How do you people with long hair put it up?

[vulcanlogician]

I'm exactly the same except I get my hair shaved down really short when it starts getting into my eyes.

On a semi-unrelated note... I am glad you're a Spinoza fan

Personally for me he's second to Leibniz

Although I agree that the universe is ultimately one entity, and that separate entities are an illusion... but I don't think that's quite what Spinoza was getting at. I guess I'm more of a Parmenides fan than anything. He got it all spot on a long while ago, to me.

And when it comes to the world of seeming, that we live in... Leibniz's monads make more sense to me. We are indeed all windowless. That's why I get pissed off when people pretend to have empathy

Just kidding. Empathy exists. But only when we acknowledge that it isn't truly putting yourself in another person's point of view... as that's metaphysically impossible unless we're all one mind. It's trying as best as you can to put yourself in the point of view that you yourself think the other person's point of view is, and getting it as close as possible to whatever their actual view is. How people do it I have no idea. I'm crap at it. It's mostly because I'm so self-absorbed I think though. I can't be bothered to spend time on what other people think. Who cares what other people think

All I care about is what I think and other people are there to correct me if I'm wrong about stuff while I focus on correctness itself

Anyway, to be clear the semi-on-topicness of this, in case you didn't notice and think "WTF is he talking about philosophy on a hair thread".... Spinoza and Leibniz both had long hair lol.

I always though Leibniz wore a wig.

Spinoza:

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Leibniz:

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As far as philosophy, Leibniz is okay... but I always called him "Diet Spinoza." Leibniz's metaphysics depends on a personal God, and I rather dislike his whole "best of all possible worlds" claim. Although I like both of them on account of their depth. Leibniz borrowed a lot from Spinoza, that is certain. But in the end, I like Spinoza because he is more like a Stoic materialist, whereas Leibniz is a theistic idealist.

[Edwardo Piet]

I'm exactly the same except I get my hair shaved down really short when it starts getting into my eyes.

On a semi-unrelated note... I am glad you're a Spinoza fan

Personally for me he's second to Leibniz

Although I agree that the universe is ultimately one entity, and that separate entities are an illusion... but I don't think that's quite what Spinoza was getting at. I guess I'm more of a Parmenides fan than anything. He got it all spot on a long while ago, to me.

And when it comes to the world of seeming, that we live in... Leibniz's monads make more sense to me. We are indeed all windowless. That's why I get pissed off when people pretend to have empathy

Just kidding. Empathy exists. But only when we acknowledge that it isn't truly putting yourself in another person's point of view... as that's metaphysically impossible unless we're all one mind. It's trying as best as you can to put yourself in the point of view that you yourself think the other person's point of view is, and getting it as close as possible to whatever their actual view is. How people do it I have no idea. I'm crap at it. It's mostly because I'm so self-absorbed I think though. I can't be bothered to spend time on what other people think. Who cares what other people think

All I care about is what I think and other people are there to correct me if I'm wrong about stuff while I focus on correctness itself

Anyway, to be clear the semi-on-topicness of this, in case you didn't notice and think "WTF is he talking about philosophy on a hair thread".... Spinoza and Leibniz both had long hair lol.

I always though Leibniz wore a wig.

Spinoza:

---

---

Leibniz:

---

---

As far as philosophy, Leibniz is okay... but I always called him "Diet Spinoza." Leibniz's metaphysics depends on a personal God, and I rather dislike his whole "best of all possible worlds" claim. Although I like both of them on account of their depth. Leibniz borrowed a lot from Spinoza, that is certain. But in the end, I like Spinoza because he is more like a Stoic materialist, whereas Leibniz is a theistic idealist.

They're both awesome.

I like the idealism side of Leibniz. I like monads. I like how he invented calculus before Newton... and I like how he came up with one of the most fundamental distinctions in philosophy: The difference between synthetic truths and analytic truths. Truths of fact, and truths of reasoning.

I didn't get the impression that Leibniz's god was much of a personal God. Other than setting all the windowless monads in harmony... it seems rather deistic to me.

Spinoza is a pantheist. But those who say that he basically just labelled the universe as God are being unfair to him. He believed the universe had a mind, he meant what he said. God is nature, sure, but he attirbuted an intelligence to it. It seems on the same level as Leibniz to me on that regard. The difference is that to Leibniz there are many parts to the universe, monads.... and with Spinoza it's all one entity. And they're both right.

As for the best of all possible worlds claim. He's right. We do live in the best of all possible worlds, if we're talking metaphysically possible (and I doubt he meant logically possible).... but then Schopenhauer was right as well when he said we live in the worst of all possible worlds. How can they both be right when they say the opposite? Well, we live in the only possible world because determinism is true So that makes this both the best and worst possible world!

That's what I think anyways.

[KittyAnn]

I'm exactly the same except I get my hair shaved down really short when it starts getting into my eyes.

On a semi-unrelated note... I am glad you're a Spinoza fan

Personally for me he's second to Leibniz

Although I agree that the universe is ultimately one entity, and that separate entities are an illusion... but I don't think that's quite what Spinoza was getting at. I guess I'm more of a Parmenides fan than anything. He got it all spot on a long while ago, to me.

And when it comes to the world of seeming, that we live in... Leibniz's monads make more sense to me. We are indeed all windowless. That's why I get pissed off when people pretend to have empathy

Just kidding. Empathy exists. But only when we acknowledge that it isn't truly putting yourself in another person's point of view... as that's metaphysically impossible unless we're all one mind. It's trying as best as you can to put yourself in the point of view that you yourself think the other person's point of view is, and getting it as close as possible to whatever their actual view is. How people do it I have no idea. I'm crap at it. It's mostly because I'm so self-absorbed I think though. I can't be bothered to spend time on what other people think. Who cares what other people think

All I care about is what I think and other people are there to correct me if I'm wrong about stuff while I focus on correctness itself

Anyway, to be clear the semi-on-topicness of this, in case you didn't notice and think "WTF is he talking about philosophy on a hair thread".... Spinoza and Leibniz both had long hair lol.

I always though Leibniz wore a wig.

Spinoza:

---

---

Leibniz:

---

---

As far as philosophy, Leibniz is okay... but I always called him "Diet Spinoza." Leibniz's metaphysics depends on a personal God, and I rather dislike his whole "best of all possible worlds" claim. Although I like both of them on account of their depth. Leibniz borrowed a lot from Spinoza, that is certain. But in the end, I like Spinoza because he is more like a Stoic materialist, whereas Leibniz is a theistic idealist.

i love them both!

[Edwardo Piet]

While we're on philosophers... my favorite living philosopher is Galen Strawson.

Here's him in action:

[vulcanlogician]

While we're on philosophers... my favorite living philosopher is Galen Strawson.

Here's him in action:

I am unfamiliar with Strawson, and (just going by this video) I couldn't tell you if I'm a fan of him or not because identity is one of my least favorite metaphysical problems.

[Edwardo Piet]

I am unfamiliar with Strawson, and (just going by this video) I couldn't tell you if I'm a fan of him or not because identity is one of my least favorite metaphysical problems.

Hmm. Interesting. It's one of my favorites lol. Why don't you like it?

Epistemology is probably my least favorite area... as it seems to be that science pretty much has a handle on emprical epistemolgy and when it comes to absolute knowledge all there really is is deduction from tautological premises. There's all these debates over different theories of knowledge but I think knowledge is what the most progress has already been made on. And when it comes to theories of truth the correspondence theory clearly makes the most sense to me. Ethics and metaphysics are the most interesting to me.... Specifically: Consciousness, Free Will, population ethics and identity. And I think identity is very relevant to population ethics. As are theories of time. It's my views on identity and time and the inability to aggregate consciousness between individuals, as well as my views on free will, that all impact my ethics greatly. It all connects up for me with one field saying something relevant about the other. I think that different theories of identity are relevant to time which is relevant to conscious experience and ethics.

[vulcanlogician]

Hmm. Interesting. It's one of my favorites lol. Why don't you like it?

It's too confused of an issue. Imagine I asked you the question: "What (to you) is the self?" You could say a number of things, the body, the soul, psychological continuity(which is what it is to me). A metaphysical position here is really dependant upon what anyone regards as self (ie what they mean when they say the word.)

I hate it when people boil down real metaphysical problems to semantics. They usually aren't. So, believe me, I hate to say this: Identity, as a metaphysical problem is just that: a problem of semantics.

[Edwardo Piet]

I hate it when people boil down real metaphysical problems to semantics. They usually aren't. So, believe me, I hate to say this: Identity, as a metaphysical problem is just that: a problem of semantics.

Aren't all problems problems of semantics? Even when it comes to truth itself we have to define it first.

The way I see it is... presentism is true so that greatly affects what our experience of personal identity and the self must be like. If our self in the past and future existed then that would be completely different. But I don't think the past and future exist so that really affects everything for me.

---

A metaphysical position here is really dependant upon what anyone regards as self (ie what they mean when they say the word.)

Isn't that the case on all matters?

That's why my favorite fallacy to spot is the fallacy of equivocation, because people do it all the time, almost always without even realizing it. It's okay as long as you notice when people are using the same word in two different ways.

Like, it irks me when people debate free will before defining first whether they mean incompatabilist or compatabilist free will and then you have them talking at cross purposes... and they may completely agree and just they define it differently.

Semantics is important. I think it's only a problem when people go on discussing before they figure out the semantics.

EDIT: I'm really enjoying our discussion but I must be going to bed now. Super tired and it's 4.AM. Ni night

[vulcanlogician]

Semantics is important. I think it's only a problem when people go on discussing before they figure out the semantics.

Maybe you've hit the nail on the head here, Hammy. But let me put you to the test:

Why isn't the brain, brain stem, and nerves which connect to it the self? Or is it?

[vorlon13]

I REALLY miss the 70s