Well, according to masochists there is no evil, assuming evil is (physical) pain because pain = pleasure for them.

I've never heard of masochists going happiness = (psychological) suffering.

The brain/mind is a very complex organ!

:snicker:

What does beginning have to do with chaos? — Jackson

P(A) = Probability of actualization

p = Potential quantified

p of chaos = $\infty$ (Chaos has infinite potential)

$\lim_{p \to \infty} P(A) = 1$

The universe was born from chaos.

Putin isn't immortal, neither are his henchmen. Patience NATO, patience!

:snicker:

I have music in my mind almost all the time. — Metaphysician Undercover

Musicians would like to have a word with you! You're an existential threat to all musicians and music companies.

Just imagine not needing to stream/download music from payfor sites. You're something, man!

:snicker:

Trump is a symptom! Doctors do treat symptoms (duh!) but they prefer to treat the disease.

:snicker:

Is self-experimentation, the scientific way, possible? Just picture me conducting tests on my own brain - systematically of course, avoiding any insults to my judgment or postponing it to the last minute, something like that. I would be able to objectively analyze the subjective aspects of my own consciousness. Too, solipsism seems to suggest that that's the only method available to us (re the problem of other minds).

I don't know what that means

:up:

I'll be back. — Donald Trump

this imperfect universe — 180 Proof

It appears that Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz either didn't come across this corpus of philosophy or, for some reason, ignored it completely. Vide Best of all possible worlds. Perhaps, like how the Jains dealt with conflict, perfection is conditional (re anekantavada, no one-sidedness or many-sidedness). I dunno!

Negative utilitarianism is, it seems, less confusing than, what?, positive utilitarianism since we're more familiar with, we have a comparatively better handle on, suffering than happiness.

This :point:

Better Socrates dissatisfied thsn a fool/pig statisfied. — J. S. Mill

gives an inkling of what I mean.

Merci beacucoup.

The brain/mind is a very complex organ. :snicker:

Gracias señor!

Thanks for your detailed explanation. Much appreciated.

Did you know that the Buddhist middle path (madhyamaka deals with opposing pairs of ideas in the following manner.

Is there a soul?

Eternalism: Yes

Nihilism: No

Buddhism: Not yes but not no either (denying both extremes).

I guess that ultimately boils down to Yes & No (BothAnd, affirming both extremes because negation in classical logic flips the sign of propositions) but do notice here that the madhyamaka is more about denial (neither yes nor no) than affirmation (BothAnd).

Comments.

Consequentialism is the mathematization of ethics (vide Bentham's felicific calculus). It isn't a bad idea and could've made a difference; unluckily, joy and suffering are as of yet poorly quantified i.e. they remain subjective enough to gum up the works as it were. Perhaps it's an idea that's premature - it must lie dormant/kept in suspended animation until advances in science make it implementable. We had ideas of flying yanas (vehicles) thousands of years before the Wright brothers made their first heavier-than-air flight.

I agree "the good" is not definite, of definitive, enough to function as a coherent object (goal ~ value) in ethics. I am a negative consequentialist because, I think, "the bad" (suffering), however, does function as a coherent object (avoidable hazard ~ disvalue). The link here is to a wiki article which summarizes the thesis. — 180 Proof

Keep it coming, keep it coming! :up:

I excepted this to be more funny, disappointed. — Skalidris

:snicker: Apologies.

I thought you said you didn't want to argue anymore, what happened to that? — Skalidris

:snicker:

Wouldn't that be like a butterfly trying to be a caterpillar? The sequence is all wrong. :snicker:

Fair definition. Agree. — Jackson

Semantics...

Chameleons — baker

Geckoes, frogs, dragonflies, spiders, antlions,...

Theology is thinking for religion; Philosophy of religion is thinking of religion. The former attempts to find a good foundation for theistic doctrines, the latter examines it. :snicker:

Consciousness

1. Other-awareness: Dishbrain is conscious (it reacts to the environment, plays a simple game)

2. Self-awareness: Dishbrain is not (?) conscious. Is it capable of metacognition?

:chin:

I had similar thoughts hanging up such a sticky long thing against flies (don't know what's it called in English, flypaper?). — Hillary

:snicker:

I'm into mythology. Does that mean I'm an anti-philosopher (someone who prefers falsehoods over truths) in that respect?

I've always wondered why this option exists at all? I can choose myths over knowledge.

I may not last long though as per some folks - believing falsehoods tend to be as injurious and as deadly as smoking. However, a delusion can go a long way in keeping us happy enough not to want to kill ourselves (in despair).

The choices are: Killed (comforting myths) or Suicide (bitter truths)

It does not take long to see that every religious prophet was exposed to such stresses — I like sushi

No pressure, no diamonds. — Thomas Carlyle

Well, here's what I think, for what it's worth:

Evolution, from the givens, lacks a goal - it would sooner produce a brainless critter than a lifeform with a gigantic brain.

Brains/minds seem goal-oriented. They have this sense of direction in that they have a vague idea of where they want to be in the future.

True that at the moment the overal objective of brains/minds seem aligned to that of evolution (endless mode/survival game mode), but if you look at some ideas that are doing the rounds in philosophical and other circles e.g. antinatalism, Buddhism, negative utilitarianism, sepukku/harakiri, we see that a split has occurred.

Living doesn't mean not dying, dad. — Eep

Whether this is just a case of an evolutionary Rube Goldberg machine is anyone's guess. I dunno!

Evil is, I'm persuaded to believe from my experience, a feature and not a bug. It can get quite extreme at times - heinous atrocities, torture being the worst manifestation - but then Neil deGrasse Tyson's Cosmic Perspective comes to mind - as you so rightly pointed out, let's face the facts, we're teensy-weensy, itty bitty, sacks of chemistry (reductionism maxxed out). Why then is pain such a big deal? It stops making any sense - we fret about our collective suffering on one hand while we self-abnegate ourselves to insignificance and irrelevance. We are in the grand scheme of things insects in our own eyes. Bug spray? DDT? Fly swatters? Flypaper?

No particular point to my post.

You are! :smile:

proto-consciousness — Agent Smith

mirror — Agent Smith

1. What you sow you reap.

2. What goes around comes around.

3. Action = Reaction (Newton's 3^rd Law)

4. Karma

5. Reciprocity

My mind's thoughts/speech/actions are reflected back at me by other minds.

Minds = Mirrors :chin:

Close enough. — 180 Proof

:snicker: Art thou a judge?

↪Agent Smith ↪Agent Smith A good question for which I do not have the answer except for my post on the origin of the universe. — val p miranda

Danke!

@Varde

All Claims are Justifiable

Methinks the OP is onto something really important. It happened to Christianity. Church Councils were convened in which Christian doctrines were adopted not by argumentation but by vote (argumentum ad populum). The next generation of theologians then went to work on these tenets, reasoning backwards to axioms that would support them. This is just a hypothesis of course; cum grano salis. Modern psychology has a term for this: rationalization! — Agent Smith

In short, we can justify the logical necessity of causation. All we need to do is come up with a set of axioms that can be used to deductively argue the case.

Anyone have any ideas?

Meditation is the antidote for scatterbrainedness. But, sure, it's not for everyone. :smile: — ZzzoneiroCosm

:up: What's the difference between an unloaded gun and one whose magazine has been emptied? :chin:

Metaphysics attempts to create/discover the foundations of reality. The only tool I can see in our toolbox is empirical observation and logic. Can we, then, work backwards to what the bedrock of reality is. What are the fewest axioms that would be required to prop up our current understanding of our world?

This is precisely how deep meditative states feel: a movement toward sleep and dream while retaining full to partial conscious awareness. (I've been an avid meditator for more than 20 years.) — ZzzoneiroCosm

I've dabbled in meditation, but I wasn't cut out for it. I'm scatter-brained you see, I couldn't have chosen a worst possible hobby/activity for myself. I'm in a sense waiting for my mind to just collapse on the floor out of sheer exhaustion. 4 decades later, it doesn't seem to be showing any signs of slowing down. :sad:

I do remember that one. I would say part lunatic, part lord.

Part lunatic in that he took himself to be god's gift to humankind - in his own words to the woman at the well. — ZzzoneiroCosm

Helps solve the Good Book's inconsistency problem. Parts of it were God's word when he wasn't a lunatic or a liar, parts of it were when he was one or the other, both even! :up:

Consciousness is an act like urination or digestion or walking or talking, you get the idea. Are all these activities physical in the sense a stone (matter) is or heat (energy) is (have I covered all the bases?)?

Being a mystic does not preclude her also being a schizophrenic or vice versa. — 180 Proof

Remember Lewis's trilemma: Either Jesus was Lunatic or Liar or Lord.

That says a lot, doesn't it?

Mythomania, Psychosis and Divine (mysticism included) are all viable hypotheses for Jesus (religious experiences).

However, studies show that those who are mysticism-oriented aren't mentally unstable - they tend to have jobs, families, friends, no criminal records, and have never been diagnosed with a mental affliction.

That said, temporal lobe epilepsy is strongly correlated with mystical experiences.

That is to say, mysticism is an organic brain disorder that can be simulated via psychedelics and/or so-called (deep) meditation.

Fun fact: Brain ECG in meditation looks more like ECG when asleep than when awake. Interesting, oui?

shoot him slowly — Hillary

:snicker: