Comments

  • Brexit
    "YouGov confirmed to i that the page was uploaded as a placeholder, originally without the data or the headline, but that it was updated when the data came in after the debate. That means when the headline was updated, the time stamp was not, giving the post the appearance of being pre-planned."
    https://inews.co.uk/news/itv-debate-poll-jeremy-corbyn-boris-johnson-opinion-shared-before-false-1310553

    unenlightened confirmed today that he doesn't think much of yougov anyway, and you can't trust anyone, especially unenlightened.
  • Stoicism: banal, false, or not philosophy.
    I take philosophy to be inquiry into what's true and its method to be reasoned argument.

    It is not, then, a form of therapy.
    Bartricks

    Unless it is the case that truth and reason are therapeutic. Which they surely must be, as delusion and unreason are the very definition of insanity.
  • Davidson - On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme
    I guess I don't understandMarchesk

    Do you understand that weather forecasters and all sorts of quite sensible people talk about sunrise and sunset and make accurate predictions about the occurrence of the phenomena these terms refer to? That these predictions are scientific and reliable? Do you understand that these people are not geocentric flat Earthers, or even artists? I guess I don't understand what role 'truth' plays in a philosophy that declares that the sun does not rise, and that this is some deep understanding.
  • Davidson - On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme
    it doesn't though, it only appears to. Just like the Earth appears to be stationary, and to some deluded or ignorant folk, flat.Marchesk

    You appear not to understand English, but I'm sure you do really. 'Stationary' as you should know is a relative term and has been since Newton. In the frame of reference of the Earth, the Earth is indeed stationary and when the Earth moves, buildings fall down. I have recourse to this obviously pedantic foolishness to address your obviously pedantic foolishness in your own terms.

    We don't need a theory of everything to understand the truth that the Earth rotates, creating the appearance of a rising and setting sun. That's a fact.Marchesk

    So the sun appears to set and it appears to get dark? But really it is not dark? Do you not see the nonsense you are talking? I give up.
  • Davidson - On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme
    Well, the truth of propositions got brought up in this discussion. So, if we're talking about truth, then pragmatic everyday talk isn't good enough.Marchesk

    "The very idea" has been brought up in this discussion too. In real terms at the end of the day, the sun sets. You are confusing truth with a theory of everything which in our case we do not have. Does this mean that no one speaks the truth?
  • Davidson - On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme
    Sure, but which one? You may favour one and I may favour another for our different purposes.
    — unenlightened

    The one that's true.
    Marchesk

    The very idea!
  • Davidson - On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme
    One scheme can therefore quite reasonably be considered 'better' than another (more elegant, more useful, more parsimonious...)Isaac

    Sure, but which one? You may favour one and I may favour another for our different purposes. I'll see you down the pub when the rotation of the Earth reaches the point where this locality is such that the sun lies on a tangent to it, and we can discuss it.
  • Davidson - On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme
    How do you translate that link without simply changing beliefs?Isaac

    But nothing has been said about beliefs. I watch the sunset, and I know that the Earth rotates. Just as I can sail into the mouth of a river without believing I am being eaten. No one is so dull as to claim that rivers do not have mouths because they do not eat. But it is almost as dull to suggest that the sun does not set because the Earth rotates.
  • Davidson - On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme
    Yeah, he's arguing against incommensurability and that people can have these fundamentally different conceptual schemas that can't be translated. Which basically amounts to abolishing he notion of conceptual schemas. We all live in the same world. I more or less agree with that.

    So what was the statements being true and rising suns of the last couple pages all about?
    Marchesk

    What it's about is that 'the sun is setting' can be translated into Earth rotation talk perfectly well, and in fact you yourself have to make that translation in order to claim that it does not set, and so is just as truth-apt as the scientific language you erroneously claim is the only legitimate truth. You are trying to privilege a certain way of talking; don't!
  • Davidson - On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme
    But what if all they are doing is playing instrumental music? Base riffs an lead solos. A language without truth.Banno

    "all they are doing"? As if we oldies do not provide an eloquent wordless accompaniment to our every movement. A language of groans is all truth. Well perhaps not all, because we all know the difference between performance tears and real distress.
  • Davidson - On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme
    Thanks for the exposition @Banno.

    Being somewhat concrete and visual in my thinking, I like to see how things work in practice. So here's one I watched earlier.

    There are two aspects that relate somewhat, that I want to mention, and anyway it's a fascinating program if you have access.

    The first is a matter of translation. The Himba are said to have 'marriages' but they differ from the Christian tradition in being polygamous, and more of a social organisation than anything remotely romantic or even sexual. Other relationships are translated as having 'girlfriends' and 'boyfriends', and one woman talked quite openly and matter-of-factly about her boyfriend being the father of her most of her children. Marriage for the Himba man seems to be mainly a matter of having someone-or two or three to cook for him. It's a social relation for which there is no English word, and we use 'marriage' with a new meaning that becomes gradually clearer as one watches the programs.

    So we find, if we accept these considerations, that language cannot be set aside unless one also sets aside ones conceptual scheme; we find ourselves in the position of equating translation of language with translation of conceptual scheme. We may say that if what one person holds to be the case cannot be translated for another person, then these two folk hold to distinct conceptual schemes.Banno

    So all I want to say is that in practice, translation has to involve a learning of a new culture - my brief characterisation here is as inadequate as the translation it points out the inadequacy of.

    The second aspect has to do with those 'deep biases' of the article linked above, and relates to certain threads current here.

    The show has attracted some negative criticism. The representation of Himba participants has been described as racist and exploitative, while the Moffatt family were seen as selfish and ignorant.

    Yet while critics of the show may be well meaning, their views portray the Himba as passive victims with neither agency nor power, and the Moffatts as uneducated intruders. This reveals a deeply embedded paternalistic and imperialistic view of both Indigenous and working-class people and highlights why we need TV shows that challenge these biases.

    My view of the article's view of the critic's view of the program's portrayal and treatment of a culture, or rather of two cultures, is that there is indeed 'a measurement problem' that is very real, even if the very idea of it is incoherent.

    So "language use including interpretation thereof not behaving like there's a scheme-content distinction" is the proposed defeater of "there are wildly varying conceptual schemes that lead to untranslateable sentences between agents that use/have those schemes".fdrake

    Nothing is in principle untranslatable, but in practice in so many cases, life's too short.
  • Brexit
    I would have accepted leave the day following the referendum up until Theresa May's first meaningful vote.Punshhh

    Worth pointing out that most remainers-become-leavers are probably of this 'accepting' mindset __ democrats that is. Bad idea but will of the people is perhaps almost all of them. Whereas leavers-become-remainers, fewer though they may be, must have actually changed their minds.
  • Brexit
    Ultimately they put party before country, which laid the blame for the Tory Brexit firmly at their door.Punshhh

    And that is an extension of the general irresponsibility of national government over decades that finds in the EU a convenient scapegoat for its incompetence and venality.
  • Existence - 1. Nonexistence
    'Name' is not the name of a name.
    When I have nothing in my pocket there is no mystery about it.

    Do not reify existence and non-existence. It is very silly and dull.
  • Brexit
    Brexit joke of the week.

    I think this is the bit where we’re meant to ask what they call their act, and for Johnson to triumphantly declare: “The Aristocrats!”

    Grauniad.
  • The False Argument of Faith
    someone who "follows"Gus Lamarch

    Someone who follows is going somewhere, or possibly nowhere special, but going. Perhaps one can be going somewhere without following, or perhaps everyone who thinks they are going somewhere is going nowhere. Perhaps philosophers are going somewhere, or perhaps they are going nowhere.

    Justify where you are going, or justify your going nowhere before mocking those of us afflicted with faith. Justify loving my neighbour? Piffle!
  • Brexit
    Thought I'd put this up here for our American friends - a bit of background on the Corbyn antisemitism thing...

    https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/first-time-my-life-im-frightened-be-jewish/?fbclid=IwAR2ejcJZTfR0aiRVB6FvWftg5J8PZoyTJvCcSRBRlSYSwyFAsFkf10Jt_lk
  • Replies to Rosenberg on Morality and Evolution
    It seems it is possible for our morality to stem from natural selection and adaptive drives. But if this were really the case, why aren’t our morals more viciously competitive?Teaisnice

    The answer to this is trivially obvious. Competition is costly. So the natural evolution of a parasite is from harmful to harmless and on to beneficial symbiosis. Evolution favours 'niches' and 'specialisms' to avoid competition. Top predators are invariably the most vulnerable species, because they are the most dependent. Cooperation is generally fitter than competition, capitalist bullshit notwithstanding.
  • Brexit
    Political Darwin award shared?Baden

    I wonder if they are trying to lose?
  • Brexit
    Mogg was eligible to be put down.Punshhh

    Works for me! But I apologise for my choice of words.
  • Brexit
    But of course a person of such privelidge and high demeanour with a posh voice must be right.Punshhh

    Apparently, it's acceptable to call for people like that to be put down. You might imagine death threats are unacceptable, but it seems not. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/04/tories-back-candidate-francesca-o-brien-benefits-street-remarks-gower
  • Brexit
    Some leavers justify their stance as 'to get our country back'.Tim3003

    I never quite understood why making trade deals with the US constitutes getting our country back from the EU deals that have taken it away...
  • Why are We Back-Peddling on Racial Color-Blindness?
    The op is a racist by his own definition. Suggest ban.
  • Rigged Economy or Statistical Inevitability?
    a new mathematical theory of economics surprisingly concludes that wealth inequity is inherent in any free market.Gnomon

    Someone should invent a game to illustrate this startling novelty. "Monopoly" has a nice ring for a name.
  • Should you hold everyone to the same standards?
    If he had type 2 because he had been super-sizing for years like most Americans, I'd have no sympathy, but this guy had type 1 so it ain't his fault but that of the foully inadequate social system of the US.
    https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/alex-smith-died-couldnt-afford-insulin/

    Don't die of third-rate standards.
  • Brexit
    I'm not a nazi of the grammatical or any other variety. I ask you to withdraw that remark.Chris Hughes
    A grammar nazi is no more a nazi than the mouth of a river is a mouth. However, remark withdrawn, oversensitive pedant.

    Meaning is use.

    Now back to the meaningless topic of "brexit".
  • Brexit
    common but meaningless misspeak error,Chris Hughes

    All due respect to the grammar nazis but as a mere speaker of common-speak, so-to-speak, is it not the case that once a phrase gains common currency, does it not attain to meaning independent of its misbegotten origins? My concern is more that it is a sexist phrase. :wink:
  • Brexit
    ↪ssu
    I'd like to ask the Britons here the following questions?
    How are the Lib Dems seen in the UK?

    In the UK the Lib Dems are acknowledged as the third of the main party's. In a largely two party system, they are often trapped in the middle, meaning that they often have large swings in their number of seats depending on the mood in the country. Their policies are as centrist as they can be, they are often criticised for being in line with either conservative policies, or Labour, by the other side. But they do have a solid support in the middle ground, the woolly jumper, Saab driving brigade.
    Punshhh

    The rather more negative view is that they are less centrist and more two-faced, able to have contradictory policies according to who they are speaking to, having the luxury of never having to implement and thus be judged on them. The ideal home for career politicians who are all talk and no trousers.
  • The Problem of Evil and It's Personal Implications
    If the Great Nintendo exists and is good, why did he create Bowser, and why did he put those stars in such hard to reach places? — Mario
  • How should we react to climate change, with Pessimism or Optimism?
    To fight unhappiness one must first expose it, which means that one must dispel the mystifications behind which it is hidden so that people do not have to think about it. It is because I reject lies and running away that I am accused of pessimism; but this rejection implies hope — the hope that truth may be of use. And this is a more optimistic attitude than the choice of indifference, ignorance or sham. — Simone De Beauvoir
  • Free will seems to imply that this is not the only world
    Although I think this argument is valid, I find the conclusion and its implications hard to agree with. I think that if free will exists, it doesn’t mean that heaven and hell are the alternative models.Marissa

    Of course not, but if I am understanding it right, then free will consists of an extra input from another world analogous to a player's input into a computer game. The mere existence of a world where I misspelled analogous in this post would not suffice. So we could reasonably call it 'the spirit world'.

    But regardless of the question of free will, I generally think that proving that several concepts (models) are consistent with another concept (a theory) does not imply that these concepts exist as more than concepts.leo

    I think in crude terms the argument is that if the existing world is computational and there exists free will, then there is another existing world that influences the existing world.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    A decorated army officer and the top Ukraine expert on the national security council has reportedly told House impeachment investigators that the White House transcript of a call between the presidents of the US and Ukraine left out important words and phrases.

    Grauniad

    The logic of fascism is thus: I, the leader, am the true and natural voice of the people and of the nation. Therefore, an attack on me is an attack on democracy, treasonous, and against the natural order.
    You must support me because I am your representative.

    So to any supporter, the opposition is treasonous, antidemocratic etc. This is a position immune to argument, because the ad hom is the entire argument. 'I'm not listening to some dumb fascist/ remoaner/ deplorable/traitor/etc.

    I don't suppose it is inconceivable that a purple heart veteran should be a traitor. But it ought to be a bit troubling for a patriot to claim.
  • Why do people still have children?
    Unbelievably, some people like children.
  • How should we react to climate change, with Pessimism or Optimism?
    That seems inappropriate to me.uncanni

    It seems appropriate to me to chastise the discussion of irrelevancies, especially if everyone is assumed to understand the irrelevance already. But there you go, it's a matter of taste.
  • How should we react to climate change, with Pessimism or Optimism?
    "Climate is a matter of faith and ideology," is vague.uncanni

    How ironic of you to be suggesting my sarcasm alert is more properly an irony alert, and then questioning the precision of my comment. Let me be entirely straightforward therefore to avoid any misunderstanding.

    The climate is relatively unaffected by what people think about it. Be optimistic or pessimistic about it as you wish; the climate nor I could give a fart. It is what folks do that matters. And what most people will do is die trying to migrate, or trying to prevent others migrating.