Intuition is a heuristic that is used to make sense of a situation and inform our decisions or opinions. They are based on generalisations biases and previous experiences.
Intuition is more of guessing than "knowing" and a Nobel awarded scientific study showed that statistically our intuition performs really bad. — Nickolasgaspar

You are using generalizations and heuristics to conclude that intuition doesn't work. In other words, you are not being rigorous but relying on "intuition" to dismiss intuition.

Well, creativity is one way you can use your ability of having free-will. — Lindsay

Perhaps. I get the sense that free-will, if it exists, is inherently creative. To make I think is the same as to create, and we talk of making decisions.

never take advice from anyone that post more than 2 posts per day on any social media — Sir2u

And maybe we shouldn't give advice if we are someone who posts more than twice a day on social media.
Perhaps I shouldn't have shared my own thoughts on advice until I have been living them consistently.

Apologies. I've forgotten I've contributed to that thread (?) — Caldwell

Thanks for renewing interest!

If one tries hard enough, does one find true happiness in things that are subject to change, to aging, illness, and death? — baker

What would you say distinguishes true happiness from untrue happiness?
One can enjoy things that are subject to gaining, illness, and death, but how much joy, and for how long?
PS. I'm not sure "true happiness" is even the goal of Buddhism.
The question might better be asked, can one find an end to suffering in things that are subject to change?

I think roughly speaking the aims are different.
Philosophy seeks wisdom. Science (as it is popularly conceived or practiced today) seeks to understand the natural world.

I have already chosen the dark side. I believe there is a point of no return which I have crossed into. I made my choice and I will try and enjoy being a force of destruction.

If you get stuck you're my enemy. — I like sushi

At the moment trying to take responsibility feels hopeless. Like trying to control a wild horse. Gives me more pressure, more feelings of inadequacy, and the feeling like I am choosing to be stuck and that therefor I am a bad lazy person.

But I do think sometimes I am truly an evil person behind my mostly pleasant agreeable exterior. And that deep down I would rather be a force of destruction to the world at large.

Acknowledging helplessness is usually another way to avoid a problem. — I like sushi

A lot really is outside of control though.
Clinging to the idea of being in control can also be a way to avoid reality.

I would go for saying 'acknowledging ignorance' rather than what I often see as 'clinging to helplessness' in order to avoid any possible recognition of responsibility. If you listen to yourself you will eventually come to understand, bit by bit, where to put your energies. Put them somewhere though rather than opting for passivity as nihilism will eat you up. — I like sushi

I wonder if nihilism is the ultimate truth though.

OK. You're human. Congrats! It is a madness in and of itself in times like these. You might come to recognise this 'insanity' as sanity that is probably what is needling you :) — I like sushi

Sometimes I want to "go insane", in the sense of transcending the mind. I want to get raw instinct back which I feel I have been taught to repress to live as docile member of society.

This is the burden of freedom. Many ignore it and suffer as a consequence, some don't ignore it and suffer actively. Choose the later if you have the fortitude. — I like sushi

I struggle with the idea of free will. Sometimes, like AA mentions, I find it helpful to acknowledge my helplessness. Taking responsibility and admitting helplessness are both forms of facing up to reality, I guess, and very hard to do.

I had a depression many times. Felt the same detachment from Nature. The society we live in only stimulates this feeling. What a world we live in... A big artificial LEGOland, with power structures trying to force people to live in it. Not truly inspiring for the natural mind to develop. Tell me if you want me to continue. — MatterGauge

Sure.

"Insanity" itself, however, is not a helpful term, and lacking a specific definition is more harmful than helpful. Better to ask yourself if you have persistent problems in living of any kind, and if yes, then hie yourself to a medical professional. And before you go, write down the what you think and why you think it. — tim wood

Good point. It is hard to accept an unflattering label. Easier to accept having a particular problem or challenge.

Insanity is coming here everyday thinking you'll find answers. :worry: — Sam26

Good one. I get good clarifications and new thoughts from coming here though. I enjoy the journey, even if there is no ultimate destination, other than greater clarity and information on where I am.

EDIT: Sorry, I didn't even read your OP, just the title. Given what you say, you probably should see a professional. It doesn't look to me as if your insane, you are aware of what's going on, if you weren't, that would be a big red flag. But, yeah, got see professionals here. — Manuel

Thanks for advice. I would have liked to read your thoughts on the title question too though. I didn't, consciously at least, intend for this post to be all about me, but I understand that if I'm really in bad shape that is more important than philosophizing about insanity..

Insanity is an old-fashioned word used to describe a range of mental illnesses that result in significant impairment around appropriate decision making, personal safety and the safety of others. There might be a delusional component, auditory hallucinations, along with personal distress and paranoia. People may also have moments of lucidity. — Tom Storm

I'm not having hallucinations and I don't think I'm dangerous to others or seriously to myself, so I guess I don't fit the high end of "insanity". I'm just a wreck is all.

I'm saying we're both insane, whether God exists or not. I do happen to be a theist, but how can I live in congruence with that which I cannot fathom? And if God doesn't exist, I'm just that much more insane. — theRiddler

:ok:

Do you ‘think’ this thoughts or actually hear ‘voices’? There is a HUGE difference and some experience the first believing it to be the later. — I like sushi

They are just thoughts. And they are basically my own voice. But I recognize voices represent different parts of myself, if that makes sense.

Book an appointment and insist on seeing a professional rather than filling out some nonsense form and being dismissed without speaking to anyone. — I like sushi

right

Not a very helpful tip: Don't know where you live, but it can be difficult to locate a clinic with openings in the near future. So, start looking before you are in crisis. — Bitter Crank

I'll see if I can get myself to do it.

I apologize if I gave the impression of being "crazier" than I really am. I think I am in a bad enough condition to need help, but not "clinically insane" as the term goes.

I have a friend who has mostly the same issues I have. Constantly feeling bad, hard time with discipline and decision making and so on.
He is seeing a psychologist.
I'm not seeing that its made a big difference. I get the impression the psychologist mostly sits back and listens. It is therapeutic in itself to express oneself. But I can't stand the idea of paying a stranger just to listen to me.

Is this a philosophy question? — Artemis

Perhaps applied epistemology?

del

Del

I'm not sure EQ is a specific kind of intelligence, so much as someone one can develop understanding and ability to deal with emotions.

What am I feeling, what are they feeling? Why? How to manage?

In general, I would say self-awareness and empathy are important. Being aware of and understanding ones own and other's emotions is part of self awareness and empathy.

In any field of enquiry you are gonna have to rely on yourself and others to various degrees so it could be very useful to understand emotion, especially in so far as emotion deals with motivation.

Precisely! — GraveItty

Sounds interesting!

I can't imagine how math, or anything, can lack both symmetry and asymmetry. If something lacks symmetry doesn't that mean is asymmetrical?

And isn't math all about the symmetry of numbers, loosely speaking?
the quality of being made up of exactly similar parts facing each other or around an axis.
synonyms: regularity, evenness, uniformity, equilibrium, consistency, congruity, conformity, agreement, correspondence, orderliness, equality

The law of non-contradiction, in the positive, could be the law of agreement. In other words, the law of symmetry.

But the most beautiful math is in which both are not present. Now you can call this a complement again, but then you are stuck in the symmetry-asymmetry dichotomy. — GraveItty

I'm not sure what you are saying. The most beautiful math is when there is neither symmetry no asymmetry?

How does this explain the beauty of my dog jumping up out of a dark ultramarine moonlit blanket of low mist? — GraveItty

To me you are asking "where is the symmetry". I assume you are relating the experience to something in your memory, perhaps subconscious memory, which is creating a symmetry.

Edit: To me the imagine evokes a balance between gravitas and levity.

Edit: However, I do agree that the perception of symmetry, or the feeling/state it evokes aesthetically as the experience of beauty in a person, is subjective. So my definition was too simplistic.

I have exactly the opposite attitude. — GraveItty

And I bet its a complimentary opposite, if we examined both attitudes in the proper context.

Beauty is symmetrical relationship. A harmony of complimentary opposites.

As an aside, I think the "big picture" "truth" of life is also a harmony of opposites. I.E Yin Yang

This may be the source of John Keats saying “Beauty is truth–truth beauty

And R Buckminster Fuller: "When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty but when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.

?
I am thinking of free will as the ability to be creative.
Creativity = bringing something new into existence?
Is it possible to bring something new into existence?
Bring from where? and to where?
New: not existing before. Is there anything that has never existed before? How could we know?
Does creativity mean bringing something new into existence from nothing?
Can something come from nothing? Is 'nothing' a word with no referent?

Edit: More on point: Free will = creating one's destiny? Fate = one's latent creative potential and limitations?

.I think that the posters on this forum who propose theist arguments are more inclined to swing my thoughts against belief in God than the atheist ones. I wonder if I am the only person who finds this. — Jack Cummins

The more passionate, firm and emphatic someone is about their position, the more skeptical I tend to be that it is true. Great pathos is often making up for lack of logos.

Everyone is on board with them. — Xtrix

Everyone enough. Not everyone.

If vaccine safety and efficacy meant that vaccines weren't dangerous, then I should think everyone would be on board with them. But I am not hearing anyone claim vaccines aren't dangerous.

Not “safe enough,” or any other home-brewed bullshit you now need to invent to save face in your quest to justify a nonsense conspiracy theory. They’re safe. — Xtrix

Of course the vaccines are safe and effective.
The problem is that vaccines are dangerous

I don’t think that it would make sense to try something even if you feel fairly certain that it will succeed. What we need is some sort of proof or evidence that guarantees that we are making decisions that make sense. — Average

I can imagine doing that in the medical profession, but I'm not sure how that can be done outside of a setting where there are standard procedures. (And even in medicine people can still come up with new or improved procedures or run into unprecedented or rare cases, and the experts don't always agree 100% on which procedures are best for which particular cases.)

PS. I'd think the best one can hope for is to know oneself enough to know that one isn't fooling oneself and is making the best possible decision in light of the known information.

For example in the field of medicine bleeding a patient doesn’t make sense because it does not produce the desired result. — Average

Assuming you trust the consensus of medical experts on the efficacy of blood letting, then you already have reason to think blood letting will not produce the desired result.

So it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to try something when you already feel sure it will not succeed.

However, if blood letting was not yet widely tested, and there is some reason to think it may work, and the consequences of failure aren't dire, it could possibly make sense to try blood letting.

Assuming blood letting in fact doesn't work at all, this was probably discovered by trying it and testing the results, and comparing the results to chance etc.

I think that in order for a decision to make sense it needs to actually produce the desired result. For example in the field of medicine bleeding a patient doesn’t make sense because it does not produce the desired result. — Average

So if you try something and fail, does that mean it didn't make sense to try?

My question is: How valuable is the help of those who do not actually care? — Wheatley

Valuable to who?
I'd prefer a therapist that doesn't personally care too much. Someone who is detached and logical and to the point. I can get sympathy from my friends and family.

Whenever we decide to do something we believe that what we are about to do actually does make sense. How do we determine if we are right or wrong? How can we be certain that our actions are actually beneficial and not counterproductive? — Average

Do you think it's possible to determine if we are right or wrong? Why or why not?

Is it wise to aim at certainty before making a decision?

Do we actually make decisions or do they just sort of happen and then we come up with a reason we made the decision after the fact?

Something about your question seems ambiguous to me. What does it mean for a decision to make sense? To who? Right and wrong to who? Who is to judge?

PS. In general, it seems the options are to learn as best we can from the experience of others and what we can't learn vicariously we have to learn from our own experience. I don't think there is an air-tight formula one can pass down to others so one can be certain one is making a "right" or "beneficial" decision. However, maybe we can come up with general rules of thumbs. Basic guidelines. Maybe by averaging out advice from a large pool of successful happy people. It might turn out to be highly individualistic though. I probably shouldn't be giving my own opinions on the matter because I'm not a happy person myself, so what do I know.

I'd say any ambiguous term like 'philosophy', especially when its used in a limited way to mean, for example, western philosophy, yet such isn't specified.

In the example above, I can see the golden sand, I can see the rock I told you about, I can also see myself touch it BUT I can't feel the rock.
What gives? — TheMadFool

Imagination (Merriam-Webster Dictionary): The act or power of forming a mental image of something not present to the senses or never before wholly perceived in reality.
No nention of senses other than vision!

My question, however, is why are we incapable of deliberately switching on all the senses when we daydream to produce an experience indistinguishable from reality itself? For instance, why couldn't my mind simulate the touch of the rock when I could simulate it visually?

Visiual simulations are what imagination is. — TheMadFool

:chin:

Second, I don't mind speculating on the issue but if your claim - that you can perfectly simulate nonvisual sensations is true - there should be some well-documented case. A reference I could crosscheck would be really helpful. Thanks. — TheMadFool

You yourself said you can imagine the sound of eating ice cream. A lot of people report having songs get stuck in their head. What do you think goes on in that case? Its literally hearing a song loop in ones mind. Sometimes I spontaneously imagine complete albums in my mind, to stretch my creative limits. Well, I shouldn't make it seem like I do this regularly, or that I actually completed a full album, but I've gotten something close
.
Do you think people hearing songs in their heads is 'well documented'? I doubt it. Its already folk knowledge that this occurs. So who would fund research?

It is a big assumption that anything people can do in their imaginations would be well documented. This is a folk knowledge area, not a thing for rigorous scientific documentation necessarily. Not that it couldn't be done, but its hard to imagine scientists being sufficiently motivated to do this sort of research.

First off, I'm not interested in the kind of thought experiment that deals in imagining being something nonhuman (like an apple). Second, I don't mind speculating on the issue but if your claim - that you can perfectly simulate nonvisual sensations is true - there should be some well-documented case. A reference I could crosscheck would be really helpful. Thanks. — TheMadFool

lol I didn't say imagine being an apple. I said imagine an apple before you.
And I didn't say I can perfectly simulate nonvisual sensations. Whatever, you seem on the defensive a bit.

I'll leave you to search for well documented cases of perfectly simulated nonvisual sensations if you want.

get the odor of tobacco on fire with your imaginary cigarette?

What does it mean to get odor of tobacco on fire with an imaginary cigarette then, if its not a metaphor?
It almost sounds like synesthesia.

My point is that the more your senses are inhibited as they are in dreams or inside a sensory deprivation tank, the more your brain is taking over to recreate/hallucinate reality accurately — Vince

I wonder if introverts tend to have more vivid imaginations, since introverts tend to be more withdrawn. A friend of mine with aphantasia is very uninhibited. TheMadFool comes off as a quite uninhibited extrovert as well.

This is happening in my imagination but, for better or worse, sorry to say, no smell of burning cigarettes. Are you telling me that in your case you can actually get the odor of tobacco on fire with your imaginary cigarette? — TheMadFool

I wouldn't call it getting the odor of tabacco on fire. But assuming you are using that as a metaphor for experiencing the smell of tabacco inwardly, without having my olfactory nerves stimulated with present tabacco smoke, yeah.

If yes, how do you do it? I'm curious. — TheMadFool

I dunno. How do you visualize? If someone asks you to "experience what it would be life if an apple were before you" you just kind of do it, no? How can you explain how you do it? If someone says "Now imagine smelling a sliced apple"... I just do it.

Maybe if you try religiously every day to imagine smelling something that isn't present, you can gradually develop the ability.

You maybe unique, a one of a kind then because most people can't do that. I, for one, can't do that. So you're saying that when you imagine yourself touching a rock with your hand, you can actually feel the rock i.e. your hands register sensations? — TheMadFool

I think you are assuming what you can or can't do is the norm.
I can imagine touch as vividly as images.
I was actually mildly shocked when I learned not everyone can do this.
I can imagine in all five sense modalities.
I don't understand how people choose what to eat if they can't imagine the scents or flavors of the food.

You described the problem of objectivity well.
Still, in everyday use, we talk about real vs unreal. Eg. a real woman vs a cross dresser (sorry LBGQ etc). So what is 'real' then here, without reference to objectivity? Can 'real vs unreal' make sense without objectivity?