A well-written and interesting post. Welcome to the forum. As to your idea...hmmm. Let me think.

My father died in 2001 and I think about him often. I don't think it's irrational for me to say that he is still alive, and I guess conscious, and will continue to be so for as long as me, my siblings, my step-mother, and others who cared for him are. I guess, if we wanted to be materialistic about it, we could say that my father continues to live as a subroutine in my own consciousness. That entity is given strength and dimension when I get together with my whole family every February for a family reunion. Knowing that we all share those memories and thoughts brings them to life, as do the stories we tell about him.

As I said, I have no problem with that way of thinking, but it does call for a redefinition of what most people see as the common meaning of "consciousness." We have many discussions of consciousness here on the forum and most break up on the reefs of language rather than philosophy.

Some other thoughts:

It is, by common sense, factual that consciousness exists. — Reilyn

I am suspicious of claims of common sense, self-evidence, obviousness, or certainty, at least in a philosophical setting.

If I were to tell a person that they do not have consciousness, they would not be able to give me evidence that they do, even though they can definitively prove that to themselves. — Reilyn

Are you familiar with p-zombies? Don't get me started. I think I can know that someone else has consciousness with the same level of certainty that I can know most things in life. Consciousness is not just an experience. It is also a set of behaviors. Now here we go with our definitions again.

Again, good post.

I tried to get out of this discussion once. Or was it twice? So here we go again. I’m all done.

Be angry. — ssu

Everybody's been angry for the past 10 years. Look how well that's turned out.

It sounds absurd to me that those things have no truth value at all. If that were the case, then why does science work? — Brendan Golledge

Science works now and then, more or less. It works best when the conditions tested match the metaphysical underpinning best, e.g. materialism and reductionism. The further you get from those conditions, the less precise and the less definite the results you get.

Why should one do that which is good? No, I don't think that good is synonymous with, "something one ought to do". For example, most people would agree that selling all your worldly possessions and donating the money to charity is something that would be good. However, that doesn't mean that one is obligated to do so. Please input into this conversation with your own takes. — Hyper

You ask, “Why are we obligated to do good?” then you give an example where you conclude we are not obligated to do good. So, you’ve answered your question - we are not.

Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck & Popeye bombing France: — ssu

As if the war and the Holocaust weren't bad enough, now it's copyright infringement!

Then what kind of "going on your own" you meant? — ssu

Let's see - Drop out of NATO. Quit the UN. Pull out all our overseas military. Drop Israel like a hot potato. No more money for Ukraine. Tell Taiwan to take a hike. Pull Disney Worlds out of France, China, and Japan.

If you spent a lot of time studying natural sciences, you would probably realize that all the models we use are either deterministic (almost all of them) or random (quantum mechanics, or statistics when the underlying fundamentals are too complicated to calculate). — Brendan Golledge

I'm an engineer and I'm reasonably familiar with physics. When I was younger I was a strong materialist and believed in determinism, but I've grown out of that. Since then, I've come to realize that causality, materialism, and objective reality are metaphysical concepts, by which I mean they are neither true nor false. They have no truth value. This is a discussion we've had many times here on the forum, so I'm not interested in going any further into it now. I did start a discussion many years ago - Deathmatch – Objective Reality vs. the Tao - that addresses the issue.

we're moving toward the phase where we realize there's no percentage in trying to secure global order. Let it all go to hell. Why should we stick out big fat noses into it? — frank

I’m not sure this is true. There are still a lot of people out there who want to maintain our current status. I also don’t think there are many people who want to let it go all to hell. I don’t either.

Perhaps you didn't mean "going it on our own" to meaning being totally self sufficient in everything, — ssu

You’re right, I didn’t.

The interest for the US is to stay as a Superpower. — ssu

There are a lot of people here who think that's true, but it's not. The US is relatively isolated from the rest of the world. We have a huge economy and vast amounts of natural resources. If we wanted, we could go it on our own. I'm not suggesting we should, but I don't think our superpower status is as good for us as you seem to. We're going to have to get used to a world where power is distributed more evenly.

I've never heard that there is a general consensus regarding from what free will is supposed to be free. But if it's physicalist determinism, then will is free if it is random. I think that's what ↪Brendan Golledge means by "free". — Patterner

Except I don’t think deterministic and random are the only two choices. I don’t think there’s any empirical way to determine whether or not the universe is deterministic. I think it is clear that it’s not random.

I'll add that I disagree with #2. If the 'free' means free from determinism, and will is random, then it is free from determinism. — Patterner

I’m OK with your way of looking at it. To tell the truth, I don’t even really know what it means.

1. Everything in nature is either determined or random
2. Free will is neither determined nor random
C. Free will does not exist. — Brendan Golledge

You have claimed that Item 1 is true without justification. Perhaps you think it is self evident, but I disagree.

Item C is wrong. The correct conclusion is that free will is not in nature. It isn’t clear to me that’s the same thing as saying it doesn’t exist.

At any rate, the fix was as simple as rewording my inquiry: considering the dynamic that comes with mentor-natured relationships, is it moral to get with a teacher versus an actual professor? — Zolenskify

Yes, that is better for this forum. Some questions 1) Would the relationship be exploitive? 2) Would the relationship appear to be exploitive? 3) What are the rules at your institution? and the question always to ask 4) What could possibly go wrong.

I think this the wrong place to discuss this. I think you want reddit.com/r/getting with teacher.

Anyway, the Kremlin circle will "take offense" from whatever can then be used to further whatever they'd like to see, whatever they have in mind for their (chess)board. Thinking that's what others want is more than a little naïve. As mentioned a few times (e.g. here), you might ask the Baltics, the Moldovans, the Swedes, the Finns, ..., the Ukrainians, the Georgians, ... — jorndoe

There's a difference between "take offence from" and "be provoked by."

From a point of view strictly focused on American national security, what 'the Baltics, the Moldovans, the Swedes, the Finns, ..., the Ukrainians, the Georgians, ..." want is not the primary factor. The interests of the US and these countries are not necessarily the same.

I appreciate your ability to compromise issues to reach a larger demographic. I think that political outrage is ridiculous. Republicans and Democrats should both be more neutral and have more conversations. Civil disagreement is what would kill the two party system. If a greater portion of both groups were more open to political discourse, both sides would be less radical. I also think that focusing on economic issues more than social issues would cause more people to be democrat. — Hyper

I agree with everything you write but with a note. We got where we are today because of the Republicans. They have worked for more than 50 years to drive Americans apart from each other and it works, politically, but doesn't work in terms of good governance, in which they have little interest. In line with the principles on which you and I agree, I don't bring that up in discussions when I'm trying to be conciliatory. The Republicans have broken it. It's up to the Democrats to fix it.

It is rude to start a discussion and then not actively participate.

You’re still not really paying attention to my argument. Expansion of NATO started in the 1990s. You’re talking about today’s situation which is, if my supposition is correct, the result of that action at least in part.

No. Just different focus. — Patterner

My understanding of those lines is that, the moment you try to speak of or name the Tao, you have automatically failed. Because words are limited, and limiting, while the Tao is infinite. Any attempt to use words to describe the Tao is an attempt to limit it. Which is impossible, so you cannot be talking about the Tao. — Patterner

I don’t see that your understanding contradicts mine.

it's not so much that you're being ignored. — jorndoe

As I indicated, it wasn't that I was being ignored, it was that my argument was. My argument - Russia is paranoid, we knew it, and we should have worked to avoid provoking it. Your argument - Russia's paranoia is not justified, which is irrelevant.

That made me think of this. It's from Woody Allen's 1966 "What's up Tiger Lily" and is badly edited.

https://clip.cafe/whats-up-tiger-lily-1966/this-shepard-wongs-home/

What I mean by this is that we draw a false distinction between that of real and fake. The matrix did exist, as a server in a computer. The matrix's computer existed in the physical world, and by proxy, the matrix itself existed in the physical world. The term "fake" is misleading because everything exists in a sense. Any thought you have exists as neurons in your brain. If we live in a simulation, it would also be the real world, because the simulation exists in the real world. — Hyper

Welcome.

This is something that get's discussed fairly often here on the forum, generally without consensus, because everyone has a different idea of what "real" means. I am interested in Taoist philosophy. The first verse of the Tao Te Ching, one of the founding texts, says "The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name." My understanding of the meaning of those lines is that things don't really become "real" until we name, conceptualize, them. That seems consistent with what you have written. Imaginary things are as real as material things because they are both brought into existence as concepts.

On the forum, getting everyone to agree on the definition of the central ideas of a discussion is often neglected and often impossible. That is the cause of a lot of derailed discussions here. I think we'll probably see that in this discussion.

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

Yo mamma is so fat, her picture weighs 10 pounds.

We’re just going around in circles. I am all done.

You haven't made things worse. They would be far worse without you. Remember that the US is actually very popular in Europe. — ssu

Worse for you, perhaps and other small nations under the USSR's thumb. The US is now juking around in Europe with the military of a country that has 10,000 nuclear warheads.

Was then defending South Korea from Northern attack worth it? — ssu

I don't know.

So just where do you put the line for defending democracy and your allies? — ssu

But you weren't our allies. You were countries that we were friendly with but with which we had no binding military relationships. Do you expect us to send US troops to Finland if Russia decides to invade?

people genuinely talked about the prospect of Russia joining NATO. Unfortunately, there is a route of application to the organization, which Russia wouldn't take. — ssu

There was never any realistic chance of Russia joining NATO.

Russia simply then should have been controlled by democrats, not KGB people. — ssu

Yes. Wouldn't that be nice. What a surprise it didn't happen. Not.

...do you think that without NATO and US involvement, that Russia would have been peaceful and not tried to get it's empire back? — ssu

I'm not sure what would have happened. I don't think you are either. It was never realistic that we could somehow keep countries bordering Russia outside the Russian sphere of interest. It certainly doesn't work that way in the US. We have the Monroe Doctrine and haven't shied away from sticking our noses in our neighbor's affairs.

I think people who want to be independent ought to have their independence and simply the UN charter ought to be respected. — ssu

Sure, and I think Kamala Harris should be the president elect of the US.

Just like Poland was risking war with Germany in the late 1930's. Just like Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Norway were also risking war with Germany, for that matter. And not only did they risk it, they got the war Hitler. — ssu

When I said "risk" I meant risk to the US. What is the US's vital national interest in Taiwan? What was it in 1948?

I don't think you and I are going to get any closer to agreement. I'm all for leaving it at that.

US usually acts without at all thinking of the objectives of other actors. They don't matter to you. — ssu

Speaking for myself, it's not that they don't matter, it's that they don't matter enough to undermine our own national security. Your countries' motivation was to make things better. The US's should have been not to make them worse.

Hence the US has it's own narrative of what is going on that is different from the reality on the ground. This creates a fundamental inconsistency, when the other side doesn't at all have the objectives the US thinks it has. — ssu

I agree that the US had the wrong narrative in Vietnam. It just wasn't worth it. Millions of people died. I also agree we had the wrong narrative in expanding NATO, but that doesn't mean the narrative we should have had is the same as yours. Your narrative might have been right for you, but it wasn't right for us.

This shows how absolutely delusional US leaders can be in believing their own narrative. — ssu

Agreed. That's what my position in this discussion is based on. Our leaders were delusional when we expanded NATO.

People forget what the discourse around NATO was in the 1990's was like. I do remember. It was that NATO was an old relic that had to renew itself to basically be a global actor (policeman). The Cold War was over. Having territorial defense and a large reservist army was WRONG, outdated, relic from a bygone era! — ssu

Are you suggesting this is a good reason for expanding NATO?

Yet for the countries applying to NATO is was Russia, Russia and Russia. It never was anything else. — ssu

Of course it was, and that is understandable.

This is totally and deliberately forgotten and ignored by those going with Kremlin's line, that the objective was to poke Russia. The US didn't think about Russia. Russia was done, it couldn't fight it's way out of a paper bag as it had severe problems just with Chechnya. That was the thinking at that time. — ssu

Saying the US should have acted consistent with our own national interest, including to promote stability in Europe, rather than the interests of nations formerly in the Russian sphere is not "going with Kremlin's line."

no you didn't know it. This is pure hindsight. — ssu

There was no excuse for not knowing. Lot's of people in the US did and said so. Even I knew it at the time. It was obvious to anyone who wasn't blinded by ideology.

Why then thumb your noses at China?

Just then leave China alone. Why all the fuss about Taiwan? — ssu

I agree completely. Taiwan is not worth war with a country with a huge military and nuclear weapons. I feel the same way about Taiwan that I do about Finland. No, that's not true, I feel a lot more sympathy and common cause for the people of Europe. Taiwan is a fake country occupied by the losers in the civil war in China with delusions of grandeur. The US should never have staked its "reputation" on supporting it.

There ought to be consistency in your actions. When the political discourse in the US isn't accurate about the situation abroad, then this creates a fundamental problem: what the US president says to be the objectives, will really be the objectives of the state and the US armed forces. Now, if that isn't close to the reality on the ground and is made up propaganda, because it's just something that reaffirms popular beliefs that aren't fixed in the real world, you will continue to lose. — ssu

Again, I agree. The difference is that I think it is a good argument for my position rather than yours.

You guys keep ignoring my argument. I’m done with this discussion.

Sure, look up how WWI started and how WWII ended. If starting a war, losing it, and getting invaded counts as "being invaded," then Germany was certainly invaded by Russia (twice in the 20th century), not to mentioned partitioned by it and turned into a puppet state for half a century. — Count Timothy von Icarus

As I said, previously:

I didn't claim Russia was an innocent victim, only that they had a well justified fear of invasion. It wasn't a secret. US and NATO policy makers knew about it. — T Clark

no denying in what Napoleon and Hitler attempted. — ssu

And not just Germany and France. Also the Mongol horde and Ottoman empire. All these were existential threats to the integrity of European Russia.

Close, but no cigar. I live in Finland. — ssu

That displays my ignorance. I thought Finland was considered one of the Baltic states. Pardon if that is considered an insult. It wasn't intended to be.

The fact is that if the applicant countries themselves wouldn't have been active, NATO enlargement wouldn't have happened...For the applicants their reason to join NATO was Russia. — ssu

From your point of view, I can see this is important, but from the perspective of US national security it shouldn't have been the main consideration. After the dissolution of the USSR, any expectation that Russia would give up it's influence, even hegemony, in the region was unrealistic. We knew this, but American triumphalism won out over common sense.

One also should understand that in NATO there's Article 1, that member countries refrain from using violence at each other, which is important. Hence for example Greece and Turkey haven't had a border war. — ssu

That's nice, but not a good enough reason, given the predictable consequences.

You do understand then that many other countries, like the Baltic States, would have been treated the same way as Ukraine and Georgia by Russia and likely Russian military bases would be back in the Baltic states, if these countries wouldn't have used the window of opportunity they had. — ssu

Again, I don't fault the various countries for making the decisions they did. I just think that thumbing our noses at Russia was a dangerous idea. From the point of view of an American, it seems like results of these actions include the invasion of Ukraine. I'm not certain that's a realistic assumption on my part, but it sure looks that way.

The Baltic States wouldn't be independent and so charming that they now are if it wasn't for NATO memership. And is that for you think irrelevant? — ssu

Not irrelevant, but not enough.

I personally view the reason for this is the large pro-Israeli Evangelist vote in the US. — ssu

Yes. What an odd attitude. It's because they see the State of Israel and it's modern wars as signs of the end of days, Armageddon. Pretty creepy. If I were Israel, it would make me nervous.

Ok, but several of those "invasions," are counter invasions in wars Russia started. Particularly, they are former colonies/conquests of Russia fighting for independence or fighting off Russian attempts to recolonize them, and in some cases Russia had carried out sizable genocides against those peoples in living memory. In WWI, Russia mobilized first (Germany last), and invaded Germany first, they just lost. The "Continuation War," is the continuation of the Russian attempt to reconquer Finland, as it reconquered Poland and other lands with its military ally... Nazi Germany. Crimean War? Also kicked off by Russia invading its neighbor. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I didn't claim Russia was an innocent victim, only that they had a well justified fear of invasion. It wasn't a secret. US and NATO policy makers knew about it.

Second, you could probably generate lists of equal or
even longer length for Germany or France, on which Russia's name would appear as "invader." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Is that true? I doubt it. I'll let you do the homework.

Definitely - and one far more nuanced than even this one, imo. Thank you for that. — AmadeusD

Even better - let's find non-political philosophical questions to discuss.

NATO isn't seeking to take over countries. Countries seek to be part of NATO for defense and have to qualify (which can take some years). — jorndoe

Given their history, it's hard to find fault with Russia for not believing that. We didn't when Russia moved it's military into Cuba. Heck, I don't even believe it. It's a political attack on Russia backed up by a massive armed force.

For a country the size and geography of Russia it might be easy enough to list all kinds of "hostile countries" in the vicinity. — jorndoe

As I noted, Russia is historically paranoid about invasion, but as they say, just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't out to get you. This is from Wikipedia - Invasion of Russia.

• Mongol invasion of Kievan Rus' (1237–1242), a series of invasions that resulted in the Rus' states becoming vassals of the Golden Horde.
• Livonian campaign against Rus' (1240–1242), an unsuccessful Teutonic invasion of the Novgorod and Pskov Republics, in order to convert them to Catholicism.
• Russo-Crimean Wars (1570–1572), an Ottoman invasion that penetrated Russia and destroyed Moscow.
• Polish–Muscovite War (1609–1618), Poland gained Severia and Smolensk.
• Ingrian War (1610–1617), a Swedish invasion which captured Novgorod and Pskov.
• Swedish invasion of Russia (1708–1709), an unsuccessful Swedish invasion, as part of the Great Northern War (1700–1721).
• French invasion of Russia (1812), an unsuccessful invasion by Napoleon's French Empire and its allies, as part of the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815).
• Crimean War (1853–1856), a series of conflicts between the Ottoman Empire, the British Empire, the French Empire, Sardinia, and the Russian Empire, including an Allied invasion of the Crimean Peninsula.
• Japanese invasion of Sakhalin (1905), an invasion and annexation by the Japanese, as part of the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905).
• Eastern Front (World War I) (1914–1918), Russia was forced to cede Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic states to Germany as the Russian Empire collapsed.
• Caucasus campaign (1914–1918), a series of conflicts between the Russian Empire, its various successor states, and the Ottoman Empire during World War I.
• Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War (1918–1925) and the contemporaneous Polish–Soviet War (1918/9–1921), the Polish occupation of Belarus and West Ukraine.
• Japanese intervention in Siberia (1918–1922), an occupation of the Russian Far East by Japanese soldiers during the Russian Civil War (1917–1923).
• Operation Barbarossa (1941), an unsuccessful invasion of the Soviet Union led by Nazi Germany that started the Eastern Front (World War II) of 1941–1945.
• Continuation War (1941–1944), an unsuccessful German-Finnish invasion of the Soviet Union, as part of World War II.
• Kantokuen (1941), an aborted plan for a major Japanese invasion of the Russian Far East during World War II.
• Operation Unthinkable (1945), a proposed contingency plan for an Anglo-American invasion of the Soviet Union developed by the British Chiefs of Staff during the later stages of World War II.
• War in Dagestan (1999), a repulsed Chechen invasion of Dagestan.
• Kursk Oblast incursion (2024), an ongoing August invasion of Russia's Kursk Oblast by the Ukrainian Armed Forces (AFU).

I can look at this from a different angle as my summer cottage is very close to the Russian border. — ssu

Do you live in the Baltics?

Please understand that the US isn't almighty, it's just one actor in Europe. The World doesn't circle around the US. Russia itself is the really big actor here. The Soviet leadership avoided the largest wars when the USSR collapsed, but the problem was that Russia knew just one thing, that it was an Empire. It has all these minorities, — ssu

Living where you do, you may know more about this than I do. I remember back in the early 1990s when Bill Clinton and the rest of NATO started expanding NATO. Even back then I thought it was a graceless response to a world changing action.

If there was a theoretical window of opportunity to link Russia into Europe, it would have been immediately when the Soviet Union collapsed. Yet that would have needed larger than life politicians both in Moscow and Washington DC, but those political Houdini's didn't exist. — ssu

I don't necessarily think we should have "linked Russia into Europe." I just think it was a big mistake to move NATO right up to Russia's borders. We reacted very aggressively to Russian weapons in Cuba back in the 1960s. Why would we expect to Russia to feel differently? What benefit did the west get out of it?

NATO enlargement is one of Putin's lines, but so is the artificiality of the state of Ukraine and it being natural of Ukraine being part of Russia. — ssu

It always seemed to me that was just a rationalization for political and propaganda purposes. Maybe I'm wrong.

Also please understand that key players in the NATO enlargement were the new countries themselves. — ssu

I'm sure that's true, but that's not a good enough, or even very good, reason for us to agree to let them in. For us to tie up our military into riskier entangling alliances made it more likely that we would end up in a war with Russia. That would be a very bad thing. A very, very bad thing.

Hence it was for the "near abroad" countries this brief opportunity to get out of Russia's stranglehold. — ssu

Again, that's not a good enough reason for us to act. We need to look after our own interests. Expansion of the EU allows for greater cohesion in Europe without getting the military involved.

Bob Ross likely wanted to stir up a heated debate, luckily didn't get banned. — ssu

I found his logic disturbing. Stronger than disturbing. But I don't see that he violated any of the guidelines. Just espousing unpopular opinions shouldn't be a good enough reason for moderator action.

The last true excess were the neocons, who didn't themselves believe at first they got the power. — ssu

There are a lot of hawks still around. I kept expecting Israel to attack Iran with strong US military support.

A Dolchstoss given to Ukraine with Europe just watching from the side just what the hell happened is the worst outcome. But that hasn't happened. — ssu

I have a fantasy that Europe will step up to take a bigger military and political role in the world, especially in Europe.

What issue? — kudos

My personal understanding of morality.

you are conveying my point better than I could have done myself. — kudos

We use different language, so I guess I misunderstood.

Any reasonable person can see that it is impossible and pointless to avoid the universal determinations of evil and bad 'in-themselves.' However, if one subscribes to a less respectable sort of moral subjectivity, it is easy to avoid. — kudos

I have a different take on morality than others I have discussed it with here on the forum. Please believe I am not joking or being sarcastic when I say I do not accept "universal determinations of evil and bad 'in-themselves.'" For me, morality is the set of rules I use for my own behavior. I don't apply those rules to others. Rules that apply to people in general, myself and others, I call social control. They are the rules society at all scales applies to promote acceptable behavior and prevent disruptive or harmful behavior.

I don't think a more detailed discussion of this issue is appropriate here.

If it's how we handle that conflict that matters, then you must agree that the two have something to do with one another. Otherwise, how could it matter at all? — kudos

"Moral indecency" and "darker side" are not terms, or the kinds of terms, I use to describe human behavior. That's what I mean when I say you and I have a different understanding of human nature.