Strange, that. I went back to Gemini after making that post and asked again, and it just kept saying 'I can't help with responses on elections and political figures right now.' Maybe because I used 'President Bill Clinton' in the prompt? It's kind of creepy, though. What with the Orange Emperor just having been handed a list of 5000 FBI agents he wants to sack.

ChatGPT showed no such reticence about Bill Clinton, saying

From 1998 to 2001, the federal government ran a budget surplus, meaning revenues exceeded expenditures. This was the first time the U.S. had a balanced budget since 1969. Several factors contributed to this:

*Economic Growth – The 1990s saw strong economic expansion, partly driven by technological advancements and the dot-com boom.
* Tax Increases & Spending Restraint – Clinton signed the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993, which raised taxes on higher-income earners and controlled government spending.
* Bipartisan Cooperation – In 1997, Clinton worked with the Republican-controlled Congress to pass the Balanced Budget Act, which further limited spending.
* Defense Cuts & Welfare Reform – Post-Cold War defense spending reductions and welfare reform measures helped reduce expenditures.

By 2000, the U.S. had a budget surplus of about $236 billion, the largest surplus in U.S. history at that time. However, these surpluses did not last long, as tax cuts, increased military spending, and economic downturns in the early 2000s led to deficits again.

Of course, the merest suggestion of raising taxes causes apoplexy amongst the MAGA, never mind that tarrifs are, of course, a tax on imports.

President Clinton's 1993 Economic Plan included $255 billion in spending cuts over five years. — BC

I seem to recall Clinton balanced the budget. (I asked gemini.google about this fact, and it demurred, saying 'I can't help with responses on elections and political figures right now.' And people are freaking out because DeepSeek won't answer questions in Tianamen.)

As has been pointed out, Musk is the democratic bureaucrat, given that his job derives from a mandate. — Leontiskos

In what sense, derives from a mandate? He has been summarily appointed, without Congressional or Senate oversight, and the barest of instructions, no guidelines, and not even the appropriate security clearances. Of course the US debt is an international calamity, and economic collapse is a real possibility. But having an unelected, unsupervised oligarch making unilateral decisions that affect millions of lives and thousands of employees is not any kind of solution to that.

My thoughts exactly. Surprised and delighted by the quality and the conversational style. (Right now I'm using ChatGPT to re-learn basic web scripting skills and GitHub, which I've done before but then forgotten. Don't know how I did it first time around! Oh, and I visited Oxford in 2022 - high point of our European tour - although we weren't allowed into the Bodleian itself, apparently a high privilege.)

I'm going to need to ask you two if you have horses in this race, before proceeding any further. — Arcane Sandwich

If you’re asking whether I think it matters, then ‘yes’.

I'm open to the idea that God might exist, and that Jesus might be God. — Arcane Sandwich

I suppose that's something. But let me make an observation here. I don't generally make it my business to argue for belief in God on this forum. I'm not an atheist, so I do believe that religion has a real referent, it is about a reality, not a 'social construct' or psychological projection. But when you ask the question as what that referent might be, it is very difficult to answer. If it were a straightforward matter, one could point to something by way of definition. But defining the nature of deity or the idea of the Sacred is not at all straightforward. This is why the question tends to fragment into innummerable, and often conflicting, mythological or philosophical accounts. And of course there's nothing remotely like a consensus possible in any of this in today's cultural landscape.

In any case, and in a roundabout way, what I meant by my earlier remark was that for an atheist, the question of the nature of God's existence doesn't matter in an existential sense; it doesn't mean anything for her conception of the nature of existence. It's a theoretical or hypothetical matter. Whereas for the believer, the question has real import: she believes that there is something at stake beyond the hypothetical. Something like the fate of her immortal soul, which, of course, means nothing to those who don't believe it's even a meaningful idea.

As to the question of whether and in what sense Jesus is identical with God, there is, on the one hand, 'I and the Father are One' (John 10:30). But then on the other, Mark 10:18 'Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God.'

I interpret that against a kind of pan-religious perspective which understands the figures in these expressions as archetypal realities. So that here when Jesus says 'why call Me good?', he's gesturing towards his particular self, the ego or persona. That is precisely what Jesus says must die, when He says, 'He who saves his own life will loose it, he who looses his life for My sake will be saved'( Mt 16:25). In other words, 'dying to the self' or the selfish or egoic perspective is required to be 'born again' into the Holy spirit. That 'ego death' is not unique to the Christian faith (although of course, for Christians, Jesus is the archetype.)

But understanding the themes of 'union with the Divine' (in Christianity, called 'theosis' or 'beatification') at least on a literary, if not an existential, level, is necessary to understand what the question of the identity of Jesus with the Divine means.

Since I'm an atheist... — Arcane Sandwich

...the question is actually meaningless to you, and is basically a form of entertainment, if that.

Around 8 p.m. on Sunday, a USAID staffer pushed forward $78 million for food and shelter to Palestinians living in Gaza. Two hours later, that staffer and contractors working in over 100 countries were locked out of their email accounts. Then just past midnight, staff received an email from Gavin Kliger, a young engineer working for Elon Musk, announcing that headquarters was closed for business. By Monday morning, the U.S. government agency that sends assistance to tens of millions of the world’s neediest people “from the American people,” as its motto states, was effectively dead.

Over the past 72 hours, a dozen sources recounted the final days of the U.S. Agency for International Development before an effort led by Musk and supported by President Donald Trump crippled the agency and put it under the control of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is now acting director. It appears to be the first of an untold number of federal agencies that the Trump administration seeks to remake without the approval of Congress. Democrats have accused the administration of breaking the law.

As the agency began to crumble under an attack from its own government, staffers worked frantically to send money keeping hospitals and soup kitchens from Gaza to Sudan running, saying that people may die as a result of the chaos. As of Monday afternoon, they were trying to send $305 million to the World Food Program. “We’re blowing through all the normal processes to get this out as quickly as possible,” says one staffer. Employees couldn’t even tell their partner organizations, with which they were communicating regularly as recently as last week, how much money was coming. “I don’t think anyone has any idea what’s going on.” — New Yorker

Many people will die because of these actions. Perhaps that's OK with the American electors, although you can bet that their chosen media outlets will not report it.

Lonergan demonstrates how you can't have science without the scientist. — theThomist

As did Edmund Husserl. Any similarities there?

As Elon Musk digs into the federal bureaucracy in his crusade to slash government spending, he has a tool that no aspiring cost-cutter has had before: his own giant social media platform to debate, shame and bludgeon anyone who stands in his way.

Since the inauguration, Mr. Musk has attacked journalists and X users for posting the names of people working with him, calling it “a crime.” He’s accused Treasury Department officials of “breaking the law every hour of every day.” And Mr. Musk has mocked Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, as “hysterical.”

On Monday, Mr. Musk celebrated his progress, posting he had fed the U.S. Agency for International Development, the government’s lead agency for humanitarian aid, “into the wood chipper.”

And on Tuesday, Mr. Musk began a poll on X: “Would you like DOGE to audit the IRS?”

The comments show how Mr. Musk, who unlike traditional government figures rarely holds news conferences or speaks to reporters, is using his social media site as a powerful tool to promote his goals as part of the Trump administration. Since the inauguration, Mr. Musk has unleashed a barrage of posts to his more than 215 million followers, promoting conspiratorial rumors about his adversaries, pressuring senators to confirm the president’s cabinet picks and weighing in on foreign elections.

On top of that, Mr. Musk’s account is becoming one of the few sources for information about the billionaire’s secretive stampede to slash the federal budget, an initiative he calls the Department of Government Efficiency.

X has given Mr. Musk an unusual avenue to showcase his unapologetically confrontational approach to cost cutting in a way that appeals to President Trump’s base, tech policy experts said.

“The performative aspect of this is key. It’s a big part of what populism is,” said Sarah Kreps, the director of the Cornell Brooks School Tech Policy Institute. “To be able to have this very visible shake-up really is important to the constituency that rose the administration to power.”

Mr. Musk and a spokeswoman for the cost-cutting initiative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Musk’s transformation of X into his political megaphone began when he bought the social media company in October 2022. The next year, he became the most followed person on the site. Engagement with his posts has since mushroomed, according to X’s metrics, making him the loudest voice on the platform.

Now, Mr. Musk, who is chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX, has charged into his new role to cut government spending, swiftly moving to transform at least half a dozen government agencies, challenging congressional authority and potentially breaching civil service protections.

His project has worked to shut down U.S.A.I.D. Leaders of the cost-cutting initiative have also pushed out top officials there and at the Treasury Department who objected to the actions of his representatives, and ended leases on government office spaces.

As part of those efforts, Mr. Musk has used his X account to critique federal agencies in his cross hairs. U.S.A.I.D. is “evil” and “a criminal organization,” Mr. Musk wrote in separate posts on Sunday.

Lawmakers including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, and Mr. Schumer have accused Mr. Musk of overreach.

Early Tuesday, Mr. Musk reposted a comment by Mr. Schumer, who said Congress must stop what amounted to an unauthorized hostile takeover of the government.

“Hysterical reactions like this is how you know that DOGE is doing work that really matters,” Mr. Musk said in response to Mr. Schumer. “This is the one shot American people have to defeat BUREAUcracy, rule of the bureaucrats, and restore DEMOcracy, rule of the people.”

Mr. Musk’s business portfolio, which relies in part on government contracts and subsidies, has raised conflict-of-interest concerns, although Mr. Trump has brushed off those fears.

After Ms. Ocasio-Cortez criticized Mr. Musk’s conflicts of interest, Mr. Musk replied, “Do you actually write these or am I replying to your intern?”

Mr. Musk also turned to the platform in recent days to defend those working on his initiative. The billionaire has likened identifying those assisting his cost-cutting effort to doxxing, an online harassment tactic that involves posting private information like addresses and phone numbers.

After several workers’ names were published in media reports, X removed some posts on the platform that publicized the employees’ identities and suspended some accounts that had shared the information.

“Don’t mess with @DOGE,” Mr. Musk wrote in a post on Monday night in response to people attempting to name and shame the workers.

Mr. Musk also boasted on X about the removal of the account for 18F, a digital services agency that is part of the General Services Administration. After fans raised concerns about projects the agency had worked on, including one that critiqued racial bias in facial recognition systems, Mr. Musk posted that the agency was “deleted.”

While its X account is gone, the agency so far has survived. — Elon Musk’s X Becomes Weapon in Government Cost Cutting

Not for long, one must surmise.


Source
Some of the nefarious activities undertaken by the criminal organisation.

Well, there is no effective opposition. The Democrats are in a complete muddle, leaderless and rudderless. All of the Republican opposition to the Musk oligarchy has been driven out or marginalised. Who honestly is going to listen to a Liz Cheney or Mitt Romney now? Trump doesn't even need to try and hound them, they've become irrelevant. The readers of NY Times and Washington Post are outraged, but they're the minority even if a sizeable minority.

What I think might bring Trump down is what I'm expecting him to deliver: an economic mess (if not catastrophe, and let's hope not). He still thinks, to this day, that the Chinese pay the American tarrifs on their exports and nobody can persuade him otherwise. He lives in an alternative reality, one devoid of fact, but the unfortunate thing is that tens of millions of people have decided to join him there.

:100:

Somebody now buying a Tesla will make a clear political statement. — ssu

I read an article, I think even before the election, about some lucky internet trader, who's making a small fortune selling these bumper stickers:

What basically is happening in the US is what happened in Hungary. Basically one should learn what Victor Orban has achieved in Hungary, as that would be the objective of Trump. — ssu

The media has been reporting the Republican infatuation with Orban for a long time https://wapo.st/40KD1NN . The Republican Party, or should we now say, the MAGA party, is clearly wanting to implement something similar.

As I see it, the modern period is characteristically domineering rather than receptive. It is a kind of grasping at being God, which is the antithesis of Philippians 2:6. Everything is in our hands; everything is up to us; knowledge is primarily something we do; we are the occupants of the view from nowhere; and making-knowledge is the highest form of knowledge. Now Scientism is a kind of grotesque epitome of this attitude, and one which is widely recognized to be aberrant. But it is only an epitome. That is, the basic mindset is much more widespread than Scientism. — Leontiskos

Agree. I've often remarked that the mentality of modern culture can be summed up in the motto 'nihil ultra ego'. The Cartesian ego becomes the fulcrum, the arbiter, of truth, buttressed on the ramparts of scientific truth. And this is fundamental to liberal individualism. (Not that I would prefer any kind of social collectivism per Asiatic cultures.)

Democratic space must remain inside itself. To put it in Latin: It must be immanent. Tocqueville noticed that aristocratic man was constantly sent back to something that is placed outside his own self, something above him. Democratic man, on the other hand, refers only to himself.

The democratic social space is not only flat but closed. And it is closed because it is has to be flat. What is outside, whatever claims to have worth and authority in itself and not as part of the game, must be excluded. Whoever and whatever will not take a seat at the table at the same level as all other claims and authorities, however mundane, is barred from the game. — Remi Braque

(I'm a bit disquieted to find myself in agreement with these sentiments, as part of me sees it as reactionary conservatism, but it can't be helped.)

However - the post of mine that you quoted from, while related to all of the above, attempts to analyse it from a specific perspective: that of the history of ideas, and the decline and fall of classical metaphysics. There's a quote given in the Joshua Hochschild lecture that we've discussed previously:

Like Macbeth, Western man made an evil decision, which has become the efficient and final cause of other evil decisions. Have we forgotten our encounter with the witches on the heath? It occurred in the late fourteenth century, and what the witches said to the protagonist of this drama was that man could realize himself more fully if he would only abandon his belief in the existence of transcendentals. The powers of darkness were working subtly, as always, and they couched this proposition in the seemingly innocent form of an attack upon universals. The defeat of logical realism in the great medieval debate was the crucial event in the history of Western culture; from this flowed those acts which issue now in modern decadence. — Richard Weaver, Ideas have Consequences

For what it's worth, I agree with this sentiment. I see the advent of materialism as inextricably connected with abandonment of the understanding of universals (scholastic or Aristotelian realism.) Not that there wasn't a great deal of dogma in those musty schools that had to be jettisoned, but that something vitally important went with it. Why? Because of the very nature of universals or Augustine's 'intelligible objects': real but immaterial. And as you will know, it was the capacity of nous to apprehend those immaterial realities which was the very essence of the rational psuchē. Thereafter the link between intellect and faith was severed, culminating in Luther's salvation by faith alone and the fideistic nature of much of modern Christianity.

That's the background to the idea I'm trying to sketch out in the post I asked you to comment on. I think I might make it subject of an essay (even if I'm out of my depth in much of it.)

I believe this is what Hume does as well, so it must have been a trend at that time. — Metaphysician Undercover

Right! As Ludwig says

I would attribute this to his empiricist approach to philosophy, especially to the doctrine that all our knowledge comes from the senses. — Ludwig V

That's the source of it.

I don't know about Thomism in enough detail to respond to that alternative approach in detail, though I think I can see the sense in it. — Ludwig V

I'm no scholar of Thomism, but I've got a grasp of the basic outlines of what Edward Feser (who's a good source in these matters) calls 'Aristotelian-Thomist' (A-T) philosophy - Aristotle's matter-form philosophy. I also read a little of Jacques Maritain, who was hugely influential in the Catholic left in the mid 20th c. and a profound philosopher. From whom The Cultural Impact of Empiricism:

For Empiricism there is no essential difference between the intellect and the senses. The fact which obliges a correct theory of knowledge to recognize this essential difference is simply disregarded. What fact? The fact that the human intellect grasps, first in a most indeterminate manner, then more and more distinctly, certain sets of intelligible features -- that is, natures, say, the human nature -- which exist in the real as identical with individuals, with Peter or John for instance, but which are universal in the mind and presented to it as universal objects, positively one (within the mind) and common to an infinity of singular things (in the real).

Thanks to the association of particular images and recollections, a dog reacts in a similar manner to the similar particular impressions his eyes or his nose receive from this thing we call a piece of sugar or this thing we call an intruder; he does not know what is 'sugar' or what is 'intruder'. He plays, he lives in his affective and motor functions, or rather he is put into motion by the similarities which exist between things of the same kind; he does not see the similarity, the common features as such. What is lacking is the flash of intelligibility; he has no ear for the intelligible meaning. He has not the idea or the concept of the thing he knows, that is, from which he receives sensory impressions; his knowledge remains immersed in the subjectivity of his own feelings -- only in man, with the universal idea, does knowledge achieve objectivity. And his field of knowledge is strictly limited: only the universal idea sets free -- in man -- the potential infinity of knowledge.

Such are the basic facts which Empiricism ignores, and in the disregard of which it undertakes to philosophize.

The US government doesn't even have a health service — unenlightened

"Fast fact: As of November 2022, Medicaid and Child's Health Insurance Program covered more than 91.7 million individuals in the United States."

Any system that doesn't have proper safeguards is bound to such a fate, surely? — Outlander

But it does have layers of safeguards, very strict security requirements. But Musk and his troupe just barge in, basically saying 'Don't you know who we are??' and demanding access. Some of the Musk personnel didn't even have the level 1 security clearances required to gain authorisation. The story relates that some of the senior officials in those departments that tried to refuse Musk access were told that US Marshalls would be called and they would be arrested unless they complied. This is the outrage of it - there has been no vetting, no Congressional approval, no real authority beyond Musk invoking the support of Trump. (There's also a story circulating that some of those who tried to refuse access to Musk will now be facing indictment for interferring with Government enquiries.)

So, I'm not sure if the problem with a populist demagogue is a dearth of democracy. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Very sane post, as always. Trump is a demagogue, of that there is not a shred of doubt. But Elon Musk's activities are another dimension to his disastrous rule. Do peruse that article linked in the OP.

I've just now had a most illuminating and insightful conversation with ChatGPT 4 which started with the distinction between noumena and the ding an sich in Kant, and wended its way through the real meaning of noumena and whether Kant understood noesis, then touching on phenomenology and recent critiques of Kant.

“Oh, hey, we’re going to impose huge sanctions on our two nearest and main trading partners, Mexico and Canada. …Wait on. What? They’re on the phone? Lemme talk to them…”

“OK, we’re NOT going to impose huge sanctions on our two nearest and main trading partners, Mexico and Canada. They were real nice to me, told me what a great president I am, and said they’ll send troops.”

Yet more ‘volleys of incompetence’, as the NYT put it last week.

Meanwhile, Trump is insisting that the FBI is 'corrupt' and that the investigations into the January 6th insurrection and his illegal retention of classified documents were the 'weaponisation of the Justice Department' which should 'never happen again'. :vomit:

Anyone else? Surely there must be an alarm bell ringing somewhere about this?

You just earned yourself a place on my banned list. Have a nice life.

I’ve been a member here since inception and hardly recall him being mentioned. I’ve read some references to him and articles about him, but he’s one of those philosophers whose work is so voluminous that it would require considerable reading to get a start. Others may have a different view of course. That said, if you could point to something pithy and on-point I’d be more than happy to read it.

You sound remarkably sanguine about it.

There is no solution within the framework of democracy — frank

So let’s get rid of it.

So this is about it for you, Frank?

No good trying to kick into the long grass of ruminations about democracy. It’s your breakfast they’re going to be eating. Besides, the leading statement is completely untrue: democracies can limit spending simply by agreeing to do so.

Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro also became the heads of state in Venezuela through democratic means. But once they got there, the democratic means that they used began to show their limits. — Arcane Sandwich

It is more than probable that DJT is preparing exactly the same methods for the U.S. I mean, he's already demonstrating it - many of his executive orders in the first two weeks of his Presidency might be unconstitutional and/or illegal - but how can they be challenged? He's gutting the Justice Department and purging the FBI of anyone deemed disloyal - classical authoritarian moves. Fox News was complaining that the Democrats are 'shredding the Constitution' by stalling the confirmation of Trump's dangerous Cabinet selections. Republican Congressmen have already started talking about how to remove the two-term limit for Trump. And so on. You're seeing the birth of an authoritarian political regime right in front of your eyes.

"33. OF REAL THINGS AND IDEAS OR CHIMERAS.--The ideas imprinted on the Senses by the Author of nature are called REAL THINGS; and those excited in the imagination being less regular, vivid, and constant, are more properly termed IDEAS, or IMAGES OF THINGS, which they copy and represent. But then our sensations, be they never so vivid and distinct, are nevertheless IDEAS, that is, they exist in the mind, or are perceived by it, as truly as the ideas of its own framing. The ideas of Sense are allowed to have more reality in them, that is, to be more (1)STRONG, (2)ORDERLY, and (3)COHERENT than the creatures of the mind; but this is no argument that they exist without the mind. They are also (4)LESS DEPENDENT ON THE SPIRIT or thinking substance which perceives them, in that they are excited by the will of another and more powerful spirit; yet still they are IDEAS, and certainly no IDEA, whether faint or strong, can exist otherwise than in a mind perceiving it. ~ Berkeley"

Not only does he distinguish between - let's call them - real appearances - and - "chimeras" - unreal appearances but he also allows the existence of something beyond or behind appearances. . — Ludwig V

Thanks for producing those particular paragraphs, as it toucheth on something ( ;-) ) which a neo-thomist such as Edward Feser would say is radical shortcoming in the Bishop's philosophy.

It is that Berkeley collapses the distinction between sensation, imagination, and intellectual abstraction (for example in this post by Feser). In Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy, intellect plays a regulative role, actively grasping universal Forms rather than just passively receiving impressions. Without this distinction, Berkeley’s account of knowledge risks reducing all cognition to subjective perceptions, which an Aristotelian would find inadequate - his "ideas" seem to be more like what the Thomist would designate phantasms (mental images) rather than concepts grasped by intellect. As a result, his theory of knowledge risks reducing rational thought to subjective perception rather than a proper engagement with reality. So, a Thomist critic might say, 'Yes, reality depends on God, but not in the way Berkeley imagines. The world’s intelligibility does not arise because God perceives it—it arises because God has endowed it with form and finality, which reason can grasp independently of sensory perception.'

@Count Timothy von Icarus, @Leontiskos

I did post about that too, but I also heard that the Musk crew access was read-only, which means something. But still, it's an absolute outrage. People should be on the streets, although I guess that'd give Trump a chance to try out his new crowd-control methods.

Amor Fati is Nietzsche's equation that replicates the Glad Tidings of Jesus Christ. — DifferentiatingEgg

But without loaves and fishes, presumably.

This is getting really, really serious. Musk is completely out of control. When the idea of the government expenditure review was mooted, it was supposed Musk's committee would propose draconian cuts to Congress, and there'd be the usual argy bargy. But no! He's barged into the actual finance departments offices, and started looking at line item expenditures for things he wants to cut, after they've all been cleared by Congress. It's blatantly illegal. But Trump has already committed so many blatantly illegal actions in his first two weeks in office, that nobody knows how to respond. He's doing what Bannon says - flooding the zone with shit. But in this case, the shit involves literally trillions of dollars, tens of thousands of jobs, entire Government agencies. He and Musk are literally tearing apart Government in full public view, and they've hardly even gotten started yet.

And don't forget, SCOTUS has declared that the President has full immunity for official acts. So if anyone challenges Trump, he'll just shrug and say they're official acts, so sue me. And who's that lucky litigant going to be?

Pity those poor government employees - and there are literally tens of thousand of them - who's livelihoods are being threatened, and who's projects are being shelved or cut in front of their eyes. What is happening in the US right now is a massive atrocity.

Oh, and the reason USAID are being called 'radical lunatics' is simply because the staff tend to being - and for completely obvious reasons - Democratic-leaning. And that is a disqualifying attribute in the emerging One Party State of MAGA.

In Christianity (and Plato before that) what animates human beings is the (holy) spirit, that is the general and immaterial which breaths life into the lifeless body. — ChatteringMonkey

By the time Nietzsche arrives, the concept of 'the immaterial' has been largely misunderstood. Reconstructing it, the original term in Greek, (as I understand it, and as one not schooled in Ancient Greek) was psuchē (subject of Aristotle's 'On the Soul'), a term which is now generally translated as psyche, or mind. The Greek term however encompassed the totality of the being - which in modern terms would also include the sub- and unconscious aspects - and also qualities such as traits, dispositions and drives.

Aristotle held that the psuchē is the form or essence of any living thing rather than a distinct substance from the body (using the philosophical, not everyday, sense of 'substance'.) It is the possession of psuche (of a specific kind) that makes an organism an organism at all - the psuchē is the 'form of the body' as is often quoted, and nous the rational faculty (that faculty which is able to grasp rational principles.) It is the rational faculty (nous) within psuchē that grasps the essence of things, and this rational capacity is what makes it immaterial. Why? As Platonist scholar Lloyd Gerson put it,

Aristotle, in De Anima, argued that thinking in general (which includes knowledge as one kind of thinking) cannot be a property of a body; it cannot, as he put it, 'be blended with a body'. This is because in thinking, the intelligible object or form is present in the intellect, and thinking itself is the identification of the intellect with this intelligible ('the psuche contains all things'). Among other things, this means that you could not engage in thought if the mind were purely a function of a physical organ. Thinking is not something that is, in principle, like sensing or perceiving; this is because thinking is a universalising activity. This is what this means: when you think, you see - mentally see - a form which could not, in principle, be identical with a particular - including a particular neurological element, a circuit, or a state of a circuit, or a synapse, and so on. This is so because the object of thinking is universal, or the mind is operating universally.

….the fact that in thinking, your mind is identical with the form that it thinks, means (for Aristotle and for all Platonists) that since the form 'thought' is detached from matter, 'mind' is immaterial too. — Platonism vs Naturalism, Lloyd Gerson

Obviously a lot to be said about all of this, but the point is that, after having been incorporated into theology as 'the immortal spirit', the original Aristotelian understanding was largely lost sight of (although preserved in Thomas Aquinas and other works of philosophical theology.) But it comes across much more like an invisible entity, which no sensible person ought to believe in, when originally it was a more subtle concept.

Nietzsche (and later Heidegger) were right to critique how 'spirit' became reified into a static, unchanging entity. However, I wonder whether this critique fully accounts for the dynamic aspects of Christian Platonism, which in its more sophisticated forms retained a more fluid understanding of soul and intellect. I suspect much of Nietzsche’s critique is aimed at a simplified, institutionalized understanding of 'spirit'—one that had been drilled into generations of students through rote learning and dogmatic instruction, often devoid of its original philosophical depth.

Another egregious and disastrous set of decisions are completely undermining US Agency for International Development, the main vehicle by means of which billions of dollars of US aid is disbursed globally across all manner of charity and aid organisations. It has >10,000 employees and disburses more than $50 billion annually. The entire organisation has been thrown into chaos, with the main website taken offline and all spending frozen, with rumours that it is to become absorbed by the State Department and its activities and funding slashed.

Again, the Musk oligarchy has been central to this, barging into secure offices and demanding access to confidential files and systems. Musk is acting like an overlord, with greater authority than any Federal official or deparmental secretary, and complete discretion in deciding what does or doesn't constitute proper spending of US dollars.

The placement of the security officials (of US AID) — John Voorhees and his deputy — on administrative leave is the latest effort by the Trump administration and Musk to wrest control of the world’s largest provider of food assistance, which they have denigrated without offering evidence as left-wing and corrupt amid objections from Democratic and Republican lawmakers.

Amid the turmoil at the agency, Matt Hopson, the USAID chief of staff and a political appointee, resigned, according to a current and former USAID official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive situation. Hopson did not respond to requests for comment.Voorhees was put on leave after he did not allow DOGE officials to access a sensitive compartmented information facility — commonly known as a “SCIF” — an ultra-secure room where officials and government contractors take extraordinary precautions to review highly classified information, according to three current and former USAID officials.

A group of about eight DOGE officials entered the USAID building Saturday and demanded access to every door and floor, despite only a few of them having security clearance, according to senior Senate Democratic staff members who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the incident.

When USAID personnel attempted to block access to some areas, DOGE officials threatened to call federal marshals, one of the Democratic aides said. The DOGE officials were eventually given access to “secure spaces” including the security office. — USAID Security Officials on Leave after Refusing Musk Allies

Imagine the predicament of those staffers, many of whom have dedicated their lives to the welfare of their recipient states and nations, who's entire careers are now being ended under the MAGA jackboots.

A fool is “happy” when his cravings are satisfied. A warrior is happy without reason.

-Dan Millman's Way of the Peaceful Warrior — Patterner

:up: I think this requires qualities of character. Notably, poise. And the appropriate orientation or attitude. The society we live in is such that it doesn't recognise those qualities, rather it relies on continual stimulation to incite cravings and consumption, hence we all become 'consumers'. Being 'happy without reason' entails throwing that off, which is not necessarily an easy thing to do.

My feeling is, Schopenhauer did not, himself, cultivate that kind of personal discipline - not wanting to be overly judgemental, as I'm no paragon. But I suspect that the kind of life he lead, didn't really lend itself to attaining any kind of real poise or equanimity, which is why he wrote so much about being disturbed by boredom and craving.

But those who overcome the impulses of lust and anger which arise in the body are made whole and live in joy. They find their joy, their rest, and their light completely within themselves. — Sri Krishna

The yamas (Sanskrit: यम, romanized: yama), and their complement, the niyamas, represent a series of "right living" or ethical rules within Yoga philosophy. The word yama means "reining in" or "control". They are restraints for proper conduct given in the Vedas and the Yoga Sutras as moral imperatives, commandments, rules or goals. The yamas are a "don't"s list of self-restraints, typically representing commitments that affect one's relations with others and self. The complementary niyamas represent the "do"s. Together yamas and niyamas are personal obligations to live well. — Wikipedia,Yamas

They always said you learn something every day. Especially on the Internet.

Actually one thought that came to me during that talk. Schopenhauer says life is a pendulum swinging between boredom and disappointment. When you do something pleasurable, it disappoints because it’s never as good as it promised, it doesn’t last and you start looking for new pleasures. But if you don’t get pleasure, then life is boring. Boo hoo!

I put it to those I was talking to, that this is simply a description of ‘egoic consciousness’ (something I’m well acquainted with), that is always seeking pleasure or satisfaction in the sensory domain. I remember a talk from a Tibetan Lama decades ago, where he made the same point, referring to Mick Jagger singing ‘I can’t get no satisfaction’. It’s the nature of pleasure, the ‘hedonic treadmill’.

Schopenhauer seems to think it can only be ameliorated by the sublimity of high art or a severe asceticism (which so far as we know he never practiced.) But life has its simple pleasures too, and - something Schopenhauer does acknowledge - there is also an enduring satisfaction in being empathetic to the suffering of others. As always, I’ll do more reading, but I do think Schopenhauer’s pessimism was lacking in that regard.

delightfully apophatic. :lol:

Apropos of which, I asked ChatGPT whether Wittgenstein was ever funny.



My favourite is the bricklayer one. :rofl:

You're welcome. I'm Sydney born and bred although now live about 90 minutes west in the picturesque Blue Mountains. Anyway, it was a salutary reminder of my probably rose-coloured attitude to Schop, he was an old curmudgeon in some ways. Still, a genius in my book, and worth the effort of reading.