Philosophy

[cabinintheforest]

I have a big interest in philosophy, does anyone else here? Who are some of your favourite philosophers?

[karen]

At one time I liked it. Not anymore.

[peanut]

i'm with Karen...

[cabinintheforest]

Why not anymore?

[question]

Jun 13, 2010 17:48:49 GMT -5 peanut said:

i'm with Karen...

Me too.


I spent a lot of time on philosophy from my 16th to 24th year. Naively started out with Nietzsche, then after countless philosophers, moved on to Wittgenstein where I started to suspect that all of philosphy is actually is too much stuck with language games and with telling stories which obscure the logical structure underlying how the world really works. With Deleuze I then started to take off into the understanding that our minds work with language fairytales on a superficial level but in truth it's very much dominated by a dualistic logical structure which is completely inadequate in describing how the world really works. This dilemma has been pointed out throughout history but was never resolved in a systematic, non-religious way. Duality and how to go beyond duality is what philosophy is always talking about, but it can never resolve it, the best in can do is leave things in abeyance and call it a tie. I was looking for something concrete and applicable that could resolve duality.

I then got lucky in finding out about Gotthard Günther, a german philosopher/logician who was probably the first to introduce multi-valued logic. His theory was that dualistic thinking was really two valued logic, but that there was no reason to assume that the nature of the universe is essentially two-valued. He then tried to integrate two-valued logic into a system of a many-valued logic within which two-valued logic is the most trivial. He and his rare students then went on to develop very interesting ways to try to map our ways of thinking. I published a paper about these various techniques of transclassical logic in 2007 but shortly thereafter understood that it really only applies to machines, it can increase their computational efficiency and maybe help in developing something resembling artificial intelligence, but for us humans unfortunately its version of nonduality doesn't apply. With the various tools of non-artistotelian logic we can learn to see how our thinking is dualistic and we can learn to recognize how duality sneaks into every corner of our thinking, culture, history but it doesn't help to surpass it. The latter was however what I really wanted. Now realising that philosophy couldn't get me there I dropped it and haven't read a philosophy book since.

Throughout this "career" I was also always trying to integrate the various forms of mysticism into the equation. It has never worked out though, nor for any other philosopher in my opinion. Some claim to have explained it, but under close inspection there is always some kind of contradiction sneaking in. The contemporary version of nonduality as it is taught by the few excellent teachers seems to be filtering the core message in the most precise and efficient way, that's why I'm investing my time into it.

[loverofall]

My roommate in college was a philosophy minor and he challenged every belief I had. Drove me crazy at times because I had so many beliefs. There were benefits in breaking up the beliefs but he doesn't get any of this nondual stuff and actually I think it terrifies him because his whole identity is based on thinking. At the very least its been fun to turn it 180 on him from college days. Now he is the one with more beliefs and thus avoids these topics.

[zendancer]

Philosophy cannot answer any existential questions because it deals only with meta-realities--products of imagination. Utterly useless!

[ravenscroft]

I find the right Philosophical teachings can help us when we get stuck some place

Nietzsche
Carl Jung
Plato

are three good places to start