Comments

  • The Meaning of Life
    The meaning of being is eternity. When you say "I am", you mean you are eternal. When you say "I live", you mean that you are not dead. So the question is what will stay when your life will be over? You can think it is important, maybe Tutankhamun or Aristotle thought it was important, or that it is not because something will stay anyway. What will stay always come from what you have done. So "to be" is to do what you know to do and you can do it only when you live.
  • The Meaning of Life
    Life is a human concept. The meaning of life is what is life, it is not where does it come from, because it comes from a human being. Life anticipates death, that is the only meaning of life. Your question is not the meaning of life, but the meaning of being.
  • Is truth actually truth? Absolute truth is impossible.
    I only read the question. The problem is in the question.

    Absolute truth exists. Clouds bring the rain is an absolute truth. It is true as long as people watch the clouds waiting for the rain. That does not mean that it will rain. An absolute truth is what we can do. Dancing to bring the rain is an absolute truth, you can do it. That does not mean it will rain. We can talk about certitude but it does not mean we have to do it just because one is more certain than the other. If you take numbers, 1+1=2 is an absolute truth for people who know it. But in nature you have no numbers. You can add one potatoe to another one and say it is two potatoes. That is true only for you.

    The problem is in the question. The truth is relative to a community, the one that watch the clouds and the other that dance. What is true in one is not true in the other one.
  • Wording help
    OK. I think I will not try to translate it in english.

    When I said "the image of that car with no meaning", that is ambiguous.

    A cat sees a mouse and runs to catch it. We can say it has perceived it by its senses, no? The cat saw nothing, that is only me that supposes it saw the mouse. It does not need to see it. That means that sense data are only known by biologists. We are mammals, so it is the same for men.

    Is the concept is what Jean Piaget names the object? A concept has to be related to a "percept", always (even when it is not caused by sense data). And the concept is first (we have to learn it first) otherwise there cannot be a percept that is worth talking about (except if you are a biologist).

    The philosopers always think as if they have always been adults. Jean Piaget shows we have no memory of what we learnt as a child (and in fact of everything we learnt). So a man reacts like a cat when he perceives something by his senses, and the only question is : is it a human behavior related to a concept (that we have learnt without having the memory of it) or a mammal behavior that is not? Do we have a percept in the two cases? If we have a percept in the first case, I do not understand the purpose. And if we have one in the second case, I do not understant why philosopher need it.
  • Solipsism question I can't get my head around
    Or, in other words : How can the outside logically be considered possible when your subjective viewpoint always comes first and is technically subjectively created? What gives the possibility of the outside world possibly being real valid credibility? — gsky1

    It is not from a philosopher but from me. The outside is a human creation. There is not other outside. We have to do with that. What is real is what we can do in that outside we created. Something is credible when we get a result, dancing to get the rain is not credible because usually it does not rain. That does not mean we cannot do it.
  • Wording help
    Thank you. And I think inside and outside is better than internal and external.
    But it seems, the task will be too difficult to me.
  • If I knew the cellular & electrical activity of every cell in the brain, would the mind-body problem
    The mind is not in the brain (this brain) like the cloud is not in this cloud or in the sky (this sky). There is no relationship between the mind and this body, only between the mind and the body, like there is no relationship between the cloud and this rain, only between the cloud and the rain. Knowing this we can say the problem is solved, no ? You watch the TV that say you have to buy this thing - this is the mind - and then you go and buy it - this is the body -.
    You have read this and memorized it. When someone ask what is the relationship between the brain and the body, you can answer him. Someone look in your brain at that time. It will only find how you can say it. The semantics is not in the brain. It is only there in the comment.
  • All A are B vs A are B. Is there a difference?
    I was watching a youtube video made by a mathematician. He claimed that it's true that cats are four-legged animals, and that the definition of four-legged is: have four legs.Jimmy1

    What is a cat ? It is a human concept and human can be wrong. One day, there can be a cat with five legs, we will say cats can have four or five legs or we will say this is not a cat. It depends of the definition.

    When you say that "cats are four legs", it can be a definition. You can find a cat with three legs because it losted one, it will still be true. It will still be true if a cat have five legs too. Because when ou say "cat are four legs", it does not mean you have to check every cats, but that the definition is correct, you can do something with it, anticipate that cats will have four legs.

    When you say all cats are four legged, if you find one is three legs, it will be false. Because that means you have checked every individual against the definition.
  • Rebuttal to a Common Kantian Critique
    You can lie when you do not do what you say, because you do not know. The murderer can say he is not a murderer if he does not know he is one (is it lying ?). Then you can learn to lie. If you know the murderer will come, you can learn what you can answer: "that your children are not there". You can also learn not to answer questions... So since we are all liars (we have learnt), I do not think Kant is right. But if you look back in history, it was a problem for the people living in south america when the spanish men came: they were not liars. They learned quickly.

    We are not a remote controlled robot, we are an autonomous robot. We can do what we have learned to do (to pray god, to vote, to figth the climate...), and when we do not know, we can learn. If you have not learnt to lie, Kant is right.