the failure of philosophy.. so far...
Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2023 2:57 pm
so far, we have seen the failure of philosophy..
in 2500 years, philosophy hasn't gotten that far..
the exact same issues that plagued Socrates and Plato,
still plague us today..... and why is that?
for the Greeks thought that the universe was rational, logical
and was explainable... and today? yah, not so much.....
we can explain the universe scientifically, sort of,
but philosophically, not at all....but why?
I think the basic problem has been that philosophy hasn't come to grips
with a basic problem of the universe... which is the fact that the universe
is, in large part, random, probabilistic and a good deal of life is chance...
it is very hard to create a philosophy that has chance and randomness at
its heart.. the world/universe travels its path logically and with purpose
until it doesn't.... every life has to one extent or another, been
affected by chance, the randomness of existence... and if you
properly understand evolution, you can see that our very human existence,
came about due to the random nature of the universe... Life very
existence seems to have come about due to chance, random luck...
and human existence doesn't seem to be any different...
Now, how the hell are we to create a philosophy that can be rational,
like philosophy is supposed to be, when our very existence seems
to be random, due to chance?
it is the probabilistic nature of the universe that really prevents us from
being able to work out a rational, logical argument, or proof of existence...
to be able to work out a philosophy of existence that makes sense...
and that includes this random/chance nature of existence.....
think of all the human endeavors that has been knocked off course due to
some random, chance event.... it has been said, don't know if it's true,
but it has been said that the reason Napoleon lost at Waterloo was that
he had boils on his butt that prevented him from being on a horse..
and I can see it....entire battles have been won or lost because of
some random event that tilted the battle one way or another...
rain at the wrong/right time... the wind shifted and blew the smoke
back into someone's face... the very important battle of Gettysburg of
the Civil war happened because two scouting parties, one north and one
south, happened to run into each other....and historical events that
have dominated world's history can be said to come about due
to random or chance events.....
and the problem becomes, how do we create a philosophy that can
at least account for this randomness in existence?
(which is why we can't use history to determine future events,
we can't account for random events in history)
even if we decide that the role of randomness in existence accounts
for say, 10% of what happens (and I think it is a greater number, closer
to 25 or even 30% of existence is due to randomness/chance)
even if we could somehow account for that percentage, we are still
left with the problem of knowing where to apply that randomness
to? take for example a car... we know if we drive a car long enough,
at some point, something will go wrong.... the problem is knowing
which part or which system will go wrong... we can't know what
part will break first... there is no way of knowing...but we know
that something will break first, we just don't know which part...
and how do you create a "philosophy" of having a car if you can't
predict which part or system will break first?
philosophy can only become ''real'' or ''true'' if, if it understands
that chance plays a major role in life, in human existence....
we are unable to predict the exact event of chance, but
we can at least acknowledge the role of chance in our philosophies...
Kropotkin
in 2500 years, philosophy hasn't gotten that far..
the exact same issues that plagued Socrates and Plato,
still plague us today..... and why is that?
for the Greeks thought that the universe was rational, logical
and was explainable... and today? yah, not so much.....
we can explain the universe scientifically, sort of,
but philosophically, not at all....but why?
I think the basic problem has been that philosophy hasn't come to grips
with a basic problem of the universe... which is the fact that the universe
is, in large part, random, probabilistic and a good deal of life is chance...
it is very hard to create a philosophy that has chance and randomness at
its heart.. the world/universe travels its path logically and with purpose
until it doesn't.... every life has to one extent or another, been
affected by chance, the randomness of existence... and if you
properly understand evolution, you can see that our very human existence,
came about due to the random nature of the universe... Life very
existence seems to have come about due to chance, random luck...
and human existence doesn't seem to be any different...
Now, how the hell are we to create a philosophy that can be rational,
like philosophy is supposed to be, when our very existence seems
to be random, due to chance?
it is the probabilistic nature of the universe that really prevents us from
being able to work out a rational, logical argument, or proof of existence...
to be able to work out a philosophy of existence that makes sense...
and that includes this random/chance nature of existence.....
think of all the human endeavors that has been knocked off course due to
some random, chance event.... it has been said, don't know if it's true,
but it has been said that the reason Napoleon lost at Waterloo was that
he had boils on his butt that prevented him from being on a horse..
and I can see it....entire battles have been won or lost because of
some random event that tilted the battle one way or another...
rain at the wrong/right time... the wind shifted and blew the smoke
back into someone's face... the very important battle of Gettysburg of
the Civil war happened because two scouting parties, one north and one
south, happened to run into each other....and historical events that
have dominated world's history can be said to come about due
to random or chance events.....
and the problem becomes, how do we create a philosophy that can
at least account for this randomness in existence?
(which is why we can't use history to determine future events,
we can't account for random events in history)
even if we decide that the role of randomness in existence accounts
for say, 10% of what happens (and I think it is a greater number, closer
to 25 or even 30% of existence is due to randomness/chance)
even if we could somehow account for that percentage, we are still
left with the problem of knowing where to apply that randomness
to? take for example a car... we know if we drive a car long enough,
at some point, something will go wrong.... the problem is knowing
which part or which system will go wrong... we can't know what
part will break first... there is no way of knowing...but we know
that something will break first, we just don't know which part...
and how do you create a "philosophy" of having a car if you can't
predict which part or system will break first?
philosophy can only become ''real'' or ''true'' if, if it understands
that chance plays a major role in life, in human existence....
we are unable to predict the exact event of chance, but
we can at least acknowledge the role of chance in our philosophies...
Kropotkin