philosophy
We have the need to be right and to make others wrong. We trust what we believe, and our beliefs set us up for suffering. (Location 197)
Being firm about a goal to achieve and having an open mind are not mutually exclusive.
I’ve often noticed that many of the notes people take are of ideas they already know, already agree with, or could have guessed. We have a natural bias as humans to seek evidence that confirms what we already believe, a well-studied phenomenon known as “confirmation bias.”6 That isn’t what a Second Brain is for. The renowned information theorist Claude Shannon, whose discoveries paved the way for modern technology, had a simple definition for “information”: that which surprises you. If you’re not surprised, then you already knew it at some level, so why take note of it? Surprise is an excellent barometer for information that doesn’t fit neatly into our existing understanding, which means it has the potential to change how we think. (Location 884)
This is why viewpoint diversity is so essential in any group of scholars. Each professor is—like all human beings—a flawed thinker with a strong preference for believing that his or her own ideas are right. Each scholar suffers from the confirmation bias—the tendency to search vigorously for evidence that confirms what one already believes One of the most brilliant features of universities is that, when they are working properly, they are communities of scholars who cancel out one another’s confirmation biases. Even if professors often cannot see the flaws in their own arguments, other professors and students do them the favor of finding such flaws. The community of scholars then judges which ideas survive the debate. We can call this process institutionalized disconfirmation. (Location 2006)
Ejectability, is the capability of embracing a decision around a need but always keeping the necessary tools to be able to replace that decision with any equality fit to the need
We know we are not what we believe we are supposed to be and so we feel false, frustrated, and dishonest. We try to hide ourselves, and we pretend to be what we are not. The result is that we feel unauthentic and wear social masks to keep others from noticing this. We are so afraid that somebody else will notice that we are not what we pretend to be. We judge others according to our image of perfection as well, and naturally they fall short of our expectations. (Location 217)
without objects there can be no subject—because the objects create the subject’s awareness of himself—Quality is the event at which awareness of both subjects and objects is made possible. (Location 3910)
What does a subject need to exist? An object to compare itself to.
Pride (within reason) can cause a person to become a doctor and save peoples lives, but pride is also an un-fillable hole. ^c8707a
In 1930, in a speech titled “Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren,” the economist John Maynard Keynes made a famous prediction: Within a century, thanks to the growth of wealth and the advance of technology, no one would have to work more than about fifteen hours a week. The challenge would be how to fill all our newfound leisure time without going crazy. “For the first time since his creation,” Keynes told his audience, “man will be faced with his real, his permanent problem—how to use his freedom from pressing economic cares.” But Keynes was wrong. It turns out that when people make enough money to meet their needs, they just find new things to need and new lifestyles to aspire to; they never quite manage to keep up with the Joneses, because whenever they’re in danger of getting close, they nominate new and better Joneses with whom to try to keep up. As a result, they work harder and harder, and soon busyness becomes an emblem of prestige. Which is clearly completely absurd: for almost the whole of history, the entire point of being rich was not having to work so much. (Location 127)
^285673
The Value of a Good Lie
I have learned that lying to oneself and others is a sin, but it can also be a boon for the artist. Furthermore, an imagined reality that is shared by many can have a powerful effect on the world.
Now let us see what the word impeccability means. Impeccability means “without sin.” Impeccable comes from the Latin pecatus, which means “sin.” The im in impeccable means “without,” so impeccable means “without sin.” Religions talk about sin and sinners, but let’s understand what it really means to sin. A sin is anything that you do which goes against yourself. Everything you feel or believe or say that goes against yourself is a sin. You go against yourself when you judge or blame yourself for anything. Being without sin is exactly the opposite. Being impeccable is not going against yourself. When you are impeccable, you take responsibility for your actions, but you do not judge or blame yourself. (Location 303)
According to the author of The Four Agreements, lying to oneself (and by extension, others) is the offense that can be done. But there are other ways to look at lying, including a boon for the artist:
In his 1891 book The Decay of Lying (‘decay’ is translated ‘decadencia’ in the Spanish edition…), he articulates this anti-mimetic vision of the artist. The artist is a creator par excellence. The artist brings new realities into being and changes how we see and experience the world. Wilde believes that lying—“the telling of beautiful untrue things”—is the proper aim of art. It’s “an art, a science, and a social pleasure,” and its decay is responsible for the decay of literature. Today everyone is obsessed with representing reality as accurately as possible — with facts and accuracy. But “if something cannot be done to check, or at least to modify, our monstrous worship of facts,” he writes, “Art will become sterile and beauty will pass away from the land.” The artist endows things with beauty and is the reason why attention is paid to some things in the first place. Wilde writes about the fog in London as an example. It has always existed. But its wonder and the attention paid to it happened because “poets and painters have taught the loveliness of such effects…They did not exist till Art had invented them.” The older I get, the more I realize that most of life is a matter of what we pay attention to — of what we attend to, with focus.
Lying is n = 1, shared delusion is n = n
Unlike lying, an imagined reality is something that everyone believes in, and as long as this communal belief persists, the imagined reality exerts force in the world. (Location 542)
AI Generated Read Next
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If I love myself I will express that love in my interactions with you, and then I am being impeccable with the word, because that action will produce a like reaction. If I love you, then you will love me. If I insult you, you will insult me. If I have gratitude for you, you will have gratitude for me. If I’m selfish with you, you will be selfish with me. If I use the word to put a spell on you, you are going to put a spell on me. (Location 314)
- To give with the expectation to receive
- Every action has an equal and opposite reaction
Yet Smith’s claim that the selfish human urge to increase private profits is the basis for collective wealth is one of the most revolutionary ideas in human history – revolutionary not just from an economic perspective, but even more so from a moral and political perspective. What Smith says is, in fact, that greed is good, and that by becoming richer I benefit everybody, not just myself. Egoism is altruism. (Location 4793)
Patronage is an emerging funding system for online creators today, but it’s frequently conflated with the concept of “donations.” Patronage isn’t motivated by altruism but by an interest in following a creator’s future work, based on their current reputation. It’s more like a subscription than a donation. (Location 3118)
If someone gives you an opinion and says, “Hey, you look so fat,” don’t take it personally, because the truth is that this person is dealing with his or her own feelings, beliefs, and opinions. That person tried to send poison to you and if you take it personally, then you take that poison and it becomes yours. Taking things personally makes you easy prey for these predators, the black magicians. They can hook you easily with one little opinion and feed you whatever poison they want, and because you take it personally, you eat it up. (Location 437)
“And tell me something, Brahman,” Buddha continued. “If they don’t accept them, to whom do those foods belong?” “Well, I suppose if they don’t accept them, those foods are all mine.” “Yes,” said Buddha. “In the same way, Brahman, I do not accept your anger and your criticism. It is all yours.” (Location 824)
What you say, what you do, and the opinions you have are according to the agreements you have made — and these opinions have nothing to do with me. (Location 446)
Whatever people do, feel, think, or say, don’t take it personally. If they tell you how wonderful you are, they are not saying that because of you. You know you are wonderful. It is not necessary to believe other people who tell you that you are wonderful. Don’t take anything personally. Even if someone got a gun and shot you in the head, it was nothing personal.[1] Even at that extreme. (Location 471)
idk man that sounds pretty personal lmao ↩︎
It is very interesting how the human mind works. We have the need to justify everything, to explain and understand everything, in order to feel safe. We have millions of questions that need answers because there are so many things that the reasoning mind cannot explain. It is not important if the answer is correct; just the answer itself makes us feel safe. This is why we make assumptions. (Location 565)
when people experience uncertainty and lack of control, they are more likely to see patterns or regularities where there are none. (View Highlight)
one consequence of this cognitive architecture is that when our predictive potential is limited—that is, when there is high uncertainty—we experience anxiety (View Highlight)
Why do people always make fun of coping like what are folks supposed to do? NOT cope? (View Tweet)
A simple life, a good one
We venture next door to the Science Museum, in the vast interior vault of which we are immediately confronted by huge engines. “Wittgenstein loved it here, as did Auden. Wittgenstein could think of no afternoon more pleasant than one spent fixing a friend’s toilet.”
Before biology, Oliver had loved chemistry and optics. “I love the brass and gold and old nineteenth-century apparatus. I hate plastic and twentieth-century apparatus. (View Highlight)
Find Philosophy Through Living
Or risk one being chose for you by others 202301032330
Wittgenstein’s philosophical approach was a severely scientific one, but his morality was existential. A good life is based not on objective grounds but on radically subjective decisions. It cannot be meaningfully said what a good life consists of; it must show itself in real, everyday execution. (Location 628)
Wittgenstein, despite being considered an analytical philosopher, has been quoted extensively by neurologists like Oliver Sacks (View Highlight)
He did not engage in empirical science, nor obtain data in any conventional sense. But his genius was not confined to abstract philosophy. His powers of observation and introspection led him to explore lived experience in new ways, some of which are only now being approached empirically. (View Highlight)
The Separation of Church and State (Knowledge)
Understand: we live in the world of a sad separation that began some five hundred years ago when art and science split apart. Scientists and technicians live in their own world, focusing mostly on the “how” of things. Others live in the world of appearances, using these things but not really understanding how they function. Just before this split occurred, it was the ideal of the Renaissance to combine these two forms of knowledge. This is why the work of Leonardo da Vinci continues to fascinate us, and why the Renaissance remains an ideal. This more rounded knowledge is in fact the way of the future, especially now that so much more information is available to all of us. As Calatrava intuited, this should be a part of our apprenticeship. We must make ourselves study as deeply as possible the technology we use, the functioning of the group we work in, the economics of our field, its lifeblood. We must constantly ask the questions—how do things work, how do decisions get made, how does the group interact? Rounding our knowledge in this way will give us a deeper feel for reality and the heightened power to alter it. (Location 1824)
Dude Basically Cringed at His Own Work
which happened to be one of the most widely regarded pieces of philosophy from the 20th century
His philosophy is often divided into an early period, exemplified by the Tractatus, and a later period, articulated primarily in the Philosophical Investigations.26(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein#cite_note-28) The "early Wittgenstein" was concerned with the logical relationship between propositions and the world, and he believed that by providing an account of the logic underlying this relationship, he had solved all philosophical problems. The "later Wittgenstein", however, rejected many of the assumptions of the Tractatus, arguing that the meaning of words is best understood as their use within a given language game (View Highlight)