Let's make philosophy fun.

[simplicity]

The ultimate Gary Larsen comment on the human intellect...

[Atla]

Osho shares his wisdom on Democracy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFgcqB8-AxE

[simplicity]

Say it with pictures, or words.

I have a better idea...why don't we make it compelling instead.

The pursuit of pleasure [in all its insidious forms] almost always ends badly [relationships, obesity, drugs and alcohol, electronic devices, social media, etc.]. THIS is why [until recently] fun was the business of children, not adults. Something seemed to happen in the 80's and many decided that growing up and acting responsibly was not part of the basic program anymore.

Instead of the need to constantly push your pleasure buttons, perhaps doing things because they will improve the overall quality of your life [and the lives of those around you] might be a path that will actually result in contentment [the best you can hope for as an adult].

I think an important question to consider is whether or not philosophy is a pathway for seeking the truth, or if philosophy is an intellectual method to express the truths that seeking has already found, and applying those truths to what's-happening-now, via the common reference point of a topic, whether the topic be current events, history, or predictions.

Actually, you have hit upon the most important issue in philosophy, i.e., where does truth lie?

I believe if you study the truly transcendent over time, you will find that they were able to tap into the truth by attenuating the effects of their intellect. It has been known since the beginning that the human intellect is not capable of understanding Reality [or much of anything, for that matter], so methods were cultivated to discover how we might appreciate what exists in and of itself.

The truth is not something knowable, it is something you can exist within. The intellect can only point the way. If there was something to "figure out," this would have been accomplished long ago. The complexity of Reality is so vast that we cannot even come close to understanding how to understand it. Doesn't matter, though. We don't need to understand...

The reason I said what I did about pleasure is that when we try to escape from the way things are, we pay a price. Things are just the way they are for an infinite number of reasons that we cannot understand. If we would like to "enhance" our experience by tainting it with stimuli [internal or external] which elevate our mood, then we will experience just the opposite when actual reality re-appears. It is this up and down of human emotion that characterizes most people's lives [to the point now where many need a third or forth drug to lessen the affects of the others [the initial stimulus and the dopamine].

Philosophy is very similar to mathematics. It's a system that uses what we think we know and applies it to a reality which is always changing, and things intellectual are ALWAYS changing, this we know. Things non-intellectual are permanent [as they can never be known]. "Permanence," is not accurate, only intellectual pointing towards...

[Dontaskme]

If two witches watched two watches.
Which witch would watch which watch.

[Peter Kropotkin]

How many Marxists does it take to change a light bulb?

None, the lightbulb contains the seed of its own revolution...

Kropotkin

[attofishpi]

How many lightbulbs does it take to change a philosopher?

[Lacewing]

How many lightbulbs does it take to change a philosopher?

Depends on what you mean by 'lightbulb' and it depends on the philosopher because some refuse to change.

[Walker]

How many lightbulbs does it take to change a philosopher?

Depends on what you mean by 'lightbulb' and it depends on the philosopher because some refuse to change.

Refusing to change Depends ultimately depends on the philosopher.

[Walker]

If two witches watched two watches.
Which witch would watch which watch.

The Heavy Metal Witch would watch the gold watch and Glenda would watch the munchkins teasing Dorothy.

[attofishpi]

René Desfarts - "I stink therefore I am."

[Dontaskme]

Instead of the need to constantly push your pleasure buttons, perhaps doing things because they will improve the overall quality of your life [and the lives of those around you] might be a path that will actually result in contentment [the best you can hope for as an adult].

Allow me to show you what CONTENTMENT means for me personally.

When the 'mind' drops into the heart, there is a stillness, “a warm tenderness of heart.”
It stands to reason, really: since the heart perceives through vibrational resonance, the emotional signature of this resonance is intimacy: a sense of kinship or belongingness with everything in a single coherent and compassionate whole. Intimacy is the heart’s innate vibrational field, its own signature way of knowing and being in the world.

The HEART is the species of intimacy.
“Pure intimacy… Objectless intimacy… Intimacy without something or someone attached to that intimacy…”



I must admit though (simplicity) It takes some digging to get there. There's GOLD in them there hills.

[Dontaskme]

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God,” So true, so true. And when God is seen in the heart, God can only be seen as ‘thou.’ Because ‘thou’ is what the heart sees. ‘Thou’ is how the heart sees.


THOU.... meaning ''first person singular pronoun''

You are out of this world.


Disclaimer: Spiritual bypassing is an attempt to use one's spirituality, or meditation practice, not to come to terms with reality as it is, but to escape, avoid or suppress reality. Spiritual bypassing examples may include the following: Detachment without compassion. Mistaking indifference for equanimity, for example.

Simplicity wrote:
The reason I said what I did about pleasure is that when we try to escape from the way things are, we pay a price.

[Dontaskme]

“When we are spiritually bypassing, we often use the goal of awakening or liberation to rationalize what I call premature transcendence: trying to rise above the raw and messy side of our humanness before we have fully faced and made peace with it. And then we tend to use absolute truth to disparage or dismiss relative human needs, feelings, psychological problems, relational difficulties, and developmental deficits. I see this as an ‘occupational hazard’ of the spiritual path, in that spirituality does involve a vision of going beyond our current karmic situation.”

https://www.mindthatego.com/spiritual-bypassing/


The two tracks of human development
“We need a larger perspective that can recognize and include two different tracks of human development— which we might call growing up and waking up, healing and awakening, or becoming a genuine human person and going beyond the person altogether. We are not just humans learning to become buddhas, but also buddhas waking up in human form, learning to become fully human. And these two tracks of development can mutually enrich each other.” JOHN WELWOOD

[Dontaskme]

The reason I said what I did about pleasure is that when we try to escape from the way things are, we pay a price.

I agree. We pay a price for being free. Free to change our mind.

Things are just the way they are for an infinite number of reasons that we cannot understand.

We can understand that things are just the way they are for an infinite number of reasons that we cannot understand.

If we would like to "enhance" our experience by tainting it with stimuli [internal or external] which elevate our mood, then we will experience just the opposite when actual reality re-appears.

I agree.

But then we can just accept that, have no expectations, and just be with the intimacy of our own being, feel everything, emotions, pain, sufferings etc etc..with pure vulnerability, surrender, intimacy, and engendering.

It is this up and down of human emotion that characterizes most people's lives [to the point now where many need a third or forth drug to lessen the affects of the others [the initial stimulus and the dopamine].

Well, I suppose LOVE is a drug, that a lot of people are addicted to. And if LOVE is an addiction, then unconditional love must be the cure.

[Walker]

The reason I said what I did about pleasure is that when we try to escape from the way things are, we pay a price. Things are just the way they are for an infinite number of reasons that we cannot understand. If we would like to "enhance" our experience by tainting it with stimuli [internal or external] which elevate our mood, then we will experience just the opposite when actual reality re-appears. It is this up and down of human emotion that characterizes most people's lives [to the point now where many need a third or forth drug to lessen the affects of the others [the initial stimulus and the

Well said. That describes the dynamics of dropping the smoking habit cold turkey by facing the reality of withdrawal symptoms head on, without a need to change the growing discomfort by having another smoke.