an egg for breakfast. If the doorway is clear and there is no fat man in the doorway then it's true that there is no fat man in the doorway and since there is no thin man in the doorway it is also true that there is no thin man in the doorway. It helps to understand that he is challenging the Parmenidean view that no truth is to be obtained from reference to 'what is not' and that truth may only be generated by speaking of what is and saying that it is. Parmenides was closer to 'correspondence' theory than Aristotle, as was Plato.

All the above is contrary to received wisdom which may be greater than my wisdom. If you write in an essay that Aristotle did not subscribe to a correspondence theory of truth you may lose points. You may lose them justly for all I know, but I would like to know why.

Also, suppose distance had a length. Then if distance got shorter or longer, the whole universe would get bigger or smaller together and no impact. Therefore distance has no length.

These arguments do not tell us anything about space and time but they do tell us something about measurement. You can only measure something against something else. You can't check the story in a newspaper by buying another copy of it.

Given the existence as uttered forth in the public works of Puncher and Wattmann of a personal God quaquaquaqua with white beard quaquaquaqua it is established beyond all doubt. Hope that clears it up.

Well I cannot find the reference if it exists but I've heard attributed to Wittgenstein this illustration of Kant's idea. Imagine this conversation: "........1,4,1,point 3. There, I've finished." "What are you doing?" "Reciting the digits of pi backwards." (I think we are being invited to consider this project to be logically incoherent; as opposed to merely practically impossible, like reciting the digits of pi forwards. Forwards, you'll never finish. Backwards, you will never have begun.)

Oh, here it is:

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Vt02DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA121&lpg=PA121&dq=wittgenstein+1+4+1+point+3+pi+recite+backwards&source=bl&ots=drDGa7JnGK&sig=ACfU3U0vbOTOEOidWOnN8bql44DahvKw6A&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwixvO60pvjwAhULlRQKHUwkB98Q6AEwBnoECAUQAw#v=onepage&q=wittgenstein%201%204%201%20point%203%20pi%20recite%20backwards&f=false

"Don't you believe the science?" is sometimes a call to shut up when authority speaks.

It is sometimes a call for ignorance to shut up when good authority speaks.

Nevertheless, I answer in this way:

"Yes, I believe the science. The science tells me to ask questions and to value evidence over authority. It tells me that hypotheses are subject to constant revision. It tells me that even widely accepted theories can be overthrown. It tells me that there are seldom knock-down answers to complicated questions. That's what I believe and that is why simply counting scientists in favour of a particular view tells us something but does not necessarily tell us everything. Every one of those scientists will also tell us that the mere fact of a lot of people believing something does not in itself make it true. Or false."

The banks used to swagger about the virtues of freedom in financial markets. Then 2008 happened and they rushed to hold on to nanny's skirts. I don't trust the rhetoric of state minimalism too much till I see it tested in painful times. But still, there are some good questions, e.g. is the proper function of law to promote good or just to restrain evil?

I admit I have a personal interest. The State saved my life. I continue to depend on it for security. I am at least a little grateful for that.

"All I ask is for two things: 1) what metaphysical problems do you think can be resolved by analyzing our language and 2) which metaphysical questions are actually substantive?"

I have a few worries about the challenge and here is one of them:

It looks like a false dichotomy. A metaphysical problem could perhaps be *both* substantive *and* resolvable by analysing our language. At any rate, we should not assume that no problem can possibly be both until we're reasonably confident that it is so.

Ha ha! I think you've caught me out speculating now. (Remembering an earlier reminder to stick to the text....). But I think it's worth thinking about what questions of his time Plato was answering when he wrote the dialogues. For example: in politics, democracy vs tyranny or aristocracy; in metaphysics, how can things both be and not be at the same time (Parmenides, Zeno); in art, irrational violence vs sublime contemplation (Euripides, the Parthenon). The Theory of Forms stands or falls on its own merits or demerits - probably falls - but from a point of view of biography, psychology (see another thread about that) I *speculate* that this is a person who has lost a great friend to political violence and ignorance and is saying "We can't just make up justice, truth, right and wrong, is and is-not; we need to apply some wisdom and thought." I'm saying this in the hope of pointing out the emotional force of Plato's writing which can seem abstract, obscure, dry, outmoded and false out of context.

It has MICE in it so it can't be all bad.

Yes, I was thinking about Protagoras, for example. I was also thinking about the Athenian culture that Plato was unhappy about: the society that put Socrates to death. It was imperious and arrogant, me-centred, politically corrupt, post-truth ('making the better argument appear the worse'), violently opposed to alternative points of view, following the mob wherever the mob leads. It was also producing some of the greatest works of art and philosophy ever made. The Theory of Forms was not (merely) abstract speculation: it came from the gut. In such a world, what are the values and truths that we can trust?

On second thoughts I might stay out of it. I'll see how it goes.

Prejudice is a feature of attitudes, outlook, beliefs. Racism is unjust discriminatory practice and behaviour based on race. It gets complicated because *expressing* prejudice is a speech act - a kind of behaviour - and the expression of prejudice can amount to discriminatory practice. "I'm jus' saying" is often more than just saying. It can be an insult, a provocation.

"I always judge people by their character". Zenny, me too. Then sometimes I'm caught out not doing that and having prejudices just like everyone else.Tribal passions, generalising from single cases and from irrelevant factors, these are everywhere. People can be suspicious of foreigners and we are all foreigners to some people. We won't wake up one morning and find King's dream has come true. We will have to fight to make it as true as it can get within the limitations of human weakness.

Perhaps a time will come when people will be judged by the content of their character and not by the colour of their skin and when people will attribute wise words without pretending they made them up.

I was thinking of the problem raised in the last para I wrote. A purely logical basis of arithmetic is apparently not possible. Perhaps psychology has something to offer. I did not distinguish 'psychology' from 'psychologism' but thankfully others did that.

Pluralism is nothing but a bunch of distinctions without differences. Reductionism is nothing but over-simplification. This thread is nothing but a timely warning and the author deserves nothing but thanks for starting it.

Psychologism is a word that attracts a sneer from some but it's not all bad.

"......Husserl’s first published monograph, Philosophy of Arithmetic, which appeared in 1891. In this work, Husserl combined his mathematical, psychological and philosophical competencies to attempt a psychological foundation of arithmetic.......The book was, however, criticized for its underlying psychologism in a review by Gottlob Frege. " Stanford

Husserl; see also phenomenology https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/phenomenology/#:~:text=Phenomenology%20is%20the%20study%20of,of%20or%20about%20some%20object.

We could look at the foundations of arithmetic and try to base it on pure logic and struggle for a century with it and end up wondering whether it's all based on rules that are definable only as the way we do things, that's how it goes, you get the hang of it by looking at what we do and doing the same and understanding 'the same' circularly as just the way we do things. Which has something in common with psychologism.

Perhaps each can be the subject of the other and neither is prior.

On the one hand, philosophy of perception, concept of mind.

On the other, for example, asking why we are drawn to some philosophical topics and not others. For one person it's all about political and moral philosophy and they don't really care what Frege had to say about numbers. Other way round for someone else. It's interesting. It's psychology or biography.

"..why do humans have the belief that there is some entity or entities outside of their own species that have influence and determination of their being something after the physical death of a human."

I think the reasons depend on whether it is a true belief or not. If it's false, then perhaps humans are a bit crazy and have a tendency to believe any old nonsense. On the other hand, if it is true, then it could be because humans have considered the evidence and happily arrived at the correct conclusion. So to answer the question we have to first work out whether it's true or not. Then the fun begins.

Wayfarer: Yes, I think you are right. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_set

."..there couldn’t be such a set, because it would have to include itself."

Sets can include themselves. E.g. the set of sets with more than one member has more than one member: it therefore includes itself. So the set of all things would include itself jprovided a set is a thing.

I think a problem with the set of 'all things' is to decide what is a thing. Is the letter that I forgot to write a thing? It's something I can refer to and discuss and I can tell untruths about (perhaps I didn't really forget, I deliberately left it unwritten) and therefore also tell truths about. So it's a thing, it can feature in true or untrue statements. But it was never written. It never existed. Is it a member of the set?

I think it's the intuitionist train of thought. If no ethical statements are true, then not only is it not true that murder isn't wrong but also: murder isn't wrong. Something wrong with that. We know it in our bones. Except sometimes people don't. And whose bones to trust? Well, we know that in our bones too.

Whatever makes 2 + 2 equal 4 or true that it does, it doesn't seem to be our hunches. But in both cases we may not be able to find the 'thing that makes it true', if there is such a thing.

"Concepts such as 'Beauty' don't exist by themselves, do they ?
They arise from the real world - we create such - why ? "

This is a viewpoint that Plato is dedicated to challenge. Man is not the measure of all things. Truth is different from mere appearance. Beauty (and justice etc) do exist "by themselves" quite independently of our mere opinions. We can apprehend beauty (justice etc) by exercise of the intellect. Poetry and myth are not enough.

He believed all that and at the same time was one of the most poetic and mythically inclined philosophers of all time. Quite a contradiction.

The 'no pleasure without pain' question is an example of a bigger issue for Plato. No pleasure without pain; no large without little; no beautiful without ugly; no being without not-being - at least in the things we see when we look around us. But these contradictions are only appearances. In the world that can be grasped by the intellect and not by the senses then we can understand things as they are and not as they seem to both be and not-be at the same time.

On the other hand, some casual misogyny in chats between men brings it bang up to date.

"If...then..." does not always operate as you might expect. "If p, then q" entails "if not-q, then not-p". But e.g. suppose if you want an eclaire (p), then you can eat one (q). However it does not follow that, if you don't want an eclaire (not-q), then you cannot eat one (not-p).


Except I got the last sentence wrong. Should be: It does not follow that if you can't eat an eclaire (not-q), then you don't want one (not-p). Addled brain. But the point is the same.

I suppose an 'ism' is, roughly, a general outlook, a point of view, an underpinning theory, an overarching framework of assumptions. It is possible to reject most isms. You can entertain a general outlook without subscribing to it. Perhaps the easiest way is ignorance, where you don't have a point of view just because you have never thought about something. Some isms are, debatably, not possible to reject. For example (debatably) it's not possible to reject the view that there is a world outside our own perceptions. The consequences of rejecting that view lead us (debatably) into incoherence and contradiction.

What pager?

True. If someone who wishes you didn't exist tries to make amends by baking you a cake my advice is don't eat it.

".....the god-like super-beings we are destined to become...." But I have heard this rhetoric before and I have seen what happens to the ones who fail to qualify for super-being status. And I am afraid.