Philosophy Discussion Forums

Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑January 23rd, 2024, 9:15 am

Count Lucanor wrote: ↑January 22nd, 2024, 5:49 pm It’s a 6, it is clear as a sunny day. And he has made every effort to explain what that 6 means (a 6.9 he said once), and quite evidently it is not what you pretend…I gave more than enough arguments to support that, you will have to keep pushing your head in the sand and ignore them. It’s the only thing you can do.

Sy Borg wrote: ↑January 22nd, 2024, 10:38 pm I see, so you are basically arguing that shades of grey are not actually grey, but various shades of black.

Yes, the numbers — "6" or "3" or... — don't really matter here. What does matter is that the grey area between black and white, in many contexts or discussions, occupies most of the available space. The extremes are the fence-posts; the edges; the boundaries; nearly all the action takes place in between. It is almost unheard of for a 'pure' extreme to exist in the real world. In other words, there is dark grey, but very little black, or light grey, and very little white. So little, in fact, that the Taoists saw fit to create the 'yin-yang sign' to illustrate the point visually.

Can you show us the grey area between “there’s only a natural world” and “there’s a supernatural world beyond the natural world”?

And between “science and philosophy can deal with everything natural” and “science and philosophy cannot deal with everything natural”?

And between physicalism and non-physicalism?

One more: between “there’s a grey area between black and white” and “there’s no grey area between black and white”?

Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑January 23rd, 2024, 9:15 am Yes, the numbers — "6" or "3" or... — don't really matter here. What does matter is that the grey area between black and white, in many contexts or discussions, occupies most of the available space. The extremes are the fence-posts; the edges; the boundaries; nearly all the action takes place in between. It is almost unheard of for a 'pure' extreme to exist in the real world. In other words, there is dark grey, but very little black, or light grey, and very little white. So little, in fact, that the Taoists saw fit to create the 'yin-yang sign' to illustrate the point visually.

Count Lucanor wrote: ↑January 23rd, 2024, 10:02 am Can you show us the grey area between “there’s only a natural world” and “there’s a supernatural world beyond the natural world”?

Not easily, because it's unclear, in this philosophical context, what "natural" and "supernatural" refer to. Is 'nature' confined to this planet, so that stuff on Mars would be supernatural? Or does 'supernatural' apply only to stuff associated with religion? And so on, indefinitely...

If I answer this according to my own understanding of those words, we will end up in a lengthy exchange that will eventually turn out to be semantic-only. I'm sure you agree that would be pointless?

Count Lucanor wrote: ↑January 23rd, 2024, 10:02 am And between “science and philosophy can deal with everything natural” and “science and philosophy cannot deal with everything natural”?

See above.

Count Lucanor wrote: ↑January 23rd, 2024, 10:02 am And between physicalism and non-physicalism?

I'm not an academic philosopher, nor have I ever been. So I'm afraid I don't really know what "physicalism" is. I can guess, of course, but that wouldn't be helpful. But it seems likely that these are philosophical positions, between which there is a grey area, maybe a large one? Maybe not.

Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑January 23rd, 2024, 11:19 am

Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑January 23rd, 2024, 9:15 am Yes, the numbers — "6" or "3" or... — don't really matter here. What does matter is that the grey area between black and white, in many contexts or discussions, occupies most of the available space. The extremes are the fence-posts; the edges; the boundaries; nearly all the action takes place in between. It is almost unheard of for a 'pure' extreme to exist in the real world. In other words, there is dark grey, but very little black, or light grey, and very little white. So little, in fact, that the Taoists saw fit to create the 'yin-yang sign' to illustrate the point visually.

Count Lucanor wrote: ↑January 23rd, 2024, 10:02 am Can you show us the grey area between “there’s only a natural world” and “there’s a supernatural world beyond the natural world”?

If I answer this according to my own understanding of those words, we will end up in a lengthy exchange that will eventually turn out to be semantic-only. I'm sure you agree that would be pointless?

Try it.

Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑January 23rd, 2024, 11:19 am

Count Lucanor wrote: ↑January 23rd, 2024, 10:02 am And between “science and philosophy can deal with everything natural” and “science and philosophy cannot deal with everything natural”?

See above.

Count Lucanor wrote: ↑January 23rd, 2024, 10:02 am And between physicalism and non-physicalism?

I'm not an academic philosopher, nor have I ever been. So I'm afraid I don't really know what "physicalism" is. I can guess, of course, but that wouldn't be helpful. But it seems likely that these are philosophical positions, between which there is a grey area, maybe a large one? Maybe not.

So, it is fair to say that you cannot find yet a grey area between physicalism and non-physicalism because you don’t know what physicalism is. Good to know.

Now, what if I tell you what I think physicalism is? Would you be able to identify a grey area there?

Physicalism:

”Physicalism is the thesis that everything is [at its fundamental levels] physical, or as contemporary philosophers sometimes put it, that everything supervenes on, or is necessitated by, the physical. The thesis is usually intended as a metaphysical thesis, […] The general idea is that the [fundamental] nature of the actual world (i.e. the universe and everything in it) conforms to a certain condition, the condition of being physical. Of course, physicalists don't deny that the world might contain many items that at first glance don't seem physical — items of a biological, or psychological, or moral, or social nature. But they insist nevertheless that at the end of the day such items are [fundamentally] either physical or supervene on the physical.” (SEP)

Non-physicalism: the metaphysical thesis that not everything is fundamentally physical, or that not everything supervenes on, or is necessitated by, the physical.

Physical: the properties of spatiotemporal entities and forces that follow natural causal laws, that is, not involving mentality and/or value-laden causation.

Count Lucanor wrote: ↑January 23rd, 2024, 10:06 am One more: between “there’s a grey area between black and white” and “there’s no grey area between black and white”?

What’s the grey area here?

Count Lucanor wrote: ↑January 23rd, 2024, 8:50 am

Sy Borg wrote: ↑January 22nd, 2024, 10:38 pm

Count Lucanor wrote: ↑January 22nd, 2024, 5:49 pm Education (formal and informal) guides and develops our reasoning (it does not create it), but it also involves guiding our character, our attitudes.

So you deny any connection between education and reasoning skills. Noted.

I just talked about that connection, but your straw man machine will not process it.

Sy Borg wrote: ↑January 22nd, 2024, 10:38 pm

Count Lucanor wrote: ↑January 22nd, 2024, 5:49 pm

Sy Borg wrote: ↑January 22nd, 2024, 3:22 pm
And again, societies are deeply influenced by history, culture and the temperament of the people…

That’s a truism that is not relevant to this discussion. Napoleon and Alexander The Great had their temperament and their actions were influential in their societies. So what?

I see, so desert people are the same as those from the tropics, and secular people are the same as Muslims, Italians are the same as Russians who are the same as South Sudanese.

Another fallacy. What makes a Muslim a Muslim and a Russian a Russian is their culture, which is comprised of learned, internalized behaviors, using the same cognitive faculties common to all members of the species. Basic modes of reasoning such as intuition and inference are hardwired, they are not written on a blank slate, as you suggest.

You have become entirely incoherent!

I said that societies are deeply influenced by "history, culture or the temperament of the people".

You claim this is false because ... people are influenced by culture.

It's mindless disagreement for the sake of disagreement.

Count Lucanor wrote: ↑January 23rd, 2024, 8:50 amIt’s a mistake too basic to even go any further.

That is how I would describe several of your efforts, which is why I lost interest.

You simply argue on principle. You will even disagree with yourself in order to disagree with me - as demonstrated above where I talked about societies being shaped by the history, culture and temperament of the people and you disagreed. Why? Because society is influenced by culture!

Please excuse me intervening. I simply wondered if it has been noted that Sy Borg , when she wrote
"I said that societies are deeply influenced by "history, culture or the temperament of the people" intended the inclusive 'or'. The inclusive 'or' makes sense of the context and is a reasonable claim.

Belindi wrote: ↑January 23rd, 2024, 5:28 pm Please excuse me intervening. I simply wondered if it has been noted that Sy Borg , when she wrote
"I said that societies are deeply influenced by "history, culture or the temperament of the people" intended the inclusive 'or'. The inclusive 'or' makes sense of the context and is a reasonable claim.

Belinda, all three of those factors will variably have an impact. I would also add environment. Those in, say, polar regions have very different concerns to those in the tropics or those living in hot desert climates. Some cultures traditionally worshipped ocean deities while others had no idea that oceans even existed.

In a way, this almost circles around to the HAN's initial comment:

Hereandnow wrote:Here, I ask, what are the foundational issues of religion? This is a question that goes to matters that are in the constitution of the world itself, and not the historical fictions and bad metaphysics generated by culture.

The relationship between self and the world would seem a fair starting place for the foundations of religion. All beings are thrown into what is often a perilous and painful existence, with neither awareness nor volition, and all they can do is to keep working to reduce the peril and pain.

Religion, at its core, looks to me like a coping mechanism. Soon, religion moved from a salve to a restraint - a means of societal control and unification. In a sense, we could say that spirituality disappears once religion become administrative or political. The intuitive potentials of inner work are replaced by administrative rules.

Sy Borg wrote: ↑January 23rd, 2024, 2:47 pm

“Sy Borg” wrote: And again, societies are deeply influenced by history, culture and the temperament of the people…

Count Lucanor wrote: ↑January 22nd, 2024, 5:49 pm
That’s a truism that is not relevant to this discussion. Napoleon and Alexander The Great had their temperament and their actions were influential in their societies. So what?

You have become entirely incoherent!

I said that societies are deeply influenced by "history, culture or the temperament of the people".

You claim this is false because ... people are influenced by culture.

It's mindless disagreement for the sake of disagreement.

Oh, god. I’m not an English native speaker, but if I said that a statement that you made is a truism, I’m not saying that it is false, as you claim, but that it is evidently true. Just not relevant, but that’s another issue. You made that same error just a few posts before, you said that you were getting old, so and so…which was comprehensible, but now you come back with the same??? What is the excuse now? Talk about incoherence…

Dictionary
Definitions from Oxford Languages ·
noun
noun: truism; plural noun: truisms
a statement that is obviously true and says nothing new or interesting.
"the truism that you get what you pay for"

Sy Borg wrote: ↑January 23rd, 2024, 5:59 pm

Belindi wrote: ↑January 23rd, 2024, 5:28 pm Please excuse me intervening. I simply wondered if it has been noted that Sy Borg , when she wrote
"I said that societies are deeply influenced by "history, culture or the temperament of the people" intended the inclusive 'or'. The inclusive 'or' makes sense of the context and is a reasonable claim.

Belinda, all three of those factors will variably have an impact. I would also add environment. Those in, say, polar regions have very different concerns to those in the tropics or those living in hot desert climates. Some cultures traditionally worshipped ocean deities while others had no idea that oceans even existed.

In a way, this almost circles around to the HAN's initial comment:

Hereandnow wrote:Here, I ask, what are the foundational issues of religion? This is a question that goes to matters that are in the constitution of the world itself, and not the historical fictions and bad metaphysics generated by culture.

The relationship between self and the world would seem a fair starting place for the foundations of religion. All beings are thrown into what is often a perilous and painful existence, with neither awareness nor volition, and all they can do is to keep working to reduce the peril and pain.

Religion, at its core, looks to me like a coping mechanism. Soon, religion moved from a salve to a restraint - a means of societal control and unification. In a sense, we could say that spirituality disappears once religion become administrative or political. The intuitive potentials of inner work are replaced by administrative rules.

I agree that many factors influence a society's world view. You mention environment in particular the vicinity of an ocean. I'd add that terrain influences and may be a major influence on world view so that for instance people whose habitat is a plateau have a different world view from neighbouring people who live on the plain below the plateau.I believe there is plenty of evidence that human cultures of belief and practise are learned from environments and traditions that are passed from one generation to the next, or laterally through trade and conquest.

The larger question is 'what is human nature?'.Or 'what is the biological basis of human nature?'.

Would a man who can speak in a politician way with arguments of Kant be able to make peace in the world, like establishing a religion who nobody can disagree and all the people becomes like mastering buda powers, or put it like this if the new religion is more natural and powerfull than what we have ever had. Would this stop fighting. If every soul could have inner peace and eat enough would there be peace even if there would be like 1000 times more people in the world without a food limit factor. I guess that the story writes itself in a maner that it can't be itself it can't be constant or it is everything the same always.

Rende wrote: ↑January 23rd, 2024, 6:38 pm Would a man who can speak in a politician way with arguments of Kant be able to make peace in the world, like establishing a religion who nobody can disagree and all the people becomes like mastering buda powers, or put it like this if the new religion is more natural and powerfull than what we have ever had. Would this stop fighting. If every soul could have inner peace and eat enough would there be peace even if there would be like 1000 times more people in the world without a food limit factor. I guess that the story writes itself in a maner that it can't be itself it can't be constant or it is everything the same always.

If the environment were absolutely stable and individuals were absolutely not neurotic there would be no social change. The struggle for existence is one of the necessary prerequisites for both biological and cultural change.

Belindi wrote: ↑January 23rd, 2024, 6:34 pm

Sy Borg wrote: ↑January 23rd, 2024, 5:59 pm

Belindi wrote: ↑January 23rd, 2024, 5:28 pm Please excuse me intervening. I simply wondered if it has been noted that Sy Borg , when she wrote
"I said that societies are deeply influenced by "history, culture or the temperament of the people" intended the inclusive 'or'. The inclusive 'or' makes sense of the context and is a reasonable claim.

Belinda, all three of those factors will variably have an impact. I would also add environment. Those in, say, polar regions have very different concerns to those in the tropics or those living in hot desert climates. Some cultures traditionally worshipped ocean deities while others had no idea that oceans even existed.

In a way, this almost circles around to the HAN's initial comment:

Hereandnow wrote:Here, I ask, what are the foundational issues of religion? This is a question that goes to matters that are in the constitution of the world itself, and not the historical fictions and bad metaphysics generated by culture.

The relationship between self and the world would seem a fair starting place for the foundations of religion. All beings are thrown into what is often a perilous and painful existence, with neither awareness nor volition, and all they can do is to keep working to reduce the peril and pain.

Religion, at its core, looks to me like a coping mechanism. Soon, religion moved from a salve to a restraint - a means of societal control and unification. In a sense, we could say that spirituality disappears once religion become administrative or political. The intuitive potentials of inner work are replaced by administrative rules.

I agree that many factors influence a society's world view. You mention environment in particular the vicinity of an ocean. I'd add that terrain influences and may be a major influence on world view so that for instance people whose habitat is a plateau have a different world view from neighbouring people who live on the plain below the plateau.I believe there is plenty of evidence that human cultures of belief and practise are learned from environments and traditions that are passed from one generation to the next, or laterally through trade and conquest.

The larger question is 'what is human nature?'.Or 'what is the biological basis of human nature?'.

As indigenous societies knew well, we are shaped by the land because are some of what the land has sprouted. The plateau/plain difference is a good example. Isolation is another factor. It's no accident that countries like Iceland, Australia and New Zealand are doing fairly well. We are so far away that hardly anyone can be bothered travelling to us when there are so many other fascinating places along the way. That isolation reduces the intensity of local politics, allowing more of an ability to focus on doing things. Before mass communication and marine rule enforcement, such isolation was a significant disadvantage.

What people worship will be influenced by environment too. The Ganges was traditionally considered to be sacred. China has numerous sacred mountains. A sacred lake in upper Egypt. Ayers Rock/Uluru was sacred to a number of Australian Aboriginal tribes. I suppose that, if something in the environment is large and aids in human survival, it becomes sacred. Should we now worship internet servers, or are we already doing it? :)



Belinda: "The larger question is 'what is human nature?'.Or 'what is the biological basis of human nature?'."

I think the above seems to answers it. Humans, as with all species, are part of - and shaped by - environment. So there is no one human nature but there seems to be a range of human natures.

Humans are just partially shaped by geography, in the sense that they depend on natural resources to survive and create their material conditions of living, but they are not passive recipients of the fruits of nature, in fact they build territorial identity in the process of transforming nature. Humans, through their social practices, shape their environment, too, and this is the origin of their territorial identity. The myth of geographical settings as the source of some psychological connection that shapes human culture was dealt with and cleared from the scientific practice of Human Geography by the late Italian geographer Massimo Quaini. It’s pure ideology, natural determinism of Malthusian origins. It’s pure Idealism. It’s plain nonsense. You should check out his Marxism and Geography.

Count Lucanor wrote: ↑January 23rd, 2024, 1:03 pm

Count Lucanor wrote: ↑January 23rd, 2024, 10:06 am One more: between “there’s a grey area between black and white” and “there’s no grey area between black and white”?

What’s the grey area here?

Pattern-chaser I’m still curious about this. Any thoughts on the “shades of grey”?