think you may be right about adversity being a good motivator. I am concerned that Christianity has hindered us in the need to learn of virtues and intentionally act on them until doing so becomes a habit, because Christianity is about being saved by the Savior, instead of being saved by our will to develop virtual habits. — Athena

Christianity is a platform for a multitude of outlooks. One of my favorites is the kind that Abraham Lincoln grew up with. It dictated that every person is born for some reason. It's up to the individual to discern what that purpose is by listening for the voice of God in the events that unfold around one. Lincoln was apparently sustained by this belief, I'd say in a way an atheist couldn't be.

That life is a competition is a nonsense promoted by folks who have been lucky, because it makes it seem that they deserve their luck. It is good fortune to be born in a peaceful prosperous family with good health. It is goodfortune to be talented and to have the opportunity to develop one's talent. Dismiss this nonsense of competition; most of us never stood a chance because the playing field is full of deep holes and most of us cannot get out of the hole we were born in.

On the contrary, life for humans is a cooperative game, a game of loving and caring for each other, and this is a much better game because we all can win. Even the most helpless and feeble has a role and can add to the happiness of the world. Even if you are alone in a hole you cannot get out of, you can decorate your hole and make it the best hole you can. — unenlightened

Wonderful. Yes, yes, yes. Thanks for making it so I don't have to post.

And your English is good...

I also agree with this.

Sure, and you were forced to say that by these constraints and me to say otherwise, which is the meaninglessness of determinism and which is even more meaningless to suggest we've figured it out, considering whatever we figured out was what we had to think regardless.

Or, we have free will and despite these contraints can make our lives better or worse based upon how we decide. — Hanover

Well, I’m not referring to determinism. I’m referring to literally how our scoop-economic cultural system is setup and how it is near impossible to work against these larger forces, so the usual advice is as you and others are doing which is the self-help mindset of change yourself so you can try to fit the system better.

How does determinism make it meaningless to learn? It just means that you were always going to learn x at time y. — frank

It means you were going to do X. You have know way of knowing what you did, why you did it, or whether it was learned or always known.

The impossibility of knowledge under determinism: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3327972

It means you were going to do X. You have know way of knowing what you did, why you did it, or whether it was learned or always known. — Hanover

Why couldn't you know what you did and why you did it? Determinism just means there was always a 100% chance you would do x, realize y, etc.

Look at you with your JSTOR access. I can't read that until I go to work.

Why couldn't you know what you did and why you did it? Determinism just means there was always a 100% chance you would do x, realize y, etc. — frank

If you you say that you know you're going to work because you're in the car, my response would be that you know what it's in your head and you're barking at me whatever sounds you might be, but the idea that you think you can judge how you know things doesn't exist in a predetermined world.

Taking this to an actual judge. Let's say you go before the court and argue your case and provide all the reasons why the judge should find you not guilty, but he then finds you guilty. You then ask the clerk why that happened, and she tells you, "Oh, his decisions are predetermined."

You're saying that knowledge requires judgement, and judgment requires freedom to choose a direction.

The determinist would say that though the judge may sway back and forth, giving each account a fair hearing, being devoted to rendering judgement with no prior bias, he can ultimately only make one choice.

That choice is what he or she was always going to conclude.

so the usual advice is as you and others are doing which is the self-help mindset of change yourself so you can try to fit the system better. — schopenhauer1

Success pertains in the degree to which we can resist the system's conception of success in preference for our own. Success lies neither in being appropriated by some arbitrary cultural notion of success nor by giving in to helplesness and misery. E.g. The best free climber in the world, Alex Honnold, was, initially, virtually unknown, had no money and lived out of his car. He neither dumped his passion to pursue more traditional forms of success nor spent his time fretting over useless self-defeating philosophies. And I very much doubt he stole his desire from a self-help cookie jar.

It's not that we are fundamentally shit or the world is fundamentally shit, it's that both attitudes are equally symptomatic of a cultivated lack of imagination. The injunction "Give up!" is no better than "Compete!" for it simply being antithetical to the system.

The determinist would say that though the judge may sway back and forth, giving each account a fair hearing, being devoted to rendering judgement with no prior bias, he can ultimately only make one choice. — frank

Assuming determinism is true, the determinist will say whatever the determinist says, and he might say the judge exercised a completely free will, but he'll say that because he had to, and there's a good chance he'll even believe it because most do believe in free will, or at least that's what I'm led to think.

The point here is that free will is a necessary prerequesite for the organization of our thoughts and our understanding of the world, without which nothing makes sense. So, it's not as if we all act as if we have free will although are otherwise determined, but it is that we have free will or else we're all just barking things thinking we're meaning something but are instead just doing whatever we have to do.

The point here is that free will is a necessary prerequesite for the organization of our thoughts and our understanding of the world, without which nothing makes sense — Hanover

Because morality is fundamental to identity, I agree. But note that here, we're focusing on the way we're bound to think.

If you were open to it, I could show you why hard determinism is also indubitable (I'd stick to Schopenhauer).

What's left is to just be amazed that there is an insurmountable conflict within our intellectual make-up. I'd leave it Schopenhauer again, to point to what this implies.

But at the end of our Schopenhauer journey, we'd have to face the fact that we never strayed beyond noticing what we're bound to think. What does the way we have to think have to do with the way the world is? For that, we'd turn to Wittgenstein and become mystics.

If you were open to it, I could show you why hard determinism is also indubitable (I'd stick to Schopenhauer). — frank

Why do you ask if I'm open to it unless you think I have a choice in the matter?

Say whatever you will, as you must, and speak of Schopenhauer.

While determinism might demand that there be just one possible world, I don't see why it must demand that that one world consist only of that that who don't doubt determinism.

One of my favorites is the kind that Abraham Lincoln grew up with. It dictated that every person is born for some reason. — frank

And more broadly, everything occurs for a reason.

Why do you ask if I'm open to it unless you think I have a choice in the matter? — Hanover

I don't know whether you're open to it, though I suspect not. I don't see how choice is involved here.

While determinism might demand that there be just one possible world, I don't see why it must demand that that one world consist only of that that who don't doubt determinism. — Hanover

You're free to believe whatever you like. You can't choose what you like, though.

One of my favorites is the kind that Abraham Lincoln grew up with. It dictated that every person is born for some reason.
— frank

And more broadly, everything occurs for a reason. — Hanover

Yes.

Spot on, but pretty much ignored in the rush to approve of the life-as-competition theory.

What do you think? Can you relate to what I think/feel? — niki wonoto

No. The idea that life is a competition just sounds like the dull and inchoate musings of advertising folk. Life is whatever you make of it. Don't overthink it and avoid harming others, Son. You'll be fine.

COMMENT ON ABOVE

I read over my response above and your OP again after the stern words of @Frank. On reflection I also think what I wrote here was not very useful and glib. Sorry.

What I should have said is that the idea that life is a competition is unhelpful and stress making. It's the chief myth of our times, thanks mainly to marketing, advertising and social media. Trying to beat other people in happiness, wealth or power is likely a zero-sum game.

It may sound banal but the best we can do in life is not judge ourselves by the standards of others and not over analyse our situations. We can only do the best we can with what we have and try not to harm others along the way. The experience of living is unjust and unequal - to a great extent this is out of our hands. Some people find Stoicism helpful on this subject.

The idea that life is a competition just sounds like the dull and inchoate musings of advertising folk. — Tom Storm

It's in keeping with what a Korean guy told me about life there. Maybe the same is true in Indonesia.

t's in keeping with what a Korean guy told me about life there. Maybe the same is true in Indonesia. — frank

Yeh, pretty sure they have advertising in Indonesia. Very nice this time of year.

Yeh, pretty sure they have advertising in Indonesia. Very nice this time of year. — Tom Storm

Yeah, your experiences of life are likewise some bullshit off the television, I'm sure.

Having a bad day, Cobber?

Having a bad day, Cobber? — Tom Storm

Me? You're the one spitting on other people's experiences.

You're the one spitting on other people's experiences. — frank

Really? There was no intention to 'spit' on anyone.

Yeah, actually you did intend that.

It's possible that any of us can write things here which are interpreted as insensitive. No doubt I have done so before. But I question your sincerity as a gatekeeper of respectful communication if your immediate response is:

your experiences of life are likewise some bullshit off the television, I'm sure. — frank

I would venture this is an example of some considered abuse, while my response to the OP was sincere. If it was taken as insensitive or blunt, I apologise.

Yeah, so I'll ignore you from on. :up:

Herodotus, book 1, from 30:

So for that reason, and to see the world, Solon went to visit Amasis in Egypt and then to Croesus in Sardis. When he got there, Croesus entertained him in the palace, and on the third or fourth day Croesus told his attendants to show Solon around his treasures, and they pointed out all those things that were great and blest. [2] After Solon had seen everything and had thought about it, Croesus found the opportunity to say, “My Athenian guest, we have heard a lot about you because of your wisdom and of your wanderings, how as one who loves learning you have traveled much of the world for the sake of seeing it, so now I desire to ask you who is the most fortunate man you have seen.” [3] Croesus asked this question believing that he was the most fortunate of men, but Solon, offering no flattery but keeping to the truth, said, “O King, it is Tellus the Athenian.” [4] Croesus was amazed at what he had said and replied sharply, “In what way do you judge Tellus to be the most fortunate?” Solon said, “Tellus was from a prosperous city, and his children were good and noble. He saw children born to them all, and all of these survived. His life was prosperous by our standards, and his death was most glorious: [5] when the Athenians were fighting their neighbors in Eleusis, he came to help, routed the enemy, and died very finely. The Athenians buried him at public expense on the spot where he fell and gave him much honor.”

When Solon had provoked him by saying that the affairs of Tellus were so fortunate, Croesus asked who he thought was next, fully expecting to win second prize. Solon answered, “Cleobis and Biton. [2] They were of Argive stock, had enough to live on, and on top of this had great bodily strength. Both had won prizes in the athletic contests, and this story is told about them: there was a festival of Hera in Argos, and their mother absolutely had to be conveyed to the temple by a team of oxen. But their oxen had not come back from the fields in time, so the youths took the yoke upon their own shoulders under constraint of time. They drew the wagon, with their mother riding atop it, traveling five miles until they arrived at the temple. [3] When they had done this and had been seen by the entire gathering, their lives came to an excellent end, and in their case the god made clear that for human beings it is a better thing to die than to live. The Argive men stood around the youths and congratulated them on their strength; the Argive women congratulated their mother for having borne such children. [4] She was overjoyed at the feat and at the praise, so she stood before the image and prayed that the goddess might grant the best thing for man to her children Cleobis and Biton, who had given great honor to the goddess. [5] After this prayer they sacrificed and feasted. The youths then lay down in the temple and went to sleep and never rose again; death held them there. The Argives made and dedicated at Delphi statues of them as being the best of men.”

Thus Solon granted second place in happiness to these men. Croesus was vexed and said, “My Athenian guest, do you so much despise our happiness that you do not even make us worth as much as common men?” Solon replied, “Croesus, you ask me about human affairs, and I know that the divine is entirely grudging and troublesome to us. [2] In a long span of time it is possible to see many things that you do not want to, and to suffer them, too. I set the limit of a man's life at seventy years; [3] these seventy years have twenty-five thousand, two hundred days, leaving out the intercalary month.1 But if you make every other year longer by one month, so that the seasons agree opportunely, then there are thirty-five intercalary months during the seventy years, and from these months there are one thousand fifty days. [4] Out of all these days in the seventy years, all twenty-six thousand, two hundred and fifty of them, not one brings anything at all like another. So, Croesus, man is entirely chance. [5] To me you seem to be very rich and to be king of many people, but I cannot answer your question before I learn that you ended your life well. The very rich man is not more fortunate than the man who has only his daily needs, unless he chances to end his life with all well. Many very rich men are unfortunate, many of moderate means are lucky. [6] The man who is very rich but unfortunate surpasses the lucky man in only two ways, while the lucky surpasses the rich but unfortunate in many. The rich man is more capable of fulfilling his appetites and of bearing a great disaster that falls upon him, and it is in these ways that he surpasses the other. The lucky man is not so able to support disaster or appetite as is the rich man, but his luck keeps these things away from him, and he is free from deformity and disease, has no experience of evils, and has fine children and good looks. [7] If besides all this he ends his life well, then he is the one whom you seek, the one worthy to be called fortunate. But refrain from calling him fortunate before he dies; call him lucky. [8] It is impossible for one who is only human to obtain all these things at the same time, just as no land is self-sufficient in what it produces. Each country has one thing but lacks another; whichever has the most is the best. Just so no human being is self-sufficient; each person has one thing but lacks another. [9] Whoever passes through life with the most and then dies agreeably is the one who, in my opinion, O King, deserves to bear this name. It is necessary to see how the end of every affair turns out

Perhaps it would be wise not yet to judge your fortune nor your happiness. There's still time to change the road you're on.

Yet, that's the main problem of my generation. Most of them do not seem to be motivated in learning something and they waste a lot of valuable time in wacky acts. The line of understanding what is worthy or not has become more and more blur. Paradoxically, our generation which has more opportunities for learning than the previous, are at the same time the most vague or ignorant. — javi2541997

I am not sure about your generation being so different from mine even though I argue a lot about how the 1958 National Defense Education Act ruined education. Maybe you would like to know, before the Act we educated for good moral judgment and good citizenship. That education had its faults, but I think the complete change following the Act was a big mistake and set everyone up for being dependent on the "experts" and obeying rather than being one's own authority and leading. We have experienced a cultural change, but youth are youth, the same as they have been since a Sumerian father lamented on how he gave his son everything and instead of his son building on the benefits his father gave, he was irresponsible and wasted his time. Athenians thought it was pointless trying to teach the young how to think because they would not be capable of understanding until they were 30 years of age.

I do wonder about this sometimes. I have been struck by the number of Christians on this board who have expressed similar sentiments, and it was foreign to me as a non-Christian to hear. That is, the virtue of humility rooted in the idea of being born into failure and requiring self-abandoment to a savior to pull you from damnation I would think could engender a feeling a meekness and helplessness.

Counter this with a view of being born into perfection and holiness with a charge to seek justice and I think you end up with a very different psychology.

My background is the latter, and the things people say in the religion threads regarding religious fear and whatever else isn't something I was used to hearing. — Hanover

Wow, that first paragraph was strong and well stated. Our democracy comes for Athens and the notion that we can be noble, and should strive for arete (excellence). It is not compatible with the Christian understanding of being born in sin and needing to be saved.

But Christianity is not the same for everyone. Starting with Calvinism, is the notion that God has a chosen few who will entered the after life and nothing they do will change that, nor will a the masses have a shot at the after life. Everything being God's decision, not our human effort, but not knowing who is a chosen person and who is not, everyone competed to appear as a chosen person, and this branch of Christianity befitted our economic growth. However, in the colonies they lived in tightly controlled small communities and I don't think a young person would have dared to be slovenly or rebellious. Some of the beliefs are very paradoxical. :roll:

I grew up with the Christian teachings and began pulling away when I was 8 and a Sunday School teacher could not give me a good explanation of why Christians and Catholics are divided. I made a complete and total break from Christianity when fear of being possessed by Satan tormented me. I had to chose either I was going to be superstitious or I was not. I strongly believe it was the Greek gods and philosophy that saved me. They taught how to be my own hero.

Christianity is a platform for a multitude of outlooks. One of my favorites is the kind that Abraham Lincoln grew up with. It dictated that every person is born for some reason. It's up to the individual to discern what that purpose is by listening for the voice of God in the events that unfold around one. Lincoln was apparently sustained by this belief, I'd say in a way an atheist couldn't be. — frank

The idea that we are born for a reason can echo back to Aristotle. Birds fly, horses run, man reasons. But what you said is also true about having a great benefit if one believes Jesus answers our prayers and takes care of us, unless we anger Him and then He punishes us. Both sides of the Civil War in the US believed God was on their side. The bible can be used to justify slavery or argue against it, and when people believe they are doing the will of God and God is on their side, the commitment to the colony, the war, the move west, will be intense.

What is happening in the world today that can give the young a sense of purpose? I feel like we are free falling into chaos and desperately need to restore order and social purpose.