Why Philosophy Matters

To understand why philosophyy matters, it is first necessary to understand what philosophy IS.

The idea of philosophy comes out of ancient Greece, who rather formalized this method of arguing. Socrates was a well known philosopher, as was Aristotle.

So what is it about Greece that philosophy was developed there?

It was the rejection of the Holy Cryptograms that a lot of religions were into at the time. Even today, the Catholic church, for example, still uses Holy Cryptograms to explain some aspect of the world we experience. Many religions have symbols related to them that come from these cryptograms.

Philosophy is simply a reasoned argument. You have to provide your own reasoning. You cannot use anyone else's. No cryptograms needed!

Today, people are taught to cut and paste and make that their 'argument'. It is not philosophy, and it is mindless, since you are just stealing arguments of others and not even analyzing them critically. Here on JPP, you will often see some Holy Link as a 'proof'. Considering the enormous pile of junk on the web these days, a Holy Link is the LAST thing relative to a proof of any kind.

Like all arguments, philosophy must conform to the rules of logic. Errors in logic are called fallacies. They are similar to an arithmetic error or error in algebra in mathematics. A fallacy is an invalid argument (actually, not an argument at all, in many cases!). Such an error cannot be used for your reasoning or your argument you are trying to make.

Philosophy is hard for people. It requires them to think. You can't just cut and paste.

What's it good for?

For one thing, it helps to define things like 'science' and 'religion'. It also defines what 'real' and 'reality' actually mean. Yes, this is the bit of philosophy explored by the Matrix series of movies. It's answer to what 'real' is was a rather unique tableau, but the answer it came up with was essentially the same as what many a philosopher has grappled with over the years.

The branch of philosophy that tries to define 'real' and 'reality' is called phenomenology.

The current view of 'real' seems to be this:

We all have sensors that respond to our world. Instrumentation is just a converter between what we can't see and hear to something we can, so instruments help to augment our sensors, but they do not replace them. What gives meaning to what our sensors respond to is our brain, and our own internal model of how we perceive the Universe to work. This model is as unique as a fingerprint to each and every one of us, since it is based on our experiences, are culture, and our religious beliefs.

Therefore it follows that 'real' is just as unique. There is no absolute 'real'. Even in the Matrix series, there were different versions of 'real', depending on whether one believed Neo to be 'The One' and whether 'The One' really could do what some believed he could do. Even Neo himself learned that he just part of the computer program, designed to convert from one iteration to the next, and his reality changed when he learned this.

So in the end, one defines 'real' for himself, and that is the only person who can define 'real' as he sees it. There is no absolute 'real', since 'real' is defined as unique to each of us differently.
 
Into the Night said:
To understand why philosophyy matters, it is first necessary to understand what philosophy IS.

The idea of philosophy comes out of ancient Greece, who rather formalized this method of arguing. Socrates was a well known philosopher, as was Aristotle.

So what is it about Greece that philosophy was developed there?

It was the rejection of the Holy Cryptograms that a lot of religions were into at the time. Even today, the Catholic church, for example, still uses Holy Cryptograms to explain some aspect of the world we experience. Many religions have symbols related to them that come from these cryptograms.

Philosophy is simply a reasoned argument. You have to provide your own reasoning. You cannot use anyone else's. No cryptograms needed!

Today, people are taught to cut and paste and make that their 'argument'. It is not philosophy, and it is mindless, since you are just stealing arguments of others and not even analyzing them critically. Here on JPP, you will often see some Holy Link as a 'proof'. Considering the enormous pile of junk on the web these days, a Holy Link is the LAST thing relative to a proof of any kind.

Like all arguments, philosophy must conform to the rules of logic. Errors in logic are called fallacies. They are similar to an arithmetic error or error in algebra in mathematics. A fallacy is an invalid argument (actually, not an argument at all, in many cases!). Such an error cannot be used for your reasoning or your argument you are trying to make.

Philosophy is hard for people. It requires them to think. You can't just cut and paste.

What's it good for?

For one thing, it helps to define things like 'science' and 'religion'. It also defines what 'real' and 'reality' actually mean. Yes, this is the bit of philosophy explored by the Matrix series of movies. It's answer to what 'real' is was a rather unique tableau, but the answer it came up with was essentially the same as what many a philosopher has grappled with over the years.

The branch of philosophy that tries to define 'real' and 'reality' is called phenomenology.

The current view of 'real' seems to be this:

We all have sensors that respond to our world. Instrumentation is just a converter between what we can't see and hear to something we can, so instruments help to augment our sensors, but they do not replace them. What gives meaning to what our sensors respond to is our brain, and our own internal model of how we perceive the Universe to work. This model is as unique as a fingerprint to each and every one of us, since it is based on our experiences, are culture, and our religious beliefs.

Therefore it follows that 'real' is just as unique. There is no absolute 'real'. Even in the Matrix series, there were different versions of 'real', depending on whether one believed Neo to be 'The One' and whether 'The One' really could do what some believed he could do. Even Neo himself learned that he just part of the computer program, designed to convert from one iteration to the next, and his reality changed when he learned this.

So in the end, one defines 'real' for himself, and that is the only person who can define 'real' as he sees it. There is no absolute 'real', since 'real' is defined as unique to each of us differently.
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Where did you steal that text from?
 
Hume said:
Marx and Smith were both professional philosophers.
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Karl Marx was a firebrand preacher of a terrible religion based on HATRED and fear of humanity. Marx founded Marxism, the religion bent on eliminating all human happiness from the planet. His offshoot religions are popular among the most HATEFUL of todays losers and undereducated fear-mongers.
 
IBDaMann said:
Karl Marx was a firebrand preacher of a terrible religion based on HATRED and fear of humanity. Marx founded Marxism, the religion bent on eliminating all human happiness from the planet. His offshoot religions are popular among the most HATEFUL of todays losers and undereducated fear-mongers.
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You are an idiot.
 
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