Philosophy Now Forum

Lacewing wrote: ↑Fri Feb 10, 2023 2:13 am

Dubious wrote: ↑Thu Feb 09, 2023 9:22 pm I can't imagine anyone shouting Allah Akbar while they're digging for bodies and finding most of them dead.

I guess delusion helps people cope with life. Unfortunately, it may hurt more than it helps.

When people realise there is no hope only cope, then perhaps they will develop a stomach to endure. Endurance has been known to exist here, else existence wouldn't be happening at all, if that be the case.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Thu Feb 09, 2023 9:12 pm Death Toll in Turkey and Syria Surpasses 21,000
The earthquake also left hundreds of thousands homeless in subfreezing temperatures. NYT

Note to the Christian/Muslim/Jewish God:

Okay, okay, enough is enough!!

Imagine the agony of giving birth under piles of your own house rubble in freezing conditions, unaided, no epidural, not even knowing whether you or your baby were going to survive the ordeal. Horrific thought, and those people caught up in all of this, could have been you. Yes, this could have happened to you. I can't even deal with the thought, it's so hard to enjoy my own luxury of knowing this time I was not the one caught up in this awful situation. Also, what good did worshipping God, and knowing God through devotion to Christ's teachings do for those people who had their lives ripped from them in such tragic conditions....the whole idea of devotion to a Loving God, is totally flawed.

Life is brutal, it cares not for you while you walk precariously across the tightrope over the pit of doom. We are only here waiting for the next bad thing to happen. And only when nothing bad is happening, that's the only time being here, is ever good. And that's all that is going on here on earth as it is in hell, in my opinion.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Fri Feb 10, 2023 2:17 am

Dubious wrote: ↑Thu Feb 09, 2023 9:22 pm I can't imagine anyone shouting Allah Akbar while they're digging for bodies and finding most of them dead. In any case, the extent of the destruction has more to do with the government's acceptance of corruption in the building codes than consistently pointing the finger at a non-existent god.

If God is non-existent, then, I suppose you are right about it being silly to point a finger at a God, hands down. But there's a lot of lip service given to the idea of there being a God that seems very significant and remarkable. Now maybe it isn't the God of the Bible. I'm more inclined to believe the Bible is someone's particular false belief than to think that God is the character we must understand him/her to be from the Bible: a jealous god, a god who punishes nearly all of humanity with death in a flood, or a god who decided to pick one small group of people to present himself to and not the whole of humanity. If there IS a God, then there must be some reasonable explanation for why s/he has created the world to be so harsh against living beings. If there's NOT a God, then knock on wood (a lot), I hope it's in the random cards for humanity to continue existing and do so in some kind of state of relative happiness and prosperity.

I agree completely especially with the last sentence. Whether there be a god or not no group was chosen to be god's special project or agent. That idea is beyond ludicrous! We are on our own and whatever decisions we make, in pleasure or in pain, will collectively determine our future; that's how I see it and how history records it. No human action, no matter how gross, or other natural events were ever curtailed by divine providence or interference. When it comes to conscience, there is no god to be found with those credentials. When I think of god, I think of it as a process, not as an entity; only then does reality, in spite of all its perversity begin to make sense.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Feb 09, 2023 3:58 pmThis is the crux of the criterion problem in epistemology: You have absolutely no idea what would convince you of anything. About anything.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Mon Feb 06, 2023 12:16 pmSocratizing the Socratizers

doesn't work.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Feb 09, 2023 3:58 pmBut you want me to figure it out.

You're a bit late. Socrates figured it out over two thousand years ago.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Feb 09, 2023 3:58 pmIn the spirit of "avoiding stupidity is much easier than seeking briliance" - I refuse to play the game on your idiotic terms

You've gone from this:

Skepdick wrote: ↑Sun Jan 29, 2023 9:07 amYou are supposed to shut the fuck up...

to this:

Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Feb 09, 2023 3:58 pm

Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Feb 09, 2023 3:58 pmSo lets wrap this up...the reason I think you are an idiot is because you think you know what it means to be "smart". But if you can't even define the criteria for smartness, all you'll ever do is keep falling into tautologies and circularities. Like every idiot who thinks in words instead of outcomes.

Like all good Socratizers, I work with criteria that change according to how outcomes match those criteria. You have your moments, but not much of your outcome matches any criteria for smartness that I work with.

tillingborn wrote: ↑Fri Feb 10, 2023 10:59 am

Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Feb 09, 2023 3:58 pmThis is the crux of the criterion problem in epistemology: You have absolutely no idea what would convince you of anything. About anything.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Mon Feb 06, 2023 12:16 pmSocratizing the Socratizers

doesn't work.

You don't seem to have any criteria for success or failure, so maybe you meant to say "it neither works nor doesn't work."

tillingborn wrote: ↑Fri Feb 10, 2023 10:59 am You're a bit late. Socrates figured it out over two thousand years ago.

You seem to be idolising a man who didn't even know his own name.

Not very smart...

tillingborn wrote: ↑Fri Feb 10, 2023 10:59 am Like all good Socratizers, I work with criteria that change according to how outcomes match those criteria.

So make up your mind then! In context of changing criteria and changing outcomes does Socratizing actually work? You sure seem to think so otherwise you wouldn't be doing it.

Of course, in your state of mental muddle you probably can't tell us why Socratizing works but Socratizing Socratizers doesn't.

Then again, what the hell do I know? It's not like function self-application has anything to do with computer science. Oh wait... that's how recursion works!

tillingborn wrote: ↑Fri Feb 10, 2023 10:59 am You have your moments, but not much of your outcome matches any criteria for smartness that I work with.

Hey look, having some moments is way better than having no moments.

If you had any criteria for "smartness" you would've told us what those are by now. It's far more likely (given how much you like sucking Socrates' cock) that you don't actually know what your criteria are. Which is the same as saying that you don't have any.

Naturally. You simply aren't smart enough to have coherent and explicit criteria for smartness.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Fri Feb 10, 2023 11:13 am(given how much you like sucking Socrates' cock)

Not as much as you:

Skepdick wrote: ↑Mon Feb 06, 2023 12:16 pmI think Socratizing the Socratizers is far more fitting as means to "unwind".

Skepdick wrote: ↑Fri Feb 10, 2023 11:13 amNaturally. You simply aren't smart enough to have coherent and explicit criteria for smartness.

Is it beyond you to realise that to work with criteria that change according to how outcomes match those criteria means I don't need explicit criteria?

tillingborn wrote: ↑Fri Feb 10, 2023 3:07 pm

Skepdick wrote: ↑Fri Feb 10, 2023 11:13 am(given how much you like sucking Socrates' cock)

Not as much as you:

Skepdick wrote: ↑Mon Feb 06, 2023 12:16 pmI think Socratizing the Socratizers is far more fitting as means to "unwind".

See, you aren't even smart enough to realise I am mocking, not admiring Socrates (and his idiot-followers).

tillingborn wrote: ↑Fri Feb 10, 2023 3:07 pm

Skepdick wrote: ↑Fri Feb 10, 2023 11:13 amNaturally. You simply aren't smart enough to have coherent and explicit criteria for smartness.

Is it beyond you to realise that to work with criteria that change according to how outcomes match those criteria means I don't need explicit criteria?

In my domain that's just called incompetence.

You have absolutely no idea where you are going; or how to tell that you've arrived.

Dubious wrote: ↑Fri Feb 10, 2023 9:56 am Whether there be a god or not no group was chosen to be god's special project or agent. That idea is beyond ludicrous! We are on our own and whatever decisions we make, in pleasure or in pain, will collectively determine our future; that's how I see it and how history records it. No human action, no matter how gross, or other natural events were ever curtailed by divine providence or interference. When it comes to conscience, there is no god to be found with those credentials. When I think of god, I think of it as a process, not as an entity; only then does reality, in spite of all its perversity begin to make sense.

Nicely said!

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-ea ... 023-02-10/

Here's another thing to ponder...

Okay, God created Earth such that earthquakes -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_earthquakes -- happen over and over and over again. Not only that but in being omnipotent, He can stop this at any time. But He doesn't.

So, if earthquakes are what God wants, who are we to intervene and try to reduce the pain and suffering? How is that not going against God's will? It's God who has inflicted this pain and suffering, right?

Like those Christians who refuse to take their kids to the hospital because they insist that God's will be done.

Or is this all just entertainment to Him?

Iambiguous writes: Like those Christians who refuse to take their kids to the hospital because they insist that God's will be done.

Or is this all just entertainment to Him?

True it is that no one of us can ‘define god’. Each of us here has lost that capacity. Possibly I have more theological tendency, and faith of a sort, that those overtly atheistic. But I too am in the same boat. The god-idea is rather incomprehensible to me.

But I will say that you, Iambiguous, are failing to take into account that Christian metaphysics and Vedic metaphysics are explanatory systems. And the first explanation has to do with why we are here in this manifest plane. That explanation is essential and without it the System itself (what worship is) makes no sense.

So why according to Christianity are we in this tragic world? Why is the world deadly and painful? That question has to be answered first and the answer provides an orientation to make sense of destruction and chaos.

Obviously it is The Fall that is the reason.

In the Vedas the ‘earth sphere’ is also explained. We who are here have chosen material incarnation. But we’ve also chosen all attendant circumstances. According to that metaphysic we have to tire of our choice to be in such a plane. We have to study disincarnation: reversing the choice we made. It is an internal, spiritual choice. But unraveling our addiction — again I am reciting what Vedanta believes — is a slow, difficult process.

We are in ‘god’s external energy’ but need to resolve to get to ‘god’s internal energy’. The external energy is deadly in degrees of intensity. We are in a relatively ‘pleasant’ world. But there are others lower and more deadly, higher and more livable.

But the real core is god’s internal energy.

Now, do I believe this? Experience has indicated it is likely something like that. But that’s just a subjective intuition.

The problem with the total rejection of metaphysics is that without an overarching Vision we are really trapped in this sphere. Dubious can explain nothing further. You seem stuck in the post-Christian problem. Lacewing has no other interest but her lived moment. And Gary is similarly ‘trapped’ in a senseless, absurdly painful (dreary) existence that he must blame on ‘someone’. i could make other encapsulating statements about others here too.

We are all in similar boats.

And The World itself (the sum total of human entity) is revving up — isn’t it? — for disasters predicted prophetically but also in dystopian vision. And those lines begin to manifest.

It does not look like this ends well, does it?

My impression is that you-we are quite good at dismantling what is presented as *our enemy Christianity* but without understanding that globally it is expanding, not diminishing. But for us it collapsed.

Yet there is nothing on the horizon for us.

A curious state of affairs.

Now, and with that said, I do offer hope. You have to really look — I mean really — but the dance of the Red Capped Manikin holds a clue.

Not convinced?!?

Oh ye of little faith . . .

Skepdick wrote: ↑Fri Feb 10, 2023 3:39 pm

tillingborn wrote: ↑Fri Feb 10, 2023 3:07 pm

Skepdick wrote: ↑Fri Feb 10, 2023 11:13 am(given how much you like sucking Socrates' cock)

Not as much as you:

Skepdick wrote: ↑Mon Feb 06, 2023 12:16 pmI think Socratizing the Socratizers is far more fitting as means to "unwind".

See, you aren't even smart enough to realise I am mocking, not admiring Socrates (and his idiot-followers).

Too good a joke to pass up. You'd know that if you had any wit.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Fri Feb 10, 2023 3:39 pm

tillingborn wrote: ↑Fri Feb 10, 2023 3:07 pm

Skepdick wrote: ↑Fri Feb 10, 2023 11:13 amNaturally. You simply aren't smart enough to have coherent and explicit criteria for smartness.

Is it beyond you to realise that to work with criteria that change according to how outcomes match those criteria means I don't need explicit criteria?

In my domain that's just called incompetence.

That does surprise me. I would have thought any domain would have the flexibility to adapt or abandon even coherent and explicit criteria if their use doesn't produce the desired outcome. Maybe prayer, but anywhere else that's called learning.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Fri Feb 10, 2023 3:39 pmYou have absolutely no idea where you are going; or how to tell that you've arrived.

Poor me. Never mind.

tillingborn wrote: ↑Sat Feb 11, 2023 4:59 am

Skepdick wrote: ↑Fri Feb 10, 2023 3:39 pm

tillingborn wrote: ↑Fri Feb 10, 2023 3:07 pm
Not as much as you:

See, you aren't even smart enough to realise I am mocking, not admiring Socrates (and his idiot-followers).

Too good a joke to pass up. You'd know that if you had any wit.

Looks like I have to explain the joke to you, but disecting humor is a bit like disecting a frog... it's dead now.

tillingborn wrote: ↑Sat Feb 11, 2023 4:59 am

Skepdick wrote: ↑Fri Feb 10, 2023 3:39 pm

tillingborn wrote: ↑Fri Feb 10, 2023 3:07 pm Is it beyond you to realise that to work with criteria that change according to how outcomes match those criteria means I don't need explicit criteria?

In my domain that's just called incompetence.

That does surprise me.

Ah good! Because susprise is a measure of new information. That is called learning.

I guess we could say that you've just learned that you are incompetent.

tillingborn wrote: ↑Sat Feb 11, 2023 4:59 am I would have thought any domain would have the flexibility to adapt or abandon even coherent and explicit criteria if their use doesn't produce the desired outcome.

And I would've thought one's explicit criteria would precisely coincide with one's desired outcome. Unless... you don't know what your desired outcome is?

It looks like I am repeating myself.

tillingborn wrote: ↑Sat Feb 11, 2023 4:59 am Maybe prayer, but anywhere else that's called learning.

See! Despite your best efforts at disagreement, you do, infact agree with me then!

You are still in the process of learning what your desired outcome is. Because you don't know!

tillingborn wrote: ↑Sat Feb 11, 2023 4:59 am

Skepdick wrote: ↑Fri Feb 10, 2023 3:39 pmYou have absolutely no idea where you are going; or how to tell that you've arrived.

Poor me. Never mind.

It is a cause for concern indeed.

It's how most people lose themselves in philosophy. The eternal search for "We don't know what we are looking for."

Skepdick: HOW will you know when you find it?
Philosophers: We will know!!!
Skepdick: Yes, but HOW will... arghh. Fuck it.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Sat Feb 11, 2023 6:21 am
It's how most people lose themselves in philosophy. The eternal search for "We don't know what we are looking for."

We already are what we are looking for.

What exactly are we, but an idea. What is an idea? I've no idea.

Philosophers are tail chasers, like snakes.

The snake eating its own tail simply represents the recreation of life through death by the Universe.

The meaning of life is to die.