geordief

Maybe so,but between the two of you , you have made it appear that Bertrand Russel wrote something that was actually just written by the author of the piece(he did not bother with quotation marks while you have used them to enclose both the author's commentary and Betrand Russel's passage which was quoted by him. A matter of no consequence,admittedly.

Seems to me you have wrongly attributed that quote to Bertand Russel(the preceding passage,though does indeed seem to be from him. I was a bit surprised that he might be using language like "takeaway lesson" back in the 50s or whenever it was he wrote that. He was a bit too difficult for me to get interested in (or like),though I did try briefly ,back in the 60s. Wasn't he concerned with definitions,definitions,definitions?

If Philosophy is the study of what we do not know ,that does not diminish its value. There will ,I suspect always be far more that we do not (or cannot) know than the astonishing amount that we can say that we do know with some certitude. When we are faced with circumstances that we do not understand I have read that it is our instinct to form patterns out of the chaos and if this is what preoccupies the philosophical mind (in addition to the methodologies noted by @zapatos then it may not be time wasted. I have the impression that Einstein's ideas met with initial opposition from scientists and philosophers alike (perhaps I am wrong?-I was not there) It was only some 20 years ago that the concept of "the end of history" was being bandied about semi seriously. I doubt we are at all close to the end of either scientific or philosophical progress,more's the reason for satisfaction.

I suspect that retired colonel was being drip fed to the public to soften them up for hard truths to follow(very large drips but there is so much information being withheld it must be hard to control the flow now)

Better news.Can we begin to hope? https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61484222 Can they handle the truth after all? Edit: is Ukraine's resistance to Taiwan's benefit? Or are Ukrainians just a force of nature,not to be easily replicated?

Not sure how young she is .I wonder does she remember a time ,as I do when Black Holes were not even believed to exist.(well I think that is my memory -it is hard to remember a "non memory") I think they were talked about but were not considered to be likely to actually exist..

Can information ever be preserved in such a way as to reconstruct a previous system from a system that has evolved ?(not necessarily relevant to black holes maybe and I wonder if I have misunderstood the information question) It seems to me that if we cannot predict the future in any exact way then the past is exponentially more impossible to do so. Is information not being lost all the time?(or is/was the information paradox about the possibility or not to retrieve any trace at all of the configuration of systems that had gone into a Black Hole)?

https://youtube/eP3RqnJMu4E 1968

Wondering what anyone makes of this 1973 recording by the late John Fahey. Obviously an accomplished acoustic guitar player,he did though in his latter years repudiate the music he made along these lines To my mind this music is very easy to follow and you can see how he allows the various themes to develop and kind of collapse in themselves and then pick themselves up as a new idea takes over the discord that that was setting in. This seems to me to keep repeating itself as a pattern - a series of hopeful developments that end in disappointment only for a germ of hope to break through for a period Is that nice to listen to ? Some of his better known pieces are more straightforward and can be fairly optimistic but this seems to alternate all the time Is that how others hear this music?

seems geordief has been outGurdjieffed http://theslenderthread.org/art-and-consciousness/

Can I ask whether we would have to invent art if it did not exist? Is it possible to live without a connection to art in one's own interior life? Or us it take it or leave it?

Not sure what the capital A would stand for but can "society " have propreital rights on what might be considered "art"? I mean ,look at Prince Andrew.He was considered.by some (never by me ) to exemplify virtues in British Society,until his true character was held up to the light. Not the same with Art in the museums?Not just a case of the Emperor wearing transparent clothes? Can we make a distinction between art that is a function of living an expressive life and art that is a merchandise with all the attendant trappings? Or are they the same thing?

Is that just meant to be cynical? "Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues" Was Shakespeare an artist in the medium of language then?

Has anyone a succinct definition for what is called Art? I have been wondering whether art is an attempt to express ones observations and feelings about one's social environment in as unfiltered a way as possible -using whatever medium comes to hand. Has anyone any other ideas? (is mine too obvious and catch all?) (Is it even possible to be succinct about the subject ?)

It is hard enough to understand the culture we are born into without shouldering the responsibility of understanding the train wreck that is the Russo Soviet counterpart. It is hard to imagine they have had much of a free choice up to now Maybe they would like to share their misery around.

I am not even sure it would be that tempting an option even if it was feasible (though Castro apparently was targeted several times by the CIA) I mean ,had Hitler been taken out of the equation in the failed attempt to kill him by German officers it is maybe very arguable that the Wehmakt might have fought more intelligently without his unhinged interference in an area he was not an expert in. After all ,towards the end he apparently accused the German people of being unworthy of his ambitions Some leader ,an asset to his supposed enemies.

So I was quite wrong in my post just 3 places above? https://www.scienceforums.net/topic/126218-war-games-russia-takes-ukraine-china-takes-taiwan-us-response/?do=findComment&comment=1206165 Eg Targeting Hitler personally would have been very inadvisable (and illegal) even though we were then at war with Germany and he was their commander in chief?

We are not at war with Russia.If we were , the assassination of its leader would not as far as I know be a war crime or similar. We were at war with Germany and so the assassination of Hitler would have just been part of the war. As we are not at war with Russia an assassination attempt by a Nato country would be both stupid and also very probably used as a casus belli (just what we all need)

I wonder what his list of potential assassin sponsors looks like. It might not just be Ukrainians. They may feel that this is his moment of weakness. It would be folly for Nato countries to touch the idea with a barge pole, although the intelligence services must need to communicate with those so inclined as they may provide human intelligence.

When it saw itself reflected back in the "mind" of a companion creature? Mind is a measure of sociability? (or rather , sociality?) The mirror test is only a first step to the test of inclusion in a social group? (Which would make minds the norm amongst animals)

Yes,I remember but I had to go back and refresh my memory. I am not sure the analogy it is as clear as it was with the free will scenario. Consciousness is even more fundamental than free will. But ,if you think the analogy still applies then maybe that shows that the sensations of freewill and of being conscious (of one's existence) are practically "joined at the hip" Someone has said that we ,as human observers and explorers perform the role of the universe looking at itself. Maybe to rephrase that dramatically we are the Consciousness of the Universe("the Universe" being a term that no longer seems easily defined-as it once seemed to in the not too distant past)

I just had in mind the determination an observer might make as to whether a second organism (or machine) exhibited behaviour that could be called "conscious " Perhaps a bit trivial,but it might serve as a contrast to the subjective consciousness we are all so frustratingly familiar with But I think you are right because I cannot actually come up with any criterion that would allow any such behaviour in another person or system as "conscious "as any behaviour might be just as easily interpreted in a purely reductionist way without recourse to any notion of consciousness at all. "

Yes perhaps we could coin the phrases "objective consciousness " and "subjective consciousness " (if they are not already in use)? The latter is as slippery a concept as you could wish for whilst the former would be a worthwhile and rigorous subject for scientific exploration. Unless it's a trap 🤔

Maybe so .That had always been my prefered stance but I thought I had become less enthusiastic about it. Are there any articles attempting to reject that viewpoint or is this a kind of "take it or leave it" idea that holds no real consequences whether it is valid or not?

Actually , -I think that has been my take for the past while.That consciousness is built into stuff and becomes more or less complex as physical systems evolve. The connectome,(which I have only just learned of from @Prometheus in this thread doesn't seem at first glance to contradict this idea.) .