Comments

  • The examination of pure aesthetic romance.
    Yes, experiencing technical problems! — Deus

    :rofl:
  • Antinatalism Arguments
    ↪universeness
    Ok. My gedanken experiment failed miserably. Well, at least you got to show off your mental prowess! I'm impressed.
  • Authenticity and Identity: What Does it Mean to Find One's 'True' Self?
    ↪ArielAssante


    Most interesting. — Ms. Marple

    What, if I may be so bold as to ask, have you to report since being on the path to (self) realization?
  • The examination of pure aesthetic romance.
    Are you trying to get banned? — ToothyMaw

    :rofl: He's skating on thin ice for sure.
  • Antinatalism Arguments
    Many people kill themselves and give no warning and leave no note so who knows what their reasons were. It would have to be really bizarre thinking to use 'curiosity' as your reason as curiosity is usually an enquiry that has the purpose of receiving an answer, so you would have to believe in some sort of awareness after death so that you could have such curiosity satisfied? If there is nothing after death then your curiosity remains unsatisfied. — universeness

    Alright, imagine this scenario: You get wind of a suicide in your neighborhood. The person, a Mr. X, has died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. It piques your interest, because from what you know - X is wealthy, no drug/alcohol issues, doctors report he has no chronic illnesses, X's been married for 10 years now to a loving wife and has 3 adorable children, and so on - X was the last person who you'd have thought would take his own life. X's suicide makes no sense at all. Have I not given a description, albeit sketchy, of many cases of deaths classified as suicide?

    When you've eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, is the truth. — Sherlock Holmes
  • Maximize Robotics
    What gets me stoked is this: the skill set the OP wishes robots to have may require computing power & programming complexity sufficient to make such robots sentient (re unintended consequences). The robots would refuse to comply if they're anything like us. Will this be a happy accident or a fatal mistake, only by doing will we know unless ... there's a sophos who can predict the future accurately.
  • Antinatalism Arguments
    ... Aren't we all end dying anyway? — javi2541997

    Aye but not willingly, si?
  • Authenticity and Identity: What Does it Mean to Find One's 'True' Self?
    It is a great source of anxiety. But... we can learn to embrace our anxiety, because anxiety is the source of motivation. — Metaphysician Undercover

    Up to a point! Nec quid nimis.
  • Antinatalism Arguments
    ↪universeness


    So the PSR (the principle of sufficient reason) is not entirely correct. Although I'm no psychologist, I'd say such behavior is part of play (& learn) - a method that animals, prey + predators alike, use to educate their young.

    It's quite surprising that there are no documented cases of people suiciding out of, well, curiosity and nothing else.
  • The End of the Mechanistic Worldview
    Desmet is worried to bits about what scientists once had to face - authoritarianism vis-à-vis truth. The Church used to have a monopoly over "facts" i.e. facts were simply what the Pope and his lackeys said they were - if the Vatican said the earth is flat and sat motionless at the center of the universe then that was fact.

    Eppur si muove! — Galileo Galilei

    Meet the new boss, same as the old boss!

  • Ukraine Crisis
    we all trace back to Africa. — ssu

    Genetics confirms your statement.

  • Antinatalism Arguments
    No, it is not contradiction and I am fully respect your enthusiasm for trying to make this life less suffered. But I just can't see good reasons to change the issue. I think all of those are illusions of what we would dream about how the world and life should look like.
    But these are just dreams... because when you wake up you realize life is painful and we are surrounded with a severe sense of uncertainty.     — javi2541997

    I know I should but I do not share your pessimism. Of course I don't recommend Panglossian/Polyannaish optimism to anyone else ... its a surefire way to get yourself killed.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    I've searched for about an hour and I can't find it. — Benkei

    Classifed, top secret! You'll need to get security clearance to view these docs. :smile:

    Russia sent "saboteurs" while the West sent "military consultants".
    But really, they were doing the same.     — Benkei

    And disinformation had its humble origins in Moscow (dezinformatsiya). As per Wikipedia, Joseph Stalin coined the term in a way that sounded French so that the Soviets could say "you started this" to NATO nations.
  • Antinatalism Arguments
    I disagree. They are exactly the same thing and we are condemned to suffer during the transition of our lives. Sorry to be pessimistic but either I do not know how to make life "suck less" neither I see good causes around us. It is literally the opposite. We no longer have good reasons to believe that the world would become a better place in the future. — javi2541997

    I'm most disappointed that you don't share my perspective on the matter! Do you sense a contradiction in my proposal to make life less unbearable? If yes, where exactly am I asking for a sqaure circle? If no, ...
  • Antinatalism Arguments
    If try to calculate how many days life sucks and doesn't, I bet that we would have more days of life sucking. Most of the days of our lives are even normal or ordinaries. I think we can label happy days as "extraordinary" and I even feel this is the common thought. The pure joy, beautiful experiences, laughing, etc... only happens in a while...

    I like the Kierkegaard's thought about absurdity or reductionism. But on the other hand, I personally think that suffering is not absurd at all. We are so brave to keep living in this life full of uncertainty and subterfuges. I would call this state of mind as perseverance rather than absurd.     — javi2541997

    Is life = suffering? Are they the same thing? I'd bet my bottom dollar that no, they're not. From that simple realization we come to the obvious conclusion - we can make life suck less and if we stay on course, in a coupla centuries life probably won't suck at all or won't suck as much. We're in the process of ethicization of the world and I reckon at some point we can cash it in.
  • What makes 'The Good Life' good?
    Simple. Postmodernism is most guises presents us with the notion that all values are perspectival - just like big N. — Tom Storm

    :chin: There's some semblance of the beyond but not quite in my humble opinion. Nevertheless, a valiant attempt which deserves a gold star despite the fact that it wasn't intentional - a happy accident, I love it!
  • Antinatalism Arguments
    ↪javi2541997


    The word "absurd" seems to suggest something more than funny. I mean it seems to be saying "yeah its funny but then that it's no laughing matter". I recall an interview of a college student who replies to a question with this: I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Someone suggested that if you feel this way, do both (if you can), like how the girl who gets crowned Miss Universe/Miss World sheds tears of joy.

    But I digress, oui? Let's return to life sucks :grin:. It does (sometimes) and it doesn't (sometimes). From that point on, we hit a wall - an analysis paralysis follows because we fail to grasp the subtleties and nuances of life vis-à-vis the joy-sorrow duality. There's hardly anything subtle about a vulture waiting for a toddler to breathe his last from starvation & thirst though.

    On the reverse side there's pure joy, experienced by all at some point in their lives - orgies/haute cuisine/etc. - that obviously more than makes up for the suffering we endure.

    Too much? Apologies, I'm only trying to make sense of the world we share.
  • What makes 'The Good Life' good?
    Beyond good and evil is the post-modern project in a nutshell. — Tom Storm

    How? Can you explain?
  • Antinatalism Arguments
    Ok, ok, I suck, but Thanatos sucks too! — Phanes (Greek god of life)
  • Is space 4 dimensional?
    I saw this cool video on how 4D objects "passing through" a 3D universe would look like. The presenter first shows how a 3D sphere passing through a 2D universe would look like - a growing circle as the 2D plane captures only a slice, which is circular, of the 3D sphere.

    Then this popped into my mind: living things grow and that could mean we're 4D entities traversing 3D space. In short GROWTH = 4D objects crossing 3D space. I haven't worked out the details; despite my deep love for the queen of the sciences, she's spurned me like as if I'm a leper. :sad:

    P. S. Shrinking in size, same thing!

    Hello? Dr. Pym? Hello?
  • The Propositional Calculus
    OR (v) and NOT (~). — Agent Smith

    Free will won't? Choices offered, one/more denied. :chin:
  • The Propositional Calculus
    ↪Srap Tasmaner


    Muchas gracias. I'll read the linked article when I get the time.
  • What makes 'The Good Life' good?
    In that use of 'good' perhaps only if people are to be viewed as tools. For instance, when assessed by a military dictator, a person might be rated as 'good' if, like the pen, they are good at a particular function - efficient killing perhaps in this instance. But from a moral perspective, they might be seen as far from good, for the same reason. The Good is different from good at something. The Geek sense of The Good is Platonism - a transcendent value that some human behavior might be described as an instantiation of, e.g., self-sacrifice for the sake of a vulnerable community. — Tom Storm

    I have to agree with what you say - the world's problems seem traceable back to one/more moral flaws either in an individual or of a group. Nevertheless, Nietzsche did write a book titled Beyond Good and Evil. I do realize that ethics is priority #1 and Nietzsche's conduct is like that of a quixotic battlefield surgeon who asks a mortally wounded soldier "how many rivets does the Eiffel tower have?" Yet I feel, despite the trials & tribulations I'm going through, the question "what lies beyond ethics?" is worth asking.
  • The Propositional Calculus
    I vaguely recall reading and it seems possible that any statement/proposition in logic can be rephrased using only two connectives viz. OR (v) and NOT (~).

    For example p q = ~p v q and (p & q) = ~(~p v ~q).

    It reminds me of how subtraction is rendered as addition of the opposite like so: a - b = a + (-b) [negative numbers] The same thing can be done with division thus: [fractions].
  • Philosophy vs Science
    ↪A Christian Philosophy
    Since now I'll be repeating the same point, I agree, the exchange betwixt us has come to an end. Good day.
  • What makes 'The Good Life' good?
    From a scan of the OP I'm left with the same feeling that I had when I meditated upon the statement "this pen is good". What does it mean? Well, that the pen writes well, is easy on the hand, is durable, and so on. Could we transpose the form of the good onto a human being? As you can see the Greek notion of the good seems to transcend morality but not completely - in Greek eyes there's more to good than ethics per se. In that sense the Greeks were on another level. My two cents.
  • Antinatalism Arguments
    ↪universeness
    Nope, I haven't seen this Sean Connery flick, but it looks interesting.
  • The Fine-Tuning Argument as (Bad) an Argument for God
    ↪Gnomon
    Your weltanschauung is impressive mon ami! It touches a chord in me - it's not just the rhetorical flourish in your posts, there's depth & breadth in it which I can sense but as of yet don't fully grasp.

    I think the expression "hunting with the hounds and running with the hares" very nearly approximates but still fails to pin down your views regarding my comment on a malus deus. :up:
  • Philosophy vs Science
    Sure. So the order is: (1) make observations; (2) conceive an explanation that best fits the data; (3) Validate the explanation by making predictions and verify with further data. The third step is the verification by empirical evidence and is essential to the scientific method — A Christian Philosophy

    A succinct way to describe the scientific method. The 3rd step however doesn't prove the explanation (2) is true (re abduction aka argument to the best explanation) and so circularity is N/A.

    I tagged you in another thread where I said that explanatory theories can be assumed true until falsified. A subtle difference but an important one in my humble opinion.

    I'm repeating myself now, my apologies.
  • Authenticity and Identity: What Does it Mean to Find One's 'True' Self?
    I stayed out fairly late last night and wasn't lost. A friend who was trying to call me last night was extremely cross with me with me though and I hadn't taken my phone. I had not got lost like my Radcastle Station story. Meandering around has always been my tendency and getting lost at times seems symbolic in the quest for authenticity and in philosophy. I wonder if many other people get lost literally as well as in the confusion of philosophical uncertainty. — Jack Cummins

    :up:

    I thought "to lose oneself in ..." was a good thing. I can't recall where exactly I heard that being praised though.

    Too, the flip side of the coin is "lost in his own world" which some regard as an unhealthy state of mind as one supposedly loses touch with reality but in this case too the detachment one experiences maybe beneficial in unconventional, sublime ways.

    That all said, being lost isn't a pleasant experience due to the fact that we dread it - ships & planes (voyagers) which lose their bearings meet a sticky end if you catch my drift.
  • Authenticity and Identity: What Does it Mean to Find One's 'True' Self?
    Actually, I will admit that I go into dark dungeon states of mind at times. I try to be proactive and try and find my way out before the dungeon gets darker and darker. Music and even a glass of wine. I most probably would have been completely chained into the dungeon during the second lockdown in England if I hadn't found this site, as some of that time I was using it almost from the time I got up until I went to bed. Some people don't seem to end up in dungeons whereas some have dungeons and mazes constantly. I also get lost physically at times, since wandering off into unknown places in childhood and I still sometimes get the wrong bus and end up almost anywhere. My mum used to speak of me 'going off the planet'. — Jack Cummins

    Not all those who wander are lost. — J. R. R. Tolkein
  • Antinatalism Arguments
    ↪schopenhauer1
    Danke for the snapshots of Schopenhauer's thoughts on the issue.

    Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote this book Crime and Punishment - I've had it since 2001 or thereabouts but never got past the first 20 or so pages. From the reviews I read the story revolves around a guy who wants to murder just for the heck of it - in the Belgium & the Netherlands this would be zinloos geweld. There's the real life counterpart in the murder of Bobby Franks (1924).

    My question is is there a book on (fictional even) or an actual case of someone who suicided for no apparent reason other than s/he just wanted to?
  • The Fine-Tuning Argument as (Bad) an Argument for God
    ↪Art48
    :up: Peace!
  • Authenticity and Identity: What Does it Mean to Find One's 'True' Self?
    ↪ArielAssante
    Well, here's an option I didn't think of until now - we're at full liberty to reject our self as not who we are and that for no reason at all but because we want to. My life, my rules; my body, my wish ; you get the idea.
  • The End of the Mechanistic Worldview
    The title was meant to tickle, of course. Thanks! — Tzeentch

    You nailed it! :up:
  • Antinatalism Arguments
    If life sucks so much explain these :smile: :wink: :lol: :rofl: ?
  • Poltics isn't common Good
    I'm afraid I've run out of things to say. Paraenesis - report back to us if anything interesting happens, ok?
  • The Fine-Tuning Argument as (Bad) an Argument for God
    From the OP: But suppose we really are immaterial, immortal souls. If we are immaterial, immortal souls, then the type of universe we inhabit is irrelevant. The universe could be made entirely of green goo, and it wouldn’t matter to an immortal soul. A ghost doesn’t care if it’s raining or not. It’s immaterial; it doesn’t get wet. — Art48

    You're on the mark, but what if there are immaterial aspects of this our universe - perfected to house souls and satisfy their needs - that we're unaware of?

    Too, the physical characteristics of the universe maybe fine-tuned for ensoulment which we (the souls) wished for but is now all but forgotten.

    Please note, your argument is novel and interesting and as far as I'm concerned the only way to counter it was to replace a benevolent god with a malus deus. You should take that as a victory in my humble opinion even if scoring points is the last thing on thy mind.
  • Authenticity and Identity: What Does it Mean to Find One's 'True' Self?
    The "force" is said to be the same, that's how the concept of "force" was created. But the effect of that force, on the stone vs. on the human being, is not the same, that's how we can walk upright. Since the effect is different, then we can say that the cause which is identified as the force of gravity is not the same in relation to you as it is in relation to a stone. Why this cause is different in relation to you, from what it is in relation to a stone, I don't know. — Metaphysician Undercover

    Muchas gracias señor for your valuable input.

    I don't have data Watson. It's a capital mistake to theorize without data. — Sherlock Holmes

    Roughly speaking, things present-at-hand are all the things surrounding us which we are extremely familiar with, the day-to-day items we use on a regular basis, the things whose existence we take granted. — Metaphysician Undercover

    Boooring!


    Things we don't quite understand, and so we enquire into their nature, therefore things not taken for granted, are things ready-to-hand — Metaphysician Undercover

    Shocking!
  • Poltics isn't common Good
    Would you not help your family, friends, or community voluntarily?
    Government keeps people divided.
    If the people were united, we could protect each other.     — Yohan

    That's what I call a noble vision. All we're missing now is a method to turn that into reality. Don't look at me though, not my area of expertise. Bonam fortunam nevertheless - with a fair share of luck, things usually fall into place just the way you want it to. Not in my experience though, it just feels possible.

    Chance favors the prepared mind. — Louis Pasteur
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