Resolve the experience vs description philosophical biggie and I’ll bow down to whoever can use semantics to do it. Meanwhile, time wasted explaining what is is or who can say what doesn’t move me. Even a spurious argument can prompt the clarification semantics can do.
I don’t see that sort of clarification in many philosophical debates. Instead I get ego–you’re wrong I’m right infantile one-upmanships. The elitist I know better attitude has never helped a struggling philosopher get his bearings. Mas. is not the problem here!
Yes, but the attitude you reference has certainly helped many a struggling philosopher repress great and profound insecurities, philosophical and otherwise.
Don’t you think semantics simply IS the question of experience versus description, or am i misunderstanding which philosophical biggie you’re referring to?
I’m not trying to dictate who can say what, Ierrellus. I’m strongly suggesting that we strive mean what we say, and to communicate that meaning clearly. There is much more time wasted when we don’t explain it than when we do.
Mas is a problem wherever he goes, as you should well know. Even he thinks he’s a problem.
Philosophy is a struggle for everyone. That is not reason to abandon technique. Every art requires technique.
Yes, but the attitude you reference has certainly helped many a struggling philosopher repress great and profound insecurities, philosophical and otherwise.
Don’t you think semantics simply IS the question of experience versus description, or am i misunderstanding which philosophical biggie you’re referring to?[/quote
The description vs experience biggie has been stated in most philosophy vs neuroscience debates. Of special note is it’s place in the Changeux-Ricoeur debate.
this is the point, you live through illusions and not reality of what you are doing
descriptions has nothing to do with experience fundamentally and in forms let me tell you how and why
i know everybody hates me because when i love truth it means i cant see anyone less then me but inferior since to me only truth is existing and living because existance is to its superior point only that allow its inferiors applications levels to exist
but that what gods want truth out revealed so i have no choice but to put it out all of me so i can be as always me the living out free perspective of all
there is no existing but because superior to existance is first then the inferior to it is, that is how truth is always first
if you read what i wrote yesterday about absolute geniun reality how it started according to my sense of it translations, i realized the point missing today and is the major source one
before certain move out leaving nothing that become then with that piece central out self aware as autodefining absolutely its existing fact as before the miss part
but the step of the self out alone is not the primar fact, the primar fact is abstract truth above saying there is certainty here and that certain is confirming it but also from what meaning its superior life by being of truth superiority definitions
so all the selves are like this but the particularity of geniun self void is the love of truth, and that what everyone lack
the love of truth as superspra superiority is the love truth that allow the autolife alone mode, because what is true superiority is nothing of what you know, you cant but be of evolving always, so if it is because you love it geniunly it means that you are a true self from your love too and not being or living just for the touch of what is superior
in a sense loving superior truth is being above truth, because it is something else while it cant be other than truth
so truth was first before any certain move out of whole nothingness, and that is why truth is what confirm itself absolutely in that reality, so actually only that self out has an autoenergy move modes, from loving to evolve to itself true love reality
but the nothingness wholeness became energized of truth abstract life up that only the self out perceive
so that block reacted back first because it knows itself not meaning any move even as existing, but then he saw that it can profit from what is supporting it positive to realize, and it could went to be aware as itself from this and defining its reality as being from itself, always out of truth which means never true
so the whole as you too proove it is not aware of truth existance life
so again im giving the point proof of basics fundamental exitance logics
anything exist because superior existance is
it goes that way from the top, but you cannot perceive what is your source since you are that generation result to perceive, only loving superiority truth allow you to perceive what you are really from its source perceptions
so truth is always the geniun hierarchy above that said hey we have something as certain here, so we can understand how positive truth is itself from ever and is not a result of void or experiences even if void as whole nothingness and all experiences confirm it
Great soundbyte, I agree.
If X has consistancy of property, can either produce, or be used to produce, an effect, then as far as I’m concerned, it’s real.
I don’t know about being used to produce an effect…sounds a little divisive … but it can and will produce an effect. Life lashes out impartially.
Faust replies:
Well, I suppose it is possible, but it would be a damn short discussion. The issue isn’t so much definition even if that took three or four pages of back and forth till agreement was reached. The problem lies in each person supplying context and perspective in which that definition functions. I’ve met few capable of abstracting themselves away from their experience long enough to consider the most basic of definition of anything.
I’m not suggesting that philosophy is impossible. As a meta discussion, everything is “philosophy”. But the moment the definition is applied to experience, the wheels fall off the philosophy wagon.
I just don’t agree, tentative. We have already had some suggestions here that didn’t require many words and that could themselves engender a perfectly philosophical discussion.
However, thesadays, it’s true that some science does have to creep in. Because we know, or think we know, something about how our brains are stimulated.
Sunlight on my skin makes me happy. Does that mean that the sun sends happiness to me? I don’t think so. But at the time that the Greeks wrote, science could neither confirm nor refute such a claim. Likewise, we have no reason to believe that ideas are “real” - even if, as Tab says, words produce an effect. But Tab would disagree. How do I know? Because he has taken a very short time to explain his use of the word “real”.
That’s awl I’m tawkin’ abou’.
Tab:
you make it sound alot more philosophical than i do, but we are certainly in agreement - it’s all about X’s tangible effects in the world
Faust:
i think we have reason to think that ideas are real - ideas are thoughts - thoughts correspond to the patterned firing of neurons in the brain - neurons and their behavior are real things by most any common definition of the term - we don’t even have to take the definition as far as Tab does (tho, obviously, i think he’s right to do so)
That was a little insurance to cover Father Christmas. Not ‘real’ in the commonly accepted sense, but I dunno.
Let’s see, in the red corner (obviously) we have Father Christmas, Jolly ideological patron of December capitalism, and in the blue corner, we have Hank.
Hank’s a real guy, he has three dimensions, and casts a shadow on a sunny day. He eats, and craps, and lives a very sedentary life. Lives in his mum’s basement, likes anime and doesn’t get out much. Amazon and Ebay are his friends.
In fifty years, before a massive coronary takes him off to meet his uncreator, he maybe touches upon as many lives as you can count upon your fingers, if you lost one in a war. And those touches are light, fleeting - leaving little to remember other than a slight wrinkling of the nostrils and smudge of saturated cooking oil.
They both come out of their respective corners, FC up on his toes despite his resplendent girth, Hank doing a rather pigeon-toed shuffle, his breath already rattling in his pinched chest. FC throws a roundhouse right. “Known of by everyone” he shouts. Hank blocks weakly:
“Er, a couple of people knew my name”
FC: “Hundreds of thousands of children write me letters!!!”
Hank: “My mum wrote me a postcard once, when she went to Tenerife”
“Images of me exist all over the world.”
“There’s a few of my baby pictures in an old album somewhere.”
“I’m responsible for economic gains of billions, and generate employment in countries all around the world.”
“Er. I worked a bit in a corner shop when I was lad.”
“Hot women get paid to dress up like me and pose on internet porn sites next to christmas trees with their bosoms hanging out.”
“Er. I sometimes get naked and pretend I’m a woman in chatrooms.”
etc.
Eventually, Hank gets stretchered out, beaten to a pulp.
Who’s more real, FC or Hank…?
I agree about the firing neurons, ugly. But what we call an idea is the label and not the thing.
Radical, I know. But I’m fuckin’ crazy that way.
Actually I’m with Faust on that one. Okay, we have neurones firing in specific patterns, but any meaning involved is emergent, rather than strictly physic. The TV picture is supported by a bunch of electronics, but the content has absolutely nothing to do with them. I’m sticking with effect, rather than representation. The simple property of ‘being represented as specific neural firing pattern’ is not causally sufficient to produce the behavioural effects they exhibit.
Ahhhh.
Hey, you tryin to tell me all that neuron firing in my brain that lets me know things and gives me a sense of identity is not really me? Well … I might as well accept it, I’ll be all set for when Alzheimer’s comes.
Hah, what really makes dinner…? The ingredients or the recipe…?
Make mind and body one, little grasshopper!
What’s worrying about this is that it’s the ingredients.
It won’t taste as nice without the recipe but that’s the heads problem. The stomach doesn’t care.
it depends how you see it,
are you using your body life to be yourself free living
or are you using yourself awareness to profit from your body life as being you
if your body life is simply the closer reality at reach to be real yourself living, then you must eat of your recipes, you must make your body understand how you are the boss of what it ate
but if you use yourself awareness to pretend being living from your body life reality, then for sure when you are hungry there is no reason to pretend anything, and as the body life is the source of acts then eat anything
So far, there are about five or six definitions of “real”, all emphasizing one dimension of the word or another. All are “right”, and none complete depending on the experience and perspective of each proposed definition.
So, would anyone like to claim that they have wrapped their head around all the dimensions involved in the simple definition of one piddly little word?
Way to go, faust. Pry the lid off the can of worms. 
If what is “philosophy” can be contained in a formula of logic, then it becomes a static abstraction where definition and discussion of meaning becomes possible. But if all the definitions, all the possible perspectives cannot be momentarily “concretized”, there is little likelyhood of any but general agreement as to what is being discussed. This is the entry point of “semantics” and what I would call “philosophizing”, which is almost all of what is being called philosophy on the web.
Yes, it would be great if we were capable of nice tight definitions to bolster our thoughts, but this thread is proof that it ain’t bloody likely to happen.
Just to make things easy (for me), let’s just accept MY definitions of everything and that end’s the problem. 
