Philosophy

Maybe this has come up before, but I still wanted to ask. Lately, I’ve been a bit confused about whether we really have free will or not. I’m not religious and I don’t really believe in metaphysics. I’d probably call myself agnostic. I’ve just been questioning life more than I used to, and this thought keeps popping into my head.

When Tolstoy speaks of Christianity, he's referring to his more objective, philosophical, non-supernatural interpretation of his translation of the Gospels: The Gospel In Brief. For context: https://lemmy.world/post/25679868

"The intoxication produced by such stimulants as parades, reviews, religious solemnities, and coronations, is, however, an acute and temporary condition; but there are other forms of chronic, permanent intoxication, to which those are liable who have any kind of authority, from that of the Tzar to that of the lowest police officer at the street corner, and also those who are in subjection to authority and in a state of stupefied servility. The latter, like all slaves, always find a justification for their own servility, in ascribing the greatest possible dignity and importance to those they serve. It is principally through this false idea of inequality, and _the intoxication of power and of servility resulting from it, that men associated in a state organization are enabled to commit acts opposed to their conscience without the least scruple or remorse_.

_Vanity_: 1. excessive pride in or admiration of one's own appearance or achievements. 2. the quality of being worthless or futile.

Has anyone attempted to build moral principles into an AI model?

I was thinking about Adam Smith the other day. He is considered the father of modern economics. Many of his philosophies focus on division of labour and free and open trade. He is also credited with establishing many core ideas included in Capitalism which some view as pure evil and others view as good for everyone.

"One thing only is needful: the knowledge of the simple and clear truth which finds place in every soul that is not stupefied by religious and scientific superstitions—the truth that for our life one law is valid—the law of love (seen in the sense of things like the laws of physics), which brings the highest happiness to every individual as well as to all mankind. Free your minds from those overgrown, mountainous imbecilities which hinder your recognition of it, and at once the truth will emerge from amid the pseudo-religious nonsense that has been smothering it." - Leo Tolstoy, A Letter To A Hindu, December of 1908 (roughly two years before his death): https://www.gutenberg.org/files/7176/7176-h/7176-h.htm

How much do you think human individuals in the society resemble cells in a multicellar creature? Should a man have cognitions, so how about a cell to some extent? Are we enslaving the cells in our body to maintain the existence of our consciousness, by reduction in personalities and specification in cooperative functions? Would a collective mind of a more advanced and multipotent consciousness consisted of millions of people outperform single human individuals and hence utilize the latter to be pure gears of the grand machine?

"In my search for the answers to the question of life ["I am a human, therefore, how should I live? What do I do?"] I had exactly the same feeling as a man who has lost his way in a forest. He has come out into a clearing, climbed a tree, and has a clear view of limitless space, but he sees that there is no house there and that there cannot be one; he goes into the trees, into the darkness, and sees darkness, and there too there is no house. In the same way I wandered in this forest of human knowledge between the rays of light of the mathematical and experimental sciences, which opened up clear horizons to me but in a direction where there could be no house, and into the darkness of the speculative sciences, where I was plunged into further darkness the further I moved on, and finally I was convinced that there was not and could not be any way out.

"Towards the end of my second year in England I came across two Theosophists (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theosophy), brothers, and both unmarried. They talked to me about the Gita. They were reading Sir Edwin Arnold's translation—The Song Celestial—and they invited me to read the original with them. I felt ashamed, as I had read the divine poem neither in Sanskrit not in Gujarati. I was constrained to tell them that I had not read the Gita, but that I would gladly read it with them, and that though my knowledge of Sanskrit was meagre, still I hoped to be able to understand the original to the extent of telling where the translation failed to bring out the meaning. I began reading the Gita with them. The verses in the second chapter made a deep impression on my mind, and they still ring in my ears:

When Tolstoy speaks of Christianity, he's refering to his more objective, philosophical, non supernatural interpretation of his translation of the Gospels: The Gospel In Brief. For context: https://lemmy.world/post/25679868

_Salt and Light_

Suffering\Hate\Anger\Fear\Selfishness\Conciousness

"The whole historic existence of mankind is nothing else than the gradual transition from the personal, animal conception of life (the savage recognizes life only in himself alone; the highest happiness for him is the fullest satisfaction of his desires), to the social conception of life (recognizing life not in himself alone, but in societies of men—in the tribe, the clan, the family, the kingdom, the government—and sacrifices his personal good for these societies), and from the social conception of life to the divine conception of life (recognizing life not in his own individuality, and not in societies of individualities, but in the eternal undying source of life—in God; and to fulfill the will of God he is ready to sacrifice his own individuality and family and social welfare).

This is my first time posting here so I'm not sure if you will count this work (linked below) as pure philosophy but more like armchair philosophy that also straddles religious themes and existential questions with diagrams. It's kind of old dating back to 2015. The link below is the first part of a six part work that are also linked on the first work. Don't let the title put you off. Link = God is safe (for now)

"Vanity of vanities; all is vanity." – Solomon (Vanity: excessive pride in or admiration of one's own appearance or achievements)

I had a co worker friend. He was in marketing and I was in sales. We both worked for a global corporation. Over the years I got to know him well. He was a very nice guy, intelligent, and a great giver of advice. His only flaw as I saw it was that he was so invested in politics. The political side that he was on is irrelevant. We had agreed that we would rarely have a political discussion. Politics is low on my list of what's important in life.

I was reading a comment thread recently.

I’m not sure if this is a right type of question for this community.

Hi there, you all.

I've read a fair bit of philosophy and Hegel is the first time I've felt like the stereotype of philosophers, where they're being deliberately obscure to hide the fact that their arguments don't actually follow, might actually apply.

In honest love for knowledge, are there rules to this community? I like to write, and I love knowledge. I’ve read all of Asimov’s timeline, all of Frank Herbert’s Dune series, and I’ve recently gotten into the Red Book by Carl Jung.

There's Advaita Vedanta in Indian Philosophy which talks about non dualism. Is there any similar variation in western world?

*This post contains spoilers from the finale.*

I think this question resulted from me having an argument with my gf. We want to go to a holiday trip, and she wanted to book a hotel via booking.com. We then got into a discussion, because booking.com repeatedly ignored privacy concerns and is conciously acting illegally in regards to privacy laws of the EU (for those of you who can read German, this link from a German privacy investigator explains it fairly well. In my opinion, supporting companies which consciously breach laws is unethical, because they willingly ignore the well-being of their customers for own gains. However, in this case it was probably unfair to gf to judge her for using this platform, as the negative impact done by her using booking.com is not enough to justify this as a morally wrong action on her end.

Currently, reading Schopenhauer's *The World as Will and Representation*.

Couple of days ago I saw a post about on atheist community about a quote saying atheist can't base their morals on anything.

I saw this post on Europe@Lemmy.World: *https://lemmy.world/post/2387220*

Opinion: Who is the most underrated/under read Philosopher?

4 types of divine madness, Prophecy, Ecstasy, Poetic, Erotic (Phaedrus, Ion, and Symposium seem to be main sources)