[shahar2k]

Nothing in this world is constant, and we as humans expect "facts" to apear out of chaos, but what we precieve as facts can only appear to be so because our own limited scope does not allow us to see it's end and it's beginning. it is that illusion of eternity through our own mortaility and limits which make us human.

thoughts/comments?

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Maybe I'm paranoid... maybe it's you!

[shahar2k]

crap, I lost count, this is #7

[sacrelicious]

In the quiet words of the Virgin Mary, come again?

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Weaseling out of things is what separates us from the animals... except the weasel.

[el tigre]

mwahahahahahahahah! too funny.

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Couldnae hit a coo in the arse wi a banjo if uh wis huddin it by the tail. :�

[Freddio]

quote:

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Originally posted by sacrelicious:
In the quiet words of the Virgin Mary, come again?

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*Lamer*

[the_monkey]

of course stuff in this world is constant. how can we exist without knowing that the sun will rise tommorow, and that if i drop this cup im holding it will fall. gravity is constant. (on earth) there must be absolutes, otherwise, everything is chaos. and that would suck.

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Maho: the online Comic

tradgedy is when i cut my finger.
comedy is when i fall down a manhole and die.

[Bradford]

your taking a simple statement and making it so complex we cannot understand it, or maybe you cannnot either.

In the quiet words of the Virgin Mary, come again?

:| |

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[email protected]
icq:3704871

[shahar2k]

bradford: I'm sorry, I have a tendancy to sound like a pompous ass when I'm philosophising, and you'r right it is a simple statement, but I don't think I made it any more complicated with my choice of words. it may sound more profound than it is, but it's not any harder to understand.
at least I don't think so.

the_monkey: Isn't that the exact thing I said? We believe there are constants, we believe the sun will rise tomorow because lives are not long enough to realize that the sun will not rise forever and even gravity is not a constant.

our entire system of beliefs exists under the ILLUSION of eternity, and the all encompasing, and the infinite, just look at the concept of god as held by most people.


here's another concept to add:
mathematically, the existance of the concept of nothing, and the concept of infinity are proofs of each other. so if there is no eternity in this world, is it possible that there is no "nothing" either?

these are all things I think about during my day, just in the back of my head. you all are welcome to post your own Ideas....

[This message has been edited by shahar2k (edited January 26, 2001).]

[Bradford]

isn't the secret NOT to think about it?

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[email protected]
icq:3704871

[shahar2k]

if the big secret is not to think about it, than I'd rather not be let in... while it may have no real affect on your life, or mine, thoughts like these are what make the day interesting. Then again, the fact that nothing is constant might just mean that there IS NO SECRET!!!

[v1510nAry]

quote:

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Originally posted by the_monkey:
of course stuff in this world is constant. how can we exist without knowing that the sun will rise tommorow, and that if i drop this cup im holding it will fall. gravity is constant. (on earth) there must be absolutes, otherwise, everything is chaos. and that would suck.

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aye agree things are things , we try to look further but come back to the same thing

A ball ,
its a sphere ,
a perfect circle ,
wait it has lil dents in it ,
okeh its not a perfect sphere ,
its round
aahh its a ball

nobody can be right with philosophy we have different opinons ..
Soo we should all be famous even if are philosophy is bullshit , its are opinon

.: | v1510nAry | :.



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- Inspiration never ends .....
- [email protected]
- ICQ# 47507088

[InvisibleMirrors]

that is the problem, people prefer to stay in their own little sensory bubbles of reality. Everything in the world you have ever known is percieved with your senses, thus it exists only in your mind and in your mind only. You can have no idea what it is like to be another person, their view of reality could be totally different than yours even if you percieve the same scenery. It is habit to consider everything other than yourself subordinate because you don't understand what it's like to exist with their conciousness. You are your own god.

[This message has been edited by InvisibleMirrors (edited January 26, 2001).]

[shahar2k]

A friend of mine once said "Even if I had spent every day of my life discovering nothing but the naked uncensored truths of this world, and even if none of those truths were in any way subjective. I would still end no closer to knowing the entire truth"

I think this holds true (no pun intended) in most cases. there is no way we could know everything, however, to believe we know everything about something we must always consider that we cannot see all aspects of it.

for example, if you were studying the earth's surface to provide you with the knowlege of the surface. you in no way would ever be able to "know" the entire surface at once. you might be able to discern details at one point, and then launch into space to study the overall picture, and even stay at one point and study it over time, but never will you be able to get a glimpse at the whole picture, the entire surface, every aspect that affects it, and all the factors it itself affects

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Maybe I'm paranoid... maybe it's you!

[Affected]

quote

Quote:

Nothing in this world is constant, and we as humans expect "facts" to apear out of chaos, but what we precieve as facts can only appear to be so because our own limited scope does not allow us to see it's end and it's beginning. it is that illusion of eternity through our own mortaility and limits which make us human.

Well, I'm pretty sure that's severely flawed in a grammatical sense, which is proably why it's a bit hard to interpret. For instance, what are you referring to with "it's end"? Te end of what? It, in that sentence would refer to our limited scope, but that doesn't sem to make much sense...

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Affected

Democracy is a lie

http://affected.xs.mw

[This message has been edited by Affected (edited January 27, 2001).]

[Freddio]

quote:

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Originally posted by shahar2k:

it is that illusion of eternity through our own mortaility and limits which make us human.

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seing that you are the first to discover this and realise our fatal flaw you must be above the rest of us Humans.

[the_monkey]

quote:

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Originally posted by InvisibleMirrors:
that is the problem, people prefer to stay in their own little sensory bubbles of reality. Everything in the world you have ever known is percieved with your senses, thus it exists only in your mind and in your mind only. You can have no idea what it is like to be another person, their view of reality could be totally different than yours even if you percieve the same scenery. It is habit to consider everything other than yourself subordinate because you don't understand what it's like to exist with their conciousness. You are your own god.

[This message has been edited by InvisibleMirrors (edited January 26, 2001).]

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postmodernism...



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Maho: the online Comic

tradgedy is when i cut my finger.
comedy is when i fall down a manhole and die.

[Chronic Beauty]

just to point out we dont know that the sun isnt a constant, and the same goes for gravity. The only reason those of us educated in the western world, who arn't corrupted by religion is because we have been corrupted by a new faith or doctrine. Namley Science. We follow what scientist and text books tell us more blindly than apocalyptic cultists do their beliefs. Will the son ever exlpode? For sure? No one will ever know, scientists assume the sun will blow up, because other stars we know of have blown up.

Ever wonder if we, the scientificly and technologicly enlightened and wise, westeners of the world are actually the gullable followers of ridiculous faiths?

Just think for a moment, how does a controlling body of society (ie the goverment) control its people, without use of violence and weapons? Information and propaganda. What we are told and taught to believe in most cases governs how we react. Is it really rediculous to think the majority of what we are taught throughtout our lives is just bullshit to control us? T


Just think about it, seems silly at first, but everythign we're told and taught throughout our life is completley controlled, by nameless organisations and faceless goverment bodies.

[Chronic Beauty]

I appreciate what your saying Shahar2k, but i think you took my post to literally. I wasnt at all trying to say that believed the situation i described. However i was trying to point out just how dependent we are on second hand information. We blindly follow scientific explanations the vast majority of us don't understand. Just as our ancestors followed religion because it explained what they couldn't understand or comprehend.

Travel back in time 2000 years and try and persuade someone (even an educated monk for instance) that everything surrounding us is constructed from tiny tiny little balls called atomsm, that on their own are invisable but in a collective state form everything we can see and touch. You and i know he would laugh in your face. Just as we would if someone from 2000 years in the future tried to explain something similar from his time period.

My point is this : If from the youngest age we are taught from second hand information, but not only that, we are taught and influenced by the very bodies that lead/control us, whats to say what we are preached is the truth? How far can we trust our own knowledge? Potentialy everything we see online, in newspapers, text books, tv shows, books EVERYTHING could be lies to control us. In the exact same way the bible was a lie to control the people of the past. (sorry if that sounds arrogant to the religious, but im simply putting forward my point of view as an agnostic)

Take this as an example (and im sorry if this comes accross offensive to anyone, it isn't intended that way) Whats to say the problems of recent times in eithiopia actually exist? Have you traveled to eithiopia yourself to witness these attrocities? Chances are you haven't, so you are entirley depending on tv and newspapers (controlled mediums) to give you information. Does eithiopia exist ? I'll never trully know unless i go there myself. This may not be the best example, but imagine a situation where the goverment or our controlling body as i prefer to name them, could benefit something from making us believing in a event that never happened. With today's technology anythings possible, and if its on television, chances are we'll beleive it.

My point is this, we will never trully know the truth unless we teach ourselves by experiancing the world first hand. Who's to say the western world is trully free? Maybe we are the oppressed and the middle eastern nations of the world are the liberated.


I know this has gone completley off topic, sorry

[This message has been edited by Chronic Beauty (edited January 28, 2001).]

[the_monkey]

quote:

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Originally posted by Chronic Beauty:

Whats to say the problems of recent times in eithiopia actually exist? Have you traveled to eithiopia yourself to witness these attrocities? Chances are you haven't, so you are entirley depending on tv and newspapers (controlled mediums) to give you information. Does eithiopia exist ? I'll never trully know unless i go there myself.

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so you'll doubt everything untill you see it first hand right?
do you have a brain? why not crack open your head and check. i mean, who knows, you havent seen your brain right?



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Maho: the online Comic

tradgedy is when i cut my finger.
comedy is when i fall down a manhole and die.

[shahar2k]

first of all, freddio, I don't for a moment assume that I'm the first to realize this stuff, but I do enjoy hearing people's oppinions, and talking about them, if we naturally assume every thing we say has been said before and therefore give up on it, well, we'd have a very silent very boring place here.
second the grammar.... well it's much better than it was 5 years ago when I first learned to write english... you see, this isn't exactly my first language. I'm allso... unfortunately not very well read, so I'm not exactly sure what postmodernism actually is.


and most importantly, the actual discussion.
chronic, you assume that propaganda and (mis)information is being spread out under the disguise of science. I however think there's a definite diffrence between science and propaganda(I'm SURE I'm misspelling it somehow). that big diffrence happens to be the scientific method. what you call an Idea distributed by science happens to be a theory, and theories, such as the one about the sun, are not meant to be taken as fact. they are actually just the opposite. theories are made to be either proved or disproved. they are made as guesses based on previous observations built from the ground up on proof by repeated experimentation.

we don't directly KNOW that the sun contains hydrogen reacting to make helium. but we DO know with reasonable level of certainty that hydrogen has a certain spectrum "signature" when viewed through a spectrograph (device measuring the variation in the various bands of light emmitted when matter emits light) and we know that that "signature" exists in both the sun and other stars, as well as other very similar materials. every fact in science is proven down to the most basics by elaborate connections and every experiment can be repeated. if it cannot be repeated correctly, than that might disprove a fact and bring it down to the realm of mere theory. and theory can always change and become other things.

propeganda however is MISinformation, things like "our financial and social problems can all be brought back to the jewish people" spread by the Nazi regime before and during WWII this cannot be proven, this allso is something meant to achieve a higher goal. to mislead the people to get a common enemy and unite them under an evil dictatorship.

what is the common goal of science? other than explain the unknown through proof and reasonable doubt where theory must be built on other theories. what is the goal in telling us that the sun might be dieing in 5 billion years? to get us to panic and get that last drink of coca cola? no, there is no real overmind to science itself.

however you are right, science can be misused. just look at all the commercials caliming "8 out of 10 scientists say that orang juice will prevent a messy bloody death, please drink OUR orange juice!!" this is called propaganda, and should be stopped, I know, research may show a correlation between OJ and people who don't die a bloody messy death, but there is no real way to PROVE that, therefore it's not a fact, it's a theory based on mere observation.



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Maybe I'm paranoid... maybe it's you!

[-- Transcendent --]

Postmodernism (the name suggests enough) can be defined as the adaptation of anything traditional (and in that, I mean old) in modern terms. Take a shakesphere play, and then give the characters suits and shirts and replace the wagons with cars and there - a simple example of postmodernism.

I'm no dictionary - but that's how I think it's defined. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Secondly, monkey - I think Chronic Beauty's example pertaining to Ethiopia is merely a hyperbole to prove her point, a point that makes much sense ... but should not be taken literally. Unfortunately, you did. Now crack open your own brain, and check.

[Chronic Beauty]

Thank you Transcendent! Someone who grasps my point. I certainly wasn't being literal i was simply pointing out how reliant we are on a select number of our population to be trustworth and honest with the information we use to teach and learn the most basic "facts."

Ps im not a her im a bloke :]

[jcterminal]

the only constant in the universe is the concept that there is chaos and the beautiful patterns that immerge when two agents of chaos meet.

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j.c.terminal
mind
body
soul

[the_monkey]

i wasnt being literal, i was being sarcastic.
and yes your theory does make sence cronic, but what i was trying to say was, how far are you willing to take this theory? to the extent of cracking your own head open?
hardee harr.

and transcendant, yes, that is postmodernism, but it isnt only applied to in plays and stuff. but more modern day life. (ex, it may be immoral for me to have an affair, but not for you. there is no absolute truth for idividual morals in a postmodernists mind.)


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Maho: the online Comic

tradgedy is when i cut my finger.
comedy is when i fall down a manhole and die.

[Ragnarok]

This reminds me of Descartes.
Doubt everything

[shahar2k]

I was wondering has anyone here ever tried understanding philosophical concepts in mathematical terms? I think this is where I started with this whole concept of "infinity" and "nothingness" because one of the mathematica definitions of infinity is 1 devided by zero (nothingness) so how far is that definition from actual reality? I find that I often refer back to math to understand concepts with people around me.

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Maybe I'm paranoid... maybe it's you!

[Bishop_Six]

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
Albert Einstein

[shahar2k]

thank you for that bishop six, here's another Einstein quote

"I don't know which weapons world war III will be fought with but World War VI will be fought with sticks and stones"

he was a smart cookie
what are your oppinions though?

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Maybe I'm paranoid... maybe it's you!