Comments

  • Trouble with Impositions
    I believe I grasped the gist of the OP's antinatalism.

    Pronatalists are of the opinion that a person (the child) will share the same values as his/her parents and agree to their assessment of what kind, and how much, of that kind of suffering s/he will consider acceptable. This assumption is unjustified. People suicide for various reasons that differ from one another in kind & degree!

    Unfortunately, the knife cuts both ways. The antinatalist too is unwarranted to, in their turn, assume that children will have the same thoughts about life & suffering as theirs. This is also, sadly for the antinatalist, wrong.

    In short, the subjective nature of joy/sorrow precludes both antintalism & natalism.

    What next?

    Left to the reader as an exercise.
  • Trouble with Impositions
    ↪180 Proof
    Synodus Horrenda (Pope Formosus). :chin:
  • The Largest Number We Will Ever Need
    No derivation of a contradiction has been shown in ZFC.

    And you write (I'm using plain text):

    Sum[n = 1 to inf] = inf
    Sum[n = 1 to inf] = -(1/12)

    As far as I can tell, those are not even well formed.

    Sum[n=0 to inf] requires a term on its right*, otherwise it's just a dangling variable binding operator.

    * E.g., Sum[n=0 to inf] 1/(2^n) is well formed and meaningful.     — TonesInDeepFreeze

    :chin:
  • The Largest Number We Will Ever Need
    Once again, your ignorance and intellectual dishonesty have enabled you to post a false claim. — TonesInDeepFreeze

    So those who're learning are guilty of intellectual dishonesty? Gimme a break!
  • The Largest Number We Will Ever Need
    ↪TonesInDeepFreeze
    :smile:

    My Thoughts on Intuition & Logical rigor in Math

    Intuition is more a feeling than a thought. I've experienced it in doing high school math. There was this time when I was solving a problem in an exam and I soon realized the numbers mid-calculation were just too large & awkward, they didn't feel right to me; I went back to check my work and found out I had made a boo-boo. This is what I mean by intuition in general and mathematical intuition in particular.

    Too, last I checked, mathematicians love to guess, formally termed conjectures. As far as I can tell, mathematical conjectures are intuitions and not just wild guesses - the former tend to be hard to prove/disprove while the latter are easily tackled by even amateurs.

    That's all she wrote!
  • Whence the idea that morality can be conceived of without reference to religion?
    You've lost me. — 180 Proof

    The fault is entirely mine. I'm not known for my penmanship!

    Sound arguments require demonstrably truthful premises. — 180 Proof

    Yep!
  • How to do philosophy
    Made me laugh — Merkwurdichliebe

    You're too kind, monsieur, too kind! :up:
  • Foundational Metaphysics
    ↪Bob Ross
    To found a system/theory of metaphysics on a concept we know very little viz. infinity about feels wrong to me. It violates a cardinal rule in philosophical argumentation to wit that axioms should be at best, self-evident or at worst, least controversial. Infinity is exactly the kind of concept that fails to fulfill both these conditions. In short, your system/theory is based not on knowledge but on ignorance.

    Being new to the game of philosophy, I could, of course, be way off the mark.
  • How to do philosophy
    Abstinence — Merkwurdichliebe

    Avoid beauty (pulchrum), you hairy beast! Alack, it's too late for me! I've already tasted flesh!

    My attempted at a joke!
  • The Ultimate Question of Metaphysics
    Where do you fit the set of all infinitesimals in your scheme here? — apokrisis

    Zeroish stuff you mean. Smaller than the smallest imaginable positive real but not zero is how I define infinitesimals. Would a mathematician forgive me for thinking of infinitesimals this way?
  • The Largest Number We Will Ever Need
    ↪jgill
    Most kind of you! Gracias jgill, gracias.
  • Trouble with Impositions
    ↪schopenhauer1


    :up:
    Good gedanken experiment. To be fair and with deference to your deeper understanding of the situation, I concur, I would do everything to stop this rather hapless woman from birthing the baby who being born would end up in a friggin' lava pit.

    However, I suggest you reexamine your argument to gain further insight into your views on the matter.

    Bonam fortunam!
  • The Largest Number We Will Ever Need
    The expression on the right is a way of summing a divergent series. — jgill

    You're not the spoon feeding kind are you? :up:
  • Trouble with Impositions
    ↪schopenhauer1
    Gracias for the complement...I only dabble in math and so that was the best I could do.

    Anyway, it looks we're on the same wavelength as regards the asymmetry I referred to. My take is rather simple. The fact that we actually don't exist before we're born complicates the problem for the simple reason that there's no one who gains/loses if prepartum but there is someone who gains/loses postpartum. Clearly, it's comparing apples to oranges then, oui? We couldn't argue that not being born is beneficial - like you asked me in the other thread who benefits? If so how are we going to make the case for antinatalism - it's good for...no one! One counterargument against antinatalism revolves around this point, oui? A nonexistent person doesn't have moral worth e.g. no one would be arrested for murdering Frodo because Frodo is fiction.

    When we assume a person exists prepartum, we can reframe antinatalism/natalism as a game of chance which I've done my best to mathematize.
  • How to do philosophy
    How to do philosophy?

    By using our brains (truth) & hearts (good) [Xin (heart-mind)]. Wisdom (sophia) is knowing what is true (verum) and what is good (bonum).
  • What if a loved one was a P-Zombie?
    Or for a DIY version, take a long look in the mirror, and see if you can work out how you are feeling from the expression on your face. — unenlightened

    Marry me! :heart:
  • Trouble with Impositions
    I'll take first bite.

    My position on this is clear. We must, for the sake of simplicity, assume that we exist prior to our birth on earth as humans (to nullify the asymmetry that gums up the works) Nonexistence pre-birth unnecessarily complicates the calculations, sensu amplo.

    This enables the mathematization of the problem by taking life as a game with the entry fee (P) being how much pain one is willing to bear, happiness (H) being the prize, the probabilities of winning and losing being W% and L% respectively. The expected value (E) is how much one will gain/lose if you play the game.

    E = W% × H + L% × -P

    Play the game (choose to be born) only if E > 0 and I haven't said anything about how large E has to be for the game to be worthwhile. Would you spend $10 on a lottery whose expected value is $10.01?

    Can we guesstimate the values of P, H, W, L?
  • Understanding the Christian Trinity
    very true. Your wisdom is endless — Merkwurdichliebe

    :rofl: You jest!
  • Understanding the Christian Trinity
    Precisely. It comes in handy when dealing with the irrationallities of real life. — Merkwurdichliebe

    :up: Rationality is its own kinda irrationality. Paradoxically, if you haven't ever contemplated ending your own life, you're most definitely insane!
  • A dumb riddle with philosophical allusions
    What! :snicker:
  • TPF Quote Cabinet
    I'm dying for a cigarette.
  • unenlightened
  • Deep Songs
    Row, row, row your boat,
    Gently down the stream.
    Merrily, merrily, merrily,
    Life is but a dream!

    :fire:
  • Philosophy begins in ....
    philosophy begins in confusion. — Moliere

    my first philosophical thoughts began in the old time religion. — Moliere

    I started with a number of religious influences — Paine

    I sense a pattern...

    :chin:
  • Is there an external material world ?
    Banish? — hwyl

    Rusticate! :snicker:
  • The Ultimate Question of Metaphysics
    4 sets for analysis:

    1. { }. No elements.
    2. {{ }}. The { } is the only element.
    3. {0}. 0 is the only element.
    4. {{ }, 0}. This set is a valid set.
  • The Ultimate Question of Metaphysics
    Instead of thing, I suggest using “being.” — Xtrix

    Any reasons why?
  • Foundational Metaphysics
    ↪Rocco Rosano


    Felicitations Rocco Rosano. Great to see you're still alive & well!

    To get straight to the point, I'd like to bring up for discussion two kinds/types/varieties/strains of ideas (using an entomological analogy):

    1. Instar ideas (immature/half-formed): Infinity is one such; we have a very rudimentary understanding of what it is despite the fanfare and celebrations of the early 1900s. I wouldn't recommend it as a foundation for any thesis.

    2. Imago ideas (mature/fully-formed): Think of one and post it. One example is the concept of numbers as abstractions of "similar" sets.
  • Foundational Metaphysics
    I fail to see why anyone in his right mind would want to use a highly controversial concept such as infinity as the bedrock of his/her thesis (on metaphysics)?

    That said, such risky ventures are not without precedent - Gödel used a spin-off of the liar sentence to torpedo Whithead & Russel (vide Gödel's incompleteness theorems).

    Nevertheless, from the posts I read, the OP gets points for being systematic, a quality that I respect (a lot). Bonam Fortunam OP.

    P.S. A quick question: Why, o why ?
  • Is there an external material world ?
    vacate — hwyl

    Evict?
  • The Largest Number We Will Ever Need
    Is mathematics inconsistent?

  • The Limitations of Philosophy and Argumentation
    The metaphysics of logic

    Rule 1: To argue, one must know necessity.

    Rule 2: To refute, one must know possibility.
  • The elephant in the room.
    Ladies and gentlemen: the elephant is no longer in the room. — Wayfarer

    :rofl: Elvis has left the building!
  • Pantheism
    Godwin's law, short for Godwin's law (or rule) of Nazi analogies, is an Internet adage asserting that as an online discussion grows longer (regardless of topic or scope), the probability of a comparison to Nazis or Adolf Hitler approaches 1. — Wikipedia

    Hitler didn't exist! It is ~◇ for such a person to exist at all. Similarly Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot were/are all fictional characters, invented, not real! A malus deus is a contradictio in terminis!

    :snicker:
  • Bannings
    Some of us would not want to lower ourselves to that level. — Metaphysician Undercover

    That's the attitude! Atta boy!
  • Is there an external material world ?
    The problem is that sensory neurons (past the sensing apparatus at the tip/end) all talk the same language (action potentials) i.e. though nerves will only activate to a specific stimuli (pressure/temperature/etc.), the action potential that carry the information to the brain are identical which means we can extract a brain and electrically manipulate it (mid-axon) to experience an "external world"! The brain in a vat thought experiment! This rather macabre experiment is feasible in principle though not with current biotech!

    Feels like a roundabout way of broaching the simulation hypothesis. Wishing right now that I knew advanced math! :sad:
  • Bannings
    If only we wrote posts on this forum as we would an article in a reputed philosophical journal! But ThePhilosophyForum isn't a (reputed) philosophical journal now is it?

    I would like to suggest that posters keep the first sentence of my post in mind as you write, but also, don't forget the second sentence. A fine balancing act which few have mastered and fewer know about. Bonam fortunam, good people! Keep postin' but be mindful of the rules!
  • A new argument for antinatalism
    Lastly, I think that the millions and the grand can swap places in a subtle way depending upon the individual. Therein, I believe, lies the end of absolutist pro-lifeism/universal AN.

    Have a great day, friend!     — DA671

    An idea worth pursuing! Less is more!
  • A new argument for antinatalism
    It's the least one could do!

    And witness the majestic sights outside of the hospital!     — DA671

    :up:
  • Does Consequentialism give us any Practical Guidance?
    Most interesting. — Ms. Marple
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