How could we possibly know if it's the beginning of the universe or some stage of a larger multiverse? We have no way of knowing, at least at the moment, maybe even in principle.

Massive props to you dude. That book, after it very rough first 240 pages, just goes nuts. Utterly crazy, fun and brilliant!

Defending the Holy Land: A Critical Analysis of Israel's Security and Foreign Policy
By Zeev Maoz

Yeah, I don't think functionalism is very coherent, it sounds somewhat contrived or forced, as if we are able to determine that nature "built" this organism "for" this exact thing. A single organ can have multiple functions, so which is the main one? That's a subject for debate.

On the other hand, I don't have a proposal to determine how to proceed, other than doing experiments and figuring out what things something does, and this is broad.

There is another option:

We are conscious, all causes are physical, and consciousness is an emergent property of complex biological systems.

The thing is, saying consciousness evolved by natural selection says almost nothing about it - everything else evolved by natural selection, ok, now what? We should attempt to give some account as to why it exists, what does it do and so on.

It doesn't influence behavior. — petrichor

This is something I don't understand. If you see something which you find morally reprehensible or if you are playing baseball or whatever, how doesn't consciousness play a role in how you react or how you hit the ball?

My view is that animals will probably see things differently because they are differently constituted and equipped. So, it would seem to follow that we and the other animals all see things as they naturally appear to the particular beings we are. Those appearances I would say are all "correct", all real functions of the "in-itself" nature of ourselves, other animals and the world. — Janus

In terms of "common sense", that is, how ordinary people view the world, it would seem somewhat striking to consider the idea that many likely radically different interpretations of the world are all correct. But as you say, no animal is wrong.

And yes, I also think that the nature of things-in-themselves plays this role for all experiencing creatures.

Ok.

You don't think the inevitable idea of degrees of accuracy logically terminates in the idea of perfect accuracy? To my way of thinking this would be similar to how the idea of infinity logically follows from there being no limit to counting, or the idea of degrees of darkness or cold terminates in the idea of absolute darkness or cold. — Janus

Not inevitably no, that's the thing, I don't see it as necessity following. You could add numbers for a long time, and not necessarily have the idea of infinity, because for all you know, numbers could come to an end. Infinity is an idea that goes "beyond" numbers alone, it's a different, though perhaps related concept.

Likewise, with improving something. But it's my current mood at the moment, I could be wrong. I'm not wedded to this view. Maybe it's because I've read Hume several times that I am being skeptical or maybe it's a passing phase...

It seems reasonable to think we do experience things in themselves if that is taken to mean that how things are in themselves (including ourselves of course) is determinative of what we experience. But it is a different thing to say that we could experience things as they are in themselves; the very idea stipulates that we cannot because the distinction is based on saying that whatever we can experience of things is things as they appear to us and the in itself is the dialectical counterpart of that. — Janus

No no, I mean, I agree with that completely. I'm talking about "ordinary people', if they don't dwell on this topic much or in depth, they would naturally assume that what we experience are things in themselves.

It would take a philosopher or maybe a scientist, to tell them this is not the case, and it would be easy to provide examples, such as what is the color of the object if there is no light or if say, you point out that a dog and a bear experience the world differently from us, who has the "correct view" of the world?

Then this will likely prompt the admission that there is something we are missing in our account of things.

And so on.

I mentioned building before. When building it is desirable to get everything as level plumb and square as possible, otherwise errors compound and horrible difficulties arise if one's initial setting out has been too far from perfect. So, accuracy is a practical necessity and once understood the idea of perfect accuracy, although unattainable, follows. — Janus

I'm a bit skeptical. I could imagine a case in which "good enough" would do the job, with no conception of perfection. I'm entertaining the idea that perfection is something transferred over from mathematics, but I admit I have to think about this in more depth. Outside of that, currently, I don't see why perfection must necessarily arise for us, though it does.

I would say that following empirical investigation, scientific observation, analysis and theory, show us what objects appear to give us. Once it is realized that we are dealing with things only as they appear the idea of things as they are in themselves logically, dialectically, follows, it seems to me. — Janus

There certainly is the idea of something hidden or beyond us in the history of human thought, call it the Veil of Maya or the Dao or The One - it's a common theme.

Yet many did think that the things we experienced were things in themselves, it follows naturally from common sense. It became a serious topic of enquiry in the 17th century.

Our investigations are always already carried out from within the cognitively given shared world, and they can be our only guide. — Janus

Absolutely, completely agree.

I agree that Locke's distinction between primary and secondary qualities is a valid one, as far as it goes; but it cannot get us beyond appearances. For me it seems that the most important thing for humans just is the world of appearances, it is the only real world for us. On the other hand I think the fcat that we conceive of the "in itself" has had huge consequences for the intellectual and imaginative life of humanity. So, the in itself may, as some say, "drop out of the conversation" but the fact that we can think the in itself as the idea of what we cannot think and can never know is a different matter. — Janus

It's the most fascinating topic of all for me. I wish some of the classics (and contemporaries) talked about it much more.

But what we do have may suffice, given how hard the topic is, and how little we can say about it.

I agree in the sense that we never perceive the whole of any object; so the idea of a whole object or entity, its identity, is "constructed" from various views or touches of things as well as the fact that we all perceive the same things. — Janus

Sure - this is ok with me.

As I said, it seems to me that the realization of imperfection or imperfect accuracy automatically entails the idea of perfect accuracy. — Janus

Ok, but why? Why not merely take in the object without having an idea of perfection? I can see the use of this in geometry - it allows for exact formulations and proofs and the like.

But what about everything else? I agree that having imperfection seems to entail having the idea of perfection, but outside of isolated cases, I don't see why this apparent fact of our constitution is this way.

Yes, I agree we contribute a conceptual element in order to see anything as something familiar. But I also think this must be constrained by the things we perceive as well as by our own natures. I think the same goes for animals too inasmuch as they are able to re-cognize familiar things. If this is right then it follows that there is more to "seeing as" than just acquisition of cultural conventions or symbolic language capability. — Janus

Yes, our own natures limit the range of things we can see, and this is necessary, for if had no limit in what we can perceive, we couldn't give it a scope which would result in no "picture" at all.

The problem here, out of many which can be pointed to, is to so much what we add to things, but more so what the objects give to us. It's very obscure. Although no longer tenable, Locke's distinction of primary secondary qualities is a useful heuristic.

But outside of solidity (concreteness), I have trouble isolating what else belongs to objects alone. I think they have "powers", as Locke says, to induce reactions in us. But there's a lot to work out in terms of details.

I tend to think the language of 'internal versus external' may not be helpful here. I would say both the objects and us (comparing and) contrasting objects pruduces the seeing of patterns. — Janus

It is, admittedly, a very difficult topic, as evidenced by the fact that when you read the classic Descartes through Kant, it's never entirely clear how they are making the distinction, there are some hints, but it's not easy to parse out.

Sure, the emphasis I am making is one of objects being, strictly speaking, a mental construction on the occasion of sense. Both are necessary in practice.

We do tend to see faces and bodily forms in natural patterns (especially when hallucinogens are involved) but I think the potential for interpreting such patterns in various ways is there in the objects as real configurations. — Janus

Well, I would agree to an extent if we are forming a science, I think in this case we can say that the patterns are "real", meaning, an aspect of the world.

But faces on a wooden wall or interpreting perfect geometry when such things don't exist, seem to me to be the way we view the world, being the creatures that we are.

But it's debatable.

As you say earlier classic geometric forms are rarely found in nature apart from the spherical dewdrops, the circular appearance of the moon, and the sun, hexagonal honeycombs, and so on. Some igneous rock forms are also quite geometric. And of course, then you have the advent of human land parceling and building. These natural and humanly produced phenomena, as you said, may appear perfect for all intents and purpose but on closer measuring and analysis reveal themselves to be imperfect. Once we have the concept of the imperfect its dialectical counterpart, the imperfect, naturally follows I would say. — Janus

Which to me raises the question, then why the heck do we have the idea of perfection in objects at all? It's quite curious.

So, I agree with you that the idea of "one" or "many" is not cause by seeing one thing or many, but rather by the perceived contrast between them, which I think comes down to pattern recognition. It is pattern recognition, differences and similarities, that conveys perceptual information to us. — Janus

That's plausible, though I would stress or emphasize that whatever pattern we perceive is internal, so the objects or us contrasting objects and things stimulates us to see a pattern.

As to the slave recognizing squares, I think the etymology word geometry shows that it is likely that people saw actual rectangles, squares and circles as laid out in fencing of land and architecture, and that the idea of perfect geometric forms is abstracted from that experience. — Janus

This may be putting too much emphasis on a small point, nevertheless I'd argue that what we see are quite often very distorted examples of triangles or circles in experience, but that we interpret them as being perfect. We notice that our interpretation is mistaken when we go and check the triangle looking thing and see that a line is curved or not connecting, etc.

It's somewhat akin to seeing a pattern on a wall or the floor, and seeing what looks like a face, when it's just certain points arranged in a certain manner.

I agree with you that there is a sense in which number and geometry "goes beyond" concrete particulars, but only insofar as it is abstracted from our perceptual experience of concrete particulars. In other words, I don't think there is any coherent sense in which number and geometry could be said to be completely transcendent of the phenomenal world. — Janus

This is the issue of Platonism in mathematics, a topic I can barely cover. Maybe you are correct. I do find it somewhat puzzling that we have an idea of a perfect triangle or perfect square, when we know we won't find it in experience.

But that may be a cognitive particularity of our species.

Ah well, then you are a man of good judgment. :cool:



Ah, therein lies the issue. Is it the case that we encounter them in this empirical manner? It's not clear to me.

Here is another problem, closely related, when you see an apple or a cow or any other ordinary object, does the idea of "one" naturally follow from that object?

I don't think it does. It could serve to instantiate the idea we have, but I don't see a causal connection between the object and any number, these are different things, as I see it.

For instance, look at Plato's Meno, Socrates tells the slave to reason about a square. The slave is able to conclude quite a substantial number of facts from something he does not find in experience, squares.

I think numbers are like that, yes, we have instantiations, but these serve only to illustrate the common thing we are trying to express: "two oranges are similar to two horses", etc. each example being an instantiation of something which goes beyond concrete particulars.

I'm not sure. Perhaps mathematics is different, we don't encounter numbers in experience.

Most other things, I think so. The commonsense idea is this picture in which have the outline of a man on one side of the paper, and then on the other side, you have a flower. Then you have an arrow pointing from the flower to the head of the man.

I think it's kind of the other way around, we have these faculties or parts in the mind/brain which must be activated in order to connect with the experience of any object. So it is an interplay, but most of it, comes from the side of the mind/brain, and senses are triggers of activation for the mind.

But that's how I see it, which may be somewhat peculiar.

Exactly.

They are "worried" about being annihilated, when they have nukes.

And they're the ones who are ethnic cleansing another territory, right now, making it extremely difficult to form a two-state solution.

That's quite ironic.

Do you mean that the property of sittable-ness is a construction of human minds? — frank

Yes.

But we still learn a posteriori whether a thing has this property? Or is it a priori? — frank

That's a little hard to determinte.

I think there is an element of both. I don't think it is completely a posteriori, for if it were, we wouldn't be able to associate anything as being something we can sit on. This has to connect to some mental model that is innate in us.

Similarly, I don't think it can be entirely a-priori. We need experience with objects to stimulate such ideas. If we never encountered anything we could sit on, say we only experience a spiky world, perhaps the idea of sitting wouldn't arise.

Sorry Bob, I missed this somehow.

So, you don’t think the property of ‘being able to sit on it’ is mind-independent? — Bob Ross

No. This case, and other cases of manifest reality are mind dependent. Being able to sit on is a mental construction as are the things we designate as "sittable".

I don't believe this applies to atoms and particles.

Al Jazeera journalist from Gaza had his wife and son killed. The images are so brutal.

Israel is walking a fine line, this may cost them very much in the near future.

The problem here is that if sufficient aid is not brought to Gaza, it will be a literal genocide, not a figurative use of the word.

So, what's taking so long? 700 people were killed in Gaza last night.

Total guessing but I think that Hamas committed these atrocities to shaken up the situation, put Israel in such a bind that it may be forced into some negotiations if this escalates in a big way.

But there's no way to know as of now why they did what they did. The only thing they guaranteed for certain is mass death in Gaza. The rest, we don't know. Can't continue in this exact manner for too long, I don't think. Way too many people are being killed.

I'm probably wrong here and indeed many, many thousands more will die...

I agree that it is extremely unlikely that say, Egypt or Turkey get involved. But Hezbollah and Iran? It's looking more probable every day. And Israel would likely emerge "victorious", but they will also suffer from a very high civilian death toll, I don't see how that can be avoided if Iran and Hezbollah join.

But as this massacre continues, Egypt and Jordan and others will be heavily pressuring Israel. A very general and uninspired comment is that, after this, it seems to me that the status quo of Gaza and the West Bank may not go back to how it has been until recently.

But, in wars, almost everyone is wrong. Too many factors involved.

Are you confident about that? Israeli sources (Haaretz and the Times of Israel) are saying the IDF is pressuring the government to launch the invasion, despite expected casualties to soldiers.

As for Hezbollah, I don't know man, I don't think this tit-for-tat will continue for much longer, I just see a long trial of gasoline and a match held by a drunken hand, wobbling over the fuel.

The longer this goes, the worse the prospects are for a very big war to break out. Maybe you have different intuitions and/or sources.

Turned out nice again, didn't it? — Banno

Yes.

For now. :wink:

Depends on the science. It's a constant approximation, subject to revision and refinement, but not finalized. I would say General Relativity is true and is quantum physics. Yet we know they are incomplete.

I doubt oysters have experience, but I can't be sure.

No, I don't have things in themselves in mind here.

I don't imagine the way we do sociology is the only way any hypothetical alien species would do sociology, or psychology or even botany.

Ordinary science, or anything other branch of knowledge.

It's the way we interpret the data. Not for a dog or anything other species.

It's trivial.

What? What other possible truth could we aim at but truth as it reveals itself to us, which, is not only relational, but must arise in specific set of circumstances.

What other options exist?

Getting rid of the Israeli settlements, thus giving the PA complete control over the West Bank, is sadly not going to happen. There are too many Israeli settlements. — Tzeentch

It's very difficult, but not impossible. I don't see why it cannot happen in principle.

A one state solution as of now, that would be much more difficult than removing the settlements, so far as I can see.

Apparently there's only 4 functioning hospitals in Gaza. Damn, what horror.

Well then the state must be having different goals from that of the people, what could these be? Dare I suggest they are self-serving? — FreeEmotion

Unless states are democratic, meaning, directly responsible to the voters, instead of concentrated interests of power, they will do whatever power asks.

Now, you'd need to establish a system in which citizens tell prime ministers or presidents what they demand, not politicians telling voter what they (the politicians think that the people) want to hear.

x

Which makes one question how moderate they are. As for radicals, plenty.

If there is an official investigation, carried out by an NGO, we may get a definite answer. Or we may soon forget about as more massacres happen in Gaza. It could be that it was a misfire, but, given how many lies they've said before, it's hard to take them at their word.



You have a keen eye for this stuff. If it was a misfire, damn that's horrific. If it's not, it's also horrific.

Ideally we'd want an NGO doing the research. But, I'll keep your skepticism in mind.

I find it very depressing. The Israeli and Hamas governments have been very bad at PR, but good at killing civilians on the other side. To what end? If this was a direct democracy, what would have hapenned? — FreeEmotion

The end? Hamas for revenge in Gaza and the West Bank, Israel for revenge and to make up for the fact they did not prevent the attacks.

A direct democracy, involving Palestine and Israel? Impossible to say. It would cease to be a Jewish majority state, though one could imagine having different laws - those for Muslims, those for Jews. It needn't be terrible, but I do understand how losing national identity would be very tough.

If you mean something else by direct democracy, I don't know. My impression is that, when people are cool and level headed, they get along perfectly fine. It's when the state gets involved in matters, removed from direct control by the people, that these problems tend to arise of get magnified.

Sure, it's a generalization and there are exceptions. But it's what I've seen.

Some interesting context on the missile striking the hospital.

https://www.channel4.com/news/who-was-behind-the-gaza-hospital-blast-visual-investigation



And have backing from the US, which doesn't hurt.

This aspects of our visual system is pretty well understood. There is a somewhat complicated relationship between the wavelengths arriving at a spot on our retina and the color we see. Understanding of this relationship is what allows you to see yellow on your computer display even though your computer display doesn't emit any light with the wavelength corresponding to yellow. — wonderer1

Sure, we do have a good understanding of how vision works in terms of the processes involved. But I am talking about the experience of yellow or blue, such as seeing the sky on sunny day, that phenomenon of blueness is not encountered in the theory of how photons hit the retina and then goes to the brain and so on.

Unless you think that by saying that photons hitting the retina then proceeding to the brain is what yellow or blue experience is, then I think we may be speaking about different things.

But back to the OP, with free will it's worse. We don't even have a theory of how willed action works at all.

I understand what you mean and that risk will always lurk. But look at for instance, what happened to Soleimani. I'm not saying that it was good to kill him, that almost took us to the verge of a full out war. But it didn't get to that point. It could have, had anyone decided to make just a slightly different calculation.

It's less harmful in terms of numbers of deaths involved than a war. Nonetheless, what you say is correct, which is that such situations end up escalating because there are no clear objectives in mind, so they just continue shooting at each other until someone decides to end this silly game.

You could say that Soleimani was a clear objective- maybe, but they knew the tremendous risks involved.

There is no good solution, unless a ceasefire is declared and implemented. Short of that, anything that can, for the moment, delay something much worse, should be tolerated as a lesser evil.

But I agree that in principle it is a sign of a lack of clear thinking from those involved.

Well to speak about the intrinsic properties of the universe is very hard. We may not attain such a standard of evidence, because all the knowledge we can get, comes in the form of representation.

But this leads to a closely connected question, which I sometimes find puzzling, why do we assume that whatever happens with the micro-physical properties of the universe are relevant to the macroscopic aspects of the world?

To put it in a trivial manner, we see red and yellow objects, this is as evident as things can be, but we do not find red or yellow in the fundamental constituents of the universe. Too bad. We have to accept both.

When it comes to something like freedom, there is an evident distinction between me raising my arm vs my arm being raised because a doctor is tapping my shoulder with a device.

Maybe free will is like color. We have it but cannot see how it could possibly fit in to our description of the universe. Sucks for our understanding (or lack thereof), but nonetheless is a brute fact.

They do and that strategy of being proportional with Iran is more levelheaded than a full out war.

Now, as for the US ships - yeah, they may be used to bomb Lebanon. This issue is, if Israel continues to fire into Lebanon, either as a reply to attacks or for wanting to defend its northern border, it seems strange to me that Hezbollah would happily stay while Israel strikes.

In short, I do not know how long the "proportional" part of the Exhange of missiles can stay this way.

1. Temporary ceasefire with immediate release of hostages to the Red Cross, will be followed by humanitarian aid convoy.

(then we will end the ceasefire and kill all Hamas members including civilian Minister of Economic Affairs etc, later. But don't put that in the press release) — FreeEmotion

Yes and I think Hamas said it was willing to release all hostages minus the IDF soldiers if the bombing stops. I think that exchange is reasonable.

Now if it so happened that it was one of your family members that was in the IDF captured by Hamas, this position may be problematic.

Israel has had a decent record doing counterintelligence and stuff like that. If they want to kill Hamas, infiltrating them and doing something from the inside might work. But, it's very very hard to pull off.

2. Visit to abductees? This is not a tour of the Hollywood for God's sake, you want the Red Cross to see them alive, and then leave them, amidst heavy bombing? Where would these visits take place? On location? Maybe the Gaza hospital since either it has been bombed or will not be bombed by Israel. — FreeEmotion

I also see this as being very reasonable. One can't be sure that the hostages aren't in an extremely dire situation, so it's very sensible the Red Cross (or a similar organization) to visit them.

3.President Biden's demand? Not based on humanitarian reasons that Israel, as a modern nation, affords? President Biden's "demand"

"as long as these supplies do not reach Hamas. Any supplies that reach Hamas will be thwarted"

No offence, but this strikes me as absolutely insane. How on earth is one to say these supplies will not reach Hamas?

What does this all mean? It all sounds like the nature of the entire Israeli military approach seems to be, as I made up my mind years ago is very 'heavy handed'. It has all the hallmarks of police brutality, in short. — FreeEmotion

I would imagine that it is very hard to distinguish who is Hamas and who is not if the aid gets through. I assume they won't be wearing guerilla warfare clothes.

It seems to me that the government is reacting this way because they are extremely embarrassed by how they colossally failed to protect Israeli civilians. To cover up, or attempt to make people overlook this, they are going in guns blazing, to keep postponing serious accountability.

But with what I've read, people in your country are extremely pissed at Netanyahu and they will not forget his failure even after this is all over.

I feel sorry that you guys may have to go through yet another election(!) to get some competent leaders in the government.

And yes, I think if this continues, others will get involved, Hezbollah and maybe Iran. It's a spine-chilling situation to find yourself in.

This may sound empty, but I can do nothing else: stay safe.

Yeah, it's nuts.

But where is the evidence? :roll:

So, back to what we're talking about. What evidence do you have that the bombings could not have been the result of a Hamas weapon due to the fact that Hamas lacks the firepower? — Hanover

I have no evidence that Hamas didn't blow up the hospital.

I have no evidence that Hamas did blow up the hospital, based on the missiles they have.

Now the context is important, but you seem to want to downplay it, for lack of "official reports." The context is, there is clear as day evidence that Israel is bombing Gaza to the stone age, without care about who is killed.

I don't know if that "type of evidence" achieves the high standards you demand.

Indeed, it looks quite complicated. And obviously it will be very hard to tell apart who belongs to Hamas and who is a civilian when the aid comes through.

It could lead to a situation in which Israel closes the border or shoots civilians because there either are Hamas members with the civilians, or if it think there are Hamas members with the civilians.

If he does go into Gaza, I don't see Hezbollah not acting. Maybe Iran too. That would be a disaster.

From Haaretz:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Office released a statement saying:

"In light of the overwhelming and vital American support for the war effort and in light of US President Biden's demand for basic humanitarian aid, the reduced cabinet unanimously decided:

1 - Israel will not allow any humanitarian aid from its territory to the Gaza Strip as long as our abductees are not returned.

2 - Israel demands the Red Cross visits to our abductees and is working to mobilize extensive international support for this demand.

3 - In light of President Biden's demand, Israel will not thwart humanitarian supplies from Egypt as long as it is only food, water and medicine for the civilian population located in the southern Gaza Strip or moving there, and as long as these supplies do not reach Hamas. Any supplies that reach Hamas will be thwarted."