I wouldn't know, mister sad sack, because I'm not very sociable anymore and yet, absurdist bluesman that I am, for decades I've been growing more cheerful with age. Memento mori et memento vivere. :death: :flower:

That's the basis of my "Communities for Catharsis" and "fellow-sufferers of compassion" notion. — schopenhauer1

And yet consistent with your (Ligotti's) defeatist premises that's still a MALIGNANTLY USELESS "notion", no? :smirk:

... if one is feeling isolated, lonely, and the only one suffering, it may be best to communicate this in a communal way with others feeling the same way. — "schopenhauer1

Yeah, of course, because (like in cults, asylums, prisons, marriages) misery does love company. :mask:

Of course, as previously noted, this presupposes a considerable reduction in population. That's not something I advocate - that's something I predict. — Vera Mont

:up: :up:

"Utopia?"

a post-scarcity, philanthropic AGI-managed (automated), sprawl-free municipality (arcology) — 180 Proof

Likewise, we don't know what G*D is, — Gnomon

On the contrary, g/G is an empty name that

only what it does:

pacifies the superstitious. :pray:

a hypothetical explanation for the existence of [ ... ]

If this "hypothetical explanation" is testable, then cite such a test or what one might be in principle; however, if it is not testable, then there is not any reason to consider g/G an "explanation" for anything at all.

:smirk:

:up:

IMO 'energy' is a property rather than a 'physical substance'. A rock is not 'made by' mass-energy but has mass-energy. Unfortunately, I think that even physicists themselves sometimes indulge in some confusion about this.
We can't say that 'fundamental physical reality' is 'energy' because 'energy' is a property. — boundless

:100: :fire:

:cool:

:up:

Again, non sequitur. There's been no discussion of "the philosophy of physics" here. Go troll someone else, sir.

I have no idea what you are talking about. I did not refer to either "materialism" or "daoism" in my last post reply to Gnomon..

Yes, and Spinozism is not a "shit-philosophy", so what's your point?

The Universal Field Theory :
The U F T is not a physics theory in a classical sense. It is rather a philosophical theory explaining Why and How physical phenomena appear.
https://theuniversalfieldtheory.com/ — Gnomon

:clap: :lol:

The section (in the full article) on how to test this "theory" is nothing but vacuous bs. Like "The Force" in the Star Wars movies, "UFT" is just more pseudo-science (woo-woo) stuffed inside a shit-"philosophy" sandwich. :sparkle:

To compare the testimonial evidence of abductions to the testimonial evidence of NDEs is a complete misunderstanding of good testimonial evidence. — Sam26

Explain why you think "testimonial evidence of alien abductions" is not "good testimonial evidence". :smirk:

So what I believe about myself does indeed create my world. — Noble Dust

That belief ... merely is your ego – masking oneself (i.e. being-in-the-world) – an 'illusory separation' from the world (i.e. disembodiment fantasy). A psycho-sociological fiction.

What is a belief, and what is an attitude? — Noble Dust

Okay, short attention span-friendly: a belief is a fiction (until corroborated by evidence) and an attitude is a strong feeling about a belief or an experience.

To give an analogy, I believe that if the 'ocean' is 'natura naturata', a wave is a 'mode'.Regarding 'natura naturans', maybe water itself. But I'm not sure how much the analogy makes sense. — boundless

For me it doesn't make sense ...

What do you think about these analogies? — boundless

Well, imo they don't work. In each case "ocean" "house" "statue" are manifest, finite modes (natura naturata) and yet you claim that the corresponding infinite modes of "water" "wood" "marble", respectively, are not manifest which clearly doesn't fly. Analogously it's the 'laws of nature' – causing and constraining modes such as "water [ocean [waves]]" "wood [house [rooms ...]]" & "marble [statue [male-figure]]" to manifest – which themselves are not manifest and which reason attributes to (i.e. conceptualizes as) natura naturans. All analogies are limited in application, of course, much more so when used to 'illuminate' a metaphysics as subtle as Spinozism.

Lately I prefer "the sun, its rays of light & their heat" (rather than "the ocean & its waves") as an analogy because "the sun" is so remote and not visibly manifest at night even though its effects of "light & heat" are always manifest on Earth (e.g. gravity-well, climate, weather, seasons, photosynthesis); and also, that staring directly at the sun with naked eyes is blinding more or less like fully comprehending 'eternal & infinite substance' with temporal, finite reason is impossible. So for me, in this limited (physical) sense, analogously "the sun" is naturing and Earth, etc are natured ... even though our local star is, according to Spinoza, just another mode (of the attributes of substance (i.e. 'laws of nature')). :fire:

What do you think?

My name was taken in vain first (see the quote). Also, Wayfarer and I have been jousting for about fifteen years so ...

:up:

There is what amounts to a phobia (↪180 Proof ) around admitting anything which suggests the supernatural, — Wayfarer

:sweat:

Not "phobia" so much as principled disregard for woo-woo-of-the-gaps nonsense which you've always fetishized, sir. To invoke "the supernatural" as idealists (antirealists) / subjectivists / mysterians / new agers like you, Wayfarer, often do amounts to nothing but an appeal to ignorance (i.e. this aspect of some X is (currently) unknown / (apparently) unknowable, therefore that aspect is/must be "supernatural" or "explained by mystery"). :sparkle:

The question of the meaning of life need not and should not be forbidden from scientific inquiry, but, in my opinion, this does not mean that the supernatural has thereby earned a place at the table of what is fundamentally an investigation of nature — Fooloso4

:fire: :100:

@Wayfarer

:lol:

19August24


Harris-Walz 2024 :point: taking out the tr45h!

Roevember is coming. :victory: :cool:

:up:

Can you give some reference/arguments to argue that he was an emergentis? — boundless

I don't know as an empirical matter whether or not Spinoza is an "emergentist"; metaphysically he's certainly not.

Also, I would say that the holistic character present in Spinoza was absent in Democritus, Ep[ic]ur[us], Lucretius et al. This doesn't mean that one can [can't?] build a 'Democrito-Epicurean Spinozism' of sorts but I believe that the ontological primacy of the 'whole' was completely foreign to the classical atomists.

– and, I think, "foreign" to Spinoza as well (re: infinite =/= "whole"). Anyway, apparently I wasn't clear enough:

I see no other way but to interpret Spinoza as both an immanentist and acosmist sub specie aeternitatis (though sub specie durationis also as a pandeist, which (for me) ontically relates him to that other great immanentist Epicurus). — 180 Proof

[M]y view is that sub specie durationis (e.g. Husserl's "natural attitude") acosmism seems cogently pandeistic (or consistent with classical atomism). — 180 Proof

In other words, sub specie durationis I interpret Spinoza's natura naturans as ontologically deterministic and unbounded (i.e. unmanifest ... vacuum ("void")) and natura naturata as ontically chaotic and bounded (i.e. manifest ... fluctuation-patterns ("swirling recombing atoms")).

For the sake of discussion, boundless, I concede your "holistic" point about Spinozism but only sub specie aeternitatis.

But if 'compatibilism' is strictly deterministic ...

... which is why I describe compatibilism as conditionally deterministic. Neither strict determinism nor strict indeterminism are compatible with "free will / free action" (i.e. human agency).

Afaik, natural sciences make use of hypothetical-deductive reasoning; "abductive reasoning" is only used to evaluate rival versions of a theory (or rival theories about the same phenomenon). Other non-empirical disciplines in the humanities are mostly hermeneutical. And, imo, "the difference between science & art" is profound (i.e. explanatory (factive) & imaginary (fictive), respectively) even though both are essentially creative endeavors.

The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy':

'The word was first used by Liebniz, for Plato's ontology, to contrast with Epicurus's materialism.' — Jack Cummins

Lame definition. Btw, I'm Epicurean ... about (instantiated) "ideas". See here .

from a 2022 thread Speculations in Idealism ...
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/715277

Thanks. :cool:

Reality is bound by finitude. — apokrisis

I don't grok this. :chin::

real insofar as they can be grasped by reason — Wayfarer

Semantic quibble: ideal, not "real".

:lol: Whatever, man.

I think ultimately the difference between information and numbers is only pragmatic. — hypericin

Afaik, it's "the difference" between pattern-strings and mathematical structures, respectively, such that the latter is an instance of the former. They are formal abstractions which are physically possible to instantiate by degrees – within tractable limits – in physical things / facts and usually according to various, specified ("pragmatic") uses. I think 'Platonizing' information and/or numbers (as 'concept realists', 'hylomorphists, and 'logical idealists' do) is, at best, fallaciously reifying.

The thread was intended to explore the debate over idealism, but with reference to semantics. — Jack Cummins

What "debate"? You haven't even stated the proposition in contention we're supposed to either be for (thesis) or against (antithesis). Please clarify ...

The idea of the surreal was meant to point back to the idea of life as a dream. This was an obscure reference to the view of life as a dream, captured in the Hindu concept 'maya'.

Dreamt by whom/what – isn't the dreamer more than a "dream" – or is "life just a dream" within a dream within a dream ... all the way down? And, besides, what existential-pragmatic-ethical difference does it make, Jack, if metaphysically (according to some ancient tradition) "all is maya"?

Rather than provide an explanation it forecloses the search for explanations, as if a mystery behind the mystery does more than multiply mysteries. — Fooloso4

:100: :up:


@Sam26

All I can do is guess — Gnomon

Yes, of course, you can't even bother to rationally speculate or honstly admit you have no effing idea what you/we are talking about. wtf :sweat:

Your mind is made up, why bother? — Sam26

My mind is made up about what? You've no idea what my mind is or is not made up about so stuff the ad hominems & strawmen and stick to the questions raised by your muddled dogma.

What is explained? 

An unknown – unknowable – mystery (re: "intelligence behind the universe") doesn't explain anything because answering with a mystery only begs the question of the how/why of anything. And so my straight forward question remains, Sam, and it appears you can't answer non-fallaciously or supported by sound reasoning:

What exactly is explained by "a mind behind the universe"? — 180 Proof

:chin:

:up:

It depends on what you're looking for and what your questions are. — Sam26

Since it's your posit, Sam, again I ask you:

What exactly is explained by "a mind behind the universe"? — 180 Proof

:chin:

the source of what we are experiencing — Sam26

Apparently, this "we" excludes p-naturalists (i.e. immanentists, pandeists), strong atheists, freethinkers, absurdists et al. For us, evidently and parsimoniously, "the source" is the universe ‐ natura naturans – itself; we don't bark at shadows (pace Plato). :fire:

So if I understand correctly what you mean by "muddles in the philosophy of ideas", the ancient and postmodern or secular and spiritual "viewpoints" are like comparing apples and oranges – incommensurable perspectives on, or interpretations of, the "sur/reality of ideas"? i.e. different kinds of maps for navigating different aspects of the same terrain (or even completely different terrains)?

:up: Yeah, but the devil's in the policy details ...

mere partial perspectives — Jack Cummins

Maybe you can clarify this phrase ...

I don't understand your reply to my previous post.

I am aware that 'real' is a human construct. — Jack Cummins

So 'you are aware' is only "a human construct"? Or 'mortality' is not nonmind-dependent (which I prefer to 'mind-independent'), or real? :chin:

... there is always someone in a forest. — Amity

Yes, the forest itself (e.g. "Fangorn"). :wink:

Well, Spinoza's Natura Naturata would be cover both the 'vacuum' and the 'atoms', the union of them (also, according to him, the attributes are independent from each other, so emergentism is not compatible with Spinoza). — boundless

Of course this is so ... sub specie aeternitatis.

For instance, if a compatibilist argues that my choices are 'free' because they do not have 'external' causes but they are still deterministic, I fail to see how this can be true 'freedom ...

If not conditionally "deterministic" (i.e. constrained by your (my) nonlinear dynamic, ecology-nested, embodied cognition), then what makes any "choices" yours (mine)?