"Too young to die?"

SIDS.

Otherwise, any age is fair game since growing old – tomorrow – ain't promised to any living thing.

:death: :flower:

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For me, the last decade or so I've been reflectively summing up a lifetime of study and peak experiences, hardships and beneficial failures. I'm still on the endless road, but these days looking back and forward simultaneously. Philosophy has been a whetstone for honing metacognitive skills, or "tools" as @T Clark says, which widen and deepen understanding (of misery, ignorance, unreality, conflict, dying), wherein, IME, 'knowing thy self-limits' is only a small, though disproportionately significant, part.

I have become more culturally conservative (small "C") with age and yet less politically Conservative (not that I ever was so in my left-anarchist youth), just more careful, or as @BC says more personally "risk-adverse". I've always been both anti-auto(theo/pluto/techno)cratic and anti-utopian as I am today. (NB: Perhaps, though, I'm a touch millenarian in the form of 'the coming technology singularity'... ) Anyway, "woke" is a joke to me, though maybe a necessary (or zeitgeist) joke. I'm disgusted with the decadent, secondary fronts of "identity-politics" (particularly, though not exclusively, in the US) and social media-infantilizing trigger of reactive populisms "on both sides of the aisle" even among the marginally better educated and managed polities of the EU.

Growing old is inevitable but it's abundantly clear growing-up – outgrowing childish "fears" & "hopes" (i.e. superstitions & faiths) is not. Well along in my 60th year, I find myself even more cognitively isolated from my peers (and family) than I'd felt in previous decades. C'est la vie. Aging and philosophy and some hard-won worldliness have made me more solitary and less lonely than I was in my 20s-30s. Bruises and scars can be good company. And books. No doubt many of us are here on TPF as a respite from the daily crucible of companionable silence and small talk (... with ourselves). Or just for kicks. :cool:

I find that I value patience more than when young. — jgill

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Nope. It seems to me supernatural is synonymous with necessaeily fictional (i.e. impossible).

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:100: Unfortunately, @Wayfarer seems acutely alleergic to contrary evidence.

In philosophy I'd say 'things that exist = beings.' — bert1

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Supernatural: a phenomenon or entity beyond the laws of nature. — Art48

I think "beyond" is too vague; more precisely, 'any X that contradicts, or is inconsistent with, the laws of nature' is what I understand by "supernatural".

It is an axiom of materialism that
[ ... ] — Wayfarer

:roll:

'Materiality' corresponds to embodied change and 'immateriality' (e.g. idealism) to disembodied change. Yes, the latter doesn't make sense and the former seems (too) reductive / mechanical. Nonetheless, insofar as there are 'subjectivities', at minimum they are material persons – embodied self-referential phenomenal systems – and not ghosts, Wayfarer. Speculations, or paradigms, which include ghosts (i.e. disembodied "minds") are more conceptually incoherent and inexplicable than – no matter how incomplete (e.g. eliminative) – those which do not. Nothing you have written here (or elsewhere) – not ad infinitum appeals to authority citations – persuasively challenges my preceding statement. A non-fallacious counterpoint in your own words, sir, would be a refreshing, and no doubt edifying, welcomed change in your m.o. :clap:

Well done, and more or less my take on Kant's project as well. My question, apparently, wasn't clearly stated or precisely focused, but your precis gives me an opportunity to nail it down more concretely. Consider ...

My thinking:

IF Kant is an "empirical realist",

and if "empirical" denotes how something is experienced or appears to us

and if Kant's ding-an-sich, or "in itself", denotes reality,

THEN, for the "empirical realist", appearances (i.e. "phenomena") are reality – or only aspects of reality;

THEREFORE, "for us"-"in itself" is a distinction without a difference either epistemically or onticly.

My re-question:

Where does my thinking about (the implications of) Kant's "empirical realism" go wrong? :chin:

:pray: :lol:

I spoke to an observant Jewish man once who told me he hated god and loved him in equal measures because life was so unfair and tragic. To me this just sounds like living with an abusive partner. — Tom Storm

Also, isn't obeying "the command to love God" (by God!) akin to consensual rape or willing slavery? Toxic. :mask:

Of course. — Wayfarer

So you can't even honestly reply without a wall of quoted texts to this poll . Pathetic. :shade:

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@universeness @ucarr

Again I could care less about any of your propaganda.
— NOS4A2

The Senate Intelligence Committee findings, led by eight Republicans and seven Democrats. are not my "propaganda". The fact that the Trump Organization was found guilty of fraud is not my "propaganda". The grand jury's indictment recommendations in the Georgia investigation into election interference are not my "propaganda". — Fooloso4

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Just a guess, but I've always had a strong suspicion, based soley on his/her posts, that @NOS4A2 is someone who desperately needs to be lied to by FOX Noise, OANN, Newsmax, Alex Jones, Steve Bannon, Pravda (RT) and other wingnut media. :mask:

Here's some more "propaganda" for NOS:
Making
Attorneys
Get
Attorneys

:victory: :smirk:

Consider assigning a time frame such as another 10,000 years, where will AI be then? — universeness

Simulating "pocket" universes. :nerd:

Do you really think AI will remain a mere human appendage?

If and when strong – self-aware – AGI 'emerges', human intelligence will be obsolete.

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Btw, on an adjacent topic which you might be more willing – able – to answer directly: the conception that is most consistent with your metaphysical outlook / commitment is

A. The universe emerged from intelligence.

B. Intelligence/s emerged from the universe.

C. The universe emerged from 'infinite' intelligence, then 'finite' intelligence/s emerged from the universe.

D. The universe itself is intelligent.

E. Either the universe or intelligence or both are illusions (maya).

As a naturalist I find that B is most consistent internally as well as with all that we know scientifically – publicly – so for about narure.

I say that beings are subjects of experience, which is a simple fact. — Wayfarer

So "simple" that you can demonstrate this and yet haven't bothered to – why? Just because you keep saying it doesn't make your definition a "fact". :roll:

Quoting a secondary source in no way refutes H's conspicuous use of the terms which I pointed out; also, your post doesn't even address how your idiosyncratic usage of "being", as @Jamal has argued, is justified in public discourse.

:100: :smirk:

Assuming 'self-referential phenomenological processes' constitute subjectivity ...

... Subject-things
Object-things

Objects with subjects¹ (e.g. persons)
Objects without subjects² (i.e. things).

The term 'being' (Sein) seems superfluous and anachronistic. Anyway, I agree with @Jamal and – no surprise – disagree with @Wayfarer's usage. Consider Heidegger's anti-cartesian denotations:

Da-sein (existence, in-der-Welt-sein)¹
Seiendes (beings, things)²

Or if one prefers:

subject-beings¹
nonsubject-beings²

Ask Wayfarer about his terminology. I tried to tease out the implications that call his terms in question, but not to much effect.

You'd have to read Wayfarer's post from which I quoted and responded to with my post.

If you ask whether the person is still a person to themselves when they are not conscious, I don't think the question makes any sense. — T Clark

I agree, and this is not the question I've asked.

"It's moving but it's not sentimental."

How do you get to the belief that the concept of God is nonsense? — Moliere

Speaking for myself, I start and then stop at 'what we say about g/G', that is, 'what religious scriptures attribute to (the) deity', and assess them as claims which are either true, false or incoherent. I don't bother with addressing g/G itself. As far as I can discern it, theism – its sine qua non claims about g/G – consists of both false and incoherent claims; and an idea (e.g. theism) of a deity ascribed false or incoherent properties is a nonsensical idea, no? So theism is not true, to my mind, whether or not '(the) deity is real'.

I suspect where we land often boils down to people's aesthetic experience of the world. The idea of a transcendent being (magic man) seems right and beautiful to some folks, wrong and ugly to others. — Tom Storm

Yet isn't applying "aesthetic" (like epistemological) preferences to answering ontological questions a category mistake to begin with?

What is computation? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Here's the first in a series of lectures by one of the founders of 'quantum computational theory' David Deutsch which explains in summary the fundamental nature of computation as a quantum process underlying all classical processes like e.g. the 'Universal Turing Machine'.

It would be prudent to avoid that presumption. — Wayfarer

And likewise also prudent to dismiss your statement about a "non-conscious being" which implies such a presumption.

becoming as difference — Joshs

Explain how this "idea" follows from a distinction of "existence and being".

Does it count that I once dreamt I was a toilet? — Joshs

Possibly. :sweat:

:cool: :party:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/557684

A non-conscious being is not actually 'a being' but an object or a thing — Wayfarer

So while sleeping or comatose, a person is just a "thing", and not a "being", like a sofa or toilet?

I think Carl is paraphrasing Descartes. Like Descartes, it appears he has it ontologically backwards. — Mikie

Idealists (i.e. spiritualists) like Jung just ignore Sartre's pre-cogito maxim "existence preceeds essence".

:clap: :cool:


"Shake" (2:35)
Otis Blue, 1965
writer Sam Cooke, 1964
performer Otis Redding

Friday, peeps! .. and missing all "my ex-wives" :yum:

Besides quoting @universeness, Albert Einstein and myself out of context in order to bark at shadows of strawmen dancing on the walls of your thin-skinned thick skull, sir, it's also fair and reasonable to remind you that your "Enformer"-of-the-gaps dogma is in no way remotely comparable logically or metaphysically to what Einstein loosely refers to as "the God of Spinoza". :cool:

Every snakeoil charlatan strives to "bedazzle 'em with bullshit" but, of course, only you, O Sage "Enformer" of this site's Quantum-Woo Crew, are bedazzled. :sparkle: :sweat:

There is of course the basic dualistic character of Kant's philosophy in the sense of phenomena/ noumena or for us/ in itself, but that just reflects the ineliminably dualistic nature of all our thinking, and in no way entails substance dualism. — Janus

I read Kant's "dualistic thinking" as (an attempt at) 'ontologizing epistemology' (i.e. reify knowing) by designating "for us" the tip "phenomena" of the iceberg "in itself" above the water line "noumena". So on what grounds does Kant posit the "in itself" from which he then conjures-up the "for us" to 'retro-construct' with various "transcendental" sleights-of-mind?

God doesn't exist. Sure. So why in the world does this idea have so much influence today, and why did it have influence before? — Moliere

Read e.g. Zapffe's "The Last Messah", Nietzsche's The Antichrist, Feuerbach's The Essence of Christianity or Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico-Politicus ... to start.

Good luck trying to explain something that is beyond human experience and understanding [Non-manifest Image] in terms of human experience and understanding [Manifest Image]. — Janus

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Maybe you can succinctly explain to me, Janus – what @Wayfarer obviously can't (re: ) – the function of "transcendental idealism" in contrast to "empirical realism".

The only thing with intelligence in the entire galaxy is humanity. — Leftist

What rational grounds do you have to make such a statement? Filling a bucket with sea water, as we have with our massive, powerful telescopes in the last century or so since Edwin Hubble, and not finding a whale in it, does not entail there aren't any whales in the sea, does it?

Note -- I look forward to the next smirking reply from ↪180 Proof satirizing Einstein's spooky woo-woo nature-worship. — Gnomon

The only thing "spooky woo woo" about Einstein is your (willful?) misunderstanding of him and his work which suits your "Enformer"-of-the-gaps tilts at windwills. :sparkle:

I acknowledge that "possibilty", I even imagine it's dramatized at the end of 2001 (re: "nano sapiens / transcension" if you recall).

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Juju (42:07), 1965
Wayne Shorter - ts (d. 2023)
McCoy Tyner - p
Reggie Workman - b
Elvin Jones - d

Another non sequitur. :clap: