georgioz
16hr ago
I find it interesting how popular are these claims. Drake equation is right in line with other presuppositional arguments like Simulation Theorem, Multiverse theory or any number of anthropological arguments. You just claim your presuppositions to assert some prior probability(ies) and then speculate about results using logic and scientifically sounding arguments.
I'm frustrated because I did actually put effort into trying to make the conversation go somewhere useful. Yes, I could've (and should've) been less condescending. But if I'm going to be told I'm behaving terribly, regardless of how much effort or heat or aggression each person is putting in, it all just feels a bit pointless.
Sure, I am willing to go there and just restate the useful discussion. Please just explain your position again, I will do the same in the following positions:
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Everybody including secular materialists, Bayesian Big Yud rationalists, relativists and everybody else engages in presuppositions.
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All my arguments were asking for philosophical justification of beliefs. I was specifically arguing against the naive "math is self-evident" argument that you presented, which turned the argument to "it is evident to me" as opposed to found that argument on something. I was using internal critique to find your foundation of why you believe the assertions that you make.
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This ties to ability of anybody to make universal claims. I specifically wanted to use internal critique if your position. Is it mathematical realism in the vein of Gödel, Kantor, Penrose or Tegmark? Or is it nominalist in the vein of philosopher Harty Field or earlier Quine (who later became mathematical realist) or even Hilbert with his formalism or weird blend of mathematical anti-realism like Yudkowsky or Joscha Bach? We could never go there in our discussion, because I was not able to relate what universal claim is, how Hume or Descartes tried to wrestle with it.
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Which leads me to the topics that we had. Asserting that 2+2 equals 4 is just lower level assertion. Again, there needs to be justification for it let's say in terms of "Justified True Belief" standard or some other standard such as nominalism, which is inherently relative. Again, these are not some stupid ideas that georgioz on The Motte said, they were discussed between top philosophers - including modern philosophers of science and Math like Kantor for centuries.
I had constant whiplash where you demanded plain English but at the same time claimed to have knowledge of Gödel and his proofs sufficient to understand it.
Anyways, I challenge you again - what is your underlying presupposition, your metaphysics, epistemology and to lesser extent ethics:
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What is the nature of reality, visible (e.g. matter, energy, planets, galaxies) and invisible (math, logic, abstract concepts). How do they exist? Why do they exist?. It takes more then a baby eating alien Yuskowsky story, or just claiming - "here, I wrote number 2 on paper as an example of existence of numbers". This is the purview of ontology. As long as you say "standard numbers exist", there is a question of "how they exist" or "why they exist". And this is not just some word game. There are 150 IQ people who disagree about nature of these things. If they can have disagreements, why cannot we rehash these modern debates here?
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The nature of epistemology. What is knowledge, what is "Truth" and how can we justify something as true vs not-true. Be it My name is stoatherd and I know it to 2+2=4 to all there exists is just matter and energy. These are all dogmatic claims, that need to have some justifications. Secular atheists make fun of let's say Christians that they believe in made-up unjustified entities such as God or Angels or whatnot. Now the ball is in your court, how do you justify your beliefs and how and why are they better? Why and how do you posses the knowledge of the Truth and everything else?
Also I do not like ad hominess and other rhetorical tactics, but I will meet you where you are at. I also claim that this specific game is asymmetrical but from secularist point of view. It is considered a standard argument to say that "HAHAHA, stupid Christians believe in unproven and unjustified fairy-tales". Only to then act all indignant when in turn somebody asks them about their fairy tale cosmology and empiricist dogmas that one should take on face value. If you show basic philosophical respect, then I will show the same back.
I am not a subjectivist, I have Bayes, logic, and evidence (priors wash out under sufficient amounts of the latter). Read again:
So you have belief in Bayes, logic and evidence (empiricism). I give you that at least that you mark it as belief. However it is not justified - by its own admission. Bayes claims you can never possess the Truth - you just converge to some pragmatical result, which by itself also does not provide for the truth. Quine correctly called it as undetermination of scientific theory. It is impossible to converge to anything under strict empiricism and Bayesianism, each empirical evidence opens untold myriads of new "truths".
I have no interest in lowering myself to this. I will not produce that writing, I do not need to write pointless words, I will not cite Gödel, I will not cite Quine, I do not care for them, their work is useless to me. I have no interest in academic (philo)sophistry « justification ».
Sure, which is what I described as "willful ignorance before". Which is absolutely hilarious - at the same time people like this can utter some very stern and ultimate statements such as "I have belief in Bayes, logic and empiricism" but at the same time refuse any discussion. It is hilariously exactly in line of Quines two dogmas of empricism that are presuppositional and cannot be verified neither by Bayesianism nor by Empiricism. Moreover, this ideology does not even provide for any possibility of a thing such as the "Truth" that they are so proud of declaring. It is insane.
Just to flesh it out, Bayesian theorem requires presuppositions to generate likelihood. From the top of my head, radical skeptics such as Hume or Descartes or even physicists created concepts like Carthesian Demon or Bolzman brains, which completely skew the likelihood function. No amount of empirical data can shift the posterior - you are completely relying on your arbitrary presuppositions. In that sense how are you more justified? That is why Hume and Quinne are so devastating, they completely ended secular/emprical metaphysis and why philosophers moved over to stuff like phenomenology. It is interesting how the same zombie ideas about explanatory power of empiricism pop up again and again without realization of how bankrupt the whole thing is when it comes to paradigmatical thinking and grounding ones worldview in philosophical basics: metaphysics, epistemology and ethics.
Seems you have heard my attitude before, maybe when someone wrongly interprets his « ontological proof » ? (I have heard it said it debunks science. Wow.)
I used it as an ANALOGY of somebody taking things for granted from another paradigm for which he has not the same foundation. But I can use another analogy - imagine Newtonian who who denies Einstein Theory of relativity but he borrows that vocabulary to describe black holes. And who thinks it is absolutely normal, just citing things that "everybody knows" etc. That was my analogy.
I find Godel's proof interesting because it actually tackles the topic of existence of abstract entities, so that discussion is not turned into if Newton or Einstein is "true" empirically.
The ordinary everyday meaning. This isn't complicated. By "works", I mean: "If you use 2+2=4 when measuring out ingredients for a dish, you'll get the right proportions. If you use 2+2=4 when designing a plane, you'll get a plane that flies. If you use 2+2=4 when figuring out how much change to give a customer, you'll give them the correct amount of change".
This is just pragmatic argument. But again, did you ever try to ask question of why this is the case? The so called The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics? There is no easy answer to this. Many people are just saying "math works", which is their presupposition, a bling belief in the "Truth" of math. But it is still unreasonable, do you have any explanation of why is that and how math works? Otherwise it is just case of blind belief, something akin to Pythagorean cult.
This is obviously entirely different to the way you used "works" in your facetious unicorn analogy, where you mean something like "telling this story accomplishes my goals".
How is it different? I use something, it accomplishes my goals which is the way of how I decide what is true or not. Again, if this is not the case then tell me your epistemological principle and how you decide what is truth.
Yes. Your English is poor. I assume your native language is something Eastern European (judging by how often you omit articles). While I recognise it's a feat to discuss complicated things in your second language, you could maybe have a bit more humility concerning whether the communication issue might be on your end.
Thank you for your ad hominem. At least I know how to read wiki page of Gödel's ontological proof.
It is unusual to describe "the abstract concept of numbers" as concrete, given that "abstract" and "concrete" are pretty close to antonyms.
Yes, for somebody discussing in bad faith. It is absolutely common to use the word "concrete" in realm of abstraction. For instance things like "present a concrete proof" or "give me a concrete example of an odd number". Is this a novel linguistic lesson from Eastern European for you?
Numbers are elements within particular mathematical models. Numbers are things like 5, 2.45, and 1,000.
Oh, numbers are "elements". Okay. Unicorns are elements. They are things like Pinkie Pie or Fluttershy. Again, what are the numbers, why are they and how are they. Going in epicycles and naming numbers as "concepts" or "elements" and giving examples is not enough. Or we can also play this game - God is an all powerful being and as an example he consists of three persons in a Godhead - Father, Son and The Holy Spirit. It is my assertion. Please accept it just because I said it.
You seem confused. Numbers are abstract concepts. They aren't like apples or horses; they're not in a location. That's like asking "where is justice existing?"
So how do numbers exist? They do exist without location, they are omnipresent. Wow, we are getting into quite supernatural territory here, numbers are omnipresent and posses one of the godly attribute. How do you know this is the case? Did you directly tap with your senses into number axis and felt all the numbers in their infinitude? How can empiricist prove existence of abstract concept such as numbers in the first place?
But you said you were giving me a simple-word explanation of your analogy, and used the phrase "modal collapse". You're under no obligation to give me a simple-word explanation, but if you pretend to be giving me one while using nonsense phrases, I'm going to point it out.
You said yourself that you are well versed with Godels ontological proof and related concepts. I gave you wiki page for the proof as well as for the modal collapse. I do not have to continue with this, just argue with wiki page that is written in plain English and then give me further questions. Also I hope that you remember that I used it as an analogy.
georgioz
21hr ago
As a theist myself, theism does not solve this problem and on naturalism/materialism/physicalism you do have a basic accounting of this within space-time. For anything to exist logically it has to exist at a place within space and time.
See, you presuppose existence of logic. You wield its power - but how and why does the logic or by extension math exist? Is math also existing in space and time, adding new numbers or laws of logic as underlying matter evolves? Imagine a space where there is only one physical particle. Does it embody the number "two"? If yes or if not how and why?
This is what I hammer all the time. How can you claim access to logic without grounding? It is the true presuppositional argument - logic and math exists. Because I use it. But you can use all kind of things, does it mean that inside of a paradigm anything that can be "used" exists? Again, how and why it exists. And not in first-order way how child asks, but paradigmatically.
Once we get to the universe itself, things are simpler to grasp. Everything that exists is a physical, complex arrangement of matter and energy in space-time.
Okay, this seems like a very strong claim. What is the grounding for that? You are a finite person who does not have access to things like "everything". Why do you believe this? This was the point of Hume and Quine - there is no grounding for such a strong claim.
The most cutting edge of science vindicates this claim and all theories across every branch of science are all converging on that same conclusion
No, this is scientism. Science is just a method - a method which explicitly denies access to universal statements and truth as all "truths" are provisional. What you claim is absolutely unscientific, I can tell you right now: give me falsifiable criteria to the claim "all theories across every branch of science are all converging on that same conclusion". This claim itself is not scientific, it is a theological claim of belief.
The best “first cause” explanations we have in science still belong to multiverse theories. The two that have the most empirical weight and evidence behind them are chaotic inflation and Smolin selection theory.
These are pure unfalsifiable fairy tales. They rely on belief in "truth" of some presuppositions. These supposedly scientific multiverse theories are at best bunch of speculative cosmological philosophy and at worst just made up things build on unstable grounds. There is nothing scientific about them. You cannot ground them on science, because again science is just a method. It is akin to recipe for bread, it has no philosophical grounding.
Actually it does matter that you're ascribing quotes to me that I never said, and positions that I don't hold.
Just read what I said. I critiqued access to unjustified universal categories. That is the point.
Not in the way that 2+2=4 "works". You're extremely confused if you think you can just conflate two entirely different meanings of the word "work".
Usually if people use these words like "useful" or "works" they are concept from philosophical pragmaticism. So please do not leave me in a suspense and tell me what do you mean by "works" and "useful".
... in what world are numbers concrete and clouds not??
Do you know how to read? I specified it in the very same sentence: saying that "abstract concept of standard numbers and not clouds". The abstract entity of "2" is not identical to two clouds or two bananas. But I am willing to go there if you wish as this is exactly touching the metaphysics: what are numbers, how are they existing, where are they existing?
I did. I also explicitly said that phrases like "modal collapse" were meaningless and making you confused. You then decided to use "modal collapse" in your simple words explanation.
I do not have to explain words to you. You yourself said that you are knowledgeable about Godel's ontological proof. Google it with conjuction with "modal collapse" in "plain English". I do not know what you want at this point - should I define the word definition in plain English?
Look, here's how you sound to me. Suppose I said something like this: "Here's an analogy: the atavistic ontological modalities of pseudo-presuppositionalist frameworks lack consanguinity with the indirect supplication of their co-philosophies."
What are you talking about. There is literal wiki article about Godels ontological proof. Modal collaps is literally a subcategory with its own wiki page. If you are too simple or lazy to grasp it, then that is okay. And it is not even necessary, it was just part of the analogy But do not blame me on using the terms.
Our observable universe contains about 10 to the power of 24 stars, and from what we can tell intelligent life is not very common....
I do not know how this is any different from any other argument such as that God created vast oceans, deserts and sky that are uninhabitable by humans.
if I assume that God has created the universe with any one particular solar system in mind, the odds are 1:1e24 against us being the reason for it.
What is the basis of your assumption. In this hypothetical you assume captial G "God" who is literally in a completely different realm. Were you not supposed to do at least a little bit of steelmanning? If so, then just for a moment accept existence of Christian God and what it means. What makes you think that you should judge God and his reasons in this specific scenario?
Then biggest argument against God being a Christian God is from the theodicy problem in particular.
This is the very same problem as described before. Theodicy was explained by God in Old Testament when he answered laments of Job in a very simple terms in Job [38:4]
Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?"
This is similar to the previous argument: if you want to really steelman the Christian position, then this answer makes sense. The God is the yardstick of what is good and bad. Simple as that.
Moreover, I thhink that theodicy is much more devastating to other positions such as secular materialism: we are all just bunch of atoms or fluctuations of universal wavefunction which has teleological endpoint in heat death of the universe. Nothing has any meaning - there is no good or evil, all is just motion. Genocide, torture of children or any other moral considerations are meaningless movements of matter not dissimilar to how cosmid dust is consumed in eternal coldness of black holes in this monadic impersonal "god" of the atheistics materialistic universe.
It is no "explanation", it is literally a horrific nightmare. And not even the worst ones compared to various simulation theorems, rationalist AI basilisks or quantum immortality where untold Googleplex's of people are literally trapped in some hellish alternative universes. To me it is all just an edgy rebellion, showing of how cool and indifferent you are.
Moreover the whole theodicy is pure argument of incredulity - just because you as a finite person cannot fathom of something, it does not man it does not exist. Second moreover, this is exactly described in Christian paradigm as the ultimate sin of pride, where you as a finite human feel justified judging the god and deciding that a literal hell reality is somehow a better solution and grounding to your existence. What a farce.
Yet that same loving God could not be bothered to mess with plant biology a bit to ensure that genes for oxaloacetase would not spread, thereby preventing most kidney stones?
Again, this is insufficient steelman or outright strawman of the Christian cosmology. God created things as good, the things like diseases, kidney stones, parasites or even death itself are result of The Fall. There is a concept in Catholicism called pecatorum mundi, where rebellion against God and his laws has direct consequences for the whole world. On day-to-day level let's say an alcoholic mother damages her child with Alcoholic Fetal Syndrome, through pride causes wars to environmental catastrophes. Adam's sin had similar effect on whole creation.
Again - think what you will about it, but if you steelman Christian cosmology it makes sense, the suffering and death exists as a result of the fall, but rejoice the God's plan is to abolish all that. As opposed to secular atheist humanist message that all that suffering is actually according to natural cruel nature of the cold monadic materialist universe which is completely indifferent toward suffering and anything does not have any meaning anyways, as it all ends up in some hellish eschaton of Heat Death or alternatively some cosmic quantum fluctuation apocalypse or whatnot. Secular materialistic atheist ranting about injustice is literal old man shaking fists against clouds of indifferent Atheistic Monad who does not give a single fuck about any of that and crushes pulverizes him to elemental fields no matter what. In a sense Camus got the endpoint of this secular "theodicy" correct in saying that There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide - a statement that he came to understand after he realized that even rebellion about the cosmos is useless and farcical. What an amazing paradigm to live by.
And again, the point is that you as a human are not the judge, you are not a minigod who puts God on trial for his sins. That is complete misunderstanding of Christianity, where you put God inside the universe as some Star Trek Q being or whatnot. Absolutely botched theology.
georgioz
5d ago
No, I didn't. Go back and check the username you grabbed the quote from.
It does not matter in this case. The point was usage of universal claims without justification. Which you claimed right here in this discussion bellow.
2+2=4 is a useful, coherent model for counting discrete entities. I "know" it is true insofar as it consistently works.
And? Telling stories about unicorns to my daughter also works consistently, the same about stories about all kind of made up things. But that is also besides the meta-point I am making - why is "consistently works" any form of justification? What does it even mean and how did you came up with it?
2+2=4 is not universally physically true. If I add 2 clouds to 2 clouds, I don't (necessarily) get 4 clouds, because clouds are not a discrete entity that's appropriate for modelling via addition.
Excellent. We discovered a difference of counting by identity vs division. However the realm of numbers is realm of counting by identity, so this analogy does not wok. 2+2=4 is either true or false, there is nothing like "kind of". We are talking about a concrete thing - abstract concept of standard numbers and not clouds or persons inside Trinity. Which is by the way a good argument against OP's Gnosticism.
But within mathematics, within the rules of the game of addition, 2+2=4. If you think that's not "justified", then i reject your concept of justification as being useful.
And here we are. A universal metaphysical game. Either you believe 2+2=4 or you are out. You reject the concept of justification of anything outside of 2+2=4, because presumably it goes against your presupposition. Anything other than 2+2=4 such as 2+2=5 or 2+2=6 up to 2+2=Googleplex is not part of this presupposition and thus an incoherent paradigm not to be taken seriously. If somebody believes in his drug induced schizoid mania that all + operations are 42, you would discard it as incoherent and not worth any serious discussion.
This is exactly my position but on meta-level higher. There are paradigms with no justification for 2+2=4, they have no grounding and even worse, they positively reject the only entity - GOD - that could provide such grounding. As you named it, they break rule of "math" and metaphysics and thus they speak gibberish. Now you may have some inkling of my presuppositional argument.
This is a parody, right? I literally flagged up "modal collapse" as the primary example of nonsense phrases you're using. You're not using simple words in this explanation.
You yourself said that You can assume that I'm familiar with Godel's ontological proof, mathematically capable, etc.. I don't want to waste more time on this. Do you want to explain the analogy or not? It is not crucial for my point. If you do not grasp it, that is still okay.
You've already lost me. There is nothing about this that is a meta-level higher.
Ok, I will use simple language. You used this argument:
In particular my favorite argument is the argument from causation. There must be an uncaused cause; this can be identified with God.
This is universal statement that there has to be an uncaused cause. How do you know that to be true? How do you justify this statement - did you personally examine all effects and traced them to their causes - or did you just use your imagination to just assert it to be the case? In that sense it is your presupposition. But in fact I do not even have to go that far. For instance what is a "cause" if number 2? How does it exist, how is it caused? First cause is accepting physicalist presuppositions, it is playing inside that narrow box. The meta-level argument goes beyond that.
That is what I am talking about meta-level. Also just to be sure, I am not classical theist and I do not think that natural theology is truly a coherent system to explain God. A system similar to Neoplatonist Gnostics, who presuppose the existence of THE ONE and just handwave any justification for that idea including One and the Many problem via some system of tiers and whatnot.
no, it isn't. You need to stop saying "paradigmatic" and "meta" if you want to actually communicate anything. 2+2=4 isn't based on anything meta. And this entire avenue of who has the "right" to make philosophical claims isn't useful.
Of course 2+2=4 is reliant on various presuppositions such as that math and laws of logic exist and so forth. How do you know that 2+2=4 as opposed to 5 and again in a justified manner that excludes "all" other possibilities? It is basic question of presupposed epistemology and metaphysics. You boldly claim that you are beyond presuppositions, on what grounds?
Just because you can't see a way to do it doesn't mean there's no way to do it.
"Just because you can't see a way to do it doesn't mean there's no way to do it.". Exactly. This applies 100% to you and your stupid First Cause argument. Thank you for pointing that out so eloquently.
"god in Gödel's ontological proof serves as an anchor that provides for a modal collapse that smooths away existence of unprovable truths"
Okay, analogy in simple words. Gödel's god solves the problem of unprovable truths, it provides for modal collapse that all truths are necessary and excludes unprovable truths. If there is somebody who denies existence of Gödel's god and AS WELL say that there are no unprovable truths, that is a problem. He cannot have access to modal collapse without presupposing Gödel's god entity. That was the point for the analogy.
If you think I'm wrong, you should be able to explain what you mean in simple words.
Simple words, okay. You say "Presuppositions wrong. It presupposes stuff. Haha. I know that there is uncaused cause! I know it because it is what it is. Everybody agrees. Justification not necessary. This presupposition correct, I know it bro. Checkmate presuppositionalists. I can say "everything can be explained without presupposition, pretend I do not have presuppositional grounding for universals like "everything" or "explain" and I can say you are bad presuppositionless - just because"
georgioz
5d ago
The word justification is a very powerful word, because in the end it proves that all the subjectivist have is assertions. And I agree - discussion is over because often times they do not even have coherent paradigm to explain why to have discussion at all.
Mit « Gödel » (mir shaudert!) ist es immer so.
Oh, I am done, what a powerful argument. Also you absolutely did not understand what I am talking about, Gödel's ontological proof is not Gödel's incompleteness theorem which you probably moronically misunderstood it for.
georgioz
5d ago
... but that has no bearing on whether a god exists.
Again, this goes meta-level higher. It allows for God to exist. The other paradigms outright reject this idea. It is about web of beliefs AKA paraigms. Beliefs do not exist in isolation, they have implications. And there are some fundamental and mutually incopmatible beliefs that lead to completely different paths and that shut down forever the other path. Are you a monist like idealist or materialist who says "only matter exists", or are you pluralist and you believe in multiple realms. Do you believe in objective or subjective morality etc. These are fundamental paradigmatic pressupositions that you need to be aware of.
What gives you the "right" to declare such a being exists? How you could you, a being who is not omnipresent or all-powerful, possibly verify its existence? You're stacking the deck by allowing one side to assume the existence of an arbitrarily complex entity that will fit into whatever shape hole they need; that's a far bigger issue than materialists trying to comment on matter.
Because it grounds everything else. Again an analogy - what gives you a "right" to say that 2+2=4 as opposed to 2+2=24546534? A coherent explanation of the rest of the math. Especially if the person endorsing 2+2=24546534 then just says that 1+1+1+1 = 4 as if it is not in contradiction at all with previous statement. It is a paradigmatic level, a meta level argument. You cannot say just say that there is no reality except of subjective experience. FUCK YOU. That is a universal statement that CANNOT be proven by subjective ground-up justification. It is an invalid move exactly as saying that "married bacheolrs exist" while at the same time saying that you are a proponent of logic.
This is gibberish.
It is called an analogy. What exactly did you not understand from this?
georgioz
6d ago
I broadly agree with this, but not how you might think. I think that logically, it is probable that God does exist, so I am not an atheist. In particular my favorite argument is the argument from causation. There must be an uncaused cause; this can be identified with God.
I do not think this is the best argument for existence of God as it is still defensive as it just follows some form of natural theology. You can always claim somethin like that a Big Bang is uncaused cause or something similar.
On the other hand I do believe that presuppositional apologetics is extremely strong as it shows huge blind spots of many secular and humanist ideologies. It also shows how shallow the overall paradigm of these ideologies is. In short, the argument is that everybody including let's say secular materialist works on some sort of presupposition where they just assert access to certain metaphysical claims. And this is incredibly hard from any humanist paradigm that starts from human or human mind in Cartesian sense.
The point being, that none of these paradigms have any "right" to use any universal claim. E.g. if an atheistic materialist claims that nothing else exists except of matter - what is his grounding for this claim? He as a finite being was not everywhere, every time and thus he has no grounds to utter such a claim. The do not have access to any stable metaphysics. The theist paradigm actually solves this issue. There is exists an omnipresent and all-powerful being and all universals are anchored in this divine mind. By allowing for such an entity to exist, one does have justified grounds to use these universals.
I used an analogy before in form of how god in Gödel's ontological proof serves as an anchor that provides for a modal collapse that smooths away existence of unprovable truths. That is the point of my presupposition. In this analogy materialist is denying existence of Gödel's god, but he at the same time also denies existence of unprovable truths and claiming that they have access to modal collapse without any grounding.
They want to eat the cake and have it too, they often either do not understand how these meta-level arguments such as Transcendental Argument for God work or they just ignore them and still pretend as if they can use the very language for which they do not have any proper justification.
georgioz
6d ago
"Now let's see if Democrats learn the lesson of "we do well if we focus on the economy, we avoid turbo-woke stuff, and we take advantage of the other side's unforced errors".
Interestingly I had the very same discussion with my family lately, who also said that "it is all economy, stupid". Yeah, it may have been so in the past. But today it does not matter if any party wants to increase or decrease income tax or build more or less highways. Why should I care if we build more or less highways which will be used by migrants in 40 years.
In a sense Democrats with their Banana republic identity politics are ahead of the game. They can promise everything to everyone: old age pensions for seniors, UBI for working age population, free university education for teenagers, free preschool and subsidies for children as well as government largesse to everybody who votes for them in winner takes all mathematics.
The USA as well as EU countries like France or Germany are now locked into this style of political kabuki defined by political powers running outright grift as in Minnesota and yet being able to vote in the very same person into political power because of it. Welcome to the third world politics.
georgioz
7d ago
No Western country (no, certainly not even Denmark) has ever reversed mass immigration in modernity.
USA did it. The way I think about it is as a nonlinear system that decides if the country can absorb immigration. Here are the variables:
- Immigration as measured by % of foreign born population
- Total fertility rate of native population, which is a proxy of how many native vs foreign born children are at schools
- Assimilation capacity: this is the natural attraction of the nation to nudge foreign born population to assimilate: adopt local customs, language and political ideology
In USA in the past, the peak foreign born population happened in 1890ies where it climbed toward 15%. However back then the TFR was very strong running close to 4 children per woman. Just simple arithmetic women age 20-40 are are third female of native population or (100%-15%)/6 = 14% of the population and they produced 4 children thus reproducing rapidly. Moreover schools inside all the nations during early 20th century leveraged state power, propaganda of Radio, Television and huge government push toward local assimilation - be it Germanization, Magyarization, Francization or of course Americanization
Americanization came after Civil War and it coincided with lucky historical events: reconstruction after civil war, fulfillment of Manifest Destiny, jingoism and imperialism during FDR and of course winning the WW1 and birth of American exceptionalism and legitimacy of the system based on all available metrics: military power, industrial power, growth of GDP and everything. Nevertheless USA adopted very harsh anti-immigration stance even during this period ranging from Chinese exclusion act of 1882 to Immigration act of 1924. There were additional factors. After WW1 a lot of people remigrated from USA - especially people who heeded national call of rebuilding from nations like Poland, Czechoslovakia etc. Moreover USA was not a welfare state and the great depression led to more voluntary remigration during the Great Depression, where outflow exceeded inflow especially from Mexico but also European countries.
As a result of all of that, the foreign born population dropped to around 4% in 1964 at the time where TFR also dropped to around 2.5 per woman. Since then the immigration took off along with huge drop of TFR to current levels of 16% of foreign born population paired with 1.5 TFR. This is unsustainable level bordering on replacement, especially paired with national shame, refusal to proceed with any meaningful assimilation programs or curbing of immigration paired with welfare state that prevents remigration. But this is historically a new situation.
One has to see it in light of development in 18th and 19th century and especially the birth of nationalism stemming from secular humanism. This was a movement where it was claimed by Hegel and his predecessors especially in French revolution, that there is such a thing as a nation. An entity that encompasses people who share culture, language, history. In his seminal work, Lectures on the Philosophy of History Hegel popularized Herders concept of the entity of as Volksgeist. A spirit that animates the population and that gives rise to the nation based on shared culture, language, history and political structure. With advent of Darwinism after Hegel's death this idea was appropriated and added blood/race into the structure.
This also gave rise to a new form of antisemitism that was distinct from the old religious forms. Jews were no longer just outsiders with different religious beliefs, they were people who were not part of the German Volksgeist, the historical force that was moving the German/Aryan Volk toward supremacy. They had their own Jewish Volkgeist that was in dialectical opposition to Germanic race. Also this theory was not exclusive to Jews, Hitler defined other races such as Slavs that also were disruptive elements opposing Germans. By the way, denigrating Slavs but also Africans and Native Americans was there back in Hegel, who defined them as Naturzustand nations - people in natural state, Engels who was a rabid racist later marked all these nations as geschichtslose Völker - nations without History. Where The History™ is this religious mystical force that drives progress as opposed to just "history" in form of having some monuments and the past. This is where the concept of Blut o blood was added to some nationalist projects alongside of language, culture, geography and The History.
It is all rooted in the eugenic/social darwinist ethos of of late 19th and early 20th century progressives, who saw evolution not only on the level of some bacteria or dinosaurs, but also as a struggle between different tribes and nations toward supremacy. The survival of the fittest had spiritual angle, the ability to dominate for millenium was attestation of right to rule. That the global arrangement is constant struggle between various Darwinian entities, these Volkgeists and that ability to dominate by force is at the same time proof of right to rule as well as the supremacy of given race embodied in superorganism of the state. That is why the totalitarian fascist state was so obsessed with power, as Mussolini defined it Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato or Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State. And by everything, they meant everything: political power, culture, religion even family relations had to serve The State as this divine entity engaged in constant struggle over power. It is no accident that the Hitlers propagandist director Riefenstahl made a movie named Triumph of the Will. The Will here is in line of German continental philosophers like Shoppenhauer and Nietczhe - the Will to Power. The will is not just an individual grit, it is also not Augustinian Christian free will. It is specifically the secular will to dominate and enforce one's ideas upon the society - but not from an individual standpoint, this will is subject to the teleological mystical power of The History™ - they are just Great Men who embody the Ziegeist and move the society toward Progress.
It is no surprise that this idea stemmed from secular humanism or socialism, who also see collective as the ultimate God, the Marx's The New Socialist Man.
Also Hitler as many other totalitarians was concerned with purity. He did not care that Japanese Volk had their own interest in far east, or that there may have been some Yemeni Jews with their own schemes inside Middle-East. He wanted to create a 1000 year Reich, which would have "pure" Germanic foundation and fight with Arabs or Japanese was something to be hashed out in Darwianian sense after this internal purity was established.
The idea behind fascism is that the whole state is one superorganism and that individuals are serving the state in this Darwinian struggle. In fact Hitler himself despaired after crushing defeats in the east - how come that hordes of barbarian Slavs were able to defeat his nation? It could only be because of saboteurs and clandestine actions, because otherwise he would have to accept that the Slavic nations are superior to German nations which was a tough pill to swallow. Also that is why he was so suicidal, he saw defeat of Germany as defeat of these almost religious concepts.
Now this may have seen as some historical/philosophical tangent, but the very same ideas now animate current ideological battles and Culture War. Progressives are still worshiping power, they endlessly analyze systems of oppression and how power flows based on blood or culture not unlike progressive "humanists" from the past. It is the same underlying ethos and theology but in a new dress.
You are using presentist definition of race according to modern US Culture war. This was not so in the past. Hitler himself defined Jews as a race, it was a "terminus technicus" inside the Third Reich - the so called Judenrasse. In fact this whole issue was behind the whole Holocaust was not about race controversy by Whoopi Goldberg - because she is correct. From modern US race relation system point of view, the Jewish Holocaust is just white-on-white violence, similar to let's say Yugoslav wars or black-on-black genocide in Rwanda - which were also not technically "racist" in modern parlance.
This of course only reveals the inherent racism of the modern system especially related to affirmative action and similar race laws. There are numerous jokes running in the same vein, pointing to the inherent progressive contradiction - they at the same time have racial based affirmative action, but also deny race as a scientific concept, but also deny race as a self-identification identity/category similar to let's say trans. As in all dialectical leftist schizoid conspiracy theories, they just declare belief in the power of Progress to resolve/abolish this nasty Hegelian contradiction, which by itself is a proof of a need to do more more research grift into their Theory™ bankrupt religious theology. In the end, they leave it as temporarily unresolved candidate to abolish in further revolution, but also heavily punish anybody who looks into the topic too deeply, and in a way that makes them sound ridiculous.
In the end they do implicitly endorse something like Nazi or Spanish colonial definition of "visible minority". So that Megan Markle - a wife of Prince Henry is considered as a minority, but it would be tougher to say so about her son Archie, who is technically a quadroon under Spanish colonial nomenclature.
It is both. They are ignorant because they don't want to learn The Science™. And they do not want to learn because they are intellectually lazy bigots. This is a standard pathos + false ethos attack that James Lindsay described quite well. He described it as an ultimate Ad Hominem battery of attacks - you do not have scientific consensus, plus you probably also have some unresolved trauma and also your opinons are very close to what fascists and racists say.
So it is a blend: you are white supremacist fascist, Jones level MAGA conspiracy supporter, and on top of that you are also religious bigot who suffers trauma from priest child diddling and sexual repression. It is all one neat dehumanization package.
Of course there are other strains of this, e.g. old school eugenics intellectual progressivism - something very close to maybe current Grey tribe technocratic elite often with Fabian Socialist bent: most people are just stupid and they simply do not know what is good for them. We are the intellectual utilitarian avant-garde who will establish benevolent technocratic permanent beurocracy, where we will use psychological tricks, nudging, propaganda, economic and tax incentives and other means to make sure that the the sub 100IQ plankton can live their lives in moderately prosperous society. Of course they will fight us, but it is because they are stupid and barely above some animals intellectually. Also we are not using words like good and evil outside of tongue-in-cheek. The population is just object of our power, they are barely sapient and incapable of good/evil. And the best of us who achieved true Gnosis of utilitarian calculus are literally beyond Good and Evil in Nietzchean sense, they are applying their will to power in form of social engineering of raw material in form of nameless "population".
As one example, this is a standard broadly liberal ethos for centuries. It goes with belief in tabula rasa and belief that humanism is the correct (liberal) atheist ethical structure can be gained by using science and reason. The whole liberal schtick for decades was that all it takes is a proper education and we will all live in Star Trek space luxury communism society.
You never encountered opinions that let's say Trump voters are uneducated stupid helots or that all Christians are science deniers or some version of this argument? It was very popular attack since my youth with new Atheism.
georgioz
13d ago
Overall I think my question is underspecified, because I'm not entirely sure how to properly adopt an outside view here and set aside my own personal beliefs about what is good and consider a general principle that's simple enough for someone who isn't already me and is less intelligent than me to use to eventually arrive at some approximation of goodness (which I believe is equal to my specific beliefs about what is good, even if I don't always live up to them).
This is exactly the problem of most secular ethical systems. As you say, in the end they have to be honest and just admit that they are subjective, relative and underspecified.
Bootstrapping ethics and morality from bottom up does not work and it was admitted since Hume that it is bankrupt endeavor. The main problem being that if you adhere to any kind of humanism and secularism where you start with human mind as the presupposition, then you do not have access to any justified universals. The frustrating thing is that many people holding these ethical systems either do not understand this conundrum, or they are just willfully ignorant about them.
How does someone without the sophistication to understand second order effects not just get one-shot by virtue signallers who sacrifice the greater good in favor of optics and first order appearances?
This is often much worse for these supposedly "intelligent" people, especially if they adopt some form of utilitarianism and consequentialism, where they can rationalize their delusion and sometimes outright schizoid view of the world to promote a very let's say "interesting causes". Just look at Effective Altruism that is supposedly filled in with the smart people and they care about topics like insect welfare, rationalization of how purchase of 15th century UK luxury manor Wytham Abbey is actually in line with utilitarianism and many more.
The problem is that one of the objectives of the conspiracies is to stay secret, at minimum until they achieve their primary goals.
Not necessarily. In fact, many conspiracies actually publish their aims and goals out there with knowledge that people will not read them and if they will, that they will not verbalize them as it will make them sound crazy. They proudly share their plans of You will own nothing and be Happy as message of Sharing Economy necessary for several of the 17 Sustainable Goals for 2030 and 169 targets. It is now just a meme. It is at the same time Alex Jones level of conspiracy that "UN globalist wants you to own nothing and eat bugs", but it is also something that actual UN globalists write in their papers and promote it.
The same goes let's say with Soros. He literally pours billions of dollars into an NGO that has website that proudly says let's say how they help Syrians to immigrate into Europe. But when you say that Soros helps Syrian immigrants to move over to Europe, you are immediately marked as a conspiracy theorist. Saying the name Soros marks you as one no matter if what follows is true or false or whatever.
I dislike the terms "conspiracy theory" and "conspiracy theorist", as they're generally used as terms of dismissal or abuse: characterizing a particular hypothesis as a "conspiracy theory" is tantamount to saying that it's untrue, and characterizing the person who espouses it as a "conspiracy theorist" is tantamount to calling them paranoid and unserious. But this shouldn't be the case, because conspiracies do happen!
Of course they do, there is a criminal conspiracy term under many jurisdictions and these conspiracies are prosecuted all the time ranging from drug or weapon or human trafficking, white collar fraud, RICO conspiracies, various government corruption schemes, monopoly and cartel pricing deals and many more.
However. We're all familiar with the type of person described by the term "conspiracy theorist". The people in tinfoil hats, the people who never believe the official story, the people who attribute every setback (no matter how trivial) to the dark hand of da Joos/the CIA/the Illuminati.
Actually we are in fact not familiar with "the type". Or to be more precise, there is more than just one type. The tinfoil hat chemtrail wacko is one type. But there are many other types, in general all leftisim is just one huge conspiracy theory. You know the type: everything is because of capitalism and billionaires. Or alternatively everything is because of white supremacy or patriarchy or whatnot. These "theories" are all on the same level as any number of other schizoid "theories" about aliens etc. But for some reason being a commie leftist who thinks everything is because of capitalism is somehow considered as a normal thing.
So I agree with @Primaprimaprima that "conspiracy theory" label is primarily a propaganda term that is used just as an ad hominem attack on opponents epistemological credentials. It is often used in battery of ad hominems where one attacks all three faculties:
- Attack on you epistemological legitimacy: "Only conspiracy theorists believe that, no serious academic can believe what you believe, you are outside of scientific consensus"
- Attack on your mental legitimacy: "Who hurt you? Something must have happened to you, only people with unresolved trauma say these hurtful things. Did you try therapy?"
- Attack on your moral legitimacy: "Only racists and fascists say what you say. You should be ashamed of what you say"
Hypercompetent characters rely on certain behind the scenes shenanigans, and they turn into a puzzle for reader to solve. Imagine Sherlock Holmes books, where you see the world through Dr.Watson only to witness the genius of main character in expose at the end of the movie. This is a common trope for detective movies or TV shows, including female protagonist like with Murder, She Wrote where the main heroine is basically female Sherlock Holmes who also plays her own Dr. Watson using her "housewife" mask - very similar to how inspector Colombo pretends to be dumb in order to solve various mysteries.
If you lack a tension, you can also add a big bad on the background. Like with Sherlock Holmes who had Professor Moriarty as his evil twin, who turned even Holmes victories into strategic defeats and whatnot. This is often used trope in these hypercompetent hero stories, e.g. as when Ender in Ender's Game wins the Game, only to realize that he was duped into genocide or some such.
Also you can always do the Alien trick - just write a role for a man and turn it into a female role. This is how Ellen Ripley was born. She absolutely is hypercompetent heroine. She always connects the dots, has the correct knowledge for the situation be it learning how to operate a gun in 1 minute tutorial only to then rig a flamethrower and grenade launcher under when to situation calls. The same for somehow being robot operator right when it is needed to defeat the alien queen.
If you wanted to turn your mother into a badass, just look at Walking Dead and Carol Peletier. A battered housewife is actually a hidden gem. She can navigate social situations like when inside the compound she used her easy going persona to uncover cult mysteries etc. But she is also a badass sniper on a level of special unit commando Rambo who single-handedly dismantled cannibal cult from the outside rescuing the rest of the group. She can do it all, she can survive on her own out in the middle of zombie apocalypse, she can be a mother and nurturer, she can be a high-stakes spy using her acting skills as the spy and she can be cold blooded killer, Spetznaz executioner.
In short the hypercompetent characters are not interesting for their own growth - although there is a room there as well, especially if they need to get competent in some new realm such as social relations or whatnot. Their main job is structural to the story, they are part of the worldbuilding and/or the plot device.
georgioz
15d ago
So Achilles had his heel as a literal weakness, but he was also full of moral flaws
I just want to add that the heel gimmick was a later addition by Romans - who considered themselves the descendants of Trojans - as a propaganda to diminish Achilles's victories. In the original Iliad, Achilles had no gimmick like that, he was just that awesome.
It is not easy and definitely not an explanation. You just assert: "Laws of physics exist". It is a presupposition. What are these laws, why do they exist and how do they exist? Moreover how do you know that they exist? Are they uniform or do they break sometimes? Are they omnipresent and unchanging and eternal? On its own this is an outrageous statement on par of saying that "God exists".
You said that you are empiricist. You know, that no amount of evidence can prove a thing. That is the core observation of Quines Undeterminism of scientific theory. There are number of alternative theories that can explain things. This is rooted in age old sceptical tradition from Hume and Descartes. Maybe you are suffering from schizoid mental illness, or there is Carthesian Demon feeding you false information and you falsely think that you are stoatherd. Moreover you filter which evidence to examine and accept into your web of beliefs as any other schizoid person who sees everything as a proof for his own personal conspiracy theory.
Okay so I can say that God and unicorns work for me and thus they exist. Or you may object and have some outside criterion on what is "useful" and what "works" means. Then I would challenge you to either state that dogmatic yardstick, or ground it in pragmatism itself.
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