As for a new "religion", there will always be those who find causes they obsess over and "worship". — Philosophim

I don't see it happening this way. Christianity, for example, was not aware of itself as we see it today looking back over the epochs of history. But now we can call it a "world religion." What's that? A new category. Further, we can view it far more objectively now that our species has gained some distance from it. Surely it must be the same way with technology. I don't think of it in terms of a self-conscious religious movement, that would be quite absurd, I think of it in terms of subconscious commitments, here we derive the idea of religion from mankind's practice of technology, his operational use of the medium, how it causes him to act and how he acts toward it. Do people worship technology, for example? There is a great deal of time spent with technology, and people have a very high reverence for the objects of technology, far more than they have ever had for traditional religious objects.

What happens if the average person must go without their phone, without the internet, without television, even for the space of one week? What happens to their emotional life? Religion gave mankind a sense of safety and wonder, technology does the same thing, but I would argue that it does it far more effectively.

we need to be able to see interconnections — Skeptic

In my opinion this is the axiom of comprehension. Remove this and all one has, which accounts for nearly all contemporary philosophical positions, are a bunch of disconnected, abstract categories, which inevitably lead to confusion and disharmony, the opposite of comprehension.

How is this not possibly a social pressure to try to incorporate pain as good, so as people don't fall into pessimism? — schopenhauer1

Yes... what is this exactly? What is the person who uses this framing trying to do? Perhaps one could try to say they are trying to cope with pain by creating a false metaphysical narrative surrounding its identity, but deep down it seems it amounts to, as you say, an attempt at justification. I mean, what happens once we adopt this view, that is, the child had to suffer abuse "because that's just part of growing up." One is trying to justify something by this logic, one is also trying to excuse something. At the most primitive point I think it is striving for the unconditional justification of life itself regardless of the poverty of conditions.

Further, it is seemingly sociopathic to want to see "overcoming pain" carried out by another. — schopenhauer1

Yes, or just ignorant. I think we are right to revolt against this vicious ignorance with passion, such an ideology is itself abusive.

:up: :up:

To assume that people need to experience pain so as to overcome it, and then to go so far as to create a being who was not there to begin with to actually live this ethos out, is quite cruel in my estimation. I don't think that overcoming pain gets some gold star of goodness. This is what people say to pressure others into not having negative feelings towards the pain that they are supposedly supposed to overcome to feel like a better person. — schopenhauer1

To view it from this vantage, would not merely be like putting mice through a maze full of spikes and fire, it would be like creating mice for the purpose of putting them through your diabolical maze. I agree with you, such a view is not only incompetent in terms of philosophy, it is nearly sociopathic in terms of the framing of human experience. Reminds me of the same logic one finds at the heart of inquisitions.

What is bothering you about privileges (i.e Ivory tower, etc.)? — Dina

Evasion of social responsibility, a new kind of unjustified leisure class.

Aren’t people free to enroll in degrees to access such circles? — Dina

You must first be able to afford a degree. Further, I doubt you grew up in the projects, so likely you assume that all schools just offer quality education. Further, if one's social conditions are exceedingly adverse, and may people's are, then this restricts the possibility of even making it through High School. Life is not as simple as free will choices, but people like to cast it this way so they can deny oppression and many other negative attributes, so they can divide the world in terms of simple good and evil.

Do you think the layman will benefit to know or even care to know about intellectual matters such as Kantian philosophy? — Dina

Kant is not a good example of vital education, but yes, comprehending Kant would greatly increase a person's ability to comprehend other non-intuitive, complex structures.

What prevents left wing people to come on this forum or any public? What has the right done for such a long time? — Dina

In my experience Leftists just write blogs or columns or books, they do not engage in polemics, and often when they do it doesn't go so well, this is because it's much easier to write a descriptive book than it is to defend it. The Right on the other hand, though their arguments are based on rational immediacy, they are still making them, and because the culture is so dumbed-down these shallow arguments work. The Right prides itself on rational discourse, and they call the Left out for failing to engage. Milton Friedman was a good example of this. He went from college to college defending his Neo-Liberal view, and what is most telling, you will not be able to find someone on the Left who came out and shut him down. What they did instead is the same thing they are doing today, they dismissed him and made ad hominems against him in academic circles, but they did not refute him. Result: his ideas came to be the main economic ideas in culture. I loath the arrogance of the Left more than the tyranny of the Right.

If you want to read a masterpiece in this direction read Herbert Marcuse, "One Dimensional Man."

When this experiment was performed on humans, they tended to fall in love with the experimenter. — MSC

Says much about the emotive condition of humans, not that this is a surprise.

So, our neural representations are identically the object's action on our neural system. — Dfpolis

This is pretty close to my own view, the difference is that I see it as a dialectical process of action, both subject and object. It's pretty hard to refute this action view, more and more evidence is being accumulated in its favor.

I'd be a Christian nihilist if I were a Christian. Present your view to me if you want to. Shall I start a thread on nihilism? — frank

Thread on Nihilism, this is not for me. The Nihilism of Christians derives from the negation of positive knowledge outside their theological premises.

But I understand. Thanks. — frank

My position is quite developed here. I have sought out a debate with several prominent theists on the topic of Nihilism. The reason is because 1) I have formulated what I believe to be a strong position against it and 2) I want this position to be challenged by the strongest Nihilists we have in culture, and that means Christians. Needless to say, I was not surprised when the Christians I approached turned down the offer in what appeared to me as evasion. I have had many discourses with Christian professors over the years, and in nearly every case, they invent an excuse to leave the exchange. I have noticed that most people like discoursing with people that don't offer a substantial challenge to their position, this way the threat of refutation to their belief is minimized. I reject this bias form of logic, Mill tore it to shreds in the second chapter of his essay On Liberty.

What purpose do you see in life? — frank

I believe we can do better than this. Here the question doesn't escape subjectivity. I believe we can talk about purpose beyond the mere subjectivity of the individual, but am not going to do it in a thread on climate change.

not at all.

amor fati — frank

too romantic for my nature.

It's sociopathic.( I'm ignoring the rest of your post because I've actually read Wittgenstein. ) — Srap Tasmaner

I don't quite understand this? What exactly are you claiming is sociopathic?

Banno's point is quite accurate:

...even if you and I don't mean the very same color when we say "red" - if your red is my blue - we will both stop at the red light. — Banno

Further, "Wittgenstein replies angrily..." what in God's name? Although, no surprise that the abstraction of analytical philosophy would negate human compassion. The way I see it you are playing a game that allows you to move away from reality and thereby feel better about it. I do not consider this responsible philosophy.

The thing about denial is that it's meant to counter psychological fear, so we will likely see it hold on to the tune of all kinds of fantastic narratives, even in the face of desperate conditions. The real question, as Nietzsche knew so well, is how does one live among (and as) such an incompetent and primitive species?

and every anti-fascist is a criminal. — Kenosha Kid

Yes, this is an instance of fascism as provided in the definition above.

I have found that one seldom gets the opinions of philosophers from reading their philosophy. One almost seems to get everything else, the real beliefs lie hidden. Those who are afraid of sexuality... see it as evil, or morally wrong, perverted, are seldom saying anything about sexuality, but merely manifesting their own psychological defects. They are afraid of the animal they are. I can understand this, we are truly pathetic. When I know that a personal is a sexual moralist it tells me they are afraid of their own humanity, and that their philosophy is very likely to fall into reactionary categories. How could such a thinker, for example, ever develop a truly liberal theory of society, when at base, he or she is afraid of liberalism?

I understand some of the elements you have mentioned but then, isn’t it a cliché that the academics are a bit uptight and predictable? — Dina

Uptight would not be my objection of academics. They do tend to be predictable, but of course, one cannot class every academic in the same category. I have met some truly exceptional academics, but I am indeed against the Ivory Tower culture which seems to be dominant. There is so much that a lay person doesn't understand. Academics have access to thousands of journals that attempt to summarize the latest findings in each field. This is a major advantage among many other advantages, you never hear academics talk about their advantages or privileges, but they do solicit a status of respect from the general population, they even use their knowledge to demarcate themselves from the general population. They live in elite circles. There is much more to say about academics... how they completely failed the liberal culture, essentially allowing fascism to make a comeback in the world. They have failed and continue to fail because they will not engage culture, they engage their academic circles and leave culture to the unrefuted propaganda of Right-wing extremists. Let's see some Left academics come on this philosophy forum, or any public forum that allows detailed exchange, and try to defend their descriptive knowledge against contrary positions. The Right has been doing this for a very long time.

I just think each instance where cops kill someone needs to be taken as an individual case and it's not fair to lump them all in as one so I get annoyed when people take every death-by-cop case under one umbrella. In those cases where cops did kill someone unjustly they should face criminal charges, not just be fired. — BitconnectCarlos

This seems like common sense to me. The biggest problem I have with identity politics is that they negate specifics in general, which is its own kind tyranny. What is most damaging in this way of approaching the world is that it destroys class awareness, which is vital to a focused, cooperative emancipation from oppression.

Not “what is fascism”, but “what fascism”? — NOS4A2

"The absolute power of the social hierarchy prevails over everything, and thus a totalitarian society is formed... Some forms of fascism extend the fight against equality into other areas: gender, sexual, minority or religious rights, for example... Fascism adopts a certain kind of “voluntarism;” they believe that an act of will, if sufficiently powerful, can make something true. Thus all sorts of ideas about racial inferiority, historical destiny, even physical science, are supported by means of violence, in the belief that they can be made true."

What fascism? — NOS4A2

Fascism

Fascism is right-wing, fiercely nationalist, subjectivist in philosophy, and totalitarian in practice. It is an extreme reactionary form of capitalist government. Fascism began in Italy (1922-43), Germany (1933-45), Spain (1939-75), and various other nations, starting generally in the time between the first and second world war. The origin of the term comes from the Italian word fascismo, derived from the Latin fasces (a bundle of elm or birch rods containing an ax: once a symbol of authority in ancient Rome). Benito Mussolini adopted the symbol as the emblem of the Italian Fascist movement in 1919.

The social composition of Fascist movements have historically been small capitalists, low-level bureaucrats of all stripes (see petty bourgeoisie), with great success in rural areas, especially among farmers, peasants, and in the city, lumpen proletariat. Meanwhile, fascist leadership invariably comes to power through the sponsorship and funding of big capital. These capitalists along with the top-tier leaders they create become fascism's ruling aristocracy.

Fascism has many different forms: the Italian fascism of Mussolini was often against Hitler’s Fascism, calling it “one hundred percent racism: Against everything and everyone: Yesterday against Christian civilization, today against Latin civilization, tomorrow, who knows, against the civilization of the whole world.” When Hitler began achieving impressive military conquests, which Mussolini had started in Ethiopia in 1935, the two formed an axis of power in June of 1940. The birth of fascism in Germany was aided by Western governments, who for two decades viewed it as the ideology that would successfully crush the Soviet Union. Not until Germany’s tanks were on the borders of England and France did those governments ‘switch’ sides: now it was their imperialist domination being threatened.

While Mussolini had once been a member of the Socialist party (banished from the party for his rampant support of World War I), Hitler fought leftists from the first. Thus it is not without irony, that in the name for his party Hitler used “socialist,” (Nazi = National Socialist) conceding to the engrained consciousness the German masses had for leftist ideals. It should be noted that fascism supported the community ideal, but not the grass-roots power of direct community democracy as Socialism demands, but the unity and obedience of the community to vanguard of the Nation. Further, orthodox fascism constantly parrots the Communist lexicon of working class struggle, etc., for reasons of populism. Neo-fascism is authoritarian but disdains any trace of Socialist/Communist terminology in their labels, and instead appeals to new populist roots: the modern aspirations of many workers to be wealthly, to be stronger than others, etc.

Fascism championed corporate economics, which operated on an anarcho-syndicalist model in reverse: associations of bosses in particular industries determine working conditions, prices, etc. In this form of corporatism, bosses dictate everything from working hours to minimum wages, without government interference. The fascist corporate model differs from the more moderate corporatist model by eradicating all forms of regulatory control that protect workers (so-called "consumers"), the environment, price fixing, insider trading, and destroying all independent workers' organisations. In fascism, the corporate parliament either replaces the representative bodies of government or reduces them to a sham and the state freely intervenes in the activity of companies, either by bestowing favouritism, or handing them over to the control of rivals.
“to believe, to obey, to combat”

There are several fundamental characteristics of fascism, among them are:

1. Right Wing: Fascists are fervently against: Marxism, Socialism, Anarchism, Communism, Environmentalism; etc – in essence, they are against the progressive left in total, including moderate lefts (social democrats, etc). Fascism is an extreme right wing ideology, though it can be opportunistic.

2. Nationalism: Fascism places a very strong emphasis on patriotism and nationalism. Criticism of the nation's main ideals, especially war, is lambasted as unpatriotic at best, and treason at worst. State propaganda consistently broadcasts threats of attack, while justifying pre-emptive war. Fascism invariably seeks to instill in its people the warrior mentality: to always be vigilant, wary of strangers and suspicous of foreigners.

3. Hierarchy: Fascist society is ruled by a righteous leader, who is supported by an elite secret vanguard of capitalists. Hierarchy is prevalent throughout all aspects of fascist society – every street, every workplace, every school, will have its local Hitler, part police-informer, part bureaucrat – and society is prepared for war at all times. The absolute power of the social hierarchy prevails over everything, and thus a totalitarian society is formed. Representative government is acceptable only if it can be controlled and regulated, direct democracy (e.g. Communism) is the greatest of all crimes. Any who oppose the social hierarchy of fascism will be imprisoned or executed.

4. Anti-equality: Fascism loathes the principles of economic equality and disdains equality between immigrant and citizen. Some forms of fascism extend the fight against equality into other areas: gender, sexual, minority or religious rights, for example.

5. Religious: Fascism contains a strong amount of reactionary religious beliefs, harking back to times when religion was strict, potent, and pure. Most but not all Fascist societies are Christian, and are supported by Catholic and Protestant churches.

6. Capitalist: Fascism does not require revolution to exist in captialist society: fascists can be elected into office (though their disdain for elections usually means manipulation of the electoral system). They view parliamentary and congressional systems of government to be inefficent and weak, and will do their best to minimize its power over their policy agenda. Fascism exhibits the worst kind of capitalism where corporate power is absolute, and all vestiges of workers' rights are destroyed.

7. War: Fascism is capitalism at the stage of impotent imperialism. War can create markets that would not otherwise exist by wreaking massive devastation on a society, which then requires reconstruction! Fascism can thus "liberate" the survivors, provide huge loans to that society so fascist corporations can begin the process of rebuilding.

8. Voluntarist Ideology: Fascism adopts a certain kind of “voluntarism;” they believe that an act of will, if sufficiently powerful, can make something true. Thus all sorts of ideas about racial inferiority, historical destiny, even physical science, are supported by means of violence, in the belief that they can be made true. It is this sense that Fascism is subjectivist.

9. Anti-Modern: Fascism loathes all kinds of modernism, especially creativity in the arts, whether acting as a mirror for life (where it does not conform to the Fascist ideal), or expressing deviant or innovative points of view. Fascism invariably burns books and victimises artists, and artists which do not promote the fascists ideals are seen as “decadent.” Fascism is hostile to broad learning and interest in other cultures, since such pursuits threaten the dominance of fascist myths. The peddling of conspiracy theories is usually substituted for the objective study of history.

Source: Marxists Internet Archive Encyclopedia

Did Plato say that or was it the character Socrates in a dramatic dialogue. — magritte

Socrates in the Apology. But if your point is to play a game of Plato versus Socrates for attribution, this is a total waste of time and doesn't even make contact with the original post.

but it's important we get the facts first before rushing to judgment every time someone is shot. Each case has its own facts. If the officer has committed an offense then of course we should punish them. — BitconnectCarlos

I'm far more liberal than even the most liberal people on this forum and I agree with this. There are damaged people in the world who are exceedingly dangerous because of their damage. This damage is not their fault, but they are dangerous because of it nonetheless. The recent cases we have seen are examples of the police abusing their power and flat out murdering people. This is not acceptable and cannot be allowed to stand if civil freedom is to survive against the state's monopoly on violence. Those who wield this power should always be held to a very high burden of proof. Having the right to violence is the greatest social responsibility there could ever be.

In this case, living life doing philosophy is just one heck of a long shrift. — TheMadFool

wtf?

I often have this feeling, even when it is depressing in nature. If we are suffocated under problems, if there is misery, fear, persecution, etc., it is better to know what is happening than to ignore it. — bccampello

Adorno took this position, that even if we are crushed by reality it is still better to comprehend the details of this destruction than be totally alienated from reality. His point really had to do with the dignity of the thinker. It is an interesting thought.

And this is the attitude with which Socrates faces death. He says: “I don’t know exactly what death is but I know more than you do. I have some idea what’s going on and what’s going to happen to me. That’s why I’m not afraid”. This is, at the same time, the beginning and the culmination of philosophy. Philosophy cannot go beyond that. And all these magnificent intellectual constructions that we see in modernity (Descartes’, Spinoza’s, Leibniz’s metaphysics, the Enlightenment, this whole thing) are often just an escape, a defensive attitude of individuals who want to build a intellectual building within which they can be closed. — bccampello

I think there is much truth in this, but one can expand the quality of thought beyond the point of death to encompass the quality of life itself, and this is really the high point of philosophy. Playing abstract games is not a high point, it is most often an evasion of life and social responsibility. I would even go so far as to say that most of the philosophers on this forum fall directly into this category. Philosophers do not like the conversation of social responsibility because it kicks against the supremacy of their abstraction. They are ready to remain in the hedonism of their thought, they are not ready to allow thought to dictate the kind of life that must be lived. Philosophy is not a mystical force and neither is it a hobby, those who handle it accordingly are attempting to evade reality through it. Philosophy, when done properly, is a critical power that drives man in the direction of value.

Not for truth. The infallibility of awareness is not propositional. It is judgements and propositions that are properly true or false. — Dfpolis

No. It is awareness without abstraction. Abstracting, which forms concepts, leaves data behind and sets the stage for misplaced concreteness. — Dfpolis

I was wondering if you might be willing to expound a bit more on these points?

Am I wrong in inferring that you are striving in the direction of properly basic belief?

Are you describing the left here or humanity in general? I see it as the latter but I hesitate to call any politician human. — MSC

In this context I'm specifically referring to the Left. What I believe will happen, specifically due to the Left's polemical incompetence, is that they will literally have to begin from scratch, back to the streets where Dr. King marched. It wasn't the Right that set the Left back 60 years, it was the Left's arrogance and polemical incompetence. Who stood up to Ayn Rand when she was alive? Who refuted Milton Friedman? Hayek? The Left just called them names and comforted themselves with the thought that no real intellectuals would ever take them serious. It's the exact same story today.

Supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died. — MSC

This brings us beyond philosophy to the realm of politics, where the lives of individuals hang in the balance. This is utterly devastating news. Make no mistake Trump will place someone on the court and there's nothing the Left will be able to do about... the weak, incompetent, arrogant Left.

Ruth Bader Ginsberg 1933-2020
Assoc. Justice SCOTUS, Civil Rights Warrior
& Feminist

This is devastating news. The arrogance of the Left never fails to dumbfound me. The fallout from this will be disastrous. Trump has already re-shaped the entire political landscape through the courts, which will no doubt lead to more civil unrest. This is a major loss for democracy.

Thanks for sharing. Very objective and calm presentation. Disturbing to see how thin the arctic ice shelf was measured in 2020.

I think this largely right, but there are different kinds of details to fill in: roughly, (a) where our conceptual framework comes from, and (b) how we use it. That's my evolving view. — Srap Tasmaner

That is correct. Here the details are to be found in the categories I mentioned.

"I find Peterson’s fixation on political correctness and other targets as the extreme outgrowth of ‘cultural Marxism’ (a bloc which, in its ‘postmodern neo-Marxist’ form, comprises the Frankfurt School, the ‘French’ poststructuralist deconstructionism, identity politics, gender and queer theories, etc.) to have numerous problems. He seems to imply this ‘postmodern neo-Marxism’ is the result of a deliberate shift in Marxist (or communist) strategy: after communism lost the economic battle with liberal capitalism (waiting in vain for the revolution to arrive in the developed Western world), its leaders, we are told, decided to move to the domain of cultural struggles (sexuality, feminism, racism, religion, etc), systematically undermining the cultural foundations and values of our freedoms. In the last decades, this new approach proved unexpectedly efficient: today, our societies are caught in a self-destructive circle of guilt, unable to defend their positive legacy. I see no necessary link between this line of thought and liberalism. The notion of ‘postmodern neo-Marxism’ (or its more insidious form, ‘cultural Marxism’), manipulated by some secret communist centre and aiming to destroy Western freedoms, is a pure alt-right conspiracy theory (and the fact that it can be mobilized as part of a ‘liberal’ defence of our freedoms says something about the immanent weaknesses of the liberal project)." Slavoj Zizek, Jordan Peterson as a Symptom... of What?, contained in "Myth and Mayhem: A Leftist Critique of Jordan Peterson, Zero Books 2020

The criticism here is twofold: 1) Peterson is propagating a conspiracy theory and 2) the liberal project is in an impoverished state if such conspiracy theories can pass themselves off as knowledge or critique.

human culture is a product of Enformy, which transforms random Entropy into organized systems, — Gnomon

You are exactly speaking of this as a mystic force.

The question is how you are to give knowledge a foundation you acknowledge is non-epistemic — Srap Tasmaner

The foundation of knowledge is not "epistemic," it is psychological and neurobiological. It is not ideas that make the philosopher, but social environments that make ideas.

Just out of curiosity: why would you say this? — Dina

The Greeks were known for having superb minds, disciplined thought, the Romans were known for free sexuality, bisexuality and orgies. Though I'm a serious thinker one thing I am not is a moralist or a puritan. I have found that many philosophers are, they retreat to philosophy in an attempt to cope with insecurities, they get deeply offended by sexual freedom. This is actually quite telling. The first thing I would prefer to know about a philosopher is how he or she approaches the topic of sexuality. I would expect everything else to line up accordingly after I knew this.

You are mistaken, even with the confiscation of land and property it is possible to philosophize, that is, while you are breathing, you can't lose your own will. — bccampello

I think you have failed to understand my argument, which is strange because you put forth a thesis that basically says the same thing. I am not attacking your position but trying to increase its power. Without food or water one cannot philosophize. This is not semantics, but the most basic material requirements that must exist if the phenomena of philosophy will exist. Yes, I agree with you, "the point of philosophy is not merely to analyze the world but to change it."

So let's get philosophers to face reality. One's ability to do philosophy is restricted or enabled by systems of power, most specifically the control of lands and goods that humans need to reproduce their material existence. Without these goods there is no life and no philosophy. Philosophy then must seek to understand these systems of power.

In the United States, a powerful capitalist class governs with the support of the Protestant clergy, subdues the nobility, the workers and the intellectuals. — bccampello

Tragically the intellectuals have now become part of this oppressive class through the multiplication of abstract theory.

We are in full agreement. The truth is not even philosophers are ready to handle the negative revolutionary nature of philosophy. We say we're fine with being refuted, but because people are emotionally identifying with their ideas, when it happens they become defensive and emotional. People aren't ready for the reality of the actual thing. What results is that those who are doing the work of philosophy (which is almost always negative) end up getting persecuted by emotion.

And I completely agree that Etiquette has to be another big part of the solution. — Hirnstoff

As long as by this one doesn't mean, 'thou shalt not offend.' Offense is the inescapable nature of the negative essence of philosophy.

Absolutely, all of them philosophers. :up: :smile:
You hit the nail on the head with courage.

As a scientific paradigm, the thesis of Enformationism is intended to be an update to the obsolete 19th century paradigm of Materialism. Since the recent advent of Quantum Physics, the materiality of reality has been watered down. Now we know that matter is a form of energy, and that energy is a form of Information.
As a religious philosophy, the creative power of Enformationism is envisioned as a more realistic version of the antiquated religious notions of Spiritualism. Since our world had a beginning, it's hard to deny the concept of creation. So, an infinite deity is proposed to serve as both the energetic Enformer and the malleable substance of the enformed world. — Gnomon

This sounds like a cult to me, something that might come out of Scientology. I mean.... what?