>>9985
go fuck yourself

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>>9992
I second this notion.

Do your own homework, dumbass.
Hint: De Morgan's laws.

>>9975

Are you implying you don't read Parmenides?

>>9970
Just because being a pretentious ass is allowed doesn't mean its useful.
i dont remember Parmenides being a prerequisite to posting on /phi/ but you have every right to your own delusions.

reality is perceived. you've never seen reality you've only guessed what it is by the evidence provided to you through your senses and agreed upon by your peers.so you could look at reality as an illusion. its kind of like we're all in the dark guessing but there is no light switch.

Ive never needed a reason to live so i cant really answer your second question.

Wait, are you speaking of representative realism or transcendental idealism?

There's a difference between the veil of perception and having an idea of things. Be more precise, or at least verify if you mean neither of these things.

>>9939
Periods. Men don't get periods.

>>9986
I was not aware that involuntarily spewing bloody debris regularly from one's genitals was a behavioral trait.

It is true that perfect Yin is reverent and perfect Yang is brilliant.

but allow me to quote Socrates in Plato's Symposium...

"So far, Socrates, I have dealt with love-mysteries into which even you could probably be initiated, but whether you could grasp the perfect revelation [enlightenment] to which they lead the pilgrim if he does not stray from the right path, I do not know. However, you shall not fail for any lack of willingness on my part: I will tell you of it, and do try to follow if you can...

The man who has been guided thus far in the mysteries of love, and who has directed his thoughts towards examples of beauty in due and orderly succession, will suddenly have revealed to him as he approaches the end of his initiation a beauty whose nature is marvelous indeed, the final goal, Socrates, of all his previous efforts [enlightenment]. This beauty is first of all eternal; it neither comes into being nor passes away, neither waxes or wanes; next, it is not beautiful in part and ugly in part, not beautiful at one time and ugly at another, nor beautiful in this relation and ugly in that, nor beautiful here and ugly there, as varying according to its beholders; nor again will this beauty appear to him like the beauty of a face or hands or anything else corporeal, or like the beauty of a thought or a science, or like beauty which has its seat in something other than itself, be it a living thing or the earth or the sky or anything else whatever; he will see it as absolute, existing alone with itself, unique, eternal, and all other beautiful things partaking of it, yet in such a manner that, while they come into being and pass away, it neither undergoes any increase or diminution nor suffers any change.

When a man, staring from this sensible world and making his way upward... begins to catch sight of that beauty, he is very near his goal. This is the right way of approaching or being initiated into the mysteries of love, to begin with examples of beauty in this world, and using them as steps to ascend continually with that absolute beauty as one's aim, from one instance of physical beauty to two and from two to all, then from physical beauty to moral beauty, and from moral beauty to beauty of knowledge, until from knowledge of various kinds one arrives at the supreme knowledge whose sole object is that absolute beauty, and knows at last what absolute beauty is.

This above all others... is the region where a man's life should be spent, in the contemplation of absolute beauty [a man should devote himself to cultivating towards enlightenment]... What may we suppose to be the felicity of the man who sees absolute beauty in its essence, pure and unalloyed, who, instead of a beauty tainted by human flesh and colour and a mass of perishable rubbish, is able to apprehend divine beauty where it exists apart and alone? Do you think that it will be a poor life that a man Message too long. Click here to view the full text.

>>9888

I feel it can be argued that the only thing that matters regarding death is the sentiment given agency by the subject. Subjects often wish for death when faced by tragedies but if the tragedy is that you were unable to produce a life worth living when confronted by death then you cannot simply long for death's embrace because death's imminence is what has instigated the sensation of pain. This is the only pain that the promise of death cannot mitigate.

There is no real "goal" to life, other than one that is made for oneself. It is important to have short-term as well as long-term goals so you can continue down the path without becoming discouraged that you aren't making any progress.

Ultimately, whatever goal you have will probably be unfulfilled because you currently reside in an extremely fragile meatsack that is prone to dying at the most inopportune times. Is it worth it to suffer mightily for every hour of every day for years and years in pursuit of a goal, only to die or fall terminally ill moments before achieving it?

This is why most people do not excel at their particular career or purpose, but rather settle into mediocrity. Those who DO excel usually are the ones who work themselves to death 24/7 and never have a moment's time to be themselves. Really, they don't even EXIST outside their job; they aren't an individual with hobbies or preferences or goals beyond the grindstone; they merely work. It is my experience working in a career which practically demands this behavior for success, that these people are the stupidest among us. Not just stubborn and unperceptive, but genuinely would score lower on an IQ test than others who are not that way.

This relates to:
>1) How have you shaped your career, or means of earning, of lifestyle apart from but tied to your earning

>To

>Allow you to spend as much time as you would like on philosophy?

See, people who WORK too much don't have any time left to THINK. I was at my mental acme and creative height when I was a neurotic shut-in living with my mother for five years. I didn't do very much except sit around, but my brain did not just idle. It was constantly spinning with thoughts and concepts and problems to solve. I was constantly reading and writing and researching things and pushing my ability for mental calculation.

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>>9979
I love you. This is fucking beautiful.

>>8847
>Geometric style
>Would you care to elaborate on what exactly is geometric about his style (as it pertains to his or a philosophy)?

I'm also curious as to whether you had considered more closely examining why his substance modality 'makes the most sense' to you.

You can look into the study of formal logic and investigate under the system that best appeals to you, to quickly discover other people who pique your interest.

Your last paragraph is hard to decipher. Are you still around OP?

I haven't read too much about Spinoza but I get the gist of his philosophy. I'm going to take issue with your claims of consciousness. I am not sure what consciousness you are talking about. If you are talking about the universe having a consciousness then consider how much chaos there is in the universe. I do not see how the entire universe has so much order as to make a consciousness. A plant is highly ordered but that doesn't make it conscious.

>>9898

I am referring to human consciousness. I reject philosophic materialism.

I'm feeling lazy, so I'll copy/paste something I posted before on another board. It applies enough so I don't feel the need to edit anything.


Being "gay", for me, is just an activity: I have relationships and sex with other males. It's not a lifestyle, and it's not a "state", either. I am not a person who is a homosexual, I am a person who occasionally does things which are homosexual.

At several times during my life, I have done things which were heterosexual, also. I don't think I've ever met a gay man who didn't at least kiss a girl once in some kind of awkward sexual-discovery phase. That doesn't mean that he once was straight and now is gay; that would be ridiculous considering he didn't change at all.

I don't like labels as a rule. I look at furry porn but I am not a furry. I play video games but I am not a gamer. I watch Star Trek but I am not a Trekkie. Does this mean I would never attend a Star Trek convention? It depends if I had some people to go with, but my biggest point might be that I like Star Wars, too. It irritates me a bit that someone decided that you can only belong to ONE camp or another, and that's IT. Oh, perhaps if you like both equally (exactly equally!) you can take on a third label. But fuck that! I cannot be labled that easily. I like Star Trek a lot more than Star Wars (in much the same way as I sexually like men a lot more than women) but that doesn't mean that I have to adhere to only one side of the coin.


This is the crux of the argument, here, and what changed between THEN and NOW. Back then, there were homosexual actions, and now, there are homosexual people. Only homosexual people are allowed to do homosexual actions, and they are ONLY allowed to do those things. Any deviation from one side or another is seen as wrong. It's a terribly stupid way of doing things, and I wish it would stop, but it's merely a human thing to do.

People have a deep desire to categorize, separate, and label things, because otherwise they get stuff mixed up. A coffee-maker is a coffee-maker, and a dishwasher is a dishwasher. A device could (in theory) do both of those things, but people would not accept that! They don't like the idea because those two things are not supposed to be one thing. Similarly, a thing can only be ONE THING. A coffee-maker is a kitchen appliance, and it can ONLY be a kitchen appliance. What if someone had one in his bedroom? I'll bet you would think he's sort of an idiot, because it doesn't belong there. People want to label each other in the same, very limited way. So Tiger Woods can't be both black AND white. Obviously, he's black... right? but then he really isn't if you analyze his heritage. People don't like that. It confuses them to think of a guy as being of more than one race. You're ei Message too long. Click here to view the full text.

"Your soul has no innate gender and therefore no sexual orientation."

1. HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT.
2. Assuming you are correct, it doesn't follow that therefore you couldn't have been born with a sexual orientation, in the same way that you could say a soul has no inherent race and yet you are still born whichever race you are. Sexual attraction is partially biological, which is why even the most basic animals have a rudimentary sense of what to mate with and what not to mate with.

9947 I would say that there is a social dimension to how these qualities are expressed, and that most people will tend to follow along the social lines, but there is a definite biological component to it. Like, in ancient Greece or Rome you would have a society where the upper class males would all be bisexual, but there would always be some people who just innately preferred men or women.
As far as it being an identity that people cling to so strongly, part of that is just because of how many people want to rip it away from them. You take for granted that it's okay to be only straight or gay, whereas for so many people its only okay to be gay, and there is a huge degree of psychological reactance to that attempt to control them.

only okay to be straight rather. I am an idiot

Matter can not be created nor destroyed correct which pokes at the idea that there will be no end of the universe and also pokes at there was no beginning. So...

>>9892
People are referring to the universe not as existence, but the way this matter happens to be put together. At one point it was not, at this point it is, and eventually it will be so dispersed that it won't resemble anything but "empty" space.

I assume you've been reading about the "big crunch"

Modern astronomy posits that dark energy is pushing the universe out indefinitely

As for a recurring big bang well idk. I think the nature of time/space has been measured sufficiently to say that this has been the only big bang in our universe

Now if you want to say that our universe collapsed you would have to provide a logical way that could happen

Of course proponents of the multiverse would posit that there are literally infinite other universes out there. How's that for a loss of meaning?

>can it ever be said that that organisation could have objectives different from the people
Yes, because people have different objectives

>>9920
no, i understand that there might be conflicting objectives, but...
nevermind

yes, but I would hesitate to call them objectives. More like, humans are evolved not by careful attention to planning but through the hidden hand

And thus an organization may serve a "purpose" even though that purpose was not not expressed by any sentience (unless you want to argue that a mechanism of sufficient complexity achieves sentience by default)

This is all leaving out the God argument that all hidden hands are an expression of his will

I hope I addressed your concern

I doubt the field will open much honestly
breater intelligence will not help us overcome our philosophical difficulties,
that being said I study psychology and i have always been curious about mechanicaly isolating individual sections of the brain

so someone would be pure right/left brained
or using diferent areas of the brain for latteral problem solving

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This is /phi/, not a circle jerk of scientists.

We don't know what the future may hold for such technologies, but this does sound interesting. Improving life is what is obsolete, so if there was a general interest/industry for it we would be able to go into such a subject.

On the prior, our quality of life is pretty good. You have a •whole world of access to information, •people to talk about such subjects and the certain •wealth that everyone acquires. So why would you want to change that? Since we already can expand our awareness of everything sober or not, what's the point?

On the latter, it's hard to say if there is such a thing that could improve our daily physical, spiritual, mental and emotional abilities. What is everyone's opinions/views on this?

I personally don't believe we need to change our psychological state of us at the moment, because it doesn't need to.

>>8737
So OP is stuck without control like me. I can only hope to gain self-determination. Where there is none, there's only hope for change. Good hope, really. Few people genuinely care to hold someone back forever.

>>8776
But my dear friend, hope for change without agency is despair.

>>8682
I punish myself by recalling the internal mental state that triggered it, and 'scolding it' by pulling darker corners of my mind 'closer' in the mental landscape to 'scare it'.

It is self negative reinforcement.

I suppose having conquered trauma helps.

Some people are proud of being abused as a child!

there's a degree of what could be considered narcissism in the uber technical sense of the word that not even psychologists really use much because it's considered healthy the same way drinking water is considered healthy but you don't go drinking gallons at a time because that'll kill you


:) so yeah there's a bit of narcissism involved, whatever though it's healthy and normal to want to have people like you for doing stuff

it's when you start doing certain types of stuff in various situations that people shy away from you, because of their recognition of the behavioural patterns and coming to the conclusion that you'll probably turn against them next or they'll be after next

and it's highly dependent on the method of treatment of others' especially people you have nothing to really gain from, even an ego boost like a thank you

the imagination thing tying to narcissism is related to narcissistic rage, in that it's considered NPD (narcissistic personality disorder) type stuff when you get all pissy because someone didn't like something you did that you thought they'd like

there's a lot of distrust and insecurity involved however, so there's an inferiority complex I think involved, a common comparison is to that of vampires, where emotion/ego is to narcissists what blood is to vampires

and yes, it's semi contagious through repeated feedings due to the insecurity and so on, which is why many cult leaders are consistently... the kinds of people you'll find behaving like that and so on

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