We are like gods trapped in dogs. — n0 0ne

Only in comparison to dogs. The only thing that makes us stand apart from all the other animals is pattern recognition and an incredible rate of learning - again, in comparison.

We've been to the moon, brother. We can cognize the end of all life on the this planet, if not all life in the universe as we know it. — n0 0ne

I'd also point out that we have killed billions of each others, constructed weapons to potentially render our own environment uninhabitable for many years, and it wouldn't take long on a Google search to start reading about some of the sick unimaginable things that some people have done to each other on a 1 to 1 basis. Yes, humans have done great things and in comparison to dogs we may seem like gods (until perhaps we come in contact with some being far more intelligent than ourselves), but aren't we also a bunch of narcissistic demons with a flawed sense of reality?

Really, this pattern recognition is how we are able to communicate (orally and through technology - the alphabet) and the fact that our thumbs can pinch things is what sets apart the average Joe from a dog. Not all of us can design rockets that go to the moon, the general population can't even name all of the planets in the solar system let alone the order they are in from the sun. I'm not having a downer on the human race, i think you just have to be a bit realistic in the credit that we give ourselves.

I just try and remember that i am essentially no different to an animal that dies and no different to the billions of people that have died before me and the billions of people that will die in time to come.

How do you know? — WISDOMfromPO-MO

I don't know, and i struggled to come up with a solid answer as to why i said this because i've never actually asked myself the question. I'll provide a link to the website i'm stealing this from.

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So the question is whether or not minds invented logic or if, somehow, logic is part of the fabric of the universe (aside from minds). If there was a logic problem in the forest, would anyone solve it?

I see no reason to believe that logic would exist without human minds. We've never stumbled across logic anywhere. It's only something that humans do. However, I don't think it's really a human creation. Humans breath and their hearts beat, but it would be odd to call breathing and blood-circulation "human creations."

What we generally call logic is a refinement of stuff the human brain naturally does -- stuff it evolved to do. The refinement IS a human creation. People like Aristotle quite consciously took mental tricks we all do, codified them, cleaned them up and abstracted them. It's a little like how a hundred-meter dash has constrained the natural human propensity to run.

What we can say is that the universe has certain traits (e.g. the fact that physical lays seem to be the same everywhere) that make it useful for minds to develop logic. Those traits exist independently of humans. Logic is one of the tools we use to grapple with those traits. Mostly, we evolved the tool rather than invented it. The process of Natural Selection invented it, not us.

It's likely that primitive humans used reasoning, since even animals seem to do that: "Every time he grabs the leash, I get taken for a walk. He's grabbing the leash; therefor we're going for a walk."

You can also ask the same question about numbers. Do they exist, or is that a human creation? Certainly there can be fifty leaves on a tree without a human counting them, but the actual concept of "fifty" is a human creation.

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This outlines my line of thought when i said

Logic just is, just as is water, it goes where it goes and we are able to study it. — MPen89

But reading through the list of answers from this website there are some very good points on the counter argument that logic is a man made thing.

Thanks for the brain ache!

It feels that if I don't live forever then everything I do is just a waste of effort. — intrapersona

What would be the point in doing anything if you lived forever? You'd eventually get around to doing it... at some point... maybe tomorrow... or the day after that.. or next week... or next year...

With a time limit, you kind of have to get on with doing stuff before you can't.

Cracker has been going since the late 18th century. — mcdoodle

Thanks, a brief search also taught me its origin is derived from the cracking of a whip, and also a reference to cracked kennel corn - poor white farmers.

The idea of someone freezing their own time without freezing the time outside themselves doesn't seem to make sense to me. The examples that people have given seem to involve instances where people's perception of time is slowed down, but that is quite different from being completely frozen. — Mr Bee

The question is; if time slows down for one person but no one else, did it really happen at all?
It's the same question that you have probably heard of before but in a different way; if a tree falls in the woods and no one hears, does it make any sound?

What is your thoughts on this movement? Is it a useful tool in working towards happiness / the good life — Brian

I think of minimalism like i do with music. You can strip away all the frilly parts until you're left with something that sounds raw. Maybe just the drums, a piano and some bass for example, it sounds good! But take away the piano and the bass and now you're just listening to a drummer which will get boring quite quickly (unless they are rocking it!). It's about moderation, some people have found their lives so cluttered and messy that they need to bring it back to the bare bones for a while. But now and then it's good to throw in a trumpet and some tambourines. Hell, why not listen to an orchestra once in a while, just not all the time.

I would consider myself a minimalist, especially with technology. But it's all about how grounded you can be with all your 'stuff', and remembering how it would feel if you were to someday loose your entire CD collection.

World peace, where everyone is satisfied by their share of the good, requires a static environment where nothing changes. New desires can not arise, new resources can not be found, new ideas can not be thought -- because anything new might destabilize the perfect balance. Population, production, distribution, and consumption would all have to be rigidly controlled. — Bitter Crank

World peace becomes a further distant reality with the more people that live on the earth. You simply cannot make friends without making enemies. Not everyone gets along with each other, times that by 7 billion and that's why world peace will never be.

Agree with all the posts here.
When you strip away the law, it is all a question of the observer. One person might think that something is right, when a different person might think the same thing is wrong.

Right and wrong also has its own spectrum. Just as there is light and there is dark, there is also all the shades between light and dark.

As to the actual question you are asking; no. I don't think there is truly such a thing as right or wrong. It is particular to humans, and i think that is because humans have a trait that animals do not; guilt.

Emotions are at the core of every human interaction and play a big part in what makes us individuals. — MonfortS26

Except for psychopathics.

Logic is a set of rules that humans have come up that have proven to be successful and are effective in the real world. — MonfortS26

I would argue against that humans 'came up' with logic. Logic just is, just as is water, it goes where it goes and we are able to study it.

The evolutionary purpose of both logic and intuition is to satisfy the emotions. — MonfortS26

Unless you are in a situation where it is life and death, then you would want to use logic and intuition for survival purposes.
For example, there is food in that cave. I can hear a low growl and i have heard the same growl from a lion before. I should not go in that cave to get the food despite the negative emotions not having food gives me.

The first question on this road is, is Being an artifact of language (i.e, in itself meaningless)? That is, as language is a kind of template laid over the world, does the excavation of Being really mean digging just and only in language, with the consequence that "Being" would have only a language-function that once understood can and should be discarded. Or is it more? — tim wood

Well, this would suggest that without language you simply would not Be, which is of course not the case.

Perhaps i'm not picking up what you're putting down.

Some racial name calling has a deep history to it. For instance, the term nigger has been used throughout what we consider history, and has eventually become more and more offensive, especially for a white person to use against a black person. However the term cracker is newer, and doesn't have as much meaning attached to it (i'm pretty sure it's just reflective of an actual cracker; white and flakey).

As for why people are so offended by some words and not others? It is personal meaning. What does that word mean to you.

'You're crazy!' someone might say to me if i was thinking of buying a car i can't afford. However, say the same thing to someone with schizophrenia and it might be quite offensive.

As for why people are offended in general to name calling - jerk, for example - well, why wouldn't you be? Rather than saying something nice, or saying something constructive or offering a different point of view, they have decided to stoop to the level of a child and say something (which lacks criticism or construction) to intentionally hurt your feelings.

What do you think about trying to become the best? — 12paul123

I think you can only be the best at something you can measure, things like speed, time, weight, distance and so on.

You cannot measure, for example; who is the best piano player? Who is the best painter? Who is the best football manager? Who plays the best batman? Who makes the best cup of tea?

These things will be different for so many people. You could argue; the piano player with which the most people think he or she is the best is the best. But does that mean that all the other people who thought other piano players were better were just plain wrong and their opinion is irrelevant?

I think most would agree that trying to be the best - unless you are trying to break a world record, which will undoubtedly become broken again in the future - is paradoxical.

In my own experience, i would consider myself a creative. I imagine things and try to make them an actuality. Whether it is writing, music, or a team of organised people. I try and forge the best reality of how i imagine something.

Knowledge and instinct are complimentary if and when they work together well. — Nils Loc

nice

I'm not entirely sure what your point is here, i got confused when you started talking about painters and then changed the subject to men and women.

Surely the opposite of love is hate? And i would say the opposite of envy is sincerity.

As for your comments about men and women... just... no.

Men are stronger, bigger in general terms. Women can't never be like men and in some women there is a dissatisfaction but in most, - admiration. Men must work hard and always be strong while women don't really have to. But men have more freedom, the more freedom you have, the more you are better at something, you have more obligations than people who are under you and you could for your work have more admiration of people. — JJ86

This makes me think that maybe you are from a country that does not respect women; it is sexist and the fluidity tapers off toward the end of this quote.

to know something, you have to know and understand something personally — Andrew4Handel

I very much agree. There is a huge difference between knowledge and understanding. Sometimes we come to understand things within ourselves that we did not know about before, and sometimes you can know something for a long time before truly understanding it.

I would love to read all the posts on this topic before contributing my own thoughts but there are just too many and they're coming in too fast!

My opinion on beauty is; (among other things already mentioned skimming through the replies) lack of understanding.

For example, growing up I listened to all kinds of music, jazz was my favourite. A younger version of myself found those chords and melodies and time signatures a thing of beauty. I couldn't fathom how playing a handful notes at specific times evoked an emotion in me, be it happy or sad or excited or relaxed. Now that I've spent years practising the piano, taken lessons, studied music in college, I understand how to make those sounds on my own. And although I may take myself by surprise sometimes and play something I think sounds beautiful, for the most part I am acutely aware of what i'm doing, and most of the beauty is in the ear of the listener rather than the person making the noise.

That's exactly why I don't study sunsets, I think I'd rather not know and just look at it instead.

First of all, I'd like to quote Hume:

We're all just ever changing bundles of impressions that our minds are fooled into thinking of as constant, because they're packaged in these fleshy receptacles that basically look the same from one day to the next.

Second of all, your ideas are largely based on the idea that consciousness or simply the mind is a physical thing which subsequently determines the direction of your thought.

I think the Allegory of Theseus' Ship is a great talking point, however not that relevant when comparing it to the human mind. For starters, it totally depends on the subject and their own opinion as to when the ship is still the original ship and when it is a new ship. In my opinion, the soul of the Theseus is lost if you were to replace all the boards at the same time. However replacing a few boards and living with it for a while would indicate a change; the same ship, but evolved (for better or for worse).

Now that I type it out, I suppose it is kind of relevant to the mind.

I'm thinking about the book Zen (ATAOMM) and how the antagonist subsides to electro-therapy to rid himself of an overloaded philosophically troubled mind. In this way, his outlook has been completely changed and he appears to be a totally different person. His way of thinking is different and over time his body regenerates and so in my mind has become someone else.

However, for the most of us that are able to switch off that philosophical voice that riddles our thoughts and go about our day to day without having a nervous breakdown, we are constantly changing - evolving. Even after you have read this very post, your bundle of impressions will be changed even if ever so slightly. And I say, if you look at yourself 10 years ago and believe you are the same person, then I believe you are mistaken. Not only is your skin is different but your bundle of impressions are different. That's not to say that you don't retain certain parts of who you are (Batman has always been my favourite hero, however I used to hate hip hop and now I am an avid listener. Likewise with the physical aspect: I've always had the same little mole on my tummy but my body has grown larger and hairier).

This doesn't really give any more of a direct answer than yours, but these are my thoughts.

"Like children, you are haunted with a fear that when the soul leaves the body, the wind may really blow her away and scatter her; especially if a man should happen to die in stormy weather and not when the sky is calm."

- Plato, Phaedo.


"Time; cannot be kept, stored or saved. But the less you spend, the more you will have."

- Me