How to Use Philosophy as a Personal Operating System: From Seneca to Musashi

Alex3917 13 years ago |

If you want to know where the metaphor of philosophy as an operating system comes from:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9c8an2XZ3MU

(The video is called Culture Is Your Operating System, but what he's talking about is the philosophical assumptions that are completely invisible unless you find a way to step outside your culture.)

davidtanner 13 years ago | |

Not to belabor the point, but I think it bears repeating that Terence McKenna recommended a chemical perturbation of the brain, that is, a visionary substance, be used in order to 'step outside your culture'.

Some substances can temporarily remove/obscure one's entire personality structure and linguistic faculties while enhancing awareness. Such an experience offers one the opportunity to truly exist outside their biographical circumstances for a time.

Alex3917 13 years ago | | |

"Terence McKenna recommended a chemical perturbation of the brain, that is, a visionary substance, be used in order to 'step outside your culture'."

So does Tim Ferriss. Here is a short YouTube clip of him talking about his views:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcqXRDqjIpo

But the better source is probably his original interview with Joe Rogan.

Roritharr 13 years ago | | |

So are we again talking about scientists encouraging young people to drop acid?

davidtanner 13 years ago | | |

Well, at least in the USA, advocating that someone consume an illegal drug is itself illegal.

However, old people can benefit greatly from the proper use of psychedelic drugs. Certain types of psychedelic experiences, called unitive experiences, have been found to be very effective in alleviating death anxiety. More information can be found through searching but this video should be informative: http://www.maps.org/videos/source/video14.html

Two excellent, little known books about the phenomenology of psychedelic experiences are:

_The Antipodes of the Mind: Charting the Phenomenology of the Ayahuasca Experience_ http://www.amazon.com/Antipodes-Mind-Phenomenology-Ayahuasca...

Comments: This is a truly excellent book, it's published by OUP and the scholarship is the best I've ever seen in a book about psychedelics. Benny Shannon is a cognitive psychologist and philosophy and he's personally taken Ayahuasca over 200 times in addition to gathering second hand reports from many informants over years of investigation. In particular, he stresses commonalities between different people's Ayahuasca experiences despite vast cultural differences in their lives as well as the idea that Ayahuasca experiences proceed in sequences reminiscent of a course of schooling.

_The Ecstatic Imagination: Psychedelic Experiences and the Psychoanalysis of Self-Actualization_ http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Ecstatic_Imagination...

Comments: This book is also very strong in its own right, although I think that the Antipodes book is superior. In _The Ecstatic Imagination_ Dan Merkur takes a dispassionate, objective phenomenological view of psychedelic experiences. The many, many block quoted experience reports from drug-takers using LSD, mescaline and psilocybin are the best part of this book. Merkur has taken almost all of these reports from published works about psychedelic psychotherapy and they illustrate the diversity and healing potential of psychedelic experiences.

vinnylohan 13 years ago | |

Awesome mate!

tangue 13 years ago |

Well, one of the most famous disciple of Seneca, was Nero (yes the infamous emperor)... As long as you believe that there is such a thing like a "Personal operating system", it's a long way to understand stoicism. If you really spend a lot of time reading Seneca and Marcus Aurelius (I don't encourage you to do so, I did because I learned latin as a teen ) you'll realize that these writings are deeply connected to the context of the first century in the Roman Empire. Many of these thoughts have percolated through Christianism, that's why they're able to reach most westerners today, but remember that stoicism has failed to change romans, both individually and as a society.

zdw 13 years ago | |

Hedonism and capitalism have served us better as a society?

Judging a philosophy based on the merits of select adherents does not a representative sample make.

tangue 13 years ago | | |

I suppose that by hedonism you mean materialism, and I get your point. What I was trying to say is that it's tempting to believe that some kind of ancient wisdom could guide your life (indeed I'm sure Tim Ferris doesn't believe it himself, but some readers might). But ideas are reactions to a very specific reality, and even in the context of this reality these ideas didn't work. It doesn't mean that there is nothing valuable in the stoics' writings, just that using these thoughts as a "Personal Operating System" is as useful as installing MS-DOS on a smartphone

friggeri 13 years ago |

I can't recommend enough A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy[1]. It's a great and modern introduction to stoicism.

[1]: http://www.amazon.com/Guide-Good-Life-Ancient-Stoic/dp/01953...

Anth-ny 13 years ago |

>Marcus Aurelius and his book Meditations, which was effectively a war campaign journal.

I don't think he understands what the book is about.

aristus 13 years ago | |

Of course he doesn't. This is Tim Ferris. He didn't spend more than 4 hours on this crap.

MDS100 13 years ago | | |

Haha so true. All pareto all the time.

mgallivan 13 years ago | |

I think it's more of a comment on when/where the book was written rather than what it is about. It is a journal he kept while on campaign.

dschiptsov 13 years ago |

Art Of War? Book of Five Rings? Huh?) Seems like 4 hours for research is not enough..

And, of course, Meditations isn't any war journal.)

pfortuny 13 years ago |

If your philosophy starts in Seneca you've got a problem: missing the real thing (Plato & Aristoteles to boot but many others as well).

noirman 13 years ago |

I can't believe he used "Operating System" as "Decision Making Framework".

vinnylohan 13 years ago |

good read along similar lines - On War: Carl von Clausewitz

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/117031.On_War

deveshz 13 years ago |

Philosophy and Technology mixed together.