See, you say that, but then:
I'm not going to say that philosophy is practical or beneficial to the human race or anything, but dismissing it as "pretentious nonsense" is just being ignorant.

Philosophy is trying to look at things in a different way, trying to work out how things work. It's all about getting to the bottom of things and thinking critically, rather than just accepting things at face value.

I find philosophy interesting because of all of that, and I find it's a good way to get a different perspective on things. Sure, it's not going to save anyone's life, but it's thought-provoking and fun.

Dismissing that as "pretentious" is just being ignorant.

...I just got trolled, didn't I?

It's like 95% pretentious. Noticably so comparitively because the vast majority of the famous ones are pretentious.

Notice how I say that "much of it is pretentious nonsense" instead of "all of it is pretentious nonsense". Also, pretentious nonsense is a different way of looking at things. So, yeah.

And "nuh-uh. You're stupid" is never a valid argument, by the way.

Neither is "you're just being snooty", but fair enough, I see what you guys mean.

I guess I just get wound up when people don't like what I like.

what's the point of getting into a thread and telling you're not interested in this topic?

I think you're not not interested in what you call philosophy. You spent a lot of energy in pretending so, like hiding a platonis opera behind a porn mag.

Let's not start the whole "stay out of topic if you don't like it" conversation. It's not as if I was being abusive.

I feel like much of philosophy is spent looking for the questions for subjects that already have answers. And I find that many of the questions are extremely dull, and only interesting from a "look at how smart I am" context.

that wasn't my point.

that's just stupid

What's your point?

Also, I agree. It is pretty stupid.

Most of philosophy is about dealing with questions that have no definite answers, though. That's the whole point.

Perhaps that's what it's supposed to be. It occurs to me that modern philosophy is used more to point out the inexactness of language than it is to actually discuss something worth talking about.

The Ship of Theseus came up in a discussion I was having with someone about brand loyalty (and how fucking ridiculous it is). He dismissed the existance of the problem out of hand when he noticed how much it sounded like philosophy. That would be because it is, but that would be one of those problems without a definite answer that is still an actual problem as soon as you start looking at various constructs with a human perspective (ie giving names to things).

I love the Ship of Theseus. It's probably the best thought experiment ever.

How did you make it apply to brand loyalty?

You'll hate the banality of it, but it was regarding Bungie and 343 Industries. Shall I go on or have you already lost interest?

I've got nothing better to do. Go on.

It wasn't so much the stance as the reasoning that annoyed me. We all know that Bungie intends Reach to be its last Halo game, future projects to be under the control of 343 Industries. This guy was saying how Reach is the end of Halo for him because if it isn't Bungie's work, then it is not Halo. This bugs me. Bungie is only a label, for a whole collection of people who happen to come together in that moment of time with a common goal. Some of the original creative minds responsible for Halo left for 343, and seriously, how many people who worked on Halo 1 also worked on Halo Reach? I tried to track the actual people, but it turned out to be more effort than I was willing to put into this guy so I didn't find out, but I wager not a great deal of them. I proposed that eventually everyone who had ever would on Halo: Your Preference eventually moved to 343 or another company, perhaps one they hard started themselves. This is exactly the same as the Ship of Theseus now: is this new company Bungie? Is the old company still Bungie? At what point during this period did Bungie stop being Bungie or the new company start being Bungie? Are there now two Bungies?

This guy figured that if "Bungie" wasn't on the box, it's not Halo, and that I was a dumb philosophy fag or something. At that point I took my leave in case he was infectious.

The relevance to this conversation is that a thought experiment such as Ship of Theseus clearly has some relevance in today's world of corporate entities, and may go some way to explaining why the best solution many nation's laws have come up with is to make corporations themselves something of a legal entity on par with a human individual. This is problematic to say the least.

I see both sides of that argument. I typically won't read/watch/play any kind of serious attempt at art that isn't made by the original creator. Could you imagine playing Braid 2, made by an Activision subsidiary. However, I draw the line much earlier than your arguing partner seems to. I wouldn't play Bioshock 2 because it wasn't made by the same people, and was clearly an attempt to capitalize on the good will that the gaming world had for the first even though it was made by the same company. Same company, different creative heads = I wouldn't play it. This isn't brand loyalty, in my opinion. This is just taking the art form seriously, and not wishing to waste time on a diluted product that was made solely for the money.

Now, if it isn't meant to be serious art, and it's just plain stupid fun? I don't care who made it. I like stupid fun.

It wasn't the position that bugged me. "I'm not going to play any more Halo games" is not one that can be attacked or defended. But his reasoning, especially in light of the fact that former Bungie employees have switched companies to look after the property.

What really did bug me is the idea that Ship of Theseus is completely irrelevant by virtue of being philosophical when it is an issue that comes up more and more as humans keep doing stuff.

I've found that this is the general consensus with pretty much everything in the social sciences, and on my long and weary travels I have come to the conclusion that there are indeed no solid answers to these questions, but answers are constructed on an individual basis.

Philosophy/sociology/etc are all tools that help you discover your own areas of grey that you are content with believing, because black and white do not exist.

Not quite. I'm met sociologists and psychologists working to make their fields harder than they are, but it's not easy going. We're talking about very complex systems and we don't yet know how the smallest components work.

precisely my point, ergo for any scholar in those fields to even form a thesis they must knowingly admit they do not have a definitive answer, and are instead defining their own terms for presenting an argument; and in doing so, they are knowingly denying the opposing argument, like a sort of mindful ignorance necessary for any point to exist.

zomg gaise gaise wat is truth gaise is construct gaise

They don't just make shit up. And the fact is, if they weren't doing what they were doing no progress would be made at all. Science does not occur in a vacuum.

i'm not saying they're making shit up, i'm saying in order to say one thing is true, one must say the other thing is false regardless of the position, because otherwise there is nothing but "maybes". social sciences, 'membuh

We call this science.

We call this art

We call that negative reputation.

we call that fuck you

What you don't realise is that he'd enjoy that.

Get the fuck off my Kakera

...So true