Philosophy Now Forum

theory wrote: ↑Mon May 31, 2021 4:27 pm It is certainly good to intend to improve the world ....

There is hardly are more evil idea than the belief one should attempt to improve the world. The worst evils ever foisted on humanity have been perpetrated by those bent on improving the world. There is nothing wrong with the world. If you are not happy with the world just as it is, no doubt it is you, not the world that has a problem. When you have solved all your own problems and answered all your own questions, then you can worry about your neighbor's, and the world's, "problems."

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Tue Jun 01, 2021 1:44 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Jun 01, 2021 1:51 am "Religion" is actually increasing worldwide...

...err, depends on what you call religion, doesn't it?

Yes, that's one of the variables.

In fact, I would suggest that the West is far, far more "religious" than is often calculated, due to the number of oddball and superstitious beliefs that have proliferated there since "not-God" became more frequent. I know people who will very seriously tell you that God is dead, but astrology is very real, or that Communism will save us all, or that the potential to be gods rests in human beings themselves. More will tell you that they're "spiritual, but not religious." All that is actually very religious, but not conventionally so.

But both Islam and Evangelical Christianity are exploding worldwide. That was not foreseen at all by the "death-of-God" camp, just as the rise of Christianity in China and the Developing World was not foreseen, and just as things like the New Age and what I call "Beatles Buddhism," the phony, Western cyborg of Buddhism and consumerism have burst forth unheralded.

"Religion" is not going anywhere, it seems...and certainly we're not descending into universal Atheism. Something else quite "religious" is going on.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Sun May 30, 2021 4:16 pm Does free will exist?

Yes. More accurately, free wills exist: each person is a free will (a causal agent); no one has free will.

I'm on your side here, but I would not use the term, "free will," which is very deceptive. Human beings are volitional beings which only means whatever they think or do they must consciously choose to think and do. The problem with the, "free will," concept is the implication a human being can just choose to think or do anything without limit or restriction of any kind. Volition is limited by one's intellectual and physical ability, knowledge, and physical possibility. No one can choose what they are incapable of thinking, or have the physical ability to do, or know can be done, or is physically or logically impossible to do.

The important point of volition is not whether one can choose but the fact that a human being cannot consciously do anything without choosing to do it. The whole argument can be reduced to, "if you do anything consciously, you chose to do it," so everyone who questions volition has chosen to ask the question, else they wouldn't have done it, contradicting their own hypothesis.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Sun May 30, 2021 4:16 pm Would it be good to replace the retributive criminal justice system with a system based on the idea that criminals are not responsible for their crimes?

If man is a free will then he self-directs and is self-responsible. The consequences (good and bad) of his choices, and the actions extendin' out of those choices, belong to him. Justice, as redress, is never about repairing a person (or reprogramming a robot [which is all we are if we're not free wills]).

The current American justice system is a poor construct (it's overly complex and inconsistent) but its foundation (man is self-directing and self-responsible) is right on target.

Any so-called justice system devised by human beings (in the belief some individuals are both capable of and have the authority to judge and interfere in others lives) cannot be anything but unjust. Every form of so-called legal justice system must be either penal (punishing evil on the vile theory that two wrongs make a right), or corrective (in the belief that some method can change others and that someone ought to decide what those changes ought to be).

So-called retributive justice is just silly. It would be nice if you could get the burglar to buy his victim all new items to replace what he stole, or the swindler to repay his victims, but if they could raise that kind of money honestly they would not have become thieves in the first place, and it is not possible to restore the life, or health, or well being of another individual once it is taken.

All human justice systems are unjust. ...and cannot be otherwise.

The only aspect of justice that a human being can justly implement is prevention. In most cases that simple means doing everything one can to prevent being a victim.

Although I think it is wrong, there is one kind of system that can prevent some crime (but undoubtedly does as much harm as the crime) which are incarceration and and execution. Those locked up or dead do not commit crimes, but either do slaves, and the problem is, who decides the difference between locking someone up to prevent them from committing a crime or simply because they want to control them?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Jun 01, 2021 2:39 pm "Religion" is not going anywhere, it seems...and certainly we're not descending into universal Atheism. Something else quite "religious" is going on.

I'll go along with your view of religion subsuming all varieties of superstition, but am a little surprise you exclude Atheism. In the past you've argued that Atheism is a religion (which I agree it is). If Atheism is a religion, descending into universal Atheism would just be a different religion, wouldn't it? Aren't all the non-theistic religions and superstitions already, "atheistic?"

Skepdick wrote: ↑Sun May 30, 2021 5:36 pm

simplicity wrote: ↑Sun May 30, 2021 5:21 pm It would be the perfect legal system for the hundreds of millions of adult-children out there who insist, "It's not my fault."

We live in an infinitely complex universe. it's not our fault that we are stupid, ignorant and unable to deal with complexity!

Life is tough. I know it's hard, but life requires you to learn all you possibly can and to think as well as you possibly can and then holds your responsible for how well or poorly you fulfilled the requirements of your existence.

Stamping your foot and insisting all the wrong choices you make are not your fault because the world is just too complex and demanding will not save you from the consequences of your perpetual adolescence. It is your fault!

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Tue Jun 01, 2021 3:18 pm Life is tough. I know it's hard, but life requires you to learn all you possibly can and to think as well as you possibly can and then holds your responsible for how well or poorly you fulfilled the requirements of your existence.

Stamping your foot and insisting all the wrong choices you make are not your fault because the world is just too complex and demanding will not save you from the consequences of your perpetual adolescence. It is your fault!

Shame pumpkin, but this is not about your feelings - no amount of bravado and self-blame is going to dig you out of systemic failures.

When the best possible knowledge and the latest, most complete possible information leads you to make a fatal decision - whose fault is it?

On 26 April 1986, when the Chernobyl operator reached for the "Emergency Abort" button which acted as a detonator instead of a safety switch - was it the operator's fault that Chernobyl blew up?

When the pilots of the Boeing 737 MAX airplane were incorrectly instructed on the aircraft's functionality; when the equipment was providing the pilots with incorrect information. When the incorrect information led the pilots to make bad decisions that resulted in the loss of 300+ human lives. Was it the pilot's fault?

What do you when the best knowledge is insufficient?

Dumb individualist. You can't for the live of you imagine that there's actually situations where your ignorance is actually other people's fault.

You don't know the first damn thing about complex systems.

7. Post-accident attribution to a ‘root cause’ is fundamentally wrong.

Because overt failure requires multiple faults, there is no isolated ‘cause’ of an accident. There are multiple contributors to accidents. Each of these is necessarily insufficient in itself to create an accident. Only jointly are these causes sufficient to create an accident. Indeed, it is the linking of these causes together that creates the circumstances required for the accident. Thus, no isolation of the ‘root cause’ of an accident is possible. The evaluations based on such reasoning as ‘root cause’ do not reflect a technical understanding of the nature of failure but rather the social, cultural need to blame specific, localized forces or events for outcomes.

1. Free will requires a deterministic order for the changes to result from a decision.

2. Determinism requires free will to exist given it is determined that free will is discussed.

3. Free will and determinism coexist.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Jun 01, 2021 12:41 pm

Walker wrote: ↑Tue Jun 01, 2021 7:46 am Possible alternatives are not action

Actually, one of them always is: the alternative that is taken, whichever it is. Meanwhile, the others are actions-that-could-have-been, all of which would have issued in their own particular consequences.

So yeah, they're all actions.

Now, sitting around deliberating might be inaction. But any possibility is an action...or, if you prefer, a potential action.

Think of it like the word "energy." There is kinetic energy, energy in motion, and potential energy, energy "stored," so to speak, or better, latently possible, in the object.

Keeping the context of criminal justice in mind rather than punishing for the infinite possibilities of infinite potentiality that manifest according to all possible elements that comprise any particular confluence of causes guided by an order perceived in part and sometimes in whole by humans such as Solomon ...

Willful disregard of probable/likely consequences through non-action can be proven by the prosecution to be an actionable intent, however when no crime is committed resulting in actual harm to the individual, or when there is no harm to the fabric of society such as that injected by white collar crime, reckless driving without an accident, prostitution or drugs, as determined by laws, then the barn-door opens wide for the activation of a principle of reckless disregard through inaction that would be the basis for punishing say for instance, a medical doctor’s failure to meet a production quota.

Under laissez faire-like social systems such as the intent of the US Constitution that was designed to protect individual rights within the necessary evil of government, this punishment can be meted out by the discretionary authority of a private, for-profit employer saying, You’re Fired! For instance, a medical provider under such systems says to a particular doctor, you’re not seeing enough patients to justify your cost, so sayonara Signor, you’re fired.

However, when the government is the employer of the doctor, then in a Brave New World of totalitarian control that the Left seems so eager to embrace in the USofA, and which in said country under siege is reinforced by and coordinated with both media-complicit propaganda and the social-network shaming of the medical staff, the punishment meted out by the employer for underproduction might well coincide with The Rule of Law, which after it is written under totalitarian control with all possible, ostensible good and well-publicized intent to help the helpless and heal the sick, in effect says: Doc, We direct that thou shalt work until thou drops, and your reward will be according your needs that we define.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Tue Jun 01, 2021 4:14 pm

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Tue Jun 01, 2021 3:18 pm Life is tough. I know it's hard, but life requires you to learn all you possibly can and to think as well as you possibly can and then holds your responsible for how well or poorly you fulfilled the requirements of your existence.

Stamping your foot and insisting all the wrong choices you make are not your fault because the world is just too complex and demanding will not save you from the consequences of your perpetual adolescence. It is your fault!

Shame pumpkin, but this is not about your feelings - no amount of bravado and self-blame is going to dig you out of systemic failures.

When the best possible knowledge and the latest, most complete possible information leads you to make a fatal decision - whose fault is it?

On 26 April 1986, when the Chernobyl operator reached for the "Emergency Abort" button which acted as a detonator instead of a safety switch - was it the operator's fault that Chernobyl blew up?

When the pilots of the Boeing 737 MAX airplane were incorrectly instructed on the aircraft's functionality; when the equipment was providing the pilots with incorrect information. When the incorrect information led the pilots to make bad decisions that resulted in the loss of 300+ human lives. Was it the pilot's fault?

What do you when the best knowledge is insufficient?

Dumb individualist. You can't for the live of you imagine that there's actually situations where your ignorance is actually other people's fault.

You don't know the first damn thing about complex systems.

7. Post-accident attribution to a ‘root cause’ is fundamentally wrong.

Because overt failure requires multiple faults, there is no isolated ‘cause’ of an accident. There are multiple contributors to accidents. Each of these is necessarily insufficient in itself to create an accident. Only jointly are these causes sufficient to create an accident. Indeed, it is the linking of these causes together that creates the circumstances required for the accident. Thus, no isolation of the ‘root cause’ of an accident is possible. The evaluations based on such reasoning as ‘root cause’ do not reflect a technical understanding of the nature of failure but rather the social, cultural need to blame specific, localized forces or events for outcomes.

What you say is a paradox given to observe multiple factors as the source of the problem is to then say the root cause is a set of relations. These set of relations are then isolated under key terms such as "culture", "engineers", etc. One cannot escape the isolation of factors under a root cause.

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Tue Jun 01, 2021 2:02 pm

theory wrote: ↑Mon May 31, 2021 4:27 pm It is certainly good to intend to improve the world ....

There is hardly are more evil idea than the belief one should attempt to improve the world. The worst evils ever foisted on humanity have been perpetrated by those bent on improving the world. There is nothing wrong with the world. If you are not happy with the world just as it is, no doubt it is you, not the world that has a problem. When you have solved all your own problems and answered all your own questions, then you can worry about your neighbor's, and the world's, "problems."

Isn't the intention to improve the world the essence of what practicability may be found in philosophy, because without it, meaningful progress would not be possible?

A saying is 'it starts with the intention'.

According to philosopher Aristotle philosophical contemplation is the greatest human virtue. It is the discovery of 'good' from which value naturally follows (with value being that what 'is' and what is then to be considered 'good').

With regard the reason to accept the 'value' in the world (e.g. 'having a good time') as the meaning of life, which is what you appear to be saying, I would disagree with such a perspective.

When one uses value in the world as "meaning", what will happen when that value is lost? For example, when life may appear unbearable, how will one possibly find motivation to overcome the problems?

Overcoming problems is essential for progress in life. The fight to overcome problems makes humanity stronger. In my opinion, humanity should be driven to the extreme (by culture) to "not give up" and in order to enable success on that regard, it will be important to discover the meaning of life that makes motivation possible BEFORE value.

The simplest departure from pure randomness implies value which is evidence that all that can be seen in the world - from the simplest pattern onward - is value.

The origin of value is necessarily meaningful but cannot be value by the simple logical truth that something cannot originate from itself. This implies that a 'meaning of life' is applicable on a fundamental level (a priori or "before value").

Perhaps when considering the recent study that indicates that all particles in the Universe are 'entangled by kind', which would prove that non-locality is applicable to reality itself, it would imply that philosophy in a pure form can actually be a driving force for human progress. Merely by enhancing knowledge and understanding of the world in which the human as a 'kind' discovers itself, the human kind 'improves'.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Tue Jun 01, 2021 4:14 pm

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Tue Jun 01, 2021 3:18 pm Life is tough. I know it's hard, but life requires you to learn all you possibly can and to think as well as you possibly can and then holds your responsible for how well or poorly you fulfilled the requirements of your existence.

Stamping your foot and insisting all the wrong choices you make are not your fault because the world is just too complex and demanding will not save you from the consequences of your perpetual adolescence. It is your fault!

Shame pumpkin, but this is not about your feelings - no amount of bravado and self-blame is going to dig you out of systemic failures.

When the best possible knowledge and the latest, most complete possible information leads you to make a fatal decision - whose fault is it?

On 26 April 1986, when the Chernobyl operator reached for the "Emergency Abort" button which acted as a detonator instead of a safety switch - was it the operator's fault that Chernobyl blew up?

When the pilots of the Boeing 737 MAX airplane were incorrectly instructed on the aircraft's functionality; when the equipment was providing the pilots with incorrect information. When the incorrect information led the pilots to make bad decisions that resulted in the loss of 300+ human lives. Was it the pilot's fault?

What do you when the best knowledge is insufficient?

Dumb individualist. You can't for the live of you imagine that there's actually situations where your ignorance is actually other people's fault.

You don't know the first damn thing about complex systems.

7. Post-accident attribution to a ‘root cause’ is fundamentally wrong.

Because overt failure requires multiple faults, there is no isolated ‘cause’ of an accident. There are multiple contributors to accidents. Each of these is necessarily insufficient in itself to create an accident. Only jointly are these causes sufficient to create an accident. Indeed, it is the linking of these causes together that creates the circumstances required for the accident. Thus, no isolation of the ‘root cause’ of an accident is possible. The evaluations based on such reasoning as ‘root cause’ do not reflect a technical understanding of the nature of failure but rather the social, cultural need to blame specific, localized forces or events for outcomes.

You do go on. Thanks for the entertaining irrelevancies.

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Tue Jun 01, 2021 2:45 pmSo-called retributive justice is just silly. It would be nice if you could get the burglar to buy his victim all new items to replace what he stole, or the swindler to repay his victims, but if they could raise that kind of money honestly they would not have become thieves in the first place, and it is not possible to restore the life, or health, or well being of another individual once it is taken.

All human justice systems are unjust. ...and cannot be otherwise.

The only aspect of justice that a human being can justly implement is prevention. In most cases that simple means doing everything one can to prevent being a victim.

Your reasoning seems plausible from a pure value (i.e. what 'is') perspective, e.g. it would be best to prevent a burglar from ever being able to enter a home so to prevent damage, however, when it concerns the intention to prevent crime within the scope of human interaction one derives at fear and suspicion based prevention and at question would be whether it would be good to use such factors for crime prevention.

It is important to keep in mind that the root of the idea of replacing retributive justice is free will skepticism, the idea that people are not responsible for their crimes, and thus, that one should look at a science to 'know' why someone commits a crime.

An example could be a child with a certain path in life of which it is considered based on diverse assumptions that he/she will commit crime or becomes addicted to drugs later in life, and is then subjected to preventive treatment or other measures, such as altered privileges and opportunities in life.

Psychiatry in the Netherlands has been very successful in presenting children that are labeled with 'ADHD' as a group of people that become criminal, addicted to drugs, that smoke, become homeless, are bad performers and more. They have done so with an almost continuous stream of publications in news papers, on the basis of questionable studies. On the basis of their perpetually established 'dogma' about people who receive the label 'ADHD' real assumptions are then being made about a 5 year old child, in which the child is almost considered as a potential criminal/drugs addict merely for having received a label, at 5 years of age.

An example:

Psychiatrist wrote:“Saying that ADD has benefits is a bridge too far, I think.” responds the Antwerp child psychiatrist Hans Hellemans. “Russel Barkley, the American ADHD authority, has investigated that. His conclusion was also that there are hardly any benefits.”

Albert Einstein was kicked out of school and was refused at the University Zurich Polytechnic. He was described by teachers as mentally slow, not social and absent in his own stupid dreams. He did not speak a word until he was 4 years old and could not read until he was 7 years old.

Albert Einstein's behaviour as a child may be perceived as morally reprehensible by many and a reason for preventive measures but in his time he was merely kicked out of school and otherwise accepted as he was, which enabled him to develop into a genius that contributed to human existence like few others may have could.

The story of Jabob Barnett from Indiana, USA shows a similar story. Psychiatrists told his mother that he would probably never be able to tie his own shoes because of his mental illness. His mother didn't accept the generally accepted disease perspective and instead, decided to let her son be himself. His mother decided to educate her son at home and at 14 years old his IQ was estimated at 170, higher then that of Albert Einstein.

The Spark: A Mother's Story of Nurturing, Genius, and Autism
https://www.amazon.com/Spark-Mothers-Nu ... B009QJMV8A

In 2012 Jacob attended a TED talk in which he explained that any normal child can become a genius, by 'thinking differently'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq-FOOQ1TpE

theory wrote: ↑Tue Jun 01, 2021 7:59 pm

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Tue Jun 01, 2021 2:02 pm

theory wrote: ↑Mon May 31, 2021 4:27 pm It is certainly good to intend to improve the world ....

There is hardly are more evil idea than the belief one should attempt to improve the world. The worst evils ever foisted on humanity have been perpetrated by those bent on improving the world. There is nothing wrong with the world. If you are not happy with the world just as it is, no doubt it is you, not the world that has a problem. When you have solved all your own problems and answered all your own questions, then you can worry about your neighbor's, and the world's, "problems."

Isn't the intention to improve the world the essence of what practicability may be found in philosophy, because without it, meaningful progress would not be possible?

I have no idea what you mean by progress, which is one those words by which almost anything can be put over. The only progress that matters is that which increases individual human knowledge and that can only be achieved by individuals.

In the entire history of the world every advance in civilization, every gain in knowledge, and every improvement in the human condition has come solely through the efforts of independent individualists.

The purpose of knowledge is not to improve, save, or redeem society, the world, or mankind, but for individuals to know how to live successfully in this world and solve all their own individual problems. When every individual chooses to learn all they can and work to be and achieve all they can, there will be no world or social problems.

Every social/political scheme to make the world a nice one is an attempt to have what reality does not make possible--the unearned and undeserved. There is only one individual in this word whose life you can improve, your own.

RCSaunders wrote: ↑Tue Jun 01, 2021 3:06 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Jun 01, 2021 2:39 pm "Religion" is not going anywhere, it seems...and certainly we're not descending into universal Atheism. Something else quite "religious" is going on.

I'll go along with your view of religion subsuming all varieties of superstition, but am a little surprise you exclude Atheism.

I wouldn't. But they absolutely insist they're not religious. So I can be polite, or I can be precise. You rightly chide me for opting for the former instead of the latter, perhaps.

In the past you've argued that Atheism is a religion (which I agree it is). If Atheism is a religion, descending into universal Atheism would just be a different religion, wouldn't it? Aren't all the non-theistic religions and superstitions already, "atheistic?"

I wouldn't say so. Buddhism, for example, is highly religious, if we go to an actual Buddhist country instead of taking Western Beatles Buddhism as the exemplar. But even that, I would say was the expression of a religious longing. What often happens to Atheists is that they end up worshipping at a new shrine...Humanism, Socialism, or some other "-ism" they will swear to you has none of the religious in it, but is actually corresponding to the same longings for meaning, purpose, moral direction, and existential peace that others look to conventional religion to provide.

Atheism, pure atheism, is really a gelding. It has nothing at all to offer the world except its petulant insistence that nothing will induce it to consider the possibility of the existence of God. Beyond that, it's got nothing. So maybe that kind of Atheism is "non-religious": but most cannot stand its vacuousness, and have to tack on some superstition or ideology to supply what pure Atheism cannot.

theory wrote: ↑Tue Jun 01, 2021 9:14 pm It is important to keep in mind that the root of the idea of replacing retributive justice is free will skepticism, the idea that people are not responsible for their crimes, and thus, that one should look at a science to 'know' why someone commits a crime.

...

Psychiatry in the Netherlands has been very successful in presenting children that are labeled with 'ADHD' as a group of people that become criminal, addicted to drugs, that smoke, become homeless, are bad performers and more.

A source:

Psychiatrists: 'ADHD can lead to criminal behavior'
There is a link between ADHD and criminal behavior. About 35 percent of all inmates are said to suffer from the illness ADHD. About 10 percent of ADHD diagnosed adults would end up in crime and a larger group commits milder forms of antisocial behaviour, such as driving under the influence or excessive speed.
https://www.nieuwsblad.be/cnt/8422tafm

Imagine such news in a continuous stream (including in local regional news papers), often on the cover with big headlines, which includes a link with 'smoking', 'drugs addiction', 'homelessness', 'anti-social behavior' and many more social problems. (I used 'Google Alerts' to follow news streams from a broad and pretty complete perspective, as part of a critical blog)

When a child receives the label, he/she will be required to prove his/her innocence against the heavy stigmatization that is attached to the label.

When it concerns an attempt to prevent crime based on the idea that criminals are not responsible for their crimes, it may be logical that measures will be targeted at young children that received a label linked to crime.

What other types of preventive measures would be possible? There would need to be a scientific justification for any attempt, which on a human-level is to be found in psychiatry, and thus in its labels of which it is assumed that they are objective (psychopathology).

Psychopathology is based on causality and thus in a pure form it is grounded in free will skepticism.

If psychiatry is really (really?) a branch of medicine, we should see the specific causal hypotheses emerge about mechanisms that cause the symptoms of mental illness. Psychopathology is to be identified as the departure of a psychological system from its proper state.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/psychiatry/

What if free will skepticism and thus psychiatry's psychopathology is wrong? Note the use of 'really' in the Stanford reference on philosophy of psychiatry, which implies that it is not considered to be certain that psychopathology is valid or even justified as a theoretical concept.

If preventive measures would have been applied to Albert Einstein as a 5 year old child, it may have resulted in great damage in retro-perspective from a future that was never reached.