Could it be that a more advanced race of people is maintaining this state of affairs so that human civilisation does not self destruct. — Jonmel

Considering that we’re rapidly making the world uninhabitable for ourselves, with mass extinctions of species, climate change, pollution, etc. we might conclude that if there’s a secret master race they’re working against us. Maybe they’re aliens terraforming the planet to their liking?

Practice mediation daily.

Alternatively...

Did you miss that part? — creativesoul

We have no choice but to accept the fact. In theory, cognitive dissonance can be positive or negative so choosing a fiction may not be the mistake. I guess it boils down to self-reflection, as you later say...

It helps promote self-reflection. It's not about considering behaviour towards others. Thus, the proposed criterion is rejected as inadequate. — creativesoul

Why is self-reflection good if not in relation to considering behavior towards others? In solitude, it doesn’t matter what fictions we create to console ourselves, and why would we have an inclination to do so if there were no group in which we had an image of ourselves to uphold?

Some morals are about considering behaviour towards others. Not all.

I’m not at all convinced, if that matters. Your fable fails to illustrate this point... and this is not an expression of sour grapes.

How to get what one could not first attain/acquire... — creativesoul

Giving up may not have been a mistake. Further effort could have been better spent simply looking for low lying fruit elsewhere.

The mistake was choosing to believe a fiction. That kind of behavior can have serious negative consequences within a group.

But a man in forest - all alone - would not have the fable to begin with. A baby in forest will not ever become a man. So, it's a moot point.

The implication is that if you remove yourself from all other sentient beings you will still have a moral life?

Is it pretend? In any case, it only matters in relation to other beings of its group. If It doesn’t belong to a group then there is no moral. If a man living alone in the forest hates the fruit he can’t reach it is of no consequence to anyone else, or to himself.

We look at what's left and assess it's relevance/adequacy for deducing a universal criterion. — creativesoul

I thought the point of your sour grapes example, in the context of its use, had to do with trying to establish the universal criterion of weather or not morals require other sentient beings.

Maybe I misconstrued the point. In any case, grapes aren’t sentient. What do you think the moral of the sour grapes fable is, just out of curiosity?

Interesting. I would have never guessed. I reread the OP just now with this in mind and I suppose that I can see it.

You have a admirable skepticism.

Yeah, I can see how some could be offended by that. Even more so by the pic in SI if that woman is not muslim.

...

I’m pretty damned liberal. — creativesoul

It’s easy to imagine how some could be offended. I’m not sure what you mean by stating that and ending the post with a declaration of liberalism.

If the model were only pretending to be Muslim that would certainly be disingenuous of her and the publication, and as a consequence possibly somewhat tarnished, by association, the image of what they were trying to portray positively. You might credit them with some integrity.

my logic circuits tell me that everybody wants to be happy — christian2017

I imagine that Noah Harrari’s logic circuits would tell us that everybody wants whatever their shared narrative tells them they want, such as wealth, status, and a 50” high definition flatscreen tv.

I do find the notion of intuition to be without a common referent that existed in it's entirety prior to our accounts of it. It's use - without delineation - leaves me wondering what the speaker is talking about. Given that it is being claimed to give rise to moral judgment, I wonder if that is indicative of a claim regarding initial emergence/source/origen of all moral judgment or if it simply points out that some moral judgment happens automatically after one has a basis of moral thought/belief from which to judge. — creativesoul

I think that intuition can be both instinctual and conditioned by culture, and we can also intentionally condition ourselves.

The Fox and the Grapes is a story that teaches a moral lesson. — creativesoul

It’s an example of cognitive dissonance. The moral is to not lie to ourselves? What does it matter if we lie to ourselves if there are no other selves? In any case, we’d only lie to ourselves in this way because we have an image of ourselves that we’re interested in maintaining in relation to others.

A story of moral sour grapes might be something like a wolf (a more social species) eating a whole rabbit by itself and not sharing it with the pack. Because the wolf has a strong self image of strictly adhering to pack norms, not to mention that pack exile could mean death or at least no longer having the potential for gene propagation, the wolf chooses to believe that he wasn’t at fault and blames the rabbit for being a little sour, and claiming that none of the other wolves would have wanted it. It was actually virtuous of him to not subject the pack to the sourness of the rabbit, so he comes to believe and claim.

I mean, thinking about lacking something such as romantic love is even pointless at this moment but I still can't quit the delusion... — Alan

It’s a natural desire, and a good one, in my opinion. It’s not pointless or delusional to think about what you want. Obsession isn’t good of course.

Buddhist philosophy claims that grasping and desire lead to suffering. That makes a lot of intuitive sense, but we will always grasp and desire what we need or want. So the only solution is to remove ourselves, our selfness, from the equation, as much as possible anyway. The more we can do that the more we can relax and be more natural.

Well, I readily acknowledged that it was a sloppy OP. I won’t do that again.

Anyway, Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, yourself, and I can distinguish between an American Muslim Sports Illustrated model and an Islamic terrorist. Unfortunately, for many in the country this distinction is apparently a little blurry. It seems to me that people like Dr. Jasser politicize opportunities like this to promote their political ideology and to some degree exploit this blurriness or bigotry. Of course, Sports Illustrated is politicizing their swimsuit issue as well.

For me, I suppose the issue is not so much with politicizing but with being true to the underlying values that you’re promoting in politicizing issues. Why isn’t Dr. Jasser celebrating this event rather than condemning it for allegedly glorifying Islamic honor culture? It literally illustrates a Muslim American integrating with America culture. The burkini she wears violates traditional modesty norms of the groups he opposes and is culturally synchronistic. It would be hard to argue that she’s not honoring her traditions in spirit.

This is not unlike the NFL anthem protests in that rather than acknowledging the real nature of the protests, it was twisted by those wishing to undermine the issue to being about disrespecting the flag.

I’ve never seen a black lives matter protest but a couple of years ago, while driving through a busy intersection, I saw a blue lives matter protest. It takes at least two to play the identity politics game.

My understanding from the book is that the percentage of neanderthal dna is far too low to rule out genocide.

If you want to get probed I’m sure you could find an accommodating sapien.

Anyway, I’m about two thirds of the way through the book so I can’t say what the author concludes about the future of sapiens.

The author claims that ideologies or shared fictions, in all forms (such as money, a business brand, or religion), allow sapiens to operate cooperatively in a large scale. A scale that can extend from a tribe, to a nation, or across an empire.

He goes so far as to suggest that it’s this one facility, that sapiens developed first, by mere chance, that allowed them to essentially exterminate all other humanoid species. The neanderthals, for example, were physically stronger and had larger brain mass than sapiens, so one might wonder why they didn’t come out on top.

I really can't imagine a lot of Muslim men lining up to buy it though. — Sir2u

Probably not the demographic [mod corrected confusing misspelling] they’re attempting to appeal to, I assume.

Supposedly Muslim women are not supposed to wear clothes that demark the shape of the body. So how does SI think this will help race relations? — Sir2u

The Muslim faith is not a race.

Showcasing a member of a group that has been discriminated against in a positive light can change perception.

Okay, it’s settled, a Muslim can see another Muslim as an enemy.

For a while there was a Muslim woman who went to my gym. The spin room is one of the more isolated parts of the gym, between spin classes, and I once walked in while she was praying (or whatever) in the direction of Mecca there. I really didn’t mind at all, not that it would have mattered if I did, but it did feel somewhat alien. I’ve had very little exposure to people of the Muslim faith in my life.

On another occasion, I swam in an adjacent lane to her in the pool. She was wearing a burkini, and quite frankly, it looked more like she was a fish trying to escape a net than a person swimming. I found it disturbing, probably because I’ve swam, surfed, and found freedom and escape in water all my life. To see someone intentionally constraint themselves in this way was hard to grasp and hard to witness. Also, I must admit, some dark thought of potential terrorism entered my mind while I swam. Irrational to be sure, but there nevertheless.

My wife, who had chatted with her on occasion at the gym, mentioned that this woman had recently discovered burkinis and thoroughly enjoyed the experience of ‘swimming’ in them, a joy that was previously unattainable.

In America we are all Americans so we are incapable of seeing any other American as an enemy. Is that the sort of logic you’re using?

FYI: this topic is posted in the current events forum. I would have posted it in the lounge but topics tend to get very little attention there.

I ‘approve’ because, to my mind, it attempts to transcend cultural/political divides via aesthetics, if only unintentionally.

it probably appeals to a certain 'hip' demographic — Bitter Crank

It appeals to me and I’m far from hip.

Are you saying that you find it unappealing? (Sexuality aside)

Granted. Anything else?

Frankly, I would love a good robo Zen master who could effectively lead me to realize emptiness.

1 for me. My mom went on the occasional vodka bender. Unreliable attachment?

I'm looking for a way to understand my frustration and to live with it as a minor problem in my life or no problem at all. I've found in philosophy better ways to look at the problems in life, not to get rid of them as they are inherent. — Alan

You don’t understand your frustration? I think you do.

You want it to be a minor problem? One solution would be to acquire bigger problems, such as having to defend against criminal charges or perhaps a serious medical issue, so that your romantic life would be relatively minor or a lower priority. I can’t say that I recommend this course however.

Seeing problems as inherent in life is a philosophical outlook, albeit rather pessimistic.

I am trying, more and more, to eliminate "I am X" thoughts from my inner dialogue and speech. That goes especially for "I am an X-ist". I find that I am becoming more flexible. I am allowing myself to really consider the arguments of those that were once my political enemies. — petrichor

Good post (of which this quote is only a small part).

The general downside of this liminal position is that it lacks the quality loyalty, and loyalty has value. Declaring an ‘ism’ is in a sense making a promise to uphold whatever values that ism represents. If they’re good values it would be a shame to betray them.

Oddly though, the liminal position is still a position. It may be best for philosophers to not align themselves with any ideology, but that in itself expresses an ideology.

The only hope would seem to be that everyone very gradually reduces their level of consumption, particularly of fossil fuels; just to the degree that avoids collapsing current industries. But it would seem to be impossible to enforce, such a "rationing", or even quantify how austere would need to be, and people generally seem too complacently self-centered and unable to sustain voluntary cooperation for such a thing to come about through the "will of the people", anyway, even if they could know just how frugal they needed to be. — Janus

It would seem to require a rather drastic shift in values, and that takes time, probably much more time than we have left before the shit hits the fan. Oddly, I think people would generally be much happier if their values were shifted toward seeking meaning and happiness, rather than wealth, status, and distraction. In a culture that values meaning and happiness, "rationing" may not feel like rationing but simply living cooperatively for mutual benefit.

In moral foundations theory (Jonathan Haidt, Craig Joseph, Jesse Graham), it's proposed that moral judgment is primarily given rise to by intuition, with reasoning playing a smaller role in most of our moral decision-making. Conscious thought-processes serve as a kind of post hoc justification of our decisions.

The theory suggests that we have unconscious intuitive heuristics which generate our reactions to morally charged-situations, and underlie our moral behavior. When people explain their moral positions, they often miss, if not hide, the core premises and processes that actually led to those conclusions.

The main evidence for the theory comes from studies of "moral dumbfounding" where people have strong moral reactions but fail to establish any kind of rational principle to explain their reaction.

I have no doubt that we will eventually surpass AI in our quest for greater revelations about ourselves. — BrianW

Unlikely. If or when AI is developed it will outpace us a thousandfold. With the speed of silicon transistors, vastly more simulations can be performed in the time it would take biological neurons.

And, just to put things in perspective, could anyone imagine humans developing a better configuration of intelligence than nature has with us?

Definitely, and AI may help to redesign itself.

I'm no economist but I understand that redistribution in the form of retirement funds, unemployment insurance, healthcare, and perhaps even a minimum income can help to stabilize a capitalist economy or at least act as a cushion in the inevitable downturns.

Our senses recieve patterns of data which is mentally processed. The sense data is in accord with the received patterns.

If I'm off-base, what do you mean by 'according to what?'

According to the physical world, and my imagination.

My imagination?

A photograph is a representation. A mind (or camera in your analogy) produces mental representations (analogous to photographs). The entire world of the camera in your analogy is comprised of photographs.

I'm not claiming that physical things don't exist. I'm claiming that a mind is necessary to make them exist for us.

Terrible analogy. — Merkwurdichliebe

Right?

It means that only photographs exist...

“Anything” requires a mind to conceive it. Without a mind there would be nothing to distinguish anything. There wouldn’t be anything or nothing.

I don't believe that anything exists that isn't just physical. — Terrapin Station

Couldn’t we also say that nothing exists that isn’t just mental?

I was there last weekend and in the Cirque du Soleil show Zumanity there was indeed many fine bare boobies on display.

In terms of academic philosophy, it looks like the clubhouse would a limited group of 5-7 people just talking amongst themselves. (which they kind of already do in their focused threads anyway). — TheWillowOfDarkness

If anyone is taking this topic seriously it might be a good first step to check with these members to see if they ever feel interrupted by the riffraff.

How about gold stars, like this :sparkle:

The member with the most stars can be declared the philosopher king.