@Thomas Williams Philosophy is by my understanding: “The practice of defining the forms which make up reality”. Which I have mentioned before. We can only define what we experience, therefore what we can define is already restricted by our experience. In the model I use, the human experience take place in the individual. It CAN be used to navigate culture, we can define cultural objects. But That is a higher level application. Level 1 = direct Experience of the individual Level 2 = Cultural experience (subset of the experience of the individual) And through philosophy we can define forms on a lower level, we can define the objects which we directly experience. The things I say only works in the model that our human experience first take place in the individual, and the cultural experience a subset of that experience. It IS neccessary to have the ability to philosophise (Define forms) in order to be free, or at least free from the subset of our experience, culture. One might chose to only operate in the cultural level because the culture suits them. But if they do not have the ability to define the forms in their direct experience they can’t be free. To define free: “The ability to chose”. Hope that is good enough. If you chose to operate within culture then that is freedom. If the culture suits you then you might chose that there is no reason to define any objects you experience directly. But remember that the cultural experience is a subset of our experience of life. To say that philosophy is only good as a tool to navigate culture is like saying our muscles are only good for lifting heavy stuff off the ground. There are other things one can do with muscles, like running or pulling our own body. One might chose to only lift heavy stuff of the ground because they don’t see any reason to do anything else. But if they can not do any other thing with their muscles than lifting heavy stuff of the ground, then they are restricted from their muscles true ability. They can’t chose. They are less free. My point of view is that the culture of today are not yet fitt for all humans (maybe even most) so to only define objects within the cultural experience might be pointless or not good enough for the people that are not suited by culture. Therefore “philosophy is necessary in the modern world”. That is phrased poorly. What is necessary to live is just food, water and shelter. What is necessary for freedom (to the extent of a human) is the ability to define the forms which make up our reality i.e chose what reality itself is.

@Thomas Williams f I make the choice to sit on a chair. I must first know my options: I can “sit”, I can “keep standing”. The concept “choice” is dependent on options. Options is possible actions. The Possible actions are all forms. We can’t make choices in the world if we haven’t conceptulised it, if we haven’t defined some of the forms that make up reality. the foundation of human reality is the forms defined from direct experience, without them there would be no place for the cultural experience to stand. If someone pointed at a tree and said “tree” trying to define the form in a cultural manner, for me to conceptualise the cultural form of tree, I would first have to observe the tree for myself or have it be described to me in other forms I have observed myself. If I can only operate on the cultural level, my array of choices will be restricted by what can be culturally defined. If the foundation is flawed or unfit, no amount of tinkering in the cultural will help.

This is my theory: This reality can be split appart. There is the Objective, the Pereptual, The Conceptual. Each part of the other. The objective is everything. We have no direct access to the objective, we can only percive reality through our limited perceptive organs. We can only create concepts based on what we sense perceptualy. The Conceptual reality set is a small part of the perceptual, it is everything that can be known. God is part of that we can never know. Humans were given free will. We can act to the exctent of our physical body and mind. God has free will. God can act without limit. For him to act without limit he cannot be dependent on anything but himself. He is "above" everything. The reason we know the objective reality does exist and God as well is through our "soul knowledge". There are the things every being can know, no matter their cognitive capability. These are the truths ingrained into our soul. It is up to us to recollect. In other words The things we know not because of our cognition but rather our direct experience of being. First that There is such a thing as truth. For if there are things, then the truth is that there are things, if there were no thing, then there would be no such thing as truth, if there were no such thing as truth there would be no things, if there were no things then the truth would be that there were no things. Conceptually this statement can never be proven. For a conceptual approach to finding truth is through constant re-definition. "Then what is truth?" "Then what are things?". But we do know it, because of our experience. And the second soul truth is that God does exist. But this can't be argued for. Words are symbols meant to reffer to concepts. Concepts are part of that which we can know, God is not there. To try to argue for Gods existence can not be done without deception. The soul truths are what connects us to God and the objective reality. I belive the reason intellectuals of our time doesn't really care for God is because they are caught up in their deep conceptual model of reality and has decided to ignore the soul truths.

Addiction has many different kinds of forms. I'd say you should figure out what your addiction looks like on a deeper level. Healthy gamer gg is a really good resource for this, i'd recomend you consume some of his youtube videos about addiction. But yeah. Long term addictions are really weird because they are straight up part of who you are. To let go of them is letting go and fighting part of yourself. Willpower is not enough, part of your will is literarly dependent on the addiction. They lay deep in what makes you who you are. You are gonna have to find a deeper part of yourself that can drive you and give you the courage to let go of the part of you which you do not accept. The fact that you even want to let go of this addiction means that there must be a deeper part of you that is more important to you, find out exactly what that is. And healthy gamer gg, for real. It is a good resource for this kind of stuff, check it out.

Epictetus discourses is easy to read and has a lot of depth to open yourself up to new ways of viewing reality. (Each chapter is no longer than 2 pages). Then read some of plato (meno and Cratylus are short and personally my favourites). I don't know much about buddhism or taoism but before hopping into those philosphies I would recomend reading cognitive set theory by Alec Rogers.

The book builds a model of viewing reality different from the cultural model of how one should view living and achivments of goals. It is a model. The book is trying to make you build that model and apply it to the model you have of reality. The book uses physics and first principles in order to meet you at axioms of reality that pretty much all humans have. Then use those axioms in order to lead you to the model explored in the book, which most likely differs from your model of reality. In order to gain something from the book you are going to have to admitt and understand that you have a model of viewing reality (If I do this, this happens. In order to achive this I must do this. This is possible. This is not. etc). Then some courage is needed in order for you to follow along with the model and let it influence you on a deeper level. I have read or listened to a number of "good" books but gained nothing from them. The reason is always either that I am missing something I have to admitt before even starting or that I am not courages enough to actually follow along with the building of the model and end up reading through it with some ignorance ("This doesn't apply to me", "This might be helpful to know in the future but I a not going to do anything right now").