The straightforward latin noun for question or inquiry is 'quaestio' , genitive plural quaestiōnum
The Book of Questions - Liber / codex quaestionum

quaerendī is the masculine genitive singular of the verb future participle quaerendus
The Book of What is to be Asked - Liber / codex quaerendī

quaerentis is masculine genitive singular of the verb present participle quaerens
The Book of Questioning - Liber / codex quaerentis

So you have got the choice :)

Hi, I believe the second paragraph is missing a reference to a discussion of what is meant by 'truth' and whether and how it can established. The reader here just stumbles over Platos and Nozicks definitions of knowledge all relying on something to be 'true'. Just as a suggestion maybe you can include here a short reference that discussion of 'truth' and different concepts on how to approximate it will happen in the subchapters.

The difference between "state power" and an "anarchist collective power of political equals" is that state power [...] is coercive, whereas anarchist power is not coercive. — boethius

Thank you for these explanations, appreciated. It would be historically interesting to appraise though, how much of this perceived coercion is due to the fact that the countries of the early anarchist thinkers were not democracies. Because surely, exercising of power by the state of its laws is perceived differently in a universal democracy where people could have a say in making these laws, as opposed to a tyranny or partial democracy where no one or only a select part of the population can vote on the laws that are being coerced.
When you take a starting point at Weber's definition of relative Power as the probability (chance) to achieve ones own will even against the resistance of others, regardless of the underlying causes of this probability, then it is hard to see how Power could exist without a means of being enforced / coerced. Logically, a power that cannot be enforced is not a power at all, but I am happy to hear further arguments to the contrary.

It is the coercive nature of the state that anarchists have issue with, not any of it's legitimate functions. Statist argue that the legitimate functions of the state cannot be carried out without the coercive nature of the state, whereas anarchists argue there is another way to get things done — boethius

Just as an example, in such a society, how exactly would a murderer be punished if not by coercion of the collective power? The murderer, even if he knows he is guilty and was proven to be guilty, does not want to go to jail, much less receive a death penalty. How does the collective anarchy enforce a punishment here if not by coercion?

However, the issue of using the failure of states to competently organize to solve problems (as we see with Coronavirus, over fishing, global warming, soil depletion, famines, poverty, on-top of the preventable wars) anarchists would argue is a failure precisely due to the corrupt nature of the state. — boethius

Yes. And on exactly these same points, which could be termed global problem areas that transcend nation state boundaries, global statists would argue that only a global governance consisting of legislative, judiciary and executive would be able to address such problems adequately and in a democratic way. One could argue that it is not due to it's corrupt nature that a state fails to address problems of a global scope, but precisely due to their scope being global, not local.

anarchism is not about people just doing what they want without rules, but collective decision making between equals. — boethius

Well, but then why not call it by its name and call it direct democracy instead of anarchy? In the 21st century we even have a realistic technological chance to make that happen. After all, there is power / might and decisions to be managed, as you are admitting. And what would then be a correct label for the current political organization of the world, if not 'Anarchy' (no-rule)? No-rule and collective decision making (I assume this includes collective enforcement of the rules) are not the same. So we need to call one anarchy and another direct democracy.

Anarchy doesn't want states, so to claim that interactions of states in absence of even more extreme concentration of power is somehow analogous to interactions between individuals is disingenuous at best and simply foolish at worst. — boethius

Global anarchy is exactly that, ~200 cavemen with clubs of different sizes. The small depending on the goodwill of the big. Sad but true. So I really cannot understand anyone arguing for anarchy, we have it already! Anarchy = no government. And it means the possibility of war and hostilities, a dog eat dog planet (or cave). Whether it is 200 people or 200 states, this analogy holds absolutely true and is permissible.

Replying to the original poster, Seri. In reply to your questions regarding crime, to anyone interested in the concept of anarchy it is worthwhile to read some background on the concept of the social contract. The reason to have government is to create a monopoly on power, in order to be able to enforce the laws. You can also observe the effects of an anarchical system in the current world order. There is no global monopoly on power, so the countries in relation to each other live in a global state of anarchy (mitigated by contracts between the countries such as the WTO, UN etc., which constitute international law. But there is no power monopoly to enforce these contracts if conflicts arise, that is the crucial difference) That means in the global anarchy might is very much right. Whoever has relatively more power, can enforce it unto others. I hope this reply is useful to your original questions. All the best.

"Meaning is always relative to some framework." The only framework we can apply to the term 'meaning' is human consciousness. By human consciousness we have defined the term meaning, and our consciousness yearns for some meaning of our existence, preferably a meaning outside of our consciousness. Why that is so that our brains create a definition and longing for meaning, is an interesting question. In reality though, human consciousness could or could not have developed in the universe, the universe would still exist. I am not sure whether nature needs to have a 'meaning'. So I would define meaning as a purely subjective category and we can fill our lives with all kinds of meaning, before our consciousness dies.

Sounds great! I can sense a lot of frustration though. Hope you will get better.
More thoughts on this subject are in this discussion thread https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/7374/why-we-cant-solve-global-warming

I think plastics can be stored in landfill and processed later, — Punshhh

Is the euphemism 'processed' for 'burned' intentional? :) Because eventually all non-reusable and non-recyclable waste (such as small and soft plastics) will need to be burned since they cannot be reabsorbed by the ecosystem in any other form. Here in Denmark this residual waste is therefore also labelled as 'burnable' waste'. So that everyone is clear when they enter a supermarket, all the nice packaging they get is actually (carbon-based) fuel which will cause emissions at some later point. Which apparently didn't stop the trend that now if i want to buy 5 slices of cheese or 5 slices of ham, i get them in plastic packaging, which was not the case at the grocers 40 years ago. On another thought, I also think that landfills for 11 bn people x 150+ years will get really crowded at some point, whereas burning has the economic benefit of generating heat or electricity (of course with emissions).

The difficulty seems to be that governments are dominated by capitalists — iolo

I see the problem is rather that environment is global, whereas governments are local. Which brings us back to Kant and the idea of world governance (hence the first part of my earlier post). Only some form of global regulation could effectively internalize the external effects generated by our modern lifestyle (speaking in economics terms). Because if one country can bail out (e.g. out of climate accords), then the prisoners dilemma will always kick in and prevent the best possible outcome.

Even less capitalist governments (like Denmark where I live) produce plenty more emissions and plastic packaging waste than lets say a similar sized developing country, because consumption per capita is much higher.

Realistically, it is not even possible to buy food without buying garbage as well, plastic packaging that needs to be burned. Enter any supermarket, and think of all the packaging which already now you know will become waste that needs to be burned. On a daily basis. So it is part of our CO2 production, like breathing. Arguably it makes the earth greener, but also warmer. I don*t see how the packaging problem would be solved by fusion power either. Maybe bio-degradable plastics is one of the other most important technological projects apart from nuclear fusion development. So far plastics are simply the best packaging materials.

we know of no way how could possibly something mechanical like computation ever produce something conceptual like imagination, intuition, feelings, and the rest of the mental content — Zelebg

In relation to this, I have often wondered whether it really does make any difference whether the 'states of energy / fields' that are making up the most elementary particles of the universe are in the end part of 'nature' or are part of a big 'machine'. Like the 0s and 1s are the fundamental states of our own primitive computers, so could the spins of quarks be fundamental states of a machine which is simulating the universe.
In other words, would you feel more at ease if consciousness arose not out of a simulation on a machine from another dimension, but out of 'natural' states of energy fluctuation, which via matter eventually created consciousness?

“In a world that has succeeded in the globalization of financial assets while keeping political rights enclosed to territories, we need to build new models of democratic governance that enable humanity to collaborate and address pressing global issues. Democracy Earth Foundation is building free, open source software for incorruptible decision making within institutions of all sizes, from the most local involving two people to the most global involving all of us.” - https://democracy.earth/

Realistically, it is not even possible to buy food without buying garbage as well, plastic packaging that needs to be burned. Enter any supermarket, and think of all the packaging which already now you know will become waste that needs to be burned. On a daily basis. So it is part of our CO2 production, like breathing. Arguably it makes the earth greener, but also warmer. I dont see how the packaging problem would be solved by fusion power either. Maybe bio-degradable plastics is one of the other most important projects apart from nuclear fusion development. So far plastics are the best packaging materials.

We have to bear in mind here that Husserl was a person of the late 19th / early 20th century. He had no concept of neurons nor neural networks and therefore also not of states of consciousness arising from a pattern of neurological activity. Instead he coined the term phenomenons for them, his philosophy is a crutch before the advent of serious neuroscience. Husserl is of historical interest in the history of philosophy, but hardly relevant to this debate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIw3BtSPHtI
.... Shine into the future! Cheer up man! :)

That is funny you are saying that science made you depressed because i actually saved me from depression, by giving me not only the feeling but the knowledge that I am part of and one with the cosmic process. The same for history, it cheers me up that we haven't reached the end of history and there is still hope for a world without war and injustice (on a political level).

Comfortable lead for Germany here with 61%.... :)

Do you see a difference in definition between deists and theists?

I am for my part happy to live in a time in human history when science has come to the point of a theory that everything in the observable universe is really connected, basically consisting of the same energy. This is a great consolation. I could of course be discontent that we do not know more about the ultimate nature of this reality (energy), and the nature of 'dark' energy or matter. But that is what we currently have, and we have come to know so much more about the natural world than our ancestors before the scientific age did, it should console us and reconcile us to this great nature we are part of. To keep on calling it God has become now a mere matter of taste, but I think we are safe if we state that God is neither an interventionist, nor bene-/malevolent, being when it comes to us as the human species. The physical phenomenon called energy that has generated us and that we consist of is indifferent to us as living beings, as indifferent as it was to the dinosaurs and is to Pluto.

Nice discussion by the way, and thank you for bringing the topic of Pantheism up.

The hypothesis that god is good is certainly less tenable than the hypothesis that energy equals matter. We can read the equation E = mc² as a code for pantheism. If all matter in the universe is ultimately 'trapped energy', then the universe would consist of nothing but 'energy', and following human convention we could describe whatever we do not understand about nature with the term 'god' or 'gods'. Let's remind ourselves that 'god' is a human concept, but nature and reality exist without humans being there to describe it.

What is the practical significance of making a claim that rocks existed before there were humans to name them? The question is what we are doing when we name a rock, when we construct a theory about what a rock is. — Joshs

I would say that the practical significance in this is, that regardless of human consciousness and ability to philosophize, reality exists with or without us. We do not know what this reality is on the subatomic level. But we know that matter exists. This might sound trivial but is fundamental to the question of Being. The rock is. The universe is. They exist as concepts in our minds, but they also exist independent of our minds.

Now there can be different categories of being and degrees of interaction and relevancy between the different beings, for all of which Heidegger has coined different terms in an attempt to systematically structure these relations.

But when we take a deep breath and a step back from all the Seiendes, In-der-Welt-Seins and Zuhandenheiten, would we then not be able to divide the totality of all Being into:

I Being that was not created by humans:
1. Sub-atomic of which we know very little and where parallel states/realities seem to be possible to exist.
2. Atomic-> physical and chemical natural states and processes. They can be described well by conventional science and there are laws to be observed here which are seemingly universal
3. Biological. These are complex chemical processes which result in a self-perpetuating system with no fixed end
4. Biological with consciousness. Again we know very little about consciousness, but Heidegger knew even less and was trying to expand on the idea of phenomenology used to describe different states of mind/consciousness using his own categories. The status of current neurological research is that consciousness results out of the neural network that is our brain and can have different grades of complexity corresponding to the complexity of the network. At some degree of comlexity of the network there is a threshold to simple consciousness, then medium and advanced consciousness

II Being that can only result from consciousness:
5. Representational beings (Images). ie describing or conceptualizing about things that exist in the real word, eg our image of a flower or stone, when we talk about it
6. Phantastical beings and concepts like 'Mickey Mouse' or 'Nation' ie beings that are not existing in the real world outside of human brains and conventions
7. Man-made physical objects like houses that come to be part of the real world and some of which will still be there when no more human brains exist. They will then exist in the universe, even though there might be no more complex enough consciousness around to assign meaning and function to them
8. Virtual beings and simulations. They are created by humans, like phantastical beings, but they are able to make own decisions such as simple or complex computer programs, and are able to perpetuate themselves with no fixed end

And now comes the most fun part in all philosophy, whether this last point 8 is the only feasible answer to point 1 where it all could only have started? We do not know (yet).

Lastly let it be said that I like this forum full of intelligent people, and appreciate all answers I have received so far.

''The secret of the demagogue is to appear as dumb as his audience so that these people can believe themselves as smart as he is.'' - Karl Kraus

A laser beam through a completely empty space, with no dust, gas, or any such thing, would be invisible. — petrichor

hmm, but wouldn't that mean that stars are invisible from a spaceship? what dust is there in outer space to de/reflect the sun's or other stars light?

Thank you for this post, it is very lucid and helpful. Your style of writing is better than some popular science books in print! Keep up the good work! :up:

Thanks for the reply, I appreciate your putting my rather 'raw' comments into the perspective of competing theories of knowledge and truth. And yes you are right I adhere to Poppers falsification principle of science and the underlying notion that there is an independent reality which exists outside the concepts that our brains have created. This reality we can get a better, more detailed understanding of by employing the scientific method.

Anything else is, in my opinion, hocus-pocus and mumbo-jumbo. Let me elaborate on this statement, by giving some very simple example:
We have geological and fossil records that show that earth existed long before Kant, Popper and Kuhn started thinking about it. So therefore this was a reality outside the human mind, which was very real to the pre-human lifeforms that inhabited it. We have proof of this in the form of broken bones, which resulted from e.g. two dinosaurs fighting or an early mammal breaking his bones falling off a cliff. So the stone that it fell against, was real. Yet you say:

There is no such thing as a specific object like a stone outside of an account of a stone — Joshs

What I maintain is that the stone has existed, since a couple of billion years ago, and it impacted an organism some million years ago. And one dinosaur impacted the other, regardless of whether years later a human lifeform evolved that had a high enough degree of consciousness to start deducting the events of the past. Moreover, these 'simple science' examples are so close to absolute truths, that the falsification probability is in the parts per trillion range.

You go on to say:

Knowledge is not representation but transformative interaction — Joshs

In my opinion the more simple approach would be that our human brain has no impact on reality whatsoever, apart from the technology we created, some of which is polluting and transforming the ecosystem of our planet.

This of course leaves specifically open the possibility that a technology had evolved in the past which has created the reality we are living in, including the brains that we are using to analyze it. But then again the knowledge we can come to with our human brains is not a transformative interaction, it is mere attempt at description.

It's not a question of denying an empirical account of matter and energy, but of showing what underlies the conditions of possibility of models based on objective causality. — Joshs

I think you may have misunderstood the intention of my question, I should have written:
How would a universe without matter and purely consisting of energy ‘look’ like? Black, white, or something in between? Infinitely big or infinitely small?
If we had a better understanding, we would be close to knowing what this that energy everything consists of is, we knew what the universe is. That is what keeps human philosophy going. Einstein said something indefinitely more meaningful with five symbols than Heidegger did with with all his jumbled grasping at linguistic straws. For scientific and philosophical purposes, it is unnecessary to distinguish between the existence of a stone and existence of a human mind.

Heidegger didn't say that matter doesn't 'exist', he says it is the product of a derivative thinking. — Joshs

Well, he wrote, and that was a literal quote, that the stone does not exist, it is just there (vorhanden). That is what he wrote. And that doesn't make much sense to me, and I hope also not to most others.

The earth existed even when there were no humans living on it. The earth is not the product of a derivative thinking. It is the product of a star explosion, a lump of matter in the universe, whether humans are thinking about it or not.

If a tree has fallen in a forest and only cats were there to hear it, it has still fallen and it is still a tree. A star has exploded and we are his stardust. We are matter. We are the luckiest matter to have lived on planet earth so far, in that we know enough about the fundamental building blocks of nature to understand that we are only thinking matter.

Heideggers untenable, anthropocentric notion of ‚existence‘:
„Existence is the name for […] human ‚Dasein‘. A cat does not exist, but lives, a stone does not exist and does not live, but ‚is there‘ GA 26,159“. This is not from ‚Being and Time‘ but from a lecture given in 1928.

Here is the original:
„Existenz ist der Titel für […] das menschliche Dasein. Eine Katze existiert nicht, sondern lebt, ein Stein existiert nicht und lebt nicht, sondern ist vorhanden (Vorlesung: Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Logik im Ausgang von Leibniz (SoSe 1928): GA 26, 159)

So, a stone is there, but doesn’t exist. A cat lives, but doesn’t exist?

Existence in this definition is only biological existence with a complex degree of consciousness. Everything else does not exist.

So much for clarity in Heidegger’s definitions. Btw ‘Vorhandensein’ is the exact German translation of ‘Existenz’.

I think that Heidegger is highly overestimated. He was clearly just grasping for words and defining his own terms in a quest for meaning in (human) existence. He was never concerned with the nature of reality outside of its reflection in the human mind. I wonder what he would write now 100 years later.

What I would say is that all three, human, cat and stone, consist of trapped radiation/energy which we call matter. But we do not know the nature of this radiation/energy, so we do not know what we are and what the universe is. No need to invent new words and no need to write big books about it.

How would a universe without matter ‘look’ like?