I gave you the answer and if you do not pay attention to it, I am not replying again.

I agree with this, but it's a really good story. — T Clark

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.

I gave you the answer and if you do not pay attention to it, I am not replying again. — Athena

I don't give in to authority and blackmail.

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."

"And they lived in reality ever after." — T Clark

...and the poor objective one rested peacefully below their dancing trail.

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

I did not mean to post before completing my thought. And the comment about sanity was a reaction to someone else's posts. Thinking emotionally driven thinking is equal to logical thinking is not the quality of post I have been enjoying until today. I think it is time for me to take a walk.

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? — T Clark

It is not just about Trump, but what has happened to our nation. A huge portion of our population is voting emotionally and is lead by people intentionally using emotion not reason, to lead them. If we do not realize the difference between emotional thinking verse logic and reasoning nor the difference between non-fiction and fiction, I don't think democracy and liberty have a chance.

I may be in the wrong, but I come to forums with a sense of purpose and hope to engage with those who might share my sense of purpose and are able to expand my knowledge.

Don't worry dear, you do not need to know the difference between fiction and non-fiction because all you have to do is obey the authorities who handle everything for us. — Athena

That's all I don't have to do. I still have no answer why it's not good to base politics on emotion.

That's all I don't have to do. I still have no answer why it's not good to base politics on emotion. — Inplainsight

I know there is far more I do not know than what I do think I know. I do not have a problem when a person does not know something, however, when someone asks for information and ignores that information, that tells me the person is not being honest about having a discussion but is playing a game I do not want to play.

There is a saying "do not argue with ignorance". I think that is good advice when someone asks for information and then ignores it.

There is a saying "do not argue with ignorance". I think that is good advice when someone asks for information and then ignores it. — Athena

Do you mean I ignore you information and that I'm ignorant? I know damned well what Trump was doing. As an outsider maybe even better than Americans.

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

Do you think knowledge of logos, reason, the controlling force of the universe, is connected with moral thinking and democracy and liberty? As I understand things that is a very important connection.

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

Is reason the controlling force of the universe? There are lots of reasons. Not only the scientific one.

Do you mean I ignore you information and that I'm ignorant? — Inplainsight

Let's see can we check the logic of what you said?

If you ignore information that you asked for, can you be well informed, or might it be necessary to pay attention to that information to be well informed? Like how can know something you know nothing about? There is a serious difference between basing our thinking on our feelings, or basing what we think on facts and reasoning. To base what we think on facts and reasoning, we need to learn the facts and the reasoning. To react emotionally requires nothing of us and it does not equal good judgment nor good arguments.

Is reason the controlling force of the universe? There are lots of reasons. Not only the scientific one. — Inplainsight

Yes, there are reasons for things being the way they are and science helps us learn the reasons. The number of reasons is unimportant. There are many reasons for life on earth being in big trouble right now. Our only hope is to understand them and if there is anything we can do to make a difference. This is not an emotional response, although our feelings may motivate us to learn and take action, but it is a response that requires a lot and learning and a lot of reasoning, and a willingness to cooperate with others.

Bayesian analysis works with belief, not with truth. — Banno

:up:

Fortunately, nature is wise and kills the ignorant. — Athena

:100:

There is a serious difference between basing our thinking on our feelings, or basing what we think on facts and reasoning. To base what we think on facts and reasoning, we need to learn the facts and the reasoning. To react emotionally requires nothing of us and it does not equal good judgment nor good arguments. — Athena

A "serious" difference. I see it all the time in arguments. References to "seriousness", "highly", "badly", etcetera.

To react emotionally rerequires nothing? It requires "serious" thinking! Thinking emotionally. Thinking based on a feeling of justice or love or compassion with fellow Earthlings who don't base their daily lives or politics on the Ratio of the Enlightnment.

Yes, there are reasons for things being the way they are and science helps us learn the reasons. — Athena

By reasons I mean ratios. Science is not the only ratio game in town.

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.

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.

Oh no, this is a thread about democracy and the survival of humanity. — Athena

:grin:

Ok, pay that.

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. — T Clark

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? Like I know quantum physics gives us portability and not certainty but to think there are no controlling forces opens the possibility that nothing is predictable and I don't think that is very scientific.

Oh no, this is a thread about democracy and the survival of humanity. — Athena

And if you don't like it, I hope you stay out of it instead of continuing to make it unpleasant..

I think everyone's thinking is both intellectual and emotional. You clearly are emotional in your opinions. — T Clark

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.

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.

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.

...so you haven't disproven my hypothesis — Olivier5

An appeal to falsification? The facts do not support your contention. The quotes given are not from empirical philosophers.

Fact is, your definition of fact still relies on truth; just dishonestly.

If you want to argue the man in the video is wrong, first you have to pay careful attention to what he said. — Athena

We are having two different conversations - I am talking philosophy and you are talking something else. If you want to talk about philosophy, then you need to focus on the difference between the sounds/gestures/symbols we make with our bodies, what is capable of being symbolized, and things like “reality” or “what is” or the “state of affairs”. We can’t walk through walls because we can’t walk through walls. That is the “fact” that is being discussed. A person’s understanding of why they can’t walk through a wall (such as a theory of electrons, atoms, and exclusion principles) is about symbols, not about “facts.” Pointing to someone blathering on is not in the least bit responsive to why we can’t walk through a wall. Idiots and physicists alike bounce of a wall when they walk into it.

The question is, what does bouncing off of a wall have to do with “facts” as used in philosophy? The point @Banno is making is not inherently about the generalization that “we can’t walk through walls”, but that there are specific instances of us and walls and the ways in which they interact independent of how we talk about them and our talking is judged right or wrong by how well they fit the “facts.” I am not critiquing generalizations per se (which are clearly abstracted from facts and do not refer to facts themselves), but the idea that facts are assessed by the extent to which they impose themselves upon us independent of our talk.

Your understanding of science (or the video’s creator) simply does not address the conversation being had - it is an aside.

The simple case (to avoid getting wrapped up in abstractions, tenses, etc.) is Banno’s cat. When Banno says, “My cat is on the mat” he is making a factual claim that we assess as “True” or “False” based upon whether his cat is on the mat. The issue is the relationship between his cat, “facts”, and “truth.” Is there some way, independent of his cat being on the mat, that we might say “His cat is on the mat” and claim such is true besides his cat being there? And if we said it and believed it, would that mean we weren’t wrong to say it when his cat is not on the mat?

Banno’s claim is that someone can be wrong and that wrongness is assessable by something outside of language. Is he wrong?

P.S. Banno, though he can speak for himself, will be clear that he isn’t talking about our ability to assess based upon our epistemology (that is, whether our assessment of whether it is true or false meets our epistemic criteria), but rather that regardless of what we know or claim, his cat is on the mat when his cat is on the mat and is not on the mat when it isn’t. No more, no less - a “something out there” which is or isn’t, as the case may be.

Further to the point, @Athena, is that both materialism and idealism can account for us bouncing off of the wall in the same way.

I refer you to idealism, materialism/physicalism, and facts.

Which is not say that I am either a materialist or an idealist, but merely that there is a context for a discussion of facts that has nothing to do with a theory of atoms or other claims of the natural sciences.

What matters is up to us, no? Your critique smacks of aesthetics.

It would be nice if facts mattered, but they don’t. The wall pushes back until it doesn’t. Your assertion we can never walk through it is true until it isn’t. What was true is no longer true and what will be true has yet to be. Facts are not substance, but wispy things that evaporate the harder we look or the harder we try to hold them. (Go ahead, start with the block universe.)

Being wrong is like the happiness machine - a cry into the wind about how what is real should somehow carry some weight beyond what we believe or feel - that we have to get back to something that has inherent something regardless of us. A futile hand waving in the face of insurmountable intellectual absence.

Your insistence that being wrong matters does not elevate facts to things which people can be wrong about outside of belief/language, and isn’t just about idealism. We change the world (the facts) all of the time and as our knowledge expands the world stops reacting in the way that it did before. What was a “fact” before is merely the limitation of the utterer to achieve their purpose, not some feature of metaphysics. And even your use of ideas like “climate change is man-mad” are so theory laden that if you turn out to be “wrong” about the causal mechanism but right about the solution, so what? What was important was to save the world as you defined it, not that your theory is not subject to revision as different evidence becomes available.

The cat is on the mat. It has been for years just as you’ve typed about the cat being on the mat with your keyboard and I’ve read it with my eyes and we’ve performatively contradicted any assertion of skeptical doubt. None of that fixes a fact.

A fact is the sort of thing that true statements are about - what makes a truth bearer true. Why put more weight on the word than what it supports? And why insist that there is a territory for our map when all we can deal in is maps? — Ennui Elucidator

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

that wrongness is assessable by something outside of language. — Ennui Elucidator

That's not my claim. The world is always and already interpreted.

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

Yeah, but I can beat up two more folk at the same time.