• Bartricks
    6k
    "Do as you would be done by" bible

    Oh, so if I wouldn't mind it if she squeezed my leg then I can squeeze hers? It's a molester's charter. Should be 'don't do as you would be done by - others aren't you".

    "The only source of knowledge is experience" Einstein.

    No it isn't. After all, if that were true, then it would not be known by experience and thus would be false. And as well as being self-refuting, it is clearly false, as knowledge requires epistemic reasons - a proposition is 'known' when it is true, believed, and there is epistemic reason to believe it - yet epistemic reasons are not known by experience, but are known by rational reflection. What an idiot!

    "You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than a year of conversation" Plato.

    Well, that's incredibly implausible. If you talk to someone for a year - a year! - you'll learn a hell of a lot about them. Whereas if you watch someone play for an hour you'll learn virtually nothing apart from about their skill and interest in that game. Really stupid.

    "live as if you're going to die tomorrow; learn as if you're going to live forever" Gandhi.

    Why? Why on earth would you do either of those things, much less both?!? I mean, if I am going to die tomorrow, then I'd spend today fretting about it and I'll be incredibly distracted and upset and in a bad mood. I certainly wouldn't bother trying to learn anything as if I'm going to live forever - for I am going to die tomorrow! It's just stupid.

    "I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become" Jung.

    Well, the first bit is correct - you're obviously not what happens to you, for what happens to you happens to 'you', and you are the you bit, not the happenings. So, the first bit is correct, but it is a bit like saying "I am not the number 3" - it's kinda obvious and doesn't need stating. But the second bit is every bit as confused as thinking that one is what happens to oneself. You're not what you choose to become, you are the thing making that choice. I mean, obviously! Let's say I choose to become what happens to me. What then, eh Jung? What a fool.

    "Life begins at 40".

    No it doesn't. By hypothesis, if you're 40 you've already been alive for at least 40 years.

    "I am the wisest man alive, for I know that I know one thing: that I know nothing" Never said by Socrates, but often attributed to him by those who haven't read him.

    Obviously self-contradictory. If you know one thing, then you don't know nothing. Christ.

    "It is better to know some of the questions, than all of the answer" (Thurber).

    No it isn't. If you know all the answers you're clearly better off than just knowing some of the questions. You ask a question to find out the answers, for goodness sake! What a berk.

    "Only when the last tree has been cut down, and the last fish caught, will we realize that we cannot eat money" (proverb).

    Well, strictly speaking you can eat money, it is just not very pleasant tasting and has minimal nutritional value. But anyway, most of us are well aware that money is not much good as a foodstuff regardless of how many trees there are or fish there are. I mean, there's really no relationship between how many trees one has cut down and how many fish one has caught and one's knowledge of the inedibility of money, so far as I can see.

    "The time you enjoyed wasting was not wasted time" Russell.

    Yes it was, by definition. You enjoyed wasting it. So it was wasted. He should have said that the time you enjoyed appearing to waste, was not in fact wasted time.

    Some that are true:

    "I think, therefore I am". Descartes.

    Yes, seems correct, though there's a missing premise.

    "Everything is what it is and not another thing" Butler.

    Yes, that is surely true.
  • Tom Storm
    8.3k
    Life begins at 40".

    No it doesn't. By hypothesis, if you're 40 you've already been alive for at least 40 years.
    Bartricks

    Fair enough. I think The Mad Fool started a similar thread.

    Nevertheless, aren't sayings like miniatures? Behind their austere surface they usually pack in unstated additional material at odds with a more concrete interpretation.

    Looking at this one above, isn't a reading of this - You really don't start living (enjoying yourself and utilizing your experience fully) until you are 40? Some people would agree. I get the point of such sayings, but they're not meant to be mathematical equations.

    It is better to know some of the questions, than all of the answer"Bartricks

    Well, there's a range of exegetical interpretations possible here. You can be overwhelmed by potential solutions or answers without actually knowing what they connect to in a practical sense. I have had that experience in the social policy world. Sometimes better to develop a set of very clear questions rather than going straight to solutions. For me this saying does not contain the premise "all the answers are true"

    Something like that.
  • Bartricks
    6k
    Don't most people think in little maxims like these?

    Each one is a generalization of some sort that is then promoted to the status of a universal truth. Whereas in fact, it seems that there are virtually no such truths. So the philosophical point, if it needs to be made explicit, is that generalism is false, and particularism true.

    Take do as you would be done by.

    Sometimes you ought to do as you would be done by. That is, sometimes it is right to do x, and right to do precisely because that's how you'd want others to treat you.

    Yet sometimes it is wrong to do as you would be done by (and sometimes it is wrong precisely because it's how you'd want others to treat you).

    Try and think of a quote or maxim that is true and insightful to which counterexamples cannot be found.
  • praxis
    6.2k
    “A stitch in time saves nine.”

    Oh yeah? what are the odds of that? Should be “A stitch in time saves several, if not many, stitches”.

    “If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.”—Albert Einstein

    I would never attempt to explain women to a six year old.

    “A good beginning makes a good ending.”

    Maybe for her but I don’t need foreplay.

    “A penny saved is a penny earned.”

    Not if it’s stolen.

    “A picture is worth a thousand words.”

    Technically true if it’s a picture of a thousand words.

    “A watched pot never boils.”

    Of course, just looking at water won’t make it boil.

    “All Roads Lead to Rome.”

    That’s a hard No.
  • Pinprick
    950
    Try and think of a quote or maxim that is true and insightful to which counterexamples cannot be found.Bartricks

    You can’t please everyone all the time, but you can please some of the people some of the time.

    Stupid is as stupid does.

    Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

    You can’t judge a book by looking at the cover.

    Looks can be deceiving.

    Dead men tell no tales.

    Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.

    Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

    You can’t eat your cake and have it too.
  • Tom Storm
    8.3k
    Don't most people think in little maxims like these?Bartricks

    Don't know. I think only dull, literal minded folk take these things as concrete and immutable.
  • khaled
    3.5k
    Did you think people take these literally?

    Don't most people think in little maxims like these?Bartricks

    No…. You clearly don’t listen to people very often.
  • Sir2u
    3.2k
    "Only when the last tree has been cut down, and the last fish caught, will we realize that we cannot eat money" (proverb).

    Well, strictly speaking you can eat money, it is just not very pleasant tasting and has minimal nutritional value. But anyway, most of us are well aware that money is not much good as a foodstuff regardless of how many trees there are or fish there are. I mean, there's really no relationship between how many trees one has cut down and how many fish one has caught and one's knowledge of the inedibility of money, so far as I can see.
    Bartricks

    When the trees are cut down and the fish caught as is done today, it produces money. The idea is that we try to keep the trees and fish because we cannot eat the money we get from them.

    I think that it might not be applicable to every situation, but it is not meant to anyway. But it is true.
  • Bartricks
    6k
    Yes, I think a lot of them do, or at least allow them to govern what decision they make on important occassions.
    Yet they make one less wise, not more.
  • Streetlight
    9.1k
    "Nine times out of ten quotes are made up and attributed to people who didn't say them" - Harry Potter
  • Wheatley
    2.3k
    "Nine times out of ten quotes are made up and attributed to people who didn't say them" - Harry PotterStreetlightX
    Reveal
    He did not say that! :roll:

    Clever. :clap:
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