Insatiably curious Psychology student and Philosopher (if I can say so)

[Shefawn]

HelloOOoo lovely people!! I'm from Ireland, I'm 23 and my name is actually Siobhán, but someone beat me to it, so I'll settle for the kind of charming phonetic spelling which reminds me of deer and how my little brothers and sisters pronounced my name when they were toddlers.

It's not often I'd greet others by automatically declaring their loveliness, but I have a particular affinity for those who also enjoy discussing philosophy! Regardless of their opinions, I believe, very little is as actively moral as the proclivity to effortfully examine your own views and those of others. Not to throw shade toward those who don't, consider it more of a positive on top of a positive, than a positive versus a negative. I feel as though all people would decide to prioritise the pursuit of truth, whatever it may be, if they believed as I do that what can be determined to be a truth can never really be harmful, and anything that is harmful can be within our control to improve. To me, truth appears to win out in terms of implications in an ideal scenario. I say 'ideal' because I have found that living in line with methods of prioritising truth actually seems to cause more friction than it does harmony, which is kind of bittersweet given its intentions. That, I suppose, explains why I searched for and found this page, so I can hopefully get my kicks - while limiting the annoyance to my family and friends hehe !!

Otherwise, I expect this to be useful to me in particular, as I lack the self-discipline and sort of consistent steadiness in energy to read habitually. I tend to befriend people who do, though, and have found I could engage elaborately and deeply without having sources to back up my opinions. I do not agree entirely with the approach of being what I think people call 'armchair philosophers' as I feel the weight of pushing humanities understanding forward heavily enough to want to pick things up from the front lines I suppose, but at the moment I'm a bit more laid back in that respect and developing other things in my life.

I'm currently studying towards being a psychologist, either educational, counselling, criminal or research. To be honest, I will probably do them all at some point. I'm also pursuing some other goals aside from this.

My main areas of interest are firstly through the lens of psychology. I have a tendency to lean toward being an idealist, not in the common sense, in the sense that all my conceptualisations are built on other conceptualisations of an ideal, like an all-encompassing hopefully and seemingly internally consistent world view, I've only realised this recently as many people contradicted things in some form such as "but in reality X is how it is so Y can't work" and my response is usually "but in an ideal the reality would be Z and so my other Y would work". I say this not because I believe discussing in that form is not also valid, just that my way of thinking is usually that way, and sometimes I forget to clarify it in advance. I can and do also attempt to discuss adapting one idea in the best way to an otherwise unappealing set of factors.

I am mainly interested in morality, intelligence, spirituality, logic, and well gosh there's nothing I'm not interested in, but those are what I tend to do well in personally.

Anywhoo, thank you for reading I hope to engage soon, but I'll probably just read for a while because I'm a bit shy.

Warmly,
Siobhán

[Sy Borg]

Hi Siobhán. I like thinkers too. I don't dislike those who prefer not to delve, but those who do try to explore the nature of reality are more likely to grab my attention (unless someone starts talking dogs, as I am a big fan).

My mother was an author and obsessed with human psychology, so I was always interested but only studied it as peripheral units in management courses. They were usually my favourite subjects. I find it interesting just how alike conscious beings are, including other species. We face many similar challenges - survival, maintaining smooth relationships, etc - and end up going through many of the same thought processes that largely differ through being passed through different cultural and sub-cultural filters.

I perhaps don't share your idealism, though, being in the "but in reality X is how it is ..." camp. My guess is that ideals - growth and development - will emerge from our inner nature over time, no matter what we do. We are at least as much passengers as we are controllers of our destiny IMO.

[Shefawn]

Thanks for the reply!!

Yes exactly. I tend to be overly cautious of the possibility of coming across as arrogant when expressing my preference for chatting from a philosophical POV, hehe

Your mom sounds wonderful! I hope to publish my theories eventually too, and yes it's amazing how as people and other animals evolve they seem to replace the adaption to physical landscapes with becoming more adapted to the psychological/ mental landscape facilitated interpersonally. This evolutionary move toward the abstract is something which made me move a bit away from atheism and a bit more toward spirituality. It's exciting to think of the future on this front, with monkeys now entering the Stone Age, perhaps millions of years from now we will have monkey philosophers with entirely unique perspectives to share on logic !

Excellent to hear my idealism is not shared! I'm in my character arc of developing the ability to adapt my ideas to reality (as an additional skill, not a replacement for the former skill).

[Sy Borg]

Interesting idea about the equivalence of physical and mental landscapes. In a perhaps similar vein, some years ago I looked at a tree and saw that its personality was expressed physically - how thick or thin the trunk, the points where it branches, the angle of the branching all say something about the tree's history and it's environment. They have internals, but more of what they are is "external" than, say, us or other mammals.

I've also wondered about analogous aspects of landscapes and brain dynamics. Which came from wondering why we feel like we are the same person when we awaken after deep sleep. It's the neuronal dynamics, which is like a landscape with dry river beds and, when the consciousness returns, the flow follows the river beds.

I'm not seeing other apes or monkeys progressing like us, unless they become as dominant as we have become. With dominance comes the opportunity to enjoy play and other non-survival based activities. When you have to worry about being killed by a neighbouring tribe or by predators, where even a cut can be fatal due to sepsis, progression can happen, but it's slowed.

[Shefawn]

Those are such lovely observations and very true. I hadn't actually extended my thoughts to plants, but now you mention it, the same pattern definitely holds true on that fractal too. It seems to be a principle of the universe that the internal gradually replaces the external.

I think that's why it's so important to try to end each day with the right perspective, or it'll all get consolidated in our sleep.

I'm thinking they could progress naturally, but perhaps only if we have more animal rights activists than people keen to prevent any competition. That's not to say I'm on any side of that argument, per se. I'm not sure if I believe in rights even for people, at least not in the entitlement sense. I do believe in shared duty to pursue a standard of morality, though.

[Sy Borg]

Re: 'the internal replaces the external', Ray Kurtzweil proposes "computronium" as a form of matter.

"Computronium" can be defined as any form of matter which supports computation, especially artificial substances suitable for high efficiency computation. Biological neural matter is also a form of computronium; baseline humans carry about 1.5 kilos of computronium in their heads as brain tissue.

https://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/4637faafa6437

As an animal lover, I despair about the prospects of many other species, with our own numbers and consumption growing relentlessly. But I suppose that is the process we've been discussing - the increasing complexification and abstraction of reality at local levels. Still, that Brave New World is not one to which I am adapted, having been raised in the middle of last century. Then again, 20th century urban life would be similarly repellent to hunter gatherers.

It's interesting to wonder what young people will be like in a few generations, being almost completely isolated from nature and other species, with many iconic species going the way of the dinosaurs, becoming archaeological celebrities, largely only understood in the abstract. However, their ability to integrate technological items with other tech or themselves will be off the charts.