[Razor]

Originally posted by castor

Trying to get us to do your homework or something?
 

no no. I just want opinions on this. That's all.

Hermmm... I see now why razor's title is 'Target Drone. He makes a post like this, and everyone locks on...
'

It happens all the time.


Anyway,
Never mind this. If you admins wanna close this it's fine with me.

[Knight Templar]

You sound like they need your permission...

...Maybe you really are Shrike in disguise.

[WMCoolmon]

Difference?
If you "know" something, it's been proven to be true.
If you "believe" something, your opinion may be that it is true but it hasn't been proven true.

[Zeronet]

Originally posted by Razor


Carefull. I think I sense rascism here.

I sense a misuse of the word rascism.

[Razor]

Originally posted by Knight Templar


...Maybe you really are Shrike in disguise.

What brings you to that conclusion?

[Kamikaze]

Funny that the Matrix seems to be the peak of modern philosophy in the general populace.

Quite honestly, the topics discussed in the Matrix are thoughts a reasonably thoughtful five year old has when he stares out the car window.

It's the origin of the "I think, therefore I am" statement. Which means that the fact the thinker exists in some form is the only thing that can be proven.

not quite.

EDIT: this excerpt explains better than my explanation:

The two most widely known of Descartes' philosophical ideas are those of a method of hyperbolic doubt, and the argument that, though he may doubt, he cannot doubt that he exists. The first of these comprises a key aspect of Descartes' philosophical method. As noted above, he refused to accept the authority of previous philosophers - but he also refused to accept the obviousness of his own senses. In the search for a foundation for philosophy, whatever could be doubted must be rejected. He resolves to trust only that which is clearly and distinctly seen to be beyond any doubt. In this manner, Descartes peels away the layers of beliefs and opinions that clouded his view of the truth. But, very little remains, only the simple fact of doubting itself, and the inescapable inference that something exists doubting, namely Descartes himself.

His next task is to reconstruct our knowledge piece by piece, such that at no stage is the possibility of doubt allowed to creep back in. In this manner, Descartes proves that he himself must have the basic characterisitc of thinking, and that this thinking thing (mind) is quite distinct from his body; the existence of a God; the existence and nature of the external world; and so on. What is important in this for Descartes is, first, that he is showing that knowledge is genuinely possible (and thus that sceptics must be mistaken), and, second, that, more particularly, a mathematically-based scientific knowledge of the material world is possible.

[delta_7890]

[castor]

Bah! no jam.

[Knight Templar]

*First thing that pops into KT's head after reading the last two posts*

[Carl]

the matrix's success is based on one smart move the Wakowski brothers made: make people think, but only make them think as much as a 13 year old can, otherwise it goes over there head and they can't grasp it. the principle idea behind the matrix-that the world we live in may be an illusion" has been thought of before by people thousands of years ago, and is pretty much just scratching the surface of this kind of philosophy, but the target audience can't grasp much more than that.

[Turnsky]

Originally posted by Razor
In the beggining of this school year, on religion classes we discussed the differences between two things: knowing and believing. Then the teacher started to talk about things like: Is this real? Why do we accept this as reality? ETC.....
I mean, it seems that we have a Morpheus in our school.
Any opinions?

Religion classes? i remember having such a thing forced onto me at the Catholic High school i attended....

i remember my Year 11 Religion teacher..an ex-cop... so yeah.. he cared about the classes as much as we did:p

[diamondgeezer]

I sat in my Religious Education GCSE and wrote about how I can't stand religion of any kind and how the world would be far better of without it. I got a D.

[Flipside]

Funny, I watched matrix for the special effects, I'll leave the relativity to the directors

Flipside

[delta_7890]

Originally posted by Knight Templar
*First thing that pops into KT's head after reading the last two posts*

Oo;;  Toe Jam and Earl!  Woooo.

[Stryke 9]

Kami: I don't think that excerpt really explained the thinking behind the phrase, it was more a rundown of the meditation as a whole. And attributions are nice.

Anyway, Descartes's phrase can be interpreted as having been arrived at several ways- particularly when taken out of context (I think I recall him going on to explain himself, but I'll have to find that later), but if memory serves me the upthrust is that if he didn't exist there'd be nobody to do the thinking- you can't have a nonexistent reference point. Pretty straighforward if you think about it.

Something he overlooked (which was where I arrived at when I tried his procedure) is that existence is, basically, defined as what we see. After all, what definition for reality is there other than our universe? There could be another "real" world behind this one, hidden by a mass of complex illusions, but since we can't see it or know of its existence and it has no direct bearing on our reality, it might as well not exist, and postulating its nature is a futile and mildly stupid task, sorta like wondering what unicorn farts would smell like. As far as it matters, what we see is more or less what we get, and any reality beyond that is, at least for now, inaccessible- hence, our universe exists, or at least is more demonstrably "real" than anything else by a good deal (and what better measure of existence than that?).

This doesn't mean it exists in just the way we think it exists, of course. There always are and always will be almost infinite unknown variables- but until they act on something within our perception, their existence is entirely theoretical, and shouldn't be assumed.

[J.F.K.]

Well, I guess I'm not really qualified to participate in most of this conversation. But if you want an opinion... I think it's real. Personal experience is all I've got to go off, so it's a silly thing to say I suppose, but ah well.