millzy said:

eh, kind of. it works like this, from my understanding.

the good
forms
-----------------------the divided line
mind
shadows of the forms
shadows of the shadows of forms (art) - i think this is incorrect btw

according to plato, our reality is bifurcated by the divided line and through the light of the good the forms send their shadows down into our minds and material existence.

that's a pretty basic explanation though. guys like plotinus, who ox mentioned, expanded greatly on this model. i'd love to study plotinus, but i'd prefer to do it formally b/c it's a big piece to bite off from what i understand. grad school type stuff. i'd like to study heidegger's "being and time" in a similar setting as well.

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millzy said:

btw poid, does this clear up anything for you? i'll try to elaborate if you need me to on this position.

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millzy said:

i dissent from plato at certain points myself.

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dustinthewind13 said:

i do, however, think that understanding platonic idealism and aristotelian logic, at least from a basic standpoint, are imperative to understanding how we westerners think.

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Poid said:

millzy said:

i dissent from plato at certain points myself.

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I disagree with many, perhaps most of his points. I do, however, believe he made a few important points.

dustinthewind13 said:

i do, however, think that understanding platonic idealism and aristotelian logic, at least from a basic standpoint, are imperative to understanding how we westerners think.

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I think understanding history, in general, can give one a better overview of the present. I don't, however, think that buying into ancient ideas just because they sound "cool" or "far out" is very wise..I think the purpose of philosophy is to discover the truth, not to mentally masturbate. Many ancient philosophers seem to mainly comment on their own idiosyncratic concoction of how things are, they hardly seem to logically analyze particular claims by their intrinsic merits.

It's not necessary to be highly educated in Platonic idealism and Aristotelian logic in order to be able to ascertain the truth (ascertaining the truth is the main purpose of philosophy IMO)..one can do that by utilizing contemporary logic skills. That contemporary Western logic was highly influenced by ancient philosophy is inconsequential..IMO, contemporary Western logic is a much more effective tool for finding the truth than ancient logic. Ancient logic is hardly relevant to today's issues, and its only utility is in assisting people in understanding the roots of contemporary logic.

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well, i didn't say it is necessary to become an "expert" in plato and aristotle. i'm hardly neither. i've read a few books, taken a  few classes and paid attention and written a few papers. that's it. i'm not by any means special, nor do i tout myself to be some great philosophical mind. i just think that understanding the basics of how this stuff really works is beneficial to seeing how the contemporary stuff relates, and more importantly, how we think as a culture. that is just my opinion though. take it or leave it, but for me, studying plato has opened up a whole new understanding of the western reality, language, and my place in all of it.

aristotle is who i'd like to aim to get a better handle of next. i think inductive/deductive reasoning, while very useful in studying certain aspects of the hard sciences, and presenting arguments in codified law, is very limiting when applied to the human experience. there is a very obvious contradiction when applying aristotelian logic to, for example, individuals. i am a son, i'm a brother, i'm a friend, i'm a client, and many other things, so which of these is true? in aristotelian terms, from my understanding, only one of these things can be ultimately true, when in reality i am all of these things. but this mind set is what animates the western consciousness. learning how it works is like getting a cheat code because you can learn how to circumvent it. while i may respect plato for his contributions, i more want to understand aristotle in order to refute and move in between the narrowness of thinking that i'm confronted with on a daily basis.

and when it comes to aristotelian metaphysics, the concept of the "unmoved mover", or "first cause", yeah, that's a bunch of horseshit to me too. at least at this point in my studies. 

millzy said:

i just think that understanding the basics of how this stuff really works is beneficial to seeing how the contemporary stuff relates, and more importantly, how we think as a culture. that is just my opinion though. take it or leave it...

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millzy said:

...but for me, studying plato has opened up a whole new understanding of the western reality, language, and my place in all of it.

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Quote:

millzy said:
1. there is a form of confusion, not "a confused you".

2. we cannot exist in the realm of forms. our experience of reality lies entirely below the divided line according to plato.

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Quote:

Not to mention, what has forms and what doesn't seems to be totally arbitrary.

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Quote:

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.

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Samurai Drifter said:

Alright, the rest of your post is full of contradictions stemming mainly from the last point (i.e. you both claim that Plato intended the Forms as a metaphor, and claim that our experience of reality "lies entirely below the divided line," which strongly implies that it is a metaphysical doctrine). You also totally overlooked Plato's belief that the realm of the Forms is like Heaven, a perfect place that we go after we die -- as is expressed by Socrates in the Phaedo.

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Quote:

no sensible man would insist that these things are the way as i have described them, but i think it is fitting for a man to risk the belief - for the risk is a noble one - that is, or something like this, is true about our souls and their dwelling places

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Quote:

Also, don't pull the whole "it only implies that to you" thing again, as your statements make clear implications to anybody who understands English, and it just seems like a desperate attempt to backpedal.

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Quote:

In your assertion of point #1, that there would be no form of a "confused me," you overlook my entire point in bringing up that possibility:

Not to mention, what has forms and what doesn't seems to be totally arbitrary.

How did Plato determine what had a form and what didn't? He would definitely say that I had a form (again, in the Phaedo, Socrates clearly says that the soul is the form of a person and goes to the Realm of Forms upon death), and that confusion has a form, but what am I, apart from all the conflicting emotions that I feel (such as confusion)?

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but when the soul investigates by itself (meaning after it has been separated from the body through death) it passes into the realm of what is pure, ever existing, immortal, and unchanging (this is how plato defined forms btw), and being akin to this, it always stays with it whenever it is by itself and can do so; it ceases to stray and remains in touch as it is in touch of things of the same kind, and its experience then is what is called wisdom?
altogether very true and well said, socrates, he said

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Quote:

Also, about your argument for dualism --


By the physicalist doctrine, the place in Euclidean space that all the chemical reactions occur is exactly where mind resides.

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millzy said:

i see a lot of people recommending neitzsche on here for beginners, and as someone who read some of the same stuff in my younger days, i'd like to throw around an idea. basically, i think starting out with this stuff, especially as a younger person without as much life experience or little, if any, background studying philosophy, tends to kind of fuel this cynical, materialist world view. and i think his ripping criticism of christianity, while dead on in the context of the brand of christianity he is railing againgst, also make his work attractive to young people wanting to buck the system, so to speak. i also think that the greater message of his work, that being that we are ultimately responsible for what we get out of life, is often overlooked.

this isn't to say that neitzsche and his ilk's work isn't without merit. quite the contrary. but after having lived a little and formally studied some of the classical stuff, i tend to interpret nietzche differently. to me existentialism is a philosophy hope and personal empowerment and not one of bitter, aimless nihlism.

i'm by no means an expert of philosophy, but my personal advice to anyone seeking to learn more is to start with the two guys whose ideas constitute a considerable portion of the ideological bedrock that informs the western reality; plato and aristotle. getting at least a basic grasp of both of these guys will do wonders for when you're ready to jump in with both feet with more contemporary stuff that has been built from the classical models.

idk, just rambling. i love philosophy and would like it if more people truly understood it, and starting out with, what is in some cases, grad school level texts is most likely going to lead to some pretty crucial misunderstandings.

thoughts?

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tim.johnson717 said:

I think those who just begin to study philosophy ought first of all go through some good comprehensive textbook...

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That's what I'm doing ATM..I'm a little bit more than halfway done with it, and have greatly enjoyed what I've learned so far. It has totally broadened my perspective on lots of issues.

Poid said:

tim.johnson717 said:

I think those who just begin to study philosophy ought first of all go through some good comprehensive textbook...

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That's what I'm doing ATM..I'm a little bit more than halfway done with it, and have greatly enjoyed what I've learned so far. It has totally broadened my perspective on lots of issues.

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millzy said:

i'd be interested in seeing proof of this.

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Quote:

also, on the subject of proof, i'm defending (some) of plato's model, which again i have only personally defined as a perspective framed in metaphor. thus i do not have to provide any proof, just an answer to your arguments by showing you the rhetorical soundness of the model.

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sonoffox said:

also...mind is not matter, it is the information stored in the pattern of matter.

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Quote:

the truly awe inspiring thing about mind arises out of complexity. science will not be able to truly study phenomenological experience until incredible new techniques of experimentation are discovered. ones possible, but ones that would today be "synonymous with magic" to paraphrase clarke. dennett's mind machine is far away.

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The point of Dennett's mind machine was to show that inter-subjective comparisons were not possible even in principle -- that such a machine would be useless. So "far away" is right.

sonoffox said:

i wasn't referring to the thought experiment earlier, but to dennett's statement that he foresaw massive computer models of the consciousness that could be studied in a lab. i never saw that as reductionist, though some have, and dennett even seems defensive about it.

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Quote:

you are correct that the idealism/materialism draw into one thing, (didn't we say this elsewhere?) but what i was trying to point out is that the idealist model allows for many of the things left out of a simple materialist model (them still being the same model at a scale) like meaning and other subjective entities. most people who react poorly to physicalism (i'll use that word because materialism is prejudicial) perceive that subjectivity is left out of the system altogether.

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Samurai Drifter said:

You're the one making a claim that posits unnecessary entities over and above those required to explain observations. The burden of proof is on you.

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Quote:

You've argued for it both as a metaphysical theory and as metaphorical. I don't know which I should be responding to.

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Samurai Drifter said:

I agree that people seem to think that meaning is left out of the picture in the physicalist explanation, but it doesn't necessarily need to be so. I think you get that, though, so I won't harp on it.

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