Eiuol

This is fine, as long as you understand that it's an abstraction that only has validity in the way of expressing a logical relationship or the manner in which actual things change. The tree that an acorn might become doesn't exist yet, but you aren't trying to propose or imagine a "nonexistent tree". But the sort of nonexistence that God is, in the way that Aquinas and other Christian thinkers before him thought about God, really does reify 'nothing'. That realm is basically pure consciousness. I don't think it helps much anyway, "primacy of consciousness" is not simply a synonym for "idealism". In some ways idealism does fit primacy of consciousness, in some ways it does not. But I find the clearest way to consider primacy of consciousness is not the way idealism goes wrong, nor scientists suggesting that consciousness produces existence ex nihilio, but negative theology. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophatic_theology As for the stuff about scientific consensus and scientistism, I don't have anything different to add.

A contradiction is a type of statement, which exists, but a contradictory entity itself does not exist, and is not even conceivable. "A tree that is not a tree" does not even exist in your imagination, partly because by referencing anything at all, you are referring to existence. That's why the most intense believers in primacy of consciousness not only believe that there is a God with aspects beyond human comprehension, but that God himself has no form of existence except as pure action. Quite literally, they think that nonexistence is real.

Maybe you didn't intend this but it sounds like a form of substance dualism. Seems like you are saying there is the realm of existence, and the realm of consciousness, and existence came about first. I might be misreading you. But it goes more to the point if you say "existence is all there is". That's not quite what happened. What happened was mostly that to the extent 2046 was pushing you to think harder about what you described as academic technicalities, you were not receptive to engaging him on that level - even though that is your level of engagement on these topics. Not trying to start anything here, just be aware that most of the time, people do engage with you about topics of substance. Sometimes your points aren't clear, which happens with anyone, so yes, people will sometimes miss the purpose of what you say. Kyary I think is right about the way that Oist arguments against primacy of consciousness don't always at the mark. Really, the best way to think about things is that Oism on a metaphysical level says that existence is all that there is, and there is nothing besides. When we talk about anything, we are already talking about the way that it exists, its manner of existing. To say that objects only come into reality as tangible/physically real things because of consciousness would be to say that there is something distinct from existence underlying everything that is. This isn't an answer or argument, but it might help to consider this: can you actually conceive of nonexistence? Whatever you say about consciousness, no matter how new age-y you get, you will have to be talking about existence. But to go full primacy of consciousness would be to say that there is a realm of being besides existence, and that a realm of nonexistence is conceivable or thinkable. Sure we can toy around with different ideas, come up with bizarre thoughts, come up with contradictory ideas, but they all have to do with existence. Really, science would not be able to say if objects could exist independent of consciousness. That relies on an underlying philosophical premise that precedes science in the first place.

He also had a quite a knack for being an asshole towards anyone who dared offend his sensibilities. You seem to remember people disliking his "style" but that style was often a form of poisoning the well. That's what a moderator is for usually, to find ways to minimize that kind of behavior, going as far as to decide when disobeying the rules of civility qualify as toxic. Sometimes it is okay to outright disallow/ban any promotion of different alternative views. Q-anoners would qualify, communists, Nazis, ethnostaters, people like that. Then you go a little less extreme for some things, for example saying that RT is only acceptable to link in certain contexts. Mostly these days discussion goes on in Discord servers, so a ton of effort isn't usually worthwhile for a website like this. There is one stupid thread, the Ukraine one, but the rest is pretty much business as usual.

I'm saying that they aren't offenses that need to be acted upon through post deletion or anything like that, that's the sense tolerance of tolerance I'm talking about. But you can be intolerant in the sense of calling it out, and saying those kinds of claims are bad, or demonstrate how the claims in question aren't valid.

There's a balance to be had what to permit and not permit. My absolute hard limit would be Q-believers and anyone being on the level of an actual admitted fascist, or straight up racists. Those are the people that I think poison the well and you need no further proof that they will be acting in bad faith every time they open their mouth. Then there is throwing out the ban hammer just because someone said something that you thought was a really bad take. Not very productive to do that. It makes sense to have some toleration for those people with bad takes, but you can still inject influence into the discussion and actively encourage better and more rational thinking. Or more benevolent thinking.

This website effectively has no moderator. Or more like, all DW really does is clean up spam. I was a moderator for a while, until DW took that away for no particular reason because I disagreed with him about some topic a while ago. There actually isn't much to do, but being a moderator also means in some way influencing or impacting conversation to push it towards more productive or valuable discussion. You end up with goofy threads like this as some kind of elaborate joke about not moderating. "I'm not moderating? I will show you moderating! Look at me, splitting a thread for no reason. See how dumb this is? Now leave me alone." There isn't much to moderate anyway, there are not very many people here anymore. There isn't much need to direct the conversation. Although, it's not helping things when the moderator doesn't care anyway.

Yes, some people have an inflated sense of their understanding and buy into strange and bizarre ways of thinking. There are people who claim to have discovered the secrets of physics with a brilliant insight, when the reality is they have a rudimentary understanding of physics, are making an elementary mistake, and lack the training to come up with a meaningfully new theory. You can avoid being that person by broadening your knowledge, corroborating your knowledge with others that have been developing theories for a long time, and reflecting on your own thinking process. As far as Oism, these sort of things are actually encouraged. You can even find some corroboration with other thinkers, both ancient and modern. It's not like you're dealing with a philosophy that appeared out of nowhere with all its principles fully formed, like Scientology. For the most part, academics don't say anything about Oism. You will probably find that if you talked about it (and in a reasonable way without being preachy) you'll make sense and the other person will at least find the conversation engaging. I have noticed that if I don't mention where exactly my ideas come from (and that goes with subjects besides philosophy), people will engage with me, not with their conception of the entire theory from a birds eye view. Mostly. Or their judgment comes from seeing how the preachy types act, or those that talk about Oism in a very top-down and deductive way. As if reciting OPAR reflects a genuine understanding. Or they hear something about her personal life that rubs them the wrong way. If it were common sense, it wouldn't be so niche. I don't believe there is a such thing as common sense. Think of it more like Oism affirms the accessibility of reason to all people. You don't need to spend 30 years as a professor in math, or have a specific IQ, or spend years building up a skill to do it at all (like training to become an astronaut and land on Mars). Not only do you have everything you need already, but reason is part of what makes you human. To reach those points inductively, you always begin with the wild complexities of reality. It's not that she began with those points and then reasoned from there. The same goes with anyone who wants to understand Oism. "Existence exists" is the culmination of a lot of thinking. As a logical statement, it's inescapable. But that comes from looking at the world around you in the first place. The world around you where you see so many exceptions and regularities.

Saying "your posts sound like stream of consciousness" isn't psychologizing.

Honestly, Grames and necrovore at least make coherent points even if wrong, points that you can argue with. The psych ward (tad, JL and whyNot) just throw out stream of consciousness thoughts.

...resulting in its dissolution such that there is no Texas or Texan citizens to threaten in the first place. This would support my case even more.

No, it wouldn't be. It would be many things with regards to Texas, but provocation is not one of them. In the hypothetical, presumably Texas in some way or another abandoned its citizens, it isn't Texas that's being provoked. What you would have is a war internal to Mexico, and Mexico's problem. The case of Russia and Ukraine still doesn't fit the comparison, because the Ukraine hasn't been part of Russia in over 30 years. The people in question might be ethnically Russian, but they aren't Russian nationals, and never were part of the Russian Federation - the Russian Federation is not historically continuous with the USSR.

It should have been clear that "democracy" in the modern context refers to constitutional republic, where the principles align with rights generally speaking. Right, so that's why we classify governments according to what they do, that is, their form of government is their practice with respect to human rights. My point of contention isn't that you say America is behaving badly. My disagreement is when you said that you support Russia in this conflict. So I'm going on to say that whatever America has done, is doing, or doing in conjunction with NATO, that doesn't justify supporting Russia - except maybe as a pragmatic issue focused on realpolitik which doesn't take into account or care about moral principles. I lean more towards saying that I don't support anyone in this conflict, but there are reasons to prefer that Russia comes out on the bottom. And if NATO or America are doing something wrong, what they are doing wrong isn't the alleged "NATO expansion" or the alleged threats at the border.

Early on in the article, it describes conflict in Donbas as a provocation. That doesn't make sense anyway, because that isn't Russia, it isn't Russian territory, and it doesn't involve Russia. The whole notion of "goading" doesn't make sense. In fact, goading is irritation, not a threat, in the way that if you punched someone because they goaded you, that doesn't justify that you punched them.

I would interpret this as sarcasm or irony - you don't need to mind meld with someone or something to know that it is conscious. That would actually be making fun of your own position though that entities which are conscious cannot be created, so it seems like you might be serious.

Let's get more specific then. Legitimate might not be the best word here, I don't think it is even the word she used. But if you agree with Rand, dictatorships are a class of illegitimacy that are far worse than whatever illegitimacy that the US has. Russia is an autocracy, which is equivalent to dictatorship, so it has utterly no valid moral claims (ie no valid moral claim to land in Crimea or Ukraine or any valid moral claim to say other countries are threatening them). The US is a democracy, if sometimes illegitimate, so it has some valid moral claims.

What's your point here? No one claimed that the Russian government isn't actually a government. Legitimacy as in moral legitimacy. If you haven't been following, the idea pushed by those who say Russia is illegitimate so far in this thread has been about autocracy being equivalent to dictatorship, not that Russia is "not as good". It's a kind of a pointless argument, because in whatever way you could interpret "military aid" (depending on how strict your definition is), it doesn't make Russia any more or less justified. Even if the US sent tanks to the Ukraine and they all stood at the border, guns loaded, military at the ready, waving the American flag to indicate who sent the tanks, Russia would have no moral right to say that "this is a threat that constitutes initiation of force, we have the right to attack!" It is the difference between saying NATO is acting aggressively, or acting defensively. Everything hinges on the moral legitimacy of Russia. Basically, I don't see a way that the wrongdoing of the US could surpass Russia in such a way that Russia is the good guy here.

Your example might have a point if there were continuity from Russian tsars, to the Soviet Union, to the Russian Federation. But it's all disjointed, as radically different forms of government, with each of them having no legitimacy in the first place. I mean, that Putin would make such a claim and act on it makes sense for this reason, but you used it as an actual valid justification. Even if you are right that Russia has a valid claim to the territory on a legal level, Russia's illegitimacy makes it moot. On a moral level, who cares? I pretty much agree, and with the way that Russia isn't a threat per se. And hope it stays that way. Seems to me that it's better off for me and everyone else if Russia doesn't grow in any way. Sending some arms to the Ukraine seems pretty cost-effective, and doesn't seem imminent that the Ukraine is going to become something worse than it was. If you think Russia is so weak that even that much money is pointless, it would also mean that Russia succeeding would make utterly no difference on American government. It wouldn't discourage anything in the American government that is imperialistic, it wouldn't discourage bureaucracy, it wouldn't discourage all the bad things about the US that you want to minimize and eventually destroy. At best, Russia's success would only create chaos in that region (arguably leaving room for American imperialism to get even worse), with a slight increase in Russia's power. That's only my best case scenario.

You know as well as I do that conflict goes even further back than that. It's not like problems with Putin's Russia started with Crimea.

Right, so you still need an analysis of what Russia gains. I've already given reasons why I think that Russia winning would be worse than any bad that the US is doing (bad for me, not bad for the Ukrainians or Europeans in general).

More specifically, that you are conscious is axiomatic, but you wouldn't say that consciousness exists prior to and separate from the entity that possesses it. Consciousness exists by virtue of the entity itself. The same goes with all characteristics of an entity; those characteristics exist because of the nature of the entity. It isn't as if there are entities, and then various characteristics are attached to entities, where characteristics are distinct or separate from entities. Not that "empty entities" are a thing in that case, but that what we recognize as characteristics would be merely correlations or that characteristics are incidental and not brought about by the nature of the entity (pretty much Hume). Or you might be able to say that certain characteristics exist without entities. You don't make airplanes and imbue flight into them. You make airplanes, and by virtue of what they are, they fly (with all the relevant engineering principles to make lift possible). (Existence is different, because it isn't a characteristic that an entity possesses or fails to possess.)

If any of the necessary characteristics are missing, it can't be that thing. If it has all the necessary characteristics, it is that thing. Consciousness is a biological function, it isn't something beyond or transcending biological functions. So, your question of "unlike a heart...", well, you didn't even mention what is different or special about consciousness as a biological function. Honestly, I don't understand what you're talking about. It sounds very confused. I'm not saying that because I think you're wrong. I'm saying that because it looks like you're having a completely different conversation. All I have said is that consciousness is a biological function, and that biological functions can be re-created. Address that if you want.

I suspect that there is a way to get the list, it really depends on why they said you couldn't. Most of the time, with medical things like this, I think people are willing to make exceptions - if you explain your situation to the right person. I don't think it would be wrong to submit inquiries with your name and phone number and what actually would be a potential employer. But how would you do that, get a list of every company in the world that meet a certain criteria, and submit an inquiry with each and every one of those? That would be very inefficient.

Have you asked for the list? Just because it's not public doesn't mean that you can't ask for it.

Biological functions are reproduced all the time, you can have artificial hearts that do all the same things that hearts do (except the ways that cells do things like cell repair, which are not essential to what makes something a heart). It isn't a "fake" or inferior imitation of hearts, and it isn't biologically produced. Indeed volition is a biological function, but just like anything else biological, you can intentionally re-create it if you eventually figure out what allows that function to operate at all. I don't mean that you disagree, but since you haven't really addressed the things I said, it seems like you don't follow what I'm saying.