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"Thou must also keep in mind that of desires some are natural, and some are groundless; and that of the natural some are necessary as well as natural, and some are natural only. And of the necessary desires, some are necessary if we are to be happy, and some if the body is to remain unperturbed, and some if we are even to live. By the clear and certain understanding of these things we learn to make every preference and aversion, so that the body may have health and the soul tranquillity, seeing that this is the sum and end of a blessed life. For the end of all our actions is to be free from pain and fear; and when once we have attained this, all the tempest of the soul is laid, seeing that the living creature has not to go to find something that is wanting, or to seek something else by which the good of the soul and of the body will be fulfilled. When we need pleasure, is, when we are grieved because of the absence of pleasure; but when we feel no pain, then we no longer stand in need of pleasure. Wherefore we call pleasure the alpha and omega of a blessed life. Pleasure is our first and kindred good. From it is the commencement of every choice and every aversion, and to it we come back, and make feeling the rule by which to judge of every good thing.
And since pleasure is our first and native good, for that reason we do not choose every pleasure whatsoever, but ofttimes pass over many pleasures when a greater annoyance ensues from them. And ofttimes we consider pains superior to pleasures, and submit to the pain for a long time, when it is attended for us with a greater pleasure. All pleasure, therefore, because of its kinship with our nature, is a good, but it is not in all cases our choice, even as every pain is an evil, though pain is not always, and in every case, to be shunned. It is, however, by measuring one against another, and by looking at the conveniences and inconveniences, that all these things must be judged. Sometimes we treat the good as an evil, and the evil, on the contrary, as a good; and we regard independence of outward goods as a great good, not so as in all cases to use little, but so as to be contented with little, if we have not much, being thoroughly persuaded that they have the sweetest enjoyment of luxury who stand least in need of it, and that whatever is natural is easily procured, and only the vain and worthless hard to win. Plain fare gives as much pleasure as a costly diet, when once the pain due to want is removed; and bread and water confer the highest pleasure when they are brought to hungry lips. To habituate self, therefore, to plain and inexpensive diet gives all that is needed for health, and enables a man to meet the necessary requirements of life without shrinking, and it places us in a better frame when we approach at intervals a costly fare, and renders us fearless of fortune.
When we say, then, that pleasure is the end and aim, we do not mean the pleasures of the prodigal, or the pleasures of sensuality, as we are understood by some who are either ignorant and prejudiced for other views, or inclined to misinterpret our statements. By pleasure, we mean the absence of pain in the body and trouble in the soul. It is not an unbroken succession of drinking feasts and of revelry, not the pleasures of sexual love, not the enjoyment of the fish and other delicacies of a splendid table, which produce a pleasant life: it is sober reasoning, searching out the reasons for every choice and avoidance, and banishing those beliefs through which greatest tumults take possession of the soul. Of all this, the beginning, and the greatest good, is prudence. Wherefore, prudence is a more precious thing even than philosophy: from it grow all the other virtues, for it teaches that we cannot lead a life of pleasure which is not also a life of prudence, honour, and justice; nor lead a life of prudence, honour, and justice which is not also a life of pleasure. For the virtues have grown into one with a pleasant life, and a pleasant life is inseparable from them.
Exercise thyself in these and kindred precepts day and night, both by thyself and with him who is like unto thee; and never, either in waking or in dream, wilt thou be disturbed, but wilt live as a god amongst men. For in nothing does he resemble a mortal creature, the man who lives in immortal blessedness." - Epicurus
Harlock recently has been worried that rights don't exist, and argued with me that they don't, and by coincidence the topic came up in a LJ community, so this is my argument for rights as a biological instinct, copied and pasted.
*
I think there is only one right: the right not to have force used upon you. Secondarily, as a consequence, there's the right to use retaliatory force back if it's used upon you. All other rights (including the ones you name [in the original post]) derive from that; the bill of rights for example (free speech, protection against unwarranted search and seizure and so on) are some different ways in which force cannot be used on people by the government, but they are all essentially protections from the initiation of force.
The idea of natural rights is that they are a) not cultural, b) still exist even if they aren't defended. [R]ights are biological, part of our species, just as real and stable as fins on a fish or echolocation in bats or the different roles of the different ants among ants. So if that is true, different cultures might differ in how they understand rights, but not in what they are.
The origin of that [non-initiation of force] right is the structure of homo sapiens as a species, in particular its social organizations, which is essentially biological in nature, not cultural or religious. In particular, imagine a human civilization or tribe in which there was rampant initiation of force. I don't mean between them, but within them. That civilization or tribe could not long survive, and would soon go extinct.
Rights evolved to keep that from happening; people have a natural aversion to murder and a natural sense of fairness which comes into play very early and is similar across all cultures.
But to be clear, a right is not 'what one ought to respect', it's not a 'should', it's an 'is' -- people can make their own choices about whether to respect them or not, and it's sometimes moral not to respect the rights of another person, but even when they don't [respect rights], people have a natural feeling that it's unfair to murder or steal or rape.
Also it may sound strange to say that something as abstract or ephemeral as rights is biological or evolved, but it's really no different from other instincts we have, such as the maternal instinct, or any other instinct we have.
In the case of slavery and war, there's one interesting thing about how we evolved rights: if you see another people not as people, but as animals or subhumans, you can get around the instinct of feeling any respect for their rights. That's why Japanese were trained to see Chinese as pigs, not as humans, during WWII -- and why ancient Romans or ancient Chinese saw anyone not of their kind as a subhuman barbarian. The instinct of rights is less forceful when someone doesn't look like you or speak the same language unfortunately.
*
I think there is only one right: the right not to have force used upon you. Secondarily, as a consequence, there's the right to use retaliatory force back if it's used upon you. All other rights (including the ones you name [in the original post]) derive from that; the bill of rights for example (free speech, protection against unwarranted search and seizure and so on) are some different ways in which force cannot be used on people by the government, but they are all essentially protections from the initiation of force.
The idea of natural rights is that they are a) not cultural, b) still exist even if they aren't defended. [R]ights are biological, part of our species, just as real and stable as fins on a fish or echolocation in bats or the different roles of the different ants among ants. So if that is true, different cultures might differ in how they understand rights, but not in what they are.
The origin of that [non-initiation of force] right is the structure of homo sapiens as a species, in particular its social organizations, which is essentially biological in nature, not cultural or religious. In particular, imagine a human civilization or tribe in which there was rampant initiation of force. I don't mean between them, but within them. That civilization or tribe could not long survive, and would soon go extinct.
Rights evolved to keep that from happening; people have a natural aversion to murder and a natural sense of fairness which comes into play very early and is similar across all cultures.
But to be clear, a right is not 'what one ought to respect', it's not a 'should', it's an 'is' -- people can make their own choices about whether to respect them or not, and it's sometimes moral not to respect the rights of another person, but even when they don't [respect rights], people have a natural feeling that it's unfair to murder or steal or rape.
Also it may sound strange to say that something as abstract or ephemeral as rights is biological or evolved, but it's really no different from other instincts we have, such as the maternal instinct, or any other instinct we have.
In the case of slavery and war, there's one interesting thing about how we evolved rights: if you see another people not as people, but as animals or subhumans, you can get around the instinct of feeling any respect for their rights. That's why Japanese were trained to see Chinese as pigs, not as humans, during WWII -- and why ancient Romans or ancient Chinese saw anyone not of their kind as a subhuman barbarian. The instinct of rights is less forceful when someone doesn't look like you or speak the same language unfortunately.
There are only a few types of awareness we deal with: external senses (looking, listening, tasting, smelling, touching something), internal sensation (the state of one's body, pain and pleasure, temperature, how tired one feels, and other internal signals), thoughts (usually as words or some type of symbols, with or without a grammar), and imagination (which includes memory, imagined scenarios, dreams, etc. -- one's internal "drawing board"). Different ones or combinations of those are dominant in different people (almost to the extent that they "live in" that one and "visit" the others), but everyone does each at least a little. And they're pretty arbitrary, I'm sure thousands of other forms of awareness are possible -- just not to us. I said a few years ago to someone something which I still find interesting: that the only part of reality we can't really know (where to know means to be able to predict what it will do) is any means of knowing reality. In other words, we can't see sight, can't feel feeling, can't know knowledge, can't imagine imagination. I don't mean that we can't infer it, just that we can't see it itself, awareness isn't subject to awareness: I can't be aware of your awareness, which is too bad.
I saw this Google Ad and just had to screenshot it.
http://www.gameology.org/cfps/the_legen
I should submit something, shouldn't I? I think I will.
I should submit something, shouldn't I? I think I will.
After watching that Freud / Century of the Self documentary (mentioned a few entries ago) I'm really thinking that I'd be good at documentaries -- not something to do in the immediate future, but soon enough. I think they're much more effective than, say, LJ entries at spreading an idea, although they take more work to make than a LJ entry. The best part is: some of them don't even require any original filming at all, you can simply use public domain footage, still images, special effects, a voiceover, and it'd work just as well. I'm sure they're harder to make than they seem to be (everything is), but I don't think they're any harder to make than, say, videogames or novels are, and I've done those.
EDIT: Also I should say that although I've a lot of differences with what's promoted (implicitly) that Century of the Self documentary, the first half of the third part of it is the best summary of the 60s-70s and the second half of the third part of it is the best summary of the 80s that I've ever come across.
EDIT: Also I should say that although I've a lot of differences with what's promoted (implicitly) that Century of the Self documentary, the first half of the third part of it is the best summary of the 60s-70s and the second half of the third part of it is the best summary of the 80s that I've ever come across.
I read Kant's essay on enlightenment today. It was actually better written than I expected (Kant is famous for obfuscation and such). The central thesis is that enlightenment, and therefore the Enlightenment, is intellectual independence in the public sphere, but not the private sphere. In other words, you're allowed to disagree with someone and state that disagreement in a public forum but not allowed to act on that disagreement: such as, a soldier has a right to disagree with an order but has to carry it out anyway. This idea comes from Frederick the (so-called) Great who is famous for saying something like "Argue! By all means argue with me, but obey."
What I found funny is that Kant saw Germany as the center of the Enlightenment, and claimed (not in that essay, but in another, called Eternal Peace) that France and England are only beginning to catch up. He also said nothing about America, which was the country founded on the ideas of the Enlightenment (and the essay was written in the 1790s, long after America proclaimed independence). I did like his insistance of freedom of speech, however. It was well needed back then.
What I found funny is that Kant saw Germany as the center of the Enlightenment, and claimed (not in that essay, but in another, called Eternal Peace) that France and England are only beginning to catch up. He also said nothing about America, which was the country founded on the ideas of the Enlightenment (and the essay was written in the 1790s, long after America proclaimed independence). I did like his insistance of freedom of speech, however. It was well needed back then.
There's a quote by Swami Vivekananda. "Ritual is concretized philosophy."
I expressed agreement with this notion in a rinkufriend entry, which I'll quote part of here:
"So little time in life, why would anyone want to waste it on doing something they've already done before? I've been thinking now that habits are inherently evil. All of them. There's no such thing as a good habit. Aristotle was wrong. Excellence isn't a habit in the usual sense of the word "habit". Excellence is not being bound by habit. Not doing anything automatically. Never learn anything by heart, never do anything by rote, and yet, preserve ritual. Ritual is concretized philosophy. The important thing about ritual is that it is *not* habit, it's taking the *form* of habit but applying 100% awareness to it, thus taking something which from all outward appearances looks habitual but is actually an adventure. Adventure is much more a state of your mind than a state of your environment. Take a ritual of excerising for example. If it's done ritualistically, that means it's not done by habit, your full awareness is on every move you make, on how far you can go before collapsing. Ritual is an important way to destroy habit. Excellence, is a ritual. Adventure, is a ritual."
But here's some further elaboration on what ritual as concretized philosophy means. The purpose of ideas is their ultimate expression in action: if an idea doesn't somehow, somewhere down the line, affect the movement of your muscles, it's not an idea. The purpose of philosophy is action, the worth of an idea is correlated with how much of an improvement it has on a person's physical bodily actions. Sometimes the connection to action is fairly elaborate and subtle (such as a belief in the beauty of Sumerian writing), sometimes the connection to action is fairly direct (such as a belief that exercise is good for you), but it's always there, all ideas affect your behavior.
Because philosophical ideas have the longest road to travel before they turn into action (although they are also the most all-embracing and affect more of your actions than any other idea), there's a shortcut that can be taken: ritual. Every-day rituals, which virtually everyone has, are there because they help you remember and contain certain philosophic ideas. They symbolize those ideas and allow the reinforcement of those ideas. In line with my action-oriented principle, action reinforces belief. Rituals are symbolic of particular broadly philosophic ideas. A good example of this is in Hinduism: in Hinduism, waking up, brushing your teeth, bathing, etc., are all done explicitly ritually, and each has a different symbolic meaning.
Rituals are broader than that, though. From wikipedia's entry on ritual:
"Rituals of various kinds are a feature of almost all known human societies, past or present. They include not only the various worship rites and sacraments of organized cults and religions, but also the rites of passage of certain societies, oaths of allegiance, coronations, and presidential inaugurations, marriages and funerals, school "rush" traditions and graduations, club meetings, sports events, halloween parties and veteran parades, Christmas shopping, and more. Many activities that are ostensibly performed for concrete purposes, such as jury trials, execution of criminals, and scientific symposia, are loaded with purely symbolic actions prescribed by regulations or tradition, and thus partly ritual in nature. Even trivial actions like hand-shaking and saying hello are rituals."
Most of those mentioned there are rituals in the sense I mean: a symbolic concretization of a philosophic idea. There are also more personal, non-group, rituals which are unique to each person. Most of these you might not even think of as a ritual until someone else notices it and tells you about it. For instance, I have coffee every morning. This isn't just an addiction, it's a ritual: a dedication to that day's productivity, or even more, a dedication to my life and existence in that day. But rituals need not be daily. There are some rituals I do only rarely, only a few of my rituals do I do every day.
Of course the tendency to ritual varies. Some people are very ritualistic people (particularly those with Asperger's Syndrome, Autism, or Obsessive-Compusive disorder), some people have fairly few, if any, rituals (children especially tend to have few rituals). I believe this correlates with how philosophical a person is: people who think very abstractly and have philosophical ideas tend to be more ritualistic than those who do not. The reason is that in order to maintain those ideas they need those rituals.
I don't want to give the impression that every philosophic idea has a corresponding ritual. I wouldn't take it that far, there are plenty of ideas I hold which I do not have rituals for. But the ideas I believe in the most strongly tend to be those I do have rituals for -- and there may be a two-way causation involved there. Which way is more important is an interesting question; it could be that those beliefs a person practises rituals for are those beliefs a person comes to believe in the most strongly.
This correlation is easy to see when you examine any religion. Many religious beliefs have rituals corresponding to them. Praying is a very common ritual.
Any action can be performed ritually, rituals aren't restricted to useless or bizarre actions. Brushing your hair can be a ritual, as long as you endow it with a particular symbolic meaning.
A final note: control your rituals, and you control your philosophy. Allow your rituals to be controlled by someone else, and your philosophy could really be under their control.
I expressed agreement with this notion in a rinkufriend entry, which I'll quote part of here:
"So little time in life, why would anyone want to waste it on doing something they've already done before? I've been thinking now that habits are inherently evil. All of them. There's no such thing as a good habit. Aristotle was wrong. Excellence isn't a habit in the usual sense of the word "habit". Excellence is not being bound by habit. Not doing anything automatically. Never learn anything by heart, never do anything by rote, and yet, preserve ritual. Ritual is concretized philosophy. The important thing about ritual is that it is *not* habit, it's taking the *form* of habit but applying 100% awareness to it, thus taking something which from all outward appearances looks habitual but is actually an adventure. Adventure is much more a state of your mind than a state of your environment. Take a ritual of excerising for example. If it's done ritualistically, that means it's not done by habit, your full awareness is on every move you make, on how far you can go before collapsing. Ritual is an important way to destroy habit. Excellence, is a ritual. Adventure, is a ritual."
But here's some further elaboration on what ritual as concretized philosophy means. The purpose of ideas is their ultimate expression in action: if an idea doesn't somehow, somewhere down the line, affect the movement of your muscles, it's not an idea. The purpose of philosophy is action, the worth of an idea is correlated with how much of an improvement it has on a person's physical bodily actions. Sometimes the connection to action is fairly elaborate and subtle (such as a belief in the beauty of Sumerian writing), sometimes the connection to action is fairly direct (such as a belief that exercise is good for you), but it's always there, all ideas affect your behavior.
Because philosophical ideas have the longest road to travel before they turn into action (although they are also the most all-embracing and affect more of your actions than any other idea), there's a shortcut that can be taken: ritual. Every-day rituals, which virtually everyone has, are there because they help you remember and contain certain philosophic ideas. They symbolize those ideas and allow the reinforcement of those ideas. In line with my action-oriented principle, action reinforces belief. Rituals are symbolic of particular broadly philosophic ideas. A good example of this is in Hinduism: in Hinduism, waking up, brushing your teeth, bathing, etc., are all done explicitly ritually, and each has a different symbolic meaning.
Rituals are broader than that, though. From wikipedia's entry on ritual:
"Rituals of various kinds are a feature of almost all known human societies, past or present. They include not only the various worship rites and sacraments of organized cults and religions, but also the rites of passage of certain societies, oaths of allegiance, coronations, and presidential inaugurations, marriages and funerals, school "rush" traditions and graduations, club meetings, sports events, halloween parties and veteran parades, Christmas shopping, and more. Many activities that are ostensibly performed for concrete purposes, such as jury trials, execution of criminals, and scientific symposia, are loaded with purely symbolic actions prescribed by regulations or tradition, and thus partly ritual in nature. Even trivial actions like hand-shaking and saying hello are rituals."
Most of those mentioned there are rituals in the sense I mean: a symbolic concretization of a philosophic idea. There are also more personal, non-group, rituals which are unique to each person. Most of these you might not even think of as a ritual until someone else notices it and tells you about it. For instance, I have coffee every morning. This isn't just an addiction, it's a ritual: a dedication to that day's productivity, or even more, a dedication to my life and existence in that day. But rituals need not be daily. There are some rituals I do only rarely, only a few of my rituals do I do every day.
Of course the tendency to ritual varies. Some people are very ritualistic people (particularly those with Asperger's Syndrome, Autism, or Obsessive-Compusive disorder), some people have fairly few, if any, rituals (children especially tend to have few rituals). I believe this correlates with how philosophical a person is: people who think very abstractly and have philosophical ideas tend to be more ritualistic than those who do not. The reason is that in order to maintain those ideas they need those rituals.
I don't want to give the impression that every philosophic idea has a corresponding ritual. I wouldn't take it that far, there are plenty of ideas I hold which I do not have rituals for. But the ideas I believe in the most strongly tend to be those I do have rituals for -- and there may be a two-way causation involved there. Which way is more important is an interesting question; it could be that those beliefs a person practises rituals for are those beliefs a person comes to believe in the most strongly.
This correlation is easy to see when you examine any religion. Many religious beliefs have rituals corresponding to them. Praying is a very common ritual.
Any action can be performed ritually, rituals aren't restricted to useless or bizarre actions. Brushing your hair can be a ritual, as long as you endow it with a particular symbolic meaning.
A final note: control your rituals, and you control your philosophy. Allow your rituals to be controlled by someone else, and your philosophy could really be under their control.
Oh man, today I solved a philosophical problem I hadn't been able to solve since I first came up with it at age 12, a full 15 years ago, and which has been on my mind for a lot of that time. I haven't completely solved it but this is a major insight into the problem which I believe will lead to the total resolution of it.
The problem is one of identity through time, and, relatedly, why long-term interests matter as much as short-term interests. Think of this: are you the same person that you were 1, 10, or 20 years ago? Are you the same person that you were yesterday? To what extent? Will you be the same person in 10, 20, 50, or 100 years (if you live that long)? In many ways your identity is very distinct from your future selves and your past selves. You might think you used to be stupid, but are not anymore; may aspects of your identity will change.
Further, your physical body will change, in scientific terms, the atoms that you used to be made of will be completely replaced over the next few years, until eventually not a single atom of your former self remains. This happens quicker than you think -- every six months to three years your atoms are completely replaced.
This has ethical repercussions: if you are a different person than your future and past selves, why should you bother to plan for the future or act in your long-term interest? It won't be *you* enjoying the fruits of your labor, it'll be someone else, someone who may look and act a bit like you but not someone who actually is you, it'll be a different you who experiences the happiness and experiences the accomplishment of the goals that you are working for now.
So for a long time I've had two semi-contradictory beliefs: that we are not really the same person that we used to be or that we will one day be, *and* that it's a good idea to work in your long-term interest. I knew both were true, but I wasn't sure how to resolve the two.
The resolution, in part, is this: that there is no such thing as identity through time, there is only causality through time. In other words, identity is a faculty that works only in the present, causality is the faculty that works through time. To ask whether we are the same person as our future or past selves is a nonsensical question: the answer is that we are neither the same nor different in identity from our future and past selves, because identity cannot be applied through time. Causality is applied through time: it's much more accurate to say we cause our future selves and were caused by our past selves. Or in other words, that our future selves are the results of our actions and that we are the result of the actions of our past selves.
Another way to express this is that identity only applies to existing entities, you can't posit identity between an existing and a nonexisting entity, and our past and future selves are (as of now) nonexisting entities.
In answer to the question: why should we work in our long term interests if it's not "we" who will enjoy it? The answer is: it doesn't have to be. The point of working in our long-term intersts is *not* to enjoy the fruits of our labor, but to produce something: greater future selves. In other words, when I didn't spend a year saving up money to buy a SNES (Super Nintendo) by babysitting in order to have fun playing the SNES for the person who babysat. I did it so that I could *create* a me who has fun playing the SNES. Working for the future is the creation of better future selves.
The problem is one of identity through time, and, relatedly, why long-term interests matter as much as short-term interests. Think of this: are you the same person that you were 1, 10, or 20 years ago? Are you the same person that you were yesterday? To what extent? Will you be the same person in 10, 20, 50, or 100 years (if you live that long)? In many ways your identity is very distinct from your future selves and your past selves. You might think you used to be stupid, but are not anymore; may aspects of your identity will change.
Further, your physical body will change, in scientific terms, the atoms that you used to be made of will be completely replaced over the next few years, until eventually not a single atom of your former self remains. This happens quicker than you think -- every six months to three years your atoms are completely replaced.
This has ethical repercussions: if you are a different person than your future and past selves, why should you bother to plan for the future or act in your long-term interest? It won't be *you* enjoying the fruits of your labor, it'll be someone else, someone who may look and act a bit like you but not someone who actually is you, it'll be a different you who experiences the happiness and experiences the accomplishment of the goals that you are working for now.
So for a long time I've had two semi-contradictory beliefs: that we are not really the same person that we used to be or that we will one day be, *and* that it's a good idea to work in your long-term interest. I knew both were true, but I wasn't sure how to resolve the two.
The resolution, in part, is this: that there is no such thing as identity through time, there is only causality through time. In other words, identity is a faculty that works only in the present, causality is the faculty that works through time. To ask whether we are the same person as our future or past selves is a nonsensical question: the answer is that we are neither the same nor different in identity from our future and past selves, because identity cannot be applied through time. Causality is applied through time: it's much more accurate to say we cause our future selves and were caused by our past selves. Or in other words, that our future selves are the results of our actions and that we are the result of the actions of our past selves.
Another way to express this is that identity only applies to existing entities, you can't posit identity between an existing and a nonexisting entity, and our past and future selves are (as of now) nonexisting entities.
In answer to the question: why should we work in our long term interests if it's not "we" who will enjoy it? The answer is: it doesn't have to be. The point of working in our long-term intersts is *not* to enjoy the fruits of our labor, but to produce something: greater future selves. In other words, when I didn't spend a year saving up money to buy a SNES (Super Nintendo) by babysitting in order to have fun playing the SNES for the person who babysat. I did it so that I could *create* a me who has fun playing the SNES. Working for the future is the creation of better future selves.
"
A certain man asked Mullah Nasruddin,
- What is the meaning of fate, Mullah Nasruddin ?
- Assumptions, Mullah Nasruddin replied.
- In what way? the man asked again.
Mullah Nasruddin looked at him and said,
- You assume things are going to go well, and they don't - that you call bad luck. You assume things are going to go badly and they don't - that you call good luck. You assume that certain things are going to happen or not happen - and you so lack intuition that you don't know what is going to happen. You assume that the future is unknown. When you are caught out - you call that Fate.
"
http://www.afghan-network.net/Funny/1.h
A certain man asked Mullah Nasruddin,
- What is the meaning of fate, Mullah Nasruddin ?
- Assumptions, Mullah Nasruddin replied.
- In what way? the man asked again.
Mullah Nasruddin looked at him and said,
- You assume things are going to go well, and they don't - that you call bad luck. You assume things are going to go badly and they don't - that you call good luck. You assume that certain things are going to happen or not happen - and you so lack intuition that you don't know what is going to happen. You assume that the future is unknown. When you are caught out - you call that Fate.
"
http://www.afghan-network.net/Funny/1.h
I want to list the fifteen books that have most influenced my ideas. This is not to say I think they'd be important in influencing the ideas of others, and this is not to say that I necessarily suggest reading these (unless you care to understand *me* more, of course), this is only to say that, biographically and personally, these books had the greatest impact on my intellectual development -- they are in rough order of importance.
1. Interactive Storytelling
2. The Art of Fiction
3. 1984
4. On Becoming a Novelist
5. Engines of Creation
6. The Mind's Past
7. The Fountainhead
8. The Farther Reaches of Human Nature
9. The Lucifer Principle
10. Romance of the Three Kingdoms
11. Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!
12. Winning Through Intimidation
13. The Gay Science
14. Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
15. Zen Physics
( Brief reasons why )
1. Interactive Storytelling
2. The Art of Fiction
3. 1984
4. On Becoming a Novelist
5. Engines of Creation
6. The Mind's Past
7. The Fountainhead
8. The Farther Reaches of Human Nature
9. The Lucifer Principle
10. Romance of the Three Kingdoms
11. Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!
12. Winning Through Intimidation
13. The Gay Science
14. Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
15. Zen Physics
( Brief reasons why )
Is it just me, or are the Indian concept of dharma and the ancient Greek concept of telos virtually indistinguishable? Both seem functionally equivalent to a combination of 'essence', 'nature', and 'function'.
Here is a really nice story about Dharma I read today.
I was reading a translation of the Bhagavad Gita today, a really horrible translation (by Eknath Easwaran) which made the Gita into slave morality. For instance, one of the chapters was retitled "selfless service", Krishna was saying the problem with life is selfishness and so on. It almost made me nauseous. I really hope slave morality isn't that prevalent in Hinduism, and that that translator (who is Christian) was just inserting that evil into the work through word selection.
I found that the Gita (and I expect the Mahabharata and Ramayana as a whole) relies in prior knowledge of the Upanishads, so I think I'm going to read some of those before those two epic poems that I intend to review.
Reincarnation, as an afterlife concept, is an incredibly sophisticated and powerful illusion; moreso than the whole heaven/hell thing.
Karma and dharma are great concepts, and can be taken wholey secularly. Maya and moksha too.
The three gunas (tamas, rajas, sattva) are interesting but I'm not sure I grasp their full theory yet, so I'll withhold judgement.
I like the idea that Yoga is "skill in action" -- yoga means more than just the postures/exercise, it's much broader in meaning in India, more akin to Buddhist meditation than to yoga exercise. To quote my translation's introduction:
"He tells Arjuna that if he can establish himself in yoga he will be more effective in the realm of action. His judgement will be better and his vision clear if he is not emotionally entangled in the outcome of what he does. [...] Yoga is "skill in action" because this kind of detachment is required if one is to act in freedom, rather than merely react to events according to his conditioning."
Also I noticed a major simularity between Atlas Shrugged and the Mahabarata -- both are very long and have highly complex "speeches" near the end which embody the theme of the work (the Bhagavad Gita is the "speech" of Krishna, about 150 pages long, John Galt's speech is about 100 pages long).
Here is a really nice story about Dharma I read today.
I was reading a translation of the Bhagavad Gita today, a really horrible translation (by Eknath Easwaran) which made the Gita into slave morality. For instance, one of the chapters was retitled "selfless service", Krishna was saying the problem with life is selfishness and so on. It almost made me nauseous. I really hope slave morality isn't that prevalent in Hinduism, and that that translator (who is Christian) was just inserting that evil into the work through word selection.
I found that the Gita (and I expect the Mahabharata and Ramayana as a whole) relies in prior knowledge of the Upanishads, so I think I'm going to read some of those before those two epic poems that I intend to review.
Reincarnation, as an afterlife concept, is an incredibly sophisticated and powerful illusion; moreso than the whole heaven/hell thing.
Karma and dharma are great concepts, and can be taken wholey secularly. Maya and moksha too.
The three gunas (tamas, rajas, sattva) are interesting but I'm not sure I grasp their full theory yet, so I'll withhold judgement.
I like the idea that Yoga is "skill in action" -- yoga means more than just the postures/exercise, it's much broader in meaning in India, more akin to Buddhist meditation than to yoga exercise. To quote my translation's introduction:
"He tells Arjuna that if he can establish himself in yoga he will be more effective in the realm of action. His judgement will be better and his vision clear if he is not emotionally entangled in the outcome of what he does. [...] Yoga is "skill in action" because this kind of detachment is required if one is to act in freedom, rather than merely react to events according to his conditioning."
Also I noticed a major simularity between Atlas Shrugged and the Mahabarata -- both are very long and have highly complex "speeches" near the end which embody the theme of the work (the Bhagavad Gita is the "speech" of Krishna, about 150 pages long, John Galt's speech is about 100 pages long).
I found a really excellent post on Nietzsche's Zarathustra and wanted to share it with you all.
The love of wisdom "philo sophia" this is the meaning of philosophy according to its Greek etymology. But this love, Nietzsche intimates, is not the end of the story. The truth is that there is only one woman that we love dearly, and this woman is Life. Even though we always betray her, and even though we always want to leave her, she is the one we truly cherish, in sickness and in health, until Death do us part. Philosophy is always about living and being alive. Philosophy is, properly speaking, the love of life.
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespear
"Smith was supported by Delia Bacon in her book The Philosophy of Shakespeare's Plays (1857), in which she maintains that Shakespeare was in fact a group of writers, including Francis Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh and Edmund Spenser, for the purpose of inculcating a philosophic system, for which they felt that they themselves could not afford to assume the responsibility."
This idea appeals to me for several reasons, and although I haven't investigated the issue at all I at least *hope* this is true.
"Smith was supported by Delia Bacon in her book The Philosophy of Shakespeare's Plays (1857), in which she maintains that Shakespeare was in fact a group of writers, including Francis Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh and Edmund Spenser, for the purpose of inculcating a philosophic system, for which they felt that they themselves could not afford to assume the responsibility."
This idea appeals to me for several reasons, and although I haven't investigated the issue at all I at least *hope* this is true.
i read "no exit" by jean paul sartre today, it was fairly amazing. i don't agree with most of its ideas but, wow, i hope i can write a play that good one day.
i agree preliminarily with this analysis from http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/noexit/se
"The play's central themes of freedom and responsibility come from Sartre's doctrine that "existence precedes essence." Sartre believed that human consciousness, or a "being-for-itself," differed from inanimate objects, or a "being-in-itself," since humans have the ability to choose and define their individual characteristics, or essence. But with this freedom of choice comes the absolute responsibility for one's action. The fear and anxiety of this responsibility leads many people to ignore both their freedom and their responsibility by letting other people make their choices for them, resulting in bad faith."
i agree preliminarily with this analysis from http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/noexit/se
"The play's central themes of freedom and responsibility come from Sartre's doctrine that "existence precedes essence." Sartre believed that human consciousness, or a "being-for-itself," differed from inanimate objects, or a "being-in-itself," since humans have the ability to choose and define their individual characteristics, or essence. But with this freedom of choice comes the absolute responsibility for one's action. The fear and anxiety of this responsibility leads many people to ignore both their freedom and their responsibility by letting other people make their choices for them, resulting in bad faith."
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