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Samsally
Joined: 10 Jul 2006
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 Posted: Thu Mar 07, 2013 4:31 pm Post subject: |
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Man you guys are reminding me why I hid in a dark theatre through most of university.
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Samsally the Gray |
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bitflipper
Joined: 09 Jul 2011
Posts: 728
Location: Here and Now
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| Posted: Thu Mar 07, 2013 5:09 pm Post subject: |
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| Darqcyde wrote: | | Anything thought to be true just might be proven wrong at a future date. |
...including this statement.
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I am only a somewhat arbitrary sequence of raised and lowered voltages to which your mind insists upon assigning meaning |
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Dogen
Joined: 10 Jul 2006
Posts: 9288
Location: Bellingham, WA
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| Posted: Thu Mar 07, 2013 5:32 pm Post subject: |
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It's like that old physics joke, where the punch line is, "let's assume a spherical cow..." Only every logical argument assumes, "let's assume we can know anything..." Even though we can't.
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WheelsOfConfusion
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 11135
Location: Unknown Kaddath
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| Posted: Thu Mar 07, 2013 5:34 pm Post subject: |
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| Dogen wrote: | | It's like that old physics joke, where the punch line is, "let's assume a spherical cow..." Only every logical argument assumes, "let's assume we can know anything..." Even though we can't. |
How do you know we can't? |
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Darqcyde
Joined: 11 Jul 2006
Posts: 9086
Location: A false vacuum abiding in ignorance.
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| Posted: Thu Mar 07, 2013 5:41 pm Post subject: |
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| bitflipper wrote: | | Darqcyde wrote: | | Anything thought to be true just might be proven wrong at a future date. |
...including this statement. |
True, but that effectively requires proving everything else true, which might be possible, but is likely to be the least possible thing possible, so it's about as near as one can get to a universal truth--I'd posit it is the foundational assumption for all science, philosophy, and rational thought in general.
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...if a single leaf holds the eye, it will be as if the remaining leaves were not there.
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Dogen
Joined: 10 Jul 2006
Posts: 9288
Location: Bellingham, WA
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| Posted: Thu Mar 07, 2013 5:50 pm Post subject: |
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| WheelsOfConfusion wrote: | | Dogen wrote: | | It's like that old physics joke, where the punch line is, "let's assume a spherical cow..." Only every logical argument assumes, "let's assume we can know anything..." Even though we can't. |
How do you know we can't? |
If I were a pothead you would have just blown my mind.
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"Worse comes to worst, my people come first, but my tribe lives on every country on earth. I’ll do anything to protect them from hurt, the human race is what I serve." - Baba Brinkman |
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bitflipper
Joined: 09 Jul 2011
Posts: 728
Location: Here and Now
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| Posted: Thu Mar 07, 2013 5:59 pm Post subject: |
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| WheelsOfConfusion wrote: | | Dogen wrote: | | It's like that old physics joke, where the punch line is, "let's assume a spherical cow..." Only every logical argument assumes, "let's assume we can know anything..." Even though we can't. |
How do you know we can't? |
Kurt Gödel did some interesting work* on precisely that question. Pissed the hell out of George Whitehead and Bertrand Russell in the process, too.
My url tags don't seem to like this address, so copy-n-paste or right-click and go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del's_incompleteness_theorems please. Sorry for the inconvenience.
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I am only a somewhat arbitrary sequence of raised and lowered voltages to which your mind insists upon assigning meaning |
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WheelsOfConfusion
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
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Location: Unknown Kaddath
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| Posted: Thu Mar 07, 2013 6:12 pm Post subject: |
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| I was being flippant. |
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ShadowCell
Joined: 03 Aug 2008
Posts: 5251
Location: California
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| Posted: Thu Mar 07, 2013 6:26 pm Post subject: |
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philosophy is a totally unnatural way of thinking because at its core, it demands that you put all your beliefs up for critical examination and questioning. and that shit ain't normal. we aren't even cognitively wired for it. it's hard and weird and uncomfortable to do that. at its extreme, it even asks you to question the validity of your sense-perception data. who sits there and questions whether their sense-perceptions are valid? what would it mean if they weren't? does that mean objects don't exist? how would you know? does it mean other people don't exist? does it mean you're the only one who exists? if you can't trust your sense-perceptions, what can you trust? what if there's some all-powerful entity deceiving you all the time? who the hell thinks about that? a weird person, that's who. you have to be pretty weird to think that God is deceiving you into thinking that you exist.
so, yes, philosophy is a weird-ass unnatural way of thinking. that's why it flourishes when things are going wrong and it raises the possibility that maybe our beliefs are in fact wrong. that's really the only reason why people would start going through that uncomfortable process. |
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bitflipper
Joined: 09 Jul 2011
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Location: Here and Now
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| Posted: Thu Mar 07, 2013 6:35 pm Post subject: |
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| WheelsOfConfusion wrote: | | I was being flippant. |
Poe's Law, dude; I'm functionally illiterate without smileys!
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Samsally
Joined: 10 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Thu Mar 07, 2013 6:38 pm Post subject: |
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So there's a lot of stuff that makes me question those things but I'm not really prone to arguing about it. Of course that is gradually changing with my whole "i should at least try to be assertive..." thing, but generally speaking being super crazy introspective and wanting to hash it out with other people are pretty different things.
Not that there's anything wrong with any of it, really. I think I just want to figure out where I stand in all this.
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Samsally the Gray |
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bitflipper
Joined: 09 Jul 2011
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| Posted: Thu Mar 07, 2013 7:41 pm Post subject: |
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| Samsally wrote: | | I think I just want to figure out where I stand in all this. |
Wherever that may be, Samsally, make sure you're wearing your wellies at the time. 
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Finnegan
Joined: 01 May 2007
Posts: 959
Location: in that cool mountain air, on an appalachian trail
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| Posted: Thu Mar 07, 2013 11:33 pm Post subject: |
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| DeD CHiKn wrote: | What is the term for someone who only uses technical terminology when basic, more common words would be OK?
Example: Using "Monozygotic twins" instead of "identical twins". |
Not sure what you might call the person themself, but "technical terminology when basic, more common words would be OK" I guess would be considered jargon, and it should really not be overused (if used at all outside of the field to which it is applicable).
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Formerly Green_Finn
hey! rock bottom's not that bad
we've got glow-in-the-dark fish down here that's rad |
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Desire
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 544
Location: AK
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| Posted: Fri Mar 08, 2013 7:40 am Post subject: |
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| ShadowCell wrote: | | philosophy is a totally unnatural way of thinking because at its core, it demands that you put all your beliefs up for critical examination and questioning. and that shit ain't normal. we aren't even cognitively wired for it. it's hard and weird and uncomfortable to do that. at its extreme, it even asks you to question the validity of your sense-perception data. who sits there and questions whether their sense-perceptions are valid? what would it mean if they weren't? does that mean objects don't exist? how would you know? does it mean other people don't exist? does it mean you're the only one who exists? if you can't trust your sense-perceptions, what can you trust? what if there's some all-powerful entity deceiving you all the time? who the hell thinks about that? a weird person, that's who. you have to be pretty weird to think that God is deceiving you into thinking that you exist. |
I have wondered many of these, many times, actually. Often life is just too ridiculous or painful or dull or crazy to be really real. I believe my perceptions because they are all I have. But mine are not the same as as anyone else I am aware of. So either I am wrong or everyone else is. In a sense, everything is an illusion.
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"Her kisses left something to be desired -- the rest of her. " |
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Usagi Miyamoto
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 2165
Location: wish you were here
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| Posted: Fri Mar 08, 2013 9:36 am Post subject: Or in the vernacular, "know-it-all wanker" |
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| Finnegan wrote: | | DeD CHiKn wrote: | What is the term for someone who only uses technical terminology when basic, more common words would be OK?
Example: Using "Monozygotic twins" instead of "identical twins". |
Not sure what you might call the person themself, but "technical terminology when basic, more common words would be OK" I guess would be considered jargon, and it should really not be overused (if used at all outside of the field to which it is applicable). |
Perhaps the term you are looking for is "pedant."
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The reward for a good life is a good life. |
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