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canikickit
30th March 2003, 03:21
Many moons ago, I posted a thread by the title of "The Meaning of Life" (http://www.che-lives.com/cgi/community/topic.pl?forum=13&topic=486). Here is the combination of everything I said in that thread, with some editing and additions.
Having started to read "1984", I have noticed many similarities between the concept of "doublethink" and the reasoning necessary to understand, or wrap your head around this perception. I have transcribed a few paragraphs from the book to show this. Please don't discuss the book in any detail, as I'm not quite finished it yet. After fifty pages, I had already decided it was fantastic.

Many, or any comments, criticisms, diatribes, or general discussion would be much appreciated.


I find that when one is discussing various things, such as "the meaning of life" and "where did the stars come from" and "what colour was god's hair", there comes a point after many hours of rigorous debate and discussion and much argument where you have are back at the beginning. You end up contradicting one of the core beliefs which you stated (indirectly or otherwise) to be true.
Nothing can ever be proven, the reason for this, my dear friends, is we do not possess the language or the neccessary comprehension to decipher some things.
That last statement is also true of this theory, therefore I am going to post it as it is and add to it, together with the debate of my comrades.



But saying that "nothing can ever be proven", well, that's just a case of absolutism, isn't it? Absolutely can or absolutely cannot. As opposed to relativsm, which holds that truths are subject to varying conditions,, what corresponds in one case may be entirely bollocks in another... - Suffianr

This is where the contradiction part comes in. It's like if you make the statement, "all generalisations are bad", that in itself is a generalisation.

"Nothing can be ever proven "

This is exactly because of relativism.

How can it be shown that what Hitler did was wrong? He was alive for thirty years, he made desicions, drank coffee, had breakfast, etc., etc. and he arrived at certain conclusions. Why does someone have the right to decide that that, and the result of his meditations is wrong. Why base your judgement from your own perspective? The answer is because we have no choice. Objectivity is impossible.

"We do not see the world how it is, we see it how we are."

Despite all this, I would still never say that Hitler was right. He was a madman. But when it all comes down to it....who the hell am I? Who is anyone to decide anything, all we can do is get up everyday and do what we do.

You have to take your brain out of your body.

That's why the circle is the perfect representation. It is infinite, and also representitive of the number zero. The number zero is the most powerful number. If you divide any number by zero, you get infinity, and no number can be divided into zero. I am captain zero.

Every debate, every conversation, every discussion, argument, every dialogue, is meaningless. They just go around in circles. You think and consider and reason, and then you realise you are in a different place then you started.

You will always find yourself asking the same fundamental questions which cannot be answered. Questions which are based on opinion, questions which are simply beyond the realm of human comprehension. How can one possibly attempt to understand life before there was an earth, for example? To understand that is to be insane. That is why people such as Einstein, Lee Perry and myself are slightly eccentric (varying degrees of slight).

If the debate stayed on the same topic forever, the people would be very, very boring. But the same topics would keep coming up.

Like if you talk about the existence of god, you always must ask the question, "what was before god/the big bang?" The thing is, "before" holds no relevance to humanity. Who gives a shit what happened "before"? It doesn't matter.

The circle is unbreakable. Everything is fundamentally the same subject, anyway.

The place this all originated is from long, long discussions with some of my closer friends. It only happens in a one on one situation, but there comes a stage after varying lenghts of time that you reaslise that you are talking about the same thing you were talking about before.

What I mean is; an hour and a half ago, you were discussing Palestine, then you talked about Northern Ireland, and now you are talking about whether or not you should be insulted by some passing comment someone made earlier in the pub.

Then you realise its all the same bullshit, and your asking questions like, "why does someone claim their opinion to be infallible above another's?"

It's all bullshit.

My friend was telling me that the biggest number is "quasiplex", which is a "1" with 100 zeros after it. (this is what his teacher told him). He said, what about a "1" with 101 zeros after it. Well, what about a "1" with quasiplex zeros after it?

Basically every theory, and what not, always has some flaw, some fundamental, unanswerable question which will either debunk the theory, or result in speculation and matters of opinion.

Except, of course, this theory because any criticism or questions can easily be incorperated into the reams of meaningless bullshit in my head. It all adheres to the circle.

The meaning of life is to live. Or exist, or run or walk, just to be (or not to be). The circle, is not a meaning, more of an answer, or explanation, or excuse. But it's true. Irrefutable.



Doublethink:
"To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfullness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them; to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy; to forget whatever it was neccessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to itself. That was the ultimate sublety: consciuosly to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word 'doublethink' involved the use of doublethink."

Iepilei
30th March 2003, 08:19
to understand any form of philosophy is to constantly think in circles. each side has a valid point which is capable of stopping a point, which is capable of stopping a point, etc.

the practice of argument is designed not to reach an exact answer to a specific question - however it's designed to reach mutual agreement from both sides. to reach a common ground.

you reach the first thing anyone reading philosophy must accept - and what every thinking person must know in order to be 'intelligent'. you must accept the fact that you know nothing, and be willing to learn more through any means necissary.

because we never know anything. all life is, is observation and application.

synthesis
31st March 2003, 06:17
My friend was telling me that the biggest number is "quasiplex", which is a "1" with 100 zeros after it. (this is what his teacher told him). He said, what about a "1" with 101 zeros after it. Well, what about a "1" with quasiplex zeros after it? This is what I'd always heard. A "1" with 100 zeros after it is a google, and a google of googles is a google plex. But maybe I'm just aurally dyslexic and/or retarded.

El Che
31st March 2003, 12:33
Extraordinary work 1984. Not for any profoundly intellectual reason but just the entertainment provided by the contemplation of the dark picture he paints. It is a dark and sinister picture but also a fascinating one. Perhaps it`s so interesting because we see how it could be true. If a small group of people managed to get total control over society even for a brief period and were successful (and I believe they could be) at implementing such concepts as desbcribed in the book they could change the very ability of people to think rationaly. I remember a philosophy teacher of mine giving a class on how language is thought it`s self as opposed to being a mere form of communication, a man born alone on a deserted island would still need to invent his own language as an operational basis for his rational constructions. No language no buildings or very rudimentry ones only. During the class I kept thinking about "Newspeak" and how wonderfuly Machiavellian a device it was.

About all the other stuff you`re talking about I think you have take it easy, first things first and one foot in front of the other.

Also, IMO, experimental science the least imperfect means of establishing relative truths but that doesn`t make it any less boring. If you want to work with philosophy you just got to understand you`re dealing with a whole different beast. It can be though a valid and useful way of establishing truths, it can and does work. I just try to stay away from self serving BullShit.

(Edited by El Che at 1:34 pm on Mar. 31, 2003)

Uhuru na Umoja
31st March 2003, 15:14
Quote: from DyerMaker on 7:17 am on Mar. 31, 2003
This is what I'd always heard. A "1" with 100 zeros after it is a google, and a google of googles is a google plex. But maybe I'm just aurally dyslexic and/or retarded.

I heard the same, but the point still stands. What has a google plex zeros after it? We could go on naming forever.

As for your points about relativism, I agree that any individual is no more right, necessarily, than Hitler. However, if the vast majority of the world come to the same conclusion, then we can state that he was evil. Just me or you saying so makes little to no difference; the almost universal acknowledgement of the fact does however.

There is a danger in taking reletavism too far, and not judging anyone, because our views are at least someone subjective. Still, we have a right - and in certain circumstances arguably a responsibility - to share or show our opinions. Some things are simply wrong, regardless of any cultural, personal or other precedent. I realise I am sidetracking this onto the issue of culture; however, this is where I often encounter relativism misused (eg. people saying, "well we can't judge that because that is their culture" ). Europeans have a tradition of pogroms against the Jews, which was - and perhaps still is - arguably a part of European cultrue, but does this justify it?

Also, as for the bit about dividing by zeros, it's not quite so simple. In certain circumstances dividing by zero would seem to give 0, 1, positive infinity or negativitive infinity. For example, what is 0/0? By the law that anything dividing by itself is 1, this should be 1. By the law that 0 divided by anything is 0, this would be 0. By the law that anything divided by 0 is infinite, this would be infinite.

Moreover, there are further issues regarding the size of infinity. Mathematically there are different sizes of inifity. However, I will not side-track further onto mathematical concerns that no doubt bore the hell out of most of you.

Your idea of all debates and arguments going in circles reminds me of Beckett. Have you read or seen any productions of 'Waiting for Godot'? It's brilliant, and - for those of you who have not - his basic thesis is that all life is meaingless and repititive. We go through the same meaningless habits every day with the illusion that our life has a meaning. He further points out, however, that what little meaning our lives have is not an absolute objective one, but is merely the meaning we give to our lives through habits. By posting of che-lives, drinking with friends, or whatever your habits may be you are giving your life a meaning, but there is no universal, absolute meaning.

Uhuru na Umoja
31st March 2003, 15:50
Like if you talk about the existence of god, you always must ask the question, "what was before god/the big bang?" The thing is, "before" holds no relevance to humanity. Who gives a shit what happened "before"? It doesn't matter.
This is a very interesting question. Have you ever read A Brief History a Time? Hawking uses physics in a interesting manner to try to answer metaphysical questions. Depending on how you interpret General Relativity and Quantum physics (and which you place a greater importance on), you may get different answers of what there was before the big bang. If you acknowledge that the big back came from a singularity, then there was no time before the big bang. Hence nothing that we could possibly recognise existed before, and this is a pointless question. However, Hawking basically suggests however that time is inifite, and thus the universe always has been and time has no begining or ending.

Regardless of whether it 'doesn't matter', I think the question remains worthy of consideration. To me the academic endeavour is what matters, not the usefulness of the results.

canikickit
31st March 2003, 21:17
I think it's spelt "googel" - no matter.

Yeah, I agree with pretty much everything you say, Uhuru. With regards to zero, I'm aware it's a little more complicated - the point I meant was that zero is a complicated number to mess around with. Maths can be quite interesting in general.

Some things are just wrong. In fact, the examples of Hitler are more for the sake of extremity - to make the point - it's more in everyday lilfe where the problems of inherent subjectivity come to light. Just interactions with people around you.

Beckett, eh. I think I have some of his films on tape here somewhere. I've been meaning to check them out. Thanks for the motivation. :wink:


El Che

It's funny, I found 1984 more interesting as an intellectual piece. The reasonings of doublethink, the thoughts about why the Party would wish to maintain power, etc., etc. (I can't remember what else, but there were a lot of things I just found facinating).

What was most interesting to me, was the appendix on newspeak (http://www.blancmange.net/tmh/books/1984/1984Append.html). The use of "ungood" rather than "bad", for example. Always to put the positive spin on things ("war of hegmony" or "war of liberation").
As well such words as "commintern", to remove the necessity of thought from certain words.


I remember a philosophy teacher of mine giving a class on how language is thought it`s self as opposed to being a mere form of communication

This made me think of something - have you ever seen a blues guitarist, or anyone with a lot of passion for music, take Jimi Hendrix, for example - as the play, their lips move, it's almost as if they are trying to talk. I'm quite sure the reason for this is the natural reaction to communicating is to move your lips. I just find it interesting how the most talented musicians that I've seen seem to have this habit. Because it is genuine communication.



About all the other stuff you`re talking about I think you have take it easy, first things first and one foot in front of the other.

I've been thinking about it for a long time. I always take it easy. :biggrin:

suffianr
1st April 2003, 05:17
You will always find yourself asking the same fundamental questions which cannot be answered.

You're right. I've given up on that entire aboslutism/relativism debate, it's just too ridiculous because no matter how "objective" you try to perceive things, you are still bound by your own predispositions. You're spot on; there is no such thing as objectivity, at least not in the broadest sense of journalists running around trying to set things right. In journalism class, we are taught to uphold such meaningless concepts, to believe that objectivity governs our ethics, our approach to fair coverage. It doesn't. It's just a metaphor, madee to simplify our existence, like that stupid spoon in the Matrix. There is, most definitely, no spoon.

But if the circle is unbreakable, and because there is indeed a limit as to how far we can progress, at least, intellectually, does that condemn us to recycling theory and philosophy?

Uhuru na Umoja
1st April 2003, 14:45
Beckett, eh. I think I have some of his films on tape here somewhere. I've been meaning to check them out.
You should - his ideas are really interesting, although his style is not to everyone's taste. He was very influenced by Sartre and existentialism. Also, for you Irish nationalists, he's yet another of your literary claims to fame.

canikickit
2nd April 2003, 00:07
But if the circle is unbreakable, and because there is indeed a limit as to how far we can progress, at least, intellectually, does that condemn us to recycling theory and philosophy?

I don't know. To an extent, because it's all just putting a label on, or trying to define the same stuff - life. I don't really think there is any new theorys on existence or reasons for being, because I don't think there is any motivation for us to be here. Why would there be? Of course when we evolve, it's impossible to say what will happen.

Uhuru na Umoja
2nd April 2003, 04:52
Quote: from canikickit on 1:07 am on April 2, 2003
I don't know. To an extent, because it's all just putting a label on, or trying to define the same stuff - life. I don't really think there is any new theorys on existence or reasons for being, because I don't think there is any motivation for us to be here. Why would there be? Of course when we evolve, it's impossible to say what will happen.
I think we can move forward to a degree. Yes, conversation and debate tends to be cyclical, but I think it does slowly move forward over time. Theories on existance have changed greatly over time, from basic Greek interpretations of 'I am, therefore I do', to Descartes' statement 'I think therefore I am', to the existentialist 'I do, therefore I am' (I realise all of these are gross generalisations, but they contain the gist of the theories). By discussing existance we can come up with different theories regarding it. None may ever be empirically proven, but our breadth of understanding may increase.

(Edited by Uhuru na Umoja at 5:54 am on April 2, 2003)