metaphysical claims have no truth value.
— T Clark
:100:
3 hours ago — 180 Proof

Hohooo! That is false. (There is one truth value already.)

"My spirit is green." metaphysical claim.

"My spirit is green and my spirit is not green." Metaphysical claim that is necessarily false.

"My spirit is green or my spirit is not green. " Metaphysical claim that is necessarily true.

:100: :clap: :strong: :up:

I did not find the poem humorous, until you said that it is written in the same format as a limerick, so it must have some homour in it... at which point I laughed myself silly.

My side still hurts from all that laughter.

Up to that point I found it to be a mildly whiney poem (in British English, my granddaughter informs me, whindgy, or winghy poem) that complained that there is too much complaining going on in the world. In a way, a fractal that was suddenly abrupted after the first iteration.

I dunno. Objectively speaking, we have no clue how subjective our knowledge is to the objective reality, in terms of approaching the real world. Atoms have a number of types of component particles, which all have other component particles. Are the particles divided into infinity? If yes, any FINITE knowledge of reality, as objectively true as they may be, are comparatively no knowledge.

However, if the knowable facts of the world are finite in number, then yes, we can talk about spectrum of knowledge of reality in terms of...

Except objective/subjective are not good terms here. All your knowledge, all of every individual's knowledge is subjective. The knower knows the facts; objective is not a measure of congruence to reality, objective is a way of knowing reality, which no human possesses.

How do we develop our conciousness and self-awareness?

My first thought is that the inquiry itself is a helpful place to begin exploring. — Universal Student

My first thought is that I don't know.

My second thought is the same.

And no matter how I try, all my thoughts result in the same conclusion as the first two.

N.b Not exactly asking for utopia either but an improvement on the current state of things. — Deus

If you want to modify the behaviour of a large number of people, you must study how to modify the behaviour of a large number of people.

Asking me to do that is futile. I can't modify my own behaviour, for crying out loud.

Can you modify your own behaviour? Can you give three examples where you modified the behaviour of several people at once, let's say, the behaviour of seven or more people?

Modifying human behaviour is beyond the range and domain of human behaviour. Only religions, laws, and wars can accomplish that. And, of course, peer pressure, but that's not done by one leader, but by a community.

But in the case of technology, it is human made — schopenhauer1

You are saying humans are NOT human made???

I’m particularly talking about the aspect of human existence where we cannot understand the technology that we use and replicate it. If anything we can know and/or replicate a very very small portion of it. Rather, much larger forces are in charge of much bigger processes like mining and manufacturing, physics, chemistry, materials, engineering, and electronics and we just passively “use them”. This just leads to the fact that everything is set for us. We are disconnected from that which sustains us. — schopenhauer1

You are saying, in essence, that we are disconnected from our bodies? Because the human body uses much more chemical, biological processes than what we understand or know about. Yet we use them mindlessly. Which just leads to the fact that everything (or most things) in our bodies are set for us. We have no control over them.

We are disconnected from what sustains us, and we are disconnected from what the sustenance sustains-- we are disconnected from our very own selves.

Lets do a little thought experiment: Imagine that in the year 2100 all decent people are vegetarians and they are convinced that eating animals is as wrong as owning slaves or torturing suspects, and that meat-eating has always been wrong (after all there are a lot of people today who would say so, although I am not among them; but in the year 2100 this has become the general consensus). — Matias

This is a good question. How would you convince lions, sharks and necrotizing fasciitis bacteria that what they do is morally wrong?

One thing I learned though is to not generalize from a small sample. — Agent Smith

How large samples did you go through to get to this generalization?

It [i.e. money- ED] might buy you everything on earth but not love. — Deus

True. Very true. But the lack of money may stop you from making someone you love fall in love with you. And I ain't sentimental or callous.

(2) The product generates profit (price - cost). — Xtrix

What Is Profit?

Profit describes the financial benefit realized when revenue generated from a business activity exceeds the expenses, costs, and taxes involved in sustaining the activity in question.

Any profits earned funnel back to business owners, who choose to either pocket the cash, distribute it to shareholders as dividends, or reinvest it back into the business.

Do you get tired of being embarrassingly silly? — Xtrix

Of course it's easy to call someone else silly when you give self-contradicting definitions to terms. People accept your first definition, and then when you want to prove them silly, you simply change your own definition of the term. That's beyond silly. That's pithy, that's irritating, and shows your lack of spine.

Who looks silly now?You, of course. If you keep to your usual nonsensical habits that degrade your reliability and credibility as a philosopher, such as defining terms wholly differently during the conversation, then of course don't be surprised when you appear to be silly.

Yeah, not only odd alliances, but the beliefs become tokens of group membership. To strongly profess a belief that X is to be s member of that group. Of course, belief expression has always been one of the tokens used to identity group membership, but social media has exaggerated its role to the point where it's basically the only token that's recognised. I'm probably going to sound like an old curmudgeon saying this, but I remember a time not too long ago where I might have a pretty heated argument with a colleague on some matter over which we disagreed, but we'd neither of us even dream of trying to delegitimise the other. We knew, even through the tension, that we were, in some ways, still part of the same group (privileged white male ivory-towered professer I'm afraid), but the point is that other tokens rendered us as being in the same group despite our clashing beliefs. — Isaac

I was going to make a forced joke, "where can you buy these tokens you speak so highly of?" but it wouldn't have been funny, and mostly I would have sounded stupid.

Instead I would like to inject that while I like this "token" metaphor, I would use, if I were you, a different metaphor, "totem". Totem inspires not only a group identity or belonging, but it also has a spiritual or metaphysical element that makes the group identity inalienable. Totem also includes a commonly agreed but weak protection by the group for its members -- via physical, natural ways, and also via some supernatural ways.

Tokens don't do that.

We could imbue some other newfangled social media phenomenon with one-word descriptions such as "taboo", "tattoo", "voodoo", and "doodoo", this latter to describe posts like this paragraph here by me.

Yeah, 'cos that really sorts out the corporate control over information, put a private corporation in control of information... — Isaac

You're right. I wrote it down as provocation.

:fire: :up: — 180 Proof

Sorry, I already did that. Beat you to it!! :smile:

where are the laws against toxic disinformation? — Tom Storm

FaceBook committed to fact checking.

One of the problems with quantum reality in human minds is that quantum reality does not LOOK like anything. Humans like to see things that they can see... like god. He is an old man with a flowing beard and very powerful. Or a river, or a cloud.

Heck, photons and light waves are not visible on the quantum level. You think you see one, and poof, it's not even there. And without photons and light waves you can see nothing.

:100: :clap: :up:

Keystone, since you understand that 0.9 means move from one room to another, then please tell us what the following expressions mean:

0.938K
330.five
"integer division by Olaf Gerdmuller"

I'm stuck at the first step. Why does "0.9" an intelligible announcement that everyone understands? I don't understand it. Do you, Keystone?

The way I look at it our perception of reality is solid objects and liquid and gaseous; and then there are black hoes and sub-atomic particles and quirks and quarks.

But to a mechanic of quantum, the reality is wave forms, or not even that. I don't know what reality looks like on a quantum level. And I surmise that a mechanic would be hard-pressed to describe it to me in a way that would make sense to me. (Through nobody's fault: mine, the mechanic's, or the quantum's.)

The upshot is, that in our perception reality is solid-like, and it's nothing to sneeze at. It is a substantial way of looking at things, solids as reality, because to most of mankind that is the only available way.

That mechanics look at it as a dense wave form, is okay, but it's neither here nor there, for me as a real person.

Modern humanism is no longer based on the idea of the spiritual or even the divine. Nevertheless, it grants man a special position by ascribing to him a unique DIGNITY (from which then special "human rights" can be derived). This dignity distinguishes Sapiens - and only him ! - It marks the qualitative difference, the gap which separates the human being from the animal kingdom. — Matias

Here you say as if only humanists rode on human dignity as a special characteristic. Then you say it's even in the Mein Kampf. "Die Würde des Menschen ist unantastbar (und so weiter)".

"Die Würde des Menschen ist unantastbar = Human dignity is inalienable" and so on. They say nothing about some animal dignity. — Matias

So it's not a humanist thing, it's a human thing. So stop saying that it's humanists who ascribe dignity to humans. You are cherry-picking worse than the worst bible-thumper.

(3) Where do the profits go?

In my experience having discussions with workers, this question is rarely asked. So it’s no surprise the following question is asked even less:

(4) Why should I have no input in deciding where the profits — that I helped generate — are allocated and how they’re distributed? — Xtrix

Your near-sighted, biassed and communist (in the bad sense, not in the good sense) way of looking at things is shown very clearly in this post of yours.

You are quite wrong that workers have no say where the pofits go. Or part of the profits.

You are wrong because you clearly haven't followed through your own line of thinking. You stopped at a spot where you shouldn't have stopped, and declared that workers have no say in where the profits (or parts of it) go.

This following explains how workers have a say in it. It is not a straightforward, but a rather convoluted way; but the end result is that workers have very much of a say where part of the profits should go.

Part of the profits go into taxes.

Taxes are dished out to other places but to the owners of the company.

Most political representatives in their candidacy state what they will do with the tax money.

The workers have a way of influencing where the tax money goes by voting for those political candidates to represent them who have the promise to put the taxed profit where the worker wants them to put it.

That's how the worker HAS A SAY ON HOW TO DISTRUBUTE THE PROFIT. Or rather, a part of it.

Only near-sighted, non-thinking people who jump into conclusions to prove their biassed and wrong views can not see this and will deny this when it's presented to them.

Lies that are easily seen for what they are. Such bold assertion are not philosophical but made up bullshit by uneducated and ignorant minds.

When such uneducated and ignorant minds are practicing psychologist then it’s harmful and dangerous. — Deus

I and the Opening Poster did not practice psychologist (to use your vernacular) at all. We talked about psychiatry in a vein of philosophical approach. We never purported to offer a cure, a treatment. We did not promise to make anyone feel better. We simply discussed how the profession's mechanism could be looked at from a philosophical point of view.

You made a statement without providing proof then came up with some sort of story. — Deus

1. Whom are you addressing?
2. You are asking for proof. That's a tall order as science itself can't provide proofs. (Many threads on this forum about that, so look them up; not interested in discussing this claim here.)
3. Philosophy is not about empirical proofs; it is about a priori proofs, which it does on empirical stuff, once it establishes some premisses assumed to be true, (but not proven to be true) on which it builds logical conclusions.

The free will-determinism issue is well beyond my ken. — Agent Smith

Then ask a kin who can, in your clan who's got the ken.

Fee will and determinism are both hard to prove empirically, because of the nature of causation. We can roll two balls and predict which way they will go after colliding with each other, but causation in more complex situations is beyond predictable results.

Consider two EGGS, not balls, that are made of rubber. Or to footballs. (American football ball, not soccer balls.) Humans can't predict their paths if they are bouncing about and colliding with another american football. And they are just slightly different from balls, round balls.

Now imagine two dice. Again, some insist that their rolling is not random, it is predictable, because they are determined. Yet dice games are useful as games of chance, because no human mind can predict the outcome of the roll.

Now take the case of a human. He has a will. What affects the will? Anything that affects his thoughts or his body will affect his will. How can we measure that or how can we even identify the individual causes in the causation process? Humans are much more complex than a dice, and we can't even do this with dice!!!

So this is what stops any attempt of empirically creating a test for free will and/or for determination. We can only theorize that everything happens due to a cause; why would something happen that has no push or cause to happen? But beyond that we are impotent in our thinking to prove causation and prove (or disprove) free will.

They never could turn crap into gold. — Deus

In a way that's true. No psychiatric patient ever achieves full recovery. The recovery percentage (which I define as a spectrum, similar to the spectrum of autism: some get much better compared to their acute stage, some get just somewhat better, and some never get better; and at the onset of disease, at the acute stage, it is impossible to predict how the patient were to fare) is variable an unpredictable on an individual basis. The rate of recovery quality can only be established on a statistical basis.

I like to quote this: (A mother talking about her schizophrenic son) "Oh, Johnny is getting much better, he is starting a program that will get him a job." Ten years later, same mother, same son: "Oh, Johnny is really getting better, he started a new program that will get him a job and he has a nice new girlfriend." Yet in another ten years: "Oh, Johnny is really well, he is starting a new program, and has a new girlfriend, a very nice girl".

The miraculous thing is that Johnny IS getting better year-by-year, yet, on a decade-by-decade basis, he is the same. It is not that he is on a constantly recurring loop of getting better then worse; no, there is no loop. This is in a way a paradox, a self-contradiction, that he is constantly getting better, yet his condition does not improve. Yet it's true. A bit of an unexplained or unintuitive phenomenon, like those we hear of happening in Quantum Physics; best not to try to explain, but to accept as an inexplicable fact.

finally an intelligent discourse that I read with interest, with voracious interest in "what's next in this series of thoughts."

The picture you so nicely depicted in an easy-flowing, yet thought-provoking and at times hard-to-follow script is this (to recoup for my own interest) : psychiatric illness is a healing mechanism that is used in bodies of people whose body needs healing, but the body can't provide that healing. The psychiatrist affects the mind of his patient; he acts as a body that healed itself and therefore no more mental illness is needed. Except, of course, it puts the donkey in front of the cart: healing the mind is futile, when the body is still damaged. (This is a bit of a criticism of the theoretical aspect or approach.)

Being a mind-healer, the field of psychiatry becomes the body that heals the mind, and the mind of the field of psychiatry attaches itself to the mind of the patient to effect the healing process.

So the question becomes, does the psychiatric profession as such CREATED the concept of mental disease, which mental disease is in effect a form of an attempt to heal physical ailments; or else the mentally ill created the field of psychiatry, inasmuch as it created a sort of healing apparatus to help itself?

It is an interesting theory, and in a way it's true. Modern psychiatry has gone away from the "healing by talking" of the schools of Freud, Jung and others; that route has been renegaded to the profession of psychology. Modern psychiatry pushes drugs, and their role has reduced to 1. finding the right meds for their patients, and 2. finding the right dosage for the same. So in fact your theory is right on, inasmuch as the healing's focus by psychiatry has been re-routed from trying to heal the mind (by talking) to heal the body (by medication).

Personally, I like to use the term "fatalism" instead of predetermination, because predetermination sounds too close to determination, and therefore the two similarly-sounding ideas can be mixed up.

There is a world in which predestination is true & determinism is false, oui? — Agent Smith

I think that in a world where determinism is true, the world's course will be indistinguishable from predestination.

A predestinated world can continue to happen two ways: no causation, in this case it is not determined; and with causative processes, in which case that world's course is determined.

Thanks for explaining the incredulity fallacy! Much appreciated. As for the rest... all's cool. I mean, all right.

I hope I have done so. — Yohan

Yes, you explained yourself very well. Thank you very much, I appreciate that.

I meant that if I do not resist the rules of determinism, then I will no longer feel like the rules of determinism are subjugating my will. Not that I can go against the rules, but harmonize with them. — Yohan

Okay, but nothing can subjugate the will anyway. So whether you go along or not, your will will not be subjugated. And whether you go along or not, your will will be affected by causes.

I am not a slave to the rules of determinism unless, like a prisoner who opposes walls and prison bars of a prison, I oppose the rules of determinism. — Yohan

This is patently false. You can't oppose and succeed in defeating the rules of determinism.

But let's say you can, for argument's sake. Then your conclusion is false: If you oppose the rules of determinism, then you are a slave to (i.e. must always obey) the rules of determinism.

This is not proven, not even intuitive.

Also, unclear what you mean, because the word oppose means any one of these three things: successful resistance, or staging an impedance, or protesting against. Which do you mean?

Amor Fati, the love of one's fate, or the rules of determinism, frees one from "negative will". — Yohan

What's negative will? How does the love of one's fate free someone from this?

When a man "knows his limitations" and accepts them, he frees himself from banging his head against the wall of limitation. — Yohan

This is true. But it does not address the will defeating determinism.

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

This post of yours does not explain itself at all, and it states things that are not intuitive, so you NEED to explain them if you want to make others understand what you mean.

Please also iron out the difficulties in composition that I unfortunately had to point out to you.

Do the rules of determination subjugate the will. — Yohan

No, but they do affect the will and the will will respond in a predictable way.

Maybe my post was too long for readers. Maybe I should have just said so.

Subjugation is not the ONLY way a causational effect can happen.

Subjugation of the will never happens. But the will is exposed to causes to act on it, and the causes make the will behave in predictable ways.

The will has its own causes to act the way it does, and it has its own effects by its actions.

No, of course MSS's "humanism" has nothing to do with the humanism of, say, Erasmus of Rotterdam or Pico della Mirandola. But atheist humanists like MSS have great problems to explain what their 'humanum' is supposed to be that makes the human animal so special. They are unable to explain human dignity. That's the basic flaw of their theory — Matias

Can you give a quotation or reference where humanists say "we ascribe dignity to humans and not to other species"?

Is it your own interpretation and explanation what separates humanists from others who also want a symbiotic, and harmonious existence among living creatures?

I need to know this before we proceed. I am sure others would like to know too, whether the insistence on dignity to be an exclusively human trait is an official humanist idea or it is your own conclusion that humanists MUST think that.

Please give an answer to this, Matias.

Don't let's commit the argument from incredulity fallacy, oui mes amies? — Agent Smith

I don't understand this. It's not the French part I have trouble with. It is the English text that I can't make heads or tails out of.

For instance, I've never encountered an "incredulity fallacy". I am unfamiliar with that concept. Please explain and give a typical, educational example.

How can you commit something from something? You commit things TO, not FROM.

Don't let's? Let's not use unconventional grammar.

What I said above in the previous post is about the subjugation of our will. I concluded that the will can't be subjugated. However, that does not mean that our will is independent of causation and independent of determination.

If and only if we are in a bad, intolerable or undesirable situation, then our will is invariably DETERMINED (i.e. can't act other way than), to get us out of that situation, or to make the situation stop.

This could be a prison situation, or going through a bad divorce, or having prostate / ovarian cancer.

The will is not subjugated; but it is affected by external circumstances. It is behaving in a predictable way, and therefore it follows the rules of determination. It is an effect of a cause, and it causes its own effects.

Okay, I forgot for a moment what the original post was.

"Can our wills be subjugated / dictated by external things?"

If and only if this is the question, then my answer is a resounding "no". Our circumstances can put us in a subjugation, but our will can't. If we are in unpleasant circumstances, then our will is not subjugated; it is motivating us to get out of there. We wish to get out of there, our will is to get out of there.

I've heard of instances where people talk of "his / her will is broken". Not from first hand experience, thank god.

Is that possible? To have one's will not function, or make it malfunction, or to make it powerless? I don't think so. But what do I know.

People commit suicide in a number of painful situations -- mental, emotional or physical -- but that is not an indication of a broken will. It is an indication of their utter hopelessness that the situation would ever change.

One thing makes me wonder: people who are certain that they will be executed, go along the plan of the execution. For instance, many dig their own graves knowing that they will be interred there after the execution.

Or they simply line up against a wall to be shot.

There are footages, real footages, of these scenarios from wars: WWII, and in the Middle East. So this is not a fantasy or an imagined scenario of a mental experiment. The work is to be done on real examples.

Are the wills of these moribund people broken?