Serious Concerns With "Philosophy"

[Jayson G]

This has been on my mind for a while. 

To start off, like many of you, I love philosophy. In fact, it's, as of my understanding, my #1 deepest passion. I can't see anything more meaningful than philosophy, to understand the world, reality, life, myself, others. It's both meaningful and fun. 

But as I pursue this passion, a few key concerns come up, serious ones, that keep persisting, and have overlaps: 

• Is it 90% to 100% metaphorical? intellectual? Idea-based? If so, is it even real? Or is it just creating stories and fantasies in my head? I'm talking something as simple as understanding science or investing for example, or engaging with ChatGPT for hours on any topic, spiritual or non-spiritual. I know it has immense practical value, as I've experienced it in my own life. But in the end 95% feels like mental masturbation, bullshit, time-waste, unnecessary thinking, stories, fantasies, nice ideas, etc. 
• I also remember Leo's post about Hayao Miyazaki, and that really inspired me, because there's this part of me that really loves art. But I try pursuing art and although I feel more myself, feel alive, feel this sense of magic when I do art, philosophy is more meaningful to me because of the impact I will have as well as meaningful for my own personal life. So how do you deal with this, if art is something you're deeply passionate about as well, or even more passionate about in some ways? There are philosophical components to art, so that's nice, but often it feels better to pursue philosophy directly, it feels more real, and less disillusioning with life. 
• Is all this intellectualizing healthy? Is it healthy for the mind and body? Is it disillusioning me with life instead of the opposite? 
• Are these problems a natural consequence of doing philosophy, and should be accepted or is this a matter of doing something wrong? Maybe there's a way of doing philosophy that doesn't incur such problems?

I'm saying all this while also pursuing as much direct experience as possible, new novel experiences as well, etc. but the amount of experience I gain is no where close to the amount of philosophy I do. So does that just become armchair at that point? 

Any books or sources that can help do philosophy right, without incurring such problems?

@Leo Gura how have you approached this in your life, solved these problems or dealt with them? are these to be accepted or is it a matter of doing better philosophy? 

I've been struggling with this for years, and as I go deeper this seems to be a bigger problem. 

Anyone else solve some of these problems?

[CoolDreamThanks]

True philosophy has to be concerned with Highest Truth aka God.  
 

Words are merely symbols of symbols. they are used to liberate and then, when you are up the ladder of understanding, the final step is to throw away the ladder. 

. Dreams are symbolic of what is in your Mind .

[Yimpa]

@CoolDreamThanks falling off a ladder can also teach you many lessons about life. I was not made aware of this until my dad actually did!

[Leo Gura]

You ask some good questions.

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key concerns come up, serious ones, that keep persisting, and have overlaps: 

• Is it 90% to 100% metaphorical? intellectual? Idea-based? If so, is it even real? Or is it just creating stories and fantasies in my head? I'm talking something as simple as understanding science or investing for example, or engaging with ChatGPT for hours on any topic, spiritual or non-spiritual. I know it has immense practical value, as I've experienced it in my own life. But in the end 95% feels like mental masturbation, bullshit, time-waste, unnecessary thinking, stories, fantasies, nice ideas, etc. 

This depends on how you do it, of course.

You can get lost in fantasies, speculation, and mental masturbation.

However, proper contemplation and study can produce serious and valuable insight and understanding into the nature of reality and any systems within it. Do not discount the importance of high quality sensemaking and serious understanding that's grounded in direct experience and genuine insight rather than speculation, belief, and fantasy. The real work is in seeing past the fantasies to see how nature really works.

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• I also remember Leo's post about Hayao Miyazaki, and that really inspired me, because there's this part of me that really loves art. But I try pursuing art and although I feel more myself, feel alive, feel this sense of magic when I do art, philosophy is more meaningful to me because of the impact I will have as well as meaningful for my own personal life. So how do you deal with this, if art is something you're deeply passionate about as well, or even more passionate about in some ways? There are philosophical components to art, so that's nice, but often it feels better to pursue philosophy directly, it feels more real, and less disillusioning with life. 

My solution is to do both. In fact, you need something tangible like artistic work or business to keep you from getting lost in pure theory.

If all you do is philophy you will get too stuck in your mind and it won't feel good. It could even turn into mental illness.

Life is long enough for you to pursue art, business, and philosophy. And they all balance out the excesses and limitions of each by themselves.

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• Is all this intellectualizing healthy? Is it healthy for the mind and body? Is it disillusioning me with life instead of the opposite? 

Only doing philosophy and nothing else is NOT healthy. You also need pursuits to ground you in the realities of life. This can be business, art, sport, family, pickup, running a community, etc.

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• Are these problems a natural consequence of doing philosophy, and should be accepted or is this a matter of doing something wrong? Maybe there's a way of doing philosophy that doesn't incur such problems?

For a healthy, happy life you must engage not just pure mind, but also your body and you heart. And you must not only master the theory but also engage in practice. Do practical stuff like art, craft, business, or raising a family.

A healthy life is something like 80% action and practical affairs and only 20% pure philosophy. If you get this ratio backwards you will run into problems.

Edited April 23 by Leo Gura

[Jayson G]

@Leo Gura 

"However, proper contemplation and study can produce serious and valuable insight and understanding into the nature of reality and any systems within it. Do not discount the importance of high quality sensemaking and serious understanding that's grounded in direct experience and genuine insight rather than speculation, belief, and fantasy. The real work is in seeing past the fantasies to see how nature really works."

- What's the difference though, between valuable insight and deep understanding vs. all the other bullshit? Like at one point, after watching your video "valuable things require development over time", after like 40 times watching it, the 40th time or something, it hit me that this is a video on "investing", and that there's a whole field on investing, and so Ive been digging deep on investing, opportunity cost, intangible assets with time, etc. and so I got into that rabbit hole. That time it hit me that there's a whole field on investing, felt like a genuine insight I had, but even all that still feels like mental masturbation. Investing principles has practical value that I apply in real life, but I mean even that just seems metaphorical? Am I making the mistake in thinking that metaphorical is bullshit? Or is it that "valuable insight and understanding" goes beyond metaphor?

"A healthy life is something like 80% action and practical affairs and only 20% pure philosophy. If you get this ratio backwards you will run into problems."

In terms of living a good life, wow I didn't even think about this. I can definitely see myself being a LOT happier and on-top of life if I restructured life to be in this just 20% philosophy path. I pretty much think all day, and now Im becoming conscious of how much that holds me back. 

[Jayson G]

54 minutes ago, CoolDreamThanks said:

True philosophy has to be concerned with Highest Truth aka God.  
 

Words are merely symbols of symbols. they are used to liberate and then, when you are up the ladder of understanding, the final step is to throw away the ladder. 

. Dreams are symbolic of what is in your Mind .

Highest Truth, yeah thats something I struggle with ... I have this fear of it, so I partly go for it, yet I do seek truth I guess, maybe lowercase truth, or as much truth as I can stomache .. but good point, I also think prioritizing truth is key

[Leo Gura]

@Jayson G Consider people like Peter Ralston, Daniel Ingram, or Sadhguru.

Ralston: mastered martial arts, ran a school, had a child and family.

Ingram: is a busy emergency room doctor.

Sadhguru: Had a child, ran a business, now runs a large community.

Notice how active these guys are in life. They are not just sitting on a cushion meditating all day. And if they did, they would probably be miserable people. Life requires engagement and raw experience. That raw experience is then grist for the contemplation mill. It's hard to be properly motivated and engaged if all you do is sit around and think all day.

Edited April 23 by Leo Gura

[Jayson G]

@Leo Gura and does it take a lot of this theorizing that can feel like BS at times, to reach occassional moments of genuine insight and deep understanding? Is this theorizing the path? kind of like scouring a large pile of shit for golden nuggets? 

[Jayson G]

2 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

@Jayson G Consider people like Peter Ralston, Daniel Ingram, or Sadhguru.

Ralston: mastered martial arts, ran a school, had a child and family.

Ingram: is a busy emergency room doctor.

Sadhguru: Had a child, ran a business, now runs a large community.

Notice how active these guys are in life. They are not just sitting on a cushion meditating.

That does seem like a life that is more real .. its a bit different for me as my highest priority is philosophy, even if I do have these other pursuits, but I can definitely see the profound lesson here to make life much more about this other real stuff.

[Davino]

1 hour ago, Jayson G said:

Is this theorizing the path?

where does theory come from? how are theoretical books written? what is the source?

It's Reality, direct-experience, now

That's the cow, then you milk it for the insights

[Miguel1]

8 hours ago, Jayson G said:

I also remember Leo's post about Hayao Miyazaki, and that really inspired me, because there's this part of me that really loves art. But I try pursuing art and although I feel more myself, feel alive, feel this sense of magic when I do art, philosophy is more meaningful to me because of the impact I will have as well as meaningful for my own personal life. So how do you deal with this, if art is something you're deeply passionate about as well, or even more passionate about in some ways? There are philosophical components to art, so that's nice, but often it feels better to pursue philosophy directly, it feels more real, and less disillusioning with life. 

 

7 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

My solution is to do both. In fact, you need something tangible like artistic work or business to keep you from getting lost in pure theory.

If all you do is philophy you will get too stuck in your mind and it won't feel good. It could even turn into mental illness.

Life is long enough for you to pursue art, business, and philosophy. And they all balance out the excesses and limitions of each by themselves.

 

As Leo said, do both! But very good questions indeed. I have been contemplating the same questions a lot over the past year or two and deeply share your thoughts. So I felt like I had to come and share my own conclusions.

So for me so far, the conclusion I have come to is:

I will do both but,

I have decided to make my life's work about Art for now. But the way I do art allows me to mix in a bunch of philosophy, both in the form of writing, and also speaking. + the art itself touches and inspires deep philosophical questions.

Since for me... I see that this has much more money than pure philosophy (especially the truly advanced stuff), I will focus mostly on this now in order to become financially free. But I will certainly be doing philosophy and deep contemplations on my free time, while I am working on my financial freedom, since I just have such a deep love for it (it's either the biggest passion just like for you, or the second to art while being very close to being the first).

Once I am free, I will also do pure philosophy as my life's work too. But it will happen through a new channel (videos, books) and I wont be mixing it into my main artwork. So it's almost like I will be doing two works (Kinda like Leo does actualized but also game design or whatever art ventures he is into nowadays). But they can overlap. The audience from the first channel that follows my art can follow my pure philosophy from the second channel and vice versa.

Perhaps 20% will overlap. Perhaps more because once I am financially free, I will probably shift my Art into a layer or two or three more deeper... touching and expressing ever deeper aspects of life, which has less people interested in and resonating with, but more people resonating with my pure philosophy work.

So in a way, I guess, once I am financially free, I wont be doing pure philosophy only through the new / second channel but also through my first channel which is the Artwork - but I don't know if you can call it pure philosophy since it has so much art in it and won't be ''pure'' philosophy, even if the art will be ''deeper''.

Finally, once I am financially free, my art work will probably take 80% of my work time and philosophy work 20%. We shall see about that. Or maybe it will be 50/50. Or maybe 20% Art and 80% pure philosophy! Or maybe it depends on the phase of my life and it can fluctuate back and forth!

That being said, doing art is so enjoyable for me that I will probably be working a lot! But then again... I will certainly have phases where I am not inspired to do art at all.. for really long periods at once... so I guess it all balances out and my work will perhaps remain on average the 20-40h a week and not more. We shall see. Depends on what I will be doing on my off-time from artwork and if it counts as work (for example studying, contemplating, living life, exploring, and being open to inspirations!).

Edited April 24 by Miguel1

[nerdspeak]

Most people who claim to be interested in philosophy are not interested in academic philosophy in the sense that it exists today. 

That said, I would keep doing it as long as it's enjoyable for you. If you're like me, when your engagement with intellectual pursuits starts to threaten your basic needs, it will become less enjoyable and you'll be motivated to go do things in the world. 

Edited April 25 by nerdspeak

[Yimpa]

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