@Franz Liszt, I also think that most atheists like rock music way more than classical, and most theists prefer to enjoy classical over rock. This is not an absolute statement, and many exceptions exist, but by-and-large it is true in my experience.

I don't for a moment think you are an atheist. You are making a theist case, and you disguise yourself as an atheist.

Many atheists use the same stupid and deplorable, but all-too-obvious and transparent tactic to denounce religion, and many theists employ the same method to denounce atheism.

What's the point? You remind me of a joke that floated around in the old country:

"Who is the absolute reactionary? The person who joins the Communist Party, and immediately upon acceptance for membership commits suicide, only in order to have one less communist party member."

Your pretense of saying "I am an atheist, but I recognize that atheism is a completely screwed up and false belief system" does not cut the mustard for me.

Forgive me for my bluntness, but it does feel like a waste. A waste of intellect if the most intelligent people in the world don't feel the need to improve it. Or am I wrong? — TaySan

1. Philosophers are not necessarily the world's most intelligent people.
2. If and when philosophers or anyone else came up with a world-saving idea, then they would also have to sell the idea to the world-- much harder an endeavour than finding a solution. Would need to tackle, fight and overcome prejudice, ingrained cultural norms, and personal preferences and beliefs... not possible.
3. The world operates currently on a financial or should I say fiscal model. Things that get done are things that generate profit. This is not possible to overcome, AND it may be in direct opposition to implementing solutions to save the world.
4. The feeling to improve the world does not necessarily produce something that does improve the world. There is a terribly large gap between the two.
5. Maybe, just maybe, you think it possible that the world does not need improving? Whenever mankind tinkered with improving it, the introduced improvements made it worse.
6. Most philosophers feel that evolution of the fittest will take care of necessary and required improvement, if your idea of improvement will include survival in a mutually pleasant scenario with nature's other forces.
7. Improvements have been taking place for a long time now. Steadily, surely and unstoppably. It is not philosophers who instigate these improvements, but technology, social change, and a modernization of superstitious prejudice.
8. The same thing that you raise your concern, that is, waste of intellect, has been brought up in many elitist groups. In Mensa, for instance.
9. Because, you are absolutely right: if you assume that philosophers are mandated to improve the world, then they don't fill their duties, and they are wasting their time and intellect. My response to that is what I first said in the beginning of this thread: nobody tells anyone what to do and what their mandate is or should be, unless the director offers compensation to get his will done. ARE YOU WILLING TO PAY US HEFTY AMOUNTS OF MONEY OR OTHER BENEFITS TO COMPEL US TO DO WHAT YOU SAY WE SHOULD BE DOING?

I stand corrected.

The magnitude of positive reality, taken precisely, beyond the limits or boundaries in the things that have them. — Amalac

This sentence has no verb. It is nonsensical.

Sorry; can't read. My attention span is very short. I pick up knowledge from nuggets, not from continuously reading an entire book. So alas: Heidi will not be read, Paul on the road to Damascus was okay in his times, but to follow him now is an anachronism.

And in turn I agree with you. With the caveat that I've developed a vague theory that the thing that separates western philosophy from the eastern (Asian), is that in western philosophy you spell out all the little steps in your thinking, and hopefully you leave no gaps or holes where your critics can force your logic open with a crowbar, so to speak. And in Easter philosophy the teachers say something quizzical, which the disciples buzz and swoon over, and their job is to explain what the teacher meant. Zen is like that, and so are the Keons.

Another way to compare the Western with the Eastern is a visual one. If you are familiar with Albrecht Durer, you'll remember his wood print "The rhinoceros". It is a detailed figure, robust, standing, static, and well-circumdescribed in every detail. Nothing left for the imagination, all surfaces and muscles and intentions of the rhinoceros are precisely depicted. Now please think of horse-paintings of the Eastern masters. They are dynamic, their hair and tail are flapping in the wind, they are full of vigour and enthusisam; but they are not detailed to the precision expected in the West. They are painted with large, wide brushtrokes.

Both are beautiful: the horses and the Rhinoceros. But I'd rather write something that tells the reader what I think, in precise, unmistakable terms and style, than write something that the reader has to use as a guide to connect the dots.

Thanks, Consance, for your spirited and exhaustive reply. Indeed you were right, at this point I am looking at the text and I don't understand it. However, I only skimmed it and read it superficially. So please give me some time to go over it with some more focussed attention. I'll get back to you when I absorbed it to a satisfactory level. Thanks.

My suggestion, for what it's worth, is to announce a million dollar cash prize for anyone who can tackle this problem. I'm fairly confident that should get people's, philosophers' juices flowing. Why hasn't somebody already thought of this? — TheMadFool

there are tons of competitions and contests on the topics. The prize is not a million dollars, but something like $500, which at the current economic situation is about a fair price for saving the world.

Also, tons and tons of research money goes into the pockets of lame, impotent physicists and chemists who try to make a buck under the pretext of saving the world.

I have a plan, and I offered it for free to past participants of many international congresses that are held worldwide all over the place on global warming, for instance; and mostly I get no reply, and the ones I get treat my suggestion as if they never read it.

It is a common concept to disregard the opinion or the "solutions" of the dilettante. There is merit in that, but sometimes you throw out a diamond with the pig water.

"Philosophy has failed to create a better world"

I am not sure if that is one of the mandates of Philosophy: to create a better world. There is a trend that subscribes to that, but I don't think philosophers do. The closest philosophers come to this, is moral philosophy, but that in and by itself tells you only (if at all successfully) how to behave morally, and not how to reduce carbon dioxide or how to reduce the accelerating population explosion.

So yes, the title is right, except philosophy never said it would do that.

I am an atheist and never read the bible. Not in full. It is inhumane to do that. The bible may be a strong starting point against theism, and it definitely pits the impossibility of scriptures' claims against a reasoned faith. But atheism is more, it is the belief there is / are no god(s), while the bible will teach you that there is no Christian / Jewish god, at least not in the form and description the scriptures claim how god is. The bible will not be a guide to decry Montezuma, or Zeus, or Hera, or Apollo, or Xi, or Ti, or Mi, of Fi, or Bi. The Sun god may well be alive and well even if you read the bible, and so can the horned monster of Krete, the Minotaur (and its giant counterpart, the Maxotaur.)

Thanks. In my experience if people can't tell in their own words what they just read, then they either did not read it, or read it and did not understand it. There is proposition by Heimleitslaufen, "Anything that can be said can be said clearly." If it is beyond the reader's ability to say clearly what they read, then they can't say it at all, and if they can't say it at all, then they have no clue what it is about.

Please don't take my opinion to heart. It is, after all, only an opinion, and site unseen, too.

You sound like Derrida. — Constance

That sounds sorta nice. Can I boast to my friends and impress them that I sound like Derrida? Or does "derrida" in Latin mean "pile of horse droppings".

People demand to know.

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I'm being silly. Sorry, but I've been away from these boards for so long that my developing Alzheimer's took the better of me to reply to your kind and thoughtful post in kind. Sorry. I apologize.

What is a "Derrida"? I actually don't know, and now it bugs me.

"Why do many people say Camus "solved" nihilism?"

My theory is that he posed it as a mathematical theorem, and then he solved the theorem.

Debate still continues whether his theorem expressed in mathematical terms was a precise description of the "Nihilism problem". I say not. But many say yes.

-------------------------

Seriously speaking, I hear a lot of people talk and nobody I know or overheard on the bus or watched on the tube or talked or listened to has ever said "Camus "solved" nihilism".

Who are in the circle of people in which you move? I really am curious what demographic has a social chitter-chatter over nihilism as solved by Camus.

No one is saying some proposition is not falsifiable. All are — Constance

Again, I beg to differ. All scientific propositions are falsifiable, but mathematical and logical ones are not falsifiable.

When you say "All things that can be said can be said with clarity" then you make a proposition which is falsifiable. I falsified the current one in question in my argument (won't bore you by repeating it). If you don't want to make it falsifiable, you have to make it into a squeaky-clean, logically unassailable statement, whereby you state your necessary assumptions to be present to make the proposition true. If you don't say the assumptions, the reader is not obliged to assume the same things as the author.

If you say "all eating utensils dropped near the surface of the Earth will fall down in some cases" then I'll by it. I can't easily think of a likely scenario in which it would not work. There may be some (for instance, if the utensil is made of aluminum and the medium in which the event happens is liquid mercury or quicksilver). But if you say "You can tell about colours to a man born blind and he will understand you " then it is clearly an example where clarity is not part of the speech on the receiving end. And this is caused by the lack of specifying the underlying assumptions.

What does that mean? If you just mean the brain causes or creates the mind then everyone can agree there I think. — khaled

I'd like to rephrase your observation:

"What does that mean? If you just mean the brain causes or creates the mind then everyone can know what I think."

Given the proper technology, of course.

Banno, you're actually wrong.

this assumption is implicitly in place. — Constance

Assumptions are never knowledge. At best they carry a possibility of getting it wrong. You can't tell me that an instance of a falsification of a theory, which falsification does not contravene any of the hypotheses of theory, is an invalid falsification.

But when a perpetrator gets his or her punishment? — ssu

The perpetrator is not immune to envy. The basis for Schadenfreude is envy.

it means that there is no natural way to lift the stone. — EnPassant

God is supernatural. Please don't defile him by equating Him with the profane.

↪god must be atheist ...or is it that you failed to express your point clearly? — Banno

You are so haughty and high-from-the-horse. If you think I will now research all my quotes in this thread and try to figure out which one you are referring to, then in my opinion you are an idiot.

Why do you object to my saying that the issue you raise lies with the assumptions Wittgenstein is accepting about communicative conditions required for making a point? — Constance

Because he did not point this assumption out. He can't assume we will assume the same thing he is assuming. That is not kosher in philosophy.

He is arguing against claims in philosophy that are logically not possible, therefore nonsense. — Constance

Whoo, boy. This is the most watered-down description of all the utterances of any philosopher ever in existence.

This I say with the ASSUMPTION that philosophers don't say illogical things. If it is illogical to a listener, it is because the listener does not base his logic on superstitious beliefs while the speaker does, or the listener does not suffer from the same mental illness as the speaker or else vice versa for both conditions.

Expressions of Schadenfreude are only appropriate when not displayed to the victim, or sufferer.

For instance, I play cards on the Internet. There are emoticons and there are statements one can flash on the screen, as their contribution of emotionality or opinion.

There is a laughing face. There are some players who regularly display a laughing face when they set somebody's contract. (1) I can't stand this.

Then there are others who display emoticons that show empathy and warmth (a wink, a smile, a thumb up) and then if they (2) show a laughing face when they win a hand, it is reflecting more in the vein that they are happy with their win, instead of happy with someone else's misfortune -- although in real time the two must happen simultaneously.

It has gotten to the point that if someone at the table shows two smiles as a display of Schadenfreude, I quit that table. No matter whether it's directed at me or at someone else at the table.

Good spotting. The English language has a large amount of words to describe "love" with one word, with differences in the meaning that may range from just a nuance to a more robust one.

Let me try to illustrate this from the basic form to the most revered form:

F, fornicate, sex (have sex), escapade, affair, romance, infatuation, relationship, love.

This is probably not a full list. And after infatuation there is a different branch: stalking, which is the unwanted form of devotion.

I made the mistake that @Book237 did not: I took the OP's word "Romance" as "love", mainly because he did indicate that he figured a mutual support in other areas in life from sex and tet-de-tet is also involved.

I stand corrected.

Whatever I wrote in my previous two posts was meant to cover love, not romance.

Omnipotent does not mean being able to do illogical things. It means God is capable of doing everything that is naturally and logically possible. It is not possible to make mankind free and not free at the same time. — EnPassant

Fair enough. What is impossible: that god can create a heavy stone, or that god can lift a heavy stone?

Your objection had been brought up by some other critics. This was my reply to them:

I find no unintelligibility {lack of logic or ill logic} about "god is capable of creating a stone he can't lift" if it comes to his power of creation. I find no unintelligibility {i.e. ill logic} about "God is capable of lifting a stone he had created" if it comes to his power of lifting. — god must be atheist

Then it evolved into an argument when someone stated that god is not bound by logic. It turns out that the person who mentioned this did not espouse this, but just reminded us that some church figures stand by that. Unfortunately I missed that, as the context in that very post did not indicate that he did not espouse that opinion.

Thank you for explaining your reason to ask the question.

Did a sufficiently advanced smart person not "want to be" smarter some point in their life if not throughout its entirety? Perhaps not. But, it's worth explaining otherwise.. — Outlander

To my understanding there is nothing a person can do to increase their IQ once they reached intellectual maturity. So to increase the intellect of a person (assuming he or she is an adult) is a pie in the sky.

Yes, you can increase a person's knowledge base. But not their analytical ability to manipulate any information.

I don't know what you're talking about. Put a proposition on the table, give it some support, and I will respond. — Constance

I did and you conveniently said you did not understand it or that you did not see any relevance to the topic at hand.

You choose to show that you ignore people's opinions by talking too much. I choose to not bother repeating myself more than once, on the account of a claim that my interlocutors don't understand what I say.

Good looks, more than good brains, seems to be rewarding more on the middle-income level.

On our level people compete; we need to compete. If you are good looking, you win; you can't argue with what you personally see. Seeing is believing.

Smarts? Bah! If there were a kind person among us, he or she would become King (or Queen).

Smart person? They avoid this place like the plague. An allegedly smart person who holds that reputation, has to wage daily battles with wannabes.

In my life, personally, intellect helped, but lack of good judgment failed me.

If this helps: twice I had a relationship (that I know of) sheerly because the two ladies appreciated my intellect.

The proof is in the arguing. — Constance

You claimed in several places that you don't understand my arguments and you disagree with my references. So that's that, we can' t argue if you are incapable of comprehending what I say.

The word nincompoop you understood.

Ressentiment is a bit different from resentment. Ressentiment is the term existentialists use for saying "blaming an object for one's own misfortune and hating it for it." There is no envy involved, only blame. So if I resent a person, I envy him for his advantages over me and therefore hate him. If I have ressentiment against a person, I blame him for my misfortune, independently whether he is better-off or not than I am.

Plus, combining forces, in this case between spouses, you get a multiplicative effect of efforts, not just an additive one. Much like how and why people live in societies.

I believe you're right, that is one of the selling points, the mutually agreed script to take care of each other, more than of other people in the tribe. The other is procreation. The third is sex.

Thank you.

I believe intrinsic worth exists.

I believe importance exists, and I believe that the average person is important.

However... how do I assign a metric? You asked "What is the value of a human life to you?" That is, "What is the importance of a human life to you?" and "What is the intrinsic worth of human life to you?"

As god is my witness, I can't in good conscience answer these questions. Others may be able to, but I can't. At least not in good conscience. Not when it comes to deciding what to give up to retain a human life.

On the other hand, importance and intrinsic worth is not something that I have to exchange for something else of equal importance and equal intrinsic worth. I can utilize such things, for instance, the importance of a car is to carry me from one place to another, and the intrinsic worth of a car is its ability to help me gain distance over time.

In this vein, the importance of human life is that I can cooperate with them, form societies, with all societies' amenities. There are social, emotional, and life-sustaining aspects in the importance of the life of a human being. Similar to their intrinsic worth.

Yes... I agree... God is subject to logic. Good job for deducing the position I was open about from the beginning? I hope you're proud, I suppose. — Questio

Well, I did not get that drift from you. I thought I had to make you make a stand. If your position was that right from the start, I missed it, as I was mislead.

Mislead by what? I don't know. Perhaps by my interpretation/miscomprehension of what you said.

So now you agree that God is not omnipotent, because omnipotence is a concept that is absurd in and by itself.

Thank you.

Okay, but I still don't see what meaning you give to "value". You said it is not the meaning I gave. So there must be a meaning you gave it.

You are right: you don't have to manufacture a meaning for "value". There are many, many different meanings. So then please tell me which of the many meanings you want us to use.

Without any guidance, my meaning was correct, I did not detour from the dictionary meaning. You refuse to tell us the dictionary or philosophical meaning of "value" you want us to use.

Therefore the discussion is wildly divergent. Anyone can use any meaning to value, and I ought not to be denied the meaning of "value" whatever of its dictionary meanings I chose.

Except... except, you said:

If you want to take the question with a quasi-positivistic attitude or stance, then sure it is the wrong question, or a poorly phrased one. But if you don't approach it in this manner, then you can say things about it. — Manuel

So the manner of using my choice of value is not valid in this discussion.

Therefore I have to ask you to please tell me: WHAT MANNER OF CHOICE {of the many possible meanings of the word "value"} IS VALID IN THIS DISCUSSION?

It annoys me a bit that I had to ask the same question, and that I had to EXPLAIN IN FINE DETAIL why I needed to ask the same question. And please, for the sake of humanity, do answer the question now.

What? I'm sorry good friend, but where on Earth do you get that? — Questio

You did say you agreed with me,

By the way, on a side not, completely agree with this response — Questio

until you thought of a decree of church figures:

God is not subordinate to logical cohesiveness — Questio

Here, you ab ovo declared that logical thinking is not appropriate when criticizing the scriptures.

THIS is in complete parallel to the treatment the Church gave to Galileo. The defence of a church decree supersedes logic, and there is nothing anyone can do. I challenge that, in the following way:

If you agree that God's abilities and actions are not subject to logic, then you agree that Galileo was wrong; because though his theory was logical and right on, it still got rejected by the Chruch on the same reason: the use of logic is not a valid tool to question ways of the Lord. Hence, since you subscribe to this decree, and you deny the validity of logic when it comes to scrutinizing the scriptures, you must agree that the Earth is flat (since Galileo is wrong).

Therefore, if you believe the Earth is NOT flat, then you negate your stance, and you agree that God's words, teachings, and very essence are also subject to logic.

Of course, W does assume something about basic conditions of making ideas clear, but these are assumption always already in place in all conversations, and to account for them all to be understood, one would spend an eternity explaining contexts of explanatory possibility. The other also needs to be competent in t he language spoken, within hearing distance, capable of reasoning well enough, and so on. — Constance

I am not sure if this is W's assumption or your addition to the set of assumptions you imbue W's points in order to deflect criticism. I admit I never read W. But you have. So have you seen this assumption written anywhere, by him, or do you think it is left to the reader to assume that this assumption exists? This is an important point. Has the meaning in the quote ever been expressed by W, or is it the reader who assumes this assumption exists?

How his assumptions about an interlocutor are arbitrary you would have to tell me. — Constance

Answer: in my example, he places the clarity of speech and understanding on the speaker, not on the listener. Once he places the onus of clarity of understanding on the listener, W's claim is falsified. Or can be falsified under certain circumstances. Therefore he arbitrarily places the onus of understanding the clear communication on the speaker, not on the listener. This is an arbitrary placement.

.......for in order to be able to draw a limit to thought, we should have to find both sides of the limit thinkable (i.e. we should have to be able to think what cannot be thought).

He is telling us that our world is structured BY logic. — Constance

I am sorry, Constance, but he is not saying that. In fact, this entire new topic you introduce is a completely incongruous statement or claim to my objection.

(And aside from your bringing up another issue, which I can only think you do because you want to obscrue the issue I had brought up. this interpretation of yours can not at all be inferred from W's quote. There is a common domain between your interpretation and W's claim, but one does not flow from the other, and one does not encompass the other. You are freely winging it, making wild claims that are not valid. I, however, do not wish to continue this new vein of discussion, because I first wish to close the discussion between you and me by coming to a common understanding, before opening up another discussion.)

I have to admit one more thing: I think Wittgenstein's models are false, his insights are wrong, and his claims are not true. It is a hype that got him into reverence by many thinkers, but any thought I've heard others attribute to him has holes, large, huge, gaping holes in logic or in reasoning. It is only blind faith in his intellect that makes people bow to him and try to explain everything he has said in terms that makes sense; while in reality he is a nincompoop, a come-hither idiot of philosophy.

Stating something is giving a statement of a fact or of an opinion.
Claiming something is normally the same thing, with the extra meaning that it is true.

If you state a fact, it involves the inference, that it is true. Facts are not topics of debate.

If you state an opinion, you can claim it is true or you can claim it is false.

I read once somewhere, can't remember the source, that philosophy is an endeavour where one has to have a very fine understanding of the language -- from its robust forms to the most refined and subtle. In fact, some philosophers have claimed (mainly the logical positivists) that philosophy does not exist beyond the comprehension of the language or beyond the comprehension of ideas that the language can express. If you know the language, then philosophy can't tell you anything that is incomprehensible to you.

Asking me to define the difference between "stating something" and "claiming something" is a sign you have a lot to learn yet for becoming a passable philosopher. Sorry, not to diss you or to belittle you. But it is the truth, that not knowing the difference in meaning of two very common words will require of you a lot of work to catch up to par.

Alas, Wittgenstein was not that stupid to make such an obvious mistake. Here, the matter is about how an analysis of logic and the world play out. — Constance

I showed you his mistake, and you don't prove I am wrong, (unless a reference to an unidentified point by some philosopher's work is a good counter-argument) you just say it is not a mistake because Wittgenstein was not stupid.

So, if P can be said at all, it can be said clearly. — Constance

I gave you an example where it is only valid if you place the reference arbitrarily to one respect; but in a different respect, where you can place the reference also arbitrarily to, the statement gets rendered to be invalid.

You came back with an incomprehensible quote to that. Please say what you want to say CLEARLY. If you don't, you are not living up to W's point, which you are trying to prove is true; you give a real life, living, perfect example of the opposite.

Please remember and if you can help it, please accommodate this need: I have no education in philosophy. I am a reasonable thinker, but referencing a philosopher in the literature and not saying the actual point of the author's work that you invoke in your argument will confuse me and will do (possibly) many other users of this site.