Certainly overpopulation is problematic, however I think it would be wrong to see it as the root cause of the division and indifference you're mentioning. If the dynamic of the society isn't healthy at its core, then overpopulation only exacerbates the problem, but it would be misguided to think that if there were many less people we would suddenly all be nicer to each other. You can have a few people oppressed by a tyrant, it doesn't take many people to be divided. There are people who willfully hurt others, they aren't indifferent but they aren't nice either. — leo

Okay, I have to agree with you. Some of us are so fortunate to live in the US and know each tribe was different. Hopi are perhaps the most peaceful and Apaches were known for being aggressive warriors. The Mongols also were known for wiping out large cities and coming from a harsh region where survival depended on hunting made their culture very different from agrarian city people, and Genghis Khan told his people to never settle and never start accumulating possessions because he thought city people were very immoral! Mongols were committed to feeding and sheltering each other because their harsh ski god just assumes kill pathetic humans in blizzards and they thought the idea of a caring god was ridiculus. Okay, let's look at cities with a caring god, where life encouraged lying and stealing and made some rich and some poor. You are obviously right about the importance of the core of society. But I think we really need to take advantage of science in understanding humans and figuring out what encourages desirable behavior and what does not.

Certainly overpopulation is problematic, however I think it would be wrong to see it as the root cause of the division and indifference you're mentioning. If the dynamic of the society isn't healthy at its core, then overpopulation only exacerbates the problem, but it would be misguided to think that if there were many less people we would suddenly all be nicer to each other. You can have a few people oppressed by a tyrant, it doesn't take many people to be divided. There are people who willfully hurt others, they aren't indifferent but they aren't nice either. — leo

Obviously we also have a disagreement. Only when we have the right facts is there a chance of resolving our problems. Labeling some of the effects of city life as evil is totally different from the religious understanding of evil. You see with science we can see the reality of evil and the cause of it so we can effectively overcome that evil. With religion, evil is a supernatural power and the only help is another supernatural power. The religious belief burns witches instead of making sure the water is not polluted, and to this day religious belief prevents people from having the right facts and taking the right steps to overcome evil. Please consider the word "evil" is tied to supernatural powers, and therefore, the word can be problematic.

I agree that religions have been used as a tool for evil purposes by some people, but pretty much anything can be and has been used as a tool for evil purposes. — leo

Can we adjust that to a supernatural belief in good and evil supernatural powers is problematic because it promotes ignorance and results in well-meaning people doing the wrong thing? I think this is a much greater problem today because we dropped education for good moral judgment and left moral training to the church, resulting in an explosion of superstition and a very serious and harmful cultural and political crisis! We no longer have agreement that moral is a matter of cause and effect but think morals are about the church and religion. That is extremely harmful to understanding democracy and what morals have to do with being a democracy. That is both a social and a political problem.

I'm not sure if you got the idea that I'm a Christian, I do not follow any organized religion in particular, and I wouldn't say that all Christians only spread love and kindness, it seems to me you yourself spread more of it than the people you mention. — leo

There is an important difference between following the teachings of Jesus and being superstitious. If you believe evil is a supernatural power and we must be saved by another supernatural power, Jesus, that is superstition, a belief in supernatural powers. It is also believing Satan is as real as God, and boy oh boy, has the belief in Satan caused a lot of trouble! Satanism depends on believing the Christian mythology. The cure to superstition is science.

Quakers have done a better job of living with the teachings of Jesus than other branches of Protestantism. They ignore the old testament. But unfortunately at the time the Bible was written the region had absorbed the demonology of the East and this got mixed up the stories of Jesus. Like let's get real, back in the day, people were trying to figure truth and want is good or bad, exactly the same as we do today, only they didn't have science. A god was not giving anyone special information. Thinking the Bible is somehow the word of God instead of stories told by humans, is just wrong. The teachings of Jesus are great, as long as they are not tied to superstition, but Christianity ties his teachings to superstition by claiming demons come out of people, and we must be saved by the supernatural power of Jesus. All humans know only what humans know. And we all can have spiritual experiences. We are equal in that way. No one at any time was special to a God who could do special favors for them if He was pleased, or He could destroy them if He was displeased. Earthquakes and the such are natural forces. Bottom line, we can follow the words of Jesus without being superstitious, but I think the people who claim to be Christians associate his words with superstition and wear silver crosses to defend themselves against demons and the power of Satan. Unfortunately, that silver cross doesn't work as well as washing hands, and keeping your pit for human waste far away from your water supply. The people of India and Hebrews got the cleanliness thing right, but Christians rebelled and got it wrong.

I think I understand a little what you are saying? We say the cause of boil water is the heat, but if there is no oxygen in the water will it boil? I suppose water with no oxygen wouldn't even be water, but I am getting to, things can not happen if the condition for the happening is not right and we do not have grounds for claiming this happened before that happened. Is that anywhere close to right?

Totally fascinating! Unfortunately, I am not comprehending what you said. I noticed my brain was trying to find a picture of what you spoke of and could find no picture. It can see a triangle, but not something to the side. This is totally off topic but I think my difficulty relating to what you said, is associated with my lack of a sense of direction. That is my inability to turn in the correct direction or find my way out of a maze. The thought conveyed by your words went into a black hole when you shifted everything to the side.

However, that triangle is thrilling! "The triad is the form of the completion of all things". Nichomachus of Gerasa (c,100, Greek neo-Pythagorean philosopher and mathematician.) The Triad has a special beauty and fairness beyond all numbers, primarily because it is the very first to make actual the potentialities of the Monad." Iamblichus (c. 250-c. 330, Greek Neoplatonic philosopher.) Helium, the second atom to manifest, the first element composed of three different "charges."

"The Mayan Factor" 3. The pulsation-Ray of Rhythm 13. The Pulsation Ray of Universal Movement.
"13 represents the dynamic of movement present in everything and by which everything is ever-changing and at the same time vivified by the universal force of Hunab Ku". "Hunab Ku. The One Giver of Movement and Measure. The principle of intelligent energy that pervades the entire universe, animate or inanimate."

What do you think?

I like sushi — leo

Whoo! I think we need to avoid a belief in the supernatural and the mythology of God of Abraham religions if we are doing to resolve problems. We most certainly need to avoid violence. We absolute need to return to education for democracy and stop leaving moral training to the church!!!

So many of my friends are Christian and this hurts me deeply because Christianity is not compatible with democracy and it has been the root of our evils, as ignorance is the root of evil. In 1958 we replace education for good moral judgment with education for technology and left moral training to the church. This was a huge mistake. A huge mistake!

PS even in the most primitive tribe people live with coercion. Another term for coercion is "social pressure". All social animals including dogs, apes, and humans must minute by minute decide to put others first or to put self first. Those who can not put self first are most apt to die, and those who do not put others first are apt to be killed, severely wounded or just driven away. Humans are social animals like dogs and apes, and that means learning to get along with others.

The sooner we can replace religion with science the better.

We can not be ignorant of human nature and that we are violating the laws of nature, and save everyone. The rich know things must be as they are or they would be no better off than the lowest people. Let us put this fact of life in a more manageable way.

Islam and the Quran have much to say about protecting women. However, they also put men above and women and it is a tradition for the men to eat first. This practice is based on a survival need when it is essential for men to provide for and defend the family. That reality becomes a belief that men are more important than women, and this is true of all our patriarchal societies. Okay, let's say the family has 6 children and has only enough food for 4 people. Who is going to get that food and who will not eat that night?

If we do not have rich people who can invest in our capitalist system, we sure as blazes will not have a high standard of living with all our technology and wonderful hospitals. Undeveloped Muslim countries see the immorality of our capitalism. Ever since the beginning of the industrial age, those with the most money are the men who provide and protect us. I don't mean the gender of being male, but the social position of being male. How to say? The family in less developed societies is not safe and can not be well fed without a strong male. We can not have a high standard of living without the rich. They must be fed first. We can not distribute the food evenly because that would make everyone weak. And there is absolutely no way, this mass of humanity can return to the land and live in harmony with human nature and environmental nature.

I fight so that we might do better, and we can not do better unless our knowledge is all the knowledge we need. Our way of life depends on the wealth of a few and the poverty of the dirty masses who work for low wages and create the wealth of the few. This is what made the growing middle class possible and it has lifted far more people out of poverty than ever before. We depend on those with financial strength as in simpler times we depended on strong males. Socialism may offer a better reality than laize fair capitalism? I am not sure?

PS however, we should demand replacing the autocratic model of industry with the democratic model, and that our education does not prepare us for the democratic model of industry could be considered a conspiracy or perhaps a problem with Christian control of our nation and false beliefs based on the Bible.

Gosh, I love what you have said, and I will stick to the problem of overpopulation because of what this does to how we behave and experience life. In small numbers, everything is managed on a personal level, The rules are informal and 100% managed with social pressure. The word civilization means city life and that is a large number of people organized by formal laws. In the city and with laws, life is impersonal. We can look away from the starving mother and child, and go about our lives as though they don't exist. The rich have a reality totally different from the dirty masses, and they come to believe their difference means they are superior and they are more deserving. I am sorry to say, but Christianity reinforced this division of people and slavery. Jesus would be so hurt by today's reality and how good Christians believe they are doing very well, but "those people", the dirty masses are unworthy.

Oh my, I am a Senior Companion. That means for $2.65 an hour, I pick up an older person and take this person shopping or to doctor appointments, or to a nutrition site for lunch. The idea is to keep them engaged with the larger community, independent and happy. It is very difficult for me when these very sweet people, often Christians, point at the homeless people we pass and say unpleasant things about "those people". I tried to get them to stop that or to see it differently without offending them. Well, it will be interesting to see how they react to me being homeless. I am not sure how well I will be able to be "professional" when I no longer have a home to come to and feel like a human being, instead of like a wounded animal in danger. :wink:

↪Athena I am not convinced that it is overpopulation at fault but you are definitely right about the skyrocketing cost of living and I’m more concerned to express my sympathies for your situation than to argue about the causes of it. I’m in California where I make more than twice the median personal income for the US generally and still can’t afford to live better than a tiny trailer in a run down trailer park. My mom is on social security too and has been on and off the verge of homelessness for the past five years, and basically her entire check goes to renting a shitty bedroom in an overcrowded house in the slums and then food stamps have to cover the rest. I really hope you can find some way to manage your hardships, and more than that, that somehow we all can do something to make sure nobody like you has to anymore. — Pfhorrest

People like you are making this a wonderful experience! That is pretty easy to say as I sit in my heated library protecting from the elements with absolutely no fear of a police officer telling me to move or arresting me for sleeping in an undesignated sleeping area.

I grew up in California and I thank God I do not live there. How can you live there and doubt the problem is overpopulation? When my parents divorced my mother moved us to Hollywood because want to be in the movies and loved being on stage and entertaining people. Hollywood was like an old lady with too much makeup. We could take the trolly to the beach. I have such fond memories of Hollywood and I witnessed the degrading of Hollywood.

We moved to the Valley when it was still mostly orange orchards, and I witnessed this beautiful valley become mountain to mountain blacktop and concrete. Not realizing the problem is overpopulation is to me like living on Easter Island when it was forested and not realizing what deforestation was doing to the island, finally driving the people to cannibalism.

:lol: I am feeling pretty bruised and scared and I sure am not into arguing, but I have to fight for people's lives and that means knowing the truths so there is a chance of resolving some problems. This is not the first time in history mankind has dealt with overpopulation. With technology, we have been able to increase our population more than humans could in the past, and need we to learn from history. I forget the title of the book that explains why good times become bad times and bad times become good times. If a plague reduced the population of California by 1/3, wages would go up and the cost of property would go down and humans would start being a whole lot nicer to each other. My life has been extremely good since retiring and living an apartment for people over 55 and going to the senior center often. My life is full of caring people and in general, we are very caring of each other. I have not lived the dog eat dog reality for many years. My life is nothing like your mother's because we are still surrounded by nature and we can walk along a beautiful river. My life has been so good. :lol: Stepping into homelessness is a huge shock and I am not sure how well I do. But for sure, I am going to record it with a cell phone and put it on the Internet. I pray I maintain my humanity and do not become like a feral cat as so many people do when they are homeless. The cold and the pain I will experience may reduce me to the manner of a frightened animal. This old body is not going to do well.

↪Athena It is widely accepted that Nazi Germany was a result of German people’s fear of loss being exploited by right-wing populists all too eager to give them a list of Others to scapegoat for all of their problems. And only slightly less accepted that something similar is happening in America today. Something similar was almost happening in America back then: the War Department even produced a video warning the public of the dangers of demagogues stirring up ethnic hatred, directly comparing the version of that happening in America at the time to what brought Hitler to power. — Pfhorrest

Thank you Pfhorrest. I see in the warning of which you speak, normal human behavior. Biologically our brains are far more limited than we seem to think. We need groups small enough for everyone to know everyone and to know who is related to whom. We are lucky to remember the names of 500 people and some identifying facts about them. We do this interesting thing that other animals don't do. We can imagine a Christian is one of us, or a White Texan is one of us, or those who are Black like me are one of us, or that people of the American Medical Association are one of us if we are one of them, and that is accepting far more than 500 people are one of us. This is tribal thinking that has been civilized, making a stranger, one of us even though the stranger is not actually known. We assume because he is one of us we share agreements about how to behave and what to value. That is, we have adjusted to living with large numbers of strangers in civilizations that until recently in the US met the needs of the masses pretty well, except during temporary periods of economic collapse.

Now I want to say that adjustment to social agreements, making it possible to identify with complete strangers, as one of us, is breaking down. This is the point that took Germany down. This makes what is happening in the US today like Germany and different from how we managed human needs during the Great Depression. We are not in a period of economic collapse right now, but overpopulation has caused the cost of living to skyrocket, as inflation in Germany caused the cost of living to skyrocket. That is resulting in skyrocketing the number of homeless people. I am talking about this because short of a miracle I will be homeless in three weeks so I want people to know what I am learning about the problem we have today. In 3 weeks I will no longer be one of you, but one of "them" and this is part of how this happens.... Oregon has made it law that rents can increase by only 7% . In 2017 the Social Security cost of living increase was 2.8%. Obviously the Social Security increase is not keeping pace with the cost of living. Those of us who have below poverty level Social Security incomes are going down. How in heavens name is a 2.8% cost of living increase going to keep people in housing when the cost of housing is going up faster? And from my point of view, people are living with a false sense of security because they don't see this happening to them and the people they care about unless they are one of "them" and see this from the bottom looking up.

I think I need to use a cell phone to video my large library and relative nice home before I lose it and then begin posting my experience on the internet. I want everyone to know, some of "us" can become one of "them", through no fault of their own and to understand this the beginning of the problem of overpopulation. This is not an economic collapse but a period of skyrocketing cost of living that is hurting people as badly as an economic collapse. I want people to be aware of this and hopefully, figure out a way of stopping the destruction. Please, correct me if you think I am wrong about what is happening and why it is happening.

You seem to think that fallibility helps you defend JTB from the objection that it fails as a definition of knowledge. I've tried to explain why fallibility cannot help you defend JTB from the objections we're making against it. The one point of disagreement which we have to settle is that you think that the man doesn't have epistemic justification in the Russell example, but I think (as does Bartricks) that he does have justification. Although I believe Bartricks thinks he does because he thinks the broken clock lends epistemic justification. Nevertheless, the man in the Russell example satisfied the JTB definition. If you disagree with that point, then we too are going to talk past each other. — fiveredapples

What god or part of nature made the clock in the first place? Without a clock, how can anyone justify the argument that it is 3 o'clock? Time is intangible and we are treating it as tangible when we agree it is 3 o'clock without realizing it is only our agreement that is 3 o'clock that makes it 3 o'clock. If we are on daylight savings time it is not 3 o'clock at 3 o'clock because everyone agrees it is 2 o'clock.

Or how about this, if we were primitive people without the counting system we have, making it possible to have an agreement that a day is 24 hours and that a day is divided between day and night, there would not be clock time to argue about. Is it a bit insane to treat time as a tangible reality? How about arguing socialism is good or bad? Is that a tangible reality or intangible? We can not agree on many things we argue about because of our arguments about intangible beliefs and we are not practicing awareness of what is tangible and what is intangible. Knowing socialism is bad, is like knowing God is good. This "knowing" can not lead to rational thinking.

But people use the term, "know", to refer things that aren't so. They don't know that they don't know. They think they do, which is why they use the word. We used to know that the Earth was flat until we learned that it wasn't. We can only know that we didn't know after the fact of saying that we did. So how people use the word isn't always about what is so. Knowing is only the belief that you have the proper information to form a conclusion, when you might not. — Harry Hindu

I think we need to take a look at how our brains work. We are slow thinkers and fast thinkers. I have argued that animals don't have language and that goes with understanding fast and slow thinking. We share fast thinking with all animals but other animals do not share slow with us. An animal is not going to argue "They don't know that they don't know." An animal is not going to argue A can not be B. I hope people will watch this video about fast and slow thinking and reflect on what "knowing" means.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqXVAo7dVRU

I think you are feeling frustrated and we need to agree to disagree. Maybe someday you will realize there is a difference between animals communicating and language but obviously will not be this day.

If we were not prepared to know what we know today, we would not know it, no matter how much we stared at a mountain and its rocks, we would not know much about the mountain without some knowledge of geology to help us understand what we see.

Much of the information today requires knowledge of math and our schools are totally failing to convey what math has to do with understanding our world and universe. Students are graduating from high schools without even a basic understanding of maths and sciences and think they know everything they need to know. They really do not understand why some people get big bucks for their careers and they are lucky to get a job delivering pizzas. Our young are entering life totally unprepared for our technological society that is no longer labor-intense and is not willing to give them a liveable wage for low skilled work. They can not have available knowledge because they were not prepared to receive it.

For everyone, I want to point out the stories of the Bible are not equal to the explanations of quantum physics. If the Bible is the word of God, it is limited to what it is easy for us to understand but is not the truth of the universe, nor even good advice on how to be healthy and happy and avoid war however an effort was made to promote our health and help us get along with each other. That is what all mythology and folklore does. Unfortunately, the Bible begins with causing us to fear knowledge and believing we are going against God if we even desire knowledge. We have associated knowledge with the devil. As the Chinese, after leading the world in technology, became afraid of change and associated it with danger, and tradition was associated with good order and safety.

Knowledge requires a different order of thinking than being able to understand stories written for humans. The most important knowledge if one wants to understand the universe, is dependent on the language of math. We can understand basic laws of physics without math, but the knowledge that is beyond storytelling requires some understanding of math and some knowledge of cause and effect. This knowledge is not explained in the Bible and one should not think the Bible is the only important book to read and study. If we do not prepare ourselves to understand knowledge, we can read the books and watch the videos and attend college lectures, and not understand them.

Ovdtogt, that was very interesting but why do you think that reaction qualifies as language? When something irritates our nose we sneeze, and everyone around us may be very distressed if we do not properly control the spray of the sneeze because of understanding germs can be carried in that spray and that could lead to them being sick. If it is more than a sneeze and is a gut-wrenching cough, people may flee the room because that signals the cause of the cough is more serious than a cold. Effectively a sneeze communicates something, but it is not language. Two different sounds and with possible different meanings but not language. Those sounds are not abstract and language is abstract.

↪Athena Thanks Athena! I am afraid I'm not much of a physicist and photons are a mighty mysterious particle, but below are my thoughts.

I understand that photons are tiny packets of energy that are emitted by energised atoms when an election in a high energy orbit falls back into a normal orbit. This happens during various sorts of reactions (chemical, nuclear, etc).

A photon is a massless particle so is not effected by gravity according to Newton. Einstein's work however indicates that gravity is actually due to distortions in spacetime and as such photons are effected by gravity as well. This is why a black hole is possible, the curvature of spacetime is so extreme that not even photons can escape. But under less extreme scenarios, photons appear to be unaffected by gravity and travel in straight lines.

Photons are strange because they travel at the speed of light because they have no mass and so do not experience the passage of time. They also experience another relativistic effect call length contraction - at the speed of light distances are compressed down to zero. Photons appear to have motion from our perspective but if it were possible to see things from a photon's perspective, it might seem as if it can travel anywhere in the universe in no time whilst covering no distance.

The prime mover argument is all about massive objects so how do photons fit in? Well they do have some momentum so they can interact with massive objects to cause their motion. And their production is caused some sort of reaction involving matter. Einstein says E=mc^2 so energy is equivalent to matter, so maybe we could think of the prime mover argument as being about matter and energy rather than just matter only and being about momentum rather than movement.

So maybe the prime mover argument could be restated so as to include photons:

We look around us, we see matter/energy with momentum, but matter/energy must have a source of its momentum and the source must itself have another source of its momentum. But these chains of sources cannot proceed out to infinity else there would be no first/ultimate source of momentum in the universe and all would be still, so there must be a prime momentum that is the ultimate cause of all momentum in the universe.

The Big Bang obviously is a candidate for this ‘prime momentum’. — Devans99

:nerd: I think actually understood most of what you said. However, as we experience three-dimensional reality, comprehending "Photons are strange because they travel at the speed of light because they have no mass and so do not experience the passage of time. They also experience another relativistic effect call length contraction - at the speed of light distances are compressed down to zero. Photons appear to have motion from our perspective but if it were possible to see things from a photon's perspective, it might seem as if it can travel anywhere in the universe in no time whilst covering no distance." seems impossible.

How can it travel and be here and there at the same time? I know you explained that but my brain is being very stubborn and says "don't go there, because if you grasp that explanation you will be insane". :lol: It might feel a whole lot safer to understand it through math, but I have not developed the ability to do that. How is it known that a photon "experiences the effect call length contraction"? Yeah, perhaps knowing how scientists come up with that notion, will help me comprehend it? Grasping "at the speed of light distances are compressed down to zero" is not comprehensible to me. :chin: Zero is before the big bang? Oh my, back to the question of prime mover. :worry: If the prime mover ran out of energy it would slow down and everywhere there was nothing, everywhere there would be something.

Language is anything that vocalizes information. — ovdtogt

Okay, how do you figure that?

Yes crying is a form of communication and may be considered a primitive language. — ovdtogt

Why do you insist on calling crying language? Language is the talk that goes on in our heads, and without it, we could not organize ourselves in such a way to have civilizations and develop technology. Language is abstract. That is, language expresses a quality apart from an object and that is what makes man godlike. Animals are not going to discuss how to build a bridge or why we should love our neighbors and have laws. Animals react to the world around them as a matter of instinct. It is totally reactionary, not a matter of reasoning. The Athenians focused on our ability to reason making as the gods. Without language, there can not be knowledge passed on from generation to generation so there is no way to build on what is known to new knowledge.

Our language is what separates us from God. — ovdtogt

Yes, I said it wrong and thank you for saying it right.

That is what language is. Communication.

The problem I encounter on this forum is the lack of basic knowledge concerning, history, biology and physics and chemistry. — ovdtogt

No, language is using words and understanding concepts. Crying babies are communicating but they are not using language and they have not learned concepts, such as an encyclopedia is a set of books that contains knowledge of many things. In fact, there is much young children can not learn until their brains are more mature. Unfortunately by then, their hormones turn on and they may get so focused on their feelings they have a near-zero interest in learning any of the subjects you listed. Trying to get a child from a baby to a well-informated adult is full of challenges. Getting them past the "know it all, I don't need you stage" is unpleasant for everyone. The words, "a baby will change your life", do not convey the necessary meaning to young people with raging hormones.

What does a basic understanding of history and biology mean to you? How much do you know of how our brains work and do you consider that to be biology?

To clarify, language is what goes on in our heads and what is going on in our heads is different from what goes on the heads of animals and small children. A preverbal child can be traumatized and experience post-trauma syndrome, without having the words to understand the event and emotions experienced.

So why do many philosophers then go and say things like, "Truth is a condition of knowledge"? — Harry Hindu

Because knowing truth requires not only the language that makes us aware of concepts, but also knowing the laws of nature. We could not know many of the laws of nature before we had the technology to see far away, such as other planets, or see things invisible to the naked eye, such as bacteria. We could not know what we know today without the highly developed math we now use. Does that make sense?

Our knowledge is not a revealed knowledge like the Bible, but is the result of developed math, concepts (language) and technology. Because we can not unknow what we know, we can not experience the consciousness of primitive people, or early city people, or the middle ages. Human thought is forever changed by what we know and can not unknow.

Not even the most religious folks rely on witch doctors and we don't stand around sick people to see if demons come out of them. Those who have knowledge of modern medicine rely on doctors, drugs, surgeries. Praying helps but unless you are Christian Science, you will take a child to a medical doctor and thank goodness we have stopped beating the devil out of our children and torturing women to prove they are witches. We greatly increased our life expectancy when we accepted cleanliness and sanitation are important, and when with knowledge. And when we could grow more food and have full bellies year around, God went for a fearsome, punishing God to a loving God. If we think of holy books as abstract ideas instead of concrete truths, they are not so bad. But to do that we need to learn higher-order thinking skills.

Does that explain why it is said "Truth is a condition of knowledge", or was I just annoying with my babbling?

You know absolutely nothing about biology do you? — ovdtogt

Hum, before I react to what you said I should ask, was it your intention to be witty, disrespectful, or humorous? :brow:

Researchers say that animals, non-humans, do not have a true language like humans. However they do communicate with each other through sounds and gestures. Animals have a number of in-born qualities they use to signal their feelings, but these are not like the formed words we see in the human language.Apr 20, 2012
Do Animals Have a Language? - Voxy
https://voxy.com › blog › 2012/04 › do-animals-have-a-language — Voxy

I make this argument because I think it is important that we understand our language is a different thinking skill requiring the connectivity of several brain centers. Other animals do not have these brain connections. Perhaps we should not speak of the importance of language without also speaking of how our brains work?

It is amazing what a stroke can do to a person's ability to use language depending on which area of the brain is damaged. A person may have plenty of words, but not understand the meaning of them. Or common to us older folks is knowing the meaning of what we want to say, but not having the word for it. A person with a stroke may be able to understand the spoken word but not the written word or visa versa.

An organic brain disorder such as Down Syndrome or brain damage can effect our experience of life in many different ways. https://www.brainline.org/article/lost-found-what-brain-injury-survivors-want-you-know.

Your subject is fascinating and let me begin by saying I know almost nothing about it. So out of my ignorance, I must ask why a photon appears to have movement? This is not orbiting around something but a line of motion. Where does it come from and where is it going? Why is it moving if it is not orbiting because of gravity?

Is knowledge an infinite regress of aboutness? Or is knowledge some kind of set of rules for interpreting sensory impressions? — Harry Hindu

Interesting, your question involves the phenomena of language. We might consider there is knowing without words. The whole animal kingdom has knowing without words (set of rules for interpreting). We also have knowing without words. Our words (set of rules for interpreting) separate us from our experience and interfere with our knowing.

Try this- you are naked except for some skins and you are crossing a mountain into unknown territory. You have few words for what is around you. What do you know? One reason the Sumerians could not advance is they didn't have a language for categorizing things. That is, they didn't have a word for bushes that made them distinctly different from trees, nor the word "trees" that made all things with the characteristics of a tree and tree. At this level of development, the thing is not separate from the spirit. We return to, out of the one came the many. All things come out of Brahma and are Brahma. Without our language, we are not separated from God. We have knowing but not the set of rules for interpreting.

These are patriarchal concepts and totally false. Modern biology has already shown that men are made out of woman. Prior to sexual reproduction you had non-sexual reproduction. Life created life without sexual intervention. The male was created out of the non-sexual organism for the purposes of sexual reproduction. — ovdtogt

:lol: :rofl: :lol: No shit, men and even Jesus come out of a woman? Oh gross! I guess the truth can be pretty ugly. That is pretty scary. It might also mean we are mortal and that puts the t in moral.

Knowledge is memory based on experience. From it we derive our own opinions on it and interpret it in different ways. Therefor the same knowledge can lead to different conclusions by different people.

Knowledge is a tool we use to measure our surroundings in order to better our manner of operating in life and on earth. — Seagully

Wow, I didn't see your post before I posted. What you said is beautiful (truth).

One of the philosophers said something about using measurements to help us be sure we are talking about the same thing with the same understanding of it. I forget which one.

However, as you said, although we may share knowledge of the same facts, the meaning of those facts can be totally different. We may agree the unemployment rate is over 7% but what that means is very different from those who are unemployed and those who have financial security? Some times what is good for the economy is not at all good for those living below the poverty line. If we are right or left kind of depends on our personal experiences. Our knowledge is different and both sides know the truth.

Excuse me but I want to back up to what ovdtogt said about drugs changing our consciousness and what I said about knowledge requiring experience, and the difference between how primitive people experienced life and how we experience life being entirely difference knowledge. I really want to make the point that knowing facts is totally different from knowing the meaning of those facts.

When I was coming of age the book "Black Like Me" was written by a White man.

Black Like Me, first published in 1961, is a nonfiction book by white journalist John Howard Griffin recounting his journey in the Deep South of the United States, at a time when African-Americans lived under racial segregation. Griffin was a native of Mansfield, Texas, who had his skin temporarily darkened to pass as a black man. He traveled for six weeks throughout the racially segregated states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, and Georgia to explore life from the other side of the color line. Sepia Magazine financed the project in exchange for the right to print the account first as a series of articles. — Wikapedia

Do you think you have knowledge of being a Black person or being a White person, or native American, or Asian, male or female? If you lived before civilization do you think you would have the "knowledge" necessary for survival and that your consciousness would be the same as it is today?

Thank you for considering language is important. Who realizes the word "human" means moist soil? We call ourselves humans because of the Sumerian and then the God of Abraham religions that tell us a god made us of mud. I wish people would pay attention to the fact in the Sumerian story, it was a goddess, one of many, who made a man and a woman of mud and breathed life into them. Might that be culturally different from a male god, the only god, making a man of mud and the woman from his rib? I am asking everyone not to think of the stories so much but to think about what they think and what is behind their thinking.

Our culture and words are rooted in a religion that promotes equality and war. How much of our "knowledge" is based on religious mythology? Up to this point in time, how much of philosophy comes from the consciousness of women? Might things have been different if we didn't have the God of Abraham religions and only a male voice until the present? Could what we believe of human nature and the reality of war be different if we held a different "knowledge"?

I wasn't aware that the goal was to come up with beautiful ideas (which is subjective). I was trying to come up with useful ideas. IMO, useful ideas are beautiful ideas. The theory of evolution by natural selection is a beautiful idea because it solves the dualistic dichotomy of man vs nature by making man part of nature. — Harry Hindu

Oh no, beauty is not just subjective but has a mathematical component as well. We are attracted to symmetry and harmony. That is art and music as well as playing a role in the mating game, getting a job, or being convicted of a crime or found innocent.

Yes, useful ideas are beautiful for the same reason symmetry and harmony are beautiful. OMG, I am loving this exchange of thought! :heart:

Oh, oh can we say man is a part of nature? :wink: The concept of us being part of nature, is very important to our liberty and democracy. Knowing there is a mathematical component to beauty and harmony and that our brains are sensitive this may help us be a little reverent about our place in nature and what we believe is the best form of human organization. That is democracy versus the kingdom.

It is more complicated than your science teacher taught the class. Recent DNA studies have revealed some people are YY, some are XXYY, some are XYY and some people are XXXY. Nature gave us more variety than we knew and if we were reverent of nature, the way we judge each other could change.

Personally, I have a big problem with those who believe the Bible is the word of God. I prefer the notion that nature is our source of knowledge and math is the language of God.

Would anyone here argue that math is not very valuable in our quest for knowledge?

I have not experienced drugs beyond sugar, carbs, coffee, and cigarettes, except for some pot and prescribed opioids which I definitely do not like. I don't notice the experience of being in the moment, just the resentment that I am having more trouble thinking than usual. But I am excited by your introduction into the fact that some people are very aware of nature, and that in our past, survival needs made humans very sensitive to what is happening around them. A form of intelligence we loose when we come thinkers, dependent on our knowledge that puts us in our heads and hinders of experience of life.

I have had retarded people in my life who have more of an animal instinct and I have to tell a story to express my appreciation for what they have and my displeasure with how our thinking can make us really stupid.

A friend and I visited someone in a nursing home, and on our way out we were stopped by a gate. It was obvious we were not going to pass that gate without knowing the code to release the lock. That is, that was obvious to me. My friend didn't hesitate to stick his hand through the gate and open it from the outside. I felt really stupid for allowing that gate to stop me, and I wonder about the intelligence of those who thought that gate would prevent a person from leaving.

Is it clear the answer to what is knowledge can be very different and it may have nothing to do with what we learn in school? Knowledge gained through experience is in some ways superior to what we learn from books and in classrooms. In fact, the knowledge we value can make us stupid. I have heard a primitive person will figure out how to create a bridge across the river, but a modern person is less apt to figure out how to build a bridge because we have become so dependent on what is known.

I am loving this sharing of thoughts without judging each other as someone to look up to or look down on. :heart: I think education for technology has brought us to a serious cultural problem of looking up to and down to each other and unpleasant arguments about "the truth".

I find thinking in opposites gives me great clarity in my understanding of things. — ovdtogt

Yes, thinking in opposites gives us clarity. I liked it when males were males and females were females, and what they did in their private lives was private, compare to today when I have to remember which girl wants to male and which male wants to be female, and hey, I want to be 30 years old again and that ain't going to happen in this lifetime. Life can be very confusing without opposites and this old brain is struggling to keep up.

I like the eastern yin and yang and in the I Ching the defines differences of oldest child, the middle child, and youngest child. The same and different.

I have read, the people who think of terms of black and white are less apt to feel crazy than those who are not sure of this division. But I think quantum physics goes beyond this or that, and that Eisenstein just had a hard time accepting the uncertainty factor?

Wow, I like that thought. I love that thought! :heart: What a wonderful way of thinking of baking a cake. I don't think I have ever attempted to think of such things as process. It has always been a matter of reading and mixing the ingredients and rotely following directions but not actually thinking about what is happening. I could be wrong, but I think education for technology is more about rotely following steps than actually thinking what is happening.

I see a problem in our language. Spell check guides me to say "thinking about what is happening". That little word "about" separates me from what is happening. Come to think of it, how much can we know without the language to name the concepts? What does language have to do with knowledge and our sense of reality and being part of the spirit/earth or separate from it?

:lol: Whoo, dude you are way over my head. I don't know if you are agreeing with what I said or disagreeing. This is a wonderful case of knowledge being wasted on the ignorant. :lol: What is knowledge? I don't know. I don't have it.

I speak out of total frustration. I have books on math and quantum physics and read them in a futile effort to understand what is being said. I get some of it, but not well enough to think in the terms of those fields of knowledge. Kind of like diabetes my head isn't sensitive to that insulin. :cry:

Oh yes, thinking of life as process instead of opposites is beautiful.

Interesting statement. That ought to stir some thinking. :up:

Whoo who is "we"? I decidedly do not want to end up in the Christian heaven. I do not want a reality where there are no risks and I have no sense of being needed and affecting the world. Neither heaven or hell is a desirable reality to me. Surely the popularity of gambling seems to disprove what you said about people, not loving uncertainty. Life is hard because no one would want to play the game if it were not challenging.

I am listening to an explanation of what liberty has to do with our progress, and liberty gives everyone the chance to discover things and to be inventive. This is the fun of being human. You appear to be as authoritarian as a Christian. If you were born in the US that is unavoidable because Christianity permeates our cultural understanding of reality. I think life on earth would be better without Christianity.

On my book shelve is a 1930 book titled "Science of Citizens" by Lancelot Hogben. Education for technology is not education for science. It is authoritarian and harmful to our liberty and democracy. Liberal education was education for science when we had a better understanding of what science has to do with good moral judgment and democracy. That is a little more political than the intention of this thread, but it is just wrong to buy into the authoritarian system we put over ourselves when we replaced the education we had with education for technology.

Okay, it appears we have agreement.

May we say our planet is as aminated as primitive people believed? Might it change our concept of reality if we thought everything as of the spirit instead of as matter with no spirit?

Thank goodness, someone who doesn't think we already know everything important, and if someone questions our understanding of reality it is not a sign of being an idiot. I appreciate that so much.

Asking me how I think differently is like asking a person with schizophrenia how s/he thinks differently. The experience of being different is not easy to explain. :lol: How about people have thought I do drugs and I do not, or in forums, people rarely understand my intended meaning. I come to a thought with many different thoughts and I can not understand why others don't get the complexity, while they totally miss what I think is important.

Kind of like you challenging me on the notion that quantum physics is not dualistic. In my mind, it is not dualistic :lol: Nothing is either/or. It is all this and that and that interacting.

Is Quantum Physics the End of Dualism?
by
Thomas Herold
Dualism seems to be the biggest concept in history ever. Quantum Physics may lead us to a new paradigm shift in consciousness.

Our consciousness is programmed with the basic concept of dualism. Either it is this way or it is the other way, either it is good or it is bad. If you think about this you may find hundreds of other examples in your daily life. Wherever you look, look closely and you will find the concept of dualism.

The belief in matter is another big concept science has come up with. In the last century Newton, Kepler and some other persons made sure this concept made it into every school book in the western world.

Both concepts, dualism and matter are living on such a big scale that most people don't even realize that they are concepts.

Is there a Hidden Purpose Behind the Concept of Dualism?
This is more a philosophical question and it may lead to other concepts and not to the truth. So what is the truth? The truth is that every concept leads to an experience and by experiencing it we may fulfill it's purpose. — Thomas Herold

Looks like Plato's perfect forms doesn't it? I thought Plato's perfect forms were just a funky imagination, but now I see, with a different consciousness Plato's perfect forms make sense. When we do not understand something, perhaps we do not come to it with the necessary consciousness?

Those believe they can know absolute truth and absolutely dangerous people.

"Okay I grant you that: To have this discussion, something has to exist. That is an absolute truth. Not that this truth is in any way enlightening and does not require any philosophical insight, just everyday 'common sense'."

So Descartes is sitting in the bar and the bartender asks him if he wants another drink. Descartes says, "I think not." and disappears.