[continued from previous message]   
      
   >>> evidence, as in empirical science. Since philosophy is not about   
   >>> empiricism, I'd say proof is probably it. There is of course a new   
   >>> branch of philosophy called practical philosophy, but to me, it seems   
   >>> more like a closet branch of sociology or psychology.   
   >>   
   >> I had never heard of practical philosophy.   
   >   
   > It is a fairly new branch of philosophy, about 100 years old or so,   
   depending on   
   > how you define it.   
      
   Kinda funny to me.  Philosophy is totally practical.  The impractical   
   philosophy is that which is nonsense---you can't make sense of.   
      
   I think it's the most practical of them all because it applies to what   
   happens most of the day---for those who don't ignore the stimuli.   
      
   >>>> If someone /rejects/ an axiom I came up with or a definition I wrote,   
   >>>> then there's likely little friendship there.  Friendship exists when   
   >>>> people go along with you without judgment.  Rejecting /or accepting/   
   >>>> anything is judgment, which is not friendship.  When someone proposes me   
   >>>> anything, I look at it without accepting it or rejecting it.  (Unless   
   >>>> I'm a really bad mood!)   
   >>>   
   >>> There is a theory of truth called the consensus theory of   
   >>> truth. Sounds as if that might be what you are thinking about?   
   >>   
   >> No.  Certainly not.  I have nothing to do with consensus.  Truth should   
   >> have nothing to do with consensus.  We can easily imagine an outrageous   
   >> group denying obvious facts.   
   >   
   > There are facts, and then there are "facts". Is it true that blue is   
   > the best color? Good luck answering that objectively. ;)   
      
   There are meaningless sentences and questions.  Chomsky constructs the   
   famous one---colorless green ideas sleep furiously.  Good luck trying to   
   picture that in any way.  Truth (and philosophy) is not about nonsense.   
   It's about honestly making sense of things.   
      
   Sometimes people take language to great abstractions, which should come   
   with lots of examples and simplicity.  If people fail do that, it is not   
   a bad idea to ignore it.  For instance, Kant is recognized for having   
   made the distinction between synthetic truths and analytic ones.  Have   
   you ever understood?  I don't think it too unwise to ignore all that.   
   But I don't mean it's bad work.   
      
   > Is it true that there is a coffee mug on my right on a table, yes! And   
   > if you were here with me, I am 100% certain that we would agree.   
      
   Of course.  There's no point in even questioning that for too long.  We   
   have so many other important questions to work on.  For instance, is   
   there anything bothering any bit of your days?  How could we give you a   
   better life?   
      
   >> I'm quite okay with the keeping ``truth'' undefined.  I may have some   
   >   
   > Even if your life depends on it?   
      
   My life would never depend on such intellectual matters.  Life depends   
   on food, shelter and relationships.  We could easily argue here that   
   you're likely valuing the intellect more than you should.  The intellect   
   has to be kept on the leash.   
      
   >> idea in my mind that I think it's totally true.  Perhaps I can't get you   
   >> to assert the same.  So what?  Does that keep in doubt?  So?  I can't   
   >> see any problem with living life with a little doubt.  Every now and   
   >> then it's a good idea to hang a question mark on those things we've   
   >> taken for granted.  (Have you located where Russell said this?  I can't   
   >> even be sure it was him.)   
   >   
   >>>> Excessive refinement in thinking?  They want a kind of super assured   
   >>>> certainty?  I think that's a waste of time.  It's not a waste of time to   
   >>>   
   >>> So do I. In 2500 years no such thing has been found, so I am quite   
   >>> happy and content to accept what my senses tell me. ;)   
   >>   
   >> Our senses also do make mistakes.  And some things can't come directly   
   >> from the senses---what we see in a microscope, for example.   
   >   
   > True, but just because we sometimes make mistakes I do not think is   
   > enough of an argument to refute completely the idea that what we can   
   > confirm with our senses is not the truth.   
   >   
   > When it comes to the microscope, it is true, but at the end of the   
   > day, we do use our senses to look into the microscope.   
      
   Totally right.  When it comes to information, it has to come through the   
   senses at least indirectly.   
      
   >> Even ``senses'' is a complicated word.  I met someone at the beach last   
   >> Saturday.  It's a person who lives very far from the beach---another   
   >> town.  For about a year and half, I've been thinking about (as I walk on   
   >> the beach as I always do) that I could someday meet that person by   
   >> chance on that beach.  But, of course, this is just fantasy because it   
   >> nearly makes no sense.  So, after my Saturday surprise, I was thinking   
   >> to myself---omg, how weird!  Do the things I imagine come true or is   
   >> this imagination a kind of premonition?  (Or just coincidence?)   
   >   
   > My theory, conincidence, selective memory, and priming your psychological   
   > filter.   
   >   
   > 1. Yes, sometimes it is just conincidence.   
   >   
   > 2. You think a lot of things, and forget a lot as well. If you think about an   
   > event x, and x never happens, you would have forgotten about it. If you   
   > envounter event x, after first thinking about x, you'll say to yourself, Oh,   
   I   
   > did think about x, how strange that I know encountered x.   
   >   
   > 3. When thinking about a thing deeply, you are in a way telling your   
   > subconscious mind to be on the lookout for that. So when you filter your   
   1000s   
   > of daily sense impressions, your usbconscious mind has been programmed to   
   > "trigger" based on what you thought about.   
   >   
   > Those are my 3 theories around why that happens.   
      
   My theory is that it's not that much of an improbable thing.  The reason   
   I imagine this specific person is likely because she's a pretty likely   
   one, in fact.  My imagination is never quite towards fantasy---it's   
   always towards making sense of things and making things reasonable.  I   
   probably choose to imagine the person that actually had some reasonable   
   probability of coming over.  But what I find very funny is that I guess   
   I was right.  And it didn't take very long for it to happen.   
      
   Now, I certainly maximized the occurrence of the event because I'm   
   always at the beach.  Nevertheless, though, it could be that somehow   
   that's not the whole story.   
      
   >> This is not the first time this happens.  But many of the other past   
   >> coincidences (such as this one), I have been able to explain in a   
   >> special way, which I have been calling long-range planning.  I can spend   
   >> years imagining a certain situation (a little bit every now and then)   
   >> and then I end up putting myself in a position where I can live that   
   >> imagined situation.  I could then claim to have materialized that   
   >> situation or that somehow my imagination was having a glimpse of the   
   >> future.  But I actually call that long-range planning.   
   >   
   > True! No hocus pocus at all! =)   
      
   You see, we have this preference for destroying mystery.  Other people   
   prefer the mystic.  We are more warranted in our preference than the   
   others are in theirs, but we should do it very carefully because   
   otherwise we're doing the same silly thing other people do.   
      
   >> But the beach event of last Saturday seems very much outside of my   
   >> control.  The most I could do is to always go to beach, which in fact I   
   >> have been doing lately...  Still...  It still feels totally outside my   
   >> control.   
   >   
   >>>> care for your math proofs, say, or removing bugs from your programs and   
   >>>> so on.  But rejecting the senses as in I don't know if really exist or   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)