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This sounds like one I have read before and I would believe that it is considering de-tatchment from "Duhkka" or desire/fear; what is preventing the boy from achieving his aim (shooting the monkey) is the fear of something which is inevitable anyway.
I like that answer. I have a couple of ideas, but I'm just not 100% sure how you reached that solution using logic. You seem to be well-versed in the subject at hand, so perhaps you can explain.
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I have a couple of beliefs which I hold on faith; but I would never expect to teach them to someone and have that person accept them on the grounds of "faith". Faith is a personal thing, and as such should be avoided as a teaching tool.
Aha! And so I understand your original point on the subject!
It is true that you usually cannot use words to convince others to have faith. What is interesting to me is that it seems you can prove logically that having faith in outcome y of situation x results in outcome y more often statistically than outcome z; some might call it the self-fulfilling prophecy. But why should you have faith in outcome y if logic tells you that outcome z is more probable?
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Again I would like someone to find me something which is illogical, not backed by any evidence, yet still considered to be true.
Evidence by whose standards?
Considered true: Time will carry on infinitely. Says who? It might stop long after our species is gone. Maybe we just don't exist, in this dimension, on a long enough timeline to see otherwise.
Considered true:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_everything How is it logical that humans could possibly construct one mathematical equation to explain everything in our universe?
Considered true:
http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/blog/734 ... 19647.html General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics are both considered to be true, with evidence to back up each theory, but they also contradict each other
Considered true:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_war ... l_forcings Is "going green" going to save our Earth, or is climate change going to happen, anyway? What should we do, logically? (looking for fact, not opinion, here
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Considered true:
http://www.godandscience.org/apologetic ... 2GGJ6J92Od If we can't sense it, it doesn't exist. Are we doomed in this life in this dimension to never understand? Or will science eventually prove or disprove God's existence?
For the record: I am as interested in string theory and M-theory as any non-scientist, I do think we should help alleviate climate change (regardless of whether we're exacerbating it or not), and I do realize that the last site is biased (but the page makes a good point about limitations of empirical evidence).
Uh... what was this thread about again?
Well we'll start from the top. Everyone dies, including this boys mother and father at some point. The monkey has stated this; and the boy has mis-interpretted the monkey and thinks this is a prophecy which would not come around anyway.
This applies to our situation, becuase we mis-interpret the world by thinking we can get around our pains; when infact they are inevitable.
Fact is the human race has got this far due to the fact that it has logic, our pre-frontal cortex is massively expanded when compared to other species and this is the part of the brain that deals with cognitive thinking. i.e. what we are doing now!
Thought gets split into two area's emotional thought which is a very basic system of thinking found in almost all animals right down to Reptiles. It's a simple system, I'm scared.. so I run and hide, I'm angry/threatened so I attack, I'm horny I fuck.
But we have developed our rational capacities so we think, I'm angry... how can I attack?
An example of this is.. a snake is threatened, it rears up and if it's aggressor comes near it strikes.
A Tribe of humans, may run from it's aggressor and then plan an attack to stop the aggressor from being a persistent problem, say the aggressor is another tribe. Our tribe will start building or looking for weapons, this requires logical thought, how do I make a spear? What are the mechanics to make a good bow and arrow. Then the tribe will use it's cognitive skills further to try and predict where the target tribe is, and even design a battle plan to ensure they surround there target.
But that's really just trivia, alot of people have this idea that logic was just pulled out of our arses, someone made it up, that it's a completely abstract concept and at certain times can be ignored.
We get our logic from two sources, our basic mental faculties which we are born with, which have evolved in accordance to the nature of this world.
And our other mental schema's (an inhead structure or model used to deal with information and experiences that we encounter) which we develop over time.
Logic is the formalisation of thought; Logic is turning and saying "This world is a world of cause and effect; so what basic laws are there with regards to this causal nature, within this universe what are the undeniable principles of cause and effect or "truth".
So what a logicians job is, is to try and create a formal, standarised language for arguments. In order to assess and clearly explain where someone thinking is wrong and right.
I'm not that skilled in logic, I'm a philosophy student and at our uni we're required to do a 6 week course in the basics of logic.
For the outcome y in situation x; my faith isn't faith as such and neither are the beliefs. Largely almost EVERYTHING is possible, but not neccessarily probable, I keep myself open to one or two subjects, simply because I do not agree with the large scientific consensus, mainly becuase I believe some things haven't been properly tested.
It's not so much faith as it is taking a stand against a majority. I'm still open to being proved completely wrong in a couple years time. So maybe faith is the wrong word? Becuase largely if my reasons for leaving my mind open to that area are proved wrong, I have no problems with just calling it a day and shutting up shop.
Evidence, as in, a demonstrated occurance.
1. Time is up for debate, it's largely postulated when the world dies out and movement stops, as such there will be nothing to define time by subjectively or objectively. But that is largely dependant on what you consider "time".
2. Why don't you ask the mathamaticians that
3. Quantum mechanics is actually something I hope to study at some point; but I'll give you the two cents, when we talk about Qauntum mechanics we are talking about possible universes outside our own, which may not adhere to our principles of cause and effect, they may work on entirely different rules our maybe there are none at all. But within this domain that we inhabit, cause and effect rules over. Even then you are seeing in quantum mechanics logic, people are making efforts to logically explain how quantum mechanics works. It's contradictory to what we know now, but so have a lot of major scientific discoveries. What will happen is that current theories will begin to accomodate eachother as the theories develop in proportion to new evidence un-covered.
4. What we should do logically is dependant entirely at the facts at hand and our objecitves in question... how much is caused by us? What are the consequences of this action?... and What is the most efficient action to take in order to get our objective accomplished?
5. This again depends on your definition of god, if your reffering to "Yahveh" the god of the Bible, as a literal character, then he lost that battle a long time ago. However I think this is an area of Quantum Physics!
And the thread is just re-iterating the age old rule in science, debating and discussion.. "put up or shut up!".. If you want people to take you seriously, then give them a reason to!
Hobbit: I can always simplify if anyone really needs me to
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) without even taking the context into consideration or the tangent that the others are driving the conv. to. Are we going through a whole philosophical stage here !!
