General Philosophy

This is another Quote of Einstein. He wrote it in the book Cosmic Religion and Other Opinions and Aphorisms"(1931). "At times I feel certain I am right while not knowing the reason. When the eclipse of 1919 confirmed my intuition, I was not in the least surprised. In fact, I would have been astonished had it turned out otherwise. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. It is, strictly speaking, a real factor in scientific research." This is completely my cup of tea! Knowledge and imagination concern in a sense a duality in science. What do yo…

To begin I would like to announce that I do not believe in God, but I believe that Nature is more significant than myself, and I worship our bond. I am all the small things, I prefer to be alone, I tend to associate with one or maybe to people; I like to see how things interrelate, and often find cool representations like fire, it's effects, being related to anger and it's effects. Did humans inherit what relatives left behind? Can I be angry because fire is possible, do these two states connect? Reality, to me, is evil-- if I had my way a lot of things would change; for instance, I would be kinder to nature and prioritise it; being wise, I don't want future humanity to p…

"intellectual conscience"---the ability to distinguish right from wrong in the intellectual realm (My words.). When I set out to read Nietzsche (in English), after reading repeated references here, there and, yes, everywhere, I decided that I would do it with the following in mind: I would not read second-party analysis; I would read the originals only; and that I would read mulitple translations, which I did for a few. One particular passage I've always liked--I call it a lamentation--concerns the intellectual conscience: . From The Gay Science, BOOK I, #2, by Friedrich W. Nietzsche. (Possible translator, Walter Kaufmann, 1974. Alternate titles: The Joyful Wisdo…

What's the difference between evidence and proof? I think a lot of evidence can lead to proof. Also, proving and disproving of a model is important to keep science, scientific.

I don't understand you guys - how don't you have extreme depression?! This is not completely true. I sorta do, 86% of population is religions, people have innate defensive mechanisms. And most of people have positive illusions and don't see the world: how it truly is! And lie to themselves. Fact is - life is hell!!! https://aeon.co/essays/the-voice-of-sadness-is-censored-as-sick-what-if-its-sane I am troubled by this idea of Eternal Return long time. Read spoiler for more info: I am warning you - Extremely depressive (no human being should ever know about this) read for you own risk!!! E.g. Nihilism is not a choice, or philosophy, it simply arrives! This is simi…

If all human beings were immortal and we knew this were the case, would this make people happier? Or would it make them sadder? Would you like to be immortal? If you thought you were, how would you live your life more different?

So, you have a completely solid, impenetrable box with nothing in it. Not a single atom. Not a quark. Not a string. If I move that box a meter, does the nothing move with it? Logically, yes, as there is nothing in and it is impossible for anything to get inside, but what about any-nothing? Physically, something must have mass to interact with other particles so the nothing just sits there and is replaced by more nothing when I move the box. I'm confused, please help. P.S: This is coming from an ameteur physicist who overthinks stuff a lot, so tell me if this is a dumb question.

Why do some believe that things must be proven (rationally) in order be known as true? I ask this question because I have come to a realization that every philosophy and worldview is founded on unproven ideas. It is kind of like geometry, I think. There are theorems which are proven truths. But these theorems are based on "unproven truths" called postulates. Every belief is based on unproven ideas, even empiricism.For this reason (including others), I accept neither materialism nor empiricism to be true. Immaterial things could be just like the "unproven truths" (Christianity holds some to be revealed) mentioned previously. Just because something isn't proven (ration…

What follows assumes that no life after death exists and that a dead person returns to the state of pre-birth. This is not necessarily my opinion, but it seems to be the most logical conclusion. It is commonly said that life is a gift, or at least that you are lucky to have it. Being born means beating astronomical odds, so even the scientifically-inclined tend to characterize it as something that one should be happy about having. But is it really more fortunate to be born than to die in utero? Leaving all sentimentality aside, let us consider what life is like. 1. After birth, humans begins to have desires. Now, a desire is a form of discomfort. It drives us…

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?

Existence is...the Absolute Singularity. I plan on writing about my entire thought process to arrive at my assertion above. What follows is the start of my journey. This is the story of why I decided to examine the nature of reality and our human understanding of it. The world around me seems too chaotic and crazy right now, overwhelmed with fear and anger that exacerbates nihilism. Nihilism helps no one. So, due to not sleeping and having an abundance of mental energy, I began processing all the ins and outs, the quandaries, surrounding existence. These quandaries always end in a paradox, logical fallacies, or trippy infinite loops. I thought to myself, is und…

The scientific method is awesome!! I mean it really rocks. It has advanced human knowledge in the past 200 years more than the previous 20,000. However, it has a fundamental flaw that prevents it from overcoming it's own limitations. The fundamental flaw is that it is a doctrine that says truth can only be obtained by following its rigid rules. That is absoluty 100% certainly false. A discovery that advances human knowledge and understanding of nature can be made without the tool of science. Thought experiment: take a human child at an early stage of development. Provide for his needs, give him a basic understanding of nature...fire burns, cold freezes, etc. teach h…

I remember watching The Pursuit of Happyness and how the subliminal definition of happiness in the movie didn't line up with my experience of happiness. The movie equated financial success with happiness while I equate physical activity(ie. adequate serotonin levels), a healthy diet and a minimalist approach to life with happiness. I've also observed that society is driven towards acquiring intelligence and not happiness. If you had a choice to be either intelligent or happy but not both even though it is possible to be both. Would you rather be intelligent or happy? And why?

Inspired by this thread: http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/33922-homosexuality-in-the-animal-kingdom/ I wonder how many posters in this forum consider themselves animals or even part of the animal kingdom? How much of what is interpreted through our research and studies in biology, ecology, zoology, etc. are we anthropomorphizing? Any thoughts?

Hello my name is Miguel Vega I want to start this by saying if anyone knows of any literature or further evidence of this theory being asked before please let me know it's been something I've thought of for a long time let the record show I also don't fancy myself a Genius or anything of that nature, but I've always wondered that if you were to forget something doesn't it almost seem (objectively of course to the person who's forgot) that the experience didn't happen at all of course I know that sounds dumb but hear me out, if let's say hypothetically you were to get blackout drunk and not remember any second of the time you had while intoxicated (which I've heard of happ…

The quest for a unified “Theory of Everything” that explains the fundamental nature of the universe has long been a holy grail for scientists and philosophers, dating back to the ancient Greeks’ search for Arche. The mainstream of this research primarily focuses on the lifeless phenomena and laws of physics while ignores the realm of biology. However, a fundamentally different approach to the ToE has been put forward, presenting a viable alternative to address the challenge of a Theory of Everything. This approach does not seek the ultimate “building block” but rather aims to uncover the intangible rules that fundamentally govern everything in the universe, seeking their …

In 1996, Nature found 60.7% of scientists expressing disbelief or doubt. 72.2% of the "greater" scientists do no believe in God. About 20.8% are agnostic. The article in the link below calls the "greater" scientists those who are National Academy of Sciences (NAS). http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/news/file002.html

A very simple question but one that is quite likely the product of a garbled thought process (so apologies in advance): Is it possible to conceive of motion without the concept of time (either time per se or time as measured by a clock and a signal) ? Are Motion and Time joined at the hip? PS I am only posting in Philosophy because I fear my question may be too insubstantial for the Relativity Forum where I intended to put it

What if we're alone in the universe, and billions of years from now they still have no idea how life possibly began. Would humans eventually just give up and say something or another made us, or would they still claim random coincidence? I'm not trying to discuss the possibility of God here. Just what conclusions humanity would come to if it encountered a mystery it couldn't solve.

What is nothing? I mean the real or actual nothing. Quantum fluctuations is somewhat not nothing but something. It is pseudo-nothing. Actual nothing lacks space-time, matter, quantum states, laws of physics and information, -completely nothing. In other words, actual nothing can never create something. Any counter arguments is very welcome. Let's discuss it here for the accumulation of understanding on the reality which we exist.

Some believe the universe has always existed in some form. This is about getting around the idea of something coming from nothing. I have a problem with the idea. How did we get to now? An infinite amount of time is impossible to cross just as an infinite amount of space is impossible to cross. And yet people believe there is an infinite amount of time before this point we call NOW. How did we get to NOW? Seems to me that if you figure in an infinite past then no event can ever happen because it can always be set back infinitely. Not my idea but the idea of a greek philosopher.

On a forum such as this one, we often hear people claiming that science has proved theory X or Y. Later, the person may partially recant claiming that theory X isn’t completely proven, but it is 99.999999% certain. Because of the evidence, the theory has been so repeatedly confirmed that it would be wrong to withhold provisional assent. However, philosophers disagree because of the problem of underdetermination. To understand underdetermination, we can simply look at the following graph: We have three data points, and we are trying to express these data points as a graph. As you can see, a simple straight line adequately expresses the data. Unfortunately, w…

I am psychotically enraged and I am on the mission here to destroy the moral version of good and bad since it has mocked and insulted me long enough. It is deluded ignorant nonsense to say to a severely crippled depressed person that he/she can still have good meaning in his/her life. The moral version of good says that if we personally judge our lives to have good meaning through our thoughts, then that will make it so. But this is nonsense because this would mean that we could go up to a severely crippled depressed person and say in a joyful/excited tone: "Yipee! Your life is so wonderful since you told yourself that your life was great! Forget the fact tha…

I just have been feeling very unsure about my place in life. I have never been tested for any mental illnesses but believe I might have some. I experience constant negative emotions towards life in general; including my obligations in the military, my music, and school. I would like to see how others validate their life in terms of worth, and ability.

I believe nothing in this world and universe can come from absolute nothing. Everything in this universe must come from something. That's a very logical and scientific statement for any human being. That is how we perceive and experience things in our day to day life. But if we say that something in this universe can come from absolute nothing, then aren't we making an unscientific and illogical statement? How can something come out of absolute nothing? is it some kind of weird magic? so my point is if science doesn't believe in magic then it can not make any statements like "something can come from absolute nothing". So going by the logic, "Everything in the univers…