I'll go back to this point:

If the mind creates the world, did the Moon exist before minds?
— Count Timothy von Icarus

Definitely not. But neither did it not exist.
— Wayfarer — Wayfarer

I don't get this. If all minds disappeared right now, either the moon would continue to exist or cease to exist. There's no middle ground between existing and not existing.

:up:

During Tuesday’s hearing, none of the school leaders explicitly said that calling for the genocide of Jews would necessarily violate their code of conduct. Instead, they explained it would depend on the circumstances and conduct."
— RogueAI

We have to see their code of conduct, and it has to be changed. Maybe. — FreeEmotion

You have to see their code of conduct to determine whether calls for genocide against Jews are tolerated? That was the kind of answer that caused the uproar in the first place, and led to the firing of the president of UPenn. Calls for genocide against Jews on college campuses should be treated the same way Holocaust denial is treated here: with extreme prejudice.

Major resignations at UPenn:
https://www.cnn.com/business/live-news/liz-magill

I think everything should be legal. — NOS4A2

Why are supporting Trump then? He certainly doesn't think "everything should be legal". Far from it. I would think, based on what you've said, you'd be better off writing in some anarchist's name.

Maybe more information systems within one entity give the proto-consciousness more to experience, and, therefore, greater consciousness. Like ours. — Patterner

Does consciousness have a sliding scale of lesser and greater? I think it's like an on/off switch. One is either conscious or not, although the things one is conscious of can be said to be "richer" or "fuller" than the things a bat is conscious of, although that might be wrong too. Who's to say the conscious experience of a vft catching a fly is less than my conscious experience of seeing a sunrise?

Do you think death threats should be legal?

https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/07/business/penn-emergency-meeting-liz-magill/index.html

"The hastily arranged meeting, which concluded by midday Thursday, comes as Magill faces intense pressure following Tuesday’s hearing in the House. Magill and the presidents of Harvard and MIT struggled to answer questions on Tuesday about whether calling for the genocide of Jews violates their respective school’s code of conduct on bullying or harassment.

It is unclear whether the board gathering Thursday is related to Magill’s future at the school, but that topic is sure to be on the minds of board members.

A disastrous hearing
During Tuesday’s hearing, none of the school leaders explicitly said that calling for the genocide of Jews would necessarily violate their code of conduct. Instead, they explained it would depend on the circumstances and conduct."

...

Sen. Elizabeth Warren told CNBC on Thursday that “advocating for genocide is fundamentally wrong, full-stop. We just can’t have this.”

Warren is right, of course.

"An overwhelming majority of Palestinians, both in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, expressed their support for the Hamas massacre on Oct. 7, a poll by Arab World for Research and Development (AWRAD) found.

AWRAD is a research and consulting firm based in the Palestinian Authority capital Ramallah in the West Bank.

The poll surveyed the opinions of 668 residents across the West Bank and Gaza during the fourth week of the war in face-to-face interviews conducted online.

In its most revealing find, 85% of those polled support the “October 7 attacks” either strongly or at least somewhat."
https://allisrael.com/85-of-palestinians-express-support-for-hamas-massacre-on-oct-7-palestinian-poll-finds

I think if you polled college students in the U.S., there might be as much as 50% support for Hamas.

I don’t think in words. — NOS4A2

You don't have an internal monologue/voice? Do you think Germany's DOW against America in 1941 was "just words"? Should death threats be legal?

Plants are "Sentient", in that they can sense the environment. But they are not "Conscious" in my meaning, of converting the sensory data into meaningful symbols.
— Gnomon
Of course they are not "conscious" based on your meaning of conciousness, since you add to it "thinking". So, you can see that by adding elements to the meaning of pure consciousness, makes it fail in its application to all cases. By adding sugar to straight coffee, makes the it not usable for diabetics. :smile: — Alkis Piskas

Do you think there is something it's like to be a Venus Fly Trap?

Better than calling Nazi Germany "civilized".

I believe that strong deontology requires never, ever being dishonest in any scenario regardless of context. — AmadeusD

But that's where it falls apart. Are you really supposed to tell the SS where the Jews are hiding?

White lies are the glue that holds society together. I believe a person can be considered honest even if they lie from time to time. What keeps me mostly honest is I like to think of myself as an honest person, and I don't like to fall short of that.

Also, welcome to the Forum!

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/hamas-rape-israeli-women-oct-7-rcna128221

Hamas are a bunch of animals and the people who voted them into power aren't much better.

"The authoritarian and highly centralized presidential government of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has set back Turkey’s human rights record by decades, targeting perceived government critics and political opponents, profoundly undermining the independence of the judiciary, and hollowing out democratic institutions."
https://www.hrw.org/europe/central-asia/turkey

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/exclusive-voice-of-america-reverses-policy-against-calling-hamas-terrorists/

Good for VOA.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/students-world-suffered-huge-learning-setbacks-pandemic-study-105380696

This dovetails with what I've seen with my own students.

We are constantly changing, all the cells that constitute our bodies replaced every seven or so years according to some accounts. On the other hand, are we not distinguishable as the entities that undergo those changes? — Janus

This is another example that shows we intuitively know we are not our bodies. Believing that we are an amalgamation of matter is like pounding a square peg in a round hole: it results in the mind-body problem and impossible-to-resolve paradoxes. It's so much more parsimonious to conclude the physical realm doesn't exist.

I don't buy that it was some nefarious plot by government to tyrannize citizens. I think the lockdowns were was just an overreaction, and if we had to do it all over again, with the facts we have now, we wouldn't do lockdowns.

Israel is under a microscope compared to other middle eastern countries. — BitconnectCarlos

I likened this in the other thread to a sort of Madonna-whore complex. Some of the people here hold Israel to an impossibly high standard, whereby Israel is supposed to absorb the Oct. 7th attacks without retaliation and head to the bargaining table, hat in hand, to see what concessions she can make to the animals that just attacked her. When Israel doesn't do this, and responds like any nation would, she's then treated like a whore.

Conservatives in America don't particularly like Jews, but they loathe groups like Hamas, so supporting the Jews becomes a sort of "enemy of my enemy is my friend" thing.

What is Israel's end goal here? Are they planning an occupation? That would imply some sort of rebuilding effort.

How do conscious minds emerge from mindless unconscious stuff? Science hasn't answered it yet, and my belief is that science won't answer it because the idea that minds can come from mindless matter is nonsensical.

Also, it begs the question how the self can continue to exist independently of the world, so that alone may be considered warrant for believing in the objective world even when one cannot perceive it. — GRWelsh

I think the opposite: it begs the question how the world can continue to exist independently of the self (or selves).

If you were in charge of Israel, how would you have responded to Oct.7 attacks?

I dispute this. There may be infinitely many facts, but it does not follow that there are infinitely many true statements. Some facts just aren’t talked about. — Michael

If a fact isn't talked about (or held in some mind) is it a fact?

Also, there are infinitely many numbers, right? But there is a limit to the biggest number a finite brain can think of. No matter what notation is used, there will be a number that a finite brain just cannot conceive- it will be overwhelmed. The neurons/transistors/logic gates will be overwhelmed. So does that mean there aren't infinitely many numbers?

Right, but if only the evaluation of a truth depends on a mind, then it doesn't follow that necessary truths also necessitate a mind. — Echarmion

How could truth exist except in a mind? Here's a true statement: "The Earth is round". Now suppose all the minds in the universe disappear. Are the pixels on the screen showing "The Earth is round" still showing something that's true? If so, what makes it true? That the statement "The Earth is round" corresponds with reality, right? But if there are no minds to establish the correspondence between the statement and the world, how is the pattern of pixels "The Earth is round" a true statement?

Excellent reply.

People confuse data with information. The latter is meaningful. I was tempted to bring up information realism and pancomputationalism , the "It from bit" hypothesis of John Wheeler, but didn't since it would cause more confusion. Nevertheless, it is a stronger version of my conclusion, in which reality emerges from an immaterial reality where Yes/No decisions take place. — Sirius

Thank you. I was thinking about Searle's Wall when I wrote that. But it may be too tangential to your argument.

1. True statements can only exist as cognitive content
— Sirius

That (which exists as pixels on a screen) is not a true statement? — wonderer1

Only if a mind is observing the pixels on the screen. Otherwise, they're just pixels on a screen. It takes mentation to turn the pixels into something else (i.e., to attach meaning to the pixels on the screen). Whenever we get into this area, I always ask, "is a simulation of a tornado a simulation if no one is observing it?" If there's no mind interpreting the results of the simulation of the tornado, it's just pixels and noise. How could it be anything else?

Yes. You would have to establish some kind of necessary connection between the existence of a necessary truth and the existence of the conditions that make the necessary truth true.

I do agree that necessary truths implicate a cognizer though. — Pantagruel

Only implicate? I think cognition is a necessary condition for necessary truths. Are there necessary truths in a possible world without minds? If so, what is their existence like, if not in some mind? As some Platonic Form?

A poor child comes to you and spreads his hand saying, "I am starving" , you can derive the implication from his statement, "You should give me ( a poor child ) some money" . He is not just stating a fact, "I am starving" , he is begging for help and expecting you to be a kind person. — Sirius

But do I have a moral duty to help the poor child? Suppose I'm a sergeant and my platoon is in an urban firefight and this poor injured kid comes out of the shadows begging for help. It's not clear to me that I should drop everything and help the kid.

Varadkar has also said Israel’s bombardment “amounts to collective punishment”, which is prohibited under the Geneva Conventions.

If your enemy isn't abiding by the Geneva Conventions, why should you? Does a nation have a moral duty to take the "high ground" in a conflict? Even if it increases their chances of losing the conflict? What about if their existence is truly at stake? If the Axis had used chemical weapons, wouldn't the Allies have been justified using them in retaliation? Or suppose Germany had gone through with Sea Lion and invaded Britain after the fall of France. Would the Brits have been justified in using gas against the German invaders? Doesn't the British high command have a duty to its people to fight a Nazi invasion with every means at their disposable? If the British generals decide that chemical weapons will give them a decisive edge against Nazi soldiers, don't they have a duty to use those chemical weapons in defense of their citizens?

Thank you!

Interesting you mentioned QM. In QM there are theories saying that some states, objects or entities only come to existence when observed externally. — Corvus

Sure, and one of the popular interpretations of QM is the Many Worlds Interpretation. I agree with Bernardo Kastrup that positing the existence of huge numbers of universes popping into existence all the time is a huge violation of Occam's Razor. Why don't the people who believe in the MWI just believe in idealism instead?

Occam's razor, for me. It is a simpler model of the world that the world always works one way, than a model of the world that it works one way when I'm looking and another way when I'm not looking. — flannel jesus

That's funny, I've used Occam's Razor to come to the opposite conclusion: the simplest explanation to explain the Hard Problem of Consciousness and the correct interpretation of QM is to assume matter doesn't exist.

Well and had Hamas not attacked Israel, they'd have been replaced by some other fanatical islamist organisation. As Baden has repeatedly pointed out, all these arguments work both ways. — Echarmion

But they don't work both ways. The IDF doesn't livestream itself committing atrocities on civilians and raping women to death. Hamas fighters behave like animals. They revel in the sadism. They think they have a divine mandate to kill Jews. They want to wipe them all out.

There is not a moral equivalence between Israel and Hamas. The argument doesn't work both ways. Israel's Arab neighbors are culturally inferior to Israel. Their Islamic-based values are abhorrent. The world would be a better place if Israel conquered it's Arab neighbors, occupied them, and forced a constitutional republic on them where women and LGBTQ people are given equal rights. Can you imagine the rejoicing that would take place from tens of millions of women and girls if that happened?

This idea that Germany and Japan were somehow remade out of while cloth by the allies, turning former barbarians into civilized people (as per RogueAI) is really weird. — Echarmion

We basically wrote Japan's new constitution for them. There was input from Japan, but everyone knew the new government was going to greatly resemble America's.

What would be the "moderate state" here when Israel is building new settlements in the West Bank, has an Apartheid system of different laws and has basically no intention of a two state solution? — ssu

A moderate Palestinian state would not have these human rights abuses:
https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/middle-east-and-north-africa/palestine-state-of/report-palestine-state-of/

Just like it's a political reality that people won't take a longstanding political grievance combined with economic misery "lying down". — Echarmion

People expect action from their leaders during times of economic misery. As FDR said, "The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation It is common sense to take a method and try it: If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something. The millions who are in want will not stand by silently forever while the things to satisfy their needs are within easy reach."

This is a silly point you are arguing. When a country is attacked or when it's economy isn't working people expect action from their leader. Had Netanyahu not retaliated, as some here propose, he would have been removed by the Knesset for dereliction of duty or cowardice or incompetence, and deservedly so. His replacement would then have retaliated.

I've noticed some of the people here hold Israel to a ridiculously high standard, almost like a Madonna-complex, and when Israel doesn't live up to the impossible saintly expectations, they're lumped in with the animals that attacked them.