What is Good?

[heydaralon]

Wouldn’t mind some details on that story... sounds interesting.

The Socrates one?


There are a lot of skeleton's in ol' Socrates closet. One of the other between the lines aspects of his trial was that he had introduced more gods to Athens. People did this all the time, but if you were an asshole or sacrilegious about it they would go after you though usually not as bad as Socrates. Anyway, his oracle or what have you whispering in his ear was what caused Socrates to behave like an obnoxious asshole when he would question important people non stop. It was his driving force, according to Socrates. When he served with Alcibiades during the Peloponnesian War at Poitdea, the messages or visions from the oracle were so intense that socrates just sat there not talking or moving for an entire day. This thing had a huge impact of his life and philosophy, which is crazy because that means that modern philosophy is sort of built on this somewhat insane man who would have been Baker Acted today if he said that a messenger from god told him to argue with all of the famous and important people of the present day. All of Socrates' humble brag's about himself that he was the smartest man because he admitted he knew nothing were things the oracle told him, I believe. If this oracle was real, it gave him some praise that turned him into a grade-A douchebag.


Anyway, I don't even know if you were asking about my Socrates story or something else. I love talking about Socrates, that crazy old pedophile lool

Yeah, but he was pretty tame by comparison to others. Athenians didn't kill Diogenes pupil Crates and that guy was far worse.Crates' nickname was "The Door Opener" because he would walk into random people's homes and berate them about their poor life choices.

That guy sounds like an asshole on steroids. Imagine someone doing that in contemporary America, or Texas. Would not be around long enough to philosophize...

[heydaralon]

Thank you Kath and Hey. I wish Kath posted more too. I assume Ookie is done? To bad. Was fun to debate someone who wasn't a brick wall of confirmation bias. Hey, were you always this funny? Laughing at a lot of your stuff. Reminds me of some of the evil Irony Bros I know on twitter. Please share more of Socrates' skeletons.

I'm just too busy to post really. If I work 7 days a week, work out, meditate and read that takes up everything. I'm just falling into some bad habits cuz of losing all my money. Plus, I sort of missed ya all and had been meaning to touch base.

I can tell the story of me being robbed at somepoint. I could use some outside evaluations from smart people. It's a long story though. Short version is, money has been dissapearing for months. In increasing amounts. I thought I was screwing up my accounting, as I might have $8k when I thought I should have 9. I thought I was losing my mind. But eventually it became evident that someone has been breaking in (without breaking the lock) and just scooping up some, but not all of my cash. Really crazy.

Anyway, there have been some really good posts on what we were discussing. How to arrive at normative moral claims, or what is good. How to integrate science and other knowledge into normative claims. How to go from, this is what you are to this is what you ought to do. This is in a discussion of a book that proposes to update stoicism for our time.

https://howtobeastoic.wordpress.com/201 ... ts-part-1/


“Following nature means following the facts. It means getting the facts about the physical and social world we inhabit, and the facts about our situation in it — our own powers, relationships, limitations, possibilities, motives, intentions, and endeavors — before we deliberate about normative matters. It means facing those facts — accepting them for exactly what they are, no more and no less — before we draw normative conclusions from them. It means doing ethics from the facts — constructing normative propositions a posteriori. It means adjusting those normative propositions to fit changes in the facts."
....

That is why Stoics reject universal moral approaches, like deontological or utilitarian ones, and why the answer to any sensible moral question is always going to be: it depends (on the particulars of the case). The fact that someone may be dissatisfied with such “messiness” is a reflection of their own state of mind, not of the world as it actually is.

Im sorry you dont have more downtime to post. I do think its cool that you like discussing ideas though! If you are interested in Stoicism, you should read the book: Dying Every Day by James Romm. It discusses the stoic philosopher Seneca and his relationship with Nero his pupil. It is a short book that will change the way you think about both men. Probably one of my favorite history books ever! Written for the layman, another plus.

[SuburbanFarmer]

[SuburbanFarmer]

[Speaker to Animals]

The Socrates one?


There are a lot of skeleton's in ol' Socrates closet. One of the other between the lines aspects of his trial was that he had introduced more gods to Athens. People did this all the time, but if you were an asshole or sacrilegious about it they would go after you though usually not as bad as Socrates. Anyway, his oracle or what have you whispering in his ear was what caused Socrates to behave like an obnoxious asshole when he would question important people non stop. It was his driving force, according to Socrates. When he served with Alcibiades during the Peloponnesian War at Poitdea, the messages or visions from the oracle were so intense that socrates just sat there not talking or moving for an entire day. This thing had a huge impact of his life and philosophy, which is crazy because that means that modern philosophy is sort of built on this somewhat insane man who would have been Baker Acted today if he said that a messenger from god told him to argue with all of the famous and important people of the present day. All of Socrates' humble brag's about himself that he was the smartest man because he admitted he knew nothing were things the oracle told him, I believe. If this oracle was real, it gave him some praise that turned him into a grade-A douchebag.


Anyway, I don't even know if you were asking about my Socrates story or something else. I love talking about Socrates, that crazy old pedophile lool

Yeah, but he was pretty tame by comparison to others. Athenians didn't kill Diogenes pupil Crates and that guy was far worse.Crates' nickname was "The Door Opener" because he would walk into random people's homes and berate them about their poor life choices.

That guy sounds like an asshole on steroids. Imagine someone doing that in contemporary America, or Texas. Would not be around long enough to philosophize...

Well, he was a cynic. They were pretty much renowned assholes. I think Alexander visited Athens just to experience what dickheads they can be when Diogenes told the ruler of the western world to get the fuck out of his sunlight and stop fucking with his tan.

[LVH2]

Thank you Kath and Hey. I wish Kath posted more too. I assume Ookie is done? To bad. Was fun to debate someone who wasn't a brick wall of confirmation bias. Hey, were you always this funny? Laughing at a lot of your stuff. Reminds me of some of the evil Irony Bros I know on twitter. Please share more of Socrates' skeletons.

I'm just too busy to post really. If I work 7 days a week, work out, meditate and read that takes up everything. I'm just falling into some bad habits cuz of losing all my money. Plus, I sort of missed ya all and had been meaning to touch base.

I can tell the story of me being robbed at somepoint. I could use some outside evaluations from smart people. It's a long story though. Short version is, money has been dissapearing for months. In increasing amounts. I thought I was screwing up my accounting, as I might have $8k when I thought I should have 9. I thought I was losing my mind. But eventually it became evident that someone has been breaking in (without breaking the lock) and just scooping up some, but not all of my cash. Really crazy.

Anyway, there have been some really good posts on what we were discussing. How to arrive at normative moral claims, or what is good. How to integrate science and other knowledge into normative claims. How to go from, this is what you are to this is what you ought to do. This is in a discussion of a book that proposes to update stoicism for our time.

https://howtobeastoic.wordpress.com/201 ... ts-part-1/


“Following nature means following the facts. It means getting the facts about the physical and social world we inhabit, and the facts about our situation in it — our own powers, relationships, limitations, possibilities, motives, intentions, and endeavors — before we deliberate about normative matters. It means facing those facts — accepting them for exactly what they are, no more and no less — before we draw normative conclusions from them. It means doing ethics from the facts — constructing normative propositions a posteriori. It means adjusting those normative propositions to fit changes in the facts."
....

That is why Stoics reject universal moral approaches, like deontological or utilitarian ones, and why the answer to any sensible moral question is always going to be: it depends (on the particulars of the case). The fact that someone may be dissatisfied with such “messiness” is a reflection of their own state of mind, not of the world as it actually is.

Im sorry you dont have more downtime to post. I do think its cool that you like discussing ideas though! If you are interested in Stoicism, you should read the book: Dying Every Day by James Romm. It discusses the stoic philosopher Seneca and his relationship with Nero his pupil. It is a short book that will change the way you think about both men. Probably one of my favorite history books ever! Written for the layman, another plus.

I listened to a couple interviews with the author. It was very interesting. I have some flying coming up, which is the only time I really get to do a ton of book reading. Perhaps it will make the cut.