My Philosophy of Life

Over the past few years, I have formulated my philosophy of life, a 14-page document that may be found at either of the following links:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Byh6JnTg3RMecHhxV0pYeklqV0U/edit?usp=sharing
http://www.scribd.com/doc/183418623/My-Philosophy-of-Life

In the first half of the document, I present and defend the following positions: atheism, afterlife skepticism, free will impossibilism, moral skepticism, existential skepticism, thanatophobic irrationalism and negative hedonism. The second half of the document is primarily devoted to ways to achieve and maintain peace of mind.

I have found the entire exercise to be very beneficial personally, and I hope that you will benefit from reading the document.

I am posting my philosophy to solicit feedback so that it may be improved. I welcome any constructive criticism that you may have. I am particularly interested in proposed enhancements, such as additional ways to maintain peace of mind.

Enjoy!

I have not even read the whole document just page one and here are the things that stand out to me.

You assume to have a mind you must have a brain. I disagree.
-There are numerous cases of people being medically unconscious and can recount in perfect detail everything that goes on around them as though they were watching from outside of the body. What was watching?

You assume that sense there is suffering there can not be a God. I disagree. Suffering shows that we do indeed have not just free-will but free-action also.

You assume that suffering in some way leads to a greater good. I disagree. Sometime suffering is just suffering. Stick your hand in a fire, you will get burnt. You will suffer till you heal.

You assume there are flaws in the universe. I disagree. Are you of such grand mastery of the universe that you can even begin to fathom how everything might actually fit and work together? No, your not. So your point here is flawed.

You assume that God has not made itself obvious. I disagree. God is everything.

You assume that God is a being like humans. I disagree. God is everything.

You assume there is no evidence after death. I disagree. This was the first google result of searching for NDE after brain death. http://www.near-death.com/experiences/evidence01.html

OK i can and could go on but its pointless. Your just going to stick to what you believe and find what you believe is fallacy in each one of these and this is so not worth my time.

scott777ab wrote: I have not even read the whole document just page one and here are the things that stand out to me.

I kindly request that those who post on this thread actually read the document first.

Philosofer123 wrote:

scott777ab wrote: I have not even read the whole document just page one and here are the things that stand out to me.

I kindly request that those who post on this thread actually read the document first.

I did after I made that post. My statements still stand as is.

Excellent work Philosofer. A well thought out philosophy of life. Echoes of Epicurus, the Skeptics and a wide variety of other perennial philosophers; also, though not mentioned by name, Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics .

If I may suggest an author you might find interesting, Corliss Lamont. Two books in particular: The Illusion of Immortality and, in contrast to your rejection of freewill, Freedom of Choice Affirmed.

Question: How does privileging rationality strengthen your philosophy of life?

What do you think of this quote from a book I am currently reading (Edward S. Casey, Remembering: A Phenomenological Study)

"At every level, the human psyche is constituted by identifications. And if this is so, the mind is radically non-solipsistic; it is something shared and non-solitary from the start...The self that we remember is a composition of many selves - all the selves with which we identify in the course of a life. There is no such thing as strict self-identity; or rather, such identity is thoroughly inter-subjective from the beginning...our memories are intrinsically non-private...to be mental or psychical at all is to arise from identifications with others" (244).

If anyone here knows philosophy, it's certainly our resident philosophy professor...

Back when I did the ip much of my life's philosophy was included....

(You read my mind RyuJin. I'd also put our other resident philosopher as Alexandre.)

I'd like to read your document, too, Philosofer123, but I don't think I'll have as insightful of comments as others around here might.

I'm impressed that you wrote it all out and gave time to thinking about it. Hopefully we see you around doing the Initiate Program...looks like you've got the writing down!

Alan wrote: Excellent work Philosofer. A well thought out philosophy of life. Echoes of Epicurus, the Skeptics and a wide variety of other perennial philosophers; also, though not mentioned by name, Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics .

If I may suggest an author you might find interesting, Corliss Lamont. Two books in particular: The Illusion of Immortality and, in contrast to your rejection of freewill, Freedom of Choice Affirmed.

Thank you for your kind words, Alan. I will have a look at your reading suggestions.

Alan wrote: Question: How does privileging rationality strengthen your philosophy of life?

In my view, philosophy itself is the exercise of reason. Without reason, there can be no philosophy.

More concretely, my support for negative hedonism, as well as most of the techniques in the document for maintaining peace of mind, are based on the use of reason. Without the use of reason, the document would be greatly impoverished.

Alan wrote: What do you think of this quote from a book I am currently reading (Edward S. Casey, Remembering: A Phenomenological Study)

"At every level, the human psyche is constituted by identifications. And if this is so, the mind is radically non-solipsistic; it is something shared and non-solitary from the start...The self that we remember is a composition of many selves - all the selves with which we identify in the course of a life. There is no such thing as strict self-identity; or rather, such identity is thoroughly inter-subjective from the beginning...our memories are intrinsically non-private...to be mental or psychical at all is to arise from identifications with others" (244).

I think it is true that our identity is shaped in part by other people. That said, I disagree with the assertion that "our memories are intrinsically non-private". At the very least, there are many things that I remember of which others could not be aware.

Reading more from Learn to Know would be great. Have at it. I love this stuff.

Synthesizing and syncretizing this philosophy of life into the IP would be a most worthy endeavor.

I'd love to contribute something useful but I'm afraid I'll only learn little from the exercise and wouldn't have many adequate things to add, so I'll leave it to Alexandre and instead will restrain myself to good old being-a-dick-to-other-people.

scott777ab wrote: You assume to have a mind you must have a brain. I disagree.
-There are numerous cases of people being medically unconscious and can recount in perfect detail everything that goes on around them as though they were watching from outside of the body. What was watching?

Yes, and those accounts are usually taken from them once they are conscious and the time of the conception of their experience cannot be identified. Also, each one of them have brains, many of them have presuppositions and cultural influences that shape the experiences their injured brains generate through the hormones and natural drugs they flood themselves with. Let alone that there is no way of telling how many of them are being sincere in front of the press.

You assume that sense [sic] there is suffering there can not be a God. I disagree. Suffering shows that we do indeed have not just free-will but free-action also.

I would agree with where you were going. Suffering in itself doesn't disprove any gods in general, though perhaps a few particular ones. The way you went on however is utter bollocks. There is suffering with and without human intent, and no amount of free will and free action (which btw while I grant you, you still technically would have to justify prior to using that as an argument) can account for, much less justify the suffering of innocent people and animals during natural catastrophes.

You assume that suffering in some way leads to a greater good. I disagree. Sometime suffering is just suffering. Stick your hand in a fire, you will get burnt. You will suffer till you heal.

And yet you will learn to not do it again and advice other people to not put their hands into fires either. But I agree that the statement cannot be generalized. Not all suffering is to a better end, let alone a greater good, whatever that would entail. So yea, I think that's the line where I agree with you.

You assume there are flaws in the universe. I disagree. Are you of such grand mastery of the universe that you can even begin to fathom how everything might actually fit and work together? No, your not. So your point here is flawed.

That point, if made like this, is indeed flawed, though so is your refutation. After all, it doesn't take a film production and direction education to criticize a movie. It doesn't take parenthood to notice a bad parent. Just because one is not an expert in a field doesn't mean one is necessarily wrong with any evaluation one does. Each claim stands or falls on its own merit. I would have to see what the flaws referred to are specifically and how it is justified that those are indeed flaws, but the credentials of the author are a preliminary consideration, not a factor in judgement claims' merit.

You assume that God has not made itself obvious. I disagree. God is everything.

So how has it made itself obvious, i.e. distinguishable from everything else. Oh, wait, you say it is everything else already. Alright, how do you know that? And isn't that an awfully useless definition then, since it doesn't actually define anything?

You assume that God is a being like humans. I disagree. God is everything.

How do you know? And how does that mean that it isn't a being in a way similar to humans. And wouldn't you now also have to disprove every single person who claims to know a personal god who is indeed a being not a lot unlike humans?

You assume there is no evidence after death. I disagree. This was the first google result of searching for NDE after brain death. http://www.near-death.com/experiences/evidence01.html

You do know that near death isn't something actually after death, right? I mean, after all, how come that claims of coming back to life after death are universally disregarded by the medical community? Heck, even if they weren't, and even if people were to report what they saw after being in fact dead (and they never did, because whoever died never woke up again, at least so far), how do you know that they are being honest, and if they are, how do you know that their experience was genuine and not their mind playing tricks on them. It sure does while we live, so why wouldn't it on the death bed, where it is so much more stressed? And how come that those experiences entirely depend on the culture and personal beliefs of each person and aren't universally identical or at least remotely similar across the globe?

OK i can and could go on but its pointless. Your just going to stick to what you believe and find what you believe is fallacy in each one of these and this is so not worth my time.

No, please, please go on, I'd love to see your illuminating refutations of those entirely fallacious and unfounded claims. Maybe we will learn something from you.. Unless you'd rather not have us benefit from your insight and keep it to yourself, of course... I suppose that'd be your prerogative then, and in your view likely a perfectly morally justifiable choice.