sonoffox said:

i think the cynicism isn't materialism, but the reductionism that so often goes along with it. i'm an idealist, but i think if we could actually "see" the "stuff" of ultimate reality, we would then argue that we were each correct anyway. the fact of ultimate non-dualism forgets that we experience dualism (an illusion, perhaps, but illusions are honestly experienced). we just fail to understand that beneath it is some one thing. why do we pretend we will understand that one thing with any of our words at all? why would spirit or matter apply to something we are still so far from?

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millzy said:

Visionary Tools said:

here I was, thinking the gateway to philosophy (love of wisdom) was just asking the question: "Why?"

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the gateway to philosophy is understanding the philosophical question: that of being. what is it to be? this is the set of problems philosophy seeks to address.

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Visionary Tools said:

millzy said:

Visionary Tools said:

here I was, thinking the gateway to philosophy (love of wisdom) was just asking the question: "Why?"

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the gateway to philosophy is understanding the philosophical question: that of being. what is it to be? this is the set of problems philosophy seeks to address.

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Here I was, thinking it was love of wisdom. Then again, it is wise to know what it is "to be". But I have not read not experienced for myself what it is to be. I'd like to know.

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sonoffox said:

i think the cynicism isn't materialism, but the reductionism that so often goes along with it. i'm an idealist, but i think if we could actually "see" the "stuff" of ultimate reality, we would then argue that we were each correct anyway. the fact of ultimate non-dualism forgets that we experience dualism (an illusion, perhaps, but illusions are honestly experienced). we just fail to understand that beneath it is some one thing. why do we pretend we will understand that one thing with any of our words at all? why would spirit or matter apply to something we are still so far from?

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if you want to see reductionism at work, read sam harris. he recently declared that there is no free-will. why? because they looked for a mechanism in certain neurological cells and they weren't there. how this means there is not a thing we all feel to be real, based on the failure of one experiment, that is bad science. on top of that, he put his findings in an essay with a "tough shit" attitude. personally, as a fan of gurdjieff (and rush!!!) you have to consciously choose to have free will. it is a phenomenological issue, and i highly doubt you will find it in the chemistry, but in the content of the mind.

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millzy said:

i don't categorize materialism as cynical. i said that a misreading of him can sometimes lead to a cynical outlook. i admire nieitzsche's work.

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explain how plato was "wrong" in your opinion.

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i say that if you want to learn how to do algebra, you must first learn how to add, subtract, divide and multiply. philosophy is not open to interpretation in the way that you frame it. while there is a lush variety of opinions debating its minutia, there are also very concrete concepts that all contemporary philosophy builds off of i.e. platonic idealism, which is not a materialist concept btw - see the mention of "the overman" (thank you to whoever corrected me on that by the way. "superman" is darwinian, i think). someone reading nietzsche with a lack of that piece of knowledge will misinterpret him. it isn't a matter of being stupid, it's just not having all the tools on hand necessary to understand it.

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indeed, putting effort into anything is what turns most people off to certain subjects.

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Samurai Drifter said:

I don't think there's any answer to the free-will question, because it's based on incorrect premises (i.e. the assumption that there's even an agent to make or not make choices in the first place).

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Samurai Drifter said:

Well, true nondualism is neither idealist or materialist (though you could also say that both are correct).

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Samurai Drifter said:

The statement "cynical, materialistic outlook" clearly implies a connection between the two, to me.

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The Realm of the Forms is a good place to start; a totally unnecessary supposition based entirely solving what Plato saw as "contradictions"- i.e. Socrates is taller than man X but shorter than man Y, therefore Socrates is both tall and short. He believed that since everything has similarly "contradictory" properties that material objects could not be real, but only shadows of a true, objective reality.

This is the idea of "essence before existence," the idea that there are ultimate, unchanging essences that project the fallible material world. Since I subscribe to existentialism (existence before essence), I think that the problem isn't with reality and material objects, but rather with our thinking about them. The supposed "contradictions" mentioned by Plato are the products of linguistic errors. The idea that "Forms" could exist is the result of linguistic, logical thinking overstepping its bounds; logic is a useful tool for navigating the world, but it's not all-powerful.

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Not to mention, what has forms and what doesn't seems to be totally arbitrary. Is there a Form of the confused version of me? Is there a form of me not knowing that I'm in the realm of the Forms? If so, I could be in the Realm of Forms right now without noticing it. If not, why not?

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There's no ultimate truth unless we make one for ourselves.

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Not to mention, he thought that the Realm of the Forms was actually a place you went when you died, where you were able to live in the ultimate truth that you couldn't reach in this world. But since all of our ways of perceiving are physical, and all of our perception is based on the sorts of distinctions and contradictions that Plato thought made objects unreal, what does he think the realm of the forms would be like? Things are distinguished by their peculiarities; there's nothing that a perfect cat could look like without being a particular cat, and thus not ultimate and ideal cat of all cat-ness. We couldn't perceive the realm of the forms.

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Obviously having an idea of the context Nietzsche was writing in (and to whom he's responding, i.e. Socrates or Schopenhauer) is useful. But I do think philosophy is entirely open to interpretation -- often, what philosophers say has implications far beyond what is explicitly stated, whether they recognize it or not.

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It's not even about putting effort into philosophy, it's about boring yourself when you don't necessarily have to.

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millzy said:

i also think that dualism is demonstrable by the one thing that arguably makes us human: our minds. we can determine where all of the chemical reactions occur that give rise to mind, but yet cannot point to where it resides in euclidean space. ultimately though, the two planes must intersect in some way at some, perhaps even quantum, level. otherwise there would no interaction. perhaps the problem between dualism vs. materialism is that neither label appropriately describes what's happening.

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millzy said:

we cannot directly experience the realm of forms but creating anything puts us closer in touch with it, imo.

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Poid said:

You actually believe the Realm of Forms exists?

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millzy said:

Poid said:

You actually believe the Realm of Forms exists?

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no, if you had actually read what i said, i said that i look at it as more of an analogy for the limitations of language, as did plato from my understanding of him.

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I always thought he believed it was an actual realm that is separate from ours.

Theory of Forms

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Near the end of the Phaedo...Plato describes the world of Forms as a pristine region of the physical universe located above the surface of the Earth (Phd. 109a-111c).

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millzy said:

Poid said:

You actually believe the Realm of Forms exists?

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no, if you had actually read what i said...

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millzy said:

Visionary Tools said:

millzy said:

Visionary Tools said:

here I was, thinking the gateway to philosophy (love of wisdom) was just asking the question: "Why?"

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the gateway to philosophy is understanding the philosophical question: that of being. what is it to be? this is the set of problems philosophy seeks to address.

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Here I was, thinking it was love of wisdom. Then again, it is wise to know what it is "to be". But I have not read not experienced for myself what it is to be. I'd like to know.

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well philosophy does mean "love of wisdom", but the study of it tackles the problems of being. by "being" i mean the subjective experience of life.

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Poid said:

millzy said:

we cannot directly experience the realm of forms but creating anything puts us closer in touch with it, imo.

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You actually believe the Realm of Forms exists?

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Poid said:

I did read what you said..you said that the Realm of Forms is an analogy for the limitations of language, then you said that we can never directly experience it and that creating something puts us closer in touch with it.

What makes you think we can never directly experience the limitations of language? How does creating something put us closer in touch with the limitations of language?

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millzy said:

i never said that we can't experience the limitations of language. that's ridiculous.

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millzy said:

what i said is that we can't directly experience ultimate reality (in the platonic sense)...

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millzy said:

first off, you need to put plato down (or close the wiki page, which is most likely the extent of your knowledge of plato) and just start with learning how to understand what you're reading.

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millzy said:

and perhaps my understanding of plato isn't complete, but i don't really categorize his views as "beliefs". to me the divided line, forms and "the good" are all just labels used to describe things that are extra-mental - pure ideas that are beyond our capacity to know but within our grasp to contemplate through their essence. to me platonic idealism is more of a perspective than a set of rigid doctrines like religion.

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