Comments

  • Does Entropy Exist?
    ↪ucarr
    :lol:
  • Considering an alternative foundation for morality (apart from pain v. pleasure)
    ↪Jerry
    :ok:
  • What are your philosophies?
    Try to get through life as joyfully as possible while doing others and the planet as little harm as possible. — Vera Mont
    Okay, but why? :chin:

    (that why is your philosophy)
  • Does Entropy Exist?
    This is a declaration "X" and "fact" are mutually exclusive. — ucarr
    :rofl:
  • Considering an alternative foundation for morality (apart from pain v. pleasure)
    First of all, "flourishing" is too vague. What do you mean by it? — Jerry
    What I wrote should suffice ...
    Human flourishing (i.e. optimization of common agency via reduction of individual harms). — 180 Proof
    Apparently you intend to quarrel with a strawman or English is not your first language as evidenced here:
    ... the flourishing you seem to be proposing, which is to make the human species as a whole "flourish", in terms of reducing harm and promoting good will towards others. — Jerry
    You ask what do I mean by "flourishing", then you claim I mean something I've neither stated nor implied. Please don't waste any more of your time or mine with tendentious twaddle like this, Jerry. Take issue with what I actually say or ignore it. :shade:
  • The Mind-Created World
    One of the worst judgements of humankind is that humans are not objects, that they are something other than, something over and above the thing itself. I wager that no other idea has given a greater motive toward the destruction of these objects. — NOS4A2
    :up: :up:

    Yes, we are self-reflexive (i.e. strange looping phenomenal-self-modeling) objects in which this self-reflexivity is completely transparent making each of us the "subject" of a narrative delusion (i.e. ideality, or supernatura) that s/he is not an object, or is ontologically separate from objects (i.e. reality, or natura).

    addendum to
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/842295
  • Does Entropy Exist?
    ↪ucarr
    :roll: You've only defended your own misreading (
    ↪180 Proof
    )¹ – res ipsa loquitur. Again, ucarr, invalidate what I actually argue¹ or concede the point.



    .
  • Considering an alternative foundation for morality (apart from pain v. pleasure)
    I now prefer more virtue-based ethics than consequentialism ... — Jerry
    And "the goal" of virtue ethics is flourishing (re last paragraph of my post
    ↪180 Proof
    ).

    I'll just go ahead and ask, why ought this be the goal? You say the grounding for it is, from what I understand, supporting our own survival — Jerry
    I stated "the goal" is flourishing and that reason provides "grounding" of a "system" to facilitate flourishing. I said nothing about "survival", Jerry. As for why flourishing "ought" to "be the goal"? That's as silly as asking why health-fitness ought to be the goal of medicine or why sustainability ought to be the goal of social ecology.
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    ↪Manuel
    I doubt it.
  • Culture is critical
    If Shoemaker-Levy 9 had hit Earth in '94 instead of Jupiter, no doubt, like the dinos, we would not be here – wherever we are – having this discussion. We wouldn't have been able to stop it then even if we had seen it coming in time; today, I still don't think we have that capability despite what scifi / Hollyweird tells us.

    Against us, no other species has a chance. Against us, neither have we. — Vera Mont
    :fire:

    ↪Vera Mont
    I guess, great minds ... :smirk:
  • Considering an alternative foundation for morality (apart from pain v. pleasure)
    What should be the goal of a moral system? — Jerry
    Human flourishing (i.e. optimization of common agency via reduction of individual harms¹).

    What is the grounding for the moral system, ...?
    Reason (i.e. performative self-consistency of reducing risks of dysfunctions¹ due to neglecting / exacerbating our species functional defects (i.e. natural vulnerabilities e.g. thirst-hunger, bereavement, insecurity, shame, mortality, confusion, etc))

    ... and if we aren't obligated to do good deeds, why should good deeds happen?
    Habits cultivated – reinforced – through 'moral' conduct, judgments & relationships are either more adaptive (flourishing, virtuous) or more maladaptive (languishing, vicious). "Good deeds happen" because, as most socialized children learn by trial & error, they tend to work more often in social circumstances than "bad deeds".

    ↪Vera Mont
    :up: :up:
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    ↪Echarmion
    True, in other historical situations with oppressors more incentivized to eventually cease oppressing subject populations (though very rarely without relentlessly violent resistance).
  • Culture is critical
    The dinos had between 165 and 177 million years of existence on the Earth. What did they achieve? — universeness
    They existed (flourished profusely) for "between 165 and 177 million years"! That's quite an achievement compared to h. sapiens (quasi-eusocial self-destructive mass-murderers) which have only existed for around 200 thousand years and already are knowingly on the brink of a number of self-inflicted extinctions. :mask:
  • Israel killing civilians in Gaza and the West Bank
    More human meat for the insatiable "God of Abraham/Ibrahim" ...

    David attacks Goliath. What other viable choice does David have but from time to time to bleed in order to remind Goliath that he is also mere flesh and blood. Nonetheless, Goliath has far more to gain than it loses and David simply has nothing to lose which keeps oppression's tragic cycle of indiscriminant, reprisal murders going. Goliath savages David.
  • What is real?
    beyond reality — Ali Hosein
    How do you know there is "beyond" (especially since it is "beyond" knowing)?

    On what grounds do you assume "reality" has a boundary and therefore an exterior?

    You mention Spinoza, but he teaches that reality (i.e. substance) is unbounded in time and space (i.e. eternal and infinite, respectively), therefore not transcended. Even if you do not agree with Spinoza, Ali, your notion of "beyond reality" seems as ad hoc and incoherent as 'north of the north pole' or '"up" on 2-d plane'.
  • What are your philosophies?
    In sum:

    • anti-supernaturalism (ground)
    • ecological-economic democratism (path)
    • singularitarianism (horizon)

    addendum to
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/798898
  • Does Entropy Exist?
    ↪ucarr
    You have quoted my demonstration; show it is invalid as is or concede the point. I've no interest in trying to persuade you of anything, ucarr.
  • Conceptualizing Cosmic Consciousness
    You think Plotinus' conception of the One to be comparable to Jungian collective unconscious? — Manuel
    Sure. Even more so it's comparable to Spinoza's substance (or Democritus-Epicurus' void)
  • Metaphysics as an Illegitimate Source of Knowledge
    Can a statement not be truth-apt without having a truth-maker? — Bob Ross
    What makes a statement "truth-apt" that does not refer, even if only in principle, to at least one truth-maker? C'mon, Bob. Without indicating possible truth-makers, statements cannot be truth-claims. I think meta-statements (i.e. suppositions e.g. metaphysics) only interpret – evaluate – object-statements (i.e. propositions e.g. physics).
  • Does Entropy Exist?
    Here's how I understand your communication:

    The property of transcendence and the cognitive entity "fact" are mutually exclusive. Given this, there is and cannot be any set of transcendent facts.     — ucarr
    :up:

    Did you ignore my questions to you because you think them evidence of my misapprehension of your communication?
    Yes, they are non sequiturs.

    Since, in my view, transcendence_supervenience are similar, ...
    I don't share this view. To transcend a fact isn't remotely "similar" to a property or process supervening on/over a fact.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    ↪T Clark
    In the summer of 2022 I had speculated that the NYS civil fraud case would be Loser-1's Achilles Heel and at the top of a list of reasons he'll likely have to drop out of the primaries ...

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/726831

    My guess is that the verdict will drop before the 2023 holiday season begins (mid-Nov) and the NYS AG will win a judgment, including "clawing back" $500m - $1b USD of ill-gotten profits, which will trigger a fire sale of business assets to begin by the summer / fall of 2024 while Loser-1 will be appealing his convictions in the federal J6 Conspiracy trial and beginning (after more than half of his co-conspirators have "flipped") of the slam-dunk state RICO trial in Fulton Co, GA. 'Self-financing' will be impossible by the end of 2023 (if it isn't already – IIRC, according to his tax returns, Loser-1 has a $300m debt that comes due in 2024 and his 90%-owned, failed media platform "Truth Social" has lost $600m in value since 2022 knocking him again off the Forbes 400); also, there are just not enough small donor MAGA-morons (especially since GOP mega donors abandoned him a couple of years ago) to subsidize Loser-1's legal bills AND campaign grift or, for that matter, for him to overcome his electoral losing streak and win the popular vote in 2024 (especially if and when the Secretaries-of-State movement to remove Loser-1 from state ballots pursuant to the US Constitution's 14th Amendment, Section 3 "Insurrection Clause" spreads like wildfire to a number of "purple" / "reddish" states).

    Loser 1's Money Dominos Are Falling! :clap: :mask:
  • The Mind-Created World
    ↪Wayfarer
    Yeah, especially when you butcher the quote. And @Janus got it (with a :up:) so the entire post – context and all – is clear enough. Besides, I asked you to define your terms and you chose not to, so ... :yawn:
  • The Mind-Created World
    ↪Wayfarer
    Okay, from your vague usage of terms "objectively exist" and "objectivity" what you are saying, Wayf, is too unclear for me to respond further. And since you've not raised compelling objections to my naturalistic position^^ on "mind" in this thread, I rest my case for now.

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/842850 ^^
  • Does Entropy Exist?
    Regarding the first sentence of your quote, you posit the conditional that a transcendent T is coupled with a transcendent F such that they instantiate membership within TF-set. — ucarr
    You've completely misread what I wrote. The argument does not refer to "transcendent T" or "transcendent F". You're objecting to a strawman, ucarr, rather than what I wrote.

    To wit: IFF TF-set has two membership rules – (1) X is transcendent, (2) X is a fact, THEN there is not any X that satisfies both membership rules; THEREFORE TF-set does not have any actual members.

    Is this paraphrase any clearer?
  • The Mind-Created World
    Accordingly, 'objectively existent' is not the sole criterion for what is real. — Wayfarer
    I'm not sure what you mean by "objectively existent" or "objectivity". Please clarify what makes this "criterion" problematic.

    Also, do you reject what I (briefly) say on the thread "What is real?" ...
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/839360
  • The Mind-Created World
    Is it not conceivable that the first stirrings of life, the very simplest organisms, are also the manifestation of mind?

    Well, as said above, I agree that mind is not anything objectively real.      — Wayfarer
    :roll: Any "manifestation of" that which "is not objectively real" is, of course, "conceivable". But are we just fantasizing, Wayf, or are we philosophizing?

    ↪Janus
    :up:
  • What is real?
    As usual, ↪180 Proof interprets "outside, beyond, and transcendent" in a physical sense. — Gnomon
    Your "physical interpretations" ... — Gnomon
    Such as — ? A link to a post or specific quote will do the trick to make your (non)point. :smirk:
  • The Mind-Created World
    @Wayfarer

    Unless solipsism obtains, mind is dependent on (ergo, inseparable from) More/Other-than-mind, no? and that "experience" consists of phenomenal traces (or outputs) of the 'entangled, or reflexive, interactivity' of mind with More/Other-than-mind? and therefore mind interprets "experience as world" which is wholly subjective, or imaginary – an 'online hallucination' that is nothing but mere folk knowledge (i.e. parochial heuristics / biases) aka "common sense" to the degree "common sense" is n o t bias-filtered/error-corrected by hypothetico-deductive testing (i.e. science and/or sound arguments)?

    So what is 'mind'? AFAIK, basically mind is a recursive (strange looping, phenomenal self-modeling) aspect of More/Other-than-mind – a nonmental activity (process ... anatman), not an entity (ghost-in-the-machine ... X-of-the-gaps), that is functionally blind to its self-recursivity the way, for instance, an eye is transparent to itself and absent from its own field of vision.
  • Does Entropy Exist?
    @ucarr

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/827467
  • TPF Quote Cabinet
    40ct23

    I will cut adrift—I will sit on pavements and drink coffee—I will dream; I will take my mind out of its iron cage and let it swim—this fine October. — Virginia Woolf, from one of her diaries
  • What is real?
    As usual, ↪180 Proof interprets "outside, beyond, and transcendent" in a physical sense — Gnomon
    :roll: Strawman – unless you can cite where I have actually done so.

    The American Heritage Dictionary defines Metaphysics ...
    :rofl:

    Ultimate Reality is a view from the outside, not in a literal sense, as 180 alleges, but from an imaginary perspective, as philosophers do routinely.
    In other words, the alleged (incoherent) "god's-eye view from nowhere" – woo-of-the-gaps. :sparkle:
  • Culture is critical
    ↪Vera Mont
    :smirk:
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    RICO Defendant-1 for Speaker of the US House of Representatives?
    The fact that ir's even slightly more than a mere possibility ... sh*ts the bed.

    :yikes:

    Welcome to Absurdistan, folks!
  • Culture is critical
    That's the main draw of religion: absolute certainty; simple answers to hard questions like "How should we live?" "What are right and wrong?" "What do owe one another and our society?" "What is the purpose of life?" Contrary to what many atheists like to repeat, religion was not the answer to "How did the world begin?" or "What causes thunder?" - those questions either do [not] arise of their own accord, or are dealt-with in myth, legend and folklore - no gods required. Gods were invented to hand down commandments and to favour us with supernatural power if we please them. That is: they command us and we manipulate them. Thence comes also the divine right of kings and infallibility of popes and evangelists, and of political dogma and the rise of dictators. They give us rules, solidarity, certainty and purpose - "something greater than myself" to belong to. — Vera Mont
    :clap: :100: Amen, sista!

    "Lots of horrible shit in this world gets done for something larger than ourselves." ~Sandor Clegane
  • The Mind-Created World
    ↪wonderer1
    :smirk: :up:
  • What does it feel like to be energy?
    I don't see how, because energy operates according to physical laws,
    — Wayfarer

    And consciousness doesn't?     — Benj96
    :up:
  • What does it feel like to be energy?
    ↪Benj96
    Given your stated assumptions, it seems to me you're tautologically asking 'What does it feels like to be feeling?' (Or existentially, but in thermodynamic terms: what does it feel like to be dissipating? à la Schopenhauer or Bergson, Whitehead or Deleuze-Guattari).

    Could consciousness be a form of energy like the rest?
    What then is 'unconsciousness' – non-energy? How then does it do work constitutive of consciousness? I don't think this "energy" analogy works, Benj.

    I'm inclined to believe that consciousness is the ability of the system to self organise. — Benj96
    So, for example, hurricanes and viruses, salt crystals and stars, evolution and ant colonies are "conscious" (à la panpsychism)? :eyes:
  • Metaphysics as an Illegitimate Source of Knowledge
    But [Bob Ross] who studies metaphysics as that which is beyond all possible experience? Not Descartes, not Locke nor much that come to mind prior to Kant. — Manuel
    :up: :up:
  • Metaphysics as an Illegitimate Source of Knowledge
    How is the claim, for example, “all truths are relative” not a grammatical statement that is truth-apt? Or “Consciousness is fundamental to reality”, or “mathematical structures are real”, … ? — Bob Ross
    And the truth-makers for these statements are?

    Metaphysics is the attempt at determining ‘what things are’. No?
    —Bob Ross

    No. It's more like an "attempt at" deducing concepts and interpretions of"what things are". —180 Proof

    That’s the same thing.
    :roll: :sweat:

    e.g. An assembled pile of logs, Bob, is not equivalent to a painting of "a log cabin".

    My point is that it is a study that thinks it can get at what reality actually is, and what things in that reality are.
    Those modifiers ain't working ...

    Anyway, my point is
    Metaphysics is the study of what it rationally makes sense to say about the most general prerequisites and implications of counterintuitive physics (i.e. natural sciences – which provisionally "determine how things are" in / constituting the world.) — 180 Proof

    Addendum to
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/842289
  • The Mind-Created World
    ↪Joshs
    Bitbol's "counter" is lost on me. Why don't you instead – in your own words, Joshs – counter my counter to @Wayfarer's counter of my counter to his OP? :chin:
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