Love this thought-provoking piece. It makes me think of Chuang Tzu and the Tao concept of 'actionless action' and leaving things to just be. Maybe 0.1% of my own time is spent in wishing to change nothing and noticing that wellbeing is separate from pleasure. I must read Kundera sometime.
Always a pleasure to find someone mentioning Chuang Tzu, although for what it's worth I got far more from reading Master Zhuang than from Kundera. I simply found Tomas a fairly repugnant individual, and missed the redemption David refers to - I suspect I read it ten years too early to appreciate it, though.
"It means to confront, accept, and embrace the weight of being"
I believe that only spirituality can make this possible (making the weight of being lighter)
I didn't know this work by Bradbury, I'm writing it down somewhere in a corner of my head to read it later. When I read science fiction, I often notice the prophetic nature of certain works.
An insightful reflection on the difference between the empty pleasures of compulsion and the commitments that make life worth living. I was expecting Nozick and found instead a brilliant interposition of Bradbury and Kundera.
Nozick is interesting - I think his thought experiment would now generate very different responses to the ones it did in the 70s, so he's not irrelevant here. I think these days quite a high proportion of people would choose the experience machine over real life.
PS: I believe you'd get on well with my final philosophy book, The Virtuous Cyborg, which attempts to rescue us from becoming 'smartphone zombies' by an application of virtue theory to technology. I didn't get good traction with it, but those who read it speak highly of it, which these days is the most someone can hope for in philosophy that doesn't prop up the status quo.
"It follows that goodness inheres in the very engagement in being per se - in loving the physical, the real, the temporal and the moral - and in sublimating one’s will to the purpose of doing what is best for those around oneself."
Great piece, David. I am reminded of Wim Wenders' Until the End of the World when Claire becomes obsessed with viewing her own dreams in the dream recording device and cannot be brought back to the living world. Here's a clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gigNr13l4UI
Love this thought-provoking piece. It makes me think of Chuang Tzu and the Tao concept of 'actionless action' and leaving things to just be. Maybe 0.1% of my own time is spent in wishing to change nothing and noticing that wellbeing is separate from pleasure. I must read Kundera sometime.
Always a pleasure to find someone mentioning Chuang Tzu, although for what it's worth I got far more from reading Master Zhuang than from Kundera. I simply found Tomas a fairly repugnant individual, and missed the redemption David refers to - I suspect I read it ten years too early to appreciate it, though.
"It means to confront, accept, and embrace the weight of being"
I believe that only spirituality can make this possible (making the weight of being lighter)
I didn't know this work by Bradbury, I'm writing it down somewhere in a corner of my head to read it later. When I read science fiction, I often notice the prophetic nature of certain works.
Yes, the really meaningful questions in the end are spiritual/theological, but we are very reluctant to discuss them.
Exactly. As if nowadays it's shameful to turn to spirituality, or even religion.
Have you ever wondered about why understanding progresses, and what it is that's been lost by the growth of the status of information and process ?
Why are there so many podcasts and substacks and why everyone lives on their mobile ?
It comes down to the question of what meaning is, and whether we can be told, or have to be asked..
An insightful reflection on the difference between the empty pleasures of compulsion and the commitments that make life worth living. I was expecting Nozick and found instead a brilliant interposition of Bradbury and Kundera.
Nozick is interesting - I think his thought experiment would now generate very different responses to the ones it did in the 70s, so he's not irrelevant here. I think these days quite a high proportion of people would choose the experience machine over real life.
This seems to be the empirical experiment we all enrolled in without noticing, aye. 🙂
PS: I believe you'd get on well with my final philosophy book, The Virtuous Cyborg, which attempts to rescue us from becoming 'smartphone zombies' by an application of virtue theory to technology. I didn't get good traction with it, but those who read it speak highly of it, which these days is the most someone can hope for in philosophy that doesn't prop up the status quo.
Incisive
"It follows that goodness inheres in the very engagement in being per se - in loving the physical, the real, the temporal and the moral - and in sublimating one’s will to the purpose of doing what is best for those around oneself."
Amen
"What is evil but good, tortured by its own hunger and thirst." (The Prophet, Khalil Gibran)
The physical, the real, the temporal and the moral - quite enough to be going along with.
You might like: https://ukresponse.substack.com/p/reservoirs-of-meaning
Great piece, David. I am reminded of Wim Wenders' Until the End of the World when Claire becomes obsessed with viewing her own dreams in the dream recording device and cannot be brought back to the living world. Here's a clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gigNr13l4UI