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Post by Rose on Apr 20, 2009 15:22:59 GMT -5
Empiricism- based on observation.
Rationalism- logical thinking.
Which is better?
Early philosopher Zeno said that we can't actually move if you think rationally because you have to travel a half distance to reach the full distance and you have to travel a half distance of that distance to reach there and it keeps going infinitely cause measurements are infinite in measurements. But based on observations we can obviously move.
What do you think aout it?
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Ebo
über Farkan
Posts: 253
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Post by Ebo on Apr 20, 2009 18:14:03 GMT -5
If you're reading this right now, both are needed and it's hard to say which one is better. So basically, Zeno's questioning how one can one get from point A to point B when there can ALWAYS be an infinite number of units between point A and point B, even if the distance between point A and point B is one inch, or 1/2 an inch, or 1/4 of an inch, cause the space between them can be infinitely small but still potentially infinite if we look at it that way. Well it seems the reality of things on the quantum level is that nothing is moving, but instead is constantly jumping in and out of existence, causing an illusion that things move. Based on observation, you can say something like you are sitting on a chair because you can feel it, but the reality of things is that your ass isn't even touching a chair because you can say there is no chair or ass because it is mostly nothing made from something that isn't matter, and also because the two things, or nothings, or relations, aren't even touching, but instead you are literally hovering over the chair due to electromagnetism on the quantum level or quantum electrodynamics. Still, you can go even deeper and say that yes, your ass is touching the chair, because every[no]thing is the same [no]thing since every[no]thing is indeed one thing, one particle, which can't be described as a particle or a thing - aka every thing is one thing, which isn't a thing we know as a thing. From observation, you can say that the apple falls to the earth, but the reality of things is that the earth also falls to the apple and no amount of observation will make us realize this because our senses can't sense it, but if it wasn't for observation and experience, we wouldn't be able to formulate governing principles because there wouldn't be anything to encourage or lead us to do so. From senses, you can say that the moon is moving around the earth, but in reality it is in a constant state of constant falling around the earth due to gravity, which causes the tides. At one point, by using senses, we thought that we would fall off of the edge of the world if we went too far because everything is flat, but the reality is that to some degree we were right, assuming volume is an illusion. It all depends on your willingness to move to different realms of perception or understanding and combine them. Or maybe, put simply, it depends on scale or the illusion of scale. Cause there are really two different levels of world, our world, the world of general relativity (gravity), humans and skyscrapers and planets and suns and galaxies, and the quantum world (strong and weak nuclear forces, and electromagnetism), the world of atoms and subatomics, which seems to defy everything we thought we knew about reality the more we know about it. Truthfully, these scales of reality make us what we are and all we know, and if we can fully understand how they fit together, we can understand pretty much everything. If we wanted to know more about a different planet, we can send people there and learn from observation, but we can never directly observe the quantum world; everything we know about it comes from logic and reasoning and math, and it creates the world we know from thinking we know.
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Post by Rose on Apr 21, 2009 19:49:56 GMT -5
You should look at Hume and Lebinez they each take one or the other and put them in their most radical form. It is very interesting.
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Ebo
über Farkan
Posts: 253
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Post by Ebo on Apr 21, 2009 21:31:36 GMT -5
Gah, I just got home from my philosophy classes and I always confuse them since the same professor teaches both of them and they are in the same room and one is right after the other, but I'm the only one in both of them and depending on the day, they can be switched around so the prof always assumes I know what class I'm in and what we're doing when I'm really in my own little world 80% of the time. I'm pretty sure we just covered Hume today... something about how he feels that passions are superior to reason and how he suggests that god ain't an innate idea, meaning it's possible that we are born with no innate ideas and only learn via empiricism aka we are made who we are from using senses. Tabula rasa... I don't think it was Hume and I'm pretty sure it was Locke. Ok so maybe I'm just combining random things in my head. I should pay attention sometimes.
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Post by Rose on Apr 22, 2009 9:16:49 GMT -5
Tabula Rasa was Locke and he was an empiricist but Hume is a radical Empiricist while Lebeniz is the opposite. Very interesting ideas. I won't ruin it for you.
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