[TinyRedLeaf]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

So if a pickpocket makes off with your wallet, he's not a thief? Though my question referenced a less obvious problem: how do you own land? It's not like someone put it there. How do you own the fruit of a tree that grows on a land?

Legally, I own property when I have exclusive rights over it. If I choose not to exercise the right, would it still be theft when someone takes the property from me?

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

How do you find an answer? By training your mind. Not very useful.

Being dumb is not very useful either.

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

... which is why I disagree with atheists "having" to define anything, or think about the meaning of their lives. It's enough to live. The rest can take care of itself... I take your dislike of complicated answers a step further: it is my contention that we don't have to give any sort of answer. Philosophy's a luxury, not a necessity.

I agree. What do you think when Socrates meant when he said the only thing he knows is that he knows nothing? "Knowing nothing" is knowing plenty.

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

Furthermore, I think that any answer simple enough to be formulated is wrong and most probably useless.

What makes you happy? Do you need a formula as complex as E=mc² to describe it?

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

Unless, of course, some genius comes along and makes sense of it all, like Kepler and Newton made sense of the movements of the stars. They were, of course, wrong. But not nearly as wrong as their predecessors. And what they said ultimately changed our vision of the world, and thus our world itself.

I like Western philosophy and I value scientific inquiry. Certainly the nature of reality is highly complex, and apparently full of hidden rules waiting to be discovered. But does understanding the movement of the stars give your life any personal meaning? Maybe it does for you. For me, it doesn't. It only tells me about the mechanics of gravity, which is interesting to know, but it does not particularly enrich my life in any appreciable way.

Sometimes, I find that some people grow too proud of their own genius. In which case, it becomes a form of conceit. So, yeah, I'm suspicious of people who claim to be geniuses. I suspect you are too.

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

And to me, life is simple because we neglect a lot of things. Like calculating the trajectories of planets by counting only the sun and neglecting Jupiter. It's not necessarilly illegitimate. But it can be unstatisfactory, and it's certainly not looking at the truth.

To me, life is simple when I realise that, in the end, not a lot of things are really that important. That's not the same as neglecting them. It's accepting that the knowledge of these things don't actually matter to my happiness. They're good to know, but not strictly necessary, I believe.