My personal answer to that is role social media now plays as arbiter of truth. The battles are no longer fought between academics, they're fought on social media, so there's been a shift in what qualifies a person to be part of the debate, and it's not their academic qualification. — Isaac

Agree. I also think that because so many people feel like they are foot soldiers in a culture war these days odd alliances are forged - it's the enemy of my enemy is my friend. People who don't like Trump, voted for him because he hated the right people - ie, soft-cock, virtue signalling leftists. Result: public discourse coarsens and the right becomes less nuanced.

Seems to me that people often profess views for aesthetic reasons rather than because they are convinced of their truth. They want to belong to a camp that puts on a show and be rocked along by a certain energy. I spoke to a Trump voter in 2018 who told me, "How could you not want to ride this train, it's wild!?'

Do you think there's a practical way out of our mutually destructive ideological lynch mobs?

How would a fact-checking institution be any less exposed to exactly the same economic and political incentives? — Isaac

Yes, we could have an infinite regress of fact checking.

One way forward I can see is to make it more difficult for conflicts of interest to be hidden. — Isaac

Yep, certainly one option.

Often with these things if the public were just more discerning... (ie, if they shared my values) everything would improve. Murdoch would go broke and certain politicians would never see office.

Of course, the other option is litigation. Harmful stories can be identified and dealt with - a la Alex Jones. And it interests me that Tucker Carlson managed to avoid legal strife by arguing that his show is entrainment, which no one believes anyway.

No idea, Isaac. On this, and many other matters, I only have aspirational views. Can it be done? I'd like to see us try, but perhaps not. I wrote it down as a provocation.

I'm in agreement with Chomsky. Corporations are part of our community and should be responsible to that community for how they conduct business and what they produce. Their capacity to do harm to ordinary citizens can be immeasurable. And they should be appropriately taxed and their power curtailed. News Limited, for instance, has too great a stranglehold on world media and is poisoning the world like those old school leather tanneries which dumped toxic waste into the drinking supply. There are laws against toxic waste, where are the laws against toxic disinformation?

So, where does this "self-evident" dignity comes from? Where is it derived from? Is is just asserted, a mere self-attribution — Matias

Yes. You make this sound like a bad thing. :wink: Humans practice speciesism which seems to be an aspect of our fairly robust and self-explanatory propensity for self-interest. Consider it a presupposition.

Are you concerned about this as a religious believer or idealist who holds that only gods or universal will guarantees foundational value to the human/soul? Or are you merely despondent that there appears to be no foundation other than one settled on by communities of shared agreement?

Closure: A Story of Everything, Hilary Lawson — 180 Proof

Great timing. I'd value your thoughts on this and Lawson - would you mind offering a brief assessment when you're done? I saw an extended interview with Lawson on his notion of closure and his non-realist metaphysics and found myself being sympathetic.

Tom, no offence but you are part of the problem with the current state of psychology. — Deus

I'm not a psychologist, or psychiatrist, so I can't really take offence.

Peddle the psychobable and prejudice all day it won’t make it right. — Deus

Err... what prejudice? What psychobabble?

I work within psycho-social context which is mostly an alternative to psychiatric or clinical hospital services, and we generally argue that people often don't need psychiatry or clinical services and are more likely to need housing, meaningful activities and purpose. We encourage peer support and the principle that the client is the expert on what they need.

The evidence is already linked to on the hearing voices network site, that when 'voices' are engaged with and responded to, they are less likely to be negative and violent. — unenlightened

Yep, hearing voices is useful and those groups are well attended and supported. Much better always not to use medication or clinical treatment.

But you'll note -

they are less likely to be negative and violent. — unenlightened

So not always, and probably not even mostly. And for some of these folk, treatment is the only thing which works. But maybe some day better ways of supporting people in this situation will be found.

Maybe you could start by making an actual argument with evidence? All I see here is prejudice - why else write:

The distancing is noted — unenlightened

the 'support' you speak of is that condescending kind — unenlightened

give not an inch of power but 'allows' what was previously forbidden — unenlightened

because it is conveniently cheap. — unenlightened

No, I think that's just a determinedly negative view you've put based on what seems to be prejudice. You're certainly not alone in thinking this way. Some people hate religion, others think psychiatry is like religion and hate it.

Shame you waited for me, a rank amateur, to point it out. — unenlightened

Well I was talking about psychiatry, not psycho-social and peer support which is where this comes in.

there is an alternative view that is at least semi-respectable. https://www.hearing-voices.org — unenlightened

The hearing voices approach is supported by all the psychiatrists and mental health services I know of here. I think it is well understood that not all voices are problematic.

Welcome Paul.

Not sure I understand this argument.

1. We were gratuitously built-up in the womb with a particular capacity to perform certain actions. — Paul91

Not sure what this means. Are you saying behavior is innate? Which behavior is innate? Is some not innate? What is 'gratuitously built up'

2. The need to protect/enhance yourself, with all your potential, only arises with a current perceived threat to the survival of your biological form or public image (rooted in egoism). — Paul91

I'm not sure about this one. 'Only arises'? what are you saying - that we only strike back and adopt conflict if we feel threatened?

To serve others in your own capacity fulfils a function that extends beyond yourself and would actualize your existence beyond simply name and form. — Paul91

I don't understand this point. What does 'actualize your existence beyond name and form' mean?

I find this normative interpretive framework notion an interesting and useful way of looking at the issue. It certainly assists in making sense of what we often assume to be ill will.

This is because for many moral systems there is assumed to be only one meta-normative framework. As a result , we end up assuming that the other understands the facts just as we do , and it is their intent that is to blame. — Joshs

I think this is a helpful insight.

Of course. People on heart medication still die of heart attacks. My views are based on 30 years of working in mental health and drug services.

It sounds to me like you are angry and that discussing this may descend into a personal attack. I am not interested in pursuing such things.

Although, I am riled as I had a brother who committed suicide in such an institute. — Deus

I'm sorry to hear that. Please accept my condolences.

I have lost three people who have gone off medication and completed suicide as a result.

Sounds like I hit a nerve there. Did you have a bad experience with psychiatry?

Serial killing is not "misuse of high IQ"; that's psychpathy (or antisocial sociopathy). — 180 Proof

:up:

Perhaps do some research on this, it's fairly straight forward. I can tell you that for every 100 people I have known to take anti-psychotic medication, at least 80 of them are incredibly relieved and happy for the intrusive, persecutory and highly distressing thoughts and voices to be gone and to stop receiving command hallucinations, etc. Medication allows people to maintain relationships with others, hold down jobs, get on with hobbies, read and be productive. But of course, like anything else. it is not 100% and not perfect.

Why should there be two distinctions ? — Deus

Because the mental illness and the resulting risks are treatable. When a person with a significant psychiatric illness (psychosis) is taking medication they are likely to not commit crimes and develop insight and get on with things.

Here's an example. I worked with a pregnant woman who heard voices. She was untreated for schizophrenia. She became convinced that the baby inside her was a 'child of satan'. Voices told her to kill the baby. She then took a razor blade and began to cut the baby out of her stomach. She was admitted for treatment after losing a lot of blood. She was provided with treatment and recovered from her psychosis. She developed insight and was able to develop a normal and loving relationship with her child.

A host can make parasites, but a parasite can't make a host. — introbert

That may be the case, but this is a different subject. You may as well pose this question about any human discipline - does science create facts, does medicine create sickness, does physics create laws? And to some extent all disciplines hold an element of creativity and self-generation.

We know that people who have mental illnesses frequently have no insight - they are in denial even as the voices are telling them to harm themselves or someone else - and are fearful of psychiatric services as a result. Much easier for many people to pretend that there is no mental illness and that psychiatry is fraudulent. And no doubts some of it poorly practiced, as is the case for many professions.

Not really sure what you are asking. Madness and high risk behaviour towards self and others predates psychiatry. I've worked with a lot of psychiatrists, and like any profession, there is good and bad. Psychiatrists (like journalists, politicians and lawyers) are an easy populist target of fear and scorn and frequently the stock villain in comics and movies and, because people don't know much about the work or about mental ill health, they are fairly easy to satirise and malign. Personally I think psychiatry is often a useful profession and I much prefer people get mental health treatment when they require it than not. I've seen psychiatry do more good than bad, but no doubt in some places it can be abused, especially if used by an autocratic system or government.

Would you agree, from your experience, that what shatters people’s lives is the loss of the sense of connection with others, of having worth, of being held in esteem, more than material deprivation or physical illness? — Joshs

Yes, I think this can be very significant. There are others I've met for whom homelessness (despite all the deprivations) provides a sense of community and identity and a even project. And others for whom material deprivation directly led to feelings of worthlessness, shame and a loss of connection to their peers. I've often said that for anything you may say about homelessness, the opposite is also true. But I understand what you are saying and thanks for clarifying.

Living with a terminal illness , and dying generally , isnt necessarily a monotonous unrelieved trajectory of suffering. It often has the same textured ups and downs of living. — Joshs

Yes, in some cases. Although having worked it the areas of palliative care, AoD services and homelessness for three decades what I have observed indicates that pain, anger and suffering overshadow other experiences.

My severely alcoholic friend seemed less concerned with his homelessness than with escaping the anxiety of social responsibilities, which is why he self-medicated with pills and alcohol. — Joshs

How have you established that you have have a fair interpretation of his choices/situation? Is self-medication a reaction to suffering, a form of suffering or something else in your view?

The circumstances of people in this situation are complex and vary widely from person to person, depending on the reasons for their addictions, etc. — Joshs

Agree. Do you think there is always a reason for an addiction?

The most hellish fate you could wish on someone is not homelessness, which people cope with in a wide variety of ways, but severe chronic depression, which can befall the wealthiest as easily as the most destitute. — Joshs

Indeed. Although I have noticed that people who are homeless often have chronic and severe depression - it often presents after becoming homeless (but may also sometimes be a cause of homelessness) and i generally see it as part of the suffering intrinsic to many people's experience of living homeless.

And the reason is not only because the present offers no sense of relevant meaning , but it becomes impossible to imagine a future different than the present. This is the purest example of stalled creativity. — Joshs

Nicely put - that 'stalled creativity' or frozenness seems to eat people alive and I certainly recognise this in the lives of many folk I have worked with (and colleagues, but that's another story).

I met with Tony Abbot once when he was PM - he said something very similar. But he came from the land of Certainty.

Suffering marks the end of this cycles. If we believe i. the endless renewal of creativity, then we can view suffering as an opportunity to discover fresh projects and directions, as well as deeper insights. — Joshs

Interesting and I am sympathetic to this view. How do you understand the kinds of suffering generated by abject deprivation or illness - living homeless on the streets with addictions and mental ill health or terminal cancer?

I think such an approach to life is generally an unbalanced one. — Abdul

What does an unbalanced life mean and how would you demonstrate that this is the case?

One should always spend time reflecting and evaluating their own judgment, sharpening the moral self if you will. I — Abdul

What does it mean to reflect? When is it done and how is it done?

What does sharpening the moral self mean?

I wouldn't practically heavily rely on one of my virtues such an intuit as attractive as it may seem. — Abdul

I don't understand this sentence? Are you saying that you do not trust your own judgements?

not Randian-fantasy capitalism — 180 Proof

Please don't curse in mixed company, it unsettles the horses. :wink:

My impression was that there was a lot of speculation about physics and the meaning of quantum matters on this site, with members holding a diversity of views on the matter - from wild and pointless speculations to scientism. Seems to me at some point until recently when (truth and Christianity seemed to take over) members often employed QM or speculative and theoretical physics as a springboard to posit a veritable cosmos of transcendent possibilities.

For my own part, the subject is only of interest to see what others do with it. I am not a physicist.

\ :up: Got ya.

I generally side with science and empiricism, but hopefully not to the point of fundamentalism. My version of science does not 'uncover facts' about the universe, it provides us with tentative theories or narratives that work, until they don't. Or something like that.

Not employer and employee, however. — Xtrix

Personally I'd say the relationship was equivalent just less evolved. How would you see the differences?

I like Richard Wolff's tentative definition: capitalism is defined by the relationship between the employer and employee — Xtrix

I like Wolfe and he knows more about this than I do. There's a lot to unpack in the idea of 'defined by the relationship between...' it brings me back to the means of production, profits, and wage slavery - out of which that relationship is built. :wink: But I take your point about these existing above and beyond capitalism. Of course so do relationships between workers and owners - in feudalism, say. Is capitalism a system or a relationship? Or is it a bit of both? And how many forms of capitalism are there?

How do we decide what matters? — TiredThinker

Generally I don't decide. I act.

Is what matters and what we're willing to forgo have everything to do with our own mental state and less to do with the world we are trying to describe? — TiredThinker

I don't divide the world into deliberations about what matters. I act.

Now if in acting I get 'knocked on my ass', I might learn and reflect or try something new. My actions are based on whatever's already there inside me, a consequence of socialization, enculturation, personality, reading, conversations, that kind of thing. I don't sort it out or care to sort it out, I make judgements and go with them.

You may well start a flame war. :wink:

When I studied economics, the key matters of capitalism revolved around the questions of: Who owns the means of production? Who gets the profits? How should labour be treated? Hence the notion of wage slavery.

How one reacts to these issues will depend on worldviews. Is there such a thing as kind capitalism? Is capitalism best when it has socialist brakes to protect society form the worst excesses of neo-liberal fundamentalisms? Should we let markets rip and scrap legislation and taxation in the service of libertarian profit making?

You tell me. Whatever you decide will depend not on capitalism so much but on how you think an entire society and culture should operate. Websites abound with interpretations and statistics. It's like the interminable debate about true understandings of Bible verse.

I think the problem, to put it at an abstract level is this.

Person A: I think phenomenon A is real.
Person B: phenomenon A can't be real because it doesn't (seem to) fit with current scientific models. — Bylaw

I think that's a bit limited but we're getting there.

There's also Person C: phenomenon A is intriguing but cannot be definitively described until there is sufficient reason/evidence to make a specific interpretation. 'I don't know' is not the same thing as 'it's a ghost' or 'it's not a ghost'.

I didn't read @joshs response as an attack. He is generally testing the assumptions that underpin arguments here and this can seem provocative.

It seems to me the greatest concern of neo-luddite’s isn't immediate physical harm cause by something like a weapon , but the psychological effects of tech. Here I reject the idea of any simplistic shaping effects of our machines on our behavior. — Joshs

Are there neo-luddite thinkers in philosophy? Or are we talking about a more reactive, folk philosophy/response?

Thank you. Do you find Hegel's positions convincing?

Circular arguments make the world go around.

Another way of saying that survivability is what matters is to say the truth is what works. That's the battle cry of the pragmatist. As far as we can tell, the theory of evolution by natural selection works. It helps us predict the future. Predicting the future makes it easier for us to survive. — T Clark

Yes. There are of course philosophers who would argue (Rorty) that humans indeed do not have access to truth, so this is correct. We simply use language to manage our environment and while we can justify our ideas, there is no truth 'out there' to find - this notion being a remnant of Greek philosophy (Plato, et al). A lot of where one lands on this seems to depend upon the scale you are working within.

A question - if the argument is true, what is the alternative? God? — T Clark

For Plantinga, who is a theologian and philosopher, yes. For Donald Hoffman, we live in a simulation.

I think the takeaway message is that for many people certainty or truth, even the possibility of intelligibility itself must rest upon a transcendental foundation (idealism/will/theism/deism/Tao).

Kind of. Wayfarer was a big fan of this argument and I find it hard to summarily dismiss, although I don't accept it as a path to a transcendent truth.

Charles Darwin in a letter to William Graham, July 3, 1881, put it thus:

With me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?

The argument (and there are philosophers like Donald Hoffman who holds something like this view too) is that the process of evolution does not require truth, only survivability. The probability of our cognitive faculties reliably producing true beliefs is low if ontological naturalism is true, and therefore all other beliefs produced by these faculties, including naturalism itself, are self-defeating.

Alvin Plantinga puts it like this:

...the probability of our cognitive faculties being reliable, given naturalism and evolution, is low. (To put it a bit inaccurately but suggestively, if naturalism and evolution were both true, our cognitive faculties would very likely not be reliable.) But then according to the second premise of my argument, if I believe both naturalism and evolution, I have a defeater for my intuitive assumption that my cognitive faculties are reliable. If I have a defeater for that belief, however, then I have a defeater for any belief I take to be produced by my cognitive faculties. That means that I have a defeater for my belief that naturalism and evolution are true. So my belief that naturalism and evolution are true gives me a defeater for that very belief; that belief shoots itself in the foot and is self-referentially incoherent; therefore I cannot rationally accept it.

- Alvin Plantinga Where the Conflict Really Lies

I have no doubt that a clever argument like this has equally clever philosophical escape routes.