The Republicans want major spending cuts, but they want to force those cuts through by threat instead of having to legislate normally. And the cuts they’re asking for are appalling: they include slashing funds to things like cancer research, rental assistance for the poor, support for schools with large numbers of low-income students, and pay for Americans in uniform. The Republican bill would end Biden’s attempt at student loan debt relief, repeal tax breaks for renewables and clean energy while increasing reliance on fossil fuels, raise already-onerous work requirements to receive food stamps and welfare benefits, and decrease the efficiency and abilities of the IRS.

The Republican proposal would leave a great many Americans worse off – but (OF COURSE) it would be a boon for oil executives and wealthy tax avoiders. ...

Today’s Republicans are a party of destruction. As much as they claim to want to make America great again, they seem much more intent on sowing division, fomenting chaos and embracing an ethos of nihilism. There is no school shooting brutal enough to make them reconsider America’s extreme gun laws; no pregnant woman who suffers enough to make them take a step back on criminalizing abortion; and virtually nothing their unelected leader Donald Trump can to do make them reject him – allowing a deadly attack on the Capitol, being deemed a sexual abuser by a New York jury, and undermining America’s tradition of free and fair elections have not been enough to end the Republican party’s love affair with Trump. As the party has not only embraced Trump but molded itself in his image, it has become all the more dangerous to the nation. — The Guardian

I don't see what the causal relationships would be between mentality--it is all immaterial mind operations. — Bob Ross

Rational explanations do not reveal the same sorts of causal connections that explanations in the natural sciences do. Rather, rational causation draws on the theoretical and practical inferential abilities of human beings.

I am wondering how that activity is specific to a problem we are having now seen side by side with people having the problem at other times. — Paine

go on to easy passage in the Senate for Biden to sign the clean debt ceiling raise into law by the first of June — 180 Proof

The article assumes a divide between language and the study of what exists which ignores how the problem of language has always been central to the concerns of philosophers. — Paine

We can speak of "soul" as exploratory concepts, but if anyone claims the soul to be a real thing, they have a burden of proof to such a claim and if that proof is simply a religious belief, it is not philosophy anymore, but evangelism. — Christoffer

We can't ignore that the claims about the physical world are false by what we know today in physics. — Christoffer

In order to go beyond a way of thinking, you first have to demonstrate a proper understanding of it. — Joshs

It doesn't need to be of empirical scientific validation, but at least logical and hold together without unsupported claims as foundational premises. — Christoffer

Then there is the master.... — Christoffer

The mind of him who stands detached is of such nobility that whatever he sees is true and whatever he desires he obtains and whatever he commands must be obeyed. And this you must know for sure: when the free mind is quite detached, it constrains God to itself and if it were able to stand formless and free of all accidentals, it would assume God’s proper nature … The man who stands thus in utter detachment is rapt into eternity in such a way that nothing transient can move him … — Meister Eckhart

It's when religious truth claims and conclusions are made based purely on the belief biased to that religion that it stops being philosophy and becomes biased delusion. — Christoffer

The extraordinary and eccentric emphasis on "belief" in Christianity today is an accident of history that has distorted our understanding of religious truth. We call religious people "believers", as though acceptance of a set of doctrines was their principal activity, and before undertaking the religious life many feel obliged to satisfy themselves about the metaphysical claims of the church, which cannot be proven rationally since they lie beyond the reach of empirical sense data.

Most other traditions prize practice above creedal orthodoxy: Buddhists, Hindus, Confucians, Jews and Muslims would say religion is something you do, and that you cannot understand the truths of faith unless you are committed to a transformative way of life that takes you beyond the prism of selfishness. — Karen Armstrong, Metaphysical Mistake

Ghost in the Shell... — Christoffer

By voting to give them power in the first place, you are agreeing to give them the power to potentially outlaw future elections. You would be at their mercy, so your solution of voting them out is being hopeful at best. — AntonioP

You can call voting "consenting", but why would you consent to allowing politicians to write and pass whichever laws they feel like? — AntonioP

Special counsel John Durham had everything he needed. Time, money, resources and a clear if not-quite-stated charge from then-Attorney General William P. Barr: Go after the investigation into Russia’s attempts to manipulate the 2016 election. Turn over every rock. Make the whole thing look like the “hoax” Donald Trump said it was.

Durham has released his report, and not only is it a dud, but in many ways it’s also the direct opposite of the investigation by the other special counsel in this case, Robert S. Mueller III.

Mueller amassed a mountain of evidence making clear the shocking sweep of Russia’s campaign to put Trump in the White House. He also showed how eager Trump, his family and his aides were to receive Vladimir Putin’s help. Yet Mueller bent over backward to avoid saying that Trump was guilty of a crime or that the whole affair met the legal definition of a criminal conspiracy.

In contrast, Durham assembled a molehill, which Trump and his supporters are desperately trying to claim is a mountain.

Beginning in 2019, Durham spent years and millions of dollars investigating Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI’s investigation of the Russian interference effort. While his 300-page report excoriated the FBI, just about all the facts he discusses were detailed more than three years ago in an inspector general’s report that revealed serious problems with the way the bureau handled Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant requests, among other things.

But if you look at the way conservatives are spinning the report by Durham, you’d think he claimed that the FBI never should have investigated Russia’s efforts in the first place. That’s bonkers.

“Yes, the FBI could be second-guessed for some of its decisions, and it got sloppy” at times, says Barbara McQuade, a University of Michigan law professor and former U.S. attorney. But given the suggestion that a hostile foreign power was trying to manipulate a presidential election, “it would have been a dereliction of duty not to investigate.” ...

During the campaign, Trump, members of his family and his campaign aides had dozens of contacts with Russian nationals and officials. His campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and Manafort’s deputy, Rick Gates, who both worked for pro-Russian oligarchs and politicians in Ukraine, passed confidential internal polling data to a Russian intelligence operative.

Russia hacked Democratic National Committee servers, then passed embarrassing information to WikiLeaks so it could be released publicly at moments advantageous to Trump. WikiLeaks was in communication about the information with Trump adviser Roger Stone, whom Trump later pardoned for lying to Congress about the scandal, witness tampering and obstruction. Russia also mounted a comprehensive trolling campaign through social media to boost Trump’s presidential bid. Plus, the infamous Trump Tower meeting with Russian nationals.

Trump successfully convinced people that all of that (and more) could be reduced to the question of whether he “colluded” with the Kremlin, a word with no fixed meaning. Mueller unwittingly helped in this effort by contending in his report that he was prevented by Justice Department policies from saying Trump committed crimes, even though he offered copious evidence that Trump did, especially in his efforts to obstruct the investigation.

Mueller “practically stood on his head to avoid besmirching Donald Trump out of an exercise of caution,” McQuade told me. “I don’t see Durham doing the same thing here.” In fact, Durham did just the opposite. His report ignores that it would have been insane for the FBI not to investigate what turned out to be perhaps the most dangerous effort ever of a hostile foreign power attempting to manipulate American politics.

You’ll search his report in vain for any mention of, for instance, the fact that Trump’s campaign chairman passed information to a Russian intelligence operative. Nearly every mention of Manafort is about his relationship with former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, who turned out to be an inconsequential figure in the scandal yet takes up much of the space in Durham’s report because of the FBI’s shoddy means of obtaining FISA warrants to surveil him.

In the end, Durham’s investigation achieved little to nothing of consequence. He indicted three people, one of whom pleaded guilty to illegally modifying an email and was sentenced to probation; the other two were acquitted. His report tries to turn what is already known about FBI sloppiness into something new and shocking.

But if his goal was to give Trump and his dishonest minions an excuse to repeat their bogus claims about his innocence in the Russia scandal? Mission accomplished. — Washington Post

in which he argues that the belief in political authority, or the institution of government, is the most dangerous superstition people have been taught. — AntonioP

I have no problem with the Materialism embodied in my cell-phone. But I do take issue with ignoring the philosophical questions raised by the spooky foundations of the material world. — Gnomon

please explain why you claim that a metaphysics of materialism is "anti-metaphysical" — 180 Proof

why, particularly in philosophy, you prioritize 'arguments with non-propositional premises' — 180 Proof

The brain is an amazing thing. — Ludwig V

So do you consider Spinoza with his counter-biased more geometrico, for instance, a "positivist"? — 180 Proof

How do we know ChatGPT isn't conscious? — RogueAI

What I use the term "religion" for in this context is primarily in claims about reality, i.e in religious beliefs that have no supported claims either in facts or any logical framework. — Christoffer

Are you familiar with the early Buddhists texts and the account of the awakening of the Buddha? What 'wild assumptions' do you think are conveyed in those texts? For that matter, what issue are they addressing?
— Wayfarer

In light of what I wrote on Phaedo, you can deconstruct that in a similar manner. What are religious conclusions and what are conceptual explorations in pursuit of further perspectives? — Christoffer

So no, it's not positivism, as you can read above, it is acknowledging historical context, and through that, understand what is and what isn't philosophy. — Christoffer

You cannot form rational conclusions in religious arguments since they are bound to a specific pre-existing belief. Philosophy, even in ancient practices, aimed at mentally remove biases, even religious ones, in order to explore everything. This is why real philosophy survives time, while religious claims does not. — Christoffer

According to Hadot, one became an ancient Platonist, Aristotelian, or Stoic in a manner more comparable to the twenty-first century understanding of religious conversion, rather than the way an undergraduate or graduate student chooses to accept and promote, for example, the theoretical perspectives of Nietzsche, Badiou, Davidson, or Quine.... Hadot acknowledges his use of the term “spiritual exercises” may create anxieties, by associating philosophical practices more closely with religious devotion than typically done. Hadot’s use of the adjective “spiritual” (or sometimes “existential”) indeed aims to capture how these practices, like devotional practices in the religious traditions, are aimed at generating and reactivating a constant way of living and perceiving in prokopta, despite the distractions, temptations, and difficulties of life. For this reason, they call upon far more than “reason alone.”

A provocative paper from researchers at Microsoft claims A.I. technology shows the ability to understand the way people do. Critics say those scientists are kidding themselves.

You could say that there was a hierarchy of truth. — Andrew4Handel

Cicero wrote of the Eleusinian mysteries in his On the Laws:

For it appears to me that among the many exceptional and divine things your Athens has produced and contributed to human life, nothing is better than those mysteries. For by means of them we have transformed from a rough and savage way of life to the state of humanity, and have been civilized. Just as they are called initiations, so in actual fact we have learned from them the fundamentals of life, and have grasped the basis not only for living with joy but also for dying with a better hope.” — Ciceronianus

[Forbidden ideas] are different in different countries and in different ages; but wherever
you are, let it be known that you seriously hold a tabooed belief, and you may be
perfectly sure of being treated with a cruelty less brutal but more refined than hunting
you like a wolf. Thus the greatest intellectual benefactors of mankind have never dared,
and dare not now [in America, circa 1877], to utter the whole of their thought.
– Charles Sanders Pierce, “The Fixation of Belief,” Philosophical Writings, 20 — Fooloso4

So, on TPF, I'm just trying to understand what some serious thinkers on this forum are talking about. And why other posters react emotionally/politically to the foreign language of "woo". Other than immersing myself in mystical literature, do you have any suggestions? :smile: — Gnomon

The result of all this [i.e. the observer problem], according to the mainstream Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics (although note, again, that there is no settled orthodoxy here), is that “the act of measurement actively constructs the reality that is measured.” In the words of Bohr’s colleague Pascual Jordan, “we ourselves produce the results of measurement.”

You can see the religious appeal here. If science has allegedly been the extended story of sidelining humanity as Freud famously thought – first from the centre of the universe (Copernicus), then from the centre of life (Darwin) and then from the centre of ourselves (Freud, of course) – quantum mechanics has done our pride a whole load of good by rediscovering the reality and significance of human subjectivity right at the deepest most intimate level of all creation. “We turned the world inside out”, Bohr tells Heisenberg in Michael Frayn’s play Copenhagen. “Throughout history we keep finding ourselves displaced. We keep exiling ourselves to the periphery of things”:

“Until we come to beginning of the twentieth century, and we’re suddenly forced to rise from our knees again… here in Copenhagen…we discover that there is no precisely determinable objective universe. That the universe exists only as a series of approximations. Only within the limits determined by our relationship with it. Only through the understanding lodged inside the human head.”

Define what religious belief is? Is it a proven claim? A deduced conclusion? If something isn't proven or doesn't possess any internal logic, if it is based on wild assumptions, what is it? — Christoffer

What's the praxis of philosophy? What is it that you actually do when doing philosophy? Is it just looking up in the night sky and have some ideas about reality? Is it just deciding some rules you like about how people should act against each other? This thread's main plot is essentially "what is philosophy?" So what is it? If it's not religion, not science, how do you define it? — Christoffer

According to Hadot, twentieth- and twenty-first-century academic philosophy has largely lost sight of its ancient origin in a set of spiritual practices that range from forms of dialogue, via species of meditative reflection, to theoretical contemplation. These philosophical practices, as well as the philosophical discourses the different ancient schools developed in conjunction with them, aimed primarily to form, rather than only to inform, the philosophical student. The goal of the ancient philosophies, Hadot argued, was to cultivate a specific, constant attitude toward existence, by way of the rational comprehension of the nature of humanity and its place in the cosmos. This cultivation required, specifically, that students learn to combat their passions and the illusory evaluative beliefs instilled by their passions, habits, and upbringing. ....

For Hadot... the means for the philosophical student to achieve the “complete reversal of our usual ways of looking at things” epitomized by the Sage were a series of spiritual exercises. These exercises encompassed all of those practices still associated with philosophical teaching and study: reading, listening, dialogue, inquiry, and research. However, they also included practices deliberately aimed at addressing the student’s larger way of life, and demanding daily or continuous repetition: practices of attention (prosoche), meditations (meletai), memorizations of dogmata, self-mastery (enkrateia), the therapy of the passions, the remembrance of good things, the accomplishment of duties, and the cultivation of indifference towards indifferent things (PWL 84). Hadot acknowledges his use of the term “spiritual exercises” may create anxieties, by associating philosophical practices more closely with religious devotion than typically done (Nussbaum 1996, 353-4; Cooper 2010). Hadot’s use of the adjective “spiritual” (or sometimes “existential”) indeed aims to capture how these practices, like devotional practices in the religious traditions (6a), are aimed at generating and reactivating a constant way of living and perceiving in prokopta, despite the distractions, temptations, and difficulties of life. For this reason, they call upon far more than “reason alone.” They also utilize rhetoric and imagination in order “to formulate the rule of life to ourselves in the most striking and concrete way” and aim to actively re-habituate bodily passions, impulses, and desires (as for instance, in Cynic or Stoic practices, abstinence is used to accustom followers to bear cold, heat, hunger, and other privations) (PWL 85). — IEP

It's not until very recently that philosophical scrutiny reached a point that we usually call scientific in quality. — Christoffer

being an initiate didn't make one a mystic — Ciceronianus

Mystic: Middle English: from Old French mystique, or via Latin from Greek mustikos, from mustēs ‘initiated person’ from muein ‘close the eyes or lips’, also ‘initiate’.

What I meant by religion being biased is that all arguments in religion has a bias towards the specific religion they come from. They (through history) can create great philosophical questions and be highly intelligent deductions, but in the end, as soon as something can't be explained, they always conclude it with a connection to the religious fantasy that was preconceived of the argument ... My point is that bias and fallacies are common traits in religion because of how many arguments fail to go past the "because God" or "because of this religious text". When an argument doesn't rely on that, it doesn't matter if it's a religious thinker or if the concept is more continental in appearance. There are plenty of metaphorical arguments in religious writing that functions as solid philosophical ones, but as I said, they are then technically no longer religious arguments since they don't have a bias towards the beliefs of that religion and instead rely on rational reasoning without biases.... I don't draw the hard line as positivist in that sense of "guilt by association" against religion. What I'm focusing on is the existence of bias and fallacy within ideas, concepts and reasoning. — Christoffer

Any other form of reasoning that includes biases and fallacies without a rigid framework to fight them, fails at philosophy and becomes emotional opinions, fantasies, guru gobbledygook etc. — Christoffer

The only part of you that you cannot lose, and still think of yourself as you (and, for that matter, still think), is your brain. — Patterner

Correctional institutions are overpopulated due to the incorrect juristic notion that persons determine themselves to act, or not, by law. — quintillus