>>184213

Easy, use another search engine that's not google. They do exist

but theres so many, I wanted a PSS opinion you ^$@#$

>Why do you suppose we experience?

Evolutionary advantage.

>Do you think it is a recent evolution of man,

No, just some of the types of experiences we have.

>or at least maybe the retention of experience is?

Other animals show retention of experience.

>Does experience even matter without retention?

All retention is temporary, since we will all die eventually.

>If not, I assume we whom have memory are the only ones in this ballpark.

There are people who do not create new memories, they have rather sad lives. That said, a memory is just a specific type of experience and for all you know you are reliving the same experience over and over again. How would you know? Perhaps the entire flow of time is just an illusion and past and future are fixed and the present is only a frame of reference.

OP, I'm incredibly interested in qualia myself.

>Why do you suppose we experience?

No fucking idea, that's the hard problem of consciousness after all.

>Do you think it is a recent evolution of man,

Of course not. But there's probably a minimally-evolved organism that has qualia.

>or at least maybe the retention of experience is?

Again, no. We might do it in a more sophisticated and complex way than other animals, but I believe differences are quantitative, not qualitative.

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Silly goose, go quench that thirst with some Husserl and phenomenology in general.

Here, just to get you going. It can get a little dense at times, but I promise it's fun and it will help with some of your question.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/phenomenology/

Happy trails! Let me know how it goes. Send a postcard.

>>184171
'Shotgun wedding' was a colloquialism developed for the American version of the forced wedding. The latter was common in most cultures and still is in many but you guys added the shotguns as standard practice..

>>184161
>>184159
A potential person doesn't (or in practice, shouldn't) have rights. The question of whether a "species" should is less readily apparent until you consider that it's a term for something in the future and only has to imply potential people.

You're putting the rights of hypothetical, abstract things over those of real people. Ideas like the race or the species (as causes) are basically spiritual and shouldn't be forced on people living in the real world.

>>184190

>The question of whether a "species" should is less readily apparent until you consider that it's a term for something in the future and only has to imply potential people.

No.

>>184193

>Ideas like the race or the species (as causes) are basically spiritual

Yes.

>>184190
I am reminded of an episode from this show, where the humans find a way to exterminate all Cylons. The characters are conflicted with the thought of committing genocide. The president gives the order, and Adama points out that future generations will hate them for it, she tells him, "At least there will be someone around to hate us."

>>183948

nha i am joking. Your alright.

>>183940

>To not believe it as a fact would be an insult to everyone who has ever been wronged.

Well, a lot of people are insulted, then.

>I mean how can you only believe in it as rules of an ideal world and still believe it as a rules of the non ideal world?

The same way I can believe that one woman is more beautiful than another.

>>183945

>If its not real its not a real rule.

That reasoning does not follow.

>>183945
I think you're misinterpreting being misunderstood as being profound. None of what you're saying makes any sense, and your lapses in common logic and English are boggling my mind.

>''MY UNPLEASANT VIEW OF MORALITY''

It's not unpleasant because it upsets my preconceived notions of what morality is, as I think you're trying to imply, but rather because its parodically idiotic. Sorry to be mean, but c'mon man.

>>184101

So you believe in moral beliefs like ''don't be a dick'' or ''don't kill babies'' ?

>>184169
VEH BELIEVE IN NOTHSINK, LEBOWSKI.

>>184121
>>184136
You're nitpicking. When unimpeded, people do what they most enjoy, and the context of this thread makes it glaringly clear that actions taken out of necessity have absolutely nothing to do with the topic under discussion. Your posts, while technically correct, added nothing to the discussion.

>>184147>>184136

I agree with Esther you're a skunk of an intellectual

>>184147
I'm not nitpicking
It's just an incorrect generalization.

>>184156
It's only a generalization if you ignore the context, which you did solely to have a reason for complaining. You're nitpicking.

>>184158
I'd also like to make the point that generalisations by definition are general rather than absolute truths

So its not incorrect to make a generalisation that's not absolutely true.. because then it wouldn't be a generalisation. Nor is it absolutely wrong to make generalisations.

>>184050

You're right, they'd rather refer to humans as skinbags, and thoughts and emotions as brain secretions.

>>184074
No they wouldn't. You lack understanding of zen and that's okay because I'm zen.

>>184075

"If we practice in this way we cannot help but realize that our thoughts are really nothing but
secretions of the brain. Just as our salivary glands secrete saliva, or as our stomachs secrete gastric juices,
so our thoughts are nothing but secretions of the brain."

Uchiyama Kosho

Nyogen Roshi referring to skinbags:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eDe2wifbFo

>>184076
You're a funny guy.
>>184075
I get the feeling that he has a deeper understanding of zen than you do. ;)

>>184076
The guy in the video's a fucking moron.

I have another question:
What does one call the tendency of trusting one's hypotheses without even empirically testing them, just because one believes to have proven them logically? Is it "a priori rationalism" - the belief that one can prove things via one's logic, without even having to empirically test one's deductions?

Also, what does one call the tendency of excessive preoccupation with rendering hypotheses more and more complex, adding more and more (often useless) details, while rarely testing one's proposed hypotheses?

>>184056
Logical fallacy is the name of that.

But are you really implying, that you have greater knowledge than mainstream psychology?

>>184071

>But are you really implying, that you have greater knowledge than mainstream psychology?

Are you really implying that your car is Kim Jong-Un's laptop?

Your question was about as coherent and relevant as mine. Please read my original post before making such responses. I'm criticizing the French approach to High Functioning Autism and Asperger's, which is criticized by virtually the entire international psychiatric community.

>>184072
So, you are? I mean, if you know that it's not part of scientific consensus, why do you need to ask about it in forum of stoners? I bet you can find a lot of real scientific papers about this, it doesn't matter what we think.

>>184071
Mainstream psychology actually agrees with OP and disagrees with French psychologists. So. Yeah.

what does weed have to do with morality?
it's a plant.

>>183984
This is a kind of base naturalism. "It's from da earf, so it can't be bad." So are any number of drugs. If we're interested in it, there's an ethical dimension to it. For example the biosphere itself. It's just as natural as that plant. Would you say there's an ethical dimension to the biosphere? I would. Being good stewards for future generations, we inherited a habitable biosphere, it is only right to pass it along to future generations as habitable and protect or enhance its vitality. With marijuana, of course there's an ethical dimension because people use it as a source of income and as a drug.

Also I like to challenge this notion of "natural" whenever I see it pop up. A pile of trash is natural, but people don't associate it with nature. People are mythologizing nature and I think it's a new kind of religion taking shape today

>>184037
I disagree. "Selling weed" has an ethical/moral dimension, as do "smoking weed" and "taking care of the planet". But these are all human actions. Weed as a plant does not have an ethical/moral dimension. It's not a subject of morality, nor is it an action that can be classified as moral or immoral. It just exists and does its thing, like a rock or a river or a beaver.

Augustus's rethorical question makes this point. Weed has fuck all to do with morality, because it's just a plant, and this has nothing to do with naturalism. Poison ivy and hungry bears also have nothing to do with morality, and nobody is claiming that they're good because they're "natural" (as if anything were unnatural). It's just that they aren't conscious entities capable of moral judgement, as far as we know anyway.

>>184038
Suggesting that a marijuana plant has no ethical dimension by itself divorced from any relation to human beings, say, if human beings didn't exist but marijuana plants did - this is kind of a cosmic "duh" moment. In fact, that point is kind of implied in the post you responded to. "If we're interested in it," yada yada.No objects have intrinsic goodness. Subjects can be good, actions can be good, virtues can be good, or moral law can be good. These of course are all arguable given whatever ethical system you're using, but no ethical system, to my knowledge, places goodness or its opposite as the substance or form of mere objects.

>>184065
I just pointed out the obvious to contrast with your accusations of "base naturalism". It seems much more likely, in the context of tis thread, that Augustus was either parodying the idea that natural=good or that he was alluding to the moral insignificance of a mere plant.

tl;dr either you got trolled or you misread that guy's post, or he really is that retarded - I'm not betting much on the latter though.

Yes, because your beliefs have hemorrhoids and look weird.

>>184061
I figured as much.

>>184042
You wouldn't mind quoting me then, would you?

As far as I know all I did was ask a simple question, unless you're responding to this >>184028, in which case I just have to assume you're not very intelligent.

>>184042

>guy accused me of having hidden motives and I explained that I didn't.

I didn't accuse you, I pointed out that the possibility exists, ie. that the probability that you're doing this for reasons other than those you state is non-zero. Not the same thing as actually accusing you of it.

>ridiculous is being doubtful of a conclusion even when you form a conclusion on a matter.

Not really. Doubt is only detrimental if it prevents you from following through. Many a time I've gone through with something I was doubtful of and my doubts did not affect my ability to carry out my tasks. It is possible to be skeptical of an action's possibility of success and still see the action through. I'd imagine many soldiers have dealt with that, either by carrying out questionable plans from their superiors or choosing a "least horrible" course of action themselves.

You make doubt and skepticism out to be these dominating, all-consuming emotions that make it impossible to come to any conclusion at all. In the general case, that is adamantly not the case.

>you're making the point I was making, eventually you see the diminished returns becoming absolutely no return.

Yes, I am. But I am further making the point that this does not mean that while you should stop applying skepticism after a certain point, that does not mean that you should throw it out entirely.

>>184042

>guy who gets mad at people making assumptions about him... retorts by making assumptions about everyone.

I'm not bound to anything. The only reason I quote Plato (not even Socrates) is because I had the quote handy and it applied perfectly to this situation. Here, because it applies so perfectly, I'll quote it again.

"I thought to myself: I am wiser than this man; neither of us probably knows anything that is really good, but he thinks he has knowledge, when he has not, while I, having no knowledge, do not think I have.”
-- Plato and me

And, nope, it wasn't that I was dissatisfied with the answer, although if I were actually looking for an answer I would find both of those answers very unsatisfying. I asked a question because it is far more rewarding to ask a question than to receive an answer. I would have been surprised if you provided a satisfying answer, although I didn't rule it out at all. (I think right now is a good time to point out why I said that skepticism is the source of humor and joy. My skepticism was towards your ability to provide me with an answer that would bring me great joy, joy at the fact that you were not just some douchebag, despite the odds. I cared not for the odds. I place my chips where I want; the placing of the chips is far more rewarding than whatever the outcome might be. If you would have turned out to be a different sort, a truly kindred spirit, then I would have probably jumped for joy. But, since you weren't, and since my skepticism remained, because, perhaps you still could have been, and I just approached you wrong, I decided to try a different approach. Despite the possibility of you cutting your wrists because of being called a faggot, my skepticism got the better of me and I called you a faggot in the spirit of humor. You can imagine that I use similar techniques when approaching a problem. My fight for skepticism wasn't an all out, life or death, brawl. I wasn't even saying that its crucial to existence. You just RANDOMLY don't like it, and you like to guffaw when people simply and rightly defend it, with none of the overblown vehemence that you are detecting.) I just had a reserve of skepticism. Not…

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>Thread seems like a possibly bad idea but we tried it.
>Turns out OP is just the same as everyone else here and the whole thread is nothing but disagreements.

Oh god. On a side note, as a skeptic to the core who believes nothing absolutely except for the existence of my subjective experience (Descartes first truth), I can tell you that I think if you're not a skeptic to the very core, then your philosophy is undoubtedly going to be riddled and riddled with errors, because basing theories on things that cannot be proven beyond all doubt is, by it's nature, erroneous. Can we doubt all things except the existence of experience? Yeah, pretty much. But at least now I know I will not fall prey to believing in patterns and ideas that may not even exist as we humans think they do, but I only consider them all as possibilities, which are infinite, yet some, such as basic laws of physics, I will trust in at least until the first time I see it fail me, because we have common sense and logic, so I would like to use those to their fullest.

>>184054
It's OP's shitty "holier than thou" opening.

He didn't do a very good job at appealing to the board.

And regardless of what the OP has to say (which is often very little), that's usually the nail in the coffin for these types of threads.

>>183748

This. Fucking this.

The dude apparently compares sqrt(-1) to a penis at one point.

>>183748
I've only ever been more intrigued by Lacan because of the extremly different reactions he elicits from people aware of him.

http://www.amazon.com/Introducing-Slavoj-Zizek-Christopher-Kul-Want/dp/1848312938/

There are some articles here that can serve as a good introduction.
http://www.zizekstudies.org/

As the OP, I want to thank you for these suggestions. Thanks guys!

And also, what's the difference between axioms and postulates?

And also, are axiomatic systems merely a set of rules and restrictions (ex: a=a), or can they also contain the initial premises of our reasoning from which others follow via a set of logical rules?

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but this is what I've been taught.

Axioms are deemed impossible to prove or disprove, and must be accepted implicitly for any discussion within a certain system to be possible. For instance, if you don't accept that A=A and that A =/=~A, it's impossible for you to operate within the realm of formal logic. But you can't use formal logic to prove that A=A, because everything in formal logic is based on the assumption that A=A, so such a proof would be circular reasoning.
A mere assumption, on the other hand, can be challenged and proven/disproven.