Eastern philosophy says the self is an illusion

Telocollinite said:
And they make for a stable solid social network.



Probably because we are social animals tuned to desire social network stability for our survival.

Biology is a science.
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No, envy, resentment, hate, and avarice are all around us. Just take a look around. Almost as if it's the natural state of humans. It takes a self conscious effort of self discipline to manage them.
 
Telocollinite said:
I changed my handle at first so that I could reset the conversation with Cypress as things had gone very far off the rails largely due to me. So since I wanted to talk about the CONCEPTS without being a non-stop personal attack festival I changed names. If you go back and look at every time I changed my name I came back on with a mild comment and actually tried to engage.
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Translation: I was caught lying red-handed using a sock account and wanted to trick others into believing I was someone different.

Awesome, Perry. Did your dog tell you to say that?

Telocollinite said:
But we don't know how intelligent they really are. We know almost nothing about their "minds". I don't know how we could short of getting them in an fMRI (like we do with dogs and that is showing us a lot of interesting stuff).

The idea that humans are somehow "special" from other sentient life forms (dolphins, whales, elephants, etc.) is simple human chauvanism. OF COURSE we think we're special. We're the ones thinking that. But there's really no evidence that we are other than we have opposable thumbs and have found effective ways to destroy the only home we have.

Maybe we ARE speical....especially evil.
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Telocollinite said:
Then you can prove otherwise.



I've already answered this for you. But I'll do it again. I'll even put it in bold letters so you can more easily ignore it again:

I changed my handle at first so that I could reset the conversation with Cypress as things had gone very far off the rails largely due to me. So since I wanted to talk about the CONCEPTS without being a non-stop personal attack festival I changed names. If you go back and look at every time I changed my name I came back on with a mild comment and actually tried to engage.


So, you see, I tried. I learned early on you are on here only to fuck with people. So I only play with you when I'm feeling in a mood. That's why I ignore so many of your posts. They carry no value to anyone but you.
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Trust has to be earned, Jank.
You were posting as Perry Phd simultaneously as you were posting as Jank. And then lying about it.

You decieved me with sock puppets, account changes, name changes.

Words are cheap. Trust has to be earned. You do not qualify for unrestricted access to my time until it is consistently proven over a long period of time that you can post in good faith.
 
Cypress said:
You decieved me with sock puppets, account changes, name changes.
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And my apologies for all the pain I clearly caused you by those actions. I hope you are able to move on, but I understand it was a horrible thing to do to you.

Words are cheap. Trust has to be earned. You do not qualify for unrestricted access to my time until it is consistently proven over a long period of time that you can post in good faith.
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I shall try.

I am reminded of a certain verse in Matthew chapter 7.
 
Telocollinite said:
Why did you change YOUR name, Dutch Uncle?
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To tease all those who claim to be Doctors but aren't. Do you know what Dinkum Oil is, Perry? I'll give you time to Google it. :)

I even printed up a certificate which pissed off ExLax, another Internet Doctor, so much that he still posts about it.* :rofl2:

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*TOW says my superpower is my ability to get under the skin of idiots, liars and the mentally ill. LOL
 
Cypress said:
Trust has to be earned, Jank.
You were posting as Perry Phd simultaneously as you were posting as Jank. And then lying about it.

You decieved me with sock puppets, account changes, name changes.

Words are cheap. Trust has to be earned. You do not qualify for unrestricted access to my time until it is consistently proven over a long period of time that you can post in good faith.
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Agreed on Perry's dishonesty. Notice how he projects the blame onto others, including his dog.

I changed my username once half a year ago and he's still upset about it. Does that strike you as someone who is emotionally stable?

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Doc Dutch said:
Agreed on Perry's dishonesty. Notice how he projects the blame onto others, including his dog.

I changed my username once half a year ago and he's still upset about it. Does that strike you as someone who is emotionally stable?
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It was immediately obvious to everyone you were the same Dutch, you didn't claim to be a different person, and you did not invent a new biography.
 
Cypress said:
It was immediately obvious to everyone you were the same Dutch, you didn't claim to be a different person, and you did not invent a new biography.
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Thanks, Cypress. It's fun to watch Perry try to spin my username change in order to justify is own. Notice how nothing is ever his fault, that all the blame always goes to others.

IMO, that's indicative of a weak and/or flawed mind. Someone who does not accept responsibility for their own behavior. People who believe human beings are meat robots acting solely by genetics and experience like a dog or other animal.
 
Doc Dutch said:
To tease all those who claim to be Doctors but aren't. Do you know what Dinkum Oil is, Perry? I'll give you time to Google it. :)

I even printed up a certificate which pissed off ExLax, another Internet Doctor, so much that he still posts about it.* :rofl2:


*TOW says my superpower is my ability to get under the skin of idiots, liars and the mentally ill. LOL
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Hypocrisy is hypocrisy, no matter how good you are with Corel Draw.
 
Doc Dutch said:
Thanks for calling me a pedophile, Perry. 12B reported.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/18/arts/design/gauguin-national-gallery-london.html
Is It Time Gauguin Got Canceled?
Museums are reassessing the legacy of an artist who had sex with teenage girls and called the Polynesian people he painted “savages.”
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How did you interpret that??????

I meant you are an artist, like Gaugin outside a Pot Shop! Wow. I'm not sure what you are smoking today but that's a stretch. Wow.

I'm not entirely certain how you went to the absolute darkest place imaginable to make an accusation like that. Wow. Don't like art much, do you?
 
Cypress said:
No, envy, resentment, hate, and avarice are all around us. Just take a look around. Almost as if it's the natural state of humans. It takes a self conscious effort of self discipline to manage them.
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The most cursory glance at human history informs us that we rarely, if ever, from stable and peaceful societies.

That's why Thomas More wrote Utopia. It was social commentary on human nature.

Freedom from hate, resentment, wrath, envy were the project of Buddhism, Christianity, Taoism precisely because our conscience can be harnassed to transcend ourselves
 
Cypress said:
Freedom from hate, resentment, wrath, envy were the project of Buddhism, Christianity, Taoism precisely because our conscience can be harnassed to transcend ourselves
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Isn't it a bit ironic, though. Us here on this forum talking as if any of these ideals are anything we are even moderately familiar with.

Buddhism, Christianity, Taoism, all just "thoughts". Nothing more. Good advice (sometimes...I mean some religions teach peace and love but also hate and violence...just look at the Bible for an example).

I think the Eastern "religions" did a much better job of keeping their philosophies less grounded in some invisible sky man view, but in many ways they are just as "hypothetical" as any.

Religion and Philosophy provide many great insights into how to live a "good" life, but the fact that there are SO MANY disparate ideas (should I be a Cynic? Should I be a Sophist? Should I be an Empiricist? Should I be a Stoic? Should I believe that Qi is real? Should I be a Zen Buddhist or some other flavor?) it shows that it is just that: we are trying to understand our thoughts.

It's observation. Observation of the self and others. And it's hypotheses: how to live a "better life". And those hypotheses are tested and rejected as needed. Which is why so many old philosophies (like old religions) are tossed aside.

Science is much the same way. Observation, hypothesis, testing, rejecting. ALL of it is asyptotic approach to "truth" using the most useful tools.

In fact I will go so far as to say that portion of Philosophy that CANNOT be tested and cannot possibly be rejected was not founded by legitimate reasoning.
 
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Telocollinite said:
Isn't it a bit ironic, though. Us here on this forum talking as if any of these ideals are anything we are even moderately familiar with.

Buddhism, Christianity, Taoism, all just "thoughts". Nothing more. Good advice (sometimes...I mean some religions teach peace and love but also hate and violence...just look at the Bible for an example).

I think the Eastern "religions" did a much better job of keeping their philosophies less grounded in some invisible sky man view, but in many ways they are just as "hypothetical" as any.

Religion and Philosophy provide many great insights into how to live a "good" life, but the fact that there are SO MANY disparate ideas (should I be a Cynic? Should I be a Sophist? Should I be an Empiricist? Should I be a Stoic? Should I believe that Qi is real? Should I be a Zen Buddhist or some other flavor?) it shows that it is just that: we are trying to understand our thoughts.

It's observation. Observation of the self and others. And it's hypotheses: how to live a "better life". And those hypotheses are tested and rejected as needed. Which is why so many old philosophies (like old religions) are tossed aside.

Science is much the same way. Observation, hypothesis, testing, rejecting. ALL of it is asyptotic approach to "truth" using the most useful tools.

In fact I will go so far as to say that portion of Philosophy that CANNOT be tested and cannot possibly be rejected was not founded by legitimate reasoning.
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Just a few posts ago you suggested that the suppression of envy, hate, wrath, avarice was perfectly natural and instinctual because it created stable societies

That is not even remotely true.

If natural human instinct were oriented to suppress and control hate, envy, wrath, greed there never, ever would have been a need for moral and spiritual leaders like The Buddha, Jesus, Laozi, Zarathustra to teach and spread their radical messages of transcending our base natures.
 
Cypress said:
Just a few posts ago you suggested that the suppression of envy, hate, wrath, avarice was perfectly natural and instinctual because it created stable societies
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No, let me rephrase it so it is more clear: the FEELINGS are perfectly normal and one shouldn't try to control the THOUGHTS. It's the REACTION to those thoughts that counts.

This is at the heart of things like CBT in Psychology. It is related to Mindfulness. I would highly recommend adding in some mindfulness reading to your various philosophy reading.

Basically the goal here is to NOT control the thoughts but control how we react to those thoughts.

I am free to think whatever I want about you but I'm not free to harm you in some way. I can hate you incandescently but if I am calm and respond to you rationally and without that hate manifesting then I'm doing well. But if I seek to NOT feel something, well you are familiar with the "Don't think of an Elephant" type experiments, so you presumably get my point.
 
Telocollinite said:
How did you interpret that??????

I meant you are an artist, like Gaugin outside a Pot Shop! Wow. I'm not sure what you are smoking today but that's a stretch. Wow.

I'm not entirely certain how you went to the absolute darkest place imaginable to make an accusation like that. Wow. Don't like art much, do you?
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Gaugin was a pedo. Your allusion was obvious. It's not like this is the first time you've been caught red-handed lying.

Don't worry, Perry. Even the mods know you're "off". At worst, you'll only get a warning unless you are a repeat offender. :thup:
 
Doc Dutch said:
Gaugin was a pedo. Your allusion was obvious. It's not like this is the first time you've been caught red-handed lying.

Don't worry, Perry. Even the mods know you're "off". At worst, you'll only get a warning unless you are a repeat offender. :thup:
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Seriously, dude, to my knowledge Gaugin was just an impressionist painter whose work I didn't much like. That's why I mentioned him. I didn't realize he was what you said.

I'm not going to apologize because I didn't call you anything bad. I just made another art joke which you flipped out over, like you did with Tom of Finland.

If you want to go digging up every bad thing about every artist that's fine. Just don't assume everyone's brain goes to that same dark shit.

Do you get equally upset when they play Gary Glitter's "Rock and Roll Part 2" at sporting events too?
 
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