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  • Heidegger’s Downfall
    ↪Paine
    :up: :up:
  • The Illusory Nature of Free Will
    ↪Count Timothy von Icarus

    Some are determined to choose to believe in "free will".

    Some are determined to choose to believe that "free will" is an illusion.

    Some are determined to choose to believe that "free will" is compatible with being determined.

    And some are determined to choose to think that 'whether or not we have "free will"' is a distinction that does not make a significant practical difference in our everyday lives.     — 180 Proof
    Corrected.
  • Heidegger’s Downfall
    ↪Moliere
    :up:
  • "Don't wish for an easy life. Wish for the strength to handle a hard life."
    "Don't wish for an easy life. Wish for the strength to handle a hard life." [Bruce Lee]

    What is the logic to this quote?     — TiredThinker
    Expect the worst and prepare for the best. You'll never be disappointed. Either win or learn! :strong: Besides, an "easy life" is a crutch (re: decadence) that is more likely to cripple you than not.

    Amor fati. :death: :flower:
  • Currently Reading
    • Heidegger in Ruins: Between Philisophy and Ideology, Richard Wolin

    • Nihilism: A Philosophical Essay, Stanley Rosen

    Thanks, @Fooloso4 :up:
  • The Illusory Nature of Free Will
    Some are determined to believe in "free will".

    Some are determined to believe that "free will" is an illusion.

    Some are determined to believe that "free will" is compatible with being determined.

    And some are determined to think that 'whether or not we have "free will"' is a distinction that does not make a significant practical difference in our everyday lives.
  • Goodness and God
    ↪Vera Mont
    :up:
  • The Dialectic of Atheism and Theism: An Agnostic's Perspective
    ↪EnPassant
    That is why I wrote nothing and not "nothingness".
  • How Atheism Supports Religion
    ↪DingoJones
    Don't read my words if you don't care for my writing.

    ↪boagie
    Why so defeatist?
  • Why should life have a meaning ?
    Humans seem to be machines for making meaning - drawing connections and telling stories. Hence, culture, art, entertainment, religion, literature, philosophy, science, etc, etc. We can't help ourselves. It's our thing. Some of us like our stories to be metanarratives - foundational and transcendent. Some of us are happy with tentative accounts, subject to constant revision. — Tom Storm
    :fire: Well said.
  • The Dialectic of Atheism and Theism: An Agnostic's Perspective
    Atheists like myself don't make claims about the non-existence of god. Our claim is that we have no good reason to accept the proposition - the arguments and evidence being unconvincing. — Tom Storm
    :100:
  • How Atheism Supports Religion
    ↪universeness
    My near-"ignostic" position is that theistic gods are fictions (atheism re: tokens) because the sine non qua claims of theism are not true (antitheism re: type). Thus, as far as I'm concerned, religious scriptures are canonized allegories just as religious practices are applied superstitions, and are only worth discussing or opposing when they are used (by theocratic fundies or ignorant/hypocritical literalists) to "justify" coercing obedience to the prerogatives of religious leaders and their functionaries.
  • The Illusory Nature of Free Will
    ↪boagie
    :up: My position on "free will" is (mostly) consistent with what you've written here.
  • What exemplifies Philosophy?
    "What exemplifies philosophy?" :chin:

    For me: A praxis of ambulatory health, metacognitive hygiene and moral fitness.
  • The Unsolved Mystery of Evil: A Necessary Paradox?
    ↪gevgala
    There is no "problem" without the premise of an "All-Good God". I think the only concepts of "God" consistent with indifferent nature (e.g. all life feeds on life) and needless suffering are "God is a sadist" and "God is a fiction" – both of which are unworthy of worship – and consequently anti/a-theism is (like) a moral imperative.
  • The Illusory Nature of Free Will
    When one states that there is free will, one needs to ask free will from what. The whole idea is absurd. — boagie
    :up:

    Some creatures are not reactionary but creative … what is the question of the topic a reaction to ? — invicta
    It does not follow from your ignorance of the cause/s of your decision to post this "topic" that there was not any extrinsic (i.e. unconscious, involuntary) cause/s and that instead apparently it was only the effect of your spontaneous, or "creative", whimsy. Sorry, invictus, appeals to ignorance or incredulity are fallacious; and a 'transcendental (e.g. libertarian, ensouled) ego' is just another humunculus-of-the-gaps. :smirk:
  • How should we define 'knowledge'?
    ↪Cidat
    "Knowledge" is information useful for doing, or changing, something that can't be done, or changed, without it.

    NB: Information constituting well-tested, explanations is scientific knowledge.
  • Why should life have a meaning ?
    ↪invicta
    Unlike hairy apes, we baldies need to wear coats to keep warm. "Meaning" is a coat, a wardrobe, even tailored on occasion.
  • The Illusory Nature of Free Will
    ↪invicta
    Not at all. All that means to me is 'you assume – not know – you chose to choose' to post this "free will" topic. I just don't to see any grounds for you assuming this (or to assume you "know" this).
  • Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover: a better understanding
    ↪invicta
    I write posts fast on my cell while doing other things or getting around. Reread the post. I removed the typo.
  • Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover: a better understanding
    ↪invicta
    tyoo (corrected)
  • Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover: a better understanding
    ↪invicta
    Thus, your analogues do not work insofar as "the moth" is not "isolated" from either the "lightbulb" or "darkness" because it is affected by either of them. Aristotle (& Descartes) makes this mistake too (which Spinoza corrects).
  • Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover: a better understanding
    ↪invicta
    Your analogies fail to express what Aristotle thought.
  • Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover: a better understanding
    ↪invicta
    The analogy still doesn't work. In "eternal and unchanging" – primordial – "darkness" there is no energy available to "the moth" to "be moved" or, in fact, to move at all. :roll:

    ↪Paine
    I think Spinoza shows the implications of Aristotle's thought and corrects – reforrmulates – the classical concept of "substance" (as it comes down from Aristotle to . . Anselm, Ibn Rushd, Maimonides, Aquinas & Descartes).
  • Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover: a better understanding
    The other analogy being that of moths to a lightbulb. — invicta
    This analogy doesn't work because (1) someone has to make "the lightbulb", (2) connect it to a power source and then (3) switch it on – thus, it's neither "eternal nor unchanging". Also, it's "the moth's" genetic hardwiring for photosensitive attraction that moves it toward the switched on "lightbulb" and not "the lightbulb" itself which moves "the moth".
  • The Illusory Nature of Free Will
    The matter of creating this topic was a conscious choice to do so as it was not to do so. — invicta
    Sounds like an ex post facto rationalization to me. You don't know you had a "choice", just assume – confabulate – it, no? :chin:
  • Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover: a better understanding
    The eternal unchanging unmoved mover. — invicta
    Read Ethics, part I "Of God". (Re: Spinoza's substance)
  • The Illusory Nature of Free Will
    ↪invicta
    So you can't answer either of my questions?
  • Does anyone understand blackholes?
    ↪TiredThinker
    Here's a short Youtube by Nobel laureate physicist Kip Thorne on black holes ...
  • The Illusory Nature of Free Will
    It is clear to me that I made a choice (on creating this topic) — invicta
    How do you know you could have chosen to do anything else other than what you have done? And if you don't know it, what grounds do you have to assume that you could have not created this topic?
  • Judging moral ‘means’ separately from moral ‘ends’
    What is the difference between moral and non-moral "ends"? moral and non-moral "means"? Can "ends" be moral with non-moral "means" and/or vice versa? Are the relations of "means to ends" different when both are moral from when both are non-moral? Lastly, is tge distinction 'moral and non-moral' between independent, parallel concepts or is one concept dependent on – contingent to, or subset of – the other concept?
  • Nihilism. What does it mean exactly?
    FWIW: My bias is absurdist, not 'nihilist' or 'existentialist'. :cool:

    I take it most nihilists believe that nothing means anything? — TiredThinker
    Nihilism seems to denote that "meaning" is arbitrary, unneeded or ultimately meaningless; this implies that all beliefs and principles, even truthes, are illusions. Thus, nihilists believe "nothing matters"; however, then 'the belief "nothing matters"' itself also doesn't matter. :smirk:

    If nothing has any meaning why aren't more nihilists jumping off bridges and what not?
    I suspect nihilists usually rationalize that "jumping off bridges" is just as meaningless as not "jumping off bridges".

    Where do nihilists believe meaning comes from if it were to be legitimate?
    Make believe (i.e. wishful thinking). Or "God" (i.e. magical thinking).
  • What are you listening to right now?
    [The Beatles] can't exist with just the three of us, but at the same time, we could all be on the stage together I s'pose.

    As far as I'm concerned, there won't be a Beatles reunion as long as John Lennon remains dead.     — George Harrison, 1988 & 1989

    Meet The Threetles
    (tracks by Paul, George & Ringo together)

    "Act Naturally", 1965
    "Love You To", 1966
    "Long, Long, Long", 1968
    "Savoy Truffle", 1968
    "Golden Slumbers", 1969
    "Here Comes the Sun", 1969
    "Maxwell's Silver Hammer",1969
    "I Me Mine", 1970
    "All Those Years Ago", 1981
    "Blue Moon of Kentucky" (live), 1994
  • Our relation to Eternity
    Do you think it’s childish ?

    Grow up!     — invicta
    :lol:
  • Our relation to Eternity
    ↪invicta
    I don't dismiss the mere possibility of "non-physical eternal life", I just don't think it makes sense to say "I hope I never die."
  • Our relation to Eternity
    metaphysical realisation not realization — invicta
    The ultimate (excuse the pun :smirk:) "rationalization".
  • Our relation to Eternity
    ↪invicta
    My point is only this: while it makes sense to say "I hope I win the lottery", it does not make sense to say "I hope I never die".
  • Our relation to Eternity
    ↪invicta
    It also might be a "possibility" that a droplet from the spray of a crashing ocean wave lasts as long as the ocean wave or even the ocean itself, but that is, like the idea that you were never born, invicta, only a mere possibility.

    ↪invicta
    Category error – e.g. a metaphysical concept of "eternal life" in terms of, or equated to, a physical "likelihood".
  • TPF Quote Cabinet
    Literature must be written from the periphery toward the center, and we can criticize the center. Our credo, our theme, or our imagination is that of the peripheral human being. The man who is in the center does not have anything to write. From the periphery, we can write the story of the human being and this story can express the humanity of the center, so when I say the word periphery, this is a most important creed of mine. — Kenzaburō Ōe, d. 2023

    :flower:

    I would not recognize any authority, any value, higher than democracy — Kenzaburō Ōe (1994, referring to the Emperor of Japan)
  • The “Supernatural”
    Given any posited supernatural event, we can modify our understanding of the laws of nature in order to render the event understandable.

    Hence, the notion of a supernatural event is unintelligible.     — Banno
    Nice. :up:
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