Atheist vs Christian vs Spiritual Thinker

[Natasha Tori Maru]

Wasn't sure where to put this tbh - thought some of you might enjoy this. Not a fan of DOAC but thought the debate was interesting. I don't think Greg Koukl (Christian) or Dr K (psychiatrist) had the rigor of Alex O’Connor (atheist), but it was interesting as it went from meaning, purpose, God, psychedelics, panpsychism, motivation and back again. 

 

Edited November 5 by Natasha Tori Maru

[UnbornTao]

Great entertainment.

Edited November 5 by UnbornTao

[Sandroew]

I wasnt sure if this was worth my time. If you found it interesting i might give it a shot… EVENTUALLY! (Leo is already threatening us with a new video and i havnt even finished the current one) 

(life is good)

(but would be better with more time)

[Natasha Tori Maru]

56 minutes ago, Sandroew said:

I wasnt sure if this was worth my time. If you found it interesting i might give it a shot… EVENTUALLY! (Leo is already threatening us with a new video and i havnt even finished the current one) 

(life is good)

(but would be better with more time)

I'd say it was entertaining but nothing ground-breaking.

Its not the sort of cerebral skull-fuck of philosophy that most users crave  

More like philosophy with padded punches 

[Aaron p]

Cool vid. This entire video covers topics that were my bread and butter for nearly a decade. Actually I think I'll try watch a bit more today and comment again after. Religion is good because it provides historical backing and a bit more structure than free spirituality, spirituality is good because it offers a solution to the eventual problem of religion (being stuck in an endless repetitive cycle of traditions and theory never actually feeling like you get a good ontological meal), and atheism is probably the worst...blanket denial of all forms of spirituality, founded in this kind of strong logical pursuit of knowledge and information, which of course still doesn't give you that feeling of being properly full as a human. Complex narrative. 

[Hojo]

Every time Alex is asked a question about why he thinks something he either quotes someone else or pedantically argues basic human knowledge almost intentionally to not say what he thinks personally. Like a robot. He cant debate these things because hes pretending to not be human while debating aspects of being a human. This tells me hes not even a philosopher.

Edited 1 hour ago by Hojo

[Leo Gura]

6 minutes ago, Hojo said:

almost intentionally to not say what he thinks personally.

That's the academic philosophy brainwashing. You're taught to be professional and respectable, but never taught how to do serious truth-seeking.

It's not philosophy, it's history of philosophy.

Edited 1 hour ago by Leo Gura

[Hojo]

@Leo GuraIf I had to describe it I would say its demon philosophy. Soulless philosophy. Why do philosophy if you dont have a soul? Hes doing philosophy to hide his own feelings. Not expand them.

Edited 1 hour ago by Hojo

[Natasha Tori Maru]

I view Alex as being slightly afraid or hesitant to take a stance or draw a conclusion 

[Hojo]

@Natasha Tori MaruHes scared of dying. Thats probably why he started it. But hes denying it and hiding from it using philosophy. You can see everytime hes pushed onto his human emotions he becomes super pedantic.

Edited 1 hour ago by Hojo

[Hojo]

A question that could be asked to alex is why are you doing philosophy?

[Leo Gura]

23 minutes ago, Natasha Tori Maru said:

I view Alex as being slightly afraid or hesitant to take a stance or draw a conclusion 

It is similar to professional journalists. They are taught to act impartial and "objective". You're not supposed to have strong stances lest you come off as unphilosopher-like.

You are taught explore ideas and mentally masturbate, not find Absolute Truth.

Edited 1 hour ago by Leo Gura

[Carl-Richard]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

That's the academic philosophy brainwashing. You're taught to be professional and respectable, but never taught how to do serious truth-seeking.

It's not philosophy, it's history of philosophy.

There is a case to be made that if you're a normal reader of philosophy, you become a kind of bottom feeder that swallows whatever somebody else has found out. But if you're a leading expert in the field, you can push the field beyond what is currently known.

For example, I just heard Bernardo Kastrup say that the next step for Integrated Information Theory would be to integrate it with Markov blankets, or in other words to find ways to compute self-organizing/autopoetic fault lines of integrated information, not just spontaneous ones. That's not something a "non-conformist" person can find out, but it's nevertheless new knowledge, not conforming to earlier knowledge.

When you're a "conformist" who reads other people's work, you have the problem of pushing the knowledge further. But if you're a supposed non-conformist, you have the problem of constructing entirely non-conformist knowledge from the ground up. And in a world with 8 billion people, that's in my estimation virtually impossible.

You can only build so much, and odds are that someone will have the same insight as you merely by mistake, despite being steeped in a more "conformist" situation. And odds are that someone had that insight 1000 years ago and shared it with others and built upon it for 1000 years, way more than you ever could on your own in one lifetime. And if you somehow had the insight and managed to get further than those who built on it for 1000 years, odds are you just learned about them and you're just a conformist who forgot their own history.

 

In other words, the choice is between being a leader of a massive field with tons of work behind it, or being a leader of a tiny little field that actually most likely is not your own field, you're just ironically too isolated (socially or cognitively with respect to your own past) to know.

Edited 21 minutes ago by Carl-Richard

[Leo Gura]

Of course there are always a few leaders in any field. But they are rare and their ideas are still not radical enough.

The point is academic philosophy is not truth-seeking, and it should barely be called philosophy.

Edited 20 minutes ago by Leo Gura