Why we exist

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by Starlord, Aug 18, 2016.

  1. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    27,543
    Gullible, and Impressionable come to mind....Some people need that warm comfortable inner glow to go through life

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

    ...............
     
  2. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  3. river

    Messages:
    17,307
    Yes they do , its called being Human .
     
  4. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  5. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    13,077
    1/ No it doesn't

    2/ No it doesn't

    3/ None do because 1/ and 2/ don't happen
     
  6. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  7. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    13,077
    There isn't any

    I replied to this stupidity in a reply to that post

    Don't think you will receive a valid reply

    (From a retired midwife)
     
  8. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    13,077
    Not so sure about that

    Judging by some of the post here it seems some may have dropped out of natural laws into a world of their own

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
    DaveC426913 likes this.
  9. DaveC426913 Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    18,935
    My wife is in perinatal education. Blood vessels pop out on her forehead when I recite to her some of the things people say here on SciFo.
     
  10. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    13,077
    Hope she doesn't pop a blood vessel with this

    If you think she might don't quote it

    My wise ancient guru once explained to me about babies

    Grasshopper

    If they are born looking perfect
    And they seem to do all natural things like breathing drinking sleeping popping
    And they have ten toes five on each foot in the right place and order
    And ten fingers five on each hand in the right place and order
    They are perfect
    BUT (here his voice went deep and ominous and 18th century)
    If they be born ahrrr with eleven toes (lightening flashed outside as the rain beat against the window and a creaking door slammed shut) (voice back to normal)
    They are perfect with eleven toes

    I passed my exams on that pearl of wisdom

    Now where did I put my tongue?

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
    DaveC426913 likes this.
  11. C C Consular Corps - "the backbone of diplomacy" Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,324
    An absence of everything (i.e., "nothing") isn't applicable if there's a "principle of balance" in effect / existing.

    A literal absence of all law, regulating principle, government or logic is also the absence of impossibility. Thus with no restrictions and limitations, not only "something" would be allowable but every possibility.

    But since causality and temporal orientations of past, present, and future would be absent as all the rest... To speak of "nothing" being prior to "something", or rationally beside each other in balance, or absence causing presence, or whatever else, is accordingly meaningless or unnecessary.

    If these wanderings serve any slight purpose, it would apparently be to clarify why "non-existence existing" is both dissonant / incoherent and unneeded / inutile (should that not already have been obvious to us).
     
    Starlord and Michael 345 like this.
  12. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    13,077
    Do you think there might be a blindfolded being out there holding a set of balance scales like Justice weighing up NOTHING / SOMETHING?

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  13. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

    Messages:
    39,397
    Is this ad hominem really necessary?
     
  14. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    27,543
    It's not an adhom.....Gee, I've seen you use more colourful language yourself, particularly with MR....

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  15. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

    Messages:
    39,397
    You assert that timojin holds "mythical beliefs", without specifying what they are or how you know they are mythical.

    You also claim that certain things are beyond timojin's comprehension, implying that you understand things that he can't begin to comprehend. That is insulting.

    In a follow-up post you call him gullible and impressionable (and don't say you didn't mean him).

    None of this is necessary.
     
  16. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    27,543
    Havn't you done the same thing with MR?
     
  17. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

    Messages:
    39,397
    I try very hard to base any assessment I make of MR (or anybody else here, for that matter) on what they write.

    In MR's case, when I say that he believes in certain types of "woo", that is because he himself has posted (often in detail) about those beliefs. I have made significant effort to engage him in discussions of whether his beliefs on such things are reasonable or not, and we have had arguments back and forth about various facts and interpretations. This is different from making ad hominem attacks.

    You will also see, if you look through my posts to MR, that on many occasions I have acknowledged his intelligence and have lamented his unwillingness to applying that intelligence to think critically about some of his professed beliefs.

    MR's self-described willingness to accept all eyewitness accounts of things like alien spaceships at face value as good evidence that earth-visiting aliens exist (for example) makes him, in my opinion, naive - gullible if you prefer. But note: this assessement is based on hundreds of back-and-forth posts between myself and him. If I say he is gullible, I do not mean it as an insult, and I have in fact been quite careful to explain to him exactly what I mean and why I am saying it.

    You might notice that I spend a lot of time asking MR questions about his views. I don't want to assume; I'd rather hear from him what he believes.
     
  18. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    27,543

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

    Do you believe I am gullible James?
    But let's cease this chatter, obviously you have different standards.
     
  19. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

    Messages:
    39,397
    I think you trust certain sources of scientific information without fully understanding them. That doesn't exactly mean you're gullible. The same can be said for myself.

    Meh. If you say so.
     
  20. paddoboy Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    27,543
    The different standards comment was in relation to the highlighted part in what you said, and expecting me to be gullible enough to accept that.
     
  21. C C Consular Corps - "the backbone of diplomacy" Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,324
    Just to pretend that it's not a rhetorical question...

    Lady Justice, of course, would be a prosopopoeia confined to symbolizing moral force in judicatory practices. But there are arguably more general emblems which ancient logicians or their later groupies had for denoting their preoccupations with opposites. A unity of opposites theme would apparently-- via its very nature -- entail a balancing act, too. ("Nothing" and "something" would only be one choice of plug-ins for its paired placeholders, though, among many others).

    "Nothing" in a global and absolute sense would mean even the absence of a container or background that was empty of substantive content (neither classic space nor inferred governing principles susceptible to analysis). Thereby "nothing" is kicked out of the tangible / actual to merely refer to an imaginary counter-possibility [concept] whose purpose is to be a rational ballast for the concept of "something".

    IOW, a particular scheme of human thinking might demand "nothing" as an abstract complement to its concept of "something", but not human-independent affairs. If literally reified in the context of the latter, nothing would sport "absence of impossibility" as a consequence of its lack of laws and lack of restrictions package. Ergo "something" (likewise reified) is not barred from being the case or would just as much still be the "default" setting. (Ordinary language seems to need awkward, figurative expressions at times just to have verbal objects to manipulate around for this bizarre, inutile subject.)
     
  22. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    16,608
    Taking multiple eyewitness accounts at their word is not gullible. It is going by the evidence, the same way detectives and reporters do with crimes and accidents.

    It is an ad hom meant to discredit me with some character flaw or mental disability. If I am a gullible person, then what I say is evidenced and real cannot be trusted. I am essentially written off as a source of accurate observations. You have undermined my credibility in order to refute my claims.
     
    Last edited: Feb 10, 2017
  23. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    13,077
    ?

    But I'm going to go with no idea

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     

Share This Page