OMG, I dont know what to say.
Get people talking more is what I’m saying, especially the women who aren’t as active.
I knew what you were saying I just did not know how to respond - Wendy is fairly active compared to other females around here - she is also one to observe before she attacks(so to speak). I have found some real depth in her posts, I guess it comes down to the way they are read - I find Wendy to be pragmatic too and who can blame her since she probably sees not enough being done. I am not trying to offer some big defense of Wendy here as she sure can defend herself but I have seen her make an effort in the past by making original posts and getting some pretty stupid answers in return.
Just finished reading this thread … feels like some sincere/genuine chatter.
Here’s the image that popped into my head:
Evolution of Being is marching forward … the bus load of philosophers is attempting to map the route. The bus is moving … ergo … there must be a bus driver/leader.
The ‘leader’ is not a single individual … though as the simpletons we are … we have a need to ascribe leadership to a single individual. pooey!
More like 1 woman per 100 men, 1 female thread per 100 male threads.
I agree professional and academic philosophy has its limitations where philosophy-proper is now incestuous and bastardized. But I believe there are some good bits from it.
However I believe those interested in philosophy should familiarize themselves with the philosophy-greats [giant shoulders] of the past from East, West & everywhere and apply what is learned where necessary. I have covered a wide area of Philosophy from the East and West, i.e. 2 years full time on Buddhism, 3 years full time on Kant, nearly 3 years full time on Islam, and other areas. At present on the side, I am trying to master Heidegger’s philosophy.
My current philosophical project is
‘Understanding and How to Prevent, Reduce and Eliminate ALL Evils in the World’
with current emphasis on religious-based evils, thus my posting in the religious section.
I asked earlier;
“It would be helpful if you can show some examples of your high quality work and approach in your postings. So far, I have not read of any of ‘high’ standard from you.”
No, it averages out to 1 female thread to every 25 male threads going back three months which is not as bleak as 1 per 100.
I’m not attacking, but just coaxing. You said you wanted to resuscitate, so pucker up 
I don’t know the other women by name; just Wendy.
An admin from a garden forum has been emailing for years trying to attract members, so I go there and post, but he doesn’t reply, so I leave. I mean, if I wanted to talk to myself, I can do that at ILP 
I’m just saying if you want to keep members, you have to engage them, mouth to mouth, until the community is up and going.
Why do you think that is?
That reminds me of my trying to learn to play guitar. I could copy anything, but couldn’t create anything myself, so I gave up music because I’m not a musician and no amount of copy-catting will change that. But I am philosophical and require none of that indoctrination to be so.
What did Otto Weininger mean when he said “The genius is a man who knows everything without having learned it.”?
I’ve gotten plenty of insights and observations like that. One reason that I don’t share them is because I don’t respect/trust many of the consumers. Pearls before swine. That harkens to my point about leadership and quality of followers. Both should be high. There should be a high quality of leader/producer, and high quality of follower/consumer. Excellent craft at preparation, followed by exquisite taste of critique. One without the other is incomplete.
Agreed, leaders don’t like to be led, in general. But nobody is a leader 100% of a time. Are leaders “born”? No, leaders appear over time, as a result of maturity, growth, and age. Nobody follows/respects children, or infants. So leaders are not “born”. And everybody takes turns at leading/following, to some degree. Maybe one person is 90% leader/10% follower while another is 10% leader/90% follower.
That’s a good analogy. Some of the best music I’ve heard over the last 10 years, is relatively unknown, or completely unknown. In fact, this week, I’ve been searching for an old song I heard once that is just amazing, and I can’t find it anywhere online. Perhaps some of the best music of humankind has been lost in obscurity, produced and listened by very few people. Like a genius musician sharing music with only a few select friends.
It’s a controversial point, to link political ideologies with biology, because of Nazism and the 20th Century. But it is pretty evident and obvious, outside the popular indoctrination and system.
FC is one of the ‘religious’ thinkers, and has little capacity, if any, for Philosophy. Him and his ilk is a little religious cult.
I couldn’t say, but there have been multiple.
Life, and philosophy, seems to thrive on competition/disagreement.
I would like to disagree more. The problem is, so very original, “new” ideas to disagree upon. Few perspectives are truly unique. Philosophy involves the incorporation of the popular, modern discourse. So the popular ideas/disagreements is not enough to entice above-average thinkers.
To simply ignore the historicity of philosophy is bad philosophizing.
To maintain intellectual integrity and efficiency one need to do a literature review in quest for knowledge of any kind. Then thereafter one can decide to accept what is acceptable and reject the useless [to one self].
Note the purpose of an essential literature review is to ensure you don’t waste time inefficiently inventing the wheel.
It is a possibility you could spent your whole life e.g. 50-60 years on a certain thesis only to discover someone has already done exactly the same thing! What a waste and that is intellectual ‘stupidity’ for not doing a literature review.
What I’m saying is that indoctrination doesn’t make a philosopher; not that one should specifically ignore anything, but let the test be what is enjoyable. If you like absorbing high poppycock-content cocktails, then go for it, but philosophical nuggets are needles in haystacks with that method of reinventing the wheel since many have already been down that path and built upon and condensed the knowledge therein.
I don’t need to read the entire works of Mart Twain to know that reading healthbooks may cause one to die of a misprint.
It’s funny you mention efficiency when your suggestion is to vacuum up everything and sort it out later.
But that is reinventing the wheel. Why waste 2 years studying Buddhism when you could spend a couple months studying Alan Watts and learn more about Buddhism than the Buddhists, as well as Hinduism, Christianity, Atheism, and be lightyears ahead of someone with their nose diligently held to the Sutras, Vedas, Bible, or Dawkins.
Most of the understanding of Eastern philosophy is the grueling undertaking of merely conceptualizing the nonexistent self, and that’s not a function of knowledge-absorption, but more a function of futility realized from countless hours pondering. So Buddhism has almost nothing to do with knowledge, but more to do with changing your whole paradigm, worldview, method of thinking… well it’s like being born again.
It’s not too likely that someone would spend 50 years pioneering work that someone else had done, though it reminds me of the time I came to the conclusion that the Europeans had the advantage of horses and domesticated animals to explain their success compared to the Native Americans when someone informed me that I sound like Jared Diamond who had already made a movie about it. Of course, I don’t consider it a waste of time, but a compliment, and it surely didn’t take 50 yrs to arrive at the conclusion, but just dawned on me one day.
“All originality is undetected plagiarism.” - William Ralph Inge, and I have no clue who that guy is.
Not necessarily!
What did the first philosopher do?
In many ways, people do pick their companions. Even on this forum, there are people to choose to philosophize with or against, or not at all.
There are flaws in everything, no such thing as a ‘perfect’ position. But there are better/superior ones, than others.
I’ve noticed the same. But it becomes quickly apparent when a person actually is smarter than others: better arguments, reasoning, articulation, poise, positions, etc.
The problem is much deeper. First people would need to deeply investigate the differing conceptions of freedom. Is it a matter of physical constraint, or mental? Are people free “from” laws, or free “to” act? There are many perversions of freedom, precisely in the way that people believe themselves free when they’re not. Or that somebody in a jail cell may believe he is “free”. Free in what sense? Free in relation to whom? Is freedom relative?
Isn’t freedom a function of power? The more powerful an individual is, the more he is capable of doing? Is freedom a matter of capability? Is a cripple less free than normal people?
Very moralistic…
I don’t really care a great deal to “prove myself” in terms of high value content, as it would undermine my current status. I can repeat what I’ve said before. But I’m not going to show you where exactly, and what exactly, it was before. If you like to take my word for it, I’ve already said somethings on this forum that did cause many people to re-think their (false) presumptions, about existence, about everything.
The more you become involved in philosophy, you will marvel at how wrong common people are, and about “common sense” sorts of things.
I mean, people used to believe earth is flat, and that the earth is the center of the universe? Has humanity really “progressed” from this falsity? Or has humanity masked its error, and is prone to falling backward into the same errors of the past?
How many humans today believe themselves the center of existence? (Solipsism/Autism)
Nope.
1 per 100, at least. It’s probably much worse. Take all the threads or posts on this forum, ever created. What is the ratio? 1000:1
It’s like inventing an automobile. Most of the work is already done. The product already exists, and is mass-produced. Average people don’t need to know engineering. Average people don’t need to know much mechanics at all. They simply drive the cars produced for them. The same applies to philosophy, thoughts, and ideas. Many of the ideas have been “thought up” long ago. People don’t realize that their thoughts are copies, of copies, of copies. People don’t realize that ‘original’ or ‘new’ content can be very difficult to find, or more difficult to produce in the first place. Just as you DO need to be an engineer to create new models of cars. You can learn and copy the old models. But for something new, you have to be innovative. And is something new really an improvement?
If something is done well, mastered, then it dominates and rises in popularity. So it is with modern ideologies, propaganda, indoctrination, religions, etc. These are ancient ideas, re-formed, reworded a million times or more.
So when I talk about content producers and production, this is what I mean. It does require specialization.
A philosopher is to an idea: as an engineer is to a car.
Count it out. When I went back three months on active topics a few days ago, that’s the tally, like it or lump it.