You’re muddled too by the looks of it. I am not the one stating that ‘logically’ having children is ‘wrong’/‘bad’. I don’t think anyone is in the position to do so and I deem such acts as inherently ‘wrong’/‘bad’ (which is my opinion).

If you agree that that ethics isn’t purely about logic fine by me. I have no issue. If you start killing people I’ll not be o your side. If you state that having children is ‘bad’/‘wrong’ I won’t agree with just as much force.

You have no ground to talk about what is ‘cruel’ because suffering is clearly necessary in life. Sounds like some people expect fluffy pink clouds and chocolate without the pollution and diabetes. I assume it is coming from someone who lacks life experience.

Please consider that life isn’t binary. It isn’t a judgement against a or b, or joy or suffering. They are NOT isolated from each other. An argument against any ‘suffering’ is an argument against any ‘joy’. True enough we are more keyed into avoiding suffering than not, but we weren’t born with wings yet we’ve managed to overcome that obstacle.

You’re using us for some means here. What is it? To compare your ideas to others, to force them on others or maybe to avoid human relationships? Who knows … maybe you don’t know either as most likely we all go through our lives shrouded in self-deceit just to make it to the next day. The burden of being a human I’d say … not as bad as it sounds ;)

Note: Not having a child may cause millions to suffer. There is nothing logical in stating having a child may cause greater suffering in the world when the opposite is equally as true. I may even have a child with the sole purpose of raising it to perform horrendous crimes, but then they actually make more human lives much better. Passing judgement is silly. If you want to have kids then have kids. I believe some people are better suited as parents than others … but so what? Freedom is necessarily messy as it is beautiful.

You’re strange.

The word choices like ‘playing’ tell me something about you. This isn’t a logical discussion. You have an opinion that, as far as I can see, has little to no weight to it.

The comparison I made was to get the point across that we cannot fear causing ‘suffering’ every step in our lives. Every step in your life will cause ‘suffering’ some where. By this logic killing all humans will end their ‘suffering’ yet you’re not for murder … guess you’d have another name for it instead, maybe ‘avoiding collateral damage’?

There is nothing wrong with wanting to experience the joys of parenthood anymore than there is with not wanting to. I think anyone trying to take a moral high ground on what is ‘better’ is something close to what I would term ‘evil’.

Life without suffering isn’t worth living. You learn that as you mature. I guess some people get carried away with the search for some ‘answer’ or ‘solution’ to life. Again, as you mature you may see past this (I hope so).

I like humanity. I want it to keep going because I believe human life has value, because I make judgements. I’m not particularly compassionate towards nihilists or buddhists (same difference to me).

My questions remains. How is this different from saying ‘Reasons not to cross a road’ ?

They are very weak points. I can think of better points. For example, people who have children generally suffer more stress and have less ‘happiness’. People who don’t have children though don’t have the elated highs of being a parent.

On balance if you really think having children is bad/wrong/not good, then I don’t understand why.

If you cross the road you may get hit by a car … therefore never cross the road. In fact never leave your house just in case.

Is that different to saying don’t have children because they may lead a life of severe suffering. I don’t think so. Yet I leave the house and cross the road (note: the later is actually dangerous where I live).

@Antinatalist I don’t buy any of that. Nor do I find it logically persuasive. Some people REALLY SUFFER therefore having children is bad? That is not even weak, it’s just plain silly.

Note: I’m assuming there is more? If not take the bombast as not bombast :)

These are sufficient arguments not to reproduce, not to create human life in to this world. — Antinatalist

Sorry, I missed the arguments? What argument? Suffering isn’t necessarily ‘negative’ either. It is ephemeral and allows learning. Learning is ‘suffering’ to some degree.

Another point …

A Linkola-spirited argument to this could be: "Only what is can have value. Non-life cannot have value."

A possible response could be: "Maybe so, but similarly only what is can have non-value." — Antinatalist

That is just plain nonsense.

The glaringly obvious point that needs to be addressed is what ‘good’ means and what ‘wrong’ means. Also, what exactly is ‘suffering’ and given that there is an underlying idea that life is only worth living if it is pleasure for the most part seems a bit strange.

Next thing that bothered me is comparing apples with oranges. Saying a statue is like a creating a baby? Is a baby a piece of art now. That just doesn’t work. Analogies are not particularly helpful here I feel.

Perhaps the main thrust of the problem is actually about ‘meaning’. Does life have meaning? That is, as far as I can tell, a redundant question. Value is an item of a spaciotemporal being. Value is how we navigate the world. The negative aspects of life hit harder than then positive aspects of life because this is how we have evolved to survive. There is no ‘better’ or ‘worse’ in this, it is just how things are.

Note: I don’t really find the political wrangling that involves abortion or euthanasia to be very interesting either (it’s mainly something used by ‘religious’ and ‘non-religious’). Life itself is merely a parcelling of certain aspects of human experience. It is in and of itself a concept that lacks rigorous delineation from its absence. The moral issues surrounding this are always going involve opposing views because we are morally driven creatures. If everyone agreed when and if a human life has value then I’d regard that as the end of humanity (but we wouldn’t know it).

Looks like an interesting read. Will get to it soon I hope …

Yeah, I'm realizing that we can really get side-tracked by hairsplitting comparatively minor issues. Probably I need to ease off the perfectionism a bit and settle more on understanding the whole rather than each individual itty bitty detail. Those can come later with time. — darthbarracuda

This is important for this book. VERY important. Like I said, you’ll find yourself jumping back and forward through the text countless times.

It’s a boom where you’ll constantly find yourself rereading previous sections once the next reveals something. Enjoy :)

Amend above to ‘pure intuitions’.

Walls are walls because of the empty space between them. What’s your point? I can imagine a space that contains no objects.

According Kant space and time are ‘Intuitions’. Think of them as the canvas upon which cognition emerges. His view here is that mentally we ‘know’ (I prefer ‘ken’) only by way of space and time. We cannot imagine without placing something in a spaciotemporal frame.

The use of ‘transcendental’ will become more clear in later sections. He basically argues for and against different elements throughout the book so don’t take any of it as a ‘conclusion’ (so to speak).

@darthbarracuda You can imagine an empty room I’m sure.

Guess I’ll have to for the day when you can. Looks like you have an idea but are under the illusion it can make sense to others.

There is a sciencephilosophy forum where I believe you may find some guidance in terms of expressing whatever it is you’re trying to express.

GL

To describe a shape as a ‘square-circle’ is fine. I’m pretty sure we can all conjure up the image of a square with rounded corners.

Husserl nails this one pretty well I found with ‘parts’ and ‘moments’. Certain phenomenon must meet certain requirements. A sound requires pitch, tone and volume (you cannot image a sound that lacks these), and the same goes for other objects/items.

Personally I’m too fussed about the terms ‘fact’ or ‘existing’ at this level. Those are terms of human negotiation in the sociopolitical realm. I can imagine Pegasus and that is enough. If I asked you to imagine a round ball that was a cup of tea and sounded like a cat in pain but made no sound … you couldn’t. You could still try to, but it is impossible to reconcile the opposing thoughts.

Going back to the hole, ‘volume’ does have meaning independent from ‘tone’ and a ‘hole’ does have meaning independent from an object (hole in some ‘object’).

Going back to antonyms I found it interesting to ask what the opposites are for such things as ‘tone,’ ‘volume’ or ‘shape’. You’ll find there are none.

It might help to refer to the issue of ‘hole’ as a ‘part’ of something. A ‘hole’ in something (be it ground, wall or whatever). We cannot say ‘there is a hole in that hole’. Generally we don’t notice these things in day-to-day speech because we don’t say such things.

In terms of phenomenon the Dawn Star and Evening Star are different events. Just like a baby isn’t an adult and dawn isn’t dusk. The so-called object of two different events yield different facts.

‘The king is dead! Long live the king!’ Would be another instance of how separate objective events can occupy the same space in speech.

The epistemological investigation into these things is necessarily correlated to any ontological issues. In terms of antonyms I would say ontology is opposite to epistemology. The human tendency to simplify into either/or categories is undoubtedly useful, but it certainly isn’t accurate. It is necessary to regard items as opposed for a ‘fact’ to exist.

The issue is then what is meant by ‘fact,’ ‘truth’ and/or ‘existing’/‘being’ and/or ‘reality’. Most of these things carry subtly different meanings within and between different fields of investigation.

Note:

I think, that the issue is one of anthropomorphic perception or understanding. I mention that Hesperus and Phosphorus are the same entity by investigating into the direct referent of the object in question. This seems to me to be an investigational issue about the source origin of the name for Venus at dawn and twilight. — Shawn

What is the difference between ‘perception’ and ‘understanding’ or was that a gist sentence? Plus, you previously said the ‘psychological’ wasn’t where you wanted to go, so why use the term ‘anthropomorphic’? The term generally means to imbue ‘artefacts’ (events, animals or objects) with human characteristics - to assume Monday is felling happy when everyone is happy on Monday and such things.

If you mean we experience things as humans … well, yeah! If you meant that analogies and fables are used often and crossover into what we’d general call more ‘technical fields’ then yeah, I agree. This is a necessity of language evolving and humans playing.

Other deeper questions may arise here as to why we give certain words a certain sibilance. Often the onomatopoeic (the play of mimicking humans are so prone to) has a part here. This can lead to all kinds of cultural adaptations.

Language (spoken) certainly alters perception. I would not refer to language (spoken) as ‘thought’ though. I don’t need words to think, but undoubtedly words allow us to plan and parse up events - effectively ‘see into the future’ - which is a huge boon for social organisation and our perspective on our individual place in the cosmos at large (more referring to Husserl’s point about the human shift from a finite to infinite world).

I don’t think it is really ‘anthropomorphic’ to say something like ‘the Sun rises’ as that is merely an expression of what we see rather than imbuing the Sun with human qualities. It is also a ‘fact’ that it rises and not a ‘fact’ (because the Earth merely rotates - depends on context).

One of the most interesting things I like to look at is how we’ve repurposed and measured ‘events’ into something called ‘time’.

To refer back to Pegasus and Husserl … spot the difference in meaning between these two sentences:

- I can imagine a limbless Pegasus.
- I cannot imagine a Pegasus without limbs.

These are on the surface contrary. Technically speaking what I am saying by ‘without limbs’ here is that I cannot ‘unknow’ an animal that has limbs and then except them that way. Pegasus is a flying horse, a horse has legs, and if I saw a horse without legs I would notice it didn’t have legs or assume they were hidden from sight because horses have legs.

Does that make sense?

Doesn’t interest me. Sorry

@Shawn

My question would now be how do we say something is a fact and does fact mean? There are numerous issues with colloquial language. For example we can say ‘the door is half open’ which would frame ‘open’ and ‘closed’ as Gradable antonyms even though they are generally considered as Complimentary.

In terms of ‘existing’ if an item can be imagined then it’s semblance can come into being. I can design/imagine a building, or a creature, and it can then potentially be constructed.

The best example of how we shift our perspectives is the age old Theseus’s Ship. These are tricks of language - or rather habits of language - that tend to confuse experiential input.

That would be anthropomorphism of words. The term ‘cold’ has no personal requirements.

The three types of antonyms: https://medium.com/@hdi.prateek/what-are-the-different-types-of-antonyms-in-english-language-3a19db18504a

Anthropomorphism is basically a psychological point. You used the term in a context I’ve never seen before.

Have you looked into the linguistic uses of the various antonyms at all? I wasn’t describing anything as a ‘relational pair,’ but some could argue that in part all ‘items’ must be relational pairs to some degree maybe?

Just in case you’ve not looked at this before examples of different antonyms would be ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ which are ‘gradable’ whereas another ‘set’ of antonyms would be those that require the opposite, ie. a ‘husband’ must have a ‘wife,’ and another being ‘open’ and ‘closed’ where the absence of one is required for the other (that is more or less where the ‘hole’ comes into play).

Is any of this getting at what your interest is? Anything relevant?

I’m still unsure what you’re saying, looking at. I’ll sleep on it.

Thanks

Wikipedia seems like just an extension of one's self for some nowadays, as does Google. — Shawn

In an empty way it probably appears that way to some. Kind of reminds me about how I show students they don’t really know how to read. They just ‘read words’ and think ‘now I know that,’ but usually they can barely explain/repeat anything they’ve just read.

The leap from oral tradition, to writing, to audio/video has surely left an imprint on pedagogical approaches that are almost impossible to reverse. ‘Remembering stuff’ as opposed to ‘understanding stuff’ seems to be how modern education has gone (‘modern’ meaning over the past few centuries).

As an example, if someone wishes to call a ‘hole’ parasitic I can get onboard with that. The issue remains the dividing line between ‘parasitic’ and ‘non-parasitic’.

I’ve had a long obsession with the various types of antonyms and how people disagree about what is or isn’t a ‘relational pair’ or what is or isn’t a ‘gradable antonym’. What seems to be underlying the discussion is exactly this problem right?

What I mean by anthropomorphic understanding is to an extent the realm of intersubjective or subjective thought. — Shawn

As in ‘interactions’ where humans imbue ‘objects’/‘items’ with characteristics - or rather as extensions of themselves in some way?

Also, the ‘at best confined to discussions’ comes after the lived experience without any ‘discussion’. For that reason ‘discussions’ about things doesn’t seem to take president over experiencing them. Maybe you’re mean something different and/or only want to jump to how we talk about such things more than dig too far back into the visceral experience?

I believe we’re trying to understand what each other is saying. Once that is resolved, to a good enough degree, I believe we’ll then maybe help each other.

Now, with the thought that as humans we are at best confined to epistemological discussions about holes, or Pegasus, or, Santa, I think that at best we ought to start with an investigation into knowledge about entities and their relations with other things, to reach a shared conclusions about their nature or even existence, and if one continues this process as an investigation, one might be able to even entertain some facts about these entities like "holes" or "Hesperus" and "Phosphorus"? — Shawn

Also, where’s the justification for this approach? I’m suggesting one is required but I’d like to know if you have a reason and whether or not you can parse it.

Thanks

My point with bringing this up is namely, that anthropomorphic understanding, made through epistemic truths about them are most accurate in understanding (not necessarily scientifically on face value). — Shawn

You’ll have to explain this too (bold), and how it relates to the topic.

This might continue, but it’s necessary for me. I’ll add what I can too in order to clarify what is under scrutiny.

So, with that in mind, what's wrong with asking if some ontological entity obtains as a fact, in resolving how it obtains as one of factual or some intersubjective sort? — Shawn

Care to rephrase? This subject matter interests me but haven’t really seen the point of this thread yet.
Note: I would class ALL objective knowledge as ‘strong intersubjectivity’ because I’m only going to accept certainty as an item existing in set boundaries with established rules.

The end of ends. Fear of finality is probably a worthy fear … if you believe in finality.

I think it would probably help to assess biology and related terms like ‘law’ and ‘ethics’.

The underlying principle is our biological make up. For that reason it seems an error to assume subjective begets subjective and objective begets objective. Your question is more epistemic than ethic as it deals with abstract ideals in the form of ‘objectivity’ & ‘subjectivity’.

My skull is my Vat. The ‘computer’ is a rather primitive organic sensory system with limited capacity.

It depends on the context and what exactly you mean by ‘morality’.

Generally speaking I’m inclined to answer ‘Yes’ to all three. A more specific question might help more, or maybe this is exactly the kind of response you wanted?

How would you know if you’re too lazy to read/weak to put in the effort and read books? How would those who only read and interpret written works know if they’re too lazy/weak to think first before studying?

At least scholars of philosophy offer up better mediums through which true thinkers can access and assess what groundwork others have laid down over millennia.

Note: Personally I think getting deep into philosophical study is likely to form early bias for youthful students (ie. practically anyone under 30) because most people that young are hardly likely to know anything much due to lack of experience. The boon of youth is naivety. Raw curiosity and intrigue are better earlier on than filling your head with the thoughts of others and calling them your own.

CRISPR - Wait a few decades and it will be perfectly possible to switch back and forth easily enough AND produce eggs/sperm.

Either way if woman becomes a man they are still a woman who has become a man. Actions cannot erase the history/experience.

@TheMadFool I’m not inclined to agree that there are different ‘kinds of sex’ as you said above. Neither am I inclined to use other derivatives of terms that are generally created to by someone to make a name for themselves in a certain field of interest. They should either create a completely new term or think carefully about how using the same term in a different manner could muddy the waters and accomplish little more than academic confusion and/or create misunderstanding in the public sphere at large.

That said, there are grey areas and that’s fine. As mentioned above it is more than possible in the not too distant future that people will be able to fully change from one sex to another, and I’m sure some will abscond and turn to surgery instead for various personal reasons.

Defining oneself by any one particular aspect of out being seems a little obsessive to me. Sadly society forces some to have to react against the ‘norm’.

@TheMadFool fairly recently watched Stephen Fry talk to Jordan Peterson about something like this. Fry’s point being that ‘Reason’ can often make one refuse to take the path towards the solution to a problem. What seems like the most irrational approach to a problem will often be ignored even if the results bear fruit.

@Enrique I was referring to your OP. You don’t seemed to be saying anything concrete.

What seems apparent to me, if this is a reflection of posters on this forum, is that many posters on this forum are stringing together words that don’t really say anything of philosophical substance.

Can you reiterate the OP in plain English and/or expand on the terminology used and its context to the heading of ‘Perception vs Reason’ because I’m not convinced you’re using these terms - and others - in any context I’m familiar with.

Thank you

Gobbledegook

Can you rephrase?

A actual link might help?

Freedom requires Responsibility.

Many people want Freedom without the Responsibility it bring. They are immature/naive/inexperienced. Coming to terms with this is a vital step in developing as a human being.