Forum about Philosophy

[qwerty]

I think someone once said, "comedy is tragedy from a distance", although that isn't true all the time.

I think comedy arises from expectations being violated. Punch lines and comedic incidents always seem to work because you don't expect them to unfold the way they do.

I'm not really a fan of horror but I think you can make a story scary by:

• making the readers feel empathy / connection with characters and then putting them in danger (readers fear for the character)
• portraying a character in a state of fear (readers experience the character's fear vicariously)
• portraying things that are repulsive on a visceral level ("creepy" or gory things, "uncanny valley" stuff)
• ambiguity. Unknown or ambiguous potential threats can generate more 'creeps' or fear than clearly defined threats and are better for creating suspense.

And about "love", my opinion is that what is most commonly referred to as love can actually be a few different things:

• 'unconditional love' - one person cares about someone else without expecting something in return. In other words, selflessness.
• 'liking' - one person has pleasant feelings towards someone else.
• 'attachment' / 'conditional love' - one person suffers without someone else, e.g. "I can't live without you!" This is often portrayed to be romantic but is actually unhealthy.
• The normal idea of 'romantic love' I think is an undefined blend of the above three things, but with sex and some social norms thrown in. 'Platonic love' is the same, but without sex and with different applicable social norms.

Wow, that got long. I guess I like geeking out about this stuff X/

[SoFt]

For all of Diogenes' new fans, here's a great source of more information about him:

He had some good ideas, but I'm more a fan of Socrates if we're talking Greeks =P.

[EntropicalForest]

I have seen comedy broken down into the subversion of expectations before, but i dont think it really holds water. Some jokes are funny explicitly because their obvious. Like such things as watching someone sneak up behind some one to try and scare them, or when you get the giggles in anticipation when a prank is about to go off. Those things are seem to be funny on the bases of them playing out how you expected.

Comedy might be more rooted in the concept of truth and less so in Subversion, which is kind of explored with theories of the Fool/Clown. And it might not be a literally truth either, but perhaps a meta-truth of sorts. I think some of the best examples of this is that while something like a pun might be received as funny or witty, it seems jokes or experiences which or more relatable (Meta-truth) get a more visceral response from people in general (think of something like a shared experience or inside joke).

So while I think being surprised is a big part of comedy I think its perhaps a little more complex than that.

[bakasama25]

I can see why he has fans, One story had Plato saying humans were "featherless bipeds", Diogenes being Diogenes just got a chicken plucked it's feathers and showed Plato saying, "Hey, Plato! Here's your perfect man!"

He comes off like being the Emperor Norton of Ancient Greece.

[Leon]

I'd like to share some thoughts I had before and see other people's opinions. I was doing my stuff and I started to think about the Big Bang and the usual representations of it when I start questioning myself what was before, be it an older universe that died, complete blackness or both. Following the first line of thought, I began to imagine these universes and questioning what started the chain, what started reality itself and what was before, if there was something. Did reality had always existed or had it been a total nothingness that we can't even imagine, a lack of anything?. Then I think about a deity and the God particle, Higgs boson, which creates new matter, and I ask myself "What created the God particle? What created God? When did the atoms and the particles that conform them appear?

Of course, we still don't have the knowledge and technology to answer these questions, but since recently I stumbled upon some Buddhist philosophy, I understand that we can live without knowing the truth behind them, even if they end up priving to be unanswerable.

[Hodge]

Well this thread is odd haha.

@Leon Ah yes, the good ol' question of "Why does anything exist at all?" and contemplating contingency. This is a favorite of mine~ Admittedly, I'm heavily influenced by Aquinas (Catholic theologian) on this subject, but classical theology is a dying subject it seems. I'm also of the position that obsessing over how one knows or could even know truth can often be a stumbling block. Though I don't think it means we should just stop questioning and investigating, but it opens the door to further knowledge.

@libs The question of "love" for awhile was about eros and agape for me. Eros is about desire and lust. Agape is the selfless and unconditional sort. I'm writing a BL, and so though I understand the appeal of eros and its sexual aggression, I want to add in some agape in there as well.
Also, I was watching a youtuber play Detroit: Becoming Human or whatever, and at some point he went on a tangent about how love is just a bunch chemical processes. To which I thought, "If love is just a feeling, to hell with it." I kinda mocked the game, because at the end of the day, sure robots are just "piles of nuts and bolts," but humans are just "sacks of shit and water," by this line of thinking. So yeah . . . a bit of a depressing idea on love haha.

[Leon]

Of course, I'm not saying that we should just ignore it, but to not obsess with it, especially when we need to make more advances first.

[qwerty]

Hmm, I think you are right that there is more to it.

It's possible that what we call 'comedy' is actually a set of distinct experiences rather than a single thing.

For example, 'cringe humor', where you vicariously experience the embarrassment or awkwardness of characters, seems like a totally different thing than 'witty humor', which relies on finding unexpected patterns or associations between things (e.g. puns).

All forms of humor though seem to have as a common denominator something like 'intensity of mental engagement'.

That would explain the tendency of expectations to be subverted, since our minds have a strong tendency to work on 'autopilot' for the sake of efficiency when things are predictable and only truly 'engage' when we don't know what to expect.

[qwerty]

Regarding whether the Universe has always existed or not:

• If something is capable of not existing and then existing, or existing and then not existing, that implies that some sort of change is happening.
• Change can only happen along some kind of axis / dimension (e.g. time).
• But if the Universe can be thought of as, say, a 3-dimensional object that changes over time, why couldn't it also be thought of as a static, unchanging 4-dimensional object? If a dynamic n-dimensional object, why not a static n+1 -dimensional object?
• Therefore whether the Universe has always existed or not really only depends on how you conceptualize it.

As for what preceded the Universe, not in time but in causation, it is logically self-evident that something exists which created the Universe but which was not created by anything else. In other words, something which exists outside the normal workings of causality (I'm not claiming it's God though):

• If nothing can exist without a prior cause, then there can be no first cause.
• If there is no first cause and nothing can exist without a prior cause, there can be no subsequent causes.
• Therefore if everything must exist only because of something else, the Universe couldn't exist.
• But it does, meaning the existence of some kind of 'causeless entity' is necessary.

What is this thing that created everything? I don't know, but the only eternal thing in existence would appear to be what one could call 'the void', 'nothing-ness', 'potentiality', or 'the unmanifest'. Everything that manifests is transient, but that which hasn't manifested is eternal.

Just my thoughts...

[dawgofdawgness]

Oohhh philosophy is fun! Anything that makes my brain melt is good. I have some weird questions:

1) Say I spat in someone's juice when they weren't looking. Later when they drink their juice, they don't notice a THING. Am I still a bad person?

2) Is altruism a social construct?

3) Last Thursdayism. Thoughts?

[SoFt]

What is this thing that created everything? I don't know, but the only eternal thing in existence would appear to be what one could call 'the void', 'nothing-ness', 'potentiality', or 'the unmanifest'. Everything that manifests is transient, but that which hasn't manifested is eternal.

Just my thoughts...

To your credit, they are very good thoughts. I quite enjoyed this post . As an agnostic, that is about the most I'm open to saying about any higher being or creative force: it'd make sense for such a thing to exist, but I can't imagine it's an active participant in our reality on any level we can conceive.

@dawgofdawgness

1) "Bad person" is extreme, but the hypothetical offender has absolutely done a bad thing. I do not want to know, nor would I trust anyone who lives under the delusion that a crime/sin/bad act is only criminal/sinful/bad if it is seen. The only people who seem to subscribe to the idea are people who are constantly committing dastardly deeds in the shadows.

2) Pure altruism, perhaps. Altruistic tendencies are an adaptive trait among social animals: do good for the tribe, and the tribe will take care of you. What I believe most think of when that specific term is introduced, though, refers to good acts performed selflessly, with no intended positive outcome for the one who does the deed. I feel the supposition of selflessness is limiting. People don't act in a vacuum. Those who do good very much hope to gain from it. What they hope to gain is just less tangible than a physical acquisition: cleaner air, a positive example to show their children, or just the warm fuzzy feeling that comes from seeing a smile that you caused.

3) I actually had to look this one up . I don't believe in it or find it particularly interesting, but I recognize it as a possibility. More interesting to me, though, is the idea that you created everything last Thursday--that the person presently reading this post is God (or just a god) trapped in their own self-delusion. On the other hand, that cuts close to Buddhism, doesn't it x)?

[DiegoPalacios]

1) Say I spat in someone's juice when they weren't looking. Later when they drink their juice, they don't notice a THING. Am I still a bad person?

yes, because a good or bad action is not only based on perceptible effect. Intention and effect (no matter if nobody saw) makes an action bad.

About a good action with bad intetions: while the effect may be possitive, the person was not being good at heart.

Good intentions and bad actions: Harming others is harming others no matter how noble are the intentions, so the effect will still be negative.

2) Is altruism a social construct?

Some people say humans are inherently good and others say human are inherently evil. I think they are inherently neutral. Babies act based on self-preservation instincts and as they learn about the world they become able to make choices. Education and their experiences affect them a lot, either, from repeating the patterns of their parents/guardians or by going the opposite route or accepting some aspects while rejecting others.

I think altruism is an instinctual mecanism of survival because it allows beings to work with each other and to support each other. You can see instinctual altruism in some animals, like a mother dog taking care of their pups. Some animals lack this instinct, for example, komodo dragons eat their children. Human instincts are more similar to mammals.

I think being good is as natural as being a dick.

3) Last Thursdayism. Thoughts?

While it is possible that our memories could be manipulated to think we had more experiences than we already had, i think that if we were created by a deity, it would be too overly-complicated and absurd to make that. If we were created by random events i think the chances the world turned that way (created last thursday) are lower than the chances of those experiences actually happening.

[DiegoPalacios]

With that in mind, I am currently trying to write some new stories so I hope to learn about what "love" is.

To love someone, you need to know that person and to accept that person.

So, if someone loves you for believing you are someone different, that is not true love, because that person doesn`t know you and cant accept the real you because they are seing an illusion of yourself.

If you try to change the person all the time and want that person to be different from who they are, it is not love because you are not accepting that person.

If you "accept" the person but don`t know them, it is not love, is just idealization.

also interested in the similarities and difference between horror and comedy as well as what's makes something scary or funny. Any ideas?

I think the simmilarities of horror and comedy are the way the timing works. There is a setup, there is anticipation, and a moment of impact. Also, sometimes not showing something can make people go wild with their imagination, either for horror (ex: screen turns black and you can only hear the screams of people) or laughter (why is that guy shouting bad words to the ceiling?).

[qwerty]

1) I would say there is no objective way to determine whether an action is good or bad other than its effects. However, thoughts are also a form of action, so your intention still matters. The actual spit in the juice may not have any effect and therefore not be bad. But I think whenever you act on an intention, the 'mental pattern' that gave rise to that intention is reinforced.

So if you spat in their juice out of spite, say, the action would reinforce your mental 'habit' of spite, which would eventually cause suffering to you and/or others. The effects are not obvious or short-term, but they are there.

If you truly had good intentions somehow when spitting in their juice and they didn't notice, I don't see anything wrong XD
-

2) People are definitely capable of acting out of true selflessness, although it is true that many times people think they are being selfless when they are really after something.

It may seem that people are not capable of 'real' selflessness when you think about it, because it's not possible to be truly selfless if you're thinking about how to be selfless. If you're thinking about how to not be selfish, then you are being motivated by a selfish desire to not be selfish, and therefore are selfish. Yeah, hopefully that makes sense. The key to true altruism is non-self-consciousness, which can't be done if you are overthinking everything.
-

3) I think in practice there is no reality other than one's experience. Nobody ever experiences the past or future, only the present moment; therefore only the present moment is real. What we call the past is actually only our memories - happening in the present. So time is only a mental construct and there is no way to prove otherwise. We can choose a theoretical model of the Universe as being billions of years old or a few days old, depending on which model does the best job of explaining and predicting stuff, but a theory is just a theory and only exists in our minds.

[SoFt]

While it is possible that our memories could be manipulated to think we had more experiences than we already had, i think that if we were created by a deity, it would be too overly-complicated and absurd to make that.

You presume that this prospective deity shares our limitations and sensibilities. Assuming a deity did actually design all creation, it could be no more difficult for such a being than it is for you to write a story about a rock favored by fate . It must be a being many orders of magnitude beyond us to be called a god, in some things if not in all things.

More importantly, Last Thursdayism contains within it the possibility that all creation is a fabrication intended solely for the purpose of deceiving you specifically. It's essentially where Descartes started leading up to his "I think, therefore, I am" moment. It's like The Matrix, except maybe "real" inasmuch as anything can be. But if all you know was created a week ago, then all evidence of anyone save you being an actual thinking being goes out the window. Another danger of this line of thought: it leads all too easy to nihilism, or worse, rational egoism.

[DiegoPalacios]

You presume that this prospective deity shares our limitations and sensibilities. Assuming a deity did actually design all creation, it could be no more difficult for such a being than it is for you to write a story about a rock favored by fate . It must be a being many orders of magnitude beyond us to be called a god, in some things if not in all things.

What i meant with it being too overly-complicated and absurd was that i didn`t see a purpose for that kind of overly-elaborate action. Not that it was incapable of that. (i should have explained better)

Even if it was just for the sake of trolling, is not that funny if people dont react to the prank, because the targets don`t feel the effect, unless the last thursdayists are the targets of the punchline. (maybe they are the Kimuras of the world ) My point is that a deity pranking or hiding information could do a better job, like better pranks or in the case they were hiding something, just not giving us the idea because they already control our memories. (they could easily just put a "memory" that "proves" wrong that theory or make us forget that theory in the first place.

More importantly, Last Thursdayism contains within it the possibility that all creation is a fabrication intended solely for the purpose of deceiving you specifically. It's essentially where Descartes started leading up to his "I think, therefore, I am" moment. It's like The Matrix, except maybe "real" inasmuch as anything can be. But if all you know was created a week ago, then all evidence of anyone save you being an actual thinking being goes out the window. Another danger of this line of thought: it leads all too easy to nihilism, or worse, rational egoism.

I can see the risks of this mindset too. Also, there is not evidence for others not being rational beings. So these people would be basically gambling. (which can happen because of confimation bias) They abre gambling that the lack of certainty in some information means it is false. And this assumption is a certainty too, which is extremely ironic.

[SoFt]

A being could have any number of reasons for creating a universe. They could be some we'd find familiar, like wanting to have something to love and care for or wanting to conduct research of some sort. It could be something entirely alien to us (pun partly intended ). We're gonna go way off course if we dive into this, as figuring out the desires and morality if higher beings is the realm of theology, but suffice it to say that I don't believe we should rule out "reality as deception" just because we don't understand why a deity would go to the trouble. Far as we know, it's no trouble at all.

Where a hypothetical someone ends up after deciding to believe in Last Thursdayism depends largely on where they were before, I suppose. It'd be a very complex, but rather effective means of testing the core of one's being: do they avoid immoral acts because they feel it's right, or are they just waiting for an excuse?

Hypotheticals of this magnitude are difficult to keep contained, but were someone to discover through truly irrefutable means that their entire reality--theirs specifically--was a fabrication (and how would one even xP?), I'd wager most would assume everyone else in said reality was a fabrication as well. Unless the same irrefutable source explained otherwise, I personally would assume that there were other simulations that each contain one real person as this one contains me.

(I'd consider it a shitty simulation, for the record. I want a simulation with real magic >_>.)

[DiegoPalacios]

suffice it to say that I don't believe we should rule out "reality as deception" just because we don't understand why a deity would go to the trouble. Far as we know, it's no trouble at all.

I never discarded the deception part, and i agree digging too deep in theology could lead to another tangent (an interesting one to explore another day in the future).

But considering both chances i think is safer to bet that what we are experiencing is real (unless irrefutably proven otherwise) just in case to avoid the risk of causing actual damage to ourselves and others.

I'd wager most would assume everyone else in said reality was a fabrication as well.

it could probably happen depending of the context of the revelation. In this case i think i would play it safe and asume others are real unless proven otherwise.

(I'd consider it a shitty simulation, for the record. I want a simulation with real magic >_>.)

but what if there is actual magic and is hidden to the general public????

[EntropicalForest]

it definitely seems more of a loose spectrum than any one medium. And engagement does seem to be shared factor, It would be interesting to see some studies done on the reaction of the brain to different forms of humor (if there are not already some).

[Jenny-Toons]

Who's to say our reality is the law of the universe? Who's to say that one second for us, is one second for the universe? What if life existed beyond our realm of life, beyond the Big Bang, and that time had never been born or died -- just simply being?

...I've been watching Prince of Darkness, if you guys haven't noticed XD
Very good movie! Highly recommend it. It's more cosmic horror than religious horror, as I come to find out~ And Dr. Loomis is Father Loomis in this one XD