Woo Denial

[Disco08]

;D

 

[evo]

I think I'm leaning more towards 'significance' than 'influence'.

yeah ok that is probably a better word.

Lets examine this amoeba example of yours though because it points to what I talking about.Although lets use something a little more conscious.Like, say a worm.

What does the sun appear like to a worm? I imagine to a worm,if it peeked out of its hole,the sun doesn't 'look' anything like it looks to us.The worm would probably sense its extreme hottness and drying ability I suppose.If a worm had even a modicum of consciousness, it would 'mean' something like "death,to be avoided"

But a worm is in the universe just like we are.So the question arises :"Who apprehends the 'Real' sun?".Us,the worm , neither, or both?

 

[evo]

On the discussion of existance, I would have thought that science has indicated that that
1. Objects boundaries could be defined functionally - ie the leaf's outer boundary might be the cell membrane on the outer layer of it's cells.
2. Things do exist 'of themselves' and have properties and characteristics that define them. Their existance is independent of (our) conciousness.

Yes,that is basically the definition of scientific realism or materialism.

So how would God fit in that paradigm?

Must say I found the videos interesting, I have never understood existentialism before. I thought the mockery of religious belief in video 3 to be poor form and not warranted by the content of the videos. For a bloke who is not even sure he exists he is fairly sure of some of his opinions :hihi.

None of that was existentialism.

That was basically Eastern Metaphysics 101.

 

[Panthera tigris FC]

Where do you perceive the flaws in materialism?

 

[evo]

Where do you perceive the flaws in materialism?

The main problem is as I've been trying to elucidate, the lack of logical necessity for noumenon.

Another would be : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness

Zeno's paradox also calls it into question I reckon,but maybe can leave that for another time.

 

[Panthera tigris FC]

The main problem is as I've been trying to elucidate, the lack of logical necessity for noumenon.

Another would be : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness

Zeno's paradox also calls it into question I reckon,but maybe can leave that for another time.

New to much of this, so bear with me.

What do scientific theories approximate? Or, don't the phenomena that form the basis of scientific hypotheses point towards some 'objective reality'....ie. the theory or the noumenon?

 

[Panthera tigris FC]

A great blog entry on so-called 'natural therapies'.

Enjoy.

 

[evo]

What do scientific theories approximate?

They empirically measure phenomena,as you allude with youer 2nd question.

Science measures appearances!!

Or, don't the phenomena that form the basis of scientific hypotheses point towards some 'objective reality'....ie. the theory or the noumenon?

No (In my view)

See, this is thing.Science cannot prove science is absolutely true(so to speak).We have to step outside empirical observation if want to speak about what science is saying.

This is basically what philosophy has been attempting to do, starting witrh Aristotle,through to Kant , Wittgenstein and more recently Quine.

To use Wittgenstein famous quote, deciding "wereof we can speak"

If you want to really fry your brain have read of this fairly famous paper:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Dogmas_of_Empiricism

http://www.ditext.com/quine/quine.html

Quine is a pragmatist--meaning he doesn't believe in the 'thing-in-itself' bt reckons science is the best we've got to tell us what is real,but neverhteless should "shut up and calculate"

Daniel Dennet is his disciple.

 

[Panthera tigris FC]

 

[Panthera tigris FC]

They empirically measure phenomena,as you allude with youer 2nd question.

Science measures appearances!!

Appearances of what?

 

[Djevv]

Yes,that is basically the definition of scientific realism or materialism.

So how would God fit in that paradigm?

Yes I am a materialist more or less but also a theist. I don't see a problem with that. Let's mix together your you tube video with what we discussed yesterday. What the video said was that nothing could be said to exist without a conscious observer. You believe in determinism, yet no-one conscious can fully observe it - except one - God! Thats why/how it exists. God is the one true observer of all that grounds reality. Thats why I can say things exist as a reality regardless of our perception of them.

None of that was existentialism.

That was basically Eastern Metaphysics 101.

Oh well, I've never understood that either so it's all good. When does the video series on existentialism start?

 

[evo]

Yes I am a materialist more or less but also a theist. I don't see a problem with that. Let's mix together your you tube video with what we discussed yesterday. What the video said was that nothing could be said to exist without a conscious observer. You believe in determinism, yet no-one conscious can fully observe it - except one - God! Thats why/how it exists. God is the one true observer of all that grounds reality. Thats why I can say things exist as a reality regardless of our perception of them.

I think you actually draw attention to a good point. Regardless of philosophy, I think even many laymen materialists actually sense that there is a bit of a hole in their worldview's ability to explain "everything".

This gap has traditionally been plugged with either God,'woo',or a combination of the two.

Oh well, I've never understood that either so it's all good. When does the video series on existentialism start?

He'll probably do one bagging it at some stage knowing him.

 

[Panthera tigris FC]

Listening to it again...got to love it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujUQn0HhGEk

 

[evo]

Listening to it again...got to love it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujUQn0HhGEk

Apologies for how dense it is. Nietzsche wasn't big on paragraphs


.

335.

Long live physics!— How many people know how to observe something! Of the few who do—how many observe themselves! "Everybody is farthest away from himself"—all who try the reins know this to their chagrin; and the maxim "know thyself!" addressed to human beings by a god, is almost malicious. That the case of self-observation is indeed as desperate as that is attested best of all by the manner in which almost everybody talks about the essence of moral actions, this quick, eager, convinced, and garrulous manner with its expression, its smile, and its obliging ardor! One seems to have the wish to say to you: "But my dear friend, precisely this is my specialty! You have directed your question to the one person who is entitled [darf] to answer you: as it happens, there is nothing about which I am as wise about as this. To come to the point: when a human being judges 'this is right' and then infers 'therefore it must be done!' and then proceeds to do what he has thus recognized as right and designated as necessary,—then the essence of his action is moral." But my friend, you are speaking of three actions instead of one: when you judge "this is right," that is an action, too,—might it not be possible that one could judge in a moral and in an immoral manner? Why do you consider this, precisely this, right?— "Because this is what my conscience tells me; the voice of conscience is never immoral, for it alone determines what is to be moral!"— But why do you listen to the voice of your conscience? And what gives you the right to consider such a judgment true and infallible? For this faith—is there no conscience for that? Have you never heard of an intellectual conscience? A conscience behind your "conscience"? Your judgment "that is right" has a prehistory in your instincts, likes, dislikes, experiences, and lack of experiences. "How did it originate there?" you must ask, and then also: "What is it that impels me to listen to it?" You can listen to its commands like a good soldier who hears his officer's command. Or like a woman who loves the man who commands. Or like a flatterer and coward who is afraid of the commander. Or like a dunderhead who obeys because no objection occurs to him. In short, there are a hundred ways in which you can listen to your conscience. But that you take this or that judgment for the voice of conscience, in other words, that you feel something to be right, may be due to the fact that you have never thought much about yourself and simply have accepted blindly that what you had been told ever since your childhood was right: or it may be due to the fact that what you call your duty has up to this point brought you sustenance and honors,—and you consider it "right" because it appears to you as your own "condition of existence" (and that you have a right to existence seems irrefutable to you!). For all that, the firmness of your moral judgment could be evidence of your personal abjectness, of impersonality, your "moral strength" might have its source in your stubbornness—or in your inability to envisage new ideal! And, briefly: if you had thought more subtly, observed better, and learned more, you certainly would not go on calling this "duty" of yours and this "conscience" of yours duty and conscience: your understanding of the manner in which moral judgments have originated would spoil these grand words,—for example, "sin," "salvation of the soul," "redemption" have been spoiled for you.— And now don't cite the categorical imperative, my friend!—this term tickles my ear and makes me laugh despite your serious presence: it makes me think of old Kant who had obtained the "thing in itself" by stealth—another very ridiculous thing!—and was punished for this when the "categorical imperative" crept stealthily into his heart and led him astray back to "God," "soul," "freedom," and "immortality," like a fox who loses his way and goes astray back into his cage:—yet it had been his strength and cleverness that had broken open the cage!—What? You admire the categorical imperative within you? This "firmness" of your so-called moral judgment? This "unconditional" feeling that "here everyone must judge as I do"? Rather admire your selfishness at this point! And the blindness, pettiness, and frugality of your selfishness! For it is selfish to experience one's own judgment as a universal law; and this selfishness is blind, petty, and frugal because it betrays that you have not yet discovered yourself nor created for yourself an ideal of your own, your very own:—for that could never belong to somebody else and much less to all, to all!— — Anyone who still judges "in this case everybody would have to act like this" has not yet taken five steps toward self-knowledge: otherwise he would know that there neither are nor can be actions that are the same,—that every action that has ever been done was done in an altogether unique and irretrievable way, and that this will be true of every future action,—that all regulations about actions relate only to their coarse exterior (and even the most inward and subtle regulations of all moralities so far),—that these regulations may lead to some semblance of sameness, but really only to some semblance,—that as one contemplates or looks back upon any action at all, it is and remains impenetrable,—that our opinions about "good," "noble," "great" can never be proved true by our actions because every action is unknowable,—that our opinions, valuations, and tables of what is good certainly belong among the most powerful levers in the involved mechanism of our actions, but that in any particular case the law of their mechanism is indemonstrable. Let us therefore limit ourselves to the purification of our opinions and valuations and to the creation of our own new tables of values:—and let us stop brooding about the "moral value of our actions"! Yes, my friends, regarding all the moral chatter of some about others it is time to feel nauseous! Sitting in moral judgment should offend our taste! Let us leave such chatter and such bad taste to those who have nothing else to do but drag the past a few steps further through time and who never live in the present,—which is to say the many, the great majority! We, however, want to become who we are,—the new, unique, incomparable ones, who give themselves their own laws, who create themselves! And to that end we must become the best learners and discoverers of everything that is lawful and necessary in the world: we must become physicists in order to be able to be creators in this sense,—while hitherto all valuations and ideals have been based on ignorance of physics or were constructed so as to contradict it. Therefore: long live physics! And even more so that which compels us to turn to physics,—our honesty!

 

[glantone]

...fun little listen on some things discussed

https://philosophynow.org/podcasts/Free_Will_and_the_Brain

https://philosophynow.org/podcasts/In_the_Realm_of_the_Senses

 

[KnightersRevenge]

Apologies for how dense it is. Nietzsche wasn't big on paragraphs


.

Ha ha. Love it!