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    1. Anyone have any interesting facts or wild stories to share about strange characters in history? I can start - with Marquis de Sade.

      My contribution: It's 2:17am on a school night, you're a teenager, and you're googling "most disturbing movie ever made" - because you can. Among mentions of films like A Serbian Film and...

      My contribution:

      It's 2:17am on a school night, you're a teenager, and you're googling "most disturbing movie ever made" - because you can. Among mentions of films like A Serbian Film and Audition, you also notice that a film with two names is commonly mentioned: Salò, or The 120 Days of Sodom. Huh, even the name sounds creepy. After looking behind you to make sure no one's watching, a brief glance at a summary of the movie explains enough to make you want to forget about the whole thing forever. Regardless, you fall further down the Wikipedia hole... (or in my case, you really do forget about it for 10 years, only to unfortunately stumble across it again yesterday.)


      Salò was made in 1975 and is based on a novel written by Marquis de Sade in 1785. It is known as one of the most disturbing films ever made, but as I learned recently, the film and novel somewhat pale in comparison to the real life of the author. Sade was a French guy who committed all manners of wild, outrageous, and terrible behavior throughout his life, and his Wikipedia page is a crazy ride. You know the word "sadism?" This man is literally the etymological origin of sadism. (Also, practically his whole existence requires a content warning. In this case, it seems that the art has never been separate from the artist.)

      In 1763, Sade was charged with "outrage to public morals, blasphemy and profanation of the image of Christ," which at first makes him seem pretty cool. Alas, it all goes downhill from here, as he was known as a nuisance and danger to every community he lived in.

      TW: Sadism, sexual abuse, physical abuse, child sexual abuse

      He once locked a woman in a room and went on a ultra-cringe atheist tirade that would make even the most condescending neckbeard blush, screaming about how God doesn't exist while simultaneously masturbating, urinating on things, stomping on a crucifix, and ordering the woman to beat and whip him. He locked another woman in his home, whipped her, and poured hot wax in the wounds. He was arrested, then let out of jail because he wrote letters and whined to the King about it. He was such a creep that the local police started warning sex workers not to visit him. He fell in love with his wife's sister when she was 13, and eventually ran away with her. He committed absurd acts of pedophilia, including forcing groups of children to perform "erotic plays" while trapped in his home for weeks on end.

      Later, when Napoleon Bonaparte issued a warrant for his arrest after being offended by his novels, Sade was imprisoned, then had to transfer prisons because he was being such a disgusting sex pest to other prisoners at the first one. His family had him declared insane and moved to an insane asylum. While in the asylum, he was permitted to direct and perform his plays, using the other patients as actors. Somehow, even when living amongst the most underprivileged members of society in prisons or insane asylums, it seems that Sade was never fully prevented from promoting his ideas and art to the world, even though the subjects he explored were universally horrifying to society - then, as well as now. I found this fascinating.

      TW: child sexual abuse

      This man spent his whole life committing weird, gross, violent sex crimes at every turn, and no one ever really stopped him from doing that either. His life is one long cycle of rapes, arrests, assaults, kidnappings, and imprisonments, and he keeps on going until the very end. When he was 70, he entered a four year long sexual "relationship" with a 14 year old daughter of one of the asylum employees, and then died at the age of 74.

      Sade wrote The 120 Days of Sodom on scraps of paper while in an insane asylum in 1785, and lost it in the Storming of Bastille during the French Revolution. It was somehow rescued (eternally unbeknownst to him,) and was finally published in 1904, to eventually be adapted into the film that sent me down this whole rabbit hole.

      While reading about Sade's life, I was surprised not only by the major events in history he was present for, but the lasting impact he had on philosophy, art, and culture. As mentioned above, the word "sadism" has its roots in his name. The Surrealists adopted him as an inspiration in the 1920s, dubbing him the "Divine Marquis" and praising his ideas about "sexual freedom." (Side note: I love surrealism, but I swear, I never stop discovering new, unsettling facts about Dali and his ilk.) Along with Surrealism, he is said to have had great influence over Modernist art. Some consider his work to be a precursor of nihilism. Sade also influenced Sigmund Freud, Friedrich Nietzsche, and at least one serial killer.


      Discussion

      Learning about this guy left me astounded, and I just needed to share with someone. Could I have just posted the Wikipedia article? Yes, but that's not as fun as writing down this crazy story and some of my feelings about it. (Note: I did not link sources excessively in this post, as it generally follows the structure of the Wikipedia article and sources can be found there.)

      I couldn't believe I didn't already know about Marquis de Sade before today (maybe because I've never taken a philosophy class?) It also got me thinking that I'd like to hear about any other outrageous, controversial, or just plain strange characters in history that you might know of. Even the other historical figures mentioned above have pretty wild lives themselves. (And on the other hand, I suppose there's so much here to chew on that we may just discuss Sade in general. If so, have at it. I'm particularly fascinated by how such a sick individual has heavily influenced significant parts of our culture, and how to feel about that.)

      Fun facts are welcome, considering I certainly didn't bring any.

      66 votes
    2. Tell me about your weird religious beliefs

      Let's hear about religious and spiritual (maybe philosophical?) beliefs not considered "mainstream" in the modern West. The percentage of people who identify as "spiritual", "other", or "none" is...

      Let's hear about religious and spiritual (maybe philosophical?) beliefs not considered "mainstream" in the modern West.

      The percentage of people who identify as "spiritual", "other", or "none" is rising at the expense of larger "organized" religions.

      Disclaimer: it's hard if not impossible to draw hard lines around what is considered a "religion" verses a philosophy, culture, or mere ritual or traditional practice. If you aren't sure if what you believe fits the prompt, err on the side of sharing.

      Things that probably fit the prompt:

      • Minority religions
      • Native beliefs/cultures
      • Highly syncretic beliefs
      • Non-western religions or beliefs
      • "Pagan" beliefs
      • Esoteric or occult beliefs or practices

      Things that might not fit the prompt

      • Mainstream Christian beliefs or traditions
      • Naturalism or a lack of belief in any particular religious or spiritual tradition

      I don't exclude these two categories because they aren't important, but because they are incredibly important, and most of what we think about religious or spiritual beliefs exist in frameworks created by the above two groups. I want to use this opportunity to learn about others, and I feel that I already know a good bit more about atheism and mainstream Christian theism than most other perspectives.

      This is a sensitive subject that is tied deeply to people's sense of meaning; please treat your fellow commentor's beliefs, cultures, and values with respect. Thank you in advance for your input and perspective.

      56 votes
    3. CMV: Once civilization is fully developed, life will be unfulfilling and boring. Humanity is also doomed to go extinct. These two reasons make life not worth living.

      Hello everyone, I hope you're well. I've been wrestling with two "philosophical" questions that I find quite unsettling, to the point where I feel like life may not be worth living because of what...

      Hello everyone,

      I hope you're well. I've been wrestling with two "philosophical" questions that
      I find quite unsettling, to the point where I feel like life may not be worth
      living because of what they imply. Hopefully someone here will offer me a new
      perspective on them that will give me a more positive outlook on life.


      (1) Why live this life and do anything at all if humanity is doomed to go extinct?

      I think that, if we do not take religious beliefs into account, humanity is
      doomed to go extinct, and therefore, everything we do is ultimately for nothing,
      as the end result will always be the same: an empty and silent universe devoid of human
      life and consciousness.

      I think that humanity is doomed to go extinct, because it needs a source of
      energy (e.g. the Sun) to survive. However, the Sun will eventually die and life
      on Earth will become impossible. Even if we colonize other habitable planets,
      the stars they are orbiting will eventually die too, so on and so forth until
      every star in the universe has died and every planet has become inhabitable.
      Even if we manage to live on an artificial planet, or in some sort of human-made
      spaceship, we will still need a source of energy to live off of, and one day there
      will be none left.
      Therefore, the end result will always be the same: a universe devoid of human
      life and consciousness with the remnants of human civilization (and Elon Musk's Tesla)
      silently floating in space as a testament to our bygone existence. It then does not
      matter if we develop economically, scientifically, and technologically; if we end
      world hunger and cure cancer; if we bring poverty and human suffering to an end, etc.;
      we might as well put an end to our collective existence today. If we try to live a happy
      life nonetheless, we'll still know deep down that nothing we do really matters.

      Why do anything at all, if all we do is ultimately for nothing?


      (2) Why live this life if the development of civilization will eventually lead
      to a life devoid of fulfilment and happiness?

      I also think that if, in a remote future, humanity has managed to develop
      civilization to its fullest extent, having founded every company imaginable;
      having proved every theorem, run every experiment and conducted every scientific
      study possible; having invented every technology conceivable; having automated
      all meaningful work there is: how then will we manage to find fulfilment in life
      through work?

      At such time, all work, and especially all fulfilling work, will have already
      been done or automated by someone else, so there will be no work left to do.

      If we fall back to leisure, I believe that we will eventually run out of
      leisurely activities to do. We will have read every book, watched every
      movie, played every game, eaten at every restaurant, laid on every beach,
      swum in every sea: we will eventually get bored of every hobby there is and
      of all the fun to be had. (Even if we cannot literally read every book or watch
      every movie there is, we will still eventually find their stories and plots to be
      similar and repetitive.)

      At such time, all leisure will become unappealing and boring.

      Therefore, when we reach that era, we will become unable to find fulfillment and
      happiness in life neither through work nor through leisure. We will then not
      have much to do, but to wait for our death.

      In that case, why live and work to develop civilization and solve all of the
      world's problems if doing so will eventually lead us to a state of unfulfillment,
      boredom and misery? How will we manage to remain happy even then?


      I know that these scenarios are hypothetical and will only be relevant in a
      very far future, but I find them disturbing and they genuinely bother me, in the
      sense that their implications seem to rationally make life not worth living.

      I'd appreciate any thoughts and arguments that could help me put these ideas into
      perspective and put them behind me, especially if they can settle these questions for
      good and definitively prove these reasonings to be flawed or wrong, rather than offer
      coping mechanisms to live happily in spite of them being true.

      Thank you for engaging with these thoughts.


      Edit.

      After having read through about a hundred answers (here and elsewhere), here are some key takeaways:

      Why live this life and do anything at all if humanity is doomed to go extinct?

      • My argument about the extinction of humanity seems logical, but we could very well eventually find out that it is totally wrong. We may not be doomed to go extinct, which means that what we do wouldn't be for nothing, as humanity would keep benefitting from it perpetually.
      • We are at an extremely early stage of the advancement of science, when looking at it on a cosmic timescale. Over such a long time, we may well come to an understanding of the Universe that allows us to see past the limits I've outlined in my original post.
      • (Even if it's all for nothing, if we enjoy ourselves and we do not care that it's pointless, then it will not matter to us that it's all for nothing, as the fun we're having makes life worthwhile in and of itself. Also, if what we do impacts us positively right now, even if it's all for nothing ultimately, it will still matter to us as it won't be for nothing for as long as humanity still benefits from it.)

      Why live this life if the development of civilization will eventually lead to a life devoid of fulfilment and happiness?

      • This is not possible, because we'd either have the meaningful work of improving our situation (making ourselves fulfilled and happy), or we would be fulfilled and happy, even if there was no work left.
      • I have underestimated for how long one can remain fulfilled with hobbies alone, given that one has enough hobbies. One could spend the rest of their lives doing a handful of hobbies (e.g., travelling, painting, reading non-fiction, reading fiction, playing games) and they would not have enough time to exhaust all of these hobbies.
      • We would not get bored of a given food, book, movie, game, etc., because we could cycle through a large number of them, and by the time we reach the end of the cycle (if we ever do), then we will have forgotten the taste of the first foods and the stories of the first books and movies. Even if we didn't forget the taste of the first foods, we would not have eaten them frequently at all, so we would not have gotten bored of them. Also, there can be a lot of variation within a game like Chess or Go. We might get bored of Chess itself, but then we could simply cycle through several games (or more generally hobbies), and come back to the first game with renewed eagerness to play after some time has passed.
      • One day we may have the technology to change our nature and alter our minds to not feel bored, make us forget things on demand, increase our happiness, and remove negative feelings.

      Recommended readings (from the commenters)

      • Deep Utopia: Life and Meaning in a Solved World by Nick Bostrom
      • The Fun Theory Sequence by Eliezer Yudkowski
      • The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch
      • Into the Cool by Eric D. Schneider and Dorion Sagan
      • Permutation City by Greg Egan
      • Diaspora by Greg Egan
      • Accelerando by Charles Stross
      • The Last Question By Isaac Asimov
      • The Culture series by Iain M. Banks
      • Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow
      • The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus
      • Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
      • This Life: Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom by Martin Hägglund
      • Uncaused cause arguments
      • The Meaningness website (recommended starting point) by David Chapman
      • Optimistic Nihilism (video) by Kurzgesagt
      23 votes
    4. In search of approachable, readable philosophy (or philosophy-adjacent) books to help me navigate the world

      I've recently found myself reaching for some of my favorite philosophy books as I enter another year of navigating a chaotic, painful world, and navigating my own depression and quest for meaning...

      I've recently found myself reaching for some of my favorite philosophy books as I enter another year of navigating a chaotic, painful world, and navigating my own depression and quest for meaning within it. Exploring philosophy really helps give me the language and mental framework to make sense and meaning out of an existence that often overwhelms me with fear and meaninglessness.

      One big problem, though: a lot of philosophy books absolutely suck to read. They're overlong, impenetrably dense, and often awkwardly translated from another language.

      TL;DR:
      Can anyone recommend approachable, readable philosophy (or philosophy-adjacent) books that can help me navigate the world, find reasons to live, and develop a durable sense of meaning?


      Some more background info: The philosophies that have resonated most with me over the years are the works of Camus, the broader world of existentialists and existentialist-adjacent philosophies, stoicism, and utilitarianism. While I recognize that things like logic, epistemology, and religion are important branches of philosophy I'm more interested in things that help me navigate the daily questions of existence such as meaning, suffering, purpose, and so on.

      The most impactful philosophical ideas I've ever encountered are those of Camus in The Myth of Sisyphus. Camus' conception of the absurd and the challenges of navigating it resonated so deeply with me that it essentially kickstarted my entire interest in philsophy. Before that I had never done any philosophical reading that felt like it really applied to me. Suddenly it felt like Camus had taken what was in my brain and put it on the page. However, I still consider the Myth of Sisyphus not an approachable, readable philosophy book, and not really a good book at all. I found his philosophy impactful despite the fact that it's overly long, often boring, and weighed down by an English translation that may have been good in the 1950s but in the 21st century is extremely stilted and hard to read.

      For that reason my favorite philosophy book is At The Existentialist Cafe by Sarah Bakewell. It's half biography of Sartre, Beauviour, and Heidigger, and half overview of the wide world of existentialist philosophies. It's an smooth, pleasant read written in plain English that both helped me understand more philosophical concepts than any other single book I've ever read and introduced me to tons of things I want to learn more about. I highly recommend it.

      Some other books I've read:

      • The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin is tremendous. I know this isn't technically philosophy, but it definitely feels philosophy adjacent to me since it fit the bill of "help me make sense of the world" and as a bonus is a very smooth read. I plan to re-read this soon.
      • Man's Search of Meaning by Viktor Frankl was a solid 4/5 for me.
      • Being Mortal by Atul Gawande is another philosophy-adjacent book that is a tremendous exploration of how we cope with death. It really impacted how I think about end-of-life issues.
      • Modern Ethics in 77 Arguments is a collection of essays meant to make philsophy and ethics approachable for normal people - hence why I picked it up. I read most of it, but the essays were just too hit and miss so I ended up putting it down about 2/3rds of the way through.
      • The Stranger by Camus. I did not necessarily enjoy this book (and I have no desire to re-read it) but I do appreciate it for being thought-provoking. Plus it was a way smoother read than The Myth of Sisyphus.

      Some I'm considering reading:

      I deeply appreciate breadcrumbs anyone can provide as I try to learn how (and why) to keep living in this world and to develop a sense of meaning within it.

      30 votes
    5. Non-revolutionary anarchism

      Edit: I'm just gonna list the recommendations I found interesting for my future reference Proudhon - One of the first anarchists. Wrote a lot about mutualism and tried to come up with mechanisms...

      Edit: I'm just gonna list the recommendations I found interesting for my future reference

      Proudhon - One of the first anarchists. Wrote a lot about mutualism and tried to come up with mechanisms to share resources based on usufruct

      The Dispossessed -Describes an alternate society. Supposedly written more like an anthropological study than a narrative

      No God's, No Masters - Written by David Graber, who also wrote the 3 Problems with the Revolution

      The Dawn of Everything - Talks about the organization structures of early societies

      Participatory Economics - Talks about economic organization without compulsion

      Walkaway - Recommended when I mentioned stealth anarchism

      ‐------------------------

      I'm gonna be honest, I'm pretty sick of all the existing forms of politics. Conservatives, liberals, progressives, libertarians, I dont feel like I jive with any of them.

      The closest thing I've found to a philosophy I can get behind is anarchism, but I'm not really a fan of revolutionary anarchism either. I'm interested in just discussion of the constructive aspects of it. Like how the alternative vision of the world they advocate for works in practice, and what different options there are for implementation.

      I find it hard to really get into, because whenever I try to read up on any kind of political philosophy I run into the people who are trying to evangelize and it just really turns me off to the whole thing.

      Does anyone have some good reading recommendations that skip past trying to recruit people, and just is a good discussion?

      43 votes
    6. Looking for sources related to "The Repetitive Nature of Human Tribulations"

      Hello everyone :) I write as a hobby and have had an article in my drafts for a long, long time. In essence, I'd like to discuss the "repetitive nature of human tribulations/suffering/life", that...

      Hello everyone :)

      I write as a hobby and have had an article in my drafts for a long, long time. In essence, I'd like to discuss the "repetitive nature of human tribulations/suffering/life", that is, the fact that regardless of superficial characteristics we all are confronted with extremely similar circumstances throughout our lives.

      Whether it's 10 years into our lives or 40, there's joy, heartbreak, loss, a need to belong, some desire for freedom, a need for a purpose, lack of direction, obsession with a newly found direction, etc.

      I'd love to come across poets, philosophers, psychologists, etc who have touched upon this subject: we are not defined by our circumstances, as they are, in very broad strokes, largely the same, but by how we are able to adapt and reinvent ourselves amidst those same circumstances.

      Looking forward for your answers :)

      Thanks!

      7 votes
    7. Does anyone here have any suggestions on readings in (modern) philosophy?

      An interesting, although quite academic, read I was recently suggested was Moral Uncertainty by Krister Bykvist, Toby Ord, and William MacAskill. Does anyone here have any suggestions on (modern)...

      An interesting, although quite academic, read I was recently suggested was Moral Uncertainty by Krister Bykvist, Toby Ord, and William MacAskill. Does anyone here have any suggestions on (modern) philosophy that you have currently been reading or are interesting in reading?

      18 votes
    8. The Menu, Binging with Babish, and Ornamental Cookery

      Half a year ago, I watched The Menu, which is a delightful film if you haven't seen it. Depending on your perspective, you might read its whip-smart commentary as a critique on fine-dining...

      Half a year ago, I watched The Menu, which is a delightful film if you haven't seen it. Depending on your perspective, you might read its whip-smart commentary as a critique on fine-dining culture, an examination of the cultish qualities of class warfare, a deconstruction of the relationship between artist, audience and financier, all of these, or more that I haven't mentioned. And yet, despite the roiling thematic depths, it's a very accessible and entertaining social horror flick. That was six months ago. And today, I got recommended a video called "Binging with Babish: Cheeseburger from The Menu." In the video, YouTuber Andrew "Babish" Rea attempts to replicate the final dish in The Menu (spoilers ahead): a cheeseburger which is only special, in the film, for its simplicity. For the fact that it is food meant to be eaten and enjoyed, not to be part of some absurd navel-gazing ritual. And for the first part of the video, Babish, in my opinion, replicates the burger near perfectly. A simple burger, on a premade bun, with deli American cheese and crinkle-cut fries. No frills; no fancy tricks. A burger you or I would make, executed well, designed to be eaten and enjoyed. By the time he's done tasting this burger, we're two minutes and fifteen seconds into an eleven minute video.

      Roland Barthes (look, just bear with me please) was a French critic who is now best known for his seminal 1967 essay "The Death of the Author." But my favourite of his works is his 1957 essay collection "Mythologies." In the economic boom that followed World War II, Barthes looked around at a new emerging popular culture, and chronicled what he felt were the artistic, philosophical and political connotations of everything from wrestling to the recipes in women's magazines. In the latter essay, titled "Ornamental Cookery," Barthes described the difference between recipes in the working-class Elle Magazine, and the middle class L'Express. Barthes observed that food in Elle was fancy, aesthetically pleasing, and tremendously complex to make, with garnishes and glazes and bright colors, in contrast to the simpler food in the apprently classier L'Express. Explaining this seeming contradiction, Barthes writes,

      It is because Elle is addressed to a genuinely working-class public that it is very careful not to take for granted that cooking must be economical. Compare with L'Express, whose exclusively middle-class public enjoys a comfortable purchasing power: its cookery is real, not magical... The readers of Elle are entitled only to fiction; one can suggest real dishes to those of L'Express, in the certainty that they will be able to prepare them.

      In other words, Barthes thinks that the recipes in Elle are there not to be made, but to be observed and hungered for by a working class that would struggle to afford the expensive ingredients for complex home cooking, whereas middle-class cooks were capable of affording the ingredients for recipes that could plausibly be made, and so had no need for spectacle or impractical flights of culinary fancy.

      This same dynamic can be observed in cooking videos on YouTube. Videos like the aforementioned Babish video, where, after completing his simple, delicious burger, Babish spends hours making his own buns, synthesizing American cheese, crinkle-cutting fries, and grinding expensive steaks to form his patties. The resultant burger, again, looks delicious. But, compared with the first burger, while it's something that I, a middle class woman, certainly could make, the cheaper, simpler burger is infinitely more practical (and, I would argue, more aligned with the themes of The Menu). This isn't a phenomenon unique to the Babish video, either. It's a dichotomy I've observed in lots of cooking videos; some of which, like those made by J. Kenji Lopez, Adam Ragusea, and the like are designed to be practical, replicable recipes; some of which, like Joshua Weissman's "But Better" series, or this delightful video from YouTuber ANTI-CHEF, are videos meant to be consumed as entertainment, only nominally replicable by a typical home cook. The Elle Magazine of today. Not that there's anything wrong with art for art's sake, food designed to be viewed as much as or more than it is to be eaten. Is there?

      If, in 1957, you had a lot of money, want to eat the elaborate dishes on display in Elle, and couldn't cook, there was an easy way to do it. You could hire a chef. You could ask them to make some pink, glazed, mythical dish, or, hell, you could let them dazzle you with their creativity instead. You could let them set The Menu, so to speak. But maybe what that film argues is that perhaps the thing you would be consuming would still be ephemeral, unsatisfying, perhaps even unhealthy to eat. Maybe, when we watch videos about impractical, spectacular dishes; when we delight in the excesses of fine dining on display in Chef's Table or the excesses of home cooking in Binging with Babish, we are aligning our expectations, however minutely, along an unwholesome vision of what food should be.

      41 votes
    9. No one wants sensuality

      A summarized transcription of the video No One Wants Sensuality. Source PDF Q: Bhante, you once said that the only reason one gives into sensuality is because one doesn't want it. What do you mean...

      A summarized transcription of the video No One Wants Sensuality.
      Source PDF

      Q: Bhante, you once said that the only reason one gives into sensuality is because one doesn't want it. What do you mean by that?

      Ajahn Nyanamoli (Nm): Well, what I meant was that universally, literally every human mind, regardless of the culture, education or religion, when a desire in regard to anything obtainable through the senses arises, that desire is oppressing. Desire is a need, a thirst, a hunger, it pressures you to act. You don't have to act and that's the whole point. As a human being you have a choice. But when desire arises, the automatic response is to give into that pressure of desire, and why would you be giving into the pressure of any desire? It's because it's unpleasant. If the pressure of the desire is neutral or pleasant, you wouldn't then make any effort and spend time trying to gain what your desire wants, because you'll already be at ease. But that desire is already unpleasant and in order for you to try and deal with that displeasure, you just give in to whatever the desire promises. That's what I mean, by engaging in sensuality, you do so to be free from the sensual pressure of the desire. When people say, "No, I enjoy my senses." That's a mistake, because if they were to stop and think, "When there is an unsatisfied desire, is that pleasant? Is that what I want?" They would realise that it isn't, or, "Can I fulfil desire by giving in to it?" No, you can never fulfil desire, because the point of desire is to stay a desire.

      Q: It's based on non-satisfaction.

      Nm: Exactly, it requires non-satisfaction for it to be. That's why if you stop and think about it you realise the only reason you are engaged with sensuality is because the pressure of sensual desire is unpleasant and you don't know any other escape from that pressure other than the temporary release of sensual indulgence.

      That's the whole point, whenever you encounter any form of displeasure, your only way of trying to deal with it is through acts of sensuality, which is why and how people turn to food, music, sexual intercourse or even meditation hoping for some pleasurable experience to lift them up when they're feeling down or depressed, they just commit harder to sensual activity, because that's the only thing that seemingly relieves oneself of that pressure. However, you're just making it worse because the more you're dependent on running away from that pressure of sensual desire, the more pressure that desire will exercise over you.

      Q: So what should you do?

      Nm: Well,in a way, you don't have to do anything. If you start seeing your own sensual desires as something that's controlling you, something that you are enslaved by, then you have to start seeing that 'nature' before you give into the desire. And then it becomes obvious, clear as day, that it's very unpleasant. Even sometimes when you can satisfy your desires, but maybe not quick enough, that's unpleasant. Either way, that desire is rooted in a disagreeable feeling, i.e. that pressure that's very unpleasant. So if you want to free yourself from it, you have to first start restraining your senses and from making it worse through giving in to that pressure of desire.

      You're training yourself to be stronger than something else. But in order to start doing that, you need to start resisting that thing. If you just habitually give into desire, and at the same time expect to somehow magically be free from the pressure of the desire, well that's just a contradiction in terms. Restraint needs to come first if you want to be free from desire. Then the obvious painful nature of the desire in itself becomes apparent. Initially when people start restraining, they notice more pain and they assume that it's because of their restraint. But it isn't. The restraint cannot cause you pain, it can only reveal the underlying pain of the desire that is already there.

      Imagine that you're tied to five powerful animals and they are running towards the objects of their desire, you naturally run with them to avoid that extra painful pull that you will experience if you try standing your ground. The animals are stronger than you, they pull you. It's unpleasant. But that doesn't mean that that initial pain is not there if you run with them. Running with them enables them to pull you even harder. So initially, you have to accept that sharp pain of restraint, which eventually you can see that actually it's not the restraint that's the problem, the restraint just shows you what happens when these animals are pulling in their respective domains. If the animals wouldn't be pulling, there wouldn't be any pain revealed by the restraint. Imagine the animals are tamed and calm, and they just move around slowly and you can just remain seated and not have to run with them. You are restrained, the senses are tamed and there is no pull, no pain.

      It's something anybody could benefit from, just learning how to say no to themselves, gradually, in regards to this and that, in regard to unnecessary things like luxuries and indulgences. Because each time you give in carelessly like that, the animals get more to feed on which means they get more powerful, which means each time they pull you, you'll be less and less able to resist those desires.

      Quite often, and I'm pretty sure many people can relate, your own desires take you to places you don't want to be, that you know you will regret even before you go there, yet you can't help it and you're just dragged there. How will it then be when old age or sickness sets in? When your senses start to fail, yet your mind is fully dependent on that pleasure that you get from that temporary satisfaction of your desires. When the only resemblance of relief from any disagreeable feelings, is now taken away. When the senses can't enjoy sense objects anymore, when eyes can barely see, when it's hard to hear, when it's difficult to chew, when the body doesn't move correctly, when it's not young and doesn't have that much energy. Yet your mind is dependent on that constant chasing after sense pleasures and now that's just taken away. How will it be when the unpleasant feelings arise, and they will, and you have even less ground to deal with it.

      Q: It will feel like an unwanted solitary confinement.

      Nm: Exactly. That's why people are terrified of solitude. They can no longer escape what they have been running away from.

      10 votes
    10. Nozick, the Fediverse, and the internet in general

      Intro This will be something of a long and theoretical post, but I'm interested in others' opinions on this - and a quick google search of Robert Nozick and Fediverse turned up literally nothing,...

      Intro

      This will be something of a long and theoretical post, but I'm interested in others' opinions on this - and a quick google search of Robert Nozick and Fediverse turned up literally nothing, so I'm thinking that this is a new connection. The recent news about Beehaw defederating from other instances, and the wider discussions about how federation might or might not work reminded me of Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974), which I imagine anyone who's formally studied philosophy will have come across. The main point of this book is to make the case for the libertarian minimal state, with the overall thesis in the preface being:

      Our main conclusions about the state are that a minimal state, limited to the narrow functions of protection against force, theft, fraud, enforcement of contracts, and so on, is justified; that any more extensive state will violate persons' rights not to be forced to do certain things, and is unjustified; and that the minimal state is inspiring as well as right. (p. ix)

      The book, while influential and important, is I think deeply flawed, and there's some general agreement about this in the philosophy departments I've been involved with. (Same with many of Nozick’s general opinions.) Unfortunately, the parts of the book that tend to be taught are the first two, and in particular the Wilt Chamberlain argument (pp. 160-2) in which he argues that unequal distribution of wealth and goods is fine as long as the unequal distributions were caused by a history of mutual freely consenting exchanges.

      I say 'unfortunately' because– while the first two sections and the Chamberlain argument are definitely important and influential– Part III, Utopia, is the strongest. I'm not a libertarian, but it's a novel, well-structured, and interesting argument for the minimal state, based in part on possible-world semantics, and I think it looks a lot like what the Fediverse is going for, which is why I'm interested in the crossover.

      The Possible-World Model

      Nozick begins by defining Utopia and identifying its main issues:

      The totality of conditions we would wish to impose on societies which are (preeminently) to qualify as utopias, taken jointly, are inconsistent... The best of all possible worlds for me will not be that for you. The world, of all those I can imagine, which I would most prefer to live in, will not be precisely the one you would choose. Utopia, though, must be, in some restricted sense, the best for all of us; the best world imaginable, for each of us. In what sense can this be? (pp. 297-8)

      He then sets up this perhaps rather convoluted idea, based on the concept of imagining possible worlds. The core idea is this: that in any possible world you can imagine, it must include that all other rational agents in that world will also be able to imagine other possible worlds, and that (if they prefer) they can then move to those possible worlds.

      The question then moves to: is it possible for this to be stable? Because Nozick is interested in whether utopia as traditionally explored by utopian theorists and authors (and note that to an extent he’s subtextually talking to socialist utopians throughout) is possible, the key question is whether worlds will keep being created over and over, with people moving over and over, or whether there'll ever be a world where everyone in that world chooses to stay. And stable worlds must then:

      [satisfy] one very desirable description... namely, none of the inhabitants of the world can imagine an alternative world they would rather live in, which (they believe) would continue to exist if all of its rational inhabitants had the same rights of imagining and emigrating. (p. 299, his emphasis)

      This is, given that people are able to move to worlds they imagine (which Nozick calls 'associations' - as opposed to 'east-berlins' in which inhabitants are unable to move to other worlds).

      He puts this also in set theory terms (quoted just below), and then points out an equivalency of members of S choosing to form an association of their own, vs. members of S refusing entry to those members of A who are not also members of S.

      if A is a set of persons in a stable association then there is no proper subset S of A [note from me: 'proper subset' means it's a part of the whole but not equal to it. So {1, 3} is a proper subset of {1, 3, 5}, but {1, 3, 5}, although a subset of itself, is not a proper subset of itself] such that each member of S is better off in an association consisting only of members of S, than he is in A. For, if there were such a subset S, its members would secede from A, establishing their own association. (p. 300)

      There is then a fairly lengthy section expanding on this, caveating it, and also doing some more in-depth logic/set theory, which I'll skip over as it's not as relevant (and this is already getting long). It's pages 301-6 if anyone's interested in reading, though. Page 307 onwards is where Nozick begins analysing how this model laid out above could be seen in the real world.

      The Real World

      Obviously, the above possible-worlds model is very idealised, and there are several limitations in the real world. Nozick lays out the following four:

      1. In the model, we can imagine infinite possible people to associate with (although we cannot have an infinite number of people in an association); in the real world there are firstly not infinite people and secondly we can't create them. So even if I can imagine the perfect association for me, it might not exist; same with a community I might want to join.
      2. In the model, the only ways associations interfere with each other is by drawing away its members - in the real world, communities impinge on each other in all kinds of ways.
      3. Information costs - it takes effort to find out about other communities in the real world; in the model it's instantaneous and easy.
      4. In the real world, some communities don't let their members know about, or move to, other communities.

      It’s worth noting here that Nozick was writing in 1974, before the advent of the internet (and to a lesser extent, globalisation in general), so point 3 is less of an issue here. Particularly regarding moving and travel costs, which are vastly, vastly, reduced online. In fact, I think these issues are all reduced on the internet, which is relevant when it comes to the potential for implementation. I say more about this at the end of this post, and it’s one of the main things I’m interested in hearing opinions about.

      Nozick, now, is interested in the implementation (or influence) of the possible-world model in the real world, and his key point ends up being this:

      The idea that there is one best composite answer to all of these questions, one best society for everyone to live in, seems to me to be an incredible one. (And the idea that, if there is one, we now know enough to describe it is even more incredible.) (p. 311, his emphasis)

      The ‘questions’ he refers to are questions of values, of activities, of interests. Security or adventure? Luxury or austerity? Private property? Religion? The fact, Nozick thinks, that utopian authors attempt to imagine a utopian society demonstrates a blindness to the heterogeneity of human nature. Which is demonstrated by the fact that they all have their own visions of utopia, and the fact that the inhabitants of their visions all lead different lives.

      The conclusion Nozick draws is that there is no sense in having one type of community in a utopia - rather, that “Utopia is a framework for utopias” (p. 312, my emphasis because it’s the most important point here). We should be aiming for a kind of “meta-utopia”, and this is where the real-world limitations flagged above come into play. The meta-utopia is necessary precisely because of these real-world limitations. What does this look like?

      [T]he environment in which utopian experiments may be tried out; the environment in which people are free to do their own thing; the environment which must, to a great extent, be realized first if more particular utopian visions are to be realised stably. (p.312)

      Nozick thinks this conclusion can arise from a few forms of arguments. One is, that people are different, and so thinking there’s any ‘best’ world for everyone is foolish. That’s what’s happening when he states that there’s no composite answer to the questions of how best to live/structure society. But what if there is a society that’s the best society for everyone? Nozick reckons that that still leads to this meta-utopia. His reasoning for this involves what he calls “design devices” and “filter devices”.

      Design devices basically attempt to structure an ideal society from the ground up, with a bunch of people discussing what the best society is, constructing a model for this society, and then implementing it.

      Nozick basically thinks that this is a non-starter. I think this analogy puts his ideas well:

      It is helpful to imagine cavemen sitting together to think up what, for all time, will be the best possible society and then setting out to institute it. Do none of the reasons that make you smile at this apply to us? (pp. 313-4)

      EDIT: I want to note that I mean that this analogy puts his ideas well. I share the scepticism of design devices, while simultaneously thinking that many societies denoted as 'primitive' tap into important and valuable aspects of human communities which 'modern' societies dismiss.

      The complexity of the human condition is also a large part of his reasoning here why design devices don’t work. So, the alternative is filter devices, which “involve a process which eliminates (filters out) many from a large set of alternatives” (p. 314). This is desirable for a few reasons:

      1. It requires less knowledge than design devices. Filtering processes don’t need to know precisely what an end-product looks like; they can just have some ideas about what they don’t want and begin with that.
      2. The filtering process naturally improves with time. When you have a filter for new candidates, then those candidates are, on average, of better quality (however that’s defined in this particular community), so the filtering process now has better material to work with.
      3. New material creates novel ideas, which would not be accessible with a design process (Nozick doesn’t outright state this, but I think it’s clear that he thinks it).

      Moreover, one single filtering process will be insufficient. Nozick describes it thus:

      [P]eople try out living in various communities, and they leave or slightly modify the ones they don’t like… Some communities will be abandoned, others will struggle along, others will split, others will flourish, gain members, and be duplicated elsewhere. Each community must win and hold the voluntary adherence of its members. No pattern is imposed on everyone, and the result will be one pattern if and only if everyone voluntarily chooses to live in accordance with that pattern of community. (p. 316, his emphasis)

      Some advantages he lists to this: given that the filtering process is largely constituted by people leaving communities they don’t like, this will cause communities which people want to live in; mechanical processes are limited “given our inability to formulate explicitly principles which adequately handle, in advance, all of the complex, multifarious situations which arise” (p. 317) - this one is very, very similar to many recent discussions I’ve seen about moderation and the ‘don’t be an arsehole’ clause.

      So what does all this lead to? Basically, that the utopian framework should be one that is informational. Whichever framework provides the best means for finding out about various communities, is the one that should be adopted– first, because that is what best facilitates the filtering process, and second, because it best mitigates the real-world issues laid out at the beginning of this section.

      Conclusion

      Ok, so, that’s the bulk of what I wanted to put down. The rest of Utopia focuses very much on the physical world - it’s well worth a read. (NB I’m using ‘physical world’ rather than ‘real world’ or ‘actual world’ (which Nozick uses) because the internet is part of the real world. As opposed to the ideal world, which one example of is the possible-worlds model laid out above.)

      I was initially going to offer my own thoughts about how this connects to the Fediverse and the internet in general, but just the sharing of Nozick’s framework has gotten long enough that I think I’ll leave it there. Part of my motivation for sharing this is that, although I’m very much not a libertarian, this is imo one of the strongest defences of the minimal state; in addition to this, I’m much more sympathetic for a kind of meta-libertarianism when it comes to spaces like the internet, especially if they function to facilitate filtering processes.

      That said, I still have worries about the way this can be, and is, implemented. There’s been a lot of discussion on Beehaw defederating from lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works, and although I personally don’t see a problem with it, I can understand why people are annoyed. I wonder if this is a consequence of people thinking they’re existing in the meta-utopia, when in fact they’re existing in an instance of it. I also don’t want to label the Fediverse as the meta-utopia, although I do get the sense that that’s what they’re aiming to become.

      Nozick has a relevant section on the Beehaw thing, actually, and I’m just going to quote it because I’ve just about reached my energy limit for explaining/elucidating philosophy lol. Feel free to skip it, it’s a side-note to this post and not a main point.

      A person will swallow the imperfections of a package P (which may be a protective arrangement, a consumer good, a community) that is desirable on the whole rather than purchase a different package (a completely different package, or P with some changes), when no more desirable attainable different package is worth to him its greater costs over P, including the costs of inducing enough others to participate in making the alternative package. One assumes that the cost calculation for nations is such as to permit internal opting out. But this is not the whole story for two reasons. First, it may be feasible in individual communities also to arrange internal opting out at little administrative cost… yet this needn’t always be done. Second, nations differ from other packages in that the individual himself isn’t to bear the administrative costs of opting out of some otherwise compulsory provision. The other people must pay for finely designing their compulsory arrangements so that they don’t apply to those who wish to opt out. (p. 321-2)

      Another reason why I’m interested in opening up this discussion, is that I’ve experienced almost no discussion on this section of Nozick’s work in my experience of academic philosophy. The other two sections– and particularly Wilt Chamberlain– are talked to death, but Utopia has relatively little engagement. On one hand, I get this - a large part of philosophical education is understanding the history of ideas, and Utopia is comparatively uninfluential. You need to know Wilt Chamberlain if you’re entering academic philosophy; you don’t need to know all this. On the other hand, it’s a shame, because I think it’s the strongest part of Nozick’s work.

      I also think that it’s somewhat more relevant to the internet than it is to the physical world. Not because of the legitimacy of its ideals, but purely because of the relative ease of implementation. The four issues mentioned above are really reduced in online spaces.

      1. We still don’t have infinite people, but the variety of people we can interact with is potentially wider. Potentially. The issues with lack of– or exodus of– minorities, which I’ve seen discussions about on Tildes while searching past posts, is an important one here. I’m not necessarily referring specifically to Tildes here - I’m too new to the site to really have a good sense of the community. But just like in the real-world, I can’t conjure up people and create my own version of Tildes which includes all the people here currently and also all the other people I’d like to see.
      2. Communities on the internet obviously interfere with each other, just like physical-world communities. This isn’t that reduced, perhaps only in terms of stakes. Physical-world community interference can cause wars, financial boycotts, etc. Maybe doxxing or the like is analogous? Regardless, it’s reduced although not eliminated in severity, as far as I can see.
      3. The difference in information costs should be immediately obvious. It’s much easier for someone to try out Tildes, than it is for someone to try out France.
      4. Relatedly, internet communities don’t have the same power as physical communities to limit information, although there are definitely still issues here, especially with an increasingly-corporatised internet. On the other hand, the internet itself does work in breaking down these barriers in the physical world, at least in terms of information (not in ease of moving countries). At least, there’s usually no real financial costs to hopping platforms.

      Guess I’m leaving it here? Maybe all I’ve accomplished is sharing some cool philosophy– at least, I think it’s cool.

      The page numbers all reference Anarchy, State, and Utopia - I don’t know if I’m allowed to link PDFs here, but suffice to say it’s the first one that shows up.

      This Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy page also includes some useful context, and a bit of discussion on the Utopia section - although, again, relatively brief. Nevertheless a great source.

      20 votes
    11. Let's talk DimensionalJumping! Any techniques, philosophies, stories, and experiences welcome

      Some of my favorite experiences on Speztopia were forged in and throughout the DimensionalLeaping/Jumping/Shifting subreddits, where I quickly came to understand and appreciate a variety of...

      Some of my favorite experiences on Speztopia were forged in and throughout the DimensionalLeaping/Jumping/Shifting subreddits, where I quickly came to understand and appreciate a variety of methods and principles underpinning the idea that our conscious experience is only part of the equation (and yet, at the same time, is all that there is). Such thoughts as "we are all collectively dreaming one another into existence," "advaita vedanta nondualism and its implications," and other notions were uniquely inspiring to me.

      I began to have experiences of my own, when I meditated on the Oneness that had been revealed to me. There were instances where I would wake up and realize that minor things in my everyday had been altered subtly. One morning I had a very vivid dream (or perhaps, a true experience--because what really is the difference?) of witnessing my own death. It was somewhat traumatic, if I'm being honest. But I arose following that incident and realized that the hot and cold water knobs at my sink had changed seemingly out of nowhere. It was also the case that a close friend of mine and I were suddenly no longer in an argument, despite it being a rather trying and difficult situation--he had no memory of it having ever transpired, and insisted I was making things up. There were other small things like that, that I began to notice as I wandered around my college campus. Events that I vividly recalled attending had never happened, or were about to happen the next day.

      I had made what I knew then to be a "discontinuous breach" or an acute dimensional shift, an abrupt and often confusing repatterning of a worldline in ways that is not congruous or otherwise defies certain expected patterns/physical laws/metaphors. This is compared to a continuous breach, one that occurs in ways too subtle to recognize, in a series of understandable and acceptable steps, or otherwise in keeping with the established order.

      As I have grown in my experience and understanding of nondualism, just as I have gained some answers, I find that ultimately I am left with ever more questions. I think others who participate in intentionally weirding one's quantum consciousness know what I'm talking about.

      I wanted to start the conversation here in the hopes of a sustained community discussion about and around these ideas. TriumphantGeorge, if you're here: Your tutelage and constant availability for bouncing ideas off of was nothing short of heroic, in my mind. I still number you among my mentors and appreciate so much the time and effort you took to open my mind to a whole new way of thinking. Being strictly dualistic throughout my childhood, learning that there was another way of conceiving of things opened countless doors in my life.

      An open question in addition to an invitation to share: What are your favorite methods for astral projection? I find that I am somewhat resistant to most elementary or straightforward projection techniques, so the more complex and systematic, the better!

      9 votes
    12. What is your favorite apologetic for theism?

      Share your favorite argument for the existence of God below. Background: I'm an atheist (and have been for a decade) who's been interested in Christian Apologetics since I was a young Christian....

      Share your favorite argument for the existence of God below.

      Background: I'm an atheist (and have been for a decade) who's been interested in Christian Apologetics since I was a young Christian. As I entered adulthood, I found myself losing my faith, largely because I grew up in a fundamentalist, Young Earth Creationist household which taught that evolution and God are incompatible. While I no longer believe in this lack of compatibility, my belief in God never came back. I've tried to give it an honest effort, and there are many compelling reasons why I want Christianity to be true:

      • Reunification with loved ones who've passed
      • Absolute moral justice exists
      • A plan for my life, and meaning in my suffering
      • Access to unconditional love; to have a personal relationship with my creator
      • Surviving my own death

      For a variety of reasons seemingly outside my direct control, I still don't believe. It doesn't help that I've been introduced to strong arguments against the existence of God (e.g. the problem of evil and its subsets) which have rebuttals of varying quality from Christian philosophers. I don't think this lack of belief is my fault, or for lack of trying; I can't make myself believe anything. I try to be open to arguments, and this has led to an obsession with revisiting apologetics.

      Now I think of apologetics as at least a fun mental exercise; combing through the arguments, atheist rebuttals, and responses to those rebuttals. That's probably strange, but it tickles the right parts of the brain to keep me engaged.

      27 votes