Comments

  • Is the Internet Beautiful?
    Surely it has the capacity for both, wouldn’t you say?Cartesian trigger-puppets

    Absolutely. I wasn't referring to all internet itself. I was wondering about how fake news or hate speech spread so easily through social media. We can be agree that Internet has brought us some "facilities" but at the same time, it is a tool which most of the people do not know how to use.
    You have put some cute examples but what about the boy receiving cyberbullying or a girl sharing her naked body? Internet can be a dangerous place too.
    Furthermore, it is clearly that Twitter as a big social media is used just to persuade their users through fake arguments and stupidities.
    We should put some limits to internet
  • Choices


    Everybody is wrong but they are not aware of it.
  • Agnosticism (again, but with a twist)


    No, because the conclusion does not follow since your use of "god" and "God" are different.

    According to you, what's the main difference? I guess "god" and "God" are just grammatical differences. You have to write God in capital letters because it is how language works.
  • worldpeace
    if we put in a leader who is interested in the prosperity of the population, then everyone will be able to have a good residence.Vincent

    Probably we do not need a leader at all and trust more in ourselves. It is better to look into basic community relationships rather than complex hierarchical schemes as Governments or International organisations
  • worldpeace


    Anarchy is what man was made for, not order.

    Anarchism is an old political tendency for university students. When you become maturer and start working and paying taxes you ask for an order. This order can be provided by laws to ensure a comfortable place to stay in
  • Agnosticism (again, but with a twist)


    I think both are correct because they are agree in one principle: God and the belief on it is meaningless or at least when they ask for proofs, are not sufficient
  • Agnosticism (again, but with a twist)



    Check this out: Atheism, Agnosticism, Noncognitivism

    I think Agnosticism is not related to "I don't know what a god is - and neither do you." as you said wrote previously, but in a neutral state of expression. An agnostic would not wonder if a particular God does exists because he respects all forms of divinities. I guess it is all about of not taking part in any religious dogma and respecting every representation of it.
    I quickly did a research and I found the following trick which is so interesting:

    Suppose you are to answer the following two questions:
    • Does the sentence “God exists” express a proposition?
    • If so, then is that proposition true or false?

    If you say no to the first question, then you may be classified as a noncognitivist with regard to God-talk. If you say yes to it, thereby allowing that the given sentence does express a proposition, then you are a cognitivist with regard to God-talk. All theists, atheists, and agnostics are cognitivists, so the second question applies to them: is the proposition that God exists true or false? You are a theist if and only if you say that the proposition is true or probably true, you are an atheist if and only if you say that it is false or probably false, and you are an agnostic if and only if you understand what the proposition is, but resist giving either answer, and support your resistance by saying, “The evidence is insufficient”
  • Is the Internet Beautiful?


    I will do so. Protect yourself too.
  • Is the Internet Beautiful?


    I wish we can get rid of it but I do not know how can I help to avoid people to join Twitter.
  • Is the Internet Beautiful?


    I think it depends on the country. Where I live, Twitter is controlled by leftist accounts. Whenever you are disagree with them, they quickly answer with the same word: "fascist" or "bourgeois"
    I remember a debate about the monarchy and the the next (I wish) Queen of Spain. The tweets were about insulting her and a reference of guillotine. It was disgusting as hell.
  • Is the Internet Beautiful?


    Exactly, it is a work of art and it has changed the world. But, sadly, most of the people are using a poisonous use of it
  • Is the Internet Beautiful?


    If you're referring to aesthetics, I personally think that Internet is far away of being beautiful. It could help us to be connected and make stronger relationships. Nevertheless it is a place where most of the people involved don't know how to behave in. I miss, sometimes, more moderators flowing around in the webs.
    For example: in this forum, if the mods consider that we are respecting the rules we are in the risk of being kinked out and I think it is fair. But, in big social media users we do not see the same control. Most of the people spread disinformation and hate without control. It is one of the most dangerous concerns we should care about.
    Oh, another thing, inside Twitter, if the users are not agree with you, they quickly call you "fascist"
    The fascist word is overused in Twitter
  • What is it to be called Kantian?


    I think it depends on the branch of knowledge that bases your criteria. One some is called a "Kantian" means that, at least, he or she is agree with most of Kant's works. Then, their arguments tend to flow around on Kantian perspectives.
    We can put the same example as empiricism. If some says "I am an empiricist", he would tend to spread his arguments according to British empiricism: John Locke, Hume, Berkeley, etc...
  • God & Existence


    It is understandable that all of your premises make contradictions. You keep trying to put some titanic characteristics just to confirm God's existence: Tangible, physical, detectable or undetectable, etc... As much as I remember if I am not wrong, theists tend to defend that God is omnipotent. Inside this "virtue" it is said that God is and is not at all times and in every place. The failure of developing a grandiose image of God ends up of having a lot of contradictions. This is why, as I said previously, you would need a lot of faith to believe in something that you never "seen" neither spoken to.

    Kant's statement, "I have therefore found it necessary to deny knowledge, in order to make room for faith," is one of the most famous things he wrote. However, as we will see in the text, neither he nor Jakob Fries meant by Glaube, "faith".

    Kant: The Jewish faith was, in its original form, a collection of mere statutory laws upon which was established a political organization; for whatever moral additions were then or later appended to it in no way whatever belong to Judaism as such. Judaism is really not a religion at all but merely a union of a number of people who, since they belonged to a particular stock, formed themselves into a commonwealth under purely political laws, and not into a church; nay, it was intended to be merely an earthly state...

    The Kant-Friesian Theory of Religion and Religious Value
  • God & Existence


    The proof of God's existence is not correlated to metaphysics. You made an impressive effort to show us some axioms or syllogisms to demonstrate the existence of God using words as physical and detectable. But I think that all of these doesn't work because God as a subterfuge depends a lot on faith.
    Theists and religious tend to believe in the unknown and that's why they are devotees. Their faith make them seem blind towards God's mercy. They do not care if you can demonstrate the existence of a divinity. They just believe on it.
    Christianity is a religion that sees itself as a promise of life, hope, comfort, and love. "Gospel" in English is from Old English gôd, "good," and spell, "tale." This translates Greek Euangélion, "good news" -- whence the term "evangelism."

    Many people, however, see the promise of Christianity as a threat, not as good news. If you don't join this religion, you are going to Hell, no matter how good a person you may otherwise be. Outside the Church is damnation. Jesus said (John 14:6), "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."


    Faith, Works, and Knowledge.
  • The Bible: A story to avoid
    Maybe, Christians are misunderstanding the text.Edward235

    Of course Christians misunderstand the Bible. This is why, I guess, we should look into Theists and their pursue of understanding the bible in a "philosophical" way. There are even some intellectuals who are open to criticism towards Bible. Keep in mind that this was even one of the issues because of some priest have broken apart making another kinds of interpretations inside the rule of Church
  • Extremism versus free speech


    Free speech no longer exists in our modern era. Fascism is an over used word on Twitter vocabulary. Press, social media and Google algorithm controls and processes what we should think. A real free speech only exists in the ordinary conversation you may have with your neighbour about oil or taxes. Since the moment one person opt for being a public figure he would never have free speech because he would depend on the mass, thus, the unknown Twitter accounts which created him.
    It is sad but... You have to be careful if you want to share a free speech in nowadays.
  • Extremism versus free speech


    We can think whatever we want because, fortunately, nobody can get into our mind. This is one of the purest civil rights of humankind which still remains. If one day an intellectual develops a program which allows us to read other's minds everything would be over...
    We shoul defend the ability of having inner thoughts and keep safe our secrets.
    Free speech is just spreading lies for good politicians. I have given up modern free speech or democracy itself
  • Criticism of identity and lived experience
    misidentify, to find affinity with some ideal or stereotypical identity in order to disguise one’s real identity, which can be described in greater detail with any state I.D. card.NOS4A2

    :100: :fire:

    It is a completely paradox since it starts. They seek for attention in their own identity while they mistreat the others ones
  • Criticism of identity and lived experience
    Does being a white male mean you have white male experience? I have no idea what that means.Jackson

    What the article is referring for is the spread of culture depending your ethnic. Have I to be a Japanese to write haiku? Clearly not...
    Inside culture, there should not be any kind of limitations. For this reason I reject all of those books which are only about "identities" and then, you can only understand it if you are one of them. Sorry, but that's flawed... something such important as literature should be universal.
    I am a completely obsessed man with Japanse literature but I am from slum in Madrid... not from Tokio.
    That article only reflects what some people are always seeking for: "minorities culture and avoid the so called cultural appropriation"
  • Facing up suicide: is the concept of death the main difference between Western and Japanese artists?
    Yeah, the point of personifying (Thanatos, Algos, Praxidice, Nemesis, and so on)Agent Smith

    Yes! :100: :up: these states of mind remember me about an anime I saw a few years ago called "Neon Genesis Evangelion" where the main protagonists wondered about Thanatos and Nemesis and then, how worthy is the human existence itself. Another expression of art of what we are debating about!
  • Facing up suicide: is the concept of death the main difference between Western and Japanese artists?


    Mortality can be seen as a "catastrophic" if we understand the life as worthy to live in. I used the adjective "beautiful" to describe the nature of my thread because it surprises me they way they manage to write in a perfect writing or vocabulary something so shocking as death. Instead of being a perpetual sadness they try to understand it and connect some characters related to the same topic
  • Facing up suicide: is the concept of death the main difference between Western and Japanese artists?


    I understand your point but that’s Japan in a economical point of view. I was referring in an art or literature expression. When they write haiku poems they reflect the power of individualism, loneliness and the course of life towards the nature and seasons (this is why they like to express their feelings according if it is fall, winter, spring or summer)
  • Facing up suicide: is the concept of death the main difference between Western and Japanese artists?


    Good explanation :100: :fire:

    Despite the fact that, death is the same path to us, we tend to conceive it in many different ways. You wrote that death can be seen as hyper-romanticism. This characteristic reminds me more from Kawabata works rather than Mishima. Yasunari wrote and developed some characters full of loneliness and lack of brisk. Nevertheless, he understood it as an aesthetic figure of the humans this is why he shouted phrases as drinking tea in a empty bowl, etc… I think it is pretty. Being lonely is not as bad as it is seen in other cultures.
    As @NOS4A2 shared previously (I am fully agree with him) our culture is so surrendered by religion in terms of suicide/individual’s problems. I guess this is why it is not so easy to find out some Western books related to this topic.
  • Facing up suicide: is the concept of death the main difference between Western and Japanese artists?


    Thanks NOS, for understanding what I wanted to share. Exactly, Yukio Mishima saw in a aesthetic view the concept of death. Despite the fact that all the characters of their works suffer of inner pain or depression, they do not see death as a "escape" but at least, a good ending in this complex life. You quoted Sun and Steel. Amazing essay indeed. But I would quote The Temple of the Golden Pavilion:

    And what I envied most about him was that he managed to reach the end of his life without the slightest conscience of being burdened with a special individuality or sense of individual mission like mine. This sense of individuality robbed my life of its symbolism, that is to say, or its power to serve, like Tsurukawa’s, as a metaphor for something outside itself; accordingly it deprived me of the feelings of life’s extensity and solidarity, and it became the source of that sense of solitude which pursued me indefinitely. It was strange. I did not even have any feeling of solidarity with nothingness. – page 122

    In the other hand, it is difficult to foind out Western writers or artistes wondering about this issue, because as you well said, our concept of being dead is so surrounded by religious traditions.
  • Facing up suicide: is the concept of death the main difference between Western and Japanese artists?


    You didn't show any argument but I would put some apart of what I wrote in the OP.
    Japanese see the perception of death more authentic because their culture is not influenced by Westerns. They understand and see the life as a scenario where our souls plays a role in the field. When the play ends the life so. If they have to die, they would do it without doubt or complains because they consider our existence as a beginning and an end. Not as a "live the life at the until of the days" like westerns.
    Secondly, there is a ceremony called "seppuku" where the head of samurai clans committed suicide while composing the last haiku before the end. This act was thought to reach purity.
    These facts sound pretty authentic to me...
  • Facing up suicide: is the concept of death the main difference between Western and Japanese artists?


    True. But it not the general opinion. Death is still seeing as terrible or even a taboo topic. Religion ensured during centuries to “refuse” the meaning and significance of death because it is seen as dramatic. I want to turn the side and try to understand and accept the death since the beginning
  • Facing up suicide: is the concept of death the main difference between Western and Japanese artists?
    as the Nipponese folks did.Agent Smith

    Completely. I would sound as a crazy boy but for me that specific act was so pure and authentic. At least the Nipponese died defending their thousand years old values and history… beautiful doesn’t it?
  • Facing up suicide: is the concept of death the main difference between Western and Japanese artists?
    Why should we superimpose cultural conceptions that make us separated from nature, humanity, authenticity?Angelo Cannata

    I do not want to superimpose any culture and contrary from your view, I see the Japanese concept of death more authentic. Remember that in our "world" suicide itself is a legal punishment...
  • Facing up suicide: is the concept of death the main difference between Western and Japanese artists?


    It is not necessarily connected to wars. You can feel stressed for whatever reason in our Western cities. I wanted to point out that while in Japanese arts the death is accepted, in the Western is seen as pure dramatic and it looks like you are forced to live
  • Facing up suicide: is the concept of death the main difference between Western and Japanese artists?
    I think we always have to take care not to base our understanding of others and their actions (such as suicide) via books or other people's stories/claims about them.Tom Storm

    It is true that we should not follow the same steps of our idols because they had a very different way of life from ours. Nevertheless, I think it is important to at least have a look on them because they tried (Mishima and Kawabata) to give another meaning to suicide and try to be more confident about it
  • Origin of the Universe Updated
    Perhaps, God is the first existant; I thought this natural view might be interesting to some enquirers.val p miranda

    Interesting text and points of view. But I guess you end up with a contradictory conclusion: God being the first existent. Previously you have shared that either the universe where we live in exists or doesn't not exist as basic primarily principle of the "Universe's origin"
    For some religious God is "omnipotent", thus God is the maximum power. "Whether God can create a spherical cube, or make a stone so massive that he cannot move it" Omnipotence
    So, the omnipotence of God should not be a handicap about "existant or not existant"
  • The Wall


    I always feel that Lao Tzu has a magnificent answer to every philosophical debate. Incredible the power of millennium poem
  • The Wall


    :rofl: :100:
  • The Wall
    An individual human can be very very strong indeed both mentally and physically.universeness

    Oh boy, you have a very optimistic view of humans. I don't feel myself more powerful than a pigeon since the moment when I have issues as depression or existentialism. These states of mind can induce some persons to commit suicide. So... in this context, a pigeon is more powerful than me at least emotionally
  • The Wall


    Conclusion: we are weak whatever we are compared with!
  • Mathematical Definitions
    Depression: This, I'm certain, you already know to be a deficiency of the neurochemical serotonin.Agent Smith

    A big issue as depression it is not as simple as a "deficiency" on neurochemical serotonin. This is probably just the scientific explanation but goes this illness goes further. I cannot count or "mathematise" why a depressed citizen ends up killing himself...
  • The Wall
    Why would the size of the universe or the duration of a star be seen 'a barrier'?Olivier5

    Interesting question. To be honest, I see it as a barrier. Since the moment that our lives are limited we tend to see everything with limitations in terms of time, age, ability, understanding, etc...
    It can affect us because it shows how weak we are towards universe.
    For example: "A trip to Pluto takes 35 years of our life" it is literally a barrier of our capacities and nobody can pursue the trip yet.
  • Multiverse and possible worlds.
    A possible world is a logical structure. A system, or world, that is governed by a rule.Jackson

    The logical structure itself is made by us. In one side, we have a world or "universe" and, in the other side, we the humans make an order to live on those structures. We do not really know yet how many x universes or worlds exist with our same logical structure. I think this is due to that the term "logic" is something we created. The universe exists itself, "it" doesn't care about how many logic worlds are on it
  • A priori, self-evident, intuitive, obvious, and common sense knowledge


    Knowledge of god can't be empirical.

    Yep, I am an atheist but I am agree that John Locke's empirical arguments towards God are so poor...

    §3 "He knows also, that Nothing cannot produce a Being." In the next place, Man knows by an intuitive Certainty, that bare nothing can no more produce any real Being, than it can be equal to two right Angles. If a Man knows not that Non-entity, or the Absence of all Being cannot be equal to two right Angles, it is impossible he should know any demonstration in Euclid. If therefore we know there is some real Being, and that Non-entity cannot produce any real Being, it is an evident demonstration, that from Eternity there has been something; Since what was not from Eternity, had a Beginning; and what had a Beginning, must be produced by something else.
    §4 "That eternal Being must be most powerful." Next, it is evident, that what had its Being and Beginning from another, must also have all that which is in, and belongs to its Being from another also. All the Powers it has, must be owing to, and received from the same Source. This eternal Source then of all being must also be the Source and Original of all Power; and so this eternal Being must be also the most powerful. [ibid., Book IV, Chapter X]


    If we accept from the argument of the first paragraph that "from Eternity there has been something," it is a little surprising to learn in the second paragraph that Locke believes he has established the existence of a single eternal thing, i.e. God. The problem is an ambiguity in the word "something," which in the first paragraph need merely mean "something or other," i.e. "there must have always been something or other," to produce the objects that eventually are that ones we now see. In the second paragraph, however, Locke supposes that this can only have been a single, eternal object. That does not follow, and the ambiguity in the term makes the whole argument look like a kind of Sophistry.

    Link: If Locke thinks that we can prove the existence of God, he manages to demonstrate it in a way that would seem to do the impossible: produce an argument for God even worse that that of Descartes.