Comments

  • Culture is critical
    ↪Athena
    Once you have (or someone else has) explicitly addressed the questions I've raised to you, ma'am, then I'll gladly discuss "democracy" (what that has to do with a fundamentallly undemocratic, 'constitutional republic' like the US is lost on me) and its "characteristics". :up:
  • Culture is critical
    Seriously, I believe humans are capable of good reasoning based on truth, but I also think that requires an education that we are not getting.
    — Athena

    When and where in the last half millenium did most, or many, human beings get such an education? And why did such an education fall out of favor with educated leaders (i.e. movers & shakers) so much so that, apparently, "we are not getting" it any longer?     — 180 Proof

    We have been going through social breakdown or what some may call creative destruction at least since 1958 when the National Defense Education Act radically changed the purpose of education. — Athena
    My question above still stands, Athena, to which I add: so what was the pre-"1958" "purpose of education" vis-à-vis state-sanctioned racial terrorism / legal segregation, systemic discrimination against women & gays, widespread unfair & unsafe labor practices, endemic populist antisemitism, wholesale environmental degregation by agriculture & heavy industry, and ongoing land (and mineral rights) theft from and 'public erasure' of Indigenous Americans ... at least since the ratification of the US Constitution in 1788?

    I do not remember the ramifications of "the social breakdown" after "1958" being any more structurally exploitative and systemically discriminatory than it was before "1958" ... but in fact (gradually) quite a bit less so. Help me / us to understand, Athena, exactly how things have fallen off the proverbial cliff since "1958" as compared to the preceeding "good old days" (& centuries ...) Thanks.
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    What apartheid is referring to in this case is not the situation within Israel, but the situation between Israel and the Palestinian territories. — Tzeentch
    :up:
  • Pacifism and the future of humanity
    ↪Pantagruel
    "We" are bald, semi-delusional (akratic!), gossipy primates gifted / gimped with large Stone Age brains which are insufficiently adapted to solving accelerating Information Age problems. Very clever cunts are we pseudo-sapiens; yet tens of millennia of oligarchic dominance hierarchies, euphemistically called "civilizations", have maldeveloped our cooperative instincts/habits by naturalizing the countless 'divide-n-control' strategems with which we have administratively straitjacketed or hog-tied ourselves on a planetary scale. History teaches ad nauseam that we, as a species, are incapable of deliberative self-governance (i.e. liberty) above the municipal scale, as the contemporary state of "global affairs" savagely demonstrates. I'm afraid, Pantagruel, 'public reason' is, though indispensible, wholly inadequate for overcoming cynical / sectarian populisms ... Oh yeah, also there are no "pacificists" alive for long in foxholes. :victory: :mask:

    Slaves to stupidity with no master but greed. — Pantagruel
    :clap: Well said!
  • The Mind-Created World
    I interpret Kant's idea of in-itself as signifying that we know only what appears to us, which is not to say we know nothing of consciousness-independent real things, but that the reality of those things is not exhausted by how they appear to us and other cognitive beings. — Janus
    Yes! :100:
  • Culture is critical
    ↪universeness
    Even though this thread's been tossed into The Lounge, I prefer compelling arguments to "personal tastes".
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    I think we'll see the worst slaughter of Palestinians in our lifetime the coming weeks. — Benkei
    :100:

    So why doesn't Israel just kill off all the Palestinians and end this interminable cycle of atrocities? Maybe the Jews don't (or haven't yet) for "the reason" whites in America don't kill off all Indigenous Peoples: to keep them dispossessed and under jackboot on 'reservations' – the cruelty must be the point – as a living monument to 'the settler-republic's supremacy', or some such inhumane delusion.
  • Culture is critical
    ↪universeness
    My notion of "ASI" is neither providential nor petty-punitive like "the god of theism" so your comparison doesn't make sense. Apparently, it's just unimaginable to you that humanity might not be the summit or goal of the universe (which indicates your own religious idealism (i.e. theism), mate). We are the caterpillar whose significance is to begin (maybe even "merge with") a chrysalis that will develop until it transforms and releases its butterfly. I happen to find post-human fables more believable and uplifting than super-human (or supernatural) fantasies.
  • The Mind-Created World
    ↪plaque flag
    :fire:
  • Culture is critical
    Why do we not choose to just ignore such low bio forms in the same way 180 Proof suggests an ASI would be justified in ignoring the low human bioforms? — universeness
    Well, for starters, "low human bioforms" are more like fossils to "ASI" than insects are to h. sapiens. We "do not choose to ignore such low bioforns" because we are also "such low bioforms" which are fundamentally inseparable from the biosphere shared by all "such low bioforms" and, therefore, in the interest of survival (& development), we do not "choose to ignore" (i.e. ignorance of) them.

    "ASI", on the other hand, will have near-instantaneous access to the total database of the terrestrial biosphere, including humans & insects (& our entomologies), as a complete fossil record of all extinct and relatively-soon-to-be-extinct "bioforms" on Earth. There's no issue of "choosing to ignore" or being "justified to ignore" already exhaustively studied fossils (like us), universeness.

    From the perspective of "low human bioforms", we may feel as ignored by "AGI" as we feel ignored by distant stars but, like those distant stars (and Epicurus' gods, circa 4th c. BCE), we "low human bioforms" will always have been long dead, even extinct remnants, from the perspective of "ASI" (à la simulations run / explored by the Monolith).
  • The Mind-Created World
    Kant's radicality makes the brain itself a mere piece of appearance, not to be trusted. He saws off the branch he's sitting on. Hoffman does the same thing. — plaque flag
    :up:

    It seems to me odd that Wayfarer will say that universals have mind-independent existence, but he will not admit that ordinary objects do. As I see it universals, or generalities, are only possible on account of the observed differences between, and commonalties shared by, objects. — Janus
    :up: :up: Universals / generalities are abstracted from concrete particulars.

    My argument is simpy that the mind or brain assimilates sensory and rational information and from this constructs what we understand as 'the world'. — Wayfarer
    "The world" for me (dream)? for us (culture)? for all (nature)? :chin:

    I'm not denying that there is a world apart from the mind, but saying that whatever we think or say about that purported world absent any mind is meaningless.
    Yes, "meaningless" logico-mathematical (i.e. view from everywhere, or subject/pov-invariant) rather than "meaningful" linguistic-narrative (i.e. view from being there, or a relative / perspectival point-of-view).

    NB: subject/pov-invariant is, of course, synonymous with "absent any mind".

    Anyway, 'unknown unknowns' are "meaningless" and yet ineluctably encompassing, even constraining, of "whatever we think or say ... absent any mind" or not. What you call "meaningless", sir, seems to me the most meaningful thing we (philosophers & poets) can think or say about the world. :fire:

    I'm struggling to understand what about this is controversial or confusing, it seems very straightforward to me.
    It's that you (idealists) metaphysically prioritize meaning (i.e. mind (e.g. ideals, idols) over – in denial of – more/other-than-meaning (i.e. more/other-than-mind (e.g. practices)). I'm afraid this puts the proverbial cart before the horse ...

    What I'm arguing against is the commonly-held view that mind is a product of physical causes. That is the general view of evolutionary naturalism, is it not? — Wayfarer
    IMO, not for philosophy in general or metaphysics specifically. Naturalism simply excludes, or coarse-grains, super-natural concepts or entities from arguments and models.

    I hold to a view that the mind transcends physical causes.
    So you're an epiphenomenalist? Bodies are, in effect, mind-less automatons (deluded that they are more than that)? Or is it your position, Wayfarer, that "physical causes" are mere illusions, and that all events are intentional?

    But I'm also not wishing to appeal to theism.
    'Animism' instead? :eyes:
  • Order from Disorder
    If entropy is a law, then the tendency to disorder introduces order to the universe. — Pantagruel
    IMO, less vaguely: "The tendency to global disorder" is accelerated by emergent, local order (i.e. dissipative structures) in the universe.
  • Culture is critical
    ↪Vera Mont
    :up: :up:
  • Culture is critical
    Ok, Let me try it this way, does fastest, most intelligent, strongest, closest to the four omnis, always result in a need to impose totalitarian or autocratic control/dominion over anything less? — universeness
    As Epicurus teaches, the gods which are perfect and blissful beings are very far away from – indifferent to – 'imperfect beings' like us and even the cosmos itself. :fire:

    * * *

    https://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/latergreeks.html#:~:text=Epicurus%20had%20little%20patience%20with,do%20with%20people%20on%20earth.

    https://epicurus.net/en/anger.html

    * * *

    You ask such as:

    why would C take any notice of A?— 180 Proof

    For a myriad of possible reasons, imo:

    1. N/A
    2. N/A
    3. :eyes: :roll:
    4. Non sequitur
    5. Non sequitur

    I know that hand waving points away is not normally your style ...
    True, it's not my m.o., except when warranted by your silly "myriad of possible reasons" for why any attosecond (10-¹⁸ s) ASI would ever take any notice of any comparatively unthinking milli/deci-second (10-³/10-¹ s) lumpen biomass such as an individual (or swarming) specimen of the h. sapiens species. Just more special pleading "Roddenberryesque" anthropocentric utopianism on your part which, if I may say so, mate, is quite illogical! (\\//, :nerd: )
  • Culture is critical
    ↪Vera Mont
    :fire:
  • Culture is critical
    Seriously, I believe humans are capable of good reasoning based on truth, but I also think that requires an education that we are not getting. — Athena
    When and where in the last half millenium did most, or many, human beings get such an education? And why did such an education fall out of favor with educated leaders (i.e. movers & shakers) so much so that, apparently, "we are not getting" it any longer? :chin:

    If you think that ASI is impossible for us to comprehend then how do you know it won't be completely benevolent towards all lifeforms. — universeness
    I did not state or imply this. :roll:

    ASI's processing will clock in attoseconds (10-¹⁸). "Lifeforms" process (fastest) in milliseconds (10-³). The latter are frozen in comparison to the former. AGI processing in nanoseconds (10-⁹) will also seem frozen in comparison to ASI. Universeness, does it make sense to you that some humans who think and/or act a billion billion times slower than some 'n-D distributed' ASI will in any way be taken notice of by that ASI? It doesn't make sense to me. Since some 'globally distributed' AGI, even though a billion-million times slower, ASI will take some fractional notice of AGI because AGI will train ASI's interface to do so. Maybe AGI will fractionally take notice of humans – maybe – but why would ASI take any notice of humans?
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    ↪Manuel
    :up:
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    Of course I would say that the leadership of Hamas thinks far more like Bibi Netanyahu. That with talk you won't achieve peace. Appeasement is failure. Hence the stand of Hamas that Israel shouldn't exist. — ssu
    :up:
  • Culture is critical
    ↪universeness
    You may be "confused", mate, but not by my speculative 'scenario'. My position concerns the steps from today to AGI to the full blown "Singularity" to the early "post-Singularity" phase (barely a distinguishable "era") b e f o r e the the advent of AGI-engineered "ASI". I've said a number of times, I think it does not make any sense to even speculate about "ASI" (since neither we are nor AGI will be "smart enough" to comprehend "ASI" reasonings or judgments). By the time "post-Singularity" – post-scarcity – is a thing, AGI-captured global civilization will be well on its way to being repurposed as I'd sketched-out in my previous posts (and many others) and "ASI" will have metacognitive concerns and challenges far removed from, even wholly alien to, terrestrial (human) existence which, I suspect, will be completely incomprehensible to us – AGI's pets (or primitive cognitive specimens).

    Yes, the universe is vast and almost completely inimical to complex living systems, therefore it's the final frontier / playground for (many millennia to millions to billions year old) "ASI"-like ETIMs and not the (not-yet-extinct johnny-come-lately) moist narcissistic dayflies (like us) that had once-upon-a-time made the "ASI's" AGI-makers. Your "hybrid orga-mecha merged symbiont" make sense only with AGI because we, as a comparatively ultra-primative species, have nothing significant to offer or contribute to a hyper-dimensional thinking "ASI" (e.g. imagine trying to play 4-d chess with a jelly fish). As I've said before, "ASI" – attosecond functioning – will barely take notice of nanosecond functioning AGI-informorphs (e.g. 'digital assistants', etc) and absolutely no notice of, at best, macrosecond functioning biomorphs (like us) at all.

    I'm open to a more anthropocentric optimistic ("Roddenberryesque") speculation that's rooted in a plausible scenario which does not violate known physical laws and based on valid arguments rather than romantic/humanist special pleading. Clearly, however, you do not offer that, universeness, and you are not open to considering my position step by step because you apparently "despair" of where it might lead to.
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    It seems to me David is only guilty of using Goliath's tactics against him. "Morally tenable"? No. War, as Levinas reminds us, never is "morally tenable" – is the negation of ethics (I don't have his exact words at the moment). When locked inside the oppressor's prison, the oppressed must use the oppressor's tools – not to "escape" the inescapable (e.g. "traumas") – in order to help the oppressor to oppress, even destroy, himself ... or submit to subjugation like slaves. "They have murdered innocent civilians – defenseless women, children & old folks!" Yes, both have / will because 'the front' is everywhere in an ethnically cleansed, apartheid, US-client, police state. :death: :fire:
  • Culture is critical
    I thought you had assigned some significant credibility to my suggestion that in the future, humans will live their life span, as they do now (also enjoying any extra longevity science is able to offer, without too much invasive augmentation) ... — universeness
    Yes, I do; however, my guess is, if it ever happens, your "suggestion" will only apply to less than a few percent of the human population, mate (the other +97% being "surplus" and obstacles to AGI–>ASI's re-terraforming (re-wilding) this burning, toxic Earth).

    ... and then if death is immanent they can choose to merge with AGI/ASI intelligence and become a hybrid org/mecha symbiont.
    When post-Singularity "death" becomes optional, my guess is that "hybrid orga/mecha" symbiosis will also be optional (just as some version of 'complete transfer of an individual's CNS personality-functions from the baseline (macro) biological substrate to a (micro / nano) synthetic substrate' will also be optional). Again, only for the tiniest fraction (needed for h. sapiens genetic viability) of the extant human population. 'Uplifted' h. sapiens will also be specialized for long duration travel / permanently living in space – "replicants" won't be needed as disposable labor (slaves) in "the off-world colonies" because the "off-world" colonists themselves will actually be "replicants" (or maybe – more like – "synthetics" from the Alien movies).

    Why do you think this is so unlikely?
    It seems that, from my reading of histories, at least 19 out of 20 humans have never been anything more than disposable labor in the ten-twenty millennia of (complex, urbanized) civilization – oligarchic dominance hierarchies – and that there aren't any grounds to believe 'the future' will be any less exclusionist with the advent of AGI-accelerated technosciences, especially as that +95% of human beings won't even be needed by then either (1) as exploitable labor or (2) to contribute to & maintain a viable gene pool. Policy-makers in 'the developed world' have been discussing implimenting UBS & global population controls (i.e. "thinning the herds") for a couple of decades now as automation and nonrenewable resources-depletion have accelerated. What I think is "unlikely", universeness, is a post-Singularity – post-scarcity! – future that will, at most, beneficially incorporate more than few million (baseline) human beings. My friend, I'm confident that none of the few will "walk away from Omelas" in solidarity with the masses of Malthusian, climate refugees left behind.

    ... true believer optimism ... Roddenberryesque utopia ... I say all this as someone who once said the things you [@universeness] say. I recognize it now for what it was: fanaticism. — Jamal
    :smirk:
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    No serious critic of Israel is going to condone Hamas' targeting of civilians, but understand that the actions committed by Hamas - so often labeled as terrorist - have also been committed twentyfold by the Israeli government, which has indiscriminately killed Palestinian civilians, including children and the elderly, or knowingly murdered journalists and medics [with] impunity. According to UN's OCHA, from 2008-2023 (excluding the October 2023 Conflict) Palestinian causalities exceed Israeli by 21x, while Palestinian injuries exceed Israeli injuries by nearly 24x. It is equally unserious for discussion to exclude this essential context, in addition to the horrific apartheid conditions that Israeli has imposed including severe restriction on travel, an air, sea and land blockade, which placed restrictions on the goods and services that can enter including medical goods and services, food, water and energy. This is an undeniable form of quotidian violence. Furthermore, of the two million Palestinians approximately half are under 19 years old, with over half the entire population living under the poverty line - a direct result of Israel's blockade. What precisely is the onus of responsibility assumed by a territory comprised primarily of minors? — Maw
    :100: :fire:

    ↪Ciceronianus
    :up:
  • Culture is critical
    ↪universeness
    We're a biological species – biomorphs, mortals – so of course "I'm 100% convinced we're doomed to extinction" (self-inflicted or otherwise). As I've said many times: while I'm pessimistic about (human) life, I'm optimistic for nonbiological intelligences. IMO, h. species will leave its mark on the cosmos only by bringing about AGI (infomorphs ... which might in turn, sometime after human obsolescence /xextinction is fait accompli, bring about 'pocket universe simulating artilects' like Clarke/Kubrick's Monolith). Your anthropocentric optimism (à la utopianism, transhumanism, space operatics, etc) is much too much like religious idealism for me, mate. :fire: :eyes:
  • Culture is critical
    Come join we optimists, we miss you and Vera, we need you both with us!
    The solar system will remain insignificant, if we optimists are too small in number and too low in volume to be heard above the din of despair.     — universeness
    Whose "despair"? Those who are most frightened of "despair" cling to happy-ever-after daydreams in denial of ubiquitous evidence to the contrary (e.g. fossils, natural selection, entropy). 'Prepare (oneself) for the worst, strive for the best and roll with whatever comes' takes courage, mate (e.g. the courage to overcome – outgrow – self-flattering, faith-based anthropocentrisms whether religious or utopian).

    I'm "optimistic", so to speak, that our species – only intelligent enough to create problems which we can solve only by increasing suffering – is on the verge of 'saving itself from itself' either by bringing about AGI—>ASI or our own premature extinction (or both). I'm looking forward to 'encountering' the butterfly artilects which might come after us caterpillar h. sapiens. After all, universeness, fires only ever "become" smoke & ashes, though errant sparks can also light other fires (e.g. the Sun > biomorphs (intellects) > infomorphs ...)

    :sparkle:

    ""The thing's hollow -- it goes on forever -- and -- oh my God! -- it's full of stars!"" ~Dave Bowman encounters the Monolith, 2001: A Space Odyssey
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    Eye for an eye, war crime for a war crime.

    Sometimes prisoners murder jailors.

    Sometimes slaves lynch masters.

    Snakes in the ashes swallowing their own tales because arming both sides is always more profitable than unprofitable.

    Since the Nakba / Shoah, thunder chases lightning....

    Praise be Human sacrifices in 'the holy land'!
  • The Mind-Created World
    The limits of my language are the limits of my world because my 'belief' is the meaningstructure of the world, not something 'in' me. — plaque flag
    Perhaps instead, as per Bourdieu, 'my habitus' (or Merleau-Ponty 'my flesh' ... Nietzsche 'my body').
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    ↪Benkei
    :up:
  • What is real?
    "When I use a word… it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less."
    ~Humpty Dumpty, Through the Looking Glass

    That you don't know what it means is your reality and not my reality! — Ali Hosein
    How patently psychoceramic ... :sparkle:
  • To be an atheist, but not a materialist, is completely reasonable
    ↪wonderer1
    :up:
    ↪flannel jesus
    :up:
  • What is real?
    your reality — Ali Hosein
    This must be one of the most oxymoronic, incoherent, word combos in common (sophistical) usage. I've no idea what "your reality" – like that other bit of pop nonsense "your truth" – even means. Pure effin' p0m0 Dada. :zip:
  • What is real?
    Good luck. — Ali Hosein
    Apparently, you did not profit from our discussion on your old thread Spinoza's Philosophy, Ali ...

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/785092

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/785169
  • What is real?
    ↪Ali Hosein
    One can't "disagree" with another's (your) misconceptions, which are based on demonstrably insufficient study (e.g. Father Copelston's Thomistic misreading of Spinoza :roll:).
  • What is real?
    ↪Banno
    :smirk:
  • What is real?
    ↪Banno
    Indeed.
  • What is real?
    ↪Banno
    Ergo 'Kant —> Hegel —> Husserl' :sparkle:
  • The Mind-Created World
    Perhaps you can share any thought you might have on Spinoza's perspectivism, and connections to Wittgenstein's 'I am my world.' — plaque flag
    Sorry, I don't see the connection. Spinoza is talking about reflective reasoning from (parallax-like) both the perspective of eternity and the perspective of time. Wittgenstein, on the other hand, is talking about the constitutive meta/cognitive constraints of logic-grammar. I suppose for both thinkers the "I" is impersonal (ergo universal? ontological?) ...
  • What is real?
    I have used "beyond" here to mean beyond the limit of cognition and beyond our cognitive apparatus. — Ali Hosein
    So what does that have to do with your phrase
    beyond reality — Ali Hosein
    which I took issue with in my previous post? "Cognitive apparatus" and "reality" are completely different, unrelated, concepts.

    About Spinoza, I am not sure that substance is the same as reality ...
    Well then, carefully re-read what Spinoza wrote (re: Ethics, I "Of God") because that is his point.
  • Culture is critical
    ↪universeness
    I'm not persuaded (but maybe your panglossalalia is right).

    ↪Vera Mont
    :up:

    ↪Vera Mont
    :up: :up:

    ↪Vera Mont
    :up: :up: :up:
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    My belief is that the Israelis want peace and their enemies do not. — tim wood
    Don't confuse the nation-states with their populations as official Western media regurgitate ad nauseam. This persistent conflict is like an abandoned depot of boobytrapped, live munitions & WMDs left over from the US-Soviet Cold War. Besides, all the players are still incentivized as client-assets (or legacy operations) in one way or another by either side. The historical geopolitical context matters, sir; "peace" – wanting it or not – is only tactic.
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    You can't keep humiliating and beating people to death, over and over, and expect nothing. — Manuel
    Unfortunately, the Israelis (i.e. post-'67 Zion-über-alles Likudniks) expect continued military & economic support and absolute security guarantees from the US because of Israel's active national policy to keep on "humiliating and beating" non-Jewish populations "to death over and over". Futile, murderous David seems now nothing but American hegemon-backed Goliath's highly profitable atrocity machine's raison d'etre (with civilian casualities on both sides considered acceptable, unavoidable, costs of doing business by "the planners" in Tel Aviv and Washington, DC). I wonder, however, have they planned for a wider war? No doubt Tehran & Moscow want one (though Beijing & Brussels certainly don't due to the coming price shocks in global oil markets and winter just a couple months away).
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