Well if the person who preached stuff like that ends up drinking themselves to death it does sorta poke holes in his "insights" since he clearly didn't believe it. I've read his stuff before but he gets a lot wrong because people don't know better. He's not a teacher either. — Darkneos
That sounds like an excuse. — Darkneos
Well you haven't really explained it like that. — Darkneos
Choice is an illusion. That said the onus on the one making the argument for why people should care. You can make people care, thats what words are for. — Darkneos
Well the problem is that people don't see it like that. People are "objects" but they aren't static. I mean we are made up of things after all and those things engage in processes, hence why I said both. To consider something static isn't for it to be inanimate, and they'd still feel pain. But to write it off as a process just makes it seem like it's not a human being, an entity, or a thing. It's nothing, because processes involve things but aren't things themselves. — Darkneos
Yeah but then what's the difference if they're both just processes? What makes one human and the other not? — Darkneos
Well according to that other user apparently not. Apparently we're just robots, not that I have much issue with that. — Darkneos
I think nature and "Cares" don't really align, nature appears to be indifferent. — Darkneos
I care just because I wanna know since some other guy I knew believed in it but when I look at it I just see treating things as events and processes as cold and heartless. Reminds me of Buddhism and "no self". — Darkneos
It's also kind hard to see living things as events because that just turns them into things with no "life" or "Soul" for me and so I stop caring. — Darkneos
On some level I understand what it means, that since things are dynamic it makes more sense to label them as events instead of things. But on the other hand they are pretty solid and do endure, unlike events, so maybe it's somewhere in between. — Darkneos
I wouldn't cite Alan Watts though, the guy drank himself to death, which sorta led me to believe he didn't buy what he was selling. — Darkneos
It's not my job to make your argument. — Darkneos
It's like Einstein would say (to paraphrase) "if you really understood something you could explain it to a 5 year old". Don't make excuses. — Darkneos
And obviously the next question philosophers would ask for such a ontology is "what does it mean and how does it apply to our lives and world". That's sorta the whole point of the pursuit, why does this matter and why should one care? — Darkneos
I'm thinking you might be taking for granted what it means to see living things as individuals versus processes. To me it harkens back to all the times humans degraded their opposition as just "monsters" or inanimate to make it easier to kill or persecute them. Pretty sure black people were regarded as less than animals and felt no pain.
So to just write humans off as just processes is cold, ice cold. — Darkneos
You realize the irony of quoting Einstein for process philosophy right? — Darkneos
Well no, if it's a process then it doesn't live or die so it doesn't matter. — Darkneos
It's like saying running can feel hunger, that burning flame gets lonely, or that packing toys can care. It's a process and therefor has no emotions or needs. If it's an individual then it does. Static and living isn't a contradiction. You haven't really explained your reasoning, you just keep insisting it is so without showing it. — Darkneos
Static and living isn't a contradiction. — Darkneos
Never mind that our ethics focuses on individuals not processes. — Darkneos
Nature doesn't care about philosophy either so it's a moot point. Philosophy only matters in how it affects what we care about, whatever that may be. That's pretty much why people did it in the first place. — Darkneos
I feel like process just needlessly complicates it. — Darkneos
Well from an ethics and morality view, if stuff is just processes then it doesn't really matter since nothing lives or dies. — Darkneos
Processes don't feel hunger, thirst, loneliness, etc. Only individuals do. If they're just processes then who really gives a shit? — Darkneos
Makes less and less sense each time. — Darkneos
Let me put it like this. The stuff I care about: my dogs, my family, a boyfriend/husband, my hobbies, working out, my interest in computers, what does it mean for all that and more that I love? What does it mean for human relationships and morality or ethics? — Darkneos
Not exactly from what people have told me. It's more complicated than that. — Darkneos
I mean there are bodily processes sure. But as for the difference between dead and alive, that's a matter of perspective. — Darkneos
From what I gather it's complicated. If I were taken apart I'd be dead and would cease to be. — Darkneos
Some articles say “from things to events” and I’m left wondering what it means to see “things” as events. — Darkneos
If my brain was dead so would I because I’d be dead. — Darkneos
I can’t follow what I don’t even really understand — Darkneos
By definition no, but I’m doubting the existence of mind. — Darkneos
I couldn’t say, since no one has really been able to explain it or answer my questions. — Darkneos
The mind is physical, it’s the brain. — Darkneos
Really great post! — PoeticUniverse
Do the one-third charges of quarks make them suspect of not being elemental/fundamental? — PoeticUniverse
That seems kind of a stretch. — Darkneos
I'm not sure what to say about this. I've already gone out on a limb a bit, being too definitive in rejecting your point of view. Maybe too rigid is a better way of saying it. It just sort of rubs me the wrong way, which I recognize is not much of an argument. — T Clark
So, how come there are only those few number of ways to make the stable particles? What underlies the perfect symmetry for the stable electron, proton, and photon? — PoeticUniverse
It must have to do with the nature of waves… such as charge could have to do with the wave amplitude being above or below the zero point of the something and the anti-something. — PoeticUniverse
In free space—the electron(-) and the proton(+), — PoeticUniverse
Into an electron and proton pair, — PoeticUniverse
Hope you don't mind me chipping in on this point. — Wayfarer
But there's another dimension to consider, and that is the sense in which deep spiritual or existential enquiry is necessarily first person. There are states of being, or states of understanding, which can only be realised in the first person. They can be conveyed to another, only in the event that the other has realised or has had access to insights of a similar nature. So that kind of insight is non-conceptual or non-discursive, so to speak - beyond words, which is the meaning of ineffable. But real, and highly significant, regardless. — Wayfarer
What is there to understanding a concept beyond understanding the words used to describe it? It seems to me that, in Taoism, conceptualizing something is the same as naming it, i.e. putting it into words. — T Clark
I often say that there's only one world, so all the different philosophies and religions are describing the same thing in different words. I guess that means I agree with you. — T Clark
But to greatly oversimplify, there is only one kind of thing - an apple - yet a multiplicity of ways to describe it. That doesn't mean there is something missing from our understanding of apples. — T Clark
Each culture and tradition describes their experience of ultimate reality, but ultimate reality doesn't exist beyond those descriptions. — T Clark
Whether or not you capitalize "god" depends on whether you consider it a name or a description. — T Clark
You see, even though we agree, you may not think so because words or names for you are static, while for me they are fluid. That is our difference. Whatever word you or i use makes no difference. I mean, even the Tao suggests that we see beyond the names of things down to their essence. — punos
I don't understand. — T Clark
I don't see that there is an ultimate puzzle. Each understanding of ultimate reality stands on it's own. It can be interesting and enlightening to compare different religions and philosophies, but that doesn't mean something is missing. — T Clark
Are you saying that the god of monotheistic religions is fundamentally different from the gods of multi-theistic ones? I don't see that. My, perhaps idiosyncratic, understanding is that, in Taoism, the Tao comes before God or the gods, whichever you like. — T Clark
I didn't understand your mathematical interpretation of ultimate reality the last time we discussed it and I don't understand it now. — T Clark
The Tao does not replace god, it comes before it. God is just one of the 10,000 things - the multiplicity of phenomena in our world brought into being by the Tao. — T Clark
The Tao is an empty vessel; it is used, but never filled.
Oh, unfathomable source of ten thousand things! — Tao Te Ching - Verse 4