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ORIGINAL: kdsub

None….unless conscious thought and sense of self can exist outside of the physical universe….this is the big question and if true is the only way consciousness will have true meaning in the end.

Butch

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ORIGINAL: Kirata

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ORIGINAL: rawtape

But, just out of curiosity, can I take your assertion to mean that a human being, reared completely in isolation after birth, will have, or be able to ascribe, meanings for social constructs (which is what TB and I were talking about)?

If you'll forgive me interjecting, I don't think this is anything we'll need to sort out anytime soon. A human neonate with caretakers is by definition not being reared "in isolation," and one without any is dead.



K.

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ORIGINAL: tweakabelle
A good introduction text is Lyotard's "The Post Modern Condition"

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ORIGINAL: Kirata

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ORIGINAL: kdsub

None… unless conscious thought and sense of self can exist outside of the physical universe… this is the big question and if true is the only way consciousness will have true meaning in the end.

There are indications from NDEs that have occurred under conditions of full cardiac arrest with no respiration or brain activity that consciousness, with our sense of self, perceptions, and memory intact, may not be solely dependent on brain function.

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ORIGINAL: tweakabelle

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ORIGINAL: Moonhead

Not wishing to sound snotty, tweak, but postmodernism is an art movement that's migrated from architecture into other branches of the arts. While the question of whether it actually has any inherent merit of its own, or is just a retreat from everything that was worthwhile about modernism is an interesting one, it doesn't have anything to say about philosophy, or the sciences. (In fact, there's a lot of cultural critics who feel that postmodernism's main defining characteristic is that it's incapable of saying anything as it's primarily a distancing stance auteurs can hide behind if they don't want to be held responsible for anything they might say...)

Sorry Moonhead but this falls a little short of your usual well informed standard.

Postmodernism, as 'singular' movement has many streams ranging from architecture, the arts and literary theory through to politics, the human 'sciences' and philosophy.

The philosophical stream resists accurate definition. As I understand it, a useful way of looking at it is; it's a series of perspectives that take, as their starting point, the impossibility of Truth. There is a particular emphasis on the philosophy of language (eg. 'discourse analysis' and 'deconstructionism') and the Language/Knowledge/Power nexus. This is unsurprising as Nietzsche and Wittgenstein are often credited as the primary sources of the stream of thought that has evolved into 'post-modernist philosophy'. Among its more notable and influential figures one might list Derrida, Foucault, Lyotard, Kristeva, Rorty, Lacan, de Lueze, Guattari and Beaudrillard. There are many others.

Like any movement of this breadth, it has its critics. Dawkins has been particularly savage though his writings on the subject lead me to conclude that Dawkins is either unable or unwilling to comprehend post-modernism at its most basic fundamental level. However, no matter what it's critics say, there's some pretty substantial stuff there to get your teeth into if you're interested. If I may I'd strongly urge you give it a try!

A good introduction text is Lyotard's "The Post Modern Condition"

For those interested there is a brief account of post modern philosophy here

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ORIGINAL: willbeurdaddy

"Of course you are, my bright little star"....

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ORIGINAL: Real0ne

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ORIGINAL: willbeurdaddy

"Of course you are, my bright little star"....

~Moody blues!

whats my prize? 

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The Sophist seems to be concerned with two things: being and nonbeing, on the one hand, and true and false speech, on the other. If speech is either true or false speech, it seems not even plausible for being to be either being or nonbeing, since we would then be compelled to say that nonbeing is as much being as false speech is speech. If nonbeing, however, is being, then nonbeing cannot be nonbeing, for otherwise the falseness of false speech would not consist in its saying 'nonbeing.' And, in turn, if nonbeing is nonbeing, the falseness of' false speech again cannot consist in its saying 'nonbeing,' for it would then not be saying anything. If we then say that nonbeing is appearing, and appearing is not unqualified nonbeing, being is being and appearing, and we want to distinguish between the strict identity which belongs to being and the likeness of' nonbeing to the strict identity of being. We say, then, 'Here is Socrates himself' and 'Here is a likeness of Socrates.' Everything in the likeness of Socrates that is a likeness of' Socrates himself will generate a true speech of Socrates identical to another speech true of Socrates himself.

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ORIGINAL: willbeurdaddy

Ahhhh, philosophy. The purview of pseudo- intellectuals pondering unanswerable questions because they've failed to find anything practical to do with their lives.

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ORIGINAL: willbeurdaddy

Ahhhh, philosophy. The purview of pseudo- intellectuals pondering unanswerable questions because they've failed to find anything practical to do with their lives.

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ORIGINAL: xssve

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ORIGINAL: willbeurdaddy

Ahhhh, philosophy. The purview of pseudo- intellectuals pondering unanswerable questions because they've failed to find anything practical to do with their lives.

Spoken like a true pseudo-intellectual.

The distinction between truth and falsehood would seem to be a cogent question if indeed one accepts the premise that meaning is distinct from non-meaning.

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ORIGINAL: willbeurdaddy
The only truths are found in mathematics. Meaning isn't distinct from non-meaning, because neither are absolutes.