• Everythingispenguins@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Okay this is actually a perfect eastern vs western philosophy debate hidden in a taco.

    I am going to make some very broad strokes here. So no armchair quarterbacking me. I know it’s way more nuanced but I’m not writing an essay on Lemmy.

    In general Western philosophies always have a “goal.” Your human life is to prove your worthiness. You need to look back and atone for your past mistakes. You need to look forward so you can do the right things to be worthy. It is very little about being in the now.

    Eastern philosophies are much more about being aware of the moment. The past has happened it cannot be changed you should not worry about it. The future doesn’t exist so there’s no need to focus on it. The only thing you can affect is the very moment in time you’re in and the only way to affect it is through your actions.

    In this case tacos are the moment. So next time you’re eating a delicious taco. Spend that moment to be one with your taco. Concentrate on the smell. Then feel the texture as you pick it up. How the various colors interact with each other. Then as you bite off some, feel the textures in your mouth and how the flavors interact. Watch yourself, be aware of every time you chew. Remember there is no past there’s no future there is only tacos.

    • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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      1 month ago

      Western philosophy

      if god is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent then what is the point in anything

      • John Calvin
    • Baŝto@discuss.tchncs.de
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      1 month ago

      Such mentality likely has to do with the environment. I read some that strategy games are more popular in Northern Europe than in Southern Europe, with the explanation that strategic planning is more essential for survival when the amount of sunlight is limited and there are months were you can’t really go outside because of snow and coldness.

      That would mean adverse conditions require it more to plan for the future. Coldness is indeed just an example for such an environment.

      • Everythingispenguins@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Umm so it doesn’t get cold in Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan, the Gobi Desert, Northern China, etc.?

        I have no idea how it plays between northern and southern Europe but there’s no way that the cold environment has anything to do with this it gets equally as cold if not colder in some parts of Asia. Plus many of those places don’t have the abundance of resources that would be provided by the forests or coasts of Northern Europe.

    • Katrisia@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      I am going to make some very broad strokes here. So no armchair quarterbacking me. I know it’s way more nuanced but I’m not writing an essay on Lemmy.

      In general Western philosophies always have a “goal.”

      I know you said it was a broad stroke, and that in general is that way, but I kind of disagree still. I think Western philosophy is about finding if we have a purpose and what is it, and many philosophers since Greek antiquity to today have answered they are skeptic of it existing or it being able to be known. From Pyrrho of Elis and Hegesias of Cyrene to Arthur Schopenhauer and Slavoj Žižek.

      The word we are looking for is teleology (not to be confused with theology). It refers to finality, that there is a goal. Many philosophers did not subscribe to a teolology.

      Your human life is to prove your worthiness.

      Same thing as before.

      You need to look back and atone for your past mistakes. You need to look forward so you can do the right things to be worthy. It is very little about being in the now.

      I agree a little more with this, there are many Western philosophers preoccupied with ethics. But that’s why I think they were talking of different dimensions. It was not that existentially you should roam the past or future, that your mental activity should be there. It was about being responsible in the now for the future, and to be held accountable for your past. It was a morality thing, not a conscious/existential thing.

      In this case tacos are the moment. So next time you’re eating a delicious taco. Spend that moment to be one with your taco. Concentrate on the smell. Then feel the texture as you pick it up. How the various colors interact with each other. Then as you bite off some, feel the textures in your mouth and how the flavors interact. Watch yourself, be aware of every time you chew. Remember there is no past there’s no future there is only tacos.

      Hey! Go away with that mindful nonsense. If I do that, I spend too much time with a single bite and I cannot eat as much (/s).