Diebert van Rhijn wrote: ↑Sat Jan 06, 2018 8:07 pm
Serendipper wrote: ↑Sat Jan 06, 2018 5:47 pm"A philosophy is only a philosophy if life has illustrated it". Forgot who said that, but you can google it.
The poet Keats you mean? " Even a proverb is no proverb to you till your Life has illustrated it" or "Axioms in philosophy are not axioms until they are proved upon our pulses".
Yes, I was thinking "Keats", but didn't want to risk posting misinformation. And yes "proverb" was the synonym I couldn't think of :)
Keats was no philosopher but a Romantic poet of course. Basically believing "what imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth". To me that would say the sensitive soul had no stomach for anything philosophical.
I'm not sure... intelligence implies sensitivity.
Your goal should be to have fun. If it's not fun, then why do it?
But what causes you to experience something as "Fun"? Simple impulses like the animal or some damaged instinct, like a criminally insane clown?
I think it's less important to speculate on what causes us to experience fun and more important to illustrate that the goal of the impulse is irrelevant to furthering illusions of yourself (ie the ego); that is the distinction.
Your stated goal is nothing different from the animal or insane clown.
No, that's your spin on my stated goal ;)
Therefore you claim philosophy does not exist or does not matter as it clearly is defined as something leading to a higher goal.
Clearly defined by whom? Any definition of philosophy (or any word) is arbitrary and subjective. Didn't you say, "what imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth"? Seems subjective to me. In order to have a meaningful discussion, or better exchange of ideas, it would seem our imaginations must be first aligned or we may as well be speaking different languages.
If philosophy leads to a higher goal, then what does that get you? "The king and the pawn go in the same box after the game." (google it)
It would help tremendously if you would be more clear in denouncing philosophical thought altogether.
You're asking for my philosophical thoughts concerning the denouncement of philosophical thought? I'm confused at your intention with this direction you've chosen for the conversation.
Put some effort into it at least! But the drive to fun never amounts too much effort, does it now?
That's not true. I bend over backwards to help people, but find it difficult to do the same chores for myself and it took me a while to realize why that is.... helping myself isn't as interesting because "to get the full value of a joy, you must first have someone with whom to divide it." (google it). Instead of talking to you, it would be more efficient to talk to myself. I mean, I can counter-point myself the same as you can and I can play both sides of the chess board just fine, but it's not fun. I need you to make it fun enough to bother with all this typing and because "writing is the means of discovering what you believe" (google it. David Hare I think). And discovery is fun.
It's more fun to read wikipedia about particle physics to satisfy a curiosity than it is to read ebay's requirements to sell a few goofy things for a few measly bucks. I can find the area under the curve, but I can't figure ebay out.
Fun is the motivation proposed for the explanation of why anyone would want to work in a money-less society. And even now, many folks work, not for the money, but because they like what they do; it's fun.
That's a simple experimental truth for you! At least a strong, serious delusion would enable at least some sacrifice.
Yes, the sacrifice. That's an interesting topic of discussion as I've recently been giving thought to "the angel's share" and "the devil's share" where the former is the alcohol that evaporates from the casks in storage on the way to making good whisky while the latter is greed. We sacrifice some of the whisky in order to have better flavor because it's more fun and interesting to perceive new subtleties as opposed to the nurturing of an impulse to irrationally hoard while simultaneously drowning in plenty.
So, the sacrifice isn't a tool to use to get ahead in the world, though often perverted for that end, but is a means to an interesting (or fun) time.
No one should force themselves to endure endless amounts of what they consider as "boring" all for the sake of becoming a fancy-pants philosopher for some sort of bragging rights. Like "I'm smarter than you because I know all this cool stuff!" You do it either: for fun, or you do it because you think you can somehow get ahead in the world (or afterlife or any means of improving yourself). If there is a 3rd possibility, it would be groundbreaking news and undermine Eastern thinking.
Generically, why the desire to improve oneself? How do we know what is good for us? I mean, if we did, we'd already be improved and would have no desire to become improved. So if we don't know what is good for us, then how do we know we want it? Any concept of an improvement will invariably have to be imagined in terms of past concepts and therefore we're seeking to perpetuate the past. If the past is the problem, then how is repeating it going to improve anything? The concept of improving is a complete fabrication that caters to a persona that doesn't exist.
This video may be enlightening
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuUz9lUtPnU
Another angle of attack of the "goal" of improving oneself is to observe that if one isn't happy in the present and plans for happiness in the future, then they will be incapable of enjoying the goal of the future when it finally arrives because they're incapable of living in the present since they've made such a habit of living only with the future in mind.