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⫸STICKY⫷ Growing this forum- Suggestions for Improving P&S

The only new topic I had in mind might be Philosophia Perennis (The Perennial Philosophy)
According to the search function it has only been mentioned once without much discussion regarding it. Although, it might be a difficult topic considering its ambiguous nature.

I thought it might be a good idea to allow some threads to be bumped because of the high quality content within.

tl;dr- good stuff in the P&S archives

great book: The_Perennial_Philosophy
Huxley said:
The metaphysic that recognises a divine Reality substantial to the world of things and lives and minds; the psychology that finds in the soul something similar to, or even identical with, divine Reality; the ethic that places man's final end in the knowledge of the immanent and transcendent Ground of all being — the thing is immemorial and universal.

Rudiments of the Perennial Philosophy may be found among the traditionary lore of primitive peoples in every region of the world, and in its fully developed forms it has a place in every one of the higher religions. A version of this Highest Common Factor in all preceding and subsequent theologies was first committed to writing more than twenty-five centuries ago, and since that time the inexhaustible theme has been treated again and again, from the standpoint of every religious tradition and in all the principal languages of Asia and Europe.[12]
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I'm just putting this here for lack of a better place to put it, http://plato.stanford.edu/

Good resource for philosophic concepts that endeavours to be like the Wikipedia of philosophy but with higher standards for legitimacy of content so presumably these articles could be cited in academic papers where Wikipedia is not considered a trustworthy source.
 
It could be worthwhile to run a poll or a discussion thread to ask people what kind of philosoph(y/ies) they're interested in or what's important to them, to get a sense of what the demographic is. If there are large subgroups coming out of those polls, it could be worthwhile to create P&S sub-forums for contained discussions. Just a thought. I don't know if the participant community is large enough to justify subforums though -- which brings up the potential need to investigate why the the P&S forum isn't frequented by a lot of people. Is there just no interest? Are the topics incompatible? Is there annoyance or intimidation?

If people are shying away then it could be worthwhile to find out why. When I first joined BL and participated in P&S, there was a lot more academic / intellectual level discourse happening. Now, not so much... not that there's anything wrong with that. The forum goes through natural shifts and evolutions. I'm just wondering if maybe the academic types feel alienated; after all, in this very thread we have people calling their approaches bullshit. Earlier, we also had comments from people who said that it's hard to have religious discussions here too.

There may be an inaccessibility / alienation factor at work here. I for one think an honest discussion would be worthwhile. I don't care if people get offensive in how they express what's wrong with P&S, as long as it's productive and truthful. My sense is that this place could be better than it is, but I'm having trouble pinpointing how.
 
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is a great resource, good call linking it here Thujone. I am not sure whether it would be acceptable to cite it in academic writing, I would have to check. However, every philosophy unit I have taken has recommended that students consult it at some point or another.

I recommend anyone who has an interest in philosophy check out Existential Comics, it can be really funny. Most of the jokes have an explanation down the bottom for those who don't get them, which I think functions as a fairly accessible way to get exposed to different philosophers and philosophical positions.
 
I thought a book thread might work in P&S, I understand there is one in the 'words' section but of course that part of BL has limited participation. I suppose we could just recommend books in this thread.

I just finished reading this book:
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This book provides an informative analysis of each novel Huxley was able to complete. The author illuminates the main themes from each book while providing some minor details regarding Huxley's personal life. It's a quality book if you're interested in the themes Huxley addressed but do not feel like reading each novel in its entirety. Even if you have read some or most of the novels, reading Mr Sion's book might leave you feeling as if you had a conversation with someone who both understood and enjoyed Huxley's work as well as you did.

Considering today's date it seems suitable to recommend:

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On November 22, 1963, three great men died within a few hours of each other: C.S. Lewis, John F. Kennedy and Aldous Huxley. All three believed, in different ways, that death is not the end of human life. Suppose they were right, and suppose they met after death. How might the conversation go?

Peter Kreeft imagines their discourse as a modern Socratic dialog--a part of The Great Conversation that has been going on for centuries. Does human life have meaning? Is it possible to know about life after death? What if one could prove that Jesus was God?

Combining logical argument and literary imagination, Kreeft portrays Lewis as a Christian theist, Kennedy as a modern humanist and Huxley as an Eastern pantheist. Their interaction involves not only good thinking but good drama.
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Nice recommendation :) I'd rather we use this thread for suggestions- please feel free to start a book thread (though I think there may already be one). But go for it if you want.

edit: I find that this forum is a bit more peaceful these days. Which is really good I think. Less endless debates between one party and everyone else.
 
drug_mentor said:
I know this question wasn't directed at me, but I would personally love to see more discussion of philosophy in this forum.
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Love to see the philosophy thread look more into the building & discussion of new models. Despite the obvious nature of reading of older books as a foundation for expressing/ comparing ideology, to create & explore is where the action is, in less than humble opinion. ("philosophy & Shamanism" seems to be things people are naturally less exposed to, over religious texts, as whose born into a family of Thale-ists) %)
 
P&S has a nice continuous cycle about it

We start with a spark, suggest pleasantly, inspire others to post, madly spiral into a debate that is less offensive and more introspective, and then it dies down. Maybe there is an absence of posts, everyone recollects their thoughts, then we start another thread... slightly grown as a community after each debate.

I like it, we get to grow togther, bounce ideas off eachother and the like.
 
I'm actually surprised at how much discussion the subforum can get at times, when you think about how many people usually view it. Passionate discussion is where it's at.
 
belligerent drunk said:
I'm actually surprised at how much discussion the subforum can get at times, when you think about how many people usually view it. Passionate discussion is where it's at.
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That's it. There is a very small amount of Bluelighters that post in P&S but posting is usually quality. Almost always interesting. Sometimes the debates get kind of heated and descend into shit flinging circuses but this is just part of human interaction. I really enjoy interaction where someone makes a statement but is willing to both back it up AND back down from it as required. I tend to dismiss people who consider excessive argument as aggressive, I think they generally mean they have nothing of substance to add.

I remember seeing someone refer to P&S as the "armpit of Bluelight" and I knew why I felt so at home here. :D

This is the forum I spend most of my time posting. It used to be PD back in the halcyon days circa 2008/2009 wherein we changed the world for a brief moment. FWIW, I encourage the pair of you, b_d and Nixiam to hit up the PD social thread, there are some great, meaningful, left-field convo's therein. I don't post there as much as I did but I do love reading about the lives of people I feel like I've known for ages now.
 
I have experience with other such forums. My initial suggestion is, whatever rules you set in place make sure they are enforced and the moderators have a real working knowledge of the forum they are moderating.
 
^Whilst I agree with your sentiment, its really difficult to recruit people who are 'qualified' for the role. I've been on/off staff for ten years and have noticed that in the last 2 yrs or so, people don't seem to he applying for moderator roles. Thus, bluelight chooses people based on enthusiasm and post quantity/quality rather than expertise.

But, I agree with the notion that rules should be known and enforced- that should be a given.

What do you think of the rules for P&S? Not that I have any ability to modify them, I'd just be curious. Are they reasonable? I thought there was too many overly verbose rules in my day...
 
I understand. I come from the Shroomery where over ten years I was pushing 95,000 posts in the Philosophy forum. I finally left in part due to the absolute worthless moderation of that forum these days. That and I've really come to my final philosophical conclusions for this lifetime. It was in a shambles moderation wise though. Kids moderating kids lol.

I did have a lot of fun in the early days and met some really amazing people from time to time. Lifetime friends now, some of them. This place moves so slow that moderation shouldn't be too difficult. Still it's really hard to find good help. It is a drug site after all. Still from the little time I've been here I see some very thoughtful posters and it keeps me interested casually. It does move at a snail's pace compared to the shroomery however. But I'm mostly over in the Dark Side and Drug discussion these days as I'm hooked on several drugs and looking to make things smoother on my way out of dodge. My biggest philosophical issue these days is SUICIDE! The topic most people are completely terrified of so it's almost impossible to get a really good discussion going on it. Too bad really because it's a hella interesting subject that will become more and more of a norm as the human race continues to go bat shit and overpopulate. Too many rats in the shoe box.

Oh and the forum rules/guidelines are fine here. Check out the ones at the Shroomery sometime as they are quite good but not too often enforced these days. There are some of the worse mods in my ten years fucking things up over there atm. One of them didn't even know what the forum rules were when I questioned him. The management over there really doesn't want mods who are strict. It's a bunch of dead heads and such. That's fine, I had my fun and I won't be back to watch it deteriorate further. I actually did a lot of unofficial moderating over there as I was always online and knew my shit. The management and I were not on good terms so I always got nixed when they were looking for a new mod even though I had all the popular support. =D Some of the management were decent folk but humans in general are not good at integrity.

And blah blah blah. I have noticed that several of the forums are looking for new mods. Hope you have some decent percs to keep them happy. Hookers and drugs and a tee shirt usually work well.
 
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