The universe isn’t the one that we might have ended up with. The universe isn’t even the one that isn’t the one that we might have ended up with, but could be another one entirely different.
In fact, the Universe might not even be that one but could actually be another one altogether. Yet it might also be something else again. It might even be none of these and instead be something beyond us. In fact, the universe might not even be beyond us but be something not like that, but rather, actually - like something else.
My post was an elucidation that framed Wittgenstein’s observation that there can be no metaphysics or explanations in Philosophy - whether of the universe or anything else, and that any attempt to provide one will only demonstrate tautology (synonyms in relationship) or contradiction. I made that necessarilly abortive attempt when I observed other people doing it here and getting away with it.
You should keep that post where it is, for it is an example of what happens when we try to “use” philosophy. In this case I highlighted the obscurity of the metaphysics of explanation - iteration, reductionism and the empty lure of the “something else”.
An explanation involves a proposition, a stance, and an interpretation (justification). All I see here are randomly placed, ambiguous statements of possibility.
Skepticism, or consideration of “something else”, is only half the task. The hard part is justifying that skepticism, or providing a “something else” to be considered and a reason to consider it. Philosophy is more than hypothetic.
The metaphysics of a philosophical argument or explanation, for instance, involves more than crafty linguistics. The dialectic is important, but inherently secondary to perspective and conceptualization. In other words, we don’t “practice language” in order to think, but to communicate what it is we think.
We call something nonsense if it does not agree with a set of carefully constructed edifices. What appears as nonsense from one frame may appear as sense from another frame, and vice versa. Like measurements of space and time the concept of nonsense (itself a sign of measurement) is relative.
Yes, as regards theses and explanations, philosophy is useless. But that says too much. Philosophy has no content.
But I wouldn’t want to claim the credit for that. It was someone else’s idea - Wittgenstein’s and his followers like Hacker and Finch, against people such as Russell. Perhaps we forget how much of scholastic Philosophy is under fire even with academics. We shouldn’t fall back comfortably on what we think is the status quo. This is one reason why I have been banned from so many forums.
What puzzles me is why you’d keep joining new ones to discuss something with no content. But as long as you’re discussing relevant things here, challenging the status quo is just fine.
If your posts have no content or are nonsense simply to highlight your opinion of philosophy, though, I’ll view them as artistic statements and not discussion, and move them to a more appropriate forum. That’s all
My post (polemical, satirical) said no more or less than what the following gentlemen said and got away with. They got away with it because, unlike me, people went along with it because it was “doing philosophy” apparently. There are loads of examples on this forum. I can’t search them all out but here’s a few I collected in ten minutes. Why have I collected them? - Justice must be seen to be done------->
Philosophy serves to enrich the human being. Philosophy, imbued with Eros and transformed into a genuine intellectual love, opens up a distance between the philosopher and the object of this love, truth. It brings man to face what Amiel called “the obscure.”
The obscure only exists that it may cease to exist. In it lies the opportunity of all victory and all progress. Whether it call itself fatality, death, night, or matter, it is the pedestal of life, of light, of liberty and the spirit. For it represents resistance – that is to say, the fulcrum of all activity, the occasion for its development and its triumph. " – Amiel
The mystery of form is the mystery of life
This is my view of what philosophy is most essentially.
Last edited by Vanitas
For it is the experience of love and freedom in life that leads to the considerations of love and freedom in the abstract. jonquil
The universe could be recreated an infinite number of times - and perhaps even if we included variations in the sensitive initial conditions, we would find that humanity refines itself from the chaos each and every time.
"What if I had been born someone or something else? Peachy Nietszche
Well you can visualise another you in a different universe but now you have to imagine [if the basis is correct] many variations of the one. So you would be here and everywhere else.
Let us say that time is like a piece of string, how long is it? There can be no definitive length nor segmenting of it because there simply is no cardinality to define such things by. (which are “such things” – JJ)
Each object must exist in that same space and therefore each must be all relative/comparative/interactive/faceted to one another, such that where one object becomes a particle on one facet - which we can now call a ‘primary object’ [space/universe or world], it become the whole object of another facet. Quetzalcotl
(which “other” facet? JJ)
I think that Witt thought that philosophical explanations were crafty, as philosophy is an activity that leaves the world as it is - it clarifies or elucidates the way we describe the world, but the world per se is a given.
No, because they were concrete statements that could be discussed. “Philosophy serves to enrich the human being”, “For it is the experience of love and freedom in life that leads to the considerations of love and freedom in the abstract”, “The universe could be recreated an infinite number of times - and perhaps even if we included variations in the sensitive initial conditions, we would find that humanity refines itself from the chaos each and every time”.
“It might even be none of these and instead be something beyond us. In fact, the universe might not even be beyond us but be something not like that, but rather, actually - like something else” is, in my view, meaningless waffle - space filler. The alternatives you quoted were not reflecting the poster’s view of philosophy by demonstration or as a metareflection on philosophy itself, but by statement.
I apologise if you were actually driving at some profound point which I with my merely human brain missed, but there’s nothing to discuss there. Unfortunately, the forum is moderated by humans of finite insight; but while that is the case, things that don’t make sense to them get moved. If you want to make artistic statements, there are other boards, and that’s where they go. End of discussion.
You misquoted me. These are the precise phrases I objected to lifted from their contexts, they are the lure of the non-descript posing as the substantial, the lure of the “something else”, the metaphysical poseurs persuasions:
“The obscure”, philosophy is about “mystery”, “the abstract”, a “different” universe, how long is a piece (a contradiction in use), if I had been born someone else (how would you know?!), “another” facet.
I don’t know how much simpler I can make it. “Philosophy is about mystery” is a proposition that you can debate. “It might even be none of these and instead be something beyond us. In fact, the universe might not even be beyond us but be something not like that, but rather, actually - like something else” is not. Your context thread and the lion thread are great examples of good, discussable OPs.
I can’t see any justification for debating that proposition. Isn’t it “mystery” that we are unravelling? not unravelling as in “what it could be”. For what “it” could we be talking about?
