Philosophy 101

[cryogen4000]

This thread is something "xistence" suggested regarding a previous thread topic starting to venture into the realms of philosophy and abstract opinions......i would like to open this thread to such topics if anyone is interested in discussing the fields of science and physics/nature and the progression of technology/the human species place within the universe and fundamentally our future state as a race of conscious beings traveling through our dimension Of Existence..thanks! in advance for posting and participating in the discussion.......

[data_ghost]

Three roughly philosophy related things:

1. Solipsism - the idea that the only thing that you can know to be true or real, is yourself. In a Matrix-y sort of way, I always found that kind of interesting in a very paranoid sort of way.

2. Empiricism vs. rationalism - something that crops up everywhere. The divide between arts and sciences is the perfect example. It's something that we all (mostly) experience as children in fact when we are forced to specialise in either sciences or humanities/arts at school (at least that's what tends to happen in the UK). It is essentially the argument of whether experience or reason is the source of knowledge. I think it entirely depends on the circumstances. If I were to be calculating the re-entry vectors for the shuttle, I would not think back to previous experiences of calculating vectors to find them. But equally, if I wanted to find out what it's like to bungee jump, I would not go reading books about the fear response in humans, I would go bungee jumping.

3. Liberalism - essentially a misnomer, or at least a misnomer by the way most people use the word 'liberal'. The word describes an attitude, not an ideology. It is not a form of government. It is in fact used so loosely that it now vaguely can be used in different places/situations and mean completely different things. In America, 'liberal' usually means a Democrat, so someone of the centre-right. But 'liberal' in the UK usually refers to the Liberal Democrat party, which are centre-left.

You see, liberalism can be perfectly mixed with conservatism or social democracy and still retain the same name. You cannot say that your ideology is liberalism, because liberalism is more of an attitude to do with a pragmatic view of accepting other people's views in debate; and it is an attitude that wants smaller government so that it interferes less with citizen's liberties and human right's. It is an attitude that can be mixed with social democracy (for example, with the Lib Dem's) so that you protect individual liberties but also advocate for government intervention to carry out social justice. But it can be mixed just as easily with conservatism to become fiscal conservatism, or a 'laissez-faire' attitude to capitalism like the Republicans.

Anyway, that's is enough rambling from me.

[Daddyo]

We are Devo(lution)!

[data_ghost]

Suppose there is a town with just one male barber; and that every man in the town keeps himself clean-shaven: some by shaving themselves, some by attending the barber. It seems reasonable to imagine that the barber obeys the following rule: He shaves all and only those men in town who do not shave themselves.

Under this scenario, we can ask the following question: Does the barber shave himself?

[Daddyo]

We'll I suppose a female barber could shave him...

I guess that doesn't fit since you state 'one male barber', linked with that there is 'the barber' meaning only one.

What a sillosophical line of questioning. How much code could a program code if a program could code code? Can programs code? Maybe a less stressful question would be 'How much code could a user code if a user could code code'? I code therefore I am? Can a program prove it's existence by virtue of coding? Or does it prove it is God?

[data_ghost]

^ me likey.

Since you mentioned some linguistically tautologous sentences, I thought that I would wack out these gems for a brief aside:
"If the police police police police, who polices the police police? Police police police police police police."

"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo." (Buffaloes from Buffalo, NY, whom buffaloes from Buffalo bully, bully buffaloes from Buffalo.)

"If it is it, it is it, if it is, it is it, it is!"

[And just for the hell of it:] "Hold the newsreader's nose squarely, waiter, or friendly milk will countermand my trousers." -Stephen Fry http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFD01r6ersw

"If I am reading this graph correctly — I'd be very surprised." —Stephen Colbert

So anyways, back to the philosophic rhetoric:

I know mostly political philosophy. Lets being, boys and girls, with meritocracy.
It's a system of society whereby those in government and who earn the most money are those with the highest demonstrated IQ or ability (i.e. merit). The more naturally clever you are, the more successful you are, the more important you are, the more responsible you are etc. Seems quite fair right? Well the Labour gov't in the '50s tried it out by making all kids take an IQ test at 11, regardless of whether they were educated at a state or private school, so in theory it wouldn't matter if you were from a rich background or not. Your IQ would determine it all. It would decide if the kid went to a good secondary school or not, and then later whether he went to a good university or not, and it also, in turn, effect the little'uns job prospects. All in the name of constructing a meritocracy, because it was deemed 'more fair'.
Well what ends up happening, unfortunately, is that the pupils from private schools ALWAYS do better because they can prepare the pupils more effectively than the state schools. So those that are from rich backgrounds find themselves in government or in the upper-classes have a false sense of entitlement: they think that they are there because they deserve to be there, because of the IQ test. Snobbery ensues, charity dries up. Etc etc. After this problem was highlighted, the IQ tests were quickly dropped.

[Daddyo]

I couldn't imagine living in a world like that, not to mention tolerating the ego's of people you'd have to put up with, simply because they've met someone's criteria for intelligence. People shouldn't be judged for what they were given at birth or background anyway, only their actions.

It still seems unfair that 'lower class' people have to live in poverty today, and work like crazy often doing demeaning jobs (janitors) - regardless of their ability to think intelligently or background. It's really too bad there's no solution that works for everyone, only compromises.

[data_ghost]

The thing with 'fairness' is that what's fair for one person may not be fair for another. If you were a conservative, you would think that it is fair that those from a more privileged background earn more money because of their superior education, or don't even have to work at all from the wealth they they have inherited. For a socialist, it would be fair for all schools to be the same and state-run, so that everybody has equal chance of success at life. Fairness is an unreliable and fickle thing.

What I find strange is how different left-right politics is in American compared to England. Here, every working class man is for Labour, every middle-to-upper class man is for the Tories (Conservatives). In American the richer areas of New York and California are deeply centre-left, whereas the far poorer states in the bible belt always vote Republican. Explain.

OK how about this one: Bill Hicks (in a mock-TV news reader voice) - "Today, a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration – that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There's no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we're the imagination of ourselves. Here's Tom with the weather."

Related to this: The Egg
By: Andy Weir (http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html)

You were on your way home when you died.
It was a car accident. Nothing particularly remarkable, but fatal nonetheless. You left behind a wife and two children. It was a painless death. The EMTs tried their best to save you, but to no avail. Your body was so utterly shattered you were better off, trust me.
And that’s when you met me.
“What… what happened?” You asked. “Where am I?”
“You died,” I said, matter-of-factly. No point in mincing words.
“There was a… a truck and it was skidding…”
“Yup,” I said.
“I… I died?”
“Yup. But don’t feel bad about it. Everyone dies,” I said.
You looked around. There was nothingness. Just you and me. “What is this place?” You asked. “Is this the afterlife?”
“More or less,” I said.
“Are you god?” You asked.
“Yup,” I replied. “I’m God.”
“My kids… my wife,” you said.
“What about them?”
“Will they be all right?”
“That’s what I like to see,” I said. “You just died and your main concern is for your family. That’s good stuff right there.”
You looked at me with fascination. To you, I didn’t look like God. I just looked like some man. Or possibly a woman. Some vague authority figure, maybe. More of a grammar school teacher than the almighty.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “They’ll be fine. Your kids will remember you as perfect in every way. They didn’t have time to grow contempt for you. Your wife will cry on the outside, but will be secretly relieved. To be fair, your marriage was falling apart. If it’s any consolation, she’ll feel very guilty for feeling relieved.”
“Oh,” you said. “So what happens now? Do I go to heaven or hell or something?”
“Neither,” I said. “You’ll be reincarnated.”
“Ah,” you said. “So the Hindus were right,”
“All religions are right in their own way,” I said. “Walk with me.”
You followed along as we strode through the void. “Where are we going?”
“Nowhere in particular,” I said. “It’s just nice to walk while we talk.”
“So what’s the point, then?” You asked. “When I get reborn, I’ll just be a blank slate, right? A baby. So all my experiences and everything I did in this life won’t matter.”
“Not so!” I said. “You have within you all the knowledge and experiences of all your past lives. You just don’t remember them right now.”
I stopped walking and took you by the shoulders. “Your soul is more magnificent, beautiful, and gigantic than you can possibly imagine. A human mind can only contain a tiny fraction of what you are. It’s like sticking your finger in a glass of water to see if it’s hot or cold. You put a tiny part of yourself into the vessel, and when you bring it back out, you’ve gained all the experiences it had.
“You’ve been in a human for the last 48 years, so you haven’t stretched out yet and felt the rest of your immense consciousness. If we hung out here for long enough, you’d start remembering everything. But there’s no point to doing that between each life.”
“How many times have I been reincarnated, then?”
“Oh lots. Lots and lots. An in to lots of different lives.” I said. “This time around, you’ll be a Chinese peasant girl in 540 AD.”
“Wait, what?” You stammered. “You’re sending me back in time?”
“Well, I guess technically. Time, as you know it, only exists in your universe. Things are different where I come from.”
“Where you come from?” You said.
“Oh sure,” I explained “I come from somewhere. Somewhere else. And there are others like me. I know you’ll want to know what it’s like there, but honestly you wouldn’t understand.”
“Oh,” you said, a little let down. “But wait. If I get reincarnated to other places in time, I could have interacted with myself at some point.”
“Sure. Happens all the time. And with both lives only aware of their own lifespan you don’t even know it’s happening.”
“So what’s the point of it all?”
“Seriously?” I asked. “Seriously? You’re asking me for the meaning of life? Isn’t that a little stereotypical?”
“Well it’s a reasonable question,” you persisted.
I looked you in the eye. “The meaning of life, the reason I made this whole universe, is for you to mature.”
“You mean mankind? You want us to mature?”
“No, just you. I made this whole universe for you. With each new life you grow and mature and become a larger and greater intellect.”
“Just me? What about everyone else?”
“There is no one else,” I said. “In this universe, there’s just you and me.”
You stared blankly at me. “But all the people on earth…”
“All you. Different incarnations of you.”
“Wait. I’m everyone!?”
“Now you’re getting it,” I said, with a congratulatory slap on the back.
“I’m every human being who ever lived?”
“Or who will ever live, yes.”
“I’m Abraham Lincoln?”
“And you’re John Wilkes Booth, too,” I added.
“I’m Hitler?” You said, appalled.
“And you’re the millions he killed.”
“I’m Jesus?”
“And you’re everyone who followed him.”
You fell silent.
“Every time you victimized someone,” I said, “you were victimizing yourself. Every act of kindness you’ve done, you’ve done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by any human was, or will be, experienced by you.”
You thought for a long time.
“Why?” You asked me. “Why do all this?”
“Because someday, you will become like me. Because that’s what you are. You’re one of my kind. You’re my child.”
“Whoa,” you said, incredulous. “You mean I’m a god?”
“No. Not yet. You’re a fetus. You’re still growing. Once you’ve lived every human life throughout all time, you will have grown enough to be born.”
“So the whole universe,” you said, “it’s just…”
“An egg.” I answered. “Now it’s time for you to move on to your next life.”
And I sent you on your way.

[Daddyo]

Now there's a movie.