Stoics, What's the point of living if you don't feel anything?

If you can't feel the happiness of your success, why bother?
If you can't feel the empathy of your own family members or friends or anyone else, why bother?
If you can't feel excitement about the new stuff in life, why bother?
If you can't feel pain and suffering why do you care about your body at all?

I'm not understanding Stoicism

It is a contradiction.

If you are feeling stoic, than you cannot possibly be stoic. Because you are not indifferent to Stoicism now are you?

It's just an exercise in absurdity. It's a clear contradiction or paradox.

Meh.

Originally posted by muzzleflash
If you are feeling stoic, than you cannot possibly be stoic. Because you are not indifferent to Stoicism now are you?

Technically, you can't feel "stoic" because "stoic" means being indifferent to emotion.


The word "stoic" is an adjective, NOT an emotion.

In fact, a synonym to "stoic" is "unemotional."

Originally posted by arpgme

Originally posted by muzzleflash
If you are feeling stoic, than you cannot possibly be stoic. Because you are not indifferent to Stoicism now are you?

Technically, you can't feel "stoic" because "stoic" means being indifferent to emotion.


The word "stoic" is an adjective, NOT and emotion.

link

According to this, it can be used as a noun, adjective, or adverb.

So I believe my assertion remains consistent within this context.

Also it is important to point out that "feels a certain way" doesn't mean literally "feeling" something either. It can be used to denote a disposition or state of being rather than a feeling.

Think about it, a stoic claims to be unmoved by the events around them. But this is a paradox within itself, because obviously they were moved by the events surrounding them to become a stoic in the first place.

Originally posted by arpgme
If you can't feel the happiness of your success, why bother?
If you can't feel the empathy of your own family members or friends or anyone else, why bother?
If you can't feel excitement about the new stuff in life, why bother?
If you can't feel pain and suffering why do you care about your body at all?

I'm not understanding Stoicism

Well there are problems with excessive empathy and emotions

Case in point: No one would have to put up with crap like this if there were more stoicism



Why are you so obsessed with feeling so much?

reply to post by muzzleflash

Originally posted by muzzleflash
link

According to this, it can be used as a noun, adjective, or adverb.

So one should always respond stoically to the stoical assertions of a stoic?

Originally posted by muzzleflash

Originally posted by arpgme

Originally posted by muzzleflash
If you are feeling stoic, than you cannot possibly be stoic. Because you are not indifferent to Stoicism now are you?

Technically, you can't feel "stoic" because "stoic" means being indifferent to emotion.


The word "stoic" is an adjective, NOT and emotion.

link

According to this, it can be used as a noun, adjective, or adverb.

I was talking about the context that you used it in. You said "feeling stoic" clearly, it's an adjective there.

I just wanted to point out that a synonym is "unemotional" so saying "feeling stoic" is sort of like saying "feeling unemotional". Feeling unemotional is not an emotion... It's the lack of emotion.

Originally posted by muzzleflash

Originally posted by arpgme

Originally posted by muzzleflash
If you are feeling stoic, than you cannot possibly be stoic. Because you are not indifferent to Stoicism now are you?

Technically, you can't feel "stoic" because "stoic" means being indifferent to emotion.


The word "stoic" is an adjective, NOT and emotion.

Think about it, a stoic claims to be unmoved by the events around them. But this is a paradox within itself, because obviously they were moved by the events surrounding them to become a stoic in the first place.

It's common sense that before they were stoic, they weren't stoic. Duh! Doesn't mean that it's a paradox because they became a stoic.

I'm just asking, what's the point of living if you are one? You don't care about the pain of death. You don't care about loved ones because "caring" is emotional...

Knowing that other people care, and beleiving that other people actually feel these things that they describe.

Originally posted by dashen
Knowing that other people care, and beleiving that other people actually feel these things that they describe.

So what, if others care? What does that have to do with you?

reply to post by arpgme


The fact that we have our humanity in common, that should matter. Are you sure you're asking about stoics or sociopaths?

One who chooses a state of indecisiveness has still been decisive.

By the mere action of choosing to not choose, you have still chosen.

In order to maintain the state of not choosing, you are still having to make a choice.

It is a contradiction.

There is no way to escape this fate.

The state of not being was still a state of being in the end.

Originally posted by dashen
reply to post by arpgme

 

The fact that we have our humanity in common, that should matter. Are you sure you're asking about stoics or sociopaths?

What about humanity? Are you saying that you are "caring" or in other words "feeling concern" about humanity? Because if so, that is an emotion...

Originally posted by muzzleflash
One who chooses a state of indecisiveness has still been decisive.

By the mere action of choosing to not choose, you have still chosen.

In order to maintain the state of not choosing, you are still having to make a choice.

It is a contradiction.

There is no way to escape this fate.

The state of not being was still a state of being in the end.

I'm not getting your point!

Choosing Stoicism is choosing to let go of emotion completely.

It doesn't matter what brought you to that point, or why you decided it. Once you decide to let go of all emotion completely, from that point on you are a stoic, doesn't matter what happened previously...

reply to post by arpgme

Stoicism

plato.stanford.edu...

Stoicism was one of the new philosophical movements of the Hellenistic period.

The name derives from the porch (stoa poikilê) in the Agora at Athens decorated with mural paintings, where the members of the school congregated, and their lectures were held. Unlike ‘epicurean,’ the sense of the English adjective ‘stoical’ is not utterly misleading with regard to its philosophical origins. The Stoics did, in fact, hold that emotions like fear or envy (or impassioned sexual attachments, or passionate love of anything whatsoever) either were, or arose from, false judgements and that the sage—a person who had attained moral and intellectual perfection—would not undergo them.

The later Stoics of Roman Imperial times, Seneca and Epictetus, emphasise the doctrines (already central to the early Stoics' teachings) that the sage is utterly immune to misfortune and that virtue is sufficient for happiness. Our phrase ‘stoic calm’ perhaps encapsulates the general drift of these claims. It does not, however, hint at the even more radical ethical views which the Stoics defended, e.g. that only the sage is free while all others are slaves, or that all those who are morally vicious are equally so.

Though it seems clear that some Stoics took a kind of perverse joy in advocating views which seem so at odds with common sense, they did not do so simply to shock. Stoic ethics achieves a certain plausibility within the context of their physical theory and psychology, and within the framework of Greek ethical theory as that was handed down to them from Plato and Aristotle. It seems that they were well aware of the mutually interdependent nature of their philosophical views, likening philosophy itself to a living animal in which logic is bones and sinews; ethics and physics, the flesh and the soul respectively (another version reverses this assignment, making ethics the soul). Their views in logic and physics are no less distinctive and interesting than those in ethics itself.

If you can read and understand the above paragraph, you can get a bit of understanding of "Stoicism."

They did not believe that the enlightened would be emotionless.

They believed that the enlightened would be free of emotion (unwanted emotions) and were capable, essentially, of creating their own happiness, or whatever feeling they might want to experience.

It seems a rather sound theory to me, as far as it goes.

I think you confuse a general idea of "stoic" with an extreme one
some people choose not to wear their hearts on their sleeves, doesn't necessarily mean they don't care about anything



I personally only care about my kids.
Thats why I continue to breathe, and I won't allow anything else to affect me.

I'm not talking about the philosophy of Stoicism I'm talking about the pure definition or it, which basically means not having emotion...

Originally posted by arpgme
If you can't feel the happiness of your success, why bother?
If you can't feel the empathy of your own family members or friends or anyone else, why bother?
If you can't feel excitement about the new stuff in life, why bother?
If you can't feel pain and suffering why do you care about your body at all?

I'm not understanding Stoicism

You described my life in under five minutes, well done OP. I have the inability to feel.

Originally posted by Forevever
I think you confuse a general idea of "stoic" with an extreme one
some people choose not to wear their hearts on their sleeves, doesn't necessarily mean they don't care about anything



I personally only care about my kids.
Thats why I continue to breathe, and I won't allow anything else to affect me.

the definition of stoic is being indifferent to emotion. If you care about your children, you aren't a true stoic.

Anyway who doesn't wear their heart on their sleeves, are still not indifferent to emotion so they aren't stoic either...

Originally posted by Heartisblack

Originally posted by arpgme
If you can't feel the happiness of your success, why bother?
If you can't feel the empathy of your own family members or friends or anyone else, why bother?
If you can't feel excitement about the new stuff in life, why bother?
If you can't feel pain and suffering why do you care about your body at all?

I'm not understanding Stoicism

You described my life in under five minutes, well done OP. I have the inability to feel.

What caused you to respond to this thread?

reply to post by arpgme


True definition...

sto·ic/ˈstō-ik/Noun: A person who can endure pain or hardship without showing their feelings or complaining.

I can do that.


Just a quick google search does not say that stoics don't feel, just that they don't show it. That Stoicism is a philosophy.

The Stoics believed that destructive emotions resulted from errors in judgment, and that a sage, or person of "moral and intellectual perfection," would not suffer such emotions.

Therefore I still think you're being "extreme" in your idea of what being "stoic" really means.

one apparently or professedly indifferent to pleasure or pain

To me, "professedly" doesn't imply a truth. And while I may not show emotion, doesn't mean I don't suffer it.


So I subsume at this point that Stoicism in general, is a facade. And that only psychopaths/sociopaths can truly be stoic.