NationStates Jolt Archive

This thread is a thread to share some of your philosophies. Make sure they are original if you say they're your own, or tell who made the philosophy if its not your own.

Mine: Fighting fire with fire makes the fire grow bigger

Guy Who Makes All The Awesome Warhammer Philosophies: There is no such thing as innocence. Merely varying levels of guilt.

Me:

Inefficiency-- the scourge of mankind.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you if you were in the same situation.

Mine: Fighting fire with fire makes the fire grow bigger

...apart from the fact that literally it doesn't.

perfection is a flaw (my husband says it a lot, I suppose it's no coincidence that I am a perfectionist)

...apart from the fact that literally it doesn't.
Lets see here. Take a log that's on fire. Toss it onto another log that's on fire. What do you know? A BIGGER FIRE.

Guy launches a nuke at a country. Country launches nuke at guy. What do you know? TWO NUCLEAR DIASTERS.

Country goes to gun war with other country. Other country gets bigger guns. First country gets even bigger guns. Other country gets even bigger guns. First country gets even BIGGER guns. And so on and so forth.

That which does not kill us, leaves us crippled.
(Nietzsche nearly got it right.)

Lets see here. Take a log that's on fire. Toss it onto another log that's on fire. What do you know? A BIGGER FIRE.

Guy launches a nuke at a country. Country launches nuke at guy. What do you know? TWO NUCLEAR DIASTERS.

Country goes to gun war with other country. Other country gets bigger guns. First country gets even bigger guns. Other country gets even bigger guns. First country gets even BIGGER guns. And so on and so forth.

It's the log and increased airflow which fuels the fire, not the fact that the log is burning.

It's the log and increased airflow which fuels the fire, not the fact that the log is burning.
Actually, I don't know what I'm talking about, but I should guess that what I said is true.

Lets see here. Take a log that's on fire. Toss it onto another log that's on fire. What do you know? A BIGGER FIRE.


Take a forest or urban fire which is burning out of control.

Light a small mangeable fire in its path to burn up the fuel which otherwise would increase the size of the first conflagration.

Extinguish the small fire.

The uncontrollable fire reaches the area of already consumed fuel and can no longer expand. It has already consumed the fuel behind it, and thus becomes smaller.

A SMALLER FIRE.

~Life sucks. Deal with it or stop living.

~There's no such thing as progress. You just trade one problem for another.

"If you truly hate yourself, you cannot love." ~NGE

"Reality, is perception".
-Me.

The measure by which you love someone is directly proportional to the ease with which they can hurt you.

That was mine. Originally stated, it was a lot more stuttery and not as well-thought.....took some time to cut it down to less than about fifty words for a concise picture.

Simonist']The measure by which you love someone is directly proportional to the ease with which they can hurt you.

That was mine. Originally stated, it was a lot more stuttery and not as well-thought.....took some time to cut it down to less than about fifty words for a concise picture.


I think the Beatles summed that up as well.

"and in the end, the love you make, is equal to the love you take."

To give something an identity is to give it a position. If you cannot place something relative to the world around it, you cannot identify it.

I think the Beatles summed that up as well.

"and in the end, the love you make, is equal to the love you take."
I dunno, I always thought of that more as a give/take relationship, as it's stated. Mine implies more that small offenses are inflamed into large emotional injuries when you care more about a person. I think that's why most young relationships go down in flames.

*deep breath*

Sympathy does not exist; it is mearly the emotions involved with the necessity of utility.

Everything capable of being known is capable of being false.

Perception is truth.

"How can you serve god [the spirits], when you cannot serve man?"
"How can you understand death, when you cannot understand life?" - Confucious x2.
*catches breath*

I'm sure I'll go back on those in about a day or two. My mind is never at rest :)

Coming up with a nice-sounding platitude does not constitute "doing philosophy".

Ok, here's mine. It might be a little clunky, since I haven't put it down in words for a while.

- Don't say that you wouldn't do what another person is doing, or that what they are doing is wrong, because you are not in their situation and you have no way of knowing what you would or would not do in that situation.

Yeah, a little clunky. But there it is.

Perception is truth.


Blatantly incorrect.

Perception only determines how one interacts with reality. It does not dictate what reality actually is.

Coming up with a nice-sounding platitude does not constitute "doing philosophy".
Well then it's a good thing nobody here claimed we were "doing philosophy".

Get off your high horse or get out of here. It's not like we're harming you and your smug slant.

"Reality, is perception".
-Me.

actually, the imperialists first came up with that.

"esse est percipi" (to be is to be perceived) - Berkeley.

Blatantly incorrect.

Perception only determines how one interacts with reality. It does not dictate what reality actually is.

This brings up the question of whether a philosophy or "platitude" has to be true to count as one. The Bible tells us that being homosexual or muslim is a sin punishable by death, but is that true? And if it is not, is it still philosophy?

Any person's view of the world can be philosophy. We still say that Aristotle was a philosopher, but we all know that some of the things ancient philospohers wrote about are not true.

This brings up the question of whether a philosophy or "platitude" has to be true to count as one. The Bible tells us that being homosexual or muslim is a sin punishable by death, but is that true? And if it is not, is it still philosophy?

Any person's view of the world can be philosophy. We still say that Aristotle was a philosopher, but we all know that some of the things ancient philospohers wrote about are not true.
Geez, PLEASE don't bring the Bible and shit into this. It will cease to be a nice, polite thread about people's personal mantras and will turn into a shitfest about who's right and who's wrong about God and everything. I rather prefer the mantra discussion.

Blatantly incorrect.

Perception only determines how one interacts with reality. It does not dictate what reality actually is.

Unless truth for you IS what you perceive. To an enfant, truth is what he or she can see, hear, smell, touch, and taste.

I'm not saying all truth can be determined by perception, but at least some truths can come from percetion, and there is NO truth without perception.

Four blind men were attempting to define an elephant. The first grasped it's leg and said "An elephant is like a tree!". The second grabbed a tusk and said, "An elephant is like a spear!". The third grabbed it's trunk and said "An elephant is like a snake!". All three then started arguing, punching and pushing and pulling at the elephant, all claiming that only they were right.

The elephant stepped on the first blind man, killing him as if a log had dropped upon him. The elephant gored the second blind man, it's trunk stabbing at him like a spear. The third blind man was strangled, the trunk choking out his life like a boa constrictor.

And what of the fourth blind man? He sat, and listened to the others, and smoked a (well, lets just make it a pipe, hmm?). And once he got up and had examined the bodies and the trail left by a rapidly departing elephant he laughed. For the three blind men had not only been totally wrong, but totally right. And, therefore, before he set off to follow the elephant he spoke:

An elephant is like a wide open path through a jungle. And it is also like a snake, a tree and a spear. Though I have chosen to treat it as a path through a jungle, I will not forget that there is more to the elephant than I have sensed, as well as more than any of the others sensed. I will not therefore call any who have felt an elephant a liar, unless they claim to know ALL of the elephant from a single touch.

Patience is a word invented by stupid people who can't think fast enough.

(Hows that for a mantra? And Spike Milligan wrote that.)

Simonist']Geez, PLEASE don't bring the Bible and shit into this. It will cease to be a nice, polite thread about people's personal mantras and will turn into a shitfest about who's right and who's wrong about God and everything. I rather prefer the mantra discussion.

I'm done with that. I was just trying to make the point that philosophy doesn't need to consist of facts to be philosophy.

I'm done with that. I was just trying to make the point that philosophy doesn't need to consist of facts to be philosophy.
The Christians get edgy around our major holidays. Tragic byproduct of all the attacks, I suppose......but I hate when good threads turn into tired old debates.

Simonist']The Christians get edgy around our major holidays. Tragic byproduct of all the attacks, I suppose......but I hate when good threads turn into tired old debates.

Yeah, those debates are never any fun. And I definitely wasn't going for that.

So, back to philosophy and reality.

A couple of people have said they feel reality and perception to be the same thing. The primary reason for that, I think, is that what is real to them is that which has a tangible existence. What we as individuals think of as reality is essentially a convenient generalisation of that which exists. There's no way the human mind can possibly know all there is to know in the world around us; both the microscopic and macroscopic are immesurably complex. Instead, what we do is take those aspects of existence with a perceived impact on us and call them "reality".

To say something is real is to say it has both a physical existence and a relative identity to our own.

So what about our own identity? I think we take it as an axiom. In a sense, we simply assume to know where it is, and from that it is a given to know that it must therefore be.

And what about Truth? Truth is not a real physical thing, nor does it have identity, yet we say certain truths are "Real". And to that, I reckon that truths and facts are not things in themselves but are rather properties of other things in the structure of Reality. To say that some fact is real is to say that it belongs to some real entity.

There's a name for the branch of philosophy that says that we cannot know about any reality outside of what we perceive, so the only reality that we have is the impressions we get through our senses. I forgot how it is called though.

Anyway, some of mine:
"Efficiency is institutionalized laziness" and "In the end, everything will be alright, for a given value of alright" (both mine afaik, but the formulation of the last one is inspired by a Terry Pratchett quote: "All tribal myths are true, for a given value of true", which, in its turn, is inspired by a way mathematicians formulate their theorems)

EDIT: oh I forgot: Descartes' famous "I think, therefore I am" is only true if you accept the existance of causality.

Empiricism?

EDIT: oh I forgot: Descartes' famous "I think, therefore I am" is only true if you accept the existance of causality.
It's certainly true within the context of the perceived reality that he was putting forward. If reality is what we perceive then what we are is real. That was essentially the point he was making in his meditations, and it has been kind of taken out of context as ideas of reality have changed.

No, you're thinking of solipsism.

And, just a brief nitpick: Solipsism is a "school of thought", not a "branch". Branches of philosophy are metaphysics, epistemology, politics, ethics, and aesthetics. Various competing ideas or sets of ideas within or across those branches constitute schools of thought.

Also, the truth of the aforementioned Descartes quote is not dependent on whether or not one accepts the law of causality. Whether or not one BELIEVES it is true is indeed dependent on that, but whether or not it ACTUALLY IS true is not.

actually, the imperialists first came up with that.

"esse est percipi" (to be is to be perceived) - Berkeley.


Congratulations, you have just won the Worst Use Of The Word 'Imperialists' award .

i THINK he may have ment emperialists...

but i can't remember exactly if that's what i want or not.


i personaly like "don't ascribe to malace that which can be easyly explained by stupidity" ... or something to that effect. can't remember who originaly said it.

here's another one "i consider humans to be idiots untill proven otherwise. . . sadly, all too meny provide evidance only of the truth of this statement, not it's falicy" me, trying to make it concise and stuffing it up a little :p

here's anothe one: "given sufficiant information, ANYTHING is predictable" ... i hhad an interesting debate with someone while playing CMC when i said that.. :cool: it may or may not be original.

I have come to a conclusion about self-consciousness.

From the pen of Exomnium:

Animals are capable of recognizing specific other animals in their species by sight, sound, and smell. Humans are no exception, we see differences between other people but not, say, different penguins. Humans, however, seem to be the only species that can learn about someone without meeting them, or really ever seeing them. This person is not really a person in the mind of this individual, but an abstract concept. Humans seem to be one of the few animals that can comprehend abstract concepts. This ability seems to go hand and hand with language, to a certain degree. I call these abstract persons, constructed persons. From birth we are told about this person that is us. We construct an image of ourselves from what we are told. We are taught to see ourselves in mirrors.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v719/Lacadaemon/vinegar.gif

http://www.angelfire.com/wa/tao4teens/images/vinegar.gif
I'm sorry, what?

I'm sorry, what?

Try now.

Study it. It's very profound. But if I explain it using mouth words you won't get the benefit.


i think you'll find the point is that the image isn't showing up.

all it's desplaying is "image hosted by angelfire" or something to that effect.

Study it. It's very profound. But if I explain it using mouth words you won't get the benefit.
Your right, it extenuates the "hostedness" while at the same time keeping the angelfire theme prominent.

Your right, it extenuates the "hostedness" while at the same time keeping the angelfire theme prominent.

Fix't.

From good must come good, and from evil must come evil.

That's the law of karma. I believe in karma.

Like one time, I took this test (I'm a student) and was confused by this question so I cheated off of the guy next to me, one of my closest friends. I didn't get caught, but I got an F on that test.

In retrospect, maybe it was just because I didn't study. :upyours:

From good must come good, and from evil must come evil.

That's the law of karma. I believe in karma.

Like one time, I took this test (I'm a student) and was confused by this question so I cheated off of the guy next to me, one of my closest friends. I didn't get caught, but I got an F on that test.

In retrospect, maybe it was just because I didn't study. :upyours:

I'm thinking it was the not studying.

I seem to be able to pass tests without studying. Either because I retain information really well or because I'm a good guesser. Combination of both maybe?

I can pass any test except math (which was the test I got an F on). Like, I understand everything, but unless I study I just won't get it. For all the other classes I'm taking (humanities, science, etc.) I don't need to study at all, and I get As. Wonder what it is with math? :confused:

I can pass any test except math (which was the test I got an F on). Like, I understand everything, but unless I study I just won't get it. For all the other classes I'm taking (humanities, science, etc.) I don't need to study at all, and I get As. Wonder what it is with math? :confused:

Math is a bitch. It's just because it isn't common sense. It's more complex that the other stuff.

My personal philosophy:

All we have in this world is ourselves and the enjoyment that we can obtain and that we can get other people to bring to us. Are only goal in life should be the personal pursuit of happiness. Spirituality and altruism are pointless unless they lead to this pleasure, which contrary to what many of their adherents think, often do not.

Subtle emotions are ultimately an impediment to reason and get in the way of a pleasurable existence. Thus, they should be controlled and suppressed as often as possible unless the exhibition of emotions will manipulate others into providing you pleasure in some way. Anger, fear, pride, avarice and lust (considered an emotion by some), are the only worthy emotions, as they drive us toward pleasure.

All the “injustices” of this world, property, hierarchy, distribution of recourses, etc, are inevitable and irreversible. Fighting them is pointless and will ultimately reduce the amount of pleasure one gets out of life.

The political applications of this philosophy are of course social anarchy and economic pragamatism.

My personal philosophy:

All we have in this world is ourselves and the enjoyment that we can obtain and that we can get other people to bring to us. Are only goal in life should be the personal pursuit of happiness. Spirituality and altruism are pointless unless they lead to this pleasure, which contrary to what many of their adherents think, often do not.

Subtle emotions are ultimately an impediment to reason and get in the way of a pleasurable existence. Thus, they should be controlled and suppressed as often as possible unless the exhibition of emotions will manipulate others into providing you pleasure in some way. Anger, fear, pride, avarice and lust (considered an emotion by some), are the only worthy emotions, as they drive us toward pleasure.

All the “injustices” of this world, property, hierarchy, distribution of recourses, etc, are inevitable and irreversible. Fighting them is pointless and will ultimately reduce the amount of pleasure one gets out of life.

The political applications of this philosophy are of course social anarchy and economic pragamatism.

You should read Epicurus.

You should read Epicurus.
Maybe I should.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, but ask first 'cause they might not be into BDSM...