Philosophy of existence

[diamond]

I'm sorry if I upset you, Cheerio, but it's just that I dislike people telling me about the philosophy of existence from their viewpoint. I do have reassurance, but unlike you guys, it's a belief, not a truth. But it this statement that leads me to discuss the true reason of why I don't like you guys talking about this stuff (and why I've tried to stay away from this topic.)

The more I age, the more I realize that I have this deep, dark fear of something that you guys take for granted. And do you know what that is? Logic. Pure impersonal logic. As I grow up, I am realizing more and more of how much I dislike any science, whether it be chemistry, biology, neuroscience, quantum physics, computers, and yes, even Socionics. It seems to me that the more I work to figure out Socionics, the more I subconsciously work against it. The more we try to understand it, the more impersonal it becomes. It becomes just another tool to understand something special and sacred in terms of pure, cold logic. With the direction that the sciences are going, I just feel that something bad is going to happen. I don't know what it is, but I know it's there.

This may be extremist and you may hate me for this, but I'll say it anyway: I hope Socionics is never proven and never introduced into America. And for some reason, I think all of this is the subconscious reason of why so many INTps hate Socionics.


Your INTp friend,

Cone

Why do you hate all science and logic?

Do you think we are heading for something Frankensteinian? A horrible invention that somehow works, but weirdly, and why would we want it to?

I think emotional life and science has to merge somehow. That's where I see the next great quantum leap as being. Social science (my area) has probably gone as far as it is going to go, because there's only so much you can "prove" in social science. My field has just about reached the maximum state of knowledge about the research process, although there are many things which still need to be researched as well as other areas have been researched.

At a young age, I decided to pursue a career in social work and at many points I have berated myself for this decision, what with taking out huge student loans, only to find myself beleagured by debt and a lower income than other professionals with Master's degrees. More importantly, I have been frustrated with the soft sciences and their attempts to quantify human nature and social systems. I have often wondered whether I would have made a better lawyer or natural scientist, especially over the last five years or so. I wonder, why didn't I push myself harder, and pursue a "real" science. More recently, I've had a breakthrough, where I've renewed my committment to my field and am no longer considering a change or highly divergent options and I find myself feeling better.

I don't really know where I am going with this except to ask you Cone, about whether you think you might be just questioning your value system, as I have questioned mine. Whether you are simply seeing the limitations of "science" and "logic" and seeing strengths in the emotional/relational/spiritual world of the unprovable or unquantifiable.

[science as magic]

I actually agree with you on this Cone I however ascribe it to weak F not T.
All thinkers tend towards the devaluation of any understanding but the "machine" understanding much to their detriment it's quite silly and pointless however because we cannot escape our emotions the more we try the greater the "crash" when you are forced to be immersed in them. It's funny that you put it that way I always thought of and it's many imterpretations of the same phenomena doing the same thing *rids himself of a bit more typism* thanks for pointing that out.

You know what I think, Cone? I think for a long time, people beleive in absolute truths. Everyone beleived the church, and noone had any reason to question. Then came the renaissance, and then the enlightenment, and then the romantic period, and more and more contradictory opinions began being thrown aroung, to the extent that people were confused, they didnt know what to beleive, and every "truth" concerning the outside world was opposed to another "truth", to the extent that alot of people could not help but beleive everything was relative. But knowing all was relative in their minds, in their hearts they needed to fill that void with the reassurance of absolute truth, that void that was once actually filled. So they began not to theorize about God, nature, or anything outside man, but everything that was man, his existence itself. If everything was subjective, at least we could think about the subject himeself, and maybe that would bring some reassurance.

Don't marginalize what these people thought just because you disagree. It is naive to think these persons were country bumpkins unable to escape their prejudices. These were the founders of the systems of thought that made the Renaissance, scientific thought, and all modern philosophy possible. These were men of genius and to marginalize their contribution would be over simplifying the actual state of affairs.

[Cone]

I actually agree with you on this Cone I however ascribe it to weak F not T.

You know, you people seem to agree with me on everything. Please, disagree for once! :wink:

You're right. I think the reason I'm so turned off by depersonalization and systematic thought is because this is a direct threat to my hidden agenda. Of course, I want everything to stay mystical and unknown, so obviously I would be trying to stop science from advancing too far.

But don't take this the wrong way. Science has done wonders for people who need help; I would never want to deny anybody a chance for help. I think perhaps, somewhere deep within the catacombs of knowledge, science is heading towards a new socialism.

I think emotional life and science has to merge somehow.

Which is exactly what I don't want. But then again, I don't think the idealist, "Alpha quadra" view of the future will ever be realized, so I'm not sure why I'm really worrying.

But then again, maybe I'm just another one of those extremist INTps...


Your INTp friend,

Cone

[Creepy-]

Great examples of Ni Cone! LOL!

Anyway, American science (especially as it applies to the social sciences) is VERY second rate. (Just compare MBTI to socionics, not much of a contest.) Most of them are idiots that cannot even interpret the simplist statistics accurately. There is so much bias and money and politics that there is little chance of anything of "Ti value" coming out of American soft-science. (That is, everything is of practical, trail-and-error developed nature; like medicine for instance.)

So you have nothing to worry about. America is not ready for a system like socionics, and probably will never be.

[Transigent]

Edited for gayness.

[Cone]

Great examples of Ni Cone! LOL!

Thank you! That's what I was aiming for.

Anyway, American science (especially as it applies to the social sciences) is VERY second rate. (Just compare MBTI to socionics, not much of a contest.) Most of them are idiots that cannot even interpret the simplist statistics accurately. There is so much bias and money and politics that there is little chance of anything of "Ti value" coming out of American soft-science. (That is, everything is of practical, trail-and-error developed nature; like medicine for instance.)

So you have nothing to worry about. America is not ready for a system like socionics, and probably will never be.

I can sleep well tonight.

Your INTp friend,

Cone

[Cone]

You know, Transigent, I've noticed that your vocabulary has really toned down.

[Transigent]

Edited for gayness.

[Cone]

When you first started posting on here, you loaded up your sentences with huge, impressive words and tried to sound quite intelligent. Now you sound like the rest of us: dumb Americans.

[Transigent]

Edited for gayness.

[Transigent]

Edited for gayness.

[Ave]

I'm sorry if I upset you, Cheerio, but it's just that I dislike people telling me about the philosophy of existence from their viewpoint. I do have reassurance, but unlike you guys, it's a belief, not a truth. But it this statement that leads me to discuss the true reason of why I don't like you guys talking about this stuff (and why I've tried to stay away from this topic.)

The more I age, the more I realize that I have this deep, dark fear of something that you guys take for granted. And do you know what that is? Logic. Pure impersonal logic. As I grow up, I am realizing more and more of how much I dislike any science, whether it be chemistry, biology, neuroscience, quantum physics, computers, and yes, even Socionics. It seems to me that the more I work to figure out Socionics, the more I subconsciously work against it. The more we try to understand it, the more impersonal it becomes. It becomes just another tool to understand something special and sacred in terms of pure, cold logic. With the direction that the sciences are going, I just feel that something bad is going to happen. I don't know what it is, but I know it's there.

This may be extremist and you may hate me for this, but I'll say it anyway: I hope Socionics is never proven and never introduced into America. And for some reason, I think all of this is the subconscious reason of why so many INTps hate Socionics.


Your INTp friend,

Cone

You havent upset me Cone. :wink:

I agree with you on that there is too much rationalistaion of everything that is favored by our society, and everything that does not stem from reason is mocked and rejected. I agree that there is this tendency.


However, I hope socionics is introduced into America, because it would replace MBTI, which is everywhere anyways, so you might as well have socionics to replace it.

[Ave]

That was me above.

You know what I think, Cone? I think for a long time, people beleive in absolute truths. Everyone beleived the church, and noone had any reason to question. Then came the renaissance, and then the enlightenment, and then the romantic period, and more and more contradictory opinions began being thrown aroung, to the extent that people were confused, they didnt know what to beleive, and every "truth" concerning the outside world was opposed to another "truth", to the extent that alot of people could not help but beleive everything was relative. But knowing all was relative in their minds, in their hearts they needed to fill that void with the reassurance of absolute truth, that void that was once actually filled. So they began not to theorize about God, nature, or anything outside man, but everything that was man, his existence itself. If everything was subjective, at least we could think about the subject himeself, and maybe that would bring some reassurance.

Don't marginalize what these people thought just because you disagree. It is naive to think these persons were country bumpkins unable to escape their prejudices. These were the founders of the systems of thought that made the Renaissance, scientific thought, and all modern philosophy possible. These were men of genius and to marginalize their contribution would be over simplifying the actual state of affairs.

Whos says I disagree with them necessarily?

But maybe my criticism was a bit easy...

[Cone]

However, I hope socionics is introduced into America, because it would replace MBTI, which is everywhere anyways, so you might as well have socionics to replace it.

I hope it is too. Disregard what I said before; I have a tendency to be overdramatic sometimes...


Your INTp friend,

Cone

[Cone]

Conciousness is more real than existence because conciousness is the BASE on which everything else relates to.

So then, what is consciousness made up of? Spiritual atoms? Consciousness quarks? :wink:

[Transigent]

Edited for gayness.

[science as magic]

Create consciousness, and reality is IMPLICITLY created.

But create reality, and it is only real to those consciousnesses participating in it.

What a great tautology to replace the old one...

[Transigent]

Edited for gayness.

[science as magic]

I really thing that this is logically derivable from the basic indesputable facts on existance.

All formal proofs are based on pseudoknowledge.

Anyone with a modicum of intellegence should understand it.

So if I accept what you say then you are right and if I do not I am stupid and you are also right... how advantageous for you.

I'm not in the mood for this now, too tired but perhaps I will read it later.

[Creepy-]

So if I accept what you say then you are right and if I do not I am stupid and you are also right... how advantageous for you.

I'm not in the mood for this now, too tired but perhaps I will read it later.

Hahaha!

No, Pedro, I was just kidding man. It was a joke.

Just look at that "essay" that I posted. It is crazy! Check out this link, and keep hitting the refesh button:

http://www.mml.co.uk/waffle.php

This link makes fun of philosophical expositions, showing that all you need to do is put a bunch of incoherent babble together and...viola! A philosophical essay!

And my "philosophy" is really just an opinion. I actually didn't think the second post reiterated the tautology, but I guess it did.

I wasn't meaning to have the tone of I-know-it-all-ism, I was just posting my thoughts on the matter.

Peace.

[Transigent]

Edited for gayness.

[science as magic]

I was in a bad mood this afternoon, it's no excuse but whatever. I will read it I love a good joke after all My apologies.

[MysticSonic]

"Disregarding the fact that any "correct" theory MUST be apprehended in a conscious based framework (i.e. WE are conscious, and must understand the theories through our consciousness) there is still a huge barrier in explaining consciousness through a physical theory.

Mainly, there is only ONE available viewpoint when considering "consciousness", and that is our own."

Similarly, there is only ONE available viewpoint through which we can interpret the physical world.

"Saying that any other viewpoint is equally as valid as your own is only an assumption; that is, you cannot say with any certainty that any other consciousness exists. However, the assumption that at least every other human is conscious SEEMS valid, but can NEVER be proven or disproven within your own framework."

Or anything else, what's your point?

"Of course, from this, we can see that the world would be EXACTLY the same if there was NO consciousness at all. Therefore, consciousness has ZERO impact on the world; and therefore is ENTIRELY disconnected from any formulation of any physical theory."

That is, of of course, only an assumption!

[Jimbean]

I thought it would be more appropriate to post it here, so:

Correct me if I am wrong, but the purpose of proving something is to convince. Facts can only be determined by the self, but at the same time one might try to convince (prove) that something exists so that the other person’s objective becomes more similar to oneself. Undeveloped people want to be “right” because they want to impose their self onto reality instead of just adhering to it.

Philosophy is nothing more than good sounding advice. The real goal of thinking is to do so in order to produce the most results for the self. Take religion for example, it has many logical contradictions, yet religious people choose to ignore those contradictions as if they did not exist. In short, they are not being honest with themselves.

Reality is postulated as something the consciousness (awareness + thinking) adheres to when it maximizes value input in its thought process in order for the human being to achieve happiness.

The “mind does not create reality” is good personal advice broken down very simple; a very useful paradigm.

I am not very familiar with philosophy, if anyone cares to take some of their time to judge the content of this post, please do so and be open with feedback.

[Cone]

Well, Jimbean, what you are talking about is actually psychology.

[Jimbean]

I see philosophy and psychology come to the same thing anyway.

[Cone]

Yes, but if all the humans died today, there would still be logic, and that's philosophy.

[Jimbean]

Logic is a method to identify and/or adhere to reality for some people. You mean reality in itself that has been understood via logic would still exist tomorrow even if all humans died today, in which case I agree.

In my primary post, I was thinking about valid epistemology.

[Cone]

In my primary post, I was thinking about valid epistemology.

Epistemology is the philosophy of psychology, so I guess you are right.

[Jimbean]

It never ceases to amaze me how different people can think, for example, you picked out how Joy was self conscious, and my own contractions about distinguishing good ideas. I would have never have thought of looking at it from those perspectives (of course, its ). It would be great if we could learn how to use any of the functions, even the weaker ones.

[CuriousSoul]

Has anybody in here ever heard of Julian Jaynes’ theory of consciousness? It talks about an evolving consciousness around 1000 BCE from the bicameral mind to the proto-conscious mind. Yes, I’m sure some people in here are thinking that this is probably some kind of new age crap, but it is quit interesting. Here are two good links, http://www.buildfreedom.com/ and http://www.neo-tech.com/finalevo/evo-001.html

The first link right now does not work.

Any way, consciousness was invented by man as a means to deal with reality. Reality exists, and then a conscious being identifies it through its senses, processes the information, and then takes the necessary action. Reality is objective; therefore it is one, regardless of how other people perceive it, although there are different ways to perceive it.

I’m not trying to convince any body to my views; but I do want to know how other logical minded people think about it. I am an ENTp that is in the process of finding out how to challenge the status-quo.

By the way, the two links above are, to say the least, controversial!

http://the16types.info/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1407#1407

@ Jimbean
Are you still following this Forum?

Now there seems to be a few misconceptions I would like to correct:
-This theory by Dr Julian Jaynes is a whole lot of nonsense. Humans have been biologically essentially the same for tens of thousands of years, 35000 years that MysticSonic quoted is as good guess as any other. There has been no leap of consciousness, only cultural evolution and a better preservation of the products of more advanced cultures.

http://the16types.info/forums/viewtopic.php?p=3665#3665

I think you have reached a certain stage when you start quoting yourself...

Anyway, it seems quite likely I was actually wrong.


The Twists and Turns of History, and of DNA

EAST ASIAN and European cultures have long been very different, Richard E. Nisbett argued in his recent book "The Geography of Thought." East Asians tend to be more interdependent than the individualists of the West, which he attributed to the social constraints and central control handed down as part of the rice-farming techniques Asians have practiced for thousands of years.

A separate explanation for such long-lasting character traits may be emerging from the human genome. Humans have continued to evolve throughout prehistory and perhaps to the present day, according to a new analysis of the genome reported last week by Jonathan Pritchard, a population geneticist at the University of Chicago. So human nature may have evolved as well.

If so, scientists and historians say, a fresh look at history may be in order. Evolutionary changes in the genome could help explain cultural traits that last over many generations as societies adapted to different local pressures.

Trying to explain cultural traits is, of course, a sensitive issue. The descriptions of national character common in the works of 19th-century historians were based on little more than prejudice. Together with unfounded notions of racial superiority they lent support to disastrous policies.

But like phrenology, a wrong idea that held a basic truth (the brain's functions are indeed localized), the concept of national character could turn out to be not entirely baseless, at least when applied to societies shaped by specific evolutionary pressures.

In a study of East Asians, Europeans and Africans, Dr. Pritchard and his colleagues found 700 regions of the genome where genes appear to have been reshaped by natural selection in recent times. In East Asians, the average date of these selection events is 6,600 years ago.

Many of the reshaped genes are involved in taste, smell or digestion, suggesting that East Asians experienced some wrenching change in diet. Since the genetic changes occurred around the time that rice farming took hold, they may mark people's adaptation to a historical event, the beginning of the Neolithic revolution as societies switched from wild to cultivated foods.

Some of the genes are active in the brain and, although their role is not known, may have affected behavior. So perhaps the brain gene changes seen by Dr. Pritchard in East Asians have some connection with the psychological traits described by Dr. Nisbett.

Some geneticists believe the variations they are seeing in the human genome are so recent that they may help explain historical processes. "Since it looks like there has been significant evolutionary change over historical time, we're going to have to rewrite every history book ever written," said Gregory Cochran, a population geneticist at the University of Utah. "The distribution of genes influencing relevant psychological traits must have been different in Rome than it is today," he added. "The past is not just another country but an entirely different kind of people."

John McNeill, a historian at Georgetown University, said that "it should be no surprise to anyone that human nature is not a constant" and that selective pressures have probably been stronger in the last 10,000 years than at any other epoch in human evolution. Genetic information could therefore have a lot to contribute, although only a minority of historians might make use of it, he said.

The political scientist Francis Fukuyama has distinguished between high-trust and low-trust societies, arguing that trust is a basis for prosperity. Since his 1995 book on the subject, researchers have found that oxytocin, a chemical active in the brain, increases the level of trust, at least in psychological experiments. Oxytocin levels are known to be under genetic control in other mammals like voles.

It is easy to imagine that in societies where trust pays off, generation after generation, the more trusting individuals would have more progeny and the oxytocin-promoting genes would become more common in the population. If conditions should then change, and the society be engulfed by strife and civil warfare for generations, oxytocin levels might fall as the paranoid produced more progeny.

Napoleon Chagnon for many decades studied the Yanomamo, a warlike people who live in the forests of Brazil and Venezuela. He found that men who had killed in battle had three times as many children as those who had not. Since personality is heritable, this would be a mechanism for Yanomamo nature to evolve and become fiercer than usual.

Since the agricultural revolution, humans have to a large extent created their own environment. But that does not mean the genome has ceased to evolve. The genome can respond to cultural practices as well as to any other kind of change. Northern Europeans, for instance, are known to have responded genetically to the drinking of cow's milk, a practice that began in the Funnel Beaker Culture which thrived 6,000 to 5,000 years ago. They developed lactose tolerance, the unusual ability to digest lactose in adulthood. The gene, which shows up in Dr. Pritchard's test, is almost universal among people of Holland and Sweden who live in the region of the former Funnel Beaker culture.

The most recent example of a society's possible genetic response to its circumstances is one advanced by Dr. Cochran and Henry Harpending, an anthropologist at the University of Utah. In an article last year they argued that the unusual pattern of genetic diseases found among Ashkenazi Jews (those of Central and Eastern Europe) was a response to the demands for increased intelligence imposed when Jews were largely confined to the intellectually demanding professions of money lending and tax farming. Though this period lasted only from 900 A.D. to about 1700, it was long enough, the two scientists argue, for natural selection to favor any variant gene that enhanced cognitive ability.

One theme in their argument is that the variant genes perform related roles, which is unlikely to happen by chance since mutations hit the genome randomly. A set of related mutations is often the mark of an evolutionary quick fix against some sudden threat, like malaria. But the variant genes common among the Ashkenazi do not protect against any known disease. In the Cochran and Harpending thesis, the genes were a response to the demanding social niche into which Ashkenazi Jews were forced and the nimbleness required to be useful to their unpredictable hosts.

No one has yet tested the Cochran-Harpending thesis, which remains just an interesting though well worked out conjecture. But one of its predictions is that the same genes should be targets of selection in any other population where there is a demand for greater cognitive skills. That demand might have well have arisen among the first settled societies where people had to deal with the quite novel concepts of surpluses, property, value and quantification. And indeed Dr. Pritchard's team detected strong selection among East Asians in the region of the gene that causes Gaucher's disease, one of the variant genes common among Ashkenazim.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/12/we...erland&emc=rss

I quoted the whole article before it disappears behind the subscription wall.
Absolutely fascinating stuff.

[Tin]

Read 1984 and you will then understand your question. Such a great book.
Right Cone :wink:

[Catholic Schoolboy]

Cone read that book?

Orwell. <3

[Cone]

What, why is that surprising?

[Catholic Schoolboy]

No. Just teasing.

[tcaudilllg]

I thought it would be more appropriate to post it here, so:

Correct me if I am wrong, but the purpose of proving something is to convince. Facts can only be determined by the self, but at the same time one might try to convince (prove) that something exists so that the other person’s objective becomes more similar to oneself. Undeveloped people want to be “right” because they want to impose their self onto reality instead of just adhering to it.

Philosophy is nothing more than good sounding advice. The real goal of thinking is to do so in order to produce the most results for the self. Take religion for example, it has many logical contradictions, yet religious people choose to ignore those contradictions as if they did not exist. In short, they are not being honest with themselves.

Reality is postulated as something the consciousness (awareness + thinking) adheres to when it maximizes value input in its thought process in order for the human being to achieve happiness.

The “mind does not create reality” is good personal advice broken down very simple; a very useful paradigm.

I am not very familiar with philosophy, if anyone cares to take some of their time to judge the content of this post, please do so and be open with feedback.

What you are implying is that the subjective element is unnecessary to the world, even though it is one of the eight functions! (feeling) Without feeling, the world would be incomplete. The effective destruction of human consciousness would constellate the emergence of a compensatory form of consciousness.

[Jimbean]

@CuriousSoul:

That is actually not what I had in mind. Consiousness is weird.

First of all though, Thinking combined with Awareness is consiousness as we know it now, I think...

Anytime you are being aware of your thought processes, you are using consiousness, if you are thinking about your awaress, you are using your consiousness (or memory). Consiousness is a process, the more effort you put in it, the more you get out of it, of course that effort has to be based in reality (which was my first point in this thread, though not well made), if it is not, then there are errors in that process of combining thinking and awareness.

Think of consiousness as a computer program. You can update that program, like consiousness. You can update your consiousess.

more later

[Jimbean]

bump

[Jimbean]

Okay, lets do a mind experiment. Imagine what would happen if every human being died, would the world cease to exist? Would the laws of physics change? Of course not. What I’m getting at here is that reality is based on existence regardless of whether or not consciousness exists. So in that case, consciousness is a part of reality, not the other way around.

Any other philosophy is rooted in dishonesty, laziness, and/or bad premise.

I am just curious to start this thread again.

[tcaudilllg]

Awareness is differentiation. There is self-awareness everywhere, however only humans and maybe gorillas can become self-aware. (how do i know that? Well I don't, but nothing else seems to be, now does it?)

http://www.localgroup.net/articles/empire.html

Radical imperialism at work. There are only two sides and everything else "magically" works when you stay true to your own side. That's true to a point, but eventually your projections catch up with you. Notice though that he conflates anti-civilization and, when they are actually very different. But he would think himself justified in believing such because the other guy (the professor) is also conflating them into an equally ridiculous scenario.

Lazze-fare capitalism = Bill Gates owns everything. Bill Gates wants more and more money, but there are limited customers, so the amount of money he can own at any given moment is limited. To make more money, he must make more customers. So he starts a program which gives money to people for having babies. (with a calculated expectation of return) Eventually the resources of the planet get stripped because the expansion of human thought differentiation does not keep pace with the rate of population increase, thus new solutions are not discovered in time. The population boom must stop, but now Gates needs more money. Only one way to do that: jack up the prices on his products, and after leaching everyone dry at every moment he's still not happy.

Bill Gates was a shining example of what really happens with Lazze-fare: people get economic power, and weild it pseudo-politically because they are in position to control the resources under the rules of the system. Which means, lazze-fare alone doesn't work.

Let's consider, that Adam Smith didn't know about HA.

Oh yes, and those "mystical establishments" he talks about are those political forces which he cannot make out because he has irresponsibly conflated them. Ha ha ha... in the end he must abdicate his position of rationality for esotericism. The irrational as rational? Get real.