A Philosopher's Introduction

[SeaOfThought 0]

Hi, my name is Pedro, although in my family almost everyone calls me Peter. I was born in Portugal and lived here most of my life. I spent just a few months in Paris, where I did a graduation on cognitive science and also a few months in Tucson where I tried to do something useful on quantum mechanics and the brain (working under Stuart Hameroff's supervision).Life is for me a great mystery. I don't think the many thousands of years our civilization has had to perfect its knowledge of the world has contributed much to unravel these mysteries. Why is there something instead of nothing? Where does all the complexity originates from? Is consciousness really a result of "blind" matter? Or, by the contrary, is all matter capable of consciousness, even if in the smallest degree? Are we really free or are we just complex machines that (must) describe themselves as free?I also am interested in more practical things, right now I'm starting to learn programming languages, I know just a lit bit about java.Regarding movies, my favorite directors include: Cameron, Kubrick, Clint Eastwood, Cohen brothers, Tarantino, Scorcese, Wachowski brothers, Tim Burton and Peter Jackson.Also these actors almost always appear in movies to my liking: Kevin Spacey, Jim Carrey, Jeff Bridges, and others. I'd sure love if there were more sci-fi movies. I pass a substantial amount of my time trying to imagine what the future will be like, and what we, humanity, are in this endless tapestry of change.I also love music and art. One of my favorite paintings is "The Kiss", by Klimt, but I also love Renoir and others.Politically I think we are destroying the world. One of the most clear expositions of this is "The Story of Stuff", which I've seen several times, and the documentary "Home". Clearly we are the most powerful species of the planet, we don't have predators, we plant more than we can eat, we have machines to do most of the hard tasks for us. So why do we work so much? Why don't we have time for our kids, for our family and friends? Time to grow, to love? Because we are in this frenzy to always get more and more. But iPhones and tablets won't give us happiness, by the contrary: we are hungry for what can't fulfill us.I hope this will be a fruitful experience,p.

[ritu 1]

Hello Pedro or should I call you Peter, welcome to Xisto, you are in the right place to discuss your interests of varied ranges.Everyone here is helpful and you can always rely on the quality of discussion.Talking about your interests,what you put forward about the concept of life is probably a question in every mature mind, hopefully someone would come up with some novel ideas in this regard.When you say that our lives lack time for our family and more important stuff, the only person I can remember is me. I well understand how that takes so much away from ultimate happiness.Our common fields of interest are music and movies. Jim Carrey is one of my favourite actors as well and I like more of humour in movies. In music it could be anything, from fast beats to soulful melodies, I can live on it.I really look forward to hear more from you, and hope you enjoy your stay here on this forum

Edited March 31, 2012 by ritu (see edit history)

[SeaOfThought 0]

Thank you so much for the welcome, regarding music I like so many styles that it is difficult to describe them. From Paul Simon, Freedie Mercury and Adele to Mozart and Bach, Sting, Dave Matthews Band, Regina Spektor, many Brazilian and Portuguese singers too. It's really hard not to forget even those who left great inspirations.Thanks again, p.PS - regarding the name, I'm so use to answer to both of them that I really can't distinguish between them. It's more a phonetic preference, I guess, of who calls me.

[sheepdog 10]

Wow, what a fantastic introduction! I think you have made one of the longest intro's anybody has here in a long time. I'm really glad to because how can you respond to a post that just says hi, I'm new here? I wish more of our new members would go into as much detail about themselves as you did. So much easier to get a good conversation going that way. Of course I can't contribute much to a conversation about cognitive science or quantum mechanics, that's way over my head, I'm a way down to earth practical sort of person, more into dogs, goats, farming, gardening, all that stuff. Honestly, I'm not all that crazy about computers even. They are just a nessary evil to promoting puppy sales. We can however, agree on Sci Fi! I love a good sci fi movie, or tv series. I don't watch a lot of TV, but when I do it's strictly for entertainment. My better half watches a lot of news, and while it will sometimes catch my interest with an occasional story, after just a little while I find myself being bored or depressed by it.

[k_nitin_r 8]

Hi!It's good to know that there's another Java programmer among us. There are very few people around here who work with Java, with most people choosing to go with C, C++, C# .NET, or PHP. I have worked with C, C++, C#, Visual Basic .NET, and PHP, but I find something strangely unique to Java in that it can run on almost any platform just as we are attempting to do with web technologies, HTML 5, and Javascript. Adobe has done it quite successfully with Flash, but with the decision by Apple to drop support for Adobe Flash, things have taken a turn for them and people are moving away from Adobe Flash and toward HTML 5 with Javascript, which is a more open standard because it is not controlled by any single firm, unlike the case with Adobe's Flash.Java has had a huge controvery around it. If you recall, the Apache Foundation had developed the Harmony project and wanted to have a license to the technology compatibility kit, initially from Sun Microsystems and later, after the acquisition of Sun Microsystems by the Oracle Corporation, from Oracle. However, after it failed to get the license terms it needed for the Apache Harmony project to provide an unrestricted access to the users of the Apache Harmony project. The inavailability of the desired license terms for the technology compatibility kit led the Apache's resignation from the Java Community Process and created doubt in the minds of many about the openness of Java as a platform.HTML 5 and Javascript do not have a single organization controlling them therefore it is a logical choice for the future of platform independent applications.In either case, Java applications are not going away anytime soon so if you ever want to have a discussion over the various Java APIs and applications, feel free to start up a thread in the programming sub forum.

[nanna 0]

Hello Sea of thoughtA very big welcome to Xisto its always nice to see new faces around here.I must disagree with you i find Sci Fi films very boring im into music films romance films a good comody i like to sit with a box of tissues in my lap while watching a film lol.As for computers i dont know much about them i only use FB i have a blog Nannas Kitchen which my husband set up for me as you see my hobby is food and cooking and my interests are my pets and animals i have five dogs and four cats four of my dogs are Labradors and my two eldest labradors gave us eight puppies last hallowen and we kept two of them that is a bit about me.You will find everyone very friendly and very helpful here at Xisto so if you have any quetions or you need help with anything dont be afraid to ask.You will find plenty of topics to post in to earn your mycents.well i look forward to seeing you around and reading your posts.