Describing Symphonies

Second-hand scars and why I don't read philosophers

This essay is motivated by semi-frequent messages I’ve received since I started writing on Twitter and Substack. I occasionally get remarks that a philosopher would agree with something I’ve said, or has made observations similar to my own. It sort of happened yesterday in the comments to a post (apparently Hobbes concurs). Off the top of my head, I’ve been told I’m broadly Machiavellian, that Nietzsche would approve of this essay, and Bastiat would endorse this one. I haven’t read them.

It may surprise to know I’ve never read any philosopher; I honestly can’t recall reading a single page. I’ve been exposed to a handful from scrolling the timeline, but that’s the extent of my philosophy education.

My avoiding them is a two-part decision.

Aesthetic side note: I listened to this modified song on loop while writing this piece.

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Nietzsche Speaks of This

I was turned off to philosophers at a young age. I kept seeing people leverage them as a smart-by-association “Hegel speaks of this, Kant agrees” form of intellectual stolen valor. As if name-dropping a guy’s interpretation of the world was a way to score status points. I don’t care what he thinks, what do YOU think? Or do you?

Not only does this not warrant any big-brain credits, but acting as a conduit for the ideas and musings of others makes me infer you don’t have many of your own. Being an avatar for someone else’s opinions is not a personality. It always struck me as weird to quasi brag about serving as a node for another man’s output; I view this as antithetical to intellectualism, yet it’s typically perceived as synonymous with it.

What you ethically and morally sincerely subscribe to should stand on its merits, buttressed by your own defenses. When I see a philosopher referenced, I can’t help but see an unintentional outsourcing of cognitive load-bearing activity so you can hand out a clever-looking pastiche of what he said. In its worst manifestations, it’s an Appeal to Authority-esque “I don’t know why I think this, but this guy does so… checkmate!” that severely rubs me the wrong way.

It’s possible for people to use a thinker’s ideas as points of departure, crafting a unique vantage that’s not a simulacrum. I just… don’t recall seeing that happen too often.

It didn’t appear like people sharing their own thoughts in pursuit of enhancing another’s worldview, it felt like a pissing contest. “If you would please consult Heidegger on these matters, you will see your folly is… most follyful.”

It reeked of cognitive insecurity, like a display put on for the speaker’s intellectual vanity, peacocking beliefs that weren’t even his! He just picked them out of the academic grocery store, grabbing a box of cereal off the philosophy shelf and saying, “This is good. I like this. I’m gonna take it, this is mine now. I am now a staunch proponent of the Cinnamon Toast Crunch school of epistemology”.

If you’re going to flaunt it, at least come up with it yourself man.

I saw the exchanges as existing to impress those I had no desire to impress.

The vibes I’m referring to are as follows:

WELCOME TO HELL

My initial aversion to formal philosophy is a result of these observations, formed in my early 20s. However I still avoid philosophers to this day, and it’s no longer predicated on their adherents’ smuggery.

There's a strange tension in critiquing philosophy while simultaneously frequently engaging in it myself. This is not lost on me. If you’re going to call me a hypocrite, please keep in mind that I contain multitudes (common philosopher trait).

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Second-Hand Scars

Some answers can be handed to you, such as facts that let you pass a right/wrong test. Math, chemistry, accounting, medicine. Objective domains. If the LLM can cleanly answer it, it probably fits into this bucket. Dmitry speaks of thi… excuse me I speak of this in Trashbags of Facts and Insipid Oceans.

However, there are answers you should not be handed, as they can’t be sufficiently “handed over” anyways, because they’re not actually answers, they’re phenomenological and existential scars. This is what unfeigned philosophy is. “You know how I got these scars…” is the effective prelude to a genuine philosophical accounting.

The following image compared to the ones above juxtaposes the status-seeking pseudo-insights that litter discourse with what an authentic exposition resembles. It’s raw. Like porn: you can’t define it, but you know it when you see it.

You know who speaks of this? Me. I speak of this.

An act of philosophy unveils a harsh reality most have evolved to not notice, by design. It’s when the human mind is exposed to nature’s axioms. It almost necessarily involves a tragic journey. Suffering is essentially a prerequisite for producing something viscerally profound.

You cannot absorb the lessons of such a journey without embarking on it yourself. Muscles do not grow without weight-bearing stress; sentience does not expand and mature without soul-straining distress.

There are no shortcuts, this includes books. You can’t inherit scars, you earn them. Philosophy is tracing around the disfigurement left on your skin.

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Truth in Different Shapes

• A scientific truth is one that’s technically true.

• A Darwinian truth is one that’s technically false, but if you act like it’s true it aids survival.

  • Example: a porcupine throws its quills. This is scientifically wrong, but it’s useful because the behavior results in an action positive for survival (you avoid the porcupine under false pretenses and don’t get pricked). Grandmas are chock full of Darwinian wisdom (don’t go outside when it’s cold… or you’ll catch a cold!)

    • Most religious stories are civilizational Darwinian truths. Religion is a human universal for a reason: it’s beneficial for societal coordination and cohesion that we collectively convene on certain behaviors as “true”, independent of the veracity of the story motivating it. Assessing them on scientific grounds is entirely silly. Nature does not do coincidences at scale.

• A philosophical truth is an unforgiving confrontation with the nature of reality that alters your navigation of the world. Whether this manifests in healthier behavior is… to be determined.

This is what I mean when I say most have not evolved to assimilate philosophical base truths; there is diminishing Darwinian utility to sentience after a certain degree. The species is not made better off if we become too conscious. Pathological sentience, otherwise known as nihilism, is harmful. NPCs exist for a reason; nature does not do coincidences at scale.

Muscles are metabolically expensive, and sentience is cognitively burdensome; there are decreasing, and eventually negative, returns to each.

Philosophical truths can be scientific, Darwinian, both, or neither. There are kinds you are better off not knowing.

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Describing a Symphony

Men wear their realizations on their face. Hard-gained wisdom seeps out of their demeanors. You couldn’t hide it if you tried. It’s apparent when someone does not carry the weight of their own insights; it’s how you can tell they did not gain them via journey, but borrowed them via book.

The scars of another can be regurgitated. Memorized. Cited passively to score debate points. But they are inherently not tidbits of academic information, they are often personal burdens, unkind revelations, deeply intimate epiphanies, emotional wounds… a lesson that must (emphasis: must) be experienced to be properly absorbed and internalized.

If you read and nod in agreement but didn’t get there on your own, it’s tantamount to reading a description of a symphony. Or providing a summary on a piece of art. You did not hear it. You did not view it. There’s only so much you can apprehend without bearing witness to them.

You can parrot what you’ve been told the symphony resembles, but you will never appreciate the depth, beauty, pain, and knowledge that went along with its discovery based on recapitulation. Some lessons must be experienced. To me, this is what unalloyed philosophy is: people documenting their symphonies. Pseudo-philosophy is when you describe the symphony of someone else.

This scene deeply resonates with me. When I saw it as a kid, maybe around eight years old, it grabbed me and never let go. There are a handful of movie scenes and songs that randomly enter my thoughts and refuse to leave me alone, this is one of them.

First-hand scars vs second-hand scars:

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Road Trips

Getting to uncomfortable truths is part of life’s road trip. You need to see the sights, hear the sounds, and think the thoughts for it to be properly appreciated. You don’t borrow the pictures of others, you take your own shots. The point of a road trip isn’t the destination.

Philosophy is fundamentally a library of incredibly sensitive (in the good way), introspective, contemplative, perceptive people documenting their life road trips. What they’ve reaped and felt, been painfully subjected to, realities they’ve encountered… and documenting it. Their experiential pilgrimage informs their contemplative output.

Is their excursion relevant to you? I don’t know, did you take the same road? In the same car? Same weather? At the same speed? Are you as good a driver? Did you break down in the same ways at the same spots? Are you one for detours?

You cannot simply copy and recite these things.

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Philosophy of a Fist

My approach to the great pensive tradition does not scale and is likely counterproductive for most. Advanced society would be worse off if everyone viewed it the way I do, as it’s better to have a verbal understanding (answers that lets you pass a test) of someone else’s trials and tribulations than none at all. The lived road trips of many are devoid of experiential substance and improved by living vicariously through another.

The “get there through doing” method of philosophy yields an embodied understanding: wisdom that resides not solely in your mind, but your bones. This results in an internalized, intuitive grasp of a concept by virtue of it being revealed to you, not given to you. You don’t forget (and also cherish) the stuff you have to earn.

Reading the symphonies of others doesn’t allow you to comprehend something in an embodied, integrated way; it only yields nominal awareness. Do people that read baby books but don’t have babies fathom what it means to be a parent? Philosophy degrees with no substantive personal road trips strike me as analogous to reading “What to Expect When You’re Expecting”, never having children, and then lecturing what it’s like having kids and being a mom. Peddling a second-hand description of a symphony.

You can watch Jon Jones fight, mimic his techniques, study his mannerisms. Yet embedded in those superficially reproducible moves are decades of ingrained instructions and methods he cultivated through combat.

You must get punched in the face and brutalized to develop the reactions and embodied relationship with violence that a fighter has. You must learn to use your elbows by taking ones yourself, then reciprocating. Repeatedly. You cannot just study it or watch MMA on TV. There are shortcuts to passing tests, not for muscles and sentience; they both require stress to cultivate. Hormesis applies to much of life.

Applied philosophical acumen does not come from studying other’s getting punched, it comes from taking punches. Degrees in Punching Studies are no substitute.

Tyson speaks of this

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Concluding

I prefer to take my own pictures, earn my own bumps and bruises, describe the scenic overlooks myself, and drive life’s Route 66 without a map. The map is rarely the terrain, anyways. To document my own symphony. I don’t want to be primed or prompted. Call it stubbornness and high disagreeableness (it definitely has a lot to do with this), but I hope I’m better for it. Again, I’m aware this does not scale.

I suspect people can sense how my reasoning and breakdowns are conclusions I arrived at through personal mental detours. Granularly fleshed out in my articulation and defense. There’s a journey in there, you can’t fake that. So, for better or worse, you are witnessing the output of a guy who is trying to drive without borrowed directions.

This explanation for why I avoid philosophers feels correct to me, however I don’t know for certain that it is. For being such a curious guy in other fields, and with a strong penchant to gaze into the abyss (even without reading Nietzsche you can’t help but be familiar with that one), it’s odd I want nothing to do with philosophers.

It started out intentional, but has grown into a complete lack of interest. Only recently have I reflected on why. When I candidly assess why, this is what my faculties tell me is the reason.

I know many of you read and enjoy philosophy, so please don’t take this as a slight or anything remotely resembling a personal criticism. I know I’m the weird one here. This is simply an honest reflection brought about from remarks noting how my thoughts converge with someone else’s.

I always smile when told a guy before me “speaks of this”. It’s nice knowing another fella with similar temperament and sensitivities once drove down the same highway as you. Fellow traveler’s discussing their pitstops.

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