Sex on the Beach.

[Loupgarou]

Neutrality means you don't have an opinion -   caring or not caring doesnt matter. Nothing really matters with neutrality.

Sometimes merely observing and holding no opinion is the most honest and pure way to reach a conclusion. I can honestly say, that I "practice" neutrality, after a young life filled with yelling my dissent with faith. I was a strong atheist, after a childhood and teenage hood with the Church. I decried God to my clergy mentors! And I went on with strong vicious opinions and mocked anyone who "believed" in God. And I screamed around, and no-one listened, and I grew up and matured, and things happened to me that I could NOT explain by science. So I LISTENED and observed and held no opinion, for I wanted to hear people without bias, and THAT is when people would listen to me. I did not have to shove it down their throats like some madman. I became......impartial and that is when I learned my greatest lessons. I loved both atheists and believers, yet chose to avoid, extremists as I once was, for I had nothing of value to say, and neither did they. I did not receive the TRUTH....for the truth was mired with bigotry and anger.

As far as philosophy goes I am considered a "radical sceptic" or an Idealist......but these are just words and meanings for those words. Really I am just more simple, complex and more often than not, neutral by choice.

Loup

[eris]

"Je pense donc je suis" , I think therefore I am .... Descartes

No one ever gets this right  


It only means that your (doubting) mind exists. It proves nothing about the existance of anything else, including your body or the city of Paris or the entire universe. Existance does not need to exist in orer for your mind to exist. For you could just be dreaming.

And Im talking about Discordiansim. Chaos Theory, etc. To the stupid, think of it this way " there is no spoon"

I could probably even argue existentialism to this point.



Here, Ill let a "real" philosopher, Søren Kierkegaard say it better

 x" thinks
 I am that "x"
 Therefore I think
 Therefore I am
 
Where "x" is used as a placeholder in order to disambiguate the "I" from the thinking thing. For Kierkegaard, Descartes is merely "developing the content of a concept", namely that the "I", which already exists, thinks.

The logical flow of argument is that existence is already assumed or pre-supposed in order for thinking to occur, not that existence is concluded from that thinking

[eris]

Sometimes merely observing and holding no opinion is the most honest and pure way to reach a conclusion. I can honestly say, that I "practice" neutrality, after a young life filled with yelling my dissent with faith. I was a strong atheist, after a childhood and teenage hood with the Church. I decried God to my clergy mentors! And I went on with strong vicious opinions and mocked anyone who "believed" in God. And I screamed around, and no-one listened, and I grew up and matured, and things happened to me that I could NOT explain by science. So I LISTENED and observed and held no opinion, for I wanted to hear people without bias, and THAT is when people would listen to me. I did not have to shove it down their throats like some madman. I became......impartial and that is when I learned my greatest lessons. I loved both atheists and believers, yet chose to avoid, extremists as I once was, for I had nothing of value to say, and neither did they. I did not receive the TRUTH....for the truth was mired with bigotry and anger.

As far as philosophy goes I am considered a "radical sceptic" or an Idealist......but these are just words and meanings for those words. Really I am just more simple, complex and more often than not, neutral by choice.

Loup

Well, "practicing" neutrality isnt the same as really "being" neutral. It seems like you were just figuring out your opnion, not that you didnt have one. It is ok to to keep your opinions to yourself, and it is ok to not have things figured out yet. But not "not care" about something is just ignorance, and I dont get that from you. I think you care you're just thinkin' bout it.

[Loupgarou]

Sometimes merely observing and holding no opinion is the most honest and pure way to reach a conclusion. I can honestly say, that I "practice" neutrality, after a young life filled with yelling my dissent with faith. I was a strong atheist, after a childhood and teenage hood with the Church. I decried God to my clergy mentors! And I went on with strong vicious opinions and mocked anyone who "believed" in God. And I screamed around, and no-one listened, and I grew up and matured, and things happened to me that I could NOT explain by science. So I LISTENED and observed and held no opinion, for I wanted to hear people without bias, and THAT is when people would listen to me. I did not have to shove it down their throats like some madman. I became......impartial and that is when I learned my greatest lessons. I loved both atheists and believers, yet chose to avoid, extremists as I once was, for I had nothing of value to say, and neither did they. I did not receive the TRUTH....for the truth was mired with bigotry and anger.

As far as philosophy goes I am considered a "radical sceptic" or an Idealist......but these are just words and meanings for those words. Really I am just more simple, complex and more often than not, neutral by choice.

Loup

Well, "practicing" neutrality isnt the same as really "being" neutral. It seems like you were just figuring out your opnion, not that you didnt have one.

True, in some cases Eris. In some situations, I was simply neutral without practicing. My kung fu master used to say to me, "long winded speech is exhausting, better to stay centred" and that was the seed planted that changed my view of the world forever, among other things......

Neutrality and non-judgement are some of the cornerstones of Taoist philosophy, as well as their counterparts. All things exist and nothing exists, very loosely speaking. If anything, I am a practicing Taoist, that accepts that things exist, purely because people believe it to be so, and who am I to question that?

Just made me a much more peaceful person in some respects.

Now I am taking my family to the beach, for some non-thinking My psychologist ordered it

Loup

[eris]

so you are the uncarved block  


It is possible to trancend human nature, I suppose. Being non-judgemental doesnt mean you dont secretly judge someone, though. And you've got to be truely Zen for it to work, though. Ive studied Taoism and , honestly, it is a lot like Discordianism. Things only exist if you want them to exist.

I believe in Chaos, and no I do not mean "dissaray". Chaos is everything, the sum total of all things. it is order and disorder at the same time. But as the same time that everything is "chaos" and, essentially, "metaphysical soup", but there are still "Circles" everywhere.

Circles are order. The human body is a circle, for example. No matter how much you "believe" that you can fly, those little circles of order are going to bring you come crashing down to earth.

these circles confuse our pathetic little human minds. I think is someone were to actually trancend these circles, they could really fly !

Wow I just sounded like a crazy person.

[Loupgarou]

No not crazy at all! I wondered if you had studied Taoism in your Philosophy degree. And yes, it does relate to the definition of Discordianism(sp) after reading a blurb about it.

I question nothing and everything in equal measure, if that is possible. I question my place in this process. I also subscribe to Chaos Theory and String Theory and a whole bunch of other theories, but I always question.....Do I have bias? Am I prejudiced? Does that fit my ethos? Am I projecting on to it? Do I see only what I want to see? and so on.......

I ALWAYS have struggled with my human nature, and have always tried to rise above it, but that notion is flawed to some degree......how can I ultimately rise above what I am? I wish my brain was in a robot and I existed on pure data and true and false statements, but then, or so I have been told, I would not experience love, hate, joy, suffering, learning, growing and so forth. So somedays I exist in a "soup" of sorts, displayed in my single-celled origins, going with the current hoping to reach land and sprout legs

humans are humans, faith is faith, science is science........and our understanding of the world, is created, with evidence or not, by humanity. No more, no less and that is what I have come to accept.

Loup

[Scrapheap]

"In formal logic, a contradiction is the signal of defeat, but in the evolution of real knowledge it marks the first step in progress toward a victory."
- Alfred North Whitehead.

Despite Whiteheads contributions to philosophy, logic and epistemology, he occasionaly said completely stupid things like this.

I believe in Logic, but accept the illogical.

I believe in science, but accept faith

I accept Science, but believe in Faith

I believe that the only certain thing, is uncertainty.

War is peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is strength. 

I believe that just because it is not "truth" or "evidence based" does not mean that it does not exist.

But without evidence, how can you possibly have a meaningfull discussion about it??

I believe that I am full of contradictions, full of hypocrisies and full of flaws.........and most likely full of shit most of the time

fixed.

But I am wise enough to know that I am human, and wish to question my very existence. Because if we existed on the "known", we would never seek to answer or accept the unknown.

Yet that's exactly what religion does. It gives us false answers for the unknown and in the process it shuts down discovery and research.

Extreme polarity causes stagnation.......

dogma causes stagnation.

tolerance, maturity and some heated logical debate is what drives man to evolve, and THINK and appreciate points of view.

good so far...

And one must contradict oneself, to understand the others' point of view, in order to debate it. All the scientists that I have worked with, constantly contradicted themselves in the search for evidence based truths.

no, you just have to be able to play devil's advocate with yourself.

Yes, I am fiercely Roman Catholic, but that does not mean that I cannot observe its flaws. I do not confuse religion with faith, even though they are not mutually exclusive. I just concentrate on trying to be a  fair, kind and compassionate human being. That was my harsh lesson in this tenuous existence.

How can you correctly observe the flaws of something you defend on loyalty??

... and the only true thing, is that NOTHING is true, it is only perception.........we are not evolved enough to see the TRUTH, for if we did, we would probably die on the spot from the horror and simplicity of it.
Loup

...play it again Sam!!!

War is peace
Freedom is slavery
Ignorance is strength

[Scrapheap]

.... Also, neutrality is always an option in a philosophical debate. Disregarding that option in this debate is disrespectful to those who hold that point of view, and it creates a false dichotomy between your views and a straight religious viewpoint.

I should've clarified. Neutrality is not an option when you care about what is most likely to be true, and you find yourself in a world of deliberate mis-information.

[Pyraxis]

What a fascinating thread. Not that people haven't argued these things ad infinitum already, but I find it quite curious which people are presenting which arguments.

These seemingly contradictory statements, "war is peace", "freedom is slavery", "I believe in science, but accept faith", etc., simply illustrate the flaws of language to distill precise and complex concepts.

[Loupgarou]

"In formal logic, a contradiction is the signal of defeat, but in the evolution of real knowledge it marks the first step in progress toward a victory."
- Alfred North Whitehead.

Despite Whiteheads contributions to philosophy, logic and epistemology, he occasionaly said completely stupid things like this.

Is it stupid because it does not support your point of view?

"Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them."
 - George Orwell

and.......

"Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear"(but it is also their right not to listen! )
 - George Orwell

and.......

"Happiness can exist only in acceptance"
 - George Orwell

and my favourite.........

“One who is too insistent on his own views, finds few to agree with him.”
- Lao Tzu.

The more you speak with anger and vitriol, the more you strengthen my conviction, my belief. Thank you!

Amen to that

Loup

[Loupgarou]

What a fascinating thread. Not that people haven't argued these things ad infinitum already, but I find it quite curious which people are presenting which arguments.

These seemingly contradictory statements, "war is peace", "freedom is slavery", "I believe in science, but accept faith", etc., simply illustrate the flaws of language to distill precise and complex concepts.

True, very true Pyraxis The dynamics of existence seem to err on the side of fluidity and a pendulum of sorts, and I find that language often leaves me short in being able to describe the method of my thinking.

I will learn about things until I take my last breath.....and in that time my perceptions and beliefs will shift and change. As long as I always question, I will be able to live with myself, even if I suffer as a result of it.

Sorry, probably off topic of what you meant but I hope you get what I am trying to say. My dyslexia is dyslexic today.

Loup

[Scrapheap]

The more you speak with anger and vitriol, the more you strengthen my conviction, my belief. Thank you!

Loup

Who's the one speaking with anger and vitriol...

stupid cunt.

[Loupgarou]

And so are you. 

Loup

[Pyraxis]

Funny what lies inside the ivory towers.   

[Pyraxis]

The dynamics of existence seem to err on the side of fluidity and a pendulum of sorts, and I find that language often leaves me short in being able to describe the method of my thinking.

I will learn about things until I take my last breath.....and in that time my perceptions and beliefs will shift and change. As long as I always question, I will be able to live with myself, even if I suffer as a result of it.

Sorry, probably off topic of what you meant but I hope you get what I am trying to say. My dyslexia is dyslexic today.

Loup

Nah, not so off topic, though nowhere near whatever started the original callout, which seemed to be something like "Scrap, stop being rude to me!" "Nevah!"