my brother sent me this (ha ha you can see how bored some people are at work) and i thought it would be something dumb - but the dude that did this really did it proper, it was cool and any wannabe-philosopher (I got called that by someone once lol) will enjoy it (I formatted for presentation purposes but didnt bother getting the square root symbol):

1. Women = Time x Money (Assumption 1: a = b*c)

2. Time = Money (Assumption 2: b = c)

3. Women = Money x Money = Money2 (squared) (Derivation 1: a = b2)

4. Money = v—Evil (root) (Assumption 3: c = root of d)

5. Women = (v—Evil )2 (root of Evil squared) (Derivation: a = root of d squared)

6. Women = Evil (Conclusion: a = d)

As with any argument, if the assumptions are true and the derivations valid, the conclusion must be true.

And please, in advance, all of you ready to say “you hate women! you hate men! you hate philosophers! you hate pretentious people who call you a wannabe-philosopher! you hate people who overreact and have no sense of humor! etc.” just chill all right - I don’t hate anyone except myself sometimes. So enjoy it, thanks to my brother, and hats off to the guy who did it - it’s brilliant. (Yes, I enjoy nerdy stuff like this a lot. And no, I don’t get out much.)

Maybe it’s just me, but have these three questions, deemed ancient and unanswerable, seemed really obvious to you?

 1. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Duh, the chicken. Whether you believe in Creationism or in Evolution (I myself believe God created what He mentions, but leave the rest open as it wasn’t specified - I’m not sure about Darwinian evolultion specifically, but obviously things have evolved over time), the answer is always the chicken. No one thinks the egg “actually” came first. It’s supposed to be one of those annoying “This is the song that never ends” type questions, isn’t it?

2. If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around, does it make a sound?

Yes, I have heard the official reply of “well, if a human being isn’t there and is not receiving the sound, how do we know etc.”. How do we know? Because we don’t have to be there in every instance of something to confidently predict behavior. It’s egocentric to use a particular definition of “sound” to only mean “that which is received by the human ear” etc. That is equivalent to saying sight is only what a human eye observes, so if we are not there to look at something, it can’t have a shape or appearance. Therefore, since we observe that when a tree falls, it makes a sound, so if “a” tree (meaning a generic instance) falls, it should also make a sound. We do not have to cover wildly remote possibilities such as “But what if the tree was alive and before it fell, it ran away so there was no sound!” So, yes, if a tree falls in the woods, it makes a sound.

3. What is the sound of one hand clapping?

The answer is there is no sound, except if you want to get to a microlevel and register wind resistance, etc. In fact, here we go with the “sound” obsession again! If the definition of “clapping” is to just move your hand back and forth (whether it hits another hand or not) then, it’s nothing. If the definition of clapping is that it must hit another hand or object, then the question is either incoherent or at least undefined until specified by the questioner.

I’ve always been “deep” and “analytical” so I’m probably looking too far into these questions. All my life I’ve been told to “relax” and that I “think too much”. So I’m probably missing the point entirely here, but if anyone can explain these to me, I’d be much obliged. :)

[originally written a few weeks ago]

I don’t really believe in philosophy. But then again I do. Ayn Rand told me that I need philosophy. I don’t know about that. It all depends, of course, on how you define it.

If philosophy is merely thought or systems of belief, then yes, I do believe in it and have naturally partaken in it my whole life. But if it is that very lofty science studied in universities and dabbled in at coffee houses, then I actually do not believe it has produced much in the way of consideration. (By the way, my parents were appalled when they thought I was going into PSYchology, imagine their reaction when they found out it was PHILosophy.)

There are advances in science, medicine, even the arts if, aside from the early development of say, perspective, pushing the envelope and altering the way people view subject matter are considered advances. Yet, what are the recent developments in philosophy? Was it groundbreaking when Frederick Nietzsche declared that “God is dead”? The idea has been around since almost the beginning of humanity. I mean it was no modern cynical viewpoint - people rejected the messengers and prophets from way back. I guess he just had more elaborate reasons for positing his view. Maybe philosophy is simply the possession of eloquence.

So what’s new? The idea that philosophy is not as fruitful a science as one would have you believe has been termed “post-analytic philosophy”. Yet the irony is that post-analytic philosophers essentially utilize analytic philosophy to arrive at their conclusion. The basic idea is that every argument has an assumption, which of course, has a proof behind it, which begins with another assumption ad infinitum. One can never really prove anything.

But wait, I’m not necessarily saying that. Philosophy as a whole does contain some useful components. I do think logic is useful and often utilize it myself. It would be inane not to use logic in our daily lives – in court, in astronomy, even in other arenas such as politics and religion. So I do believe logic and reasoning have a place in life and are natural facilitators for thoughts and conclusions. I simply don’t think they are adequate tools to measure every facet of life. Some things defy logic or cannot be contained therein.

Aside from the obvious exceptions to the absolute dicta of paper-and-pencil logic such as love or faith, I mean I don’t even think philosophy capable of proving anything. I don’t even mean in the post-analytic sense, where I reject the idea as a logical impossibility, but I just haven’t come across a proof that actually works.

Let’s take Renee Descartes for example. I have the highest respect for this fellow. He was brilliant, a genius. Yet his famous proof “I think, therefore I am”, often considered by analytic philosophers to be one of the few bullet-proof proofs, often bewilders me.

First of all, I believe proving existence is a very different case than proving other things. For example, if you are saying that plants contain chlorophyll, and trees are plants, therefore trees contain chlorophyll – you are taking a subject: a plant, and proving something about it. However, when discussing existence, how can you “take” something which has yet to be proven? Are you not presupposing existence by referring to it or mentioning it? In this case, Descartes begins with “I”. The “I” seems to be well-defined for all intents and purposes yet the argument is supposed to prove its existence? It seemed a tautology to me throughout my college years (by the way I am a philosophy major dropout – surprise, surprise). So in logical terms he seems to be saying “A is B, therefore A is A” (A referring to the original subject, B referring to its state of being, and the conclusion proving what it presupposed).

Another point: since Descartes is actually using the “I” in both instances, can we not translate this into a mathematical supposition? He is basically saying: A is B, therefore A is C (A referring to the original subject, B referring to its attribute, the conclusion stating that A therefore possesses a second attribute). This does not make any sense mathematically. Can we interchange it then with any quality of existence? For example, if something is pink, then it exists since pink is an attribute or quality of existing things. So the cat is pink, therefore it must exist? Or “I eat, therefore I am?” (I think I’ve read funny T-shirts or mugs like that come to think of it! I think they had to do with golfing or something. Oh, how droll that a commoner can overturn an elevated intellectual *snicker* though probably unintentionally.)

In other words, is existence exclusively tied to thinking or can it be traced to other “existentially essential” attributes or activities such as “feeling” (which I think is one of the penultimate characteristics of human beings – think artificial intelligence; I don’t mean existence is tied to human beings, but that Descarte’s original problem was how would we know if we didn’t exist but were misled/deceived to think we were, thereby eliminating most sensory perceptions; perhaps he did equate feeling with thinking)? After all, there are a lot of things which exist which don’t think. Republicans, for instance.

For the record, I totally get what Descartes means, and is why I think this argument is brilliant and worthy of its fame, but “getting someone” just doesn’t seem to cut it for analytic philosophers. (I remember having a discussion with my professor where I exasperatedly asked, “Don’t you get what I mean?” and he said, “No”.) I think Descartes is right, just for the wrong reasons.

I remember in my intro to philosophy class we were talking about logical possibilities (particularly related to discussions about God). And we were discussing how ideas (such as God) could be incoherent- in other words you could have a concept which just wasn’t possible logically, such as a 4-sided triangle since a triangle by definition was a 3-sided object and if an object was 4-sided it defied being a triangle – hence a contradiction which couldn’t exist. And the professor went to the board and talked about all the “possible” and “impossible” things and what struck me is he drew a diagram on the board. So there we were actually looking at a sphere of “impossible” things which didn’t exist – and we were looking at them (well, looking at a depiction of a category of them) and talking about them, but they didn’t exist! I mean, it’s almost like they DID exist if you know what I mean. (uh, “no”)

Anyway, I’ve always been “philosophical” – people always told me I was too “deep” and I had trouble making/keeping friends due to my frightfully serious conversations and lack of social skills. I went into philosophy because it was natural, as I was always pondering things (in fact in my 2^nd year of college, when introducing myself as the teacher suggested by telling our hobbies, I precociously said, “thinking”, not meaning to be stuffy, but just honest), and I was never so excited as getting my hands on a really original, well articulated idea. I was an idealist, and felt that I could find the answers to life and then go and live them. I really ended up finding that while it wasn’t too hard to disprove almost anything, it was almost impossible to prove anything.

So it was a lot of fun, but not very useful. I still can’t really stay away from it, but I don’t think of it as anything more serious really than playing a game of solitaire when I’m bored. I remember a lot of Muslims telling me it would screw me up to delve into manmade ideas and that I would be misguided and lose my religion. I was naïve and thought that I had nothing to fear since I had the Truth. It turns out I was right to be idealistic, but I can see their point. I do think it’s not for everyone. But what I found out was that in the end, religion is one of the few things out there with actual answers.

So is it just me, do I just not get it? I honestly can’t tell. And I certainly couldn’t prove anything I’ve said here one way or another - I can only hope for the best, that I was “eloquent”. My brain sometimes feels wrapped around itself when I think too much. I figure either I’ve made some brilliant (ok, I’ll settle for good) points here or you have simply been privy to the ramblings of the insane.