But Seneca and Aristotle never wrote SEO-optimized 7 item listicles or produced YouTube linkbait.

"This crazy Greek drank Hemlock. What happened next will blow your mind."

"Philosophy Students Hate Him - One Weird Trick To A Lifetime Of Happiness"

Oh crap. Imagine BuzzFeed but for ancient philosophers and classic literature. Awesome.

You won't BELIEVE what this vagrant philosopher said to the king of Macedon!

King of Macedon: "What can I do for you, o wise hobo?" Philosopher: "Well, you could move over. You block my sun".

There is a philosophical take on tabloid articles (based on The Daily Mail, a UK tabloid): http://www.philosophersmail.com/

I would throw up.

Basicaly those readers try not to waste time on reading old creazy guys from ancient past. It is easier to get pieces here and there on random internet sites.

I would sum this article with such quote:

"It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it. Life is long enough, and it has been given in sufficiently generous measure to allow the accomplishment of the very greatest things if the whole of it is well invested. But when it is squandered in luxury and carelessness, when it is devoted to no good end, forced at last by the ultimate necessity we perceive that it has passed away before we were aware that it was passing." On the shortness of life - Seneca

tldr

One of the philosophy scholars you mention, Alain De Botton, wrote an entertaining and insightful book called How Proust Will Change Your Life (or something along those lines).

His goal was to make notoriously dense writings accessible to everyday people who are interested in literature.

I think this piece about life as a video game has a similar goal. Just as I would rather learn about Proust through Alain De Botton, I would rather learn about philosophy through the contemporary vehicle of video games.

Just to add, Alain De Botton also has several documentaries exploring philosophical ideas at a layman's level.

And there's a major logical error in it:

> At the start of the game, you had no control over who you were or your environment. By the end of the game that becomes true again.

This implies that you have some sort of control between the start and the end - which is completely untrue, because:

What genes you get from your parents and in what environment you are put will determine everything that will happen in your head. And everything that happens in your life, has its inception in your head (over which you could never have the slightest control).

This is also the reason why whe should all have the same rights (and wealth), independently of the fact of how well we were (and therefor now are) "equipped": There is no such thing as a "free will".

Everything in your life is nothing but a function of 2 variables:

1) Your inherited genes

2) Your inherited initial location

It means we can never be judged by anyone.

EDIT: The above is not based on any beliefs (as in "religious" beliefs), it's pure logic. (So, when I wrote "is completely untrue", I meant "is completely illogic".)

EDIT II: Sorry, I can't recommend any literature for this. It's all based on my own thinking.

But actually, you don't need any book, because I can't call this a "worldview", I can only call it: "100% pure logic". (Meaning: no cultural/religious/otherwise arbitrary beliefs allowed.)

So, if you can think logically and are willing to do some mental work, you - and everybody else who does it - will automatically get there. That's kind of the beauty of logic - it's the only thing/law in the universe that seems to be an absolute/unquestionable truth, everything else being invented by somebody.

This is Determinism, which is a very old idea (not to say it's wrong - just that this is a philosophical debate that rages on). There are lots of interesting works written on it versus Free Will.

My main issue with it is it seems to discount random events - and at a quantum level, it seems like there are genuinely random events, like radioactive decay. So it's not really accurate to say there are only two variables, there are really countless ones, and even small changes (like a few atoms splitting here and there) could lead to something like cancer in a friend or relative, having a serious impact on one's life. Still isn't an argument for the existence of free will though.

You're getting unfairly voted down rather than responded to.

A reasonable disagreement is pointing out you're assuming zero randomness in the universe (which includes in your head, and everyone elses head, I'm not a mind-body dualist) so no development of unique new ideas, or having unique new experiences or perceptions, both of which feed on each other to generate new echos of randomness long after something interesting happens. Also it assumes no social interaction with others however distantly linked to "interesting random people" even if the individual and their direct contacts are in fact really boring (aka effect of arts in general).

That is a much more productive form of disagreement than hitting the down button.

(Edited to add I think you're getting downvoted because of a cultural-linguistic meme or bug that whenever someone in the USA spins a story with "can't or don't judge" that usually means its a known and obvious statement of fact that they did something they and everyone else knows is wrong, and they have no better spin option. Last (modern) refuge of a scoundrel. Thus the downvotes)

Are there truly random events at the sub-atomic level? Or could it be simply that we don't understand yet what's happening but everything is deterministic? If it's the former, then there is no destiny, it is not determined.

The effect of these tiny random events would propagate upwards and perhaps cause an apple to fall from a tree. A sub-atomic particle vibrating randomly in a certain way could fire a neuron, giving you a new thought.

Even if life isn't determined, can you really say there is free will? You can't control the way that sub-atomic particles will behave, you may have the illusion of control in your head but at the end of the day it would come down to physics and randomness.

Personally, I don't find this opinion a healthy one, so I tend not to dwell on it much.

I like the idea of seeing life as deterministic or not. It's definitely a matter of "belief" when you put it that way. Although my scientific mind tells me nothing would exist if true random didn't exist. Thus the universe is not deterministic. But that's a question we'll never be able to answer anyway.

This is why I downvoted the parents by the way. I feel like there is no safe discussion when it starts with strong opinions ("which is completely untrue"). There is no right or wrong here so better be open minded.

> you're assuming zero randomness in the universe

No, actually not. The current state of research in quantum physics makes it look like there is randomness. But the thing about randomness is: Nobody has any control over it. So again, life (and the universe) may not be fully deterministic, but we have no absolute responsibility for whatever happens (only a relative one, relative to our culture, that is).

> Also it assumes no social interaction with others

No, of course we have social interactions, which influence us. But they are themselves a function of 1) our genes (i.e. whom we approach or not) and 2) our initial location (with all its properties).

> But the thing about randomness is: Nobody has any control over it.

Again, you're stating things as facts that there's no reason to believe are actually true. There are models in which quantum randomness does allow for free will, and no one knows whether they're right.

There are models in which one controls random events?

The multiverse theory, in case you're unfamiliar, says that each time there are different ways a quantum event could go, the universe splits into multiple universes, one in which it went each way. There is an extension to this in which free will is manifested by your consciousness following a given universe in each split.

This has the strange consequence that only you have free will, as perceived by your own consciousness. I don't think this makes any less sense than anything else related to quantum physics, but it is definitely weird.

> This implies that you have some sort of control between the start and the end - which is completely untrue.

You're just saying you believing in destiny.

I believe the inverse. And we will never know the truth so please don't start with a "which is completely untrue" when it's just an opinion.

Causality (in which most people believe, even though they never abstracted it far enough to realize the implications)

Causality doesn't imply you have no control at all in your life.

Yes it does, it means every "frame" (yay video games terms) of your life, including the complete state of your mind, is a cause of the previous "frame".

Every decision is a product of your experience and state of mind, that are the product of you previous decisions, that are the product of your previous experience.. something, something!

This completely ignores that you have choice.

You can go get another beer, as would be expected given you had three previously and chose to come to a bar, or you can choose to go home and sleep, or get in your car and drive, or swear off drinking forever.

The fact that options are present to you because of your previous choices (causality) is irrelevant to the fact that you still have full control over what option you select (free will).

Yes, but to speak in video games term, you can still move the arrow of your character. Of course your decision are the product of your previous experience + a lot of other factors. But I believe there is a random factor, when we make a decision, we do choose one over the other.

We'll never know anyway, but I feel like there would be nothing, no universe, no life, no space etc... if there was not this "random" thing.

Randomness isn't exactly how most people would define control either.

Nevertheless, I agree with your critique of determinism. Think outside the "system". Nobody knows why stuff exists or why it behaves the way it does, it's all just observation and ideas.

Well, I'm at the opposite scale of thinking.

I think that inherited genes and location only plays a smaller part - but it depends on the person. For a normal western person my personal belief is that it is less than 10%.

I am a strong believer in free will and it's what makes us so different than animals. Animals have insticts and very little free will.

The thing is that if you believe in free will you have more free will as you will change your way of thinking. At least I believe that.

Back in 2007 I wrote an essay "Life As a Game of Chess": http://www.jimwestergren.com/life-as-a-game-of-chess/

> I am a strong believer in free will and it's what makes us so different than animals. Animals have instincts and very little free will.

Let me give you a friendly advice. Belief in free will has a purpose on it's own, just like belief in God. But if you choose to believe, stay away from attempts to explain it scientifically. You will only waste everyone's time and energy. Just assume free will as a fact and move on.

And keep animals out of it. They have as much free will as you.

As if science wasn't a belief system as well. As long as the source of your ideas is observation (as in all sciences) you have nothing but belief.

The advantage of science isn't that it can proof stuff (which it can't) but that it is open for change instead of being dogmatic.

Actually, the advantage of science is that it can predict the future in an accurate fashion.

Ergo: I know x will happen because when all the variables are the same in the past, x has always happened.

The accuracy of the prediction is what changes in science, which is why it is a better system to use for predicting future events than other dogma based systems.

Ergo: Recently discovered factor y can be changed as a variable, and this accounts for x sometimes not happening the same way. We must account for this as a variable too.

>> but it depends on the person

And what makes the person? A Person is an amalgamation of inherited genes and collated personal experiences. Most of the personal experiences are a direct result of your location.

I think it is very important for us to go easy on someone who has gone astray or in our opinion is not living a life the way we think it is ought to be lived.

A Person who is a firm believer in free will would not judge anyone or for that matter force his/her view on anyone else.

If we can never be judged then you cannot judge those who support our current system of inequality of rights and wealth - they are just acting according to their two variables.

Wrong. When I say "you cannot judge", I mean "moral" judgment. Which is not to be confused with "sanctions" (like a criminal must sometimes be separated from society to protect the latter, via a prison sentence).

You are still making a value judgement.

That is, why shouldn't people with genes more suited to the environment they live in enjoy more success?

To answer that question, you have to assign some values to things, which is not a strictly logical process.

I've been looking for a book or other source that makes a case for this worldview in a straightforward, logical way that is as simple as possible (but no simpler).

Can you recommend one?

haven't read it, but i believe Sam Harris has written a book that attempts to do that

I would rather read a short article with pictures then read a 300+ page book. Both of them are subjective views anyway, it's not an exact science.

It's actually as objective as you get, if there is such a thing as "rational".

Rationality is the main principle of "exact" science too, and is a good tool to work within what we know.

Unfortunately, it's also a limitation, and maybe what's preventing us from transcending our bonds[1].

[1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133093/

I view it as a sanity check that's preventing us from transcending from reality into imagination, which might or might not have anything to do with how world works.

There is the Philosophy in the Mathematics. It is a real branch like geometry or anything else. Socrate and others are simple to read.

Something can be subjective and stupid.

Yes, but the contents of the article can be discussed here today. Because it's short.

This article isn't interesting because of philosophy or because it says something important about life. Nice thing is the way it shows life and computer game in parallel. So it has nothing in common with reading philosophy book. (unless you mean after reading philosophy book one won't waste his time on stupid things like this)

William Irvine's book - http://www.amazon.com/Guide-Good-Life-Ancient-Stoic-ebook/dp...

is a great summary of Seneca and Aristotle's stoic perspectives. It's not a long book and gives a nice overview of the highlights of stoicism.

Seneca's essays aren't terribly long, either.

http://www.amazon.com/Stoic-Philosophy-Seneca-Essays-Letters...

In the end most of those books have a huge build-up, but if you truly understand them, you can sum them up in one sentence. "If you got hurt you will hurt others". "Everything you do is egoistical". "Everything is choice". "There is no choice".

But then again, you don't need books for that. If you have the luxury (or curse) of being rational, you're 10 (5 maybe) and you're already having fatalist/whateverist thoughts. Then the next day you think about it, and realize it doesn't change anything in your life, and you move on. Then 10 years later you finally get to study the concept (or read it on a blog) and, well, it still doesn't solve or introduce any problem in your reality.

People who think/act irrationally aren't sensitive and don't find revelation when they read or hear about those principles, only confirmation where they can. There are things that happen in life that can shake you up and change you, but from a piece of text you'll only assimilate what's aligned with your views, IMHO.

Agreed, and I'd like to add that there's a reason why a few thousand years after Aristotle (and the rest) we still don't know a good recipe for a happy/whatever life.

On the contrary, we know so many recipes, and some have proven much better than others, while some have become obsolete. Its like asking for "the" (singular) recipe for cooking food.

What the philosophers are good at, is helping the reader come up with a logical method for making value judgments about those recipes. Its (mostly) not "here's a great piece of source code" its mostly more like "and this is why OO design is better (or not)".

I like the social contract, Marxism, Schopenhauer's writings, what we've learned in psychiatry, and so on...

I immediately thought of just 'Finite and Infinite Games' just from the title of this post.

“There are at least two kinds of games. One could be called finite; the other infinite.”

Aristotle thought that women had fewer teeth than men.

And Newton believed in alchemy. Doesn't mean we should disregard his entire body of work.

That may be true. We'd need to find out how many teeth each gender has on average.

Here's a guess: Women, on the average, are older than men. So women, on the average, have fewer teeth.

Sounds logical. But, and I'm not sure if it's correlated with gender, my mother and her mother both have several baby teeth with permanent teeth above them still, so there are cases like that screwing with the data.

On a related note, Google Image search for "baby skull teeth" is quite interesting.

Fewer teeth in their mouths .. don't go there if you're squeamish.

Seneca and Aristotle were building off information already passed on to them so its probably older than that.

Aristotle (and Seneca but especially Aristotle) meticulously mentioned their sources. They had tons of original and unprecedented thoughts besides those anyway.

Sigh. Hacker News top comment. It's not "wow this is great!" or "nice work, great illustrations, I'll show this to my students!"

It's "I'm so irritated that I already knew what you just told me and I learned it from a better source that I want to assault you!! Why don't you read the same things I read!!?"

Dont know bout you but im lapping up all the wonderful references to books & authors. -cheers

There is biking aphorism that comes to mind, if you stare at that stump you WILL hit it.

It's true and not just in biking:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_fixation