Chairman Mao's cultural revolution, which is very much like our wokester movement, lasted ten years. Fortunately Joe Biden is no Mao Zedong, and neither is Kamala. — fishfry

Yes. Of course. I agree. The current social justice movement is just exactly like the Cultural Revolution.



Just exactly the same.

He could have found the money in a storm drain for all I know. But people who have that kind of loot usually have a bevvy of brains around trying to keep them from losing it, and then to compound it. Even if it's blind luck, it doesn't take a lot of genius to know one is lucky, and to then hire hands that know what they are doing. — James Riley

Musk and SpaceX just won the contract to build a space ship to go back to the moon for $3 billion, although Jeff is making a stink. They just launched astronauts to the space station. In less than 10 years Tesla has revolutionized battery technology. He's doing real stuff. Also, his girlfriend is a famous odd musician.

Interesting that at thread on good physics so quickly became a thread on bad physics. — Banno

It's been a while since there has been much good physics on the forum. I'm thinking about starting a thread to prove that force does not really equal mass times acceleration. Or that Ursus Americanus don't urinate in forested areas. Or that people are mistaken about the Pontiff's religious affiliation.

And there's already pushback on this, you already see it. I don't think it's going to doom our society or destroy culture.

There are much more serious threats than this by far. — Manuel

Well put.

Being "pretty sure it won't work" doesn't constitute a response to the merits of my proposition. — James Riley

You're proposing a radical change in American federal and state policing and gun policy which you have acknowledged will lead to many deaths. The burden of proof that it will succeed rests with you.

It is a strange world we live in where the Bill of Rights is a pipe dream and a fantasy. — James Riley

Come on, you are being intentionally dense. I've said I support 2nd Amendment rights. I won't argue whether your planned gun-owning utopia is legal or constitutional. I'm pretty sure it won't work and that it will make things much, much worse.

Provocative? These woke people are complete morons by any yardstick. I am just trying to figure out how anybody could believe this non-sense. — synthesis

I don't doubt your sincerity or your anger. I even agree that a lot of what is called "woke" is destructive and counterproductive. I also think it is likely a temporary phase. Not sure about that.

Be that as it may - it is clear from your language that you intended to raise hackles. I responded in kind.

You are correct. Unless and until members of a community learn to take personal responsibility for their own actions, and treat each other with dignity and respect, there would most definitely be a thinning of the herd. — James Riley

But JR, you seemed like such a nice young man.

If crime rates did not drop and the foregoing "Wait, what?" communities did not start to mind their Ps and Qs, then yes, we go forward with the program. And yes, there would be a period of blood. But in the end, because good people (currently unarmed) outnumber the bad (currently armed), I think things would settle out to the point where people would stop carrying because it can be inconvenient for some folks, especially when there is no longer a need. We may even end up with Bobby's twirling their night sticks as they whistled down the sidewalk. — James Riley

This is the pipiest of all pipe dreams.

In my fantasy world, the education begins early and is cutting edge and includes a deep steeping in the Liberal Arts, reading, writing, languages, philosophy, logic, civics, history, political science, sociology, phycology, and etc. All, including the guns, voluntary, of course. — James Riley

Agreed. If we're gong to fantasize, we should definitely include education, especially the study of algae.

I can only continue to suggest that green energy technologies are, perhaps deliberately insufficient to meet our needs going forward. I've run the numbers on wind, and I just don't see the UK building 15,000 windmills every 25 years, at a cost of £200m each, just to keep the lights on. — counterpunch

Say what you will. Costs for renewable and associated energy technologies; wind, solar, batteries; are approaching or surpassing those for fossil fuels. Most of this improvement has taken place in the last decade. Given the attention they are getting, I would expect things to continue to improve. Elon Musk and similar businessmen are kicking ass. You need to find someone like him to put a few billion down on your magma technology. The market.

Magma energy sidesteps all this by transcending the calculus of limits to growth. Because (I confidently predict that) magma energy is more than sufficient to meet our energy needs, it allows us to attack the problem from the supply side — counterpunch

I'm skeptical. Your confidence is not enough to change the course of energy policy. As I wrote before though, I do endorse your "Screw the libs, give them what they want" strategy.

What do NOT know — Thinking

I don't know just about everything. It might make more sense to ask what I need to know. I'm at an age when I don't really need to know anything more than I already do. If that's so, maybe the right question is what I want to know. I'm really curious, but curiosity isn't really about knowing anything, it's about finding out stuff. It's the process, not the endpoint. So, I want to find stuff out. Anything. Everything.

Looking at it another way, I've come to think that the most important aspect of my intellectual and spiritual life right now is awareness, becoming more aware. Is that the same as knowledge? Becoming more aware of; seeing, feeling, and experiencing; what's going on in my body, my mind, and physical and social reality.

Blacks, as a minority, would need their white compadres to back their hand, but the left seems to walk away from some of their delineated civil liberties (2ndA). Oh well. — James Riley

First off, I am offering my solutions as responses to Synthesis's intentionally provocative posts. My language was also intentionally provocative.

Second, I really don't think arming people is the right way to go. I think a lot more people will die.

Third, I'm liberal, but I think gun control is a bad sell for Democrats. I know conservative gun owners who have no objection to reasonable gun restrictions, but they won't trust Democrats to take their Second Amendment beliefs seriously. I wonder what the vote count in the presidential election would have been if gun control were taken off the Democratic platform.

That is the current "plan" - so that's a safe bet. Would you like to go double or nothing on "a bunch of different approaches" actually working to secure a sustainable future? — counterpunch

Just about all complex problems in a society as big as the US's and the world's get solved using "a bunch of different approaches." Not only that, you have to try a bunch of different ways to find out which ones work. VHS tapes won the battle against several other recording technologies back in the late 70s and early 80s. Your magma geothermal technology is innovative and not fully tested. It makes sense to aim our efforts in more than one direction. It would be irresponsible not to.

Thanks.

By virtue of physical facts, resources are a function of the energy available to create them. The energy is there - beneath our feet, limitless quantities of high grade power. As a consequence, there are no limits to resources, and the way to solve climate change is to power through. — counterpunch

I don't know whether your particular solution to the energy problem is the right one. Actually, I'm pretty sure it isn't the solution. Not that it won't work, I don't know about that. I just think the final solution will be a bunch of different approaches. Unless...

I'll define little "g" god. A god is the personification of existence or a portion of existence. It is a human act to personify - attribute human characteristics to non-human phenomena. We do it with dogs, cars, and countries, so why not everything all at once. Mother nature. Gaia. That works for immanent gods, but not for transcendent Gods like in Christianity or Islam.

am I missing something? — StreetlightX

No, I don't think so. @Banno raised the question and it set me thinking. I endorse a policy of toleration until it becomes intolerable. I think you're right, though - we should call out pseudoscience when we see it. Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't.

Thanks.

Any explanations? — Banno

I've been thinking about this more and I wanted to follow up on this more. I wrote:

Explanation #1 - Poor enforcement of the pseudo-science rules. — T Clark

First - a question for @fdrake and @StreetlightX, two moderators who have a strong knowledge of and interest in science. It seems to me that moderators are less likely to crack down on questionable science than in the past. Do you think that's true? Has there been a change in moderation policy? Maybe it's just one of those cyclic things.

Second - there used to be several pugnacious science types who tended to jump on science baloney. I'm thinking in particular of Timeline and Apokrisis, but there were others. TL exploded and Apo sleeps most of the time now.

I don't really mind our pseudoscientific members and their writing. It's fun for me to feel all superior. On the other hand, allowing bad science a place to speak is not this forum's job. It's here to provide bad philosophy a place to speak. They come here because they get smacked down and banned on science forums. You actually have to know something real to write there.

Apparently being blunt is sometimes interpreted as being condescending, as we see here. . — FrancisRay

Are you talking about this from above?

I don't know what your agenda is but it doesn't interest me. If you want to show me I'm missing the point then show me where the OP has made a complaint against Buddhism. Maybe I missed something,. — FrancisRay

I don't think that's particularly condescending. Or blunt for that matter. I guess I'd characterize it as rhetorical - casting doubt on the posters motive rather than the point at hand.

A solution to climate change is not what the libs want though! Not really! I tried talking to Extinction Rebellion and Greta Thunberg about solving climate change with magma energy, and they were not in the least interested. They protest against climate change, but it's really a cornerstone of that whole politically correct, anti-capitalist, middle class, woke white guilt paradigm they're pushing. I suggest proving the capitalist thesis by solving climate change, exploiting a freely available resource - magma energy, to the utmost extent, and yes, I think that would fundamentally undermine the green neo marxist, anti western platform. — counterpunch

Still seems goofy that the best reason you can think of for dealing with climate change is to stick it to the lefties. And, as I wrote, whatever your reason, let's do it.

The tedious tide of theological threads appear to have been replaced by a population of piss-poor physics posts... Any explanations? — Banno

Explanation #1 - Poor enforcement of the pseudo-science rules.

Explanation #2 - Failure to recognize that apparent similarities between phenomena are metaphorical rather than physical, e.g. quantum uncertainty and free will.

Explanation #3 - People just get really excited about waves. They think they explain everything. Fields too. They just sound all sciencey and stuff.

Explanation #4 - Emerson wrote

To believe our own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, -- that is genius. Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense; for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost,--and our first thought, is rendered back to us by the trumpets of the Last Judgment.

We gotta stop letting people read Emerson.

Explanation #5 - It's logic - The most sciencey stuff is weird, e.g. quantum mechanics and relativity. 2) I have some weird ideas. 3) Therefore my ideas must be sciencey too.

Solution #4 Stop, Part 2

Tell the police to stop killing unarmed people.

I suggest the right solve climate change, and deny the left sustainability, used as an anti-capitalist battering ram. — counterpunch

Let me see if I understand. You're going to defeat the liberals by giving them what they want. Is that right? Boy, that'll teach 'em a lesson. They'll never know what hit 'em.

Joyfully he retires to his cell confident that the hanging will not occur at all. — Manuel

Solution #1 - Given that he is confident he won't be hanged, he'll be surprised whichever day he actually is.

Solution #2 - The executioner comes to the cell on Wednesday at noon. The prisoner says, "Hey, that's not fair. The judge said ..." Then the executioner laughs, says "surprise," takes him to the gallows, and hangs him.

Solution #3 - It's noon on Friday and the executioner hasn't shown up. The prisoner heaves a sigh of relief. Then, at 12:10, the executioner comes in. "Sorry I'm late" he says. Then he takes the surprised prisoner to the gallows and hangs him.

Sorry about that. I tend to be blunt. — FrancisRay

Blunt is fine. Condescending is rhetorical rather than philosophical. And it starts unnecessary and unproductive scuffles.

Your interest in 'barking' has been noted. — Amity

Hey! I resemble that remark.

You are conflating methodological naturalism with metaphysical naturalism. As I pointed out there is no other way to do science (that we currently know of) so it is not merely a matter of usefulness, but of necessity, even in regard to methodology. — Janus

@spirit-salamander is the one who made a distinction between methodological and metaphysical naturalism. I think it may be a valuable idea, but it isn't what I was talking about. You didn't make any reference to the distinction in the post I was responding to and I didn't make any reference to it in my definitions, which is what got all this started.

I was just thinking. If my concept of metaphysics is correct, i.e. my emphasis on usefulness rather than truth, then all metaphysics is methodological. I like that.

Firstly how can you currently decide what may or may not be verified in the future? — Janus

Good point. In general, you can't, but if there is no evidence for a phenomenon, it is not unreasonable to provisionally assume it doesn't exist until evidence is found. Cases in point - the multiverse as an explanation for quantum mechanical phenomena and string theory.

Secondly if metaphysical positions are meaningless then why are we even discussing whether they are right or wrong or useful? — Janus

Metaphysical positions are not meaningless, hypothetical physical phenomena which cannot be verified, even in theory, are meaningless.

Straightforwardly circular I would say in regard to the first two. And the second two are based on an invalid inference, as I pointed out. science thinks naturalistically because there is no other way to do it; that is if we don't think naturalistically (with regard to methodology) then we are not doing science, as doing science is currently defined. — Janus

This is irrelevant. I gave a definition of naturalism based on it's common philosophical meaning. That is the stated subject of this thread and the one I was responding to. I did not make any judgement except to state that naturalism can be useful. Is it your position that science is not useful?

The fact that we may never be able to discover the answer to that question has no bearing on the fact that it is in principle either right or wrong. — Janus

It depends. If a claim hasn't been verified but might be in the future, then it might be right or wrong. If it cannot be verified, even in principle, then is not only not right or wrong, it is meaningless.

Most people see themselves as good. This is just not the case. — Caleb Mercado

I think that one's position on the good or evil of humanity depends on temperament and personality mostly. People who like others think they're ok. People who don't, don't. I like people a lot, individually and in the aggregate. I generally try not to judge people one way or another. I think humans are social and that we tend to like each other, all other things being equal. Of course, all other things are never equal.

Most people don't go down that road because it doesn't take anyone anywhere good.

I was just pointing out the circular (and hence pretty much useless) nature of the definitions you sourced is all. — Janus

Disagree. I thought they were pretty straightforward. That's why I generally look for a few definitions. I find that looking at them together generally gives a better sense of what's up than just one. Naturalism says that reality is natural. Natural means that it is subject to laws that can be validated using the scientific method.

I am not making a claim that naturalism is right or wrong. I think it is a metaphysical position and is neither. I think it can be a useful way of looking at things depending on the situation.

simple rules — maytham naei

• Ignore the news mostly. Stick to science.
  
  
• Look at a general news site every day or two to make sure the world hasn't ended and Bob Dylan hasn't won the Nobel Prize in literature.
  
  
• Avoid stories that aggravate me.
  
  
• Generally stay away from politics. If I decide to read some, go to moderate conservative sources I trust. "American Conservative" is my favorite, although they got a little goofy during the election.
  
  
• Stay away from liberal sites. There's nothing more irritating than having to deal with people I'm supposed to agree with who are idiots.
  
  
• Use comment sections as a place to test my ability to be civil and look for common values with people I disagree with.

Solution #2 Stop

All the racists stop being all racist and stuff.

I think spirit-salamander has come up with a workable definition based on the scope of causal effect that entities are capable of and subject to, which seems to cover all the bases. — Janus

The title of the thread is "Definition of Naturalism." At the time I wrote my post, no one had provided a definition of what naturism means in common usage. I gave four definitions from four different sources. Whether or not you like them, I think they represent pretty well what the word "naturalism" means in everyday philosophical speech. There is nothing stopping people from defining a word any way they want. If you want "naturalism" to mean two dogs fighting over a hotdog, ok. At least be clear about that from the beginning.

I like @spirit-salamander's summary also.

As you know, our view differs here. I think the commentary that it doesn’t belong says more about the translator’s perspective than the text, their inability to reconcile it with the flow at this point. It warrants a closer look. — Possibility

The file I attached to my original post has Stefan Stenudd's full commentary, which discusses this in more detail.

I think it’s more about recognising our limitations with regards to knowledge or learning, embracing uncertainty to eliminate worry, fear, concern, sorrow, care, anxiety, etc. — Possibility

As you note, you and I disagree on this. The statement in the first line seems stronger to me than similar lines in other verses. More definitive. As mystical philosopher Tommy has noted, "You ain't gonna follow me any of those ways, although you think you must."

The first line says that we cannot accurately quantify the relation between positive and negative; the second that we cannot qualify the relation between good and evil. It’s like asking ‘how long is a piece of string?’ This uncertainty is what we fear. Such desolation, such scarcity of information has no centre, no end, nothing to beg for. — Possibility

The second and third lines of the first stanza seem to me to be pointing out that our value judgements are conditional and somewhat arbitrary. The important distinction isn't between good and bad, but between making judgements and not making judgements.

The rest of the verse describes the difference between the sage who faces this uncertainty, and everyone else who appear to have full and busy lives, so in control and certain of their usefulness, their dominant and joyful ‘springtime’ stance, their vision of who they are and where they’re going. — Possibility

As I noted in my comments, I think the point of the verse is that people who follow the Tao look odd, disreputable, stupid, or crazy to many other people because they don't care about the goals most people do - acclaim, wealth, status, attention.

the Taoist starts from the limitations of knowledge, recognising that we can be certain of nothing - that all knowledge is quantitatively and/or qualitatively relative (to the flow of chi). This is not to say that we cannot know anything - only that we cannot claim beyond ourselves to know anything with certainty, — Possibility

I don't see it this way at all. The TTC is not about knowledge, it's about the rejection of knowledge. Lao Tzu could not be more explicit about it. He's a plain-spoken guy. He says what he means.

In my view, Lao Tzu gets around this only by extricating chi from the TTC - recognising that when it is read, when we interact with the language, we inevitably bring our own. — Possibility

I don't see where this comes from. Lao Tzu doesn't mention "chi," or any other term I recognize as similar, at all.

Have you been following the discussion on Buddhist epistemology? Also there's a discussion about why people turned away from Buddhism in the Lounge. I'm curious about your thoughts. I plan to follow up with @FrancisRay on some of the comments he made on the logic of Taoism and Buddhism previously in this thread.

Whether something is hard or easy is relative — HardWorker

Sorry, I have the Tao Te Ching on the brain these days. This is from Derek Lin's translation of Verse 2.

When the world knows beauty as beauty, ugliness arises
When it knows good as good, evil arises
Thus being and non-being produce each other
Difficult and easy bring about each other
Long and short reveal each other
High and low support each other
Music and voice harmonize each other
Front and back follow each other

I believe this to be the best cartoon of all time...

Gary Larson - The Far Side - Cows — synthesis

Half right. This is.

If Buddhism is unpopular because it is a religion,then this just goes to show how poorly it is understood. But its an odd comment seeing that Buddhism is the most popular religion on the planet at this time. — FrancisRay

As I noted, there are 0.5 billion Buddhists. There are 2.4 billion Christians.

Buddhism is so unpopular. — praxis

There are 500,000,000 Buddhists in the world.

It's not nearly as much fun as listening to Miles Davis, — FrancisRay

And then again, some of your responses come across as incredibly condescending.

No. I replied because you asked for 'anything else of interest', and so I tried to suggest your reasons for having problems with Buddhism were poor. . . — FrancisRay

Some of your responses come across as really condescending.

Makes sense to me. Very clear and specific. One of the things that bothers me most on the forum is how discussions go off in 20 directions because terms are not defined at the beginning of the thread. That's why I got involved.

Thank you.