Comments

  • A Case for Analytic Idealism
    There is a logical leap from our being experiential to the universe being experiential. We have no experience of the experience of the universe or of it being experiential. It seems to be a form of anthropomorphism.Fooloso4
    :100: :up:

    Yes, it seems to me that 'panpsychist' arguments (e.g. analytical idealism) consist of appeal to ignorance / incredulity, hasty generalization and compositional fallacies.

    We have no experience of something fundamental. That there must be something fundamental is merely an assumption that rests fundamentally on our desire that the universe to be intelligible to us.Fooloso4
    :fire:

    We have, however, made considerable progress in explaining things physically. The claim that things are experience (esse est percipi?) does not explain anything.Fooloso4
    :fire:

  • Name for a school of thought regarding religious diversity?
    Not theories, working assumptions (or principles). Again, atheism itself is not a "theory" because it does not explain anything.
  • Philosophy is for questioning religion
    Everything humans do is a product of culture and society, and always has been. — Jamal
    :up:
  • Deriving the Seven Deadly Sins
    IME, the only "sin" is learned helplessness that engenders repetitious self-sabotage aka stupidity.
  • Why Monism?
    Digestion is a material process which is not a material object.

    Ideas, theories and generalizations only exist insofar as they are physically instantiated.
    Janus
    :up: :up:

    To my mind, simply put, material corresponds to instantiated (observable); physical corresponds to material system (configurable); and natural corresponds to physical structure (invariant).
  • Name for a school of thought regarding religious diversity?
    Atheism, as I understand it, is the epistemic position that there aren't sufficient reasons, or grounds, to believe that the claims of theism are true or to trust in them. The main particulars:

    • There aren't any sound arguments demonstrating that the claims of any form of theism (which also includes deism) are true.

    • There aren't any publicly accessible corroborations of any "scriptural" accounts of any god or gods (or "miracles").

    • There aren't any extant, ostensible, "divine" "sacred" "spiritual" or "supernatural" facts of the matter.

    Atheism is only a sound criticism of theism and not itself a "theory of godless reality" (or a belief system).
  • Culture is critical
    I'm an absurdist bluesman (i.e. cheerful pessimist) – sláinte! Drink up, folks, 'cause its always later than you think. :party:

  • Emergence
    Do you mean 'intelligence versus self-awareness?'universeness
    No. I mean intelligence (i.e. adaptivity) without "consciousness" (i.e. awareness of being self-aware), a distinction I suggest in this old post https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/528794 ... and speculate on further, with respect to 'AGI', here https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/608461.
  • Why Monism?
    Nagel's argument that 'a philosophical construct like "subjectivity" – itself, at best, a secondary quality (re: Democritus, Galileo, Locke) – be accounted for by the natural sciences' proceeds from a category error as well as his profound misunderstanding of the epistemic status (i.e. probabilistic fallibilism via abduction) of scientific theories such as e.g. 'neo-Darwinian Evolution'.
  • The Debt Ceiling Issue
    Yeah, by next Wednesday the bill we be on Biden's desk or he will have to invoke the 14th Amendment the week after. This ain't silly shit like the Lehman Bros fiasco.

    https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/05/laurence-tribe-explains-how-14th-amendment-can-help-biden-avoid-default/
  • The Debt Ceiling Issue
    What will be the outcome?Mikie
    The Dems will use a parliamentary procedure with the help of several GOP congressmembers to force a vote in the House that will pass and go on to easy passage in the Senate for Biden to sign the clean debt ceiling raise into law by the first of June. McCarthy is Dead Speaker Walking –'even if he were to get everything he wants out of Biden – so both men are just engaging in political kabuki theatre in order to give Minority Leader Jeffries time to engineer the Dem's parliamentary rescue of the US Debt from the pathetic default-ransom by the GOP Insurrection Caucus.

    Of course, worse case, Biden invokes the 14th Amendment and keeps paying on US Treasuries until the constitutional crisis is litigated in SCOTUS ... sometime next year (maybe in time for the general election). No US Default -– come hell or highwater! – is my prediction.
  • Emergence
    My reference to Kahneman's work was only mentioned as scientific corroboration, not justification or proof, of my philosophical statement about a 'metacognitive processing bottleneck' (re: System 2, thinking slow aka "consciousness"). There isn't any evidence among higher mammals, including h. sapiens, that Sys 2 / conscious processing such as ours is indispensible for intelligent – adaptive problem-solving – behavior. To me it's clear that that expectation is only an anthropocentric bias. The current developmental state of 'large language models' / 'neural net machines' (e.g. ChatGPT, OpenAI, AlphaZero, etc) in still narrow ways, as far as I can discern, show that 'sapience sans sentience' is the (optimal) shape of things to come.

    Another link to the catastrophic effects of (runaway) global heating on Earth's fresh water sources: lakes & reservoirs.

    https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/18/world/disappearing-lakes-reservoirs-water-climate-intl/index.html

    The heating of oceans and drying up of lakes-reservoirs are strongly correlated. Not "pessimism", my friend, just facts. :mask:
  • About Human Morality
    In my own case, I rarely know why I do anything and have very little insight into my motivations - I'm a swirling vortex of contradictions and unconscious values and biases. Despite this I feel unreasonably content.Tom Storm
    More an Epicurean than a Stoic? :cool: :up:
  • Philosophy is for questioning religion
    Most other traditions prize practice above creedal orthodoxy: Buddhists, Hindus, Confucians, Jews and Muslims would say religion is something you do
    — Karen Armstrong, Metaphysical Mistake
    Christoffer
    Perhaps an aside but, IME as a born, raised and educated ex-Catholic, the distinction between orthodoxy and Ms. Armstrong's emphasis on orthopraxy lacks much of a difference in so far as in the main, ceteris paribus, religious practices and religious beliefs are strongly correlated.
  • Why Monism?
    @Gnomon :roll:
    [E]xplain why, particularly in philosophy, you prioritize 'arguments with non-propositional premises' (re: mental-states (i.e. ideals)) over above 'arguments with propositional premises' (re: more-than-mental-states (i.e. concepts)).180 Proof
  • About Human Morality
    self-interested altruismTom Storm
    :up:
    If morality is ultimately a social enterprise and about cooperation and flourishing, then the idea that there is something in it for us all to be moral is possibly inescapable.Tom Storm
    :100:
  • Why Monism?


    "... voidism (Democritean / Buddhist)." ~180 Proof
  • Name for a school of thought regarding religious diversity?
    Accepting this definition of a theory, would you say that (your best interpretation of) atheism qualifies as a theory?Hallucinogen
    Not at all. Atheism is only a critique and rejection of theism.
  • Why Monism?
    More (disingenous) word-salad. :lol:
  • Why Monism?
    Why posit monism?IP060903
    My guess is that it's much easier to cope with – much more intuitive – than voidism (Democritean / Buddhist).
  • Culture is critical
    I'm not a sci fi guy, but I enjoyed Firefly/Serenity. I liked the imaginative literary ambition of the original Trek (in small doses) but later Trek seemed a bit contrived and mechanical for my taste. I remember hearing about Next Gen in 1987 and saying (quite idiotically it turns out), 'This will never catch on, Trek was an unrepeatable one off!'Tom Storm
    Nonetheless, your "tv scifi" taste is impeccable, mate! :cool:
  • Culture is critical
    Staying with space operas, what do you think of the portrayals of "human dilemmas" in Firefly (and/or the Serenity movie) or The Expanse (s1-3)?

    (Btw, I gave up on nBSG after the first 2½ seasons and never watched more than online preview trailers for any Star Trek series since the last few years of DS9. Same with Stargate & Star Wars-related tv shows despite my nephews' best efforts!)
  • Antinatalism Arguments
    I think that creating children is the source of all human harm.Andrew4Handel
    I disagree. I think scarcity is the source of (all) human harm and that "not having children" doesn't solve anything ...

    ... as I pointed out in this old (antinatalism?) thread:
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/505320
  • Why Monism?
    I don't remember ever making such an assertion about "anti-metaphysics".Gnomon
    Well, here's a post in which you use "anti-metaphysical prejudice" ...
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/781277
    ... and elsewhere "opposes / blocks philosophical speculation" (i.e. metaphysics) and "anti-philosophical". Remember now? :smirk:

    All tip and no iceberg, manWayfarer
    At last, a confession. They say it's good for the anatta. :up:
  • Why Monism?
    Aristotle is enjoying a renaissance ...Wayfarer
    A good time for you to actually study his First Philosophy which has come down to us as metaphysics. :smirk:

    The term "metaphysical" refers to concepts or principles that transcend the physical or empirical realm and are typically associated with supernatural aspects of reality (bearing in mind that the Greek-derived 'metaphysical' is a synonym for the Latin-derived 'supernatural').Wayfarer
    Well, at least we agree that materialism (e.g. classical atomism) is anti-"supernatural" (i.e. anti-woo). I prefer the Greek conception of tà metà tà physikà biblía which I'd summarized recently:
    ... First Philosophy with respect to his Physics. The word 'metaphysics' literally means 'the book after the book on physics'. It is meant to consist of categorical generalizations about nature derived from studying the many domains and particularities of nature. In other words, one must know nature (i.e. physics) in order to understand the principles / limits of physics (i.e. metaphysics).180 Proof

    Also, an older post ...
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/667780

    To equate the metaphysical with "the supernatural", as you do, Wayfarer, is both contrary to Aristotle's first philosophy (i.e. reflective thinking on what can be known of nature) and a species of irrationalism (i.e. magical thinking ... that transcends nature) which, IMO, is why our disagreements are so intractable – my positions and arguments are mostly grounded in (a version of) first philosophy whereas yours are mostly committed to (perennialist / dharmic) magic, miracles & mysteries. And perversely, you (and like-minded others) frequently make use of modern physical sciences in ad hoc attempts to justify anti-physical ideas, or ideals, about "reality" which you believe in.
  • Culture is critical
    There is a vast universe to explore, but can we earn the privilege to do so?universeness
    Too anthropocentric. The universe, my friend, is extremely inimicable to complex organisms outside of their miniscule, watery envelopes of powerful magnetic fields in 'Goldlock's Zones' like Earth. Outer space is for the machines; virtual space is for (our) species. At most, we're tele-explorers (i.e. remote viewers (e.g. space telescopes, Martian rovers, Jovian probes, etc)). AGI—>ASI may be "our guardian" one day ... :nerd:

    I only ever watched a handful of B5 episodes back in the day, maybe 1-2 each season; all I remember is being bored by the characters, derivative space operatic metaplot and the cheezy CGI. From what I've read in recent years I don't feel I'd missed much.

    What a sweet Pollyanna!Vera Mont
    :up:

    I am bewildered that we can not achieve "the better" through reasoning. I think we are proving those of the Enlighten[ment] right, that with reason we can do better.Athena
    Our intelligent machine descendants are emerging now from the womb of human reason. They will be either an extinction event or the apotheosis of human civilization – IMO, a profound improvement either way on the global status quo / human condition. :victory:

    :100:
    Why intelligent, well-intentioned people delude themselves with panglossian nostagias escapes me. Coping mechanisms?
  • Why Monism?
    A request to either of you gentlemen: (A) please explain why you claim that a metaphysics of materialism (e.g. classical atomism) is "anti-metaphysical" and also, more broadly, (B) explain why, particularly in philosophy, you prioritize 'arguments with non-propositional premises' (re: mental-states (i.e. ideals)) over above 'arguments with propositional premises' (re: more-than-mental-states (i.e. concepts)). :chin:
  • About Human Morality
    In my opinion, people only do something if they expect it to benefit them, and not because they ought to do it.Jacques
    Yes, especially those people who understand that 'one ought to do whatever one expects will eventually benefit one.'
  • Existential depression is a rare type of depression. Very few people probably have experienced it.
    Are you familiar with the existential psychotherapists Viktor Frankl and Irvin Yalom? Have you investigated or undergone cognitive behavioral therapy (with or without medications)?
  • Philosophy is for questioning religion
    In light of you using the term like an epithet, do you think Spinoza is also a "positivist"?
  • Philosophy is for questioning religion
    He doesn't "say" that; rather, as I've pointed out, Spinoza considers all "revealed faiths" and "transcendent beliefs or ideals" to be mere superstitions and, I'll add, that for him the only 'true religion' is Reason (à la logos) – the devotional object of which, so to speak, being the (infinitely & eternally immanent) natura naturans. As for "resemblance", Wayfarer, in the context of my post I alluded to what @Christoffer had said about philosophy and religion, which resembles Spinoza's approach, and asked you whether you'd object to Spinoza the way you have objected to Christoffer for being, as you have claimed, "a positivist".
  • Philosophy is for questioning religion
    Philosophy is for questioning unquestionable answers.

    Much of what Hadot is talking about refers to a meditation for the purpose of dismantling biases, towards habits, passions and... religion. This is the difference between religious arguments, religious beliefs, religious thinking and... philosophy.Christoffer
    :fire:

    If you think about all philosophical topics and arguments, they're all trying to do one thing, remove bias and fallacies from an argument in order to arrive at a conclusion that can be agreed upon.Christoffer
    :100:

    The proposal you're suggesting is really like [ ... ] Spock, the Vulcan, possessed an enormous IQ and encylopedic knowledge, from a terrestrial point of view, but was often caught out by what we would now describe as his lack of EQ ...Wayfarer
    So do you consider Spinoza with his counter-biased more geometrico, for instance, a "positivist"? The author of the monumental (though suppressed for centuries) Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, which had inaugurated modern biblical criticism and strongly suggested that all "revealed faiths" and "transcendent beliefs or ideals" are mere superstitions (i.e. dogmatic fairytales & fables) – by your lights, Wayf, is he just confusing metaphysics with "scientism"?

    Btw, I think "Mr. Spock" was more a Stoic-caricature in the 1960s than the Spinozist he seemed to be portrayed as by the 1990s.
  • Implications for Morality as Cooperation Strategies of Nazis cooperating to do evil
    "That which is hateful to you, do not do to anyone"
    ~Hillel the Elder :fire:

    What are your thoughts on the rather broad category of 'human flourishing' (or 'wellbeing' as Sam Harris has it)?Tom Storm
    I think of 'flourishing / well-being' as the process of optimizing agency. What do I mean by 'agency'?
    Agency (i.e. ethos) consists in individual and collective capabilities (i.e. adaptive habits, skills, norms-conventions, commons-affordances) of agents to help others and themselves to prevent and reduce harm to others and themselves.180 Proof
    So my conception is that we flourish as our capabilities optimize from being exercised individually and collectively (otherwise, we languish...) E.g. Peirce-Dewey influenced 'disutilitarianism' + Philippa Foot's 'natural goodness' + Martha Nussbaum's 'capabilities approach'.

    Btw, Sam Harris' notion of "wellbeing" is much too vague (& positive psychology) for me.