Francis Williams' Philosophy Blog

 both the eastern scholar alan watts and german philosopher friedrich nietzsche viewed the contemporary attitude to work as destructive.  in their view work should be a matter of pleasure. in watts' case, it was in the form of an enlightened engagement with work, a kind of lightness and dance, whereas nietzsche saw the struggle involved in work as "the reward of all rewards" and as the goal in itself, not as a means for making profit. according to nietzsche, the fear of boredom is what drives people to work. they would rather shun boredom through repetitive, monotonous tasks than be idle. in this case he distinguishes those who have the capacity to suffer boredom, who consider it a prequel to (what i can only assume he means) is a period of productivity: "For the thinker and for all inventive spirits boredom is the unpleasant "calm" of the soul which precedes the happy voyage and the dancing breezes; he must endure it, he must await the effect it has on him

 in todays world, where tradition and morality are slowly being eroded by liberal movements, the individual is expected to be tolerant towards everything and anything. he will be afraid to criticize something which he sees as a change for the worse, something which goes against his upbringing or education. as a result of this forced tolerance he will have no use for any previously held moral values and will cease to practice them. this will cause him to lose his bearings in the world under which the general effect is a form of passiveness towards everything -a kind of passive nihilism. this will be the case in most people who are easily molded into society. in more extreme individuals however the result could be more dangerous to society: it could result in extremism, fundamentalism or fascism. this is the double edged sword of liberalism and the inevitable price that we have to pay for being tolerant.

 public intellectuals, thinktanks, universities and people at the forefront of progressive movements all have the same agenda: to make sure progress goes on unimpeded. even though they act on certain moral values, and will pose as philanthropists or defenders of such and such a cause, they all generally believe that the most important thing is that humanity survives and progresses, that at all costs civilization does not collapse. the question we have to ask however is really: is it really progress? another related question is: would it be too irrational and unthinkable to want to halt this so called progress? to prevent progress from happening? what if we are not meant to become an interplanetary civilization, what if we are not supposed to colonize mars. maybe we shouldn't assume that we are going to reach a singularity or that we will hand ourselves over to machines. moreover, what if society is on the brink of inevitable collapse and all we have left to do is to reboot the comp

 merely the fact that there is a huge discrepancy between egoism and altruism means we should strive towards altruism. supposing psychological egoism to be true. as i have discussed elsewhere, we lack sufficient knowledge of the mind to make universal generalizations about our motives, they are simply too complex to fathom. but let us grant it as true for the sake of argument that humans are innately selfish and that is only a facade we put up when we are nice, and that egoism is an inescapable fact. precisely for this reason we should strive for altruism. because it raises us up from our animal nature in which we only look out for ourselves, to something sublime. that's why humans will never abolish altruism or any of its associated emotions like empathy, sympathy, compassion etc. maybe it is our ability to care for each other (no matter how false it may seem to us at the time) that makes us closer to divine beings. that's why nietzsche's project ails, because people look

 what use is moral philosophy or philosophy in general to the average person? not much. all this high falutin talk about virtue and vice, and discussion of simple concepts in terms of technical jargon is just the plaything of pseudointellectuals. no one needs to be that precise about their moral values, nobody is that obsessed with moralizing that they will need categories of values or complex arguments to support their actions. only the fewest people, mainly intellectuals, read moral philosophy, and most of them rarely enact what they have read or practice what they read. most people treat philosophy, like religion nowadays as a trivial accompaniment to their lives, like a pleasant bedside story that they read to themselves so they can sleep better. who is going to read all of kant's metaphysics of morals, and base his daily actions on the the strict observance of these principles? nobody. if you tell the average person on the street that you are a deontologist or a utilitarian, t

 we have given ourselves the impression that we can arrest time, that we can control the forces of nature. museums keep artifacts preserved as long as possible, they store them in dry cool cabinets for as long as possible. we believe we can create immutable things, language has given us the concepts, the illusion that we can arrest time. as a result we believe there is nothing left to control anymore, except ourselves, we have turned inwards because in our consciousness is still the remains of some mysterious force that cannot be controlled. but soon we will have that under control as well. we used to be much more in awe of the forces of nature, we read into them something divine,  we spoke to them through our prayers, like we supplicated our gods. everything around us reminded us of change of the inevitability of death, of the cycles, of mutability. now everything reminds us of staticness, of inertia,,and whatever change there is it is controlled measurable calculable by man. the ques

 there are so many of us, wasted young men, locked in our homes, with no purpose or meaning in life. we have no work, we never go anywhere, we have no girlfriends or family, we rarely see friends, we live off money from our parents or money provided by the state and simply bide our time until eventually something happens, we get ill, we die. the trend is increasing and more men are victims of this trap. we cannot escape, we are too comfortable. it is a life that was provided for us, but at the same time we are a prisoner of. we are like dark matter, we remain unobserved but people know of our existence, we exist. we make up a large part of society, and a growing one too. what happened to us, we simply gave up, the values we grew up with were not powerful enough to keep us engaged, to foster a sense of purpose, we don't know what or why we exist. you see us at night in the 711s buying our breakfast at 3am and our 20peso coffee. we make up a significant portion of the internet, we co

 the whirling dervishes gathered in the courtyard, whose perimeter was filled with spectating guests. they bowed to each other as a gesture of respect and honor. as they entered they wore black cloaks the removal of which symbolized the spiritual rebirth, their arms clasped around their upper bodies represented the number one, god's unity. they slowly begin to spin or whirl on a central axis, from right to left, around the heart, once he  starts  to whirl faster his arms open with the right arm pointed at the sky to receive god's beneficence and his left hand, where his eyes are staring, pointed down towards earth. the process of spinning in circles is a  from of active mediation in which one dissolves the ego and personal desires and focuses on god. the spinning dervishes are representative of the planets orbiting the sun. greater spiritual perfection is achieved the faster one spins , calling out the name allah, and abandoning personal identity and ego. with head tilted to on

 don't dress for the job you have but for the job you want. by that i mean. what kind of philosophy do you have and what kind of philosophy do you want? is your philosophy a reflection of who you are or who you want to be? philosophy is usually a form of commands, precepts, tenets, that have a normative tone, they instruct you to do something. if i am a lazy person and i feel guilty about it, then my philosophy might be "carpe diem, seize the day": that would be a productive philosophy because it means that i am aspiring towards something which i am lacking in. on the other hand the opposite would be the self justifying philosophy which is "do not strive for more than you can achieve" or "know thy limitations"- that would be a philosophy of resignation. because it means that you have already accepted that you are lazy and the way you try to overcome the guilt of being lazy - the feelings of inadequacy - is by justifying it , by saying "look there

 he looked upon everything with disgust, he looked down upon the world and its creations. he frowned upon the world. everything therein is rotten, it is sick. he could not be moved by spectacle, or any human achievement of significance. for him it was all just matter piled up. what happened to the olden days when congregations used to be awe inspired by the organ, now it was just a whining windbag. it is better that it all just ceased to be, that we stop trying to produce great works of art, that instead we just focus inwards in tranquility and calm and peace, and strive to escape the world. we should all be working on our sand mandalas in order to pour them away on the beach. what are all these projects, but a tribute to mans vanity, but an expression of mans vanity. he builds a great monument but to please himself, then he sits down and eats a hotdog, out of disgust. he had already concluded that there was nothing to explain. that every explanation required its own explanation, and s

 having spent a life crafting other worlds he now no longer seemed able to dwell within his own. his training was that of hypotheticals and counterfactuals - his pedigree was in the unfulfilled, it was in the unmade. it was in the cavernous, convoluted worlds of the merely imaginable, the permissive, the promiscuous. so when he touched down back on earth he was unable to breath the air that i breathe. we have to understand the position of this eleventeenth century monk, who was reclusified in his own prism. he crafted worlds of his own fabrication, he moulded shapes from his own whimsy, he built edifices of his own flights of fancy- yes but was he capable of settling with the real? no. what did he do in his spendtrhift pages, he stormed and railed against the world. he wrote the passage that were best remembered as peerless entries into the vaults of time. after all that was the highest form of meditation, meditation upon the unthinkable. for him timelines extended, they extrapolated i

 The majority of social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok, set the minimum age restriction for users at 13. This age limit was established in a 1998 legislation that prevented online webservices from collecting children's data without parental consent. Since then 13 has become the standard for companies like Facebook to adhere to when setting minimum age restrictions. It has also become the default age for parents to assume it is safe for their children to use social media. The internet has evolved significantly since then. The rise of smartphones in the 2010s and the simultaneous boom in social media platforms means children are spending a large part of their time online, potentially exposed to harmful content, cyberbullying, and applications that distract them from school work or everyday tasks. Although there are a variety of factors at play - such as maturity, social competence, and intellect - many have argued that 13 is too young, and I would arg

   The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines nihilism as: “ [] the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated.” It can generally be divided into several forms, including: existential nihilism, moral nihilism, political nihilism, and cosmic nihilism to name a few. The first of those -existential nihilism- is the most commonly known form of nihilism, often expressed in the statement: 'life is meaningless.' It is also the form I will be discussing in this essay. Most people associate nihilism with apathy: 'Life is meaningless and there is no point in doing anything'. People who hold this view believe that everything you attempt is futile and even if you do end up with some level of success it is insignificant on a grand scale (so you might a well not doing anything in the first place). This attitude might be summed up best by the statement from the character 'Mr Peanut Butter' from the TV series Bojack horseman: “The uni

"But, in fact, they are one and all united in thorough and instinctive hostility towards all forms of society besides that of the autonomous herd (even to the point of rejecting the concepts of “master” and “slave” – ni dieu ni maˆıtre reads a socialist formula –); they are united in their dogged opposition to any special claims, special rights, or privileges (which means, in the last analysis, that they are opposed to any rights: since when everyone is equal, no one will need “rights” anymore –); they are united in their mistrust of punitive justice (as if it were a violation of those who are weaker, a wrong against the necessary  Neither God nor master.  On the natural history of morals result of all earlier societies –); but they are likewise united in the religion of pity, in sympathy for whatever feels, lives, suffers (down to the animal and up to “God”: – the excessive notion of “pity for God” belongs in a democratic age –); they are all united in the cries and the impatienc

 he was of the type that kept his head down and followed orders. he was intelligent and did his job efficiently but not too well as to attract attention. he believed however that there was something wrong with the system but feared being exposed  too much to ever speak his mind. he never mentioned politics to his friends and always refused to give his opinion out of safety, but also out of fear the someone might report him. he was scared of insiders who might secretly be connected to higher officials. in truth he knew little of politics and always told himself that it is better to shut your mouth if you don't know all the facts. secretly his gut instincts told him however that the system was corrupt, that they were slowly and inexorably heading towards a police state, and he hated the fact that anytime the slightest slander or petty crime could be punished by exposure. what he feared most was being exposed, that maybe his misdemeanors from his youth would be brought up in court or

 more and more we find ourselves adjusting to the relentless technological progress of our civilization. yet at the same time we cannot let go our outdated, tribal instinct for superstition and make believe. as a result this creates a dissonance, an incongruence of mental states, which leads to a kind of schizophrenia. our brains crave scientific sureness, it craves epistemological weathertightness, yet at the same time our soul longs for affirmation in what is irrational, in answers such as 'what is the meaning of life', 'what is our purpose on this earth', 'who am i', 'where will go after i die', 'is there a personal god that listens to me that is concerned with my life' - and similar questions. and this search has led us down rabbit holes of all sorts of whimsical and unchallenged beliefs, which our rational thinking does not permit. we know better than to believe stories of prophets parting the red sea, of miracles being performed by mystics

 don't you ever get that feeling that everything has been done already? and that everything from now on will be just a repeat in some shape r another of what has already been done? that it is impossible to do something new? thats how i feel everyday. its boredom, like a worm eating at the core of my being. the same rooms, the same kitchen. im so tired and bored of it all. when i do something, i dont just see myself doing that thing, but i see an endless chain of reflections of pseudo deja vus repeating off into the distance, like a mirror in a mirror. im sick of it, this endless repeating chain, i mean what can i do. i can position the chair in a different part of the room, so i face another wall. that doesn't make the slightest difference, the chain still follows me over there. this doesn't just apply to my mindeye, but also to what i hear, i can hear yesterdays thoughts repeating, they are all the same, there is nothing new to them.  everything is coated with a thin film

 perhaps what adam and eve were awoken to was some form of "first self consciousness" whereas previously they might have had some other form of consciousness, which lacked a definite conception of an I. perhaps the knowledge of good and evil, the power that was given to them by the tree of knowledge gave them judgement or discernment, in specific applications or fields, which hitherto they had not found necessary. for example the first thing they acknowledge is each other nakedness. so maybe this revolution in the ai world is a second eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. so nudeness is a symbol of self knowledge, a transition of childlike innocence to adult promiscuity, to awareness of genitals and of their own and the other sex. the first knowledge that adam and eve had, the first application of the knowledge of good and evil, was nudity. so it symbolized the scales falling from their eyes, and an advancement to a more godlike form of being, but also one which came

 outline of the ideal person (somewhat based ont he life of toni russell). he kept his friends on the straight and narrow. he was invested in his friends. because to him they were assets. of all the assets in his life these were the highest. he had read all the virtues of the great philosophers especially the works of marcus aurelius, and the stoic and the greek philsophers. he had lofty thoughts, and wanted to raise not only himself but his friends in his ideals. he rigorously applied the ethics he had learnt in real life. to him there was no time to slip off the path and wander into foolish territory. he avoided drugs, alcohol, partying, overindulging in the senses. he was the kind of person that the other students looked up to, he had strong values. in school he was a debater and house captain, he was good at sports, not the best, but sufficient to keep a a healthy disposition and state of mind. what he brought to the school was a refinement in thought which not even the teachers we

 of how they died unnecessarily the 39 still wearing their black sweaters, tracksuit bottoms and nike waffle trainers. the last days, there was still some sadness, but the the leader reminded us that all hope we had was simply the luciferian forces staying attached to our mortal coils. feeding off the gumtree like koalas, inhabiting all different forms of corporeal bodies, but the celestial was aeternal. (what is essential is the father like figure, the extreme charismatic nature, the ability to comfort and strike fear at the same time. the people who fell for it, were generally gullible but not dumb, the leaders belief systems and teachings made sense to the smarter of the group, while the young ones bought into the stories of what their lives would be of secret powers, of life on this distant planet etc.) what is essential in a cult group is that you foster a sense of exclusivity and community, that you have a clear delineation between us and them, the dangerous outsiders and the rig

 maybe a hundred years from now, when facebook will have its own porn profiles, and public intellectuals will be UFC fighters, maybe then north korea will be considered the ultimate holiday package for those disillusioned with capitalism-  for bohemians, artists, hipsters, and poets. maybe theres something about being on a screen that sucks out life from humanity, something about media itself- especially when coupled with the liberal vision of individualism and self-promotion. maybe the amish have got it right. praise god, farm your land, drink water from the stream, plant your own vegetables. but of course, you cant think that way. we dont want any luddites - anyone who prevents civiliation from progressing must be burned at the stake-  no. modern medicine, refrigerators, airconditioning, vr headsets- what would we do without those things. no, you cant look back. even the source of your opinions and values, all your old friends that you read in paperback, the roald dahls, the jrr tolk

 i was thinking about that movie with michael douglas, 'the game' and a sudden spark of isnpiration hit me... rather than a brief adventure, like in the movie, this toture last a lifetime. imagine if, starting in some indeterminate year of your life, things started gradually going downhill for you and as each week passes your life became afflicted with a series of misfortunate events one worse than the other. you lose your job, your girlfriend leaves, your freinds and family betray you, you cant afford rent,you are forced to borrow money, you cant afford medical bills and your health worsnes. then you get depressed and decide on the fifth anniversary since the troubles began , you cant take it any longer and you want to jump off a building. you jump off, but as you fall to the ground instead of hitting the ground, you feel a a soft billowing safety net uderneath you, catching you. you stand up and see you are surrounded by friends and family, all people who you thought betrayed

 the pyramids at giza are believed to have taken between ten and sixty years to complete. this immense work was the the result of a change in administration of the pharaoh rulership and a sudden urge to perpetuate the line of kings through some work of noble note. little is known, however of the efforts required to keep the stones clean after they were built. on the assumption that the empire would last for ever, or at least until the end of the decreed last ruler's lifetime, the pyramids were to be maintained at a regular basis, involving a stringent cleaning and rejuvenation program. for this process, a special committee was established by the pharaoh khafre. this committee was composed of qualified engineers, who co ordinated the cleaning projects, and thousands - if not by the end of the civilization: millions in total- of highly trained cleaners, who were responsible for scrubbing to perfection the limestone blocks. the interior passage ways, and tombs were not permitted acces