Comments

  • US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
    I regard him as a philosopher. He is a practioner of philosophy – Donald Trump; and he is a philosopher of fuckyouism. — Steve Schmidt, former GOP senior campaign advisor, from discussion with former Senator Al Franken (D-MN), podcast 7 May 2023
  • The ideal and the real, perfection and it's untenability
    You're using "ideal" in a colloquial sense as synonymous with aspirational and I replied to it in a philosophical sense as epistemological. Nevermind. Disregard my remarks.
  • Will Science Eventually Replace Religion?
    However how then is there an "opposite to science".Benj96
    Not "opposite TO" (i.e. opposition) but opposite OF is what I wrote. Opposite of science ... of knowledge ... of explanation ... of truth-telling ... If not 'pseudoscience', then what is the opposite OF science? :chin:

    For me its not "science or .." but rather "science and..." 
    I also don't exclude other intellectual or cultural endeavors e.g. history, music, poetry, philosophy, comparative studies, mathematics, sports, politics, etc.

    For me the term "pseudoscience" is a fancy way of disregarding/dismissing or making inferior or supposedly obsolete all other pursuits outside the realm of science, philosophy ofc being one of them.
    The term means 'false science' or making explanatory claims which fail to – cannot – explain anything. I'm not using the term in a polemical fashion or for rhetorical effect, though it can be used that way as you point out.
  • The ideal and the real, perfection and it's untenability
    How would it make you feel?Benj96
    Like a grown-up kid. :wink:

    Ideals exist for a reason.
    Re: simplifications, abstractions, information compressions ...

    Realism[Reals] also exists for a reason.
    Re: limits, constraints, complexifications ...

    How do approach them?
    "Ideals" can be used to make maps ("ideals") of the territory of "reals".

    Usually as daydreams, occasionally as standards and only infrequently as plans.

    How do you think we ought navigate such a dynamic?
    Deflate "ideals" and do without them as much as we can in order not to occlude "reals" (i.e. not to mistake maps (universals, generalities) for the territory (individuals, particulars) or not to reify abstractions).

    Like nature, refrain from allowing the perfect to be the enemy of the good (enough).
  • Emergence
    Fortunately, "no created system" requires – is functionally enabled by – any "aspects of human consciousness" (i.e. a metacognitive processing bottleneck ... à la D. Kahneman's slooooow 'brain system 2'). Sapience sans (beyond) sentience. Butterfly sans (free from constraints-defects of) chrysalis/caterpillar.
  • Will Science Eventually Replace Religion?
    Where does ethics fall into this?Benj96
    Ethics is a reflective practice (which I mentioned previously) with normative implications similiar to aesthetics. Non-propositional (often suppositional) and pragmatic.

    My first post on this thread, p. 1 ...
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/803960

    Is it [ethics] pseudoscience? I
    No. It's philosophy.
  • Emergence
    Do you have evidence that the butterfly retains no knowledge of its time as a caterpillar?universeness
    Do we "retain knowledge" of our time as blastocysts? :roll:

    Might the butterfly maintain much of the 'mind' of the caterpillar?
    I imagine crawling is, at best, useless for flying. Maybe butterflies keep caterpillars around just to study them (e.g. "butterflygenesis") or for shitz-n-giggles (à la reality tv, stupid pet tricks, etc) or both? :smirk:
  • Will Science Eventually Replace Religion?
    I suppose it's a process.
    A slow painful process of overcoming self doubt and learned helplessness.
    HarryHarry
    :up:

    "The opposite" of science is pseudoscience. As @Banno more bluntly alludes to ...
    The Bible shows the way to go to heaven, not the way the heavens go. — Galileo Galilei
    suggesting that 'dogma & bigotry' obstruct free inquiry (i.e. reflective practice).
  • Emergence
    :cool:

    My "hopes" are silver linings in the dark clouds rolling in. The butterfly, sir, is about to leave the caterpillar's "human" chrysalis (re: ).

    :point:
  • Emergence
    The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe. A new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move toward higher levels. — Albert Einstein (1946)

    Our h. sapiens species has shown itself to be uniquely smart enough to create at least one problem for itself so intractably complex in scale and scope that we cannot solve it – climate change accelerated by anthropogenic global warming. Weirdly I'm hopeful that AGI —> ASI – assuming it bothers – will be capable of reframing the parameters of the problem so that it can be solved well enough to save a significant portion of Earth's habitable biosphere and thereby a sustainable fraction (1/2-1/20?) of the human population. I imagine the only significant "planetary terraforming" that will ever be undertaken will be an AGI —> ASI-driven project to terraform the Earth and eventually reverse / end the Anthropocene.


    We are the cure.
  • Will Science Eventually Replace Religion?
    :up:

    Nihilism seems moderately rare ...Tom Storm
    If by "nihilism" you mean 'not believing in anything' (i.e. believing all beliefs are false), then I agree with you, Tom. If, however, you mean 'belief in nothing', then I disagree because most people believe – place highest value – in fictions (e.g. gods, demons, ghosts, souls, miracles, horoscopes, ideology, ideals) either in lieu of or more than they believe – place highest value – in demonstrable something (e.g. nature, facts, uncertainty, cognitive biases / limits, other people, death, etc).
  • Name for a school of thought regarding religious diversity?
    Can you point to any religion that does not have some notion of transcendence as central?Janus
    Advaita Vedanta comes to mind first ... but I suppose it depends on what's meant by "transcendence".
  • Name for a school of thought regarding religious diversity?
    I always liked Ambrose Bierce's definition:

    “Religion, n. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.”
    Tom Storm
    :cool: :up:
  • Name for a school of thought regarding religious diversity?
    Would you say that they are all devoid to true content (in their claims)?Hallucinogen
    Yes, "religious claims" have never been publicly demonstrated to be true.

    But what about the claims of religions, are those incompatible, or are you unsure?
    Usually. No.
  • Name for a school of thought regarding religious diversity?
    Are you saying mythology itself holds this view or that the universe of each myth entails incompatability with all others?Hallucinogen
    Neither. I'm saying that "all religions" are myths and that they can be – most, especially dead religions, have been – studied as such. They have the same function (re: pacifying false fears with false hopes) even though their contents may be "incompatible" like e.g. 'styles of art' or 'varieties of medicines' or 'tribal/territorial identities' throughout history and across cultures. I suppose this implies the "doctrine" of religious skepticism.
  • Emergence
    It's a forecast, not a prediction, like AGI itself. I'm just as cynical about news articles except when they cite the sources of the scientific studies they are summarizing. I'm not at all cynical, however, about accelerating climate change due to anthropogenic global warming. Here's an article published today that's clearly trying to avoid being "alarmist" and yet the implications are obvious (you can check out the sources cited therein for yourself):

    https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/05/world/ocean-surface-temperature-heat-record-climate-intl/index.html
  • Name for a school of thought regarding religious diversity?
    Is there a name for the doctrine which claims that all religions are epistemically/veridically disjunct from each other?Hallucinogen
    Mythology (i.e. cults, folklores).
  • Emergence
    1. Any exemplar, reliable scientific studies you know of that claim this as fact?universeness
    Plenty. This article cites some of them:
    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/09/climate/climate-change-report-ipcc-un.html
  • Mythopoeic Thought: The root of Greek philosophy.
    Kazantzakisjavi2541997
    Yeah, good stuff! :up:
  • Will Science Eventually Replace Religion?
    I’m angry at stupidity because it leads to ignorance and ignorance leads to evil.invicta
    To paraphrase G.K. Chesterton: Of course, not all believers are stupid but almost all the stupid people I've ever met are believers.

    There are those" seems to be covertly pointing at yours truly.
    — Gnomon

    Indeed.

    Nowhere have I accused you of new ageism, nor of "science bashing"

    The most I have "accused" (your word) you of is not being able to either follow or present a clear argument.

    Despite the faux footnotes.
    Banno
    :up:
  • "I am that I am"
    In other words ... Deus, sive natura :fire: (contra "Cogito, ergo sum"; contra Exodus 3:14; contra 'transcendent X-of-the-gaps').
  • Emergence
    Some more comments on your comments ...

    1. The oceans are already too warm to reverse catastrophic climate change. AGI will triage the global population centers so that 1 in 4 (2bn) people might survive to the end of the next century.

    2. 'Planetary colonization' (e.g. megaengineering, terraforming) does not make economic, engineering or scientific sense IMO. No "stepping stones", my friend, just dispersion of Earth's species as a hedge against terrestrial extinction risks. And because of hard radiation (e.g. cosmic rays) and astronomical transit durations, 'deep space exploration' is only feasible for (tinier-the-better) intelligent machines.

    4. Babylon 5?! :rofl: (sorry) Nothing remotely to do with the transcension hypothesis.

    5. :up:

    6. "Global efforts?" Never were, never will be. And no need for that: AGI —> ASI will drive the big blue bus out of the ditch we're stuck in despite our fractious human nature. No doubt, over the next century or so, 3 out of 4 (6bn) of us will be left behind in the ditch so that the rest of our biological descendents can survive (predominantly due to the efforts of our machine descendents 'herding a billion cats').
  • Emergence
    :chin: Well ...

    1. I suspect runaway climate change will balkanize the globe even more than it is today because the capacities for mitigating the catastrophic 'warming' effects are now and will be even more so unevenly distributed (even when AGI comes online). In the best case scenarios, however, I agree with your "cradle to grave" techno-"secularism" – what I imagine as automated post-scarcity societies (APS).

    2. I imagine that in about fifty years we will start 'spreading out' in earnest across the inner solar system, mostly orbital, moon & asteroid habitats rather than planetary 'colonies'.

    3. Okay (re: APS).

    4. Assuming that "the human identity" is a manifestation of the human condition. Thus, I imagine as technosciences, extraterresrial habitation & AGI —> ASI accelerate the disappearance of the current human condition, "human identity" also will disappear. (Re: posthumanity (e.g. body-mods & brain-augments for living in space; AI-mediated-hiveminds; orga-mecha mergers, etc) —> transcension)

    5. I predict that by the end of this century our (AGI-controlled) space probes will discover robust exo-biomes and thriving xeno-species beneath the ice carapaces of a number of Jupiter's & Saturn's moons. By then, however, ASI will determine how best to protect (enhance) terrestrial life from (by) extraterrestrial and artificial life-forms.

    6. Three natural mass extinction-events come to mind which could affect the entire inner solar system (now and always): (A) gamma ray bursts, (B) planetary colliding coronal mass ejections (re: the Carrington event) and (C) micro-singularities. A non-terrestrial diaspora, of course, increases the likelihood of our species surviving extinction events but in no way guarantees it.
  • TPF Quote Cabinet
    The mind is its own place and in it self can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n. — John Milton, Paradise Lost

    The inhabitants of the earth are of two sorts: those with brains, but no religion, and those with religion, but no brains. — Abu al-Ala al-Ma'arri, pessimistic freethinker, d.1057 CE
  • The value of conditional oughts in defining moral systems
    Cooperation being a stepping stone to a goal (wellbeing or flourishing), not the goal itself.Tom Storm
    :up:
  • The value of conditional oughts in defining moral systems
    Others have beat me to the punch, sir. I can't improve on their remarks in addition to @Banno's:

    ... how the idea that morality is about solving cooperative problems can actually help in addressing the moral case for supporting or denying support to the Ukrainians against the Russians.neomac
    Your ideal of well-informed, rational people with shared goals and ideas is nowhere to be found.Fooloso4
    What is the relationship between morality and cooperative strategies? They are not, as you assume, one and the same. Cooperative strategies to achieve immoral goals are immoral cooperative strategies.

    Deontology is not "the traditional perspective" but one traditional perspective. There are others.
    Fooloso4
  • Emergence
    :up:

    Btw, we just differ over what constitutes an 'optimistic' view of our automated (IMO, prospective "post-scarcity") future. In a nutshell, anthropocentric you: "super-humanity" with exponentially more biophysical-metacognitive options than our current human condition affords us; de-anthropo-centric me: "post-humanity" with exponentially fewer biophysical-metacognitive defects than our current human condition constrains us with.

    Or in (visionary) "science fiction" terms – my view is more "Starchild-Monolith" (or "Culture Minds") and your view is more "United Federation of Planets-Star Fleet", no? :nerd:
  • Emergence
    :sweat: Do you really want hundreds of more 'optimistic' posts?! Anyway, ty. :up:
  • Emergence
    Maybe I'm misreading your remark, but I haven't opined that "AI development" (i.e. AGI) is a "threat". IMO, it's human civilization with its shiny new tools (e.g. intelligent, thermonuclear and/or nano-technological), however, that threatens human existence in the near-term.
  • Emergence
    :clap: :cool: Enjoy!

    I'll give this video a look eventually. Thanks!
  • The nature of man…inherently good or bad?
    Apparently, the OP's author fails to recognize his own biases in the premises of his question and thereby misunderstands its implications even when pointed out to him repeatedly.
  • The Ethics of Burdening Others in the Name of Personal Growth: When is it Justified?
    We're animals, get over it. Few are capable of deliberately defying our deep programmiing by not proceating; some have no opportunity to breed, and others are physiologically incapable. That leaves the vast majority of the locquaciously horny human herd. After all, species imperatives necessarily constrain organisms' ideals. H. sapiens will not extinguish itself by "anti-natalism", not when quite a few other self-inflicted and potential exogamous extinction events are very much live prospects. Just look at the fossil record, schop – before you know it, we'll be somebody else's dinosaurs and dodo birds. :smirk:
  • Replacing matter as fundamental: does it change anything?
    Currently not understanding exactly how matter and energy interact to create a subjective experience does not negate the observed fact that matter and energy can interact to make a subjective experience.Philosophim
    :100: