Philosophy!&

Chatterbox: Down to Earth

Philosophy!&

Philosophy!

 

I would consider philosphy to be the single most important invention in human times. Without it, there would be no wheel, no technology, no mathematics, no religion, nothing created by people. Here's my philosophy (don't be offended)

Things only exist as how we can sense them. I sese my calculator to be blue, therefore for all intents and purposes, it is blue. I sense my fingers to be typing, therefore for all intents and purposes, they they are typing. We can't tell what matter 'really is' as we are limited by our senses. There is, in one section, your mind, where, you are trapped, only able to peek through the window of our senses, which may be shaded. Outside is reality, but one cannot know what it actually is, as we cannot observe anything except what our senses tell us. I could be upside down, dancing witha pony, but as I sense I am sitting at my computer, that is only what I can know. In the mind, there are you thoughts and feelings, where you intepret things. You all could sense the world very differently than me, but we'd refer to it the same way, as we'd think we'd be seeing the same thing. Your 'red' could be my 'blue' but we both call it red, so it is red. In fact, I can't know whether you actually exist or not, or if you are just chat-bots programmed to fool me. But, I seriously doubt that, as you all act very human. So, in short, we can only sense the world as we are able to, and we can never know what reality really is.

 

So, what are you views on the world? 

submitted by Pirocks/Enceladus
(July 18, 2009 - 7:44 pm)

The train is going faster than you can reach the orphans. You're also in a box that you can't get out of with the lever, so you can't reach the orphans. What do you do now?

 

Baisically, there is no way to change where the orphans are. You can pull it, or not pull it. Choose. 

submitted by Pirocks/Enceladus
(July 26, 2009 - 3:27 pm)

Umm... I guess I'm not smart enough to figure out what you're trying to say exactly ;), but I would say pull the lever on all of them! Even the juvenile delinquents because they can change and all have the right to live.

submitted by Grace
(July 26, 2009 - 9:11 pm)

Even thought you'd be killing 1 person in the process? Killing for the greater good? Where would it end?

submitted by Pirocks/Enceladus
(July 27, 2009 - 5:38 am)

If the greater good is saving 10 lives, then yes, I'd kill one person for it. No matter what. Except for the 4th one, where the 1 orphan was destined to cure cancer/eliminate disease, because he would end up doing so much good in the world, that would be the greater good.

And... I'm really not sure what I'd do for #2. I know I should pull the lever there, but I don't know if I'd have it in me. Although... I don't actually have a 'best friend'. I only have about 2 or 3 friends period. A very measly number.

submitted by Ima
(July 27, 2009 - 12:41 pm)

So it's ok with you killing to make the world better? So, you'd kill everyone in prison, because they did, and might do again, bad things to the world, even if they were small? Where do you draw the line between killing for some purpose of creating a Utopia, and actually helping the world? That's one of the problems I have with capital punishment, and pulling the lever. Also, when many people were put in a simulation of that, most didn't pull the lever. They would be taking responsibility for the death of one, even though they'd be saving another.

 

This is like the "Lady and the Tiger" problem. In a kingdom, a man is arrested for being in love with the princess. As a punishment, the king has the prisoner choose between two doors, one, with a beautiful woman behind it, which he would immedietly have to marry, and the other with a tiger behind it, that would eat and kill the prisoner. Right before the previous man's trial, the princess tells him "Choose the door on the right." Do you think she sent him to the lady or the tiger? What would you do? Not kill, or kill because of sadness on the other? It's similar. Do you kill for your greater good, or not, because killing is bad?

submitted by Pirocks/Enceladus
(July 28, 2009 - 7:18 pm)

If I were the princess, I'd ask the man to choose the lady, because he can always just get a divorce.

However, if the one orphan was destined to cure cancer/eliminate disease, he'd be saving a lot more than 10 lives. My philosophy is, it's better to kill one person than 10 people, but it's better to kill 10 people than milions of people, and millions of people have diseases, and I believe it's right to kill 10 people to keep millions of people alive.

submitted by Ima
(July 29, 2009 - 11:09 am)

This is sort of off topic/random, but whenever I see these type of threads this bothers me. So I'm just going to say: I really do not like when people view the belief in God as a religion. Whether God exsists or not science. Religion comes in when people try to figure out who this God is exactly.

Some people think that believing in God is kind of..... I don't know, like a dream or something kind of far out. But it seems the same way with evolution: once there was a speck and it exploded and then life forms suddenly started evolving... Sorry.  I know that's not really what you believe, but you know what I mean. Ok sorry guys I know this wasn't a "God v.s. Evolution" thread, so yeah, sorry. Again!!!! :) I'm done. :D

submitted by Grace♥, age 13, SC
(July 25, 2009 - 6:36 pm)

Big words and intelligent thoughts...  My brain is going numb...  Okay, Paige, click the 'back to the Down to Earth' link before anything serious happens to you brain...  Agh.... :)

submitted by Paige
(July 26, 2009 - 10:22 am)

Lol, yeah. :)

submitted by Lena
(July 27, 2009 - 7:56 am)

:):):):)

submitted by Paige
(July 27, 2009 - 11:16 am)

I, for one, am NOT a chat bot.  :)

That's a very interesting view on things.  Does it ever get tiring?

I myself have had the same thought about the colors.  And no one would ever know.  Very odd, and the kind of thing that could make you go crazy, like thinking too hard about space never ending, or if it did end, what's beyond it, etc. 

submitted by Laura,not a chat bot
(July 27, 2009 - 10:45 pm)

Whenever someone goes out of the way to say something, it's usually false because they're trying to hide it.  Here's the Chinese Room example:

 

There is a man in a room with a slot in the wallwith an enormous dictionary of Chinese symbols. The man does not know Chinese. With the Chinese symbols, instead of giving a meaning, it says what to say in respose to that. Chinese symbols are fed in through the slot, and then the man slides blocks with Chinese symbols out as a response. He acts just like he's fluent in Chinese, but has no understanding.

 

You all could be English rooms, that are computers with an immense database of what to say in response to things. You could just be feeding those words out, without understanding them. But, I don't think you are. You're all nicer than computers care to be. 

submitted by Pirocks/Enceladus
(July 28, 2009 - 7:24 pm)

Ha ha, I know that's why I said it. And that. And that, and well, I could go on for years. :)

submitted by Laura
(July 29, 2009 - 2:40 pm)

I would pull the lever for the 10 orphans. If you could save 10 lives by sacrificing 1, than I would do it, even though it would be extremely painful that it was my best friend and that they would find a cure for cancer. It was a very interesting question, Pirocks.

submitted by Mary Jo, age 13, Georgia
(July 29, 2009 - 9:39 am)

This computer has autofill! Joy! Also, I've been typing NJ.... but I'm really in Missouri... genius. *facepalm*

Hm... that's hard, Pirocks. I think I'd save the orphans on all but two... not sure about that. Let me think. Good thoughts. 

submitted by Mary W., age 11.57, Saint Louis, Mi
(July 29, 2009 - 9:50 am)