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Comment by DerekBickerton | Hacker News Reader

Philosophy. Why do I like it? The word means 'the love of wisdom', and I love learning about new concepts which try to re-frame reality. There can be cognitive dissonance if you apply one concept of philosophy, and then apply its opposite, so choose wisely. This is why I like 'dualism', which leads me onto Buddhism, which I study too. Buddhism is more a science of the mind, not a religion IMHO.

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> Buddhism is more a science of the mind, not a religion IMHO.

This is such an extremely new, contemporary, western interpretation of buddhism. It's not inherently invalid (or maybe it is! I'm not a buddhist) but it's not compatible with how most practitioners globally and through its history would view their beliefs and practices.

If you need to consider it "not a religion" in order to take it seriously you should probably challenge that constraint within yourself rather than ignore half of what the religion says about itself, on its own terms.

ooo nice. what specific areas would you recommend a philosophy noob start on, and what are some good offline and online intro resources to the topic?

Read up about stoicism, nihilism, cynicism. Also esoteric texts are interesting too. Also seeking out esoteric knowledge that isn't well disseminated is highly interesting to me. Nothing like the rush of an esoteric book!

Stoicism is, to my knowledge, the only branch of philosophy that feels useful to me. It's like an insurance policy -- care about doing right, and act accordingly, and you will be content (if not comfortable) no matter what happens. The world really would be a much better place if it had more stoics.

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