What do you mean by a 'psychological treatment'?
Something like CBT ? — Amity

More old-fashioned. I'm thinking something like an initiation ceremony, or what used to be called a 'happening' in my mis-spent youth. Take the aphorism for example; not an argument, or a definition, or anything familiar to a scholar, but closer to a mantra or a koan; something to fill one's head with to block habitual thoughts.

I could say that the book is visionary, and the secret to the interpretation of dreams is this: Everything in the dream is you.

The difficulty is always the same difficulty; to escape the Christian mindset that infects Christians, atheists, Buddhists, scientists, and Nietzsche fan-boys alike. We always tend to understand the text in terms of our culture, rather than our culture in terms of the text - we are always looking to explain to each other - to understand rather than over-stand.

No one wants to be killed by clowns, but that is what is happening right now, before our very eyes.

A good dog is a safely approachable dog. Un chien méchant is one that attacks strangers; a mad dog attacks everything.

A bad dog is useful as a guard.

One might say, of a human life, that a good life is one that makes its own judgement of itself wholeheartedly and insightfully. A poor life, by contrast, is always occupied with judgement of others.

So, whatever attracted N to personifying Zarathustra wasn't for the sake of championing a competing metaphysic. My reading of the choice is that, despite trying to retrieve a Greek spirit not poisoned by Christianity, N did not think the effort would topple the edifice of Christian Platonism. — Paine

That seems right. Our view of ancient Greece was already infected with the Christianity that overtook the Romans. Freud went back to the Greeks, and claimed not to have read Nietzsche, (but that latter is not really believable). But where Freud was diagnosing the sickness of the Western psyche, Nietzsche was attempting the cure.

To read TSZ seriously is to subject oneself to a psychological treatment, rather than to analyse and consider some philosophical system. The clown destroys the dancer - and Nietzsche made dancing central to life. Musically, think Wagner, the romantic on steroids. Who is the clown? Perhaps the one who mistakes the treatment for a way of life.

Just because 3 is the magic number of religion and psychology, I'll add in Robert Graves (of I, Claudius fame) who came a little later again, and went back even further to a reconstructed Goddess religion, and a matriarchal social psychology. But that is for another thread to look at.

What do you think? — Amity

I really do not know. It seems like a fundamental kind of question though. Zarathustra is a somewhat mythical ancient founder of a religion, into whose mouth Nietzsche is putting these words. On the face of it, there can be no more reason to believe these words than the words of any other religious leader.
Rather less, because they are 'really' Nietzsche's words, and we know he is somewhat a trickster and obscurantist.

In line with Nietzsche's play of opposites, something lost and something found. — Fooloso4

Thanks! This at least makes sense in context; God is dead, but humans are the creators of value, and the creation of values has value. And from that, he can allow himself 'the reevaluation of all values'. And so can we. And the basis on which we are to do that is is that we must ...

Imagine there's no heaven,
It's easy if you try;
No hell below us,
Above us only sky.

The Gospel of John.

So, having established a definite equivocation on the reliability of Zarathustra, my next question is , how can we reevaluate our values? But I think I should not expect an answer yet. My questions may seem premature, but they are only premature if you think they need to be answered immediately, before we confront the text; I propose them rather as ways to approach the text.

And you think that is Nietzsche's message to the world?

What do you think he found up there?

Most people do the best they can for themselves within the rules they live under from time to time. — God

This means, for example, that they will struggle to build their wooden huts on stilts above the flood water in Pakistan, until the flood that washes it all away, and then they will drown. If the government tells them to stay at home for 3 months, or wear a mask, or wear a burkha they will do so, and try to live with that. So there is no problem in banning private transport powered by fossil fuels, and no problem introducing rationing, or enforcing house sharing, or any other necessary measure.

If it were not so, there could be no wars.

Moses descended from the mountain with tablets of stone written by God.
Zarathustra descended from the mountain with nothing, because God is dead.

Do you think that Nietzsche wants us to believe Zarathustra more than Moses?

It's not about occasional passionate exchanges but extended 'vitriol and inflamed tempers' in a political discussion about a serious event or subject. As per the Ukraine Crisis thread. — Amity

Yes, I actually agree with you if you are saying that you would prefer a tighter rein on flaming and ad homs, and the more controversial the topic, the more thorough the editing, rather than the more lax. And I agree that mods should lead by example in the first instance. It's always an ongoing discussion, and one expresses a view, and then gets on with philosophy, or if it is unbearable, takes ones' pearls elsewhere.

Moderation is not a justice system, it's an editorial system

Moderation is bound to be unfair, because no one reads every post on every thread, and the lines between stupidity and malice are impossible to draw. If you stick to obscure topics, you and post infrequently, you can troll the boards for years. Once you get noticed, you start getting watched.

If you are passionate about philosophy, as I hope we all are, then I expect that passion to overflow from time to time and I expect to get moderated; it's not the end of the world. But moderation is not a justice system, it's an editorial system. If Jamal doesn't like daffodils, he's entitled to ban them from his site. So don't mention daffodils Wordsworth's favourite flowers, and roll your eyes in private.

Is 'naive' a term of abuse? Is 'sophisticated'? Where on the spectrum would you like to be seen to be?

Mrs un has a book coming out in a few weeks, and I am so fucking glad to see the back of the to and fro of editorial changes and counter-changes that have been going on seemingly forever. The moderation on this site is really weak and sloppy compared to what a 'proper' publishing outfit does.

What does it mean to give oneself purpose? — TiredThinker

Why do yo ask? Does misery seek company?

isn't "purpose" a bold thing to give to oneself? — TiredThinker

Yes. If you try, you can fail.

But look at your question; it takes a whole life, yours or mine, and abstracts it from anything personal, then reinserts the personal as an arbitrary "purpose", and demands that there should be some "meaning" of this abstract "life" for its impersonal "self". If you spend your life on meaningless questions, your life will indeed have little meaning. Find a more vital question for God's sake. Make that your purpose for a minute.

Not really. Greenhouses basically work by keeping the same air in place and greatly reducing convection cooling. I think that's why the term' greenhouse effect' has lost favour. I think you can get special glass that does work like CO2, but it tends to go into high spec glazing for picky humans, and plants cannot afford it.

I am interested if you can shed any light on your own motivation for rooting out such 'scientific facts' that you clearly have no understanding of, in order to support a contrarian position you are incapable of making a meaningful judgement of? Apart from the hubris of imagining that scientists have no idea what they are doing, such that your 30 second google can put us all straight, there must be some reason why this is your focus rather than building a better mousetrap or whatever.

Some new evidence in this argument, taken from established scientific measurements of heat retention by gases: — god must be atheist

This is evidence only of your ignorance of very basic science. Specific heat is the amount of heat energy required to raise the temperature of a substance, usually measured in units of joules of energy per kilogram per degree centigrade. Thus the lower the specific heat, the higher the temperature that will be achieved by the absorption of a given amount of radiant energy.

But this has exactly nothing to do with the insulating effect of CO2 which rather depends on its transparency to higher frequency radiation and relative opacity to infra red. The suns rays penetrate the atmosphere easily to heat the ground that absorbs them, but the heat is reradiated as infra red which is more absorbed by the CO2 in the atmosphere. Thus the 'greenhouse effect' is more of a 'duvet effect' preventing heat loss.

Think music; think dance. More fleeting than trends on Twitter, yet the meaning persists because it remains in the moment of creation and does not project itself to an after dance or an after song. To think of purpose or meaning for life is to devalue it because it necessarily subordinates it to some other thing. I do not grieve because I am not a million miles wide, nor complain because my life is not a million years long. To do so would be to waste the life that I have. I want to make this post as good as I can, and that will do, until the next post. Right here, right now, is the whole meaning of life, not somewhere else.

it has to be informed by overall goals_ those of becoming free from dependence and achieving fulfilment'. — Jack Cummins

(quoting Giddens)

Hey Jack, those are terrible goals to set, and impossible to achieve. "If you wish to be independent, first create your own universe." - (or was is if you wish to be an apple pie?) I suggest you should turn right around and set your goals in the opposite direction. Maximise your dependencies and aim for void-emptiness instead of fulfilment. A rock is pretty independent and fulfilled, but a human should be vulnerable and sensitive, responsive to every nuance, social and environmental. Relationships are dependencies - of exploitation and/or care. The more one is engaged with the world and others, and the less one is concerned with oneself, the happier and the sadder one will be, and that sensitivity is what it is to be in touch with one's feelings.

What Does it Mean to Find One's 'True' Self?

It means one has lost it.

One loses it early; total dependency is the first relationship, and to the extent that that relationship is insecure, one is forced into the division of not being oneself.

Don't cry. Be good for Mummy. Go to sleep. Eat up. Go to the toilet. Work hard. Do as I say.

Deny your body and your impulses, not because you wish to control them, but because your life depends on meeting your carer's wishes.

What on Earth would you do if you were not doing what you have been told all your life? Who would you be if you were not being good for Mummy? Some outrageous monster, no doubt.

To find one's true self is to confront that monster, and set it free from the prison of the unconscious. It is to face the fear and shame of oneself.

I guess the question is: would artificial intelligence cease if human beings weren't around/were extinct. — Changeling

Is that the question? I wonder: would artificial intelligence be anti-natalist? (or should that be 'anti-manufacturist'?)

It's an abuse of language to even suggest that evolution has purpose or direction
— unenlightened

Why though? — Changeling

Most species that have existed on Earth are extinct. 99% +. If there is an overall direction, it is clearly towards death and extinction.

. — Yohan

Your point is well made and unarguable.

The thesis of the op is arbitrary and without merit. Might as well claim that the purpose of the sun is to shine. It's an abuse of language to even suggest that evolution has purpose or direction.

Still blaming illusions, religion, witchcraft, irrationality, for the problems of science and technology? No, it is not the insane who are destroying the world, but the reasonable, pragmatic, scientific, progressives.

The 'phonocentrism' in the philosophical privileging of phonetic over idiographic scripts (as in Hegel) might be explained in terms of hiding from the implications of the hieroglyphic roots of human cognition. — igjugarjuk

'Might be explained' might be reduced to a one dimensional string. Each atom computed one at a time. And then knitting rebuilds the world as interlocking network - the screen refreshed in the blink of an eye - almost as if more than one thought can be entertained at the same time.

Meanwhile, the world has changed everything, all at once, and I cannot hope to keep up; I can barely walk and chew gum at the same time. That's how single minded I am.

noooooooooooooo! — universeness

That's about right!

You complaining about those who complain is equally tiresome! — universeness

That's why usually when it is the mods I complain about, I do it privately, and when it is other members, I use the report system to complain to the mods. I was an admin at the previous site for some years, and I have about seen all the permutations of overbearing mods and over-sensitive posters. I tried always to be polite in my fascist dictatorship then, but now I can afford to give the inner nagging auntie free rein. It's supposed to be tiresome, and send you to be with no supper.

Yes, that's a really good idea isn't it.

Yes, protest is great. Have your say. That's what the feedback section is for. Use it also maybe occasionally to express support and gratitude; that's what I like to do a bit, when the more tiresome complaints are made.

Mods are not saints, but ordinary people who do a thankless task for no money by way of supporting a site they love. Nobody likes being criticised, and mods have to not only criticise but edit, warn and remove contributors that spoil things for the rest of us. In the end, the quality of the site depends on the contributors, and the contributors that remain are not always in agreement with the mods, but are at least tolerant of them.

To imagine that mods are power mad, or rampantly authoritarian or fascist is par for the course of anyone who becomes subject to their interventions, It not a fantasy to be encouraged, and so such discussions are cut short, for the mental health of us all.

Personally, if I have a concern about a particular mod, or a particular intervention, I raise it with another mod in private and wait patiently for my wisdom to be recognised. This sort of thread is unseemly, unproductive, and lowers the tone of the site. The concerns have already been expressed in the banning thread, and this is now just bitching about people who work for you for nothing, because they sometimes bitch too.

So just stop.

Perhaps it is more accurate to say that our current societal application of the scientific method is, ironically, unscientific. — Tzeentch

I don't think so. Propaganda works. Terrorism works. This is the appliance of science to the mechanisation of humans. If you want to control the temperature, use an air-conditioning unit and a thermostat, if you want to control people, use propaganda and terror.

The problem, is in that conditional "if you want..." - there is no mechanism to control that control mechanism, and it is caught up in its own propaganda and terror.

It goes nicely with my suspicion of those who divide the world into the "habitual liar" and the "rest of us" who "always present our honest judgement". — Isaac

Oh ye of little faith!

Actually, you illustrate the truth of what I am saying, and we can see it happening in society, that there is no trust, no honesty, and no meaning; we are witnessing the collapse of the social world which is the linguistic world. One points it out and is accused of epitomising what one is indicating. :shrugs: and it is a joke: the collapse of society is a joke.

Science can tell you what will happen if you burn fossil fuels, but it cannot tell you how to stop.
Science can help you to build better and destroy better, but it cannot tell you what to build or what to destroy.
Science can increase life expectancy, but not fulfilment.

If you need a tool, science is the best, but if you need a friend, it is worse than useless; science can only tell you how to manipulate people as tools. And anyone can see that friendship is what is needed tomato best use of science for everyone. If we we were friends, we would not be polluting each other's world. One need not reject the great tool that is science, but one needs to learn how to be a friend.

No, this is wrong. — Metaphysician Undercover

It's a meaningful joke. It is a matter of observation that people who keep emphasising the truth of what they are saying are habitual liars. "Wolf - truly, Wolf, I mean it sincerely. Let me be absolutely clear about that." What one ought to understand is the opposite of what is intended.

A "true" statement is one which expresses an honest judgement. So "p is true" means the statement "p" is what the person making that statement honestly believes. — Metaphysician Undercover

But I say, A false statement is one that expresses a dishonest judgement. So "p is true" means that the person making that statement is presenting themselves as making an honest judgement. which only an habitual liar needs to do. The rest of us always present our honest judgement and the truth of it it 'goes without saying'. That is the redundancy of truth (amongst honest speakers).

Sure it is. Whether it does any good aside from passing the time is another matter.

There's no god-given dictionary, and if there were it's certainly not the one you happen to have in your head. They may not be referring to truth in the sense you mean it, but you are not the authority on what the word 'truth' ought to mean. — Isaac

For Ramsey, "p is true" means the same thing as "p". — Banno

For unenlightened, "p is true" means "p is false, but I want you to believe p."

3 years have passed and I am 70, and I am now having difficulty reading small print as well as road signs. It might be because I have neglected my eye yoga, or too much masturbation, but I suspect it is just slow onset rigor-mortis. I have also had to give up roof work and rock climbing because my sense of balance has gone.

. ∀p: Kp — Michael

I'm probably being slow as usual, but can all p be known? I'd have thought only the true ones could.

Do the hijacked scientists actually lie, or do they pick their results carefully, craft their statistics, twist their wording...to support the narrative the commercial interests prefer? — Isaac

They do all that, it is dishonest, and in effect it is lying.

We had the bollocks about the distinction between lying and being 'economical with the truth', and it is bollocks. Honesty is required, and dishonesty undermines society. The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. anything less is corrupting of society.

We have to trust our institutions where we defer to experts whose actual opinion we're not capable of judging. I agree with you about the threat this represents to society. I think the solution, though, is more acknowledgement of uncertainty, more openness about modeling assumptions, more discussion of theory choice (where the evidence underdetermines)...

In other words, less talk of truth and lies. More talk of pragmatism and expediency. — Isaac

Of course, our uncertainty is part of the truth of things. An expert who over sells their confidence is misrepresenting the situation. 'Trust me, I'm a doctor', only works if the doctor is honest about the limits of his expertise. The result of that professions' false projection of infallibility over decades is a distrust of medicine so widespread as to be a health hazard in its own right (eg anti-vaccers).

But no, expediency and pragmatism result in cover-ups and distortions and exaggerations 'for our own good' and they always get exposed eventually and are always corrosive of trust and meaning. We have to trust our institutions and experts, therefore it is essential that they are trustworthy, and that means not pragmatically or expediently truthful but brutally honest and truthful about their own limitations, and about what they do know, all the time, not when it suits.

One should not need to 'talk of truth' - it should be redundant. I am talking of truth here, but I am not advocating talking of truth, I am advocating telling the truth. The more we all tell the truth, the less we need to talk about it.

Whenever one hears, "To be perfectly honest..." or "Frankly speaking ..." or "Let me be absolutely clear...", or "The reality is..." or any such preface, one can be assured that a lie will immediately follow - "and I really mean that sincerely".

I disagree. — Metaphysician Undercover

And I disagree with you. Weather forecasting has become hugely more accurate since the advent of computer modelling, but it hasn't become more scientific, just better informed and capable of faster calculation. Science includes speculation and guesswork in every prediction - the more mature the science, the better the predictions, but perfection - never. The estimation of error is an important aspect of experimental science.

Do you seriously think even remotely close to 50% of scientists could get away with lying about their results? The conspiracy would have to be enormous. — Isaac

No, but what I am saying is that we are seeing science being hijacked by commercial interests to some extent, and by career considerations, and so on, and that fuels conspiracy theories and radical scepticism. There cannot be a complete collapse of faith and a complete collapse of meaning, because the lie loses meaning at the same rate as the truth. But people stop listening - they stop listening to the media, to the government, even to each other. not completely, but more and more - society is collapsing because society runs on trust and trust depends on honesty.

I think it is rather important that philosophers begin to understand this and take account of it in their theories of language, truth, knowledge, and so on. A sort of naive physicalism has taken root that has led to such nonsenses as 'there is no such thing as society' - and a pervasive moral nihilism that the human race may well not survive.

The THC (GCB) will not stop, the principles are simple. The earth's surface is heated unevenly by the sun. The earth spins therefore the Coriolis effect. Warm water will be moved from equator toward the poles, and cold water dropped to the depths, and moved by other forces toward the equator, to replenish surface water moved out from there by the Coriolis effect. The positioning of land masses has the greatest influence over how and where this occurs. Other factors also play a role. — Metaphysician Undercover

Thanks for the references. You own summary above, though, is highly misleading. The principles are not at all simple in their interaction and you have entirely omitted the role of salinity. As I said before, no one is suggesting that all movement of water will stop under any scenario. However, radical changes in circulation can certainly happen due to climate change, that will in turn have a large influence on the climate. Models of complex systems are always simplifications, and always inexact. Like weather forecasts, climate forecasts are subject to error that increases with the timescale. But this does not make them unscientific.

Terrorism is always a political act. Religious organisations always have political aspirations. Thus the target of this attack is not the man himself, but the rest of the world.

One does not look for chapter and verse to justify or condemn the cover-up of paedophiia in the clergy it is obviously expedient to the organisation. The attack on Salman Rushdie is obviously advantageous to the power of any Islamic group. 'Don't mess with us, wimps!'

Incidentally, I make the same argument for direct realism, that deception must always be the exception and not the rule, because if deception were the rule, then the senses would have no value or use to the organism, and like sight in the darkness of a cave, evolution would produce blindness in favour of a more reliable sense. there can be wolves in sheep's clothing, but as a rule it must be sheep in sheep's clothing, otherwise we would call it 'wolves clothing' wouldn't we?