macrosoft

Well said, so maybe the best approach is to think in terms of shared potential for subjective (feeling-based) transcendence. It's conceivable that som...

I like this. Along these lines, I think the great artist helps us 'tune in' to something that is already there in ourselves, though not lit up as brig...

Nice post. I thought I'd point out that your definition of great art almost implies your conclusion. Or at least it's natural to me that if we think t...

Interesting point, which I've also contemplated, but it leads pretty quickly down the rabbit hole. If the thinker is just another thought, then everyt...

Sure, being 'merely verbal' is only one, but I think it's a big one. I think it's related to a sense of what philosophy is all about in the first plac...

I'm really liking our conversation, but I've been putting off some work. So I must go. I do hope to talk more in the future.

You know they are central for me. They are sort-of what philosophy is really about. They can be changed. Lots of people well out of their 20s look bac...

Hmm. Did you think I was suicidal? Oh no. I'm usually happier than most even. In the most suicidal moods (thankfully rare) I have an absolute contempt...

Oh, OK. Yes, it seems futile to try and escape death. I agree. And I'd say that impermanent satisfactions and contentments are all we have, but also t...

Yeah, that too. Sometimes life can proceed smoothly and pleasurably for stretches at a time. Life does not have some big 'hole' in it. The world feels...

I don't understand what you mean by the futility of death. IMO, Schopenhauer's notion that suicide was futile was an attempt to plug a fundamental def...

For me the truth or mumbo-jumbo is only real or alive in the person making use of the tradition. A book, for instance, only really exists for a living...

This reminds me of vampire fiction, which I think is pretty suggestive. Would I become immortal? Would I choose to become a vampire? I really might. B...

I'm no expert, but I have dabbled. I'd say that there is some truth to it and some mumbo-jumbo. My main response would that what the individual makes ...

If I use my imagination, I'd say that life without death would be very different. There would always be time to procrastinate. You could always go bac...

My pleasure. I really like the candle analogy. As far as I know, that one is all mine. Thought someone out there probably also used it, given that can...

Right. We don't choose our death. But most of us live knowing that it will come for us eventually, probably when we aren't expecting it. Or at least t...

You asked me how facing death connects to the petty versus the transcendent self. The petty self is the wax, the little details of a life that are era...

I agree. And most people don't want to die, so much so that they will believe unlikely stories to fend off the notion of being erased as particular pe...

Again, I'm not talking about suicide anymore, except maybe self-sacrifice that saves others or for some cause. My focus is on facing death more genera...

What in me dies when I die? My particular memories? Yeah. But what was the best part of me all along? What it my little particular face? Was it my lit...

I'm not thinking of suicide in the above quote. I'm talking about the things we die for and why.

Sure, and I'm a 'blue' guy in a 'blue' city. But as a philosopher, I don't take on the moral fads without criticism or reservation.

What is it that dies? Who is it that dies? And who is it that is died for? For whom does the soldier die? For whom or what did Socrates die? For whom ...

Well, sure, it's not really about genitals. But traditionally it's men who go to war and women and children who get the first lifeboats. I may be a li...

Well you do bring up a point that has always interested me. Two of our primary cultural heroes (Jesus and Socrates) were suicides. So facing death is ...

The stoics are a good example. Suicide was appropriate in certain circumstances. In such circumstances, it was one more manly facing of death.

Honestly, for me talk of 'warranted' or not is usually talk that moves into politics and system-making. In my opinion, this 'assumes' a kind of scient...

Surprising. I usually think of profound as something like the opposite of mediocre. The profound is dark, hidden, esoteric. Or it is associated with '...

Well I am far from being pro-suicide, but I think that suicide connects to some other profound issues. For instance, is it better to risk your life in...

I can relate to any ambivalence. But I guess for me it's a form of stimulation. I need 'hard' conversation, risky conversation, heavy conversation. It...

I'm just trying to paint how they see it, or at least how I've seen it. When it comes to suicide, the political question seems unimportant to me. Beca...

Maybe. I've always been comfortable in all of this deep stuff and bored when things are just cutesy small-talk. So people come to me sometimes when th...

Sure. It was tragic. But having been in some very dark states of mind, I understood it too well to feel judgmental. The suicidal person feels like a d...

Not to cause a suicide wave, but I do think suicide solves the problem. It's just an awfully expensive solution. I have friends who killed themselves ...

I don't know the details. Can you sketch the hypothesis? I do think there is an ineradicable 'core' of loneliness as we become unique adults. No one e...

Oh, maybe I misunderstood your question. Also, I think most people (or most atheists/agnostics) think of death as a neutral absence of experience. Not...

Hmmm. Given my 'meaning holism,' I'm likely to see it as just a new name for reality. Q: So you think this reality is all a simulation? A: Yes. Q: So ...

People can and do. And it is a form of overcoming resistance. They leap 'over' the fear of death into the 'truth.' I'd say most people never even thin...

I've contemplated suicide before. It is the coldest calculation imaginable. It is truly arctic, terrifyingly arctic. I've known impressive, charismati...

Resistance to resistance may be futile, since we actually want it as much or even more than we hate it. Most of us are sufficiently invested in life s...

But that's the resistance we crave. We don't want easy, or not in a simple way. We want to shine in relation to others. We want to feel ourselves over...

Yeah, I'm not suggesting suicide. I'm only saying that wanting resistance-in-general permanently gone is a kind of death wish. Similarly the desire fo...

We start to get to the terrible heart of the issue. If we really want the cleanest solution, then BANG it's suicide. But I would rather be a little di...

If I may interject, I know how to get ecstasy once in a while. I just don't know how to live constantly in a state of ecstasy. We aren't designed to l...

It's a generalization from many particular narratives. Maybe one person makes chasisty the fundamental virtue. Then their resistance is just lust. The...

Yes, I'll grant you that. And if we didn't have a need for stimulation, then the stoics would have a stronger case. But IMO we have a strong need for ...

I'd say: ask yourself what it would mean to be alive and want nothing at all. Experience is usually structured by a kind of pursuit. The 'drama' of li...

I like the cynics too. I like all the philosophies that address life as a whole. Epicurus is pretty great. Maybe I'm an epicurean, but in the classic ...

Have you ever had a great sandwich when you were hungry? Laid down for a nice nap when you were sleepy? Had a great cup of coffee when you were really...