Thoughts Arguments and Rants » Blog Archive » Philosophy in Questionable Taste Cornell students obviously have too much time on their hands. (And very soon I’ll be able to do something about that…) Back when I was a wee grad student, one of the jokes circulating the internet, and eventually stuck to the wall of the grad ‘office’ concerned the putative causes of death of various philosophers. (My favourite was Thales: Drowned.) In a similar spirit, Cornell students have started work on break-up lines of the philosophers. Here’s the list (mostly below the fold) Paul Kelleher sent me, along with attributions. The Teleologist: We aren’t meant for each other.
How to Learn & Enjoy Life More: The Power of Audio Learning A few months ago, while living in Australia, I was given an assignment by my boss I was not at all thrilled about: drive 5 hours into the country, meet with a client for 2 hours, and drive back that night. At first, all I could think was “wait, whaaat? You want me to drive 10 hours to meet a guy for 2 hours? Can’t I just call him or something?!?” It seemed like a gigantic waste of my time, but he was the boss and I, the employee, so I had to obey. That night, I sat at my desk. There had to be a way… And then, just like that, an idea popped into my head. 24 hours later… I’m back at my desk, an 800km round-trip under my belt. The last 24 hours, destined to be a mind-numbing waste of a day, had turned into one of the most enlightening days of my life. What the hell happened? I had entered the wonderful world of audio-learning. On the way there, I delighted myself with the audio version of the Dalai Lama’s The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living. My Mission 1) There’s Something For Everyone
Philosophy Now | a magazine of ideas How To Become A Hacker - StumbleUpon Copyright © 2001 Eric S. Raymond As editor of the Jargon File and author of a few other well-known documents of similar nature, I often get email requests from enthusiastic network newbies asking (in effect) "how can I learn to be a wizardly hacker?". Back in 1996 I noticed that there didn't seem to be any other FAQs or web documents that addressed this vital question, so I started this one. A lot of hackers now consider it definitive, and I suppose that means it is. Still, I don't claim to be the exclusive authority on this topic; if you don't like what you read here, write your own. If you are reading a snapshot of this document offline, the current version lives at Note: there is a list of Frequently Asked Questions at the end of this document. Numerous translations of this document are available: ArabicBelorussianBulgarianChinese, Czech. The five-dots-in-nine-squares diagram that decorates this document is called a glider. 1. 2. 3. 5. 2.
Belief in Nothing Nihilism confuses people. "How can you care about anything, or strive for anything, if you believe nothing means anything?" they ask. In return, nihilists point to the assumption of inherent meaning and question that assumption. Nihilists who aren't of the kiddie anarchist variety tend to draw a distinction between nihilism and fatalism. What is nihilism? As a nihilist, I recognize that meaning does not exist. In the same way, I accept that when I die, the most likely outcome will be a cessation of being. Even further, I recognize that there is no golden standard for life. A tree falling in a forest unobserved makes a sound. Many people "feel" marginalized when they think of this. Meaning is the human attempt to mold the world in our own image. This distanced mentality further affirms our tendency to find the world alienating to our consciousness. As a result, we like to separate the world from our minds and live in a world created by our minds. Nihilism reverses this process.
FOR OVER ONE HUNDRED YEARS AMERICANS KNEW PIT BULLS FOR WHAT THEY DID BEST. BABYSITTING. Part I. | Yonah Ward Grossman Astoundingly, for most of our history America’s nickname for Pit Bulls was “The Nanny Dog”. For generations if you had children and wanted to keep them safe you wanted a pit bull, the dog that was the most reliable of any breed with children or adults. The Nanny Dog is now vilified by a media that always wants a demon dog breed to frighten people and LHASA-APSO BITES MAN just doesn’t sell papers. Before pit bulls it was Rottweilers, before Rottweilers it was Dobermans, and before them German Shepherds. Each breed in it’s order were deemed too vicious and unpredictable to be around people. Part II of this post may be found at: My Fan Club:
Nietzsche, Friedrich Nietzsche was a German philosopher, essayist, and cultural critic. His writings on truth, morality, language, aesthetics, cultural theory, history, nihilism, power, consciousness, and the meaning of existence have exerted an enormous influence on Western philosophy and intellectual history. Nietzsche spoke of "the death of God," and foresaw the dissolution of traditional religion and metaphysics. Some interpreters of Nietzsche believe he embraced nihilism, rejected philosophical reasoning, and promoted a literary exploration of the human condition, while not being concerned with gaining truth and knowledge in the traditional sense of those terms. Nietzsche claimed the exemplary human being must craft his/her own identity through self-realization and do so without relying on anything transcending that life—such as God or a soul. Table of Contents 1. Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was born October 15, 1844, the son of Karl Ludwig and Franziska Nietzsche. 2. (i.) before 1869—the juvenilia 3.
Lojong Lojong (Tib. བློ་སྦྱོང་,Wylie: blo sbyong) is a mind training practice in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition based on a set of aphorisms formulated in Tibet in the 12th century by Geshe Chekhawa. The practice involves refining and purifying one's motivations and attitudes. The fifty-nine or so slogans that form the root text of the mind training practice are designed as a set of antidotes to undesired mental habits that cause suffering. Prominent teachers who have popularized this practice in the West include Pema Chodron,[1] Ken McLeod, Alan Wallace, Chogyam Trungpa, Sogyal Rinpoche, Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, and the 14th Dalai Lama.[2] History of the practice[edit] Atiśa journeyed to Sumatra and studied with Dharmarakṣita for twelve years. A story is told that Atiśa heard that the inhabitants of Tibet were very pleasant and easy to get along with. The aphorisms on mind training in their present form were composed by Chekawa Yeshe Dorje (1101–1175 CE). The Root Text[edit] Slogan 1. 1. 2. 3. 4.
Philosophy Now | How To Be A Philosopher Articles Ian Ravenscroft philosophizes about philosophizing. 1. What to Wear Philosophers rarely get worked up about clothing. Clothes can be a source of aesthetic pleasure, and few philosophers are adamantly opposed to pleasure. One of the intriguing things about authorities and authoritarian regimes is their fascination with uniforms and playing dress-up. 2. Philosophers eat all sorts of things, just like everyone else. 3. Anything you like. 4. To be a good philosopher you need to read a lot of good philosophy. Sometimes what you need to know is buried in an especially dull book, in which case you just have to grit your teeth and plough through. Over the last twenty years a large number of philosophical dictionaries, handbooks and companions/study guides have sprang up. 5. When I was an undergraduate I was told that philosophy was concerned with Truth, Beauty and the Good. There are philosophers who refuse to engage with scientific research which bears on their field of interest. 6. 7.
Create The Ultimate USB Rescue Drive | Not Just A Random Blog Ever been at a friends house and needed to edit a photo, but all they have is MS Paint? Or have you ever been at grandmas and she asks you to remove the hundreds of viruses and spywares (she got from clicking the “You’ve won! Download this for your prize” banners), but she has no anti-spyware software and still on dial-up? Well that’s where a rescue USB drive comes in handy. There are many programs that can be installed and run from a USB drive. You can even run entire operating systems from one, which makes it easier to remove viruses buried in current OS files. These make it much easier to find and run the programs off of your USB drive, but do not work with every program. Use these programs to edit images and view them. Microsoft Word does not come installed on most computers and WordPad just doesn’t cut it so here are some document based portable programs. My favorite section! These are must haves for uploading and downloading a lot or large files. Here are some system utilities.
The problem of evil, as described circa 300 B.C. In about 300 B.C., Epicurus eloquently summed up the problem of the existence of evil. It has come to be known as the Riddle of Epicurus or the Epicurean paradox. It was translated by David Hume in the Dialogues concerning Natural Religion: If God is willing to prevent evil, but is not able to Then He is not omnipotent.If He is able, but not willing Then He is malevolent.If He is both able and willing Then whence cometh evil?If He is neither able nor willing Then why call Him God? Tags: Epicurus, problem of evil Category: Good and Evil, Quotes About the Author (Author Profile) Erich Vieth is an attorney focusing on consumer law litigation and appellate practice.
List of unsolved problems in philosophy This is a list of some of the major unsolved problems in philosophy. Clearly, unsolved philosophical problems exist in the lay sense (e.g. "What is the meaning of life?", "Where did we come from?", "What is reality?" Aesthetics[edit] Essentialism[edit] In art, essentialism is the idea that each medium has its own particular strengths and weaknesses, contingent on its mode of communication. Art objects[edit] This problem originally arose from the practice rather than theory of art. While it is easy to dismiss these assertions, further investigation[who?] Epistemology[edit] Epistemological problems are concerned with the nature, scope and limitations of knowledge. Gettier problem[edit] In 1963, however, Edmund Gettier published an article in the periodical Analysis entitled "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?" In response to Gettier's article, numerous philosophers have offered modified criteria for "knowledge." Infinite regression[edit] Molyneux problem[edit] Münchhausen trilemma[edit] [edit]