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> Philosophy is generally impractical. I don’t understand this statement. The rest of the article is an exercise in philosophy. I perceive it to be behavior t

> Philosophy is generally impractical. I don’t understand this statement. The rest of the article is an exercise in philosophy. I perceive it to be behavior that does not elevate the human being beyond that of a lesser animal. This is just hedonism. Their philosophy isn’t to understand truth or beauty either. It’s just to “use heuristics” to do what other successful people do. I don’t like Western hedonistic philosophy like this that piggybacks off of old world philosophies and picks and chooses behaviors and practices without understanding. I associate it with Western humanism which I find equally dangerous because the two are philosophical siblings from the same immoral thinking. This is dangerous philosophy. Edit: I’ve edited this post because I found my initial post to be overly negative.

deleted 4y ago
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safety1st 4y ago
I wasn't impressed by this post but I don't think it's all that dangerous either. The epistemic hubris is extreme, it takes the attitude that you can discard millennia of human thought and come up with the real answers to life in 15 minutes. That's obviously ridiculous. Correspondingly it's very easy to poke holes in the arguments here. Let's just take the first premise, that we should (a) prevent immediate suffering, and (b) prevent future suffering. What about the very important case where I accept some suffering in the short term to reduce suffering in the long term? No indication here of where that makes sense and where it doesn't. What about a prisoner's dilemma where I may be able to prevent a lot of suffering, but only if someone else (who I have limited information about) makes the same decision I do? These questions (What do we do about time? What do we do about society?) are just two examples of the hard questions where all the work gets done. The post doesn't explore them. In fact it seems to assume as a premise that hard questions don't really exist. If this is hedonism, the stuffy philosophers maligned by the poster have produced better arguments for hedonism than this one. (All that said I don't think we should go too hard on the poster - at least they are trying, which is more than most people do!)
- surprisetalk 4y ago
  Author here! > What about the very important case where I accept some suffering in the short term to reduce suffering in the long term? Great point. Any recommendations on how to think about expected value when minimizing suffering? Also, I think pain and suffering are very different, and I completely failed to communicate that in the essay. > These questions (What do we do about time? What do we do about society?) are just two examples of the hard questions where all the work gets done. The post doesn't explore them. In fact it seems to assume as a premise that hard questions don't really exist. I purposefully avoided hard questions in this post. I'm much more interested in systems that reliably lead to good questions and good-enough answers. But I should've addressed more about how to think outside of yourself. Lately, I've been reconsidering my beliefs around "changing the world" and trying to focus more on my family and community. Still searching for the right balance > (All that said I don't think we should go too hard on the poster - at least they are trying, which is more than most people do!) Thanks :) But based on this comments section, it looks like I should've tried a little harder haha
  - aizatto 4y ago
    > Any recommendations on how to think about expected value when minimizing suffering? I don't think it's about "minimizing suffering". There is things to suffer for, and there are things which you shouldn.t I like to prefix my questions with "When should" Therefore: > When should I suffer? and > When should I not suffer? I built a platform where I record questions I ask myself Here is for the keyword "suffering" https://www.deepthoughtapp.com/en/keywords/suffering https://www.deepthoughtapp.com/en/keywords/suffering
    - surprisetalk 4y ago
      To me, pain differs from suffering. Pain is of the body and suffering is of the mind. But I think your point still stands. There are plenty of reasons to purposefully subject yourself to pain (e.g. exercise). I'm not sure about suffering. Suffering is an unavoidable side-effect of love and other delights of life, but it doesn't seem like something to ever be sought after. I'll need to think on that some more. Also, your "when should" trick is clever! Good strategy for keeping things concrete.
flangola7 4y ago
I'm not sure what to say to someone who thinks humanism and hedonism are immoral. I don't think there can be any common ground.
- andrewmcwatters 4y ago
  If another animal capable of advanced thought and mechanism had its own branch of philosophy focused on its own species then it would be demonstrable in itself that it's a worldview of selfishness. It's about the self. And carnal interests of the self are to benefit oneself. They are deontological brothers. There's nothing more to glean from there.
surprisetalk 4y ago
Author here :) > Their philosophy isn’t to understand truth or beauty either. It’s just to “use heuristics” to do what other successful people do. I've found that studying others is a reliable way to discover truth and beauty. I also think investigating yourself produces good results. But maybe I'm overthinking haha > picks and chooses behaviors and practices without understanding I'm really really interested in how to pick behaviors and practices! Do you have any recommendations?
- yhavr 4y ago
  > I've found that studying others is a reliable way to discover truth and beauty But you can't look in somebody's head, to see the whole context of their behaviour. There is multiple official cognitive flaws related to this. Humans are very bad at reading others minds and good at hiding their intentions. Think about a typical suicidal person who appears happy and smiling but then... well, you hear the bad news.
- andrewmcwatters 4y ago
  All major religions and philosophical thought about living and being are attempts to make man into a perfect being, to be a good person, and as a result to project these morals towards one’s fellow man in order to help them do the same. I perceive that your philosophical framework is an attempt to find minimal ethical strategies to define a well-lived life unto itself for oneself. You focus on suffering and pleasure as hedons do, and even your questioning now feels like a Monte Carlo iteration of furthering this goal. You don’t define concepts of good or bad, righteous or evil, outside of what harms the self without concern for others. You seek to imitate instead of search for ground truth but you use first principle concepts from your own lived experience which doubtlessly derives from concepts you no longer remember the origin of but are stemmed in Western civilization thought. Yet instead of deriving your first principles from morals, you derive them from pleasure. You are thusly immoral. Are you capable of moral behavior? Surely. And I’m sure in the day-to-day no one would think twice about interactions with you as a person. But as one explores worldly terrain and maps the hills and valleys of the earth, subsequent and progressive meaningful interactions with immoral people yield the voids of the heart.
eevilspock 4y ago
I agree with you on all points except I've never thought about humanism that way. Perhaps I have the wrong definition or understanding of humanism. But you single out "Western" humanism and perhaps that explains it. I already believe Western culture is deeply selfist and that selfism is fundamentally immoral -- Morality is all about transcending selfishness.
now__what 4y ago
> Western humanism which I find equally dangerous because the two are philosophical siblings from the same immoral thinking. Do you mind elaborating on your issues with Western Humanism? I've never heard anyone critique it from a non-biblical angle, so I'm curious to hear what the gripes are.
- andrewmcwatters 4y ago
  I find it widely uninteresting as a philosophy because it’s unequivocally the same as being non-religious without philosophical affiliation to any moral value system. As far as I’m concerned it’s a formal definition for those without adherence to any moral value system. You don’t need a biblical argument for that, it just is what it is. You can call people whatever you want, it doesn’t mean they identify with such a group. I find it to be the same as associating people who treat women with equality with feminism. Could you prescribe such a label? Sure I guess. But feminism is larger than that concept. I’m not saying it is a misnomer. I am saying that it can be one for the same reason. And so if you operate by assumption that one has no value system, they’re immoral. I’m not trying to dice words here. Humans intuitively know what certain qualities of goodness and badness are. That doesn’t mean they actually live them, though. That’s what’s dangerous. The subtlety of knowing that people know what goodness and badness are, seeing that they can in some or even most situations live accordingly, but not actually internalizing such philosophy to explicitly live it out, other than doing so my mimicry, requirement, or obligation.
  - now__what 4y ago
    A very interesting take, thank you! I have to wonder if Humanists themselves would accept the label you're prescribing for them ;) I also find it a little funny that you assume Humanists are only living out their philosophy "by mimicry, requirement, or obligation," as that's often how I've seen humanists describe religious moralism. I appreciate you sharing your perspective!
    - andrewmcwatters 4y ago
      Probably not! And I think there's way more than enough room for an academic argument there. In essence, I'm asserting that the same end results are indistinguishable, however. But also yes, you could label religious moral adherence with the same qualities. :)

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

safety1st 4y ago

I wasn't impressed by this post but I don't think it's all that dangerous either. The epistemic hubris is extreme, it takes the attitude that you can discard millennia of human thought and come up with the real answers to life in 15 minutes. That's obviously ridiculous. Correspondingly it's very easy to poke holes in the arguments here. Let's just take the first premise, that we should (a) prevent immediate suffering, and (b) prevent future suffering. What about the very important case where I accept some suffering in the short term to reduce suffering in the long term? No indication here of where that makes sense and where it doesn't. What about a prisoner's dilemma where I may be able to prevent a lot of suffering, but only if someone else (who I have limited information about) makes the same decision I do? These questions (What do we do about time? What do we do about society?) are just two examples of the hard questions where all the work gets done. The post doesn't explore them. In fact it seems to assume as a premise that hard questions don't really exist. If this is hedonism, the stuffy philosophers maligned by the poster have produced better arguments for hedonism than this one. (All that said I don't think we should go too hard on the poster - at least they are trying, which is more than most people do!)

surprisetalk 4y ago
Author here! > What about the very important case where I accept some suffering in the short term to reduce suffering in the long term? Great point. Any recommendations on how to think about expected value when minimizing suffering? Also, I think pain and suffering are very different, and I completely failed to communicate that in the essay. > These questions (What do we do about time? What do we do about society?) are just two examples of the hard questions where all the work gets done. The post doesn't explore them. In fact it seems to assume as a premise that hard questions don't really exist. I purposefully avoided hard questions in this post. I'm much more interested in systems that reliably lead to good questions and good-enough answers. But I should've addressed more about how to think outside of yourself. Lately, I've been reconsidering my beliefs around "changing the world" and trying to focus more on my family and community. Still searching for the right balance > (All that said I don't think we should go too hard on the poster - at least they are trying, which is more than most people do!) Thanks :) But based on this comments section, it looks like I should've tried a little harder haha
- aizatto 4y ago
  > Any recommendations on how to think about expected value when minimizing suffering? I don't think it's about "minimizing suffering". There is things to suffer for, and there are things which you shouldn.t I like to prefix my questions with "When should" Therefore: > When should I suffer? and > When should I not suffer? I built a platform where I record questions I ask myself Here is for the keyword "suffering" https://www.deepthoughtapp.com/en/keywords/suffering https://www.deepthoughtapp.com/en/keywords/suffering
  - surprisetalk 4y ago
    To me, pain differs from suffering. Pain is of the body and suffering is of the mind. But I think your point still stands. There are plenty of reasons to purposefully subject yourself to pain (e.g. exercise). I'm not sure about suffering. Suffering is an unavoidable side-effect of love and other delights of life, but it doesn't seem like something to ever be sought after. I'll need to think on that some more. Also, your "when should" trick is clever! Good strategy for keeping things concrete.

flangola7 4y ago

I'm not sure what to say to someone who thinks humanism and hedonism are immoral. I don't think there can be any common ground.

andrewmcwatters 4y ago
If another animal capable of advanced thought and mechanism had its own branch of philosophy focused on its own species then it would be demonstrable in itself that it's a worldview of selfishness. It's about the self. And carnal interests of the self are to benefit oneself. They are deontological brothers. There's nothing more to glean from there.

surprisetalk 4y ago

Author here :) > Their philosophy isn’t to understand truth or beauty either. It’s just to “use heuristics” to do what other successful people do. I've found that studying others is a reliable way to discover truth and beauty. I also think investigating yourself produces good results. But maybe I'm overthinking haha > picks and chooses behaviors and practices without understanding I'm really really interested in how to pick behaviors and practices! Do you have any recommendations?

yhavr 4y ago
> I've found that studying others is a reliable way to discover truth and beauty But you can't look in somebody's head, to see the whole context of their behaviour. There is multiple official cognitive flaws related to this. Humans are very bad at reading others minds and good at hiding their intentions. Think about a typical suicidal person who appears happy and smiling but then... well, you hear the bad news.
andrewmcwatters 4y ago
All major religions and philosophical thought about living and being are attempts to make man into a perfect being, to be a good person, and as a result to project these morals towards one’s fellow man in order to help them do the same. I perceive that your philosophical framework is an attempt to find minimal ethical strategies to define a well-lived life unto itself for oneself. You focus on suffering and pleasure as hedons do, and even your questioning now feels like a Monte Carlo iteration of furthering this goal. You don’t define concepts of good or bad, righteous or evil, outside of what harms the self without concern for others. You seek to imitate instead of search for ground truth but you use first principle concepts from your own lived experience which doubtlessly derives from concepts you no longer remember the origin of but are stemmed in Western civilization thought. Yet instead of deriving your first principles from morals, you derive them from pleasure. You are thusly immoral. Are you capable of moral behavior? Surely. And I’m sure in the day-to-day no one would think twice about interactions with you as a person. But as one explores worldly terrain and maps the hills and valleys of the earth, subsequent and progressive meaningful interactions with immoral people yield the voids of the heart.

eevilspock 4y ago

I agree with you on all points except I've never thought about humanism that way. Perhaps I have the wrong definition or understanding of humanism. But you single out "Western" humanism and perhaps that explains it. I already believe Western culture is deeply selfist and that selfism is fundamentally immoral -- Morality is all about transcending selfishness.

now__what 4y ago

> Western humanism which I find equally dangerous because the two are philosophical siblings from the same immoral thinking. Do you mind elaborating on your issues with Western Humanism? I've never heard anyone critique it from a non-biblical angle, so I'm curious to hear what the gripes are.

andrewmcwatters 4y ago
I find it widely uninteresting as a philosophy because it’s unequivocally the same as being non-religious without philosophical affiliation to any moral value system. As far as I’m concerned it’s a formal definition for those without adherence to any moral value system. You don’t need a biblical argument for that, it just is what it is. You can call people whatever you want, it doesn’t mean they identify with such a group. I find it to be the same as associating people who treat women with equality with feminism. Could you prescribe such a label? Sure I guess. But feminism is larger than that concept. I’m not saying it is a misnomer. I am saying that it can be one for the same reason. And so if you operate by assumption that one has no value system, they’re immoral. I’m not trying to dice words here. Humans intuitively know what certain qualities of goodness and badness are. That doesn’t mean they actually live them, though. That’s what’s dangerous. The subtlety of knowing that people know what goodness and badness are, seeing that they can in some or even most situations live accordingly, but not actually internalizing such philosophy to explicitly live it out, other than doing so my mimicry, requirement, or obligation.
- now__what 4y ago
  A very interesting take, thank you! I have to wonder if Humanists themselves would accept the label you're prescribing for them ;) I also find it a little funny that you assume Humanists are only living out their philosophy "by mimicry, requirement, or obligation," as that's often how I've seen humanists describe religious moralism. I appreciate you sharing your perspective!
  - andrewmcwatters 4y ago
    Probably not! And I think there's way more than enough room for an academic argument there. In essence, I'm asserting that the same end results are indistinguishable, however. But also yes, you could label religious moral adherence with the same qualities. :)