Are there any new revolutionary thoughts going on or is it just an evergoing grinding of the same old ones?

There are many active philosophers right now.

A few current hot topics in philosophy: cloning, animal rights, abortion, and the right to die.

That's ethics, not philosophy.

Ethics is part of philosophy.

What if the ancients had never been curious enough to ask philosophical questions? In that case all of us here would be revolutionary thinkers. But is it more important that our questions are revolutionary or that they are important? As it happens, the ancients already asked some of the most important questions. Does that fact make them less important or less interesting today? Even if we should one day recast ourselves in silicon or in gallium arsenide; that distant progeny will likely ask the very same questions that Kant asked in his Critique of Pure Reason:

What can I know? What ought I to do? What may I hope?

The physicist, Steven Weinberg, observed:

"...even when physicists have gone as far as they can go, when we have a final theory, we will still be left with the question "why?"

The notion that humanity is marching forward to become something vastly better, that man is evolving into a more perfect being, is a hope based on nothing more than a blind faith. Evolution is as likely to lead us into a blind-ally, or in circles due to a random genetic drift than it is to lead us to a greater perfection. Our very existence is a fragile and precarious thing. In Tom Bissell's A Comet's Tale; On the Science of Apocalypse, he writes:

"Life is a huge blackboard filled with a million marks of chalk. Every thirty million years that chalkboard is wiped clean, leaving only a few smudges in the corners, whereupon life begins again without regard to perfection and adaptation, what has come before it, or the miserable consciousness of those few creatures able to wonder why they are here."

Modern philosophers still ask some of the same questions that we're posed by the pre-Socratics. Does this make philosophy somehow less important? What about love? Is our capacity to love more refined than that of our distant ancestors? If not, what's the point of you falling in love? It's just the same tired emotion recycled from one generation to the next. It sounds silly when put this way because none of us cares that our love is radically different from that of our ancestors. Our love is part of that which makes us human. And it's part of what makes us human that we look up at the stars and wonder what it's all about.

We're moving, but it's neither forwards nor backwards.

"Nothing has happened to the present by becoming the past except that fresh slices of existence have been added to the total history of the world. The past is thus as real as the present." C.D. Broad, Scientific Thought

Michael

You're right, but sometimes new thoughts comes forth that haven't been thought before, so I was just curious if anybody heard about any such thoughts, or even thought them themselves...and I was a little tired of the same old topics.

Slavoj Zizek? (http://home.mira.net/~andy/seminars/enjoy.htm)

You're right, but sometimes new thoughts comes forth that haven't been thought before, so I was just curious if anybody heard about any such thoughts, or even thought them themselves...and I was a little tired of the same old topics.

About ten years ago I read Jonathan Livingston Seagull (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0380012863/qid=1074217660/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/103-4728278-5987012). Although it was first published in 1970, and the ideas in it have been written about often before that, it was revolutionary thought to me. Current books are still expanding on the topic. No subject has had a greater impact on my life.

Zanket:
About ten years ago I read Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Although it was first published in 1970, and the ideas in it have been written about often before that, it was revolutionary thought to me. Current books are still expanding on the topic. No subject has had a greater impact on my life.
Don't just name drop and salute the impact he had on your life. And the link won't help either. I need something personal.

What's this Seagull about, what did he do to you, and why? If he's one of those pre-Wittgensteins don't bother or for that matter if this man's philosophy had anything to do with the nuance of language. Anything else, indulge.

By the way-

Orthogonal: You sound like a horribly romantic pop science novel.

Having placed the word "horribly" before the word "romantic," gendanken has unwittingly provided us with an insight into her own Gedanken. :bugeye:

Michael

What's this Seagull about, what did he do to you, and why?

A story: One day when I was in 7th grade there was a total solar eclipse in our town. My teacher during the expected time of the eclipse thought that seeing it was silly and therefore an inexcusable reason to miss the test he had scheduled during that time. Many of my classmates expressed an interest in watching the eclipse and mentioned that other teachers had planned to have their students go outside to see it. My teacher, however, made it clear in the days leading up to the eclipse that there’d be no opportunity to make up the test; hence anyone who missed it would get a failing grade on it. Although getting good grades was important to me, the choice was a no-brainer. I skipped his class to see the eclipse. The next day he was mad at me. I was the only one who defied him, I showed no regret, and he did his best to make an example out of me.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull was the first book that taught me why some people are like that teacher while others are like me. I’ve since learned how valuable it is to choose your own path (like the seagull did) regardless of what anyone else would have you do. I’ve learned that, if you let it, society will box you into a corner and make you a drone. It is up to you to refuse to let that happen, or, better, to insist on the opposite while blessing the drones, for they inspire you. When you do that, the world opens up like a flower to bring you to greatness. That is a natural law--the world must open to you when you so command it and take action to make it so. That is the purpose of the world. It awaits your command and helps you to make it so. The purpose of your life is to experience the makings of your commands and actions.

Orthgonal:

Eat my shit.

Zanket:
A story: One day when I was in 7th grade there was a total solar eclipse in our town. My teacher during the expected time of the eclipse thought that seeing it was silly and therefore an inexcusable reason to miss the test he had scheduled during that time. ..........

That is a natural law--the world must open to you when you so command it and take action to make it so. That is the purpose of the world. It awaits your command and helps you to make it so. The purpose of your life is to experience the makings of your commands and actions.

Tres jolie. So happy to see you didn't come back with buzzwords and jargon to dress up why it is that Seagull is Seagull.

There's a play on the word React and Create. Don't react to your moments- create them. I've been doing that for a while and its ....some word I can't finger right now. Anyway, this Seagull sounds yummy. Now thanks to you, I'll be reading him soon so......"Thank You". And all that rot.

Philosophy, I think, is not so much about finding the answers as it is exploring the methods by which one might find their own answers. Let's face it, we are all alone and naked in this universe and the few things that are certain are not appealing. If you find something that works for you and no one can possibly disprove it, then your on the right track.