^ Hahahaha. +1

Harry Potter.

Locke is not a bad jumping-in point -- his Essay Concerning Human Understanding is pretty accessible if you want some empiricist epistemology, and his Essays on Government were some of the most influential things ever written. Of course, the conversation has gone on a lot from there (on both counts), but that will be true no matter what you read.

Peter Singer.
Eliezer Yudkowsky.
Scott Alexander.

@Chumbles
Do you remember the author of Total Man? I wasn't able to track it down from the title alone.

Is it a book about living a more whole, fully integrated life -- like being a Renaissance man?

Thoreau

Also take a look at the Zhuangzi

The Zhuangzi is a fantastic Daoist text. I still love best the (much) older Tao Te Ching (Daodejing).

A fantastic book that helps with the understanding not only of Daoism, but Confucism as well is Trying Not to Try by Edward Slingerland.

A key cipher ancient Chinese Philosophy is to know that wu wei wu ("action through non-action") really means subtlety and learning to see what actions are self-defeating. That is the real Dao (path).

Of course, there's always Candide.

The tao Te ching is a lot shorter and more readable but I think the Zhuangzi is a lot more challenging in a good way, and deeper. The passage about "Genhine Human Beings," the part about the Heavenly Potter's Wheel, and about Walking Two Roads... These are lessons that stick with you, whereas the TTC is really better as a summary or introductory text to these ideas

Candide is great. Read Candide. Preferably right before or after reading a taoist text - that'll get your gears turning!

@fiedler

"Choose life not philosophy" might be a crude way to put it, but the idea is itself a legitimate philosophical position. Many of the best philosophers were very unacademic, and are often not even listed among philosophers, because they preferred life and action. I would count Thoreau in that number, Diogenes and Jesus too.

My dear Thucydides. I am familiar with Zen. Philosophy and 'life' need not be mutually exclusive, indeed I am not much interested in one without the other.

In my interpretation philosophy does not necessarily imply academics at all. Which is pretty much EXACTLY what I said in my original post. Boy you guys are good at creating an argument out of nothing. Keep stirring dingus.

Theyre not mutually exclusive at all, exactly. That's the contribution of the "lived" philosophers. A lot of philosophy though is academic, and can even be aggressively so. Therefore, the advice you reacted against is not bad advice at all

Perhaps Thucy is referring to the eleventh thesis on Feuerbach!

At any rate, I think that Candide is an excellent book. Pay good attention to Candide's teacher, as I think he has valuable insights to give. Though perhaps you ought to read Leibniz first.

pangloss is a fake taoist

The Bhagavad Gita works as a counter-point to Taoism run amok/Panglossianism (at least the type from Candide -- I mean no disparagement to our Pangloss).

I think of the Tao/Dao as being descriptive and the Gita working to be perspective once we know where we are embedded in the social order. Sometimes we have to do stuff that has almost no chance of working. We shouldn't be attached to those results.

Can you elaborate? I don't think the Gita is counter to Taoism, they seem to align to me.

I think they align on non-attachment to the end, but they seem to differ to me on the wisdom of what to do about something that is highly unlikely to work.

I'm going to ground this in my profession: teaching. To me, to remind a kid of something over and over again is not wu wei wu (action through non-action). It is completely the kind of action that the more you do, the less effect you have. Daoism thus is descriptive here. It is more effective per unit of energy to wait and do nothing . . . do nothing and allow a natural consequence to happen, and calmly, compassionately show the kid the error at a moment when they actually care.

But this becomes a trap, what the Gita calls a "dark passion" -- neglect of your duty. Even though a kid is probably not going to listen to me, hell, even though each time I reexplain it lowers the chances they are listening, there are just some things that are my duty to try to help with.

I'll also approach this another way -- we can become addicted to stillness. We need large doses of stillness and tranquility, but it is possible to have to much. To me, the Gita explains this wrinkle of spiritual life better.

Hm, that sounds like a misreading of the Taoist texts to me, with respect to your own view. Your "duty" as, say, a teacher is something that your own personal inertia, societal inertia, or what have you, can lead you to perform, regardless of any chances of "success." That word success would not mean much to a Taoist. There simply is, there is not success or failure, there is just existence. I recall the bit in the TTC about how calling some things good makes other things become bad.

And I also recall this: What is a good man but a bad man's teacher? What is a bad man but a good man's job? If you don't understand this, you will get lost, no matter how intelligent you are. It is the great secret.

This to me says - hey - do what you're made to do. If you're a teacher, and it's in you to do that, go on reminding and doing anything else that a different kind of thinker might label "futile." Nothing is futile. You do what you are led to do, and no more. This is wei wu wei. Do you work, and step back.

I've got a few passages in mind that I'll look up when I get home for further discussion, probably starting a new thread, but for now let's take what you are saying.

If I am good enough with calming techniques nothing ever has to become my problem. And to that I think the Dao would say "you do you." I at least know that's all the trees and the animals end up saying.

The Gita goes at it from a different angle, making nods to renunciation and self-calming, but ultimately giving more urgency to action (but no more urgency to results).

My bottom line for tonight: people should read TTC, the Z and the Gita. I'll be happy to start a new thread tomorrow.

"I at least know that's all the trees and the animals end up saying"

That's the point. For all our thinking, we're no different from tbem. We just do whatever we end up doing, it's just as physical despite all our mental baggage. The taoist says, just go ahead and do it, cut out the unnecessary complication

@kahudd: our taoist teacher reminds us of things over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again

A pair beliefs I don't share with Baghavad Gita (nor with christianity, by the way):
1. A personal god
2. Rebirth after death

@principians

On some level the Gita doesn't agree with #1 either. It is an Upanishad, building off the idea that "thou art that." The Gita is non-dualist, though I admit having Krishna come as an Avatar does confuse things.

The Gita was mentioned in Walden as one of Thoreau's favorite books, one of the "eternities" we should read in lieu of the reading the "news." I don't see a way for him thinking that with the surface level story. Instead, I think he to is going with it's non-dualism.

@principians

I don't think the Gita propounds those two things in the way that you think it does, or it doesn't have to.

It's not a personal god it speaks of, but a personal soul. A you. And it's not a literal reincarnation it speaks of, but of the existence of eternity, and your participation in it.

Thanks father Thucy! Maybe we could just copy paste from your brain and overwrite principians. We (probably) have the technology.

Snarf.

http://31.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m94h5jZuOW1r6klheo1_400.gif

"And it's not a literal reincarnation it speaks of, but of the existence of eternity, and your participation in it."
How do I know it's not just a modern interpretation?
Er, fiedler, thucy, what are you suggesting with your last comments?