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Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away

3-16am.co.uk

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Re: Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away

#131

Post by dpoochieni »

dragonwriter wrote: post #100
dpoochieni wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmmmm isn't climate change and enviromentalism in general the eschatology of the average modern atheist? And they do proselytize quite a bit. The average atheist is as separate from the process of science as the average NFL fan is from actually scoring a touchdown. They're both spectators under a similar set of illusions regarding their claims as to their relevance in each ones game. Go TEAM SCIENCE!!!

> Hmmmm isn't climate change and enviromentalism in general the eschatology of the average modern atheist? No, neither factual belief in climate change (in general, or more specifically anthropogenic climate change) nor ideological belief in environmentalism is eschatology ("the part of theology concerned with death, judgment, and the final destiny of the soul and of humankind") to start with, and even if they have a…

Now you're just repeating definitions. I'll ask you this, why would any one give a damn about "anthropogenic climate change" if they did not have some theory in their heads about "the final destiny of humankind"?

Cause I hope they do have a theory that connects to their personal values, otherwise they are just following blindly.

PS. did you just make up "factual belief"? I mean it is a tautology on many levels. But let's take it as qualified belief. Isn't that the root of religion? It's okay, we humans need to believe in something

Re: Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away

#132

Post by cousin_it »

thisiszilff wrote: post #118
eivarv wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't be serious. Actual religions have sets of ideas (rules, creation-myths, alternative epistemologies, etc.), whereas atheism has none. The term literally means "without god(s)" (which was a defining feature of religions by those who coined the term). It is an absence of belief (at least in the way the term is commonly used; There are "atheistic religions" in the sense that they don't have a deity). Atheism is…

The charitable interpretation is that most people -- even atheists -- will have a belief system that is functionally equivalent to a religion. > Atheism is to religion as being silent is to speaking – and you're essentially claiming it's just another way of speaking. Another way of saying it is that religions (as we know them) are answers to questions, you can get rid of those answers, disagree with them, etc. but th…

> the questions will remain and you will implicitly provide answers to them. Those answers will constitute what your religion is

What if some of these answers are "I don't know"?

Re: Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away

#133

Post by amanaplanacanal »

dpoochieni wrote: post #131
dragonwriter wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hmmmm isn't climate change and enviromentalism in general the eschatology of the average modern atheist? No, neither factual belief in climate change (in general, or more specifically anthropogenic climate change) nor ideological belief in environmentalism is eschatology ("the part of theology concerned with death, judgment, and the final destiny of the soul and of humankind") to start with, and even if they have a…

Now you're just repeating definitions. I'll ask you this, why would any one give a damn about "anthropogenic climate change" if they did not have some theory in their heads about "the final destiny of humankind"? Cause I hope they do have a theory that connects to their personal values, otherwise they are just following blindly. PS. did you just make up "factual belief"? I mean it is a tautology on many levels. But l…

I have no idea about “the final destiny of humankind”, but I’m pretty sure anthropogenic climate change is a real phenomena.

Re: Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away

#134

Post by mannykannot »

keiferski wrote: post #43
whimsicalism wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I clearly have christian and western values instilled in me, I grew up in the US. But that doesn't mean I practice or believe in a religion or deity? Idk, this argument seems pretty facile and I've spent a lot of time reading philosophy of religion.

This is a pretty complex topic, but I'll go back to my question that I posed: if your behaviors indicate one thing, but your spoken word indicates another, what does that mean? Is is possible that modern secular culture is simply Christianity-as-act, but with the explicit verbal affirmation of belief removed? Religions change just as much as cultures do, and I would say that modern culture is quite obsessed with "ver…

It is not that complex an issue, unless you want an answer that is not the obvious, straightforward one.

> If your behaviors indicate one thing, but your spoken word indicates another, what does that mean?

Nothing more than that human thought and behavior is not a consistent logical system, let alone a sound one. As there is no reason to think that it is, this is not problematical, and there's nothing theological to see here.

Re: Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away

#135

Post by mannykannot »

redler wrote: post #99
FabHK wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> many atheists also seem to proselytize with a religious fervor as well Could that be availability bias? You don't hear from the many that don't proselytise. > even something like atheism is a religion That's nonsense, a rhetorical subterfuge to defend religion ("oh, but you too have a religion.") maybe. Atheism has none of the things you claim (origin story and eschatology, prescriptions on how to live). Some (athe…

As has been said elsewhere, atheism is a religion the same way not playing baseball is a sport.

This is, in many ways, the perfect response, as it cuts through a Gordian Knot of tendentious argumentation in one stroke.

Re: Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away

#136

Post by thatcat »

dragonwriter wrote: post #105
thatcat wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mark Fisher describes the same thing, as not "the end of history" but the cancellation of the future based on observations that the Neoliberal political system has continued well past its serviceable life and that there seems to be nothing coming to replace it.

> the Neoliberal political system has continued well past its serviceable life Neoliberalism isn't a political system, but an economic ideology. Neoliberalism, insofar as it is a distint viewpoint within the derivatives of classical liberalism, is a fairly recent reaction to post-classical-liberal economic ideologies, primarily (but not exclusively) those of the Left. The neoliberal consensus beginning to break down…

Why is the idea of futurism as an aesthetic reflected by ideas from 1985 instead of 2025?

Re: Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away

#137

Post by friendlybus »

kritiko wrote: post #24
randlet wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still not clear to me how that implies I have a religion. Being influenced, consciously or subconsciously does not mean I have a religion, but maybe I'm misunderstanding your point.

Your question reminded me of this quote from David Foster Wallace's This is Water: Because here’s something else that’s weird but true: in the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to wor…

>Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly.

This kind of logic doesn't transfer well to other beliefs. God is omni-present, omni-powerful and all-knowing. Transferring the same logic, we assume people worshipping God always feel distant, powerless and knowing nothing.

Re: Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away

#138

Post by ekabod »

keiferski wrote: post #53
boyobo wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did you pick out that quote if it misrepresents the linked article?

I don't think it misrepresents it at all. I wasn't reading "natural world" as being strictly a scientific thing.

"natural world" is the term used by greek philosophers to describe cosmos and motions. It is the same as a "scientific thing".

Re: Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away

#139

Post by username90 »

narraturgy wrote: post #26
randlet wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does that imply I have a religion? Doesn't religion have some element of the supernatural by definition? edit: reworded.

No, it doesn't. While the discussion of the definition of religion would result in its own holy war, suffice to say that defining religion based of the involvement of the supernatural is cyclical logic used to discredit any opposing religion. "Pagans believe in the supernatural, the sun isn't a mythical being! Only belief in my God is grounded in reality" is not functionally different from "Theists believe in the sup…

Atheists don't believe they know everything, they just believe that people are full of shit when they talk about Gods or similar. It doesn't require any belief in the existence of or lack of supernatural things, just figuring out that it is much more likely that people are manipulative liars than that they got some profound message from some higher being.

Re: Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away

#140

Post by harperlee »

eivarv wrote: post #125
thisiszilff wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The charitable interpretation is that most people -- even atheists -- will have a belief system that is functionally equivalent to a religion. > Atheism is to religion as being silent is to speaking – and you're essentially claiming it's just another way of speaking. Another way of saying it is that religions (as we know them) are answers to questions, you can get rid of those answers, disagree with them, etc. but th…

Even this charitable interpretation doesn't make much sense: The only thing "atheists" have in common is that they have a lack of belief – we have no idea what they actually DO believe (people come with various philosophical persuasions, after all). The other way you propose of defining religions is so general and vague that it borders on meaningless, and doesn't deal with the fact that different people have differen…

I think it makes sense: even the utmost atheist needs to have beliefs; both in the ‘individual facts’ way (you can’t be rational about everything all the time), and in the ‘cosmovision’ way (ideas about what to do with one’s life, etc.).

The OP was just being a little bit provocative while calling those beliefs a religion, which I think can be allowed; at least for the fact that there are a bunch of people that are religiously “atheists”.

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