Comments

  • Why does language befuddle us?
    I've read several papers by Bitbol on quantum mechanics and didn't find anything remotely quacky about them. — Pierre-Normand
    Ok, then I'll look more deeply into his work and ignore what's on YouTube. However, imho, his seemingly Kantian version of QBism (with its personalist/subjectivist conception of probability) is quackery to me. Thus, I focus on his engagement with Meillassoux (since I'm not a physicist) in assessing Bitbol's philosophy.
  • What is the most uninteresting philosopher/philosophy?
    Heidggers' main question? — Tobias
    "What is the meaning of Being (or Seyn)? I believe is Der Rektor-Führer's "main question"
    ↪180 Proof
    ... At any rate, "why is there anything at all?" on my profile page is just a prompt, or TPF conversation starter – dismissal of the Leibnizian (ontotheo) fetish – and has never been my aporia¹. :smirk:

    (2019)
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/326211 [1]

    I personally believe Heidegger, for the most part, hijacked Husserl's line of investigation and fixated on one tiny aspect of it effectively throwing the entire point of the phenomenology out of the window. — I like sushi
    :up: :up: Btw, I prefer Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology (and those variations derived from, or influenced by, it e.g. David Abram's ecophenomenology, enactivism, etc) to any other version including Husserl's which is much too Cartesian/idealist for me.
  • Why does language befuddle us?
    Fwiw, from one fly looking for my way out of this fly-bottle to another ...
    Regarding the statement about philosophy being the bewitchment of our intelligence by the means of language, then why is that so? — Shawn
    This "bewitchment" happens often when philosophy is meta-discursive, or uses language to talk about language itself. Instead, at minimum, philosophers should make explicit such (usually) implicitly self-referential failures to makes sense as reminders to avoid (or minimize) bewitching themselves further (e.g. with disembodied entities, 'transcendental illusions' & woo-woo) :sparkle:

    I mean to say, why does language behave this way or what makes this true that language going on holiday is all that some philosophy amounts to?
    Language does not "behave this way" or "behave" at all – an example of going on holiday (i.e. nonsense via meta-discourse). This happens whenever a philosopher "behaves this way" (e.g.) attempts to say what is true about 'saying what is true'.

    Science, like philosophy, proceeds only from recognizing its limits: what we do not know in order for us to learn about nature and what we must remain silent about in order to reduce talking nonsense (especially about ourselves), respectively. In this sense, philosophy is prophylactic with respect to language. :mask:

    Michel Bitbol is definitely worth knowing about. — Wayfarer
    Perhaps, but I reserve judgment on Monsieur Bitbol's apparent quantum quackery until an English translation is available of his book Maintenant la finitude. Peut-on penser l'absolu? which is allegedly a critical reply to 'speculative materialist' Q. Meillassoux's brilliant Against Finitude.
  • The Sciences Vs The Humanities
    Or in more traditional Buddhist parlance, 'all compound things are subject to decay' (reputedly the last words of the Buddha.) — Wayfarer
    That's atomist parlance as well. :wink:
  • The Biggest Problem for Indirect Realists
    ↪wonderer1
    :up:
  • The Problem of 'Free Will' and the Brain: Can We Change Our Own Thoughts and Behaviour?
    ↪Jack Cummins
    :up:
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    ↪Fooloso4
    True. :mask:
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    The latest well-documented autopsy of the ever-bloviating, bloated corpse of The Senile Fascist Clown titled Lucky Loser:

    https://ig.ft.com/sites/business-book-award/books/2024/longlist/lucky-loser-by-russ-buettner-and-susanne-craig/ :clap: :mask:
  • What is the most uninteresting philosopher/philosophy?
    There’s no actual summary of his philosophy. — Joshs
    You're right, just a summary of my objections. Heidegger's philosophy: "Nothing noths". :eyes:
  • US Election 2024 (All general discussion)
    Today in Trumpenfreude

    Vote for Trump – what do you have to lose? — The Old Fat Fascist Clown's speech to MAGA suckers and losers

    Roevember is coming! :victory: :lol:

    NASDAQ (DJT :rofl:)

    13Sept24 – $16.12 per share (-31% past month)
    (NASDAQ 17,395.53)     — 180 Proof
    19Sept24 - $14.70 per share :down:
    (NASDAQ 18,013.98) :up:
  • What is the most uninteresting philosopher/philosophy?
    Pretty much what Richard Wolin did in his Heidegger in Ruins book. — Joshs
    I appreciate the mention. Maybe my local public library will have a copy.

    I would love to hear your summary of Heidegger’s philosophy ...
    Gladly. Here's some old posts ...

    (2020) from a thread titled Martin Heiddeger
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/421047
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/431182
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/427142
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/431469

    And from one our an old exchanges
    ↪180 Proof
    which I'm sure you've forgotten. :smirk:
  • The anthropic principle and the Fermi paradox
    ↪RogueAI
    From a distance I think technosignatures are more detectable – but I agree the so-called "Dark Forest" strategy can't work (and is, due to interstellar distances, unnecessary).
  • What is the most uninteresting philosopher/philosophy?
    ↪Mikie
    I've been a Chomsky fan boy since the early 80s but not for his "philosophy" per se.

    I would love to hear your summation of Heidegger’s contribution to philosophy. — Joshs
    Well, fwiw, I'd begin here ...

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/790451

    ... and whose "thought" has engendered a few pseudo-intellectual (according to Chomsky et al) generations of "post-truth" p0m0 populism. No doubt, Heidi is very important but, imho, more as a negative example – how not to philosophize – than anything else. :mask:
  • Was intelligence in the universe pre-existing?
    My view is pantheistic more than anything and probably Spinozist. — kindred
    Afaik, Spinoza is an acosmist² and not a "pantheist"¹ like (e.g.) Hegel.

    (2023)
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/825698 [1]

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acosmism [2]
  • Was intelligence in the universe pre-existing?
    What is wrong with saying life/intelligence not just emerged but it has been there all along just not manifested to what we today recognise as life ? — kindred
    Nothing except saying that amounts to an evidence-free fairytale – pseudo-science (e.g. "intelligent design") or pseudo-philosophy (e.g. "vitalism, panpsychism") – that does not explain anything.

    Isn’t it like looking at the mechanism of a clock ...
    No. As I've previously pointed out, the "clock analogy" doesn't work.
  • The Problem of 'Free Will' and the Brain: Can We Change Our Own Thoughts and Behaviour?
    ↪Jack Cummins
    Apparently, you don't recognize the relevance of my paraphrase of Nietzsche. :meh:

    I imagine that AGI will not primarily benefit humans, and will eventually surpass us in every cognitive way. Any benefits to us, I also imagine (best case scenario), will be fortuitous by-products of AGI's hyper-productivity in all (formerly human) technical, scientific, economic and organizational endeavors. 'Civilization' metacognitively automated by AGI so that options for further developing human culture (e.g. arts, recreation, win-win social relations) will be optimized – but will most of us / our descendants take advantage of such an optimal space for cultural expression or just continue amusing ourselves to death? :chin:

    Thus, as I've already pointed out, the human "need for wisdom" (e.g. ethics, aesthetics, metaphysics) will remain to be cultivated by us reflectively and dialectically (like other modes of hygiene & fitness) so long as the human condition (i.e. facticity) remains.– the advent itself of AGI will not change that. And compatibilism (re: embodied metacognitive volition, ergo moral agency) suffices, so I don't see it's conceptualization as either paradoxical or problematic (i.e. like the MBP, "free will vs determinism" is a pseudo-problem).
  • Was intelligence in the universe pre-existing?
    If life came from non-life can’t you say it was there all along ? — kindred
    We can say anything without evidence.

    For how could it emerge if it wasn’t?
    We don't know yet.
  • Was intelligence in the universe pre-existing?
    ↪kindred
    One data point is not evidence.
  • Was intelligence in the universe pre-existing?
    Intelligence precedes the universe, and has eternally existed independently of it and it’s manifestation in nature is inevitable. — kindred
    Merely an article of faith. :sparkle: :eyes:
  • The Problem of 'Free Will' and the Brain: Can We Change Our Own Thoughts and Behaviour?
    So, what I am querying is for whose benefit is AGI? — Jack Cummins
    AGI's "benefit" in the long run. To paraphrase Freddy Zarathustra: Man is rope stretched between animal and AGI ... :smirk:

    Surely, what we need is more wisdom...
    Nothing I've speculated on above is incompatible with your/my need for wisdom.
  • Was intelligence in the universe pre-existing?
    ↪kindred
    :roll:
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    I did not find him [Trump] crazy.
    — L'éléphant

    Eating dogs and cats, and after birth abortion isn’t cray cray where you’re from?     — praxis
    We can only hope L'éléphant is not a voting-age US citizen. :mask:
  • Was intelligence in the universe pre-existing?
    ↪kindred
    Repeating anthropomorphic fallacies does not make them any less fallacious. And yes, brains are intelligent, livers & gonads are not. :smirk:
  • The Problem of 'Free Will' and the Brain: Can We Change Our Own Thoughts and Behaviour?
    The nature of childhood trauma and development of AGI are different. — Jack Cummins
    :roll: Strawman. I never claimed or implied anything about "childhood trauma".

    It signifies the idea replacing human beings with the non-human.
    Only to conspiracy paranoids who are terrified of a robo-apocalypse (e.g. The Terminator). Nonsense non sequitur.

    Do you not see this as being problematic at all?
    I don't have this "problem", Jack :sweat:
  • Was intelligence in the universe pre-existing?
    Are you saying the universe is non-intelligent irrespective if there is intelligent life in it ? — kindred
    Yes. 'Intelligence' is an emergent feature of sufficiently complex living systems.

    intelligent laws of physics
    Wtf :roll: Now a genetic fallacy. They are not "intelligent", the physicists are. Physical laws are only invariant features – artifacts – of physical theories.

    It’s like looking at the mechanism of a clock ...
    Since "a clock" presupposes the universe, an analogy of "clock" to "universe" does not work.
  • Was intelligence in the universe pre-existing?
    ... because the universe contains intelligence it would make it an intelligent universe — kindred
    Compositional fallacy. :roll:
  • What is your definition of an existent/thing?
    Energy and mass aren't existents (per se), they are properties of things that exist, and they can be converted to each other (that's entailed by E=MC^2). — Relativist
    :100:
  • If you were God, what would you do?
    So, supposing you were a deity, what would you do and why? — Benj96
    I would not ever do anything and be eternally at peace with that.

    What would be your characteristics?
    Blissful contentment.

    As in how would you define yourself?
    I wouldn't define myself or anything else ever.

    And what would be your motives?
    To be.

    Would you be an active force in the world/reality or merely a passive observer?
    Neither. My eternal bliss would be complete (or sufficient enough) for me to be forever oblivious of everything including myself.
  • What is your definition of an existent/thing?
    energy are massless (not physical) eg a photon, — Benj96
    :roll:

    Photons are physical. Energy is physical action. And phenomonology pertains only to organic subjectivity, not to "not physical photons".

    ↪Moliere
    :up:
  • Was intelligence in the universe pre-existing?
    What else is there besides vacuum fluctuations? — Fire Ologist
    Lots of "somethings": fields, excitations, density patterns, nucleogenesis, black holes ... you & I, etc. This universe has dynamic contents whereas (possibly) most other universes do not.
  • Was intelligence in the universe pre-existing?
    the universe is only an expanding (cooling, or entropic) vacuum fluctuation that is/was random / acausal / non-intelligent.
    — 180 Proof

    Would you say that explains everything?     — Fire Ologist
    It only "explains" the planck era of the universe which excludes "intelligence" (re: @kindred's OP).

    Seems to me that is an explanation for everything.
    You are mistaken (hasty generalization).
  • The Problem of 'Free Will' and the Brain: Can We Change Our Own Thoughts and Behaviour?
    ↪Jack Cummins
    So how is the "ideological influences" on the development of prospective AGI different – worse – than those affecting human childhood-adolescent development? You (Mr Ball) seems to believe without warrant that AGI will be incapable of learning how to think outside of ideological boxes the way (some) humans do.

    Again, reread and address the rest of my post ...
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/932449
  • Was intelligence in the universe pre-existing?
    something can’t come from nothing — kindred
    Non-life =/= "nothing". Also, vacuum is not-a-thing (i.e. not-something aka "nothing") =/= nothing-ness (i.e. im-possibility aka "an impossible world"); "some-thing" is just a fluctuation / phase-state of not-a-thing (i.e. not-something) like order is a phase-state – dissipative structure – of disorder (i.e. chaos). Ergo the universe is only an expanding (cooling, or entropic) vacuum fluctuation that is/was random / acausal / non-intelligent.
  • Was intelligence in the universe pre-existing?
    Then you could equate life with intelligence ... — kindred
    No, I surmise that they are independent, discrete properties which rarely overlap.

    ... and you’d be saying that intelligence is a rare property of non-life
    Yes.

    we do know that something has always existed
    How do you/we "know" this?

    pre big bang world
    This phrase is nonsense. "World" (i.e. universe) is an effect of the Big Bang. "Pre-big bang" cannot be a "world".
  • Can the existence of God be proved?
    How then is [only so called for a point of mutual focus] God to be conceived of, absolutely? — ENOAH
    Spinoza's Deus, sive natura is conceptually coherent enough for me (& Einstein).
  • Can the existence of God be proved?
    ↪ENOAH
    Well, if theism is not true or noncognitive, then "God" conceived of this way is factually disproven (i.e. demonstrably not the case, nonexistent).
  • Was intelligence in the universe pre-existing?
    Would you then agree that non-life has the potential to give rise to life and intelligence? — kindred
    No. "Life" is, as best we can tell, merely a very rare property of non-life.

    Would you also then agree that at the very least intelligence is a potential in the universe?
    No, it's actually manifest. "Intelligence" is, in its most basic form, the capability of adapting to change inherent in complex agent systems – both living and artificial.

    ↪kindred
    Okay, a quasi-animist.
  • Was intelligence in the universe pre-existing?
    you can’t get something from nothing just like you can’t get life from non-life — kindred
    Nonsense – "non-life" is not "nothing". :roll:

    Besides, order emerges from disorder (e.g. vacuum fluctuations, hurricanes, languages)

    And if "you can't get life from non-life", then either (A) everything is alive, (B) nothing is alive – "life" is an illusion or (C) biogenesis is a miracle – product of divine/transcendent intelligence aka "God". Which do you "believe", kindred?
  • Was intelligence in the universe pre-existing?
    So you don’t believe that these processes exhibit intelligence from an anthropic perspective? — kindred
    No, I minimize judgments based on my anthropomorphic bias as much as possible.

    If so then why would non-life lead to life? (Abiogenesis)
    There is no "why" for "non-life" processes.

    or put more simply how do you get intelligence from non-intelligence?
    We do not know how yet. Scientists are still working to crack that nut.

    You can’t.
    How do you/we know this?
  • Was intelligence in the universe pre-existing?
    ↪kindred
    I do not conflate intelligence and self-organizing processes. Do you equate intelligence with agency? Are you an animist? It seems to me your pan-intelligencism, like pan-psychism, is just a (reductionist) compositional fallacy – if local-temporal / particular "int", then global-eternal / universal "INT". :roll:
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