Life, Philosophy & Perspective Thread

[freewheeler]

Just watched this great short video on life and philosophy. 

Really puts things into perspective, which I think is something we all too frequently lose sight of in society and perhaps even moreso within the very driven, Type A and neurotic group that the medical and pre-medical communities attract.

 

It would be great to read others' thoughts on this and have some discussion.

[pepermintea]

Not to be so dismissive like the first minute of the video, but this is just a euphemistic expression for Friendly Nazism

Optimistic Nihilism is redundant because what is there to look forward to? Optimism implies some sort of hope or future, you only have hope or future when you assign meaning to it, when the future exists as more than a passing of time or the ceasing of time/universe. Nihilism at its foundation is the rejection of all meaning and to live life like you were never there in the first place. Basically feeling we are so advanced as a species that even the greatest of minds and people in the past should be totally scrapped since we already know enough of what we need to know, assuming a god-like state..

Like the Nazis and Nazi scientists used to say, humans are nothing but blood and soil..

This is laughably ignorant and dangerously dogmatic, but I'd only laugh if people didn't actually take it seriously...

But it is a nice refresher to think about how small we really are..

 

 

[freewheeler]

1 hour ago, pepermintea said:

Not to be so dismissive like the first minute of the video, but this is just a euphemistic expression for Friendly Nazism

Optimistic Nihilism is redundant because what is there to look forward to? Optimism implies some sort of hope or future, you only have hope or future when you assign meaning to it, when the future exists as more than a passing of time or the ceasing of time/universe. Nihilism at its foundation is the rejection of all meaning and to live life like you were never there in the first place. Basically feeling we are so advanced as a species that even the greatest of minds and people in the past should be totally scrapped since we already know enough of what we need to know, assuming a god-like state..

Like the Nazis and Nazi scientists used to say, humans are nothing but blood and soil..

This is laughably ignorant and dangerously dogmatic, but I'd only laugh if people didn't actually take it seriously...

But it is a nice refresher to think about how small we really are..

 

 

That's what I took away from this and thought the video did a great job of reminding myself of. In some ways I think we're rather spoiled as generally speaking we aren't really confronted with the reality of our mortality on a daily basis and quite easily can get swept up into all sorts of drivel and intellectual nonsense that really doesn't matter or warrant one's time when you consider how short our lives are. Perhaps if we were more aware of it, people would be more cooperative and less petty, haha.

Not to mention all the time we as a society, spend distracting ourselves, engaging in all sorts of activities or habits as a means of escape and avoiding discomfort--including unpleasant feelings, rather than sitting with them and considering what if any significance they may have in the context of our life circumstances.

On a related note, I forget who said it, but I remember a patient remarking, "We're here for a good time, not for a long time." 

Not sure what's got me musing as of late, perhaps it's my progressive disillusionment with the healthcare system and just how dysfunctional the political side of it is.

[pepermintea]

Yes, I agree it is all too easy to get swept up into the details of the science of living and trying to make the most of life while also being small minded, but that weakness is probably what makes us most human. The progression of society put us in this position though, that if we had or if we know that only then would it be easier to begin to deal with the more mythological ideas of ourselves and "Meaning". If one were, like you said, confronted with your mortality on a daily basis it is quite difficult to escape the relentless though of worthlessness or meaninglessness and you'd quickly need to find an answer. That's why some of the happiest of people are somewhere in the slums of the depressingly low corners of the world, they've found a source of 'optimism', the top 1% of us or educated people or people on this forum probably get wiser and wiser and get more depressed, because you are indeed distracting yourself by climbing the hierarchy instead of dealing with self.

Obviously, when more and more persons for thousands of years took a moment to contemplate this, many advances were made like the Bible for instance was put together much of which is still indecipherable even though the world reads it over and over, makes you wonder if there were any supernatural meaning to life or existence that would give us a purpose, or a wall to lean on... your thoughts on religion/spirituality? Btw never seen a more fitting edit of Peterson lol

[Bambi]

The imperative of life is to exist, to continue to exist as a species, to procreate. That is it. Everything else is gravy. That is to say, we individually and collectively through society give whatever meaning to our lives that we choose to give, if we have a choice. Most people live in poverty without education or proper healthcare, sanitary conditions, clean water, work and proper work conditions. Such people live in misery, have no real choice and merely live day to day, to survive another day. We in Canada and on this forum do have real choices to advance or better society and individuals within it, to make a meaningful contribution as we see it. This gives meaning to our lives as we see it. And we have personal lives that impact directly those around us, including our children. And eventually we die, hopefully leaving the world a better place.

[mrsarcastic99]

Humans are inherently evil. Dopamine and serotonin are needed to stimulate the "good feeling" you get after being altruistic and nice to people. Children are inherently racist. Only when you consciously realize that underneath the skin, it is the same blood and organs then you become a humanist. There is no hope. Any society built on dogma will fall. Only the principles founded during the Enlightenment as well as the scientific method will save humanity from their own selves.

[la marzocco]

6 hours ago, mrsarcastic99 said:

Humans are inherently evil. Dopamine and serotonin are needed to stimulate the "good feeling" you get after being altruistic and nice to people. Children are inherently racist. Only when you consciously realize that underneath the skin, it is the same blood and organs then you become a humanist. There is no hope. Any society built on dogma will fall. Only the principles founded during the Enlightenment as well as the scientific method will save humanity from their own selves.

Humans are not inherently evil. I am not going to go down this rabbit hole to debate this, but time and time again, people as clean slates do not act maliciously. I do not disagree with your point about people helping others just to "feel good" but that is just a pessimist's view on altruism - why can we not just appreciate for what is, but to guess and decipher one's intentions.

World civilizations have crumbled (e.g., Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, Babylon, etc.) because of our hubris. Our overbearing pride that we can get away with things and our tendency to be short-sighted. Easter Island comes to mind - once a lush and fertile region full of vegetation, but due to uncontrolled exploitation, it is now but barren land. A book by a Canadian essayist named Robert Kaplan writes about this in his "A Short History of Progress." He questions, what was the guy thinking when he cut down the last tree on Easter Island? Society can flourish and not crumble if we remind ourselves of our weaknesses and remind ourselves of past civilizations and our hubric tendencies. We are not inherently evil; it is only our hubris that would lead us to our demise.

 

[mrsarcastic99]

14 minutes ago, qnzjlo said:

Humans are not inherently evil. I am not going to go down this rabbit hole to debate this, but time and time again, people as clean slates do not act maliciously. I do not disagree with your point about people helping others just to "feel good" but that is just a pessimist's view on altruism - why can we not just appreciate for what is, but to guess and decipher one's intentions.

World civilizations have crumbled (e.g., Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, Babylon, etc.) because of our hubris. Our overbearing pride that we can get away with things and our tendency to be short-sighted. Easter Island comes to mind - once a lush and fertile region full of vegetation, but due to uncontrolled exploitation, it is now but barren land. A book by a Canadian essayist named Robert Kaplan writes about this in his "A Short History of Progress." He questions, what was the guy thinking when he cut down the last tree on Easter Island? Society can flourish and not crumble if we remind ourselves of our weaknesses and remind ourselves of past civilizations and our hubric tendencies. We are not inherently evil; it is only our hubris that would lead us to our demise.

 

There is certainly goodness in humans, I see it daily. But to what effect? Goodness can only be defined in the presence of knowing/witnessing what is evil. Then throw in the element of human interpretation, something might be "evil" for one person but not for another. Then compound it with collective evolution of human understanding of what is evil. Slavery is evil. 2000 years ago, no one, at least no evidence that exists, would have sat down and thought to himself "wait a minute, man, I think slavery is evil."

We are just a product of the Zeitgeist to a large extent with some biological relics of distant past coded in genome such as tribalism, territorial violence, pride etc.