Are you morally deficient for not donating a significant, if not a majority, of your income to charities?

I prefer to be 'glass half full' about it. I could say I am morally deficient - which is sad, but I prefer to say I have room for moral improvement, which is good, because improvement is great.

It's like my quest for lifelong education. Instead of saying 'there's so much of which I'm ignorant' I can think 'there's so much exciting stuff I can learn'.

Having used at least two clichés already (is that a bannable offence on a philosophy forum?), why stop now, so I'll add:
'Let us not allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good'

Peter Singer has a really good approach to this, published in his book 'The life you can save'. He doesn't criticize people for not giving, but rather seeks to awaken them to the desirability of their giving as much as they can. He asks them to ask themselves not 'am I giving enough' but rather 'could I give more?', and then 'will I give more?' Very few people will end up selling all they own and giving it to Oxfam, but plenty will give more than they otherwise would have.

Premise 2. Pinocchio claims "my nose grows now" — Michael

There's another angle that can be taken on this, that is of interest to mathematicians, although perhaps to nobody else. That is that Premise 2 is a statement about the velocity of the end of the nose. Velocity is the derivative of position with respect to time.

We can generalise the notion of ordinary derivative to define a left and a right derivative at a point (in time, say). The former is the rate of change (of position of the end of the nose) in the infinitesimally short period immediately before 'now', and the latter is the rate in the infinitesimally short period immediately after 'now' (I know that sounds very woolly, but it can be made precise if one has access to mathematical symbols).

The ordinary derivative only exists if the left and right derivative both exist and equal one another. In the real world, that always happens, because Newton's laws say nothing can instantaneously change its velocity.

But in this magical Pinocchio world we are considering, Newton's laws might not apply. So it is possible that the nose is growing at a constant rate up to time t='now', but stationary after time t. In that case the nose has no velocity at time t.

So the statement 'my nose is growing now' can be seen as ambiguous, as it can refer to either the left or right derivative of the nose-end's position.
Or it can be seen as meaningless, as the nose-end will have no velocity 'now' if it suddenly stops growing at time t.

If we take it to be ambiguous then when Pinocchio makes the statement, the nose will instantaneously stop growing if it interprets the reference as being to the left derivative, and there will be no contradiction.

But if it interprets it as a reference to the right derivative, it will suffer the same contradiction that occurs in the simpler analysis. However, it's easier to see there why it's a contradiction, because in that case it is a statement about the future. It's equivalent to saying 'my nose will now stop growing if it does not now stop growing', which is as bare a contradiction as 'I am Pinocchio and I am not Pinocchio'.

I will take heed of what kinds of things to post. — Wayfarer

No, don't be put off! You have set off an interesting discussion on philosophy of religion that, unlike almost all such discussions on philosophy forums, isn't just in some way or other about the existence or non-existence of God. I call that a major achievement!

Continuing the discussion: The 'direct pointing' aspect is part of what I mean when I refer to Zen as seeming harsh and uncaring. So many of the incidences of direct pointing related in koans appear to involve cruelty - making somebody kneel outside in the snow for three days before letting them into the monastery, hitting fidgety meditation students with a stick, dashing out of somebody's hand an offering that is made. The use of the term 'master' for a spiritual teacher also brings to mind authoritarian and military analogies. I don't think the Dalai Lama gets called Master does he?

Maybe I've been reading the wrong books and listening to the wrong podcasts, but I just don't recall coming across Zen materials that have any role for compassion. This contrasts with some other streams of Buddhism in which compassion is primary.

I think there is much wisdom that can be learned from Zen, as there is much wisdom that can be learned from Nietzsche (another somewhat harsh worldview). I try to imbibe that wisdom as best I can. But I would not wish either Zen or Nietzsche to be my guiding philosophy.

A question then - does the concept of bodhisattva get much airplay in Zen? As I understand it, the whole point of the bodhisattva concept is compassion for the unenlightened. A bodhisattva vows not to attain Nirvana until they can enable all others to do so too.

I can see what the story is trying to say, and I can see what the younger man in the story was trying to communicate, which is a deep and important message....

and yet.....

I find myself agreeing with Wosret. The story, and the person in the story, are so concerned with their philosophies that they lose sight of what really matters - people, and their feelings.

I think it's a good example of why, although I am very attracted to Buddhism, Zen is my least favourite variety of it. Sometimes it seems to value harshness and blindness to the feelings of others, in the interests of being in some sense 'spiritually pure'.

Poor old Mu-nan. It's a bit silly to be so attached to an old book. But if we can't be tolerant of older people's harmless sentimental attachments then it's a pretty poor lookout.

None of those things have to do with climate change.

Neither do terrorists, so why did you bring them up?

Greens, and human beings in general, face being literally impaled by a nut screaming Allahu Akbar, which is much more imminent than whatever is supposed to happen due to climate change.

Really?

What would you say the odds are of your being killed by a militant jihadist? And how does that compare to your odds of being killed by a car, a preventable disease, a drive-by shooting, a police shooting (silly me, reaching for my wallet to show my licence) or a workplace accident?

Sources for probabilities quoted would be of special interest.

Greens are impaled on the horns of a dilemma: Honest descriptions of the problems and the solutions amount to doomsday preaching, and people don't like that. Presenting palatably manageable problems and solutions will get one heard, but will fall far short of what seems to be necessary. Actually, we are all stuck on the horns of that dilemma, whether we are Greens or not.

I don't think there needs to be a dilemma. The dilemma is only sure to exist if technology doesn't change. If we could make nuclear fusion work, or make some similar breakthrough to produce abundant clean energy, the deterioration could be stopped, without having to halt the rise of standard of living in developing nations. We are currently nowhere near such a solution because the resources poured into solving it are pitifully small. But if we could get a credible global carbon pricing scheme running, the financial incentive to solve the problem would be immense and capitalism would be able to do what it is so good at - finding innovative solutions to complex problems that offer high financial rewards.

I am confident that within ten years of the introduction of a proper carbon pricing scheme that included the US and Europe we would have the problem of safely producing cheap, clean energy beaten. What's needed is the political will in legislators to implement carbon pricing. That is a difficult thing to do in the US - not so much in Europe. But it's a whole lot easier than telling people they have to stop consuming.

The US political environment is so dominated by plutocratic vested interests that I have no confidence that even a modest carbon pricing scheme could be introduced there - at least until such time as climate change is causing serious economic disruption - by which time it will be too late. But that's because the controllers of US public opinion are so extreme, not because the proposals are impractical.

I've a feeling this one may prompt you to have an even bigger rant.
Pass. I'm open-minded, but not silly. I gave him his chance, with five minutes of my attention. He blew it. He's not getting another five.

Wow, I got an email saying you replied. I tried for years to persuade PF to do that, with no success, other than an email at the end of the week saying who had replied - up to six days ago!
Nice.

I read the article and found it a good case study in why right-wing people - like the author presumably - find it so hard to be funny. The article was just a long, lazy sneer based on a stereotype of a small minority of people on the left. From start to finish it says 'left-wing people are like this' or 'left-wing people think that' as if there were some authoritative source on which the claim was based. Lazy generalisations are not often funny, because they don't have that essential grain of truth behind them. Everybody knows they are just a straw man.

It could have been funny, if the author had had a bit more imagination. Instead of writing it as a generalisation, he could have described an encounter with a self-righteous, ideological zealot of the type that he wants us to believe fits all left-wing people. Nobody disputes that some people like that exist. Tim Minchin shows how this is done well, and very funnily, in his song 'Storm'. Another good example is Bill Hicks' spiel about a zealot who wants American flag burning to be criminalised ('My daddy died for that flag!' 'Really? I bought mine. You know you can get them for three bucks at K-Mart').

In both cases, the author protrays with excruciating wit and accuracy a repellent type of sanctimonious ideologue, without erring into the lazy, preachy territory of saying 'and everybody that does yoga / is upset by flag-burning is like that'.

Sure, there are also left-wing comedians that make lazy, unfunny generalised accusations about right-wing people. Listening to them is like listening to a sermon in church - urk. So they tend to be the less successful ones. What I wonder is, where is the right-wing Bill Hicks or Tim Minchin? One thing is certain. It isn't Andy Shaw.

I am a huge fan of Wikipedia, which it sounds like the author of that article is not. SEP is very good in its way, but I have learned far more from Wikipedia than I have from SEP.

There is one SEP article that I prefer to its Wikipedia equivalent. It's the one on Zermelo Frankel set theory. SEP's presentation of the axioms is clearer and more concise, and not beset by the logical problems. I rewrote some of the Wiki article, fixing some of its ambiguities and inconsistencies, but some contributors are very proprietorial about that page, and very wedded to mirroring the presentation in a particular book (irrespective of any flaws in that book). They reversed my changes so I didn't bother with that page any more. Life is too short to get into arguments over the drafting of an internet page.

But that's an exception. I find that for most cases in which I am interested the Wikipedia article gets to the point more quickly and gives a better explanation. Where it doesn't, I have occasionally done my bit to improve the page, meeting only very occasional resistance.

But the anatman teaching was an argument against the then-current idea that there was a true or higher self that lived in solitary unity beyond the flux of experience

Is that idea the same as the idea in some veins of current Indian mysticism that there is atman - some sort of universal, true 'self' - and that Mokshah consists of in some sense understanding and internalizing the union of atman and brahman? Or is it some idea of atman as self that is no longer in wide use?

I am very interested in the notion that Nagarjuna's doctrines seem to be able to be interpreted either as a rejection of the current emphasis on the self, the individualist, materialist culture and all the hang-ups and anxieties that accompany it, OR as a rejection of a specific theological position that was current when he was writing in ancient India.

His aim could not have been the former, as our modern culture did not exist in his day. But I wonder about whether it is being too flexible with the interpretation of his ideas to use it as a counter the current materialist emphasis on self and individuality. I am also intrigued at the idea that a doctroine can on the one hand be interpreted as a counter to excessive materialism and on the other hand as an argument against a deeply spiritual position (which leads back to my question of the first para).

I think you know a lot more about this than me so I'd be interested in your thoughts.

The PF site is up but still throws frequent errors, and there's no up to date communication from the site owners either on the site or on the facebook page. Underwhelming. The only good source of info is here.

Hello everybody. I decided to join here so as to keep in contact with the people whose posts I have enjoyed over the years who no longer post on PF.

I've not been doing much philosophy posting in recent months, as my spare time is mostly taken with trying to learn more physics and playing around with data analysis in R to help my partner with a medical statistics project. But I do enjoy reading the interesting and provocative thoughts of others and I miss the stimulating posts of those who are no longer at PF. So I'm looking forward to reading some of those on here.

best wishes

Andrew