First, I'd like the echo the sentiment that most of these could hardly qualify as philosophy. They're just inane rambling that sounds cool.
Incidentally, the philosophical point I wanted to bring up (my favourite, not my own), is how much of philosophy is essentially inane rambling that sounds cool. I don't mean that in an entirely pejorative way, since I think it's an easier trap to fall into than most philosophers (even well-established, renowned philosophers) realize.
My favourite point:
All of our investigation into reality is framed in language. It may be the case that all of our thinking itself is done in language (I'm not arguing one way or the other on this since it remains a contentious issue in the cognitive sciences). At the very least, we frame our questions in language. What this means is that sometimes you are not asking the questions that you think you're asking. When you ask "What is the meaning of life?", for instance, you probably don't actually realize what it is that you're asking. Because what this question really asks is "what is the meaning of 'meaning'" and "what is the meaning of 'life'" and how do they correspond? But these questions presuppose the existence of some vaguely Platonic concept of "meaning" and "life". Once we realize that the most meaningful way we can characterize the meaning of a word is by the contexts in which it is used, and acknowledge that its "meaning" in a particular context is therefore a function of that context, it becomes clear that what the question is REALLY asking is completely incoherent. "What is the meaning of life?" isn't a HARD question, it's just a BAD question: you've taken two terms completely out of any identifiable context by asking the question and it is, for that very reason, meaningless. When you bring this up, people typically say "oh you're arguing semantics", but that's precisely the point. All of our questions, all of our answers, are in language. You CAN'T ignore the semanitcs because your question might not be the question you think it is. (See Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations for what is probably to most coherent discussion of these ideas, among others.)
One more example from a discussion with a friend (I guess this counts as my own contribution):
The question - "What is consciousness?". Now, if we found a field around the head that such that people that had it appeared to be "conscious" and people without it appeared not to be, would that field be "consciousness"? My immediate response was "No. Not in the way you think it would." He rejected this immediately. The central question is this: when I said that someone was "conscious", did I mean that they had that field around their head? His argument is that I didn't realize that I meant it because I was ignorant of the discovery of that field, but I did mean it. But how can I mean something that I don't know of? Furthermore, how could I possibly have meant the field if it takes special instruments to detect. How could I have known whether to use the word? The answer is that what was discovered was not "consciousness" because "consciousness" is merely a word (or a concept if you prefer), it is simply defined by the contexts in which it is used. Now when things are DISCOVERED, this mistake isn't a huge problem: the situations in which we refer to this new field would be mostly identical to the situations in which we use the word "consciousness" - the words would be synonymous. But when you frame a QUESTION in this way, you're assuming that there IS some, say, field that exists in the same contexts in which the word is used. You may be looking for something that doesn't exist, but that this trick of language makes you think MUST exist. The folk theory of cognition is especially problematic as it is almost certainly wrong in many respects and it has words used in extremely complex and varied contexts. Thus when we look for "thoughts" or "consciousness", we need to be aware that these things might not exist, that we are being tricked into thinking that these are good questions.
Incidentally, the philosophical point I wanted to bring up (my favourite, not my own), is how much of philosophy is essentially inane rambling that sounds cool. I don't mean that in an entirely pejorative way, since I think it's an easier trap to fall into than most philosophers (even well-established, renowned philosophers) realize.
My favourite point:
All of our investigation into reality is framed in language. It may be the case that all of our thinking itself is done in language (I'm not arguing one way or the other on this since it remains a contentious issue in the cognitive sciences). At the very least, we frame our questions in language. What this means is that sometimes you are not asking the questions that you think you're asking. When you ask "What is the meaning of life?", for instance, you probably don't actually realize what it is that you're asking. Because what this question really asks is "what is the meaning of 'meaning'" and "what is the meaning of 'life'" and how do they correspond? But these questions presuppose the existence of some vaguely Platonic concept of "meaning" and "life". Once we realize that the most meaningful way we can characterize the meaning of a word is by the contexts in which it is used, and acknowledge that its "meaning" in a particular context is therefore a function of that context, it becomes clear that what the question is REALLY asking is completely incoherent. "What is the meaning of life?" isn't a HARD question, it's just a BAD question: you've taken two terms completely out of any identifiable context by asking the question and it is, for that very reason, meaningless. When you bring this up, people typically say "oh you're arguing semantics", but that's precisely the point. All of our questions, all of our answers, are in language. You CAN'T ignore the semanitcs because your question might not be the question you think it is. (See Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations for what is probably to most coherent discussion of these ideas, among others.)
One more example from a discussion with a friend (I guess this counts as my own contribution):
The question - "What is consciousness?". Now, if we found a field around the head that such that people that had it appeared to be "conscious" and people without it appeared not to be, would that field be "consciousness"? My immediate response was "No. Not in the way you think it would." He rejected this immediately. The central question is this: when I said that someone was "conscious", did I mean that they had that field around their head? His argument is that I didn't realize that I meant it because I was ignorant of the discovery of that field, but I did mean it. But how can I mean something that I don't know of? Furthermore, how could I possibly have meant the field if it takes special instruments to detect. How could I have known whether to use the word? The answer is that what was discovered was not "consciousness" because "consciousness" is merely a word (or a concept if you prefer), it is simply defined by the contexts in which it is used. Now when things are DISCOVERED, this mistake isn't a huge problem: the situations in which we refer to this new field would be mostly identical to the situations in which we use the word "consciousness" - the words would be synonymous. But when you frame a QUESTION in this way, you're assuming that there IS some, say, field that exists in the same contexts in which the word is used. You may be looking for something that doesn't exist, but that this trick of language makes you think MUST exist. The folk theory of cognition is especially problematic as it is almost certainly wrong in many respects and it has words used in extremely complex and varied contexts. Thus when we look for "thoughts" or "consciousness", we need to be aware that these things might not exist, that we are being tricked into thinking that these are good questions.
