Ha! One good line in that horrible book! Ironic that Hitchens hated her.

Not that Hitchens was exemplary, far from it, towards the last part of his life. But it's a good quote, and its applicable to a decent range of world leaders, imo.

Britain has been having disaster after disaster since Brexit. Truss is just next in line...

Truss reminds me of a remark Christopher Hitchens made about David Cameron:

Q: What do you think about David Cameron?

A: He doesn't make me think.

Except that Truss has a genocidal streak to her. My, with leaders like these, who needs villains?

That's true. Though it should be. "Check on power" and all that media responsibility.

There tends to be very little dissent in the NYT, it tends to go with the government in relation to wars, so it's not the best site for this conflict. I think something like Democracy Now! is better, though I do occasionally go to these "traditional" sources, to see what the US establishment is thinking. It certainly has its uses, but I prefer other sites, like Al Jazeera and a few others.

RT used to be excellent for non-Russia related news. Now it's a parody. As is to be expected during wartime from a state sponsored media.

Yep. Bias is inevitable, accurate presentation of the facts given context, is not.

Thanks for those sources.

I tend to look at Al-Jazeera, FT and Antiwar.com, they seem to me to be reasonable- for the most part, though the Financial Times is inconsistent and obviously "pro-Western". Still, it's useful to know what the global elite are thinking.

Obviously I don't trust RT or CNN much in this topic. I still feel that I may be missing out on some very good websites on this topic, which, given recent developments merits getting as much accurate info as is possible at the moment. I'm skeptical of the NYT and the like. Nevertheless, and knowing that a complete bias free reporting is not possible, what sites are you all using?

There are worse things to be addicted to, by far. If someone can manage to live the much touted "balanced life", well, good for them. I haven't figured that one out.

However little we know about thoughts, we can't help having them. Maybe you can meditate and see your thoughts as things, or whatever else this entails. Nevertheless, thinking, for human beings, is much like breathing, if we stop doing it, we die. Cue in Descartes joke.

I think proof of all this comes from this very strange occurrence that has likely happened to all of us a few times at least. You are doing nothing in particular, maybe washing dishes or swimming, and BAM all of a sudden you gain an insight, seemingly out of nowhere. All the while you had the impression you were only doing an activity unrelated to thinking.

I rather someone addicted to thought harming no-one, than someone addicted to action without measuring consequences. Though there are all these options between these two extremes.

It could increase bravado from NATO. They can be accused of "cowering to Russia"-type rhetoric, which, don't get me wrong, is incredibly stupid, but exists and has be said a few times by more hawkish figures in the Republican party.

It's best to not see what would happen if such a scenario arose. But, there's not much we can do about it.

The thing is if he does drop one, even a so called "mini nuke", I don't see how NATO will not respond. They'd have to. But then that creates a self-feeding loop.

If they fired a nuke in the ocean somewhere close to Europe, that might be doable. But almost any scenario of nuke use will have consequences we can barely imagine.

They do, but one cannot deny that Russia is under severe pressure - otherwise Putin would have not made his announcement today. Of course Ukraine has lost plenty in the war, but at the moment they are looking better militarily than a few weeks ago.



Yeah, it's of no use except to scare or cause an accident that will perish us all. But from his perspective, what is he to do? Admitting defeat is never an option for a nuclear power, national pride is worse than religion here.

Looks like Russia is running out of options. And while in a more rational society this might be an impetus for negotiations, now there is a ramping up - on both sides.

They really should try to hold talks. Unless they topple Putin from the inside, it is not wise to cage a tiger with no way out. It's pretty reckless. imo.

One has to keep in mind that Kant was a Newtonian. The notions of space and time Kant had in mind, no longer apply. Which does not mean that his general framework is obsolete, far from it.

But using modern notions to classical ideas can bring about problems, if one isn't careful with the details. As for space and time being immaterial, that's terminological, not substantial. One needs to provide an adequate definition of the physical, and say what the immaterial has, that the physical does not.

It can be consciousness, as it depends on the brain. Unless you would say that the brain isn't physical, then we simply say, everything is immaterial. What we can say is that the brain is what we categorize and recognize as this thing behind our skulls which plays a crucial role in experience.

I am unsure how to read your reply. Rhetoric can be problematic in philosophy.

If it does, which I don't think is clear at all, then I'd argue that the metaphysics of science is bound to be argued for one's own personal metaphysical preferences: it can be defended as materialism, verifications, rationalistic idealism, transcendental idealism, eliminitavist, dualist, and so on.

How is the metaverse science? It's technology and a dubious one at that, if you have in mind Zuckerberg's version of it.

I perceive a tendency to conflate technology with science - it has some similarities, for example, much new tech would not be possible without scientific breakthroughs, but it does not follow that the technology itself is science, I don't think.

Science has no metaphysics. It is neutral in this regard. We choose, if we so wish, to add metaphysics to science. Everyone has a metaphysics after all, even if they dislike it.

a sad thought indeed. — Art48

Yes. However this thought does not arise when one is dead, IF we are correct in assuming that post-life is a similar state than pre-life. Death is "only" painful for the living who experience it of others and to people who are on there way out. But the actual "state", is not a reason to worry, I think.

It's not testable, reason can either accept or deny it (though it stretches credulity) and other theories can, in principle, produce similar results without relying on it.

Is it scientific? It's not clear. But it could be true, we just have no way to ascertain its veracity.

We don't know this. Reason may be a more or less affair, with sudden leaps in capacities due to the development of something like the language faculty (which animals lack, though they don't lack communication) and the emergence of self-consciousness.

Animals may have rudimentary reason, though less likely self-consciousness or reflection. But we cannot rule this out. Reasons can lead us to problems, sure, but they offer solutions to problems, which is rather helpful.

Likewise the laws of the world we imagine ourselves to be in now aren't necessarily the laws of reality on the whole.
We may be in a sub-reality. — Yohan

I'd say we don't know enough to determine whether the laws we study are or are not fundamental to the universe. So, not so much sub-reality, as representations. We seem to be locked away from "things in themselves."

I think the OP is a bit too long, I've done this before so, it's nothing personal. If you can make it more concise, then it should be easier to understand.

Going off on the title of the thread, sure, money is a fiction (illusion), but it's a real fiction, just like Harry Potter is a real character in the novel, or Winston Smith is an illusion in 1984.

Doesn't make it stop working as it does, until enough people change the way they perceive the value of paper, things will remain as they are.

You can't "literally" live in a simulation. — Yohan

This I agree with.

I'm not following the bit about the computer being linked with the mind. Does that mean that we are living in a videogame of some kind? You can describe life in many different ways.

Depends on the goal.

Empirical science is agnostic about metaphysics. You may occasionally hear the odd statement about being a "materialist" and even more rare, being an "idealist", but most scientists don't have a metaphysics - they probably don't even think about it, which is fine, the work they do does not require it.

I agree that the organ we take to be a brain, are what we - with good reason - take to be the source of experience. That's a representation. The thing is, I don't think it intelligible to suppose that experience "copies" anything. It represents, from rather poor stimulus, a very rich world. That's not a copy.

The topic here, as I understand, is that we are literally living in a computer simulation. There is no evidence for that at all. You could call the world we construct a "simulation". I think that terminology is rather strange. But, everyone is free to use these terms as they wish.

He mentions that our knowledge of the will is the closest approximation we have of the thing-in-itself, but it's not the thing-in-itself, itself, as it were. If you remind me, I'll post the relevant passage which is rather important, in my opinion.

That's the thing about this topic, there is no good argument for this at all. It was made up, now you see some fancy scenarios about the probabilities that we could live in a simulation because a sufficiently advanced civilization could do this, bla bla bla.

It has exactly the same weight as saying we are living in Einstein's dream, in another universe. How can you prove we are not? There's no way to do this. You can only say, justifiably, that I made it up - but it doesn't eliminate the plausibility.

Then again, we could be cells in God's body or anything else. But if you continue making up scenarios infinitely, as one can, you see that this is just a game with little value.

At least Putnam's brain in a vat, has uses about our mental capacities and the relation we have with the world. Simulation arguments don't even have any saving grace.

Interestingly - and while agreeing with you mostly about Zizek, he actually discusses this. It's an idea in psychoanalysis called fetishist disavowal: "I know very well, but...", (insert topic here). "I know very well that, human beings and most complex life on Earth will burn, but, how could it, given what I am seeing with my eyes right now..."

Just pointing this out, one of the interesting things I got out of engaging with Zizek for way too long, not all was wasted.

@Xtrix I think society is too complex to single out one or two factors which we can use to explain our current situation. However, if we are forced into being simple, because otherwise we either factor in or factor out too much, then I'd say this is very much heavily related to the deregulations and massive power gains given to private corporations in the 80's, continuing to this day.

The problem with this is not so much the inequality per se (which is a problem, to be sure), but the extremely lopsided distribution of power. And given this imbalance in power, it is all too easy for the rest of the world, not belonging to .1%, to realize that they can change society if they make government actually do what they want.

To prevent this for happening, power will (and has) done everything to stay where it is. A tax on carbon? Mass transportation? A green transition? Are you crazy, if they get that, what else will they ask for? So, we get bombarded by distractions, disinformation and petty gossip instead of doing things that matter.

From this very broad picture, much can be derived. But, as I said, society is more complex than this, so there are too many factors to analyze to make this into a "theory" or explanation. The factors listed in the OP certainly are legitimate.

Going for round 2 here, to get a better understanding:

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke

Novel:

Infinite Ground by Martin McInnes

This (quite long) essay, which I posted on another thread, is most excellent, and makes the issue rather clear, with plenty of evidence, but it has little to do with power, and is more related to the limits of understanding. You may want to take a look at the history involved in the collapse of the "mechanistic" worldview:

https://web.ics.purdue.edu/~drkelly/ChomskyMysteriesNatureHidden2009.pdf

Posting again here, the topic of the thread is interesting, putting aside the word "material". Is there an external world? Yes. But it's nature and our relationship to it is far from trivial.

In a way, our common sense attitude does not question this distinction much. This laptop here is external to me, so are these books. What's "behind" the eyes is internal.

But that distinction is extremely delicate, in my opinion.

PLA extends 'Taiwan encirclement' exercises; 'Drills will not stop until reunification'

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202208/1272446.shtml

No no, I mean, I agree with you. I don't think that they will invade - or I hope not at the very least. But one wonders, by doing these drills, are they not showing Taiwan and the US what could happen should an invasion ever take place?

It's a bit like showing your opponent your cards while playing poker. I have to think that the Chinese leadership would be aware of this type of thinking.

What they're doing now, is predictable. Even the bigger scale was predictable given the warnings. We have to see if they do something slightly more unpredictable, like sanctioning the governing party, not the whole country.

That might provoke a reaction by Taiwan. It's very very hard to sanction China like the did Russia. The scope would be enormous and would plunge the world into a total economic disaster, the likes of which we have not ever seen.

Good article, thanks for sharing. :up:



It's another variety of determinism. The difference being that this "superdeterminism" claims to show that even QM is deterministic in some sense.

I think appealing to physics for human choices is to fantastically stretch the scope of physics. By this logic, these people should be psychologists and solve all people's problems.

So far extensive military drills on large swaths of the island are underway. There are also some sanctions taking place, though I don't think it's hitting all sectors, that would directly hurt China.

The US should let China boast, and then it should blow over, come back to the status quo. This may be over soon, or the current party in Taiwan could be heavily sanctioned, and that could bring problems down the line.

We'll see.

show me the past and will show you a present event affirming something called past. the future and the present suffer the same fate. — Constance

Which is why it is helpful to think of time in terms of William James "specious present", that duration, perhaps 2 seconds or so, in which we combine the immediate future, the instant present and the already passing moment in time. Anything less than that is something which we aren't aware of consciously, at these levels we react unconsciously.

If you deny the future and past, you cannot make sense of the present, because it has already past.

The unconscious: it takes but a moment to see that ANY talk at all about the unconscious is self contradictory, for to speak of it is to bring it to consciousness, thus, the moment it comes to our lips, rises up to thought and language, it is conscious — Constance

Not really. We see, roughly, when photons hit the eye and react to the photo-receptors we have. We aren't conscious of this process. We become conscious of it when we study mammalian vision, but, aside from the discussions, we don't see photons, nor do we see how the brain turns this into images.

And there is plenty of study in linguistics than show that we cannot introspect into our language faculty. What we get in consciousness are fragments, not the process by which we get these fragments.

Until we get rid of this idea of "access to consciousness", we will remain stuck in philosophy of mind, because, as a factual matter, the vast majority of the things we do don't enter experience. But this should be rather obvious, requiring little times reflection.

As an aside, I understand this to be the most nationalistic wing of Chinese media, so it might be an interesting source of info concerning what may happen:

https://www.globaltimes.cn/index.html

Yes. This can be candy to politicians and an excellent excuse to avoid other pressing political concerns, usually of the domestic variety.

But it's the US and China, I mean, any mistake here is a disaster.

As I understand it, if China attempted to invade Taiwan, it would take a rather long time to conquer it, given how substantial Taiwan's military capabilities are. But China wouldn't like to bark without biting too much. Looks bad for them, even though it's what most of us would prefer, that nothing happens.

We'll see these days what China does, aside from extensive military drills.

If you could provide some sources for the times China has warned WWIII with those countries mentioned, I would appreciate it. I do know that for them Taiwan is the "red line", and Tibet too, though this latter region is now more tightly under state control, as I understand it.

One thing is what Xi wishes, another is what he is able to do. Very different things. As far as two days ago, the White House was not happy with the visit to Taiwan and even FP magazine thought it was a bad idea.

As for the actual threat here for China? You're right, there isn't a threat per se, it's not as if Pelosi can grant Taiwan nation-state status in the UN or something, it's more the symbolism that can be interpreted as China not being able to control its one red line, with its dream of unification and whatnot.

In short, this visit is pure provocation. And we still should recognize that China could not take over Taiwan in a week, regardless of anything else. It's playing with fire just to see who has a bigger d***. Not good statesmanship, imo.

I don't agree. There is no need for provocation at this level, hell, even that dimwit at the New York Times, Thomas Friedman - for once - said that this was reckless behavior.

I don't like China's government. Doesn't mean it's smart to do these types of maneuvers. Taiwan has gotten plenty of help from the US, so there is no imminent threat of a take-over made by force, without an extremely bloody conflict. But then that would bring the US in, and we're at a stalemate.

Given population projections for China, I very much doubt they are going to dominate the world. The US has by far a much stronger military force. This being scared of China makes sense, for those countries that fall within China's reach. Not the US or Europe, or Latin America, etc.

For China? Unification. For the US? A way to control China's ambitions.

What is China going to do about it? We will find out soon.

:up:

All this could have been avoided if Pelosi hadn't planned this visit. As you mention, the relevant actors. especially China, must react somehow, otherwise they would look weak in the international stage. But what type of action they would take, is far from clear.

Very dangerous.