Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World
by Maryanne Wolf

Whether digital technologies may be impacting our capacity for critical thinking.

↪Pantagruel Collectivism may have some merit at the local level, where people cooperate voluntarily and the ties that group them together are tangible.

However, the larger the scope becomes, the more abstract these supposed ties become, the more imaginary (that is to say, non-existent) the group, the more it must rely on coercion and generally the more problematic the results become. — Tzeentch

So the problem may only be that people lose sight of what is in their common best interest when group size exceeds Dunbar's number. If there can be an organic solidarity in smaller groups then perhaps better education is the key to establishing a more enlightened kind of organic solidarity in larger. Arguably the ruling class presents a unified front under the powerful motivation of maintaining advantage. Whereas the proletariat is united by exploitation, which is more of an external force than an internal motivation. Which helps to explain why mobilization of the working class is more difficult: its members fail to recognize their own solidarity.

There is a lot to be said about it, but one thing is for certain in my mind: the existence of a “collective” can be seriously questioned. It’s abstract, amorphous, mind-dependant, something like a “natural kind”—a “political kind”. Utilizing it as a subject of evaluation focuses value inwards rather than in a direction that would benefit actual flesh-and-blood people. When it comes to the question “what is more natural”, valuing others above our own ideas seems to me more natural — NOS4A2

I'm sure you're not disputing the existence of groups, so I gather you are disputing the existence of an internal or organic solidarity versus an external unity?

I recently read a book that extensively discussed consciousness in the context of brain injuries. In certain types of hemispherical injuries, a person will be unaware of an object with senses tied to the damaged hemisphere, but accurately aware of the object with senses tied to the other. There is the phrase "to be of two minds." There is also a book called "The origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" that discusses the role of the corpus callosum in communicating between and uniting the left and right hemispheres.

So, I would have to say pretty conclusively that the mind is a complex entity, i.e. composed of multiple components. And the evidence suggests that it is, in some sense, divisible.

Thank you. Temperamentally I am not predisposed to collectivism. I've come to it as a rational, pragmatic, and naturalistic recognition.

Collectivism could be said to have its origins in the more primitive state of "communalism" (not communism) typical of societies predating the more modern forms. The concept of societies governed by integrative versus associative bonds is subject of the classical sociological distinction between gemeinschaft and gesellschaft. Since modern society is increasingly characterized by its pluralistic nature, the decline of integrative communalism is not surprising. However this does not mean that it is not still a valid or realistic goal, perhaps attainable under a more enlightened program of global education.

It’s difficult to find a favorable quote about collectivism, — NOS4A2

No bias there

The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
by Henry Fielding

Lectures on Ideology and Utopia
by Paul Ricoeur

Jonathan Wild
by Henry Fielding

Given sufficient inflation, the cost of everything goes up. Including the costs of businesses that collapse and life-savings that are lost.

Yes, even income goes up. Unfortunately, it doesn't keep pace with the costs of everything else......

Destra e sinistra (Right and Left) by Norberto Bobbio. — javi2541997

Thank you! This does appear to be relevant to my objectives..... :)

Gracias!

I'm starting with David Held's Models of Democracy, but I'm still hoping for something more specific....

Deserve's got nothing to do with it.
~William Munny, in Unforgiven

It isn't about what you do or don't deserve, it is about what you do or don't do.

So, Biden wants Trump to destroy it? I hope that is not his strategy. — Jackson

The people - the democratic system - have put the institutions in place already. Whatever damage has been done has been done to the fabric of the culture. It is the picture of the corruption of the human spirit. The American Dream has become the American Nightmare.

I am confused as to why Biden allows Trump to subvert our democracy. — Jackson

I think the democracy is already subverted. It is a losing battle at this point.

I'm currently reading Rawls' Political Liberalism, which goes to great lengths to describe how the notion of justice as fairness emerges as a result of the healthy pluralism that is the result of a well-functioning society and a reasonable interchange between competing reasonable doctrines. What I see in the US aligns with none of that.

I no longer have any respect for the United States as any kind of reasonable constitutional democracy. It is horrific; I am horrified.

Political Liberalism
by John Rawls

Hopefully this will counteract the vile taste of the current debacle of Roe v. Wade in the US.

I was absolutely mesmerized by Hardy's last novel, so I'll also now be reading his first:

Desperate Remedies
by Thomas Hardy

But how do you plan to do that if you can't even know for sure if it's there or not? At a given moment for a given opinion, we have no tools to detect it... — Skalidris

We have the catalog of known cognitive biases. That's a pretty good tool IMO.

With experiments, we can conclude a lot of people have cognitive bias (or whatever you want to call it actually), but that doesn't mean that we have tools to measure it quantitively in someone at a given moment. You have no way of measuring how much someone's opinion is biased. What did you have in mind? That we have some kind of cognitive bias detector that tells you how biased you are? — Skalidris

I never proposed that we should construct a scale. Essentially, a bias is a distortion, so whatever the degree of the distortion, remediating it (by whatever amount) is better than not, don't you think?

On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History
by Thomas Carlyle

Just because we use numbers for interpretations doesn't mean the phenomenon is quantitatively measurable... — Skalidris

Actually that is exactly what it means. It seems you are coming from some kind of radically anti-scientific bias. All in good fun I guess, but not a good use of my time.

:up:

Many of these biases have been tested in experimental conditions,
— Pantagruel

That doesn't mean that it's measurable quantitatively... — Skalidris

Experimentation requires quantifiable results. Statistical are quantitative.

It's not necessarily a bias to have an opinion based on a small number of cases. — Skalidris

It is a bias based on the fallacy of small numbers, by definition. It's a cognitive bias, so called, because it is a bias that is exhibited by a lot of people.

Many of these biases have been tested in experimental conditions, as you say. I have read lots of good cognitive science on them. It's common.

Cognitive biases are quantitatively measurable. And, in some cases, awareness of the cognitive bias is sufficient to mitigate it. Consider the law of small numbers bias. If you are aware of the tendency to make judgements based on unreasonably small sample sizes, then you can suspend judgment pending more data. I believe as a rule that understanding a cognitive bias facilitates mitigation.

Doesn't the entire problematic of this thread revolve around differing definitions of the word "metaphysics"? In which case, we are not really asking, can metaphysics be eliminated so much as, what is metaphysics? The book I am reading now oscillates between incompatible subjectivist and objectivist views in the context of neo-Kantianism. Is it epistemology? Is it metaphysics?

Some people for some reason have a dire fear, distrust, or dislike for the term metaphysics (which probably stems from the particular focus of their historical-philosophical background knowledge). Given the ubiquity/centrality of the debate, it seems unlikely that metaphysics will be eliminated from philosophical discourse any time soon. More likely it will continue to be a topic of deep contention.

And isn't that the hallmark of something of philosophically interesting?

I would say the best definition is something to the effect of, being/s that created the universe. — Down The Rabbit Hole

Inasmuch as the question whether matter produces consciousness or consciousness produces matter is a toss-up I'd have to say 50/50.

Until we know for certain the limits of the natural universe, we cannot know if something is beyond its limits. — Art48

:up: :up:

Even the physicist would deal with it more like the hunter most of the time. — Clarky

Yep

See, and I think that the primitive hunter who masters the art of hurling a stone over a long distance "understands" gravity extremely well. I think we are not in a state of direct contradiction, but we aren't on the same page either....

Are you saying that quantum reality is somehow divorced from day-to-day reality due to its esoteric nature? Because I would contend (from the earlier example) when we see the baseball, we ipso-facto "see" the particles.

Speaking scientifically, everything in the universe is a result of quantum behavior, but we experience reality as classical. To say that reality as people experience it is not really reality is goofy. — Clarky

I think the more sophisticated version of the question is, can quantum effects manifest within our "classical" framework and I think the answer is that under certain conditions they can. Quantum phenomena are utilized for a variety of technical purposes.

Quantum mechanics does not manifest at human-scale. — Clarky

10 Examples of Quantum Physics in Everyday Life

In other words , that each era of scientific theory embodies a metaphysical worldview that usually remains unarticulated by the scientists themselves but is nevertheless implicit in their thinking. This view of metaphysics would reveal it not as something ‘beyond’ physics or empirical science in general but as implicit within its thinking. — Joshs

Yes, that is one traditional perspective with which I would concur. Popper for example. In this sense, all philosophy (and science) is inherently metaphysical, which is what I think is being argued. Kuhn's idea of paradigm shifts also fits.

Think about the meaning of metaphysics - "beyond physics"

If the known represents our best understanding of what is going on, metaphysics represents our attempts to go beyond the limits of that knowledge in ways that analyticity doesn't compass. Expanding our understanding of the physical universe isn't metaphysical, because the new understanding doesn't change the fundamental nature of that understanding (except that quantum theory - e.g. the Cophenhagen interpretation - could be said to be metaphysical in that sense).

Compare that with Ervin Laszlo's work on the Akashic universe, which postulates dimensions of reality that in some sense transcend or supercede those within which we normally operate. Metaphysical.

No one agrees on everything. Whoever is talking about getting rid of metaphysics is essentially talking about doing away with philosophy. — I like sushi

Agreed. Philosophy is about expanding the limits of our understanding. Almost by definition, this coincides with metaphysics. The most interesting questions have always been metaphysical.

Continental Divide: Heidegger and Cassirer at Davos
by Peter E. Gordon

I was going to pile Rawls' Political Liberalism on top of his Theory of Justice (which I just finished) but the material is just too dense. Saving that one up.

The Immortal Mind: Science and the Continuity of Consciousness beyond the Brain
by Ervin Laszlo and Anthony Peake

In making the argument that information is the relationship between cause and effect I am asserting that information is inherent in nature. — Harry Hindu

In any kind of strong naturalism (which I would advocate) information, if it is a feature of any realm (and it is) must be a feature of nature. I agree.