I simply mean to say that the fact of evolution is indifferent to the mechanics - it only requires that there be some/one; but once there is one, it's specificities will have, at it were, retroactive effects upon the actual workings of evolution. I hope that's clear). — StreetlightX

No, this is clear, and I agree with this. Nevertheless:

I was wanting to avoid directly addressing the issue of agency. Autopoeisis is a nice way of expressing a particular type of agency capable of causing effects in and of itself--top-down causation as its often enough termed. To use the example of cellphones, by what agency do they replicate? It's a rhetorical question to me (by human agency), but maybe you hold a different answer in mind.

To then rephrase my previous question: Can replication occur in the absence of agency? I hold the presumption that abiotic givens do not hold agency--instead, that they behave entropically by following paths of least resistance toward absolute entropy. Don't know the extent to which we might agree here or not. Then you get into the metaphysics of identity: What replicates if not the identity that is replicating itself (hence why I used self-replication to make this explicit).

OK, a ton of questions ... yet to me they still point to a universal evolution that encapsulates biological evolution needing to be more general in manners that don't include replication.

That doesn't work. One might be inspired by art to believe this or that; the this or that is expressible, — Banno

(Saw creativesoul's post just recently; all the same:) I didn’t use the word “expression” but “state-able”, i.e. being expressible via language. Communication/expression is not limited to language. Lesser animals communicate/express things to themselves all the time, both intra-species and inter-species (as in a pet cat’s meowing a human for its lunch).

I by definition take art—even linguistic art such as poetry and to a lesser extent literature—to express things otherwise not expressible via language (via ordinary language when it comes to language based art)—thereby making what art expresses non-propositional at root, but only partially expressible via language subsequent to its non-propositional expressions having been picked up on. A picture tells a thousand words, but those thousand words will not perfectly depict the picture.

That that perspective aside, I’ve already acknowledged that the topic of aesthetics is a fuzzy example. One person’s aesthetics is another person’s urinal—and the first most often finds it impossible to express the aesthetics to the second.

Why pick on an easy target and not address the issue of belief concerning what God is? The word is meaningful even to an atheist—though maybe not ever to two atheists/theist in exactly the same way. Yet the concept as belief causes actions.

What is a motive? A desire, or a belief in a way to bring about that desire? Or both? — Banno

Without heading into philosophy of mind/self issues, a motive is tmk defined as “a reason for sentient behavior”. If one holds motive X one will trust/believe that X is beneficial to obtain or else realize—thereby (teleologically, I'd argue) causing one’s actions of obtaining or else realizing X.

A desire can most commonly be defined as a drive that holds a motive—and, thereby, a belief-that some X is beneficial—for its impetus. Otherwise, the desire is enactive, i.e. is one with (perfectly unified with) who one momentarily is … “I am desiring to whistle,” rather than something along the lines of, “I feel tempted to whistle (this later instance being an inward drive one feels in some way, akin to how one would physiologically feel an object, rather than a drive which one momentarily is actively being). [Yes, a contentious proposition, but again, I’ll shy away from philosophy of mind/self. Still, you asked, and this is my best current reply.]

That said: Do you disagree with motives being beliefs-that?

If yes, give your own understanding of what a motive is ... such that it does not consist of believing that some given is beneficial to obtain or realize.

But hey, if you don’t want to interact by not overlooking significant portions of what I post, no gripe on my part. We can just leave it here.

I already did: beliefs of what is aesthetic to individual works of art and belief of what God is. Art can inspire revolutions due to its conveyed aesthetics (rarely, but an example does come to mind) and beliefs of what God is ... well, in the world I live in, these motivate people galore to all sorts of actions all the time.

But I'm not clear on where you stand. Do you disagree with motives being beliefs-that?



... been procrastinating on doing, well, what I've got to do. Will get back eventually if replied to.

What's that, then?

A belief that cannot be placed in the canonical form B(a,p)?

Or just an unstated belief? — Banno

Obviously describing what a non-propostional belief is via linguistic concepts could not evidence such belief being possible, since it would be here linguistic in all cases. So we need to point our fingers at examples, so to speak.

My example was that of motives, such as in our motives for partaking of this forum, or this discussion, or for the words we use to express ourselves. Not all these motives are propositional at the moments first held and acted upon ... though most if not all can be expressed to varying degrees of accuracy after the fact.

Animals, for example, have motives in what they do.

B(a,p) can, to my mind, of course be used to express all non-propositional beliefs--just as you've previously mentioned. But this is conditional on our suppositions of what an animal's beliefs, for example, are being in fact true; i.e. correlating to the actual non-propositional belief of the animal.

As to "unstated beliefs" I find it possible that some beliefs might not be state-able, at least not in mean that comprehensively express the belief in total. I'm preferential to beliefs concerning the aesthetics of artistic works. A less fuzzy example might well be people's belief of what "God" entails (regardless of whether they are religious or atheistic).

Well yes, in part. Where the partial disagreement emerges from: I hold that motives acted on are often non-propositional beliefs ... and that all of our actions are contingent upon motives. Hence, because all motives we act on are our beliefs-that (edit: be these beliefs propositional or not), I'm maintaining that beliefs in general do determine actions. This conclusion then being in disagreement with your original post on the matter.

Uhum … (strictly propositional) beliefs explain but do not (always) determine actions

A person might act in ways contradictory to their propositional and abstract beliefs if she holds vying and less abstract beliefs that doing so is to her benefit … otherwise her behaviors would be ontically random (?).

To hold a motive upon which one acts is to hold a belief-that upon which one acts, even if this belief is non-propositional, i.e. not linguistically experienced at the time held. So too with choices made; e.g. choosing A rather than B given motive X.

Doubt this will get a reply … but, just in case, please be so kind as to explain why the just stated is incorrect in your reply. Generally speaking …

And that means that what we thought was in our heads, isn't. — Banno

I fully grant there being interpersonally shared concepts. What of those non-interpersonal concepts experienced and sometimes newly gained via dreams?

So while self-contradiction might rule out a possibility, contradicting some belief or beliefs of ours does not. — Srap Tasmaner

I'm in agreement. While this isn’t a formal argument, one could I think devise an argument against BIV along these lines for example: BIVs are a possibility of what ontically is resulting from all first-hand experiences of what ontically is; yet the BIV hypothesis contradicts the reality of all first hand experiences in fact being of that which is ontic; hence, either BIV or not-BIV where BIV results in logical contradictions and not-BIV does not. Therefore, not-BIV is justified whereas BIV is not. Anyways, something along these lines would make, I believe, possibilities such as that of BIVs invalid. (if there are rebuttals to this informal argument, I'm not going to try to more formally uphold it)

what is important are the minimal ingredients needed for any evolutionary process to take place (to restate: (1) a population, (2) an environment, (3) a reproductive mechanism), and none of those ingredients implicitly - that is, by necessity - entail life. — StreetlightX

Going by the orthodox qualifications of evolution which you’ve stipulated, evolution necessarily in part consist of self-replication. Can you provide any example of a non-autopoietic given which self-replicates? For a given to be autopoietic is for the given to be alive. Viroids, prions, and viruses require an autopoietic host to replicate, so a) they don’t technically self-replicate and b) could not be in the absence of autopoietic beings. In the case of robots, for them to be autopoietic would be for them to be strong AI. A sci-fic concept as of present, one of life artificially created from out of inorganic materials (self-replicating nano-technology robots of organic compounds would by definition be living (edit:) biological things, so these don't count as strong AI)

For a universal evolution that is not limited to life, you’d have to do away with the self-replication requirement—simplifying the process to sometime like “adaptation to, or conformity with, environment over time”. But this would no longer be the same as biological evolution as currently understood, though it would encapsulate the process of biological evolution were it to be true.

Actually, Cusa's knowledge (or gnosis) is basen on an experiental ground too. He describe it as a "divine gift" of profound experience during his journey back from Constantinople in the winter of 1437. Maybe we can compare it with the "activity of theoria" in original sense contained in Aristotle's Metaphysics (recourse Hadot's works). — Pacem

I'm not familiar with Cusa, but I find myself interested. Thanks for bringing it up.

What about the chair I'm sitting in? Is there a vanishingly small but non-zero chance it will disappear as I sit here, or turn into pudding, or whatever? Maybe? — Srap Tasmaner

I so far find the concept of possibility to be very obnoxious. To me it seems to be equivocated all over the place within realms of philosophy but, like so many others, I haven’t been able to satisfactorily make peace with it on a philosophical level—i.e., to figure out how it is equivocated.

To illustrate (via what to me a semi-humorous example): Is it possible to be struck by lightning during the time when bit by a shark while holding a winning lottery ticket in one’s pocket? This form of possibility to me is a different beast than that of a vanishing chair. I can’t come up with any contradictions involved in such a thing happening. Yet, without crunching numbers, the improbability of this first mentioned occurrence is so extreme as to make the occurrence utterly noncredible. So here I conclude it to be a justifiable but noncredible, existential possibility. There’s so many of these that it’s not worth mentioning.

With the vanishing chair, however, I’m venturing that contradictions between believed truths would need to occur for this possibility to be valid. But this would falsify at least some of these believed truths (a set likely including laws of nature, etc. together with that of the vanishing chair possibility). Therefore, such conceivable possibilities might likely be invalid due to contradictions.To me this comes close to the BIV hypothesis being upheld as valid possibility by some; though not by me and I presume not by most others.

In addressing a lottery ticket on its own, that there is some possibility of winning a lottery—as MU has argued—is justifiable (a lot more so than the possibility of lightning + shark + lottery ticket, since the former is more probable than the latter). But then we venture into the likewise nebulous world of credibility. Whether or not the possibility of winning a lottery ticket is credible will depend on the character of the individual. Las Vegas is all about people finding such possibility credible.

Here, you can have a series of premises stating "it is credible that ticket n might (/will?) win".

Don't know how the altered premises would work out. I mainly wanted to draw some distinction between possibilities which we appraise to be validly noncontradictory and those conceivable possibilities which stand a good chance of being contradictory if enquired into deeply enough, this apropos the vanishing chair example.

But be careful, Cusa don't put forward a mystical or irrational context, he has an understanding of stratified reason, but quite different from Aristotelian sense; there is no cosmological reference. — Pacem

Darn it, going back on my word about not posting today so as to make this one exception (imperfect me :cool: ):

Going by connotations, I’ve always understood gnosis to be something whose experiential evidence cannot be ubiquitously shared in principle, kind of (examples below). Knowledge, on the other hand, holds justified beliefs of givens whose justifications are readily accessible to all, as well as the either empirical or conceptual nature of that which is believed.

So, as what I take to be an unorthodox example of gnosis, when a person senses in the atmosphere that it will rain (by what can best be described as the smell of the air; not due to knee joints or some such), believes it will thereby rain, and can justify this belief based on past experiences of this same sensation being followed by rain, this justified belief, if true, will then be more toward gnosis than toward knowledge.

But to my knowledge, more commonly gnosis is exactly about what is today often termed mystical experiences—the ancient Gnostics as an example. Yet this doesn’t make the gnosis irrational to the gnostic (lower case “g”) ... if it were, would they still believe it? Don't know. But a good example is the attested to gnosis of the Buddha while he sat under a tree otherwise starving to death. The knowns he gained are something that cannot be ubiquitously shared by pointing fingers to things or by use of concepts pre-established within language. Nevertheless, here granting that the Buddha actually obtained gnosis, he then was quite able to justify his gnosis to others within his culture, albeit in what at times were somewhat esoteric ways (as a well-known example: neither is there a self nor not a self). And Buddhism, for good reason, touts itself as being a reason-based faith … the four Noble Truths and the like.

But of course anyone can bullshit (wittingly or unwittingly) about having gnosis just as readily as one can bullshit about having knowledge. And with gnosis it’s that much harder to establish non-(self/)deception because it’s that much harder to validate. Far easier to believe knowledge of what the satellites picked up on in terms of potential weather than to believe some other’s gnosis/knowledge gained from it smelling like rain today to them, for example.

True enough, and if the very notion of species is not clear cut then the notion of speciation would be all the less so. — Janus

Man, there some degree of uncertainty everywhere if you look for it intently enough. We do our best to map out the reality we live in all the same. There is no doubt that a bacteria is a different species from a human, cat from dog from bear, etc. even though they all branched out from common ancestors. (not here entertaining biological evolution deniers)

Will be logging out for the day ...

Some goodness is genetic, some badness is genetic, and a lot of it is mediated by culture. — Bitter Crank

Eha, I'd argue that we are the most behaviorally plastic species on earth. The only genetic component to ethics, for me, would be our innate self-interest in warmth, more non-phyisical than physical, with which we're birthed. Then, via interaction, we gain methods/heuristics with which to best safeguard this warmth--from utter selfishness to the opposite tendency.

Its why I don't uphold a position of fatalism as concerns our mores.

There is a skeleton of either a very early homo sapiens or neanderthal who was quite deformed, but who reached adulthood. — Bitter Crank

Very interesting.

Not so clear cut: — Janus

Akin to what does and doesn't get added to posts, the very notion of species isn't clear cut to begin with. What to do?

"Yes, Virginia, you actually are a bit of a neanderthal." — Bitter Crank

Cool.

Haven't been keeping up with the research on this. So its nice to know. Personally, I most associate Neanderthals with "those who threw flowers into the graves of their deceased" ... seems to be a wide spread practice nowadays. :wink:

I’ve got a better one: organic-molecule nano-technology robots that make use of nucleic acids in combination with proteins … make these “robots” complex enough so that they actually do meaningful things and eventually they will biologically evolve due to mutations (Jurassic Park at the micro reality level). A simple understanding of evolution at the molecular level will attest to this. Un-seeable little robots mutating and replicating worldwide and doing things around and within our bodies … what a thought. And it’s not currently sci-fi touted as science … as is strong AI. Nano-technology research is very sexy, meaning it get's lots of cash from corporations and governments, and we progress in field at a good rate.

Here’s the example that came to mind which I didn’t want to give:Akin to: humans have historically made bets on the sex of third-trimester fetuses and have slashed the pregnant women’s stomach in laughter with knives so as to find out who will win the bet (to me, this is yet a relatively mild example compared to other war atrocities … to not even get into the latter portions of the Roman Coliseum days ) … and humans always will, regardless.

Some humans have historically done this … and the fatalism to “always will because it is in our genetic/God-given nature to” doesn’t sit well with me.

Yes, some humans are a mixture of psychopath and suicidal, and some of these humans happen to be in positions of science. Still, we’re better than animals because … remind me again. Something about forethought, wasn’t it?

Digressing form the topic of the thread, but I thought its worth mentioning.

What’s us with all the fatalism about human behavior anyway? As though life can’t evolve. My take at least.

Unfortunately, scientists have — Baden

To me, you're missing a crucial term here: some. To lump all scientist together like this is might be a disservice to scientists as a whole. Akin to: humans have historically .... you know what, I won't even mention examples. Linguistic gripe, that's all.

No, it's been tried and it didn't work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanzee — Baden

from the article:

In 1981, Ji Yongxiang, head of a hospital in Shengyang, was reported as claiming to have been part of a 1967 experiment in Shengyang in which a chimpanzee female had been impregnated with human sperm. According to this account, the experiment came to nothing because it was cut short by the Cultural Revolution, with the responsible scientists sent off to farm labour and the pregnant chimpanzee dying from neglect. — wikipedia page

1920's might not have been as advanced in artificial insemination as 1980's; I won't push the issue though. I'd like what you've said to be conclusive and this quoted account to have been a hoax. Still, in one way it makes my hairs stand up that humans have tried this, in another way nothing shocking ... given our capacities for amorality, to put it nicely (as thought the life that would've been birthed could then be dispensed away with after birth ... interesting)

Also - It is believed that homo sapiens interbred with both Neanderthals and Denisovans and that some of us share genetic material from them. — T Clark

Don't know about the first issue you bring up. But with this one ... one professor during my university days said that given our genetic similarity it is nearly indisputable that one can have a human-chimp offspring, only that whether or not this offspring would itself be able to reproduce is unknown .... think of mules here (and who in their right minds would even want to find out empirically) ... paraphrasing all this, obviously. Homo sapiens could have genetically interbred with Neanderthals; whether or not the two species (/variants?) interbred despite behavioral differences is in a good deal of dispute from what I know. New info on this is always of interest, though.

Is that really speciation? Can the different varieties interbreed? — T Clark

It wouldn’t be yet. But given an environmental obstruction between the two variants, eventually further biological evolution would bring about two species that won’t interbreed, either for genetic or behavioral reasons. Two examples: Galapagos finches and new world finches (yes, there are more species than the just mentioned); chimps and bonobos.

Edit: this being just one scenario in which specification [doubleedit for the typomister: otherwise known as speciation] would occur.

Tell you what. Think it over as much as you'd like. I might reply to you some other time.

Apparently I was adding text while you were responding; but be that as it may, you still haven't offered any actual argument — Janus

for what have I not provided "any actual argument"?

But that was not what I asked you to provide an argument for; which you will soon see if you go back and read carefully. — Janus

OK, firstly, you added text to a sole phrase of "why not" which you don't acknowledge editing in the given post or in you're last. Interpretations of this are present in my mind, but I won't mention them.

so to now quote the entirety of the newly edited version:

Why not? Why cannot the intuition that awareness is ontologically different than physicality be a subjective epiphenomenal illusion? You haven't presented an argument for that yet. — Janus

Secondly, the "intuition" you are now addressing is something of which the first person point of view is aware ... so this moving of the goal post doesn't move anything in terms of this now argument.

I have no idea what you are talking about here. — Janus

Well, that was the point: allowing for contradictions leads to a ubiquitous rational unintelligibly ... and that is why there being both an ontology of eliminativism and a non-eliminativst ontology at the same time and in the same way would be an invalid possibility.

Why not? — Janus

Because then 1 + 1 will not be equal to 2 at the same time and in the same way that it is equal to 2, and we then ought not prefer one over the other since their both are equally true and are both equally not true ... and so forth/backward.

I would opt for non-eliminativisn, but I am not going to pretend that my opting for it is free of prejudice; free of subjective feeling and intuition. I also acknowledge that it is possible that my prejudices, subjective feelings and illusions are all epiphenomenal illusions; although of course I don't believe they are. — Janus

If you'd like to end it here, that's OK with me. If you'd like to work this out some more, then please specify which prejudice your are addressing within the argument. We certainly aren't here choosing which of our premises are true and which are false based on preformed beliefs about what the true conclusion is, I'm currently believing, for this would be irrational of us to do.

[edited. my bad, a mix of dyslexia and rushing things leading to too many typos]

From the eliminativist point of view the first person point of view is not ontic, but epiphenomenal. This is a form of monism; but it is not neutral monism. From the point of view of subjective idealism the physical or material is epiphenomenal and the subject is ontic. Neutral monism wants to say that the physical and the mental are not substantially different. The alternative is substance dualism. All these positions rely on grounding assumptions; so none of them are definitively demonstrable in the sense of being free of prejudice. — Janus

In my honest (non-belligerent) impression, you are here accusing me of things that I am not culpable of as pertains to the argument I’ve offered. Where is the argument, of itself, flawed?

As to the prejudices you’ve invoked, these are the conclusions you conceive of as a result of various different premises. But I’m not here debating the repercussions of this stated argument in terms of a concluding ontology--so I will not address these various possible repercussions.

If nothing else, lets both at least pretend, with a friendly wink, that we currently are truth seekers attempting to be as unbiased about our own beliefs and concerns as possible.

An ontology described by eliminativism and the ontic presence of an awareness aware of such ontology are mutually exclusive ontic givens; they can’t both be ontic at the same time and in the same way (unless someone would like to propose an ontology in which mutually exclusive ontic givens are also mutually inclusive at the same time and in the same way, this being a so called possibility I'd argue to be invalid). We can discern different alternatives for eliminativism and, hence, possible errors in it (this without going into the specifics). We cannot discern valid alternatives to our ontic presence as first person points of view while we are aware.

Since only one of the two—eliminativism or non-eliminativism—can be true, which do you rationally find to be true (all biases as pertains to repercussions and concerns about them aside)?

Once we can rationally arrive at an answer to this question, then we can take thing further, if desired, in terms of what it might and might not signify. (However, I'm not personally interested in turning this threads topic into one of ontological worldviews.)

So it would seem that from the perspective of those presuppositions eliminativism is demonstrably wrong, but it does not seem to be demonstrably wrong in any definitive, unprejudiced way. — Janus

Agree that we all have our biases, but you're loosing me with this. Other than the prejudice that something ontic is (a topic for a different debate ... but you'll notice it is equally upheld by eliminativism), where is the prejudice in there ontically being a first person point of view (a first person awareness which is debating the issue of whether or not it exists)?

And again, due to there being a contradiction of reasoning, one cannot hold both eliminativism and there being an awareness aware of eliminativism at the same time and in the same way; therefore, at least one the two is necessarily false.

I’ll say OK to this. But you’ll notice that, here, I was only offering you what I take to be a sound argument for why eliminativism is demonstrably wrong.

My so far favorite Gettier case is this one (I’ve only read about Gettier cases online):

The pyromaniac (Skyrms 1967). A pyromaniac reaches eagerly for his box of Sure-Fire matches. He has excellent evidence of the past reliability of such matches, as well as of the present conditions — the clear air and dry matches — being as they should be, if his aim of lighting one of the matches is to be satisfied. He thus has good justification for believing, of the particular match he proceeds to pluck from the box, that it will light. This is what occurs, too: the match does light. However, what the pyromaniac did not realize is that there were impurities in this specific match, and that it would not have lit if not for the sudden (and rare) jolt of Q-radiation it receives exactly when he is striking it. His belief is therefore true and well justified. But is it knowledge? — Stephen Hetherington

I find it far more realistic than most others. For the record, I too sponsor a no false lemmas resolution to the Gettier problem. If a premise or observation is false, that it cannot be rationally used to obtain a true conclusion, thereby making all Gettier cases epistemically unjustifiable derivative beliefs that, thereby, are held due to luck and are hence not instances of knowledge.

But in saying that, this quoted example illustrates the tentative nature of what we presume, or uphold, to be knowledge. Such that were you or I to be in the same position, we’d of course maintain that we knew that the match would light (in absence of the information regarding the specific match we pick and of the perfectly timed jolt of Q-radiation [have no idea what this is but I’m rolling with it]).

As the IEP article points out, one problem with the no false evidence resolution is that it can result in methodological doubt of what is true knowledge (the one form of skepticism which has been commonly understood for some time by the term, “skepticism”). Yet to the other form of skepticism that is subjectively certain/sure of there not being anything which is demonstrably infallible (the non-Cartesian form of skepticism which holds no doubts about this being so—e.g., Pyrrho, Academic, Cicero, Hume, etc.—not here addressing the subsequent differences between these--a form of which Descartes was not), the technically tentative nature of knowns is just an intrinsic aspect of what knowing is all about. Yes, like many in history, this second form can wind its way towards a negating fallibilism where all knowledge becomes denied, but here I’m addressed a Pragmatist-like stance of a positing fallibilism (illustrated, for example, by Cicero and Hume … and, in at least some measure, the Pragmatist Pierce who came up with the term “fallibilism” [ I haven’t read his works to figure out if the guy was a closet skeptic]).

So in looking back at the example, most everything we do and know could hold intervening causal elements that are not those which we use to epistemically justify our knowledge. But until we discover that our premises are false, we then hold all the reasoning in the world to conclude that we know.

That said, in Gettier’s Case I, for example, one here discovers that one was wrong in that which is used to justify the conclusion … so, again, I agree that the conclusion here is then not knowledge.

I would love to find a convincing argument against (eliminative) physicalism, that relied upon no tendentious presuppositions, to support my intuition that it is wrong. — Janus

As much as I’m not on board with Cartesianism, this is where Descartes’ first person style argument becomes useful. Here’s a good natured challenge: you (anybody actually, as long as it’s a personal first person argument) can try to come up with a rational/justifiable alternative to you, the first person point of view which addresses itself as “I”, not holding presence while in any way aware of anything.

Don’t worry about the “thinking” part of the argument as Descartes laid it out; with the thinking part you can find justifiable (although likely noncredible) alternatives … thereby resulting in eliminativism as a possibility of what is. Strictly focus on, “I, an awareness, or a first person point of view (I've got to convey what I’m addressing linguistically, and the latter to me seems more precise), do not hold presence (I am not, or do not exist) as an awareness, whatever this might be (could be an entity, a process, both, or neither), while I am in any way aware (be it of perceptions, sensations, or understandings) because …”

You can use BIVs, evil demons, whatever you’d like, as long as the explanation is consistent and gives a valid alternative to being aware while aware.

If you cannot come up with a valid alternative to this proposition, “I, a first person point of view, am while aware (including of the thoughts I'm having which purport to present an alternative to my so being),” then it will surpass the certainty level of any other proposition to which there are rational alternatives, including that of eliminativism. In a colloquial sense, because the first will be by far firmer (recalling etymologies of truth and trust both winding back to tree, tree of life/knowledge kind’a thing I believe (held in pagan cultures long before Abrahamic religions were popularized); the axis mundi which is perfectly firm … also firmament, but I digress :grin: ).

This isn’t to say that the first proposition will be then demonstrated to be infallible. But it will be among the least fallible propositions that can be devised—again, because no justifiable alternative for it can be conceived in practice, hence no possible error for it can be conceived in practice regardless of how hard one tries. And since it falsifies eliminativsm, which does hold rational alternatives, it then proves eliminativsm to be wrong in terms of what is in fact ontic … this as much as 2 + 2 = 4 can arguably be firm/certain due to not holding any justifiable alternatives in practice (meaning, in practice where all hell doesn’t break loose due to rational contradictions [edit: to be clear, contradictions of reasoning] being accepted as instances of non-erroneous reasoning).

But thinking of illusions in terms of "first person points of view" is already to assume that first person points of view are not themselves illusions. — Janus

You by definition are here being purely rationalistic, and ignoring that devoid of awareness we cannot rationalize. OK, so despite clear cut etymology and classical usages of the term, empiricism nowadays implies only experiences obtained via the physiological senses--such that ideas are not empirically known (unlike in the time of Lock and Hume). So I'll term it experientialism--such that we can only know of our ideas via awareness of them.

Without now drawing out the issue, would you in such offered context of concepts presume pure rationalism devoid of an experientialism upon which it is at least in part grounded?

I mean you are evoking the subject and it's consciousness, which on the eliminativist perspective are both illusory, so that obviously won't do. [...] My intuitive sense is that eliminativism is wrong, but I can't see how it, or for that matter, any other metaphysical view, can be definitively proven to be wrong. — Janus

I'll butt in for a moment (sorry Wayfarer).

I think they can be conceived of as illusory because subjects and consciousness are slippery fish to hold onto in terms of definitions.

Yet in all definitions I’m aware of, neither can meaningfully be when fully devoid of a first person point of view (one might sleep without dreams, but there’ll yet be a first person point of view aware of this subsequent to the sleep; otherwise we wouldn’t know that one can). So the emanativist is arguing against there being such a thing as a first person point of view being in any way ontic … likely so as to uphold an axiomatic system of metaphysics which their own first person point of view maintains is indispensable for making sense out of things. But inherent to this is a logical contradiction, just that it’s not spelled out. For a first person point of view cannot be illusory to the same first person point of view. And a first person point of view is not in any sense of the term a physical object. If logical contradictions serve to prove that that which is addressed is false, and if there is no justifiable alternative we can discern to a first person point of view holding presence while one is in any way aware, then the eliminativists are proven wrong by this lopsided contradiction.

Of course there would then be a lot of explanations still needed to make sense of things. Nevertheless, the eliminativist stance I so far believe is proven wrong by this inconsistency or reasoning.

A sense of proportion!! — charleton

This comes with things such as 6.5 of the global GDP being spent on subsidizing fossil fuels. ... and the rather fight-on-your-own attitude toward renewable energies, in terms of both implementation and research (e.g., turns out Tesla isn't going to make a renewable energy grid in Puerto Rico after all, thought hey offered)

But by all means, I'm all for re-foresting the planet.

The atmospheric concentration of CO2 has increased 0.01-2% in 100 years. The hysterical claims of the green lobby are unable to mobilise physical science to use this fact to explain the Global warming that exists. — charleton

Been working on a logical argument, but it may be too convoluted to be taken seriously:

P1: Greenhouse gases keep sunlight-produced warmth from dissipating into outer space. (T/F)
P2: CO2 is a greenhouse gas. (T/F)
P3: Humans require fire in order to comfortably live (such as in the cooking of meat). (T/F)
P4: Fire releases CO2 into the atmosphere. (T/F)
P5: Human populace has grown almost exponentially in the last few hundred years. (T/F)
C: (all other things such as forest depletion and fossil fuel issues aside (these ought not be addressed for the make fat cats rich)) Therefore, humans have contributed to there being more greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere, aka to global warming. (T/F)

I take all these to be true. But if I’m missing something here, what would that be?

Oh, science is never about absolute proof, most of all because it’s empirical and thereby inescapably inductive. Therefore, in order not to doubt human caused global warming when those with great monetary influence tell us to, what is missing is a demonstrated infallible certainty that all these premises are so. Back to the drawing board of philosophical enquiry as regards infallibity [… unless people don’t need extensive evidencing for that which is obvious: our planet is in big trouble as far as life goes, as in the mass global extinction we’re right now living through].

Ok, I’m all sarcasmed out for the day :meh:

... may anyone feel free to strengthen this argument if you think it might in any way help



thanks. When it comes to taking care of people's basic needs before expecting most to care about other things, I again concur.

Yea, I find plenty of self-interest in love—though I don’t know if it can always be properly termed rational self-interest. This from all everyday notions of love to that of universal compassion; it’s not as if Nirvana is not in the Buddhist’s interest to obtain, for example. On a related topic: even haters love—themselves, that is (I don’t think it’s possible to hate in an absence of self-love)—though this at the expense of all else, thereby perverting the term’s commonly understood connotations of it being interpersonal with phrases such as “love for (optimal quantities of) money”. In short, to be alive is to love a set of givens out of self-interest, but what this set of given’s consists of can drastically differ due to differences in that which is intended. And I’ve spoken with enough very educated that take themselves to be rational—such as on issues of economy—that I take to be irrational, such as because infinite growth is irrational when you have finite recourses, me thinks.

Hunger trumps love. Almost always. — frank

Yes, agreed. Still don’t think Trump suffers from hunger, though. Well, and there are the relatively rare occasions of those in want of basic subsistence which nevertheless exhibit far more communal love than most Wall Street Bankers. Won’t reedit the just said, but come to think of it, isn’t it true that that those who are relatively poor give to the homeless and the like proportionally more than those who are rich? (As in, ten dollars for a poor guy is equivalent to some million dollars for the very rich.) I’ve seen rich Christians come near to kicking the homeless in in the street; whereas those who are poor(er)—and, yes, those who are authentic Christians (as in, follow JC’s mores as best they can earnestly)—will give to those in need … and will be called commies by those who don’t.

This fact is all you need to know about Global Warming. — charleton

You mean that whole thing about carbon dioxide being a greenhouse gas? Whose to say? Why, I once heard that there's one scientist somewhere that someone heard about that disagrees. It's all so uncertain. (My compliments to those who don't take me seriously here.)

Love is the basis of all morality. Love for oceans and forests flourishes among those who have been emancipated from hunger. There is no evil ideology here. Just Nature itself. — frank

A rhetorical question: Has Mr. Trump not been emancipated from hunger? (a humorous question, I hope … now see that unenlightened got to this roundabout issue before me)

I’m not big on the term “evil” either, but I find that love is far more difficult an obtainment than we’d like to believe. Heck, I’ll even say that we all hold some degree of fear of love, including folks such as Mother Teresa (e.g., if a person has never felt their hart pound when kissing another out of some degree of fear/anxiety that they all the same seek to overcome, than I think one’s been missing out one what first kisses can be). Just that some seek to overcome these fears while others make the most out of love being (to them) a big joke.

Incidentally, in seeing this as a potential rebuttal from someone out there: love of nature does not then mean one wants that all life be physically immortal either. Yet at least some Native Americans, for example, honored the spirits of the animals they killed by burning their whiskers (indicative of care/sympathy even if one takes it to only be symbolic), and such Earth-based religions don’t give thanks to a Creator deity for daily meals but the spirits of those beings/lifeforms who were sacrificed so that life as whole may be sustained. Not advocating for religious/nonreligious preferences, just trying to illustrate that that the issue of love is a complex thing, especially when it is extended more universally … but I fully agree that love is an important emotion/state of mind to strive for and maintain all the same.

- as javra suggests? — apokrisis

Why the question mark? :smile:
Yea, that's how I've been thinking about it so far.

One of my all-time favorites is indefatigable: untiring, unrelenting, and the like.

Something about how the word roles off the tongue … can never take it’s saying seriously (due to the sound; not the meaning).

Hey, thank you for the feedback. Yea, that belief is a form of trust has been my working hypothesis for a while now, and I can’t so far find anything wrong with it.

To stir up the waters a bit on this issue of trust: Yes, to trust-that is to hold some form of expectation, I agree. Interesting to me is that expectations also seem intimately related to forethought, at least in more intelligent animals. While trust and forethought don’t to me appear to be synonymous (rather, forethought appears to me to occur with a foundation of multiple beliefs (improperly stated, "trusts")), putting my behavioral evolution hat on, I could maintain an argument that something from which our trust and expectation descends can also be found in some pre-linguistic form in at least some unicellular organisms; for example, in trusting/expecting that that is prey and not predator, or vice versa.

This ties into a more philosophically biological approach to trust/belief that I’m also working with as a hypothesis: some trust is genetically inherited in our behavioral phenotype (perceptual trust would be one example), some is acquired via experience (i.e., learned), and some is enactive (as in actively choosing to trust/believe this rather than that … which can subsequently become learned and, eventually, habitual).

Still curious, though, to see if there something I’m mistaking in the “a maintained trust that” – “belief that” equivalency. For example, this understanding of belief doesn’t seem to sit well with Ancient Greek notions of belief … but not knowing my Ancient Greek, I haven’t yet discerned what might be missing, this when it comes to terms such as “dogma” (a stubbornly held belief/trust?).

But in terms of this thread, yes, I too uphold that beliefs can be non-linguistic.

Since my last post had no takers, I’ll expand a little on what I previously posted so it doesn’t seem so trite.

If there is no semantic difference between a maintained trust that and a belief that then, as per common experience, trust precedes linguistic expression. Much as Bonno hates the topic of perception, trust, for example, is inherent to all perception—trust that what we seem to smell, taste, hear, touch, and (the ever so popular) see is as we perceive it to be. If you see a red cup, you believe that there is a red cup you see. No language is required for this; indeed, to require that instances of language precedes all such instances of belief would be to push the limits of credibility, imo.

Our pets maintain trust that we are not out to kill them as would their natural predators or adversaries—a more complex, conceptual trust than that inherent to perception. (This being an example I find glaring, though numerous other examples can also be argued.) In measure to their degree of intellect, animals can become surprised or bewildered—these being reactions to when that which is trusted to be is not as one trusted it to be.

Acknowledgedly, defining belief in terms of maintained trust (again, both in terms of “that” and not in terms of “in”) then pushes the philosophical question further back into what trust is. Though in my view not the easiest of topics to tackle, I take it that no one would argue that trust, as linguistic concept, has no ontically present referent within cognition. Nevertheless, so defining does evidence that beliefs (and if beliefs are thoughts, then thoughts as well) are not necessarily contingent upon language … as others here have also mentioned.

And again, if you disagree with belief-that being nothing more, and nothing less, than a maintained trust-that, be direct about your reasons for disagreement.