• seaofgems
    1
    Existence can be seen as stacked layers that start with art at the bottom as an emotional representation, science in the middle as analytical understanding of nature and finally philosophy at the top as a desire for truth that ties everything together which altogether creates a unique singular entity we experience as a conscious being.

    Before a being can create or understand art they must surpass their base desires of pleasure and pain and think in a way that can represent their own wants as well as create new observations and connections. Thus human is separated from beast when they begin to reflect, plan and illustrate their thoughts and feelings. Once a desire to want to want something is formed is when intellectual life was born. Language and understanding quickly followed.

    Besides the surprisingly quick initial spark of the ancient world of inquiry into ideas it wasn't until around the 16th/17th century that people started recognizing there was a higher universal organizational guideline as well as specific disciplines that can simplify and better their life condition. Finding that the same results can be generated from the same repetitions, a cause has the same effect, and once examined can lead to surprising results and new insights. Thus science is born, a way to systematically describe the environment around us. As new trees of discipline are discovered branches sprout forth with further specialization and understanding of how the world works and how we can better and more efficiently interact with it.

    Finally philosophy, without it we would be stuck in a feedback loop of pleasure and pain. Existing with nature instead of creating a resistance against natural causes thus creating a singular individual cause in the chain of evolution that meaningfully influences thoughts and behavior which leads to the environment being shaped around progress as an individual, group and species. But that just gets to existence, philosophy blossoms as we examine the question of why. We can understand exactly how our environment operates but the toughest question to answer is why it exists and works this way. Why organic life can exist, progress, excel and yet be grounded enough to realize a consistent justice, beauty, truth, understanding, progress, concepts like time and space seem obvious to an organic being, pleasure and pain guide our actions. These concepts are greater than the living organisms stuck inside this system whom can only try to understand why and what purpose or means they are being used for to be able to exist and philosophy is our only method so far in understanding what is greater than ourselves.
  • god must be atheist
    5.1k
    Welcome to the boards, SeaOfGems. Please be aware that we exercise here extreme criticalism. This is typical of philosophers these days. So please don't let it get to you if people make unkind comments to your post here.

    I hope you will get used to the forum's spirit of fighting very soon, and have fun with philosophy here.
  • T Clark
    13.9k
    Existence can be seen as stacked layers that start with art at the bottom as an emotional representation, science in the middle as analytical understanding of nature and finally philosophy at the top as a desire for truth that ties everything together which altogether creates a unique singular entity we experience as a conscious being.seaofgems

    Art, science, and philosophy are human-created ways of knowing the world. There are others, most significantly, religion. Seems to me they are ways of understanding existence, not existence itself.

    I think the rest of your post is a vast over-simplification of what has happened to the world over the past 2,500 years.
  • skyblack
    545
    Welcome to the boards, SeaOfGems. Please be aware that we exercise here extreme criticalism. This is typical of philosophers these days. So please don't let it get to you if people make unkind comments to your post here.

    I hope you will get used to the forum's spirit of fighting very soon, and have fun with philosophy here.
    god must be atheist

    As you perhaps know i don't post too often unless something inspires me to. The above comment is one of them. Critiquing is a wonderful thing. Not every T, D, H can critique properly, and not too long ago getting a 1st class critique was considered invaluable in one's academic pursuits. That is in colleges which have a long history/tradition.

    But surely critiquing isn't the same as criticizing. The former is directed at the subject matter while the latter is directed at a person. Ad hominem's aren't usually a part of good critiquing and for good reasons are considered fallacious. They are considered the last bitter resort of a failed person. And by "fighting spirit" we surely don't mean the cowardice behind keyboard warfare, now do we? These are plain ole trolling. It's sad to hear all this is being considered "typical" these days. Something to emulate. Perhaps these so called philosophers have become nothing but second hand baboons.....IDK.

    Just my cent, feel free to disregard it.
  • god must be atheist
    5.1k
    But surely critiquing isn't the same as criticizing. The former is directed at the subject matter while the latter is directed at a person. Ad hominem's aren't usually a part of good critiquing and for good reasons are considered fallacious.skyblack

    I shalt now endeavour to critique your opinion.

    Thesis: sometime the distinction that you so aptly described, between critiquing and criticizing, disappears, and for a good reason.

    1. Not everyone responds to critiquing.
    2. Some who don't respond well simply ignore the counter arguments to their thesis.
    3. This is very frustrating to the critics, when the counter arguments are carefully thought out and are apparently valid.
    4. The critics will become abusive; they don't utter ad hominems, they simply vent their frustration and call the original offender horrible names.

    00000000000000

    For some reason the majority of the fallacies used in arguments come from the pens of those who defend their thesis. Most of insults come form the critics once they discover that their arguments won't stick, can't stick to the Original Poster.
  • skyblack
    545
    I shalt now endeavour to critique your opinion.

    Thesis: sometime the distinction that you so aptly described, between critiquing and criticizing, disappears, and for a good reason.

    1. Not everyone responds to critiquing.
    2. Some who don't respond well simply ignore the counter arguments to their thesis.
    3. This is very frustrating to the critics, when the counter arguments are carefully thought out and are apparently valid.
    4. The critics will become abusive; they don't utter ad hominems, they simply vent their frustration and call the original offender horrible names.

    00000000000000

    For some reason the majority of the fallacies used in arguments come from the pens of those who defend their thesis. Most of insults come form the critics once they discover that their arguments won't stick, can't stick to the Original Poster.
    god must be atheist

    My previous post was an endeavor to offer a distinction, in light of which facts can reflect. The same facts which are usually concealed by deceptive thinking and words. either innocently as in an absence of deep reflection, or deliberately as in the case of trolls trying to justify their trolling. To that effect the post seems to have served it's purpose so there is no need to continue. Thank you.
  • Fine Doubter
    200
    I quite like the three stacks, oversimplification or no.
  • T Clark
    13.9k


    If you're going to reopen a thread from months or years ago, it would be nice if you'd let people know. Responding to old posts on threads that have run their course and sometimes from people who aren't even active on the forum any longer can be a waste of time.
  • Josh Alfred
    226
    1. Layered Structures of Existence - http://lucidityhaslevels1.blogspot.com/ Also see: Hierarchy of the Sciences. 2. My work on progress and regress as well as some articles on advancing technologies. http://progressasconvergence.blogspot.com/
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