(September 15, 2021 at 11:17 am)Angrboda Wrote:

(September 15, 2021 at 11:09 am)brewer Wrote: My thought, that was a waste of 37 minutes.

What if I told you that you may think you wasted 37 minutes but what you really wasted was 2,220 seconds behaving in minute-like fashion?

I'm surprised you posted that, Angrboda. Do you think it was the intention of the author of the video (or me) to get people to take something seriously that they in fact shouldn't? Like --(hippy voice)-- "woah man... do like... chairs exist?... this is the deepest shit ever..." It ain't like that. 

The video ended by presenting Alan Watts' notion that the primordial Earth cooled down and started "peopleing." I know I am more apt to accept a biologists' model for how life began: it proceeded from the state of primordial Earth as a sort of "biological object." I am apt to say Alan Watt's view smells like New Age bullshit. Aren't you? Aren't you more apt to say: "Life is a biological object that sprang from the primordial soup."...? This notion of the Earth "peopling" needs to be defended. The notion that one or more "biological objects" formed from the primordial soup sounds more right to me. 

But is it right? Is our intuitive way of slicing the world up into objects right at all? The video makes a pretty good case that it is an erroneous way of seeing the world. Isn't that an interesting question to you?

(September 16, 2021 at 8:08 pm)vulcanlogician Wrote:

(September 15, 2021 at 11:17 am)Angrboda Wrote: What if I told you that you may think you wasted 37 minutes but what you really wasted was 2,220 seconds behaving in minute-like fashion?

I'm surprised you posted that, Angrboda. Do you think it was the intention of the author of the video (or me) to get people to take something seriously that they in fact shouldn't? Like --(hippy voice)-- "woah man... do like... chairs exist?... this is the deepest shit ever..." It ain't like that. 

The video ended by presenting Alan Watts' notion that the primordial Earth cooled down and started "peopleing." I know I am more apt to accept a biologists' model for how life began: it proceeded from the state of primordial Earth as a sort of "biological object." I am apt to say Alan Watt's view smells like New Age bullshit. Aren't you? Aren't you more apt to say: "Life is a biological object that sprang from the primordial soup."...? This notion of the Earth "peopling" needs to be defended. The notion that one or more "biological objects" formed from the primordial soup sounds more right to me. 

But is it right? Is our intuitive way of slicing the world up into objects right at all? The video makes a pretty good case that it is an erroneous way of seeing the world. Isn't that an interesting question to you?

I lean towards mereological nihilism. But I was just yanking brewer's chain.

(September 16, 2021 at 8:11 pm)Angrboda Wrote: I lean towards mereological nihilism.  But I was just yanking brewer's chain.

I liked mereological nihilism too. One of the reasons it seems so appealing is that, otherwise, there would have to be a Platonic form of the chair "out there" somewhere. And I have trouble believing that. But if that isn't true at all, then mereological nihilism must be true.

My apologies to @vulcanlogician for adding to the derail, if not causing it entirely.

I am not equipped to discuss the philosophy regarding the existence of chairs.

Back to the regularly scheduled debate.

(September 16, 2021 at 8:33 pm)arewethereyet Wrote: My apologies to @vulcanlogician for adding to the derail, if not causing it entirely.

I am not equipped to discuss the philosophy regarding the existence of chairs.  

Back to the regularly scheduled debate.

I don't understand why you'd need to apologize. You didn't bring Abba into the debate or anything, did you?

(September 16, 2021 at 8:42 pm)vulcanlogician Wrote:

(September 16, 2021 at 8:33 pm)arewethereyet Wrote: My apologies to @vulcanlogician for adding to the derail, if not causing it entirely.

I am not equipped to discuss the philosophy regarding the existence of chairs.  

Back to the regularly scheduled debate.

I don't understand why you'd need to apologize. You didn't bring Abba into the debate or anything, did you?

I read an Alan Watts book.  It had Zen in the title.  I don't remember much else except for thinking, Hume it ain't and at least the other guy talked about motorcycles.

So I want to ask, is Watts generally taken seriously as a philosopher?

(September 16, 2021 at 6:55 pm)vulcanlogician Wrote:

(September 15, 2021 at 11:09 am)brewer Wrote: My thought, that was a waste of 37 minutes.

And my opinion is that I have no 'most accurate' thought pattern. My perceptions and their communication are fluid and change with the context.

I can relate to that sentiment. Although I'm too interested in the subject matter to consider it a waste of time. 

I don't think you're going to glean anything practically useful from the video. (At least not anything immediately practically useful.)-- but. It does show us that what we assume to be simple fact is not so simple, and (indeed) isn't a fact. How important that is varies from person to person. It's dreadfully important to me, because I want to know what the foundations of knowledge are. 

If you're just looking for something to sit on, however, the default intuition (chairs are real) works just fine.

Mail me some shrooms and I'll try watching again.

(September 16, 2021 at 9:08 pm)Ranjr Wrote: I read an Alan Watts book.  It had Zen in the title.  I don't remember much else except for thinking, Hume it ain't and at least the other guy talked about motorcycles.

So I want to ask, is Watts generally taken seriously as a philosopher?

In academic circles. No way. Watts isn't taken seriously. Nor should he be IMO.

Much more important is if he is wrong and why he is wrong. If Watts is wrong, why is he wrong, as you see it, Ranjr?

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(September 16, 2021 at 9:41 pm)brewer Wrote:

(September 16, 2021 at 6:55 pm)vulcanlogician Wrote: I can relate to that sentiment. Although I'm too interested in the subject matter to consider it a waste of time. 

I don't think you're going to glean anything practically useful from the video. (At least not anything immediately practically useful.)-- but. It does show us that what we assume to be simple fact is not so simple, and (indeed) isn't a fact. How important that is varies from person to person. It's dreadfully important to me, because I want to know what the foundations of knowledge are. 

If you're just looking for something to sit on, however, the default intuition (chairs are real) works just fine.

Mail me some shrooms and I'll try watching again.

I don't advocate watching the thing twice. Just watch it once. Though... if you're getting shrooms in the mail, maybe you've already seen it.

---

And I hate to ask, but could you mail me some shrooms? I am without.

Personally, I found the video a pleasant refresher on nomenclature. At the same time, I feel it ignored the carefeful contributions of the Scholastics, such as the distinctions between effecient, material, formal and final causes. IMHO some of the dilemmas come about by failing to maintain those distinctions.

<more> I am more than willing to consider some " things" convenient fictions and can do so without dismissing all intangibles as illusory.