But what about someone who is naturally close to being incapable of sympathy, compassion, kindness, etc.? Would it be wrong for them to induce in themselves the kinds of emotions - negative and positive - associated with the activation of these traits to try and foster them? If that would even work, that is. — ToothyMaw

Not wrong but I’m not sure it’s possible.

The reaction of me or anyone else to such injustices generally would be one of moral disapproval that would take the emotional form of anguish, sadness, depression, discontentment, disgust, rage, etc. — substantivalism

What value does moral disapproval have if you aren't going to act? Answer - none. It doesn't mean anything. As @ToothyMaw notes, it's emotional reactions that lead us to action. Not so much the ones you mention but empathy, compassion, kindness, a sense of responsibility. Moral outrage is an easy way to act as if you've done something without actually having to do anything.

Exactly, and not all knowledge is discursive knowledge. It's a sad philosophy that has to look at the climax of Dante's Commedia in Canto XXXIII of the Paradisio, his appeals to the inadequacy of language and memory, and say "well he's just sputtering nonsense." And it's just as sad to have to say something like "we can appreciate the words but not its rational content," since the Comedy is one of the very best (IMO the best) instances of philosophy breathed into narrative form. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I've never read it. I'll add it to my list.

Thanks for the heads up.

However, I think that, if we are not careful—and we have not been—this move becomes a major step down the road to deflationism vis-à-vis truth. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I wasn't familiar with the term "deflationism so I looked it up. I'm still not sure I understand what it means, so I'm not sure what I'm going to say is relevant to your discussion.

Ever since I started thinking about it from a philosophical perspective, I have believed that the idea of truth, what you call binary truth, is over-empathized in western philosophy. I don't think it is a property that is central to how real people know about the world and make decisions about their everyday lives. I'm not sure if that makes me a deflationist.

"truth is primarily in the intellect and only secondarily (or fundementally) in things." — Count Timothy von Icarus

As you note, truth only applies to propositions. If I understand what you've written, you and I agree that we don't generally know the world as a bunch of propositions. I'll go further - the nature of the world cannot be expressed in propositions except in a trivial and partial manner. As you say - ...the move to making truth primarily a property of isolated propositions seems to need to assume that propositions are intelligible in isolation from one another (meaningful simplicitier)."

This is a view that I think is every bit as untenable and radical as either solipsism or epistemological nihilism, its advocates just tend to obscure this fact by ultimately deficient appeals to "pragmatism." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Guilty as charged.

As I indicated at the beginning of this post, I'm not sure how relevant it is to your discussion.

I guess it is important to say that Cheever himself was from Massachusetts; so is Clarky ( T Clark ). Two great human souls who belong to the same place of the Western civilisation — javi2541997

To start, this is a great summary of where things stand. It's easy to see you put time and effort into it. I haven't been paying much attention lately so it's nice to get a feel for what's up. Thanks.

Nowadays, however, with Trump being elected (twice!) and "fake" news, and all facts being considered as suspect, social media, and the "democratization" of information, everything is up for grabs in the media environment, thus most people now will just shrug their shoulders at the idea that a major country's legislative body has spent time listening to ex-military officials from the executive branch give testimony about programs that have found real UFOs, NHI, retrieval and reverse engineering programs. — schopenhauer1

A prominent philosopher, S. Chopenhauer1, provided evidence today that Donald Trump is a space alien... Never mind.

Back in the early 2000s, as the Iraq War spun up, I came to an understanding that truth is just whatever you can convince people of. We've gone beyond that - now no one can convince anyone of anything. My suggested response to is to just stop trying. To the extent possible, avoid issues that are as tangled up as the UFO business. Just let it go. Don't resist. Let people get it out of their system. Of course, there are lots of issues we can't do that with, but as far as I can see, this is not one of them. Some additional thoughts, clearly not all of them are original.

I am not certain about anything related to UFOs, but the thing I am closest to being certain about is that no government agency could keep a secret like this for 75 years.

People make things up, misapprehend things, and come to believe things that aren't true. They don't have to be dishonest to get it wrong, but they might be. I recommend a book by Martin Gardner, "Science - Good, Bad, and Bogus." It's from the late 1980s, but I think the stories Gardner tells are still relevant. It's about people, both frauds and gullible but honest advocates, making claims about extraordinary phenomena that are not adequately supported by evidence. Subjects covered include UFOs, ESP, bad science, and other fringe issues. The second edition came just too late to include cold fusion. One of the main points he makes is that scientists are often more gullible than laypeople because they have such confidence in their ability to observe and reason.

I love the fact that a big part of the government's solution is to rename UFOs and start another new agency.

Of course the irony is that the government could address a lot of this by opening their files. Are their still secrets about events in the 1940s that can't be disclosed for legitimate security reasons? Perhaps. Of course, they've sort of, kind of done that by letting congress have hearings. As you note, that hasn't really resolved anything.

However, the counterargument is that the Congress members themselves are fringe cooks willing to entertain sensationalist bullshit. — schopenhauer1

I remember reading about a Congressional hearing on climate change. A NASA scientist was describing the physics, astronomy, and climate science related to global warming when he mentioned in passing, and I'm sure to his instant regret, that if the Earth were just a bit further from the sun, warming would be addressed. A Republican congressman spoke up and asked why we couldn't direct the Bureau of Land Management to move the earth a bit further out.

"Feeling and Knowing - Making Minds Conscious" by Antonio Damasio.

I've previously written about an earlier book by Damasio - "The Feeling of What Happens."

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/724418

Damasio is a cognitive scientist who has written extensively about mental processes. The earlier book, published in 1999, did include a discussion of consciousness, but in a broad context of how the mind works with a heavy emphasis on anatomy and physiology. The newer book, published in 2021, focuses on feeling and consciousness from a process and functional perspective. In it, Damasio describes the mental processes that combine to make us conscious as well as the functions that consciousness carries out in the overall process of maintaining the internal equilibrium of human and other organisms.

Damasio clearly intends the discussion to address issues related to the "hard problem" of consciousness from the "what's the big deal" point of view. I'm sure it won't be convincing to those find the idea of the hard problem compelling.

Definitely a short book for the price, but it helped me start to put words to how I have always seen this issue.

They are actually closely related. — Apustimelogist

I checked and you're right. I should be more careful when I pontificate about quantum mechanics. Thanks.

I get conflicting accounts on how it says that reality can be real or local but not both.
— Darkneos
It seems to be a positive way to express the uncertainty of quantum physics. A particle can be either located in space (position), or measured for movement (momentum), but not both at the same time. Real things can be measured both ways, so what's wrong with quantum particles? Are they not things? Are they not real? — Gnomon

As I understand it, the question of non-realism vs. non-locality is completely different and completely separate from the question of position vs. momentum, i.e. the uncertainty principle.

Quantum physics is one area where philosophy needs to stay out, since the interpretations aren't accurate reflections of what is going on. You're also citing all the weird interpretations that aren't really widely accepted either. — Darkneos

This is something I've wondered about. Is it possible to have a scientific understanding of some aspect of the world without an ontology? Without a story about what is going on? This question comes up in the context of quantum mechanics. Is that the Copenhagen interpretation? Is that enough? If there is no way, even in theory, to verify or falsify the many worlds interpretation, does it even mean anything?

But that's not the same as saying philosophy needs to stay out.

A therapist, who just might suggest "euthanasia as a treatment option" — baker

Unlikely

@Baden, @Jamal, @fdrake,

Will you please put an end to this discussion.

This is a really inappropriate post.

This discussion doesn’t belong here. You should talk to a therapist, not listen to a bunch of socially awkward, pseudo philosophers. You won’t find appropriate answers here and the consequences could be serious.

“To be is to be the value of a bound variable” — J

I think that's a wonderful definition even though I have no idea what it means.

[Edited for aesthetic reasons]

(First) the number 2 (Second) the first even prime greater than 100...The second statement refers to something which, I think we all agree, doesn't exist. — Art48

Well, no. We certainly don't all agree. "Existence" and "reality" mean different things to different people in different contexts, but you haven't defined what it means to you in this particular situation. We've had this discussion many times here on the forum and it usually derails for the lack of an agreed on definition.

There will be more of us once we unveil the new Thanksgaining mascot, Pizza the Hutt. People will drop their dry turkey in no time. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm sure that's true. I also neglected to mention every Native American ever.

local reality isn't true, and I googled it to find the that Nobel Prize went to 3 scientists who had proved that in 2022 — Darkneos

If I understand the Scientific American article referenced in the linked article, which, as predicted by Clark's uncertainty principle, is a 50/50 proposition, the work of the Nobel winners was a new and important verification of Bell's theorem. So - it was new polish on a mint 1964 Ford Mustang - not new news but an update of old news. Exciting for particle physicists, but ho hum for those of us primarily interested in events greater in diameter than 10^−9 meters. That's 6.213712 x 10^-12 miles for us Americans. Or 5.87613 x 10^-8 smoots.

is it just me — FrankGSterleJr

Yes, it’s just you. And @Count Timothy von Icarus apparently.

I have assumed that something cannot come of nothing. Correct. Because I'm at a loss as to how that would be possible logically speaking.

If you can posit a way in which everything can arise from nothing (a state devoid of all potency, property, ability and/or agency) then have at it. — Benj96

It is not a matter of logic whether something can come from nothing. It's either a metaphysical assumption or a matter of fact, probably the first. For that reason, I don't have to "posit a way in which everything can arise from nothing." If it's a matter of fact, I don't have to provide an explanation, I only have to make an observation. If it's a metaphysical assumption, there is no explanation.

I then went on to describe something that could "appear like true nothingness" (dimensionless and immaterial) without in fact being Nothing. Which is the next best thing, by the principle of occams razor the next simplest possibility.

So actually I do think I explained a lot, despite you not thinking so. — Benj96

Just because you can describe something doesn't mean it exists. Describing isn't the same as explaining.

Why use a term like God which is so heavily loaded and ranges from everything between a bearded man in the clouds to just about every other conception out there when Potential is much more open to a logical discussion and exacting definition as a physical law rather than an anthropomorphised entity. — Benj96

As Phil Conners said in "Groundhog Day," I'm talking about a god, not the God. So then, do you acknowledge that your "potential" is just another word for "a god" that you like better? Yes, of course I know that's not what you mean. It isn't a physical law unless you can at least suggest a way of testing it empirically.

True nothingness cannot exist. So the question itself -why cam something come from nothing is no less absurd than saying why can +1 come from -1. — Benj96

How do you know true nothingness can't exist. I'm not even sure it can be defined. If you're right, your question - "Why there is something rather than nothing?" - has been answered and you don't need to propose a new entity called potential.

So the real question for me is what could exist - that is the simplest existant neccesary to derive all subsequent ones ie a "nothingness" that isn't actually nothing, it just seems so from the perspective of the material world and everything relative to it. — Benj96

Modern physics describes what is known as a quantum vacuum state.

...According to present-day understanding of what is called the vacuum state or the quantum vacuum, it is "by no means a simple empty space". According to quantum mechanics, the vacuum state is not truly empty but instead contains fleeting electromagnetic waves and particles that pop into and out of the quantum field..." — Wikipedia - Quantum vacuum state

I don't think that's what you're talking about, but if it is, we don't need a new concept.

In conclusion, this is the argument as to why Potential stands as a better reasoning for existence than something coming from nothing. — Benj96

What you've described isn't really an explanation at all. You have assumed that something can't come from nothing, so you put a name to what something something comes from and describe the characteristics you think it must have. In reality, you've just renamed what others might have called God, or perhaps the Tao. It's metaphysics. It doesn't explain anything.

I think I would have expected your favorite to be less dark. — praxis

I know what you mean by "dark," but I don't really see it that way. For me, Marlow is a decent man who maintains his moral center while other British in Africa fall into brutal corruption. It's a story of his integrity in the face of European avarice and ruthlessness.

A suggestion: perhaps have a forum devoted to primary sources? Where OPs are meant to revolve around a primary source and the threads are supposed to stay in contact with the relevant primary sources? — Leontiskos

First off, I assume you are talking about a new philosophical category, not a change in the overall forum. If not, I think you're barking up the wrong tree.

There's no reason you can't get what you want without changing the forum at all. Here's what I do when I want to discuss very specific issues and I don't want people going off in their own directions. 1) Write a clear, specific, and detailed OP about the subject you want to discuss. 2) In the OP, make it clear that you don't want to stray from the subject and, if relevant, specify what issues you don't want to talk about. 3) When people ignore your specifications, respond to their posts and let them know. 4) If they give you any trouble, contact the moderators. In my experience, they will be responsive in helping you put the kibosh on the offenders.

I don't want to be unconditionally kind ever to be honest, everything is business for me. — Atrox

Normally, when someone new posts to the forum I say "Welcome to the forum," but I won't here, because that might be construed as kindness. I wouldn't want to offend you. As you can see, the moderators have moved you to the lounge or, as we call it, the discussion graveyard. That's where it belongs. It's not philosophy, it's just spouting off. Ok, down to business. The other posters here have made good points. Here's my take.

Most people like most other people most of the time. We're social, we like hanging around with each other. Kindness and honesty are social lubricants that make society run smoothly. More importantly, they are how we show others that we are members of the same community. When I show kindness for someone, I'm telling them I recognize them and feel common cause with them. For most people, that comes naturally. Apparently for you it doesn't. You're not the only one here on the forum who feels that way. Cynicism is not a very interesting philosophical position or an attractive one. I hope you have more to offer than that.

Heart of Darkness — praxis

This is my favorite book. I’ve given it to all my children. Actually, I’ve given it to all my children more than once. My memory is not all that great.

Seems we must conclude it's a representation of a state. — Moliere

A state of what?

The Nihilsum would be a concept that exists(or of existence) between the categories of something and nothing by being neither fully one nor the other but instead exists as a paradox that resists clear categorization. — mlles

As @Patterner has noted, you haven't even told us what kind of thing this is. Is it a category, a philosophy, a process, a system, a characteristic, an entity?

Sorry, I didn’t realize this was a nine year old thread. It’s possible you have become a neo-conservative since then, or that if you were one then you no longer are now.

We didn't create the ISIS insurgency. That is an opportunistic infection in the body politic. We created the wound in which the infection fulminated. — BC

This is what clever people call a distinction without a difference.

I do deeply and earnestly hope that we do not decide to take apart and rebuild Syria. It may be a mess; — BC

It is a mess, but it is not, for the time being, our mess. We have plenty of other messes around the world and we don’t need any more right now.

It is difficult for me to see what advantage Assad has over the opposition. Is it that his regime is a "known devil"? Is it that the Assad Regime has a more or less stable relationship with Israel? Is it that Assad regime was not appallingly cruel and repressive until the last few years? Was Assad "driven" into domestic terrorist policies by the extremist insurgent forces? It seems clear that Daesh would be just as bad, if not worse. If the Russians are for him, must we be against him? Don't know. — BC

If my memory is correct, we fucked around in Syria back during Obama's presidency and it went badly. We also went into Iraq, destroyed a nasty regime, started the ISIS insurgency, and sent hundreds of thousands of refugees into Europe. And let's not talk about Gaza. Of all the places we've screwed up, the Middle East is the worst except for southeast Asia. We recently had a thread - In Support of Western Supremacy, Nationalism, and Imperialism - in which neoconservative bonehead hawks proposed sending US troops into China and India to set things straight. There's only so much we can do and when we do it, we generally make things worse. No, I don't consider you a neoconservative bonehead hawk - a bonehead perhaps, but not a neoconservative.

Welcome to The forum.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who was confused when I started reading your post. I thought you were talking about nihilism but misspelled it, but after reading the first paragraph, it became clear you were talking about something different. But you never really described what it was, what the word meant, where it came from. You talk about Nihilsum but you never define it. Even after reading the entire post, I’m not sure exactly what you’re talking about. Is this a word you made up?

From what I can tell from your description, it sounds like something similar to Lao Tzu’s Tao or other non-dualistic philosophies. You should provide more information.

In other words, what exists, exists. Reason is the way we interpret that existence in a way that fits in with a logical framework. As an example: The big bang appeared from nothing. If that is true, then the sufficient reason for that happening is simply a logical framework that accurately leads to this result. — Philosophim

I like this. I think it's a useful way of looking at the issue. I hadn't thought of it in these terms before.

Truth must exist first for reason to matter. — Philosophim

Hmmm... I wonder if I agree with this.

You can be banned for mentioning P zombies. Read the guidelines.

I guess I don't see the issue you're trying to get at here. Let's say, instead looking at the situation from Peter's and then Alexa's points of view we look at it from the point of view of a security guard watching his TV screen. There are two cameras in the room, one near the ceiling in one corner and the other near the floor in the opposite corner. The security guard switches back and forth between the views from the two cameras. Does the world change when he does that? You put an emphasis on the change in identity between the observers. Why does that matter?

There are lots of philosophical issues associated with objectivity and subjectivity, but I don't see that the situation you describe poses any significant questions.

So did I gave up my eye for them? Or just because I didn't want to fill the immense pain and suffering that I would felt if I didn't do that. The answer is the last.
That was the point that I tried to make, — Matias Isoo

This is a matter of self-awareness, our ability to look at ourselves clearly from the inside. I try to be aware of the motivations of my actions, with reasonable success. I know this - most of the things I do arise from within without any particular goal in mind. They are non-rational. The come from the heart, if you will - what the Tao Te Ching calls our "Te," or intrinsic virtuosities. It seems like that's something you don't recognize in yourself. Perhaps you make these kinds of decisions differently than I do or perhaps you are not sufficiently self-aware. This is from the Chuang Tzu, along with the Tao Te Ching, one of the founding documents of Taoism.

What I call good is not humankindness and responsible conduct, but just being good at what is done by your own intrinsic virtuosities. Goodness, as I understand it, certainly does not mean humankindness and responsible conduct! It is just fully allowing the uncontrived condition of the inborn nature and allotment of life to play itself out. What I call sharp hearing is not hearkening to others, but rather hearkening to oneself, nothing more. — Chuang Tzu - Ziporyn translation

You think anyone living in western society today (which I'm assuming this thread is about) is going to be remembered as a great person? — Tzeentch

I don't know, but I think @ssu's answer is a pretty good one.

And about the dirty words Im sorry but thats the way I express my self but I will try to reduce the amount of tose words in future posts, — Matias Isoo

Again, we're pretty open and informal here, but it's hard to take you seriously if you write that way. As easygoing as we may be, we take our ideas and how they are expressed seriously.

I have no higher education so my vocabulary its not on par with many of you, in time it will, thats why im here. — Matias Isoo

We are generally tolerant of people for whom English is not their primary language, but language is important.

Welcome to the forum.

To start, this is a philosophy forum - a fairly informal one, but generally we take it seriously. It's not Reddit. So - spelling, capitalization, and grammar matter. Also, lay off all the fucks, cunts, and shits. They get used here, but more sparingly, for emphasis or insult. Generally, the more dirty words, the lower quality the post. Time to grow up.

Discussions about nihilism are common and not a problem, although I don't have a taste for them. I'll just say that many (most) of us don't see things that way.

Dont try to be the hero that saves the world, cause I know that you wouldn't save a world if it was for you to get worst, superman saves the world because he doesn't want to died, him or his loved ones, because if his loved ones die he would get sad, and he doesn't want to be fucking sad, so even him saving his family its not for them, its for him, — Matias Isoo

I love my friends and family and I want them to be safe and happy. I don't take it as personally, but I feel that way about humanity in general. I like people. I wish them well. You don't feel that way? Ok, but that's you, not the rest of us.

We have a lot of great people now a days, sure, businessmen, politicians, athletes, scientists but its not the same, they dont have the virtue, the god like status that their predecessors had. — Matias Isoo

Those great men you talk about were no more "god like" than people around today. They were just as ruthless, immoral, power-hungry, and cruel as you seem to want to be. Their status is a product of slanted history and your fantasy life. They killed and enslaved millions of people.

I think this is a radical feminism you can get behind. — fdrake

It reminds me of some of Robert Frost‘s later poems.