Philosophy As Psycho/Emotional Disorder

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

If you go to see a movie, there are so many ways to choose to experience it. You can look behind you and study the hole the light emanates from. You can walk up to the screen, touch it, go behind it in some cases. You can stand two inches from the screen and study the texture, the pixels, you can let the projected light hit your hand, your face.

Or you can sit back with a popcorn and a coke, maybe some candy, and watch the fucking movie.

Even then, you can choose a hundred ways to watch. You can be critical, spend much time noticing and critiquing the behind the scenes reality of the film; you can lose yourself in the story and be immersed as if it was real; you can choose to be bored and resentful, convincing yourself its the film’s job to meet you more than halfway; you can stretch and try to appreciate whatever the filmmaker is trying to do, let the film wash over you and not judge, experience it; you can make hushed comments to your buddy, “isn’t that neat?” “that was the guy from before!” etc., “It’s him, he did it…” You can watch the film with one eye and spend more time kissing; you can have a buffer zone, an in-between seat, so you can get the armrest; you can dare your friend to yell louder or throw popcorn and be silly.

So many fucking choices. But when you consider the beginning of this post, the hyper-fixation on the physical realities, the deconstruction of place and context, it certainly seems, in every day terms, like behaviors you’d find in people with Aspergers or Autism, or some kind of psychosis or emotional disorder.

What’s cool about movies in the first place, is that you get to immerse yourself in a story, share a reality, enjoy a show. The net takeaway is emotions, the journey, the longings, the excitements and disappointments – we’re wired to enjoy these feelings and movies, and all storytelling, is designed to express and enjoy this reality of our wiring.

What’s cool about life is that we seem to have will, we experience time, and we are sensate, we share so much in common with others, we have values and challenges, joys and failures. So much of philosophy is gazing at the projector, or fondling the canvas, or peering under the seats. It’s so much scouting around in the dark while the movie plays on without us.

What’s cool about life is all the stuff we do when we’re not philosophizing. And sometimes when we philosophize, we are as ill people, sadly alone and missing the point, unable to stop. It is a permissible form of bizarre behavior. Watch the damn movie.

2

It’s a nice challenge, and I really do agree with the spirit of the OP, but I have some serious quibbles.

Life=watching a Movie

puts us in a very passive role in Life.

But more important the OP seems to Think we have to choose one or the other. As a kid - or an adult finally with access - I did want to know what was happening with the physical apparatus of the projection of the film. This is partaking in Life, however autistically. To not simply allow the whole to wash over me, but to understand the pieces - and potentially to be able to do certain things in the World. So to me it is not that doing this is wrong, but has its Place, just as enjoying the Movie does. If there is a hair on the image - which, to beat the analogy closer to Death - is very, very common in Life - often means I want to look at the process of projection carefully. Is there a solution? What is happening? Did the director intend there to be a hair in the image or is DAD, me, the government not doing the best possible job projecting the film?

Then the whole critical thing. Being outside the film and analyzing it as film. Yes, this happens sometimes when I am watching the film, but often after the film preferably with others. So I don’t have to choose between being critical and thinking about the film as film and just allowing the immersion. I can do both. I can also rewatch a film, an inevitably - unless it has been a long time in between - I Watch more as a critic/artist, trying to see what is going on, what clues there may be about the deeper messages/moods/themes I may have felt but not really been aware of. I can have a deeper experience of the film this way. This generally has to be an intelligent film or I’d be wasting my time.

So to me there is a false dilemma in the OP and the issue is not choosing on or the other but degree BUUUUUUUUT…

that said, I Think there is something out of balance in much philosophy. There is a working out often over 100s of pages, things that need to be worked out in a less linear mental Word based way. Mind wanking. Even in canonical philosophers. I imagine them forcing a disintered reader to hear a slightly simplified paraphrase of some chapter from a tome and the person listening saying, well, duh, having gotten there more directly. Of course many people will not have these insights via an route, but to me it seems, often, a distorted process, sort of like instead of bending over and picking up a pen the usual way, someone programs a child’s toy for Days to pick up the pen. And the programming only works for the pen in that position on the floor.

And I do Think this process is a more male tendency. To wander off into abstraction too long too far and get intoxicated in the Words and not end up changing anything except the Words flitting across the screen of the mind - to bring us back to the analogy.

So despite serious quibbles, I agree with what I Think is the spirit of the OP.
To me the issue is how to know when it is too much, not the right tool for the job, when one is cut off by the process and when the jouissance of being able to lay down a lot of Words is functioning more like a drug than a part of really being alive in the World. When, how…

3

Just my opinion, but I think you’re defining philosophy in an overly narrow way. And, of course, one could ask how does one reach the conclusion to simply “watch the fucking movie”; that is, how does one decide that doing so is better or more enjoyable or more useful than doing any of the other things you suggested? I’d argue that one has to, even if primarily subconsciously (or however you want to define it) engage in philosophy.

I think I understand what you’re trying to say, and I like the example you use, but I can’t really agree with the overall point that (I think) you’re making.

4

Philosophizing, when not merely playing, is seeking a means to avoid ever getting a flat tire, even if you have never had one. But at times, one is so habitually wrapped up in such an endeavor, he forgets to air up the spare.

5

Of course there are quibbles. My packaging is going to experience much collateral damage. The payload however is delivered, I hope.

I have gone behind the screen. Once when I was ten I felt the screen. I don’t do it every time. That would be Aspergerian. Normal human behavior is to watch the film, and to some degree get lost in it.

And this of course is about degree. Gray area isnt just allowed folks, it’s required. And oh what a handy catch all argument “hm, I think you’re missing the gray area.”

Duh. Philosophical statements are both wave and particle, so excuse me for trying to say something, anything :wink:

My point is if you spend a lot of time snooping around the theater, you’re weird. Not saying bad or good. Just weird. The DSM would have a name for you.

We do a lot of snooping around the theater here, too. I’m just sayin…

6

Weird for sure, but you are ranking the ways you can choose to experience it, and there’s that implied sense of the right way to experience it, the way you’re supposed to watch the fucking movie. Pathologizing the ‘weird’ ways of experiencing the movie is a way to establishing a right way. It’s a subtle form of ad hom. “If you weren’t so irrational,” Kant might say along this line, “then you’d see the truth of the categorical whatever.”

Philosophy can be about new ways to experience things, and I think it’s the only thing it is, but it’s a mistake if you think, like most think, that it is valuable and worthwhile only if it enhances the traditional way of experiencing things; that it’s a waste of time and a sickness if it actually leads away from the beaten path, if it tempts some to walk the new way. At best, according to this modern way of thinking, philosophers should only be tour guides, enhancing the watching of the fucking movie.

I get the sense that you see philosophy as a conservative hero’s journey, where it’s something you do when you’re young; you move out into the dorms, maybe you buy a beret with a star on it and rail against capitalism, maybe you join a monastery, shave your head and sell your iphone, maybe you take stances on rationalism and empiricism and talk about deceptive demons while dropping acid, but eventually you come home, and start paying your taxes, join the PTA, become a member of the neighborhood watch, vote republican, and watch the fucking movie…perhaps even enjoy it more because of all that. No?

7

There’s no ranking or value judgement, and I’m not in any strenuously way arguing that people should change how they live or think.

Just an observation. Interesting to me how what is called “OCD” or “neurosis” in one sphere, passes for acceptable discourse in another.

Then again, philosophy is not so socially acceptable. You know what I’m getting at. We all do. IRL, we’ve all tried to steer the conversation into the weird zone and paid the price. And maybe there’s a pretty damn good reason why it’s not welcome with open arms, but mainly treated like a stench. Maybe the clue to that reason can be found in the movie theater analogy. Maybe not.

And I don’t pretend to be doing anything other than philosophizing at this very moment. It’s kinda in that tired tractate of blah blah blah let’s just sit in a garden and eat cheese and stop thinking so much. I mean, I’m here after all, and I really should be outside playing. You?

8

I think we outgrow it, yeah, and along the way we learn to exorcise demons, like racism, prejudice, black and white thinking, fallacy, and certain existential hangups. It humbles us – that’s the best it can do, inoculate us against extremism, fanaticism.

But then those of us who make a life of it, who have 8 trillion posts on ILP. We’re weird. We go back to it again and again. Addiction? Illness? In my own case, I wonder…

I’ve also been medically treated at times, for looking too hard at the camera instead of the screen. I’ve experienced pure self-consciousness. Not good.

9

Chilean wine, man. It’s bright and hot outside here in FL, and I’m dehydrated and tired. I’m also out of adderall, so you know, there was probably some collateral damage.

Zarathustra is said to sing, and I didn’t know what that meant at first, but it’s got something to do with him also being called a tempter, a pied piper. Dialectics just breeds mistrust, you know, and the synthesis is really just a very small compromise. Stories, humor, tragedy, on the other hand. That shit kills. Look at Homer. This was not lost on Plato. The man wrote dialogues. He chose his words carefully.

You ever seen True Detective? Awesome show. It’s at bottom a conversation between Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. There’s this scene where Machonahey (sp?) catches a serial killer and he has him on his knees, and this guy is a truly sick fuck, you know? He kills kids and women, and while he’s on his knees he’s talking all this nonsense about the circle and whatnot. He’s killed there and then, but that idea creeps in Mathew’s head, and the show does a good job of showing him, a Schopenhauerian, destroyed by the idea later on as the years go by.

Anyway, I say all this because you talked about the different ways of experiencing the movie while getting across the sense that all are weird except for those who sit back with popcorn and, you know, watch the fucking movie the way it’s supposed to be watched. And in that last post you used the word “outgrow,” and you followed it up with coming to accept modern values. I think you are philosophizing, and I think you’re doing it in a clever way. I just disagree.

10

During Wittgenstein’s ‘lost’ years, it was said of him, that he lived in movie houses. He did not care what was on the screen, he would sit there hours upon hours, and watch it unfold. It fascinated him. He may have been weird, in fact he probably was, however, some pioneers of philosophy were not considered the epitome of normalcy. Jesus’ lost years were also thought about as formative to his later development. I think we moderns have become too strung out on how others perceive them, and at times it tends to be counterproductive.

Jack Kerouac thought reality in terms of basic film like projections. The cut up method the beats adopted, were akin to stills. The idea is, that the old still life’s representation, were broken, and reality was discovered as really the illusionary sense of movement. The old Parmenides/Heraclitus divergence, implying the derealization that modern life has on participants of this brave new world.

Order, in the conventional sense, has been distilled to a few retrograde hold outs, still living in an era, long gone. Emotionally, they are always playing catch-up.

11

Old hat to keep bringing this guy up, but this is relevant:

The argument from growing solitary. – The reproach of conscience is weak in even the most conscientious people compared to the feeling: ‘This or that is against the morals of your society.’ Even the strongest person still fears a cold look or a sneer on the face of those among whom and for whom he has been brought up. What is he really afraid of? Growing solitary! This is the argument that refutes even the best arguments for a person or a cause. – Thus the herd instinct speaks out in us.

12

Hey, I read the OP and it could have been you were ruling it out, period, as unhealthy. That said, bringing in the DSM is a nice line. I Think many forms of ‘being a philosopher’ could go in there nicely. I mean, the DSM itself is a philosophical nightmare, but many of the patterns in there are detrimental patterns, whatever kinds of patterns they ultimately are, and yes, I Think philosophizing offers some patterns in family relation to those.

13

I’m thinking philosophy can be done from either a place of health or sickness, psychologically speaking. Not necessarily in the traditional Nietzschian sense i.e. that most pre-Nietzschian thinking was decadent and sickly. Rather, that the individually existing philosopher can philosophize from a place of sickness or health. Sickness would be something like a despairing over knowledge / wisdom, whereas health would be a vibrant, confident, overflowing quest for knowledge / wisdom.

14

Look you get to pick for yourself on this one. You can pick the scabs off till they bleed, or you can call them cancer excised and you the surgeon, or call them threads of gold attached to angels, call it seeking. I call it picking. Pick pick pick.

Pick the damn dots off the bottom of the seat, and walk around with sticky technicolor fingernails.

There isn’t one thing in this thread, in any of your posts, I disagree with. So you may think you disagree with me; you don’t. I’d brag about towering over this position or that position, but I’m above all that.

15

I’ve never seen someone agree so aggressively with everyone in the thread. Nice, kinda funny.

Of course we’re going to pick; it’s another form of inspection and it’s how we vet your ideas. The OP is one big snoop, but don’t hate yourself for it. I would agree that there’s time to enjoy philosophy and time to enjoy the movie. If the seats are falling apart, maybe a redesign will help yourself and others enjoy the movie more. Finding a flaw in the projector or thinking up improvements to the screen might make the movie that much more immersive for us in the future and enhance the experience for everyone else too. So maybe it’s weird what we do when we walk into the theater, but I think, in balance, it can be good. That’s pretty obvious; I’m guessing you agree.

16

[tab]I call it sculpting my own image on the scabs. Since we’re being vague here and indulging ourselves a bit, I have a story to tell. My dog loves peeing on things. Every morning he goes to the same spots he peed on before and smells his own smell on them. Seems to really like it, too, because he wags his tail, then pees on those same spots some more. [size=10]I get the same feeling when I hear students parroting me.[/size][/tab]

As some ancient poet once said:

Increscunt animi, virescit volnere virtus.

[tab]That is to say, as Kaufmann translates it, “The spirits arise, vigor grows through a wound.” Or, the spirits arise, power greens, blooms, sprouts, or I prefer hatches through or because of a wound.

The writer of The Gay Science and Ecce Homo says in the first section of the prologue of TSZ that “…I must go under–go down, as is said by man.”

This is a reference to katabasis and convalescence, but I wanted to be funny.

Also this:
[/tab]

I remember you made a thread like years ago about how pain is always bad. I disagree with that.

17

Yeah, I tend to think when I compliment the line of argument someone is making they won’t disagree with me. I know that’s odd of me.

18

Pain is always bad, and if it’s not bad, it’s not pain. If that seems riddled with holes it’s the shortcoming of language… that pushes us into little boxes of wisdom. We need an expanded lexicon if we are to progress out of these boxes. I’m sure the apes felt nothing less.

In the meanwhile, here’s to having the fucking sense to reduce pain, real bonafide pain-style pain for lack of a better word, wherever possible.

19

What do you think of this fat shaming business?

20

Is this what science does?

What about the analogy of life being a play and we are the actors (an actor can still watch the play as it goes on all around him)? Didn’t Shakespeare say something along these lines?