Thought and Language and other Miscellaneous Philosophical Discussion

[BonosSaint]

"I'm c" didn't mean anything. I started a sentence I subsequently deleted, but didn't notice I didn't delete all of it.
Sorry.

 

[For Honor]

got it




Anyhow....

Quote:
I'm curious about your statement that you've ripened and bloomed into what you were supposed to become. Do you mean sociologically, spiritually? What are you looking for in transformation and growth?

ah, I'm out of time. More later


========



From where left off.....
Damn, I still don't have the time to explain it right.


But.... I've............ Let's put it thisway - originally, I experienced a growth, a maturation. I saw myself in life as one way. But then a sort of growth occured, which I'm sure happens in all people as they go through school and graduate and become "older and wiser". So, with this new outlook, I had noticibly changed.

Yet... it's almost like....... Like being too close to a mirror. (phase 1) If you are too close, all you may see is your eyes (you can take that non-literally, perhaps, if you like, even besides the initial metaphor).... too close to a mirror, yeah, and then stepping away, you see how you look, what your body shape is, your head, who's around you things like that. (phase 2). However, stepping back not only offers a different perspective... after analysis and understanding, you see more of the big picture, and how you fit into it all. You get truer view of yourself (phase 3).

I suppose this may be a typical method of reform and growth, but... up to this point in my life, it has been... well, that is one of the more poetic ways to have put things, so to say.


To be rather un-wordy, something to this effect:

I thought I was someone, then I was convinced I was not. However, I realize that I am now more that original someone than I ever thought possible, yet with a few... modifications.


But...... I apparently have a bit of trouble when it comes to self regard for some reason, so maybe that has something to do with my "personality crisis" of sorts, heh...


I suppose part of the trouble with a multifaceted personality is not know which one to put forward as "your best", or "most authentic".




==============



As for other philosophical discussion.......


Emotion intrigues me. I am always interested in how some people can get so carried away by it, especially when it comes to simple things. Even if it is a simple disagreement with someone. I've heard someone say that "everything feels so much more real" when he/she is as emotional as feels natural to her.

But to me, it just seems so much more................

fake.

 

[BonosSaint]

Well, we are vast and complex and layered. A lot of it comes down to choice how we portray ourselves, what part of ourselves we let out, what parts we keep in. If you're open enough and honest enough with yourself, you will surprise yourself for the rest of your life. That's healthy.

I am nowhere near open enough. But I make an effort to be honest with myself. I'm learning not to judge myself. At the same time, I am learning not to justify myself, either. I think that's a little bit of the eastern thought as opposed to the western thought you were talking about earlier.

Emotion vs. feeling. On a whole, I'm not an emotional person (though I can be if the right trigger button is pushed). Then again I'm not much of a feeler either. I think there is a difference between the two. Or at least I make a distinction between them. I'm assuming you are defining emotion in your post as the outward display of emotion (and not necessarily the internal emotion behind it).

I guess it depends on the intent of the person showing emotion. Are they a drama queen/king? Are they using the emotion as a weapon? Is the display of emotion blowing up a situation that should be easily deflated?

It also has to do with the comfort level of the person on the other side. Is that person uncomfortable with any display of emotion?
Do they become uncomfortable when they display any emotion strongly? I took a certain amount of pride in not showing emotion. Then a good friend asked me what I was feeling and you know, I didn't know. I had repressed feeling to the extent I couldn't identify feeling--good or bad. That troubled me.

Again, it is that balance.

At some point, I'd like to get into the extrovert/introvert thing that I had mentioned earlier. But I need to see how much of the book I can remember (damn it) and then try to summarize it somewhat coherently.

As a short description, an extrovert often seeks their identity or understands things in relation to outside things. An introvert will determine their identity and perceptions through internal workings. No value judgment is placed on either way of doing things; it is just a description of the way we function (not what we are). An introvert will ask you, why didn't you ever think about that before? An honest extrovert will answer that they had no outside stimulation to prompt that thought. An introvert will then honestly tell you they did not need that outside stimulation to think about something.

As an observation, though. Introverts are often much more comfortable with themselves than extroverts (as a very general rule) That does not make them less shy, or less anything. In fact, they may be more shy. But they are not uncomfortable in their own company.

It makes it very interesting. I'm probably an extrovert. My best friend is an introvert. And it took us forever to get over our bewilderment at how each other perceived things, how we thought. Sometimes it was like talking Greek to each other.
Then again, in the nature of long lasting friendships, we are generally patient enough to hash it out over years if need be.
That goes back to your earlier point about communication. Too many people limit the definition of communication to feelings.
But we all miscommunicate in any number of ways. So I would add patience to that list of virtues you need in a relationship--the willingness to take that time. You only really have the time to do that with a handful of relationships. The rest have to get by on cruise control.

 

[For Honor]

I've been told that when it comes to marriage, or even lasting friendships, perhaps, that the introvert/extrovert match is the most promising.

I like the intro/extrovert discussion.......

I am definitely an introvert, but not a severe one. On some personality tests, I was about 15-25% exrto, and mostly intro. When I was a child, I was probaly much much more introverted. But then again, I have spent a lot of time in solitude, so I'm sure that has effected it, one way or a nother.

A good friend of mine who is quite extroverted, she and I have an interesting way of communicating, and looking at things. We made an interesting team when working on some projects. I was most dissapointed with her lack of.... emotional control/consistency, and that is what really divided us. (I'm rather callous in real life, though I try to cover it up with some courtesy).

Talk about people seeing things in different ways... But still, we are friends, and keep in touch even as we have graduated high school.

Introverts and extroverts are interesting catagories.......
I'm not really a pure intro, though... I believe it's called "extoverted thinking". And I do enjoy talking to people.

Especially... well...nevermind.

Some people, I enjoy talking to
Others, I prefer my silence......

 

[BonosSaint]

I always thought of introvert and extrovert more like how I guess that Marlon Brando and Dustin Hoffman prepared for a role. Pure method actor Marlon Brando was the introvert, getting his motivation from within, finding the similarity between himself and the character based on his own past experience. Bringing the character into his skin.

Then I imagined that Dustin Hoffman would work the opposite. Get into the clothes of the character,take on the character's voice entirely, understand the character by getting under his skin.
That Brando would know what the character was internally, but that Hoffman would learn about the character by taking on his external characteristics first.

(I have no idea how they actually prepare. But I used to watch how each developed the character and that was how it seemed to me)

In short, Brando developed the character from inside to out, and Hoffman developed the character from outside to in. As I understand it, that is how the introvert and the extrovert function.
It's probably less a function of how one is socially or even emotionally. You see the world differently, but you teach each other a lot about perspective.

RE: Emotion. I agree with one of your earlier posts in either this or another thread. People handle and feel emotion differently, and it is always a mistake to make people express emotion in a way not comfortable to them. It crosses a boundary no one should cross toward another. It's manipulative. Particularly when someone assumes exactly what you SHOULD feel in a given instance.

 

[For Honor]

Damn..... well, there goes another post. Sometimes interference "loses" my posts. It says "page unspecified or something like that", and I can't recover what I wrote.

happens to me maybe once or twice a week..........

Maybe I'll return in a while and recapture what I had said...

 

[For Honor]

Crap, I'm sorta.... dumping all my hthoughts out at once - overloads..............


Talking with sue about pain, cold
words - words have meanings, but those meanings limit you, and ultimate ly confine you

just the same way our definitions of good and bad can limit.
ALways choosing between the two, but neither being right, no solid truth
But the change is there - the change is inherent, that's why there are no absolutes, no labels that are really "correct", because there is no correct

There are just equations that balance, still, though, they are made within the environement of our world.....

SO that is the connectedness of all things.





Going back to good and bad......


ANd language.....


Those really are false terms. And most other words we use really are "fake" so to say. It's like....... I don't know......

people really aren't talking to each other. They are just "infering" things. It is very difficult to communicate, and lately, I've been finding it harder to write things out, because I can't seem to be specific enough. But there in lies the problem, you know?

It's like trying to watch how a certain group of watermolecules are moving, but you are on a boat in the ocean, and ..... everything is relevant/connected.




*

can someone explain "metaphysics" ?

I've heard the term, and heard various definitions, but still don't know what it is.


*



As for this post...... I'm tired at the moment, I've just done a lot of things, perhaps the most productive 3 hours I've had in a long time. But it's good... I like this mode I'm in now.... it is rather "results orientated", which suites my personality very well, heh....


I have much to say here, and I will write more when I can. Or if I can read over this post, and put it together in more palletable peices, I will. But I'm afraid if I d o that at this moment, I'll distort it...... so...... apologies on appearance............

 

[For Honor]

On another angle......


I've been thinking about a few things, and I'll mesh them together here.

For a while (especially after having watched the 2 series of "Easter / Western philosophy"), I really had in mind that mankind has wasted his time. Thinking about really unimportant and minimal things, and just being a fool, stalling himself
(Especially I feel this towards the many western philosophers who spent their time trying to ...... figure out things about god, or justify god's existance in one way or another)

Quite frankly, I don't care if god exists or not. No disrespect, and I am not denying that he could, or could not exist, etc..... but... it's not yet been and important factor at all in my thinkings or researches.


Anyhow, so I've been thinking that mankind has wasted his time all these years, doing fool things thinking about silly things. In those philosophies now, especially the western ones in regard to god, it was almost amazingly parrallell, in my eyes, to the way other "pagan" cultures justified or thought of/about their god(s)

However......... this new understanding has changed my views about that.




Today, in the cold rain of a northeastern autmunm, my stepmother and I were shoping for a winter coat. On the way out of a store, she said she was going to run out to the car, because it was cold, and she didn't want to get wet.

(which, in and of itself, I find absurd, because ..... not only does the cold not bother me at all (i embrace it...), but also, you're going to be in the car soon, and you're going to be in the house soon, so.......... I guess people don't see thigns as fleetingly as I do. But anyhow.....................)

She declared she was going to run to the car. I was still walking as usual, though. SO she was running, and there was this big puddle that she jumped over. But it was kinda dark (at night this was), so she didn't really see it until it was upon her. So..... when she jumped, she didn't jump correctly at all, and ended up tumbling to the ground, which was...... quite embarrasing. ANd of course, she ended up with a scrape on her knee, and being much, much colder thatn she anticipated........



The whole point of this story is to point out this....... fixation that we seem to have on good and bad, right and wrong, etc. I mean, part of my own fascination with this whole topic is that I, more so than most I would assume, have always been bent on "doing the right thing", etc. (And of course, my handle "For Honor"..... well........ that plays into it all somehow.....)

Continueing on, this fixation with good and bad really.... amazes me sometimes. Not so much that I am "above it" or anything, but... so much has been done in regards to good and bad. ANd people seem to think there is evil in the world, too. Which is really interesting in my mind...... because I've never seen anything to prove me wrong about "the real evil being within the human heart".



Damn, I did it again...
Okay, trying to keep these statments all going in the same direction..............
So yes, this fixation with good and bad interests me. It relates, in some ways, to all these philosopphers that I saw, or read about, and some of these things that were their life's work...... seemed completel useless to me... And I am wondering about good and bad, too.


Let me, for the moment, break things down into 2 groups, though there are countless more. But for now, 2.

(#1)There is the natural mind, the animalistic mind that all animals have. I think that is hardwired with good/bad. Pos/neg, pro life, against life, increasing likely hood of survival, decreasing likely hood of survival, increasing likely hood of mating, deccreasing likelyhood of mating, etc ,etc.

That first mindset, natrual mindset, I will never say that it doesn't exist. we're 'animals', just like everything else.

However..........
I really feel that there is something more than that. (#2) Something that few people have really been able to tap into...
There are a few things that seem to rise above the simple nature of self indulgence, or however you want to considered what I have called #1. #2..... it's like...... after we get past all of the pettiness........ I mean, look, a lot of the world is still not even functioning on par with..... many other places. I mean....... eh... .no, not like that...... but......

110 years ago, the industrial revoloution.

that's it - 110 years..................
We are so....... very...... underdeveloped. And I think that with things like the internet, we can cometogether and stuff..... but....... I don't know..... I just see so much untapped ability for us here.




Hmm...... I better stop there for now.


I'll end with a question, though.



What do you see in regards to our future, as a human race?
Like, where do you see us going in the next 100 or so years, or further? How do you see our lifestyles, and are the efficient? what are we doing, really...... Is this, right now, for people like me in America- is this 'as good as it get'? Or is there more that we can go, different avenues we can explore, etc.........

I'm intersted in what other people think about those sorts of things..........

 

[For Honor]

Also, before I completly forget........

The essence of pain being a neccesary part of growth.
Too much pan can be fatal
But the proper amount of stress, like working out a muscle, can encourage and stimulate rebuilding, betterment, growing stronger, etc.......


There is something about that, or that cycle, that also interest me..................

 

[BonosSaint]

Definition I'm using for metaphysics for these purposes: "Speculation upon questions that are unanswerable to scientific observation, analysis or experiment " or simply trying to know the presently unknowable. I may be misusing it. But it'll do for now.

I'm not sure whether we are hardwired for good/bad, although I agree we are probably hardwired for many of the other things you noted. I'm more inclined to think that good/bad is social or other conditioning. But we are hardwired to be social creatures, so you may be correct.

I don't spend too much time worrying about the concept of good and bad (I probably think more about fair and unfair in my personal behavior). For me, bad is the intent to cause harm or disregard for harm caused. Anything else falls under good or neutral, wise or unwise, etc. I think you go crazy if you start to divide everything into good or bad. Too many things are amoral (which for these purposes, I consider a neutral term). Thoughts are amoral. Feelings are amoral.

Choice. Technology has moved so quickly, we have probably lost the ability to keep up with it. There are so many choices that we no longer really choose. Maybe we have lost the will to choose or even some of the ability to choose.

The trouble with too much choice, too much information being tossed out, too much clutter and too much complication is we lose clarity. We can't make sense of it all anymore. We sense there is something more out there, but don't know what it is.

I try to simplify--not take in too much extraneous information. I have finite time, finite room in my head. I need to be aware constantly of what really matters to me and consider the rest of it play. I pick up the information I need to make the decisions I need to make. That's why FYM has been a little too dangerous for me, although there are several delightful and intelligent people here. I'm too easily distracted, too easily pulled in different directions.

100 years from now? I don't know. I don't have much of a good feel about it at least in this country. (I'll defer to people who know more about the rest of the world than I do if they have any hope.) For now, we have the ability. I don't know that we have the will. In another 20 years, I don't know if we will have the ability. I don't foresee any Renaissance showing up anytime soon.

My guess is tht as more and more information is available to us, the less we will be able to sift through it. We are not taught or encouraged to sift through information. We are taught to regurgitate it. We are not taught to analyze information or to question it. We read less; we don't go into depth. We ignore information that goes against our personal views. We are becoming progressively less patient. Instead of broadening, I think we will shrink because there is less and less we will actually understand. I see increasing passivity and turning more and more of our decisions to other people. We will look outside for answers and become more vulnerable to pseudoscience, pseudophilosopy, pseudotheology, pseudoexperts, pseudoanalysis, I see less and less innovation. Less foresight, more and more dependence on immediacy.

I have faith in individuals. I don't have much faith in anything else.

 

[For Honor]

I agree with you, especially towards the end.....

r

 

[A_Wanderer]

Oh your all far too pessimistic, its a great time to be alive. Diminished spectre of nuclear annihilation, internet, dawn of commercial space travel, video i-pods, information exchange, blogs (I think the greatest information revolutions of the day).

We have the technology and we kept the humanity, I am very optimistic about the future being incrementally better than the present.

 

[For Honor]

Believe it or not, I'm very optomistic about the opperunities we have....

I'm just a........ an extended realist, so to say.

 

[For Honor]

I saw another newspot about the problems in affrica, about Rawanda, the fighting going on there. The raping, etc.........


I wonder if it is possible to educate the whole world. I think with education at least many "pety" things like this could be avoided. I say not pety as for the significance, but as the level of humanity involved.

Obviously, when a situation gets like that, so many people are so focused on what is happening in such a small area..... I think people lose sight of the world. More so, I think people never really get the choice to look at the big picture. That's where I think education can really come in.

Secular, truthful education.......

Hard to come by, I guess...... but still...... that's what I'd push for.


I'm not suggesting we focus on the big picture and overlook places like that, either. I mean to say that in order to truly focus on the big picture of the world, it is IMPERITIVE that we make progress in Rwanda and elsewhere.

I mean... does anyone think that it is feasible that people will actually think of humankind as a whole, instead of races, or geographic areas, or status?


I hear people talking about overcoming evoloution by genetics....

well, it's more than physical.

I think true evoloution will be mental. I don't mean to seemingly promote a mind control, or a mindset that everyone should have ( I suppose the differences is the part of life in and of itself...), but really....... I think if we, as humankind, are going to make progress, it will be mostly upstairs, in the mind.

as my own mind is growing, I realize a little more about the world every day.


But even then, I am conflicted, and... already contradicting myself in my mind. I suppose I will only play half the field, at least for the moment.......

 

[BonosSaint]

Way beyond my ability to tackle this one, Honor.

 

[For Honor]

Stemming from my last one, one of my concerns, or just thoughts is that...

Not everyone is designed, or made for the same thing. That's why we have actors, scientists, lawyers, teachers, etc, etc... and garbage men and everything else.

I have a sort of "idealistic utopia" in mind, where all the people of the world are working together. The thing is, there has to be a direction; time over time has show that stagnation leads to decline, decay.

So like, even if everyone in the world was buddies, we'd need something to do, something more than "just living day by day", you know?

We'd need to explore the frontiers of earth and space.



But in one way, we are already doing that now.....


*sigh*


actually, nevermind....... it would be far too............. complicated to draw it out. But it's kinda simple, yet not.

Maybe I'll develop the idea over time. Or see it's errors, who knows.....


=======


there was some other subject, but.... it escapes me currently

 

[For Honor]

I've come to a point, well, I've been here for a time...... but........


Essentially, I've got a firm grasp on my philosophy of life, how how I think about things, of how to keep myself feeling well, of how to get by, of how to do this or that.


And, maybe this is because I'm at such a stable period or something, but............


Honestly, I have no great aspirations. I have some possible ones, but... I have nothing that I *must* accomplish. I'd almost say that I have no real reason to keep living, as there is nothing I feel I need to strive for. But I don't think I'd want to commit suicide, that's totally not "FH's style", so like, don't worry about that.

But...... I don't know. Like........ should I spend my life for other people? I can take care of myself, I KNOW that there really isn't anything I can't deal with, you know?

Should I like volunteer more, or like, work on making something better? That's something I could do. And understanding things makes life interesting....

And then there is love - should I maybe be open to actually having a love, maintaining one, and a family, and raising kids, etc? Traditiona, but I can respect it.

The thing is, I feel like I don't need any of those things


I've lived almost all of my 18 years in an odd state of independance, and most of the time the only company has been myself. So of course, it would seem fitting that I develop a philosophy where I don't need much to be happy, and that is neither right or wrong.

So I guess, once again, I'm negating myself here.


I seem to do that a lot, and therfore, tend to make things unneccesary. One could say, heh, I live a very efficient life. I haven't done much that I didn't need to do, and that's very sincere.

But at the same time, I'm not afraid to. I'm not afraid to die, or to live, or to love. And like, I could chase love and try to see what happens - I've got more than a few options there, like everyone else does. but it's like...... I'd only really want to do that if someone else wanted it, that sort of thing.

God knows I love women and find them to be the most beautiful things on the earth. Look at all my pictures in "hottest chick around". BUt still...... it's like...... It's easy to fall into "wanting a girl", for sex or more of a relationship, and I don't see those things as chalenges either. It would be, if I really wanted one and failed repeatedly, but...... once again.

So, while I've entered a very "ZEN" state of not wanting much, I am concerned that I will become unmotivated and..... like...... ...... completely insignificant. But at the same time, I don't want to be motivated by fear.

So, see all these contradicitons?

ANd really, they don't run through my head all day, they just come up whenever I explain something. I really don't even know what to say. Or if this should be in ZC or this thread, here, in FYM philosophy.


ANd to tell the truth, I'm not really 'dissatisfied'. There is a certain comfortable state of "being" in my life. But I'm still human, I still think that I should be doing something, and then, of course, when I am doing something I would rather I wasn't, etc etc.

So........ I just don't know.

Maybe I should look to find something that really gets my passion, or catches my interest.



I am at peace with myself, and I feel a great confidence and strength coming from my internal serenity. But when I look outward and compare myself with the rest of the world....I don't really know.

Maybe it's just time

A sign that it is time for me to move on, and interact more with other people, like when I go to college and stuff. I wonder - will I get caught up in a simple love affair? I can see that happening. Will I find some quest, scientific of theoretical? maybe. Or maybe I'll just end up working at a desk job all my life? I don't really know.


It's almost like I just want to say

"So... am I just supposed to try to find somethign that will make me feel fufilled or happy? Am I supposed to want, or need, something like that?"


ANd I repeat, I'm not depressed or feeling down.
It's just like...........




' So what do I do now? '

 

[For Honor]

A bit of a bump, I guess.


Does anyone have a good grasp on Buddhism?
I'm trying to do some research, and answer the question: What is the ultimate goal of buddhism?

I know that's a bit of religion, perhaps. But still. Christianity, perhaps in my ignorance, is easier to understand in that regard. But I don't know enough about Buddhism.

 

[For Honor]

I'm taking a course called "reason and religion"

anyone have anythoughts on the cosmological arguement / Thomas Aquinas / PSR?


I'm open to some discussion there.

 

[BonosSaint]

Way out of my field, Jesse. But give me the basic ideas and I'll talk. What are you reading?

 

[For Honor]

We're starting off with "The Cosmological Argument for the Ecistence of God", which is supported by Thomas Aquinas' "The Five Ways"


The two critiques of this in our book are: "An examination of the Cosmological Argument" - William Rowe
and
"A critique of the Cosmological Argument" - Paul Edwards


I don't know if all of that is really neccesary, but I figure I"ll throw it up there.


I had a hard time with the class at first, because of the PSR (Principle of sufficient reason) logics involved. I would actually get angry in class. But I've come to terms with it, and once the critiques of it came in to play, it got better. Especially PSR....


Now, this has nothing to do with my views on god. I just don't like PSR, and apparently the Cosmological ARgument which uses it so much to justify God's existance. PSR, in my opinion, is such a base and primal thought patter to associate with a "divine being", in my opinion. But then again, I can't be too hard on the early thinkers - they could only know so much.

In fact, that very concept.... "you (or the human race in general) can only know so much at one time..." has a lot of meaning in my life lately, but I won't discuss that right now.

 

[For Honor]

I'll get more into it tomorrow, when I write my paper and stuff, and have more time/a better knowledge of the subject so that I can discuss it here properly. Hopefully, if I know what i'm talking about well enough, I can explain it here.

I suppose that would be........ a fair test of how well I know the material.