I think individuals that have caused paradigm shifts would fall under the category of "genius". People like Aristotle, Galileo, Newton, Einstein, Curie, Darwin, Hubble, etc. in regards to science would be geniuses. Tesla, Morse, Gutenberg, Ford, etc would be inventor geniuses. Marx would be a political philosophy genius even if you don't agree with his ideas. Perhaps even religious/spiritual thinkers like Jesus, Mohammad, the Buddha, Lao Tzu, etc might be considered genius, or at least very wise to followers.

Lists of geniuses seem to be all male. Why is that? — Bitter Crank

In my eyes, males have quite a tendency to be more serious and focused than females. Males are generally the ones that are not content to stick with the norm, leading to paradigm shifts and great discoveries or products.

That is not to say that we should automatically judge females as being inept, as there certainly are genius females. It may be the case that females haven't had the resources or education to achieve what males have, and it would be unfair to judge them before they have shown all their cards.

But mostly I think the average female attitude is that of satisfaction with the current standards, as in, why fix what isn't broken (even if it is)? Females do tend to be more emotional and superficial than males. This might be evolutionary; tending to the family and cultivating a strong family bond would be priority, whereas males would need to be able to recognize and adjust to changes more (hunting, for example). Also, males tend to be more aggressive and ambitious, whereas for females these traits that tend to lead to deep thinking and discovery just aren't important.

What is better: 10 very smart, very creative, very productive people or 10 geniuses? — Bitter Crank

Is there a difference?

Do you think there is anything wrong with acting purely in one's self-interest?

Huemer's thought experiment comes to mind. Say you are an egoist and are walking down the street to work, and you are slightly late. You also have an disintegrator gun with you. You encounter a homeless man. The egoist would be morally obligated to disintegrate the homeless man for being in his way and slowing him down.

This is obviously an argument ad absurdum. But it appeals to a sense of morality that is incompatible with egoism. It doesn't actually prove egoism to be false. An egoist could just easily say that it would be the moral thing to do to disintegrate the homeless man. They might live in a society that is okay with this, and so there would be no repercussions. And still we would find this to be immoral. But why?, and is this "holding us back" so to speak?

But why are a and b thought of as red while c is not?

a and b are similar but different to c. What makes this so? The redness of a and b, they are similar to each other.

That's not to say that the realist interpretation of similarity (universals) is necessarily correct. You could be a nominalist trope theorist and think that the Taj Mahal has a unique color, unique meaning numerically independent from any other trope, even an identical-looking trope. It seems to me that we can avoid the question of what makes these tropes similar by appealing to evolution and realizing that attributes exist in a spectrum, just as colors exist in a rainbow, and that it would be significantly beneficial to the survival of the species for an organism to be able to see similarities between objects.

Remember, it's not that you stink...it's that everyone else stinks. Don't conform. Don't assimilate.

Did anyone get any cool things for the holidays? This year was especially nice for me, I received four books on philosophy and a book on world mythology. The introductory philosophy books are one on the mind, another on cognitive science, a third on epistemology, and the fourth was The Ego Tunnel by Thomas Metzinger. I think I'll be reading quite a lot in the future. :)

Because then there would be no more suffering. — The Great Whatever

I agree with Agustino. I classic Buddhist response to why a monk doesn't kill themselves (to get rid of suffering) would be that it also means there is no more happiness, joy, pleasure, etc. It would be a shame to throw all that potential away.

They already had everything they wanted so they didn't invent or do much of anything. — The Great Whatever

Feynman was a real ladies man, and yet was one of the most important physicists of our time.

I don't think there is much of a problem with universals if we accept a version of 'conceptualism': — invizzy

From the IEP:

"As tidy as this seems, it too suffers from problems. To see this, we need to realize that concepts can be misapplied in some cases, such as when we say of a cat that it is a dog. And misapplied concepts explain nothing deep about generality. Conceptualism's appeal to concept application must concern only correct concept application. As such, it is fair to ask, “What makes it the case that the concept red is rightly applied to both a and b, but not of some third individual, c?” To treat this fact as brute and inexplicable is to revert to problematic Predicate Nominalism. So it seems the Conceptualist must say that the concept red applies to a and b, but not c, because a and b share a common feature, a feature c lacks. Otherwise, the application of red is unconstrained by the individuals to which it applies. But simply noting that a and b resemble each other isn't going to help, because that just is the fact we originally sought to explain, put differently. The Conceptualist might now say that a and b share a property. But if this isn't to amount to a restatement of the original datum, it must now be interpreted as the claim that some entity is in both a and b. That, of course, turns our supposed Conceptualist strategy back into Realism.

Critics say Conceptualism solves no problems on its own. In trying to ground our right to predicate the concept red of a and b, we are driven back to facts about a and b themselves and that leaves Conceptualism as an unstable position. It teeters back and forth between Realism, on the one hand, and Nominalism, on the other."

I am a little confused as to the difference between nominalism and conceptualism. — Marchesk

So, Marchesk, conceptualism is an unstable position between nominalism and realism, although it claims to be nominalism.

Excellent. I can't be the only one who is sick of seeing these petty pissing contests.

There already isn't any joy. That was all made up by poets who couldn't get laid. — The Great Whatever

Edgy.

We really ought to make another thread if you three can't play nice.

I thought I might never see the day in which we agree on something.

Sarcasm aside, I'm with you on your aesthetic appreciation of brutalism. I enjoy it as well. It's different, mysterious and yet plain. Industrial but not toxic.

Reminds of the architecture you would see in a Soviet-era Russia.

Anyone here want to fess up to being fully self-actualized? — Bitter Crank

*Grudgingly raises hand*

Found a very interesting article, about twenty pages in total, regarding the metaphilosophical question of what even is a philosophical question. Can philosophy be carried out? Are open-questions unanswerable? What is the nature of a philosophical question? What is scientism today?

http://www.philosophyofinformation.net/publications/pdf/wiapq.pdf

Good schtuff.

I find it interesting that if Maslow is partially right that humans have roughly the same kinds of generalized needs, that the needs being met are not evenly distributed. Even if governments or economies can provide for a modicum of the two foundational needs, the upper three tiers on the pyramid (simply following the basic diagram model) can never really be guaranteed. But that is where people can go many ways with it: — schopenhauer1

Popper argued that a government should operate under the negative utilitarian approach, that is, an anti-frustrationist, prioritarian method. Smart later argued that if this was adopted worldwide, this would lead to the extermination of all life. But realize that this was only meant to apply to the government's modus operandi, not the rest of life.

What authorizes this claim other than your own personal psychology? Whence the argument? Perhaps you want to argue that people ought to feel world-weary or whatever have you, but then the idea that feelings and affections can be motivated at a purely intellectual, rather than lived level is, well, naive to say least. 'You should feel like how I'm telling you, dammit!'. — StreetlightX

I most definitely have a problem with people assuming their idiosyncratic feelings are universals. Just because someone is depressed does not mean everyone is depressed.

However, I have to object that my characterization is not merely an incarnation of my own personal psychology applied to the rest of the world. Rather, it is actually what I observe to be not only my own personal feelings but also the feelings of everyone else. I'm not assuming everyone experiences the same negative feelings I do, I know people experience these same feelings. It is not difficult to see this in public. Stress, heavy eyes, perpetual melancholic behavior, the occasional impulse of anger and violence. A happy person is a delicate person. Happiness, true contentment, is short and sweet, usually obtained by a mixture of satisfied desires and willful ignorance. Our society runs off of unbelievable and unattainable ideals, powered by endless desires. It is, to be tart, a useless rat race, and oftentimes a malignant one at that.

It is the realization that this is what life is which leads to Weltschmerz. I'm not claiming that everyone experiences Weltschmerz, though. Weltschmerz is a meta-emotion, a reaction to the observation of all the other emotions we experience. So it is not surprising that not everyone experiences Weltschmerz because not everyone has taken the time to objectively look at life in all its colors, pretty and ugly alike.

wat

Maybe a different approach might help: Do we invent technology, or do we discover technology, or both? Meaning, of course we invent technology (it wouldn't exist without our creativity), but in the process, don't we discover technology as well? Don't we discover what the universe is capable of hosting?

Derek Parfit's "Why anything? Why this?"

Part 1: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v20/n02/derek-parfit/why-anything-why-this

Part 2: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v20/n03/derek-parfit/why-anything-why-this

If the above is realized (and there are other important technologies of course), then it's easy to imagine that the world could become a very different place. But who knows to what extent that ends suffering. There are dystopian scenarios. One can only imagine what a 22nd century warfare would look like. — Marchesk

That's very true, technology could be used in a poor way. In fact, given our history, it seems like nothing will change. All the philosophy in the world is not going to stop an idiot from launching a nuke.

This is a problem that, ideally, needs to be solved within this generation. I find it unethical to continue to breed if there is the potential to suffer greatly, and the world we live in is filled to the brim with potentials to suffer. If we can make life safe and worthwhile, then progeny will be acceptable.

d) the human condition is too complex for anything this basic and unscientific — schopenhauer1

Also, Schop, I'd like to add, the human condition is not a scientific concept. It's a philosophical one, and psychology has a history of being a bridge between strict science and strict philosophy.

Well said BC. What's the conversion rate between pesos and pfennigs?

I'm not entirely sure if I agree with Maslow's hierarchy, but what I do notice is that the negative experiences are on the bottom, while the positive are at the top. This is because to experience a positive, energized life, one must first deal with the negative things. Hunger, thirst, shelter, and safety are necessary for us to begin to enjoy life. We can certainly feel pleasure even if we are starving, but that would not be "enjoying" life (and I'm sure you'll agree with me). So what I am interpreting here is that each stack on the pyramid is contingent upon the lower stack.

My criticism would be that some of the stacks might be arbitrary. For example, someone could be a hermit up in the mountains and not need love. They might be totally okay with this not being a part of their life, and still have high esteem and self-actualization. I'm not sure if we can divide these feelings like this.

But I do think we can divide negative and positive experiences, and I do think that the positive experiences are contingent upon the control over negative experiences.

That's my two pesos.

It's not that certain individuals are spoiled. It's that it is natural (i.e. the state we exist in without any conscious will to not be in) to hold desires. This is a teaching of the Buddha.

It is not easy to tame this. We get comfortable in a situation, only for it to change and for us to experience suffering or disappointment when it does change. We find ourselves desperately wanting the universe to say something back to us, to validate our egos, and it does nothing.

I agree with you BC. Although we are most definitely separated by age and experience in politics and life in general, I think the current political situation regarding personal agency is that it is a delusion.

Originally agency would have been salvation, back when the Colonies were vying for independence.

But with two hundred plus years in between then and now, political agency has become something of a delusion. And it can't be a delusion without it being a hoax perpetuated by politicians and corporate entities. The greatest threat to our political agency is that of apathy towards our agency, and it seems like that is exactly what has happened.

In relation to regulating research on this basis (if that is what you mean) the question that comes up for me is whether we can know (always if not ever) beforehand just what the ethical implications of any research would be. — John

That's true. Hadn't considered that.

What I meant was that a person who studies archaeology simply to learn more about the ancient history of the earth's biological organisms would be perfectly justified in saying their job is worthwhile even if it does not give any "practical" gifts to society. But a sociopath who tortures mice in various ways to see how long mice can endure physical pain is not justified in saying their activities are worthwhile. They might be intellectual (the sociopath might actually be curious to know the survival rates of mice), but the method of inquiry is horribly unethical.

No, I meant should. The ethical implications of research should be the only factor that decides whether or not a body of knowledge is worth pursuing.

I think the pursuit of knowledge should only be restricted by ethics. To hear people say there needs to be a practical aspect of philosophy is quite disappointing. (Y)

For sure, any thought may feed into the practical, but to say that is not the same as to say that it has direct and obvious practical applications, the way chemistry, physics, geology or genetics, for example, do. — John

If I may interject, I believe Russell held this position regarding his own profession of philosophy. The last chapter in his book "The Problems of Philosophy" talks directly about the value of philosophy. He criticizes the man who does not seek knowledge for its own sake (or at least does not respect this tradition), because they are perpetually locked into a tyranny of common sense.

He would agree with your assessment that philosophy is not meant to enhance the community (as do I). If any value is to be found in philosophy, it is what it can do to the individual; and any residual effects afterwards are seen as something to be appreciated, not expected.

What do you get instead? 'Weltschmerz'. Weltschmerz is what you get. — StreetlightX

I get that your opinion over all of this is that it is caused by decadence. Nietzsche thought Schopenhauer was pissy because he was decadent, for example.

But Weltschmerz is caused because our completely natural disposition towards the world is consistently disappointed. It takes effort to tame this disposition. The fact that it even has to be tamed says something about the world. The disillusionment, which originally was shock or despair, leads to general apathy as one realizes that nothing is going to change. It's a meta-suffering, if you will; the psychological pain resulting in the realization that the world is filled with so much suffering and clearly wasn't meant to be an environment to house entities with egos.

However, I disagree that these are fundamental values and intrinsic rights. Who are they to claim so? As far as I'm concerned, the only rights a man has by birth are the same rights a tiger has - which are not many. — Agustino

Who are you to claim so?

The left claims to be tolerant, but only for things which respect their fundamental values; towards anything else, absolutely intolerant. — Agustino

I think this a massively sweeping claim. The left presumably believes these fundamental values are intrinsic rights to every human being. So of course they are going to be intolerant to the right and others who dismiss many of these values. They are intolerant of intolerance, intolerant of backwards thinking.

Everyone has their own laws on their lands, in their families, and true toleration means not interfering with these. — Agustino

This is a funny thing to say, considering you said you are leaning to the right (which has history of supporting the rolling of tanks into countries that don't necessarily want them).

Some more thoughts on this I'd like to share:

The world we live in has been transformed by the creativity and labor of mankind. We live in a world of technology.

Take, a flashlight. Who knew it was even possible to harness electricity and use it to illuminate your surroundings?! Obviously a flashlight is not a "naturally" occurring thing, since it is built by a human. But the fact that it is even possible, in this universe, to build a flashlight, strikes me as sort of remarkable.

I find it remarkable that we can even harness anything in the universe and use it as a tool.

But it's not just simplistic tools, like a club or a bowl. We have built computers! We have built skyscrapers, and elevators within them! We have built nuclear bombs capable of unimaginable destruction!

It's strange, I think, that the universe should harbor such potential to be used to make such complex and useful tools.

This might be explained by the anthropic principle. Also, it's not entirely easy to make these contraptions. We can't just wake up one day and build an entire skyscraper in the afternoon. Gravity's a bitch sometimes. And there's insurmountable dangers with technology, as well, such as the capability to kill other people. So I think an appeal to an omnibenevolent deity that "made it all for us to be used" is misguided, because it would be a very incompetent deity since they obviously didn't have the foresight to realize their grand design of the universe would result in us utilizing it to achieve destruction.

But this does bug me a bit. It does kind of seem like the universe is "designed" to be utilized. It's not perfect, to be sure, but neither is it a blank slate that we can't do anything with.

Bingo, Willow. It is existentially narcissistic to expect the world to revolve around the ego.

Unfortunately it truly is difficult to tame one's expectations, especially when surrounded by a society that continually makes poor decisions regarding existence, which leads to Weltschermz.

I enjoy listening to the soundtracks of movies and video games. One of my favorite soundtracks comes from a game that is by far one of the most compelling and immersive games I have had the pleasure of playing, The Last of Us. It is a masterpiece, and the music behind it is equally beautiful.

No. The goal is merely to have pleasure now. That is my concern, not "future" pleasure which doesn't exist. It's a moment by moment mastery. — Agustino

I don't necessarily disagree with you, I'm trying to argue with the position that TGW has.

But either way if you are a hedonist, then pleasure is good. Presumably this means that you would strive to maximize the amount of time spent experiencing pleasure in the future, so that when the future comes to be the present, you are experiencing pleasure in the now.

Instead, what follows is that you must strive such that every single moment you feel pleasure. That is the goal. Not that you accumulate the maximum number of pleasurable moments, since the accumulation itself adds nothing to your pleasure and is not a pleasure in and of itself. — Agustino

Thus, the goal is to maximize your [future] time spent experiencing pleasure.

This is factually wrong to begin with. Many people (such as myself) have always refused immunisation shots. Neither are the scientific findings strong enough to support them, in my humble opinion. — Agustino

Please note that you are potentially endangering the lives of people who cannot get immunized.

I agree with your assessment, Ciceronianus, that we shouldn't expect the world to revolve around our expectations. Schopenhauer1, you may recall that I argued that to explicitly complain about this is to be existentially narcissistic.

In theory it makes sense, but in reality is truly can be difficult to tame the beast of desire and expectations. It's only natural for humans to be ego-maniacs, and denying this ego can be difficult and sometimes feel artificial.

When I listen to a song I enjoy, presumably I assume you would agree that I am experiencing pleasure.

Stopping the song and turning off my music player would not be something I desire, because I enjoy the prolonged experience of the song. The song is pleasurable over a course of several minutes.

This means that pleasure can be, and should be, (under your [vague] hedonism) maximized and measured by how long a pleasurable experience is and the intensity of this experience.

Presumably if it were possible for a person to experience a never-ending, constantly increasing amount of pleasure, that would be (under your hedonism) the best thing possible. I don't see how you could object to this without contradicting your hedonism.

We make judgement calls (i.e. what we should do in a situation) often by predicting how long a certain experience will last and the intensity of this experience, and whether or not the cost to experience this experience is worth it. For example, buying a fifty-dollar ice cream cone would be absurdly irresponsible, because you would be using a rather large amount of money for a simple pleasure that lasts but a few minutes. And we decide to get immunization shots because, although they do indeed hurt, they only hurt for a short amount of time and the intensity is not high enough for us to fear, while at the same time we are doing much good because we will not get sick in the future.