3.5/10

This place serves 7 purposes:
1) Debate about Trump.
2) Talking about Trump.
3) Shouting whatever you want at Trump.
4) Laughing, crying, hating, liking Trump.
5) Whatever else you want to do so long as it relates Trump.
6) Whateve else you want to do even though it has nothing to do with Trump.
7) etc. — René Descartes

Is this a shrine, then? The number of perfection and everything?

:100:

(sorry, I do agree, just sampling the new wares)

Are you just saying people don't actually love one another without condition? And that consumerism encourages that?

Certainly the idea of a wife as property is way way less prominent in contemporary culture than it was, so i can't see how consumerism somehow made that phenomenon worse. And I don't see how you can make the jump to friends and family being property based on that seemingly innacurate portrayal of wives as property.

everyone including yourself have become property — TimeLine

I wanna jump in more but i won't have time till tomorrow. But how have people become property?

I'm interested in all of that, but I don't have time for it right now. I have enough discipline to get through the Prolegomena. But that's about it :P

Fair enough, noted. The intro to my copy outlines exactly where to go to get the gist of the Critique, so I'll follow that. I just don't have time for the Critique right now, my interests are too broad.

I read in several places that it was a good intro to the Critique of Pure Reason, and since I have a lot of other stuff to read, I figured it would be a good crash course, and then I'll get to the Critique in the future. No?

Would there be a need for philosophy if there weas no fear of death?

The Transmigration of Timothy Archer - Philip K Dick ... :-#
Prologemena To Any Future Metaphysics - Kant
The End Of Our Time - Berdyaev

How will you preserve that meaning in posterity, for yourself, personally, after your own death?

OK, so what is this 'something' outside of time to which it relates, and how do you know that meaning relates to something outside of time, is this a guess, intuition or rationally derived?

All the while it seems we're no closer to the idea of 'purpose' which is much more clearly defined. Purpose is the reason why we do something, the goal (either ultimate or proximate). I'm suggesting that goal is unavoidably the satisfaction of those desires which are self-evidently present. No further 'purpose' seems to be justified. — Pseudonym

And I'm suggesting that your "purpose" is meaningless because it dies once you die.

A purpose that actually is purposeful is a purpose that exists outside of time; outside of one's lifetime.

what does that mean for what we actually think? — Pseudonym

This is familiar territory; I get the feeling I'm never going to understand this. It means that meaning relates to something outside of time. For starters.

One of those desires might well be for an eternity in bliss, but I have no idea what this might be like, nor how to go about ensuring it happens, so it is irrelevant to my meaning and purpose in life. — Pseudonym

Of course; no one knows what an eternity in bliss would be; why would this lack of knowledge mean that the concept is irrelevant to your meaning or purpose in life? Lack of knowledge, apophatic concepts, are key. Regardless of your worldview.

I've (erroneously) attributed religious claims to your argument because it seems to me that only by making religious claims can the persuit of anything outside of our sensory experience become meaningful. Unless we just guess? — Pseudonym

With all due respect, this just seems insane to me. Even something so simple as the distinction between religion and spirituality, with all of it's stigmas, would, at the very least, clarify your confusion here.

But we're not talking about a 'possibility'. — Pseudonym

I was, just then.

The 'possibility' exists that after my life persuing evolutionarily derived happiness I somehow spend an eternity in bliss. That would be lovely. I don't see what that's got to do with meaning or purpose. — Pseudonym

You're confusing the points of my argument. Meaning and purpose only obtain teleologically; otherwise it's just a nihilistic sham.

So now, when we get to religion, we're no longer talking about a 'possibility' requiring 'imagination'. We're talking about an actual human being claiming to know what people 'should' do in order to achieve this bliss. Doesn't sound very imaginative to me, sounds pretty determined. — Pseudonym

I'm not making those claims; sounds like you're assuming I'm "religious", whatever that means to you. Correct me if I'm wrong.

If you live your life assuming there's no afterlife, and then come to find that you do have a "heavenly" afterlife awaiting you, then obviously I would be as happy as you would be, for you. And presumably, I would have the same life. We would be buddies in heaven. I'm hopeful this is the case. That's both a sarcastic and sincere comment at the same time.

What good is happiness if it doesn't end? — Pseudonym

>:O It's a fucking scam.



That's the classic mortal view of eternity; eternity viewed through a mortal lens; "heaven would get boring!" 6-year-olds understand that, and ask that question.

An actual eternity might very well be something else entirely (to begin with, onotologically, a realiy that exists outside of time, where "boring", for instance, would have no meaning). It requires an intuition and an imagination to consider the possibility.

Yes. — Pseudonym

What good is an evolutionarily obtained happiness if it ends at around 70 years old? Who gives a fuck?

unless it's God — Pseudonym

Nvm then.

So evolutionarily obtained happiness is your meaning or purpose? Within your moral life, which will end in your death?

Well exactly. If you don't even have an alternative, what is it that makes you think happiness isn't it? — Pseudonym

I didn't say I don't have an alternative.

*Raises hand* had to do a google search.

Also, for all of the "surprised at" posts...we're at 19 votes so far...I guess that's pretty good, but still a fraction of the forum populous...

I hear this kind of argument so often and yet have always failed to understand it properly. I have little hope that an Internet forum is going to break decades of mystery for me, but on the off-chance - what do you mean by "meaning/purpose"? — Pseudonym

A meaning or a purpose is inherent to any argument, fundamentally. So you can't even make whatever argument you're trying to make here without one. Meaning or purpose is inherent, but not always acknowledged.

something other than happiness — Pseudonym

Now, that's actually interesting. I've thought for awhile now that I and others with similar views don't actually want "happiness". But, what might we want, other than happiness? Is there something else to desire, other than happiness?

Fair. But I've seen plenty of other Hollywood movies with better plots.

I just meant to highlight that the promulgation of hunter-gathers is meaningless if there's no telos that gives promulgation a purpose beyond itself. Sorry if I was uncharitable.

But if you consider uncharitability to be undesirable, then promulgation can't be your main motive.

At least in theory, you're using the techniques that draw one into the divine, but using those techniques for one's own accomplishment in a temporal life which end's with death. Which is essentially demonic. So the use of spiritual practice is essentially nihilistic. And this is the same for yoga nerds as it is for satanists or Thelemasts. Again, in theory.

Sometimes lunch chooses you...especially when you're a bird...

:’(

Well, I would have to disagree with calling Blade Runner 2049 a cash cow. The director, Denis Villeneuve, made it abundantly clear that the movie wasn't made to make money. Besides the original Blade Runner was a box office flop too. Many people were spellbound with the sequel, by which I mean that it was worthy of a follow up on the original. I know I loved it at least. — Posty McPostface

Sure, the original was not a cash cow; but it turned into a cult classic. So, to make a sequel to a cult classic that is not based on any material from the author (vs. the original being based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), is clearly a cash-in on a cult classic; a cash cow. And sure, the director (not the writers, producers, or, most importantly, exec producers) said that it's not about the money; it probably wasn't about the money for him; he was probably thrilled to make the movie. That doesn't mean it wasn't a cash cow.

If you loved the movie, more power to you. Visually, and mood-wise (the soundtrack), I thought it was well done. But the plot was severely lacking. I didn't read it as a great film.

(Y) your enthusiasm for beauty is inspiring.

I'm not sure. Btw, I like how your participation on the forum culminated with this thread; from philosophical enquiry to pure beauty.

lmao

Simple observation. When I see a beautiful bird, my experience of beauty is formed by all my previous, human experiences of beauty; experiences of the beauty of birds, of music, of nature, of the opposite (or same) sex, or symmetry...these experiences of beauty are human; they aren't "birdian"; at the most, we could imagine a bird seeing a member of it's opposite sex (for pro-creation), or it's children, or nature itself as being "beautiful"; but this pales in comparison to the depth and complexity of beauty that we experience as people.

And on top of that, there's a self-evident hierarchy of beauty; the bird sees its's beautiful mate, we see the beautiful bird (and the beautiful wood, or weather, etc), and then, there's the possibility that a higher form of conciousness sees the beauty in us which we cannot see.

maybe other creatures think of us as uglier than we think of ourselves. For example, cockroaches find humans so disgusting they run away and if they are touched by humans they wash themselves. — René Descartes

That seems fanciful; I'm taking a simple experience of the beauty of a bird, and then magnifying it one "level" higher in my analogy; primitive philosophy, maybe, but simple. Your suggestion here just seems to be a joke.

how are you sure that
We see something more beautiful in the bird than the bird's experience of beauty for itself.
— Noble Dust — René Descartes

Because the bird doesn't see itself within the complex aesthetic system within which we see it.

The point I try to make is that the bird isn't aware of the beauty that we see in the bird. We see something that is categorically not apprehensible to the bird. We see something more beautiful in the bird than the bird's experience of beauty for itself. And, for myself, I like to ask whether this same principle applies to us humans. Maybe not. Maybe so.

Maybe; but the nest serves a utilitarian purpose, or at least it serves our conception of what a utilitarian purpose would be for a bird. But even if the bird does derive, somehow, a metaphysical sense of aesthetics from the nest, how do we translate that? Does the bird know of it's own beauty, for instance, in the way that we know of it's beauty? The bird knows nothing of it's National-Geographic-potential beauty.

"Belief" and "beauty" suggest abstraction. There's no reason to suppose animals possess these things (thus abstraction); I guess they'd be able to paint cave paintings or construct obelisks otherwise.

What?

Even further; how would a bird even know about "beauty"?

If that was a solid joke I'd laugh along, but for real; does the bird know it's beautiful?

Btw, what do you agree about? Do you think the bird knows that it's beautiful, or does it not know?

I agree that the images are beautiful, and the music actually contributes more to the emotional mood than the visuals do. It's a great opening sequence, and the following sequence is incredibly done. Overall, though, the movie I thought was a let down; disappointing ending, and just a cash-cow milking of the original, which was a cash-cow milking of the PKD novel of another name.

I agree completely.