The compromise is a focussed real-time (mostly) one-to-one conversation. Preferably sat in some comfortable faux-leather high back armchairs. — tinman917

Sounds like psychology to my ears. Philosophy has always been a dialectic between multiple parties and not a bilaterial exchange of ideas. However, I do agree with the sentiment that talks with two participants in close proximity might be more effective at addressing concerns, and not perceptions of issues, which you might see about here, where it seems like disagreement is somehow encouraged.

I believe the feminine to be the greatest power that exists. — Merkwurdichliebe

Hehe, same here.

There was an episode in Star-Trek The Original Series, where Kirk was divided into two beings, one with effeminate characteristics and the other domineering and masculine. The domineering Kirk then became obsessed with proving to everyone that he was the "real" Captain Kirk and not the imposter. He also took advantage of a woman, given his status. It was a real trip watching that episode.

Here's a video from the episode, where William Shatner takes overacting to new heights. It's pure comedy:

What's more frustrating is how it seems to go more quickly the older you get. — Terrapin Station

Well, this is true to the degree that routines are established and tasks (such as working) become repetitive. Also, memory encoding, which degrades with age contributes to the sense of time flowing faster.

I read your bio in the link to your website in your profile. You seem conflicted about academia, where your thoughts are best addressed in terms of guided debate by professionals or more well-qualified individuals, such as a moderator in a debate, and the freedom that people have around here to go off on tangents, and perhaps return to the discussion.

Care to elaborate on this seeming dissatisfaction with both, and how some compromise between the two you envision?

or are you merely not paying attention to the time? — Purple Pond

Pretty much. I wish I studied more medicine and neuroscience/cognitive science; but, my semi-educated take on the matter is that there is a perceptual shift from self-monitoring towards some external salience/reward/hedonic impulse, which typically produces a "flow" state within the mind. A little deeper, the Default-Mode-Network disengages and attention is focused on the executive function of the brain, the Dorsolateral-Prefrontal Cortex.

As an example (in this example, I'm focusing more on ADHD, and the resulting depression and anxiety, which are comorbid in the disorder), people with depression and ADHD, have a dysfunction in their ability to self-monitor and task switching from self-monitoring to rewards/salience. This dysfunction can be "corrected" by artificial means, such as stimulant use or abuse, or through elaborate reinforcing practices. Such as eliminating distracting ques or going to the same room to study, or just more simply developing a habit and conditioning oneself to study some material.

Hey, you stole my gimmick. "I'm the doctor"™, is my catchphrase. — S

Yes. I agree. It's troubling that we don't always agree to disagree.

I like your favorite quote.

Withdrawal in disgust is not the same thing as apathy.

Hmm, well, then you be the chimp and I'll be the pig.

pig-chimps — S

Yes, pig-chimp content.

Anyway, as you should know, the motivation behind a point is irrelevant. It would be an ad hominem. — S

Topic worthy issue. Go ahead and post something about that if you don't mind elaborating.

And I'm sure that you saying this has nothing to do with any personal issue you have with me. — S

More a concern than anything else. Not any grudge or anything like that.

And everyone else who has made similar points are all also rationalising their own drug habits, too? Lol. — S

Nope. You seemed less negative, hostile, and angsty back in the old PF if I remember you correctly. More motivated to learn than the above. What happened since then?

How's the weather where you are? — S

It's a sunny day here in Westlake Village, California, as usual. How about you? And, I'm glad your cat is fine.

Now we're at your level, in your pigpen. — tim wood

Abort, abort, disengage!

I'm not sure what any of this has to do with On Certainty. I'm sorry but I don't see the connection between any of this and my points in my paper. — Sam26

Sorry, I was just bringing up some questions that I've accumulated in regards to Wittgenstein's Investigations, that are lingering in my mind.

Thanks for your input.

That's the path that Tim, and now you, have taken us. — S

Haha, I'm not that stupid. You don't care about the destination of this thread, just endless rationalizations of your own drug habit, with tim serving as your punching bag.

I'm entitled to plainly point out a poorly formed question, when I think that a poorly formed question has been asked, which is where this began. And if he's going to flame in response, then that makes him fair game. It's as simple as that. — S

Yeah; but, you take joy and glee in the whole process, whatever that process entails for you. Anyway, hope you stocked up on your drugs to help you in whatever way they do if they do at all...

What Wittgenstein is talking about in 327 has nothing to do with what I'm talking about. — Sam26

Here is the context:

323. “What is internal is hidden from us.” — The future is hidden from us. — But does the astronomer think like this when he calculates an eclipse of the sun?

324. If I see someone writhing in pain with evident cause, I do not think: all the same, his feelings are hidden from me.

325. We also say of a person that he is transparent to us. It is, however, important as regards our considerations that one human being can be a complete enigma to another. One learns this when one comes into a strange country with entirely strange traditions; and, what is more, even though one has mastered the country’s language. One does not understand the people. (And not because of not knowing what they are saying to themselves.) We can’t find our feet with them.

326. “I can’t know what is going on in him” is, above all, a picture. It is the convincing expression of a conviction. It does not give the reasons for the conviction. They are not obvious.

327. If a lion could talk, we wouldn’t be able to understand it.

So, Wittgenstein even uses the expression "internal", "in", "enigma"(?, intentions?). Which, then finally culminates in the statement of 327. Perhaps he is trying to imply that the grammar the lion would use, would be fundamentally different than our own, or that its frame of reference is not the same as that of English speakers. Which, can only lead to the conclusion that internally the lion is quite different than us. Yes?

Feminine thought is powerful in thwarting ideology. — Merkwurdichliebe

Good point there, Merkwurdichliebe. Food for thought, I suppose.

So, juxtapose what you have just said with:

327. If a lion could talk, we wouldn’t be able to understand it.

I must insist that this is at the very least some derivative of intuitionalist thought. Don't you think?

Then what is it?

If you mean by prelinguistic as intuitionalist, then I agree.

Tim, you do realize that his behavior is no different than that of a troll at this point?

Chimp-pig content generator...

Philosophy shouldn't be in the business of "solving ethical problems" anyway, as there are no normative facts about ethical stances.

What's "best" for anything is subjective. — Terrapin Station

Yeah, descriptively there's really no solution to how we ought to go about these problems, as Wittgenstein would point out. But, prescriptively we are inclined to agree with all this talk about rationality instilled through various philosophers since the ancient period to the present day.

Well, what could we possibly be doing when we're discussing that stuff that feminism, or gardening, or wearing bolo ties, etc., would have anything to do with it? What would be an example of that? — Terrapin Station

I'm not trying to imply that women have some moral "authority" over or pertaining to matters concerning ethics and moral conduct. I guess, all I'm saying that we've tried the (stereotypical) male approach to solving ethical problems via rationality, enlightenment, and all that jazz from the renaissance period. Let's give women a shot at deciding what's best for the individual and collectively, society at large.

What's more important though is that this really shouldn't have anything to do with philosophy. It doesn't at all matter if one is a feminist or not when one is discussing whether universals are real, when one is addressing Gettier problems, or even when one is looking at how moral statements work formally. — Terrapin Station

Ideally, yes. In practice? Not so much...

Happy mother's day! :100: :party: :flower:

In other words, I don't see "feminist" as having any bearing on doing philosophy, at least if you're doing philosophy right (in my view). — Terrapin Station

Yeah, I don't feel as though women get enough credit in society and specifically within the field of philosophy. There's a repugnant feeling of male superiority or downright chauvinism that has dominated philosophy since Aristotle and the likes. Despite getting pummeled with criticism for me saying that women are the fairer sex or more inclined to behave ethically, I see no way around this "fact". Now, before you say that estrogen or gender roles instill this sentiment in practice, I would like to say that men have a lot to learn from women; but, aren't inherently less ethical than women. Not in principle at least, as not to perpetuate stereotypical thinking.

It's just like whether you're a gardener or not should be irrelevant to philosophy, and whether you wear a bolo tie or not is irrelevant to it. — Terrapin Station

Not quite. We can't dismiss the fact that women are less representative of the proportion of people who have committed crimes against humanity, prison populations, along with racism, bigotry, and hate.

More chimp-pig content, please.

I just came across this article which argues that Wittgenstein was not a quietist, so perhaps I was a little hasty to label him as one. I consider the distinction made in the article for why he is not a quietist to be somewhat subtle, although I do agree with it. The article also contains pertinent remarks on the current passages under discussion and on my recent discussion with Metaphysician Undercover. It is a little lengthy, but worth the read. — Luke

Thanks, I'll have a read. I've come recently to the conclusion that the later Wittgenstein was more of a neo-pragmatist in his adherence to forms of life, language games, and communal use of language to express thoughts and feelings. Would you perhaps, agree with this assessment?

I'm going to designate this thread as a place where we can talk about Fear and Trembling or alternatively about K's Concept of Anxiety.

I hope more members can join us.

Oh, yes. That is the chimp-pig manifest. It also goes about the name of agent orange/orangutan/Cheeto...

And by the way, his ideas are not the same as traditional foundationalism. — Sam26

What may I ask are they? I haven't yet figured out this aspect of Wittgensteins philosophy?

What Marx got wrong, was his slant of microeconomic thought in regards to productivity and capitalism. It's rather a daunting task to try and address economic dynamics for any nation that exists in the sphere of competing interests and even cold or active wars. Or to put this another way, as long as there are nations that can be exploited, then capitalism will flourish, and be the predominant economic system to utilize for the benefit of the few and not many.


So, given that the world is still full of 3'rd world nations, capitalism will continue to be the economic system of choice for the ultra-rich. If we do get to a point where there's some semblance of equilibrium around the world in terms of development, then maybe there will be some consensus to transition or shift towards another economic system. How far away are we from that prospectus is a current issue of debate within the realm of Marxist scholars.

Do you know or only believe you have hands? How does such a belief arise? Isn't this something that occurs early in development, that is, at an early age. First comes the deed or the act, that is how bedrock beliefs arise (at least those that form apart from language, and many or most of those within language). — Sam26

It's interesting to note that foundational doctrines and structuralist assertions within the field of philosophy have only led to very few bedrock or hinge propositions. Such, as "I think, therefore, I am", and the next closest thing as the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which has been discredited as of late. Hence, I find a discrepancy between the intuitionalist assertions such as "If a lion could speak, we would not be able to understand its speech." and what Wittgenstein asserts in his On Certainty. He kind of highlights this with the assertion that it may be raining outside; but, one could doubt this, legitimately or alternatively with his assertion that you cannot disprove the existence of a rhinoceros within the room, where he was speaking with Russell about.

What do you think?

Absolutely. The subject is dialectical middle term. It is the negative, and to speak about it directly, positively, is a negation. — Merkwurdichliebe

I can't but feel as though Kierkegaard is drawing out the subject/object divide here between God and the individual. In of itself, this can cause anxiety by highlighting our distance from God, as if he/she/it didn't exist in everything around us including ourselves, which are modeled in the image of God him/her/itself. It's almost as if he's denying the existence of the Holy Spirit.

By 'emergent phenomenon from lower dimensions upward' you mean time is emergent from timeless thermodynamic phenomena? — Devans99

I suppose you can say so. Though, I don't understand the use of the term "timeless thermodynamic phenomena"...

If entropy increases causes time to flow, we would expect time to flow faster where entropy is increasing faster. This has not been observed. — Devans99

This would be true if no constants existed, such as the speed of light in a vacuum. But, constants (hidden or not) dictate the flow of time, I would think.

So I believe entropy does not cause time - time causes entropy. — Devans99

I don't think it's an either/or situation. They can exist simultaneously along with each other, yes?

I believe time enables change rather than change is time. — Devans99

Thanks for bringing this up. I always understood time as an emergent phenomenon from lower dimensions upward, instead of the absolutism of higher dimensions dictating the behavior of lower dimensions.

K's entire philosophy seeks to focus his reader from existence as an abstraction, and back into himself as the existing subject - what he calls inwardness. — Merkwurdichliebe

OK, now I can see what he means to address (by proxy) anxiety, dread, sin, and other labile emotions through explication of this concept of inwardness. Every other religion tends to address the issue through a pseudo-positive affirmation of the existence of God in a collective and organized manner. His method seems to be inverted. Do you agree with this assessment?