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Help me understand how being contentful can bring you peace in life.

For me being contentful now and not regretting any decisions in future is a paradox.

A newbie to stoicism and i can't wrap my head around the idea that materialistic desire are vise and you can't live a happy satisfied life. If any desire you have are vices than isn't desire of peace a vice too? Even if i am satisfied now but what guarantee can be there that it won't bringe me more pain in future. One example i can think of is being contentful of my financial situation now and a decade later regretting that when i don't have the money for my liver transplant that just failed.

And another question i have is shouldn't the purpose of life be just wanting peace why does it matter if it is achieved through materialistic means or you just leaving everything and staying in the woods. For example if a person finds peace travelling won't he/she use materialistic means to get peace.?.

I know i am all over the place but it's new for me so can't collect my thoughts properly :')

Hi so I like to write a lot doing a lot writing on philosophical thoughts I have wanted a opinion on one: can humanity survive utopia? As we inch closer to harmless endless energy we get closer to a world without struggle, and can we survive that? Is it possible for the human mind to deal with paradise on earth? I think not honestly but willing hear counter arguments

Well peace in life is just the ignorance of external crisis. Most struggle is the attempt to survive in the self made mode of existence. Once you truly take in you can only control so much if even that and reality is a mystery you can not truly understand you have two options, enter despair at your lack of knowledge to reason you exist or or continue onward in the pursuit to learn more. We all must bare a personal manifested Destiny but must realize it is manifested. You have nothing in the beginning and ending but you can find joy in this little while in the attempt to gain something.

Not getting something you want might end up in frustration. Same for wanting peace. It is paradox to most bc humans are purpose oriented beings. I think the paradox only exist for those that believe you need to want peace to get it. If you regret you never reached the stoic ideal in the first place. Also you’ll never know if you’re going to regret, that’s why you should let go of thinking about it. Wanting to live is also a desire btw. To your second question, according to stoicism content comes from inside. External things, like the possibility to travel are never guaranteed and so is your peace.

Remember tho this is just an ideal.

How is peace ignorance tho? For some, rather many probably but not necessarily.

Can you describe how or why you think that utopia-in-praxis would destroy us as a species?

When I say ignorance I say you set a limit to the full grasp of reality. Because it’s kind of bleak really, we are in a endless void where we likely won’t no the reason for the existence. So best way to avoid external crisis is to piece meal that thought and enjoy a self created reality of the things to can learn and can understand. To the storm instead of battling it

Depends on how you define utopia. Utopia is a ideal, something perfect. Something that can’t be reached because humans aren’t perfect.

So I’d say no. Humanity and perfection are contradictory. There’ll be always some kind of struggle.

Because I don’t think our intelligence can expect a end of history reality. To sit in pleasure chair and nom our brains. We would become slugs, dogs as we broke them from wolves. And in the process decay human intelligence to a point we may lose sentience

We can reach it but we will rebel against it I think. As the only way to enjoy paradise is with out thought, the thing that makes us human

Isn’t the term acceptance more suitable? Also setting the limit is very active, isn’t it rather accepting one’s own limit? Also do you mean internal* crisis?

Bc ignorance is a extreme risky incomplete and therefore counterproductive form of peace to me. It also tends to make external crises worse.

Sure, but I think that you’re discounting the probability of cybernetic augmentation allowing for the advent of a new human race capable of merging with AI. Of course some will die and fall to decadence and decay—but, still some will rise from those ashes towwrd even greater heights.

But humanity without thought isn’t able to survive, is it?

How do you define a utopia though.

A world where all our needs are met

What kind of needs?

Like everyone has food, water, a roof above one’s head and receives the needed love?

I think you touch on a thought tho that I think will happen, the new species of Homo sapiens, the slug people, homo inferiors and new gods, homo superiors. I think tho this where humanity stops being human, and what remains of Homo sapiens will be the adventurers who dare to leave Utopia for adventure onward in the dark, either on Earth or beyond

All really, to point where even the need the walk will be inferior way of life

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I think I agree with you and redact my previous stance and terminology

I don’t think that’ll be possible while having organic bodies. Also a future in which my way of life is viewed as inferior, just bc I like walking and use my body doesn’t sound too utopian 😅.

Do you maybe mean a “every wish is granted” type of future?

So you are saying people cannot follow any set of rules ever because ”human nature”? But that is what makes humanity: the ability to think.

What if we make a system that is maximally rational (because another thing about human nature, ”shelfishness”) that any departure from its rules is actually altruistic (anything short of violence against bodies) or self-harm?

In trivial terms: for example a scenario where you cannot steal other people’s parcels that are equally distributed and one can only depart from its rules by a) not taking own share and causing self-harm or b) gifting it to others making it an altruistic deed. They are actually the same thing: altruism does not exist among sane people.

I think that what I see as the closes thing we will be in Utopia

Humans aren’t purely rational unfortunately. Thats why rational rules and the punishment for breaking them often do not work. Selfishness can take up self destructive dimensions. If people would be rationally selfish, for the most part selfish altruism would be the logical answer.

How is your scenario different from laws we have rn? (Except the punishment)

So maybe just like in matrix, only less misanthropic, with a simulation that does whatever one of the player wishes, wo each of those being able to harm each other? Or does it need to be “real”?

Sure, I think I’d agree with the sentiment of that idea

I agree with what you're saying but the thing that bothers me is that stoicism is hard to practice correct me if i am wrong how i understand stoicism is we should not care and worry about the things which we can't control but how do we distinguish the things that we can control or not . What if i start not caring for things that matter.

We don’t have a system that is maximally rational (maximum efficiency and justice) so that departure from it could be evidenced as pareto suboptimal. Obviously breaking the rules of the status quo further increases your position in so many cases. It is just an arbitrary way of living at best,

Nothing matters, just as everything. What comes to you comes to you. Stoicism believes In determinism, the choices you’ll make are the ones that you’re supposed to make and there is no right or wrong about it (the physics).

But since stoics do believe in a chain of cause and effect and logic should be used to predict it. But not to your own good, the ideal teaches altruism. You have (conditional) control about the decisions you make, not about the causal chain though.

“When someone throws a roller onto an inclined plane, he does indeed provide the external impetus for movement; but the actual cause of the roller rolling down lies in its shape, that is, in its own essence”

You can’t predict the future. Maybe you’ll regret no matter what you do.

So back to your example with the liver transplant. Stoic ideal would say to give the money away for the good of society. But you also need to accept that you aren’t the stoic ideal, you are selfish and maybe will regret your decisions. So before thinking about “what would a stoic do in this situation” the focus should be on becoming a stoic? I’m not an expert tho so take what I said with a grain of salt.

Yea that sounds a bit hedonistic and not very utopian to me idk. I think the right approach would be to “create” people that don’t want to act unethically in the first place. Rules wouldn’t even be necessary then.

Okay i think i am able to understand it somewhat, what i see now is we can somewhat worry about the "what if's" of future but to worry about the "what if's" of past has no point as we can't control it and can't be changed.

And thanks for the time to explain it to my dummy dumb brain

Nono, worry=selfish sensation=Nono in stoicism :D. Only reason.

You’re welcome, I’m also an amateur at best so I hope I was able to help.

Just trying to tinker with the argument from the incoherence/shelfishness of human nature. Not guaranteeing it will fit a whole. Sadly.

And of course it is hedonistic, well, atleast materialistic because that is the question about. After the system is maximally rational, so that no one's position can be improved you can do b) give away your share if your religion tells you to. It does interfere with what is rational for the individual in particular.

If it's a true utopia we, by definition, will survive it won't we?

Hey, here is a though I have been having, it about art, and the "age old question" of what exactly it is, and this is definitely a relevant topic now with the emergence of freaky good ai art, the best of which isn't even popular at all right now by the way.
My thesis goes something like this: art Is everything that reaches for god. That's it...
I can go into detail of why I think that but with just this definition, how satisfactory do you find it?

Leibniz - On the problem of compound Monadological structures

I would like to open a discussion concerning various topics which can be seen as problematic in the philosophy of Leibniz and others

What Leibniz makes clear to us ( in Monadology) is that it is not at all clear why do particluars form structures. In fact its higly problematic when he assumes elementary, unperishing points called Monads (centers of activity and thought - which is here the same thing) We can clearly see this is a problem for Leibniz, because he is obliged to say two things. 1. Monads do not have windows, so they can’t be affected by other Monads. 2. (As a consequence) we have to postulate pre-established harmony to explain their coordination. For Leibniz, there is no other way he can explain it. So he does not know why there even exists this organization in the first place, which breaks his system, because he postulates in the first sentence of his Monadology that there in fact are compound structures, from which (he claims) we see that there have to some elementary particles. I do not think there has been any progress on this question down to our time from the pre-socratics. Leibniz is bold enough to assume pluralism of substances having a value of it’s own. Pre-socratics dissolved particulars in something general. They had to explain particulars by Necessity, becuase it simply mattered very little- it did not become a problem for them. Leibnize’s first postulate in Monadology serves a summary to ancient physics. They asked HOW it happens that compound composed of something elementary and unchanging. It was a mechanical question. Now Platón and Aristotle wanted to know WHY it happens in the first place. For they adhered to Anaxagoras and his concept of Nous, which is Leibnize’s pre-established harmony. Till this day it is still a question HOW it happens. For physics found laws governing formations of structures. But WHY elementary particles should be tuned to each other, WHY they are even made to go further, and not simply stay what they are ,is still a mystery. It should be remembered that Leukippos was much further than modern science. Because he knew that given atoms and empty space, they will just stay that way forever. So he postulated Necessity, as every bad philosophy does. He didn’t know why, so he said it must be so. I think Democritus hit on that too, se they adhered to Necessity- it has to be like this. This is an aswer constsntly re-affirmed by quantum physics. It’s trying to pin down a mechanism which could explain HOW are particles constitueted to form structures. But the real question is WHY should there be something unchanging forming something changeable, and what prones this formation have not been even properly asked. I see it only in Leibniz, but he does not say it explicitly

I will happily enter into further discussion, feel free to attack whatever statement you feel uncomfortable with. This is not a argumentatively coherent thesis, I simply do not understand it and want to have a better grasp of it.

You are a series of continually dying entities.

Assumption(s) made for this concept: There is no soul and the brain creates consciousness.

Based on that assumption, each consciousness must arise somehow from the specific ways in which matter is arranged in the brain. My consciousness is different from your consciousness and I am not you simply because our brains are arranged in different states of consciousness. But if each arrangement of matter in a brain is its own consciousness (assuming it is a consciousness at all), then the You of yesterday is an entirely different consciousness from the You of today as your brains are different. The You of yesterday is not here anymore; thus, it is dead. In fact, this happens every moment as your brain updates and changes every moment. You may see yourself as something continuous, but you only just came into existence and you're about to- oops, you already died, but you don't know it. Instead there's another being conscious in your place which has your memories.

This is not just a metaphorical interpretation; this is a literal interpretation. If death is interpreted as the destruction of consciousness, something that calls itself "you" literally dies every moment and actually there is no true "you", just a constant illusion covered in death.

Thoughts?

The Tragic Worthlessness of War:

Watching the world these days might make one think the belief in war to be modern. In contrast these words: war, fighting and conflict have always existed as part of the human way. Might war be not the way of thugs but the way of mankind itself? Is being human in the end the same thing as being a creature of war?
Why? For war has no winner. No people in the history of man has ever won a war. How can one tell the mother of a dead soldier the war has been won? Can someone tell me who the winner is? Is it society, having to deal with the grief, destruction and blood that mankind leaves behind itself? Is it the country having lost a generation of men? Is it the King the throne of whom is made of blood and bones? The king who in the end dies as worthless a death himself.
Sun Tzu left the last chapter out, when he wrote what would become "The Art of War". He left out the part telling us there is no art to war. There is only the bodies of men, women and children, being fed to the meatgrinder that is the human existence.
"Only the dead have seen the end of war" - George Santayana

A bit busy right now so I can’t share my thoughts, but I love this and completely agree.

“We are trapped in our bodies and our conscious.” Discuss

The statement is indifferent as to the question of whether this is good or bad.

Wars worth lays completely on the concept of its better after; that survival of one’s kin or nation or creed is something so profound that it is worth more then one’s mortal flesh. It is tied to the warrior’s imagined worth that his cause is just. In this game of right and wrong, the noblest of souls just run away, to place where iron isn’t made into pointed swords and daggers

Suggests that "we" is an distinguishable entity from our body and consciousness and not just an emergent one from our body and/or consciousness. Why should we believe that?

You don’t have to accept it. Feel free to dispute it

> but with just this definition, how satisfactory do you find it?

Not satisfactory at all. The definition is fairly idiosyncratic (for no apparent reason), lacks intuitive appeal, and the complete lack of reasoning makes it nearly impossible to accept.

‘Discuss’?

> worth more then one’s

Did you mean to say "more than"?
Explanation: No explanation available.
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I found it funny to write it like a British school or university exam question.

Yes, I realized midway that I could just keep on explaining and would need to stop at some point too early, so I stopped at the conclusion waiting for questions.

Of course, we will need some common ground here, that would be:
1- god is what's on top of any value structure. for all intends and purposes to an individual relation that would be god.
2- reaching the top of a value structure requires measured steps measured by how far the are able to move in that structure, after accounting for the changes to the structure done by the movement.
3- everything that can be called "art" definitely has commonality, hinting at the existence at an intrinsic object of pure art, all seems to culminate into the input of the receiver (that would be a conscious being) through a medium (those would be the senses) such mediums are majorly visual, sound and literature (literature could be under a broader term of logic or pattern but would then take a large part of the visual and the sound spheres) and I would argue logically there is a perfect art, (I would even call prayer) that is fully non related to the input medium, and only later it diverges into the different art mediums.

Now on those assumptions or conclusions what are the disagreements?

How often do you ask yourself,”how did I get here?” Let me make clear that when I say “here” I do not mean the dimly lit room of a pale puke green hue decorated with sloppily drilled and now barren holes scattered across its four walls that I find myself surrounded by now as I write this.When I say “here”I mean to describe the indescribable and inescapable settings we have perceived since our birth. Not only the observable and physical settings, but the setting in which our consciousness finds itself imprisoned within the medium of the physical realm. It begs the question, in my opinion, of whether or not we “got” here so to speak, or if we’ve been here in some sense all along.

The most simple, beautiful, terrifying, yet reasonable answer to give when asked what is it like after we die is certainly that it is much like it was before we were born. This rationalization is based on the belief that there was no experience or observations before our birth. But how far back can you really remember? There is most likely much of your early life that you have no recollection of. This means although you certainly did exist, you have no current access to the experiences and observations you made during those early years of your life. In that same sense is it not possible that you have existed in some form before the event of birth and have no current access to the experiences you made beyond what limited span of memory you can reflect on? The only thing we can know for certain is that we exist, and the only thing we have come to learn is that we know little to nothing at all about the nature of our existence. People often search for meaning to go along with our disposition of self awareness, although nothing suggests in my opinion that any meaning is necessary to explain how our existence came to be. If you believe in god in a religious sense and that some all knowing supreme entity existed before us and created our reality with human kind as its ultimate objective. Where did god come from and how long and aimlessly did they exist before proposing this occupation? Of what framework did they conceive the image of humanity without a physical form themselves? And if our creation was in their own image, who created the image in which they meant to replicate? By this frame of thought you can understand my confusion that anyone amongst us could believe that any answers offered by religious belief are sufficient in explaining anything at all beyond what we all already know… That all we know is that we are to ask, so do not stop asking why we are at all 🙏☀️🌙🌏

I believe all consciousness stems from one entity that is only deviating among us by matter of circumstances. We are all the same being facing separate circumstances. Each of us will experience the life of every conscious being that has ever or will ever exist with no recollection of the previous as long as we occupy the physical realm, until we learn to separate our consciousness from the temptations of material existence

You mean like in the short story The Egg? What makes you think that?

It came to me one day and I haven’t been able to find a theory that makes more sense. After looking into it it is a shared belief among many groups throughout history

1. What "makes sense" about it?

2. Just because many people believe something doesn't make it more true.

Do you believe that you are control of your typical body functions? Handling of nutrients, the air we breathe, maintaining a balance, and so on..

What do you define as yourself?

I am struggling with this one. Obviously I am not controlling every single cell within my body. I expect my body to continue functioning as it should, given I maintain it.

An emergent entity would offer up the chance that there are others that may be capable of emerging?

I find this interesting for many reasons..

We, people/all life as we know it, seems to be pre-programmed for quite a lot. I can elaborate if needed, but I'd rather leave here if possible.

To slightly build up on the previous: Is it possible that we do happen to carry over some knowledge of the previous? Knowing the bare-minimum, essentially running in autopilot, is extremely beneficial for the success of life, especially at birth/conception.

I want to know, what happens if we no longer have a physical realm? It is believed that life on earth will be impossible one day. We have more unknowns than knowns when it comes to the universe, but all science points to the earth no longer being capable of sustaining life. If we are incapable of escaping the death and destruction, do we also cease to exist in any realm?

I also am curious to know, do you consider all known life to also stem from the same entity?

Your #2 makes me think of religion. Truths are very difficult to universally back with belief or faith. At the same time, common grounds are tough to find - sometimes more people also believing is just as powerful as the truth.

Also curious to know what makes sense to the person you're responding to.

This is somewhat disturbing to think about, the current you will no longer exist... Anyway, feelings aside:

What do you define as the current? Where do you draw the line of this moment and the following? Do you die thousands of times a second, every 5 seconds? Can you put a duration to the current "you"?

Memories are interesting. Coming from a tech background, I like to think of memories as indexed moments of time. Just as databases exist to be efficient in retrieval and storage, memories tend to work very well when they're also associated with something more than the memory itself.

I don't know if I'm doing a good job explaining anything, so please ask whatever that's needed!..

Anyway, building a little more off the memories as an indexes in a database - would you argue that the dying entities include entities that are working to constantly maintain and index these memories? Do they even get stored, or does the next self simply know all of the previous? Does this same self exist subconsciously with everything the body requires to survive (knowing when to breathe, feeding air to the body, nutrients from food, creating blood, basically every biological)?

I'm not sure where to interject, picking here..

I think it's impossible to have a universally agreed set of standards and needs. We're already proving that individual communities struggle to establish guidelines that are not questioned.

In order to achieve a utopia I believe we'd need to become far too similar, more than anyone else would like.

No matter what, a baseline needs to be established. Everything would have to be agreed on, and that would require an entire planet's worth of agreement. Utopia is easier to exist in a small group, and even then, you're going to have far too many differing opinions.

Is a utopia even desirable?

Evolve, adapt, or repeat? The cycle is always present, but is it a cycle leading you to your highest vision? Nature shows us three states - creation, preservation, or destruction. The same states are found in the mind. Every thought or action creates a response, which looks like a continuation of the current and/or previous cycle. The pattern continues, until the cycle is improved upon or broken. The pattern is formed through habit, reputation, and reinforcement. The pattern continues on the way it has always has unless it is evolved or broken. This is what we call “fate”, and nothing more. Through the passage of time, we have the opportunity to create changes, so that we can consciously move forward as we please. The pattern begins with your thoughts and mind, whether you are conscious of the pattern or not it is always present. You may perpetuate the pattern, but we fail to see the truth when we internalize the patterns. We often mistake the consequences of the pattern, as who or what we are. Like will always follow like, there is no other way. Only through conscious awareness can the pattern evolve, and the pattern can take new form. Conscious change is difficult, it is much easier to remain on autopilot and do as we have always done. The real question, are you fulfilling your potential?

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But then what will you consider meaningful work?

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"The beauty of the world is the only thing that can be found in this life and the way it is. I am not sure what to do about the fact that life is not a real thing, but I think it is a good idea for us to be able to leave. We are not going to be here for much longer, but we will have plenty of time to get together"

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If duality were solved mathematically then it would be a science. If duality were a science, it would be relativity because it explains all reality. Duality is intrinsic knowledge that’s simple and broad and pertains to all things.

What is this from?

This is a quote of mine

Contemporary framings of the liar paradox do not actually pose a problem. The sentence "This sentence is false." does not refer to anything, because the only thing it can be considered to refer to is its own falsehood and it cannot refer to its own falsehood because that would be begging the question. Thus, it is just a void and nonsensical string of words.

Consciousness is the assumption that because we in the state of mind where we can acknowledge, respond and interpret our surroundings. But how do we determine that’s consciousness. Our brain never sleep always active. When we are asleep It uses memories and the surroundings to create dreams. I think the brain action does not necessarily indicative of the wake or sleep mode. Just like you only know it’s a dream when you are consciously in the wake mood. But does it make a difference to the brain. The brain is active regardless.

If evil vanished completely, might goodness continue to be good?

For example, do the good ones come in a ranking within themselves? Thus will the good -at the bottom- be bad compared to the others?
Must there be evil for there to be goodness? Or, is there no evil when there is only good?