Socrates said," What I know is that I know nothing"
What is this nothing that he knows? or do you take it to mean in scientific terms, empty. But still you have your senses, how can it be plain old emptiness?
I don’t know.
That much is certain.
i hate when these guys people call philosophers aernt clear in what they say, that quote alone could mean quite a number of things. why bother, if he didnt.
What I know is you don’t know. But you say you don’t know because you do know. Because you do know and do not wish to tell me is because have not look deeper for that answer.
tell me what I have said is absurd. or poetic.
Truth be told, Socrates used that as a rhetorical device. It was just part of his debating strategy. Wouldn’t take him at his word, there. Of course, philosophy is famous for using a defintion of “knowledge” that makes it impossible to attain. Oh - except through the grace of God.
dan - evidently, Socrates would have eaten you for lunch. By the time you were a couple of minutes into deep thought, he would have decimated any argument you put forth. He was kind of a punk, that way.
the answer lies buried under the volume of a pile of woodchuck chucked wood.
-Imp
All I know is that I know nothing…? corious…To admit ones own weaknesses is often a trait reserved for the strong. and though it would seem to weaken your statement it insted strengthens it by proving that though both those arguing are flawed your opponent is too pig headed to admit that.
essentually you are proving your opponent a fool by admiting yourself to be one. He truely was a genius… or atleast thats my oppinion.
Peace
If he was a genuis he would not die.
Since his name continues to live, he is a genuis.
I know that the Universe has existed for quite some time, but I know almost nothing about how it formed, expanded and is existing for the last few billion years.
I know that I know nothing about the Universe.
How do you know the universe exists in the first place?
Because we don’t even know what “knowing” means. We don’t even know if we know, we are completely and totally lost forever. Maybe we know everything, maybe there is absolutely nothing at all to know.
Sometimes we can just pretend to ourselves and assign the fact that we know absolutely everything, who cares, there will never be a way to control it. And we also say at the same time there is nothing at all to possibly know because knowing doesn’t mean anything.
The zen master bodidharma said, " How do you know the unknown? Knowing the unknown, is this truth? " He slaps the monk in the head for saying, " everything is empty and we know nothing"
The zen master said, " if you really don’t know nothing, how do you sense pain"
It is the senses, if the senses produces judgment and pain and pleasure.
IF senses are truth , then perception is truth. IF you overrule your senses then you prooduce a judgment not by thinking but but influences either from someone else or the desires of that of your body.
check out:
ilovephilosophy.com/phpbb/vi … p?t=149592
especially:
“But this is because we are looking at reality from our constraints, from our limitations and carving out the rules through pain/pleasure measurements. If we look at it from far enough, there is nothing fundamental about our reality except our subjective relationship to it.”
also on page 2 of the above thread:
"If you look at science and the laws of physics from a far enough point of view, they are just quirk assignments, they have no intrinsic necessity. This does not mean they do not work or that they are incorrect, yes they work and are correct especially for us humans as they pertain to our subjective experience, our sense organs, the way our mind is hardwired, the way we carve out our knowledge by following paths through pain/pleasure measurements, etc.
But seen for what they are, the laws of physics are just quirks, they could have been anything else, they could be anything else and even a complete lawless universe could be. They are equivalent, they are like paintings, arbitrary designs. If a god assigns miracles magically, it would be completely equivalent to a sequence of causes and effects, magical assignments make just as much sense as physical laws and mathematical laws. They are bizarre quirks."
How do I know what I don’t know???
BY PAIN
V (Male)
For free access to my earlier posts on voluntary simplicity, compulsive spending, debting, compulsive overeating and clutter write: vfr44@aol.com. Any opinion expressed here is that of my own and is not the opinion, recommendation or belief of any group or organization.
But pain is a fluke of nature, an arbitrary circuit that evolution used to makes us follow certain arbitrary paths. But these paths are not knowledge they are quirks, they mean nothing at all. We could have evolved feeling great pleasure in burning fires if it was convenient for our evolution. Our pain/pleasure circuits are totally meaningless and pure flukes of nature, quirks.
Check out:
ilovephilosophy.com/phpbb/vi … p?t=149550
especially:
"Hell (and paradise to some extent) is based on the idea that PAIN IS THE ULTIMATE CERTAINTY. When feeling extreme pain, nothing else exists, it becomes an extreme emergency, all theories ideas and ultimately your own mind becomes worthless and not even real. Only pain is real. And so it would be with ultimate pleasure, but pleasure is rare to come by for most, life deals plenty of pain, god likes it that way, he likes pain alot.
The point is once everything is said and done, you have been bad, god punishes you got to hell, end of story. The real story becomes interesting when you are in hell. Revenge, good and bad and all else are no longer the issue. Only pure pain is the issue. And why is this the issue ? because it is the only thing we can be 100% certain of. Except for maybe TAO-Buddha monks who can defeat all pain, but I am not sure if they can. "
Then god and his design of pain and pleasure is a pure fluke of metaphysics even if he is real. He is an arbitrary meaningless quirk of a totally meaningless universe. His design means nothing because he chose an arbitrary design that has no necessity other than his will.
Any other metaphysical universe with or without god would be equivalent and just as necessary.
dan020350 :
?
His name was a genuis. He died.
IF you remember his name, he is a genuis.
The diffculty lies, what did he uses his genuis for.
OJ Simpson, Nero, Louis XIV, Henry VIII, Marilyn Monroe