Posts by Martin

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Would a Kantian take the position that it is not true that there are no supernatural gods, not true that there is no life after death, and not true that pleasure is the guide of life?

Kant himself does take these positions. However, later Kantians may differ. I am an Epicurean, not a Kantian. My reference to being "Kantian" is limited to him as being named as the original source of the distinction between a model and truth. He used different terminology and an idealistic framework. Others reformulated his epistemology within materialism. Other than that and his version of the golden rule, I do not know much about other aspects of his philosophy. I have read very little from Kant himself but more from those who refer to him.

I found two references for dummies on Kant's epistemology and one reference for professionals. Although the one frome Nature has been created with A.I. (which I usually would not want to read or share) I have to concede that it is convincing and easy to understand. The second reference is riddled with mistakes but seems to correctly present Kant's epistemology. The third one is mostly above my league:

Kantian Philosophy and Epistemology | Nature Research Intelligence

https://yohanesnuwara.medium.com/the-epistemology-of-immanuel-kant-5e5e7fbd1e48

Kant’s Ongoing Relevance for Philosophy of Science | Kantian Review | Cambridge Core

Kant’s Ongoing Relevance for Philosophy of Science - Volume 28 Issue 3

www.cambridge.org

The rejection of both plain rationalism and plain empiricism is an overlap between Epicurus and Kant.
Kant replaced them with a unified epistemology drawing from parts of both of them. Based on his new approach to epistemology, scientists usually present their theories as models of reality instead of truth on reality.
Epicurus replaced rationalism and empiricism with another unified epistemology within which the most basic theories still claim truth on reality. This claim is an unproven belief which is akin to religion and Platonism and not necessary for a materialist world view.
A philosophy which rejects Plato's idealism more profoundly and does not make superfluous claims on truth is more convincing. Under this aspect, my choice is Kantian instead of Epicurean.

Welcome Ludenbergcastle!

Welcome Cornelius Peripateticus!

Welcome Hania!

Welcome Martijn!

I started a conversation between us.

For now, I see the isotacheian model as something complementary, e.g. as an exercise for students, but not as an alternative way of teaching special relativity.

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Would you try California’s fastest zip lines?

Yes!

Whereas the analogy with the Lorentz transform is valid, the math and some other details might need further correction. I expect to dedicate some time slots with sufficient ability to concentrate to figure this out soon. Depending on what I come up with, I will write it here or in a private message. Regarding the normalization and Entailment 2 (where I got stuck the last time I worked on the paper), a video call might be good. (Teams or Zoom work well for me).

From an Epicurean perspective, a guilty conscience may be considered a preconception if it has arisen from socialization in one's group and not from religious indoctrination. Such a preconception may be more efficient than fear of punishment.

Welcome Claire!

Welcome Hyakinthos!

Welcome D Campbell!

As speed has a unit, the normalization would need to be a bit more elaborate than just equating s with 1. One way to normalize would be to divide b by s but that might require adapting some of the text. I found no mistake in the text so far, but as mentioned, I need more time to finish.

I am halfway through with reading the publication und do not yet know by when I will finish and provide a more detailed reply.
I send this quickly in advance just in case there is a follow-up publication in the works: Please hold back or correct a mistake in the derivation:
After the correct equation b = sqr(s² - a²), a factor s is missing, which carries through in the subsequent equations.

Welcome JCBlackmon!

I am a physicist, too, and guess the derivation is similar to the derivation from the absolute constance of the speed of light and the equivalence of all inertial frames of reference. Please explain or share a link to your publication.

Welcome EdGenX!

Further improving bodies with implants, exoskeletons, brain interfaces and the like and extending lifespans is likely to happen. Full transhumanism by leaving the body/uploading something to machinery is a delusion. What can be uploaded is a reductionist copy of some aspects. I would not consider that as continuation of my existence. Transhumanism is an idea motivated by fear of death. Getting rid of the fear of death in accordance with Epicurus' philosophy and modern science and eventually embracing death when it happens (or suicide when pain permanently outweighs pleasure) makes more sense to me.

Here are examples of what has worked for me:

Chocolate mousse:
In the past, I splurged on chocolate mousse at a buffet restaurent where I ate about once per week. Eating a lot of chocolate mousse was certainly a bad habit because of the high sugar content.
When the restaurant changed from a big bowl, from which I would take several portions per meal, to prefilled small cups, this helped in providing a simple way to measure and limit the consumption.
I found that 3 cups provided already the maximum pleasure of the moment and more would go into saturation. Later on, I took only two cups and partially compensated the loss of pleasure by eating other tasty food with no sugar added.
After a while of keeping to the temporary habit of eating only two cups, the urge for a third cup/lack of the related pleasure disappeared. So, I limited the intake to one cup per meal, whereby I chose the cup which appeared to be filled the most.
After a while, the craving for a second cup disappeared. Then, I chose the cup which appeared to be filled the least.
After a while, the craving for that small amount disappeared. I did not take any more chocolate mousse and no other sweetened dessert. I watched my colleagues eating multiple cups of chocolate mousse and other sweetened desserts, without that I would crave again for the chocolate mousse.

Alcohol:
As a young adult, I rarely drank alcohol but when I did, I sometimes did binge-drinking. Each hangover made me dislike the particular type of alcoholic drink for an increasingly longer period, and eventually the dislike became permanent. In this way, I lost the taste for lager beer, which was bad because it has been the most common social drink in my circles. I felt that losing the taste for an increasing number of alcoholic drinks was bad.
At middle age, I started to drink spirits moderately in the evening during the cool season and almost none during the hot seasons in Thailand. I used a measuring cup to measure the alcohol intake per occasion, observed up to what dose the aftereffects were acceptable and limited the intake to that dose.
Eventually, I got hypertonia, about 5 years ahead of my age group. I measured that at the established limit of alcohol intake, there was a slight but significant increase in blood pressure in the morning.
So, I reduced the limit to half of what I had established before. At that level, it still gave me a little bit of a kick, so there was no big loss in pleasure.
Eventually, I went to a doctor, who prescribed blood pressure medicine, encouraged me to record my blood pressure daily, and answered "No" to my question whether I should discontinue drinking alcohol.
After preliminary retirement, my sleep deprivation disappeared because I could take naps at daytime. In turn, I could no longer fall asleep easily in the evening. I noticed that drinking spirits about half an hour before going to bed helped most of the time with falling asleep. As I monitor my blood pressure and treat it with medicine, I increased the alcohol intake to the limit which I had established in middle age. The further plan is to try to decrease the limit again as long as I can still easily fall asleep at bedtime.

In conclusion, measuring a "bad" habit accurately, observing the effects of dose variation and gradually establishing a healthier habit for better long-term pleasure (health) has worked well while keeping short-term pleasure high.

Below is an example of what happens in other groups, in this case "Philosophy matters" on Facebook as quoted from maybe two months ago. (I thought, I had posted it here already in September but saw only today that it was still an unsent draft):

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INTERESTING PHENOMENON: yesterday we posted three pieces about Spinoza, and shockingly no one called us a crazed spinozist or godless pantheist. There were barely any comments at all, and none of them were extraordinary. Imagine if we had posted thrice about Marx instead. Two days prior to that, we posted one article about feminism and subsequently noticed a curiously large uptick in followers, most of whom had fewer than 20 friends, and who apparently came here just to make incredibly nasty comments about women and feminism (all of which we hid from public view during our troll patrol); the next day, seeing that they got no traction, they all “left”. The botnets are working hard to create dissensus communis. If they’re targeting us, a rinky-dink page dedicated to philosophy, for use of keywords like “marx” or “feminism” (or critical race theory or queer theory or trans philosophy, or any other number of words that the regime does not like), then imagine what they’re doing to other bigger pages with gazillions of followers, who are not as brilliant and discerning as ours.