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How to Be a Stoic (2016)

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Re: How to Be a Stoic (2016)

#61

Post by pattrn »

trabant00 wrote: post #56
acituan wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The older I get the less wisdom I find in any philosophy that means to teach how we should live and particularly how to avoid pain and unhappiness. There are two limitations with this proposition. First; most of the useful "philosophies", by which you mean schools of philosophies, and by that we actually mean "wisdom traditions", have already been incorporated into many aspects of the mainstream culture that they a…

> If the local optimal point was only available in hindsight though, we couldn't have survived as a species thus far We didn't survive as a species thanks to life guiding philosophy or in general thanks to a conscious thinking process in which we tried to predict the future. When even our greatest people tried to do that it more often resulted in unpredicted results than not. I can make a case for believing we can th…

> We didn't survive as a species thanks to life guiding philosophy or in general thanks to a conscious thinking process in which we tried to predict the future.

Not sure I understand you correctly here. Choosing to build shelters from the inevitable elements, storing food for the winter months, building traps to capture animals that may walk by at some point, etc... seem like crucial, conscious, predictive behaviors that increased odds of survival. Are you talking about this type of predictive decision making, or something else?

Re: How to Be a Stoic (2016)

#62

Post by somedude895 »

manmal wrote: post #40
katzgrau wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The short of it is: nothing is good or bad Kicks off personal viewpoint with key element of Stoic thinking :)

It’s the key element of almost every philosophical school though?

Epicureanism, which is somewhat of the opposite of Stoicism, sees pain and unfulfilled desires as evils that need to be fought constantly. The removal of pain and fulfillment of desires, accordingly, is the "good."

Also, I'm pretty sure many Eastern philosophies have concepts of good and bad.

Re: How to Be a Stoic (2016)

#63

Post by beardbound »

somedude895 wrote: post #62
manmal wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s the key element of almost every philosophical school though?

Epicureanism, which is somewhat of the opposite of Stoicism, sees pain and unfulfilled desires as evils that need to be fought constantly. The removal of pain and fulfillment of desires, accordingly, is the "good." Also, I'm pretty sure many Eastern philosophies have concepts of good and bad.

The four noble truths kind of touch on this (which if memory serves are all life is suffering, suffering comes from desire, and the cessation of desire causes the end of suffering, and the fourth one... Cessation of desire leads to nirvanna maybe?), as well as the the three poisons, sometimes called sins (greed, anger, and delusion which when overcome become wisdom, generosity, and compassion).

Re: How to Be a Stoic (2016)

#64

Post by reducesuffering »

trabant00 wrote: post #58
ejolto wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The short of it is: nothing is good or bad, but things can be too much or too little. Where the line is depends or circumstances and is different every time. And the correct answer is mostly only available in hindsight if it is at all. That sounds like a very stoic point of view, reminds me of Marcus Aurelius's meditations. It's worth a read.

Thankfully somebody did the research for me, I just had the vague knowledge that his actions where not exactly matching his writing. https://marcusaureliusmeditations.weebly.com/index.html The case can be made that he mostly wrote what he thought of as ideal and how we would like to see himself, but often failed to apply it in practice because as I propose life is more complex than any particular philosophy.

> he mostly wrote what he thought of as ideal and how we would like to see himself, but often failed to apply it in practice

Yes, most Stoic thought is about attempting to do your best to attain the ideals, not that you'll suddenly perfectly attain them.

Sort of like how meditation has the common misconception that you're doing it wrong if your thoughts wander. No, the point is acknowledge the wandering, bring your thoughts back to your breath, and keep trying.

Also, reading through that undergrad student's critique, I disagree with many of them characterizing his words as contradictions. I don't think many strong arguments were made that he was being very contradicting. One of them implies he was being contradictory by making humanitarian laws benefiting children. Because he had lost many children, and wrote that only "right and reason" should guide you, not the loss of a child. Like it couldn't be that the humanitarian laws were due to "right and reason" as opposed to emotion from losing his kids.

Re: How to Be a Stoic (2016)

#65

Post by reducesuffering »

daseiner1 wrote: post #34

“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 endeavourin…

Reading a paragraph of Nietzsche contrasted with a paragraph of the Stoics is quite reflective of how their philosophies affected their mental states. Their internal peace of mind oozes out.

Re: How to Be a Stoic (2016)

#66

Post by jfengel »

Thorentis wrote: post #41
manmal wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your philosophy sounds to me like the Golden Mean from Aristoteles: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_mean_(philosophy) > The golden mean or golden middle way is the desirable middle between two extremes, one of excess and the other of deficiency. (I do realize the irony of answering such to someone who just declared they don’t find philosophies useful)

I've invariably found that most people who say they don't find philosophy useful, subscribe to a philosophy somebody already described at some point in history. Most people at some point in their lives think they're terribly unique, and then realise they are quite the opposite.

It's a lot like code. Is it faster for you to invent it yourself, or re-use somebody else's.

It's not surprising that somebody else thought of that philosophy before. The question is, did they think of it any better? Do they have anything useful to add over what you came up with?

Re: How to Be a Stoic (2016)

#67

Post by fidesomnes »

PradeetPatel wrote: post #10

Is it just me or is stoicism been heavily commercialised over the last few years, along with vipassana meditation. There's absolutely nothing wrong with getting employees to live healthier and more resilient lives, but the skeptic in me thinks that there may be other motives.

all ideas are sold in the marketplace.

Re: How to Be a Stoic (2016)

#68

Post by trabant00 »

pattrn wrote: post #61
trabant00 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the local optimal point was only available in hindsight though, we couldn't have survived as a species thus far We didn't survive as a species thanks to life guiding philosophy or in general thanks to a conscious thinking process in which we tried to predict the future. When even our greatest people tried to do that it more often resulted in unpredicted results than not. I can make a case for believing we can th…

> We didn't survive as a species thanks to life guiding philosophy or in general thanks to a conscious thinking process in which we tried to predict the future. Not sure I understand you correctly here. Choosing to build shelters from the inevitable elements, storing food for the winter months, building traps to capture animals that may walk by at some point, etc... seem like crucial, conscious, predictive behaviors…

The second part of what I said is simply bad. Should have stopped at philosophy.

Re: How to Be a Stoic (2016)

#69

Post by stefandesu »

atoav wrote: post #20
mindhash wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dad lived in a small town in India for most of his life. When I come across stoicism and read about it, I realized he has been living like a stoic his whole life. His way of approaching life is so aligned with the concept. And yet he has never read or heard about Epicteus. I have been reading a lot of books about philosophy lately, but I realise the most you can learn is from people around you. The books are often…

I think a thing to consider is also the effect your actions have at others. E.g. venting in front of others who can do nothing to change the thing that made you angry can also negatively impact their day. Granted — if one is the type who has no sense of how one impacts the people around oneself this is not a metric this type of person would consider. But it exists and there are people who are unhappy their whole life…

I used to be that guy that always tried to solve other people's problems whenever they poured out their problems in front of me. I guess there were two reasons for this: One, I didn't realize that some people simply want to let it out and they are not really interested in a solution. Two, I identified too much with their problems and in order to make myself feel better, I tried to be helpful.

Nowadays, I have a pretty good grasp when someone really wants helpful input for their problem and when someone simply wants to vent. And while it still causes certain feelings inside myself whenever I hear someone vent (especially when it's clear that they are simply complaining and not doing anything about it), I view those situations as opportunities to grow by managing how I react to those things. Ideally, I simply accept that they are not my problems and go on with my life. (That's definitely a work in progress though.)

Re: How to Be a Stoic (2016)

#70

Post by pattrn »

trabant00 wrote: post #68
pattrn wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We didn't survive as a species thanks to life guiding philosophy or in general thanks to a conscious thinking process in which we tried to predict the future. Not sure I understand you correctly here. Choosing to build shelters from the inevitable elements, storing food for the winter months, building traps to capture animals that may walk by at some point, etc... seem like crucial, conscious, predictive behaviors…

The second part of what I said is simply bad. Should have stopped at philosophy.

No worries! I agree in part with your original statement, which is why I was asking for more detail. As a society I think we have too much confidence in our predictions about macro events, especially ones involving human behavior. Even the simple examples I gave likely involved many unsuccessful predictions before landing on the ones that were reproducible, so in a way we were likely poor at predicting even those events (20/20 hindsight). It's certainly an interesting topic.

In a way, we do fail pretty often at predicting, but if the gold standard is every other organism's creative predictive ability (as opposed to common instinctual behavior), we're actually quite good :).

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