You are behaving dishonorably on the forum.

You are also free to treat people honorably.

Stop, Marco

Are you chasing after Truth? After a more complete understanding of Reality? After happiness? — leo

For me the search is for greater awareness. Of the physical world. Of myself. Of others. Reason and truth are just one path, one that can easily be misleading. Any path to greater awareness can be misleading. Which is why it's so easy to get lost. Which is why we are searching.

I was thinking about this some more. It seems to me that consequentialism and deontological ethics are more about figuring out who to blame than how to decide how we should behave.

Are there deep philosophical problems? — Srap Tasmaner

In my experience, philosophical questions considered "deep" are usually those where people fail to recognize that the issues are metaphysical rather than part of our everyday existence and experience.

In ethics there is a great divide between two schools of thought: — Wheatley

There are more than two schools of thought. How about "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Easy to understand. Easy to apply. You don't have to figure out what the consequences of your actions will be before you can judge right from wrong.

Related to that there is "Follow your heart." To philosophicate it a bit:

When the heart is lost, there is goodness.
When goodness is lost, there is morality.
When morality is lost, there is ritual.
Ritual is the husk of true faith,
the beginning of chaos.

This is a slight mangling of Verse 38 of the Tao Te Ching as translated by Stephen Mitchell.

Both of these principles arise out of the understanding that humans are social animals. We like each other. We want to do well by each other.

I think your comments on comparisons to building codes are spot on, — Wayfarer

I was thinking about that after I wrote it. Even if there were codes for genetic engineering, I'd still be worrying. The uncertainties and consequences of being wrong are too great.

I’m saying there’s a clear distinction between ‘artificially engineered’ and ‘naturally occurring’. Yes, there’s already been millennia of artificial breeding via animal husbandry, as you point out, but that doesn’t involve the direct molecular manipulation of genetic material so as to deliberately create mutant strains. So I think a distinction can be made there as a matter of principle. — Wayfarer

As an engineer, I think it's accurate to call animal husbandry a form of engineering. That doesn't mean I don't understand the distinction you're making. It's kind of the difference between designing an addition to an existing house and designing a development which involves the clear cutting of 500 acres and building new houses and condos. As a civil engineer I can tell you that the engineering and permitting standards for the latter are nowhere near adequate to prevent serious unintended consequences to nearby properties, downstream waterways, and local animal and plant life. That's something we see all the time. How much worse would this be for something as novel as the new genetic technologies. As inadequate as the current design requirements for civil design, at least there are codes and professional standards that apply. For genetic manipulation, there are none.

Nature doesn't create novel life forms? — StreetlightX

One difference is that animal and plant husbandry create "novel" organisms that will fit into a particular existing environmental niche currently filled by a very similar organism. As we've seen from our recent problems with invasive species, dropping a truly novel organism into an existing ecology can have disastrous results. I don't see this as a conclusive argument against this type of genetic manipulation, but it's worth taking into account.

Jurassic Park Redux — Wayfarer

Forgive me for a quibble which may not be particularly relevant to the issue at hand. Mammoths and Mastodons both have been extinct for about 10,000 years. There's probably a good chance they could mate and produce fertile offspring with modern elephants. Dinosaurs, on the other hand, have been extinct for about 65 million years. Their closest living descendants are birds.

I didn't much like the JP movies, but I do remember my thought when I first heard about it was "That's really cool." I feel the same way about what they're thinking about doing with the mammoths. Which isn't to say that I don't understand your qualms. I see our growing ability to manipulate the genetic makeup of our species and others as a step out onto very thin ice.

People come up with all sorts of models to understand themselves, some more mainstream than others. "Conscious and subconscious", Jung's archetypes, Left brain right brain, whatever the Yogis were doing (I'm just not familiar with it), etc. My question is whether or not these concepts are discovered or enforced, because they never really seem to cleanly translate. — khaled

I think there are a couple of characteristics of the approaches you're discussing that relate to the question you've asked. First, the philosophies and psychologies you've identified are focused on the human experience of the human mind. Second, and related, they are also generally associated with a specific practice, e.g. meditation or therapy. If you take a look at branches of psychology that don't have that focus, e.g. cognitive psychology, cognitive science, psychology of language, developmental psychology, etc. you'll find that things are less chaotic.

blundering through. — Tom Storm

rigor — Tom Storm

Experience and intuition are not "blundering through." I was an engineer for 30 years. When I took a look at a new project, I could often tell how it would turn out at the very start. I'd seen so many. Later in the process I needed to look at project specific data and apply rigor - calculations, mapping, regulatory and permit evaluation...I wasn't always right in my intuition, but it gave me a framework on how to proceed.

Can an amateur learn how to enjoy "academical" philosophical discussions — Ansiktsburk

Have you thought about the kinds of things we talk about here? What are your ideas on the nature of reality, the basis of morality, the source of political authority, the meaning of art...? Can you write well enough to express them clearly? Anyway, have at it, keeping this from Emerson's "Self-Reliance" in mind:

To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, — that is genius. Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense; for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost, — and our first thought is rendered back to us by the trumpets of the Last Judgment.

Not trying to be a dick but how about this? My daughter has a one year old son. She has embraced an Evangelical form of Christianity and believes vaccination is a conspiracy and prayer will suffice to keep her and her boy safe. I believe in vaccination. Do I care and accept this situation as 'her version of truth/facts'? Do I care if it's the right decision? What would you do? — Tom Storm

We're talking about different things. My post was a cutesy and a bit too obscure statement that truth, knowledge, facts, and beliefs are not something we normally use directly in our day to day lives. Is "This is the right club for me to use," a true statement? A fact? A belief? Knowledge? Mostly it's a judgement.

As for your situation...

My daughter has a one year old son. She has embraced an Evangelical form of Christianity and believes vaccination is a conspiracy and prayer will suffice to keep her and her boy safe. I believe in vaccination. Do I care and accept this situation as 'her version of truth/facts'? Do I care if it's the right decision? What would you do? — Tom Storm

Getting a vaccination is a good and responsible thing in most cases, but not getting one is not normally life-threatening or especially dangerous. For better or worse, your daughter gets a lot of leeway in deciding how to raise her child. And that's a good thing. Do you accept her version of the truth? No. Do you accept her right to raise her child? Yes.

The child comes first. Normally that means the parents get to make the decisions. It's a bad, serious thing to take that away. There's a line - if her decision does put her child in serious, immediate, and avoidable danger, maybe something has to be done to force things.

Not to me. Maybe to some people. The challenge to educate them that such is against both reason and their own self-interest. — tim wood

Seems like you're just classifying anything you don't like as stupidity. Jamming reality into your stupid shaped boxes.

what do you hold to be the source of the greater dangers in the world, both to individuals and to society at every scale? — tim wood

Willingness to treat other people as objects.

Stupidity: an affliction of all at one time or another, for most to a lesser degree, but for some a career. — tim wood

Your manifesto would be more meaningful to me if I thought what you consider stupid and what I do are the same.

fact, belief, knowledge, and truth are all pretty much the same thing.
— T Clark

Hanged for one hanged for any, no difference to you? — tim wood

I'm on the golf course. I look at my lie. I look at the flag. I turn to my caddy and say "What do you think?" He reaches in the bag, pulls out a club, and hands it to me. I turn to make the shot. Now... What do I care about? I don't care if he believes it's the right club. I don't care if he knows it's the right club. I don't care if it's a fact it's the right club. I don't care if it's the truth it's the right club. Just give me the fucking club.

I don't play golf. Everything in this scenario is based on my understanding of golf based on watching "Caddyshack."

I am unconcerned with whether a state of affairs obtains or if I am wrong if my epistemology cannot account for such. I am much closer to using ideas as tools to help obtain my ends and those of people/things within my scope of moral regard (to whatever level they fall within it). Either acting as if is efficacious or it is not. The world imposes itself on me and I try to mold it to my desires using whatever contrivance available. All “facts” are understood contingently and abandoned/modified as necessary. Facts are understood in a political context (all speech is political speech) and assertions of fact which you insist other people acknowledge as being such is a ploy. — Ennui Elucidator

I find myself agreeing with this, although differences in our language make that agreement tentative.

I don’t understand what I have written well enough for me to know if I agree or disagree. I was hoping “Banno” would tell me. — Ennui Elucidator

That @Banno, he knows everything. What would we ever do without him?

Hmm. I'll invite T Clark and @Olivier5 to respond to Ennui, given what they have claimed here. — Banno

It is far preferable to be beaten up by you. — Ennui Elucidator

I don't understand what EE has written well enough to figure out whether I agree or disagree.

Yes, but voting with our feelings instead of a deliberate attempt to understand the choices, does not lead to a healthy Republic and it puts our liberty in jeopardy. — Athena

You seem to think that we can separate the part of us that feels from the part that thinks. Can't be done. At least by me.

You do not think gravity is what holds things to the earth? You don't think we have day and night because the earth turns? You don't think plants and animals die when they do not get water? You think all the forces of nature could suddenly be completely different for no reason at all? — Athena

Reason is a human mental process, a tool. Sometimes we use it to try to understand the world and how it works - gravity, planets, biology. You've turned that around to say that somehow that mental process actually controls the behavior of the world. I don't think that's really what you mean to say.

Do you think knowledge of logos, reason, the controlling force of the universe, i — Athena

I don't think reason is the controlling force of the universe, if that's what you're asking. I don't really think there is a controlling force.

If we do not realize the difference between emotional thinking verse logic and reasoning nor the difference between non-fiction and fiction, — Athena

I think everyone's thinking is both intellectual and emotional. You clearly are emotional in your opinions.

I don't see my opinions as non-fiction vs. the opinions of people I disagree with as fiction.

And there was me thinking it referred to the Cool-Aid Acid Test. — unenlightened

If you're interested, look up "People's Temple" and "Georgetown."

I'm not quite drunk on the Kool-aid, — Zugzwang

Maybe you don't know this. The correct saying is "I haven't drunk the Kool-aid." It refers to the People's Temple cult who all drank poisoned Kool-Aid given them by their guru. "Drinking the Kool-aid" means buying in to a deluded way of thinking.

The best one is theoretical high energy physics. That story is heavy and very enjoyable science fiction/fantasy. The really strange thing is that it's rooted in reality. — Inplainsight

I take a longer range view. "Once upon a time there was an objective reality..." I can't remember the rest, but I do remember the ending - "And they lived in reality ever after."

Thank you a sane post. — Athena

Not to look askance at a compliment, but are you implying my previous posts were not sane?

The fact that science is one story amongst many. — Inplainsight

I agree with this, but it's a really good story.

Well, maybe we would be done with Covid if Trump had not dismantled the department that was about preventing or at least controlling pandemics, and maybe the economic pain would have been much less if the pandemic had been handled properly from the beginning instead of having a President who denied science and lied to everyone, and is still the king of ignorance flooding our hospitals and requiring refrigerator trucks long after everyone should have been vaccinated. — Athena

Again, I don't get your point. I don't and never did support Donald Trump. I think he was a bad president. What does that have to do with this discussion?

Nothing is more important to this thread than understanding the importance of science, and citizens who understand what science has to do with our survival and democracy. — Athena

If that's the point you've been working toward, you set the OP up badly. This thread so far has not been about what you refer to. It's not what I've been talking about. It's a bit late to turn it in that direction.

You must be a citizen of the US or maybe a member of the Taliban in Afghanistan? What is your understanding of democracy if it is not understanding what reasoning has to do with democracy? Do you understand what freedom of speech has to do with democracy? Science gives us information that is essential to good moral judgment. The whole climate change discussion is about what has caused climate change and if we can and should do something to correct a manmade problem. There are political and economic and life and death ramifications, to understanding science and what behaviors will increase or decrease our shared problems. — Athena

I don't get your point. I value democracy. I value reason. I just don't see that they are necessarily strongly related.

For me (and perhaps this is where T Clark and I may differ) qualitative ideas in experience interact to form concepts but have no form themselves. — Possibility

You and I don't generally see these things the same way. It seems like you are using "qualitative idea" as your version of what I am calling "experience." I think that's misleading. As I said, to me, a concept, an idea, is a linguistic entity.

As for what we can describe without language, isn’t this what art is for? — Possibility

I think you and I are in general agreement, but the use of the word "describe" bothers me. Descriptions are generally done with language. Again, I think that will be misleading, perhaps not to you and me, but to others.

But can't concepts be derived from experiences? — Noble Dust

Sure. That's what happens. Experiences go in one end of our minds and come out concepts at the other end.

Indeed, you did. — Banno

Yes, Mr. Snoot.

So truth matters. — Banno

Let's talk about the Trump/Biden election situation. Truth no longer matters. Biden is president. That's not going to change. The people in power were convinced. What's important now is being able to work with those who don't believe. We can 1) Rant and rave and feel superior 2) Try to convince the disbelievers or 3) Work to reduce the level of animosity so we can work together going forward.

A lot of people who hate Trump want to drive the bus off a cliff as a matter of principle.

I like the focus on decision making. — Zugzwang

I've come around to the understanding that the question "What is true?" is not the right one. The one that matters is "What do I do now?" Truth is just a tool we can use to make the decision.

'a fact is the kind of statement that all us reasonable people consider true, for now.' — Zugzwang

Gould was one of the primary people who went out as an expert witness at trials involving creationism and intelligent design. This is something he was passionate about. One of the reasons I like his quote is that the passion shows. Your statement isn't strong enough for him, or for me. There is a bite in "perverse."

if you begin by agreeing with Trump, you've lost. — Banno

I didn't say I agree with Trump, should agree with Trump, or will agree with Trump. I said what I believe is true doesn't matter if we can't convince others.

Good question. If you've been cavalier and indiscriminate in understanding and use of "fact/belief/knowledge/truth" then how are you gong to decide? — tim wood

Once you flush out all the bullshit Philosophicationismness®: fact, belief, knowledge, and truth are all pretty much the same thing. That's a new word I made up today. You'll be seeing more of it in the future. And that brings us back to Gould:

In science decision making, 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.'

But if the counter to lies is just alternate belief, what's the point?

Isn't the point that the election was fair, vaccines do save lives, climate change is man-made?

If you start from the premise that truth doesn't matter, you've already lost. — Banno

If we can't work with people we disagree with strongly to work out a way forward, we can have a great feeling of satisfaction about being right while the country goes down the fucking toilet.