POG Philosophy and Religion thread

[DiggertheDog]

Originally Posted by Sun Tzu

this is the part where philosophy turns into a lot of words

and not much meaning behind them

Which was my earlier point - which it appears no one was interested in engaging in.

Meaning is a discourse.
Language is meaning..relational.

Objectivity and the claims of logical positivism are illusory.
They cannot separate themselves from the phenonemonlogical discursive encounter.

[DiggertheDog]

Originally Posted by Monkey Banana

I don't know what the second sentence means.

I'm not wholly sure what the first sentence means either, or what it's getting at. I don't have to be able to verify all claims personally for them to be objective. But I should in principle be able to verify them or they are not objective at all.

"In principle" is obviously a very broad term in there. I cannot understand the data that tells us there are muons. But there's no reason I couldn't bar my lack of training/brainpower.

Verifying against what?

What are you verifying it against?

[Sun Tzu]

Originally Posted by DiggertheDog

Which was my earlier point - which it appears no one was interested in engaging in.

Meaning is a discourse.
Language is meaning..relational.

Objectivity and the claims of logical positivism are illusory.
They cannot separate themselves from the phenonemonlogical discursive encounter.

ok

what's the point?

[Monkey Banana]

Originally Posted by DiggertheDog

How can you possibly encounter something without 'training'?

I didn't say you could.

Originally Posted by DiggertheDog

Put another way - what is the separateness between that which is experienced and that which is objective?

How have you come to see that or conceptualise that?

I haven't claimed the first thing. My view is that there is what there is and we perceive it in the way we perceive it. But if we make objective claims about what there is, we need to be able to show it to others so that they can experience it in a way that is similar enough to how we experience it that they accept that it is part of what there is. If we can't do that, we have not made an objective claim at all.

That is not to say that what we claim there is cannot be part of what there is. Well Named's God may exist but his experience of it is subjective. Maybe the God itself is too. I do not know which of us is misperceiving what there is and have no way to tell.

Originally Posted by Sun Tzu

this is the part where philosophy turns into a lot of words

and not much meaning behind them

"turns into"? Philosophy is a lot of words. As for meaning, it belongs entirely to philosophy and not to the world imo.

[DiggertheDog]

What do you mean by ...what's the point?

[Monkey Banana]

Originally Posted by DiggertheDog

Verifying against what?

What are you verifying it against?

It depends what's being claimed. Generally, verifying it against outcomes. What else is there? If I claim a rock will fall if I throw it into the air, I throw it into the air and voila!

[Monkey Banana]

Originally Posted by DiggertheDog

Which was my earlier point - which it appears no one was interested in engaging in.

Meaning is a discourse.
Language is meaning..relational.

Objectivity and the claims of logical positivism are illusory.
They cannot separate themselves from the phenonemonlogical discursive encounter.

Deny there's a rock if you like but it will still crush your toes.

[DiggertheDog]

Originally Posted by Monkey Banana

I didn't say you could.





I haven't claimed the first thing. My view is that there is what there is and we perceive it in the way we perceive it. But if we make objective claims about what there is, we need to be able to show it to others so that they can experience it in a way that is similar enough to how we experience it that they accept that it is part of what there is. If we can't do that, we have not made an objective claim at all.
That is not to say that what we claim there is cannot be part of what there is. Well Named's God may exist but his experience of it is subjective. Maybe the God itself is too. I do not know which of us is misperceiving what there is and have no way to tell.



"turns into"? Philosophy is a lot of words. As for meaning, it belongs entirely to philosophy and not to the world imo.

I do not see anything that is objective within your claims.

1) You have an encounter with that which is not you. You signify elements of it based upon prior discourses ( acquired language from previous encounters)
2) You then attempt to organise it within your existing language and attempt to describe it using common language to an'O'ther who either accepts your description as it has meaning to them or rejects it.

Nothing appears within this encounter that is not part of the phenmenological discourse between each of you.

[DiggertheDog]

Originally Posted by Monkey Banana

Deny there's a rock if you like but it will still crush your toes.

Have you studied phenomenology?

[Monkey Banana]

Originally Posted by DiggertheDog

Have you studied phenomenology?

Not in any depth but I know what it is.

Science takes the world to be axiomatic. So do I. I think doing otherwise gives man a position that he does not merit.

[DiggertheDog]

Science is the most effective tool of subjuating experience and elevating man.

I would think the opposite to you MB.

[DiggertheDog]

Make no mistake - I am not religious in any sense of the word.

[Monkey Banana]

Originally Posted by DiggertheDog

I do not see anything that is objective within your claims.

1) You have an encounter with that which is not you. You signify elements of it based upon prior discourses ( acquired language from previous encounters)
2) You then attempt to organise it within your existing language and attempt to describe it using common language to an'O'ther who either accepts your description as it has meaning to them or rejects it.

Nothing appears within this encounter that is not part of the phenmenological discourse between each of you.

IMO the rock will still crush your foot if I drop it there. The ability of the rock to do that is not dependent on its actually doing it. Its crushability exists regardless whether it ever crushes your foot, even if it is in a different city from your foot, regardless what you call it.

Any philosophy that is essentially idealist must bow to rocks that can crush feet. Even sceptics have crushable toes, and regardless that they think the toes are mental constructs, the crushing is going to hurt, albeit that the hurt is also a mental construct.

[Monkey Banana]

Originally Posted by DiggertheDog

Science is the most effective tool of subjuating experience and elevating man.

These are antipodes, not partners!

Elevating experience elevates man. Diminishing experience diminishes man.

You want to elevate experience to the position of a deity. I say it is merely an outcome of the world, no more, no less.

Originally Posted by DiggertheDog

Make no mistake - I am not religious in any sense of the word.

We'd have to agree to differ on that.

[Sun Tzu]

Originally Posted by Monkey Banana

"turns into"? Philosophy is a lot of words. As for meaning, it belongs entirely to philosophy and not to the world imo.

what I mean is when using language to express ideas, we can do it pretty efficiently when we are using words in the same way (or at least almost the same way)

the linguistic overhead in these conversations gets out of hand quickly when every word needs paragraphs, if not pages, of explanation to make sure everyone agrees on their meanings

it doesn't take long until the whole discussion is on the meanings of words and the ideas people were trying to express in the first place are all but lost