Are we a computer simulation

　"In the future it is likely that our civilization will reach a level of technology such that it can create incredibly sophisticated computer simulations of human minds and of worlds for those minds to inhabit. Relatively tiny resources will be needed to sustain such simulated worlds – a single laptop of the future could be home to thousands or millions of simulated minds – so in all probability simulated minds will vastly outnumber biological ones. The experiences of both biological and simulated minds will be indistinguishable and both will of course think that they are not simulated, but the latter (who will make up the vast majority of minds) will in fact be mistaken. We naturally couch this argument in terms of hypotheticals about the future, but who is to say that this ‘future’ hasn’t already happened – that such computer expertise has not already been attained and such minds already simulated? We of course suppose that we are not computer-simulated minds living in a simulated world, but that may be a tribute to the quality of the programming."

Mathematics is metaphysical

　　‘Mathematics has not a foot to stand upon which is not purely metaphysical.’
~ Thomas De Quincey, 1830

The poor groaning ‘relationship’

"There is also the problem that, in contemporary cities, the couple relationship may be the only source of connection, structure, meaning and enchantment. In traditional societies there were religions to confer meaning and magic, rituals to structure the year, communities to offer strong connections and extended families to provide support. Now the poor groaning ‘relationship’ has to provide all of this, to take upon its weakened back the entire burden of living. No wonder it collapses under the strain."

Wrong life cannot be lived rightly

“wrong life cannot be lived rightly,”

Thinker's pigeonhole

"Any “ism” invariably pigeonholes a thinker, neatly packaging him up to be sold in the market like a bar of soap."

Philosophical Novels

“A novel is never anything but a philosophy expressed in images. And in a good novel the philosophy has disappeared into the images. But the philosophy need only spill over into the characters and action for it to stick out like a sore thumb, the plot to lose its authenticity, and the novel its life”

The goal of the synoptic empiricist

"The goal of the synoptic empiricist is not to collect bits and pieces, but to weave the strands of knowledge into a glowing tapestry."

Philosophy is at once the most sublime and the most trivial

Philosophy is at once the most sublime and the most trivial of human pursuits. It works in the minutest crannies and it opens out of the widest vistas.… No one of us can get along without the far-flashing beams of light it sends over the world’s perspectives.
~ William James

Philosopher and his students

The philosopher does sometimes get so interested in his technique that he forgets the human interest that may have first led him and his students to philosophy; the student suffers from impatience to get to the main point. Some philosophers are like pianists who play only scales; on the other hand some students are like beginners in music who are so anxious to play Beethoven that they resent having to learn scales.
~ Lewis White Beck

The crimes of nonconformity

The trial of Socrates represents something more than a mere historical event that could not possibly happen again. The trial of Socrates is a charge leveled at the type of intellectual questioning that seeks out the true problems lying outside everyday mediocrity. When Socrates tormented the Athenians like a gadfly, he prevented them from sleeping peacefully, from relaxing with their ready-made solutions to moral and social problems. By astonishing us, Socrates prevents us from thinking along the old lines that have been handed down to us and have become habits. Thus Socrates stands at the very opposite end of the scale from intellectual well-being, easy conscience, and beatific serenity. For all who think that the evidence of authority ought to prevail over the authority of evidence, that order and stability can-not permit the crimes of nonconformity and “lèse-société,” Socrates could only have been the enemy.
~ Jean Brun - Socrates

The unexamined life is not worth living

Men of Athens, I know and love you, but I shall obey God rather than you, and while I have life and strength I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of Philosophy.… I am that gadfly which God has attached to the state, and all day long and in all places am always fastening upon you, arousing and persuading and reproaching you.… I tell you that to do as you say would be a disobedience to God, and therefore I cannot hold my tongue. Daily to discourse about virtue, and about those other things about which you hear me examining myself and others is the greatest good of man. The unexamined life is not worth living.… In another world I shall be able to continue my search into true and false knowledge.… In another world they do not put a man to death for asking questions: assuredly not.
~ Plato - The Apology

There is not a philosophical method

There is not a philosophical method, though there are indeed methods, like different therapies.
~ Ludwig Wittgenstein

The teacher’s obligation is to be patient

The teacher’s obligation is to be patient enough to permit deliberation and decision by each of those he is trying to help. If his students do not choose, each in the light of his own contingent existence and his own limitations, they will not become ethical beings; if they are not ethical beings—in search of their own ethical reality—they are not individuals; if they are not individuals, they will not learn.
~ Søren Kierkegaard - The Point of View

“Confusion” is an initial phase of all knowledge

“Confusion” is an initial phase of all knowledge, without which one cannot progress to clarity.The important thing for the individual who truly desires to think is that he not be overly hurried but be faithful at each step of his mental itinerary to the aspect of reality currently under view, that he strive to avoid disdain for the preliminary distant and con- fused aspects due to some snob sense of urgency impelling him to arrive immediately at the more refined conclusions.

~ José Ortega y Gasset - The Origin of Philosophy

What matters is to leave off crawling in the dust

Philosophy, as Plato and Aristotle said, begins in wonder. This wonder means a dim awareness of the useless talent, some sense that antlikeness is a betrayal.…

Philosophy means liberation from the two dimensions of routine, soaring above the well known, seeing it in new perspectives, arousing wonder and the wish to fly. Philosophy subverts man’s satisfaction with himself, exposes custom as a questionable dream, and offers not so much solutions as a different life.

A great deal of philosophy, including truly subtle and ingenious works, was not intended as an edifice for men to live in, safe from sun and wind, but as a challenge: don’t sleep on! there are so many vantage points; they change in flight: what matters is to leave off crawling in the dust.

~ Walter Kaufmann - Critique of Religion and Philosophy

The man who drinks in all that life offers

"The man who seeks to escape life drinks to get drunk, unlike the man who drinks in all that life offers in his search for wisdom."

Pythagoras was the first person who invented the term “Philosophy"

Pythagoras was the first person who invented the term “Philosophy,” and who called himself a philosopher.
~ Diogenes Laërtius

I’d rather be myself than be at the top

The General shook his head. “You’ve been out of school all these years, and what have you learned? Don’t you know raw ability will never take you to the top?”

“I’d rather be myself than be at the top,” said Beller. “I like to know what I think when I go to bed at night.”
~ Christopher Anvil

All philosophy begins with astonishment and wonder

All philosophy begins—as the ancient Greeks so well knew— with astonishment and wonder.
~ Kurt Reinhardt

Men began to philosophize to escape ignorance

A sense of wonder started men philosophizing, in ancient times as well as today. Their wondering is aroused, first, by trivial matters; but they continue on from there to wonder about less mundane matters such as the changes of the moon, sun, and stars, and the beginnings of the universe. What is the result of this puzzlement? An awesome feeling of ignorance. Men began to philosophize, therefore, to escape ignorance.
~ Aristotle