File under "classical". Something for the existential angst.

The frontline of planet wars.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/nov/21/canada-arctic-herschel-island-qikiqtaruk-climate-permafrost-tundra-ecology-aoe

Some nice pics and little films and Timelapse's and some words too.

Proofs of freewill and proofs of determinism are as reliable as proofs for and against the existence of God. One may be sure that that they are unreliable without even reading them, because of unenlightened's famous principle: "No arrangement of words, howsoever cunning, can oblige the world to be thus and not so."
Thought experiments can only be useful when one already knows precisely what one is talking about. They are therefore of little value to philosophers, who are only called in when folk discover that they don't quite know what they are talking about after all.
To reject unenlightened's principle is to believe in the efficacy of magic spells.

Dipping a toe hesitantly into mathematical news:

I am earthbound, but not housebound. Freedom has limits and contexts. "Free will" is a philosopher's nonsense that has no place in life, and "determinism" likewise.

"Waiter, don't bother to show me the menu, just bring me the meal I am predetermined to eat."
"Sir, the menu is free although it is also predetermined, but the food is not free and the prices are predetermined. Pay what you are predetermined to pay, and then I will know what I am predetermined to bring."

Human freedom marks the distinction between reacting and responding. When I am reacting to a post, I am not free, but being controlled by my habits and by the post, But when I respond, I am free to accept or reject the meaning conveyed, and move the dialogue on.

Not green energy, unfortunately. Given an already overheating planet, extra sunlight is not what is required.

Sometimes, philosophy must give way to art.



Is it wrong to marry a duck-bill Platypus?

Reality is the current dream. The choice is between uppers and downers. The red pill is meaningfully different from the blue pill. The problem is which way is up and which way is down.

A Feersum Endjinn?

What I don't understand is why Trump voters are so eager to have more inflation.
— ssu

Perhaps they have little idea what they actually were voting for. — Wayfarer

While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society’s pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he’s in

But I mean no harm nor put fault
On anyone that lives in a vault
But it’s alright, Ma, if I can’t please him — Bob Dylan

I think it's called "spite".

The US and Biden's push into Ukraine is the single greatest threat to the world since the Cuban Missile Crisis - not Trump. — Tzeentch

Interesting relation. As I remember it was the US issuing the apocalyptic threats, and Russia backing down over Cuba. Now the boot is on the other foot. Perhaps it is the US turn to blink. Putin is insane but cunning. But I thought Trumps' platform was to make America Great again, not to make America feeble.

Everybody got the right to cover they arse best they can.
But thanks for the permission.

Trump is insane, but cunning. And he will destroy America if he is allowed to, and possibly the world. How to respond, is certainly a conundrum for foreign politicians; my response to bullies, gleaned from long experience, is to attempt to bore them to death by not responding at all.

Try living in a picture of a house for a week, and get back to us.

No.

Keep a professional distance. There is a duty of care, a duty of justice, and fair and equal treatment, and these would be compromised by such a relationship. It would compromise your teacher, threaten their career, and undermine your achievements as a student.

Outside my comfort zone by several parsecs, so talk amongst yourselves; probably you have to be a friend of a friend of Wigner's mother at least to relate to this stuff. but here it is is from the mouths of several veritable friends of Wigner's horses. So, respect!

Everyone loses wars.

I am sympathetic to your instincts and the direction of your argument. But I am mindful of the difficulties. to take simple example, Dinosaurs roamed the earth and dominated the fauna for millions of years, and then rather suddenly died out, and were eventually replaced by mammals. What was their sin? Pride, perhaps?

You might like to look into eco-philosophy a little, not much discussed or represented on this site, unfortunately. Try this maybe:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arne_Næss
Lots of links there to follow up if you are interested. One advantage of this kind of approach is that it avoids the separation of human and natural interests.

The judgement that evolution makes is survival or extinction. Easy enough from there to say that survival is good and extinction is bad, (from the pov of life, at least) but you see at once the difficulty - the judgement is always provisional and temporary and may be reversed tomorrow - see dinosaurs above.

The industrial revolution seemed like a good idea at the time, and led to human growth; now, some of us are wondering ...

Yes, we will soon be shooting people at the borders and sinking the boats. But most will die of heatstroke or famine where they are. It turns out that frogs will not stay in the pot while you slowly boil them, but humans, I think, mostly will. Like the Palestinians of Gaza, respecting the borders imposed on them that they could have overwhelmed at any time.

I didn't know this was even a thing. I went looking for the story...

Garcia attorneys wrote in a press release that Character.ai “knowingly designed, operated, and marketed a predatory AI chatbot to children, causing the death of a young person”. The suit also names Google as a defendant and as Character.ai’s parent company.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/oct/23/character-ai-chatbot-sewell-setzer-death

Alas, young people are vulnerable, and legislators are old and out of date, (like me). So exploitation can run free. Well I hope you can see that here at pf. is some harmless, perhaps even beneficial, interaction with real people. The world needs a century or two to catch up with all the novelty of the virtual world; our legal and moral sensibilities cannot adapt so fast as the technology.

So now you have drawn our attention to this, What do you think might be done about it? AIs are very quick and smart, but they have no intelligence or discrimination. I don't think anyone is entirely sure how to prevent such things without crippling the beasts entirely.

Welcome to my world!

Governments of the world won't help people, they can't. — Christoffer

After a careful examination, I managed to find two words to disagree with - "they can't." They can do a great deal more than they are doing. Instead of sowing division and conflict and xenophobia, they could help poor countries adapt somewhat; instead of subsidising oil, they could subsidise renewables; instead of pretending that endless growth is possible, they could start managing the economy to be fair and stable instead of expanding and exploiting. And so on. It's going to be bad, but there's no reason in that, to go on making it worse.

Two fundamental problems that make our governments fail completely:

1. Democracy entails short-termism.
2. Giving all the power to the old does the same.

I'm going to go out on a limb here bit, but I think Jesus had disciples before he was crucified, and I would think it sensible to allow that they were Christians even then, as they already thought him the Messiah, and ...

Christ comes from the Greek word χριστός (chrīstós), meaning "anointed one". The word is derived from the Greek verb χρίω (chrī́ō), meaning "to anoint." In the Greek Septuagint, χριστός was a semantic loan used to translate the Hebrew מָשִׁיחַ (Mašíaḥ, messiah), meaning "[one who is] anointed".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_(title)

A report from Greenland; very quiet and sober, Not reassuring though. Time to start growing some gills.




And to escape the meaningless graphs for a moment, a short report on India, and how poor people are affected. Human, and animal impact.

Hey carful there, we are in danger of reaching an understanding if not Gob forbid, agreement!

Mu.

But philosophy, as also zen, is a practiced discipline, a way of looking, more than a theory in a book. Burn all the books and start again fresh. That's what we do here at pf, apart from burning all the books.

Now it's the democrats turn to contest the election?



Greg Palast, Investigative Journalist, https://www.gregpalast.com/
https://www.watchvigilantesinc.com/

Another little local difficulty.



Note: this video is from the end of August. Now, you can find many videos and satellite images showing lakes and rivers that have appeared in the desert.

I don’t find philosophy useless at all. I use it all the time. — T Clark

My first thought was to report you to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Philosophy, and then I remembered this, which has appeared in this forum before:—

A Zen Koan
The Zen master Mu-nan had only one successor. His name was Shoju. After Shoju had completed his study of Zen, Mu-nan called him into his room. "I am getting old," he said, "and as far as I know, Shoju, you are the only one who will carry on this teaching. Here is a book. It has been passed down from master to master for seven generations. I also have added many points according to my understanding. The book is very valuable, and I am giving it to you to represent your successorship."

"If the book is such an important thing, you had better keep it," Shoju replied. "I received your Zen without writing and am satisfied with it as it is."

"I know that," said Mu-nan. "Even so, this work has been carried from master to master for seven generations, so you may keep it as a symbol of having received the teaching. Here."

The two happened to be talking before a brazier. The instant Shoju felt the book in his hands he thrust it into the flaming coals. He had no lust for possessions.

Mu-nan, who never had been angry before, yelled: "What are you doing!"

Shoju shouted back: "What are you saying!"

http://www.ashidakim.com/zenkoans/67whatareyoudoing.html

There is theory; and sometimes there is practice. Philosophers are perhaps like architects; they draw plans of buildings or ways of life that do not exist; and sometimes builders and others make use of the plans.

If there is an air of insubstantiality about this thread, it is because it is concerned with the philosophy of philosophy. This makes it particularly liable to disappear up its own fundament.

Accordingly, I propose, firstly, that philosophy is always parasitic; one might try a 'philosophy of nothing', but it wouldn't get very far. Rather, one first starts to talk or write about something and at some later stage, one starts to examine the verbiage philosophically. as philosophy of religion, or knowledge, or psychology or whatever.

And secondly, I suggest an inversion. Philosophy is what one has recourse to when the edifice of one's talk has become sufficiently 'high' that it is in danger of falling into ruin. Thus it is the foundations of a topic that philosophy is concerned with, the very lowest.

If possible, (ideally sic) the best foundation is bedrock, If one has reached bedrock, as Wittgenstein would have it, one has reached the end of that portion of philosophy, the questions are resolved or dissolved, and the superstructure is as sound as it can be.

By contrast, spiritual talk is untethered, lighter than air and floats higher and higher until it reaches such height that it attains outer space, where there is no longer any up or down, and no one can hear you pontificate.

Big picture, dude. You do the closeups! Never mind carry on.

I found it almost literally incredible that even a large minority of Americans could vote for Trump, never mind a majority. How did it come to pass - the credulity required is incredible?

But to the extent that any party controls the better and the worse, which do you think has in the US governed for the worse, since, say, Hoover? — tim wood

It really doesn't matter much what I think. Americans seem to think... well I'm an ocean away, see if you can get an idea of what they think. But I think that they think, since you ask, that you're all a bunch of incompetent greedy lying buggers, and they're messing with your heads by voting for the greedyest, lyingest, incompetentest, bugger around to give you a taste of the medicine you've been force feeding them from both parties since, say, Hoover.

I'm not saying this is a good idea; I think it's going to work out really badly for America and the world. I wish it hadn't happened, but it gives too much intelligence to Trump to make him totally responsible. Democrats have been getting it badly wrong for a long time and this is their fault as well as ordinary republicans fault. Maga happened because they both failed.

An interesting chat about climate models, that explains how they differ from weather models.

*Taps podium with a small stick*
I think we are all as in tune as we're ever going to be; let's begin the overture...

Obama's first or Trump's? Answer! And we can play this game for years, because that is how many lies Trump has told - or forever because he is still lying. And if you repeat and maintain them, then you're a liar as well. Just look at the history. — tim wood

Yes, I already drank that cool-aid, and I'm wondering why it turns out most people are sick of it. Yes Trump only lies when he opens his mouth. But there is a lie you and all the righteous pedantic democrats have missed that they are telling, that matters and that people know is not true for them, that everything's fine except Trump's mouth. Really, people are poorer, and they don't like it, and everything is not fine. To people who are suffering, happy-clappy looks plain stupid. As stupid as worrying about who has the biggest hands/crowd/dick. And that's what you come back at me as the fucking issue? Maybe swear off your own cool aid for a day. You know how many times I've been told that Hannibal Lector is a fictional character? I been listening to too many democrats already. You're looking the wrong direction, man, you bin misdirected and you lost. Think about that. You corrected all the lies people don't give a damn about, and you lost, because people vote for demagogues who spew hate when they are full of hate because they are suffering.

You can play your being right game for years, and go on losing and not understanding as long.

Trump, apparently one of many, is post-truth. His - their - lies should not be, cannot be, accepted. — tim wood

It seems to me that the Trump narrative, that things used to be good and have gone to shit is fundamentally true and agrees with the experience of middle America. So the only lie is the promise to make it great again.

Whereas the democrat's lie that everything is fine because the stock market is up, which feeds on the lie that everyone is an entrepreneur (though who is left over to make the trade that everyone takes a cut of is a mystery); that lie is not convincing any more.

Ordinary people are being screwed, and deceived into voting for the people who are screwing them, by misdirecting their discontent towards Johnny Foreigner and feeble democrats offering no solutions to a problem they are pretending isn't happening. The lies are on both sides and the result is no communication and the breakdown of society.

Idiot Wind.

I think rather than a makers mark, password, or signature I'd prefer to think of these various protein complexes in analogue to the markings -- which also can mark all sorts of functions within a community. Mostly because the former suggests a singular hand, an "I" marking something, when in fact there is a wider system in which self/other makes sense (to annihilate or not-annihilate the cell) — Moliere

Hmm. I'm struggling to understand this. Tribal markings arise in the wider system of tribes; cell markings arise in the wider system of multi cellular organisms; makers marks arise in the larger system of the marketplace.

Going back to an earlier thread, marking is the act of making a distinction.

Metaphysically -- if self/other is a complex of physical proteins performing a function then it seems we'd at least overcome the hurdle of nominalism which uses reductionism: Here is a physical explanation of self/other which relies upon an assemblage rather than a cogito -- so the "I think" cannot be a pure, self-seeing clarity unless it is somehow not associated, at all, with the body which makes it up. — Moliere

The functioning seems to me to be more like a makers mark, or a password, or a signature - in other words it is exactly a biological name/label and arbitrary at that if I read wiki aright.

And now I'm thinking "tribal markings" as the social equivalent.

Anyways, the world is indivisible so biology, psychology, sociology, have to create divisions with labels and talk, otherwise everything is mush. 'I am he as you are he as you are me
And we are all together.'

Meanwhile, here's something that could have gone in the climate change thread, but the natives are restless so I think it safer here.



Note: I have no reason to believe that Philip Prince is any relation to Prince Philip.

I found the idea of a protein complex as the basis for self/other fascinating, and still do. — Moliere

Me too. A case where psychology recapitulates biology.

To your wiki link. Alas my organic chemistry encompasses the idea that amino acids have an an acidic end and an amine base end, and so can form chains of peptide and poly-peptide. And the rest is a sea of links to a language I do not speak. But I vaguely get that self-recognition is necessary for the immune system, and the implications for transplants and cancers; but the gap in my understanding between basic chemistry and medical principle is too wide to even try a fill at this late stage. I wave my hands and nod wisely, hoping not to have missed something philosophically important.

Herewith, the future of energy, if we are smart.

Is this not why it's an extrovert's world? — Hanover

No. Even, perhaps especially, famous extroverts hide behind dark sunglasses and have people to talk to other people's people for them when regrettably necessary. God preserve us all from the hoi-poloi.

We like to imagine ourselves broad-minded, sociable, easy-going etc. But nobody has the time or the inclination to even greet every passer by except in what remains of the wilderness, and only there in the really unfrequented regions. Other people are revolting! Don't even look at them! Get a robot for your intimate requirements!