Comments

  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    So Crikey are being sued by Murdoch for this:

    Trump is a confirmed unhinged traitor. And Murdoch is his unindicted co-conspirator     — Banno
    :sweat: :up:

    Thanks for the link.
  • The Postmodern Nietzsche
    What does postmodernism make of Nietzsche? — Tate
    As far as I can tell, purveyors of p0m0 reduce N to his "there are no facts, only interpretations" (which, ontologically generalized out-of-context, entails(?) some sort of pan-aestheticism after N's so-called "the death of metaphysics" and "psychosocial deflation of morality"). For p0m0, it seems only caricatures – subjective interpretations – of N (or any text) are deemed "significant" :eyes:

    Do they morph him to something out of context?
    Yes. They deny (without philological scruple) 'authorial intent', so N is every reader's "N", that is, whatever each reader (milieu?) can make of "N". In practice, p0m0 readings "transvaluate" him (any text) into a rorschach-like "signifier" :mask:

    Or does it end up being more faithful than faithful to the ground breaking philosopher/proto-psychologist?
    :clap: :lol:
  • Morality vs Economic Well-Being
    I reject him [Schopenhauer] as being somewhat right about the premise and quite wrong about the conclusion. — apokrisis
    :clap: :100:
  • Philosophy vs Science
    ↪A Christian Philosophy
    Special pleading.
  • Authenticity and Identity: What Does it Mean to Find One's 'True' Self?
    t may be that there is no 'true' self and it is a mythic concept. — Jack Cummins
    ... ergo anatta. :flower:

    NB: Hume's "bundle", Nietzsche's "competing drives", Parfit's "continuity", Metzinger's "phenomenal self model", embodied cognition,
    etc.
  • Perspective on Karma
    ↪ThinkOfOne
    I offered my interpretation of the idea of "karma"
    ↪180 Proof
    . You've dismissed it without thoughtful (i.e. non-trivial) consideration, which exposes your dogmatic vapidity. I won't waste anymore of your time or mine; the last thoughtless word is, of course, yours ...
  • Could we be living in a simulation?
    Quoted on an old thread "Reality As An Illusion"
    I have known many gods. He who denies them is as blind as he who trusts them too deeply. I seek not beyond death. It may be the blackness averred by the Nemedian skeptics, or Crom's realm of ice and cloud, or the snowy plains and vaulted halls of the Nordheimer's Valhalla. I know not, nor do I care. Let me live deep while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat and stinging wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle when the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content. Let teachers and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.
    ~Conan the Cimmerian, "Queen of the Black Coast" (1934)     — 180 Proof
    :death: :flower:
  • Authenticity and Identity: What Does it Mean to Find One's 'True' Self?
    I don't think there is a true self. — Tom Storm
    :up:
  • Perspective on Karma
    ↪ThinkOfOne
    C'mon, you keep trying to pin me down to the scripture you've repeatedly cited throughout this thread discussion. That's dogmatic. My "reading comprehension and critical thinking" are fine, BlinkOffOn; it's your own inconsistency / disingenuousness that's troubling you.
  • The potential of AI
    Do you think artificial consciousness/ sentience is possible without understanding exactly how consciousness works? — Benj96
    AI / AGI does not need to be "conscious" (whatever that means) to function, and probably will be more controllable by us / themselves as well as better off without "consciousness" as a (phenomenological? affective?) bottleneck.

    Lastly do you think AI has more chance of being beneficial or of being detrimental to humanity. What do you think AI would offer to us - huge advancement or sinister manipulation and slavery.
    Both, as I've pointed out
    ↪180 Proof
    . :nerd: And, anyway, aren't cripples in some sense "slaves" to their crutches which make / keep them crippled?
  • Authenticity and Identity: What Does it Mean to Find One's 'True' Self?
    in some ways the loss of God as the significant other may lead to a far greater narcissism — Jack Cummins
    Insofar as "God" is a three-letter swear word for ego, I believe my own "loss of God" made me less ego-centric rather than more, though not nearly as other-centric as Buber seems (or, even moreso, Levinas). The I-Thou relationship without "the eternal Thou" (or thou separate from the I-Thou encounter) speaks morally and existentially to me; and so, paraphrasing the famed Cartesian bumpersticker, You (We) are, therefore I am. :smirk:
  • Authenticity and Identity: What Does it Mean to Find One's 'True' Self?
    ↪Joshs
    :up:

    I am asking the question of what it means to find the "true" self. It is a fairly complex question because it involves the social and existential sense of selfhood? How important is the idea of a 'true' self? To what extent is the self bound up with relationships with others, or as being, alone, in relation to the wider cosmos, and making sense of this? — Jack Cummins
    To my mind, in sum, each one of us is a heteronomous¹ (e.g. natal-embodied, socialized, historicized ...) being who, at best, strives for integrity – to do what one says and say what one does – in living according to one's ability to keep one's expectations aligned, or consistent, with reality.

    ¹ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heteronomy
  • Could we be living in a simulation?
    ↪Yohan
    The point being ...?
  • Morality vs Economic Well-Being
    Do we need to do a deep dive on entropy? Because it's not the universal entity you seem to be suggesting it is. — Tate
    Cite an exception of a phenomenon that is notvsubject to either informational or thermodynamic or cosmological entropy. :yawn:
  • Why do we die?
    ↪dclements
    Death is the cause, IMO, rather than the effect of aging, regardless of how long the organism lasts. The difference in species longevity it seems is primarily a function of the degree to which biological aging (e.g. cellular senescence) lags behind chronological age. I've speculated for decades that a "fundamental cure for cancer" might be derived from discovering the exact (genetic) mechanisms in cells which switch on or off senescence and thereby allow for tissue / organ specific control of aging. CRISPR might be a plausible technique for such an intervention. TBD.

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/655900
  • Why scientists shouldn't try to do philosophy
    After lunch everyone laughed at Fermi's outburst, Where is everybody!?

    Famous scientists can be sophomoric just like amateur philosophers on TPF.     — jgill
    :smirk: :up:
  • Philosophy vs Science
    A christian philosophy would be ... — A Christian Philosophy
    "Do this in rememberance of Me."
    ~Luke 22:19, 1 Corinthians 11:24

    :point: Remember Jesus by living like Jesus (i.e. @every moment "WWJD?" :halo:)

    I have always interpreted "do this ..." as Jesus' philosophy – teaching by' example – 'a way of living and dying and living again.' :fire:

    However, a dozen years of Catholic school education and bible study (along with a decade (second to twelth grades) of altarboy service) and I'd never observed a single "christian" who'd come close to living as Jesus had lived. I'd realized before I'd graduated from my Jesuit-run high school that Dostoyevsky's "Grand Inquisitor" was probably right. And then early in my university career, I'd recognized a Truth I hadn't consciously known that I had known all along:
    The very word 'Christianity' is a misunderstanding – at bottom there was only one Christian, and he died on the cross. — The Antichrist, aphorism 39
    "Christian philosophy" too, it seems, had died on that cross with the first and last Christian. :eyes:

    NB: Some years later I'd come across Rabbi Hillel the Elder's distillation of Torah (which seems to have been the seed of Jesus' purported "Kingdom ministry")
    Whatever you find hateful [harmful], do not do to anyone.
    The ethical – Jewish – roots of Jesus' teachings were subsequently lost or buried by millennia of Christian theologians, their proselytizing merchants and the faithful/gullible. Read (e.g.) Buber, Heschel, Levinas. :fire:
  • Morality vs Economic Well-Being
    For Nietzsche it [will to power] is about self-transformation , not survival. — Joshs
    :fire:

    Power was always the wrong term for the universal thermodynamic imperative. The Cosmos is about the will to entropify.

    The dialectic is then that it must have negentropic structure to achieve that. So power becomes the ability to do that work - construct the engines of dissipation.

    Or at least that is how ecology and systems science now understands the general situation.     — apokrisis
    :100:

    (i.e local order accelerates global disorder).

    We need a whole new way of conceptualizing our world, it's not just tinkering with existing systems, or adjusting our priorities. That kind of change takes time we don't have. — Tom Storm
    :yikes:
  • Are blackholes and singularities synonymous?
    There's no reason to assume blackholes are singularities to begin with. — boethius
    :100:
  • Morality vs Economic Well-Being
    Nietzsche wasn't clear about what he meant. — Tate
    :roll:

    Will to power is a drive to dominate the environment. — Tate
    IIRC, Freddy teaches we ought to strive – repurpose (cultivate) the "will to power" drive – to dominate ourselves first and foremost (e.g. via the existential-psychological challenge of "the eternal recurrence of the same"). Synonymous with a will to create oneself (i.e. "become who you are"). This way of becoming oneself transvaluates – goes "beyond" – rules for conforming ("good") & blaming ("evil") into habits of affirming ("Good") & not affirming ("Bad"). :fire:

    Oh god, Deleuze. That idiot. — Tate
    Apparently, I gave you too much credit, Tate. You're just nother D-Ker banging your head on a keyboard. Good luck with all that. :sweat:
  • How can there be billionaires while good people are dying?
    ↪Ciceronianus
    :smirk:
  • Morality vs Economic Well-Being
    Morality is about blaming [ ... ] — Tate
    True of "Christian" morality, but not e.g. virtue ethics or negative utilitarianism.
  • Is logic an artificial construct or something integral to nature
    ↪Benj96
    Here is my rule of thumb for how logic functions (how we use it) in the grand, perpetual project of making sense of our experiences (and their limitations):
    Grammar functions as a heuristic scaffolding for generating discursive practices (e.g. semantic patterns).

    Logic functions as an algorithmic scaffolding for generating syntatical structures (e.g. mathematics).

    Mathematics functions as a manifold of algorithmic scaffoldings for constructing repeatable tests in the natural sciences.

    Sciences (natural & historical) function as heuristic scaffoldings for describing (i.e. map-making) and explaining (i.e. model-making) natural / historical fact-patterns and their transformational conditions-algorithms.
    I don't see the need to reify logic itself (à la e.g. Plato, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hegel et al), even though it's "integral" to discursive reasoning about reality.
  • Are we ready for extraterrestrial life ?
    Setting the distance/durability problems aside, I guess we'd better discover them before they discover us. — jorndoe
    For (our) peace of mind's sake, no doubt. My guess is that's very unlikely; it seems more likely they (ETI) have discovered, even rediscovered, us (Earth) and passed by on their way to more interesting destinations. :smirk:

    ↪javi2541997
    My own take on the "dark forest" analogy is much less anthropic (or anthropocentric) than Liu Cixin's. Here are links to old posts on two old threads:

    "The Fermi Paradox & The Dark Forest"
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/387545 (with 2 more deeper links)

    "Aliens!"
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/437155
  • Why do we die?
    ↪dclements
    In a word, entropy 'kills' all complex organisms eventually. And lacking a well-understood theory of the cell (and, therefore, e.g. the human body as a whole system), at best we're only taking shots in the phenomenological dark treating symptoms and not the underlying problems which result in death. That said, here's an old post where I speculate (wantonly) on the topic:
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/384334

    :death: :flower:
  • Sanna Marin
    ↪Benkei
    Yes, of course.
  • Could we be living in a simulation?
    ↪Benj96
    What difference would it make to our existence whether or not "we live in a simulation"?
  • The End of the Mechanistic Worldview
    ↪Tzeentch
    IME, one feature of most modern sciences and philosophies that is distinctly modern is the focus "acknowledging their boundaries". That they are often misused results more from intellectual failings (i.e. Hume's habits of mind) than expressing a "worldview". It seems to be, Tzeentch, you're guilty of misusing the concept "worldview" by applying in overly-broad strokes (à la when you're hammer, everything looks like a nail). :chin:

    NB: Though a pedantic point, it's significant to note, as the article linked in my last post makes clear, that I referred to methodological physicalism – a criterion for evaluating scientific theories – and not the "all is physical" of metaphysical physicalism.
  • The End of the Mechanistic Worldview
    ↪Tzeentch
    Do you consider the combination of philosophical realism (e.g. immanentism, actualism, disutilitarianism) + methodological naturalism (e.g. physicalism) as belonging to a "mechanistic worldview"?

    (Links provided for clarification )
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    If anything, Trump is merely a symptom of a greater problem. — Merkwurdichliebe
    :100:
  • Are we ready for extraterrestrial life ?
    Clearly, if Einstein is correct, light speed/faster than light speed travel is impossible ... — Agent Smith
    Old Uncle Albert is correct and yet it's physically possible (not yet demonstrated to be technically possible) to travel at – not accelerate to – the speed of light e.g. the proposed Alcubierre drive.

    :nerd: NB: I think AFAL propulsion (my guess – (somehow) negating the Higgs fields around a spacecraft effectively making its atoms massless like photons / neutrinos) is far more plausible than FTL propulsion (SR suggests sends the spacecraft back in time); also, that STL velocities at or greater than .2C transforms the interstellar vacuum into extremely "hot" plasma, so significant relativistic speed transits will have to be "around" rather through spacetime. "Warp drive" or "stargate" or "hyperspace" (à la Kip Thorne's idea in Interstellar) – some "sufficiently advanced technology ..." – so if and when ETI show up any millennium soon in this solar system (let alone in Earth's orbit) their starship will be almost certainly "indistinguishable from magic" to us (or our descendents). Think: Monolith :monkey:
  • The End of the Mechanistic Worldview
    ↪schopenhauer1
    :up:
  • Are we ready for extraterrestrial life ?
    ↪Nils Loc
    :nerd: :up:
  • Is knowledge a prerequisite to wisdom?
    wisdom without knowledge — TiredThinker
    I.e. elderly with dementia.
  • The End of the Mechanistic Worldview
    ↪schopenhauer1
    The OP doesn't equate "the mechanistic worldview" with "scientism" (at least, not explicitly as far as I can tell) and the OP frames this thread discussion, so my "drive-by" disnissal of your non sequitur apples to oranges comparison stands. (Btw, no "hypothetical persons" were made to suffer while writing the post ) :smirk:
  • Conceptualizing Cosmic Consciousness
    ↪Pantagruel
    Poetry/mythology. As I've said "you're welcome to it." :roll:
  • Perspective on Karma
    ↪ThinkOfOne
    You're the one in denial. :point:
    Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 4.4.5-6 — ThinkOfOne
    Scriptural dogma. :sweat:
  • The End of the Mechanistic Worldview
    ↪schopenhauer1
    The comparison you make is false, schop1, and confuses the issue much more than it clarifies as your post (the one I'd quoted) shows.
  • Perspective on Karma
    ↪ThinkOfOne
    I see. You're concerned with scriptural dogma and I'm concern with conceptual analysis. My mistake for attempting to draw you (& others) out of a mythological cul de sac and into an open philosophical discussion. Pax. :victory:
  • The End of the Mechanistic Worldview
    evolution (Richard Dawkins type emphasis) vs. Schopenhauer's idea of Will. — schopenhauer1
    Apples and oranges. :roll:
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