9 million people die from starvation every year. Should we lay these deaths at the feet of capitalist corporatism? Because I surely do.

The collection of essays is available as a PDF here:

https://dokumen.pub/qdownload/scientific-realism-selected-essays-of-mario-bunge-9781573928922.html

Looks really interesting. I looked on line and it's not available for free. Alas. I did download "Causality and Modern Science" from Hoopla of all places. Any good? It's a subject I've pontificated about a lot here on the forum, so maybe it'll help if I actually know something. — T Clark

I just read that essay. It's what you would expect, surveys the various takes on causality across the socio-scientific spectrum. Concludes with an affirmation of "spontaneity," but in the context of an "enriched determinism."

I found the essay on energy more thought-provoking. Essay on the Mind-Body problem tomorrow.

The collection of essays is available from Kindle and is intended as a kind of survey of Bunge's mammoth body of work.

But then for anyone who seriously asks that question, the inherent goodness of existence must precisely be in question, must it not?

Right, so morality is an analysis of what ought to be. So, if presented with two scenarios, I can use the premises of a morality to decide what outcome would be most optimal, or good. In this instance, its the state of there being existence, vs there being none at all — Philosophim

The only sense, the only sense in which any of this makes any sense, is in the sense of the Shakespearian question. So if you are actually contemplating whether to be or not to be, as a choice, then you can come to the conclusion that existence is a good. But only then. Otherwise, you have no business bringing existence into the domain of morality. None. That is the only sense in which "what ought to be" can meaningfully confront the question of non-existence.

The trolley problem is a thought experiment where you’re asked to either watch five people be killed or pull a lever so that only one person gets killed.

In this hypothetical scenario which choice would you make?

For those who would let the five people die by not pulling the lever to kill one person is there a minimum number of people on the track that would make you choose to kill the one person?

50? 100? 1,000? 10,000?

What is your reasoning? — Captain Homicide

Does this not seem like a case where the whole problem just typifies the fallacy of the excluded middle? Like there is a right and a wrong answer? If anything, what the problem reveals is that there will always be multiple answers. Ultimately, one does not even require justification. What if someone puts a gun to my head and forces me to choose or die? It's a concocted scenario designed to highlight the complex nature of morality. In fact, in a real moral scenario what we perceive as choices will normally not be so equally balanced in theatrically catastrophic consequence. Do you sacrifice something to benefit someone else? Or do you always put yourself ahead of others? Those are the important motives underlying everything that people do. Trying to turn it into a a complex equation is just misleading rationalization.

If good is "what should be" then morality is an analysis of evaluating "what should be". Therefore it is not nonsensical using these definitions. — Philosophim

Hang on. If good is what should be, then morality is an evaluation of what should be. Sure. If anything, that exactly contradicts your conclusion that existence is good, since it is about a good which does not yet exist (but can be instantiated by actions).

"If existence should not be, then it is not good" Alright. But who says existence should not be? What is the point of assuming that? All you are doing is begging the question of the contrary, and trying to make it look like you are somehow deriving it from a logical operation (self-contradiction).

What I really, really dislike is the way that you are now, in subsequent posts, presenting all of these poorly substantiated and widely criticized assumptions in an axiomatic fashion ("Once again, in participating here, you assume the validity of the previous conclusions.") You are pre-empting criticisms in order to extend your reasonings, which motivation I can understand. But some of your fundamental assumptions are highly idiosyncratic and far from intuitively clear, as the objectors have been trying to point out.

Then you start presenting more idiosyncratic ideas in later posts like "quantifying existence", which really isn't a thing. Do you mean counting? Anyway, You "prohibit" people from making legitimate observations about any of your current ideas unless they are willing to already concede all your preceding assumptions? That's a poor idea. It's like you are trying to retroactively confer authority on your own un-substantiated axioms by weaving them into a system that people must agree with before they can criticize it.

e. If it is the case that there is something objective which concludes there should be no existence, that objectivity must exist.

f. But if it exists, then according to itself, it shouldn't exist.

g. If it shouldn't exist, then the answer "No" objectively shouldn't exist thus contradicting itself. — Philosophim

It seems like all of your subsequent reasoning devolves upon this set of specious reasonings.


First, even if there is an objective morality, it is inherently nonsensical that that morality should make existential claims. Morality is by definition about right and wrong. You are committing a flagrant category mistake by attempting to extrapolate from a moral ought to a metaphysical is. What would it even mean to assert "there should be no existence"?

All your claims about an objective morality being existentially self-founding prove is that anything which exists must exist in a state of non-self-contradiction. Which is trivially (definitionally) evident, and doesn't add any substantial information. Your argument makes exactly this much sense:

If a banana exists, then it is good.
If a banana claims that it does not exist, then it is self-contradictory.
Therefore bananas are good.

As others have pointed out, all you are doing is repeatedly assuming what you are claiming to "prove," which is that existence is good. In fact, there is extensive evidence to the fact that moral badness exists. It exists all around us. In which case you may not stipulate that "existence is good" because what exists is clearly both good and bad.

Existence qua existence is neither good nor bad, it just is. Non-existence is not; meaning nothing can be meaningfully predicated of it.

Scientific Realism: Selected Essays of Mario Bunge
by Mario Bunge

New Worlds for Old: A Plain Account of Modern Socialism
by H.G. Wells

When the Sleeper Wakes
by H.G. Wells

Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology
by Alfred North Whitehead

I expect this will take a while....

Let us know what you think after reading it, and thanks for bringing it up in this thread. — javi2541997

Definitely not suitable as an introduction to systems theory. What it does is excavate a comprehensive set of laws that govern systems behaviours and illustrate their role in applied systems methodologies. However you do need a good grounding in systems concepts going into it. Non-linear dynamics is frequently referenced, but not explained. In a sense, the book highlights how the failure of certain types of thought amounts to the existence of cognitive biases, for which the laws of systems thinking are the remedies.

but as the end-point in our development is it not thwarting creativity and vitally original human thought — Nemo2124

Yes. And plagiarising and blending everything into a single, monotonous shade of techno-drivel.

Unto this Last; The Political Economy of Art; Essays on Political Economy
by John Ruskin

:up:

"The study of axiology" is not itself axiology (i.e the study of value), so how does this "enhance the appreciation of value" when its object of study is not even (a) value? — 180 Proof

It would seem that "the study of" connotes the act of reflection upon the topic or instance of something. So it can rightly be construed as an extension or expansion of the thing being studied. Just as the study of music enables one to directly experience nuances of performance inaudible to the untrained ear. In other words, that reflection upon something is able to enhance the value of that thing. Which is to say that reflection is inherently valuable, or confers value.

The Grammar of Systems: From Order to Chaos & Back
Patrick Hoverstadt

I've either been looking forward to or dreading this book. Subtitled "33 Systems Laws and Principles and How to Think like a Systems Thinker" it will be demanding I'm sure. My other alternative is taking another stab at Process and Reality, which is also in the dreaded anticipation category. So the lesser of two evils?

The study of axiology enhances the appreciation of value. — Shawn

I like this formulation better. :up:

I just spelled out the positive argument from Durkheim plus the relevant modern supporting evidence. I don't see how what I supplied requires any additional validation or how anything else that was said contradicts it.

I believe that faith is a deterrent against suicide.
— BitconnectCarlos
How does faith deter anything let alone suicide? — 180 Proof

This is part of the thesis of Durkheim's book Suicide. It has been supported by academic studies, including this one which concludes, among other things that "external religiosity" - participation, in other words - statistically does have a prophylactic effect on suicidal ideation.

In what sense does the study of value instantiate value? You can study anatomy but never practice medicine. Arguably, the practice of medicine instantiates more benefits than the study of anatomy.

I find the premise that what people actually do reflects their values much, much more than what they say (or write). So while axiology may have some value, it can hardly lay claim to being the highest value, therefore, neither can it lay claim to being the highest good.

I have not formulated a reasonable concept of god — Vera Mont

Do you think that other people with different experiences might be capable of forming such a concept? Not everyone is capable of conceptualizing equally well in every domain. Perhaps you lack the relevant experiences or abilities? The world is full of examples of people who are incapable of grasping concepts that others find evident. Look at flat-earthers.

That's the second reason not to believe in gods. Whether they're as powerful as the believers claim or not, they're not worthy of praise. I can't worship anyone who fails to meet my standard of morality. — Vera Mont

So are you rejecting the concept of god that you perceive as being advocated in the world around you, or are you rejecting the most reasonable concept of god that you yourself have been able to formulate? Just curious.

What I'm saying is, assuming that UBI is successfully implemented assumes that it is successfully funded, through taxing the wealthy. Which in itself puts the previously marginalized masses into a better position to exert influence.

If, in order to fund UBI, we increase taxes on the rich — then you’d see an outcry. — Mikie

Exactly. But the hypothesis is that UBI is successfully implemented. So what happens as a result of that is at least in part altered by that. It would be one way to move things forward.

By my thinking, UBI doesn’t solve the real problem, which is one of power: the decisions being in the hands of a self-perpetuating, small elite of private owners. — Mikie

But does it not stand to reason that implementing a UBI - globally - would have to be achieved through methods which, at the end of the day, would tend to act against the interests of the elite? After all, if the elite could guarantee compliance through UBI, they would have done so long ago. UBI in its essence is a contradiction of elitist privilege.

Doing my best.

No, my argument is that the specific historic descriptions of "God" are approximations, in exactly the same way that most concepts are, limited by the specific socio-cultural domains in which they are formed. So you can't invalidate the "concept" of God by refuting any of these particular versions any more than you refute the concept of "atom" by refuting Democritus. How is that an abuse of the word approximation? It's a valid analogy. Concepts, especially scientific concepts, are in a state of constant development. Maybe you heard about the JWST crisis in cosmology?

Socialism has many points other than division of wealth however, being the fixation of prices, abolishment of class inequality (except government/population before the advent communism) and private property, prohibition of wealth accumulation by private entities, and seizing of the means of production. — Lionino

You are specifying a lot of specific criteria which may belong to certain systems of socialism, but which I don't think can legitimately be said to be true of "socialism" in general. I do agree that a Universal Basic Income would, in a sense, solve most of the problems targeted by socialism....

Approximation of calculations, not approximation of concepts or fictions. — Lionino

Are you equating concepts and fictions?

an aproximation with contradictions is not an aproximation but an impossibility. — Lionino

Whether or not the approximation has contradictions is irrelevant to the fact that it is the approximation and the thing to which it points conceptually is that. Who is to say at what point the hypothetical begins and where it ends? Science is all approximations.

Doesn't need proving or disproving. You either buy a particular insurance package or you don't. I don't buy any of them — Vera Mont

And of course there is the role of faith in everything from epistemology to social reality. These institutional facts don't depend on the pre-existence of god, inasmuch as they are self-instantiating. I do not seek to understand in order to believe, I believe in order to understand. I, for one, very much believe that belief is foundational.

A lot of quibbling about "the god of the new testament" versus "the concept of god." This could be recast as a debate about the existence of atoms. By the reasoning in this thread, Democritus' atoms "cannot possibly exist." And yet we know that they do exist. Democritus' description was simply constrained by the limited information available to him at that time, which resulted in a gap between the "sense" and "referent" of the term, to the point which it becomes possible to dispute their identity.

Similarly then, any god of any tradition can be viewed as a "best approximation" to the concept of god. Criticisms of the adequacy of this god or that god are nothing more than an acknowledgement of the particular cultural limitations wherein the idea was formulated. The concept of a citizen used to include the right to own slaves. We don't contend that there were no citizens in ancient Rome or Greece.

Ergo, proving that the Christian God "couldn't exist" is really just pointing out the universal historic fact that concepts are constantly being updated to keep pace with cultural evolution. Tilting at windmills.

An atheist doesn't necessarily claim (though some may) that no kind of supernatural entity could possibly exist, or that no entity which might seem like a deity to humans could possibly exist. Most of us simply reject the god-forms that have so far been held up to worship by human agencies of one kind or another. — Vera Mont

Which kind of atheism is essentially a socio-cultural critique, which is the most reasonable version of atheism I have heard. Unlike the nonsensical version that seeks to prove that "god cannot exist." Quantum physics is rife with things that defy reasoned existence, until they are discovered.

You did not write the following?
[P]redicates of X entail search parameters for locating X (i.e. whether or not X exists where & when).

Because it sure looks like you did. Which is what I disputed. You are searching for something that is well-defined. You are not proving the non-existence of an unknown something, you are proving the absence of a known something. I fail to see exactly what it is you are failing to see.

I think this proves we can prove a negative. — 180 Proof

It only proves this if you can definitively say that and where the missing item ought to be. Which is absurd. The only way you could say that would be if the missing item actually existed, then disappeared. You are conflating a "disappearing existent" with an unknown. Anything which is to whatever extent unknown can not be definitively identified sufficient to this putative "proof of non-existence." This is exactly what Dennett failed to appreciate.

A Modern Utopia
by H.G. Wells

Making the Social World: The Structure of Human Civilization
by John Rogers Searle

Imagine a universe where not only is everything possible, but that all possibilities must be fulfilled before its natural conclusion.

How might such a universe look? — Benj96

Perhaps like overlapping superpositions of possible states which gradually collapse into optimally configured forms? Oh wait, that's this universe....