the Jews still haven't lost their faith. — TheMadFool

Some Jews have kept their faith; others lost it.

subdue it; have dominion — Genesis 1:28

See what I am saying? The Guy used to be pro-human. I wonder if He changed His mind now.

I don't think mother nature's antinatalistic. — TheMadFool

Clearly she is a big fan of reproduction, but in all species, not just in one species at the expense of other ones... The key conceptual difference between God and Nature is that the latter is species-neutral while the former is believed to be anthropocentric.

Trust mother nature to solve our problems (for us) is the takeaway. — TheMadFool

The way I see it, we're the problem. Nature will 'solve' us soon enough.

I found the following text useful enough, and relevant to this thread. Translated from the original by Google and meself.



The "eccentricity" of Rome and the future of Europe
MAURIZIO BETTINI
Published on 23/11/2021

Speech delivered on the occasion of the European Day on Languages and Cultures of Antiquity.


Today's theme is immense, so I will limit myself to two salient points that concern the function of teaching classical culture in today's Europe, and especially in that of tomorrow. The first concerns language, the second culture.

Regarding language, we must first refute a prejudice. In the common perception, Latin as well as Greek are considered as "dead" languages. Many deduce that these languages are useless: "What is the point of studying languages that no one speaks anymore? But what does the "death" of a language really mean?

Today, there are about seven thousand languages spoken on earth. This sounds like a lot, but it is not much when compared to the number of languages that have disappeared over the years, for various reasons: one third of the multitude of languages spoken by the North American Indians has already died out, another third barely survives, spoken by a small number of speakers who are now very old. As for the thousand languages spoken in Central and South America, only one, Guarani, can hope to survive: along with Spanish, it is the official language of Paraguay. A real linguistic hecatomb. In this sense, Latin and Greek are - unfortunately - in good company. But not all languages die in the same way, and not all dead languages are alike.

How can a language like Latin be considered "dead"? The fate of Latin is not comparable to that of the indigenous American or Australian languages, irrevocably dead and without descendants. After them, these languages have left no legacy, except for the files of a few linguists. On the contrary, Latin never really died, its fortune has remained immense through the centuries. As is well known, this idiom survives in the many Romance languages that have been derived from it: the structure and lexicon of Latin continue to live on in French, Italian, Romanian, Castilian, Catalan, Portuguese... Moreover, all these languages have kept coming back to Latin - by "re-Latinizing" themselves with each generation - through the classical education practiced in Europe for centuries. This means that, in the Romance languages and cultures, Latin has been "born again" countless times.

Latin is also massively present in the language, which for many reasons plays a dominant role in the cultural, economic and political relations of the contemporary world, namely English. For, despite its Germanic origins, today's English contains 70% of words of Latin origin. It has also been calculated that, of the thousand words you need to know to get into an English-speaking university, 90% are of Latin origin.

In recent years, especially in America and England, there has been a lot of controversy about the Greek and Latin classics, which have been accused of being the source of a racist, white supremacist, misogynistic culture and other similar complaints. This controversy has been called "cancel culture" or "decolonize the classics". There have been some pretty absurd proposals, such as abolishing the teaching of classics at university altogether, refusing to read classical texts that are not "appropriate" in terms of race, gender, violence, and so on. Such arguments have the merit of making us think from a new perspective about the role that classical texts have played in our Western tradition and about the change in perspective that can be brought to bear on the classics, a change that is more necessary than ever today.

But that is not what interests us now; it is the "words" used to describe this movement: "cancel culture" and "decolonize the classics".

Indeed, "culture" is a Latin word, "cultura"; "cancel" itself derives from the Latin "cancellare", which properly indicates the act of the copyist who marks with crossed lines a word or phrase to be "deleted" in a text, thus creating the image of a "grid", in Latin "cancellum"; "classics" is obviously the Latin word "classicus"; as for "de-colonize", it is not only that "colonize" is a derivative of the Latin "colonia", but the preverb used in the English compound "de-" is itself a Latin preverb which retains its original morphological function: as a preverb, it indicates in Latin the notion of "far from", of "deprivation of" ("de-cedo"," de-duco", "de-migro", etc.). “Decolonize” is therefore a perfectly formed Latin compound.

In conclusion, we are faced with proposals which declare the need to erase classical culture while being entirely articulated from Latin words and even from the morphology of this “hated” language. The point is that Latin “speaks” within ourselves, without our realizing it. Latin forms the "deep consciousness" of the intellectual language of the West.

Second point: culture. For a long time, at least in Italy, at school, the study of Antiquity was based on two paths: on the one hand, the study of history (wars and battles, political upheavals, evolution of forms of government) and, on the other hand, the study of language and literature (syntactic grammar learning, author biographies, anthological readings). Today, in a global society which increasingly conceives of the relations between people in terms of "cultures" (in the religious, ethnic, political sense), it is time to abandon this traditional perspective and instead approach the study of Greek and Roman "culture" as such. A "culture" which must be deepened in its aspects not only linguistic, literary or event, but also family, sexual,religious, institutional, artistic, by asking questions about gender, the relationship between masters and slaves, or the role and position of animals in society.

The Romans would agree with us, because they would say that in order to understand their civilization, one must first study their mores (customs, way of life), that is the word - so important in the construction of Roman society - which they would use to signify their "culture". In this way, we will be able to make our students discover that the Elders were indeed "like us" in many aspects - our "ancestors" as they are called - because we have inherited a large part of their ways of living and thinking through the practices of Western education; but that the Elders are also "other than us" in relation to an equally large amount of customs and ways of life.

By taking this path, in particular through the practice of translation, the study of ancient culture could become a veritable "gymnasium" of confrontation with the other, an exercise whose practice is essential in contemporary European societies. The comparison between cultures - ours and those of the Greeks and Romans, but also the Greek culture versus the Roman culture - will allow us to highlight the aspects of the classical heritage which shock our modern sensibilities (slavery, discrimination against women, treating blood and violence as a show), to discuss the original historical context and the influences they sometimes exerted on the development of culture over time.

Indeed, it should not be forgotten that the classical heritage does not only include democracy or freedom, but also slavery, violence and discrimination. For what concerns us specifically on this day, the practice of the comparison between cultures can also help us to define which model to adopt and which to reject in our conception of the future Europe. And in this regard, I would like to compare two foundation myths, one Roman, the other Greek.

According to the traditional account of the founding of Rome, Romulus first gathered in his asylum people from everywhere, free or slaves as many as they were; after that, the founder had a circular pit dug where they placed the first fruits of everything the use of which was legitimized by law or made necessary by nature. [Plutarch - Life of Romulus]. At the end, each one threw into the pit a handful of soil brought from the country from which he had come, and they mixed everything together. They gave this pit the name of "mundus", the "world".

This pit dug by Romulus is loaded with significance. They threw in it both products of culture and products of nature, to signify the creation of a new life, the emergence of a new civilization. In addition - and this is for us the most significant moment of the episode - are thrown into the pit clods of earth coming from the various places of origin of those who had gathered around Romulus.

What meaning can be given to this singular passage from the myth? It certainly delivers a very strong symbolic message: creating one's own earth, building it almost as an act of a cosmological import - Romulus creates a mundus, in fact, "a world" - an act which goes far beyond usual foundation rites. The act of mixing these clods of earth brought from afar reflects the mixture of men from all these different places that Romulus gathers in the asylum at the time of founding the new city: by welcoming the earth from other territories, the soil of Rome becomes in a very concrete way a “land of asylum”.

In the mythical representation, the soil of the city will be configured as both the one and the multiple: one, because the clods, initially distinct, are then mixed; multiple, because it derives its origins from as many different “soils” as clods of earth. The political message of this myth is very strong, it highlights one of the main characteristics of Roman culture: openness. The same provision that allows not only foreigners, but also slaves, to become Roman citizens, thereby subjecting the Roman community to continuous "reshuffle". This fundamental inclination to openness, which constitutes the backbone of Roman culture through the centuries, finds its narrative expression in a founding tale which mixes, on one side, men, on the other, clods of earth, in a perfect parallelism.

Here is now the Greek myth which could be compared with the Roman myth just related. This is another foundational myth, which also speaks of land, origin and peoples, but which conveys a message completely opposite to the myth of asylum and clods of earth: it is about Athenian autochthony. This myth claimed that the Athenians came from "this very land" on which they lived - this is the literal meaning of the word "autochthony", "autochton": by that they mean that they were "born" of the earth. Attica, that they were the first inhabitants of this soil, and therefore the only worthy to reside there.

However, in Athens, the tendency to exclude did not come only from the myth, it was also present in the law. Indeed, one could not become a citizen, as in Rome: one was a citizen, or not. Only the sons of both Athenian parents could enjoy this privilege, while all the others - foreigners, metics and slaves - had no possibility of claiming it. The model of autochthony thus conveys the image of a culture which, unlike the Roman vision, places its identity only in itself: while Roman culture is "eccentric", by basing its identity on men from "outside" and their mix, Athenian culture wants to be "autocentric", as can be seen in several identity movements today. The contrast between the two myths, Roman and Greek,could not be more explicit: in Athens, it is the earth which produces the men, in Rome, it is the men who produce the earth.

In conclusion, the myth of the founding of Rome - mixture of men, mixture of lands - gives concrete reality to the symbolic and lasting representation that the Romans wanted to give of themselves: mixture, multiplicity, movement. In this original myth, the Romans had in short left a place not only for otherness, for diversity, but even for the possibility of being both oneself and other. Roman culture does not hesitate to define itself as a passage, to situate its identity also outside itself.

The identity of the Romans, if they had one, was of an "eccentric" nature: this is why their civilization can still offer a valid model for a Europe in which it is increasingly necessary to be both oneself and others, citizens of a country and at the same time citizens of a community of countries: a Europe which, on the contrary, sometimes insists on finding itself by breaking up into a plurality of (so-called) sovereign nations centered on themselves, thus following the Athenian path of autochthony and closure.

This by way of undermining my own point that "∃ Xtrix" is ill-formed. — Banno

Oh wow! Banno is giving some thought to his posts. Miracles happen... So it turns out that existence is (or can be, amongst other things) a logical predicate after all...

On the epiphenomenalism thread weren't you the one that opposed the view because you thought that something that doesn't affect anything else, would not be detectible and wouldn't exist? — khaled

Yes, I pointed out that if conscious thoughts had no impact on anything else (i.e. were epiphenomena) then nobody would know of their existence. But it was not my position that conscious thoughts were epiphenomena; it was yours. My position has always been that thoughts are impactful, that the pen is mightier than the sword so to speak.

Electrons and protons have charges but a balanced atom doesn't. Oftentimes properties are lost when you go from the constituents to the system as a whole. — khaled

So the reason there can be some form of intelligence in the universe, is that there's a lot of stupidity in it too, and they tend to balance each other out? :cool:

It's unlikely you'll get a conversation. — bert1

Sad but true.

I'm a monist but it's perfectly obvious, as you have pointed out, that the first challenge that a monist has to answer is: What is the explanation of the manifest duality that I see? — bert1

Or triality, or n-ality.

There are dimensions, such as time and space, that seem to exist objectively and look radically unlike other stuff, such as roses, or even ideas of roses. Space may be a product of matter at plank scale, as loop quantum gravity appears to posit, but I'm out of my depth here.

So I consider the mind-body problem a challenge for atheists or secularists (such as myself), more than a challenge to dualists. — Olivier5

The challenge could be put this way: "If there's no ghost of the universe, how come there's a ghost of us, human beings?" By ghost I mean something like mind or sentience.

What seems to be the problem? Calling Spinoza a theist?

You can do better than that.

The mind-body problem is precisely a problem, it is posed as a challenge for dualism, not something that dualism embraces. — SophistiCat

Apart from some panpsychism à la Spinoza, materialist explanations for the mind-body problem are usually self-contradictory. They saw the branch on which they sit. Even Spinoza only solved the problem via God, just like Descartes did. So I consider the mind-body problem a challenge for atheists or secularists (such as myself), more than a challenge to dualists.

What does the word "fundamentally" add to "fundamentally different"? — khaled

In my mind, a kind of stuff can be said to be fundamentally different from another IFF it is impossible to produce one from the other and/or vice versa (not even in theory) by re-arraging its components for instance. E.g. since it is theoretically possible to change lead into gold, or clay into pot, or energy into matter, these two kinds of stuff are not fundamentally different.

If it's a different kind of stuff, then how could it apply said force? — khaled

Not sure why not. Difference is not indifference.

Failure of (your) imagination isn't an argument, O.

Consider: suppose the "One" thing is dynamic, unstable, chaotic, unbounded ... — 180 Proof

Fair enough: this one and unique substance of the monists could well harbor in itself, as part of its very own necessary (intrinsic) qualities, the capacity to change in a radical manner, to transform creatively over time. To become different from its earlier... form?

As pointed out already, two or more whatevers (substances?) would not be fundamental, and so the question would be begged. Even "there is no fundamental whatever" is, in fact, fundamental no-thing-ness (i.e. atomism's void, Buddhist sunyata, etc). — 180 Proof

I suppose it all boils down to what is meant by fundamental, then. In my mind, a kind of stuff can be said to be fundamentally different from another IFF it is impossible to produce one from the other and/or vice versa (not even in theory) by re-arraging its components for instance. E.g. since it is theoretically possible to change lead into gold, or clay into pot, or energy into matter, these two kinds of stuff are not fundamentally different.

Is that different or similar to your concept of it?

Yeah, "logically equivalent" as members of the same set of "monism"; however, they are not conceptually equivalent... — 180 Proof

I fail to see that big conceptual difference between materialism and idealism. It's all just one type of chocolate, to paraphrase @Khaled.

The Dao 道 (the “way”) gives birth to one.
One gives birth to Two, 
Two gives birth to Three... — Daodejing, Chap. 42

This is precisely the point I am arguing against. One cannot really "give birth to two". One can only give birth to yet another one. For some change to happen, one needs a sort of engine for difference, a reason for change, a maker of novelty. And to me that could be either an external force ("gods") or some instability internal to the universe, some tension, a fundamental yin-yang in the fabric of the world.

For instance, wasn't materialist Marx the epitome of political idealism?
Yes, but because of his teleology (i.e. a variation on Hegel's dialectic), IME, not materialism per se. — 180 Proof

In my mind, a materialist should try and be logically consistent and not adopt anything like a teleology. But Khaled's point is precisely that such an idea is naïve, because if one thinks that there is only one kind of stuff out there, then that one kind of stuff is everything and does everything. So in the case of Marx, matter provided him with an ideal, illogical as that may sound on first examination.

You can have a circle and a square (and infinitely more shapes) all made out of lines. Different combinations of the same thing. — khaled

Technically, you cannot get a circle or a square just with lines. You also need a 2D space as the context for those lines, i.e. a plane in which to inscribe your circles and squares.

Our world is spatial too, just like the world of lines. Do you think that space and time are made of the same one stuff as apples and rocks? That's what it would take to be a true monist. If you think that space, time or spacetime is NOT made of the same stuff as apples and rocks, then you have at least two kinds of stuff in your worldview: spacetime, and "apples and rocks", so you are still a dualist...

I take your point that stuff interacts with stuff, which may constrain the degree to which there can be essentially different stuff in the universe.

It's just that to me, one unique stuff cannot possibly self-differentiate. Some external force would have to be applied to that unique stuff in order to differentiate it into particulars, like in the book of Genesis when the god(s) create an original chaos and then separate light and obscurity and divide the earth from the skies. The chaos could not separate all by itself; the Elohim had to do it. So here we have the Elohim and their creation, i.e. two kinds of stuff.

If we conceive of a world made of only one kind of stuff, whence the dynamism and creativity in it? Whereas if reality is premised on tension or equilibrium between several stuff, then it can be essentially dynamical.

What is monism's substantial claim in your view? Is it about the existence of some fundamental "stuff" from which everything is formed? — SophistiCat

Monism says there can be only one kind of fundamental stuff. Not two or three or an infinity of different kinds of stuff but just one. Khaled's point is that it doesn't matter how you call that fundamental stuff; that behind the conflicting labels (materialism, idealism), there is in fact only one kind of monism.

It's just that one stuff, however you want to call it.

Personally, I never really understood monism. How could all this diversity stem from just one stuff? Monism can only be static, dead, boring; it's simplistic at the extreme. In reality it's always two to tango; one needs two different things to make a ying-yang. There's not enough tension and dynamism in monism to explain the world as we know it.

Not meaningless. But the debate between the different monisms is. Idealists and physicalists are using different words to talk about the same thing. — khaled

Okay, materialism is logically equivalent to idealism. I can agree with that. For instance, wasn't materialist Marx the epitome of political idealism?

In the same vein:

Orchestre Rouge - Soon Come Violence

Marquis de Sade - Back to Cruelty


Brought to memory by the discussion on suffering.

So monism is ultimately meaningless because uniformizing?

That China will be fighting a war sometimes soon appears probable: it is flexing its military muscles and displaying a desire for dominance over its neighbours. But whether the US will take part in this war cannot be predicted.

Tickle me, therefore you are. :smirk: — 180 Proof

I'm recognized in my family as a tickler of great dexterity and experience. You'd be surprised. :wink:

I've met a few so-called "pygmies"* is Congo, more correctly called the Twa people. Their environment is quite diverse, with plenty of open spaces such as rivers, clearings, hiltops, etc. Rest assured they can see things from afar and understand what they are seeing.

* The term "pygmy" is derived from Greek mythology and regroups artificially different communities that have nothing to see with one another. It has no more scientific value than the term "amazon".

We dialog therefore we are. — Olivier5

So much so that we are often a different person when surrounded by different people.

Suffering is, I mean to say, incapacitating — TheMadFool

But surely suffering in itself is a capacity, and therefore getting rid of suffering would be incapacitating.

I am of the opinion that no real ethical theory can be as formulaic and dogmatic as this. Ethics is guided by a plurality of different, sometimes contradictory, prima facie duties, re: W. D. Ross. Reducing suffering is one of these duties, and is one of the strongest ones, but neither it nor any other duty can lay claim to having ultimate priority. — _db

:100:

Thanks, you never disappoint.

I am not interested by his mysticism as much as by the way people evolve and define themselves through dialogue and otherwise interacting with others, IMO an understudied aspect of the human mind in philosophy. Sure, cogito ergo sum, but not alone. We dialog therefore we are.

I'm reading the Stanford article on Buber, a very interesting entry written by someone with a good sense of turn-of-century Vienna.

I dont know for sure if prey animals enjoy their life or not — richard77

All species are preyed on. Even lions get killed, by a virus, an elephant, a man or another lion. COVID-19 is our most recent predator.

if through the innovation of transhumanism we could make a lion vegan, would u support it? — richard77

Nope. I don't support eugenism. Ethically, Man has no right to alter God's or Nature's creation.

Practically, the risks involved are unpredictable but could be massive, as in a sudden explosion of the population of antilopes and other species preyed on by lions, followed by an epidemic, or over-grazzing and desertification, killing nearly all of them. Ecological collapse.

Predators of a species kill a lot of sick animals and thus help maintain the rest of the species healthy. Similarly, predation helps reign in over-population by one species.

Also real lions would keep on predating. You cannot possibly engineer all lions. Some of them are hiding... Even if you could treat all lions the trans way (translionize them I guess), then hyenas would take over that particular segment (or "niche") of the ecological system. You would have to transhyenize all hyenas, and so on and so forth with the many species of wolves, foxes, panthers and other wild cats etc. You'd have to treat every and all predators on earth. Otherwise the ones remaining will ultimately take over the niches left by the ones you treated into eating grass.

Darwinian life is a bitch but it does surviving really really well.

is it better for an animal to exist (an animal that is a prey and can feel pain and all that stuff) or not exist rather? — richard77

What would you prefer, as an animal who can feel pain yourself? Would you rather exist or not exist?

I would rather exist, personally, reason for which I haven't yet tried to kill myself. But that's just me...

Hi Proof. You've heard of this guy, Buber? You're the only one who reads here, in my experience.

“Unless phenomenology were able to show that there is in fact a decisive and radical difference between the phenomenality of constituted objects and the phenomenality of constituting subjectivity, i.e., a radical difference between object-manifestation and self-manifestation, its entire project would be threatened.”
--- Zahavi 2004 — Joshs

There is a book about that on my reading list: I and Thou by Martin Buber. Which apparently explains that we can engage in two types of relationships: with objects and with subjects. The distinction has little to do with the thing in itself we relate to, as one can treat things as subjects or people as objects. It's about whether the relation is closed, instrumental or rather is an open-ended dialogue.

the chairman of the Michigan state house committee that investigated claims of fraud in the 2020 election, and then wrote the report saying it was all crap. This is a middle-aged Republican, farmer, church-goer, who now has friends who hate him. Despite knowing him and trusting him for decades, they believe some dickhead on Facebook rather than him. That takes some explaining. It’s not just ‘different worlds’ to me; one of them has had a toxin deliberately introduced into their system. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, lies matter, and one disposes of the concept of truth at one's own risk... Deception, toxicity, con jobs are different from just having an opinion. They are attempts at abusing people. There is a difference between unwittingly wrong and consciously evil.

Isn't such morbid sentiments the natural and logical result of utilitarianism? If indeed our actions ought to be judged from a moral standpoint based on the amount of pain and pleasure they lead to, then pain and pleasure become ends in themselves; they cease to be taken as mere messages or incentives for life-saving or life-enhancing behavior. Life, then, becomes a mere means to procure pleasure, and worthless in itself. Therefore utilitarianism devalues life.

If indeed animal suffering is bad, as is the premise of the OP, then animals need to be taken out of their misery and it's the humane thing to kill them all... See how it works?

By this reasoning, all dentists should be equipped with Kalashnikov and body bags.

If on the contrary one takes suffering as a mere incentive, as a message, as a means to an end (which is survival), then staying alive is the important thing and we need to accept suffering as a means to keep us out of trouble whenever possible. Likewise, animal suffering can be seen as a good thing inasmuch as it helps prolong their lives.

Pain is only a messenger. It is a feature, not a bug.

It's some kind of transhumanism. — richard77

There was another transhumanist dude who was invited on TPF some time back. He too wanted to kill all life on earth because Darwinian life is evil, he thought. Basically he was a wannabe mass murderer on a planetary scale, but we had to play nice with him because he was a guest... :-)

And where is this "everywhere" located? — Echoes

All around you.

As is well known, the two party system is simply a product of the first past the post voting system. Add a second round of voting to your elections, and parties may proliferate.

If it were a salad bar, it would still be metaphysics. We all get metaphysics whether we like it or not. — T Clark

Right. Similarly, even professing the absence of necessity for a meta-framework is a type of meta-framework, like the empty set is a set.