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There is something that has been on my mind for a long time. It is something that has begun to bug me. The more I think about it, the more I think that if I understood it, I would understand everything. This idea is very vague, so don't take what I say too literally. It is not so much an idea as a feeling I get. The feeling is this; how far can we really go? It seems that everything we do is just away to use and get around a preexisting power. One of the times I get this feeling is when I think about electronics. For example, a jacket with a clock built in. Because the clock needs electricity, it needs a battery. But because it has to fit in a jacket, it has to be very small. Now, most smart engineers would not put a big hulking battery in a jacket. They would put a small one. But that means they have to rig a very crude battery; maybe just a bag with acid in it and something that sparks it. The point is this; the engeneer wished to put electricity in a jacket; the kind of electricity that comes from a wall. But he cannot do that. The kind of electricity there is not the same. BUT, it gives the illusion of being the same. To the user of the jacket, it keeps time just as well. He got around it because he could manipulate the world. But he did not really change the world. To really do something would be to take the electicity from the wall and put it in the jacket. If the universe were numbers, a regular jacket and a jacket with a clock would been seen with minimal difference. But not to the human eye. The same can go for building anything; a computer chip for example. To someone uneducated, it would seem that computers work because they were created from silicon. That they made the silicon process information. But really, they looked at silicon at a microscopic level, rigged a mechanism that they knew worked, and then repeated it over and over again to produce a massive information system. It seems kinda weak. It seems like we can't really do anything. Of coarse, this runs along the lines of "you cannot create energy/matter, all the energy/matter that exists is that which was created at the birth of the universe". But can you be sure about that? Nothing can be absolutely certain. What if you could create energy? It seems like it is all limited; restricted. I feel sometimes that this idea can be applied to the human world. When I see two really amazing people; people who are wise, and who speak of the world by observing it; and I see these two people talking to each other; sometimes I think that they have just manipulated their thoughts. In your mind you believe that they have created something, but again it seems limited. It seems like all the world can ever be is a complex tapestry; it can never be a solid blue. Everything seems brittle; everything seems like it is a victim of causation. Causation can be manipulated, but it is still causation. It seems like you can never really see anything, because the light has to go through your eyes first. What if your mind could create energy? What if you mind could destroy your body, and move to another reality? Why can't your mind do whatever it wants? What if you saw something without your eyes? Many of these things I have just consider for the first time. It seems that often the very meaning of things is obliterated by our standards. Comments?

sorry its long

(Coughs)
h0ck3yh0rr0r> Could you try again, please? With some line-breaks?
You lost me somewhere around

"They would put a small one. But that means they have to rig a very crude battery; maybe just a bag with acid in it and something that sparks it. The point is this; the engeneer wished to put electricity in a jacket; the kind of electricity that comes from a wall. But he cannot do that."

Battery-produced electricity IS electricity, same as socket-electricity.

sorry once again...i was typing fast and didn't skip lines.

and i like the Voltaire quote in your sig^

By Pre-existing power do you mean "that being which generated all life"?




Maybe not created energy, but rather re-distributed to another being.



They are, is call education and learning. Every rational human being creates it so that the search of knowledge maybe found.



Remenber that our senses deceived us. We cannot never know the truth by rellying in our senses. Only the world of forms (as in Plato) can provide truths.



If that were to happen then our world could be in doom. Because not only good humans could have it, but also wicked ones as well.

Remenber that our senses deceived us. We cannot never know the truth by rellying in our senses. Only the world of forms (as in Plato) can provide truths.- SilverFIghter

very true^

Also Plato also mentions that the forms are "separate" from concrete things. They exist "apart from" the things we see. To be "separate" or "apart from" must mean simply that all forms have an independent existence. They pesist even though particular things perish (in this case the material world). Forms have no dimension, but the question of their location comes up as a "consequence of our languange", which emplies the forms, being something, must be some place in space.

hmmm i thought that was said by Socrates^

ill check again but VERY TRUE^

If you check it I think is in the Socratic dialogues in the Republic (can't remeber the chapter) I believe Plato gets credited with the idea of the forms.

hmmm im a check later but i think your right^ good job

too long i agree!

Yes....the plato example is very good, remember he(or Socrates) said that the things we see and percieve are actually imperfect copies of perfect forms, and thus, only by percieving the actual forms could one achieve perfection.

There is something that makes me turn off once people start saying things like "Nothing can be truly certain..."

Such an irrelevant point to make. Unless you are going to go in big Descartian circles that is something you simply have to discount when talking about anything.

Still, where did all these Platonic adherents come from?

It ' s Plato' s ontological theory (not said by Socrates)

Please no empiricism
*hides*

Isn't that banning Fire?

No, it' s banning yerss

Ah, that's the one... anyway, I hardly think the totality of my statement made me an empiricist...

hey! I'm still reading this you know

or how can you know that I am ...

Empiricsm as in Locke YES. Empiricism as in Hume........too tough!

What's wrong with Aristotle? Put him in a ring against Plato, I say, best of three, falls or submissions...

What ever Hock said I agree with

lol! Let Socrates be the referee in that match

Oh heck no, we'd be there all day...

You think that will take forever? Try to set up a match between St. Augustine vs. St. Aquinas now there is match that will last all the way to Judgement day

I'll be with the girls out back... tell me what happens...

There wouldn't be much to tell really ...

Good, less to bother the girls with...