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Science Forum Index » Philosophy Forum » Just a rant
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| Dan Skunk |
 Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2003 11:06 pm |
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"Bologna" <me@gotahome.com> wrote in message
news:i8QCb.695185$6C4.356221@pd7tw1no...
Quote: Nature embues us with a purpose and the means to follow it.
Pursuing one's purpose is the most sane thing we can do. It is when we
follow a purpose that is not our own, that we become insane.
By your premises, I can reason that gay people are insane? Am I right
about
this?
-mmm
If being gay is in their nature, no. |
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| Amanda |
| Posted: Sun Dec 14, 2003 12:30 pm |
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"Dan Skunk" <_@rogers.com> wrote in message news:<HJPCb.12842$NNW1.7463@news04.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com>...
Quote: Being a good human _is_ the meaning of life.
You already found the answer. You just don't know it yet. 
I guess it is the answer. Thank you. |
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| Dan Skunk |
| Posted: Sun Dec 14, 2003 1:19 pm |
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"Amanda" <amanda992004@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:57d43f8b.0312140930.299c1894@posting.google.com...
Quote: "Dan Skunk" <_@rogers.com> wrote in message
news:<HJPCb.12842$NNW1.7463@news04.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com>...
Being a good human _is_ the meaning of life.
You already found the answer. You just don't know it yet. :)
I guess it is the answer. Thank you.
You're welcome. |
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| John Jones |
| Posted: Sun Dec 14, 2003 2:09 pm |
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If you are looking for something to blame, I'll blame you, and you pass the
buck onto 'your feelings'. Typical management attitude.
JJ
"Matt Jackson" <mjacks6@cox.net> wrote in message
news:0ABCb.5637$F22.5011@lakeread02...
Quote: How can we live if we cannot even prove our own existance. Most of you
must
have hope..hope for a greater purpose? I can't conceive a person
motivated
to work hard at his job, enthusiastic to "make a difference" in the
"world", to even be motivated to do anything.. without some deep down
belief that there's something more to our being..
Our feelings will always betray us....always. I would give anything to
rid
myself of these feelings. Then, and only then would I find some
consistency in my thoughts (or would I). But now, I can no longer trust
myself. These feelings are in control, not me. If me is even a issue
anymore. My feelings are a powerful and systematic entity with thousands
and thousands of years more experience than I. The best I can hope for is
to find a delusion which hides the fact my feelings are in control.
Yes, I still have hope. There is no logic in this desire. For, hope
can't
have any true definition in this universe. I am not far from giving up
though for hope is just another feeling.
So I guess we should just BE, right?? Just enjoy the good feelings.
Accept
who we are. NO. I cannot do that. I must search.. I must not give up.
There are answers out there.. That's truly all we have. ANSWERS. But are
these answers just another type of delusion? What is truth? This is my
dilemma. to be or not to be. to find a delusion or not to find a
delusion. Why should I? ..Because, there's nothing else to do, except to
die.
mj |
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| Tony Thomas |
| Posted: Sun Dec 14, 2003 10:03 pm |
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"Matt Jackson" <mjacks6@cox.net> wrote in message
news:0ABCb.5637$F22.5011@lakeread02...
Quote: How can we live if we cannot even prove our own existance.
This is an absurd question. Being is self evident and requires no proof.
Wanting to prove this, that and the other is a kind of mental derangement.
It may be the case that certain propositions, eg Iraq threatens the USA
with WMD, that need to be proved or at least supported by credible evidence.
However,
as the prevalence of such propaganda illustrates, proving anything beyond
doubt is difficult if not impossible. Even in empirical science, there is no
such thing as final proof. (SeePopper, Conjectures and Refutations)
Most of you must
Quote: have hope..hope for a greater purpose?
Greater than what? The human animal has inbuilt drives: breathe, consume,
excrete, reproduce, sleep. These add up to self preservation and wellbeing.
From a socioeconomic point of view, building a society which optimises these
natural and necessay tendencies looks like a 'greater purpose' than hunting
and gathering. The alternative is depression and suicide.
I can't conceive a person motivated
Quote: to work hard at his job, enthusiastic to "make a difference" in the
"world", to even be motivated to do anything.. without some deep down
belief that there's something more to our being..
I should have thought the diversity of nature and society was enough to
satisfy a thousand lifetimes. Motivation is a matter of hormone balance and
psychology. You could take comfort from the fact that many outstanding
achievers suffered from manic depression (eg Tennyson) but lived long and
satisfying lives. If you can't be bothered to achieve anything, just enjoy
being alive; try a little hedonism.
Quote: Our feelings will always betray us....always. I would give anything to
rid
myself of these feelings.
If by feelings, you mean emotions, then life has no value without them.
Higher brain processes by themselves can't provide 'satisfaction' without
the operation of the limbic system.
Then, and only then would I find some
Quote: consistency in my thoughts (or would I).
Consistency in relation to what? Trial and error (heuristic activity) is the
way animals get on in the world. Making mistakes may be costly in some
circumstances but attempts to avoid all mistakes is paralysing and a kind
of psychosis.
But now, I can no longer trust
Quote: myself. These feelings are in control, not me.
Conflict between unconscious drives and behaviour based on social principles
is the root of mental instability. A proper adjustment to necessary social
constraints must leave room for the demands of instinct.
If me is even a issue
Quote: anymore. My feelings are a powerful and systematic entity with thousands
and thousands of years more experience than I. The best I can hope for is
to find a delusion which hides the fact my feelings are in control.
This is the raison detre for art and religion. False beliefs are 'rational'
if they preserve the health of the individual in society. The 'truth' may
set you free but it may also destroy those individuals who are too
inflexible to understand that tolerance of the false is necessary to social
being. (The rest is politics.)
Quote: Yes, I still have hope. There is no logic in this desire.
The logic of desire is the perpetuation of both the individual and the
species.The purpose of individual existence is the perperpetuation of the
species.
The purpose of the species is the perpetuation of life itself. Beyond
this, there is no 'logic' to existence at all.
It is all relative to the ecological context. The value the individual
places on all this is the meaning of culture. Pantheism is the ideology
which best expresses this idea.
For, hope can't
Quote: have any true definition in this universe.
There is hope within the usual constraints of human life. In the next
moment, you are as invincible as the galaxy; the probability that you will
not continue to exist with all the rest is slight. This is true of every
moment of your life. What more faith in life do you require?
Another way to look at this is as follows. The whole of existence is an
infinitessimally 'thin' film in time. There is no past, no future, only the
present, like a bubble. This bubble contains all there is as the 'present
state of things'. You are a minute speck in this bubble which may cease to
be at any moment as the patterns in the bubble change.
I am not far from giving up
Quote: though for hope is just another feeling.
So I guess we should just BE, right?? Just enjoy the good feelings.
Accept
who we are. NO. I cannot do that. I must search.. I must not give up.
There are answers out there.. That's truly all we have. ANSWERS. But are
these answers just another type of delusion? What is truth? This is my
dilemma. to be or not to be. to find a delusion or not to find a
delusion. Why should I? ..Because, there's nothing else to do, except to
die.
On the contrary, there is plenty to do. Humility and gratefulness for having
a human life are an antitdote to megalsaomaniac hopes and dreams. Sit on a
rock, feel the sun on your back, look at the flowers, pat you dog and relax.
Tony Thomas
> mj |
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| Dan Skunk |
| Posted: Sun Dec 14, 2003 11:24 pm |
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"Tony Thomas" <verdigris@iprimus.com.au> wrote in message
news:3fdd249d_1@news.iprimus.com.au...
Quote: If by feelings, you mean emotions, then life has no value without them.
Higher brain processes by themselves can't provide 'satisfaction' without
the operation of the limbic system.
Yes. That.
Quote: Conflict between unconscious drives and behaviour based on social
principles
is the root of mental instability. A proper adjustment to necessary social
constraints must leave room for the demands of instinct.
And that too.
Quote: This is the raison detre for art and religion. False beliefs are
'rational'
if they preserve the health of the individual in society. The 'truth' may
set you free but it may also destroy those individuals who are too
inflexible to understand that tolerance of the false is necessary to
social
being. (The rest is politics.)
The truth is not always certain. We must tolerate those with differing
opinions.
Quote: The logic of desire is the perpetuation of both the individual and the
species.The purpose of individual existence is the perperpetuation of the
species.
I like that explanation of desire. :)
Quote: Another way to look at this is as follows. The whole of existence is an
infinitessimally 'thin' film in time. There is no past, no future, only
the
present, like a bubble. This bubble contains all there is as the 'present
state of things'. You are a minute speck in this bubble which may cease to
be at any moment as the patterns in the bubble change.
If we add time too this bubble as and extra spacial dimension. We can see a
person's whole life as a tiny streak through spacetime. Forming at birth
and dispersing at death. Interacting and weaving around other lines where
the person interacts with other people.
Quote: On the contrary, there is plenty to do. Humility and gratefulness for
having
a human life are an antitdote to megalsaomaniac hopes and dreams. Sit on a
rock, feel the sun on your back, look at the flowers, pat you dog and
relax.
Tony Thomas
Hear, hear! |
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| Nik the Greek |
| Posted: Mon Dec 29, 2003 7:00 pm |
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Matt Jackson wrote:
Quote: How can we live if we cannot even prove our own existance.
Nozick has a nice article (the name slipped my mind) about how any doubt
you may have regarding knowldege of your existence does not necessarily
mean that you have to doubt other 'ordinary' things. Here's a summery I
wrote of it, HTH:
Conditions of Knowledge
Nozick is interested in finding alternatives to the 3rd condition of
knowledge, i.e. Justifiability. It is obvious that JTB is not a
sufficient condition, based on the Gettier cases, and that some sort of
causal connection between the truth and the belief is needed. Nozick
offers the following definition:
1. p : p is true
2. Bp : S believes that p
3. ~p > ~Bp : If p weren't true S wouldn't believe that p
This definition survives the Gettier test since (3) would not be
fulfilled in any of the Gettier style cases. (3) is a subjunctive, not a
logical implication. The subjunctive “if p were true then q would
be true” is less harsh than the logical implication operator, its
meaning may be elucidated by the colloquial expression “Granted p
is not true in our world, but if we consider an imaginary world, as
similar to our own as possible, in which p were to be true then q would
be true there as well.”
This new definition still has a few inadequacies of its own: if S were
to be a BIV (Brain In a Vat), and the vat mechanism were to instill in
him the belief that he is indeed a BIV, (3) would be upheld but we
should never the less be inclined to say that the S does not know he is
a BIV. S is not sensitive to the truth of p - the Vat could make him
believe anything – he is only sensitive to p's falsity. In order
to complete S's sensitivity towards the truthfulness of p Nozick
suggests a 4th condition:
4. p > Bp : if p is true then S believes p (and doesn't believe ~p)
(4) is another subjunctive, which is again merely similar to logical
implication (there could be situations in which both the antecedent and
consequent were true but the subjunctive would be false). A colloquial
expression of (4) could be: “In all similar worlds in which p is
true, S believes that p is true.”. Now it seems that (4) takes
care of the aforementioned BIV scenario: in a world very similar to that
of the scenario the Vat might not instill in S the belief in p, hence
(4) does not hold.
A different scenario might put this new definition in hot water: The
dictator of a country is killed; in their first edition, newspapers
print the story, but later all the country's newspapers and other media
deny the story, falsely. Everyone who encounters the denial believes it
(or does not know what to believe and so suspends judgment). Only one
person in the country, S, fails to hear any denial and he continues to
believe the truth. If S were to hear the denial he would had rejected p
like the rest – he is not sensitive enough to the truth and
therefore we should like to say that S doesn't really know p.
Nozick uses the phrasing “S's belief tracks the truth” to
describe situations in which the symmetry of (3) and (4) is upheld;
situations in which not only do (1) and (2) hold but also (p > Bp) and
(~p > ~Bp). To know p is to have a belief in p that tracks the truth.
Skepticism
Nozick wishes to deal with the skeptic not argumentatively but by
explaining how knowledge is possible in light of the skeptical
possibilities we are presented with.
How exactly does skeptical arguments such as the Descartes's demon deny
our knowledge? One way is to play on (3) by showing us that we hold
false beliefs. However, the nature of the subjunctive (3) doesn't deny
the possibility of holding a false belief altogether. The question is
whether the demon infested world is similar enough to our world in order
for the subjunctive's consequent to apply in it. We should like to say
that the demon scenario isn't in the not-p neighborhood of our world and
therefore the demon argument does not contradict (3); but then the
skeptic might ask how can we know that the demon world is indeed too far
fetched?
In order to know that the demon world is too different to count (~D) the
following subjunctive (3) has to hold: “D > ~B~D”. But this
subjunctive fails to hold: if we were deceived by a demon we would not
believe so. The conclusion is that we really don't know if the demon
world is close enough; if a demon exists. The strict denial of this fact
is as suspicious as the skeptical argument itself.
The skeptics describes worlds that are doxically equivalent for us to
our world yet most of our beliefs in them are false. The reality in
these worlds might be very different than our reality and we admit that
we cannot know the existence of them since our knowledge is mediate. The
distance from this point to admitting that we know almost nothing seems
very short. Is it indeed?
All skeptics would agree that knowledge is closed under logical
implications. While it is possible to argue about the correctness of
this principle under some situations it can raise no objections to still
use it in cases in which there is agreement that it holds. Nozick,
however, argues that it is principally false, for the subjunctives (3)
and (4) are not closed under logical implications.
While our knowledge of p involves our being sensitive to its falsity (if
it weren't true we wouldn't believe it) our knowledge of an implication
(p>q) is not sensitive to q's falsity. Even if being born in Israel
implies being born on Earth the situations in which S weren't born in
Israel are quite different then those in which S weren't born on earth.
There is no reason to assume that the closest ~p world and the closest
~q world are doxically equivalent. A belief's somehow varying with the
truth of what is believed is not closed under known logical implication.
Since knowledge that p involves such variation, knowledge also is not
closed under known logical implication. Therefore while the skeptic may
be justified in arguing that we don't know if we're being deceived by a
demon his further argument “hence we don't know anything”
involves the assumption that knowledge is closed under implication;
“his little jump” is not justified. This fact might explain
why it is difficult for those who historically acknowledged the
skeptical arguments to actually hold on to them throughout their lives
and apply them to each an every belief. While skeptical propositions
might not track the truth other propositions, which even skeptics hold,
evidently do so and therefor should count as knowledge. |
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