So we can actually chill-out and float upstream in a reality free of instrumentality, from time to time. — Chris Degnen

I don't see how this follows. Everything you cited suggest that teleology is imminent, as imminent as is the future....

The recognition then of intra-organic events, which are not merely effects nor distorted refractions of cosmic objects, but inchoate future cosmic objects in process of experimental construction, resolves. to my mind, the paradox of so-called subjective and private things that have objective and universal reference, and that operate so as to lead to objective consequences which test their own value. When a man can say: This color is not necessarily the color of the glass nor the picture nor even of an object reflected but is at least an event in my nervous system, an event which I may refer to my organism till I get surety of other reference—he is for the first time emancipated from the dogmatism of unquestioned reference, and is set upon a path of experimental inquiry.
~John Dewey, The Logical Character of Ideas

He's not wrong. This is the essence of my own position which I'd describe as experimental constructivism.

If the sensations are fabricated then are you implying that your intuitions of objectivity are unreliable? As long as you are not effacing the link with objectivity that the intuition effects.

Unlike Kant, I would say that, although there must be something intuited as outside of me in order to determine myself within experience, it is entirely possible that the sensations which are given (for me to intuit) are completely or partially fabricated (by myself or another) and there is no way to know. To me, this doesn’t really matter for practical purposes, but is technically true. — Bob Ross

I think this contradicts an essential characteristic of transcendental intuition, which is that effect a synthesis of the subjective and the objective. Hence its transcendental character.

narrative trick of saying "you're not going to believe this but I swear it's true." — Jamal

manufacturing credibility

:up:

I really like this reflection from the opening:

I feared I should not be able to write, from mere memory, a statement so minute and connected as to have the appearance of that truth it would really possess....

Suggests that the truth of events is so complex that we are essentially always "fictionalizing" in order to represent reality.

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
by Edgar Allan Poe

The violent attack on Israel is far worse than the defensive reply with violence. Defense is permitted, attack is not. Killing in defense is not as bad karma as murder during an assault. — Nicholas

Yes, Israel definitely does not have a history of genocidal persecution of the Palestinians. The holocaust halo doesn't grant eternal moral immunity. The end does not justify the means. The means we use dictate the ends.

That being said, I think Israel should abide by its own principles in war and provide as much aide as possible to Gazans, keep its air strikes only at targets that are absolutely seen as necessary to disarm them, not just anywhere they suspect. They need to actually have a strategic plan for a two state solution and work to bolster the moderate Palestinians. — schopenhauer1

Reasonable.

Should the Allies have bombed Nazi Germany in 1945? — schopenhauer1

What should happen is that people stop try to justify and legitimize violence in all of its repulsive aspects. Morality is exercised in living contexts, not historical evaluations.

Israel's treatment of the Palestinians while shocking to you appears to overlook the fact that Palestinians butchered and burnt babies, raped women, and took the very old as hostages. — Hanover

So you would say, on the atrocity scale, that Hamas has "crossed the line"?

I wasn't aware there was a spectrum of genocidal intent.

Claiming either side has a moral edge in justifying murder is....justifying murder.

Doubtless many and many an act of thought has intervened in effecting the organization of our commonest practical-affectional-aesthetic environment. I only mean to indicate that thought does take place in such a world; not after a world of bare existences. and that while the more systematic reflection we call organized science may, in some fair sense, be said to come after, it comes after affectional, artistic, and technological interests which have found realization.
Dewey, "The Antecedents and Stimuli of Thinking"

Which is to say, of course, that thinking precedes science. Which seems pretty obvious. Science is a product of instrumental thought. Since I'm interested in the instrumentality of thought (for which science is only a tool) I'm crossing the boundaries of intuition, epistemology, social linguistics, science, etc.. There's actually a method which formalizes this type of project called "intertheoretic reduction." The result of an intertheoretic reduction is known as a 'reducing theory' which explains or predicts a wider range of phenomena under more general conditions.

It's metaphysical speculation, sure. That's why its in the lounge. Of course, science isn't sacrosanct for most of us.

Given the givenness of reality, the natural order of things is for things to fade away. So for any apparently existing structure, the tendency is for that structure to dis-integrate. That is the most general conceptualization of physical entropy. Any structure which contradicts this law cannot have physicality as a sufficient cause. So emergent structures necessarily involve transphysical causation. Energy flows downhill, just like streams of water. And just like streams of water, energy can be harnessed by certain types of structures and made to flow along the reverse gradient. An adventitious momentary configuration becomes advantageous in storing energy (because that is essentially what negentropy does). Informationally, the adventitious momentary configuration is the physicality of the medium. Words can be written. They can be in any language. They can be carved in stone. Or transmitted as pulses of energy. But the essential symbolicity of meaning is what is completely transphysical, what exists across and transcends all possible physical configurations. And the ongoing physical evolution confirms the efficacy of the informational. Information tends to accrue, just like matter, and imposes form upon matter. Dark energy and dark matter, for example, appear to interact with matter, and also appear not to be affected by matter. There are dimensions of overlap.

It's your topic. I suggest you start one.

Suppose the universe starts at a state of low entropy A and ends up in a state of high entropy B. Now suppose that the event of the transition from state A to B leaves an informational footprint. It is possible that the informational entropy decrease complements the physical entropy increase.

I suggest that the nature of the relationship between physical and informational entropy is only beginning to be understood. Therefore I refrain from making judgements that rely on presuppositions about overall entropy state, whether the universe is an open or closed system, etc., Negentropy emerges locally. That's a fact and it's what I'm currently thinking about. :)

Are you saying that there is a consensus as to the overall entropy state of the universe? That would be news to me. In any case, its not germane to the mechanism of negentropy and whether total entropy increases, decreases, or remains the same is moot to me at this moment.

I think whether the total entropy of the universe is conserved or not is an open question. In any case, I'm not speculating as to that at this time.

I'm getting some really clear ideas while reading Dewey's essays on experimental logic. It's roughly conformant with what's being looked at in the current thread on mind and nature. About the facticity of phenomenological data. To me it suggests that information emerges through a natural process, having both a synchronic-objective form but also a diachronic aspect. And this becomes instrumental in the unfolding of negentropy, which I see as a kind of amplification of quantum-coherence.

Surely, science isn't "the pursuit of truth" but "the pursuit of truth under a particular set of circumstances", and these circumstances are what we call science. — Judaka

I think this is accurate. Per Dewey, "Every science is continually learning that its supposed solutions are only "apparent" because the solution solves, not the actual problem, but one which has been made up." (Dewey, "The Relationship of Thought and its Subject Matter" in Essays in Experimental Logic) Science is conducted under conditions which are "constructed."

I agree with your overall perspective....if I had to pick it would be social justice over wealth.

I'd have to say that whether or not money is useful on a desert island isn't relevant to its possessing actual and unique force in the world at large.

direct usefulness means that a dog would understand it. — Vera Mont

Arf?!?

itself having no direct usefulness — Vera Mont

Actually Georg Simmel talks a lot about how money achieves an independent and real function, concretizing the value of the intangible. As one of the "steering media" (Habermas) money has unique and definite influences.

start here — 180 Proof

:up:

:rofl:

Adam Smith was seriously full of shit. — Vera Mont

Hence the notion of trickle down, and what trickles down.

So you are being ironic, right? Because grocery stores don't distribute unsold produce, they dispose of it.

Religions are not life-affirming as such. — baker

This is also not true of many kinds of religions. Calvinistic Protestants aspire to a calling, a special task that gives meaning and utility to life. And various indigenous fertility rites throughout history can't be described as anything but life-affirming. Harvest festivals. Frazer's Golden Bough is a great resource.

Collective and cooperative efforts on a global scale are impossible. One cannot coordinate and cooperate with 100 people at once, let alone 9 billion. So I’m not sure about the reasonableness of that. — NOS4A2

I would dispute this. There is a difference between coordination of efforts and coordination of objectives.

As to the involuntary force-governed cooperation of the governed, that can be said to be true of all governance. As Weber says, the state holds the monopoly on the legitimate use of violence.

Money makes the system stupid - or at least, irrational. Money-as-profit has a logic of its own, which has no connection to human logic, or fulfillment or satisfaction. When money is made the driving force of a society, everything else yields to its logic; all other faculties serve its interest. — Vera Mont

It certainly might look that way, but people have to accede to that authority on a continuing basis.

As I see it, money has become a resource. Resources must be regulated, the more stringently the more essential they are to life. So if money has become "the resource of resources," then by all practical reason, it should be subject to the maximum regulation benefitting the general good of human life.

I don't understand how enlightened self-interest can not yet have reared its head though. If we settled on an income gap where the wealthiest were allowed to make just 1000x more than the poorest, we could establish a more sustainable system with a better quality of living at the bottom and more room at the top. If one-hundred million dollars can be you anything you want many times over, what is the point of having a billion? Or ten billion? Presumably, there is at least some correlation between wealth and intellect and knowledge. It's almost like money makes you stupid too.

Hardly humanist instruction. Transcendental reverie. It doesn't fit the case.

The next time the woke tell me they are going to set rolling the wheel of Dhamma, I'll give them a pass...

Slow, or lazy? We allow ourselves to be distracted from important matters by trivialities.

Not in their teachings I think. Buddhism stress the values of ego-less-ness and humility. Who knows does not speak, who speaks does not know, says Lao Tzu.

I don't know that information itself has a value; it would depend on whether the recipient can use it constructively. — Vera Mont

Which was really my meaning. The implication of calling it "the information age" is that it should have value.

In every case where an attempt at reasonable egalitarian democratic organization was made, you can trace the reason for its failure to a handful of self-interested actors, who either sabotaged the experiment from the beginning, or tilted its structure toward the acceptance of some animals being more equal than others. — Vera Mont

Just so. But what I wrote was just a more optimistic recasting of the observation made by 180 Proof. Just because we have a bad track record, doesn't me we couldn't succeed.

The Dream Cycle of H. P. Lovecraft
by H.P. Lovecraft

That's a vague response, but to me it seems a bit self-righteous. 'Anyone skeptical about the possibility of utopia is just unwilling to put in the work.' — plaque flag

I do not share the belief that utopia means nowhere. To me, this is not vague. Both Mannheim and Ricouer have much constructive commentary on the value of the idea of utopia in responding to ideologies, which are more like apologetics.

:up:

Yes, a rose by any other name. By the way, I corrected the book from "Manufacturing Consent" (which I haven't read) to "Necessary Illusions" (which I just did). The appendices of which are filled with documentary evidence.

Israel respects that. — frank

I guess it depends on your definition of "respects." I haven't read the entire 260 page apartheid study, but Chomsky goes into a lot of detail about how the media has long ignored Israeli atrocities in the book "Necessary Illusions".