Have you ever just started thinking about life and stuff enough to be the next Socrates, Oscar Fucking Awesome Wilde, or Emerson? If yes then do tell.
Philosophy and Junk
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Yeah, but I don't think any of my philosophical ideas are on par with Socrates, Nietzsche or Schopenhaur.
I don't try to be like them but I think about stuff like that a bit.
I do think about things a bit like Baudrillard with the whole "Our life is a mere simulation" or things like "We are only the product of our own or someone else's imagination."
I don't try to be like them but I think about stuff like that a bit.
I do think about things a bit like Baudrillard with the whole "Our life is a mere simulation" or things like "We are only the product of our own or someone else's imagination."
I ocasionaly wax the philosophy pole, but really, i'm useually too busy doing things in real life to sit and think about such things.
What's interesting is neurophilosophy is starting to conclude many similar things as Jean Baudrillard. A quote from my essay:Julianking93 said:
The idea of a 'world model' (our limited perceptual representations that construct this world) or simulation with an embedded phenomenal self model (in Baudrillard's simulacrum) has been explored by both post-modernists and now neurophilosophers. Metzinger main thesis is that the self is an inner representation within a system?s brain allowing the possibility of a first-person perspective. It is an internal representation of the system itself, our ?simulacra? in the word of Baudrillard, an illusion that constitutes our Self. Besides allowing a first-person perspective, our ?simulacrum? also possesses many useful functions, such as providing a sense of ownership, selfhood, and perspectileness. Metzinger posits a neuromatrix (i.g., a set of causal relations or neural correlates within the brain) constantly sustains the self. However, it is provisional (i.g., it resembles a chain of Now?s). Instead of a linear progression or decay, the self resembles a chain of Now?s. To quote the Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna, this indicates the self is "empty of inherent existence" since it is in a constant flux.
If you're interested, you may read my essay here:
http://phoenixicsepehr.blogspot.com/2010/04/phenomenal-model-and-simulacra-self.html
I tried it once. I then decided it didn't matter too much, because in the grand scale, I am a piece of sand on the beach of existence that will erode away long before anything of major importance occurs. Which, I realized a moment later, was fairly philosophical. My brain imploded.
So here's the important question (Well, no, the important question is: Will it get a publishing deal?, but still)InconceivableTruth said:
What practical meaning does this accomplish? If I'm catching your meaning right, it's basically saying that we don't perfectly see ourself mentally, just an illusion of our thoughts our brain creates so we can have thoughts, and that that illusion only exists, not based on all experiences, but only on the exact situation we are in.
So... we all can't really know what we think, just what we think we think, and it's only based on what is happening right now, not based on past experiences and foresight (even though foresight is what separates us from other animals, among other things). How is this relevant to anything pertaining in the real world, and where is the scientific study backing it up?
I've probably got the concept completely wrong, but those are two of the four problems I have with philosophy in general:
1. It rarely seems relevant to the real world. I'm hardly able (and probably completely incorrect) in parsing what you've said even in your summary, and if my parsing is correct, by definition it actually excludes you from gaining any knowledge of your true self, because you can only perceive the illusion you *think* is real. Again, I probably read it incorrectly, but if I have it right, it's completely circular logic:
Philosopher: I've got this theory, that we only perceive an illusion of our own thoughts created by our brains, that forms our self.
Me: So how do you know what your brain is truly doing?
Philosopher: You can't, because you'll only get an illusion of what you think your brain is truly doing.
2. It never seems to be backed up by any kind of scientific study, just the kind of "everything can be deduced by reason" philosophy that concluded heavy objects fall faster because they have more space to be attracted to the ground, or that certain shapes sunk or floated because of natural objects of that shape that sunk or float.
3. The language is completely impenetrable. While this is true for all fields, when philosophy's goal is to better understand humans, it should be understandable by humans.
4. It progresses too fast to seem like the theories are legitimate.
I tend to ponder the socio-philosophical conundrums brought up by Metal Gear Solid 2 quite often. Are we all the product of someone else's work? Is there really a reason to censor reality and the flow of information that comes from the world? Who has the right to decide what we see and hear?
Irrelevant, personal gain on the part of the censoree, the people who have power.lilmisspotatoes said:
Bam.
EDIT: This brings to mind a certain SMBC strip, but I can't remember what the date was. Engineers and philosophy (I'm not an engineer, but I am planning on majoring in chemical engineering, so yeah).
That exact one.Swarley said:
I don't get the point of philosophical debates like that. If the most obvious response to the question is somehow wrong because it's not philosophical enough, it's a stupid question and really not worth the time examining it, because it probably has no relevance to real life when answered on a philosophical level.
EDIT: Another thing is that any question that has to deal with whether or not what we see is true, or that we are just the product of something else, is also meaningless, because whether or not our observations are true, or we are/aren't a simulation, or everything may change tomorrow with all laws of physics flying out the window (literally, since everything is going crazy) cannot affect how we react to them.
Actually, Metzinger uses empirical data to back up his assertion. The only main background assertion he makes is there is a neuromatrix sustaining our virtual model of self. He also explains how this self model and our sense of it is experiential.milskidasith said:
For example, take the rubber hand experiment. Let's say I put one of your hands in a dark spot on a table and your other on your back. If I were to place a rubber hand in the light and rub both synchronously, then you will eventually mistaken the rubber hand as your own. This is an actual replicable study, and Metzinger claims this is the phenomenal target property 'mineness' of the PSM manifesting itself.
Here is the video if you are interested:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mthDxnFXs9k
Neurophilosophy is different from philosophy of mind because it assumes a physicalist, empirical model of the universe. It seeks to address philosophical issues from a neuroscientific and empirical vantage point.
You may claim his theory is theoretical, and I would agree. However, much of science and our models of reality are theoretical. A real scientist and philosopher is always prepared for a paradigm shift... You prepare yourself too because we're gonna have A LOT of paradigm shifts in the future.
Also, a lot of philosophical theories has been proven "true". Look at Immanuel Kant's "concepts of pure reason" and linguist Noam Chomsky's Universal Grammar. This is a prime example of epistemology having a crucial role in another field [http://www.miracosta.edu/home/iluengo/IntroKantChomsky.htm]. Moreover, many Buddhist tenants (e.g., everything is impermanent) have had some future empirical proof pop-up. Finally, I'd like to state how modal realism preceded string theory.
When I was very young I contemplated ideas that I later learned Socrates already made famous.
I felt so cheated.
I felt so cheated.
Final Fantasy 1 was a last-ditch effort by Square Enix to avoid failure as a company. They weren't expecting it to sell very well at all, they were expecting it to be their final game. Then it became a hit, and they had more than enough money to make another game. They decided to make their next game Final Fantasy II so that fans of the original would immediately see it in stores and pick it up. They kept doing that and that's where we are today.Douk said:
How does that prove anything practical? You've completely evaded the question there. Even if it proves his concept of oneness, it doesn't prove *anything* practical.
And it still addresses no practical concerns. It may be more empirical than I expected, but that only knocks down one of four major issues I have.
Actually, in terms of physics, there's a concept that no matter what the paradigm shift is, it will *always* include all the observations from the previous paradigm; from Newtonian physics to Relativity, for example, still had the math from Newtonian physics work out. No scientist is prepared for a massive paradigm shift where everything we've observed is proven wrong, because it is *incredibly* unlikely that hundreds of years of experiments could be proven wrong while at the same time all the results we have obtained being verifiable with the new theory.
Philosophy has no such concept, as far as I know, which is why there are so many philosophers who posited many things that were proven completely wrong, and why science was originally so full of misconceptions (since it was "proven" philosophically).
If philosophy has changed such that it is now in line with other sciences, with experiments being done and conclusions being drawn from them, and then being verified by other scientists, then it's definitely better than I expected, although it seems as if this is a recent development.
This is *exactly* why I have zero confidence in philosophy; by assuming there will be lots of paradigm shifts, you are actually positing that the current research will be outdated. Plus, no other science can guarantee lots of paradigm shifts will occur, and it seems as if philosophy draws conclusions and then gets evidence, rather than the other way around (for instance, the rubber hand experiment seemed to have been formulated to prove his concept of self, and not the other way around, but I could have the wrong impression).
His philosophy is applicable in a scientific and psychological context. I don't understand your criticism. Why does it need a "practical usage". It has a psychological one. We could use his model as a way to manipulate someone's sense of self. Recently, scientists have manipulated a fly's memory and added false memories. Could this conceivably be done to a person's sense of self? Disrupt the neural correlates that sustain the self and create a 'philosophical zombie'? That's pretty big stuff. As you can see, his philosophy does make some bold claims and has huge applicability.ultrachicken said:
If you want "practical" philosophy, then read ethics.
We've gone from a geocentric model of the universe to a heliocentric one... There are instances in which a paradigm shift results in the preceding paradigm being falsified. Simple observation indicates this.
Philosophy is what posited the existence of a paradigm shift to begin with. Look up Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Furthermore, philosophy of science addresses the presuppositions of science and its method of experimentation, one renowned figure including Karl Popper.
I was referring to science, my friend. There are a lot of presuppositions in science, and I find this new wave of this presupposed mechanistic, phsyicalist model of reality to be odd *cough Richard Dawkin, Peter Atkins, and etc. fans cough*. Philosophy of science addresses the foundations of empirical science and basically form much of the backbone to it. Afterall... isn't the scientific method philosophy?
Isn't the periodic table have some philosophical foundations? I mean, afterall, it is a mental construct? Does this construct exist in objectivity or does it simply reference an external world? How much of our science is a mental construct?
Is learning information the same as experiencing it? Does phenomenal experience indicate the existence of another form of knowledge? Could qualia be explained in mechanistic terms? Does qualia postulate the existence of another property other than physical?
See, once you question your presuppositions, you get into philosophy. The 'hard problem of consciousness' is interesting, for example (it is the last question I listed).
If this is referring to me, then you have misinterpreted my posts. I never said philosophers are scientists or the opposite. I do not believe metaphysics or any branch of philosophy form as science. I, however, see the value in philosophy and how it addresses much of our presuppositions.Horben said:
Also, philosophy does influence other fields as I have been pointing out. Neurophilosophy, for exmaple, is becoming very influential with figures such as Patricia Chruchland. Granted, many philosophers of mind disagree with them since they adopt a strictly empirical and mechanistic viewpoint. Once you read a real philosophical book, you'd see the necessity of such a field.
I'm majoring as a neuroscientist, but I know the importance in valuing this field. In this age, philosophy gets a lot of unnecessary bad rep and I'm here representin'.