• Adrian Morar
    1
    Dear Sir,
    This is a work of friend of mine who lives and works as an architect in Romania.He published his work at a small publishing house in Iassy, Romania. He requested me to help him make his book visible on specialized sites since he doesn't speak English; he would like comments and validation of his work on any level.Following is a copy of a summary of his book.
  • god must be atheist
    5.1k
    The more intelligent and insightful an article, the smaller the audience.Nuke

    Quantum mechanics at work. "The smaller a volume of space is, the more energy it contains."

    Both are counter-intuitive, and yet absolutely true.
  • god must be atheist
    5.1k
    I promise to send in an article if it does not get published in any other currently peer-reviewed journal in two years, concluding with the end of 2022.

    Provided I live that long, and this site does, too.
  • Giorgi
    17
    Hey so, I don't know how to attach files in this forum.
    But if you could visit my medium account (sorry to be "marketing" my work this way), some of my stuff is free to read, if you like any of those articles, feel free to publish them? Or if you have any suggestions as to how we can best communicate on this please let me know.

    https://giorgivachnadze.medium.com/
  • Gus Lamarch
    924
    - Still waiting for the approval of my article - or at least, a "no" - -
  • fdrake
    5.9k


    It was read. We decided no. Sorry for the delay.
  • Gus Lamarch
    924
    It was read. We decided no. Sorry for the delay.fdrake

    Thanks for the answer.
  • god must be atheist
    5.1k
    I'm at my wit's end in trying to publish something in an academic journal. I gave myself one more chance. If it does not work out, then I'll present it here.

    So please note, that on January 3 or thereabouts, of 2022, if I live to see that day, I'll submit an article here.

    I shall leave it to you to determine if this a is threat or a promise. (Haha, so to speak.)
  • Gardener
    4
    OK THIS IS MY ARTICLE - How could any one believe they KNOW God doesn't exist.

    I remember.. someone who seemed so sure that god did not exist.. which got me wondering.. What did he mean by the word - GOD.. because.. with out a clear definition.. the word could mean anything.. I needed to ask him.. what is the word you use referring to.. for the sake of clarity ?
    It is what the word represents that is important.. not the word itself.. We need to ask.. is it a symbol.. a metaphor or a noun.. according to your understanding..? If it is a symbol.. what does it represent..? Does it represent something that we can experience.. i.e. ..Like experiencing a transformation of our consciousness to a higher level.. or is it a metaphor that expresses our perception of the underlying unity of all things.. the Infinite and Eternal.. the foundation of all things.. mysterious in its complexity.. far beyond our comprehension..?

    Since we know.. for a fact.. there are things way beyond our understanding.. and things that we can never know..How could any one believe they KNOW God doesn't exist.. ?

    Unless they mean... .They do not believe that THIER UNDERSTANDING of the word GOD... exists.. which is another thing entirely.. and seems a very strange position to take.... Why not just change their understanding..?

    That there are things that will always be beyond human understanding.. is a FACT.. not a belief.. This was proved by Kurt Godel's Incompleteness Theorem .. and many great physicists also reached that same conclusion.. The universe appears TO BE so strange and goes far beyond the way we can think.. The picture that cutting edge physics paints is.. the universe appears to be a living entity.. just and teeth and bones are living.. yet appear life-less. CONCLUSION - W e are not even close to understanding the big picture.. and we never will...

    All living things have a limited understanding.. and we are no different.. Just because the world.. as we experience it.. is beyond the comprehension of a door-mouse.. it doesn't mean our world does not exist.. it just means.. the door mouse brain has its limitations.. IT CANNOT DETECT THE EXISTENCE OF THE COMPLEXITIES OF OUR WORLD.. OR UNDERSTAND OUR KNOWLEDGE AND OUR SCIENCE... JUST AS WE CAN'T DETECT SOMETHING ELSE EXISTING.. THAT IS FAR ABOVE US (metaphorically speaking.. of course)

    EVIDENCE OF A HIGHER STATE OF CONSCIOUSNESS.. TO THE DOOR-MOUSE.. WOULD BE US.. because our existence goes far beyond the mouse's understanding.. so it cannot make sense of it..
    Try explaining the internet to a door-mouse.. it will just look at you wide-eyed.. and go.... "DUH! .... NOTHING LIKE THAT COULD EVER EXIST".

    BUT WOULD HE BE RIGHT... OR WRONG..?

    “Not only is the Universe stranger than we think, it is STRANGER THAN WE CAN THINK.” - said Werner Heisenberg

    As Heinz Pagels, a theoretical physicist explains: “The visible world is the invisible organization of energy.” - "This UNTHINKABLE void converts itself into the plenum of existence - a necessary consequence of physical laws. Where are these laws written into that void? What "tells" the void that it is pregnant with a possible universe? It would seem that even the void is subject to law, A LOGIC THAT EXISTS PRIOR TO SPACE AND TIME.”

    ”Mind and intelligence are woven into the fabric of our universe in a way that ALTOGETHER SURPASSES OUR UNDERSTANDING.” wrote Freeman Dyson

    Albert Einstein said - "To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is SOMETHING THAT OUR MIND CAN NOT GRASP and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection, this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious."

    “God is a metaphor for THAT WHICH TRANSCENDS ALL LEVELS OF INTELLECTUAL THOUGHT. It's as simple as that. The Ultimate, Unqualified Mystery is BEYOND HUMAN EXPERIENCE” - Joseph Campbell, Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor
    -
  • Isaac
    10.3k
    THIS IS MY ARTICLE - How could any one believe they KNOW God doesn't exist.Gardener

    Interesting. I don't think anyone's really tackled such a niche topic before.
  • Gardener
    4
    I'm asperger typical.. we tend to think outside the box.. we're information junkies.. lovers of good debate.. that prefer ideas to being with people.. I've being studying this stuff obsessively for 50y years.. and I'm 70 now.. so I could kick the bucket at any minute.. I want to write it all down.. so I can upload my spirit to the net.. and leave the best of me behind.. when I go.. The rest is for the worms..
  • Jamal
    9.2k
    Thanks, they look interesting. I don't know when I'll get around to reading them. Maybe others on the staff might want to have a look: @StreetlightX, @fdrake, @Baden.

    Thanks Josh. On the face of it, something like a critique of mindfulness might have some potential, and personally I'm interested in phenomenology, but ideally, articles should be accessible to intelligent and curious lay-people, those who aren't familiar with the literature.
  • VagabondSpectre
    1.9k
    This post is a grammatical nightmare. Constant use of all-caps text, ellipses, slang, etc, make it unsuitable from the get-go, but the overall lack of coherent structure renders it as a stream-of-consciousness rant-like post.

    Stream-of-consciousness style writing isn't all that bad, but it's not suitable for a serious philosophical article. There might be very interesting and useful ideas in your post, but they're not likely to see much daylight given their dressings. My advice is to pick a single idea that you think is important and that you wish to defend, and start a thread that introduces the idea and gives a supporting argument. Making a series of posts to defend the premises of your article's titular conclusion is probably the best way to give it air-time and critical attention.
  • Garth
    117
    I think your thesis is hard to to defend because you don't ask whether God exists or whether someone can know God doesn't exists. Instead you ask how someone can believe they know God doesn't exist. This means you must defend even cases of people being completely mistaken. I can point to at least one person -- myself -- who believes he knows God does not exist. Are you really prepared to argue that you know what I believe better than I do?
  • Gus Lamarch
    924
    but ideally, articles should be accessible to intelligent and curious lay-people, those who aren't familiar with the literaturejamalrob

    Could you expatiate on why my article was rejected - simply for a better assessment if it was my demerit during the development process, or if it was something from the administration -?
  • jgill
    3.6k
    I'm at my wit's end in trying to publish something in an academic journal.god must be atheist

    Publishing in such journals may be difficult if the author is not in academia. This has been discussed elsewhere in the forum. Good luck.
  • god must be atheist
    5.1k
    Thanks, jgill, for your good wishes for me.
  • Gus Lamarch
    924
    Could you expatiate on why my article was rejected - simply for a better assessment if it was my demerit during the development process, or if it was something from the administration -?Gus Lamarch

    Thanks for the answer.
  • fdrake
    5.9k
    simply for a better assessment if it was my demerit during the development process, or if it was something from the administration -?Gus Lamarch

    A few of the reasons:

    (1) The argumentative style was overblown, lots of grandstanding.
    (2) you talked around points without making them clearly. Say what you'll say, say it, then tell us you've said it. Tell us why what you're writing about matters.
    (3) the essay was poorly formatted and layed out on the page. - eg your use of whitespace+linebreaks and numbered lists in p 1->6.
    (4) the philosophical content touches on an obvious case of the naturalistic fallacy without addressing it. If you're going to do something like naturalise morality, you need an answer to why it's not the fallacy.
    (5) You'd previously submitted it as the original post of a thread.

    A few sections aren't arguments or clear intuition pumps, eg. the "life-egoism" graph on p2 does not clearly relate to any of the argument before or after it. If it only clearly relates to you it's not good communication.

    I'll provide more examples of the points if you like.
  • Gus Lamarch
    924
    A few of the reasons:fdrake

    How ironic is the fact that you were the spokesman chosen - by you - to explain why my article was denied. Your ego was so frail, that you felt obliged, in some way, to prove to me - and to yourself - that somehow, you still have power. Again, you prove me correct, and you, wrong.

    The argumentative style was overblown, lots of grandstanding.fdrake

    That is called "romanticism" and was used extensively by the majority of philosophers between the 18th and 19th centuries. If a reader of my article fails to interpret the vision being presented there, he should not be reading a philosophy article; let alone be in a philosophy forum.

    you talked around points without making them clearly. Say what you'll say, say it, then tell us you've said it. Tell us why what you're writing about matters.fdrake

    The individuals who have "read" my article most likely do not know how the creation and structuring of thought works in an article. If they don't happen to know, Hegel had already created the three divisions of the demonstration of an argument:

    Thesis;
    Antithesis;
    Synthesis.


    And in my article, I made it a point to make this division explicit for the reader by using subtitles for each part of the argument.

    the essay was poorly formatted and layed out on the page. - eg your use of whitespace+linebreaks and numbered lists in p 1->6.fdrake

    Jamalrob specified to me that the formatting was not important given the fact that if approved, a whole new formatting would be directed to the article, so I let me write and structure the article in a way that seemed most appealing and academic to me.

    the philosophical content touches on an obvious case of the naturalistic fallacy without addressing it. If you're going to do something like naturalise morality, you need an answer to why it's not the fallacy.fdrake

    It is these points of dubious tendency that make me discourage having my writings published here.

    The naturalistic "fallacy", here, in your "justification", proves vacant of support and foundation.

    You'd previously submitted it as the original post of a thread.fdrake

    The discussion had taken place without the knowledge that it was necessary to publish it - the article - in the specific section for articles.

    The rules and guidelines are not explicit and are left in the background. Anyone unaware of how the forum works - like me, when I decided to post the article - would have no idea what the rules are for submitting an academic text.

    I'll provide more examples of the points if you like.fdrake

    I am grateful if you can give me more material to show to others how the intellect of the forum administration is biased, impartial, and incapable of plurality of thoughts. Feel free to submit more.
  • Jack Cummins
    5.1k

    I don't know why you or some others are concerned about their articles being accepted for the actual articles section because we can read your article anyway. Also, a couple of people have submitted articles by link. So, really by the time any were put into the section of articles most people would have read them already.

    About a month ago, Hippyhead had ideas that the whole site should be altered with the articles being the main one. I strongly disliked this idea because I thought that it would set up a system where the people with accepted articles would be seen as of higher rank. I said to Hippyhead that I didn't like the whole idea of article submissions because it set up a power dynamic of people having their work accepted or rejected.

    So, what I am saying is that I don't think that you need be concerned about your article not being 'accepted' because it is on the site. People have only to log into the Section on Articles Submitted and your article on Egoism is there, waiting to be read. Also, on my phone, the font is clearer than the one in the official articles section.
  • fdrake
    5.9k
    Your ego was so frail, that you felt obliged, in some way, to prove to me - and to yourself - that somehow, you still have power. Again, you prove me correct, and you, wrong.Gus Lamarch

    :up:

    To be fair, the passive aggressive reason I chose to relay these points now was that I was lenient with you over another mod issue, and I felt you were rude with me for it. It was a nice confluence of no one wanting to do it and me having a shitty reason to do it. I am, however, relaying honest feedback to you (and it's not just mine). If you decide to use that feedback to improve the article, I guess you win!

    I am grateful if you can give me more material to show to others how the intellect of the forum administration is biased, impartial, and incapable of plurality of thoughts. Feel free to submit more.Gus Lamarch

    If you seemed willing to address the issues I've highlighted I'd be more willing to provide you with further feedback. The essay has structural problems; why are you arguing what you're arguing? Tell us! And tell us why it matters! It should be relatively easy to tell what you're arguing about and why it matters, from the essay, even if I don't understand the terms' intricacies. You need to give readers a desire to buy in to study your work, you get closer to that by being clear.

    The naturalistic "fallacy", here, in your "justification", proves vacant of support and foundation.Gus Lamarch

    However, I come to affirm my hypothesis that there is a fourth
    category of egoism that has not yet been recognized, but it is more important than all the others, and that in principle, it would be the causality of all humanity: Natural Egoism – Man's egoism is the natural essence of “Being”.
    — Gus Lamarch, from the Article

    One vital part of a discussion paper which advances an argument is anticipating common counterarguments against your claims. As I understood the major thrust of your article, it runs something like: (1) Human values derive from an inherent structure called the ego (2) This inherent structure characterises these values (3) It is a perversion (of modern civilisation) not to adhere to the values derived only from the inherent structure. What is good is explained in terms of an inherent structure of the ego; at face value an appeal to nature. I'm not saying it's necessarily a bad thing to do that, I'm saying that you should be aware that that would be a common way of dismissing your argument. Addressing this point would strengthen your argument considerably.

    It's quite like why Anscombe devoted a lot of words to Hume's fork, and introduced the concept of relative bruteness in order to make room for her ethics. She knew what mattered to her enemies, and why it mattered to them.

    If you understand why an accusation of the naturalistic fallacy doesn't apply to your article, don't spend your time arguing with me about it, put it in your article.
  • Gus Lamarch
    924
    So, what I am saying is that I don't think that you need be concerned about your article not being 'accepted' because it is on the site. People have only to log into the Section on Articles Submitted and your article on Egoism is there, waiting to be read. Also, on my phone, the font is clearer than the one in the official articles section.Jack Cummins

    The quality of my article had already been brought up by the comments in the discussion about it. The point is that I would like to "make it official" in the forum, as a mere symbol of "registration".

    However, as I found in the refutation of the administration's arguments, the forum is biased, and contrary to the plurality of ideas. It was great that these points were made explicit.

    I hope that less people are deluded by the false proposal to leave their thoughts public, that this forum sells to its users.

    The forum itself is very good. It is its structuring compounds that rot it from the inside out...

    About a month ago, Hippyhead had ideas that the whole site should be altered with the articles being the main one. I strongly disliked this idea because I thought that it would set up a system where the people with accepted articles would be seen as of higher rank. I said to Hippyhead that I didn't like the whole idea of article submissions because it set up a power dynamic of people having their work accepted or rejected.Jack Cummins

    More than 10 articles have been submitted for approval by the administration since the "articles" tab was created. However, the only one to be "accepted" and published was- as expected - written by one of the administrators ...

    If this future to the forum was to be adopted, it would perish.

    If you seemed willing to address the issues I've highlighted I'd be more willing to provide you with further feedback. The essay has structural problems; why are you arguing what you're arguing? Tell us! And tell us why it matters! It should be relatively easy to tell what you're arguing about and why it matters, from the essay, even if I don't understand the terms' intricacies. You need to give readers a desire to buy in to study your work, you get closer to that by being clear.fdrake

    You, as you normally do, completely ignored my last answers about why I use the "romantic" style to write my works:

    (1): The search for understanding what the writer wants to pass on, is the total and unique responsibility of the reader. I do not write a guide for lazy children who are unable to read a text, and do not seek to interpret its true meaning behind the words recorded there.

    (2): The article, and more importantly, the subject discussed in it, must be exclusively important to its writer. The article, after being finalized, exists and is published. It will be captivating and seek its readers, among those who truly seek to study and reflect on the subject treated in it. The text is a record of information, not sharing it. The transfer of knowledge and ideas arises from the spontaneous interaction of another individual with the content of the article.

    (3): The text must be a reflection of the writer himself and therefore must be clear to its own writer; the text must be objective so that the writer can more easily express himself;

    What you, like everyone else, decide not to understand, is the point that my writings are not for others, but for me. The text exists, therefore, obviously that it can be read by someone else. If that other individual is interested and seeks to reflect, or even refute my view, great! The last thing I want, are the opinions of those who do not want to understand what I say. The point of having it published in the "articles" sections is only that it has the potential of being read by those who want to read it.

    appeal to nature. I'm not saying it's necessarily a bad thing to do thatfdrake

    the philosophical content touches on an obvious case of the naturalistic fallacyfdrake

    I have to say anything else for this bit?

    put it in your article.fdrake

    My article does not exist to defend itself against attacks. It exists to express a hypothesis supported by an in-depth studies in history, language and culture:

    You write a work;
    The work is attacked;
    You write a defense for your work.


    Do you understand now, how the philosophical dialogue between writers is built?
  • Jack Cummins
    5.1k

    It's 2 am where I am, so I am becoming ridiculous reading and writing on this site at this time. So, I have just read what you have written quickly, so I apologise for that.

    However, what my thoughts are is that I know that you are writing in the tradition of the romantic philosophers but I am not sure that the way that they write would be accepted nowadays. The whole academic culture has changed. I am certainly not saying it is better.

    One reason why I prefer creative writing to academic writing is the whole way in which research is seen, and it is a lot worse in other disciplines from philosophy. In some disciplines absolutely every sentence has to be backed up by some research study. We are not talking about merely avoiding plagiarism but about having to find a study as evidence in order to make a point at all. It is as if the author is not allowed a personal voice at all. So, philosophy and this forum offers so much relative scope really.

    The other thought that I have is that there is a big difference between writing for oneself and writing for others. When I write in my notebooks alone that is usually my writing for myself but I know that it probably needs to be different if I was to present it to others. I have not ever submitted for publication, but I think that getting writing published is tough.

    Anyway, I won't go on because I am not sure that you will think much of my answer, and I really am tired, so good night. Also, I am not sure that this dialogue will help either of us in the eyes of anyone on the forum.
  • jgill
    3.6k
    I'm not sure TPF is a good place to undertake article publications or even postings. There must be other sites more suitable for posting efforts that are neither academic nor peer-reviewed. I published math papers when I was a prof, but after retiring over twenty years ago I researched and wrote for my own pleasure, posting my notes on researchgate. Isn't there a similar site in the humanities? It is true, however, that researchgate requires an academic affiliation of some sort.

    Posting an essay here as an OP seems not to be unusual. So there must be a need for recognition beyond simple participation on a forum.
  • Benkei
    7.2k
    Stop wasting everybody's time. You were given some of the reasons why the article wasn't published. We don't care what you think of the reasons why it wasn't accepted or why you think it's necessary to argue against them. You can either fix the article along the lines @fdrake set out and resubmit or drop it.
  • Gus Lamarch
    924
    Stop wasting everybody's time. You were given some of the reasons why the article wasn't published. We don't care what you think of the reasons why it wasn't accepted or why you think it's necessary to argue against them. You can either fix the article along the lines fdrake set out and resubmit or drop it.Benkei

    You're a joke for a moderator...

    It seems your ego is really resentful of your argumentative defeat in our last discussion.

    But so be it: - To say that this forum has administration is as ridiculous as to say that Man is altruistic!
  • Benkei
    7.2k
    :rofl: It's funny how your ego expresses itself through victimhood every time.
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