How to Play 3d Chess with a Checkers Education
Descartes’ legacy to all of us via philosophy can be labeled, I think, as rationalism (discovery of truth through pure reason), dichotomy (mind/body split), and certainty. Even though very few of us know anything about philosophy, almost everything we think results from the philosophy we inherit through social osmosis (unconscious assimilation). Philosophy theory permeates almost all of our mental gymnastics without our conscious recognition.
I speculate that we embrace Descartes’ legacy because it fits well for the ego of all humans, especially philosophers, and because it also fits well with the interests of the Christian faith. Descartes’ legacy makes it easy to place our self in a hierarchy of being with humans one step below God and a giant step above animals.
It appears to me that psychology would say that we are essentially creatures of desire rather than creatures of contemplation. A modern day Descartes, who was tuned into Freudian psychology, might very well conclude that “I desire, therefore, I am.
If we want to understand our self and our world we will necessarily have to learn some bit of philosophy and psychology. We become interested in philosophy when we begin to ask questions that go to the ‘root’ of all matters and we turn to psychology if we want to comprehend why humans do the things we do.
Someone said that only one person in a hundred ever “strikes at the root. I do not think a liberal democracy in a hi-tech world can survive if such remains to be true. Hi-tech gives us the ability to easily destroy our self and our world; liberal democracy makes all citizens to be sovereign and thus responsible in some small way for the integrity of our existence.
We are all in the same boat and if only one person in a hundred accepts the responsibility of democracy I think our species may have a very limited engagement on this planet. I think that we must become much more intellectually sophisticated than we are now and I do not expect that our educational systems can help us much in that effort. We must become independent learners.
Our educational system has not prepared us for controlling the great power inherent in this high tech world that we have created. Our schools and colleges have prepared us for checkers when our world has become a 3d chess game.
How to Play 3d Chess with a Checkers Education
How to Play 3d Chess with a Checkers Education
dichotomy (mind/body split)
A dichotomy is simply anything where for premise A, it is split into B and not-B such that only one of them can ever be true. "It is raining" and "It is not raining" are dichotomous statements because it cannot be the case that both are true at the same time.
The word you're looking for with with regards to a distinction between mind and body, especially in the context of Descartes is 'Dualism'
A modern day Descartes, who was tuned into Freudian psychology, might very well conclude that “I desire, therefore, I am. Desires are also thoughts, there's no reason to conclude that any cartesian philosopher would feel the need to change 'cogito ergo sum' when it is still the more correct statement of their intention.
Someone said that only one person in a hundred ever “strikes at the root. I do not think a liberal democracy in a hi-tech world can survive if such remains to be true. Hi-tech gives us the ability to easily destroy our self and our world; liberal democracy makes all citizens to be sovereign and thus responsible in some small way for the integrity of our existence. Who is this person? Why should we listen to them? Why should we believe them? From what have they derived that number?
The whole basis of a liberal democracy where everyone retains some degree of individual soveriegnty is that we are still willing to subjugate certain aspects of that sovereignty for the smoother running of the nation. This is why codes of law exist. As a collective, we've agreed to give up the right to carry an assault rifle, steal goods that don't belong to us, ingest intoxicants before a certain age etc.
Technology just makes it easier and more efficient for us to make intelligent choices as to which aspects of our personal soveriegnty are worth giving up and which are not. To me this is a Good Thing.
We are all in the same boat and if only one person in a hundred accepts the responsibility of democracy I think our species may have a very limited engagement on this planet.We've been here for something on the order of 0.0003% of the whole time this planet has been here. Just what kind of long-term engagement on this planet were you thinking of?
I think that we must become much more intellectually sophisticated than we are now and I do not expect that our educational systems can help us much in that effort. We must become independent learners. I find it a little ironic and potentially laughable that you have sucha persistantly low opinion of the education system, and of the level of intellectual sophistication of humans in general, and yet you want to leave this critical task of education to the individual, who you've specifically said isn't up to the task.
The whole point of education is that you can be taught by someone who knows more than you in a given field. Pretty much by definition they are going to do a better job teaching you than you are teaching yourself. Further, if only 1 in 100 people has this magic power you think is so important, sounds to me like 1 person teaching 99 is going to accomplish a hell of a lot more than 1 person teaching themselves well, and 99 people teaching themselves poorly if at all.
A dichotomy is simply anything where for premise A, it is split into B and not-B such that only one of them can ever be true. "It is raining" and "It is not raining" are dichotomous statements because it cannot be the case that both are true at the same time.
The word you're looking for with with regards to a distinction between mind and body, especially in the context of Descartes is 'Dualism'
A modern day Descartes, who was tuned into Freudian psychology, might very well conclude that “I desire, therefore, I am. Desires are also thoughts, there's no reason to conclude that any cartesian philosopher would feel the need to change 'cogito ergo sum' when it is still the more correct statement of their intention.
Someone said that only one person in a hundred ever “strikes at the root. I do not think a liberal democracy in a hi-tech world can survive if such remains to be true. Hi-tech gives us the ability to easily destroy our self and our world; liberal democracy makes all citizens to be sovereign and thus responsible in some small way for the integrity of our existence. Who is this person? Why should we listen to them? Why should we believe them? From what have they derived that number?
The whole basis of a liberal democracy where everyone retains some degree of individual soveriegnty is that we are still willing to subjugate certain aspects of that sovereignty for the smoother running of the nation. This is why codes of law exist. As a collective, we've agreed to give up the right to carry an assault rifle, steal goods that don't belong to us, ingest intoxicants before a certain age etc.
Technology just makes it easier and more efficient for us to make intelligent choices as to which aspects of our personal soveriegnty are worth giving up and which are not. To me this is a Good Thing.
We are all in the same boat and if only one person in a hundred accepts the responsibility of democracy I think our species may have a very limited engagement on this planet.We've been here for something on the order of 0.0003% of the whole time this planet has been here. Just what kind of long-term engagement on this planet were you thinking of?
I think that we must become much more intellectually sophisticated than we are now and I do not expect that our educational systems can help us much in that effort. We must become independent learners. I find it a little ironic and potentially laughable that you have sucha persistantly low opinion of the education system, and of the level of intellectual sophistication of humans in general, and yet you want to leave this critical task of education to the individual, who you've specifically said isn't up to the task.
The whole point of education is that you can be taught by someone who knows more than you in a given field. Pretty much by definition they are going to do a better job teaching you than you are teaching yourself. Further, if only 1 in 100 people has this magic power you think is so important, sounds to me like 1 person teaching 99 is going to accomplish a hell of a lot more than 1 person teaching themselves well, and 99 people teaching themselves poorly if at all.