Dakka Philosophy Thread 1 (Metaphysics)

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**Orkeosaurus**

There's five in a circle, and one in the middle. If you put any more on they have a hard time dancing.

**warpcrafter**

Provide me with the diameter of the head of the pin and the diameter of the space required for each angel to dance and I'll tell you. Otherwise, the question is pointless.

**Orkeosaurus**

Well, their dance routines are actually pretty complicated, so the space required varies. Also, angels shrink if you sin a lot.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Okay, sorry, I'll stop ruining the thread.

dogma wrote:
Orkeosaurus wrote:May God create a stone of such weight that he himself may not lift it?

The concept of weight would be meaningless to God.

Do you mean he would be incapable of comprehending it?

**Scrabb**

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_many_angels_can_stand_on_the_head_of_a_pin%3F

**Mad Rabbit**

Let's go to what rubiksnoob was talking about, starting with cosmogony.

Where did the universe come from? Tell me what you think.

Creationism, Big Bang, Everything carved from body of dead Giant, all views are welcome.

**dogma**

Orkeosaurus wrote:Do you mean he would be incapable of comprehending it?

Nah, its just Wittgensteinian logic. Basically, rules do not exist if nothing exists to enforce them. Since there are no bounds omnipotent beings things like mass, which are rules in this context, do not apply.

**Orkeosaurus**

Can god make it apply to him, if he wants to?

While maintaining his omnipotence?

**sebster**

dogma wrote:
Orkeosaurus wrote:Do you mean he would be incapable of comprehending it?

Nah, its just Wittgensteinian logic. Basically, rules do not exist if nothing exists to enforce them. Since there are no bounds omnipotent beings things like mass, which are rules in this context, do not apply.

Or to paraphrase Sammy Davis Jr's* answer; 'God could make a rock so heavy he couldn't lift. Then if he wanted to he could lift it. He's God.'

*I'm pretty sure it was Sammy Davis Jr, but celebrity answers to undergraduate pop philosophy is not my area of expertise.

**Orkeosaurus**

I don't even know who he is, so it doesn't make a difference to me.

**dogma**

Orkeosaurus wrote:Can god make it apply to him, if he wants to?

While maintaining his omnipotence?

Sure, he's omnipotent. Omnipotence is a logically impossible concept because logic fundamentally relies upon discreet objects in order to draw a specific conclusion. As soon as you remove the element of discretion any further conjecture is simple speculation. Of course, its also logically impossible to remove discretion, except in instances of a contradiction. And, even in that case, one is typically only permitted to derive from the contradiction a term which has already been observed (though that isn't specifically necessary); meaning that God is inherently beyond logical proof.

**Emperors Faithful**

What would you define as evil?

**Ahtman**

dogma wrote:If you believe metaphysics can say something legitimate about the nature of our world, then you must also believe it has something to say about 'good' or 'just' action. Otherwise you end up with something like the God of the Philosophes; floating off in space contemplating itself without changing the nature of our world.

Much Eastern philosophy would disagree with the idea that you cannot separate Metaphysics and Ethics. Often the concept of "good" or "just" is considered to abstract to be anything more than playing at knowing more than we can. There are things we like and dislike, and we tend to call these things good or just but that doesn't make them so. Metaphysics on the other hand is the consideration of what is, not what we project, or in some cases seeing past ourselves (lifting maya).

In this case Ethics is the study or elaboration on, to put it very very broadly, what we want to happen (the good) and what we don't want to happen (the bad), how we determine it, and how it is applied is not inclusive to the reality of, well, reality. Now it is possible to try and understand how they can interact and effect one another, as no thing is separate from existence, no matter how removed.

**Emperors Faithful**

So in ethics the PERFECT world is discussed, but in metaphysics the worlds AS IT IS is explored?

**Ahtman**

Emperors Faithful wrote:So in ethics the PERFECT world is discussed, but in metaphysics the worlds AS IT IS is explored?

Oh no, "perfect" as it is used here is way to much of a western idea. You'll find more writing about how something is made perfect by it's imperfections. What would be discussed is why some things are good, and would they not be, and vice versa. Think of fire. Fire makes raw animal flesh taste better (ie cooking) and we call it good. At the same time fire can also burn your house down. Ethics is trying to deal with that dichotomy. Metaphysics is trying to understand the fire as fire.

**Emperors Faithful**

Metaphysics=Thing
Ethics='Correct/Incorrect' USE of thing?

Is that better?

**Ahtman**

Emperors Faithful wrote:Metaphysics=Thing
Ethics='Correct/Incorrect' USE of thing?

Is that better?

We are certainly getting closer, now we just have move past the idea of "thing".

**Emperors Faithful**

okay...you got me, explain how I went wrong with 'thing'

**Ahtman**

Emperors Faithful wrote:okay...you got me, explain how I went wrong with 'thing'

Your working on a subject-object model of existence (or dualistic thinking if you like). You believe that you are separate from other things and that you are a thing yourself when the reality is that everything is connected. You can't pull yourself out of reality, it is a trick of the senses. I hope I'm making some sense as it is very very earlier and I should have laid down awhile ago.

**dogma**

Ahtman wrote:
Much Eastern philosophy would disagree with the idea that you cannot separate Metaphysics and Ethics. Often the concept of "good" or "just" is considered to abstract to be anything more than playing at knowing more than we can. There are things we like and dislike, and we tend to call these things good or just but that doesn't make them so. Metaphysics on the other hand is the consideration of what is, not what we project, or in some cases seeing past ourselves (lifting maya).

I agree. My point wasn't that the disciplines are inseparable. Its perfectly acceptable to write metaphysics off as baseless speculation and proceed from there. In fact, that's pretty much been the way of things in the West since the Philosophes. However, if you don't make that committment, then metaphysics has to inform ethics. It doesn't make any sense to define the nature of good, and then ignore that definition when considering those actions which embody the good in every day life.

Ahtman wrote:
In this case Ethics is the study or elaboration on, to put it very very broadly, what we want to happen (the good) and what we don't want to happen (the bad), how we determine it, and how it is applied is not inclusive to the reality of, well, reality. Now it is possible to try and understand how they can interact and effect one another, as no thing is separate from existence, no matter how removed.

Unless your name is Foucault, Derrida, or Baudrillard. But then they already denied their own existence, so it doesn't really matter.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Ahtman wrote:
Your working on a subject-object model of existence (or dualistic thinking if you like). You believe that you are separate from other things and that you are a thing yourself when the reality is that everything is connected. You can't pull yourself out of reality, it is a trick of the senses. I hope I'm making some sense as it is very very earlier and I should have laid down awhile ago.

To put it another way:

There are things, which include the sense perceptions of all other things that interact with them. And there things-in-themselves, or forms, which is the thing stripped of the miasma of perception. That's the Platonic version anyway.

In question form: What makes a chair, a chair? What is its chair-ness? That chair-ness is the metaphysical essence of the chair.

**Emperors Faithful**

The chair is it's name, no? It's function. That it is sat on.

Otherwise it is just a peice of wood cut a particular way.

**Ahtman**

Emperors Faithful wrote:The chair is it's name, no? It's function. That it is sat on.

Chair isn't it's name. That is the noise that humans, that use English mind you, make to let another one understand what they are indicating. We also use abstract symbols to codify these things. It's just a signifier, it is not the thing itself.

I'd respond to Dogma but really it isn't worth my time (and more importantly I'm waiting on a ride any minute and can't give it the proper time needed).

I shouldn't be on now.

But I am.

**Emperors Faithful**

The thing is 'classed' as a chair. But it is really several peices of material put together. The name chair, is more for its purpose.

**Squig_herder**

IMO:
The term chair comes from the collective experience and guidance of ourselves and others inperpirataion of the object, forming a schema as to what the shape and purpose of the object is, from this we can then assume anything that is designed to seat someone is a chair, through this schema we must assimilate and accommodate as we progress through life and as designs change. However the word chair is a loose term for an object that is design to seat something.

But I may be totally wrong ^^

**Emperors Faithful**

...How is it possible that you just said EXACTLY what I was saying, yet with making almost NO sense?

**Orkeosaurus**

A chair is made out of wood, which made out of cellulose, which made from molecules, made from atoms, made from yet smaller particles. Or so we perceive it to be. Or so I perceive it to be, and perceive you to perceive it to be.

We call it a chair to designate it's use for sitting, as well as identify common structure that separates it from a bench or stool or sittin' rock.

**youngblood**

Orkeosaurus wrote:Well, their dance routines are actually pretty complicated, so the space required varies. Also, angels shrink if you sin a lot.
?

that's a sig