socrates fans's topics - tribe.net

Books for sale

Josh_A — Fri, 14 May 2004 03:32:03 GMT

Hiya,

I have the following books available... please message me if you are interested.

MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers 4th ed.
by Joseph Gibaldi
Paperback
List Price: $13.50
Selling for: $2

Republic
by Plato, translation by Robin Waterfield
Paperback
List Price: $7.95
Selling for: $2

posted in socrates fans - 1 reply

Word by Him

Maggi — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 10:05:22 GMT

If all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap,
whence everyone must take an equal portion,
most people would be content to take their own and depart.
-Socrates-

Lov
Maggi

posted in socrates fans - 1 reply

Please help me argue Socrates' view that we should not fear death!.....

Tue, 10 Oct 2006 19:40:35 GMT

Socrates states that no evil can happen to a good person, either in life or after death; thus, death should not be feared. Things traditionally viewed as evil, such as poverty and death, are not considered evil by a good person because they only hurt physically. Thus, no evil can happen to a good person in life. A good person only considers damage to the soul, specifically, injustice as an evil. A good person won’t commit an injustice to avoid an “evil” such as death; thus a good person has committed no evil. Therefore a good person has no reason to fear death.

>>>>Please help me argue against Socrates. l need to argue that these arguments are not sound and therefore we should fear death.

posted in socrates fans - 4 replies

misfortunes

Maggi — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 16:10:23 GMT

If all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap,
whence everyone must take an equal portion,
most people would be content to take their own and depart.

-socrates-
Lov
Maggi

posted in socrates fans - 0 replies

Any Feedback would be Greatly Appreciated

themagician — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 16:25:07 GMT

Check out my blogs at http://myspace.com/iversonmagic

posted in socrates fans - 1 reply

Benjamin Franklin's "Socratic Method"

kanch_bud — Wed, 25 May 2005 04:59:39 GMT

I have some doubts Mr Franklin's method is based on Socrates himself. Who else in history or on this tribe has sought to model Mister Socrates and come to a sense of the quality of his "method"?

I just don't imagine S. is waiting for his students to stuff up so he can leap on them. It doesn't fit his character. Here is a man who, as Confucius said about himself, "In his passion for wisdom forgets to eat or sleep."

posted in socrates fans - 3 replies

Hi

Maggi — Sun, 13 Aug 2006 21:25:10 GMT

Hi

I am new to this tribe and very well wish to share the glory of this great philosopher long with you all

Lov
Maggi

posted in socrates fans - 2 replies

Know Self - Know God No self - No god

Don — Tue, 20 Jul 2004 10:10:51 GMT

KNOW SELF – KNOW GOD
NO SELF – NO GOD
By RD

Before we consider God’s existence, I think it may be wise to consider our own existence first. Once we have a handle on who we are; we can give God a fair shot. If God exists or once existed, wouldn’t God want it this way?

Unfortunately, most religions teach us that we need to first know God. Not just any God; but, the God that is neatly predefined for us in any of the major Holy Books. We are to simply believe these books are written by God and they have never been altered during the course of man’s bloody war torn history. It’s all in the book, just open, read, and believe and there is no need to search any further.

Likewise, atheist books teach us that there is no proof that God exists and again there is no need to search any further. Once we take either of these polar positions, we severely limit our perspective by placing these filters on everything that comes to our mind and senses that disagree with these definitions. Could these views be all wrong? Could we be missing something?

WHO AM I?

I exist to the extent that I know existence.

I know that I am a product of my genetic attributes and my environmental influences.

I accept that 50% of who I am comes from my genetic makeup and 50% comes from my environmental conditioning. Later you will see why the percentages really do not matter.

We have no control over our genetic makeup; so, 50% is a given portion. We have almost no control over our first 18 out of 75 years of our environmental conditioning. This means 62% of who we are (50% genetic and 12% of our conditioning) is in-fact totally outside of our control. This leaves 38% of who we are open to variation from the world during our lifetime. This variation is caused by the influence of everyone else in the world and every bit of recorded knowledge available to us.

During our adult life, we can chose to seek out new people, new lands, new countries, new information, learn new languages, cultures, philosophies, religions, technologies, and question the 62% we were handed to start with. We can also choose to accept one of the two extreme positions of God =1 per the holy book or God =0 per the Atheists and wonder why neither of these really seem to satisfy like a Snickers bar.

Depending on our fixed 62%, we may or may not even be able to think about this subject. We also can choose to avoid and deny everything outside of our established conditioning to avoid having to struggle with changing our established beliefs.

So, let’s look at the big picture of what is available to us and what we can and cannot expect to understand about the world we are a part of and what we can and cannot choose to include in 38% of our self identity.

Certainly the largest factor in determining our self identity comes from our geographic location. The people we meet, the lands we walk, the culture we experience, the language we use, the information we have access to is mostly dependent on where we happen to live on this planet.

LAND

We have a globe of about 144 million square kilometers of land mass. We tend to live our lives out in a small area of maybe 100 square kilometers or 0.00007% or 7 millionths of the land. We won’t fully experience 99.99993% of the land. Let’s not even consider that 75% of the earth is covered in water and what might lie in and under it. Since, our land is unnaturally divided into 192 countries, let’s simplify the geographic limitation to the country we happen to live in.

COUNTRIES

Our land is divided into 192 countries and we tend to live out our lives in one country. Visiting another country as a tourist on a tour bus for a week is better than reading a tour book; but, this really does not count much towards knowing life in another country. So, we won’t experience life in 95.5% of the world’s countries, we will only experience life in 0.5% of the countries. Every country has a unique culture and history and a wide variety of social, governmental, and belief systems. Which countries do we choose to live in or learn about and why?

PEOPLE

We have over six billion people to learn from today and we won’t meet or communicate with 99.9999 percent of them. Knowing 0.0001% or 6,000 people would be knowing one millionth of the current global population. Of course simply knowing someone does not come close to having them as a family member or close friend. Sometimes we find out we don’t really even know our friends and family members very well.

Also, estimates say over 106 billion people have been born on earth; so, we will never have a chance to meet the 100 billion who have been born and have passed away before we had a chance to meet them. All we can know from the 100 billion dead is compiled in our very limited and biased historical knowledge base. So, which 1 to 6,000 living people do we chose to know or learn about and why do we choose them? Which of the 100 billion dead people do we chose to learn about and why?

LANGUAGES

We have over 6,000 languages to deliver and interpret everything. We tend to only fully understand one language or 0.017% of all languages.

INFORMATION

We have a global information and historical knowledge base of over 65 million books (not to mention all the newspapers, magazines, films, video tapes, sound recordings, databases, etc...). An avid reader and consumer of knowledge may be able to read 8,000 books or three books a week for fifty years. This would amount to 0.012% of the current book titles which of course is growing at an exponential pace. We would consume an even smaller percentage of all the other available media; let’s conservatively assume a super human could conceivably have a capacity to consume 0.0001% (one millionth) of all available information in his or her lifetime. Just how smart do you think you are now? Does your holy book really fill in the other 99.9999%?

Additionally, at least 10% of all the available information (most of the latest information) is hidden from the average person as top secret or classified or intellectual property available only to those who can pay for it or who have special rights to access it. So, we are mostly limited to the well filtered and low profit information available to the public domain.

So, what books do we read and which media outlets do we choose to inform us and why?

Another way to look at this is to say out of the very recent 1,000 years of recorded history and living experiences, one cannot know more than 0.0001% or 8.8 hours worth of this information. Let’s not forget that 99.9999% of world events were never recorded and much of what has been offered to us as history is really only the winners side of every war man has waged against himself since we could take notes.

Considering all of the above, most of us will live our entire lives in one country, speak one language, and associate with a small number of people. We also tend to go to the same few mass media sources for our information. Since everything else is essentially fixed, our choice of information sources is the most important area of self choice we have. Unfortunately, our mass media sources are now the owned and controlled by an elite few global conglomerates. The goal is to attract the most flies to the honey and keep them buzzing around in a cloud of confusion and misinformation. TV is truly the ultimate form of control over the masses.

We simply must accept that we cannot know the vast majority of truth about man’s history and current reality. We must open our minds to new sources of information and make decisions on facts, logic, and lived experience and not allow the corporate mass media or government or corporation to do our thinking for us.

Now it should be obvious that once we reach adulthood, most of who we are is never going to change and a good chunk has essentially a finite number of highly visible and well filtered choices to consider in our quest for finding the answer to the question: Who am I?

Without freedom of speech, of press, of religion, and assembly and without free access to truthful information, we cannot make choices in our best interest. We cannot have a fair shot at knowing who we are, yet alone who anyone else is. We are forced to accept what the TV and government and corporation tells us about ourselves. We have to choose the lesser of opposing evils in every major political and financial decision we face. We never even notice that there is always a man behind the curtain laughing as he counts his ever growing income and assets while we blame everything wrong with America on the worker on the left or the worker on the right. We totally lose site of who we are as united American’s.

PROPOGANDA, ADVERTISING, and SALVATION

Our corporate, political, and religious leaders all bury us in propaganda, advertising, and the road to salvation. TV shows, radio programming, movies, newspapers, school books, and consumer products are more and more emanating from one mouth as the global conglomerates take ownership of every aspect of the information and consumer goods and services supply chain.

We are left believing our land is the best land, our country is the best country, our language is the best language, and the news station we watch is the best source for information. We start believing that everyone else can be understood by a few broad stroke labels such as liberal or conservative, Christian or atheist, Democrat or Republican.

All this misinformation does nothing but divide people into two equal and opposing camps thus eliminating any hope for “We the People” to come together, rise up, and conquer the wealthy elite minority that controls all aspects of our life on this planet.

We are reduced to making decisions based on emotional hot buttons that fit with our religious teachings or our acceptance and identification with one of the broad labels used to describe us. We have become slaves and easily herded sheep through misinformation and our freedoms are quickly disappearing.

So, now we must ask: Who am I? We look to our list of labels to provide a quick answer. Do you now think we may need to do some more homework to get this question right? If I said I was left or right or Christian or Muslim or Atheist would that be all you would need to fit me in a black or white box? Do you think we can ever answer this question if most of the information we pay attention to is provided for maximum viewer ship through market segmentation and not maximum truth?

DOES GOD EXIST AND CAN THE TRUTH STILL BE FOUND?

Well, to answer this we first have to remember how little we know about the world and certainly knowing 0.0001% of reality is a very large number compared to all that is not currently known about the world and the vastness of space, time, and possible other dimensions surrounding us. Certainly to know god would require at least acceptance of the measurable fact that we as individuals are not much smarter than single cell life forms when compared to the body of all known and unknown knowledge.

I would suggest we first define what God is before we try to determine God’s existence. Otherwise we will be looking for something we may never find. God is in the 99.99999999% of all things unknown to us. Every time I learn something about myself or our world or the people in it, I find another tiny piece of God.

God is the history that connects all recorded and unrecorded time. God invisibly connects all the living and dead and unborn together in a stand of DNA. God is larger than time, space, and matter and smaller than atoms and quarks. All these are limited and inconclusive pieces of an infinite puzzle. Only through questioning do we get closer to the truth about anything.

God is too vast and complex to equate to simple acceptance of a handful of holy books. It is time for the average person to rise up and break the chains of the ancient holy books. I don’t say to throw the books out; but, to keep them as a piece of the puzzle as you continue to ask questions. It is also time for us to cast off the chains of our corrupt new age mass media. The TV, Radio, and Newspaper have taken away our ability to tell truth from fiction and facts from lies.

Placing limits on ourselves or God is an insult to the intelligence given to us. The intelligence that asks why over and over and over until a logical and universally acceptable answer is given. To immediately arrive at a black or white answer about complex issues and people is not thinking, it’s accepting labels provided by people with a bigger agenda. An agenda to divide and conquer people, slap labels on them, and sell them something.

Yes, you exist and the real you under all the labels can be found. Yes, God exists and God can be found. Once you know yourself, God is no longer a label. Knowing God is accepting that God is everything unknown and only through questioning and discovery of truthful and unbiased information sources can you enjoy freedom and oneness with God and peace within yourself.

posted in socrates fans - 5 replies

Sew-crates

kanch_bud — Tue, 31 May 2005 12:18:57 GMT

I love saying that word! It's just sounds so, ooh, I dunno, IGNORANT.

O Suck-rot-tease fans of noble birth, how do you mispronouce "Sock-rats"??

posted in socrates fans - 0 replies

Today's Futureist

youngidealist — Tue, 08 Mar 2005 02:24:26 GMT

Hello fellow Socratic Philosophers,
In this topic I would like to raise a question to all of you out there about your thoughts on todays future. As disciples of Socrates we might find that our opinions of human nature, at least for the majority, end quite pessimisticly. This of course is coming from the writings The Appology, Crito, and Phaedo. Our future today is becoming more vastly reliant on the progress of science and machinery. I assume that you know a little about the theories that have exhisted regurding the phlight of man and technology. What then do you finnally conclude of our future? What do you think we should seek to worry about, take care of or prevent?

Here's my basic theory to start things off as well as to show you why I believe this is a good topic for a Socratic forum. I believe that although history is polluted with issues that would prove the common man unfit or unwise, technology will not necessarily give unfit power into the hands of fools nor will it necessarily turn those who have it into power hungry maniacs. I believe that, despite the potential struggles for power that await our future in technology, the wise will rule the earth. As Plato might see it, the philosophers will become kings. As wisdom begins to hold greater power with technology, I believe that soon enough the only law that will be able to be enforced will be a law of honor. When the potential for complete anarchy is droped into the hands of those who are of a higher intelligence such philosopher kings will become servants and even slaves to truth itself. Such is the fate of those who are wise. When they know truth as certainty they would sooner face death then deny what truth is to themselves.

If anyone wishes to criticise my theory while giving their opinion I encourage them to do so. I am currently taking my first philosophy class ever so please understand that while I may sound like I think I know what I'm talking about, I know that I clearly don't. If I knew enough then I wouldn't really be interested in your answers at all. As it stands, I know many things, but the fact is, that of these things I still don't fully comprehend all of my purpose for knowing them. So I will seek to know more and be inspired by those of you who respond to this topic.

-Steve

posted in socrates fans - 8 replies

I Robot

youngidealist — Thu, 17 Mar 2005 02:14:13 GMT

Clearly the topic here is to share ideas about A.I. (Artificial Intelligence). Do you think it's possible? What do you think are it's Limitations? Is there truely a separation of Logic, Reason, and the Soul? Or is it all just wishful thinking?

I won't give my theories here just yet. Just so you know I've been reading Issac Asimov's robot novels since the movie and I only have two more to go. Right now I'm reading Robot Dreams. My favorite short stories of his so far are "Robbie" and "Liar". In "Liar" I find my favorite robot yet, Herbie. but i won't ruin anything for you if you haven't read it.

posted in socrates fans - 0 replies

Astral Projection, Meditation, Alchemy, Gnosis, Etc.

denny — Wed, 24 Nov 2004 17:46:20 GMT

Hey all,

Free courses: http://mysticweb.org :)

Peace,
Denny

posted in socrates fans - 6 replies

euthyphro

Sat, 17 Jul 2004 02:30:02 GMT

hard read, but will try again later.

frank

next read: ion

posted in socrates fans - 0 replies

Socrates didn't write anything.

Don — Wed, 10 Dec 2003 09:17:22 GMT

Socrates didn't write anything. Are we too show our respect by following his lead :)

Socrates Rocks; at least he did according to the people he influenced and wrote about him.

If you stumbled here and want to read one thing about Socrates, please read:

http://www.4literature.net/Plato/Euthyphro/

If it's hard to understand, please read it again and again until you "get it." Once you see in your mind how this game is played you will realize 99% of everything we hear on TV and radio is one big mind screw. Start questioning things you think you understand and you will find you really don't understand much at all.

Dig for facts and demand logical conclusions; don't fall for the one liners, the jingles, the political speeches, corporate PR, marketing hype; its all about keeping you dreaming while the "invisible hand" of the "free market" takes away the life, the liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the America our descendants died fighting for.

God Bless Logical Americans

posted in socrates fans - 7 replies

socrates movie

Sat, 05 Jun 2004 16:35:17 GMT

isn't a major hollywood motion picture about socrates overdue?

who would you cast in the main roles? i'm not sure who i would, but i know who i would want as director: tim robbins.

posted in socrates fans - 5 replies

Let's Pull Together

Kandy — Tue, 27 Jan 2004 13:52:12 GMT

Evening, afternoon, or morning everyone. I hope you're all doing well. I was just browsing through the tribe listings, and happened to notice that mine is not the only tribe for philosophical discussion ( which I knew would be the case anyway ). In fact, there are quite a few tribes for the discussion of philosophy and other related topics, all containing around 15 members or less. I thought that it might be wise to try and pull together those small tribes to create one large tribe. After all, the more knowledge that is communicated, the more we learn. I figured all of you might be interested in helping me to create this tribe by joining so that we may find a place to congregate and discuss the things that riddle our minds. Feel free to visit A Tribe For Philosophy at atribeforphilosophy.tribe.net. Hope to see you there!

posted in socrates fans - 2 replies