Philosophy
| Written by starstrewnsky,
on 16-07-2009 22:13
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Views : 512 |
Favoured : 14 |
Published in : Intelligence, Philosophy |
 The set of all sets that do not contain themselves as members cannot contain itself, therefore it both does and doesn't contain itself.
Or to put it more simply:
A popularised version of Bertrand Russell's paradox is to imagine a place where there is a male Barber. He shaves all the men who do not shave themselves.
Does he shave himself?
He cannot, because he can only shave those who do not shave themselves. If he does not, then he does not shave himself and therefore is part of the set of those who do not shave themselves, and he must shave himself...
Wittgenstein claimed to have solved this paradox (Russell's theory of types) in his 'Tractatus'. Essentially he claimed it showed a problem with using language to describe the world and used logical symbols to refute it. You can read more on this here, at project Euclid
Last update : 21-07-2009 22:43
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| Written by Michael Fredman,
on 11-06-2009 19:54
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Views : 513 |
Favoured : 13 |
Published in : Intelligence, Philosophy |
When I was fresh out of university, I worked as a typesetter and proofreader. I was not very good at it because I could not quite stop myself from reading the books, when I should have been meticulously checking them for errors.
One book that was particularly distracting was 'All life is problem solving', by Karl Popper. The full stops, paragraph breaks and em-rules cascaded past my attention like animals escaping a zoo as I turned the pages, transfixed. I recently found some post it notes upon which I had scrawled this particularly inspiring passage from the book:
"I am anything but an enemy of religion. My religion is the doctrine of the splendours of the world; of the freedom and creativity of wonderful human beings; of the terror and suffering of the despairing people we can help; of the extent of good and evil that has emerged in human history and keeps emerging over and over again; of the joyful message that we can prolong people's lives, especially those of women and children who have had the toughest life. I know nothing else. And although the scientific quest for truth is part of my religion, the magnificent scientific hypotheses are not religion - that must never be"
Last update : 17-06-2009 21:53
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| Written by starstrewnsky,
on 16-05-2009 09:59
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Views : 676 |
Favoured : 21 |
Published in : Intelligence, Philosophy |
 Siddharta Gautama, the Buddha, taught that all existence is suffering, and that all suffering is predominantly caused by want - or desire. In order to be free of suffering, we must rid ourselves of wanting.
The precepts seem quite sensible, but there is a paradox here.
We are told that we must end suffering by ending wanting.
But wanting to end suffering is in itself a further want.
So, by wanting to decrease our suffering we are actually increasing it.
John Visvader refers to this as an uroboric (like a snake swallowing its own tail) philosophy.
Wayne Alt argues that there is no paradox
Al Herman replies to Wayne Alt
Last update : 16-07-2009 15:09
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| Written by starstrewnsky,
on 27-04-2009 21:27
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Views : 562 |
Favoured : 19 |
Published in : Intelligence, Philosophy |
Today a though struck me, which I suppose could be posited as a moral dilemma. It came to me, ironically perhaps, as I was meditating: Would a true Buddhist save an animal species from extinction, if they were the only one who could, given the Buddhist belief in Nirvana (the end of the cycle of birth, death and rebirth) as the ultimate attainment and goal of being? A Buddhist should also believe in the application of right thought and of right action. Is it right to let an animal species die out when it could be prevented? Last update : 16-05-2009 10:16
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| Written by starstrewnsky,
on 22-01-2009 10:34
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Views : 686 |
Favoured : 23 |
Published in : Intelligence, Philosophy |
Epicurus was an interesting ancient Greek philosopher, I find a lot of his conclusions quite sensible and moderate - that death is the end and not to be feared, that a life of moderate pleasure and doing no harm should be one's goal. But, aside from his sensible and quite scientific ideas, he is well known for stating the following challenge to theistic arguments: The Problem of Evil
"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?" Now, some philosophers state that what we consider to be evil is the product of free will. God created the universe and man to have the greatest good, and part of that good was the ability to choose to be good or to be evil, free will. However, while this might explain moral evils, such as genocide or murder, where human beings choose to do evil, it does not explain natural evil. Say a baby born to die of leukaemia, or a faun caught in a forest fire, caused to die in prolonged agony by its injuries. (see this PDF of 'The problem of evil and some varieties of atheism, by William L Rowe') Last update : 22-01-2009 10:55
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Quick inspiration
| 'I do not like spinach, and I am glad I don't - because if I liked it, I would eat it, and I can't stand it' - From Flaubert's Dictionary of received ideas |
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What's going on?
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An
If you have Spotify (download it, it's free and a very useful way of listening to music) you can listen to a playlist of what I like at the moment
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Everything.
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A painting of a
And noodling about on the guitar
Returning to the arrangement of words for novels, like a shipwrecked sailor ordering the pebbles of a beach to spell out SOS - or perhaps 'wish you were here', to passing planes.
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Flickrings |
Mind
Location...
IMG_6000
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