The second one is the bus station in Preston, Lancashire. — Jamal

Oh! Wow! Thanks for telling me it is actually a bus station. I promise I thought it was an airport the first time I saw the picture!

The first one looks like the UK too — Jamal

Yes. :smile: It is located at Park Hill, Sheffield.

https://parkhill.estate/#gallery

Wanna see some soul-crushing, ugly building? — Lionino

Ugly? Soul-crushing?

I get it. Brutalist architecture is not your cup of tea. But I would not call those buildings or structures ugly but unique, and this is what makes them special, at least to me.

For example, wouldn't you feel delighted living here?

It gives me a feeling of calm and chill. The neighbours say 'good morning' and everything is quiet when you come back home after a long day at the office...



***
And what do you tell me about this bus station? The trip to nowhere that we will all take one day. :heart:

I'll wager the apartments in that building are far more spacious and varied than most of today's apartment blocks — Jamal

Absolutely. The flats are very spacious and the prices per m² are expensive there. The building is located at both Avenida América and Corazón de María, which are one of the 'top' and rich neighbourhoods of Madrid.
Oiza - the architect - said that his plan was to build a building that looked like a tree with its branches. It is one of the most iconic constructions in Madrid nowadays.

Note: I checked in the land registry and it says that each flat has an average of 127 and 200 m²

It's a famous example of organicism — Jamal

Some say it is Brutalist too, but I don't have enough knowledge of architecture. :sweat:

And here's a better image of the exterior: — Jamal

Yeah, it is iconic. But that wall made of concrete reminds me of all the buildings built on Franco's era. :lol:

I am not a big fan of grotesque mansions either. I think it is unnecessary to live in a large building, but rich folks tend to be 'pompous'...

It has some classical appeal, yes. It seems that the Catholic gambling czar had good taste regarding architecture.

It is very interesting that we could make a 'first impression' on people depending on the buildings they live in.
We could say that the Catholic gambling tsar was pompous and showy.

What should we think about the people who live like sardines in a tin in buildings like this one?

What makes a structure "beautiful"? You find these buildings "magnificent" and "photogenic", but lacking in something, "humanity" you refer to. Could you show some buildings that do quantify what you would call "beautiful" or "human"? — Outlander

Those are very good questions.

Are the beauty and greatness of a building dependent upon our appreciation?

Could it be a possibility to value an architectural design objectively?

Most of the designs of government buildings were not really thought of sharing with the people. I mean, they were built to show the greatness of a dictator to the world. Nothing else. We could agree that Tiananmen Square is actually pretty, but its lack of humanity makes it 'ugly' or sordid. Then, we are judging Tiananmen Square subjectively.

I think I came to the conclusion that it is hard to have an objective opinion on a building. If I see a Soviet building I will think of Stalin, and if I see the Coliseum I will have the bloody fights of gladiators in mind, etc.

During Stalin’s rule, the priority was to build grand, imposing buildings like wedding cakes — Jamal

Interesting.

I search on Google 'Wedding Cakes' buildings in Spain, and then it showed this one as the most famous: HH Cielomar

I would feel very ashamed of myself if ChatGPT had access to read my posts with poor grammatical skills.

I don't think the building (Moscow State University) is a beautiful thing — Jamal

You are right. The building is not beautiful, but sublime. I would have extra motivation for studying law if my university looked like that formidable architectural design.

Ma! I want to study there! Like my friends, the Brothers Karamazov! :up:

@BC @Tom Storm

Now that we are remembering Mishima in The Shoutbox, and his romantic concept of death (suicide)... :flower:

I also want to mention @180 Proof who always shared with me interesting views on his works.

My passion for reading his novels has been diminishing in the last year, but his idea of death and living still impact me.

We live in an age in which there is no heroic death...

Hello, Philo Sofer. It is a nice paper, thanks for sharing it with us.
There are a lot of interesting topics, but I would like to highlight specific points that I want to exchange with you. :smile:

Moral nihilism.

I agree that the absence of a notion of what is 'good' and 'bad' is the core of moral nihilism. You explain this using an 'objective' view in your paper, but I personally missed the existentialist crisis for a nihilistic person when he has to face moral dilemmas. I mean, although a moral nihilistic should not care about distinguishing what is 'good' and 'bad', he still experiences moral, Christian or religious dilemmas. Nihilism kicks in because he loses every sense of respecting authority, but he suffers from his own existentialism anyway. The lack of following an authority leads people to feel lost.

On the other hand, I miss some Russian writers in 'further reading'. Brothers Karamazov could be a nice work regarding this topic!

**

Moral nihilism precludes dismay, disgust, frustration and anxiety...

I don't know if I could agree with this. A moral nihilistic still experiences those negative feelings, but he just gives up on caring for a solution. Furthermore, a moral nihilistic can suffer from frustration precisely because it is not possible for him to distinguish between 'good' and 'bad'.

semi-presidentialist republic — Lionino

When the incest kicks in. :vomit:

I don't know, Rome is one of top tourist destination of the world. — Lionino

Ah, true. You are just a random tourist enjoying the privilege of being a member of the Schengen area!
Cool! Have fun, mate.

Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele II, — Lionino

We now know a bit more about Lionino... You live in Rome! - or in an Italian city -

A sublime Neoclassical monument. It makes me sad that it shows a figure that no longer represents the Italian folk: A king...

If the Italian Monarchy was a symbol of unity, why did they get rid of this honourable institution? :cry:

Ah... Politicians and historians are always making our beautiful Europe feel (let's say) disoriented.

Wouldn't this mean that your existence is eternal? — Metaphysician Undercover

And, is it 'my existence is eternal' an eternal truth or not?

That would be eternal truth, if there is such a thing. Some would attribute this to God, others to mathematics, and some perhaps to physics — Metaphysician Undercover

Interesting.

'Eternal truth' sounds very good. I agree with the examples which some can be related to. I guess inside physics or mathematics, there are different grades of truth, yet all of them have to share a common core, that eternal truth we are talking about.

On the other hand, I want to try to find an eternal truth with the basic knowledge I have about philosophy. I think I have to discard God because I am not a believer. It is true that Christian ethics and existentialism have struck me, but I would look like a fool if I considered God as an eternal truth, honestly.

What if we could consider 'cogito ergo sum' as an eternal truth?

Alas, being aware that we exist or being aware of our consciousness could be an eternal truth.
I can't imagine a decrease in the level of meaningfulness in Cartesianism.

Yes! Without doubt, meaningfulness has temporal duration/relation. Things that were once meaningful can cease to be so. — creativesoul

Ha ha, evidence that meaning has a temporal duration. The thread has different meaning now than it did back then. — Metaphysician Undercover

:lol:

Very true. I have never realised something too 'elemental'. MU asks for evidence, but I guess this three-year-old thread speaks for itself. What I don't get regarding temporal duration, if it only applies to both increase and cease of meaningfulness.

I mean, either gains meaningfulness or loses it. (?)

Aren't there things with a constant meaningful duration?

I think I will think deeply about some examples of the above all morning...

Thoughts? — Outlander

That could only happen in the USA...

Great and interesting answers Jamal! I was also thinking of adding some notes by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn:

Steals what is stolen. (grab nagrabliennoye) Earlier, Vera Kornéyeva said, you put your unbridled passions before everything else and, of course, believers hindered you. But now you want to build and achieve well-being in this world, why do you persecute your best citizens? Believers do not steal; do you intend to build a just society with the profiteers and the jealous? It will all come crashing down on you. Let the Church be truly separated from the State, do not touch it, you have nothing to lose.

***

The manifesto of 1861, despite all its limitations, the reform proved to be more generous than similar reforms in neighboring countries: Prussia and Austria. Later on, the 1917 revolution swept away the incomplete agrarian reform of Alexander...

Free energy for me. Now I dont have to eat — Ben Ngai

Did it take you three years to get free energy exclusively for you? Where have you been until today? Resolving the maths of the universe?

It is interesting how some users disappear for years, and then appear again with more power or knowledge.

If you have any questions feel free to ask and I might give an explanation on what's going on. — Ben Ngai

What if the universe is pure math?

Maybe after three years you know this answer now. :smile:

So, your dead body would be a shared subjective truth for everyone who sees your dead body. — Truth Seeker

No, it is not.

My dead body doesn't depend on the shared subjective truth. It exists since the moment I decided to end my life.
What does happen to the people who don't see my dead body? Didn't my suicide ever happen according to their perspective?

If we take death - or suicide - as something subjective, there could be a possibility that my dead corpse could be something true for some but for others don't.

Are you claiming that some experiences like death and suicide are dependent upon shared subjective truths to be plausible?

If I kill myself tomorrow, you will probably not notice it. Yet it is obvious that I experienced death, and I am no longer alive, nor did I share this act with you.
Using this example, I ask you: Are the death and suicide good examples of objective truths?

The voice of this woman is very smooth. It gives me a sweet and calm feeling.

My parents have a Sade LP in their home. I love when they play it on.

I don't usually dive into this thread because there are only heated discussions among the members, but:

Did you know that Jesus was a Palestinian? — Moses

Moses, I don't know if you are actually posting using irony. It is clear that Jesus was not a Palestinian. He was a Jew by descent. Jesus was born in Nazareth, a region of Lower Galilee. The etymology of his name comes from the Hebrew: Yehoshua.

Jesus was considered a rabbi, even called the King of the Jews (John 19:21). As a Jew, He observed Passover and the Feast of the Tabernacles (Jon 2:12 and John 7:2), both Jewish traditions.

People trust in science that works and is shown as proven; honest. — PoeticUniverse

Were the scientists who proved and developed the atomic bombs honest?

Yeah, Lisbon looks like a pastel because there are sugar beets there. :up:

@Lionino

Our home irmão.

Spain too? This is simply crazy. — ssu

Yeah, and what actually bothers me is that the public administration is promoting this crap rewarding tax cuts or compensation... Pathetic.

To make matters worse, naturally a student studying his course book from the computer at least here is as costly for the schools as one textbook would be. But the problem is that you then cannot reuse the computer service and you have to pay a new one for a new student. Reshuffling old textbooks isn't allowed! — ssu

Exactly! Another big issue here. Politicians take for granted that most Spanish students have access to computers, but this is a terrible lie. There are families with low incomes (or unemployed) who cannot afford technological devices for their children. Even the continuing cost of maintaining a device which was born to be replaced by another modern one in the future. But, with the aim of keeping promoting the study by using PCs only, textbooks have become expensive goods too.

Can't believe, nowadays, textbooks are less affordable than in my parents' era! And I am referring to the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s...

We went down too, although we always had a very low mark on PISA. What scared me the most is that the level of comprehensive reading is actually very low amongst Spanish students aged 12 - 18. I think this is related to the point of your OP.

We also have recent laws which forbid people to buy or share textbooks and overall all kinds of papers, with the aim of facing climate change.

The long term effects of replacing physical books with 'devices' or audiobooks are devastating. I believe that by doing this, we private thinking and dreaming for ourselves. It is not the same to read a text (each phrase after phrase, carefully attending to each paragraph), than to 'listen' to how this text is read by another person. We limit the art of speaking and dialoguing in our consciousness with ourselves.
By the way, those apps and devices don't help at all, because it decreases the level of attention to whatever. If we are starting to get used to someone reading for us, we will start to be lazy or unconcerned in other areas as well.

College graduates read an average of about six fewer books in 2021 than they did between 2002 and 2016, 14.6 versus 21.1.

And this is another symptom of my generation, so nothing to be surprised about. Most young people tend to prefer to watch TV rather than reading a book. But this is no longer surprising for a generation who was already born with a PC and other devices at home.

What happens to our society when we don't read as many books as we used to? — ssu

People will be easily manipulated, but beyond this, I guess people will become 'conformist' because of the lack of brain training.

The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

Hey, Shiji Ikari.
Welcome to TPF :smile:

We don't need to 'assume' a cause. I think there might not be a cause at all. We try to answer with causes and effects. A does X and the latter causes Y, etc. But, honestly, this only has sense in human knowledge or as an output to us. I don't attempt to deny that a cause is logically necessary in some matters which are outside of us. But I guess we just overreact towards that principle. You claim things don't pop up for no reason. Well, you are a bit wrong here. There are things which pop up without a cause. For example: the stars or the sunlight rays we receive from the sun. You will explain that the cause of receiving the latter is the result of X. But there is not a cause for the Sun to provide us with light every day. It 'pops up' simultaneously.

But in case the point is polemic, much good has come out of Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and so on. Right? — ENOAH

Yes. I agree. I am aware that this is a controversial topic that is easy to criticise.

It is clear to me there are numerous examples of good tgat has come out of Christianity in the broadest sense of the word. Jesus alone. — ENOAH

I couldn't have said it better! :smile:
What a good example, ENOAH. It is a pleasure to find someone who is open-minded regarding this religious topic. Well, apart from religion, I see important ethical values. I learnt this by reading Russian authors or Kazantzakis, not the Bible, ironically.

I agree with the OP. We can criticize terrorism and oppression taking place in the name of Islam. We can criticize "forced" conversion, inquisition and crusades which took place in the name of Christianity. But we cannot criticize Islam or Christianity on those bases. — ENOAH

But the OP didn't make the distinction you did in your post. And that's why I recall I replied looking for more specific criticism towards Christianity, because Alan stated that this religion (or belief) has been - and is -, by nature, negative to its impact on the world. Just look at the examples: the Inquisition and Colonialism. Also, the supposed negative role of religion in education, sexism and oppression towards women, etc.

He didn't mention Bartolomé de las Casas or Francis of Assisi, amongst others, who did good things on behalf of Christianity.

Basically, the point in this OP was to criticise the role of religion and Western European countries for their evilness. You can clearly note that in the replies by Vera Mont.

Hi @Alkis Piskas :smile:

I found a very interesting video of an interview with Kazantzakis. He speaks in French, but fortunately the video has subtitles in both Greek and Spanish. K talks about when he wrote a biography of Francis of Assisi. By that time, K was very sick, but he was inspired by that friar who faced and overcame the sickness once. I think this testimony is heart-warming and worth seeing.

I didn't know K was also a translator! He said to the interviewer that he accepted translation jobs under the Nazi occupation to get food supplies for the people! What a magnificent soul!

I think that if you're not good at maths and logic, I would think that you might not be in a good position to know if this is a valid paradox or just straightforward nonsense — flannel jesus

Okay. Let's leave it at that. Fair enough. I will not continue with posting on this thread.

`despite apparently valid reasoning from true or apparently true premises` - that's key! The premises and steps in reasoning have to make some kind of sense. — flannel jesus

I agree! There has to be at least some kind of sense on the premises. Yet, there are, among these, a large variety of paradoxes of a logical nature. A basic pattern of a paradox is having a way of reasoning. Right?

Well, following the paradox within this OP, we can conclude there is a bit of reasoning. For example: @fishfry used the reason pretty well in this comment: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/898761

He even states:

The staircase problem is called an omega-sequence paradox, a paradox that involves counting 1, 2, 3, ... and doing something at each step, then expecting the behavior to be defined in the limit.

Sadly, I am not good enough at maths and logic, so I can't post valid or interesting comments regarding this paradox. What I try to defend is that what @keystone wrote is actually a paradox. Maybe it has its flaws, or he was inspired by other paradoxes which were quoted in the comments above. But it there is still a paradox.

You described it as endless, and yet claim he reached the end... The "paradox" is just you choosing to invent a story with contradictory concepts. — flannel jesus

As far as I understand about paradoxes, that's precisely what a paradox is about. It is a self-contradictory statement, but arrest our attention. The aim of this thread (or purpose of @keystone) is not to reach a conclusion, but to result in persistent contradiction between interdependent elements: The staircase being endless and reaching the bottom of it in just a minute.

It is clearly a paradox.

To explain this more deeply, @Michael and @noAxioms wrote very interesting posts using maths and logic.

How did Woodpecker (a foetus) sign the petition? — Agree-to-Disagree

An administrator, guardian or legal care taker can sign documents, petitions, papers, etc. in the name of a foetus.

@Noble Dust

Well, I don't know why some would use ChatGPT - or other AI - to proofread a philosophical paper or essay. If I am not wrong, @Fermin wants a review by an expert. I recommend you to try to get in contact with Kelley Ross: Kelley L. Ross, Ph.D. I usually have exchanges with him. He always answers back. Yet I don't know if he will be willing to review your essays. I think it is worth a try, anyway.

On the other hand, regarding the quality of proofreading by ChatGPT, I must say I am disappointed. I am non-native, and I used this AI to proofread the grammar of my posts before posting here. But, what it did, was changing the sense of my text, rather than just checking the grammar. I mean, the AI rewrote all the text...

I agree. Every Dostoevsky novel has a specific ethical and existentialist dilemma. Another good example is Crime and Punishment. There are Christian themes in this novel, but it is notorious the psychological dynamic of how the main character starts behaving with 'rationality' and then, as the pages proceed, he goes with a sense of sordid despair and irrationality. I remember a very good quote from the novel: Am I a victim of circumstances or do I create them? ...

Yet a common topic I find about Dostoevsky is familiar issues. He also puts orphans in his novels. Smerdiakov - an illegitimate son - in The Brothers Karamazov and Nelly (Ieliena) in Injured and Insulted, etc.

I guess this is due to the culture of Russia and one of the basic points of Christianity (which is the family).

let it be. — frank

Sí :up:

It is 4º here — Lionino

Glad to know another user who uses Celsius like me!
When I read posts with Fahrenheit references... hmm... it is very obnoxious to me.