/hob/ - Hobbies

>>65211
>I mean if you took a philosophy 101 class in the Anglo world, this could very well be your set of textbooks
and what would be the non anglo one? and also the right one? can you give me a list on where to start philosophy, maybe like you said, history of philosophy?

>>65212
well Anglo-American philosophy is dominated by Analytical philosophy, which thinks many traditional problems can be resolved with language, logic and semantics. That philosophy problems are not in the world, but in language.

Continental Philosophy is more into metaphysics and the being of the world.

If starting from square 1, I think Will Durant and Bertrand Russell's history of philosophies are well-written although a bit dated and biased towards their personal focuses. The 1st towards Pragmatism, the 2nd towards Positivism.

I know a lot of people would tell you to go straight to primary texts, and read the philosophers themselves. But when I was a beginner I found secondary histories and commentary much more useful.

I also found The Teaching Company lectures useful, it might be at your library.

Like I really liked Sugrue's Stoicism lecture. I think his whole course is on his channel now, so thats a good place to start as well.

>>54730
I think what appears ugly to you will appear beautiful to those same (social?) engineers that produce the mathematicians or collectively produce the theories. It is perhaps more selfish to desire to uncover something all on your own.

>>55051
It seems a bit tragic to my human mind to see so many people suffer in the process of reorganising themselves spiritually only to die shortly after completion, if they even ever achieve it.

>>62420
That type of person is you clearly! The same way that all the best hackers are found in the wild, living in peculiar conditions away from education let alone top institutions.

>>62197
I think that is a neat summary of the human condition. I suppose you don’t get that answer terribly often because people usually prefer to stick to intuitive and immediately evident frameworks.

>>62658
What I find most interesting with Schoppenhauer’s worldview is that while we “possess” a will, it’s more accurate to say that our will possesses us. Consider us as a machine, or if you are familiar, a neural network. The will is the incentive and what we identify with as “I” is the conscious process of identifying the best way to achieve the desires of the will. It is very akin to slavery, slavery to oneself. Perhaps worse than any other kind of slavery. And to deny the will is to die. Choose slavery or death.

>>65672
yeah schop was a big fan of hinduism, thou art that. so the will is the universe, and you are the will.

Schop's feelings on the Will seem to me mixed. Like he's not an entire pessimist anti-natalist, anti-life who just completely he hates the Will. He appreciates its volcanic power. And thinks rationality and anything we throw in the Will's way is futile. He thinks art and music are the purest expression of the Will and he doesn't think they are evil.

rationally it would be best to overcome the will, and he sees that as through asceticism not suicide. although his claim that suicide asserts the will, because we hate a bad life, but we dont hate life itself. can be questioned.

so asceticism is rational but rare.

he actually praises poverty as "involuntary trappists", men who have to live like poor monks, even though they didnt choose it. and he sees that as good in its way. easier than recruiting voluntary monks.

"involuntary traps" is like Schop using an early version of the term involcel.

Most of us here who are atheists became so because the world is evil. And this is what Hume had to say on that-

https://iep.utm.edu/humeevil/

Schop's system

>>65673
>schop was a big fan of hinduism
Yeah, a whiny fuckup too sad about >nogf to wipe his own ass will appreciate a culture dominated by those same types of people

Below is a passage from Karl Popper’s “The Open Society and Its Enemies” (1945), Chapter 10: “The Open Society and Its Enemies,” Sect. I.

“As a consequence of its loss of organic character, an open society may become, by degrees, what I should like to term an ‘abstract society’. It may, to a considerable extent, lose the character of a concrete or real group of men, or of a system of such real groups. This point which has been rarely understood may be explained by way of an exaggeration. We could conceive of a society in which men practically never meet face to face — in which all business is conducted by individuals in isolation who communicate by typed letters or by telegrams, and who go about in closed motor-cars. (Artificial insemination would allow even propagation without a personal element.) Such a fictitious society might be called a ‘completely abstract or depersonalized society’. Now the interesting point is that our modern society resembles in many of its aspects such a completely abstract society. Although we do not always drive alone in closed motor cars (but meet face to face thousands of men walking past us in the street) the result is very nearly the same as if we did — we do not establish as a rule any personal relation with our fellow-pedestrians. Similarly, membership of a trade union may mean no more than the possession of a membership card and the payment of a contribution to an unknown secretary. There are many people living in a modern society who have no, or extremely few, intimate personal contacts, who live in anonymity and isolation, and consequently in unhappiness. For although society has become abstract, the biological make-up of man has not changed much; men have social needs which they cannot satisfy in an abstract society.

Of course, our picture is even in this form highly exaggerated. There never will be or can be a completely abstract or even a predominantly abstract society — no more than a completely rational or even a predominantly rational society. Men still form real groups and enter into real social contacts of all kinds, and try to satisfy their emotional social needs as well as they can. But most of the social groups of a modern open society (with the exception of some lucky family groups) are poor substitutes, since they do not provide for a common life. And many of them do not have any function in the life of the society at large.

Another way in which the picture is exaggerated is that it does not, so far, contain any of the gains made — only the losses. But there are gains. Personal relationships of a new kind can arise where they can be freely entered into, instead of being determined by the accidents of birth; and with this, a new individualism arises. Similarly, spiritual bonds can play a major role where the biological or physical bonds are weakened; etc. However this may be, our example, I hope, will have made plain what is meant by a more abstract society in contradistinction to a more concrete or real social group; and it will have made it clear that our modern open societies function largely by way of abstract relations, such as exchange or co-operation. (It is the analysis of these abstract relations with which modern social theory, such as economic theory, is mainly concerned. This point has not been understood by many sociologists, such as Durkheim, who never gave up the dogmatic belief that society must be analysed in terms of real social groups.)

In the light of what has been said, it will be clear that the transition from the closed to the open society can be described as one of the deepest revolutions through which mankind has passed. Owing to what we have described as the biological character of the closed society, this transition must be felt deeply indeed. Thus when we say that our Western civilization derives from the Greeks, we ought to realize what it means. It means that the Greeks started for us that great revolution which, it seems, is still in its beginning — the transition from the closed to the open society.”

Thoughts on epicureanism?

>>68981
based

>>68981
Stoicism > epicureanism
Accept your destiny, deny to yourself, virtue over pleasure.

>>68981
not based
hedonism is not based

>>68985
Why though? To what end?

>>69001
Christians and Stoics know better what not do than what to do, beat yourself is the best start, for example the 7 deadly sins, beat your lust, your sloth, resist masturbation and have a good breakfast help a lot to become a better person. More control over yourself.

>>69004
“Become a better person”? Better in what sense? Again, I ask you what the goal is here.

That said, I agree that “sins” such as lust and sloth are counterproductive - they tend to lead to far more pain than pleasure in the long run, and Epicurus would likely classify them both as “unnatural and unnecessary” desires.

>>69005
As a christian, become better is become you less evil, we don't have moral relativism evil we know what is bad and what s good, for Christianity the world's problem is humanity itself, and our cosmology try to beat our evil nature. Follow christian moral fight humanity evil nature and the only way to do this is beat the flesh(beat your body), this give you a lot of control of yourself to.
Thomas Aquinas wrote a lot about how to fight the 7 seven deadly sins, it is a guide to beat the flesh.

>>69006
And then what? Are heaven and hell not also representations of our innate pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain?

What's is the wizzies view on continental philosophy?

>>69009
If heaven and hell are representation or no isn't so important, the most important is how our christian cosmology can protect human dignity, give justice in a moral relativist world, teach humanity who they are evil!!
Christianity isn't an static cosmology, we want to transform the world.
This world need order, and the best order is Christian order

>>69012
If that is really what your motivation is than you are no Christian at all, but merely a social reformer using "Christian values" as a template.

His kingdom is not of this world. Jesus did not come to make this world a better place, he came to offer salvation.

>>69013
I'm a sinner, I need to pray and follow Christ, and I recognize all catholic dogmas, I just wanted to speak to you about Christianity "in you language".
The Christian kingdom is in this world to, some radical protestants usually said what do you say.
Jesus give us a very organized Church before go to heaven.
And Jesus come to make this world a better place to. all the Bible is an moral evolution process and Jesus is the end.
I really don't want to fight with you bro, I just want to talk about Christ… the light of the world.

I hope I am not shitting up this thread with non-academic questions but this has been bothering me all my life and I don't know how to quite formulate it:

Should be unsurprising since I post here but I've always hated my life and asked myself the question: why me? while looking at people born into better circumstances with better genetics.

From a logical outsider perspective this question seems trivial. I am not a scientist but from what I understand the way life works is genetic mutations happen and if those mutations allow a being to survive and reproduce they get passed on. You don't think how it's unfair that an animal evolves stronger muscles than its prey which has to live in fear and run all the time.

Pleasure and pain simply exist to guide behavior towards survival and reproduction. Yet, despite not being religious, I can't help but think of a "soul" being denied pleasure and doomed to pain when someone is born into bad circumstances. Having a consciousness pleasure and pain feel intense even though I understand that's the point or else I could easily ignore it making them useless for motivating behavior.

I just can't stop thinking about it when I see someone born to handsome, millionaire parents. I feel like they are lucky yet logically all they will do is react to their environment. It's not like I lost a lottery and "my soul" could have been in their body instead of my shitty one. Yet still that is someone who is going to consciously live a life full of pleasure unlike me. It's just logical like 2 being bigger than 1 and yet it still feels unfair.

Or when I read news or historic articles about people who had to endure awful things. That was someone's only way they got to experience life. Or blind people who never got to see what I did. Or people 500 years ago wondering what the future will be like to never find out while I did.

I hope this doesn't go too much from philosophy to self-help but I guess I am trying to find peace with my existance and stop thinking so much about how much better others have it or how my hypothetical life could be different if I didn't make stupid choices.

>>65190
I did Philosophy as one of three subjects in my first year of university and thought it was fascinating.
That said, I think you could just find the reading list for a Philosophy degree and once you've read that you'd have experienced 90% of the degree and not spent a penny.

Has any published author used Euler diagrams to make a philosophical point? Schopenhauer uses them in the World as Will and Representation but only as a means to explain logic.

>>67540
Good chart. Try making one on the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, or Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, if you dare.

>>65190
>>65191
>>69029
philosophy classes at university seem to be all about 'discuss with the class' and 'argue with your zoomer classmate', no?
If i could just read on my own, listen to an online lecture, write papers and get meaningful feedback on them from an expert, then i would do it, but i dont think that is possible. Likewise being a "successful" professional academic at a university has little to do with working on your life's calling, as most of your time (according to professors i actually spoke to) is not spent on your own research but rather dealing with bureaucracy, getting funding, teaching students that dont give a fuck about your classes, tediously grading work, etc. If you dont want to interact with other people then working at university sucks

>>69028
Their pleasure and pain has no bearing on your pleasure and pain. You will never be them and they will never be you. This is the life you've got. You sound like you've got a solid foundation. Pleasure and pain as a guide and an inquisitive, scientific perspective on life. Personally I've been getting a lot out of epicureanism lately, but I don't want to shill. My advice: Try not to worry about what others have.

>>69032
wait, why is space and time a subset of time?

>>69042
Only the union of space and time. Not space or time, but space AND time in a single empirical representation.

>>69043
didn't he say, iirc, that they are always unified, time and space? that you can't have one without the other two?

>people that think time is a real thing
hehehehe

>>69089
It's real both subjectively and objectively.
To argue otherwise is nonsense and likely relies on sophistry.

>>69090
No, objectively there is no physical rule or law for time in the universe,
Thats why i find people like you gibbering about time in philosophy funny.
Time is a figment of the human mind, materialists are wrong.

>>69091
wait, you're not a materialist but still don't believe in time?
>Time is a figment of the human mind
he said it was real subjectively tho, and you only argued against it in "objectively"
if the mind is real, and time is an aspect of it, does that not also mean that time is real in that sense?

>>69093
so the entire universe doesn't work when no one is looking? thats a different subject btw. There is still no rule for time in the universe it doesn't physically exist at all.

>>69092
…time not being a part of the universe means materialism is wrong. You can't be a materialist if you understand that.

I was explicitly clear, time does not exist.

>>69092
Materialists argue everything comes from the physical universe outside of the mind. Time is an invention of the mind and has no basis in the universe.

>>69038
>philosophy classes at university seem to be all about 'discuss with the class' and 'argue with your zoomer classmate', no?
Basically yes, and it's rare that anything interesting is said.
Tutors were fine, they were very knowledgeable and helpful in my experience. They appreciate someone having a genuine interest.

>>69088
>that they are always unified, time and space?
They are, in the empirical and a posteriori representation of matter which makes up the outside world, including our own bodies in space.
>that you can't have one without the other two?
No. You can have an a priori representation of space alone in geometry, for example.

>>68981
Just like stoicism, it is pretty overrated to me.
Now that i am thinking about it, entrataining this kinds of philosophies is just a method of mindbreaking yourself into enjoying a life that doesnt suit you.
All pain comes from an inability to fully realize yourself. Suffering, in this sense, becomes an important part of what keeps someone's life stimulating and satisfying. An happy person lives a life where he doesnt care about his suffering/non-pleasure because of the purpose it has.
Following this logic, the stoic forces himself to see meaningless suffering as a way to better his own spirit, while the epicurean, by turning his own will only to primary needs, sedates himself from all the obstacles to his own pleasure. These said obstacles also gain the purpose of making it so he can cherish the moments of pleasure more.
Also the fact that most hellenistic philosophies boil down to "hey man, have you tried not giving a shit?" is pretty funny to me.
>>69011
I have a pretty strong dislike for both parts of it and analytic philosophy, but, unlike the latter, i think it has the benefit of actually giving some contribution to philosophical discourse.
The biggest issues with it are Heidegger's influence and the frankfurt school. The fact that anyone can read a couple of pages of Heidegger without thinking he is a charlatan who fed off the climate of antipositivism that formed after world war I is bewildering to me. His students like Hannah Arendt are probably even worse. I hate what the frankfurt school did to marxist movements with all my heart. Some of their ideas are interesting, but their view of human life and society is too hedonistic and shallow, and their ideas about mass media and its effect on counterculture and class struggle are both wrong and a way to justify their integration in the enstablishment of their time.
Aside from these two currents, i am pretty fond of the works of Baudrillard i engaged with, but i havent really read Foucault or Deleuze.

>>69155
>by turning his own will only to primary needs
Epicurus didn’t say that we should only pursue “primary” needs (food, sleep etc). In fact, when he categorises the types of desires, he doesn’t forbid anything. He just says that chasing some sorts of desires (things like wealth, status, power) will likely result in more pain than pleasure. He’s all for enjoying “extravagant” desires - a nice meal, video games, anime - as long as they don’t lead to more pain than pleasure in the grand scheme. What one finds pleasurable or painful is completely subjective in the eyes of Epicurus, beyond the basic essentials that all of us need.

>just a method of mindbreaking yourself into enjoying a life that doesnt suit you.
That said, this is a great description of stoicism.

Let me know if you have any questions. Epicureanism has been misinterpreted (both unintentionally and intentionally) and warped by the Christians and the Stoics for centuries, so there are a lot of fundamental misunderstandings floating around.

I honestly think that the people with the most power in the world are those with an amoral philosophy.

As in, the complete rejection of ethics and morals in favor of a more authentic and useful paradigm of personal benefit.

The leaders are obviously high scoring on the dark tetrad, but with unusual traits for dark individuals, like high intelligence, strong executive functioning, and high empathy.

The purpose of life itself is the evolution of the ultimate lifeform which can acheive the greatest reproductive success for copies of genes identical to the ones they were made from within the largest amount of environments.

The purpose of any particular life Is to acheive the greatest reproductive success for copies of genes identical to the ones they were made from within the largest amount of environments.

The purpose of life is to reproduce, but it is also to assist the reproduction of those who share kinship (genetic similarity) in the hierarchy of importance with recessive phenotypes at the top priority, with dominant and unexpressed genes being least importance.

For a notable example, we like lighter and more colorful features (like those favored by the nazis - blonde hair, blue eyes, pale skin, etc.) because they are harder to inherit and even harder to express, this produces distinctiveness and that favors sexual selection, the most important kind of natural selection that exists.

Read Darwin, Dawkins, Hamilton, and Fisher.

>>69295
Amorality is not a philosophy?

It absolutely is.

Protagoras: morality is a matter of personal preference

Desade: maximizing personal pleasure and minimizing personal pain is the ultimate good which all other goods are mere proxies for, it is also what shapes everything else about us, our perceptions, our fantasies, our beliefs, our values, our loyalties, etc.

Stirner: the only thing that us resl is the physical, which the ideal is the product of and subservient to, ownership is only a matter of possession, the ability to posses something and retain that possession, if I can take it from you, it is mine for as long as I can keep it.

Hobbes: civilization is the product of leaders using the threat of pain and misery via violence to enforce conformity

Neitzsche: morality is a tool of control that allows leaders to control others even when they cannot threaten them with violence

Machiavelli: people can be reliably controlled through the manipulation of pleasure and pain, joy and misery, desire and aversion, love and fear, etc.

Rand: even the most selfless possible act, such as someone giving their lives to improve the life of a stranger who would never know their sacrifice, is at its core a selfish act as it is motivated by the pleasure the one making the sacrifice experiences from helping their benefactor. These pleasurable feelings are in fact our motivation to do anything.

Philosophy is the observation and elucidation of the obvious.

Darwin: human morals originate from the benefit they gave to the genes of our ancestors in propagating copies of themselves by producing other orgsnisms that have inherited them.

Dawkins: even ideas evolve in similar ways, competing over which could copy itself the best in the most minds. Moral dillemas are the product of having inherited genes that code for mutually conflicting patterns of behavior.

Jung: we have a second self hidden from the world that plays a greater role in determining our actions than the people we pretend to be on the surface.

From here we have evolutionary biology (hamilton, fisher), behaviorist psychology (skinner, bernays), political theorists (huxley, orwell, chomsky, focault), and sociological research (bowling alone, mouse utopia, malthusean limit, Dunbars number), and so on.

All of these and more contribute to building the same picture of humanity, that we cannot trust ourselves to be authentic as we don't know what values are our own and what are the product of conditioning.

The best thing to do is take a step back, abandon all morality, and focus purely on what benefits us personally the most.

We are living in late stage Christianity. All the secular values of the left are in truth originated in Christian mentality that treated all humanity as one whole, from that we got ideas like consequentialism and deontology, effort of the philosophers of the enlightenment to justify a Christian moral paradigm, the only one they were familiar with, without making any reference to God.

The modern left is the direct product of the evolution of the Christian moral view.

>>69309
>Amorality is not a philosophy
No one said that. Rewrite the post and try again.

A T H E I S M
and
R E A L I S M are the only things that matter. It's over.
Life is nothing but a slog, only purpose of life is to reproduce and give your kin the best conditions, whether that be by improving your country, earning money, and forging alliances when necessary but ultimately driven by what is good for the propagation of your genetics and you will to live. That' what it all is about. This is all the philosophy you need. Life is pointless if we don't account for reproduction, you just live, and hope that you have fun. And we all should as wizards have fun with our lives.

what's the purpose of philosophy? philosophy mean love of wisdom. but isn't wisdom elitism? if you're a brainlet you need everything be told by others but none has the time to do this (even professors).

>>69312
reproduction itself is just as arbitary and lacking in worth as all other things

>>69495
>Everything is equally worthless
shut up

>>69089
>>69091
>>69096
that's irrelevant to the discussion we were having because we were talking about time for schopenahauer who, being a transcendental idealist, sees it as being one of the forms of the mind and not of things in themselves.

>>69133
>No. You can have an a priori representation of space alone in geometry, for example.
oh yeah, that's a subtlety i wasn't considering when i asked. i had in mind empirical representation and not pure intuition. still, i think that's a strange chart to convey the basics of his system.