Posts by mistyfox812

Gonna quote myself here 😁 from that thread about Zen and Heidegger:

mistyfox812 said:...And honestly, if you want to understand what "philosophical speech" actually looks like, just look at the gaps. Compare Zarathustra to Carnap, or Wittgenstein to Schelling, Plato to Spinoza, or even Kierkegaard to Leibniz... you'll see there's zero uniformity. Every major philosopher basically rewrites the definition of "philosophy" on the fly.
...
That’s why I brought up all these totally different ways of talking that still count as philosophy—there isn't some rulebook telling a thinker how they have to speak just to qualify. It's kind of like art; there’s no set manual for what an artist has to do for it to be considered "art."
Philosophy is defined by philosophers actually doing the work. Just like artists define what art is by actually making it.

As for this Philosophy subforum? If you're wondering whether something counts as philosophy or not, the only ones who really matter are—well—the moderators. 😉

wearycobra74 said:But what if gaming is actually a symbol for freedom...?

Honestly, gaming totally can be a symbol for people just coming together freely—I actually wrote a little essay about that once. 😁
Plus, plenty of better writers than me have had plenty to say on that exact topic.
MC16 👍 thanks for the text... though I feel like program might actually fit what you're talking about better than game (I mean, "programmed game" sounds like a total oxymoron, since games are inherently free, like wearycobra74 said)... because "program" pulls in stuff like TV (a TV program) or even ideology (a political program)...

Madman said:I think it’s better to just say: Interpretation Look, these laws... they're just human, you know? But at the end of the day, they’re basically just natural laws themselves. They make sense to us—more or less. We all try to wrap our heads around them, grasping them with varying levels of precision, and honestly? Our understanding of how they work just keeps getting sharper over time. At least, that's how it's felt so far.
Yeah, exactly. Like, Newtonian laws only get that name because he was the first one to actually pin them down. If that "apple" had left a more lasting mark on Sir's head, we’d probably be talking about someone else entirely. To me, the whole point of this idea hits on two things. First, there's the obvious reality that our understanding of the universe is super limited. But second—and this is what I really stand by—is the need to ditch anthropocentrism. Or any kind of "centrism," really. Think about it: if we somehow finally made contact with an alien civilization and realized our scientific findings matched up perfectly? That wouldn't mean we found the ultimate truth. It would just mean that on a higher level, the probability of our knowledge being right goes up. It’s like when two people agree on something—it makes you feel way more confident, sure, but it doesn't suddenly make the fact absolute. It's just a warning against that "centrist" mindset where we think we've reached some final, absolute conclusion. I'm not saying what we know isn't important or relevant; I'm just saying we shouldn't act like we own the truth, especially when compared to stuff that's been around much longer than we have.

Nothing to add here, really. But man, the next part sounds even weirder:

Madman said:Man, I’ve been obsessing over this one thing lately—this whole pursuit some theoretical physicists are on. It’s wild. They’re basically trying to prove that we’re actually super close to uncovering a single, unifying law of the universe. Like, we’re right on the edge of understanding the absolute limits of existence. The idea is that if you look at current quantum states and speeds, you can actually map out the boundaries where matter and energy can go. It points toward this new kind of "atom" and sets these concrete physical limits that suddenly feel... reachable? It’s kind of like how they do things in high-level math theory. Instead of trying to tackle a massive claim head-on, they just hunt down the boundaries to see if the thing is finite or infinite, or what its constraints are. If you find the walls, you basically understand the room, right? I mean, look, it’s definitely a long shot. A total Hail Mary. But man, it sounds so cool. It actually gives me a little bit of hope that we might eventually wrap our heads around everything in this universe. Just imagine.

So, this whole "we’re almost there" thing? Honestly, it's such an old story. It’s basically the same vibe you see in religion—that constant "it's just about to happen" feeling. You know, like people waiting on the Second Coming of Christ or the end of the world. That "just around the corner" hype is what keeps the tension high and keeps everyone obsessed with it. But once that gets stale? People just ditch it and start chasing some new "almost there" nonsense.
By the end of the 19th century, physicists were basically convinced they’d already cracked the code on everything. They thought they had all the fundamental laws laid out and ready to go—especially since Maxwellian theory had finally bridged the gap between optics and electromagnetism, and kinetic gas theory had done the same for mechanics and thermodynamics. It felt like mission accomplished.
Back then, all those big-shot physicists were constantly yapping about what they were gonna do next now that they'd basically cracked the code on everything... like, they should've been pivoting to fix society's mess instead, since most of the core science was pretty much settled—it was just down to the technical nitty-gritty after that. But man, talk about bad timing. Within maybe twenty or thirty years, the whole thing just came crashing down spectacularly.
Look, I'm just not buying it. Honestly? Not even a little bit.
Look, just because it flopped before doesn't mean it won't work this time around. But honestly? I'm not holding my breath.
And honestly, I've got plenty of reasons, too. It’s not even irrational.
Honestly, if some entity actually managed to wrap their head around how the entire universe works in an absolute sense... man, that being would basically be existing outside the cosmos while still somehow being able to soak up all the info from within it. Just wild to think about.
You can't exactly step outside of yourself to see how you actually work—it’s like, you can't get out of your own skin.
Epistemology isn't just some pile of nonsense—honestly, even those Heisenberg uncertainty principles have a deep epistemological backbone, and it feels like that whole thing you're talking about, "what we can and can't actually know," fits right in there too.
Studying epistemology might actually save you from chasing your own tail, thinking, "almost got it, just one more step..." 😉

Polulud said:The only way a person can grasp time relativity is mentally. No one actually feels the kind of time relativity Einstein talks about during their lifetime.

Right, mentally. But the mind is a human mind, so grasping things intellectually is part of the human experience—for most people, if not all of us.

Polulud said:We can only reach the conclusions Einstein did by thinking through and consulting those specific experiments; we can't get there based on anything happening in a normal person's daily life. All the phenomena that show relativity in action are invisible to us. A person doesn't notice time slowing down in their own life, nor do they see mass increasing because of speed. We can only indirectly infer it and look at experimental results to reach the right conclusions.
I was just saying he had certain experiments where he managed to interpret the results using his theory, even though back then, those experiments were super questionable and plenty of people were calling them out.

But honestly, that’s just how "normal" science works—where common sense totally fails you. That’s not some special thing unique to relativity. Just think about the scientific fact that the Earth is zooming through space at insane speeds—something we've known for centuries before Einstein, and yet nobody "feels" it, even though it's part of our experience as (well, intelligent) beings. The mind isn't some alien thing.
And look, it's not just how science moves forward; this isn't even unique to science. People who don't deal with art usually have completely wrong ideas about it (or at least, ideas that are totally different from actual artists). Even there, common sense doesn't work any better than it does in science. And so on.
It basically boils down to majority opinion, or just plain old mediocre prejudices. Anyone who digs even a little deeper than the surface in any field common sense hits this exact same wall: the prevailing opinion is superficial. It almost has to be that way. This isn't just something discovered in science to make your argument that "human experience" is unreliable while "science" is reliable.

Polulud said:Science is a human science and no one's disputing that, but the laws discovered about nature aren't "human." They existed long before humans, and humans exist because of them, not the other way around.

Sure, we exist because of them, but they also exist because of us—at least in the way they're written in human language, human math, and human experiments... they exist because of people. >'s laws are >'s laws. He formulated them in his own human way. His formulation doesn't match reality perfectly—it matches his specific range of experience, and when different conditions arise, you see the flaws in that law. That's why one generation of scientists builds on, fixes, or reinterprets the laws of the previous generation... They are human laws, just as much as they are "natural" ones (and like you said, trying to separate "natural" from "human" doesn't really hold water). We have no way to see things "as they are," or from any perspective other than a human one.

Polulud said:Why would humans be "unnatural"? First off, I feel like you might've taken what I wrote way too literally, though honestly, that's probably on me if I wasn't clear enough. When I used the word unnatural, I was talking about how human society acts in ways that mess with the natural order and the balance between species—sometimes even putting the whole system at risk. And yeah, all of this is basically fueled by human progress. It leads to this idea that our consciousness is actually just an evolutionary byproduct. Our brains evolved to build tools and outsmart animals, sure, but they also developed this massive capacity for abstract thought that totally set us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. That exact awareness is what lets us do things that break natural laws. Like, look at medicine—we can practically hit the pause button on our own evolution by keeping individuals alive who wouldn't have survived in the world before we went and changed everything.
Gotta run, but just wanted to add one thing: in a weird way, you could argue that even *that* is natural.

Yeah...

Polulud said:Human experience (and the closest thing I have in English is "common sense")...

Equating "human experience" with common sense just isn't right. Common sense is basically just the average opinion held by the masses—you know, what people think when they're only scratching the surface, not people who actually have expertise in the field. Honestly, it's just a collection of prejudices that might be superficially true, but man, once you actually dig deep and gain real experience in any area of life, common sense totally bows down to experience. In everything where I've managed to pick up a little more experience, common sense hasn't been worth a damn as a metric. So, not only is common sense not the same as "human experience," it's actually the opposite—the lived experience of anyone who isn't just living on the surface usually clashes with what the crowd thinks.

Polulud said:...because for us, time is absolute in any case...

For who, though? Who are this "us" (or "you"?) that you're talking about so casually? "People"? Which people? You? Me? Einstein?
It's not "absolute in any case" for me, it wasn't absolute for Einstein—not even back when he was sixteen (working out those "thought experiments" with a mirror and a clock)—and it's definitely not absolute for anyone who actually gets relativity. It's not absolute for many people who don't get it either... Aren't those people? Who exactly are these "people" you're talking about?

Polulud said:...while Einstein was able to abstract his thinking to such an extent that it led him to a conclusion contrary to what is experiential for us, based on a few questionable experiments that had been performed at the time.

There's that "for us" again... for who? Isn't an experiment itself a form of experience? What is an experiment if not experience? When something is established experimentally, we literally call it "empirical" knowledge... So, it was based on experience/experiment (Michelson-Morley), based on his own reasoning (which was the only thing that made sense to him!), and based on the mathematical derivations from Lorentz... But that's how it works with everything. We have experience, we have our own perceptions, we have other people's perceptions... What part of that is "non-human"?

Polulud said:He therefore, in his reasoning that led him to relativity, was not guided by what he experienced, but by logical reasoning.

And what is logic? Something superhuman? Is common sense (or "plain old common sense") somehow illogical?
mistyfox812

Polulud said:Honestly, it’s still impossible for us humans to actually feel time dilation in action. We just can't hit those insane speeds required to make relativity something you can actually experience firsthand.

Imagine you're cruising through space at near light speed. Honestly? You wouldn't even notice anything weird happening with how time feels. It would just feel totally normal to you. The only way you'd ever realize things were getting funky is if you started comparing your watch to someone else's. 😉
mistyfox812

Polulud said:Look, humans basically just made up the concept of time because otherwise, everything would be a total mess. It’s just this practical tool we invented to keep society from collapsing into chaos, you know? We use it because it works. But then you look at guys like Einstein—he didn't "invent" relativity or those other laws. Those rules were already out there, baked into the fabric of nature long before we even showed up on the scene. We're just finally catching up to how the universe actually functions.

Man, I don't know... Did he just stumble onto relativity while hanging out in the middle of nowhere? Like, would he have even figured it out if we didn't have clocks? If relativity itself doesn't have any immediate practical use, but you absolutely need clocks to actually prove it exists—does using clocks to nail down the theory count as something practical or is it just totally impractical? My brain hurts.
mistyfox812

Polulud said:They’re gonna stick around even after he’s likely gone. Honestly? Some of them are basically the building blocks that made us who we are today—giving us the actual capacity to go out there and discover them in the first place.

So how does he even figure it all out? Is it just from experience? I mean, if you don't have any hands-on experience, how do you even get there? Like, why didn't Aristotle stumble onto relativity and instead we had to wait for Einstein? Was he just not smart enough? Or maybe he was just... too human? Like, maybe he couldn't pull back far enough and stop thinking about things in such a literal way? Just too grounded, you know? 😉

Basically, Science is just... it's a human thing. Period.It’s honestly kind of wild how something so obvious just slips everyone's mind all the time. Seriously.

Polulud said:Look, the way we live now? It’s totally unnatural. But man, if you go back even just a few thousand years, you'd see humans living in total sync with the world they actually evolved in. Saying we can't survive out in the wild without our modern gadgets, tech, or big social circles... honestly, that just feels like a denial of how evolution actually works. We know better. We know that even if you drop someone off in the middle of nowhere with absolutely nothing—no phone, no crew, nothing—they can still make it. We've seen it happen. The truth is, we are basically hardwired for the wild. We are the ultimate product of nature, like, the absolute peak version of what nature can produce. Just because we've drifted away from that lifestyle doesn't mean we've lost the ability to live it.

Okay, third time asking this (honestly, I don't even get the question, what are we even talking about here...): how does a "product of nature" actually become unnatural? Like, if something starts out natural, how does it drift away from being natural? Where does it go? And where does this whole concept of "unnaturalness" even come from?

Polulud mistyfox812 said:Since we're all basically products of nature, you could argue that everything we do is technically "natural." But honestly, that’s not even my point here. I'm not trying to say humans create categories just to fight against nature or whatever. It's more like... as we evolve, we just have this deep-seated need to chase certain desires. We try to fill these internal voids, right? So we end up inventing all these things that don't actually have any basis in the natural flow of things. We just make stuff up to satisfy ourselves.
The whole point is that we try to bend the entire world to fit our own little needs and perspectives, which basically means we just ignore how things actually work. It’s kind of a joke if you think about it. Like, take time, for example—it's such an obvious one. We totally invented the idea of measuring time and convinced ourselves that it flows in this specific, orderly way. But then you look at the theory of relativity, which is honestly one of those massive, mind-bending abstractions that completely escapes our basic human experience. According to that, time isn't some steady stream; it's just another dimension woven into the fabric of everything. A clock doesn't get to decide what time actually means.
Look, if we’re really talking about the whole "meaning of life" thing... I feel like the universe, all these planets, even plants and animals—they don't actually exist because they have some grand purpose. They aren't out there searching for a reason to be here. It's way simpler than that. They just exist because, well, it was possible for them to happen. That's it.

But seriously, you’re just dodging the question again...
Is relativity actually "beyond human experience"? I mean, come on. Didn't it spring directly from human experience in the first place? It’s not like Einstein went up to the top of Mount Sinai and got some divine, superhuman revelation dropped on him—even if that would technically count as an experience. How can we even say it's "beyond" us when... Just made it up. Time measurement... man, it's such a trip when you start thinking about it alongside relativity. It totally messes with your head. He wasn't making it up.So, how do you even decide what counts as a "human invention" versus what’s just "natural"? What's your actual criteria there?

Ugh, here I go again... seriously, where does this guy get it? How is he actually *that* good at being so incredibly unnatural? Like, is there anyone else on this planet besides humans who can pull off that level of weirdness?

Casey Jones9 said:But that’s the whole point—these "basic concepts" aren't even clear. At least, they aren't to me. 😬

Yeah, tell me about it. That's why I'm out here philosophizing. 😁

He’s got some thoughts on science versus religion right here (feel free to jump back into the debate too, if you're feeling it).

mistyfox812 said:Try asking your physics professor for some clarity and just... watch how they respond. They won't actually clear things up; they'll just bury you under a mountain of new concepts and formulas. Honestly? That’s exactly how cults operate... 🙂

So basically, you end up with this set of core terms and procedures that nobody in the scientific community dares to question as long as the whole thing keeps "working." (Of course, philosophers will tear those "fundamental" ideas apart, and even scientists do during those massive "scientific revolutions.") The internal logic of the system is constantly being scrutinized.
But I feel like with cults, there's this specific tactic where they deny that questioning is even a valid way to learn. They use those "explanations" about "clinging to concepts" or being "incapable of seeing beyond logic" to shut you down. Basically, they refuse to even attempt an answer by loudly labeling anyone who asks questions as "someone who just doesn't get it," unlike the rest of the group who supposedly "gets the essence." It builds this crazy sense of cohesion, and it injects this fear of being cast out among the members—including potential ones—which totally kills any desire to keep asking questions.

Casey Jones9 said:Yeah, but you can't just label something a cult based on that. I mean, that logic applies to all sorts of groups... like scientific organizations, for example.

I don't know, man, I gotta disagree. Science—at least how it's supposed to work, anyway—is all about clarity. It actually expects you to dig deep and clear up every single doubt you have, rather than just swallowing questions just to fit in with the crowd.

Casey Jones9 said:That's basically how cults work—they use all this weird jargon that nobody else can wrap their head around😬

Man, that hits the nail on the head. Most cults—any group trying to sell you some "alternative" lifestyle—develop this super specific lingo that just sounds like gibberish to anyone on the outside. They also love to act like being rational or making sense is actually a flaw, like it's a sign that you're just one of those people who "doesn't get it."
By trashing logic like that, they make sure no one can actually question the "doctrine." See, if you start asking questions, they immediately label you as someone who's "stuck in their ways" or "too rigid to just let go and accept the truth." It’s a total trap. It puts this huge, unspoken pressure on everyone to keep their mouths shut about anything that feels off. Because if you do speak up? Well, then you're not part of the "inner circle" anymore and you lose all that sweet, sweet validation from the rest of the group.

According to Klaić:
sect, Latin secta — a trace, a path, a direction... coming from sequi meaning to follow
1) A religious group that broke away from the dominant church; our term "following" comes from this.
2) (Metaphorically) an insular group that isolates itself from the general public.

If we’re going by those definitions for this debate, we really gotta look at a few things:
is there an actual group involved? — yeah, pretty much certain.
is the group religious? — honestly, that just depends on how you define religion and being religious.
did they split off from something else?
and was that "something else" some kind of "dominant church"?

Or maybe we're talking about a "sect" in the metaphorical sense?
Anyway, Walter Chase56, I'm hoping for some actual arguments here. 😉

You can call it whatever you want, really—it all just comes down to what you actually mean by it.
Language is all about context. There isn’t some magic, perfect definition you can just pull out of thin air to go show Master Ivan and prove, like, "See? Your little group is definitely a 'sect'."
So, why even bring this up here in Philosophy? If we're just gonna label his whole thing a "sect," why not just move this thread over to Spirituality since that's where his crowd hangs out anyway?

Madman said:Meaning is a human construct, not some thing found in nature.

Can you give me a few more examples of these "natural categories" versus "human categories"? I'm honestly struggling to see where the line is... Like, where does this whole "unnatural" thing come from that lets us just invent categories against nature?

Atma said:humans aren't free, consciousness is just physical matter, everything that exists is stuck in some crazy determinism (there's no God and no free will), being is just a word, and philosophy is nothing more than a critique of language.

Nah, man. Humans ARE freedom, matter is just words, everything we see comes through our own free perception (God exists, and so does free will), being is real, and philosophy? It’s a matter of the heart.

afriend said:hmm... obviously, we're free.

Maybe that whole "who am I" thing is actually what freedom is—like, maybe being human is just having the freedom to latch onto this idea or that feeling (or maybe nothing at all? 🤔) amidst this massive flood of thoughts, vibes, urges, moods... basically, just existing...

jadeseal81 said:Why can't life just be material? Maybe we aren't ready to wrap our heads around it—if it's even true—but what if life, consciousness, or whatever you want to call the "soul," is really just a bunch of molecules working together...

I mean, pretty much the exact same pile of molecules makes up a living creature and a dead one. At the moment of death, the actual molecules don't change that much. What actually shifts is how those molecules interact—it's all about the organization and the way they work together, rather than the individual pieces themselves...

Smith&Jones Co. said:...on one hand, there's those family resemblances of Mr. Wittgenstein...

I actually dig that—pointing out the similarities, finding the pattern before you even start drawing hard lines... those smooth transitions instead of just some binary "it fits or it doesn't" logic. It’s more about showing rather than proving.

Jonathan Brooks8 said:2. subtlety (the precision of separating what matters from what doesn't)

...subtlety is keeping the essence held right in your hand...

Just doing a little semantic nitpicking here—hope the topic allows it! So, looking at your second point, I’d actually swap out "essential" for "relevant." See, when we use the word "essence," we usually mean something fixed, like the unchangeable essentiu of a thing. But if I'm catching your drift, your whole idea about "subtlety in separating the important from the unimportant" is really about having a feel for the context you're in. Like, sure, Water is the "essence" of water, but knowing it's H2O isn't actually relevant in a ton of everyday situations where we're just talking about Water.
Also, regarding that map vs. territory metaphor: just because a map isn't the actual ground doesn't mean every map is equally wrong (you know, how those postmodernists—or sophists, as they used to be called—try to convince us). Not at all. Some maps are garbage, sure, but others are incredibly good and useful. And look, someone who knows the terrain inside and out doesn't even need a map—but maps aren't exactly made for them anyway.
But honestly? Trying to build one single map that works perfectly for every possible situation—like some absolute, context-free definition, or a version of Google Earth that stays valid regardless of what you're measuring—is basically doomed from the start.
It feels like we're always stuck trying to find that perfect balance between the Scylla of total relativism and the Haribda of absolute definitions.

bubba_ho_thep said:For real though, maybe it’s time to actually hit the books? Your test scores are basically screaming that you don't have a clue about her.

Could you maybe be a little more constructive here? Like, what exactly did I get wrong, where's the mistake, and how should I've phrased it instead? You know, help me out a bit... 😉