• Memetic Suicide
    :ok:

    From a military strategist's POV, all personnel & equipment must be provided with a self-destruct button/cyanide capsule. Idea Wars!

    While Harakari/Seppuku tend to be poetic and aesthetic. I see "memetic suicide" as unreasonable without any context, like it seems to appear when we are debating and suddenly we accidentally commit a self-refutationjavi2541997

    Thesis & Antithesis cancel each other out and voila! Nuthin'!
  • Time Travel Paradoxes.
    Interesting view. But if we "jump" through the time, what would happen? Do you think we would observe a metaphysical change in our world or just a loop of ourselves jumping infinite times?javi2541997

    Hic sunt dracones!

    Sabrá Mandrake! señor/señorita!
  • Time Travel Paradoxes.
    If time travel is like the rewind function in an old VCR then causal paradoxes occur: To borrow Carl Sagan's example, a bulb will light before its switch is thrown! Perhaps we can jump and not "travel" through time like with DVDs and modern media players. :chin:
  • Pessimism’s ultimate insight
    @schopenhauer1

    How about if we adopt this position: Antinatalism is false doesn't imply that natalism is true. Find the middle ground as it were. We don't recommend natalism (there's still so much suffering and by the looks of it, the situation is only going to get worse), but do continue to have children because there's a slim chance that one of those children or their descendants will find a solution to suffering.

    State control of family aka Family Planning!
  • Pessimism’s ultimate insight
    Because there IS NO one-size-fits-all, ‘concrete’ solution. Because everyone’s situation is different, and changes all the time. Because any step-by-step instruction manual for life is going to be relevant to only those whose situation is identical to yours was.Possibility

    Statistics? Tyranny of the majority? :chin:

    There's got to be an overall trend, a widely-held opinion on all matters, including antinatalism/natalism, oui?

    The idea is not to formulate a recommendation for ALL but for MOST! Surely, you're in the know about the Champagne glass effect!
  • The Death of Roe v Wade? The birth of a new Liberalism?
    My to-do list for the day: Give granny more-fatal cancer. Murder all preborns. Take dog for a walk.Baden

    You would feel at home in a Hercule Poirot mystery novel. Long live the Duchess of Death! :grin:
  • James Webb Telescope
    344 single points of failure. :yikes:Wayfarer



    No one's ever made the first jump. — Tank

    Everybody falls the first time, right Trin? — Cypher

    Amazing team! Mantra: Failure is not an option!
  • Who are we?
    The OP's query is, by all accounts, very thought-provoking?

    The most common question that gets asked in re identity is

    1. Who am I? (As an individual)

    The OP wants to know (?)

    2. Who are WE? (As a group/tribe)

    Drifting into superorganism, hive mind, sociology, human nature, egrogere, etc. territory here.
  • Nick Bostrom & Ludwig Wittgenstein
    Consciousness is self-changingJoshs

    :up:

    Like second-order predictions (vide Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari) that have an effect on the predictions. A very simple idea: If I foretell your future, you can change it by doing something different!
  • The Death of Roe v Wade? The birth of a new Liberalism?
    Some Christians on abortion: We don't care about bodily autonomy or individual choice! We're trying to protect innocent lives!
    Some Christians on COVID-19: We don't care about protecting innocent lives! We care about bodily autonomy and individual choice!
    jorndoe

    Superb! That's the kind of analytical work that deserves a gold star!

    That says it all, doesn't it? Vide infra

    Abortion rights in America date to 1973, when the high court by a 7-2 vote declared that a constitutional right to privacy, rooted in the Fourteenth Amendment, covered a woman's right to end a pregnancy.
    — CNN

    Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences.
    — Justice Samuel Alito (conservative)


    Lemme get this straight. Abortion was legalized based on the right to privacy. Aren't Republicans/conservatives (the pro-life faction) staunch defenders of privacy?

    :confused:

    Something doesn't add up...or does it?
    Agent Smith

    How is the right to privacy grounds for right to abortion? Beats me! If such is true, wouldn't abolishing/banning abortions infringe on one's privacy? If yes, are conservatives ok with the tradeoff - no abortions but less privacy?

    Also, before I forget to mention it, the abortion debate and how it's panning out is, to my reckoning, the first tentative step towards Americanistan - a (Christian) theocracy à la Iran :fear: . This is a recipe for a disaster of epic proportions!
  • James Webb Telescope
    Easy there, conquistador. :sweat:180 Proof

    :grin:
  • Nick Bostrom & Ludwig Wittgenstein
    Hence the first position of one following Wittgenstein might well be that the notion of the world being an hallucination is nonsense; that we cannot make sense of the idea of the whole world being a simulation.Banno

    Aye! It dawned on me, a coupla days ago, that The Simulation Hypothesis [all versions of it from Plato (Allegory of the Cave), Chuang Tzu (Butterfly dream), Gautama (Maya), through Descartes (deus deceptor), Harmann (brain in a vat), to Nick Bostrom (Simulation Hypothesis)] is unfaslifiable. The reason? The Simulation Hypothesis is predicated on the indistinguishability of reality from simulation. What I mean is The Simulation Hypothesis is pseudoscience which, to some, means poppycock. Odd that, because it's got "skepticism" written all over it and we know for a fact that science is big on skepticism.

    Austin, a contemporary of Wittgenstein, pointed out that we can tell the difference between reality and illusion. If we could not, we would not have the term "illusion" and its cognates. We and our language has developed ways of sorting out illusion from reality. Hence the assumption you bolded is wrong.Banno

    Read above. Gracias!

    Another way of putting this is that if it were true that the universe were a simulation, nothing in the universe would be different.Banno

    For sure! Hence my point that we can't tell apart simulations from reality.

    So the Wittgensteinian response is "Meh."Banno

    :up:

    Question for you if you've followed my reasoning:

    Is the unfalsifiabilty of The Simulation Hypothesis because

    1. We don't know enough. There is a way to differentiate simulations from reality, we just don't know how...yet!

    or

    2. We can't know. The Simulation Hypothesis is unfalsfiable in principle.
  • Why does time move forward?


    Warning! I'm not all there, if you catch my drift! :grin:
  • Nick Bostrom & Ludwig Wittgenstein
    Your notion of consciousness and self is a bit too Cartesian. There is no inside to consciousness in the sense of some container with a substance, essence or content that sits there waiting to be reflected on. Consciousness is self-changing. That IS its only essence.
    It makes no sense to talk about reflection as a mirror or distortion of something that is never simply itself but is always a new differential.
    Joshs

    I don't quite follow, sorry!
  • The Death of Roe v Wade? The birth of a new Liberalism?
    relying on memory180 Proof

    Noooooooooo! :scream:
  • Why does time move forward?
    Actually, time moves backwards, into our past. Note how 1 Jan 2022 was in front of us, then it was 1 Jan 2022, some of us celebrated, and then it flowed into the past, behind us!

    If Kronos moved forward, we would never ever see the future, ja?

    :chin:
  • Where do the laws of physics come from?
    The only one undermining your efforts ....is you sir. There is nothing that you can't do if you are willing to challenge all your assumptions.Nickolasgaspar

    I'm not into rollercoasters! Arigato for those kind words.
  • Where do the laws of physics come from?
    You set the bar too high for me.

    I'd rather [sic] selling my car before getting to such roundabout. — Davillar
  • Self-Reflection
    Great post Jack Cummins.

    As I recall having said once, there's a Sancta Trinitas of selves per person ( :wink: )

    1. Who you really are.
    2. Who you think you are.
    3. Who others think you are.

    Holy Trinity of sorts, there might be Freudian undertones: the son seeking his (lost) father and all that! Right up your alley, oui?
  • God & Existence
    A wonderful description of the state of modern "philosophy"!!!Hillary

    Have you heard of the crab mentality? Visit Wikipedia for more!
  • Where do the laws of physics come from?
    -identifying logical fallacies is not your strong point...right?Nickolasgaspar

    Wikipedia can explain it better than me.
  • Self-Reflection
    Socrates can speak for himself.....Nickolasgaspar

    Well, he's dead!
  • Dealing With Rejection
    Yeap...you are right!Nickolasgaspar

    Why, thank you kind sir/madam/other! :smile:
  • The Death of Roe v Wade? The birth of a new Liberalism?
    Abortion rights in America date to 1973, when the high court by a 7-2 vote declared that a constitutional right to privacy, rooted in the Fourteenth Amendment, covered a woman's right to end a pregnancy. — CNN

    Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. — Justice Samuel Alito (conservative)


    Lemme get this straight. Abortion was legalized based on the right to privacy. Aren't Republicans/conservatives (the pro-life faction) staunch defenders of privacy?

    :confused:

    Something doesn't add up...or does it?
  • The Death of Roe v Wade? The birth of a new Liberalism?
    Why not go for the full transformation with hormone therapy, sperm bank and castration? Reduce all that testosterone fuelled crime, and completely end unwanted pregnancy. A small price to pay for huge social benefit. Imposing it on immigrants would do a lot to solve that problem too.Foreign tourism would be reduced, mind, unless it became a destination of choice for women...

    And the reduction in population would be good for the environment.
    unenlightened

    This is the kinda "solutions" AI come up with!



    By the way, I know you were just trying to be funny! :smile:
  • Where do the laws of physics come from?
    iron age heuristicsNickolasgaspar

    :fire:

    Excellent point! No offense Hillary.

    Argumentum ad novitatem?
  • God & Existence
    it was already brokenNickolasgaspar

    :chin:

    Most interesting! — Ms. Marple

    I wasn't aiming for perfection you know!

    You have a sad life, to you everything is :broken:

    Coming from me, that's something you should think about and deeply!
  • God & Existence
    A safe guess is that you also don't your assumptions getting red flagged by logic and soundness...right?Nickolasgaspar

    I dunno what you're talking about!

  • God & Existence


    YOU BREAKED MY TOY!

    WHY YOU BREAKED MY TOY?!

    :cry: :groan:
  • God & Existence
    I will be backNickolasgaspar



    :grin: @Wayfarer RUUUNNNN!
  • God & Existence
    Reincarnation is a boo-word. Best to steer clear of it.Wayfarer

    I like your style! :up:
  • God & Existence
    imagine a student using these concepts as an excuse for not handing out his homework! "My paper has a timeless ontology that doesn't interacts with photons..."
    I mean who would ever accept that excuse....but by introducing "magic"(special pleading) fully grown ups will accept anything and they will even apply the noble title of Philosophy on top.
    I mean if this isn't mental gymanstics/mastrurbation what exactly is it.
    Nickolasgaspar

    You have a point, but, from what I gather, this is part and parcel of philosophy and science. Philosophy is more deconstruction than construction if you catch my drift à la Socrates who was the wrecking ball of the ideaverse. After him, all that was left were piles of rubble where once majestic belief systems had been erected! He was the Genghis Khan of the world of beliefs.
  • God & Existence
    :smile: I don't have an appropriate response to your comment!
  • Self-Reflection


    A simple heuristic (kind courtesy of Taoism) based on (lateral) inversion: negate everything you think you are and you'll be closer to the truth than if you don't.

    If a Cartesian deus deceptor did exist, s/he/it will take you to a point farthest from the truth! We could use that, oui?
  • God & Existence
    A more prosaic analysis is made by Dermot Moran who traces the influence of Eriugena on the German idealists.

    Reincarnation is a boo-word. Best to steer clear of it.
    Wayfarer

    If everything, and I mean everything, could be shown to be "that than which nothing greater can be conceived" or thereabouts, modal realism would be true (everything possible would exist/be actual). Every person or thing truly is perfect given the givens oui? As a rather controversial example, Hitler was perfect considering the set of experiences he went through - he was the best possible person he could be, factoring in his circumstances. :chin:
  • Self-Reflection
    selfjavi2541997

    Most interesting! — Ms. Marple

    You see a self in the mirror, but that's, intriguingly, just an illusion (anatta or perhaps it's actually an other :scream: ). Vide Daniel Dennett (consciousness is an illusion).
  • Nick Bostrom & Ludwig Wittgenstein
    From a Metzingerian perspectiive, "self" is a (persistently embodied) phenomenal illusion re: ↪180 Proof180 Proof

    Old habits die hard!

    Though it's addressed to Possibility.. I would like to reiterate again the fallacy of mixing the components of the phenomenon for the phenomenon itself. Even if "self" was an illusion, the reality of "self" in the construct of a human doesn't go away by simply "realizing" this (if that is even true in the first place that we are an illusion, whatever that means). Thus yes, the Cogito does make sense in this situation. There are certain realities that one can't, by fiat of argument, make go away, and thus try to push through as some proof of non-suffering (or "really suffering") for the sake of argument.schopenhauer1