Proper philosophy depends on overcoming egotism — Wayfarer

Egotism, in fact, is a negative thing- in both contexts, individual and collective - but what the overwhelming majority of people have forgotten is that "egoism" and "egotism" are not the same thing, and end up using both terms interchangeably, which makes the concept of both also blend. Current knowledge about "egoism" is a poor corruption of itself. Egotism is the drive to enhancement in the degradation of others. Egoism is the theory that treats self-interests as the nature of humanity.

But many of the classical philosophies, East and West, see the task of philosophy as being able to rise above the ego — Wayfarer

And many of those who tried to idealize a world beyond the ego, only collaborated with the detriment of humanity itself in favor of a "greater good". I do not preach anything like a "higher purpose". I don't even want a "greater good" to exist to indoctrinate the people. If a "higher purpose" does indeed exist, let it be achieved indirectly by realizing the individual wills of each ego. Only true monsters disguise themselves as holy saviors.

Are you guys absolutely sure you do not dodge the fact that some people are extrovert and some introvert? — Ansiktsburk

I'm sorry, but I didn't quite got the point of your question. Could you expatiate more about why the concepts of extrovert and introvert would fit into this discussion?

OK. So how do you find that everyone’s increased selfishness will lead to improved conditions for selves? — javra

I can give you an example of that:

You are poor, or even miserable; empathy, humbleness, and other of these "virtues" would not help you out of this state at all. What would benefit you most would be the act of focusing on yourself, getting a job in some way, doing things that otherwise would be seen with evil eyes - like leaving your family, your friends aside, but not because you are evil, and yes because the purpose of getting out of this miserable state is greater -. You work, you even change your personality - in a way, all the people you have a good relationship with today only have that kind of relationship with you because you are what you are, a drastic change in thinking, way of acting, can make that many will not be ble to cope with this breach of comfort - and eventually - over days, months, years, etc ... - manage to turn the corner and become a very successful person, financially stable, etc... This person's act of selfishness was to focus only on what he needed at the moment, now, having realized his needs - in a way - that person could very well be an empathic, charitable, kind person, but only because he can and not because it's the rule.

If everyone was concerned with resolving only their lives, their personal, individual interests, they would gradually change the whole of society. The individual makes up the community, and society is a pure reflection of the community that is made up of the individual. Egoism is at the core of it all. If people were more true to themselves about their true desires and purposes, their lives would be much more satisfying and graceful - accept that you're an egoist, with now with that in mind, go change your life -.

Please don’t misunderstand. Trying to better understand your point of view does not equate to me agreeing with it. — javra

I'm in no way mistaken, i'm quite sure that this is just a discussion - and one that continues until now, productive -.

Or one could sacrifice one's ego for the benefit of a whole of which one's ego is but one constituent of. Some soldiers have been known to do this. Sometime for love of one's country. Sometime for the love of some ideal, such as that of democracy. The ego here holds part of its identity as that which inheres into something greater than itself ... and can willfully sacrifice its own life for it. — javra

Of course, if the individual thinks and accepts as true for himself, the fact that sacrificing himself for a nation, or for a greater number of people - with the moral that a life is worth less than many - will accomplish it individually - selfishly -; There is nothing wrong with that. I respect those who are able to act that way, and I would respect them even more if they were able to understand that they only do it out of selfishness.

I'm not yet certain, but, from one vantage, I think I can get what you mean. As egos we are at the center of the world we experience. Hence, your use of the term "egocentrism". Even so, altruism, empathy, humility are commonly described as selfless endeavors. This being shorthand for "less selfish than those endeavors that are the opposite" or something to the like. — javra

You're on right track, but not there yet.

There's a difference between, for example, being empathetic and pretending to be. The first is deemed to be a virtue in most cases, the second not. The first is commonly deemed a selfless endeavor, the second a selfish endeavor. — javra

My point is that people who are "truly" empathetic are nothing more than negative-egoists. They are internally, and their unconscious know it, however the conscious person does not. There is nothing wrong with being an unconscious selfish, I just think that if you became aware of that fact, and accepted your nature, you would be a better person.

selfishness is an accurate description of what you want to present? — javra

I'm pretty sure that it's accurate.

To me, and doubtless to many others, your use of selfish to describe things such as altruism and empathy makes no sense. Selfishness describes the opposite of these things. — javra

There we got to another point that I don't know if this discussion would be the right place, but it is the fact that selfishness had been a virtue that we - humans - have distorted so much to the point of becoming a concept seen as evil. It is a good start to have discussed with me and to let yourself try to understand what I say. Many here do not try to do it.

It's about discovering a higher truth for yourself, granted usually with a purpose of helping others, if not just people you deem worthy. — Outlander

True, I just answered what at the time seemed to be the most conducive to the questioning whether my thoughts are an autobiography - which are not, however, as I said in my answer that you answered here, all philosophy is an internal projection to others -.

Does one willfully sacrifice one’s being out of an interest to optimally preserve the very same being one sacrifices? — javra

The person in question that would sacrifice itself could have been "rightful" on his motives to do it - as being certain that he was doing something that was not egoist - but in the end - unconsciously - the only motive for his actions was one of egoism - maybe eternalizing his person forever to the one saved? Maybe to righ something he had done wrong for someone that the person he was saving knew, etc... the possibilities are endless -. Understand: - I am not saying that people cannot or should not be altruistic, empathetic, humble, etc ... I am just saying that indirectly, these same actions are the result of the individual's selfish will, even if they do not know that and are acting as if they were virtuous, and seen by society as good people.

And if our experienced understanding of tree were to in fact be completely unique to each of us, we could not then be referencing the same thing by this empirically apprehended term. — javra

We could say that through the term "tree" we would both be talking about the same concept - a tree - and the same object - the tree itself, as being in the universe - however that would be pure speculation by comparison. The fact that we can only "compare" already shows that it is not something complete, something that demonstrates the experience of observing the same object through the same observer, therefore, my opinion still holds. The unique is unique and indivisible by experience because he cannot be experienced by anything but itself.

For the concept of "property" to exist, the only thing required is law — Ciceronianus the White

The only thing required in truth - and we all know it - is power...

psychological science. — apokrisis

Then we have a misunderstanding here. I never said that I was an expert at psychological science and neither did I say that this was about science at all. I'm talking about philosophy and "only" philosophy - That's why I putted this discussion under the "Philosophy of Mind" segment -.

except in literary sources? — apokrisis

In the deep analysis of human history, its development in society in the passing of the years and how the State organism - here ignoring any ideology or government method - works during the passage of time with the direct human influence.

I guess it is consistent with your egoism that you would want respect? That you could demand it rather than earn it? — apokrisis

Both are true ways of getting respect - if doing an in depth analysis of your commentary -.

Sorry. I respect arguments clearly put and backed up by suitable evidence. I was interested to see if you could mount a more spirited defence. That hasn't happened. So we can move on. — apokrisis

Again, I think we had a misunderstanding from the beggining. Please, read the answer to the first quote. Good day/night

But you are making claims about the nature of societies that don’t fit the facts. It is essential to a complex system that it optimises a balance of the selfish and the cooperative.

So to the degree that we egocentrically make society, we have to be skilled at striking this particular balance. — apokrisis

Yes, you could say that the balance is needed. But the balance only exists and is created by our egoistic wills.

But to say we are unselfish for selfish reasons becomes a rather contorted description of what is going on — apokrisis

In my view, it is not a distorted point of view because the human being really is evil. The view that the human being only acts the way he does because his whole base is born from an internal force that makes him look for - and also creates - things to be done individually, and that the whole concept of what is good and bad also comes from this need, seems to me a very convincing and real proposition, just look around you. You may even think that it is a pessimistic thought, but humanity is not a species of angels, but beings that act in good and bad ways just because they want something individually.

Hah. Yes life is complicated like that. Intellectual discussions are dialectical as every thesis presents its antithesis.

One can either stick rigidly to one’s precepts or follow that two sided flow of ideas to discover where it goes. — apokrisis

The problem is when the lack of respect becomes present.

So, the more one loves, the more egoistic one becomes? — javra

Yes I agree. The development of the feeling of love for a being other than yours, the egoism- here, referring it only to the love for another person - grows and gets stronger and stronger - if it is an exemplary relationship, something utopian, of course -. And it is to be believed that your partner also has his selfishness exacerbated if he feels in the same dose as you.

You are a different person, a different "I", with each miliisecond as well. But this does not address why or how you nevertheless remain the same person, the same "I", throughout. Not such if you're understanding what I'm here addressing, so I'll drop it for the time being. — javra

Your perception remains the same through the movement through time. You - here understand as your ego, conscience, individuality - remains you intact through the change of "form". You do not have lapses of mileseconds of different personalities, ways of being, etc ... because time passes and with it you change, no, what makes you an "I" remains fixed.

Not when it comes to many of the details regarding these experiences, but these details can well be argued accidental and not essential to that which is you (as an "I") through time. When it, for example, comes to things such as belief that cats are termed cats in English, or to the very experiencing of being as a being, we both feel/experience the exact same thing. In the latter two cases, my experiences are identical to yours, and yours to mine. No uniqueness whatsoever. Uniqueness only presents itself in the differences, which then divide, or ration, or give boundary to, some given from some other. — javra

The point is that there is no scientific, philosophical, theoretical, etc ... evidence that you - your self - can somehow come and take my place in space within the Universe. There is no way for you to experience what "I" feel. Ex: - We can smell the same smell of something, however, it will never be the same, because it was detected in one way by you, and in another way by me. Can they be compared? Sure, but they are not felt - or rather, experienced - in the same way.

Thank you for the honest reply. — javra

I thank you for taking the time to debate with me respectfully.

Is my proof sound? Is there another proof that there exists only 1 god. — TheMadFool

Gods commonly associated with pantheons - like the Greek, or the Norse, for example - are not infinitely - or "all-powerful" as you put it - powerful. The concept of just an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent god is an idea that if applied to the concept of a pantheon, contradicts itself as your own post shows. The post of God - here understand God as, The One, Allah, Zurvan, and all its cultural versions - is unique and absolute, there can be none other than him in his place - if the meaning of "place" could be applied to something like "God" -.

This is still a one sided reading of the story. A complex adaptive system like a society is the product of a local~global dynamic. Nature harnesses the complementary forces of competition and cooperation to strike balances. — apokrisis

You are ignoring the fact that I have already stated that all this dynamic that creates the organism of society is based on the human nature of wanting to be fulfilled individually - selfishness -. Commercial relations only happen because both sides - individually - want something to fulfill their wishes.

Not science but the meme factory of Romanticism. — apokrisis

It is complicated to debate when people already come with the purpose of disagreeing. Not enough, they resort to verbal aggression tactics. I expected nothing less to speak the truth. Have a nice day/evening

So, you are denying the reality of that which I described in my previous post, yes? — javra

Yes. Love is too, an act of egoism.

What makes you you? The you of four minutes past was a unique constituency (be it of givens such as intentions and percepts or of brain and bodily states, take your pick if needed) that is not the same you of the present moment. Yet you are the same, quote-unquote, unique you. How so? — javra

I can be a different person with each passing second, however, the death of my cells and the creation of new ones does not negate the fact that my "I" is the only one to witness these changes. No other being in existence can feel, and experience my existence in transition through time.

I banned Frank Apisa for his low quality posts. — jamalrob

He had over 2k posts in less than a year; it is not surprising that they were of low quality.

I believe what is truly good for the individual is also good for the whole. — Tzeentch

So we disagree. Great!

Do correct me if I’m wrong regarding your stance on love. — javra

Loving is the act of using - and being used - as an object by another selfish individual other than yours; the unique existence cries out for the experience of others and for the tear in the factory of the universe that makes you "owner of your self" and, at the same time, to be able - in prolonged moments of conscience - to tolerate - and to be tolerated - and to understand - and be understood - that the other is not and cannot be part of what makes you unique and be able to deal with that fact.

Now, in order in this paragraph, you use the words people, something good, seen from another point of view, cat, tree, the owner has a positive view, purpose, cat being saved, need of the person that saved it, be seen as someone good, being seen as good, many benefits befall the "good person". Literally every one of those concepts is fully constructed on your personal belief in the existence of a physical world that you share with other minds and beings. You even constructed a little society of two people and a cat. — Pro Hominem

The point is that you cannot be the cat, or the tree, or the street, but only yourself. I can't feel what you're feeling, as you can't feel what I'm feeling right now. From your point of view, the world spins around you, as it does to me.

Oh, poor me. Something which is not dependent on me. Let’s kill it. — Wayfarer

I'm not saying this, but ok.

The ego is an illusion based on past experiences and future aspirations. It is literally worthless and the cause of much personal grief. If one is interested in happiness for oneself or others, the ego should be regarded with nothing but suspicion. — Tzeentch

Egoism is the nature of humanity. You'd not have come here to say this, if it wasn't fulfiling you individually.

My perspective is based on the dynamic of competition~cooperation. So it recognises “egotism” over many scales of social organisation without lapsing into claims that self interest is purely a matter of individual psychology. — apokrisis

"Egotism" is not the same as "egoism". "Egotism" is bad, "egoism" is the nature of the human being..

The point is that your “individuality” only exists in opposition to “sociality”. You could never have come to your views unless they were already widely entrenched as a cultural meme that you could learn and pretend to be implementing. — apokrisis

Sociability is a creation of the human ego itself. To benefit- and also benefit those closest to me - remembering that selfishness can also be used to benefit others - - I participate in a community with other entities similar to me, and they all work together - in the matter of society -. My point of view was not born through memes, but through a research base in existentialist philosophies. Memes don't build thoughts - even though most people today take them seriously -.

Out of curiosity, what were you thinking of as a Bronze Age step towards the social invention of individuality? [Edit: Gilgamesh?] — apokrisis

The first point that we can claim to have had a "globalized" society was during the Akkadian Empire - 2334 BC to 2154 BC - where the whole known world - practicaly mesopotamia at the time - was under one state and a free person could travel and make business through cities like Ur to all the way up to Assur, and bilingualism became widespread with the use of both Sumer and Akkadian.

Again my own position is based on the interaction between the individual and the social group. I just say that societies need to create the right kind of individuals if they are going to persist. So the causality is switched around here. The individual only exist to the degree that “the crowd” supports that as a functional concept. (Or to the degree the crowd can afford to be indifferent to individual variety.) — apokrisis

Of course, a society may well develop the right individuals so that it becomes eternal, however, one of the consequences of this individualization is the creation of individuals aware of themselves and their surroundings, individuals who would no longer seek the realization of society through their actions, but the realization of their individual purposes. Civilization in a way - to function perfectly - kills this natural selfishness of the human being. The human being is naturally egocentric, selfish, and that is not a bad thing, it is something that makes him even richer, and is the engine of our entire existence. We exist to be.

But when is “be selfish” ever a recipe for success? Maybe you can explain. — apokrisis

I can give you an example of that:


You are poor, or even miserable; empathy, humbleness, and other of these "virtues" would not help you out of this state at all. What would benefit you most would be the act of focusing on yourself, getting a job in some way, doing things that otherwise would be seen with evil eyes - like leaving your family, your friends aside, but not because you are evil, and yes because the purpose of getting out of this miserable state is greater -. You work, you even change your personality - in a way, all the people you have a good relationship with today only have that kind of relationship with you because you are what you are, a drastic change in thinking, way of acting, can make that many will not be ble to cope with this breach of comfort - and eventually - over days, months, years, etc ... - manage to turn the corner and become a very successful person, financially stable, etc... This person's act of selfishness was to focus only on what he needed at the moment, now, having realized his needs - in a way - that person could very well be an empathic, charitable, kind person, but only because he can and not because it's the rule. Also, all these virtuous acts - unconsciously, or consciously - are done selfishly - you help others not because you love them, but because seeing them well accomplishes you individually -.

I guess what I'm saying is that there are only so many shoemakers in town and sooner or later you'll meet someone wearing the same shoes as you are and in that we lose our uniqueness, our identity - egocentrism has no leg to stand on. — TheMadFool

I, again affirm: - There is no way in reality that you could feel, perceive, live, etc ... as someone else, just compare your experiences and accept - in a way - that both are equal, however, nothing can be me except me. Individuality - or the ego, as I put it - is born and dies with its own.

The video says it all.

What constitutes the uniqueness of my experience if not as one filtered through my beliefs and no one has a monoply on beliefs, right? You and I could have the same beliefs and if we do, my experience and your experience will not differ to such an extent that the two of us could be distinguished and seen as two and not one individual.

The notion of a unique ego or self has to contend with the fact that beliefs and circumstances go hand in hand in shaping our experience of the world and both beliefs and circumstances are not unique to a single individual but constitute a shared universe and being so, there'll always be more than one individual with the exact same sense of self/ego which is to say egocentrism understood as an individual thinking of him/herself as distinct from everybody else is an impossibility. — TheMadFool

I still cannot see how would you perceive the universe in another shoes. You could compare your experiences, feelings, etc... with other people, but that would not make you less unique. You would still be the only one to be you, see as you do, be your own self.

How so? The flock/pack/crowd is only possible if attributes are shared i.e. no single individual can stake a claim on the attributes in question as their own personal possession. — TheMadFool

Can I share the feeling of my leg to you? Can you feel it as I do, can you touch it as I do? I think not. I can't "share" myself with anyone but myself.

Therefore a ham sandwich is better than heaven. — Pfhorrest

Truer words have never been said

What are your thoughts on this and what are the profound effects this would have on life, society, and our views on existence altogether? — Outlander

Its a blessing that we can't reach this other paralel universes. People would abandon these for that and so forth. If another "you" existed, existence doesn't mean anything, because you could die, and still be living, with all your memories, all your passions, but the only thing differently was that you didn't made that homework last week. Even concepts like egoism, things centered at the self would not make any sense anymore.

What if when we dream we get to "view" into these universes from our alternate selves? For example you know when you're doing something either exceeding interesting (buying a house, meeting someone, enjoying your family, skydiving, etc) or exceedingly boring (filling out paperwork, doing your 9-5) sometimes you (in a way) zone out for a bit... and just kind of let sensory experience takeover, as in your mind takes backseat to whatever emotions your feeling at the time. Again either out of pleasure or sheer boredom. What if during these times... in both your life in this universe and your life in another universe... these are gateways or "opportunities" for your alternate selves to experience or "view" these lives while dreaming? We've all done or said things during times "when we're not paying attention" or simply "lost track of the time"... do you think this theory could possibly account for this? — Outlander

This is pure speculation. Even if it was true - that I highly doubt it is - we could not prove it.

theory — Outlander

This is not a theory, it is a hypothesis.

Take a closer look at the trend: we were killing each other in countless wars in the past, we've more or lesss stopped doing that; we used to keep slaves, we've put an end to that; we keep and kill animals in cruel ways, now there's animal rights groups... Do you see where this is going? The rest of the world is just playing catch up with the Jains. — TheMadFool

The trend is peace, prosperity, plentyness, bloom. Humanity at is original and most beastly state is war, fear, famine, etc... Just take a look at history, we are not natural loving people, we are raiders, warriors, not sedentary fools that we are liking to pretend we are for the last couple of thousand years.

I surelly would love a world where everyone could say they are "humans" without differences, but that dream is a long way ahead, and until there we still are mere, humans...

All people, excepting the delusional and those who're hallucinating, are in agreement on what it is that they perceive through the senses - no grounds there for any uniqueness in experience that could define an individual ego. — TheMadFool

Just the fact that no other individual can feel and witness what another individual feels and witnesses. What we have are just theories, but there is no way I can feel what you felt 20 years ago, or are feeling now reading this. The individual is the ego, is unique in its experience.

Then comes the matter of beliefs - there too people behave like birds of the same feather, they flock together. — TheMadFool

The flock only exist because of the individual, without it the crowd, flock, pack, etc... is a empty concept.

In my humble opinion... — TheMadFool

Finally a person that didn't attack me in the first comment. Thank you for your cordiality.

My god man, you live in a Matrix of one. Fella finds a formula to justify the pathology of his egosyntonicness, then labels it as intelligence. — JerseyFlight

Attacking a person you don't even know is your way of presenting your arguments to me? Well, welcome!

Not if people have to live in a shared social and cultural reality. — apokrisis

How so? If the argument you'll use is that what is good and evil is decided not by the individual but from the group that said person lives in, this is wrong. The "absolute" truth is only real because it was constructed by the individuals truths of the people. It is a joint of egoists.

Feral children (reared by wolves, etc) would be your truest egocentrics. But I don't think you would envy them. — apokrisis

I don't see the point of using people who have had no contact with a society to try and contradict my point that the world is infinitely individual. There is no hypothesis, theory, opinion, agreement, decision, etc ... that proves that I can put myself in your shoes and see the world through your eyes. With that point in place, the Universe can only exist to my point of view, my experiences, myself, me - again I affirm the point that this does not apply only to me, but to all individuals, you, my dog, your friend, etc ... - .

For us normal humans, everything about "us" comes by way of our evolutionary history and current cultural circumstances. Even this Romantic notion of the "ego" that is so fashionable. — apokrisis

I still disagree. Our minds could still be the same product of our past nomad ancestry, but through the mending of cultures, new inventions like religion, ideology, and even philosophy, our minds work in a completely different way than the ones from our ancestors.

I wasn't making any argument that empathy was "good" - some kind of abstract moral judgement. I was saying it is functional in obvious evolutionary ways. It is a large part of our basis as social creatures. — apokrisis

Humanity is naturally egoistic, good and evil, are just ways of projecting this egoism to the world.

- especially as part of that modern creed of individualisation and self-actualisation that is so central to being .... a cog in the modern economic machine with its atomisation of society. :grin: — apokrisis

Not so modern, we already experienced these "creed" of "individualisation" and "self-actualisation" at least 3 times during recorded human history: Bronze Age - 3.000 BC to 1100 BC - Classical Age - 900 BC to 476 AD - and our "modern" period - 1453 to present -. People forget how lucky we are from living in a period where you and I can chat about different opinions without being killed our being exiled - although we are beginning to see the symptoms of the end -. Individualisation is ending by becoming mundane, the ego is again being misrepresented. And if the point of this comment was to try to somehow denigrate my thinking by putting it as something "created by the consumer industry", I saw it, and it didn't work. - Just to make it clear -

Nope. The neurobiology and its functionality are still there inside every head. — apokrisis

Read the answer to the third quote.

If it is necessary, it is necessary because it is basic to humans as social and cultural creatures. Any selfhood we have arises out of that. — apokrisis

Its only necessary because we created this necessity. Think about it.

This "you" you claim to be primary is just a member of some crowd. It needs that crowd to exist. — apokrisis

The crowd only exists because the individual exists, without it the crowd is nothing but a concept. The individual - so, the ego - is the core of human society. We wouldn't create complex concepts, inventions, technologies if we didn't need them for doing something that would realize ourselves individually.

"be yourself" is what Apple, Nike and every other expensive crap peddler will empathetically sell you as society's core message. — apokrisis

"Be yourself", and everyone looks the same boring gray. I don't know why you compared me - or at least thought about comparing - to that type of person. I tell people to be selfish, not decadent, rotten hypocritical consumers who embrace the status quo.

So by this understanding or fact, the entire OP is something of an autobiography. How could it not be? Hm? — Outlander

And what philosophy, deep down, is nothing more than a mere internal projection to others?

Well... I dunno stop doing that and actually care for others for a minute lol :grin: — Outlander

The cynicism and lack of respect here is really impressive. Have a nice day / good night

You’ve not said anything to rebut my points, just restated your faulty conclusion. — apokrisis

It seems to me that you haven't been able to read my entire answer. Have a nice day / good night

So you are taking the self as something that brutely exists. Along with a world that also brutely exists. — apokrisis

The physical world and the human ego - mind, individual, use the synonym that you prefer - could normaly exist without one another, the point is that on the individual level, it doesn't matter what a- for example - chair is, because it could be - with the individual interpretation - anything that the self wants or needs it to be. We are embarking on the world of pure relativism. You could say, but what isn't pure relativism? Even our scientific knowledge could be completely wrong if the majority of scientists agree that something else is right. What is good, is only good on the egocentric perspective of the person in question, as a simple "gum" is only a gum if the person sees a gum, if not, it is something else but a gum.

So to get to your point, empathy is completely reasonable for a social animal like a human. Egocentrism would be a failure of neurobiology. — apokrisis

Empathy is only moral because people accept it as something good and that should be encouraged. But empathy - if seen from another point of view - could be simply someone portraiting itself to be good for its own advantage. Ex: A cat is up a tree, someone goes there, saves the cat and deliver it to its owner, and now the owner has a positive view on the savior, but the only purporse of the cat beeing saved was the need of the person that saved it to be seen as someone good, and now beeing seen as good, many benefits will befall the "good person". It isn't always counsciously that people make this kind of acts - of being good only for its need of egoism - but everyone does it unconsciously.

We are evolved to have a consciousness that is "us" in a modelling relationship with a "world" that is full of social significance, and not just physical significance. — apokrisis

The mind that was evolved with humanity was lost when we began living sedentarily and in not-nomads societies. The current human consciousness is a construct of millenium of doctrines being stamped unto us from people high on the hiearchy. Ex: Pharao's worship, Heavenly Rulership, Mesopotamia's god fearing, Christianity, Confuscionism, etc... The only thing that survived from the nomad period of humanity is power. - Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.

It doesn't make much sense being "a self" in a world that lacks sociality (with its demand to balance empathy against hostility and other complex judgements). — apokrisis

I'm not saying that empathy, altruism, goodness, compassion, etc... isn't necessary, i'm saying that it is only beeing done because we are egoists that are egocentric.

On the other hand, linguistic culture can indeed construct antisocial and nihilistic worlds for people these days. That is what your post was doing, wasn't it? — apokrisis

If you don't agree with me, ok, but I don't see the need to eventually attack my person.

So we have now developed that kind of thought freedom. But that doesn't make it good philosophy as it is based on a fundamental failure to understand the actual evolutionary basis of the human mind. — apokrisis

Read the answer to the second quote.

What say you? — TheMadFool

It isn't surprising that throughout history, jainists are only diminishing in number through conversion to Islam, Christianity, Sikhism, and even Buddhism. A religion that doesn't defend its own people or territory is fated to fail.

Is choosing an universal language and sticking to it really so hard? Can't we create a language that uses very few vocal sounds so that everyone can become fluent in it, and is made to be internally consistent? And most importantly, how are people okay with the state things are now? — Seth72

1º Yes, on human history, the "global" language was always the language of the dominant power, and everyone used it not because it was easy or some grand idea of unity, but because if they didn't use it, they would be very jeopardized. English will not be forever the "human language"; at some point in the future, another language will take its place - As how things are going now, i'm heavily inclined to say that it would be arabic, but who knows? -

2º Language is not created, it's learned and changes with the passing of time. Ex: Latin existed, and through the years it was blighted and turned into the romance languages - Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, French, Romanian, Occitanian, you got the idea -.

3º What do you expect when you study the late Roman Empire? Yeah, so what do you expect from humanity now? - Our globalized - disgusting - society is almost identical to the ancient Greco-Roman world, just better technology and different cultures -.

Why politics and ideology don't go well with philosophy?

- Maybe is because we nearly destroyed the world when unifying ideologies and politics with philosophy? - Napoleonic Wars, 1848 Revolutions, WWI, 1917 Revolution, WWII, etc... - All that utopian nonsense we - humans - created in the 18th and 19th century because we simply "could", we had achieved an unparalled level of technology and culture. It's not surprising that today - after the 1950s - we made "analytic philosophy" almost a religion to be followed. We have created a stigma towards opinions - that is what makes philosophy - just because we couldn't project in the world what we had written, and we became bitter, resentful, evil...

Can a "purpose" exist without consciousness?

Unconsciousness can give you more purposes than being conscious could ever give you.

Evil is ultimately this — hypericin

"Evil" is just a characterization of someone's use of his on ego, just as "good" is too...

What are your thoughts on possible afterlives? — Random Name

In my opinion, the view of the "eternal return" of Friedrich Nietzsche is one of the most plausable scenarios of an "afterlife" that could - we don't know and we can't prove it - exist. Think in this way, you die, your body gets digested by the world - I'm resuming the thought - and the Universe goes on without you, yet, the atomic particles that once made you "you" still exist, and will forever exist. The only certainty we can have is that time passes, and if given time, anything eventually will happen - even in large scales of time in the powers of incomprehension -. So eventually, you'll be recomposed, everything that once made you new again. This kind of thinking makes me relieved in a strange way...

I don't want to have anything to do with this forum after reading some of the most disgusting posts by those who run this forum. — Sam26

Should you not fight to demonstrate your point of view? Oh, If you do that without being very "politicaly correct" they ban you... Yeah, real.

Was Judas a hero and most trusted disciple, or a traitor? — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Judas is an interesting figure in Christian history, because in the view of what is canonical for the church - here I'm refering to the Catholic church - he was a traitor, the bodily form of envy - and perhaps also, of greed -.

However, it seems to me that if we take into account the "historicity" of the bible, Judas was a totally distorted figure. For in times when the canonical states that Judas committed something against Jesus, it is also possible to see how only it was a disciple questioning his tactics of ministry. We could compare Judas, with the Islamic figure of Ali ibn Abi Talib - Muhammad's cousin - who was the most faithful of his followers, and also the most questioning.

The only point where they differ is the fact of kinship, and the influence they have had on their prophets. Jesus always denied the arguments of revolt against the Roman civilization that Judas had placed, but Muhammad eventually became a political figure as well as a religious one, where he fought against the infidels because of Ali's arguments - a point that will make the Islamic dominate the Mediterranean for a long time during the Middle Ages, and that would make that Islam lasted until today -.