I did notice your absence! 
A change is as good as a rest, so…
What does philosophy involve, according to you?
How is bliss working out for you Tortise?
Sometimes, I wish I could go back…
oi! what about metaphysics, the ultimate questions! fuck politics
It’s funny how quickly interests change when you’re young.
He’ll eventually find out that the only real answers in life come from philosophy…
Yeah, I already know…
Philosophy gives us no answers, but what’s the point?
if philosophy is the pursuit of your own tail than i will try my best.
ideally philosophy is a long road with something at the end. whether that be a giant pit of death or a pot of gold depends on the navigation.
My sentiment is very similar to yours, tortoise. One major reason I haven’t been around here a while.
I still believe that philosophy is the big group that everything else falls under. Science, math, logic, decision theory. Philosophy is reason by information period.
But where someone believes that you have to be well read in a long line of people and people and their books and their books on books . . . it’s redundant and pointless in the end (“talk does not cook the rice”).
So where philosophy is NOT bullshit is when I ask myself. “I just decided to do that. What makes me think it’s such a smart decision? What is there available to me as a guide to wheather it’s a smart decision or not?” And you can apply that to very hard fact real life. Look at other people around you from time to time, and you can usually pick out people who’ve been living from whims of their emotion rather than contemplation. You ever seen teenagers walking down a street with every five seconds someone does some antic or says something absurd and everyone laughs. Doesn’t it seem desparate? Like they’re terrified of having a real thought? Like they might die immediately if they don’t occupy their mind on surprises and obscenity?
Maybe it’s my resentment of them that brings me to philosophy. Hmm, some wouldn’t call that a good reason.
I basically gave up on the world and civilization as we know it too.
I believe our species is doomed and quite hopeless to our own pressing self destruction…
Nonetheless in a absurd manner I still come here to express my opinions and own philosophies just to pass away the time even though in my mind I know that everything I say will never change anything in all reality. 
Weird I know. It really is quite perplexing.
( I suppose I mostly debate philosophy on the internet for my own enjoyment and because it sharpens my own mind frame too not to mention it re-affirms my own perceivement on life through every conversation I partake in.)
( In short philosophy anymore has become a manifestation of myself rather than the world as I no longer care about global affairs.)
Debating isn’t philosophy.
If people are here to ‘win’ arguments in philosophy, then they will lose every time.
I know all about fruitless debates.
Recently I went to a website where humanism, transhumanism, secular religionists and scientifical materialism is the mainstream .
Needless to say that got old real quick like for me.
I am just thankful that a open-minded website like ILP is around. Some of the other websites on philosophy are really appalling.
With that being said I hope your new insights on life will bring you personal happiness.
Joker - what’s a secular religionist? I’ve never heard the term before.
It is one of my own terminologies.
To me it means a atheist or secular progressivist who embraces futurism and scientifical materialism equally religious systemizations guided by technocracy in comparison to traditional religions.
Examples would be:
Humanism, transhumanism, futurism, market equilbrium, clinical psychology and scientifical materialism.
me.
Like I said in realunoriginal’s thread, I find that philosophy takes my mind off other things.
Most people have conflicting values, and many of them have no idea how to resolve those conflicts. If the tail is wagging the dog, then chasing and catching the tail is useful - at least we then know where it is.
I think many people don’t mind that they have conflicting values. But many others don’t see the ramifications of this, or are too discouraged to think that they can resolve these conflicts. They give up, and are left to wondering why everything is so difficult, why they are not happier.
Philosophy is about the philosopher, about the philosopher’s own values. Philosophical debates are fruitful if they help the participants with their own thinking. The failure to convince others is irrelevant. There is no reason to be broken-hearted about the failure to convince others. That alone does not determine that the debate is fruitless.
But if you’re not getting anything out of it, stop. This doesn’t mean that others are in the same situation. To realise that you have failed to gain from philosophy shouldn’t lead to the conclusion that it is meaningless. That’s just sour grapes.
You noticed! I can only imagine what bullshit you have been reading.
“Philosophy is to the real world as masturbation is to sex.”- Marx
(don’t tell the philosophers Marx said that)