Worlin's philosophy thingie

[zoel]

	0 (nonist)	1 (reductionist)	inf.(holist)
1 (processal)	Nihilism	Western Science	Mythology
inf. (core)	Postmodernism	...confusing	Most religions

Oh, I didn't have enough space in include processal nonist/core reductionist, but I don't think anyone actually is so it shouldn't matter all that much.

Oh, BC feel free to change this table if you can figure out how to.

[JerOD]

Okay, I'm not a member, but even if I was a member, I would have no idea how to vote. Could you explain this to me, your options?

[HCM Brain Candy]

Why did you bother to post this?...

[zoel]

You have to be a member, otherwise you can't vote.

[newyorkpattie]

don't encourage him

[zoel]

sorry, but we are a religion and our goal is to proselytize the masses.

[The Radical Communist]

Okay, I'm going to use an anology that should make this make more sense, (Actually this is an extended anology of the one I where I first learned of some of these concepts).
Imagine the universe as a big machine. We don't know how the machine works, or what it's purpose is.
Processal refers to beliefs to how the machine's inner mechanisms work; the individual pieces in their relation to the whole.
Core refers to how you determine a belief of the machine's overall purpose.
For specifics, in processal beliefs, the processal wholist views the inner workings of the machine as irrelevent. The machine works, other than that they don't care. Or, sometimes they view any attempt to catigorize and therefore demysitify the machine as sacralige.
The processals reductionist sees the individual componants as highly important. The pieces as a group determine how the machine will operate. A crucial aspect of the viewpoint is deducibility, that everything is deducible and thus knowable. The only reason we don't know some things is ignorance, which can be overcome.
The processal nonist veiws all the mechanisms of the machine as illusions or outright non-existant. Quite simply, nothing exists.
The core wholist looks at the machine and makes an assumption to its overall purpose, be it uniformed or arbitrary, some, like me, make an assupmtion because they know they can never fully know how the individual componats work together on the scale needed for core reductionism
The core reductionist would examine the machine piece by piece and make a judgement on the machine's purpose only after he's examined every last piece and how it interacts with every other piece. In essence, he has to physically know everything before he can make a judgement.
The core nonist views the machine's purpose as irrelevent, and simply lives on without caring. Absolutly nothing matters, nothing is of consequence, because the machine is irrelevent and meaningless.

[JerOD]

What machine?

[zoel]

...If we were to think of the universe as being like a machine.

[newyorkpattie]

Worlynn.....what's sad is that I actually found that very interesting....but I have yet to make up my mind, so I'll vote at a later time.

Since I have yet to make up my mind, I would like to hear some arguements from the different sides.....convince me!

[zoel]

Nothing can be proven therefore God exists.
--Logan's chief argument on behalf of processal nonism, core holism.

[theoogliemonkey]

Before one can examine anything, one must begin only with what one knows is fact. Otherwise you risk starting with biased presumptions, such as;
“only god could make the universe, therefore, since there is a universe, there must be a god.”
We do this to avoid such silly circular logic, which has no place in the theoretical universe. When one considers what one knows for fact, one should find that one knows nothing. All one can ever do is use senses to verify the existance of something. Which leads to the question, What's wrong with that? Well, beyond the simple fact your senses can be tricked into believing the existance of things that clearly do not exist? Nothing.
“Think of a movie. Are there people? Of course, that's what you see, and hear, but hopefully, everyone realizes there aren't actual people inside, just illusions of people.” (Sorry, I have to say hopefully in the hopes JerOD won’t come back.)
So, when one considers that the only basis that we have to interface with the universe is more or less bunk, one is forced to abandon all presuppositions. Am I writing this? I certainly think so, everyone certainly thinks so, and will probably react in accordance with the fact that it's been writen, unless you all chose to ignore me. However, since I cannot prove it without using anything unquestionably valid, in the theoretical universe, it can't be shown that I have.
Still, for those of us who plan on doing something beyond sitting and rotting, we have to make the assumption that our senses are right, at least most of the time, and that we actually understand the basics of cause and effect in the universe. This is why most people don't subscribe to such theory, using it in the universe we live in, simply doesn't work well for surviving.
All this comes to the point that we cannot do two things. The first is make beliefs arbitrarily and expect them to be right. We cannot start with false or unfounded beliefs, because they’re just that, false or unfounded.
The second is that we cannot trust our senses. This means we can’t really prove anything. If we cannot prove anything, then the universe, and everything in it, is purely your assumption, and not valid. Nothing is signifigant or important, because you cannot prove it exists or has happened. In short, we have no valid reason to believe that the universe does exist, thus negating…everything.

[zoel]

Ah, but we cannot negate our own existance... for any attempt to negate our own existance necessarily presupposes a 'we' or an 'i' to do the negating. Clearly, the 'we' or 'i' must have an origin (i.e. G_d) therefore even though the existance of the universe etc. is unprovable the existance of a G_d is nontheless asssured.

[Swanson]

Ah, just some random thoughts to completely screw everything up...

We haven't negated our existance, simply said we cannot be sure of it, and therefore cannot accurately continue on beyond that point with the assumption that we do exist.

Secondly, even if we do exist, and can presume as much, the we or I cannot be assured to have a begining, because you're using unproven reason.

Thirdly, that brings up the excellent point that the entire thing is unproven, because of itself. We used unverified logic to say that everything must be verified. This leads to a lot of different possibilties, probably more than I can image.

Finally, in the end, we're all just figments of hetfeld's imagination...with the exception of Mr. voigt. We don't know what he is yet...

[zoel]

I'm going to go with the Hetfeld thing...
If we are figments of Hetfeld's imagination and we exist, then there exists such a thing as a figment of Hetfeld's imagination. Because imagination is a creative act, and because Hetfeld is capable only of destroying not creating (emphirically proven), the creation must have been done by an entity outside of Hetfeld. A non-Hetfeld creating entity sounds close enough to the defintion of G_d for me....

[theoogliemonkey]

Ah, but you have failed to account for Mr. Voigt. We have a being incapable of being imagined by hetfeld, and dually capable of creating things, ergo, there only remains one option. Mr. Voigt, is God. Which means we can at this point derive for sure, God is in fact a pervert and has a very twisted sense of humor. Somehow, that fits much better than I thought it would...

[HCM Brain Candy]

Soooo... which one are you?

[zoel]

I am...
nope, still not telling.

[HCM Brain Candy]

I wasn't asking you, retard.
I was refering to Swanson... or possibly JerOD, even though it's fairly certain he has no idea what he would be voting for.

[zoel]

JerOD is obviously a core/processal holist

[HCM Brain Candy]

We know he's such, but I would doubt that he would know. You know, I think that true processal reductionists aren't really all that common.

[zoel]

no, not really... it's much easier to explain everything in terms of fairies and the like...

[HCM Brain Candy]

Far easier. It's amazing how stupid people are in trying to rectify processal holism and reductionism at the same time.

[zoel]

the evil pengun fairies make the quarks go round!

[HCM Brain Candy]

That sounds about right. Now how would a nuclear bomb work?...

[zoel]

...magic.
good magic, though.

[HCM Brain Candy]

Ahh... I finally have processal wholism figured out. It is the assumption that elements fundemental to human perception of the world are also fundemental to the way in which the universe actually works.

[zoel]

are you suggesting there's something wrong with that?

[HCM Brain Candy]

I don't know, is there?

[zoel]

it would depend who you ask and what you mean by wrong, I guess.