Coinciding with the 'the universe' thread, lets get one of philosophy...
So, do you ever have a philosophical thought or are interested in philosophers?
Anyone read up on Nietszch?
Yeah..3..2..1..GO
I would say I follow a philosophy close to that of John Locke (not the one from Lost) and David Hume. I believe that people are born with a "blank slate" mind (so all knowledge is acquired), and we all possess free will. I also prescribe to Locke's ideas of natural laws and rights which are common to everyone, not necessarily ordained by government or God, but because they are mutually beneficial to humanity in general.
Nietzsche, now there's one interesting individual. Whislt I agreed with a few of his ideas (like the no pain no gain one) I have to say on the whole I read him for entertainment only.
i like nietzsche, but feel he is often misinterpreted... often by people who decide they will disagree w/ him just b/c his views 'threaten' theirs.
as far as religion goes, i'm technically an agnostic antitheist... and functionally an atheist. as nietzsche said, 'a casual stroll thru a lunatic asylum will show that faith proves nothing.'
w/ respect to gov't, i'm a classic liberal... more explicitly a post-anarchist.
w/ respect to the universe, i am a determinist. the big bang seems to describe the happenings of our universe back the whole way to the first few fractions of a second fairly well given our data. i do subscribe to the multi-verse theory (or the one universe equivalent of all possibilities happening at the same time in one universe and our being able to only see the superposition of the possibilities since it's essentially the same mathematically).
w/ respect to epistemology i'm a skepticist. scientific reasoning tends to require this view. there is almost always some level of uncertainty w/ respect to almost any statement.
Yeah, I'd call myself a classical liberal as well, and since I'm a physics student I naturally tend towards scepticism, but I don't follow determinism though. Which I know is a bit odd for someone doing physics, a subject which ultimately strives to be able to predict anything, but it conflicts with my belief in free will. And if quantum mechanics is anything to go by, it would appear the universe isn't so deterministic after all, unless we're missing something from the theory.
The whole philosophy of quantum mechanics is actually quite deep. There's been many a time I've debated with friends about it. Just check out the
Schrödinger's cat thought experiment for what is probably its biggest mystery (many of its possible interpretations would have profound implications for the nature of the Universe).