Magma makes me think of (man-made) volcanoes. :scream: Supervolcanoes have been posited as possible causes of global catastrophes - The Year Without a Summer (1816) caused by the 1815 eruption of mount Tambora - and also mass extinction. The problem with nuclear energy isn't that we can't tap it, it is whether or not we can control it. There seems to be some sorta cost to viable energy sources that are (comparatively) clean/green i.e. non-carbon based - they have immense destructive potential. We're gonna havta play with :fire: ,literally speaking.

We're not so evil that we don't still need excuses. — igjugarjuk

:up: Good one!

Another good theme. The norm of rationality is not our only concern. It may be a detour, a invention of some darker need (such as to replicate without reason or excuse.) — igjugarjuk

The possibility of us not having sussed out the truth notwithstanding, we might as well treat ourselves to some irrationality every now and then.

The heart has its reasons which reason does not know. — Blaise Pascal

Made itself vulnerable? Despite mankind fucking up the environment for over a century it's still there in a way that it supports our existence. It's not so much that a biodiversity collapse will end nature - not even catastrophic meteor strikes end nature - but it will end us. — Benkei

It seems nature doesn't care which one of us survives so long as one of us does. We're gonna change that!

That's a nice issue to bring up. The fallacious version seems to point at practical consequences, so that an inconvenient truth is no less true for all that. But inferential consequences are something else. If 0 has a multiplicative inverse, then it's easy to prove that 0 = 1. I must abandon my belief that 0 has such an inverse or, far less likely, modify a vast system of related beliefs. — igjugarjuk

Something like that. While we figure things out, let's assume the least worst theory. In fact, on occasion, let's not...figure things out. The truth, who cares about the truth! I want to be happy!

Keeping it simple, if existence entails a mass & volume (basic/naïve materialism), nothing simply can't exist (there isn't a thing that can possess mass and occupy space).

That said, Being & Time (Heidegger) - nothing seems compatible with the passage of time (there was nothing for 18 trillion years). :snicker:

The human mind is an agent of extinction, the human heart is an agent of conservation. An assassin is the best bodyguard! :snicker:

Materialism is best says the novacula occami (do not multiply entities without necessity). If materialism is false, it must be out of a dire need viz. an inability to explain some entity/phenomenon materialistically.

I value health; this is a natural need, and a value. I value philosophy--I do not have to. — Jackson

So, good health makes us happy because it has value and philosophy has value because it makes us happy?

Most interesting! — Ms. Marple

Why does good health make us happy?

Because it has value!

Why does philosophy have value?

Because it makes us happy!

It feels circular this!

Chicken and egg problem.

1. X has value because it makes us happy

2. X makes us happy because it has value.

Without value nothing can make us happy but without making us happy nothing can have value!

Both — Jackson

How? An example or two?

It appears that we're not so much against predation as we are against parasitism with symbiosis being our ideal of what a relationship should be like.

But is life really about hedonism/maximizing one's pleasure? That seems like an insane way to live. "A life worth living" is a very difficult concept. I was very suicidal when my net worth was at its peak. — Moses

Good point! I've asked this question before, I'll ask it again:

Do things have value because they make us happy or do things make us happy because they have value?

Life is wrong to start irrespective of circumstances. Procreation itself violates the dignity of the person born into a game of comply (must learn to play the game at least well enough) or die. It also puts them into a state of guaranteed suffering. None of this is moral to create for someone else. So..
Why do people have children?
— Agent Smith

Many bad reasons one of which is the messianic impulse to be the arbiter for creating someone else a game of overcoming obstacles. No one needs to be born for X reason.

There is no need for anyone to have to experience anything. There is nothing wrong with the state of affairs of”no person”. — schopenhauer1

I asked the question "why do people have children?" because, as you rightly pointed out, the reason whatever it is has nothing to do with the well-being of children. If that were the case, no one would even dream of starting a family; after all even the rich can't give any assurances on the happiness of their own offspring. And yet we all are, day in and day out, working hard so that we can be happy. A cognitive dissonance is apparent, oui? The way we live our lives indicates, beyond a shadow of doubt, that happiness is the be-all-and-end-all of life but we make babies as if that isn't true.

You're right on the money Bitter Crank - I was offering an explanation as to why the world hasn't been able to give up carbon. I believe it isn't due to any advantage fossil fuels have over other greener sources of energy; it's because the world has become psychologically and physically dependent on black gold.

You have to begin with some kind of handle on what it means. As I've said, I feel as though I have gotten a sense of it, through an intuitive understanding of some elements of Platonism but what I think seems intuitively clear seems completely baffling to a lot of people, for reasons I can't really understand. — Wayfarer

I'm glad to know you're ahead of the pack; maybe metaphysics isn't meant for everybody, just like skydiving isn't.

I just happened to come across a Wikipedia page (forgot the title; trust me to remember things! :smile: ) which makes a passing mention of what (Buddhist) meditation is all about - the contemplation of existence (being/ontology) [with respect to identity and change] {i.e. metaphysics proper}.

In metaphysics qua ontology, we have the primal instinct of (conscious) beings fixated on being, employing both the faculties of reason & imagination. The objective? Temet nosce (existence trying to figure what existence is all about).

Pragmatism, as it applies to "metaphysics" is not valid (yet!)... We do NOT know what works and what does not work. But, the Shroud of Turin (already discussed) is tangible evidence, just as the Miracle of Lanciano - as examined and verified through experimentation (over a year) by the World Health Organization. And again, the Body (St Bernadette) is still visited today (from over a hundred years ago) that the clergy called "incorruptible" has not fallen into decay. These are all physical examples that still exist today and defy scientific explanations. — Rocco Rosano

Once the message is received, neither the sender (God) nor the medium (the messenger/prophet) are no longer of any significance, oui? In other words Peirce's pragmatism works, oui?

You might expound on why, then, 'in Peirce’s opinion, “nominalism” does not take the category of thirdness to be real'. It sounds a thoroughly metaphysical argument. I think the thrust is, Pierce dismisses 'a priori' metaphysics, not metaphysics altogether. But then, that's probably a metaphysical distinction. :wink: — Wayfarer

Crumbs! I would've loved to be Peirce-pragmatic and be done with metaphysical mumbo jumbo with one fell swoop of a question (does it matter, in practical terms, whether metaphysical claims are true/false?) I wonder if we could find the middle ground, you know. pare down metaphysics into something more manageable?

The more virus-like ... — 180 Proof

:cool:

the distinction is false, biodiversity collapse will affect everyone and everything. — Benkei

Yeah, the way I was taught ecology in school does jibe with what you say here. However, why would nature make itself so vulnerable which would be the case if every organism in a given ecology was absolutely essential to the whole ecosystem? 4.5 billion years of learning in the school of hard knocks should've ensured that the ship of nature could take some big hits and still stay afloat.

Pragmatism (Peirce) already eliminated metaphysics, quite a long time ago I might add, by asking a simple question "does a metaphysical propositions's truth/falsity matter to us in any real, tangible way?" The answer was "no, it doesn't!"

Most interesting! — Ms. Marple

Excellent idea! I love it! An argumentum ad consequentiam is a fallacy they say...naaah!

How long have fossil fuels been around? I'd say 2 centuries minimum (1800s - 2000s). Every aspect of our civilization has been adapted to them to such an extent that removing oil, coal and gas would be the death knell for a way of life we've become so habituated to. What I mean is that our problem is not with energy, that we consume trillions of joules of it per annum, but that we're, in a sense, addicted to carbon! This is the reason why we're unable to effect a transition, smooth/bumpy, from fossil fuels to (say) electricity.

1. All knowledge is belief
2. Not all belief is knowledge i.e. some beliefs are not knowledge (missing justification)

My two cents...

Philosophy will (probably) go extinct from the world of formal education conducted in universities and colleges in the coming 50-100 years or so. I read a news report a few years ago that some universities are downscaling their philosophy departments; the reason is quite obvious - unlike STEM, philosophy doesn't yield any tangible benefits to the university or the community at large.

The question of whether philosophy has explored all of the territory avaiable to it is moot then, oui?

That said philosophy might survive within religious universities and colleges, but only as a sidekick to theology.

There are things far worse than death[...] — R. Alan Woods

I don't think that is suffering as much as traditional cultures. Value is gotten from playing the role of parent. Women think they are being a true woman by birthing. As women and cultures in general become more Westernized, roles such as "careers" become more valued. To me, both values are patently wrong and working out of bad faith.

Also note, the minute you create a person who must "learn to play a game" (like the game of life, the economy, learning to live in a society a certain way), that action becomes morally disqualified. You are forcing someone into a comply or die situation. No one needs to play the game of life. You (the parent) are not a messiah bringing about someone else's curated experiences. No person needs to be born to learn anything. This is delusional messianic thinking on the part of the parent. — schopenhauer1

Only the rich can guarantee their offspring a life worth living, hedonically speaking. The vast majority of us (the lower & middle income bracket) can't even assure our sons and daughters a decent income, an income which, at the very least, can make life not enjoyable but just tolerable.

Why do people have children?

The more succesaful, evolutionarily speaking, an organism is, the more vermin/pest-like it is. Make any sense?

It appears that the mind and heart have different criteria for belief. The mind uses justification as the gold standard (is/cope). The heart, on the other hand, relies on something else (ought/hope).

We couldn't have made it this far without a mean streak: aut neca aut necare (kill or be killed). It's only after we managed to claw our way to the top of the food chain that our innate killer instinct became a major concern (we were turning on each other without an iota of mercy).

I guess the paradox I mentioned in my previous posts can be "resolved" by changing the question (what is a question?) into a command (define "question"). It's kinda a cheat code to avoid/escape what is a mind-boggling loop.

:confused:

The paradox of antinatalism

Those who produce the most children are those who suffer the most (compare birth rates between first world and third world countries). Does that mean antinatalism is bogus? No! In fact the have-nots have more children precisely because they suffer; the argument is mathematical - distribute the load as it were i.e. more the merrier.

The paradox: Suffering, instead of making people averse to birthing children (end suffering), encourages them to opt for larger families (share suffering).

I suppose it has something to do with politenss and etiquette.

The basic idea of deconstructionism seems to be that words derive their meaning in a world of (other) words - the latter serving as a contrasting background against which a word in question stands out and thus is rendered visible.

As is obvious the stronger the contrast, the more visible the word becomes. Hence the emphasis on grasping meaning via negativa. This is because, a kataphatic definition is limited by the problem of infinite regress cum circularity (looking up a word in a dictonary would require you to look up the definition of the words contained therein, so on and so forth ad infinitum).

Reminds me of Skynet in Terminator. The first thing Skynet thinks of after it becomes self-aware is humans are an existential threat.

I never said it can't also do this. :smile: Note Joshs' words 'can also' not 'always'. This is not a black and white world (no matter what some Republicans imagine). :razz: — Tom Storm

We need some statistics: Isolation cells are not all that popular among inmates I hear.

This is inconsistent with my understanding and life experience, Smith. Suffering entails solicitude; self-awareness – "metacognition" – emerges, I think, in early childhood from the perceived interval – wait – between suffering and amelioration, between need (cry) and relief (care). Natal-dependence/vulnerability undeniably, it seems to me, reinforces both 'eusociality' – reciprocal empathy – and, in certain higher mammals, a 'theory of mind' :point: ↪180 Proof.

Happiness, on the other hand, tends to be a group affair and one's sense of self is lost in the joyous crowd so to speak.

"Happiness" like this is the exception to the exception. Suffering is the rule of our species and other mammals and any lucid existentialist, whinging antinatalist or devout Xtian "sinner" will tell you so, mi amigo. Besides, what can be more self-centered – ego-fetishistic-aggrandizing – than the orgiastic? :yum: — 180 Proof

Yep, that's the complete picture in my humble opinion. Self-awareness has something to do with hedonism, not just suffering but the whole enchilada (sorrow and joy).

However, again with some reservations, I feel that suffering is a more effective method of inducing metacognition than happiness; it usually is the case that the stick is better at making you think about your own welfare than the carrot.

Danke, Herr 180 Proof.

I advocate intellectual and moral courage (i.e. ataraxia, ekstasis, non serviam, carpe diem, sapere aude, ...) Whether or not this makes me a 'fatalist', that's not the same as being futilitarian — 180 Proof

Superb monsieur, superb!

Our "spirtual" glory says Freddy – amor fati! :fire: — 180 Proof

Are you advocating fatalism?

:up:

We're caught in a trap of sorts - we don't like it (life) and so, we search for justifications to like it (life). That's positive thinking on a whole new level, oui?

Algos & Thanatos (deadly duo of suffering) force us to imagine stuff like souls, the very essence of selves, that somehow survive both kinds of suffering...to live happily ever after. A fairy tale.

Except in depression, which is epitomized by a sense of isolation from others. Physical pain and grief can also isolate. — Joshs

Best I can do is above already. You just have to trust my experience of this and what I have seen. I don't mind at all if you don't believe me. — Tom Storm

That's because the idea challenges you. That's ok. — Tom Storm

Well, I wanted an argument from you refuting my claim.

No. :wink: — Tom Storm

I don't think you're right about this.