This is sad. A bunch of guys on a philosophy forum offering each other advice on landing the ladies. If you must know, the only way to success is having an elephant trunk schlong, which I'm fortunate enough to have, while others are limited to only having silly moustaches.

And the solution is to live as the Amish, purposefully isolating, remaining ignorant, and living peacefully within the walls of protection built by the corrupted. So many ironies.

I take comfort in the fact that the good old days really weren't.

I think it's sometimes ok not to be clear because other times it happens what you didn't expect.

For the new calendar, I propose making today yesterday and yesterday tomorrow and last week just a minute ago.

"And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not." — Tzeentch

In reading it in a vacuum, not trying to contextualize it to the speaker or time or place, I read it as a metaphorical statement that when the good (the light) is presented to its opposite (darkness, or evil), evil is at a complete loss of how to respond, so much so that it cannot even comprehend the good.

The light is whatever one takes to be the highest good and darkness its opposite. In a Christian context, the light would be love perhaps (consider substituting "love" for "light" in the above quote). In an OT context, perhaps substitute "justice" or "wisdom" for "light."

There are only two sexes, male and female, the same way there´s only light and the absence of light, — DiegoT

Logically, light is to not light as male is to not male. Not male is not the logical equivalent of female under this analogy.

Yes, all categories are man-made, as the Uni-verse is one and strictly speaking, there is no separation. However, they are not arbitrary. — DiegoT

I've not argued for holism. I've only asserted that categories are the products of our minds imposed for whatever reason we choose. You ignored my comments regarding how primary and secondary traits are indistinguishable.

we know nothing about the noumenon — DiegoT

Yet you continue to want to speak about how things actually are.

— DiegoT

That´s not a useful categorization because it only responds to subjective and political realities with a very restricted contextual use, unlike the categorization of two sexes, that is seemingly very well aligned with the natural and psychological reality we share with other animals and has the power to describe human sexuality in all times and places. — DiegoT

Not all animals are divided into two sexes. Regardless, some humans are born sexually ambiguous. You'll have to explain why this naming convention is important to you. If you have a sexually unambiguous male who self identifies as a female and wishes to be treated as a female, that person will require a different name from his male acting counterpart. What do you propose we refer to this person as? He certainly is in a different category.

becouse — DiegoT

Because, not becouse.

The difference, inasmuch as there is one, lies in our behaviour, and not 'in language'. — StreetlightX

But doesn't our naming behavior result from the behavior of what is perceived? President Trump's behavior is different from Santa Claus', and for that reason we consider there to be an actual referent to the word "Trump," thus causing us to behave in a way that one has an actual referent and the other not. Since we behave differently when we consider the word "Santa Claus" then we do when we consider the word "Trump," it seems reasonable that we offer different words for them, namely "imaginary" and "actual." To say there's no distinction between imaginary and actual is itself a metaphysical statement.

All names are 'empty names'. — StreetlightX

This is an overstatement, as it speaks to the noumena. Just because all names can be explained through behavior doesn't mean that there might not actually be a reason our behavior varies when speaking about one sort of thing versus the next. That is, we may treat "Trump" different from "Santa Claus" due to a true metaphysical difference between the two. The best you can say under your theory is that metaphysics is irrelevant to the analysis, not that there isn't a true distinction between what the terms refer to.

Colours are made by perception, dividing the light spectrum that is really continuous. So they are subjective. However, sex is not subjective:there are only two sexes, and there can only be two sexes. This is becouse sex is not a perceptual division, but a basic, natural, especialization in animals and plants of cosmic or physical principles (that is, Flow and Restriction). Isaac Asimov imagined a universe with different laws, that allowed physically for three sexes, in "The gods themselves". — DiegoT

Categories are created arbitrarily by humans. That's not to say there's not a difference between someone with blonde hair and someone with brown hair, but the naming of the categories and determining which things are filed under which category is entirely subjective and arbitrary.

I also don't follow your distinction between perceptual differences and natural differences. It sounds like Locke's distinction between primary and secondary characteristics, and it doesn't hold up under analysis. All properties are perceptual. Speaking of a characteristic as it exists independent of the way it is perceived is incoherent. You're trying to describe the noumena it seems.

But some people have XY chromosomes and female genitalia or XX chromosomes and male genitalia or XXY chromosomes or XYY chromosomes or both male and female genitalia. — Michael

My DNA, which is currently part of a major exhibit at the Smithsonian, is purely YY, with no evidence of femininity. You know how most guys have a feminine side, where they maybe tear up at sad movies or enjoy the scent of lavender? Yeah, well I don't. Pure man I am.

Regarding the claim you made Hanover, about me being egocentric. I don't think that's entirely true given the nature of the topic. Character deficiencies, wallowing, sadness, and such.

I think that comment was out of context. — Posty McPostface

Your posts are all about you. They just are. We're not exactly talking about Kant here are we?

I, however, do think it is a character deficiency on my part; but, don't know any methods at instantly becoming a better person. — Posty McPostface

Instantly, as in right now, Google volunteer opportunities in your area and tomorrow you bag food for the homeless, you plant trees in parks, you shelve books at the library, you point patients in the right direction from the hospital help desk, you do whatever. Now you know how to do it. What's your next excuse for not doing it?

But, you've never actually felt depressed for prolonged periods of time, yes? — Posty McPostface

Not like what you're describing. I have had some pretty difficult days (none your bidness) which I do believe were handled as best could be expected by an otherwise healthy person, and the pain lasted for a good little while, but it was an injury for which time healed, although I do carry with me the reminder of every blow laid upon me I suppose.. That's just not at all what you describe though, where there's this prolonged hopelessness and disengagement from society. I never gave up, never thought to quit, never stayed still. I'm not suggesting a character flaw with you for doing otherwise, but clearly our constitution is different.

Sure, situationally related to to particularly stressful events, but I haven't suffered from generalized depression with no isolated source,

Yes, psychedelics can help. But, I learned the hard way of once taking magic mushrooms and experiencing ego — Posty McPostface

You shouldn't take psychedelics because you're not otherwise doing well. That's my advice to you. My other advice to you is to stop pretending like you have no ego. It's like this thing you like to say, but nothing is more obvious than how egocentric you are. In fact, fewer and fewer threads by you are about anything but you.

The general solution to all your various maladies is either through (1) professional help, or (2) nothing. What this means is that all this talk about you serves no purpose other than to talk about you, which you obviously derive some value from, whatever it is, but nothing we have here is going to make you any amount better.

If I felt my obligation on this forum were to be nice instead of right, I suppose I wouldn't have said what I just said.

What could be more depressing than Oblivion? And then spreading this depressing message the way people like Dawkins and the cosmologists do creates depression in the general population.

Atheism is wrong and outdated. Science has moved on:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned_Universe

Please do not quote the Anthropic principle; its (to use your favourite word) bullshit:

- The Weak Anthropic explains the universe must be compatible with life for us to be here. It does not explain why the universe is compatible with life
- The Strong Anthropic explains that the existence of multiple universes with different properties account for our existence. But other universes are statistically likely to be like this one (Life supporting) so the SAP does not explain why the multiverse is fined-tuned for life. — Devans99

Is this just something you feel like talking about regardless of topic, or are you actually suggesting you have isolated Posty's problems to his lack of faith? If church attendance were a mental health panacea, wouldn't someone have noticed that by now?

I just ate a hot dog and some chicken, so I'm feeling less depressed. :) — Posty McPostface

You were misdiagnosed as depressed when you were actually just hungry. It's an easy mistake to make. I was once misdiagnosed as retarded. Turns out I was just sleepy.

You'd have to be incredibly naive to think otherwise honestly. — MindForged

The Dems lost the presidency, so they blame the electoral college. The Dems don't like the President, so they talk about impeachment. The Dems can't control Congress, so they blame gerrymandering. The Dems don't like the Supreme Court nominee, so they engage in a character attack. The Dems can't control the Senate, so they argue against equal state representation in the Senate. And now in fear of continued Republican control, they claim they're being cheated of votes. The continued effort of the Dems is to win in litigation or by rule change that which they can't otherwise win through the existing process. Their strategy is the continued effort of delegitimization of Republican control.

It's all about their attempt to obtain power at all costs. It has nothing to do with righteousness. To think otherwise is incredibly naive.

Cross post. :up:

Guys, I presume this thread is being done in fun and with the consent of the accused? If not, let's not call specific posters out for what we might believe to be inappropriate argument in its own separate thread.

I don't understand why the organizer of the labor and capital gets nothing for his ingenuity. Isn't it the guy with the grand idea who has great value. Someone must create the better mousetrap, otherwise you just have useless wood and springs.

And have your whole identity based on a single defect? No thanks, — Posty McPostface

An understandable reply based on my prior callous comments, but here not warranted. Humpty didn't have a single defect. He fell and fucked himself up from here to Sunday, not even his royal highness being able to patch his ass up.

The Humpty Dumpty lyrics don't actually indicate he's an egg. I think the rhyme really refers to a man who took too great a risk and could not recover from his failure dispite assistance from the most powerful.

Well all the king's men tried too.

Some broken things can't be fixed, like Humpty Dumpty.

You could go to a meetup group. I went to a philosophy meetup group a while ago and it was like here except when people argue and insult each other face to face it's more exciting. Some guy got really mad because no one would take his alleged paranormal experiences seriously. He left the room with the group leader saying "good day sir" or something like that. I didn't go back, not so much because of the fireworks, but more because it was too far to drive when I could just get online here and get pretty much the same.

But, yeah, the way to make friends is to interact with those who have similar interests. If you go back to school, for example, you might make a friend. If you're annoying, and I don't know if you are, that will be an impediment to making friends. So don't be that.

I do remember many kids at school that were good students and very interested in what they were learning, but they lacked direction, not really paying attention to what courses were needed to graduate, and sort of just dabbled until they quit. There's something to be said about pushing through it. If there's something that's really interesting, do it on your wn time, but don't let it slow you down from the finish line.

What you should do is find out the fastest track to graduation, get the best grades you can, and then enter the work force and do whatever it is you want to do.

What would happen then if, say, a Democratic Congress and President were to pass a law that banned private gun ownership? Without the Supreme Court ruling that it conflicts with the Second Amendment, will the new law just have to stand (until a Republican Congress and President repeat it)? — Michael

I'm not entirely opposed to the Court having some authority to evaluate the Constitutionality of legislation, but in doing so, there has to be some self-imposed restraint or you can in fact have Justices decreeing law from the bench. A Constitution can be upheld without an all powerful Court as well, by making it part of the process for legislatures to evaluate the Constitutionality before passage of the law.

What I can say is that the process we have in the US appears terribly flawed, where the Court is placed in the center of the political process, supposedly representing a wisdom beyond the grasp of the democracy.

An interesting idea that I noted when reading about other countries' processes is in making the Supreme Court reach all its decisions unanimously, without providing any avenue for dissent. They would then act like juries, being forced to sit in a small room arguing until they reached a unanimous and often compromised decision. If they hung, I guess the law would be upheld.

For example, the theory of evolution is proffered as illustrating the triumph of mechanism over teleology. — Dfpolis

Evolution offers a triumph over teleology by providing a causal explanation for teleology, thus clarifying the primacy of causality over teleology.

If I want to know why the bird flies south in the winter, and all I am told are the details related to how the bird's neurons fire and muscles contract, surely I know less than if I'm told "so he can find food when it gets cold." Such is hard to deny. However, if I want to know why the bird wants to eat and I keep asking these "why" questions, at some point I'm going to resort to causality (namely evolution). To do otherwise (i.e. to keep reaching toward a higher teleos), one would be reaching toward God. It's therefore not that teleological explanations are irrelevant under the scientific model, it's that they are reducible to causal ones.

If one took a different approach and thought of teleological explanations as primary, one would demand to know the purpose of one's life, not just demand a recitation of the meandering path that led one to one's dead end job.

But the kicker is is that evolution can only be a true triumph over teleology if one is satisfied that the existence of evolution does not itself require a teleological explanation. And isn't that where the theological/scientific compatibility arises, where the theologian finally concedes the existence of evolution, but then asks for what great purpose did our Creator implement the existence of evolution?

That's only .1122 million square kilometers which leaves us about 148 million square kilometers to live on. 1 square kilometer of solar panels costs about 150 million USD. — Benkei

So we need 112,200 square kilometers to power the planet for a year. The Netherlands comes in at 25,814 square kilometers, which means after it's paved over with solar panels, we'll still need approximately 90,000 square kilometers for me to be able to run my washer, watch South Park, and do whatever it is I do. I looked to France for more land because if we could increase our power and reduce our French, then we'd killing two birds with one stone. France is 400,039 square kilometers, which is more than enough, but I think we should go ahead and clear it all out now just to create the infrastructure for anticipated increased power needs. We don't want to wait to the last minute like we did this time and have another crisis.

Sounds like a plan.

If we could run the world on dreary instead of sun, I'd have chosen the UK for our power needs.

The world is currently producing about 18 terawatts of power. Solar had better get busy. — Bitter Crank

Fascinating factoid: In a single hour, the amount of power from the sun that strikes the Earth is more than the entire world consumes in an year.

http://www.businessinsider.com/this-is-the-potential-of-solar-power-2015-9

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People often say that non-verbal communication is at least 60-80% of real communication... Does that make online communication a futile effort? — Posty McPostface

What it really does is make clear what bullshit that 60-80% figure really is. We can communicate sometimes more fully and clearly in writing. That's why it's sometimes better to write a letter.

It's easier to communicate online for some because of social limitations, anxiety, fear of rejection, and embarrassment to name a few. That's why online dating is so popular.

don't believe that he said that he hates people--merely that he tends to avoid people. But you exemplify the familiar and dismal fact that there are people who need to be avoided or ignored. — Michael Ossipoff

Your comment that I need to be avoided is belied (a word that must be used in this thread as much as possible) by your speaking to me and falling victim to my charisma.

This thread is expressly about "misanthropy" which is literally a hatred of people. But, if you read my most enlightening posts, I did question whether @Posty McPostface was a misanthrope, saying that his outreach here belied (BAM!) his claims to misanthropy. He made a comment then about the mask that he wore here allowed social navigation otherwise inaccessible to him in the direct contact real world. I do agree with that, although I think we all wear masks wherever we are, and what he points to is more social difficulties than misanthropy. My hesitation in exploring the extent of and cause of his social limitations is based upon my acknowledgment that it is impossible to psychoanalyze others from afar, especially those with a complex history of mental illness..

That's Hanover's religious belief, but I don't agree with it. — Michael Ossipoff

I was being facetious.

Your OP asks what do I tell the misanthrope. Why would I be kind to a hater of people? You suggest I ought to be kind because your hate is beyond your control, so I ought pity you. Okee doke, I'm crying my eyeballs out for you.

A conspiracy necessarily involves more than one person in pursuit of a common goal. If God is a conspirator, he conspires with someone — Ciceronianus the White

God can do anything, including lifting the rock he can't lift.

Let's also not forget that God could conspire with the son and holy spirit, thereby self-conspiring.

I don't like or understand the motivation for Hanover's derogatory tone. — Michael Ossipoff

My only motivation was to say what is true. This is a philosophy forum afterall. Posty acknowledged his motivation was only to find kindred spirits who could identify with his plight, which simply means I don't satisfy his criteria in this thread.

Your opening post is very poorly stated. I gather you think the SCOTUS has been getting out of hand ever since the Constitution was adopted in 1787. — Bitter Crank

No question that the OP was slop, but generously interpreting it, there was some truth to it. His initial point did make the point that the Constitution itself never provided that the Supreme Court was meant as a Constitutional Court, empowered with the ability to strike down laws as unconstitutional. They decided they had that power in 1803 in Marbury Madison. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marbury_v._Madison . The notion that a court has the power to strike down democratically passed laws is not universally accepted in Western nations today (the Dutch provide their courts no such power and the Finns have a legislative committee evaluate for Constitutionality for example). Jefferson was staunchly opposed to allowing the Court that much power:

"To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. They have with others the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. Their maxim is boni judicis est ampliare jurisdictionem [good justice is broad jurisdiction], and their power the more dangerous as they are in office for life and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves." http://www.answers.com/Q/What_did_Thomas_Jefferson_say_about_judicial_review.

Constitutions are not "sacred" documents like the Ten Commandments--carved in stone and handed down from heaven and valid forever. They are working documents designed to address the perceived problems of establishing government at a given time. — Bitter Crank

And the counter to this position, again quoting Jefferson, "The Constitution on this hypothesis is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please."

What you have done is just what you argued against, which is to make the Constitution sacred in the sense that what it is said to say is the highest law of the land, untouchable by democratic effort. The Justices, under this model, are vested with the power to say what the Constitution says, giving them the power of the gods, to decree what the law that 100s of millions of Americans must live under. Unless you impose some rule that restrains the Justices (like limiting their interpretation to original intent or some other rule), then the Justices can in fact twist and shape their interpretation however they please.

The Kavanaugh fight is evidence of the absurdly powerful role the Court plays in American society, with the left trying to arrive at whatever way, democratic or not, to change the rules to select an all powerful Justice who will swing the Court. The speak of amending the Constitution to eliminate the electoral college so that Republicans can't elect Presidents who will choose Justices. They speak of eliminating equal Senators for each state so that the Senate will not be Republican. They speak of removing Republican Presidents and Republican selected judges through impeachment. The stakes are high and they want their person in power, which means to me that the Court simply has too much power and should never have embarked on its mission to set policy for the American people.

If the net result of this whole mess is that the Court lose it's reputation as being fair and honest, then I say all the better. It should never have been placed where it is, and the day the democracy can assert actual control over the law of the land, all the better.

Oh, dear. I hope you don't start calling me a snowflake, Sir/Ma'am or whoever the person behind your alter-ego of "Hanover" is. Anyway, if you've followed my posting here, then I suppose it bears repeating that I'm a disabled individual due to mental health. As much as I'd like to pull myself up from my bootstraps, my metaphorical "back" isn't in great shape, and never will be. Hence my lamentation, wallowing, reclusiveness, escapist tendencies, and resignation from life. — Posty McPostface

And I do respect that, which brings up my callous but true conclusion, which is that if you are disabled to the point where nothing can be done about it, then what do you ask I (or anyone) do other than feel bad for you? I can share my insights, be nice, be mean, make jokes, pontificate, or whatever, but you are telling me that you have but one leg and will never be able to run. Well, I'm sorry about your one leg. What else do you seek?