A questionaire worth answering
artartart's personal philosophy questionaire
1. What do you value?
I value other people. I value their opinions and emotions.
I value trust.
I value honesty.
I value passion (not in the romantic sense).
I value platonic love between friends.
I value caring for one's self and one's surroundings.
I value humility.
I value compassion.
2. Where do/did your values come from?
My values come from a spirit within me that overrides my sense of self-preservation. This spirit might be called God, or conscience. But I think that God did not GIVE me these values. Rather, the values are one with God (God and values are like two sides of one coin). Thusly, my innermost being is God. But you wouldn't know it to look at my behavior.
3. Should other people share your values?
NO! ABSOLUTELY NOT! Tell them to get their own values!
Of course, I am being open-minded and non-judgmental in theory only. I'd like to say I don't judge others by my values, but sometimes I get upset when someone does something I wouldn't do, and I get uptight and disapproving and act like I am said person's mom.
4. Is there free will? Determinism? Both? How? And how does this affect the way you live your life?
Free will, yes, methinks. I am willingly staying up and filling out a questionaire even though I have to get up in four hours. I believe that without free will, I would always do what I ought to do, which I clearly don't.
I am a firm disbeliever in destiny. I don't think I was meant to be anyone or accomplish anything in particular, though I do think I am better suited for some things than others. But that, I believe, is a combination of genetics and upbringing.
Since I am a free-will type person, I believe that the choices I make DO matter, and that they'd better be good ones, because that will determine the nature of my life in the future.
5. Where does identity come from?
For me, I think it is a combination of genetics and surroundings. I think I am the Layna I am because I was born white and female and blonde. I also think I am the Layna I am because I was the second of five kids and because my dad is a physicist and because I went to Smith and because I am so darn lucky (I have food and a nice room and nice people around and good water pressure and a job...)
6. Is there such thing as truth? If so, what is it? How can you verify it?
Yes, it is verifiable through logic and intuition (intuition solidified by logic). I can trust my logic because it comes from my brain, which I MUST depend upon, and my intuition because it comes from my heart, which I choose to depend upon. Without trust in my faculties, I would be lost. I must trust them to speak the truth, or else I would go mad. Violently mad.
7. Is there such thing as knowledge? If so, what is it? How can you verify IT? Huh? How?!
You are very demanding.
Yes, there is also knowledge. This is truth spoken and taught to me by others. I can only verify this insofar as I trust in others. I always trust in others first, until they break my trust. And if they do, I seek out knowledge to gain from others, who I DO trust. And trust in others is similarly vital, for without trust in others, I would become paranoid and once again, go violently mad.
8. Is the present king of France bald?
It surely can't be true, for there is no present King of France. But if it is false, then one would suppose that the negation of the statement is true, that is, "The present King of France has hair (is not bald)." But that doesn't seem any more true than the original statement.
Is it meaningless, then? One might suppose so, because it certainly does fail to denote in a sense, but on the other hand it sure seems to mean something that we can quite clearly understand.
Russell, extending the work of Gottlob Frege, who had similar thoughts, proposed according to his 'theory of definite descriptions' that when we say "the present king of France is bald", we are making three separate assertions:
1.) there is an x such that x is the king of France
2.) there is no y, y not equal x, such that y is the king of France (ie. x is the only king of France)
3.) x is bald.
Since assertion 1. is plainly false, and our statement is the conjunction of all three assertions, our statement is false.
Similarly, for "the present king of France is not bald", we have the identical assertions 1. and 2. plus
3.) x is not bald
so "the present king of France is not bald", because it consists of a conjunction, one of whose terms is assertion 1. ("there is a king of France") is also false.
The law of the excluded middle is not violated because by denying both "the king of France is bald" and "the king of France is not bald," we are not asserting the existence of some x which is neither bald nor not bald, but denying the existence of some x which is the king of France.