You’re good enough, you don’t have to be more... but you can be more, you’re never just stuck as you are. — Pfhorrest

And again, you're view is totally sensible. I'd even say it's pragmatic, in terms of the classical American tradition.

Oh yeah. I have generalized anxiety disorder and mild depression, so I'm quite aware of how tough it can be and all the many factors involved. Obviously not everybody that has an illness need have an "artistic trait".

There's also the issue that nowadays in general, we are much more open as a society all over the world, to speak about these things. Not long ago saying you visited a psychologist was akin to admitting you were insane.

It could actually be the case that everybody has some shade of mental illness, it's just part of being a person. I would not be surprised. I guess "mental illness" is not the best name after all.

As for psychopathology, it carries the connotation of serial killers or things of that nature. But clearly that can't be true of most of them.

Just take care not to confuse outward success with what it is like to be someone. Many a successful person with a mental health issue was terrifically unhappy and some famous ones committed suicide regardless, of genius and acclaim. — Tom Storm

Of course. It's a curious aspect in artists this relationship with mental illness of some kind. Some can manage it better than others. But it not pleasant in any way, I'd assume. External success is meaningless if you're miserable.

I mean sure. I forgot where I read or saw this, but someone pointed out that professional athletes happen to be people who are supped obsessed on one single thing. If they weren't obsessed on sports, they'd be obsessed with something else, sometimes leading to dangerous behavior.

The problem with terms like "psychopath", "schizophrenic" and the like, is that they really do cover a vast range of cases, to the point that these terms can be misleading. It's just that not much is understood about any of this, human beings are too complex. If a psychopath happens to be a soldier, he may do brave things in a war.

If a schizophrenic is not totally dysfunctional, they can be fantastic artists. And so on.

Sure, I'm similar in many respects. It just that if you espouse views like this, people tend to think that you're doing something wrong or are missing out on something or had some trauma, etc., etc.

And that may be true for a lot of people. But not all. If you're happy or content with who you are, I think that's what's important. No one is going to live your life for you.

Sure, I agree. This applies to virtually to everybody. Few people bother to study the underpinnings of belief systems.

:up:

I mean the "nothing to lose attitude" is great and good and is often sound advice. But if you are fine with how you are, there's nothing wrong with that. One thing is to try to keep improving on certain areas, if one deems it necessary.

But on the other hand - and this has nothing to do with Phorrest - this cultish obsession in our society of improving yourself all the time is kind of obscene. As if people were corporations who have to make more money no matter what.

Well if metaphysical views apply to ordinary life, then it's relevant. But fair enough, you are correct that it could go off topic.

That's as good a path as many notable traditions in philosophy. I may be wrong with my assumptions here, but it seems to me that a lot of this ties back to this extremely elusive field which we call "metaphysics".

@T Clark may be right that metaphysics can be thought of as what is useful. I only add that if something is useful then an aspect of your belief must have some tenuous connection to the nature of the world, as in existentialism, Daosim and different traditions say something about the world which is not captured by our physics or other sciences. It just can't be proven.

This of course contradicts in part, Clarks point about metaphysics being neither true nor false. But it rings true to me, though it could be me wanting to believe this.

If it could be detected somehow, the technology used to detect this simulation could be useful for physics(?) or whatever relevant science.

But if it is only postulated not shown, it makes no difference at all.

Well, there must be many, many people much worse than him in terms of how they articulate what they believe, never mind the biology.

But in terms of being a public figure, few stand out more. Not saying he's stupid at all, just that he's atheism isn't impressive.

For that you have to go to Russell. Beyond him Hume and Schopenhauer, of course.

Since it's Kantian, I'll let is slide even if it ethics, as it counts as "technical philosophy". :joke:

I have taken an interest recently in people who hold to atheism with almost zero knowledge of the arguments or understanding of science and epistemology. They are what I call 'practical atheists' they think anything to do with the supernatural (problematic word, I know) is bullshit and so a godless, materialist universe suits their outlook. — Tom Storm

:up:

Sure. Hardcore atheists can be interesting, if they're not dull philosophically, like Dawkins for me.

I mean yeah they're going to be "materialistic"/scientistic, but outside of the label, I doubt they think a lot about metaphysics, because they figure there's just not much to find out.

It's a bit unsettling to think how much people crave certainty, when it is difficult to achieve. I mean we likely know one or two topics more or less well, everything else is more or less based on our interests in what's going on in the world. But it is impossible to reach such high epistemic criteria (near certainty) on many topics, it would take way too much time.

Interesting attitude of "what do you have to lose". I suppose I have the opposite disposition because most of the time I'm satisfied. But yours is a good view to adopt as it's sensible.

Zizek's comments on disavowal. — fdrake

Oh boy :roll:

Those eyes rolling are meant for me, because damn, if we did not adopt the "I know very well but" attitude I don't know how we could survive. I mean the Earth burning, the pandemic, industrial farming, serious tensions in Taiwan and etc. to infinity, makes it very hard to function as person otherwise...

That's quite a good distinction of doubt vs genuine skepticism. The doubt always everything is likely the reason for such things as Q or nobody walked on the moon and so on.

It's like everything is meant to be a conspiracy. As for Hitchens razor, whatever problems he may have had post 2000, that is a fine quote.



I'm unclear on what you mean by this.

You are too reasonable or think of reason too highly or what?

I didn't have deductive logic in mind. More like general statements and many questions about events and the like. Like a minute ago I saw X walking by or that I just drank some water. I fairly confident but I wouldn't say certain. Things like that. On these matters, I feel oddly wrong saying I'm certain. It's a quirk.

As to questions like "what's the capital of France" or arithmetic, sure.

If I find out Paris is not the capital of France, I'd go crazy.

Will things work out fine? You're certain. I can only hope so. :lol:

But I do say the word "sure" a lot, meaning "indeed", "clearly", etc.

Interesting, thanks for sharing. Yeah, being an engineer would make certainty a big priority. I'd probably freeze and nothing'd get done.

As for metaphysics. There are many ways to define the word and its field of enquiry. So I think your view is perfectly fine. The important thing is what you point out, that it be useful.



It is tough to speak about ghosts if one wants to be as receptive as possible. If one seeks to explain why such things are nonsense, then there is a bunch of evidence one can point to. The other person usually won't buy it.

But what about the grounds of doubt quirk? You tend to be dismissive or skeptical automatically?

As for vaping, me too.

I never understood the idea of dying healthy. :cool:

Not that living well to an old age is bad at all, but a drink or a vape or a cigar, sure man.

Didn't you say you did a thesis? That is nearer the point. I'm intending to do the same. — Wayfarer

Yeah.

Though mere curiosity suffices, in my book. And being astonished at the world is what matters, not taking it for granted as obvious.

Just being interested in the world, as opposed to only caring about celebrity, gossip and so on. We have wonderful technology and all the knowledge we could possibly want on the internet. People prefer to watch cat videos or pranks.

Death induces fear for those living. It's not a problem at the moment of death or afterwards, anymore than prior to birth the prospect for existence induced fear.

But since we are living death often induces fear.

There are many ways to interpret this passage, hence the reason why it is known outside of philosophical circles, which is a testament to Plato's writing powers and the amazing idea(s) he was trying to evoke.

At the moment my interpretation is somewhat rationalistic, very idiosyncratic and will likely change as I've thought about it differently as time passes. Shadows represent ignorance, misleading knowledge. Those outside the cave have the capacity to interpret data accurately and is associated with correct knowledge and insight. Of course, those who are complacent with illusions won't understand what those outside the cave are trying to say.

The capacity for proper knowledge is accesible to all, but if no one puts in the effort to find out what's really going on, they'll remain ignorant. This requires struggle, breaking free from chains and forcing oneself to know. For me the main point is that anyone could escape the cave and thus be able to see the world. The capacity for true knowledge is innate for everyone, otherwise no one outside the cave could make sense of anything.

But if you don't leave the cave, you won't recognize the shadows for what they are - you don't have a reference to compare anything with anything else.

:up:

Exactly it depends on how you read. You can read passively, as when, say, many religious people read sacred texts or cramming a textbook for an upcoming exam. Alternatively you can read actively, that is testing an author's comments against your own experience and reasons.

Sure, going out there are trying stuff out will certainly give you plenty of material, the key thing is trying to understand the experience in a critical manner. Many people interpret experience in a negative or passive manner, leading to strong nationalism for instance.

The question is almost impossible to answer. You've laid it all out. For example, I've tried to read Hume a few times, he never clicked with me, nor has Locke nor Aristotle. On the other hand Plato, Schopenhauer and Russell have. I used to get more out of Peirce than I do now, by quite a margin. I used to love Heidegger, now I don't see the point. But I am beginning to like Husserl.

Outside of Schopenhauer, I have not read the entire works of anyone, but I have read many parts of books, some in some significant detail. Then there's fiction. When it's good, I get even more philosophy out of that than I do from a lot of current analytic philosophy.

I can't get Chomsky out of my head. The same is true of Tallis to a large degree.

You may read all the classics, but if they don't register with something in you, it's as if you did not read them. So the only thing I can think of is to try and find whatever it is that connects with you. That's the only way to learn is to be engaged and test ideas with other ideas and to argue, etc.

If you have nobody, absolutely nobody in this World that cares about you or for whom you are important, then perhaps the only thing that you might be afraid of death is the pain or the way you go. The World will hardly notice your departure. — ssu

It won't notice even if you are lucky enough to have a few people care about you.

Rereading:

A Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality by Ralph Cudworth

Reading:

Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man by Thomas Reid
Lady Joker Volume I by Karou Takamura

I don't think it is incompatible to say that life, inherently, has no meaning - but that life, as we experience it, goes way beyond what we can discover in the sciences including atoms, photons, DNA, cells and so on.

We can certainly give life meaning, as we do all the time, without recourse to religion. But I do think the point is well made that for many people, religion does offer a ray of light in otherwise extremely dark circumstances.

Religion can be used to justify the most rotten of actions, as well as the most enlightened actions. It would be unfair today to say that religion is all bad. But to overlook the harm it does, is also a mistake I think.

The point is not so much that we need to consider the good and bad in religion and stand in the middle, it's to recognize that like almost all human topics, there's a lot to pick out in favor of any specific view one may have.

Very interesting comments of pragmatism by the way. I was re-reading Peirce after not having read him for quite a while, and I have to say that I entirely agree with you regarding his triadic ontology. It doesn't make sense to me, he's either adding a step or complicating perception. The thing is, it permeates a lot of his writing concerning mind and logic. Unfortunate, really.

I wonder whether there's something about metaphysics that sends those who indulge in it into Never-Never Land. I don't think Dewey avoided it entirely, however. He just was a naturalist. — Ciceronianus the White

It's intoxication, which I totally share. Susan Haack's "innocent realism" is quite approachable so far as pragmatist metaphysics go.

Timely thread. Personally I moved away from religion a long time ago, I felt it as indoctrination and limiting thinking more than anything else. I became a new atheist before the New Atheists. Thankfully I moved away from that.

I can see how many, many people can find comfort in religion. Comfort that would otherwise be very hard to find.

I think meaning can be problematic, irrespective of religion. Few people are spared from episodes of doubt, anxiety or meaninglessness, it comes with the ride. Would me believing that in another life I would be assured a meaningful plentiful existence help me in this one? Probably.

What's often missing is the flip side. For every heaven there's a hell. We cannot, unless we know we have acted perfectly, guarantee that our actions wont lead to a much worse eternity, however hard that may be to grasp.

So to answer your question, there's no secret beyond truisms. But these are available for all to see.

Sure, it's a default position the whole survival of the fittest mind set, which puts emphasis on everyone to only care about themselves. At the same time, a lot of people really feel completely helpless. The whole Mad Max thing may be what they think the world is currently like, but it's going to get much worse.

But I don't understand the closet hippies comment.

In his autobiography he recounted the story of trying to turn on Jack Kerouac and Arthur Koestler, only to be disappointed by their underwhelming reaction to the lsd experience. — Joshs

That's interesting, thanks for sharing. But I can't say I'm suprised.

How can people really expect drugs to change people so drastically? It's quite naïve to assume that just because one has had a deep experience, others will too. I know it's a different kind of drug, but just look at how people react to alcohol. You get everything out of that: happy, depressive, violent, funny, etc.

The problem is deeper than that, I think.

Just to add, we have little time to do something big:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/06/23/climate-change-future-impact-life-earth-united-nations/5326888001/

Thanks. :)

I had the good fortune to dedicate some years of my life to study. It was satisfying in many ways.

Yeah you should do it, you know more than me and I submitted my dissertation almost a year ago but finished essentially a year prior to that, postponed due to the pandemic. Although it brought some (little) clarity, it opens more questions that didn't bother you so much before.

But certainly, you should go for it if you can. :up:

I suppose if you have in mind a project along the broad lines of idealism in opposition to narrow empiricism of the scientistic sort, you'd have a good deal to go over.

I'm stuck with two main themes, which are maybe impossible to study and hard to think about. They are about things in themselves and innate knowledge. I suspect something from the 1870's to the 1940's would be best. It seems to me to be the a last gasp of brilliance, between the pragmatists, Mainländer Whitehead and some obscure author.

So I'm only getting more perplexed. Oh well...

That's always on option.

Or we can simply get ever more confused. Which is a problem. :meh:

Well math studies the simplest possible structures. And even here when something simple enough becomes a little long or strange the problems become formidable, some perhaps even unsolvable.

But the simplest possible thing we can cognize with would have some connection to the world, if only structurally. But beyond that, mathematics is of little use. What can math do for a person who suffers from severe depression? One can always say well, this person's amygdala, or whatever brain part, is a few millimeters too big. Or that the color red is the reflection of light at X frequency.

But it doesn't tell you about the experience of the color red. So, yes, math can be used in many areas of life, in some manner, but I don't think it tells us much about our ordinary experience.

As Bertrand Russell said:

"Physics is mathematical not because we know so much about the physical world, but because we know so little; it is only its mathematical properties that we can discover.”

Mmm. That solidity is something found in objects. I suppose it was the one irreducible aspect of realism that kept me a bit sane.

I then read Thomas Reid's excellent An Enquiry Into the Human Mind and as he points out, trivially, but powerfully - as a lot of philosophy is, at bottom - that solidity is an effect the objects produce in us. They're not a necessary component of them.

Damn.

Bah. If we only had a magic bullet. In my experience, when people are told the severity of the two examples you provide, they tend to shrug or say something to the effect of "we're doomed" (using more forceful language).

I suspect that the very real problem of social alienation is the biggest culprit here, preventing people from seeing how masses can change laws to attain a more just future.

To be sure, our leaders will react once the sea enters land or they suffer severe skin burns from being outside for a few minutes or from the shortage of water. But then we're in a Mad Max territory.

The only thing that seems to me plausible is to have people focus on one concrete project related to these issues, say, closing one pipeline or reducing the budget of the military a little in a certain project.

But aside from this, I have nothing. Pessimism is easy, I know. But if it's true for the species, then it's a given. We don't know yet and I hope I'm wrong. I would not hold my breath.

That's perfectly fine too. We just happen to get stuck on certain questions.

The physical should be taken to mean everything that is physical. Mass is physical, but so are the quantum vacuum or fields. Which are quite "unsubstantial", unlike our common sense conception of physical stuff.

The brain is physical, I think no one would doubt that. Without a brain we wouldn't have a mind. Of course, we need a body too: a brain by itself doesn't think or reflect, people do. But what are bodies? Surely they are physical stuff.

Unless I'm missing something crucial, it should follow that the mind is physical too. Given how "unsubstantial" fields are, which are physical, and given how unsubstantial thoughts are - they both seem to be made of the same underlying stuff.

This does not mean that physics can explain mind - that's asking too much from physics. What I take it to mean is that the physical is far broader and much stranger by far, than what we usually take it to be.

But there's no need to postulate "non-physical stuff" or anything else.

Sure. It varies to the extent that the scientist in question is interested in philosophy. Weinberg, for one, doesn't care for it - though he uses a form of no-nonsense positivism. It's derision for sure, but no one can escape it.

Carlo Rovelli on the other hand, does engage with philosophy quite a lot. As does Sean Carroll.

But this applies well beyond physics too.

At least you weren't bothered about the mysteries part, many people really don't like it. Of course, it's mysteries-for-us not mysteries for dogs or bats. But still, It kind of seems obvious to me.