must one have knowledge, at least basic, of other fields in academia? For example, would knowing psychology help you better understand themes, ideas, and or people in philosophy than without Psychology?
Again, knowing some physical sciences seems like it would greatly in discussions. I have noticed some people on this forum committing logical fallacies which they may not have committed if they had some background knowledge in how Science and scientific theories work, ex: scientific method.
Well I am asking because as of right now I am very interested in these forums because it seems like the majority of the people here are interested in gaining new practical insights into their daily lives and life in general. Your help would be appreciated thanx
Philosophy has no goal. As such it doesn’t progress towards anything, it is not a science or technology therefore other disciplines are mostly useless. Philosophy may want to destroy all possible certainty. Insight is useless, you may want to try to obtain as much pain as possible for a start. The more pain (both emotional and physical) the closer you are to real philosophy and truth. But all the above is totally false so ignore it.
There is no such thing as an increase of knowledge and there is no such thing as progress. I like to commit logical fallacies, I like to be completely wrong on everything, I like to decrease knowledge as much as possible.
To understand philosophy it is important to have some, if only basic, understanding of other fields, thought it is not an absolute requirement that you do so. To have a philosophy on the other hand, not much background knowledge in any particular field is necessary. Philosophy is any world view, be it of an autistic child, an Australian Aboriginal elder priest who might have never seen any machinery more sophisticated than an arrow, or of an Einstein or Nietzsche.
So then hell is the truth ? infinite pain is the ultimate elementary particle of the universe ? We are a deterministic machine that will avoid pain past a certain minor level no matter what. But maybe pain is just a state of mind ? an information structure ? how can numbers generate a sensation ? Do those high priests in buddha land really walk on fire and freeze themselves or just drown in fire or boiling water and really not feel anything at all ? Can the mind invent and disconnect pain ? hmmm, odd theories clowny duck …
Experience ever greater extreme pain for all your life is an interesting life, you gain alot of truth and knowledge to which you can gain ever greater pure pain. Nice theory.
It is an example of how simple we really are. As soon as you think, whatever you do, is ultimately based on how much direct or indirect pleasure the new thought or activity will give you. So we are limited by this very structure of pain/pleasure. Ther are a trillion ways to do things wrong and only one way to do it right but it is this limitation that defines which way is chosen.
There would not be any possible direction or thought without this hardwired circuit of pain/pleasure that is ultimately just an arbitrary circuit invented by natural evolution according to how we evolved and interacted with our environment which is ultimately a pure quirk.
But even this thought should be “better” or be more “pleasurable” or increase “knowledge”. As such it is just as fantastic or irrelevant as a rock on mars.
A background in philosophy is better suited to one’s gaining proficiency in rational argument than is a background in science. Philosophy studies argument directly whereas it is more indirectly studied in the sciences.
Yes, in order to do philosophy, you can never really confine yourself to speaking only about philosophy. To speak of the value of philosophy itself is in a sense pointless: those who already understand will not need to be told, and those who do not understand already cannot merely be told. Philosophy is not an art, or a science, or a political ideology, or even a love of wisdom. The real philosopher is friend to all of these possible conditions of thought – which means, he is faithful to them, he is responsible for the truthfulness of his exegesis.
Would a philosopher lie to us if he thought it would do us moral good to believe a lie? Yes, we can certainly find plenty of examples. This is where, as it were, philosophy mends the world back together too early. The philosophical move ends up accomplishing a retroactive autounification of being. No longer split, no longer multiple, being is finally recognized as one, spoken of in only one sense – being is univocal. Paradoxically, this is the ‘unteachable’ kernel of philosophy, its very assertion of total materiality which allows it to be radical and new: philosophy is nothing more than a challenge (and only to those sensitive enough to hear its call,) to say something which will remain forever new.
Yes, philosophy is opposed to common sense. But that doesn’t mean don’t read science, don’t read history, don’t read mathematics. Honestly, you should come to philosophy last, after you’ve read everything else. Which is not to say: philosophy has something which the other disciplines are missing, which would be to define philosophy by a lack, either in the subject (of a soul) or the universe (of a God.) Philosophy does not have to be lack of belief. To speak informally, it is just a distrust of common sense. We allow the veil to be lifted momentarily, and let the light flow out: and then we close it back. Philosophy recognizes the moment of religion’s absolute failure with perfect, even too perfect clarity. We can understand clearly only when what we understand is a singular assemblage of functions; so philosophy cannot be forced upon you. Again, what we do not desire to conceive, we cannot be made to…
Well said, north. Philosophy, in large part, is inquiry into truth itself (i.e., what truth is, what it means to say ‘This is true,’ how or even if we can know truth, etc.) and not just a search for things that are true. The latter job belongs to the sciences and to other practical fields of endeavor.
Reality and the physical world and physics is only defined and carved out according to how we are related to it through our arbitrary pain/pleasure circuits and assignments. Within the framework of the technological singularity where modified minds and sense organs and information structures are invented, any combination of inputs with the pain/pleasure measurement can become a totally new reality and it is 100 % real because reality is utlimately only what we perceive and measure through pain and pleasure and how we carve out our behavior accordingly.
For example, a modified mind can believe the ultimate elementary particles are simply cardboard boxes, and combining these boxes in certain ways (in a row for example) can generate great pleasure or combining them in a different way (in a circle) can generate great pain. The physics of this universe is 100 % real for this mind, but it is ultimately arbitrary because the pain/pleasure assignments are truly arbitrary and pure inventions. And so it is with us and our own physics and world, that has been carved out by natural evolution or god or whatever, but the assignment of information structures to pain pleasure is an arbitrary variable. Anything truly goes.
It is interesting to see that reality, the whole of reality is fundamentally independent of any underlying physics. No matter what the physics or underlying rules are, the only thing that matters for the modified mind is its interactions in terms of pain/pleasure consequences with the information structures it has to deal with, whether they are from any external sensors or sense organs or just internal memory locations.
Even more interesing is the fact that if you could have an infinite amount of knowledge of our present physics but could only interact in a limited way with reality as we do now, then all that knowledge would be irrelevant compared to a modified mind that could experience a much greater array of universes and realities through modified minds and pain/pleasure circuits even though it “knows” much less of the underlying physics. In fact this demonstrates that all of reality, the universe is trans-physical or essentialy metaphysical, it is a pure invention. Invent any physics as a starting point, any starting point is equivalent to any other, it is only the modified mind - emotion / pain - pleasure circuits - sensors and again external interactions that totally define a universe.
In fact the more confusion the better. We must achieve maximum confusion, get everything as wrong as possible, if something provokes pain or is bad amplify it ever more to provoke more pain and be even worse. Destroy all assumptions, try to fail miserably etc.
Atoms are confused, that is why they self organized to create an option that becomes a necessity such as life.
If there weren’t any sensations or pain/pleasure circuits, all the information structures in your mind would not mean anything, it would be just as alive as a computer, that is why reality is ultimately only these simple pain/pleasure circuits and their associations with information structures.
But even the pain/pleasure circuit is arbitrary. Why should reality be decomposed into these two items ? a modified mind could decompose it into trillions of other items. And then why must we be forced to desire pleasure ? Why must we be dependent upon anything ? So a modified mind could desire pure information structures that can be associated and defined as infinite pleasure or pain without having to actually feel it through the senses. Why must we be obliged to feel any sensation, isn’t reality just a metaphysical - trans-physical affair ?
In fact the pain/pleasure circuits show that truth itself is arbitrary and only defined according to how it is related to pain/pleasure. If a lie provoked great pleasure and the truth nothing at all or a small pleasure, wouldn’t a lie be more valuable ? And then who would you be lying to ? to yourself ? but why would you care when everything is ultimately defined, as an organizing principle, only within this pain/pleasure system which is itself arbitrary. The truth is itself arbitrary and is independent from itself, ultimately. Reality is independent from itself.