Comments

  • How Different Are Theism and Atheism as a Starting Point for Philosophy and Ethics?
    For me atheism isn't about proof that there are no gods. It's whether I believe in gods or or not. I don't believe, so i am an atheist. — Tom Storm
    The question for me, however, is whether or not 'claims about g/G (e.g. theism, deism) are demonstrably true'. AFAIK, such claims are not demonstrably true; therefore, I am an atheist.

    ↪Joshs
    Also, as the ultimate or absolute "mystery", g/G is neither an explanation nor a justification because attempting to answer such questions as "Why do we exist?" and "What is right or good?" with "mystery" – g/G created and g/G said – only begs those questions.


    addendum to:
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/875902
  • Antinatalism Arguments
    ↪Vaskane
    I've no idea what you're talking about or taking issue with.
  • Is superstition a major part of the human psyche?
    ↪schopenhauer1
    :up: :up:
  • Antinatalism Arguments
    I'm sure you can think of greater virtues than Sleep. — Vaskane
    I wonder if you can think of something interesting to say without taking either my words or Nietzsche's out of context.

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/726159

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/772934

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/808366
  • The Role of the Press
    But if you're distinguishing the US system, you'll have to give a counter non-American news outlet that transcends these problems. — Hanover
    "Have to"? That doesn't follow ... and apparently you don't grok my post.
  • The Role of the Press
    ↪Hanover
    IME, the manifest function of 'US corporate news media' primarily has been to inform the business class & its mandarins (i.e. shareholders) while simultaneously disinforming – infotaining/polarizing – the masses (i.e. stakeholders). This mirrors the K-12 conformative education of their respective children.
  • I’m 40 years old this year, and I still don’t know what to do, whether I should continue to live/die
    ↪Tzeentch
    :up:
  • A first cause is logically necessary
    ↪Philosophim
    If you say so.

    To each his own. — Gnomon
    Yeah, that's what the astrologer (or witch doctor) said to the astrophysicist (or medical doctor).
  • A first cause is logically necessary
    Contrary to my interpretation, you're saying that "there can be something outside of spacetime?" Yes or No? — Gnomon
    I'm not saying that. Again, I'm saying this:
    there is no "outside of space-time" (or "beyond" with "possibilities") ... — 180 Proof
    for the reasons given in that post.

    If I mis-interpreted your  Immanentism position on the all-inclusive, no exceptions, expanse of space-time, I will apologize in this thread.
    No apology needed.

    But you would have to either reject the Big Bang theory outright, or ...
    I don't think so. BBT explains only the development of the current structure of spacetime (see R. Penrose's CCC¹) and not its "origin". Btw, in reference to quantum cosmology, I prefer the Hartle-Hawking No Boundary Conjecture² instead.


    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conformal_cyclic_cosmology ¹

    https://phys.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Astronomy__Cosmology/Supplemental_Modules_(Astronomy_and_Cosmology)/Cosmology/Carlip/The_Hartle-Hawking_%22no_boundary%22_proposal ²

    My question to you is: "What caused space-time?" — Philosophim
    On what grounds do you assume "space-time" was "caused"? It seems to me, Philosophim, you're asking, in effect, "what caused causality?" :roll:

    If there is nothing prior which explains why space-time had to have existed forever or exists as it does, then we have reached a first cause. It is the cause of all other things, yet has no cause for its own being besides its own existence.
    No, not "first" but only: existence, being sui generis, is the only cause of everything – causality itself – which in Relativistic physics is often described as the "Block Universe" or in metaphysics, as Spinoza conceives of it sub specie aeternitatus, as "substance" (i.e. natura naturans³)⁴.

    https://pursuingtraditions.wordpress.com/category/natura-naturans-vs-natura-naturata/ ³

    https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spinoza/#GodNatu ⁴
  • Climate change denial
    Of course ...

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/mar/05/us-banks-leave-esg-finance-climate-crisis
  • US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
    The US is a very stupid country, you see. Or, better, extremely ignorant and desperate. — Mikie
    As an American I believe this observation is only true of less than half of the half of the population who bother to vote. :mask:
  • Consciousness is a Precondition of Being
    A being is anything at all. It can also mean exclusively sentient beings. The latter is not what’s used in ontology, whether Aristotle or Heidegger. Trees rocks and ideas are all beings. — Mikie
    :100: Yes, a being (even a nonbeing à la Meinong's "sosein") is whatever is not nothing.
  • US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
    "Insurrection? What Insurrection?!" :mask:

    Commentary by establishment conservative attorney George Conway on 4March24 SCOTUS' tr45h decision ...



    @Ciceronianus @Hanover @Maw
  • A first cause is logically necessary
    Doesn't the {belief that eliminating immaterial data decreases a model's error} imply that immaterial things have no causal relationship with material things? — Lionino
    No. The "belief" implies that "immaterial data" is indefinite or without sufficiently definite parameters with respect to material data, thereby, in effect, comparing apples & oranges (or facts & dreams). I think both conservation laws and the principle of causal closure, however, imply that only material entities can have causal relationships with material entities. Btw, isn't "immaterial thing" an oxymoron? :smirk:
  • What the science of morality studies and its relationship to moral philosophy
    Regardless of your personal position, would you argue that a moral naturalist would find the science of morality useless? — Mark S
    I'm a "moral naturalist" (i.e. aretaic disutilitarian) and, according to your presentation, Mark, "the science of morality" is, while somewhat informative, philosophically useless to me.

    I prefer morality for interactions with other people defined by a kind of rule consequentialism with the moral consequence being a version of happiness or flourishing and the moral rule being Morality as Cooperation. So the science of morality is not just helpful, it is critical to my moral philosophy. Would you claim I am being illogical?
    I think your "preference" is wholly abstract – "a kind of rule" – and therefore non-natural which is inconsistent with your self-description as a "moral naturalist". What you call "cooperation" (reciprocity), I call "non-reciprocal harm-reduction" (empathy); the latter is grounded in a natural condition (i.e. human facticity) and the former is merely a social convention (i.e. local custom). Of course, both are always at play, but, in terms of moral naturalism, human facticity is, so to speak, the independent variable and convention / custom / culture the dependent, or derivative, variable.

    No doubt the relationship of nature-culture is reflexive, even somewhat dialectical, yet culture supervenes on nature (though it defines or demarcates 'natural-artificial', etc). No, you're not "illogical", Mark; however, I find the major premise of your "Morality as Cooperation" to be non-natural (i.e. formalist/calculative/instrumental) and therefore scientistic or, at the very least, non-philosophical vis-à-vis ethics.

    Are science’s explanations of why versions of the Golden Rule exist, are found in all well-functioning cultures, and are commonly described as summarizing morality of no interest to you?
    All "science" says, so to speak, is that 'h. sapiens are a eusocial species with prolonged childhood development for intergenerationally acquiring homeostasis-maintaining skills (from natal, empathy-based social relations, not unlike all other primates and many higher mammal species which also care for their offspring so that they survive long enough to reproduce)'. The parenthetical part is a philosophical reflection, not mere empirical data, and thus significant for our moral reasoning.

    I'm interested in reflecting on natural conditions for moral conduct independent of – anterior to – "well functioning cultures" and indifferent towards codified norms/strategies of "cooperation" which are only artifacts of "well functioning cultures" (and as such, IMO, are all that (a) "science of morality" can "summarize").
  • A first cause is logically necessary
    ↪Mark Nyquist
    :up:
  • A first cause is logically necessary
    ↪180 Proof indicates his prejudicial opinion that there can be nothing outside of space-time. {how do he know?} — Gnomon
    I did not claim or imply this.

    As I've stated in several of our exchanges, Gnomon, my metaphysical position more or less agrees with Spinoza's: there is no "outside of space-time" (or "beyond" with "possibilities") insofar as nature is unbounded in all directions (i.e. natura naturans is eternal and infinite) ... just as there is no edge of the Earth off of which one can fall, no north of the North Pole, etc.

    Stop making up sh*t. :sweat:
  • US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
    By March/April, SCOTUS will uphold the "states' rights" to individually decide whether or not to disqualify Insurrectionist/Criminal-Defendent/Rapist-Defamer/Fraudster-1 from appearing on the 2024 federal election ballot pursuant to the 14th Amendment, Sec. 3 (Insurrection Clause) of the US Consitution. — 180 Proof
    Well, I got the date right but the decision wrong: (maga-wingnut) SCOTUS is in the effing tank for (former) SCROTUS aka "Insurrectionist/Criminal Defendant/Fraudster/Rapist/Loser-1" ... making up stoopid ahistorical-ad hoc shit (like they did to overturn Roe v. Wade i.e. to jackboot curbstomp 'stare decisis') in order to further accelerate the bananafication of the US Republic.

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2024/feb/08/14th-amendment-insurrection-disqualify-trump

    What?! "States Rights" for forced pregnancy but NOT for ballot qualifications (or e.g. vote recounting re: Bush v. Gore)?!! :shade: :down:


    @Ciceronianus @Hanover @Maw
  • What the science of morality studies and its relationship to moral philosophy
    Perhaps understanding what human morality ‘is’ will provide valuable insights for philosophical studies into what morality ought to be. — Mark S
    Given that morality is an aspect of philosophy (i.e. ethics), a scientific "understanding of morality" seems, IMO, as useless to moral philosophers as ornithology (or aerodynamics) is useless to birds.

    What is hateful [harmful] to you, do not do to anyone. — Hillel the Elder, 1st century BCE
    :fire:
  • A first cause is logically necessary
    possibilities that go beyond space-time — Gnomon
    I.e. mere possibilia :smirk:

    ↪180 Proof is much more knowledgeable of Philosophy than I am.
    :up:
  • What the science of morality studies and its relationship to moral philosophy
    ↪Leontiskos
    Like the Buddhist desire to overcome desire, I think an egoist might practice altruism (i.e. non-reciprocal help/care of others) in order to overcome – deflate, sublimate – her ego: a positive, or adaptive, form of selfishness à la Spinoza's 'ethical conatus' (and not mere selflessness).

    — a[n] exercise entirely in the domain of science. — Mark S
    So then why do you think this "exercise" has any relevance to moral philosophy?
  • What the science of morality studies and its relationship to moral philosophy
    ↪Mark S
    I think the attempt to reduce habits of normative non-reciprocal harm-reduction (i.e. morals) to "strategies for solving cooperation problems" (e.g. game theory, cybernetics) is incoherent and misguided. This proposal is incoherent due to the category mistake of reframing non-reciprocity (altruism) in terms of reciprocity (mutualism), or vice versa. Also, it's misguided to assume that calculation (i.e. problem solving) is fundamental to moral judgment ("strategy"?) when, in fact, it's reflective habit (i.e. virtue) that is fundamental to moral conduct (empathy-care-compassion).

    I said the existence of cultural moral norms and our moral sense are explainable as parts of cooperation strategies. — Mark S
    Anthropological and developmental evidences suggest you've put the cart before the horse, Mark. For example, the so-called "moral sense" in human toddlers and many nonhuman animals is expressed as strong preferences for fairness and empathy towards individuals both of their own species and cross-species ... prior to / independent of formulating or following any "cooperation strategies".
  • Does Consciousness Extend Beyond Brains? - The 2023 Holberg Debate
    the myth of h. Sapiens being ‘just another species’. — Wayfarer
    :monkey:

    So that oldtime mythmaker Charlie D. got it wrong: "h. sapiens" is something other than an "evolved" animal species (i.e. we are more than discursively-delusional, semi-eusocial, bald primates), is that it? Well, most bacteria and viruses, Wayfarer, as well as large land predators, seem to have not yet gotten the memo "Don't Eat Them". :mask:

    We’re of a different kind.
    Agreed – a "different kind" of species that fetishizes its imaginary differences which do not make an existential difference – "h. sapiens" is, no matter the ontological stories we flatter our fleeting smallness with, fundamentally inseparable from nature like all other natural species.

    Try teaching the concept 'prime' to your dog. — Wayfarer
    C'mon, Wayf, that's our limitation, not the dog's. :smirk:

    How about you (we) try to learn from a hound how to follow a rabbit's or lost child's days-old scent through a teeming woodland; or learn from a bat how to echolocate; or learn from a cuttlefish how to continuously camouflage themselves unseen against any background while moving from place to place; or try learning from bees how to build a beehive; or learning from a cat how to play with utter abandon with a dangling string ...
  • A first cause is logically necessary
    ↪ucarr
    In broad terms, which of the following is closest to your own materialist position:

    (A) philosophical materialism (i.e. every concrete thing is "matter"-in-motion aka monism)

    or

    (B) methodological materialism (i.e. populating models with immaterial data – entities, causes – amplifies experimental error, therefore scientific (and historical) practices require eliminating as much immaterial data as possible as the preliminary method of decreasing a model's experimental error – making it (more) testable)

    or

    (C) ??? materialism ...

    NB: (A) & (B) are how I use the terms which I think are a bit clearer than the standard (wiki? non-academic?) muddle. Btw, I consider myself a (nonstandard) p-naturalist ...
  • Absential Materialism
    You don't see the philosophical relevance attaching to physical phenomena raising fundamental questions about the nature of reality? — ucarr
    "Physical phenomena" and "the nature of reality" are tangental at best, different categories of being; IMO, it is fallacious to mistake them for one another. As I discern the topic, "physical phenomena" are real (i.e. very strongly correlative) only insofar as they comprise a 'way of talking about reality' (e.g. physicalism) and as such it is reasonable to surmise that "the nature of reality" includes (among whatever else) affordances for a 'way of talking about reality that is defeasible, fallibilistic and highly mathematically precise. In other words, QM is "fundamental" physics, not fundamental ontology (i.e. metaphysics à la Spinoza ... or Q. Meillassoux).

    You, 180 Proof -- a science-savvy commentator -- in seeking to distance TPF from science ...
    "Not guilty!" like rasta bredren seh. :victory: :mask:

    More or less as Spinoza and Freddy or Peirce-Dewey and Witty-Feyerabend do, I'm trying to remind you and other folks (myself included) not to treat philosophy as a science (i.e. not to reduce speculative suppositions (e.g. aporia) to theoretical propositions (e.g. predictions)). Almost all equation-free "quantum" talk is nonsense, that is, too imprecise to be make sense to thinking discursively and living pragmatically – doing philosophy – above the planck-scale.
  • A first cause is logically necessary
    ↪ucarr
    :up:
  • Does Consciousness Extend Beyond Brains? - The 2023 Holberg Debate
    fyi – I'm pressed for time and the video "debate" is too long so I didn't bother with it: it's a very old topic, however, so I'm confident no new arguments were raised or now data was presented.

    Is the mind more than the physical brain? — Corvus
    It is like any self-organizing (i.e. emergent) whole system is more than its constituent parts (i.e. nested patterns of functional nodes, relationships & structural-environmental constraints). Based on overwhelmingly extant physical evidence, every mind(ing) is embodied in an ecologically situated, or conditioned, brain; other than subjective anecdotes (corroborated only in folk psychological / spiritual terms & customs), there is not any publicly demonstrable contrary evidence of (e.g.) 'disembodied cognition' or 'nonphysical minds'. Also, assuming that 'mind-body duality' is incoherent for some reasons discussed in this old post ...

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/636391

    Is this the end of physicalism?
    No.
  • A first cause is logically necessary
    Philosophim has claimed there is no limitation on what a first cause can be. At the opposite end of the spectrum, he has claimed there is a conclusive limitation on that a first cause can be: logical necessity. — ucarr
    On p.1 of this thread back in 2022 (if you've missed it), I had posted very brief logical and physical objections to the OP's incoherent claim of "logical necessity of the first cause" (i.e. there was/is no "first cause"). FWIW, here"s the link to my post (further supplimented on the next few pages of this thread) containing two other links to short posts:

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/617855
  • I’m 40 years old this year, and I still don’t know what to do, whether I should continue to live/die
    ...to the suicidal the grass is always greener on the other side of the abyss...
    ↪rossii
    We have no way of knowing what it feels like not to be alive – especially, whether 'not existing' is better than existing. It's as simple as that. Besides, suppose each of us only comes into existence in order to escape, as a brief respite, from (e.g. timeless torments of)
    nonexistence?
  • The Nature of Art
    FWIW, from a 2019 thread Aesthetics – what is it?

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/344963

    Also a post from a 2023 thread Was Socrates a martyr? concerning how literary texts differ from philosophical texts ...

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/772708 (includes a link to a video interview of philosopher & novelist Iris Murdoch)
  • The Nature of Art
    Someone claimed philosophy is art
    [ ... ] If that's the case, though, what is the Philosophy of Art?     — Ciceronianus
    Philosophy might be "an art" insofar as it creates (i.e. imagines), as Janus says, "novels ways of" clarifying, interpreting, reformulating, evaluating and problematizing givens (which are either conceptual, perceptual or practical); if so, then the Philosophy of Art in "novel ways" ... problematizes as givens: artworks, making art, evaluating art and aesthetic responses to both artifacts & nature. For me, their respective aims differ, however: most distinctively, Philosophy attempts to clarify life's limits via 'thought-experiments' (aporia) of distinctions, connections, hierarchies ... whereas Art attempts to mystify – intensify – 'feeling alive' via 'representative examples' (idealizations) of craft, performance or participation.

    Philosophers aren't artists, and when they try to be, they fail, miserably I think.
    Really e.g. ... Plato?
    Lucretius?
    Montaigne?
    F. Schiller?
    RW Emerson?
    F. Nietzsche?
    G. Marcel?
    JP Sartre?
    S. DeBeauvoir?
    A. Camus?
    I. Murdoch?
    A. Danto?

    ... all failed artists? :sweat:

    For me the purpose of the arts is the creation of novel ways of seeing, hearing, feeling and thinking. The 'novel' part is where the creative imagination comes into play. — Janus
    :up: :up:
  • Medical Issues
    ↪jgill
    Thank you.
  • Thought Versus Communication
    Language is not about sharing information so much as coordinating behaviour. — Banno
    i.e. communicating (à la synchronizing), no?

    ↪Banno
    I didn't get that from your post. In any case socially "coordinating behavior" (i.e. communication^^) – such as observed in other primate groupings as well as described in, for instance, Wittys proposal of socially acquired language-gaming – seems more reasonable than not to assume is the why of language use and not only, or reductively, the what-for of it.

    ^^e.g.
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_pragmatics
  • Medical Issues
    ↪0 thru 9
    :up: Thanks.
  • Hobbies
    Addendum to ...
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/603428

    As far as analogue role playing games go, my jam is (still) *low/no prep, rules lite & roleplay heavy* (i.e. so TotM, not maps & minis) rpgs such as

    Blood & Honor
    Cairn
    Freeform Universal     (FU)
    Lasers & Feelings
    Tricube Tales

    (secondarily: FitD games, Houses of the Blooded, PbtA games (except DW), Sorcerer (+ suppliments) & Zenobia)

    Lately, I like to watch actual plays of "narrative games" like these on Youtube. :nerd:

    No digital games – for me, they automate (eliminate) too much players' improvisational creativity (since all possible actions / reactions are already scripted (coded) in the program), fully cybernetic illusionism / railroading.
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    And it will continue indefinitely. With US support. — Mikie
    :brow: Yes disgracefully so.
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    29Feb24, Rafah:

    +30,000 Palestinian noncombatants killed (c70,000 injured) and +2 million Palestianians displaced (ethnically cleansed) by the state of Israel since 7Oct23.

    +1,100 Israelis et al killed (c5,500 injured) and +240 hostages taken by Hamas & co since 7Oct23.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Israel%E2%80%93Hamas_war

    ↪ssu
    :up: :up:
  • Thought Versus Communication
    we coordinate behaviour by communicating. — Banno
    :100:
  • Migrating to England
    No one is more cynical than the believer who failed to find what they wanted. — Pantagruel
    :up: :up:
  • Medical Issues
    From 2021 ...
    Covid-19, probably a long-hauler (c4 months so far), with chronic fatigue and brain fog and minor respiratory issues ... — 180 Proof
    :mask: ... even though the world has moved on, long covid still has me by the throat:

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/feb/28/brain-fog-from-long-covid-has-measurable-impact-study-suggests
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