Philosophy: books and discussion

[obs20]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Which is the core (or at least one core) of religion. Most people have a hard time accepting that 'all this' could be only due to the natural physical laws of nature.

Then we get into the questions of:
Who makes the laws?
Who makes the lawmakers?

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by obs20

Then we get into the questions of:
Who makes the laws?
Who makes the lawmakers?

but that's really the point, why must there be a 'maker' that's the part that most cannot accept and thus the spark to religion.

[Bilbo1967]

Originally Posted by obs20

Then we get into the questions of:
Who makes the laws?
Who makes the lawmakers?

"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?": Juvenal.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Bilbo1967

"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?": Juvenal.

Ah...had to look it up, but yes one of my favorite sayings.

Who watches the watcher?

[kennyc]

.....and is there a little man inside your head....

[GeoffC]

....and does he wear hobnailed boots and carry a full piece all playing brass band ....(in my case, yep!)

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by GeoffC

....and does he wear hobnailed boots and carry a full piece all playing brass band ....(in my case, yep!)

.....like the ringing in my ears...which in my case is not too bad...comes and goes....

[GeoffC]

unless I imagine it ....

[beppe]

I liked it when the discussion touched the rocks and their being alive.
For a stone that one keeps on the mantel piece or Florence poole in her parents'garden or for Michelangelo's Pietà Rondanini, their "life" manifestations are mostly in the effects they have in the people that look at them, touch them, that use them as sources of stimula that belong to an high sphere of thought.

A quality of stones

Spoiler:

They have an expressive quality. They have it in themselves if they are what they were when collected, or it has been introduced by the artist vision and action with his tools and in this cases they become objects of stone, loosing some of their stone original nature. But, as a natural stone can be as expressive as Florence masterpiece (in a large sense), the expressive quality of stone can be accepted regardless of the artist intervention. I called on stage Florence and Michelangelo just as props for the argument.

Larger stones

Spoiler:

Things are different if one consider a larger stone, like our planet. The almost totally passive nature of the stones in the preceding examples, changes radically. Almost I said, thanks to that expressive quality.
Earth is very active. It is a very common point of view for us humans to consider of Earth only that tiny layer that includes the atmosphere and the surface of Earth. The atmosphere occupies just 3% of the radius of Earth, and only 3 parts over 100,0000 of its volume. More or less like the skin of a peach. In terms of mass that part of Earth that we humans consider is even smaller than that, as the density increases maybe 10 fold going down toward the core of Earth.
Earth is more or less made like the slab of granite that I use as a table in my garden, with the exception of the core that is made by heavy material, mostly dense metals. It changes, with respect of my table, the physical state, my slab is solidly solid, Earth interior can be fluid, because of the different conditions of temperature and pressure. So much for geography 1001.
Earth is very active. An enormous amount of energy is involved, that is exchanged between the various parts (organs) of Earth , its external layers and the surrounding space through amazingly articulated mechanisms and manifestations. Geoscience is a relatively new branch of knowledge, but extremely active and in continuous growth.

Purpose of the post

Spoiler:

What I want to make emerge from this introduction is that Earth could well be an alive individuality, maybe even self conscious, maybe totally indifferent to what is going on its skin, like us with our skin, just immersed in auto contemplation or in spicy exchanges, through gravity waves, with other members of the PS social group. Planetary System. Earth time scales really do not overlap with ours. Like our time scales do not overlap with the time scales of atomic and sub atomic exchanges. Toward Earth we are more on the passive end, rather than on an exchange relation.

Possibilities

Spoiler:

Earth has the technical possibility of storing immense quantity of information. Its rocks can be magnetically polarized for instance. But if we allow ourselves to consider other forms of vibrations, like sub atomically or oven sub nuclear forms, then the quantity information that Earth could be storing in its huge mass becomes quite big. Enough to contain the information of every event in the life of every living entity since the beginning, with enough for at least the same amount of time remaining. It’s not enough. Make it ten fold that.

Earth has the technical possibility of an immense computing power. We start to learn how to utilize distributed computing.It is a well known fact.

Earth has the the technical possibility to set up and maintain a dense and efficient network among its elements

Earth has the technical possibility to sense all the things around her with a space time resolution that would make the more sophisticated magnetic resonance device a puppy toy. This through her size and unlimited time bandwith of the signals that she emits.

…

What next?

Spoiler:

Does Earth have the intention? If she has it, she knows. Us ,we don’t know unless she decides to let us know. Maybe she is just waiting the few billion years necessary for us to evolve into the child that she can play with.

[GeoffC]

I would say the Earth is alive, certainly active, and is letting us know in many ways, such as daily weather, volcanic eruptions etc. She provides all we need; her purpose for us is uncertain, but if it is as an experiment I fear we may be falling short of her design ....

[GeoffC]

Where would anyone say the boundary is between Philosophy and specifics like Science/Religion/Morals etc.

Or is it simply that Philosophy is pure thought, where the others include practice and experiment ....

Just a question from a simpleton ....

[TGS]

Originally Posted by beppe

Does Earth have the intention? If she has it, she knows. Us ,we don’t know unless she decides to let us know. Maybe she is just waiting the few billion years necessary for us to evolve into the child that she can play with.

You may be right beppe, the earth may have an intention, it might even be a "she", but what experience could you imagine having that would throw light on, or settle the question one way or the other? The fact that one can imagine something to be the case doesn't make it so, or even make it that it is possible. I can imagine that the universe and everything in it doubled in size last night - and I can equally well imagine that it halved in size. But since there is no possible experience that I could have that would confirm or dis-confirm these imaginings, the imagining is in a real sense, meaningless.

Of course, one might have an emotional response to such imaginings, and that may be a good thing, but it doesn't help us to approach truth.

[TimMason]

Philosophy is an umbrella term: Science, Religion, Morality are all sheltered beneath it. Science was at first referred to as 'Natural Philosophy'; how what we call 'science' today developed out of that is a long story, and indeed a rather tangled one. Some would claim that science had its beginnings in the philosophy of Ancient Greece, while others would say that science really begins in the Renaissance.

Philosophy among the Greeks was a very practical matter; it included knowledge of the world, knowledge of the gods, knowledge of humans and how to persuade them to agree with you - a very important practical matter in democracies such as Athens. Philosophers wanted to live by and through their philosophies. Today's philosophers may inhabit the crumbling towers of the academy, but that's probably because they were displaced by churches, on the one hand, and the sciences on the other.

However, perhaps we are looking in the wrong place for our philosophers. The most canny of philosophers is a good plumber.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by TimMason

Philosophy is an umbrella term: Science, Religion, Morality are all sheltered beneath it. Science was at first referred to as 'Natural Philosophy'; how what we call 'science' today developed out of that is a long story, and indeed a rather tangled one. Some would claim that science had its beginnings in the philosophy of Ancient Greece, while others would say that science really begins in the Renaissance.

Philosophy among the Greeks was a very practical matter; it included knowledge of the world, knowledge of the gods, knowledge of humans and how to persuade them to agree with you - a very important practical matter in democracies such as Athens. Philosophers wanted to live by and through their philosophies. Today's philosophers may inhabit the crumbling towers of the academy, but that's probably because they were displaced by churches, on the one hand, and the sciences on the other.

However, perhaps we are looking in the wrong place for our philosophers. The most canny of philosophers is a good plumber.

The Tao of Poo?

[TimMason]

Now you are making me think you're the same guy that on another forum claims he is communicating with aliens through a crystal in his brain. And they make him do thing like post on the internet to embarrass him.

Not me. I can embarrass myself quite effectively and have no need of aliens for that purpose.

But why would I assign myself the purpose of embarrassing myself? Doesn't the notion of purpose (which is originally close to 'proposition') suggest intention, and suggest it in such a way that its agent can explain it? If I were to impute purpose to a rock, I would either be thinking magically, or I would be speaking metaphorically Perhaps I might set out to embarrass myself 'on purpose' so as to experience a rush of blood to the face, and be able to describe it when writing a novel.