Comments

  • "Substance" in Philosophical Discourse
    ....Some philosophers don’t see this, but that’s because they haven’t done their philosophizing in an orderly way, and haven’t carefully enough distinguished the mind from the body ~Descartes. — Mww

    Which has a clear precedent in The Phaedo in the passages about the separation of soul from body.


    I like Joe Sach's translation of the category of substance as "thinghoood," although this is perhaps confusing if one thinks of it in terms of the "particles" that were the self-subsistent, fundamental things of 19th century metaphysics. — Count Timothy von Icarus

    I was going to quote a passage by Sachs in the OP, but it made it too long. But I'll include it here, as it is relevant to the translation of 'ousia' (from the IEP entry on Aristotle's Metaphysics):

    Reveal
    The earliest Latin translations of Aristotle tried a number of ways of translating ousia, but by the fourth century AD, when St. Augustine lived, only two remained in use: essentia was made as a formal parallel to ousia, from the feminine singular participle of the verb "to be" plus an abstract noun ending, so that the whole would be roughly equivalent to an English translation "being-ness"; the second translation, substantia, was an attempt to get closer to ousia by interpreting Aristotle’s use of it as something like “persisting substratum”. Augustine, who had no interest in interpreting Aristotle, thought that, while everything in the world possesses substantia, a persisting underlying identity, the fullness of being suggested by the word essentia could belong to no created thing but only to their creator. Aristotle, who is quite explicit on the point that creation is impossible, believed no such thing, and Augustine didn’t think he did. But Augustine’s own thinking offered a consistent way to distinguish two Latin words whose use had become muddled. Boethius, in his commentaries on Aristotle, followed Augustine’s lead, and hence always translated ousia as substantia, and his usage seems to have settled the matter. And so a word designed by the anti-Aristotelian Augustine to mean a low and empty sort of being turns up in our translations of the word whose meaning Aristotle took to be the highest and fullest sense of being. ... It is no wonder that the Metaphysics ceased to have any influence on living thinking: its heart had been cut out of it by its friends.


    My guess is, as universals became "names" some way to tie properties back to things had to be developed. The "names" come from us, but they have to have some cause in things, else we have no knowledge of them. No notion of participation or inherence could be called upon, so substrate has to expand beyond being mere potential (which would explain why substance and matter collapse towards meaning the same thing, when before they are almost opposites, a substance being what a thing is and matter its potential to be something else). — Count Timothy von Icarus

    Spot on. I think you’ve identified something essential in showing how, once the participatory/inherence framework is lost (or becomes untenable), the explanatory burden shifts to "substance" in a different way. It has to account not only for what a thing is, but also why our concepts seem to refer to it at all.

    That might explain why the substrate notion of substance—something like an inert bearer of properties—rises to prominence, while the richer Aristotelian idea of ousia as actualized form (not just potential matter) gets flattened out. The result is a metaphysical picture that looks more like proto-empiricism than classical realism (and indeed is the precursor to modern empiricism.)

    And that also folds into the point about modern "thing ontology"—where what a thing is becomes identified with what it is made of, rather than what it does or means within a larger context.

    My own longstanding view is that much of this equivocation around "substance" arises from the loss of a hierarchical ontology—the kind that underpinned the classical and medieval idea of the great chain of being. In that schema, being was analogical and graduated; different levels of being were possible and meaningful (as beautifully articulated by Eriugena). But with Scotus' doctrine of the univocity of being—the idea that "being " means the same whether said of God or a rock—this hierarchical distinction collapses. What results is a metaphysical "flattening," in which all beings are treated as ontologically equal (even if causally or epistemically different), and substance is increasingly thought of as inert substratum rather than act or form. It is precisely the loss of the vertical dimension, the axis of quality.

    This contributes directly to the modern drift toward mechanistic and materialist metaphysics, where the rich account of form, finality, and analogy is replaced by homogenous "stuff" under mathematical laws.
  • "Substance" in Philosophical Discourse
    A mental event doesn't cause motion by exerting force in space -- very good. But it "operates"? What is that? Isn't this a placeholder term for something we don't yet know how to talk about? The mind doesn't push on the body -- right. But it's "a way of being and acting"? Well . . . OK, but are we really saying anything, by saying this? — J

    Excellent question. You're right to question "operates"—it is a placeholder. But that’s because our vocabulary is constrained by a model of causation that evolved to describe levers and collisions, not meaning and intention. To speak of "a way of being and acting" is to point to an integrated form of life, not a discrete event or causal vector.

    I'll refer to Steve Talbott, a philosopher of biology with whom I became acquainted through his essays in The New Atlantis. He tackles this problem in an essay (or book chapter), From Physical Causes to Organisms of Meaning:

    We commonly explain occurrences by saying one thing happened because of — due to the cause of — something else. But we can invoke very different sorts of causes in this way. For example, there is the because of physical law (The ball rolled down the hill because of gravity) and the because of reason (He laughed at me because I made a mistake). The former hinges upon the kind of necessity we commonly associate with physical causation; the latter has to do with what makes sense within a context of meaning.

    'Within a context of meaning' is the key term. Physics per se negates or brackets out context so as to arrive at an exact formulation describing the motions of bodies universally (regardless of context). That is why physicalism posits that the universe as 'devoid of inherent meaning' - it has set it aside or bracketed out context and meaning so as to arrive at the putative 'view from nowhere' which seeks explanations solely in terms of mechanical causes (which has been undermined by the 'observer problem' which is precisely one of context and meaning, but we'll leave that aside here.)

    (Galiliean) science was born from the decision to objectify, namely to select the elements of experience that are invariant across persons and situations. Its aim is to formulate universal truths, namely truths that can be accepted by anyone irrespective of one’s situation. Therefrom, the kind of truths science can reach is quite peculiar : they take the form of universal and necessary connections between phenomena (the so-called scientific laws). — Michel Bitbol, On the Radical Self-Referentiality of Consciousness

    And, as Wittgenstein observes (TLP 6.371), 'At the basis of the whole modern view of the world lies the illusion that the so-called laws of nature are the explanations of natural phenomena.'

    That's the issue in a nutshell. But this 'separation' hasn't yet occured in Aristotle, for whom final causation provides another level of causal relationship, and precisely in the context of meaning-making In Aristotle’s schema, final causes are not mystical but intelligible—explanations in terms of ends, purposes, or functions. The question “What is it for?” is a valid form of causation, but that’s precisely what modern physics has trained itself not to ask.

    What I’m proposing is that reasons operate as causes, not by exerting force, but by shaping intentionality within a context of meaning. This kind of causation isn’t mechanical but rational: it explains action by appeal to what makes sense to an agent, not what impinges on a body.

    Hence the category mistake implied by wondering how res cogitans can, say, 'make my arm move'. It puts the mind on the same level as the objects of physics - reduces it, in other words.
  • What is faith
    what is deemed to be good and what is good are not the same thing, and anyone who has ever regretted anything has experienced this fact. They might apologize as follows, "It seemed like a good idea at the time..." — Leontiskos

    Which a Christian would probably attribute to the unreliability of human reason, tainted as it is by sin, would they not? But then, from the Christian point of view, what is good is not really a matter of choice, is it?
  • "Substance" in Philosophical Discourse
    When you speak of principle it reminds me a little of Hegel for whom the spirit is an active principle or process of reality as opposed to the concept of substance as something immobile and static, codified and subsistent by itself. — JuanZu

    Totally. But then, Hegel was a representative of the grand tradition of philosophy. That 'active principle' is again reminiscent of the original Aristotelian insight, which hardened into dogmatic scholasticism. Perhaps Hegel was re-capturing the spirit of the original! I'm sure he would have liked to think so.

    The question is: if it is no longer dualism of substances what is the ontology that best suits this difference between the mental and the physical? — JuanZu

    Well, there's the million dollar question. Probably another whole thread, I think. I posted this one as a kind of reference topic, as the subject of 'substance' and 'substance dualism' comes up all the time, but without awareness of these double meanings.
  • We’re Banning Social Media Links
    ↪Benkei
    :cheer:
  • The Musk Plutocracy
    Despite Musk ploughing $140 million into the vote for the Wisconsin Supreme Court and even handing out $1 million dollar checks to a couple of voters (what? me? corrupting the process?), the liberal candidate, Susan Crawford, will win (taking over the seat vacated by the retiring liberal judge.)

    Crawford and her Democratic allies also worked to turn the election into a referendum on Trump ally Elon Musk, who poured millions of his personal fortune into the race. It quickly became the most expensive judicial contest in US history.

    At a victory rally in Madison Tuesday night, Crawford thanked supporters, saying their votes helped send a message to the country.

    “Today, Wisconsinites fended off an unprecedented attack on our democracy, our fair elections and our supreme court. And Wisconsinites stood up and said loudly that justice does not have a price – our courts are not for sale,” she said.     — CNN

    The election was seen as a litmus test for the Trump/Musk power duopoly. Wisconsin is a real bellwether state.
  • Do you think AI is going to be our downfall?
    The central mistake of that hypothesis is the inaccurate equation of pleasure with happiness. As I've attempted to demonstrate earlier, pleasure is simple and fleeting; happiness is sustained and complex. — Vera Mont

    :100:
  • "Substance" in Philosophical Discourse
    I think that’s why Taoism felt so familiar to me when I came across it. — T Clark

    Sure, totally get that. Taoism is after all non-dualist in some fundamental way (even if the term is generally more associated with Indian rather than Chinese philosophy.)

    In mathematics, a theory has substance when it is deemed important or significant in some way by a community of scholars. — jgill

    Right. That's more in keeping with the traditional use of the term. 'Substantial', as are 'men of substance' or 'matters of substance'. //And what's interesting about that is the connection with meaning (as in "import" or "significance"), which is absent from the normal meaning of "substance".
  • "Substance" in Philosophical Discourse
    From https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind%E2%80%93body_dualism#Arguments_against_dualism

    ...the question of how the interaction takes place, where in dualism "the mind" is assumed to be non-physical and by definition outside of the realm of science. The mechanism which explains the connection between the mental and the physical would therefore be a philosophical proposition as compared to a scientific theory. For example, compare such a mechanism to a physical mechanism that is well understood. Take a very simple causal relation, such as when a cue ball strikes an eight ball and causes it to go into the pocket. What happens in this case is that the cue ball has a certain amount of momentum as its mass moves across the pool table with a certain velocity, and then that momentum is transferred to the eight ball, which then heads toward the pocket. Compare this to the situation in the brain, where one wants to say that a decision causes some neurons to fire and thus causes a body to move across the room. The intention to "cross the room now" is a mental event and, as such, it does not have physical properties such as force. If it has no force, then it would seem that it could not possibly cause any neuron to fire. However, with Dualism, an explanation is required of how something without any physical properties has physical effects.

    That’s exactly the kind of confusion I was pointing to in the OP. This kind of criticism of dualism misunderstands the category that mental causation belongs to. It assumes causation must be modeled on physical causation—like billiard balls transferring momentum—so it looks for some kind of “mental force” that pushes the body in an analogous way. But that’s already a misstep.

    A mental event—like the intention to cross the room—isn’t analogous to a physical force in that sense. It doesn’t cause motion by exerting force in space. Rather, it operates at the level of intentionality and subjective orientation. Treating mental events as if they must function like physical ones is a category mistake (as Ryle points out). The mind isn’t a ghostly thing pushing on the body; it’s a way of being and acting in the world not reducible to physical mechanisms (and so not describable in purely physical terms).

    To clarify further, I’d refer back to the Aristotelian concept of psuchē—often translated as “soul,” but better understood as the form or organising principle of the body. (“The soul is the form of the body,” in Aristotle’s famous phrase.) On this view, what we now call “mental events” are inherently intentional in a way that physical forces are not.

    This sidesteps the Cartesian problem entirely. The psuchē isn’t a ghost in the machine—it’s what makes the organism a living being in the first place. Mental activity, from this perspective, doesn’t stand out as a causal anomaly in a mechanical world, but emerges as the mode of intelligibility appropriate to beings like us.

    That is a succinct illustration of the sense in which hylomorphic differs from Cartesian dualism, and one of the reasons for the so-called 'revival of Aristotelianism' in the biological sciences.
  • "Substance" in Philosophical Discourse
    Whereas ouisia - being - I instead address via the term "essence". — javra

    Good choice. I didn't really notice, until composing this post, the interchangeability of 'essence' and 'substance', but I think the former is far less prone to equivocation. We still use 'essence' (as in, 'the essence of the matter') in a way that is more in line with the earlier use.

    I struggle with imagining the world in the terms of scholastic science, including substance has described in your OP. — T Clark

    I'm not that conversant with the intricacies of scholastic philosophy. And I don't think that there's any 'going back' to an earlier time. What interests me is the point about how we (unconsciously?) depict substance in objective terms, which in my view renders it oxymoronic (e.g. as 'thinking stuff'). Something very important has been lost in translation, as it were.

    ↪Metaphysician Undercover
    hmmm. I can see the sense of that. It's pretty much in line with the original meaning.

    It's less inconsistent and more parsimonious, it seems to me, to conceive of "physical" and "mental" as two properties – ways of describing / modeling – substance than positing them as "two substances" — 180 Proof

    However this begs the question 'properties of what', doesn't it? Some kind of reality that is neither physical nor mental, but exhibits both properties? So whatever that 'substance' is, is neither physical nor mental in nature. I think I can probably go along with some form of that.

    The Wiki article you linked is also quite a good source.
  • "Substance" in Philosophical Discourse
    ↪T Clark
    Very good and right on point!

    ↪180 Proof
    That ‘only one subject’ rings truer to me. It’s not exactly right but conveys a dimension of meaning that ‘substance’ tends to occlude.
  • On the substance dualism
    ↪javra
    I think you will like it. He's not well known in academic philosophy circles as he's come from outside the ivory tower, but I think he's the real deal.

    I also noticed your explication of substance/essence above. It's an important topic. I tried to introduce the topic of what substance means in philosophy as distinct from everyday use earlier in the thread. I think I'll write an OP on it.
  • On the substance dualism
    On a physical level of understanding, all quanta themselves emerge from the quantum vacuum state — javra

    There’s an author you might find interesting if you haven’t encountered him, Federico Faggin. He’s a notable Silicon Valley pioneer who had a profound experience of spiritual awakening in his 30’s and has gone on to devote his life to consciousness studies. His recent book is Irreducible:Consciousness, Life and the Physics of the Self. I am currently reading it, although it’s not an easy read. In any case, the whole thrust of the book is (as I understand it) the quantum nature of consciousness. He presents the idea of ‘seity’ - the individual, conscious subject as a unique center of experience that cannot be reduced to anything more fundamental. The term is derived from the Latin se, meaning “self” or “itself,” and is meant to emphasize irreducible individuality and interiority. In some respects it is quite Liebnizian, although without Liebniz’ ‘pre-established harmony’. A seity is not an organism, but it is what the organism expresses. It’s also close in some ways to the Greek ‘psuche’.
  • Do you think AI is going to be our downfall?
    ↪Darkneos
    Could I ask, have you spent any time interacting with any of the new AI systems? ChatGPT or Gemini or Claude or one of the others? I think whether you like them or are apprehensive about them, there are some insights to be gleaned from actually using them.

    For interest's sake, I used your OP as a prompt for ChatGPT4, which provided this response.
  • On the substance dualism
    ↪Patterner
    :up:

    What I was driving at, is expressed by Michel Bitbol in another passage from the source quoted above:

    ...science was born from the decision to objectify, namely to select the elements of experience that are invariant across persons and situations. Its aim is to formulate universal truths, namely truths that can be accepted by anyone irrespective of one’s situation. Therefrom, the kind of truths science can reach is quite peculiar : they take the form of universal and necessary connections between phenomena (the so-called scientific laws). This epistemological remark has devastating consequences. It means that in virtue of the very methodological presupposition on which it is based, science has and can have nothing to say about the mere fact that there are phenomena (namely appearances) for anybody, let alone about the qualitative content of these phenomena. — Michel Bitbol
  • On the substance dualism
    we know what the meaning is, because we put it there, and it's only to us that there is meaning. — Patterner

    Not only did we 'put it there', but we enabled the worldview which allows us to think that the universe as a whole is devoid of it.

    --

    When we use a word for “consciousness”, we are... automatically led astray, because conscious experience is not something over there to be meant in any way. Once again consciousness is plainly here ; this “here” that submerges us ; this “here” that is presupposed by any location in space. Trying to mean consciousness is self-defeating, since what is allegedly meant is nothing beyond the very act of meaning it. It is radically self-referring. — On the radical self-referentiality of consciousness, Michel Bitbol
  • The Musk Plutocracy
    Musk's USAID Cuts - Where The Rubber Doesn't Meet the Road

    Three days after the Myanmar quake, there are no U.S. teams on the ground in Myanmar, a stark illustration of how Trump has upended America’s role in disaster response.

    Hours after a 7.7-magnitude earthquake devastated Myanmar on Friday, sending dangerous tremors across Southeast Asia, the American officials charged with responding to the disaster received their termination letters from Washington.

    Most of the personnel who would have made up a U.S. response team, including security and sanitation experts, were already on indefinite leave. Many of the U.S. programs that would have provided lifesaving materials, including fuel for ambulances and medical kits, were shuttered weeks ago. U.S. planes and helicopters in nearby Thailand, which have been used before for disaster relief, never made it off the ground.

    America’s response to the catastrophic earthquake has been crippled by the Trump administration’s sweeping cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development, according to eight current and former USAID employees who worked on Myanmar, as well as former State Department officials and leaders of international aid agencies. Three days after the disaster, American teams have yet to be deployed to the quake zone — a marked contrast with other similar catastrophes, when U.S. personnel were on the ground within hours.

    The Trump administration has promised $2 million in aid, saying, “The United States stands with the people of Myanmar as they work to recover from the devastation.” But distributing this relief will be more difficult than ever, USAID officials said, because the U.S. has severed valuable ties with local organizations and fired staff who could have restored relationships. The U.S. commitment so far has also been dwarfed by the $13.7 million pledged by China, which borders Myanmar and is one of the few remaining allies of its military junta.

    The situation unfolding in Myanmar, which has been battered by years of civil war and was the biggest recipient of U.S. aid in Southeast Asia last year, is the clearest demonstration to date of how Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service has upended the global aid system — allowing Beijing and other rival powers to take the lead in providing relief.

    “This is what the world looks like when the U.S. is not a leadership role,” said Chris Milligan, who served as USAID’s top civilian official until he retired in 2021 and was USAID’s top official in Myanmar under President Barack Obama. “Other countries have mobilized, and we have not, and that’s because we have shut down parts of the U.S. government that have the capability to respond.”     — USAID cuts cripple American response to Myanmar earthquake
  • The Musk Plutocracy
    ↪Baden
    I wouldn’t disagree. Or merge it.
  • The Musk Plutocracy
    Trump as a threat to democracy... — philosch

    President Donald Trump on Sunday declined to rule out seeking a third presidential term — an unconstitutional act explicitly barred under the 22nd Amendment — saying that “there are methods which you could do it.”

    In a phone interview with NBC News’s Kristen Welker, Trump suggested that multiple plans have begun to circulate for him to run for a third term. He pointed to unspecified polling as an indicator of his popularity and claimed he had the “highest poll numbers of any Republican for the last 100 years.”

    “A lot of people want me to do it,” Trump said.     — WP


    I suppose Trump is free to lie, it's not illegal; it becomes a problem when lots of people (always) trust his word more than "mainstream media" or whatever. — jorndoe

    :roll:
  • The Musk Plutocracy
    Take this statement as you right it: That means 1500 people beat cops. That's just absurd. — philosch

    I said '1500 odd felons who had among other things beaten police with fire extinguishers and flag poles.' Which is fact.

    I think Jan 6 was an unfortunate riot that got out of hand but was no worse than any of the other 500 or so riots the previous summer. — philosch

    This is classic 'whataboutism'. 'What about all the other riots'? Well, the other riots were not held to disrupt the transfer of Presidential power nor did they result in the desecration of the US Capital Building. Rioters were chanting Hang Mike Pence, and assembled a mock gallows, as depicted in the photo I showed. Seven people died as a consequence of the actions of that day.

    Certainly not an insurrection as no one was even charged with that crime. — philosch

    As of January 20, 2025, 1,575 people were charged in connection with the January 6 attack. The FBI has estimated that around 2,000 people took part in criminal acts at the event. The two Oath Keepers leaders were convicted of Seditious Conspiracy. Others were convicted of various felonies. It met the definition of insurrection 'a violent uprising against an authority or government'.

    Trump is on record of asking his followers to protest peacefully which was their right

    As Mitch McConnell said on the US Senate Floor after the event '“The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president and other powerful people. And they tried to use fear and violence to stop a specific proceeding of the first branch of the federal government which they did not like.” More's the pity he didn't follow through and convict after the second impeachment, it would have put an end to all this nonsense before it took root again.

    When Biden got elected I was pretty down as I could easily see he was weak and mentally incompetent. But I didn't panic. — philosch

    Biden left the US economy in much better shape than it is ever going to be under Trump. All the signs are that recession is imminent, unemployment is growing, and inflation rising. There is not a single reputable economist who will support the Tarrif War, with most of them warning it is going to cause profound economic disclocation.

    Trump as a threat to democracy because you don't like his policies are just ridiculous hyperbolic statements that are not based in fact — philosch

    I never compared Trump to nazism, that is a total red herring. But Trump's threats to democracy are real and documented. Just some examples from the last few weeks:

    * Extensive use of so-called 'executive actions', amounting to 'rule by decree', many of which are subject to legal action, as per the previous list.
    * threatening of law firms who were associated with January 6th prosecutions or investigations into Trump by banning them from Government contracts and revoking of security clearances.
    * withholding and withdrawing constitutionally-approved funds for all kinds of agencies and programs in defiance of the Congressional 'power of the purse'
    * firing of Department Inspectors General in defiance of the constitutional requirement for 30 days notice and adequate grounds for dismissal (also making it much harder to detect the 'fraud and waste' that Trump keeps bleating about, as that is what they are appointed to monitor)
    *rounding up and illegally deporting immigrants with no hearing or opportunity for them to present a defense.

    There are more examples. Trump makes no secret of his desire for absolute personal loyalty to him over the Constitution. He shows no interest in or respect for the principles of constitutional democracy.

    Funny that you state the 60 lawsuits brought by Trump agents did not demonstrate that Joe Biden's administration was a threat to democracy but the 50 lawsuits brought by Trump opponents demonstrate he is a threat to democracy. — philosch

    The '60 lawsuits' (actually 62) in the first instance, were brought by Rudy Guiliani, Sidney Powell, and a cohort of other lawyers on the fallacious grounds that the Electoral College count for the 2020 election were somehow corrupted or false. Remember Guiliani's hysterics about having 'absolute proof' of electoral fraud? Every one of those cases was dismissed. Remember the ridiculous lies about Dominion Voting Systems? And the fact that Fox News paid the largest-ever settlement in legal history for propogating those lies.

    The current 50-odd lawsuits against Trump's executive actions have been, by contrast, lodged by all kinds of parties, against the perceived unconstitutionality and illegal nature of some of Trump's executive actions, and they are having an effect. Musk and Trump are now saying that judges who oppose Trump's orders ought to be impeached - another example of his threat to democracy and contempt for the rule of law.

    Now let me ask you, what do you think of people destroying Tesla's and fire bombing dealerships? — philosch

    Dreadful. Absolutely reprehensible and should be punished to the maximum extent of the law. There's only one means of protest against Tesla required, and it is perfectly legal: don't buy one.
  • The Musk Plutocracy
    How to characterize this aspect of those people? — jorndoe

    It truly is an alternative reality. Some of the apologists for Trump on the Forum seem quite earnest, and pained as to why critics (like myself) are so hostile. I guess you will find many analyses of the social and political dynamics behind it if you searched for them. But I think, philosophically speaking, it is something like 'false consciousness':

    In Marxist theory, 'false consciousness' refers to a distorted understanding of social reality, especially by members of the working class, that prevents them from recognizing their true interests. It’s a way of describing how ideology—the dominant ideas of a society—can mask the real conditions of exploitation under capitalism.

    The term itself was popularized not by Marx himself but by later Marxists such as Engels and thinkers from the Frankfurt School. It describes how people may come to accept the values and interests of the ruling class (bourgeoisie) as if they were their own.

    For example, a worker who believes that capitalism is fair because “anyone can make it if they work hard enough” may be said to be under the spell of false consciousness.

    Likewise, many disillusioned with politics as usual seem willing to believe that Trump will improve the economy or their lives, presumably because he's so good at appealing to their fears and depicting himself as a 'victim' of 'the establishment'. They fall for it over and over. It has been dissappointing in the extreme to see it.

    The other point is, Trump is purging the Government and Administration of anyone who would challenge his false claims. Would-be employees are subjected to scrutiny to see if they have any record of criticizing Trump or MAGA before being hired. He's hand-picked only people who will agree with him that the 2020 election was stolen. He's excluding independent media from the WH press pool, and so on. He's really worked at creating an 'alternative reality' in which most of the media and the news it reports can be dismissed as 'fake'. And his voters believe it.

    One example would be male transgender athletes not allowed in women sports. — philosch

    As it happens, that is one subject where I agree with the conservatives. I think the Left's fixation with trans rights is one area where they've lost a lot of the electorate (not that it's an argument I want to pursue.)

    //

    Comment on a YT video about Musk:

    "I cannot tell a lie" - George Washington
    "I cannot tell the truth" - Donald Trump
    "I cannot tell the difference" - MAGA

    //
  • The Musk Plutocracy
    Again, I normally try to ignore Politics — Gnomon

    Based on what you've said here, a sound practice.
  • The proof that there is no magic
    What Sokrates means by "higher order" is what I mean by "level of detail". — Quk

    He doesn't. Detail is not the same as an explanatory principle. The higher order is more like a framework of explanation.

    There's a philosophical point that I think you're sensing, but not describing very well. I agree that 'explanations don't go all the way down'. But there needs to be some clarity as to what constitutes a real explanation, as distinct from just hand-waving about 'magic'. Science and technology and much else besides relies on being able to discern cause and effect relations. But then there are also 'why is it so?' questions that can't be easily answered.

    One way to say it might be that when the cause and effect are specific in nature, then the question is narrow enough to answer. But the more general the question, the more difficult it becomes. A falling apple accelerates at a given rate described by Newton's laws. But what is a 'scientific law' is a much bigger question than 'why does the apple accelerate at that rate'. That may be a good starting point - then you're getting into philosophy of science, which has long grappled with these questions.
  • The Musk Plutocracy
    What you have said above is ridiculous propagandizing and not worth any further discussion. — philosch

    I feel the same about what you're saying, but in this matter there are not two sides to the story. That Trump lies repeatedly and is a threat to democracy is not a matter of opinion, but of fact. You've stated your view, others can make up their own mind.

    Although I do have one question: what is your view of the Jan 6th riot? Do you think that was justified? That it's been exagerrated by 'the liberal media'? That it was really a peaceful demonstration?
  • The proof that there is no magic
    How detailed must an answer be in order to be an explanation rather than a description? — Quk

    It's not a matter of detail alone. In Greek philosophy, the issue is phrased in terms of explanans and explanandum. In the Phaedo, for example, Socrates argues that knowledge requires a method of inquiry that moves from the known to the unknown. He suggests that in order to explain a particular phenomenon, one must have knowledge of a more general principle or cause that underlies it. Socrates refers to this more general principle as the "cause" or "explanans," and the particular phenomenon as the "effect" or "explanandum."

    Socrates asserts that the explanans must be of a higher order than the explanandum, because it is the more general principle that explains why the particular phenomenon occurs. He uses the example of how we explain why a lyre produces sound. Socrates argues that the explanans for why a lyre produces sound is not simply that the lyre is made of wood and strings, but rather that it is in the nature of harmony and discord to produce sound. (Of course, we now understand that it is the effect of the vibrating string on the sorrounding air which generate what we understand as sound waves.)

    Thus, the explanans (the nature of harmony and discord) is of a higher order than the explanandum (the sound produced by the lyre).

    This idea that the explanans must be of a higher order than the explanandum is sometimes referred to as the "Principle of Proportionate Causality" or the "Principle of Adequacy." It is a basic principle of many philosophical and scientific theories of explanation.

    In later philosophy, David Hume famously cast doubt on the trustworthiness of inductive reasoning - reasoning from effect to cause. He argued that whilst we can give plausible reasons for why an effect follows from a cause, we can't discern a real basis to those causal relationships with the same degree of certainty we can discern in logical relationships. That was the point that was taken up by Immaneuel Kant in his famous 'answer to Hume'.
  • The Musk Plutocracy
    once again a very reasonable and interesting post, — philosch

    It's significant that the only contributions you're calling out are Gnomon's which have neither any reference to or connection with what is actually happening but are waffling about political philosophy. And that NIH paper is about colonizing Mars while the real issue confronting the NIH at this moment, is the cancellation of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of grants on ideological or political grounds.

    The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have begun cancelling billions of dollars in funding for research related to COVID-19.

    COVID-19 research funds “were issued for a limited purpose: to ameliorate the effects of the pandemic”, according to an internal NIH document that Nature has obtained and that provides the agency’s staff members with updated guidance on how to terminate these grants. “Now that the pandemic is over, the grant funds are no longer necessary,” the document states. It is not clear how many of these grants will be ended.

    ‘Boggles the mind’: US defence department slashes research on emerging threats

    The crackdown comes as the NIH, under US President Donald Trump, has halted nearly 400 grants in the past month. An earlier version of the documents, obtained by Nature on 5 March, directed staff to identify and potentially cancel projects on transgender populations; gender identity; diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the scientific workforce; and environmental justice.

    The NIH, which is the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research, has awarded grants to nearly 600 ongoing projects that include ‘COVID’ in the title, worth nearly US$850 million. Together, these projects make up nearly 2% of the NIH’s $47-billion budget. And the CDC plans to cancel $11.4 billion in funds for pandemic response, NBC News reports.

    That is from Nature, hardly a left-wing socialist outlet. Meanwhile RFKjr is insisting that research money be wasted on further exploration of the long-discredited link between vaccination and autism.

    Alongside this, the Trump administration has launched a full-on ideological war against academic freedom, under the guise of cracking down on 'anti-American' and 'DEI-focussed' speech.

    Trump administration officials have called American colleges and universities “the enemy” and unleashed myriad attacks on them that would undercut their funding and trample their independence. These include cuts in biomedical research funding; eliminating research agencies; threatened reductions to student Pell grants, travel bans, and slow processing of visas of international students; attacks on free speech on campus; a proposed massive increase in taxes on endowments; and on and on.

    As for 'the media bubble': The Guardian has what Americans call 'liberal bias'. So what? I can easily make the distinction between their editorial slant, and the facts they report. So too with the other 'liberal media' - NY Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic. They stand up for liberal values, no question, but they're also capable of balanced writing and reporting, and they do attempt to report the facts.

    And one fact everyone needs to acknowledge is that the Trump administration is built on lies. Trump is the one who insists that the 2020 election was 'rigged' even after 60 lawsuits brought against it were basically laughed out of court. Trump is the one who summarily pardoned 1500 odd felons who had among other things beaten police unconscious with fire extinguishers and flag poles.

    D9341-F5-A-1-C9-F-4-A2-A-8493-19-F99987-B205-1-102-o.jpg
    Trump is on the record saying that Jan 6th 2021 was a 'day of love'.

    It needs to be realised that Donald Trump and Elon Musk are direct threats to constitutional democracy and the rule of law. This is a fact, it is not scare-mongering or 'liberal propaganda' - there are more than 50 current lawsuits brought against Trump's executive actions. Trump is routinely reported as propagating 'disinformation' or 'making claims without evidence', but in plain language, he lies - repeatedly and prolifically, nearly every time he speaks. His administration and those he sorrounds himself with are dripping with mendacity. And that's not a matter of opinion.
  • The proof that there is no magic
    Personally, I think a "hard magic" can work quite well, so long as the author just keeps it vague. — Count Timothy von Icarus

    There's a damned good argument for the fact that quantum physics is, in fact, magic - specifically the effect known as non-locality or entanglement. This is what Einstein derisively described as 'spooky action at a distance', but despite his scorn, it was proven to occur, and was subject of the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics.

    I ran this idea past Gemini, which responded “No, quantum nonlocality, often described as "spooky action at a distance," is a real, experimentally verified phenomenon in physics, not magic, that describes the instantaneous correlation between entangled particles, despite the distance separating them."

    But this bypasses the philosophical import of the question. Just because something is empirically observed and mathematically modeled doesn’t mean it’s conceptually understood, especially in causal terms. The mystery of quantum nonlocality isn't dissolved by calling it a “real phenomenon.” In fact, the phrase “spooky action at a distance” (Einstein's own) was intended as a criticism—it was meant to say, this doesn’t make sense under classical ideas of causality or locality.

    Traditionally, magic is about non-local influence through sympathetic connection—what Sir James Frazer called "the law of sympathy," including "contagion", "sympathy" and "similarity." Two things that were once connected or resemble each other are thought to retain a link, even across space and time. "Like produces like" is known as "imitative magic" and things once in contact remain connected, as "contagious magic".

    Now, if you set aside the cultural baggage around the word magic, it does seem that quantum entanglement shares an odd structural similarity to this older idea: two particles, once interacting, retain an instantaneous link, such that the measurement of one constrains the possible outcomes of the other, even when space-like separated. There's no energy transfer or classical information sent faster than light—but still, there’s a coherence.

    So in a way, quantum nonlocality is “not magical” only in the sense that it obeys quantum theory’s predictions and doesn’t allow for faster-than-light signaling (i.e. it doesn’t violate causality in a relativistic sense). But in terms of intelligibility, it still appears as a kind of patterned connectedness that echoes what earlier traditions would have considered magical or symbolic influence.

    The real issue is that the nature of the causal relationship involved remains deeply unclear (and hence controversial). Quantum theory points at the correlation, but can't explain the connection. So non-locality is not “magic” in the pre-scientific sense, but it does reintroduce a kind of pattern-based, holistic connectedness that resonates with what ancient ideas of magic expressed. That doesn't mean we should start casting spells—but it does mean that the sharp boundary between the “scientific” and the “magical” isn't as self-evident as it might seem.

    And besides, saith Feynman, 'I can safely say that nobody understands quantum physics'. It works - as if by magic!

    (Have a look at my self-published article, Spooky Action in Action!)
  • The proof that there is no magic
    Yes, we can explain it. The explanation is this: The banana turns blue when someone reads that sentence. That explains it. So it's not magic. — Quk

    Very facile, but completely overlooks the point of explanation. An explanation demonstrates a causal relationship between events, and a correlation is not causation. If a banana turned blue on account of someone doing anything, then presumably a scientific explanation would be sought by first of all examining the banana and trying to understand what about it has changed. As for the 'second force' example, that has never been used as an example of 'magic'. Comparing a 'banana turning blue' and 'classical physics' is entirely specious.

    What else could "magic" be anyway? — Quk

    Something your post demonstrates no conception of.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Another grifter buys his way out of jail by gifting Trump

    Trevor Milton, the founder of electric vehicle start-up Nikola who was sentenced to prison last year, was pardoned by Donald Trump late on Thursday, the White House confirmed on Friday.

    The pardon of Milton, who was sentenced to four years in prison for exaggerating the potential of his technology, could wipe out hundreds of millions of dollars in restitution that prosecutors were seeking for defrauded investors.

    Milton and his wife donated more than $1.8m to a Trump re-election campaign fund less than a month before the November election, according to the Federal Election Commission.     — TheGuardian

    For a forensic analysis of Milton’s grift, see this episode of Cold Fusion TV. Basically he claimed to have invented a feasible electric freighter when he had no such thing, and staged outrageously fraudulent video demonstrations to fleece investors of billions. He’d be a viable candidate for the Trump cabinet in future, one would think.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    ↪jorndoe
    With RFK providing guidance on the importance of fresh air and sunshine
  • Australian politics
    I think this 'price controls on supermarkets' is populist talk-back radio nonsense. We don't live in a command economy.
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Make American Good Again

    Is this what it means to “make America great again”?

    Does a great nation spurn loyal allies and genuflect before tyrants? Does it seek to swell its size and wealth while cutting lifelines to those sick and starving abroad? Would a great nation embrace oligarchs, both domestic and foreign, while belittling and mistreating the most vulnerable? Would it hunt down homeless migrants and ship them without due process to foreign hellholes? Would it exalt kissing up while kicking down? Would it toss friends to wolves?

    America’s true greatness always has stood on its goodness. Yes, we have sinned, often grotesquely — with centuries of slavery, Indian genocide, land theft and foreign invasions. The Vietnam and Iraq wars stain our national conscience, as do Jim Crow, segregation and Japanese internment. But when we have sinned, we also have repented, even if grudgingly and late.

    When instead we have done good, we have shown our true greatness. By rebuilding Europe with the Marshall Plan; by enabling a dignified and healthy old age with Social Security and Medicare; by lifting barriers to the polls with the Voting Rights Act; by opening our doors to those of all colors and creeds who seek only to build a better life for their children. And, yes, by showing empathy toward the suffering and shunned.

    Being good in all these ways has not made us chumps. We can be at once both generous and self-interested. Our soft power abroad draws on our most generous and noble acts and traditions. Our moral capital has won us tangible capital in both trade and military alliances. Holding true to our democratic traditions has drawn to our side the world’s wealthiest and most powerful democracies.

    Why on earth would we scorn the friendship of Canada, the EU, Japan and South Korea for the meager recompense of Russia’s battered economy and beleaguered military? Why would we betray Ukraine, which has stood bravely against aggression?

    Nor does being good mean being weak. Our military might empowers us to defend our ideals while supporting others who adhere to those same ideals. But being mighty is not an end in itself. Nor is being vast or rich. If we seize Greenland, Gaza or the Panama Canal, or bring our friends to their knees with massive tariffs, we may make ourselves richer in material terms even as we forsake our highest ideals.

    Those ideals, the true roots of our strength, have made America good. And only by being good again can we be truly great.     — George Fisher, The Hill

    This is video of the chilling arrest by plain-clothes ICE operatives, of Rumeysa Ozturk, 30 y.o. PhD student at Tufts University, ostensibly on the grounds of her expression of pro-palestinian support. She was driven several hours then flown to an ICE facility in Louisiana for deportation. Her arrest has been challenged in court and her deportation has been stopped pending appeal.
  • What is faith
    ↪Dawnstorm
    Your posts are well-informed and thought-provoking, thank you.
  • On the substance dualism
    conceptualising something is not to arrive at a static mental image or predefined set of attributes, but a dynamic process that involves engaging with rules, practices, and contexts in a flexible way. — Banno

    All physical in nature? Reducible to physics? Able to be replicated in silicon? Oh, I see - 'anomalous monism'. Physicalism with whatever ad hoc admissions that need to be made to accomodate the non-physical nature of intentionality and interpretation. Slick!

    I have a suggestion for why 'anomalous monism' even seems plausible. It has to do with history of ideas. Western philosophy devised 'substance dualism' and then defined mind as a 'thinking thing'. That was susceptible to the 'ghost in the machine' criticism. So, there is no ghost - only the machine, which is what any serious or sober thinker must accept. But then, if there seem to be things which the mechanist or physicalist paradigm can't accomodate, we'll call that an 'anomaly', and carry on regardless.

    Am I warm?
  • Australian politics
    ↪Banno
    :up: Good to know.
  • We’re Banning Social Media Links
    ↪Benkei
    :up:
  • We’re Banning Social Media Links
    ↪Vera Mont
    Agree in general but of note the Australian legislation to put age restrictions on social media use exempted youtube.
  • On the substance dualism
    Information content can be measured physically - that is where Landauer comes in - but that is only because there are agreed conventions of what constitutes meaningful information in the first place.
    — Wayfarer
    :lol:

    What's meaning, if not what what is done with the information? Meaning here is just another term for use.

    And use is physical. It involves actual processes that produce measurable physical effects in the world.     — Banno

    You’re reducing Wittgenstein to a slogan.

    Meaning is not just “use” in the reductive physical sense of mechanical interaction or behavioral output. Wittgenstein’s use theory of meaning operates within language games, forms of life, and shared human practices — none of which can be captured in the vocabulary of physics (and incidentally, as you well know, Wittgenstein detested 'scientism' and presumably physicalism as an aspect thereof.)

    The entire discipline of semiotics — from Peirce to Eco to contemporary biosemiotics — is concerned with signs and sign-relations, not with particles and forces. A sign refers to something; it stands for something else — and that referential function is not something describable in physical terms alone. There is no law of physics that tells you whether “dog” means a four-legged mammal, or whether it’s someone’s last name.

    You’re not seeing the meaning for the words.
  • On the substance dualism
    What we have is two differing descriptions of the same physicality. — Banno

    Again, not so. Information content can be measured physically - that is where Landauer comes in - but that is only because there are agreed conventions of what constitutes meaningful information in the first place. And what makes information meaningful is not physical nor can be derived from physics nor reduced to it. And not seeing that is precisely what 'the blind spot of science' is referring to. (This was the subject of a marathon thread from about five years ago, Is Information Physical? although I've since come to understand the question is really about the nature of meaning, rather than information, per se, although it's a porous boundary.)
  • On the substance dualism
    ↪Banno
    Not. We’ve established the difference cannot be discerned by physical principles alone.
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