• What is Being?
    we ask vague questions about things we kinda already understand because some of what we understand or could understand is hidden, and that's part of what we investigate too.Srap Tasmaner

    That is Husserl. Good summation here:

    Intentional content can be thought of along the lines of a description or set of information that the subject takes to characterize or be applicable to the intentional objects of her thought. Thus, in thinking that there is a red apple in the kitchen the subject entertains a certain presentation of her kitchen and of the apple that she takes to be in it and it is in virtue of this that she succeeds in directing her thought towards these things rather than something else or nothing at all. It is important to note, however, that for Husserl intentional content is not essentially linguistic. While intentional content always involves presenting an object in one way rather than another, Husserl maintained that the most basic kinds of intentionality, including perceptual intentionality, are not essentially linguistic. Indeed, for Husserl, meaningful use of language is itself to be analyzed in terms of more fundamental underlying intentional states (this can be seen, for example, throughout LI, I). For this reason characterizations of intentional content in terms of “descriptive content” have their limits in the context of Husserl’s thought.

    https://iep.utm.edu/huss-int/#H1
  • What is Nirvana
    I assume you're buddhist too and don't like it when people say things that are true? Seems strange though.

    You can wiki it if you want. Buddhism is theistic but it is not theistic in the same way that most judeo christian practices are (for the majority of buddhist practices).

    Wayfarer is just sticking to one narrow definition of theism and seemingly refusing to accept that there are broader meanings beyond belief in 'a creator' or 'deity'.
  • What is Being?
    When it comes to ideas you wouldn't be thinking about "slapping sense into them" if you respected them.Janus

    I just said I don't 'respect' them though.
  • What is Being?
    I get that you don't respect HeideggerJanus

    Respect? If I had to use that word I would say actively don't respect ANY philosopher!

    Ideas are not for respecting though. They are for slapping sense into if possible.
  • What gives life value?
    Memories are plastic so I wouldn't worry about 'losing' them if they cannot be retained.
  • Is life amongst humanity equal?
    Do you see the relation to the Private Language argument?Banno

    Wittgenstein defined a language as that which cannot be Private. It is really an argument more of a definition of 'language' put in place and made clear in meaning as NOT being private.

    If we can think without words and language can come into being without words existing in the first place then language need not be worded/signed but worded/signed language is revealing something about language as a whole.

    And linguists are quite happy to view language as apparent in species other than humans. We are certainly able to express in more broad terms it seems and the instances of deaf people with NO language (as we general frame language) show that knowledge of language in the sense of words/signs is not at all important for living in a human society that uses language daily.

    IN split brain patients the hemispheres communicate in the world not through words/symbols. They act out and interact according to cognitive aims. They actually fight against each other and collaborate and interfere with each other constantly.
  • Is life amongst humanity equal?
    You are 'others' too. There is you now and you tomorrow. They are not identical and you, as we all do, have to negotiate with ourselves as a future/past projection.

    I have been thinking lately that what we want for ourselves is often projected onto others and that this is due the above. We wish our ideas acted out by others so we can observe the difference from our projection to the reality of what will happen. I think this is why we're always trying to control the world to some degree or another.

    When it comes to ethics I think too many just assume there is an easy way to bridge meaning with action so they tend to side with reason over emotion, yet when the item of 'meaning' is regarded as some purity they find nothing and in breaking from that ghost nihilism takes hold. In this light ethics is more or less an amalgam of societal inputs and this gives some the impression of emptiness as they've removed from reason any space upon which guidance was written. They don't see the guiding principles as mere reflections/shadows of other forms and so feel disillusioned and hollow.

    No action taken is genuine to oneself as oneself is not one self. The horde of who you are does come into view more or less at certain points. From there action has more force, from points where the individual is thin on the ground error rules.
  • What is Being?
    Clarity is not always the aim; sometimes we can expand our more or less fuzzy 'feels' or intuitions, which themselves can constitute kinds of understanding; understandings which may be expressed more aptly in metaphor than in proposition.Janus

    But when the entire work of Heidegger hinges on the term then it is a problem. That was my point and has remained my point about Being and Time.

    No one can really point out where Heidegger articulates what he means with any real precision. the fact that he goes to such ends to explain some more obvious points tells me he merely covered up his ignorance with the pretense of some deeper understanding. He is a hack, but not a useless hack ;)
  • What is Being?
    It's this very move that is contended: treating existence as a state. As if there were things that do not exist, waiting to change their condition into one of existence. That is, treating existence as a first order predicate.Banno

    This is where I find Kant to be very useful in how he frames Noumenon. When we speak of Noumenon we are necessarily talking about phenomenon, yet the idea of Noumenon - which is not anything - is 'existing' only as a negation NOT as an item of experience or potential experience. Phenomenon, and any other term, creates a mental space into which humans tend to shoehorn some antithesis.
  • What is Being?
    Yet who’s noticing that— and how? What is it that recognizes thought as thought?Xtrix

    I assume your answer is 'being'. This is just a trick of language (that is Heidegger's concern not Husserl's).

    Even so, if this is your view then what exactly do you mean by 'being'? Many people state 'being' as if they know what it is because it is a common colloquial term of reference. In hermeneutical sense there is an investigation, but in terms of consciousness it is an overlay.

    When, in whatever language used, the term 'being' is uttered they is an automatic assumption that meaning is possessed in the term, and that the term is directed towards something (Intentionality). The 'being' is not Intentional, the 'being' is an example of Intentionality.

    I'm with Banno in regards to words. If Heidegger cannot make clear what 'dasein' means then the reader should have serious concerns about everything that follows.

    Note: I'm fairly charitable when it comes to using terms loosely and for multiple purposes, but when such a term is used so often and ubiquitously the author should take better care. It is also clear that Heidegger wasn't exactly shy of stating he obvious with verbosity yet he shied away from doing the same for 'dasein'. Alarm bells should ring there for anyone looking critically at his work.
  • What is Being?
    But the question of being is the first in rank — as the broadest, deepest, and most originary. Here I agree with Heidegger. That’s not to say it is the only question, or that it’s the first one we ask in philosophy or in life.Xtrix

    I am assuming you are thinking with 'language' here? Can you think without 'language'? As in this worded stuff I'm using here? If your answer is no you probably won't be able to understand that the answer isn't no for everyone.
  • IQ and Behavior
    How does having a higher IQ alter or modify one's behavior?Shawn

    It depends. For most people probably not at all as most people don't vary that much in terms of IQ and a bigger influence on how it would modify someone's behavior would likely be due to their knowledge of having an IQ at whatever mark. If you value IQ and found out what your IQ was it would mean more to how you act in the future than to someone who simply didn't give a toss about what others said or didn't say their IQ was.

    Attention to anything modifies your behavior towards it to some degree. Modifying our behavior is necessary. Why you ask in relation to IQ specifically rather than something else is for you to reveal to us if you wish to.
  • What is Being?
    If he does something for you he does something for you. I'm certainly not the only one who doesn't find any value in his writing beyond a few instances of expressing Intentionality in a more manageable way than Husserl. Other than that he's a damn good punching bag ;)

    The problem I see is that he deep dives into language whilst losing sight of the phenomenological act - hence Hermeneutical Phenomenology.

    I still recommend Heidegger to people who seem to be more attuned to his lingo.
  • What is Being?
    Then dasein is defined by dasein. That is okay because he already made ‘clear’ :D how what he says isn’t ‘circular’ though right.

    So Division Two should read ‘Da-sein and Da-sein’ rather than ‘Da-sein and Temporality’?

    Other garbled language like this:

    Being "here" (da-sein) is being the present moment, but only if we don't define the present exclusively as a present-at-hand now-point (that is, thought abstractly) -- but instead as the experience from which all time tenses arise.Xtrix

    Why not just say Time isn’t something we can readily atomise? The ‘Now’ is merely a way of framing time appreciation just like a second is a measure of physical time a ‘moment’ is merely a human reference to unregulated and vague demarcation of felt time.
  • Stupidity
    Anyway, what about better education? Wouldn't that be the best way to stop people from being stupid?DingoJones

    It appears you haven't bothered to read the OP either. The premise is you CANNOT change how many people are Stupid.
  • Stupidity
    I was actually trying to sneak in that what he is really talking about (underneath) is more or less about plain bad luck framed as Stupidity.

    Either way I find the overarching idea to be a nice leveller as usually the pompous fools of the world act like they are ‘superior’ due to positioning (IQ/status/religion) and this kind of view would hit them the hardest of all as they’d have to question their own ‘Stupidity’/‘Intelligence’.

    There is no test to take. You just have to look at what you’ve done and the effects they’ve had on you and those around you. I think that is a healthy thought to have overall (whether or not you like what you see!) :)
  • Stupidity
    It is not what I laid out. It is a satirical piece yet I found it interesting.

    As a hypothetical problem it is still a problem. Cornering it as an extreme idea by viewing it in its extremities only is certainly one way of ignoring the problem.
  • Stupidity


    I am talking about this at the highest degrees of status/power/influence rather than across the entire social strata simply because those that are stupid and in possession of greater status/power/influence can cause untold damage to themselves and many others whilst remaining oblivious to the fact.I like sushi

    I don’t see any mention of concentration camps so fuck off.
  • What is Being?
    You’ve tried to define dasein before and failed. Not surprising as Heidegger failed too. That is my point.
  • Stupidity
    Yeah, that's what we need. Some concentration camps.T Clark

    If that’s what you get from what I wrote go away and bother someone else please.
  • Stupidity
    Yeah, in a strange way as they 'better' the 'worseness' :D
  • Stupidity
    Oops!

    AMended: those that MAKE their own situation worse and others better were … I forget … I think they were called Helpless.
  • Was the Buddha sourgraping?
    The Buddha simply pointed out that attachment to things which are impermanent will lead to suffering once they are gone. If one may simply enjoy the moment as it comes, without attachment, there will be a willingness to let things go, once they are gone.Present awareness

    And okay with suffering. Life without suffering is a contradiction.

    I mean, the horror of the realization that nobody will ever love or value me nearly as much as they do themselves. That in the end, myself, my life, and my hopes don't mean a shit to anybody else...that to them, I am just an object to be used in the achievement of their ends, and am otherwise utterly expendable.Michael Zwingli

    Hold onto that thought. Nihilism could well be a necessary 'passage of rites' kinda thing. Sadly buddhists often tend to wallow in it like they've discovered something special when they've really just notice the door and forgot to walk through it ... which is also necessary if your doctrine at its heart is about doing away with 'suffering'. Ironic me thinks.
  • Stupidity
    It usually helps if you address the definitions used in the OP and recognise analogies when used ;)
  • Stupidity
    I think everyone is stupid - that's an underestimate?unenlightened

    If everyone was Stupid we'd all be dead. So yeah. Huge underestimate I'd say. If everything everyone was doing was a detriment to themselves and everyone else then I wouldn't be able to communicate via the internet with you as they'd be no power and I'd be scrounging around ruins for food starving, so that I could use it as bait to kill people rather than eat in
  • Stupidity
    A hungry man-eating tiger is not stupid.unenlightened

    Funny joke.

    Who knows?unenlightened

    Precisely the problem. So if, as proposed, such Stupidity is prevalent in human society we're all screwed. Can our intelligence (not merely Intelligence) figure it out if it is the case. I cannot but I'm not much more than average. Which leads to another idea in the article ...

    We all underestimate the number of Stupid people there are in the world and the most Stupid people tend to think they are Intelligent.
  • Stupidity
    Take care of stupid therefore, and educate stupid, and understand stupid and be compassionate towards stupid. That is intelligence in action.unenlightened

    Given the specific definition to entangle with Stupid is to become Stupid. Compassion towards a hungry man-eating tiger won't stop it from eating you. Compassion towards someone who is Stupid (in the context of the OP) would just result in greater harm to yourself.

    Think of it like this. If someone is walking around with high explosives attached to them - which they believe are expensive jewelry - that have various flashing lights and switches that could sent the explosives off if toyed with. What would happen if you got close enough to tell them they should remove said explosives? Do you put yourself in danger or not? Can they be reasoned with if they have either no concern or comprehension of what situation they are currently in.

    We cannot 'teach' people not to be Stupid in this sense. If we can then how? Given the definition of Stupid is to act in a manner that is harmful/detrimental to both themselves and others. Can Stupid be changed? What makes someone Stupid to the point that they un/wittingly cause detriments to everyone in their vicinity including themselves?

    Is this just an impossible problem to deal with? Maybe it is. I just found the concept interesting.
  • Stupidity
    Actions are intelligent or stupid rather than actors.unenlightened

    That is kind of the point. Following from this people are more or less inclined towards Stupidity than others (make more Stupid actions).

    People who behave in a Stupid way are unpredictable and therefore dangerous. We need to avoid them or they'll drag us down. How do we do this? How do we guard against them falling into positions of influence/power/status?
  • Stupidity
    The definition given bases Stupidity on the overall outcomes. I don't think there is any suggestion that some people are Stupid only and other Intelligent only. The point is that there are clearly people who will act against their own best interests and against the interests of others (intentionally or not) and that these individuals are dangerous because it is impossible to predict what they are trying to achieve if the outcome literally benefits no one.

    Varying degrees doesn't dismiss the underlying point being made by this idea of Stupidity. A Stupid use of Intelligence is contradictory too so as defined (see OP) you cannot simultaneously be Stupid and Intelligent in the same moment. You can certainly appear as Stupid one day and Intelligent the next (at different points), but again, that is missing out the point made in how Intelligence and Stupidity are distinguished.

    Note: Stupid and Intelligent, not merely stupid and intelligent. I capitalised to make a distinction so Intelligent and Stupid are mutually exclusive in the context given.
  • Stupidity
    I do sometimes think that the biggest dangers are what makes humanity reveal itself more fully. In this case Stupidity would have its bonuses in helping the Intelligent take notice and action.
  • Stupidity
    I think some instances of Banditry in your quotes there. They serve you and your ego but pile on the hate towards some others?

    I’m happy to be Bandit if this is viewed as an ego boosting comment, but it is made with the intent of ‘helping’ you as you appear more Intelligent than a Bandit by my estimation. Maybe I’m less of a Bandit and more of a Helpless type?

    If either of us are Stupid then our current circumstances should tell us (unless we’re simply lucky/oblivious)? Tough thing navigating this mess of human aptitude eh? :D
  • What is Being?
    People think they walk with their legs and carry things with their arms. Yet we carry ourselves with our legs and the world holds us.

    He really doesn't.Banno

    Because he is a hack. Anyone who using a contradiction to explain their way out of a corner then leaves other instances of contradictions unattended is playing at the worst kind of sophistry. ‘Dasein’ doesn’t mean anything and no matter how many times he repeatedly reframes the ‘meaning’ of the term ‘Dasien,’ in this or that context, it didn’t fool me for a second that such explicit contradictions didn’t make an ounce of sense.

    I also find it tiresome when I’m told he makes more sense when you’ve read his earlier work. If so why can’t anyone explain what he meant? And given that he wrote pages of waffle explaining the most basic points why didn’t take any care whatsoever to explicate the use of the term ‘dasein’ … because there isn’t one is the answer. He simply hid everything behind this obscure term and elsewhere openly uses contradictory terms and frames them as ‘not contrary’ as if that is a good enough explanation. He requires the reader to literally reconstruct their language (I’m not against that) yet offers no guiding principles and simply moves on quickly by re-presenting ‘dasein’ over and over as if it will hypnotise the reader into believing it (which happened to work on some sadly).
  • What is wise?
    I’m wise. It basically means you’ve made tonnes of mistakes and keep on making mistakes and recognising them rather than getting hung up over them and falling into a pit of despair.

    Some people are "wise" (in any of the above terms) much earlier than others. When I was 40 I had a boss who was 30 years old, and she was far wiser than I. However, even "wise ones" can make colossal errors and blunders which are decidedly not wise.Bitter Crank

    I think if there is a rough age where ‘wisdom’ starts to blossom it is probably at around the 30 yr old mark. Anyone stating they are wise in their 20’s is likely not at all wise, yet if others beyond that age state they are wise and they refuse the label there is a good chance they are wise beyond their years at least.

    Like I outlined above, wisdom to me is all about experience and learning from experience. The idea of wisdom in youth would be simply to listen to what those older than you have to say and understand they have made many more mistake in life than you have so you’re better off listening to them seriously rather than acting like they are idiots who made poor choices in life.
  • Infinitudes and God.
    Time is a measurement of movement.john27

    It is a measurement of Entropy.
  • What gives life value?
    I think the fact that life is finite gives it value. If it wasn’t we wouldn’t even notice it as ‘life’ we’d just keep being us and then perhaps section up the span of existing in some other way that gave it relative value.

    Given that some organisms live for hundreds of years where others barely a single day, it would not be felt as ‘merely a day’ or ‘a long century’ because generally speaking time is felt subjectively apart from the physical measurement of time. We know this when we are young and developing, the days drag when we wait for a special event or fly by in ‘holiday’ time.

    I don’t understand about arguing for ‘the value, or lack of value, of life’. Without life there is no ‘value’ and what you may or may not call a ‘mistake’ in such abstracted universal terms is utterly meaningless.

    Life as a human item has many fluctuated somewhat over human history. In terms of sacrificing human lives it could be argued that life was so valued that offering up a human life meant it was given more value than in times where life isn’t so readily sacrificed.

    As for arguments that value is relative that doesn’t much help matters as we then need to address relative to what and how relative it is to said item/s. In the current era we live in this is further complicated by our cultural need to measure and log things. The power and understanding measuring items has given us (in terms of knowledge and insight) is so ubiquitously useful that we do perhaps over apply it (heuristic blindness). Meaning when measuring as a cultural and scientific practice has led to so many benefits it can become increasingly hard to recognise/register when/if such a heuristic is in fact utterly useless and misplaced.

    For example, I can value certain things like a painting or a sunset, yet to measure such a value against other things lacks any universal constant and moreover lacks any real way of determination. I have noted to friends that I would rather lose my right hand than my sense of taste and I truly believe this … yet if by some extraordinary circumstances this hypothetical became a reality would I actually opt for losing my hand or am I just kidding myself? The value is therefore based on subjective appreciation of reality and no matter how much someone may tell me that x is worth more than y I am not simply going to agree when my personal position says otherwise.
  • Play: What is it? How to do it?
    care to expand on that with your own take away on what you’ve read?
  • Buddhism is just realism.
    Pretty much every religion would say the same, so no, I don't agree.
  • COP26 in Glasgow
    Cheap energy. Prior to covid a million a year died in India due to starvation/malnutrition. A huge swathe of the population has fallen into poverty now due to lockdowns. Cheaper energy will help them get back on track.