!philosophy
@lemmy.worldhttps://dailynous.com/2024/04/19/daniel-dennett-death-1942-2024/
Daniel Dennett, professor emeritus of philosophy at Tufts University, well-known for his work in philosophy of mind and a wide range of other philosophical areas, has died. Professor Dennett wrote extensively about issues related to philosophy of mind and cognitive science, especially consciousness. He is also recognized as having made significant contributions to the concept of intentionality and debates on free will. Some of Professor Dennett’s books include Content and Consciousness (1969), Brainstorms: Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology (1981), The Intentional Stance (1987), Consciousness Explained (1992), Darwin’s Dangerous Idea (1995), Breaking the Spell (2006), and From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds (2017). He published a memoir last year entitled I’ve Been Thinking. There are also several books about him and his ideas. You can learn more about his work here. Professor Dennett held a position at Tufts University for nearly all his career. Prior to this, he held a position at the University of California, Irvine from 1965 to 1971. He also held visiting positions at Oxford, Harvard, Pittsburgh, and other institutions during his time at Tufts University. Professor Dennett was awarded his PhD from the University of Oxford in 1965 and his undergraduate degree in philosophy from Harvard University in 1963. Professor Dennett is the recipient of several awards and prizes including the Jean Nicod Prize, the Mind and Brain Prize, and the Erasmus Prize. He also held a Fulbright Fellowship, two Guggenheim Fellowships, and a Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences. An outspoken atheist, Professor Dennett was dubbed one of the “Four Horsemen of New Atheism”. He was also a Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, an honored Humanist Laureate of the International Academy of Humanism, and was named Humanist of the Year by the American Humanist Organization. He died this morning from complications of interstitial lung disease.* The following interview with Professor Dennett was recorded last year: (via Eric Schliesser) Related: “Philosophers: Stop Being Self-Indulgent and Start Being Like Daniel Dennett, says Daniel Dennett“. (Other DN posts on Dennett can be found here.) *This was added after the initial publication of the post. Source: New York Times. Obituaries and remembrances elsewhere: The Telegraph New York Times The Splintered Mind (Eric..
Hi there, you all.
I just want to say that I'm happy that there's a philosophy community.
Please post your opinions, ideas or observations in here. They are most valuable if they stem from an actual desire for truth.
That said, I'd ask to avoid posting long walls-of-text (if you know what I mean). They are hard-to-read, making engagement less likely. Often, the thoughts in them can be condensed to a waay shorter text anyways.
That said, I believe philosophy is a bit like a distillation process: You take raw ideas and try to purify them to the point where you really just concisely say something. That is the essence of philosophy.
What do you think of it?
https://fungiverse.wordpress.com/2024/03/24/we-are-in-the-middle-of-a-copernican-revolution-on-the-web-or-a-kantian-right-to-fediverse-access/
“It is so easy to be immature. If I have a book to serve as my understanding, a pastor to serve as my conscience, a physician to determine my diet for me, and so on, I need not exert myself at all.…
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/mar/24/playground-bullies-do-prosper-and-go-on-to-earn-more-in-middle-age
Five-decade UK study finds that aggression at school leads to better-paying jobs, while those with emotional instability went on to earn less
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.
I write a lot, and a lot of it is, to passionately reference Jung, from the part of me that resonates with the following passage from Jung’s Red Book:
“I resisted recognizing that the everyday belongs to the image of the Godhead. I fled this thought. I hid myself behind the highest and coldest stars.” - uhh page 31 of the book I have, printed in 2009… isbn 978-0-393-08908-0.
I never learned how to cite properly. Sorry.
Anyways, I write from a feeling, from a place among “the highest and coldest stars,” I know I can never reach.
I worry someone will make this a copy pasta. Please, for the sake of my soul, help me understand where I can blast my words and hear an answer from another person. Someone willing to dissect my gibberish. Im seeing a therapist, I trusted that he could heal me, and he gave me the idea that we’re all made up of very complicated “parts” that are made up of ‘atomic’ parts that can be directed a lot easier than anything understood to be the mystery that our souls/minds/selves really are.
Please, TLDR: Can I write from the heart here and hope for an answer?
Or will I be banned? If so, all I ask is for a link to a place I can truly communicate about topics vague and generalistic. I don’t think my therapist will be able to understand. I’ve told him too much, and I don’t trust his capacity for breadth of soul, though I see how painfully insane I can be, here and now.
Sorry. Again, TLDR: please don’t hurt me :c
I’m already pathetic, but I refuse to let go of hope.
Help? I’m in no danger, but I need some kind of connection, any kind of response to love the source of. I love you for reading this if you read all, and if you didn’t… read Jung instead. He’s got more behind his words, though… in this day and age, hope to be heard is hard to have. That’s why I’m here, spouting gibberish!
There's Advaita Vedanta in Indian Philosophy which talks about non dualism. Is there any similar variation in western world?
https://youtu.be/7RppchLe2Wk?si=IZMKG38Fs8YxF0bl
Aproveite vídeos e músicas que você ama, envie e compartilhe conteúdo original com amigos, parentes e o mundo no YouTube.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/11759040
This post contains spoilers from the finale.
I have completed the series. It prompted thousands of thoughts in my head and so I must spill them.
The series initially appears to be situated in a post-apocalyptic world where humanity was driven to near extinction by a mysterious, giant species called titans. For a century, walls taller than any titan protected the last bastion of humanity... Until they didn't.
But as political circumstances, enemies and allies change, this narrative sooner or later is superseded by another one, and another... And so forth. The authors make clear their stance towards history: a tangible string of myths arranged by the human mind to justify or condemn a given thing. To Marleyans, the founder Ymir made a deal with the devil; to Eldian restorationists, her titan powers were granted by God.
One will grasp to a narrative or myth to justify their existence in this mysterious world. However, the truth is no more than a myth devoid of intrinsic value. One then would ask why live if all is futile, if there's no right or wrong, if there is no exit from the vicious cycle of pain. It is those disquietudes that the authors, like the exiztential philosophers of the past century, tackle and battle with.
The curse of the titans resembles in someway the myth of Sisyphus. Just like Sisyphus was condemned to an eternity of rolling the boulder up the mountain; the nine titans were inherited from generation to generation, fueling endless conflicts and massacres throughout centuries. A few foresighted characters were conscious of this, but they sought different paths towards ending the curse, reaching the top of Sisyphus' mountain. On the one hand, we are faced with the nihilist: Zeke sought the powers of the founding titan to sterilise his own race and put an end to the eternal suffering. On the other hand, we encounter the romanticist, though no less existential: Eren goes on to massacre the greatest part of humanity in the name of freedom, because simply he was born into this world. The latter, with the knowledge of the distant future, breaks the curse of the titans by sacrificing himself and thus unifying humanity. Or so he thought.
The post-credits scenes show us the evolution of the tree under which Eren was buried across countless millenia during which humanity grows and expands, but fighting and destruction accompany it all. Civilisation is built and destroyed over and over. The tree finally grows incomprehensibly long as it starts to resemble the tree from which the curse of the titans emerged, and we see a young boy entering its trunk just like founder Ymir did millenia ago.
The message of the authors is disquieting and dreadful: are we humans (and by extension the beings who preceded or will succeed us) insignificant in the grand scheme of things? Deemed to repeat history over and over again?
The existential dread is indeed unbearable. However, life is not a prison; indeed, it's the complete opposite: it is freedom. Eren bent moral principles and committed mass genocide by stomping over eighty percent of humanity because... because he “just wanted to do it.” The vagueness of Eren's answer is eerily similar to the ruminations of one of Camus' fictional characters:
I don’t know what to do today, help me decide. Should I cut myself open and pour my heart on these pages? Or should I sit here and do nothing, nobody’s asking anything of me after all? Should I jump off the cliff that has my heart beating so and develop my wings on the way down? Or should I step back from the edge, and let the others deal with this thing called courage? Should I stare back at the existential abyss that haunts me so and try desperately to grab from it a sense of self? Or should I keep walking half-asleep, only half-looking at it every now and then in times in which I can’t help doing anything but? Should I kill myself or have a cup of coffee?
Eren admits that he is “a slave to freedom,” or as Sartre declared once, “condemned to be free.” It is a paradox that Man contends with throughout his numbered days: every act is a choice and not acting is equally choosing.
I do not think the authors of the manga/series are nihilists. In a conversation between Zeke and Armin, the latter recalls distant memories of childhood where he used to run behind Eren and Mikasa up the hill. While insignificant these moments were, he concedes, he still cherished them the most. Similarly, Zeke ruminates over the mundane hours spent playing baseball with his mentor. Zeke's confession which follows is insightful: he wouldn't mind being born again if it means he can play with his mentor again.
There may not be intrinsic thruth or meaning to life. There may not be an all-encompassing myth that tells things as they are. However, “the realization that life is absurd cannot be an end, but only a beginning” (Albert Camus). In one of the final scenes, we see Armin holding a seashell as they swam in a sea of blood. “What's that?” Eren asks. He replies:
“So you finally noticed it. It was at our feet the whole time, but you were always looking off into the distance.”
Instead of endlessly tormenting ourselves with the absurdity of life, we should embrace it. We should cherish those “insignificant” moments in the midst of all the chaos and futility, and spend our time in the wealth of the here and now. We should imagine Sisyphus smiling while pushing the boulder.