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- Thread starter Ramses
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i dont even know man
You need to read some David Hume before posting stuff like this, man lol
All your questions have already been answered. The text is called "An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding". This text is a fundamental philosophical text explicating the topics of epistemology, metaphysics, and empiricism. Before making claims like "human history is rooted in uniqueness", you should probably read the works of philosophers that have already sculpted the world, way before we were born.
Further, the whole 1+1 thing. Please, give the pseudo philosophy a rest. Mathematics is an example of Synthetic a priori knowledge as outlined by Kant in his response to David Hume. It's synthetic (as opposed to purely analytic) because we created it to fit our ability to think abstractly and formulate/outline the proprerties and nature of the universe, and it's a priori because the knowledge already existed before we experienced the knowledge, we just created a language to articulate this knowledge, which is still being uncovered since the universe is quite vast. Again, the answers to your questions have already been answered. The kind of philosophy that Kant and Hume do isn't rooted in some wishywashy falsified attempt at philosophy (for example, what is the meaning of life or a conversation on time are metaphysical topics, not an epistemological one). Rather, their philosophy is rooted in the separation of a priori knowledge versus a posteriori knowledge. Aka, things we know from pure rationality versus things that need to be experienced.
The justification of our knowledge is limited, but the conversation is long over. If you care to discuss social epistemology, aka knowledge found from cultural differences and variety, then that's really the only topic left that hasn't been completely overdone. I'm sorry if you found this post to be slightly aggressive, but as a philosophy major, these sort of topics really cause me grief, considering you're trying to derail mathematics and replace it with a metaphysical concept such as Time. Did you know there are books and books on the discussion of A and B time? Did you know countless metaphysicians rely on modern physics and mathematics to discuss the relative nature of time? Research bruh.
All your questions have already been answered. The text is called "An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding". This text is a fundamental philosophical text explicating the topics of epistemology, metaphysics, and empiricism. Before making claims like "human history is rooted in uniqueness", you should probably read the works of philosophers that have already sculpted the world, way before we were born.
Further, the whole 1+1 thing. Please, give the pseudo philosophy a rest. Mathematics is an example of Synthetic a priori knowledge as outlined by Kant in his response to David Hume. It's synthetic (as opposed to purely analytic) because we created it to fit our ability to think abstractly and formulate/outline the proprerties and nature of the universe, and it's a priori because the knowledge already existed before we experienced the knowledge, we just created a language to articulate this knowledge, which is still being uncovered since the universe is quite vast. Again, the answers to your questions have already been answered. The kind of philosophy that Kant and Hume do isn't rooted in some wishywashy falsified attempt at philosophy (for example, what is the meaning of life or a conversation on time are metaphysical topics, not an epistemological one). Rather, their philosophy is rooted in the separation of a priori knowledge versus a posteriori knowledge. Aka, things we know from pure rationality versus things that need to be experienced.
The justification of our knowledge is limited, but the conversation is long over. If you care to discuss social epistemology, aka knowledge found from cultural differences and variety, then that's really the only topic left that hasn't been completely overdone. I'm sorry if you found this post to be slightly aggressive, but as a philosophy major, these sort of topics really cause me grief, considering you're trying to derail mathematics and replace it with a metaphysical concept such as Time. Did you know there are books and books on the discussion of A and B time? Did you know countless metaphysicians rely on modern physics and mathematics to discuss the relative nature of time? Research bruh.
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Stratos
Banned deucer.
not gonna touch on the rest of this stuff but hours are just as arbitrary as meters and distance is just as real as time (depending on how anal we're going to get about our physics, I guess). just because we put arbitrary labels on something to help explain it doesn't make the thing itself any less real.
your questions don't make any sense, nor do they follow from the (non-)arguments you put forth before them. it's clear you didn't put much thought into the OP; maybe you should learn basic logic or, if that's too much, you could start with how to spell "existence."
YHVH
Banned deucer.
Me: *hits bong* So like... whats even the meaning of life man?
King UU: Lmao, you should of read [pokerap voice] Spinoza, Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Delueze, Baudrillard, Hegel, [internally:uhhh shit, wahts some other philsophers i can namedrop that are irrelevant to the topic] Foucalt, Derrida, Aristotle, Aquinas, Heidegger, Freud, Wittgenstein before asking that question, man lol. Research bruh. Also, pass the fucking weed joint, which I need to smoke it because I didnt get drafted in SPL
King UU: Lmao, you should of read [pokerap voice] Spinoza, Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Delueze, Baudrillard, Hegel, [internally:uhhh shit, wahts some other philsophers i can namedrop that are irrelevant to the topic] Foucalt, Derrida, Aristotle, Aquinas, Heidegger, Freud, Wittgenstein before asking that question, man lol. Research bruh. Also, pass the fucking weed joint, which I need to smoke it because I didnt get drafted in SPL
This thread reads like a 15yo who's smoked some quality grass for the first time in his life.
Improving the ^above post (lol)... if you're interested I can suggest you start right with Platonic definition of "being" and work your way right down past the European Corpus with the notable stops being Descartes (I think therefore I am), The (post)Renaissance Thinkers, Kierkegaard (proto-existentialism), The long line of German idealists and Materialists - Heidegger (Das Gerede)/Nietzche (Will to Power)/Kant (The Terrible Beauty)/Marx (Capital)/Hegel(Extensive Dialectics)/Freud (will to pleasure) etc etc.... right down to 20th Century Modernism and the Continental School of Philosophy with its cross-section of Existentialism/Absurdism/Surrealism/Psychoanalysis with Camus, Satre, Foucault, Derrida, Althusser, Beckett, Brecht, Ionesco yadda yadda. Then when you feel like it repeat process with Eastern Philosophies. Then after that broach post modernism maybe. Come back make OP again.
I wish my post was something more than a glorified reading list, and I really want to have a long rambling discussion about this but the Op is too broad and is either rather tautologous or doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
Improving the ^above post (lol)... if you're interested I can suggest you start right with Platonic definition of "being" and work your way right down past the European Corpus with the notable stops being Descartes (I think therefore I am), The (post)Renaissance Thinkers, Kierkegaard (proto-existentialism), The long line of German idealists and Materialists - Heidegger (Das Gerede)/Nietzche (Will to Power)/Kant (The Terrible Beauty)/Marx (Capital)/Hegel(Extensive Dialectics)/Freud (will to pleasure) etc etc.... right down to 20th Century Modernism and the Continental School of Philosophy with its cross-section of Existentialism/Absurdism/Surrealism/Psychoanalysis with Camus, Satre, Foucault, Derrida, Althusser, Beckett, Brecht, Ionesco yadda yadda. Then when you feel like it repeat process with Eastern Philosophies. Then after that broach post modernism maybe. Come back make OP again.
I wish my post was something more than a glorified reading list, and I really want to have a long rambling discussion about this but the Op is too broad and is either rather tautologous or doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
edgy bastardization. it's a real shame that what I said was completely accurate and sound.
If you're gonna hop on the make-fun-of-King UU-train, at least don't come off as a pathetic rehasher. I smoke weed because it's my vice of choice. But great to see that you're an open-minded individual with lots of interesting perspectives on how I provide reading lists.
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I'm pretty sure that's exactly what philosophy is. I'm not sure anyone is capable of discussing the field without citing the same tired names and arguing the importance of poorly defined scenarios.
ok
1s are not a thing
2s are not a thing
But it's absolutely consistent that our 1s, added together, make our 2s. Consistency is the basis of our reality, it's the basis of the scientific process.
And yeah, Stratos is right, TIME isn't a thing dude, though again, it is fairly consistent.
tehy
Banned deucer.
well let's say you have a rock and you need another rock and then you have 2 rocks
it's not that hard to grasp
i know there's that thing where 'you can't prove anything is really real ooooo how can numbers be real if our perceptions aren't real - Jaden Gosseyn'
but outside of that it's pretty obvious and most people can agree upon it
you can determine something is a '1' if you can pick it up and it's not attached to anything.
then i guess there's the question of 'how are those two things similar' and i get it that this is a construct but again, an entirely logical construct of 'those 2 share so many deep similarities' and you might argue they have key differences which maybe an alien would notice but cmon
this kind of thinking is just so masturbatory though, like what do you plan to use these knowledges on? is there a door opened by them or an obstacle shoved aside by them?
1 is a symbol that represents a quantity of only a single unit when doing measurements. 2 is a symbol that represents a quantity of a single unit with another single unit. It is we as people who made symbols to write down and communicate the mathematics of the universe which we discover, not us creating the mathematic principles. 1+1 will always be 2 in this reality.
In the case of parallel universes, if one were to look at the origins of writing, (if I recall correctly) the greek system of numbers had a 1 that looked very similar to today's 1 and had a 2 that looked very similar to today's 2, and the reasoning behind this was that they attempted to create a system of numbers that was based upon the amount of angles being equal to the quantity represented by each number.
Assuming this to be true, if we were to peer inside a parallel universe in which catastrophic differences in the Earth-related (more specifically, human-related) electron expression occurred before the time when we developed the first system of writing, I believe it to be highly probable that we may still see that 1+1=2 instead of some other random symbols like 3+3=2.
In the case of parallel universes, if one were to look at the origins of writing, (if I recall correctly) the greek system of numbers had a 1 that looked very similar to today's 1 and had a 2 that looked very similar to today's 2, and the reasoning behind this was that they attempted to create a system of numbers that was based upon the amount of angles being equal to the quantity represented by each number.
Assuming this to be true, if we were to peer inside a parallel universe in which catastrophic differences in the Earth-related (more specifically, human-related) electron expression occurred before the time when we developed the first system of writing, I believe it to be highly probable that we may still see that 1+1=2 instead of some other random symbols like 3+3=2.
Proof of "1 + 1 = 2"
And this too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_universe_hypothesis
Tagging on to Stratos' point, if you are going to philosophically question heavy-hitting topics correctly, I suggest reading some good books on logic and philosophy.
A Beginner's Guide to Mathematical Logic, Robert Smullyan
Essays in Humanism, Albert Einstein
"Time" from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (okay so not a book but still a good read to understand philosophical time)
I'm pretty sure King UU can provide more enlightening texts on philosophy.
And this too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_universe_hypothesis
Tagging on to Stratos' point, if you are going to philosophically question heavy-hitting topics correctly, I suggest reading some good books on logic and philosophy.
A Beginner's Guide to Mathematical Logic, Robert Smullyan
Essays in Humanism, Albert Einstein
"Time" from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (okay so not a book but still a good read to understand philosophical time)
I'm pretty sure King UU can provide more enlightening texts on philosophy.
fascinating and important stuff to be sure
1+1 becomes 2, approaches 2- the concept of the limit from calculus may indicate this approach. think about an asymptote, a function approaches as a process of becoming or something. im sorry maybe someone who gets maths better can take this sort of explanation up, the idea is like the limit as x approaches 1 of x+x=2. idk if this is making sense, but the idea is that 1+1=2 is said to exist in so far as 1 added to 1 becomes two. things exist because they became...
"We do not worship God.
We perceive and attend God.
We learn from God.
With forethought and work,
We shape God.
In the end, we yield to God.
We adapt and endure,
For we are Earthseed
And God is Change.
God is power
Infinite,
Irresistible,
Inexorable,
Indifferent.
And yet, God is Pliable
Trickster,
Teacher,
Chaos,
Clay.
God exists to be shaped.
God is change.
A victim of God may,
Through learning adaption,
Become a partner of God,
A victim of God may,
Through forethought and planning,
Become a shaper of God.
Or a victim of God may,
Through shortsightedness and fear,
Remain God's victim
God's plaything,
God's prey.
All that you touch,
You Change.
All that you Change,
Changes you.
The only lasting truth
Is Change.
God
Is Change."
From 'Earthseed: The Books of the Living'
i try to entertain u.
it's weird to come at these questions by proceeding by noting that confirmation is elusive, and then arguing from there that we don't know we exist. Rather, all of our projects of knowing already belong to a situation, our knowledges are situated in ways of being.
imo, Knowing is part of becoming which is what it is to be which must be related to existing somehow.
from:
http://sociology.sunimc.net/htmledit/uploadfile/system/20110414/20110414150123784.pdf
as to what makes humans... imo it is correct to say of humans that if, if they exist at all, they exist divided, complex, heterogenous. all claims about what humans are, as such always political claims about who should be counted as human and granted the accompanying epistemic and material privileges. I don't care about humans I care about persons. "A person is the opposite of an object." may be understood as opposing the apparent replaceability of the object with the apparent uniqueness of the person, taken as a desiring subject. A human, a part of a species, a species whose existence does not depend on the continued existence of any one human, the notion of humanity does not depend on human persons being enabled as desiring subjects.
And the content of history is in part the systematic depersonalization of humans, so it is less worrisome to me that some discourse cannot confirm 'our' (the participants) existence, and more sad that some humans actually are not enabled to achieve the recognition of their own personhood within the terms made available to them.?
edit: and yes the lovely irony that delueze and delusion sound siimilar is not lost on me
edit 2:
1+1 becomes 2, approaches 2- the concept of the limit from calculus may indicate this approach. think about an asymptote, a function approaches as a process of becoming or something. im sorry maybe someone who gets maths better can take this sort of explanation up, the idea is like the limit as x approaches 1 of x+x=2. idk if this is making sense, but the idea is that 1+1=2 is said to exist in so far as 1 added to 1 becomes two. things exist because they became...
"We do not worship God.
We perceive and attend God.
We learn from God.
With forethought and work,
We shape God.
In the end, we yield to God.
We adapt and endure,
For we are Earthseed
And God is Change.
God is power
Infinite,
Irresistible,
Inexorable,
Indifferent.
And yet, God is Pliable
Trickster,
Teacher,
Chaos,
Clay.
God exists to be shaped.
God is change.
A victim of God may,
Through learning adaption,
Become a partner of God,
A victim of God may,
Through forethought and planning,
Become a shaper of God.
Or a victim of God may,
Through shortsightedness and fear,
Remain God's victim
God's plaything,
God's prey.
All that you touch,
You Change.
All that you Change,
Changes you.
The only lasting truth
Is Change.
God
Is Change."
From 'Earthseed: The Books of the Living'
i try to entertain u.
it's weird to come at these questions by proceeding by noting that confirmation is elusive, and then arguing from there that we don't know we exist. Rather, all of our projects of knowing already belong to a situation, our knowledges are situated in ways of being.
imo, Knowing is part of becoming which is what it is to be which must be related to existing somehow.
"There has only ever been one ontological proposition: Being is univocal. There has only ever been one ontology, that of Duns Scotus, which gave being a single voice. In effect, the essential in univocity is not that Being is said in a single and same sense, but that it is said, in a single and same sense, of all its individuating differences or intrinsic modalities. Being is the same for all these modalities, but these modalities are not the same. It is 'equal' for all, but they themselves are not equal. It is said of all in a single sense, but they themselves do not have the same sense. The essence of univocal being is to include individuating differences, while these differences do not have the same essence and do not change the essence of being - just as white includes various intensities, while remaining essentially the same white. There are not two 'paths', as Parmenides' poem suggests, but a single 'voice' of Being which includes all its modes, including the most diverse, the most varied, the most differenciated. Being is said in a single and same sense of everything of which it is said, but that of which it is said differs: it is said of difference itself. No doubt there is still hierarchy and distribution in univocal being, in relation to the individuating factors and their sense, but distribution and even hierarchy have two completely different, irreconcilable acceptations.
Similarly for the expressions logos and nomos, in so far as these refer to problems of distribution. We must first of all distinguish a type of distribution which implies a dividing up of that which is distributed: it is a matter of dividing up the distributed as such. It is here that in judgement the rules of analogy are all-powerful. In so far as common sense and good sense are qualities of judgement, these are presented as principles of division which declare themselves the best distributed. A distribution of this type proceeds by fixed and proportional determinations which may be assimilated to 'properties' or limited territories within representation. The agrarian question may well have been very important for this organisation of judgement as the faculty which distinguishes parts ('on the one hand and on the other hand'). Even among the gods, each has his domain, his category, his attributes, and all distribute limits and lots to mortals in accordance with destiny. Then there is a completely other distribution which must be called nomadic, a nomad nomos, without property, enclosure or measure. Here, there is no longer a division of that which is distributed but rather a division among those who distribute themselves in an open space - a space which is unlimited, or at least without precise limits.
Nothing pertains or belongs to any person, but all persons are arrayed here and there in such a manner as to cover the largest possible space. Even when it concerns the serious business of life, it is more like a space of play, or a rule of play, by contrast with sedentary space and nomos. To fill a space, to be distributed within it, is very different from distributing the space. It is an errant and even 'delirious' distribution, in which things are deployed across the entire extensity of a univocal and undistributed Being. It is not a matter of being which is distributed according to the requirements of representation, but of all things being divided up within being in the univocity of simple presence (the One - All). Such a distribution is demonic rather than divine, since it is a peculiarity of demons to operate in the intervals between the gods' fields of action, as it is to leap over the barriers or the enclosures, thereby confounding the boundaries between properties. Oedipus' chorus cries: 'Which demon has leapt further than the longest leap?' The leap here bears witness to the unsettling difficulties that nomadic distributions introduce into the sedentary structures of representation. The same goes for hierarchy. There is a hierarchy which measures beings according to their limits, and according to their degree of proximity or distance from a principle. But there is also a hierarchy which considers things and beings from the point of view of power: it is not a question of considering absolute degrees of power, but only of knowing whether a being eventually 'leaps over' or transcends its limits in going to the limit of what it can do, whatever its degree. 'To the limit', it will be argued, still presupposes a limit. Here, limit [peras] no longer refers to what maintains the thing under a law, nor to what delimits or separates it from other things. On the contrary, it refers to that on the basis of which it is deployed and deploys all its power; hubris ceases to be simply condemnable and the smallest becomes equivalent to the largest once it is not separated from what it can do. This enveloping measure is the same for all things, the same also for substance, quality, quantity, etc., since it forms a single maximum at which the developed diversity of all degrees touches the equality which envelops them. This ontological measure is closer to the immeasurable state of things than to the first kind of measure; this ontological hierarchy is closer to the hubris and anarchy of beings than to the first hierarchy. It is the monster which combines all the demons. The words 'everything is equal' may therefore resound joyfully, on condition that they are said of that which is not equal in this equal, univocal Being: equal being is immediately present in everything, without mediation or intermediary, even though things reside unequally in this equal being. There, however, where they are borne by hubris, all things are in absolute proximity, and whether they are large or small, inferior or superior, none of them participates more or less in being, nor receives it by analogy. Univocity of being thus also signifies equality of being. Univocal Being is at one and the same time nomadic distribution and crowned anarchy. "
Similarly for the expressions logos and nomos, in so far as these refer to problems of distribution. We must first of all distinguish a type of distribution which implies a dividing up of that which is distributed: it is a matter of dividing up the distributed as such. It is here that in judgement the rules of analogy are all-powerful. In so far as common sense and good sense are qualities of judgement, these are presented as principles of division which declare themselves the best distributed. A distribution of this type proceeds by fixed and proportional determinations which may be assimilated to 'properties' or limited territories within representation. The agrarian question may well have been very important for this organisation of judgement as the faculty which distinguishes parts ('on the one hand and on the other hand'). Even among the gods, each has his domain, his category, his attributes, and all distribute limits and lots to mortals in accordance with destiny. Then there is a completely other distribution which must be called nomadic, a nomad nomos, without property, enclosure or measure. Here, there is no longer a division of that which is distributed but rather a division among those who distribute themselves in an open space - a space which is unlimited, or at least without precise limits.
Nothing pertains or belongs to any person, but all persons are arrayed here and there in such a manner as to cover the largest possible space. Even when it concerns the serious business of life, it is more like a space of play, or a rule of play, by contrast with sedentary space and nomos. To fill a space, to be distributed within it, is very different from distributing the space. It is an errant and even 'delirious' distribution, in which things are deployed across the entire extensity of a univocal and undistributed Being. It is not a matter of being which is distributed according to the requirements of representation, but of all things being divided up within being in the univocity of simple presence (the One - All). Such a distribution is demonic rather than divine, since it is a peculiarity of demons to operate in the intervals between the gods' fields of action, as it is to leap over the barriers or the enclosures, thereby confounding the boundaries between properties. Oedipus' chorus cries: 'Which demon has leapt further than the longest leap?' The leap here bears witness to the unsettling difficulties that nomadic distributions introduce into the sedentary structures of representation. The same goes for hierarchy. There is a hierarchy which measures beings according to their limits, and according to their degree of proximity or distance from a principle. But there is also a hierarchy which considers things and beings from the point of view of power: it is not a question of considering absolute degrees of power, but only of knowing whether a being eventually 'leaps over' or transcends its limits in going to the limit of what it can do, whatever its degree. 'To the limit', it will be argued, still presupposes a limit. Here, limit [peras] no longer refers to what maintains the thing under a law, nor to what delimits or separates it from other things. On the contrary, it refers to that on the basis of which it is deployed and deploys all its power; hubris ceases to be simply condemnable and the smallest becomes equivalent to the largest once it is not separated from what it can do. This enveloping measure is the same for all things, the same also for substance, quality, quantity, etc., since it forms a single maximum at which the developed diversity of all degrees touches the equality which envelops them. This ontological measure is closer to the immeasurable state of things than to the first kind of measure; this ontological hierarchy is closer to the hubris and anarchy of beings than to the first hierarchy. It is the monster which combines all the demons. The words 'everything is equal' may therefore resound joyfully, on condition that they are said of that which is not equal in this equal, univocal Being: equal being is immediately present in everything, without mediation or intermediary, even though things reside unequally in this equal being. There, however, where they are borne by hubris, all things are in absolute proximity, and whether they are large or small, inferior or superior, none of them participates more or less in being, nor receives it by analogy. Univocity of being thus also signifies equality of being. Univocal Being is at one and the same time nomadic distribution and crowned anarchy. "
from:
http://sociology.sunimc.net/htmledit/uploadfile/system/20110414/20110414150123784.pdf
as to what makes humans... imo it is correct to say of humans that if, if they exist at all, they exist divided, complex, heterogenous. all claims about what humans are, as such always political claims about who should be counted as human and granted the accompanying epistemic and material privileges. I don't care about humans I care about persons. "A person is the opposite of an object." may be understood as opposing the apparent replaceability of the object with the apparent uniqueness of the person, taken as a desiring subject. A human, a part of a species, a species whose existence does not depend on the continued existence of any one human, the notion of humanity does not depend on human persons being enabled as desiring subjects.
And the content of history is in part the systematic depersonalization of humans, so it is less worrisome to me that some discourse cannot confirm 'our' (the participants) existence, and more sad that some humans actually are not enabled to achieve the recognition of their own personhood within the terms made available to them.?
edit: and yes the lovely irony that delueze and delusion sound siimilar is not lost on me
edit 2:
did not see this before i replied but lol im ngl embarassed+amused. i identify with these tropes tbh. if it helps deleuze cites a lot of the other bitches u mentioned. so if u got him ur covered imo.
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1+1=2 man. If I have one rock and I put it with another rock I now have two rocks. What we call them is of course completely arbitrary but that doesn't change the fact that it is
When you were born your parents or whoever decided to name you whatever. They could've named you Mike, Pete, Charlie, of even tomato for what it's worth but you still exist
When you were born your parents or whoever decided to name you whatever. They could've named you Mike, Pete, Charlie, of even tomato for what it's worth but you still exist
No it isn't, but sadly that's what most people think it is, something broad like 1+1 =2 or "how can mirrors be real if our eyes aren't real" just broaden the scope so much that anyone can literally say anything regardless of whether or not he knows jack about what he's talking. People are absolutely capable of discussing this stuff even without knowing these works extensively and often come up with a lot of fantastic ideas without knowing about them beforehand or some that might even be tangentially original (!). The scenario need not be poorly defined and it's sad that it seems to be the impression of philosophers do - sit around and discuss brickiness of bricks or whatever.... "citing the same tired names and arguing the importance of poorly defined scenarios", which is a very infantilizing view of what philosophic debates devote themselves to.
While I have nothing against meta debates veering out of proportion, the thought experiment to provoke that discussion needs to be tangible and well defined with a solid premise to give fodder to the discussion - and that can lead to some solid conversations. It needn't even be a thesis length OP. Even something as simple as "If you were in place of Neo, would you take the Blue Pill?" would probably still lead to a better discussion.
Don't tell me I'm wrong. Show me I'm wrong.
Give me an example of a well defined dilemma that does not require research into historical figures or pop culture references.
For your Matrix example, you would require:
Remembering the plot of the matrix (it's been probably 10 years now.)
A definition of 'in place of.' (How long have I been Neo. Do I have his current job and mental state?)
An understanding of Neo's world, in order to place context.
An deep understanding of Neo's character, in how he interacts with his world.
Understanding the impact of an extraordinary encounter. (How do Morpheus and other immediate events impact the scene?)
Some understanding of the blue pill. How would an object from this world affect our association to it?
"If you were in the place of Neo, would you take the Blue Pill?" is a good question to ask as you're leaving the theatre, but it's hardly foundation for a discussion.
Give me an example of a well defined dilemma that does not require research into historical figures or pop culture references.
For your Matrix example, you would require:
Remembering the plot of the matrix (it's been probably 10 years now.)
A definition of 'in place of.' (How long have I been Neo. Do I have his current job and mental state?)
An understanding of Neo's world, in order to place context.
An deep understanding of Neo's character, in how he interacts with his world.
Understanding the impact of an extraordinary encounter. (How do Morpheus and other immediate events impact the scene?)
Some understanding of the blue pill. How would an object from this world affect our association to it?
"If you were in the place of Neo, would you take the Blue Pill?" is a good question to ask as you're leaving the theatre, but it's hardly foundation for a discussion.
A. I already did, which is why post had more than one sentence. So IDK what you're looking for.
B. That was just an example, but fair enough. I could spend a lot of posts playing semantics-semantics trying to pick apart that tryhard list but I don't need to. Let's just assume there's no problem with it and give you that (enormously unfair) benefit of doubt in this regard. Even then the most over-exaggerated point you could possibly make as a prerequisite for that discussion is easily far more accessible to your average layman than a poorly fleshed out post that offers no focus and could basically demand the entire corpus of Philosophy, General Metaphysics, and Ontology, because the post doesn't provide you with anything material itself except perhaps the biggest vague question on planet earth and logic that you can't really discuss/debunk because tbh it's fuckall.
Between these two scenarios which one would get active and productive participation is a simple Balance of Probability really. The only real requirement being the knowledge of the Matrix, something not exactly hard to fullfill, even if you insist on being dickish, and the scenario in question being a simple enough concept to grasp. Everything else you care to mention is by no means something you can objectively determine anyways even between the most educated posters and/or word porn. Essentially it is still a simple question. If you were in Neo's place would you take the blue pill y/n?
Once I've done that I really don't need to "prove" anything more than that. Even by a marginal benefit it's already a discussion that doesn't alienate 50% of the people and doesn't leave the other 50% saying "what the fuck do you want to talk about man".
Your problem is that you are challenging me to find a premise of discussion that one could participate in without having read/watched anything ever. That obviously not what I'm advocating not to mention that's a silly demand to make. A discussion can demand people with a lot of specific knowledge or otherwise, but it must provide in exercise in either problem solving or otherwise a conceptual exercise which could constructively educate and give people something to deliberate over and define/challenge perceptions. This one does neither. At this point this thread is a mix of expensive liberal degree trivia and people belittling ontological pursuits as intellectual masturbation (a subtle hint of which I probably also detected in your earlier post imo)
My problem was twofolds. One which I already broached in my previous post with problems being so badly defined and shaky that they will lead to no productive discussion because there is literally nothing to focus upon. Secondly with your insistence that you were p. sure that "this is what Philosophy is" and that no one is capable of having a discussion in this field "without citing the same tired names and arguing the importance of poorly defined scenarios." which is clearly not the case. Just google The Matrix and you'll stumble upon endless pop-culture/philosophical articles that are written by commentators who barely use any of these "same tired" sources, if any, and still end up with a lot of intelligent and well written content, and if you do have certain specific knowledge that's also great and you then know in which particular way to wield that to provide us with new perspectives with the help of the given context instead of provide a mini-wikipedia of a random philosopher's life and work which will definitely get near-zero engagement.
Additionally (though you can take this with a grain of salt) on a personal level I happen to know that this particular question can spark some killer discussion because a professor started his classes in my very first semester in college by throwing this question at a bunch of students straight out of high school who knew very little about all this shit, and all of us otherwise scared shitless of college probably had one of the most entertaining series of classes in our lives because we all kept revisting this question and came up with different answers and different reasoning very little of which had to do with what Deleuze or whoever thought about the nature of being in his 400-page tome or whatever.
B. That was just an example, but fair enough. I could spend a lot of posts playing semantics-semantics trying to pick apart that tryhard list but I don't need to. Let's just assume there's no problem with it and give you that (enormously unfair) benefit of doubt in this regard. Even then the most over-exaggerated point you could possibly make as a prerequisite for that discussion is easily far more accessible to your average layman than a poorly fleshed out post that offers no focus and could basically demand the entire corpus of Philosophy, General Metaphysics, and Ontology, because the post doesn't provide you with anything material itself except perhaps the biggest vague question on planet earth and logic that you can't really discuss/debunk because tbh it's fuckall.
Between these two scenarios which one would get active and productive participation is a simple Balance of Probability really. The only real requirement being the knowledge of the Matrix, something not exactly hard to fullfill, even if you insist on being dickish, and the scenario in question being a simple enough concept to grasp. Everything else you care to mention is by no means something you can objectively determine anyways even between the most educated posters and/or word porn. Essentially it is still a simple question. If you were in Neo's place would you take the blue pill y/n?
Once I've done that I really don't need to "prove" anything more than that. Even by a marginal benefit it's already a discussion that doesn't alienate 50% of the people and doesn't leave the other 50% saying "what the fuck do you want to talk about man".
Your problem is that you are challenging me to find a premise of discussion that one could participate in without having read/watched anything ever. That obviously not what I'm advocating not to mention that's a silly demand to make. A discussion can demand people with a lot of specific knowledge or otherwise, but it must provide in exercise in either problem solving or otherwise a conceptual exercise which could constructively educate and give people something to deliberate over and define/challenge perceptions. This one does neither. At this point this thread is a mix of expensive liberal degree trivia and people belittling ontological pursuits as intellectual masturbation (a subtle hint of which I probably also detected in your earlier post imo)
My problem was twofolds. One which I already broached in my previous post with problems being so badly defined and shaky that they will lead to no productive discussion because there is literally nothing to focus upon. Secondly with your insistence that you were p. sure that "this is what Philosophy is" and that no one is capable of having a discussion in this field "without citing the same tired names and arguing the importance of poorly defined scenarios." which is clearly not the case. Just google The Matrix and you'll stumble upon endless pop-culture/philosophical articles that are written by commentators who barely use any of these "same tired" sources, if any, and still end up with a lot of intelligent and well written content, and if you do have certain specific knowledge that's also great and you then know in which particular way to wield that to provide us with new perspectives with the help of the given context instead of provide a mini-wikipedia of a random philosopher's life and work which will definitely get near-zero engagement.
Additionally (though you can take this with a grain of salt) on a personal level I happen to know that this particular question can spark some killer discussion because a professor started his classes in my very first semester in college by throwing this question at a bunch of students straight out of high school who knew very little about all this shit, and all of us otherwise scared shitless of college probably had one of the most entertaining series of classes in our lives because we all kept revisting this question and came up with different answers and different reasoning very little of which had to do with what Deleuze or whoever thought about the nature of being in his 400-page tome or whatever.
The 18th link after I google "The Matrix" is the following:
http://consc.net/papers/matrix.html
Which is, as it happens, an example of exactly what I was looking for:
While it draws on analysis of the movie, it gives a succinct summary of the problem in the first paragraph (Satisfying the first of my earlier objections).
It distills the essential similarities between the movie and the philosophical question: "But the essential details are much the same. In effect, Neo is a brain in a vat." (the second of my objections).
It circumvents some important movie details: "For now, I will ignore the some complications that are specific to the Matrix in the movie, such as the fact that people sometimes travel back and forth between the Matrix and the external world. These issues aside, we can think of the Matrix Hypothesis informally as saying that I am in the same sort of situation as people who have always been in the Matrix," which are the basis of the 5th and 6th objections I had.
It also makes it clear that the discussion is not about Neo's choice in the movie, but rather the author's own matrix status, which means Neo's motivation for his decision is now irrelevant (objections 3 and 4).
I still find any discussion of 'truth,' 'reality,' and 'objectivity' incredibly boring, but this is clearly a well defined scenario that doesn't require additional research or details. Completely unlike anything you have posted, and unlike most of the articles I got when I googled "The Matrix Philosophy."
I'm glad you picked up on my subtle jabs in my earlier posts. I do, as a matter of fact, think there is some merit to philosophy. I'm attempting to point out the issues I have with it to enable reasonable discussion. However, if you try to reduce your freshman philosophy course to a single sentence, you are not going to get the same discussion here as you did with a professor who could probably formulate the question properly.
http://consc.net/papers/matrix.html
Which is, as it happens, an example of exactly what I was looking for:
While it draws on analysis of the movie, it gives a succinct summary of the problem in the first paragraph (Satisfying the first of my earlier objections).
It distills the essential similarities between the movie and the philosophical question: "But the essential details are much the same. In effect, Neo is a brain in a vat." (the second of my objections).
It circumvents some important movie details: "For now, I will ignore the some complications that are specific to the Matrix in the movie, such as the fact that people sometimes travel back and forth between the Matrix and the external world. These issues aside, we can think of the Matrix Hypothesis informally as saying that I am in the same sort of situation as people who have always been in the Matrix," which are the basis of the 5th and 6th objections I had.
It also makes it clear that the discussion is not about Neo's choice in the movie, but rather the author's own matrix status, which means Neo's motivation for his decision is now irrelevant (objections 3 and 4).
I still find any discussion of 'truth,' 'reality,' and 'objectivity' incredibly boring, but this is clearly a well defined scenario that doesn't require additional research or details. Completely unlike anything you have posted, and unlike most of the articles I got when I googled "The Matrix Philosophy."
I'm glad you picked up on my subtle jabs in my earlier posts. I do, as a matter of fact, think there is some merit to philosophy. I'm attempting to point out the issues I have with it to enable reasonable discussion. However, if you try to reduce your freshman philosophy course to a single sentence, you are not going to get the same discussion here as you did with a professor who could probably formulate the question properly.
Well the entirety of your engagement was with that example but fine. For the final time, my example mentioned as a potential in the last sentence was a premise, in what a good question/query would look like to spark of a reasonable discussion, not the entirety of, say a thread) I'd make. An example is just that, hinting potential and not a completed work. It was a rebut to your quip about "poorly defined scenarios". A short working note attached is not something I ever discounted, nor will I ever. The question itself is essentially a fundamental one and well-defined. Context is important, again no objection. This isn't firebot, where the OP will be the question with an contentless body.
It was not my job to prove the prevalence of the matrix in pop culture discussions, my example assumed it with good reason and I think it would probably border on bad faith try prove otherwise, and tbh I'm kind of amused that your objection has boiled down to this. I'm glad you found a link, it looks nice, but even apart from that there is a lot of stuff that's being churned out some more academic (page one result for the same query) some more pop. Not really detailed but Forbes did one barely 3 days ago about machine culture, that popped up as soon as I searched google, there's an entire fansite where people tussle over philospohical implications of the matrix and the same goes for the subreddit. Wikipedia literally has a page devoted to this question (and that's bad homework to miss that if one were to indeed go out of one's way to prove otherwise - it even has your brain in a vat thing which is only one of the ways to approach this, not the exalted objective way). And infact the Wiki article preface perfectly surmises everything you absolutely must know to dwell in that question. Which isn't a lot. The question is more cultural and ontological instead of a deep detailed study of the world of Matrix and in-movie knowledge bordering on exactitude. You're missing the point if you think that's the purpose of the question. It's essentially a question of would you rather stay alienated by sustaining a degree of fictionality to your existence or would you face the "truth" if anything like that exists for the virtue knowing the truth (which is contingent to confirming your existence as material), even if said truth causes deep pain and doubt?
The overarching context of the matrix gives it relevance and grounds of engagement, but anything beyond the basic working plot is non-essential unless invoked and argued to be relevant and not assumed like you do with that list of yours.
My demand was simply again a discussion that has well defined scope and possibility so that even if you have advanced knowledge you can utilize it in a manner that's relevant, and context that allows discussion in the first place instead of something that doesn't give anyone any common grounds for engagement. Does my proposition satisfy both? Yes. Do you again have a problem with my proposition and caveats other than complaining that the off-hand example I provided in my last line was not an entire cong OP? No. Context, and the parts of context that will deemed important by different people are subjective, but assuming relevant general context is the question well defined? Again, Yes.
I didn't say my professor started the class with "hey guys wud u take pill lel", of course we discussed the parts of the matrix we thought might impact our discussion, and students who'd watched the movie brought out parts which they thought should be considered which the professor hadn't given much though. But once again, that didn't hinder people from taking part, nor did it just allow everyone to walk in with the life and times of Deleuze and quip random stuff to no constructive end.
edit: no comments on your proclivity to certain philosophical discussions, that's cool as long as you don't discount or misrepresent the premise/purpose of such a discussion between others.
It was not my job to prove the prevalence of the matrix in pop culture discussions, my example assumed it with good reason and I think it would probably border on bad faith try prove otherwise, and tbh I'm kind of amused that your objection has boiled down to this. I'm glad you found a link, it looks nice, but even apart from that there is a lot of stuff that's being churned out some more academic (page one result for the same query) some more pop. Not really detailed but Forbes did one barely 3 days ago about machine culture, that popped up as soon as I searched google, there's an entire fansite where people tussle over philospohical implications of the matrix and the same goes for the subreddit. Wikipedia literally has a page devoted to this question (and that's bad homework to miss that if one were to indeed go out of one's way to prove otherwise - it even has your brain in a vat thing which is only one of the ways to approach this, not the exalted objective way). And infact the Wiki article preface perfectly surmises everything you absolutely must know to dwell in that question. Which isn't a lot. The question is more cultural and ontological instead of a deep detailed study of the world of Matrix and in-movie knowledge bordering on exactitude. You're missing the point if you think that's the purpose of the question. It's essentially a question of would you rather stay alienated by sustaining a degree of fictionality to your existence or would you face the "truth" if anything like that exists for the virtue knowing the truth (which is contingent to confirming your existence as material), even if said truth causes deep pain and doubt?
The overarching context of the matrix gives it relevance and grounds of engagement, but anything beyond the basic working plot is non-essential unless invoked and argued to be relevant and not assumed like you do with that list of yours.
My demand was simply again a discussion that has well defined scope and possibility so that even if you have advanced knowledge you can utilize it in a manner that's relevant, and context that allows discussion in the first place instead of something that doesn't give anyone any common grounds for engagement. Does my proposition satisfy both? Yes. Do you again have a problem with my proposition and caveats other than complaining that the off-hand example I provided in my last line was not an entire cong OP? No. Context, and the parts of context that will deemed important by different people are subjective, but assuming relevant general context is the question well defined? Again, Yes.
I didn't say my professor started the class with "hey guys wud u take pill lel", of course we discussed the parts of the matrix we thought might impact our discussion, and students who'd watched the movie brought out parts which they thought should be considered which the professor hadn't given much though. But once again, that didn't hinder people from taking part, nor did it just allow everyone to walk in with the life and times of Deleuze and quip random stuff to no constructive end.
edit: no comments on your proclivity to certain philosophical discussions, that's cool as long as you don't discount or misrepresent the premise/purpose of such a discussion between others.
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WARNING: the dangers of the Blue Pill
Thinking that the Blue Pill is the way to go, the Blue Pill will provide you with comfort and security and stability and order will involve great costs to those that use that approach to life. It will imperil a society dominated by this type of uncritical thinking. It exposes those who use it to greater risks of infections and diseases as they will not use the latest scientific findings about the causes of illnesses and the spread of disease. It permits people to hold stereotypical and prejudicial notions of other peoples and to act on false claims. It supports racist and sexist ideas and practices and other forms of irrational discriminations and injustices based on uncritical beliefs. It subjects practitioners of the Blue Pill path to victimization by charlatans and hucksters and those that operate ponzi schemes based on irrational hope. The Blue Pill path is attractive to those with concern for self over others and for the present over the long term but it too often proves to be quite the opposite of what was hoped for when choosing the Blue Pill.
Do you even read what you link?
Thinking that the Blue Pill is the way to go, the Blue Pill will provide you with comfort and security and stability and order will involve great costs to those that use that approach to life. It will imperil a society dominated by this type of uncritical thinking. It exposes those who use it to greater risks of infections and diseases as they will not use the latest scientific findings about the causes of illnesses and the spread of disease. It permits people to hold stereotypical and prejudicial notions of other peoples and to act on false claims. It supports racist and sexist ideas and practices and other forms of irrational discriminations and injustices based on uncritical beliefs. It subjects practitioners of the Blue Pill path to victimization by charlatans and hucksters and those that operate ponzi schemes based on irrational hope. The Blue Pill path is attractive to those with concern for self over others and for the present over the long term but it too often proves to be quite the opposite of what was hoped for when choosing the Blue Pill.
Do you even read what you link?
I know it's from the qcc link, and I'd accuse you of cherrypicking from a long well written primer on the pills, which has further links to at least 6 other well-written (and more comprehensive) sources.... but I don't even know what you're trying to cherrypick.
As a primer, that's a fine conceptualization in short for an uncritical layman who might be inclined to choose the blue pill, and all the harms mentioned are consequential of the sociological choice of choosing ignorance (for example look at the GOP presidential field today). Its greatest sin - as far as I could possibly see - is that it enunciates the harms of alienation is so many words in direct language, possibly jarring but not in the least inaccurate. I do read what I link. Did you?
Do you actually even have a legitimate problem or are you just pure asspulling at this point out of pride?
Side-Note: I probably sound like a broken record at this point but yet again you seem to refuse to engage with the constructive concerns that I have been bringing up in the past few posts first with an extensive side-track into the matrix one-liner example (which I did take out the time to defend) and now god-knows-what with yet another subsection/paragraph of another link. At this point this exercise is futile if you insist on repeating this trend ad absurdum.
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Really? Oh, I suppose that means you can tell me what the googleplexth decimal digit of pi is?
We have a limit. Just because we don't know precisely where it is, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.