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Philosophizers
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 Re: Philosophizers
Posted by reaper47 on Mon Mar 6th at 5:37pm 2006

<img src=" SRC="images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif"> Yea, it's a form of recursion, isn't it? You have to accept philosophy before you can even practice it. It's almost religious. That's what bothers me about it. Why I never got into it.



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 Re: Philosophizers
Posted by Gollum on Mon Mar 6th at 6:40pm 2006

? quoting reaper47
The most interesting quote I ever read concerning philosophy is this one by Carl Friedrich von Weizs?cker:

?Philosophie ist die Wissenschaft, ?ber die man nicht reden kann, ohne sie selbst zu betreiben.?

which means "Philosophy is the science you cannot talk about without practicing it yourself."

It could mean both: that everything is philosophy... or nothing is.

....Or it could be one of those frivolous epigrams that philosophers indulge in while talking about their occupation. It might be more accurate to say you cannot understand philosophy properly without practising it, but that is true of many activities.

Take bondage, for example...

? quoting reaper47
Yea, it's a form of recursion, isn't it? You have to accept philosophy before you can even practice it. It's almost religious. That's what bothers me about it. Why I never got into it.

Not really. Philosophy is more like the antithesis of faith: no belief, no matter how sacred or intuitively obvious, is immune from criticism.





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 Re: Philosophizers
Posted by Bewbies on Tue Mar 7th at 9:09pm 2006

the hell? golly's back?

more than anybody else, i lean on henry david thoreau for wording some philosphies i agree with. enjoy:

"Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it."

"As if you could kill time without injuring eternity."

"Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something."

"If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them."

"Live each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each. "

at the same time...

"I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn't wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine." -- Bertrand Russel





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 Re: Philosophizers
Posted by Mephs on Wed Mar 8th at 1:43am 2006

Ask me tomorrow, I'll say something different. (I'm not even going to insert a generic rant in here).




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 Re: Philosophizers
Posted by DrGlass on Wed Mar 8th at 7:27am 2006

I don?t believe that philosophy has to be learned. Philosophy in my mind is all about asking "why?" then trying to answering that question by reflection on your experience and knowledge of the world.

And if you've ever been a little kid you'll know that philosophy is something you are born with. What kid hasn't asked... "Why is the sky blue" "why can birds fly" etc.

So, imho, the only point of argument is to strengthen your view point (think of the last time you've swayed anyone on anything they believe strongly in).







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 Re: Philosophizers
Posted by Gollum on Wed Mar 8th at 9:52am 2006

? quoting DrGlass
So, imho, the only point of argument is to strengthen your view point (think of the last time you've swayed anyone on anything they believe strongly in).

Er....

What about arguments that change your viewpoint? Or are you omniscient?





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 Re: Philosophizers
Posted by Addicted to Morphine on Wed Mar 8th at 1:10pm 2006

? quoting DrGlass

And if you've ever been a little kid you'll know that philosophy is something you are born with. What kid hasn't asked... "Why is the sky blue" "why can birds fly" etc.



Isn't that just curiosity?




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 Re: Philosophizers
Posted by FatStrings on Wed Mar 8th at 6:05pm 2006

our world however has kicked philosophy in the arse and decided to answer everything with the scientific method



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 Re: Philosophizers
Posted by DrGlass on Wed Mar 8th at 10:11pm 2006

? quote:
? quoting DrGlass

And if you've ever been a little kid you'll know that philosophy is something you are born with. What kid hasn't asked... "Why is the sky blue" "why can birds fly" etc.



Isn't that just curiosity?

Isn't that what drives people to pholosiphize? <img src=" SRC="images/smiles/icon_wink.gif"> If I didn't want to know more about the world I wouldn't care about all the "whys." I dont, however, mean that "philosophy" strives to aswer those kinds of questions, but thats how I feel it starts. You ask why the sky is blue, then you question why light changes when it hits the atmosphere, then you wonder what light is, untill you find a question that doesn't have any kind of scientific answer (not yet anyways)

? quote:

What about arguments that change your viewpoint? Or are you omniscient?



How many people really change their views on subjects that dont have a single right answer? You can't argue about 1+1 but people will argue about religion untill the cows come home. ok, maybe 'never' was the wrong word... but it takes a very good argument to break someone away from a core belief. Thats why I see argument as a tool to stregthen your views, rather than a way of changing other's minds.

and no I dont think I'm omniscient <img src=" SRC="images/smiles/icon_wink.gif">






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 Re: Philosophizers
Posted by Gollum on Wed Mar 8th at 10:15pm 2006

? quoting FatStrings
our world however has kicked philosophy in the arse and decided to answer everything with the scientific method

Hardly. Philosophy remains, nearly by definition, the only discipline whose subject matter encompasses all other fields of learning. Although philosophy cannot substitute for specific scientific study, its overview of all sciences is unique.

Granted, philosophy's role has changed greatly as previously subsumed sciences have established existences independent of it.

Some questions, in principle, can never be answered by scientific enquiry. For example, questions of ethics.

For a particularly interesting example, think of the Star Trek model of teleportation, whereby a person's matter is disassembled and then either reassembled or recreated at the destination, in the exact (sub)atomic configuration of the original matter.

If such a technology were ever to be developed, then it would raise a crucial question that only philosophy could even try to answer:

"Is this a quick way to travel, or just a quick way to die?"

No external evidence could possibly be relevant to this question, because the reassembled matter would behave precisely as the original person. But would it BE the same person? Or would the conscious experience of the original person have ended, and a new person come into being -- albeit one who remembered all the experiences of the old person, and was convinced that he was this person?

How about that for a headf**k? <img src=" SRC="images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif">





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 Re: Philosophizers
Posted by Bewbies on Wed Mar 8th at 10:37pm 2006

kinda funny. i once speculated with my teacher about particle placement and digitization.. i mean taking, let's say, a human being and recording it's being digitally.. then storing it just like any other data. (you know, so you could transport and reconstruct it elsewhere.)

of course, someone else jumped in, inquiring about the fact that there would then be two beings. one has to die. and that hit me real hard.. i had to think about it. when i think of philosphy's role in science, i think of that time.





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 Re: Philosophizers
Posted by Addicted to Morphine on Wed Mar 8th at 10:43pm 2006

? quoting Gollum
But would it BE the same person? Or would the conscious experience of the original person have ended, and a new person come into being -- albeit one who remembered all the experiences of the old person, and was convinced that he was this person?

How about that for a headf**k?



If he had all the same memories, looked completely the same and was convinced that he was this person ... then I would consider him to be the same person. Even if technically he wasn't.

But damn yes, that does f**k with my head.




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 Re: Philosophizers
Posted by Tracer Bullet on Wed Mar 8th at 10:44pm 2006

? quoting FatStrings
our world however has kicked philosophy in the arse and decided to answer everything with the scientific method

As a scientist, it's kind of sad to realize how little most people know of my discipline. People generally make one of two mistakes: They either think science is infallible, or believe it is evil.

Richard Feynman said that science is the art of separating fact from fiction. We have gotten very good at it, but but you must be able to make a measurement in order for science to provide any insight. A hypothesis without mathematical proof or experimental evidence IS philosophy.

The first Scientists were called "Natural Philosophers" for good reason. They were interested in the philosophy of the natural world just like those that came before. The key thing that set the likes of Robert Boyle apart from Aristotle was that the former subjected his philosophies to physical tests.





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 Re: Philosophizers
Posted by FatStrings on Thu Mar 9th at 2:37am 2006

i guess i was a little extreme in this, but what i was trying to say is that people are coming more and more to want physical/scientific proof before they believe anything




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 Re: Philosophizers
Posted by Foxpup on Fri Mar 10th at 5:25am 2006

A philosopher is someone who doesn't have a real job so they tell people how to live their lives.


Wait a minute. I don't have a real job.

Two words: food and sex


Better to be in denial than to be human.

Bill Gates understands binary: his company is number one, and his customers are all zeros.



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 Re: Philosophizers
Posted by FatStrings on Fri Mar 10th at 6:32pm 2006

ROFL

i'll say no more






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