When the stone falls on the egg, alas for the egg; when the egg falls on the stone, alas for the egg — Arabic proverb.

It is the vulnerability of organic life to damage in accidental contact with machinery that results in the domination of the machine unless regulation protects the rights of life. When cars were first introduced to the road in the UK, a law was instituted that such devices could only operate on the public road if a man with a red flag preceded them on foot to warn other road users. Unfortunately, as it was only the rich and powerful who could afford these monstrosities, this law was repealed, and thus the myth of the freedom of the road was transferred from the human being to the machine.

This reached its apotheosis with the building of the motorway system from which everything as natural as a horse, a pedestrian or a blade of grass was rigorously forbidden and excluded — rocks only, eggs forbidden.

By the sixties it became apparent that the freedom for all to travel anywhere resulted in everywhere being a carpark and nowhere worth visiting except those few corners inaccessible to the machine. "They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot." (not us of course - them).

Yet still machine rights still trump the rights of human and animal, because folk cannot think straight, and "the economy" demands that we all have more and faster and shinier, and spend more of our lives roasting alone in our mechanical tin boxes between 'the machine for living' we call home, and mechanical serving life we call 'work'.

Thus the luddite view of progress as something to be resisted.

Dude, I didn’t read your post yet when I wrote the below. — Fire Ologist

Great minds think alike, and fools seldom differ. A cliché in time makes Jack a dull boy.

no one believes that hokey stuff anymore. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yeah, we know it's all the CIA making trouble and controlling our minds.

Have I fallen into the abyss? If so, can someone throw in a lifeline and pull me out? — Thales

Saw your first ship sink and drown from rocking of the boat
And all that could not sink or swim, were just left there to float. — Ship of Fools, Robert Hunter

And if you are able to pull me out, how will you know it’s still me? — Thales

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

If you study the weather, you quickly come across features consisting of regions of low pressure with winds circulating around them. these form spontaneously under conditions where there is a local temperature gradient such that there is a mass of hot air below cold air. Hot air is lighter and rises while cold air is heavier and falls. the 'cyclone' forms spontaneously like the whirlpool that forms in a draining sink because water is falling and air is trying to rise. When they are big, we give them names and categorise them as storm or hurricane, or twister, etc. Eventually such features run out of potential energy and lose their identity.

In order to arrive at complete contentment, restrain your ambitions.
For everything which comes into being eventually returns again to the source from which it came.
Each thing which grows and develops to the fullness of its own nature completes its course
by declining again in a manner inherently determined by its own nature.
Completing its life is as inevitable as that each thing shall have its own goal.
Each thing having its own goal is necessary to the nature of things.
He who knows that this is the ultimate nature of things is intelligent; he who does not is not.
Being intelligent, he knows that each has a nature which is able to take care of itself.
Knowing this, he is willing that each thing follow its own course.
Being willing to let each thing follow its own course, he is gracious.
Being gracious, he is like the source which graciously gives life to all.
Being like the gracious source of all, he embodies Nature's way within his own being.
And in thus embodying Nature's way within himself, he embodies its perpetually recurrent principles within himself.
And so, regardless of what happens to his body, there is something about him which goes on forever.

- Translated by Archie J. Bahm, 1958, Chapter 16 — Tao Te Ching

https://www.egreenway.com/taoism/ttclz16.htm

What Ukraine did up until 2014 was true independence, — Tzeentch

"True independence" is doing what Russia wants, and if you are so foolish as not be "truly independent". Russia will come and liberate you, and give you free access to their language and government as well. Now I understand.

That the Russians desire a neutral Ukraine is something that they've told us consistently over the course of some 15 years, and it's something they reiterated even after the invasion started. — Tzeentch

I dare say Ukraine would like a neutral Russia too. It seems to me that you nor Russia can understand what 'independent' means. It means you don't have to get what you want all the time from everyone.

The "imperialist expansion" narrative lost all its credibility literally one month into the war. — Tzeentch

It was you that suggested that Ukraine was supposed to be neutral. If that is not the justification for the invasion, then it can only be that Ukraine is supposed to be part of Russia.

I would say that Ukraine was supposed to be independent. That is what we seem to disagree about.

Talks with the Russians / Ukrainian neutrality is a fate worse than death? — Tzeentch

Yeah, of course; didn't you know? Any compromise at all is worse than death.

There's nothing heroic about that. It's folly. Though the deaths of so many men is tragic to be sure. — Tzeentch

War is always folly, and always a tragedy. Come to that, human life is mainly folly and tragedy. But allowing tyrants to triumph is no less foolish and tragic than warring against them.

I must say that i find the fact that The Great Dictator's ambitions have been thwarted for 3 years by a professional comedian rather wonderful. A picture painted in blood, but that is unfortunately the kind of picture we dictators enjoy. If only Putin could have been laughed out of Ukraine!

The idea of invading a country to ensure its neutrality is something worthy of the British Empire. Akin to enslaving a people to liberate them from their savagery.

↪unenlightened When the situation is sufficiently bleak, 'balanced' analysis just betrays an unwillingness to face reality.

Ukraine is strategically lost, and from such a position there are no tactical master strokes, unconventional military strategies or 'wunderwaffen' that can conceivably turn the tide. The worse one's situation becomes, the less options one has. — Tzeentch

In the long run, we are all dead. In the meantime, if one starts from the fundamental irrationality that the wasting asset of one's life is worth spending in a good cause, then one does not give up the hopeless cause, because that alternative is worse than failure and death. And from that position one analyses the best desperate measure to take in the meantime.

A slightly more balanced analysis: https://mickryan.substack.com/p/the-battle-of-kursk-2024

And some obviously biased "latest news"...

Clearly this incursion is going to be crushed in time. — Tzeentch

Yes of course. Wagner are being recalled from Africa to do it! It might take them an hour or two...
You wonder why the Ukrainians ever bothered to resist at all. They must be crazy berserkers.

Seems to make some sense, what say ye?
— unenlightened

Ukraine's actions in Kursk make no military sense. — Tzeentch

Well I could make sense of what the professional military analyst I linked to was saying. Perhaps the Ukrainian military is stupid, and so is my analyst and so am I. But when your response AND Your quote of Mearsheimer begin with declarations of incomprehension, I rather tend to think that a strategic justification that seems to make sense to me would be worth actually considering and responding to.

Ukraine seems to have already mined a road to the South, and begun to fortify a couple of defensive lines one on the Eastern side of Sudzha, and one closer to the Ukraine border. and clearly this is not just a propaganda raid. They might be going for the nuclear plant, and I have seen several reports of them being already 20 k up the road in that direction, but there is another 30 k to go, and the logistics of holding the plant and the supply line territory would be formidable.

Russia said Wednesday that it strengthened security at the Kursk nuclear power plant amid Ukraine's assault in the region.

The Russian Guard Corps said it took additional measures to ensure the safety of the plant, including the deployment of additional units in the area. — yourlink

Well it is pretty clear that there are no significant combat troops in the area, only conscript units So I imagine if the plan is is to disable that plant and shut it down for a good while, they could probably do so. To hold it longer term might also be possible, but would be costly.

What makes a deal more sense is that the aim is to force the Russian to fight an offensive war on their own territory, and continue to attrit the Russians with a slow defensive retreat, as explained in the video above.

Herewith, a little talk about the possible aims of the Ukrainian Offensive. Seems to make some sense, what say ye?

Do you understand the true natural of reality and all that is naturally real? Let's hear abotu it... — Tom Storm

Use your eyes and your ears when crossing the road, and don't step in front of a bus! And proof read before posting.

Given the metaphysics of idealism, the true nature of our reality isn't readily described. — Tom Storm

So much the worse for idealism! Don't come crying to me about it! The true nature of reality is that it is naturally real, and what one can say about it can sometimes be really true, and the result of saying really true things about the nature of reality is that it is truth-telling.

Bada-bing, bada-boom.

Have it which way you want, dude. Look at the evidence, form a theory.

The consequences of being run over by a bus on Main Street if we are not looking while we cross remains an ontological danger. It just isn't what we think it is. — Tom Storm

So what do we think it is, that it isn't?

I cn tell you some things I don't think it is; it isn't; neurons, perceptions, thoughts, imaginings, qualia, hallucination, noumena, electro magnetic radiationin fact I think it's most likely a bus on main street. Am I wrong?

If there is a car crash, again one needs to identify the fault; sometimes it might be the brakes, and sometimes it might be the driver. There was one recently in which a child was killed - the fault was in the driver, but it was not alcohol, but epilepsy. The driver was unaware of their epilepsy because they had not been diagnosed. They were found not guilty of causing death by dangerous driving.
— unenlightened
1h
— Leontiskos

It seems to me that if you’re going to apply the concept of forgiveness to this particular example you’re stretching its meaning well beyond the way it is commonly used. — Joshs

I agree. To 'forgive' someone who is not guilty is impossible, although it might well have a great psychological value in such a case to both parties if the aggrieved parents would extend that reassurance to the innocent, but perhaps self-blaming driver.

An interesting extension of this is the case where the perpetrator is guilty, but does not accept their responsibility. In this case it seems to me that the victim can offer forgiveness from the heart, but the perpetrator cannot receive it. Psychologically, (or even 'spiritually' if you will), self-blame is the necessary precursor to the acceptance of forgiveness, from God or anyone else.

You didn't say unenlightened isn't God, before. — Hallucinogen

Do not attempt to argue with Me, worm. Cower in fear of My wrath.

how strong is his "case" such that evolution is refuted. That is, does evolution lead to an absurd conclusion? — Gregory

If evolution happens (to humans also) because 'reality bites', then it follows that evolution must necessarily put pressure on humanity to have a realistic world view. Hence, "Darwin awards".

Obviously one does not 'have' reality in one's eye or in one's brain, one has visions and models and heuristics. But crossing the road without attending to what one can see and hear is perilous and foolish.

Hint: "... truly see reality" is a dog's breakfast of a phrase.

My eyesight is poor, but I can see truly enough to truly cross a real road without getting extinctified by the truly really real predatory traffic.

So blaming altogether seems to be a pointless thing. — Nimish

If the car won't start, one needs to identify the fault in order to fix it. Whether one forgives the car or not does not seem to affect things much.

If there is a car crash, again one needs to identify the fault; sometimes it might be the brakes, and sometimes it might be the driver. There was one recently in which a child was killed - the fault was in the driver, but it was not alcohol, but epilepsy. The driver was unaware of their epilepsy because they had not been diagnosed. They were found not guilty of causing death by dangerous driving.

Blame can thus be seen to have a social function of regulation and justice in distinction from, and over and above, fault finding and repair. Self blame is then part of the social function - the drunk driver ought to have known better, but the undiagnosed epileptic driver could not have known better. Self blame functions to regulate the psyche to be more thoughtful of others. "Don't drink and drive." is good advice, whereas "Don't be an undiagnosed epileptic and drive." is useless advice.

Changing the semantics doesn't change the validity of the argument. — Hallucinogen

Just so. If everything is evidence that God did it, then everything is evidence that unenlightened did it. But since unenlightened is not God, there is a contradiction.

Therefore, it is false that:

If a theory explains an observation, then the theory is evidenced. — Hallucinogen

Well if "God did it" explains O relative to other members of T, it would seem "God did it" is evidenced relative to the others. — Hallucinogen

And that doesn't trouble you at all?

I have another theory: — "unenlightened did it".

What is that flying across the sky leaving behind it a trail? It must be Icarus on his way. Yes, my theory is evidenced! :roll: — jgill

Nay, it is unenlightened, playing with his chalk.

Let T = "God did it."

Everything that happens is evidence for God.

Hmm.

I think that the definition of the term philosophy is a philosophical question. The literature even terms it a "metaphilosophical" question. — Tarskian

I agree with you here, and one of my favourite philosophy books is an exhaustive and exhausting treatment of the varied definitions of the word "meaning" which is obviously crucial to an understanding of 'definition'.

But I see a further difficulty in your definition of philosophy, which is hinted at by my comment on your treatment of Wittgenstein's statement below.

"The world is all that is the case". It is a statement about the world, which is a physical fact. — Tarskian

One can take this as definitive, in which case it is philosophical, and likewise Moore's "This is a hand".

But at the same time, one can hardly deny that they are statements about the world. And this means that the separation between statements about the world and statements about statements cannot be so sharply made as to answer the question what is and is not philosophy. And We should be glad of that, because if philosophy was merely talk about talk, and had no connection with the world, it would be an entirely trivial pursuit.

But Wittgenstein also said, "Meaning is use." and one does not have to establish exact boundaries to the meaning of a a word, but rather the boundaries are established by the ways in which the word is used in the community. "Ways" plural, because a word can be used with different meaning and scope in different contexts. Thus language is part of the world, and has real causal function in the world, and philosophy 'matters'.

"The world is all that is the case". It is a statement about the world, which is a physical fact. — Tarskian

Or is it a statement about the meaning of words? Like a definition is about the meaning of words.
Oh dear - it looks like your topic is not philosophical according to your own definition. Does that trouble you at all?

I thought some might find this interesting. A non-mathematical wander through black holes, white holes, simplified solutions to Einsteins equations, multiverses etc. Rather good I thought - better than the opening graphic suggests at any rate.

Even the Dead are Harris supporters.



Laugh! They cannot tolerate not being taken seriously.

In case there are still any waverers out there; here is the spokesperson for Fictional Serial Killer Cannibals for Harris giving you the straight dope on Trump. And That's a shark worse than electrocution for sure.

Do you think we will be able to adapt to climate change, tectonic plate shift, areas of famine and poverty in the current geopolitical situation? — isomorph

We have changed the climate without intention, but almost certainly not in all regions beyond our ability to adapt to. However, human population is in overshoot. This is an ecological term for what happens when for some reason the normal checks on population growth of a species are absent or circumvented and the population increases beyond the limit of the ecosystem to sustain it in the long term. So, for example if predators are removed from the environment, herbivores will reproduce until they are too numerous for the grassland to sustain; they eat the grass down to the roots, so that it cannot regenerate fast enough, and then they starve and the population crashes.

That is going to happen to humans. So when you ask if "we" will survive, if you mean the current Western consumer society, then the answer is no. But if you mean the human species in some form somewhere, then probably yes is my best guess. But there will be no shortage of famine, forced migration, conflict, and suffering. Tectonic movement is slow enough for even genetic evolution to adapt to apart from localised eruptions, tidal waves, etc.

The anthropocene extinction event, of which the climate change we have instigated by the industrial revolution is a small part, is what our intelligence has allowed our stupidity to achieve. It is very sad, but there is no chance I can see, of geopolitics stopping representing our stupidity, and starting to represent our intelligent adaptability. War, famine, and disease will solve the problem. In the meantime, "Don't lend your hand to raise no flag atop no ship of fools"

We have tech that is able to solve more problems than we are. Why aren't we? I think the failure is due to (in the past ethnocentricity has hurt people and benefited a few) technocentricity. If we discover the method of success for the several hundred thousand years before civilization, we may be able to deal with climate change, tectonic plate shift, vulcanism, etc. — isomorph

"... success for the several hundred thousand years before civilization". Can you say what you have in mind in this phrase?

The way I tell the story, there was some climate instability in Africa leading to rather rapid environmental changes between forest and savannah. This favoured a species with more rapid adaptability than can be afforded by genetic variation. Big brain intelligence provided that adaptability to such an extent, that by means of tools, created shelter, and clothes, intelligent apes were able to survive, and become the top predator in almost any environment, and began to spread across the world.

The secret of this success is that the Inuit can divest herself of a few layers of seal-skin and learn to live in the Amazon from the local experts, whereas the polar bear cannot possibly make that adaptation. It is the ability to learn and adopt adaptive behaviour that is the significant advantage of human intelligence that constitutes "human nature" and explains Confucius' observation that we are alike in our nature, but unalike in our practice (which might be better translated in this context as 'nurture').

Thus human nature is a radical incompleteness that has to be completed by a cultural adaptation to a particular environment, which becomes the essence of humanity such that for us "existence precedes essence", because our essence is now learned.

in my thought experiment, we have everything: there is no noise, all the information is relevant because it's an isolated system and the particles are the most fundamental.

In my opinion, that's an impossible situation, but I thought about this because I think even then, we still might not be able to find a solution because our logic is limited. — Skalidris

That is easily answered. We have all the information we need to find the value of the nth digit of pi, and it can be discovered with complete certainty. But since it is an infinite series, there is no limit to the information we can extract from the running of the algorithm and tomorrow we will find more than we have today.

Even such a simple digital program can produce an output that cannot be predicted more easily than by running the program. This exactly exemplifies your isolated system... We have deliberately created a machine that we can treat as an isolated system about which we have complete knowledge, and we still cannot compute the results because it is a computer itself.

When anxiety appears for no apparent reason, and has no specific direction, this is a completely different situation. Then it feeds on itself, unnerving the individual, making that person a victim. This I believe is the nature of a panic attack, anxiety without an object. — Metaphysician Undercover

Just so. I would suggest that OCD sufferers have such undirected anxiety, and they try to allay it with ritualised behaviour which they become addicted to. The feeding on itself seems to be the major feature of this, and also of panic attacks. If the sufferer gets out of breath, she thinks she is suffocating, if her heartbeat increases, she thinks she is having a heart attack.

Thinking itself is like a non-emotional, but similar relationship with the world — Fire Ologist

Unfortunately, this is not the case. For the anxious person, the great difficulty is that every thought about their anxiety increases their anxiety, and every attempt to allay it directs thought back to it and increases it.

As Peter Pan said, 'All you have to do is think happy thoughts'. And the anxious person's response is always, 'But I don't know how to think happy thoughts.' That is an unhappy, anxiety inducing thought, that they then try to get rid of by thinking happy thoughts, and the circle is complete, and goes round and round for a whole lifetime.

The best response to any internal event is passive acceptance. Feel the fear, notice the circular thinking, the murderous anger, or whatever comes to one's attention of one's own condition, and let it be. The mind is a playground of nonsense, like a bucket of muddy water. Stop stirring and wait; the mud will settle of its own accord, and anything you do will only stir it up again. This is the stoicism of mind.

How do I know whether or not I am anxious? Is it even one thing? It sometimes looks as if people are talking about different things - Does anxiety have an object, real or imagined, towards which it is necessarily directed - final exams, getting cancer, or whatever - or can one just be suffused with a feeling of anxiety about everything and nothing?

a person in distress — MorningStar

How can I order my thinking to be quiet, so that my thoughts, those unruly hounds, will crawl to my feet? How can I ever hope ... So that I can hear your voice loudly and see your face clearly..." — Jung

This is so clear and smart. I need to quieten my thinking before I can attend to you. Anxiety is unruly thinking that keeps dragging one's attention away from the world, and towards itself.

"How can I order my thinking to be quiet?" my thought demands over and over again.

Here is a Zen koan, half remembered:

Disciple— What shall I do if I have a persistent thought in my head?
Master — Throw it out.
Disciple— But if it is too powerful and I cannot throw it out?
Master — Then carry it out.

Myself is the most persistent thought; I am the anxiety I am anxious to be rid of.

Is there some metaphysical substantiality that 12 has? — Mp202020

12 is the lowest abundant number. An abundant number, A, is one whose divisors (including 1 but excluding A itself) add up to more than A. Factors of 12 are 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 6 =16

Here is an article that might be of interest:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-mysterious-math-of-perfect-numbers-20210315/

Anything that is base-10 can always be divided into halves (1/2) however it can never be divided into thirds evenly. Base-12 always can be divided into halves, quarters, and thirds. — Mp202020

Hmm. It's quite tricky to talk about, and with this way of expression you are misleading yourself a bit. First off, there is nothing you can do in base 12, that you cannot do in base ten, and vice versa. The amounts don't change, only the notation. Either a number can be divided by 3 without remainder, or it cannot, and the notation makes no difference to that.

Let's construct a base 12 notation using the familiar digits 0-9 and use 'a' and 'b' to represent the two extra fingers. Then our three times table will ru like this in the number line:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 a b 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 1a 1b 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 ...

You can see that in base twelve, any number ending with a 3, 6, 9, or 0 is divisible by 3. (This is confusing us who are used to base ten, because "10" in this notation represents "a dozen" and "26" represents "thirty" , or better, "twodoz-six" and so on.)

Extending very briefly to fractions and "dozimals", 1/3 would become "0.4" - no longer a recurring endless expression. But 1/5 on the other hand would become recurring "0.2497..."

And at that point, my old brain protests and refuses to go further, except to mention that the ancient Egyptians used a base of sixty, and that is where we get our measures of time and angles from. And don't expect any calculations from me in base sixty.

What you don't care about the russian lives it would safe? — Echarmion

Then don't vote for Trump?

You have so many; I'm jealous.

To start, if determinism is true, it makes no difference what we believe as what we believe is preordained. — I like sushi

Surely this is not true. If determinism is true then what we believe is preordained along with what we decide and what we do, but all these things still make a difference in the sense that they are determining causes of what happens. My belief that you have gone wrong here determines my act of writing this particular response. If I happened to believe you were right, I would not write this.

When I do my accounts, the result is predetermined on any view of determinism v freedom, because all the transactions have already happened. Nevertheless, I still have to do the sums, and doing or not doing the sums is necessary and makes a difference. In the same way, I have to actually tell the waiter the predetermined order that I will make from the predetermined menu that he has to show me, because that is how these things get determined, by my choosing act, that has to be primed with the menu information.

What is true is that determinism makes no difference to the decision making process that one is constantly going through, as that process is the determining of our actions; unless one falls into fatalism, which is false. "Waiter, don't bother me with the menu, bring me whatever my predetermined choice will be." The waiter cannot oblige.

Notice that the resignation letter isn’t on official Whitehouse letterhead, — NOS4A2

I believe he did not resign. I believe he dropped out of the running for nomination for reelection. A party matter, not an official presidential matter.

Singer's point seems obviously correct, but then, Western culture is entirely predicated on production and consumption of material goods. — Wayfarer

It is obvious indeed, and it does not involve making a virtue of poverty or dependence as some have suggested. But it makes the individual responsible for rebalancing an economic system built on exploitation and radical injustice. This rebalancing needs to be done through the monetary system itself; demonising those who are hypnotised by the ideology of greed that has dominated the West for centuries produces much resistance.

We live, in the West, in an architecture of isolation, of private consumption and production, and our connectedness and interdependence is hidden from us. One's status is defined by how much one extracts from this system, not by how much one contributes to it (though the pretence is that these are the same). Singer has the right criticism but it is directed at the individual when it needs to be directed at the way of life that is imposed on the individual, of being morally responsible for social inequalities that they are entirely isolated from. We are pawns in a rigged game we did not invent and have no choice about playing.

But the poor white man’s used in the hands of them all like a tool
He’s taught in his school
From the start by the rule
That the laws are with him
To protect his white skin
To keep up his hate
So he never thinks straight
’Bout the shape that he’s in
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game — Bob Dylan