What is your philosophy?

[Arthen]

"But i being poor have only my dreams"

[Sadler]

"But i being poor have only my dreams"

Berticus is gonna love you.... quoting his fav movie line...

[Arthen]

"But i being poor have only my dreams"

Berticus is gonna love you.... quoting his fav movie line...

longtime yesplz

[Ankiseth]

You are treading on my dreams Preston

[Arthen]

Any attempt to quote the fight scene that follows would result in the implosion of the universe as we know it

[merper]

Fight scene?

He got shot in his head through the poetry book. :/

[Arthen]

be carefull you are treading on my dreams

said by the hand of father or w/e his name was as both he and preston dove for guns after preston cut off the black dude's face (excuse the generalities, i forget names easily)

whereas the line from when the other dude is

"but i being poor have only my dreams,
i lay my dreams beneath your feet,
tread softly, for you are treading on my dreams"

I can see how one could see the quote as from either scene

[merper]

touché

[DeusNoctis]

"But i being poor have only my dreams"

Berticus is gonna love you.... quoting his fav movie line...

Dude, William Butler Yeats said that. >_>

[Skyylya]

I sort of disagree with the idea that the only thing to fear is the 'unknown' at least with your examples of deep water and darkness. Because when you think about it there is very little that is in fact unknown.

Take deep water for instance. People are not afraid of deep water because what is unknown about it, people are afraid because of what 'is' known about it. Sharks, moray eels, baracudas, jelly fish etc... these are what drive the fears. Sure there are things we dont know about deep waters, but that isn't necessarily why people are afraid of it.

As for darkness, I can't really agree with the fact that it's the unknown things in the darkness that people are afraid of, it is the known things like the fact that a thug could be hiding in a dark area where you can't see him, or there might be something in the dark you can't see that you might trip on, or hit your head against etc.... It's these knowns that drive the fears.

I know that you could argue that it's still unknown whether or not they are there, even if it's known that they exist. But on the scale that we're discussing i would say that describing the only fear as the unknown would be on a much more grand scale.


As far as ghosts and the universe collapsing on itself(or in some other manner ending) i don't think that it's a problem. Disregarding the fact that the universe is still expanding at enormous rates and there are no signs of it slowing. If somehow the universe did end, it would in essence destroy everything, including supernatural matter (if you even believe in such nonsense). Don't let hollywood fool you into believing that things like psychics, ghosts and the supernatural(in hollywood terms) are real things.

First of all, I didn't say these were the only causes of fears, I just said the Greatest fear is that of unknowns. If I knew there were no sharks or eels or whatever in the water I was swimming in, I would have very little to fear from it. It is the fact that I can't know if this is true or not, that it is an unknown, that makes me fear the water. Same thing for the darkness example.

[quote:12e20]There are known knowns and there are known unknowns, but there are also unknown unknowns.

<3 boondocks. But anyway, the examples you gave are known unknowns ( you know sharks and robbers exist but you don't know if they are actually in the water or darkness you're in), whereas death is an unknown unknown since no one really has any freaking idea what happens after, which is still a source of fear, though hopefully not as much as a known unknown(say for example if you knew you were going to hell after you died (or heaven, they both sound terrible AFAIC))

And the ghost thing was in response to the guy saying he'd be happy to be a ghost or such after he died. I don't know where you got the idea I believed in ghosts, so that was a waste of a paragraph.[/quote:12e20]


I don't mean for you to take this all personally. It's just a simple matter of philosophy, which is i believe the purpose of this thread. My point, regardless of the examples, is that people don't fear what is unknown, but what is known. Sure death is a supposed uknown but really it isn't if you think about it. Either you believe in nothing, in which case if you die and what happens is irrelevant, or you die with an afterlife in which case what happens is known, even if the location itself is unknown. It's all a matter of philosophy, which as i said is the point of this thread.

The examples i give work in a multitude of examples. Take any unknown you can think of, and think critically about it and you'll see that it is not actually the unknown that people fear, but the known facts about concepts people think of as unknown. It may be a stray topic, but that is because most people just accept what they are told at face value. people do not fear what they do not know, they fear what they do know. people cast the unknown aside as irrelevant. Give me examples of this 'unknown' and perhaps i will assimilate new wisdom.

Just ask yourself this question. Is it the case that it is the absence of a variable, or the existence of it.

As far as the ghosts go, i was not speaking to you personally, it is a generalization. Such things do not exist, period. Any such visualization is no more than a dillusion or hallucination due to an unfounded fear that someone has. I do not discount that there are things in this world that we do not understand. But i do believe that things such as ghosts, do not exist.

There are two categories, the natural, and the supernatural. The supernatural is simply what we can not yet explain with natural mechanisms. But, that does not mean that we can not explain them in years to come. Imagine 500 years ago when people thought the earth was the center of the universe. Was this true? Of course not, we were just not yet technologically capable of proving otherwise. People for some reason require imediate explanations for things that we otherwise cannot. Why is it that people are so easy to accept god when they are merely told that he in some way exists, and so short to hear the possibility that there is a different reason, or in fact no evidence to support such a belief in the first place. How can such a small word like faith cause so much philosophic dissonance.....To be continued

PS: i apologize if my grammar is off key, i had a few to many at the bar ya know. I will clean this up in the morning if i have the time...btw i <3 philosophy. I can go on for hours. albeit not necessarily on this wavelength.

[Septimus]

As far as the ghosts go, i was not speaking to you personally, it is a generalization. Such things do not exist, period. Any such visualization is no more than a dillusion or hallucination due to an unfounded fear that someone has. I do not discount that there are things in this world that we do not understand. But i do believe that things such as ghosts, do not exist.

There are two categories, the natural, and the supernatural. The supernatural is simply what we can not yet explain with natural mechanisms. But, that does not mean that we can not explain them in years to come. Imagine 500 years ago when people thought the earth was the center of the universe. Was this true? Of course not, we were just not yet technologically capable of proving otherwise. People for some reason require imediate explanations for things that we otherwise cannot. Why is it that people are so easy to accept god when they are merely told that he in some way exists, and so short to hear the possibility that there is a different reason, or in fact no evidence to support such a belief in the first place. How can such a small word like faith cause so much philosophic dissonance.....To be continued

I look at the "supernatural" like that, there are phenomena in our world that science simply cannot explain yet but eventually will. Maybe what people consider haunting are just ball lightning or magnetic fields, but it is unwise to simply dismiss the experiences of so many people when it does not confirm to standard science.

(Then again, the house I grew up in was haunted, so I'm slightly biased in my opinion.)

[merper]

but the known facts about concepts people think of as unknown

Right, but if you were certain that these things you fear were not around you, then you would have no reason to fear right? It's the uncertainty of their presence that makes you wonder if they're there and brings fear. Essentially I'm saying that when something is uncertain it is unknown.

And again, not all people are afraid of something, but many common fears can be counted as fear of uncertainty.

[Warudo Ecksu]

...happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, when one only remembers to turn on the light.

I bet I'm the only geek that knows where that line is from. Good quote, however.

I love the mention of the Equilibrium quote, too. ;D

[chilicheese]

42

[Ashen]

"Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught"

My arguement against the school system.
I haven't and will not learn any useful shit in school. The only things you need to live and be happy with are common sense, logic, and wit. History, science, formulas, etc. are useless.
And this is coming from a kid with a 4.12 cumulative gpa lol

[Erza]

no fat chicks