Thanks for the suggestion - I'll add Plato's works to my list. I tried to get into Republic when I was a bit younger but couldn't digest it at the time, but I wasn't very familiar with philosophy (or reading dry books in general) at the time so it would be worth another go round.
I'm roughly familiar with Camus' ideas as presented in the Myth of Sisyphus, and I like the idea that one can make the fight against suffering the source of meaning - it resonates with my understanding of the role of dukkha in the four noble truths in Buddhism. I personally use a mix of Zen Buddhism and stoicism, which seems very similar to you.
The main mental models I use day-to-day are those derived from systems theory, and I believe that patterns of emergence and recursion described by systems theory are the underlying mechanism that brings about abstract properties. I believe I have a copy of "The Human Use of Human Beings" by Norbert Wiener on the way for Christmas, which is meant to be a great book on the topic of cybernetics which is essentially a sub-category of systems theory.
That does sound very similar. I know that in my interpretation Camus is one of the possible outcomes of Nietzsche's thoughts, and that his thoughts afford for many... I think that is something that resonated with me - that _my_ philosophy does not need to be yours, but that we can still find some common ground to survive with one another.
Do you have good recommendations for Zen Buddhism and systems theories?
I have touched on both, but never got deep enough to know what are the main works I should be working off of.
> in my interpretation Camus is one of the possible outcomes of Nietzsche's thoughts, and that his thoughts afford for many
Yeah that makes total sense. How do you respond to a meaningless universe? By imagining up our own meaning and putting value in that.
> I think that is something that resonated with me - that _my_ philosophy does not need to be yours, but that we can still find some common ground to survive with one another.
Yeah I totally agree, and I think we could benefit from more people who viewed our existence in that way.
> Do you have good recommendations for Zen Buddhism and systems theories?
Unfortunately I'm not generally that bookish - a lot of the knowledge I have on these subjects, I've picked up from thinking and practicing the ideas within, odd sources on the internet and in conversations rather than reading books. However, I can recommend Alan Watts' "The Way of Zen" and Donella Meadows' "Thinking in Systems", which I have read and both of which are fantastic.
Unfortunately sometimes systems theorists get caught up in the fine grained details such as "stock and flow" and "causal loop" diagrams and specific types of loop structure, which happens in Donella Meadows' book - the wiki page for complex systems (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_system) is a good entry point for the high level concerns in systems theory.
[edit] I'm also told that Godel Escher Bach is an interesting book for approaching systems concepts like self-reference and emergence in a more esoteric, example-driven way.
I'm roughly familiar with Camus' ideas as presented in the Myth of Sisyphus, and I like the idea that one can make the fight against suffering the source of meaning - it resonates with my understanding of the role of dukkha in the four noble truths in Buddhism. I personally use a mix of Zen Buddhism and stoicism, which seems very similar to you.
The main mental models I use day-to-day are those derived from systems theory, and I believe that patterns of emergence and recursion described by systems theory are the underlying mechanism that brings about abstract properties. I believe I have a copy of "The Human Use of Human Beings" by Norbert Wiener on the way for Christmas, which is meant to be a great book on the topic of cybernetics which is essentially a sub-category of systems theory.