Wow you have to click this

[absurdtoast]

Hopefully using caps will make people click this. If not that's ok too.


SOOOO..you clicked huh...
anyway...I am 21 going to school and working a lame job. I'm from Rhode Island.

I am studying philosophy and its the one thing I love. I like politics, anthropology, writing, being outside, doing nothing.
I like music..like hardcore punk, ska, folk punk, 1930's folk, jug bands, ragtime, classical, jazz, ragtime and some hip hop. I'd love to start a jug band or folk punk band one day.

I like doing some cool things and once I graduate from school I hope to travel for a long time. I want to train hop eventually, but mostly just meet cool people and experience life. I'd love to one day backpack across Europe...that's pretty much my one life goal.

I don't know anyone who wishes to do these things in real life so I hope to meet some cool people on here and maybe even end up traveling with them one day.

anyway...this seems like a real neato site. I'm gonna go eat cheez-its and play sega. bye.

 

[Winston Smith]

hey!

I'm also studying philosophy! I'm hoping to hop in May or June to CA. After I graduate I want to backpack across the world. It's nice to meet someone like-minded.

Also Cheez-its are delicious, especially the white cheddar flavor.

 

[Jimmy James]

Philosophy is a worthwhile persuasion...It's the only thing that got me through J.C., along w/ Ornamental horticulture without dying of complete boredom.

 

[Bob]

i went to college as a philosophy major before i dropped out and moved to baltimore. i love philosophy and ethics. its fuckin awesome.
where in RI you from? i got friends in providence, and i been to prov and cranston a few times. i'm from NH

 

[absurdtoast]

Hey guys, Im like 15 minutes from Providence.

But yeah man philosophy is awesome!

I pretty much want to be a modern day Socrates.....just travel and talk with people.
If anyone wants to talk philosophy I'm always up for it.

Its annoying at this point in my life I feel kind of trapped. With school and a job I feel tied down so I have to keep putting off my dream to travel..hopefully by next summer I will be done with college and take some time off of work. It's just one of those things. I want to just go out and travel this summer but oh well.

Im sure its a common feeling.
Anyway, its cool to hear from people and kind of know that there are others feeling the same way. I hope I will be able to meet up with people on this site eventually to form a group of wandering philosophers searching the world for all the wisdom it has to offer....my idealistic dream!

 

[MiztressWinter]

Hey there. Welcome to STP!

 

[Winston Smith]

yeah, a lot of people I know feel or felt that way, unfortunately most never fulfill their dreams, but I don't want to become one of them! Haha, that's a very inspiring idea! The Philosowanderers! I like it.

 

[Out of Step]

If you read the thread I just posted explaining my situation then you'll understand half of my desire for the same type of lifestyle, and especially the dreams of my cousin, who was once a philosophy major, before getting kicked out of his father's home for just being a normal kid, and having then to quit because he had no place to sleep/study. He's still got his book, but a nice little $1800 debt to our local comm. college.

I will definitely let him know of your dream to do this, as well as this post in particular, because he too, is in the same position as me.

 

[L.C.]

philosophy taught me nihlism. if you are looking for meaning,stick with jesus, he can be tailored and customized to fit your personal needs.'and thats all i got to say about that.

 

[absurdtoast]

Well not very philosophical. I find it easy to slip into nihilism, but I refuse to. I wish to not settle on anything and never stop thinking and examining. Saying nothing matters just seems like an intellectual cop out, or simplify say it is all "just meaningless anyway" doesn't feel "right", or human. Positive nihilism is fascinating but I think most nihilists don't see how empowering it is, and a lot of times falsely think certain philosophers were nihilists. I know a popular one is saying that Nietzsche was a nihilist when he clearly wasn't at all...but that's a real mainstream view. Nihilism as an academic discipline of philosophy is pretty limited. So I hope whatever philosophy you have read taught you more then just nihilism, because there is some real amazing stuff out there.

I think Albert Camus might interest you. Maybe you have read the Myth of Sisyphus where Camus lays out his absurdist philosophy. Sisyphus was punished by the Gods and as punishment he was forced to roll a big rock up a hill only for it to fall back down again. He was forced to do this meaningless task for eternity.

Camus see's this struggle that Sisyphus endures as the same for all of mankind. In a world devoid of meaning, no God, no morality, no objective truths, the first and most important question we must ask ourselves is one of suicide. Is life worth living if it does not have meaning?

We get stuck in the daily grind of "everydayness" and only special moments filter through where we take a step back and ask what all this is for. These, for Camus, are the moments of the absurd. When the cycle of everyday is broken and we begin to ask "why" we perform certain tasks, we realize the absurd. The absolute meaninglessness of it all.

Camus compares this to Sisyphus. He does the same exact task everyday only to do it all over again tomorrow. But Camus says we must see Sisyphus as happy. Just the struggle is enough to give life meaning. The struggle to make sense of a meaningless life, and world, is enough to fill a mans heart. This struggle is enough to give life meaning and is why we should not end out existence.

That's part of Camus in a nutshell. Your post just kind of reminded me of his ideas. I'm not sure I fully buy it all, but I think its a very fascinating way of looking at things.

 

[Pickles]

Fascinating! Man, I think about this sort of thing all the time. I've only delved into the surface level of philosophy and know very little about terms and such, but I find nihilism very interesting, simply because I would consider myself a solipsist (just looked this up... didn't know what term my mode of thinking would fall under) for the most part. After a near-death experience (cheesy, I know, but I'm just sayin it how it is) I fell into this mode of thinking in which I continuously question whether I'm dead or alive, or whether everything that seems to exist only exists within my own mind and that reality is a completely separate picture. And then the question turns into which existence would be reality.... I could literally go on for days wondering and rambling and questioning. Such interesting stuff.

Anyway, I'd love to talk more about philosophy and get recommendations on authors and specific books you find interesting.

From the sounds of your intro, I think you'll like it here. Welcome to the site!

 

[absurdtoast]

Solipsism is rather interesting and important. I mean its very essential for all modern philosophy and goes back to Descartes famous, "Cogito ergo sum" (I think therefore I am.)

Descartes set out to find some objective truth, and so he set out questioning everything looking for some foundation. This is all in his meditations, where he begins his radical questioning and doubting. He was able to doubt the physical world around him and all the objective truths of disciplines like mathematics and science with his evil demon, or evil genius argument.

God could have made everything and this could all be a mere illusion, this evil genius could be tricking us with the physical world. Another case of this is the brain in the vat, that we could just be a brain in a vat hooked up to wires that make us believe we are walking and coming in contact with the physical world.
So Descartes realized that the physical could very well be an illusion and that it sometimes is. So he took part in radical doubting, making sure to doubt everything to find the one thing he could not doubt. In the end the only thing Descartes couldn't doubt was in fact his ability to doubt, and thus concluded, I doubt, therefore I am. I think therefore I am. Every single thing around me could in fact be wrong or a mere illusion, and if this was all a trick, the only thing that I know for sure is that I have the ability to doubt. Having a mind, to think, is all one can conclude. This leads Descartes to his theory of mind-body dualism where he says that the mind and the physical (body) are two separate substances and this of course leads to the existence of a soul, which was important for Descartes.

I mean, this idea that I may be the only thinking person is one that has been discussed in philosophy quite a bit. I learned of another thought experiment in my philosophy of mind class that deals with philosophical zombies. This thought experiment is one where there are these zombies, everyone is a zombie. These zombies look just like humans, and act in every way like humans. If you kick them they will respond exactly like a human, be able to recall experiences, act exactly identical to what a human should act like. BUT these philosophical zombies don't have any mental life. All seemingly conscious beings actually lack a conscious life. They display the traits that one would assume a conscious being has, but in fact I can not know for sure if they are a zombie or like me. Because of this, there is a chance that everyone is actually a philosophical zombie, and I am the only one with real consciousness. This just shows that we can never really know another's consciousness, but based on their actions we can assume they are.

I mean its a crazy thought experiment and it has many flaws same as Descartes theory.

Personally I can't buy into solipsism or even fully accpet Descartes "Cogito ergo sum" claim. I personally don't believe in a soul or a strict mind-body dualism. But I understand that these ideas were extremely important in the development of philosophy. I find that the existentialist response to Descartes is a good one, the ideas of Soren Kierkegaard. But I wont go into that now, Ive rambled on enough.

Sorry if anyone actually reads this post. I just genuinely like discussing philosophy. There is so many ideas with solipsism, I haven't even mentioned George Berkeley!! Ok I must stop myself here.

 

[Pickles]

Don't apologize man, that was interesting! I'm at the library now, I'm gonna try and look for something by George Berkeley.