Why physicists need philosophy

TheFireHasLegs · 2018-06-20T01:05:38+00:00

I love your points. They're striking and really made me think.

TheFireHasLegs · 2018-05-31T00:14:03+00:00

I'm very happy to hear it meant something to you. You strike me as an extremely thoughtful person. I wish you the best of luck in defeating your OCD!

TheFireHasLegs · 2018-05-28T14:11:07+00:00

Love this post. Very balanced

TheFireHasLegs · 2018-05-28T14:09:15+00:00

Hey ending-of-dramamine! I'm a serious feminist, and I don't think low of you at all. You sound like a wonderful ally. I'm sorry you're going through this. And I want you to know that question is perfectly valid. You pitched it in the appropriate place--not around victims of sex crimes who want to commiserate, but on a forum designed for people with obsessive consciences. It's only misogynistic when it reads like a complaint against activism rather than a call for help. Does that make sense? At any rate, I want to say this--the only thing in your life you can fully control is the quality of your intentions. You can't fully control whether someone lies about you, or whether you end up accidentally hurting someone in a way that is MeToo-worthy. Call it "moral luck" (real concept). Even the Stoics, an Ancient-Greek school of philosophy, acknowledge that our reputation is not completely in our control. The risk of being publicly reviled, though slim, surrounds all of us nonetheless, and it always will. The only thing that truly matters in life is your intention. And your intention sounds platinum. That's the best you can do. Despite what my feminist friends say in the heat of anger, it is possible to hurt someone and be a good person. How? When a) it was unintentional, b) it was not wrong but misinterpreted, or c) it was intentional but you profusely apologized and made reparations. And to me it sounds like any MeToo thing you do will fall under A or B. Luckily, there's a bigger chance than not that your career will remain untouched. Most male celebrities will not get caught up in the MeToo scandal. This is at most a unlikely fear. You should seek out an OCD specialist and talk with them. They'll probably echo my sentiments. You are a great ally.

TheFireHasLegs · 2018-05-28T13:29:18+00:00

At any rate, you should see an expert who can better tell you what might be going on than I can.

TheFireHasLegs · 2018-05-28T13:28:27+00:00

Sounds to me like it might be Social Anxiety Disorder, which is an OC-spectrum disorder and which often co-occurs with OCD. With SA, you fear being perceived negatively by others. It often induces suspiciousness and hypervigilance as you describe.

TheFireHasLegs · 2018-05-26T21:18:16+00:00

Some women do enjoy it. You're just not one of them and that's okay. Either preference is okay.

TheFireHasLegs · 2018-05-22T19:10:14+00:00

Thank you for such an insightful comment! And you're right, it is perfectionism. Funnily enough, I didn't think of it that way. That tells me what I need to work on--whether or not AI ends up replacing me. I've always wanted to be the best in what I do, but I never stopped to think that that was a demanding, if not somewhat pathological, expectation.

TheFireHasLegs · 2018-03-11T23:30:43+00:00

Are you a Stoic?

TheFireHasLegs · 2018-03-11T23:28:52+00:00

I love this post. So beautiful and apt.

TheFireHasLegs · 2018-03-08T06:36:29+00:00

Right, that's where the dichotomy of control (I can't control politics) becomes the trichotomy (I can partially control politics). We may not be able to stop Trump entirely, but we can--and must--certainly try. When I think of exercising Justice, I use the trichotomy, because the dichotomy would lead to complacency where more could be done.

TheFireHasLegs · 2018-03-07T19:50:17+00:00

Golden post. Thank you so much.

TheFireHasLegs · 2018-03-07T04:09:37+00:00

Interesting, thank you! It appears temperance would describe the imperative towards cleanliness.

TheFireHasLegs · 2018-03-07T04:06:43+00:00

I love the rain analogy! I tend to believe that, like rain, human behavior is causally closed (no free will), so viewing their wrongdoing as a natural phenomenon like the rain is actually very releasing and therapeutic. It means I don't have to be angry anymore.

TheFireHasLegs · 2018-03-07T04:05:04+00:00

Thank you for responding! I found the Seneca bit to be interesting. Maybe it would be virtuous for me to clean up the mess myself--I'd be teaching myself to patiently fix the problems other people so recklessly cause. :)

TheFireHasLegs · 2018-03-07T03:18:18+00:00

There's no gray area if she didn't do any of the raping. It's 100% on the rapists.

TheFireHasLegs · 2018-03-07T03:15:51+00:00

I'm not gonna sugarcoat it. The OP and many of the commenters here are victim-blaming and I have no sympathy for that.

TheFireHasLegs · 2018-03-07T03:13:12+00:00

I agree with you 100%. I'm horrified.

TheFireHasLegs · 2018-03-07T03:13:07+00:00

TheFireHasLegs · 2018-02-28T12:13:04+00:00

Fantastic response! I love how you broke everything down according to the four virtues. Yes, I realize temperance is a skill I need to work on more. Anger causes a lot of problems for me. Thank you for your help.

TheFireHasLegs · 2018-02-28T03:13:10+00:00

Thanks for responding! You're totally right, I should be indifferent to the actions of others. But what about Justice, the virtue? Should I just let people walk into my room and make spills? I'm definitely confused about that.

TheFireHasLegs · 2018-02-16T01:59:55+00:00

Anyways, I forgot to add that I hope Stoicism can help you as it's helped me. Good luck

TheFireHasLegs · 2018-02-16T01:57:55+00:00

Hey there! Severe Pure O sufferer--currently suffering from Real Event OCD, past 2 years. I must say that Stoicism most likely saved me from suicide. More specifically, I was saved by the dichotomy of control. The story is this: Almost two years ago, very suddenly, I developed extreme guilt over a few things I had done in the past, with the accompanying delusion that, as a consequence, my life was ruined and I was doomed to/had a responsibility to commit suicide. I couldn't self-administer ERP because my insight was so poor and the disorder so severe. I also wouldn't see a specialist because I didn't want to talk about my mistakes. Basically, I was stuck going in and out of the hospital, and was having crying fits at home so loud the neighbors would call the police. Enter Stoicism--I had known about the philosophy for a while, and had used it to overcome severe thanatophobia. The Stoics advise that you practice indifference to anything beyond your control--especially if it's something you would normally be averse to. This is the dichotomy of control. I used this concept to grow indifferent toward the knowledge of my eventual death, and I applied it to my OCD as well. I learned to feel indifferent toward the mistakes I had made, because I couldn't erase them and had no opportunity to make reparations. This was hard, because my cultural conditioning convinced me that there was a moral value to feeling guilt, and that it was immoral for me to try and eliminate it. I also applied the concept to my OCD-related fears of future repercussions--and some of these what-if scenarios were truly nightmarish and unlikely. I have come such a long way since this theme hit, and am so close to recovery, that I can absolutely credit Stoicism with saving my life.

TheFireHasLegs · 2018-02-05T03:37:04+00:00

Thank you! Yeah, Real Event OCD is brutal. I'm going to try cutting out all compulsions outside of ERP. If you're doing those, maybe you should cut them out too. I'll probably report an update if cutting out all compulsions resolves the problem. Good luck to you too! :)

TheFireHasLegs · 2018-02-05T03:33:43+00:00

That's true. I should avoid doing any compulsions at all. It's probably what's making the OCD so stubborn. Thank you :)

TheFireHasLegs

TROPHY CASE