I don't think I have anything to offer, but I'll be reading along. Good idea for a thread.

It could, but once again, looking at an incomplete picture is dangerous. There is a potent joy hidden beneath that sacrifice, and I don't think it's trivial. Nor is such a great sacrifice always necessary, of course. Things can also be a win-win scenario, wherein people contribute towards each other's well-being. — DA671

@Agent Smith, @Bartricks, and the other anti-natalists are misfits. They were never going to have children with or without the justifications provided by philosophy. Anti-natalism is just the rationalization that people who don't belong use to dignify their misanthropy.

Deciding not to have children is fine. My brother and daughter both decided early that they weren't interested. They aren't anti-natalists. They don't need bullshit "ethics" to justify their personal decisions.

Personally, I don't think that it has any positive/negative value (aside from the process). — DA671

As Woody Allen said - I'm not afraid of death, I just don't want to be there when it happens.

Now, once more Clarky boy, try and answer the question: do you think we have reason to avoid death under most circumstances? — Bartricks

As I noted, that's not the claim you made originally. You're changing the rules of the game in the middle of play. No need for us to continue this any longer.

you are claiming that, in general, we do not have reason to avoid death? — Bartricks

No, I am claiming that most of us won't "do virtually anything to avoid it." You are changing the basis of this discussion in the middle.

My question was whether we generally have reason to avoid death — Bartricks

No. You wrote:

Our reason tells us to do virtually anything to avoid it. — Bartricks

Generally having reason to avoid is different from doing virtually anything to avoid. As I said, I'm enjoying my life; I'd like to live longer, but there are many things more important.

A neat piece of research, — Banno

Yes. I went to Google, typed "how many people are afraid of dying," and picked the link at the top of the page. I am exhausted from all the work.

My claim is that we have reason to avoid death under virtually all circumstances. Are you challenging that claim? — Bartricks

It's not true of me. It's not true of most of my friends and family. It wasn't true of my father while he was dying of lung cancer. I'm enjoying my life, so I'm in no hurry to be gone, but when the time comes, I'll be ready.

Our reason tells us to do virtually anything to avoid it. — Bartricks

I looked on line and it said that more than half of people in the US are not particularly afraid of dying. Only about 10% are very afraid. Perhaps you are in that 10%, but don't expect the rest of us to follow along.

The Forever War — Pantagruel

One of my favorite military science fiction books. Clever and well-written.

What then is the point? — Cornwell1

I don't think this line of discussion is getting us anywhere. Let's drop it.

There is only one speed of light. In the vacuum. The smaller speed comes in handy in using glass fibres, but the concept of speed of light in glass is weird. — Cornwell1

You missed the point I was trying to make when I provided the link. Let's leave it at that.

To OP is extremely confused, and responding in the same terms would only add more confusion. — Olivier5

I was confused, but I don't think that means the OP was. After all, it wasn't @Ignoredreddituser's writing, it was Steven French's.

Shot in the dark but anyone hear or read anything from the Kyoto School of philosophy? — Dermot Griffin

Sorry, I can't help, but I'm interested. I have noted similarities between the writings of western philosophers and the understanding expressed in the Tao Te Ching, e.g. similarities between Kant's noumena and the Tao, but I never thought about the other way round. I hope someone responds. I'd be interested in following the discussion.

And welcome to the forum.

I think T Clark's question is also a valid philosophical question, — Cuthbert

I agree with your explanation, but I think Wayfarer's criticism was that I wasn't responding in the terms that the OP laid out. I don't disagree with him.

But only one is right. Photon absorption and re-emission. — Cornwell1

You got something different out of the video than I did.

Say you have a conceptual model of a site that uses different concepts as mine, but insofar pragmatics is concerned there is no difference. Your model is as accurate as mine. Does the pragmatic value equalize them? — Cornwell1

Here's a link to an interesting video explaining why the speed of light in glass is different than in a vacuum. 16 minutes long.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiHN0ZWE5bk

After the presenter goes through his explanation, he says - oh, by the way, here are two other ways to look at it, and he briefly describes them. So, he has three apparently different ways of modelling the phenomenon, one classical and two quantum mechanical. He gives a very interesting description of the differences between the three models and the value of each.

C'mon TC. This is a philosophy forum, and it's a perfectly valid philosophical question. It's a lot better thought-out than many of the one-liner OP's that are posted. Not seeing the point of an OP is not a constructive criticism. — Wayfarer

I think it's a good OP. The addition of the summary was a good move. I read the whole OP, including the summary. As I noted, I tried hard to figure out a way to respond in the terms laid out, and I failed. I don't understand the point being made, but I put effort into it. At least it gave you a chance to kick me in the pants.

Also these are mutually exclusive. — Cornwell1

I don't think you and I mean the same thing by "mutually exclusive." No need to take that up now.

there would still be atoms without people. — Ignoredreddituser

Would there be? Would there also be cells, and trees, and forests, and ecosystems without people? Would there be hydrogen and oxygen, and water, and runoff, and brooks, and creeks, and tributaries, and rivers, and oceans?

Yeah you’re basically saying there’s things are grounded, whereas he just says they don’t exist only the grounding stuff exists, if that. — Ignoredreddituser

I'm not sure what this means.

General relativity and Newtonian gravity are conceptually different. General relativity doesn't consider gravity a force and space and time are relative. — Cornwell1

I was talking about Newton's laws of motion and special relativity. I should have been clearer.

If two different models are equally accurate then they are both true? — Cornwell1

As I've said, conceptual models are more or less accurate, not true or false.

There are domains in the world where two or more mutually excluding conceptual models lead to succesful interaction. — Cornwell1

I wouldn't think that two different conceptual models of the same phenomena would be mutually excluding, e.g. Newton's laws of motion are consistent with relativity at velocities less than about 0.7c. Above that velocity, relativity is a more accurate model.

this isn't to deny the concept of truth or to identify truth with utility. — sime

As I noted in another post, the Pragmatic understanding of "truth" takes some getting used to. I'm still working on it. Identifying truth and utility has it's problems. I get around that by saying truth and utility aren't the same thing, but utility is the one that matters. As I said, I'm still working on that.

But surely some knowledge must be true or false. — Cornwell1

The point I've tried to make in this thread is that knowledge, from a pragmatic point of view, isn't made up of facts that are true or false. It's made up of conceptual models that are accurate or inaccurate.

On the other hand, "The capital of France is Paris," is a true statement and I agree that it constitutes knowledge. I do knock my head against that a bit.

When assessing a site, and another pragmatic epistemogist comes up with different knowledge as you do, are you both telling the truth? — Cornwell1

"Telling the truth" refers to whether or not someone is lying or not, which is not the issue. The question is whose conceptual model is more accurate. Whose will lead to the most successful action.

If engineers develop a model on the basis of past experience, their words and actions assent to some notion of truth. — sime

That doesn't tell me how an action can be true or false. I get up, go into the kitchen, and get a glass of water. Is that action true or false?

TLDR: 1. An object is an object non-deriviatively whereas a mereological sum is an object only derivatively. Objects are constituted out of mereological sums.
2. The primary difference between mere sums and objectslie is in persistence conditions.
3. The arguments against eliminativism assumes an object and begs the question against eliminativism
4. The difference in persistence conditions only points to a set of particles dispersed and those aggregated objectwise and subjected to the principles of physics like the Pauli Exclusion principle.
5. Because all the work is being done by those physical principles and constraints then it follows there is no difference between mere sums and an object. — Ignoredreddituser

Sorry. I tried, but even with your summary I got lost. Why does any of this matter? A table is a table by human convention. An atom is an atom by human convention. Why is there a mystery? A table is made up of atoms held together primarily by electromagnetic forces. My family is made up of my wife and children held together primarily by tradition, duty, and love.

Again, I wanted to respond to your post in the terms you laid out, but I got lost.

You forgot "reject". I don't reject this function, as pragmatic epistemology does. — Cornwell1

You're right. I wasn't certain which assumption you were rejecting.

I see you are Collingwood's faithful acolyte. — Cornwell1

I've read Collingwood and I find his ideas about metaphysics helpful.

The presuppositions, while not true or false, correspond to true or false actions, so important in pragmatism. The actions might even be absolutely true or false. — Cornwell1

Pragmatism doesn't say anything about the truth of actions. How can an action be true or false?

and rejects the idea that the function of thought is to describe, represent, or mirror reality.
— T Clark

Here you are wrong. That is not the function of thought. The function of thought is to give an analogue image of the world, so we can walk in it with confidence. Which has a pragmatic aspect, obviously. But walking at night beneath the winter moon and stars in a sleeping city, shows the function of thought goes beyond its pragmatic function. — Cornwell1

You say "The function of thought is to give an analogue image of the world..." How is that different from "...the function of thought is to describe, represent, or mirror reality"?

I provided that quote as example of one of the underlying metaphysical assumptions for Pragmatism. Metaphysical assumptions, called "absolute presuppositions" by R.G. Collingwood, are not true or false. They are more or less useful in particular situations.

Nuff said.

When I start a thread, I do it for a reason. I have a position I want to test, a question I want to answer, or some thoughts I want to put into words. I work to set up the OP so people can understand what I'd like the thread to be about. I define my terms, describe the issue, provide my position, and then lay out the terms of discussion. I am always surprised by how much I learn from other people's responses. The threads I start are important to me.

I try hard to show the same consideration for others that I desire for myself. I admit that I haven't always lived up to that goal, but I try. When someone calls me out on it, I apologize and try harder to keep on track.

It's just common courtesy.

Well, that's not very diplomatic or friendly. — universeness

I don't think it's friendly to shanghai my discussion.

The moderators are the arbiters. Why don't you request a directive from them? Let them be the class monitor. — universeness

This is from a few months ago:

it seems clear to me that responders to an OP have a responsibility to address the issue as the OP sets it up and not to go off on a tangent of their own
— T Clark

Yes.

Reciprocally, I have always understood that the person who starts the discussion has the authority to enforce the OP
— T Clark

Not directly. But we can enforce it for you. — Baden

How's that?

I hope this isn't a silly question. Can accepting ideas which are useful be a potential problem when those ideas are applied in other contexts? I'm struggling to think of good examples but, let's say a belief in God may be useful to manage grief and loss following the death of a wife/husband, but what if this same belief allows you to disown your son/daughter because they are gay? Some ideas don't allow for much parsing and are kind of 'all or nothing' affairs. — Tom Storm

I don't think it's a silly question. It gives me problems too. How about this - If it's not useful, it's not true; but that doesn't mean that if it's not true, it's not useful. I don't like that.

Good question. I think this is why so many people don't like a pragmatic definition of truth. They want to tweak it to make it less absolute.

What are the metaphysical assumptions made in pragmatic epistemology? If knowledge is useful in practice than it's true knowledge? Is knowledge gathered only in practice? — Cornwell1

Good question. Exclamation point. Here are some thoughts:

the primary value of truth and knowledge is for use in decision making to help identify, plan, and implement needed human action. — T Clark

This from Wikipedia - Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that considers words and thought as tools and instruments for prediction, problem solving, and action, and rejects the idea that the function of thought is to describe, represent, or mirror reality.

My underline.

Is that enough? I'm not sure.

From William James:

The unwillingness of some of our critics to read any but the silliest of possible meanings into our statements is as discreditable to their imaginations as anything I know in recent philosophic history.

Digression is annoying from the standpoint of the author of a thread. I appreciate that.
Digression is also so very common within human dialogue.
Thank you for your indulgence, I'm sure we will p*** o** to other threads soon enough,
or get back on topic or do both. — universeness

That's not how it works. If I, as OP, ask you to keep on subject you're supposed to do it. I'm not interested in having this thread cluttered up with irrelevant stuff.

This is a discussion on pragmatic epistemology. You guys have headed off on a different subject. Hows about you start a discussion of your own elsewhere.

You should give us more to work with. I don't see any philosophical issue here.

Your questions show that you haven't even tried to understand what I'm trying to describe. I don't expect agreement, but the ideas are not difficult.

Let's you and me not interact with each other from now on.

Ok. Ok. I'm taking another run at "Gormenghast."

Studies suggest that we are gradually becoming less intelligent. — L'éléphant

What studies. Without that your post is vapid.
The Flynn Effect — Banno

Banno - You beat me to it. Here's a link to the Wikipedia article on the Flynn Effect. IQ test results are going up significantly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect