Philosophy as a Problem

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by Tnerb, Jun 9, 2006.

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  1. superluminal I am MalcomR Valued Senior Member

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    That does indeed sound like a shame. Have you tried a warm bath, with some candles, and a glass of your favorite wine?
     
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  3. invert_nexus Ze do caixao Valued Senior Member

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    I get her point. It's rather simple actually.

    When one goes out to seek pleasure, then one is performing a meta-activity. One is seeking pleasure rather than simply acting.
    It is in acting that one achieves pleasure. One lives in the moment and loses oneself in the action. The nagging cares and worries of the world fade to oblivion as the thinker fades and the action becomes all.

    Pleasurable experiences pass so quickly as to seem almost unreal.

    So, by seeking pleasure, one is subjecting oneself a priori to a reflective process rather than pure action.
    One is expecting something from the experience.
    And one is considering how one is to go about deriving that reward from the experience.

    When one seeks pleasure in such a manner, the possibilities of disappointment are many.

    It's a catch 22 really.
    But one which only catches a certain type of person.
    Water is one of these overthinkers, apparently.
    But, I suppose, that's why she's here rather than frolicking in the grass somewhere?



    From Camus' The Plague:
    “Query: How contrive not to waste one’s time? Answer: By being fully aware of it all the while. Ways in which this can be done: By spending one’s days on an uneasy chair in a dentist’s waiting-room; by remaining on one’s balcony all a Sunday afternoon; by listening to lectures in a language one doesn’t know; by traveling by the longest and least-convenient train routes, and of course standing all the way; by lining up at the box-office of theaters and then not buying a seat; and so forth.”​
     
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  5. Meantime Banned Banned

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    You missed the point. The Law of Requisite Variety aims to anticipate and address variety as a means to counter, deflate, and control it. In other words, discouraging diversity by setting up an ambush to quell it -- pretty boxes under the Xmas tree, vacant without surprises.
     
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  7. superluminal I am MalcomR Valued Senior Member

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    Yes. If one invests too much planning in, and expectation of, the warm bath, then many opportunities for disappointment do indeed rear their heads.
     
  8. Meantime Banned Banned

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    But you were speaking of an already tested and assured pleasure -- the warm bath by candle light, or, for me, shortbread and black tea. Yummy. But I think Water was pitching a little higher than that.
     
  9. Meantime Banned Banned

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    Invert_nexus: One is seeking pleasure rather than simply acting.

    Right: the act of seeking. Followed by the act of pretension.
     
  10. superluminal I am MalcomR Valued Senior Member

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    Apologies for my simplemindedness.
     
  11. invert_nexus Ze do caixao Valued Senior Member

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    Seems like the happiest people are those who either suffer from short term memory loss, short attention span, or perhaps are merely the most skilled at suspension of disbelief.

    There are studies which suggest that the surest route to happiness is to pretend to be happy.
    Pretend long enough, and you eventually fool yourself.

    There is a simple experiment you can perform.
    Look at the following images.

    First, take a pencil and bite it. Sideways. So that one end of the pencil is sticking out of each side of your mouth. Look at the picture.

    Next, get rid of the pencil and instead, scrunch up your nose and curl your upper lip. Look at the picture.

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    So. Why the rigamarole?
    The first experiment simulated a smile. By placing the pencil in your mouth in such a manner, it made your face take on a smiley shape.
    Most people report that the images seen with a smile on their face take on a comical or benign aspect.

    The second experiment simulated a sneer of disgust. Most people report... well, disgust when viewing the images with such an expression on their face.

    It would seem that the emotion one feels when viewing certain images (and by extension participating in certain acts) is vulnerable to manipulation by their facial features (and other body language).

    So.
    "Don't worry, Be happy" is not so bad advice.
    If you can manage the suspension of disbelief required to begin the process.


    Yup. You understand.
    Catch 22.
    But, pretense might just be enough....
     
  12. Satyr Banned Banned

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    Mean Time,
    Internet melodrama is sooooooo passé.
    I’ve indulged.
    It leads nowhere and the fun quickly runs out when it becomes repetitive.

    The dichotomy is an interesting one.
    The rebel/artist/non-conformist, battling the forces of evil, resisting integration, rationalization, labels; the Dionysian harlequin dancing around a bonfire and mocking Apollo his illusions of control.
    I cannot know so let my ignorance be my defence.
    Stupidity pushed into holy wisdom - faith.
    Do not make me see it ruins the magic of my blindness. Do not attempt to order the world into comprehensibility , let me wallow in the bliss.

    The non-rational is exalted, the rational chastised as incapable of delivering the goods.
    If reason fails me or cannot lead me to no promised land then let me give in to stupidity and imagine that I’m already there.

    Reason presupposes a certain level of order and systematic, model-making.
    One cannot comprehend anything when none of the pieces fit with each other.
    Gaily abandoning the attempt and enjoying the scattered pieces for their own sake is a way out of effort.

    I can paint a line across a canvas and call it art.
    Not much effort or talent required.

    But if I try to copy reality and recreate it, then I have a template against which my efforts and talents can be measured.

    The romantic idealization of nature is a nice way of justifying one's surrender to his own nature.
    Such a feminine trait, really.

    Let us not delve too deeply because who knows what will be uncovered.

    But the enjoyment of nature is what I am talking about.

    Detachment does not exclude enjoyment. It excludes dependence.
    I dance or I don’t dance. Doesn’t matter.
    But nothing forces me to dance or not to. I can begin and stop at any time.

    Maybe we should remember that the overpowering of nature and the extinction of species is part of evolution.
    A loss contains a gain. A gain contains a loss.
    The universe’s energy remains constant. It simply rearranges itself.

    A species made extinct is a species unable to adapt to a changing environment.
    Artificial support is the creation of zoos; artificial nature in a bottle.

    There’s that fantasy again. The spirit.

    Spirit, essence, call it whatever, is the sum of your past.
    That’s it.

    Every decision you’ve made is frozen in time only the future remains undetermined and un-chosen.
    The moment you decide you’ve frozen it in history, you study it and remember it in hindsight and it participates in your being. You are responsible for that decision and it characterizes you; it identifies you.
    That is your spirit.
    Nothing more.

    Here is where you give me one of those soulful, tear-jerker definitions. The kind that remains ambiguous and imprecise but is sufficiently emotional to be attractive to the fearful heart.

    You know like: Love is God.

    Reason isn’t forgetfulness it is the mind trying to control its nature.

    The only way to get a horse to pull a buggy is to first capture, break, train and harness a horse.
    You do that by knowing its nature. By uderstanding it.
    Otherwise you've got a wild horse and you walk.

    Dancing in the meadows and chanting dirges over a hash-pipe might be fun, crying in each others arms, praying to the spirits and loving each other, might be soothing but it does not save you from the unknown.
    Knowing only saves you from the unknown.

    The mind loves mystery.
    It offers that sense of magic and significance to a mundane existence.
    When one finds one's self boring he purposefully makes his life melodramatic.

    Why study the sun when we can just call him Helios and feel so special beneath his hot gaze?

    There’s something I forgot to mention before.

    Ignorance and indifference are always confused.
    Externally the dim witted and the indifferent appear the same.

    The ignorant appears courageous because he simply does not know.
    The indifferent appears courageous because he simply doesn’t care.

    For example:
    There are two bathers at a beach.
    One knows there are sharks in the water, the other has no idea.
    He just knows he is hot and wants to cool off.

    The first will appear cowardly because he is cautious or reluctant to enter the water. If he does anyways he will be courageous to the mind which, like him, shares the knowledge about the sharks and nothing special to the ignoramus which has no idea. The ignoramus will wonder what all the fuss is about.
    {The problem with Philosophy}
    The ignorant one will enter the water, no matter what, not because he overcomes his fears but because he doesn’t know enough to be afraid.
    His ignorance or lack of awareness saves him from fear and anxiety. He is too thick to feel anything.

    Really?

    How wonderfully naïve.
    Stay just the way you are.
    The world needs more children.

    There are no absolutes here.

    Total indifference is impossible since man is always in a state of need and concern.
    His concern exposes his weakness, to a degree, and his dependence on the relationships that he identifies with and relies upon.

    If you cannot “manifest” them then you lack them.

    I can know how to build a house but if I do not actually do it then I am no builder and I sleep in the rain or I worship the rain and dance underneath it to justify my inability to build.

    Ha!

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    Your moral myths are insignificant.
    Nobility is one of those words with multiple interpretations and no actual meaning.
    It’s a word used to characterize something one wants to be but does not comprehend what it is; something that pretends to say something by saying nothing.

    A man only lives up to his own expectations or else he is another’s fool.
    As if seeming noble or just or honest to another means anything if it is not accompanied with a reward - Recompense for the sacrifice of self to the opinions of the other.

    The glue that binds men together in weakness is morality.

    And what “potential” do you see?

    Honestly, you should stop talking about yourself in the third person plural.

    You make them wear rubbers, is what you mean.

    Should I be weeping at this point?
    Maybe a hysterical satirical laugh is more appropriate.

    You Fail to follow through.
    Detachment does not prevent re-attachment. It simply offers the choice of how, where and when.
    I must first climb onto the beach before I have the choice of diving back into the water or of remaining there watching the waves splash only the sand.

    *CUT*
    *SNAP*

    Stop it wormtongue!!! I’m chocking back the sobs.

    I love talking to women.
    They return you to the ground and then they call it holy.

    Are you even trying?

    “Sheltered”, “clean fingernails”?!
    Thinking with your libido while frolicking in those Dionysian fields, again?

    I, sometimes, enjoy reinforcing their opinion of me.
    Why would it matter?

    The other’s stupidity is not my concern when it offers me something in return.
    I am not here to save the world from itself.

    I do not actually change just because a simpleton perceives me wrongly.
    I simply act as if I do. I play along or I don’t.
    Whose judgment supersedes mine?
    Whose opinion trumps mine?
    Whose morality must I conform to and what ideal must I live up to?

    Being called a thief or a hypocrite is how the other(s) punishes me for not caring about what they think or for not acting the way that makes me safe to them.
    Guilt is a cross the meek carry.
    I grovel for no entrance into “paradise”.

    Nobility...sheeesh

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    I say potato you say patato….
     
  13. perplexity Banned Banned

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    Perhaps, for a psychotic personality whose emotional life consists almost entirely of staring at the screen of a PC, with no hope of a closer human connection than that.

    Indeed, the perpetual frustration of feeling that
    "If I could hold you, maybe then all would be different"
    but with no such prospect while others go straight to the bedroom to get it on, philosophical problems notwithstanding.

    That's it, isn't it, the rub, ... for want of real information you can but suppose, with scarcely a notion of what she is like or where she is at in the flesh.

    --- Ron.
     
  14. invert_nexus Ze do caixao Valued Senior Member

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    I don't know why you have to bring the PC screen into it.
    And, I think the term would be neurotic, not psychotic.
    A neurotic would be one who is caught up in the workings of one's own though processs. Caught up in thinking about doing rather than just doing.
    A psychotic would be one who has had a complete break from reality. Delusions and such.
    Perhaps you feel such would be a proper description, but I don't.

    Hmm.
    I think this would be something other than that which I was discussing. This would be more of a helplessness. A futility.
    What I was talking about would be expressed better by the thought process that would go something like: "Maybe I'm too fat. Maybe my penis is too small. Maybe I won't be able to get it up. Maybe I'll cum too fast. Maybe she only wants me for my money. Maybe..."

    Or... I suppose that wouldn't be exactly what I was talking about either.
    That would definitely be a neurotic thought process which would ruin the experience. But not exactly that overexpectation that would lead to disappointment. I've just delineated more of a performance anxiety.

    What I was talking about would be something like overidealizing the event. Planning for it. Buying candles. Sex jellies. Creams. Cock rings. Leather. Lace. And then getting there and just having 30 seconds of missionary style and then sleep...

    Hmm.
    No. That's not the rub.
    Not for me anyway.
    The 'rub' is exactly what I was saying. That sometimes you can't win for losing. That to try to go out and have a pleasurable experience robs that experience of that which is pleasurable.
     
  15. perplexity Banned Banned

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    But this is good, that at long last she begins to see herself as the victim of her own hypocrisy.

    When beginning to learn a foreign language it is good to imitate superficially, to adopt styles, to play along with the going game like a chamelion, purloining this or that concept to suit the purpose, to fabricate a persona to fit with this or that, here or there, from day to day.

    The need to form healthy long terms relationships is another matter. When an intended friend falls in love with what turns out to have been a shallow illusion, a false prospect, a mere figment of ad hoc do it yourself romantic fiction, then the want out instinct, the burden of the responsibility is heavy. That is the bum rap, the need to get a life.

    In all the time that you think you have known her, how much did you really get to know?

    "This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man."
    (Hamlet: Act I, Scene III)


    --- Ron.
     
  16. perplexity Banned Banned

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    Sitting forever in front of a PC screen with no particular practical purpose to it forseen, except perhaps to indulge an occasional romantic fantasy, while forever postponing school exams because of the sheer neglect of the work required, that is the sort of thing I had in mind.


    That is more like what you would eventually get to hear her talk about, her weight, the scars on her arms, her bad skin and lack of social skills ....etc.

    Yes. Sure does.

    That may be your World but........ only in her dreams.


    ---- Ron.
     
  17. perplexity Banned Banned

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    No. You miss the point.

    That is not at all what the Law of Requisite Variety does.

    It simply recognises that limits exist, which of course they do, in order then to proceed within the bounds of practical reality, to know what a system does or does not actually achieve.

    --- Ron.
     
  18. Absane Rocket Surgeon Valued Senior Member

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    "What if I told you insane was working fifty hours a week in some office for fifty years at the end of which they tell you to fuck off; ending up in some retirement village hoping to die before suffering the indignity of trying to make it to the toilet on time? Wouldn't you consider that to be insane?"

    LOL.. I like that movie

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  19. perplexity Banned Banned

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    It would tell me that you know next to nothing about me.

    -- Ron.
     
  20. invert_nexus Ze do caixao Valued Senior Member

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    Well. Isn't this turning into a "Let's get personal about Water" thread?

    Heh.
    This was supposed to be a "Let's help Brent fix himself" thread.
    Brent will be crushed.

    Anyway. I refuse to comment on your post. It's getting way too far off topic. And moving into futility.

    Perhaps you should look at yourself for a change?
    Apply the topic to yourself.
    How to solve YOUR problems with philosophy. Rather than Water's.
     
  21. Absane Rocket Surgeon Valued Senior Member

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    Did I claim or make the slightest suggestion that I did?
     
  22. perplexity Banned Banned

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    Yes. That is the usual water game, to attract attention to her pretended personal problems in order to bite the hand that feeds her the attention as soon as it gets to be a bit too real, or not quite the way she wanted to manipulate.

    Why? I'd thought it all rather proved his point:

    "But really, I think philosophy is just problems.
    You try to solve them. If you can't, well, what a dumbass that fucker is for not believing me!"

    Some lives are more futile than others.

    In my early years I was subject to incessant criticism and then spent most of my life since on self examination.

    What problems with philosophy do you think I have?

    Start a thread if you like. I am not bothered.

    --- Ron.
     
    Last edited: Jun 19, 2006
  23. perplexity Banned Banned

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    When you go out of your way to tell somebody samething it does tend to suggest a belief to the effect that the somebody would not already be aware of it, especially when something would appear to be put as a rhetorical question.

    --- Ron
     
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