General Philosophy

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?

re-posted from thread on pornography and prostitution What do you do if you want to be a globalist by resisting defining culture in terms of national differences? Won't people just always accuse you of being US-centric for failing to acknowledge "other nations?" How do you assert anationalist globalism if that's the perspective you want to take? (btw, I am going to repost this to a new thread).

I will only start this thread now. Probbably will develop the thaught further later. But what do you think? Is it really impossible to support ACTA, especially in the light of the thaught that 'what if internet's ultimate effect will be a complete idiocy of people'? Wasnt it perhapse better when our idiocy was dirrected by Hollywood and other of its likes. With all the budgets and money from its 'intellectual' 'property 'rights' source it was at least a classy dictatorship of idiocy. With demise of this old ideological systematical idiocy-production-line-system (the mass media), shouldnt the end result be worse, not better, namely, shouldnt our grandchildren be ultimate …

"Don't judge by the shadow."

When I used to hear the phrase "life after death", I always assumed people were talking about heaven or hell, or becoming a spirit that floated around in some new state of consciousness. Several months ago, reading Kant, he used the phrase, referring to life in general, continuing after an individual dies. That there indeed IS life after death. If someone were to ask me if I believed in life after death, I previosly would have said, "no, when you stop functioning, that includes your mind and senses, you are no longer alive. But in the second sense, I would have to answer "well of course there is." People have been being born, living, and dying for quite a long …

IMO it helps me organise my life and avoid any unnecesary issues that could get in my way of doing stuff and that is why it works. This is why intelligence agents in many countries use it in my oppinion. But it can be used many ways. Some seem to use it more strictly and others less. It just seems to depend on the individual.

What are the boundaries of my existence? Where do I stand, in my head?! Isn't that a rough estimation as it gives us an accuracy of about some ten cms? From the current physical point of view the observer is dealt with as a local entity. An observer distinct from the observable traveling with a velocity or in case of usual quantum mechanics doing experiments reducing the state function. But all in all not much is said about the reality of the observer itself. And debates of the sort are usually avoided and considered unphysical. The problem exists though even if we keep ignoring it.

I was thinking that what we consider to be alive has to have intellectual movements, and that we humans are at the top of this pyramid, but if by this definition of being alive wouldn't an intellectual robot be consider alive as well and if we are able to make a robot smart enough to replicate then wouldn't they be considered a species? if this is true then wouldn't sending robots out into space to repopulate another world be considered as the only way for intellectual species of this world to survive after the sun destroys everything?

Has anyone seen this spectacular film from Mike Leigh? It stars a magnificent David Thewlis as 'Jonny', a down and out on the run with some enlightening, significant and deep things to say. Here is a clip, but I suggest you watch all of the film. The part about each stage of animal evolution not having knowledge about its future troubles me, as of course animals do not have the hindsight into history and are not able to make predictions about their future (or so we think) as we attempt to. Surely with these analytical skills we are able to know a little bit about our future in small steps. This film was made in '93, so I don't know what the beliefs were the…

To a blind man the sun is something that offers warmth, but to those that see it is something that offers warmth and light, it exists to both of them but in different ways. Does evidence cause your perspective or does perspective cause your evidence (notice there is no empirical in this question)?

Evaluate these statements: 1) Our science is only as good as our math. 2) Our science is only as good as our logic.

There have been lots of debates about time, but there are no certain logically consistent standpoints. (At least i haven't found one) The commonly accepted view is that of relativity which states time is a dimension very similar to three spatial dimensions, but there are some significant differences that should be considered: 1. We can't go back in time. 2. Time is a measure of change. There are no changes if we don't have the spatial dimensions, so the existence of time is depended upon the existence of spatial dimensions meanwhile they don't have such a dependence on time. I have heard of some saying time might be an emergent phenomenon which seems considerable to …

Is it better to be aware of the outside world and of pain, pleasure, and emotions or be blind to them and not have the ability to know that you feel them? For instance as conscious beings we know we will die and a vast majority of us (not all of us) have a hard time accepting the inevitable, for this we live with an 'absence of death' we don't think about it. but Mice and most of the animal kingdom do not know what pain feels like, by this I mean to say that they lack the ability to know that they are being hurt. So is it better to be a mouse, completely blind out the outside world, or a conscious being and aware and conscious of this world and all that it means?

Can anyone provide any evidence that our body is more real than our intangible thoughts, feelings, sensations and decisions? We know our body exists only because we infer its existence from our perceptions. Our mind is our primary datum and sole certainty.

This is one of those topics that always excites me to the core. It can't really be confined to a single field (computer science, neuroscience, physics, maths, etc.), and its possible implications are deep and unpredictable, so the philosophy forum seemed appropriate.... I'm wondering if anyone has any thoughts on the concept of the technological singularity (as popularized by Ray Kurzweil); the theory that computation and neuroscience will one day be so advanced that technology and neurology will converge. Supposedly, at this singularity, all human minds will have instantaneous communicatory access to one another, as well as to the entire collective body of human kn…

What is the relation between religion and science?

The point of departure for this thread comes from my comments in the Ontology of Time thread in the Speculations section about the insistence in relativity that there are no "preferred" frames of reference, no "correct" or "objective" measurements when comparing one frame of reference (FOR) to another. From post 182, 7/2 in that thread: So, applying the above argument to "length contraction," if there is no objective "reality" independent of various FORs, then as discussed at length in the former thread, the distance between earth and sun varies with FOR, shortening radically with high speed fly-by FORs, for instance. Likewise, earth itself, measured as above, i…

I have noticed in discussions of theories and God, that there is a reluctance to give the holder of the theory, if it is not "us" holding the theory, the benefit of the doubt. The tendency to put the same idea in a good light when described concerning the first person, a neutral light concerning the second person, and a negative light with the third person, seems evident, and probably has some basis, in terms of how we are "set up" as humans. I am thinking it may have to do with what rules "we" go by. The topic title was written by TAR2 (me), who is an Atheist. The order of Reality,Theory,God might be God, Reality, Theory to a Theist, or Theory, Reality, G…

The inconceivable oneness & difference (acintya-bheda-abheda-tattva ) is a philosophy taught by its founder Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (1486 - 1534). It`s a theological tenet that reconciles the mystery of creation. That God is simultaneously one with and different from His creation. That He always exercises supreme control over his creation. Sometimes directly, but most of the time indirectly through his different potencies or energies. That the cosmic manifestation or creation is never separated from God. One who knows God knows the scientific conception of how the universe was born ( the big bang ) theorized by scientists and personal conception of how the universe m…

Whilst watching a program by the bbc's panorama series called "finding the higgs". I realised just how arrogant I've been on this forum, but just how much is this due to our culture? My sister has a phd and I remember a conversation she had with a friend of mine, where she had to defend herself against his ridicule in terms of "peer reviewed work". At the time this meant little to me, as I was trying to have my say. Now though with my experience on this forum it strikes me that science itself is partly to blame in as much as the "language" science uses, which is open to specious ridicule and argument and therefore in day to day life is easily dismissed. Programs like thi…

Is science as a knowledge source seen as something free from human interpretation? Is it assumed that the results presented by humans are not influenced by humans? And if humans are part of science, how much so?

I'm not understand how this universe is evidence for existence of God that said by the creationist! but at the same time, I can't understand what is evidence / proof also? can anyone give an insight of what this thing is? in other words, how can something be an evidence or not?

Interpret the question as you would like, share your thoughts.

I Was going to post this as a science question but realized I would only be starting a philosophical debate anyway, I have been pondering, as scientists do you believe that the origin of life can be explained with a series of chemical reactions or do you think there is more to it than that, to my knowledge we have never witnessed the creation of something that is by definition alive out of inanimate matter, it seems to me that there is a driving force behind life that defies description. As far as I know all forms of matter and chemical reactions do little more than react with other forms of matter but life itself seems to have a very different nature than anything el…

The word forum is of Latin origin when one looks into Websters dictionary. While in high school I was taught about the Roman forum but it wasn't until I worked substituting school as one means of earning college tuition I really paid heed to its significance. In ancient Rome it was a public place; a place where causes were judicially tried and most importantly {to me} a place where orations were delivered. It was a place where there were discussions of public matters and interest. While preparing my lessons for next days lessons I could almost hear the loudness that must have existed. There must have been those who laid there claim to what they so claimed being true…