That is simply not true. Targumin existed for a reason, and they were not sacrilegious. Or not too much, not anymore than the Septuagint... — Olivier5

Targumin are spoken sermons and were forbidden to be written as ... drumroll... sacrilege

There are a very (very) few examples that were written down later on but religious leaders weren't at all happy about it. The oldest is something close to 60 AD IIRC but that dating is seen as controversial.

Jesus read the Tanak in Aramaic. Like everybody at the time. — Olivier5

Now who's getting things wrong? Firstly:

These texts are almost exclusively in Biblical Hebrew, with a few passages in Biblical Aramaic (in the books of Daniel and Ezra, the verse Jeremiah 10:11,[2] and some single words).

And second it didn't even exist until several hundred years after the period of time of Jesus.

Do you have some source to show me that what I was taught and studied is wrong? I'm all for evidence-based knowledge but at this point it's some dude on the 'net vs. a couple of years of study. (which, incidentally, I double-checked before writing this comment)

Edit: also based on skimming the previous couple of pages of... catfight... I'm out of this. This isn't philosophy it's ego battle royale.

A set is just a group of things. In the brain every concept is a superset of neural cells and their relationships both to one another and to other associated sets in other regions of the brain. Relationships are also a set of measurable dynamics such as sodium ions, potassium ions, neurotransmitters, inhibitors, hormonal markers, synaptic pathways and their reinforcement with same.

So in this context a set is the boundary of associations encapsulating a concept as distinct from others. It is best defined given current technology by an fMRI showing active regions experiencing state change during specific cognition. Typically it includes the Parietal, Occipital, Temporal and Prefrontal for real-world objects and their allegorical associations. Distinctions between regions are associated with how concepts are introduced (visual, written and spoken instigation as well as direct vs. representational association with cognitive burn-in (reinforced mapping)).

Math is an abstraction of determinism such that you can apply the same series of functions to apples, oranges and the loves of your life because even though two of the former are physical sets of atoms that can be seen and touched while the latter is an allegorical association of evaluated relationship qualifications between a concept of self and a concept of other; all three are treated by the human brain identically. That's because they are cognitively identical processes.

Jung help us I just skimmed back and now I know why this thread is 10 pages long. We have an ISFJ judging everyone for daring to think instead of accept dogma.

ZFC

demographics

You're not wrong (last statement).

[note]Developmental, evolutionary and neuronal modeling inferred explanation for how and why the brain needs math for modern communication (and its limits)[/note]

I see that as: mathematics is missing constructs for allegorical analogy which are an essential base component for practical daily use languages.

Language is a serialization of 4D reality as it is "understood" by the speaker that uses shared context and perspective to allow the listener to reconstruct the serialization in the prefrontal cortex as a cognitive narrative (series of causal set functions applied to models).

That process relies very heavily on allegorical analogy to compare properties and functions of sets to completely different sets and infer meaning from the exercise.

Returning to mathematics; the purpose of mathematics is to validate the properties and functions applied to the sets. It makes no assertions, descriptions or assumptions about the nature of the sets. It's intended to strictly regulate validation of function and derived outtcome only.

The entire idea is that if you have applied mathematics to the properties and functions (as many as makes sense at least) and if two individual's precision of definition of a set in question is sufficiently detailed they can be relatively certain of reaching the same cognitive result and thus certain of objective agreement.

One of my favorite examples of the difference between linear calculus and set theory elegance is to compare Euler Angles with Quaternions. In linear algebra the quaternion equation iterates over vectors and translates (rotates) their position in 3 coordinate planes. It tells you the new location of each member of a vector. With Euler angles, however, the description of the matrix is what gets rotated, not the matrix.

- Me

I quoted myself because you seemed to have missed my detailed comparison when you asked where Quaternions came into things.

From a psychology (especially evolutionary and developmental) perspective it does make a fair amount of sense.

People gifted in mathematics tend to be (very much a generalization) very judgemental, love symmetry, almost obsessively orderly, emotionally distant, become easily obsessed with problems, stoic in their self image, etc...

Of course there are often exceptions to this as a person can be a brilliant mathematician but not see themselves as naturally gifted. Einstein comes to mind as he forced himself to do math in order to explain his theories but preferred to visualize stuff in his head and then labor to write it down as equations.

Mathematics is actually just a very precise language. It's possible to say almost anything but the less precise the definition and description the more statements it requires and error prone (anomaly prone in this context) it tends to be.

One of my favorite examples of the difference between linear calculus and set theory elegance is to compare Euler Angles with Quaternions. In linear algebra the quaternion equation iterates over vectors and translates (rotates) their position in 3 coordinate planes. It tells you the new location of each member of a vector. With Euler angles, however, the description of the matrix is what gets rotated, not the matrix.

oh, and sorry for the messy writing. I'm all over the place today

Rather than quoting your entire comment I'm going to sum it up:

Thus far you've pointed out his school being influential and you've given him credit for science in a way that seems to completely pirate Aristotle's accomplishments using Alexander's gift of funding and royal edict. The trouble with all of that is... Aristotle did it first and was obviously a very clear and direct first-cause for Epicureanism.

I'm finding it really hard to see where he actually added anything substantial to what Aristotle taught. I'm not implying worthless contribution, far from it, merely that he's not the instigating and innovating source you claim but rather just a natural propagation and growth of what came before him.

Given that I haven't studied him and I have no intention of studying what he taught and wrote on my own please allow me to clearly state our impasse:

I don't want to know what some fatuous fanboy wrote (not you, your links). I don't want to read appaels to fame or appeals to authority... I want a quote or two.

Just something that will show me he actually said something profound that went far beyond Aristotle's claims that in order to understand the universe one had to measure and study it.

Otherwise I just don't have sufficient reason to put any time into investigating this. I'm curious, but it takes a very profound insight to get me to rearrange my insane learning schedule.

This is not what any premise of his states. This is his argument right here:

Death is nothing to us; for the body, when it has been resolved into its elements, has no feeling, and that which has no feeling is nothing to us. — Garrett Travers

... ...
... that's just a totally different epicurean quote vs. a paraphrase of Bartricks summary:

Here are Epicurus's arguments:

1. To be harmed by something you have to experience the harm
2. You can't experience your own death
3. Therefore, you can't be harmed by your own death — Bartricks

I confess, I can't summon the interest in reading E's writing directly. He's hard to read and his rationale is more shallow than my 9yo's.

My point was that his entire argument is both specious and subjective to an excessively biased portrayal of all humanity from his own personal perspective which itself is incredibly limited in understanding compared to ... say ... Aristotle's... let alone a modern educated man. At least Aristotle understood that wisdom required knowledge and started gathering data.

I haven't read deeply enough to say if E was an atheist or not, I only know he didn't believe in an afterlife and we already know that some very religious sects (like the Sadducees of Judaism) were theists but didn't believe in an afterlife. It's very rare for a greek not to believe in the gods, as you alluded to.

At any rate I wanted to encourage both you and Bartricks to stop taking things so personally. We are human and our emotions, once they get volitile, will prevent us from being objective and carefully considering the arguments in front of us.

If you can't, it's better to just end the discussion than to e-fight pointlessly.

Y'know that's not actually a true statement. You can't have equality without proof and ♾+1>♾
so ♾+1!=♾

All it takes is shifting the axioms in the philosophy of mathematics down by one. Seems reasonable to me.

Well I'd take it one further in fact. The premise claims that to be [deleterious effect] by [thing] you must [experience pro/con effect] of [thing] but never mentions the axiomatic truth that nothing in the universe has ever been observed to be composed of a pure or base elment.

It doesn't matter if [thing] is material or merely a representation of the material the same holds true.

Thus the conclusion is also manifestly false because it's really saying that to experience negative effect you must experience a significant majority of the negative effect's component makeup and we've all experienced the majority of death's component pieces. Massive change, separation, emotional damage, lack of preparation (I could go on).

I would put forward that it's the unknown and our experience with the negative side of facing the unknown without preparation that we fear (as well as quite possibly the painful transition). We can hardly fear the afterlife as we have no knowledge of it from which to infer fear.

From the mole in chemistry and nuclear physics to the relative nature of time the universe has yet to yield a single finite limit for anything outside of human measurements.

We can measure things and we can make linear statements about those things with mathematics but beyond that we have to use linear algebra. There is a working axiom in mathematics (not yet extremely popular but growing every year) that linear algebra should be the core axiom of mathematics.

Traditionally the first axiom of mathematics is commutative principle. Increasingly, commutative principle is seen as the first derived axiom with the first being the axiom that given any observable set we can assign whole numbers to that set as a form of measurement.

Take it how you will, the simple truth is that it's the psychology of individuals and their personality cults that have had the most influence on how everyday people understand the universe, not the ideas of finite and infinite. Newton and many many other famous (and hence influential) mathematicians are lim brains. Lim as in limit. Lim as in they can't do math without starting with limited integrals. Hand them a set and ask them to do anything with it and they have a meltdown and rant about new ideas ruining everything.

Not replying to anyone but what's up with the philosophical hero worship? Who has the time!?

Just learning the tools to educate myself takes up any time I would ever have to read some navel-gazing windbag let alone read the actual research and papers that provide real insight into the universe.

One doesn't have to read Bacon and Spinoza to surpass them in wisdom, one need only read sci-hub.nl!

I studied philosophy to understand logic, not to understand bad (and ultimately failed) philosophers. In my humble opinion (and based on a great deal of research) the greatest things to come out of philosophy are the lists of formal and informal logical fallacies, mathematics and science.

Learning to use those to search out objective fact is enough to rip open your mind and let in enlightenment without having to ponder what Byron or whotheheckever meant when they said some flowery drivel about divine inspiration.

I learned more about my place in the universe from linear algebra than any philosopher!

(note: I'm a hard-liner for philosophy being a state of mind and a lifetime's journey. I believe we need to teach philosophy as part of elementary education but only the parts that help teach us how to use our limited and flawed minds to better understand the world, not the vapid self-congratulatory morality crap)

To some extent you are, of course, correct. It slips into our thoughts no matter how often repeated our mantras against it.

For myself and my personal journey, the best I have been able to achieve is a kind of pseudo-religious approach of asking myself for forgiveness and doggedly investigating any evidence I find of ingrained belief leading to assumption/presumption of fact over discovery of truth.

I try to name what I think to be true but have not yet had time to really investigate what I "think" or "my theory is" and that's pretty much my mantra. I tell myself "try never to espouse what you have not studied to the limit of your ability".

All of that said, there are obviously still millions of things I take on faith because there is nearly infinite information and only so much time in a mortal life. As so many others have said: this much I know: that I know nothing.

From a technological perspective I see the internet becoming filtered on nodes by various versions of cultural semantic enforcement artificial intelligence.

These would have nothing in common with the A.I. in science fiction.

Given a generalized baseline neural network algorithm and a set of guidelines the bots will "lint" posts not allowing submission until they meet minimum standards imposed by a site/forum/service. Linting is very common in software development making sure that code being written meets standards imposed. The common forms of linting include semantics, spelling, formatting and logical complexity. More advanced linters are also capable of spotting inefficient logic and security vulnerabilities.

When combined with NLP (called NLU for Natural Language Understanding) linters are capable of spotting logical fallacy and there are several groups working on semantics to prevent misinformation right now. There is a branch of NLU known as sentiment analysis which can predict (with high certainty) the sentiment being expressed by a complex paragraph and is capable of "rendering" a complex multi-paragraph contextual narrative.

Given these advancements, humans can be aided (nobody would call it prevention) in expressing their ideas and opinions by preventing ... mistakes ... in the expression of factual references and automatically be linked to bibliographies, qrticles, public databases, etc...

Of course... god help us all if governments mandate this stuff before society can adopt an open standard.

And honestly, why you keep trying to paint me as an obdurate critic or even much concerned with Christianity is beyond me. If I had any particular animus against a religion it would be that one I was indoctrinated in, the one which I freed myself from as a teen with some difficulty, and whose adherents are now infamous for their oppression of their subject, Palestinian populations. — Michael Sol

I'm sorry that you attribute that as my motive. For whatever it's worth, I wasn't trying to paint you, merely reading your word choice and temperment.

A certain amount of contextual assumption is an unavoidable part of language and it's hardly surprising I would assume that the western religion characterized by your statements would probably be Christianity rather than Judaism as there is a rather massive probability skew by the numbers. In addition to that, the argument quickly becomes specious beyond surface level since in this context only the name of the religion differs, not the presumptive context.

There is no philosophical difference when talking about the anthropological history of Islam, Christianity and Judaism as they are identical before the BC/BCE/AD/CE split.

The point was (and is) that there is a massive difference between Judaic "faith" and religion as a whole, especially on social evolution time scales.

The reason is both simple and blindingly obvious: the entire concept as you characterize it has only existed for less than a century while the religions have been around considerably longer.

Look I really don't have time during the week to delve into much here. I tend to work over 100 hours a week right now (hopefully it's temporary).

I meant what I said, but your sarcasm tells me you didn't much like it. I think I know why and if I can reach you I guess it's worth trying.

Over 20 years back I approached online discussions about most things much as you do. I contradicted what I disagreed with, threw up my opinions, and dared others to knock them down. It was a fairly effective way of getting into e-fights and that's pretty much exactly what I wanted.

An angry person will put serious effort into fighting back and even if most people are dullards at least an angry one will make an honest attempt.

Since that time (and 20 years is a lot of time) I've wasted a truly obscene number of hours wasting good reason on useless train wrecks. It took too long, but I did eventually learn to stop wasting my time.

The reason I have refused to put effort into discussing your beliefs with you so far is that you've continuously tried to push the idea that less than 30% of the worlds population defines the other 70%. The only religion that met your description was Christianity and there are 234 other major religions that don't even come close to fitting that description.

You can't study philosophy until you find objectivity. The absolute core tenant of philosophy is the pursuit of whatever is closest to objective truth. It's not about finding simply a truth or even divine truth but rather axiomatic truth that withstands critical analysis from every perspective... which is just another way of saying wisdom.

Objective truth can't be observed from a position of skewed bias.

I don't know what I'm supposed to do with that meandering mess of non sequitur and fragmented generalized nonsense.

I'm not here to teach people.
I'm not here to convince people.
I'm not here to debate people.
I'm here to talk about philosophy with people.

At this point I realize it's time to change that list with an insertion right at the top:

From this point on, "people" is defined as any sapient being with sufficient mental discipline to apply rational critical thought and mostly unbiased opinion to their discussion with the goal of enjoying and benefiting from the conversation.

My personal philosophy has many intersections
with Epicurianism but on critical and pivotal points we diverge.

The most important one is that Epicureans espouse belief while I eschew it
entirely. The entire premise of good and evil is predicated on universal
morality rather than relative enlightened ethics.

My mind must have a bias. It's an essential component of function. I must
therefore lean towards one probable truth over another in order to form any
opinions. If I (or anyone) wishes to retain their mental plasticity it is
essential that they examine all information from multiple perspectives,
however, and that is impossible if one embraces belief over probability.

Of course if one speaks English then it's nearly impossible to avoid using the
word belief or I believe since it is so tightly entwined with talking or
writing about perspectives.

I'm no expert on Chinese philosophy. I got about a month into trying to study the culture before I got disillusioned and disgusted with the pretension of wisdom through vapid allegory.

I am an engineer by trade and a hard-line student of determinism... very much antithetical to the Chinese .... method...

To start with, you use the word religion but mean Christianity and in that only the Christianity you personally grew up familiar with.

The way you use hasty generalization to blanket an incredibly broad subject that touches every culture in the world and through history is indicative of a narrow focus on a personal bias rather than an academic topic.

Moving on: no philosophy is definitely not a science. Science is, however, a branch of philosophy. See the philosophy of science. I consider it to be the only useful branch of philosophy but what I think doesn't make reality.

Finally, cosmology isn't science either. At best it's broad theory with circumstantial disciplines used to prop it up. I like cosmology, but it's really more religion than anything else as evidenced by the fact that every time the big bang gets challenged they take it back to the drawing board instead of asking new questions. There is only one ambiguous experiment thus far in all of cosmological "science" and that's the cosmic background radiation which, unfortunately, has only a single datum at a single measurement point which means it's useless as evidence for confirmation.

If you want to openly discuss philosophy then you should probably start where all the philosophers through history have repeatedly told every student to start: with your preconceptions about yourself.

Philosophy isn't only formal philosophy. Cultural norms are philosophy too. A parent teaching their child right and wrong is philosophy. The biggest problem is that parents tend to teach their children in dribs and drabs rather than as a coherent narrative. Parents don't exactly have a multi-year curriculum planned out :-).

(Developmental Psych) - The problem here is that because parents are passing on declarative philosophy (also known as imposed morality) the developing mind of the child must struggle to construct a framework of justification on which to hang the imperative. "I must obey or I will be punished." Like water finding the easiest path, the overwhelming majority will comply with expectations that are consistent and relatively easy to conform to.

What researchers have found, however, is that the overwhelming majority wind up developing some kind of moral economics system where the weight of the majority rules and that even just the perceived majority. (Lots of cool experiments here if you ever want to look them up).

The most succinct way to make the point here without a long post is to say: consider rape in the military. When the moral majority within the perceptual limits of an individual with a weak ethical foundation change, so do they. They didn't have ethics or even morality, they merely had circumstance.

There is actually a massive body of research here since it's bisected by multiple schools (criminal psych, developmental, evolutionary, etc...).

The principle takeaway is this: the reason that shows like The Walking Dead show total collapse of ethics is because the research is very clear (and kinda scary). The overwhelming majority are capable of any crime, no matter how bestial. This is because their entire restraint system is circumstantial.

The scrolls used by religious leaders during that period of time were always in Hebrew, not Aramaic. It would have been sacrilege to any Jew to "quote" scripture only after translating it into the common tongue. Even today Yiddish is used to speak but Hebrew is used in prayer and worship.

At any rate the language of education during that time period was Greek, not Latin. The transition to Latin as a scholars language took a couple of generations because there was no printing press and the predominant scholar language must be what scrolls and books are written in. Outside of the synagogues that was Greek.

Unless a person was a member of the religious (and thus ruling) class they simply had no way to learn Hebrew.

I'm not aware of any of the apostles that even knew Latin except for Peter (who was a Roman citizen).

In the end, however, almost all of this is extrapolated from the dead sea scrolls and cultural norms pieced together from historian accounts (largely Josephus). We can pick up a lot of cultural evidence of the impact of Aristotle's "science" as the ideas spread up through Italy even before the idea of Rome had taken shape. There is a great deal of academic speculation on the impact of those ideas on the shape of political structures to come. Keep in mind that the renaissance started in Italy which at the very least should give us a massive clue that science and Greek culture had penetrated to the soul of that people.

I'm surprised you thought that was strong. I was merely trying to explain why your request didn't make any sense to me. It still doesn't.

What makes you think this statement - which is jammed packed with choice ideas - is true?

I don't know what the words I underlined mean. As for my statement, the first half is the summary of the findings of many research papers. What makes me think it's true is the findings of the research, the methodology of the research, and where it has been replicated the reproducibility of the research.

The second statement is a logical extrapolation. If a person cannot justify restraining their own actions based on an ethical consideration of the impact of those actions, then the soceity which is well aware of the cost of those actions is forced to impose external discipline in order to maintain order.

I never thought of that as controversial. It's not like one can have people looting stores and raping strangers and still function as a cohesive state.

The premise is that if a body of people impose discipline on themselves because of their beliefs, no matter the source of those beliefs, then the state can save resources by reducing a policing force. If the body of people is unrestrained the opposite holds true.

At any time if there is something you don't understand you're free to ask questions. I'm pretty new here but is that frowned on? Is everyone expected to have all the answers?

It just seems that my first few posts/comments were immediately assaulted by everyone as if they were an affront.

I didn't come here to build a cult. I don't care to sway anyone's opinions. I'm not here to debate anyone.

I'm here for philosophy which is really a very personal thing. It helps a tremendous amount if one can share ideas and have others point out logical flaws and inconsistencies or misinformation because it's very easy to fall into a rut or lie to oneself.

So... that's why I'm here. To talk to other people about philosophy.

Why are you here?

I'm sorry you just don't seem to really know what you're asking for.

I mean... would it help if I pointed to Hagger's Trait Self Control and Self Discipline?

I'm not quoting some article on BuzzFeed here I'm summarizing decades of research and what I said isn't controversial it's just accepted understanding of how human beings develop psychologically to regulate their actions in a social dynamic.

As such there just isn't any such single thing (or couple of things) as what you're asking for (except, of course, for lists of citations by link depth).

Link depth would be shown on Hagger's Google scholar (approaching 5k/year) but that's just an appeal to popularity. You really would have to read a few studies in order to get a feel for how most psychologists describe self discipline/self control.

If you thought I was implying China is doing something right then please allow me to correct the misunderstanding. I think China is failing utterly. They don't understand the problem and they're taking all the wrong steps to fix the issue. They know there is a problem but to the misfortune of their people the leadership is completely ignorant of how humanity thinks and are trying to pummel them into doing what the state wants. It's silly and will result in a horrific display of human suffering, failure and death.

Please try to understand I'm not trying to provoke you it's just that your initial sentence had no bearing on anything I said and your next sentence blamed me for your difficulty comprehending it and then you proceeded to speak for "everyone else".

I'm not here to fix psychological problems. I am here to enjoy talking with people who are interested in philosophy. I'm not above clarifying anything if there is a problem but I flatly refuse to be blamed for anyone else's failures in education.

The first step on the road to wisdom is to admit you know nothing from which point you can begin to construct a less corrupted view of the world.

Your belief is so filled with logical flaws and misinformation about human nature and history that it's not philosophy at all. It's just an excuse for holding on to emotional baggage.

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” - Arthur C. Clark

In the OP it was described as (paraphrasing) the ability to alter reality at will.

We can effectively alter reality without any spoken words or direct action by encoding our will into physical "spells" triggered by fields manipulated by the firing of the neurons in our brains.

If that doesn't clearly define a physical representation of magic by those definitions then I don't know if anything ever could come closer.

In the sense of the types of magic expressed in fantasy literature and by religion, however, I would firmly say that I do not have any reason to believe in such a thing. IF the universe was created (which I have never been convinced it was) then all of the literature I have seen on the subject suggests that it was created expressly to PREVENT mankind or any other being from turning their personal will directly into power.

OTOH if the evidence I suspect of being the closest thing to "universal" truth to be found can be trusted, there must always be a deterministic chain, even if ti contains probabilistic elements between instigation and outcome, that can always been followed by one with sufficient understanding. The instigator doesn't have to have sufficient understanding but someone must have it long enough to lay down the pathway before it can be taken.

Or, in other words, if it looks like magic you aren't looking closely enough.

I was talking about literally every social chaos algorithm I've ever seen. not one of them retains cohesive structure without a binding variable like religion or philosophy.

Take China as the biggest and most successful atheist nation ever in history. The Party has run into this problem on a massive scale time and again. They have repeatedly had to revamp their failed balance between engineered ignorance and forced indoctrination as religion has re-grown in large population centers without a massive level of heavily indoctrinated citizens in place. The entire Ughar problem is a current case-in-point. They're bussing in hundreds of thousands of Chinese nationals deemed acceptably "Chinese" by the state in order to break up the naturally evolving narratives.

Even with that tremendous expense (both direct and indirect as they try to whitewash what they're doing in the UN) they're still not really able to call it successful. The real problem is that in order for an individual to impose self-discipline they must rationalize it and without the cognitive tools to construct a rational narrative that is compatible with the requirements of the state fragmentation is inevitable.

When modeling social dynamics (the branch of sociology and mathematics that relies on chaos theory) there are multiple deterministic patterns that have to be modeled. People need food, water and basic resources as well as a sufficiently diverse gene pool. Moving past those as population increases one starts to require additional repetitive series and one of those is most easily described as memetics (memetic theory) (the shared common ideas in a clearly defined cultural group). Chomsky made it popular but it's developed quite a bit since he first popularized it. As wikipedia says in the first paragraph: it's essentially information flow.

During development the minds of children face such a massive influx of complex interpersonal and social dynamics that they have no choice but to rely almost complete on guidance to arrange them into a cognitive framework. At first this is, in most cases, entirely one parent. As the child grows in complexity, however, they will begin to delegate some areas to the other parent or anyone else in their life they deem as more authoritative a source about one or another subject.

One can keep going down this rabit hole until one has mapped out a common series of memetic themes that are common across all individuals in one more more large geographically diverse regions (say... western cultural norms).

Thematic supercells: economics, religion, liberty, human rights, sexuality, etc...

Hopefully this is enough to begin with to start to see the big picture of how these models are constructed. Then one simply has to lay out some common sources of those thematic elements (religion, pop culture audio and video, public education, etc...) and then one can target and model each one and run the models.

Personally I'm rather proud of how my models actually pull in their variables for pop culture and regional religious themes from social media. I believe it makes them more accurate but enough bragging.

So, it's also simple to put in a condition where a major one is destroyed without significant changes to another and play the model forward to see what happens.

In every single one when religion is destroyed without replacing it with a state-sponsored religious replacement the social model fractures (breaks down into civil conflict) over 1-3 generations.

Thus: the Chinese are bussing in nationals to replace the Ugar. They have experts with models too.

Literally every time he quoted scripture. You do know that all the gospels are written in Greek? Every time Jesus quoted the Torah it was a word-for-word quote from the Septuagint. There is no evidence (at least that I'm aware of) that he ever quoted Hebrew.

I'm kindof on the same side with @Aaron R.

When you talk about "the Real" you're talking about something you've personally built up in your own mind into a framework of understanding but since the rest of us aren't mind readers we have no choice but to construct our own definition for that in our own minds that will almost certainly differ from your ideas extensively.

Philosophy is just packaged human wisdom. If I've learned anything in life, it isn't understanding how to say that wherein lies a lifetime of trial but in understanding it.

What are understanding, wisdom, foolishness, intelligence, sapience, etc...

Words travel no further in your brain than what is known as the Broca's region (serialization of thought or output such as painting/drawing/writing and speaking) combined with the Wernicke's region/area (de-serialization of thought or input such as sight and sound translated).

Without extennsive applied study around these subjects any deep discussion will quickly become circular word salad as you find that contradictions (and even cognitive visualization) will result in dissonance and confusion.

Our society and culture blend them continuously which makes them particularly subject to the vagaries of cultural ambiguity. Is it "stupid is as stupid does" or is it "a foolish man despises wisdom and instruction"? Etc... etc....

I sincerely hope I've helped here but I'm honestly not sure that I have. It seems at first (and when I was a younger man I was so certain it was) like it should be simple to tackle this but it's a very very deep and complex subject.

I wasn't familiar and had to look him up. After reading [the wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maps_of_Meaning) I quickly realized why.

It seems we have some similarities in personal history and areas of study.

Having really only glanced as his podcast bio and skimmed his wikipedia entry I will say, however, that it seems at first glance that he's far less of an agnostic/atheist than I am and that his track of polymath studies is a lot less broad than mine.

Add computational neuroscience (neuronal network modeling), computer science (neural networks and data science specifically), medical imaging focused on nuclear physics and linguistics into the mix and we'd a LOT closer in background. Also he's a PhD working in theory while I'm an MS working in practice as an engineer and I find that hands-on experience just can't be replicated by any amount of abstract study.

As to your question about what proof is there well you're going to have to get a LOT more specific because as you framed the question the answer is all of history (but in a very broad collection of study). It's not just reading popular vetted texts about history or various famous academics' perspectives but rather taking a broad-spectrum and very deep dive into each science relevant to building a matrix of understanding.

Even a summary at that level would fill multiple pages in order to supply just the biblio links.

With that said, please feel free to dig a bit deeper and ask for evidence or clarification of any specific conclusion.

Keep in mind, however, that at this point merely asking me for "proof" in the way that you did raised red flags that scream beligerent trolling. I'm here for serious discussion (not fighting or even debate). I have no interest in engaging in hostilities with non-believers. I have a very real interest in open-minded discussion with curious people, however, so I guess we'll see which one you prefer to present yourself as?

I was talking about literally every social chaos algorithm I've ever seen. not one of them retains cohesive structure without a binding variable like religion or philosophy.

Take China as the biggest and most successful atheist nation ever in history. The Party has run into this problem on a massive scale time and again. They have repeatedly had to revamp their failed balance between engineered ignorance and forced indoctrination as religion has re-grown in large population centers without a massive level of heavily indoctrinated citizens in place. The entire Ughar problem is a current case-in-point. They're bussing in hundreds of thousands of Chinese nationals deemed acceptably "Chinese" by the state in order to break up the naturally evolving narratives.

Even with that tremendous expense (both direct and indirect as they try to whitewash what they're doing in the UN) they're still not really able to call it successful. The real problem is that in order for an individual to impose self-discipline they must rationalize it and without the cognitive tools to construct a rational narrative that is compatible with the requirements of the state fragmentation is inevitable.

It's pretty silly to argue against the idea when Yeshua quoted the septuagent and was raised in Nazareth surrounded by Greek philosophy and culture.

I'm tagging this to see if it goes anywhere but at this point it sounds a bit pretentious and borderline nuts to me. It doesn't appear that OP has a clear definition for science or objectivity and his premises seem more like dogmatic declarations than previously established reasonable conclusions.

I had it described by my professors as this: philosophy is just brotherly argument (not fight, but debate - literal translation of Philos and Soph or Brother-Wisdom).

I guess that's as good as anything else I've ever heard. Of course religion is philosophy, it's just bad philosophy (philofolly).

Religion is essentially a social coping mechanism for our success as a species raising our population density far above tribal survival norms.

In a small group or tribe the elders are socially close enough to new members to play a significant role in their develoment. They can therefore pass on their wisdom and worldview directly to new members even if their parents are less involved than they should be or even from a different tribe.

Once population starts getting past the tribal and nomadic level, however (such as Phonetician, Canaanite, Babylonian, etc...) then the ability to have common memes between disperate segments of the population exceeds the capacity of any elder framework. Elders aren't known for being mobile and before regular postal service they couldn't exactly communicate with each other even if the majority had been literate.

Over time, the more subjective value systems such as politics, economics, patriarchal and/or matriarchal biases and their social resolution through custom, etc... would deviate too far for cooperation. Things some members of a big tribe considered normal others considered a violation of the natural order.

Naturally in an effor to prevent disagreements and bloodshed humanity did what it always does: it made things easier to remember and pass on through narrative. By explaining conceptual morality through stories it was possible to present both the pros and the cons of various solutions to hypothetical dilemmas into the reach of the common members of social systems.

But this naturally evolved mechanism wasn't perfect. When a child is told an incomplete story or when the parent doesn't understand the explanation they can pollute the lesson. In many cases this would have been born out as morality or imposed behavioral expectations (as opposed to choice through ethics and/or wisdom). Over time there were enough moral impositions to require non-violent (or less-violent) ways of determining who was more correct.

Law and religion spawned from the same places and for the same reasons.

It was the Athenian equivalent of law, after all, that convinced Socrates to drink the hemlock as he mocked the Greek subjective application of piety. The lack of formal and unified expectations was, even then, creating a great deal of suffering for humanity.

Modern religion is nothing but the minds of children being filled with the stories of their parents for why things are right and wrong (or exist at all). They're the weight of culture imposed by ignorance instead of the light of philosophy imposed by love.

What is truly more terrifying then religion, however, is the absence of both religion and philosophy. Without being armed with at least one, individuals cannot exercise self discipline and must therefore have discipline imposed upon them. It guarantees that only a tyranny (and a very strict tyranny) can hold humanity together.

I don't mean to insult anyone's intelligence but why are people discussing Wellsian temporal mechanics in 2022? You guys do know that this is a completely naive and scientifically silly notion of what time is right?

Time has been conclusively proven to have absolutely no concrete existence outside of a MCMC variable in causal calculations.

Of course you can't prove a negative like "time doesn't exist" but you can prove that what we observe and think of as time is just an illusion created by our perceptual limitations and so any discussion has about as much axiomatic foundation as cultural mythology.