General Philosophy

Hello. I came from another account, but I forgot my username and password, and I changed to another Gmail since. I want to say that this is philosophy, so I put it in philosophy. Anyways, I have a distinguished opinion on the state of awareness (I will say awareness instead of consciousness because I type so fast that I mess up words and this is one of those words that is really easy to mess up). Awareness is a man-made construct. My thought is that the human brain is a machine, just like a steam engine or computer, except it is really complex. We don't know everything about it, but what we do know is that it is a physical object that follows physical properties. Now…

What is consciousness? I'll start this with an example, let's suppose someone has Alzheimer, he can forget his name, he can forget where he lives or who he are, but he won't ever forget he's something, by the way he doesn't even have to remember it, he just is. It's like there is a sense of existence in each one of us that goes beyond our comprehension - which we can call life -. When and how something inanimated became an animated being? When it started to exists? What is it that we call existence? IMO it makes more sense to believe there's "something more" we can't explain, it can't be just our brain and its impressions. Life itself is transcedental.

everyones want to achieved something in their lives. you dont have image and dont have logic in some case if you dont think so.

I feel I am starting to get this. Absolute time does not exist. It has been shown in theory (in a loosely termed way) and also experimentally. It now is starting to feel like a second nature to me but I would like to ask a question (one that may have been posed many times ,no doubt). What are the philosophical (or just plain down to earth) consequences of this new understanding (I assume it was not an understanding prior to Einstein's Relativity theorems) ? Clearly one consequence is simply that we have to get with the program and appreciate the world as it is rather than how we would like it to be but are there any broad "world view" understandings that ari…

In accepting knowledge at face value, a person can never deny that knowledge, it is subliminal then that anything deemed other than the knowledge accepted, and any other possible paradox will be automatic denied.

I am at the stage in the life where I have not specialised and am thinking about a career in a scientific field, most likely in biology. However, I have always found thinking about future life choices difficult. I might describe myself as nihlistic, the fact that my lifespan is so short and how the human race will eventually die out is often on my mind. Truth be told, I dislike my existence as a human -- to live for such short a time and to be controlled by so many instincts and requirements is something I'd rather be without. During the course of my existentialist musings, I often think about ways in which I could provide a permanent assistance to mankind -- to me this …

For those who don't know what this paradox is about... Achilles and a tortoise are in a race. Achilles gives the tortoise a head start. Then Achilles begins to run toward the finish. Before Achilles can overtake the tortoise, he must first reach where the tortoise was. When he reaches the tortoise's last position, the tortoise has moved a little further. Now Achilles must reach the tortoise's new position. In the time taken to reach this new position, the tortoise has moved a little further...and so on. Achilles can never catch up with the tortoise. BUT in reality he does. Thus, the paradox. My knowledge of math is limited so I hope what I'm going to say isn't w…

hi I googled this title and your forum can up... the reason I googled is because this has happened to Me! hard to believe I know but it's true and I have been trying to get my head around it since... has anyone else been through the same?

Hi team, So the addition rule of implication is as follows: P therefore either P or Q. Apparently, this is a logical implication because if you know P to be true then the overall statement "either P or Q" will always be true. However, what if it was actually P and Q? As an example: I like cats (P). The addition rule of implication says that the following proposition must be true: Either I like cats(P) or I like dogs(q). But I actually like cats(P) and dogs (q). Doesn't that mean the rule can lead to errors?

You may have heard the argument that theists often make about the necessity of an intelligent designer for the existence of life. The argument goes as: "It's impossible for something too complex like life to have occurred at random without an intelligent designer." Arguments like this or variations of the same that often leave us feeling unsatisfied or inept to provide concrete answers with proper reasoning. Below I have devised or attempted to make a sequence of logical arguments based on pre-established knowledge and successful theories in science to tackle this common theistic argument of the impossibility or pure coincidence of life and that its existen…

I have just watched an intriguing film called “Afflicted” in which a human was turned into a vampire. The premise of the film is: essentially, you can’t die and must feed every 4/5 days, on humans (you choose) or become an indiscriminate killer who must feed every day. Let us presume that evil doesn’t exist (which it doesn’t) and we all know of the existence of sociopaths, who are known to be war time heroes or just ordinary members of society, or psychopaths (who can’t help their behaviour). We also, should, know that bullies aren’t born but made; and that humans are essentially the same; as are dogs or birds or elephants etc. and given the same conditions we, as hum…

If there exists all these kind of atheists apatheistic atheists, igtheistic atheists agnostic atheists, gnostic atheists then logically there can exist anti-philosophy atheist Or do I do some kind of philosophy error there? Maybe the word anti-philosophy is too strong? What about unwilling atheist, reluctant atheist, don't feel at home with the label atheist? An adjective is a word that describe how the substantive is? Agnostic atheist is adjective plus substantive. Same with reluctant as adjective so how can it be wrong? http://www.thefreedictionary.com/reluctant sounds very logical to me. agnostic atheist describe an atheist that …

I'm torn between two worldviews. One worldview, from neuroscience, stating that the more the brain is damaged, the more the mind slips into nothing/nowhere. Taken to the extreme of brain damage/dissolution/annihilation, one should expect that you're no longer there. Also, from physics describing how particles are arranged in specific/specialized patterns and when the particles disarrange at bodily death we cease to be. The other worldview, that we don't where we came from, where we're going, why or how existence is there, why or how awareness of existence is there, we don't know what is outside of mind and we don't know the nature of personal identity. Thus, who is anyone…

Time to run free and ask, what is your favourite quote from a philosopher

Not sure where this should be whenever people talk about AI they always think of it from a western point of view. But what about advanced AI/robotics from somewhere like Saudi Arabia? With really hardline views on on religion or women. Or China for that matter with hardline views on freedom? I can change my mind about about anything anytime I want, but for AI to do that it would need to be able to re program itself and be influenced by outside sources, but would it be a good idea to allow AI to do that? Sorry if it's not proper question it's just something I was thinking about in work last night, religious AI and AI with different opinions on human right…

There are some critical differences between how traditional AI works and machine learning/ neural networked AIs work. For this argument I am defining sentience and consciousness as how humans have sentience and consciousness (whatever that is, which is why I don't like creating logic using consciousness but please bear with me none the less). There is a defined difference between truth and reality. Our realities are most likely the way in how we perceive the truth, because the truth could be beyond our current comprehension. The best system we have for defining truth is through logic. Much of the way we perceive the truth isn't logical, it's most likely emotional. There i…

What's people's opinions on this: can AI become sentient? Taking the wikipedia definition: Sentience is the capacity to feel, perceive or experience subjectively Can a fundamentally quantitative system really experience subjectivity? Personally, given sentience has evolved at least once on Earth, i don't see why it can't manifest from a different substrate. But that's similar reasoning to given i'm alive at least once, i don't see why i can't live again...

In a recently bumped thread, ajb said the following: But that's not the first time measurement has been mentioned. There was, for example, this half tongue-in-cheeck exchange between myself and PeterJ: Why look at the level of the mercury in the thermometer when you can just measure temperature? Oh, yes, because you can't. But it's only half tongue-in-cheeck. There's a real issue here. Measurement is an important part of science, so let's talk about it. We can discuss it in a forum, if you will. What, exactly, is measurement? Is objective measurement possible? It seems like it's got to be a specific type of observation. It seems like Measureme…

Albert Einstein said: "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." What did hen mean with this? Was 'religion' rather a metaphor for creativity/spirituality/imaginativeness?

What would be an aliens view of the panoply of human activity? For instance what would be an aliens view on humans obsession with sex? Sex is essentially an exchange of DNA (much like shaking hands or even sneezing) and comes bound with a dopamine reward system. But why is it so prominent in our media etc? Similarly what would an alien think of petty politics. Politicians worldwide are known to be on an average lacking probity and yet they are always in the limelight. Would an alien then condescend to make contact with humans? Please express your viewpoint. Thanks in advance.

In the past, people would say that everything is based on god, as they could not explain it in any other way. They made elaborate stories about god(s) and this created a sort of culture and identity of the people. God for people was a way to express their ambitions and desires as a society of controlling nature. I see a parallel between that and the modern day notion on aliens. They have come to signify our fears as a technological race as well as our hopes of better tech and intergalactic travel. Also, many unexplained things are blamed on aliens. Just like the notion of God, aliens have seeped into our culture, and we are creating modern day myths such as chupacabra, l…

I watched a Youtube video tonight that pulled together a few lines of thought that I'd been pondering over without linking them together. What really grabbed me was the contrast between the fragility and improbability of complex civilisation with the indestructability of quantum information. Why such a visceral reaction to this? Well I've not taken part in any democratic process for over 25 years on the grounds of too much hassle; I don't live in the country where I could vote; my vote probably wouldn't make much of a difference anyway. And yet those decisions not to act, via the indestructabilty of quantum information, must have measurable consequence…

I know all words are more words, and therefore, all words are silly. Do you know this? If you don’t, then you believe all words are more than words, and therefore, all words are serious. To believe that, you must say that. When you say that, do you know you prove this? If you don’t, then you don’t know this. When will you know this?

Does alternate reality have alternate truth? Do all our laws and theories and ideas belong to one reality alone? Does this therefore make truth and law relative? Is the principia relative? Is relativity relative? It is more profound to ask a question to which there is no answer than to give correct answers to thousands of questions. In this reality alone is there no answer to a particular question. Is there an alternate reality? One truth is that we might never know. Knowledge which has no end and no beginning is absolute. But even this is one truth alone To know much about two truths is a greater achievement than to know everything about one

Take a period in my past: I have documentary evidence and ( probably but not necessarily )some memories that show I was alive . Now take any moment in that timeframe and the odds are that I have no memory at all of it and yet logically I must have been alive then because this moment occurred in the middle of a timeframe in which I know(and it can be shown) I was alive. So if I was alive at that particular moment has that person who was alive then now died? To extrapolate ( or just generalize) are our lives a succession of experiences characterized by a feeling of being an individual ,each one of which effectively dies unless i…