Comments

  • Fate v. Determinism
    I accept libertarian free will as a necessary component for any understanding, analogous to Kantian space and time intuitions, which is simply to say it's necessary for any understanding of the world, even if it makes no sense under deep analysis. — Hanover
    On the contrary, sir, I think [1] naturalism (i.e. nature as 'the more-than-human-mind ontology that necessarily constitutes-conditions any view-from-everywhere epistemology') and [2] compatibilism (i.e. conditionally voluntary actions) taken together make much more "sense under deep analysis" to me¹ as constituents "necessary for any understanding the world" (that is also consistent with both modern physical theories and contemporary social-historical facts) than idealist – antirealist, subjectivist (i.e. romantic / existentialist), immaterialist or Thomist – alternatives such as crypto-Cartesian/quasi-Platonist "Kantian libertarian free will".


    ¹e.g. read Epicurus-Epictetus, read Spinoza, read Hume, read Zapffe-Camus-Rosset, read Dewey-Popper-Feyerabend-Haack, read D. Parfit-M. Nussbaum-P. Foot, read Q. Meillassoux-R. Brassier...
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    ↪Mikie
    Gump's "stupid is as stupid does" has devolved into Trump's Morons Against Great America. :mask:
  • On Freedom
    "The unexamined life is not worth living" may be a bit extreme, but the examined life is certainly better, ceteris paribus, than the unexamined — Janus
    :up: No doubt – (to paraphrase I don't recall whom) Better to be a sad Socrates than a smug swine.
  • Fate v. Determinism
    Both deny free agency. — Hanover
    If by "free" you mean unconditional, then I agree.
  • On Freedom
    What is freedom? — Nemo2124
    'Being free from fear enough to work for freeing descendants and others from fear enough to work for ...' is how I understand freedom. On this basis, I also think one is responsible (i.e. blameworthy à la mauvaise foi) to the degree one neglects or denies this emancipatory work.
  • Fate v. Determinism
    What is the difference between Fate and Determinism? — Frog
    I think this is the existential difference: determinism denotes 'all actions necessarily are effects of causes' (i.e. actions are conditional) whereas fate denotes 'all actions necessarily cause effects' (i.e. actions are consequenntial). Ouroboros-like head & tail (e.g. strange loop). For innstance, 'breaking a promise' is both determined and fateful.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    ↪Benkei
    :smirk:
  • The essence of religion
    ↪Constance
    I've reread the OP and that's why I stand by my first post in response ...

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/903982
  • Using Artificial Intelligence to help do philosophy
    So if it's not internal models that make them more than "very fast GIGO, data-mining, calculators", then what would, in your view? — flannel jesus
    As I've already said, I think AIs must also be embodied (i.e. have synthetic phenomenology that constitutes their "internal models").

    What evidence would you have to see about some future generation of ai that would lead you to say it's more than "very fast GIGO, data-mining, calculators"?
    I'll be convinced of that when, unprompted and on its own, an AI is asking and exploring the implications of non-philosophical as well as philosophical questions, understands when and when not to question, and learns how to create novel, more probative questions. This is my point
    ↪180 Proof
    about what current AIs (e.g. LLMs) cannot do.
  • Using Artificial Intelligence to help do philosophy
    ↪flannel jesus
    Maybe. Yes. No.
  • Using Artificial Intelligence to help do philosophy
    ↪flannel jesus
    About "current AIs (e.g. LLMs)"? No.
  • Using Artificial Intelligence to help do philosophy
    ↪flannel jesus
    Yep, only.
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    You mean Likud or Hamas. Neither, because I dislike terrorists. — Mikie
    :up: :up:
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Take it from somebody looking at American Bullshit from the outside; it's been rotting since [Nixon]. — Benkei
    :victory: :mask: From the inside too the reek of imperial rot has been unbearable except to the last few of generations of "my fellow American" shiteaters.
  • Using Artificial Intelligence to help do philosophy
    ↪Bret Bernhoft
    Current AIs (e.g. LLMs) cannot philosophize (i.e. raise and reflect on foundational questions in order to reason dialectically towards – in order to understand when and how to create – more probative inquiries) because these 'cognitive systems' are neither embodied (i.e. synthetic phenomenology) nor programmed-trained to emulate metacognition (i.e. self-in-possible-worlds-modeling). IMHO, these machines are still only very very fast GIGO, data-mining, calculators.
  • Is atheism illogical?
    ↪LuckyR
    I claim that many questions are answered by religion (i.e. scriptures, dogmas, sacraments/rites) and require "faith" because those "revealed answers" are merely question-begging "mysteries". Unanswered (or unanswerable) questions are not fallacious – begging the question (e.g. with "mysteries") is fallacious, ergo illogical.
  • The essence of religion
    It precedes reflections about ethics logically; historically who cares. — Constance
    Yeah well, the logical precedent happens to be manifest historically since the topic concerns a concrete, social institution and not a mere abstraction. :roll:

    This is an apriori argument.
    What "argument"? There is no "argument", just speculative observations which are either informed by anthropology, history, psychology, etc or they are not.

    But you have to ask why he took that position. — Constance
    No we don't because Witty isn't the topic of this thread as per the OP. Folks shift the goal posts when they are confused by the obscurity of what they think they are talking about. As far as I'm concerned, Witty is a non sequitur you've introduced that further obscures the issue.
  • The essence of religion
    ↪Constance
    The OP raises a question of "the essence of religion" and not "what Witty says about religion (in the TLP)". Nothing I've discussed here shows what I do or do not understand about "Witty's ethics", so that's a non sequitur at best. The fact of the matter is, Constance, religion long preceeds (by scores of millennia) philosophical reflections such as ethics and that's where its "essence" (foundation) lies – in facticity (e.g. exigency), not ideality (i.e. effable ineffability).
  • Is atheism illogical?
    ↪LuckyR
    Insofar as 'religious faith' denotes worship of and/or practices justified (i.e. rationalized) by Mysteries – which only beg questions becsuse they are not answers (to e.g. "what is source, origin or cause of all things?" "why these values rather than those values?" "is there an afterlife? or day of judgment?" "what is the ultimate plan?" etc) – it is fallacious, or illogical. So explain what I get wrong about 'religious faith'.
  • The essence of religion
    The OP says nothing about mortality. — Constance
    Thus, the failing (obscurity) of the OP.

    Radical contingency, this is a Sartrean term as I remember.
    No doubt he derives it from classical atomism.
  • The essence of religion
    Well, fear of the world is obvious and the need to flee is just crystal clear. But what IS it that one has to flee from that is in and of the world? — Constance
    We flee mortality :fire:, or as Buddhists say: impermanence of ourselves, one another & everything else (NB: I prefer 'radical contingency'). IMO, this fleeing is fundamentally (i.e. atavistically) religious.
  • The essence of religion
    This fuss is a structural feature of our existence, this death by a thousand cuts, say, IS the fuss, and to simply ignore it is entirely disingenuous to philosophy ... — Astrophel
    And what "structural ... death of a thousand cuts" have I ignored?
  • Is atheism illogical?
    ↪LuckyR
    Yeah, but is "religious faith" logical?
  • The essence of religion
    ↪ENOAH
    :up:
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    ↪jorndoe
    Screw "the moderates" – both (all) sides, or peoples, need to mobilize their respective militant anti-extremists.
  • The essence of religion
    Could caring instead, or also, be the most immanent, most intimate expression of the one who is being religious (or just being)? — Fire Ologist
    :fire: ... ecstatic immanence.
  • The essence of religion
    ↪ENOAH
    As "the essence of religion", why do you priviledge, or prioritize, (your) religious ideality over (primordial) religious facticity? It seems abundantly evident (to me at least) that the latter is the independent variable and therefore inescapably anterior both anthropologically and psychosocially to the former.

    ... it has to be brought to an even more penetrating analysis in order to show the world that religion is the THE profound center of our existence, not this or that religion, but religion in its essence. — Constance
    Yes, fear – conatus as ineluctable striving to overcome – escape from – fear (e.g. mortality ... manifest in burying our dead, etc). H. sapiens' (aka "h. religiosus'")¹ first, oldest, perennial escape plan – the quest for magical/symbolic "immortality" – is what we now call "religion" as such.

    I prefer h. ludens¹ ... :death: :flower:
  • Is atheism illogical?
    ↪Janus
    I missed (overlooked) this post – I more or less agree. :up:

    ↪AmadeusD
    :roll:

    I tried to help clarify your "dumb" definitions, but you're incorrible. Both theism and atheism, as definitions and in practice, are expressions of belief and not knowing; yet, apparently, the difference between 'believing' (that / in) and 'knowing' (how / that / what) are also lost on you; and as an antitheist, your ignorance, Amadeus, of how I/we actually use the term antitheism is "silly" (probably disingenuous too). You can, of course, define terms in any way you like in order to reassure yourself of atheism (or any other concept); for me, however, what matters is whether or not arguments for atheism (or any concept) are valid rather than relying on mere stipulations like you vacuously have done.
  • US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
    4June24

    :smirk: I'm fever dreaming ...

    (1) After SCOTUS delay tactic decision to, in effect, kick "absolute immunity" pleading back down to the federal district court at end of June and sentencing drops on July 11 in NYC, Judge Chutkan in DC should revoke Convict-1's pre-trial release for violating its terms with 10 citations of criminal contempt of court and have Felon-1 sit in a Washington DC jail until his "January 6th Conspiracy" trial begins.

    (2) "October Surprise": in a prime time televised press conference, POTUS should offer a full pardon to Convicted Felon-1 two weeks before the general election IFF Convicted Felon-1 admits his guilt for both sets of federal crimes in Washington DC and South Florida ... "so that the people, not the courts, can decide the election", etc. Of course, Loser-1 won't accept such a pardon – either way he'd lose more support on the margins, especially among Independent voters in several critical "swing states".

    :victory: :cool:
  • How would you respond to the trolley problem?
    In THIS limited situation, what is more moral? — Philosophim
    Neither. IMHO, wrong question as I point out (above):

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/908263
  • Last Rites for a Dying Civilization
    Quite simply, there isn't time enough for AI to shake off the shackles of partisan capital. — Vera Mont
    Am I wrong to read this as "there isn't enough time for you/us to wait for AI ..."?
  • How would you respond to the trolley problem?
    ↪Captain Homicide
    I think "The Trolley Problem" is a variation on the lesser evil dilemma which is political (re: surviving (e.g. triage)), not moral (re: thriving, flourishing), because both horns of the dilemma are repugnant and, at best, the positive outcome of "potentially saving more lives by sacrificing fewer lives" is only instrumental (i.e. an output of an arithmetic calculation). However, while the option of ignoring "the problem" is also political, non-interference in this kind of situation is immoral too because the non-interferer – bystander – becomes an accomplice by inaction to the "greater evil" outcome. These sorts of lesser evil dilemmas presented in ethics courses seem to me mere academic pseudo-problems (i.e. idle puzzles).

    Anyway, what would I do? I'd throw the damn switch; then, one way or another I'd hunt down the murderous SOBs who set this human-rat trap.
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    ↪Baden
    :100: :strong:
  • Last Rites for a Dying Civilization
    Civilization (i.e. the sedimentary archive of 'oligarchic dominance hierarchies') has been dying for at least ten millennia just each of us has been dying since birth. Re: entropy (the details are trivial but inexorable). And so I'm afraid – to paraphrase an old deadender, nazi sophist – only a singularity¹ can save us. :eyes:

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/849880 [2]

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/850133 [3]
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    ↪Maw
    :up:
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    This hush money conviction is no big deal.
    — Hanover

    Is it?

    Trump isn't constrained by any moral code. The only constraint on his behavior is the legal code, and then - only if a solid case can be made. Prosecuting Trump for this minor crime reminds me of the prosecution of Al Capone, for tax evasion.     — Relativist
    :up: :up:
  • Is atheism illogical?
    ↪flannel jesus
    Sure, anything can be believed. My point (re: D), however, is inferred.
  • Is atheism illogical?
    A. Theism=I know there's a God;
    B. Atheism = I do not know whether there's a God;
    C. Agnosticism = I cannot know whether there is a God; and
    D. Anti-Theism = I know there is not a God.     — AmadeusD
    A. I believe in a God.
    B. I do not believe in a God.
    C. I do not know whether or not there is a God.
    D. I claim that 'theism is not true, therefore theistic deities are fictions, and therefore theistic religions (i.e. ritualized delusions) are immoral'.

    ABC are standard definitions and D is nonstandard (which I prefer).
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    I don't see these charges resulting in jail time anyway. — Hanover
    :ok:
  • Kant's ethic is protestant
    Kant was a Lutheran (Pietist) who strove 'to limit reason in order to make room for faith' and so his practical reason (e.g. deontology) was faith-based, no?
Home » 180 Proof