Philosophy for beginners?

[littlebabyjesus]

All these things you talk about have no real bearing on life as we experience it and the anxiety that accompanies it. You are attacking existentialism on grounds it never seeks to contests, on a battlefield it long ago surrenderd as futile. In this I think existentialism shars much with marxism in that it seeks to bring philosophy away from irrelevant abstract shit and begin applying to lived experience.

It is not irrelevant abstract shit when current cosmology tells us that experiments are theoretically possible that would allow the order of time to be muddled – something that cannot happen if there is free will as existentialists would have it.

The question of space and time is fundamental. Conventionally, it is said that the stars we see in the sky are as they were thousands, millions or billions of years ago, because the light has taken that long to get here. I think this is mistaken. It is better to talk about how the light (change) that was caused by them is hitting us now. And it is impossible, but were you to travel at the speed of light all the way to that star, you would arrive instantly – it would take no time – light does not experience time. The star, of course will look as it does now, which is something that you cannot see from Earth. From the point of view of the Earth, the person travelling at the speed of light to that star would take time to arrive at the star but then, as the person gets further away, the light reflected by him (from the point of view of the Earth) takes time to reach us. Time and motion are part of the same equation, and although it may seem counterintuitive, I think this is the right way to look at it. (In reality, anything that has mass cannot, by definition, travel as fast as light. What this means is that we massful beings are stuck with only a small window on space-time. Most of it is not accessible to us at all.)

What does this have to do with free will? I'd have to dig out the exact thought experiment that leads to a mixing up of time, because it is involved and needs diagrams. I may do so tomorrow.

 

[revol68]

Explain.

well god was the active product of man trying to come to terms with the world, to make sense of it, and the subsequence of death of god has been the active product of technology, science and knowledge in general making a God redundant.

 

[revol68]

It is not irrelevant abstract shit when current cosmology tells us that experiments are theoretically possible that would allow the order of time to be muddled – something that cannot happen if there is free will as existentialists would have it.

Again you miss the fact that existentialists are interested in experience, though I'm sure they will get round to writing about it when this experience involves non linear movement in time.

 

[cesare]

well god was the active product of man trying to come to terms with the world, to make sense of it, and the subsequence of death of god has been the active product of technology, science and knowledge in general making a God redundant.

That'd be an interesting point of view to voice in the Vatican Observatory

 

[littlebabyjesus]

What were the limitz of knowledge btw?

We know that we exist. We 'guess' at the nature of existence outside us through the evidence of our experience. By definition, anything we experience has to be experienced in our reality. Therefore it is simply impossible to have knowledge of anything beyond that reality.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

well god was the active product of man trying to come to terms with the world, to make sense of it, and the subsequence of death of god has been the active product of technology, science and knowledge in general making a God redundant.

A working definition of god that generally holds up is 'that which we do not know'.

Here, you are confusing the concept 'god' with the actual thing. The god that you speak of was conceived and 'lived' in the minds of humans. As such, it still can. I can conceive of a god in some ways. There is also the Julian Jaynes argument here, namely that until a few thousand years ago, our consciousnesses were not unified in the way they are now, and people hearing god tell them what to do was in fact one half of the brain communicating with the other. To them, the fact of god will have appeared immediate and incontrovertable – an integral part of their experience. There are of course still people today who are effectively in this state of consciousness. In that sense, I am not able to conjure up direct experience of a part of myself that seems to be separate from me.

 

[revol68]

We know that we exist. We 'guess' at the nature of existence outside us through the evidence of our experience. By definition, anything we experience has to be experienced in our reality. Therefore it is simply impossible to have knowledge of anything beyond that reality.

and of course this reality we experience is constantly expanding in depth.

So basically what you are saying is that there are unknown unknowns.

How this is a problem for a school of philosophy that bases itself on lived experience is beyond me.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Again you miss the fact that existentialists are interested in experience, though I'm sure they will get round to writing about it when this experience involves non linear movement in time.

And ultimately, experience is all we have direct access to. In that sense they are right.

Maybe it merely comes down to a question of temperament. We are both confronted by the same situation. You see a problem that needs to be wrestled with. I don't.

 

[butchersapron]

**too latez

 

[revol68]

A working definition of god that generally holds up is 'that which we do not know'.

Here, you are confusing the concept 'god' with the actual thing. The god that you speak of was conceived and 'lived' in the minds of humans.

yes I was going to say that you are simply making a 'god of the gaps'. I think it's bullshit as that is not what god was historically, it's what it has been reduced. The 'God of gaps' is simply God in retreat.

 

[butchersapron]

We know that we exist. We 'guess' at the nature of existence outside us through the evidence of our experience. By definition, anything we experience has to be experienced in our reality. Therefore it is simply impossible to have knowledge of anything beyond that reality.

The doors are open then

 

[butchersapron]

God that thing in the sky - a simple god

 

[littlebabyjesus]

So basically what you are saying is that there are unknown unknowns.

No, I'm not. Where you put that sentence, I would have placed silence.

 

[revol68]

And ultimately, experience is all we have direct access to. In that sense they are right.

Maybe it merely comes down to a question of temperament. We are both confronted by the same situation. You see a problem that needs to be wrestled with. I don't.

So ethics and how to live become redundant because we only have our human experience of the universe and like it's way wider than that and there's no point getting hung up in little human things, man.

Now go on and tell us how you have overcame the problems that existentialism seeks to address, cos from what I've seen you're too busy pondering how many angels can fit on a pinhead to even get close to answering the major issues of existentialism.

 

[revol68]

No, I'm not. Where you put that sentence, I would have placed silence.

how do you know it's silence?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

yes I was going to say that you are simply making a 'god of the gaps'. I think it's bullshit as that is not what god was historically, it's what it has been reduced. The 'God of gaps' is simply God in retreat.

See my edit regarding Julian Jaynes. I would recommend you read him. He has a very challenging and, I believe, partially correct theory of consciousness.

 

[revol68]

Why do i feel like this discussion should have a soundtrack of The Doors or Pink FLoyd?

Philosophy for beginners indeed.

 

[revol68]

See my edit regarding Julian Jaynes. I would recommend you read him. He has a very challenging and, I believe, partially correct theory of consciousness.

You still don't address the issue of how you have solved the questions posed by existentialism, other than simply not acknowledging them.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

how do you know it's silence?

Silence as in you speak of a matter about which I have nothing to say.

"On that about which you have nothing to say, remain silent." It may be, sometimes is, an awestruck silence, but it is silence nonetheless.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Why do i feel like this discussion should have a soundtrack of The Doors or Pink FLoyd?

Because you have not followed what I have been saying.

Goodnight.

 

[revol68]

Silence as in you speak of a matter about which I have nothing to say.

"On that about which you have nothing to say, remain silent." It may be, sometimes is, an awestruck silence, but it is silence nonetheless.

Yes but silence is knowable to the human experience, whilst you have been talking about things outside of it, unknown unkowns to paraphrase Rumsfield.

 

[revol68]

Because you have not followed what I have been saying.

Goodnight.

No don't go to bed I want to know the solution to the big questions of existentialism!!!!!

 

[littlebabyjesus]

No don't go to bed I want to know the solution to the big questions of existentialism!!!!!

Sorry, I just don't see them as problems. What you're now talking about is ethics: How can we know how to live when there is no god to tell us, and when we are (apparently) free to act as we choose?

I mentioned Camus in my reply to the OP, and I enjoyed reading him at the time, as I did Dostoevsky. Now I might have a different attitude. We know how to live because we have grown up in and been socialised into our societies – that on top of the remaining innate behaviours that still remain in humans – just as we always have done. I have a pretty good idea of the kinds of ways I would like to act and have others to act towards me. And when new problems come along, I take them one at a time. Ultimately how do I judge what is right? Ultimately, that level of self-knowledge is probably beyond us.

Sorry, the absence or presence of an exterior justification for my ethics has always seemed something of a non-problem to me.

 

[butchersapron]

Why?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Why what?

 

[butchersapron]

Why what?

why has the absence or presence of an exterior justification for your ethics has always seemed something of a non-problem to you?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

There never has been a god to tell us what to do. It has always been us working it out for ourselves even when we have not realised that this is so.

Why should we suddenly become any less capable of doing it now that we realise the truth that the outside agent that told us what to do was us all along? We still have the same brains. We're still confronted by the same world to negotiate. If anything, we're stronger for our new-found unity of self. It enables more flexible thought.

 

[revol68]

You really don't seem to have grapsed what existentialism is about, it isn't about simply 'how do we live without a god to tell us'. the fact that you think there is no problem because

We know how to live because we have grown up in and been socialised into our societies – that on top of the remaining innate behaviours that still remain in humans – just as we always have done.

suggests that you haven't got the first notion. For a start do we know what our societies want, are our socialised values worthwhile or true? Not to mention the many divisions within what you paint as 'homogenous' society. The whole point of existentialism is to move from babal generalisations about abstract 'man' of the sort that 'lands on the moon' or 'invented reading and writting' but man as the experience of an individual within society.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

why has the absence or presence of an exterior justification for your ethics has always seemed something of a non-problem to you?

This is where you need to explain to me what the problem might be. I cannot explain an absence of problem – there's nothing to explain.

 

[revol68]

There never has been a god to tell us what to do. It has always been us working it out for ourselves even when we have not realised that this is so.

Why should we suddenly become any less capable of doing it now that we realise the truth that the outside agent that told us what to do was us all along? We still have the same brains. We're still confronted by the same world to negotiate. If anything, we're stronger for our new-found unity of self. It enables more flexible thought.

existentialism isn't just about god you pillock it was a whole movement arising from the crisis of modernism, and hence it's massive revival after the second world war.