The Philosophy Thread [What is this thing called ...Life?]

So why are we here? What is the meaning of life? How am i not myself? What are your thoughts...

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZOxF6yqH8U"]YouTube - I Heart Huckabees - Infomercial - Part 1/3[/ame]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyMaGU92_PI&feature=related"]YouTube - I Heart Huckabees - Infomercial - Part 2/3[/ame]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRU3KCUvr5g&feature=related"]YouTube - I Heart Huckabees - Infomercial - Part 3/3[/ame]

http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=891899

Jesus i guess nobody likes philosophy, how do i edit or erase a thread?
Well just think of this thread as its subtitle name, what is this thing called life.

Eh. Hopefully your thread has more luck than mine did.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rs_k3PJTmSY"]YouTube - Why Epiphenomenalism Must be Wrong[/ame]

Philosophers are scientists, btw.

thanks, yeah thats crazy that philosophy or that kind of shait isnt relevant or as relevant in our culture, exceptions always of coarse but damn thats says alot about us. Quantum Physics could be another title for this thread i dont know, its just funny how many people dont like to think about what we dont know, so we invent gods so we could be able to get a good night sleep and we dont have to wonder.

ps. i agree, i think science and religion go hand in hand, as philosophy is religion and vice versa and so on and so forth.

have you seen the movie I heart Huckabees?

How about the movie "What the (bleep) do we know?"

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSk51Lp-vHU&feature=PlayList&p=B13F881195866370&index=0&playnext=1"]YouTube - What the bleep do we know? Down the rabbit hole. part 1[/ame]

Heres the first part of the movie, you can see the whole thing in you tube.

Karl Marx said "religion is the opium of the masses." Of course everyone likes to take quotes out of context for whatever reason (to sound educated, make an ill-informed point, what have you) and then again he said we would all eventually revolt and create an egalitarian political system (which has not happened), so...

Not sure about that. Granted, philosophy is a vital part in discussing religion, but I've heard entire philosophical arguments go on for a while without ever mentioning "god" or anything of the sort.

Neither. The first one sounded kinda dumb tbqh so I haven't really wanted to see it. Second, I haven't even heard of. I'll check 'em out.

That will never happen, aslong as there hearts pumping, that will never happen, not in this reality anyway. Because we hold everything in "values" or in a value system, we give ourselves different values throughout our life; the good years and the bad. We give our friends and family values, our material possessions have value, and they are in a constant stage of flux or change. So we cant ever hold things as equal or be equal.

By the way, youll love i heart huckabees, trust me, especially that you dig philosophy, see it asap. as for the otherone, you can see it as i said earlier for free at youtube.

I don't think it will happen as long as we are the dominant species on the planet.

When robots take over I think it will be better.

...

I'm serious. The singularity will allow for huge advances in technology, which include sentient AI. Let's hope it doesn't blow us up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

And why shouldn't they? Robots are the only logical successors to the planet. They would be far more "fit" from an evolutionary standpoint, having very little to no susceptibility to disease or famine.

Well yes and no, they are because they dont have "free will" per say, they dont because they arnt species or beings or alive, we are their gods because we created them, now if the time comes to come when they are able to think for themselves (ie. Terminator) then they will become like us and view eachother as we view eachother-not equal, competitive, hate ,love,war,pride,joy etc.

Read The Singularity is Near by Raymond Kurzweil.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Singularity_is_Near

He writes around 4 postulates:

1. That a technological-evolutionary point known as "the singularity" exists as an achievable goal for humanity (the exact nature of the point is an arbitrarily high level of technology).
2. That through a law of accelerating returns, technology is progressing toward the singularity at an exponential rate.
3. That the functionality of the human brain is quantifiable in terms of technology that we can build in the near future.
4. That medical advancements could keep a significant number of his generation (Baby Boomers) alive long enough for the exponential growth of technology to intersect and surpass the processing of the human brain.

Taken from the wiki of course. Anyway there's a really practical discussion on the role of sentient (self-aware) AI that's incredibly fascinating, especially considering it will most likely happen in our lifetime. Well, in our lifetime if you're 20.

i actually think we are already here, thats already happened, we are what he talks about, of coarse you might think, we arnt machines but i beg the differ, we are hosts to an awareness, not we but our bodies are hosts to an awareness. Which actually is charged by electricity, so i dont doubt that it will happen because it already has.

But as for them being better suited for this i highly doubt.

"That medical advancements could keep a significant number of his generation (Baby Boomers) alive long enough for the exponential growth of technology to intersect and surpass the processing of the human brain."

They cant escape this thing called life, and one thing i am a a huge believer in is balance, and life is the epitimy of balance, ying and yang. So dont think that robots will outlast us or better suited because life or balance keeps us all in check. What you call the flu i call rust, what we call a virus, machines call ... a virus.

We haven't got to the Singularity yet. I like to believe it's the moment at which AI becomes self-aware, but there are many theories. It will be a point in time where we see (almost literally) an explosion of advanced technologies stemming from that one technology that caused the Singularity in the first place.

Sentient AI could lead to it building other sentient AI, and those building more and more, perhaps solving problems that have stumped us for thousands of years like a cure for cancer, which to advanced AI may seem extremely simple to cure.

We are definitely getting close though. Look at all cell phone technology nowadays. You can't go a week now without someone having a better phone. Way back in the day I got a Raezr for my birthday and I was the coolest motherfucker in school for a long time. Then a better Raezr came out and my reign was over. Point is, that happens very very often now, and existing technology will catalyze the perpetuation of even more advanced technology, so you can expect to see this stuff happening faster and faster, untill you see phones becoming obsolete on a daily basis. The time will come when, in accordance with the Law of Accelerating Returns, cell phone technology will improve at such a blistering rate there will be an explosion of some technology that will make having a plastic "phone" to carry around impractical and obsolete...maybe.

And that's just for cell phones!

There's other things that are improved on at an extremely fast rate. Computers, medicine, the automobile industry, to name a few.

Trust me, when the Singularity happens, stuff you see in sci-fi movies will seem primitive. At least that's what I hope happens. Really, with such advanced technology, what are we feeble humans going to do with it?

Like i have said life happens, do you see the pyramids? how were they built? What happened to that highly advanced civilization? You really think that highly advanced technology is new? No man, before cell phones, before computers, before telescopes, people figured out how far a star was by mathematics, with nothing but their mind. you think that we are moving forward, but we are moving backwards. Technology is making us dumber, well thats not true, we are making us dumber.

The mind is the greatest thing we have, nothing beats the mind but the mind. So if we create cyborgs, we will always be their creator and nothing can process things like the mind. There isnt a microchip, or will there ever be anything as complex as the mind. We havent even scratched the surface to what our mind can do and we have one of our own to play with, thats effing insane.

The simpler one becomes the more advanced one is.

Art and great architecture are only so because we perceive them that way. The Egyptians were relatively primitive, technologically, so Giza is amazing. Babylon was an ancient city and a tolerance of other cultures back then was unheard of, so Hammurabi's code is a milestone.

Who's to say AI won't have its own kind of art. We're the ones designing it, so why not?

The mind is indeed the greatest thing we have, but what about a robot "brain" makes it inferior/ The fact that maybe it won't share our views? That's ethnocentrism, even if it's against robots. We honestly can't even begin to comprehend what AI will think and feel, so discussing any possibility as valid is kind of pointless, imo.

If you got the chance for your brain, your SELF, to be preserved and transplanted into another vessel, wouldn't you take that chance? Wouldn't you also agree that the mind can be made better through augments and transplants and stuff, all permitted through technology?

I own a TV, a microwave, a laptop, an Xbox, a few lamps, and my clothes. That's it, really. I eat food, I sleep, I think (or try to), I live. However, at an elementary level, I have only a rudimentary idea of how any of these things work. I know that if I push a button on my TV it will turn on and I will see stuff. I know that the same process will do different things on a microwave, on my Xbox, my lamps. I know clothes go on me and they are a part of my culture. I know food provides one with energy and sugars and acids and whatever necessary for life. My brain is using neurotransmitters and neurons in tandem to allow me to think all this shit up.

That's it!

That's all I know of how this works. I'd like to know how it works at the most basic level, like what happens when I push the button on my TV or Xbox or microwave. I know it has to do with electricity and currents and other things, but there are also a seemingly infinite number of other processes going on that I'm not aware of and it pisses me off to know that.

Can you imagine a future where none of this is the norm? Where everyone is a scientist and can do science? Where everyone thinks? That's precisely the future I think would be possible through technology. Life would be...perfect.

First of all, the peeps that built the pyramids weren't primitive by any stretch of the imagination, you see it that way by perception. How were they able to pull it off at such a huge scale and precise to the T. We dont know, we have theories sure, but we dont know.

Second i agree that we cant even begin to comprehend the "AI" brain when we dont comprehend our own.

Third, i can imagine a world where everyone can do science, where everyone thinks. Hell im living it, the limitations are set up by yourself and only you. You think you are living at an elementary level therefore you are living at an elementary level. Everything, well most everything you know is by societal conditioning. You know food provides you with energy because you were told by people and hence you have grown up thinking that, thats why you know that food gives you energy. The way i see it most of what you know is what people told you, read, seen- the other stuff you know is what came from you, insticnt, self-fingerprint. So between tose 2 things you create your reality. does fire burn you because its hot, or because youve been bread to know it will burn you? Maybe fire doesnt burn you but your mind has been programed(by ur surroundings/society) to let you feel,experience a burn hence make in it your reality.

Fourth, life is perfect. Perception is a motherfugcker.

I said they were relatively primitive, which is primitive by our standards. If we wanted to build pyramids it would be easy for us.

Well, for the most part, I think neuroscientists have a much deeper understanding of the human brain than we give them credit for. I'm sure there must be things they don't know, but...I don't know what those things are!

I know those things because it's science. I go without food, I am without energy. Basic scientific theory, right? Cause and effect relationship. If I eat food I will have energy. Food = energy. Food causes energy, if you will. Same with the other things. Sure there's probably a chance that the act of eating food is seen as good to some force out there so it grants me energy in return but there is absolutely no proof of that so I don't believe it to be so, but scientifically you can't prove it! It's the same deal with relatively primitive societies like the !Kung or Ju'/hoansi of southern Africa. Stuff happens, so something must have caused it. What caused it? Gods. What makes us? Gods. What controls us? Yep, gods. Yes, there is variation within these societies, but for the most part, this is the basis of their belief systems, since I believe we invented religion to satisfy our curiosity and need to wrap things up in a neat little package.

The same scientific process can be applied to my other appliances. I press a button so the circuit in my TV is complete and it starts recieving electricity from the outlet. If it is unplugged it's not receiving energy so it doesn't work. Again, there is a possibility of the TV gods granting you access to a television because you presented an offering of button-pressing but, again, no way to prove it.

In short, I can be reasonably sure because I test, I observe, I practice science. My culture has nothing to do with it, although a culture based solely on scientific observation would be ideal.

Yeah.

I'm out for the night. Gotta study for some physics crap

g'night. catch up with this in the morning.

Of coarse scientifically you can prove it, that is my point, you create ur own reality, for you, science explains/tells why you need to eat so you eat, or do you eat because science explains/tells you to? Its what you believe, and nothing can change that, but you. Although its crazy how some people fast or have accidents and go without food for days or weeks, or water and survive. Now do they survive because of perfect circumstances or because mind was overcoming body hence doing a reality/truth transformation and allowing you to live because you created that reality, the reality of(i will not die, iam going to survive without these elements ive known to be integral for my survival) and yet came up and survive and change their perception of what they previously knowned to be their reality.

Oh yeah, like it says in the top of this second part, "the brain processes 400 billion bits of information per SECOND, and we are only aware of 2000 of those"
So i dont see a robot chip ever reaching that.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ut4JNzWgjaA&feature=PlayList&p=B13F881195866370&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=1"]YouTube - What the bleep do we know? Down the rabbit hole. part 2[/ame]

Hulk a philosopher. Hulk philosophize when Hulk drink too much milk and go out in summer heat Hulk poop come out watery. Hulk philosophize that when El_LatinLoser and AnalCreamPorVida only posters in thread thread is shit.

HULK SMASH!!!

psst, no one but you thinks that's funny

Thats actually hilarious, it is funny in more ways than one. He's right in one aspect, it is funny that our culture "chunti mentality" doesnt look into philosophy or that kind of shait, but the "Official Cat picture thread" is ********ing unstoppable, thats gotta not be a good sign right? i mean people do peek in in this thread but it doesnt tickle their funny bone(laughing as i write this) i bet if i start a "rate my masturbating techniques Vol 1" that shit would rip this a new @sshole.

Hey Latinloser is funny, hes creative, cut him some slack. If it takes 2 of us to keep this shit going, so be it. Fight the power mate.

eh

that's pretty much 90% of this board. I chose this, admittedly, ridiculous-sounding screenname instead of the usual one I go by because I thought it would be pretty embarrassing to be caught posting in a place like this.

what's worse is that most of these people think they're seriously intelligent. like "bah I don't need to think about that shit it doesn't even matter" intelligent.

maybe nobody wants to post because they don't want to interrupt the circle jerk.

hey, no se enoja tu amiguito si le hablas a ese wey