/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.20752312]

Most philosophical questions can be neutralized by asking what they actually mean:
>what’s the meaning of life?
What is meaning, exactly?
>is x moral?
What does moral mean? And right? Good? And duty, should, ought, etc.?
>what caused existence?
What even is a cause? How do we know that causality is even real?
>how are we conscious?
What does it mean to be conscious? It’s not easy to describe.
>do we have free will?
What is free will? What is a choice? What does it even mean to be able to have done otherwise?
>why do I exist as this person and not someone else?
What exactly is “I” ? What is the self? The problem of personal identity is not easy to resolve.
>Does truth exist?
What is truth?

[Anonymous No.20752314]

“What” is a meaningless question.

[Anonymous No.20752332]

>>20752312
So now you've understood that all signs are arbitrary; and yet, they have meaning in a given context, and are somehow repeatable. Because if things were truly so "meaningless", then nobody would ever be able to say anything intelligible to anyone at anytime. And yet we are able to communicate, society chugs along, people keep living, the world keeps turning, and things are as they are, there is a definite reality which we all inhabit, together. The question should be, then, how exactly does this phenomenon--signification--come about? But that is a much more difficult question to answer, and you're probably averse to ones which have already been given.

[Anonymous No.20752364]

>>20752332
Something that makes sense at a macro level does not have to make sense at a micro level.
A fair die is, for all intents and purposes, perfectly random. At an atomic scale, however, it’s actually completely deterministic. If you know exactly how the die is thrown, you can predict perfectly how it will land. Does that make the die any less random? Not really.

[Anonymous No.20752383]

>>20752364
That’s because “random” has two different meanings in these cases. At the macro level it describes a human’s inability to predict it. At the micro level, the definition isn’t exactly clear. Randomness invokes causality and causality itself is a shaky concept

[Anonymous No.20752443]

>>20752312
Ah yes, also called playing stupid. Makes your opponent confused

[Anonymous No.20752507]

>>20752312
This is low IQ quietism, almost there

[Anonymous No.20752609]

>>20752507
what’s so low IQ about that post?

[Anonymous No.20752625]

>>20752609
>You can't have discussion unless you have strict definitions
Alright, but those question are interesting because you can have strict definitions.

[Anonymous No.20752632]

>>20752625
I don’t know what you’re saying

[Anonymous No.20752652]

>>20752632
I'm not surprised

[Anonymous No.20752678]

>>20752314
Then why?
If not why then who?
If not why or who then what?

[Anonymous No.20752694]

>>20752678
why is even worse than what

[Anonymous No.20752695]

>>20752312
Wittgenstein language moment

[Anonymous No.20753858]

>>20752312
>most well read r/askphilosophy fag

[Anonymous No.20753878]

>what if instead of answering the questions whose premise and intention everyone already understands we turn every philosophical inquiry into wordfencing and semantics pedantry
Literally sophistry, read Plato.

[Anonymous No.20753879]

>>20752678
>>20752694
You could just keep going down the “why?” pipeline until something is based on an intuition.

[Anonymous No.20753882]

>>20752312
And all of these questions can be answered by not being retarded and understanding that meanings and realities are not grounded in language.

[Anonymous No.20753941]

>>20753879

[Anonymous No.20753962]

>>20752312
The greentexted questions are pop philosophy, the questions you posed are, ironically, the ones that most thinkers actually engage with.

>What does it mean to be conscious? It’s not easy to describe
Pack it up boys, OP says the problem of qualia is hard.

>What exactly is “I” ? What is the self? The problem of personal identity is not easy to resolve.
Being and Time would like a word.

OP you are a mess.

[Anonymous No.20754159]

>>20752312
yes, that's why continental philosophy is mostly hermeneutics now an¿nd analitical philosophy is a semiotical study on logics

[Anonymous No.20754163]

>>20754159
universe is deterministic
time moves forward

evolution of universe spawned stars and planets, then life has spawned, will and greater will has been the result of that, the only thing that might have a counter to determinism

therefore, life and all the universe is an ever evolving struggle moving forward to reach free will

you're literally working towards youre own absolution

/sci/ doesnt get it, maybe you will

[Anonymous No.20754164]

>>20752312
>>what caused existence?
>What even is a cause? How do we know that causality is even real?
this is Hume's question, this question pretty much created the corpus of modern philosophy that we have today

[Anonymous No.20754178]

>>20752332
Is this from Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man? I think I read it there

[Anonymous No.20754194]

>>20752312
>Baby's first language games
Read Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations to start

[Anonymous No.20754204]

>>20754163
You need to question yourself more, because you sound like a hippie faggot

[Anonymous No.20754210]

>>20754204
you just afraid that that might be the answer?
there's not many attempts at using axioms and making reasonable assumptions

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meaning_of_life#Popular_views

dont be afraid if you've lived a life that invalidates growth. you can be as garbage as you need to be

and ive been told im a type a personality not a hippie

[Anonymous No.20754243]

>>20754210
I dont care if youre baiting or not. If youre baiting, grow a spine and post your actual opinions /lit/ for others to criticize, so you can improve yourself. If youre not, go watch some introductory philosophy videos on youtube for your benefit

[Anonymous No.20755228]

>>20752312
No they can't you dumb mf

[Anonymous No.20755775]

>>20753962
most threads here are pop philosophy, then. There are countless surface-level morality and consciousness threads

[Anonymous No.20757042]

>>20753878
>>20753882
maybe we’re just assuming way too much and overestimating our ability to use language to ask questions about the world. Most people literally don’t know how circular their definitions of morality are. So they believe in things like objective morality, which doesn’t make sense

[Anonymous No.20757434]

Interesting thread

[Anonymous No.20757446]

>>20752312
All the second questions you developped from the first are still philosophical questions, how is that neutralizing?

[Anonymous No.20757462]

>>20752312
>I'm an retards feigning ignorance take /that/ philosophy!
You're just kicking the can next door to semiotics asking what words mean

[Anonymous No.20757538]

>>20757446
>how is that neutralizing?
because retards will stop debating the same meaningless shit

[Anonymous No.20757544]

>>20752312
highschool ass understanding of philosophy.

[Anonymous No.20757550]

>>20757462
>You're just kicking the can next door to semiotics asking what words mean
it’s not just about words, it’s about the concept itself. For example, people what does “soul” refer to? It’s a much more vague concept than “body” or “personality” or even “vibe,” but people use it without really knowing what it means. They couldn’t actually tell you what the soul is, or what a soulless human looks like (can a human not have a soul and still appear to have a soul?). This line of reasoning can be used in other subjects as well:
>can someone without free will appear to have free will?
>can someone who isn’t conscious appear to be conscious?
>can a universe without causality appear to have causality?
>can a world without objective morality appear to have objective morality?
etc.

[Anonymous No.20757780]

People importing this kind of sophistry into politics is why I started just asserting things
>what characterizes xyz anyway? is [thing that is not xyz, but can be tortuously argued to be so] xyz?
No actually things are what I say they are, you intuitively know right from wrong and we perceive a similar world, the reason you behave this way is because you know I'm right and you're wrong

Intuition will never lead you astray

[Anonymous No.20757813]

>>20757550
Every last one of these questions have been asked in philosophy. What are you neutralizing?
This is also why there are so many neologism in philosophy, pedantic defining, baby questions like "what is Free Will" "what is consciousness" are only starting points for the other questions you just asked and hasn't been the totality of the question in western philosophy for the last 2000 fucking years.
Read a book.

[Anonymous No.20759561]

>>20752312
that fucking watermark