Political Crossfire Forums

[Atlas Bergeron]

Quote: Being happy will not make you happy :lol:

[elephas]

Atlas Bergeron wrote: Quote: Being happy will not make you happy :lol:
+1 that's philosophy for you, man :lol: Keep reading, it may get funnier yet.

[Fido]

elephas wrote: Atlas Bergeron wrote: Quote: Being happy will not make you happy :lol:
+1 that's philosophy for you, man :lol: Keep reading, it may get funnier yet.

Acting happy might get you arrested.

Being Gay might get you put out of the house.

Who was Schopenhauer to say anything about happiness. Didn't he kick his landlady down the stairs for laughing too loud and later, celebrate her death because if freed him from a debt? What is it about philosophy that attracts men without any ability to love? Take the love out of love of knowledge and what have you got? If you have love you don't need much knowledge, and if you have no love no amount of knowledge will ever be enough.

[Atlas Bergeron]

Fido wrote: Take the love out of love of knowledge and what have you got? what you started with?

Quote: If you have love you don't need much knowledge, and if you have no love no amount of knowledge will ever be enough. this has to be the worst thought out statement I have ever heard. Can you build a spear with "love"? Can you pland crops with "love"? Can you survive soley off "love"?

I am not devaluing love, nay, it has great value. But you are typing in s**t as always. What does this mean? What does it mean that "if you don't have love you don't need much knowledge?"

It means nothing. It is a progression of unrelated concpets with no clear intent or definition except maybe to confuse and muddle.

[thefranzkafkafront]

Fido wrote: thefranzkafkafront wrote: Quote: The excess of individualism leads to the erroneous belief that one is free to do whatever one wants to do.

Please explain how it is erroneous.

Individualism is like parricide, or suicide: a denial of ones existence by blindly focusing on ones own life at the expense of the community from where ones life evolved. It is like selling one's liver and kidneys for money to gamble with. It is freedom at the cost of ones anchor. It is Nihilism.

Thats your opinion, im asking for the nessiary logical connection.

As a breif thought exercise, before you type your answer hold it in your head and keep asking 'why' about it untill why can no longer be asked.

[Atlas Bergeron]

thefranzkafkafront wrote: Fido wrote: thefranzkafkafront wrote: Quote: The excess of individualism leads to the erroneous belief that one is free to do whatever one wants to do.

Please explain how it is erroneous.

Individualism is like parricide, or suicide: a denial of ones existence by blindly focusing on ones own life at the expense of the community from where ones life evolved. It is like selling one's liver and kidneys for money to gamble with. It is freedom at the cost of ones anchor. It is Nihilism.

Thats your opinion, im asking for the nessiary logical connection.

As a breif thought exercise, before you type your answer hold it in your head and keep asking 'why' about it untill why can no longer be asked. The only question that deserves to be asked. It is a shame people stop two year olds from continuing that habit, it is a brilliant thing. If I ever have children, I will always answere that question.

I hold that if your philosophy is valid, the final "why" will be "becuase men exist, therefore it is thier nature to continue living", and if you ask "why" again you come up with "becuase otherwise I should curl up in a ball and die."

[Fido]

Quote: [quote="Atlas Bergeron"] Fido wrote: Take the love out of love of knowledge and what have you got? what you started with?

Ya -about ignorance, as knowledge without love always is, and certainly not phil anything.

Quote: Quote: If you have love you don't need much knowledge, and if you have no love no amount of knowledge will ever be enough. this has to be the worst thought out statement I have ever heard. Can you build a spear with "love"? Can you pland crops with "love"? Can you survive soley off "love"?

I am not devaluing love, nay, it has great value. But you are typing in s**t as always. What does this mean? What does it mean that "if you don't have love you don't need much knowledge?"

It means nothing. It is a progression of unrelated concpets with no clear intent or definition except maybe to confuse and muddle. [/quote

It could mean that the very unhappiness of society and the total lack of love is what is driving us. People make much of primitive societies, socialistic, democratic; but not very hard working, or driven. In fact they liked what they had, which was family, support, community, cooperation. They had oh no, dare I say it to the tubes- Happiness. They were not garbaged up from infancy with angst. They were not taught hate as a matter of national pride. The needed only honor to be wealthy, and that did not take a super computer or a bank of gold to figure out. I have met some people from societies that were only recently primitive. They were not better people, but as intelligent. Can we say we have done some great deed for them by sharing our misery? Is knowledge power, or knowledge virtue? If you do not know it is because the weak are made slaves of the powerful, and it is impossible for the weak to be virtuous.

[Fido]

thefranzkafkafront wrote: Fido wrote: thefranzkafkafront wrote: Quote: The excess of individualism leads to the erroneous belief that one is free to do whatever one wants to do.

Please explain how it is erroneous.

Individualism is like parricide, or suicide: a denial of ones existence by blindly focusing on ones own life at the expense of the community from where ones life evolved. It is like selling one's liver and kidneys for money to gamble with. It is freedom at the cost of ones anchor. It is Nihilism.

Thats your opinion, im asking for the nessiary logical connection.

As a breif thought exercise, before you type your answer hold it in your head and keep asking 'why' about it untill why can no longer be asked.

Hey Frank;
I ain't inscrutable, and I'm not a fortune cookie. You can ask me what I mean if you don't understand. I assure you I have given it some thought, and have been reading and thinking philosophy for far longer than I have been writing about it. What I said is true, logically. No one can focus on two objects or really be conscious of two realities at the same time. Individualism is only a form of consciousness. No one is truly an individual, but to perceive ones self apart one must deny all of society, and in fact all of reality. I know how the metaphysics of the middle ages did this. They surmised that we were created this way, one at a time, by God, individuals through the unfortunate necessity of sex. Individualist today only deny, but do not disprove the contribution of culture and society and biology in the creation of every person. Instead, they think they are self made, and pulled out of nothingness by the boot straps of will. Give me a break lonely boy.

[Atlas Bergeron]

[quote="Fido"] Quote: Atlas Bergeron wrote: Fido wrote: Take the love out of love of knowledge and what have you got? what you started with?

Ya -about ignorance, as knowledge without love always is, and certainly not phil anything. knowledge without love is ignorance? What? By what muddled definition of "knowledge" are you basing this from?

Quote: Quote: Quote: If you have love you don't need much knowledge, and if you have no love no amount of knowledge will ever be enough. this has to be the worst thought out statement I have ever heard. Can you build a spear with "love"? Can you pland crops with "love"? Can you survive soley off "love"?

I am not devaluing love, nay, it has great value. But you are typing in s**t as always. What does this mean? What does it mean that "if you don't have love you don't need much knowledge?"

It means nothing. It is a progression of unrelated concpets with no clear intent or definition except maybe to confuse and muddle. [/quote

It could mean that the very unhappiness of society and the total lack of love is what is driving us. People make much of primitive societies, socialistic, democratic; but not very hard working, or driven. In fact they liked what they had, which was family, support, community, cooperation. yes, I am sure the mediaval period was a golden age for human history. Nobody was starving, everybody was happy, no-one was exploited, and they were the perfect days where everyone was happy.

Quote: They had oh no, dare I say it to the tubes- Happiness. They were not garbaged up from infancy with angst. They were not taught hate as a matter of national pride. The needed only honor to be wealthy, and that did not take a super computer or a bank of gold to figure out. I have met some people from societies that were only recently primitive. They were not better people, but as intelligent. Can we say we have done some great deed for them by sharing our misery? Is knowledge power, or knowledge virtue? If you do not know it is because the weak are made slaves of the powerful, and it is impossible for the weak to be virtuous.
im sorry, but this makes no sense. What are you going for?

[Atlas Bergeron]

Fido wrote: thefranzkafkafront wrote: Fido wrote: thefranzkafkafront wrote: Quote: The excess of individualism leads to the erroneous belief that one is free to do whatever one wants to do.

Please explain how it is erroneous.

Individualism is like parricide, or suicide: a denial of ones existence by blindly focusing on ones own life at the expense of the community from where ones life evolved. It is like selling one's liver and kidneys for money to gamble with. It is freedom at the cost of ones anchor. It is Nihilism.

Thats your opinion, im asking for the nessiary logical connection.

As a breif thought exercise, before you type your answer hold it in your head and keep asking 'why' about it untill why can no longer be asked.

Hey Frank;
I ain't inscrutable, and I'm not a fortune cookie. You can ask me what I mean if you don't understand. I assure you I have given it some thought, and have been reading and thinking philosophy for far longer than I have been writing about it. What I said is true, logically. No one can focus on two objects or really be conscious of two realities at the same time.
actually, phycologiests have conculded that the average human can not focus on any more than seven objects. The notion that we can't focus on more than one is pure foolishness. If we could not focus on two objects, we wouldn't be able to connect any two entities into larger concepts and we would die in the pit of ignorance.

Quote: Individualism is only a form of consciousness. No one is truly an individual, but to perceive ones self apart one must deny all of society, and in fact all of reality. I know how the metaphysics of the middle ages did this. They surmised that we were created this way, one at a time, by God, individuals through the unfortunate necessity of sex. Individualist today only deny, but do not disprove the contribution of culture and society and biology in the creation of every person. Instead, they think they are self made, and pulled out of nothingness by the boot straps of will. Give me a break lonely boy. could you please get around to taking his advice?

[Fido]

Quote: [quote="Atlas Bergeron"] Fido wrote: Quote: Atlas Bergeron wrote: Fido wrote: Take the love out of love of knowledge and what have you got? what you started with?

Ya -about ignorance, as knowledge without love always is, and certainly not phil anything. knowledge without love is ignorance? What? By what muddled definition of "knowledge" are you basing this from?

The same definition that equates knowledge with power. Does power have a mind only because it has its way? I do not equate understanding, which requires love, with any sort of power. It is more often an inhibition from the use of power, or power only over ones own self. What power without understanding do you know of that behaves differently than ignorant nature?

Quote: Quote: Quote: Quote: If you have love you don't need much knowledge, and if you have no love no amount of knowledge will ever be enough. this has to be the worst thought out statement I have ever heard. Can you build a spear with "love"? Can you pland crops with "love"? Can you survive soley off "love"?

I am not devaluing love, nay, it has great value. But you are typing in s**t as always. What does this mean? What does it mean that "if you don't have love you don't need much knowledge?"

It means nothing. It is a progression of unrelated concpets with no clear intent or definition except maybe to confuse and muddle. [/quote

It could mean that the very unhappiness of society and the total lack of love is what is driving us. People make much of primitive societies, socialistic, democratic; but not very hard working, or driven. In fact they liked what they had, which was family, support, community, cooperation. yes, I am sure the mediaval period was a golden age for human history. Nobody was starving, everybody was happy, no-one was exploited, and they were the perfect days where everyone was happy.

To say that primitive peoples (not medieval) had the wherewithal to be happy does not mean they had any perfect technology. They had a perfect sociology. Our existence is proof of their success. They were all individuals, more so than today. You cannot look at the artifacts of the past without seeing the hand of the artist. But they had no fatal illusions of the individual as apart from his society. People then were aware that their existence depended upon society, and that society was the only reality, and that to be real one had to be a part of society.

Quote: Quote: They had oh no, dare I say it to the tubes- Happiness. They were not garbaged up from infancy with angst. They were not taught hate as a matter of national pride. The needed only honor to be wealthy, and that did not take a super computer or a bank of gold to figure out. I have met some people from societies that were only recently primitive. They were not better people, but as intelligent. Can we say we have done some great deed for them by sharing our misery? Is knowledge power, or knowledge virtue? If you do not know it is because the weak are made slaves of the powerful, and it is impossible for the weak to be virtuous.
im sorry, but this makes no sense. What are you going for?

What I am saying is that knowledge without understanding, -and love is impossible without understanding, can only result in power without virtue. It is only as good for one as his ability to destroy his neighbors, who will bend themselves to destroy him. Our whole society sees no practical value in life, in love, in understanding. We preach peace and practice war. It would be the most complete justice if we were destroyed, because we trample madly over the environment and other cultures. We may get our notion of the individual from the speculations of priests, but we have no God but our individual selves.

[Fido]

Quote: Atlas Bergeron wrote: Fido wrote: thefranzkafkafront wrote: Fido wrote: thefranzkafkafront wrote: Quote: The excess of individualism leads to the erroneous belief that one is free to do whatever one wants to do.

Please explain how it is erroneous.

Individualism is like parricide, or suicide: a denial of ones existence by blindly focusing on ones own life at the expense of the community from where ones life evolved. It is like selling one's liver and kidneys for money to gamble with. It is freedom at the cost of ones anchor. It is Nihilism.

Thats your opinion, im asking for the nessiary logical connection.

As a breif thought exercise, before you type your answer hold it in your head and keep asking 'why' about it untill why can no longer be asked.

Hey Frank;
I ain't inscrutable, and I'm not a fortune cookie. You can ask me what I mean if you don't understand. I assure you I have given it some thought, and have been reading and thinking philosophy for far longer than I have been writing about it. What I said is true, logically. No one can focus on two objects or really be conscious of two realities at the same time.
actually, phycologiests have conculded that the average human can not focus on any more than seven objects. The notion that we can't focus on more than one is pure foolishness. If we could not focus on two objects, we wouldn't be able to connect any two entities into larger concepts and we would die in the pit of ignorance.

Do you think I mean that we cannot hold multiple ideas in our minds? I said focus, but even in that sense of a visual focus where the mind excludes one image to see another, we still know it is there. What we know or think we know often distorts our perception. You perceive an individual. I say there is no such animal. People look at ant colonies and amid the hustle see an ant. There is no such ant. Colonies are the equivalent in some respects to a single human being, and different in one specific regard. If worst comes to worst, the colony can reproduce itself without another colony. Where is the person who can do that?

Didn't Aquinas say that nature was not abundant with superfluities? Excuse my translation. I am not good with Latin. But look at Occam's Razor, which was not his invention, but a single thought unifying the whole of the thirteenth century: not to multiply entities without necessity. Thinking of an individual apart from society is exactly that.

What exactly is an entity? My dictionary says something that has a real and separate existence. Where is the individual person who demonstrates this definition? We are not entities, but examples, since we have no separate existence, are bred out of society, must be social to breed, and have no more reality than an individual ant outside of his colony. The individual outside of society is an illusion. We think we are different. We are nearly exactly identical. Would you not say that two people sharing 99% of the same genes and physiology were identical? That is how identical apes are with people. We are more nearly exactly equal to each other, and no matter how perfect we think we are as examples of humanity we must still socialize to breed and to raise children.

The human entity is the family. It has as much reality as a germ, or a tree. The individual by himself is sterile, and when dead, the life is gone and it has no individuality because individuality demands life. The dead are indistinguishable, they all behave the same. They have no names. For anything to be real it must be eternal, and must last beyond ones life and precede one into life. Humanity, and society are eternal. Human life is eternal, but that part of life one human being knows is not eternal without the support and background of society.

Quote: Quote: Individualism is only a form of consciousness. No one is truly an individual, but to perceive ones self apart one must deny all of society, and in fact all of reality. I know how the metaphysics of the middle ages did this. They surmised that we were created this way, one at a time, by God, individuals through the unfortunate necessity of sex. Individualist today only deny, but do not disprove the contribution of culture and society and biology in the creation of every person. Instead, they think they are self made, and pulled out of nothingness by the boot straps of will. Give me a break lonely boy. could you please get around to taking his advice?

Take my advice; Don't be retarded!

[thefranzkafkafront]

Fido wrote: thefranzkafkafront wrote: Fido wrote: thefranzkafkafront wrote: Quote: The excess of individualism leads to the erroneous belief that one is free to do whatever one wants to do.

Please explain how it is erroneous.

Individualism is like parricide, or suicide: a denial of ones existence by blindly focusing on ones own life at the expense of the community from where ones life evolved. It is like selling one's liver and kidneys for money to gamble with. It is freedom at the cost of ones anchor. It is Nihilism.

Thats your opinion, im asking for the nessiary logical connection.

As a breif thought exercise, before you type your answer hold it in your head and keep asking 'why' about it untill why can no longer be asked.

Hey Frank;

Franz , Franz Kafka, you get D- for reading comprehension.

Quote:
I ain't inscrutable, and I'm not a fortune cookie. You can ask me what I mean if you don't understand. I assure you I have given it some thought, and have been reading and thinking philosophy for far longer than I have been writing about it. What I said is true, logically.

No you havent made any nessisary logical connections. You just made a bunch of assuptions so far.

Quote:
No one can focus on two objects
Yes easily, an apple in a desert and a orange in a forest. At the same time, done. If you can't focus on two objects or concepts at the same time your going to strugle with most academic subjects as you won't be able to anaylse most things.

Quote:
or really be conscious of two realities at the same time.
Depends what you mean by reality.

Quote: Individualism is only a form of consciousness.
Consciousnesss, what the heck are you on about, its a component of political theory. If you want to talk consciousness thats a whole diffrent debate.

Its impossible to experience the world as more than an individual. Thats a logic nessisity.

Quote:
No one is truly an individual,
Yes they are.

Quote: but to perceive ones self apart one must deny all of society, and in fact all of reality.
And society can be a involuntary or voluntary association of individuals, your all over the shop mate.

[quote
I know how the metaphysics of the middle ages did this. They surmised that we were created this way, one at a time, by God, individuals through the unfortunate necessity of sex.
[/quote]
Eh?

Quote:
Individualist today only deny, but do not disprove the contribution of culture and society and biology in the creation of every person. Instead, they think they are self made, and pulled out of nothingness by the boot straps of will.
Seriously what the crap are you on about, your understanding of what individualism is very out of whack. Its simply that society should be a voluntary association of free individuals with primaly imporance on rights and self reliance.


Quote: Give me a break lonely boy. You don't know me, don't assume to.

[Fido]

Quote: thefranzkafkafront wrote: Fido wrote: thefranzkafkafront wrote: Fido wrote: thefranzkafkafront wrote: Quote: The excess of individualism leads to the erroneous belief that one is free to do whatever one wants to do.

Please explain how it is erroneous.

Individualism is like parricide, or suicide: a denial of ones existence by blindly focusing on ones own life at the expense of the community from where ones life evolved. It is like selling one's liver and kidneys for money to gamble with. It is freedom at the cost of ones anchor. It is Nihilism.

Thats your opinion, im asking for the nessiary logical connection.

As a breif thought exercise, before you type your answer hold it in your head and keep asking 'why' about it untill why can no longer be asked.

Hey Frank;

Franz , Franz Kafka, you get D- for reading comprehension.


Typical. What others consider my strength you consider a weakness.-----Fido


Quote: Quote:
I ain't inscrutable, and I'm not a fortune cookie. You can ask me what I mean if you don't understand. I assure you I have given it some thought, and have been reading and thinking philosophy for far longer than I have been writing about it. What I said is true, logically.

No you havent made any nessisary logical connections. You just made a bunch of assuptions so far.

Once more. If you have questions ask. I will state my opinion, and if you give it some thought you may agree or disagree, but if you do not understand why I say what I say; I will give you my reasoning. I will be the first to admit that I cannot prove much of what I assert, but only cannot disprove it with such knowledge as I have at hand or in mind, and so believe it to be true. If you know I am wrong, I am open to a change; but not without some evidence.----------Fido

Quote: Quote:
No one can focus on two objects
Yes easily, an apple in a desert and a orange in a forest. At the same time, done. If you can't focus on two objects or concepts at the same time your going to strugle with most academic subjects as you won't be able to anaylse most things.

No, you are holding two ideas, which I admit is a visual concept, in your mind. And these are concepts, not realities, but mental shorthand for realities, standing in relation to reality as a map to a terrain. Try to actually focus your eyes or perception and you find I am telling the truth here. You will see one object, and not the other, or each will be blurred beyond recognition. Only when you see the individual within society, and not as an orange in the desert, and out of place can your consciousness perceive him in nature. You can take a fish out of water, but it is no longer a fish, but a dying fish, a fish out of water, or a meal. To perceive an individual outside of his nature is to misunderstand him in the very act of defining him.-------------Fido

Quote: Quote:
or really be conscious of two realities at the same time.
Depends what you mean by reality.

There is only one reality, and individualism is only one method of perceiving and dealing with that reality.---------Fido

Quote: Quote: Individualism is only a form of consciousness.
Consciousnesss, what the heck are you on about, its a component of political theory. If you want to talk consciousness thats a whole diffrent debate.
Its impossible to experience the world as more than an individual. Thats a logic nessisity.

Individualism is only one of many lenses through which the world is perceived. It may be one of the first. I was quite young when I became conscious of being an individual, but I have memories from before that time when I aware enough to remember, but not aware that I was actually in any sense distinct. Like all lenses, individualism distorts all it does not focus. All form of consciousness find there way into political debates, or have you not noticed?-------Fido

Quote: Quote:
No one is truly an individual,
Yes they are.


Bright, you deny my denial. We are examples. You might have an individual tree, and individual ant colony, or an individual germ. People are social, sterile alone, and essentially examples rather than distinct entities. Our existence is group. Our culture is group, Our technology is group. We need even the group to define individualism, because if there were no group the individual, no matter how alone, would be meaningless. We get meaning with the group.-------Fido


Quote: Quote: but to perceive ones self apart one must deny all of society, and in fact all of reality.
And society can be a involuntary or voluntary association of individuals, your all over the shop mate.

I would argue that most societies have be the result of nativity, or necessity. There is very little of voluntary in the common defense against dangerous enemy. It is possible and usual for states to contain two or more societies. Societies are held together by common descent or common interests, and clearly, all in our society are not in the same groove.-------------Fido

Quote: [quote
I know how the metaphysics of the middle ages did this. They surmised that we were created this way, one at a time, by God, individuals through the unfortunate necessity of sex.

Eh?


Try reading. Nietzsche did not invent the individual, and neither did Rand. Both were using an essentially metaphysical conception of a created individual even while rejecting metaphysics.-------Fido


Quote: Quote:
Individualist today only deny, but do not disprove the contribution of culture and society and biology in the creation of every person. Instead, they think they are self made, and pulled out of nothingness by the boot straps of will.
Seriously what the crap are you on about, your understanding of what individualism is very out of whack. Its simply that society should be a voluntary association of free individuals with primaly imporance on rights and self reliance.

You know, you could stand some history of philosophy. Your voluntary association was a logical conclusion of the metaphysical definition of an individual, and much as I agree that we are equal, the metaphysical tripe of all men created equal belongs in the trash. Even as individuals we are not free, but only free through the protection and agency of society.-----Fido

Quote: Quote: Give me a break lonely boy. You don't know me, don't assume to. [/quote]

I assume nothing.--------Fido

[infirmaryblues]

What is so damned hard about understanding Schopenhauer? It's another abstract prescription, swallowed to answer the purpose of life! No one said it is true; Socrates can tell you that. Just think about it!

I do disagree with the notion that corporations are the evil anti-thesis to Schopenhauer. Materialists are the anti-thesis; corporations and business don't automatically constitute materialism. They, more often than not, serve a practical purpose in serving our society.

[Fido]

infirmaryblues wrote: What is so damned hard about understanding Schopenhauer? It's another abstract prescription, swallowed to answer the purpose of life! No one said it is true; Socrates can tell you that. Just think about it!

I do disagree with the notion that corporations are the evil anti-thesis to Schopenhauer. Materialists are the anti-thesis; corporations and business don't automatically constitute materialism. They, more often than not, serve a practical purpose in serving our society.

My problem with all idealists comes only from my perception that each gives to ideas a greater reality than the reality the idea represents. For contrast, I see ideals from the other side, as having only the reality that people give to them.

[infirmaryblues]

Pardon me, Fido, but can you elaborate on what you have just said?

From what I can tell you said that idealists imagine something impossibly big and beautiful, and are not practical about the matter. Do you say that you approach reality from a practical perspective?

I honestly don't understand your post from the two sentences you gave me and have followed the thread.

[Fido]

infirmaryblues wrote: Pardon me, Fido, but can you elaborate on what you have just said?

From what I can tell you said that idealists imagine something impossibly big and beautiful, and are not practical about the matter. Do you say that you approach reality from a practical perspective?

I honestly don't understand your post from the two sentences you gave me and have followed the thread.

I have to be careful here, because it has been many years since I read anything by Schopenhauer, or about. I like Kant, and think he is great, but needed some explanation to begin to grasp him.

So. Reading some of him, and reading some of Hegel, both considered idealists, and Marx as well I would say, that they talked about ideas as though they were real, kind of the way the past talked of universals. Which they are to an extent.
If I am right in this judgment of them, I have to say that I disagree. We give ideas their reality, their meaning and value. Human life animates ideas, and not vise versa. All ideas having any value to people serve as forms for relationships, and I sense that is their primary value. If Justice as an idea is important to two people it is because they use the concept to relate through, and to measure each other with. For any person to choose justice as a subject is a testament to his values, but for many people to choose common ideas as subjects of importance provides all a form through which to relate, and all ideas serve this purpose. All ideas are forms, and all ideas are forms through which people relate. If you want I will try to back up what I say, but what I say is based more upon impressions than any thing they said that I can put a finger directly on.

I just grabbed my The Story of Philosophy, by Durrant; and came across a quotation from Schopenhauer that I do agree with in part. On the principal of individuation- "To understand clearly that the individual is only the phenomenon, not the thing in itself"
While this seems to suggest my contention that Will, or the ideal has a greater reality than the person who recognizes it, it is also support for the thought that individuals are not entities, and compared to a tree or a germ, are not actually individuals since having been divided from the family which is the smallest working part of humanity- they are more subdivisions of humanity. Individuals are not dividable because they are already reduced below the point of sustainability. The individual has lost his immortality, and eternal existence by removal from society, and to remove more would take his life.

[Corona]

Hegelian_Center wrote:
Rich people, having incorporated the superabundancy of money into their lifes, are also miserable;

Do you know all the rich people in the world?

[Fido]

Corona wrote: Hegelian_Center wrote:
Rich people, having incorporated the superabundancy of money into their lifes, are also miserable;

Do you know all the rich people in the world?

I do not know many rich people, and even I can say they are miserable. You need only recognize that all humanity lives in a closed system, and that rich people are rich because of, and beside other people who are poor, and seek security at the price of another's insecurity, and have time and leisure at the price of others having neither.

It is an observable fact that all change is an attempt at problem solving. What solution is wealth if the very poverty you escape you force others to endure? Only one trying to escape reality would do so by concentrating the negative aspects of reality for all. Only those who wish to escape from life would make life a period of hazard, toil, and poverty in exchange for their own spiritual nirvana. Such people as the rich must indeed be miserable since they are the source of so much misery. Society, and even the world is a closed system, and misery is general. Do you suppose they could be less miserable because they are more wealthy, secure, leisurely, spiritual or cruel. They can only be less miserable by being more comatose, and they could not be more comatose without being dead.