Philosophy

"Blessed are the hearts that can bend; they shall never be broken."
This quote is frequently attributed to Albert Camus on the internet and was todays quote in The Economist.
However i cannot find from where or when this quote is sourced from and suspect it might be a false attribution.
Does anyone here have a clue where it might be from?
#philosophy

"the ability of a person to create his own meaning after fully accepting that the universe is a large place of meaninglessness."
~ The Centre for Optimism

do I even exist

#philosophy

Life is...well, it's something alright.
And one thing it is connected to is death.

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Some of us fear death, while it gets others thinking. Fascinated about it, even.

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How much does philosophy touch the topic of morbid curiosity?

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In case your appetite wakes up for more morbid curiosity, feel free to check out the new magazine that tries to be all about it!

A journey to understand the hidden prejudice that nobody takes seriously.

On the dissonance of the free prisoner

Philosophers have had surprisingly little to say about the experience and meaning of grief. In this interview, Kathleen Higgins rights that wrong and argues that grief has a deep connection to art, especially music, in the way it disrupts but also reorients our relationship to the world and others.

Richard Wolin shows how Martin Heidegger’s literary executors manipulated his manuscripts to disguise and downplay the philosopher’s antisemitism....

Most agree that health is better than sickness, abundance is better than poverty, and peace is better than war. But many now point to a fundamental problem. Despite better access to healthcare, education, and more disposable income, cases of depression have increased by over 50% worldwide since 1997. Research shows that richer countries have higher rates of anxiety than poorer ones, whilst happiness has been declining across the board in the most developed countries for more than a decade. And recent studies from Stanford University demonstrate that too much comfort in the short term could lead to pain in the longer term.Should we give up the view that life is simply about aiming for positive experience and comfort and instead see struggle and well-being as two sides of the same coin? Should we abandon the central claim of government policy that better living standards lead to greater well-being? Or would this be a dangerous move that would threaten the progress made in the past few centuries and irrevocably change the character of our culture?

If you like something ironically, do you actually like it or not? Paradoxically, the answer seems to be yes AND no.

Short answer: Nature is governed by the logos which is based on reason.

Long answer:

1. Nature.

Nature comprises all things that are in existence. The world or universe or simply everything. More importantly, nature is all materials, that is corporeal things, dead and living as well as divine things. There is no distinction between the 'non-divine' and the 'divine'. Nature is all materials, nature is all gods or the god, whatever you prefer.

Applying the stoic virtues is the foundation of living a life according to nature. That is to be a functioning human being that lives in a state of eudaimonia (εὐδαιμονία). This describes someone who focuses on the development of his own virtues. Someone with fully developed virtues is the very definition of someone that is beneficial for mankind. So, living in accordance with nature means to develop someone's virtues which is the same as being beneficial for mankind.

1. Logos.

In general, the Logos (λόγος) describes the underlying principle of the world or nature or kosmos (κόσμος). This order is governed by reason. Thus, the logos is seen as the active form of reason that pervades and governs the universe. Logos is the universal reason.

It can be regarded as an all-encompassing divine principle, in other words the work of the gods, of the creator, physics etc.

This idea goes back to Heraclitus. Although Heraclitus was not a stoic, in fact he died a century before Zeno of Citium was born, he coined the term Logos. For him, the Logos was a cosmic law based on reason.

Change is a constant, change is essential for the universe. Nothing persists forever, since everything is governed by change that means: All things are prone to collapse and destruction to be reborn and renewed again. Things die, so that other things can be born.

This does not mean, however, that things can be created out of nothing, that there essentially is nothing. Change does not mean things appear out of nothingness (as Parmenides insisted). Change means that all things are the result of and will result in conversion. This implies that all elements are part of an ongoing process of evolution, revolution and metamorphosis.

We live in a world of change. Since all things and beings are prone to change, all things and beings are united by change. United by the logos.

Heraclitus described the world in terms of a river:

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.”

-Heraclitus; DK 22 B 12

From this stems the stoic leitmotiv of time being described as a river:

"Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away."

-Marcus Aurelius

The Logos can also be found at other parts of the Meditations:

"Look at everything that exists, and observe that it is already in dissolution and in change, and as it were putrefaction or dispersion, or that everything is so constituted by nature as to die. "

-Marcus Aurelius; Meditations; X, 20

Or:

"Is any man afraid of change? Why what can take place without change? What then is more pleasing or more suitable to the universal nature? And canst thou take a bath unless the wood undergoes a change? And canst thou be nourished, unless the food undergoes a change? And can anything else that is useful be accomplished without change? Dost thou not see then that for thyself also to change is just the same, and equally necessary for the universal nature?"

-Marcus Aurelius; Meditations; XII, 18

Or:

"Loss is nothing else than change. But the universal nature delights in change, and in obedience to her all things are now done well, and from eternity have been done in like form, and will be such to time without end. What, then, dost thou say? That all things have been and all things always will be bad, and that no power has ever been found in so many gods to rectify these things, but the world has been condemned to be found in never ceasing evil? "

-Marcus Aurelius; Meditations; VIII, 35

1. Reason.

Reason describes the rationality of the world and on the other hand the ability of an individual to think logically. The goal of a stoic thinker is to understand the universal principle that acts according to reason (Logos).

The major takeaway here is that everything that happens in nature can ultimately be understood and made sense of by rational, logical thinking. In other words: reason.

Nature is therefore based on cause and effect relations: Every cause has an effect and every effect has a cause. No effects can happen without causes.

This means that nature is deterministic. Nature can be understood in terms of logical thinking, by applying reason. Nature is governed by reason.

Virtue is the sole good. And since virtue is applied wisdom which is based on reason, stoic ethics comes down to applying reason.

TL;DR: If the universe (or nature) were a computer, the Logos would be its operating system, with reason being its programming language. In order to understand the universe, you have to understand that its operating system is based on reason. If you accept that nature is governed by the logos, you have to accept that everything changes, change is a constant of the universe. If you understand reason, you accept that the universe is deterministic and based on cause and effect relationships.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/Stoicism/comments/6akp9s/what_are_logos_nature_and_reason_in_stoicism/

WARNING: THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE SHOW SERIAL EXPERIMENTS LAIN.

Hey everybody, here again with another Lain article. I mentioned I was going to take a break from writing articles about Lain (unfortunately for the most part this meant a break from writing at all) so I didn't burn myself out but now that it's been over a month since my last article on Lain I'm raring to go again. There were quite a few topics I still could have covered that I hope to get to in the future, notably Psychology, Sociology, and Technology within the world of Lain as well as whatever other thoughts come into my head once I sort out my thoughts a bit more. But as I haven't gotten to write out a proper article about the philosophy in Lain as the show presents it and my own thoughts. So here we go!

To begin with I'll try to approach this article by breaking it down by each category I want to cover. Granted, as with most things in Lain, I won't be able to give a complete 100% breakdown of all the thoughts, theories, and questions posted here but I'm going to try to provide context for why they're being mentioned and what relevance they have in the show as well as my own interpretations or answers to questions if they're relevant. Even though Lain itself has a lot of material packed into twelve episodes, that MATERIAL has a lot of material packed into it, especially the philosophy side of things. Religion, existentialism, morality, and utilitarianism are some examples of what I'll be looking at.

Reality and the Wired

First off I'd like to look into one of the most constant themes of the show. The idea that reality and the Wired are intertwined is one that has varying degrees of ambiguity depending on what episode of the show you're looking at and the viewer's interpretation of what's real. Much like the dream world and reality in Christopher Nolan's Inception, there is no clear-cut answer as to when Lain is in the "real world" and when she is in the Wired. Even from the beginning, what the viewer thinks is reality is skewed and warped as Lain begins to see blood drip from the telephone wires and warps from place to place, the Wired seems to be asserting some control on reality.

One of the more interesting theories/ideas I've heard on the merging of the two worlds is the shadows that are so constant within Lain. They are certainly abnormal; red splotches (sometimes blue or purple) that dominate the shadows. But given the chatter that Lain hears when surveying the shadows themselves what if the red splotches and the shadows were indicative of people who were in the Wired and trying to exert their influence on reality? What if the shadows were a symbol for the two worlds converging? It's interesting to think about due to seeing Lain enveloped by shadows every so often; does it mean she's getting closer to the Wired or does it mean the Wired is slowly influencing reality?

Religion

Mentioned several times throughout the course of the show, religion and the case of God is brought into question by Serial Experiments Lain. The first big question that presents itself is if Lain is a goddess by the end or not. The answer seems to lean towards "no" but if she's all powerful and all present within this world (even going as far as to suggest restarting the universe AS its new god) then what's the point in differentiating? Masami Eiri is pretty thoroughly shot down as a "god" as he presents himself as one and essentially forced his followers to "believe" in him where as Lain had it occur naturally.

Which leads into another question about God. Does a god/God have any power at all if no one believes in him? As I've made mention of previously in other articles/discussions, this isn't an idea exclusive to Lain. Terry Pratchett's Discworld series has the same concept - a god can come into existence with enough followers and grows in power as more followers join their rank. Junketsu no Maria brought up the same idea. In Lain, though, the question seems to be rooted in legitimacy. Eiri isn't "legitimate" because he believes he is a god and tricked the knights into believing in him. Plus, as he only existed in the Wired he didn't have the power to become a "god" in the real world. Lain managed to surpass all of Eiri's shortcomings and become the "true goddess" even though she may not be a "god".

That can additionally lead into more questions about what God/a god is, but that tangent is too long for me to explore in this article and all those branches of discussion aren't necessarily related to Lain.

Memories

Obviously a favorite of mine, memories are also at play in Lain. It's how she commits "suicide" and how she learns how much influence she really has on people and the world around her. While not always taking center stage throughout the course of the show memories end up being one of the most important aspects of the plot. But one moral question that can be asked is was it okay for Lain to restart the world/effectively remove herself? Committing suicide is a hugely moral question anyway and one that doesn't have an easy answer.

One way to answer it would be to look at Utilitarianism, in which Lain would have been acting solely to better society. In this instance committing suicide is encouraged; Lain apparently had nothing to offer society by existing within reality/within human consciousness so she disappeared. Whether she ended up re-creating certain aspects of the past or not, removing herself, for all intents and purposes, appears to create a better world for those around her. But other schools of thought have different opinions on this matter. Was Lain still human? Did throwing away her life still equate to having a human throw away theirs? In the end, I buy into the idea that it was better for Lain to "clean up her mess" so to speak. She had screwed things up and was planning on meddling in affairs even more so she did the "right thing" and tried to fix all of her mistakes.

Another question that can be brought up by Lain erasing memories is, if an event occurs and no one is around to see it, hear it, or remember it occurring, did it happen in the first place? If yes, does it matter that it happened at all? Did Lain even exist within the world of Serial Experiments Lain by the end, or did she erase herself so well that it didn't matter if she existed or not? Moreover, once you think about what Alice had to go through, knowing that her secret had been exposed but having no one else remember it must have been terrible psychologically for her. But since Lain reset it all it doesn't matter right? Well, this question is a little bit harder to get at because the story is told form Lain's perspective and we know she remembers everything occurring. But since no one even knows who she is those memories are stuck with her and will disappear with her should she ever die or vanish.

Existentialism

In my opinion this is the biggest philosophical aspect of Lain. The struggle of Lain to figure out who she is, why she exists, if she REALLY does exist. Her low self-esteem combined with her dissociative identity disorder cause her to question her existence time and time again within the show. "I'm me, right?" and "Who is Lain?" are two quotes that seem to be brought up all the time. Most if not all of the existential questions from the show were directed at Lain herself and for good reason.

First Lain had to primarily deal with the question of whether she was human or not. Being quizzed on her parents, uploading a computer to her mind, and experiencing all these out-of-body events took a toll on her mind and caused her to become mentally distraught. From the beginning of the show she seemed to be content with the idea that she was a socially quiet 14 year old girl. Any human going what she went through probably would have broken down as Alice did; Lain was able to push on due to her own strength combined with Alice's help.

Second, Lain's DID caused her to hardly even know when she was in control of herself or not. At the beginning she just thought it couldn't have been her as she didn't remember these events. But she never directly states that she's not appearing at Cyberia; she just doesn't say anything and Alice/Juri/Reika answer the question for her. But eventually she realizes something's up and it delves even further into Lain questioning who she is, with the viewer not getting a clear answer either.

Lastly, beliefs seem to be the cause for existing in the world of Lain. They influence the direction of everything around them and they cause Eiri to become a god-like figure due to the IDEA that he is one, not the FACT that he is one. Many people believed Lain was a god with all this power as well, so she became one. In the end the question would be how much does your belief influence your reality? Was it the power of belief that was causing the Wired to merge with realty? What WAS reality in the confines of the show? It is never really explained; there's constant hints that, similar to Inception, Lain was never in reality and was always being influenced by the Wired. But there's plenty of hints towards the opposite as well.

Morales

A question not quite as ever present is what makes right in Lain. Lain is able to shape memories and reset events and influence other people's lives, but the question of whether she SHOULD be doing these things remains unanswered. It can be argued that, in the end game, she was perfectly justified in resetting the universe because it was she who had screwed everything up in the first place and was just trying to make amends for what she had done.

Suicide can tie into this theme as well. Even though Chisa knew she was going to be able to survive on the Wired was it right for her to throw herself off of a building just because of that? Was it right for Eiri to run in front of a train so he could become the false god of the new world? Is suicide EVER okay even with all these extenuating circumstances? What about in Lain's case, where she did it for the betterment of humanity?

What about the doctor in charge of the KIDS experiment? In the end, he seemed to have forgiven himself for the atrocity he committed and didn't seem too concerned that it was back and causing deaths again. Was it okay for him to have come to peace with what he had done even though it wasn't over and then pass away silently?

Conclusion

In the end, there's a lot that Lain leaves open ended on purpose. The writers themselves never even agreed on what the show meant or the interpretations they got out of it, so of course, there's going to be disparity amount the viewers as well. But the fun of Lain is trying to figure out what they were trying to tell us, what Lain CAN tell us, about issues that don't always have an answer. It's a series that could easily be used as a teaching device for philosophy (as well as psychology). I've gone over the extent of what I know about Lain and how it relates to philosophy, yet I'm always eager to learn more since I will never claim to have a "mastery" of the show.

So, as usual, I want to say thanks for reading :)

Source: https://old.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/3a5qh5/philosophical_experiments_lain_ambiguity_and/

We were designed to enjoy life's pleasures, not just to constantly seek self-improvement. Today’s self-help ideology echoes Nietzsche’s concern about the dangers of ascetic practices as a form of self-punishment.

"Who was Duns Scotus?
His name is now the byword for a fool, yet his proof for the existence of God was the most rigorous of the medieval period"

#Philosophy #Thought #Metaphysics #Franciscan #History #Medieval #God

https://aeon.co/essays/duns-scotus-was-no-fool-but-a-brilliant-enigmatic-thinker

Imagine a future where technology has advanced to an extent enabling the creation of an customized universe, for every individual. This extraordinary realm would be finely tuned to match each persons preferences, values and aspirations. Within this universe individuals would have control over their surroundings and experiences.

Now picture yourself being presented with the chance to step into this tailor made universe. Would you seize the opportunity?. What factors would influence your decision?

Some argue that this personalized universe would offer happiness and fulfillment since every aspect would cater to ones desires. Conversely others contend that genuine happiness and fulfillment can only be achieved through real world interactions with others and overcoming challenges.

So tell me what are your thoughts? Would you opt for immersing yourself in this customized universe. Do you find appeal, in remaining within the boundaries of the real world?

How the theory of relativity explains our minds.

Statesman, Stoic, and millionaire. How can we find virtue in Seneca’s complex and even contradictory lifestyle? ‘This, I say, is the highest duty and the highest proof of wisdom, – that deed and wo…

As a thought experiment, consider a reality with a single human. There are no other humans, animals, or anything of that nature. Not in the past, present, or future.
The human has access to a a machine which can create anything, except for living beings.

The main question:

1. Can this person perform any immoral action?

What about symbolic harm?
2. What if the person creates a human child-body with no brain and does terrible things to it? (rape, defecate in its mouth, eat it, etc)
3. What if the child-body is identical to the person as a child and
a) The person does not know this
b) The person does know this

What about self-harm?
4. What if the person refuses to eat? They desperately want to eat, but refuse, until they die.
a) Because they want to die
b) Because they decided to do so arbitrarily
c) Because they want to suffer
d) Because they want to lose weight
5. What if the person cuts off a limb and regrets it later?

Finally:
6. Is there another question which ought to be added?

Crosspost from @technology

This is a series of proposition that leads to the conclusion (somewhat convincing in my eyes) that we are not physical, but informational/numerical/mathematical structures.

o Consciousness can be simulated, or better said, run on a computer. No difference between meat computer and silicon computer
o A world with conscious beings can be simulated as well.
o No difference what computer that simulates the consciousness can be (meat or silicone) – substrate independence.
o So, imagine that the simulation is run by a god with very long lifetime on a beach where he put pebbles of two different colors to represent ones and zeros. The first line of pebbles represents simulated world state at one time, the second line of pebbles is the world in second moment of time and so on.
o There is no question that that world is as real as ours, at least for the creatures living in that world – and that god can even ask questions and receive answers from the creatures of that simulated world by rearranging pebbles.
o There is nothing “magical” goes in the god’s brain either. It can be a program for Turing machine, also written in the same pebbles.
o So, we have near infinite field of these pebbles, and it is the world. This world is defined by rules, how the next row is obtained from the previous row, and by initial condition – the orientation of the pebbles in the first row.
o To understand the world, one needs a set of interpretation rules and capability to do such interpretation computationally, but the world itself exists independent from somebody understanding how to interpret it, or even from presence of that somebody.
o Interesting possibility – there could be multiple interpretation rules to understand the same pebble field, producing different worlds and different creatures in it. This is not related to the argument.
o Similarly to how we abbreviate binary sequences, 1110 = E; 0011 = 3 , that god could use numbers, letters, symbols to shorten what is written on the sand with pebbles.
o In fact, we have examples of such shortening in math, that infinite number of digits is shortened to just one simple letter. For example, pi. There is a set of rules about how to generate digits of pi, similarly to as those pebble rows are generated. And who is to say, that there is no such interpretation of the digits of pi that describes a world with conscious creatures in it? The set of rules can be extremely complex, but so what? Just because I do not know this interpretation, it does not matter for the creatures of that world.
o So, suppose that such interpretation exists (if it does not, then lets denote whatever that god is writing with pebbles by single letter – it does not matter for the arguments presented here). So, when I (not god) write this letter “pi”, do I create the world? Of course not, this world exists by itself, without me writing the letter pi. And I will argue it does not depend on whether human civilization exists or not – pi does not care.
o Now, even if existence of a primordial physical world is required for the math to exist, there are infinite upon infinite abstract mathematical “simulations” or “letters” that nobody even needs to conduct or write, that describe infinite upon infinite number of worlds with conscious creatures. So, what are the odds that we ourselves live in that primal primordial physical world, and not in some kind of pi?

In the thought experiment Mary's Room, it is argued that Mary gains new knowledge about the colour red when she leaves the room.

It seems to me, though, that she gains no knowledge about the colour red, and instead only knowledge about herself (ie. how does Mary's brain respond when it perceives the colour red).

And, of course, such knowledge could be obtained without access to the colour at all, simply by attaching electrodes to the nerves in the eye to stimulate the nerve cells would be sufficient.

Finally, consider an artificial intelligence in the same room with the same rules. Except that, unlike a human, this intelligence can simulate precisely the input to its visual system based on its understanding of phenomena. In the thought experiment, the understanding would be complete, and thus the simulation would be perfect. So, the artificial intelligence would have no new stimulation when leaving the room.

The only substantive thing the thought experiment seems to actually argue is that humans are incapable of achieving "understanding" through purely knowledge-based transfer. Though it does nothing to argue that that limitation is a universal constant instead of an accident of the evolution of the human brain.