Comments

  • My favorite philosophers of religion and theologians
    character is personification of idea

    :smile: :up: Isn't that the way it really is? Real people tend be an assortment of ideas - the objective then seems to be not truth, rather coherence, purging one's worldview of inconsistencies (contradictions).

    No one should object to your theism so long as you, simultaneously, don't deny the existence of angels and demons, heaven and hell, souls and spirits.
  • Is materialism unscientific?
    Not in the sense that one is creating a philosophical theory that can't be satisfied with science alone. Remember that a philosophical theory is trying to show reality in a difference sense, not the common sensical, scientific sense — L'éléphant

    What about the necessity for coherence? Any philosophical theory must necessarily jibe with/square with other existing theories, including scientific ones like the 1st law of thermodynamics, ja? If not, anyone could think up any theory, no matter how discordant it is with the current framework of knowledge.

    intelligibility — L'éléphant

    Could you explain a bit more about intelligibility? Thanks in advance.
  • Is materialism unscientific?
    Your conflating science with philosophical theory. Aristotle's hylomorphs are an example of dualism -- matter and form. The theory accounted for the form to be already in the universe, and not an extra entity. Your total energy objection doesn't apply here and does not invalidate, per se, the theory of dualism.

    If you reject dualism, don't use total energy or something like that, but use (1) intelligibility -- is it necessary that we account for another substance like form and how is it to be understood as a compound of existence. Or (2) there is no dualism -- one composition, i.e. materialism could account for the mental processes.     — L'éléphant

    Well I'd think science has a big role in the proof/disproof of dualism, it being the apogee of materialism, no? :chin:

    Thanks for the tip though: intelligibility :up: One question: why use comprehensibility as a yardstick? It doesn't make sense to me. It's as if I were to say calculus is incomprehensible to me (it is) and so, calculus is nonsense! :chin:
  • James Webb Telescope
    Definitely planning. Minute, precise, meticulous, checked and double-checked. — Wayfarer

    :up:
  • Is materialism unscientific?
    Not sure I follow, my love. You know I would follow you everywhere normally but here it's very hard for me. Please understand. Why would dualism break energy conservation? — EugeneW

    Good question. To the extent that I'm aware, the total energy in a system (here the brain) must be explained in physical terms. If dualism were true, this would be false (there would be energy that can't be explained materialistically) and we could/should then hypothesize another source (immaterial) for the extra energy. That's how I understoosd it, could be wrong.
  • Mad Fool Turing Test
    ↪BohdanZ
    Oh, you agree! That's great to know. Just think of it, we put our lives in the hands of abnormal people (AI) every day - everything from internet search engines to fly-by-wire passenger planes is AI-controlled/assissted!

    :chin:
  • James Webb Telescope
    JWST got through all 344 single-point failures - things that, if they had gone wrong, would have doomed the mission. So - so far it is going exactly as planned, astonishingly well, in fact. — Wayfarer

    Devil's luck or good planning! Can't tell which! :smile:
  • Esse Est Percipi
    That long sentence of which this was a part was meant as a joke. If you took that goblygook seriously, see your mental health professional :razz: — jgill

    That's quite an interesting statement there!

    What if you could develop an IQ test consisting of only jokes, a rich variety of jokes (from slapstick humor to deep philosophical ones) and we could assess how many of them a person gets/understands? The rule would be simple: the more you laugh, the higher your IQ.

    Scholars of the highest class, when they hear about the Tao, take it and practice it earnestly.

    Scholars of the middle class, when they hear of it, take it half earnestly.

    Scholars of the lowest class, when they hear of it, laugh at it. Without the laughter, there would be no Tao.     — Tao Te Ching

    :lol: G'day mate!

    Warning: High risk of eMotional Daaamage!

  • James Webb Telescope
    In case anyone's interested,

    Lagrange points (aspects of the so-called three-body problem) are points in space at which the gravity of two masses cancel each other out OR where the centrifugal force is equal to the gravitational force acting in the opposite direction.

    The JWST was placed at Lagrange points to minimize the need for orbital corrections and/or to make them easier; plus, the sun and the earth are close enough to each other in the sky at Lagrange points which means sun-shielding is a much simpler task (less variation in sunshine).

    Fun fact: Lagrange points are part of the famous three-body problem, the precursor to chaos theory (kind courtesy of Henri Poincaré). Will things go awfully wrong for the JWST or will it go as planned?

  • Is materialism unscientific?
    Correct me if I'm wrong...

    Materialism is the position that all that exists is either matter or energy, the two being equivalent E = mc2.

    Dualism espouses a tertium quid (a third) that's neither matter nor energy, the mind being the object of interest.

    Is dualism falsfiable? I dunno but dualism is incompatible with materialism as it (dualism) would break the 1st law of thermodynamics (the law of conservation of energy): There would be energy in the system (the brain/the body) that can't be accounted for physically/materialistically.

    In short, dualism can't be scientific.

    That said, the OP's intuition (probably) stems from the fact that science is easily conflated with rationality (we must be willing to abandon our beliefs, even those dearest to us, if evidence contradicts such beliefs).

    :chin:
  • An Objection to the Doomsday Argument
    A stronger argument for God would be if the universe were impossible in which case chance would be completely eliminated from the list of candidate explanations for the genesis of the universe.

    Mirabile dictu, chance is a goddess, Fortuna. Heads you win, tails I lose! Either Yahweh or Tyche! Choose!
  • Why are things the way they are?
    Reminds me of a story. "Fuck you fuck you!" "Fuck you!" — EugeneW

    Don't remind me of activities better than being on this forum, EugeneW!
  • WW2, SpaceTime Rules
    ↪Metaphysician Undercover
    exceptions — Agent Smith
  • Why are things the way they are?
    The OP's query is deep!

    Are there people (mayhaps there's only one among us) who wake up in the morning, perform the customary ritualistic ablutions and go "perfect!" Then drive to work, watch the chaos of traffic, witness a road rage incident and go "perfect!" Reach the office, get summoned to the boss's office and get reprimanded for your poor performance and go "perfect!". After work, get stuck in a traffic jam for 6 hours and go "perfect!". Arrive home only to realize that they've left the only key to the door at the office and go "perfect!". It's a perfect, perfect world! Dr. Pangloss and Ms. Pollyanna are living somewhere in the Sahara. Scorching heat, little water, dust storms, no one for thousands of miles, the nearest health facility 3 whole days away, Perfect as perfect can be!
  • My favorite philosophers of religion and theologians
    ↪180 Proof
    :smile:
  • My favorite philosophers of religion and theologians
    My favorite theologian is Frederic Brown (1906 - 1972)

    Short Story: The Answer (Frederic Brown, 1954)

    Dwar Ev ceremoniously soldered the final connection with gold. The eyes of a dozen television cameras watched him and the sub-ether bore through the universe a dozen pictures of what he was doing.

    He straightened and nodded to Dwar Reyn, then moved to a position beside the switch that would complete the contact when he threw it. The switch that would connect, all at once, all of the monster computing machines of all the populated planets in the universe – ninety-six billion planets – into the super-circuit that would connect them all into the one super-calculator, one cybernetics machine that would combine all the knowledge of all the galaxies.

    Dwar Reyn spoke briefly to the watching and listening trillions. Then, after a moment’s silence, he said, “Now, Dwar Ev.”

    Dwar Ev threw the switch. There was a mighty hum, the surge of power from ninety-six billion planets. Lights flashed and quieted along the miles-long panel.

    Dwar Ev stepped back and drew a deep breath. “The honor of asking the first question is yours, Dwar Reyn.”

    “Thank you,” said Dwar Reyn. “It shall be a question that no single cybernetics machine has been able to answer.”

    He turned to face the machine. “Is there a God?”

    The mighty voice answered without hesitation, without the clicking of single relay.

    “Yes, now there is a God.”

    Sudden fear flashed on the face of Dwar Ev. He leaped to grab the switch.

    A bolt of lightning from the cloudless sky struck him down and fused the switch shut.

    If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him. — Voltaire

    If God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish Him. — Mikhail Bakunin

    The Supreme Fascist! That's what Paul Erdős, Hungarian mathematician, called God.What do we do with fascists? What did we do to fascists?

    :confused:


    ↪180 Proof
    :up: More!
  • My favorite philosophers of religion and theologians
    :broken:
  • WW2, SpaceTime Rules
    ↪EugeneW
    :up:
  • Which comes first? The egg or the Chicken?
    Is the chicken and egg problem an issue for evolution?

    We could say non-egg laying chicken evolved into egg-laying chicken and be done with it, ja?
  • My favorite philosophers of religion and theologians
    ↪180 Proof
    :death: :flower: Now I get it! Death and Life.
  • My favorite philosophers of religion and theologians
    Fio%C5%82ek_ogrodowy_wisnia6522.jpg

    The pansy serves as the long-established and enduring symbol of free thought; literature of the American Secular Union inaugurated its usage in the late 1800s. The reasoning behind the pansy as the symbol of free thought lies both in the flower's name and in its appearance. The pansy derives its name from the French word pensée, which means "thought". It allegedly received this name because the flower is perceived by some to bear resemblance to a human face, and in mid-to-late summer it nods forward as if deep in thought. — Wikipedia
  • My favorite philosophers of religion and theologians
    ↪180 Proof


    Clifford's Principle

    It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence. — William Kingdon Clifford
  • WW2, SpaceTime Rules
    So in principle, the metric of spacetime in special relativity, can be deduced from wars? One's Blitz can be other's Schnecke though... — EugeneW

    Omnia possibilia sunt, omnia possibilia sunt, EugeneW
  • My favorite philosophers of religion and theologians
    No, Agent my love. It's us who should explain. The apology should be ours. BTW, you roll the cigarettes yourself? — EugeneW

    Why would we need to do the explaining? We had no hand in creation. Is it possible to be good when the way the game has been designed is such a way as to invariably lead to situations that can only be fully described as aut neca aut necare (either kill/harm/maim or be killed/harmed/maimed)?

    Goodness is impossible given the way the world is and how it works. There's not enough to go around for everybody if you know what I mean; war and its milder variants (a tiff that on most occasions spirals outta control) are inevitable. To make matters worse, going by the headlines in the media, the conditions aren't exactly improving.

    That said, the brain/the mind is a powerful organ. If we, when we, use it well, magic!

    As for cigarettes, mine are pre-rolled (by a machine hopefully, I'm fascinated by machines it seems), in packets of 10 (cheaper, deadlier).
  • The Invalidity of Atheism
    We're bound to rerun in the universal domain eternally. Again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again
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    And the gods watch. Again. Without morally obliging.     — EugeneW

    Alternatives modes of expression (recommended):

    1. We're bound to rerun in the universal domain eternally. Again and again and again...

    2. We're bound to rerun in the universal domain eternally. Again and again and again...ad infinitum

    3. We're bound to rerun in the universal domain eternally. Again and again and again...ad nauseum :vomit:

    4. We're bound to rerun in the universal domain eternally. Again and again and again (again × )

    5. Left to the reader as an exercise
  • My favorite philosophers of religion and theologians
    confront "the divine" — 180 Proof

    :fire:

    Confront! Explain yourself, God/priest/cohen/mullah/lama or whoever the hell you are!

    Words, words are all I have, to take your heart away...

    Kant wished to interrogate, as opposed to converse with, nature. We should adopt a similar line, God has a lot of explainin' to do, ja?

    Right now, I don't wanna be in god's shoes!
  • What is Climate Change?
    What I find puzzling is that our lungs, or more generally our respiratory system, seems to have evolved to operate at even higher concentrations of (something known as functional reserve) than the normal (approx. 0.03% - 0.04%), assuming climatologists are right in that concentrations have increased due to fossil fuels.

    We can smoke, heavily, chain-smoke in fact. The average blood levels are higher in smokers than non-smokers, and we (I'm a chain-smoker) are none the worse than our non-smoking brethren. Did mother nature anticipate global warming, does Gaia know humans in and out?
  • Why are More Deaths Worse Than One? (Against Taurek)
    The President of the United States of America is the counterexample to utilitarian ethics of numbers. The USA will send its entire army to fight to the death to save the US President! Am I correct? As far as the US high command is concerned The President of the United States of America is America! Just imagine a weighing scale with the entire population of USA in one pan and the POTUS in the the other - the POTUS weighs more!

    Interesting stuff, eh?

    The same goes for other world leaders, single individuals for whom the entire nation is sacrificed if it comes to that!

    Just sayin'...
  • Romanticism leads to pain and war?
    Democracy — Athena

    Democracy, whatever it is, seems to provide the right kinda environment for healing of a society (people can vent their frustrations. Important! Talk things out in a civilized manner. Etc.). One could perhaps look at democracy as a sanitarium of some kind for society to convalesce in). :smile:
  • Romanticism leads to pain and war?
    Absolutely not! — Athena

    I would! :grin:

    I want to make everyone happy. :lol:
  • Esse Est Percipi
    To be is to be and to be perceived is to be and be perceived — jgill

    What's a tautology?
  • The Good Life
    Can you back this up with some reference? — baker

    Simply connected the dots, you know a result of doing the math, adding 2 and 2 together.

    However, I'll attempt a rough proof: The Greek fascination for eudaimonia, exemplified by Socrates and perhaps those who came before and after, no less. What is eudaimonia any way? Isn't it, at the end of the day, a word that encapsulates the good life (flourishing).

    Before you object, lemme remind you that I did say it isn't going to be a solid proof.

    If the original goal of philosophy really was "the good life", then, after all those complex and lengthy excursions into epistemology, ontology, etc. etc., that original goal began to appear too pedestrian to be taken seriously any longer.

    I was once at a lecture on virtue epistemology by Duncan Pritchard. He also spoke about "living the good life". It struck me as too superficial to take seriously. Talking about Gettier problems for an hour and then about the "good life" -- how does one put those two together?     — baker

    Ja, all these various problems, some even paradoxes, in the different subdisciplines of philosophy were only discovered and put under the microscope so to speak in order to complete the main quest: The good life.

    To illustrate, here's a typical math problem in high school:

    Johnny has $50. He buys 2 special pens that cost $10 each. How much money does he have left?

    Subplot/Subproblem/Sub-quests: We have to first find out how much he spent. 2 × 10 = $20. Epistemology, aesthetics, ethics, metaphysics, logic are the $20.


    Main problem/Main quest: $50 - $20 = $30. The Good Life
  • Esse Est Percipi
    @Banno
    This sounds like a profound idea! Berkely seems to avoid this trap by saying that there must be an ultimate, omniscient perceiver who perceives all. If we get rid of this ultimate perceiver, we would still have trouble proving that anything exists beyond perception. — chiknsld

    Is it a profound idea? It doesn't look like one to me. :chin:

    1. To be is to be perceived
    2. To be perceived is to be.

    2 is problematic for the simple reason that hallucinations are real (certain mental illnesses would lose their cardinal symptom e.g. schizophrenia with its 3rd person auditory hallucuinations if we endorse 2).

    In other words, both realists and idealists must subscribe to 1 which is esse est percipi.

    The choice: either concede that everything perceived is real (2) [if one sees a dragon during a drug trip, the dragon is real] OR esse est percipi (1)

    Perhaps the realist can respond that they choose 2 but they make an exception of mental illnesses like schizophrenia. The question then is how are we to tell the difference between what is real and what is a hallucination? Perception is neutral (both the real and hallucinations are perceived) i.e. there's nothing in perception that could help us in this matter.

    Everybody can't be hallucinating! That's how, the realist might claim, we can differentiate the real from hallucination. Yet cases of mass hysteria have been documented. Then there are hypothetical scenarios like The Matrix in which everyone is experiencing an illusion (what they perceive is a simulation, not real).

    The long and short of it: Option 2 isn't viable i.e. the realist too must agree that esse est percipi.

    I dunno if all I said makes sense though, it's a confusing world, ja?
  • A first cause is logically necessary
    Self-cause is a rejection of PSR — noAxioms

    Well, well, well!

    The PSR: Everything has a cause.

    1. Uncaused

    2. Self-caused

    2 seems to square with the PSR, 1 is contradictory. 2 doesn't imply all things are self-caused, only the conveniently self-caused ones.
  • Omnipotence (Dictator/God)
    Reason is not strong with this one. — Bartricks

    :lol:

    Ok Yoda! BS is certainly strong with you! — universeness

    :lol:

    Even!
  • James Webb Telescope
    I daresay much of what is discovered will only really be comprehensible to specialists. — Wayfarer

    That takes me out of the running, I'm a generalist, a little bit of this, a little bit of that, you know, jack of all trades, master of none!
  • Esse Est Percipi
    Even for realists, existence is predicated on perception (seeing is believing kinda deal). For a realist, perception (sense-and-instrument-based detection) is the sine qua non of being/existence.

    Question to realists: How do you all tell the difference between nonexistent things and unperceived things? Perhaps your explanation will state that there's a world of a difference between unperceivable (nonbeing) and unperceived (hidden being).

    Here things start getting interesting (re: unperceivable nonbeing i.e. esse est percipi)
  • What is mysticism?
    Are so-called mystics neurological patients with subclinical TLE (temporal lobe epilepsy)? :chin:

    Could be a brain tumor or perhaps a parasite (t. solium/t. gondi/etc.).
  • Does just war exist？
    FIGHT-OR-FLIGHT-OR-FREEZE RESPONSE

    3 options in an emergency (life-threatening situation):

    1. FIGHT
    2. FLIGHT
    3. FREEZE

    Just wars don't exist!
  • Mad Fool Turing Test
    fucking speed — EugeneW

    :rofl:
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