existentialism

[Smurph]

I haven't yet bothered to sift through the above 1st year philosophy homework assignments but existentialism in my mind is merely labelling life and categorising it into some quirky unnecessary terminology.

So you're a human being... in 2019! You've been asked to future-analyse what personality most suits your philosophy. Are you a(n):
a) Nihilist
b) Existentialist
c) Pragmatist
d) Idealist

Whatever inane label you decide to attribute to yourself, it's cool, you'll sound clever.

[Ronald Wilson Reagan]

I haven't yet bothered to sift through the above 1st year philosophy homework assignments but existentialism in my mind is merely labelling life and categorising it into some quirky unnecessary terminology.

So you're a human being... in 2019! You've been asked to future-analyse what personality most suits your philosophy. Are you a(n):
a) Nihilist
b) Existentialist
c) Pragmatist
d) Idealist

Whatever inane label you decide to attribute to yourself, it's cool, you'll sound clever.

Yep. That is the irony of talking about existentialism. In reality, to say that you have a set philosophy that nothing is really certain, you are being hypocritical.
Though, I'm pretty sure you can be at least 2, if not 3 of your categories you mentioned all at once.

[Smurph]

I was being extremely facetious in case...

[Brutus]

We can't both have the cake and eat it. I for one would eat it; I don't think I could resist. There are so many different factors when making a certain choice. Like allergy.
 I don't think "free will" = unlimited options, but rather being aware of different (relevant) alternatives and trying to understand their consequences. To be able to do that, you need imagination, which is basically association. My imagination is quite rich/fucked, but I also got a sense of what's right/wrong, which tells me that some of the stuff I come up with isn't a very good idea. So I'm not very free, yet I'm not a mindless zombie controlled by a necromancer either.

[TalentlessSkateboarder]

As a fuck up, I hope that the decisions I have made were not of my own free will and that I cease to exist after death.

[rob2]

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But isn't there room for some level of free choice in that partial randomness? Also, the piano will always fall to the ground, but it won't explode the same way every time. I'm pretty sure the concept of entropy in physics would say that the way the piano will expand is unpredictable. I feel like the decisions we make in our heads are like the splinters of the piano spreading after it falls. The piano hitting the ground will explode, it will smash, because the circumstances cause this, but how the piano reacts is not 100% determined. Within our own head we may have chemicals that cause us to think with a certain perspective, and our environment also effects it, but I don't believe that the decision we will make is 100% determined. We may work within a range, but there is a certain amount of free will within that range.

[close]

The way the piano smashes will be identical each time if all the conditions are identical.

[close]

No, it won't.
 http://www.entropylaw.com/entropy2ndlaw.html
There is spontinaty in the world as a law of physics. if you drop 100 identical glasses from identical heights in identical conditions, it would smash in a different way everytime it hits the ground in an unpredictable fashion.

[close]

No - that doesn't mean it won't occur the same. The second law basically is just saying that things tend towards disorder  (I did a degree in chemistry so I do understand entropy a bit - not trying to make myself sound like i'm an expert but  didn't want you to think I just completely misunderstood what you meant), its not saying things happen randomly its just saying that systems tend to a more diordered state e.g. a smashed piano is more disordered than an intact one.

Edit: I think I need to clarify what I mean by identical aswell. I mean a completely unrealistic/hypothetical/imaginary identical where every atom in the universe is exactly the same/ where everyones thoughts are exactly the same.  NOT identical as in "the experiment was repeated under identical conditions" (where obviously the glass would smash differently each time).

[close]

I know what you are saying, and I don't know what the truth is, as obviously, it is impossible to rewind time and try again, and like all philisophical debates, I think this is where it comes full circle. But I feel like although it doesn't say anything about whether things will occur the same way, I still feel like the concept of "disorder" implies the idea of unpredictable results. Is that an incorrect assumption?

There is some relation - but not really in this scenario. It is obviously impossible to predict how the glass will smash but that is not to say that it is not determined how the glass will smash. The reason for the unpredictabilty is just due to the infinite complexity of the calculation - needing to know what every force and atom in the universe is doing prior to the smash - not to some inherent unpredictability.

I think this comes down to if you believe in cause and effect or not: especially with physical stuff I think I do, but i'm not 100% sure.

[Sleazy]

I haven't yet bothered to sift through the above 1st year philosophy homework assignments

then why are you trying to play the condesending, ivory tower dickhead to eveyone if you haven't read any of the posts? and as gipper pointed out, your list isn't mutually exclusive.

[Smurph]

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I haven't yet bothered to sift through the above 1st year philosophy homework assignments

[close]

then why are you trying to play the condesending, ivory tower dickhead to eveyone if you haven't read any of the posts? and as gipper pointed out, your list isn't mutually exclusive.

In case you couldn't tell I was taking the piss out of modern day philosophy students. If for one second you thought that list was serious then...

You see, portraying that well-informed intellectual spectre is in fact a trend right about now (alongside a cardigan, coffee, a beard and a rolly). It doesn't matter whether the subject in hand, in this case existentialism, makes any sense to a person, once a name drop goes down (Sartre) and a quick interpretation from Google is copy and pasted you'll sound really knowledgeable on your favourite skate messageboard. 

[Sleazy]

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I haven't yet bothered to sift through the above 1st year philosophy homework assignments

[close]

then why are you trying to play the condesending, ivory tower dickhead to eveyone if you haven't read any of the posts? and as gipper pointed out, your list isn't mutually exclusive.

[close]

In case you couldn't tell I was taking the piss out of modern day philosophy students. If for one second you thought that list was serious then...

You see, portraying that well-informed intellectual spectre is in fact a trend right about now (alongside a cardigan, coffee, a beard and a rolly). It doesn't matter whether the subject in hand, in this case existentialism, makes any sense to a person, once a name drop goes down (Sartre) and a quick interpretation from Google is copy and pasted you'll sound really knowledgeable on your favourite skate messageboard. 

then why are you here, talking philosophy on a skateboard messageboard then?

and then apart from you talking like an asshole in all your post in both style and content, you're also wrong. nothing in this thread read as if it had been copied and pasted to me, but i guess you didn't pick up on that because you didn't read any post because the intellectual posing that goes on here is so far below what you can tolerate. but you'd know a lot more about intellectual posing as you seem to know what the current fashion is in that scene.

and your assertion that doing a bit of background research before posting somehow makes someone less of a poster is just silly. you actually think that people memorize all this shit? i've been out of school for over a decade and just because i may need to look up a thing or two before talking calculus doesn't mean that i didn't learn that shit or that i for some reason am now posing because i still find it interesting to talk about acedemics when it's no longer required. i'd prefer to have conversations with people who take the time to double check there points and actually contribute something useful than with dismissive, wanna be elitist assholes who just want to play who's dick is biggest games without even dropping their draws.

[Ronald Wilson Reagan]

it's better to focus on something like skateboarding or something instead of something that has no answer. these are the same questions we've been pondering for 1000s of years and we're no where close to any kind of answers in that time so what makes anyone think we're going to get any closer in the next 1000? fuck it.

Of course not. Its just fun to discuss.
And smurph, bringing up Sartre in a discussion about existentialism isn't weird at all. Methinks you like the water shallow and your porridge mild and lukewarm.

[Narcissus]

arguments i've seen against free will seem sketchy at best while my own experience with doing what i want is pretty compelling

I still lean towards free will, but this dude is a brain machine:

http://www.arts.cornell.edu/phil/homepages/pereboom/fw.pdf

[wake and bacon]

i should just get on a daily regiment of gnars to sleazy

[rob2]

it's better to focus on something like skateboarding or something instead of something that has no answer. these are the same questions we've been pondering for 1000s of years and we're no where close to any kind of answers in that time so what makes anyone think we're going to get any closer in the next 1000? fuck it.

1. There have been advances in philosophy (e.g. private language argument)
2. Philosophy improves the way you look at everything whether it be "pointless questions" or question of science, religion and everyday life.
3. Philosophy influences fields from psychiatry to computer science, from politics to neuroscience

these are the reasons I don't think "it's better to focus on something like skateboarding or something instead of something that has no answer"

[Albatross]

i read all of being and nothingness and it was every bit as much of a waste of my time as it was meant to be, which i think is the irony.

[James Joyce]

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But isn't there room for some level of free choice in that partial randomness? Also, the piano will always fall to the ground, but it won't explode the same way every time. I'm pretty sure the concept of entropy in physics would say that the way the piano will expand is unpredictable. I feel like the decisions we make in our heads are like the splinters of the piano spreading after it falls. The piano hitting the ground will explode, it will smash, because the circumstances cause this, but how the piano reacts is not 100% determined. Within our own head we may have chemicals that cause us to think with a certain perspective, and our environment also effects it, but I don't believe that the decision we will make is 100% determined. We may work within a range, but there is a certain amount of free will within that range.

[close]

 if you want, that free energy equation can be transformed to be pages long with very precise variables. the reality is that it actually is very predictable, when entropy is simplified to smaller variables it just gives you a general idea of which direction a reaction is likely to go, so what you're  getting is just an estimate so the problem is that even if you make 100 glass beakers that *look* identical, you can't make them look the same at a molecular level and all the jagged edges and imperfections come out. on top of that, it's impossible to control all the conditions perfectly
and if all the variables that are used are simplified then yes, it would seem that every glass would break different, but if you start enlarging the equation by transforming the variables then the unpredictability starts going away. it's just about how far you want to take it with the transformations and how much work you want to put into doing the experiments and which variables you're trying to control for.

Goddam you. Do you not understand Quantum Mechanics? It's proven already in this thread that there are no hidden variables at that its wholly unpredictable.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090722142824.htm

[Smurph]

WHY WAS MY LAST POST IN THIS THREAD DELETED? I WOULD REALLY LIKE TO KNOW.

[rawbertson.]

who gives a fuck you fucking suck at skating in real lief and in fake like but ur good at takin loads so just focus on that fags

[wake and bacon]

lol rawb

[sven thorkel]

what's your take on the subject michael donald robertson?

[Ruberov]

As we create and reinforce our thought patterns within an environment the idea of free will is further tangled over time. I am still struggling with the notion of whether you must specialise to reach a frontier of knowledge in this age of burgeoning technology. This seems a bit like a belief system derived from a philosophic take on science. We tend to look at what we find interesting. Too much ismism of any sort messes with this. A better starting point is to question the questions.

Decision points in life are analogous to quantum fluctuations - influenced by events but shaped/constricted by unseen equations. We are our history but can't deal with all of it at once.

Did I win the cruiser?

[blankbutbranded]

Why a homebwaye got to strees about the hour he goes to sleep if he dont have a job ?
Why a Blood need to stress because he still like the color blue ?
Why you say that a switch heel is harder than a varial heel ?
Why the fuck off you need to stress to go vote if the next necca you dont like is already a winner in the srcutin ?
Why the fuck you go to McDonalds when you can go to the market and make better homebwoyemade chesse burgers ?
Why do you think that a cop can't be gaye ?
Why you need to sugar up your coffee when you eat a cherry pie ?
Why you feel guilty to cum coat again your ex-girlfriend ?
Why you dont go microwave your cat ?
Why what the fuck is goin' on ?
Why always asking everything with why,why about just shut the fuck off ?

Answer all these and you'll understand existentialism in our modern society.

[Sleazy]

oh oh oh, finding the answer

oh oh oh, finding that there ain't no answer to find

[GnArcIsSisTic]

"God created things which had free well. That means creatures which can go either wrong or right. Some people think they can imagine a creature which was free but had no possibility of going wrong; I cannot. If a thing is free to be good it is also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible. Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will, through it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. A world of automata--of creatures that worked like machines--would hardly be worth creating. The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight compared with which the most rapturous love between a man and woman on this earth is mere milk and water. And for that they must be free."

"Of course God knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way: apparently He thought it worth the risk. Perhaps we feel inclined to disagree with Him. But there is a difficulty about disagreeing with God...If God thinks this state of war in the universe a price worth paying for free will--that is, for making a live world in which creatures can do real good or harm and something of real importance can happen, instead of a toy world which only moves when He pulls the strings--then we may take it it is worth paying."

-C.S. Lewis

[frisco]

Somewhat existentialistic, not exactly what I was going for though

[Beer Keg Peg Leg]

"God created things which had free well. That means creatures which can go either wrong or right. Some people think they can imagine a creature which was free but had no possibility of going wrong; I cannot. If a thing is free to be good it is also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible. Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will, through it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. A world of automata--of creatures that worked like machines--would hardly be worth creating. The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight compared with which the most rapturous love between a man and woman on this earth is mere milk and water. And for that they must be free."

"Of course God knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way: apparently He thought it worth the risk. Perhaps we feel inclined to disagree with Him. But there is a difficulty about disagreeing with God...If God thinks this state of war in the universe a price worth paying for free will--that is, for making a live world in which creatures can do real good or harm and something of real importance can happen, instead of a toy world which only moves when He pulls the strings--then we may take it it is worth paying."

-C.S. Lewis

Completely baseless. Not to mention the existence of an all-powerful God and Human free-will are incompatible.

[Sleazy]

how so?

[odp]

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"God created things which had free well. That means creatures which can go either wrong or right. Some people think they can imagine a creature which was free but had no possibility of going wrong; I cannot. If a thing is free to be good it is also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible. Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will, through it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. A world of automata--of creatures that worked like machines--would hardly be worth creating. The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight compared with which the most rapturous love between a man and woman on this earth is mere milk and water. And for that they must be free."

"Of course God knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way: apparently He thought it worth the risk. Perhaps we feel inclined to disagree with Him. But there is a difficulty about disagreeing with God...If God thinks this state of war in the universe a price worth paying for free will--that is, for making a live world in which creatures can do real good or harm and something of real importance can happen, instead of a toy world which only moves when He pulls the strings--then we may take it it is worth paying."

-C.S. Lewis

[close]

Completely baseless. Not to mention the existence of an all-powerful God and Human free-will are incompatible.

whether or not "God" exists, in the lower or uppercase, meaning a notion of self or an all powerful being, what's written up there makes a decent point in that we're all able to control our struggle. That is if you willing to wrap around a sense of good and evil, right and wrong, love and hate.

[sage]

you chose to make this dumb thread so yes it exists.

[TapLuxiferfet]

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The point is that I don't believe anyone can ever make a free choice.  I don't see any way that a person can do other than what they do.  All anyone can do is use the machine they were given and respond to a given stimulus.      

[close]

Interesting point. You can't do two things at once.

[4LOM]

how so?

It's that an all-knowing God and free will are incompatible:

If God knows the future, then events unfold as God foresees
If events happen as God foresees, then they happen by necessity
If events happen by necessity, then we cannot choose otherwise
If we can't choose otherwise, then we have no free will
So, if God knows the future, then we have no free will

Unfree creatures are not morally responsible for their actions
It is unjust to punish an unfree creature for its actions
God punishes his creatures for their actions
So God is unjust