This is an extreme mindset – one very much of today. It could be opposed to its alternative. Not exponential growth but just an expectation of maintaining the world as it has always existed. — apokrisis

Thanks for this thread. Reading in through, I thought of my work history, the companies I have worked for. During those 50 years, I worked for a number of employers, including two wonderful companies - a bookseller and an environmental engineering company. They both started out small with charismatic founders and a close-knit group of his co-founders and then grew to medium-sized companies with about 10 branches and maybe 500 employees each. For both, that was around the point where I jointed the company. Skipping ahead - the bookseller expanded it's number of stores rapidly based on it's strong success. It did not manage the change to a larger company well and then crashed and went out of business. The engineering company grew more slowly and carefully. It opened new offices with managers already working for the company or carefully chosen outsiders. The company treated it's employees well and made sure different offices cooperated with each other rather than competed. But the company was built on the understanding that those there from the beginning who contributed to the start-up would be able to cash out at some point. Eventually that lead to involvement of venture capitalists and finally sale to a large, nation-wide engineering firm.

What's my point? I guess it's that somebody (everybody?) believes that you have to grow to survive.

The answer is obvious. Party will be over by 2040. — apokrisis

Great video. If Murphy is right, growth will be over by around 2040 no matter what we do. We'll have to figure out a way to reach a non-exponential equilibrium, which I guess is the point of your OP. So I'm not really sure if it's an ethical issue at all, rather a logistical one. The ethics comes in when we try to decide how to spread the pain around.

I did have a few questions about his presentation. He didn't really talk about possible changes in energy use per capita. Did he make his calculations based on the assumption that use per capita will not change? Also, did he take issues of capacity into account? Did he assume there would be no capacity issues? As Murphy makes clear, his projections are based on no major changes in the most significant demographic and technological factors. That means it doesn't consider possible changes associated with global warming. None of this is intended as criticism.

Just curiosity, on the graph shown at about 8:30, it shows a dramatic drop in food per capita in the coming years. What would cause that and what does it mean? Mass starvation?

that is the win-win trajectory of growth, which itself is about a choice of some rate between a no-growth maintenance state and an unbridled exponential and pointed to infinity rate.

So that is the challenge. If you agree that the world is into its new era needing a new ethics, a new politics, then what is the algorithm that scales? — apokrisis

As you note, if Murphy and the demographers are right, that isn't a real choice at all. No growth is coming whether we like it or not. How will we handle it? I think the political situation here in the US gives us a good idea how at least one large country will handle it - badly.

We have come out of a certain post-WW2 period of US policed "world peace and prosperity". A mindset built around humanism, democracy, safe seas, free trade and globalised political institutions. But a US dollar sovereignty and light constraints on environmental degradation. — apokrisis

Given that the US isn't likely to handle this all that well, isn't continued US hegemony an obstacle to solving the problem rather than a help?

Then there is the Model B question. It does all does go quite quickly to shit by 2040. What is the meme to be spreading to prepare for a planet that is crashing and burning? How do we brand that as a suitably universalising social response that can be bought across the entire globe as it by then entropically exists? — apokrisis

I can't imagine an answer to this question. Has any human group with more than 1,000 people ever done something like that before, especially without new land to expand into. I'm really afraid for my children.

Possible slogans:

• Thank god I'll be dead by 2050
• Let's all build an underground bunker in Hawaii with Zuckerberg.

That's all I got.

I'm sorry, but none of the replies so far seem to evidence any familiarity with number theory or basic set theory... — alan1000

@flannel jesus gave a clear and obviously correct answer using simple arithmetic operations on real numbers. What does number theory have to do with it?

I did not participate in the previous thread, so I don't know if this was discussed. 0.99999... is equal to the summation from n = 1 to infinity of 9/(10^n). Sorry, I don't know how to write that here in math symbols. It's been a long time since I did that kind of math, so we'll have to trust Chat GPT. It says it equals 1.

Born from an egg on a mountaintop. — Jamal

Born on a mountain top in Tennessee
Greenest state in the land of the free
Raised in the woods so he knew ev'ry tree
Kilt him a b'ar when he was only three

I vow to recommend you some of them frequently. — javi2541997

Your recommendations are always welcome.

Clarky (@T Clark) is another fan of Japanese films — javi2541997

I wouldn't call myself a fan in particular. I got a subscription to The Criterion Channel and there are a lot of them there. They really love Godzilla and all the various Japanese sequals. My favorite movie so far has been "Tampopo," and I have enjoyed the Zatoichi series. I tend to get lost with the slice of life comedies and dramas.

↪T Clark If you have the time and the inclination I recommend reading this: — I like sushi

I downloaded it. I’ll promise to read the first 10 pages. After that, we’ll see.

Another thought. As I see it, what Sartre calls "bad faith" is a spiritual failure, not a moral one.

It is self-deception. One cannot always be aware they are acting in 'bad faith'. This misunderstanding might highlight the problem — I like sushi

Agreed. I don't need any philosopher to tell me about this. I can just look at my own life and see it everywhere.

Someone can deceive themselves into thinking they are acting in good faith when they are not - as is commonly done by everyone. We can be 'oppressing' other individuals under the staunch belief that we are acting in good faith rather than 'bad faith'. — I like sushi

So to act in bad faith is to speak dishonesty. — JuanZu

I really hate the phrase "bad faith." Yes, I know that's Sartre's language, not yours. People can live decent, honorable lives and still be out of touch with what Chuang Tzu, one of the founders of Taoism, calls one's "Te," "virtue," "intrinsic virtuosities."

Martin Palmer and Elizabeth Breuilly translation. Penguin Classics version — Maw

I hadn't heard of them. I took a quick look. Let me know how you liked it. I see it includes all 33 chapters, which is good. I actually liked the so-called outer and miscellaneous chapters better than the first seven. Maybe I'll start a thread about it if anyone is interested.

Will explain later. Time to go to work now — I like sushi

The paradox here is that if someone has 'bad faith' how can we tell? — I like sushi

The question remains how/if the paradoxical position Sartre gives can be overcome? If not that then merely fortified in some way that is productive? — I like sushi

I don't really see a paradox. It seems to me that living in good faith is a standard we apply to ourselves, not others, although it might something we take into account. You have a right to expect appropriate behavior from me, but I'm not responsible to you for my inner life. On the other hand, I have known some profoundly false people. That's something to pay attention to when trying to figure out whom to trust.

Furthermore, although it is impossible to find in each and every man a universal essence that can be called human nature, there is nevertheless a human universality of condition. — I like sushi

I disagree with this. The idea of human nature is a central one to my way of thinking about people. Based on reading philosophy, psychology, and cognitive science plus my own experience in life, I see that we are deeply human at a biological, genetic, and neurological level. I say that so you know why I am resistant to any denial of its existence.

It also strikes me as arrogant. We are who we are, but we are also what we are. Sartre's radical freedom feels like Nietzsche's ubermensch. You can take that with a grain of salt, since I have read very little of either man's work.

Babies are not blank slates.
— T Clark

We do not have to agree with his propositions to explore the contradictions. He is basically appealing to a form of self-determination (termed as Radical Freedom). He admits that people are born in certain circumstances and situations that make avoiding bad faith more or less as of a struggle. — I like sushi

Sure. As I noted, if we don't take his words literally, his philosophy is a lot like many others, including ones I value like Lao Tzu and Emerson.

To live in 'bad faith' for Sartre is to live as if you have a predefined human 'essence'/'nature'. — I like sushi

As a metaphor, this is just a fancy way of saying what many others have said. "To thine own self be true." "God will not have his work made manifest by cowards." If taken literally, it's clearly not true. There is a human nature. People are born with instincts, capacities, characteristics, and mental structures. Babies are not blank slates.

I'll throw this into the mix. It's from Emerson's essay "Compensation." I'd like to believe it's true, but I'm not sure it is. Or rather, I'm sure it's true for me, but I don't know about others. Emerson was familiar with Hinduism and sources on the web indicate that what he called the laws of compensation is the same thing as Karma. I don't know if Emerson himself made that connection explicitly. Karma and Hinduism are not specifically discussed in the essay.

Thus is the universe alive. All things are moral. That soul, which within us is a sentiment, outside of us is a law. We feel its inspiration; out there in history we can see its fatal strength. "It is in the world, and the world was made by it." Justice is not postponed. A perfect equity adjusts its balance in all parts of life. {Oi chusoi Dios aei enpiptousi}, — The dice of God are always loaded. The world looks like a multiplication-table, or a mathematical equation, which, turn it how you will, balances itself. Take what figure you will, its exact value, nor more nor less, still returns to you. Every secret is told, every crime is punished, every virtue rewarded, every wrong redressed, in silence and certainty. What we call retribution is the universal necessity by which the whole appears wherever a part appears. If you see smoke, there must be fire. If you see a hand or a limb, you know that the trunk to which it belongs is there behind...

...All infractions of love and equity in our social relations are speedily punished. They are punished by fear. Whilst I stand in simple relations to my fellow-man, I have no displeasure in meeting him. We meet as water meets water, or as two currents of air mix, with perfect diffusion and interpenetration of nature. But as soon as there is any departure from simplicity, and attempt at halfness, or good for me that is not good for him, my neighbour feels the wrong; he shrinks from me as far as I have shrunk from him; his eyes no longer seek mine; there is war between us; there is hate in him and fear in me.

All the old abuses in society, universal and particular, all unjust accumulations of property and power, are avenged in the same manner. Fear is an instructer of great sagacity, and the herald of all revolutions. One thing he teaches, that there is rottenness where he appears. He is a carrion crow, and though you see not well what he hovers for, there is death somewhere... — Emerson - Compensation

I'm so proud.

Just finished Konrad Lorenz's "Kant's Doctrine of the A Priori in the Light of Contemporary Biology." It knocked my socks off. I've been looking for something like this for a long time - a discussion of how our human nervous system and mind have evolved as a "negotiation" between Kant's things-as-they-are, the noumena, and our animal need to survive. I feel as if I've been given a Rosetta Stone. Here's a link.

https://archive.org/details/KantsDoctrineOfTheAPrioriInTheLightOfContemporaryBiologyKonradLorenz

I need to read it a couple more times. Then, maybe I'll start a thread.

I will leave it up to you when you want to stop the conversation. — Bob Ross

I've made my case, you've made yours. Neither of us has been convinced. I think we're down to un-hunhs and nuh-unhs.

I guess I am more of a Hegelian than you are... — Bob Ross

If I knew what that meant, perhaps I would feel insulted.

What you are forgetting or misunderstanding is that action is the manifestation of ideas; and I think you may be thinking of an "idea" as something sans action. — Bob Ross

I don't agree, but we've probably taken this as far as we can.

maybe a better decision will be using this approach against the CCP instead of Putin. — Linkey

All your ideas likely would lead immediately to an all-out war with a good chance of proceeding to nuclear. Your naivety, if echoed by people with power, will lead to the death of my children.

Anyway….to each his own? — Mww

Sure. This has been a good conversation.

Started The Book of Chuang Tzu last week — Maw

It has had a big impact on my understanding of the Tao Te Ching. Whose translation are you using?

Reading the novel has prompted me to spend hours exploring the region in Google Maps. — Jamal

One of the reasons I like Kindle so much is that I can link directly to Wikipedia and GoogleEarth. It's become almost automatic. I often find myself going off on tangents. I love it.

Choptank — Jamal

The Choptank and the Susquehanna are my two favorite rivers. We crossed the Choptank on the way from my childhood home in southern Delaware to my grandfather's farm. The house I grew up in is a couple of hundred feet from the Nanticoke River, which is still tidewater there, 30 miles from the bay. It was not unusual for me to lose my shoes or boots in the mudflats and there was always danger when we used our sleds because our favorite hill, the only thing even close to a hill in flat southern Delaware, there was always danger of missing the turn and ending up in the water.

The Sot-Weed Factor by John Barth. — Jamal

I was born in Easton, Maryland and grew up on the Eastern Shore and in nearby Delaware. My grandfather's farm was on the Chesapeake Bay about six miles north of the mouth of the Choptank River near Cambridge. Looking south from the shore, I could see land in the location where Cooke's farm was located, although I didn't know it at the time.

All that being said, I've never been able to get through more than a few chapters of the book. Maybe I should try again.

Another thought - I wasn't trying to sell either of the metaphysical positions I described, although I think they make sense. I was only using them as examples of what it might mean for a position to be useful, which is the question you asked.

Ok, I can live with that, as long as the world (as it is) and the world (as we know it), are taken as two very different things. — Mww

I guess the world as it is would be the Tao and the world as we know it would be the 10,000 things in your formulation, similar to Kant's noumena and phenomena.

Agreed, in principle, but with two distinct and separate paradigmatic conditions, re:
…..first, whether or not the senses are involved on the one hand, and “way of seeing things” is a mere euphemism for “understanding”, on the other. Understanding a material thing is possible without that which is objectively real, but for knowledge of that which is material, the objective reality of it is a necessary condition; — Mww

I probably don't agree with this. When I wrote "way of seeing things" here, I'm talking about metaphysics. Also, I don't understand what you mean by putting "knowledge" in opposition to "understanding."

…..from which follows the second, insofar as for humans generally, materialism, being a monistic ontology, is necessarily conjoined with some form of epistemological foundational procedure, in order for the intellect, as such, to function. — Mww

I don't understand this.

Does your Taoist metaphysical theory satisfy these conditions? And if not, how does it get around them and still maintain its usefulness? — Mww

I have three possible responses 1) No, 2) I don't know, and 3) I don't understand.

A great deal of confusion arises over this issue. It is not difficult to prove that most presuppositions are rejected by analysis, but when we say an extreme view is false we usually mean that the opposite view is true, (eg theism vs atheism). This is the A/not-A logic of the dialectic. — PeterJones

But if neither is true and either false, there is no problem.

It is therefore better to say they are wrong or unrigorous rather than strictly true or false in a dialectical sense. But if we presuppose that the Middle Way doctrine is true no problems arise. — PeterJones

Again, I favor the neither true nor false position. Again, no problems arise.

This issue deserves a thread of its own. — PeterJones

I have started three or four discussions on this and similar subjects over the years and I mention Collingwood in almost every thread I don't mention Lao Tzu.

I see what Collingwood is saying, but the reason metaphysical problems arise is that we can, in fact, decide that most presuppositions do not make sense and don't work. — PeterJones

As I wrote in a recent post to Mww, metaphysical positions don't have to be true or false and they don't have to "work," they only have to be useful.

I'd say Collingwood 's view (as stated) is roughly correct but rather misleading . . . — PeterJones

It strikes me, ironically enough, that Collingwood's view is neither correct nor misleading, it's metaphysics.

I feel that one reason metaphysicians struggle with metaphysics is that they don't pay enough attention to the rules for the dialectic and often violate them. . — PeterJones

Now that would be a good subject for a new discussion - I've never understood the value of the dialectic or what it even means. I'm all for moderation in all things, but it feels pretty namby-pamby. It seems more complicated than Collingwood's formula.

Ok, but how would you recognize usefulness? What does a metaphysical theory do, such that it is useful for that thing? — Mww

As I understand metaphysics, it consists of the underlying assumptions, what Collingwood calls "absolute presuppositions," that provide the foundation for our understanding of the world, reality. As a possible example - Science, at least as it is commonly understood, operates in a material universe. One of the absolute presuppositions of science and materialism is that the world is lawful and that those laws apply everywhere and at all times. That's impossible to verify, it has no truth value, but without it, science can't work.

Another - Taoism works on the assumption that the fundamental ground of reality is unnamable - it can't be conceptualized or understood. This formless entity is known as the "Tao." Lao Tzu fully recognizes the irony of giving a name to the unnamable.This from Stephen Mitchell's translation of Verse 1 of the Tao Te Ching.

The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.

The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things. — Lao Tzu - Tao Te Ching

Particular things, which Lao Tzu sometimes calls the 10,000 things, represent the objects, ideas, things, that exist in our world, including horses, wavefunctions, love, 1040 forms, Immanuel Kant, i.e. all of reality. This is from Verse 40.

Return is the movement of the Tao.
Yielding is the way of the Tao.

All things are born of being.
Being is born of non-being. — Lao Tzu - Tao Te Ching

Being is the world of the 10,000 things. Non-being is the Tao. I am oversimplifying. In a sense, the world we know doesn't exist until it is named. This way of seeing things was revolutionary for me. It brings together ideas that I had been thinking about for a long time. What we learn empirically, what we can know and understand, includes factors that we, human beings, provide as we name, conceptualize, things in the world. That means that materialism's objective reality is not the only way of seeing things.

These two perspectives seem to contradict each other and to a certain extent they do. But they also can work together to temper each other. Materialism is useful for methodological purposes. Taoism is useful for showing us that we need to take human understanding in to account too.

none of them should be judged absurd, merely from disregard of that relative attribute, but from each one’s internal logical consistency and each one’s non-self-contradictory construction. — Mww

I would judge them based on usefulness.

This is impossible: society is based off of social constructs, which are ideas people have had—ideas through action (at a minimum). Human beings develop their living structures on ideas, even if they are not entirely able to explicate it to people through language what those ideas are, and so the idea which is embodied in the society must come first. — Bob Ross

Again, I don't agree. We can leave it at that. I don't think we'll get any further here. Maybe in a separate thread sometime.

According to your logic, rights came before the idea of rights; which makes no sense. — Bob Ross

Sure it does.
Feudal lords - "Hey, king!! Stop overtaxing us and throwing us in jail!!
Fighting takes place.
King - "Oh... ok then. We'll lay off on the tariffs and dungeons. We'll write that down if you insist."
Feudal lord #1 (whispering to the other lords) - "Hey, this is great. The king has promised us... what has he promised us? What do we call them?"
Feudal lord #2 - "We can call them "rights." All in favor..."
Feudal lords - "Aye"

Hmm. I wonder why you think this. I can state definitively that all positive metaphysical theories are logically indefensible,and can be reduced to absurdity. This is what Bradley means by saying metaphysics does not endorse a positive result. I can also state that a neutral theory, which is the only alternative, cannot be reduced to absurdity. I'm not sure why,. as a fan of Lao Tzu, you would think this doesn't work. After all, there's got to be one theory that works. — PeterJones

I don't say metaphysical positions are true or false, but they are unavoidable and can be useful at particular times in particular situations. I see them as tools in the philosopher's tool box. You need the right tool for the right job.

I neglected to respond to part of your post.

It is Kant, B422, and concerns expositions surrounding the self as a closed, private, all-encompassing concept represented by “I think”, what Kant calls the “unity of consciousness”, and how that concept is misused by treating it as an object, which is what I meant by reification of pure conceptions...

...Kant, Bxxxi, (translator-specific). Yeah, true, huh. Guy’s every-damn-where. Think of something having to do with theoretical human cognition, pre-quantum physics, morality/religion….plate techtonics, tidal friction, rotational inclination, relativity of space and time (sigh)……there’s a Kant quote relatable to it. — Mww

As I've said elsewhere, I need to reread the Critique.

I treat the concept of “mind” as something everybody knows what is meant by it even if there really isn’t any such thing, and from that, I prefer to say pure reason is a purely logical system, but the subject at the time this came up was mind, and the nonsense of getting beyond it, so…… — Mww

Maybe we can talk about this some other time.

Oh absolutely. I treat noumena as the proverbial red-headed stepchild….he’s here, by accident, can’t pretend he isn’t so obligated to set a place at the table for him, but no freakin’ way he’s gonna be included in a will. Noumena in the Kantian sense are born from the faculty of understanding over-extending itself into the forging of general conceptions for which neither the remaining components of this particular type of cognitive system, nor Nature Herself as comprehended by that same system, can obtain an object. — Mww

Well, I disagree with this - strongly. Kant's discussion of noumena is, for me, the most interesting part of "A Critique of Pure Reason." It parallels the thought of Lao Tzu, whom I think highly of.

All is well if one avoids extreme positions. Non-dualism is not directly opposed to theism or atheism. They are two extreme ideas that oppose each other. Thus folks on both sides of the God debate reject mysticism. — PeterJones

I wasn't thinking of any particular metaphysical position when I wrote that, I was thinking that believing any metaphysical position is truth apt, as they say, is dualistic. That was just off the top of my head.

Lao Tzu's remark 'True words seem paradoxical' is better translated (and sometime is) as 'Rigorous words seem paradoxical' - to avoid the idea that they are true as opposed to false in a dialectical sense. If they were true or false in the usual dialectical sense then hey wouldn't seem paradoxical. . . . — PeterJones

I'm a fan of R.G. Collingwood's "An Essay on Metaphysics," which gave me words to support my intuitions about metaphysics. Collingwood wrote that metaphysics is the study of absolute presuppositions. Absolute presuppositions are the unspoken, perhaps unconscious, assumptions that underpin how we understand reality. Collingwood thought that absolute presuppositions are neither true nor false, they have no truth value.

So, we agree that metaphysical positions are neither true nor false, but I'm not sure I understand the logic behind your reasons. I think you and I may be kindred spirits when it comes to metaphysics.

The problem with pragmatism is that it does matter what you pick - awful things 'work'. At an extreme end, murdering people to get to the top can work. Abortion works as birth control. And what do we mean by work? A lot of people say things ‘work’ but on close examination you can see that they don't. — Tom Storm

You have chosen an uncharitable interpretation of what I wrote.

I haven't said anything is is - gods, idealism. Just that they haven't been adequately demonstrated. — Tom Storm

I guess skepticism says "I don't have enough information to know." Pragmatism says "It doesn't matter, just pick one that works.

this starts with an idea. — Bob Ross

Again, I think the idea comes second, after the fact.

Moral realism is usually a three-pronged thesis (at a minimum):

1. Moral judgments are truth-apt.
2. Moral judgments express something objective.
3. There is at least one true moral judgment.

Prong 2 is the most important one: moral objectivism. I can’t tell if you hold there are moral facts or not. — Bob Ross

I vote no on all three. So, for me there are no moral facts.

Engaging in fun is arguably an essential aspect of becoming happy, but it is not an element of being virtuous. I am not acting, in any meaningful sense, virtuous by intending to merely do something I enjoy doing. — Bob Ross

Fun and play are not exactly the same thing, although play is often fun. Play is inseparably tied up with creativity and creativity is, if not inseparable from, at least strongly connected to doing good work. Here's the last stanza of Robert Frost's "Two Tramps in Mud Time" that says it just right:

But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For Heaven and the future's sakes. — Robert Frost - Two Tramps in Mud Time

which is the way human thinking involves splitting. — Jack Cummins

Yes, I think human thinking is naturally drawn to dichotomies.

Science and philosophy can become split, with so much validity being placed on the 'truth' of science when the abstraction of creating scientific theories and models involves the metaphysical and metaphorical imagination. — Jack Cummins

I agree with this.

If it be granted the human mind is a purely logical system — Mww

Do you believe this is true?

So it would seem, despite what meditators and contemplatives would have it, the origin of non-dualism must be beyond the mind, or beyond the mind as scholars and regular joes understand it, for no other reason than that form of mind used by other than meditators cannot justify the conception beyond the principle by which it is a valid thought. — Mww

I think this is right, although I think it's more than just "meditators and contemplatives" who see it that way. I am neither, and I do. I also consider myself a regular Joe. As I see it, Kant's noumena and Lao Tzu's Tao are "beyond the mind."

noumena are conceptually valid but still only intuitively impossible — Mww

Does this mean you reject noumena as a useful metaphysical concept?

an intrinsically dualistic mind, such as a human mind — Mww

An interesting idea. I don't think it's accurate. Wait... maybe I do. I'll think about it more.

"…. From all this it is evident that rational psychology has its origin in a mere misunderstanding. The unity of consciousness, which lies at the basis of the categories, is considered to be an intuition of the subject as an object; and the category of substance is applied to the intuition. But this unity is nothing more than the unity in thought, by which no object is given; to which therefore the category of substance—which always presupposes a given intuition—cannot be applied. Consequently, the subject cannot be cognized. The subject of the categories cannot, therefore, for the very reason that it cogitates these, frame any conception of itself as an object of the categories; for, to cogitate these, it must lay at the foundation its own pure self-consciousness—the very thing that it wishes to explain and describe….” — Mww

Where is this quote from? I think it's wrong, or at least misleading.