I mean, there’s a massive difference between some humanoid species and something that looks nothing like us but is somehow our tech-level equal. I'm guessing that's what you mean by "meeting an alien intelligence"...
Are we talking about a humanoid race, like in The Word for World is Forest? Because if so, they’d probably just get lumped into the whole "human" category—or at least the human genus—too.
The question is precise and clear. Read it again. If you're struggling, swap out "alien intelligence" for any other hypothetical scenario. Maybe intelligent bacteria that built their own civilization deep under the Arctic ice. What does discovering a second intelligence equal to our own actually mean for humans? How would it shatter everything we thought we knew about the self-world?
gentletiger20 said:I don't know, man... why do you think that? To me, it feels like they'd just be another species out there—not human, obviously—but something we might eventually find a way to coexist with or establish some kind of organized relationship with... maybe...
Sure, but look—up until now, we've been totally unique. Most of what we know and every conclusion we've reached comes from that fact. We have absolutely nobody else in our entire universe to compare ourselves to. The real question is: what happens to humanity when that changes?
Roger Smith5 said:I still maintain my belief that man serves as the measurer of all things... man is an integral part of the whole... a collection of atoms and holographic spiritual atoms... various physical worlds and the crystalline structures of their union... man is one with the universe, manifesting as two effects... a mirroring... man is not the measure of all things, but rather the measurer, for things do not measure themselves...
Let’s say humanity runs into an alien intelligence in the near future—something that evolved completely separately from us. That reality would absolutely wreck the scientific establishment. We'd be forced to tear up almost everything we think we know and rebuild our entire worldview from scratch. The real question is: in this hypothetical scenario, which philosophical stances, theories, and methods become totally obsolete? For instance, the idea that "man is the measure of all things" would become just as useless as claiming the Earth is a flat disc.
Ronald Rogers27 said:Lust + energy, combined with entertainment + ideal of abundance = a fake sense of prosperity. It’s an illusion, and it’s heading straight for a global disaster.
YES or NO? Tell me why.
Ronald Rogers27
No. Those are symptoms, not causes. Besides, very few people actually live out that lust, chase that entertainment, or enjoy any kind of abundance.🙂
Edward Flores4 said:Makes sense. The diminutive is basically just being used for irony here. 🙂
Quote : Butlerica, with her constructivist lens, points out a mountain of inconsistencies and deconstructs them beautifully, but she doesn't exactly offer a way out. It's because she knows that for any real solutions to emerge, our culture and language would need massive overhauls—changes that go straight to the core of how language functions. That is no small feat, and honestly, those shifts would take ages. I'm not saying they won't happen, but I have a feeling we won't be around to see it. Capitalism itself has to implode and transform into something else first, and frankly, we can't even wrap our heads around what that "something else" looks like—because as long as the language stays the same, our perception of reality won't change either.
I’m feeling the exact same way... lots of dissection and observation, but zero conclusions. It’s almost like people are paralyzed by the sheer scale of the linguistic problem... as if language is some kind of alien virus we’ve been helplessly infected with. Instead of us adapting to language, it adapts us to suit its own needs, and then we twist our entire ideological reality just to fit within its boundaries.
Or maybe nature has already picked language to be the next vehicle for evolution, and now we’re just left dealing with these existential crises because nature seems more interested in the survival of language than the survival of its hosts?
One thing is certain: the moment you start thinking too hard about it, someone has already played you!
My critical takeaway is that I've realized there's a whole series of total nonsense things that drive me crazy. And I've also realized there's a bunch of stuff that I'm perfectly fine with. Unfortunately, I've figured out that the "fine" stuff only feels okay because I can identify the nonsense. And once I saw it, I had to call it what it was. Language sucks. 😁 That's my first piece of critical feedback.
Exactly. That’s precisely what McLuhan was getting at when he suggested that schizophrenia might actually be a byproduct of acquiring language. You could argue that someone unaware of the root cause of their condition can easily become a victim of their own misunderstanding—and through dissociation or disrupting social norms, they end up getting a formal psychiatric diagnosis for simply being literate. Chemical imbalance, my foot. 😁
Furthermore, once I realized that, I thought there must be a way to rise above the things that bother me so I could deal with the nonsense. We've touched on methods before, and we eventually concluded that even those methods are described and labeled using the same system—meaning they don't actually mean what the language claims they mean. Language sucks, bit time.
That’s true. Although, there are certain ways of expressing things that sort of cushion the impact—like using double negatives, for instance. At least, they help prevent that mental inertia where you just miss how exclusive language can be; they force the listener into a position where they actually have to mentally reconstruct the negated idea if they want to grasp what was said. In that sense, what we say still leaves out everything we didn't say, but at least we've communicated that specific "flaw," and it breaks that automatic habit of relying on standard linguistic labels.
It’s not that I couldn’t have hoped you wouldn't immediately spot the futility of it all, but hey... I guess I wasn't 😁 .
So, what’s the move? How do we handle this? Honestly, the only thing that comes to mind is choosing the lesser of two evils. Basically, pointing out nonsense without shoving it down people's throats—because, frankly, I hate it when others try to shove their views down mine. It’s about respect, tolerance... call it whatever you want. It doesn't sound particularly inspiring, and it certainly doesn't feel like something I'm doing with a burst of enthusiasm, but I can't really do much better than that.
We evolve only as fast as our language evolves. Active communication that pushes for more sophisticated language—especially the kind that tackles the core issue of semantic peripherality, or the relativity of meaning—is probably the most constructive thing we have on this front.
Constructivism and relativism seem like the most realistic paths forward, or at least that's how it feels to me. It sounds harsh, but that's just the nature of language.
It seems we’re both feeling the same way 🙂 .
Beyond that, I think it's fine to keep questioning things and trying to refine them if possible—or being ready to walk away from them entirely if I realize I've lost my way. We have to remember that we are all just signifiers, which means we are all prone to error. If we learn from those mistakes, we grow. But if we don't... well, you know how it goes, and you know exactly what kind of weapon language can be.
I think that’s exactly what Krishnamurti was getting at when he wrote about "freedom from the known."🙂
You probably realize that by making this point about the absolute existential necessity of being able to abandon our old models, we're also essentially stating that religion and conservatism are the biggest hurdles today—mostly because culture and language remain far more flexible in comparison to them.
I’ve thought about asceticism, suicide, or just checking out entirely, but somehow it feels better to actually *do* something rather than just sitting around and complaining.😁
Rejecting suicide as the most "rational" option is actually a prerequisite for living a life worth living. Someone who lives merely because they believe they "just have to keep going" isn't actually valuing life—they're just afraid of death. And a life lived out of fear isn't a life worth having.
The only real philosophical question worth asking is whether or not one should end it all—because, let’s be honest, there isn't a single compelling reason why we absolutely *must* keep going. It’s only when you reject the idea that your purpose is predetermined that you actually open the door to finding some sort of genuine meaning in living. In my view, negation is, by far, the best thing—something we can truly cling to 🙂
I heard this story once about someone asking Buddha if he could boil down the entirety of Buddhism into just a few sentences. He supposedly replied that he could sum it up in just one: "Realize that nothing can ever truly be called 'mine' or 'I'." And honestly? Once you wrap your head around that, you don't even need Buddhism anymore, 😁
I’ve been following this debate closely—it's getting interesting. Mark Torres14 brought up the language issue, which seems vital if you actually want to understand how culture forms. Language isn't just a collection of words linking objects or ideas together. It includes hand gestures, facial expressions, body language, and any external object used to get a point across. (That’s exactly what’s missing from this forum, and honestly, I think it’s why we see so many mistakes and misunderstandings). There's also the question of how much unconscious, instinctive expression exists within language—and how much it dictates our ability to communicate. You’ve all seen it: people talking on cell phones subconsciously gesturing with their hands or pointing, even though they know the person on the other end can't see them. Why does that happen? Sociologically speaking, culture begins with human history. The moment man "leaves" his purely biological state and becomes *homo faber*—a worker—language emerges as an evolutionary necessity for communication. At that same point, looking at the core pillars of culture, we have the fact that humans are social animals, along with altruism, which makes zero sense from a purely individualistic evolutionary standpoint. Right now, I’m reading Noam Chomsky’s "The Clash of Civilizations." Unlike my own view, he argues that history kicks off with the first wave of urbanization, the domestication of animals, and the rise of agriculture. That's when humans finally settled down in one place, making territory a political reality rather than just a biological one. It leaves you wondering: how do *homo faber*, *homo ludens*, and *homo economicus* merge into what we experience today as *homo sapiens*? And to what extent is this modern identity shaped by culture from an evolutionary perspective?
James Lee77 said:Yeah, but the real question is where we get the idea that there's even such a thing as a "basic substance" made up of perfectly identical "elementary particles," especially since we never actually encounter anything perfectly identical in our own experience, right?
So, it feels like this isn't really based on any actual observation. 🤔
Interesting. If you look at the history of philosophy—and I'll go ahead and separate "science" from religion and magic here—it all starts with some kind of "fundamental substance." Be it an atom, God, an essence, or a number... does it even matter?
Jonathan Brooks8 hit the nail on the head, and I’m with him on this. But let's face it: once you start talking about a single "photon" in physics, you're stepping way beyond our basic understanding of what matter actually is. At those microscopic scales, all the traits we associate with "oneness" or the "uniqueness" of matter—things like time, solidity, mass—just vanish. We still don't even have a consensus on what a photon really is—is it a point, a string, a wave, or a field? Regardless, the fact remains that in our math, it behaves as a singular, identical thing. Plus, bringing "non-locality" into the philosophical mix basically wipes out the distinction between the one and the many. Everything is tied to everything else at the same time. So, what are we looking at? Is it a single entity manifesting itself in a bunch of different ways, or is it a collection of "ones" existing simultaneously with one another? Naturally, that leaves us with the massive question: why the hell is the World so incredibly complex and diverse?
James Lee77 said:I always used to say "more or less" when I was trying to give a true description. Honestly, it feels like no description is ever actually complete. Even when you think you've nailed it, there’s always some extra stuff left out that you didn't mention. I guess that means the best of us might just be talking in circles. Truth. I guess I'm just getting started... maybe? Hang on, let me get my thoughts together. I'll be right back! Just keeping it real. No lies here....but never even once. The whole truth..
So, here's how I see it: reality is just insanely complex. Like, infinitely layered. Any way you try to describe it, you're really just getting one tiny, partial slice of that massive complexity. I guess depending on which specific part of this crazy mess you decide to focus on, certain perspectives might seem more useful or relevant than others. But honestly? None of them give you the full picture. Not even close.
I guess it’s becoming pretty obvious that there can be more than one right way to describe something—but that doesn't mean reality itself isn't just one single thing.
It’s not just about being wrong; the real problem is that your whole argument relies on the idea that even lies have some kind of mathematical structure. I mean, if you’re going to insist that there's this "beautiful" math baked right into nature, then you basically have to admit that every single flawed theory throughout history also had its own "beautiful" structure. Like, take an electron orbiting a nucleus, for instance. Honestly? I don't see anything elegant about Pi or e at all. 🤷
Look, I mean, "beauty" alone isn't really enough to get the job done—but maybe it's still a necessary starting point? I guess. 🤷
I was kind of aiming for the idea that what we’ve been calling an electron isn't actually an electron. Like, maybe think about how the Boeing model of the atom works.
That description was totally half-baked and, honestly, kind of wrong. Even the current version feels like it's missing a bunch of stuff. And who knows, maybe it’s still not even fully accurate? I guess.
Beautifully put, and honestly, spot on. 👍Personally, I feel it like a total defeat for the human mind. No matter how pointless or impossible it is, our brains are wired to try and nail down a final, complete description of reality. We just don't know how to quit. Our minds refuse to accept limits.
I see you used my line from that music thread to kick off this new topic. Since you did, I feel a bit obligated to weigh in on the question you've posed.
The truth is, based on our daily experience, we take everything our senses pick up—and our conceptual understanding of those things (which is how I applied it to music)—and we label them as unique and singular. But they’re just symbols (one, pi, an object...). Sciences dealing with complex systems (biology, anthropology, geology...) are "middle-ground" sciences. Religious folks would call God a "middle-ground god." Modern physics deals with stuff far beyond our direct experience (either infinitely small or infinitely large), and when it comes to its conclusions, we can either believe them or not. The fact is, it produces highly verifiable results that work in practice, even while chasing a "theory of everything." Yet, at the same time, using its own tool of mathematics (as part of logic), it can't even calculate the movement of three bodies in space or conceptually explain what a 6-dimensional World actually looks like. Quantum mechanics, and partly OTR, introduce a whole new type of logic regarding what we still consider "matter" (the real question is: what even is it?). It has zero connection to our lived experience. A particle—which I previously said was identical to any other—is defined in all sorts of ways (wave, field, particle, wave-particle duality). It introduces principles like uncertainty, non-locality, and probability waves that govern its behavior, which runs completely contrary to everything we know. However, without getting bogged down in what a single photon or electron actually is, the fact remains (or so physicists have convinced us) that we can't tell one photon from another. They always, and I mean *always*, react identically under the same conditions. We can apply that same logic to concepts like the Big Bang, the curvature of spacetime, anti-gravity... things that deal with the "infinitely large." Because physical logic (the math used to explain it) is so hard to apply to complex systems, biologists introduced the concept of emergence to explain things like living matter. It means the whole provides a new quality that you simply can't predict just by knowing its individual parts. Nice topic. This could turn into a "nice," high-quality discussion.
James Lee77 said:But even saying something is a "crow" is already establishing a relationship. Like, when you say "this here is a crow," you're basically saying this specific object has a certain relationship to other things that lets us group them all together under the label "crow." It’s kind of the same deal with "two"—it just means these objects have a specific relationship where we can call any similar setup "two."
So, I guess all concepts are just "relationships"—and "two" is just as much a relationship as "crow" is.
Without pointing out relationships, maybe you could just say "this thing" (or like, "an object")—but anything else you add, whether it's "crow," "magpie," or "two"... that's all just defining relationships.
Does the concept of "feeling" even exist if there’s no human around to experience it?
James Lee77 said:The whole idea was that numbers—and really, all of math—aren't actually built into nature, but are just something humans project onto the world to describe it. But look, if there's a real difference between hydrogen and helium out there in the universe, and that difference is nothing more than a difference in the number of something, then that theory totally falls apart. Basically, numbers exist just as much as crows do.
I disagree. Crows objectively exist. Numbers don't—they're just relationships between objects. A number is nothing more than a human approximation of those relationships, which means the concept of a "number" doesn't exist as an independent object.
James Lee77 said:Well, just say so. 🤷 I thought that was just common sense, but whatever, no biggie.
Alright, so basically, the massive difference between hydrogen and helium comes down to the number of protons in the atom's nucleus. Everything else just flows from that—if there's one proton in the nucleus, it's hydrogen, and if there are two, then it's helium.
And that difference stays the same whether anyone is actually around to count them or not.
I didn't realize that's what you were getting at when you asked that. 🤷Now your question sounds even stupider, if you'll excuse my language.😁 We're talking about objective existence and objectivity here, not how many protons are floating around.
James Lee77 said:I don't get it. I mean, hydrogen and helium both exist, but they aren't different from each other? 🤔
In an abstract sense, no. Abstractly, you could call hydrogen helium and vice versa. Abstraction is one thing, but a distinguishing factor is another. If you answer "yes," your question makes zero sense—unless you meant to say abstraction is what we use to tell one object apart from another.
James Lee77 said:fadedbison17, you're reminding me of Ljub. I'll ask a super direct question and he'll write this massive post about everything except what I actually asked. 🤷
So, yeah, there are complex abstractions—like numbers—and concrete abstractions—like a crow.
Is hydrogen a concrete abstraction or a complex abstraction? Is helium a concrete abstraction or a complex abstraction? Are those two abstractions different? Is the difference between those two abstractions a concrete abstraction or a complex abstraction?
rowdyotter25 said:That's an interesting way to look at it, mostly because quantum mechanics is basically what's blowing open all our old ways of thinking. You've got this wild idea that a particle isn't even really in any specific state until we force its hand and make it manifest a result, which explains why physicists spent decades losing their minds over experimental data while trying to cram the entire universe into these neat little models of particles just doing stuff.
The truth is, reality is just one continuous transition from one state to another, driven by some mathematical logic that the universe follows—logic that’s, frankly, pretty counterintuitive, so it took us forever to finally observe enough patterns to actually write down and describe how it works. Particles aren't the "thing" itself; they're just the mental map we use, and the weird behavior we see is just the underlying machinery showing through the cracks of our model.
It's the same deal with language: every concept we define is out there existing perfectly fine without us ever giving it a label. It's just a specific configuration of reality that we eventually decided to slap a name on.
Because facts are essentially meaningless if they aren't anchored to some form of value. There isn't actually a dichotomy at play here, because if there were, then "God would be the measure of all things." "Facts and values" are two sides of the same coin. As I see it, the human being is the foundational point that injects subjectivity into that single entity.
I honestly don't see anything in that argument that I find disagreeable. "Facts" and "values" are effectively one and the same. To put it another way, scientific facts are themselves the byproduct of certain underlying values, yet we don't go around labeling them as subjective. My whole point is simply that this distinction isn't nearly as clear-cut as some people would prefer it to be.
But no distinction is clear until you break it down and define your starting point. In this specific case, we actually agree on the conclusion, we're just taking different paths to get there. My daughter has a friend who doesn't use standard methods to solve math problems. But she hits the right answer every single time. Her logic is just different, but it's just as effective as anyone else's. There’s more than one way to reach the goal.
placidranger said:I don't get it. How can you claim to "know" something if you haven't actually studied it?
👍
Olivia Evans8, your question is total nonsense and logically broken. You can't get to knowledge without learning. You've got cause and effect completely backwards.😁