Our Approach to Reason

[Pneumatic-Coma]

Logic
Epistemology
Assertion
Philosophy of the Mind
Moral Philosophy
On God


~ What is Logic?
~ What's the difference between valid and invalid arguments?
~ What entity in mind is 'God' and is there a non-physical component to the self?
~ What are the requirements for knowing as opposed to just mere opinion?
~ Is there any objectivity when confronted with facts?
~ Is there a omnipotent, omniscient being who created (and looks after) the universe?
~ What's the actual evidence for and against the existence of such a 'God'?

I'm open to ideas on how to approach these subjects. Thinking it through these are my approaches to reason on certain topics after all. Take this as a learning module for something bigger in mind. If anybody has any suggestions as to any other approach or something else let me know. If you have any material to relate to these topics lemme know like i said I'm open to ideas.

[promethean75]

I'm afraid that philosophy is dead... these hallowed halls filled now only with the sweet threnody of our lamentation.

[Del Ivers]

@Promethean

Philosophy: "The study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence."

Prom, that study will go on. It is the only study there is and the one that provides knowledge for the advancement of who we are as individuals, as a people, and a world.

Just because some succumb to the disease of ignorance and bad actors doesn't mean you have to.

[promethean75]

okay fine, lemme restate what's going on here then. philosophy isn't dead, but it's reached a formal limit and can no longer be creative. by that i mean, given that the kinds of beings that we are, and the kinds of affairs we engage in, have not undergone any significant change in the last several thousand years - our biological and intellectual characteristics - we've reached an apex of the kinds of possible questions that can be asked and the kinds of possible circumstances we might find ourselves in which provoke us to ask such questions. for example, take the philosophy of mind. you have three major contenders in this field; materialism, idealism, and psychophysical parallelism. these theories not only provide the only possible explanations available, but they've also completely exhausted the language and concepts available to make them meaningful theories. so basically, no new questions can be asked now... and any philosophy happening in and around these theories will arrive at the same conclusions and dead-ends that have already been produced in the respective theory. same thing with ethics. pretty much covered. no new questions, and no new circumstances that might produce novel situations which would result in us asking new kinds of questions.

what i'm saying is, we, as a species, would have to undergo a significant and fundamental change physiologically before we would be able to ask genuinely new philosophical questions. now of course you'll find all kinds of designer, new age hobby philosophers who think they've come up with something unique, or have solved some impending problem if only you'll 'think of it this way, instead', and so forth. but this stuff is either using the same philosophical languages that have existed for thousands of years, or it's just plain nonsense. or, it's using the same philosophical languages and it's just plain nonsense. more likely it's the latter.

so when you say 'philosophy will go on', sure; people will continue thinking with the same language and acting in similar ways, as they've always done. what i'm saying is the last century and the next to come will involve only a recycling of old ideas, and the usefulness... or i should say the natural selection of what ideas will prevail... is going to be determined by a calculus already established - in general - by the theory of historical materialism. and i say this because HM is pretty much the only 'philosophy' that has survived a millennia of rigorous criticism. that is to say, there isn't much about it that can be criticized by virtue of the fact that it's an incredibly frugal philosophy that has much more in common with science than any other philosophy. almost entirely devoid of a priori theses and grounded directly, and only, in empirical propositions. that's a tough nut to crack, homes, and if it's survived the onslaught of analytical philosophy, well... nuff said.

if you want to listen to new philosophy and not just a greatest hits album, you gotta change the very fabric of space/time and everything in it.... which ain't gonna happen, so....

[surreptitious75]

When the machines finally manage to become as intelligent as us we may start having to treat them as equivalent sentient beings
Thats a whole new branch of ethics waiting to be trashed out somewhere in the future so that will keep everyone busy for a while

[Del Ivers]

@Promethean

Your explanation seems based on "form" from different angles. I understand it especially if one subscribes to the idea that form cannot be used to escape form; at its simplest, you can't break free from a square by using "square" logic, there has to be an "other". For example, your explanation indicates that there has to be an "other", yet you are not, physiologically, in that other. You've "seen" the other and what has facilitated that is the, shall we say, infrastructure of present philosophical concerns however worn they may appear.

Yes, there may well be a distant time or dimension where some will look back and regard us here in the same way we regard flat-earthers. But for now, what is "here" is what we got, it's the "currency" of the moment. Furthermore, there are those who are just beginning to even understand the infrastructure that exists and of course some who are bewildered by it. Putting it another way, one person's exhaustion is another person's roof or floor depending from the angle.

If you have seen the slight curve in your exhaustion of the square, then kudos to you. But as I think you already know, it can be no more at the present than a highly personal position when taking into account all the levels of the aforementioned infrastructure and especially its occupants at various levels. And sometimes, unfortunately, those occupants acquire power and don't like their infrastructure f**cked around with. Galileo and others discovered that along with the curves. I think you'd agree with me that even nowadays there are many who get irritated when you point out their fortress of truth is nothing more than a grass shack.

Personally, and of course due to the physiological window of time I was born into, the best I can hope for is that at some point long after I'm gone the forms are more flexible. It may not do much for me "here" but I can think of it as my being, dimensionally altruistic and hopeful. On the present train I just need it to remain on the tracks and with some switching along the way; what other choice is there? Anti-gravity trains that don't need tracks? Possibly, somewhere along the way. That would be cool.

[promethean75]

forgive me for saying i couldn't make heads or tails out of anything you said before this:

I think you'd agree with me that even nowadays there are many who get irritated when you point out their fortress of truth is nothing more than a grass shack.

sure, and there's different kinds of irritation, too. there's one kind where the person who's bullshit is called becomes irritated because that bullshit gave him an upperhand, which he's now lost in being called out. this person's irritation is less to do with being wrong and more to do with failing at some kind of sophistry that gave him an advantage. that is to say, this person wasn't much concerned with knowing the truth in the first place, but only in how useful deceiving someone could be.

another kind is irritation at the fact that someone who's called your bullshit has now lost some degree, however slight, of admiration for you. unlike the first type above, this person's intention wasn't to deceive but maybe to impress and gain acceptance. they probably did have a honest interest in the truth, but screwed it up, and are now frustrated that it's become obvious to those who he wanted to impress.

then there's the type that has no interest in deceiving or being admired, and has a genuine interest in the truth. the irritation this person feels when being wrong is only with himself; he probably associates ignorance with inferiority and is now ashamed of being wrong.

as far as i can see these are the three kinds of irritation that can be experienced when one realizes their fortress of truth turned out to be a grass shack instead.

the thing with fortresses of truth that are 'philosophical' is that undermining them is a much more difficult and elusive task... because understanding the kinds of ways one can be wrong when doing philosophy is not at all easy. one of the biggest problems with it is that it is able to take advantage of a characteristic of language that allows a very wide range of 'meanings' to become possible... but more so, that certain kinds of meanings can be mistaken as being of another kind of meaning... and as such, statements are confused to import truths that they inept at expressing. for instance we might treat and understand a statement about 'mind', or an ethical proposition, in the same way we treat and understand a statement about an object or state of affairs. the point not that such statements can't be true or meaningful, but that they aren't true and meaningful in the same way other statements are. as a result of confusing this characteristic of philosophical language, we then presume we are talking about 'facts' from which we can deduce whole series of statements and/or supporting arguments as if we were building a scientific theory.

lol when hawking said 'philosophers are failed scientists', he wasn't saying 'to hell with philosophy'. what he was saying was 'slow your roll and know your place at the table'.

[Del Ivers]

forgive me for saying i couldn't make heads or tails out of anything you said

It's a neutral observation, there's nothing to forgive.

Let me briefly rephrase:

Form: "The essential nature of a thing as distinguished from its matter; the component of a thing that determines its kind."_MW

"..philosophy isn't dead, but it's reached a formal limit and can no longer be creative."

When one speaks of a 'formal limit' one is referring to form; without form there would be nothing to substantiate notions of limitation, demarcation, creative potential, and other elements. It's like someone pointing to different areas of the sky and referring to them as 'acres'. But if the pointing is shifted to the terrain under that sky, then there is a complementing reference. Philosophy addresses forms of one type or another and it has attempted through the course of time to explain that shift from reference to reference, from the concrete to the metaphysical, from the physiological to the psychological, etc. In that respect, the creative potential is endless. What is not endless is our participation in that potential, e.g., the very earth we live on will one day be burned to a crisp by the sun - but Universe potentials will continue. Thus it can be said that humankind is always seeking optimum, complementary forms whether on large universal scales or in the simplest, personal interactions - while there is time to do so.

..that certain kinds of meanings can be mistaken as being of another kind of meaning..

Yes, and that is a big 'form' problem. Employing semantic mechanisms from form A to describe and even validate form B. 'Alternative' explanations.

As for your triptych of irritations, they sound politically relevant.

Lastly, how does someone 'know their place at the table' given that many don't even care about other's tables?

[Fixed Cross]

Logic
Epistemology
Assertion
Philosophy of the Mind
Moral Philosophy
On God


~ What is Logic?

For example, the study of consequences.

~ What's the difference between valid and invalid arguments?

For example, valid arguments accurately represent consequences, so that they can serve as a model of reality which is reliable and consistently so.

~ What entity in mind is 'God' and is there a non-physical component to the self?

"God, by his definition, exists"

~ What are the requirements for knowing as opposed to just mere opinion?

For example, methodical verification.

~ Is there any objectivity when confronted with facts?

I do not understand this question.

~ Is there a omnipotent, omniscient being who created (and looks after) the universe?

If so this being would have always existed, as the universe represents time-space and this being would have to be beyond this.

~ What's the actual evidence for and against the existence of such a 'God'?

Evidence points to time being a property of being, meaning that being has always existed.