Philosophy

LOL

:smokin:

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

:stoned:

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Originally Posted by 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...)

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www.hermetics.org

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.

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...

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?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 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...

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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:

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Originally Posted by 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?

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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:

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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.

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

:smokin:

What do YOU think? :confused:

PS Nice quote. :smokin:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Binzhoubum

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:

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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.

Think about things.

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...