DEATH

I'm also re-reading "Infinite Jest" again so I'm all obsessed with that story and would love to chat. Reddit is probably the better place but it feels weird to me.

My opening post is clearly inspired by "The Good Place" if anyone has seen that. I would love to discuss anything "The Good Place," Michael Schur, "The Office," "Parks and Recreation," the film rights to "Infinite Jest."

It's pretty cool I am currently in one of those places where I don't have any fears it's just all love.

how does community and contributing is meaning in the phylosophical sense? you will perish, the people you contributed to will pernish the community will perish and there will be a time where all living things are dead, everything done forgotten, everything built destroyed, oblivion is inescapable.

On the other hand consciousness lasts us just an instant, so make the most of it and enjoy it, if helping others enjoy it makes you feel good, then by all means go ahead, funny thing that stoics and epicureans saw themselves as philosophical opponents but in reality their philosophies are complementary.

You can find meaning life through self-delusion, most people do. Whether it's believing in god, your country, community human rights and helping your fellow man or arbitrary causes like veganism (while remaining hypocritical and happily eating soy and wheat) you are believing in man-made constructs.



I actually had a thought - people expanded because of their aggression, and it was the same aggression that kept humanity in check. Through war and murder - they are a great thing from one perspective. Now because of nuclear weapons (and before then the increasingly higher residual impacts and cost due to industrialisation) we've lost that.

Same with diseases - the lowered child mortality and age expectancy and elimination of pandemics made population explode too fast. Continuing that trend and caring about your fellow man might be straight up evil from one perspective.

On September 18 2019 06:27 Baalim wrote: how does community and contributing is meaning in the phylosophical sense? you will perish, the people you contributed to will pernish the community will perish and there will be a time where all living things are dead, everything done forgotten, everything built destroyed, oblivion is inescapable. On the other hand consciousness lasts us just an instant, so make the most of it and enjoy it, if helping others enjoy it makes you feel good, then by all means go ahead, funny thing that stoics and epicureans saw themselves as philosophical opponents but in reality their philosophies are complementary.

Their philosophies are not compatible with one another. The Stoics, just as Aristotle later presented it, believed that "man is a political animal" and they taught that you could only live virtuously if you were engaged in civic life and helping your fellow men. The Epicureans withdrew from political life entirely because they saw it as too troubling and frustrating and that went against their ultimate aim of attaining tranquility through pleasure.

"Humans [are] living their death, dying their life" - Heraclitus.

Destruction and creation are complementary processes. Creation is just as inevitable as destruction is. Even though life will end on this planet, and life was improbable here, there is a good case to be made that it is also inevitable in the universe.

The only reason we can live is because we are constantly dying and regenerating ourselves, we are negentropic beings. We could live for a very long time as a species if our forms of social organization weren't so anti-life. Some people's contributions are not really perishable in the common sense-- they are contributions to a body of abstract knowledge and practices that are then passed down through the generations. This is what separates us from all of the other animals and allowed us to move beyond base Darwinian pressures. Humans are symbolic beings that are both the products and the creators of a culture that retroacts on them. They can leave something that's very much real behind them: information. And information is not matter or energy, it is only information, as Norbert Weiner said. It requires matter and energy but it is not reducible to it. Energy itself cannot be created or destroyed (first law of thermodynamics).

Merleau-Ponty is the one who got it right when he said that humans are condemned to meaning. We are historico-cultural beings constantly constructing life, perception itself is a co-constructive process, not a representational one, as Maturana and Varela showed. We are not passively experiencing life through consciousness. We cannot separate meaning from our own active/co-creating consciousnesses and interests; we do not have access to some objective vantage point by which we can claim to speak disinterestedly, "in the name of the universe" and from where we come back with the realization that "it's all meaningless". I think those who constantly talk of meaninglessness do so more out of a motivation to rationalize their personal feelings of impotence or their unwillingness to live as adults engaged in the world than anything else.

On September 18 2019 06:27 Baalim wrote: how does community and contributing is meaning in the phylosophical sense? you will perish, the people you contributed to will pernish the community will perish and there will be a time where all living things are dead, everything done forgotten, everything built destroyed, oblivion is inescapable. .

Actually this very fact arguably is what connects humanity. That lives are longer just changes the time frame.
I'm just gonna quote a summary of laws of human nature.

I actually often visualise that I will die at the end of a tram ride, and it brings you closer to the moment, and closer to other people. That also live that absurd hypocritical meaningless existence when you really think deep about it.


But they share it together, and that's something beautiful to be embraced

On September 18 2019 03:12 RiKD wrote: I'm also re-reading "Infinite Jest" again so I'm all obsessed with that story and would love to chat. Reddit is probably the better place but it feels weird to me. My opening post is clearly inspired by "The Good Place" if anyone has seen that. I would love to discuss anything "The Good Place," Michael Schur, "The Office," "Parks and Recreation," the film rights to "Infinite Jest." It's pretty cool I am currently in one of those places where I don't have any fears it's just all love.

I also want to point out that I never really understood the actual thought behind buddhism until recently lol even though being in Zen, meditating constantly, reading books for 10+years
And of all books I got that simple thing I was getting wrong from Sapiens (the chapter on that was kinda random to be included honestly. Didn't expect it . )


Basically we all have varied states, emotions etc. I always assumed suffering = pain, fear, anxiety etc. and meditation helps you to let them go
That's not the case at all though in buddhism. Suffering is merely attaching yourself and seeking out certain states, while avoiding and suppressing others.

So the cool place wouldn't be to be in a state of love, but to understand how fleeting it is and feel it fully and then fully embrace the inevitable states of pain and fear. And live life full of them but devoid of suffering

btw it's pretty funny
I'm not trying to educate or anything I'm just talking to myself here
trying to streamline what I absorbed from the books I read recently :D


Same reason why just naturally stop reading Loco's posts, and why people don't read mine
If you really wanted knowledge, would you really ever do what I did and blurt out my opinions?

Fuck no, you would just ask questions, it's pretty cool to see when people like me or Loco make these statement posts it's coming from a place of uncertainty they want validated

Life is whatever you want it to mean. It's our personal experience here.


When your experience goes "bad", it's more +EV to think life is meaningless to shield the pain or the shift perspectives.

When your experience goes "great", it's -EV to think life is meaningless.

On September 18 2019 07:44 LemOn[5thF] wrote: btw it's pretty funny I'm not trying to educate or anything I'm just talking to myself here trying to streamline what I absorbed from the books I read recently :D Same reason why just naturally stop reading Loco's posts, and why people don't read mine If you really wanted knowledge, would you really ever do what I did and blurt out my opinions? Fuck no, you would just ask questions, it's pretty cool to see when people like me or Loco make these statement posts it's coming from a place of uncertainty they want validated

People rely on feedback from others to learn and want to be liked and validated? Big thought.

That has nothing to do with why you don't supposedly read my posts, and most importantly, why you think that's worth mentioning publicly. It's a passive aggressive thing to say, but I guess all those Zen books you expertly read over a decade haven't taught you what that is and why it's no way to communicate with people. You know what kind of person feels the need to be passive aggressive with others? Or tell them how much they have been "constantly meditating and reading over the last ten years"? People with low self-esteem. Attacking me through passive aggression by implying my posts are not worth reading is just an airing out of your own insecurities.

On September 18 2019 07:44 LemOn[5thF] wrote: btw it's pretty funny I'm not trying to educate or anything I'm just talking to myself here trying to streamline what I absorbed from the books I read recently :D Same reason why just naturally stop reading Loco's posts, and why people don't read mine If you really wanted knowledge, would you really ever do what I did and blurt out my opinions? Fuck no, you would just ask questions, it's pretty cool to see when people like me or Loco make these statement posts it's coming from a place of uncertainty they want validated

is not correct to equate ur posts with loco's. he actually puts research and thought into his posts, and links studies with them. Almost no one else does this on the site when they post. I've learnt a bit from his posts, more than from anyone else on the site. I don't know what you mean by your last statement. +1 to loco calling you out on this very clear passive aggressive attack.

"It is death, then, that seems to give our life shape. The fact that we die is what makes what we do and who we do it with matter."

- Todd May, "Death"

Is death bad? Is immortality bad? If life is good it seems to be a dilemma.

I think we've actually talked about aspects of this many times on LP. What would be ideal? Staying 28 physically until age 5,000 and dying in one's sleep? Unfortunately, none of us will be that lucky. (SENs vs. climate emergency).

The last portion of the book is entitled "Living with Death." Let's find out what's in store.

some cultures view death as a pretty good thing. Thracians about 2500 years ago for example celebrated when someone died and mourned when someone was born (because of all the suffering they would have to endure). I personally am pretty indifferent.

I've been thinking a lot about this lately. Not just about death but the meaning of life.I have this quote that pretty much sums it up for me at this point.....

"“Once I ventured the guess that men worked in response to a vague inner urge for self-expression. But that was probably a shaky theory, for some men who work the hardest have nothing to express. A hypothesis with rather more plausibility in it now suggests itself. It is that men work simply in order to escape the depressing agony of contemplating life – that their work, like their play, is a mumbo-jumbo that serves them by permitting them to escape from reality. Both work and play, ordinarily, are illusions. Neither serves any solid or permanent purpose. But life, stripped of such illusions, instantly becomes unbearable. Man cannot sit still, contemplating his destiny in this world, without going frantic. So he invents ways to take his mind off the horror. He works. He plays. He accumulates the preposterous nothing called property. He strives for the coy eyewink called fame. He founds a family, and spends his curse over others. All the while the thing that moves him is simply the yearning to lose himself, to forget himself, to escape the tragic-comedy that is himself. Life, fundamentally, is not worth living. So he confects artificialities to make it so. So he erects a gaudy structure to conceal the fact that it is not so.”

you gotta keep your mind off the horror. Unless you are a buddhist monk, don't know how they do it

On September 18 2019 07:02 Loco wrote: [QUOTE]On September 18 2019 06:27 Baalim wrote: how does community and contributing is meaning in the phylosophical sense? you will perish, the people you contributed to will pernish the community will perish and there will be a time where all living things are dead, everything done forgotten, everything built destroyed, oblivion is inescapable. On the other hand consciousness lasts us just an instant, so make the most of it and enjoy it, if helping others enjoy it makes you feel good, then by all means go ahead, funny thing that stoics and epicureans saw themselves as philosophical opponents but in reality their philosophies are complementary.

Their philosophies are not compatible with one another. The Stoics, just as Aristotle later presented it, believed that "man is a political animal" and they taught that you could only live virtuously if you were engaged in civic life and helping your fellow men. The Epicureans withdrew from political life entirely because they saw it as too troubling and frustrating and that went against their ultimate aim of attaining tranquility through pleasure.

Couldn't they be compatible though? I am not Epicurean but I do see the value in simple pleasures. Avoiding cocaine traps. Taking out an alcoholic within their first month of sobriety to a lovely, local coffee shop to discuss sobriety rather than donating enough to an art museum so I can have my name included somewhere and drink champagne with fellow donors.

"Humans [are] living their death, dying their life" - Heraclitus. Destruction and creation are complementary processes. Creation is just as inevitable as destruction is. Even though life will end on this planet, and life was improbable here, there is a good case to be made that it is also inevitable in the universe. The only reason we can live is because we are constantly dying and regenerating ourselves, we are negentropic beings. We could live for a very long time as a species if our forms of social organization weren't so anti-life. Some people's contributions are not really perishable-- they are contributions to a body of abstract knowledge and practices that are then passed down through the generations. This is what separates us from all of the other animals and allowed us to move beyond base Darwinian pressures. Humans are symbolic beings that are both the products and the creators of a culture that retroacts on them. They can leave something that's very much real behind them: information. And information is not matter or energy, it is only information, as Norbert Weiner said. It requires matter and energy but it is not reducible to it. Energy itself cannot be created or destroyed (first law of thermodynamics).

But, that information is not them. They will die or are dead already.

Merleau-Ponty is the one who got it right when he said that humans are condemned to meaning. We are historico-cultural beings constantly constructing life, perception itself is a co-constructive process, not a representational one, as Maturana and Varela showed. We are not passively experiencing life through consciousness. We cannot separate meaning from our own active/co-creating consciousnesses and interests; we do not have access to some objective vantage point by which we can claim to speak disinterestedly, "in the name of the universe" and from where we come back with the realization that "it's all meaningless". I think those who constantly talk of meaninglessness do so more out of a motivation to rationalize their personal feelings of impotence or their unwillingness to live as adults engaged in the world than anything else.

In the sharing the food in the sinking ship example. Maybe that lasts for an hour. We talk about our existence on this earth being ~85 years or in other terms a blip in existence. It's all relative. What we owe to each other is dignity.

I may love the novel "Infinite Jest' but David Foster Wallace is dead. What are you arguing that information actually is? Is David Foster Wallace alive through "Infinite Jest" ? or is just the information alive as energy? I could argue that "Infinite Jest" was simply a project that DFW completed at some point. However, it has touched me obviously which can not be overlooked. There is no Michael Schur if there is no DFW whose projects have also touched me. We are all touching and inspiring each other (sometimes literally). That is part of what makes us human. Mort formidable. Is formidable French or English (or both)? That is why we need ethics so we can treat each other with dignity because we will all die one day. Valor Morghulis.

On September 18 2019 21:07 dnagardi wrote: I've been thinking a lot about this lately. Not just about death but the meaning of life.I have this quote that pretty much sums it up for me at this point..... "“Once I ventured the guess that men worked in response to a vague inner urge for self-expression. But that was probably a shaky theory, for some men who work the hardest have nothing to express. A hypothesis with rather more plausibility in it now suggests itself. It is that men work simply in order to escape the depressing agony of contemplating life – that their work, like their play, is a mumbo-jumbo that serves them by permitting them to escape from reality. Both work and play, ordinarily, are illusions. Neither serves any solid or permanent purpose. But life, stripped of such illusions, instantly becomes unbearable. Man cannot sit still, contemplating his destiny in this world, without going frantic. So he invents ways to take his mind off the horror. He works. He plays. He accumulates the preposterous nothing called property. He strives for the coy eyewink called fame. He founds a family, and spends his curse over others. All the while the thing that moves him is simply the yearning to lose himself, to forget himself, to escape the tragic-comedy that is himself. Life, fundamentally, is not worth living. So he confects artificialities to make it so. So he erects a gaudy structure to conceal the fact that it is not so.” you gotta keep your mind off the horror. Unless you are a buddhist monk, don't know how they do it

I disagree. Don't push it down. Don't buy a sports car and do cocaine and attempt some socialite life. Face it. Read Sartre and Camus. Read Death. Read Denial of Death. Existential Psychoanalysis. Death is formidable. It is both something to be respected and feared and also something wonderful. Our lives are played for higher stakes. We only have so much time to engage in projects, relationships, etc. and the stakes are higher because we only get this 1 life. Anywhere from 1 millisecond more to say maybe 70 more years.

On September 18 2019 21:07 dnagardi wrote: I've been thinking a lot about this lately. Not just about death but the meaning of life.I have this quote that pretty much sums it up for me at this point..... "“Once I ventured the guess that men worked in response to a vague inner urge for self-expression. But that was probably a shaky theory, for some men who work the hardest have nothing to express. A hypothesis with rather more plausibility in it now suggests itself. It is that men work simply in order to escape the depressing agony of contemplating life – that their work, like their play, is a mumbo-jumbo that serves them by permitting them to escape from reality. Both work and play, ordinarily, are illusions. Neither serves any solid or permanent purpose. But life, stripped of such illusions, instantly becomes unbearable. Man cannot sit still, contemplating his destiny in this world, without going frantic. So he invents ways to take his mind off the horror. He works. He plays. He accumulates the preposterous nothing called property. He strives for the coy eyewink called fame. He founds a family, and spends his curse over others. All the while the thing that moves him is simply the yearning to lose himself, to forget himself, to escape the tragic-comedy that is himself. Life, fundamentally, is not worth living. So he confects artificialities to make it so. So he erects a gaudy structure to conceal the fact that it is not so.” you gotta keep your mind off the horror. Unless you are a buddhist monk, don't know how they do it

https://www.liquidpoker.net/poker-for...e,_Meaning_in_Meaninglessness.html#10

I posted that quote here in 2016. The analysis is valid but only insofar as you look at the current state of affairs. The main issue with Mencken there is that he goes too far in saying that life is fundamentally not worth living, because he universalizes or globalizes a problem while he (and everyone else) has only ever had a local experience of life. That experience of course is of living under capitalism and its oppressive structures, and it colors his value judgments. It's not life or even our individual finitude that's the biggest problem, its the constraints that those systems impose upon our existence. Mencken also imposes a negative value judgment on the conception of play itself, which is suspicious. Play can actually be a form of self-expression, a way to channel an inborn creative drive. I think, like Chomsky, that the rigid systems of domination that shape our life from a very young age stifle a natural curiosity and creativity. We tend to mistake the result of social structures and constructs that can be changed into something of an inevitability.

On September 18 2019 17:33 Loco wrote: Show nested quote + On September 18 2019 07:44 LemOn[5thF] wrote: btw it's pretty funny I'm not trying to educate or anything I'm just talking to myself here trying to streamline what I absorbed from the books I read recently :D Same reason why just naturally stop reading Loco's posts, and why people don't read mine If you really wanted knowledge, would you really ever do what I did and blurt out my opinions? Fuck no, you would just ask questions, it's pretty cool to see when people like me or Loco make these statement posts it's coming from a place of uncertainty they want validated People rely on feedback from others to learn and want to be liked and validated? Big thought. That has nothing to do with why you don't supposedly read my posts, and most importantly, why you think that's worth mentioning publicly. It's a passive aggressive thing to say, but I guess all those Zen books you expertly read over a decade haven't taught you what that is and why it's no way to communicate with people. You know what kind of person feels the need to be passive aggressive with others? Or tell them how much they have been "constantly meditating and reading over the last ten years"? People with low self-esteem. Attacking me through passive aggression by implying my posts are not worth reading is just an airing out of your own insecurities.

I mean that's what's funny, not a virtue but my failing to understand the very basic of buddhism after doing so much shit for so long

And it wasn't obvious
I wondered why I just had the tendency to skip your posts
And come on it is pretty funny - it is because of the self-righteous tone that actually has very non-virtuous motivations you always seemed too full of yourself attacking Baal and stuff, talking in statement and disagreement instead of questions
I realized that after doing the very same thing in multiple posts

That's the beautiful absurdity of the human condition, we're in this together so much of what we do, especially arguing a certain point of view just makes little sense from a logical standpoint I find it amusing. And of course posting this is also me being amused by my insecurities, what value does it really have? Humanity itself is pretty bizzare


Now it feels right to end with another illogical passive aggressive statement, because it just feels good for some reason


and say sorry if I hurt your feelings!


lol

On September 18 2019 20:37 RiKD wrote: Is death bad? Is immortality bad? If life is good it seems to be a dilemma. I think we've actually talked about aspects of this many times on LP. What would be ideal? Staying 28 physically until age 5,000 and dying in one's sleep? Unfortunately, none of us will be that lucky. (SENs vs. climate emergency). The last portion of the book is entitled "Living with Death." Let's find out what's in store.

Would that be lucky at all though

Harari talked about this
There really might become a point with technology
Where the rich might achieve a de-facto immortality
Destroying the balance and one thing all people have in common

And if you don't die and presumably eventually don't age with cyborg bodies - what's the rush to do anything, or purpose?


I kindof like the certainty I will die
And the certain uncertainty of now knowing when

On September 18 2019 22:41 LemOn[5thF] wrote: Show nested quote + On September 18 2019 20:37 RiKD wrote: Is death bad? Is immortality bad? If life is good it seems to be a dilemma. I think we've actually talked about aspects of this many times on LP. What would be ideal? Staying 28 physically until age 5,000 and dying in one's sleep? Unfortunately, none of us will be that lucky. (SENs vs. climate emergency). The last portion of the book is entitled "Living with Death." Let's find out what's in store. Would that be lucky at all though Harari talked about this There really might become a point with technology Where the rich might achieve a de-facto immortality Destroying the balance and one thing all people have in common And if you don't die and presumably eventually don't age with cyborg bodies - what's the rush to do anything, or purpose? I kindof like the certainty I will die And the certain uncertainty of now knowing when

Actual immortality would be horrible. Mortality when you are blind, deaf, dumb, crippled at 150 and live to anything past 150 would be pretty horrible. I could see 28 year old physicality and brain and living to 300 - 5,000 or so to be pretty desirable. It would be horrible for the planet if this were possible. As May notes death allows for the next generation.

Being immortal there isn't a rush or any purpose. That is the capacity to not die for infinite years. Let's say if SENs or another organization figures out how to end atherosclerosis and we can live to 200 years as a mortal (car crash, etc. would still end life) that would widely be considered a good thing.

It doesn't really matter though because the rich are generally horrible and the human race is doomed to the climate emergency. Of course the rich would worry about SENs, cyborg parts, saving their consciousness, going to Mars, how to handle the security in the face of an apocalypse, et al. facing the scientific facts of global heating. Aka trying to ignore and disregard the scientific facts of global heating. Denying climate emergency just as they deny death.

On September 18 2019 07:02 Loco wrote: Their philosophies are not compatible with one another. The Stoics, just as Aristotle later presented it, believed that "man is a political animal" and they taught that you could only live virtuously if you were engaged in civic life and helping your fellow men. The Epicureans withdrew from political life entirely because they saw it as too troubling and frustrating and that went against their ultimate aim of attaining tranquility through pleasure. "Humans [are] living their death, dying their life" - Heraclitus. Destruction and creation are complementary processes. Creation is just as inevitable as destruction is. Even though life will end on this planet, and life was improbable here, there is a good case to be made that it is also inevitable in the universe. The only reason we can live is because we are constantly dying and regenerating ourselves, we are negentropic beings. We could live for a very long time as a species if our forms of social organization weren't so anti-life. Some people's contributions are not really perishable in the common sense-- they are contributions to a body of abstract knowledge and practices that are then passed down through the generations. This is what separates us from all of the other animals and allowed us to move beyond base Darwinian pressures. Humans are symbolic beings that are both the products and the creators of a culture that retroacts on them. They can leave something that's very much real behind them: information. And information is not matter or energy, it is only information, as Norbert Weiner said. It requires matter and energy but it is not reducible to it. Energy itself cannot be created or destroyed (first law of thermodynamics). Merleau-Ponty is the one who got it right when he said that humans are condemned to meaning. We are historico-cultural beings constantly constructing life, perception itself is a co-constructive process, not a representational one, as Maturana and Varela showed. We are not passively experiencing life through consciousness. We cannot separate meaning from our own active/co-creating consciousnesses and interests; we do not have access to some objective vantage point by which we can claim to speak disinterestedly, "in the name of the universe" and from where we come back with the realization that "it's all meaningless". I think those who constantly talk of meaninglessness do so more out of a motivation to rationalize their personal feelings of impotence or their unwillingness to live as adults engaged in the world than anything else.

Exactly my point, in your fist sentence, both a mixure of both is the way to go and stop pulling greek philosophy into your left-wing bullshit, give it a rest you tankie bot.

What does it have to do with anything if we could or not live a long time as a species in regards to meaning? what information do we leave behind? it will all be destroyed and even if it magically didn't it wouldnt ammount remotely to any form of personal meaning.

Of course we can speak disinterestedly "in the name of the universe", its quite self evident, but I agree that we are indeed "condemned" to meaning, and that most people who talk about meaninglessness are about rationalizing their personal feelings, its a natural state upon realilzation but it ideally should be a temporal state.

On September 18 2019 23:16 Baalim wrote: Show nested quote + On September 18 2019 07:02 Loco wrote: Their philosophies are not compatible with one another. The Stoics, just as Aristotle later presented it, believed that "man is a political animal" and they taught that you could only live virtuously if you were engaged in civic life and helping your fellow men. The Epicureans withdrew from political life entirely because they saw it as too troubling and frustrating and that went against their ultimate aim of attaining tranquility through pleasure. "Humans [are] living their death, dying their life" - Heraclitus. Destruction and creation are complementary processes. Creation is just as inevitable as destruction is. Even though life will end on this planet, and life was improbable here, there is a good case to be made that it is also inevitable in the universe. The only reason we can live is because we are constantly dying and regenerating ourselves, we are negentropic beings. We could live for a very long time as a species if our forms of social organization weren't so anti-life. Some people's contributions are not really perishable in the common sense-- they are contributions to a body of abstract knowledge and practices that are then passed down through the generations. This is what separates us from all of the other animals and allowed us to move beyond base Darwinian pressures. Humans are symbolic beings that are both the products and the creators of a culture that retroacts on them. They can leave something that's very much real behind them: information. And information is not matter or energy, it is only information, as Norbert Weiner said. It requires matter and energy but it is not reducible to it. Energy itself cannot be created or destroyed (first law of thermodynamics). Merleau-Ponty is the one who got it right when he said that humans are condemned to meaning. We are historico-cultural beings constantly constructing life, perception itself is a co-constructive process, not a representational one, as Maturana and Varela showed. We are not passively experiencing life through consciousness. We cannot separate meaning from our own active/co-creating consciousnesses and interests; we do not have access to some objective vantage point by which we can claim to speak disinterestedly, "in the name of the universe" and from where we come back with the realization that "it's all meaningless". I think those who constantly talk of meaninglessness do so more out of a motivation to rationalize their personal feelings of impotence or their unwillingness to live as adults engaged in the world than anything else. Exactly my point, in your fist sentence, both a mixure of both is the way to go and stop pulling greek philosophy into your left-wing bullshit, give it a rest you tankie bot. What does it have to do with anything if we could or not live a long time as a species in regards to meaning? what information do we leave behind? it will all be destroyed and even if it magically didn't it wouldnt ammount remotely to any form of personal meaning. Of course we can speak disinterestedly "in the name of the universe", its quite self evident, but I agree that we are indeed "condemned" to meaning, and that most people who talk about meaninglessness are about rationalizing their personal feelings, its a natural state upon realilzation but it ideally should be a temporal state.

A mixture of what? Why be so vague? One school's proposition is that we have social and civic duties, the other states that we don't. How do you mix that? Even if you are arguing that you should be "involved just a little bit in politics", that's still not mixing things; it's being on the Stoics' side and a rejection of Epicureanism ...

Can you actually be precise and explain how I am "pulling greek philosophy into left-wing bullshit"? I have only said what you can find in any philosophical resource on Stoicism. So what you are really implying is that encyclopedias of philosophy are corrupt by leftists then? Can you tell me who the real authorities are on Stoicism then?

You wanna know something else? Zeno of Citium, the founder of Stoicism, was a dirtbag leftist just like me:

''[Zeno] who was much influenced by the Cynics, described his vision of an egalitarian utopian society around 300 BC.[23] Zeno's Republic advocates a form of anarchism where there is no need for state structures. He argued that although the necessary instinct of self-preservation leads humans to egotism, nature has supplied a corrective to it by providing man with another instinct, namely sociability. Like many modern anarchists, he believed that if people follow their instincts, they will have no need of law courts or police, no temples and no public worship, and use no money—free gifts taking the place of monetary exchanges.'' (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_anarchism#Forerunners_of_anarchism)

See a mention of free market economics there? Did Molyneux not teach you about that inconvenient part during his educational courses on Greek philosophy? C'est dommage, now you've had to make a fool of yourself because of him.

You don't know what the word "tankie" means, so don't throw it around so casually. That statement is beyond pathetic and the equivalent of me calling you a Nazi bot, so I'm not even going to bother with the rest of your post.

I don't know what to do. Sometimes I get really caught up in a book and it is great but then I finish it and then what is there to do. I have some other books I can read but i just had a large dinner and don't want to end up getting acid reflux like I did the other night which was absolutely terrible.

I suppose I still have some questions. Should we live in the present as Marcus Aurelius aspired to or should we have some cognizance of the future?

Personally, I don't even know what completely living in the present would mean. I don't even know what that looks like as a human being. It's almost like trying to cheat death but death and the uncertainty of death cannot be cheated.

On September 18 2019 07:02 Loco wrote: The Stoics, just as Aristotle later presented it, believed that "man is a political animal" and they taught that you could only live virtuously if you were engaged in civic life and helping your fellow men. The Epicureans withdrew from political life entirely because they saw it as too troubling and frustrating and that went against their ultimate aim of attaining tranquility through pleasure.

The never-ending "battle" of introverts and extroverts

On September 18 2019 20:59 Stroggoz wrote: some cultures view death as a pretty good thing. Thracians about 2500 years ago for example celebrated when someone died and mourned when someone was born (because of all the suffering they would have to endure). I personally am pretty indifferent.

Weird. We're somewhat descendants of Thracians (and obviously a bunch of others) and was also taught that in school. I never ended actually checking the fact and I was taught quite a lot of shit in history in class, so assumed it was just a folks-tale given to little kids in history books, but if you know about that then it must've been true. It was a thing left in my mind from around 4th grade.

On September 19 2019 03:24 Loco wrote: Exactly my point, in your fist sentence, both a mixure of both is the way to go and stop pulling greek philosophy into your left-wing bullshit, give it a rest you tankie bot. What does it have to do with anything if we could or not live a long time as a species in regards to meaning? what information do we leave behind? it will all be destroyed and even if it magically didn't it wouldnt ammount remotely to any form of personal meaning. Of course we can speak disinterestedly "in the name of the universe", its quite self evident, but I agree that we are indeed "condemned" to meaning, and that most people who talk about meaninglessness are about rationalizing their personal feelings, its a natural state upon realilzation but it ideally should be a temporal state.

A mixture of what? Why be so vague? One school's proposition is that we have social and civic duties, the other states that we don't. How do you mix that? Even if you are arguing that you should be "involved just a little bit in politics", that's still not mixing things; it's being on the Stoics' side and a rejection of Epicureanism ...

Can you actually be precise and explain how I am "pulling greek philosophy into left-wing bullshit"? I have only said what you can find in any philosophical resource on Stoicism. So what you are really implying is that encyclopedias of philosophy are corrupt by leftists then? Can you tell me who the real authorities are on Stoicism then?

You wanna know something else? Zeno of Citium, the founder of Stoicism, was a dirtbag leftist just like me:

''[Zeno] who was much influenced by the Cynics, described his vision of an egalitarian utopian society around 300 BC.[23] Zeno's Republic advocates a form of anarchism where there is no need for state structures. He argued that although the necessary instinct of self-preservation leads humans to egotism, nature has supplied a corrective to it by providing man with another instinct, namely sociability. Like many modern anarchists, he believed that if people follow their instincts, they will have no need of law courts or police, no temples and no public worship, and use no money—free gifts taking the place of monetary exchanges.'' (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_anarchism#Forerunners_of_anarchism)

See a mention of free market economics there? Did Molyneux not teach you about that inconvenient part during his educational courses on Greek philosophy? C'est dommage, now you've had to make a fool of yourself because of him.

You don't know what the word "tankie" means, so don't throw it around so casually. That statement is beyond pathetic and the equivalent of me calling you a Nazi bot, so I'm not even going to bother with the rest of your post.[/QUOTE]

A mixure meaning that both had valid points, often duty will force you inot politics but also you don't have to be involved in pollitics to live a virtuous life. And seeing what politics did to you, I say epicureans also had a good pont.

Quasi ascetic philosophers from 2,500 years ago weren't for capitalism? what a shock!... I was hoping to find for advice about shorting the S&P500 in Aruelius's mediations.

The guys who randomly calls others fascism enablers gets angry when he gets called a tankie lol, hypocrite much?

But you are a fascist enabler while Loco is not a tankie.

I considered banning you from my blog for making the tankie comment because it's really just bad behavior. Clearly Loco is not a Stalin sympathizer and it's just a very bad joke or trying to provoke someone.

I would appreciate it if discussion is kept civil.

tankie enabler then lol

At least that is a better joke but Loco if I'm not mistaken is anarchist so it doesn't really pan out. I don't really want to get into that. You have a history of posting flat out right-wing lies specifically in regards to the Andy Ngo/Portland discussion which could be described as fascist enabling. Anarchism and Communism does not equal Stalinism. We've been through the arguments before. I'd rather discuss:

Is there value in living in the present? Why was Marcus Aurelius so obsessed with living in the present? How does that even work?

I read parts of Marcus Aurelius's "Meditations" probably 9 years ago and I have not read much on the Stoics. So, someone can answer the questions or I find these questions important enough to go back and read the Stoics and Marcus Aurelius's "Meditations" and then find all the other philosophy that deals with these questions and go from there.

Thanks Richard (and Stroggoz as well)

I'm such a tankie enabler, that's why they ban me from their subs when I counter their propaganda.



When you have to lie so desperately to try to get the upper hand in a debate...

On September 20 2019 01:51 Baalim wrote: Quasi ascetic philosophers from 2,500 years ago weren't for capitalism? what a shock!... I was hoping to find for advice about shorting the S&P500 in Aruelius's mediations.

"Plato's political philosophy has been the subject of much criticism. In Plato's Republic, Socrates is highly critical of democracy and proposes an aristocracy ruled by philosopher-kings. Plato's political philosophy has thus often been considered totalitarian." (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato's_political_philosophy)

Nice try, fail better next time. Zeno's anarchist views were not common in Ancient Greece at all.

A mixure meaning that both had valid points, often duty will force you inot politics but also you don't have to be involved in pollitics to live a virtuous life. And seeing what politics did to you, I say epicureans also had a good pont.

"Politics" didn't do anything to me, living in a society where I felt like I didn't belong did. Seeing people toil away trying to pursue the American Dream only to ruin themselves and create broken families (of which I am a part of) did. Being taken advantage of by people who have been taught to only think of themselves did. Losing friends to drug addictions because they cannot cope with the reality of our world and because this society is not set up to be able to help them did. Learning about "politics" made me become more aware, and that's not always a pleasant thing, but I happen to be more joyful now than I have ever been.

The guys who randomly calls others fascism enablers gets angry when he gets called a tankie lol, hypocrite much?

Just because I point out that you are pathetic doesn't mean I was angry. I could not have been more calm in ready your pathetic response. I have backed my claim that you have been radicalized by a fascist by providing evidence of (1) him being a fascist and (2) you sharing his talking points and economic ideology (an ideology that serves to advance fascism), as well as showing proof that you are literally taking the word of fascists on the internet as accurate and sharing their tweets. Unlike you, I posted evidence a number of times. I didn't just read a buzzword on the internet and started using it against all common sense. I have denounced Stalinism, Marxism-Leninism and all groups that support forming hierarchical structures of dominance/vanguard parties on here a number of times. I have pointed out that historically, they have always betrayed (i.e. murdered) anarchists. Anarchists despise tankies a lot more than right-wing libertarians do because we actually have a historical reason to. Right-wing libertarians have never had any skin in the game, so their pretense of caring is just comical.


"The anarcho-communists do not deny the need for coordination between groups, for discipline, for meticulous planning, and for unity in action. But they believe that coordination, discipline, planning, and unity in action must be achieved voluntarily, by means of a self-discipline nourished by conviction and understanding, not by coercion and a mindless, unquestioning obedience to orders from above. They seek to achieve the effectiveness imputed to centralism by means of voluntarism and insight, not by establishing a hierarchical, centralized structure. Depending upon needs or circumstances, affinity groups can achieve this effectiveness through assemblies, action committees, and local, regional or national conferences. But they vigorously oppose the establishment of an organizational structure that becomes an end in itself, of committees that linger on after their practical tasks have been completed, of a "leadership" that reduces the "revolutionary" to a mindless robot."

- Murray Bookchin (From "Listen, Marxist!", 1969)

On September 19 2019 22:23 Spitfiree wrote: Show nested quote + On September 18 2019 07:02 Loco wrote: The Stoics, just as Aristotle later presented it, believed that "man is a political animal" and they taught that you could only live virtuously if you were engaged in civic life and helping your fellow men. The Epicureans withdrew from political life entirely because they saw it as too troubling and frustrating and that went against their ultimate aim of attaining tranquility through pleasure. The never-ending "battle" of introverts and extroverts   On September 18 2019 20:59 Stroggoz wrote: some cultures view death as a pretty good thing. Thracians about 2500 years ago for example celebrated when someone died and mourned when someone was born (because of all the suffering they would have to endure). I personally am pretty indifferent. Weird. We're somewhat descendants of Thracians (and obviously a bunch of others) and was also taught that in school. I never ended actually checking the fact and I was taught quite a lot of shit in history in class, so assumed it was just a folks-tale given to little kids in history books, but if you know about that then it must've been true. It was a thing left in my mind from around 4th grade.

haha never believe anything in school, or anything i write for that matter, i read it from an extremely unreliable historian named herodotus, in the same book he also claims africa has goatmen, ethiopians have black coloured semen, and giant ants mine gold for India to pay their tribute to the persian empire. he also made a claim that a spartan king defeated persia with only several thousand hoplites. So it may be true it's not too likely to be true but then again it's not something you'd expect to be a lie.

There is still at least one existing culture that still celebrates death and mourns birth, the Rajasthani Tribe. Gnostics, Manicheans, Priscillians, Bogomils and Cathars also had similar beliefs in that they believed procreation was evil.

Herodotus is considered "the father" of history and am pretty sure he was living in current Bulgarian territories for some time, so prob same data source as my kid history books

lmao that communism subreddit reddit: "marxist answers only"; unashamedy worshiping the marxist religion eh.

On September 20 2019 06:27 Loco wrote: Thanks Richard (and Stroggoz as well) I'm such a tankie enabler, that's why they ban me from their subs when I counter their propaganda. When you have to lie so desperately to try to get the upper hand in a debate...

enablers get the bullet too I guess lol

On September 20 2019 06:48 Loco wrote: "Plato's political philosophy has been the subject of much criticism. In Plato's Republic, Socrates is highly critical of democracy and proposes an aristocracy ruled by philosopher-kings. Plato's political philosophy has thus often been considered totalitarian." (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato's_political_philosophy) Nice try, fail better next time. Zeno's anarchist views were not common in Ancient Greece at all.

What does Socrates has to do with what we are talking about?

What I meant is that people 2500 years ago don't have much weight into 21th century economic models, the same way you take Marcus Aurelius views on the importance of military life with a grain of salt, I thought it was quite obvious when I mentioned the S&P500 -_-

"Politics" didn't do anything to me, living in a society where I felt like I didn't belong did. Seeing people toil away trying to pursue the American Dream only to ruin themselves and create broken families (of which I am a part of) did. Being taken advantage of by people who have been taught to only think of themselves did. Losing friends to drug addictions because they cannot cope with the reality of our world and because this society is not set up to be able to help them did. Learning about "politics" made me become more aware, and that's not always a pleasant thing, but I happen to be more joyful now than I have ever been.

I've also had friends who were murdered, who killed themselves, who died of drugaddiction, I don't blame the economic model though.

Well good to know you are happier, I am happier now that I'm less engaged, so again, I think epicureans had a point, not only in regards to politics and thats what I mean both philosphies not only can co-exist but can be complimentary.

you sharing his talking points and economic ideology (an ideology that serves to advance fascism)

oh the good old "you like the free market, you are a fascist" argument again? lol.

both can play this game, you'd like to erradicate the free market, so you share that with Stalin, ergo you are indeed a tankie.

as well as showing proof that you are literally taking the word of fascists on the internet as accurate and sharing their tweets.[/quote[ Tweets exposing how shitty Antifa is aren't going to be from people you like, surprise! [quote] I have denounced Stalinism, Marxism-Leninism and all groups that support forming hierarchical structures of dominance/vanguard parties on here a number of times.

And I denoucne any form of ethnostate, ethnicity/sexuality/gender based unity, don't like the concept of nations, I've even said culture is worthless but that hasn't stopped you from mischaracterizing me has it?

I have pointed out that historically, they have always betrayed anarchists. Anarchists despise tankies a lot more than right-wing libertarians do because we actually have a historical reason to. Right-wing libertarians have never had any skin in the game, so their pretense of caring is just comical.

What is comical is you adhering to the history of people long dead across the globe, you are just some guy in Canada with some silly ideas, you haven't fought shit, you don't have any more or less skin in the game than I do

Identity politics are disgusting.

Oh, another day. Tomorrow I get to bust my ass for a meagre living. I don't even mind the meagre living much it's the busting my ass that gets tiresome. All to die one day. Any day now. Shouldn't that fire me up? I have realized that I've really fallen into routines and comforts. I had a text conversation with a really awesome friend today. I read the previous one from December. I have not really changed at all except I stopped shoehorning "wage slavery" and "comrade" into a every text. We are both on the fence with AA. It's hard. Difficult. You crash your life into the ground as bad as we did and then have this entity that was their to help us back on our feet it's tough to part. You gotta go into AA situations with the "Marxist approved" bullshit like in a Communism 101 sub-reddit. The prime one being that there is a God's will that we can live in and that the only way to get there is to pray for it.

I need friends. We've been through this before. This is not a lecture these are meditations. That's why they are repetitive. I need to get out of my comfort zone. I am going to die for crying out loud! As great as reading and re-reading "Infinite Jest" are there are other cool things outside too. My work schedule actually does make this difficult but it's still an excuse.

How is a sober 35 year old going to meet people?

Serious question.

Camus says that our first duty is to happiness. That we must will happiness if need be. Depending on how one interprets the ladder I think it's a bunch of crap. Can someone with severe depression will themselves to happiness?

I actually can get down with the whole absurdist view that we try to find meaning in a world without meaning and that we aren't actually living if we are searching for meaning. Our first duty is to happiness even with how fleeting it is. What about ethics? Ethics and happiness are surely linked. You can't be going around killing brown people on the beach and expect to have much joy in your life.

Imagining Sisyphus as happy is a bit of a stttrrreeeetttccchhhh. It seems desperate to me.

I do think we all are authentic and can be authentic. Joy has many different types. Some people like the mountains, some people like the beach, and some people like the desert. I have dreams of living in the mountains. Literal dreams. Vivid dreams. I don't know if this means I should live in the mountains but I could see myself very happy in the mountains attempting to carve out a life or it could be a disaster and I would make do or not be all that happy.

In the novel "A Happy Death" by Camus the main character Mersault buys a house a way from the city of Algiers and is fraught a bit with despair at this new project but finds himself occupied putting the house in order. He resolves to wake up at dawn and go for a swim everyday and finds that things just seem to fall in place. He befriends a fisherman. etc. So, I can see this interpretation of the earlier quote as valid. Mersault in a way is willing his happiness. He had a vision of where he wanted to live and pulled the trigger and then lived life.

So, I think I have been going about this a bit wrong. The definitions for meaning or no meaning can be a bit tricky. I don't think it matters. There is a lot in life that is worthwhile. There are some carryover items like helping people or getting a great blowjob or watching a beautiful sunset but at the end of the day it's about living an authentic life with dignity and joy and THAT'S the meaning of life ....... (in a universe of no meaning but is there terrestrial meaning? Gahhhhhhhhh..... (it doesn't matter)) I like the idea of just living life and when I am living life it's not a problem but I am prone to thinking about if I am living life the right way or not. (I am not)

I want a change in jobs
I want more friends
I want a better dating life
I want to be more independent (my own apartment, different city)

These are wants that come up a lot. If I full filled all these wants would I be that much happier?

What about the Taoist view to just be content and to be like water or the birds? We are simply part of the ocean.

Here I am again ruminating on LP. I do enjoy a nice lingering contemplation like my main man Byung-Chul Han. He wrote a book about how contemplative lingering is basically the most important thing (for him). That's basically my point here. Paul Bocuse would say that cooking is the most important thing. I've talked to people with children that are convinced that is the most important thing. Sometimes I think that masturbating in the shower is really important to my happiness and most of the time it's pretty good but all that important? No. I like eating. I have grown accustom to 3 meals a day. I could probably go 30+ days without eating and staring at the wall. That sounds pretty terrible though. Yeah, I'd much rather eat a vegan Thai curry and paint.

the way to make friends at our age is doing things, hobbies etc, go to a painting class and you will eventually have friends there, go to anime conventions and eventually you will have an otaku friend circle too.

I don't feel like sleeping. So, instead of mulling over that in bed I'll get out of bed and just write stuff.

Baal,

Yeah, I hear you. All of my hobbies are solitary at the moment. There was actually an anime convention this last weekend but I didn't go. I don't know if I'm qualified to go. I love anime but I am not otaku about it. The last woman I was involved with used to do cosplay at conventions. I loved her or thought I loved her. She didn't love me. She had the most amazing breasts. Her soul was a bit tarnished. Forever tarnished. Maybe that is one of the things I liked about her. Really a truly remarkable woman that *beep*.

I spent the day at Kiahwah Island. I probably spelt that wrong but I don't really give a fuck. It is an island for rich (white) people to buy multimillion dollar houses and play golf. Rather ridiculous. I couldn't help be a little resentful of everything. Why did I go? IDK, I figured it would be something novel. I kind of like the idea of staring absurdity in the face and saying fuck it dude. I didn't stay at home ruminating in meaning or no meaning I just fucking went to this bullshit island and had a good time.

Now, it's about time that I can keep writing stuff or I notice an unread "Fatal Strategies" by Jean Baudrillard in my bookcase. Problem is I might be up all night reading that thing. My plan was to continue re-reading "Infinite Jest" but my Kindle's battery is dead. I could go on a whole 'nother tangent about chargers and batteries and how fucked that situation can get but I won't. I guess I can conclude this paragraph with the fact that I love ending the night with re-reading a novel I love. There isn't the general danger of overstimulation that comes with good philosophy or novel literature. Oooh, I could continue re-reading "Money" by Martin Amis. I have that in book form. Maybe I will do that. Bon nuit.

They are solitary because thats how you are doing them, there are probably plenty of painting classes near you, it will motivate you, you will learn and meet people, perhaps it doesnt feel like its a thing you would do but you need to force it a bit, stop this useless self pitying rumiations and do it.

I found a class and I'm sleeping on it but most likely I'll sign up tomorrow. I was worried about work and having to call off Thursday mornings for the next 3 months or whatever it is but fuck that shit. Painting is more important than this job.

I also found a nearby Tai Chi place. I am looking to start classes there too. So, it should be fun.

Not sure who I am going to meeting at these places besides retired 60 year old women but it should be good regardless. Maybe they will like me and introduce me to their daughters.

I am still kind of wired. I drank an energy drink late to get me through the night at work plus work was ridiculous so I am writing again. I don't really have much to write tonight though. I may just read some Tao Te Ching or Infinite Jest until it's time for me to sleep.

Maybe somehow you are too picky and judgemental about people you get to know?

Could be. It's more so that I basically don't do anything outside of my house with people: Solitary walks, I eat lunch and dinner alone (unless I'm with my parents). The great thing about a bar is you can just show up and start meeting people even if it is the bartenders. Eventually, you just start meeting people next to you etc. or if you are there with friends it is even that much easier. That was my social playbook. It is basically super easy to meet people from age 21 to 29 doing that. Even now I'm sure it would be easy but I shouldn't be spending so many words on it because it is out of the equation now. I can't drink and it is stupid to hang around bars by myself drinking cranberry and fizzy water.

I signed up for a painting class. I don't particularly like the woman's art work but she is better than me and seems pretty cool so I'm giving it a go.

One moment I am perfectly content and comfortable sleeping in my bed. The next I've completely lost that feeling and can't sleep. Oh, how I long for that feeling.

I suppose I've been sleeping a lot. I am re-reading the Tao Te Ching. Much of the time I have nothing to do as suggested by the Tao Te Ching. Stay low, stay plain, stay simple. Do not want. Be contented. Etc. So, when it suggests do nothing I typically just fall asleep. Maybe that's what I'll do. Read some Tao Te Ching and fall asleep. That's how I follow the Way.