Category: philosophy

I love Kant, the later Wittgenstein, Derrida, post structualism, postmodernism and the philosophy of language.

Non-self, bundles, non-ownership, selflessness

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Buddhism rejects the self and accepts a notion of non-self. It preceded bundle theory and no-ownership theory, which is in some way a formulation of this.

Hume pushed the bundle theory but could not understand what is there if it were only experiences. What he seem to left out is memory.

The self is just a collection of this matter-related memories. In this way, it does not go against the principles of one being “created” by the environment. A person is not independent of the place and time he or she is at or in. She or he is a product of it.

Property is theft, said Proudhon. Self-property is to steal and rob from the world of what you could contribute to it. That could be rightly called selfishness. To act without being the owner of the spirit is selflessness.

Mind and consciousness

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The philosophy of mind seeks to answer such questions as: is mind distinct from matter? Can we define what it is to be conscious, and can we give principled reasons for deciding whether other creatures are conscious, or whether machines might be made so that they are conscious? What are thinking, feeling, experience, remembering? Is it useful to divide the functions of the mind up, separating memory from intelligence, or rationality from sentiment, or do mental functions form an integrated whole?

Flew and Priest

The first two questions brings up important concepts – mind and conscious(ness). the first question seems to assume that the mind is already is some kind of existent object. The second question assumes also to be conscious is a state that can be had or not had. And by the act of reification one can either own or not own consciousness, again assuming consciousness is a kind of object. The worst case scenario is that language forces us to talk and think about mind and consciousness as objects because language frames them as such. The third question is more interesting, trying to answer the nature of thought, emotions and experience. The fourth question is about the categories of the contents of thought.

For me, the study of mind must start with the question of the mind’s ontological status, the question of its existence or non-existence. This is true of consciousness as well. If it does then how is it different to existent matter. And if it does not then how do we account for it.

The dominant philosophies of mind in the current western tradition include varieties of physicalism and functionalism. For particular topics see also cognition, emotion, language, memory, mind-body problem.

Flew and Priest

I am tend to the physicalist position here. I kind of disagree with functionalism because the questions they ask tend to assume an existent mind while ignoring the embodied aspect of the mind. In other words, the philosophy of mind should, in my opinion, be relabeled as the philosophy of brain.

via negativa, via positiva

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The obvious problem overlooked with describing God is that describing what He is not is to assume there is a god (or gods) in the first place.

The problem is really the same as describing unicorn with positives. That is, a horse with a straight horn on its head. The speakers assume there exists something horse-like with something horn-like on its head-like part.

The difference is that God has no attributes to describe (which is its description) and a unicorn had attributes to describe. Either way we have described an assumed something.

… faith or none

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I am rather curious of the grandnarrative that when people of faith (whatever that means) talk about having faith or none, it somehow assumes that faith is the default, and none is the choice one deliberately makes.

True, most people do not make a choice, that is, their religion is given to them by birth. Bit that is assuming religion is the default mode to start.

This narrative is kind of forcing to say that I believe there is no god or gods. Often one makes the mistake and says ‘I don’t believe in God’. The former rejects the concept of god or gods (hence there is no god or gods). The latter rejects existent god or gods.

Pluralistic Agency

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The problem is not so much that we do not understand agency but rather agency is pluralistic, that at any given time there is more than one agent. The interaction of two agents is what we commonly call cooperation or by some similar terms and statements which entail two objects or things.

An example is when two people love each other or marriage. The agreement between them to act in a certain way is termed love. It is not a passive process but always entails active processes.

Is/ought, descriptive/prescriptive, truth/value

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Yesterday, I happened to have a conversation about Hume’s is/ought problem with someone. It was the first time I had touched on this subject with anyone even though I had read about it.

What happened was that I had the construct of the problem backwards in my head — what ought to be could be derived from what is. Or did I?

I had suggested that what someone pays for a painting such as a Da Vinci is over-inflated because it’s worth is that of the cost of its material and labour. The discussion was derived from a discussion on what is truth and value.

Noticing my mistake, I thought more about it. I realized this problem is similar to the descriptive/prescriptive conundrum in linguistics.

Where as linguistics of the earlier generations were about prescription (telling what the rules of language are to be adhered to) later generations up to now is about description (telling you how language actually is used). That is, to describe is to say what it is and to prescribe is to say what it ought to be.

It also seems that this does indeed relate to truth and value. Truth is what something is thought to be. And value is what something is thought to be worth. But does it?

Is/ought is about experience and judgement of reality. Descriptive/prescriptive is about data and its interpretation. But truth and value do not seem to be a “natural” binary in the same way as the other two. Truth is usually discussed with false or falsity of facts or reality. And value is usually discussed with subjectivity and objectivity. Their domains are different. This is an uneasy relationship and perhaps should not be discussed together.

Siri is surreal

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I ask Siri to add to the calendar “pick up son” only for her to tell me the surreal – “pick up sun”. The dead poets would be proud.

Projectionism

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The reality and its objects are without inherent processes, qualities and relations. With perception we project onto the reality and its objects.

Death

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Death is not to be feared. It gives value to the life that precedes it. And it is not separate from one or the other. Life and death make up a single aspect of reality. Reality is a system of mutually defining entities. Nothing is should be treated as separate from the system but everything should be considered when thinking about and engaging with reality.