http://forums.philosophyforums.com Active discussions in all fields of philosophy. en-us I am hungry for truth. I seek it everywhere I can because I feel an obligation to understand things to my fullest capacity so that I can (among other things) act morally. I don’t feel responsible for any misdeeds that arise from physical/biological shortcomings but it is my job to make sure those are the only ones that make it through the filter. I tell you this to establish what my motive is, and is not, in asking this question: To what extent, if any, should we avoid the analysis of others’ so as to not inhibit our own? For example I compose music in my free time and, to me, there is an undeniable downside that comes along with listening to other peoples works: it makes it harder for me to create anything unique. I like to know my work is, for the most part, my own and it’s hard to tap into that when someone else’s song is stuck in my head. Good ideas, like good songs, are welcomed into my thinking. The benefits of sharing ideas is obvious, but at what point does its inhibition of new ideas outweigh the benefits? I don’t expect we’ll come up with any exact answers, but I just wanted to see what you guys have to say about this concept. I, almost subconsciously, avoid learning other people’s thoughts about a subject I’m interested in until I’ve sorted it out for myself to ensure that my thoughts are my own and that I’m not adopting the thoughts of a persuasive person. It can be very hard to resist the temptation to let others “do the work for me” so to speak and I think it is a difficult balance to strike. I am just wondering if this is something that others are grappling with and, if so, what do you have to say about the issue? http://forums.philosophyforums.com/threads/pursuit-of-knowledge-vs-inhibition-of-thought-37987.html Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:08:03 GMT http://forums.philosophyforums.com/thread/37987/ I always think I understand how this works and then I realize the fact that I don't "know it all" and wonder what am I missing. Basicaly what im asking myself right now is how is my mind able to keep together a time line? I can remember the first days of my life that I had thoughts. I can remember what it was like in gym class in 4th grade as well as in 9th and 10th grades. I know when I have moved into new homes I can remember what the places where like before. I think I know how I can remember all of these things. I think it has to do with knowing how to extract the past from the present. Like somehow inside my mind I have learned of a way to form an educated guess as to what the past was like for me. Kinda like a skill of being able to put puzzles together starting with just a few parts of the puzzle together. Now I have also heard the idea that in my brain all these events are held in my memory within some cells. I find this thought a hard one to swollow because it seems totaly impossible for all the information I am able to remember to be held within a framework of cells. It seems far more likely to me that my brain functions more of as a program that can take information like what I see and hear around me and process it. Then turn it into useful information about my past or even future and then feed it back into my mind. What am intersted most in knowing is how can I better train myself to look into the past. I would like to have a better ability to view another person or things past. I think it would be cool to be able to read other people by just looking at them and coming up with an idea of what they where doing years ago and have it be some what accurate. I dont suppose it would be good to ever assume that you knew someones past but it seems like something that you could possibly do if you devoted yourself to it. Like I kinda know the history of this computer im useing it was on display where people could use it at the store it was at. I can kinda picture what it was like for the time it was up there but I don't think my current understanding of its past is very accurate as there is probably something that happens to displays that I dont realize right now. Like how long did they leave it on ect... Anyhow if anyone has any ideas for improving my ability to remember the past be that of my own or some other let me know. If you also think this is impossible I would like to hear why you think so? What are the limits of remembering? What type of program is the brain running? Do our minds hold the information or do our bodys somehow? Thanks http://forums.philosophyforums.com/threads/how-the-puzzle-of-reality-forms-37983.html Fri, 20 Nov 2009 02:09:58 GMT http://forums.philosophyforums.com/thread/37983/ I suspect in the future, rich people can make marked modification to their bodies to give themselves more of an advantage in IQ, or something else. They can improve the genetic make up of their offsprings, and perhaps given their offsprings the IQ of einstein, and pacs of brad pit etc. Recently, I remember reading that scientists had figure out ways to put stuff inside a brain to make the neurons communicate a bit more faster.Already we see plastic surgery, and body modification( ie: transexuals) . We use coffee to stay up at night, or rise our iq before an exam. Do you think it is wrong to modify the body? What is the arguments? http://forums.philosophyforums.com/threads/wrong-to-modify-the-body--37982.html Fri, 20 Nov 2009 02:06:59 GMT http://forums.philosophyforums.com/thread/37982/ I am having troubles converting some natural language sentences into quantificational statements. Any help would be greatly appreciated. 1) The best is better than the worst (Fxy - x is better than y) 2) Everyone loves a lover (Fx - x is a person, Gxy - x loves y) 3) The God who begat Polyphemus begets only cyclopes. (Bxy - x begets y, Gx - x is a God, Cx - x is a cyclops, m - Polyphemus 4) No two crooks are equally rich (Cx - x is a crook, Rxy - x is richer than y) http://forums.philosophyforums.com/threads/troubles-with-quantificational-logic-37981.html Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:13:51 GMT http://forums.philosophyforums.com/thread/37981/ Sorry for the confusing title, but I am new here and have trouble putting a title to the thought. It was a thought I came up with a long time ago when we were doing something in algebra and it sort of stuck and expanded. BASICALLY, my question is the universe as infinitely large as it is infinitely small. Such that there is no end either way, looking out into the stars or into a grain of sand. My theory comes from the number line. We know that numbers can be counted to infinity. and I believe space is infinite because there must be something outside of the thing we call something. For instance, the universe as a whole is something. If we speak about the universe as a definite object with definite mass and borders, than what is it that the universe exists in. if the universe could be represented by a cloud, the cloud must be set in the sky. The sky set on a planet, the planet in the solar system...etc. But when we look into the atom, we find that smaller parts exist. With every age, we find a new "definite" and call it the basic block of matter. however, those truths were only held because their instruments were not capable on sensing matter of very small size. So when we take the smallest known particle in existence today and dive deeper, we will find baser constituents. if we look deeper and deeper, we will find more and more. This is because you can divide a number infinitely. 1/2 becomes 1/4, becomes 1/8, to 1/16, and when you get to 1/00000000000000000000000, you still can divide. this means that space must exist on an infinitely small scale as it does on an infinitely large scale, and that different forms of matter on infinitely smaller size and variation will be found to exist. Its like imagining if the atom we look at through a microscope is the solar system of some observer oblivious to our presence on that tiny mote that would be its home planet. and imagine this very, very tiny person looking through his scope at what he calls an atom, which is the solar system of yet another observer. Relatively, one cannot sense the presence of the other because they are beyond their ability to sense. In this way, we have whole universes in a grand of sand, and the universe we live in could be the electron of some atom floating in the void of an infinitely larger organism than we know. This is just wild speculation, but it seemed to me plausible and sensible to think in a way. If anyone has clearer thoughts on this, please respond http://forums.philosophyforums.com/threads/dual-infinity-of-the-universe-37978.html Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:34:06 GMT http://forums.philosophyforums.com/thread/37978/