Comments

  • Culture is critical
    As even though you are prepared for, or perhaps even expect the worse, you will continue to strive for the best, why is that? Is it more than mere forlorn hope? — universeness
    Like breathing or a beating heart, defiance – striving – is involuntary. Conatus, will to power / amor fati, revolt. A 'happy warrior' does not succumb to the despair of "hope". :strong:
  • Metaphysics as an Illegitimate Source of Knowledge
    You are basically saying, and correct me if I am wrong, that metaphysics doesn't actually get at ontology (like Plato, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hegel, etc. thought): instead, it just is a useful model for experience. — Bob Ross
    This is neither a charitable nor close reading of what I actually wrote, Bob. I'm an Epicurean-Spinozist, after all, very much concerned with ontology, or the concept of what Clément Rosset calls "the Real". To paraphrase the beginning of my statement on 'metaphysics': it is an inquiry into criteria for differentiating 'what is necessarily not the case' from 'what is possibly the case' in the most general sense; thus, ontology, as I understand Epicurus/Spinoza, is an explanation of concepts for "the Real".

    Metaphysics is not theoretical. — 180 Proof
    Translation: Physics (Aristotle et al), not metaphysics, "is a useful model of experience" (i.e. physical reality, or publicly intelligible aspect of the real, aka "nature"). Metaphysics consists in categorical criteria for making hypothetical explanations, or "useful models..."

    Maybe that's clearer?
  • Culture is critical
    'Happy warriors' prepare for the worst, strive for the best, and gladly take whatever comes. :death: :flower:

    Do you not feel connected to those in the past that fought/died/failed/succeeded to do what they could to change peoples lives for the better? — universeness
    Of course I do. 'Histories are ghost stories', which haunt us, whether or not we believe them.

    Or do you think they should not have bothered trying as our species is doomed anyway?
    Living things survive in spite of – not because of – their inevitably "doomed" state. Facticity. Entropy. Extinction. "The blues is life itself." "One must imagine Sisyphus happy." After all, there ain't no immaterialists in foxholes. :fire:
  • Metaphysics as an Illegitimate Source of Knowledge
    ↪T Clark
    :up:

    "The overwhelming majority of theories are rejected because they contain bad explanations, not because they fail experimental tests ... So we seek explanations that remain robust when we test them against those flickers and shadows, and against each other, and against criteria of logic and reasonableness and everything else we can think of. And when we can change them no more, we have understood some objective truth." ~David Deutsch

    An excerpt from an old thread "Metaphysics in Science" ...
    Metaphysics, again as I understand it, proposes criteria for discerning 'impossible worlds' (i.e. ways actuality necessarily cannot be) from 'possible worlds' (i.e. ways actuality can be) - btw, I'm an actualist, not a possibilist - thereby concerning the most general states of affairs; unlike the sciences, which consist of testing models of how possible transformations of specific, physical (class, or domain, of) states of affairs from one to another (can be made to) happen, and thus is explanatory (even if only approximative, probabilistic), metaphysics explains only concepts abstracted from, and therefore useful for categorizing, (experience of(?)) 'how things are', and does not explain any facts of the matter. Metaphysics is not theoretical. — 180 Proof
  • Does knowledge have limits?
    If knowledge didn't have limits, then any knowledge would be all (infinite) knowledge. Besides, asking the question – any question – presupposes limited (incomplete) knowledge, so the OP topic is moot.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    ↪Fooloso4
    :up: :up:
  • What is real?
    ↪Joshs
    You and I are using the word "faith" very differently. Given the context of my exchange with simplyG, Joshs, your response doesn't add anything relevant.
  • "Why I don't believe in God" —Greta Christina
    ↪simplyG
    :sweat:
  • "Why I don't believe in God" —Greta Christina
    ↪simplyG
    I've no idea what you're talkimg about (possibly because you don't either).
  • Culture is critical
    If the masses would just occupy the common ground between us all. — universeness
    :rofl:

    Mate, that proletarian ship has sailed (and sank) a long while ago. (vide T. Veblen et al). The carcass of :victory: :flower: was ripe by Spring '68 ... we've just been loitering in its shallow grave ever since (vide S. Beckett, J. Baldwin or T. Ligotti). What's that? "Doomster speak!" No, just one latter-day primate all-too-soberly gesticulating this old blues to another :monkey:
  • Is maths embedded in the universe ?
    Just dumb matter. — simplyG
    :ok:
  • "Why I don't believe in God" —Greta Christina
    ↪simplyG
    Science does not "try to supplant God" because science itself is not an agent. You seem incorrigible on this point, Simpleg. Btw, knowledge does not "supplant" ignorance, just as logos does not "supplant" mythos. Proof: there are, and always have been, scientists who are also theists (or mystics). After all, it was a Catholic priest and physicist-astronomer who had counseled his Pope not to misconstrue the Big Bang as evidence, or proof, of the biblical "Let there be light".

    The more persistent proxy or synonym for "magic" or "fantasy" or "the impossible" is that three-letter word for ego: "God" – because "God did it" doesn't explain anything just as "God said it" does not justify anything either. Science is a discipline for collaboratively striving to explain by best approximations which are more efficacious, publicly testable and reliably corroborable than (fact-free, faith-based) non-explanations such as "God". The results of natural sciences work regardless of what we believe or do not believe, and teaches its students and practicioners to say, and explore, I Do Not Know :fire: instead of infantilizing themselves as adults by sucking on cosmic lollipops.
  • "Why I don't believe in God" —Greta Christina
    ↪simplyG
    "Science did it" is meaningless since science is only 'a way of (toolkit-library of correctable algorithms for) naturalistic problem-solving' and not itself an "agent".
  • Culture is critical
    ↪universeness
    Ergo, AGI–>ASI is needed to produce the post-scarcity civilization that we scarcity-addled hyperglandular primates apparently cannot produce for ourselves. :victory: :mask:
  • Literary writing process
    Discipline and letting go. — Amity
    Yes – the late poet and critic (and friend in my bohemian 20s) Hayden Carruth had once described jazz that way. My daily habit of four-plus decades has also been, as @Vera Mont says, "my life-vest" despite drowning once or thrice.

    The interview is fascinating. — Amity
    Did you listen to all five parts (video clips) of the interview? I've always admired her thinking and her essays but not so much her fiction even though Iris Murdoch was a fine novelist.
  • What is real?
    ↪A Realist
    :roll:

    Reality does not require "faith" ... insofar as whatever there is constrains – encompasses – "whatever else" we believe or do not believe "is the case".
  • What is real?
    something can be real to me but not real to someone else — A Realist
    Such as?

    ... I think you must be confused. — unenlightened
    :up:
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    ↪Mikie
    :up:
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    There's no question that Individual-1 committed tax fraud ... — 180 Proof
    As I wrote last year (click on my handle for context), another jackboot has dropped today:

    https://youtu.be/dOhxBCOMtWU?si=We7y3-pvOADosoh1 :clap: :grin:

    @Benkei @NOS4A2 ...
  • Culture is critical
    What happened to US politics is not in any sense tribal. A political faction, a bunch of yahoos united by nothing more than license to oppress another group, a deluded minority of underachievers dreaming of reclaimed privilege, those with actual privilege too jealous to share - these are not tribes. — Vera Mont
    :100: :up:

    ↪universeness
    Much respect.
  • Is maths embedded in the universe ?
    ... And if so does it point to a creator? — simplyG
    No.

    The question is what came before?
    This question doesn't make sense.

    ... if maths can theoretically describe anything does that mean that reality is a subset of mathematics made manifest?
    I think a subset of mathematics usefully describes subsets, or aspects, of reality and the rest (most) of mathematics does not. As suggested by Max Tegmark (David Deutsch, Seth Lloyd, Stephen Wolfram et al), the universe might be nothing more than a lower dimensional mathematical structure (i.e. a reality, n. naturata) imbedded in higher dimensional mathematical structures (i.e. the real,, n. naturans).

    Or is maths completely independent of the physical universe ...
    Not insofar as physical systems are (Quantun Turing) computable.

    ... and it just so happens that some mathematics is good at describing some aspects of the physical universe ...
    I agree as I wrore above.

    ... and in fact supersedes it?
    I don't understand what you mean here by "supercedes".

    ↪Patterner
    :up:
  • To be an atheist, but not a materialist, is completely reasonable
    ... nature is order AND chaos, so if God is nature then God is both order and chaos. — praxis
    :100: e.g. atoms & void / natura naturata & natura naturans. :fire:
  • "Why I don't believe in God" —Greta Christina
    ↪simplyG
    :lol: Wrong. Read the book (and the article closely).
  • Deep Songs
    ↪Amity
    :flower:
  • Deep Songs

    "Harvest Moon" (5:03)
    Harvest Moon, 1992
    Neil Young
  • Post Psychedelia
    I've got nothing to say
    but it's okay

    Fab gear! :sparkle: :up:
  • "Why I don't believe in God" —Greta Christina
    [T]he atheist says science did it (the big bang created the universe etc). — simplyG
    Strawman. If not, then cite an atheist who is also a scientist (i.e. astrophysicist / cosmologist) who makes this claim.
  • Culture is critical
    ↪Vera Mont
    :up:

    ↪universeness
    Okay, but back on Earth One, how will the well-organized/resourced "nefarious few" (most of whom are anonymous, even secretive) be "removed" – not replaced – by the hyper-divided-n-controlled, scarcity-wired, "many"?
  • Culture is critical
    “It's easier to fool people than it is to convince them that they have been fooled.” ~Mark Twain

    "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” ~Upton Sinclair

    "It's easier to imagine the end of ]the world than the end of capitalism." ~Mark Fisher

    The removal of money as a means of exchange and the removal of the money trick and religion, as the main means by which a nefarious few, can gain control over a divided and ill-informed global mass of people. — universeness
    Short of total armageddon – in this scarcity-driven global civilization, my friend – how do you propose to get the "nefarious few" to relinquish "control over a divided and ill-informed global mass of people" who are, for the most part, "money tricked" (from Glasgow to Guangzhou, Brooklyn to Benin, Tel Aviv to Tazmania) by a 24/7 global, virtual menagerie of various hedonic treadmills schemes from cradle to grave? :chin:
  • What is freedom?
    And in plain English? — Amity
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/839851 :smirk:
  • What is freedom?
    Freedom is optimal agency (i.e. antifragility) via solidarity against structural exploitation of stakeholders (them, many) by shareholders (us, few) that is policed by modes of systemic discrimination against (divide-n-control of) non-compliant stakeholders et al.
  • Why is the Hard Problem of Consciousness so hard?
    I;d say it [consciousness] has been explained. — FrancisRay
    How is this explanation tested? Do any unique predicttions follow from this explanation? Please elaborate. Thanks.
  • Why is the Hard Problem of Consciousness so hard?
    ↪bert1
    :lol:
  • Culture is critical
    He who despairs of the human condition is a coward, but he who has hope for it is a fool.
    — Albert Camus

    Sounds like a man who experienced a lot of self-contradiction. He probably died quite young in a car accident.     — universeness
    He was a candle who burned at both ends, lit by an older, fluttering flame ...
    Oh, plenty of hope, an infinite amount of hope – but not for us. — Franz Kafka
  • Does Entropy Exist?
    I use the term spiritual, as referring to human breathing and movement and nothing of the transcendent or esoteric. — universeness
    :up: :up:
  • What creates suffering if god created the world ?
    R. Scott Bakker has a good short story he published in some philosophy journal about accomplishing this in the near future through neural implants. The idea is that you can just tweak your pleasure, mirth, contentment, aggression, etc. upwards, on demand using a neurally controlled app.

    The rub is in how one's ability to control how they feel, almost regardless of circumstances ...     — Count Timothy von Icarus
    IIRC, this idea (re: Bakker's Neuropath) goes back about two decades earlier (at least) to George Alec Effinger's notion of cybernetic augments (re: "daddies" & "moddies") in When Gravity Fails and Iain M. Bank's genengineered "drug glands" in his early Culture novels Consider Phlebas and The Player of Games. Decades earlier, adjusting oneself to suit or despite circumstances biochemically / physiologically also is explored, though differently, in both Ursula Le Guin's Left Hand of Darkness (re: "changing sex back and forth") and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (re: "soma drug"). I think the "neuro app", however, is the most likely version of this idea to manifest as feasible tech. :nerd:
  • What is freedom?
    Two apt quotes I came across this morning:

    The function of freedom is to free someone else. — Toni Morrison
    We feel free because we lack the very language to articulate our unfreedom. — Slavoj Žižek
  • Culture is critical
    ↪Vera Mont
    :up:

    @universeness
    He who despairs of the human condition is a coward, but he who has hope for it is a fool. — Albert Camus
  • Why is the Hard Problem of Consciousness so hard?
    So when someone says "materialism can't explain consciousness", that's true, right now - right now materialism can't explain consciousness - but that's not some unique failing of materialism. Right now, NO ONE can explain consciousness - not with matter, and not with anything else either. Materialism can't explain it right now, non-materialism can't explain it right now, it's entirely (or just mostly?) unexplained right now. The explanation is yet to be found. — flannel jesus
    :100: :up:

    The dogma "not yet means never will" (i.e. unknown = unknowable :roll:) has always been mysterian / idealist – pseudo-philosophical (i.e. religious / magical thinking) – nonsense.
  • "Why I don't believe in God" —Greta Christina
    ↪Bob Ross
    :roll:
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