Philosophy

[P.E.N.G.U.I.N.]

Hey all. I really want to learn as much about philosophy I possibly can before I ever set foot in a college classroom...which is 3 years off for me...So, I was wondering, could anyone who is very knowledgeable on the subject teach me anything?

Thanks much,

Jake

[friendowl]

if a tree fell in the forest and there was no one around would it make a noise

[P.E.N.G.U.I.N.]

Yes it would, Friendowl. Noise is caused by the vibration of anything longitudinally. Shake your hand back and forth really hard but in a large arc. You just made a deafening noise even though you couldn't hear it. So, if a tree falls down and it vibrates from the impact which vibrates the air around it, it makes a sound. Even if there was no one there to hear it.

[mrdevious]

You should learn the following terms. I'd elaborate, but I have a paper to write and my stomach is feeling really sick right now. all these will be in your course, and you can probably find info on them through www.Wikipedia.org or you can google it:

Terms:

- A Priori

- A Posteriori

- Necessary Contingent

- Philistine

Logical Fallacies:

- Strawman fallacy

- Begging the question

- Modus ponens

- Modus Tollens

- Ad Hominum

- Appeal to Authority

- (false) Dilema arguments

- Irrelevant reason

- Appeal to Ignorance

Nature of Knowledge:

- Empiricism

- Rationalism

- Capacity Knowledge

- Propositional Knowledge

- Aristotelian Physics

- Correspondance Theory

- Coherence Theory

- Objective Theory

- Gettier Paradox

- Teleology

- Analytic statements

- Synthetic Statements (you will be required to understand the analytic-synthetic distinctions)

Nature of Mind:

- Descartes theory of mind-body dualism (and dualistic interactionism)

- Solipsism

- Occasionalism

- Leibniz theory of mind-body paralelysm

- epiphenominalism

- Idealism

- Eliminative Materialism

- Identity Theory

- Behaviorism

- Methodological and Philisophical Behaviorism


Ethics

- Emotivism

- Ethical Nonobjectivism

- Ethical Intuitionism

- Utilitarianism

- Cultural relativism

- Normative Ethical Theories

- Meta-ethical Theories

- Empiracle Subjectionist Theories

- Non-Cognitivist Theories

- Deontology (branch of normative ethical theory)

- Ethical Egoism

[CocaCola]

Live life and learn from it... how is that for philosophy.

[Polymirize]

Logical Fallacies:


Dude, modus ponens and modus tollens aren't fallacies, they're two of the most basic forms of valid logic. I think you're confusing "affirming the antecedent" and "denying the consequent" for "denying the antecedent" and "affirming the consequent".

Modus Ponens
If A then B
A
Therefore B

Modus Tollens
If A then B
~B (not B)
Therefore ~A

A Fallacy along these lines would be either:
A->B, B, therefore A
Or A->B, ~A, therefore ~B

On another note, which I'm surely guilty of now as well, way to overemphasize syntax instead of semantics...

Penguin, if you want to learn, try a more directed question... :thumbsup:

[F L E S H]

Read, read, read. If ou wanna learn about philosophy, read philosophers, it's that simple.

Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Hume, Locke, Bentham, Voltaire, Kant, Schlegel, Hegel, Kant, Spinoza, Nietsche..... There are many more, but the key to philosophy is reading. And not just philosphers, but also other literature of the same period, for example, you'll get so much more out of German philosophy if you read Goethe, Nietsche writes about Greek Tragedy, etc. etc.

[sm0k1t]

like flesh said you have to read but be sure to understand what you read

comprehension is the key!

[PureEvil760]

Well if you need help I'm friends with a phd philosophy teacher.

[mrdevious]

Dude, modus ponens and modus tollens aren't fallacies, they're two of the most basic forms of valid logic. I think you're confusing "affirming the antecedent" and "denying the consequent" for "denying the antecedent" and "affirming the consequent".

Modus Ponens
If A then B
A
Therefore B

Modus Tollens
If A then B
~B (not B)
Therefore ~A



I could be wrong on that, but I thought they were fallacies. I remember Modus Ponens being:

If A, then B.
therfore, if B then A.

ah hell I don't know anymore, I hated my philosophy course anyway.

[PureEvil760]

Bugged out shit right there

[CocaCola]

I think you guys are looking into it too much... and taking philosophy too literally.

[poorprincess]

this is irrelevent and unhelpfull but theres a comic book out there called "action philosophers" which tells the life stories and some basic philosophy of lots of philosophers. It's 100% accurate and it's funny as hell.

[Guest]

so then let us talk some philosophy shall we?

...shall we begin with ontological arguments (proving the existence of God)?

[Polymirize]

Ok then.

The world is a web of inter-relation between causes and effects. Since we believe our everyday sense of casuality holds (don't we?) then there must have been a First Cause to start the chain of events in motion.

Are you all with me so far?

Surprise, the First Cause is God.

Dispute at will.

[mrdevious]

Ok then.

The world is a web of inter-relation between causes and effects. Since we believe our everyday sense of casuality holds (don't we?) then there must have been a First Cause to start the chain of events in motion.

Are you all with me so far?

Surprise, the First Cause is God.

Dispute at will.

The first cause is the first cause, that's all we know. "God" fits nicely as the first cause, but I can potentially conceptualize any being, event, or natural phenomenon as being the first cause. Not to mention the problem of what the first cause of god is, and if he was always there, then so could be the universe. I hold to the Buddhist philosophy (and part of quantum mechanics) that what we consider reality and non reality, are not actaully separate things. Essentially, all matter and energy is only force fields, all forcefields and non-forcefields are parts of space-time. Even gravity is merely a bend in spacetime caused the existence of "matter", which is an area of bent space-time that bends the rest of it around the matter to a lesser degree.

[sm0k1t]

I think in a long run of ages that we , the human race, are gods and maybe in 1000000 years monkeys will be gods if they obtain reason wich some species of monkeys actually do. Untill all of what we can learn on this planet, this solar system and why not the universe is known we might be ourselves creating life.

But not a God like the all mighty perfect God, Jah or whatever other names other religions name them. Just gods that can create and manipulate, in a mathematical precision, life.

I really dont know the reason why we exist and why we have a conscience of all this infinity now but what I do know is that the evolution of species tend to upgrade all forms wether its physical, physiological or psychological and its seems that evolution is coded somewhere, in a living cell, organism or whatever is biologicaly alive or exist naturally. Of course we are not there yet but thank God for genetics and our inspiration and creativity =)

and cannabis of course =D
peace :rasta:

[Guest]

If we accept God as being the first cause, then God must be a Necessary Being. Otherwise we are stuck in infinite chains of cause and effect.



..sighs... Even if we do accept the concept of a Necessary Being it is still tough to deal with infinite chains.

[WalkaWalka]

Is philosophy the study of how you think and why you think that way or is it the study of what you beleave and why you beleave it.

[Polymirize]

Ideally (ha ha!) philosophy is a motion, a process and not a product.

If philosophy is done without an open mind, then it's simply the creation of rhetoric in favor of x or y.

I'm not a big proponent of the God theory myself. I think that Augustine for example has something worthwhile with his "first cause" arguments, but don't follow him on the conclusion that this cause is the equivalent of the Christian God.

Perhaps to get away from doctrinal issues we should refer to this entity simply as the "being-in-itself-for-itself"

Devious, have you ever looked into hermetic law? (as philosophy...)

[Binzhoubum]

I have a degree in philosophy...:smokin:

Most arguments run in circles if you really think about it...all of our thoughts and ideas are probably based on false information to begin with...LOL

Read Wittgenstein "Tractatus-Logico Philosophicus"
And then read some Foucault....

But PLEASE remember...philosophy has no answers...only methods of discourse and argumentation :thumbsup:

[Binzhoubum]

all your answers lie within...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

even i dont believe what i write...maybe I should start a religion :rolleyes:

:smokin:

[Binzhoubum]

If you really want to fuck up your mind...

Symbolic logic

:smokin:

[Binzhoubum]

Or try an Alvin Plantinga book... Warranted Christian Belief

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

its a riot :smokin:

[beachguy in thongs]

I had this saved as a bookmark, though, I (really) never used it.

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/


Collective Intentionality

The idea that a collective could be bearer of intentional states such as belief and intention is likely to raise some eyebrows, especially in certain Anglo-American and European philosophical circles. The dominant picture in these circles is that intentionality is a feature of individual minds/brains. Prima facie, groups don't have minds or brains. How could they have intentional states? Despite the initial skepticism, there is a growing number of philosophers turning their attention to the issue of collective intentionality. The focus of these recent discussions has been primarily on the notions of collective intention and belief. Philosophers of action theory have been interested in collective intentions because of their interest in understanding collective or group agency. Individual intentions shape and inform individual actions. My intention guides my daily activities, structures my desires in a variety of ways, and facilitates coordination with both my future self and others around me. But we do not always act alone and it is coordination with others that raises interesting issues regarding the possibility of collective intentions. Many philosophers believe that individual intentions alone will not explain collective action and that joint action requires joint (sometimes called shared or collective in the literature) intentions. An exception to this trend is Seamus Miller. Miller (2001) has argued that collective or joint action can be understood in terms of collective ends that are not intentions. Because his positive account of joint action does not appeal to collective intentionality, his work will not be highlighted in this article.

Interest in the notion of collective belief has been motivated, in part, by concerns over how to understand our collective belief ascriptions and the role they play in social scientific theory and everyday contexts. We often attribute beliefs, desires, and other propositional attitudes to groups like corporations. What do these ascriptions mean? Are they to be taken literally?

[beachguy in thongs]

If you really want to fuck up your mind...

Symbolic logic

:smokin:

Logical Paradoxes

A paradox is generally a puzzling conclusion we seem to be driven towards by our reasoning, but which is highly counterintuitive, nevertheless. There are, amongst these, a large variety of paradoxes of a logical nature which have teased even professional logicians, in some cases for several millennia. But what are now sometimes isolated as 'the logical paradoxes' are a much less heterogeneous collection: they are a group of antinomies centered on the notion of self-reference, some of which were known in Classical times, but most of which became particularly prominent in the early decades of last century. Quine distinguished amongst paradoxes such antinomies. He did so by first isolating the 'veridical' and 'falsidical' paradoxes, which, although puzzling riddles, turned out to be plainly true, or plainly false, after some inspection. In addition, however, there were paradoxes which 'produce a self-contradiction by accepted ways of reasoning', and which, Quine thought, established 'that some tacit and trusted pattern of reasoning must be made explicit, and henceforward be avoided or revised' (Quine 1966, p7). We will first look, more broadly, and historically, at several of the main conundrums of a logical nature which have proved difficult, some since antiquity, before concentrating later on the more recent troubles with paradoxes of self-reference. They will all be called 'logical paradoxes'.

[Binzhoubum]

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/chinese-room/

Read this. :smokin:

And please for the love of God...NO ONE bring up phenomenology

[Binzhoubum]

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/language-thought/

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mental-representation/

It's so beautiful when it's all broken down like that, isn't it? :smokin:

Can I steal a line from Garden Knowm for a moment just to tell you all that:

iloveyou

:smokin:

[Binzhoubum]

To say that a mental object has semantic properties is, paradigmatically, to say that it may be about, or be true or false of, an object or objects, or that it may be true or false simpliciter. Suppose I think that ocelots take snuff. I am thinking about ocelots, and if what I think of them (that they take snuff) is true of them, then my thought is true. According to RTM such states are to be explained as relations between agents and mental representations. To think that ocelots take snuff is to token in some way a mental representation whose content is that ocelots take snuff. On this view, the semantic properties of mental states are the semantic properties of the representations they are relations to.

Linguistic acts seem to share such properties with mental states. Suppose I say that ocelots take snuff. I am talking about ocelots, and if what I say of them (that they take snuff) is true of them, then my utterance is true. Now, to say that ocelots take snuff is (in part) to utter a sentence that means that ocelots take snuff. Many philosophers have thought that the semantic properties of linguistic expressions are inherited from the intentional mental states they are conventionally used to express (Grice 1957, Fodor 1978, Schiffer1972/1988, Searle 1983). On this view, the semantic properties of linguistic expressions are the semantic properties of the representations that are the mental relata of the states they are conventionally used to express.

(Others, however, e.g., Davidson (1975, 1982) have suggested that the kind of thought human beings are capable of is not possible without language, so that the dependency might be reversed, or somehow mutual (see also Sellars 1956). (But see Martin 1987 for a defense of the claim that thought is possible without language. See also Chisholm and Sellars 1958.) Schiffer (1987) subsequently despaired of the success of what he calls "Intention Based Semantics.")

It is also widely held that in addition to having such properties as reference, truth-conditions and truth â?? so-called extensional properties â?? expressions of natural languages also have intensional properties, in virtue of expressing properties or propositions â?? i.e., in virtue of having meanings or senses, where two expressions may have the same reference, truth-conditions or truth value, yet express different properties or propositions (Frege 1892/1997). If the semantic properties of natural-language expressions are inherited from the thoughts and concepts they express (or vice versa, or both), then an analogous distinction may be appropriate for mental representations.


But I thought that ocelots do take snuff!

:smokin:

[beachguy in thongs]

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/chinese-room/

Read this. :smokin:

And please for the love of God...NO ONE bring up phenomenology

You mean, this:


The Phenomenological Reduction

There is an experience in which it is possible for us to come to the world with no knowledge or preconceptions in hand; it is the experience of astonishment. The â??knowingâ?� we have in this experience stands in stark contrast to the â??knowingâ?� we have in our everyday lives, where we come to the world with theory and â??knowledgeâ?� in hand, our minds already made up before we ever engage the world. However, in the experience of astonishment, our everyday â??knowing,â?� when compared to the â??knowingâ?� that we experience in astonishment, is shown up as a pale epistemological imposter and is reduced to mere opinion by comparison.

The phenomenological reduction is at once a description and prescription of a technique that allows one to voluntarily sustain the awakening force of astonishment so that conceptual cognition can be carried throughout intentional analysis, thus bringing the â??knowingâ?� of astonishment into our everyday experience. It is by virtue of the â??knowingâ?� perspective generated by the proper performance of the phenomenological reduction that phenomenology claims to offer such a radical standpoint on the world phenomenon; indeed, it claims to offer a perspective that is so radical, it becomes the standard of rigor whereby every other perspective is judged and by which they are grounded. In what follows there will be close attention paid to correctly understanding the rigorous nature of the phenomenological reduction, the epistemological problem that spawned it, how that problem is solved by the phenomenological reduction, and the truly radical nature of the technique itself.

In other words, the phenomenological reduction is properly understood as a regimen designed to transform a philosopher into a phenomenologist by virtue of the attainment of a certain perspective on the world phenomenon. The path to the attainment of this perspective is a species of meditation, requiring rigorous, persistent effort and is no mere mental exercise. It is a species of meditation because, unlike ordinary meditation, which involves only the mind, this more radical form requires the participation of the entire individual and initially brings about a radical transformation of the individual performing it similar to a religious conversion. Husserl discovered the need for such a regimen once it became clear to him that the foundation upon which scientific inquiry rested was compromised by the very framework of science itself and the psychological assumptions of the scientist; the phenomenological reduction is the technique whereby the phenomenologist puts him or herself in a position to provide adequately rigorous grounds for scientific or any other kind of inquiry.
:what: :what: :what: :what: :what: :what:

Why not? I don't read. :cool:

[Binzhoubum]

LOL

:smokin:

I think we all know the answer to that one...

:stoned:

[poorprincess]

Ideally (ha ha!) philosophy is a motion, a process and not a product.

If philosophy is done without an open mind, then it's simply the creation of rhetoric in favor of x or y.

I'm not a big proponent of the God theory myself. I think that Augustine for example has something worthwhile with his "first cause" arguments, but don't follow him on the conclusion that this cause is the equivalent of the Christian God.

Perhaps to get away from doctrinal issues we should refer to this entity simply as the "being-in-itself-for-itself"

Devious, have you ever looked into hermetic law? (as philosophy...)

www.hermetics.org

[beachguy in thongs]

Has anyone ever read Ayn Rand?

www.tfd.com - her beliefs

# That man must choose his values and actions by reason;
# That the individual has a right to exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing self to others nor others to self; and
# That no one has the right to seek values from others by physical force, or impose ideas on others by physical force.

[Polymirize]

basically phenomenology is just the view that our own (human) psychology is inescapable, and so all of our pursuits of truth have to be done taking this into account.

Something has to account for qualia...

Searle's entire argument is targetted against functionalism/behaviorism... and by default he shows the Turing test to be inadequate for showing consciousness.

Recommending Wittgenstein to beginners is like asking children to play with loaded guns...

[OnionsOfLove]

Penguin:

I dont know if youre still reading this topic or not, but Im going to reply to your post anyway. Philosophy was something I always wanted to get into but I had no idea how. I did start reading some stuff but quickly became bored because it couldnt keep my attention. A few years later I took a hit of LSD and ever since then my mind has been figuring itself out, looking for truth in my own identity and formulating truths about the world around me. Things to think about:

Have you ever seen anything in your entire life without seeing the translucent image of your nose at the bottom of your plane of view?

Can you be positive that anything is happening outside, right now, without experiencing it through some sort of stimulus?

If everything you know is only a form of stimuli, how do you know that there isnt something more in the world that you just arent able to sense?

If you are willing to accept that everything that has happened to you is based on memories, thoughts, and experiences, what is keeping you from doing exactly what you want to do with your life? Are these constraints real?

[Binzhoubum]

basically phenomenology is just the view that our own (human) psychology is inescapable, and so all of our pursuits of truth have to be done taking this into account.

Something has to account for qualia...

Searle's entire argument is targetted against functionalism/behaviorism... and by default he shows the Turing test to be inadequate for showing consciousness.

Recommending Wittgenstein to beginners is like asking children to play with loaded guns...

Ah! So you actually do know philosophy! :thumbsup:

BUT...I think the debate surrounding phenomenology is a little deeper than that. Most contemporarty analytic philosphy of mind circles view phenomenology in the Husserl-Heidegger-Sartre tradition as very often being trite and meaningless since they do not adhere to any strict, analytic, logical formula in their respective queries concerning issues of phenomena, consciousness, and qualia.

Wittgenstein is good for the analytic soul. A little Quine never hurt anyone either.

Nice quote by the way...:smokin:

[Binzhoubum]

Penguin:

I dont know if youre still reading this topic or not, but Im going to reply to your post anyway. Philosophy was something I always wanted to get into but I had no idea how. I did start reading some stuff but quickly became bored because it couldnt keep my attention. A few years later I took a hit of LSD and ever since then my mind has been figuring itself out, looking for truth in my own identity and formulating truths about the world around me. Things to think about:

Have you ever seen anything in your entire life without seeing the translucent image of your nose at the bottom of your plane of view?

Can you be positive that anything is happening outside, right now, without experiencing it through some sort of stimulus?

If everything you know is only a form of stimuli, how do you know that there isnt something more in the world that you just arent able to sense?

If you are willing to accept that everything that has happened to you is based on memories, thoughts, and experiences, what is keeping you from doing exactly what you want to do with your life? Are these constraints real?

I would argue that you CAN be positive things are happening outside right now irregardless if you are experiencing or not experiencing any direct or immeadiate perception of stimuli because we are able to see the results of time passing or environmental change every time we return outside.

Furthermore, just because you are not experiencing any direct stimulus does not necessarily entail that nothing is happening. That's silly. There are many things in world that we, as humans, are not able to sense--e.g., high-pitched sounds, slight changes in atomspheric conditions, certain smells; however, you make it sound as if we could experience such stimuli it would somehow open our minds to some type of eternal truth or shared consciousness or God or whatever you call it.

I don't think true knowledge is ascertained through mere perception alone. We need to rid ourselves of all preconceptions, opinions, beliefs, judgments, etc. before we are able to truly interpret the meaning of any stimuli in the first place.

Krishnamurti said:


Very few of us listen directly to what is being said, we always translate or interpret it according to a particular point of view, whether Hindu, Muslim, or communist. We have formulations, opinions, judgments, beliefs through which we listen , so we are actually never listening at all; we are only listening in terms of our own particular prejudices, conclusions, or experiences. We are always interpreting what we hear, and obviously that does not bring about any understanding...So, is it possible to listen without any prejudice, without any conclusion, without any interpretation? Because it is fairly obvious our thinking is conditioned, is it not?...Effort at any level is obviously a form of destruction, and it is only when the mind is very quiet, not making an effort, that understanding takes place. But with most of us, effort is the primary thing; we think effort is essential, and that very effort to listen, to understand, prevents comprehension, the immeadiate perception of what is true and what is false.

(From an essay entitled, "Can We Create a New Culture?" by J. Krishnamurti)

:smokin:

What do YOU think? :confused:

PS Nice quote. :smokin:

[Polymirize]

Ah! So you actually do know philosophy! :thumbsup:

BUT...I think the debate surrounding phenomenology is a little deeper than that. Most contemporarty analytic philosphy of mind circles view phenomenology in the Husserl-Heidegger-Sartre tradition as very often being trite and meaningless since they do not adhere to any strict, analytic, logical formula in their respective queries concerning issues of phenomena, consciousness, and qualia.

Wittgenstein is good for the analytic soul. A little Quine never hurt anyone either.

Nice quote by the way...:smokin:

Oh sure, but that would be like me holding up the corpse of logical positivism as an example of where the analytics can go wrong. These things tend to progress. It's probably just distinctions of the various places we choose to draw the boundaries of reality. I guess I'm more prone to agree in some ways with krishnamurti. And just hope to see the bigger picture afterall.

Wittgenstein is good for the soul because not even Wittgenstein knows how to explain himself.

As for Quine (and Davidson), absolutely we have this great shared language and no way to explain where it comes from. I just think that calls for a reexamination of phenomenology (perhaps in the context of existentialism or post-structualism) as a coming to terms with the precise spot in which we as subjective individuals plug ourselves into existence.

I think the more contemporary views in both analytic and continental philosophies are starting to re-integrate the two sides of the dualism between mental and physical. To create a role for the individual as the intersection between awareness of the world and awareness of the self. Which of course, is all very Kantian.

[TMBGoofball]

Think about things.

[graymatter]

I'm not a philosopher, but another way to look at the question is through your own social and cultural context, and then work backwards.

Chances are you're mixed with a good amount of utilitarian and pragmatic ingredients...

[Binzhoubum]

Oh sure, but that would be like me holding up the corpse of logical positivism as an example of where the analytics can go wrong. These things tend to progress. It's probably just distinctions of the various places we choose to draw the boundaries of reality. I guess I'm more prone to agree in some ways with krishnamurti. And just hope to see the bigger picture afterall.

Wittgenstein is good for the soul because not even Wittgenstein knows how to explain himself.

As for Quine (and Davidson), absolutely we have this great shared language and no way to explain where it comes from. I just think that calls for a reexamination of phenomenology (perhaps in the context of existentialism or post-structualism) as a coming to terms with the precise spot in which we as subjective individuals plug ourselves into existence.

I think the more contemporary views in both analytic and continental philosophies are starting to re-integrate the two sides of the dualism between mental and physical. To create a role for the individual as the intersection between awareness of the world and awareness of the self. Which of course, is all very Kantian.

I guess I was under the impression that most analytic philosophers were physicalists and therefore didn't buy into dualism.

Kant...he is a genius, but...WHEW! Talk about dry.

Don't bring the Vienna Circle into this discussion please! :( Besides that mistake was recognized. :thumbsup:

Yeah, I agree with you. Let's just give Krishnamurti a chance.

Smoke one with me man...:D :smokin: .... :smokin: .... :stoned:

[Polymirize]

I guess I was under the impression that most analytic philosophers were physicalists and therefore didn't buy into dualism.


I'm under the same impression, I however just don't find physicalism to be a coherent position. The whole casual closure of the physical. I mean, the placebo effect alone seems to stand as a case of mental causation affecting the physical, instead of the other way around.

Let it be known to all, discussion of the Vienna circle will result in ridicule, although discussion of influences such as Frege, Russell and Wittgenstein may still be permitted. Case by case basis...

Nothing like blazin' and just letting the thoughts free-flow huh?

So Binzhoubum, what are your philosophical areas of interest?

[Binzhoubum]

I'm under the same impression, I however just don't find physicalism to be a coherent position. The whole casual closure of the physical. I mean, the placebo effect alone seems to stand as a case of mental causation affecting the physical, instead of the other way around.

Let it be known to all, discussion of the Vienna circle will result in ridicule, although discussion of influences such as Frege, Russell and Wittgenstein may still be permitted. Case by case basis...

Nothing like blazin' and just letting the thoughts free-flow huh?

So Binzhoubum, what are your philosophical areas of interest?

:stoned:

May I preface this post by saying that I have been smoking this http://boards.cannabis.com/showthread.php?t=72242...and I don't believe my thought are extremely clear at this point....so please bear with me. Thanks!:thumbsup:

Polymirize: My areas of interest during my philosophy studies were concentrated in the fields of analytic philosophy of mind and language; however, during my last semester in university I found a deep interest in Foucault's works.

Right now I am living in Asia....traveling around....thinking about most everything I learned and trying to apply it somehow...:smokin:

I am glad that you recognize the importance of philosophers such as Frege, Russell, and Wittgenstein....Sometimes I just like to tease the Continentals...:dance: ...I tend to lean towards Analytic conclusions in contemporary philosophy because I find that it meshes better with my currently held scientific beliefs.

Yet, I can't completely deny that Continental philosophy does appeal to me in some ineffable manner. I DO believe there is something greater than the physical, but I am waiting for some type of solid evidence to devote myself to it....

:smokin:

[Polymirize]

Yet, I can't completely deny that Continental philosophy does appeal to me in some ineffable manner. I DO believe there is something greater than the physical, but I am waiting for some type of solid evidence to devote myself to it....


empirical evidence of the non-empirical nature of reality? What would that even look like? It would have to be beyond definition, or at least beyond description within the empirical linguistic framework.

I'd never try to argue with good science, I just like to call it to task when it tries to overstep its boundaries.

Asia? damn man, that sounds pretty sweet. You should check out the Buddhist metaphysics (as metaphor if you like) while you're over there.

My own focus is more on identity and ethics, but language has just become this inescapable force within the analytic tradition now, probably because it's used to talk about... well, everything.

:thumbsup:

[OnionsOfLove]

Binzhoubum:


Just because you are not experiencing any direct stimulus does not necessarily entail that nothing is happening.

Key words: "not necessarily"

[Binzhoubum]

empirical evidence of the non-empirical nature of reality? What would that even look like? It would have to be beyond definition, or at least beyond description within the empirical linguistic framework.

I'd never try to argue with good science, I just like to call it to task when it tries to overstep its boundaries.

Asia? damn man, that sounds pretty sweet. You should check out the Buddhist metaphysics (as metaphor if you like) while you're over there.

My own focus is more on identity and ethics, but language has just become this inescapable force within the analytic tradition now, probably because it's used to talk about... well, everything.

:thumbsup:

Maybe I should have said I was waiting in vain...

:smokin:

[flamingskullballs]

Yes it would, Friendowl. Noise is caused by the vibration of anything longitudinally. Shake your hand back and forth really hard but in a large arc. You just made a deafening noise even though you couldn't hear it. So, if a tree falls down and it vibrates from the impact which vibrates the air around it, it makes a sound. Even if there was no one there to hear it.
that particular question is not about absolute answeres...its about absence

its more of, if we didnt exist, would the world exist?

[afghooey]

Yes it would, Friendowl. Noise is caused by the vibration of anything longitudinally. Shake your hand back and forth really hard but in a large arc. You just made a deafening noise even though you couldn't hear it. So, if a tree falls down and it vibrates from the impact which vibrates the air around it, it makes a sound. Even if there was no one there to hear it.

Actually, until it comes into contact with and is interpreted by an eardrum, it would simply be a vibration, and not technically a sound, right? ;)

Point being, the cause of a sound is irrelevant. The fact that it's heard is what makes it a sound.

[flamingskullballs]

Actually, until it comes into contact with and is interpreted by an eardrum, it would simply be a vibration, and not technically a sound, right? ;)

Point being, the cause of a sound is irrelevant. The fact that it's heard is what makes it a sound.
you are BOTH getting the Koan wrong!!!

"if a tree falls, and no body is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

it is simply a metaphor of existance...it says that if we dont exist, nothing is able to exist

and this not only applies to us, but everything else

light cannot be without dark, love without hate, et cetera et cetera
if you where never initiated into creation, would there be an existance you are missing out on?

instead...all that you need to know about philosophy, penguin, is this:

philosophy is science applied in all directions, as science is philosophy around one general idea