Beliefs...

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by Lesion42, May 6, 2002.

  1. *stRgrL* Kicks ass Valued Senior Member

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    2,495
    Ya, but you have to eat 100+ hits! Or lick a couple of sheets of acid to never come down. It rarely happens. I knew 1 guy it happened to - and he had way over 80 hits of acid at once.
     
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  3. Neutrino_Albatross Legion of Dynamic Discord Registered Senior Member

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    Im sorry but the brain uses energy to operate. Without an input of energy the brain would die. The brain has to use energy otherwise it is a violation of the laws of thermodynamics. I admit that it may be possible to at some point be able to survive without arm and legs but it will never be possible to survive without a digestive and circulatory system to supply the brain with energy.
     
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  5. Agent@5 Registered Senior Member

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    Excuse me but it happened on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. so I think I have a fairly valid arguement! Look i guess my point is, perhaps there is anotehr way for a life form to survive without consuming food. I mean thats one design... And perhaps im just being stubborn, coz i hate being wrong lol... no seriusly, the sysytem we know, may not be the only system that exists. You just never know. But again, that would be NO human! hehehe
     
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  7. Agent@5 Registered Senior Member

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    My point is, it happened.
     
  8. Cactus Jack Death Knight of Northrend Registered Senior Member

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    Allright to adress the "permanent trip" idea I have some thoughts. My model still works for the people around the person they have point of reference, etc. to realize he is hallucinating, however if there was no way for him to come down off the trip, and no one around him for him to use as a reference point then it would be that person's reality. However, because of the other people around being able to use reference points, etc. they can realize his hallucinations to be false and not part of "reality."

    But yes under those strict cuircumstances it would be a person's reality.
     
  9. wet1 Wanderer Registered Senior Member

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    8,616
    In Agent@5's story of the king and queen, the townspeople were the sane ones. It is the majority that tell the difference in this case. As has been stated before, the majority determine who is sane. If the townspeople all see it alike, then that is where the sanity lies.

    Howelse can we determine who belongs in the asylum?
     
  10. Adam §Þ@ç€ MØnk€¥ Registered Senior Member

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    The insane people have an INSANE stamp on their hands.
    The sane ones have a SANE stamp on their hands.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  11. wet1 Wanderer Registered Senior Member

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    I guess that leaves me half and half. For the life of me I can not find that stamp.

    Running crazy is the only thing that keeps me insane, er sane...
     
  12. orthogonal Registered Senior Member

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    These same epistemological questions have been argued continuously for at least the past two thousand years. In the 1930’s Wittgenstein and other proponents of Logical Positivism unsuccessfully attempted to end such debates once and for all. Some folks today think it odd that given our tremendous recent advances in science, that we would still bother asking questions such as, “Can we know anything for certain?” Scientific advances arrive at a dizzying rate, yet here we are, still asking the same questions that haunted Socrates. Science moves forward, yet philosophy seems forever to be chasing it’s tail. Why not dispense with philosophy altogether? Daniel Dennett might have given the best answer:

    “There is no such thing as philosophy-free science; there is only science whose philosophical baggage is taken on-board without examination.”

    As profitable as it is to peer out at the external world through the eyes of an empiricist, no amount of looking outward dismisses the need to simultaneously look inward, at our own “being”. A full life requires more than correct scientific information. For example, science tells us only what probably is, rather than what ought to be. Scientific advances might provide us with better moral choices, but science tells us nothing about how we should make a moral decision. Science is a tool for understanding. Science is not itself, understanding.

    Epistemologically, I agree with Descarte’s fundamental assertion that I may only be certain of the fact, that at this very moment I am thinking. And even if I’m only dreaming that I am thinking, it is still my dream. Likewise, dream or not, what I feel at this moment is real. No scientific theory could disprove the fact that when I feel happy, I am happy. Surprisingly, my immediate conscious emotions carry more certitude than any non-tautological rational thought that I’ll ever produce. That is, my weakest real-time emotion is more certain than is the most certain of my rational thoughts.

    Deduction relies on definition and logic. However, both the definitions and the particular logical system are the result of arbitrary choices. Induction is even less certain. If I were a chicken, I might become complacent with the “fact” that a man has come to feed me every morning of my life. Induction suggests that this might be a rule. One morning I notice the man comes to the chicken coop with an axe instead of food. So much for my inductive rule.

    Yet knowledge comes in many flavors. Our day-to-day choices are based on probabilities rather than certitudes. All of us keep a mental tally of the reward-to-risk ratio for a given action. Ironically, the world’s most respected logician, Kurt Goedel, starved himself to death rather than risk eating food which he imagined might be poisoned. Most of us are more clever than that.

    Michael
     
    Last edited: Jun 7, 2002
  13. UberDragon The Freak at the Computer Registered Senior Member

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    Some people don't realize that if a human could use 100% of their brain the fact that the body processes energy would become obsolete. The brain, at that point, would be on such a high cereberal level that it could produce its own, self-sufficient energy by constantly recycling the energy it uses because it doesn't need to use more energy in powering body parts like the heart and lungs.
     
  14. Neutrino_Albatross Legion of Dynamic Discord Registered Senior Member

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    100% WRONG

    Direct violation of the 2nd law of thermodynamis "Entropy always increases"

    Energy cannot be completely recycled. Some of the energy the brain uses will be lost (mostly through heat) eventually the brain would run out of energy.

    Also, a being in this form would use either the sam amount or more energy than a normal body if it had any ability to interact with anything. For this "superbrain" to effect anything it would require some sort of telepathy. (somthing else i don't believe in but for the sake of argument ill assume it exists) That telepathy would require at least as much energy as our current bodies do to function.
     

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