Philosophical Discussion & Interesting Ideas

[SoulRiser]

Philosophical Discussion & Interesting Ideas

All the philosophical topics that don't fit in any of the other categories already posted in this forum.

Voluntary Human Extinction Movement
"May we live long and die out". Phasing out the human race by voluntarily ceasing to breed will allow Earth's biosphere to return to good health. Crowded conditions and resource shortages will improve as we become less dense. Thoughts?

How do you feel about actually doing things?
So, you're sitting in a chair (most likely). You're on a computer. Barring any immediate emergencies, everything seems well... But do you ever think "I should really do something", that just sitting around is too pointless? Work ethic is a term that's been much overused and much abused, but there are times where I think that I'm being way too much of a sloth and slap myself and tell myself to stop, well, lazing around like a sloth.

Words
I've been wondering for a while now. Has anyone here come across any words that describe the object or action in the word? I have not once come across a label for something that deserves to be part of a language. Their just combinations of scrawls to me. Nothing special. The words themselves are merely vibrations in the air which we transfer to meaningless noise which we then decipher into labels some long dead dude came up with.

Language Limitations
A thought occurred to me today. The limitations of language have been on my mind recently this year. One of my favorite words is probably “queer”. But the way I use the term is often misunderstood by others. To many queer means gay. To others it means bi. To some it transcends the dichotomy of gay and straight and is in its most ambiguous form, “I am sexual. I lack any orientation”. In that sense, it isn’t even bi. It is giving the finger to labels and classification. I don’t like that this term is usually exclusive to sexuality. In a postmodern world of uncertainty, I think its use could be broadened to religious, political, and cultural subjects.

[In]finite Universe
we may be the only form of intelligent life in the universe
Assuming the universe is infinite in size, this is scientifically impossible.
Is it?

Artwork versus Artist
Before you read anything else, take a quick look at this link:
Surely you'll agree that it's a nice drawing. Now who, you're probably wondering, drew those lovely flowers?

If the choice were given to be a wise man or a rich man...
If there were the choice of wisdom and understanding over friends and normality, which is better?
Wisdom brings the heart into the mind, allowing one to act as one might call best for the situation for both the emotional and the mental. But what are the downsides of this?
And being normal. Would being a part of something be more important? Isn't it that friendships are the the key part of any life? Who else could you depend on? Why give this up for the sake of something you could gain with time?
Or for vice-versa?

Selfishness
Is there anything that people do that isn't motivated in some way by the desire for self-glorification? Even when people do good deeds for others, they do it because it gives them some sense of self satisfaction or joy, or at least the feeling that they did the right thing. It makes everything in life seem so vain, how everything that people do is just a way to serve themselves.

Do the ends justify the means?
So, I just finished watching Minority Report (awesome movie btw) and it raises a very interesting question. In the movie, three individuals endure extreme suffering- not by choice- in order to save thousands of lives. My question: is this morally wrong? If those three were relieved from their suffering, many people would die. Yes, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, but how far should we go in pursuing the needs of the many? Is it right to force those few into agony to save the thousands of lives at stake? ...

Losing the fire. And life stuff.
I used to have the proverbial righteous anger. Even back when I was in elementary school, I would get very upset when I saw an injustice. I got to a point that I actually lived off of this anger. It was my driving force. It allowed me to feel in ways I couldn't otherwise. Listening to music was a more encompassing experience. I could empathize more fully. I still consider Battle Royale 2 to be the greatest movie of all time, but the last time I watched it, I couldn't feel what I felt the first two times I watched it. I'm apprehensive about watching it again. It fueled my creative vision. It helped me construct in my mind the blueprints of what was going to be my three-novel epic of mystery, action, and righteous anger. Now I can't tell if I miss that feeling. I don't know if this is a part of growing up. ...

Birth...
I was talking to a guy in school about his family and it got to the point where he pretty much told me he was a accident and how his dad pulled that crap out of his ass about giving him life. I asked him if he would have wanted to be born if he had a choice and his answer surprised me.
I never expected a super positive person like him to say no to being born.. I predicted the whole conversation and I expected him to say yes but..
In a nutshell this post asks if you knew what you knew now then would you choose to be born in this world if you had a choice?

Everything is restricted
Faith gets restricted by being organized into religions with traditions and habits, learning gets restricted by being put into a school with schedules and grades, and love gets restricted by being put into relationships with expectations and jealousy to control it.
Anyone got more examples?

Apathy and Sensitivity
My eleven-year-old brother comes in to my room crying every single night. He's usually fine during the day but he seems to totally break down and crawl into my bed, asking what's wrong because he know's something's wrong and he can't put his finger on it. I try to convince him that there's no buglar outside and that he'll be fine in the morning. I try and tell him we'll all be safe for the night and tell him that nothing is abnormally wrong.
He answers me that something is wrong somewhere. Not necessarilly here but somewhere in the world, someone just died. And another and another. Someone was just mugged. Someone was just raped. Something bad happened. A bomb just went off. We may be safe but other people are suffering and it won't let his mind rest at night.

Pedophilia
One in four men like pre-pubescent girls. Sexually that is. But sex with minors is frowned upon and they bury these feelings. The stigma of being labelled a pedophile is too much to bear. Even when child molesters are put in jail they refuse to call themself pedophiles. Burying feelings just doesn't work. People who are sexually attracted to children may understand why they shouldn't act on those feelings. But they still feel the urge. Instead of stigmatizing these people we need to understand that there is a difference between a person who is sexually attracted to young boys and girls, a pedophile, and a child molester.

Hope
We're talking about depression, trust in others, and recovery.
Is hope relative or does everyone have hope whether they choose to acknowledge it or not?

Pacifism
I've called myself a pacifist but that isn't really correct. I'm anti-militarist and slow to fight back. I've no problem with people defending themself but it needs to be a rational defense. Defense doesn't mean pro-active violence though. Pro-active attempts at stopping violence, yes.
WWI was very stupid. WWII wasn't. Hitler had the intention of taking over the world, not just take revenge as in WWI. That's not to say war is good. Suffering is bad and should be avoided if possible.

Kill Capitalism
Capitalism is the greatest source of problems on this planet. By capitalism I mean: "An economic system in which the means of production are privately owned and controlled and which is characterized by competition and the profit motive." These are some reasons for abandoning capitalism.

Support Piracy!
Some people say that pirating movies and music is like stealing a CD:...
But that's crap! When you steal a physical item you deprive someone else of it, which is why it's illegal. When you download something you merely make a copy of it. Another argument is that artists are being deprived of money. How can they be deprived if they never got it in the first place?

How I get ideas
The best ideas come to me showering or lying in bed. If I'm lying in bed I let the thought mull for a while then I write it down. For fun, let's see what I wrote down last night:

Want vs Need
Would like to know opinions on what the difference is between the two
..and which is more important: The things u want or the things u need.

Do you fear it.
Do you agree with this quote? Or do you fear death? "From the day of your birth, you have been living on borrowed time. You and I are both going to die at some point, and in the end there is not a thing you or I can do to change that. In death, all we forfeit is the brief moment in time we call the present. You cannot lose anything of the future. The future you fear losing is imaginary."

people or truth?
would you rather be something completely different then you to have people be near you and embrace you as normal or would you rather be true to yourself but people not want to be near you?

Psychic Abilities
I believe in psychic abilities. I have read enough scientific reports and first-hand anecdotes to conclude that at the very least, something very weird is happening. One good anecdote is the posts on websites such as PsiPog.net, especially the videos on them. If psychic phenomena do not exist, I find it strange that all these people are either deluded or are intentionally faking. One person thought that the people on the PsiPog videos were faking. He attempted to disprove their videos by moving a quarter underneath a glass without using his hands.

Having an open mind is good.
Very mixed up--EVIL--people want you to have an "open" mind. Some advertising is aimed at your "open" mind(s)..like the saying: "A fool and his money are soon parted..."
Having an "open" mind and having an "empty" mind don't seem much different from where I stand after more than 50 years of watching life unfold for people who made bad choices and claimed they were being "open-minded" when things didn't work out the way they hoped they would.

Transhumanism
What do you think of it?
I think it's horrible, I really do. It's not that it's playing God, it's that it gets to the point where people aren't human anymore, they are more machine than man. You essentially create a super robot in human disguise.
It's messed up.