>Technology, for better or worse, affects every aspect of our lives. Our very sense of who we are is shaped and reshaped by the tools we have at our disposal.

>The problem, for Stiegler, is that when we pay too much attention to our tools, rather than how they are developed and deployed, we fail to understand our reality. We become trapped, merely describing the technological world on its own terms and making it even harder to untangle the effects of digital technologies and our everyday experiences.

>By encouraging us to pay closer attention to this world-making capacity, with its potential to harm and heal, Stiegler is showing us what else is possible.

archive.org

ghostarchive.org

archive.today

Hi there, you all.

I just want to say that I'm happy that there's a philosophy community.

Please post your opinions, ideas or observations in here. They are most valuable if they stem from an actual desire for truth.

That said, I'd ask to avoid posting long walls-of-text (if you know what I mean). They are hard-to-read, making engagement less likely. Often, the thoughts in them can be condensed to a waay shorter text anyways.

That said, I believe philosophy is a bit like a distillation process: You take raw ideas and try to purify them to the point where you really just concisely say something. That is the essence of philosophy.

What do you think of it?

In honest love for knowledge, are there rules to this community? I like to write, and I love knowledge. I’ve read all of Asimov’s timeline, all of Frank Herbert’s Dune series, and I’ve recently gotten into the Red Book by Carl Jung.

I write a lot, and a lot of it is, to passionately reference Jung, from the part of me that resonates with the following passage from Jung’s Red Book:

“I resisted recognizing that the everyday belongs to the image of the Godhead. I fled this thought. I hid myself behind the highest and coldest stars.” - uhh page 31 of the book I have, printed in 2009… isbn 978-0-393-08908-0.

I never learned how to cite properly. Sorry.

Anyways, I write from a feeling, from a place among “the highest and coldest stars,” I know I can never reach.

I worry someone will make this a copy pasta. Please, for the sake of my soul, help me understand where I can blast my words and hear an answer from another person. Someone willing to dissect my gibberish. Im seeing a therapist, I trusted that he could heal me, and he gave me the idea that we’re all made up of very complicated “parts” that are made up of ‘atomic’ parts that can be directed a lot easier than anything understood to be the mystery that our souls/minds/selves really are.

Please, TLDR: Can I write from the heart here and hope for an answer?

Or will I be banned? If so, all I ask is for a link to a place I can truly communicate about topics vague and generalistic. I don’t think my therapist will be able to understand. I’ve told him too much, and I don’t trust his capacity for breadth of soul, though I see how painfully insane I can be, here and now.

Sorry. Again, TLDR: please don’t hurt me :c

I’m already pathetic, but I refuse to let go of hope.

Help? I’m in no danger, but I need some kind of connection, any kind of response to love the source of. I love you for reading this if you read all, and if you didn’t… read Jung instead. He’s got more behind his words, though… in this day and age, hope to be heard is hard to have. That’s why I’m here, spouting gibberish!

There's Advaita Vedanta in Indian Philosophy which talks about non dualism. Is there any similar variation in western world?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/11759040

> This post contains spoilers from the finale. > > I have completed the series. It prompted thousands of thoughts in my head and so I must spill them. > > The series initially appears to be situated in a post-apocalyptic world where humanity was driven to near extinction by a mysterious, giant species called titans. For a century, walls taller than any titan protected the last bastion of humanity... Until they didn't. > > But as political circumstances, enemies and allies change, this narrative sooner or later is superseded by another one, and another... And so forth. The authors make clear their stance towards history: a tangible string of myths arranged by the human mind to justify or condemn a given thing. To Marleyans, the founder Ymir made a deal with the devil; to Eldian restorationists, her titan powers were granted by God. > > One will grasp to a narrative or myth to justify their existence in this mysterious world. However, the truth is no more than a myth devoid of intrinsic value. One then would ask why live if all is futile, if there's no right or wrong, if there is no exit from the vicious cycle of pain. It is those disquietudes that the authors, like the exiztential philosophers of the past century, tackle and battle with. > > The curse of the titans resembles in someway the myth of Sisyphus. Just like Sisyphus was condemned to an eternity of rolling the boulder up the mountain; the nine titans were inherited from generation to generation, fueling endless conflicts and massacres throughout centuries. A few foresighted characters were conscious of this, but they sought different paths towards ending the curse, reaching the top of Sisyphus' mountain. On the one hand, we are faced with the nihilist: Zeke sought the powers of the founding titan to sterilise his own race and put an end to the eternal suffering. On the other hand, we encounter the romanticist, though no less existential: Eren goes on to massacre the greatest part of humanity in the name of freedom, because simply he was born into this world. The latter, with the knowledge of the distant future, breaks the curse of the titans by sacrificing himself and thus unifying humanity. Or so he thought. > > The post-credits scenes show us the evolution of the tree under which Eren was buried across countless millenia during which humanity grows and expands, but fighting and destruction accompany it all. Civilisation is built and destroyed over and over. The tree finally grows incomprehensibly long as it starts to resemble the tree from which the curse of the titans emerged, and we see a young boy entering its trunk just like founder Ymir did millenia ago. > > The message of the authors is disquieting and dreadful: are we humans (and by extension the beings who preceded or will succeed us) insignificant in the grand scheme of things? Deemed to repeat history over and over again? > > The existential dread is indeed unbearable. However, life is not a prison; indeed, it's the complete opposite: it is freedom. Eren bent moral principles and committed mass genocide by stomping over eighty percent of humanity because... because he “just wanted to do it.” The vagueness of Eren's answer is eerily similar to the ruminations of one of Camus' fictional characters: > > >I don’t know what to do today, help me decide. Should I cut myself open and pour my heart on these pages? Or should I sit here and do nothing, nobody’s asking anything of me after all? > Should I jump off the cliff that has my heart beating so and develop my wings on the way down? Or should I step back from the edge, and let the others deal with this thing called courage? > Should I stare back at the existential abyss that haunts me so and try desperately to grab from it a sense of self? Or should I keep walking half-asleep, only half-looking at it every now and then in times in which I can’t help doing anything but? > Should I kill myself or have a cup of coffee? > > Eren admits that he is “a slave to freedom,” or as Sartre declared once, “condemned to be free.” It is a paradox that Man contends with throughout his numbered days: every act is a choice and not acting is equally choosing. > > I do not think the authors of the manga/series are nihilists. In a conversation between Zeke and Armin, the latter recalls distant memories of childhood where he used to run behind Eren and Mikasa up the hill. While insignificant these moments were, he concedes, he still cherished them the most. Similarly, Zeke ruminates over the mundane hours spent playing baseball with his mentor. Zeke's confession which follows is insightful: he wouldn't mind being born again if it means he can play with his mentor again. > > There may not be intrinsic thruth or meaning to life. There may not be an all-encompassing myth that tells things as they are. However, “the realization that life is absurd cannot be an end, but only a beginning” (Albert Camus). In one of the final scenes, we see Armin holding a seashell as they swam in a sea of blood. “What's that?” Eren asks. He replies: > > “So you finally noticed it. It was at our feet the whole time, but you were always looking off into the distance.” > > Instead of endlessly tormenting ourselves with the absurdity of life, we should embrace it. We should cherish those “insignificant” moments in the midst of all the chaos and futility, and spend our time in the wealth of the here and now. We should imagine Sisyphus smiling while pushing the boulder.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/10432750

> cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/10431737 > > > TL;DR: The internet’s evolution mirrors historical societal development. Transitioning from web2 to the social web and ultimately to web4 signifies a transformative shift akin to the end of the Middle Ages and the dawn of modernity, with the ultimate goal of achieving liberal democracy. In the style of the Dot Com Boom, the social web will witness the rise of influential digital forces, which will in this case be global collectives, shaping the digital and societal landscape. Web4, characterized by these decentralized collectives, offers the potential for positive change within the liberal democracy framework; with the possibility of reaching the actual end of history for homo sapiens and the entering of a new stage for humanity, in which a new form of human will emerge: the homo digitalis.

I think this question resulted from me having an argument with my gf. We want to go to a holiday trip, and she wanted to book a hotel via booking.com. We then got into a discussion, because booking.com repeatedly ignored privacy concerns and is conciously acting illegally in regards to privacy laws of the EU (for those of you who can read German, this link from a German privacy investigator explains it fairly well. In my opinion, supporting companies which consciously breach laws is unethical, because they willingly ignore the well-being of their customers for own gains. However, in this case it was probably unfair to gf to judge her for using this platform, as the negative impact done by her using booking.com is not enough to justify this as a morally wrong action on her end.

My question is where you draw the line what to ethically judge. What if (hypothetically) booking.com would support slavery and willingly sacrificed children to earn more money for their shareholders? What if they were very interested in animal abuse and liked Nazis? In this case I think I'd be completely justified to judge my gf for her using this platform, as she would then directly support inhumane and unethical practices.

Most of life, however, resolves in a grey area between "this is absolutely morally okay" and "this is terrible, anyone who supports this is a monster". And so I think your opinions on the topic of an ethical line would be highly appreciated.

Life is...well, it's something alright. And one thing it is connected to is death.

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Some of us fear death, while it gets others thinking about it and about topics circling it. Fascinated about it all, even.

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How much does philosophy touch the topic of morbid curiosity?

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In case your appetite wakes up for more morbid curiosity, feel free to check out the new magazine that tries to be all about it!

cross-posted from: https://tilvids.com/videos/watch/52190b96-3443-483e-91ef-8b99edb3bd58

> What would a largely deterministic society look and behave like? Would it be, as some imagine, a more merciful and just society, or as some others suppose, a veritable wasteland where lawless immorality, cruelty, and hopelessness reign supreme? In this video I hope to answer this contentious question and to bring some clarity to an otherwise esoteric matter. > > > > Music: Adrift Among Infinite Stars - Scott Buckley > > > > Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/letstalkphilosophy/ > > > > Sources: > > For this particular work I have taken much from the philosopher Spinoza, the psychologist Robert Sapolsky, and the Neuroscientist/philosopher Sam Harris. I have found their insights to be extremely helpful in clarifying my own thoughts on the matter and I encourage you to read or listen to their thoughts on Determinism and free-will.

Thought this would be interesting given the recent discussion on Robert Sapolsky. If you like this content the PeerTube channel can be followed directly from your Lemmy account at !letstalkphilosophy_channel@tilvids.com

• https://piped.video/watch?v=4Stzj2_Rlo4
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Stzj2_Rlo4

> Absolutely everything you think about yourself and the universe could be an illusion. As far as you know, you are real and exist in a universe that was born 14 billion years ago and that gave rise to galaxies, stars, the Earth, and finally you. Except, maybe not.

Other explanations for Boltzmann Brains did not require an 'inside-out black hole', for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain, so this inclusion came as a surprise to me. Not sure if it's necessary.

What baffles me about the theory: If it's true, and reality is (mostly, statistically speaking) imagined ... the physical reality could be anything. It could be very different from the reality we live in. But we created our models of the universe in this one reality we know, and the theory of Boltzmann Brains emerged from that.

So based on these physical models we arrive at the idea of BBs. But if this idea is true, the physical reality could be completely different.

Or what do you think?

Currently, reading Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Representation.

Has anyone else read this? If so, what are your thoughts on it? I just finished book III.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/3172656

> Couple of days ago I saw a post about on atheist community about a quote saying atheist can't base their morals on anything. > > I commented that if religion didn't accept some premises like god, they wouldn't either. Some said I am wrong and downvoted me. So I decided to post here about to what extent can I be skeptical about premises, to see where I am mistaken (or commenters). > > Before that post, for a while I had an idea that even the analytical truth/necessary truth (whatever you name it) like "a is equal to a" are premises which can not be proven (since they are the basics of our logic, which will we be in use to prove claims) even though they seem us to be true by intuition. They just have to be accepted to be able to further think about other things. > > So my question is since we can question the correctness of basics of our logic and cant find an answer, we can not justify or learn anything. Also, there lays the problem of do we really understand the same thing from the same concepts, and does language limit us? > > If I am mistaken, which is highly probable, please correct me and don't judge. I am not much of a philosophy reader. > > I would really appreciate it if you could share some resources (video, article, book, anything...) about limits of our understanding, logic, language and related topics. > > Thanks in advance...

"The six most incideous words in the English language are 'I don't care who started it.'"

I saw this post on Europe@Lemmy.World: https://lemmy.world/post/2387220

I got me in a philosophical mood.

Is it okay to burn a Koran?

On one hand, a Koran, a Bible or anything else "sacred" literature is paper and ink. And burning them is just disposing of said book. Children are taught at young age not to get provocated by provocators. Adults should be able to live with this principle.

On the other hand, burning is not the main reason people get upset when sacred literature is burnt. The whole burning ordeal is (usually) a symbol for hate. Hate should not be tolerated, and therefore it is wrong to burn a sacred books. It is imporant to make hateful actions illegal to prevent hate from spreading. If hate is allowed, then we are possibly facing hate crimes and violent actions towards minorities.

Burning a sacred book is not always about hate. It can also be a symbolical protest. In sweden, a few weeks ago, Iraqi man burned a Koran. According to news I read at the time of said event, the man justified his actions as a protest against Iraqi government. He was kept prisoner in his homecountry and tortured during his imprisonment.

Iraq is a theocracy. Amputations and even death sentence are used as forms of punishment. People are not equal and theistic law is above other laws. The country does not follow UN's declaration of human rights. These human rights are recognized all over the globe and should be held as standards for all.

If someone burns a sacred book to protest torture, amputations or death sentences, I think it is not morally wrong, but quite the contrary. Burning a book is a victimless crime. Forementioned actions of Iraqi government however are not.

Thoughts from an European atheist.

Im interested to hear your thoughts on this matter and hoping to understand this question from different perspectives.

Opinion: Who is the most underrated/under read Philosopher?

I will start... I find Aesop and the Fables to be underrated and wrongly pointed at simply for children. These stories can and must be applied to adult life to live a better and more virtuous life. IMO.

(Yes, I am aware that some think Aesop was potentially not one person, but many, and some question he even existed... like Homer).

Would love to hear what you all think.

4 types of divine madness, Prophecy, Ecstasy, Poetic, Erotic (Phaedrus, Ion, and Symposium seem to be main sources)