Comments

  • What if the big bang singularity is not the "beginning" of existence?
    ↪universeness
    :up: Over three years ago, I'm guessing, it'd become irrefutably clear to me that MU and I could only ever talk past each other – not merely substantively differ – on most nontrivial philosophical and scientific topics.

    ↪Jaded Scholar
    :100:

    Welcome to TPF!
  • How to define stupidity?
    @stupidity – Res ipsa loquitur :confused:
  • Convince Me of Moral Realism
    Nihilism doesn’t choose chaos and hardship, it merely accepts that there is no intrinsic meaning available to us. There’s a significant difference between 'there is no inherent meaning' and ‘nothing matters’. — Tom Storm
    :up: :up:
  • How to define stupidity?
    ↪baker
    I've no idea what you are talking about and apparently, sir, you don't either.
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    ↪ssu
    Fyi: The sixth Shit Bet chief in the documentary was on the job at the time he'd given his interviews.
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gatekeepers_(film)

    :mask: :fire:

    2012 ...


    2013 ...


    (will post full documentary when i find it)
  • A Case for Moral Anti-realism
    It remains that we can and do commonly assign truth values to normative statements. We also use these truth values to perform deductions. The oddity here is the denial of all this because of philosophical ideology. — Banno
    :up: :up:
  • A Case for Moral Anti-realism
    I don't know what the philosophers are doing.
    — Inyenzi

    Trying to make sense of and justify the many things we simply take for granted.     — Michael
    :up:

    ↪Banno
    :cool:
  • Culture is critical
    ↪Vera Mont
    :clap: :smirk:
  • What are the philosophical consequences of science saying we are mechanistic?
    ↪Wayfarer
    What you've written here has no bearing on the discussion where I left off with

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/855848

    You're flapping around, sir, out of your depth again.
  • A Case for Moral Anti-realism
    The big problem here is you begin with the assumption that, not only do mind-independent moral facts exist, but that we can arrive at all true moral facts with your flavor of critical reasoning. — Sirius
    Where do I make this"assumption"? Stop making shit up.

    l can say, the catholic background of Anscombe influenced her decision, whereas the progressive/feminist tradition informs the decision of many philosophers who support abortion.
    Like Anscombe, I was raised and educated in Roman Catholicism until I attended university and I "support abortion" as many current and former Catholics do. So what. Wtf are you talking about? This has nothing to do with my previous reply to you.

    People don't have metaethical commitments when they use moral language. — Inyenzi
    :up:
  • What are the philosophical consequences of science saying we are mechanistic?
    the accepted wisdom, what the man in the street thinks — Wayfarer
    :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: Ludicrous, cop-out Wayf, even for a lifelong working class, prole like me!
  • A Case for Moral Anti-realism
    l will wait till eternity for you to explain which defective cognitive faculty in religious people or progressives makes them make the wrong judgment. Is this cognitive faculty mysterious and undetectable ? — Sirius
    Changing recognition of facts (e.g. "cultural / historical lineages") do not change facts as facts. Ignorance afflicts both "religious people" and "progressives" alike so the cognitive faculty is neither "defective" (as you suggest) nor "mysterious and undetectable". The difference is that "religious people" (i.e. supernaturalists) tend to eschew techniques of rational self-correction (i.e. learning) – relying on fallacious appeals to tradition, authority, popularity, incredulity, etc – much more than "progessives" (i.e. naturalists) do.

    I will repeat what l said earlier ...
    ... rather than address the questions I put to what you said earlier. How tedious. :roll:

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/855846
  • What are the philosophical consequences of science saying we are mechanistic?
    Insofar as modern thought takes science to be the arbiter of reality — Wayfarer
    You mean "modern thought" which includes being espoused by (philosophers like) Spinoza, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Marx, Bergson, Peirce, Husserl, Cassirer, Wittgenstein, Adorno, Sartre et al? (Please spare me / us your usual litany of cherry-picked quotations in lieu of your own reasoning or arguments) Your anti-science 'scientistc reduction' of "modern thought" (i.e. the cultural west), Wayfarer, is not even wrong. :eyes:
  • A Case for Moral Anti-realism
    Conclusion, moral facts are mind-dependent, moral realism is false — Sirius
    So harm (e.g. theft via hacking micro-transactions, betrayal of a country, rape of a coma patient or infant) happens to the victim only when it is observed by the victim? :chin:

    Moral prescriptions (i.e. hypothetical imperatives – not "customary preferences", "emotional reactions", "subjective intuitions", etc) seem, except for implementation, indistinguishable from algorithms (i.e. adaptive rules). Caveat: not all algorithms are moral and not all morals are algorithms.

    Nonetheless, if algorthms (i.e. If x, then y; therefore ought to z in order to prevent / mitigate either x and/or y) are necessarily "mind-dependent facts", then when generated by programs without minds, algorthms are not "normative facts"? This conclusion doesn't make sense.
  • A Case for Moral Anti-realism
    ↪Bob Ross
    I might be repeating @Banno here but Hume's Guillotine says one cannot logically derive (moral) norms from non-normative facts. The moral anti-realist assumes that 'normative facts do not exist', even though they exist as evident in (e.g.) public health, medical & ecological sciences as well as institutional facts like money, traffic signs, marriage vows. The vast majority of considered facts are, in fact, theory/value-laden (i.e. normative), so Hume's Guillotine makes sense to me and 'moral anti-realism' does not.
  • How to define stupidity?
    ↪baker
    According to popular Federal election results from 2016 until 2023, most Americans vote against Trump(ism). Simply, regardless of the nonpredictive year-before-the-election-polls pimped by the media, there are not enough MAGA morons in "the GOP base" to beat Joe Biden (or any other Democratic nominee for president (except, of course, effin' HRC)) in 2024. "Faith in the American people" has nothing to do with it, baker; it's math and the numbers don't lie.
  • How to define stupidity?
    ↪baker
    Your supposition, like averring to wishful thinking, is unwarranted.
  • Does Religion Perpetuate and Promote a Regressive Worldview?
    ↪baker
    I guess it depends on where you loiter. I'm a disbeliever (since 1978/9) with decades of comparative religions and theological literacy, briefly a practicing Soto Zen Buddhist (1982-3), raised and educated a working-class Roman Catholic for a dozen years (1969-81, beginning with Dominicans and ending with Jesuits), and I've never found it difficult to find others among the godless who are religiously / theologically well-read, especially here on TPF (though I've also found it much easier to find believers who think they know what they are pontificating about but don't).
  • Is reality possible without observance?
    ↪LuckyR
    :up: :up:
  • What are the philosophical consequences of science saying we are mechanistic?
    "Purposelessness," as some sort of "bedrock idea" seems to me to be more a historical - philosophical moment, starting with the decline of idealism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries...

    It seems to me like the most common scientific response to largely philosophical claims about the essential and apparent meaningless and purposelessness of "the world" has been to shrug, say "well that's just philosophy," and to go right on assuming purpose exists in theories. Only is biology does this become a flash point. Physics and chemistry don't deal with things that seem to have purposes and the social sciences don't seem to take the "no purpose" claim seriously (how could they?)     — Count Timothy von Icarus
    :up: :up:

    It's not that modern science dispenses with "purpose" categorically, only that telos in almost ever case of natural phenomena does not explain anything (like g/G). Anachronists like @Wayfarer usually forget that Aristotle's teleology (i.e. finalism) falsely "predicts" that the vacuum is impossible – horror vacui – because one "purpose" of matter is to fill space whenever possible; and that one of the brain's "purposes" is to be a radiator that cools the heart and blood. "Geocentrism" (later exemplified by Ptolemy's model and its epicycles) is also a consequence of this sort of occult storytelling (e.g. because the "purpose" of heavier matter is to fall to the center of things and lighter things like stars to stay far from the center). :roll:
  • Kennedy Assassination Impacts
    ↪ssu
    If you says so ...
  • Culture is critical
    Don't believe me; compare the democracy index with the academic standings. — Vera Mont
    :100: :up:

    As this thread amply shows, I'm afraid Athena is extremely allergic to contrary evidence or apples to apples comparisons of "the human development / cultural data of rich nations".
  • What is love?
    ↪Wayfarer
    :up:

    From an old thread "AMOR" ...
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/769996
  • Kennedy Assassination Impacts
    Just a guess out of left field: No Kennedy Assassination in '63 ... no Nixon in '69 ... no Reagan in '80 ... ultimately no Dubya - Obama - Trump from 2000 to 2016. Things that followed could have been worse or better than 'our timeline', we'll never know. Even traveling back in time and preventing the assassination in Dallas, I suspect, would only have branched-off an alternative timeline that itself would have no downstream effects on this one (i.e. our present). Perhaps in the far future it will be possible to observe (all) alternative, possible past events (i.e. counterpart worlds); by then, however, Kennedy will probably be nothing more than a footnote of a footnote of a footnote.

    Happy Pilgrims Unfortunately Saved From Starvation By Natives Day, folks! :yum: :party:
  • What are the philosophical consequences of science saying we are mechanistic?
    That is what is implicit in Aristotle's 'telos', and conversely the rejection of telos or teleological principles, implies 'purposelessness'. — Wayfarer
    Okay, clearer, though this observation concerns modern science and not, as you have said, "much of modern thought", and does not entail "nihilism" either (pace Nietzsche; vide Spinoza & vide Peirce). Apparently, you prefer pre-modern science ... :mask:
  • Reason for believing in the existence of the world
    ↪Tom Storm
    Thanks.
  • Reason for believing in the existence of the world
    ↪Corvus
    "Proof?" I make no positive claim that requires "proof"; simply there are no compelling grounds to even consider that the world is "a long vivid dream or some realistic illusion or hallucination", and therefore, the existence of the world remains self-evident or presupposed by all other true statements of fact. Your OP raises a perennial pseudo-question (à la "Cartesian doubt"), Corvus, and maybe as a cure for what's ailing you, consider Peirce's "The Fixation of Belief" and Wittgenstein's On Certainty.

    ↪flannel jesus
    :up:
  • What are the philosophical consequences of science saying we are mechanistic?
    ↪Wayfarer
    None of that addresses the question I raised with you, sir. I want clarity on
    what you mean in this context by "purpose"... — 180 Proof
    in your comment to Gnomon.
  • Joe Biden (+General Biden/Harris Administration)
    81 candles vs 91 felonies (plus 77 farts)? No contest. Happy BDay, sir. :cool:
  • What are the philosophical consequences of science saying we are mechanistic?
    Note the connection between reason and purpose, which was implicit in earlier philosophy, now called into question in everything, hence the nihilism of much of modern thought. — Wayfarer
    So in your estimation, "much of modern thought" lacks purpose? Maybe if you clarify what you mean in this context by "purpose", Wayf, I'll grok this statement better.
  • Forum focused on people of (non-western European) color?
    ↪TiredThinker
    Is such a dedicated forum really a way to "discuss" and "better understand cultural differences"? Any examples would be appreciated.
  • Should there be a license to have children?
    ↪Lexa
    The problem seems too complex for "licensing" criteria which reliably predicts "good or bad" potential parents; compounded by problems of "unlicensed" procreation, etc. Rather, I think biological parents, or any legal caretakers, should be held civilly or criminally liable for their child's 'antisocial violations', along with the child himself, from birth until age twenty-five – statutes of limitation do not apply – and the penalties for which increase accordingly with repeated offenses. Such a 'legal regime' should focus a society's policies-resources on a full-spectrum of public health & welfare, educational & occupational services in order to support familities ... this downstream radical reprioritizing (aka "expense") is largely why such a parental liability law won't be implemented and, if legislated, will be short-lived principally for lack of sufficient public policy follow-up.
  • How to define stupidity?
    We'll see that in about a year. — baker
    Why "a year"? It's quite evident everyday, all day, even on this thread. You believe Bank/Tax Fraudster & Criminal Defendent-1 has a snowball's chance in hell to be reelected, baker? Yeah, I guess innumerates follow "the polls" they like. :rofl:
  • Does Religion Perpetuate and Promote a Regressive Worldview?
    ↪baker
    Why don't you talk to nonbelievers who are literate in a religion or several religions and / or theology? They're not hard to find. :roll:
  • Reason for believing in the existence of the world
    Such doubt only arises when reason is abstracted and treated as if it were independent from our being in the world. — Fooloso4
    :100:
  • Reason for believing in the existence of the world
    ↪flannel jesus
    :up:

    ↪Corvus
    Apologies for not reading the thread and perhaps repeating what's already been said. As far as Im concerned, "the reason for believing in the exisrence of the world" is that there aren't any compelling grounds to doubt the existence of world. :smirk:
  • Quantum Physics, Qualia and the Philosophy of Wittgenstein: How Do Ideas Compare or Contrast?
    ↪Wayfarer
    As an anti-supernaturalist I can agree with your assumption without inconsistency.
  • Quantum Physics, Qualia and the Philosophy of Wittgenstein: How Do Ideas Compare or Contrast?
    ↪Wayfarer
    Yes, Hoffman rather than Kastrup. Sorry, I often mix-up antirealists. Anyway, I thought Rovelli's comments on "the subject" "ideas" "relations" "noumena / ultimate reality" etc would interest you. I agree with Rovelli that mentality is at least as constructed as non-mentality based on evidence from neuropathology and psychopharmacology how "the subject" (i.e. self-awareness & judgment) are easily modified, or impaired, by non-mental stressors (e.g. toxins, traumas).
  • Quantum Physics, Qualia and the Philosophy of Wittgenstein: How Do Ideas Compare or Contrast?
    Kastrup on Rovelli — Wayfarer
    vs Rovelli on Kastrup ...
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