Poor and symplistic analysis based on biases you carry.

There is no Ad Hom. I am quite capable of calling someone a complete cunt and yet taking their argument as an argument detached from said cunt.

Evasion again in response to the first point. People DO NOT derserve either harm nor good. Agree or not? If not why? If you do then why are you focused on harm being deserved rather than good?

I will write something arguing for antinatalism. You will probably be able to follow it but batricks will be left a gibbering wreck I expect … am I being ‘mean’ and causing ‘harm’ by saying so? Who is the judge here? That is the underlying issue.

Anyway, until I write it have fun not having fun or have no fun having fun. Whatever just don’t expect others to sit idle when people are punching themselves in the face and hitting ‘innocent’ bystanders too.

Cake and eat it syndrome.

You speak just as much gibberish.

People do not deserve harm nor good. It is literally that simple. Jumping back and forth between some disembodied ‘ethics’ and then back into human reality as and when suits to avoid any criticism is why people just end up laughing and leaving the discussion because the discussion cannot begin if those posing some idea cannot grasp the most simplistic criticisms throw at their half-baked ideas.

It is WAY more frustrating to see literally dozens of people voice the same criticisms and those criticisms being ignored.

I can argue better for antinatalism than both of you combined. The question is have either yourself or batricks bothered to argue against antinatalism? I doubt it.

That doesn’t follow. If harm is caused by not having children, or being able to have children, then you are wrong. Many would claim that not having children can and is a greater harm than having children.

We could also rightly state that mass euthanasia would prevent all human harm eventually as there would be no more humans left to suffer. It is a bit like preventing someone from being murdered by killing them.

Evil lurks in the guise of ‘just deserts’.

I think this might be a case of ‘let’s stop wasting our time’ :D

Compared to the US the UK had a left-wing government.

Corbin was pretty unrealistic and useless. The only party leader of any worth I have seen in my lifetime was Paddy Ashdown.

The public in the UK will go for labour again, or libs maybe, when there is someone who can stand out. I will give Corbin his dues … he did offer up a clear alternative but it seemed like too much infighting hurt his attempt. If others had supported him and bolstered his ideas with something more solid he may have done a lot better.

At the end of the day people will go for the leader who not only hits home on the policies they care about but also show steely determination in the face of opposition. Boris is still there because he fights on where others with more … integrity … would have resigned.

It is hard to judge with the pressures of social media due to politicians being forced to respond to a rather overly vocal minority on every matter. Paste on top of that the UK press … well, maybe the people who are right for the job are just smart enough not to do it because the risk to reputation and public opinion is too high.

I have always believed that the right person to lead is most often the one who least wants to do it. Once things get desperate they usually have no choice but to stand up and be counted. Until a real crisis hits they will avoid the limelight as much as possible I reckon (whoever they are).

So when someone points out that your use of terms is narrow to the point of being overtly obtuse your response it “I don’t understand”?

You misuse/abuse the term ‘innocent’. To state that innocents do not deserve harm (any harm) is not an argument and it also lacks any depth of meaning.

People do not deserve to live either. So what? See how I use the term ‘deserve’ there?

Mephistopheles would just find another ‘innocent’ group to dupe.

It was badly written because I was half asleep. Still, if you do not see why it is important to show why the innocent should not be harmed it shouldn’t take you much imagination to understand that in a world full of innocent people harm will still occur.

You are not looking at this with any sense of depth it seems.

You may as well ask ‘Does anyone deserve to live?’ … but it not really a solid question because the assumption is that people ‘deserve’ or do not ‘deserve’ something in the first place. It is a common habit of the virtue signalling types to claim that they have an ‘undeserved privilege’ based on their sex, skin tone or perhaps their native tongue … it is taking the term ‘deserve’ and framing it as some technical term where it is actually just a term that can be applied in many ways given on differing situations.

To say that ‘innocent people do not deserve to have harm caused to them’ only makes sense in terms of particular instances involving an ‘innocent bystander’ hit by a car. It makes little to no sense to state they didn’t ‘deserve’ it yet ‘innocent ‘ also crosses into the category of ignorance. Ignorance is not something that can excuse people on one side or another.

In some cultures it may be deemed a threat to life if you wave at someone yet if you walked into the village of people with this cultural signal of ‘threatening death on someone’ by waving to say hello they are innocent if they attack you and you are innocent by being attacked. If both parties are innocent it does not necessarily mean there is ‘no harm caused’.

That is why I asked why you think ‘innocent people’ do not ‘deserve harm’. Generally speaking we all understand what you meant and generally speaking myself and others have tried to point out why your claim is not fully justified because it is parcelling up ‘innocent’ as having a concrete meaning that you insist others adhere to. Hopefully you can see why this is not necessarily the case although in society today it is generally something many people will believe without bothering to question it … just like antinatalists insist what they are saying is something that questions common assumptions.

An innocent person deserves to come to no harm — Bartricks

Why?

I was not spreading misinformation. I used terms and defined them specifically and even just quoted where I did this?

I am extremely open to criticisms and feedback. Trust me there though when I say you have got the wrong end of the stick. I was certainly not backtracking on errors as you put it. I was just telling you that I said I was using the terms as I stated and to then throw that back at me as ‘misinformation’ is disingenuous or misunderstanding - I would usually assume the latter but given that I literally pointed out what exactly I said this may be in vain :D

There is no thesis btw. I was doing precisely what I said I was doing and it would have tied in to the use of the term/concept ‘hammer’ if you had read to the end.

It was part of an attempt to write something within a 2000 word limit but this was a hard task as I could have written practically endlessly. It is far from perfect for sure.

It is a short essay. I defined the terms and how I would use them in the opening section. If you bundle in and argue against how I use them it is useless to read further.

Trust that I mean it when I say:

The difference of ‘perception’ and ‘experience’, in this essay, will be considered thus ... ‘perception’ being the amalgam of sensible ‘experience’, where experiences are ‘after’ sensible input (of content receding into the past and drawn on to form the present context - the ‘perception’). To differentiate with more clarity between ‘perceive’ and ‘experience’ it will serve to view ‘experience’ as that which ‘moves’ back through time; a receding thought. Whilst ‘perceive’ is a reversal fo this; the ‘feedback’ - perceptions brought forward to culminate in the moment alongside, not apart from, ‘experience’. To sum up, Perception ‘drives’ forward and Experience ‘drives’ backward, yet they exist parallel/entwined in the now and are known as one unity pulled in different temporal orientations; attracted as they are toward temporal poles (future and past) yet BOTH in equal possession of said poles. This is akin to the ancient Greek titans, “Prometheus” and “Epimetheus.” The brothers representing ‘foresight’ and ‘hindsight’ respectively; or Perception (perceptive) and Experience (memory). Note: Epimetheus was often depicted as being ‘foolish’. — I like sushi

I have reframe the terms ‘perception’ and ‘experience’ for the purpose of the essay. Do not take it out of context.

No you cannot. You said “nothing but” x, y and z. This is clearly rubbish unless your perspective is that all forces of nature are purely destructive … which would make the term ‘destructive’ pretty redundant if the only thing there is is ‘destruction’.

Do not make false claims and expect people to just accept them blindly.

Waste of time unless you make the effort to present sources that counter your argument. It is not exactly hard to find some source that backs up your claim but it makes for a more honest approach to show you have tried to counter your own position/s and questions them to some degree.

I do not think there is anywhere near enough of this here.

You would first have to back up the claims made (which you cannot).

Basically this OP looks like gibberish because it is gibberish. If you ere just looking to see if someone could point this out I am sure many above already have? I haven’t actually looked but hope I am correct.

Is red more yellow than fish are birds?

Same kind of question really.

Do not get fooled by words. ‘Nothing’ is generally a reference to ‘absence’. There can be many things in a room but once you have removed them there is nothing in the room. The ‘nothing’ exists in context to there being the ‘absence’ where there was once something. This is a concept that is so engrained in our lived experience that we barely give it a second thought.

The concept of a table is almost certainly nothing to an ant. An ant walking across a table is not in any way state or form aware of a ‘table’ it merely walks from one point to another with no conception of the item we call ‘table’ as a surface made for putting things on to keep them off the floor.

There are many useless/empty terms in the English language.

I do not really see why this is a thread. Equally empty and useless? ;)

No one agrees on everything. Whoever is talking about getting rid of metaphysics is essentially talking about doing away with philosophy.

If everything is just physics then it is just physics. Metaphysics originally meant on the fringe of physics I believe. Science is not a doctrine.

By understanding that our understanding is necessarily limited (Kant) we come to understand something. The limitation is what sets the precedent for knowledge.

No metaphysical conception would equate to no knowledge or understanding of anything.

No. Existence is kind of an important concept for conscious beings. We cannot just sweep it under the carpet.

I am thinking how many see these writers, especially Kant, as being outdated philosophers of the past. — Jack Cummins

Right there is a problem. Kant pretty much still holds up to this day with his work COPR. If many of those writers say that I would say they are probably pandering to science rather than making any concerted effort to delineate between philosophy and science.

Basically you are boiling this down to humans having a complex language and other animals not?

I agree. ‘Morality’ is a concept born through complex language. The objective origins of ‘morality’ would be something different from what we general call ‘morality’.

To even begin to address whether animals have some species of ‘morality’ would first require us to outline, on an objective level, what/where morality is and then be able to apply some kind of empirical unit to it that remains constant.

You would like me to have a fetish for guns I imagine. Would make life easier if everything was black and white.

You bore me. Bye

The US is no more violent, has no more mental illnesses, and has no more crime than other developed countries. — Michael

Well … no. When it comes to homocides the US is WAY ahead. I have actually looked at the stats too you know ;)

True, around 80% of those are gun related … would all of those 80% have not found another means to commit murder though? It may well level out at around the same as some European countries. It well not be the case at all that taking guns out of the equation would reduce the homocide rate to something comparable to other western nations.

Clearly more strict regulations in the US are required for gun ownership. Having gun ranges seems okay to me but simply don’t let people take their guns home? The whole thing is completely foreign to me.

Yeah … I did say my point/question was probably not relevant to the title of this thread.

I know all this. That was not my point.

Yes, clearly there is an issue with gun control. I am from a country where I have literally never seen an armed police officer let alone someone else carrying a gun.

US culture is not like other countries. I am just saying there may be a much deeper problem in US society because it is a cultural attitude held, and impressed, by the ruling body.

The US is a strange country.

This is a philosophy forum so it might be worth considering that the US has a different culture to other cultures around the world.

I am being rational. I am stating that removing guns may not really change that people want to kill other en masse in the US. Obviously the ready availability guns eases mass murder BUT it is a symptom of some unstable minds. We can speculate what causes first then maybe dig to the root of the societal unrest that causes many to walk around in fear in the US.

It is interesting to see how people from US react when living in Europe. They feel safe. Is the fear due to guns? Maybe. It would seem to be the most obvious reason people are scared knowing so many people have guns. I am just asking if there is something else being missed.

I’m not from the US and find carrying guns bizarre. I am not interested in your politicking or attempts to paint me whatever colour suits your biases. I don’t care for it in the slightest but go ahead and continue if you want to be met with silence.

This is an assumption that it is THE underlying factor.

Like I said, what if guns were taken out of circulation yet the degree of violence continued with cases of stabbings that effectively made little difference to the kill count?

Maybe it more or less something to do with items like education, wealth disparities and employment. Maybe lack of paid holidays? Extortionate healthcare?

Blanketing the issue with ‘guns’ seems a tad naive to me. I can see it is useful as a device for political haranguing to gain votes though.

Note: I understand the title of the thread is aimed specifically at gun control. My point is why everyone is obsessed with this debate rather than focusing more carefully on what drives someone to kill in the manner they do in the US whilst in other countries this kind of thing is rare.

Maybe threat of violence? Like the ‘nuclear deterrent’ idea … it is a stretch though.

In the US the problem in society seems to run far deeper than people shoot each other because they have access to guns. If the guns were removed would we see more knife crime? If so then the problem is the people and having guns does not make someone kill.

Remove/address what is driving people to commit such insane crimes would be a better path to take rather than blaming guns for violence.

Regarding Quote 02 above, I answer by declaring we humans, unlike the automatons, possess a self who, described functionally, maintains a personal POV of events as reported via the senses & the cogitating mind. — ucarr

That is the problem. Where is the physical evidence for consciousness? What does ‘consciousness’ do? This is in light of understanding that it is perfectly for a philosophical zombie to exist (without disrupting our understanding of nature).

This and what you say after leads directly to Husserl:

How does our scientific process, based mainly within objectivism, render an objective profile of subjectivity? In facing The Hard Problem, have we arrived at the limit of scientific objectivism? — ucarr

.

Generally there are attempts made by cognitive neuroscientists adopting phenomenological approaches (Husserl’s phenomenology). I believe Husserl was on the only rational track but it by no means extinguishes the Hard Problem just frames it in a different light that allows some form of possible approach to aspects within it or related to it.

My personal view is that it is more likely a problem of definitions and/or category errors. Subjectivity can not be ‘given’ to another as someone else cannot be someone different. Piecing together the intersubjectivity does allow us to shed some light but I think it is ridiculous to believe we can ‘know’ in any complete sense and so the Hard Problem is more or less an extension where epistemic questions can play around.

I’ve extended that indefinitely as I regard you as a troll and/or manic.

You will not be getting any responses from me in the immediate future (months+).

There is a difference between something that is naturally implausible and something naturally impossible. The supernatural, by definition, is something that defies the natural order of things.

We can most certainly mistaken something highly implausible for something supernatural. The main difference being when this happens the supernatural dissipates and nature remains as nature.

Beyond the laws of nature and beyond the known laws of nature are two different things. Maybe all supernatural ideas are just natural items yet to be unveiled.

Anyone who thinks Belief is a key part of practiced science is delusional.

The term ‘belief’ can be used in different ways so it is probably worth understanding the different ways in which this word can be used:

- I belief I live on Earth (maybe used in sarcasm or as a pedantic statement to outline the possible limits of sceptical thought).

- I believe intelligent alien beings with thee heads live on The Moon because someone posted a story about this online.

- I believe in god.


These are three very different different uses of the very same word. Conflating the uses of the term is a mistake.

I have heard the silly argument that ‘believing in science’ like believing in a deity. Absolutely not, because when people state they ‘believe in science’ (if they do so with sense) they just mean they understand the practice of science and how and when it can be reasonably applied to help understand and question the world we live in.

There may be a good reason to belief in a god for some people, but it is reason itself that underpins the practice of science as an ever changing and ever developing system that builds upon refuting itself at each turn. This is not to say that scientists cannot be ‘dogmatic’. It makes sense that science has a kind of ‘dogmatic’ feel to it in some ways because when a new idea comes along (ie. General/Special Relativity) the mainstream will brutally attack it putting the onus on the theory to provide a means of supplying evidence to back it up.

Someone sounds like Vicky Pollard.

Masculine traits are not exclusive to males.

In terms of opposite poles over nurturing children can produce highly dysfunctional adults just as much as tyrannical nurturing can.

Toxic behaviour comes from both sexes just as often in my experience. Basing ‘bad behaviour’ on any singular psychological trait is ridiculous too. Masculinity in and of itself is not a bad thing at all the problem arises when there is lack or excess in other areas.

No one can be too masculine or too feminine because in and of themselves there is nothing ‘toxic’ about either.

Psychotic episodes can present in many different forms by way of many different triggers. When it comes to diagnosing someone as bipolar or schizophrenic it is not exactly an easy task because people can, and do, have episodes that look very much like these.

It basically comes down to stressing the body/mind. Alter states of consciousness are trigger by a severe stress - be this culminated over prolonged periods of time (anchorites and such) or brought on by some kind of trauma (strokes and forms of severe psychological stress).

It does not take long to see that every religious prophet was exposed to such stresses.

Anyone answering in such a blase way is missing the point.

Looks like a problem of ‘why’ and ‘how’. Meaning we can fairly confidently state that consciousness has arisen through evolutionary processes of some sort (the ‘why’ of consciousness) but we cannot address the intricacies of the process or get to grips with demarcating what exactly is meant by ‘consciousness’ (the ‘how’ of consciousness).

Chalmers philosophical zombie is one of those hypotheticals that many misrepresent/misinterpret. He merely states that it is not hard to imagine creatures on another world living as we do today and doing what we do yet having no consciousness whatsoever (there are no known rules of physics that state this could not be possible). From there it is then a question of asking what is the difference between us and them.

That is the simplest way I know of that outlines the so-called hard problem of consciousness so tell them that. If it doesn’t interest them it doesn’t interest them. The common entrenched reactions of many in my experience on forums like this is to shout ‘fantasy’ and walk away … let them walk away.

I’d be inclined to say the greatest factor is probably interest. Women, in general, are just not that interested in more abstract realms as much as men. Women tend to go for caring jobs or jobs that involve more social interactions.

The question of why there are more women in mathematics than philosophy may be more or less due to there being concerted efforts to encourage women into mathematics and no effort has been made for philosophy (as it is not exactly as highly regarded as mathematics in the public eye).