One method of dealing with challenging behaviour is distraction. We should talk to ISIS about, say, global warming, road safety, poisoning bees and mass extinction. And then while they're talking about that, they're not bombing people. It would also foster a sense of proportion on both sides.

Only aspects of it are. Forums and other forms of dialogue are naturally social, but introspection and unshared thoughts are not. Both can count as doing philosophy. — Sapientia

A distinctly modern notion. The ancient philosophers would have argued that philosophy simply cannot be done in isolation and without cross-examination. It was the image of Descartes shut up in his room that started the trend towards believing that philosophy could be done alone. But even then there were letters containing objections and encouragements traded back and forth before any of his works were completed. — Postmodern Beatnik

Sure. My statement was very ambiguous. What I was getting at is that philosophy hacks away at the foundations of our world view in a rather inconsiderate way. It has no concern for what we feel or want, and can destroy our self-image. Doing this kind of thing in the company of others can be very anti-social in that it causes discord and distress. But that's philosophy, it's hard and nasty. To ease this we should be polite and considerate. But I think having likes and other social pokings is a distraction from the business of philosophy, which has precisely no regard for such things. If we were not such social creatures likes and dislikes would be of little interest, but being what we are we tend to first pay attention to how much rep someone has got before we read what they have to say, or we skim down the page of posts to first look at the ones with the most likes or dislikes, to see what has affected people the most. Maybe that's a good thing, but it's not philosophy. I understand that forums are also about building social relationships. But that can happen anyway without likes and dislikes.

I voted for the 'get rid of them completely option'. Philosophy is naturally anti-social. But I guess being philosophers is not all we are, so I'm not that bothered if they are kept in whatever form.

I like the way the tree on the right shares its lines with the rock below.

The view you expressed is perfectly understandable. It's the standard view. Autism is generally (but not universally) thought of by non-autistic researchers, doctors, psychiatrists in terms of straightforward malfunctions and deficits. I only know differently because I've been involved with autistic self-advocates and Autscape.

It's provocative to reflect that while autistics suffer from a degraded form of interpersonal communication, that may be just what allows them to experience an enhanced form of extrapersonal communication. — Baden

:) You'd get boo'd off the stage for that at Autscape! For many autistics, myself included, NT interpersonal communication seems dysfunctional and degraded. On so many occasions I have written an email to an NT person containing, say, three questions. They answer none of them, and ask me a question instead. This seems like a straightforward communication disability, and it is the norm. Heck, this shit was routine on PF and drove me nuts. You just can't have a proper conversation like that. On the other hand, my email communication with other autistics is crystal clear. I ask three questions, and I get three answers, even if all three answers are 'I don't know' or 'I don't know what you are asking'. This is first class interpersonal communication.

I enjoyed your sympathetic treatment of this, Street. Life would be better for autistics if more NTs were as understanding as you are here. There has been research suggesting that autistic people do not (or cannot) filter sensory input in the way NTs do and so are exposed to a far higher volume of information to process and get overloaded and can't cope way more quickly than NTs. Similarly, autistics tend not to make assumptions, which relates to taking things literally and difficulty with some metaphors and so on, and so require additional explicit information to fully understand what is going on from an NT perspective. I haven't actually looked at the vid yet but will do later.

WikiLoopr makes it easier.

'Mangle' gets stuck in a different loop. But all the other ones I've tried get stuck at ontology and philosophy. I find that immensely pleasing for some reason.

22 for 'plank'. 'Murder' is the record holder so far.

Infinte for "conscious" and "aware" because they loop back on themselves. — Benkei

Wooow, you can't get more fitting than that! This is amazing. Consciousness knows consciousness by reflexion.

That's really interesting. It's like going down the family tree of knowledge, starting with the particular and moving to the general and ending in philosophy at the trunk. Presumably this doesn't work so well with other subject areas like, say, economics... I'll try.

...Nope, once we get to philosophy it starts looping back on itself via existence, ontology and other such abstract universal concepts.

Yes, I was just trying to say something in favour of having a gun. I think there are many more bad things about having a gun than good things. But that doesn't alter the good thing about having a gun, although I accept the point that some skill and luck is needed. It's important to be able to separate goods from bads. Taking herion has lots of bads, but it has a clear good as well because of the feeling it gives.

The Aussie comedian makes some very good points.

Having a gun is good because it increases your power over medium-sized and large creatures in your environment.

If someone is intent on doing harm they will not stop because of lack of a gun. — Sir2u

A gun makes it a heck of a lot easier.

Can we get 49 people to contribute $1 a month by standing order to an account in jamalrob's name? I'd be happy to be one of the 49.

Alternatively we could get 24.5 people to contribute $2 per month.

Or, to stay in whole numbers, we could have a Board of The Seven who each contribute $7 a month and have special status.

Thanks Baden.

The Physics and Metaphysics of Biosemiotics, H. H. Pattee. I always struggled to understand what the hell Apo was going on about, but he sounded like he knew what he was talking about and recommended this paper for us fools to read. I thought we could give it a go, if only so we could tell him what a condescending shit he is from a position of knowledge.

HOW TO DEFINE CONSCIOUSNESS—AND HOW NOT TO DEFINECONSCIOUSNESS, Max Velmans This is a pretty simple paper which nevertheless makes some really important points.

I'd be embarrassed. I did ceramics at school and a bit at university, and I've done a few abortive things after that, but nothing worth posting I don't think. I'd have to digitise it somehow as well. I loved art when I was a kid, though, and was quite good at it (for a kid) and I've been interested ever since, just never done much. Always meant to. Just like the book everyone isn't writing.

In art I think limiting decisions can be very helpful, whether that limiting is by the mechanics of the medium, or a design brief, or whatever. Otherwise the freedom to do anything is dizzying and frightening. Or that's how I find it anyway.

I don't think that I'm suggesting anything controversial at all, but quite universal, and ubiquitous. Causing someone harm and deriving pleasure from it is what villains do (it's what psychopaths do, which is the evilest psychological profile you can give someone) , feeling remorse and reforming their ways is what anti-heroes do, and heroes don't even derive pleasure from the suffering of their enemies when they deserve it (though anti-heroes may, because they're still a little bad, but it's forgivable, because we want the villain to suffer too, because even we aren't as pure hearted and good as the hero, even though we recognize their not deriving pleasure from the suffering of the villain as a higher good)..

I don't feel the need to speculate why this is the case, I think that it is sufficient to point out that it is the case. — Wosret

This doesn't harm the hedonist's position, though. If deriving pleasure from causing harm is more evil than simply causing the harm, it's because the knowledge that someone is deriving pleasure makes us (and perhaps the victim) feel extra shitty, and that's why it's extra bad. It's still pain = evil and pleasure = good.

I like Shmik's self-portrait too. Sometimes when drawing a picture I struggle to leave out details and simplify. Shmik has made some decisions about where to change from one shade of grey to another, something that I struggle to do because it's somewhat arbitrary, but it makes for a better overall effect than trying to make all the transitions accurate and smooth.

..and John. Those have a distinctive style. Makes me want to paint.

I really like your paintings Cavacava

The only odd question is why I'm the only one that has to justify myself (worth thinking about why that is). — The Great Whatever

I think you suffer your views to be challenged. You answer questions. You are capable of communication in a way that others find hard.

I think Hume's idea that if you keep asking 'Well, what's good about that?' you eventually end up with pleasure = good and pain = evil is a very interesting and robust position. Despite it being very philosophically strong, for some reason many people don't like it or they don't think it true, so I guess people argue against it.

I don't think I agree with it either, by the way, but I am nevertheless very sympathetic to TGWs Humean position.

1.) God does not exist, and therefore life is absurd.

2.) Life is absurd without god, therefore god exists. — darthbarracuda

Rejigging these a bit:

Argument 1:
1. If there is no God, then life is absurd
2. There is no God
Therefore, life is absurd (MP)

Argument 2:
1. If there is no God, then life is absurd
2. Life is not absurd
Therefore, there is God (MTT)

Both arguments are valid (unless I've got myself in a muddle). Are these what you had in mind darthbarracuda?

I think there is also the fact that this is a brand new forum and members are excited and want to populate it with posts to 'get it going'. Once it's got going things might become a bit more focused on philosophy. Two things I think will help in this regard:
1) Saving drafts (I often didn't post on PF because I couldn't post fast enough and couldn't be bothered to open a text file and start a post in that. Even when I did draft a post in a text file I often never got around to posting it as it sat gathering dust on my desktop).
2) Having a regular paper of the month to read. Great idea.

I wish I had more time to get stuck into the philosophy here.

This is supposed to be Socrates. I guess the artist is emphasising his famed ugliness.

I like Hypatia as well.

Not yet. Incredibly it's still going. There was a 2015 race at least.

Looks nice to me. :) Aaah, we have saved drafts. That's good.