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millzy said:
does someone need to read philosophy to understand it?

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GuruBushHippie said:

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millzy said:
does someone need to read philosophy to understand it?

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Someone can understand philosophy without even knowing that "philosophy" exists. Philosophy isn't really a field like science or math

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millzy said:
i disagree. philosophy has a definite set of ideological models that are constantly being tested and revised.

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Cups said:
Shall I explain it to you?

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millzy said:
oh please do. i'm very eager to bathe in your wisdom.

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As you wish.  Although as a "student" of philosophy IMO you should view your failure to find the meaning in what I said for what it is- a failure. 

I'll start by clearing up a few things.  I have read some stuff by Nietzsche (quotes mostly), Becker's book, the Bible many times as a kid, some buddhist sutras, Walden in high school, and the Bhagavad Gita.  Lots of mckenna videos too.

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millzy said:
if you don't like philosophy, why post in a forum dedicated to it?

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Samurai Drifter said:
Cups is the genius philosopher who doesn't need anyone else. Tell us what it's all about, Cups!

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Silversoul-
See, if you'd read John Dewey, you'd understand that learning the thoughts of others actually equips you with a greater intellectual arsenal with which to have more original thoughts.

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Cups-
Giving a kid more shapes to use doesn't change the fact he's building a sandcastle..

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Silversoul-
And what if he's never seen a castle?

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Cups-
The I extend him my hand and say welcome to the club.

Building sand castles which last only til the tide all the while having no idea of what a castle actually looks like...Yeah that sounds about right.

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millzy said:
you've never seen a castle before?

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It's kinda like this millzy.

As for the rest of it.  I don't know what your problem is Samurai.

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Samurai Drifter said:
Cups: *takes hit of bowl* Well dude, it's like... giving a kid more shapes to use doesn't change the fact that he's building a sandcastle. See? That bombshell came straight outta this head here, no complex, hard-to-read historical bullshit. I'm my own favorite philosopher.

Nietzsche pulled the same thing, except he had the advantage of being intelligent, witty... and well read.

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You don't know anything about me dude beyond what I've posted here.  

Full access is reserved for people who've earned it. 

I don't have many answers.  I am a walking case of cognitive dissonance/existential crisis/death anxiety/and god knows what else. The truth is some people read and some people write.  If I survive mentally and physically long enough to come to a cohesive vision of existence you can be damn sure I'll write it down.

And people will read it, people like you. 

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So, in my response the kid (us) can have unlimited shapes (original ideas) but ultimately he is making a sandcastle (impermanent, meaningless, temporary model of a real castle, gone in a blink).

The "castle" which Silversoul brings up is of course Truth with a capital T.  The Ultimate Reality.  The way it really is.

As far as I know no-one Knows what the Truth is.  We're all stuck in our own subjective experience.  Talking round and round over the millennia about life and what's important and what's not and how to live and how to die...all the while having absolutely no fucking idea about any of it really.

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millzy said:
it's a incomplete regurgitation of plato's allegory of the cave mixed with certain aspects of enlightenment era thought, both of which have deeply influenced western culture in an inescapable way. the acknowledgement that reality, or the truth, or in philosophical terms "all that is", is more than the sum total of our 5 senses is hardly breaking news. very thinly veiled cliches wrapped up in non sequitur prose.

i admire your enthusiasm cups, and i'm not trying to be a dick, but labeling people who actually, you know, study this stuff, as unoriginal fools and then countering with whatever it is you posted is pretty laughable. sorry.

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No need to be sorry.  As I see it you have just compared something I threw together in a few minutes with no formal training to Plato and the enlightenment movement.  OK with me.  

Now, never once in this thread have I called anyone a fool.  I've simply stated that I want to look on my own...without tainting the jury pool so to speak.  In response Silversoul has called me "self-defeating" Samurai Drifter has insinuated that I am an illiterate, boring, drug addict, and you have called my post "laughable". 

If it was all so transparent and juvenile then why didn't you give your rebuttal before I broke it down a bit?  All that book training and you couldn't put it together?  Granted I called that a failure and perhaps you were just waiting to see what I said.  I don't know.

For me though, the real issue here is that the concept of someone giving this an honest effort on their own is so foreign to scholastically trained folks that your brain can't wrap around it. IMO

You said my post was an "incomplete regurgitation" of Plato's cave and some enlightenment ideals.  This is the disconnect.  There are no complete version of any of these things in my head like there is in yours.

I'm not drawing from this and borrowing from that...I'm tripping and observing and trying to remove myself from the equation as much as I can...and what I end up with just happens to contains ideas from various schools of thought.

In short, I am trying to come to an understanding of life that works for me.  then, in an effort to achieve some kind of immortality I will write it down and publish it.  Or maybe I won't.

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Cups said:
No need to be sorry.  As I see it you have just compared something I threw together in a few minutes with no formal training to Plato and the enlightenment movement.  OK with me.

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Now, never once in this thread have I called anyone a fool.

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Cups said:Not a big fan of filling my head with other's ideas.  I prefer to get there myself.

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who exactly do you think you're fooling?

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I've simply stated that I want to look on my own...without tainting the jury pool so to speak.  In response Silversoul has called me "self-defeating" Samurai Drifter has insinuated that I am an illiterate, boring, drug addict, and you have called my post "laughable".

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If it was all so transparent and juvenile then why didn't you give your rebuttal before I broke it down a bit?  All that book training and you couldn't put it together?  Granted I called that a failure and perhaps you were just waiting to see what I said.  I don't know.

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For me though, the real issue here is that the concept of someone giving this an honest effort on their own is so foreign to scholastically trained folks that your brain can't wrap around it. IMO

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You said my post was an "incomplete regurgitation" of Plato's cave and some enlightenment ideals.  This is the disconnect.  There are no complete version of any of these things in my head like there is in yours.

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I'm not drawing from this and borrowing from that...

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In short, I am trying to come to an understanding of life that works for me.  then, in an effort to achieve some kind of immortality I will write it down and publish it.  Or maybe I won't.

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bully for you.

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millzy said:
right, and the reason you threw that together so quickly is a) because you're a self aware person and b) you're already indoctrinated with the  ideas that you unknowingly pay homage to.

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who exactly do you think you're fooling?

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i'll add contrived to my list of adjectives i use to describe your pablum.

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i put it together fine,

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OK Mr. "You've never seen a castle?"   Just being sarcastic huh?

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...and pointed out that what you said was nothing original...again, i have a perfect grasp on what you're up to. it's nothing new, it's nothing original, and your inexperience with this sort of stuff is blatant.

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the disconnect is you being completely ignorant of everything i've talked about and pretending that you're original.

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A lot of talk about originality.  I challenge you to produce a single original idea.   

I don't recall ever claiming to come up with original ideas, apart from the fact that I came up with them myself.  Many times I've thought of something and ran a google search only to find it in some text somewhere.  We're all running the same equipment as you noted a few posts above.

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no, you are. you just aren't doing a very good job.

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i bother because quite frankly, people like you are what give people like me a bad name. 

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I don't recall ever claiming to come up with original ideas, apart from the fact that I came up with them myself. Many times I've thought of something and ran a google search only to find it in some text somewhere.  We're all running the same equipment as you noted a few posts above.

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Not a big fan of filling my head with other's ideas.I prefer to get there myself.

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but I would ask what exactly marks the move from pablum to something of more substance in your view?

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According to who?  Who decides who is doing a good job at explaining the unexplainable?

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I challenge you to produce a single original idea.

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Alright I'll bite. How so?

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first off, i was being sarcastic and considered not responding to you at all

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i know my words are completely lost on you.

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i know it would just amount to what most debates amount to on here; us talking right past each other.

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Well so far you've made it quite clear that nothing gets past you, so that must leave me. I actually disagree with you here.  I don't think we're talking past each other...just taking our time finding a common reference point.  With every post I understand more of how you view the world which helps me tailor what I say to the way you think.  At least that's my goal.

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both of these are in reference to your ability to come up with something original.

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Surely you are not disputing the ability of an individual to have a unique experience?  I vividly remember my first beer, and ahve several ideas about what that moment meant...but I certainly don't deny billions of other people have also had a "1st" beer.

That's a flawed example of course, but here is one which is much more relevant.  Perhaps this will also explain to you a little better what I am trying to accomplish.  Who knows, maybe you've got a term for this kind of thing in that brain of yours already.

I assume I am on safe ground describing Buddha as a philosopher.  As you likely know one of his main focuses was on the illusory nature of a consistent "self".  That the persona is not a concrete thing, but rather a projection of all the senses combined with past experiences and future hopes which is always changing.  IOW a charade.

Well, one day I was deep in thought...you know that exceptionally deep contemplation that's beyond words and gives you a headache?  Quite suddenly, I had the spontaneous realization that "I" wasn't real.  This of course, came as quite a shock to me as it was completely unexpected and definitely not looking for.  I was raised Christian and the "realness" of the individual is kind of a really big deal.

But there I was, a lone seeker having a spontaneous anatta realization, just like Buddha did 2500 years ago.  When I got home I looked it up, read some sutras, was like..."Yep, that sounds about right." and then moved to pondering just what it means to not be "real". 

Contrast this with a buddhist person who has filled their head with the concept of anatta for years and years.  Then they go to these meditation retreats and what have you "knowing" what they are looking for.

This is what I am trying to convey to you Millzy.  The concept of no-self is certainly not an original idea.  Even so, I stumbled into it in a way that is original to me...without being preconditioned to look for it. (that I am aware of)

I hope that makes more sense.  It's not that I don't believe reading the thoughts of others can have value. (Despite what I posted in good fun to Samurai Drifter)

It's just to me the "truth" of the human condition should be as accessible to a guy who lives alone on an island as it is to a scholar surrounded by books.  If it isn't, then we're making it all up. 

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something that conveys a logically sound idea. your allegory is flawed and incomplete.

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i doubt that either one of these ideas are original. but by studying these guys i've been able to come to those conclusions on my own, which was the point i was trying to make in the beginning. i personally don't study other people's ideas to completely assimilate them as my own. i take what's useful and discard the rest. this is what intelligent people do.

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i am dismayed by people who tout themselves as being philosophers without having studied a lick of it. as someone who intends to pursue a multiple degrees in the subject, i find it to be an insult to people who are willing to really put forth the decades of work in order to understand this stuff. it's not bullshit, and it's not easy.

i mean look, you're entitled to do whatever you want and ultimately, i know my words are completely lost on you. i think if you're serious about learning about philosophy, you should try sitting in class with someone who's been reading these texts for, in most cases, the better part of 30 years. someone who illuminates the subtleties of it and helps you under both the concepts themselves and the historical context in which they were formed.

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i'll be the first to admit that i'm not an expert, but in this case i'm the one with the opinion of what you said. so, like george bush, in this case i would be the decider.

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Now it's my turn to be the decider. I would never minimize the effort you have/will put into achieving your goals in philosophy.  There may be a day where I choose to follow in your footsteps.  Who knows?

But, what I will dispute is the net effect of all this study.  You will know more philosopher's ideas than me, you will know more about the evolution of human thought over time than me as well...but will you know more about Life than me?

I remain unconvinced.