Comments

  • Dramaturgical Ontology (The Necessity of Existentialism)
    Reality apart from human personality is a useful fiction.plaque flag
    This immanentist agrees. :up:
  • The Worldly Foolishness of Philosophy
    What is this reality ?plaque flag
    Whatever reality is, reality necessarily excludes – negates – unreality (i.e. ontological impossibles (e.g. un-condittionals, un-changeables, reified ideas ('ideals'), etc)).
  • Dramaturgical Ontology (The Necessity of Existentialism)
    Zapffe himself pointed out that his produced works were the product of sublimation.
    — Wiki

    Becker and others make the same point. Life has a horrible aspect, and we meet it with narratives and symbols that mitigate that horror. The first heroic task as a child is ceasing to shit one's pants. A 'spiritual' being is a cultural or sublimated being
    plaque flag
    :up: :up:

    What does the game of philosophy always presuppose ?plaque flag
    Flesh (facticity).

    The living breathing ontologist has a certain kind of personality. To what degree is philosophy a personal quest for honesty that leads toward a self-consciously critical and fallible conversation ?plaque flag
    I suppose to the degree one believes the path is not the destination.

    Does the true scientist (I include, controversially, a person like Husserl) take science personally ? How else could it be taken?
    IIRC, Husserl begins as a mathematician ... I imagine Spinoza, like Epicurus, would "take" thinking – reflective inquiry/practice – impersonally.

    I don't think it's an accident that we understand one another and ourselves as total characters, nor do I think literature is far from ontology.
    Maps are not "far from" models yet neither are equivalent to the territory as (sub)personal – existential – biases would have us believe (re: folk psychology). Btw, I'm with Beckett (even Cioran): I don't think we ever "understand" one another any more than we chew swallow digest & shit one another's shits. :smirk:

    I'm saying for my own self, not quoting scripture, that the ego is and must be flesh. No doubt a mystic can claim otherwiseplaque flag
    :point: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/827494
  • Hidden Dualism
    Maybe; but so what? It's not an inherent defect or entailment of "materialist conceptions".
  • The Worldly Foolishness of Philosophy
    What can the philosopher offer ?plaque flag
    Exemplary daily exorcisms of foolery (re: meta-ignorance (i.e. agnotologies (e.g. pseudo-discourses, sophistries)); expectations misaligned with reality (i.e. self-immiseration, alienation, dukkha); maladaptive habits of mind (e.g. mis/ab-uses of communication, judgment, knowledge), etc) aka "spiritual exercises".
  • Hidden Dualism
    Property dualism (i.e. dual-aspect monism), for instance, is not "hidden".
  • Emergence
    We probably have passed the point of no return in some ways ...universeness
    Apologies for continuing to flog this equine's carcass:
    https://www.dw.com/en/sea-surface-temperature-hotter-than-ever-before/a-66444694
  • What Are You Watching Right Now?
    ... towards 'apophatic enstasis' :fire:

    @javi2541997
    @Quixodian
  • TPF Quote Cabinet
    What matters is the fact that there is existence. Existence is not a property of things. Things are properties of existence. Existence is not a property of God. Existence is God. Existence is that which is. All contingent/created things are properties of existence and are made out of existence. — "EnPassant

    I follow Spinoza in thinking that the ideas of extensa and cogitans merely represent two perspectives on things. — Janus

    If X is Transcendent AND if X is a Fact, then X belongs to TF-set. The set's okay, there just are not any members (so far) which (can) satisfy both rules  simultaneously. — 180 Proof, c2008
  • Is Philosophy still Relevant?
    Has our civilization evolved to the point where philosophy can be dispensed with?Pantagruel
    No. We haven't yet outgrown religion, politics or science, all of which require critical analyses and reflective interpretations.

    [H]as philosophy moved from being an "outlier" to a superfluous branch of study?
    I suppose it depends on where, what and why one studies.

    Does philosophy still contribute?
    Yes.

    When you are reading it, do you feel you are contributing?
    Yes.
  • The Scientific Method
    The author of Against Method also thinks so.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    @NOS4A2 & other MAGAsshats ...

    BELATED HAPPY 3RD INDICTMENT DAY! :party:

    BELATED HAPPY 3RD ARREST & ARRAIGNMENT DAY! :clap:

    Next up for Seditionist-Traitor-Rapist1 (aka the "Grifter-in-Chief" of Mar-a-Lago):
    https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/fulton-county/fulton-county-sheriff-says-well-have-mugshot-if-former-pres-trump-is-indicted-locally/TT5AC7DCTBGQLCHRKS2BO5NMRU/

    :up:
  • Is Philosophy still Relevant?
    While much is made of Nietzsche’s Dionysian desires, it is the Apollonian maxim: know thyself, that is central to Nietzsche. But to know yourself you must become who you are. This is not a matter of discovery but of creation. Nietzsche takes the exhortation to become who you are from the Greek poet Pindar. For both Plato and Nietzsche philosophy is a form of poiesis. Their knowing is creating.

    Whatever light the philosopher brings to the cave it remains a cave. The transformation brought about by philosophy is self-transformation.
    Fooloso4
    :100: :fire:
  • Evidence of Consciousness Surviving the Body
    Actually, there is far more of a vested – self-flattering – interest in im-materialism (i.e. spiritualism, idealism) than "materialism", as you say, which is much too impersonal and mechanical for any sort of emotional investment, or personal bias.
    — 180 Proof

    Might be true if the concept of matter was coherent, which it isn't, ...
    Quixodian
    I don't understand this reply.

    ... or science could explain how matter gives rise to consciousness, which it can't[
    How do you KNOW this?
  • Atheist Cosmology
    The thesis remains unclear, and prima facie incoherent. — Banno
    :up:
  • Evidence of Consciousness Surviving the Body
    You're talking about dogmatism and I was not.

    I think the evidence is overwhelming, so for me I know there is an afterlife. It's an epistemological answer. I'm not guessing, surmising, giving an opinion, speculating, or expressing an intuition.Sam26
    You have not provided any publicly accessible evidence or sound arguments for an "afterlife" which hold up under even the most rudimentary scrutiny. What you think you "know", sir, is unwarranted, and therefore, dogmatic at best or delusional at worse. Your threads on this topic conspicuously corroborate my criticisms – and I have never based my rejection of your claims on "materialism" but on the demonstable insufficiency of your claims themselves.
  • Atheist Cosmology
    :roll: Compositional fallacy. Just because some individual organisms might be "purposeful" does not entail that a population (or global process like evolution) is "purposeful".
  • Evidence of Consciousness Surviving the Body
    There's a vested interest in materialism ...Quixodian
    Actually, there is far more of a vested – self-flattering – interest in im-materialism (i.e. spiritualism, idealism) than "materialism", as you say, which is much too impersonal and mechanical for any sort of emotional investment, or personal bias.
  • Atheist Cosmology
    Evolution – adaptive variations via natural selection – is not teleological.
  • Atheist Cosmology
    Your "argument" doesn't work, ucarr.

    My third premise says that if a universe has as one of its essential features the inevitability of life, then it has as concomitant essential features intentions and teleology.ucarr
    This leap is unwarranted. Assuming that "life" is an "essential feature" of the universe, on what grounds – factual basis – do you claim Intelligent life (ergo "intention and teleology") is inevitable?

    My first premise says intentions and teleology are essential to all forms of life.
    This anthropomorphic projection renders the premise incoherent at best.
  • Deep Songs
    :smirk: I gave up playing music fairly soon because of jazz (à la Sinatra et al) knowing I'd never be that good. My college buddies and I mostly played songs by The Clash, Simply Red, UB40, The Police, Bob Marley, David Bowie, The Talking Heads and ... I can't remember who else ... always danceable party tunes, usually too fast and out of tune ... I was the "weak link", of course, but it was great fun for a few semesters. :sweat:

    (But at least one of our band "made it" in music as a journalist for Rolling Stone, Spin & The Village Voice – Jem Aswad.)
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    :100: @NOS4A2

    A former, 30 year veteran, Federal Prosecutor reads the latest indictment of Seditionist-Traitor1...


    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/826109
  • Evidence of Consciousness Surviving the Body
    :eyes: :sparkle: :rofl: She was only resuscitated, not resurrected; ergo, no "NDE".

    NB: Gnostic / living-in-a-simulation fairytales are merely variations on the very ancient "dream within a dream" placebo-fetish (aided and abetted by cross-cultural hallucinogenic & entheogenic – or apoxic / anaesthetic – experiences). As the Buddha teaches, it makes no sense – wastes time and effort – to wonder or fixate on where the flame goes when a candle blows/burns-out. Walking the path – living one's life (with courage & dignity as an end in itself) – is the destination, not some ... "afterlife".
  • Umbrella Terms: Unfit For Philosophical Examination?
    My experience of discussing philosophy over the years has been an experience largely consisting of debates centred on umbrella terms.Judaka
    e.g. "Philosophy" ...
  • How to do philosophy
    "It's quantum" has much the same utility as "God did it". — Banno
    :100: :smirk:
  • Deep Songs
    :up: I was a sophmore engineering student at university that winter when the War album dropped and saw U2 perform it live at a small college in upstate NY that spring with my bandmates (yeah, I was a fairly poor bass player in a faux-punk funk/reggae band that played fraternity parties for beer and drugs :yum:) and our girlfriends. Great show, glad I saw them up-close with about 2,000 fans – just before they blew up into "the.biggest band in the world" (as The Police finished their Synchronicity final tour that summer) and peaked a few years later with Joshua Tree. :cool:
  • Argument for a Mind-Dependent, Qualitative World
    If by ‘evidence’ you mean just something you can tangibly test, then obviously no one can offer you that in metaphysics; ...Bob Ross
    Yes, and since you're making a fact-claim that there is "the universal mind" by which "consciousness is best explained", you're argument is pseudo-science, not metaphysics.

    ... the whole point of metaphysics is to use reason to guess what lies beyond that experience which explains that experience.
    If this is so, then this so-called "use of reason" does not consist of sound arguments (i.e. lack of factually true premises ergo lack of factually true conclusion). This sort of "guess" consists of an untestable explanation about matters of fact (e.g. "experience") which is mere pseudo-science unlike, for instance, Kant's transcendental arguments which are epistemological critiques of metaphysical speculations of "pure reason".

    Science is only a negative criteria for metaphysics (viz., it can weed out the really bad theories) but never a positive criteria (viz., that science confirms a metaphysical theory as true).
    Agreed. Also, science rules-out bad (i.e. falsifed or untestable) explanations and thereby abductively affirms only provisionally better (i.e. successfully tested) explanations. As the original Aristotlean corpus suggests, metaphysics – First Philosophy – consists in categorical generalizations abstracted from the 'observed' conditions and limits of nature – physus – which first must be learned by 'empirical inquiries' Aristotle calls "Physics" – science; thus, the relation between 'metaphysics and physics' is a form of reflective equilibrium so that First Philosophy only conceptualizes and interprets scientific – successfully tested (or testable-in-principle) – explanations but cannot itself – as metaphysics – "explain" anything.

    There’s plenty of evidence that we can explain the world in terms of mind. For example, have you ever had a vivid dream?
    Firstly, anecdotes are not scientific evidence. Secondly, the "experience" of "vivid dreams" cannot itself be conclusive "evidence" for anything "beyond experience" which could be a candidate for – "guess" of – an "explanation of experience".

    That consciousness is best explained via a mind-dependent world.
    And what "best explains" this "mind-dependent world"?

    That quantum physics, such as entanglement, is best explained when thought of as extrinsic representations within a universal mind.
    Non sequitur (i.e. quantum woo woo).

    I gave an argument here in the OP for a mind-dependent, qualitative world: let’s start there. What premise (or premises) did you disagree with?
    I object to "P1"
    P1: A quantitative process cannot produce a quality. [p → !q]Bob Ross
    which is obviously not true in many cases.

    e.g.
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4479710/

    also
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergentism

    Just to clarify, I am not saying that the universal mind is itself mind-dependent; as existence itself is mind-independent.
    So "universal mind" is not fundamental – dependent on – "mind-independent existence". Yes, minds are dependent on non-mind (i.e. physicalism).

    There isn’t some mind outside of the universe that willed it into existence.
    I agree. Thus, the physicalist paradigm: the universe is fundamental and minds are (or "the mind is") emergent in, dependent on, derivative from the universe.
  • Argument for a Mind-Dependent, Qualitative World
    I don't understand the question or subsequent statement in the context of my exchange with Bob Ross..
  • Argument for a Mind-Dependent, Qualitative World
    ... reality is fundamentally a mind. That mind, however, objectively exists; that is, it’s existence is mind-independent—i.e., it doesn’t manifest itself nor uphold its own existence.Bob Ross
    An "unmanifest mind" – how do we know it "objective exists"?

    By ‘objective’, I mean ‘that which is mind-independent’ and by ‘mind-at-large’ I mean that reality is fundamentally a mind
    I'd asked about your phrase "objective reality" ... and so you're saying – referring to the above – "mind is mind-independent"? :chin:

    It is disembodied in the sense that it doesn’t have an organic body...
    By "it" are you referring to "mind"? If so, then the evidence I'd requested is for a specimen of "a disembodied mind".

    From one of your previous thread discussions ...
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/813077
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    :cool: 3 down and 1 to go in 2023 ...
    The timeline of MAGA Loser #1's legal reckoning for his 2016-2023 crime spree (excluding potentially ruinous civil lawsuits) is taking a definite shape:

    1. NYC felony indictment
    31Mar23 :up:
    "34 counts of Business Documents Fraud Crealing and/or Covering-up Felonies", etc

    https://apnews.com/article/trump-indictment-full-document-640043319549?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=RelatedStories&utm_campaign=position_02
    2. Miami, Federal indictment
    8Jun23 :up:
    re: 37 counts "Mishandling Documents, Conspiracy to Obstruct Justice, Violating Espionage Act, Making False Statements to Federal Authorities, Witness Tampering" etc

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/08/donald-trump-charged-retention-classified-documents

    9Jun23 Federal indictment unsealed ...
    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/09/trump-indictment-unsealed-pdf-text-criminal-charges

    [ ... ]
    180 Proof
    2.1 Miami, Federal Superceding Indictment (1), 27Jul23 :up:
    +3 felony charges (+1 Espionage (32), +2 Obstruction), etc
    + new exhibit – "Iran war plan" documents (audio, July 2021)

    *

    3. Washington, DC, Federal indictment
    1Aug23 :up:
    re: 4 counts
    • Conspiracy to Defraud the U.S.;
    • Conspiracy to Obstruct an Official Proceeding;
    • Obstruction of and attempt to Obstruct an Official Proceeding;
    • Conspiracy Against Rights


    1Aug23 Federal Indictment unsealed ...
    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/01/trump-indictment-full-text-2020-election-jan-6

  • The infinite in Hegel's philosophy
    So maybe the question is, if there is and can be something infinite, what would that be?Gregory
    Arithmetically "infinite?" – no actual thing. Geometrically unbounded? – many things (e.g.) planets, moons, suns, apples, donuts, melodies, knots ...

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/825315
  • Argument for a Mind-Dependent, Qualitative World
    I would say that objective reality is a mind-at-large ...Bob Ross
    I don't grok your statement. Clarify what you mean by "objective reality" and/or "mind-at-large".

    Also, if "the world is mind-dependent", then "mind" is world-independent (i.e. separate from the world, or disembodied), no? Evidence?
  • The Evolution of Racism and Sexism as Terms & The Discussing the Consequences
    What you say is so confused I can't make sense of what you are talking about. Apparently, sir, you have the luxury of 'living confused'; many don't.
  • The Evolution of Racism and Sexism as Terms & The Discussing the Consequences
    ↪T Clark ↪Judaka What we have here is a failure to communicate, or worse, a failure to think clearlyBC
    :100: :up:

    Unarguable specimen of racist denialism:
    Also, I reject racial and ethnic histories, cultures and groups. I don't think white people are responsible for anything, and as I told you before, I would prefer to see black Americans taking responsibility for slavery as Americans. That would represent the kind of progress I think would be helpful.Judaka
    :mask:
  • The infinite in Hegel's philosophy
    If for Spinoza God is everything ...Gregory
    Natura natura (i.e. Modes aka "everything") is not divine (i.e. not eternal, not self-caused) according to Spinoza, only natura naturans (i.e. Substance (which is eternal & self-caused)) is divine. "The world is illusionary" only in the sense that it merely exists, or is contingent, sub specie durationis but is not real, or necessary (re: Substance), sub specie aeternitatis.

    So I am not sure any kind of materialism would work with Spinoza.
    Classical atomism (Epicurus-Lucretius) – insofar as atoms are conceived of as Modes and void is conceived of as Substance – works fine enough for me (& Marx, Deleuze et al).
  • The Evolution of Racism and Sexism as Terms & The Discussing the Consequences
    180 Proof
    Well, I think "descriptive talk" like yours tends to confuse bigots with racists.
    — 180 Proof

    How so? I'm just asking for your framework for interpreting something as contributing or perpetuating to racism, in a descriptive manner.
    Judaka
    Reread my posts, I can't make my meaning any plainer. There ain't no "interpreting" on my part happening here.