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0 pointsmaeon314y ago0 comments

If you make a claim, then answer it, and ask "Why" and keep doing that, then you will eventually get down to the response: "Because I said so" or "because that is how we observe it to be".

"The words and values we use to describe nature are all imprecise approximations, many are wildly wrong. We observe phenomena all around us, and if you try to describe what it is, and ask "why" enough times then you get down to the discussion of what frame of reference we use to observe the universe. We have a body of knowledge, and we tack on new observations onto that body, occasionally the body reforms and the philosophy changes. Every learner has a philosophy.

Philosophy is where the rubber meets the road in figuring out what our universe is. Is matter a particle or a wave or other, it depends on your existing perspective, your philosophy.

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burgerbrain14y ago

I think of philosophy as the point where people throw their hands into the air in despair and say "Fuck it, I can't break this down any further, figure it out yourself", at which point the famous philosophers have joyfully begun down that ill defined path without an end.

  When Plato gave Socrates' definition of man as "featherless
  bipeds" and was much praised for the definition, Diogenes
  plucked a chicken and brought it into Plato's Academy, saying,
  "Behold! I've brought you a man."

I think Diogenes really may have actually "got it".

forensic14y ago

No one really gets it, and that's why Socrates was the smartest man in Greece. He knew that he didn't know anything.

Cynics like Diogenes are just as dogmatic as anyone, but the truth they are dogmatic about is that there is no truth. It's still a conviction. Be cynical about cynicism and Diogenes looks just as dumb as Socrates, or anyone for that matter.

We all look dumb when we answer questions. This is why Socrates preferred to be the asker.

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