I think philosophy is scary.

[Windevoid]

What do you think about this?

Mostly consciousness, causation/noncausation, the beginning/ending of the universe, the idea that we as humans might overlook a new science or deny it until a thousand or so years from now, an apparent lack of sense in the universe, apparent lack of magic powers, and other such things.

[Greg H.]

What do you think about this?

... an apparent lack of sense in the universe...

Actually the universe makes a great deal of sense. It just isn't very intuitive beyond our every day experience.

 

 

 

apparent lack of magic powers

First you complain that the universe doesn't make sense, then you complain that it doesn't make even less sense?

[Phi for All]

Mostly consciousness,

 

I can hope that consciousness has properties that allow it to continue after our bodies are dead. It's a type of belief that doesn't cost me anything and might give some comfort. Not really scary at all.

 

the beginning/ending of the universe,

 

Too far removed from me to be scary.

 

the idea that we as humans might overlook a new science or deny it until a thousand or so years from now,

 

There's too many scientists in too many countries for all of them to "deny" a "new science". If something works, it works. It can be suppressed, it can be misused, it can be exploited but it can't be denied if it works.

 

It's completely possible for us to overlook one, but in that case I'd have to argue that if we couldn't recognize it, perhaps we weren't ready for it yet. I use this analogy a lot now, but remember that we knew about the steam engine long before we had the rest of the technology and knowledge to take advantage of it.

 

an apparent lack of sense in the universe,

 

The "sense" part comes from what's inside the box. If you spend more time in the box, you get a better sense of how layered our explanations for natural phenomena are, and you get a better understanding of when it's necessary to search "outside the box".

 

apparent lack of magic powers,

 

Define "magic". Something for nothing? Poof! from thin air? Or the ability to manipulate the elements? Make metal stronger or start fire with your thumb?

 

Magic to you or magic to someone a hundred years ago? You'd seem pretty magical to someone from 1913, with your GPS and mobile phone and your common knowledge of things that were known only to academics of the day.

[EdEarl]

 

I think philosophy is scary

It always happens; they talk their audience to death.

[Gees]

Windevoid;

 

I think you are right. I have studied consciousness all of my life, and there were times when i left myself with nothing to believe in, so that is pretty scary. But I kept on pressing for the truth of things because I am a philosopher, natural born. I need to know.

 

Philosophy is supposed to translate to "love of wisdom", but it starts out as a love of truth. Philosophers are always raving about finding truth, but truth is not always a nice thing, and it is not always wise to tell the truth. When the wife asks, "How does my butt look in this dress?" the wise man will give a better answer than the honest man. (chuckle)

 

I think that philosophy has three levels. In the first level we try to discern what is true, what is real; in the second we learn about lies, about the discrepancies, about the many different perspectives of any truth that can cause truth to be lies and lies to be true. Every conflict has truth and lies on both sides, and one person's truth may well be lies to another person. So I think this must be sorted out before one can reach the third level and know any wisdom. It can take a lifetime to achieve wisdom, so this is probably why we like to write down what we learn for future generations.

 

While considering your OP, I had a thought. We all know that religion got a little out of control a few thousand years ago (the Dark Ages), then the Enlightenment came and science exploded on the scene. But was there a cause for this? Did something push people to make religion get out of control? When Augustine wrote his proclamation that the people did not need to think, they just needed to trust God and the church, was there a reason for denying thought? I have always blamed religion for this mess, but now I wonder about the coincidence that this happened on the heels of the great thinkers, the Ancient Greeks.

 

I think that life runs in cycles and patterns, and that it works off of cause and effect. So if the Ancients asked too many questions, explored too many possibilities too fast, then the people could have become disillusioned and frightened, not knowing what to believe. This would have made the people ripe for a religion that took away the need to think, and after 1,000 years of not being allowed to think, it would have caused science to explode in a hundred different directions because the need was dire by then. I have never studied societies and cultures, but it is possible that the philosophers started this whole mess. Scary stuff.

 

Do we think about a new idea (philosophy), then decide how we feel about it (religion), then act on it (science)? Maybe.

 

Yes Ed, we talk and talk and talk. (chuckle)

 

G

[NATO]

Can we define philosophy? And pin it to the top of the forum, like they did with the definition of god.

[imatfaal]

Can we define philosophy? And pin it to the top of the forum, like they did with the definition of god.

 

Philosophy is about asking definitive questions and understanding why the current answers are lacking.

 

What is piety? - Euthyphro

What is God? - Anselm's Ontological

What is God? still - Descartes

What is God? still - SFN ad 2013

[ADreamIveDreamt]

It depends on what a person fears to determine if it is scary to him/her.Phil-O-Sophia is deep.

[ydoaPs]

Philosophy is about asking definitive questions and understanding why the current answers are lacking.

 

What is piety? - Euthyphro

What is God? - Anselm's Ontological

What is God? still - Descartes

What is God? still - SFN ad 2013

Considering the professional breakdown in philosophy, that's a bit misleading (even in the field of philosophy whose purpose is to ignore the rest and pretend that you can justify that God exists, a randomly selected philosopher is over 6 times more likely to be an atheist than a randomly selected US adult).

 

More accurately, philosophy breaks down into essentially three categories:

 

1) How can we know? (epistemology)

2) What can we know? (metaphysics [although, a better sound bite would be "what there is and what there might have been"])

3) How are we to live? (ethics)

[imatfaal]

Considering the professional breakdown in philosophy, that's a bit misleading (even in the field of philosophy whose purpose is to ignore the rest and pretend that you can justify that God exists, a randomly selected philosopher is over 6 times more likely to be an atheist than a randomly selected US adult).

 

More accurately, philosophy breaks down into essentially three categories:

 

1) How can we know? (epistemology)

2) What can we know? (metaphysics [although, a better sound bite would be "what there is and what there might have been"])

3) How are we to live? (ethics)

 

 

And a modern philosopher is also much more likely to have recently discussed the criteria for the existence of god than a random US adult. The question asked whether could define philosophy like we did with god; my post was to show that many of the questions of philosophy are directly related to understanding the fluidity of ideas of knowledge and the contingency and changeability of definition; even in precisely the subject that the questioner seemed to think was settled in a pinned post.

 

On your second part - I agree broadly obviously - although those definitions fit a modern academic western view. The stiocs would say logics, ethics and physics, historically many would seperate theology from metaphysics, and personally I would have to add aesthetics