It all depends on what's meant by being "selfish'. Someone could say you're being selfish by staying inside playing video games instead of going out to protest the world's injustices. But you aren't causing anyone harm, and you aren't helping either. Should you be helping? Should other people decide that for you? Should you decide for them?

I'd say it's just as selfish for society to determine how an individual should be happy, within the constraints of having to live together.

Is the self-interest that comes with doing what makes you happy inherently selfish? — Calvin

No.

When does doing what makes you happy become selfish? — Calvin

When it harms others.

Or, 'how you feel about it'. — Wayfarer

I feel like positivism is misguided and can't support it's own claims.

This is a bit picky, but since this is philosophy, I'll just come out and say it. You don't necessarily own your body at least until you are dead. Because you cannot dispose of it, you cannot sell it or at least, arguably you didn't ought to be able to. I think Shakespeare had something to say about this. — unenlightened

The problem with this line of thinking is that it justifies society telling you what you can and can't do with your own body, depending on what society thinks is appropriate. It has certainly been used against abortion, drug use, prostitution, drinking, tattoos, makeup, jewelry, certain hair styles or clothing and so on.

So where to draw the line? Should we outlaw obesity because it's a health cost? Mandate every able bodied citizen to exercise and eat healthy, and not participate in risky activities like rock climbing or hang gliding?

On the other hand we all know that if something is physically real, it or its effects can be observed or detected in some way. — Janus

Assuming we know what "physically real" means. As for effects, we can say the existence of categories of particulars in the world is an "effect" of universals, if one wishes to argue for realism.

It;s not that the arguments are not thought to be discursive; they may be valid as fuck; but that their premises are groundless and even incoherent. — Janus

This could apply to any contentious argument. Take Dennett versus Chalmers. One rejects the other's premises. Chalmers charges Dennett with being ideologically dogmatic about materialism, Dennett says Chalmers is being misled by faulty intuition.

So who's right? Depends on which set of arguments you find more persuasive. So what now? Do we just agree it's all sophistry?

The point is that if I state that any empirical object is real, we all know what that means; that we can all ( given that we are not blind, or lacking in tactile sensitivity , etc.) see it, touch it and so on. — Janus

There's plenty of posits in science which are not empirical, like quarks. They're used to explain the empirical. Thus the debate around scientific realism. That and the philosophical questions around scientific findings like the various interpretations of QM, or questions about causality and the arrow of time.

Our ancestors could walk the land and hunt to provide for themselves and their families until someone had the wicked and clever idea of saying, "Actually this is mine now. If you want to eat, work for me." — Kenosha Kid

More like people started congregating in permanent villages, giving rise to the city state. Once people have permanent digs, ownership becomes more meaningful, as does the division of labor, money, accounting, governments and so on.

I believe that what they are saying really amounts to something like "you don't feel it"; they are conflating discursive understanding with feeling. It's just the same with poetry and the arts in general; there is nothing determinately discursive to understand; it is all a matter of feeling. — Janus

Or those who think metaphysical arguments are meaningless dismiss logical arguments because they don't feel like those arguments are discursive.

See how that works? I don't know the name of the logical fallacy, but it certainly is one.

seems to be saying that nobody understands what they believe themselves to be claiming metaphysically. If they could understand it they ought to be able to explain it. — Janus

There's entire SEP articles on various metaphysical positions explaining what is meant. But every attempt at explanation gets dismissed by those who think it's meaningless.

I don't know what to say to that. I find the explanations meaningful, but I'm being told that I don't really. That's kind of irritating. It's similar to how my believing relatives think I must really believe God exists deep down, because it's impossible to be an atheist.

It's facile (and usually their only "comeback") for such enunciators to claim that those who claim that their claims are meaningless simply "do not understand". — Janus

It's not that they don't understand, it's that they claim there is nothing to understand. We're not claiming any sort of special knowledge about metaphysics. The arguments are there for anyone to read and debate.

But what about the correlationist??? What is his view on objects when no minds exist??? Do objects still exist but in a different form than what we measure them to be?? Or do they not exist? But then this is solipsism. — francis20520

I believe they take basically an anti-realist stance regarding ontology. Yeah, the world exists without us, but no, we can't say anything about that world independent of how we're correlated with it. What I've been told in the past concerning dinosaurs and what not is that if you could time travel back then, you would see that the world was full of dinosaurs, because that's how it would looks to us. That still doesn't tell us what the world is like independent of human observers.

So they take science to be a correlational exercise based on the empirical world, which is the world as it appears to human beings. It's not a realist enterprise.

It also seems to me that most of the Witty fans also think something like the above. I agree with correlationism when it comes to everyday experience, but I do think science takes us beyond that. We can know something about the real world, it just takes a lot of work. Which does mean that not everything in experience is merely correlational. Like dinosaur bones.

However, at first we didn't know they were dinosaur bones from ancestors living millions of years ago before a massive extinction event. People thought those bones belonged to dragons.

The "normal" for Peter included all of these activities. Even if it weren't whatever bodily functions he and others like him had would be the "normal", effectively eliminating the possibility of knowing his artificial nature. — TheMadFool

I'm not sure how. At least the Cylons from the recent BSG and Replicants from Blade Runner were synthetic biology, not electronics.

The main protagonist in the film is a man by the name of Peter who finally discovers that he's a synthetic (AI). What qualifies as very "intriguing" is that Peter doesn't know he's an AI until he sees his innards, something that he's compelled to do to save his wife. Basically, Peter thinks he's human or a biological right up till the moment he looks inside his body and sees electronic circuitry, etc. — TheMadFool

So, did Peter not notice his lack of eating, pooping, peeing, sweating? What about sex drive? If his innards are a bunch of electronic circuitry, then he's not undergoing biological processes like digestion.

1. Is it possible that we, humans, are like Peter, under the [false] assumption that we are not artificial intelligence (AI)? — TheMadFool

I'm guessing this would have showed up in surgery or the morgue at some point.

2. What, for us, qualifies as a similar, illuminating
experience, regarding our true nature (AI or not AI), to Peter seeing his own innards - electronic circuitry, powerpacks, and all? — TheMadFool

I poop therefore I'm an animal.

If you don't believe that it's raining outside but it is in fact raining outside then you would be saying it truthfully. — Michael

Right, but I wouldn't be saying that i know it's raining outside, but believe otherwise!

There might not be a reason for him to say it but he might nonetheless say it. As you say, it's a silly statement, but also a true statement. That's the puzzle. — Michael

While I could say, "It's raining outside, I don't believe it", I couldn't actually be saying that truthfully.

That's where science comes in. Scientists don't have much patients for philosophical wordplay, they rather have you do an experiment. — Wheatley

Sure, but let's say Johnson kicked that rock to prove it was solid against atomists claiming it was a bunch of atoms and the void. Then low and behold physicists discover that solid objects are mostly empty space. So Johnson's common sense reaction doesn't amount to much other than rocks appear solid and also hurt when you kick them.

Now let's say somehow science determines that our universe is a simulation. That means Moore waving his hands around amounted to proving nothing about an external world. And Diogenes walking away isn't the same as moving through physical space.

Point being that common sense objections to philosophical arguments don't amount to much.

I like the two related examples:

Samuel Johnson's kicking a rock while hollering, "I refute it thus!", and Diogenes walking away from an argument claiming that motion was impossible.

I like Diogenes the best of the three.

I certainly believe that I know Moore was full of shit waving his hands around, thus the common phrase, "hand-waving an argument away".

Now tell me I'm wrong!

Yeah, it does seem like a sleight of hand. But it does also play into belief versus knowledge and certainty, so I could see where it's a jumping off point for Wittgenstein.

I find it uncomfortable as well. Sex without genuine connection seems to me like masturbating with someone else's body. You pretend to care so that you can use someone else.

And to know that another person doesn't care about you beyond your appearance, and to be okay with that, makes it sound like you don't really care about yourself. — darthbarracuda

It can be uncomfortable for you and even personally wrong, but some people want causal sex, and that's fine for them. Or at least, it's for them to determine. It's too easy for society to want to go the moral condemnation route.

The elite's primary project is to remain the elite and keep the rest of us on edge with each other so we don't turn on them! They are good at this. They've been doing it for centuries, all over the world. — Bitter Crank

Do you really think there is some kind of consistent coordination amongst the super rich and politically powerful? Do Soros and Koch brothers and Putin all want the same things? Is Bill Gates in league with Xi Jinping? Are Oprah and the Saudi Prince on the same side?

Mr. Robot's a great show, but its global 1% of the 1% club led by a mastermind state Chinese hacker is a little on the conspiratorial side, as is the Illuminati. Sure, Jeff Bezos and Aliko Dangote want to keep their billions and strive to continue being successful, but that's a little different than a global effort by all the elites to keep everyone else out.

Also, they'd have to admit Trump is part of the plan.

In a theistic universe or a Humean one, regularities are not guaranteed — Gregory

Regularities are a strange concept. A always follows B for no reason is very odd. It's strange because there are plenty of times where C does not follow A. And we can only observe that Bs follow As and not Cs. It's just a brute fact of existence that Bs happened to follow As and not Cs.

I don't get it. I leave this to somebody else. — Wheatley

Or I don't. But I believe I do. So therefore I think I can say something true about myself.

As G.E. Moore put it, “Why is it absurd for me to say something true about myself?” — Wheatley

I don't believe there is life on Mars. But let's say there is. I can truthfully say that I don't believe there is life on the Red Planet. But I'm wrong in this scenario. If I knew I was wrong, I would not say I believed otherwise. But I don't actually know that.

So I can say something true about my belief when wrong, as long as I don't know better.

Are you sure McGillicuddy doesn't know it is raining? I don't think that is clear. — Wheatley

I thought McGiilicuddy does know it's raining. But McGilicuddy is referring to MacIntosh's not knowing and thus not believing. MacIntosh can't refer to themselves that way, because they're not in the know!

It's true that MacIntosh doesn't believe it's raining, but that's because they don't know it's raining. So there's no reason for MacIntosh to make such a silly statement.

This makes sense, given that relativity implies a subjectivism , the recognition that our accounts of nature are relative to the way we frame our theories. — Joshs

Relativity is just as objective as Newtonian physics, but because the speed of light is a constant (which is an objective measure), space, time and mass become relative measures between frames of reference, which are objectively determined. Relativity is also about gravity and spacetime, both objective measures, but spacetime is a field whose geometry is shaped by gravity.

The problem is that for so long people have mistaken objectivity as the primordial access to truth, and thus miss what is essential about understanding, truth, meaning, being., which is that objectivity is only a modified derivative of our relating to the world in terms of the way it always has significance for, matters to, is relevant for us, in actual contexts of interaction with it. — Joshs

This is "Man is the Measure" in modern garb. Problem is that all the findings of science over the past several centuries from astronomy, geology, paleontology to biology are Copernican revolutions away from humans being at the center of the cosmos, deciding what is and what isn't. Rather, humans are just another animal among a tree of life extending back several billion years on this one little planet in a vast cosmos of planets and stars and all sorts of wonderful things. We evolved, our planet and star formed from a dust cloud out of a previous supernova, and there was a Big Bang, or so science tells us.

On the contrary, it is the landless peasants that become the serfs who exchange their labour for the loan of a patch to grow their own food on. Great for the entitled, for the propertied. — unenlightened

Good thing feudalism got replaced by capitalism. But I supposed a society could be structured around there being no substantial property ownership. We'd all be vagrants migrating from one place to another and just plopping down for the night wherever there was room.

Not sure how that works on the scale of millions of people, and there is the tragedy of the commons to worry about. Personally, I'd rather people have their own property to live on, if they so desire.

The ownership of ideas is closely related to the ownership of labor and the means of production, because if one company owns the idea of doing some work a particular way, — Pfhorrest

Or writer, artist, entertainer. Plagiarism is a thing, and I don't want the hard work of some to be copied by others without compensation. That's why I've never been a fan of online free music distribution. Maybe it doesn't matter for the big stars, but what about everyone else?

It's testament to the very matter under discussion, It think, that what we've had instead is a half-dozen sentences of hand-waiving and then paragraphs of engagement in the exact practices the thread is supposed to be examining from the outside of. — Isaac

The hand waving is happening on the side claiming there is no meaning.

Yes, basically. — Isaac

I don't believe that.

Simply using terms cannot in of itself be held as demonstration that they are meaningful, otherwise the Jabberwocky is meaningful. — Isaac

So Wittgenstein was wrong?

The argument over universals is meaningless. — Isaac

But it's not.

You brought up the fact that what we might really be arguing about is... — Isaac

Which is something odd between the world and our conceptualizing.

This was actually known as Moore's Paradox in the earliest analytic philosophy (not the Moore's Paradox for which Moore eventually became famous) – why do philosophers say things they know to be false, or argue about things with which there is obviously no issue? — Snakes Alive

Who says they know things to be false or there obviously is no issue? Their opponents? Why trust someone's opponents to give an accurate psychological account? There's a strong incentive for bias.

The sword cuts both ways. I could just as easily claim that philosophers know these things to be true, and there are obviously issues, but they wish to argue otherwise.

But it's an uncharitable argument either way. Why not just assume people argue for what they think is the case? Anyway, it's a genetic fallacy to suppose the arguments are somehow invalid because of whatever motivation a philosopher might have. And it's a poisoning of the well.

Yes, we're all pretending, and we know if we think for even a moment – even our friend Wayfarer knows why he really does this, and he gives his reasons here: — Snakes Alive

I don't agree. I think metaphysical debates are generally meaningful, if often wrong. I think philosophers usually participate in such debates because they have reasons to believe there is a genuine issue. And I think those making the claim for meaningless have failed to make a strong case, and thus resort to various shenanigans like psychologizing their opponents and pretending not to understand metaphysical arguments explained a dozen different ways.

There is only one universe. — Vladimir Krymchakov

Not if there's a multiverse with each universe being separate and having it's own laws.

If you commit a crime against a psychopath s/he will tell you in no uncertain terms what you did was wrong and why it was wrong and how you should be punished. But s/he forgets all this when it is the other way around. — EnPassant

Hmmm, I'm not so sure about this. There was a serial rapist who after being caught said he didn't understand what was so bad about rape, because he didn't imagine it to be a bad thing for himself. Maybe that changes if he actually got raped? I don't know. Plenty of hardened criminals in prison you could ask.

I've read that psychopaths don't tend to fear consequences. Thus they lack empathy for people who do, viewing them as weak.

Are you talking about the general ability to use nouns? What? — Snakes Alive

Yes, I'm asking a question about the human ability to put individual things into categories and hierarchies. It's either an epistemological question or a metaphysical one about the world of individual things, events, relations.

Are you asking how it is possible that different things share properties? — Snakes Alive

That would be an important part of the debate. Do things share properties and if so, what does that entail?

It does not become a possibility to be debated until you can clarify in some sense what you are talking about. — Snakes Alive

That human language is full of categorization, yet the world of experience is full of individuals.

Indeed it does. It's what we call "north of", as compared/contrasted to being north of. — creativesoul

Being pole of? Problem is you can't reference which pole without it being an arbitrary linguistic decision. Pole of A makes it sound like A is first or top. Just like we naturally assume north is the top of the globe and most maps portray it that way. But there's no reason the south pole can't be portrayed as top. And maybe if a southern hemisphere empire had colonized much of the modern world, it would be portrayed in such a manner.

Is it, do electrons exist? — Snakes Alive

The idea that there are individual things classified as "electron" is the issue. How do we make this classification of individuals?

Okay, sure. Is it, do electrons have similar properties? Okay, sure. — Snakes Alive

Not just similar properties, but the same when it comes to mass and charge, and the same kind of properties overall. How is that there is such a thing as "kind"?

What else is there to say? — Snakes Alive

That there is a discussion to be had here as to how a world of individual things can be categorized. I'm not saying universals is the right answer to that. Only that it's a possibility to be debated.

Independent of those who use cardinal directions... there is no such thing as "north of". — creativesoul

True. The spatial relation of being closer to one pole versus the other exists, though. And that can matter for climate and other things. Russell should have clarified.

So, does this creature have a 'soul?' Can it access the Platonic realm of 'abstractions?' These are stupid questions – instead, look at what it can, and can't, do! — Snakes Alive

Are you making a case for nominalism ... :razz:

Plato's forms aren't the only kind. Aristotle's are more grounded. Let's just take one example from physics. All electrons have the same properties of mass and charge, along with others like spin which can vary. And they play a fundamental role in chemistry and electromagnetism. So we classify all such subatomic particles as a fundamental particle called an electron, which is universal across space and time.

The form of a subatomic particle is its essence that make it an electron and not something else like a proton, where the essence is the collection of properties and functions.

I really have no idea what your discussion of 'the relation of being north' adds to what I just said. It seems to me deeply confused. — Snakes Alive

That "north of" is a universal relation in that it doesn't matter what sort of locations there are on a spherical region of space like a planet, some locations will be north of other locations, and this fact exists independent of humans, although there's nobody around to call it "north of", or to name the particular locations. With the caveat that which pole is "north" is arbitrary. Some things will be closer to one pole than the other. In the case of Earth, "north of" meaning the Arctic Circle.

Bertrand Russell was using "north of" to illustrate how we utilize concepts which are universal across particulars, but these concepts are not simply made up. Locations have spatial relationships.