I believe a nihilistic outlook on life sort of develops from a very logical, rational mind. I'd like to find some sort of meaning in that, but you know

We agree with things like this because we're all born into a culture that is nihilistic to the core. We then try to walk back from that when we learn that morality has a biological basis. We try to make sense of that, and reconcile it with our culture. It creates a cognitive dissonance, because we cannot believe that a system of values we have been internalizing from birth could be wrong. It FEELS right, so we want it to be.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/667837

I read "the meme of modernity" and it wasn't nihilistic, but it was some stupid ass self actualization thing, complete with made up science.

SAGE has been used.

>>350

Seeking to answer unanswerable questions is obviously a complete waste of time. Indeed I would say that a string of words that cannot be answered does not even constitute a question at all.

no proof = no meaning

'philosophy is dead' seems to be a jolly stupid thing to say. What about bioethics, for example, or justice, or the matter of teaching people how to think?

I think different branches of philosophy become more and more important in our 'democratic', yet complicated societies.

>>370
Even metaphysics is still in the mainstream.

There's no purpose. Civilization is simply the result of a group of individuals living together. Those individuals might reach a consensus on that something has to be constructed or achieved and those things might change over time or evolve but that is unrelated to the concept of civilization as such.

>>347
Isn't the basic tenet of progressivism that we are changing toward something, rather than flailing about aimlessly? Is progressivism just wrong?

Isn't there real advancement every time there is a major breakthrough in our understanding of the world, such as in the industrial revolution? Are we not continually adapting the world to our will, thus improving it, or rather improving our condition in the world? Isn't this what civilization is for? If not, doesn't that imply we don't really need it? And if we don't need it, why do we build it? Why not live in caves or mud huts the way birds live in nests instead?

It just seems like there is an ultimate end in the activity of civilization-building; a logical conclusion that our initial drive to create civilization can be taken to. Because a drive without a purpose doesn't have a reason for being, and so can't exist. It's just not clear to me what that purpose could be.

>>348
>Isn't there real advancement every time there is a major breakthrough in our understanding of the world
Yes.

>Are we not continually adapting the world to our will, thus improving it, or rather improving our condition in the world?
Yes.

>Isn't this what civilization is for?
It might be what some people would claim civilization is for, but a civilization that went in a completely different direction or choose to get rid of all these advancements within science would still be a civilization and thus it can't be the purpose of civilization.

>If not, doesn't that imply we don't really need it?
No.

>And if we don't need it, why do we build it?
We build it because we do need it, because many of us wouldn't be alive today without it and it makes our lives that much easier on a day-to-day basis. That does not mean that civilization has a set purpose, rather it will never reach a conclusion but will only keep on evolving over time.

Message too long. Click here to view the full text.

I wonder if it makes sense that we can ask such a question. Rorty thought so and said that we do progress.

No. What? No! This is not philosophy! This is nonsense!

SAGE has been used.

> since the universe is euclidean on short scales thats why that seems intuitive to us.

This part is probably true. The same applies to Newtonian mechanics vs. relativity.

SAGE has been used.

Homonyms.

SAGE has been used.

Copyleft wouldn't legally be applicable if it wasn't for copyright.

>stallman
why do people keep listening to that asshat ?!

>it has a long piece of rules attached.
That's how we define freedom. Freedom isn't anarchy with no rules.

In the US, people would still argue that they have freedom, even though they are not free to slaughter their neighbours without some sort of punishment.

Western society generally holds to the following principle: "Your freedom ends where my nose begins."

Similarly, proprietary is unethical because it implies restrictions on its users. The owner of the software has control over the users of his software; which violates the above principle.

In general I think the consensus is that Jesus, Buddha, and Socrates definitely existed. There is some debate about the historical Jesus, but it's mostly about whether what the bible says is accurate. There are some fringe historians that believe that Jesus never existed, but these are only a minority. Most believe that he did exist but that he was just some sort of philosopher, possible a buddhist. Of course there is no DNA evidence but that's true for most historical figures.

In most buddhist philosophies Buddha is not considered a God, but rather a very enlightened philosopher. Also you have to keep in mind that the distinction between natural/supernatural is very Western, Buddhists generally don't make this distinction. Most buddhists also do not believe in gods but do believe in higher planes of existence which for them is simply part of nature.

With Socrates it is very probable that our perception is different from how he really was. Most of what we know about him comes from Plato but he completely idolized him to the point where it gets a bit creepy.

But so your point is that these people never really existed, which is a very bold claim and you would have to procure some pretty convincing evidence. However, I do agree that it is the ideas of these people that live on, not so much the actual people themselves. But this can be said about many others as well such as Nietzsche who in reality was actually a very friendly person, especially to women.

I challenged my (ex-pastor) father to show me secular confirmation that jesus existed, two months later my brother sent me this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus
"The large majority of modern historians agree that Jesus existed[10][11][12][13][14] and was a Jewish teacher from Galilee in Roman Judaea, who was baptized by John th
e Baptist, and was crucified in Jerusalem on the orders of the Roman Prefect, Pontius Pilate.[8][15][16] Scholars have offered competing descriptions and portraits of Jesus, which at times share a number of overlapping attributes, such as a rabbi, a charismatic healer, the leader of an apocalyptic movement, a self-described Messiah, a sage and philosopher, or a social reformer who preached of the "Kingdom of God" as a means for personal and egalitarian social transformation.[17][18][19][20] Scholars have correlated the New Testament accounts with non-Christian historical records to arrive at an estimated chronology of Jesus' life.[3][5][21][22]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus#Historical_views
"The Christian gospels were written primarily as theological documents rather than historical chronicles.[132][133][359] However, the question of the existence of Jesus as a historical figure should be distinguished from discussions about the historicity of specific episodes in the gospels, the chronology they present, or theological issues regarding his divinity.[360] A number of historical non-Christian documents, such as Jewish and Greco-Roman sources, have been used in historical analyses of the existence of Jesus.[357]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus
"Virtually all modern scholars agree that Jesus existed, and see the theories of his non-existence as effectively refuted.[5][6][7][8][9] Scholars generally agree that Jesus was a Galilean Jew who was born BC 7–2 and died AD 30–36."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacitus_on_Jesus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus

Message too long. Click here to view the full text.

>>298

Urgh, I've seen the evidence of the historicity of Jesus and it's some severely weak sauce. Bible scholars say that Jesus probably existed, but if you let the evidence speak for itself, all you can say is that there might've been a real guy who was referred to as Christ, but it doesn't mean that the description of Jesus in the Bible was a real guy. There's no historical evidence of Jesus actually performing miracles, so there's no reason to think that the 'Bible version Jesus' was a real guy, but some evidence to suggest that there might've been a real guy called Christ, but it doesn't say much about him.

>>299

This is true, but I don't think it really matters. The shit Socrates said and the stuff that was written that happened to him is way more important than if he was real or not. Same goes for the others. To think otherwise is to think that Animal Farm is a terrible novel because animal's can't talk.

Also my understanding is that there is actually some credible evidence for Pontius Pilate's historical existence, but for Jesus.. not so much.

>>361

In the case of the New Testament, the message is conflicted at best. Loving thy neighbor is all well and good, but the reasons given why we should and how we should execute them are given in a way that is fundementally distasteful and misguided. I could trick people into doing the right thing if I wanted to through lies, but it'd be all for naught. You can control people with deception and rhetoric, and although it might be used to get people to behave in ways that approximate good behaviour, in the long run it leaves them more vulnerable to ignorance and the problems that causes. It is only by making people wise that we can safely ensure that evil is not done.

I know that sounds naive and possibly a little weird, but I'm just stating what I know to be true without explaining how I know it.

>>297
i'm an i-don't-care-ist. is that better?

this is not a problem that concerns me in the slightest, and i don't see why it should

>>297
Words don't have fixed meanings you know. What you are saying might be the "official" definition (as in, the one found in the dictionary), but that's hardly how these terms are used these days.

From the way these words are used by people nowadays I think this is what they mean:
Theism: you believe in a supreme deity
Atheism: you do not believe in a supreme deity
Agnosticism: you do not know/care

Also, belief and knowledge aren't that far apart. Last time I checked the most commonly used definition of knowledge is "justified true belief".

>>305
>What you are saying might be the "official" definition (as in, the one found in the dictionary), but that's hardly how these terms are used these days.
That's not how dictionaries work. They aren't trying to tell you how you should speak, but tell you how words are being used on a daily basis. If my definition is the one in the dictionary it's because that is how the word is being used today.

>Theism: you believe in a supreme deity
> Atheism: you do not believe in a supreme deity
> Agnosticism: you do not know/care
Which is still two different parameters, but somehow I think you knew that as you felt the need to add:

>Last time I checked the most commonly used definition of knowledge is "justified true belief".
Which might be true, but it doesn't actually prove the statement that "belief and knowledge aren't that far apart", which they are.

Knowing something requires evidence. Whatever you believe before you have those evidence are precisely that, a belief.

What's more is that people forget about gnosticism. Which is confusing as hell since you'd think the prefix "a" in "agnostic" would be an indication, but I guess not. Either way, it might explain why so many people assume that it is somehow an end all to the atheism vs theism-debate.

Message too long. Click here to view the full text.

>>311
So yes, you can be an agnostic theist, a gnostic atheist, a gnostic theist and an agnostic atheist.

>>303
You don't believe in or worship any deities, your reason is uninmportant. Therefore you're an atheist.

>>311
>That's not how dictionaries work.

Someone needs to brush up on their Derrida/deconstructionism.

I think there is and we can, but not by idly speculating about it as we do here.

>>345
How? Neuropsychology cannot explain everything to us. How are you able to tell the difference between what behavior is inborn and what is culturally learned?

>>351
>cannot explain
yet

there is already plenty of evidence to suggest that some behaviors are inborn. for one, if there were no inborn behaviors at all, something like an ant would not be able to function/exist

Human nature does exist to an extent but humans are particularly vulnerable as infants which makes them as dependent on cultural input as it does upon their instincts. In fact, most human instincts don't kick in until much later in life, and then don't form properly in the absence of other human beings.

On the other hand, it's precisely those instincts that allows the human being to learn the cultural values that define it. If you consider that, there must be such a thing as human nature.

>>241
Sure, but what is intuition if not a feeling? When you feel that x is right you are using your intuition. When you think about it and consider the consequences before you decide you are using your reason.

>>250

Logic is the structure of knowledge. Intuition is the ability of a human being to make a decision based in incomplete knowledge by drawing upon parallels in similar situations.

>>250
I think it's a higher faculty that just happens not to be as useful in today's world anymore. It may seem to draw on emotions more, but perhaps it's just by association, since people who have a tendency toward intuitive thinking also happen to be more emotionally-driven. Whatever the case, emotions themselves are rooted in a more primitive part of the brain.

My initial thought is; reason will always be somewhat influenced by your emotions because you cannot control your subconscious. What you think maybe reason alone my only appear that way because you don't want to think you're making an emotional choice.

Granted if I were watching you make that choice, I could probably tell if it was completely counter productive, or [reason oriented]/productive. An emotional response is kinda relative so it's hard to place my finger on an answer.

NOW WITH READING EVERYONES POST.

1.) Pure rationality leads to nihilism
a.) >implying rationality makes you "evil"
b.) Nihilism can be made of logical choices
2.) There are two kinds of emotion; basic instincts with which we are born, and learned 'social' emotions.
a.) anger leading to murder, and hunger leading to hunger are not true dichotomies because anger can be controlled with will and you will survive. Hunger can be controlled with will and you will die.
b.) But I agree.


I'll stick with my original thought

Message too long. Click here to view the full text.

>>219
Does anyone know roughly how long emotions last or affect you for? And in what direction they affect things, like quantitive estimates for numbers of things in a jar as more or lesss?

Someone said one time that the only important philosophical question is whether or not to kill yourself.

"Is life worth living?" Is the question I suppose. That has to be on the top ten, top five maybe.

>>279
I agree.
I've heard people (and myself) say as a joke, "What's the point we're all going to die anyway?"

eg (not that it needs one): -"Do you want to go to McDonald's?"
- "What's the point we're all going to die anyway?"

It's a stupid question in a way, and every day I spend not dying is a refutation of the point that there is "no point". But still, it concerns me that I cannot come up with a rational (maybe universal?) answer - other than: "what's the point of NOT doing...?"...

>>282
The phrase "no point" doesn't literally mean "NO point". It just means that the apparent point (replication for its own sake) is rationally repugnant.

>>282

The idea that life is 'pointless' misses the point; that it should have a point is an absurdity.

Lack of ability to find meaning in our actions is not a sufficient cause for inaction, because there is no reason why meaning should be found. Action is a function of will, the desire to do something, and desire is caused by prior events. Correctly managing ones desires to allow productive, rational actions makes a person happier than random or unprincipled actions will cause; this is the meaning of being rational, a pleasant existence in its own right, and free from the absurd reaching for a 'greater meaning' that does not exist.

>>284
>>290
Thanks for the answers. I agree, (if I'm correct in what I think y'all mean), real life is not a problem. As I said, every moment I AM doing anything is ignoring (with good reason) that there's a "what's the point" question... I suppose "what's the point?" is more of a non-practical philosophical question (non-practical in the sense that it is, in the real world of actions, the result of a priori values - so any answer we can give will be after we've acknowledged that there's a "point", or that there's no "no point"). It's not like anyone would ever really answer that's there's NO point in any real sense, because they would not be existing, if they believed that... It is still good as a theoretical question that inspires self-reflection and philosophical discussions (such as y'all's) which can lead to other discoveries. I suppose. Or something.

>>186
Mein Kampf being poorly written is a myth, in my opinion. I found it very easy to read and enjoyable; it really humanizes Hitler, not an easy task.

>>185
Mein Kampf?
More like Mein Krampf am I right?

>>199
Well, if anyone were to have an easy time humanizing Hitler, it would be Hitler.

Welcome to the Desert of the Real - Slavoj Zizek

>>199

I agree that it is well written, but i disagree that it manages to humanise hitler. I find it more provides a snapshot of prejudice in the working class around the turn of the century, and slightly humanises theminstead.

But hey, thats just my humble opinion

No.

"Is-ought" statements are illogical. The proper format for an "ought" statement is "is-ought-if".

An example of an is-ought statement is, "A just and kind God exists, therefore, His instructions ought to be followed."

The course of action does not follow from the assertion; the statement is incomplete, because it must contain a qualifier; an 'if'. In this case, it would be, "... if you respect justice and want to do kind things."

The statement thus becomes, in lieu of a recogniseably moral statement, a pragmatic one.

To highlight the point, if we replace the meaning in the statement with nonsense but retain the same structure:

"Bananas exist and you have an anus, therefore you ought to insert the banana up your rectum."

"... If you enjoy inserting bananas up your rectum."

Message too long. Click here to view the full text.

OP; You know UPCDOWNC?

You're not from the Medway Towns are you? I remember seeing their posters on telegraph polls when I was a teenager. I didn't ever expect to see someone posting their album cover in an international nexus such as this one.

I'm not sure I could identify 'radical thought' in the work of others. I think my own thoughts are pretty radical. Certainly century-old documents seem unlikely to be able to rock the boat in this day and age.

>>228
I believe "Radical" is merely a label here, I wouldn't expect century-old documents (nor any other documents) to put the Earth ablaze (pictured above) too, huh. Good enough it is not quite what I want.

Never heard of Medway Towns. Apparently upcdownc outgrew it.

I would suggest studying some anarcho-capitalist philosophy as you explore Marxism. Stuff like Rothbard, Hayek, Mises, etc. You'd benefit from the informed position of synthesizing opposing views.

They say Lacan is pretty mindbending but it sounds like a bunch of gibberish to me

I don't know about the others, but I know Zizek was very much influenced by Marx and Lacan. Marx is pretty straightforward, but in order to understand Lacan you need to have some knowledge about the philosophy of Language, more specifically the postmodern conception of language that arose with Wittgenstein. Also if you are not familiar with Freud you should read some stuff about him too, though don't take it too seriously.

So read up on these
Heidegger - Being and Time
Wittgenstein - Philosophical Investigations
Lyotard - The Postmodern Condition

Also read up on postructuralism such as Derrida, Foucault, and Butler (if you like your feminism).

>>194
I think you would find a better response if you defined what eliminative materialism. People are able to look stuff on Wiki or Google, but most won't feel the obligation to, so if you want a good response you really should put forward your entire argument and all the related concepts so that people can just give their opinions.

Eliminative materialism (also called eliminativism) is a materialist position in the philosophy of mind. Its primary claim is that people's common-sense understanding of the mind (or folk psychology) is false and that certain classes of mental states that most people believe in do not exist. Some eliminativists argue that no coherent neural basis will be found for many everyday psychological concepts such as belief or desire, since they are poorly defined. Rather, they argue that psychological concepts of behaviour and experience should be judged by how well they reduce to the biological level.[1] Other versions entail the non-existence of conscious mental states such as pain and visual perceptions.[2]

To the above definition. It doesn't seem to make much sense to logically argue against basic emotions that everyone shares. A child feels angry or hungry, and then wants food. The anger and desire for food are both real even though they cannot be directly seen because they are experienced by the individual. Just because an experience cannot be communicated directly does not mean that the experience does not exist.

>>179
No, I was talking about violating the law in a way that prevents legal repercussions. Getting what you want without having the opposition being able to bring their powers to bare against you. This could be seen as a guide on how to effectively behave in a an Übermensch manner while under another group or individual's system of values.
What I am describing is the process of subverting systems in such a way as to disallow the system to exert it's values and reciprocal relationships onto individuals who should be completely incapable of confronting these systems.

The end always has a beginning.

>>180
i like this plan, but the only way to really fight is by getting more people riled up in a common dislike of the company. creating controversy over a company or system is the start to eroding any validity it has while being in a relatively low risk situation. The idea that something might be bador is doing something harmful will be there if it is spread.

yet even with this there are those who dont care or like the stability of certain systems

or you could just make bombs and tear the motherfuckers down. it shouldn't matter what people label you as

>>163

What does ANY of that have to do with weed? Are you mad he thought of a big long post and you didn't?

>>191
The primary thing to build up would be to foster similar values and build awareness for how the targeted entity violates these values. Secondary focus would be on removing self limitations and hesitation.

OP, it doesn't matter who is the asshole and who is the retard.

It is your responsibility to stay away from them, not to draw distinctions between the two.

Same for dogs being put down when they get "dangerous", but not the mentally handicapped...

I personally believe that anyone who feels sorry for another or feels pity is showing a form of arrogance, defined by an assumation and implication that they're superior to the retard in question, so it seems like a question of capacity; the asshole is assumed to have the capacity to be a gent and not say things other people will alow themselves to get upset over, while the menticapped person is assumed to not have that capacity at all

187 here, 52 already said everything i did in a better way, up to and including using the word capacity

what 52 said,
>>Just because someone doesn't know something doesn't prove that they don't have the capacity to learn or understand it.

but the action of being an asshole or wierd is being wierd or an asshole regardless of who it is. If they try to make amends for whatever then they are not.

actions are only neutural, and to understand what someone's mental capacity based on actions they do without realizing, then im sure everyone is lacking somewhere in the "mental capacity" department

people do what they do for their own reasons at the time , and if it turns out to be weird or assholish to others then that is only the opinion of the one viewing the action.

yet the capacity to see things from different viewpoints is a stretch for a lot of people.

one cannot know the experiences of another how they experience them, we can only know our own.

so if there a asshole there an asshole but you cant make any truths about the assumptions of others in things you could never understand

>>172
Maybe he just referring to the forever unknowing possibilities of life scattered in the infinite universe?

One of the more popular answers has been that he's referring to finding life. However, the purpose of Starfleet has always been " to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.”

So far, the best answer I've gotten is that I'm to assign it whatever meaning I wish.

He's talking about thinking about things in new ways, as opposed to finding new things to think about. That was the whole point of the episde in which he says this. The implication, I suppose, is that either there's more to learn by examining what you think you know more closely, or that thinking in new ways, you ultimately improve yourself more than you do by just exploring space.

It's not particularly deep or mysterious.

>>9

Memory could be considered space.
The threads took up bandwidth and memory in the cyberspace, and they must have been stored in a server somewhere that took up physical space.

>>12
But if I remember them, do they still exist?

>>15
Maybe you created those thoughts and memories out of desperation or in a time of boredom.
You constantly lied to yourself making them seem as if they were real when in fact they were never there.
The boards may have never existed even if they were visible, they were just a creation made by you to lure yourself into a euphoric coma.

>>15
Your ideas exist. One of the qualities of the threads were that they could be experienced directly by others, however, and since I can't experience your ideas directly they can't be one in the same with the threads.

The question is if it matters.
a man could have gotten killed where Im sitting and it doesnt matter unless Im going to do something about it.
Information is useless unless you use it.
Everyone talks about the meaning of life, but what will they do with it?