I coined the "mental masturbation" phrase. I'm sticking with it.

Philosophy is a mechanism for speaking endlessly about nothing.

I don't understand philosophy. I took a logic test that TEGH shared here once and scored nearly perfect on it, so I guess I can't suck that bad. But when I talk to people about philosophy, they say things I do not understand. And I don't know why they do that. When people ask me about science I always explain it in laymen terms and make sure I cut out the technical stuff, unless I'm talking to my classmates. But every time I talk to someone about philosophy, can't go beyond like 5 sentences before I have to ask for definitions :/. So yea, I'm not interested in it, plus you can never prove if you're right or wrong in philosophy, you don't experiment, it's all in your head.

I like philosophy because it allows me to justify what I wanted to do anyway, as well as convince others why they should do what I want.

(February 4, 2014 at 7:42 pm)pineapplebunnybounce Wrote: So yea, I'm not interested in it, plus you can never prove if you're right or wrong in philosophy, you don't experiment, it's all in your head.

And that is the main reason why a lot of people don't like philosophy.

They only like talking about the concrete stuff because they can see those things happening right in front of their eyes ...




like how babies learn.

(February 4, 2014 at 10:26 pm)Rayaan Wrote:

(February 4, 2014 at 7:42 pm)pineapplebunnybounce Wrote: So yea, I'm not interested in it, plus you can never prove if you're right or wrong in philosophy, you don't experiment, it's all in your head.

And that is the main reason why a lot of people don't like philosophy.

They only like talking about the concrete stuff because they can see those things happening right in front of their eyes ...




like how babies learn.

Actually science functions by having people make hypothesis logically and then checking if they're real. Philosophy stops right before the checking. What's the point? I can certainly make up theories that are logically sound, but if I cannot test it out, it contributes nothing.

I enjoy philosophy in a classroom environment, but it is not something I particularly care about in general.

For me philosophy is simply a way of forming interesting questions. Science is what actually answers them.

Never cared for it all that much.

As is likely well-known, philosophy is my thing. Like any subject, the people doing it badly greatly outnumber those doing it well. Pointing at people doing it badly is not particularly impressive to me.

It's a specialty, just like any other. There are the few who will value it above all else, and the many that simply find it odd and unusual. Explaining those that hate it is probably not hard, but I'm somewhat surprised by their passion.

Philosophic inquiry has incubated and hatched all of our hard sciences. This alone should garner respect, but philosophy still has practical application. Moral psychology is still in its infancy and would be rudderless without philosophical guidance. Philosophical debate regarding the definition and functioning of the mind informs neuroscience. Philosophy helps us make sense of the very small and very large in physics and cosmology.

Philosophy allows one to filter out 'mental masturbation' from ideas that are meaningful. Labeling inane ideas (mental masturbation) as philosophy is akin to singing out of tune and then claiming that you were being jazzy. Philosophy and jazz both require a great deal of knowledge and practice; however, both are invoked by the ignorant and lazy as the activity being engaged in after being called out for the lack of depth or expertise.