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How to Be a Stoic

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Re: How to Be a Stoic

#141

Post by olavk »

forthefuture wrote: post #134
olavk wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just as there is lots of suffering and injustice in the world, there is also copious beauty and happiness and love. So framing God as "evil" is just as problematic as painting him as "good". Both positions forces you to ignore or rationalize away large parts of reality. Edit: Oh, you edited your comment to say something different. I guess this comment doesn't make a lot of sense as an answer now.

Yeah sorry I can't edit it again now. I editted because the reason I used "evil / unreal" was because those are typically the traits given to a God to illustrate contradiction. And as religion is intrinsically overflowing with contradictions they aren't a particularly compelling way to argue against it.

Oh I totally agree about that.

Re: How to Be a Stoic

#142

Post by stinkytaco »

jwdunne wrote: post #98
FabHK wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, and in both cases, when you strip away the obsolete superstitions that accompany it (just by virtue of the world view at the time they emerged), then there is still a lot of original wisdom and substance left.

I think the same is true for Christianity too. The golden rule is an excellent way to be an awesome human being. I think that's a better motive than a good afterlife. I haven't studied other religions to much but I am dead sure there are timeless pieces of advice. My opinion, and I stress opinion, is that much of the world's religions offered a way of life that attempted to reduce violence, illness and suffering. Eve…

I just want to throw out there that dietary restrictions are ultimately tribal. Kosher and halal laws are full of obscure and pointless restrictions (such as ritual slaughter and prohibition on eating foods prepared under an idol) that have nothing to do with health, but everything to do with establishing who is "us" and who is "them".

Re: How to Be a Stoic

#143

Post by sixo »

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…

Sure. The error, I'd say, that makes this outlook seem negative is the misguided desire for intrinsic meaning. It doesn't make sense for something to simply mean something - that word takes an object. Something can only mean something to someone.

I think this (the idea that there's some inscrutable higher level of meaning) is either a) a natural human intuition that can be broken down and discarded or b) an outgrowth of growing up in a society where there's a continuity of more-meaningful and less-scrutable things that we receive wrapped in packages that say: "this is important", namely, high arts, and the guilt that you feel when they don't move you (unless you happen to have previously received the necessary context). This reception - it's probably a twisted class thing - is what's wrong. The good art should be obviously good.

This cultural reception isn't limited to art, there's all sorts of disastrous cultural apparatus that causes a youth to end up thinking they're missing something or the world isn't supposed to make sense to your innate intuition. Ex high school literature, weird jazz, 20th century music in the formal tradition, "modern art", but also lawns, the weird way the king james bible is written, math education, band class, gerrymandering...

Re: How to Be a Stoic

#144

Post by krylon »

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…

Albert Camus' Myth of Sisyphus had a profound influence on me. Very roughly, Camus says, the universe does not care about you (or anything) at all, and life has no meaning in the sense we were looking for.

_But_ we can make our lives meaningful by doing things. We can give our lives meaning through our actions, if we can accept that it is only ephemeral - the moment I stop doing it, it ceases to be.

The act of restoring meaning to meaningless life is - to Camus - an act of rebellion against the pointlessness, a refusal to give in. But it takes us back to a place where life is not bleak at all, but something to be savored.

Re: How to Be a Stoic

#145

Post by tim333 »

0x445442 wrote: post #100
Pamar wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly enough, this has been scientifically investigated - I posted about this yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13724476

Yeah, the sticky point I've always found in the man is just a higher evolved animal position is the arbitrariness of cooperation. That is to say, any expectation one human has of another seems arbitrary to me without a base set of rules set forth by a higher authority. The writings of C.S. Lewis crystallized a lot of this in my mind.

You can explain a lot without a higher authority. For instance humans gossip so if you screw someone over, word spreads and can have adverse consequences. That can help do gooders and help pro do good genes to spread in the gene pool for example.

Re: How to Be a Stoic

#146

Post by olavk »

vertex-four wrote: post #44
tim333 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Then again we also do a lot of great thing and create and experience love and beauty. I have no idea how to quantify and weigh the good against the bad, so perhaps it comes down to temperament if you consider the human existence an overall negative or positive experience.

Re: How to Be a Stoic

#147

Post by 0x445442 »

FabHK wrote: post #120
0x445442 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the sticky point I've always found in the man is just a higher evolved animal position is the arbitrariness of cooperation. That is to say, any expectation one human has of another seems arbitrary to me without a base set of rules set forth by a higher authority. The writings of C.S. Lewis crystallized a lot of this in my mind.

I'm really disturbed by that mindset. Surely, you are not saying that without belief in some sort of God, you personally would cease cooperation and rape and murder and steal? I'm an atheist, but I certainly have no desire or intention or plan to cease cooperation. Just the opposite, I think it's extremely important, and it is also extremely important that we cherish and enforce and cultivate it. As just a little exa…

> I'm really disturbed by that mindset. Surely, you are not saying that without belief in some sort of God, you personally would cease cooperation and rape and murder and steal?

No I'm not saying a belief in God is necessary for what we would agree upon as moral behavior. However, I could easily see the case being made by individuals who might think that what we agree on as morally correct behavior being nothing more than our arbitrary beliefs. And that, from their perspective, rape or pedophilia makes them feel good in the way eating red meat makes them feel good.

So on a spectrum with complete moral bliss on the far left and complete degeneracy on the far right, I think we live somewhere on the left side. Furthermore I think a big reason we live there and not right of center is the wide spread belief in a higher authority/authorities.

> Next, I have the same expectation of basically everyone I encounter (except some sociopaths, against one has to guard appropriately).

Why? From where is your sense of "Fair Play" derived? Does it all boil down to the non-aggression principle and if so, from where is that derived?

Re: How to Be a Stoic

#148

Post by olavk »

0x445442 wrote: post #53
Havoc wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Is there someone among you HNers who has retained a positive outlook by believing that the universe is a bleak, chaotic place with no intrinsic meaning to the things happening in it? Yep. Though I'd suggest you take a closer look at that sentence of yours. Specifically the "bleak, chaotic" part. That's already a very negative judgement and in contradiction with the neutral "no intrinsic meaning" part. >I have found…

I'd suggest what keeps man from eating man, on the scale that lions eat zebras, is a general belief in a authority higher than man.

Animals typically don't kill and eat their own species, so in these matters humans fare a lot worse than most animals. Given that a belief in a higher authority is one of the things causing humans to kill each other, it seems this theory is wrong.

Re: How to Be a Stoic

#149

Post by warent »

derrickdirge wrote: post #113
Mendenhall wrote: post #72

Saw a few remarks about the "bleakness" or "uncaring" of the "universe". That view of the universe is in error, people are part of the universe and they certainly care. To view the universe without humanity is to not view the universe. There is bleakness in the universe for sure, but there is also compassion and caring.

This is worth giving a second thought. It's practically (literally?) instinctual to feel like the universe is happening to you rather than with you.

It's true. Alan Watts isn't necessarily the best, but I always like his (paraphrased) quote "Like the water waves and flowers bloom, the Universe peoples."

Re: How to Be a Stoic

#150

Post by jwdunne »

stinkytaco wrote: post #142
jwdunne wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the same is true for Christianity too. The golden rule is an excellent way to be an awesome human being. I think that's a better motive than a good afterlife. I haven't studied other religions to much but I am dead sure there are timeless pieces of advice. My opinion, and I stress opinion, is that much of the world's religions offered a way of life that attempted to reduce violence, illness and suffering. Eve…

I just want to throw out there that dietary restrictions are ultimately tribal. Kosher and halal laws are full of obscure and pointless restrictions (such as ritual slaughter and prohibition on eating foods prepared under an idol) that have nothing to do with health, but everything to do with establishing who is "us" and who is "them".

Interesting. I didn't know that. I connected trichinosis, where symptoms are flu-like for the first few days before a fortnight to 8 weeks of symptom-free incubation as it works into the muscle stage, with the fact that germ theory wasn't understood back then.

The second stage of trichinosis would look quite out of the blue without the foundation of understanding behind it. Almost as if by an act of god, which may have been connected to eating "unclean food prohibited by god".

That said, if it is genuinely a tribal practice, I must accept that and change my opinion.

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