I remember debating nihilism inside this forum some months ago. I still defending the same which is so similar to you: Nihilism is a period of life. When you are having a bad moment with depression or sadness you tend to feel nihilistic and not believe in what the future holds. Tobe honest is a very negative period of time because when we are living it we do not have the motivation to do something and it is horrible.
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Then here we have the important issue: pessimism or at least understand life is very difficult and painful. Kierkegaard helped me out a lot in this context. I recommend to you his book the concept of anxiety" is very helpful to clarify the ideas.
In this point, yes, I am agree with you, pessimism and pessimistic thoughts are completely valid and logic

:up:

we don't goof up! — TheMadFool

I never heard of this word until today. I translated into my language and it means tontear. This is why I love philosophy of language! Everyday I am learning something new about. Now I am understanding you and your argument better.

I prefer the Diamond Rule because it skirts the issue of how your personal idiosyncracies may throw a spanner in the works — TheMadFool

Me too. Apart from the same reason as yours, because I guess we should show something previously before we demand to others an action. It is important to have a good image in interior and exterior relations.

Others define your actions — TheMadFool

Exactly. This is why we should act in the honorable way as much as we can do it. It is important also to not be misunderstood.
Good intentions, sometimes, do not help or matter...

Isn't it shù?" , "What you do not want yourself," , "Don't do to others." (XV:23/24) (Confucius).
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Also the so called “golden rule” or diamond rule as @TheMadFool explained above.
One of the big problems inside this ethical rule is that no always all the people want to respect it. There are a lot of selfish and vicious persons that literally enjoy the act of harming others. It is cruel.
Also, keep in mind that others will act as fake and try to absorb your humility. Be careful... I guess the accurate situation is stay neutral.

Marshall Plan according to which European states that wanted US aid to reconstruct their countries after the war had to commit themselves to economic cooperation leading to political union. — Apollodorus

A plan that never existed in Spain... probably because Franco won and established a dictatorship? So ironic! Because later on US White House loved in the 60’s having Franco in Europe as a counter “socialism/communism” governor. This is why American government established a lot of military bases: Rota, Torrejón, Palomares, etc...

Many people who get power (and this is an ill-defined word) end up using/abusing that power in ways that are not ethical. — Tom Storm

I think that is even a vicious circle. Many of the politicians have to act in this way if they want to “survive” inside the powerful sides of the State. Not only a monetary corruption but a social one, like cheating or having “secrets” from others... I guess this is something so unstoppable.

Existence and being are not the same. — EnPassant

I guess this principle depends in the philosophical point of view you are considering in. According to Cartesian logic, existence depends a lot of “being” which is connected to awareness. This is why Descartes wrote his famous theory and phrase: “cogito ergo sum”

Real belief in God is a matter of consciousness not intellect. Intellectual knowledge is only one kind of knowledge. More sublime levels of knowledge can come from consciousness (what some people call 'delusion').
I engage in intellectual arguments because that is the only arena that most materialists are willing to enter. Also to hopefully arrive at the realization that intellectual arguments will not resolve anything either way.
I don't think most people believe/disbelieve because their intellect leads them that conclusion. Belief and disbelief operate on a more subtle level. Intellectual arguments are post hoc; an apology for one's standpoint. — EnPassant

Agreed :up: :100:

Lost Atlantis — SteveMinjares

Isn't this comes from Plato Dialogues? It is always been believed that this legend city existed in reality but it disappeared through the years.
Atlantis as It Was Told in Plato's Socratic Dialogues

Some researchers think this lost city existed in my homeland (Spain) :death: :eyes: HISTORIANS HAVE FINALLY ‘DISCOVERED’ ENCHANTED LOST CITY OF ATLANTIS IN SOUTHERN SPAIN

I gues they are saving it forever lol — hope

Because they want to control our data... It is so scary.

We are what they want us to be. The solution is being a fish who swims countercurrent. All of these powerful (including the press and media which are even worse...) entities want to brainwash us without tolerance. It is difficult living alone and not been caught by these elements but I think is worthy to give it a try.
If I believe in something, I do it because I want not forced. If I learn a new language, is due to I want to not because "laboral opportunities"
It is time to go back to Greek-Roman Era where the culture and individualism were more respected.

What is happiness? — Xtrix

This is a good question and a purpose Aristotle used to teach back in Ancient times. I do not how to answer but I defend it is not related to materialism as buying a big car/house... Like sadly the social media wants to show us.

Maybe the Tao Te Ching is a recipe for meat pie. lol — hope

Or a good glass of sake :lol:

He describes the Tao, which is consciousness. — hope

Good interpretation of how you see the Tao.
But check out how many variations could be:
https://www.centertao.org/essays/understanding-the-tao-te-ching/
http://fs.unm.edu/NeutrosophicTaoTeChing.pdf
https://www.jstor.org/stable/20006197

The opposite of belief is experience. — hope

No. Both concepts are not necessarily being opposites. They can be even explained together or as David Hume, explained, “it is more connected with custom”

and a description of something is not a belief about it. — hope

Lao Tse does not describe anything in Tao. He just expresses how he sees nature, humans, communities, peace, etc... in a metaphorical technique through the verses.

It's the opposite of that. — hope

How can Tao wrote something as:

Show plainness, hold simplicity
Reduce selfishness, decrease desires

(verse XIX) and not “believe” in it... this could be even contradictory.
The opposite of belief is skepticism, and I guess Tao is far away from this philosophical view...

Stop believing and start looking. — hope

Taoism is about believing... how you defend the virtue of awareness is another power about belief.
You are presenting me a lot of arguments which, according to you, Tao is about awareness. Then you believe on what are you thinking.
I do not understand why you want separate the act of think from the act of “praxis”

The anxiety is intense when the person is most original. — Søren Kierkegaard.

Check this out: Kierkegaard and Existentialism

He is describing consciousness. — hope

Ok. I respect it. This is the way you interpret it. For me, for example, it is speaking about omnipresence.

Hats off to this simple but formidable argument of atheism :up: I never knew about Quantum Zero Effect until today.

No it's not. You only think it is because you don't know what its talking about. — hope

Taoism is not like mathematical formula... it is a way of thinking, living or seeing the life. You cannot make “solid statements” in something so general as the verses of Lao Tse.
I guess it is not the same debating about this:

The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named is not the eternal name
The nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth
The named is the mother of myriad things
Thus, constantly free of desire
One observes its wonders
Constantly filled with desire
One observes its manifestations
These two emerge together but differ in name
The unity is said to be the mystery
Mystery of mysteries, the door to all wonders

It is the first verse of Tao. You can interpret it as you want.

But if we debate about this: √2. It is just objective.

There is only one objective reality. Math is the same for everyone. Feelings are different — hope

But we are not debating about maths, we are speaking about Taoism which is a philosophical belief so free and open to interpretation.

and Philosophy is the coolest subject in the universe. :) — Corvus

Of course it is! :100: this is why I always respect Philosophy teachers and PhD’s a lot. They expend a lot of time teaching to us the right path to learn and read philosophy.

Sure, this idea is from pure insight and faith, but there is no proof to say, it is wrong. Therefore it is true. :D — Corvus

:up: completely. I also think that is a pretty beautiful way of thinking.

Without the mental activity, it would be illogical to suggest that the being can conceive anything. — Corvus

Agreed. This is one of the most important debates inside philosophy. Not having awareness after death is an issue that even scares me a bit. How unfair it seems that after a life where you read and study a lot of things, then disappear in The cosmos... probably this is why is so worthy do a lot of things before death.
Another interesting fact is the wish of many people of “becoming” a tree afterwards. Their bodies are buried in a field with a seed and then, a pretty tree born in it. It is a beautiful act really.

Truth is the same across all nations and races and languages. Once you know the truth you do not need to translate anything. It's not found in books. — hope

No... clearly not. What a simple statement and it is full of fallacies.
Truth can’t be the same across the countries. It is impossible because it is a concept very interpretable. What is truth for you, it can be false for me...
You need books... it is very important the act of read and develop your knowledge. You can’t have experiences for the act of living only.

Yes... but we should to figure out what the book says because it is translated from Ancient Chinese...
You can’t have an opinion of Tao if you do not read what Lao Tse wrote and then, how we translate him. This is why Tao is complex.
Saying Tao is “awareness” is just your opinion.

Tao is just the old word for consciousness — hope

Not necessarily... it is a big debate what “Tao” means. It depends a lot which book you have in your hands. My book version speaks about Tao as the “Principle”. But for other authors, like Derek Lin, he doesn’t even translate it.
It is just Tao, like speaking about God, one, Demiurge, etc...

Will/Should the descendants of slaves (basically all of us) use robots? — TheMadFool

Of course, we will do so. It will depend in our incomes and the purpose of use that robot. But, who knows? Probably these robots will have some rights in the future. I guess we cannot hire them with an agreement or according to civil law :chin:

Just to share another reference related to this thread with you: the electromagnetic spectrum.

What is significant about this part of the spectrum, however, is that the particular spectrum of radiation emitted by the Sun peaks right in the yellow wavelengths of visible light. Of all the colors of light, yellow seems to us to be the closest in bightness and transparency to white light itself. This is not a coincidence. The Sun is a yellow star. — James Clerk Maxwell

Interesting! Isn’t it? Consider “yellow” as one of the most purest colors because it comes from sun and then, lights.

Link of the study explanation: https://www.friesian.com/quanta.htm#note-4

The first video (I didn't watch the second video) is stupid nonsense and disinformation. — TonesInDeepFreeze

Sorry. Mi fault for sharing it, I thought it could be interesting.

But that source would be a combination of number, shape, mass, chemical composition or whatever that creates types of emission, transmission and reflectance. The colors themselves would remain secondary qualities. — Marchesk

True! I defend why this article is important and I enjoyed with a quickly review. I will read it deeply later on. It is interesting how modern studies develop the study of colours when in the times of John Locke were just "secondary attributes/qualities" as you explained :up:

Physicalism is not a particularly popular theory of color. Sometimes philosophers malign it as the product of a "scientistic" ideology that unthinkingly takes science as the touchstone of what is real. Some color scientists would complain that physicalism does not respect science enough. Proper attention to the facts of color vision, they would say, shows that colors are really "in the brain."

Agreed :up: :100:

Thank you for sharing this article, it is so interesting and it reminds me and feel nostalgic about John Locke's empiricism. Even the article stars saying:

Color is the subject of a vast and impressive body of empirical research and theory

I want, if you do not mind, share here an important study of John Locke related to colour and our perception.

We learn that there are three "primary colors," : magenta, yellow, and cyan, and that when we mix these colors, we get intermediate colors, like green, orange, and purple. Mixing them all gets something like black, but then adding black or white separately can produce a large variety of different shades and tones of color. This is what Isaac Newton himself did when he first understood the spectrum of light

If we match up the color wheel with the electromagic spectrum of light, it passes through all the colours, but not through purple. Violet may look a bit like purple, but it has nothing to do with red. What is going on? — John Locke.

It is so beautiful that the time give reasons and proofs to John Locke theory about imaginary colours because the article you shared explains:

Color is a psychological property of our visual experiences when we look at objects and lights, not a physical property of those objects or lights. (1999b, p. 95)
And:

There may be light of different wavelengths independent of an observer, but there is no color independent of an observer, because color is a psychological phenomenon that arises only within an observer. (1999b, p. 97)[3]

. If we're directly acquainted with productance surfaces, why does it take modern science to realize that? We're aware that objects looked colored. — Marchesk

I think science develops such principle because it wants to explain what is going on with colorblind people. They see the shaped objects colorful but with different tones or at least different from our "global world rule of colours that supposedly are common in the world". Why are they wrong if they see a tree as "yellow" instead of "green" when they were taught with such vocabulary?
Another important quote:

If we block a child in a room all of his childhood teaching him the green colour while is actually yellow. Will he name all of his life “green” when he would actually see yellow? In this topic John Locke answered this is a perfect empirical experiment so he put the following sentence:
What you are trying to say is that complex terms like colours are not innate because we can teach children to misunderstand mixing them. I guess this is the same example of fearness. You can feel the fear because previously someone taught you what is darkness, witches, demons, etc... — John Locke

This OP about colours are so interesting! Good article I will print it

You would ignore that consuming food is a response to hunger in order to maintain some position held dear. — Cheshire

If I don’t do so I die of starvation... see how weak we are.

How much not to hit you with a hammer? — Cheshire

True. It is not necessary being so pessimistic because it can be unhealthy. I think inside anyone’s realism can be some pessimism to handle to. But everything in a responsible measure to not end up harming ourselves or even worse, suicidal thoughts.
I think one of the objectives of Kierkegaard was to show the people that living with suffering was accurate and we do not have to avoid it until is so miserable leading with it.

I think we are discussing similar words in different contexts. — Cheshire

I feel the same :up:

For example, the truth value of the proposition "John is black" depends on the truth value of the proposition "John exists". — Hello Human

I think this argument is twisted. We can't give this level of value or awareness to something as subjective as "black". If John is black is due to our perception about reality and how our interpretation works (because we the humans tend to categorize everything as ethnics and races) . John exists and then will be still existing as a living human, doesn't matter the "black" character here.
What is "black" to someone could be "brown" to others... Depends a lot of perception.

Interesting argument indeed. It is true that the queen only can move according how the rules are established but this is just a basic axiom to pursue equity of opportunities of win between both players. You and me (if we want to) can change the rules in a private play without competition.

Back to mathematics, when you said "5 + 3 equals 8", it reminds me an interesting video that probably you would like about how free of interpretation are our sum orders.

Food is so necessary to our lives that we have to pay some money to get the average calories per day and then have the body ready.
But, there are some aspects which makes us being totally humans: uncertainty, sadness, pain, weeping, etc...
I would never pay for quitting those emotions. The opposite is becoming a robot or just a program. I understand it is quite miserable when we are living an experience like these emotions are meant to but thanks to this, philosophy and other knowledge development is when start to flourish

how we might prevent increasing and/or reducing gratuitious suffering of ourselves by helping others do the same. — 180 Proof

:up: :100:

as an ineliminable fact as S & K conceive — 180 Proof

They impacted me exactly in this way. I guess this happened because I read some of Kierkegaard when I was having a difficult period of time so their theories helped me out as a “life jacket” because I remember seeing everybody so happy except me.
Then, I discovered this authors saying quotes like

The anxiety is intense when the person is most original — Kierkegaard.

and completely changing the view of my life or at least understanding that is completely reasonable suffer or the act of suffering.

Good question. To be honest, I would not pay anything to “not suffer” because probably this emotion is one of which makes us so original (Kierkegaard).
I can’t estimate in money how much I should suffer along my life. But a considerable load to keep me up in my progress as an individual.
The people are full of weaknesses.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/540198 (re: moral facts: suffering sapients)

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/572299 (re: consequences for future suffering) — 180 Proof

These were so interesting to read. It comes to my mind two different points of view: Søne Kierkegaard (the concept of anxiety) and Schopenhauer (his concept of “weeping” as one of the purest emotions in human behavior)