As Tab and I are going to have thread devoted to matter of ummm,
don’t know yet, and I have a question for Tab…
In your opening, you mentioned you have basically walked away from
Philosophy…being a few years older, I do more philosophy today then I
have ever done… my question is this, why did you walk away from philosophy?
and what impact if any, being older had on your decision?
Kropotkin
Looking at my blog, where I used to keep anything from the philosophy boards I thought I’d done well, seems I tapered off from 2012. That’s probably when I stopped posting full time on Internet philosophy boards, ilp included.
As to why? Couple of reasons I guess, some mundane. I got very good at arguing. That’s a good thing on philosophy boards, not so much in relationships. I lost a friend in an argument in a pub in real life and strained my marriage a little so… Kinda drew a line under it for a while.
In its place I went for the dumbest thing I could imagine, which for me turned out to be a massively multiplayer online game, Neverwinter. I became very very good at murdering other pixellated people in player vs. player arena matches.
youtu.be/Z32g3PtruiY (me murdering people - jonkoca)
I also devoted a bit more brainpower in becoming good at my job.
Another reason was I was hitting the limit of the popular science books I was reading. I think “Evolution in four dimensions” was about as far as I could go theory wise without re-enrolling at a university. I’d read game theory, cognitive and behavioral science, neurophysiology, linguistics, genetics, psychology, statistics, systems theory, histories of each continent/country, quantum physics 101s, and it was all getting a bit much to be honest. Plus, sometimes I’d buy a new book, and find a lot of the same material repeated from other books I’d read prior. So the reading petered out, and with it, new ideas.
And I’d covered the casual “boy meets philosophy” classics - I’d gone from angry newbie atheist to jaded veteran agnostic, and satisfied myself how religions arose without the need for an actual god, just from social dynamics. Thrown out the soul and made peace with death.
(Incidently it does piss me off, takes your average human about 50 years to turn into a decent “wise” being - and that’s if they’re actively trying to - and then they’ve got a 15 to 20 year window to do anything with it/enjoy it. Sometimes I wish we mentally aged backwards, I wish I’d been this together in my 20s, and then spent the next 30 years very gradually becoming an asshole).
I’d done the “know thyself” bit and gotten a decent handle on what we humans are, what drives us, how our minds work as a collective at least. Enough not to become depressed or surprised anymore by human evil. Which is very good for stress management in real life. If you know what makes people do what they do, you forgive/accept and move on much quicker. The books ‘Being No one’ and ‘1000 brains’ helped me with consciousness the most I think.
And finally, I’d kinda formulated my own personal grand theory of everything: “Inevitabilism”. Sounds very grand lol. Resting on the ideas of persistence, convergent evolution and later, convergent behavioural-social strategies towards ideal (and sometimes true unknown unknown) solutions, game theory and emergence - applied to pretty much everything from toothbrush design to social systems. Driving the idea that everything progresses inevitably towards endpoint plateaus if it is to exist at all, predetermined, however unknowably, by universal starting conditions and constraints.
I’d built the best sandcastle I could build, one I was happy with, so it was time to stop building sandcastles.
It was that, more than age.
Hm, such formeridable differences between that and the way we were, then, and my fear of appreciable five minutes retention a yet may serve as an injustice to it, though I am wide open and a risk taker to boot not to project obvious discrepancies, while Peter promised me to be faithfully allied, even at the limit of endurance, remember when we were supposed to meet in Europe on our simultaneous excursion there?
Tab, you seem to have read a lot of items.
I have not read many.
My mind is set up differently than yours.
I go for the main core stuff usually.
Then for rest and exersise i do the smaller things.
Little things and rest, between greater processes.
I’ve achieved inner peace.
I’ve achieved clear mindedness.
Not 100% all the time, but a very good amount.
Before I die, i hope to remember, that i tried my best to live.
I live for the future, but also for the present.
I’m okay with physical reality being without me.
Physicality is a bitch.
A big beautiful bitch canable oraborus.
K: and now my response… I have increased the amount of time I engage
with philosophy over the last 10 years or so… as we age, me included,
we become "comfortable’’ with our thoughts and beliefs… why tilt at
windmills when they no longer matter? but I disagree, even more
than ever before, we need to become “uncomfortable” with our
thoughts and beliefs… my purpose is not only for my own edification,
but as I see myself in terms of being a teacher… I am an educator…
as Nietzsche was an educator… and education last an entire lifetime,
it doesn’t just end at 55 or 60 or even 70…education for either one of us,
in fact, I suppose I flatter myself in thinking I have influenced someone,
anyone into a reexamination of their values… but it is true that
words offered up today, don’t always have an effect today… I heard
words of wisdom in my youth and they made no sense to me, mainly
because I wasn’t old enough to understand them… and so I ignored them…
education as with truth, means nothing until one is ready to hear them…
and I wasn’t ready, at least not until today…
but Kropotkin, no one is listening… and so what? I have accepted, a long time ago,
that I speak to those who haven’t even been born yet… to those who don’t have
ears, with which to hear… because I am a human being, I am, by being human,
a universal being… for all human beings have needs, wants, desires,
and beliefs… I am every HUMAN BEING… not by being an American
or white or male, but I am human and that is a universal value…
and so I write, think and read about what it means to be human…
and I report my findings to philosophy websites like ILP… and Philosophy
Now… and I will write every single day, if I can and I will write until
I can write no more, preferable on my very last day on earth…
then and only then will I be willing to stop my thinking/writing/
reading…for me, it is far more important to see out answers then
it was when I was 20 or 30 or even 50… for I had time then…
I feel the weight of time on my chest… and it makes me work harder
on philosophy… for my time on earth is coming to an end…
and I have no more time to waste…
Kropotkin
Hi Peter.
I dunno, I’ve been teaching English as a second language to university kids for about 25 years plus, and compared to philosophic ideas, grammar is easy to teach, set rules, a lot of black and whites and obvious “believe me kids, I’m actually English” authority. But stray off into the realm of “yeah, so people, I know you think you have inviolate free will, but…” all that monochrome and obvious authority goes out the window. I can pull the “I’m really old, look at my Gandalf-like white hair” card but that only gets me a few hmms and maybes at best.
Unless you’re preaching to a choir, it’s tough to alter people’s beliefs. Especially now with the social media sodden atmosphere and worries about ai and jobs and money and rent. Look at the response or lack of to the “aliens are real” interviews in the US, no one really gives any kinda shit if it isn’t immediately applicable to their (usually financial) situation.
I didn’t discover philosophy until I was already married, a house owner and about to become a father. Prior, it hadn’t really mattered beyond maybe being cool if you could quote a few lines from Nietzche at a party in the ear of some succeptable drunk goth girl.
So yeah, I agree with what you say about flattering ourselves we’ve changed any lives.
One of my rules is “if you want to inspire, you must yourself embody something to aspire to.” To that end I try to not lie, keep in shape, keep promises, be considerate etc. Be charming lol. I feel it especially since I’m a foreigner living here in Turkey, if I act like an asshole, then all English people are assholes etc. To most people I’m the first real walking talking quacking English person they’ve ever met. I’m an interesting animal in a zoo.
It works. One of the nicest things a student ever said to me was at the end of the final lesson of a term. He waited until almost everyone had left, walked over to me, looked me dead in the eye and said "It was an honour to meet you. "
I regard that as one of the high points in my life actually.
When my kids turned 18 and 16, I wrote them an essay, turned into a 65 page ramble about my early life up until I met their mum, what my life had taught me, the things I believed, the things I didn’t. Right at the end I gave them what I think is the meaning of life. Because if you don’t, what’s the point of doing philosophy?
Anyway. May as well share lol. To me, after much consideration, the meaning of life is twofold. One, we must love things; people, ideas, things, doesn’t matter. We love better and harder than any other lifeform around. Two, we must create new things never seen before in the universe.
derly, is that you peeking in?
Kropotkin
Of course. A most refreshing thread!
as you know, I aim to please… any request? best of my greatest hits perhaps?
Kropotkin
Kropotkin, give me your greatest hit. Please be sharp about it. Did you know beds can speak? 
K: first things first, how do beds speak? inquiring minds want to know?
Kropotkin
Perhaps it’s just an English expression. It is uttered when one is extremely tired. “I would love to stay up and watch the film but my bed is calling me.”
Time to climb the wooden hill to Bedfordshire.
Or maybe the land of nod.
So, I forgot to ask you any questions Mr. K.
What’s your grand theory of everything? Or purpose to life?
I’m not Kropotkin,
but I think reality is infinite and the purpose of life is also infinite.
I’m not kroptkin or tab.
The purpose of life is to give everyone everything they want at the expense of not a single being.
Otherwise you defend your consent Violation forever.
Eternal damnation. Just for caring.
Blasphemy is not saying something against the Holy Spirit, it’s everything.
Once a person feels, they understand the pleasurable exclusive access problem .
Joy when another suffers. Not because they caused that suffering…. But because they are suffering.
Hell is real and that’s what sends you to it.
K: no worries… that there is no “grand theory of everything” seems to me
to be pretty obvious… and within human terms, we are so fractured,
that to even pretend that there is a ‘‘TOE’’, is rather foolish…
one of the things that drive human being, actions and behaviors,
is this search for unity… unity of mind, body, within the individual
and the state and unity with god… everything seems to be either
unity with one, or disunity between all…
Buddhism for example says that if we remove all desires and be like the
Buddha, that we shall no longer be reborn and we become one with
the original nothingness that we came from… this unity, I don’t believe
in…that there is no such thing, no such unity as the original nothingness
or god or become one with… it isn’t true…what evidence do we have
that this unity actually exists?
we are fractured, dissimilar beings that are not are unified
about, well anything…
and to ask, what is the purpose of existence? ask 100 people and you will
get 110 answers…and this very divergence of opinion leads me to believe
that there is no such thing as “purpose of being”
now some might say, that we should seek out such things as “happiness”
or as the Greeks called it, ''Eudaimonia" which translates as ''the state
or condition of ‘good spirit’ which is commonly translated as ''happiness"
or ''welfare" this comes from Aristotle, (and earlier) in which ''Eudaimonia"
was a term for the highest human good…
I have, on several occasions, denounced seeking happiness as a primary
human goal…it is a false goal to try to achieve… for quite often,
we are most happy when we don’t even realize it…we think about it
and realize later, that we were happy doing this or that…
looking back on my own life, I was the happiest when I had a bar
to go to, in which I could be with friends, play shuffleboard and be one with
that situation…I truly miss those days… but that time has come and gone…
and I am in a completely different situation/place today, where I
see my happiness coming from my family life, with a wife I love and a
home to be myself in… my work, not so much… I fucking hate that
place, but I can retire in about 2 or 3 years, so there is hope… somewhere
down the line…
and today, I see myself being happiest in terms of my “work” which is what
I call my daily philosophical work… I am miserable when I am unable
to engage in philosophy during the day… and happiest when I can
engage in philosophy… my wife says she can tell when I have engaged
with philosophy… I am a calmer, happier person…either I am
reading, writing or thinking about what it means to be human…
that is my happy place these days…
so, I spend my days engaging in philosophy and doing my hated
days at work…so, for me anyway, I have found purpose in
in my seeking philosophy… and for you, it may not be that way
at all… thus I don’t believe that we have a universal
path to happiness or a unified path to having a purpose…
it is found individually and within ourselves…
or to say it another way… we have possibilities to be… at a young age,
our possibilities are wide open… I could have been anybody…
a rock climber, or a track runner or travel… but today, as I am
now old, my possibilities are limited…much of what was possible
in my youth is no longer possible today… I can’t run nor can I climb
mountains… my possibilities are limited because I am unable to
physically do things… but my mind is still strong and I am willing to
work to achieve what is possible for me… which is to become
a great philosopher… I can still achieve that because that
possibility still exists for me…as we grow older, our
possibilities become more and more limited…
my mom who is 88, she has said that all that is possible for her now
is waiting for death… she has no other possibilities due to physical
constraints…she can’t see and her hearing is shot, she has
limited physical mobility… all she can do is wait for death…
there is no other possibility that exists for her…
and because I am younger, I have a greater number of possibilities
but as I age, they, my possibilities, grow smaller and smaller… until one day,
when all that will be possible for me, is to wait for death…
and I dread that day…
and so I see life in terms of what is possible for us to reach…
what can we do, in the time we have to do that…
because at some point, it won’t be possible to do anything…
and we will have lost all meaning and purpose at that point…
Kropotkin
So your theory of everything is that there is no theory of everything.
Thanks Peter, I’ll have a think.
K: if you have a ‘‘TOE’’, please let us hear it…
Kropotkin