Except that's not an answer either. "I prefer things I prefer." ok, great. WHY do you prefer things you prefer?
It's, really, a question of how one stakes a claim when there exists always the possibility of asking why a claim was staked.
It's kind of like Mindy from Animaniacs. She kept asking "why" until she eventually said, "OK, I love you buh bye!".
But why stop asking why?
Because at the end of that chain of "whys" you, or somebody else, has to make a positive assertion. Everyone does this. It can be moral or ethical in nature, it can be an article of faith, or it can be epistemological. When you've drilled down that far, the new most interesting question becomes "how."
My point is, there's nothing inherently better about discovering eternal truths than spending your time trying to help other people. When you die those truths will still exist, yes, but they existed before you discovered them anyway. It didn't matter one bit to anyone besides yourself that you discovered them, so spending time on this is as fruitless, by your logic as I understand it, as helping other people while you are still alive.
So it's ALL meaningless and futile Or it's ALL meaningful...but one can't be meaningful and the other not meaningful.
If it lasts any longer call the number on the bottle.
I always imagined the four-hour boner as something out of a really fucked-up episode of star trek - around 3 hours and fifty eight minutes, a version of Scotty in your body is screaming "IT CANNAE TAKE MUCH MORE AE THIS!" while the gauges and meters are all going in overdrive, flashing lights and sirens, and when the big 4-0 tips over they all just go back down to normal and get all limp, never to rise again.
It's pretty scary when you think about it.
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HachfaceNot the Minister Farrakhan you're thinking ofDammit, Shepard!Registered Userregular
edited February 2009
Duffel there's one thing I like about you and it's your vivid imagination
My point is, there's nothing inherently better about discovering eternal truths than spending your time trying to help other people. When you die those truths will still exist, yes, but they existed before you discovered them anyway. It didn't matter one bit to anyone besides yourself that you discovered them, so spending time on this is as fruitless, by your logic as I understand it, as helping other people while you are still alive.
So it's ALL meaningless and futile Or it's ALL meaningful...but one can't be meaningful and the other not meaningful.
hmm
Or "meaning" is a false distinction.
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SarksusATTACK AND DETHRONE GODRegistered Userregular
My point is, there's nothing inherently better about discovering eternal truths than spending your time trying to help other people. When you die those truths will still exist, yes, but they existed before you discovered them anyway. It didn't matter one bit to anyone besides yourself that you discovered them, so spending time on this is as fruitless, by your logic as I understand it, as helping other people while you are still alive.
So it's ALL meaningless and futile Or it's ALL meaningful...but one can't be meaningful and the other not meaningful.
hmm
If you say that helping other people is meaningless because you will eventually die and you won't have anything to show for it you can say the same thing about discovering eternal truths. To keep your argument consistent both pursuits would have to be meaningless, not one or the other.
Hmmmm... I'm thinking henna, leather, or bronze for my second city.
Probably gonna go with henna. It'll let me manufacture cosmetics without trading, or perfume with trading.
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SarksusATTACK AND DETHRONE GODRegistered Userregular
edited February 2009
You know I wish I was capable of this level of discourse in my philosophy class but for some reason I can't think when I'm listening to a lecture and nothing interesting pops out.
You know I wish I was capable of this level of discourse in my philosophy class but for some reason I can't think when I'm listening to a lecture and nothing interesting pops out.
The professor in the one philosophy class I tried to take had that same problem.
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HachfaceNot the Minister Farrakhan you're thinking ofDammit, Shepard!Registered Userregular
You know I wish I was capable of this level of discourse in my philosophy class but for some reason I can't think when I'm listening to a lecture and nothing interesting pops out.
I hate it when I'm in a lecture class and have an incisive comment in my head but fail to communicate it properly when I open my mouth.
It's not even like I can't find the words--the thought is perfectly articulated in my head, and if I was writing it, it would come out. I'm just a terrible speaker and lose the words between my brain and my mouth.
My point is, there's nothing inherently better about discovering eternal truths than spending your time trying to help other people. When you die those truths will still exist, yes, but they existed before you discovered them anyway. It didn't matter one bit to anyone besides yourself that you discovered them, so spending time on this is as fruitless, by your logic as I understand it, as helping other people while you are still alive.
So it's ALL meaningless and futile Or it's ALL meaningful...but one can't be meaningful and the other not meaningful.
hmm
If you say that helping other people is meaningless because you will eventually die and you won't have anything to show for it you can say the same thing about discovering eternal truths. To keep your argument consistent both pursuits would have to be meaningless, not one or the other.
That's not true at all. Helping one person could be deemed inconsequential on a long timeline whereas discovering something influential and eternal will have lasting ramifications.
I bet there were some pretty swell medics and nurses a hundred years ago but while their impact on a few lives may have been great the last effect of their work has diminished substantially over time.
You know I wish I was capable of this level of discourse in my philosophy class but for some reason I can't think when I'm listening to a lecture and nothing interesting pops out.
try treating your lecture as a personal discussion between you and the professor.
of course it helps if you talk to the professor outside of class.
Turok is the story of a man with no shirt who kills things constantly. He runs a lot and jumps a lot. Sometimes when he climbs really high he is out of breath. And he can swim! This is the conclusion of my book report on Turok, the end.
Turok is the story of a man with no shirt who kills things constantly. He runs a lot and jumps a lot. Sometimes when he climbs really high he is out of breath. And he can swim! This is the conclusion of my book report on Turok, the end.
A++ WOULD READ AGAIN
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HachfaceNot the Minister Farrakhan you're thinking ofDammit, Shepard!Registered Userregular
That's not true at all. Helping one person could be deemed inconsequential on a long timeline whereas discovering something influential and eternal will have lasting ramifications.
I bet there were some pretty swell medics and nurses a hundred years ago but while their impact on a few lives may have been great the last effect of their work has diminished substantially over time.
two things
1. Einstein falls deathly ill before completing his best work. A physician saves his life. Could it not be said that the physician's work is as enduring as Einstein's, since it made Einstein's work possible?
2. If you're evaluating worth over a long enough timeline--say, until the heath death of the universe--influential discoveries do indeed become inconsequential.
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SarksusATTACK AND DETHRONE GODRegistered Userregular
My point is, there's nothing inherently better about discovering eternal truths than spending your time trying to help other people. When you die those truths will still exist, yes, but they existed before you discovered them anyway. It didn't matter one bit to anyone besides yourself that you discovered them, so spending time on this is as fruitless, by your logic as I understand it, as helping other people while you are still alive.
So it's ALL meaningless and futile Or it's ALL meaningful...but one can't be meaningful and the other not meaningful.
hmm
If you say that helping other people is meaningless because you will eventually die and you won't have anything to show for it you can say the same thing about discovering eternal truths. To keep your argument consistent both pursuits would have to be meaningless, not one or the other.
That's not true at all. Helping one person could be deemed inconsequential on a long timeline whereas discovering something influential and eternal will have lasting ramifications.
I bet there were some pretty swell medics and nurses a hundred years ago but while their impact on a few lives may have been great the last effect of their work has diminished substantially over time.
That's not what we're talking about, though. That kind of information serves a practical purpose and it's preserved beyond the death of who discovered it. We're talking about "eternal truths", what J calls what comes out of philosophical thought. We're saying, "ascend into your ivory tower, isolate yourself from the world, and philosophize". You won't necessarily share this with anyone else, it's for your benefit only, and even if you did it will most likely not serve any practical purpose because that's not the point of doing it in the first place.
That's not true at all. Helping one person could be deemed inconsequential on a long timeline whereas discovering something influential and eternal will have lasting ramifications.
I bet there were some pretty swell medics and nurses a hundred years ago but while their impact on a few lives may have been great the last effect of their work has diminished substantially over time.
That's where I usually go. Understanding an eternal truth is pretty damn awesome because it is eternal.
Except if I die, and everyone to whom I tell the truth dies, then I have to come up with some manner in which my having known it was meaningful.
It can't be meaningful as a result of some component of myself having known it, because I die and then it's gone. So it has to be meaningful unto the truth itself. But if the truth is self-sufficiently meaningful where do I fit into that?
And I think, at the end of a lot of rambling, that I don't fit into it.
So that little rabbit hole folded in on itself.
A lot of this is coming out of discussions I've been having this semester with a bunch of fucking pragmatists. And they're all "woo hoo help society" and I'm all "fuck you guys". And I'm trying to figure out how that conversation eventually ends. But without any firm foundation I think that both sides end up dissolving into nothingness.
You know I wish I was capable of this level of discourse in my philosophy class but for some reason I can't think when I'm listening to a lecture and nothing interesting pops out.
try treating your lecture as a personal discussion between you and the professor.
of course it helps if you talk to the professor outside of class.
The problem I have is that I just can't think. When I read someone's post on the forum here my response almost spontaneously coalesces inside of my mind without any thinking on my part. Then I look it over, clean it up a bit, and I type out a response with tremendous ease. When I'm listening to my professor, however, I can't think and I can't fabricate a response.
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i'ma lay in bed and watch tv
some things are
some things are not
Alternatively:
"there are no eternal truths" itself posits an eternal truth
ISN'T PHILOSOPHY FUN!?
obviously you've never had sex with me
Because at the end of that chain of "whys" you, or somebody else, has to make a positive assertion. Everyone does this. It can be moral or ethical in nature, it can be an article of faith, or it can be epistemological. When you've drilled down that far, the new most interesting question becomes "how."
If it lasts any longer call the number on the bottle.
gravity hasn't always 'existed' though or at least our knowledge of it hasn't
it also changes in certain situation, and even know it is very poorly understood
and thus ends the debate chat?
Steam | Twitter
I'm not an objectivist. I'm humoring his argument and then countering it within the context of his argument.
because he would say something that no one would understand that would take 5 pages to decipher?
So it's ALL meaningless and futile Or it's ALL meaningful...but one can't be meaningful and the other not meaningful.
hmm
It's pretty scary when you think about it.
Poldy knows how to keep it going.
Or "meaning" is a false distinction.
If you say that helping other people is meaningless because you will eventually die and you won't have anything to show for it you can say the same thing about discovering eternal truths. To keep your argument consistent both pursuits would have to be meaningless, not one or the other.
it's probably a fatal blood clot and you are going to die
Probably gonna go with henna. It'll let me manufacture cosmetics without trading, or perfume with trading.
I hate it when I'm in a lecture class and have an incisive comment in my head but fail to communicate it properly when I open my mouth.
It's not even like I can't find the words--the thought is perfectly articulated in my head, and if I was writing it, it would come out. I'm just a terrible speaker and lose the words between my brain and my mouth.
That's not true at all. Helping one person could be deemed inconsequential on a long timeline whereas discovering something influential and eternal will have lasting ramifications.
I bet there were some pretty swell medics and nurses a hundred years ago but while their impact on a few lives may have been great the last effect of their work has diminished substantially over time.
try treating your lecture as a personal discussion between you and the professor.
of course it helps if you talk to the professor outside of class.
A++ WOULD READ AGAIN
two things
1. Einstein falls deathly ill before completing his best work. A physician saves his life. Could it not be said that the physician's work is as enduring as Einstein's, since it made Einstein's work possible?
2. If you're evaluating worth over a long enough timeline--say, until the heath death of the universe--influential discoveries do indeed become inconsequential.
That's not what we're talking about, though. That kind of information serves a practical purpose and it's preserved beyond the death of who discovered it. We're talking about "eternal truths", what J calls what comes out of philosophical thought. We're saying, "ascend into your ivory tower, isolate yourself from the world, and philosophize". You won't necessarily share this with anyone else, it's for your benefit only, and even if you did it will most likely not serve any practical purpose because that's not the point of doing it in the first place.
That's where I usually go. Understanding an eternal truth is pretty damn awesome because it is eternal.
Except if I die, and everyone to whom I tell the truth dies, then I have to come up with some manner in which my having known it was meaningful.
It can't be meaningful as a result of some component of myself having known it, because I die and then it's gone. So it has to be meaningful unto the truth itself. But if the truth is self-sufficiently meaningful where do I fit into that?
And I think, at the end of a lot of rambling, that I don't fit into it.
So that little rabbit hole folded in on itself.
A lot of this is coming out of discussions I've been having this semester with a bunch of fucking pragmatists. And they're all "woo hoo help society" and I'm all "fuck you guys". And I'm trying to figure out how that conversation eventually ends. But without any firm foundation I think that both sides end up dissolving into nothingness.
The problem I have is that I just can't think. When I read someone's post on the forum here my response almost spontaneously coalesces inside of my mind without any thinking on my part. Then I look it over, clean it up a bit, and I type out a response with tremendous ease. When I'm listening to my professor, however, I can't think and I can't fabricate a response.