UnbornTao

Self-taught Philosopher vs University

25 posts in this topic

3 hours ago, K VIL said:

@Leo GuraIf reading is not contemplating, what is reading considered? Isn't the point of reading that it deepens contemplative questions, sessions, and more? Or is reading low-conscious? Just wondering what you mean.

Well.... it depends how you read. Of course reading can be a great adjunct to contemplation -- grist for the mill so to speak. But even so, reading tends to fill the mind with preconceived ideas and beliefs which limit serious contemplation. The best contemplation is done from scratch, without reliance on other people's ideas. Like deriving mathematical proofs for oneself without reading the textbook.

Reading is useful, it just isn't deep contemplation.

You need to learn to develop stuff on your own, without building on top of a mountain of others' ideas. This then allows you to think outside the box. If you build on a mountain of others' ideas, you will not think far enough outside the box because you're going to internalize all of their core assumptions and get stuck in paradigm lock. This is one of the biggest problems for academics and scientists. They rely too heavily on that mountain of ideas without thinking independently enough. And how do they get that mountain of ideas in their head? By reading a lot without deeply questioning what they read.

Contemplation is not taught in school or university. Because that would be too dangerous. Students are taught to be parrots, not true philosophers.


You are God. You are Truth. You are Love. You are Infinity.

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On 1/4/2020 at 11:32 AM, Arzola said:

autodidactism

That’s a gift. All are Self taught, rarely does the academic realize this Truth, as the veil of ‘others’ invokes a fear in those blindly structure dependent.  


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2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Contemplation is not taught in school or university. Because that would be too dangerous. Students are taught to be parrots, not true philosophers.

Do you think this is very dangerous in the context of not having a common world view that allows for a cohesive culture? I've been thinking of culture is the visualization/life-purpose tool of civilizations, which kind of focuses the energy of the collective towards certain goals and thus allows for competitive survival advantages.

However through the fall of the christian culture our civilization lost it's life-purpose and it's vision. This reduces people to making up their own vision and life-purpose. I guess it would be fine if all of us would be given the abilities for which we can actually construct healthy visions and life-purpose, but because we have not it seems like it is actually destabilizing our societies. Instead of having one vision that pulls us towards one goal, there are multiple visions which pull into all sorts of directions.

From personal development we know that this kind of dynamic can lead us to not progress at all, because we do not do things properly and do not do things that lead us into one direction. It's like being in the middle of the ocean and changing your mind about which direction you want to swim towards every few days.

 

The culture was so important because it generated a unified intersubjective experience which allowed people to communicated with each other easily. By letting everyone generate their won subjective experience we lose that unification.

 

Do you not think that civilizations which currently do have these unified intersubjective experiences, like China for example, will have an advantage over us in the long run because they can basically generate are more focused collective mind than us?


Glory to Israel

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7 hours ago, Scholar said:

but because we have not it seems like it is actually destabilizing our societies. Instead of having one vision that pulls us towards one goal, there are multiple visions which pull into all sorts of directions.

See my video about Division vs Unity. That's the issue you're bringing up here.

Reality is a constant tug of war between division and unification. Neither one is good or bad by itself. Societies unify, divide, unify, divide, unify, divide.... at higher and higher orders. There must be a delicate balance between the two or things get ugly. That's life. Embrace this oscillatory process because it is an existential feature of how reality generates itself.

Yes, culture is important in order to create a sense of social unity. But it can also easily get out of hand and become toxic and too monocultural. Culture by itself is not inherently good or bad. There are healthy and unhealthy cultures. Distinguish between the two. Too much of a good thing becomes a bad thing.

Also, your framing of our civilization as losing its purpose with the downfall of Christianity, that's a very limited view. Western civilization existed long before Christianity and will continue to exist long after. You are right though that we've had a flourishing of multiculturalism and a breakdown of the traditional Christian monoculture which used to unify the West. This was a necessary evolutionary step as we moved from Spiral stage Blue to Orange and beyond.

Don't forget how vicious, cruel, corrupt, and oppressive the Christian monoculture was. They burned witches at the stake. Today I can go find a witch on Yelp and hire her for her healing and psychic services. It's much better today.


You are God. You are Truth. You are Love. You are Infinity.

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Self taught philosophy is HARDER than studying philosophy in a university. Assuming that you care about doing it properly, rather than being another armchair philosopher. In university, you have teachers who explain things, you have a structure that motivates you, you have peers who motivate you, you have a dissertation period where you can write critically, etc. All these things are helpful. This is not to say that its impossible to study philosophy without academia constraints, its just difficult with not much benefit. You also build connections in university.

If money is an issue, try doing online courses first. There are courses in mit opencourseware that teach philosophy. You might need to buy books, but you could find alternative sources(PM if you are having trouble with this aspect). The teachers are really nice and give you whatever resources you need, if you are having trouble.  

Someone said philosophers are not employable. This is a misconception. They are very employable since they are taught many things like critical thinking, writing, that any employer would consider valuable for the job. I am not knowledgable on this since I am not a philosopher or have studied philosophy (I took a course on philosophy of the mind, but that is about it), but you can go to an actual philosophy forum (instead of actualized.org) to seek advice if you are really interested.

Edited by Pramit

Quote

Meditation is like polishing a brick to make a mirror. Philosophy is like a net to catch water. The buddah did not meditate. It's just how he sits. 

- Alan Watts 

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