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Orphan Questions

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Orphan Questions

jsidelko
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Posted 10/28/09 - 09:18 AM:
Subject: Orphan Questions

Orphan questions

Many of the questions posted on the philosophy forum are unanswerable. For example, Is there a God?, Does man have free will?, Is the universe eternal? Is a state of nothingness impossible?, etc. etc. Although, unanswerable, its fun to offer speculative answers. Some answers are more convincing than others, but in the final analysis, the questions remain unanswered. Even so, this shouldn't dissuade us from offering our answers. After all, we are questioning animal, a quality that is part of our nobility.

thanatos

Cadrache
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Posted 10/28/09 - 02:42 PM:	#2
Mmm... I summarize with the statement: I disagree. As with my thread concerning how do you pronounce my name - the majority of answers derived from the personal-observational platform. Subject A is from France. He'll apply a french phonetics to it. Subject C will apply a british syllable system. Subject C will apply the -ashe varients found in many cultures. Not once are people willing to truly examine concepts from an external viewpoint. As such any correct answer will be wrong on account of the majority.
"...There was a writer who asked why it was that when we find positive experiences we say that only the physical facts are real, but in negative experiences we believe that reality is subjective. He made an example of those who say that in birth only the pain is real, the joy a subjective point of view, but that in death it is the emotional loss that is the reality." - Tony Ballantyne, Recursion. _____________________________________________ Truth is want. - The internal state of matters. Truth is Need. - The external state of affairs.

Weisen
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Posted 11/06/09 - 12:53 PM:	#3
jsidelko wrote: <!-- @page { margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } --> Orphan questions Many of the questions posted on the philosophy forum are unanswerable. For example, Is there a God?, Does man have free will?, Is the universe eternal? Is a state of nothingness impossible?, etc. etc. Although, unanswerable, its fun to offer speculative answers. Some answers are more convincing than others, but in the final analysis, the questions remain unanswered. Even so, this shouldn't dissuade us from offering our answers. After all, we are questioning animal, a quality that is part of our nobility. A bold statement that we are animal. Do you relate this because we eat like an 'animal' we have eyes like an 'animal' or that we can walk like 'animals'?

Weisen
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Posted 11/06/09 - 12:53 PM:	#4
Weisen wrote: A bold statement that we are animal. Do you relate this because we eat like an 'animal' we have eyes like an 'animal' or that we can walk like 'animals'? Besides this, there is little animal in us.

Weisen
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Posted 11/06/09 - 12:55 PM:	#5
jsidelko wrote: <!-- @page { margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } --> Orphan questions Many of the questions posted on the philosophy forum are unanswerable. For example, Is there a God?, Does man have free will?, Is the universe eternal? Is a state of nothingness impossible?, etc. etc. Although, unanswerable, its fun to offer speculative answers. Some answers are more convincing than others, but in the final analysis, the questions remain unanswered. Even so, this shouldn't dissuade us from offering our answers. After all, we are questioning animal, a quality that is part of our nobility. They were answered. But not everyone agreed. Perhaps someone was right, but it hard to tell when ideas feud.

Weisen
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Posted 11/06/09 - 12:55 PM:	#6
Weisen wrote: They were answered. But not everyone agreed. Perhaps someone was right, but it is hard to tell when ideas feud.

Hanover
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Posted 11/06/09 - 01:20 PM:	#7
Weisen wrote: Besides this, there is little animal in us. We are part of the Animal kingdom. The only other option is the Plant Kingdom or perhaps we're a virus, bacteria, mold, or fungi.
"Nothing is impossible for the man who will not listen to reason." John Belushi, "Animal House" "I have opinions of my own --strong opinions-- but I don't always agree with them." G.W. Bush

mutemaler
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Posted 11/06/09 - 01:37 PM:	#8
Hanover wrote: Weisen wrote: Besides this, there is little animal in us. We are part of the Animal kingdom. The only other option is the Plant Kingdom or perhaps we're a virus, bacteria, mold, or fungi. An interesting tidbit along these lines from an article I read today. Here are the opening lines (http://www.heise.de/tp/blogs/3/146505): "The human body is the habitat (or biotope?) for 100 billion bacterial guests. At most every tenth cell in and on the body is human. There are more guests and we are in a sense a minority. Every human is a world in itself, a planet filled with life - and he is above all not alone, as we suggest when we speak of an "I". We stand at the threshold of a copernican shift in our relationship to ourselves and our fellow residents. ..." Edited by mutemaler on 11/06/09 - 01:44 PM

Hanover
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Posted 11/06/09 - 05:06 PM:	#9
mutemaler wrote: "The human body is the habitat (or biotope?) for 100 billion bacterial guests. At most every tenth cell in and on the body is human. There are more guests and we are in a sense a minority. Every human is a world in itself, a planet filled with life - and he is above all not alone, as we suggest when we speak of an "I". We stand at the threshold of a copernican shift in our relationship to ourselves and our fellow residents. ..." I think we call such things parasites. If the line becomes blurred between parasite and host, then I suppose you'll be in a quandry as to where to place the organism in the taxonomy system. It seems that the distinction is the autonomy of the organisms, so I doubt there are any real examples where that is a problem, but I'll defer to those biologists and botanists out there. To only prove I can digress further, I note that it is thought that certain diseases of the intestines (ulcerative colitis and Chrones) may be caused by a deficiency in certain intestinal bacteria. We have a new craze of probiotic supplements (as opposed to anti-biotics) that increase the bacteria in one's system instead of reducing it.
"Nothing is impossible for the man who will not listen to reason." John Belushi, "Animal House" "I have opinions of my own --strong opinions-- but I don't always agree with them." G.W. Bush

Go_
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Posted 11/09/09 - 11:42 PM:	#10
jsidelko wrote: Many of the questions posted on the philosophy forum are unanswerable. For example, Is there a God? Why do you believe the question, Is there a God?, is unanswerable??? That seems to be an odd claim. Seems to me to be pretty well proved that there is no god. Just because someone doesn't like the answer to a question doesn't mean that the question hasn't been answered much less that it is unanswerable. Maybe you mean that many questions are unanswerable in the form that you wish those answers would take?

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