Originally posted by TricksterPriest
😎 Funniest comedian to ever live. I wish he was still around. 🙁 Then again, he might have died laughing seeing that his 'Persian Gulf Distraction' joke is still viable. 😆
True, many other comedians have in part taken some of his routine and tried to make it their own. Bill Hicks was an original.
Originally posted by Alfheim
Well im pretty sure your universe hasnt been destroyed and you helped to save other universes and im pretty sure you havent had to spend a long time in a dimension that drives you nuts.....If thats what you meant metaphorically....
I dont think you can prove anything absolutely.
Hence the open-ended nature of philosophy, no?
Originally posted by Soljer
Exactly! Your dream that you're Abe Lincoln is false - that is a subjective reality that is thrown out because it is doubtable.What is not doubtable from one's own perspective is thought.
Schizophrenia is a simple example of how using one's own thoughts to validate one's own existence is faulty. I'm pretty sure that the annals of history can throw up various examples of people hallucinating that they were someone or something else. According to what you've written, it cannot be doubted from THEIR point of view. it is only doubtable from a third person view. Can you see the circular logic?
Originally posted by Soljer
Exactly! Your dream that you're Abe Lincoln is false - that is a subjective reality that is thrown out because it is doubtable.What is not doubtable from one's own perspective is thought.
Didnt you just say that even if your a figment of Gods imagination your real? So in other words if your a figment of Gods imagination thats a dream or a halluciantion, I think you missed the point entirely.
For all you know reality itself could be a dream as well.
Originally posted by Ouallada
Schizophrenia is a simple example of how using one's own thoughts to validate one's own existence is faulty. I'm pretty sure that the annals of history can throw up various examples of people hallucinating that they were someone or something else. According to what you've written, it cannot be doubted from THEIR point of view. it is only doubtable from a third person view. Can you see the circular logic?
Nope, because it's not meant to validate their absolute existence, nor the existence of their hallucinations. Just THEIR existence.
Originally posted by Alfheim
Didnt you just say that even if your a figment of Gods imagination your real? So in other words if your a figment of Gods imagination thats a dream or a halluciantion, I think you missed the point entirely.For all you know reality itself could be a dream as well.
My friend, you've missed the point here. It doesn't matter if the hallucination or dream is real - what matters is that you can experience it.
Originally posted by Kutulu
He probably calculated it out with his 163 IQ in between shareholder meetings for the company that he runs, since he said he's a CEO.After all, CEO's keep such busy schedules, it's hard to find time to post in a comic book forum.
Originally posted by Soljer
Nope, because it's not meant to validate their absolute existence, nor the existence of their hallucinations. Just THEIR existence.My friend, you've missed the point here. It doesn't matter if the hallucination or dream is real - what matters is that you can experience it.
"I think, therefore I am", as I have said, requires base assumptions which were not proved by Descartes, and which you have not addressed either. The first is the presumption that activity without an agent is possible, and that introspection holds no distinct object to serve as the abse for Cartesian self-awareness.
I didn't really want to drag this into a philosophy argument, so let me just point out the flaws in simply saying that one must exist because one thinks. I have already listed one assumption, but let me list a few more, many of which were not disputed by supporters of the cogito:
1) That it is I who thinks.
2) That there must be something that thinks
3) That thinking is an activity and an operation on the part of a being that it assumed to be a cause.
4) That there is an "ego"
5) That it is already determined what is to be designated by thinking - that one knows what thinking is.
Go ahead and work it out.
Originally posted by Soljer
I need not dispute any of those. It doesn't matter whether it is 'I' who thinks - even if my 'thoughts' were something else thinking in my stead, I'd still exist transitively. Similarly can be said for your other objections.
Because they cannot be absolutely disputed, just like the subjectivity of good and evil. The very notions of "I" and "thinking" are hazy at best, and to claim that you understand what they are completely laughs in the face of reasoned philosophy.
Unlike yourself, the objections that I raised do not absolutely make a statement, but rather qualitatively question the assumptions that your absolute statement was based on. A subtle difference, but one which is devastatingly large.
Originally posted by Ouallada
Because they cannot be absolutely disputed, just like the subjectivity of good and evil. The very notions of "I" and "thinking" are hazy at best, and to claim that you understand what they are completely laughs in the face of reasoned philosophy.Unlike yourself, the objections that I raised do not absolutely make a statement, but rather qualitatively question the assumptions that your absolute statement was based on. A subtle difference, but one which is devastatingly large.
I never claimed that I understood the notions you've described - I merely said that, without a doubt, there is an existence and I am a part of it.
Regardless of what that existence is, and what "I" constitute exactly, there is SOME sort of existence.
Originally posted by Soljer
I never claimed that I understood the notions you've described - I merely said that, without a doubt, there is an existence and I am a part of it.Regardless of what that existence is, and what "I" constitute exactly, there is SOME sort of existence.
I apologise if I came across as a little curt in the last couple of posts. It wasn't meant to be that way. The issue we had at hand was whether or not "I think, therefore I am" is absolutely correct. Whether or not there actually is any form of existence is not consequential, as only a first person existence is proved by the cogito. The word "I" itself is vague, and forced into the cogito. The word "think" is even worse. To think about what thinking means and to use whatever rationale is drawn to validate what thinking is really amounts to absolutely nothing, because if you do not know what thinking is, you cannot think, and if you cannot think, you cannot reason what thinking is.
In a nutshell, from a layman's view, I would agree with you whole-heartedly. From a philosophical point of view, the cogito still stands as a pillar of western philosophy, albeit a flawed one.
Originally posted by Ouallada
I apologise if I came across as a little curt in the last couple of posts. It wasn't meant to be that way. The issue we had at hand was whether or not "I think, therefore I am" is absolutely correct. Whether or not there actually is any form of existence is not consequential, as only a first person existence is proved by the cogito. The word "I" itself is vague, and forced into the cogito. The word "think" is even worse. To think about what thinking means and to use whatever rationale is drawn to validate what thinking is really amounts to absolutely nothing, because if you do not know what thinking is, you cannot think, and if you cannot think, you cannot reason what thinking is.In a nutshell, from a layman's view, I would agree with you whole-heartedly. From a philosophical point of view, the cogito still stands as a pillar of western philosophy, albeit a flawed one.
I wasn't trying to so much defend the cogito directly as I was defending ideas that were spawned by it, and can be attributed to it.
Originally posted by Soljer
Fair 'nuff.So, do you just have a passing interest in philosophy, are you taking classes at Uni, or just well-read?
Passing interest, unfortunately. Philosophy is a nice thing to banter about when drunk, but doesn't make for good studying. A fair bit of it does spillover to everyday life, so I guess everyone should at least be acquainted with such discourse.