A New Philosophy

[wleg]

I am thinking out loud, attempting to understand how it might be possible to use this forum to test a prototype of a future “New Philosophy” forum that collects ideas to advance philosophical knowledge. The ideas must be connected in systematic order in a thread for the sum total of the ideas to create the knowledge. Obviously, ideas submitted that are of no value will clog up the ‘thread’, and there is no way I can delete them. The problem of senseless ideas clogging up the collection effort seems almost impossible to solve, but there may be a way.

First, the 'purpose' of constructing the knowledge must be clearly established.Thus, anyone who summits an idea is aware of ‘the purpose’ and can better judge for themselves if their ideas relate to that purpose.

Second, everyone must understand, that since their ideas are the result of their mental activity, their ‘ideas illustrate their state of mind'. Recognizing our ideas expressed in statements illustrate our ‘state of mind’ might establish some incentive to limit ‘senseless statements’.

Third, everyone understands their propositional statements have a ‘subject’ and a ‘predicate’ and each must ‘relate to the existence of the other’ plus relate to the existence of the specific knowledge being constructed. Else, the statements will be gibberish, demonstrating state of mind, and certainly not construct knowledge.

Constructing original knowledge is a tenuous stop and go process easy to derail, particularly when the knowledge being constructed is abstract and not about physical things where the physical senses can be utilized. The only tool available to construct ‘original philosophical knowledge’ is ‘systematic reasoning’ which no one is born with and has to learn.

This prototype project I hope will demonstrate the systematic process necessary to construct the knowledge everyone needs to understand the process of systematic/rational reasoning. This is the 'purpose' of the project and everyone can judge for themselves if their ideas conform to this 'purpose'.

Wayne Kelly Leggette Sr.

[thedoc]

Have a look at this for ideas,

viewtopic.php?f=20&t=11852

[Arising_uk]

You did this once before upon this site and all that happened was that you engaged yourself with a sock-puppet and found ways to not pay.

[wleg]

Doc, thanks for the info, I was not aware of the suggested thread.

UK, here is your contribution you would have liked me to pay for:

"Something can be or not be."

"Nothing can be and not be."

"If something then something else, and that something is, that something else is."

"If something is necessary then that something is."

"I am."

"I can speak and think in a language therefore at least one other exists besides myself."

Please send my $60 to the Mencap charity.

I was offering to pay for propositional statements I believe advance Philosophical knowledge. My offer to pay works like every day commerce, if I want it, I pay for it, if I don't pay its because I don't want it. Nothing devious about it.

Wayne Kelly Leggette Sr.

[uwot]

I don't think it's going to work, Wayne. In another thread you said:

I realize the characteristic that most symbolizes Philosophy is a diversity of ideas about the nature of the same things. In other words there is no consensus about anything. How then is it even possible to have intelligent discourse? How is it possible to have intelligent discourse about any philosophical subject when everyone has different ideas about the nature of the subject? Think about this; what if the digital system used by mathematicians was different for every mathematician. This is the situation that exists in Philosophy.

This is where I think you are going wrong. The 'digital system' used by philosophers is the same for every philosopher. It's called logic. Some physicists will hate my saying so, but philosophy has some analogues with physics in that, just as there are mathematical physicists and theoretical physicists to complement the bulk of professional physicists who are doing what Kuhn called 'normal science', there are mathematical philosophers (logicians) and theoretical philosophers (possibly what HexHammer calls 'cosy chatters') to complement the bulk of people doing normal philosophy. The difference being that normal philosophy requires nothing more than some mastery of a natural language and a wish to make sense of everything that's going on; to put it in a context, if that is not too much of a platitude. Anybody can do it.

The foundation for philosophical thinking in not digital, it is comprehensive universal definitions of abstract concepts

There is no more consensus in physics about abstract concepts than in philosophy, but while advances in physics are spectacular, people on the moon, smart phones and whatnot, people complain that philosophy hasn't made any difference in 2 1/2 thousand years. There are the odd throwbacks, who think god created man and women for different roles, or believes in the divine right of kings, or that 'race' tells you anything useful about an individual; stuff like that. A lot of people don't like the way the world has turned out, but it has changed a great deal, because people have challenged received wisdom, not least in physics; empiricism has swept aside the teleology of Aristotle. Except on philosophy forums.
Philosophers are very suspicious of people trying to impose their way of thinking or even just their definitions, but it is possible to have 'intelligent discourse', provided we stick to the rules of logic.

[marjoramblues]

wleg, Wayne or Kelly:

I am thinking out loud, attempting to understand how it might be possible to use this forum to test a prototype of a future “New Philosophy” forum that collects ideas to advance philosophical knowledge

For crying out loud, how many times...
It might be a good idea for you to summarise your previous threads; re-read all the relevant responses to your points raised.
Analysis and Synthesis. Go for it.

[Felasco]

Obviously, ideas submitted that are of no value will clog up the ‘thread’, and there is no way I can delete them. The problem of senseless ideas clogging up the collection effort seems almost impossible to solve, but there may be a way.

Consider the Letter To The Editor section of your local paper. All readers are invited to submit letters. The editors review the letters and publish the best ones. "Best" is of course defined by the editor of each paper.

This same model can be used online as well. I've seen it done in email, so you don't even need forum software. The email publication I read for awhile was on online business topics. Just as with the Letter To The Editor model described above, all readers were invited to submit posts. The editor of the email newsletter would send out a mailing every day with 5-10 new posts that he selected from his inbox. He published roughly half of my submissions. He would guide the conversations, opening new topics, and closing them when they'd run their course.

When I used to submit letters to my local paper, they would sometimes edit my letters, because um, editing is what professional editors do. When the lead editor did it, he worked minor miracles on my submissions. On the days when he passed the job on to his interns, strange things could happen.

The email publication took the easier safer route, and either published the submission in full without edits, or not at all.

I once wrote my own forum software and it worked like this. If you set a room to "moderated" all new posts would be emailed to the moderator prior to publication. If the mod liked the post he would click a link in the email to approve and publish it.

All of this said....

The main problem you will have in the beginning in marketing. Before you start investing a lot of time in software and policies etc give some serious thought to how you will find participants for your project. Plan to spend most of your time marketing in the beginning. If you don't like marketing, or think you won't actually do it, turn back now.

The good news is that you only need a dozen or so intelligent writers to create an interesting conversation. Unless your goal is to make money, you don't need hundreds or thousands of readers and posters.

[wleg]

Uwot, I agree when you say: “I don't think it's going to work”. It obviously won’t work if all time and energy is spent arguing with naysayers. For sure, the proof will be in the pudding.

Major, contribute a few ideas that form a foundation for realistic/logical Philosophy and for sure we can move on. Otherwise it’s going to be a slow tedious process.

Felasco, I agree with you, collecting sensible ideas is what it’s all about.

Understanding how to solve the difficult problem of accomplishing this is the purpose of this prototype project. And I agree again, the project only needs a few intelligent writers. I’m looking, and willing to pay writers who can solve the problems of Philosophy and make it realistic..

Considering the fact that writers have not constructed a single comprehensive definition of any philosophical concept is twenty-five centuries, one might begin to suspect there is more to constructing realistic knowledge than just writing. I will keep pounding the table about first understanding how knowledge is constructed by understanding the nature of the existence of the things we need to construct knowledge of. So far, I haven’t found anyone who understands the necessity of doing this .

How is it possible for any philosopher writer to be intelligent about anything he/she writes about without first understanding the nature of knowledge? If anyone can explain how this is possible, I will stop keep pounding the table.

Wayne Kelly Leggette Sr.

[marjoramblues]

Major, contribute a few ideas that form a foundation for realistic/logical Philosophy and for sure we can move on. Otherwise it’s going to be a slow tedious process.

If anyone is silly enough to continue feeding this eejit, then fine. I will not.

[Felasco]

Understanding how to solve the difficult problem of accomplishing this is the purpose of this prototype project.

- Leave this forum and get on with your project.

- Identify the topics you want to address.

- Identify the writers that you want involved.

- Take control over what is published, and what is not published, meaning all the power and responsibility will lie in your hands.

[wleg]

Major, thanks, it’s just as well, I didn't want to say anything, but what you have been feeding was giving this idiot heartburn.

Felasco, sorry to read you have no interest in participating, hope you change your mind.

Wayne Kelly Leggette Sr.

p.s., I would like a mod to delete all post except the first.

[marjoramblues]

wleg, Wayne or kelly

p.s., I would like a mod to delete all post except the first.

Groovy, man

For crying out loud, how many times...
It might be a good idea for you to summarise your previous threads; re-read all the relevant responses to your points raised.
Analysis and Synthesis. Go for it.

[aiddon]

The irony here is that the majority of people on this forum are interested in intellectual discourse, and though knowledge may not be advanced much, awareness of diverse ways of looking at the world does...except for wleg or Kelly or Wayne or whatever he or she is, who insists on perpetually boring me to tears. And people wonder why philosophy has become ineffective ...

[wleg]

Chuckle, “And people wonder why philosophy has become ineffective”.

Aiddon, I couldn't ask for a more welcome complement. If I can reverse and repair the damage to rational thinking, caused by the “ineffectiveness” of Philosophy, I will have realized my fondest dream. People as yourself create my inspiration, when they demonstrate again and again the need to think rationally.

Major, wleg is the first letter of my first name and the first three letters of my last name. I have used four or five usernames on philosophy forums since the late nineties. wleg, anon, Richard, kelly, not that it's of any importance.

Mod, this thread demonstrates how quickly they can become clogged and fragmented with post not useful to the 'purpose of the thread'. You have my permission to delete any post on my threads that you judge not to be useful to its' stated purpose.

Wayne Kelly Leggette Sr.

[thedoc]

Wleg, there are more Philosophy forums than you can find in a day, another forum would be counter productive. If you have a question or subject you would like to discuss, find an existing forum that seems to favor those subjects.

I am active on 4 forums, and registered on a lot more that are either of little interest to me or not very active. It's not much fun to post and then wait a week for a response. There are 2 things I usually look for in a forum, threads on subjects that interest me and activity. If there have been no posts for several days, I usually move on. But I would think that these are common concerns of most users.