The availability of cheap contraceptives implies that abortion isn't necessary for responsible women of child-bearing age. If I don't want an omelette, I shouldn't break an egg. To break an egg, make an omelette and then throw it away is being mean, not only to the egg, but to yourself as well.

I was simply amazed at why women would not care about being thought of as murderers (even if that were to be false) when they could easily nip the problem in the bud by taking pills/asking their partners to use condoms/etc.?

An example: Attending one of Trump's rallies could mean people come to the conclusion that you're a racist. So, I don't go to the rally. Why go and then later havta explain that you're not a racist to every person who now doubts you are?

Why create problems for yourself?

The quashed Roe vs. Wade ruling doesn't prohibit contraception. So, oddly, I can stop a person's mom and dad from having sex (fertilization of the ovum by the sperm) but I can't abort this person as a fetus? I call this The Terminator Riddle: Kill Sarah Connor before she meets Kyle Reese so that John Connor isn't born!

Anyway, something doesn't make sense here: Women can prevent pregnancies by using contraceptives of which there's a wide variety, but yet they get pregnant and then wanna tread the fine line between murder and freedom by seeking abortions. If it were possible to avoid giving people the impression that one is a murderer (by having an abortion), why would you ever put yourself in the situation where you would, for certain, be conflated as one?

I removed the ambiguity — Luke

:snicker: So it was you all along!

Antinatalism & Time travel.

Travel to the future and ask X "do you wish you weren't born?" If the answer is "yes", go back to X's parents and inform 'em that X doesn't want to exist. The parents must comply with X's request (contraception preferrable but abortion permitted only a last resort). The perfect solution - customized to the client, just as it should be, eh?

That's a tough question. — jgill

:fire:

Then

(p & Kp) (only) $\to$ ◇K(p & Kp).

How do we get to K(p & ~Kp) $\to$ Kp & ~Kp?

:brow:

There's a problem:

The knowability principle: p $\to$ Kp.

1. K = Knowable

p is true and p is unknown: p & ~Kp

We know that p is true and p is unknown: K(p & ~Kp)

2. K = Know(n)

Inconsistency in the meaning of symbol K (compare 1 and 2).

The question, it seems, is rather easy to answer because it's asking about essences (necessary conditions) without saying anything about completeness i.e. if you find one essence that'll do. In other words, we needn't go into the definition of a human being which is basically a list of individually necessary but collectively sufficient qualities that can be used to identify a human being.

One "what is essential to being a human being" is our manifest rationality or potential for it, whether actualized or not.

Unless it is merely their intuition that senses it is false. — Bylaw

Truth is intuition maybe an alternative pathway to truth - it's a feeling rather than a thought - and, guessing hereon, some intuitions of great minds have been vindicated later on by reason. With phenomena like these, we're led to psychological concepts like Freud's unconscious although I prefer to call it subconscious (my intuition :snicker: ).

Given what I said above, intuition isn't exactly non-reason; it's leaving out all the steps in proof and simply presenting the conclusion to someone. The task then is to reconstruct the argument.9

That out of the way, there's the notion of verisimilitude - there are "reasons" other than reasons in the traditional sense (logic) that we can and probably rely on to demonstrate truth e.g. some say that mathematical truths are beautiful and elegant and so are, physicists say, the equations of physical laws. You're aware of course of the so-called argument from beauty (visit Wikipedia for a fairly good exposition of this idea).

Anyway, coming to the OP, I actually like Bartricks' argument because it uses reason to attack/kill reason i.e logical seppuku (I think deep down I'm quite suicidal :snicker: ). Nuff said!

@god must be atheist

Made the necessary corrections. I'm not a 100%. Apologies.

So, tell me, why is it that a theory that explains everything explains nothing.?

I believe you've missed the point of my post or are focusing on the incidental rather than the essential.

Can you show me where exactly I picked cherries? :snicker:

:brow:

A theory that proves everything.

pessimistic — god must be atheist

Threats, no matter how remote, must be assumed to exist

Opportunities, no matter how attractive, must be assumed not to exist.

God is both an opportunity (heaven) and a threat (hell).

What should be our assumption with regard to the reality of God? It leads to a contradiction!

Logic does not trump belief. — god must be atheist

Why argue (your point) then? Also, I'm making the effort to ground God in reason albeit in a way more appropriate for a crook.

@Art48.

Taking hints/cues from math, we could say that abstractions are generalities aka patterns - there's a brief back and forth between two posters on the question of whether the mind is a sense that picks up patterns in here and out there à la the eyes, nose, ears, tongue, and skin.

Pattern-sensing/seeking seems to be the mind's forte if you catch my drift.

Then there are mathematical objects that have no physical counterpart - these objects, in a sense, exist only in our minds. I wish I was a mathematician - I could've given some examples to drive the point home. Suffice it to say that there's a controversy with regard to whether math is invented or discovered. A point worth making/noting is how physicists have tried to make sense of the physical world with mathematical models. You might be interested in The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences (Eugene Wigner).

Summary of the OP's argument.

1. An evolutionary account for the belief that there are reasons (to believe/do x) doesn't require there be actual reasons (to believe/do x).

Ergo,

2. The belief that there are reasons (to believe/do x) is debunked in the sense there needn't be real reasons (to believe/do x).

Ergo,

3. the belief that there are reasons (to believe/do x) needs a different basis/foundation and that basis/foundation is god.

Critique.

True that evolution is all about survival and towards that end everything is/will be sacrificed including but not limited to truth and the belief that there are real reasons (to believe/do something) is one such "truth" If life were given the option survive OR form true beliefs, it would choose the former without batting an eyelid and in a flash.

However what are the justifications for grounding beliefs in god? This question is left unanswered by the OP.

No. It's a speculative supposition (or avowal), not propositional statement / thesis — 180 Proof

I see. Idealism = Everything is mind-dependent. Is this not a proposition? It feels like one to me. Prove to me that idealism is nonpropositional.

At first, I thought there was something paradoxical in that the warning shot (Algos/Hell) is more dangerous/terrifying than taking a bullet (Thanatos/Death).

However, it makes sense like this :point: $Algos \to Thanatos$

The endpoint of philosophy is confusion aka aporia. We could call that progress if we consider the alternative which is pseudo-knowledge.

@OP

If you have anything against reason, you're not allowed to use reason. Simple. :snicker:

"Idealism" isn't a formal theorem or factual truth-claim so the question is incoherent. — 180 Proof

It is a claim, oui? The question of its decidability arises quite naturally as far as I can tell. Why would we argue the point otherwise?

Adolf Hitler killed himself — javi2541997

He was well-fed and well-rested...he had time to ruminate.

The OP mentions intuition and yet crafts an argument! He/She is committing suicide!

Oh. My. God. How many times?
I am arguing that reasons exist.
Are you a goldfish? — Bartricks

Ok, so you are...with a little help from God.

Explain how God $\to$ Reason.

No, I'm not a goldfish! :snicker:

Doesn't matter to me either way. — Merkwurdichliebe

Most interesting. — Ms. Marple

:up:

Most interesting. — Ms. Marple

Infinity is then some kinda test for impossibility, at least in this case. We need infinity to demarcate the boundary of what's doable and what's not.

In a sense then $\infty$ in science has a job description similar to contradictions - separates the possible from the impossible.

Is infinity a contradiction? It does lead to some rather odd conclusions: a part is equal to the whole and all that. No wonder many mathematicians (recall Kronecker's vitriol against Cantor) were dead against it.

Noble Dust already suggested that it is a product of environment and psychological predisposition. I agree. But then again, some of the stuff that is created by the most talented artists with masterful skills, you will keep room for the woo-woo explanations. They are otherworldy.

I have often entertained the idea of metempsychosis in geniuses. I don't puch much weight in speculative theories, but it is a potential explanation for why certain individuals are so much better than everyone else. — Merkwurdichliebe

I see. Can't rule out metempsychosis now, can we?

Danke! Please carry on with your discussion with other posters.

Is it possible to disprove idealism? No according to science; yes according to Laozi! :snicker:

I wonder how we could explain talent/gift without resorting to woo-woo like reincarnation/metempyschosis (the child prodigy simply recalls lessons he took in his/her previous life)?

A 5 year old playing the piano like as if he's been practising for 20 years! :brow: $5 - 20 = -15$ (time not accounted for). If said child was born in 2017 according to birth records, then the child was actually born in 1997 (20 years of practice since the child turned 5). Weird!

Shared minds?! Possession! :snicker: I couldn't help it! Sorry.

talent — Merkwurdichliebe

This is what I find most intriguing. There are 2 kindsa artists, oui? One has inborn talent and the other has to, well, trudge through art school. Can you name some artists of both types?

Between skill and technique which of the two, perhaps both, can be congenital? It's quite fascinating to see a child paint on par with an adult who's spent thousands of dollar-hours learning how to paint.

Were there any cases of suicides during the holocaust? I don't recall reading of mass suicides among those interned in Nazi concentration camps. Too tired to think (of killing oneself out of hell)?

Most interesting. — Ms. Marple

That's a stupid thing to do, unless doing it prevented you from coming to an even greater harm — Bartricks

Keep it coming! :clap:

How about the following? "Luminiferous aether or ether ("luminiferous", meaning "light-bearing") was the postulated medium for the propagation of light. It was invoked to explain the ability of the apparently wave-based light to propagate through empty space (a vacuum), something that waves should not be able to do."
The luminiferous aether is an abstract object that the universe fails to instantiate. — Art48

The aether is a medium for waves, both these concepts have links to the physical (water waves/ripples).

:blush:

Deserving/undeserving are simply extensions/corollaries of causality. Say you till the soil, water it, plant high quality corn seeds and stockpiled pesticides. In doing this, you've done everything you possibly can for a good harvest. You then deserve a good yield of corn which is simply another way of saying you cause it and hence you have a right to expect and stake a claim to the corn that'll eventually, ceteris paribus, grow in your fields. In short the effect is the property of the cause.

H

Good points, worth pondering upon.

Let's back up a little for my sake.

Is there a finite number (N_max) such that no calculations ever in physics will exceed that number?

@Gnomon @Bartricks

Looks like, as is common, the word "holism" has different meanings - from the tenor of our discussions we're already aware of two:

Holism¹: As pertaining to your EnFormAction Thesis, inclusive and hence takes within its fold reductionism as one of a pair of opposites.

Holism²: In this case, the antithesis of reductionism viz. the intuition or conviction that there's something about the whole that's inexplicable as the mere sum of its parts.

I see it but I am not brave enough to walk up there :death: — javi2541997

I'm sorry.

life is pointless — javi2541997

There is only one really serious philosophical question, and that is suicide. — Albert Camus (The Myth of Sisyphus)

seeing "life" as something sacred or worthy. — javi2541997

My oversight, apologies.

Algos hunts with the hounds and runs with the hares. O horror of horrors! Do you see any light at the end of this tunnel? I'm dead beat! You're on your own! Good luck.

Well, as far as I can tell, suicide is usually/always the last option. In other words, it's forced upon the suicider. To that extent, the person who takes their own life isn't guilty of any offense as free will isn't part of the equation.

The logic of the suicider is plain & simple: Algos or Thanatos and we all know everybody's terrified of jahanam.

That said, killing oneself is, if you examine it closely, a gross aberration - it goes against the very essence of (all) life which is to, well, live (for as long as possible with immortality being no. 1 on the wish list). Ergo, the antagonism the living bear against suiciders is as expected - they (the living) are made a mockery of (their basic survival instinct is being ridiculed) and nobody and I mean nobody likes to be laughed at/made the butt of a joke.

Suicide is an insult to life, delivered in the most :vomit: ways possible.

There's more...chew on that for the moment.