We are the monkeys and rather that pretending we won't launch the missiles, we shouldn't build missiles for monkeys in the first place. — Garth

Amen brother. A philosopher interested in nuclear weapons! It's a miracle, a sign from God!!! :-)

Yes, we are surfacing on another thread and I am in agreement against nuclear weapons. Perhaps more miracles are what we need on this site.

Once fewer people die of disease than in war, we should ban the development of new technologies — Garth

Been writing along those lines too, for example, see here.

As I currently see it, reason alone is nowhere near close to sufficient for making such huge changes to the group consensus. Human beings mostly learn by pain, so that is what will be required, lots of pain.

The question I see is, will the necessary pain come in the right dose? Will it be big enough to inspire a true rethinking of the status quo, while being small enough not to destroy everything?

I have no idea of course, but I do have a secret plan for defending myself against the wave of pain that is surely coming. I'm getting old, and am gonna die soon. Get out of jail free card! Woo Hoo!!! :-)

By demanding and pursuing some perfect and excellent way of understanding the world we are shifting our focus away from reality itself to our thoughts about reality. That is, we are choosing a diluted 2nd hand experience of reality over the real thing. — Hippyhead

Our understanding of the world is only thoughts. There are no forces or atoms or whatever in the world. All of those are simply what we think about the world. Reality itself is a mental construct.

Reality itself is a mental construct. — Garth

That may be so but it’s the one we live in.

Yes but it implies that thinking about the world is not "diluted 2nd hand experience of reality over the real thing"

I’m confused by that post and what it’s referring to.

Because what Hippyhead said it self-contradictory.

diluted 2nd hand experience of reality over the real thing" — Garth

Is this a quote from @Hippyhead?

Edit: oh yeah, I see. You should include the poster’s name if you quote them.

Sorry, I should have read more carefully. But yes, I agree with you - to a degree.

By demanding and pursuing some perfect and excellent way of understanding the world we are shifting our focus away from reality itself to our thoughts about reality. That is, we are choosing a diluted 2nd hand experience of reality over the real thing. — Hippyhead

Our understanding of the world is only thoughts — Garth

Yes. But please note the comment of mine you are quoting refers to experience, not understanding. Understanding is an experience of our thoughts about reality. Not an experience of reality itself. Thus, understanding is 2nd hand experience.

Yes. But please note the comment of mine you are quoting refers to experience, not understanding. Understanding is an experience of our thoughts about reality. Not an experience of reality itself. Thus, understanding is 2nd hand experience. — Hippyhead

So can you explain how people who are hanging out together talking about philosophy can relate their experiences to each other directly without recourse to "2nd hand experience"? Because it seems your notion of 2nd hand experience is a little unclear.

So can you explain how people who are hanging out together talking about philosophy can relate their experiences to each other directly without recourse to "2nd hand experience"? — Garth

Now you're referring to communication. Again, I was referencing experience.

Experiences do get translated in to abstractions for purposes of communication obviously. But what is then being transferred from one person to another is the abstraction, not the experience.

It's like the screen name Garth. That's a symbol which points to a real person. The symbol is useful, but it's not you.

Can we not say the same thing about philosophy?

By demanding and pursuing some perfect and excellent way of understanding the world, we really do nothing but discourage our ignorant friends from participating. In the end, truth, justice, and all of those things don't really matter if you have nobody to talk to about them. What is important is that we have fun with each other while having our discussion. In my experience, the discussion is a lot more fun when we all don't know what we are talking about and make many unfounded assertions. — Garth

I'm pointing out that you took my statement out of context in the first place. because I was talking about philosophical discussions in the first place.

Your stance is that there's happiness in ignorance. It's perfectly reasonable, but as earthly beings, all of us have it within ourselves to strive to live in the present. This natural state comes with the combat of wills which result in conflict, competition, and what not—animals eat plants, humans eat animals, natural disasters kill everyone, humans conquer nature to stop this,...etc. Depending on the observer, this kind of reality may either be interpreted as negative and harmful or positive and beautiful. I see that your discussion supports the former interpretation, but to those who side with the latter, happiness becomes subordinate to excellence. By competing, contesting, fighting, scowling, crying, grieving, smiling, laughing, reassuring, comforting—i.e., by striving to live in this natural, earthly state of being, excellence becomes the virtue to strive for and happiness is just a piece in the puzzle. It is in the striving for excellence that one can really live in the most earthly way possible.

It's all about beings striving for excellence in the thing they're striving for. Plants striving for excellence in photosynthesis, animals for hunting, pets for pet companionship, livestock for livestock, farmers for their farming, singers for their singing, illustrators for their illustrations, teachers for their teaching, friends for their friendship, construction workers for their construction work, engineers for their engineering, scientists for their scientific ventures, and you name it. This is a merely a simplification, but the point is excellence is accessible to everyone and everyone naturally strives for it.

What's most unnatural to me is when beings (humans in particular) give up this earthliness for mere ideals. People will choose to give up excellence in maybe a job or an art for the sake of complete, perpetual happiness but because this is an unnatural ideal, it always betrays whoever strives for it. It's like someone who believes that "sleep is for the weak," only to deteriorate his health and pass out after a week of nonsleep. But hey, that's also excellence in some way, right? Excellence in decadence. A fine oxymoron. Cheers to you.

Absolutely. Sometimes the best and meaningful artwork is by those who are untrained, unbound by what should or should not be considered art, and what is 'correct'. I recommend looking at Outsider Art, often these artists have no problem scribbling then spontaneously dumping their art, forgetting about it completely (only for it to be picked up off the floor and gawked at by those who find this behaviour somehow mystical or enviable). It goes to show that the process and feeling that is applied to creating is more important than the end result. Your example of group singing is bang on, it can be a spontaneous act, shoddily done, that moment played with and thoroughly enjoyed, then discarded. Training to master a skill is the opposite, it's a different kind of thing, like an Art, rather than art.

I suppose an Art is something individually manicured and perfected for others to enjoy, rather than a participatory or playful thing. It's rather mechanic, mathematical, and has a particular goal in mind. (I haven't thought too much about the difference between an Art and art, but do with it what you will). Training to 'perfection' can often limit creativity, something that is vital to a community as new problems are always cropping up that rigid traditional solutions can not combat effectively. There can be a thousand carpenters trained to perfection on a traditional type of joint, on a particular type of wood, and they will all do it the exact same way. But what happens if something prevents them from using this particular wood, what if they have to build something that can not involve this particular type of joint? Will they even know what to do? Will they be too scared to try something else?

Creativity can be a skill in itself, and people are often very wary to step into it, to play even. For a lot of people who have not grown up with a creative background they have to learn to allow themselves to be creative, to think creatively. Often education breeds this out of us as children, even art lessons can be quite authoritarian in that you will be given a task such as "make an angel" with rigid steps and a particular colour. I've seen children shouted at or punished for allowing themselves to be creative outside of the restrictions set by the class. Creative thinking can not be taught by rigid lessons, or How To's, and often the teachers holding these lessons have only two ideas of what art is. It's usually Hyperrealism or Photorealism, renaissance painting... Or so called 'abstract'; Picasso or Van Gogh. So in a way 'Excellence' is a product of our very strange society, hell bent on production, worker mentality, and narcissistic individualism. We are given The Greats to look at, the perfectly skilled, but at the same time punished or shamed for not following the rules. There is more to say about this, which I will neglect for now.

Besides how are we to know what is 'correct' when it comes to creativity, this excellence or correctness is a contradiction when applied to creativity. To create one must expand or recycle, a creative mind constantly plays, mashing ideas together, twisting them into new forms, taking what is known and turning it on its head. There is no aim exactly to it, it is play and everyone can partake in play, and nothing is immune to it. Excellence is the opposite of this, it is about reducing and restricting, instead of recycling there is replicating. If everything can be replicated then it can be sold on mass, this is important to the kind of society with live in and not at all helpful.

About philosophy, I also agree. The nature of philosophy is to wonder, question, recycle, expand, it is truly a creative way of thinking. Children as young as five can do this, this us absolutely Not a criticism but a positive. A society that values philosophical thinking, values creativity, and encourages community and individuality entwined. Just as a choir around a campfire has many different voices, all come together for the same reason.

Can we not say the same thing about philosophy? — Garth

Sorry, Garth, but I noticed that quite frequently, when there's a social critique in the OP, the road always ends in this question. Heck it doesn't matter in what context (!)-- pin prick manufacturers haven't produced good pins lately, so how are people going to have great pricking these days!? .

But it's okay, we have enough talented posters who belong to this site (lol, I say "belong" as in not exclusively, of course) who are very capable of defending the establish.......the wisdom.