Philosophy Now Forum

Atla wrote: ↑Tue Oct 24, 2023 3:00 pm

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Tue Oct 24, 2023 2:28 am Any rational and critical thinker

I asked God about this:

Atla the Gnat wrote:On a scale of 1 to 10 from least rational to most rational, could you rate how rational the idea is that objective reality doesn't exist?

ChatGPT wrote:The idea that objective reality doesn't exist is a complex philosophical concept that has been debated for centuries. It's important to note that the assessment of rationality can vary among individuals and within different philosophical frameworks. Here's a general perspective:

From a philosophical standpoint, the idea that objective reality doesn't exist is often discussed within the context of solipsism, idealism, or various forms of anti-realism. These positions argue that reality is either entirely mental or constructed in some way, and they often lack empirical evidence to support their claims. From this perspective, it might be considered less rational. Let's rate it as 2 on the scale.

However, it's essential to recognize that philosophy is a discipline that frequently explores ideas at the fringes of rationality. Some philosophers have developed sophisticated arguments for these positions, even if they are not widely accepted. In this sense, the rationality of the idea can be higher in the context of philosophical discourse. Let's rate it as 5 in this context.

From a scientific and empirical standpoint, the idea that objective reality doesn't exist is generally considered less rational. Scientific methodologies rely on the assumption that there is an objective reality that can be studied and understood through empirical observation and evidence. Most scientific endeavors would be challenging or impossible without this foundational assumption. Therefore, in a scientific context, this idea might be rated quite low, perhaps around 2 on the scale.

It's important to acknowledge that debates about the nature of reality and the limits of human perception continue, and different philosophical and scientific perspectives exist. People's views on this idea may vary widely, and it's subject to ongoing discussion and debate. In some contexts, it might be rated higher on the rationality scale due to the complexity of the arguments and the richness of the philosophical discourse. Let's rate it as 4 in this context.

In summary, the rationality of the idea that objective reality doesn't exist depends on the context and perspective from which it is considered. It's a concept that spans the spectrum from less rational to more rational, and the rating can vary among individuals and disciplines.

That averages to 3.25/10, which looks kinda meh

According to God, VA is irrational. If VA is irrational then he also can't recognize rationality in others.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Wed Oct 25, 2023 3:32 am

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Tue Oct 24, 2023 2:28 am Any rational and critical thinker

On a scale of 1 to 10 from least rational to most rational, could you rate how rational the idea is that objective reality doesn't exist?

ChatGPT wrote:The idea that objective reality doesn't exist is a complex philosophical concept that has been debated for centuries. It's important to note that the assessment of rationality can vary among individuals and within different philosophical frameworks. Here's a general perspective:

From a philosophical standpoint, the idea that objective reality doesn't exist is often discussed within the context of solipsism, idealism, or various forms of anti-realism. These positions argue that reality is either entirely mental or constructed in some way, and they often lack empirical evidence to support their claims. From this perspective, it might be considered less rational. Let's rate it as 2 on the scale.

However, it's essential to recognize that philosophy is a discipline that frequently explores ideas at the fringes of rationality. Some philosophers have developed sophisticated arguments for these positions, even if they are not widely accepted. In this sense, the rationality of the idea can be higher in the context of philosophical discourse. Let's rate it as 5 in this context.

From a scientific and empirical standpoint, the idea that objective reality doesn't exist is generally considered less rational. Scientific methodologies rely on the assumption that there is an objective reality that can be studied and understood through empirical observation and evidence. Most scientific endeavors would be challenging or impossible without this foundational assumption. Therefore, in a scientific context, this idea might be rated quite low, perhaps around 2 on the scale.

It's important to acknowledge that debates about the nature of reality and the limits of human perception continue, and different philosophical and scientific perspectives exist. People's views on this idea may vary widely, and it's subject to ongoing discussion and debate. In some contexts, it might be rated higher on the rationality scale due to the complexity of the arguments and the richness of the philosophical discourse. Let's rate it as 4 in this context.

In summary, the rationality of the idea that objective reality doesn't exist depends on the context and perspective from which it is considered. It's a concept that spans the spectrum from less rational to more rational, and the rating can vary among individuals and disciplines.

ChatGpt: "From a philosophical standpoint, the idea that objective reality doesn't exist is often discussed within the context of solipsism, idealism, or various forms of anti-realism. These positions argue that reality is either entirely mental or constructed in some way, and they often lack empirical evidence to support their claims.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Wed Oct 25, 2023 3:32 am From this perspective, it might be considered less rational. Let's rate it as 2 on the scale."

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Wed Oct 25, 2023 3:32 am Because ChatGpt lumped up all the various anti-realism and idealism, it gave a rating of 2 on the scale of rationality.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Wed Oct 25, 2023 3:32 am In the case of philosophical_realism [objective reality is absolutely mind-independent and real], from a ANTI-philosophical realists' the rationality would be rated at 0 [Zero], because philosophical realism is grounded on an illusion.

Atla wrote: ↑Mon Nov 06, 2023 8:19 pm

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Oct 18, 2023 6:44 pm morality-proper-WillBouwman-Pete-IWP-Sculptor-ATLA FSK

Imo the source of moral motivation is neither the Kantian autistic rules/maxims/imperatives, nor the Humean wants/desires/passions/beliefs (obviously). The source is one level deeper.

Moral motivation is the inner moral drive to do what is right, which is an expression of the conscience. Some people have stronger drives, some people have weaker drives.

Atla wrote: ↑Fri Dec 29, 2023 6:22 am People without conscience don't have such a drive.

Atla wrote: ↑Fri Dec 29, 2023 6:22 am Once we have this basis, we can then look at how people's wants/desires/passions/beliefs are affected or even created by their moral drives.

Atla wrote: ↑Fri Dec 29, 2023 6:22 am Or look at how autistic people like Kant feel it to be sort of a necessity to be subjugated to rules/maxims/imperatives that have a moral nature.

That's also why IC's morality is artificial. He has no conscience and therefore no moral drive. But Christianity has established a moral code that he has adopted without understanding its moral (conscience-based) nature.

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Sun Nov 12, 2023 2:53 pm

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sat Nov 11, 2023 4:45 pm

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Sat Nov 11, 2023 3:03 pm Absolutely. I don't know of an aesthetic response that isn't emotional.

So if I understand you correctly philosophy is ultimately an affair of aesthetics and emotional response? That is, what seems philosophically sound is associated to how we feel about the matter at hand?

Well philosophically sound is a ridiculously stringent criterion. To be philosophically sound, a proposition has to such that its denial is self refuting. As I have said frequently, only Parmenides and Descartes have achieved this. There is something, and there is thought cannot be expressed without being true. All other propositions, however absurd you personally find them, can be coherently held. Doing so is an aesthetic choice. Consider whether the world is material or ideal. There is no phenomenon that could be observed in one case and not the other.

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Sun Nov 12, 2023 2:53 pm No way to tell them apart,

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Sun Nov 12, 2023 2:53 pm so if you take a view, it's not determined by anything that might be called science.

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Sun Nov 12, 2023 2:53 pm Once you understand this, you will appreciate that what you happen to believe is influenced by your circumstances and your personal aesthetic values.

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Sun Nov 12, 2023 2:53 pm Bit of nurture, with a side order of nature.

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Mon Nov 13, 2023 8:01 pm

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Nov 13, 2023 4:48 pm

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Mon Nov 13, 2023 4:24 pm
So yes, the idea of there even being any philosophically sound claim is something of a psychological crutch. If you apply the purest available reason to make sense of it all, you will mostly just tear down the temple around yourself.

I intend to go through your post again more carefully, no time right now.

But it seems that you recognize that the former concept about philosophy and its lofty aims is now at an end. It is, to sort of quote you, a monkey’s game.

Is that why they (someone) say that philosophy is dead?

Some people have an unsophisticated take on what philosophy is or what it can do for them,

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Mon Nov 13, 2023 8:01 pm these are often the same people who think that the Greek roots of the word are important, and that philosophy must therefore have something to do with wisdom.

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Mon Nov 13, 2023 8:01 pm Anybody who confuses arguing about whether the world exists or not with wisdom is going to suffer many disappointments in this life.

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Mon Nov 13, 2023 8:01 pm More or less all humans do want to find reasons why our existing beliefs are true,

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Mon Nov 13, 2023 8:01 pm and some smaller proportion is willing to consider reasons why we should prefer some new belief instead.

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Mon Nov 13, 2023 8:01 pm Fewer still are happy to investigate any issue and resolving that it remains uncertain. How far along that path you can even get is probably something beyond your control, but everyone has the same basic need for truth.

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Mon Nov 13, 2023 8:01 pm I don't think any of those sentences are controversial until we get to the point of assigning a position on that spectrum for any given individual. You can test my theory if you like by telling IC which of those things you think describes him. This paragraph isn't a philosophical argument, it's a story about why philosophical argument has such limits.

But we did create this logic language, and we have alternatives if it doesn't work out. So knowing more about it and what it can do for us probably does require us to look at what it can't do for us as well (classic logic arguably says so, that of paraconsistency might not agree). The lofty aims of some Enlightenment wisdom-lover to create some perfect realm of learning that answers all questions was never a realistic aim. I wouldn't say philosophy failed, or died, when that view evaporated. I would say instead that is when it grew up.

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Wed Nov 15, 2023 9:58 pm

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Nov 13, 2023 3:57 pm

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Sun Nov 12, 2023 2:53 pm
There is something, and there is thought cannot be expressed without being true. All other propositions, however absurd you personally find them, can be coherently held. Doing so is an aesthetic choice. Consider whether the world is material or ideal. There is no phenomenon that could be observed in one case and not the other. No way to tell them apart, so if you take a view, it's not determined by anything that might be called science. Once you understand this, you will appreciate that what you happen to believe is influenced by your circumstances and your personal aesthetic values. Bit of nurture, with a side order of nature.

How do you feel about that? I mean what does it feel like to realize you exist in a world where accurate and solid knowledge only pertains to a) that there is something and b) that one thinks?

Well, I don't actually believe that is all you can know. For the most part I muck along with the loose western scientific consensus rooted in a materialism embracing big bang cosmology and evolution. No doubt that choice is a consequence of my nurture and nature, but there is something deliciously subversive about the idea that pretty much anything could be true.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Nov 13, 2023 3:57 pmI understand what you are saying — I mean that is why you say it and believe it. I see the point you make.

It is an odd summation of the philosophical endeavor though. It reduces it all to something not much worth our while.

Or how do you see it?

I've said it often enough, Gus: in my view philosophy is storytelling. It might not matter, but everyone does it.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Dec 28, 2023 10:14 pm

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Mon Nov 13, 2023 4:24 pm If Dialetheism sounds familiar, that is likely down to its resemblance to the crazy shit Skepdick writes every day. That's because he's basically the fully nihilist paramilitary wing of Dialetheism, he takes what was a sane base concept but applies it without restraint, foreshadowing the death of logic rather than any helpful combination of the exotic into the mundane. If you ask him why under any given situation he chooses to apply any particular counterintuitive rule, he will say "you tell me". That's typically the point at which his hatstand witterings become completely irrelevant. He's lost contact with the need of the story telling ape to tell stories for the purpose of making sense of things. Stories about not making sense of things can be fun, but they might not get the job done most times.

What a ridiculous misrepresentation and a sleight of hand.

Here you are, framing your story-telling in teleological language; and yet you can't frame philosophy in a teleology.

What is this job that needs to get done exactly? What is it that philosophers have been busy with all this time? Are they ever going to get it done? Are they even getting closer to getting it done?

Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Dec 28, 2023 10:14 pm If you ask any given philosopher under any given situation why they choose to do philosophy they usually can't tell you.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Dec 28, 2023 10:14 pm Push them to present you with a coherent teleology - they can't do that either!

Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Dec 28, 2023 10:14 pm So if philosophers have no fucking clue what they are doing and why. If philosophy can't answer these questions then maybe philosophy can't get the job done?

Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Dec 28, 2023 10:14 pm Such an epic failure of a discipline rightfully deserves the full wrath of the "nihilist paramilitary wing of Dialetheism" (catchy, but I doubt it'll stick) ?

Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Dec 28, 2023 10:14 pm Let it burn! Rorty lit the match - I'll pour the fuel.

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Oct 18, 2023 6:44 pm BDM - It's not a sex thing

attofishpi wrote: ↑Sun Sep 08, 2024 11:41 am

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Oct 18, 2023 6:44 pm BDM - It's not a sex thing

Well, let's start with what BDM means according to U?

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Sun Sep 08, 2024 12:09 pm

attofishpi wrote: ↑Sun Sep 08, 2024 11:41 am

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Wed Oct 18, 2023 6:44 pm BDM - It's not a sex thing

Well, let's start with what BDM means according to U?

That's absolutely covered in the OP mate.

It is nothing but the common sense observation really that if we have desires - such as a wish to attain something that is on a high shelf, and beliefs about them - such as the belief that if I had a ladder I could reach the shelf and get the item, then we have no need for anything else to account for my motivation to get a ladder.

Plus I didn't invent it at all, it's been around for ages, sometimes with different names such as 'Humean Theory of Motivation' (PDF). In the Simon Blackwell book I reference in the OP it is the API (A-Priori Principle of Investigation), in psychiatry they sometimes use a rough equivalent called BDI (Belief Desire Intention).

I used the term BDM partly because that is the term that Jerry Fodor used in his books, and partly because it let me make a sex joke.

attofishpi wrote: ↑Sun Sep 08, 2024 12:21 pm ..well ok then, and just so we're clear, need I focus more upon morality and/or ethics?

attofishpi wrote: ↑Sun Sep 08, 2024 1:03 pm Ethics and Morality have NO objective value - always they will be subjective to situation and circumstance.

attofishpi wrote: ↑Sun Sep 08, 2024 1:03 pm ETHICS and how one may attempt to be considered "ethical":

1. Ethics are imbued primarily by ones upbringing.

⠀⠀- Ones upbringing comes in many forms forming from such things as:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀- societal constructs (CULTURE)
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀- religious dogma (CULTURE)
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀- political constructs (CULTURE)

2. Ones personal persona (obviously affected by 1.)
⠀⠀⠀⠀ - ones emotional state
⠀⠀⠀⠀ - ones intelligence and ability to REASON out of points raised in 1.


BUT what is it to be ETHICAL, after any of the above?

- is it to be true to what amounts as best for you, to be ethical to suit your own needs?
- is it to be true to what amounts as best for those around you, to be ethical to suit their needs?
- is it to be true to what amounts as best for you AND those around you, to be ethical to suit your own needs while also attempting without compromising your own needs to accommodate those around you?
- is it to be true to what amounts as best for you AND those around you, to be ethical to suit your own needs while also attempting without compromising your own needs to accommodate those around you THAT YOU HAVE DEEMED ARE WORTHY OF YOUR EFFORT?

..of course the list could go on.

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Sun Sep 08, 2024 1:47 pm

attofishpi wrote: ↑Sun Sep 08, 2024 1:03 pm Ethics and Morality have NO objective value - always they will be subjective to situation and circumstance.

That's fine, but if at some later point you want to use religion to provide a unified ethics for all men, it would get tricky. Not every religious type needs to do that, but it's something you would probably want to make a decision on up front.

FlashDangerpants wrote:

attofishpi wrote: ↑Sun Sep 08, 2024 1:03 pm ETHICS and how one may attempt to be considered "ethical":

1. Ethics are imbued primarily by ones upbringing.

⠀⠀- Ones upbringing comes in many forms forming from such things as:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀- societal constructs (CULTURE)
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀- religious dogma (CULTURE)
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀- political constructs (CULTURE)

2. Ones personal persona (obviously affected by 1.)
⠀⠀⠀⠀ - ones emotional state
⠀⠀⠀⠀ - ones intelligence and ability to REASON out of points raised in 1.


BUT what is it to be ETHICAL, after any of the above?

- is it to be true to what amounts as best for you, to be ethical to suit your own needs?
- is it to be true to what amounts as best for those around you, to be ethical to suit their needs?
- is it to be true to what amounts as best for you AND those around you, to be ethical to suit your own needs while also attempting without compromising your own needs to accommodate those around you?
- is it to be true to what amounts as best for you AND those around you, to be ethical to suit your own needs while also attempting without compromising your own needs to accommodate those around you THAT YOU HAVE DEEMED ARE WORTHY OF YOUR EFFORT?

..of course the list could go on.

Good start. But if there are no objective values, can there be any correct answers to the questions you set at the end?

FlashDangerpants wrote:In a culture that emphasises the virtue of self-reliance and despises weakness,

FlashDangerpants wrote:..it is correct to place your own and your families' needs ahead of all other concerns. In a culture that values kindness and coperation, it is often wrong to do that. If there is no objective value that makes the kinder culture better than the selfish one, then that's just the end of the matter?