For centuries there have been the subjugated and the subjugators, and it is often said that the victors write history. I challenge this. Often, when looking back at history, modern societies see some as the victim and talk more about them than the aggressors. Of course, they were aggressors. — TogetherTurtle
. I propose that there is not a "good" or "bad" side of anything, just the side that we agree with now and everything else. Constantly I see historical figures being vilified or being hailed as heroes, which of course is fine on its own, but should we be teaching that to children as objective truth? — TogetherTurtle
that they might even be people like you or me. — TogetherTurtle
Will people in the future think that we are evil because they disagree with us? — TogetherTurtle
What do you think? The event that sparked this line of thought took place in an American history class I'm tutoring. I asked the teacher something along the lines of, "Why do we teach kids that Christopher Columbus was evil?' and his response was "because he did evil things." and of course I agree with that statement, from my point of view at least he did bad things. I guess my question is if he was wrong, why are we right? Will people in the future think that we are evil because they disagree with us? — TogetherTurtle
I don't think Columbus was "evil" per se, and most of the things he did were just products of their time, but in hindsight, they were "bad", at least in the present train of thought. — TogetherTurtle
I propose that there is not a "good" or "bad" side of anything, just the side that we agree with now and everything else. — TogetherTurtle
I guess the question is then what "locks" someone in an ideology? I understand the problem you're referring to, however. There are many "echo chambers" on the internet especially that refuse to even acknowledge that there could be another side. — TogetherTurtle
Maybe we are all just a bunch of stupid monkeys. — TogetherTurtle
Now we have technology that lets us see what our senses can't. Maybe the answer to all our questions lies within finding new things to measure, and what locks someone into an ideology is their fear of the unmeasurable? — TogetherTurtle
I don't really know what you mean by "political leanings", I was just wondering about this kind of stuff — TogetherTurtle
As for presenting things as statements and only using your own observations, I don't know what other way you would present an idea. How would you know something unless you read it somewhere or saw it? — TogetherTurtle
Let me preface this next statement by saying I wholeheartedly believe that killing people is wrong. I think it's wrong, and from your statements, I assume you do as well. Clearly, Hitler and many of his followers didn't. What makes us correct morally in thinking that it's wrong? I know that it's wrong, and many people think it's wrong as well, but that's more of an opinion and less of an objective truth. — TogetherTurtle
In nearly every case I see this sort of thing it's some pointless complain by a conservative or libertarian who wants people to stop pointing out that genocide and slavery can't be whitewashed and that they don't count against the morally uosta ding nature of their great ancestors. It's so often so clearly self-interested that I'm pessimistic when I see this sort of thing. — MindForged
Here's my problem. Your post just says things and doesn't give any reason for people to accept what you're saying is true. — MindForged
You're confusing the limits of moral epistemology (which deals with how we know what's moral or immoral) and moral metaphysics (which deals with what actually is moral or immoral). Pick a standard normative moral theory and it will give a fairly robust explanation for thinking that murder is wrong (killing is a broader class of actions, sometimes killing is justified). — MindForged
Man creating god from language is just a step in understanding ourselves then, in a process that culminates in us becoming gods. To understand is to control, and a god controls all things. — TogetherTurtle
We have slowly started asking questions about our nature, which leads to us understanding it more, which leads to us questioning more, and theoretically, this process continues until we completely understand ourselves and can change ourselves to understand the universe, then controlling all things. — TogetherTurtle
To avoid being locked in this ideology I'll have to find a counter-argument.
I believe that your interpretation of the fantasy of western culture to be accurate. It seems strange that the west is also associated with democracy and personal freedoms. — TogetherTurtle
(None of this is original with me. It's just a paraphrasing of philosophers I like.) — sign
Indeed. So the question might be whether or not we actually achieve some terminus. Is the journey infinite? Or is there some kind of completion? Does philosophy only ever understand what has already happened? Or can it ever see the future and thereby neutralize it? (The future that we can calculate is already present, one might say.) — sign
When are we not paraphrasing something that we have heard before? I've got a long road ahead of me in terms of reading in all of these things, but it's really the ideas that matter. — TogetherTurtle
There is an age-old assumption that thinking distinguishes man from the beast. This we shall accept. What makes man nobler than the beast is what he possesses through thought. Whatever is human is so only to the extent that therein thought is active; no matter what its outward appearance may be, if it is human, thought makes it so. In this alone is man distinguished from the beast.
Still, insofar as thought is in this way the essential, the substantial, the active in man, it has to do with an infinite manifold and variety of objects. Thought will be at its best, however, when it is occupied only with what is best in man, with thought itself, where it wants only itself, has to do with itself alone. For, to be occupied with itself is to discover itself by creating itself; and this it can do only by manifesting itself. Thought is active only in producing itself; and it produces itself by its very own activity. It is not simply there; it exists only by being its own producer. What it thus produces is philosophy, and what we have to investigate is the series of such productions, the millennial work of thought in bringing itself forth, the voyage of discovery upon which thought embarks in order to discover itself. — Hegel
We may never get there. That may not be where we're going. I'm sort of afraid of unbreakable loops, but maybe that's just because I'm not ascended yet. only time will tell I suppose. I still don't think any of this means anything in the context of morality since nothing I've ever seen or heard of has been affected by right or wrong in the natural world. In the end, even if mankind ascends to godhood and can shift atoms into new and interesting forms, they may never know what is truly right or wrong, or if there even is a truth about it to know. — TogetherTurtle
As I see it, most of us are lucky enough if we can just catch up with the conversation. — sign
t what would happen if someone never heard anything else about Philosophy (or any other subject) but studied it in isolation? Would they bring something new to the table? Would it be more useful? — TogetherTurtle
Philosophy is much like Science and Math, because most people in those fields will never come up with something new. It is enough to understand though, so you can at least feel smart. — TogetherTurtle
Yeah. To give the people in those fields a little credit, I think they pretty much have to squeeze out something new to get a PhD. But this new thing can be very small, a mere footnote. — sign
Basically we can have a friendly conversation right now because we recognize one another's essential dignity/freedom/value (whatever you want to call it.) We recognize that the other is 'cool' enough to talk to and listen to.I'd joke that the point is to get cool and stay cool, knowing that this word 'cool' is a little awkward here, a little uncool. — sign
I think the problem is that sometimes we ignore someone else's value. I don't know about you, but I have certainly done that before. It's sort of painful to think of all the people that could have increased our understanding of the natural world if we would have just listened to them. Even if they are wrong, the level of creative thinking and study it takes to create a theory is tremendous and should be rewarded. — TogetherTurtle
but the devil is in the details — sign
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