This is just an analogy for what you wish to demonstrate. An analogy can illustrate an argument, but it cannot stand for an argument.

The analogy is not even a good one. A mathematical 0 is not nothing - it is an entity with its arithmetic properties. Your analogy suggests that prior to the universe there was something, some kind of an empty state - a vacuum, a void? And that void was transformed into the universe as we know it. That sounds like some of our religious creation stories, but this would not be consistent with the universe, the totality of all physical being, having a beginning. Because, just like zero is a mathematical entity with properties, that void, that primordial state that was transformed into the universe-as-we-know-it is a state of something, and therefore it should still be considered as belonging to the universe-at-large.

As it happens, the astrophysicist Laurence M. Krauss wrote a popular book provocatively titled A Universe from Nothing, in which he, to the annoyance of some philosophers, draws on that same ex nihilo dictum to outline some actual, though still speculative, cosmological proposals, in one of which the Big Bang universe arises from a kind of primordial void state. Except, as critics were quick to point out, that "nothing" is very much a something, characterized by physical properties (the laws of relativistic quantum mechanics), even though it lacks many of the attributes that we conventionally associate with physicality, such as spacial extension.

The moral is that if you are going to make something out of the "nothing comes from nothing" principle, you cannot take it too literally, on the pain of self-contradiction.

You keep saying that the principle has been reduced to the laws of physics. When in our conversation has it been reduced? — Samuel Lacrampe

Granted, you never did commit to it being a physical principle. But then you never did commit to any systemic explanation. Rather, for some specific examples you found a specific property that fits, be it energy or material or information. Meanwhile, it seems that when we look at any causal process, most of the properties involved do not fit into the scheme of being handed down from the cause in a diminished form, for various reasons. Which is why I remain of the opinion that this principle is an ill-fitting and unhelpful metaphor.

If there is a cause to the existence of the universe, then there is a 'process' from the cause to the effect. If not, then not. I suppose this brings us back to the original disagreement on the 'Nothing comes from nothing' principle. Do you really believe this principle to be false? If so, then we should focus on this fundamental point before anything else. — Samuel Lacrampe

Rather than saying that I deny the "nothing comes from nothing" principle, I would say that I find it unclear and unhelpful. The principle that I would be comfortable with is the principle of causal closure that I outlined above. I wouldn't say that causal closure is necessarily the case, but it is something I am comfortable accepting as a working assumption, seeing that it fits well with experience and that without it any empirical conclusion would be on shaky ground.

However, the causal closure principle characterizes the physical world and its states or events in relation to each other. Any cause in this context would necessarily be of this world. Which is why it would be incoherent to talk about the cause of the universe. If you have something else in mind, some other rending of the "nothing comes from nothing" principle, then you would have to explain it and motivate its acceptance.

Returning to the 'process' that is responsible for the shape of the universe, perhaps I was too dogmatic in arguing that it is necessarily non-physical. I can imagine a cosmological model in which the universe has a beginning in time, and in which some of its attributes are randomly selected at T=0. If this model of the beginning is continuous with the model of the evolution of the universe, then it could be viable. But it would need to be argued for, it's not something we should all assume as a default.

The thought experiments refute your claim that the principle 'no effect can be greater than the sum of its causes' fails in the example of water boiling. As such, the principle still stands. I have apparently failed to convince you of it, but it has yet to be refuted. I can provide more supporting examples upon request.

I am not sure if you are saying yes or no. Either the law of conservation of mass and energy applies in the case of the big bang, or it does not. If it does, then the big bang necessarily possessed all the mass and energy found in the universe today. If not, then not. While the laws of physics may change, logic does not. — Samuel Lacrampe

You can always rescue a vague premise by retreating to less controversial, though usually less interesting positions, and this is what you've done by reducing what sounded like a universal and far-reaching metaphysical principle to some particular references to popular physics. I think we have explored this avenue as far as it would go.

If I were to give my most generous summary, it would be something like the principle of causal closure: The universe evolved from its earlier states according to some constant (though not necessarily deterministic) laws. Any earlier state of the universe had the potential to evolve into its present state, with no outside influx or interference, nothing other than its instantaneous state and the timeless laws. And we can trace this process to the earliest times that are open to empirical investigation, beyond which we can only speculate. That early post-Big Bang universe, that undifferentiated "particle soup," was already energized with potential to bring about the present world, complete with stars, planets, cellphones and Donald Trump.

But this potential cannot be located in any one attribute, such as energy (which, as I tried to explain, is difficult to apply beyond local interactions, to the universe as a whole). Already from classical thermodynamics we know that no amount of energy is sufficient to bring about change: there also has to be a disequilibrium. And even then the change is not guaranteed to result in anything interesting (from our subjective, biocentric point of view): as you must have read somewhere, if, for instance, fundamental constants were different, we could have ended up with a universe full of nothing but black holes, or a universe with no complex chemistry.

Which brings me to your fine-tuning argument:

You are correct that the argument is founded on these assumptions, but they also seem rather common sensical. As such, they are the prima facie and the onus of proof is on the other side. — Samuel Lacrampe

No, what may be regarded as "commonsensical" is the original statement: that the (putative) initial configuration of the universe was extremely improbable. That seems like a very common idea. I cannot tell now whether it ever seemed commonsensical to me, because I have since given it a closer look and went beyond common sense - which is what a philosopher is supposed to do, you know. And when I deconstructed the implicit assumptions, they turned out to be quite arbitrary and contrived. I do not accept the burden of disproving them, because I cannot see any reason to hold them true in the first place.

Regarding assumption 2: We don't need to know what is outside of the universe. We can just use logic: either the process is random or it is not. If random, then it results in the existence of our configuration to be highly improbable, therefore making the 'random' hypothesis highly improbable in return. If not, then the process is deterministic or designed, which in turn points to a designer. — Samuel Lacrampe

You are assuming that there was a process, which is the assumption that I challenge. If we are talking about the physical universe as all there is that is physical, then there could not be any physical process that brought it about. To assume a process is to beg the question, because such process could only be supernatural (and yet somehow having physical effects).

If not, then the process is deterministic or designed, which in turn points to a designer. — Samuel Lacrampe

You are kidding, right?

That's an interesting point. Here are thought experiments to show that the claims are not arbitrary — Samuel Lacrampe

I don't know what you think you are getting out of this line. Your initial premise has been reduced to well-known conservation laws (i.e. if you care to generalize from the examples that have been considered so far; otherwise you don't even have that). I don't think it gets you anything interesting.

Are you saying that the laws of thermodynamics don't apply to the early post-Big Bang universe? I thought they were called laws because they applied to all cases (in physics). — Samuel Lacrampe

No, I am saying that it's more complicated than you suppose and can't be adequately summed up by a simple aphorism. In General Relativity energy of a macroscopic volume isn't even well-defined. Thermodynamics still works - but locally. It's when you try to integrate over volume that you run into trouble.

Laws, by the way, are formulated within a particular theoretical framework, which usually has some limited scope of application. Classical laws of thermodynamics, strictly speaking, work in classical non-relativistic physics. They do generalize to quantum mechanics and relativity, but with some caveats and complications. For example, in Relativity energy (or rather that entity to which energy generalizes) of a finite volume very annoyingly becomes tangled up with the choice of coordinates - a big red flag for anything that is supposed to be a genuine physical quantity and not just a modeling artefact. That's not to say that conservation laws are dead, but the picture becomes a good deal more complicated.

First, to be clear, by 'configuration' I meant the narrow range of settings (such as the gravitational constant G) that allow for life to be possible. I am assuming this statement to be true, as I am no expert on the necessary ingredients for life. Let's just buy into it for now.

Now if I understand correctly, [the probability of an outcome] = [the number of desired outcomes] / [all possible outcomes]. In this case, the number of desired outcomes, that is, the configuration with all settings that allow for life to be possible, is close to 1 (assuming a really narrow range of settings). And the number of all possible outcomes is the number of combination of all possible settings. It appears to me that this number is infinite, if each setting has logically an infinite possibility of values. This results in a very low probability of our configuration to occur. Thoughts? — Samuel Lacrampe

Your reasoning depends on the following assumptions:

1. Physical laws are a priori fixed, with the exception of a few free parameters (fundamental constants) that can vary within finite limits.
2. The actual values of those constants are set via some stochastic process that is somehow prior to or outside of the universe, i.e. it is not itself physical (because we count anything physical as part of the physical universe), even though it functions like a physical process and has a physical outcome.
3. The probability distribution in that stochastic process is more-or-less uniform, so that we can assume that a narrow range of values has a small probability.

These assumptions seem to be completely unjustified, and, in the case of (2), perhaps even incoherent. Why should an atheist be committed to them?

An alternative to (2)-(3) could be not a non-physical universe-generating stochastic process but ignorance: we don't know why the values of fundamental constants are what they are; we have no reason to a priori favor one assignment of values over another; therefore, we assign ignorance priors: a uniform distribution of epistemic probability. But ignorance is not a theory but a state of knowledge. All that this formulation says is: "We don't know why the universe is the way it is; we have no rational warrant to propose a theory; for all we know, it could be different."

I'm with you on that one: The undeniable order in the universe strongly points to an order-giver.

I think an objector might say that "while improbable, this current configuration of the universe could have happened at random, and maybe countless of different random configurations failed before that one happened". Now maybe this hypothesis is not possible if, as you say, there can be no 'before' prior to the big bang. I just don't know much about this. — Samuel Lacrampe

This objector would not say this. What does it mean to say that this [organization of the universe] is improbable? Probability is meaningful either in the context of a statistics built up from multiple observations, or in the context of a stochastic model (which in turn is based on observations). Neither of these contexts exist in the case of the universe. One could speculate that some random mechanism is responsible for the particular shape of the universe that we see (and some speculative cosmologies suggest something of the sort), but an atheist need not be committed to this view. And, as you say, this hypothesis does require for there to be something prior to or outside of the known (post-Big Bang) universe - but the option of a pre-Big Bang history is still open (hence the speculative cosmologies that I mentioned).

So there is no basis for saying that this configuration of the universe is improbable, any more than any other configuration. And in any event, nothing points to a magic order-giver.

I wonder still if the definitions are not essentially saying the same thing in different ways. Aren't natural sciences dealing only with things that are empirical; and all that is empirical is material? — Samuel Lacrampe

Yes, I like this approach as well. I think the key to naturalism/materialism/physicalism is not a commitment to a particular ontology, but a commitment to empiricist epistemology.

Sorry to have dropped out from the conversation. But frankly, your argument, which started from some puzzling and provocative premises, has unfolded into something rather vague, slippery and tepid.

Here is one illustration that shows why I find your argumentation unconvincing:

The energy from the fire (property 1) causes an energy increase in the water (property 1). Then the energy increase in the water (property 1), combined with the potential of water molecules to boil at 100C (property 2), causes the water to boil (property 2 actualized). — Samuel Lacrampe

So the move here is to point to a transient property, such as "boiling," and say that it always existed in potentia, and needed only a suitable cause to be actualized. This clever get-out-of-jail clause can paper over any difficulty with properties that appear to be new in effects. But why not use the same move on every property? Well, then it would be hard to link back to the original idea, that of invariant property transfer from cause to effect. For that you have appealed to energy, matter and other more-or-less conserved quantities, chosen ad hoc for each particular case.

- The first cause possesses all properties from all effects, and to an equal or greater degree.
- If all that exists is material (matter and energy), then all properties from all effects are material things.
∴ The first cause possessed all the matter and energy that currently exists in the world, to an equal or greater degree. — Samuel Lacrampe

The key here is that you take a physicalist view of the world as a common ground with your presumably physicalist audience, and try to extract from it an evocative metaphor. This is a dubious endeavor at best, because the metaphor will never be adequate to the actual meat of the physical theories from which it is extracted. And if you try to use it to reach conclusions with physical, empirical implications, you will most likely run into trouble, as you did in this case.

Indeed, it is inaccurate to say that the early post-Big Bang universe (the closest thing we have to the "first cause") "possessed all the ... energy that currently exists in the world, to an equal or greater degree." The issue with energy at macro-scale becomes complicated when you get to General Relativity and non-flat, expanding spacetime. In some interpretations it seems that energy is conserved only in local interactions, but not globally. With careful analysis you can recover a globally conserved quantity, but it is no longer just energy, and it is "conserved" only in a special sense that requires a lot of exposition to explain (like I said, it is complicated). It would be hard to translate all this into a simple metaphor.

I don't understand your position. Are you denying that there is energy transfer from the fire to the water? If yes, then what is the causal relationship between the two, if any? If no, then what is wrong with my premise? That energy is the common property between the cause and the effect. — Samuel Lacrampe

We agree on the facts, but the facts do not support your case. The energy transferred from fire to water is neither the energy of the cause (fire) nor the effect (boiling water). It is also distinct from the property of temperature, which the cause and the effect do not share, and the property of boiling, which only the effect possesses. Nothing here fits your premise of property conservation between cause and effect. Something is conserved, but it is not what you need for the premise to be true. The cause does not have all the properties of the effect: it does not have the energy of the effect, it does not have the temperature of the effect, it does not have the property of boiling.

Perhaps the problem here is that 'cause', 'effect' and 'property' have not been defined and thus it is not clear what it means for the cause to have all the properties of the effect. As I already mentioned, talk about causality is usually pretty loose. We say that fire underneath the pot causes the water in the pot to boil. Is fire the cause and boiling water the effect? Or should we rather be talking about events? Processes?

And then there are properties. The simplest definition of a property is anything that can be predicated of the thing in question. Thus "has the temperature of 100C" and "is boiling" are both properties of boiling water at normal conditions. But on this definition "does not have the temperature of 100C" and "is not boiling" can also be properties of something. It is clear then that for the cause to have all the properties of the effect, cause and effect will have to be identical. (Suppose that the cause has a property P not possessed by an effect. Then the effect has the property not-P, which the cause cannot possess. Thus the cause does not have all the properties of the effect.)

The fire emits the energy received by the water to boil, and the "boiling" effect is just the combination of the energy (caused by the fire) and the potential of water molecules to boil (not caused by the fire). And we know the energy received cannot be more than the energy emitted, due to the first law of thermodynamics.

"For that matter, the fire that brings the water to a boil does not have the property of being at 100C." — SophistiCat

Indeed. The fire has a property of being greater than 100C, which agrees with my point that the cause(s) may be greater or equal to the effect. — Samuel Lacrampe

Recall your own explanation:

'Greater' here means that the effect cannot possess a property that was not present in its cause(s). — Samuel Lacrampe

The fire underneath the boiling pot has neither the energy nor the temperature of the boiling water. It also does not possess the property of boiling. So while what you say here is correct, it does not mesh with your premise. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Go back to your premise and make it conform to these facts, on which we both agree.

I wonder if the universe were infinite, then wouldn't what is actually possible have to become actual at some point? — Cavacava

Depends on what kind of possibility you have in mind. Nomological possibility combined with infinite probabilistic resources results in all possibilities being "almost surely" realized. But a planet made of cheese, for example, is not any more likely with an infinite universe than with a finite one, even though such a thing is conceivable.

- If something can exist, then it can be conceived of, because we can conceive all logical possibilities.
- If something can be conceived of, then it must exist. (as defended by Hume)
∴ If something can exist, then it must exist. — Samuel Lacrampe

Already had a go at this, and I would like to add that I also have a problem with both these premises.

The first premise is, at best, a rather optimistic statement about our cognitive faculties. But, even if it happens to be true, I wouldn't take it as a metaphysical first principle: the world has no obligation to be comprehensible to the human intellect. And if you take it definitionally (possibility is conceivability) then you are trivializing your conclusion.

The second premise is obviously false and doesn't follow even from the simplistic "blank state" account of cognition that you attribute to Hume.

I think this is logically provable: Once again, let's start with the self-evident principle that 'nothing can come from nothing'. — Samuel Lacrampe

No, let's not. I keep telling you that I don't regard the PSR, in any of its forms, as a necessary truth, something that any possible world must conform to. You just go from one form of it to another, firmly convinced that I must subscribe to at least one such principle. I am telling you that I do not. That's not to say that I believe that things happen for no reason. I just don't think that they are obligated to happen for a reason by some a priori principle. (And, as points out, you can push the principle to absurdity if you apply it to the world as a whole or to the putative first event, but I don't think you are doing this, yet.)

I tried to prove this here. Where do you see a flaw in the reasoning? — Samuel Lacrampe

Unfortunately, you can't link to specific posts this way. I think I have read all that you wrote concerning the principle of conservation of properties (as I call it) in this thread, but I don't see where you have given a sound argument for it. You just say, in effect, that it follows from some principle of sufficient reason, but I honestly cannot see how.

And it is such an odd principle! You might find one or two examples that work, more-or-less (considering that causation talk is generally pretty loose and there is no universally accepted account of causation). But isn't it obvious that in general there is no such conservation of properties? Indeed, it often isn't even clear just what might be conserved and in what way. But if you want clear counterexamples, phase transitions work particularly well. A boiling pot, for instance: neither the fire under the pot nor the water prior to the onset of boiling have the property of boiling. For that matter, the fire that brings the water to a boil does not have the property of being at 100C.

Ah, I see now, I didn't realize that the passage quoted here wasn't the entire poem. Thanks for the links, . I just finished chewing my way through a couple of annotated Shakespeare plays; when I recover a bit, I might work that annotated Keats.

This interpretation still goes against the grain of the poem: here enchantment is a mortally dangerous deception, not something quaint and charming and romantically wistful.

The tender-person'd Lamia

Can someone explain this titular metaphor to me? My Google scholarship and Graves' Greek Myths tell me this about Lamia: that she could pluck out and replace her eyes at will (ewww!), that later, mad with grief over her slain children, she became a monster who snatched and devoured the children of others, and that she may also have sucked out the blood of young men while they slept. Nice. Is that really who Keats had in mind?

Logically, either a thing has a cause or else it is an eternal being which has always existed, because everything that begins to exist requires a cause for its existence. — Samuel Lacrampe

"Everything that begins to exist requires a cause for its existence" is just a variation on the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which I don't think we are obligated to accept as a dogma.

But that was just an aside. Even if we provisionally accept the PSR, it still doesn't logically follow that a cause must have all the properties of its effects (whatever that might even mean). The most that PSR entails in this case is that there must be a cause for any property, which is a plausible (though not necessary) principle if by that we mean that the property is either entailed or made more probable by a prior state of the world combined with dynamical laws. But conservation of properties does not follow from this.

Wow, what a mess! You really need to be careful with quantifiers and modal operators.

'Greater' here means that the effect cannot possess a property that was not present in its cause(s). This follows from the self-evident principle that 'nothing can come from nothing', or 'nothing can bring itself into existence'. Therefore, whatever property the effect has (be it physical or not) must come from its cause(s). — Samuel Lacrampe

Your premise is that everything has a cause. It is very much debatable that this is a self-evident truth or that we have no choice but adopt this a metaphysical axiom. In any case, your conclusion (that the cause must possess all properties of its effects) obviously does not follow.

Indeed, it is hard to even think of a single example, while counterexamples are easy to come up with (especially since "cause" and "effect" are such vague concepts).

There recently was a New York Times article Can Prairie Dogs Talk? - entirely one-sided - in which one Dr. Slobodchikoff claims that prairie dogs possess the most complex language next to ours.

It seems that you want to call difficult, uncertain decisions "amoral".

All decisions, to the extent that they are non-random, are ultimately predicated on some value judgments. I don't really see a point in differentiating between "moral" and "amoral" values for the purpose of decision-making. Either way, when we deliberate on a decision, it all comes down to pitting conflicting value-laden imperatives against each other.

If something does not inflict unnecessary or unjustifiable harm, it cannot be immoral. — VagabondSpectre

That's more-or-less a statement of liberal ethics. But not everyone is a liberal, as you well know, and no amount of reasoning will convince a non-liberal to become a liberal: one doesn't reason one's way towards value judgments.

If something does not cause harm to anyone or anything, on what grounds could we deem such a thing to be immoral? — VagabondSpectre

All the grounds of non-liberal ethics. Religious convictions, for example.

Meh, I am pretty sure that many "are not waiting to see what the investigation brings to light". Some have already got him tried, convicted and are only waiting for the sentencing phase.

Heaven help us if Trump actually has his rights respected of being innocent until proven guilty and that 'proof' never comes. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Meh, Trump should be A-ok with assuming guilt without due process. After all, he has extended an invitation to the White House to Rodrigo Duterte, a man who publicly bragged about personally executing criminal suspects.

Heh, Finland has a cause for worry indeed: it was once a part of the Russian empire, and Stalin carved off a good chunk of it at the beginning of WWII. Putin just might come for seconds!

Close to 100%? I think the genuine worry is not the plight of the Crimean people but a major land grab in Europe, something we haven't seen since the end of WWII...

Yes, it's strange. Both this forum and its former incarnation are slanted towards atheism. In a survey of philosophers through history (which are not to be confused with people who write about philosophy -- including members of internet forums), the number of religious people would be far greater. — Mariner

Through history? How is that a relevant comparison? I would assume that participants of this forum are our contemporaries - most of them, anyway.

This 2009 survey of academic philosophers had the following result:

God: atheism 72.8%; theism 14.6%; other 12.6%

As ssu says, you just need to take a look at the timeline of the events, which Russian officialdom now largely acknowledges, even if they don't like to talk about some aspects of it. Even its extreme brevity speaks volumes (compare with Scotland's years of campaigning and preparation). It was a classic blitzkrieg.

There is another distinctive narrative here: that of Crimean Tatars. They are now only some 12% of the population, down from the overwhelming majority that they once were, but they are a very cohesive group, and from the outset they were vehemently opposed to Russian plans (their history has taught them not to expect anything good from Russia, and the events subsequent to the annexation have validated their apprehensions). The Tatar leaders, now in forced exile, are basically using the same rhetoric as the Russians, only turned on its head and used against them: they are arguing that Tatars are the true heirs to Crimea, they are the only people who have the right to call themselves "the Crimean people." And therefore "historical justice," with which Russia likes to justify its actions in Crimea, is actually on their side. (I myself don't approve of either side's rhetoric and think that nationalism and "historical justice" are very pernicious routes to take.)

Present-day offshore oil and gas production that Russia seized from Ukraine doesn't amount to much (which is why Ukraine largely relied on energy imports, even before it lost control of Crimea). There are potentially rich deep-sea oil and gas deposits that Russia now controls in the Black Sea, but their size is uncertain, and Russia will have to rely on its own outdated and thinly stretched resources to develop them. International oil giants will eventually wear down Western governments to allow them to work elsewhere in Russia, but I don't see this happening in Crimea any time soon.

For now Russia has to rely on expensive schemes to deliver energy and other resources to Crimea, with which it doesn't even have a land border. Crimea and Chechnya are among Russia's greatest budget sinks.

I'm curious if calling this an "annexation" is actually fair. If the Crimean people really wanted to be Russian and voted for it, should we really feel so bad for Ukraine that we tell the Crimeans they aren't allowed to join Russia?

Whether or not their referendum was representative seems a relevant question. — VagabondSpectre

It wasn't. There wasn't anything like a real referendum, such as what the Scots had. Before Russia made its play, there wasn't even much of a separatist movement there; it was just a sleepy and neglected province, more-or-less content to eke out a living from Russian and Ukrainian summer vacationers. But once the invasion got under way, local authorities toppled, Ukrainian media shut down and the propaganda of fear and patriotism revved up, I think it is plausible that most of the population would have voted to join Russia. But they weren't even trusted with their voices.

Clearly both sides just want Crimea to be a part of their economic batteries and not the other's. — VagabondSpectre

If that were so, Russia would've been happy for Ukraine to have Crimea: that battery is shelling their own! Now and in the foreseeable future Crimea is a drain on Russia's resources. And I am not just talking about the international sanctions.

Those Champagne bottles weren't opened in celebrating in Trump's win just for Trump winning, but for the brilliant work made for Russia. — ssu

That's your conjecture. There were a number of plausible reasons for the Russians to support Trump during the election, him being some sort of a Russian mole being probably the least plausible. Firstly, I don't think the Russians even expected Trump to win, any more than anyone else did. The primary goal pursued by their propaganda during the campaign was probably just more propaganda: to discredit democratic institutions and weaken the future leader of the US (whom they fully expected to be Clinton).

As for why they might have wanted Trump to be President, he had positioned himself as an isolationist and a pragmatist, someone who cared little about international affairs and who wouldn't stand on ideology. He would rather break ranks with Europe, make a deal with Russia and get off its back than carp about democracy, human rights and international law - which would have suited Putin perfectly. He could then indulge his fantasy of being a feared and respected leader of a superpower in a multipolar world, like in the good old days of the Soviet empire. Trump's fawning references to Putin (like Putin, he seems to confuse brutality with strength, authoritarianism with efficiency) would have made him look like an ideal figure in the Oval Office.

Perhaps Putin also thought that Trump would be a weaker adversary, easier to manipulate and outmaneuver. And if nothing else, Trump wreaking havoc in his own country and weakening Europe would also have been considered a win by Putin, for whom international politics is a zero-sum game: what's bad for his adversaries is good for him. At least he wouldn't look as bad by comparison.

As for those "politicians" who were reported to pop the bubbly following the news of Trump's win - they are nobodies, mere figureheads. There is no real politics in Russia, at least not as it is understood in Western democracies. Those kleptocrats in the Russian "parliament" have no insider knowledge of any import and make no real decisions - they were just trying to read the mood of the man in power. Which wasn't at all difficult, since they were just following the trend set by all the major media outlets in the run-up to the US elections.

If you are into "mind-trip" movies, I would add Being John Malkovich and The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind that's been mentioned below. These are actually good movies, regardless of their "ideas". Open Your Eyes (Abre los ojos) - perhaps less accomplished, but has obvious similarities with The Eternal Sunshine, also dealing with memory manipulation. Easy on the eye, too :)

Solaris (2002, which I think is a very good remake of the Soviet original). — jkop

Didn't see the remake. The Soviet original was by Tarkovsky, and I don't think it is one of his best. But those who liked that might also like his other philosophical sci-fi movie Stalker. I think of The Mirror as Tarkovsky's masterpiece, also Andrei Rublev, Nostalgia, The Sacrifice - they are not "philosophical" in the sense of having some intellectual puzzle or dislocation at the center of their narrative; more like spiritual and even mystical.

The first movie on that (alphabetical) list happens to be the one I thought to mention. Powerful stuff, as is most of Herzog/Kinsky work.

Yeah, I don't understand the significance of being a member of some set. If some means any, then anything you can name is a member of any number of sets. If it is some particular set, then the burden of definition is shifted to defining that set.

This is a critical insight. Ingenuously* is the way they were intended to be read. The narrative of scripture is compelling. — Bitter Crank

I read Jewish and Christian scriptures for the first time in full at a fairly mature age. While I did not expect a religious conversion, I was actually surprised to find my attitude dimming towards these scriptures, especially the Christian ones. A rather unattractive image of Jesus as a cult leader gradually took shape as I was reading the New Testament: moody, alternately ingratiating and imperious, soppy and short-tempered.

Unlike many atheists here, I was raised secular. Religion wasn't much discussed inside or outside the home. My father, as I later realized, while being of a skeptical disposition, leaned towards deism, and on his deathbed he became convinced of an afterlife of some sort. My mother was leaning more towards mystical spirituality, but she was too complicated a person to settle on any definite religious belief.

I myself gave little thought to god and religion until later in life, but for as long as I remember myself I had, as they say, no religious bone in me. Emotionally, subconsciously, a religious belief or practice just never seemed like a live option. When I did turn my intellect toward these matters, I became increasingly confirmed in my atheism. Though of course I like to think of myself as being open to persuasion, I have not seen any argument that would move me away from this position.

Agnostic. I would say atheist but that is only really towards certain conceptions of gods inside popular religions. I consider myself generally open to some arguments for something supernatural and do not think many of the atheistic approaches to theism meet a good standard to label theism false. — Chany

This quite unfairly implies that those who self-identify as atheists are not open to arguments. One can be an atheist (in the common sense of not believing in any deities or the supernatural) with an open mind, and most atheists probably think of themselves that way.

Didn't Trump pretty much out his motive right in the letter of dismissal?



I don't imply any deep conspiracy here. I myself am more inclined to believe that Trump was just his usual impulsive, irritable, vindictive, bloody-minded, incompetent self. That he was irked by Comey's pushing the Russia investigation (which is, after all, aimed primarily at his people and possibly himself) seems rather too obvious.

This is a good question and the answer is not so obvious, unless you take certain positions for granted, such as utilitarian ethics. This is a good case not so much to come up with answers as to examine our assumptions and prejudices and the role they play in the search for answers - which is what I think philosophy is good for: not to supply answers but to ask good questions, critically examine our thought process, and broaden the inquiry beyond the familiar and the banal.

A better example would be a real case though, and we can find such cases. Laws are not always passed solely for the sake of improving the lot of as many as possible. Religious laws, for instance, though they can be framed in utilitarian terms and are sometimes justified by genuinely utilitarian considerations, nevertheless are primarily motivated by non-utilitarian principles.

Or take ostensibly secular laws, such as prohibition on alcohol consumption that has at various times been put in place in secular democracies. Although health and public safety considerations were important in promoting prohibition, it cannot be denied that there was one other, and in the end perhaps the most important principle in play: this is immoral, and therefore should be illegal.

A similar battle is even now waged in the West over recreational drugs. Although utilitarian arguments have been mounting in favor of lifting the prohibition, i.e. it has been argued that prohibition is less favorable in terms of achieving the greatest good for the most people, resistance to lifting the prohibition is still strong, especially in more conservative societies, where moral prohibitions carry more weight than utilitarian benefits.

Yes, but look at it from the perspective of the edge. According to SR, a clock on the edge, in its own frame, is stationary and thus runs faster, not slower, than the moving clock at the center. — noAxioms

In the proper reference frame of a point on the edge the entire disk, including the center, is stationary. But it is, as you note, non-inertial, which makes SR calculations messy.

I was thinking of the identity of those mental states. I feel like I have a persistent identity (being the same person I was a minute ago, despite a different physical state back then, and being the same person I was when I was 4, despite a nearly complete lack of the original matter of which I was then composed). So how am I not already swampman? What has happened in that thought-experiment that has not happened to me? All that's missing is an unverifiable causal connection between the one version of 'me' and the present state. — noAxioms

The causal connection is what is missing, according to Davidson and other externalists like him. Obviously, this won't matter to those who don't construe consciousness in terms of representations and their causal connections to the represented objects.

I don't get the point about the causal connection being unverifiable. If even your causal connections to your earlier selves are unverifiable, then I suppose nothing is, in which case this is just a truism.

Being able to remember and recognize red sounds like knowledge. We do use "know" to mean experiential in addition to propositional knowledge. — Marchesk

By this definition, we cannot then say that Mary knew everything there was to know about red before she left the room, so the problem is resolved either way without giving us any insights other than clarifying the language.

That's how I understand Davidson's position as well. And the next logical step is to conclude that the copy is not the same person as the original (because predicates that were true of the original are false of the copy).