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How to Be a Stoic

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Re: How to Be a Stoic

#41

Post by manmal »

olavk wrote: post #34
manmal wrote: post #2

One interesting thing I've noticed is that ancient Stoics have not rebuked the concept of god (or "the universe"), a higher power that determines all the things that are not in our control (as a Stoic you very much need to distinguish between things in and outside of your control). I have found it difficult to really, deeply, accept things as out of my control without resorting to some concept of god or "the universe…

Bone cancer in children - if there exist an almighty sentient God, then he is erratic and malicious. The polytheistic concept of gods is actually more realistic (better explains reality) in that there are multiple gods with different agendas and morals acting. In polytheism the universe is not chaotic and meaningless - things to not happen at random, but because the gods willed it. But the gods does not always act fo…

You actually can construct reasonings in which bone cancer in children might serve some greater good, though such reasonings are very painful to hear for people remotely affected, so I won't try that.

I know that I'm stepping on thin ice here, but: My son does not want his teeth brushed. He absolutely hates it, because he does not yet understand that this pain is way lesser than the pain and treatment of tooth decay. So, I still have to do this to him, at least twice every day, because it is necessary.

I DONT mean to say that bone cancer might be good for something eventually, but; if it were, then we might not understand it, because we don't have neither control nor insight over the future.

Re: How to Be a Stoic

#44

Post by vertex-four »

tim333 wrote: post #40
thisiscurio wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly what I believe the universe is. When people say the universe is uncaring, they equate that as bad; I reckon this is because we want control over our lives. True our agency over our lives is increasing as we progress as a society but it's unlikely that we will reach a point that our cumulative progress would give us control over everything. The universe doesn't care who you are the same way a benevolen…

The "bleak, chaotic place with no intrinsic meaning" conflates two things unfairly. Consider a beautiful sunrise on a tropical beach. It's part of the universe and not bleak and chaotic yet you don't have to believe it has a meaning enjoy it. As an atheist, the survival of us and our ancestors for ~4bn years suggests the universe is not so bleak in parts.

I dunno, I see the continued survival of our species as a cruel joke - certainly bleak - given the amount of harm we do to each other and everything around us.

Re: How to Be a Stoic

#45

Post by manmal »

nurettin wrote: post #25
manmal wrote: post #2

One interesting thing I've noticed is that ancient Stoics have not rebuked the concept of god (or "the universe"), a higher power that determines all the things that are not in our control (as a Stoic you very much need to distinguish between things in and outside of your control). I have found it difficult to really, deeply, accept things as out of my control without resorting to some concept of god or "the universe…

Evil god is great and no god is bleak? I'd think the opposite.

Evilness/Goodness depends on what utility function you ascribe to god. If you define god's utility function as "avoid all pain in living organisms", then it's indeed an evil or non-cooperative god or universe. I personally can deal with pain (remember, suffering is optional).

Re: How to Be a Stoic

#46

Post by Kenji »

Note that stoicism is NOT rejecting and ignoring your feelings. If you feel bad about something, that too is a fact that you have to accept and deal with in the best way possible. Stoicism is about keeping your head up in the face of adversity, and not about becoming a hardened robot capable of taking any punishment. I think a lot of people on HN might get this wrong.

Re: How to Be a Stoic

#47

Post by manibatra »

manmal wrote: post #37
manibatra wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having grown up in a religious household first 22 years of my life I had a lot of trouble with anxiety when I stopped believing in god. I could not continue studying science and believing in god without feeling like a hypocrite (not to say those who do are ). Meditation and being in the moment or at least trying to be in the moment has helped me a lot. There may not be a rhyme or reason to life but that doesn't mean…

Would it be possible that by stopping to believe in god, you stopped believing that you were safe, supported, and being taken care of? Did you stop believing because you wanted to, or was it like science took that belief away because the whole concept is wrong and impossible? For me it was the latter.

- Exactly. The feeling of safety, that there is someone looking after me no matter what was gone which manifested itself in anxiety. I do not believe in afterlife now so the realisation that this is it was overwhelming at first but now that has given way to increased importance of how I budget my time, increased focus on what I do and being more grateful for little things.

- For me it was the latter too. I remember ( I am probably wrong ) that it was Napoleon who asked Laplace that why was there no god in his mathematics ( apparently before Newton had attributed some stuff to god ). And Laplace (or could be someone else ) that he did not need god to explain his work. That has sort of stuck with me.

Re: How to Be a Stoic

#48

Post by osti »

You desire to LIVE "according to Nature"? Oh, you noble Stoics, what fraud of words! Imagine to yourselves a being like Nature, boundlessly extravagant, boundlessly indifferent, without purpose or consideration, without pity or justice, at once fruitful and barren and uncertain: imagine to yourselves INDIFFERENCE as a power--how COULD you live in accordance with such indifference? To live--is not that just endeavoring to be otherwise than this Nature? Is not living valuing, preferring, being unjust, being limited, endeavouring to be different? And granted that your imperative, "living according to Nature," means actually the same as "living according to life"--how could you do DIFFERENTLY? Why should you make a principle out of what you yourselves are, and must be? In reality, however, it is quite otherwise with you: while you pretend to read with rapture the canon of your law in Nature, you want something quite the contrary, you extraordinary stage-players and self-deluders! In your pride you wish to dictate your morals and ideals to Nature, to Nature herself, and to incorporate them therein; you insist that it shall be Nature "according to the Stoa," and would like everything to be made after your own image, as a vast, eternal glorification and generalism of Stoicism! With all your love for truth, you have forced yourselves so long, so persistently, and with such hypnotic rigidity to see Nature FALSELY, that is to say, Stoically, that you are no longer able to see it otherwise-- and to crown all, some unfathomable superciliousness gives you the Bedlamite hope that BECAUSE you are able to tyrannize over yourselves--Stoicism is self-tyranny--Nature will also allow herself to be tyrannized over: is not the Stoic a PART of Nature? . . . But this is an old and everlasting story: what happened in old times with the Stoics still happens today, as soon as ever a philosophy begins to believe in itself. It always creates the world in its own image; it cannot do otherwise; philosophy is this tyrannical impulse itself, the most spiritual Will to Power, the will to "creation of the world," the will to the causa prima.

-Nietzsche

Re: How to Be a Stoic

#49

Post by pbhjpbhj »

olavk wrote: post #34
manmal wrote: post #2

One interesting thing I've noticed is that ancient Stoics have not rebuked the concept of god (or "the universe"), a higher power that determines all the things that are not in our control (as a Stoic you very much need to distinguish between things in and outside of your control). I have found it difficult to really, deeply, accept things as out of my control without resorting to some concept of god or "the universe…

Bone cancer in children - if there exist an almighty sentient God, then he is erratic and malicious. The polytheistic concept of gods is actually more realistic (better explains reality) in that there are multiple gods with different agendas and morals acting. In polytheism the universe is not chaotic and meaningless - things to not happen at random, but because the gods willed it. But the gods does not always act fo…

Your first statement is a pretty classic and naive position. For me at 8 years or so I rendered the objection of "pain" in terms of volcanoes.

The standard, and again naive, rejoinder in mainstream Christian theology is that God had a pattern for the World that didn't include such types of pain and destruction but that man chose not to follow God's plan (as allegorised in "The Fall" in Genesis). Thus we chose to go it alone, and you can read the various theories on how that has a Universal effect too.

To raise the basic Argument from Suffering you really should look past the first-tier argument and present it anticipating The Fall.

In my limited understanding suffering appears out of the axioms of free will. To make us human, with the ability to choose to love, choose to care, choose to follow God or not, we require free-will. Otherwise it's just "echo 'i love you'" rather than a genuine emotion.

Your question should be "is it better not to create our Universe, with the possibility for love, if there is also a possibility of suffering". You may come to the same conclusion, that a benevolent being shouldn't turn Creator when faced with those possibilities ... but then if they hadn't you wouldn't be here to make the objection.

tl;dr "The Fall" and "free will" are the standard, Biblical, Christian counter-arguments that stand against Suffering and allow for a loving, benevolent God to be creator of a Universe such as ours.

Re: How to Be a Stoic

#50

Post by pbhjpbhj »

gattilorenz wrote: post #9
karyon wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, that quote was the one sentence I didn't understand. Who's spilling the wine? And why does that buy tranquility? If you could help me that would be great :)

I read it as "instead of getting angry for losing a 20$ note, consider it the price you pay for tranquility". Which maybe works for yourself, but most of my significant others of the past would just start complaining that I lost a 20$ bill.

I prefer to consider the joy of finding money; when you lose it you've almost certainly given someone else that joy.
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