i think that in any issue , surrounding life and living , there are more questions than answers. more doubts than clarity. more disturbance than peace. it happens everyday and concerns basic things like god (for those who believe in him), human, sorrow, happiness ... you name them. many among us , do not ponder over these questions and take these casually. yet, some among us,  seek to contemplate over these questions and look for explanations.
how do you experience philosophy?  please cite specific examples to prove your point.

Karma.

[Ok. This is a completely concrete example, and to explicate it, I take the risk some of you will judge me.]

Once, when I was a struggling little classical musician, there was this other kid, we're more or less in competition with each other.

I come from a less affluent situation by far than he. In fact, his dad embezzled great sums of money by being vice president of the phone company in that quadrant of the universe. Then was fired, and he sued, and won.

Ok, this allowed my buddy to have a very nice instrument, on top of his already very servicable one.
He never played the thing. He took over my gig at a mom 'n pop music store, teaching guitar. Leaving this expensive instrument, unprotected, at work when he left .

I clued this other buddy in on this outrageous fact. He stole the thing, and we took it across the continent and used that as currency to get established, when he accompanied me on the move.

fast-forward a lot of yrs. I have this other type of medium-priced instrument, by all means should be a servicable instrument. It won't stay in tune, it's a complete bear. ONE DAY some crackhead takes it, unprotected it was for 15 minutes.

I am actually relieved; 'cause what goes around comes around, I know this, and I am at least partially unburdened now. This forced me to get another ax anyway, and that one is a dream, and cost VERY LITTLE. In some ways I have good guitar karma, I guess. That crackhead is welcome to the bad juju from that intention and that action, at any rate.

It's accounts collectible and accounts receivable, and that seems real to me.

I think that that expensive guitar was bought with corrupt money, to begin with. Had a sort of bad karma for starters. My coveting of this kind of money is a bad intention. We took something that wasn't ours, at any rate. Which is a bad action.

The guitar that got ripped off from me wasn't the first bad instrument I struggled with. It is the first one I have been deprived of having, like that, however. Per the new one, I'm betta off now.

So, when I go on about the interdependence of things, in the abstract, as I am wont to do here, I have some experience to go on, it's not just a lot of speculation.

This is but one example, but it's the easiest most concrete one for this discussion.

Nota

Quote from: None of the Above on July 21, 2007, 03:17:48 PM
Karma.

[Ok. This is a completely concrete example, and to explicate it, I take the risk some of you will judge me.]

Once, when I was a struggling little classical musician, there was this other kid, we're more or less in competition with each other.

I come from a less affluent situation by far than he. In fact, his dad embezzled great sums of money by being vice president of the phone company in that quadrant of the universe. Then was fired, and he sued, and won.

Ok, this allowed my buddy to have a very nice instrument, on top of his already very servicable one.
He never played the thing. He took over my gig at a mom 'n pop music store, teaching guitar. Leaving this expensive instrument, unprotected, at work when he left .

I clued this other buddy in on this outrageous fact. He stole the thing, and we took it across the continent and used that as currency to get established, when he accompanied me on the move.

fast-forward a lot of yrs. I have this other type of medium-priced instrument, by all means should be a servicable instrument. It won't stay in tune, it's a complete bear. ONE DAY some crackhead takes it, unprotected it was for 15 minutes.

I am actually relieved; 'cause what goes around comes around, I know this, and I am at least partially unburdened now. This forced me to get another ax anyway, and that one is a dream, and cost VERY LITTLE. In some ways I have good guitar karma, I guess. That crackhead is welcome to the bad juju from that intention and that action, at any rate.

It's accounts collectible and accounts receivable, and that seems real to me.

what if the crackhead was the very same kid that used to be well off?  How does that affect the tale?

If one were writing a novel or a screenplay that would be considered gauche, it would be too pat a coincidence.

---

Of course it is a tale. In fiction, the full circle like that wouldn't wash, no one'd buy it. But my thought is that reality is just a lot of interconnected stories, at some level anyway.

In the context of the wheel of karma, samsara etc, it almost fits well, because of little Jimmy's arrogance and sense of major entitlement, with the thing.

But that kid was at times devoted to me, eg, would bring me weed in the middle of the night just by my asking.

Bad Karma. Not mitigated by the fact that he took over more than one girlfriend of mine after I split town.

I experience philosophy as my explanation for how I got here. What I am doing here and what is happening to me. I believe in the traditional interpretation for quantum mechanics which says the observer affects the reality and reality really isn't real because we have shown many times experimentally that locality can be violated. In other words, to a large degree, we create our own experience.

The universe is made up of particles. We have sensors that interact with these particles that help us detect some of them. We take this information, interpret it in our brains and come up with the universe as we understand it. The only problem is, we only detect a small number of these particles. Of all photons in the electro-magnetic spectrum, we only see a few frequencies. It's the repulsion of particles caused by electro-magnetism that allows us to feel particles. We don't actually feel them, we feel the repulsion between particles. This force allows us to touch, pick up, and move things.

Particles that don't interact electro-magnetically, pass right through things. Like the photons of x-rays. The point is, we are not certain how many and what kind of particles we are not able to detect. We know there is a lot of it. What we see only makes up 5% of the universe. When we measure the mass of things like galaxies, using gravity to measure, we find there is not enough matter to hold them together. We can't detect 95% of the matter. Apparently we just are not equipped with sensors to detect it. And so far we have not been able to find a way to detect this matter visually.

The point being, everything we think we know is really just in our brain. All interpretations of particles happens there. Everything else is by inference. It's like the dog trying to imagine a world in color which he is not equipped to perceive. Not knowing what color is and not having a way to explain it shows how there could be a lot of things going on out there that we are just not able to perceive.

For me, philosophy is my understanding of the universe I live in.

Love always,
Elizabeth

I don't experience philosophy.  It experiences me.

(come on, don't tell me you expected a straight answer from a philosopher)

I experience philosophy as wordy, technical bollocks.

(I cite for my example anything by a frenchperson who is not montaigne).

But pondering on the other hand is a pleasant thrum that is part of the ambience of being alive as road traffic and birdies.

(I cite the fact that I always burn toast, and it is often causality's fault).

Quote from: Pica Pica on July 22, 2007, 05:22:46 PM
I experience philosophy as wordy, technical bollocks.

Scuse me, but that's called reading, not experience.

don't you experience what you read? You must never get much out of a story...

But I had it talked to, through and at me as well. I experienced the horror alright.

No, I'd rather experience *the story* (or what you like to call reality), substantially more first-hand than that. Or at least go to the cinema. Second hand psuedo-experience, not my cuppa joe, unless there's motion and sound. Sound being a key factor.

More to the point, we were not speaking of 'experiencing fiction', the topic as I understand it is experiencing - the implication seems to be, one's own - philosophy, which to me is like apples and oranges.

You are obfuscating, dodging.

philosophy is not exprienced, it is just a game that is played, like chess, with rules and pieces and moves and such. Formal philosophy plays chess with words, more instinctual philosophies play the same game but with symbols. (Difference between a word and symbol? the sort of moves that can be made with them)

Well, my refutation to that has already been made in my initial post to this topic. The idea of karma derives from the Dharmic schools of philosophical enquiry, and I showed what I believe to be concrete experience [insofar as I will grant you that that is *more than just a story*], that bears that part out.

But that is only my experience. It isn't a proof. Of 'anything'.

How do I experience philosophy, by living life.
long you live and high you fly
And smiles you'll give and tears you'll cry
And all you touch and all you see
Is all your life will ever be.

note to m->-bleeped-<-ie: your 'experience of philosophy' appears to have been largely or entirely centered in the academic university, which seems to be quite limited, IE: to western, eurocentric schools of thought, which to me do seem to add up to your proverbial nothing.

i've had more experience of christian religion than anything else.

Well. After a certain definition, that would be called a school of philosophical enquiry. My reading of which is certainly too limited to offer a sound critique of, but it seems, on first or second blush, to contain one or more inconsistencies that tend to get swept under the rug.

just a few (hundred)

Yes, and I have my doubts accordingly. I won't throw the baby out with the bathwater, though.

There is a huge difference between what I have seen of the Gnostic Gospels and modern-day Christianity, which SEEMS to strenuously try to reconcile itself with Judaism, despite the bit where the Jeez says, there is a new sheriff in town, and I'm it. The New Law.

i understand the need for doctrine, it's unavoidable, but the Judaic texts are thought of as books of law, which to me is not so very much like your school of philosophical enquiry, as a point of embarcation...

IE: it doesn't look at arguments from more than the one side.

mmy own personal philosophy come complete with a Chapman-esque major who comes in saying, 'silly, silly, stop that. we will not have this in our ontology now where would it lead us.