On their deathbed, most people regret not spending more quality time with family, friends and passions. A life devoted to striving and achievement seems unbalanced in retrospect. — apokrisis

I think that is true to a large extent, though I think some are merely bitter or defiant. Also, it must surely be true that many people who have strived and achieved, especially highly, will not regret their striving,

Anyway, regarding the "regretters" - is their actual internal focus on lost time or the feeling that they have not been adequate to the task of having lived a more fulfilled, engaging/loving life I wonder? It is easy to blame lost time, but in life it seems quite hard to thrive - to "self-actualise"; to come out of our shells.

I have particularly enjoyed your writing on this thread BTW.

I'd say it isn't.

A proposition can't be true and false. — Michael Ossipoff

Sure, but perhaps a more likely "refutation" of logic could be constructed from denying the existence of truth and falsity in the first place..... maybe the quantum world will turn out to be like that, and utterly incomprehensible to us.

From a scientific point of view, consumption is actually a drain on the economy, not a blessing. Those people are consuming goods and more resources need to go into their production for that reason. — Agustino

The truth is the more work that society squeezes from the population, the more extreme luxury goods are made, and the fewer people consume them. The effect becomes more bizarre and exaggerated as technology and productivity increases.

I think if someone is able to work, and they refuse to work, then they shouldn't be given anything - I mean it would be unfair for someone who can contribute to not contribute and freeload on the back of others no? — Agustino

In a tribal village setting yes. But in a modern technological massively connected society such thinking is out of context. You are,in effect, cutting off your nose to spite your face.

The counter argument is primarily moral - it's not right to give people money who don't or won't work for it. They don't deserve it. — T Clark

People do love a bit of morality, 'tis true. With basic income, there is always the opportunity to tut at how someone has done nothing with the opportunity, while another has shone in some way.

In other words, what is the smallest amount of present time that can exist in order to differentiate the past and future? — JohnLocke

In atomic engineering terms it is very small - a trillionth of a second? As to what the limits are...some say time itself is ultimately granular and discrete.

Because mathematics is a logic subject, I have no doubt that the same mathematics obtains in every possibility-world, and in every life-experience possibility-story — Michael Ossipoff

I think we are trapped/guided (delete as inappropriate) by logic as humans, but what if logic is illusory? Is it possible to talk about such a thing (as logic being illusory) even?

Could you give an example of the sort of reply you are expecting?

No, I say they're distinct, because they're unrelated to eachother, and completely independent of, and irrelevant to, and inaccessible to, eachother, with no connection of any kind to eachother. — Michael Ossipoff

Russell and Whitehead came very close to deducing all of matematics from logic only (Principia Mathematica). Perhaps mathematical facts are not so independent as you might think?

I wonder what their intent was...

All the distinct systems of inter-referring abstract facts are irrelevant to eachother, — Michael Ossipoff

Yes, providing they are indeed distinct. I think we agree that this is debatable...

It's like we see parts of the beauty, but it's difficult to see the entirety of it. — Noble Dust

Hmmm it seems you are introducing the concept of overarching narrative into the procedings. Whilst I agree that a narrative can have beauty of sorts, I don't think it is an essential component to being beautiful. Parts can be beautiful per se - or at least beautiful within a constricted narrative. The mega-meta narrative bothers me.

Actually I'm not sure now that they are contradictory statements. It could be that beauty is always available but it comes in a subjective form. In other words, the onus is on us to see/hear beauty. I could go with that! (will check out tigers, larks and penguins more fully and let you know..)

t's just a subjective aesthetic judgement — Noble Dust

Beauty is there if you're willing to see it. — Noble Dust

I might be tempted to agree with either statement on its own, but surely not both together...

The combination in the bird of color, movement, and song, cause us to experience beauty. — Noble Dust

Hmmm - I would say it's rare to have even two of those features "beautiful" simultaneously.

The Lark : lovely sounding bird when hovering high but one can barely see it, and it;s pretty drab anyway.

The Tiger : lovely to look at but not very graceful or nice sounding

The Penguin - great mover in water but ungainly per se and certainly not musical

etc etc

But, as for sets of them, the fact that we can divide them into sets as we choose--Doesn't that mean that there are infinitely many sets of them, equal to the number of combinations that can be formed from those infinitely-many abstract logical facts? — Michael Ossipoff

But as I say, who gets to choose? A "subset" might be a mathematical abstraction, but it seems faintly silly to assign a universe or whatever to each one. Surely any mathematical underpinning of existence isn't based on Venn diagrams??!!

Infinitely-many. — Michael Ossipoff

I would be inclined to say just one. Who decides on the subsets?

Maybe this universe superfluously has objective existence too—in addition to being identical in detail to a complex system of inter-referring inevitable abstract logical facts. — Michael Ossipoff

How many sets of "inevitable abstract logical facts" are there?

I've suggested that Esperanto would be more successful, and actually fairer, if it adopted an all-English vocabulary, — Michael Ossipoff

I like Esperanto but English speakers shouldn't get it too easy. Besides it would clash with English itself - better to have a clean break if Esperanto were to be adopted.

So what's your ideal world? — MountainDwarf

I think it's better to ask "what is the most practical way to organize the world to maximize happiness", or something similar. Then, hopefully, with the help of freedom, the diverse ways that people seek to be happy (their own little "ideal world") could be largely achievable.

Welcome to The Philosophy Forum! — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Thanks Tiff!

. A theist would agree that although they have belief, it's a belief based on faith and not on reason. — fishfry

They would not agree that faith is a leap in a random direction however. They will make every effort to rationalise the direction, eventually resorting to faulty rationalism!

So do we set ourselves up as some game show producers.. and apparently the newborns are the contestants that must play the game? — schopenhauer1

Ouch! How apt, if you want to be cynical... What was the equivalent cultural related statement/question in Schopenhauer's time I wonder? (I'm assuming there was one)

Business-to-business is not so simple — tim wood

Indeed. In the UK businesses get their purchase taxes back - only the end consumer pays it without reclaiming. It' almost as much admin as income tax.

Can you imagine the huge inflation that we would incur if the government had the Central Bank print all the money it currently needs? — Agustino

Yes. In fact I started a thread about it! Turns out that it could be very manageable with the aid of computers. Please have a considered read!

a single national sales tax. — tim wood

Yes, that's quite an interesting idea because of the relative ease of administration and differentiation of tax rates. But the categories would have to be straightforward, and I don't think keeping tally on how much a person has spent so far on clothes is practicable.

If printing more money to finance government operations devalues the coin of the realm, isn't that a form of taxation? — Bitter Crank

Indeed, as I mentioned, it is. I am wondering what unusual forms of taxation might work.

Continuing ... here is how the idea might work in practice.

It requires that all payment transactions go through computers. Basically, the currency that you hold in your account is being devalued because of extra currency being created centrally. Suppose you start with the currency - let's call it the dollar - at its end of year zero value of 1.0. By the end of year one it might be worth say 95% of its year zero value.

Your dollar total is constant (if you don't spend that is..). But when you make a payment of any sort the computerized system applies a scaling factor to compensate for dollar devaluation. So, if you start year one with a thousand dollars, you will still have a thousand dollars in your account, but as they are only worth 950 Year Zero dollars your account will read to you that you have just 950 dollars. Year Zero dollars are now worth 1000/950 = approx 1.05 now-dollars. If you buy something at the end of year one for the advertised price of 100 year zero dollars, the system will actually reduce your account by 105 dollars (and 26 cents :) )

In practice, the exchange rate would change a little bit each day, and not once at the end of the year. It would be a continuous thing. However, as all prices, wages etc are expressed in Year Zero prices there is continuity of price meaning. And given that the government is continually pumping in more currency, the amount in circulation rises and so people's bank account will tend to have more dollars in them as time marches on - though not necessarily more dollars at Year Zero prices of course.

Paper currency could still be viable, but with the proviso that the face value refers to that value of dollars at the time of printing only, and that you would have to ask your phone what that "100 dollar" note is worth in today's dollars.

I think I have invented the future!

It's because the people in government are corrupt. If they were paragons of virtue, they would fix them, it's not super complicated. — Agustino

Good point. Don't forget though that politicians work hard to keep on lots of others in the club wealthy and low tax paying...

are not the self-made billionaires generating wealth and jobs as well? — Marchesk

Not necessarily. Once a technical brand becomes established it tends to focus on features that increase revenue, rather than efficiency for the user. Think web browser!

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Hi my name is Jake and I think Roger Scruton is the most boring philosopher and writer I have read.

&@Charleton : Prof Nutt in the UK supervised a Channel 4 documentary in which people took MDMA and they were brain scanned & interviewed or whatever. It proved an important experiment, because one person out of the 20 or so participants had a negative reaction, which suprised the prof. It seems MDMA is not a failsafe guarantee of a happy experience, though it seems only a small minority of people don't like it. As the profs say.. "more research (money!) is needed..."

"Eau de Moi", if I was feeling unkind :)

Great poem! Did you write it?

why do we so often choose to only study the philosophy that comes out from the West — darthbarracuda

Maybe because "study" and academic traditions can be found there. Perhaps it is the nature of academic study that you are really bothered about, in your heart of hearts? Academia loves a narrative in art, literature and philosophy too. I find these narratives rather arbitrary, and I suspect they eventually change the raw material of their focus into ever more contrived shapes. But I am very biased, because I always prefer to think from first principles, or in their vicinity. Academic rigor, recall and discipline is simply something I'm not good at!

Drugs are a cheap substitute to feeling alive — Maytane Winner

I think the intention here is not to suggest that drugs are inexpensive, but that they are morally "cheap". But if one is indeed not "feeling alive" - not quite sure what that means but I assume it is something very unpleasant, then I fail to see how drug use is immoral just because it happens to alleviate that "problem".

So, drugs give people an escape from their own selves. — Maytane Winner

Some drugs maybe. Other drugs tend to amplify - including one's disquiet with oneself or other things,

However, attractiveness is only partly subjective. It is perfectly reasonable, scientifically speaking, to rank people in order of attractiveness. It's not an absolute ranking order,because of the subjective element, but generally speaking people occupy a rank for general attractiveness . The objective part of this rank is partly due to reasons of evolutionary psychology, partly cultural influence.

My question is this: do objectively more attractive couples enjoy sex more than plainer couples?

OK, so what you mean to claim is "subjective attractiveness is necessary for love".

That is a much watered down claim. It is almost like saying "only lovable people can be loved". Almost a tautology.

Therefore, an unattractive person cannot be loved - this is a logical corollary of your claim, yes?

Sorry to sound like a bullying barrister/antagonistic attorney, but are you, or are you not saying that attractiveness is necessary for love? Or are you now saying that attractiveness is merely a help towards love?