Might make tea. — Banno

Do! I'm in.

Ah, so we end our discussion in silence? — Banno

:lol:

I don't know if this is relevant, but don't you need a good reason to hold that the appearances may not be the same as the real thing?

Of course, the worry that the world as an illusion dates back to Plato (The Allegory of the Cave) and the Buddha (maya) and they had somewhat good reasons to doubt the authenticity of experience. Science too has more or less confirmed this in its own small way (the Orchid mantis & the Spider-tailed horned viper). Nevertheless, this is hard to explain, I feel these aren't adequate grounds for our suspicion that the world is, in some way, deceiving us.

@schopenhauer1

But humans can choose not to bring more life into the world.
— schopenhauer1
This is absurd, of course, because even human extinction neither solves nor, for that matter, even addresses the problem of suffering (i.e. entropy). — 180 Proof

Maybe the more people there are, higher the entropy.

Kant rejected the possibility of doing traditional metaphysics.
— Janus

My friend, Kant is traditional metaphysics.

It's pertinent that those who emphasis Wittgenstein's rejection of metaphysical statements so often stop at the Tractatus. Yes, he showed that metaphysical statements are senseless, but then showed that metaphysics is more than just statements.

One can act in silence.

Wittgenstein did not put an end to metaphysics, so much as showed that it is better done in action than in philosophical speculation. — Banno

:fire: More!

problem. It's my little obsession. If ever you do find the mood for this, you might want to check out Simon Critchley's Little, Almost Nothing. He explores the impact of ethical nihilism — Constance

Thank you! :smile:

Thanks for the sketch of humanity's quest for a ToE which seems to be by and large an exercise in simplification. Smaller and fewer (novacula occami) is the mantra for ToE-seekers. To be frank, I don't quite get the logic underlying this general principle. Why should a ToE be simpler? Shouldn't it be more complex?

Coming to your theory of Enformationism, do you have any specific reason why you settled on information rather than something else, assuming there's an alternative, to construct your own ToE?

I, unfortunately, don't have a ready list of books which I could reproduce at will. Alas, my memory isn't what it used to be.

I've often heard it said that we should eschew viewing TV and instead cultivate a reading habit, but really, how different are books from TV programs? :chin: Did pre-TV times see people telling each other not to read books but do something else?

Wittgenstein reportedly read very little of his predecessors' and coevals' works. Look how he turned out. Dead! :lol:

You're venturing into territory I'm at present not interested in. Not that it's wrong, it's just not my cup of tea. Let's just say I'm not in the mood. Thanks for sharing though. Good luck.

You maybe onto something. I, however, am not so optimistic, but don't let me, an agent of the system, dampen your spirits. Carry on. Do keep us posted on any interesting developments.

:ok: We're basically bombarded with info from all sides (could it get any worse?), making it nigh impossible to separate the wheat (essential) from the chaff (accidental). It is too great a task for a single invidividual to handle; truth be told, even teams of the crème ​de ​la ​crème have failed countless number of times. :grin: Should we give up and just live our lives as best as we can or should we keep banging our heads against this now bloody wall that has claimed many, many victims? :grin:

God, it seems, is an ancient attempt at a Theory of Everything (ToE). Polytheism or more accurately bitheism/dualistic theism is then analogous to the current status of science: quantum mechanics (QM, random chaos, Angra Mainyu) and the theory of relativity (ToR, deterministic order, Ahura Mazda).

Vide: Zoroastrianism.

What if I, a biological male, identified as a transgender male (a female that identifies as being a man?) — Harry Hindu

Yes, exactly! It's all messed up, you see?

These seem to me just Feuerbachian projections of culturally-relative, anthropic ideals (i.e. imago hominum) — 180 Proof

That's one way of looking at it. I couldn't figure out why wealth is a divine attribute until I thought of Batman.

Flash: What's your superpower?
Batman: I'm rich!

:smile:

She was asked to define a woman. — Harry Hindu

Reminds me of Terminators (living tissue over metal endoskeleton). What if Jackson is really a white man in a black woman's body? :chin:

Have you seen the horror flick Get Out (2017)?

I edited the OP. Added a reference.

I'll get back to you later Nickolasgaspar.

:up: :smile:

Everything is funny to someone. — Tom Storm

I agree.

What do you mean by life? — Tom Storm

Everything.

I have no idea what you're talking about.

Here's the deal:

Hypothesis: House E is haunted.

Testing the hypothesis: Visiting E to find out if it's haunted or not.

That's as simple as it gets in my universe.

The Null Hypothesis is, as I told you, on the whole about causality and requires an experimental or other kind of study. To establish a causal link between cancer and smoking would require us to use H₀ (Smoking doesn't cause cancer). The Alternative Hypothesis (H₁). We then look at the incidence/prevalence of cancer among smokers. If the rate therein determined is not that different from the baseline, H₀ is true, there's no causal link between coffin nails and malignancies. If not, H₀ is rejected i.e. H₁ it is.

Let's revisit H₀ in re God's existence. This isn't a causal query and so H<sub>0[/0] is N/A. I'm sure you'll understand why.


Good day. Thanks a million.</sub>

Positivism — Wayfarer

I don't quite get positivism. It's supposed to be the stance that only verifiable claims are in aany way important or truth-apt. Any and all claims that resist verification is, for positivists, nonsense.

There are two kinds of verifiability which I will illustrate with examples:

1. S = My car is metallic silver in color. The statement S is verifiable. All one has to do is find my car and look at it. If it's metallic silver, S is true, if not, S is false.

2. The theory of relativity is verifiable. Use it to make some predictions. Conduct an experiment and if the predictions pan out, the theory of relativity is verified. However, this doesn't mean the theory of relativity is true. Review the scientific method to confirm my statements.

The first kind of verifiability (truth can be established via observation) doesn't sit well with metaphysics, but the second kind seems very much metaphysical in character (truth can't be established and all that can be said is they hypothesis/theory fits the facts).

Implying that the religious situation is no more than a realization of one's lack of cunning? But then, the term "supernatural" just gives religion a bad name, which it usually deserves. But the reality of religion lies outside of the cunning and the supernatural. It is something else. — Constance

Why would you think that "it is something else"? Have you read/seen the Mahabharata? I recommend it, with subtitles of course. Opens up a new window on god(s).

Certainly wouldn't. How do you think the lucky guy would feel 'hey we've brought you back to life, but all your relatives died a million years ago'. — Wayfarer

Yeah, unethical it is!

What if the meaning of 'pain' is everything 'around' the otherwise ineffable painfeeling? The 'pain itself' is the hole in a donut. The dough is buying aspirin, saying the word 'pain,' etc.

The mess goes back at least to Aristotle:
Spoken words are the symbols of mental experience and written words are the symbols of spoken words. Just as all men have not the same writing, so all men have not the same speech sounds, but the mental experiences, which these directly symbolize, are the same for all, as also are those things of which our experiences are the images.

How can Aristotle know this ? Did he mindmeld with all his buddies when they complained of toothache? Or is this some kind of mostly unquestioned folk psychology that evolved as a convenience? — jas0n

Like I mentioned elsewhere, to another poster, we're all humans i.e. we share a biology that would, in my humble opinion, mean that my experiences (inner ones included) are going to be very similar if not identical to another's. So, my pain will feel exactly like your pain or someone else's.

It's good to be skeptical, but as @180 Proof reminds me, there's gotta be a good reason to be doubtful like that and we have none.

-I don't know when you stop beating your wife? can you see the problem in your initial statement?
And how entering that home will allow you to know???
What methods will you use to FALSIFY that universal negative statement? — Nickolasgaspar

What's wrong with what I said? There's this house. I want to know if it's haunted. Don't I have to go inside the house to check if it is or no?

Likewise, if I wanted to know if there's an ultimate truth, a ToE, wouldn't I have to look for it "everywhere" to come to the conclusion that there is one (I discover it) or that there isn't one (Your search - ToE - did not match any documents).

And when the you lie there annihilated by your own foolishness at the horse's feet, THEN the religious event has its grounding. — Constance

How true!

Did you know that the Krishna - avatar of Vishnu, the supreme god of the Hindu Trimurti - is less well known for his miracles than his cunning? Kinda blurs the boundary between supernatural powers and just plain and simple intelligence.

What would there to be gained by decoding it? Aren't we already embodiments of it? Doesn't 'what we are' exemplify 'what it means'? — Wayfarer

I was referring to DNA relics, if such exist, the kind that could be reactivated in order to express long-dead
phenotypes. What did humans look like 2.3 million years ago? It probably wouldn't be ethical. Can't believe I'm saying this. :fear:

And maybe one never quite achieves full comprehension ? Then what would we do? Sounds like death. — jas0n

I wish there was a named effect/problem I could use here. Here's the deal: I want to know if there's ghost in a house. I can't know unless I go inside that house. Whether there's ultimate comprehension or not, one is forced to attempt it.

-I don't want to be absolute but at least most if not all of the OP and the comments I have checked do not meat the philosophical standards.(zero epistemic evaluation or support of the assumptions used in the hypothesis) — Nickolasgaspar

Maybe a sampling bias. You seem very much interested in metaphysics which is, from what I can tell, yet to mature philosophically like, for instance, epistemology or ethics. We're still in explore mode, haven't yet found a place to set up base if you know what I mean.

• Tenure-Chasing Supplants Substantive Contributions
• Confusion between Philosophizing & Chronicling
• Insular Obscurity / Inaccessibility (to outsiders)
• Obsession with Language too much over Solving Real-World Problems
• Idealism vs. Realism and Reductionism
• Too Many Miniproblems & Fashionable Academic Games
• Poor Enforcement of Validity / Methodology
• Unsystematic (vs. System Building & Ensuring Findings are Worldview Coherent)
• Detachment from Intellectual Engines of Modern Civilization (science, technology, and real-world ideologies that affect mass human thought and action)
• Ivory Tower Syndrome (not talking to experts in other departments and getting knowledge and questions to explore from them or helping them) — Nickolasgaspar

:up: However, these are textbook cases of missing the forest for the trees or being so absorbed in a task that one, at some point along the way, forgets what one was doing. This doesn't come as a surprise to me at all. We need to use post-its. It's a jungle out there. Too easy to get lost. Nonetheless, your post is on point. Time to do something about it!

I forgot to address your point.
You stated that " I don't mind people using philosophy as a psychological crutch, to validate their own thoughts and feelings."
-The issue is that when claims are designed to validate thoughts and feelings they are no longer philosophical , by definition (etymology and goal of the method).
Philosophy's goal is wisdom. Wisdom can only be achieved through logic and Knowledge.
Logic and knowledge do not have a good track with feelings and comforting thoughts....

I don't deny we all do it.....I only point out that philosophy has nothing to do with that.
You can call it superstitious excuses or religious ideologies but Philosophy is an exercise in frustration. The comforting feeling of understanding things is only a side effect not the main goal of Philosophy...or better it shouldn't be.. (well we can argue its the main motivation behind our efforts). — Nickolasgaspar

Some say that philosophy and psychology are joined at the hip.

So you're of the view that most of what's on this forum is pseudo-philosophy? I haven't actually studied the threads on here but from a drive-by they're mostly on positions of other well-known philosophers. That can't be pseudo-philosophy, oui? Perhaps you mean to point out how we've misunderstood the works of these philosophers, but then misunderstanding is, for me at least, a stage one must pass through towards full comprehension, ja?

In other words, pseudo-philosophy is part and parcel of true/genuine philosophy. The transition from false to true philosophy is, of course, a short one if one is genuine in one's desire to do philosophy. However, for me, philosophy has a steep learning curve.

I was raised as a Christian and we celebrated Christmas. Now I'm an atheist. I still bring a tree into my home during the holiday season, but I don't do it to celebrate the birth of some man that claimed to be the son of a god. I do it because it is fun for me and my family. So it's not a religious ritual. — Harry Hindu

:up: Right there you've done an exposé of religious scams. All the religions of the world piggyback on fun things to do. The Trojan horse, my friend. Here's a gift for you! Wait a minute, what's the (malicious) payload?

The question of all questions is: Is life funny?

The existentialist Albert Camus thought life's basically a waste of (precious) time - Sisyphus rolls the rock up the hill, it rolls down, Sisyhus rolls it up again, it rolls back down once more; lather, rinse, repeat! The so-called Nietzschean eternal recurrence. Camus then advises that we should "imagine Sisyphus happy". What does that mean? Is Sisyphus sporting a Buddha-like half-smile of nirvana or is he :rofl: ?

What's the difference between philosophy and pseudo-philosophy? I don't mind people using philosophy as a psychological crutch, to validate their own thoughts and feelings. I suspect I do it myself. If it works, why not? Feed two birds with one scone.

Yes, and though statistical tests can be used to suggest fishiness (maybe you accidentally manifest a pattern), they never prove genuine order. A fair coin can come up heads 50 times in a row. Unlikely, but possible.... — jas0n

:up:

does God flip coins — jas0n

Exactly! I can, any intelligent being can, generate true randomness. Imagine I'm sitting behind a screen (you can't see me). On your screen is a virtual coin which you flip. You flip the coin. I manipulate the coin to show heads (1 H). You flip again, I again cause the coin to show heads (2 H). You flip the coin one more time, but now I let the display show tails (1 T). You flip once again, and I manipulate the program to show tails ( 2 T).

You do the math: 2 heads and 2 tails in four flips, a probability of 50% for both outcomes. You tell yourself, the coin flips are random. However, all this time, I've been using an algorithm (make sure that the number of heads = the number of tails on n flips).

So, the basic idea is that science has two components:
— Agent Smith
If you are interested about the components of Science or its nature in general the following lecture is the best you can find.

Systematicity: The Nature of Science
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYK7uhQ_QCk — Nickolasgaspar

:ok: Merci beaucoup.

Do you think that's a good thing? You know, evolutionarily...?
— Agent Smith

Hell no. It’s game over for a species that depends on toilets that flush, energy, food and lighting at the click of a button or app. — apokrisis

I sometimes feel my body's a machine and there are things, like lighting up my coffin nail, I can do apparently as easily as clicking a button. I dunno. :chin:

I can only make sense of it as a description of our nature, how we do science/philosophy. We look for reasons (exploitable relationships between entities). Curious George. The assumption that a reason for an event can be found is at least implicit in our looking for patterns in which to include it — jas0n

In other words, justifying the PSR is beside the point.

So there can be no consensus on pain? What about analgesics like aspirin, paracetamol, etc.. They seem to have a good track record; why else do they sell?