How do you people with long hair put it up?

[Edwardo Piet]

I'm exactly the same except I get my hair shaved down really short when it starts getting into my eyes.

On a semi-unrelated note... I am glad you're a Spinoza fan

Personally for me he's second to Leibniz

Although I agree that the universe is ultimately one entity, and that separate entities are an illusion... but I don't think that's quite what Spinoza was getting at. I guess I'm more of a Parmenides fan than anything. He got it all spot on a long while ago, to me.

And when it comes to the world of seeming, that we live in... Leibniz's monads make more sense to me. We are indeed all windowless. That's why I get pissed off when people pretend to have empathy

Just kidding. Empathy exists. But only when we acknowledge that it isn't truly putting yourself in another person's point of view... as that's metaphysically impossible unless we're all one mind. It's trying as best as you can to put yourself in the point of view that you yourself think the other person's point of view is, and getting it as close as possible to whatever their actual view is. How people do it I have no idea. I'm crap at it. It's mostly because I'm so self-absorbed I think though. I can't be bothered to spend time on what other people think. Who cares what other people think

All I care about is what I think and other people are there to correct me if I'm wrong about stuff while I focus on correctness itself

Anyway, to be clear the semi-on-topicness of this, in case you didn't notice and think "WTF is he talking about philosophy on a hair thread".... Spinoza and Leibniz both had long hair lol.

I always though Leibniz wore a wig.

Spinoza:

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Leibniz:

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As far as philosophy, Leibniz is okay... but I always called him "Diet Spinoza." Leibniz's metaphysics depends on a personal God, and I rather dislike his whole "best of all possible worlds" claim. Although I like both of them on account of their depth. Leibniz borrowed a lot from Spinoza, that is certain. But in the end, I like Spinoza because he is more like a Stoic materialist, whereas Leibniz is a theistic idealist.

They're both awesome.

I like the idealism side of Leibniz. I like monads. I like how he invented calculus before Newton... and I like how he came up with one of the most fundamental distinctions in philosophy: The difference between synthetic truths and analytic truths. Truths of fact, and truths of reasoning.

I didn't get the impression that Leibniz's god was much of a personal God. Other than setting all the windowless monads in harmony... it seems rather deistic to me.

Spinoza is a pantheist. But those who say that he basically just labelled the universe as God are being unfair to him. He believed the universe had a mind, he meant what he said. God is nature, sure, but he attirbuted an intelligence to it. It seems on the same level as Leibniz to me on that regard. The difference is that to Leibniz there are many parts to the universe, monads.... and with Spinoza it's all one entity. And they're both right.

As for the best of all possible worlds claim. He's right. We do live in the best of all possible worlds, if we're talking metaphysically possible (and I doubt he meant logically possible).... but then Schopenhauer was right as well when he said we live in the worst of all possible worlds. How can they both be right when they say the opposite? Well, we live in the only possible world because determinism is true So that makes this both the best and worst possible world!

That's what I think anyways.