Icarus said it well, but I just wanted to clarify that I think GiveWell is quite responsible in acting in line with its mission. It just isn’t designed to invoke systematic change from the top-down, which I would say is a valid criticism even when accounting for all the unsettled debate on whether top-down or bottom-up efforts are more practical, expedient, effective, etc.

Taking the idea seriously doesn't mean adopting it exclusively and in its entirety. I'm talking about a reevaluation of the merits of the position and the work done in support of it.

excellent. yeah that's spot on

The issue is how specifically you want to talk about logical positivism in the modern context. When I talk about it in the modern context, I don't mean a group of philosophers who hew to the precise line sketched out by the Vienna Circle and their supporters. I refer instead to a strain of thought that views logical positivism sympathetically. The idea isn't that they think the verification criterion of meaning is the end of the story and bulletproof, but rather that the critiques of it and the systems offered in place of them are not as convincing as was once thought. So the idea isn't so much that they're logical positivists through and through, but rather that they have sympathies towards the logical positivists and their project and have doubts about the critiques of their opponents. It's about a sort of reevaluation of the work of the logical positivists rather than a wholesale adoption of their ideas.

This is why I say "discredited" is a bit harsh, because while the view was once seen as entirely discredited, people have been reevaluating just how discredited it was. I'd also point out that this is a trend among younger philosophers (where younger means younger than 50, which, wow, weird to say).

i'm not aware of any contemporary philosophers who accept the verification criterion of meaning, though i'm sure there are a curmudgeon or two out there

could you name a prominent philosopher who endorses the verification criterion of meaning?

I know what you're saying regarding nature and my point stands. Using it as an excuse doesn't add up. Seeing as how there are people that still destroy nature in a phenomenal sense sans technology.

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Never the "freezing" of it?

I don't know. I've experienced extreme time dilation.

I can speak from experience that there very much are prominent philosophers who take the idea seriously. Ideas come in and out of fashion. Positivism has been very out of fashion, now it’s less so.

“Discredited” is a bit harsh. It’s certainly not the dominant position anymore, but I personally know of professional philosophers in my department who still more or less accept it.

Philosophers always like to talk about how they’ve disproven this or that idea. Generally speaking, it’s all a load of bull and the ideas will come back given enough time. Like, right now, I would say we’re going through a period where the sort of analytic philosophy of language that replaced positivism is itself being “discredited”, which is leading some to question whether we were too hasty with ditching the logical positivism thing.

"Just a theory!" Really? A theory isn't the same as a hunch. It's when something has been rigorously tested by the scientific community, and is the highest level of scientific achievement an idea can gain. One might be luck to have the word used on their idea.

Even if the data we get seems to say something, and becomes accepted as a theory. It may still need refinement. So, a theoretical temperament is a good thing to use for fine tuning our understanding.

Please don't dismiss such discipline for the likes of Metaphysics my friend.

>Empathy in the (making the) rules of distributive justice

That would be the "need" part. When morality was evolving, < 2 million years ago, people were interdependent, living and surviving together in small groups. People needed each other to cooperate with to survive, so, they were concerned to see that everyone in the group got enough to eat and was fit and well.

Prior to helping, need would have to be determined using cognitive empathy, that anyone can learn to do (better), in my opinion.

Truth and compassion equals wisdom. Truth about the person in need is found by empathy.

>identified as "agnostic"

I'm talking about before identity comes into play. Identity is one of the three laws of logic/thought. I'm talking about a meta-analysis (such as "three laws of logic" that acknowledge identity within an identity already made).

In the meta-analysis, identity is contingent and unknown but follows certain principles (eg, correlation, verificationism, correspondence theory of truth). You've already gone through this. I'm just re-stating it because we agree in a lot.

>they hold sacred are very likely already proficient in epistemology.

I'm not saying they may be aware of their own agnosticism. Rather, agnosticism is something they implicitly accept by continuing their association in such a community. They may not know this is what it's called. For example, New York in the early 20th century. A lot of different cultures congregating and maintaining their own identity while collectively giving New York an identity of its own. This identity wasn't entirely defined but it didn't need to be to be.

>What I am saying is that I empirically have black hair. I have personally measured this and so have many other people who have informally seen me. I may tell you in this thread that I have black hair, and you most likely will accept my claim without further investigation. You don't accept the blackness of my hair because I'm some arbiter of truth. You accept that I have black hair because you have experienced having hair and seeing black hair. You've experienced both ideas empirically. There is no need to scrutinize simple observations which we relate to in reality because many are already shared experiences.

I don't disagree entirely while wishing to highlight the part where there is a continuous, perpetual construction of truth that is justified by its pragmatic value. As we walk down these philosophical halls together, we see the door marked "Utilitarianism" but we leave it closed for now.

The importance of acknowledging the pragmatic aspect is where we get stuck. And I think you alluded to this. We get stuck in analysis paralysis, neuroticism, an ouroboros, a mobius loop.

But getting stuck is not all bad. Sometimes it's validly pragmatic to get stuck. Like an art gallery where there is an open basis for analysis. Where various analyses, maybe even some that contradict each other, may be pragmatic. Or using Rorshack tests for therapy. Or again art but the kind of art that is banned in certain contexts because it threatens the authority.

Or the current political climate of "wokeness" where previously subjugated people gained a platform (internet) where they could gather and unionize against the bourgeoisie, who were and continue to be the arbiters of many "truths." Your hair being black or someone's skin being red become more that just mere, unquestionable correlation (pigmentation tied with color palettes). They potentially become political. An Aryan ideal of blondness, a football team's name become offensive. Truth becomes propaganda. Or rather, truth sheds its outer layer to reveal that it was always propaganda to some degree.

>"other forms of knowing" is just a blanket term with nothing defined, because there is no other form of actually reliably knowing without empiricism.

I'm not in disagreement with your stance thus far. Ironically, my contention started with the above quote (that I may have read wrong). "Nothing defined" is significant, non-trivial, politically relevant.

Roger Penrose (I think it was) used a similar arrow analogy. If we do draw a target around the arrow, the conclusion is that, if the arrow hand landed anywhere else (and we drew the target there instead) it wouldn't allow for life. The idea of other beings often gets raised but the issue is that atoms wouldn't bind together or gravity would rip beings apart.

The multiverse is indeed what some physicists suggest and, if the foundational assumption of the FTA is granted, a multiverse can be inferred.

Also what makes life so important? Maybe with a different fine-tuning, there would be different beings with even better characteristics than "alive" and "conscious", characteristics that we can not even conceive.
Better in what sense? I don't know, but saying that it seems that the universe is fine-tuned for life is like drawing a target around where the arrow landed.
Ok, we have a universe where there is a tiny bit of life and consciousness, but was it really the aim, or is it possible that had the values been different, some other being would be saying "wow, it seems that the universe is fine-tuned for "shlubagazorp", something that we cannot understand?

Also, isn't it possible that there is more than one universe and that we just happen to be in one where life is possible, since we could only happen in one of those? Wouldn't seem very fine-tuned in that case, would it?

I think the world could benefit from a sound articulation of the experience/mindset, that is approachable by (and non-offensive to) various ideologies.

Have you experienced detachment from Time?

>You seem to care in every thread with your riddles...

It's good exercise for the mind!

>And STEMlord idiot balls aren't the whole there is about science.

The quality, self-confidence, and "ambitiousness" of the fan base annoys me, perhaps similar to how atheists are bothered by fundamentalist (or all) theists.

Not at all. With the notable exception of post-modernism, which amounts to competitive obscurantism, positivism mostly just became social science and the humanities generally. With, again, the exception of the mental nonsense special Olympics over there, probably most people don't even consider something like the wholesale rejection of metaphysical explanations. It's presumed. That goes back straight to Comte.

>The idea is that the values of the universal constants have to fall within a very narrow range in order for life to exist. If they were different by even a tiny amount, then life could not have emerged.

Given different values of those constants even more life could exist though. It's not like these are the only values suitable for life.

Also if god wanted to create a universe for life and set the values why did he make it so that the universe is basically empty?

That would still be part of the subsequent ex post interpretation.

You seem to care in every thread with your riddles...

And STEMlord idiot balls aren't the whole there is about science.

Not wrong. I mean we're probably interested in this sort of stuff :)