I am open-minded — Bob Ross

I know I'm not the only one who chuckled when they read this.

Send me a link to the sex offense that he was charged with, or the reasonable evidence that he should have been convicted (of some sex crime). — Bob Ross

Regarding the accusation of rape, the judge gave to the jury "the narrow, technical meaning of that term" under New York law as it existed at that time, which defined rape as forcible penetration with the penis, as Carroll had specifically alleged. The jury rejected her rape claim, but found Trump liable for a lesser degree of sexual abuse than rape. In July 2023, Judge Kaplan clarified that the jury had found that Trump had raped Carroll according to the common definition of the word. In August 2023, Kaplan dismissed a countersuit and wrote that Carroll's accusation of "rape" is "substantially true". — Wikipedia - E. Jean Carroll v. Donald J. Trump

Add on if you like. — frank

I don't want to distract from your discussion, but I wanted at least to mention this. I won't take it any further if you're not interested.

I think one of the places where philosophy runs up on shoals of science is on the subject of consciousness/self. They tend to get mixed up. This is from "The Feeling of What Happens" by Antonio Damasio.

Incidentally, [core and extended consciousness] correspond to two kinds of self. The sense of self which emerges in core consciousness is the core self, a transient entity, ceaselessly re-created for each and every object with which the brain interacts. Our traditional notion of self, however, is linked to the idea of identity and corresponds to a non-transient collection of unique facts and ways of being which characterize a person. My term for that entity is the autobiographical self. The autobiographical self depends on systematized memories of situations in which core consciousness was involved in the knowing of the most invariant char- acteristics of an organism's life-who you were born to, where, when, your likes and dislikes, the way you usually react to a problem or a conflict, your name, and so on. I use the term autobiographical memory to denote the organized record of the main aspects of an organism's biography. The two kinds of self are related. — Antonio Damasio - The Feeling of What Happens

So, how, if at all, does this type of description fit into this discussion?

It definitely sounds up my ally. — Moliere

"Up my ally" is what is going to happen to Europe when Trump retakes office.

Thus natural science is not a way of knowing the real world; its value lies not in its truth but in its utility; by scientific thought we do not know nature, we dismember it in order to master it. — R.G. Collingwood, The Idea of History

I'm saving this. I'm sure I'll find use for it later.

And just to clarify,what do you mean by tolerance and inclusivity have gone to far? — Swanty

You’ll find that the only bigotry allowed here on the forum is religious bigotry.

Ancient philosophy was mainly story-telling & myth-making : what we now call Religion. But modern philosophy --- since the Enlightenment's rational-turn --- has become an amalgamation of abstract reasoning (logic) and metaphorical story-telling (meaning). — Gnomon

Aristotle, Plato, Lao Tzu, and Epicurus were "mainly story-telling & myth-making?"

Also, a suggestion. If you highlight the text you are referring to and then push the "quote" button that pops up, the text and a link will be copied direct to your response.

But the guys I'm talking about had good ideas and were concise clear writers as well. — Swanty

I value clarity and brevity also. It's what I aim for in my own writing.

I forgot to say - welcome to the forum.

Amongst philosophers I appreciate brevity,clarity and power...

So what is your opinion,are dialectical or enycopediac philosophers suspect,and guilty of Apologetics? — Swanty

I also value clarity, but I'm more interested in the quality of the ideas. Just because the lights better, it doesn't mean it's where you lost your keys. I hope you are familiar with that joke.

I get that. You're wrong, it's illegitimate, it kills more people than it saves and it doesn't work.

That’s not always true though. You are conflating a subset of scenarios with all of them. — Bob Ross

Give us some examples where it's worked. The only possible one I can think of is the Balkans in the 1990s, and I'm not sure about that.

Like what? The UN is a charade. — Bob Ross

I was just pointing out to Vera Mont that the UN would not be useful in the situations you two are discussing.

And sometimes even the territory and food are imaginary. — Tom Storm

Where does that empower any nation that considers itself superior to the nation in which a wrong is taking place to invade and impose its own values? — Vera Mont

I was pointing out that the UN does not authorize it's peacekeepers to do the kinds of things @Bob Ross proposes.

No, a reality-check. It's the UN's mandate, not any self-appointed guardian's, to organize interventions against genocide, but those morally superior modern western nations are mighty slow to support UN initiatives. — Vera Mont

This is not really true. This is from the UN's guidelines for peacekeepers:

UN peacekeeping operations are deployed with the consent of the main parties to the conflict. This requires a commitment by the parties to a political process. Their acceptance of a peacekeeping operation provides the UN with the necessary freedom of action, both political and physical, to carry out its mandated tasks.

In the absence of such consent, a peacekeeping operation risks becoming a party to the conflict; and being drawn towards enforcement action, and away from its fundamental role of keeping the peace.

The fact that the main parties have given their consent to the deployment of a United Nations peacekeeping operation does not necessarily imply or guarantee that there will also be consent at the local level, particularly if the main parties are internally divided or have weak command and control systems. Universality of consent becomes even less probable in volatile settings, characterized by the presence of armed groups not under the control of any of the parties, or by the presence of spoilers. — UN Principles of peacekeeping

If I take your argument seriously, then we should stop the Nazis if they were to stay in their own country; we shouldn’t stop North Korea from literally torturing their own people; etc. — Bob Ross

I assume you meant to say "not stop the Nazis." Again - both pre-WW2 Germany and today's North Korea have or had formidable militaries - North Korea has nuclear weapons. China would never let us attack without a response. They've already done it once. Also, South Korea would be destroyed in any war. This is a fantasy.

Has a military intervention to protect tyrannized people ever worked? Maybe - What is history's judgment of the Balkan intervention in the early 1990s? We tried something similar in Libya and destabilized the whole region. We imposed sanctions on Iraq in the 1990s and early 2000s. Hundreds of thousands of people died while the Hussein family continued to eat foi gras and bon bons.

6. Thus, sensory abilities and perceptions are contingent on each other, and so they cannot arise simultaneously. — Brenner T

Sure they can. That's how evolution works. Some little organism 2.5 billion years ago just happened to react in a particular way to a stimulus. That reaction provided a survival advantage and was carried on in the organism's descendants. And now here we are. Minds didn't just appear fully formed by the wave of a wand. They grew up with the universe.

7. Thus, a mind alone cannot perceive itself. — Brenner T

My mind is here perceiving itself right now. There... and again... Maybe you should clarify what you mean by "perceive.

And welcome to the forum.

I challenge you to try to justify, in your response to this OP, e.g., why Western, democratic values should not be forcibly imposed on obviously degenerate, inferior societies at least in principle—like Talibanian Afghanistan, North Korea, Iran, China, India, etc. — Bob Ross

Oh good, an easy one. I don't even have to try to address your nauseating rhetoric. Here's the answer - it won't work. We weren't even able to "forcibly impose" our values on rinky-dink third world countries like Vietnam, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and Nicaragua even though we killed millions of people, mostly civilians, trying to do it. Generally, our interference has made things worse, e.g. our party in Iraq ended up sending millions of refugees into Europe. Just running the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan at the same time overtaxed our armed forces.

Fun quote. — schopenhauer1

I thought you might like it.

From Catch-22.

What a lousy earth! He wondered how many people were destitute that same night even in his own prosperous country, how many homes were shanties, how many husbands were drunk and wives socked, and how many children were bullied, abused, or abandoned. How many families hungered for food they could not afford to buy? How many hearts were broken? How many suicides would take place that same night, how many people would go insane? How many cockroaches and landlords would triumph? How many winners were losers, successes failures, and rich men poor men? How many wise guys were stupid? How many happy endings were unhappy endings? How many honest men were liars, brave men cowards, loyal men traitors, how many sainted men were corrupt, how many people in positions of trust had sold their souls to bodyguards, how many had never had souls? How many straight-and-narrow paths were crooked paths? How many best families were worst families and how many good people were bad people? When you added them all up and then subtracted, you might be left with only the children, and perhaps with Albert Einstein and an old violinist or sculptor somewhere.

A couple of quotes from Catch-22.

From now on I'm thinking only of me."

Major Danby replied indulgently with a superior smile: "But, Yossarian, suppose everyone felt that way."

"Then," said Yossarian, "I'd certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way, wouldn't I?

What a lousy earth! He wondered how many people were destitute that same night even in his own prosperous country, how many homes were shanties, how many husbands were drunk and wives socked, and how many children were bullied, abused, or abandoned. How many families hungered for food they could not afford to buy? How many hearts were broken? How many suicides would take place that same night, how many people would go insane? How many cockroaches and landlords would triumph? How many winners were losers, successes failures, and rich men poor men? How many wise guys were stupid? How many happy endings were unhappy endings? How many honest men were liars, brave men cowards, loyal men traitors, how many sainted men were corrupt, how many people in positions of trust had sold their souls to bodyguards, how many had never had souls? How many straight-and-narrow paths were crooked paths? How many best families were worst families and how many good people were bad people? When you added them all up and then subtracted, you might be left with only the children, and perhaps with Albert Einstein and an old violinist or sculptor somewhere.

Saying that your opponent is obviously wrong and leaving it at that is a conversation-ender.
— SophistiCat

Yes, that was my goal. — Clearbury

And yet you keep talking.

Ought implies can. The idea that all forms of government are unjust must be rejected until it can be shown (against all available evidence) that the alternative is possible in a society larger than a modern-day commune. Even then it would likely come down to choosing one injustice over another, because there is no rule that rejecting one form of injustice leaves you with a (more) just state of affairs. — SophistiCat

Just about everyone who has responded in this discussion has made an argument similar to yours. The OP has made it very clear that he doesn’t buy it. By his standards, I think the law of gravity is unjust also.

When you are done ad homming and put your philosopher pants on, I'll wait for you. For now, ignore. — schopenhauer1

I always find it annoying when someone misuses the phrase “ad hominem.”

That being said, I claim that the best course of action in almost all cases as a human to comport with the best life, is to live a life of withdrawal. It's quite the opposite to civic duty and engagement. It's quite the opposite of the modern belief that socialization is necessary because of "flourishing" and we are a "social animal". Rather, due to the nature of animal/human relations, it is mostly struggle when two or more beings interact. — schopenhauer1

This reads a lot more like a psychiatric diagnosis all gussied up with philosophical cosmetics rather than philosophy itself.

Social engagement leads to more attachments, and more conflicts, and more frustrations, litigations, manifestations, allegations, contortions,
and complications, in short, drama and disappointments, all of which serve only to entangle the individual further in the suffering. — schopenhauer1

As I often end up saying in any discussion with you, many of us, most of us, don't see the world and relationships this way. This is your personal, idiosyncratic reaction to your own personal idiosyncratic problems and your solution is your personal, idiosyncratic solution. Doctoring it up with Schopenhauer doesn't change that.

The ultimate step is complete abstention from food, moving beyond mere limitation of intake. Eating fuels the Will’s endless cycle of craving and satisfaction, tethering us to desires that perpetuate suffering. By choosing abstention, we reject this cycle altogether, severing our dependence on physical needs that only serve to bind us to the body's relentless demands. — schopenhauer1

You usually say that you aren't proposing suicide, but now it appears you are.

Good post. Welcome to the forum.

I am not sure I can argue with someone who thinks a person has a right if and only if the government of any community of which they are a member says they do. That view is so plainly false to me that I am at a loss to know how to argue with someone who is willing to embrace its implications. — Clearbury

If you’re only going to argue with people who agree with you, you probably don’t belong on the forum. I think you’ll find that many, perhaps most, people understand that rights don’t really have any meaning except in the context of someone or something that can protect them.

I explained why 'worked' is question begging. You either mean by 'worked' - achieves justice - in which case by hypothesis it does work, or you have some other goal in mind, in which case you're simply not addressing my case and your point is irrelevant. — Clearbury

We've clearly taken this as far as it makes sense to go.

That is to say, does a species of animal(s) that has the ability to conceptually "know" that it exists, entail anything further, in any axiological way? — schopenhauer1

This is the kind of question that only a species of animals that has the ability to conceptually know that it exists would ask or answer. What would be the value of a response from that kind of animal?

There's no rule that says you get a choice, either. In fact you don't get a choice; you live in an anarchy and people set up governments and mafias everywhere. And they will do it on Mars too as soon as two or three are gathered together there, because that's just the kind of arseholes we are. — unenlightened

Alas, tis true.

And if you think Musk is something other than a wannabe Mafia Godfather and divine emperor of Mars, you must be already living on the dark side of the moon. — unenlightened

I don’t think Musk wants anything in particular. He just wants. And it’s the far side of the moon, not the dark side.

There are not, nor can there be, any rules that forbid the setting up of any government, and you do not have to obey any governments that set themselves up. — unenlightened

This is true and would be meaningful if there were some way for people to choose not to be part of society. There are hardly any remaining frontiers on Earth. That's probably why Elon Musk wants to go to Mars. That's not an option for most of us.

The concept of "rights" only makes sense in the context of a governing body which can establish and protect those rights against negative actors. Otherwise its simply a value you hold, which has no bearing on anyone else but yourself. — Ourora Aureis

For me, this is the fundamental truth of political philosophy.

where has it worked before? — Tom Storm

@Clearbury thinks this is irrelevant.

By and large, reasonably civilized societies tend to be democracies, — jorndoe

I was with you up to this point.

I'm with @ToothyMaw on this - I really enjoyed your OP. Do you write poetry? This feels like a poem. Truthfully, I'm not sure what it means. There certainly is a lot going on. I'll have to read it again. Maybe then I'll have more to say.

I don't see how you're addressing the argument I presented. I am defending anarchy. Anarchy does not involve anyone 'organizing' us. It's the opposite of that.

If your point is that without some bosses there will be mayhem, then I explicitly addressed this point. I pointed out that, whether true or not, it misses my point, which is about what's just, not about what would minimize mayhem. — Clearbury

What do you mean by 'work' though? I am arguing that governments are 'unjust' (not that they don't work - whether they 'work' or not depends on what goals they're supposed to be achieving....if they're supposed to be creating a just world, then they don't work at all and it is question begging to say otherwise....if you conceive of them as having some other purpose, then maybe they work, maybe they don't...but it's irrelevant to the topic). — Clearbury

As I wrote previously, if what you propose hasn't ever happened, won't ever happen, can't ever happen, then your idea is a fantasy. Meaningless. If you can't see that or show me how anarchy might work, then we'll never come to any resolution. That's my best shot.

Yeah. No accusations, but sounds AI-ish, like a corporate memo. — Hanover

I understand what you mean, but I think even a Chat GPT writeup would provide more detail that what the OP did.

I think all forms of government are unjust. Governments claim a monopoly on certain uses of violence and threats. I take that to be definitive. Government policies are backed by the threat of prison. — Clearbury

Putting aside moral factors for a minute, do you believe it is possible for groups of humans to effectively and humanely organize themselves without coercive rules assuming no change in human nature, whatever that means? Answer that question in the context of modern society in a world of 8 billion people. Also describe how such a society could be established in an ideal situation where you can specify starting conditions, i.e. go back 200,000 (or 2 million) years? If you can't give a positive answer to those questions, your moral complaints are meaningless.

It is barely ever justifiable to threaten or use violence against another. It's normally only in extreme circumstances - where one's own life is in immediate danger - that it can be justified. — Clearbury

Do you really believe this? I would not be justified in using violence to stop someone from stealing resources - money, shelter, food, clothing - that I need? Or to stop someone from doing that to my family and neighbors? What if someone is dumping human, animal, or industrial waste in the river upstream from where I get my water? Or what if they dam the river and cut off my water supply?

But though it is correct that the state is entitled to protect our basic rights, it is not entitled to force us to pay it to do so. If, for example, someone is attacking you, then I am entitled to help you out and even to use violence against your attacker if need be. But I am not then entitled to bill you for my efforts and use violence against you if you refuse to pay. — Clearbury

Would it be acceptable for a group of people to get together and agree to give up some of their freedoms in order to ensure security and protection? Then, if someone didn't want to participate, they could do so, but they couldn't use any of the resources provided by the community - roads, police, fire departments, schools. This sort of approach was much more feasible back when there was a frontier where non-conformists could migrate. They actually do something like this in some communities. Fire protection is provided by non-government fire departments staffed by volunteers and funded by subscription. If someone refuses to subscribe, when there's a fire, the fire fighters will come to their house and make sure everyone gets out safely and protect nearby property owned by subscribers, but otherwise will not fight the fire.

If the government stopped doing both of these things, then it would - to all intents and purposes - cease to be a government at all. It would just be another business competing in an open market. And that's anarchy. — Clearbury

Do you really think that would happen? That it could happen? That it ever has happened? Ever in 200,000 years of human existence? My answer is "of course not," which means it's not anarchy, it's fantasy.

I want to head-off a misguided criticism at the outset. I think many will be tempted to object that if all government agencies just disappeared overnight, then disaster would ensue. Regardless of whether or for how long this would be the case, the objection seems wrongheaded. — Clearbury

As I noted previously, today we would have to live with the consequences based on conditions found in the modern world. Of course a disaster would ensue. Billions would die. Can you describe a mechanism by which society could transition from current conditions to your capitalist paradise?

mayhem that would otherwise (temporarily) result — Clearbury

Temporary? That's pie-in-the-sky. If it happened people would die, the most vulnerable first. Then order would reestablish itself following the path followed historically and 200 years later we'd end up right where we are now.

So. Maybe I'm wrong. Tell me how you would make it work out the way you want it to.

It's not merely a platitude, but a testable theory that predicts specific patterns of cultural and cognitive evolution. — ContextThinker

Your OP (original post) and subsequent posts provide almost no specific information. They include a vague and undetailed description of the elements of your ECMT and it's supporting information. You claim it is testable and makes specific predictions but you don't describe any specific hypotheses or how they might be tested.

ECMT acknowledges ecological factors, such as resource scarcity and natural disasters, as exacerbating existential anxiety. However, it also highlights the role of cognitive and social factors in shaping coping mechanisms. — ContextThinker

Again, no detail is provided. "Acknowledgment" and "highlighting" do not constitute evidence or methods of testing.

Lastly, ECMT doesn't imply that existential anxiety drives the evolution of cognitive capabilities. Rather, it suggests that existential anxiety is a selective pressure that influences the development of coping mechanisms within existing cognitive frameworks. — ContextThinker

"Selective pressure" is a technical term for factors that drive evolution by influencing differential reproductive success and survival of populations.

ECMT builds upon this fundamental principle, providing a detailed explanation for the emergence of complex, culturally-mediated coping mechanisms in humans. — ContextThinker

Again, you have provided almost no detail.

Welcome to the forum. Some thoughts.

At its core, the Evolutionary Coping Mechanism Theory posits that as cognitive abilities increase, so does awareness of mortality and uncertainty. This heightened awareness triggers existential anxiety, prompting species to develop coping mechanisms. Religion and science emerge as two primary responses, evolving through cognitive, social, environmental, and cultural interactions. — ContextThinker

The idea that religion and science are methods by which humans attempt to deal with fears of uncertainty and death is commonplace. How is what you've described different? It doesn't really seem like a theory at all - it's more of a platitude.

Religion, in this context, serves as an initial coping mechanism... However, as cognitive abilities continue to advance, science emerges as a complementary coping mechanism. — ContextThinker

As far as I can see, there is no reason to believe it takes more advanced cognitive abilities to develop and apply a scientific understanding than it does a religious one.

Ecological factors, such as resource scarcity or natural disasters, can exacerbate existential anxiety, driving the evolution of coping mechanisms. — ContextThinker

Are you saying that "existential anxiety" can drive the evolution of cognitive capabilities? That seems unlikely to me.

It suggests that intelligent species, faced with existential threats, will inevitably develop coping mechanisms. — ContextThinker

All biological organisms; plants, animals, fungus; faced with existential threats will inevitably develop coping mechanisms. That's what evolution by natural selection means.