Philosophy

What knowledge, Christian? Practical knowledge - it´s just quantitative, gradual accrual. That we see very distant galaxes and dissect DNA? So what? We are not wiser for that that the ancients were. Don´t you think? How do our families look like? How well do we understand ourselves and our partners? We still don´t know if there are any God out there.

 

Scientific knowledge about psychology and the origins of life and the universe has also been aqcuired over the last few centuries. The only reason why we don't understand ourselves and the world around us yet is that many of us refuse to believe these facts.

 

Science has become very complicated too. Just try to read a journal a little bit off your own little field of research or interest. People don´t follow. Even intelligent people just have to pretend!

 

So you understand exactly why the cells of a fertilised egg start to multiply?

You understand how evolution works, despite the fact (a biological scientist told me this recently) that DNA itself cannot 'evolve'. It can absorb other DNA, but it cannot change without outside input. Which, logically, means that all DNA was present at the start of the world, or that aliens came down & injected everything with DNA.

You understand Black holes?

Roel, there is much we are still learning, much we do not understand. Some of this is because of stubborn people (some out there passionately believe the world is flat, and only 6,000 years old :roll: ), and these are not just religious zealots, either.
But there is much that we just do not know.

Getting back to Xeno...
If he had bothered with a small experiment, instead of sitting & thinking, he could have discovered the answer. Then maybe he could have had an informed think about it and worked out how it came to be.

 

Ebar's personal philosophy

There are but three certainties in life, death, tax and computer crashes.

No matter how bad a given situation it can always get worse.

Upon meeting a person for the first time until proven otherwise assume that person is a halfwit, you'll be right more often than your wrong.

There is no such thing as a pessimist, we're realists.

Optimism is a form of self delusion

 

Xeno ...?

Is that Xenofanes, Xenofon or Xenokrates ?

Anyway, I think the point was that it was supposed to be an experiment of the mind, challenging the intellect.

 

The one that was actually Roman, not Greek... If that helps.

But how? It is like the mathematical trick where you can 'prove' that 1 = -1. Illogical logic.
It may be deeply interesting to many, but to me it is an irritant :bang: .
Ah, philosophy & personal opinions!

 

C´mon, tell then, what kind of philosophy doesn´t make you pull your gun? You are here to talk philosophy, right? I guess Talmud would have been lethal for you. :lol:
What about the God problem, Ricky? Isnt´t it tricky?

 

Most philosophers make me pull my gun, sadly.
Ones I like... ones that actually try to address issues in a realistic way (ie: not those who favour utopian ideals that any sane person knows would not work with humanity being the way it is), and seek to explain why & how humans are as they are. But without the pretentious rubbish. I have not seen many examples of this...

I have not read the Talmud... Can you get copies translated into English? (I honestly do not know, and have only ever seen copies in Hebrew)

btw - what God question?

 

DOES HE EXIST?

Talmud is also not my cup of tee. You can get it in English, but not all of it. There was once a rather shameless complete translation of the Babylonian T. (don´t remember by whom) where all unfavorable phrases about the Goyim were all "translated" so as not to offend. In original its rather dull and (to the non-Jews) sometimes very offensive.
But, we are FAR from the subject matter, please. (I am to blame for this, I know).

 

To prove God´s existence. Thomas Aquinas and René Descartes comes to mind. You would like Descartes´conclusion, Ricky.

 

Hey, I said knowledge had been acquired, not that we knew it all! What I was replying to was Izaak's statement that we are not wiser than the ancients, which I think isn't true at all because of the above. We may not know how a black hole works or what it is, but an ancient philosopher wouldn't even have dared to imagine they existed - we know they must. We may not know how DNA changes but we know it exists and we can even change it ourselves. Even the wisest of ancient men wouldn't have guessed at its existence, with Aristotle's pathetic four elements (we know more than 120 now if I'm correct, and the number is rising).

As to the God question - Ricky knows what I think of that. There really is no question whether any god exists, unless you also ask yourself if dreams really happen, or if fantasy worlds exist somewhere somehow. Gods are products of human thought and imagination - so far these things lead to nothing without action.

 

As to whether or not God exists, I will say this: One day, we'll all know for sure. And some of us are going to be disappointed; I know who I believe that will happen to.

 

You are reading my thoughts, corpcasselbury. At least in this case.

I don´t understand the concept of believing in G-d. for me believing has always been a composite of suspecting and hoping. (Just a loose remark).

As to Roel´s fascination with knowledge: It´s not much more than practical knowledge of “how to…” plus some observations of the world around. I don´t know why, but I am afraid, that the distance between the Ancients´ knowledge and ours may be much, much less than between ours and the knowledge about all material phenomena. Not to speak about, not impossible, immaterial.
As to the Ancients´imagination – I think they can speak for themselves.
And now – the bottom line: does all our knowledge makes us happier and/or wiser?

Roel wrote: “Scientific knowledge about psychology and the origins of life and the universe has also been aqcuired over the last few centuries. The only reason why we don't understand ourselves and the world around us yet is that many of us refuse to believe these facts.”
Is that really so? If that knowledge of ourselves is so good, why don´t they “believe” those facts?
I think it is not so much a failure to accept knowledge, but maybe it´s the human nature which has not changed much since caves that keeps us chained. It is as if everybody had his/her preset level of happiness/unhappiness, no matter what (well, almost).
Sorry I keep returning to my Grandpa but he was kind of wise. He said that before the War, in the middle of the poor, drab USSR people were able to be happy, no less than Israelis in Israel and Americans. Why? People predisposed to be happy always managed to find some, even very small reasons to be happy: “Wow, I managed to buy some butter today!”, “See what a book I´ve found in the old cellar! It´s a treasury! I am really happy for that”. And not so seldom:”Thank G-d, I managed to survive this purge in our institute. This time I was sure they would arrest me but I´m still here, I am alive and healthy!”. Somehow, in the dangerous times people enjoyed the life they had more (anyway – certainly not less) than people in developed, rich coutries do. It´s perverted somehow to think that the fact of being alive and well, knowing how many perished made people enjoy every moment they had left to live (not unlike some cancer patients). The terror was unpredictible. It was not killing others that allowed one to live. People kind of got used to it like to Fate. Death or Siberian camp was often not far away. But so long they were alive, they enjoyed it.
It has nothing to do with “belief in scientific knowledge of ourselves”. Somehow, suicide rates tend to be higher in more educated, richer societies. Why?

 

Because in dictatorships they tend to turn the gas off when the police come calling...

But seriously.

If people are simply trying to survive, they cling hard to life.
If people have a decent living standard handed to them on a plate, they will go off & think too much.

My answer to the God question? Personally, I believe. But I am very hard to offend or provoke on this issue - just ask Roel!

 

Yeah, I gave up in the end - we both refused to start frothing at the mouth!

Izaak: obviously, knowledge is not all we need, and knowledge sec doesn't make us any happier. I'm still just refuting your statement that we are no further than the ancients. Had you written that we weren't any happier than the ancients, I couldn't but agree since happiness is greatly determined by what you're used to.

 

humans r out of touch from our instincts, unlike the ancients and various tribes who r still around, modernised countries who the citizens rely on tech for everything these days r not as strong as we think we r, the ancients/tribes take wot they need no more no less, they relied on nature for life and nature gave them wot they needed

 

I have NEVER said that our knowledge is not greater than the Ancients. Please, look again at my entry: “I don´t know why, but I am afraid, that the distance between the Ancients´ knowledge and ours may be much, much less than between ours and the knowledge about all material phenomena.” (one can reformulate a little: “….and the possible knowledge about…). Do you agree with that, Roel?
Ricky, the clinging to life….It was not mere clinging, I think. But even if, than maybe the succressful clinging was giving the extra taste? In my view, each of us has a certain ability or whatever it is, to face problems. If the problems more like are buying shooes, they are possible to get resolved. Plus the gratification of having new shoes. If the possible to solve kind of problems don´t exist, the brain itself creates problems to be solved. But this kind of problems is more tricky one. Such problems tend to haunt and to solve them people hire shrinks. Or eat prozac. But many problems remain unresolved because they are imaginary. It´s late. I can formulate the thought better when I´m in better form. I hope you understand it, anyway.
Btw, people in the old USSR used to read a lot, maybe more than people in the developed societies (not just because they didn´t have TV). So, it wasn´t just animal-like clinging to life. (not my observation – my Grandfather´s).

 

Hm, careful in your praise of pre-sedentary societies. The whole essence of the Nomadic lifestyle is that you use so much from your environment that you have to keep moving on to new areas forever to sustain yourself.

Izaak: I think I could go along with your first statement, but I disagree with your thought that psychological diseases and disorders are imaginary or exist only because we lack other problems to occupy ourselves with. After all, those who are overstrained with emotional problems are all the more likely to develop psychological problems.

 

Sorry, Roel. It´s me who gets money for diagnoses.
There is no such thing as psychological diseases. I assume, you mean psychiatric diseases or mental disrders. That is not, what I was talking about. And they are certainly not imaginary. Have you ever visited a psychiatric hospital?
What I was talking about was ordinary people with no real problems of life, and whose brains therefore produce some ersatz problems, in place of those, which use to haunt peoples´ lives.
Real, concrete problems, to be solved: food, shelter, security, things like that. And, because our brains are designed to tackle problems of this kind, a lack of them will confuse the brain and (unconsciously, of course) mak it look for problems to solve them. T
he imaginary ones are insoluble, just because they are imaginary.

Some people are born optimists or otherwise. I suspect, that some people tend to "need" more problems than others too.
It has nothing to do with stress, other than the insoluble imaginary problems can cause stress in some types of personalities. Stress itself can make people unhappy or paranoid or depressed, true. But that is a completely different topic.

Another thing, I should have mentioned, because it is of great importance for our ability to be happy and stable is relationship with other people. Ability to love and share our things or goods with some other people (usually family or friends).
According to my observations, during the last decennia, with raising standard of living, peoples´ ability to love decreased. Our societies have become collections of one-man armies.
Or egoists.
Why is that? IMO, people need real problems not only to avoid imaginary ones. The other important function of problems is to get people together. In difficult environments people must help each other to survive. Such dependency on each other makes people care for each other and love.
I am not talking of sexual fascination. I am talking about real, deep, serious love. It can have a sexual or reproductional component (partners, spouses) or not (other family members, friends).
What do you think?

PS In order to avoid misunderstandings: by Ancients I mean historic Greeks and Romans (to make it simpler, I just didn´t mention other peoples of this period, like f.ex. Jews) and not some wild nomads.