ClumsyMonkey.net

I'm now taking Philosophy. This is easily the best class I have ever been in. Seriously. Guidance people are always saying "find something that really excites you". Well, let me tell you folks, this is it.

Also, I've got the best teacher in the world. Seriously, this guy is great. He's not afraid to go off on tangents and tell personal stories (whether relevant or not). He's just hillarious.

Anyways, here's the best part...

For our final project in the course (we got the info on it already) we are having seminars (basically small discussion groups) on specific topics. Get this! The first topic on the list is "The future of artificial intelligence"!

!!!!

Fuck yeah! As some of you may know, the ideas and theories in The Age of Spiritual Machines have taken over my mind almost to the point of obsession. I've relayed some of these things to my friends, and they've been left awe-struck (litterally). Now I finally have a useful outlet for it! YES!

Anyways, back to philosophy.

The only problem with this subject is, as much as I love this, there's no future in it. Unless I want to teach it, it's a more or less useless subject.

So, here's my new plan. Major in Psychology, Minor in Philosophy.

Oh, right. The point of the thread. Ha.

Post some of your favourite philisophical questions, quotes or ideas. We can then discuss them and debate them.

I might do that to, major in psych and minor in philosophy.

My sister is taking a philosophy course, which isn't offered at my school. I'm doing her homework for her.

I love it!

It's the only class that I'm super-psyched about going to. Plus, I actually enjoy the homework!

Here's one we did in class today...

If God held all truth in his right hand, and in his left hand the persistent striving for the truth ... and should say "CHOOSE!" I should humbly bow before his left hand and say, "Give me striving. For pure truth is for thee alone." - Gotthold Lessing

If you (like me) don't believe in God, assume that the quote is stating simply that Lessing would rather strive for knowledge than actually be given all truth.

What do you think you would choose?
What could be the consequences of choosing to have all truth?
etc...

Hm. Philosophical questions...

Can't think of any right now.

I've read a fair bit of general philosophy, overviews and treatises on whole sections and some specific areas, but the only works by single philosophers I've read are Nietzsche, and some Plato and Aristotle. So my philosophical experience is very angry.

I'd go for all truth in a fucking heartbeat. A heartbeat. No real philosophical reasoning behind my choice really.

Having all truth would be good, but kind of scary too - I'm not sure I could deal with knowing absolutely everything.

I did a philosophy degree - well, it was 2/3 philosophy, 1/3 maths and the philosophy bit was so great. Being allowed to argue with your tutors was very cool - especially when they'd suddenly go 'oh - I've never thought of that, you may have a point there' when they'd been doing it for years and you'd just started. I got to talk about things like censorship and whether modern art is just a load of rubbish to all the philosophy of religion stuff about whether God might possibly exist to whether anyone else at all exists - that's the thing that really freaks me out - I "know" other people exist - but when you get down to thinking about proving that it gets really difficult.

I did my thesis on whether it's rational to believe in an afterlife which was partly whether it's possible to have life after death at all, and partly on whether you'd really want to live forever anyway - wouldn't you get bored of everything eventually? What do you guys think about that?

The fact that all of this to some undetermined extent is constantly blows my mind. Without the aid of drugs, honest.

As Kurzweil said, death gives meaning to our lives. It gives importance and value to time. Time would become meaningless if there were too much of it.

We'd become sick of life. It would be impossible to set goals for ourselves because we know that we could acheive anything we want eventually. There's no limit on the time we could spend trying to do something.

Personally, even being a theist, the thought and realization of death being an inevitability still gives me the creeping horrors.

Of course it does. It's the unknown. Whether you have beliefs and ideas about it or not, you still don't know.

As for the choosing all truth or striving question, I would choose all truth. To know is one of the many goals of mankind. To strive to know is but the path to said goal. If given the chance, I would want to know all truth.

But what if that knowing all truth comes with knowing the future? What if you knew when and how your little brother or sister were going to die. Let's say they were going to die on the way to school tomorrow. You know you can try to stop them. However, you also know that them dying is the TRUE future. It is not changable. Somehow, they will go to school the next morning, no matter what you do, and they will die.

Do you still want to know all truth?

How about if you know exactly when and how you're going to die, and you can't do anything about it?

argh.


Intellectual Conversing!!

*implodes*

Hm. Complete knowledge of the future? I didn't realize that was part of the all-truth package. That's tricky, and gets into another topic altogether, since I don't believe the future can be absolutely predicted.

If we knew everything that was going to happen - good or bad, then wouldn't that just take all the fun out of life. If I knew exactly what was going to happen to me in advance, every day for the rest of my life, even if it was all good then I'm sure I wouldn't enjoy myself as much.

However - knowing everything also means knowledge of good stuff - like how to cure cancer or aids. Would that ability to cause such good in the world for everyone be enough to make you accept any downsides?

As for immortality - it's easy enough to say 'yes, of course it will get boring' - but I'd say that the majority of people - theists or atheists to believe in some kind of afterlife so there must be something to be said for it. My view is that it would be best to have some kind of afterlife to experience whatever you missed out in this life - like OLP playing Blister live or whatever other million things you'd love to have done but that this would at some point have to end.

On another note, I just found this in my Philosophy textbook...

First Law of Philosophy: For every philosopher, there exists an equal and opposite philosopher.

Second Law of Philosophy: They are both wrong.

Ooh, and this...

Bertrand Russell wrote:The world is not one in which certainty is possible. If you think you've achieved certainty, you are almost certainly mistaken. That is one of the few things you could be certain about.

Hooray for Russell! So cheery

Brief and powerless is Man's life; on him and all his race the slow, sure doom falls pitiless and dark

A bit cynical, isn't he?

First Law of Philosophy: For every philosopher, there exists an equal and opposite philosopher.

Second Law of Philosophy: They are both wrong.

That is precisely why I no longer desire to pursue philosophy as a career.

Yes, I said philosophy as a career. As in, professorship.

I would never choose all truth. The fire that keeps the human spirit burning is the desire to learn, to discover. We are fueled by our curiosity and hunger to figure things out. If I was ever bestowed with ultimate truth, my life would no longer have any point to it and I'd probably end up killing myself. I'd say that's true for most people...

Funny, we just finished reading Sophie's World for my Theory of Knowledge class. Absolutely fantastic and informative.. I HIGHLY recommend it to anyone with an interest in philosophy. I found Plato's theory of Ideas to be especially intriguing...