Great Essay. So many threads to pull on! A book that I found very interesting was "Trying not to Try' and talks about Toaist Wu Wei which is your zen or flow state created by that mastery. One of the less focused on aspects of Wu Wei is Intentional Non-Action. (in the Army we call this tactical patience) In a world of forced response, a proper outcome may be to not respond. This is both a zen state as well as avoids the virtue signalling you see everywhere.
What I find about my own personal application of Wu Wei is when you do it online, you start to see and realize it does nothing and the right answer was to do nothing. Evenentually, the situation re-frames and you see what you can, and should do that matter. Like volunteering in the soup kitchen vs. updating you facebook profile pic badge to "I support the current thing"
"A milestone in the development of my disenchantment being this piece by primatologist Richard Wrangham... Philosophy’s lack of robust decision mechanisms is why the Rousseau-Kropotkin v. Hobbes-Huxley argument (humans are intrinsically noble and cooperative v. humans are intrinsically savage) has gone around and around in Political Philosophy for centuries, yet gets resolved by Primatology."
Such a relief to find someone with a degree in philosophy who understands this! I've been wandering substack talking to philosophers who can't be convinced that there even *is* an insufficiency of decision mechanisms in philosophy, let alone that this might be a problem for the field. The general assumption seems to be "But we must have answers right now; never mind that the answers are arbitrary, unconvincing, and contradictory."
As someone with training in philosophy, what would you say is the solution? I tend to look towards mathematics for direction, since mathematics has made incredible breakthroughs without the need for empirical input, and philosophy often cannot obtain data to answer its questions. But I don't know that this is the wisest course. Have you given much question to the ways in which philosophy could be reformed, or, do you largely think it's just up to the scientists, now?
This post helped me somewhat with your last essay in the series - which I have to admit I found hard going (i.e. I gave up about half-way through.)
I think your Zen comments could be applied more generally: 'Zen in the art of (target) shooting'. Back in my pistol-shooting days I achieved my best results almost effortlessly when I occasionally achieved a Zen / yoga meditative state, blocking out all distractions.
Your essay series generally has been extremely thought-provoking and enlightening. Thank you from this (non-philosophical) chemical engineer.
The philosophers have served us well by questioning how we analyse problems rather than simply trying to solve problems. Most scientists do not realise that they can only produce a set of relations between things.
I have been greatly influenced by this observational approach to reality:
Great Essay. So many threads to pull on! A book that I found very interesting was "Trying not to Try' and talks about Toaist Wu Wei which is your zen or flow state created by that mastery. One of the less focused on aspects of Wu Wei is Intentional Non-Action. (in the Army we call this tactical patience) In a world of forced response, a proper outcome may be to not respond. This is both a zen state as well as avoids the virtue signalling you see everywhere.
What I find about my own personal application of Wu Wei is when you do it online, you start to see and realize it does nothing and the right answer was to do nothing. Evenentually, the situation re-frames and you see what you can, and should do that matter. Like volunteering in the soup kitchen vs. updating you facebook profile pic badge to "I support the current thing"
"A milestone in the development of my disenchantment being this piece by primatologist Richard Wrangham... Philosophy’s lack of robust decision mechanisms is why the Rousseau-Kropotkin v. Hobbes-Huxley argument (humans are intrinsically noble and cooperative v. humans are intrinsically savage) has gone around and around in Political Philosophy for centuries, yet gets resolved by Primatology."
Such a relief to find someone with a degree in philosophy who understands this! I've been wandering substack talking to philosophers who can't be convinced that there even *is* an insufficiency of decision mechanisms in philosophy, let alone that this might be a problem for the field. The general assumption seems to be "But we must have answers right now; never mind that the answers are arbitrary, unconvincing, and contradictory."
As someone with training in philosophy, what would you say is the solution? I tend to look towards mathematics for direction, since mathematics has made incredible breakthroughs without the need for empirical input, and philosophy often cannot obtain data to answer its questions. But I don't know that this is the wisest course. Have you given much question to the ways in which philosophy could be reformed, or, do you largely think it's just up to the scientists, now?
Worth noting that Decartes was simply paraphrasing Augustine's response to the Greek skeptics.
Good post thanks.FLOW.
This post helped me somewhat with your last essay in the series - which I have to admit I found hard going (i.e. I gave up about half-way through.)
I think your Zen comments could be applied more generally: 'Zen in the art of (target) shooting'. Back in my pistol-shooting days I achieved my best results almost effortlessly when I occasionally achieved a Zen / yoga meditative state, blocking out all distractions.
Your essay series generally has been extremely thought-provoking and enlightening. Thank you from this (non-philosophical) chemical engineer.
The philosophers have served us well by questioning how we analyse problems rather than simply trying to solve problems. Most scientists do not realise that they can only produce a set of relations between things.
I have been greatly influenced by this observational approach to reality:
http://www.thereandwhere.com/antsand.html