Why do we have to give names to things in the world? and why do we have to define ourselves?

why do we have to give names to things in the world? and why do we have to define ourselves?

>why do we have to give names to things in the world?
So we can talk about them

Because we are damned.

Did a little kid make this thread? Seriously, this is the type of question that just pokes at existence without offering alternatives. "Why" this and "why" that, without thinking "why not" this or "why not" that.

There's a reason we use verbal language: because all other methods sucked.

names have power.

sometimes you have to resist power

>Did a little kid make this thread?
i try my best

i never say anything and all chicks want to be near me

A girl has no name

Convenience

“The fish trap exists because of the fish. Once you've gotten the fish you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit. Once you've gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist because of meaning. Once you've gotten the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can talk with him?”
― Zhuangzi

One of the first things that Adam did was give names to all the animals. God didn't tell him what things were, God let him decide for himself what to name things. There's certainly power in naming things, and the honor and dignity to be given the privilege is nothing to take a lightly.

Do you have a thirteen inch long dick that's covered in cocaine?

to communicate, you solipsistic dipshit.

>talking to someone who doesn't know any words
This is ridiculous!

those eastern philosophers were all jokesters. have you read some of that shit? god help whoever finds meaning in that paradoxical dogshit. i'd rather devote myself entirely to catholic dogma than be forced to read through the tao

“A frog in a well cannot discuss the ocean, because he is limited by the size of his well. A summer insect cannot discuss ice, because it knows only its own season. A narrow-minded scholar cannot discuss the Tao, because he is constrained by his teachings. Now you have come out of your banks and seen the Great Ocean. You now know your own inferiority, so it is now possible to discuss great principles with you.
井蛙不可以語於海者,拘於虛也;夏蟲不可以語於冰者,篤於時也;曲士不可以語於道者,束於教也。今爾出於崖涘,觀於大海,乃知爾醜,爾將可與語大理矣。”


― Zhuangzi, The Way of Chuang Tzu

The punchline is the same as the old Soviet joke with the red ink.

She is nonetheless a girl.

because life without knowledge is death in disguise

He's saying he wants to talk to God.

What is joke?

>Two men were talking one day and one mentioned he was visiting Russia.
>The friend tells him that it's politically rough over there and that they check letters leaving the country for dissenters. So, he instructs the man to use a code- write in black ink if everything is fine and red ink if things are bad.
>The man goes to Russia. A couple weeks later the friend gets a letter in black ink. It says all sorts of positive things about Russia- how rich it is and how nice the people are to him. "My only complaint," he writes, "is that they don't have red pens."

Heheh

You should strive not to.

Read pic related.

this chingchong guy gets it.

okay, well this is the only pleasant statement i've ever read by any of the eastern philosophers.

still, worthless repetition of paradox back and forth. to what end? yes, it is nice to recognize things beyond the pale of constructive guidelines. however, it is by that structure we use our systems to act. what constructive taoist texts do you have to offer? even just quotes? i mean i can level the aspects of the abstracts in things like morality, for example, and attempt to set guidelines. are there any observances in the tao that has the cohesive power of say, "i think, therefore i am." as an argument? in terms of effectiveness? one zhuangzi can lay down a verbal smackdown any day, but must he be considered an authority on comprehensive discussions of self preservation, any sorts of thoughts on law or rigidity?

I just binged xavier renegade and i read this in his voice

>constructive
constructive post-modernism

no i'm just really good looking, dress nice, associate myself with fancy things and never say anything so they don't know i'm actually quite stupid.

what?

okay, i was asking if there were any constructive taoist texts at all, constructive in specific ways. like the ability to express a moral guideline by which to live, or how many hoagies SHOULD, not could, eat. can tao offer practicality to the postmodern man? can it offer practicality to anyone? does it help you learn how to remember long strings of numbers, or help you park a car? what the fuck good is philosophy without some use to it? oh i meet a nihilist, oh nice, whatcha gonna do with that?
"gonna sit here and do jack shit because everything is meaningless and all is one and every consciousness is mixing in the river spirit maaan" fucking nihilists, hippies, commies, antifans, whatever they are called these days, what do they produce with their philosophy? i enjoy the philosphy that built empires that didn't fall mainly because they ran out of hoagies to be unsure whether one should consume or not. where's that one? does tao do that?

that shit is not for the laymen, my nig. u have to pay the price to be able to really understand what he's sayin'. price one can only pay by chance or destiny.

This is precisely the type of questioning that nearly all philosophy tries to answer. I don't see the problem.
Some could say we name things and categorize ourselves so we can create power hierarchies. Some say it's just to compartmentalize novelty and make sense of the chaos.
Regardless you must find out what you are.

>and never say anything so they don't know i'm actually quite stupid.
This is the real secret to success.

>go into meetings
>have no idea what people are talking about half the time
>say almost nothing
>everyone thinks i'm some genius

Lol. I'm fucking stupid too.

A Taoist argument would be that you can have a construction that works, but not one that works permanently because all constructions are deviations from natural order. If you need constructions to live by because you can't cut it as a mountain wizard then you must be ready to abandon those constructions for different ones whenever they inevitably cease to serve the purpose they once did.

If you can think of another way to communicate, tell us.

well i think that is a very central aspect of society as we acknowledge our impermanence quite regularly. i doubt tao is arguing anything there of any practical use. "oh well make two because one will break eventually!" i could get that philosophy shortly after i make spear, me unga bunga and need more spear, last one broke in gorrilla dick, and i need to make sure next time one come runnin up i must be at the ready with spare. unga bunga transcends eastern philosophy's greatest practical argument.

i'm compelled by the utility monster though.

and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.

It's not so much about physical impermanence. When you make the spear, your intent is to make getting lunch easier, and for a while getting lunch is easier for you, but human nature dictates that other people will see your spear and want easier lunch as well and eventually getting lunch with a spear will be harder than it used to be and on top of that you have a bunch of hungry people armed with spears. This process of disrupting the natural order will repeat itself whenever a spear or gun or computer is invented.

yes but that is not a response to the question of practicality from eastern philosophy. i agree that effectiveness of a hunting tool can cause shifts in society, but once again i doubt that eastern philosophy specifically enables us to determine a system of logic that can be further followed to allow more complex and malleable economic instances in society.

show me the brilliant eastern thinker that invented gunpowder, and what philosophy he followed. that would be of great use as a foundation, but if fish and rocks and trees breathing through cups of spirit into the lotus blossom on the first new year's day is all one can offer, i'll remain content with the draconic labyrinth of western philosophy, as i know rule of law, science, and economy rest in that space, in a cohesive way that does not rely entirely on metaphor.

Do you mean original sin? I have this gut feeling that language is the original sin, it has come to me in dream more than once but I can't go on any further

>i doubt that eastern philosophy specifically enables us to determine a system of logic that can be further followed to allow more complex and malleable economic instances in society

That's more of Confucianism's realm in the East. Complexities are antithetical to Taoist thought which pursues nothingness.

so, they're useless nihilists like i said earlier.

Autism and

>alternatives
Why are these needed? Are you a fucking child?

>why do we have to define ourselves?

life would be too confusing if we didn't. I've found that, when you're close to someone, you don't have to define them

relationship goals

Because
> In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

I don't agree. Maybe it's more like being in a Heaven if you don't define yourself (so there is no separation between you and the world/nature/God/etc)

>useless

Hui Tzu said to Chuang Tzu, "I have a big tree named ailanthus. Its trunk is too gnarled and bumpy to apply a measuring line to, its branches too bent and twisty to match up to a compass or square. You could stand it by the road and no carpenter would look at it twice. Your words, too, are big and useless, and so everyone alike spurns them!"

Chuang Tzu said, "Maybe you've never seen a wildcat or a weasel. It crouches down and hides, watching for something to come along. It leaps and races east and west, not hesitating to go high or low-until it falls into the trap and dies in the net. Then again there's the yak, big as a cloud covering the sky. It certainly knows how to be big, though it doesn't know how to catch rats. Now you have this big tree and you're distressed because it's useless. Why don't you plant it in Not-Even-Anything Village, or the field of Broad-and-Boundless, relax and do nothing by its side, or lie down for a free and easy sleep under it? Axes will never shorten its life, nothing can ever harm it. If there's no use for it, how can it come to grief or pain?"

It would be harder to think of a dumber question than this. Even a toddler would give a smarter question.

>being so far gone that you think the whole world is autistic

i must be a genius to come up with questions this simple.

very often ppl have similar reaction to yours when i do or say something.

Cause we are an aiming animal.
Primates are aiming animals.
We have to exclude the next branch from everything else.
If the branch is not discerned, if it remains unnamed, then there is no branch.

Yeah, you're right. We shouldn't give names to anything, and make no attempt to define ourselves, we're all the same as rocks.

That would work much fucking better. Thanks for sorting that out OP.

if we can get rid of religion, why not get rid of language.

i have a very original mind.

there are no animals on the internet

ah yes, this certainly changed my opinion. now it's even more useless.

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