Is Speculative Realism Worth Understanding?
 

I've read the wiki entry and still can't quite work out what it's all about. If anyone can help explain to me what an 'object centred' philosophy that's 'resistant to philosophies of human finitude' means (and if it's actually worth bothering with) without simply linking me to an equally vague website, I'd be seriously grateful.

I see it as a fundamental core of reclaiming Kantian metaphysics without recourse to 'suppressed narratives' of Theism, viz, a 'properly' atheist outlook that doesn't even admit the possibility of Theism (unlike Dawkins, for my money). Object centered philosophy is kind of a way of talking about 'the real' (as such) without recourse to the kind of metaphysical jumps that Adorno criticises Kant for. It's possibly not as volatile an Atheism as Dawkins, but much, much stronger - (to my mind) it removes even the possibility of Theism entering the dialogue, vernacular, semiotic or suppressed predicates of a general metaphysics.

Hamilton-Grant is great (first translator of Lyotard!), as is Meillassoux, but I'm unsure about the others, and Collapse is really, really patchy.

(Clear as mud, no doubt)

it sounds like looking at a discoball and keep thinking about 'something'

is philosophy not outdated in these modern days
like the F16 that i have seen flying today
looked like oldtimers
the army made the wrong investments
they better had invested in the drones they have today
(ofcourse it would be better if there was no war ever)

metaphisical realism is like an experience like sex
chemical reaction happen in the brain
and that is that

in the infinite universe nothing happend
the morning of the next day is always the same
no matter what chemical reactions are happening in the brain

the modern sober thinking is sterelized information
when information comes into my brain
for example of a cel devision under a microscoop
sterilazed information = a cel division . [end information]

if a human sees a spirit or a reincarnated soul or something else growing in that bacteria activity
then that is information pollution

that is how i think
sterlize information = cut the endless crap

Yeah, that's also true. Something to think about.

Thanks to both of you.


I don't see how it can be. Certain philosophical positions can obviously be outdated (even if they're usually revived at some point) but so long as certain questions of existence remain unanswered (or at least arguable) I suppose there'll always be a need for some kind of philosophy, at least.


OK, that makes sense. I'm taking it that (a)theism isn't so much rejected as dismissed as irrelevant; neither position being in any way verifiable. A kind of hyper-scepticism?


That's the bit I'm more confused by. It's not empricism because it appears to reject any absolute faith (being the operative word) in the senses but then seems to have a similarly unverifiable faith in there being a seperation between 'the real' and our perception of it. Although I take that as the result of a fundamental misunderstanding on my part.

it's outdated because there is nothing in the universe
i mean it by that

i might have a natural curiosity about life
so i found out i'm 98% chimpanse simulair in evolution design
i look what chimpansees do
they wake drink eat, flea eachothers back, look at the trees and go to sleep
now i wake up
drink water eat vegtables and go to sleep
the next day
drink water eat vegtables and go to sleep
and so on till my last day
for 100 winters and summers
always doing the same things

my curiosity is statisfied by an electronicmicroscope for the micro cosmos
and hubble for the macro cosmos
all that information that is entering my brain
doesn't change the lifeform me

my life compas still pionts in the directions of water and food
my life compas doesn't focus on the moon or on mars because of modern information, because there is simpely no food

if i'm going to look for food and water i'm not going towards the dessert
so if there is nothing in this infinite universe
my lifecompas and that from the shimpansee are paralel like the dna simularity
that is how i wake up in the infinite universe
where there is nothing
so i can't philosophate about something
allways the same waking up in the infinite universe
about 6 billion sapians have a compas towards a god or a hopefull imagination
i wake up in the same day as them
only thing is i have an unchanged life compas
i don't have a heavy slave stone in my brain

my brain is sterilized
the only information allowed in my brain are
where the vegtables are and where the water is
outside from that i don't have the need to even use my brain for philosphy
even i can enjoy brainfood
it's happening inside a sterilzed brain

so telling this to demonrail who lives in england
and is also going to wake up in the same day as me
don't forget to brush your theet
and have a good night

when you wake up
maybe you know how i wake up

Wow, gast30's English has ''slightly'' improved on this thread, hasn't it?

There are things that unite us as a species. We need food, and water and sleep and our purpose (on a purely biological level) seems only to procreate. Science does a good job of explaining those things while philosophy (like art and/or religion) deals with those things that get in the way of us simply being able to fulfill those quite basic needs and roles. Why do we have a seemingly irrational capacity to love or feel compassion, for example? Why do we need to communicate for reasons beyond basic self preservation? Those are things that science doesn't help us with but which some of us still need answering, hence our ongoing need for philosophy (and art and/or religion), I suppose.

why do we kill and cook and eat each other? why do people masturbate to balloons?

i'm going to try to explain some questions from my brain to yours
do know not with a brain or thought of dictatorship of truth
to convince you or win over your brain

why do we have irrational capacity << this is good use of words, to love or feel compassion?

1.you stay, like you said, in the purly biological level
from there think and ask questions: why does this biological state feels or has feelings tools?
think of a biological form like a fish or something
it comes out of water for example
the fish feels a hard surface and devellopes a hardskin to survive on land
feelings are created from evolutionairy constructions for the purpose of improving evolution

compassion is a reaction from an automatic-mirroring-feelings-from a same specie for your brain to understand what is going on

someone is on the ground dieing of hunger and has pain
in my mind i can sort of mirror the situations
and after that see what i can do
having this reaction is not going to help the same specie in pain
my capeability to help in real actions could help

it's sort of something like that
i hope i could explain it a bit from that kinda vieuw

feelings are an evolutionairy tool
why doesn't an ape go to sleep on broken glass, feels not good
(or why did sapians never made beds from catus )
why does an ape sleep on somethings soft, feels good

why do i not feel attracted to a misformed chernobil girl?
why do i feel attracted to a beautifull body?

again
from a purely biological level
it's because of symetry of the other person
the design of DNA

why symetry?
look again in the microscope
what do you see?
cel division = symetry

DNA looks for other DNA to make the next evolution
the next DNA (baby) is a better DNA designed for survival
not for selfdestruction

here on earth we have gravity
and our vestibular is adapted to earth

in the spacecenter astronauts take medications to balance the vestibular ( who is still in function of gravity

so with space flights if astaunouts fall in love and make a baby in space
that baby would have a bit adapted vestibular
let's call it DNA-V1
DNA-V1 falls in love with another DNA-V1
and their baby would be DNA-V2

and so far our lesson for love in the future
can you see your grand childeren fly away in a space ship lol

children should be the products of love
not selfdestruction

Fair enough, but isn't this just becoming an argument about the value of philosophy itself, rather than helping me understand a certain branch of it?

At the end of the day it's nothing but complete bollocks for the pseudo-intellectuals of the chattering classes to rabbit a load of fucking shit over it.

yes, i'm not quite helping you
i have to put brain energy into these branches of philosophy to give my thoughts around it
instead of telling my perspective of the value of philosophy itself
it's true
maybe i blow myself a bit up here in your thread

alot of branches in the realism
the thing that plato sez about idea's in the ideaworld are (or can) realer then material objects
made me think of lourdes, that pilgrimage cave in france

so a woman sees the holyvirgin maria in a cave
millions of people come to that cave where maria was seen or something
that is an good example of what plato is saying

the idea that maria was there is stronger then the reality that you are looking at a cave

speculative realism? i coudn't find much about that

what's real

Just ordered these two off Amazon, so I'll see how things go:

i think i might write a book in the near far future
about the unspoken influence of the earths magneticfield and the interactions it has on biological level

if you take an airpicture of cows in a field
the group of cows are alligned with the magnetic field

the subdimensional realism i call it

biosphere interaction
if the human brain uses this magneticfield tracs is unknown
maybe during evolution our brains have shaking off that connection
or our brain with alpha and beta waves is still sensitive for magneticfiels
don't know if this feng shu is about these things

what i do know is that some turtles have magnetic minerals in their brain where they navigate with, like a natural gps

soo..
my book subdimensional realism is in FEB 2012 in the stores
lol

interesting books demonrail