Life too short for Philosophy?

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Hello Everyone

As much as I like discussing and learning about Philosophy I personally think that it can get a little to tedious and a bit technical. I mean disucssion is great and everything but why argue the facts of science and religion? Ok much of discussion are about theories too - it's never ending and there is no fresh material to explore it's the same old. You all know the saying, "Life's too short for arguing", so why use philosophy againsts it's self?

Yes I totally understand about "thinking outside the box", but we all have lives don't you think we just get on with it? Rather than sit on our asses all day infront of a computer screen arguing a toss over atoms and god lets enjoy life because it really is too short.

I would love to hear your opinions on this one.

Have a great day
Rhys.

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@The Joker006,

99.99....99% of common philosophy is a total waste of time, same old useless questions being asked over and over, for only endulgence sake.

There are indeed pragmatic and useful philosophy, such as Sun Tzu which most politics, sports, warfare, buisness and other win/loss scenarios will greatly benefit from.

1 Reply

@HexHammer,

Hello HexHammer thank you for your time to reply. I agree with you on the useful Philosophy but why do we keep banging on about it? Life goes on doesn't it.

Have a nice day
Rhys

3 Replies

@The Joker006,

I think there is a place here for both.

People come to A2K with questions they seek answers to. Some people just want the facts and nothing but the facts while others don't have any facts to give but enjoy exploring the question.

There are different areas of the forum for all. The problem we are currently having is knowing when a question is for the purpose of seeking facts and when the question is just a conversation starter for an exploration of thought. Some of us are getting philosophical with a questioner who is just seeking facts, some are getting scientific with a display of facts in a topic that purposes to explore the bigger picture. That slight difficulty will ease as we become more familiar with each other and the "newness" of it all. We'll be able to better recognize when a tree is just a tree for a garden and when it is a concept for theoretical discussion.

In the meantime, we could wear some hard-toed shoes to protect the tootsies from being squished when they are stepped upon as we clumsily find our way.

1 Reply

Life outta be lived, reflecting and chatting about how its lived shouldn't ever out number the minutes you spend actually living.

2 Replies

@The Joker006,

Rhys Arnold wrote:

Life too short for Philosophy?

Yes.

0 Replies

@The Joker006,

Rhys Arnold wrote:

Hello HexHammer thank you for your time to reply. I agree with you on the useful Philosophy but why do we keep banging on about it? Life goes on doesn't it.

You ask questions without wanting answers, that seems illogically.

0 Replies

@The Joker006,

Rhys Arnold wrote:

Hello Everyone

As much as I like discussing and learning about Philosophy I personally think that it can get a little to tedious and a bit technical. I mean disucssion is great and everything but why argue the facts of science and religion? Ok much of discussion are about theories too - it's never ending and there is no fresh material to explore it's the same old. You all know the saying, "Life's too short for arguing", so why use philosophy againsts it's self?

Yes I totally understand about "thinking outside the box", but we all have lives don't you think we just get on with it? Rather than sit on our asses all day infront of a computer screen arguing a toss over atoms and god lets enjoy life because it really is too short.

I would love to hear your opinions on this one.

I think this is a pretty lame question. To me it is nothing different than asking why a painter paints. Why are they wasting their time using brushes and paints? Shouldn't they just be looking at the world, instead of trying to capture it on canvas? Or how about a person learning to play an instrument, why are they wasting their time learning to play when they should just be listening to music instead?

Your question is just like an outsider questioning why a person has a particular hobby. It's absurd and shallow thinking.

It's like asking a history major, why learn history since its already come and gone? You seriously can not come up with a good reason to philosophize? The point isn't in arguing over a topic, it's to ultimately find a solution that works, but it doesn't have to be a full proof definitive solution.

Philosophy is also a great way to share aspects of mind.

2 Replies

@Krumple,

I totally disagree there. I mean why waste time arguing over the start of the universe and talk about the so called, "God", we have lives to live. Yes it's nice reflect upon what happens in life but at least appreciate it and stop mincing on about all of this technical crap - live it! There's many things life to do other than discuss stupid logical questions that not many people care about.

Much respect
Rhys

1 Reply

@Khethil,

Must agree with this point here. It nice to reflect upon life sometimes but philosophozing all the time is simply bollocks. It's just acting smart when the individual isn't really.

Have a good one
Rhys

0 Replies

@Butrflynet,

Here's an example from another thread that demonstrates the transition we are all trying to get through. The original questioner was asking for someone to edit a passage he'd written for his ESL education. Someone else wanted to engage him in a debate about the content of the passage and was informed that it wasn't written for debate, but for grammar correction.

JTT wrote:

Quote:
why would you use a controversial topic to discuss English grimmer? I am really missing out the the philo at least there i knew why people were there.

In order to learn a language, all topics are open to discussion and grammar, Krumple. Just look at the tags. If you see English/EFL/ESL/grammar/... you'll know that it's a language question.

1 Reply

@The Joker006,

Rhys Arnold wrote:

Hello Everyone

we all have lives don't you think we just get on with it? Rather than sit on our asses all day infront of a computer screen arguing a toss over atoms and god lets enjoy life because it really is too short.

I would love to hear your opinions on this one.

Have a great day
Rhys.

Yep, life is too short my friend, far too short to waste on triviality.

0 Replies

@Butrflynet,

Butrflynet wrote:

Here's an example from another thread that demonstrates the transition we are all trying to get through. The original questioner was asking for someone to edit a passage he'd written for his ESL education.

No he never did state in the post that he was looking for grammar check. The only way you knew, was by the tags. So why are you saying that he was requesting grammar check?

Butrflynet wrote:

Someone else wanted to engage him in a debate about the content of the passage and was informed that it wasn't written for debate, but for grammar correction.

Yes because the philosophy forum was destroyed which I am use to engaging people in philosophical discussion, which his post was geared towards a controversial topic. It seemed strange to me that someone would want to use a topic like that for grammar checking.

You have to admit, if the tags were not there, you would not have known if the post was meant for grammar check or not since he did not specifically state it in the post.

1 Reply

@The Joker006,

Rhys Arnold wrote:

I totally disagree there. I mean why waste time arguing over the start of the universe

In your opinion it is, but not for everyone. Just like you might think it is a waste of time for someone to solve math problems or learn human anatomy. Just because you don't care about it, doesn't mean that everyone else should not care. We just have reasons that you refuse to acknowledge so you call it a waste of time because you can't see the value in it.

Rhys Arnold wrote:

and talk about the so called, "God", we have lives to live. Yes it's nice reflect upon what happens in life but at least appreciate it and stop mincing on about all of this technical crap - live it! There's many things life to do other than discuss stupid logical questions that not many people care about.

Yeah there are lots of things that people don't care about, but we wouldn't have half of the things we have right now if there weren't people working on them. You might not care and many others might not care either, but they just can not see the value in it.

0 Replies

@Khethil,

Khethil wrote:

Life outta be lived, reflecting and chatting about how its lived shouldn't ever out number the minutes you spend actually living.

I don't know what this means Khethil. Am I dead while reflecting/chatting? And I don't think anyone spends the majority of their minutes on philosophizing.

Take someone who is depressed and unhappy, or someone who is energetically pursing a goal that will not bring what they want it to. Shouldn't they think philosophically about their life? How are they "actually living" in the way you are using it? The character Ivan Illyich spent his whole life "actually living" and at the end felt that he'd wasted it.

0 Replies

@Krumple,

The title of her thread was "Edit This."

She's been practicing her English on A2K for so long that I don't need to look at the tags. I automatically know that 99.9 percent of the posts initiated by her will be for assistance with English.

Many of her practice writings are about current events. She also reads through the forum here and posts questions about new English words and the usage of them that she needs clarification for.

It is very similar to people responding literally to Mark Noble's questions about winks and hand gestures, or HexHammer's challenge about the garbage men or Sunshine's question about why atheists are scary. They weren't looking for the literal definitions they got to their questions, they wanted to discuss the why behind the human behavior and examine reactions to that behavior.

You are more familiar with the unspoken (unwritten) idiosyncrasies of the people you regularly posted with on PhilForum than you are with the people who regularly posted on A2K before you arrived here. You are accustomed to everything on the forum being more figurative in nature. The people on A2K prior to your arrival are more familiar with the unspoken (unwritten) idiosyncrasies of each other than they are of the people from PhilForum. They are accustomed to everything on the forum being more literal

During this transition, we're on our first date, just trying to get to know each other and learn of the idiosyncrasies of the members and forum customs so we can make the merging of the figurative and literal more enjoyable for all of us.

1 Reply

@Butrflynet,

Butrflynet wrote:

The title of her thread was "Edit This."

I understand that, however; there are people who make thread titles that are no where near what they are discussing in the thread. To either grab attention or to try and use it as some off hand remark. I assumed that the thread title was something similar.

Butrflynet wrote:

She's been practicing her English on A2K for so long that I don't need to look at the tags. I automatically know that 99.9 percent of the posts initiated by her will be for assistance with English.

I haven't been a member here to notice any previous threads and the hang up was that I am not accustomed to noticing the tags of a post.

Butrflynet wrote:

It is very similar to people responding literally to Mark Noble's questions about winks and hand gestures, or HexHammer's challenge about the garbage men or Sunshine's question about why atheists are scary. They weren't looking for the literal definitions they got to their questions, they wanted to discuss the why behind the human behavior and examine reactions to that behavior.

Another thing I should mention is that in the Philo forum, some people would post rhetorically because they are afraid of criticism, so they use it as a way to avoid being pinned down to a question. I assumed that her post was similar in nature and as to why she titled the thread that, because I have seen members use a similar tactic.

0 Replies

@The Joker006,

Rhys Arnold wrote:

I agree with you on the useful Philosophy but why do we keep banging on about it? Life goes on doesn't it.

Think I have misunderstood the last part of your answer, please explain it.

0 Replies

I think we can all agree that talking about life is not nearly important as living it. Where philosophy is a good thing is in the reflection of that life, that existence.

Just as silly as it is to talk about it at the expense of living is the living without ever considering or reflecting one's philosophy.

0 Replies

Maybe talking about it for some is "living it" in a different and more meaningful way for that person.

0 Replies

Life too short for Philosophy?

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