What is a Friend: Benefits & Reasons to Have Friends

[Langbein]

What is a friend, and why should there be any reson to have friends ?

If I saved some money wouldn't it be bether to buy some food and some equipment to travel to some peak of a mountain or some island where it's absolote nobody else than me, and then to live there ?

Wouldn't it be a bether place to apply pure thinking and pure wisdom do get an bether understanding about myself and the universe ?

Why should I need friends or other people around me at all ?

Wouldn't it be bether to be a real philosopher and to apply the real pure thaught ?

 

[lalbatros]

A better question would be: why should there be a reason to BE a friend to someone?
My answer: because humans a social animals.

 

[wuliheron]

"Virtue is its own reward, to have a friend you must first be a friend."
R W Emerson

People are by nature social creatures, and philosophy is the love of wisdom. Part of wisdom is accepting who and what we are.

 

[Tosh]

1) If I saved some money wouldn't it be bether to buy some food and some equipment to travel to some peak of a mountain or some island where it's absolote nobody else than me, and then to live there ?

2) Why should I need friends or other people around me at all ?

3) Wouldn't it be bether to be a real philosopher and to apply the real pure thaught ?

------------------------------------------------------------------------

1) I think you would get quite depressed unless you came to help the people every now and again. If we all lived isolated it would be so unproductive (not just time but perceived effort would increase with no one to talk to).

2) True. But then why do you need a partner? Or why do people want children? Or why do we like chocolate, and if not chocolate then something else? I think it comes down to being human, and we can't yet speak much further on that one.

3) Apply pure thought to what? Life? Society? But you wouldn't know much about society. Experience is important, you need to observe things to think over them. Who would have raised you if your parents had isolated themselves like this and saw no "benefit" in raising you? Although I will probably get deleted for this, I would say that God has put these mechanisms in our hearts and societies, so that we like each other as people and friends, so that we love our wife/husband (who should be the bestest of friends), and so that we feel mercy and compassion towards children. But of course this doesn't prevent further discussion on the matter of how our form brings out these qualities.

A good philosopher is not devoid of experience. I think the best philosophy is that which most people can understand and utilise.

 

[moe darklight]

What is a friend

"A friend is someone you can call to help you move a house. A best friend is someone you can call to help you move a corpse." -- some comedian I saw on tv.

funny, but a accurate definition.

why should there be any reson to have friends?

There's no reason to have friends if you don't want friends. There is if you do.
If you plan on being a completely reclusive philosopher, I don't think that's impossible. But it could result in some pretty "out there" philosophy to which most non-you people will not be able to relate ... but many reclusive artists'/philosophers' work if fascinating, if somewhat inaccessible and rant-like.