In a larger sense, is a meritocracy unfair? — jgill

That question is floating in the air for me. Why do you ask it? I can't say that I have ever seen a meritocracy in action anywhere. It sounds idealistic.

it was almost laughable. This is common sense. If I were to start somewhere it might be wondering about that. — kudos

Oh do tell. Which bit was common sense and which bit was laughable or were they the same bit?

You have a large section of the population who have invested heavily in something: something that grants them certain powers and privileges. I'm not saying they're blocking anyone from happiness, or there's anything wrong with universities teaching kids to succeed in their field. But there is a system in place that poses a potential for a class divide and an ideological crisis. That's all, no blame or anything on anyone, just plain old crass cynicism. — kudos

Agree. Is there a clear alternative? Isn't it necessarily the case that higher skilled expertise will likely be more useful and better paid than an unskilled role? It might be good if minimum wages and conditions for less skilled workers were much higher, but that's a separate matter.

What contribution does this yin/yang variation make to human life?

Is there a definition for playing darts? — Varde

Yes. The very clear rules of what constitutes a darts game. There is even a darts regulation authority.

or what I call 'special arts', are also skills. — Varde

Just because you call them 'special arts' means little to the rest of the world.

Therefore art has no definition — Varde

There is a long tradition of aesthetics that would say otherwise. It would probably be more accurate to say there are many, many definitions of art and no agreed upon canonical definition.

Martial arts is a skill. Painting, Drawing, Sculpting, Creating Audio, or what I call 'special arts', are also skills. — Varde

But one traditional issue in art criticism is how to identify the art as opposed to the skill. Technical skill is often seen as sitting separate from whether something has artistic merit. Pulp fiction author Stephen King is a writer of great technical skill but few would call his work 'art'. Also how do you separate art from craft? Another traditional distinction.

IE, within modernism are many different approaches, as with postmodernism, but for me the primary dividing line within art is the presence or absence of the aesthetic. — RussellA

Interesting. Are you someone who thinks art has a responsibility?

Does your perspective risk a subjectivist aesthetic? Is all post-modern art free of aesthetic merit and how does one go about identifying what counts as the aesthetic and what does not?

Post-modern work is likely to have an aesthetic, it just doesn't concern itself with beauty. Modernist (capital M) work like Braque's Cubism has an aesthetic too, but is it beautiful? Cannot something which is 'ugly" (however you define this) not also provide a profound aesthetic experience?

Can you clarify how you would apply your modernist perspective to pre-modern era work? Say a Titian.

Are you going by an account of aesthetics rooted in modernist theory, or are you just using the terms as you see them apply?

Also, I'm not saying this to advertise theism. But if we are going to dismiss the one epistemic method that has been the primary epistemic method for what is probably the vast majority of the human population, then we're going to need some really good reasons for doing so. — baker

Is this epistemic or imaginative? Who can really say they know God? Well, I know they can say it, but it's hardly plausible. A figure of speech. Even my local Priest says the moment he hears a member of his Parish say they have a personal relationship with Jesus he expects either insanity or a narcissist.

(we ultimately do not know)
— Tom Storm
How can you say that?? Based on what?? — baker

Based on the fact that philosophers hold different views on the subject. And there is no accepted definition of what consciousness is. But hey, I may well be wrong - it is common sense that humans have consciousness - that's kind of why I am curious.

Coming Through Slaughter Buddy Bolden imagined by Michael Ondaatje

As someone who doesn't understand religious language, the only inference I see is that people imagine all kinds of things but it doesn't make those things real.

The inference is not involved in the experience, which, sans inference is just affect, but in what we call the experience, and what we take its significance to be.. — Janus

I don't follow.

Enter idealism discussion.

:pray: Thanks.

Just speculating here: in a few centuries, science fiction will cease to be a genre; all of the possibilities explored in these books will either have been accomplished, or found to be impossible. — darthbarracuda

As you say, speculation. I would imagine the more we achieve, the bigger the fantasy life.



Nicely contextualized. :up: It's important not to read 'end of history' in literal or apocalyptical terms.

“Art is an expression of human consciousness. Art work is information about the artist’s consciousness.” In order to define something you need to specify it’s unique attributes. Your definition only identifies information and human consciousness, nothing specific to art. It is not a definition of art and has no explanatory power in regards to art. — praxis

That's for sure, several pages of no particular insight into what art is, as opposed to, say, the act of nose picking - which may also hold information about a person's consciousness.

I can appreciate the difference between subjectivity and objectivity, but it should be an aesthetic value, not an epistemic value. — Enrique

Can you expand a little? Aesthetic?

If people are basing beliefs on Murdoch owned media or dubious self-appointed YouTubers, they are likely to hold erroneous beliefs.

Perhaps, but I'm not an actual philosopher so all I have is language. :razz:

The left and the right meet at the extreme back end. I work in the area of health services and directly liaise with government. I don't need to see anything about COVID on line. Empiricism. :wink:

I don't have much of a foundational springboard. How I justify a belief generally depends on the nature of that belief. Most of my beliefs can be tested empirically. The others are based on presuppositions, I make no claims of consistency or coherence.

Yes, that's along the lines I was thinking.

I hold a belief that almost any news from tendentious Youtube sites is bullshit.

Which is why skepticism is more than just a pretty name...

I understand W. I heard this from David Bentley Hart too when he was going after the implacable Dennett. I remain ambivalent.

A happy Sisyphus who sings the blues. :death: :flower: — 180 Proof

That's wonderful and sounds likes a fitting statement for a grave marker.

. I suspect even atheist-types have some deep-rooted superstitions.. — schopenhauer1

The only thing atheists have in common is one thing - a lack of belief in God. Some may also believe superstitions.

Who here thinks that if they question the "game of life" that god setup and call god immoral, that they will be cursed by that very same god for calling him immoral? — schopenhauer1

I personally lack a sensus divinitatis so I have never held a belief in any kind of supervisory being or higher consciousness. Humans are driven to make meaning so it's hardly surprising that along the way we've created any number of fantastical creatures - trolls and elves and fairies and spirits and gods.

Maybe, but there are thousands of tendentious channels and websites run by ideological crackpots. What does it prove?

Sorry, I don't understand what you are saying. You seem to be making up a worldview.

Packer makes good points.

I'm not sure that politics as practiced involves coherent beliefs, more like loose themes and perceptions. The main game is getting elected and appealing (however that looks) to a base which is constantly evolving. In practice politics is marketing.

The belief of the existence of evil, at all, is what allows for the infinite manifestations of evil that we experience daily. — PseudoB

Can you expand - I don't understand the point.

If we consider that in the beginning all was perfect, then this negates the existence of evil.... That is of course until we are presented with the knowledge thereof. — PseudoB

I guess you would need to accept this myth or the point doesn't hold.

Do you think your OP is intelligible to anyone who doesn't hold religious or spiritual beliefs?

Isn't it simply the case that politics has become tribal and dumbed down around themes such as freedom versus social control and that tribalism is galvanised along principles such as 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'?

Illusions can only be experienced by a subject, which points back to cogito ergo sum. — Wayfarer

Yes, but I wonder whether the subject itself is much more than a trick. :razz: But this does seem unlikely.

The source of information is important. I personally would be unlikely to accept anything by Nomad Capitalist. :wink:

If any problem qualifies as the problem of consciousness, it is this one. In this central sense of "consciousness", an organism is conscious if there is something it is like to be that organism, and a mental state is conscious if there is something it is like to be in that state.
— David Chalmers, Facing up to the Hard Problem

As it happens, and even though I agree with the thrust of this, I think it could be explained better. Where Chalmers uses the term 'experience', I think the correct word to use is 'being'. What he's saying is that no purely objective account of the mind is the same as 'the nature of experience'; describing an experience is not the same as having an experience. And the capacity for experience is unique to beings, who are the subjects of experience (even very simple beings, but not inorganic nature - this is not panpsychism). — Wayfarer

I read this and it still doesn't resonate much. I understand that an objective account by beings who can't transcend their own perceptions is unlikely (phenomenology/blind spot/etc). I've read some Chalmers and Nagel and I still can't see why what we call phenomenal experience, qualia, etc, is not just a kind of simulation created by an interplay of sense data and memory.

I'm not saying you and some philosophers are wrong (we ultimately do not know) but, for what it's worth, the sense of self I am aware of when I experience things doesn't seem especially remarkable to me. It fades, it wavers, it's inconsistent, it miscalculates and it seems comprised of little bits of information that comes together like an old-school Disney cartoon - single cells moving quickly, creating the illusion of life and a narrative. Or something like this. I've had sympathy for views along these lines for decades but I am open to something more interesting.

So then, are academics bound to impotence except in their own - now highly monetized - spheres of thought? — kudos

Unanswerable. There are good and bad academics and some university departments are subject to fads and agendas. Sometimes work transcends the universities, especially if it is useful. Most of human organised behaviour provides examples of this, from selling pet food to selling Plato. Does it matter?

‘[tokens] of the most commonsense, and scientific, physical types objectively exist independently of the mental. Realism about ordinary objects is confirmed day by day in our experience . . . Given this strong case for Realism, we should give it up only in the face of powerful arguments against it and for an alternative. There are no such arguments.’ — Joshs

What strikes me as ironic is this would be the view my uneducated grandmother would hold. It's very commonsensy and relies on a very literal interpretation of experience.

I don't think this to be something that always existed chronologically either, but something we sometimes take for granted in modern times. — kudos

Of course there is also a centuries long tradition of philosophers, spiritual searchers and mystics taking on on a life of poverty, often turning their back on fortunes or refusing to earn money.

More recently, the idea came to mind about individualism in general, and how one individual can be superior to another in intellect or performance. — kudos

I think it's more complex. I've met my share of prodigiously talented and wealthy men and women. Most of them were driven, anxious types and sometimes dreadful people - with obnoxious personalities, disliked or feared by their colleagues, children and spouse. I don't think we can say ipso facto that a conspicuously clever and wealthy person is better or even happier. I have also known many ordinary and poor people who are more readily able to experience great joy and connection with others and be free in ways that many wealthy couldn't imagine.

Determining whose life is 'better' is a multifactorial equation and largely subjective.

:up: