Comments

  • The essence of religion
    ↪Hanover
    I did not anwhere claim or imply your "religion in opposition to science" strawman. Also, read the OP and thread title: "essence" is @Constance's term and not mine. :roll:
  • The essence of religion
    religion deals explicitly with metaphysics — Astrophel
    Yes, death – ritually denying, or wishing away, its finality (i.e. anti-anxiety terror management (E. Becker)).
  • The essence of religion
    Isn't everything a magical quest for immortality ...? — Outlander
    Nope.

    ↪Moses
    Go away troll.

    ↪ENOAH
    :up:
  • The essence of religion
    ↪ENOAH
    I'm not "frustrated" with anything, least of all religion. Stick to what I've actually written as I don't have a hidden, or sublimated, agenda. The history of religious practices (e.g. oracles / prophesies, scaoegoating, heresies, martyrs, persecutions, schisms, missionaries, holy wars, etc) speaks loudly for itself – quests for magical/miraculous "immortality" (i.e. escape from (denial of) mortality). Maybe some religious folk "seek truth" as you say, ENOAH, but they are outliers and do not constitute, as several millennia of history shows, the essence, or raison d'etre, of religion as such.
  • The essence of religion
    The essence of religion is seek truth; and it holds true in its authentic practice. — ENOAH
    If so, then why are religions not founded on public impersonal objective truths and are not daily practices (celebrations) of rigorous public error-correction?

    After all, the Abrahamic tradition begins with a woman disobeying "the Lord" who forbade her from eating fruit from a "Tree of Knowledge" (truth): Hebrew (JCI) scriptures depict "the original sin" as a woman thinking for herself by "seeking truth". :naughty:

    Obeying "the Lord" (and his anointed/appointed pimps) in order to avoid punishment (fear), not "seeking truth", seems to me religion's historically manifest "essence".

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/904100
  • Vervaeke-Henriques 'Transcendent Naturalism'
    TN is the natural and common state of most [hep]cats. — tim wood
    :smirk: :up:
  • Wittgenstein the Socratic
    There is mental floss and there is philosophy. Mental floss can be part of philosophy, but in the way that doing math exercises helps strengthen your math abilities.. You aren't really a mathematician unless you use some of those skills for constructing proofs, etc. — schopenhauer1
    :up: :up:

    Questioning takes priority over answers. — Fooloso4
    a matter of inquiry not solving problems with definitive answers — Fooloso4
    ... these hypotheses do not put an end to questioning. They lead to and guide further questioning. — Fooloso4
    ↪Fooloso4
    :fire:
  • Vervaeke-Henriques 'Transcendent Naturalism'
    ↪Tom Storm
    :up:
  • Vervaeke-Henriques 'Transcendent Naturalism'
    I can make no sense of "Transcendent Naturalism." Does anyone here have the ambition to try make some sense of the term in a sentence or two, or three? — tim wood
    :wink: FWIW, here's a sentence:

    Plebian philosophical naturalist that I am, the only sense I can make of the term "transcendent naturalism" (pace @Wayfarer) is as a conception of beings-in-nature (e.g. embodied subjects) that is both (A) "beyond" subjective – neither anthropocentric nor egocentric (i.e. impersonal) – and (B) "beyond" super-natural – encompassed by unbounded immanence insofar as nature transcends whatever happens in nature because nature (and its constituents (e.g. embodied subjects)) cannot transcend nature (à la (e.g.) Epicureanism, Spinozism, Zapffe-Camus' absurdism & other anti-cartesianisms / anti-platonisms) – which is (C) epistemically consistent with (corroborated by?) human facticity, everyday ordinary experience, historicity-historiography and modern natural sciences ("Thus, we have art [make believe, magical thinking, woo-woo] in order not to perish from the truth" ~Nietzsche). :fire:
  • Hobbies
    If you are planning to visit Madrid one day, I am your trustworthy Local Guide user! — javi2541997
    :cool: :up:
  • Quantifier Variance, Ontological Pluralism, and Other Fun Stuff
    If there is something left for philosophy to do, I haven't been able to figure out what that is, and god knows I've tried. — Srap Tasmaner
    Idling semantic quibbles aside, do you mean "academic philosophy" or "amateur philosophy" or "way of life philosophy"?

    Consider this: these variations of philosophy each "do" different things with, at minimum, the same praxis: reflective inquiry – problematizing aporias, or what we do not / cannot know or understand about what we think we know or what we misunderstand – that reasons towards more probative questions we still do not know how to answer (i.e. philosophical truthes (?)). So, IMO, it does not make sense to apply the notion of "something left to do" to philosophy any more than it does to apply it to other interminable practices (which resemble J. Carse's "infinite games") like martial arts, public health & sanitation, natural sciences, history & politics, personal hygiene, logic & mathematics, fine arts, etc.
  • Wittgenstein and How it Elicits Asshole Tendencies.
    ↪schopenhauer1
    Idk, I've only taken "the blue pill" and suspect that "the red pill" only shows that all pills are "blue".
  • In any objective morality existence is inherently good
    What does 'rodeo clowning bulls' mean? — bert1
    The opposite of "trolling".
  • Wittgenstein and How it Elicits Asshole Tendencies.
    ↪schopenhauer1
    So it's the "blue pill" for you. :cool:

    ↪Tom Storm
    :smirk:
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    ↪BitconnectCarlos
    :lol: stfu & gfy.
  • Wittgenstein and How it Elicits Asshole Tendencies.
    [Wittgenstein] is not talking about language, as Rorty and Wayfarer’s Kenneth Taylor take it, he is looking at how we talk, in certain examples (calling out, rule following, pointing, continuing a series, seeing, understanding, and, even, “meaning”/language, but only as another example), because it is a window, a method, in order to see how different things do what they do differently (our criteria for judging can be seen in the ways we talk).

    His goal is not to tell us the way the world works, e.g., by way of rules, or that this is how rules work. Initially he is trying to figure out why he got stuck on one solution (in the Tract[atus]), when the world works in so many different ways. What he learns first is that our desire for certainty narrows our vision (dictates the form of answer), and so, yes, it is a book about self-knowledge. It aims to show us how our interests affect our thinking.     — Antony Nickles
    :clap: :up: More or less this summarizes how I also read Witty's later thinking (re: recursively generated plurality of non-discrete discourses) which I interpret as contextualizing, not refuting or discarding, his early thinking (re: implicit nonsense of meta-discourses). In other words, implied by the PI, Witty's TLP exemplifies just one language-game (i.e. discursive way of making sense/meanings) among countless others; however, IMHO, this is also 'meta-discursive nonsense' too (i.e. a language-game of 'examples of language-games') and therefore (PI) internally critiques, or refutes, itself implicitly in the manner of the more explicit proposition 7 of the TLP. Witty doesn't propose a 'theory of language' so there aren't any 'claims' to argue against, only this reflective activity to perform ("red pill" ~ how to stop philosophizing) or not to perform ("blue pill" ~ to never stop philosophizing), and this groundless 'choice' is what, I suspect, aggravates many (scientistic or analytical or dogmatic) philosophers with its ordinariness ...

    e.g. one hand clapping :fire:

    @schopenhauer1
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    ↪Benkei
    ↪BitconnectCarlos
    :shade: You're a fatuous liar, BitCunt! Here's some more "antisemitic propaganda" ...

    The Jerusalem Post
    26March23

    "32% of all racist incidents in 2022 were directed at Arab Israelis - Justice Ministry"

    https://m.jpost.com/israel-news/article-735422
  • Canada ought cap lottery jackpots to $9 million CAD, like Japan.
    ↪javi2541997
    It happens occasionally with the current lottery setups.
  • What do you reckon of Philosophy Stack Exchange ?
    No. TPF suffices. When that's no longer the case, who knows – maybe.
  • If existence is good, what is the morality of non-life?
    ↪schopenhauer1
    In other words, @Philosophim wants you to pretend, along with him, that the OP's argument presented on his other thread (link to it in this OP) has not been refuted (e.g.
    ↪180 Proof
    ) and thereby for you to carry on with the refuted premise of this thread. :smirk:
  • Polyamory vs monogamy
    Male sexuality is limited only by permission. — Hanover
    AFAIK, that's the "official line" only in many (not most or all) contemporary, developed nations.
  • Polyamory vs monogamy
    Are humans naturally polyamorous or naturally monogamous? — Benj96
    I suspect that, especially duuring peak childbearing life-stages, human males are "naturally polygamous" and human females are "naturally monogamous", yet (modern, more gender-fluid) culture somewhat modifies, or moderates, our "hardwired tendencies".
  • If existence is good, what is the morality of non-life?
    ↪schopenhauer1
    :up:

    A corollary to my Ligotti post above from @Philosophim's other "existence should be" thread...
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/904196
  • The Self-Negating Cosmos: Rational Genesis, and The Logical Foundations of the Quantum Vacuum
    Thank you Proof! — punos
    Yw. :cool:
    I'm curious to know if you agree with or subscribe to Spinoza's concept of natura naturans?
    Yes (and as a conceptual analogue for Democritus-Epicurus' void), though I interpret the concept as temporal only and not, like Spinoza, also as eternal (i.e. unchanging, static).
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    War criminals Bibi & Hamas together at last:

    https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/reactions-icc-decision-israeli-hamas-leaders-2024-05-20/
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    ↪Wayfarer
    :up:
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    ↪Moses The same aim as it has always been: remove all Palestinians from Palestine and create a greater Israel from the river to the sea with Apartheid in its borders; where non-Jews will have less rights than Jews and Mizrahi, Sephardic and Ethiopian Jews will be discriminated against by their right wing supremacist AshkeNazi "brothers". — Benkei
    :100: :zip:
  • Canada ought cap lottery jackpots to $9 million CAD, like Japan.
    ↪scherz0
    An alternative that would be easier to implement, it seems to me (here in the US), is to generate more than 1 set of numbers for each drawing so that it is more likely there are (e.g.) 2-6 possible winners to share the jackpot. Maybe add 1 extra set of numbers per $50m so that (e.g.) a $300m jackpot would consist of generating 6 sets of numbers, potentially sharing the jackpot 6 ways (besides duplicate winners) for that drawing. No other changes to the lottery would be necessary to accomplish a more egalitarian (distributed) outcome. All non-jackpot winner prizes are not shared (except for duplicates).
  • The Self-Negating Cosmos: Rational Genesis, and The Logical Foundations of the Quantum Vacuum
    A quasi-scientistic interpretation of the Spinozist natura naturans (substance). Interesting (despite the physics-mystical gloss) but, IMO, philosophically redundant.
  • The philosopher and the person?
    Do you agree that the philosopher must uphold, almost, a fiduciary duty towards the public, in terms of living a certain life? — Shawn
    No. Except where a philosopher proposes, in the e.g. Hellenic sense, 'philosophy as a way of life' (P. Hadot), I think a philosophy ought to be judged on the basis of its own merits/demerits like any other textual, formal or scientific artifact. How a philosopher lives may or may not be exemplary to us independent of – though there may be evident biographical influences on – her philosophy.
  • Wittgenstein and How it Elicits Asshole Tendencies.
    I sum up Wittgenstein as saying "Let me explain to you how there is no such thing as an explanation." — Fire Ologist
    :smirk::up:
  • Wittgenstein and How it Elicits Asshole Tendencies.
    What is it about SPECIFICALLY Wittgenstein that it elicits the worst forms of elitism and gatekeeping in this forum? — schopenhauer1
    Maybe because no one understands (or accepts)
    (1) Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.

    (2) I think I summed up my attitude to philosophy when I said: philosophy ought really to be written only as a poetic composition.

    (3) The difficulty in philosophy is to say no more than we know.

    (4) A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes.

    (5) The classifications made by philosophers and psychologists are like trying to classify clouds by their shape.

    (6) Philosophy aims at the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity. A philosophical work consists essentially of elucidations. Philosophy does not result in 'philosophical propositions', but rather in the clarification of propositions. Without philosophy thoughts are, as it were, cloudy and indistinct: its task is to make them clear and to give them sharp boundaries.

    (7) What is your aim in philosophy? To show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle     — Ludwig Wittgenstein
  • In any objective morality existence is inherently good
    ↪Philosophim
    "Trolling?" Nah, just rodeo clowning bulls*** :smirk:
  • In any objective morality existence is inherently good
    ↪Philosophim
    (Sorry if my counter-argument requires more thought than you gave your argument in the OP.) Once again ...

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/904196
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    ↪jorndoe
    :clap: :rofl:

    ↪NOS4A2
    So what will the GOP (gang of pigshits)-MAGA (morons and grifter asswipes) party-line be when Orange Turd-1 is found guilty in NYC (again!) this week or next of most or all of the 34 felonies he's been charged with?
  • In any objective morality existence is inherently good
    Feel free to point out where the logic of the OP is flawed and we can discuss that. — Philosophim
    :roll: Like some others already have (which you incorrigibly don't get, Phil), been there, done that:
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/904265
  • In any objective morality existence is inherently good
    Addendum to
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/904275

    Good - what should be
    Existence - what is
    Morality - a method of evaluating what is good
    Our first necessarily objective good: Existence
    — Philosophim

    :lol:

    Nonexistence never hurt anyone and existence hurts everyone. Although our selves may be illusory creations of consciousness, our pain is nonetheless real..
    — Thomas Ligotti     — 180 Proof
  • How can we reduce suffering, inequality, injustice, and death?
    Why would an Artificial General Intelligence care about living things? — Truth Seeker
    I don't assume it necessarily would. For my scenario to work, AGI wouldn't have "care" about anything but philanthropically optimizing the infrastructures, or functions of the systems, it automates. It remains to be seen, of course, whether or not we can or will train AGI – or whether or not AGI can or will learn from our example ( :yikes: ) – to be philanthropic.
  • If existence is good, what is the morality of non-life?
    Good - what should be
    Existence - what is
    Morality - a method of evaluating what is good
    Our first necessarily objective good: Existence     — Philosophim
    :lol:
    Nonexistence never hurt anyone and existence hurts everyone. Although our selves may be illusory creations of consciousness, our pain is nonetheless real. — Thomas Ligotti
  • How can we reduce suffering, inequality, injustice, and death?
    ↪Truth Seeker
    Assuming this political-economic 'diagnosis'

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/820342

    the most feasible(?) prospects for 'treating the patient' (i.e. global civilization – beginning with the G-20, nation-state by nation-state), IMHO, maybe comes down to something like (in sum):
    (A) economic democracy (supplimented by local time-banking networks)
    and/or
    (B)     more speculatively: AGI-managed post-scarcity, reputation-based demarchy.
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