General Philosophy

Many times a person is faced with a causality dilemma. Is there a general framework for solving such problems? For example, if "A cannot happen unless B happens, but B cannot happen unless A happens", one possible approach to solving the problem is to guess or assume something about A, determine B, then repeat until A and B hopefully satisfy some desired outcome.

Plants and microbes are considered to have some ability to use memory. I am curious if this ability to retain and recollect information should be considered instinctual, and to what degree as they have no brain or nervous system. http://phys.org/news/2014-04-bacterial-immune-memory.html http://www.sci-news.com/biology/science-mimosa-plants-memory-01695.html

When reading this thread I started to wonder why it matters so much that what we see as correct information should be digested and understood. Shortly after xytz suffered an emotional meltdown in this thread. The level of knowledge seems to make little difference, so why is it reasonable to expect others to understand what I do? Maybe the anger comes from a need to control others or maybe it comes from the illusion that knowledge equals understanding.

Event W happens. John uses W as an excuse for not doing Event X. Suddenly, Event Y happens, which negates the alleged deficiency from Event W that supposedly exempts John from having to do Event X. However, John argues that he cannot comment on, or respond to, Event Y until he's had time to do Event X, an omission which, as of Event Y, he has no excuse for not doing. Obviously, John is just trying to avoid work. His boss isn't going to buy into that, and the boss is going to fire John's butt. But, what is the official name of this logical fallacy that John is trying (unsuccessfully) to use to avoid work? Here's an example that involves tangible events: …

What would it take? Let us not resort to global threat, in this discussion, such as an alien or other external threat; yes, of course, that type of jeopardy would unite us but for how long, after the threat dissipates? Can anyone imagine a strategy or event, other than that described above, that could lead to a long term peaceful world? Would, for instance, a purely secular society instigate such a peace or is a new religion or pseudo religion required?

Famous sayings "Never judge a book by its cover" Never judge someone on their past because they are no longer at that stage in their life. Never judge a person by his/her appearance. You don't have the slightest idea what they've been through. Bible says "Do not judge, and you will not be judged; and do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; pardon, and you will be pardoned." I have read a touching story, you too must read A doctor entered the hospital in hurry after being called in for an urgent surgery. He answered the call asap, changed his clothes & went directly to the surgery block. He found the boys father pacing in the hall waiting fo…

We Humans were always creative. As Neandertalers we created tools to survive and artwork to show heritage. But why? Why do we do this? Why aren't we like the other living beings on earth, that 'do what they have to do'? Why do we sometimes want to know more than we have to? Our human nature is very interesting. It reacts to differently to other situations. That's why humans are called intelligent beings. What are your thoughts? IAstroViz

bad reasons of believing anything are 4: 1. tradition 2. authority 3. general agreement: crowd opinion 4. private Revelation but what are good reasons of believing anything? any idea?

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…

Most people that I talk to seem to think that emotion is unruly thought; or thought that is difficult to control. But is it? Emotion and thought have different abilities, different limitations, different functions, and don't work the same way at all. I suspect that emotion and thought are as much alike as blood and bones. Blood and bones are both part of our bodies, both made up of cells, both necessary, but definitely not interchangeable. It would be difficult to walk around using blood as our body structure and using bones to supply our organs. Another thing that people seem to think is that emotion is produced by the brain, just like thought. I seriously doubt …

"Here is a tree in the garden. And every summer it produces apples. We call it an apple tree. Because the tree apples. That's what it does. Alright, now here is a solar system inside a galaxy. And one of the peculiarities of this solar system,at least on planet earth, the thing peoples. In just the same way that an apple tree apples." - Alan Watts

What's the source of the matter of the universe? Where does come from? And the question of the million: it is self-created (created alone by itself) or not? Which answer is more irrational?

I'm always trying to reconcile consciousness and physics. This is a thought experiment that scrutinises the relationship between our experience of the universe and the idea that consciousness is just neurons firing in a predicatable way due to their position in space (and their connection to each other). Disclaimer: I don't know if this is an old thought experiment or if it just sounds naive and stupid, I am here to discuss the idea and make some progress with what to me seems like a bit of a conundrum. Imagine we create a replicator. With the recent advances of 3D printing it's not completely implausable to think that we might one day have a device that could sca…

I'm new to the topic, but it's interesting to me. From what I've read... http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/contradiction/ It seems our intersubjective verifiability agrees with LNC and LEM as a foundation of logic. But there is a debated or uncertain exception to the rules; para-consistency, rather than inconsistency. The concept I think is that some "variables", structure and function may be a contradiction intentionally, and is unlike everything else that is consistent. An exception to the rule, or is it... I'm not really that familiar with Buddhism, but the example of the exception described in the text refers to a Buddhist viewpoint. I attempted t…

I'm sorry if this isn't the appropriate section of the Forum for this kind of question, I wasn't sure where it should go. I'm wondering if there is a single scientific subject that is specifically focused on the study of "all things" and how they appear to us, on a fundamental level? Like I see biology, or physics, etc... as specific fields of study, but is there any field that encompasses all of the common subjects to understand "a bigger picture", of existence in general? If so what is it called, or what would be the closest thing to something like that...if anything at all?

After a lengthy time of reasoning about the nature of causality itself, I have come to conclusion that it must be the universal (or absolute, ultimate) truth behind everything. The evolution, life and death, laws of physics (universe)... each of all is the product of causality. The causality definitely must be the guiding truth behind everything. Everything is inherently confined to causality. It is conceivable that there could be something called the "asymmetrical energy" which always has existed and it is chaos. It must be the origination of causality. If it was symmetrical one, it wouldn't have produced a causality at first place. If one is to say s…

Swansot{ alias 007 license to kill }.... "cixe 1. Insulting people is not an acceptable way to get your point across, and you've been warned about this before. It is wearing awfully thin. 2. Much of this thread seems to be people pointing out that they can't make heads or tails of what your point is. e.g. telling people if they can't figure it out they should go elsewhere is also not acceptable. I can't see any reason to let this continue." -------------------------------------------------------- Dear Swansot, If Im being repeatedly/continually treated rudely/disrespectfully unneccessarily, then, it is not only within my rights, as a human, it is al…

Hello All, Lately I've reading a lot about many worlds, multiverse and immortality.One peace was the latest work of philosopher David Lewis,"How many lives has Schroedinger Cat?".He states "if there is no collapse,then you will not die,you will go on forever" .http://www.artsrn.ualberta.ca/pex/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/lewis.pdf Any thoughts? David Lewis is considered to be one of the most prominent philosophers of the 20th century.But maybe it is just theory or speculation abyway?...I became really depressed after reading it

Where does it begin? Nothing can't have always existed . It must have started some where. And if it did. How did it start. It couldn't have started from nothing but if there was something to start it where did that something start. no beginning is truly the beginning. There is always something before it. But what is the beginning before the beginning and what is the first beginning? There can't be an answer to what that beginning is because nothing can be made from nothing so if there is already something then that is not the beginning. So what is the beginning? ~.A.L.P~

Pattern Integrity = Soul Previously I always reference these two as synomym biological = soul ergo biological/soul Recently, and for no apparrent reason, I had equated soul with any pattern integrity, that re-incarnates itself. I then stated, that, a fermionic proton is the most stable pattern integrity of Universe, that, humans know to exist and, I presume, that, all protons are identical. Just as I presume all other fermionic particle identities are identical to another with the same indentity. Then we get into the 92 atomic elements plus the transuranics, of which many or most have slight variations as isotopes of themselves. Then we get into a number of differren…

this statement is not capable to determine its truth value, if it is false then its true, if it is true then its false, I imagine it as sitting in in front of a mirror , saying " I am Yahya" , and the mirror replies "I am not Yahya", so truth value can be taken individually, i.e whether you consider yourself is true and the mirror is lying or there is some exact problem , that it always gives the negation of reality , or the mirror is true and somehow you are mistaken in saying the phrase. however if you did not make any mistakes in saying the phrase, then the statement " I am yahya" is always true , we take it from a single direction, and neglecting what it is image in…

nobody knows what death is , only dead people know that and they can not tell us, however here a philosophical method to know that: we know how death looks like and how life looks like, dead people do not talk, they do not move they do not eat etc. also we know what life is , the opposite of above, the golden key is to know what death is and also what life is to know the changing moment i.e the moment when a person change from the state of being alive to the state of being dead, and this moment is between , this moment everyone who is alive knows about it, it is the time when you are close to death and do not die, for example , having a car accident , there are some …

As the title might imply, what's a game? That is, what allows us to unify seemingly disparate things like hopscotch and first-person shooters? Surely, seeking a universal definition to absolve us of our curiosity is a misguided endeavor. Creative society permits words the power to describe and denote experiences. It's not necessary that they seize them. So, in short, what's a satisfying working definition of 'game'? Or rather, what constitutes a game and what makes a game distinct from other artistic/entertainment media? My bloated attempt at setting even the most basic of boundaries for what makes a game quickly descended into what must be gibberish. Regardless, I pr…

In this thread I will briefly describe how the heart effects, inter alia, thought and emotion. As the Egyptians transcribed 'the heart is the seat of all emotion, and with my modern day experience added, I can safely say that it is also the subconscious, and thus, the source of man's thought. When we think of a subject, it's by way of a prompt from the heart (~in the form of a "!") to the mind ("?"), whether this be by natural instinct or through the subliminal; nature or nurture. A thought-prompt is a signal sent by the heart, and it's not originally worded-- it takes mental power to word 'a real cat' for example. All hearts are connected, by way of them being hearts, ca…

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