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  • The Most Logical Religious Path
    [T]here is truth to be found and that the person is willing to find it. — Igitur
    Terror management (re: mortality) via reality-denial (i.e. fact-free, consoling myths & fairytales) seems the primary function of religious magical thinking (i.e. woo-woo), not "to find truth".
  • US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
    21July24

    1968 redux? (re: VP Humphery loses to gaslighting "silent majority, law & order, peace candidate" former VP Nixon) :brow:

    https://www.politico.com/news/2024/07/21/biden-drops-out-election-00169980

    from 2023 ...
    Yeah, in 2024 that "1 way to lose" will be the same as 2016: HRC. The Dems don't learn new tricks often ... though maybe VP Harris :yikes: (if Biden drops out of the race and the Dems don't nominate e.g. Gov Newsom, Gov Whitmer, et al) – HRC redux. — 180 Proof

    "Defeat from the jaws of victory?" TBD.

    edit:

    also from 2023 (if & when POTUS drops out) ...
    Whitmer for President with running-mate Newsom for Veep works just as well for me too – maybe even better! — 180 Proof
  • The Most Logical Religious Path
    ↪Igitur
    For a hundred or so millennia many thoughtful persons have lived, thrived & died without 'being religious'. Given that eusocial living sustainably with nature alone suffices for being human, history amply shows, imo, that 'religion' is required only (or at least mostly) for herding sheep, prophets making profits and sanguinary propitiating/martyring/scapegoating.

    NB: raised and educated in Roman Catholicism, I became a freethinker, then a naturalist (i.e. anti-supernaturalist inspired by e.g. Epicurus, Spinoza) and also a pandeist some decades ago: almost five decades later, I'm still fascinated, amused and horrified by historical 'religion' both in theory & practice.
  • Is the real world fair and just?
    [@Wayfarer] wants his cake and to eat it. — Banno
    :zip:
  • US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
    Trump never should be the nominee but the GOP has been shit since Reagan. — Benkei
    :up:
  • Is the real world fair and just?
    It’s not a question of whether the ‘wave function’ is or isn’t mind-dependent. — Wayfarer
    :roll:
  • Is the real world fair and just?
    ↪Wayfarer
    Do you assume that 'the wavefunction' itself is mind-independent¹ (whether it 'collapses' (Copenhagen) or not (Everett))?

    Do you assume that 'the wavefunction' is mind-dependent² (whether 'mind' is intersubjective (community of observers/instruments) or divine (deity))?

    Do you assume something else?


    [1] or subject/pov/language/gauge-invariant
    [2] or subject/pov/language/gauge-variant
  • US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
    ↪Fooloso4
    :up: Apologies for the oversight.
  • US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
    19July24

    Interesting. :chin:

    Like 2020, don't vote for the man (or the woman); vote for the mission in Roevember 2024 which is to defeat The Neofascist Crininal Clown & his rabid MAGA junta-in-waiting. :victory: :mask:

    Informed, intelligent commentary is welcome:
    @Mikie @Wayfarer @Benkei @jgill @ssu @frank @jorndoe @Mr Bee @RogueAI @tim wood
  • Simplest - The minimum possible building blocks of a universe
    ↪Treatid
    :ok: If there is no objective truth, then your statement "there is no objective truth" is, at most, merely a subjective affectation – self-refuting vaporware like the cheapest after shave.
  • Questioning reality at a young age?
    Has anyone else here had a sense that what they were experiencing in early life wasn't truly real or that it was highly stripped down? — TiredThinker
    I grew up before wall-to-wall vidiocracy of 24/7/365 cable tv, video games, smart phones, social media & youtubing, so definitely not because my "early life" was "truly real" for me, especially as @Vera Mont so rightly points out, nature (i.e. wilderness – through which I, a fortunate though working class NYC kid, had often backpacked & hiked since early grade school).
  • The Suffering of the World
    To lay out in its clearest terms: — schopenhauer1
    Ad hoc assumptions which raise more questions than they answer – not clear at all.

    This will ever be my debate with Nietzscheans on this forum. I'm sorry but Schopenhauer cannot be surpassed by Nietzsche's contrarian view.
    Whatever. I'm not a "Nietzschean" (though I share affinities with his anti-idealist naturalism) and in my previous post I raise objections to (your) "pessimism" referring instead to Camus, Zapffe, Epicurus, Epictetus & Spinoza without invoking "Nietzsche". Try addressing my actual argument, schop1, instead of copping-out by shadowboxing with a strawman. :wink:

    ... almost each and every moment you deliberate and decide. The reasons you chose, whatever they are ...
    ... are mostly not conscious decisions / choices according to (e.g.) Buddha ... Socrates, Pyrrho ... Spinoza, Hume, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Peirce, Wittgenstein ... and corroborated by (e.g.) cognitive neuroscience, behavioral economics, embodied cognitivism & CBT. :roll:
  • Devil Species Rejoinder to Aristotelian Ethics
    This OP is about Aristotle's Eudemian and Nichomachean Ethics; not his Metaphysics, Politics, or Physics. — Bob Ross
    And yet you begin with his metaphysical terms "purpose" "telos" "final causes" & "essence". :roll:

    A map is something used to know territories themselves, no? — Count Timothy von Icarus
    No. Maps are used to facilitate taking paths through a simplified abstraction derived from specific types of aspects of a (factual/formal/fictional) territory.

    The idea of "essence" might be explained quite differently from how Aristotle goes about it ...
    Yet the OP concerns only Aristotle's notion of "essence".
  • The Suffering of the World
    We are the only species that bears a responsibility that no other animal must endure, that of justifying why we must do/endure anything. We are self-aware creatures, that know that we can do something counterfactual. — schopenhauer1
    "Responsibility" to whom?

    "Justifying" other than that "we must"?

    Is being "self aware" also sub-personal (i.e. pre-self regulatory processes constitutive of "self") or just a superficial confabulation (i.e. token-reflexive, user-illusion)?

    It is a form of "ignoring" of the problem. — schopenhauer1
    No, Camus (like Zapffe et al) recognizes 'existence' is a pseudo-problem only for idealists (or antirealists, subjectivists ... supernaturalists), that is, for those who adopt an egocentric stance of 'ontological transcendence' (pace Spinoza) that is inexorably frustrated by the ineluctable and immanent resistance-to-ego of existence (i.e. anicca, anatta ... dao ... swirling-swerving atoms recombing in void, etc). There is no "problem" that's "ignored", especially by lucid absurdists, who neither absurdly 'idealize non-ideal' existence (re: hope) nor absurdly 'nihilate non-negative' existence (re: despair), insofar as we strive – suffer – to create manifold spaces by and within which to thrive aesthetically and ethically between absurd extremes. :death: :flower:

    ... we are the species that needs the delusions ...
    ... such as "the delusion" that our "species needs delusions", etc?

    What are your "meta"-cognitive beliefs about pessimism, and what it may mean to a person? — Shawn
    As schopenhauer1 suggests, the existential stance of "pessimism" is also a "delusion" for coping with, imo, a (mostly) maladaptive habit of neurotic overthinking – anxiously fearing for (pace Epicurus/Epictetus ... Spinoza) – our species-specific defects-dysfunctions aka "suffering". :fire:
  • The Suffering of the World
    It's the age-old problematic: ignorance. — 180 Proof
    ... the life of the ignorant, who do not understand or perceive the suffering of the world. — Shawn
    A point of clarity: in this context, by "ignorance" I mean to ignore for whatever reason (e.g. naivete, sociopathy-narcissism, acculturation, ideology, remoteness-deniability, callousness-ptsd, magical thinking-otherworldliness, masochistic bias, etc).

    ... morality is more deeply rooted in emotional affectivity than in rational deliberation. — Tom Storm
    :up: :up:
  • The Suffering of the World
    I'd like to ask, in correspondence with the OP, whether only through experience can one come to learn, or even know, such basic moral facts? — Shawn
    Yes, through tacit experience (via childhood, socialization, pedagogy, trauma, etc) but explicitly by reflecting on experiences.

    The way the world seems to be working is that there's some kind of serious deficiency in this regard of being informed of moral facts or truths.
    It's the age-old problematic: ignorance.
  • The Suffering of the World
    ↪Shawn
    Context matter. (Edited) Maybe 'right in/action' is clearer ...
  • The Suffering of the World
    ↪Shawn
    I can only answer this way: ethics is, as I understand it, the study of (i.e. reflective inquiry into) the extent to which exercises of moral concern (via judgments and conduct which prevent or reduce (net) harm / injustice) cause a moral agent to flourish – to reinforce adaptive habits (i.e. virtues right in/action) which restrain maladaptive habits (i.e. vices re: wrong in/action). An observational axiom of ethics: suffering – species-specific defects which make individual species-members vulnerable to dysfunction (i.e. fear of harm / injustice) – is the most basic moral fact and thereby knowing how to decrease or increase the likelihood and severity of such defect-dysfunction is thereby the most practical moral truth.
  • Devil Species Rejoinder to Aristotelian Ethics
    Have you read the Metaphysics yet?
    –Count Timothy von Icarus

    I haven’t, but I will.     — Bob Ross
    For f*ck's sake ... :roll:

    ↪Bob Ross
    No. Maybe. Yes, but whatever we use "to speak of the territory" (including "essences") is not the territory itself.

    ↪wonderer1
    :up:
  • Devil Species Rejoinder to Aristotelian Ethics
    I don't see anything wrong with the concept of an essence or final causes (telos): do you? — Bob Ross
    Yes, in this context "telos" is fallaciously anthropomorphic (à la animism). Aristotle mistook – literalized / fetishized / reified – his causal mappings for the territory and called them "essences".
  • US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
    18July24
    Trump isn’t going to win. — NOS4A2
    Yeah, buddy! JD Vance is the *misogynistic gift* that will keep on giving. More of the Ultra-MAGA Hillbilly speaking in public, please. :clap:

    Roevember is coming! :victory: :mask:
  • Evidence of Consciousness Surviving the Body
    ↪Pantagruel
    :eyes:
  • Is Karma real?
    ↪Benj96
    FWIW, my intepretive sketch from a 2022 thread Perspective on Karma ...
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/730691
  • Evidence of Consciousness Surviving the Body
    ↪bert1
    So are we. :mask:
  • Evidence of Consciousness Surviving the Body
    I feel like a asshole. — bert1
    No doubt.

    I concede. — bert1
    My questions
    ↪180 Proof
    were for @Pantagruel to clarify his specific statement which he cannot because it's gibberish. And your response, bert, isn't "paradoxical", just more semantic jugglery.
  • Evidence of Consciousness Surviving the Body
    ↪Pantagruel
    I asked clear, direct, relevant questions here
    ↪180 Proof
    and yet you reply with an opaque non sequitur. Apparently, it's reasonable to assume (again), you don't even know what you're talking about. Okay, never mind.

    We have billions of people that look into the sky and see that the Sun travels around the Earth. The Sun rises in the East, and sets in the West. No one is saying we don't have that unified and confirmed subjective experience. But is our interpretation of that subjective experience true? No. It turns out that the Earth actually orbits the sun. But from our limited perspectives, and can feel like its the other way around. — Philosophim
    :up: :up:

    Anecdotal, magical thinking dogmas abound (despite alleged philosophy graduate.studies). Geocentric flat earthers, after all, are violently allergic to counter-evidence / sound counter-arguments.
  • Evidence of Consciousness Surviving the Body
    Consciousness, in its essence, is imminently trans-individual. — Pantagruel
    If so, then what makes "consciousness" mine? If it's not mine, then why should "consciousness" matter to me? If, however, "consciousness" is mine, then what does "trans-individual" mean and why should it matter to me?
  • Evidence of Consciousness Surviving the Body
    ↪Sam26
    :ok: :rofl:
  • Evidence of Consciousness Surviving the Body
    @Sam26 :eyes:
    If you do not provide any evidence that these subjective interpretations of reality have been confirmed as objective realities in controlled settings, then your argument has failed as an assertion. It is a hypothesis [idle speculation], no more, and cannot stand against other the contrary hypothesis that has been confirmed as of this day: "Consciousness does not survive death". — Philosophim
    :100: :up:
  • Is the real world fair and just?
    ↪schopenhauer1
    ???
  • Is the real world fair and just?
    ↪Wayfarer
    Argue with your strawmen all you like, Wayf, but you trivialize yourself by disingenuously misquoting me and spewing ad hominems. Disregarding my clarification
    ↪180 Proof
    is also a tell. :roll:

    ↪schopenhauer1
    Nonsense: "existence" is not a voluntary agent (re: category error).
  • Is the real world fair and just?
    ↪schopenhauer1
    My Zapffean-Camusian (quasi-Ligottian) response to the OP on p.1:
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/914646
  • Is the real world fair and just?
    ↪Wayfarer
    :lol: That "exactly" says nothing about "sees the universe as it truly is".

    ↪schopenhauer1
    I'm a big fan of Ligotti ... but what's your point in mentioning him?
  • Is the real world fair and just?
    That's exactly what you said. — Wayfarer
    Really? Cite a quote.

    naturalistic metaphysics' proposes: that we see the universe as it truly is
    Wrong. It "proposes" a synoptic view of "the universe" without supernatural entities or forces (i.e. woo woo :sparkle:) that is consistent with the Mediocrity & Uniformity Principles (i.e. not anthropocentric).
  • Is the real world fair and just?
    ... outside and beyond the human conception of it ... — Wayfarer
    Silly ad hominems & strawmen. I/we have not claimed or implied anything "outside and beyond" anything, sir.
  • Is the real world fair and just?
    Humans are irrelevant. The Cosmos would be the same with or without us. — apokrisis
    :100: A fact that terrifies 'anthropocentric antirealists' (e.g. @Gnomon @Wayfarer) to the point of despair or woo-woo denials.
  • Devil Species Rejoinder to Aristotelian Ethics
    ↪Bob Ross
    In effect, imo, Aristotle's teleology is occult, or based on arbitrary post hoc definitions (i.e. final causes aka "essences") which render conclusions inferred from them (e.g. "good" is being/action consistent with final causes) invalid. Unless I've misunderstood the OP, your "problem", therefore, is pseudo, Bob.
  • US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
    16July24

    re: MAGA Freak Show (American idiocracy)
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    ↪Hanover
    :lol:
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Doubts about Biden’s nomination only came into view this year. — Wayfarer
    My doubts about Biden from spring 2023 ...
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/781755
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