Only killers should wear a gun. Unless it is one of those Swiss army guns that also opens cans and gets stones out of horses' hooves.

I recently saw a flyer for a campaign "Against the Sexualisation of Children". In my innocence I assumed this was about media exploitation of children, gendered toys, sexualised clothes for children, child marriage, that sort of thing. But no, it was a campaign against the sexual education of children.

To me this is rather like campaigning against teaching children how to cross the road on the grounds that it will endanger them. This would be fine if roads were hidden away underground and children never encountered them, but whatever dangers are in their environment, children need to be educated to cope with.

Folks are always banging on about the suppression of free speech. There ought to be a law against it.

Rarely mentioned these days are the traditional justifications : truth, the public interest, and so on. Rather there is a blanket demand that lies and bullshit should have equal status for no reason except that it is sometimes hard to discern truth from falsehood.

But it becomes apparent that when they do have equal status, communication breaks down, and the resulting isolation produces madness and folly on an industrial scale.

Yes, that's better than I imagined. I was thinking their was merit to challenging itself validity, but I wasn't sure how to demonstrate it properly. Well done. — Cheshire

Perhaps Kant has it the wrong way around: perhaps my knowledge/perception is the thing in myself, and and the object thereof is the thing outside myself. As if I contain a map, but the territory contains me. How's that for a radical philosophy? :cool:

that we can only know things as they appear to us. — Wayfarer

This may appear to be the case, but our knowing in itself may be quite different from our knowing as it appears to us..

I think so. The nature of psyche is that one experiences an experiencer experiencing - I would not call it a regression exactly, but a circle such that thereafter one repeats and can simply say etc. Hence the eternal trinity of psychological theory - I am divided, and in so saying, I divide myself from the divided self, but in saying that, I am merely repeating the division, so three is always 'enough' of an explanation.

I already have esoteric experience of the unthinkable dimensions of reality that are eternal, so anyone who disagrees with me is deluded. But I don't get banned because at least I speak the same language as you peasants while I make stuff up..

Dasein is the thing outside itself.

A bit o' history, if you like.

https://www.redpepper.org.uk/afghanistan-a-brief-history/?fbclid=IwAR3zIKDShvh2XTt6kk55QxUAeO_MQAzZCn9myIxC1_Yyp63z1LTAYAxNC2A

I use the term "Delusional" to suggest that the thoughts or words being fed via one's I-MIND to the Left-Hemisphere of the brain are created, thus not Real in an absolute sense. Peace — 1 Brother James

I didn't ask you how you used the term, I asked you if there was non-delusional thinking in words. I see you have a deal of idiosyncratic usages, and so I am concerned with their structural relations as a path to understanding you a little.

the MIND feeds Delusional Thinking to the Left-Hemisphere of the brain, in the form of words and thoughts, which the brain then thinks is its own thinking. — 1 Brother James

Is there thinking in words that is not delusional? The thoughts you express, for instance?

That really depends on your definition of god. — Hermeticus

Def: God - that to which one devotes one's life.

There are those who worship loneliness, I’m not one of them. In this age of fibreglass I’m searching for a gem. The crystal ball upon the wall hasn’t shown me nothing yet; I’ve paid the price of solitude, but at least I’m out of debt. — Bob Dylan, Dirge.

Have you ever come across those miserable children who blame their parents whenever they have to walk, or struggle to do something, or fall over, or fail to get everything they imagine they want and deserve immediately and without effort?

A benevolent parent does not spoil their child, does not wrap them in cotton-wool but pushes them towards independence and responsibility.

And didn't Lewis Carroll make maths and logic entertaining? — Fine Doubter

If you want entertaining logic, Raymond Smullyan is hard to beat.

Here's one to whet your appetite: http://www.logic-books.info/sites/default/files/lady-or-the-tiger-and-other-logic-puzzles.pdf

Following the fucking science, my arse... — Isaac

That's exactly the problem isn't it? The science fails to prioritise my arse in line with its value to me. Overall, nobody's safe until we're all safe, but in the meantime, Johnny Foreigner has a variant and I need a booster to go on holiday.

So, no change in the political climate at least.

Arguing about whose political system is more responsible, and what it should be called, and not even addressing the issue is a very clear demonstration of how all your politics have failed and all your philosophies likewise.

It's also about why we choose to say things this way, and, for that reason I'd like to highlight the pragmatic use of language when speaking about the topic, which I bolded in the OP. — Shawn

If you choose to be consistent, you would have to say that choosing and pragmatism and highlighting and posting on philosophy forums are also just neurotransmitters and chemicals in da brain.

Moods and emotions are always being negated and opposed to 'rationality'. It is why depression and self-harm are major symptoms of modern Western culture. No one says that rationality is just neurotransmitters. So I reject your so-called 'pragmatism' on the basis that moods are the source of meaning. nothing means anything without the feeling response that is sometimes called 'mood', and sometimes (by me), 'giving a fuck'.

"why we choose to say things this way"

The inanimate world 'does not care' which means 'is unaffected by' how we feel about it, and when our talk is similarly 'disaffected' or 'dispassionate', we find that it more closely models this world. This is called 'Science', aka 'Rationality'. And for the manipulation of dead matter it is simply the best. And of course it is a simple inductive extension to presume that what works for the inanimate will work for the animate. But it neglects the simple fact that 'giving a fuck' is what distinguishes the living from the non-living, from the yeast cell that loves sugar, and is poisoned by the alcohol it excretes in the absence of oxygen, on up to the Crown of Creation. This means that it does not model life so well, because it leaves out of account the 'vital' part.

Isn't it really true that moods and emotions are really mostly neurotransmitters working in the brain? — Shawn

Isn't that question just finger twitches in the vicinity of a keyboard?

Well no it isn't. And moods aren't 'just' neurotransmitters any more than they are 'just' quarks and/or quanta. Reductionism is 'just' shit.

So why the lol?

Did you expect more?

we are not in control. — hope

If I could rephrase that to 'absolute control' or 'total control', then I would agree.
Control requires tolerance. Think of a bicycle - it's unstable the upright position, but can be controlled by moving forward and allowing a small deviation from the straight path to maintain balance. We can control the bike and go where we want approximately. In human relations, one does better not to try and control others too much. Society becomes primitive when the controllers get out of control; control requires restraint; moderators should be moderate.

Cultivate honesty and kindness; weed out hate and greed. The rest is unimportant.

As a rule, @Banno's game goes nowhere, and is unsatisfying, unlike mathematics, and dysfunctional, unlike natural language.

One might therefore suspect that natural language is not entirely rule based or totally arbitrary, but based on ; natural principles - hence the name. At the least that these things are already governed by human needs and purposes that establish -shall we say?- ground rules.

The game presupposes language, and relies on pre-established 'turns'. I think the philosophy of turns has some depth to it and might even be worth a thread of its own.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity. — W. B. Yeats

Turns with no centre to hold them - that is Banno's game. The opposite of the development of the order of language, it illustrates the collapse of language.

:100:

Since we're doing the Chuang Tzu thing here...

A certain carpenter Shih was travelling to the Ch'i State. On reaching Shady Circle, he saw a sacred li tree in the temple to the God of Earth. It was so large that its shade could cover a herd of several thousand cattle. It was a hundred spans in girth, towering up eighty feet over the hilltop, before it branched out. A dozen boats could be cut out of it. Crowds stood gazing at it, but the carpenter took no notice, and went on his way without even casting a look behind. His apprentice however took a good look at it, and when he caught up with his master, said, "Ever since I have handled an adze in your service, I have never seen such a splendid piece of timber. How was it that you, Master, did not care to stop and look at it?"

"Forget about it. It's not worth talking about," replied his master. "It's good for nothing. Made into a boat, it would sink; into a coffin, it would rot; into furniture, it would break easily; into a door, it would sweat; into a pillar, it would be worm-eaten. It is wood of no quality, and of no use. That is why it has attained its present age."

When the carpenter reached home, he dreamt that the spirit of the tree appeared to him in his sleep and spoke to him as follows: "What is it you intend to compare me with? Is it with fine-grained wood? Look at the cherry-apple, the pear, the orange, the pumelo, and other fruit bearers? As soon as their fruit ripens they are stripped and treated with indignity. The great boughs are snapped off, the small ones scattered abroad. Thus do these trees by their own value injure their own lives. They cannot fulfil their allotted span of years, but perish prematurely because they destroy themselves for the (admiration of) the world. Thus it is with all things. Moreover, I tried for a long period to be useless. Many times I was in danger of being cut down, but at length I have succeeded, and so have become exceedingly useful to myself. —

https://uselesstree.typepad.com/useless_tree/2005/07/why_useless_tre.html

Value is not identical with useful. some things, and some people (I count myself as one) are indeed useless and have purely decorative value.

the Buddha, enlightened, gazes at the world around - from treasures of kings to the begging bowls of paupers - and observes that all are valuless/nothing/sunyata. — TheMadFool

I don't think so. The identification of self produces a distortion of values that enlightenment removes. But the extinction of desire does not extinguish values. The Buddha did not sit under his tree until he starved to death; he went about teaching the positive value of meditation and discipline to end suffering.

It is always interesting to see a fresh translation of such Daoist classics. But I don't quite know what I would be voting for - can you explain what 'derivative of orders' means? I would not say that anything at all exists independently, but always things have existence and value in relation to each other.

'Value' is a strange term that slides from the moral, to the personal, to the mathematical. Mathematical evaluation and physical measurement is always a relating of one thing to another - the object to the weight or the ruler or whatever, and what goes there goes also to any human and moral evaluation. But these things are perfectly real and by no means arbitrary. So I am inclined to say that values have just as much or as little existence as anything else.

Slavery has been abolished; you cannot 'have' kids, except the way you have guests, if you are hospitable. Don't expect them to bring a bottle, or thank you when they leave. If you need an argument for hospitality, don't bother, and kids likewise; all the profit has gone out of it these days.

(Over)generalization — 180 Proof

Sure, and it could even be a complete myth, perpetuated by a superficial conformity to stereotype. Maybe women are just a bit more socialised to be sexually repressed.
https://www.livescience.com/46439-trophy-wife-myth-busted.html

Other things being equal, both sexes and variations on the theme, like symmetrical, healthy looking, fertile looking, youngish fit-ish, etc. And those things being equal, both sexes tend to prefer well filled wallets and bank accounts to maxed out credit-cards, and well paid professionals to poor, unskilled and unemployed.

It's a question of priorities though, and it seems that more women find wealth and power more attractive relative to more men finding physical features more attractive. Cue some evolutionary psychobabble...

But, if more than 5 of you happen to choose not throw water on the fire, the 6+ of you can say "watching fires, not extinguishing fires, is my lifestyle choice, so stop being so judgey." — Hanover

It's my lifestyle choice to be judgemental, (so stop being so prescriptive.) especially judgemental of people who don't help out when helping out is easy and important.

And yet you provide no philosophy at all, just a lament your excuses aren't taken seriously. — Hanover

Alas, philosophy provides little protection from viruses.

It is surely the mark of intelligence to rush about the Galaxy exploring, invading, and exploiting everyone everywhere, and generally interfering and demonstrating the superiority of ones' civilisation. If one just minds one's own business, one might be mistaken for a dumb dolphin or something.

What if your goal is to enslave half of mankind, make their lives miserable, painful and their spirits broken, for the benefit of the other half of mankind? — god must be atheist

That does not make sense as a goal. Indeed, even as you describe it, the actual goal is the benefit of half of mankind. A noble goal, pursued with vile tactics. Rather like "enhanced interrogation". If someone has the goal of actually making people suffer for no other reason than that it pleases them, neither we nor they would call it moral; rather it is evil or insane.

There is almost no disagreement about goals in the abstract, moral goals are for the benefit of people. All the disagreement is about means rather than ends, and about the details of cost-benefit analysis. Here there tends to be a lot of myopia, such that the costs and benefits to 'people like me' loom large in my calculations, and thus others see things differently. Enslaving the negro was presented as 'the white man's burden', the annihilation of the Jews as the solution of a problem of terrible injustice and criminality. Every horror is sold as a price worth paying (by someone else) for our benefit.

There is even a modern movement to grant certain ecosystems the status of persons in order to extend the moral protection we grant humans to the environment to some extent.

And of course we all understand and agree about these historical examples and from this distance there is no question about the rights and wrongs of them, which is why the seem to work as evidence of the arbitrary nature of morality. But from this distance, we do all agree!

Death, on thep other hand, can't be conceived because there's no experience (past/present) we can draw from to make that possible. — TheMadFool

What a sheltered life you lead! Have you never killed, or come across a corpse, or watched a dying? And to pre-empt the most obvious response, one gets the idea of oneself from seeing other people; if there were no others, one would not be able to imagine otherness, and one would be the world. The ideas of life and death both arise from experience of (m)others.

Since the mind can't experience death, it can't conceive of death. — TheMadFool

This is a bit silly. I cannot experience tomorrow, I cannot experience what is over the horizon, I cannot experience what is in the next room. Most of what we talk about is what we cannot or do not experience. "Conceiving is what we do instead of experiencing.

I think there is no peace, merely the pause of exhaustion, during which we have to make other arrangements. War is the operation of power, through fear and coercion. It is the same thing as government, and the same thing as trade.

There is another form of relation, that is not the operation of power through manipulation of fear and greed by punishment and reward. That is peace...

Imagine lacking all imagination; think the unthinkable; not only can it not be done, it hasn't any meaning. There is nothing one has failed to do except to notice the knot in the language.

I hope to have illustrated to you, dear audience, that there is no hard-and-fast resolution among people what precisely is the active ingredient in a moral act. — god must be atheist

Some folks swear by a plumb-line, some by the way water finds its own level, and yet others by the illumination of coherent light produced by a lazar. Have I convinced anyone that there is no hard and fast resolution about what is the active ingredient in a straight line?

A, asked me, on a lazy Sunday afternoon, "what do you want to do? Do the dishes or clean the house? — TheMadFool

This happens to me all the time. The answer is usually "No.", but occasionally, "No, thank you, I want to laze."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_Form