...it can easily become largely self-sufficient (which is actually a good thing for its economy)... — Apollodorus

Self-sufficiency is a good thing for any and all sovereign nations. Of course, very few have the natural resources necessary to be so, and this has been highlighted and increased by the global economy. The issue of lacking natural resources supports nations working together to their mutual benefit. Unfortunately, this international codependency was fostered and implemented mainly by greed for profit as opposed to mutual benefit of the countries' citizens, and is a large part of the reasons why and how the wealth gap has increased over the last forty years.

Yes. I'm aware of the agreement Bush Sr.(???) made after the fall of the Berlin wall to not expand NATO "one inch farther" to the east. Then, during the Clinton administration(I think???) that promise/agreement was broken.
— creativesoul

Correct. — Apollodorus

This seems to be the basis of Putin's talk about the west, particularly regarding whether or not the west could be trusted to keep their word. I'm saddened to say that I find the claim that US foreign policies are suspect to be a generally well founded one. However, that fact(and claims about the fact) could also be used as a means to attempt to justify unacceptable aggression for less than honorable aims, and that is what I believe is currently happening.

Do you trust that Putin is an honest goodwilled actor in all this? Does the assassination of his political enemies influence your view?

You and I clearly have very very different standards for how to treat others, enemies notwithstanding. As I said earlier, your position is based upon an emaciated set of morals. Specifically, how to treat others.

Anything that is not known but seems reasonable can be accepted and entertained provisionally for pragmatic reasons; no believing needed. — Janus

Indeed, but only after already having a belief system intact. Suspending one's judgment is a metacognitive endeavor. Metacognition is existentially dependent upon pre-existing belief.

I do not quite understand the sentiment hereabouts that seems to suggest that either one is with the US or against it. As if acknowledging the role the US has played in the escalations in Ukraine is somehow pro-Putin or Pro-Russian, and in being so is anti-American by default.

:brow:

Yep. Empire and domination is "rhetorical drivel" when talking about America but "gospel truth" when talking about Russia. Well done, you can congratulate yourself on your impeccable objectivity! — Apollodorus

You say this as though it is either an accurate or an appropriate thing to say to me. It's neither. For whatever that's worth around here.

Meantime, the facts on the ground show that it's NATO that is constantly expanding (from 12 countries in 1949 to currently 30!), not Russia .... — Apollodorus

Yes. I'm aware of the agreement Bush Sr.(???) made after the fall of the Berlin wall to not expand NATO "one inch farther" to the east. Then, during the Clinton administration(I think???) that promise/agreement was broken. I understand that Russia feels insecure and vulnerable with so many US allies and installments surrounding it. I do understand that that could feel like a threat.

Worth noting, that, contrary to the story-tale that Ukraine 'chose' to deal with the West, the West couped Ukraine exactly at the time at which it choose to stop dealing with the West, as outlined in the article. — Streetlight

Indeed. If that article is true regarding the coup to overturn a free and fair election, it is well worth noting. If the free and fair election was not a free and fair election(if it was rigged), then perhaps there's more to the story. Given the known history of recent Russian elections, and given that Russia backed the ousted leader, and given that Russia is known to interfere in the elections of others...

...I remain unconvinced, although I'm currently less confident about the goodwill for goodwill's sake.

Thanks.

So, we just give them the benefit of the doubt, every time? What is it about their behaviour that makes you think they deserve the benefit of the doubt? — Isaac

Ukraine chose to build financial and diplomatic relations with the west, against the wishes of Russia and it's leaders.

Sure, there are agendas held by the west. There are benefits for the west. There were benefits for Ukraine as well. Call US diplomatic relations and NATO a protection racket if you like, though I think that's a bit too strong a language choice given that the US was the one paying the most for it.

All I am saying is that not all mutual benefit and agendas are nefarious.

There are thousands of pros out there who spend millions of hours a day and millions of dollars a day trying to concoct clever, attention grabbing, truthful sounding lies or half lies that you and I and even Banno can be tricked into beleiving and then they get money out of us or power over us or maybe just enjoy fucking us over. They are good at it, they are pros. — Ken Edwards

Indeed.

There is no way I could have the time or the ability to examen the thousands of such dangerous falshoods that are aimed my way.

Agreed. It highlights the importance of having a stringent, prudent, personal standard for what counts as sufficient reason to believe something or other(warrant).

If I accept or trust or think or estimate or conclude or predict that you're telling the truth does that mean that I believe (hold to be true) you're telling the truth? — praxis

If by "telling the truth" we're talking about saying what one believes to be true, then yes. If by "telling the truth" we're talking about making true statements, then we're talking about the quality of the person's claim(belief) and not the sincerity of the person.

The US just did everything in its power to ensure this would be the case. — Streetlight

Spell this out in a bit more detail...

Well, I'm not even going to attempt to defend most of our foreign policy decisions during my lifetime. Ukraine begged for help. Russia clearly seems the aggressor. Yes, the US does not have a stellar history of supporting duly elected leaders unless those leaders are the ones who are 'friendly' to the US and it's financial interests. So...

The claim of 'standing up for democracy' rings hollow.

At the person... fail!

I am a Noam Chomsky 'fan'. For whatever that's worth around here.

I do not agree.

In what naive world do you imagine that the enormous political might of America and Europe simply stood back and said to Ukraine "it's your choice, we'll not try to influence you in any way"? — Isaac

Those are not mutually exclusive notions; influence and choice. Of course the west wanted Ukraine to join forces. There was something in it for the west as well as Ukraine, otherwise the west would not have been interested, nor would Ukraine.

Just because the US policy has a sorted history of hidden agendas and not so honest means, it does not follow that every US decision or policy has a hidden agenda and dishonest means.

In December 1991 Ukraine was a friendly state and co-member with Russia of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). This began to change after 1994 when Ukraine decided to get closer and closer to NATO, and America and its NATO Empire tried to bring Russia under their domination, with the result that US-Russia relations soured. — Apollodorus

'Empire', 'domination'...

Rhetorical drivel.

Key words:Ukraine decided...

Ukraine liked what NATO and the west had to offer it as a sovereign country. Russia did not. Some in the Ukrainian territory were/are unhappy about it. Others(it seems the overwhelming majority) were/are fine with it.

Why is it so hard to consider the possibility that it might actually be good for a country to ask Russia to take it under its wing? Or at least to see it as a matter of their own interest to be on friendly terms with Russia?
— baker

Wondering if you still think this way???
— creativesoul

Of course.

It's the notion that one can hate and despise someone and consider them their enemy, but still expect this party to be nice and harmless that is absurd. — baker

This is working from an emaciated set of morals. That all depends upon how we treat others, including our enemies(those whom we despise and hate), doesn't it?

Peaceful co-existence need only require that one sovereign nation respect another. The same is true of individual people. One can consider another an enemy on certain terms and in certain non violent, non harmful ways. These terms and ways do not cause harm. Nor do they seek any unnecessary unprovoked offensive violence towards this enemy. Seeing another as an enemy is in itself insufficient ground for the enemy to cause retaliatory harm. So, no it is not the least absurd to be able to expect to see another as an enemy(in nice and harmless ways), and completely expect the enemy to be and remain nice and harmless.

One can peacefully co-exist with one's enemy if both should so choose.




One can see another as the enemy of self-governance.

Here is the overlap Un and Isaac have been skirting around. There are some in all governments, I would suspect, who are such. Whether or not they are knowingly and intentionally against self-governance for the sake of being so(authoritarians), or whether they act in ways contradictory and harmful to such governments(too many to capture here), I would consider these people enemies of self-governance.

The hallmarks(actual results) of good self-governance are shown in the actual lives and livelihoods of the overwhelming majority. Good government produces quality lives.

:ok:

As Banno said... the problem is not that we believe, but rather it is what we believe. So, seems better to examine how we come to believe the things we do, and what sorts of belief are best to have/hold rather than make an attempt to convince ourselves that we ought not believe anyone or anything.

There's a whole lot of bullshit, falsehood, and truth being disseminated in society, and not all for the same reasons...

The New Man ceases to have beliefs, replacing them entirely with his "Model of the world"... — Banno

As if this model does not consist entirely of beliefs about the world and/or ourselves.

You may find this of interest...

I carefully avoid believing anything at all. — Ken Edwards

This rests upon the dubious presupposition that you have a choice in the matter.

You do not.

Have you ever lost something valuable enough to go look for it?

am I wrong? — GLEN willows

In more ways than one regarding what you think and believe about our 'conversation' here. You're confusing what I've said with what others have said. I've no time for this.

Be well.

Why is it so hard to consider the possibility that it might actually be good for a country to ask Russia to take it under its wing? Or at least to see it as a matter of their own interest to be on friendly terms with Russia? — baker

Wondering if you still think this way???

So you feel consciousness exists in all parts of the body? — GLEN willows

No. Crudely put, the body is one necessary part of consciousness.

I think it's more logical to say that taking out a chunk of your body other than your brain will affect your consciousness the same way seeing something sad does. It has an effect on it, but doesn't actually remove part of it. — GLEN willows

I'd be interested to see what you think count as all necessary parts of consciousness.

So are you saying it's "nowhere" or "everywhere?" And do you mean YOUR consciousness, or a general pan-psych kind of universal consciousness? — GLEN willows

Are those the only two options? On my view it does not make sense to talk about consciousness having a spatiotemporal location. As before, I think the notion is muddled to begin with. Consciousness seems to me to consist entirely of thought and belief. Thus, it emerges with individual creatures capable of forming thought and belief about the world and/or themselves.

Just realized, that that number is not right, but there are many many of them... unfortunately.

Not to mention committing fraud against the American people. This is unprecedented. Nearly two hundred active elected officials in congress have partaken in conspiring to commit fraud against the American people. The big lie.

Until the all the parties guilty of seditious conspiracy against The United States of America are charged and punished to the fullest extent of the law, that threat has no reason to diminish.

I'm not following you. You claimed that science(in general) ridiculed some other scientists(presumably a minority) who were "right". I asked if the ridiculed peoples' views were based upon repeatable peer reviewed information(experiments/papers/etc.) As shown below...

Views that are right are shunned, ridiculed, argumented to death, or banned...
— Hillary

Views that are based upon repeatable peer-reviewed scientific results? — creativesoul

The point is, that these exactly could be wrong. — Hillary

:brow:

Seems to be a gap in communication here... Only you can help me to understand what you're trying to say. I'm now thoroughly confused regarding that.

This confuses me. Prelinguistic ideas exist without language. They negate Rorty, who assumes these ideas are language dependent. So no problem for Rorty... — Hillary

Negation by contradicting reality is a big problem for Rorty(and anyone else for that matter). I would venture to guess that Rorty denies prelinguistic belief altogether, on pains of coherency alone, but I could be wrong.

Can't creation myths be understood without language? — Hillary

Not according to my understanding of human thought and belief.

So do you have a functional definition of truth? — Tom Storm

The term has several.

Prelinguistic belief is or becomes true by virtue of correspondence to what's happened, is happening, or what has yet to have happened but will and does(in cases of rudimentary 'prediction'; expectation)

I understand that some things are (or not) the case regardless of words. I also realise that to some extent this is situationally determined. A mouse runs behind a tree is an event. But how do we determine what is true when we talk about how we ought to live? Is this just a battle of perspectival value systems?

Those are two very different sorts of situations. Speech act theorists are helpful with the latter. The notion of direction of fit is relevant to moral situations such as promise making(giving one's word).

So far as it comes to how we ought live, and determining what is true regarding that, Banno's institutional facts thread has a link to a paper you may find interesting. How to derive an ought from an is.

When you chop out a piece of the brain, or damage the brain, it affects consciousness. When you chop out any other part of the body, it does not. — GLEN willows

That's based upon a notion of consciousness that I find is a bit emaciated.

Cut off the foot, it affects the nervous system, the belief system, etc. All of these are integral parts of human consciousness. Cut out the tongue and it will certainly effect/affect the individual's worldview.

the simplest explanation for consciousness is that it's in the brain — GLEN willows

Whereas, I personally find that to be a very poor example of an explanation. I would also argue against the idea that consciousness is the sort of thing that has such a precisely ascertainable spatiotemporal location.

If you're claiming that conventional academic/scientific understanding could be wrong, I would readily concur. However, that alone is insufficient ground for denying some particular aspect of it.

Sounds like I probably need Banno and some Austin... — Tom Storm

Neither would help here. Speech act theorists are not considering pre-linguistic belief. Banno's position holds that all belief is propositional in content. There are no prelinguistic propositions.

Views that are right are shunned, ridiculed, argumented to death, or banned... — Hillary

Views that are based upon repeatable peer-reviewed scientific results?

when we get to more complex beliefs like creation myths or morality how are these understood without language? — Tom Storm

They are not. But those are not problematic for Rorty. Nor are they prelinguistic. The prelinguistic true beliefs negate Rorty.

Well... it's not a 'mouse' or a 'tree' or 'running' if there is no web of linguistic relations operating. — Tom Storm

A mouse is a mouse. A tree is a tree. The spatial relationship between the mouse and the tree is the spatial relationship between the mouse and the tree. The cat, say, can watch a mouse run behind a tree. That cat will go looking for that mouse behind that tree because it believes it is there. If the mouse is there, the cat's belief is true. If not, it is not.

There is no web of linguistic operations necessary for any of these things to exist and/or take place.

Ironically I find the arguments against materialism similar to those for intelligent design. “The eye is just far too complex to have been developed naturally” — GLEN willows

No irony to speak of there. That's known and deliberate. As far as creationism goes. Occam's razor applies.