Philosophers are born, not made ?

[cladking]

 

So is philosophy a lone event or a group participation event?

 

 

I am thinking of a time in Germany, while I was stationed there in the Army, where I took leave, rented a car and drove around northern West Germany in a big loop, visiting and passing by a large number of towns and cities. My rememberences of the trip are just mine. I have also thought back on the trip and considered it would have been more of a "something" if I had taken it with another human being. The things I saw, the people I chatted with, the events and places, the "truths" I learned on the trip are part of my model of the world, they are things I have in my memory. But so what. Nobody in America knows what I saw and smelled and tasted and heard and felt, and the people that were in those parts of Germany at the time, experienced those things every day and held them and hold them as evident truths...which have changed in whatever manner they have changed over the 33 years since.

 

A single philosopher's worldview is of limited value or usefulness, if the stories of the insights are not related to other people...to test them against other's insights so that one may guide another to an insight they have yet to have, or to be guided to an insight not yet obtained, or to revel in and be content in holding a shared insight.

 

Not everyone needs to visit Tokyo to know Mt. Fuji stands within view (on a haze free day). But nobody knows this at birth. NOBODY. They have to see it for themselves, or see a picture painted or taken by another, to know. They have to learn about the world, they have to have insights about the world, to become a philosopher.

 

The ability to know the world and build a model of it is obviously inate in a human. But the actual living and learning has to be done, after birth. The only sense/memories of the world and of himself, that the OP could have been born with, are those of the 9 months between conception and birth. And any inate abilities he had where encoded in his genes.

 

 

 

 

Philosophy is as lone as the philosopher. No one can get in your head because language doesn't allow it. We can steer people towadr our understanding but if this flies in the face of his premises then even this becomes virtually impossible. Of course communication can always be established in theory by simply agreeing on premises and definitions but in practice most individuals hold onto premises like a religion because these premises are primarily founded on beliefs. Mostpeople are affixed to a single perspective of the four dimensions they understand and in which they were raised. They can't see anything from another point of view. This isn't as big a problem with we who call ourselves "philosophers" but it is always true. Everybody is wired to see the world in some defined context that is independent of any reality and determined by upbringoing and education.

 

But this "wiring" is not natural to humanity. It is an acquired wiring taught to babies as language. We don't so much see the world as experience it through our thoughts; language. We don't so much understand the world as we understand what has been passed down through the generations; language. We aren't so much intelligent as we have great amounts knowledge; language.

 

People used to have a natural language that actually reflected human perspective and needs but it became too complex and when it failed history began. History as we understand it is caused by opportunists who jump in front of people and lead them to war. Real history is the result of economic and technological changes and the effects on demand.

 

Everything is perspective. Perspective is rarely defined in modern language and it's rather assumed that everyone shares ours. This invariably leads to miscommunication and sometimes a near total breakdown in communication.

 

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/78437-ancient-beliefs-and-evolution/page-1?hl=geyser

 

Talking with other philosophers about ideas is a little different than talking to the average person. But, I doubt, the sharing of ideas is extremely better; there's merely a better format and more formality generated by language as well as better ideas exchanged.

Edited February 9, 2014 by cladking

[tar]

Cladking,

 

But wouldn't language have to be a cumulative thing. Current language that is. Or current consciousness. Or when we say "we" know this or that about the world.

 

Although I have sort of a sense of what you mean by people "used" to have a natural language, I am not sure of the timeframe and constraints you are placing, in terms of a individual's development and the evolution of humans, and the evolution of certain traditions and societies.

 

As the development of a human fetus somewhat mirrors the evolutionary trail from single cell through various stages toward a currently configured adult human, the term "used to be" can be considered on various time frames and in several levels from specific to general.

 

You seem to refer to this development of language from the simple to the complex as a "loss". Things might have been simple and plain when we were a simple cell...but we are not that, any longer. There is a different form and structure, a different "pattern" that we are maintaining and carrying forward. Since evolution favors the the forms and strategies and patterns that "fit" and work, I would argue that whatever complexities and folds have been "added" to some more basic "natural" language, are "fitting" additions, and have enhanced the thing in its "survivability" and fitness.

 

Such is my argument as well, for philosophy. It is maintained and held and improved upon by an individual, but the evolution of the thing is not solely the child growing into the adult, but the ideas being passed along from generation to generation. Fitting ideas, fitting again and working again.

 

My own worldview has been cobbled together from a variety of readings and conversations and muses...but it would not be the same without Sidhartha and Plato and Moses and Kant and Einstein and Hawking and Dr. Zucker and my Aunt Gloria, to say nothing of my conversations with you and Gees and iNow and Mike Smith Cosmos, and Trimidity and the rest of the good folk on the board.

 

I would not consider that the language in which they communicated their thoughts to me was somehow "less than" or inferior to a previous 'natural" language of grunts and sighs and bellows that we may have had, as a species, a long time, and many many generations ago.

 

Regards, TAR

[cladking]

 

 

You seem to refer to this development of language from the simple to the complex as a "loss". Things might have been simple and plain when we were a simple cell...but we are not that, any longer. There is a different form and structure, a different "pattern" that we are maintaining and carrying forward. Since evolution favors the the forms and strategies and patterns that "fit" and work, I would argue that whatever complexities and folds have been "added" to some more basic "natural" language, are "fitting" additions, and have enhanced the thing in its "survivability" and fitness.

 

The "loss" isn't the ancient thought or the ancient metaphysics. It's not the knowledge that was lost. It's not even our somewhat reduced ability to communicate. The loss is our anchor in nature; an understanding of our place and purpose. These other losses were necessary and unavoidable and, more importantly, we could largely or entirely overcome them. Even language has been improved to the degree that most communication can still take place if both parties are putting forth the effort. I often say "confusion reigns" but this is an exaggeration and it applies much more to everyday speech and situations than to all communication. The flexibility of modern language also makes possible communication of far more complex ideas and scientific language also enables great accuracy of communication.

 

But still almost everyone feels adrift on some level and I believe this is the result of having no secure footing in nature. People greatly overestimate human knowledge as well as the efficacy and applicability of philosophy, religion, and various constructs. We put too much faith in things that are human oriented and human invention while tending to ignore nature and natural processes. A bird can't tunnel in the earth nor a worm fly to space so such things tend to be beneath our notice. When we do get an insight about ourselves or our place there's a tendency to have difficulty communicating it to others because of language. It's not the difficulty of phraseology but the difficulty of being understood. This is the fundamental flaw in modern language and it separates us and it separates us from nature. Humans are a social animal and this separation causes pain.

 

I'm of the opinion that most of these problems can be mitigated by convention.

 

Going back is not an option. A quantitative change simply accumulated until it became a qualitative change. However, I believe that there is a great deal of knowledge that could be quickly regained and that "religion" could be updated, language patched, and a better means of teaching science adopted. I believe this would lead to new perspectives that are less painful for the average individual. There's no need for men to lead lives of "quiet desperation" and to have endless wars. There's no utopia at hand but philosophy is key to an improving future.

 

Even if I'm wrong about some of my key arguments the fact remains we've spent enormous amounts of money to support the UN over nearly 70 years and they've yet to standardize time or even to define what day midnight falls on!!! Surely we deserve a great deal more than what we've been getting. France purges English words from their language each year but no one seems the least concerned that most modern words don't have even one fixed definition. No one is concerned that language drifts and words change. No one seems to notice that we don't understand one another but will pick up arms anyway.

[tar]

Cladking,

 

The rise of Man seems to go along with a fall from grace, in your estimation. There is probably something to be said about this, but thanks to philosophy and religion it has not been done without a good deal of self reflection.

 

Consciousness is raised along the way, in the Hegalian acending spiral type of way.

 

Consider a workable idea you or anybody might have, as opposed to one that is incomplete or not workable. The good idea will be instantly accepted and understood and worked into other thinking and applied to other areas of human endeavor, and the bad or unworkable idea will be either instantly, or eventually discarded and abandoned as failed or flawed.

 

But an idea that works locally, may have consequences, intented or unintended that weaken or disrupt the workability of another "good" idea, had by somebody else, somewhere else. Such unintended consequences that cause winners and losers in a different area than is being focused on, are frequent and widespread. One rarely has the reach to guide one's ideas through the mills of other minds, to keep it even close to its original pristine state.

 

"Well, THAT is not what I meant" has been uttered more than once or twice on this board, and "interpretation" may cause some morphing of an idea...which is probably just as much a good thing, as it is a bad thing. Bad for the original idea in one sense, that it will be sullied, and good for the original idea in the sense that its workable portions will no doubt be used again.

 

But if one is to take this thought, that good ideas survive and bad ideas are discarded, in a general overall, human evolution and human societal evolution type of way, then philosophy is a group event, and not a lonely enterprise.

 

My reaction to the OP, and my agreement with iNow, that the OPs memories of having "always" known truth and logic, were false memories, are along this line of truth and logic being a sharable, "outside", objectively understandable thing. Although the "reasons" to honor your parents, to not bear false witness, to not steal and murder and such are evidently sound arguements that are conclusions that a person could come to, by themselves, through trial and error, the wheight and universal application of these very workable ideas make them true already, before you are born, so in this sense, you can be born with them, but your recognition of these truths, I would argue, is an outside in absorbtion of what has been learned about the world prior your arrival in it, passed onto you, from your parents and society, more than an idea "you already knew".

 

Regards, TAR

[Popcorn Sutton]

A bit of a personal story, if I may. I don't think that I was born a philosopher, but I was exposed, luckily, to philosophical inquiry at a very young age. It was actually when I was 12 years old. I had an atheist friend who ALWAYS questioned my spirituality. I was born and raised a Christian. I was baptized, I was forced to go to church (however much I hated sitting in the audience listening to a boring lecture that had absolutely no relevance to real life), and I was forced to be confirmed. I was taught that I should NEVER question the teachings of "my religion". It was absolutely horrible to say the least. I truly believed, or was brainwashed to believe, that there was a heaven and hell and that if I ever strayed from my faith, then I would be judged and most likely condemned to damnation if I never asked for forgiveness from Jesus and I didn't accept the "fact" of the father, the son, and the holy spirit.

 

Luckily, and I really do consider myself VERY lucky, I had a friend who was atheist and ALWAYS shunned me for being Christian. He told me what he expected after death. He said that it would be just like how it was before you were born, which may be true. When I think about death, I think about Physics now, as opposed to religion. I like to look at it purely objectively, but sometimes I can't help but think that our mind lives on, and I really won't go into details about why, but all I can say is that there have been some very strange occurrences with regard to people who have already passed.

 

My friend was interested in weather, for whatever reason, and it really still makes me laugh to this day. I didn't see what was so interesting about weather, and even to this day I could really care less about it. I wish it was a little warmer where I live because it truly has been very cold here this winter, but whatever, weather is weather. What can we do about it? Not much of anything to talk about there, IMO. I became interested in Science at about the same time that he became interested in weather. I had "The Handy Science Answer Book", and I read the entire thing, at the age of 12, from front to back. It wasn't like I was obsessed with it or anything though, I really could've cared less about it at the time as well. I would've much rather been drinking pop and jumping on the trampoline, but my friend wanted to talk about these things. He was interested in what I had learned from the book. Truth is, I learned a lot. Not only was I given answers, I was also given questions, and I think that that is the most important thing you can get out of a Science book, especially at a young age. I've come to learn that people, honestly, don't even want to talk about Science. I, personally, LOVE scientific inquiry, and there really is nothing more exciting to me than having a conversation with someone about it. In this age, I'd be lucky to have someone who is willing to spend even a minute talking about my interests, but, at the age of 12, me and my friend at the time really didn't distinguish between what was a strange conversation or not. There really was no such thing as awkward back then, so we would literally spend hours, weeks, months, and even years of our lives contemplating the implications of what we learned, and we could go on talking about the same topic for a long time without stopping. I really valued that friendship. I learned a lot, but most importantly, I learned how to be logical. There came a day where my friend, who was very susceptible to addiction, became addicted to cigarettes, inhalants, prescription pills, sex, alcohol, you name it he did it. He became suicidal, attempting to kill himself 7 times. He was really bad, and most of our parents, for whatever reason, thought it was best to keep their children distant. My parents, however, thought that it was best if I was there for him. To make a long story short, it was the worst part of my life. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that I would've been MUCH happier if I had kept my distance, but, by staying friends with him, I kept growing intellectually and I had a lot of insights that I think have truly changed the world for the best. They didn't help me, personally, but they were very useful insights for a lot of people. I guess you can call it "thinking outside of the box" if you want, but in reality, it was just how I thought.

 

Looking back at it now, I keep my distance from him, and he knows that he really effed up. He's lonely, and everything he did to make his life better has really secluded him. I thought that he was the smartest person I knew, but, now that we talk with each other every now and then, I can really assess how smart he is, and I don't think that he's smart at all. He's actually the very opposite. He's made a lot of poor choices, and now that we aren't friends anymore (or distant friends), it seems like he doesn't even care about science. I thought that the only passion he really had was science, but I've come to find out that I was projecting my own thoughts the entire time. I hate to put it this way, but all he really cared about was getting his booze at the end of the night and overdosing on stimulants.

 

It really is a sad story looking back at it, but I have to love him because he was at least willing to have discussions with me that no other person I know of would even dare to discuss. I've come to realize that I am a philosopher, and I have an amazing capacity to learn language as well. I won't brag much, but I don't think that philosophers are born, I think that they are lucky to become one given their environment.

Edited February 11, 2014 by Popcorn Sutton

[cladking]

 

 

Consider a workable idea you or anybody might have, as opposed to one that is incomplete or not workable. The good idea will be instantly accepted and understood and worked into other thinking and applied to other areas of human endeavor, and the bad or unworkable idea will be either instantly, or eventually discarded and abandoned as failed or flawed.

 

 

 

Until a few years ago I believed this as well. Essentially only one perspective can apply to what we know. Anything can be infinitely complex or simple but it must adhere to this perspective. This goes way back before DesCartes and even before the Greeks. It is imposed by language. This isn't to say any good idea that fits the perspective will necessarily be accepted, just that any that doesn't fit is rejected.

 

What is accepted is the popular and this is determined by very complex trends and events and their interplay. To a large degree it's virtually a random walk.

 

Obviously scientific fact is far less susceptible to these processes. Tools and procedures that improve our ability to accomplish specific goals are also less affected. Ideas must conform to societal "beliefs" to even be considered. These "beliefs" are driven by language.

 

The world appears to be much different than our educations and experiences indicate. Freud postulated a subconscious thart drives our actions and this was accepted leading to a loss of responsibility and even privacy. Darwin suggested the mechanisms of evolution and it was accepted despite its inability to explain more than parts of the evidence. Sound ideas have been rejected because they don't fit a scientific or a religious perspective or the "beliefs" of most people.

 

Ask yourself why some animals and grains have been cultivated and others haven't. Most were originally cultivated long before history started. Are we to believe only these species can be cultivated? No. The world first and foremost runs on inertia and it has for 4000 years. The status quo is sacrosanct and ideas have no value outside their popularity.

[tar]

Cladking,

 

So, in respect to the OP and consequently Gees' inquiry into what truth and logic and wisdom are, the possibility that the status quo can be both wrong and right, depending on the complexity or simplicity of the consideration, and the "fitness" of the consideration, in the match between the idea and reality, being "born a philosopher" would require that the human under consideration would "already know" how to match their thoughts to the world and back again and know when things did not add up, and when they did.

 

This is actually possible, and consistent with my personal muses over the last several years concerning language, the "meaning" behind it, and the way that the human internalizes the outside world into his/her model of it. In which case, my argument is weakened in the sense that a philosopher must have superior matching equipment, from the start. (be born with it).

 

This is not an impossible consideration. Consider the basic equipment of a human and their consciousness of the world, where we evolved this capability, in concert with the world. The reward aspect of certian chemicals in the brain give a "bootstrap" reason for people in general, to feel good when things match. When the internal model of the world matches the outside world, the human can practice manipulating it, and moving around in it and then actually manipulate it or move around in it with this matching map. All animals that manuveur around the world in less than accidental or random ways, must likewise have some of this matching facility, and a way to remember what they sense.

 

Language, and history and science are an extension of this facility between individuals, and my argument concerning the importance of learning about the world and therefore "truth" is a sound argument on both the individual and societal level, but if certain individuals have a greater reason to match, in a more thourough and exacting manner, than the average guy or gal, then they be our scientists and our philosophers, and in this, they may have been born such.

 

Regards, TAR

[cladking]

 

So, in respect to the OP and consequently Gees' inquiry into what truth and logic and wisdom are, the possibility that the status quo can be both wrong and right, depending on the complexity or simplicity of the consideration, and the "fitness" of the consideration, in the match between the idea and reality, being "born a philosopher" would require that the human under consideration would "already know" how to match their thoughts to the world and back again and know when things did not add up, and when they did.

 

This is actually possible, and consistent with my personal muses over the last several years concerning language, the "meaning" behind it, and the way that the human internalizes the outside world into his/her model of it. In which case, my argument is weakened in the sense that a philosopher must have superior matching equipment, from the start. (be born with it).

 

This is not an impossible consideration. Consider the basic equipment of a human and their consciousness of the world, where we evolved this capability, in concert with the world. The reward aspect of certian chemicals in the brain give a "bootstrap" reason for people in general, to feel good when things match. When the internal model of the world matches the outside world, the human can practice manipulating it, and moving around in it and then actually manipulate it or move around in it with this matching map. All animals that manuveur around the world in less than accidental or random ways, must likewise have some of this matching facility, and a way to remember what they sense.

 

Language, and history and science are an extension of this facility between individuals, and my argument concerning the importance of learning about the world and therefore "truth" is a sound argument on both the individual and societal level, but if certain individuals have a greater reason to match, in a more thourough and exacting manner, than the average guy or gal, then they be our scientists and our philosophers, and in this, they may have been born such.

 

 

I might agree with your words even more than I understand them.

 

They certainly ring true even if there may be spome things implied with which I'm not necessarily in agreement.

 

I don't believe there is any real validity to the status quo nor does it ever reflect reality. Even if we lived in a sane world that was highly efficient there's no resone to presuppose that peoples' beliefs would be more accurate or more in tune with reality. No doubt there would be a correlation. In a sane world there would probably be more people who engaged in philosophical thought but, I believe, there would still be a single perspective of reality based on what people thought they knew.

 

Humans are first and foremost a social animal and modern people don't even realize they are animals. In a sense there may be a relationship between this animal and philosophical thought. Perhaps there is a loose connection between the way a human animal thinks and the propensity for being philosophical. Perhaps philosophers are more affected by ther inate wiring than other people who don't give their own existence or bigger questions a second thought.

 

There seem to be as many ways to asking the questions are there are those who ask them. My own route was in trying to understand the nature of thought and what power, if any, thought alone possesses. There is a tendency for the route to begin at an early age.

 

At this point perhaps we need a poll.