What's your opinion on Master Degree Philosophy (Even PhD)

[Tiny Nietzsche]

As you all might already know, This field is different from others (Finance, Science, ...) People who interest in this way normally don't care about career, They mostly do for fulfillment & understandings (This ensures my classmate will all be passionate). I'm currently in process of Master Degree registration.. What's your opinion

[Leo Gura]

Why? It will mostly be a waste of time. You can grow far better on your own and save the the money.

The only reason for a masters or PhD is if you want to be university professor. It serves no other function and it certainly won't help you understand Truth.

[Tiny Nietzsche]

Thanks for reply (IDK It's an admin or Leo himself)

Why?:
1. Getting involved with people like me will uphold & enhance my perspective, It's about surroundings
2. To know more about Philosophy, Get in deeper (My interested concepts are from Nietzsche, Soren KK, Sartre & Camus)

First point is the main reason, You know, get involved in the circle, but for second point - I'm not sure reading books myself would do the same.
I still quite strongly agree about wasting time like you said, But I might get something out of it

You do you think about my reason?
/TY

[bejapuskas]

@Tiny Nietzsche  You can surround yourself with any people you want if you aren't like an annoying person  That's what I do everytime I want to learn something, I go to a speech of a professor maybe and then chat up the people and make friends, you can even become friends with the professor... You don't have to go to that school and you can read everything at home.

[Extreme Z7]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

The only reason for a masters or PhD is if you want to be university professor. It serves no other function and it certainly won't help you understand Truth.

Man, that sounds like a real circular waste.

A college degree whose only practical value is to help others get the same college degree.

Edit:
Whoops, I just realized that you were talking about Masters and PhDs in general and not just Philosophy degrees. Sorry, my mistake.

Edited August 24, 2019 by Extreme Z7

[Leo Gura]

@Extreme Z7 I was talking about philosophy degrees.

A Masters or PhD in engineering is much more functional.

Philosophy in particular is not meant to be studied in a university. This preverts the whole point of philosophy.

If you want to do serious philosophy, get yourself a bag of mushrooms and DMT and start doing yoga.

[bejapuskas]

@Leo Gura  What is your opinion on studying arts? Do you have like a specific idea of how to make them more practical? 

For example psychology could be so interesting, but people are making it too scientific, I mean, as long as their goal is to make money, they will not contribute to the goal of psychology (imo to feel happy and explore human nature)

Do you think it's a good idea to like take for granted what some wise yogi says and then try to find a way to prove it scientifically? It would take a lot of effort and unbiased work, but I feel like it could be really nice if someone could do that. 

I could probably think of more examples, but I feel like I don't have enough understanding of universities and career paths

[Girzo]

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Why? It will mostly be a waste of time. You can grow far better on your own and save the the money

Unless... You live in Europe and college is free, you have lower taxes for doing business and health insurance is free during your study, plus you get a chance to get €350 stipend a month if you are in top 10% performers and you can go on an exchange to study in another country and get paid stipend too.

Studying avarages to 4-6 hours of study a day and there's still plenty of time to do business or work. I think it's a good deal.

[Dan502]

If you didn't do it, what else would you most likely do instead and how does that compare?

Edited August 24, 2019 by Dan502

[Aeris]

52 minutes ago, Girzo said:

Unless... You live in Europe and college is free, you have lower taxes for doing business and health insurance is free during your study, plus you get a chance to get €350 stipend a month if you are in top 10% performers and you can go on an exchange to study in another country and get paid stipend too.

Studying avarages to 4-6 hours of study a day and there's still plenty of time to do business or work. I think it's a good deal.

in France it's the same, if you're poor they give you between 200-400€ a month ( for 3 years max, and more if you graduate ) ( it's max 3+2+1 ).

the more I know about the other countries the more I like mine.

I would almost just be jealous of scandinavia countries, but I hate the cold.

[Tiny Nietzsche]

1 hour ago, Dan502 said:

If you didn't do it, what else would you most likely do instead and how does that compare?

This a good question..
I'd read, think and write A LOT (but I don't to be a frog in a coconut shell)
Still, an external stimuli, for sometimes, like environment (classmate, teacher, discussion) will bolster me for many things  

*sigh* My mind think about it night and day

Edited August 24, 2019 by Tiny Nietzsche

[Skanzi]

I wouldn't necessarily say studying is a bad thing, especially if the study is a preperation towards a practical function in life, and the experience of studying itself can also be a valuable learning curve in itself. I myself am going to study Social Work because I want to have access with my degree to be able to be hired in job applications in for instance in psychiatric hospitals. I feel like people like those in psychiartic hospitals can use an (semi-)awakened being the most and yet are often dealing with most unconscious, insane behaviour from others, because these educated "professionals" may have a lot of knowledge, but very often they lack personal experience of transcending inner struggles, and therefore they can't truly handle the energy of insanity that hangs around places like a psychiatric hospital. I myself have done much of this inner work, and therefore have a grounding of being able helping people to transcend their struggles because of my own inner work (though there is still much inner work to be done). I hope that I can make a change there, but of course my future can still go in many direction and I might end up in a totally different place.

Also, just the very experience of studying and facing new challenges that I have to overcome seem as of currently a very proper step for me. And also, I like the focus of my study on the high amount of internships that are required in the cirriculum. I prefer at least at this point experience over knowledge. And also, I also want to study Social work to properly understand the mainstream health care system so that I can be more effective as being a potential whistle-blower

However, I do want to acknowledge that the intellectual understanding and "wisdom" of these universities and colleges are still very limited by for instance materialistic paradigms. Universities and colleges may have a lot of smart people and professors, but rarely do they have "wise" people there. Therefore, the question to actually study philosophy at an university is questionable, as professors are often ignorant of non-dual forms of wisdom and its many contradictory perspectives; they are often rooted in many forms of dualism as well and not too many of them are very spiritually mature human beings. In other words: wisdom and maturity are other things than cleverness and being a good intellectual. The internet on the other hand is full of highly awakened forms of content. You just have to search in the right places. So as far as knowledge alone is concerned, I wouldn't do the study if I were you. Except if you're interested in like the history of philosophy and how it all developed, and to sort of compare philosophies from different sources against each other just out of sheer interest.

There are also other drawbacks on doing a formal education and working at a job that is rooted in mainstream society or the mainstream system. For instance, in my study Social Work and the work I'm allowed to do with my degree, one thing I'm not looking forward to is having to do much administration and paper work. I'm probably going to end up being very sleek and subtly slipping past many of these somewhat useless rules and regulations wherever I see an oppurtunity, because all this paperwork is so controlling and somewhat paranoid.

Considering your study isn't really (directly) aimed towards training you for practical aspects of life so much, it makes your study a bit more questionable as opposed to getting a degree for an education that is aimed to instruct you more towards the practical domains of life. However, it may (or may not) still be potentially worthwhile. Just as you has said in the previous post, I also find in myself that external stimuli like discussion, teachers, student interactions, and potentially also deadlines and having set concrete assignment for yourself by others, can also be of an extra stimulation to sort of get yourself to do something. I wouldn't maybe have agreed with this sort of pressure as being "good" a couple of years back, but now I do see that —at least in my current situation— it has a certain value to it. It can sometimes be helpful to me if I receive external pressure or stimulation to go and do something; It gets me going more easily and I often even appreciate having received this external pressure afterwards.

I can't answer your question if you should go and study or not. However, you should consider for yourself very well what your alternatives are and if you think you'd be better off with these alternatives than going to do this study.

Edited August 24, 2019 by Skanzi

[Richard Alpert]

What is Leo´s study background?

I remember he said he studied philosophy but somewhere else i read mechanical engineering.

[Leo Gura]

5 hours ago, Girzo said:

Unless... You live in Europe and college is free

You lucky fucking communists!

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, Richard Alpert said:

What is Leo´s study background?

I remember he said he studied philosophy but somewhere else i read mechanical engineering.

I have a BA in Philosophy.

Overall I was quite disappointed with it. So I gave myself a PhD in God. That solved the problem.

[Nahm]

@Tiny Nietzsche

 

[Knock]

I don't know your situation, but doing such a degree will put a lot of financial strain on you with university debt. In most degrees, this debt is okay, because you have an asset in having learnt skills and knowledge that enables you opportunity to earn income and pay off the debt plus much more. It is an investment with high return. 

A philosophy degree is not such an investment. It's return is very low, sometimes useless, so the debt incurred will put a huge financial strain on your future. 

Most university degrees are means to get a job. Philosophy degrees are not. They are ends in themselves. The ends being the love of knowledge. 

If you have your finances sorted out and the degree won't put you under water with debt, then go for your life! Just know that this is a privilege most don't have, so I recommend against it.

[Leo Gura]

10 hours ago, bejapuskas said:

@Leo Gura  What is your opinion on studying arts? Do you have like a specific idea of how to make them more practical? 

You will have to be proactive and take responsibility for making it practical. Academia is not known for their practicality.

You need to have a vision for what you want to create, beyond just getting a degree. A degree means shit. What do you want to create for the world? That is the key question.

Quote

For example psychology could be so interesting, but people are making it too scientific, I mean, as long as their goal is to make money, they will not contribute to the goal of psychology (imo to feel happy and explore human nature)

I think psychology is pretty decent. Of course it's scientific. It's a science! People do serious research in that field and that's important.

But if your goal is to improve your own psychology, for that you are better off studying self-help on your own.

Quote

Do you think it's a good idea to like take for granted what some wise yogi says and then try to find a way to prove it scientifically? It would take a lot of effort and unbiased work, but I feel like it could be really nice if someone could do that.

Of course it would be highly valuable to scientifically study & validate various yogic truths. We need a lot more scientific research into spirituality.

[bejapuskas]

7 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

I think psychology is pretty decent. Of course it's scientific. It's a science! People do serious research in that field and that's important.

I always wondered how they do a valid research in psychology, if you ask someone about their feelings or motivations, there is a pretty high chance that they will tell you a lie, not even because they are liars, but because they just aren't conscious (low-consciousness and lying go hand in hand though, maybe they are almost the same thing), they don't even think about stuff deep like that. Same problem with philosophy.

I could be wrong though, the problem is, they don't really tell us about cutting edge psychology research in Czech schools, we learn about behaviorism and stuff like that. 

8 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

But if your goal is to improve your own psychology, for that you are better off studying self-help on your own.

Of course

8 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Of course it would be highly valuable to scientifically study & validate various yogic truths. We need a lot more scientific research into spirituality.

Some people are doing it with psychedelic and meditation research, but still I am always impressed when I hear Sadhguru saying like I feel it in my system, that there were 84 Big Bangs or some crazy shit like that  Maybe I will choose it as my career path.

12 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

You lucky fucking communists!

 

[Origins]

I destroyed this guy just the other day who's apparently got a PhD in philosophy and I haven't even finished a full year of university. That just shows you how useful it can be.

 

Edited October 25, 2020 by Origins