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[Leafsnail]

Personally, I think that post in itself falls into the last group.

Therein lies the beauty.

[Dakk]

Spoiler: Shit guys, God exists. (click to show/hide)

And he has the humor of a /b/tard.

That explains alot actualy.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I'll be right back, I have to manicly dance around in the cold while I figure out how to deal with this.

hehehehehaeImacrazypersonqwqwweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeenesbitteatime

_{^{Seriously, though, that doens't prove anything other than 4chan's unfathomably bad luck.}}

[Dakk]

It was obviously rigged, but if so, it was two trigged rigged at two different times, with a decent interval between them. Quite epic, rigged or not, and if its not, all I can say is SHIIIIIIIIIIIIT

[fqllve]

Shounen bat!


Er, excuse me.

[Siquo]

I like philosophy, but I don't know the history nor do I care all too much.

Then you like to philosophise, not philosophy. The main reason why I quit studying philosophy was too many fellow students with that same idea (resulting in fights over who gets to spout his own theories instead of shutting up and let the teacher teach). Suffice to say: even the ancient philosophers have said quite a few things that are now still relevant, and you can presume that all of them (well, the famous ones) were smarter than any of us. Not wanting to learn is pretty dumb, by my definition. Calling them half-baked without knowledge of what you're talking about is even worse.

[Shades]

Not wanting to learn is pretty dumb, by my definition. Calling them half-baked without knowledge of what you're talking about is even worse.

It's even worth learning the half-baked theories too because otherwise you'll probably end up thinking along those lines without realising why they were wrong.

<insert your favourite those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it quote here>

[malimbar04]

I like philosophy, but I don't know the history nor do I care all too much.

Then you like to philosophise, not philosophy. The main reason why I quit studying philosophy was too many fellow students with that same idea (resulting in fights over who gets to spout his own theories instead of shutting up and let the teacher teach). Suffice to say: even the ancient philosophers have said quite a few things that are now still relevant, and you can presume that all of them (well, the famous ones) were smarter than any of us. Not wanting to learn is pretty dumb, by my definition. Calling them half-baked without knowledge of what you're talking about is even worse.

You win, I like to philosophise. Sorry people like me made you quit studying the history of philosophy (other people who philosophised by the way).

While I'm on the subject, is there anything from any of these 'great philosophisers' that we can actually build on? Is there anything, for example, that says we exist? If not, I no longer wonder why science has overshadowed philosophy for progress.

BTW, I definately fit into the smug asshole version, and depending on your perspective the idiot version as well
Also BTW, Calling them smarter than us is I think slightly presumptuous. Intelligence isn't measured well anywhere, and quite frankly isn't all that important for disproving things.

[Shades]

I no longer wonder why science has overshadowed philosophy for progress.

Its not. In fact that is a strange statement.

[Siquo]

BTW, I definately fit into the smug asshole version, and depending on your perspective the idiot version as well

As one of them said (Aristoteles, I believe), a fool can ask more in a day than a wise man can answer in a lifetime. But you don't ask.
To put it into perspective, as his teacher's teacher showed: one who asks too much is a fool, one who asks too little is even worse.

Also, I'll stop feeding the trolls.

[Leafsnail]

I guess that works if you twist your definition of fool a lot.

[malimbar04]

As one of them said (Aristoteles, I believe), a fool can ask more in a day than a wise man can answer in a lifetime. But you don't ask.

While I'm on the subject, is there anything from any of these 'great philosophisers' that we can actually build on? Is there anything, for example, that says we exist?

So that's who the brain in the jar guy was. So am I Discartes here, or am I his opponent?

None of it follows? really? I'm rereading it and I'm not seeing the fault.

Should I continue my line of reasoning, or are there already unforgivable flaws that I don't see?

Shall I continue?

To this and others...

In all honesty, what god-like characteristics are left? Since we agree that the deist god can still theoretically exist (though is relatively boring), what characteristics of the well known gods could still exist?

These are all honest questions.

When I make a claim about math, like the square root of 10 is 4, you could just say I'm wrong. That's useless to me. You could say that the square root of 10 is approximately 3.162, which would be a whole lot better. The best way I see to answer that is to patiently go through the definition of square root, then square the numbers. 4+4+4+4=16 (4*4). 3+3+3=9 (3*3). Continue the process, or use a caculator to find it for you.

I would ask more questions, but I think I understand that rare events are common if taken in bulk, or that low level radiation in all directions provides loose evidence for a big bang (the expanding universe provides better evidence). I thought I understood the problem of imaginary worlds as well, which is why I argued against it. Now I've been told I'm wrong, but in such a way that I think the whole discipline would be suspect (which is supported by not being able to think of any contributions to society from them). Looking from the outside, I might think this Malimbar guy is a bit dry, or I might think he's wrong and possibly arrogant, but I wouldn't really be suprised that this guy is thinking the way he is.

So please, teach me. I don't join these conversations to attack, I join them in the hopes I learn something new. Otherwise, I would never join a converstation on religion, ethics, politics, sexuality, morality, science, or any other discipline. If I want to troll, it'd be more fun in the dwarf fortress stories section.

[G-Flex]

you can presume that all of them (well, the famous ones) were smarter than any of us.

No, you can't, and for two reasons:

• Someone's ideas and methods becoming popular does not mean they were the best their culture (or any) had to offer. Popularity never makes you right, and attitudes like "if he's famous he must be smart" result in people and ideas being famous not for being smart, but for being famous. After all, what else would happen if you don't actually question then, and simply assume they must be smarter than you?
• Being "smart" is more than about inherent intellectual capacity. As culture has evolved, so has our collective understanding of the world. Philosophical (and other) work that was groundbreaking thousands of years ago can sometimes be seen as quaint today and mostly of historical significance, which isn't to say that it's unimportant.

I'm not saying you shouldn't care about philosophical history, or the ideas of the famous philosophers, just that you're espousing a very dangerous and harmful idea in saying that you can assume any famous philosopher is better/smarter/more knowledgeable than you.

To put it differently: There's a big difference between having humility and learning about existing ideas before thinking you have everything figured out, and taking famous work on faith or not questioning it, or making assumptions either way about how "smart" it is.

[Siquo]

So please, teach me.

I can give pointers. Your initial set of assumptions and reasoning is very close to that of Descartes' Meditations (I linked to that earlier), so I presumed you were familiar with his work. However, he continues his line of reasoning to "prove" that God exists, hence the joke. Since your line of thought agrees with his, you might want to read him.
You could do the whole "correct" path of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Roman Sceptics, etc etc, but although some are enlightening (especially the sceptics should appeal to the cynics), it can be dry at times. Personally, I totally dig Kierkegaard, for instance. He rocks. And Socrates is awesome, too. He's like the Big Daddy of Philosophy.

To put it differently: There's a big difference between having humility and learning about existing ideas before thinking you have everything figured out, and taking famous work on faith or not questioning it, or making assumptions either way about how "smart" it is.

Oh, but I never said you shouldn't question it, I agree that you should. I once wrote a paper on Descartes' Meditations II and III, pointing out the errors in his way of thinking (I don't know how good it was, I flunked out of uni before it got graded). That doesn't make me smarter than him, I've got access to knowledge of those who came after him. But to question it, you need to read it first.

Also, philosophers are never popular. Maybe they had groupies and fanclubs in ancient Greece or Rome, but not since then. They're famous because other people say they are, and those other people are generally more knowledgeable than I am. So it's at least an indication that their work is worth reading. It isn't always, there's a lot of crap around, but you never know until you read it.

[rant at Joe the plumber (or Henk and Ingrid, as he's called here)]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It's a sign of the times, I guess. Freedom of speech and all. There were times when people knew when to shut up. Nowadays, the opinion of the common man weighs as much as the opinion of the learned man, because even they can be wrong. Yes they can be, but overall they're a lot less wrong than you, common man. So please, don't speak up for yourself, and when you do, make sure you put a lot of thought into it. And even then, test it first against someone who knows his shit before spouting it in public. You're embarrassing the human race. Shut up.

[/rant]

[Shrugging Khan]

ur a fascist nazi! or maybe u wanna for the crooks in goubernement to exploit the people without them speaking up!!111