Serious Philosophy Discussion

[Phr3121]

 

[EL CORINTHIAN]

My problem is with the notion of "manipulating [one's] perspective." That's what I was getting at when I was talking about denying/repressing shit. It seems like a Band-Aid rather than a cure.

There is no cure for the inevitable. Living is a wonderful thing but it's filled with conflict and adversity and stoicism is a way of dealing with it gracefully. It's very much the opposite of what your claiming here, these people prepare in advance for things you otherwise would deal with as they come.

They are simply better prepared.

I get that and I'm with that. But I don't like the notion of manipulation. Facts are facts and any philosophy/outlook predicated on the use of "alternative facts" ain't my bag.

Then you are misinterpreting Stoicism. This branch of philosophy is very much aware of the minds power. Your problem is with terminology yet again. I say again because this is where we disagreed in the last thread about academic speak. Im noticing here that you are lingering on the word "manipulation" and are painting it as some form of deception that omits facts. This is simply a way to deal and a fantastic way to live.

This is 100% horse shit. Life is great, death is the opposite of life, hence death is the opposite of great.

Yes you have a Western perspective lol. Thank you for driving the point further for me.

Like Louden, I don't find anything conflicting or confounding about death. I'm going to die. It's inevitable. I know that. And I know that that sucks. There's no conflict there. That's a statement of fact and an acknowledgment of that fact. Moreover, it's because I've acknowledged that fact that I can, like Louden, live like there's no tomorrow: "'Cause, when you get right down to it, there isn't."

Now if we are going back to the topic of death just understand going foward that you are conflicted with my ideas on the subject not Marcus's.

But you absolutely do find something conflicting about death, you literally said it before here lets go back a bit.

2) I don't need relief from my mind or my body. That's called life and it's the shit. Who but a suicide-case wants/needs relief from being alive? What a miserable outlook. No?

3) Connected to #2, death is the worst fucking thing ever because it's the cessation of life. It's one thing to accept that you're going to die - to deny that would be irrational - but who the fuck is looking forward to dying?

I don't want to say you sound like you don't have much life experience with this line of reasoning because, it would be embarrassing for me if it was the exact opposite and you were some soldier fighting over seas or some shit but i really can't help but think it. Of course i could be wrong and apologies if it offends you, i only say this because people who have had a taste of how miserable life could actually be are totally aware of death being a potential release and how could you actually understand how precious life really is if you have never been brought to the brink of destruction yourself or experienced hardship so serious that life wasn't pleasurable anymore.

Let's not paint a picture so obvious like watching your entire family getting axe murdered in front of your eyes that the searing image in your brain never lets you rest and instead lets take something more common like.....old age?

Im assuming you have grandparents? Ever spend enough time with them watching them degrade and deteriorate as every year after 80 adds another 10 on to their lives? Do you even realize the inevitable misery you will be put through at that age, if your even able to reach it, as every organ and muscle in your body starts systematically fail on you? Resting heart rate drops, bone density of a twig, reaction time of a sloth, non-existent libido, everything tears your stomach apart and you actually don't know if you will wake up the next morning. It's one thing to say "Live like there's no tomorrow" when you are in relatively good health but it's an entirely different ball game when your days are numbered. I like this example because it takes away any and almost every pleasure you could think of even the simplest ones like taking a walk. Imagine getting to a point where you can't fucking walk and when you do, come back and tell me all about how awesome life really is lol.

This is just one reasonable scenario to illustrate how terrible life can be and it comes at a much later date. We could go into more obvious shit like being born with a crazy illness or something but that's way too easy.

And that's what im getting at about the western perspective on death. It's not that you deny deaths existence or inevitability but rather that you seemingly cannot comprehend a scenario where death is actually a relief from a life lived. Death is not terrible just because it puts an end to the incessant need to accrue an infinite amount of hedonistic pleasures, when that dopamine well runs dry and there is nothing left and lifes "awesomeness" comes crashing down, death doesn't seem to be such a bad thing after all. Living isn't always good my friend. Fuck even when it is good it gets tiring after a few dozen heart brakes and nearly 100 years of existence.

So in my opinion your perspective is more akin to repressing the realities of life itself because of your views on death. You don't have to agree and thats cool but am i making sense here at least?

In response to this part of your post, I'm going to use your own words against you: Context matters here. To get personal again, before I went down the academia path I was on a screenwriting path and the last script that I wrote essentially boiled down to, and the final scene explicitly featured, the question posed in the lyrics to that Genesis song: If this were the last day of your life, what do you think you would do then?

With respect to context, there's a big difference between knowing that you were living the last day of your life and living the last moments of your life. In the case of The Grey, we're talking about moments. If I went to the hospital and was told I had some terminal illness and I was given six months to live, then I'd see lots of people and do lots of research and do whatever I could to extend that six month sentence as long as I could. In that context, I wouldn't go gentle into that good night; I'd rage against the dying of the light. I'd have the time. Trying to extend those six months seems the logical thing to do. If, however, I woke up in a crashed airplane gushing blood, what sense would there be to do any raging? Trying to go peacefully seems the logical thing to do.

In short, it always comes down to logic for me.

And now i will return the favor and use your entire comment against you because you couldn't have brought up a better example.

I will have you know that as i respond to this bit im actually listening to that song from Genesis. Seems appropriate.

The entire point of me bringing up that scene from the grey was to illustrate the difference between being passive in the face of hardship (indicative of eastern ideology) and confronting it (stoic thought). On one end you have the person slowly bleeding out in what is obviously culminating into death yet there he was playing hide and go seek with the truth which was his own demise. His last thoughts and images in his head would have been confusion and a bunch of dudes looking right at him. Instead Liam brought him back to reality and made him confront the fact that he was going to die. This lead to his acceptance of it and images of his loved one walking off into the light. Where death is concerned there was simply a call for action once it was put in perspective. Like you are illustrating with your comments above. To be clear that "perspective" which signaled a call for action is stoicism at work. Not even slightly repressive....stoics force themselves to look at the problem and adress it. The ideas about death are my own.

The idea is that the mere thought of death is a call for action and you couldn't have furthered that point more with your comment even if you tried. Think about what you said. With knowledge of your death 6 months in advance you are going to rage as hard as you can to extend your life. Let's assume by some miracle you actually did infact extend your life then you really have only one thing to thank for that, your perspective on dying.

If i told you that you had 6 months to live, everything you ate from that day forward would taste like jehova himself came down from heaven and delivered it to you. Do you know why? Because the mind is an incredibly fucking powerful thing and death is such a powerful agent for action it can literally alter your objective reality. This is absolutely rooted in science as well so i don't want to hear anything about this sounding like spiritual douche baggery. Your mind is what pulls the strings. You either have control over it or you don't and Stoics do. Life is beautiful because it has an expiration date and that doesn't make death ugly. But again that's the western perspective.

The quote is beautiful to me because it ties in a lot of ideas at once and it's where eastern and western ideology converge.

Not liking that I'm going to die ≠ Being scared that I'm going to die."

That's true but your line of reasoning so far in this discussion has implied a fear of not living anymore and honestly....what's the difference really?

And, frankly, looking forward to the release from life without the promise of its continuance is even stupider to me than religious-style looking forward to "going to a better place."

This comment makes no sense.

If one is looking forward to the release of life why the hell would it be stupid and not totally logical for them to not want its continuance?

My hierarchy of awesomeness is (1) Immortality, (2) Afterlife, (3) Nothingness. It seems pretty obvious that we're dealing with (3), but, if given the choice, I'd obviously pick (1) or (2) over (3). What kind of miserable creature wouldn't?

Fuck all that. Im here for a good time not a long time. You live that immortal life and fall in love a thousand times only to watch them and your offspring die. We will see how quick you change that vampire tune of yours.

 

[Bullitt68]

Your problem is with terminology yet again. I say again because this is where we disagreed in the last thread about academic speak. Im noticing here that you are lingering on the word "manipulation" and are painting it as some form of deception that omits facts.

I am very precise with my language and I use the words that I mean to use. That means that I sometimes get hung up on other people's language. I want to make sure that I'm understanding what you're saying based on the concepts - like manipulation - that you're invoking and the examples - like The Grey - that you're using. So, you're right, my problem could simply be one of terminology. Which is why I'm writing at such length: I want to understand. I'm no expert and I'm not claiming to be. I read an excerpt from Epictetus in a philosophy anthology. That's the extent of my exposure to Stoicism. But what can I say? From what I'm getting, it seems like an older form of Serenity Now insofar as it's a kind of "mind hack" whereby you hotwire your brain to think differently even if that means running your brain counter to logic. Perhaps that's an uncharitable way of putting it, perhaps I'm reducing a nuanced philosophical tradition to a Seinfeld reference, but can you at least see where I'm coming from? Or am I making absolutely zero sense? Other people in this thread? Bueller? Bueller?

Yes you have a Western perspective lol. Thank you for driving the point further for me.

And I'm from the West, too. What are the chances?

But you absolutely do find something conflicting about death, you literally said it before here lets go back a bit.

Maybe I'm having more terminological problems, but I'm not understanding how you're using the term "conflicted," so you're going to have to point out where exactly you think that I'm conflicted and explain about what exactly you think that I'm conflicted.

I don't want to say you sound like you don't have much life experience [...] but rather that you seemingly cannot comprehend a scenario where death is actually a relief from a life lived.

You're absolutely right: I literally cannot comprehend a scenario where I'd want to be dead. I know I'm not there yet, but at the end of your post you jokingly referred to the "vampire tune" by which I live my life. My friend, you don't know how apt that joke is. Are you familiar with the vampire show True Blood? This scene from that show, where the 1000 year old Viking vampire Eric Northman was originally made vampire while on his deathbed, explains me to a T:



Like Eric, life is what I love most. When I was 11 or 12, I read Tuck Everlasting and I fucking hated that whiny, ungrateful immortal family. You have the most precious gift conceivable and all you can do is bitch and moan? It was infuriating. Immortality is my ultimate fantasy. Being alive, thinking, watching, reading, talking, experiencing, living - there's nothing better or more precious than life. @Cubo de Sangre can tell you about the miserable reality in which the main character lives in the short film 12:01 PM, but I'd take even that over death because it's still life and life is better than death.

Death is not terrible just because it puts an end to the incessant need to accrue an infinite amount of hedonistic pleasures

I'm actually a very boring guy. I'd just watch more movies and TV shows, read more books, write more essays. I'm not amassing hedonistic pleasures over here; I'm not turning anybody's office into a den of iniquity. I just love the ride and if given the choice I wouldn't get off.

Living isn't always good my friend. Fuck even when it is good it gets tiring after a few dozen heart brakes and nearly 100 years of existence.

I love me some Tommy Buns...



...but I cannot identify even one iota with what he's conveying there.

You don't have to agree and thats cool but am i making sense here at least?

Absolutely. I know what you're talking about, I'm familiar with the position. It just ain't mine.

I will have you know that as i respond to this bit im actually listening to that song from Genesis. Seems appropriate.

The entire point of me bringing up that scene from the grey was to illustrate the difference between being passive in the face of hardship (indicative of eastern ideology) and confronting it (stoic thought). On one end you have the person slowly bleeding out in what is obviously culminating into death yet there he was playing hide and go seek with the truth which was his own demise. His last thoughts and images in his head would have been confusion and a bunch of dudes looking right at him. Instead Liam brought him back to reality and made him confront the fact that he was going to die. This lead to his acceptance of it and images of his loved one walking off into the light. Where death is concerned there was simply a call for action once it was put in perspective. Like you are illustrating with your comments above.

I'm with you so far and I think we're aligned with regards to that scene.

The idea is that the mere thought of death is a call for action and you couldn't have furthered that point more with your comment even if you tried. Think about what you said. With knowledge of your death 6 months in advance you are going to rage as hard as you can to extend your life. Let's assume by some miracle you actually did infact extend your life then you really have only one thing to thank for that, your perspective on dying.

If i told you that you had 6 months to live, everything you ate from that day forward would taste like jehova himself came down from heaven and delivered it to you. Do you know why? Because the mind is an incredibly fucking powerful thing and death is such a powerful agent for action it can literally alter your objective reality. This is absolutley rooted in science as well so i don't want to hear anything about this sounding like spiritual douche baggery. Your mind is what pulls the strings. You either have control over it or you don't and Stoics do. Life is beautiful because it has an expiration date and that doesn't make death ugly. But again that's the western perspective.

The quote is beautiful to me because it ties in a lot of ideas at once and it's where eastern and western ideology converge.

This is sort of getting at what Matthew Modine was talking about in the Vision Quest clip, about how if you don't think about dying then you might go through life thinking that you've got plenty of time and end up wasting your time/life, but because death is inevitable, it's the ultimate deadline and it makes you work harder and faster. It's even more explicit in this clip from Hannibal, aka the GOAT TV show:



Hell, I could even go to another Genesis song - from the same album as "Undertow," in fact - and liken it to the incentive to climb provided by a burning rope. To @Rimbaud82's delight, I'm sure, it has something of the paradoxical to it: Death is what makes life so precious. I get it...I just don't like it

This comment makes no sense. This is sort of a tangent but i feel the need to address this one.

If one is looking forward to the release of life why the hell would it be stupid and not totally logical to not want its continuance?

That's the entire point of dying.......to not live.

Perhaps it'll be easier to make the point that I was trying to make there with a thought experiment.

Scenario A: A patient has a terminal illness and has nothing to look forward to but three months of suffering. He doesn't believe in an afterlife, he knows that suicide means no more existence in any form or realm, but that's easier for him to deal with than a little bit more life full of a lot more suffering, so he kills himself.

Scenario B: Same scenario only this time we're dealing with a patient who does believe in an afterlife. He kills himself for the same reason, only he ends his "Earthly" life looking forward to his "spiritual" life.

Both scenarios seem ridiculous to me because in my book life is better than death and that's that. However, between the two, Scenario B makes more sense to me because the guy's killing himself under the assumption that he's not consigning himself to nonexistence but rather is expediting the transition to a different form/realm of existence, whereas Scenario A is utterly unfathomable because the guy's cutting his life short and that'd never even be an option for me.

That make more sense?

Fuck all that. Im here for a good time not a long time.

You have fun with that, Elvis. As for me: I don't hope I die before I get old

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

Immortality is my ultimate fantasy. Being alive, thinking, watching, reading, talking, experiencing, living - there's nothing better or more precious than life. @Cubo de Sangre can tell you about the miserable reality in which the main character lives in the short film 12:01 PM, but I'd take even that over death because it's still life and life is better than death.

 

[French Canadian]

I know. That's why, when I said it, I described it as "pure, unadulterated, unverifiable speculation if not sheer wishful thinking."



"More often than not" allows for "not" cases. That's why I used that expression. And you know Medieval philosophy better than I do, so I'm not denying the possibility that this is one such "not" case.



Because I'm quoting the exact words of Rand's own formulation.



So then...

1) Are there any philosophers/philosophies that you consider "irrational" (however you define that)?

2) Assuming that there are some philosophers/philosophies that you consider "irrational" (however you define that), do you have any examples of where an "irrational" philosopher/philosophy is, for that, "good" (however you define that)?

3) Assuming that you do have examples of where an "irrational" philosopher/philosophy (however you define that) is, for that, "good," then by what criterion/criteria should one judge a philosopher/philosophy to be "bad" (however you define that) if "irrational" isn't a valid criterion?

It is such a case, in my opinion. Medieval philosophy is great and very rational. The discussion on universals is very interesting. I believe objectivists believe that we come to know universals by abstraction of the common trait between similar things. Well, that's already in Medieval philosophy (along with other interesting theories, such as Duns Scotus').

I have a problem with crediting a very well known principle to someone else. It is very well known as Ockham's Razor. It's as if I quoted a Renaissance person and said his theory of Ideas, when he's just repeating Plato's. I hope Rand credits Ockham. We should not multiply entities beyond necessity : so let's not have Ockham's, Rand's, and the thousand other people that principle razor. Let's call it by the accepted name.

I don't believe any philosophy is irrational, else it would not be philosophy. Some are less rational, as they intentionally downplay rationality and celebrate other parts of human psyche.
Your questions seem to miss my point. Whether or not I think there are good and bad irrational thinkers, irrational is clearly a pejorative term. Labeling your "ennemies" with such terms is a quick way to discredit them.


Your above discussion seem to miss the real point of stoic ethics. The first words of the Manual is : some things are up to us, some things are not (loose translation).
Only things that are up to us are good or bad. Everything else, money, fame, etc. Is deemed indifferent (tho there are better indifferent them others). What truly makes a person happy or unhappy is only what is up to him, that is, virtue or vice. Epictetus was a slave and happy while tortured. What is not in your control should not affect you.

Also, your reasoning on death does not fit the framework of stoicism. For Stoics, nature is good. Everything that naturally is is good because it is willed by the providential logos of the world. Marcus often lists dead people to remind himself that nature willed it so, so it is good. There is no is/ought in stoicism. It is the fact that humans are mortal and that they die. Human die and it is good that way.

Edit : you also seem to mistake negation with opposite. Death is "no-life", not the opposite of life. No-white is not necessarily black. Not-great (assuming life is great) is not the opposite of great (miserable).

Edit2: I am also not sure opposites entice opposite states. The opposite of temerity is cowardice. Both are bad states of being. One because it is excess, the other because it is lacking.

 

[Tycho- Taylor's Version]

Let me qualify what I said about mysticism being a marker for the good life with the word "can". That way any assumption that one must have mystical experience to live a good life is removed. I dont think one must have this type of experience in order to find the good life but rather that anyone can and maybe some must in order to find it.

There are also a ton of qualifications moral and otherwise that must be met one way or another in order for mysticism to flower in a way that is truly authentic and good. A good system has checks and balances placed on the individual walking this road to ensure that it all comes out right in the end.

I think I may disagree with you slightly about mysticism being unable to impart meaning but I also share some agreement in these areas also. Ill share the areas of agreement only.

The symbols that come with mystical experience may in themselves be fabricated culturally and religiously and psychologically so that people from various places having essentially the same encounter may have that experience mediated through differing symbols. However I would not say that this disqualifies the experience as not being truly informative necessarily.

But I think that mystical experience is not even primarily about imparting cognitive knowledge of our origins, of what happens when we die, or even on the meaning of life. I think these aspects can be largely dream like and symbolic and not essential to the experience itself. I think they are often interpreted wrongly as direct statements about factual things, when they are meant to impart something else entirely.

Also it is important to keep in mind that "symbol" is not even present in a ton of mystical experiences, nor is any kind of cognitive knowledge imparted through symbol. What is imparted in a vast number of mystical encounters are transformative qualities perceived as "energies" directly placed into a person's psyche.

These transmissions are often quite profound and leave permanent effects and marks on a person changing fundamentally how they see and experience life.

Love, joy, peace, humility, surrender, non attachment, creativity. These qualities are gained permanently through mystical encounter and subjectively it feels as if they are real energies that permeate the universe or the self. The point I am making here is that the experience is as real as eating or talking with someone or having sex. They are experienced concretely- they really happen- subjectively speaking that is.

I would say this is the real value of these encounters. That a dose of one or more of these is imparted to you, and it permeates every single level of your being, every perception, every idea, every attitude and approach, every relationship, and changes all of that for the better.

Nice. And you're absolutely right to correct me on the function of symbols in mystical experience - though I meant to refer to experience more broadly, I was unclear - because the description of mystical experience as "energies" rings more true even for me.

However I didn't actually say such experiences are "unable to impart meaning," but rather that they don't necessarily come with an evident internal meaning. Then the implications that are given to them are often quite adventurous - i.e. your comment about the permeation of the universe (no offense ).

There was a point I meant to respond to in your last post as well, about mental changes happening below consciousness before they become realized by consciousness (or something to that effect). I've never really thought about the role of mystical experience in that process, but it's something I can acknowledge as well.

Basically my assumption is that every belief exists subconsciously as part of a web of coherence (consistent with Quine's from what I understand, though I didn't draw much from him), where each belief is a node that is strengthened by its connections to other strong beliefs. As beliefs around the perimeter start to come into question, the central beliefs of the web become more vulnerable to revision. This certainly is consistent with my experience debating about atheism and other such topics with devotees of the opposite position.

That said, I'm not a hyper-rationalist who thinks that every belief is established through perfect reasoning. Beliefs are inherited and passively absorbed by other means, and they're often infected with affect - what I want to believe or not, what I feel good about believing or not. A mystical experience could be interpreted as an non-rational attack on some beliefs very deep in the web - about the constitution of the universe and the connection between the things in it, or on the significance of certain values brought to the fore during the experience - that could have a massive effect on the periphery, for sure.

I'd be curious to know what kinds of cultures/states have made pathways to mystical experience more available to their constituents and which have done the opposite.

 

[franklinstower]

Nice. And you're absolutely right to correct me on the function of symbols in mystical experience - though I meant to refer to experience more broadly, I was unclear - because the description of mystical experience as "energies" rings more true even for me.

However I didn't actually say such experiences are "unable to impart meaning," but rather that they don't necessarily come with an evident internal meaning. Then the implications that are given to them are often quite adventurous - i.e. your comment about the permeation of the universe (no offense ).

There was a point I meant to respond to in your last post as well, about mental changes happening below consciousness before they become realized by consciousness (or something to that effect). I've never really thought about the role of mystical experience in that process, but it's something I can acknowledge as well.

Basically my assumption is that every belief exists subconsciously as part of a web of coherence (consistent with Quine's from what I understand, though I didn't draw much from him), where each belief is a node that is strengthened by its connections to other strong beliefs. As beliefs around the perimeter start to come into question, the central beliefs of the web become more vulnerable to revision. This certainly is consistent with my experience debating about atheism and other such topics with devotees of the opposite position.

That said, I'm not a hyper-rationalist who thinks that every belief is established through perfect reasoning. Beliefs are inherited and passively absorbed by other means, and they're often infected with affect - what I want to believe or not, what I feel good about believing or not. A mystical experience could be interpreted as an non-rational attack on some beliefs very deep in the web - about the constitution of the universe and the connection between the things in it, or on the significance of certain values brought to the fore during the experience - that could have a massive effect on the periphery, for sure.

I'd be curious to know what kinds of cultures/states have made pathways to mystical experience more available to their constituents and which have done the opposite.

To your criticism on my statement about energies permeating the universe. Here is what I said carefully to avoid that very misunderstanding.

"subjectively it feels as if they are real energies that permeate the universe or the self."

I will say however that with an abundance of mystical experience it is hard not to think that there are energies connecting everything in the universe and not just the physical but the mental and energetic planes too, that there are energetic planes and even beings who inhabit them.

One of the most potent experiences that leads to this is the mystical experience of cosmic love. A person experiencing cosmic love has the subjective experience of a force that is love that is everywhere, the mind expands massively, and this is sometimes accompanied by the mind expanding beyond the body to include more of that person's surroundings. It might be a whole park or the whole planet or even the whole universe. This is not imagined willfully but actually seen and experienced. It is understood during this kind of encounter that love is in everything and that you have merged with that love and are now in everything too.

To experience these things often makes it very difficult to discount the reality of them especially considering the positive results that come from interacting on these levels. The experiences themselves are so intense that the tendency is there to think they are real in some way.

There is also the occasional sometimes random way in which mystical experience seems to rub off on the environment and others. I am fully convinced that these energies are real energies that are as yet too subtle to be detected by scientific means but that the human body and mind have evolved in and with and can sometimes detect.

i personally have no interest in trying to get someone to see it this way though. I just don't care and don't see a way to do it anyway.

 

[Tycho- Taylor's Version]

I wouldn't say that it's part of the same game. To continue this analogy: Cosmology is one of the games that you can class as a "thinking sport" along with philosophy, but they're not the same game. And for the reason that you have here: Because even for the most sophisticated of philosophers, the science-specific shit that you need to know to be able to hang in a cosmology discussion is going to outpace whatever level of philosophical sophistication you have.

I suppose where exactly you want to demarcate the different games depends on what you want to do with them.

To me, figuring out the world is a process involving expertise about the the collection of evidence, the interpretation of evidence, and clear thinking about those interpretations. You can be a specialist in any of them (what we might call scientists, artists, philosophers), but you're still contributing to the same project imo (some more effectively than others, for sure). We're all in this together kumbaya guy.

Heh, if I were to sum up the main through-line of Rand's nonfiction books, it'd be about how everything that you're talking about is true - useful philosophy has found a home in most corners of civilization and does provide something of a societal foundation - but that what we're doing now is undoing it all; she was very pessimistic and thought that, rather than continuing to progress in the direction of useful philosophy, we seemed hell-bent on reversing course and running headlong back into the Dark Ages.

That HAS to be a more explicit outline somewhere of the contribution of philosophical innovations to the development of the Western world, I just need to figure out what exactly to google. I suppose most intellectual histories are essentially that, they just tend to be a little vague, so please don't throw Russell at me (though I approve of the earlier citations @faustian).

It would sure help dispel the notion of philosophy as practically useless.

Hmm. At first glance, I have three problems with the above, and they all relate, broadly speaking, to psychology, so Caveat, if you're reading this, please feel free to chime in.

1) Psychologically speaking, this outlook seems less like it encourages confronting or overcoming problems/fears/etc. and more like it encourages denying or repressing them. It doesn't seem the healthiest way to live. To be at peace - as Rambo is with his being expendable - implies analysis of the situation and one's perspective on it, whereas this stuff seems like it amounts to a fancy version of this kind of quasi-nihilism. No?

2) I don't need relief from my mind or my body. That's called life and it's the shit. Who but a suicide-case wants/needs relief from being alive? What a miserable outlook. No?

3) Connected to #2, death is the worst fucking thing ever because it's the cessation of life. It's one thing to accept that you're going to die - to deny that would be irrational - but who the fuck is looking forward to dying? This is why I think that any and all religious belief is by definition irrational: The idea of death as being "elevat[ion] to another level of liberation" or what have you is just a goofy workaround that necessitates the continuation of life (even if in another "form"). Charles Sanders Peirce is great on this. As he wrote in his phenomenal 1877 essay "The Fixation of Belief":

"In many cases it may very well be that the pleasure he derives from his calm faith overbalances any inconveniences resulting from its deceptive character. Thus, if it be true that death is annihilation, then the man who believes that he will certainly go straight to heaven when he dies, provided he has fulfilled certain simple observances in this life, has a cheap pleasure which will not be followed by the least disappointment. A similar consideration seems to have weight with many persons in religious topics, for we frequently hear it said, 'Oh, I could not believe so-and-so, because I should be wretched if I did.' When an ostrich buries its head in the sand as danger approaches, it very likely takes the happiest course. It hides the danger, and then calmly says there is no danger; and, if it feels perfectly sure there is none, why should it raise its head to see? A man may go through life, systematically keeping out of view all that might cause a change in his opinions, and if he only succeeds - basing his method, as he does, on two fundamental psychological laws - I do not see what can be said against his doing so [...] He does not propose to himself to be rational, and, indeed, will often talk with scorn of man’s weak and illusive reason. So let him think as he pleases."

It's a way to go through life, sure, but it seems like an immature and irrational way. No?

Hahaha. I think that your fixation with Objectivism is interfering with your openness to this belief system. Personally I find readings about ancient belief systems like Stoicism and Epicureanism hideously dull, and another case where ancient dudes aren't who I care to turn to for answers (which made it all the more insulting when my favourite blogging philosopher bailed on his general purpose blog to write exclusively about Stoicism ).

Also, keep in mind that psychological science is more a descriptive enterprise than a normative one. So you might find a psychologist who will agree that perspectives about certain problems can be manipulated, but you won't find many telling you how exactly you should manipulate them. That job is reserved for hack therapists and "positive psychologists" pretending to be scientific. Even CBT is more about getting your ass back to work than about developing a healthy philosophy for moving through life.

In a Wittgensteinian vein, she doesn't solve the problem; she demonstrates that there isn't a problem that needs solving. In the Tractatus, Wittgenstein pointed out (to combine points from 4.003 and 6.53):

"Most of the [questions] to be found in philosophical works are not false but nonsensical. Consequently, we cannot give any answer to questions of this kind, but can only point out that they are nonsensical … [Thus,] the correct method in philosophy would really be the following: To say nothing except what can be [sensibly] said … and then, whenever someone else wanted to say something [nonsensical], to demonstrate to him that he had failed to give a [sensible] meaning to certain signs in his propositions. Although it would not be satisfying to the other person – he would not have the feeling that we were teaching him philosophy – this method would be the only strictly correct one."

This is how Rand approached the is-ought "problem": She just pointed out that it isn't a problem.

Ok, here's where we're going to have some disagreement then. I'll explain as best I can in my own language.

The is/ought problem in short refers to the inability of two factual premises to produce a valid normative conclusion.

Good syllogism:
1. All men are mortal.
2. Socrates is a man.
3. Socrates is mortal.

Bad syllogism:
1. All men are mortal.
2. Socrates is a man.
3. Athens should not put Socrates to death.

This is a strictly logical problem - it doesn't mean that facts aren't relevant to moral reasoning, and it doesn't preclude the possibility that some facts come with normative baggage attached ("Socrates has a right to live," for example), it just points out that there's a chasm of infinite depth between facts and values that renders them operationally orthogonal.

I suspect from my brief skimming of Rand's thought that she dismisses the problem the same way Sam Harris does in The Moral Landscape.

First, re-articulating the problem above - if facts are unequivocally objective (we'll accept that for now), but values can't be derived from facts, how can we derive objective values? Here's one way:

Good syllogism:
1. [Universal objective value]
2. [Fact]
3. [Normative conclusion]

(As an aside, most syllogisms that attempt to deduce a normative prescription won't be so broad as to require a "universal objective value". You could just as easily deduce "Athens should not put Socrates to death" from "States should not kill their constituents" and "Socrates is a citizen of Athens" without the former being remotely objective or universal. This is a special case where we're trying to ground values in general.)

Rand's universal objective value is something like "promoting the life of the organism is good," which, to her credit, is at least clear. Sam's is something like "whatever is a universal objective value is good" because he's a goof.

With the above structure, Rand gets to derive all sorts of normative conclusions from facts because the universal objective value can't be denied.

Personally I think it can, but I'll leave it at that for now to see if you agree with how I've paraphrased her position.

But seriously:

First, I was told by an undergrad professor many years ago that he'd never seen anyone who could pull together so many, and so many perfectly apropos, quotes for his writing purposes. So, by way of an initial answer, I have to point out: I really do just know how to grab it.

Second, you have to remember that I spent two and a half years straight with my head buried in all of this shit; I've read and reread and cited and transcribed the stuff that I'm pulling quotes from so many times that it's like quoting from your favorite movies and TV shows: You don't need a method, it's all just right there at the front of your brain.

Third, and this is the "Academia Hack" that Rimbaud and I both swear by: I have a truly massive collection of PDFs on my computer, so I can just open up, say, the Tractatus or the Critique of Judgment or the Meditations or the Nicomachean Ethics or the Analects and digitally search the text (as opposed to flipping through hard copies) to find whatever quote, no matter how specific/precise, and I find what I'm looking for in seconds.

Well, that's annoying lol. I suppose I'll just have to take better (digital) notes!

 

[Tycho- Taylor's Version]

To your criticism on my statement about energies permeating the universe. Here is what I said carefully to avoid that very misunderstanding.

"subjectively it feels as if they are real energies that permeate the universe or the self."

I will say however that with an abundance of mystical experience it is hard not to think that there are energies connecting everything in the universe and not just the physical but the mental and energetic planes too, that there are energetic planes and even beings who inhabit them.

One of the most potent experiences that leads to this is the mystical experience of cosmic love. A person experiencing cosmic love has the subjective experience of a force that is love that is everywhere, the mind expands massively, and this is sometimes accompanied by the mind expanding beyond the body to include more of that person's surroundings. It might be a whole park or the whole planet or even the whole universe. This is not imagined willfully but actually seen and experienced. It is understood during this kind of encounter that love is in everything and that you have merged with that love and are now in everything too.

To experience these things often makes it very difficult to discount the reality of them especially considering the positive results that come from interacting on these levels. The experiences themselves are so intense that the tendency is there to think they are real in some way.

There is also the occasional sometimes random way in which mystical experience seems to rub off on the environment and others. I am fully convinced that these energies are real energies that are as yet too subtle to be detected by scientific means but that the human body and mind have evolved in and with and can sometimes detect.

i personally have no interest in trying to get someone to see it this way though. I just don't care and don't see a way to do it anyway.

Right, and this is where the crux of our disagreement is going to lie (though I've enjoyed your thoughts on this). This resembles my frequent disagreements with @dontsnitch on more expressly God-y topics.

"What it feels like" is what it feels like, and that's it, for me. The plasticity of the human mind renders it open to all sorts of extreme subjective experiences producing all sorts of fundamentally undeniable convictions, to the subject. To embrace those convictions on that basis violates the philosophical principles of objectivity and communicability.

That's not to say they shouldn't be pursued, especially in light of the positive results. There just isn't much to do with them discursively other than process them imo.

 

[VuvuzelaBzz]

Perhaps it'll be easier to make the point that I was trying to make there with a thought experiment.

Scenario A: A patient has a terminal illness and has nothing to look forward to but three months of suffering. He doesn't believe in an afterlife, he knows that suicide means no more existence in any form or realm, but that's easier for him to deal with than a little bit more life full of a lot more suffering, so he kills himself.

Scenario B: Same scenario only this time we're dealing with a patient who does believe in an afterlife. He kills himself for the same reason, only he ends his "Earthly" life looking forward to his "spiritual" life.

Both scenarios seem ridiculous to me because in my book life is better than death and that's that. However, between the two, Scenario B makes more sense to me because the guy's killing himself under the assumption that he's not consigning himself to nonexistence but rather is expediting the transition to a different form/realm of existence, whereas Scenario A is utterly unfathomable because the guy's cutting his life short and that'd never even be an option for me.

That make more sense?

The second scenario should only be ridiculous to you under the assumption that there is no afterlife, which isn't explicitly stated in your thought experiment. That seems to be your opinion, so it was probably an unstated assumption, but I felt it was worth pointing out just in case.

Anyways, this has nothing to do with stoicism, but my impression is that your perspective on life and death is the result failure of imagination. That's not to say I believe you're unable to imagine some of the worst situations one could find themselves in, but it isn't clear to me that you're imagining yourself in them in any real sense.

Assuming death is nothingness, it is an inherently neutral experience, and, as such, the conclusion that life is better than death implies that life is an inherently positive experience. I would like you to explain to me how reaching a point in life where you lose the ability to do or experience anything you enjoy, are in multiple forms of constant pain-discomfort and are losing what you consider to be "yourself" piece by piece is positive.

 

[Phlog]

God dammit this thread is ridiculous.

Keep to a particular subject and be succinct.

 

[Yotsuya]

Anyway, on the filial duty shit, here's some stuff from Edward Slingerland's 2003 translation of/commentary on the Analects:

"The Master said, 'When someone’s father is still alive, observe his intentions; after his father has passed away, observe his conduct. If for three years he does not alter the ways of his father, he may be called a filial son.'

Three years (usually understood as into the third year, or twenty five months) is the standard mourning period for a parent. As Kong Anguo explains, 'When his father is still alive, the son is not able to act as he wants [because he must obey the father’s commands], so one can only observe his intentions in order to judge his character. It is only once his father has passed away that the son can learn about his character by observing his own actions. As long as the filial son is in mourning, his sorrow and longing is such that it is as if the father were still present, and this is why he does not alter the ways of his father.' Yin Tun clarifies, 'If the ways of his father are in accordance with the Way, it would be perfectly acceptable to go his entire life without changing them. If they are not in accordance with the Way, though, why does he wait three years to change them? Even in the latter case, the filial son goes three years without making any changes because his heart is blocked by a certain reluctance.' In this passage, we see hints of the priority given to familial affection and loyalty over considerations of what is more abstractly 'right' that is expressed more starkly in 13.18."

Regarding 13.18:

"The Duke of She said to Confucius, 'Among my people there is one we call "Upright Gong." When his father stole a sheep, he reported him to the authorities.' Confucius replied, 'Among my people, those who we consider "upright" are different from this: fathers cover up for their sons, and sons cover up for their fathers. "Uprightness" is to be found in this.'

[...]

Comparing 13.18 to Mencius 7:A:35 is also helpful:

'Tao Ying asked, "When Shun was serving as the Son of Heaven, and Gao Yao was his minister, if the Old Blind Man [Shun’s father] had committed murder, what would have been done?" Mencius replied, "The Old Blind Man would simply have been apprehended." "Would Shun not have prevented it?" "How could Shun have prevented it? Gao Yao had his rightful duty to perform." "So what would Shun have done?" "Shun would have regarded giving up his rulership of the world no differently than throwing away an old pair of sandals: he would have secretly taken his father on his back and fled into exile, taking up residence somewhere along the coast. There he would have spent the rest of his days, cheerful and happy, with no thoughts of his former kingdom."

The emphasis is slightly different here, in that the rightfulness of legal punishment is not denied, but the basic theme is the same: it is the duty of the filial son to sacrifice himself in order to prevent the law from being applied to his father

So it’s duty towards your family vs. duty towards the state. Duty towards one collective vs. duty towards another collective. Neither of these perspectives are individualist and both are subsidiary to the main goal of Confucianism: to uphold a harmonous society.

While it's easy to just write Confucianism off as collectivist and having nothing to offer regarding personal virtue and moral conduct, it'd be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

I have not been arguing that Confucianism does not have anything to offer regarding personal virtue or moral conduct, only that the Confucian ethics are thoroughly collectivist.

 

[Rimbaud82]

God dammit this thread is ridiculous.

Keep to a particular subject and be succinct.

People are having different conversations perfectly fine. Just seems like some people enjoy moaning.

 

[franklinstower]

Right, and this is where the crux of our disagreement is going to lie (though I've enjoyed your thoughts on this). This resembles my frequent disagreements with @dontsnitch on more expressly God-y topics.

"What it feels like" is what it feels like, and that's it, for me. The plasticity of the human mind renders it open to all sorts of extreme subjective experiences producing all sorts of fundamentally undeniable convictions, to the subject. To embrace those convictions on that basis violates the philosophical principles of objectivity and communicability.

That's not to say they shouldn't be pursued, especially in light of the positive results. There just isn't much to do with them discursively other than process them imo.

In my case your argument does not apply and is not relevant. I would even go so far as to say that there is a certain percentage of people on the planet that are privy to certain experiences that place belief in the "other" soundly in the realm of objectivity.

I would be willing to have a further discourse with you on this if you are interested but it would have to be by private conversation. There are certain things I have learned not to discuss in open forums.

 

[Tycho- Taylor's Version]

God dammit this thread is ridiculous.

Keep to a particular subject and be succinct.

Lol keep up old timer!

 

[CauseImbetta]

Great discussion. Is there really a difference between good and bad philosophy as suggested? After all philosophy is simply asking questions that many never be answered.

 

[dontsnitch]

Right, and this is where the crux of our disagreement is going to lie (though I've enjoyed your thoughts on this). This resembles my frequent disagreements with @dontsnitch on more expressly God-y topics.

"What it feels like" is what it feels like, and that's it, for me. The plasticity of the human mind renders it open to all sorts of extreme subjective experiences producing all sorts of fundamentally undeniable convictions, to the subject. To embrace those convictions on that basis violates the philosophical principles of objectivity and communicability.

That's not to say they shouldn't be pursued, especially in light of the positive results. There just isn't much to do with them discursively other than process them imo.

Right, and this is where the crux of our disagreement is going to lie (though I've enjoyed your thoughts on this). This resembles my frequent disagreements with @dontsnitch on more expressly God-y topics.

"What it feels like" is what it feels like, and that's it, for me. The plasticity of the human mind renders it open to all sorts of extreme subjective experiences producing all sorts of fundamentally undeniable convictions, to the subject. To embrace those convictions on that basis violates the philosophical principles of objectivity and communicability.

Sounds like he's describing reformed epistemology. I don't think this is necessarily illogical, it's the basis of deism, imo. Your criticism is fair, though I'm not sure one has to embrace those convictions on that basis alone.

 

[Phlog]

Great discussion. Is there really a difference between good and bad philosophy as suggested? After all philosophy is simply asking questions that many never be answered.

No, philosophy is the study of reality.

The confusion, which many who adhere to the subject, including some ITT suffer is that they believe it to be appropriate or acceptable to argue from ignorance.

In the past we didn't have the ability to know so much about our fundamental nature and that of reality and as a result many schools of thought were born in the vacuum. People now gaze endlessly at their navels and those of philosophers past as a pastime in itself. A sort of historical thought game.

Science is philosophy, with our current tools arrayed in its pursuit. Reference to studies and research is almost all that is relevant but 'philosophy fans' persist in the game of historical theory snobbery.

 

[faustian]

No, philosophy is the study of reality.

Gonna jump in here. Philosophy is the exploration of truth

 

[franklinstower]

No, philosophy is the study of reality.

The confusion, which many who adhere to the subject, including some ITT suffer is that they believe it to be appropriate or acceptable to argue from ignorance.

In the past we didn't have the ability to know so much about our fundamental nature and that of reality and as a result many schools of thought were born in the vacuum. People now gaze endlessly at their navels and those of philosophers past as a pastime in itself. A sort of historical thought game.

Science is philosophy, with our current tools arrayed in its pursuit. Reference to studies and research is almost all that is relevant but 'philosophy fans' persist in the game of historical theory snobbery.

I don't know man. Richard Dawkins has made some pretty stupid statements when waxing philosophical and he is a scientist. I may have misunderstood you but if you are saying philosophy is dead or purposeless I think you are being wrong headed and confusing your lack of interest in the subject for a universal.

I may have misunderstood you though.