Well, when people become semantical, they are often intentionally motivated. It is a real-world job to help other people discover and/or achieve their goal. Still, for various reasons, the job of "consultant" actually has a bad reputation.

Ultimately, the reason why there are accountants is the same as why there are trash collectors, sewer divers, or any other real-life jobs, really. The work just needs to be done. So, someone will end up getting dragged into it, kicking and screaming, and then also getting paid to do it. There will also always be some kind of manager equipped with a whip, keeping an eye on the situation. Slavery is freedom. — alcontali

I can’t tell if you’re being admonishing, analytical, or comical. I suspect it’s all of the above.

Got it.

If we know cars only come in green and brown (equally likely), there is a 10% chance (1-.8)*.5 that the match to truth is "fortunate". — JosephS

Why is it “(1-.8)*.5” and not “.8*.5”?

So, you are possibly doing inventory control, or so? Is it about accounting and financial reporting? — alcontali

Ha ha! I would go bananas if I had to do those jobs.

Sorry for the personal nature of this post. However, where does a philosopher go for therapy? As if the psychologist or psychiatrist could be prepared to deal with the kind of existential depression that comes hand in hand with increasing ones understanding of the nature of reality, or the clear ethical conflicts of duty that arise when our personal lives are rocked by tragedy and we have to consider the world we bring our children into or whether we even should bring any into it? — Mark Dennis

I’m sorry for your loss. Truly.

Psychiatry cannot help the existential depression of a philosopher. They prescribe meds, and I don’t think meds would be helpful in your case. IMO meds should only be used to treat serious disorders where the person would be a danger to herself or others without them. A lot of people need meds, but I think they’re overprescribed.

As @Bitter Crank suggested, there may be psychologists or therapists out there who can help a philosopher, but I haven’t had such luck myself. I see a psychiatrist, but I’ve had bad experiences with therapists.

What @Wayfarer suggested about meditation may be helpful. I’ve not been successful with it due to my thought disorder, but it probably would help you if you found the right guide.

Best wishes to you.

That still does not mean that language would be a physical phenomenon with size, weight, temperature, electromagnetic radiation. Does language have any particular color or smell?

Seriously, language is an abstraction that lives in its own Platonic world. We cannot avoid using such abstractions, simply, because we communicate.

Still, we should not confuse these abstractions with the real, physical world.

The word "cat" is not a cat. It is a word. It is a language expression. It is not the real, physical thing at all. — alcontali

Never mind. I think this answered my question, and I think I agree with you.

Seriously, metamathematics is NOT to mathematics what metaphysics is to physics. — alcontali

So metamathematics is provable, metaphysics is not. So, is counting apples meaningless? Or is that not mathematics?

Therefore, they are 'rational or intelligible objects' the perception of which is key to the operation of reason herself. This is deeply antagonistic to today's evolutionary naturalism, but there it is. 'Darwin doesn't explain Einstein.' — Wayfarer

Cool

Are you talking about frames of reference as used by Einstein in Special Relativity? Because Einstein said something like that what the universe is actually like without an observer is most likely stranger and maybe even unknowable.

And you understand that physics doesn't use the terms "observer"/"observation" to refer to percipients, right? — Terrapin Station

Still not getting it. I would need a detailed paper to understand what you are saying.

No, he's disagreeing that the concept refers to something extramental. It's not clear that he even believes there is anything extramental. — Terrapin Station

We’ll see what he says.

I thought he said the phrase referred to the concept which is mental and refers to something extra-mental, viz. what the physical world is from a particular reference point. But, a reference point is also a concept. You need that concept first. It is primary.

No, it doesn't it doesn't refer to itself. — Terrapin Station

That’s not what he said.

The concept refers to something. It doesn't refer to itself. Use/mention? Ring a bell? — Terrapin Station

I think you two are talking past each other. A concept is inherently both mental and as referring to something extra mental. My justification for the belief that the idealism vs. materialism debate is confused.

He well understood the fact that mathematics relates to what you describe as 'the real world'. — Wayfarer

I think @alcontali is talking about meta-mathematics. I could be mistaken.

A frame of reference just is a concept and concepts do not exist without percipients (unless you're a Platonist). You seem confused about this simple fact. — Janus

I agree with you, however.

Well, it's ridiculous. Why would I write something in set-of-words x when set-of-words y says what I really want to say? Just say what you really want to say from the start. — Terrapin Station

That’s what I envy you for. You always have the exact words you want to use to show your thinking. I’m much more muddled.

Something I have observed from reading a lot of libertarian philosophy is that the 'right-wing' expressions of libertarianism are generally very clear and systematic. — Virgo Avalytikh

I would agree that they are very clear and systematic, but I think they are also simplistic in their analyses of how things really work; and they tend to start from the assumption that selfishness or individualism is true and good, something I strongly disagree with.

Chomsky has written and said a great deal that is political. He is critical of a great many people and institutions; particularly, governments and capitalism. — Virgo Avalytikh

In my opinion, Chomsky might as well work for the GRU. His criticisms do a lot to undermine Western institutions, which are a mix of good and bad, not just evil as he seems to imply.

Karma is simply “for each action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” This is true in the physical world and in society.

Reincarnation may just be a figurative confusion of the “circle of life” as personified in the Disney movie. Reincarnation as a literal occurrence seems highly unlikely to me.

Exactly what I was saying is exactly what I wrote out. Which is why I wrote it out just as I did. If other words would have done the job better, I would have used those other words instead. — Terrapin Station

Classic Terrapin. :lol:

I remember as a child watching my mother's casket lowered into the ground thinking thank God it was finally over, but it never really is. We carry such things to our graves. — Hanover

I felt the same thing when my dad died last year, but I had schizophrenic feelings of relief, emancipation, and sadness all at the same time. He suffered for a long time which I felt empathy for, but I also felt relief because he was often horrible to me. I felt sadness because his emotional suffering was in part due to my rebellion from his sometimes abusive behavior that I also had somewhat of a form of Stockholm syndrome about. He was my dad, the only dad I will ever have, for better or for worse, and the relationship strongly shaped me into who I am.

“We carry such things to our graves.”

I agree. This is true of any close relationship that shapes us.

The crux of the matter is that if the reductionist view is assumed (as it is by most physicists), then consciousness cannot arise from the more fundamental laws and from chance events, because these chance events are still constrained by the fundamental laws.

And if reductionism is not assumed, then one would have to explain for instance what is it about the behavior of a cell that doesn't depend on the behavior of the molecules that make up the cell, and if we can't describe that in any way then we might as well say something magical is going on, and similarly say that consciousness arises from the brain because something magical is going on.

But there is a way out of this conundrum: to stop assuming that our perceptions allow us to model what we are. Models of what goes on within our perceptions are not models of what gives rise to these perceptions. Then the question of reductionism becomes irrelevant, because then physics and chemistry and biology and neuroscience all together only tell a tiny part of the whole story, they only describe what goes on in one movie some of us are watching. — leo

Are you talking about the as of yet unknown or perhaps unknowable nature of qualia of perception and emotions?

Sure, but that outcome isn't true of several key states that Trump previously won including Pennsylvania, Michigan, Indiana, etc. So while Ohio may currently be edging slightly towards Trump outside of a Biden nomination, what's being indicated by Trump's consistently low approval rating is a tepid response at the polls particularity within swing states, as also exemplified by the Blue Wave of 2018. — Maw

I appreciate the optimism. I know who I’m going to vote for (not Biden) but will vote for Biden if he’s the nominee. It’s still very early.

The nation elects the president, not Ohio. — Maw

There are 50 state elections. How much of the Dems support is coming from CA and NY? It’s the polls in the battleground states that we should be looking at.

Likewise, if you restrict your understanding of "inertia" to "momentum", thereby understanding inertia as mass times velocity, you will not apprehend the inertia of a body at rest. So "momentum" is useful for understanding the inertia of a body, just like "using a word to point at things" is useful for understanding the use of words, but it is an incomplete understanding. And to insist that it is complete would be a misunderstanding. — Metaphysician Undercover

That should end with “QED,” the equivalent of philosopher smack talk.

All serious Democratic candidates are polling higher 1:1 against Trump, so I don't understand why ideological position matters at this juncture — Maw

Those are national polls. On MSNBC tonight, a poll showed that the only candidate who was ahead of Trump in Ohio was Biden. They say that as Ohio goes so goes the country (or at least a Republican hasn’t won the electoral college in the modern era without winning Ohio).

That's not entirely true. Unintended consequences are not unforeseeable consequences, at least not necessarily. We can certainly do better than we do. — T Clark

What does “unintended” mean then? If your point is that in the case of governments, institutions, and even individuals, important decisions should be made only after extensive research and deliberation, then I agree.

As an individual, I have a handicap in this regard. I’m impulsive and self-destructive in a lot of ways. I know what things are better for my physical health, but I have vices. I tend to see these vices as necessary for my mental health which is more important to me.

Environmental engineers apply technology to implement the laws and regulations that reflect environmental policy. I have opinions on what the appropriate policies are, but it's not my job to establish them. — T Clark

I see. It takes a team of experts and a consensus then (always difficult) in order to determine best policy. If only lobbyists didn’t get in the way...

That said, I am certain you know as an environmental engineer what is best policy for the environment more so than politicians or corporations.

One can know what the consequences of of a decision will be before the fact better than we currently do, it just takes more work and attention. It costs money, so there are strong political forces resisting it. — T Clark

It’s easier to know what the direct intended consequences will be, but there are unintended consequences to every decision. Some good, some bad.

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

Many decisions that are bad for many people are made with the full knowledge that they will be bad for those people. It does come down to value too, though, given that the decision made would be thought to benefit others who are considered more important than those it will either not benefit or disadvantage. — Janus

All true for a lot of decisions.

no one can say knowledge is adequately justified without understanding the consequences of a bad decision. — T Clark

One only knows a decision is bad after the fact. And bad for whom or what? Some consequences are good for some and bad for others. That’s where values come in. Making decisions has more to do with values than epistemology in my opinion.

Environmental epistemologist. I like that. People do make decisions. It was ultimately the business class and the desire of the people to make their lives easier that made things so bad because they didn’t think about the consequences. But they weren’t aware of the consequences. No one can KNOW all of the consequences of their decisions. Certainly people continue to fail to see the consequences of new technologies, technology being an application of science. Environmental engineering, though, I must say I don’t know anything about. Do you utilize technology in this field?

If I'm not making a decision, truth is useless, knowledge is useless. — T Clark

Epistemology as the foundation of good decisions then? Science has made many stupid decisions. One example, in my opinion, the industrial revolution that led to unsustainability. However, I enjoy the many fruits of industrialization. That said, wouldn’t the conscious life of the planet including the many now extinct species been better off without it?

If we go beyond the physical world, the question of justification is less clear. We probably need to know the purpose of metaphysical "knowledge" in order to figure out what a proper justification would be. — Echarmion

That was what I was getting at I think. Science is useful (and destructive). Scientific knowledge can only explain the physical world. A lot of people think everything is physical. And in the case of a multiverse, something physical, it may be that we cannot have positive justification for it. Science will ALWAYS leave MANY things unknown. I hold that the nature of consciousness or what the nature of physical stuff is are things that science can never explain.

It seems to me (I may be confused) that I don’t agree with the concept of a “necessary” decision. What about discovery? Could you explain further please so I can understand your position?

So you’re a proponent of positive justification for belief that need not be true. Care to justify that?

It depends on the language game you’re engaging in. I think that @creativesoul hit on some of my concerns, though.

Also - I am perfectly capable of being disagreeable. — T Clark

So am I, obviously. Something about his personality strikes me as defective, though. This from someone who knows personal defects. He’s absolutely pathological. I hope he seeks professional help.

I just think their romantic views distract from a serious understanding of what is going on. — T Clark

At least you can disagree without being disagreeable.