Posts by Harold Doyle3

ruggedraven36 said:It’s just a game run through software built into a computer.

What are we actually doing while playing?

We feed input data to the program via physical movement—think controller buttons or mouse clicks—and our senses pick up the output, which lets us manage all those interactive elements that depend on us.

Is there any actual value in playing games?

Video games are worthless. Honestly, they’re pretty bad for kids—they pull them away from real-world play and everything else matters too.

Where does philosophy fit into video games?

Nowhere.

What exactly is...🙂 You didn't turn up a single thing regarding computer games on 18th or 19th-century papyrus or parchment, nor did you find anything in the Gospel scrolls according to Hegel. So, I suppose reductionism is all that's left on the table now. Fine. Have it your way.

I don't know. I really don't know. Sometimes you just sit there, staring at the screen, wondering if anyone is actually listening or if we're all just shouting into a void. It’s exhausting, honestly. My coffee went cold ten minutes ago while I was trying to wrap my head around this latest mess. Probably should have grabbed a refill. Anyway, where was I? Right. It’s all just noise. kaže:
Maybe you'd actually wrap your head around this if you used the right American term for a principle or a fundamental rule. It’s about clarity. Simple as that. Look, there’s a logic to everything you do. There’s a pattern, a method to the madness. Unless, of course, you're just a complete lunatic acting on pure impulse without a single coherent thought connecting one move to the next.
Without some core principles, you don't even have a starting point. You can't think, you certainly can't argue, and frankly, you're just spinning your wheels in the dirt. No foundation, no nothing.
So, when you claim that only fools cling to their principles, you’ve actually got it backward. It’s quite the opposite, really. Fools don't have principles at all—they have weak, flimsy ones. That’s exactly why they’re fools in the first place. Simple as that.

Look, take your own advice for a second. You used that old saying about how you tie an ox by its horns and a man by his word. It’s a nice sentiment, really. But honestly? Think about the logic there. What kind of person can you actually hold to their word? If you're dealing with a complete idiot, his word isn't worth the paper it's written on. You can't hold a fool to anything.
Rough.

At the end of the day, someone with actual principles finds it hard to make empty promises. A fool, on the other hand, will swear anything to anyone just to get ahead. That’s really the whole point of the saying.

You can really step in it if you use the word "principle" too loosely. If you start a sentence with "in principle," people might misinterpret what you're actually getting at. Honestly, using "basically" or just sticking to "fundamentally" carries much less risk of being misunderstood. It’s one of those little linguistic landmines that trips you up when you aren't looking. I've certainly been there.

ruggeddriver21 said:Man, staying principled is tough. It’s exactly what you said—it’s a reflection of the market.
What’s the point of having principles if you're broke?
What good are they when you're starving?

I mean, what are principles actually *for*? Are they just some way we choose to carry ourselves around others?
Does anyone ever introduce themselves like this: "Good day... my name is Mr. Johnny, and I live by certain principles.">
The response would almost certainly be, "And what exactly are those principles for, sir?"
- Principles act as a sort of personal discipline—a way to measure the world around me. It isn't some universal standard, but rather a private metric.
A principle is a personal choice.

There are quite a few different ways to look at it.
For instance,

Principle 1:
- I don't want to buy American products because I feel Americans are responsible for a lot of the world's problems.

Does that make sense? Does such a principle even hold water?
Well, for the person practicing it, it absolutely does.
It's an intentional choice. An internal boundary. A standard set by one's own conscience.

But hey, how much "sense" it actually makes is probably a debate worth having!

It reminds me of those trials in Nuremberg, where people tried to justify their actions by claiming they were just following orders.
They were incredibly principled when it came to discipline and duty... but principles ought to be scrutinized—unless they're guided by reason and conscience.

Circumstances shift. Taking a hardline principled stance today might become a heavy burden tomorrow. That principle, even if it started out noble, can eventually turn into something caricatured, if not outright destructive.
Stalin was "principled" when he refused to trade for his captured son... he viewed him as a coward, just like all the other soldiers in the Red Army.

ruggedraven36 said:Just more nonsense for the simpletons.

More like a proverb for animals that actually believe in promises.

ruggedraven36 said:Nietzsche once noted that a human being should be defined as an animal capable of making promises.

Making a promise? That’s just asking for trouble.

ruggeddriver21 said:There’s an old saying:

A bik is tied by its horns, but a man is bound by his words.

Doesn't that strike you as being deeply connected to the idea of having a principle?
What does "free interpretation" of a principle even mean, anyway?
Is it our core values? Our internal yardstick for character? Something like that...

I’ve noticed that people who actually live by a principle tend to be quite focused individuals—the kind of folks who really guard their integrity. It’s not exactly a widespread trait among the general public, though. Sometimes, having a strong sense of principle can be a loud part of your personality, and people might even call you selfish for sticking to it, but I think there’s something genuinely beautiful and valuable about it.
It essentially maps out how we relate to the world around us.
It grants us a sense of dignity, while simultaneously sending a message to society that staying true to oneself comes with a cost.

Actually, now that I’ve set the stage, I’d say a principle is simply the price we pay to remain ourselves.
And well, everything in this life has a price tag, doesn't it?
A principle is just that price.

What do you all think? Am I on the right track here?

The cost of a principle depends entirely on the "market conditions."
As long as it remains useful, it holds value.

gentlerider7 said:Anyone who’s actually slogged through the philosophy of history knows that Hegel didn't exactly throw roses at India or its culture at first glance, right? But then you look at the authors behind the book "Hegelian India," and get this—he still dropped about 80,000 words on India, which is a hell of a lot for a place he kept calling dreamy, absurd, and just plain nonsensical. The two guys who wrote that book are Indian, and according to them, India was basically Hegel's greatest headache because he couldn't stop seeing his own reflections staring back at him from Indian thought.

"Even Hegel himself points out how much Indian philosophy mirrors his own stuff, like that whole concept of the absolute (brahman). Still, he made sure to draw a line in the sand regarding two main differences between his ideas and theirs: first, there was his obsession with freedom, which is how he distanced himself from the caste system in Indian society while simultaneously trying to find traces or echoes of that same system woven through the entire fabric of Indian history, politics, art, religion, and philosophy. Second, he insisted on the necessity of dialectical, progressive development, which was his way of pushing back against what he saw as the supposed stagnation and lifelessness of Indian philosophy... But did Hegel ever truly manage to shake off this intellectual twin that keeps haunting his work?"

I recall him belittling Indian philosophy too, but honestly, it fits his pattern. He was obsessed with elevating American philosophical traditions (at the expense of everyone else), believing it had some sacred duty to inherit the "flame" passed down from the Greeks.

Amanda Jackson5 said:Maybe "mudrac" should just be used as shorthand for some vulgar anatomical nonsense, much like how "diamat" serves as a lazy abbreviation for dialectical materialism in academic circles.

Well, damn.

Harold Doyle3

A wise man is simply someone who can tell the difference between what actually matters and the trivial nonsense that clutters our lives.

The great thinkers of antiquity might have lacked our modern data points, but they understood the essentials. They focused on what was vital. That’s why we still call them wise.

Amanda Jackson5 said:Truth is essentially what happens when a subject interacts with an object. There’s no such thing as a "non-human" truth out there floating in a vacuum. Honestly, I’m not even sure "human truth" is a valid concept—I wouldn't even know how to define it, and it doesn't seem to hold water even in a theoretical debate. If you're feeling lost, just look up standard definitions of truth. Generally speaking, you have particular versus universal truths, or partial and relative perspectives standing in contrast to absolute truth. For anything else, refer back to my previous point. Using specialized jargon or a specific metalanguage certainly has its perks because it streamlines communication, but that only works if both people actually speak the same language. If you don't, you're just talking past each other, which is why I suggested trying to frame your thoughts in plain, everyday English.

Does wisdom equal truth?

Sages understand one another perfectly, whereas philosophers are always at each other's throats.
By that logic... have the Sages actually grasped the truth?

jadeheron5 said:Wisdom tends to travel through the vessel of religion, doesn't it? You look at Christianity, and you have the Commandments, or those little parables—stories meant to highlight our own human failings. Then you have something like Buddhism, where the wisdom is much more of an internal journey, focusing on how one might actually find a sense of peace in this chaotic world.
There’s also this almost psychiatric quality to wisdom, isn't there? It feels healing, in a way. It exists to give people a sort of compass, helping them navigate those heavy decisions we all face eventually.

At its core, wisdom is just the art of living.

jadeheron5 said:I mean, what if Socrates was just some fool who fell for a woman who treated him poorly, and because he lacked any real sense, instead of actually dealing with his mess, he just swept everything under the rug? 😁

Falling for the wrong person isn't reserved for idiots.
There's a reason people say that first breath of love is often the final gasp of common sense.
I suspect Socrates understood that perfectly well.
The real question is whether he was being genuinely sincere when justifying why he stayed with her, or if he was just a man willing to own the consequences of his own bad decisions.

jadeheron5 said:I think it’s largely irrelevant... I suppose if someone wants to be considered a respected member of society, they ought to have had a wife, but that's not really the point. It’s about the spectrum of thought.

The average person mostly looks inward, focusing on themselves and anyone who directly impacts them. So, an average person is usually preoccupied with hierarchy, power, self-interest—figuring out who can help them reach their specific goals. But for someone with a much higher intellect, that way of thinking is incredibly narrow. Honestly, they aren't even living in the same world.

That’s why it’s so easy to spot when someone is just average. They get caught up in questions like, "Who’s to blame for his marriage?" or "Did he choose this himself?" That's that narrow-mindedness at work—projecting your own limited intellect onto others through questions that are tied strictly to your own perceived interests. That's just how that level of thinking operates.

Take, for instance, a person with an IQ70. We’re talking about someone we might describe as slow, perhaps struggling with basic math and things like that. Just consider the sphere of thought available to such a person compared to an average person with an IQ of 100.

Now, imagine someone with an IQ of 150. It is a completely different cognitive system altogether. The sphere in which their brain operates is vastly larger; they process a much greater volume of information simultaneously. To them, the way an average person thinks—our way, if you will—is simply a minor, insignificant topic, even though for the average person, it revolves around their entire existence.

You've got it wrong, Sheldon. ☕

says:
I don't really care, honestly, but from what I can tell, you're just hitting an average because you’re stuck in such a narrow little bubble of thought.
You need to accept the reality that highly intelligent people don't operate on your wavelength.
How do I put this? Fine. Imagine if 99.9% of the people around you were mentally incapacitated—like, special ed level. Sure, they can be nice, you can even like them, but you’ll never, ever achieve an intellectual connection that actually satisfies you because they simply cannot grasp your level of comprehension. That is essentially what life looks like for someone with high intelligence.

Look, Socrates clearly had a massive ego—who knows how he got that way—but the gap is just too wide for him to find any meaningful dynamic with people like you. To put it bluntly, it's like being in a room full of people nodding their heads in unison, while you live in a world where if you don't nod along with them, you're considered the crazy one.

Did those "highly intelligent" people actually say the things you just wrote?

jadeheron5 said:Socrates was an incredibly brilliant man, yet his wife was just... well, quite ordinary.
It really comes down to the fact that we’re dealing with two entirely different breeds of people here. It's like comparing a giraffe to an elephant; their social rhythms and how they navigate the world are just fundamentally wired differently.
For her, the core of the relationship was about the practical exchange—the "utility" of it all. You know, the old idea of him chopping wood while she tends the hearth. But for someone operating at a high intellectual frequency, those kinds of transactional dynamics don't even register on the radar. They aren't even part of the equation.

When you're someone like Socrates, preoccupied with deep, existential contemplation—trying to untangle the mysteries of the entire world—those mundane, ground-level domestic tensions simply don't matter. But for her? That was her entire universe. And I think that's where the friction comes from, the resentment, and ultimately, the tragedy of it all.

Did Socrates actually choose his own wife, or was it some arrangement made by his parents?

Joseph Murphy10 said:Britannica says:
Xanthippe (Greek Ξανϑίππη, Xanthippe), wife of Socrates. According to ancient tradition, she was headstrong and quarrelsome. Her name became synonymous with an evil and argumentative wife; figuratively, a shrew, a nag, or a harpy.

But look, listen, pay attention... I think her issue was just being a regular housewife who had to deal with the actual day-to-day grind of running a household. If Socrates had been out chopping wood or doing whatever practical, decent jobs normal people did back then, she probably wouldn't have been "evil" or jealous—but then again, Socrates wouldn't be the historical figure we know.

(Then she'd just be dealing with different demons. You know, the kind where she's complaining: "Look at Socrates' neighbor Melet, he just added a second floor to his house, and his wife Ligeia bought a brand new designer outfit, while look at us, living like total paupers. Ugh, I should've married Nicomachus, he's a butcher, at least I'd have plenty of poultry to work with. And I haven't even been to the grocery store lately, or since I can remember, blah blah..." just that whole damn female rhetoric..

What "good reason" are you talking about, and what exactly was he supposed to concede? Give me a practical example...

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy using Reddit

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I bet Socrates was already contemplating drinking a glass of hemlock long before the actual sentence was handed down.

Sam Martinez9 said:I'm currently working my way through *The Tao of Physics* and *The Dancing Wu Li Masters*, though I haven't quite finished either yet. In the beginning, *The Tao of Physics* traces the evolution of physics—moving from Newtonian mechanics toward Einsteinian quantum theory—while also illustrating how mechanistic physics influenced other fields, like biology, leading people to view biological organisms as mere mechanical machines.

So far, I haven't run into much mysticism, although I have noticed him referencing Buddha, Yin and Yang, and various Eastern perspectives on the world. That said, I don't expect any single book to perfectly align with my interests. As I've mentioned before, I find his take on consciousness to be somewhat underwhelming.

Given my current level of understanding, Capra might actually be exactly what I need right now. It’s entirely possible you've simply outgrown his work, which would explain why you prefer Penrose.

What you've described sounds reasonable to me. The books I'm reading by Capra were published back in 1998 and 2004, so I imagine there have been significant breakthroughs since then. Regardless, I have to start from the basics and see how far I can get.

Have you ever picked up L. Lederman's *The God Particle*?
Honestly, that book blew me away... and it was just plain fun.
It's one of those page-turners you can't put down.
"If the universe is the answer, then what exactly is the question?" 🤔

ruggedraven36 said:Seems weird to me too. But honestly—as far as I can tell—no nation around here actually has its own resident sage these days.

It’s likely due to that recent dark chapter in German history.

coppersailor28 said:If you had just told her right here where she wouldn't find wisdom, she actually would have stayed here.

I should have... but it's too late now!
I sent it to her over there instead of right here, so naturally, she shows up over there instead of here.