Agreed, holy shit was that baby pills? That's...fucking adorable...and I hate children! Also, as an idiot, I've never heard of Merleau-Ponty, so now I get to check out all his shit and further customize my Plato's Cave (tm) reality. There is no spoon...until there is!

nah its entertainment not education

10:22 this is the best way to get a feel for reading philosophy ...to _get a feel_ ...for reading...philosophy...you see... *_*dodges tomatoes_**

existence is a prison and life is a curse, so might as well watch a bunch of tiktoks that make you laugh!

Religion was the information of its day

And censored and controlled at that

Culture is the commodity that sells all the others

@@joeymcauley1 grossly ironic because culture IS the most abundant and demanded commodity today XD

This is a really great take… I will steal it from you

Nice comment. It reminds me of a Baudrillard quote: "When the real is no longer what is was, nostalgia assumes its full meaning" (Sim&Sim, 1981, p. 6). I‘ve often wondered how that quote was supposed to be taken. Does it mean that nostalgia assumes *all the meaning of reality? Like it covers everything that is 'real'?* I mean, everything *is* nostalgic inside the alternative reality of media which is where we all now live (in endless repititions of videos, video games and other simulations). Or does it mean that nostalgia achieves it *full* potential as it is the most viable emotion in postmodernity whatever that is? And does it mean 'reality' is dead? Or does it mean that we pine for reality as it was because it can no longer be? I can‘t help but think too that this war right now is not real. War has not been strictly 'real' since the Gulf War. But what can I do to corroborate my fears? I have no way to know. Roland Barthes wrote a brilliant piece about Jet-Pilots in 'Mythologies' in which he talked about the Jet as being faster than fast to the point it surpassed speed (1957, p. 81). Nothing is sensed by the Pilot but a "coanaesthesis of motionlessness" - an experience of feeling one‘s body frozen by speed. What is that if not a metaphor for the Net-Man too? Speeding through information yet utterly unaware.

@@MGSVxBreakpoint Remember the map that is as large and detailed as the terrain. The map is confused for the real or assumed to be as much but, crucially, it isn't. The real is there underneath it. That is, until it isn't; when it rots away and all that is left is the map. What we are left with is some approximation of the real, and no telling how accurate. We miss what we didn't know we lost, and when we go to look for it again, all we find are the trappings of something long lost. It gets into our minds that perhaps, at least for a moment, we might experience what we once had. But, we can't. Our memories are in Technicolor, and feature Happy Meal Toys, Sunday morning Cartoons, Britney Spears, and Scream, the horror movie and nothing of the real, only the memes of that time. No wonder that this is all we can seem to conjure up in The Real of now, or the Not Real, for Nostalgia assumes its full meaning when the now and the future are just copies of a copy of a copy...

@@alexjeffreys2546 Ya, bud. I have read Baudrillard too xD. Reality being compromised is quite a 1st-world problem though when we get down to it. There is plenty of it around if you look for it.

@@MGSVxBreakpoint sorry man. Wasn't intending to condescend, just attempting to explain what he meant re: nostalgia and the real.

Touching upon the following: "I wonder if there are people who are, for all intents and purposes, in a virtual reality because they only know the world through the media, and what the existence of such people means for this theory" I think this video addresses this, though--at our core, we're bodies operating by largely frictive forces. Could we make virtual the physical process of digestion, of respiration? For as long as we're biologically living creatures which require what we require to physically sustain ourselves, we'll undergo a learning of behaviors and norms which bind us to the physical world around us. This basis is, I think, what Pills is suggesting as a platform of response to the creep of the virtual into reality. Maybe an interesting next step would be to question how thoroughly our physical needs (and emotional, but that seems to require much more typing) which provide the axes for our modes of conduct could be addressed through 'virtual' means. If a grocery store simulates the hunter/gather principle by providing us segmented areas of nutritive sources from which to collect, that doesn't mean I don't digest an apple just the same. Neither does does a media campaign selling me pears replace my actually eating them. Could replacing social spheres vital to physical development with VR headsets (both literally and metaphorically) as you suggest truly lead us to a place where virtual reality subsumes reality entirely--again, however we're defining reality--and thus invert the real/virtual dichotomy/distinction?

Familiarity breeds contempt. Even seeing a rainbow for the 50th time has to have less impact than the first time. If only we could go back. But to go back we have to un-become us, and not know that reality is more "thick" than the one our "grown up" selves left behind.

@@edubmf , psychedelics can do that. A child's brain, in which the neurological paths haven't thickened yet is overwhelmed by sensory input. As msri images have shown, psilocybin stimulates the brain in a way, that communication between different brain parts increases highly. That's maybe why the experience can make you humble. You again experience the child like state and how difficult it is to make sense of things and deal with the sensory data coming in. But I don't want to promote anything. I'm just a little sad, that these magnificient tools are still seen in the same category as stupid performance enhancing substances, which have a high potential for addiction and rather make you an even more habitual robot, while our circumstances demand highly adaptable behaviour.

Yes, language does thin out the world and distances us from it. But that is its greatest power

this is almost literally what the "signs and truth" chapter of "proust and signs" is about (read the book)

@@heartache5742 it is now in my basket, but i cannot guarantee i shall understand

I have one, very close friend that I can get into philosophical, existential talks with. At least he's the one that really throws ideas back at me and keeps it engaging enough that I always leave thinking of three more things that could be discussed. During a car ride, with me driving and amidst some kind of conversation he asked something like "how can we really know anything?" And on the fly, off the top of my head the best answer I could give was: "experiencing something is knowing something." Thinking about it more, I think I might've been right or at least, it's a rare occasion where I feel confident in my immediate answer. Experience. All we truly know that we have. Thus the only way that we truly know anything. Things not read about, or read or heard about: but experienced as first handedly as possible. Experience. All that we can know, all that we are. As far as I can tell...as far as I've experienced lol.

Nah, Cypher acted out of ignorance.

It can be either nostalgia or harmony; one can feel fully in the present while relying on imprints from the past to facilitate that feeling, I think

@@fidii347 I think some kind of 'nostalgia' is inevitable, it's how the self is formed and lived. So yeah i agree with 'relying' on those imprints, in a way. Continuous self affirmation. We're just programming, responding to postive feedback loops starting from that very first day of the mirror stage. Pills is always so negative on nostalgia and i can agree that there are some negatives. Its used as a tool of consumerism (resulting in this cultureless modernity we live in) and as a weapon, to evoke those values that are useful to whoever is wielding them. But, big but, those feelings are still real. Each one unique and engrained in the minds of every single human being.

Also, what you consider the red pill (reality), the world of flesh, rings of Thich Nhat Hanh signature mantras "I have arrived, I am home, present moment, wonderful moment, peace in every step, with every step I have arrived." Dude was touching grass deeeeeeply.

Chuang Tzu is largely regarded as the second greatest Taoist philosopher whether he was a single real person or not. His work, collected after his death? Is a true masterwork of great philosophy. You say this is taught in every Chinese School? Brilliant. This is an amazing sign for the world and China's influence in it. I don't expect our host to examine the comments on a year old video with any sense of urgency. But I do hope that I can see any reply, especially from PlasticPills.

Well put. Within the story, a lot of people forget the importance of the oracle. She was a tool of the system just as neo was and the matrix as a whole was. Your question really leads you round in circles tho, even with reductionist thinking. This is addressed in the trilogy, altho i don't think they offer a solution. You could, and a lot do, end in a nihilistic gloom with the realisation that no choice is ever made freely. I like the dialog with the oracles when shes says "you're not here to make the choice, you've already made it, you're here to understand it"

@@0quisuismoi0 yes, the question of what narrative you choose to believe, and what its origins are may be circular, at least causally. Your starting narrative will influence further choices in narrative you choose to believe. The point though, you can't be "red pilled", you can't "wake up", or be "enlightened". Once you start to question a narrative, what you're doing is constructing competing narratives and assessing which is the most plausible. That's not to say that all are equally valid, just that any choice you make is just the adoption of a new narrative, or the same. In terms of 'The Matrix', once Neo starts to question the reality of his life, he is in search of a new narrative, and Morpheus (and by proxy, the Oracle) provides one, which he accepts, yet continues to question, at least as to whether he is indeed "the one". As far as 'The Matrix' is concerned, the narrative that people are trapped in a virtual reality is, as far as we know, objectively true, but some viewers have questioned whether or not 'the real world' was just another simulation. With respect to the signs and symbols we see in media and advertisements that pills touches on, these, in my mind, are just another means of constructing a narrative, another 'technology' if you will, a visual language. In the end, what we choose to believe is our responsibility (disregarding any debate on 'freewill'), and in my mind, that's empowering, not nihilistic. That being said, we should be cautious, what potential motives might those who provide pieces of a narrative to us carry? That's the reason to question the origins of a narrative, are those behind a narrative like the machines, trying to extract a resource from us? What resource might that be? Taxes? Votes? Purchases? Some form of support in a conflict? Credibility? What you choose to believe will either make you provide those resources willingly, or not, but in the end, we are responsible for our choice.

@@toddfulton2280 I think the 'resource' extracted from us is our participation, in whichever 'matrix' that is. As in, Symbolic exchange is its own purpose. I think thats how our consious brain and perception itself works. Thats how we exist in this reality, or 'matrixes'. With Neos journey, and pursuit for a new narrative, i think its presented as he releases himself from those narratives through 'self' sacrifice. After learning he is himself a form of control, he initially rejects that narrative by going back to trinity, herself another narrative in that context (altho listening to the wachowkis they use 'matrixes' for their description) After shedding it all, his final conversations with smith, nudged by the oracle again, he 'self' sacrifices. He does what he is, if that makes sense. As in the only way to become 'free' or to be himself (which is what neos journey is. "wake up neo") Is after he gave up everything else and is just left with himself, which is a mechanism to reset the matrix.

Isn't science an escape from narrative? Not to say that science can't be narrativized, but at its grandest and loftiest, science shows us things about reality which are impossible to reconcile with ordinary experiences of reality (ex: quantum mechanics and its strangeness)

@@josephmariani-mezera4171 At its core, science gives us the ability to make predictions, period. When used as a means to describe reality however, it falls into the realm of narrative, or philosophy. The description depends on our interpretation of the models we construct, and there are many competing narratives, especially regarding the metaphysical implications of quantum mechanics. Do you believe that mathematics is an intrinsic (objective) aspect of reality, or is it a subjective set of rules we've created to capture patterns we find in the world? To say that mathematics is subjective is not to say that it's arbitrary, 1 + 1 = 2 according to the rules of addition, but does 2 mean anything to the objective world, or is it an abstract, subjective, symbol we use to describe the world?

Make a necklace out of them

I think it may be a rule in Canada.

I'll look forward to your verdict

@@PlasticPills thank you for bringing up flesh in a philosophy video people should do it more

I really hate that word

@@latioswarr3785 what praxis lol this is a vid called the phenomenology of touching grass by a post humanist, continental philosophy content creator

@@latioswarr3785 "diversity" is a disgusting political agenda, but don't resent the word, it is being bastardized.