ive always interpreted it as asking the question about the self and then continuing along with the self anyway. like saying whats the point of minecraft but you still play and do random stuff til you find your favorite aspect of the game

>I agree, however thats why i like him.
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>Idealism vs materialism.
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>What influences what? our Ideas, or the world around us. Most would say both. Dialectic materialism.
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>I like the ego-centric ideas as I believe its a huge part of my and other philosophical ideas. I believe in this complex confusing world nature comes first. People that derive their ideas from the material world (nature) i think is fact. And you should ask "whats the point" long before you are influenced.

Humanism doesn't assert that animals don't have value, but simply that humans have value. More importantly it claims that humans must be the solution to human problems, as opposed to deities. Considering value in this definition is a broad and subjective philosophical word, it can certainly be compatible with an scientific understanding. Also it's not really pride, although pride in moderation is a good thing. We should be proud of ourselves and of humanity for many things, and disappointed for other things. The fact that we evolved doesn't mean we shouldn't value human life.

Have a very dark sense of humor then you can laugh at everything

I think the world makes perfect sense as long as you understand it as it truly is rather than mold it to a particular worldview.

We are undergoing a convulsive few years as the world's globalized economic order shatters due to the pressures of aging demographics. China is going over a demographic and economic cliff, Russia is disintegrating before our eyes, and Europe is aging rapidly. Once you understand the larger forces at work, then understanding the world isn't necessarily impossible.

Well explain how it's messed up, don't just whine about it.

This isn’t a problem for most people.

Existentialism and philosophy don’t concern most people. They’re busy. And thats okay. But even so, how the strugglers approach these questions has an effect on culture—these are artists and deep thinkers.

> but nonetheless society produced intellectuals, which it is doing less and less today

And of the ones we do produce, do you think it is possible that they are "of a different kind", perhaps in ways we are not able to discern?

> Personally, I think it comes down to dogma and taboo. Intellectualism isn't allowed to flourish as it once was.

Agree....and I (perceive myself to) notice this in many different forms....for example, on plausibly "intellectual" subreddits, people (including genuinely intelligent ones) refusing to engage in intellectual discussion. Do you think my read is off here? ("For many intellectuals, their expertise is a point of shame or brings out reactionary violence" suggests not?)

> I think this trend really started in the 19th century with the backlash against most of the great intellectuals like Marx, Darwin, Nietzsche, etc. who challenged the dogma of the time. Today, the most cited scholar in human history (Noam Chomsky) was blacklisted by the media.

Agree!! And, it's a shame, bordering on surreal (at least in modern internet times) imho.

> Also, since seeking utopia has been demonized so heavily...

In my experiencing floating the idea in different venues (online and in person, across a decently wide variety of cultures) the mere mention of it tends to invoke laughter, and if that is challenged then....other weird stuff starts to happen. I've yet to encounter someone who can push beyond their innate reaction, although to be fair I haven't done too many experiments.

> The climate today paints ideas like socialism or communism as a naive utopia...

Maybe not the same thing, but I have noticed a pattern where if someone is in favour of a general idea, and if you go like "Ya, yes let's do that then....", people suddenly switch tack and are like "Whoa whoa whoa, <and then various reasons why actually pursuing the very goal they proposed is a bad idea, or their interest level in their own idea simply drops 90%>". It's very strange and may seem impossible, but I see it over and over.

Psychiatry is a fundamentally political project masquerading as a medical specialty and as scientific. It's impossible for Psychiatry to be scientific because it can only make historically and culturally bound propositions about it's patients or subjects. History is chronotopic which is the opposite of science and philosophy etc...

"What one thinks psychiatrists are up to depends crucially on what one thinks their patients are up to; and the latter question cannot be answered without taking an essentially political stand on what constitutes a “reasonable” response to a social situation."

Ingelby, D. (1980) ‘Understanding “Mental Illness”’, in Ingelby, D. (Ed.), Critical Psychiatry: The Politics of Mental Health (pp. 23–71). New York: Pantheon Books.

"Psychiatric diagnosis can be understood as functioning as a political device, in the sense that it legitimates a particular social response to aberrant behaviour of various sorts, but protects that response from any democratic challenge.”

Moncrieff, J. (2010) ‘Psychiatric Diagnosis as a Political Device’, Social Theory & Health, 8(4): 370–382.

So what is the real purpose of psychiatry in the Capitalist system ?

The capitalist class seeks to avoid responsibility for the many problems it causes, so it frames pain and suffering as somehow natural and inevitable. Psychiatry supports capitalism by ‘diagnosing’ socially-created problems as individual cognitive or biological defects, providing pseudoscientific ‘evidence’ for blaming the victims of the system. To use Erving Goffman’s metaphor, if capitalism is a con game, then the role of psychiatry is to ‘cool the losers’ of the system so they don’t squawk, expose the con, and take their revenge.

The medications 'work' by sedating or 'cooling off' the losers of the Capitalist system.

Internally, yes; external efforts are all toward reduction of suffering.

I don't think the positions are at odds.

Ah thank you

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The main thing to understand here is that none of your examples given here could be discovered through pure rationalism.

Descartes, for example, could not sit on his armchair and -- without any observation -- come to the conclusion of a black hole. What empiricism is saying, and what you've already said in your previous answers, is that to deductively assert the proposition of a black hole, we still need to observe 'around' the black hole, or however you want to put it.

To conclude, take observe out of your argument, and you have nothing, it must first be derived from the senses, even if that entity is not directly observable, it is inferible from previous observations of other empirical phenomena.

Yes, I think there is a different way in which people engage in our era as opposed to history. Likely, many people historically didn't do it and we didn't have the technology to be exposed to that anti-intellectualism yet, but nonetheless society produced intellectuals, which it is doing less and less today.

Personally, I think it comes down to dogma and taboo. Intellectualism isn't allowed to flourish as it once was. For many intellectuals, their expertise is a point of shame or brings out reactionary violence. My field is environmental philosophy, and I know I and my colleagues in the past haven't much appreciated being treated as extremist terrorists. I think this trend really started in the 19th century with the backlash against most of the great intellectuals like Marx, Darwin, Nietzsche, etc. who challenged the dogma of the time. Today, the most cited scholar in human history (Noam Chomsky) was blacklisted by the media.

Also, since seeking utopia has been demonized so heavily, anyone who would otherwise be pushing for a better world is stuck modelling our dystopia instead. We see the backlash against environmentalists, feminists, Marxists, vegetarians, race issues, and really any critique of the authoritarian structures in society.

In the place of intellectuals, we get the worship of billionaires and other powerful figures. The climate today paints ideas like socialism or communism as a naive utopia while dreaming of living on Mars with Elon Musk or maybe driving in one of his dangerous and ineffective traffic solutions. In essence, we're allowed to think and dream only about what benefits the powerful. Anything else is seen as foolish or dangerous.

I think "I don't wanna suffer" is too much subjective. While some people can't stand to eat only every other day, others can't thrive without Beluga caviar (no value judgement). Suffering is a very broad and diverse human experience.

>Isn't this just the process of createing knowledge through deduction instead of direct observation?

All knowledge is based on some combination of observation and deduction, except for the fact of our own existence. For example, I believe that other people have minds, or that a room still exists when I'm not there, but there is no direct evidence of that.

How to Live In A World That Makes No F*cking Sense?

Study harder.

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Great text, dude. You kept it simple for guys like me. I enjoy the subject, but it's a little bit over my head. Thanks.

Empiricism is a good deal older than those gents.

We're so suffused with capitalist thinking we don't even realise it. Interesting to note how ubiquitous is the argument that suffering can be transcended (which I take to mean: have enough money so you don't die of poverty), and once that obstacle is surmounted, meaning is something you choose at will, like any other consumer product.

He was too busy partying to bother.

Lack of information creates information through the senses, but to answer your question, a few of the problems you are raising is past the circle of meaning that these theory’s tried to circumscribe.

In response to the other answers you got, notice how you addressed with 19/20th century science, that is one of the reasons the empiricism failed along the way (it had a lot of problems even within its time) but the main problem that derives to from this perspective, especially to someone like you or me from the 20/21th is that Empiricism understand “data”, “objects” as a thing with meaning, we “extracted” knowledge from the objects, much of the 19th century philosophy was the transition and understanding that we Create data.

Now Hume is a bit of a more special case where we don’t learn things but by “experiencing” things we, in a non action base, derive knowledge from it.

This is all very complex and I’m trying to just give you a picture of the whole, if we go in specifics a lot more needs to be said and precised.

Aristippus kicks his ass.

I always find Nietzsche too ego-centric in the sense that becoming the person you want to be is obfuscated by questions about the self instead of creating meaning for yourself.

Kinda like putting someone in Minecraft and then, them asking, "what's the point?" You need to find out for yourself.