h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I think it depends if what you say is absolute drivel or not.

And who decides if what you say is drivel (I am actually not familiar with the word, but I take it it means b******t) or not?
Other philosophers? Logic? Common sense?

Well, if you ask other philosophers, some of them will say it's drivel, some of them will say it's the truth and set themselves up as Thorondirists, and the rest will say that due to the use of the word.... yadayada it makes no sense whatsoever.

What I actually meant was, if your philosophy is on a standard comparable to Russel Grant's postcards, or well- thought out.

So an idea, a theory, a meme, a memeplex, what ever an intelectual entity can name itself a philosophy if you have spent much (enough) time thinking on it?
If I am thinking on the existence God, or in the true freedom of my actions for quite some time, then I am philosophising?
Is time I spend thinking on matters, as the aforementioned, each day making me more a philosopher than someone else?
Is a thought of the moment, a thing you just came up with, not a philosophy?
How would you define or grasp philosophy?
And are you proving yourself to me right now or am I to you?

Both. But I'm not doing it as well.

I dislike saying things like "more of a philosopher than" (doesn't make it not true though), rather I would say that you are better mentally equipped to deal with philosophy than someone who jumps into the subject for the first time. People learn at varying rates, after all.

A thought of the moment could be a philosophy, but the chances are it'll be linked to something you were thinking about earlier. Even if it is a really convoluted link.

I wrote an entry about it, you're free to go and criticise if you wish.

"So an idea, a theory, a meme, a memeplex, what ever an intelectual entity can name itself a philosophy if you have spent much (enough) time thinking on it?"
or rather (in my opinion) discussing it and having your idea's open to critisism. being able to rationally explain anything you say. (of course the other person will be doing this too)

e.g:
does anything else apart from yourself exist? or are your senses just lying to you?

Z Phantom

I'll drink to that.

Of course, the attitude of many (including Bertrand Russel) is that philosophy will not tell us anything about the world, we're all realists or phenomenoligists at heart, but it will be to the brain as exercise is to the body.

"An analytic philosopher is someone who bursts footballs and balloons to show that air pressure is really much the same everywhere"

A nice little phrase.

If a dog has the soul of a philosopherm, which breed do you think has your soul?

Personally I am reckoned to be a border collie, but a little bit mongrel.

You can take a horse to water, but a pencil must be lead.

You can take a Horse to water, but a pencil must be lead.
TaijiDave

Oh an interesting discovery for philosophers of mind, they reckon now that the complexes thought to be associated with pleasure (the dopamine complexes) are in fact associated with want. The opioid complexes, located roughly behind the eyes are now thought to be the pleasure centres. If people wish me to back this up I will.

Not exactly philosophy, more psychology, but the two overlap, and it's interesting nonetheless.

Sure is. When I studied philosophy I thought it would all turn out to hinge on psychology; until I discovered Berkeley and Wittgenstein. Pinker's "How the Mind Works" is largely brain science, with occasional cop-outs; but very relevant and fascinating, and a ripping good read, folks!

I still can't help siding with Berkeley, when he says

"The grand mistake is that we think we have ideas of the operations of our Minds"

-- he used 'ideas' to cover everything we perceive, think of, operate on; the mind is what receives ideas and operates on them, and cannot be an idea itself, nor can the operating. Wittgenstein made the same move when he said the subject (person) is outside the world, just as the eye is outside the field of vision.

"does anything else apart from yourself exist? or are your senses just lying to you?"

I'm surprised that Recumbentman didn't pick up this perennial question as a jumping-off point for a Berkelean dissertation. He and I have had many a long chat over the philosophical/psychological interface, over the years. He is much more of an intellectual than I, and ( having actually acquired a philosophy degree ) much more knowledgeable too. But many years of my life ( approx 35 ) have been devoted to practical exploration of the philosophical verities ( via meditation, psychoactive chemicals etc.) such as the nature of reality, the nature of the mind, the truth of being, and so forth.

These experimental explorations have led me to the following conclusions.

1) The personal self is a myth, a mental construct acquired from the habit of identifying with sensory input and stored memories.

2) It follows from this that questions such as "are your senses just lying to you?" have no value, because (a) there is no substantial "you" to which they could lie. And (b) the only reality you can ever know is the product of your senses, ( and memories of stored sensory input ), whether they are lying or not. [Current theories of madness split over the description of psychoses as chemical defects in the brain's mind-machine, or as psychological mechanisms to escape from unacceptable socially constructed contexts. In fact, both of these realities seem to inform each other.]

Contemporary physics says "we can never know reality, only our perception of it." Effectively, this means that reality is what we know. Coloured by what we believe we know...

Advaita Vedanta tells us that knowledge, what we know, depends on our state of consciousness ( eg waking, dreaming, sleeping,) and, along with its offshoot, Buddhism, denies ultimate reality to any impermanent, changing phenomena. Which doesn't leave much that is "real" within the manifest. Hence the much misused saying "It's all an illusion..."

The illusion is the existence of a personal self/entity and its relationahip with the perceived "world". Both Advaita Vedanta and Buddhist philosophies posit ultimate "reality" as that which is unbound by sensory perception and have given various names to it through the millennia, eg: SatChitAnanda ( Being-Consciousness-Bliss) Sat also carries a value of "truth," satyam. Buddhists prefer the description Shunyata ( emptiness ) but while some schools ( eg Madhyamika ) maintained that ultimate emptiness is devoid of the characteristic even of emptiness, more pragmatic Mahayana philosophers concluded that there must be an aspect which is more-or-less "being," or else we wouldn't be here to experience the emptiness!

However, the existence of a personal self is denied by all core Buddhist philosophers. ( Which leads to the entertaining question, to which I have yet to receive a convincing reply, even from HH the Dalai Lama, "So if there is no personal self entity, what re-incarnates?")

Hard-core Advaita says re-incarnation is also a myth, as there is nothing to re-incarnate. While classic Buddhist texts say "When enlightenment dawns, there is no-one to experience it." In a word, the awakening to "truth" is not an experience ( with a beginning, a middle, and an end, in conventional linear time ) but a recognition of what is, simply as it is.

This includes all arising phenomena, seen as they arise, both the apparently external objective reality, and the apparently internal subjective reality.

In other words, "reality" is a unity, not a duality. So there can never be "an experiencer" of reality, because that implies a dualistic process of knower, knowing, and known. Unity can only be "become", not perceived or possessed. This unity then is what tends to be expressed as "emptiness" by Buddhist philosophers, and as "being" by Advaitins. In answer to the classic Socratic question, "Who am I?" the answer is expressed, both by Buddhists and Advaitins as "I am That." That in the sense of what is, the unbounded continuity of unity awareness underlying, permeating all apparent "empty" phenomena.

Paradoxical, innit?

So, then, which is more real,( to hazard a meaningless question ) a chair, or a thought of a chair? Does a chair exist apart from one's recognition of it, and your agreement that what I call a chair tallies with what you call a chair? What then of colour? My notion of redness is unknowable by you, even if we agree the chair is red.

So how real is a thought? A feeling, an emotion?

They are all arising dualistic phenomena within the unity of awareness, but we tend to attribute more "reality" to those phenomena which apparently endure. Perversely, our brain cells are in a constant process of change and flux, while our sense of ( illusory) "I"ness seems never to change at all.

Oh well, enough philosophical rambling for one Saturday morning. ( Does all that make me a philosopher, or just a rambling, certifiable idiot?) Ho hum....The supermarket calls.

Bye for now.

Time for some chai....

*Applause*

Welcome back Chaiwallah after a long silence. More Grimley Moer coming up soon? (Yes folks -- see A1070786 The Ballad of Grimly Moer for a record-busting tale of derring and doo)

As for "does anything else apart from yourself exist? or are your senses just lying to you?" -- that's not a Berkeleian question at all, it's half a century and more earlier, Cartesian.

And as for "So if there is no personal self entity, what re-incarnates?" surely it's the role that reincarnates. The King is dead, long live the King.

And as for "which is more real, a chair, or a thought of a chair?" this is a deliberate confusion of levels of reality. The chessmen do not know their moves; the player however is nowhere to be seen on the board.

Damn this is turning into a discussion again. More quotes! Where are you Tommy Mac when we need you?

I can think of a Tommy Mac- esque quote:

"There may be no spoon, but this begs the question of why there is soup".

Yeah, that's more like it

Good good. I'm sure I can get a few more.

"On reflection, introspection really doesn't suit me."

And just for the hell of it, because I love it,

"I think, therefore I thtay out of the thwimming pool".