So Hobbes as pessimist need not believe that we should be selfish, nor do I think a pessimist is bound to believe we should be selfish. It's quite possible for a pessimist to think we should be unselfish, but yet are not. — Ciceronianus the White

It is possible, but my point was, if you do move from psychological egoism to a standpoint of ethical egoism, you have given normative force to a pessimistic interpretation, which to me seems self-contradictory.

Speaking from the standopint of the principle of uniformity of nature - the foundation of laws/rules that restrict, confine, limit, coerce, shackle, chain our freedom. Too much freedom is also not good though. — TheMadFool

Actually we limit our own freedom in order to do anything.

"The limitation of possibilities is the necessary condition for the liberation of possibilities."
~Sydney Hook, The Metaphysics of Pragmatism

You should not unless you''re a bot.
To disagree is to be free.

:chin: — TheMadFool

But not free to agree....

Since, the pessimist bases his attitude on the uniformity of human behavior (people were/are bad and so they will be bad) and the optimist's attitude turns on humans being capable of breaking their habit (people were/are bad but they can be different) and since humans have clearly demonstrated they're capable of change when they so desire, it seems to be that the optimist has realized something important about us viz. that we're capable of changing our nature or, at the very least, fighting it. — TheMadFool

I agree. :up:

The gist was, if you are making a normative choice, it seems more reasonable to opt for an optimistic versus a pessimistic norm. That the notion of a norm is inherently melioristic, in other words.....

Do you think realism constitutes a normative position? I guess pragmatism might fit?

In fact, I'm the only one thinking now. I'm that demon Descartes was always going on about, and I'm pretending you're thinking, just as I pretended he was. Sorry. — Ciceronianus the White

Aha! A dispute!

I cannot be mistaken about the fact that I am thinking now.

You can take any key part of your experience, and say that because of this, the simulation exists. — opt-ae

Cogito ergo sum doesn't say thinking is the cause of existence, only evidence of it, qua certainty.

Your psychology might be an accumulation of your experience, but you are also an entity. A real thing — Lif3r

My experiences are real. My experience of my physical form is real. My experience is inclusive of everything I am. I'm an advocate of the embodied/embedded school of cognition.

Are you still you after you die and cease to experience? — Pinprick

I wouldn't know, that wasn't at issue.

because there is a difference between you as an individual entity, and the experience you are having. They are two different things. — Lif3r

I'm sorry, says who? I am something other than my experiences? Fancy that.

Money for example. In some tribes the concept of a standardised currency doesnt exist. But for most of the world it does. But wait it only exists when you believe it does. When you stop believing in the value of money it doesnt exist. So "to whom" is the "existence" relevant? Who do we believe when we try to qualify the existence if money? How does money "exist" or not "exist?" It has both a material and symbolic component. Both of which can "exist." And both of which can be made redundant/ discarded and no longer "exist".

It seems some things can exist and not exist simultaneously depending on what perspective is used to measure it. — Benj96

This doesn't explain to me how something exists and does not exist. You are talking about whether a concept is known or unknown, not whether it exists or does not exist. The category of existence (and it's dyadic opposite) is plenary by definition. Once you abandon that framework, you are simply talking about something other than existence!

Dewey also applied this principle to the means-end issue. Utilitarianism presumes that certain ends can be imposed on contexts, wherein means can then be selected arbitrarily (i.e. the ends justify the means). Dewey offers that, instead, we should always be prepared to "discover" new ends based on the discovery of new capabilities in contexts. Talcott Parsons espouses an almost identical perspective in his analysis of social action and economics, we should discover new wants based on our new activities, not arbitrarily formulate new wants and attempt to tailor our activities to them.

What about things that do not fit into either of the categories 'exist' or 'not exist'. — A Seagull

What things would those be?

1. Everything that exists occupies a space.
— Daniel

Where do you get this idea from?

What do you mean by 'exist'? What do you mean by 'space'?

Does mathematics 'exist'? Does phase space 'exist'? — A Seagull

If they are inside a mind then they do....

I don't see human beings as being toto caelo different from other creatures in this respect (or many other respects, for that matter). What we call "morality" simply aligns with a naturally beneficent (or maleficent) disposition which results in behaviours that are either communally beneficial, or communally destructive. This seems to me as intuitive as saying that moral sense suddenly emerges when the human brain achieves a certain level of sophistication (e.g. Homo Erectus, Homo Habilis, what have you).

Are you speaking metaphorically? I don't get it. — TheMadFool

I'm in the same boat when it comes to your topic....

Just because one doesn't have a moral theory doesn't preclude one from acting morally. Things may be good and bad in a natural way. If you are saying that only man can formulate the idea of good, that is one thing. But saying the good is man seems to me the height of anthropomorphism. Unless you were being ironical?

I receive some comfort, as little as it may be, from the realization that all that's good in the world comes from mankind. — TheMadFool

Fresh air and clean water are good.

Just finished Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. Never read it back in secondary education. I liked it a lot. — darthbarracuda

Steinbeck is brilliant. :up:

I am interested in how one can even begin the process of legitimate metaphysics? — Shawn

Look at Karl Popper's concept of the "metaphysical research programme". Whereby legitimate metaphysical theories can be used to "steer" scientific research in a self-correcting loop.

As I think @Janus was getting at, science is about the "elimination of error" (Popper). Metaphysics is about intuitive apprehension that transcends the limits of current science. The two work together.

Actually, the Discourse on the Method might be worth considering. It makes clear that Descartes was bored, and engaging an a bit of whimsey.

I was in Germany at the time, having been called by the wars that are still going on there. I was returning to the army from the Emperor’s coronation when the onset of winter held me in one place ·until the weather should clear·. Finding no conversation to help me pass the time, and fortunately having no cares or passions to trouble me, I stayed all day shut up alone in a heated room where I was completely free to talk with myself about my own thoughts... — Banno

One of my all time favourites opens the Discourse:

Good sense is, of all things among men, the most equally distributed; for every one thinks himself so abundantly provided with it, that those even who are the most difficult to satisfy in everything else, do not usually desire a larger measure of this quality than they already possess. And in this it is not likely that all are mistaken the conviction is rather to be held as testifying that the power of judging aright and of distinguishing truth from error, which is properly what is called good sense or reason, is by nature equal in all men; and that the diversity of our opinions, consequently, does not arise from some being endowed with a larger share of reason than others, but solely from this, that we conduct our thoughts along different ways, and do not fix our attention on the same objects.

In what sense was Descartes uncertain of his existence, and what was the reason for his uncertainty? — Ciceronianus the White

I suggest you read his Meditations. It is an interesting topic to debate, but right now we are really only discussing what his opinions actually were, and they are well-documented.

How do you know, though? How, or what, would he doubt in order to truly doubt? Something more would be required than the mere statement "I doubt." One has to doubt something. Have you ever tried to doubt you were taking a piss while doing so? When you continued pissing, was your doubt resolved--in which case we must ask why continuing to piss was persuasive--or did you continue to doubt despite continuing to piss--in which case we must ask what would be required in order to convince you that you were pissing? — Ciceronianus the White

Hygienics of your example aside, Descartes' conception of doubt is as radical as it gets. Radical metaphysical doubt was how our professor characterized it back in the day. So you may doubt what Rene meant by doubt, but it's a minority view.

Why bother treating the response to this indulgence in faux doubt as significant in any way? — Ciceronianus the White

I don't thing there is any doubt that Descartes did not feel he was indulging in "faux doubt".....

sure it can, because not only does it cover the self, it also extends to anything experienced by the self, — Lif3r

Right, which is the cogito....I know you are saying my experience is something as well. To me, it is a tautology, because you are just calling the cogito something else.

No, I genuinely can’t remember what it’s called, and can’t google for something I don’t know the name of. I don’t think it’s either of those, but googling “egocentric bias” lead me also to “self-serving bias” and “fundamental attribution error”. I think the latter is the term I was thinking of, but the former is a better match for the idea I wanted. — Pfhorrest

Joseph Sirgy wrote an interesting book (called Self-congruity: Toward a theory of personality and cybernetics) which evaluates how the self-concept is maintained through a complex set of mechanisms involving self-knowledge, self-consistency, and self-esteem. Any of these dimensions can contribute in either a positive or negative way to overall self-congruity and obviously act as "biases" in a general way. Excellent read.

This is the reality I am experiencing, and so I can conclude it exists in so far as I am capable of thought.

I think, therefore I am, and I am, therefore my reality is as well.
Has the extension gone too far, or is it reasonable? — Lif3r

"my reality" can't legitimately be inferred to be anything extra to what is certainly revealed by cogito ergo sum.

A modern interpretation is often generalized as "there is thought now" - I ascribe to this view.

Has the preservation of the individual corrupted our way of thinking and engaging with each other? — Alejandro

The individual-centric bias definitely limits our ability to think in collective-systemic terms. It is one of the great challenges of systems philosophy to replace this unfortunate perspective of modernity with a more organic one. Perhaps one hearkening back to an earlier kind of unified morality?

Dewey remarks on the schism between the practical and moral interpretations of action. He says that the whole enterprise of classifying something as "moral" often becomes a thinly veiled excuse for not focussing on practical consequences (i.e. as in the classic gloss of utilitarianism, that the ends justify the means). Or equally, by making it an ideal, an excuse to do nothing, since qua ideal it is somehow above enaction.

What Dewey suggests is that we allow ourselves to be guided by our principles, but that wisdom consists in discovering the most optimum actions in situ. These are themselves the precursors to optimum ends. Make of it what you will.

Talcott Parsons - The Structure of Social Action, Volume I

Life in general is systemic. It is information bossing matter around, as much or more than vice versa. — Olivier5

I think the essence of systems thinking is that things do not boss each other around so much as they exhibit robust patterns of interconnectedness in a process of ongoing complexification...

while I am always conscious of beauty, I am often times completely unaware that a thing is beautiful. — Mww

It seems to me impossible that while you are conscious of beauty you are unaware of beauty. Your approach is to suggest that you have an abstract knowledge called awareness and then failing to find that instantiated therefore no consciousness of awareness. You are begging your own question.

I'll happily stipulate that we do have such background knowledge and awareness, but all that says is that we are aware "that there is such a thing as beauty." And while we are aware of that, we are also conscious...of that.

So is consciousness really synonymous with awareness, when there seems to be degrees of awareness within conciousness thanks to the process of attention? — Harry Hindu

I think the whole concept of attention fits perfectly with the notion that there are degrees of awareness and consciousness. It seems that attention corresponds to a high current degree of awareness. Like self-criticality. There is awareness, and there is self-awareness.

can be quite conscious, and still be unaware of something — Mww

Not to split hairs, but you can't simultaneously be conscious and unaware of the same thing. You can be conscious of some things and unaware of other things....

And in this sense is not consciousness just another word for awareness? — Harry Hindu

As I just responded to Mww, I'm of the opinion that consciousness and awareness are the same.

But if one wishes to think being aware and being conscious are the same thing — Mww

I personally do think awareness and consciousness are synonymous. We are in the arena of definition now, of course.

And isnt the content dependent upon the type of senses you have? Does more senses at work mean more consciousness for an entity? — Harry Hindu

I think that there is a correspondence. It isn't adventitious that consciousness emerges along with the complexification of the central nervous system. I think the same process continues at a conceptual level, the more complex our conceptual schema, the more complex the consciousness. It seems intuitive.

The degrees given in scales like these refer to differences in content, not in consciousness in the sense that the OP means it. — bert1

What is consciousness if not its content?

Consciousness does not come in degrees — bert1

This is trivially not true even from an empirical perspective:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altered_level_of_consciousness