I believe all people have a narrative in their head shaped and governed by how they internalize issues and thoughts. That 'narrative' is governed by some semblance of consistency in my opinion, no?

Start a non-profit community/education center that focuses on helping folks with some aspect of development you think is worth it. You could probably afford quite a few of these.

Fund scholarships/grants.

Travel the world like Leon Logothetis and enhance peoples lives who demnonstrate unusual kindness.

Give money away to charity.

Fund the short story contest prize for $10,000

Hire me. — Nils Loc

Of all the things, I'd rather hire you. I'm very vigilant about what I should do with my money now that I finally have some.

Let me know what you'd like to do in PM or even here.

I think that's a good idea. The max IRA contribution is $6,000 per year, so you should be able to funnel your tens of billions of dollars into your tax free investments in a couple of billion of years. Well, maybe less because it increases to $7,000 I think at age 50. — Hanover

Ah yes, I believe it is something I can not do. I totally forgot all the formalities with all the buzz around what's happening recently. Sorry.

But anyway, congrats on your big payday!! Was it your year end bonus? — Hanover

I'm not a CEO. I just sold some ideas.

Are you trying to say you’re a billionaire? Or is this just to make a point? — Xtrix

Yes, I am a billionaire. I don't want to come off as stuck up or anything; but, that's what I was able to do. I don't even want 'money' to change me.

Alternative 2 - Call your therapist and ask him to increase the dosage on your mood stabilizers. — T Clark

You're an engineer so, I'll disclose the generalities of the ideas of the patents sold for your benefit or amusement:

I made my money with a novel way to provide cheap and effective air conditioning consisting of utilizing sound waves or in an even more advanced version ultra-sound to decrease Brownian motion inside a chamber where the sound or ultra-sound waves decrease the volume of the coolant (PV=nRT) and with that expends the ambient temperature of the coolant. It's really much simpler than kinematic cooling through compression of the coolant.

I don't think making up these stories would make any sense. I really sold these ideas and made a profit.

The argument (the title of the OP) rests on the presupposition that time had no beginning.

Hence,

If time existed in nothingness, and there was a possibility of the big bang, then it becomes necessarily so that something came out from nothing.

The incorporation of the term gratuitous in Christianity is always met with incredulousness.

Don't you think that lawyers pretend as well? This very moment, I'm pretending I care what you think about lawyers. What wonders will I learn from this pursuit? — Ciceronianus

I think lawyers do it for differing reasons or even financial motivations. The motivation for a philosopher to pretend would be only to engage similarly as in physics with thought experiments over the nature of the world.

What kind of pretending do lawyers have to do as a living to play devils advocate or be called accusers doesn't seem interesting to debate over.

It happens Dewey indeed said that (although I paraphrase). You may find that out for yourself if you manage to convince yourself there is an Internet and you can access it. I happen to agree with him. And with Peirce that what he calls "self-deception" on the part of Descartes shouldn't be indulged in. — Ciceronianus

Well, if Peirce called it self-deception at his time, and with it Hume told us to disregard metaphysics, which seems to always be a common theme that you bring up about the nature of philosophy isn't really interesting to pretend about nowadays with the linguistic turn and stuff like that.

The unexamined life? — tim wood

Examine what, you ask? That which needs to be examined. And how do I know what needs to be examined, you ask? By examining. And so forth. — tim wood

Well, yes. I believe you understand the issue. It doesn't seem to be a vicious circle, as it seems to me based on how you evaluate examination. The result of examining ultimate concerns aforementioned in the OP should be greater comfort and satisfaction in life when bedrock has been found to those concerns that can lead to dread or angst. What are your thoughts about the topic further based on my response?

I also want to add that the OP will be changed slightly as that may cause some confusion.

I'll try and provide my own answer and compare it with others.

Ultimate concerns are preoccupied with existential problems raised from living life itself and trying to find meaning in it. The most prominent ultimate concerns consist of life, death, nothingness, and meaninglessness. I would also like to lump into one of the concerns is finding something aesthetic in accompanying one's journey through life. I hypothesize that this can be found in the presence of a significant other. There doesn't seem to be anything more important in one's life than appreciating the care or deeds a parent or significant other or even socially a teacher can endow onto another person.

I believe that these are the foundations of life that we stand on and cultivate in appreciation and realization in our own lives.

It strikes me as odd that a lawyer would even attempt to say that philosophy as a field is all make pretend. I mean, at least the philosopher is sincere about his intentions about the issue of foundationalism or Descartes' skepticism or theories of truth, no?

With what limited understanding I have of pragmatism from Rorty, I think, what you allude to @Ciceronianus is an attempt to elucidate something greater than a dead or defunct methodology in attempting to understand the same issues that bother the mind's of many philosophers.

My understanding of the issue is that you're perverting what Dewey might have stated in that we only think when confronted with a problem. Is that accurate in your view?

You atheists never cease to amuse. You've never died, at least not anytime in recorded history. Just moved around some, mentally and physically. :wink: — Outlander

Yeah, but your hippocampus is unique for every individual.

I imagine some of us would become so bored that philosophy could develop a new urgency. — Tom Storm

Well, I'm operating from the assumption that we will have a lot of happy or rather well-off people will arise with age reversal or staving off aging and with it death.

I imagine this is something that will be highly determined by one's genetics, and hence quite a lot of money will have to spent on sequencing and analyzing one's genome. It doesn't seem like any of this would be cheap economically.

Thank you for the read. I've been formulating a theory of motivation as of recent, and have come to conclusions related to internal consistency inherently built into the very process of encoding information or memories into the hippocampus.

Furthermore, it seems that eudemonic pursuits such as purposefulness and desire originating in a greater desire for happiness is a primary motivator in most types of rationally guided behavior, primarily through associative memory of moments associated with peak experiences that stand out from the rest.

What do you think about this?

The difficulty I see with epistemic logic is that belief is a relation between a statement and an individual. But it's not just Tolkien who believes Frodo walked into Mordor. Hence my argument that statements about Frodo continue despite the demise of the author. — Banno

Surely, Tolkien didn't believe in Frodo the same way we believe the cup is still on the counter after we walk out of the room, no?

I mean by this that Tolkien most probably imagined Frodo, and then all the rest followed on with his quest to destroy the ring of power.

Anyhow, epistemic logic seemingly has no issues with free logic as long as fiction logic is at play? This is my only point, and don't see how you can argue otherwise? However, if you insist, there's quite a lot of logicizing that took place during the venture of Frodo with Sam.

I'm just confused in general with these topics about Pegasus or Santa denoting nothing of epistemic import, that we rely so heavily on epistemology; yet, it goes unacknowledged when solving these linguistic dilemmas.

The concept of Turing Computability applies to functions between sets of words in a formal language. We cannot apply that concept to the physical universe, without first defining such a function. I cannot think of any natural candidate for such a function in relation to the physical universe. — andrewk

May I ask if you agree with the Church–Turing–Deutsch principle, then? I mean, it states that:

In computer science and quantum physics, the Church–Turing–Deutsch principle (CTD principle) is a stronger, physical form of the Church–Turing thesis formulated by David Deutsch in 1985.[1] The principle states that a universal computing device can simulate every physical process. — Church–Turing–Deutsch principle

If it is true (and that would be a discussion unto itself) that one can simulate every physical process, then wouldn't the implication be that with a robust enough theory one could, according to David Deutsch, be able to simulate all the workings of the universe inside a computer? With the logical positivists in mind, I assume that they might agree that the notion of such a possibility is that the logic system whence one could utilize such a universal computing device be possible too?

My apologies, I'm not sure what to make of this.

So Epistemic Logic is the various logics that include predicates for belief and knowledge - yes? Where's that fit here?

But it's not true, nor even helpful, to think of fictional worlds as only existing in the mind of the author. Were this true, both Holmes and Frodo would have ceased to exist along with the minds of their respective authors. — Banno

Obviously, only Tolkien knew about Frodo before he wrote LOTR, no?

I don't see the point in NOT invoking epistemic logic into the discussion when thinking about works of fictions originally, (at least), existing in the mind of the author, and then his book or script after he or she decides to commence it into fiction for other people.

I don't understand the title.

If it's Fiction Logic within Free Logic, then aren't we committing ourselves to Epistemic Logic at this point to "conclude" anything about the domain of discourse, which is the mind of the author and/or literature or script?

But, people change their beliefs all the time. So, what's the problem with saying that Buddhism is a belief about human nature?

No, that's just a hypothesis about human nature, that Epicureanism or Stoicism suites people better, and hence the proof of the hypothesis cannot be deemed as sound based on generalizations like that a greater number of people can decide this as true.

But, to believe that such a stipulation definition as true makes it a propositional attitude, in the least.

You know, if you really want to point out a fallacy, it would seem that whoever utters that Buddhism is realism, seems to suffer from a confirmation bias, no?

I mean, that a larger population of people seemingly prefer Epicureanism rather than Buddhism nowadays? Therefore, the masses decided what's best??

Proof in numbers?

Is that really true? I mean, there really isn't anything being sold here in Buddhism apart for a way of living...

I have some criticisms against this. (Not gonna play devil's advocate here).

And, I'll spell it out succinctly here. Why is Buddhism so realistic if Stoicism or Epicureanism isn't?

How would would even qualify the statement that Buddhism is realistic? After all, Buddhism isn't a religion; but, is in a sense some kind of way of living?

What are the chances?

None.

China is the largest investor in the US economy.

'Being' is not a predicate.

It's a little too simplistic in my opinion. He creates an assumption that religion is full of idiots, like the guy killed in Jerusalem by being beaten to death in a street alley over doing nothing wrong apart from being a white westerner. Its not all that bad apart from the notion that absurdity isn't taken as a reduction and absurdom towards traditional religions.

It looks as if the person has to measure how bad life is vs. how good it feels (or actually does) helping another person out. — Manuel

How could one ever hope to measure such an issue without too much bias? Hmm? :chin:

Throwing more people into the world is just enacting a political agenda. — schopenhauer1

What kind of political agenda?

Someone just "MUST" experience this world. — schopenhauer1

This is simply how things are. I understand the frustration; but, it seems to me that some people find life enjoying. I don't have an answer for each and every specified case of philosophical pessimism arising in a person's head; but, it appears as if this is not a common feature to have a disposition towards life. Would you agree?

Why should they? Any answer to this is your ego transubstantiated to be manifested as someone else's life and inevitably, suffering. — schopenhauer1

I don't think we are so limited in options, at least under the careful guidance of a caring parent. At least, money isn't a troublesome issue until your on your own. To make money is another issue; but, again I feel as if this were about fairness, fundamentally. Is that true?

Who's going to full in Sanders shoes?

But, how does the ledger system know that a bitcoin was mined?

The book is shiete, but I'm still laughing while I read it.

I don't know. Mindfulness meditation is beneficial in most regards. It's nice to engage in any form of meditation, and I think most practicers of meditation want to do it correctly, so they engage in their own investigation into Buddhism.

I like Zen Buddhism for this reason. Instead of focusing on anything that some might quibble over, they just practice zazen or engaging in life. They're jokingly known for telling students to kill the Buddha if you meet him on the road.

I'm reading a pop-Zen book by Brad Warner, There is No God. It's kind of cool how practical Zen can-be.

Does human nature exist and if it did could it refute anything? — Tom Storm

I'm not sure if I adequately expressed myself before. But, my usual argument to philosophical pessimism is that it's some form of overgeneralization on the part of the individual towards the scope of existence of the whole of humanity. I don't buy into that assumption that humanity is indeed faced with brute suffering that can't be remedied.

It doesn't seem natural to assume so, and that's all perhaps my point amounts to.

And if the pessimist feels empathy, which most do, then maybe see if you can help other somehow. What else? — Manuel

It's a pernicious issue. If life indeed is full of suffering and strife against it, then what's there better to do? Isn't the conclusion based off philosophical pessimism that suicide is justified a non sequitur given that the vast majority of people seem to find something in life - be it helping other people or trying to find something worth doing in life - worth pursuing?

If it is true that empathy is the source of pain for a philosophical pessimist, then what's wrong with 'care'? Why does it have to seem so selfish to end ones life in a hurry rather than care for something such as ones life or another person?

Then what is the philosophers answer to philosophical pessimism?