The randomness introduced by quantum mechanical processes means that the Earth itself didn't even form in the vast majority of hypothetical timelines, nevermind all the variables and choices that led to my specific birth, or the coincidence that I was among the matter that formed a rare habitable planet in the first place. — Dogbert

Quantum mechanics doesn’t have anything to do with it. It also doesn’t matter whether or not there is an Earth. There are possibly sextillions of other planets in the known universe. It strikes me, with no specific evidence, life might be very common.

If you think about all the ways in which the universe could have unfolded, the percentage of those timelines in which my consciousness was elevated from commonplace matter into sapience is practically zero. — Dogbert

How do you know this is true? It doesn’t seem obvious to me at all. That doesn’t mean I think you’re wrong, just that it seems like an unsupported statement.

Mr. Gower would’ve lost his drugstore.
My brother would’ve drowned when he fell through the ice.
The old savings and loan would’ve gone out of business.
Mary would’ve been an old maid.

Questions about abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, or welfare aren't merely about administrative effectiveness; they rest on moral judgments about the value of life, autonomy, and justice. Even framing them as ‘policy’ decisions already reflects a moral stance. — Tom Storm

Let’s say I think abortion is a bad thing and I would like to promote policy solutions to address that. Here are some suggestions - effective sex education, easily accessible birth control, medical and social support for pregnant women, support for adoption, affordable childcare…

How does your 'individualist' approach impact upon issues like abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, welfare for poor people, etc. — Tom Storm

I don’t see these as moral issues. I see them as policy issues. Do the laws and regulations that address these issues protect and serve the members of society in an appropriate way?

I'm not sure I understand those quotes. If they're just saying that we make our choices based on our own conscience then we are bound to admit that that includes Pol Pot and doesn't get us very far in deciding what is right or wrong in society. — Tom Storm

I think we have had this discussion before. Dealing with Pol Pot doesn’t involve morality, it involves control. Things like that need to be stopped, not because they’re bad but because they hurt people. It’s a society‘s responsibility to protect its members.

Morality, as I understand it, applies to my judgments of my own behavior. How do I decide how to behave? Here’s my favorite quote from “Self-Reliance”:

I remember an answer which when quite young I was prompted to make to a valued adviser, who was wont to importune me with the dear old doctrines of the church. On my saying, What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from within? my friend suggested,--"But these impulses may be from below, not from above." I replied, "They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the Devil's child, I will live then from the Devil." No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature.

agree. Different people have different opinions about what is right and what is wrong. Which opinion is actually right and which opinion is actually wrong? How do we know? — Truth Seeker

Here’s how I see it - this is from Ziporyn’s translation of the Chuang Tzu (Zhuangzi).

What I call good is not humankindness and responsible conduct, but just being good at what is done by your own intrinsic virtuosities. Goodness, as I understand it, certainly does not mean humankindness and responsible conduct! It is just fully allowing the uncontrived condition of the inborn nature and allotment of life to play itself out. What I call sharp hearing is not hearkening to others, but rather hearkening to oneself, nothing more.

This is how Emerson put it in “Self-Reliance.”

No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it. A man is to carry himself in the presence of all opposition, as if every thing were titular and ephemeral but he.

How do we decide what should be legal and what should be illegal? — Truth Seeker

What is legal and what is right are not the same thing. Laws are a matter of control with the purpose of maintaining social stability. Much of what is called morality is the same thing.

C.G. Jung once said that the world only exists when you consciously perceive it. In that theory, only what I see truly exists. What I do not see, or what I am not aware of, therefore does not exist. — Jan

Welcome to the forum. Given my obsession with metaphysics, I will point out that Jung’s formulation is metaphysics and not science. On the other hand, it is my understanding that Schrodinger‘s cat was a thought experiment intended to show the absurdity of some interpretations of quantum mechanics, not as a serious explanation for an actual phenomenon.

In other words, you are comparing apples and oranges, or to use a word I recently learned, the explanations you described are incommensurable.

They intersect in the field of social ontology, which SEP says can be considered as a branch of metaphysics and which is, I suppose, a philosophy of sociology. — Jamal

Metaphysica of sociology. As in, what is a society (or subpart) composed of. — Hanover

Thanks for the link Jamal. Interesting. I’m partway through. It still strikes me as kind of a mishmash of sociology, psychology, social criticism, moral philosophy, political philosophy, and philosophy of science. As is my wont, I find myself wondering how much of it is metaphysics and how much of it is science. As you probably know, I make efforts to keep the two separate.

One thing it does show me is that I need to spend more time understanding how to think about the metaphysics of science and in particular social science.

Thanks.

It's interesting because it's not the standard "language is use," but it's trying to explain the ontology of marriage (or any social event) itself, making it modern day analytic metaphysics far removed from the Cartesian type. — Hanover

Is it metaphysics or is it sociology?

Geschwindigkeitsbegrenzung

Okay, then educate me. How do you understand Taoist wisdom. — L'éléphant

A bit out of scope for this conversation.

I'm interested in hearing about your experience with applying philosophy to your daily life. — Astorre

First comes daily life, then comes philosophy.

I disagree with the above passage. Sainthood comes to mind when I read that passage. If you surrender yourself to the way of the universe, you become Tao, a passive observer of the universe. But we are here on Earth -- living and interacting. If you want wisdom to mean a passive observer, then you should make that clear. — L'éléphant

Your understanding of Taoism is different from mine.

If I will still a mod I'd merge it, this topic sprouts endless threads. — Wayfarer

Your... aggressive, willful approach to interfering with other people's threads used to infuriate me.

I agree with your definition, even though I have used some different words. Do you know of any theory that backs up this definition? — Pieter R van Wyk

It's not a principle, it's a definition, so there is no theory backing it up, just a consensus of the meaning of the word among users. What I posted is my understanding of the consensus in this particular case.

I don't share your sentiment. One who does not work hard on learning at all is uneducated and could not be wise. — L'éléphant

I think it’s more likely that the more education you have, the less likely it is that you will be wise. Of course that’s an overstatement. This is from Gia-Fu Feng’s translation of Verse 48 of the Tao Te Ching:

In the pursuit of learning, every day something is acquired.
In the pursuit of Tao, every day something is dropped.

Less and less is done
Until non-action is achieved.
When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.

The world is ruled by letting things take their course.
It cannot be ruled by interfering.

Wisdom comes from letting go of what you’ve learned, not adding more to it. Wisdom is a surrendering, not the result of an act of will.

So "uneducated" to me means no formal schooling and/or no instruction from the wise people. — L'éléphant

I still think you’re clearly wrong.

Every so often I meet someone who is simply wise, who shows a capacity for moral discernment and prudent decision making more typical of someone mature with a lot of experience. My suspicion is that some wisdom is innate, or at least can be cultivated early. — Tom Storm

As someone who came to whatever wisdom I have later in life, it’s possible my definition is tilted. Perhaps we should add character to my short list of the most important factors influencing wisdom. It might’ve taken a while for maturity to counterbalance whatever weaknesses in character I have.

I like ↪T Clark ‘s description. — Mikie

If nothing else, it has the virtue of brevity.

Come and See — javi2541997

I’ve heard of “Come and See.” It sounds brutal and disturbing. Descriptions I’ve read make it sound like a book I read back in college - “The Painted Bird,” by Jerzy Kosinsky. After 50 years, I still remember how harrowing and difficult to read it was. Difficult not because of the language, but because how hard it was to face the storyKozinski told.

The other film sounds a bit more up my alley. Thanks for the recommendations.

Can an uneducated person be wise?
— Tom Storm
No. — L'éléphant

That’s ridiculous. I think it shows, perhaps, a lack of wisdom.

I’m interested in reading member's thoughts on wisdom. — Tom Storm

Of all the personal qualities that a person can have - intelligence, character, integrity, experience, wisdom, temperament, maturity, personality, virtue - what wisdom and maturity have that set them apart from the others is distance, dispassion. They’ve seen everything before. I was thinking for a minute that maybe wisdom and maturity are the same thing, but that’s not right. I guess it’s more that maturity is a prerequisite for wisdom. Wisdom stands back and sees everything at once, how everything fits together, what’s going to come next.

Without looking it up on Google, here’s my definition off the top of my head

A system is a group of elements or components that interact to behave in a characteristic way.

I’m reading a good book - “The Smoke Thieves” by Sally Green. A fantasy. It’s very well written. I’ve read other books by her and they are also very well written. Sometimes when I’m in the middle of a book and the quality of the writing draws me in and moves me along, I think to myself - what makes this writing good? And I don’t really know. I guess I should spend time figuring that out.

And then there are other books I’m told are very well written, but which don’t move me or draw me in. And I can’t tell you why that is either.

One of the more graceless posts I’ve read here on the forum.

Not even old-old but after 20s people are generally removed from the main stage to accept smaller and smaller roles. — unimportant

I doubt you would find many people in their 20s who agree with this. Older people have the money and the power. Older people are the bosses, younger people are the wage slaves. Older people are the politicians, younger people are the canon fodder.

Dimension is about the unsearchable fact of existence: transcendental being — ucarr

It looks like you’ve just restated Zeno’s paradoxes.

He told me to "ruck off". — Baden

Are you sure you didn’t just ban Scooby Doo?

@Wayfarer @Janus @jorndoe

I wasn’t able to find the David Pakman commentary you discussed, but I did find this essay from the Brookings Institution that I thought was interesting. It’s an overview of DOGE written in June. It seems fairly evenhanded, although clearly skeptical of DOGE’s immediate and long-term effectiveness.

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-will-we-know-if-doge-is-succeeding/

I don't really know enough about economics and specifically American economics to know how accurate what he was saying was but it sounded impressive and Pakman is a stand up guy generally isn't he? — unimportant

Thanks, I’ll see if I can find the commentary you’re talking about.

Radical changes like that are bound to cost a lot in the short term. Which is not to say I think the DOGE was a good idea. — Janus

Yes, I agree on both points.

I am skeptical. I don’t doubt that the way they went about making the cuts was inefficient and clumsy. I don’t doubt that the billions of dollars pointed out in this article represent poor planning and implementation. What I don’t know - what I have not seen described anywhere - is how much money will be saved over the upcoming years by the reductions in the number of federal employees and programs. Maybe none will be saved. Maybe costs will increase rather than decrease. I just haven’t seen any evidence one way or the other.

when I first realized that Christians lied, I was upset. — Paula Tozer

Welcome to the forum.

I am not a theist - I have no particular religious belief. I was raised a protestant until my early teens, when my mother died. Since my father was not religious, I fell away from the church. I married a Catholic and we raised our children in the church. I didn't go to church regularly, but I supported my wife in her and my children's involvement. There was never any serious religious conflict between us. When my children got older, they moved away from the church also. I think that bothers my wife, but I have never seen it cause any conflict between her and my kids. I respect my wife's beliefs and I can see the value it has for her.

Clearly, your experience has been much more painful than my family's. I know lots of people who have experiences that are more like mine than like yours. I'm sure you know lots of people who have experiences more like yours. I guess I would say that the religious believers I know don't lie about their beliefs. I'm sure some, perhaps many, are hypocritical, but I don't think any more so than many of us are hypocritical about our principles and ideologies. Many of us don't always live up to the standards we preach.

I'm sorry you've had such a hard time with this.

From Steven Mitchell’s translation of the Tao Te Ching:

The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.

The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.

The Tao gives birth to One.
One gives birth to Two.
Two gives birth to Three.
Three gives birth to all things.

One clear example of possible panpsychism is 'sick building syndrome', in which it as if the energy fields seem disturbed. Here, it would suggest that matter has some inherent consciousness. — Jack Cummins

In my understanding, this is not an example of what most people would call panpsychism. I don’t think it includes actual behavior by or changes in inanimate objects. A rock is just a rock sitting there being conscious. Clearly, that is a different meaning for the word than what we normally use. Perhaps I’m wrong about this.

He's Jor-el. — T Clark

Sorry - Kal-el.