Philosophical Ramblings

[StormySky]

A place to type your heart out on all those late night (or whenever) deep and meaningful thoughts about life, the universe, and everything. 

I don't know if this thread is needed, post if you want

[StormySky]

I suppose I'll start rambling.

According to my mother, the world revolves around expectations. (That's stupid. The earth revolves around the sun.) But what even ARE expectations? Like what is their true significance? Things turn out how they do. In the end, the outcome is never that horrible, is it?

Many people fear the probability that death is just "the world going black" and you cease to exist. But is 'nothing' really that bad? 

The universe has existed years before you, is that a frightening concept? Is it terrible and horrifying  just to think that the past exists? If it's so, is that any different from the future? I feel that time itself is an illusion of the perception of beings like us, and that's kinda mind boggling. The possibility that time is an illusion is just a small window into the limitations of human perception. We can't see outside of our own senses. Nobody even knows how much our senses even allow. 

So what even is perspective? (Probably the greatest meaning though the narrow window of the human mind)

Okay I think I'm done.

I'm sorry if this post lacks basic human reasoning. I'm sleep deprived and it's late and my allergies are a terrible distraction to my mind.

 

42

[white crayon]

I love stuff like this! It makes me think…

 

Does it matter what our meaning is, as long as we think we have one? If we think we don't have a meaning, then we aren't happy. We don't function within the pattern typical of humans. I base that statement off my own behaviour when I believed I didn't have a purpose.

Now, I believe that we give things meaning. We give smiles meaning. We give places and words and unanswered text messages meaning. All the way through our life, we give things meaning and by doing that we give ourselves meaning. We give ourselves identity.

When we are little, other people do it for us, but after a while, it isn't the people and situations that make us who we are, it's ourselves and how we react. When your friend abandons you, do you turn bitter? Do you blame yourself? It's things like that, the way we choose to react that give things and events meaning to us, and in giving them meaning, we choose who we become. And that is what I've decided to believe is our greater purpose: to choose who we become. 

 

Thanks if anyone read my rambling all the way through. Have a consolation cake 

 

[The Joker]

I think one of the most beautiful concepts to me is that the universe, appears to be (logically), eternal in some sense. Its always existed in some form and I can't imagine otherwise. And none of it matters in any sense that humans understand. I feel the lack of objective purpose or meaning in the universe is what makes it great. It also makes it all the more astounding that life, in all its intricacies, arose and developed over billions of years. The level of complexity and the hand natural laws had in shaping them is just astounding. Perhaps the greatest personal mystery for me is the fact that I'm alive. Now what "I" am is unknown. I'm sure there can exist quantifications for it scientifically, or an explanation for it can be accounted for by correlating "me" with certain phenomenon in the brain. Regardless of the real nature of the sense of "I-ness" that I experience, its taken on a character of its own, in a way that kinda makes it greater than the sum of its parts (emergent phenomena). The fact that none of it matters makes this all the more astounding haha. 

[cjk]

I suppose the way that I look at it is that we can only discuss the world as we perceive it to exist. Sort of like the idea that proving that you or the world does not exist is moot because either we have correct perceptions (the world as we know it exists) or we do not; and if it doesn't exist, then there's no point in discussing it because we have no means of understanding what is "true."Given that that, though, I do believe that we can only experience the world through out own perceptions and the superimposed fabric of society (Lacan-style) and not in fact the world as it actually exists.

 

Sorry, that was wordy. And frequently redundant. But essentially, I believe that a) the world as we understand it is a series of our own perceptions that inherently paint a false picture of the world as it is and that b) that "false" picture is more important than the real one because it is the only one we can interact with. The implications of this would be that even though the intangible ideal of society--this "meaning"-- doesn't strictly speaking exist, they are important because we created them. 

[80hours]

You're totally correct. This is the concept of the "signified" and the "signifier". Basically, it means that although we perceive a supposed reality (the signified), our neurons and other intermediates that transmit this supposed reality (the signifier(s)) do a lot of things that probably distort or alter reality. 

It's much more than that though - we don't even know what reality "really" is. It's quite a strange world we live in, but we manage to.

[cjk]

In response to 80 hours-- I glad I found another Lacan fan. But what do you think of the moral implications of a society that creates its own reality?

[gisiebob]

no

[80hours]

On 10/21/2017 at 10:17 PM, cjk said:

In response to 80 hours-- I glad I found another Lacan fan. But what do you think of the moral implications of a society that creates its own reality?

There are so many strange things in this world that are pretty much paradoxical. 

For instance, morality can only effectively exist within a society (more or less, this is true), so in theory everything that society creates can be moral, and hence there are no clear wrongdoings in such a society. 

And you can't say such things in real life though, because people are too politically correct and morally outraged (for what reason even?). People claim that objective morality must exist and use Hitler as an example. That proves nothing since (A) Something much "worse" could have happened if Hitler did not cause a Holocaust (the argument that people make that we learn from history could apply - what if no one knew and did something far more effective?), so actually Hitler was correct and so the moral objectivists have to admit they have no clue what "right" even is, and (B) Hitler and his supporters fervently believed they were correct, and *in that sphere*, there were totally correct in what they did. 

 

The only reason that Hitler is considered evil today is because of other nations interfering with his agenda. We injected our own morality, and because of our military superiority, NOT because of our moral correctness, we won, and our morality prevailed in popular thought. 


SO, I think it's OK for people and organizations of people to create their own morality, as long as they do not contradict each other in really terrible ways. I might not agree PERSONALLY with what they do, but who cares about that?
 

[cjk]

I would argue that the, y'know, mass genocide is the reason that Hitler is considered evil. Because, you know, mass genocide.  Not a good thing. I realize that you probably know this. I'm not full-on Kantian here--I mean, I don't believe in hard rules that always apply--but I would argue that that answer is incredibly generalized and doesn't take into account the nature of society: that it is made up of people, not a conglomerate mass of unified opinion.

 

Going back to the original question--yeah, we create our own reality and morality in reference to the society we live in, but so does everyone else. I think you're getting there with the idea that "as long as they do not contradict each other in really terrible ways," but I think the reason that Hitler can be considered objectively evil is because he enforced his own reality to a truly horrifying degree. This is the reason we differentiate ethics and morality--I think earlier you're talking about ethics, which are the moral values of our society and are completely objective. But there's also the question of morality--right and wrong. One can be ethically right but morally wrong. I'm asking about morals, i.e. the place our own perception of right or wrong exists in a discussion of the biosphere. 

 

I would also like to add that I hate how much people use the Holocaust, or any other historical calamity, as an example for theoretical objective morality--especially in philosophical discussion as opposed to historical ones. It trivializes and generalizes a truly horrific aspect of history and dehumanizes the victims.

 

 

[ConorOberst]

I agree with you 80hours!

 

After looking at the arguments it boils down to objective "good" and "bad" can only exist if there is a god.  "Right" and "wrong" are only objective if they come from an outside source.

 

That leaves us with the horrifying reality that there aren't such things as objective moral truths.  I think this is the strongest argument for God's existence - the fact that there's nothing morally wrong with me killing someone just for the fun of it seems wrong on every level.  Yet without God, this seems to be the case.

 

After thinking about this I moved from an atheist to an agnostic... especially when I learnt about the double slit experiment in quantum mechanics - our current best theory of the universe is that our observation of the universe creates the universe!!

[ôÿē èîęēú ïė ēôēįîûôø]

On 8/2/2017 at 2:54 PM, The Joker said:

what "I" am is unknown.

I believe "I" represents God. All is connected, all is one, all is God.

[StormySky]

So this is basically my philospohy 

1. Your senses suck. How you experience things isn't how they actually are.

2. But that doesn't mean that how you see things is worthless, how you see things can become a part of your personal truth

3. Since you can only see things from your puny human consciousness, you can be the boss of your own universe and understand that you can see things however the heck you want. 

4. Life only sucks if you have chosen to believe it that way. Don't be a victim of your experiences.

5. Don't be a d*** to people who see things differently. They're just like you.

6. When you die, you're no longer trapped by your human senses. Either there's infinite nothingness or infinite everything. So I try to experience all the fun in this life.

7. Nothing makes sense. Sense is an illusion and nonsense is the language of the universe.

[Lord Jade Cross]

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[StormySky]

8 minutes ago, Jade Cross said:

 

Yet in society, we are constantly drilled on how things should make sense. I cant help but wonder how ultimately this affects people, especially when the tables turn? or you turn the tables on someone?

 

 

And if you think about it, it only makes less sense in the end. Funny how we humans try to make sense of things, but only end up making more nonsense.

[Lord Jade Cross]

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[Yatogami]

Everything exists in cycles, and if we find something that doesn't have a cycle. It is because we have yet to learn about it. 

[Lord Jade Cross]

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[uhtred]

Why do we value human life when there seems to be an almost unlimited amount of it? 

[Yatogami]

On 5/20/2018 at 5:27 PM, Jade Cross said:

How would you put in motion a cycle of this type in a society that would essentially witch hunt you for it?

 

What do you mean?

[Lord Jade Cross]

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[StormySky]

On 5/20/2018 at 3:13 PM, Jade Cross said:

So why dont we live a senseless life? or more than that, why do we (as a society) demand that there be sense or meaning? and ultimately frown on anyone who atremlts to do so?

 

I feel like meaning and sense are different things.

Sense appeals to logos

Meaning appeals to pathos.

 

I fel like meaning transcends even happiness.

[Yatogami]

4 hours ago, Jade Cross said:

How would you put into motion a cycle of senselessness?

 

There is order in chaos, and chaos in order. It just depends on how you look at it. Even pi has order, if seen in the physical realm, and not the numeral. 

[Lord Jade Cross]

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[Yatogami]

8 hours ago, Jade Cross said:

I see them in both light, which is why its difficult, if not impossible to be able to take a side.

 

For instance, lets take the idea of happiness in life and say that eating ice cream makes you happy. Now if we took it mathematically, in order to comtinue the cycle, you would eat ice cream again and again, however long term, that will detrimental to your health. Do you hold back or even give up ice cream to live a healthier life longer, in the process being unhappy, or do you continue doing so regardless of consequences?

 

Consumption is but a part of the cycle of life. I wasn't thinking on such a micro-scale when I said this. One one hand, consumption continues to extend your life, but over consumption isn't natural and something humans have created. Thus the urges would ultimately destroy you, and as a result balance out. But nature underestimated our ability to help ourselves. 

[Lord Jade Cross]

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