the REALLY big questions

[Bluff]

@iambiguous

Gee, I can’t help but wonder why you should react so vociferously to something you consider to be but drivel. Einstein used to ponder these questions too. He would marvel at just how imponderable they were. How naive, eh?

I react so…“vociferously” (nice word ) out of complete frustration and dissatisfaction as to what sells as philo-sophy. What a impotent love of knowledge to persue that which is of complete irrelevance to life, complete impracticality. I also scream out because it’s a mirage I’m all too close to falling for myself sometimes - when all is not well. And I don’t see the relevance of Einstein either, does dropping his name somehow give your point of view more credability? Fuck Einstein. (God rest his soul)

@Only_Humean

@Bluff

The REALLY big questions are concerned with life. That is it. Life! All you need be concerned about is your quality of existence. And how to live unrestrained.

Give us some examples, then, please. What if answering those questions is important for OP’s quality of existence?

Hmm…examples…examples don’t work in my favour but let me think…instead, I’ll give you an image, one of the images that haunt me: Quiz champions! Y’know the fat, balding know-it-all who can answer every question about every subject. His life outside the quiz is a complete misery, he lives under the stairs in his mother’s house, always has always will. His life spent behind old dusty books reading, reading, reading. Reading about royality, reading about wars, reading about the lives of other people, the thoughts of other people. His whole life spent accumulating trivia for the brief moment of triumph in some silly little quiz. These BIG questions posed here are exactly that - silly little bits of trivia for some silly little quiz.

@Only_Humean

Like those cordoned-off safe zones at the beach for frivolous toe-whetting whilst the vast expanse of ocean lies beyond.

Do you use a pencil sharpener for that? Ouch.
[/quote]
Yeh, that was a bit crappy but philosophy of the sort here has always struck me as something “cordoned off” like a lonely kid in the sandpit whilst everyone else plays in the yard.

[Arcturus_Descending]

like a lonely kid in the sandpit whilst everyone else plays in the yard.

But that kid may have chosen the better place, in his/her wonderful loneliness. Consider that!

[turtle]

@arcturus rising

like a lonely kid in the sandpit whilst everyone else plays in the yard.

But that kid may have chosen the better place, in his/her wonderful loneliness. Consider that!

Arcturus rising has just written something profound. And sometimes some one will join you in the sandpit.

[maryshelley]

@turtle

@arcturus rising

like a lonely kid in the sandpit whilst everyone else plays in the yard.

But that kid may have chosen the better place, in his/her wonderful loneliness. Consider that!

Arcturus rising has just written something profound. And sometimes some one will join you in the sandpit.

I bet gingers are barred from sandpits and yards. I’m on the seesaw trying to get off the ground!

[Bluff]

@arcturus rising

like a lonely kid in the sandpit whilst everyone else plays in the yard.

But that kid may have chosen the better place, in his/her wonderful loneliness. Consider that!

Rather, that kid has porbably spent his efforts studying philosophy and learnt how to justify his loneliness as a better place. But it’s bullshit and loneliness is a miserable way of life. BUT my point wasn’t about loneliness per se but about having one’s back to the world. Consider that! eurgh! Hip thrust

[Ganapati]

@turtle

The scientists are unable to test this. So this is very theoretical. We really do not understand gravity. And dark matter and dark energy are being worked on. Can you explain a little bit more about quantum mechanics? What about that big bang singularity? We don’t want to throw out common sense even when dealing with QM. I love quantum mechanics.

A lot of things are not testable, especially so in astrophysics. However, we assume laws of physics are applicable everywhere every time. So if a scenario can be explained by known laws of physics, it is considered a valid explanation. If several such explanations exist the simpler ones are more appealing.

Quantum Mechanics is a lot of mathematics and very non-intuitive physical explanation. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle states that it is impossible to know the state of a system (expressed as the measure of some pairs of properties) to an arbitrary degree of accuracy. Now this imperfect knowledge is not considered a limitation of human measurement, but essential characteristic of matter-energy itself. Hypothetically, even if an omniscient god existed, he cannot know exactly the state of the system. There is a mathematical limit on the accuracy to which any system can be known, although the existence of the limit itself doesn’t have much practical implications except when studying sub-atomic particles. This principle cannot itself be proved, but has been found to be valid and has withstood several challenges since it was proposed, including the discovery of phenomena that would be inexplicable without it.

If there existed several systems the difference between whose exact mathematical states is less than the minimum proposed by QM, they are indistinguishable because QM doesn’t admit the possibility of a mathematical dscription of arbitrary accuracy (exactness).

So it is entirely possible for the Sun to disappear and reappear as long as the time duration is small enough that the rest of the universe doesn’t notice Quantum Mechanically speaking there is no difference between a universe where nothing disappears from one where parts keep disappearing and reappearing before anyone else “notices”.

A universe with zero energy may exist as one without any matter and radiation or it could exist as one with matter and radiation as along as the total energy is still zero. It is sort of like possessing no net worth while still possessing assets, because one has debts equal to the assets. But I admit while it is mathematically beautiful, there is no proof that the net energy of the current universe is zero. So I don’t hold it against anyone who doesn’t believe this explanation. It is an interesting speculation is all.

[iambiguous]

@Bluff

I react so…“vociferously” (nice word ) out of complete frustration and dissatisfaction as to what sells as philo-sophy. What a impotent love of knowledge to persue that which is of complete irrelevance to life, complete impracticality. I also scream out because it’s a mirage I’m all too close to falling for myself sometimes - when all is not well. And I don’t see the relevance of Einstein either, does dropping his name somehow give your point of view more credability? Fuck Einstein. (God rest his soul)

That’s deep, man. And, ordinarily, with respect to moral and politcal philosophy, I’d be reacting pretty much the same way myself. In other words, “bring it down to earth!”

But there are some things you just can’t, right? And they fascinate me too.

I came to philosophy originally in the manner in which folks like Bryan Magee approached it. I kept thinking about things the way he did.

Consider:

[b]Magee:

For a period of two to three years between the ages of nine and twelve I was in thrall to puzzlement about time. I would lie awake in bed at night in the dark thinking something along the following lines. I know there was a day before yesterday, and a day before that and a day before that and so on…Before everyday there must have been a day before. So it must be possible to go back like that for ever and ever and ever…Yet is it? The idea of going back for ever and ever was something I could not get hold of: it seemed impossible. So perhaps, after all, there must have been a beginning somewhere. But if there was a beginning, what had been going on before that? Well, obviously, nothing—nothing at all—otherwise it could not be the beginning. But if there was nothing, how could anything have got started? What could it have come from? Time wouldn’t just pop into existence—bingo!–out of nothing, and start going, all by itself. Nothing is nothing, not anything. So the idea of a beginning was unimaginable, which somehow made it seem impossible too. The upshot was that it seemed to be impossible for time to have had a beginning and impossible not for it to have had a beginning.

I must be missing something here, I came to think. There are only these two alternatives so one of them must be right. They can’t both be impossible. So I would switch my concentration from one to the other, and then when it had exhausted itself, back again, trying to figure out where I had gone wrong; but I never discovered.

I realized a similar problem existed with regard to space. I remember myself as a London evacuee in Market Harborough—I must have been ten or eleven at the time—lying on my back in the grass in a park and trying to penetrate a cloudless blue sky with my eyes and thinking something like this: "If I went straight up into the sky, and kept on going in a straight line, why wouldn’t I be able to just keep on going for ever and ever and ever? But that’s impossible. Why isn’t it possible? Surely, eventually, I’d have to come to some sort of end. But why? If I bumped up against something eventually, wouldn’t that have to be something in space? And if it was in space wouldn’t there have to be something on the other side of it if only more space? On the other hand, if there was no limit, endless space couldn’t just be, anymore than endless time could.[/b]

[Socratepicuristotle]

Since when does size imply consciousness? Just because the universe is so large and planet earth is so small does not imply that any being living on this planet is incapable of contemplating the deeper truths of reality, like a bug on a dog’s back. One should not feel small just because they are small relative to the universe. What is the universe anyhow? The human mind has already made out what the universe consists in. You do not need to venture far either. It can be seen in our own galaxy with its matter, gas, energy, movement, heat, molecules and particles. Increase the amount of it to the size of the universe and these elements do not change. There is just more of it. The concept of matter stays the same whether you have a grain of it, or a whole universe of it. So what does size have to do with comprehending the universe? I mean, whether you jump in a pool of water or an ocean of water, you get wet either way. Just because the ocean is larger does not change the molecular structure of the water. Water is water, galaxies are galaxies, and matter and gas are matter and gas, no matter how much of it there is. The human mind can comprehend all of it and therefore is worthy of contemplating the universe and everything in it, unlike a bug. The human mind’s power to conceptualize is more miraculous than you think, no matter how small we are materially. So no, I do not feel small and neither should you.

[Bluff]

Not sold. Simple thing to bear in mind when your head starts floating off wondering about what lies above the sky is that by the time you get to a few thousand feet or whatever you would have either suffocated or froze to death, and then once your dead carcass floats up into the outer atmosphere - it’ll disintegrate. Rather spend your time studying your diet - now there’s something interesting!

[finishedman]

Sure thing … nature’s pulling the strings right here on mother Earth. But still we don’t let things happen nature’s way. We have superimposed over nature an ‘actor’ who is pulling the strings and more often than not abuse nature‘s laws. We also abuse ourselves almost as if nature placed a defect in the present way humans think perhaps to bring about the extermination of the present species just to start a new species of mankind. Nature has no model.

[iambiguous]

@Socratepicuristotle

Since when does size imply consciousness? Just because the universe is so large and planet earth is so small does not imply that any being living on this planet is incapable of contemplating the deeper truths of reality…

I couldn’t agree more. But contemplating them is one thing, figuring them out another thing altogether.

@Socratepicuristotle

What is the universe anyhow? The human mind has already made out what the universe consists in.

That science has made tremendous strides over the centuries is beyond dispute. That it has “made out what the universe consists in”, is very much in dispute. Science is still no where near even grasping what the universe consist of yet. Every couple of years there is some new discovery [dark matter, dark energy, string theory, new quantum eccentricities, paralell universes etc] that makes everything all the more mysterious still. As for what came before the big bang…or how the universe can either be or not be infinite…or why it exist at all…or if there is a teleological hub and an ontological rim on the wheel of lfe…Well, lets just say they have barely scratched the surface.

Really, does anyone here doubt that a thousand years from now our descendants won’t be flabergasted by our apalling ignorance?

@Socratepicuristotle

Increase the amount of it to the size of the universe and these elements do not change. There is just more of it. The concept of matter stays the same whether you have a grain of it, or a whole universe of it.

You can’t possibly know this is true. There may be facets of the universe so astondingly mysterious our brains are not even hard-wired to grasp them. If the bizarre excursions into quantum mechanics has taught us anything it is that.

@Socratepicuristotle

The human mind’s power to conceptualize is more miraculous than you think, no matter how small we are materially. So no, I do not feel small and neither should you.

Well, I do know one thing about some human minds: they don’t even know yet what they don’t even know yet.

And small isn’t the right word, true. In the context of all there is, one individual mind is so infinitesimally tiny and insignificant, we haven’t even invented a word yet that comes close to describing it. Calling it a speck is like calling a crack in the sidewalk the Grand Canyon.

Or maybe you just have to get closer to death and oblivion before things like that become clearer.

[iambiguous]

@Bluff

Not sold. Simple thing to bear in mind when your head starts floating off wondering about what lies above the sky is that by the time you get to a few thousand feet or whatever you would have either suffocated or froze to death, and then once your dead carcass floats up into the outer atmosphere - it’ll disintegrate. Rather spend your time studying your diet - now there’s something interesting!

I don’t get it. You come into a philosophy venue where questions like these are always popular and you wonder why we aren’t having discussions about our diets?

Again, I too get exasperated when folks discuss some aspects of philosophy up on the sky-hooks post after post after post. But on a thread entitled the Really big questions I kind of expect the sky not to be the limit here at all.

[JohnJones]

@iambiguous

@JohnJones

I can answer all of that. And I’m not amazed by any of it, certainly not by big numbers, which are in fact, quite predicatably boring. The bigger the number, the more boring it gets. That’s what I say.
That’s what this marvelous cult of awe is - boring.

To the best of my knowledge there is still a rather significant difference being saying you can answer something and actually doing so.

I have a high tolerance for boredom, though, so give it a shot. Pick the hardest one, of course.

None of your questiomns are hard. They are easy to answer.

[Bluff]

@iambiguous

I don’t get it. You come into a philosophy venue where questions like these are always popular and you wonder why we aren’t having discussions about our diets?

Again, I too get exasperated when folks discuss some aspects of philosophy up on the sky-hooks post after post after post. But on a thread entitled the Really big questions I kind of expect the sky not to be the limit here at all.

Big questions are usually synonymous with important questions. REALLY big questions are important questions times two. I do not believe these are important questions, the health of the body is an important question these are merely trivial questions. Vain curiousity. I’m here to better understand and articulate my own views on what I believe to be more worthwhile wisdom to love and to better learn how to drive the stake into all else. Be careful on those sky-hooks Icarus.

[Only_Humean]

@Bluff

the health of the body is an important question these are merely trivial questions

For some, your Big Questions are merely empirical trifles best left to physiologists and doctors. Just saying.

I’m here to better understand and articulate my own views on what I believe to be more worthwhile wisdom to love and to better learn how to drive the stake into all else.

If you don’t understand them yet, why are you already convinced they’re right?

If you can’t even articulate them yet, why do you want to drive stakes into everything else?

[Bluff]

@Only_Humean

@Bluff

the health of the body is an important question these are merely trivial questions

For some, your Big Questions are merely empirical trifles best left to physiologists and doctors. Just saying.

Best left to physiologists and doctors to do what with? Is it only their place to know these things? By that, aren’t speculative trifles best left to the philosophers (the academics that is anyway)?

Doctors and physiologists can provide all the necessary knowledge but it requires the individual to implement it and make it work according to his unique needs.

If you don’t understand them yet, why are you already convinced they’re right?

If you can’t even articulate them yet, why do you want to drive stakes into everything else?

Intuition. What directs me away from academic and speculative philosophy I can literally feel as it drains the life out of me. I know this like I know fire burns. And like I know the direction I want to go in IS the right direction simply because of its strength. All other directions serve as possible threats to my direction because I may become astray and end up on one of them. Articulation of these thought is simply akin to having a detailed map as opposed to vague directions.

[Only_Humean]

@Bluff

Best left to physiologists and doctors to do what with? Is it only their place to know these things? By that, aren’t speculative trifles best left to the philosophers (the academics that is anyway)?

If it’s not their place to know about health, I don’t know what their place is. And it could be that philosophy is mostly what you consider speculative trifles, couldn’t it?

Doctors and physiologists can provide all the necessary knowledge but it requires the individual to implement it and make it work according to his unique needs.

Philosophy certainly isn’t implementation, just like pure maths isn’t engineering. If you want to be healthy, eat plenty of vegetables and run three miles a day. Try not to smoke, drink in moderation, don’t have unprotected sex with junkies. Job done, no philosophy needed.

Intuition. What directs me away from academic and speculative philosophy I can literally feel as it drains the life out of me. I know this like I know fire burns. And like I know the direction I want to go in IS the right direction simply because of its strength. All other directions serve as possible threats to my direction because I may become astray and end up on one of them. Articulation of these thought is simply akin to having a detailed map as opposed to vague directions.

So you want to confirm your prejudices and learn tricks to stop other people making you consider other ways to think about things? Got to say, it doesn’t sound much like my idea of philosophy.

Merry Christmas, anyway.

[Bluff]

@Only_Humean

@Bluff

Best left to physiologists and doctors to do what with? Is it only their place to know these things? By that, aren’t speculative trifles best left to the philosophers (the academics that is anyway)?

If it’s not their place to know about health, I don’t know what their place is. And it could be that philosophy is mostly what you consider speculative trifles, couldn’t it?

I asked is it only their place i.e. can my health not be my business too. I’m approaching philosophy from an etymological point of view rather than a historical one. Love of wisdom; what is wisdom? who is wise? etc. Suppose we have a man living in his corner fully learned in the history of philsophy but he’s a miserable man, a fearful man, has never dared, has never risked, simply read, only learned. He may be knowledgeable but as far as I’m concerned he ain’t wise, more a fool.

@Only_Humean

Doctors and physiologists can provide all the necessary knowledge but it requires the individual to implement it and make it work according to his unique needs.

Philosophy certainly isn’t implementation, just like pure maths isn’t engineering. If you want to be healthy, eat plenty of vegetables and run three miles a day. Try not to smoke, drink in moderation, don’t have unprotected sex with junkies. Job done, no philosophy needed.

And what about ethics? What use is it conjuring up some ethical way of life if you aren’t going to implement it. What about aesthetics? If Kandinsky hadn’t of articulated his theory of colour what would he have painted? Ideas are useless without being exercised. The one who only dreams his life rather than living it is a misery.

@Only_Humean

Intuition. What directs me away from academic and speculative philosophy I can literally feel as it drains the life out of me. I know this like I know fire burns. And like I know the direction I want to go in IS the right direction simply because of its strength. All other directions serve as possible threats to my direction because I may become astray and end up on one of them. Articulation of these thought is simply akin to having a detailed map as opposed to vague directions.

So you want to confirm your prejudices and learn tricks to stop other people making you consider other ways to think about things? Got to say, it doesn’t sound much like my idea of philosophy.

If anything, I want to test my prejudices. Do you believe we should only act from reason? If this were your philosophy for life what would you say to the idea that a prejudice (whatever that is) underlied your reason?

Merry Christmas, anyway.

Merry Christmas.

[Only_Humean]

@Bluff

Love of wisdom; what is wisdom? who is wise? etc. Suppose we have a man living in his corner fully learned in the history of philsophy but he’s a miserable man, a fearful man, has never dared, has never risked, simply read, only learned. He may be knowledgeable but as far as I’m concerned he ain’t wise, more a fool.

I don’t know many people who think that wisdom is the same as knowledge. Certainly neither wise nor knowledgeable people.

And what about ethics? What use is it conjuring up some ethical way of life if you aren’t going to implement it. What about aesthetics? If Kandinsky hadn’t of articulated his theory of colour what would he have painted? Ideas are useless without being exercised. The one who only dreams his life rather than living it is a misery.

I agree, but the ideas part is the philosophy and the exercise part is not. It’s also little use designing the perfect car and never making it, but manufacture isn’t design.

@Only_Humean

Intuition. What directs me away from academic and speculative philosophy I can literally feel as it drains the life out of me. I know this like I know fire burns. And like I know the direction I want to go in IS the right direction simply because of its strength. All other directions serve as possible threats to my direction because I may become astray and end up on one of them. Articulation of these thought is simply akin to having a detailed map as opposed to vague directions.

So you want to confirm your prejudices and learn tricks to stop other people making you consider other ways to think about things? Got to say, it doesn’t sound much like my idea of philosophy.

If anything, I want to test my prejudices.

“I know the direction I want to go in IS the right direction simply because of its strength. All other directions serve as possible threats to my direction because I may become astray and end up on one of them.”
…? That reads to me like you’ve decided what you ‘know’ based on a vague feeling (pre-judging before all the information’s in, hence prejudice) and just want to go about proving it.

Do you believe we should only act from reason? If this were your philosophy for life what would you say to the idea that a prejudice (whatever that is) underlied your reason?

I’m not sure how you get that from what I’m saying. At all.

Assumptions underlie all my reasoning, which is why I want to question them, why I want to be challenged, why I hope to see new directions and insights and welcome the discovery that I’m wrong, if it somehow points a way to improve. I don’t see them as threats or want to drive a stake through them. I save that for old directions and superceded insights that I’ve already dealt with and discarded, and even then some of those can gain new value from subsequent learning.

[iambiguous]

@JohnJones

None of your questiomns are hard. They are easy to answer.

Really, how seriously do you expect others to respect your intelligence with answers like that?

Come on, pick the least easy question and give it a go.