[mikema63]

What if the reality is that I'm god just imagining all this shit?

[Verv]

What if the reality is that I'm god just imagining all this shit?

Then we're all fxcked...

Quick, imagine something more pleasant.

[mikema63]

Damn it, I'm a pessimist, I can't imagine anything not bleak.

[Plaro]

That was good one mike.

[Lexington]

After taking a bunch of philosophy in college searching for some logical foundation the best I could come up with is Descartes thing (I think therefore I am) but that really doesn't lead to any other useful statements...

So I'm fundamentally nihilist, but since that gets you nowhere:

Ethics: fairly strong utilitarian

Epistemology/metaphysics: Materialist. Although I hold out that consciousness itself is...unusual. That whole Mary's Room thing is interesting that speaks to something not material as we know it these days.

edit: I forgot to mention the Hume thing about ethics too. Philosophy is depressing and weird.

[Donna]

I've noticed that some of you have edited your philosophical stances. Let me just say on the record that I think that is sad and you should just try to be yourself and not worry about what other people think. Just be the best you that you can be.

[Gletkin]

Why do you think they hated you?

"They"? Nah, it was just the one bitch mon.

Were they a RAAYYYY-CISSS..?

Sure, why not?

RAAAAAAAYSSSSSSSIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISSSTT!!!
She raysist!!

[Verv]

I do honestly think there are a lot of racists out there who do not even admit it to themselves. But not only that, I tink there are a lot of people that just are suspicious or mean towards people they perceive are not like them in other ways.

This is why it is important to always put your best foot forward - not some abstract shit about how 'effort' is good and how you want to 'prove yourself,' but because there are too many people who are judgmental asses.

You got to convince them to like you and then they will look for reasons to justify your behavior when it is questionable and they will see everything else you do in a good light; if you do not do that, I think they are more likelyto from the start then look for your flaws.

[Rancid]

I think therefore I am

Apparently the way he arrived at the statement is that he did a little experiment. Basically, he imagined his physical self floating away form his body, then he tried to do the same for his mental self, and he couldn't. Thus he believed that your true self isn't your physical body.

Or some shit like that.

Everyone is a little bit racist.

[Verv]

And I liked Descartes big conclusion... Even if the whole world is nothing more than a demonic force manipulating and creating illusions, he can still conclude his own existence through his in fact being duped.

In some real sense you could say Descartes admits anything beyond this conclusion (and beyond he conclusion of the existence of God, a creative force, though perhaps this was merely added to appease the church) could potentially all be wrong.

[fuser]

Okay, I will give a formal answer

Ethics : Relativism

Epistemology : Positivism

Metaphysics : Materialism

[DeadPresidents]

Life is a bitch, then you die. Basically the Buddhist and Hinduism concept of Samsara is my overall worldview.

Ethics: Moral Nihilism

Epistemology: Epistemological Constructivism

Metaphysics: Dualism (Consciousness/Matter, Mind/Body, etc)

[fuser]

Hinduism concept of Samsara

Metaphysics: Dualism

I am taking that by Hinduism you mean Vedanta (Dominant Philosophical school in Hindu theology vanguarded by advaita vedanta), then this is a very strict monoist school.

[Cartertonian]

Everyone is a little bit racist.

Everyone is innately tribalist, there's no getting around that. Overt differences like skin colour or distinct racial features will mark out someone as 'different from you', and the innate tribalism instinctively kicks in. The defining feature of a maturing human race should be our ability to recognise these hardwired instincts from our genetic pre-history as having no place in our present or our future. For me, this is the defining element that separates extremism of any stripe from the mainstream. Extremists are hereditary recidivists who want to conserve, harness and celebrate our primeval instincts in the furtherance of their tribe's goals, rather than strive to control the primitive within, in order to further the interests of all of humanity.

Now, can someone tell me what my philosophical stance is?

[Plaro]

Do you not think instincts inherently have the best interest of humanity? Although judging that you antagonize them it would appear not, but I just want clarify. Perhaps you are not aware that you are antagonizing something that, you have not question if it in itself has the same interest of betterment of humanity that you yourself trying to achieve by antagonizing it.

[nucklepunche]

It's a tough one. There's fundamentally an aura of pragmatism underlying much of what I believe.

Metaphysics

In the end I think the only thing I can really be absolutely sure of is my mind exists in some form or another. That being said I do live my life under the assumption that the world itself exists, I think it does because if my mind was the only thing that existed, where did I get the ideas for everything I "see" around me? Somehow it had to get into my head.

Based on what I observe in the world I do accept most scientific explanations for things, but I do believe in God because I just don't see how everything can just magically come about and construct itself. Even if it did all come from the Big Bang, what was before the Big Bang? The God I believe in though is not a religious literalist "world is only 6000 years old" God, I have gradually abandoned that way of thinking over the years. It is a God as a first cause.

I guess I am an agnostic theist in a sense. I tend to believe all people are really fundamentally agnostics unless they have seen God themselves, but ultimately we have to make a decision based on what we see whether we think God is probably there or probably not, or simply remain non-committed. I see a fundamentally rational universe, which is why I have concluded that I believe it has a Creator.

Epistemology

As I said the only thing we can absolutely know for sure is that our mind exists (if we exist), we just have to look at it pragmatically. In some sense anything beyond that takes a certain amount of faith, no matter how much you want to deny it this is true. In this sense I am fundamentally a moderate skeptic, although I do agree with the idea that few things can ever truly be known, I do think it may be possible to know them in the future. I don't think we can ultimately write any possibility off.

All I really know is I am aware of an existence in which there are a certain set of things that if I do them it happens. If I heat up water to 100 celsius it boils, if I get it below 0 celsius it freezes. In all the experiments I have seen this has proven to be true so I live my life on the assumption it is, even if theoretically I could be just a brain in a vat and water may not exist, I do know that in my reality if I touch 100 degree celsius water it will not be a pleasant experience, so I do not. In the same way if I am kind and generous to people they will generally be to me, if not they will not be. Even if those people were a total figment of my imagination or some or all of them where philosophical zombies I'd rather live the life of being generous and kind.

For all I know you may all be philosophical zombies, but you respond as if you are real in this reality, so I talk to you on PoFo. I assume it to be real, but again really I can't know I am not a brain in the vat, nor can any of you know you are not the same and I am just part of the reality you perceive and not the one that exists. Still, I approach life as if it is real, because it seems real enough.

Ethics

As for my ethics I consider myself to be a two-level utilitarian, in that I am a consequentialist (based once again on my pragmatic stance) but neither a purist act or rule utilitarian. I do tend to believe in situational ethics up to a point, but there are indeed some acts I contend to be immoral in almost all cases.

Ultimately it is going to be a really tough call in some situations and really it just needs to boil down to the seriousness of the moral principle. To cede any ground on the principle it is wrong to kill innocent people is for me simply ceding a ground that could lead to any justification for doing so. On the other hand there is a taboo on lying in society for good reason, but it might be justified to lie, if say you are hiding Jews in your attic from the Nazis during WWII.

So under normal rule circumstances, if we simply tolerated lying in our society under all circumstances everybody would be worse off in society because we would have to live in constant fear that everybody around you was blackmailing you. On the other hand lying to the Nazis preserves innocent life, so in this extreme situation it is morally justified to break the normal rules.

Politics

My politics are sort of reflected in the social version of my ethics. I tend to believe the state ought to be pragmatic in how it deals with issues. As a general rule I believe it should base the rules it sets on fundamental principles that have been proven statistically to work and not just on principle for principle sake. This is why for me a lot of political issues are not absolutes and I am open to changing my mind.

Aesthetics

In a nutshell when it comes to this I am a pretty hardcore relativist. Art is simply in the eye of the beholder, nothing more, nothing less.

[Cartertonian]

Do you not think instincts inherently have the best interest of humanity? Although judging that you antagonize them it would appear not, but I just want clarify. Perhaps you are not aware that you are antagonizing something that, you have not question if it in itself has the same interest of betterment of humanity that you yourself trying to achieve by antagonizing it.

If your instinct is to be distrustful, suspicious and even hateful of somebody else, merely because they display obvious variance from your 'tribe', then how is that in the best interests of humanity? It may be in the best interests of your little group of humanity, but it is not in the wider interests of the human race.

Also, what do you mean by 'antagonizing' in this context?

[Plaro]

If your instinct is to be distrustful, suspicious and even hateful of somebody else, merely because they display obvious variance from your 'tribe', then how is that in the best interests of humanity? It may be in the best interests of your little group of humanity, but it is not in the wider interests of the human race.

Yet, how do you know that? Maybe it is in best interest for humanity that each group supports its own interest. Would not mother nature know best as in the end it is the law and gave birth to everything, so would it not know best how to run things? Essentially you are denying nature its ability to do its work through you as you fear it will do bad instead of good.

In reality you have no control of your instincts, when they arise, yes and you are aware of that. Yet, it seem you are not fully aware, that you have no validity in your reason not to follow those instincts as much as you have validity in following them. Yet nature's intent could be all but benevolent and you just don't know about it, because we have not figured out all the mysteries of nature.

Also, what do you mean by 'antagonizing' in this context?

You label tribal instincts as racist, having no place in today's society or future, something only for recidivist and extremist. Naturally I though you were being antagonizing toward your instinct.

[Cartertonian]

The danger of an online forum is that emotive content can be perceived where none was included.

As to 'Mother Nature'

The defining feature of a maturing human race should be our ability to recognise these hardwired instincts from our genetic pre-history as having no place in our present or our future. For me, this is the defining element that separates extremism of any stripe from the mainstream.

One may choose to talk in terms of Mother Nature, but to further qualify my position I would say that what separates sentient beings from animals is our ability to make choices about how we respond to our instincts. For example, the instinct to eat high-fat/high-calorie food is hardwired and our unwillingness to exercise control over it is what has led to increased obesity. I am mindful of your apparent propensity to add emotional value to words on a webpage where no such emotional content were intended so I shall attempt to word this carefully. If I recall correctly you are politically on the right, Plaro? It is interesting to me that those who appear most ready to make use of our animalistic tendencies to violence, insularity and elitism sit on the right. I'll say no more than that.

[Plaro]

I do not know if you are unwilling to see what I'm talking about because of emotional feelings of fear and frustration or you are just missing my point.

What separates us from animals is indeed our intellect. But it was our instinct to survive that perpetuated our development of our intellect, and nature took care that we will be able to adjust to our new environment not just intellectually but intuitively and instinctively as well. Yet we still mistrust it, even though it has given us everything.

As for you example about the instinct to eat fatty foods, it is not more so that we are unable to control ourselves, I find it usually is an issue of awareness, understanding and acceptance. Once a person become very well aware and understanding, usually the conceptual mind falls with reality and the desire that we "sought we needed control over", is actually naturally overridden, replaced by the instinct to be healthy. Therefore new outlook forms and person changes, person's reaction to fatty food change as well. As before it was drooling and excitement, now it is moderation and detest of over eating. Naturally our diet changes too.

Like I said, what happens is your instinct and intuition is trying to tell you something, yet you intellectually refuse to study it. Yes, it is coming out in a form of hate and antagony, in return you try to antagonize it, because you think in this field there should be no bad feelings for greater good of humanity. It is noble idea, but is it actually true? And what is more real, nature and what you feel or an assumption in your mind that you are following a grand design for betterment of humanity?

As for example, there is an instinct and intuitive sense to protect ones family from danger, this is a benevolent instinct of natures design and means good, yet it might come to express itself violently. If a threat of danger should arise in human form, we hate it and feel great enmity towards it, we even respond with violence towards it. Even if hate and violence is deemed bad and not good on its own. Yet we intuitively know it is to achieve greater good, that is to protect our family, cause we do not have ideas in our heads that stop the initial reaction of the intuition and instincts, this action takes freely and effortlessly without doubt or fear. It just becomes common sense to us and we follow it.

Similarly this is happening within you, in the case of tribal instincts. Yet you stop you do not listen to your intuition as it appears to want bad from you. But it only feels bad cause of your mentality and mental perception, not because you truly know it is bad. Perhaps you just don't want to feel bad thats all, which is an important part of acceptance, to actually see the truth.

I do not know if I can make it more clear for you then this.


And

I am mindful of your apparent propensity to add emotional value to words on a webpage where no such emotional content were intended so I shall attempt to word this carefully. If I recall correctly you are politically on the right, Plaro? It is interesting to me that those who appear most ready to make use of our animalistic tendencies to violence, insularity and elitism sit on the right. I'll say no more than that.

Take of that mask Cart, be a raging animistic beast as to the best of your ability, go mad berserk! Beat you harry chest in front of your black co-worker and then point to at their nose and say you don't belong here in Britain, this is my tribe! I know that is what you really want. I'm not even that bad, man.

How is that for an emotional content, felt good there for a moment did it not. What this wants is release Cart not control. To be stark naked like that and exposed, you know to be human.