Who Was Kafka? • Hacker News Board

Re: Who Was Kafka?

#31

Post by mirimir » Mon, Feb 15, 2016, 10:55 AM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #30

gkya wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"existentialism is concerned with the emptiness, horrors and anxieties of being alive" You're mistaken to think so about existantialism. I suggest you read "Existentialism is a Humanism [1]", which is a document I've studied very recently and one that I'll study again, and one has been influential to me. Existantialism is an idea based on the hypothesis that man exists without a purpose, without a creator and without…

Yeah, read it, along with other works by Sartre, Camus, all the way down to Kierkergaard and earlier examples of this line of thinking (note: European and older, so those works were like Star Wars movies to us at the time, in the sense that everybody read them, not just students dressed in black). The "Existentialism is a Humanism" presents a more "heroic" outlook of the matter, associated with Sartre's engagement wi…

I suspect that angst stems largely from loss of faith. Whether it's faith in some religion, or faith in some ideology. I rejected faith very early, and so lack of inherent meaning doesn't occur as bleak. It's just what's so. And it's arguably all about selection.

Re: Who Was Kafka?

#32

Post by dawnbreez » Mon, Feb 15, 2016, 3:11 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #18

superplussed wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was nothing wrong with your original phrasing.

I didn't mean it was wrong with regards to syntax or grammar. Just that it was a slightly strange thing to say -- seeing as existentialism is concerned with the emptiness, horrors and anxieties of being alive (and doubly so in Kafka), and "favorite" implies something one enjoys.

As others have pointed out, Existentialism is not "life is meaningless, full stop." Rather, it is "life is meaningless, just as a canvas is blank." Your life starts with no meaning, just like a canvas starts blank; but because the canvas begins as a field of white, the artist need not worry about underlying meaning when he makes his masterpiece.

Re: Who Was Kafka?

#33

Post by kafkaesque » Mon, Feb 15, 2016, 5:23 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #18

superplussed wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was nothing wrong with your original phrasing.

I didn't mean it was wrong with regards to syntax or grammar. Just that it was a slightly strange thing to say -- seeing as existentialism is concerned with the emptiness, horrors and anxieties of being alive (and doubly so in Kafka), and "favorite" implies something one enjoys.

You've read Kafka. Great.

Now read Wittgenstein.

Re: Who Was Kafka?

#34

Post by mirimir » Tue, Feb 16, 2016, 4:03 AM UTC

dawnbreez wrote: post #32

coldtea wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't mean it was wrong with regards to syntax or grammar. Just that it was a slightly strange thing to say -- seeing as existentialism is concerned with the emptiness, horrors and anxieties of being alive (and doubly so in Kafka), and "favorite" implies something one enjoys.

As others have pointed out, Existentialism is not "life is meaningless, full stop ." Rather, it is "life is meaningless, just as a canvas is blank." Your life starts with no meaning, just like a canvas starts blank; but because the canvas begins as a field of white, the artist need not worry about underlying meaning when he makes his masterpiece.

Great image!

But that freedom is troubling for many. No truth to proclaim. Too much uncertainty.

Re: Who Was Kafka?

#35

Post by dawnbreez » Tue, Feb 16, 2016, 5:55 PM UTC

mirimir wrote: post #34

dawnbreez wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As others have pointed out, Existentialism is not "life is meaningless, full stop ." Rather, it is "life is meaningless, just as a canvas is blank." Your life starts with no meaning, just like a canvas starts blank; but because the canvas begins as a field of white, the artist need not worry about underlying meaning when he makes his masterpiece.

Great image! But that freedom is troubling for many. No truth to proclaim. Too much uncertainty .

That's a problem in and of itself--people don't like the unknown, which hurts them, because EVERYTHING is unknown to some degree.

In fact, the very roots of Logic, that sword which so many people claim will break Religion's gordian knot, are uncertain. All logic stems from the idea that you can say "if(a) then b()". The only svidence that this works is anecdotal. There's a lot of it, but that's all it is, and all it takes is one flying pig to bring it all down.

The solution, for some, is fundamentalism: "(Logic|Religion|*) is true because it says so."

Others put their faith in it even though they know it's not proven. G.K. Chesterton mentions this a lot (he's a fun read, if a bit rambly).

TL;DR: Not knowing is a whole nother ball of wax, and is a bigger ball of wax than you think.