/lit/ - Literature

>>7908146
I agree desu.

>Reading is merely a surrogate for thinking for yourself; it means letting someone else direct your thoughts. Many books, moreover, serve merely to show how many ways there are of being wrong, and how far astray you yourself would go if you followed their guidance. You should read only when your own thoughts dry up, which will of course happen frequently enough even to the best heads; but to banish your own thoughts so as to take up a book is a sin against the holy ghost; it is like deserting untrammeled nature to look at a herbarium or engravings of landscapes.”

the final truth is that philosophy is fucking stupid

>>7908156
I've read this essay recently. I don't know if I agree. While I think he is right when he speaks of people like himself that are exposed to all sorts of informations, good education and people who already attain enough knowledge to not make severe logical errors regarding the world as it is, he does kinda seem oblivious to how ignorant the people can be. He himself also came to this very conclusion after reading far too many books and pondering upon them, so it wasn't for nothing. He can be dismissive like that, I like his character. He is really edgy sometimes and would do this error easily.

I would, instead of agreeing with him, say that people should definitely read and expand their knowledge of things as they are, but not on the expense of actual thinking. If it takes years, it takes years.

>>7908195
>While I think he is right when he speaks of people like himself that are exposed to all sorts of informations, good education and people who already attain enough knowledge to not make severe logical errors regarding the world as it is, he does kinda seem oblivious to how ignorant the people can be.
I think with Schoppy you have to consider he's not writing for those people. By the time you read his essays he expects you to have read The World as Will and Representation, Kant and the Vedas twice, after all.

https://youtu.be/H8Q83DPZy6E

>>7908290
I don't think I'm gonna read Vedas anon. Haha. :) Maybe, who knows.
But man, The World As Will and Representation is the best example of 10/10 work if I ever saw any. Groundbreaking and underrated.

>>7908146
There is no "ultimate, transcendent truth". Read U.G. Krishnamurti and do whatever the fuck you want to.

There's nothing I hate more than preachy "freespirited nomads" bent on proving that their flavour of "truth" is the best one.

Also - "spirituality" is for people who are afraid of rigours of philosophy and the formal constraints of established religions, keep that in mind.

>>7908366
which work? he sounds like an interesting lad, bit pyrrho like.

>>7908397
Start with "Mind is a Myth". The guy went from a Hindu theosophist to a Zen-like reductionist materialist (or actually even beyond that).

https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.ajahnchah.org/pdf/no_ajahn_chah.pdf&ved=0ahUKEwij0aWznIXMAhVCuYMKHcpiCFsQFggaMAA&usg=AFQjCNGR-M3Y5PFekm1-WSkywRz0sx7Cyw

>>7908366
Don't sell that cheap junk here. We're talking about the finest description of philosophy as a discipline out of the borders of science that is currently unperfected for the purpose of revealing the higher truths and incomplete religions that contain traces of the truth and on it alone they survive, but limit thinking because they are not based on personal understanding that is crucial for the complete picture.

How can you think there is no ultimate truth? There is ultimate truth to the laws of physics, it isn't opened to negotiation. Logic can even be applied to the matters that transcend them. I don't see the known universe and its laws and us and our role in them as something that can be dubious. If a man looks up at the sky and wonders what the meaning of his life is and truly concludes that his heart is the most happy when he does whatever the fuck he wants, then maybe that is the meaning of his life, but this still doesn't touch the patterns that suggest so called higher powers, meaning and the forces that are dominant in this universe, which is opened to negotiation only in the phase of seeking the truth, but its not the truth itself. That same man can have enough of doing whatever and thinks well I've been doing so many things but I've had so many things happening to me when I did this particular thing. Or so many coincidences that happened to me because I did this or that happened so many times that it can't be the coincidence anymore, maybe really this is whats going on. So he truly knows, doesnt guess anymore. And he seeks others and they know too. And they start a cult. A cult of common understanding of the same thing. I mean, that's pretty rare, 0.1% of the people understand anything that way. People really don't pay attention to their experiences and what the 'universe' is telling them.

All the religions have started with the common thing, which is that rare basic understanding of the existance of higher powers or some principles in layers of this reality that hide the truths. And I think it can't be a coincidence anymore. Mystics also find it and its again the same. Some of those principles is of course, recognition of the existance of actual living reality, 'God', and something getting in the way of it. Common experience of something being really wrong is too, not just in the general sense.

>>7908474
>There is ultimate truth to the laws of physics, it isn't opened to negotiation.
Now that's an unscientific position, my friend.

>>7908484
2 +2 = 4
2 + 2 = 5 too, but lets please stick to what you very well know I meant by it.

>>7908473
>People nowadays think too much. There are too many things for them to get interested in, but none of them lead to any true fulfillment.

>>7908474
Wow, and you people here discuss Schopenhauer, when he pretty much perfected the idea of there being an unknowable world outside the spectrum of human understanding. You need to think more, and rely on "common experience" less.

>>7908502
You do realize that the creative thought must derive from your common experience?
Or lets say, understanding. The work such as The Will wasn't produced because Schoppy sampled somebody's work. He gave us something and its not up to us to say 'oh sure, world is outside of the spectrum of our understanding..'
It is to continue his reach of genuine human thought. Check out his essay on authorship I think, he claims the same thing.

>>7908513
That's what you get when an undergrad takes on interpreting Schopenhauer. I could point you to any modern interpretation of his (i.e. Thacker), but you'll still find a way for your wishful thinking and teenage epiphanies to prevail.

>>7908366
Any time you make an assertion, you are making a claim to truth, son.

The sentence "Snow is white" is true if and only if snow is indeed white.

It's not that complicated.

>>7908502
>he pretty much perfected the idea of there being an unknowable world outside the spectrum of human understanding

But the doesn't make the idea TRUE, now does it?

>>7908539
No, but he wrote a compelling, thousand page long argument, while all you have is a shitpost on 4chan.

As for >>7908528, just fuck off, that paradox isn't that hard to understand and you know it.

>>7908521
I don't study philosophy in a university. But I am glad, seeing how people tend to choose authority over reason as soon as they get some legitimacy over the topic, just like Da Vinci talked about. Anyway, if you didn't reach your own conclusion that the world really is outside of the spectrum of our understanding you have no place to quote Schopenhauer on it, except if your goal is some arbitrary sortation of what's credible to think and what's not. A thought like that is ultimate anyway. I don't even think Schopenhauer is very deep, in fact he is super basic and I grasped his ideas on Will much sooner than many other things, but it's still very wrong to limit one's thinking with a quote from a philosopher who spent his life doing it anyway. I know this serves the purposes of discussion about a particular philosopher's work, but it has no basis in the real life. I don't follow his work to the point of religious devotion. I consider him like many others, but I don't think I'll just stop there because he told something isnt possible. I mean we'll see I suppose

>>7908494
Ultimate truth is a a misleading phrase for what you mean by it. Truth by consensus would be more apt.

>>7908474
>All the religions have started with the common thing, which is that rare basic understanding of the existance of higher powers or some principles in layers of this reality that hide the truths. And I think it can't be a coincidence anymore. Mystics also find it and its again the same. Some of those principles is of course, recognition of the existance of actual living reality, 'God', and something getting in the way of it. Common experience of something being really wrong is too, not just in the general sense.
Nietzsche had an interesting interpretation of this and that was that all the founders of religion share a psychological similarity, that of weariness, otherworldliness and decadence. So what they have in common is a sickness rather than profundity. All the wise men of the ages share this sense of 'beyond' because their heart lies beyond, they no longer value life itself, or something of that order, the notion of something more than this being caused by 'this' not being enough for those type of people.

>>7908521
don't pretend you're not an undergrad... it's well known that everyone on /lit/ is. you're just condescending

Speaking of Schopenhauer, he is such a curious guy.
I hope people give him as much appreciation as his contemporaries, although I've often heard that's not the case. His ideas are well rooted in his personality and very well articulated and expressed to the point of whimsical over indulgence. He is a fine mix of what 4chan would call autistic and yet interesting and funny, talented and well learned man with the personality you'd expect from some 90 year old wise sage roaming the forests severaly done with the common life.
I mean, even the fact he wrote The Art of Being Right is kinda funny by itself.

>>7908551
What "paradox"? You have no fucking clue what you are talking about, do you?

>>7908564
>I don't study philosophy in a university. But I am glad, seeing how people tend to choose authority over reason as soon as they get some legitimacy over the topic

That's not how philosophy is taught at university, son.

>>7908581
>Ultimate truth is a a misleading phrase for what you mean by it. Truth by consensus would be more apt.

The sentence "2 + 2 = 4" is true if and only if 2 + 2 = 4.

That's really all there is to the concept of "ultimate truth". Stop trying to import mysticism into a very elementary semantic concept.

>>7908630
Thank you, Anon. Lol.

>>7908630
Trying to pass off axioms as 'ultimate truths' seems a lot like trying to import mysticism into a very elementary semantic concept, anon.

>>7908639
Shit, I lack appropriate vocabulary and expression to say what I wanted to. Tricky.
You are both right, other anon is only right because he said what I meant by the laws of physics, but with stuff such as ultimate truths surely we'd have to take into consideration the mathematical possibility of 2 + 2 = 5 which isn't exactly mysticism anymore.
But as none us are mathematicians, lets stick to the borders of our own everyday reality and the ultimate truths we can draw from it.

I concluded that I love my mother more than anyone else.
I concluded that if I try to jump over the bench with my skateboard too many times, I will fall once.
I concluded that if I have no emotions, I stop experiencing time.
I concluded that if I tone down my emotions, I do more work faster and with more precision than others.

>>7908639
"axioms"?

You really have no clue what you are talking about, do you?

Take an introductory philosophy course. They cover all this in the first week.

>>7908738
Try to take more than an introductory course and you'll lose some of your smugness, anon.

>>7908146
If you can remain inquisitive rather than submissive, you're already there.

>>7908749
I have a PHD in Philosophy. Have you graduated high school yet? I feel bad talking down to a child.

It's really extraordinary...this fight that is within us yet infinitely outside of us too. Sometimes I live a different consciousness than my personal self and its breaking through. The greatest truths maybe aren't the most obscure ones after all.
I thought the absolute freedom of body and mind is what I had, but its actually scary thing to invest oneself into it without the substatntial support of our higher selves

>>7908760
*PHD in sophism

Sounds like people are having nervous breakdowns in here.

Let's cut the horseshit for a moment, and define what Truth is:

To assert that a statement is true is just to assert the statement itself.

That's it.

That's all there is to the oh-so-mystical concept of "Truth".

So unless you are going to refrain from making assertions the rest of your life, you cannot stop "believing in truth".

>>7908760
>guy with a philosophy phd
>the best use he has for it is to argue with nihilist teens and christlords on 4chan

lawl

>>7908857
You think people with Philosophy PHDs are running the world? Look the fuck around.

>>7908449
Thanks, family.

>My teaching, if that is the word you want to use, has no copyright. You are free to reproduce, distribute, interpret, misinterpret, distort, garble, do what you like, even claim authorship, without my consent or the permission of anybody.
>U.G.

I like this cunt already.

>>7908973
Lenin was very well versed in philosophy and that turned out well

>>7908979
Stalin was more of a poet though.

>>7908474
>>7908630
>>7908673

Everything you have said can essentially be boiled down to the statement "I believe in objectivism and I know it is the ultimate objective truth since I deduced it through my subjective experience". No?

>>7910406
Yes. You don't think that might be possible?

>>7910433

I do not see how objective truth can be deduced through subjective experience. I find it difficult to believe that this is even possible.

>>7908738

enlighten me anon. how do they deal with the munchhausen trilemma? and how do they deal with axioms? i am inclined to think that they deal with it the same way the anon you replied to did.

>>7910564
This should be discussed by the people more professional than I am. But there is no end to it really, especially when you have people claiming that objective truth doesn't even exist and that even reality changes based on perception.
There are even physical proofs of this phenomenon, how are we ever going to know anything? Besides from the basic laws of the universe that are clear enough (and yet not as solid as we think) ultimately you're on your own.

Philosophicaly and spiritually, did we misinterpret the universe observing it as a higher power, raw force of untamed nature and as us as its part AT BEST. But what about us affecting it in a way, like it has been proved by the physics on a microcosmical level. I've been hearing a lot of nonsense like this through my life, 'you and the universe are one', 'universe is responding to you' but what if things really do depend on our perception and there is more where we aren't able to reach more of it? At that point, no three dimensional laws of physics would apply, but only our subjective experience.

Also is experience subjective is 100 people reach the same conclusions separately? What constitutes objectivity? Are there things to know that simply cannot be told to non-experiencer?