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Mitchell_Porter comments on Open thread, September 2-8, 2013 - Less Wrong Discussion

0 Post author: David_Gerard 02 September 2013 02:07PM

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Comment author: JMiller 04 September 2013 07:21:12PM 2 points [-]

Hi, I am taking a course in Existentialism. It is required for my degree. The primary authors are Sartre, de Bouvoir and Merleau-Ponty. I am wondering if anyone has taken a similar course, and how they prevented material from driving them insane (I have been warned this may happen). Is there any way to frame the material to make sense to a naturalist/ reductionist?

Comment author: Mitchell_Porter 05 September 2013 12:55:23AM 10 points [-]

This could be a Lovecraft horror story: "The Existential Diary of JMiller."

Week 3: These books are maddeningly incomprehensible. Dare I believe that it all really is just nonsense?

Week 8: Terrified. Today I "saw" it - the essence of angst - and yet at the same time I didn't see it, and grasping that contradiction is itself the act of seeing it! What will become of my mind?

Week 12: The nothingness! The nothingness! It "is" everywhere in its not-ness. I can not bear it - oh no, "not", the nothingness is even constitutive of my own reaction to it - aieee -

(Here the manuscript breaks off. JMiller is currently confined in the maximum security wing of the Asylum for the Existentially Inane.)