Centuries before Samuel Johnson's "I refute it thus!" moment.
this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2024
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Zeno you tool of course things can move
Parmenides: I never noticed people could move before.
Diogenes: I was actually just leaving because that shit wasn't worth a response
Reminds me of the G.E. Moore epistemological argument against universal skepticism:
- Here is one hand,
- And here is another.
- There are at least two external objects in the world.
- Therefore, an external world exists.
Philosophy sometimes goes so far that an appeal to common sense is a breath of fresh air.
I get rather irritated with those arguments because they only return to the start. "Here, a world". "Is it how we experience it, though, and why and how; if not, what's behind?". "Bullshit, a world". That's hardly an answer. And, personally, it feels intellectually dishonest because the question was larger than just "is there a world?".
I prefer an answer like saying that doubting the world in any form might be a mistake on its own because [reasons]. I do not agree, but at least there's explanations and communication.
Also, I think they are fighting a straw man. For instance, I doubt many things about the Universe, our knowledge, our minds, etc. Yet, I accept there are phenomena which appear to me. This has been the case since the ancient school of skepticism, and I have yet to meet a person which declares themself a skeptic and does not do this to some degree. For example, I know I'm hungry right now. I don't know if the pain is real in any other deeper level, or if it is like the pain in a dream that goes away when one wakes up, or a delusion that is felt without external stimuli, or whatever. I don't know the nature of it, yet it is an experience I must attend. I can even add that the mechanisms behind, the anatomical knowledge and such is useful, but it might be entirely wrong or be as illusory as the pain itself. The straw man is that skeptics would say: "I don't know if I'm really feeling hungry", "I don't know if I want to eat" or something like that.
Why does it matter, then? Because it changes everything. In my case, it made me go from a realist teenager to an instrumentalist adult in science. From an atheist teenager to an agnostic adult.
The discussion derives in many interesting branches too. The mere "does it matter if the world is different from what we perceive if we cannot perceive it in any other way?" is an example. Many people answer yes or no without justifying it. And, at this point, some people might be wondering why we need to justify every single belief we hold and every single thing we say, like the ones throughout my comment, and that in itself is a new good question that emerges. The possibility of having any of these conversations is also a good question, and so on...
So philosophy is not going too far, in my opinion. Some philosophers might go too far, but I really think they are rare (or misunderstood).
I disagree with Moore's first point. Hands are a social construct and are not imbued with inherent reality. They gain reality only when observed by a conscious agent.
The conclusion in line three does not follow from the premises in lines one and two, because perception is not reality.
The correct argument against universal skepticism:
- Here is a fist
- (Punch the other guy until he begs you to stop)
As usual, the only persuasive argument in favour of realism is "might makes right", accompanied by persecution of the antirealists.
The argument makes less sense outside of it's context. Moore was responding to the skeptical position that we're all in a simulation. Moore argues that this skeptical argument undermines itself: all of the language, terms and concepts which form the simulation argument are based on the sensory experience that the argument would effectively dismiss. Furthermore, any argument that we're in a simulation is epistemologically on a par with the argument that we're not. Therefore we should have less confidence in the skeptical argument than the common sense conclusion that we have hands.
all of the language, terms and concepts which form the simulation argument are based on the sensory experience that the argument would effectively dismiss
Nah, this is bullshit. What sensory experience is love? What sensory experience is honour? And more to the point, what sensory experience is money? Is law? Is a home? Is a mother? If Moore were correct to say that we do not live in a constructed material reality, we would still live in a constructed social reality. And if social reality can be constructed without the aid of the senses, then it must also be true that material reality can be constructed without the senses.
Moore is clearly a simpleton.
The point about "are we in a simulation?" is not that we are (setting aside the whole technological singularity thing for the moment), but that we could be. The common sense thing only says that we're more likely not, but does not at all say that we definitely are not. "Could be" still remains.
Moore's point is that we shouldn't let the inability to eliminate that "what if," which was specifically designed to be non-disprovable, actually affect ontology. That problems and questions created by philosophers basically just to stump philosophical methods should be all but ignored since, by design, there clearly can't be an answer except that one thing is by far most likely, and the other thing cannot matter because we can't prove or act upon it or treat it as anything other than a manufactured source of doubt/skepticism.
Objective reality doesn't exist, and that's a good thing, because it means our entire universe is subjective, and therefore, malleable to our perceptions. It means that with a big enough idea and a mind on which to balance it, we can move the earth.
I think, therefore I am. An objective reality exists, because you exist. The question is, how much of reality can you perceive, and to what limit?
My existence is subjective. Therefore any reality whose existence is assumed on my basis is also subjective.
It is still important to understand that the only thing which can be known about reality with complete certainty is:
- There is isness. Reality exists.
We cannot know with certainty the nature of that reality. We can only know our perception, and even if we accept that we are perceiving reality (which is most likely, but not necessarily, true), our perceptions of that reality are incomplete and flawed. That's a pretty important part of the nature of being.
He's also the one who told the Emperor to move out of his sunlight.
Man, what a guy.
Alexander the Great comes up to you and says "if I was not me, I wish I were you" and your response is "If I wasn't myself, I'd still wish to be myself".
Unfathomably based.
He also would masturbate in the middle of the market, and when confronted said "if only hunger could be satisfied by rubbing your belly"
He also lived in a bathtub.
And the time this dialogue took place during that same meeting…
In another account of the conversation, Alexander found the philosopher looking attentively at a pile of human bones. Diogenes explained, "I am searching for the bones of your father but cannot distinguish them from those of a slave."
Diogenes was captured by pirates while on voyage to Aegina and sold as a slave ... Being asked his trade, he replied that he knew no trade but that of governing men, and that he wished to be sold to a man who needed a master.
Fucking savage.
Greek philosophers had no chill apparently
Zeno was killed while he was engaged in a plot to overthrow the tyrant Nearchus. This account tells that he was captured, and that he was killed after he refused to give the names of his co-conspirators.[3][8] Before his death, Zeno is said to have asked to whisper the names into Nearchus's ear, only to bite the ear when Nearchus approached, holding on until he was killed.[3]
Goddamn. Is there a list of Diogenes quotes? I've heard a couple but this one was new to me.
My favorite is when he got caught masturbating in public and responded with "If only it were as easy to banish hunger by rubbing the belly." Or when Plato was teaching a class and defined a man as a featherless biped, and Diogenes brought a plucked chicken to the class and said "Behold, Plato's man!"
Alexander the Great was captured by pirates too. He forced them to increase his ransom because he was insulted that it was so small, and spent much of his time forcing them to listen to the poetry he wrote. Which is also hilarious IMO.
Nope, that was Julius Caesar. Who also told the pirates that he would return and crucify every one of them. After his release, he assembled a posse, went to the city he'd been captured in - where the dumb pirates had returned to - captured them all and turned them over to authorities.
When the authorities were not taking swift enough action, Caesar demanded the pirates be remanded to his custody, and because of his sociopolitical clout, they were - and summarily crucified.
It's suspicious that you had that ready to go, ngl
I didn't, actually, took like 10 seconds on Google tho
Ave, true to Caesar.
Oh. I always get those two mixed up.
Still hilarious
Diogenes is the GOAT.
Diogenes is truly the wisest man
There is a fine - but very important - line between someone who lives in a ~~barrel~~ jar and jerks off in the middle of the street and someone who lives in a ~~barrel~~ jar and jerks off in the middle of the street for philosophical reasons.
Was he Indian? Jerking off and shitting in the middle of the street sounds very Indian.
The line between those men is literally made out of jizz.
This is some fucking wisdom right here.
“We are not the same”