cynicist

Interesting dream, I wish you could remember the first part. In the beginning, it sounds like you are leaving home and your family to enter the world. Noticing the differences in the concrete is like noticing the differences in society, and the path you take in life. There is the less commonly traveled path (thin layer) based on reality and philosophical principles (solid, grounded) or the two larger pools of wet concrete on either side of you (relativism, culture, irrational bigotry, going with the flow). The black robed, mask wearing people are clearly conformists (the masks representing the false personas people put on), but also vaguely menacing. You describe them as blind (lacking in self-knowledge) and taller than you (likely meaning they are adults, older). The female aspect is interesting because that could have to do with your mother or females in general, but you didn't mention any other women as relevant so it's more likely the former. To me stepping into the wet concrete and sinking symbolizes testing the path of conformity to the majority of society. You try to sink into the muck (merging with the herd) but change your mind and get out relatively unscathed, except you feel the solid bit of path sink somewhat. I think this is brilliant because it shows how when you move towards irrationality the path to philosophy can start to fade away and no longer remain an option. I think this part has more to do with your relationship to society in a general sense than any specific people, meaning how you present yourself to others. Then you have contact with one of the threatening conformists and apologize. This could be your brother, as he is by your description blind to truth, older, possibly a stooge of your mother, and you likely apologized in email for not meeting him after establishing contact. Finally you wonder if these people will have trouble taking the path of truth since their masks blind them to it (so they will likely sink and blend into the rest of society) but you choose not to help them since you know they are corrupt. That is my interpretation of it, though one part that doesn't make sense to me is why there are 3-5 individuals. Are there any other members of your mother's circle moving towards you besides your brother? Maybe other family members? That makes sense to me. This dream seems like it is all about the corruption of adults and the relativism of society, and the decision that every child eventually has to make on whether to join the herd or become an individual. I still haven't read this book even though everyone says it is fantastic, I will have to start it today.

Yeah that's why god fails. He is an exception to everything we know about life and reality; Consequently since logic is based on the properties of reality, god becomes impossible. A funny thing to think about is this: We only apply morality to humans because other animals have limited intelligence; Since god's intelligence would be unlimited wouldn't morality be far more applicable to him than it could ever be to human beings? Of course the only counter argument would be that logic doesn't apply to god, but that also invalidates his existence.

It's important to be careful in my experience because it's very easy to get sucked into these battles that you don't really want to be a part of just because you know someone is wrong. I try to remind myself that I'm not free if I feel compelled to respond to every incorrect statement, since I could waste my whole life on that. At the very least I try to draw the line around personal attacks or circular arguments, when there is no more curiosity or headway to be made in the convo.

The key problem with determinism is mostly hard determinism, where people think that everything is linearly causal like physics and that free will breaks causality, both ideas that are simply assumed to be true without evidence. Here is an interesting article that describes reciprocal causality and how it allows for advanced functions like imagination, intelligence, and free will. I think it should be required reading for all hard determinists, since it demolishes their argument while at the same time putting forth solid arguments for how free will could exist in a causal world. http://www.atheistexile.com/2012/08/27/determinism-and-reciprocal-causation/

Lol but wouldn't a benevolent god just put people in heaven rather than murder them? Besides for a rule to be moral it must be universal. If instead of god simply killing people, he tortured them and delighted in causing them pain, but at the same time had a rule that said you shouldn't do that as a human, I think you would have a different reaction. You seem to be suggesting that eternal bliss after death excuses breaking his own rules and the agony of dying, which is an argument from effect of course. Anyway to the OP I'm surprised you didn't bring up the murder that god did himself. The person responding to you seemed to think you were talking about acts done in the name of god instead. It would have been interesting to read the response to that. I would hesitate to bring it up with a live christian for fear of causing a meltdown in their minds from the knowledge that the god they worship does evil.

Are you kidding me? This guy votes on mandatory drug testing while smoking crack. He's a hypocrite and from the video of him ranting he appears to be a violent lunatic as well. The fact that people support and vote for this irresponsible jackass to be a leader perfectly illustrates why goverments shouldn't exist. He's a politician. The fact that he didn't raise taxes on you doesn't change reality.

I thought the purpose was to downvote posts you thought were irrational, badly argued, unhelpful, or that you disagreed with, just as a way to measure the response of people who feel strongly but don't have anything they want to add in text. Sometimes I don't have the energy to make a long drawn out reply, counter every tired argument, and other times my thoughts have already been posted. I like the rep counter for individual posts as a reflection of the sentiment of visitors to the thread, but I'm not sure how I feel about total reputation. (if someone is abusive or spammy they shouldn't have posting rights anyway, not to mention a report button exists already so using reputation for that purpose would be redundant) I think most of the problems with the reputation system have more to do with different interpretations of what it is supposed to be used for. Personally I like FriendlyHacker even if I disagree with a lot of his posts, because he seems to be genuine and a nice guy, but I'd like to be able to show my disagreement without posting and without preventing his posts from being seen, or him from being blocked/banned/whatever. Am I just misunderstanding the purpose of the system or is there any way this change can be made? That topic is not supposed to be allowed on the forums anyway, see here. That's how I look at it. Requiring a reason for a vote is counterproductive, because if someone wanted to type out a response then wouldn't they do that instead of clicking the arrows in the first place?

That sounds like a great thing to do. Why do you think you are procrastinating then? Haha I love Stef's podcasts but you aren't alone, I think everyone relistens to them in order to get everything out of it. Basically the Simon the Boxer story involves a guy named Simon who is physically abused by his parents. Since he is completely helpless to change his parents as a child, as well as unable to change his environment, he focuses on changing the only thing he has any power over; himself. So he adapts to the control of his parents by controlling his emotions, and ends up focusing on their needs over his own. As Simon becomes older his parents become less controlling (since their power is waning) and he begins to feel like he is lost and helpless, because the source of his direction in life is now fading. That is, until he gets into a fight. Now he feels a familiar sensation, and all of energy and skill he has developed in controlling himself comes straight back, and he feels normal again. Where other boxers may feel fear in the ring, he feels stability, and the longer he is out of the ring, the more anxious he becomes. So he becomes trapped in this vicious cycle based on his history. I would definitely recommend Stef's book as I am paraphrasing it here, but I'm sure you see the parallels between this story and procrastination. Were there a lot of verbal put downs too, or was it mostly physical? It will take a long time for sure, after all we are trained by abuse during the most important years of our lives, and for over a decade. It wouldn't make sense to recover from that in a short while, so remember to be gentle with yourself if you slide back or make mistakes. I forgot to add that one thing which really helps me in these situations: Panic in my experience is a kind of snowball effect, where in your mind you are imagining a disaster scenario that keeps spiraling out of control. The best way to try and counter this in my opinion is to look at it from a third person perspective, as if you are examining the inner mind of another person. When you start to feel the panic ramping up, rather than continue thinking about whatever disaster is on your mind, focus on the panic itself and be aware that it is occurring. Remind yourself that the panic you are experiencing is just an automatic response that you learned over time and that you can unlearn eventually. The simple action of taking your focus away from the disaster scenario will help lower the intensity of your emotions and speed up your recovery while also reminding you that what is happening to you is in your mind and not necessarily an accurate reflection of reality.

Well? Would you want to continue a relationship with him if he continued to act exactly the same way? I wouldn't. I feel the same as you in regards to replying to someone promptly. By promptly I don't mean drop everything to do it but as soon as you have free time. The only people I don't respond to asap are people I don't want to talk to, and usually I don't respond to them at all. This isn't to say you should drop the relationship, but clearly it feels weird and is kind of annoying for you. You know that for certain at least. You already asked him if he wanted to catch up, and then left a passive-aggressive reply for him as well. I would have waited to see his response but the same thing applies even now. If you two actually meet up then you can get into this, but if he doesn't say anything I would say your friend is correct and this guy is not interested in you in particular. It sucks but sending him more messages would be a waste of time. As for meeting him on the street, just remind yourself that he's not treating you like a friend so why should you feel obligated to go through the motions? I would just ignore him, probably with a look of confusion on my face. Anyway, easy for me to say but it's another thing to deal with in real life, sorry for your difficulties. (I have gone through something similar)

Well if animals can't understand self-ownership how could they exercise it? I do think there is a kind of NSP that applies to how intelligent beings interact with those of lesser intelligence. Consider a human being that is mentally retarded; They are assigned less responsibility for their actions and we expect them to be treated with more care partly because they have less ability to care for themselves. Many people would look at someone who teased a human being with this condition as despicable, more than if the same teasing were done to the average human being since a regular human being is not as helpless. I think those of us with empathy can see the connection between that and animals with even lower intelligence and less ability to defend themselves from us. Just because it isn't an issue of morality doesn't mean it's acceptable behavior. We look down on those who abuse creatures of lesser intelligence as repulsive. I think it's possible to enumerate a principle around the relationship between intelligence, helplessness, responsibility, and abuse but I need to give it more thought. Thanks for bringing up the interesting topic.

Causality means a clear cause and effect relationship between two things, in that one brings about the other. So the idea determinists have is if every action is a link in the causal chain, meaning that everything is set in motion by some prior event, then if you understand the nature of those events you can predict what will occur. (since everything has been predetermined by said prior events) So to their minds there is no choice, because everything you do has been set in motion by everything preceding that action in your life. If you know what will happen and "change" it, to them it is fated that you would do so, and is not really change at all, since every experience that you had before that moment was slowly nudging you in that direction.... What do you mean impossible to predict btw? Weren't you just saying that nothing is free from the laws of the universe? Are they not predictable?

That was quite an epic tale I was sickened to read that your father admitted threatening you with violence was wrong but then claimed he should have actually been violent in order to control you. What a twisted mind that vile creature has. I'm curious, how do you feel about your relationship to others at this point? I mean has it changed, or do you think it will take more time and patience to heal? Congratulations on your achievement.

Interesting conversation, thanks for sharing. I can sympathize with the part of you that feels fatigued. Also as a side note, I didn't recognize your picture/name but I've heard your voice many times in podcasts lol. Nice to put a name/face with it.

The great thing is bitcoin can't really fail, even if it doesn't become a mainstream success, because the coins will still be there and demand is obviously there. It may take a long time for cryptocurrencies to replace fiat but it's already useful for many people. Support for it will only increase with awareness, since so few even understand it at the moment. It is still early imo

It doesn't matter if you are looking from the outside or inside or whatever. If human actions are predetermined then they can't be held responsible, in the same way that someone with a heart defect due to the genetics in his family is not responsible for said health condition. Well they would say that with the correct knowledge of the relevant data you would know, similar to how given enough data on the movement of a comet you can determine where it will be at a given point in time. I'm seriously starting to see determinists in the same light as agnostics, who make the argument that we will never know if god exists or not because he might be over in some unexplored part of the universe...

Welcome to the forums. I had similar issues with procrastination, panic around those who try to pressure me, and memory difficulties (thought not quite the same as yours), so I may be in a good position to help you, if only in self-awareness. Firstly, why do you want to become a great student? Do you enjoy school? Do you have memory problems when it comes to studying philosophy on FDR, or is it mostly in school? Is it only when you anticipate being tested on that knowledge, or can you recall these ideas if you want to share them with others out of passion? In regards to procrastination with bills and so on, you described having little power in your childhood. So I'm safe in assuming that you grew up feeling as though everything was forced on you, you had no say in the matter, and you resented that strongly, correct? Do you feel a strong desire to please others, sometimes at your expense? Have you read RTR, specifically the bit about Simon the Boxer? That is a pretty good summation of what you are going through I suspect. If you'd like I can explain it with examples, just let me know. I can tell you for sure you are suffering from being stuck in the past to some degree, mentally. How do I know this? You are panicking when someone who has power over you gets angry or tells you to do something, does that sound like your parents at all? Your panic is not due to procrastination, it is due to being trained to compliance by your abusive parents. The best way to deal with this in my experience is to first put responsibility for what you are dealing with in the right place. I have a feeling that all three of your symptoms stem from the same place, which would be your childhood. Once you can come to terms with the fact that there is nothing wrong with you fundamentally, that these problems are not your problems, but wounds that were inflicted through abuse then you can start to see things more clearly. You can identify these feelings as defense mechanisms, which protected you as a child but are now hindering you in your adult relations, so there is no need for shame or self-attack. In fact you can praise yourself for developing these, because you are now an adult which means you survived your childhood. You made it! These people that are shouting at you, they are just adults like you. They are not the towering giants that your parents were when you developed your responses. You have options now that weren't available to you in the past. They may seem threatening but if they actually tried anything, you could get away from them or call the police. I had a problem with this myself, and after doing some self-work I just laugh at these tactics, I feel pity for them. They only know how to threaten, humiliate, or submit to someone with more power than them. They are trapped in this hierarchy while you have retained the capacity to collaborate with others and come up with genuine solutions to problems instead of bully people. I want you to know that you can overcome this with practice.

Nice trolling there. Clearly the simplest most obvious answer is free will. Damn, there is no eye rolling smiley.

Without free will there is no choice (since everything is predetermined by history/environmental factors outside of your control) and without choice you can't have responsibility. Without that you can't be responsible for acts of aggression, so morality becomes meaningless. Your example is tricky, but if he's insane and not able to process reality correctly then he can't be held responsible, so no NAP violation. If he is simply ignorant, despite having the internet and access to doctors, then he is certainly responsible for the effects of his choice on others. I think that persuading him to get medical attention is preferable but if he continues to try and endanger others then locking him up is an act of self-defense on the part of others.

Love the matrix analogy, dead on. It's sad to lose someone you thought was a friend, glad you saved yourself from the abuse though. Personally I've cut out several unhealthy "friends" from my life, I'm still working on the familial relationships though.

It's interesting to me that you would go from being drugged by your parents (on SSRIs, ugh) to wanting to become a psychiatrist. I mean I don't think you would have to go to medical school and learn about psychiatry before realizing they were ineffective, you had personal experience! And you mentioned your mom speaking positively of them, have you tried talking to her about why she (and your father) allowed you to be put on these meds? Was going to school for this stuff a way to excuse what your parents did, possibly by inflicting it on others? (not consciously, of course) It could also have been an unconscious way of getting you to recognize the truth of what occurred for you. Or did you think it would bring value to you in the eyes of others? Obviously I don't know your history, I just wanted to put some ideas out there that might dredge up some feelings, since I don't think it's a coincidence that you chose that particular path. The isolation is hard, and something I'm struggling with as well. I'm sorry you are going through this. What are you doing that for? If you think she is redeemable why aren't you talking to her about how miserable you were and the loneliness you feel? I mean you are say you are angry about the emotional abandonment but you are talking to your mother about philosophy? This is mildly irritating because it strikes me as avoidance. Sounds like you are manipulating your therapists. It may be because you don't trust or respect them and feel a need to test their ability. You are an excellent writer and clearly intelligent, it's likely to me that you would not accept treatment from someone that you didn't consider to be your equal, or at the very least an expert in their field. It could be grandeur or a desire to control others, but it may also be defense mechanisms that you've built up throughout your life. I've been manipulative in the past but it was more about trying to protect a vulnerable part of myself rather than exercise power over others, for example.

This is not to be critical but why is it a shameful or embarrassing thing? It is true that there are risks with meeting people on the internet, because obviously there is no guarantee they are who they claim to be. However, you have met her in person and it seems like you two like each other just as much (if not more) than you did over the internet. If your old classmates or whoever try to shame you for finding someone that makes you happy in an unusual way, then fuck them, because your happiness is more important than their opinions. If they don't understand it's not your job to explain it to them, that's their problem. I can tell you two things for certain: Calling yourself childish/irrational is not helpful Trying to control the reactions of other people to manage your feelings is not healthy You also said your mother tried to stop you from seeing her using fear and paranoia. Do you think she may have anything to do with the feelings of shame? Even though other people's opinions don't matter I think that getting to the origin of your feelings is important.

Well the obvious thing to mention is that you are claiming at some point there was no life, and then out of lesser matter a more complex property called 'life' arose that was completely different from what came before. This is the essence of the free will argument. First, that it is possible for new properties to come from complex interactions of simpler component parts. Second, that there are significant differences between the mental capacities of humans and other organisms which result in humans being fundamentally different from them. (in areas like responsibility, ethics, and so on) If everything is simply causal, why do we make a distinction between organisms and inanimate matter? What is the significance of being alive? I mean, why not just look at a human being with its organs/cells the same as a group of rocks bouncing around, simply a collection of matter that was the effect of prior events. To my mind this is what a determinist does. The problem with this is that if it were true then there would be no reason to treat a human differently from any other arrangement of matter, and yet we do. We don't attempt communication with the weather despite its complexity, so clearly that isn't sufficient. Free will is just the x factor; It is something that separates us from other living organisms, even animals, that we do not fully understand. We implicitly accept this as true when we choose not to put animals on trial for murder. It's not more complex than that. Logically, something that is pre-determined is not a choice because choice involves a decision between two or more possibilities. So if our actions are pre-determined that means there was only one possibility and therefore we had no choice in the matter. What logically follows from no choice is no responsibility and therefore no morality. This is also why debates on determinism are frustrating for those who accept free will, if everything is causal then there is no point in debating at all. (since changing someone's mind is not possible, as it is pre-determined lol)

My feelings exactly. That site is about mysticism, not philosophy.

Wouldn't you have to program a computer to decide the most efficient way to do it? (only partly kidding) I missed this call so I'll have to come back to this thread once the show is up on youtube to get what is going on here.

I see four variations on the existence of god. Theist - I know it's true and I'm certain. Agnostic - I don't know and it is impossible to be certain either way. Soft Atheist - I don't know but it's a possibility. Hard Atheist - I know it's false and I'm certain. I see a soft atheist as someone who doesn't believe in god but also doesn't possess the philosophical principles required to say confidently that no god exists. I have some respect for this position because doubt is healthy and certainty without philosophy is hard. Agnostics recognize how ridiculous religious tradition is but want to preserve their irrational belief in god, so they just hide in the idea that we will never know. This is a cowardly position and one that I have taken in the past. After considering the information Stef put out there I'm firmly in the hard atheist position, his book (Against the Gods?) is particularly good.