...
"Since the insignificance of all things is our lot, we should not bear it as an affliction but learn to enjoy it."

"'Why don't you ever use your strength on me?' she said.
'Because love means renouncing strength,' said Franz softly."

"The objection to shit is a metaphysical one. The daily defecation session is daily proof of the unacceptability of Creation… The aesthetic ideal of the categorical agreement with being is a world in which shit is denied and everyone acts as though it did not exist. This aesthetic ideal is called kitsch…"

"As you live out your desolation, you can be either unhappy or happy. Having that choice is what constitutes your freedom."

*

"A novel that does not uncover a hitherto unknown segment of existence is immoral. Knowledge is the novel's only morality."
~interview, 1984

"The stupidity of people comes from having an answer to everything. The wisdom of the novel comes from having a question for everything."

"These days, when sexuality is no longer taboo, mere description, mere sexual confession, has become noticeably boring. How dated Lawrence seems, or even Henry Miller, with his lyricism of obscenity!" — Milan Kundera, d. 2023

... committing the naturalistic fallacy (which is close to the is/ought fallacy). — Tom Storm

I don't necessarily subscribe to the 'you cannot get an ought from an is' [ ... ] I believe that implicit within facts are values. From this paradigm, there is no gap between fact and value. We do not merely percieve a fact. Even in our most unlearned state, we filter that fact through biological and mental apparatus that we have inherited from millions of years of evolution, and that fact holds a relevance for us beyond it's mere 'is'ness - the two are inseparable. — Kaplan

There is no wasted life - there is only unappreciated life. — Vera Mont

I’m also basically jobless/unemployed, and not interested at all to run his (my father’s) businesses ... — niki wonoto

Prayer is a sacrament for you, not for me. Obviously my will is always done on Earth as it is in Heaven. And I already know what you want and the answer is going to be "No." except when you happen to want what I will. But you like to assuage your feelings of helplessness and even pretend to get your Mother Mary to ask me for for you. But really, all you need to say is 'sorry', and 'thank you' and even that is for your own comfort, not for my benefit. The Creator needs nothing from his creation.
— God — unenlightened

the "argument from the history of ideas". The general form is: Lots of people used to believe X, but then in modern times (glossed as appropriate, usually the Enlightenment or the 20th century) people mostly starting believing Y instead, and that's the current orthodoxy, but X has started making a comeback because look! A, B and C are contemporaries who believe X and they say Y is on the way out!" — Srap Tasmaner

I used to always ignore these paragraphs ...

So here's the question: what sort of point are you making when you post something like this? 

Kantian space and time are not experiences. — Mww

↪180 Proof in a post above, responded to my question : "Is human intelligence merely an accidental pattern of a hypothetical "universal cellular automaton"?", with : "Define 'human intelligence' ". Of course, he was not really interested in my opinion on the subject ... — Gnomon

180 Proof, Carlin was a better theologian than some professional theologians. — Art48

In Ambrose Bierce’s “The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary,” we have: “Pray, v. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner, confessedly unworthy.” — Art48

So, I worship the sun. But, I don't pray to the sun. Know why? I wouldn't presume on our friendship. It's not polite.
I've often thought people treat God rather rudely, don't you? Asking trillions and trillions of prayers every day. Asking and pleading and begging for favors. Do this, gimme that, I need a new car, I want a better job. And most of this praying takes place on Sunday His day off. It's not nice. And it's no way to treat a friend.

But people do pray, and they pray for a lot of different things, you know, your sister needs an operation on her crotch, your brother was arrested for defecating in a mall. But most of all, you'd really like to fuck that hot little redhead down at the convenience store. You know, the one with the eyepatch and the clubfoot? Can you pray for that? I think you'd have to. And I say, fine. Pray for anything you want. Pray for anything, but what about the Divine Plan?

Remember that? The Divine Plan. Long time ago, God made a Divine Plan. Gave it a lot of thought, decided it was a good plan, put it into practice. And for billions and billions of years, the Divine Plan has been doing just fine. Now, you come along, and pray for something. Well suppose the thing you want isn't in God's Divine Plan? What do you want Him to do? Change His plan? Just for you? Doesn't it seem a little arrogant? It's a Divine Plan. What's the use of being God if every run-down shmuck with a two-dollar prayerbook can come along and fuck up Your Plan?

And here's something else, another problem you might have: Suppose your prayers aren't answered. What do you say? "Well, it's God's will." "Thy Will Be Done." Fine, but if it's God's will, and He's going to do what He wants to anyway, why the fuck bother praying in the first place? Seems like a big waste of time to me! Couldn't you just skip the praying part and go right to His Will? It's all very confusing.

So to get around a lot of this, I decided to worship the sun. But, as I said, I don't pray to the sun. — George Carlin

Space-Time is not an objective thing... — Gnomon

A theory of “consciousness” is just the pursuit of a ghostly spirit stuff. Or can you frame the task in a way that is scientific rather than a search for immaterial being? — apokrisis

I think Trump would be seen by Nietzsche as an exemplar of the last man. The uberman is first and foremost not a matter of dominance over others but of self-dominance, self-mastery, self-overcoming. The uberman is a higher man, a superior man, a man of a higher order. The creator of new higher values not someone who disregards values. — Fooloso4

I don't think the so-called "hard problem" is the main, or even a significant, focus of neuroscience. It's mostly the philosophers who worry about it. — Janus

Would you (180) also accuse Fredkin ... of "hasty generalization" and "unparsimonious and the pseudo-speculative equivalent of (neo-Aristotlean / neo-Thomistic / neo-Hegelian) intelligent design"? — Gnomon

Is his "law enforcement agent" a god-of-the-gaps posit to cover our ignorance of ultimate answers?

Is his "computer" a self-programmed natural intelligence, or an artificial intelligence created by an even more intelligent Programmer?

Is human intelligence merely an accidental pattern of a hypothetical "universal cellular automaton"?

And when it comes to taking literally the claim that “reality is a computer program”, you have to scratch your head at how it can in any sense run without material hardware or a handy power socket. — apokrisis

Smart people are as capable of believing their own bullshit as anybody else is. — BC

... because physical things cannot reach these limits, does that mean these limits don't exist? What is the nature of their existence? — Benj96

A systems view speaks to the balance of flow states and habits that integrate selves and their worlds. — apokrisis

What is enthalpy's relationship to entropy? I am asking for a broader ethical point. — schopenhauer1

So why make this choice for someone else? — schopenhauer1

On the other end we have that which never changed in its entire existence. — Benj96

... the 'self' as coexisting as subject and object? — Jack Cummins

So, I am asking, how do you see the 'self' as coexisting as subject and object? — Jack Cummins

Last year, I had a life-changing experience at 90 years old. I went to space, after decades of playing an iconic science-fiction character who was exploring the universe. I thought I would experience a deep connection with the immensity around us, a deep call for endless exploration.

"I was absolutely wrong. The strongest feeling, that dominated everything else by far, was the deepest grief that I had ever experienced.

"I understood, in the clearest possible way, that we were living on a tiny oasis of life, surrounded by an immensity of death. I didn’t see infinite possibilities of worlds to explore, of adventures to have, or living creatures to connect with. I saw the deepest darkness I could have ever imagined, contrasting so starkly with the welcoming warmth of our nurturing home planet.

"This was an immensely powerful awakening for me. It filled me with sadness. I realized that we had spent decades, if not centuries, being obsessed with looking away, with looking outside. I did my share in popularizing the idea that space was the final frontier. But I had to get to space to understand that Earth is and will stay our only home. And that we have been ravaging it, relentlessly, making it uninhabitable. — William Shatner, actor

Man cannot endure his littleness unless he can translate it into meaningfulness on the largest possible level. — Ernest Becker