No. It's better to stare blankly than to dumb down mathematics to what can fit in our small pointy heads. You'll be banning irrational numbers next, if you haven't already.

It was probably not intended as a means to divide and keep the working classes conquered, but affirmative action has been quite divisive. — Bitter Crank

Probably not, because Racism is certainly intended to do so, and affirmative action at least seems to be intended to mitigate the effects of racism, and reduce social division.

Most so-called democracies are aristocracies in disguise, and rejecting the principle of noblesse oblige does not constitute a glorious revolution. Let's pretend that there is some principle or virtue at stake though, rather than power politics overriding the justice system in a race for complete moral nihilism masquerading as righteous religion.

Double standards any which way you look at it? — Agent Smith

To an extent, but only to an extent. There are clear differences one can find between the teachings of Jesus as recorded in the bible and other sources such as the Gospel of Thomas, and the doctrines of Popes and moral philosophers; the same goes for all the religions. There is an original transformative insight, and people are attracted to what they see from the outside of that, but they do not themselves have the understanding, and thereafter things become more and more distorted. Rich men like to hear that they can enter heaven with their laden camels, and they will employ a priest who will explain that it is so, and Jesus meant something else.

And of course the fake news merchants of the day will have put their own messages into the mouths of the great and the good as well. One has therefore to look for a consistent message amongst the millennia of distortions and additions. Or start again from scratch to seek an insight of one's own.

What about the zero in a thousand, like most every contributor on TPF , including you and Baden. we should ban all of us :joke: — Merkwurdichliebe

We are the lovely people for whom the intelligent perform - you guys have to have an audience don't you.

Me and my army.

I fail to see the dilemma. — Jackson

The big bang is conceived as being the beginning of space and time, with those two not being distinguishable at first. "Before the beginning of time" is not a phrase that can be given a meaning within the cosmology of big bang theory. There was never a 'before the big bang'. Of course folks come up with new theories and cosmologies on a regular basis, big bounce, etc, but such speculations need to be closely mathematically argued reformulations of the standard model beyond the scope of this forum.

Plus, the answer to the 'what if... question can easily be given, that exactly the world we see must follow from whatever came before.

recall the problem of evil, a thorn in the side of Christianity, an irresolvable inconsistency vis-à-vis an omnibebevolent deity. — Agent Smith

Indeed, as I said already, established religion is always the perversion of spirituality. Jesus spoke of 'the Father', not of 'an omni-benevolent deity', and a glance at the Old Testament does not give the impression of omni-benevolence at all, but more of an arbitrary tyrannical vindictive jealous and cruel god. More like a Roman Emperor than a crucified carpenter. 'God is good' is another justification of the status quo by the powers that be. The ultimate demonstration that God is good is that he has put the white man in charge of the world.

isn't the disruption he might have caused with his hard debating style offset by his very knowledgeable contributions? — Tobias

One cannot know how many contributors have been put off posting by the many gratuitous insults he made. But I know of another intelligent poster who has expressed such a sentiment as I quoted above. How many have read such posts and not even bothered to sign up to the site is anyone's guess. I have avoided him as much as I could, so the world has missed some of my pearls because of his flaming. That's three posters already.

The innocent suffer because to live is to be vulnerable. Life is a losing game - everyone dies. So rather than pretend it is not so, let us use our intelligence and social interdependence to mitigate suffering where we can, by feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, healing the sick, and sharing our common resources wherever there is need and suffering. You never know, your next life might be one of those whose suffering you did, or did not alleviate in this life.

Inasmuch as ye do it unto the least of these my children, ye do it unto me. — Jesus

This is the radical karma of Buddhism, that since the self is an illusion, you yourself are the Buddha and the tyrant and the innocent sufferer, and to alleviate the suffering of another is as commonsensical as for the right hand to bandage a cut on the left hand.

On the old site it was always the hypothetical non-posting reader on behalf of whom moderators were supposed to act.

, it's important because it actually puts other people off contributing. Including me. — coolazice

Exactly! But mods cannot be expected to go through every post of a long term and prolific poster forever; this decision is long overdue, and has been delayed because of the one in six excellent contributions.

censorship? — Monitor

No. Flaming, insult and ridicule is an effective means of censorship as coolazice attests, and its removal is essential to free discussion.

This too is karmic in essence i.e. our wish to put an end to our pain occurs only when/after our karmic IOUs have been paid off. — Agent Smith

Your attachment to the karmic explanation stinks. What is this 'our pain' you speak of? I want my pain to end immediately. You speak of our pain by way of appropriating the pain of others and then use the notion of karma to justify your complacency about it.

Thanks.

Although many Asian concepts of karma are fatalistic, the early Buddhist concept was not fatalistic at all.

This is almost what I was suggesting - that karma functioned already in society to maintain privilege, and early Buddhism attempted to undermine this function. Nevertheless, the old fatalism persisted in the name of Buddhism, just as the Roman Empire persists in the Catholic Church. The usual story of the establishment perverting the spiritual insights of spiritual leaders.

This - our misfortunes are our own doing - doesn't imply that those who're in a tight spot should be left to the mercy of bad karma. — Agent Smith

It justifies it, because it justifies everything, by making justice a property of nature. And that means that any amount of exploitation is justified.The dogma of karma comforts the fortunate and privileged and blames the afflicted and exploited for their misery. It is entirely natural and commonplace for the privileged to come to believe they deserve their privilege, and karma is simply the Indian version of godswill and the white-man's burden. It fits right in with the caste system, and helps to sustain it along with rampant toxic sexism. I am not the expert, but my suspicion is that the doctrine does not come from Buddha himself, but is an accretion that probably predates him. rather like Roman cultural accretions to Christianity unconnected with the reported words or deeds of Jesus.

Whereof there is no representation, thereof there should be no taxation silence.

There is a much darker side to buddhist beliefs many prefer to ignore. — I like sushi

Yes. The idea of karma is rather similar to 'the Secret' and 'the power of positive thinking' in the way it gives comfort to greed and privilege.

Buddhists are generally more peaceful than Christians, Moslems, etc. — Agent Smith

You say peaceful, I say apathetic, complacent, and fatalistic. Not all, but much of Buddhist tradition, like Christian tradition is concerned with maintaining power relations in society. One says you deserve your misery in this life because of your past life and the other that your misery in this life will be rewarded in the next.

I don't see why "p & ~Kp" is unknowable. — Luke

Because knowing it renders it false.

I have the feeling that you will get only one side of the story here. Maybe ask a robot.

In fact from this I'm pretty sure it follows that ∃q(q ∧ ¬Kq) — Michael

Well if I am forced to say that because we are not omniscient, there are things we cannot know, I might be able to live with that, at a pinch.

Wait, it doesn't say that, though, it says there is something we don't know, Sorry, brain overheating and I am confused between unknown and unknowable. Need to lie down in a darkened room.

Right. Epic fail, unenlightened.

3. (p ∧ ¬Kp) — Michael

Can we stick with the umpteenth digit of pi, instead of the names thing?

So my suggestion is that the non-omnicience principle should go something like:

(p or ~p) and ~Kp and ~K~p.

Can you work with that a little and see how it goes? (My formal logic is fifty years faded)

But that's the non-omniscience principle? Without it we must accept that every true proposition is known to be true – which is what Fitch's paradox shows follows from the knowability principle. — Michael

I don't think so. I think the principle needs to be formalised differently, as I indicated.

It's not a contradiction to say "there is intelligent alien life but I don't know that there is." Such a statement is possibly true. — Michael

I think it is a contradiction, because it asserts something and denies that it is known. "Either there is intelligent alien life or there isn't, but I don't know which." -- that makes sense.

There exists some proposition p that is both true and not known to be true — Michael

Yes. I am questioning the legitimacy of that. It seems to be stating a contradiction by asserting p and claiming it to be unknown. If I substitute (p0 or p1 ... or p9) then it is not unknown, but on the contrary that is what is known.

Wouldn't it then just be "it might be known that there are truths that are not known" rather than " It might be known that there is a truth that is not known" ? Is there a salient difference? — Janus

I'm not sure if I'm following you, but I'm seeing a problem with this:

(2) If there is a truth that is not known, then it might be known that there is a truth that is not known
....(sub (1) into KP) — Banno

It seems to me that 'an unknown truth' cannot legitimately be formalised as p but only as (p or ~p) Is that right? does it make sense?

That is to say that I know that there is an umpteenth digit of pi, and can say so, but I cannot say that any particular one of the statements p0 -p9 is true, but only one of all of them. that is what it means for the truth to be unknown.

What do you think about the relation of the self to material possession/property? — Josh Alfred

It started as a convenience, I used to carry my long spear and my flint knife to the hunt and if they were lost I would make another. The trouble started when I fenced off the garden to stop the cows trampling the cauliflowers. I ended up living in my property as if it were my body, possessed by possessions. I think it was fear; thought projected itself to the future without food, and sought security.

I said somewhere else that security negates freedom. Security is walls and locks, and bars and things tied up and hidden away. The sad case today is to see people living in houses they cannot afford to maintain, filled with things they have no use for but cannot rid themselves of, and camping in a corner of this pile of junk struggling to make enough to feed themselves. That is security as neurosis, in need of the decluttering therapist, or a bomb.

Have some beauty, you poor thing.

Just like a Disney movie for children. — Jackson

Yes! Disney films are beautiful so why do you sneer? Do you think it grown up and clever to be miserable and unpleasant? It isn't.

Meaning, purpose and use refer forward. For the religious, life refers forward to an afterlife or an eternal life. But for the irreligious, there is nothing for life to refer or create to that is beyond it that can give it a purpose, use, function, or meaning.

One can only therefore consider it as having decorative value. So try not to put ugly posts here chaps, it lowers the tone, spoils the pattern. We are born and die like flowers, so try to look pretty and smell nice if you can, while you can. Don't expect meaning, but go for beauty.

Logic is really bad at doing time. Truths have to be eternal. That p is an unknown truth is unknowable until p is known, and then it is not an unknown truth. the difficulty arises because knowability implies time.

Suppose p is a sentence that is an unknown truth — Fitch's paradox of knowability

This is the heart of darkness - suppose we know something that we suppose we do not know. "the 79 squillionth decimal iteration of pi is a '2'." Well do we know or don't we? Make up your mind, Fitch. The digit is knowable, but 'that it it 2' is knowable only if it happens to be 2, which we don't know. p0, p1... p9 - one of them is an unknown truth, and the others are unknown falsehoods.

Suppose what you cannot even in principle know... arrive at a paradox... everyone gasps at your cleverness.

Yes, it is silly to deny the body is not you. — Josh Alfred

Too many negatives there, or not enough.

But the way the self functions is much more than an undeniable fact. I am this body and you are that body, and so it is a matter of convenience that you look after that body and I look after this one. But this creates the self in thought. The self in thought makes itself the centre of all thought and becomes an inside that relates to the outside. Or rather it becomes the inside. I am the inside and you are now part of my outside. So now it is not a matter of convenience, but the central fact of life that this is the important body, and that one does not matter so much (to me, at least).

The non-self that is not-you has privileged access X and the non-self that is not-me has privileged access Y, but are otherwise non-self. This difference in access is... That is where I am lost. — Ennui Elucidator

We play peek-a-boo with babies to teach them that people that disappear do not cease to exist, and yet we have the same difficulty understanding that bodies that we do not feel suffer pain and hunger just as significant as this body's. That awareness is empty, means that it is always the same awareness that looks out through a philosopher's eyes, her husband's eyes or her cat's eyes; because the self is a superficial illusion produced by the limitations of the senses, the reality is that there is no 'other'.

Inasmuch as ye do it unto the least of these my children, ye do unto me. — Jesus

I am he as you are he as you are me
And we are all together — The Beatles

I'm just average, common too
I'm just like him, the same as you
I'm everybody's brother and son
I ain't different than anyone
It ain't no use a-talking to me
It's just the same as talking to you — bobDylan

The thing is though, if this is just a theory I sort of understand from the outside as it were, it seems complicated, extravagant, and in the end unimportant. It is only if it explodes and replaces my whole identification as the wonderful chap that posts interesting stuff on philosophy forums and grows peas and beetroot in his garden: then it transforms, because death becomes seen as a very minor affair - this body dies, but all my other bodies continue and reproduce and die in turn, and all the world's suffering and all its joy and beauty are mine forever. One eye closes and another eye opens.

We the Philosophers of pf, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity ... do establish a forever war against @Streetlight and @Isaac, in order that they might put aside their differences to unite against us.

You gotta love the " secure the Blessings of Liberty" bit. 'Catching running water in a bucket' comes to mind.

Them? I've tried talking to them...

Once upon a time there was peace.

The tools of security are weapons, restraints, and surveillance. They are designed for the denial of freedom. Security consists in the limitation of freedom. Freedom consists in the limitation of security. The tools of freedom are good education and mental and physical health.

Thus a war of liberation is a rare and fabulous beast. If there is anywhere one might justifiably pursue a war of liberation, I suggest N. Korea would be the place. And saying that is an indication of how costly, onerous, and precarious a war of liberation would be, if any country had the selflessness and moral fibre to make such an undertaking.

In practice, wars always emerge from simple fact that our security is incompatible with their freedom, and vice versa; winners gain in security, and losers lose freedom.
"Us" and "them" are also fabulous beasts created by propaganda working on fear. Fear of the other's freedom feeds the need for security. The other is different, unreasonable, vicious, immoral, unscrupulous, duplicitous, and above all dangerous. We are the opposite. As soon as we are united in our virtue, we are ready for war.

the violence you perform on others will be done to you. — Jackson

How does this work for multiple murderers, for example? On the face of it, there is bound to be a discrepancy. You know, you drop a bomb on Hiroshima, and have to die a few thousand deaths...

How about: There's nothing wrong with taking side, and nothing wrong with not taking side? Live and let live. — Olivier5

I think you must mean 'live and let die.' And I'll leave you to spot what's wrong with that.

You really love to fight, don't you. You see fight everywhere. It is rather amusing, that I cannot disagree with your claim that I am aggressive without appearing aggressive to you. This is actually your confusion, not mine. And I'll have to leave you to it.

Your neutrality is totally fake, inasmuch as you condemn people taking side, and that is in itself a form of taking side. — Olivier5

Which side am I on? (hint: there is no such thing as an army of pacifists)

Folks make analogies with WW2 and the fight against fascism. But to me it is a false analogy. Both in the trench war and artillery attrition, and in the causes and leadership, this is a reprise of WW1. Clowns for leaders, bankrupt ideologies for causes, and no possible positive result for anyone. Putting the kibosh on the Kaiser is well worth being blown to pieces in the mud for. Not.

It's not a fight about freedom, but a fight about security; a fight amongst bullies for domination.

I didn't say I was comfortable with war, but with making a moral distinction between an aggressor and his victim. That much should be obvious. — Olivier5

You said it in response to my post not particularly addressed to you, pointing out that to make that distinction was to enter the war. which you did not argue against or contradict. You have joined the war, you complain at being badly treated, and you are comfortable with that. Your comfort is no comfort to me.

I'm personally quite comfortable with taking side, in this case and in many others where there's a clear aggressor. There's no moral symmetry that I can see here. — Olivier5

The symmetry is between the way you see it and the way your opponents see it. But to be comfortable with war is assuredly to be a good long way from it. One may have to choose a side, one may have to fight, but to find it comfortable is unconscionable.

No one can have a fight on their own. It takes two. Assigning blame is taking sides.