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Spinoza is wrong about the concept of the God. God is a convergent force. So his works of description of God is useless and not accurate.

This always seemed impractical to me in most cases without a substantially generalized and simplified form of evaluation. Pain and pleasure also seem too subjective to quantify. Arguably pain serves a useful function as well to alert us to the damage being done to our bodies, so hedonistic frameworks that state that "pain is bad" never seemed right to me. Pain is only "undesirable", not "bad". Harm is generally bad: a doctor shouldn't harm their patients, but a doctor might be required to inflict some pain to actually reduce harm to their patients. Avoiding threats to collective survival seems like a more useful root maxim to me, from which we can quickly derive the need to generally avoid causing harm. Are there any consequentialist philosophers that think similar to me? I'll try to lay it out below. ---- Heuristic Evaluation I seem to be a heuristic type of consequentialist, so I often see questioning what everyone should do as a form of aggregated, heuristic consequentialist evaluation, the only practical way to think consequentially. It's generally impossible to ask what the foreseeable consequences (or expectancies within a probability field) are if only one person does something one time, but easier to tell by considering the consequences if everyone does something all the time (or if that one person repeats this behavior many times habitually). As an example, it might be impossible to tell that smoking cigarettes is unethical if we consider people who smoke only one time, or only have one person in mind, given that there exist anomalies where smokers live past 100 years of age without developing the associated health problems or becoming so addicted that they turn into chain-smokers (Emma Morano, e.g., ). Yet it's much easier to tell that smoking cigarettes is unethical (moving our local society towards its collapse) if we imagine the foreseeable consequences when everyone is a habitual chain-smoker. ---- Contextualization Yet I think practicality also demands contextualization and not the most generalized form of universalization, so rule utilitarianism and deontology also generally seems impractical to me if everyone is to follow those rules at all times. In fact, the more we can accurately contextualize without errors and deviate from such universalized rules, the better as I see it. The degree of contextualization vs. generalization I always found appropriate is with respect to the threshold in which we can clearly trace back predictable consequences to a society. For example, I must concede that it's probably quite harmless to the preservation of a society if a person smokes cigarettes a few times in their life without addiction, but presently even medical professionals can't foresee who can do that without becoming addicted. So I generalize -- as a form of risk-aversion given my limited predictive ability -- and conclude: "No one should ever smoke cigarettes even once; it's too risky." But if we accumulate more reliable data, we might be able to contextualize this a bit further to, "People who are prone to nicotine addiction should never smoke cigarettes even once," but I find that an impractical degree of contextualization at the moment since we can't reliably tell -- without significant risk of errors -- who those people are. We shouldn't contextualize further than we can confidently predict the consequences/expectancies, especially in cases where errors resulting from over-contextualization are very costly. ---- Specificity Likewise given our epistemic limits, I find we generally need to avoid predicting consequences in overly specific ways if any errors resulting from over-specifying the results are too costly. For example, unless a meteorologist can forecast exactly what neighborhoods will be affected by a hurricane without any practical risk of error, he should generalize his prediction to a more generalized region so that any error results in too many people seeking safety measures and not too few. I cannot imagine any practical scenario where a person can arrive at an estimated and quantified variable like fecundity across a global scale or over a nontrivial period of time on a localized scale, as another example. These are all generally just heuristic patterns to accurately arrive at probable consequences. We err against over-specifying the consequences and err against over-contextualizing the cases in which we predict their likelihood.

I seem to be in the odd camp that sees it as unethical to disconnect myself from the violinist. He is just as much a victim as I am, and while I never agreed to this situation, his survival now depends on me. Waiting such a short while is a small price to pay to avoid being responsible for his passing. However, the real wrongdoing I see comes from the Society of Music Lovers who put us in this situation. I would strongly advocate for stopping them from ever forcing this on anyone again, with severest legal consequences. I don't even consider my consent relevant. For example, take the case of conjoined twins. If I were born attached to a twin and wanted to separate at some point, but a doctor told me that waiting a little while would mean my twin could survive, I would consider it my moral duty to wait. Note that I'm only critiquing the violinist argument in this case. >> Surely executing an action directly or letting a consequence occur naturally are two entirely different things and should be judged differently. Not always in ethical contexts in my view. If a parent neglects their child to the point where they freeze to death, we don’t say they simply let them die - we must hold them responsible. Society cannot condone that level of neglect. The same applies if firefighters stood by and refused to respond to burning buildings while people were trapped inside. Even if they didn’t cause the fire, their refusal to act would be unacceptable. We have proximal responsibilities to each other. Emphasis on "proximal" since practically demands that I cannot be held responsible for every single starving child on the planet. Yet if I'm a parent, I am absolutely responsible for making sure my own child does not starve in this proximal fashion. Also if I have plenty of water to spare and I encounter a person dying of thirst, I would consider is my duty to share my water. It is not merely a generosity but a duty to my fellow human being. That doesn't mean I am responsible, however, for every single person dying of thirst. It doesn't mean I'm responsible for the violinist's death if I didn't find myself plugged to him, as I have immediate responsibilities around me that I must effectively prioritize and that we must effectively distribute between us in a proximal fashion. >> Tell me what you think in the comments. I would be happy to hear whether you find the argument convincing or not. I am thoroughly unconvinced. My view of ethics is extremely simple. Our actions either move us closer to our preservation (ethical) or further towards our extinction (unethical). Determining in which direction we're moving can be extremely complicated from an epistemic standpoint given the sea of uncertainties, and demands epistemic humility, practical distribution of responsibilities, and risk-aversion against actions which risk catastrophic consequences. Yet the criterion is extremely simple: the only complexity is epistemic in nature and not conflicts within the framework itself. I don't find the distinction between negative and positive rights, or between passivity and activity, always relevant in this regard. What is of potential ethical relevance to me is that if every single pregnant woman were to needlessly have an elective abortion, our entire species would go extinct within a single generation. We at least can't afford too many of them at once, in the same way we can't afford too many passive firefighters on a fire fighting team who refuse to save people. We might be able to afford a few of them, but never too many or else it's thoroughly counter-productive for our collective survival.

Dr. Schweitzer was an exceptional man. He was a true Christian, not only in words, but more importantly,, in deeds. He was inspired by the Revelation of Baha'u'llah, Prophet-Founder of the Baha'i Faith, one of whose teachings s the harmony of science and religion, and that all the world religions come from God. God is Love. The doctor knew this, and now that he's in the next world, he really knows it.

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Thanks!

Thanks!

Thanks!

The hard kernel of how to live.

Great video. Very nuanced and insightful.

Oh crap you are a pseudoscience channel. Man, here I thought I found at least a good philosophy channel. Also, you are lying about Johnny Harris's video. He mentions the reason why a lot of civilizations build pyramids. They are the most structural sound shape to build. Also a theory does not graduate to a law. Laws are different from theories.

Okay, not-stoic: Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Seneca “Letters from the stoic”

Marcus Aurelius “Meditations”. It is pretty hard to read, so maybe it is good idea to search for version what is called “Adapted for the Contemporary Reader”, but I am totally okay for original if streamer is.

Similar to Martin Bubers I-Thou I-it relationships

It’s frustrating how much we, as a society, remain ignorant about the deeper aspects of life. It’s absurd that so few of us make an effort to engage with the profound questions that philosophers have wrestled with for centuries. While our technology has advanced rapidly, it feels like we’ve taken a step backward philosophically. We’ve become consumed by a culture of consumerism chasing material things that don’t truly matter, while neglecting the wisdom and insights that could lead to a more meaningful existence. People spend so much time on distractions while there are incredible resources, like this channel, offering content of such high quality that encourages genuine contemplation.

No doubt AI can save time. When used as you suggest it is an improvement over the library card catalog (does anyone remember those?). Maybe the student gets better at writing. I'm not convinced because current word processing programs can correct spelling, punctuation and grammar. I guess the point is that these tools can help one learn, but one must want to learn. It's not a display of skills if you let AI do all the research, then cut/paste some of that information and let your computer be your editor. I've heard that professors from even some elite U.S. universities now encounter students who have never read an entire book, and no longer have the attention span do do so. So the professors now assign fewer, or no, full books. To me, that is sad, and it doesn't bode well for the future. It must be very frustrating for the professors, not to mention that future employers will have little to gain from hiring these students. If all you need to do is have AI write the paper, who needs the employee?

Its almost laughable the manner in which theu ostrasized me ....but im not laughing

Fantastic , love this content can't wait for next week's video. Thank you

Is All Life Holy? Did Schweitzer answer this question? Did he think Gd manifested himself in the humans who destroy, harm, or hinder life, which he defined as evil? Did he think the lives of those who commit horrific atrocities are to be valued equally with the lives of the innocent victims of those atrocities?

Beautiful the animations everything beautiful

Great, I enjoyed this very much thank you

The reduction is by no additions and much removals this helps any mind calm so listening to the wind and the sights of sun set with less interferencevin

Fantastic, I enjoy this very much. I would like to listen live but I'm at work. As always thank you

Was Spinoza married?

Answer: Yes

I love the work and philosophical beliefs of Dr. Albert Schweitzer. I hope to follow his teachings on Reverence for Life and carry on his legacy.

Thank you so much!

I have enjoyed your channels and I am still enjoying thank you. I am looking forward to next week's reading.

Thank you all for being here and watching this! I hope you enjoy our little Epicurean chat. See you next week at the same time! And, by the way, it seems like we will be done with Epicurus in another two sessions or so. What do we want to read next? Any suggestions? Another ancient philosopher? A Stoic perhaps? Or Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza, Kant? I'm open to all suggestions except continental philosophy (Heidegger, Husserl, Nietzsche, Foucault) because I don't know enough about them.

Great, thoroughly enjoyed it. I can't watch it live but will watch it later

Thank you for watching! I'm new to streaming, so if you'd like to help me improve, please tell me what you think that I could change to make the livestream better for you! See you next week. The times are in the description above, but I'll also put them here: US: Sunday, 8pm Eastern Time US: Sunday, 5pm Pacific Time UK and elsewhere: Sunday to Monday, 0:00 UTC daily-philosophy.com/epicurus-principal-doctrines-explained/ See you then!

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Very interesting, thanks again.

There are no "Facts" of Philisophy.

I can't wait for this to start. I watch almost all of your videos time permitting. Personally I won't be able to watch Sunday/Monday but I will watch later. Thank you so much for this content.

Many thanks to all who watched this, either live or later! Let's meet again next Monday! See the thumbnail or watch the video for the exact times of our live book club.

Thank you for this! Although, one might add, sometimes other values may be more important than happiness. For example, a parent might choose to sacrifice their own life in order to save their children in a particular situation. Or a soldier may participate in a war out of a sense of duty, rather than in pursuit of their happiness. But I agree with you that we should always be mindful of the suffering we cause to other beings. Thanks!

suffering is the death of happiness. the less suffering, the more happiness. that is why every religion is about suffering, and every human journey about the pursuit of happiness. that is why. utilitarianism is about the best possible outcome for the most amount of entities. And since the only universal value we can see humans trying to achieve is what we colloquially call happiness, is indeed to lower our level of suffering. All humans did, invent and make up is to reduce suffering. We built houses to beat the cold, we invented farming to beat the uncertainty of hunger, we came up with art and music to distract and cope. All of human endeavour is about reduction of suffering and the uncertainty of tomorrow. And if we do this universally, then we must assume it is a natural drive, which means other life shares is; and indeed proliferation, a certain kind of harmonious stability, some complacency even, can very well be what nature would also experience as happiness; less suffering, less stress, more stability and harmony. And when that is true, we need to consider their suffering too. That does not mean you need to go full vegan, but at the very least understand what the contract of mutual domestication means, and never underestimate the suffering you can cause to something else.

I am a fan of Oneness... thank you Baruch. And thank you for your video reminding Spinoza's incredibly strong insight on reality. Jesus said :"Philip, don't you believe I am in God, and God is in me ?" (John 14:11). God and his creation are ONE. We are in God, and God in us.

I sure would live to meet Spinoza followers

I dont know we are gods or not but I like people who think and wonder about everything and any thing

I saw Jesus Christ Superstar in The Netherlands when it first came out and I absolutely loved it, so much so that I bought the record! Ted Neeley, Mary Magdalene, and Judas were especially memorable. I certainly can imagine how playing JC for a long time would permeate one's own character. Actors, of course, say they 'become' their characters but shake it off when they finish playing it. I agree that good behaviours and thoughts must become habits but it is very, very difficult to shake off bad habits, or ones not conducive to the good ones. In a way, we are all actors in this respect and, as Shakespeare said, all the world is a stage!

So what? What will you do with this theory. Does this theory make any difference or help making life happy? I

is he ai?

He's not the most hated, hatred is about emotions, and we are here in pure philosophical rationality. To me he's the most criticized because the less understood... because too intelligent for the average thinker, and with a very verbose way of writing making his thoughts difficult to grasp.

Its a great video sir, your voice has a really soothing and calming effect. Sir in india we consider stoicism as western version of buddhism. Stoicism is in our view a practical implication of madhyamika, the middle path of buddhism. Sir I would like to request you if you can make videos on buddhism, especially on nagarjuna and shunyata, dependent origination.

Sir thankyou somuch for making these videos, its so soothing and sublime. It gives me peace and containtment. 🙏🏻🙏🏻 Sir i would request you if you can please make videos on buddhism especials madhyamika, nagarjuna and his theory of emptiness and dependent origination. It my humble request to you.🙏🏻🙏🏻