I didn't say anything about observers and I don't see anything in the link that contradicts what I said either.

As I allude to in my post to Artemis, there is uncertainty on different levels, yes. But on the other hand, we can be relatively certain about most things that really matter to us as humans. So the uncertainty need not be paralyzing.

Shrödinger thought it was absurd, hence his cat-example yes. But nonetheless his equation has been empirically verified time and again, it really seems to work like that on the quantum-level. What is still an open question however, is how to interpret all of this. What does it mean for the 'underlying reality' of stuff? As it stands there are many competing theories that all could fit the mathematics of QM, but non of them has been proven or excluded. The only honest answer at this point is that we don't really 'know'.

What I want to say it that the language we use, like the words illusion or real for example, has an element of utility to it. We came up with these words because they could serve a function. Ultimately it doesn't really matter to us whether the table is largely made up out of empty space or not, either way we still can put food on the table or bump against it...

So not only is there epistemic uncertainty, we also don't know if there is an independent objective reality to be know (ontological uncertainty)... but I don't think it really matters all that much usually, unless you are a physicist.

On objective reality and illusion, let's take something simple, like say a table.

Is the table objectively real? Or is it the molecules the material consists of? Or rather the atoms that make up the molecules... or maybe we need to go all the way to the quantum-wave function to find objective reality?

Wait a minute, what is an actual colour?

Colour is the result of light reflecting in a certain way from a surface into our eyes, right?

Why then would the colour of a non-spinning apple be more objectively real then that of a spinning apple?

So what is required, is a deeper understanding of the nature of values and especially a solution for the problem of "evaluating values" - if that is possible at all. — Daniel C

It is possible, Nietzsches work was an attempt at that. You 'just' need criteria, like health or life-affirmation in N's case, which you can use as a standard of evaluation.

Your last question is also very important: why I ask about the "meaning of life" and what do I care. I ask, because, after many centuries of being alive on this planet, people are still struggling with this question on a day to day basis. I believe that a philosophical analysis of the problem may, perhaps, in some way help some people to cope better with their search for finding meaning in life. You can see clearly that I am not of the opinion that philosophy has all the answers for all the people who are struggling with this problem. And this problem can become an immense one on a personal level: just take a look around you and see how many people are suffering from depression and how many suicides are committed. This is the reason why ask about the "meaning of life" and why I care - it is such a serious issue! — Daniel C

Yes, 'some' people indeed.

The problem of the meaning of life is a question of motivation really. Why? Why go through all the trouble to do the things we do? The solution of religion and myth was to make up stories that answered those why's. But that option has been undermined in the west by the search for truth. So what are we to do now?

One way to go, is to try to turn back to faith, but that seems exceedingly difficult in an age of skepsis.

Another is to radically go the other way and question the values you inherited, re-evaluate and adjust your behaviour accordingly as much as you can.

The problem is being stuck somewhere halfway, by still behaving according to the residual structures and value-systems put in place under religion. Because the whole edifice has lost it's justification, the why question doesn't get an answer anymore...

The short answer is, yes, entropy is a fundamental law of the universe, and humans are part of the universe... meaning that unless we put in tons of energy, the default trend is allways towards more disorder. This is only partly a glib answer, as it might inspire you to appreciate a bit more the idealism in expecting an ever increasing progression.

We as humans have made many technological break throughs over the past decades, but having us rely on such technology is simply dulling the human brain essentially making us idiotic people who think nothing of world issues or even issues in our own government. Is this wrong?

Personally I classify this as an epidemic of stupidity. Conscious stupidity. Many people in the past fought for rights and liberties yet nowadays adolescents only care about the world on their smart phone. We don't use the rights given to us to their full extent. We don't care of what is going on around them. The political debates, the wars, the death, things that could change our lives! Now we only care about how many followers we have on social media! Our society is becoming dead. We are becoming livestock for the rich and powerful to prey upon and we are allowing it! Aren't we awake? Aren't we alive? — Lucielle Randall

It might come as a surprise, but this is not new. More or less the same thing happened way back arround the time western philosophy began, and countless times thereafter.. when writing started to replace the oral traditions Socrates was allready lamenting everything that was being lost with that transition. Same thing with the printing press, with the telegraph and e-mails etc...Technology is disruptive, and people and societies need to time to adapt, but it never turned out to be the end of the world.

Anyway, the point is that a bit more perspective probably wouldn't hurt to adjust your expectations. That is not to say there aren't any serious problems, there are, but what we can do about it at any given time is probably more complex and difficult then you might think.

2. I only know pop science so this is that. Electrons, so I'm told, exist in some kind of weird probability space. They don't exist anywhere but are smeared proabilistically with some places more likely, others less, and are effectively nowhere til [something] collapses them. I know no science but if an electron collapses in an improbable place does that radically alter what's probable after? — csalisbury

As I understand it, yes. Once a measurement has collapsed the wave-function, it is exceedingly probable that it will be observed there again.

It seems that the percieved weirdness of QM now is due to a lack of understanding of what the equations actually mean, and that some kind of paradigm shift is needed to truely understand it... a bit like how curved space-time solved the mystery of gravity being instantanious action at a distance in classical newtonian physics.

It's not a problem. Morality is just something different than the social enforcement of morality. — Terrapin Station

I didn't mean to say that It's just one aspect. It's the entire thing, including that, but not only that.

But you can't make any sense out of the mores without adding in meaning, value judgments, etc. — Terrapin Station

I don't see why that is a problem, that's part of it sure. Money also doesn't make sense without humans giving it meaning and valuing it, though there's an aspect to it that's more then that... more than an individual valuation that is.

morality being about interpersonal behaviour doesn't make the disposition itself interpersonal.
— ChatteringMonkey

I don't know if that's what you meant to type, but I couldn't agree more. — Terrapin Station

It is what i meant to type... but you may be interpreting it not as I intended. But i don't think it matters, I agree, dispositions are not interpersonal. Though I'd say that the dispositions are not the same as a morality.

If she wants particular consequences, etc., sure. But that in itself isn't actually morality. Morality is value assessments of interpersonal behavior. — Terrapin Station

Your are using a different definition then, I suppose. As I said, a value assessment of interpersonal behaviour is 'merely' a view on morality, not an an actual morality.

Sure, there's no law or no mores etc. backing up your personal view. That's often the case, isn't it? — Terrapin Station

The mores are the morality.

Subjective shouldn't have a "merely" first off, as if it's simpler or inferior or whatever. — Terrapin Station

Merely in quotes... It is less people, particular only to an individual.

Whether something is a bad idea is also subjective, of course. — Terrapin Station

It's a bad idea, if you hold the value that you don't want whatever the negative consequences are of disregarding morality. The value is subjective, not the 'fact' that to obtain that value you'd better don't disregard some intersubjective morality.

Morality is dispositions about interpersonal behavior. So that means that by definition, it's not just about one's own behavior. — Terrapin Station

Sure, but morality being about interpersonal behaviour doesn't make the disposition itself interpersonal. If it's only an individual disposition, then you are missing something.

And by definition, it's dispositions that people feel strong enough about that they'd take forcible action to prevent,and sometimes to obligate, some behavior (otherwise it would just be etiquette). So of course there's a social aspect to it, but moral stances, moral valuations themselves are individual and subjective. — Terrapin Station

You are missing something. The social aspect is the vital part. For a women in a radical muslim country it doesn't matter if her moral view is that everyone should be able to wear what they want, she will still have to act according to the dominant mores... unless she can find enough likeminded people to change those societal mores. If you're the only one holding a certain view, then you merely have a view on morality, but that does not constitute an actual morality that is enforced socially.

To elaborate a bit more, if you say morality is subjective because the valuing happens in the brain, you need some additional explanation to say that eventhough it is 'merely' subjective there are other mechanisms that make it a bad idea to act only one your individual subjective idea of what is moral. And unlike say preference in taste, there are definitely consequences to acting on you own subjective morals only... so it seems to me the distinction between things that are individual and collective is a usefull one here.

For "intersubjective, not subjective or objective" to amount to anything substantial, you'd need to be locating the valuing part somewhere other than just persons' brains or in the world outside of their brains. (Whatever would be left.) — Terrapin Station

My goal, and I would say the goal of philosophy is not to amount to anything "substantial" whatever that means, but to make sense of the world. I don't see why 'intersubjective', though i prefer collective, doesn't do exactly what I want it to do, and that is to make relevant distinctions that help me make sense of the world.

It's a type of convention, which originate in dialogue and agreement between people roughly speaking. You can find it in the brains of people, but not in one particular person individually, which is why the label 'subjective' doesn't really apply. Like paper money, which doesn't have any inherent value (for people), it has tangible consequences because people agreed on it and believe in it.

Don't quite understand what you mean, sorry. Care to elaborate?

Ethics or morality is neither subjective nor objective, but collective or intersubjective if you will. And as such they are a real feature of groups that has consequences. Eventhough you cannot verify them empirically like facts, you can test what the moral standards are in a certain group by gaging into the attitudes of people... Punching babies in the face on Times Square will get you into trouble.

So yes you can assign truthvalues to statements in ethics, with the caveat that those statements are necessarily limited to a specific social context.

In practice, the thing which most symbolises being unbound, would be going with the flow - which entails dissolution.

But I think we may both agree, Nietzsche does not seek dissolution - rather domination; may we? — Shamshir

I will say I have a hard time envisioning what the quotes from Deleuze would actually entail... maybe I don't quite get the concept of the overman for that reason. But leaving the concept of the overman aside for a moment, I do agree that going with the flow, or dissolution is not what Nietzsche is after. Domination is maybe a bit of a loaded term, but the will to power yes... and then will to power not necessarily as 'worldy power', although it can entail that, but primary as an overarching drive that dominates and structures other instincts.

In a lot of instances Nietzsche talks about 'anarchy in the instinct' as the cause for the turn to reason as a tyrant (to subdue that anarchy), as in the case of Ancient Greece and Socrates... which only makes things worse in some ways. The point being here, that he clearly doesn't believe that no structure at all is the way to go, eventhough said structure might seem to be contrary to the dionysian and the concept of the overman.

Maybe there is some reconciliation to be found in his metaphore of the camel, lion and ultimately the child, in that the possibly and value of the child presicely lies in haven gone through these previous stages... one cannot really play with structures and tables of values and transcendent them, if they haven't been imprinted in some ways before.

As to: Can one change values if bound by a creed? Indeed, one can.
Like you said, one can and I'd even add must impose a creed to change values.
Like how a stairway is the same repeated action and object - but it entails change. — Shamshir

Then I come back the question of what 'unbound by a creed' could possibly mean in practice. Since I believe, with Joshs, that everybody necessarily posits at least their own values (if they don't follow someone elses) and thus 'has a creed', the frase 'unbound by a creed' doesn't seem to mean anything, it's an empty set then.

But it should lead to a total revaluation that ends not with the embrace of an alterantive set of values but with the rejection of the idea that there is a right or superior value system (Napoleon and Caesar can be argued to reject one set of values in favor of their preferred alternative). — Joshs

But I don't think, and I don't think N. did either, that Ceasar or Napoleon believed that there was a right or superior value system... at least in any objective or metaphysical sense.

Everyone operates on the basis of a frame of reference, perspective, point of view. Nietzsche's Overman doesn't do away with perspective-taking and value positing, only suprrasensory values. — Joshs

As you put it quite nicely here, it cannot mean the total rejection of any value positing. So I don't see how Napoleon or Ceasar positing their own would necessarily be contrary to the idea of the overman.

So, you'd be right that in practice the Übermensch is a God-King, rather than an Anarchist.
But it's ironic, because there's no difference - as neither is above the law,even if it's just because they constitute it. — Shamshir

Right, I think it's important to figure out what 'unbound by a creed' means in practice? I don't think that could just mean unbound by any sort of personal 'values or ideas based on those', because that would just be random stupidity. What I take it to mean is that you are able to transcend the specific values and norms you were raise with and transform them in something that is more your own, based on your own character and instincts.

So... on the one hand Nietzsche admired Jesus Christ because he was able to withstand the societal norms he was raised with, and came up with his own, because of his 'transvaluation of values'. But on the other hand he derided him in the anti-christ because of his particular psychological make-up that gave rise to that transvaluation. Nietzsche argues that it was because of his "extreme susceptibility to pain and irritation", because of his "instinctive exclusion of all aversion, all hostility, all
bounds and distances in feeling" that he came to his particular transvaluation of values, the doctrine of the saviour. I'd argue that this psychological archetype is similar to that of the anarchist. Indeed if you take the stories about the life of Jesus Christ at face value, on could argue that he was actually very akin to a sort of anarchist, in that he was constantly in conflict with the rule of Jewish priests and Roman Authority. He was 'unbound by a creed', but that was the result, if you buy into Nietzsche psychological analysis, of a weakness.

I'd agree that Napoleon and Ceasar could be viewed ultimately as 'pilars' of their respective communities, but not before they had fundamentally transformed them by imposing their values on rules on the entire community. Ceasar organised the Roman republic into a de facto monarchy and created a ton of new laws, after decades of civil war and disorder. And Napoleon cleaned up after the fall of the Ancien Regime and the revolution, and came up with for instance a code of civil law that is still the basis of the current continental European legal system. I'd argue they were not merely anchored to their communities as a sort of passive reciever, but rather they transformed them into something else, based on their personal valuesystems. And I think one cannot really transform societal values if one is really 'bound by a creed'.

The difference in those transformation is then I think, for Nietzsche, that the one comes from weakness, idealism and a denial of the world, and the other from strength, mastery and an intimate knowledge of that world.

Maybe you're right, don't have time to respond now, I'll come back to it later...

Well I think both, the anarchist and the Napoleon/Ceasar, are 'above a creed'. The difference is, I think, that anarchism implies some sort of idealism for a world wherein laws and such don't exist or could be abolished... whereas a Ceasar or a Napoleon didn't believe that was a possibility or ideal to be achieved, but rather made use of that reality.

The thing about Christanity, Buddhism and Toasism is that they tend to the universal, trying to transcent particular traditions of peoples, Völker... and in that proces loose what anchors them to their particular context.

In greece, you had the oral Homeric tradition wherein the greek culture was perpetuated. Plato was also such a step in the direction of an universalism with his metaphysical 'contextless' Forms. He riled against poetry for a reason.

The übermensch being a sort of anarchist is a bit of a hard sell I think. Above the law yes, but more as a Napoleon or a Ceasar, than as an anarchist.

Russell was a pacifist, so presumably he would have to let himself get beat up by Nietzsche if he wants to stay true to his philosophy.

Yes it would seem hard to convincingly scathe the Apollonian in a long structured and systematic treatise :-)

Because, if you are after understanding Nietzsche, and you want to understand his influences, it is better to study Schopenhauer first. — ernestm

Sure, reading him will help your understanding too, in particular how Nietsche got his idea about the importance of the will, and how his idea of it differs from Schopenhauers... but still Plato is the start of the whole thing, the rest being footnotes and all that.

I don't know about Platonism being the first manifestation of the Apollonian, it's been a while since i've read BoT, but wasn't the tragic a fusion of the Apollonian and the Dionysian. The problem with platonism was that it was 'only' Apollonian.

Boring or not, if you don't know anything about the thing someone is a critiquing, how can you possibly evaluate that critique?

And I doubt you will understand a lot of what is Nietzsche is saying about the dionysian, if you don't get what it meant in the Greek society, and how Plato was a product of things going the wrong way in Greek culture.

Did you read the rest of my post? I said you need read it to understand what he is critiquing, not because I think, or Nietzsche thinks, it is a particularly good work of philosophy.

Here's another slightly different recommendation, start with Plato, maybe specifically Plato's republic. A lot of Nietzsche is a direct or indirect critique of Plato's idea's, and you'll be missing a lot of his points if you didn't read at least some of Plato.

And maybe I'll also note two important idea's of Nietzsche, the one following the other, sort of...

He believes Plato, and all subsequent philosophers that were inspired by Plato's work, got it backwards with his forms. That is basicly the beginning of Beyond Good and Evil. For Nietzsche the world is not a mere shadow of the Forms which are prior to that world and more real metaphysically... but conversely forms and idea come out this world, out of humans. Or to put in an other way, the highest abstractions are not 'high' because they are prior and more real than lower abstractions, but because they are more abstracted away from the world we observe... and so more empty (of information).

This brings him to the method he is going to use for his inquiry, which is discussed a bit further in the beginning of Beyond and Evil. Since he doesn't believe we have this direct access to something metaphysically real like Plato's Forms, what are philosophers actually talking about when they talk about things like the Truth? For Nietzsche these ideas do not come from some pure unbiased dialectic (as they would probably have it), but spring from the instincts and drives of the particular individual that came up with them. So his goal is not necessarily to engage with the truthvalue of those idea, but to look for what motivated those ideas in the first place, like a psychologist... That is basicly his main method of inquiry.

And I'll throw in a third point, the thing you need to understand is that he's a moral philosopher. Although still quite wide, his domain of inquiry is specifically morality. Where do moral ideas come from, what is the value of morality in general, what about some of the more specific incarnations of morality like Christianity etc etc...

I was just googling types of philosophy and found out that philosophy covers a lot; From ethics to environmental philosophy, there's a ton of material. Heck, you can even philosophize about philosophizing. My question is concerning the domain of philosophy. As the title of this OP says: What can't you philosophize about? Is there something so mundane that there simply no application for philosophy? Perhaps you can't philosophize about eating porridge.

I can already see you responding to my OP by demanding what I mean by philosophizing. I'll preemptively respond to that demand by saying, I don't know exactly what it means to philosophize. I need your help. I leave it to you to first figure out what it means to philosophize, and then you can please answer my first question (see title). I hope this goes well. — Purple Pond

Some will no doubt disagree with this, but I think, going back to the beginning with Socrates, philosophy, or at least good philosophy, is ultimately about how to live well. And to find answers to that question, it uses language in a particular way, by utilizing logic and formulating arguments.

So then to answer the first question, one would have to look for things that don't lend them especially well to be analysed with language and reasoned arguments. And I'd suggest you'll find those there where other forms of communication and expression that rely more on rhythm and sound, like music and poetry, are typically more succesfull.

What I find particularly interesting is the part about wisdom and knowledge, and how Lao Tzu suggests people would be better off without these things. Intuitively I can understand what is meant by this statement, however I've found it difficult to put this to words.

Does knowledge lead to arrogance and a false sense of understanding?
Does knowledge cause us to worry about things which have no bearing on our lives?
Does knowledge seek to replace intuition as a method of understanding?

These are some questions (to which I have no clear answers) that spring to my mind when contemplating this verse. — Tzeentch

One of Nietzsches quotes along these line is : "There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy"

Or another one : "I beseech you, my brothers, remain faithful to the earth, and do not believe those who speak to you of otherworldly hopes! Poison-mixers are they, whether they know it or not. Despisers of life are they, decaying and poisoned themselves, of whom the earth is weary: so let them go."

My interpretation is that we have a need for knowledge/ wisdom... and so we go looking for it. Seems reasonable enough, however having a need for it doesn't necessarily make it a good idea. Maybe it isn't really attainable because the universe doesn't let itself be know that easily, or because human beings themselves are not really equipped to find it. If this were the case, looking for it could be futile and the 'answers' we come up with, mistakes... and then the search for knowledge or wisdom would lead us astray.

Another way to look at this, is looking at how language, logic... and knowledge operate. Knowledge is the process of finding generality among particulars and abstract away from those particulars to universals. Information/data of the world originally contained in those particulars gets lost in this process of abstraction. This abstracting away is what enables us to know things, which is very helpful so we don't have to start over from scratch every time. However, you can keep abstracting away in progressively higher abstractions until no information of the world is left, until it becomes vapid. This is, I think, what Nietzsche and Lao Tse are criticizing.

Sages of all ages have professed to "know" things that they really have no right to. Nietzches method here was to assume that these proclaimed systems of wisdom were merely "an autobiographical account of what that particular person in his particular situation needed' and to look for the moral and psychological reasons that person came to those particular conclusions. Anyway, the point is that if so called wisdom is merely something particular to a person in a certain age, with a certain psychological make-up, from a certain societal background etc... then this is not to be transposed or universally used by other people.

Another possibility it seems to me is that, even if they wanted to make the world a better place, they wouldn't know how. Figuring out how to maximize profit for your business typically is an easier question to solve, than how to make the world a better place longterm. Or at least it's hard to show with facts and figures that a certain course of action will result in the world being a better place… and so it's probably hard to justify.

Also, there are collective action problems. One business deciding to forgo short term profit for a long term better world might get out-competed by businesses that only have their short to medium-term profit in mind. Some things only really work when everybody, or most at least, get on board.

So then we established that the question is whether everyone should be allowed to vote on the people who will make the decisions.

As it stands, not everybody is allowed to vote, you have to have a certain age.

Other than that general age restriction, the difficulty to me seems to be how we will determine who should be allowed to vote. Since the vote is not directly related to the decisions that have to be made, but only to the people who we will grant the power to make decisions, the ability to assess peoples skills, abilities and character would be one of the primary abilities one would need to 'deserve' the right to vote. So then the conclusion would be something like restricting voting to HR managers and psychologists?

Okay, anything else?

Claws and tails… and what about culture, tradition, upbringing? Do they also form emotional responses? And if so, does this still count as authentic, uninhabited?

Yes they define our value and motivation, but could there be anything that defines them? Or are they some force we are born with and nothing can influence it, other than maybe too much rational thought?

And to give some more explanation to my question, I want to examine the assumption that feelings are 'authentic' without rational thought. Are there other factors shaping 'the heart', feelings and intuitions? What counts as authentic? If animals are the measure, are there other things that seperate us from them other then rational thought?

Yes sorry that's what i mean. I was paraphrasing your sentence, and messed up somehow :-)