Yes good one.
You'd think God has a inferiority complex with all that worshiping going on. Obviously no truck with a nihilistic Atheist then. — ovdtogt

I feel sad when we badmouth God. Richard Dawkins "bested" us all in that department in The God Delusion:

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. — Richard Dawkins

I feel sad because:

1. IF he exists, he's not offering us even a small-scale miracle in his own defense. He allows his own creations to say the worst imaginable things about him and some of us rub salt into those wounds, which must already be very painful, by worshipping Satan or denying his existence outright as in atheism

2. If god doesn't exist and he's a human invention then how poor was our imagination, how pathetic was our morals and how great was our ignorance that we could do no better than a god that Richard Dawkins can describe in such disgustingly vile terms. If God doesn't exist any criticism of him is like pointing a finger at yourself and though that may be extremely satisfying it becomes awkwardly unsettling when you realize that it's you criticizing you

Do we take aspirin for a good reason or bad? Both I think. Good that we have it, bad that we need it. — ovdtogt

If given a choice would you adopt atheism because of the bad reasons or become a theist for the good reasons?

It shows that the need for Gods persists in modern society. — ovdtogt

For a good reason or bad?

If 'Christian' religion is right I'd be in Hell by now. I prefer a meaningless life. — ovdtogt

Why? Did you do something so "bad" as to ask for evidence?

Fame has this mystical quality of turning shit into gold. I think this is what the alchemists were looking for all the time.
Often the difference between something being profound or crazy is the person saying it.

The difference between great and mediocre contemporary art is the artist who made it. — ovdtogt

Yes and makes us wonder if we're mistaking one for the other in every possible way which I think can happen in only 2 ways and what a coincidence that number 2 means shit.

My clock is intelligent. It can tell me the time. — ovdtogt

:rofl:

If religion is wrong, life is literally meaningless (unless the satisfaction of emotions becomes a job). — Yahya Al Haj Eid

Religion reminds me of the satire comedy movie The Dictator where the main protagonist Admiral-General Haffaz Aladeen passes a decree that changes both the words "positive" and "negative" to "aladeen". There's a scene there where a doctor tells a patient "you are HIV aladeen" with the expected result of utter confusion for the patient.

God, if that's what you mean is religion, falls in the same category as "aladeen". If something good happens it's God's grace and if something bad happens, God works in mysterious ways.

:rofl: :rofl:

Mirroring is anything where the way you are is used to predict the way something else is. For example in our language, we just assume that our associations have something to do with the thing someone else said, just because we have those associations. It doesn't work all the time and we do modify our thoughts of what someone meant by what we know of him, but as the basis, our language simply uses mirroring to predict what others mean. Very fast - doesn't need definitions, but does require everyone to be programmed in a very similar way. — Qmeri

"Prediction" seems a wrong concept to apply to language. I thought that was an astrologer's domain. Language is about information isn't it and while that maybe useful to make predictions, language itself is solely about transmitting information and so your version of "mirroring" seems a bit off the mark. Perhaps you'll enlighten me.

Yes, and that is exactly a form of communication that doesn't use mirroring - a logical language which is based on definitions. Definitions don't need mirroring since they are defined the same irregardless of what you associate with them. And that's what our communications with aliens and AIs will be like - making definitions and saying things simply by those definitions. It's much slower and the things we don't know how to define with purely logical means become near impossible to talk about. — Qmeri

Just curious, what exactly do you mean by "mirroring"?

This is the reason why complex mirroring requires so precise similarity from the systems that use it. — Qmeri

There's enough elbow room in convergent evolution to make inter-species communication impossible and in fact there have been no recorded cases of such events. Each species seems confined to their respective domains as far as language is concerned.

However, if there's anything in favor of communication still being possible is the shared environment. Arguably Hydrogen on earth would be identical to Hydrogen anywhere else in the universe. In fact this assumption has been used for an attempt at alien communication - the golden record on the voyager spacecrafts.

Well, to my knowledge logic excludes only one possibility - a contradiction. I've heard of paraconsistent logic but I think it simply toys with the concept of contradiction in a hypothetical sense without any real practical application. This is just a vague feeling and I maybe wrong. Nonetheless even paraconsistent logic must have some rules that set a limit to what is possible and impossible. I'm not sure.

Anyway what I want to get at is the often cited example of wave-particle duality of light and the paradoxes of quantum mechanics which all boil down to contradictions in my view. It's here where things get confusing for me. Is logic a priori or a posteriori? I think it's a choice between rationalism and empiricism but I'm not very clear on that.

The basic question is: Is logic derived from how the world works or is logic independent and prior to how the world behaves? Rationalists probably believe that logic is independent of nature and is a priori but then how do we make sense of quantum mechanics which violates the law of noncontradiction? Plus what do we make of the word "because" which suggests a link between causality and logic, the former being a pattern in the world and ergo an a posteriori concept?

If logic is a posteriori then Sextus Empericus covers all the bases and nothing, including even the best of deductive arguments, is infallible.

However, if logic is a priori then all wrinkles (contradictions) in the logical fabric instantiated in quantum mechanics and other fields are illusions and represent ignorance if anything at all.

If I understand correctly then your "mirroring" argument depends on the multitude of ways information may be transmitted through any given medium of communication. I'm not qualified to comment on that but if evolution is true then there must be some logic to how our senses, input/output devices, evolved. We can look at the communication systems in humans, presumably the highest intelligent lifeform and examine how they evolved. A fair estimate would be that such systems evolved to maximize information carrying capacity e.g. color discerning ability gives us access to more information than just light-shade contrast vision.

If that's the case then, evolution on other planets would also evolve in a similar enough way that would make communication systems of all life in the universe converge rather than diverge. This would mean that, contrary to your argument, "mirroring" ability among lifeforms in the universe may not be so radically different to each other to render communication impossible.

The main reason we have not been able to replicate human conversation with computers is because we use mirroring in human speech. This means that we trust that our phrases cause almost the same associations in the minds of the participants of the conversation. And then we just have to modify these associations a little to understand one another.

The problem is that our associations are dependent on almost everything that makes up a human mind. They are affected by the mood of the situation, how things look like, what the current events are and how they affect the particular group that is talking, our human needs and priorities and other things that are very particular to human programming.

This causes that our speech works only between systems that have almost the same human programming so that the phrases cause almost the same associations. We can see this even between humans of different cultures. Even if the cultures speak the same language, it becomes hard for them to understand each other if the phrases and contexts cause different associations in those cultures.

Because of this:
A - we will never have a fluent conversation with aliens unless they are programmed almost exactly like us.
B - we will not program an AI that can speak human in the foreseeable future because we don’t have the empirical knowledge of how human mind is programmed to replicate that programming in an AI and thus enable the AI to use mirroring.
C - if a single human changed his programming in a major way (for example by emphasizing logic in his thinking beyond normal) he would gradually lose his ability to fluently communicate with other people unless other people changed at the same rate.

Not that this means that we can’t communicate in any way in these situations. Logical languages like mathematics are still a way to communicate even without mirroring. — Qmeri

Perhaps of some relevance is our ability to "understand" animals. I don't know how much we've progressed in the the field of animal communication but there are some various clearly unambiguous expressions e.g. a dog's growl that we seem to have understood. As to whether we can extrapolate animal-human communication to human-alien exchanges is an open question.

Personally, if the universe is really uniform as we assume then language would be either visual or audio based which narrows the possibilities sufficiently to permit alien-human communication.

However, as you mentioned, we know for a fact that human languages are unintelligible to each other and the distance between human languages is likely much much less than between human languages and alien languages.

If I understand what you mean by "mirroring", it plays an important part in when the subject of discussion is privileged in some sense i.e. there exists a certain association that isn't common knowledge and it's that particular link you want to convey. Under such circumstances communication can break down but this are rare occasions otherwise how on earth are people able to make sense of each other? Civilization would collapse if this problem just a tad more common.

Unfortunately, depending on your outlook, "important" discourses are highly susceptible to the "mirroring" problem. For instance in difficult subjects we need to make the right association and that may be difficult especially for novices and even experts.

So, you're right in that alien- human communication maybe harder than imagined but I'm going to bet my money on the "higher" intelligence of ET to see us through that roadblock.

Feelings... So, what do you make out of her feelings? Is it empathy or something else, like anger or outrage? — Wallows

Her empathy for the suffering that global warming will bring on causes her outrage?!

As for example, when someone proposes an argument to us that we cannot refute, we say to him, "Before the founder of the sect to which you belong was born, the argument which you propose in accordance with it had not appeared as a valid argument, but was dormant in nature, so in the same way it is possible that its refutation also exists in nature, but has not yet appeared to us, so that it is not at all necessary for us to agree with an argument that now seems to be strong."

Sextus Empiricus

Does the prospect of a unknown future refutation make the strongest argument weak? Should it at the very least temper a dogmatic approach to knowledge- and certainty-pronouncements — ZzzoneiroCosm

Addendum: It's wise to beware (moreover) of an uknown future refutation of the possibility of an unknown future refutation.

Is it possible to refute the possibility of an unknown future refutation? — ZzzoneiroCosm

The problem of induction and Popper's falsifiability anticipated. I don't know if it works for deductive logic though. The square root of 2 was irrational before the Pythagoreans deduced it and will always be irrational till the end of time itself.

Also the word "refutation" says a lot about what Sextus Empericus meant. It implies a premise or premises will turn out to be false but it's unlikely that there will be a problem with validity. This ties in quite neatly with the problem of induction and Popper's falsifiability doesn't it?

I find it really unfortunate that we have to have children, like Greta Thunberg, promoting something that should be obviously clear about dangers that we all face collectively.

Not to isolate Greta as one case on the matter, the same thing is going on with the U.S. if anyone recalls the school protests after the Sandy Hook mass shooting.

The issue seems to be complex. Children are rejecting going to school and the curriculum over perceived dangers or injustices. In economics, this is strangely similar to the prisoner's dilemma, in terms of accepting a future where both are free to do what they want and are coerced by punishment not to fink on one another. Yet, the children are finking on the adults, who they (should) perceive as their more informed fiduciaries. How do you even begin to explain that, and perhaps more importantly in what terms? — Wallows

Like all things, empathy requires a good environment to birth. For instance a person must not be too exhausted, emotionally, physically, or mentally. Also direct contact with problems people face elicits greater degrees of feeling than second-hand information. Unfortunately, everybody's veritably in a state of war with everyday being a battle against the trials and tribulations of life, making them so exhausted as to be incapable of feelings let alone empathy.

I count Greta Thunberg as fortunate because she's someone who seems to be sufficiently removed from the struggles of life and therefore has the time and energy to feel for one of the problems we are'll going to have to deal with in the future and then act on those feelings. Of course like any normal person Greta may have her own problems and the commendable bit is her brushing them aside for what she probably thinks is more important - global disaster.

Yeah, you dug into the argument and understood the issue as I presented it. Or otherwise, I don't really have anything against a negative version or "soft" version of hedonism. — Wallows

I appreciate the spirit of hedonism. It is truly one of the greatest of philosophies, cutting through the befuddling fog and gets right to the point of literally everything we do - seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. Of course there's more there than just that but I guess somebody will figure it out one day if they haven't already.

Yes. :) — Wallows

Really?

Hedonism is a philosophical position that in my view suffers from two main flaws.

===
1) That people are only motivated by pleasure. (a straw man of sorts)

2) This point follows from the first, in that people will encounter a slippery slope fallacy in regards to pleasure, and assume that because of this people will all end up engaging in activities that will promote pleasure.
===

My rebuttal to these two main points that often hedonists tend to get accused of is to profess a soft version of hedonism that limits suffering instead of pleasure. One can assume, that instead of increasing pleasure directly, it will also be present or arise due to less suffering.

Is this a position that many hedonists embrace? It seems like the only "logical" version of hedonism that everyone ought to aspire towards. — Wallows

It seems there's a big difference between hedonism, the philosophy, and a hedonistic lifestyle.

The philosophy of hedonism is one of the most candid and unambiguous of philosophies concerning humanity. All of us want pleasure and can anyone doubt that? We can further subdivide hedonism into negative hedonism which I equate to your "soft hedonism" aiming to reduce suffering and positive hedonism which is basically seeking pleasure.

Is it me or do people frown on pleasure, especially if it's indiscreet and borders on what people see as debauchery when they see it in close proximity, either in time or space, to something that's an obvious tragedy. For instance if a disaster kills some people then festivals, parties, concerts, etc. are cancelled. Although this may not be the correct description, people don't like to engage in guilty pleasures and that's for a good reason - opposites, here happiness and suffering, annihilate each other. I think empathy makes it difficult, if not impossible, to partake of pleasure in the presence of suffering.

What's interesting is that time and place have nothing to do with suffering and pleasure. Suffering and pleasure are timeless and space-transcending. Suffering a broken heart is same in 1930 and 2019 or whether in Indiq or Indiana. Ergo, the temporal and spatial proximity of suffering we seem to care about is simply a matter of how easily the fact of suffering reaches our ears. It boils down to awareness of suffering that adds the "guilty" to "pleasure" making it difficult to enjoy in the presence of pain.

Given that there's so much suffering in the world and knowing that positive hedonism doesn't fly once we become aware of this truth, we should stress on negative hedonism - the lessening of suffering in the world. The difference between negative hedonism and positive hedonism is our awareness, or the lack of it, of the world's suffering.

Yet, there seems to be no perceptible change in people's behavior despite their awareness of world hunger, under-5 child mortality, etc. Where is that feeling that should stop us in our tracks from watching sit-coms, going to amusement parks, and partying until dawn? Doesn't this mean we're callous and selfish?

To answer that question we must remember that we're all in the same boat and everyone, with no exceptions, is trying their best to just stay one tiny step ahead of the tsunami of misery that's at everybody's heels. We shouldn't begrudge a person who works hard to feed her family the pleasures he indulges in because we all know everyone needs a breather from tedium. It's not that such people are being insensitive to the suffering of others. They're just too exhausted to react.

Negative hedonism should be a priority. Suffering should be considered enemy number 1. However, there is no fault in engaging in pleasure.

I think that "simple" and "complex" are relative concepts, like "big" and "small". So I can't see how they could take on a universal meaning...? — ZhouBoTong

Great point. However, notice that relativeness as applies here isn't the concept itself which is universal but to objects being compared to each other. A house may be heavier than a car and a car may be heavier than a person, relatively speaking, but that doesn't invalidate the concept of weight does it?

Thank you for your input though. Much appreciated.

01 goes first right which means it goes 1/2 the distance between 1/2 and 1 which are points on a line to first give 3/4. Then it left shifts halfway to the next point which is 1/2. This means it sits halfway between
1/2 and 3/4 which is 5/8. This value is halfway between 1/2 and 3/4. This is why I would normally use a square with a line going halfway down the middle. Each shift creates a new line and you only move halfway to your next line ok — Umonsarmon

Bear with me but I still think there's a problem.

1. For reals less than base-ten 1 you'll get something like 0.xyz...

2. Suppose you take base-ten 0.5 whose binary representation is 0.1

3. You will have to take the "0" in the 0.1 into account or else there's no way you can get a unique fractional counterpart for 1 and 0.1 because if you ignore the "0" you'll be left with 1 for both numbers 1 and 0.1 and that maps to 1/2 to the right in your system.

4. If you take the "0" into account for binary numbers like 0.xyz... then how would you map the numbers 10base2 and -10base2?

5. So 0.1base2 would be 1/2 to the left and then 1/2 of 1/2 to the right giving us 1/2 - 1/4 = 1/4

5. Where would base-ten +2 i.e. 10base2 and base-ten -2 i.e. -10base 2 maps to?

10base2 would be 1/2 to the right and 1/2 of 1/2 to the left i.e. 1/2 - 1/4 = 1/4

-10base2 would be just as above but with a negative sign i.e. -1/4

As you can see three numbers (+2, -2, and 0.5 all base 10) are mapped onto only 2 points. There is no bijection.

0.1 would be 1/2 to the right and 1/2 to the left to give us 1/4

1.1 would be 1/2 to the right and again 1/2 to the right to give us, again, 1/4

Both 0.1 and 1.1 are mapping on to the same fraction 1/4.

Bijection fails.

0.1 would be 1/2 to the right and 1/2 to the left to give us 1/4

1.1 would be 1/2 to the right and again 1/2 to the right to give us, again, 1/4

Both 0.1 and 1.1 are mapping on to the same fraction 1/4.

There is no bijection and the proof is faulty.

del

What you are saying basically: a sane and healthy person needs both food and drugs. Mens sana in corpore sano — ovdtogt

I'm sure Paul Dirac could've said it in fewer words. :lol:

Ok here we go remember we start at 1/2 and then shift either left or right by half. Lets say that 1 is left and 0 is right.

1 goes to 1/4 (i.e halfway between 0 and 1/2
-1 just gets represented as the key -1/4
0 right shifts from 1/2 to 3/4 — Umonsarmon

It would've been easier to say 0 maps to 0 but that would break your rule or demands tweaking it a little bit.

If you graph your rule the output of the function (1/2)^x approaches zero which raises the problem that two real numbers 0 and infinity map to zero. Do you find that problematic?

Err no. 0 would be a shift from 1/2 to either left or right depending on what direction you wanted to use. 1 maps to a left or right shift that would be the opposite of 0. This means that -1 would map to either -1/4 or -3/4 depending on what you did — Umonsarmon

Maybe I've got it wrong but here's what my understanding is

1. You convert all reals into binary so that we have only 1's and 0's
2. You need direction to distinguish between 1's and 0's. Left or right depending on what the digit is, 0 or 1.

Now I want you to follow your scheme and map the following numbers

a) 1

b) -1

c) 0

These numbers are simple because they only require 1 step i. e will map to 1/2. There are two types of 1/2. One is +1/2 and the other is -1/2 and we have 3 numbers to consider +1, -1 and 0. It's impossible.

Miracles are evidence of a person's lack of understanding — ovdtogt

I would say so but there are types who consider the very comprehensibility of our world a miracle which of course is leaning uncomfortably towards an intelligent design i.e. creator-God theory for some.

I would just use a -a/b value and then list that next to its a/b twin — Umonsarmon

But then zero would be mapped to -(1/2) and -1 too would be mapped to -(1/2) which would result in a failure of the necessary bijection. There would be two real numbers (0 and -1) mapped to only one point -(1/2) in your scheme.

How would you represent negative real numbers?

@Brett

None of this disputes that society is made up of people...does it? So in a part of society, there is consciousness, that makes that part of society more complicated than all of society? That makes zero logical sense. I think I get your point, but I hope you are seeing that it is the various potential uses of the words "simple" and "complex" that are the source of the problem.

And until we understand it better I will not call consciousness complicated. What if consciousness is simply the touch of god, and nothing else? I get you are trying to make this discussion more scientific than that, but I have explained my hesitation to label things as simple or complex outside of context, and I don't have enough context to label consciousness. Is a dog's consciousness simpler or more complex than a human's? How so?

I see this thread suddenly got busy, so no need to get back to me if you have more exciting posts to respond to :smile: — ZhouBoTong

I want to achieve two things here:

1 Understand the meaning of simplicity and complexity

2. Understand whether the accepted wisdom that complexity proceeds from simplicity makes sense or not

From this point on SC will mean simplicity-complexity.

You speak of SC taking different forms based on context but the fact is we use SC with the same meaning in all and any context otherwise there would be a different word for each context. If you agree it's this universally applicable meaning of SC that I'm trying to zero in on.

You provided me with some lexical definitions of SC and I don't or can't dispute conventional meanings of this term but there should be a common motif that runs through all of them. What could it be? It appears that, despite my lack of skills in math, I've inadvertently quantified SC by using the the number of constituents and interactions at play in an object to get a sense of how simple or complex it is. I accept that this is probably just half the story or even that this is utter nonsense. If you think I'm wrong or partially correct, kindly be explicit of what needs modification or, if you think my theory is moonshine, give me reasons why.

For point 2, my definition would actually support the theory that simplicity evolves into complexity. We's always have to add to, rather than subtract form, to increase complexity and what results is a numerical increase of constituents and interactions manifesting as increased complexity.

Yet, if the above is true then the addition of intelligence into the mix should enhance, what one could call, the quality of the complexity e.g. constituents and their interactions would be elegant and beautiful. Yet this is not true. In other words I'm endorsing the view that a planned object should be more complex and beautifully so than an unplanned, random object. If you notice this is a common complaint against the proponents of intelligent design - the world having too many imperfections for it to be designed - and I use it here to question the belief that complexity emerges from simplicity.

Just to make things clear I think knowledge is a work in progress and all what I've said about how humans can't create objects more complex than themselves may be turned upside down in the future when the technological singularity becomes a reality.

There's not much that anyone can prove does not exist. And it's one of the least important or interesting things about God. — unenlightened

:clap:

Sure.....In the context of miracle's/logic, as well as religious beliefs, I would say more specifically the choice is made through inductive reasoning. That's an important distinction.

The other distinction you made: gravity--->computation and/or instinct--->'denial' or ignoring both leads to death.

And another point you made I think relates to the Will to believe; Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Maslow, William James and even Einstein to name a few talked about that so-called intrinsic nature or feature that we have called the Will. The connection there usually makes it way back to existential things like human instinct, sentience and intuition, or an innate sense of wonder.

So briefly, I would say in this context TMF, rather than your 'informed choice' you could replace it with logical inference. And more specifically, inference based upon unexplained phenomena from conscious existence (or from conscious human Beings ) if you prefer.

But yeah, The Will is an intriguing topic no doubt...and quite extensive to say the least. Does that interpretation clarify? — 3017amen

Even if miracles are logic-based conclusions I think it is fundamentally flawed because it involves the false dichotomy of either natural or supernatural.

I think a lot of the confusion has to do with the word "supernatural" which to science has the same meaning as an unexplained observation which would normally set off a barrage of tests or experiments and an investigation of existing theories that can't make sense of the unexplained observation. Contrast the preceding to how the average person associates all unexplained events with the divine. The word "miracle" and "supernatural" are loaded with divine connotations that few can resist the urge to think every unexplained event is god's doing.

That's clearly unacceptable as a definition, given the logical consequences. There aren't any miracles.

Hitchens is correct that miracles wouldn't necessarily imply, or even count as evidence towards, the existence of God. There are any number of possible explanations that could be given. It could be attributed to the work of magical faeries, for example. — S

I think the aim is to prevent the jump from unexplained event to the supernatural. So I don't believe "work of magical faeries" counts as good reasoning.

Premise (2) is the more problematic one. One could object that God need not be posited to explain violations of the laws of nature. For instance, the only reason we have to believe that there are unbreakable laws of nature in the first place is because we have never, in the past, seen otherwise. But it does not follow from this that future events must follow the laws of nature. Just because we have always seen things follow the laws of nature in the past does not mean that things will always continue to do so — Teaisnice

1. If God exists, then He would be maximally powerful.
2. If God is maximally powerful, then He can violate the laws of nature at will.
3. If God can violate the laws of nature at will, then miracles are possible.
4. Therefore, if God exists, then miracles are possible. — Teaisnice

Ergo, there are two explanations for a miracle:

1. God

2. As an intrinsic feature of induction where the future isn't guaranteed by the past

Which is more probable in your view? Why?

Which possibility is more productive? Why?

As an aid to help you answer the above questions I'd like to refer you to heavier-than-air flight or planes and choppers. It's certain that when Moses was alive, planes would violate the laws of nature known then which excluded men from being able to fly. This knowledge would be based on induction right? Now imagine a person from those times being shown a flying plane. What would be and should be his reaction? If I know anything about human religious behavior he would say "god did it". However, given that we're in the know about aviation technology, his reaction should be to look for a natural explanation and, after having made the relevant discoveries, to update his knowledge of the laws of nature.

“Our essence of Mind is intrinsically pure. If we knew our Mind perfectly and realised what our Self-nature truly is, all of us would be enlightened.” (Bodhisattva Sila Sutra - ca 450 BC)

At around the same time the concept of Selfrealisation bloomed in the philosophical circles of Greece under the heading “know thyself”, and became famous through Socrates who claimed “Knowledge is inherent in man, not outside. Wisdom is learning to recollect”

In the Orient this was apparently taken seriously, as – particularly in India, Tibet & China – it brought about a variety of teachings & schools as well as methods & approaches attending the different needs and temperaments of the aspirants of Selfrealisation.

That “know thyself” made it in the Occident barely beyond philosophical exercises, is probably because it established in the same period the ratio of dualism which subjected knowledge to the feedback mechanism of the intellect. This is not to say that eastern aspirants do not use intellectual techniques, but they are taught how far to utilise them (which is not all the way to the beginning) whereas western thinkers think that they have to think all the way to the end. — waechter418

It's a bit odd that the Delphic Oracular maxim "gnothi seauton/know thyself" goes hand in hand with what was said of Socrates, the man singled out by the Delphic Oracle as the wisest of all who famously said of himself "I know that I know nothing".

Does knowing nothing qualify you as the wisest of all? Does this not entail that you actually don't know thyself? Perhaps I/we put the emphasis on the wrong part of the sentence and it is correctly read as "I know that I know nothing. The Delphic oracle may have been referring to the beginning of our journey to know ourselves which requires as a first step the recognition of our own ignorance.

Whatever the case maybe we can see for a fact that the Delphic oracle considers self-realization, knowing who you are, as important as knowing what it contrasts with viz. knowledge of what's outside, the external world.

How does self-realization, knowledge of the interior, compare with its opposite, knowledge of the exterior? Is one more important than the other or are they both of equal significance to us?

Knowledge of the exterior, the outside world, is dominated by science and we all know the modern world, filled with amenities that make life comfortable, wouldn't have been possible without science. However, despite this there are many issues that need our attention and among them one jumps out at us - mental illnesses and immorality. Almost all bad news you see in the media can be easily put under these two categories and these categories are aspects of our selves which takes us back 2000 years into the past to the Delphic Oracle's advice, gnothi seauton/know thyself.

Does this mean that self-realization alone is adequate to ensure a satisfactory existence? Can we forego science, here standing in for knowledge of the exterior, and still have a comfortable life? What about disease, harsh environments, natural impediments that need to be controlled to make life better? Self-realization may have within it the means to take the difficulties of existence in its stride but why suffer pneumonia when we can use antibiotics? Why walk in the hot sun for days when we can zip to our destination in a few hours in an air conditioned car?

It seems, therefore, that knowledge of both the interior (self) and the exterior (world) are equally vital and neither can be overlooked for civilization.

An oft mentioned cliche is that western and eastern civilizations differ in this respect - the former giving more attention to exterior knowledge and dominating the world with science and the latter is oriented to self-realization and, as must follow, submits to the domination of the scientific west. The west needs the east as much as the east needs the west if there's to be that essential balance between the self and the world outside.

It seems natural that "teach" and "preach" rhyme but there's a fundamental difference which may be relevant to this discussion. A teacher usually, not always, has something we think we might need. A preacher, on the other hand, has something s/he thinks we might need. People look for teachers but preachers look for people.

I think a word like "consumerism" kinda misses the point. Wanting and buying goods and services per se isn't the problem. The real job seems to be the sheer volume of consumers - the world population.

A few thousand voracious consumers let loose in the market won't be able to do much damage to the environment if that's what's being considered. I mean the sultan of Brunie may own a thousand cars but it's highly unlikely he'll drive them all at the same time.

However, if millions are involved, even if all they do is just sit and breathe in their living rooms, it has a huge impact.

I think this is reflected in business strategy with companies vying for the largest share of the market which is people, lots and lots of them. Isn't it good business tactics when you keep products cheap, cheap enough for as many people as possible?

I don't deny that people have a tendency to excess and that this may add to our woes but the bigger headache is the masses, in their millions (count me in), even if just living the simple life, fulfilling only basic necessities.

I think the word "negligible" should not be used in the context of chaotic dynamical systems. Clearly if a slight variation at the beginning of an iteration process leads to bizarre behavior that variation, no matter how small, is not negligible. Just the contrary. Your notion of "cumulative contributory causation" is well put. — John Gill

Thanks. I missed that distinction. Important.

Look at how wikipedia describes chaos theory:

In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state. — Wikipedia

The impression I get is that chaos theory, as a mathematical field, is based in a very "big" way on the meaning of the word "small". What you described as slight changes and how they cause large variations in endpoints seems to be a source of astonishment and I suspect this astonishment has a much bigger role in the birth of the field of chaos theory than anything truly chaotic going on. Again I'm no mathematician and what I'm saying is probably complete nonsense. Educate me.


Also, another aspect of chaos theory is the dependence of chaotic behavior on the location of the viewing window. I can't think of a good illustration but how about history because it's easier to see the point I'm making. Open a window to history in 1914-1918 or 1939-1945 and you'll see war (chaos) but anywhere in between these periods you'll see relative peace (no chaos).

Unless I'm working from a misunderstanding of the two, truth value results from following the rules of correct inference. Whereas truth conditions are what makes a belief true. True belief are prior to language acquisition, and definitely during. Being true does not require following the rules of correct inference. Having truth value does. Truth value is not equivalent to truth. — creativesoul

Truth value is not equivalent to truth.

That would mean things can be true but have no truth value or vice versa.

1. ~(is truth <-> has truth value)
2. ~[(is truth > has truth value) & (has truth value > is truth)]
3. ~(is truth > has truth value) or ~(has truth value > is truth)
4. ~(~is truth or has truth value) or ~(~has truth value or is truth)
5. (~~is truth & ~has truth value) or (~~has truth value & ~is truth)
6. (is truth & ~has truth value) or (has truth value & ~is truth)

Can you give me an example for the first disjunct of line 6 - a truth that doesn't have a truth value.

This is interesting, because I don’t agree that chemistry has done the creating here. This is what I mean by the difference between creating and evolving. Chemistry has evolved, but it didn’t create - not by itself, anyway — Possibility

Okay I lost track of the words. Sorry. What I meant was evolution, based on randomness, beats our creativity despite the latter being at an advantage.