Basic Philosophical Questions Discussion

[Sodacrates]

Reading through a lot of this forum, I find most bluelighters to be very spiritual in one way or another, and they happen to like sharing their inner beliefs with other bluelighters (which is not at all surprisingly considering this forum is meant to act as a support group for harm reduction). My spirituality is philosophy. I find the history of human thought to be fascinating to a transcendental level. I'm curious to what positions bluelighters will take on the big questions in Western Philosophy.

Let's start with the most obvious. Why is there something instead of Nothing. I don't think this needs an explanation and everyone will probably have an answer from I don't know, to some sort of theistic answer and maybe even a few "quantum fluctuations" types. I am curious to what the general opinion on this forum will be.

A very famous philosopher named Quine once said, "To be, is to be the value of a bound variable." Quine pretty much, single handed, opened up Metaphysics for discussion after quite a long time of philosophers viewing it as pointless. That statement is confusing if you don't understand realism. Quine doesn't believe, anything that doesn't physically exist, exists. Most people probably think the number 4 exists, but Quine would say, while that seems superficially appealing, if the number 4 exists, then so does every other concept and thought. He postulates that we speak incorrectly about ontology and we really shouldn't describe concepts as existing entities. In his essay, he is very against saying Pegasus has the quality of non-existence, because for it to have that quality, it has to be able to have qualities. Realism is fairly complex and I can't do it justice here, but it's a major view held, probably, by quite a few of you. The other big metaphysical position (there are, of course, more than two, but these two represent opposite ends of the spectrum) is Platonism. Plato would say that the number 4 does actually exist in a different realm. Many Platonist today, might not believe in an entirely separate world where perfect entities exist, but they claim 4 does exist (thought Roger Penrose, a very famous physicist right up there with Witten and Hawkins, quite literally does believe in a separate realm, where entities that we are only bad copies of exist; it's a very mathematical philosophy). So, this question is a glimpse into your own metaphysical position (even if you've never thought about it before, I'm sure you have an opinion). Does the number 4 hold the quality of existence?

I think I'll end with my favorite, is mathematics representative of the actual world? Some think Mathematics are the rules in which the universe operates, some think that they are rules we made up to explain the universe and some have yet other opinions. I'm curious to what all of you think.

Maybe later, me, or someone else can post more. These are ontology/metaphysics based, which everyone tends to have strong opinions on. There are at least two other big fields, and many unrelated minor questions that I'd like to know Bluelighters opinions on. Those two fields are epistemology and ethics. So I guess, I will ask those later. And anyone else who wants to ask some open-ended philosophical question please feel free. I'd be happy to know the questions all of you thought about. (And some may have noticed that I ended my first question with a period. That's not a typo; any question I believe even might be unanswerable, I don't feel honest using a question mark).

 

[P A]

Sorry man, but these are all wildly divergent topics, ranging from epistemology to metaphysics. Furthermore, many of them are far from what anyone could reasonably consider 'basic.' Judging solely from the content of this post, you seem fairly intelligent, eloquent, and well-read (most people, for instance, have never heard the name Willard Quine).

However, both the content and intent of your post are in direct conflict with the P&S Forum Guidelines [cf. the Addenda, entry 2]:

Narrow your scope. Try to avoid "universals" like the dreaded "Does God Exist?". Not only are these discussions bound to appear in one form or another in more well-defined threads where they actually have a purpose, but also can be found in already-existing threads by searching for them. In other words, if it's a big question, it probably already has a big thread, so UTFSE.

Despite my enthusiasm for your proposed thread topics, I'm afraid I'll have to close this one. With that said, I'm of the unreserved opinion that every single topic you raised in your OP deserves an independent thread of its own. Incidentally, the philosophy of mathematics is one of my all-time favorite epistemological topics; feel perfectly free to make such threads at your own convenience. Again, I don't wish to discourage you from making further contributions here - just slow down and keep it specific.

[I've copied the above and sent it to you as a PM, just to be sure you got the message; sorry for any potential redundancy]