3 ms·

I was talking about the royal you: we. But more importantly, "when" the question was first asked doesn't change the nature of the question. Sure, you (we) can a

by redial 8y ago

I was talking about the royal you: we. But more importantly, "when" the question was first asked doesn't change the nature of the question. Sure, you (we) can ask it, but it is no more insightful that the myriad of other metaphysical questions that have been asked through history that will never be answered because they lack a fundamental grounding in the shared experience we call "reality". Are there any blue reds? We can spend a millennia thinking about it.

pmoriarty 8y ago
"Are there any blue reds? We can spend a millennia thinking about it." It's pretty obvious that you can have blue reds: they're called purples or violets. Just squeeze some blue out of a tube of paint, and then some red, mix them together and you get a blue red. You can also have a black white: it's called gray. Anyway, I'd agree that one could ask any number of metaphysical questions, but it could be argued that only some of them would be considered "great". One (arguable) measure to use for the greatness of questions is how many people do they occupy, and how critical do they consider those questions. Whether one exists before birth or after death would be considered "great" by this measure, whether there's a blue red would not.
- redial 8y ago
  Violet is not blue and it is also not red. I'm not asking for a bluish red but for a 100% blue color that it is also red. You are misusing the language, or rather I am in this case, to ask a paradoxical question. Where are all the cat dogs? This is a never ending game because we don't agree on the language. This is exactly the realm of metaphysics. And greatness is in the eye of the beholder. To me greatness could be quantified by how much progress has been made in answering the question. After a thousand years and possibly millions of lives wasted trying to answer "is there existence before this life?" we are not one single iota closer to an answer. That implies a pretty bad question that is not grounded in reality, or at the very least not "grammatically" grounded in reality.
  - pmoriarty 8y ago
    "Violet is not blue and it is also not red. I'm not asking for a bluish red but for a 100% blue color that it is also red." If you're asking if there exists something that's 100% X at the same time as being 100% not-X, I'm not sure there's much to debate about it, as there clearly isn't (at least not in this world, where things can't seem to be themselves and not themselves at the same time). "You are misusing the language, or rather I am in this case, to ask a paradoxical question. Where are all the cat dogs? This is a never ending game because we don't agree on the language. This is exactly the realm of metaphysics." It's the realm of semantics (ie. definitions), but I'm not convinced that every metaphysical question could be reduced to a semantic one. If you take the question of whether one has some sort of existence (like, say, as a "soul") before birth, I think that question would still exist even after we'd agreed on the constituent definitions. Also, I don't see anything paradoxical in that question. Even were it paradoxical, its paradoxical quality would in no way disqualify it for me. Perhaps I'd be even more interested in examining it, as examining paradoxes has been a very fruitful approach throughout human history. "To me greatness could be quantified by how much progress has been made in answering the question. After a thousand years and possibly millions of lives wasted trying to answer "is there existence before this life?" we are not one single iota closer to an answer." There have been answers, they just haven't satisfied everyone. The same could be said of pretty much every other great question, no matter whether the answers come from science, religion, philosophy, intuition, or elsewhere.
    - redial 8y ago
      > If you're asking if there exists something that's 100% X at the same time as being 100% not-X, I'm not sure there's much to debate about it, as there clearly isn't (at least not in this world, where things can't seem to be themselves and not themselves at the same time). You found the loophole! Sad to see you abandoned so swiftly your own logic when the time came to evaluate your own statement. This is exactly why the metaphysical deals in the realm of ambiguity: once you define it in a clear and concise manner all the mystery disappears, and that to some, is no fun. That is also why a question like “is there life after death?” is uninteresting: by definition life comes before death.

by redial 8y ago

pmoriarty 8y ago

"Are there any blue reds? We can spend a millennia thinking about it." It's pretty obvious that you can have blue reds: they're called purples or violets. Just squeeze some blue out of a tube of paint, and then some red, mix them together and you get a blue red. You can also have a black white: it's called gray. Anyway, I'd agree that one could ask any number of metaphysical questions, but it could be argued that only some of them would be considered "great". One (arguable) measure to use for the greatness of questions is how many people do they occupy, and how critical do they consider those questions. Whether one exists before birth or after death would be considered "great" by this measure, whether there's a blue red would not.

redial 8y ago
Violet is not blue and it is also not red. I'm not asking for a bluish red but for a 100% blue color that it is also red. You are misusing the language, or rather I am in this case, to ask a paradoxical question. Where are all the cat dogs? This is a never ending game because we don't agree on the language. This is exactly the realm of metaphysics. And greatness is in the eye of the beholder. To me greatness could be quantified by how much progress has been made in answering the question. After a thousand years and possibly millions of lives wasted trying to answer "is there existence before this life?" we are not one single iota closer to an answer. That implies a pretty bad question that is not grounded in reality, or at the very least not "grammatically" grounded in reality.
- pmoriarty 8y ago
  "Violet is not blue and it is also not red. I'm not asking for a bluish red but for a 100% blue color that it is also red." If you're asking if there exists something that's 100% X at the same time as being 100% not-X, I'm not sure there's much to debate about it, as there clearly isn't (at least not in this world, where things can't seem to be themselves and not themselves at the same time). "You are misusing the language, or rather I am in this case, to ask a paradoxical question. Where are all the cat dogs? This is a never ending game because we don't agree on the language. This is exactly the realm of metaphysics." It's the realm of semantics (ie. definitions), but I'm not convinced that every metaphysical question could be reduced to a semantic one. If you take the question of whether one has some sort of existence (like, say, as a "soul") before birth, I think that question would still exist even after we'd agreed on the constituent definitions. Also, I don't see anything paradoxical in that question. Even were it paradoxical, its paradoxical quality would in no way disqualify it for me. Perhaps I'd be even more interested in examining it, as examining paradoxes has been a very fruitful approach throughout human history. "To me greatness could be quantified by how much progress has been made in answering the question. After a thousand years and possibly millions of lives wasted trying to answer "is there existence before this life?" we are not one single iota closer to an answer." There have been answers, they just haven't satisfied everyone. The same could be said of pretty much every other great question, no matter whether the answers come from science, religion, philosophy, intuition, or elsewhere.
  - redial 8y ago
    > If you're asking if there exists something that's 100% X at the same time as being 100% not-X, I'm not sure there's much to debate about it, as there clearly isn't (at least not in this world, where things can't seem to be themselves and not themselves at the same time). You found the loophole! Sad to see you abandoned so swiftly your own logic when the time came to evaluate your own statement. This is exactly why the metaphysical deals in the realm of ambiguity: once you define it in a clear and concise manner all the mystery disappears, and that to some, is no fun. That is also why a question like “is there life after death?” is uninteresting: by definition life comes before death.