I was listening to some philosophy lectures today while I was strimming the front field and the lecturer was addressing the question of why God allows evil, if God exists, that is. All the arguments were very clever, as were the counterarguments and side-arguments, but all of them assumed God to be a "complete and perfect being of infinite good."
But it struck me that this was a contradiction - how could a being be both complete and infinitely good? To be complete would require the perfect being to contain both good and evil, because to contain only one of these would make the being incomplete and therefore less than perfect and therefore not God.
I imagined God as a set of numbers from 1 to infinity. If this were so, then imagine the number 7, and all its multiples, as good numbers and 13 and all its multiples as evil numbers and all the other numbers as neutral. That would make the perfect being infinitely good, infinitely neutral, and infinitely evil.
Why does God allow evil? Because it's in His nature. If He exists.
Or is this just bollocks and I should stick to striming*?
*Which I'll have to continue with anyway because I haven't finished it yet. It's like a damned mutant copse with dock stems as thick as my finger and clumps of weeds like discarded mammoth skins. Lost count of how many times the bloody string snapped. Why don't these clever-dick philosophers ask why God allows that kind of thing to happen, eh? And why has He allowed me to suffer from a sore back?
Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 16 June, 2022, 01:24:20 AM
. Why don't these clever-dick philosophers ask why God allows that kind of thing to happen, eh? And why has He allowed me to suffer from a sore back?
It's all part of
God's plan. Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 16 June, 2022, 01:24:20 AM
I was listening to some philosophy lectures today while I was strimming the front field and the lecturer was addressing the question of why God allows evil, if God exists, that is. All the arguments were very clever, as were the counterarguments and side-arguments, but all of them assumed God to be a "complete and perfect being of infinite good."
But it struck me that this was a contradiction - how could a being be both complete and infinitely good?
And at the same time have the capacity for extreme genocide against non-believers and first-born sons!
People can believe what they like and due to lack of evidence I choose not to believe any of it. Lack of evidence aside, an easy assumption can be made that the reason Religion(s) are so contradictory is that they were created by people rather than an
Infallible being.Cheers
Well yes, but are religions contradictory because God (if such an entity exists) allows free will so people can invent their own religions?
My question was more about the human concept of God as a complete and perfect being of infinite good and whether it's possible to believe this is true regardless of religion. I don't think it's possible to believe that God (if He exists) actually can be infinitely good for the reason I suggested - that a complete God would also have to contain infinite evil otherwise He wouldn't be complete and therefore not God. It could be his evil streak that allows human moral evils from crusades to inquisitions to flying aircraft into buildings to occur; and also allow natural evils like plagues, earthquakes, and tsunamis. If God was infinitely good, then surely everything He creates will be infinitely good - and looking around at the Earth, this is evidently not true.
I suppose this view might lead some religious persons to believe that if God Himself contains both infinite good and infinite evil, it would be okay for people also to practice both good and evil themselves - which is what seems to happen anyway.
i was talking about this very matter a while back with a theologian. it was a good, respectful chat, despite my being a heretic n all. as far as i understood him, agency is granted to free will, to nature, and to chance. without such granting, existence and consciousness (and indeed religion) lose all meaning.
i can buy that. i don't believe it, tho.
How about this thought.
People like good things but too much of a good thing becomes bad. For example the first spoonful of your favourite dessert if fantastic but after a whole day of feasting on the same thing looses it's appeal and you no longer want it.
As Shark said people invent their own religions so what if those who invented religion allowed their God (if he exists) to allow bad things then when he does something good then he is fantastic all be praised and the minions can feast with pleasure. If their God only has/allows good and world was good then would we all get fed up and dismiss God (if he exists)
These up and down feelings are baked into the human DNA and there for baked into religion?
Sounds a bit Russell's paradoxy to me
Jesus H. Malarkey.
I can't even join in the philosophy because I keep getting triggered by the forced uppercase 'G' and the assumption of male gender when discussing your entirely fictional supreme being.
It's like triple-trigger salt in almost every sentence. There's not even any room given over to the notion of pantheons, because of the cultural brainwashing that's forced our collective thought processes into monotheism as if it's the only mind-game on the table.
Quote from: The Mind of Wolfie Smith on 16 June, 2022, 12:26:41 PM
i was talking about this very matter a while back with a theologian. it was a good, respectful chat, despite my being a heretic n all. as far as i understood him, agency is granted to free will, to nature, and to chance. without such granting, existence and consciousness (and indeed religion) lose all meaning.
i can buy that. i don't believe it, tho.
I know it's not Sharky's original point but the 'gift of free will' thing has always struck me as a particularly insidious excuse for God letting so much evil happen. Not much of a gift when the wrong choice results in eternal torture after I'm dead. On related matter, why not just show himself (or herself or itself) if he really wants everyone to believe in him? Old books based on hearsay don't cut it for some of us.
Pondering about how God could be infinitely good is, for me, like wondering how Garfield can stay alive for decades when he's only a cat. Or, if that's too dismissive and flippant, like wondering how Odin's horse can fly when it lacks any kind of obvious aeronautical features.
I will now share some of my views via the medium of pop-culture references...
In The Dark Crystal, the evil Skeksis and good urRu were originally a single species. Being evil, the Skeksis want to hold onto their power over the other species and environments of the world, using them for their own selfish needs. The empathic urRu know that this cannot be left to continue, but are entirely pacifistic hermit-hippies who can't achieve what they need to by themselves. Things can only ultimately be really "good" if the two species are combined into a neutral whole.
But there's a problem when defining anything as completely "good" or "evil" because in a lot of cases it's entirely subjective. Violence may be considered by most people to be a bad thing, but most species would never have survived without using it, whether for food or defense. Shark mentions plagues as one of the "natural evils", but from the point of view of the virus or locust, (aye, that's a separate philosophical discussion), we're the ones trying to wipe them out while they're only trying to survive.
There's an episode of Rick and Morty in which the title characters purge themselves of "toxins", the toxins being the aspects of their personalities which they personally consider negative. Said toxins then become separate individual entities - "evil" doubles. Thing is, some of the things Rick and Morty consider "bad" are actually important parts of being a fully functioning human being. Eg; Rick thinks being too emotionally attached to people is a bad thing, meaning the "bad" version of him is the one who's left caring what happens to his grandson.
Things get even more messed up when you have certain religious types saying homosexuality is evil and others like Mother Teresa claiming human suffering is a force for good, saying, (and I directly quote), "There is something beautiful in seeing the poor accept their lot, to suffer it like Christ's Passion. The world gains much from their suffering." An attitude I would consider unequivocally evil.
Quote from: M.I.K. on 16 June, 2022, 06:49:45 PM
There's an episode of Rick and Morty in which the title characters purge themselves of "toxins", the toxins being the aspects of their personalities which they personally consider negative. Said toxins then become separate individual entities - "evil" doubles. Thing is, some of the things Rick and Morty consider "bad" are actually important parts of being a fully functioning human being. Eg; Rick thinks being too emotionally attached to people is a bad thing, meaning the "bad" version of him is the one who's left caring what happens to his grandson.
Also one of the key plot points of Locke & Key.
Quote from: M.I.K. on 16 June, 2022, 06:49:45 PM
Things get even more messed up when you have certain religious types saying homosexuality is evil and others like Mother Teresa claiming human suffering is a force for good, saying, (and I directly quote), "There is something beautiful in seeing the poor accept their lot, to suffer it like Christ's Passion. The world gains much from their suffering." An attitude I would consider unequivocally evil.
Christopher Hitchens liked to point out how morally abhorrent Teresa's beliefs and behaviors were. Interestingly, society had so bought into the idea of her (rather than the reality of her) that they'd nearly always react with shock and disbelief at Hitchens' points, and not really take them on board.
If there is a God, then for me it has to be the universe (or the multiverse) itself, because that's the only thing that is both omnipresent, omnitemporal, and omnipotent.
However, there is a theory that we are all part of a computer simulation. If this is the case, would that make the simulation itself God, or the programmer? Or, more likely, the team of programmers? Or just the head programmer? Or the head programmer's boss? Or the head programmer's boss's political leader? Or the head programmer's boss's political leader's God? Or the head programmer's boss's political leader's universe?
Would one of my own blood cells regard me as God? If so, I am certainly omnipresent in that blood cell's universe but not omnipotent as I cannot control, or even feel any awareness of, my individual cells. So, if the universe is God, and even if the universal whole does possess some form of consciousness, it doesn't necessarily follow that Hesheit has any awareness of or control over individual human beings, or even the Earth, solar system, or Milky Way.
I think it's only human hubris and ignorance that requires God (if Hesheit exists) to be in control of every fine detail and regard humanity as something special. If there is a God, then I think Hisherits perceptions, thoughts and actions are even further beyond our own as mine are from those of my own cells.
Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 16 June, 2022, 08:52:16 PM
If there is a God, then for me it has to be the universe (or the multiverse) itself, because that's the only thing that is both omnipresent, omnitemporal, and omnipotent.
I once heard a suggestion that brains evolved because the universe was trying to understand itself. It's a nice idea, but a bit too teleological for me.
Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 16 June, 2022, 08:52:16 PM
However, there is a theory that we are all part of a computer simulation.
That hypothesis does exist, but it relies on the universe in which the computer simulating us exists, being more complex than our universe. It is impossible to create a computer that can simulate itself in its own universe without contradicting information theory. This was proposed as an attempt to explain quantum uncertainty. The supposed simulation can't compute both position and momentum simultaneously at the subatomic level, so it just does a bit of RNG to compensate.
nick bostrom's simulation hypothesis states that one of these sentences must almost certainly be true:
1. the fraction of human-level civilizations that reach a posthuman stage is very close to zero.
2. the fraction of posthuman civilizations that are interested in running ancestor-simulations is very close to zero.
3. the fraction of all people with our kind of experiences that are living in a simulation is very close to one.
I heard that popular physicist dude who's on the screens a lot talking about intelligent life. He pointed out that it took half the age of the universe for humans to mutate their way out of simpler life forms. So, despite all that "we're not special given the size of the universe (or even galaxy)" - maybe we are a bit.
Maybe - depends if other intelligent life has evolved anywhere else during that time frame. It might be we're the late bloomer and all the other intelligent life managed the transition from simpler life forms in a fraction of the time. As far as I'm aware there's no real evidence either way on that one, just because we haven't found anything doesn't prove there's nothing to find.
Well, I haven't done the math - but these guys have (https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ast.2019.2149#:~:text=It%20took%204%20Ga%20for,Lenton%20and%20Bloh%2C%202001).), and they reach the conclusion that Earth was lucky to manage the evolution of intelligent life prior to becoming uninhabitable.
The super-summary of their conclusion is "that intelligent life is likely to be exceptionally rare." Don't take my word for their word, though - it's an interesting article, even if some of the math is utterly beyond my current frame of reference.
Quote from: sintec on 17 June, 2022, 02:31:31 PM
... It might be we're the late bloomer and all the other intelligent life managed the transition from simpler life forms in a fraction of the time. As far as I'm aware there's no real evidence either way on that one...
No evidence either way indeed. Could be we are currently* the most advanced lifeform in the universe.
Quote from: Funt Solo on 17 June, 2022, 03:35:49 PM
Well, I haven't done the math - but these guys have (https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ast.2019.2149#:~:text=It%20took%204%20Ga%20for,Lenton%20and%20Bloh%2C%202001).), and they reach the conclusion that Earth was lucky to manage the evolution of intelligent life prior to becoming uninhabitable.
That's an interesting paper. It's always worth remembering that "all statistical models are wrong, but some are useful". This is well argued, but is limited in that our sample group of planets on which
any life has evolved is currently limited to one.
Furthermore, in my limited experience, the science of exoplanets tends to be outdated before the ink on the textbooks dries. There's so much up in the air that that any assumptions of exo-biology need to be taken with a grain of salt. However, this paper acknowledges this, and presents a model that can easily be modified if/when our understanding increases.
Lastly, the improbability of intelligent life here is subject to the Law of Large Numbers. Million to one shots will happen twice if you take two million shots.
*relativity notwithstanding
Quote from: Mister Pops on 17 June, 2022, 12:17:27 AM
Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 16 June, 2022, 08:52:16 PM
If there is a God, then for me it has to be the universe (or the multiverse) itself, because that's the only thing that is both omnipresent, omnitemporal, and omnipotent.
I once heard a suggestion that brains evolved because the universe was trying to understand itself. It's a nice idea, but a bit too teleological for me.
Yes, I think I first heard that one in Babylon 5. The idea does, however, rest on the ideas that the Universe is self-aware enough to want to understand itself and also has enough self-knowledge to be able to manipulate its own molecules over long periods of time in order to create brains, the biological casings and support systems to house them, and environments in which to store them. It also aggrandizes us like most religious beliefs which rest on us being specially created for a specific purpose.
If we are "the universe trying to understand itself" then I think it's more likely we'd be a natural part of the universal consciousness (if such a thing exists), like the nerve endings in our own bodies.
"If man no longer finds any meaning in his life, it makes no difference whether he wastes away under a communist or a capitalist regime. Only if he can use his freedom to create something meaningful is it relevant that he should be free. That is why finding the inner meaning of life is more important to the individual than anything else, and why the process of individuation must be given priority."
― C.G. Jung, Man and His Symbols
(https://preview.redd.it/g8rp368fck331.jpg?auto=webp&s=d2b7234c574b49422cdc8db8ebaa5ae0cc931712)
Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 18 June, 2022, 07:19:18 AM.
If we are "the universe trying to understand itself" then I think it's more likely we'd be a natural part of the universal consciousness (if such a thing exists), like the nerve endings in our own bodies.
My problem with the idea that human life is the universe trying to understand itself is the idea that intelligent life is any more important than anything else in the universe.
Obviously it's more important to US because we ARE it. It's so important to us that it's hard to us to comprehend that other things can exist without being built by some kind of intelligent designer (who somehow is keeping a list of the actions of some tiny specks of life on a blue dot in an insignificant part of the universe).
The way I see it, a shambling meat-computer is no more incredible than the way an electron can seemingly be in two places at once, and the former is incapable of perceiving, or possibly ever understand, the latter - so if humans are the universe's attempt to understand itself, it's going to need to give us some better tools.
An intelligent understanding of processes is not required for those processes to happen.
If a tree falls in a forest, and it lands on a mime, does anyone care?
Quote from: Funt Solo on 10 July, 2022, 02:46:08 PM
If a tree falls in a forest, and it lands on a mime, does anyone care?
The Mime does. Well, they don't because they're dead.
In an imaginary glass box, no one can hear you scream.
I could get on board if all life is the Universe trying to understand itself, but not if it's just humans. Thinking that we're special is what gets us into trouble. For example, Christianity did away with the more primeval belief that we are part of the world by claiming that God gave us the Earth. It seems absurd to me that a human being can own a piece of the planet when it's patently obvious that, if anything, the planet owns us. All our greed and wars are based on this nonsensical belief that land and resources can be owned - but I digress.
I wonder if the idea that life is the Universe trying to understand itself really makes much sense. As I said earlier, the Universe would have to show a pretty deep understanding of itself to even conceive of creating life in the first place - so perhaps a more believable idea would be that life is the Universe trying to experience itself and that understanding takes place elsewhere in the same way that our senses provide experience while that experience is understood "elsewhere," in the consciousness. This kind of thinking relegates all life to the level of mere sensory apparatus, which moves us away from the center of things just like moving away from the heliocentric belief did in the past. I could live with that better than I can live with the idea that God (or the Universe) plans, moves, watches, judges and punishes everything according to some incomprehensible design.
Perhaps it is we who strive to understand the Universe from our position as experiencers, which is why our progress takes so long - we are nerve endings trying to be a brain, experiencers trying to be understanders. This does not, however, mean that we are incapable of understanding but it does suggest that achieving understanding will be difficult.
Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 10 July, 2022, 08:08:20 PMIt seems absurd to me that a human being can own a piece of the planet when it's patently obvious that, if anything, the planet owns us. All our greed and wars are based on this nonsensical belief that land and resources can be owned
Human beings aren't even special in believing that. It's nothing more than the same territorial behaviour that exists throughout nature being taken to an absurd extreme.
*Responding to the fish*...
You can sort of win a moral argument that way. Y'know: we don't own the planet, the planet owns us.
But - only sort of. Firstly, the planet isn't sentient, so also doesn't own anything. We live on the planet. Sometimes, we demarcate some territory and say "this is mine". If some philosopher turns up at my front door and starts banging on about how "all property is theft", then barges past me, grabs some food from the fridge and puts their feet up on the couch - well, there's going to be an argument. The philosopher *might* win the moral side of it - but will soon find themselves out on their ear.
Because ... and you might not like this ... but I own (in the terms of the legal framework I'm living within, and only partly, through a mortgage) this little part of the planet. And that philosopher - they don't.
It's possible that they might persuade me through other means of negotiation - such as being more heavily armed (see: Russia), or some confidence trick or legal invention - but in doing so they would only be attempting to usurp my claim in order to further their own.
What's really absurd, and nonsensical, is attempting to found an argument that ignores centuries of human behavior. You might as well claim that nobody won a football match, actually, because neither team owns the goals - they belong to the planet.
Now I can sit back and rest assured that I have completely changed your mind through my cunning use of logic. Unfortunately, I am having a premonition that you will be unable to join me in enlightenment because of your ownership of your original idealized view of an imaginary Shangri La. What you fail to realize is that you don't own those ideas - but rather they own you.
gaia.
*Responding to Funty*
The question of ownership has vexed me for some time and is, I think, one of our greatest challenges as a species.
Firstly, though, it might help to define what is meant by "ownership" so that we're not talking past one another. To own a thing is to have possession of and control over the thing in question. Ownership is the state of having possession of and control over an owned object or objects. This is the definition I suggest for this discussion.
You bring up the question of sentience, which is an interesting one. Can a non-sentient thing own something? By the definition I used above, sentience is not a prerequisite to ownership. The Sun has possession of and control over the planets, moons and other bodies in the Solar System by dint of non-sentient (so far as we know) natural forces such as gravity and radiation. Similarly, the Earth has possession of and control over all terrestrial life, including human beings. Given that the Earth is not sentient (so far as we know), this is a purely mechanical form of ownership which is very strong.
Let us now imagine that an inconceivably rich Gazillionaire decides to buy the Earth by paying every human being an equal amount of money for their "share" of our planet. Does this Gazillionaire now own the Earth? Does the Gazillionaire now possess the planet? Well, the Earth can't be put in the Gazillionaire's pocket or moved into a warehouse, so the only form of possession would be in the legal realm - words on paper - so possession would be conceptional rather than actual. Does the Gazillionaire have control of the planet? The Gazillionaire can't change the planet's orbit, paint it orange, alter its rotation, or limit access to it.
In the above thought experiment, the Gazillionaire is sentient while the Earth (sfawk) is not, so sentience would not seem to be required for ownership. The non-sentient Earth could easily affect the Gazillionaire but the sentient Gazillionaire could not easily affect the Earth.
Perhaps, then, you mean that one or more properties of sentience is required for ownership, say, for example, awareness. A thing cannot be owned unless the owner is aware of the thing owned. I can think of two counterarguments to this off the top of my head. Firstly, consider a newborn baby. The baby has a liver, but it doesn't know that it has a liver or even what a liver is. For someone to say that the baby is unaware that it possesses a liver and therefore does not own one in order to remove it for transplant to another infant wouldn't fly. The newborn owns its own body, liver and all, and the fact that it is unaware of all its own bits and pieces does not negate that ownership. The infant's liver is the infant's liver. Period. Secondly, if I lawfully purchase or am gifted with a sealed box or locked storage container with no clue as to what was inside, it could not be argued that the contents of the box or container are not owned by me because I don't know what they are. Awareness, then, does not seem to have a bearing on ownership either.
How about the agency of sentience? Is a thing only owned if the owner can have some conscious and/or physical effect on it? The newborn infant cannot manipulate its own liver, nor the purchaser of the sealed container manipulate the contents without opening it up - unless they can somehow shake the container, which an earthquake could do also. So, agency would not seem to be required for ownership either.
The definitions of ownership I proposed, then, would not seem to fit with your view and so we need to straighten this out before moving on to discussing the limits and ramifications of ownership, otherwise we'll be talking about different things. What is your suggestion for a definition of ownership we can both agree on?
Quote from: M.I.K. on 10 July, 2022, 11:32:55 PM
Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 10 July, 2022, 08:08:20 PMIt seems absurd to me that a human being can own a piece of the planet when it's patently obvious that, if anything, the planet owns us. All our greed and wars are based on this nonsensical belief that land and resources can be owned
Human beings aren't even special in believing that. It's nothing more than the same territorial behaviour that exists throughout nature being taken to an absurd extreme.
I think there's a lot to this view. However, as a social animal we are also instinctively attracted to reciprocity, cooperation and charity as some of the ways in which we keep our societies together. Ownership, with a small "o," is not necessarily a bad thing. I like to own my own underpants, for example, and would rather not have to share with everyone else via some national or global Skiddie Bank (although an efficient laundry regime might tempt me if the overall gains of underpants-sharing were worth it). But when things get to absurd extremes, as you say, problems arise - such as when a king says "all of this country is mine" - Ownership with a capital "O," usually obtained by coercion, subterfuge, and force. The more powerful the human being, the more secure their possessions. This might work well enough for lions or bears but we are a different animal and I think we need to reevaluate the ramifications and limits of ownership before a very few end up owning everything. Or would it be good for a very few to own everything and decide how much the rest of us are allowed? Such a system might well be more efficient overall.
*Waves a little white flag*
My definition of ownership is based exclusively on my local legal framework.
I'm... actually with the Shark on this one.
Ownership of land is something that someone made up once simply so they could exploit it, and the people who live on it.
I appreciate that governments and councils definitely should have power over what happens on said land, but the idea of private ownership of land is kinda ludicrous. The first person to 'own' that land just said that they did, and hoped that no-one bigger and nastier turned up.
So, I can have your house, then?
Quote from: Funt Solo on 11 July, 2022, 07:10:26 PM
So, I can have your house, then?
I don't own a house.
Also, houses don't just happen naturally.
A man builds a house, he deserves to be paid. That's fine.
I'm talking about the land that's under it.
So, I can permanently camp out on your lawn? And so can anyone else who feels like it?
on my lawn? yes, of course. i expect peaceful and respectful behaviour. but how objectively odd and arrogant to refuse - on the basis that this particular fecund sward and all the air around it, with all its actual potential and complexity of consciousnesses - is somehow mine? even odder, when such spurious ownership (as it usually is) is mainly due to centuries of fortuitous events and often selfish actions that have absolutely nothing to do with me.
enjoy it. no fighting. chill out.
Such crusty! Your expectation of peaceful and respectful behavior is interesting. Are you claiming ownership, then?
less crusty, i hope, and more pale blue dot.
i think a mutual exchange of not hurting each other is less ownership and more stewardship (which is something that homo sapiens is perfectly capable of but very reluctant to actually attempt ... indeed, questions of ownership probably get in the way of this).
Quote from: Funt Solo on 11 July, 2022, 06:06:25 PM
My definition of ownership is based exclusively on my local legal framework.
Which says what?
Quote from: Funt Solo on 11 July, 2022, 08:11:17 PM
So, I can permanently camp out on your lawn? And so can anyone else who feels like it?
Sure. Why not? I mean, if you cannot or will not define what you mean by ownership then anything goes. Defining terms is an important step in discussions like these where we explore ideas. This is the Philosophical Thread, where there's no winning or losing, not the Political Thread, where winning and losing was more important.
My proposed definition of ownership (having possession of and control over an owned object or objects) would suggest that no, you cannot permanently camp out on my lawn without my express permission. But is this the correct way for ownership to work? In the event of some disaster where people are made homeless, would camping out on somebody's lawn without permission be acceptable behaviour? What about camping out in similar circumstances on somebody's thousand acre estate? Is there a difference between the two? Should there be a limit to the amount that one person can own and, if so, how would such limits best be decided? Should there be no limits to ownership despite the consequences to the less fortunate? Would it be better for stewardship to replace ownership? Would a mix of stewardship and ownership be better? Or something else entirely?
*Responding to Wolfie*
This feels like hair-splitting, though. As a steward, you're giving yourself authority over the land. Isn't that just a synonym for owner? Same function, different title?
The original premise of the discussion was that ownership of land is a completely fucking bananas idea. But stewardship (some kind of temporary responsibility) is okay?
Why should a person (or a family, or a tribe, or a nation) not lay claim to some territory? It's what humans have done, since time immemorial. The argument that it's some kind of insanity is only an argument against our very nature.
I can side-step into a discussion of too much ownership - like a private landowner (say, the Crown) having access to country-sized chunks of land - but that's really a conversation about corruption and an over-extension of power, rather than the general idea of land ownership. Isn't it?
Shark, I'd like to focus on the part of your post I agree with. Your final paragraph is copacetic. It's a far cry from your opening gambit, where you used pretty strong terms to decry the very notion of land ownership. I'm far happier in the land of subtlety you've reached here. Of course, yes, there's a huge difference between laying claim to just enough land, and laying claim to far too much land. I think that's the crux of it, right there.
As for defining terms: I usually just use dictionary definitions and existing frameworks, rather than starting out every discussion trying to come to terms with words that already have meanings. I hope you can see how I find that a fair place to begin. Otherwise, I might go mad. Aha! But how do you define "mad" etc. We'd be here all bloody day at that rate.
Defining terms may seem dull and unnecessary, and most of the time it is - we don't have to define every term we use (that would be mad...) - but to simply and quickly define the term under discussion can save a lot of misunderstandings and frustration. It's as simple as, "I'd like to discuss X, by which I mean "DEFINITION," do you agree?" "Yes, that seems fine." "Okay then, X is..." etc., etc.
Also, thank you for introducing me to the word "copacetic," which I am now itching to use!
Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 11 July, 2022, 09:17:28 PM
Defining terms may seem dull and unnecessary, and most of the time it is - we don't have to define every term we use (that would be mad...) - but to simply and quickly define the term under discussion can save a lot of misunderstandings and frustration.
Having an interest in mathematics, I don't think defining terms is dull or unnecessary. To construct any kind of formal argument, it's imperative to define anything that isn't axiomatic, or doesn't have a widely accepted conventional definition.
That's not to say every definition should be hard and fast. I think dictionaries are supposed to describe the conventional use for a word, not proscribe a definition to it. I'm with Funt block in that the dictionary definition is sufficient, and diverging too far from its descriptive definitions put you into proscriptive territory. Ideally we'd all have expansive vocabularies that would allow us to use words with the perfect descriptions of the ideas we're trying to convey.
I'm not big on epistemology, I think it encourages talking around a subject rather than exploring it. But if there was ever a thread to get into one of the pillars of philosophy, I suppose this is it.
Quote from: The Mind of Wolfie Smith on 11 July, 2022, 08:24:23 PM
on my lawn? yes, of course. i expect peaceful and respectful behaviour. but how objectively odd and arrogant to refuse - on the basis that this particular fecund sward and all the air around it, with all its actual potential and complexity of consciousnesses - is somehow mine? even odder, when such spurious ownership (as it usually is) is mainly due to centuries of fortuitous events and often selfish actions that have absolutely nothing to do with me.
enjoy it. no fighting. chill out.
I had to come back to the whole lawn thing, because you used the word "objectively" where I assume you must have meant "subjectively". I totally get an idea that one might be inclined to share one's land with those who ask. I've had backpackers stay in my garden (and use my loo) before - so this is something I've seen in positive action. (Not literally - I didn't actually watch them use the loo. Now I'm imagining one of those disturbing thrillers where a previously jolly actor plays a sociopath.)
I'm thinking that surely (post-agreement) "peaceful and respectful behavior" wouldn't be the only factor one would consider in first reaching an agreement. What I mean is: if someone wishes to make use of my garden, I definitely want to be consulted, and I would then make the call based on how I felt about the people who were asking. I can easily imagine people I'd be accepting of and folk I'd turn away. There's also the case of whether I'm even available (or able to delegate) the new responsibility of playing host.
How could taking part in a bit of consideration (judging each case on its merits) be "odd and arrogant"?
Of course, I'm coming at this from the angle that humanity's collective imagining of land ownership (or stewardship) isn't all bad.
- So, you're a philosopher?
- Yes. I think very deeply.
Boogie Down Productions - My Philosophy (https://youtu.be/h1vKOchATXs)
Whoop! Post 10,000! Is numerology meaningful?