Does this count as possible?
http://www.kurzweilai.net/ai-algorithm-teaches-humans-how-to-collaborate

That's similar to saying that passion is important to the answer of what is 2x2=?. — Sam26

What does it matter what the answer is? Who cares?

You are saying passion is not needed to solve the equation, knowledge of the rules and order of operations are needed to solve it. I think what the others (and myself in agreement) are saying is: You have to care about learning the rules in the first place, care about working out the answer, care about whether you get it correct or not and if not, then care about getting it corrected.

That is what almost always seems to be ignored in the narrative about the problem of population growth: overconsumption. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

I think because, in part, the definition is slippery and differs between groups. Even the vegan, bicycle riding minimalist in the West will have different ideas of what "overconsumption" is than someone like a San hunter.

Also, "overconsuming" tends to be associated with that which affects the economies of the group defining it. Ask the normal person on the street what we are "overconsuming" in the West and the answer tends to stick to things like oil or plastic or even large amounts of smaller junk-cluttering their apartment or houses. What is not in awareness are arable land, water, construction materials for suburban and city housing, and all the electricity from non-renewables needed to run it all, metals for the iPhones, etc. The environmental familiarity and awareness of an indigenous aboriginal used to living within their climate is simply greater than the typical Westernized climate-concerned citizen, but that awareness comes at the cost of hardships which cost them their lives and the lives of their children.

I get a perverse pleasure in asking the hardest flag waving environmentalist what phase of the moon we are in, when was the last time they actually saw the moon, what constellations are in the sky, what birds are appearing in the trees around them, which plant on the ground in front of us is native and which is invasive, and other details that an indigenous would have at the forefront of their consciousness. Many in the West are so concerned with the "knowledge" about the "environment" they are fed from the "top down"- yet have zero clue about their own immediate ecosystem. It is a gross mismatch of awareness. Without knowledge of the local ecosystem and what current changes are happening and what they might mean, it is hard to imagine people actually know what "climate change" actually looks like until it is upon them.

Indigenous people tend to look upon the materialism of the West (in my reading and very small experience) and generally tend to admire it. They see lives made easy from all the "stuff". Given the chance, they too will "overconsume" as it is part of our evolved nature to exploit and compete for resources. Would the most ardent and concerned climate change activist ever intentionally adopt a lifestyle with the footprint of a San member? I tend to doubt they would, but maybe I'm wrong.

but unlike Bacteria, humans keep finding new ways to allow for further population growth and to exploit nature. Humans adapt the environment for themselves. I'm slightly skeptical about the comparison. — René Descartes

What is the difference between bacteria and humans when it comes to "finding new ways" to increase populations? There is a loooong bacterial history, both in depth and scope of "changing environments" in order to adapt. In these regards, bacteria are actually better than humans and have a longer evolutionary history that places the high score firmly in their column. I think you give bacteria too little credit, they are (so far) the clear winners of evolution (adaptation to conditions, exploitation of resources, and adaptation of the environment itself). Hell, without bacteria, humans would not be able to do anything we currently do, including digesting a meal.

We don't know how certainly inevitable all this is. It is conceivable that wise, thoughtful, scientific and socially enlightened solutions could be devised which would render these calamities moot. — Bitter Crank

I was not trying to present it as inevitable, just from a synthesis of my own study on the issue - this is what is most probable (in my opinion). The more up in the air question for me is the timeline. Climate change is the big variable.
As far as scientific solutions - I hold to my original premise that "science" is a business and social enterprise that is mainly funded for military purposes or for market goods by specific corporations. The other issues with the "science solution" include the fact that a solution to each of the problems mentioned would each take a multinational approach, perhaps on the order of CERN or more in levels of cooperation, which, as part of the social deterioration forecast for the future conditions, cooperation is a victim.
As far as "socially enlightened" solutions - I won't hold my breath. Have we ever seen, in the sum of human history, an "enlightened solution" which originated from one country (or a group) and then was implemented on the scale needed to stem something like climate change? Will the middle class of the United States fund the application of a climate solution for Africa? I doubt it. We are within the game theory, multiplayer version of the Prisoner's Dilemma (in this multiplayer version - the Tragedy of the Commons). It is simply too easy for one group to defect, which then leads to the domino effect.
If you take a look at the polling done in all countries of the world on the issue of climate change - you will see low to middling levels of "awareness" of the problem, an average of half of the people who are aware thinking that humans have even caused it, and less than half that think it is a threat (especially within the so called 2nd and 3rd world countries whose populations are rising and who want a piece of the 1st worlds pie).

The means of generating fairly clean energy from nuclear, solar, and wind are available. — Bitter Crank

Yes they are, but are they "market" worthy? Also, the net energy use to mine, manufacture, and implement these solutions, plus the fact that the energy needs of the world is going to go through the roof (even by todays standards), these technologies will be hardpressed to meet those needs.

The cities can be cleaned up; they don't have to be smoky, filthy, garbage-strewn shit holes...A major piece of that is not using cars to move people around. Do it with mass transit, foot traffic, and bicycles. — Bitter Crank

Getting the political will, the funding, and then the incentives to remove the population from their cars and make them share buses and trains more so than already done - that would be a neat trick. What would you propose? What would you do for people that refuse to do so because simply because it is their right to drive their car where they want and how much they want? If that gets done, say in the US, would the same pressures work for China? For India? For Iran? Too many players, too many chances to defect from the game.

Human responses to stresses aren't quite the same as they are for rat populations; we (presumably) have more flexible response capability that rats. — Bitter Crank

That is true - they are not the same. But, as you noted, we do have limits. We are constrained by Nature and her biology. The question is - what are the responses? And, are we already seeing them? From work done by Stanley Milgrim, by Philip Zimbardo, and others we are shown that we can easily culturize and adopt the worst tendencies simply from social roles in a conducive environment for "evil", but in the end, they are evolutionary adaptations (that are not so savory or noble) that, given the right conditions, become part of culture. Between the work of psychologists and game theory, at least in my reading of them, the problem of climate change is going to be a reality with the same effect on people and populations as the Ice Ages but done in a shorter timeframe than the onset of an Ice Age. It will be an evolutionary bottleneck for our species...but as the optimist I am, I think we will survive it as a species. I liken it to the Ice Age meets the Dark Ages with the addition of, at the beginning, the Rwandan Genocide.

Unpleasant Questions: Is a massive die-off among the poorer populations (who simply can not keep body and soul together under the stresses of population and climate change) part of the solution? — Bitter Crank

I read somewhere that when the social class of elites gets a sniffle and cough, the poor die of pneumonia. When you say "solution" it sounds as though it is a planned, meditated response. From what we have observed in nature - those individuals and groups that have "lesser status", or less access to land and resources, are the most likely to die off first when there are stressors in and of the environment. So, I don't think it is part of "The Solution", but I do think it is going to be a fact regardless of any solution put into place or not.
I also believe there to be a few paradoxical points on this topic within the issue. If and when the climate creates problems to the point of food, water, and power generation of more "civilized" countries - who will be able to navigate survival better? A middle class family with the minivan and office jobs? Or a migrant family used to hardship and living off the land? I think in the beginning we will see the poor dying off from being crowded into pockets by the more elite countries, but that will change when the elite countries get hit themselves with things like famine, water shortages, and energy discruptions. Then, it will be the civilized countries that turn into bloodbaths and cemetaries, ripe for the poorer to move in and take over. I think of it this way - if we all lost power today the Inuit and the Aborigines would not be so worse off than they are now. But if we lost power today, New York and Los Angeles would see millions die. Perhaps there is a biological lesson in the quote - the meek shall inherit the Earth.

Should we let this happen or not? — Bitter Crank

I am not sure it is a question of "letting it happen" or not. Look at past history and all that is happening now as far as displaced populations - the Rohingya, the Syrians, the Mediterranean migrant ships. All of these people leaving lands that will be most affected by climate change in the future - what are the results of the mass flow of people now? Political (and military) upheaval in the countries these populations are escaping to. Now multiply that problem to the entire or bulk of the populations of those countries and I think we get an idea of, based off today's responses, what we can expect in the future but with an exponentially more drastic response.

Is there anything we might do to stop it, once it began? What if there are, simply, too many people? — Bitter Crank

In order to stop it, once it began, we would have to know "when it began" and "what it looks like" first, would you agree? What line would be drawn, when is the category created, of "climate induced die off" or even "climate induced famine/migration"? One of the thoughts behind the Syrian civil war was the fact that the country experienced a climate change exacerbation of a natural drought cycle, which then sent all the farmers (young men) into the cities looking for work. Upon not finding that work, unrest followed and was then met with severe reprisals from the government. Then, floods of refugees of the war - but couldn't you also say that all the Syrian refugees are really "climate refugees"? The war was the reason they left, but the mechanism behind the war would be labeled as climate change. How do we tell the difference between war induced migration and climate induced migration?
That question is one I have been focusing on recently...human awareness of and internalization of external factors affecting and generating behaviour and what those behaviours are labeled as in "expression".

https://www.census.gov/popclock/

Most arguments for or against the problem revolve around physical and material variables. There is not (usually) an acknowledgement of the psychological variables associated with the problem. Here is a good, short link on it: http://bigthink.com/scotty-hendricks/why-overpopulation-is-more-than-just-a-material-problem

We know our numbers are going to increase in the short term. We also know that the bulk of the population is clustering into cities. We can see empirical behavioural differences between rural and urban dwelling populations when it comes to the "tooth and claw" side of nature - one is more likely to die of violence in a city than in a rural setting. That means, unlike ants or bees which are controlled chemically, the more we pack in, the more we are affected by our own psychological underpinnings. All the variables of course are part of the equation like resources and adaptations through social evolution and technological advancement, but all of those are driven by our psychological and behavioural underpinnings. You can't do science that saves the world from overpopulation if most of the governments of the world aren't going to pay for it (or for each other). That part alone, at least to date, seems to be true. Even the Paris agreement on climate - if we look at the "official numbers" for greenhouse gases emitted - any one government's self reported emission numbers may look great. But if we measure emissions independently, we get a different story.

But, going back to the point about psychology and behaviour, if you take a look at the different periods marked in the Calhoun experiments, can we note possible parallels between the mouse populations and the human populations? For example:

Days 315-600: The “Equilibrium” period. It was here that the social roles of mice began to break down. Mice born during this period found they lacked space to mark out territories in, and random acts of violence among the mice began to occur. Many males simply gave up on trying to find females. These males retreated into their bedding and rarely ventured out. Simply eating, sleeping, and grooming.

What would these actions "look like" in human populations? Random violence, complacency, reproductive and mating changes, etc. When "humanized" into a "social issue", how and where do these "signals" show up? Can we see them happening today in areas where humans are similarly packed together (like modern urban centers)? How about this part "... retreated into their bedding and rarely ventured out. Simply eating, sleeping, and grooming." - can we add "shopping" and "surfing the net" as a couple of items?

Days 600-800: The “Die” phase. The population, which maxed-out at 2,200, began to decline. No surviving births took place after day 600, and the colony ultimately died out. Individuals removed from the colony and placed in similar units continued to demonstrate erratic behavior and also failed to reproduce. The mice were remarkably violent at this time, for little reason.

Same set of questions - what do the human versions of these behaviours look like? And, can we see them happening today?

and then, the really ominous part:

He felt it was plain that the problem was having too many individuals for meaningful social roles, saying that after that point: “only violence and disruption of social organization can follow. ... Individuals born under these circumstances will be so out of touch with reality as to be incapable even of alienation. Their most complex behaviors will become fragmented. Acquisition, creation and utilization of ideas appropriate for life in a post-industrial cultural-conceptual-technological society will have been blocked.”

Imagine a world where there are 10+ billion people.
* 75-90% of which live in medium to large, polluted urban conglomerates and centers.
* Technology and automation (and potentially A.I.) remove "work" for the bulk of the population.
* Cooperation on climate change, per the usual Prisoner's Dilemma outcome, is rendered ineffectual.
* Scientific advancement to mitigate negative factros is curtailed by social and economic upheaval.
* Social upheaval and climate change create mass migrations.
* Mass migrations create and exacerbate existing social and economic upheaval.
* Mass population collapse. Even survivors of city and urban areas are so psychologically damaged they don't survive and don't reproduce.

I don't see humans going extinct as a certainty, but unlike the Ice Ages - there probably won't be much of the natural world still present to support the remainder.

The camp that puts all chips on science saving the day for the bulk of the human race I think forget that "science" is really two things - a philosophical methodology (which can offer solutions through observation, experimentation, and cooperation) but also it is a social venture (cooperation in and out of the scientific community). I heard it like this somewhere that makes it short and sweet: "No buck$, no Buck Rogers". If there is no social fabric to uphold the scientific endeavor, then science can't "save the day" and humans find themselves constrained by brute fact and the laws of biology.

I also think that for science to save "us", we have to redefine what the "us" is. For example, we could genetically engineer ourselves to be "super socials" like ants or bees - but take the consequences that our lives are determined by self-engineered chemical controls and lifelong "roles" in a manner foreign to what we humans already have and live under and by subconsciously. Our conceptual view of ourselves will have to radically change...if it even can.

I'll be the unpopular poster here, but, a rebuttal...

As with most diagnostic approaches to the ills of modernity and/or the human condition, this reads more like the geography of ones own mind projected on to the world.

Our societies tell us that everyone is free to make it if they have the talent and energy. — Gerald47

...

any perceived lack of success is taken to be not, as in the past, an accident or misfortune, but a sure sign of a lack of talent or laziness. — Gerald47

Societies don't do anything. They don't speak, they don't think, they don't make toast and jam. There is a web of structured interactions between individuals and groups that share and overlap that can be called society. The concept of meritocracy as a method of hierarchy doesn't tell us anything about the what the end result of any particular or group outcome should be other than "for the good of the group, the responsibility of X should go to the person that is the most qualified and capable to do X". The idea that this is saying anythiing else is an afterthought of some motivated interpretations. If I fall sick, should I go to a qualified doctor, tested and found to be competent (more times than not), rather than the neighbor who is a car mechanic that likes to watch medical dramas on TV? And if my car is not running, should I go to the professional car mechanic rather than my doctor who owns a Porsche? Does that mean then that the neighbor is told by society they are a no-talent, lazy hack and get depressed that I didn't go seek their medical advice?

And yes, one is "free to make it" (if we take the premise listed as a sort of generic, vanilla way-things-are). If one has talent, energy, timing, wisdom, and luck then "making it" should be what we strive and compete for. But, being "free to make it" does not equate to "guaranteed to make it". That is not implied. That implication is added, later, by other motivated reasoning. One is also free to fail, or to even change what the idea or definition of what "making it" means (as an individual, no less, rather than the "community").

The cure is a strong, culturally endorsed belief in two big ideas: luck, which says success doesn’t just depend on talent and effort; and tragedy, which says good, decent people can fail and deserve compassion, rather than contempt. — Gerald47

It is funny how these views become established as "the way society is". Perhaps it stems from the circles we are used to running in. I know a lot of people that are at, or just above, poverty level that would completely agree with that statement - how are they magically excluded from the "society" that states otherwise? When "society" is mentioned in this context, it is usually the case that the elements of "society" making the statement then simply attribute that view to the rest as a truth about the whole.

I would also bet that if this item's "antidote" was put in place I would bet my right arm that the "strong, culturally endorsed belief" means the poor and middle class (or equivalent lower rung demographics) simply would be at the butt end of whatever form or mechanism that would "strongly endorse" this belief.

The cure is a cult of the good ordinary life – and proper appreciation of the pleasures and quiet heroism of the everyday. — Gerald47

Telling that the choice of words here are "cult" and "proper appreciation". The cult tells us what the proper appreciation is. Without a proper appreciation by the individual, the cult retaliates. Using the word cult is a good choice in that it is the perfect analogy for the group mentality come-unhinged, and where it is only within the power of the individual to break themselves (and maybe then others) from the destructive power of the group. Perhaps the antidote to this would to simply not adhere to either pure individualism or communism, and to stay away from all ideological extremes by recognizing and addressing them for what they are - limited and simplistic.

Secular societies cease to believe in anything that is bigger than or beyond themselves. — Gerald47

One of the most tired, worn out, and in-itself meaningless phrases ever uttered. Also, I would say statistically, usually uttered by those who, in their appeal to imaginary consequences, state that the effects of the absence of religious belief structures mean that any belief not religious in its nature or essence is suddenly "empty of meaning", self absorbed, or leads us to the path of fatalism, nihilism, and whole host of other "isms" thought up through history. If one finds meaning in religion and another doesn't, how weird is it that suddenly the non-religious ways of being are small, shallow, and uninspiring?

Religions used to perform the useful service of keeping our petty ways and status battles in perspective. — Gerald47

What history of human beings have you been reading? Were there not a long list of human societies shaped, sometimes solely, by "status battles" and "petty ways" engaged in with, and using, religion as the engines of those conflicts? And if not the engine, then they were definitely the gas poured into the existing conflagration.

But now there is nothing to awe or relativise humans, whose triumphs and mishaps end up feeling like the be all and end all. — Gerald47

Like "God having a special purpose for you"? The creater of the entire universe is personally engaged with you as an individual and whose very simple actions can consign one to heaven or hell. Doesn't that, by design, make our triumphs and mishaps, the end all be all - for the reward or punishment promised for each?

And to relativise, we have been given all of post-modern philosophy. Reams of it.

A cure would involve regularly using sources of transcendence to generate a benign, relativising perspective on our personal sorrows: music, the stars at night, the vast spaces of the desert or the ocean would humble us all in consoling ways. — Gerald47

Is it the indivual that gets to decide which source of transcendence will be used? Or the cult? Does "society" need to be reminded of this? Or doesn't the bulk of individuals have their own, or even parochially shared, sources in use or development? From the post about secularism being higher on the list - what point to the sky is there unless it isn't hung by a deity to give us, personally, something to look at?

The philosophy of Romanticism tells us that each of us has one very special person out there who can make us completely happy. — Gerald47

Did it? I am not an expert on Romanticism as a period in philosophy, but I am hard pressed to come up with any actual philosopher of the time that told us that we have a "soul mate" that makes us unquestioningly happy. I think it did seem to have the theme, roughly, and correct me if I am wrong, that the passion of the individual should not be muted, that it is a source of inspiration and action, and that one should not settle for that which does not enflame our passions and robs us of our awe in life and to make sure that we understand how we emply that passion. I believe it was the newspaper romance advice columns starting in the 60's that introduced the idea of not "settling" for less than interesting prospective romantic partners. Maybe we should be railing against romance advice columns instead, leading us to "media".

The media has immense prestige and a huge place in our lives – but routinely directs our attention to things that scare, worry, panic and enrage us, while denying us agency or any chance for effective personal action. — Gerald47

Can that be proven as a fact? If it were true, how is the issue presented in "individualism" affected by "media"?

The cure would be news that concentrated on presenting solutions rather than generating outrage, that was alive to systemic problems rather than gleefully emphasizing scapegoats and emblematic monsters – and that would regularly remind us that the news we most need to focus on comes from our own lives and direct experiences. — Gerald47

One of the goals of journalism, I thought, was to cover the news. The goal of media is to entertain. Here we have a mixing between concepts of "journalism" and "media". Perhaps, instead of forcing the environment of the news or media to comform to some Platonic ideal, the cure would be focus in the individuals capability to tell the difference between "news" and "media" and how it can all interacts.

Modern societies stress that it is within our remit to be profoundly content, sane and accomplished. As a result, we end up loathing ourselves, feeling weak and sensing we’ve wasted our lives. — Gerald47

Do "we"? Even if "we" do, maybe it isn't society, maybe that is individual psychology doing that. Also, which "modern societies" do this? The U.S., UK, China, Russia, Syria, and/or Argentinian "modern societies"? Straight society or LGBQT? Wealthy elite modern society or middle class modern society? There are so many modern societies to choose from. "Society" is become a cognitive construction that abstracts the web of people and their interactions into one simplistic narrative - like taking the many and reducing to one individual construct that we then label with the term "society". We look at a million people - then based off of one perception all million get reduced to "a society", which has traits like an individual.

A cure would be a culture that endlessly promotes the idea that perfection is not within our grasp – that being mentally slightly (and at points very) unwell is an inescapable part of the human condition and that what we need above all are good friends with whom we can sit and honestly discuss our real fears and vulnerabilities. — Gerald47

Didn't you ever watch Friends? (just dated myself...) Also, my current mental illness is writing really long Internet forum posts...please embrace me.

We deserve tender pity for the price we have to pay for being born in modern times. — Gerald47

When can't that be said by any living human being in any time in our history? Making the "modern day-ism" scapegoat is simply elevating our own current troubles over and above the troubles of all others at all other times. I am sure if there was an Internet forum for philosophy during the Mesolithic, it would be filled with the same "sources of mental illness" found in the OP, but listing the negative psychological effects of things like the near constant threat of injury and sickness, predators, famine, status, and conflict (sounds familiar...)

IMO, the numbered points in the OP don't survive scrutiny as they only pop up and thrive on generalities and dubious constructions and abstractions taken as reality. Well written though.

The contradiction of 1 is

5) some causal inferences are not coincidences.

5 can't be proven. My argument demonstrates that. — TheMadFool

The laconic version is better, thank you. I presented a poor argument for a contradiction using the square.

If we hold this true:
1) All causal inferences are coincidences. T

Implication - Some causal inferences are coincidences. T
Contradictory - Some causal inferences are not coincidences. F
Contrary - No causal inferences are coincidences. F
Sub - Some causal inferences are not coincidences. U (but assumed False)

Either it is true that "some inferences are coincidences" and that "some inferences are not coincidences" is true (contradiction), or it is true that "some inferences are coincidences" and false that "some inferences are not coincidences".

Here is my reasoning for the contradiction with #5, where you show it as unproven:
I do think it helpful to make the distinction between the mathematical and physical and how they interact. I based my objection on the grounds of the assertion in the coin flip example that there is no way to know, purely from the results of the flips, what caused a mathematically improbable result. Mathematically speaking, that is true. No physical knowledge is gained or denied, but physical knowledge is assumed a priori in order to even apply the equation. Concerned with only the flip results, maths will make no distinction between Odin and a loaded coin. Could be both, could be neither. We do know from the math-only approach that it is highly unlikely that a fair coin flipped 1 million times comes up with 1 million heads, but not impossible. *

(*I liken this to the argument that 1.99999999999999999999... is not 2.0 as it is mathematically possible to have 1.999999999999... but in physical reality it is 2.0.)

But, within the decision to use probabilities for the coin flip - we must make some physical assumptions. Our first assumption is that we are indeed using a coin and not a die, the coin has 2 different sides, and the recorder of the flip results is accurate, etc. just to name some of the first physical constraints that come to mind. If we use a fair coin, we know it should be roughly a .5 chance for each of two possible results. If we know we are not using a fair coin, then we can apply different equations where the results of those equations map more closely to the physical results (say 75% heads and 25% tails for the loaded coin). So there are physical reasons and mechanisms which change the mathematics that are applied and which then define subsequent results as being probable or improbable. If I use the equation parameters of the probability of a coin with a 1 face and a 2 face - but then start rolling a die with 1,2,3,4,5, and 6 - how improbable are the results of the equation modeling a coin? The question is - can you know all of the physical constraints? Probably not in most cases, but in some it may be possible (like a simple fair coin toss).
So "causation" can't be identified with mathematics alone. I think we can agree there, where we still disagree is to whether "causation" can be identified physically (or in combination).

The next objection has to do with the definition of a "causal inference" as an "improbable result". I am assuming we agree that there are critical differences between "causal inferences" and "causal mechanisms". A "causal inference" is basically an educated, but constrained, guess. The "causal mechanism" is the actual case, but they are two different classes of things. One can see and record the physical results of a "causal mechanism" and not know what the mechanism is and then assign an incorrect "causal inference" to those results. That would be the definition, I would think, that counts as a "coincidence" since there can be many more causal inferences than causal mechanisms. The inferences can be modelled mathematically to cohere with the physical. The results can show what is probable and what is improbable based on the the merits of the coherence.

So then we have to ask - can there be an inference which does actually describe a state or mechanism? The odds of an inference actually describing a mechanism, mathematically speaking, is not 0 (even in random chance). With that said, the vast majority of "causal inferences" could be incorrect and therefore counted as coincidence, but what mathematical or physical rule states that all inferences must be coincidence?

If that were true, then even religious/spiritual "causal inferences" would always be as much of a coincidence as any other posited "causal inferences", since there is 0% chance of any correct inference.

But, mathematically speaking, there is a >0% chance that there is at least one possible or existing "causal inference" which can or does accurately describe a "causal mechanism". In other words, one inference must be correct, but every inference is not necessarily correct.

That is the contradiction that I see - stating that all inference is coincidence I could then ask in what way is it meaningful to even say anything is "coincidence"? If there is at least one correct inference, then it is meaningful and possible to say that any particular inference is coincidence (as a result of mathematical and physical coherence), while another is not coincidence. It can also point to a currently unknown inference if all other inferences fail the criteria of the investigation.

So, if I may, let's state the following (if you agree based off of the reasoning so far): If we take the above as true, that means it is true that some "causal mechanisms" can be described by some "causal inferences".
Therefore:
1) All "causal inferences" are "causal mechanisms". F
2) No "causal inferences" are "causal mechanisms". F
3) Some "causal inferences" are "causal mechanisms". T
4) Some "causal inferences" are not "causal mechanisms". T

What this reveals is that ALL our causal inferences could be coincidences. That means causality, as we perceive it, could simply be nothing more than a coincidence. We can't know for sure. — TheMadFool

I can agree with some inference as coincidence and some as mechanism. A one-off result is different than repeated results. Even if we state we still don't "know" after thousands of trials, that is not the same level of ignorance inherent in the first trial. (I refer back to the 1.9999... vs. 2.0 distinction)

This matters to me because it puts in doubt the current paradigm of scientific knowledge. — TheMadFool

Does it? Or does it actually give the tools to doubt any paradigm that supplies "causal inferences" with 100% accuracy?

Science has been used to undermine religion by always insisting on naturalistic explanations of events and succeeding in this endeavor. — TheMadFool

How is that success measured for science?
How is it measured for religion?
As an aside, if religion posits a deity as 100% true, then how can there NOT be causal inferences that describe causal mechanisms?

However, if my argument is sound science, its entire content, could simply be a coincidence - highly improbable BUT not impossible. — TheMadFool

An argument is not "sound science", it is a only an argument - a hypothesis, correct? The results of "sound science" performed with the hypothesis would include both physical and mathematical investigation backed with repeated trials and have results that cohere with each other.

What this reveals is that ALL our causal inferences could be coincidences. That means causality, as we perceive it, could simply be nothing more than a coincidence. We can't know for sure. — TheMadFool

No, it does not mean that.

Here's why -
1. The conclusion "We can't know for sure." was arrived at using a mathematical method of investigation which is different from a physical method of investigation and equivocating the different results between the two (as well as the combination of the two). Any good "causal inference" investigation has both the mathematical as well as the physical tools to generate a possible cause.

2. The statement here "there is no necessity that the coin will NOT show heads throughout a series of a million flips. " should read "there is no mathematical necessity". There could in fact be a physical necessity.

3. The statement "The only thing is such events are highly improbable." confuses again what the "events" in question are. Are the "events" mathematical or physical in nature?

And then, just logically, I think it refutes itself:
4. The statement is a premise as "That means all our inferences of causality (not a coincidence) are actually cases that are highly improbable." can be rewritten to state: "All (causal inferences) are (cases that are highly improbable.)" or "All p are q", where "p" is a (causal inference) and "q" is a (highly improbable case).
Let's use the Square of Opposition:

If the original premise "All (causal inferences) are (cases that are highly improbable.)" is held to be True, then these would follow:

- It's Contradiction must be False, so that "Some p are not q" or "Some (causal inferences) are not (cases that are highly improbable.)". To shorten - "are not (cases that are highly improbable.)" we could also state that "are not probable or of equal chances". In other words, it must be False that "some inferences are probable or of equal chances.". If there is ever an "inference" which is "probable" or "equal chances" for the outcome, then it must be false since only "improbable" outcomes can qualify for the "inference" to be true. Therefore it must hold that "all causal inferences" are "all improbable" since it is false that some are "probable". We find the hidden equivocation in the premise that states "improbable outcomes" are mathematically and physically equivalent to "probable outcomes".

- It's Contrary must also be False, so that "No p are q" or "No (inference of causality) are (cases that are highly improbable)". So by asserting "all causals are improbabilities" the simultaneous assertion is made that "No causals are probable". You can never have a probable outcome.

- The fact that "All (causal inferences) are (cases that are highly improbable.)" being held as True will then have the Implication that "Some (causal inferences) are (cases that are highly improbable.)". That means as the original presmies' Subcontraries must also both be true, so that "Some p are not q" is true, or "Some (causal inferences) are not (cases that are highly improbable.)" - if we rewrite that it states "Some (causal inferences) are not highly improbable."...meaning some causal inferences are probable or of equal chances. But wait...we already determined that all causal inferences are improbable with the premise itself?!?

Leading us full circle - the premise itself is a contradiction since all causal inferences MUST be improbable by their nature, yet by stating they are improbable means that there can be no causes that are probable or have equal chances for occuring.

It exists for them as a reality so that they have something to complain about. It's easier than competing and trying to improve one's situation, no doubt. — Coldlight

Forgive me for saying so, but that's pretty arrogant and spoken with authority that you haven't earned yourself, especially if you do not share knowledge about, or the particulars of, others' experience. You also make some broad projections on whether it can or can't still happen to women even if they do "compete and try to improve their situation".

When I state it exists as a "reality for them", I think you misunderstand the context and equivocate the conclusions. It is a not a "relativism" of what is true for one may not be true for another. When I state it is a "reality" for me - it is not because I just think that is true because I heard it somewhere or someone told me or I read it in a textbook. It is a "reality" because of actually occuring events and dollar amounts, in my directly lived experience, within an existing business, and with actual living people.

So yes, for those who were paid less (at the time of my experience with the situation anyway), it is "true for them", because it actually happened to them, and was witnessed by me. That, by the way made it true for them as well as for me - because it actually happens, even though it may not be "true for you", because you just think they must have been lazy, or not worth as much to the business, or whatever.

In what sense is logic supposed to be fundamental to reality? — MindForged

Personally, I think this sentence sums up the confusion perfectly. Logic is reified into "something" as a class itself, then applied to another class of things which then act as properties of "reality".

"Reality", as I take it to mean here, is the sum total of what there is and how it all interacts. To state there is something "fundamental to reality" creates a false distinction - for how can one part of "reality" be fundamental and another part be secondary for "reality"?

Logic (as well as mathematics), from my pov, are simply human symbols that condense and represent the structural processes of how "things" interact. The list of "things" being represented can be (somewhat) arbitrarily picked based off peceived degree of relation, but the interactions will always be the same assuming that "things" for the process share the relevant degrees of relation. Those paramaters are the "brute facts" of Nature, or "reality", or Cosmos, or whatever name you give to the concept of the totality of things.

When the logic, or mathematics, don't seem to fit the empirical reality, it is because how the "things" defined are not truly linked in the ways the process (or equation or premise) being imposed upon them actually relate. Hence we have discovered non-Euclidean geometry or paraconsistent logic and all the other different systems needed to reorient our own assignation of properties of things considered to be in relation. It also seems to explain the odd little artifacts, like the "principle of explosion". That is like exploring a process of relation occuring in a "vacuum". The process holds to a structure, but without the "things in reality" to constrain the imposed structure of the process itself, the "result" is therefore not relevant to anything actually in "reality".

Even though the systems we use change according to the arena of "things" being arranged, the rules of interaction must follow a process of relation (apparently, as "brute fact" observation of reality).

You can have an abstract mathematical certainty (or logical one) that has nothing to do with empirical "reality".

But, can you have an empirical, "real" object that does not follow ANY mathematical or logical relation to anything else?

If there is such an object or thing that does not follow ANY mathematical or logical relation to anything else, then how could one even perceive of it empirically or even in abstraction? It would effectively be like some sort of a "singularity of a singularity" and completely outside of "reality". It could have no relation to anything else logically and hence potentially be unable to be thought of and in an empirical sense, if the object has no logic or process of relation, then it would be unrelated to anything in "reality"...hence a true "unknown and unknowable".

I can tell you it does from personal experience, as well as that of others in my immediate circles, that the pay gap exists. You can call it anecdotal...but it definitely exists.

Does it get smaller as time goes on? Possibly. Could be getting smaller annually as more and more women are owning businesses, running businesses, etc. It could (and does seem) to exist in pockets, especially among smaller, non-publicly traded businesses.

the average gap in mean hourly pay across the organisations was 11%." I honestly have very little idea as to what this is supposed to mean practically — Coldlight

You don't know what that means? Jack up your rent or mortgage by 11% just because.

So, my question is, does a gender pay gap exist? — Coldlight

Yes. Adults that are actually in the workforces can tell you that as a granular detail in the nitty gritty of the landscape, even though it may or may not be lost in varying economist big data visualizations and interpretations from orbital points of view.

If not, who benefits from use of such propaganda? — Coldlight

Since, for most people it does seem to exist as reality, let's look at the idea that it is propaganda for folks who claim that it isn't. Who would, and why would, benefit occur in the claim that it does not exist?

In my humble opinion, your concern and the discussion it creates distract us from clearer, but well-obscured, realities. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Your moniker is well-fitted (friendly tease).
A reality that is "well-obscured", but nevertheless still "clearer" is a condition indeed.

If we acknowledge that words can damage a psyche and cause a lot of suffering — WISDOMfromPO-MO

That acknowledgement is one of the items under examination.
1. If I verbalize content I know the hearer finds offensive, they suffer a damaged psyche.
2. If I verbalize content I don't know the hearer finds offensive, they suffer a damaged psyche.

From the point of view of the "hearer" of the content, what difference, if any, is there between 1 & 2?

It takes us from what people do or do not like / approve of to what does or does not harm people and cause avoidable suffering. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Not all agree that any mechanism, in this case speech, conveying content causes psychological harm to the point where otherwise "avoidable suffering" occurs. Even if true, does it require action on the part of third parties compelling the speaker to silence in pursuit of the avoidance of the other's "suffering"? I think that there are demonstrable incidents where the socially normative approach (the everyday ho-hum "ignore the haters" approach) is jumping the various "rights" or "action" categories.

You mention that "

it is safe to say that words--as in everyday, ho-hum exchanges, not just the exchange of ideas in political and scholarly contexts--can be very harmful and do a lot of psychological damage. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

That is true, but it also does not oblige anyone else to do anything about silencing the exchange. The makeup of a differing psychology may already be "damaged" or may be more prone to being "damaged", whereas others may be more well-adjusted or resilient.

Clearly we can't just dismiss something as not being a right based on limited, biased things like our own culture's traditions, laws and values, even if the consequences scare us. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

A softly worded assertion of the truth of relativism?
It sounds reasonable, but is it a sort of "law" in how it is applied? Or is it only a useful reasoning tool that can be employed to help uncover biases which would normally be undetected and influence a conclusion? Could one say the statement, taken as a tool of interaction to arrive at a common denominator of agreement, is itself a singular partition in the camp of "limited, biased things like our own culture's traditions, laws and values"? I see you wrote "Clearly we can't just dismiss something", which I take to mean "dismiss without investigation and reflection". But that does not guarantee that after a balanced, inclusive investigation and charitable reflection that something can't be dismissed.

A right is a justified claim...Rights depend on context. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

So, in other words, would it be fair to say that context is the mechanism which justifies the claim of a right?

Only listening carefully and employing empathy will tell us if a social movement is the result of people's untold pain and suffering from verbal abuse... — WISDOMfromPO-MO

So the group consensus as a function of listening skills and empathic capability is the "context" which justifies another's right or the legitimacy of a "movement"? What if there is a dull, selfish, and oblivious population?
Minor quibble - I am unaware of any "social movement" resulting solely from verbal abuse. Are there any?

...or is simply people being extreme narcissists who believe that they are entitled to freedom from any words that they do not like or approve of. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Could it also be possible that some members are part of both sets of categories? They are both narcissistic and part of a group that is persecuted? From a psychological approach, narcissism tends to be a dominant strategy in social hierarchies, especially newly formed ones with little sense or history of unified identities, which translates to (under certain conditions), the narcisissists getting to make the rules and/or make the demands for and/or give the communications for everyone else within the same group. Could that become, under certain circumstances, detrimental to both the bulk of remaining members of the persecuted group as well as for members outside of that group? It is with that dynamic that I think the original OP was written and don't find it to be simplistic at all in theory or practice. I think it is closely linked to the problem of "intolerant tolerance" and "tolerating intolerance" and what forms both concepts take in social structure and interaction.

This topic seems to be making the rounds on various sites after the Peterson interview. Popping up in a lot of places (good!).

A quote from Salmon Rushdie:
“Nobody has the right to not be offended. That right doesn't exist in any declaration I have ever read. If you are offended it is your problem, and frankly lots of things offend lots of people. I can walk into a bookshop and point out a number of books that I find very unattractive in what they say. But it doesn't occur to me to burn the bookshop down."

This is just wrong and I wish people would stop saying it. — MindForged

But it fits so well with so many, ummm, "theories".

Two articles on the topic (of which the "right to not be offended" is a branch) as a phenomenon on some US college campuses.

On "microaggressions"
"Microaggressions are remarks perceived as sexist, racist, or otherwise offensive to a marginalized social group. Those popularizing the concept say that even though the offenses are minor and sometimes unintentional, repeatedly experiencing them causes members of minority groups great harm, which must be redressed....The University of California system has issued guidelines for faculty members warning that statements such as "America is a melting pot" or "I believe the most qualified person should get the job" could be microaggressions."

"Today, those whose morality is rooted in the ideals of dignity see microaggression complainants and others who highlight their victimhood as thin-skinned, uncharitable, and perhaps delusional. Those who draw from the newer morality of victimhood, meanwhile, see their critics as insensitive, privileged, and perhaps bigoted."

On culturizing microaggression
"In the last few years, activist students and faculty, sometimes with the support of administrators, have increasingly attacked the ideals of free speech.

The new activist culture calls for colleges to confront the small, perhaps unintended slights known as microaggressions, to provide trigger warnings for course material that might offend or upset, and to become safe spaces where ideas go unchallenged. It is characterized by extreme moral sensitivity, and in this way is similar to honor cultures of the past where men were highly sensitive to insults and responded to perceived slurs against their character with duels and other forms of violence."

"The dignity culture that began to replace honor culture in the 19th century cautioned against excessive moral sensitivity. People were taught to have thick skins and to ignore insults. Speech and violence were distinct, as seen in the aphorism commonly taught to young children: Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.

The new activist culture rejects this distinction, as did the honor cultures of old, and this has had major consequences for the free expression of ideas. For instance, in the honor culture of the antebellum American South, it was dangerous to be a newspaper editor. If a gentleman thought the paper had published anything unflattering about himself or a family member, he might challenge the editor to a duel (if he perceived him to be a social equal) or else simply beat him with a cane or whip."

"Today’s campus activists are concerned with different kinds of offenses: statements they see as slighting members of disadvantaged groups or in some other way furthering oppression. But they similarly view such statements as injurious, as akin to violence. Some go further, arguing that speech they view as oppressive is actually violence. And if speech is violence, universities must prohibit it. If they don’t, activists are justified in doing so themselves as an act of self-defense."

Sorry for the copy and pastes - but these lines manifest in the posts appearing in the thread or summarize them succinctly. I thought it relevant.

Personally, I did not approach it from the sociological view of "honor cultures", which is a very interesting avenue to take.

My progression was only a proposed logical one of speech to offense to suppression of speech, not existing (or proposed) Canadian or US law.

Congress can make no law... but your employer can make rules, or you school (if private) can make rules, and one is stuck with those rules. — Bitter Crank

Agreed and not just "employer" but also for "campus". Same for surveillance. You can "break" the rules and be supported in the freedom to do so, but you are also free to be retaliated against for same said event.
Makes me wonder what would happen if every US business and any private residence/property, those willing to anyway, banned the carrying of "arms" within their legal boundaries? What would the Second Amendment amount to then?

Hate speech, from what I was advised by my WikiLawyer, states "The (Supreme Court) ruled in Brandenburg v. Ohio that: "The constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a state to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force, or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action."

It was also noted that it "has been modified very little from its inception in 1969 and the formulation is still good law in the United States. Only speech that poses an imminent danger of unlawful action,where the speaker has the intention to incite such action and there is the likelihood that this will be the consequence of his or her speech, may be restricted and punished by that law."

In the same piece:
"Justice Anthony Kennedy also writes: "A law that can be directed against speech found offensive to some portion of the public can be turned against minority and dissenting views to the detriment of all. The First Amendment does not entrust that power to the government’s benevolence. Instead, our reliance must be on the substantial safeguards of free and open discussion in a democratic society."

In the sense of the OP I perceived, the "right to not be offended" is a defense some social activists are using to assert "rights" actually afforded to them and to challenge those that would elect to and act to suppress them. But I think it is misguided and an overcorrection of sorts. At least in the sense that the speech of those that would or may want to suppress the rights of activists is the physical and legal equivalent to other actions that lead to or do actually suppress them.

So Peterson's issue is more than a question of not offending people who claim to be transgendered, it is a question of liability to prosecution under hate speech law. — Bitter Crank

Yes, however the two are not unlinked. If someone has a "right" to something, that legally entails protections of that "right" by the state, up to and including force. Is that fair to say?

If I have a "right" to free speech, then I can rest assured that the force of the state will ensure I can speak freely and is authorized to force acquiesence (to allow the speech to be expressed) from those who do not wish me to speak as such.

If I had a "right" to "not be offended", then the state is now obligated and authorized to force suppression of the source of my offense, whether it be speech or otherwise.

with the advent of science and all the various technological achievements, and the improvement in living standards and so on has the Socratic attitude become illogical or even detrimental to living in the modern day world? — Posty McPostface

Just recall the kinds of matters about which Socrates professed not to know. They were such questions as the nature of virtue, the nature of justice, and the nature of knowledge itself. None of which, I believe, are scientific questions, as such. — Wayfarer

Socrates would be one of those who might ask "What is science?" in order to bring us to "What is not science?"
Seems VERY relevant to me and possibly those who follow Gwyneth Paltrow's exclamations.

And some others...
- What is a standard of living?
- What and whose "standards" are we using to mark improvement in these living standards? Are there some whose living standards have fallen in response to the increase in others?
- Is a technological achievement always an improvement in living standards?
- Is technology and science a necessary ingredient for "good living standards"? Or merely a contingent one?

Personally, I believe we need more of this sort of intercourse, not less of it.

So there is a corresponding right not to be gratuitously offended. — unenlightened

Cited are guidelines which uphold the "respectful and moderate tone...may express yourself strongly as long as it doesn't disrupt a thread or degenerate into flaming". That highlights the difference between how content is communicated vs the content itself. The guidelines noted are the responsibility of the speaker/writer and that responsibility is upheld by the authorities recognized by the site in judging the post. That responsibility is not on the hearer/reader of the post who may otherwise still be offended by a perfectly respectable and moderate response or OP simply due to the content.

What would be the outcome of that here? If someone was "offended" by what the majority of others, including the moderators, thought was a legitimate post? If there was a "right not to be offended", then any mark of "offensive" would then obligate the moderators to remove what was otherwise considered to be an effective communication of content for open discussion.

I think it comes down to the difference between "offense" at how content is communicated versus the "offense" of the content itself. The line seems to become blurred at times, especially in provocations, but one seems to be centered on the intention of harm while the other is centered on open debate. The versions centered on harm, I think, are pretty universal in the incarnations and so can be ruled against (as per the guidelines stated for the writer of an OP here).

This was touched on in an interview on Channel 4 between Jordan Peterson and a presenter armed with the litany of PoMo and "studies" lines of loaded questioning. This is just as a point of video reference, but it has also appeared in other variants of Peterson's appearances.

In the exchange, starting around 21:43 and proceeding to where the interviewer asks Peterson:

"Why should your right to Freedom of Speech trump a trans-persons right not to be offended?"
His response:
"Because in order to be able to think, you have to risk being offensive..."

The idea that someone would have a legal protection, enforced by laws, to "not be offended" is about as scary as it comes as a suggestion of a "right". It naturally lends itself to the abridgement of free speech, of the free flow and exchange of ideas, and of the "search for truth", as stated by Peterson, which is critical for areas and disciplines like science and philosophy. If there was a "right not to be offended", then any authority which is confronted with opposing views is able to shut down discourse by invoking that "right". Even in positions of "non-authority" it would have normal discourse extinguished (more than it already is).

For me, I imagine a creationist who is "offended" by the idea that humans evolved from an earlier branch of primates. Then I imagine them in political power where political discourse is framed with the "right not to be offended"...

So...I did not argue for it....

“ When a trans woman is called a man, that is an act of violence.” — xoai pham

If we look at the definition of "violence" I think that, actually, it is correct.

Violence:
noun
1. swift and intense force:
the violence of a storm.
2. rough or injurious physical force, action, or treatment:
to die by violence.
3. an unjust or unwarranted exertion of force or power, as against rights or laws:
to take over a government by violence.
4. a violent act or proceeding.
5. rough or immoderate vehemence, as of feeling or language:
the violence of his hatred.
6. damage through distortion or unwarranted alteration:
to do editorial violence to a text.

What may muddy the water (because the water is really effing muddy) is the phrasing "act of" which leads the reader to make the assumption that there is a physical act rather than a purely linguistic one. I also think, in the interest of charity, the author was speaking about an intentionally "vehement" or "immoderate" expression meant for psychological harm, hence the

culture that threatens trans women’s lives is reinforced. — xoai pham

When people support the conditions that create violence, they are also committing violence. They’re simply ensuring that someone else will be doing the work of murder. — xoai pham

And here is where the rhetoric comes in.

Hidden premises, in my view, come in at:
1. "people support the conditions" - since "conditions" is plural, only people who are aware of and support ALL conditions and ALL effects of those conditions contained within the set may be considered to be party to the negative outcomes associated with them. By the logic presented, if I support the Olympics, then by default I am guilty of Dr. Larry Nassar's sexual abuse of teenage Olympians? No.

2. "conditions that create violence" - "conditions" here seem to mean "culture" since I can love the conditions of a thunderstorm but still not be guilty of doing violence to a transgender that is hit by lightning. So it should be restated that if by supporting a "culture" that intentionally suppresses the rights of transgender expression, then we could be inadvertantly encouraging violence of others against transgenders.

The equivocation is with the word 'violence' - switching from linguistic/conceptual violence to actual physical violence (murder). Calling a transgender woman a man is violence to their self expressed trans-identity under the definition of violence, but it is NOT the same as the physical violence (self inflicted or otherwise) that would lead to the death of that transgender.

Many trans women of color barely make it past their 30s; their average age of death mirrors the life expectancy of a baby born more than 5000 years ago. — xoai pham

So are these "conditions" being condemned only for trans women of color? The argument doesn't seem to make the case for all transgender then, only transgender of color. (it could be said that the word "color" here is supporting the "conditions of racism" by acknowledging a false distinction between humans not based in biology/genetics and therefore the author is guilty of lynching...if we use the same sort of rhetoric).

I get the anger, I get the fight to survive, to be acknowledged, to be accepted as human, and to have the same rights afforded to others. I totally agree with and support the author in those fights...but leave the PoMo rhetoric and guilt trip out of it please (imo).

That is, the content of belief is linguistic, propositional, and/or statements — creativesoul

I would shorten that to "the content of belief is propositional." since how the proposition is expressed - symbolic, spoken, or thought - are only the mechanisms of expression for that content.

I believe "x" to be true or to be false.

Not all belief has propositional content. — creativesoul

Example?

If one holds a belief without propositional content, then how would it fit under the definition of a "belief"? I would agree that you can have thoughts w/o propositional content, or speech, etc. But to hold a belief, I would have to think, entails the propositional content in order to be defined as one (a belief).

God is the greatest thing we can think of. — Harjas

I am not a fan of being told what to think. Personally, I think Reality is the greatest thing I can think of. Whether or not that includes a god remains to be seen, but I lean towards no.

Things can exist only in our imaginations or they can also exist in reality. — Harjas

Minor quibble - why can't it be both? Or neither? You exist...yet I can also hold you in my imagination.

Things that exist in reality are always better than the things that only exist in our imaginations. — Harjas

If I imagine the genocide of an entire population of innocent people, then the real genocide of those people is "better" than the one in my imagination?

If god existed only in our imaginations, he wouldn't be the greatest thing that we can think of, because God in reality would be better. — Harjas

If something exists in my imagination then i can make it as great or as not great as I wish. Still has nothing to do with the existence of that something in reality. And again, being told what is "great" and "not as great" in my own imagination - not a fan.

Therefore, God must exist in reality! — Harjas

Meh.
In my imagination god is laughing at someone telling her that she must exist. The reality would, of course, be better.

Harari says "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations after World War Two...categorically affirms that the <<Right to life>> is the most fundamental value of humanity. Since death clearly violates this right, death is a crime against humanity and we should declare total war on it." — Noriel Sylvire

Can you help me understand what is meant by a "right" here? What does it mean that I have a "right" to life?

Also, what is "death" here in the relation to a "right" in so much that "death" can violate a "right"?

political unrest has recently upheaved due to an alleged electoral fraud — rickyk95

Do you think there was electoral fraud?

Without any concrete evidence, people have went out to the streets to protest — rickyk95

Are the people using this event as a definitive bracket to protest any or all other conditions present? Is the election a stand-in for other socio-economic and political problems? What would, in your and others you know, be "concrete" in terms of evidence?

people...are destroying local businesses that have absolutely nothing to do with the public political debacle. — rickyk95

These people seem ripe for leadership to cement them into a focused or directed expression to better express and facilitate change. In the state you described it appears as though emotion has overcome the rational responses and there is no leadership there to redirect into more effective and focused violence. In short - a mob.

Whether or not their grievances are legitimate, I cant help but to intuit that what they are doing is morally wrong. — rickyk95

It does not seem effective to address the actual grievances of corruption and it hurts the innocent for no other reason than a release of strong emotion. In the end, that behaviour is self defeating. You say "morally wrong". An individual with strong emotions that can't be dissipated will, often enough, turn to behaviours which will harm themselves (or others) in order to dissipate the psychological pressure. That is a natural reaction and with the crowd that process gains a life of its own, greater than the sum of the individuals.

where do you draw the line between legitimate protesting and immoral violence? — rickyk95

I think you have already drawn the line, for yourself by stating it is wrong to punish or harm the innocent for stifled expression of grievances against alleged corruption. In the case of violence changing the social structure for the better - that is focused and directed violence with specific goals and rules of engagement, not the emotional and indiscriminate violence of an angry mob.

Seems to me the only useful metric that allows any kind of comparison is death count, — T Clark

It is definitely a constraint in any interpretation. But there are others, I believe. Like the properties that define the group (s): cohesiveness, complexity of hierarchy, technology both material and conceptual, resource availability and other environmental factors, relative added social power from alliances, and so forth. Each variable element intricately feeding back into each other with each iteration.

Also, how do you do the Quoting thing? — Noriel Sylvire

Highlight the text, hit "Quote". Cheers!

But now and since 1945, almost 70 years of world peace...but this is a historical record, never before achieved by humanity... — Noriel Sylvire

Hmmm. How does that square with this?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_1945%E2%80%9389
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_1990%E2%80%932002
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_2003%E2%80%9310
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_2011%E2%80%93present

And to be transparent - I do not consider a "political" definition of "war", "action", and "conflict" (among other monikers) to be a demarcation that exists in the world or in pragmatic body counts. With that said, there are other sources of conflict that are not even mentioned in the links above.

Groups that organize violence towards other groups over ideology, political dominance, resource access, etc are, for me, fair game. With that said - organized crime "turf wars" can fall under the same umbrella of "war" or "conflict" as it is merely a degree of population size of the group. Those expressions of violence and deaths do not get recorded and are absent from this discussion (though I mention them because they easily could be). How about America's "War on Terror"? Would there even be an "official death toll" recorded for that?

Right now coca cola and it's deadly sugars are a lot more dangerous to more people then al Qaeda or whatever violence act. (Literaly quoting Harari) — Noriel Sylvire

That may be a quote from Harari, but I am not sure how exposure to the health effects of sugar can be used to support the conclusion that the world is "less violent".

war seems just not possible anymore and it is even less profitable than other things. It is simply not worth it for Germany to attack Poland when many people there buys their Volkswagen cars. — Noriel Sylvire

? History and current events show a different reality. The US weapons exports alone topped (in 2015) $16.9 billion and that is just from straight up sales which don't include other agreement structures. And those weapons went to countries in conflict zones - the Middle East, South America, Africa. Conflict creates great customers - of everything from weapons to vehicles to food and water. There are also politcal and other economic benefits, so being "worth it" needs some clarification here.

How was it worth it for Russia to invade the Ukraine? How was it worth it got the US to invade Iraq and Afghanistan? How is it worth it for Spain to supress Catalonian political independence? How was it worth it for ISIS to fight for the creation of a new Caliphate? How was it worth it for the US and Russia to be both involved in the Syrian Civil War?

At the most basic level, things happen because they are caused by other things. — RepThatMerch22

That is a metaphysical claim that can at least be doubted with current evidence. At what is currently thought as the "most basic level", quantum mechanics, there are events which appear to not have a cause. Some reading on quantum mechanics and causation should at least be able to shake the foundation of faith in the stated quote.

We can without doubt agree that we are rational agents. — bahman

That claim can be doubted...with evidence to turn doubt into actual negation. Psychological evidence, neurological evidence, evidence from behavioural economics...

By rational I mean we act or decide based on reason in a situation. — bahman

Reason is not the way we have been shown to make decisions, either in practice or in experiment. Decisions are emotional in their origins, which are typically considered to not be a source of the "rational". Reason is the vehicle to express emotion.

Rationality is important when it comes to decision in a situation which is defined as a set of prioritized options. — bahman

What exactly "prioritizes" the options? Reason can provide options...but emotion is what prioritzes them.

Free will however is ability to choose an option regardless of any constraint. — bahman

I once thought I understood what "free will" was, but have long since given up thinking it has an actual definition from anyone, professional or layperson. In my view, the idea of free will can't even be wrong since it is a conceptual reification created in Iron Age philosophy to describe phenomena which were unknown and inscrutable at the time. The term should be consigned to the dustbin of philosophical history as, in my opinion, it is a conceptual dud that derails and suppresses progess in philosophical thought.

argued by the simple statistic that less people are killed in wars than earlier. — ssu

If you are quoting Pinker's approach, I believe professional anthropology has a more accurate answer to that "simple statistic".

https://www.sapiens.org/culture/violence-steven-pinker-doomsday/

and from the abstract of their paper:
"In The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, psychologist Steven Pinker cites mean ratios of war (battle) deaths suffered annually per 100,000 individuals as evidence for concluding that people who live in states are less violent than those who live or lived in “hunting, gathering, and horticultural societies in which our species spent most of its evolutionary history.” Because such ratios are blind to actual population sizes, it remains to be seen whether the apparent decrease in contemporary violence is an artifact of scaling factors...Mean annual battle deaths expressed as percentages of population sizes scale inversely with population sizes in chimpanzees and humans, indicating increased vulnerability rather than increased violence in smaller populations. However, the absolute number of mean annual war deaths increases exponentially (superlinearly) and nearly identically with population sizes across human groups but not chimpanzees. These findings suggest that people evolved to be more violent than chimpanzees and that humans from nonstates are neither more nor less violent than those from states."

It is also true that we humans are at our most peaceful era ever — Noriel Sylvire

How is that conclusion arrived at?

All of the people I know think all muslims and syrians are talibans, terrorists. But anyways I still believe there is hope for a new era of world peace. — Noriel Sylvire

So how is your belief supported in the face of the exact opposite anecdotal evidence?

the argument seems to rely on a specific interpretation of the solution to the Sorites paradox. — BlueBanana

Interesting point, I can see how that is perceived, however I think the application of the other versions (as well as the vagueness approach) still holds up for the argument against Descartes as well as for the Buddhist concept of emptiness.

For example - if one thought occurs, then add another, then another, how many thoughts are required in order to identify "I"?
or
Are three thoughts the same condition (called "I") as 3,000,000 thoughts?
or
Only thoughts that have occurred within X boundary can be an "I", but who or what defines the boundary to only include thought?

Would you point out for me where it would, or could, fail in the application of the other interpretations? I am probably off base, but it seems accurate to me.

Yes, at the end of lives (or at the end of this life, if you don’t believe in reincarnation), there will come a time when you won’t know that there ever was such a thing as identity, time, or events. But, for now, you’re you, just like you were yesterday. Sorry, Buddhists. — Michael Ossipoff

Hi - appreciate your post, thank you.

I wanted to touch on these parts of your piece. Perhaps the rest of my potential postings need the context. I do not believe in the reincarnation of a soul or essence, etc. I would hesitate to call myself a materialist but on many positions I do side with them and so have been accused of being one.

What I read within the Buddhist works I am familiar with is this - in regards to say, the actions we take, they are usually based on how we initiate action or respond to anothers action. How we initiate or respond in action depends upon our conditioning and what environment our conditioning finds itself being expressing in. When death occurs (death is an umbrella word for me, one with many elements) how we have acted in the past is conserved (invoking conservation of information laws as a stand-in concept) as they have resulted in others' responses, initiations, etc. as well as environmentally conserved ones.

For example:
The plastic cup I threw out carelessly ended up killing a seagull because it ate it - therefore my "karma" is the result that the seagull dies (though it does not end there, that is only the most direct response for that one action temporally) - OR - I acted angrily to a stranger's mistake of stepping on my foot in the subway. That angry response reinforces a way of acting for that person to other strangers on the subway. If I died later that afternoon - my "karma" is the way that my actions reinforced anothers way of responding as they continued their life. Consider me agreeing with Doug Hofstadter here and drawing a parallel with some Buddhist philosophical thinking that the "model" of who we are lives on in a way in the minds of others, as well as a physical record of your existence within the environment (your bones, your plastic cup you threw out, etc).

Quick word about "my conditioning" as well - conditioning is that way or the aggregate states of being that is expressed currently through the results of past experiences, training, genetics, status, parental guidance, friendships, education (or lack thereof), environment, etc. Am I my conditioning?

I would also like to invite you to doubt your assertion that "for now, you’re you, just like you were yesterday.". I would like to list a few reasons why we can doubt that at certain levels -
1. My cells are not all the same as they were yesterday at this time. Ones still operating are now older and riddled with the effects of getting older, others have died, others are brand new today but with some potential genetic difference due to errors or the environment.
2. I have since had more and different experiences from this time yesterday which, at the very least subconsciously, have changed the aggregate of how I think and act. Maybe it is subtle, but every experience changes us as there is information that has been added about, for, and to my existence.
3. If I burned all the tips of my fingers off - I would no longer have the same fingerprints, so am I still "me"? Are my fingerprints me? My hair color? My biological age?
4. What constitutes the "now" in the "for now, you're you"? Was it then? Is it now when I am writing this or then - when I wrote the first post? Now is one word that is a convenient designator of a subjectively defined moment in time. (visions of the replay Spaceballs here)
5. If I was in an accident and suffered damage to my frontal cortex, or damage to my amygdala, or my hippocampus so that my behaviour was no longer typical of my previous days - am I no longer "me"? I would no longer be able to control behaviour, or regulate emotion to the same degree, or perhaps not even remember that there was a "yesterday". Are my memories "me"? My emotions? My plans to tackle a meeting or article? Are those ways of being or states of being "me"?
6. Who am I if I legally or informally changed my name? Am I my name?

"for now, you're you" is a construct of language that creates a reification of all the ways to frame sets of phenomena that is interpreted socially, culturally, digitally, biologically, etc. as an entity or being. How is the term "you", when applied to that which is framed as "Uneducated Pleb", different than the term "you" applied to the framing of properties that is "Michael"? Same word used for the description of measurably different bundles of properties, however the use of the same word can cognitively create something which is not "true" in the sense of empirical reality.

Example - How can your name also be "Michael" when there was someone who has already lived and died in the 1700's and their name was "Michael"? You are not the other Michael, but you share the same particular framing as it comes to the term/name of "Michael" - but that is as far as that contingent framing goes. The name is part of a singular concept of identity (social framing of a property) above and beyond the properties each contained within multiple individual "Michael's" throughout spacetime. So are you an "archetypal" Michael? Or are you Michael Ossipoff? Are you the only Michael Ossipoff now, or in the past, or forever into the future? If not, then is your identity contiguous with theirs? Yes, if we consider the name only as a reified concept, but for the entity which is addressing this page the answer would be no, you have different properties than others also termed/named Michael.

Language games - You are Michael, but is Michael...you?

As regards the meaning of anātman (no-self) in Buddhism - it is a subtle subject. Notice that at the outset, the Buddha doesn’t deny there is a self - but he also doesn’t affirm it. When asked point blank, ‘does the self exist?’, the Buddha is silent 1. — Wayfarer

Agreed that it is very subtle and nuanced position. From my experience and learning in the philosophy it is very similar to what I wrote about the concept of a "house" as well as the comparison to Wittgenstein's "beetle in a box". We can call a "self" a collection of properties that are arbitrarily chosen, but those properties are constantly changing both in time and in relation to one another as well as the framing of the properties by the observer as the defining characteristics.

In the sutta you used for reference, the contrast between the last 2 paragraphs is where we can see the key to the Buddha's response to the query "Is there a self?". Let me see if I can line it up -
" If I...were to answer that there is a self, would that be in keeping with the arising of knowledge that all
phenomena are not-self?"
"And if I...were to answer that there is no self, the bewildered Vacchagotta would become even more
bewildered: 'Does the self I used to have now not exist?'"

Here, from my reading, there are a few things going on. He is stating that there is knowledge of all phenomena as not-self (from other suttas and sources we can read that "phenomena" as it relates to people includes perception, consciousness, emotion, form, etc.) . He is also stating that were he to answer the question, he would first have to acknowledge a construct-concept in order to verify or deny its existence and for the questioner that continues the clinging to a reified way of thinking.

In this one instance of being directly asked by a practitioner who is "on the path", he remains silent when asked because of its context. Here are two (of my perceived) reasons -
First - one must arrive at the result of "all phenomena as being not-self" (specifically in regards to the list of phenomena that is seen as constituting a person) and then reassemble, as a way of being, the idea that a "self" as normally referred to can exist, but as a construct or "convenient designator". To use an anology - we can say that a "wave" does not exist in the unconventional way as there is no "wave" inherent in the material that makes up the wave. But to say that the wave does not exist is nihilistic (and false) in the conventional sense, simply for the reason that we can watch the wave break upon the shore, we can even measure its volume, speed, force, hear, feel, and watch it, and so forth. But when we go looking for the "wave" within each molecule of water, or air, or whatever the substrate is, we do not find it within its elements. So how, or in what way, can we say that the "wave" does or does not exist? We can't when it is framed one way, but we can say the "wave" exists in another way - as an aggregate of phenomena that are in a particular, impermanent relation with each other as well as the rest of the ocean, air, land, observer, etc.

Second, if one is asking the question to someone else outright, one has not realized the first part, and one is clinging to the idea of "self" as a single reified construct or inherent essence. The nuance of how "self" is seen to exist is not yet realized or otherwise beyond the set of the practitioners current capability. To answer outright for that type of questioner would be to hinder their (in this case Vacchagotta's) eventual release from the clinging to the reified-construct-as-self. From the point of view of the one who realizes "no self", the questioner is asking from a place where the self is a concrete thing, which either exists or it doesn't. To go back to my wave anaology - if our questioner asked "Does the wave exist or not?" the teacher's choice of responses would be limited because the affirmative or negative first assumes the particular construct/concept in the same way as the questioner in order to affirm or deny it, therefore would only confuse or cause pain since the questioner only sees a singular concept called a "wave".

That is my (current) understanding. Would you agree with that way of thinking?

When I place this together with Descartes "I think, therefore I am." what I am underlining here is that his foundation against the scepticism of his own existence, he takes "thinking" as the concrete or inherent "I". As the Buddha states here "Bhikkhus, consciousness is not self. Were consciousness self, then this consciousness would not lead to affliction, and one could have it of consciousness: 'Let my consciousness be thus, let my consciousness be not thus.' And since consciousness is not-self, so it leads to affliction, and none can have it of consciousness: 'Let my consciousness be thus, let my consciousness be not thus.'"

I used the "consciousness" portion of the entry as a stand-in for "think", though we can use the "perception" entry or the "feeling" or "determination", etc.

There is a list of hidden premises in the way that Descartes chose the words "think" in relation to "am", which led to its eventual downfall. imho. I would equate Descartes conclusion to Vacchagotta's question with Descartes relying on thinking or thought (in this case, thinking as doubt) as being the inherent "self" that exists in the context of "I am".

Only after I came to an understanding that God exists, I started to look into atheistic arguments more closely. — Henri

In order to come to an understanding that god exists, there must have been a prior time where you did not have an understanding that god exists, hence the phrase "Only after...".

If, prior to your new understanding that god exists you did not examine your own beliefs and changed your mind before truly understanding them, then what leads us to the conclusion that the arguments for your new beliefs or understanding have themselves been "looked into more closely"?

Hi, I am an Uneducated Pleb. I used to think philosophy was garbage and dreamt up by and for folks who couldn't actually do anything useful. Then I found work in garbage and also found out I am not particularly useful. That's when I started reading about the philosophy of time...which was about 7 or so years ago and many philosophy books, lectures, and debates since. I have since flipped my views of and about philosophy and think there should be some more of it in the public consciousness and practice (definitely in the US) and not just for academics.

I also read the article in Quillette and found it to be mostly bland and without much engaging content. I particularly thought the ending of it, especially where it invokes a "religious instinct", as misconstrued and shallow. Only my opinion.