How I found God
Recently I've began to consider the real possibility of a presence out there that's larger than myself. I think everyone is constantly searching for "it", or "God", or the "energy", or whatever you'd like to call this presence. I was an atheist for the longest time. I investigated all the common arguments for the existence of God. I understand basic epistemology and things like that - things like "belief in nonexistence vs lack of belief in existence". The problem I was having before was that I was looking for God in the wrong place. I was looking out into the world from a self-centered perspective, from a scientific mindset. The issue with that is that science is a presupposed worldview (naturalism based on materialism) and ignores the possibility of all things which exist beyond that. I get that science is our best way to investigate truth. To test on an objective level if things exist outside ourselves through methods of observations, cognitive biases, falsifiability, etc...Don't get me wrong, I love science and what it offers. It's clearly the best way to gain knowledge of the universe; however, it does ignore the existence of something I feel connected with.
"God", is this type of higher consciousness that we are able to connect with not through "looking out into the world" but looking "up into the present". God transcends the physical reality and so if you try looking out into the world for it, you won't find it. It could be the case that we have built within our psyche this "God Gene" of sorts, sort of like the Freudian "ID", that motivates us to search for a higher presence, but I actually feel the presence because I'm "in it" and it seems so real that I can't honestly say that something isn't there.
It's hard to define exactly what it is because in a way it's describing how something tastes. How are you supposed to describe what "sour" tastes like to somebody who hasn't ever tasted anything sour? You can tell them where to find it, but you can't actually communicate what that's like if you don't experience it yourself. God is an experience that you need to have to understand what it is. One thing it's not is that it's not a being that you can communicate with or pray to, like the Christian concept of a God, but it's a collective sentience that brings everything together.
"God", is this type of higher consciousness that we are able to connect with not through "looking out into the world" but looking "up into the present". God transcends the physical reality and so if you try looking out into the world for it, you won't find it. It could be the case that we have built within our psyche this "God Gene" of sorts, sort of like the Freudian "ID", that motivates us to search for a higher presence, but I actually feel the presence because I'm "in it" and it seems so real that I can't honestly say that something isn't there.
It's hard to define exactly what it is because in a way it's describing how something tastes. How are you supposed to describe what "sour" tastes like to somebody who hasn't ever tasted anything sour? You can tell them where to find it, but you can't actually communicate what that's like if you don't experience it yourself. God is an experience that you need to have to understand what it is. One thing it's not is that it's not a being that you can communicate with or pray to, like the Christian concept of a God, but it's a collective sentience that brings everything together.
Comments (209)
Not me, that would conflict with my arrogance.
Quoting stonedthoughtsofnature
Say it tastes like excitement.
Quoting stonedthoughtsofnature
Then stop trying to explain irrationality in a rational way.
Quoting stonedthoughtsofnature
Like a universal interconnectivity?
From your chosen moniker, it could be inferred that your thoughts are inspired by a chemically-induced state of consciousness. Or are they neoplatonically inspired? Both? Neither?
"The predisposition to religious belief is the most complex and powerful force in the human mind and in all probability an ineradicable part of human nature." Wilson, E.O. (2004). On Human Nature. Harvard University Press.
If true, there is no such thing as a spiritual vacuum (i.e., all human beings have a worldview). Science is a method which some have transformed into a worldview (i.e., Scientism).
I was feeling sympathetic toward your discussion. Although your vision of god is not mine, it seemed like we might have something in common. Then I read the above text. So - you have experienced god and you'll tell us if our experience of god is right or wrong. Is that right?
Quoting stonedthoughtsofnature
Sorry, but a god you can't communicate with is not really a god at all.
How did God find you?
Then you didn't find God.
Scientist X: Alas our theory is too poor for reality
Neils Bohr: No. Reality is too rich for our theory
You get the point.
However, in any rational outlook, be it science or philosophy, objectivity is set at a premium. And, unfortunately for people like you, your experience doesn't pass muster. Such experiences could be hallucinations, delusions, etc.
That said I find such objections unfair. History is replete with examples of the pioneers of thought being ridiculed, persecuted, even killed for their novel ideas. The point being such great thinkers were at one time absolutely ALONE - like you and others like you are.
Indeed, the idea of a relationship with God is an anthropomorphisation. The way that God interfaces with us is not relational. A relationship (in the way it's used when referring to God) is a back and forth of things like language (spoken directly or written down), body language, physical touch, relation per relations with other people in the social situation, shared activities, a shared physical presence...none of these literal aspects of a relationship actually apply to an experience of The Divine; hence it's a metaphor at best. On top of that, any direct, miraculous experience of The Divine that any of us might experience is always an exception to the norm; for instance, an experience of actually communicating with God is an exception, not the norm. It's fine to use "relationship" as a metaphor for how we experience The Divine...until it's not ok anymore. The metaphor blurs and we learn to assume that we're supposed to actually have a relationship with The Divine in the same way we might have a relationship with a father figure. This doesn't lead to a deeper spiritual experience; it leads to a self-imposed neuroses.
The experience of The Divine is in reality much more diffuse and complex. Social situations determine how the experience is interpreted and named. But the experience is uniform behind the backdrop of the interpretation.
Hi. I believe that you've experienced something, but why assume that this experience is universally accessible and also that others' experiences labelled 'God' are the same one you had? Why not a unique experience or set of experiences for every person? I have 2 suggest answers. First, certain peak experiences feel universal. Second, we want to make a claim on the universal. "I've experienced God" is like "I've read War and Peace" and "I've been to New York." It's more grandiose, perhaps, but it's same kind of bragging. It might take the form of spreading the good news ("I just want to share this joy.") but it's also a presentation of the virtue of the presenter.
But I'll agree with you in an important sense. There's a limit to the power of mere words. You can't pack the experience into a sentence and shove that sentence into an ear and expect the heart connected to that ear to light up with the same experience. Instead two humans share more or less the same peak experience or slow-burning realization and they determine this sameness by exchanging sentences. We learnt to trust that a new friend or lover really gets it or really had that "divine" experience.
I don't know why you'd think that.
An atheist who is "looking for God" sounds like an odd sort of atheist to me.
In the sense you've written, how is our experience of god any different from any other experience? Just change "god" to "blue" or "pizza." Are you saying it is impossible for one person to understand another's experience of the world?
And maybe that's the heart of the matter. Is an experience of god the same type of experience as any other, as examples - wetness, heat, pain, love, the smell of lavender. My answer is "yes."
Of course, money doesn't pop out of nowhere, what did you expect? Most people who get in touch with God, and become aware of God's presence work at it. They don't make it up, the same way you don't dream up your £100K.
I expect not to find what's not there. Didn't I make that clear?
How about we make a deal? If you work real hard at getting in touch with Big Foot, then I'll work real hard at getting in touch with God. Or we could spend our time avoiding wild goose chases. The problem is precisely that, in the case of people who say that they've found God, they do seem to make it up, or dream it up. Would you believe me if I told you I found £100,000 cash under my sofa? No. Do I believe this random internet guy, named stonedthoughtsofnature, when he tells me that he has found God? No.
But "blue" and "pizza" won't work as substitutes. First we think we do understand the joy of pizza more or less like everyone else. It's not controversial. God, however, is used as a justification for killing human beings, obstructing free inquiry, etc. To have a relationship with the supreme being is to make a status claim.
My point is that maybe there all kinds of peak experiences. I've had my share. They felt universal. But I'm rarely satisfied that others know what I'm talking about if I try to describe them. Yet they've had their own experiences that I can't quite feel my way into. I think there's a common but not universal assumption that there is one essential genuinely spiritual experience. There is one kind of "enlightenment," for instance. But I see no reason to assume that. I understand the appeal of the One True Thing, but that appeal is (at least among other things) nakedly narcissistic and status-driven. "Glamor is the happiness of being envied." It's another fetishized commodity, perhaps the ultimate commodity. That's hardly exhaustive. But it's the grime that tends to stick to claims of subjective treasure.
There is a common human experience. I've had it, many others have had it. Apparently you have not, or at least you aren't aware of it. Or maybe you use different words. Some people call it "God." Although I am not what you would call it a theist, I can understand that. For many of us, there is a fundamental feeling of gratitude for what we have been given. That feeling of gratitude leads us to want to thank someone, something.
I think there is a naturalistic, reasonable argument that it makes sense to grant personhood to the world we live in. My vision of how that might work won't be satisfying to monotheists, but I think my way of thinking and theirs grow out of that common experience.
I think pizza and blue are good substitutes in this context. It doesn't have anything to do with "status." You have not made a case that our perception of god is different in any way from our perceptions of other things.
It is a clichéd philosophical question - how do I know that other people experience blue the same way I do? How is that different from saying - how do I know that other people experience god the same way I do?
It seems like some sort of phenomenal experience that's often interpreted as religious experience is fairly common. But it also seems like something that not everyone has. Or at least not everyone has it in a manner where it's at all plausible to them that it's religious experience. The closest I come to it, for example, is maybe an ineffable resonant/ecstatic feeling in response to some artworks, romantic encounters, environmental immersion, etc.
I agree, but the fact that everyone might not experience whatever it is we're talking about or experiences it differently isn't evidence that it doesn't exist or is not worthy of consideration.
There are plenty of spiritual atheists, maybe they're not seeking God in name but they are seeking higher axiological and soteriological truths so in that sense they are seeking God in spirit.
Those experiences rarely occur spontaneously, you have enter into the mystery, you have to psychologically commit. And what's interesting about that is even if Jesus isn't real the idea of Jesus can still save your soul. If allowed to work, the mythology can lead to sublime experiences of catharsis and renewal which can effect radical change within the individual. Mythology is powerful, but in order to access that power you have to activate and engage the mythological imagination.
I agree with that, but as someone who doesn't have those sorts of experiences, that contributes to not being prone to those sorts of beliefs.
This is a very important point you make, and one that is often missed. My only question is: what could it mean for Jesus to be either real or not? Any spiritual reality is not an empirical reality, and so is not subject to intersubjective corroboration beyond the ambit of the merely analogical. Spiritual experiences are real by virtue of their being experienced; so if I experience Jesus, then Jesus is real. The converse: 'if I don't experience Jesus, Jesus is not real', does not hold, though.
I don't believe that. I can believe that there are some people who identify as atheists who would fit that description, but I don't believe there are a lot.
I've just had to make an appointment with my ophthalmologist--that made my eyes roll completely around so many times.
The actual existence of the deity, but I take your point. The myth by itself has transformative power so it's real enough, and that's pretty much the basis of moderate religion.
So you don't believe myth and religion have any impact on the psyche? You don't believe people have transformative religious experiences?
What you'd have to do is show me well-done surveys demonstrating significant numbers of people who are clearly atheists but who are clearly also "spiritual" etc.
If only that were all you'd said.
It's not that these types of experiences result in belief or imagination (two closely related psychological functions). It's rather that belief in, or imagining, a narrative/mythology/worldview results in these types of experiences.
And while the spiritual experiences of an individual are not the result of sensory stimulation, homeostasis, or affect, they can be inferred by others through the observation of subsequent behaviour.
One thing was, "You have enter into the mystery."
I think it is really necessary if we're being reasonable.
Sure, but once people have those experiences, it typically reinforces and strenghthens their beliefs. I was saying that not having those experiences contributes to me not having those sorts of beliefs. I don't have those sorts of beliefs, and so I don't interpret anything as those sorts of experiences, which reinforces or strengthens that I don't have those sorts of beliefs.
I don't want to argue about every phrase in that post of yours--I wouldn't have left it at rolling my eyes if I'd wanted to do that. It's just something other than whether myth and religion have any impact on the "psyche" or whether people have transformative religious experiences. So that myth and religion have an impact on the "psyche" and whether people have transformative religious experiences wasn't all you said, after all.
Buddhists are more complicated. I'd agree that there are some who don't believe in God. But plenty do. I have no idea what the numbers would be. That's why we'd need a good survey of that.
When it comes to making claims that are about what masses of persons' beliefs are, I'm only interested in pretty rigorous data about that. I have zero interest in someone just claiming that they know what individuals' beliefs are on the Internet, especially when I point out that I'd only accept a rigorous survey, they just ignore that and double-(and triple-etc.)down that they know, with zero empirical data to back it up.
Then you just don't know what your talking about. I think we're done here.
I hope you weren't under the impression that I believe that you know what you're talking about.
True enough. And yet you have a belief system (or worldview) of some sort; even if it consists of unbelief, such as Scientism.
Then you would probably be interested in the fact that The Pew Research Center on Religion & Public Life has been publishing The Changing Global Religious Landscape since at least 2010.
http://www.pewforum.org/2017/04/05/the-changing-global-religious-landscape/
Yeah, I have tons of beliefs. Just no beliefs that any religious claims are true.
That could be handy if we could find surveys about atheists who are "spiritual" etc., and I could check the methodology they use (hopefully they detail this in their articles/papers).
I think your self-report suffices in this respect.
Self-report about?
I wonder if a similar challenge doesn't arise from the psychology of peak experience, of flow, and so on. If you have an experience that you interpret religiously, does it really not matter that someone else has a similar experience when surfing?
I had a fellow philosophy major tell me once over beers that he was a believer because of a particular experience he had while tripping on acid. He explained that, at the time, he was already an experienced tripper, and so he was able to recognize that this was not the usual experience of using LSD, but something completely different. I took him at his word, but what are you really to do with something like that?
Which brings us back to what I think is the big idea here - is the experience of god something fundamentally different from our experiences of anything else. My answer is "no."
I think I can conceive of such an experience and might well have had it, but I just reach a different conclusion. And no, unlike some people, I certainly wouldn't call that - or [i]any[/I] experience - "God". I don't lack the words to describe the kind of experience that I suspect you have in mind. One might use words like "profound", "wonder", "awe", "amazement ", "appreciation", and so on. I would also call it a fundamental feeling of gratitude, as you do, if that is what was felt. But I recognise that that's all it is, a feeling, and I do not jump to conclusions that are unwarranted. I do not make the unwarranted assumption that we've "been given" anything, if by that you mean what I think you mean. And it can't be reasonable to grant personhood to something like the world we live in - that's a simple category error and an example of anthropomorphism.
This just shows that you are ignorant about Buddhism. There are Buddhists who believe in gods. It is considered more fortunate in Buddhism to be born a human than to be born a god. There are no Buddhists who believe in God the Creator of Everything in the Abrahamic, or even God in the Hinduistic sense. In fact Buddhism distinguishes itself from Hinduism precisely by denying the ultimate reality of the Atman/ Brahman relation, including their identity, and the reality of Atman and Brahman. Your idea about surveys is quite idiotic; to know what adherents to various faiths and their sects believe all you need to know is the relevant doctrines
Yeah, that's one explanation, and a very fashionable one indeed.
It's correct, which is all that matters.
Of course it is already obvious that it is correct in your opinion, so that unsupported comment seems redundant, and hence pointless.
Indeed. Almost as pointless as pointing out that it's one explanation or that's it's very fashionable, which is blindingly obvious and utterly irrelevant, respectively. But I do enjoy the irony in your last few replies, so they're not [i]completely[/I] worthless, in my opinion.
Which just shows that you're completely ignorant about people I know and what their beliefs are, as well as people they know but who I don't know personally and what their beliefs are. Which isn't a surprise--why would we expect that you and I know the same people? Maybe it would be wiser to not act so arrogant, as if you know what every single person's beliefs are, though.
Could you argue that insofar as the folks in question believe in God in the Abrahamic sense that they're not following Buddhist beliefs? Sure, but that's irrelevant. They're Buddhists (in many of their beliefs and practices otherwise; they self-identify as Buddhists and consider it an important part of their identity) who also believe in God. They're not Buddhists who are atheists. There are also Buddhists who are atheists but who are not at all spiritual.
And by the way, no, I'm not talking about westerners who were born into a very different culture. I'm talking about people from countries like Japan, China, South Korea, Laos, etc. who were born into Buddhist cultures.
I only said it because it certainly didn't seem as though it was obvious to you that you were doing nothing more than trotting out an unsupported, fashionable opinion; it rather seemed as though you thought you were expressing an infallible truth.
They are deluding themselves if they think they are Buddhists (as opposed to people who merely accept some Buddhist tenets) and they also believe in God in the Abrahamic sense. It's called cherry picking, and it's a common New Age phenomenon manifested by the poorly educated and lightly committed. What people say they are and what they really are may indeed be two very different things.
And you're committing the no true Scotsman fallacy there. Per that, maybe only a small percentage of folks would qualify as "true Buddhists" per your criteria. The bulk of real folks' beliefs, in all religions, are often quite different than academic analyses of them.
Most of the people I'm talking about aren't poorly educated in general. One is a physician, one is philosopher, one a marine biologist . . . not all of the people I'm thinking of have college degrees, but if we're talking about all of the Buddhists in a country like Laos, what percentage of them are what you'd consider well-educated?
It's not unsupported, although of course I didn't support it in my original comment, because I didn't think it was necessary to do so, which, in hindsight, was naive of me, given that this is a philosophy forum, where anyone can, and probably will if given the opportunity, cast doubt on or dispute just about anything, no matter how obvious.
Personhood is for persons, and the world is evidently not a person, it's the world - it merely contains persons. So to categorise it as such is to make a category error. And to assign personal attributes to nonpersons is to anthropomorphisize. The world is composed of numerous nonpersonal things which lack many obvious qualities of personhood. The wind doesn't have aspirations in life, rocks don't self-reflect, buildings don't talk about how they feel.
No, I'm not; it's a mere matter of definition. If you believe something that contradicts a central tenet of s religion, then you are simply not an adherent of that religion. How do you know that "the bulk of real folks' beliefs, in all religions, are (often?) quite different than academic analyses of them; do you know the "bulk of real folks" personally? ( I put the 'often' in brackets, because it seems prevaricatory; the bulk of real folks' are either different or they are not).
Quoting Terrapin Station
That's alright; I meant they are poorly educated when it comes to the central tenets of the religion whose central tenets they contradict in what they believe, while still calling themselves adherents of that religion.
But, all you're saying is that the world doesn't manifest obvious person-hood in its parts. Most of the parts of our bodies do not, merely in themselves, manifest person-hood either.
Yeah, you are.Quoting John
Just via an informal survey of many different people.
My God...the rigor!
What rigorous study were you using for most folks' religious beliefs adhering to academic analyses?
I made no claim about "most folks". I said that it's a matter of definition. If any of a person's beliefs contradict a central tenet of a religion, or a sect of a religion, then they are not, even if they consider themselves to be, an adherent of that religion or sect, taken as a whole. They might be adherents to more or less of the parts, obviously.
So you'd say that you don't know how most folks' beliefs match up with academic analyses of the religion in question?
No, that's not all I'm saying. I said that personhood is for persons, and that the world is evidently not a person, it's the world - it merely contains persons. I stand by that. You can only go so far with that analogy. The world is just the totality of it's parts and there's no good reason to assign to it any anthropomorphic qualities, whereas there's ample evidence that people are persons.
I can see that there would be no good reason for you to assign anthropomorphic qualities to the world because for you good evidence would be empirical (i.e. inter-subjectively justifiable) evidence. What good empirical (i.e. directly observable) evidence do you think there is to assign personality to active human bodies? The personality is not assigned to the body, even the whole of it, though; is it?
Doesn't the logic of our notion of personality consist in the idea that persons have a body and a mind rather than that a personality is, exhaustively, a body/mind? If personality consisted in the body then removal of some of its parts would result in a diminished person; but that doesn't seem right at all. So, the question is really as to whether there is any intentionality operating 'behind' phenomena. And the answer to that question is not obvious at all, and is not even conceivably attainable by empirical enquiry or 'pure' reason.
It's a specific part of the body--the brain functioning in particular ways, and yes, removal of some parts of a brain results in a diminished person.
How exactly does human behavior display intentionality? Remember we are looking for something that is not merely an interpretation, but something directly observed.
People with intentionality behave like people with intentionality, rather than like people who are brain dead.
Quoting John
It makes a lot of sense. I would be nothing like the person I am today if I were to lose an important chunk of my brain. And the law is the law, and doesn't necessarily reflect reality. Likewise if you mean what is considered by some to be a human right, even if this is not reflected in the law. If we accorded rocks human rights, would that equally count as evidence that they're persons? As you probably know, there is much controversy relating to the laws and ethics surrounding this issue, regarding such questions as whether or not people in permanent vegetative states should ever be kept alive, and if so, what conditions would first need to be met. So the issue is by no means settled, and appealing to particular laws or interpretations relating to human rights at the present time is by no means a reliable basis for defending your position. Who knows, fifty years from now, the laws and prevailing view might be completely different.
Great! You've succeeded in saying precisely nothing about what constitutes observable evidence of the existence of intentionality in people generally; which is what I was asking for. You've simply begged the question.
Quoting Sapientia
You would be nothing like as functional as you are today. I don't see any sense in defining person-hood in terms of function. From your argument it follows that a high-functioning person is more of a person than an ordinary person. Doesn't sound right to me, and unless you can justify such a judgement by cogent argument I see no reason to change my view.
Of course, there comes a point where someone might not be able to function as an autonomous decision-maker at all; but even then you don't know what goes on inside the consciousness of that person.
Are you telling me you can't figure out the obvious behavioural differences between someone like you or I and someone who's brain dead? Those behavioural differences amount to evidential differences.
Quoting John
Yes, and I would be nothing like the person I am today as a result. Let's say that I'm an outgoing, talkative person, who is passionate about philosophy, loves having a laugh, can sometimes lose his temper, and regularly gets out and about doing all kinds of things. Obviously, if I was brain dead, then that would only make sense as a description of the kind of person I was, before the accident, rather than the kind of person I would be now, which would be no person at all really in any meaningful sense. I would be living and breathing and fed through a tube, and I would display no signs of having a personality or of having intentionality at all.
Quoting John
I'm not saying that functionality is the be-all and end-all, but that it plays an undeniable role.
It might be true that someone who is brain dead is simply gone from this world, and certainly will no longer be counted as a person if 'person' is defined as 'someone who acts in the world'. But again that would be defining 'person' entirely in terms of function and you haven't given an argument for why that would be right. Also the crucial word "observable" is missing in what you quoted. You must have been responding as I was editing.
The point is that not everyone agrees that intentionality is real; we infer it and attribute it to others and ourselves on account of the illusion we have that we are in control, according to this argument. I'm not saying I agree with that, but there seems to be no directly observable phenomenon that can be identified as intentionality. We either rightly intuit it in ourselves and others, in which case it could be argued that we rightly intuit it in nature; or we rightly intuit it in ourselves and merely infer it of others, in which case it could be argued that we rightly infer it of nature; or we are completely deluded about it, and there is no real intentionality anywhere.
As long as they're still alive we still accord the same degree of human rights, sure, but
(1) You had been talking about personality, not human rights, and personality is one aspect re whether they're diminished as a person, and
(2) If you remove enough or the "right parts" of their brain they're no longer alive, and corpses do not have all of the same rights as living persons.
Peak Experience is an effect of self-actualisation.
Flow is automatic attention.
Belief is an attitude which accepts a proposition as true without evidence.
Imagination is the faculty of forming a mental image apart from perception.
In what way is the experience of these psychological things similar?
Ask alot of questions.
That one I don't agree with, Belief can involve accepting propositions without evidence, but it often only arrives with evidence. I believe that I have a rubber rat on my desk (it has to do with the Florida Panthers hockey team), but I only believe that because I have evidence of it.
God is a "type of higher consciousness" that we "connect" with by "looking 'up into the present', and this experience is not communicable, "but it's a collective sentience that brings everything together"
The experience of the present is not communicable, but when we speak with each other, we occasionally 'stay in the moment' we share an experience, which we take each in our own way. If God is a higher consciousness, one that we connect with by thinking about what is neither past nor future, then perhaps God dwells in us, but I've not gotten that far.
"but it's a collective sentience that brings everything together" I like the collectivity notion, perhaps this and the possibility that the experience of God is not communicable is why religions have rituals, so the faithful can share their motions as a way of sharing their experience of the ineffable.
I don't understand your point here. Can you elaborate?
Sure. It's not a point, it's a question; a request for an answer (not an argument).
Given that:
1) Peak Experience is an effect of self-actualisation.
2) Flow is automatic attention.
3) Belief is an attitude which accepts a proposition as true without evidence.
4) Imagination is the faculty of forming a mental image apart from perception.
In what way is the experience of these psychological things similar?
Okay. I suppose we could think of these as departures from the ordinary, practical, everyday run of things. Imagination seems to insinuate itself all over the place, but is still a stepping aside from direct experience, I guess.
I'm really not sure what we're talking about.
(1) I had been talking about personailty in the sense of personhood, though; not in the sense of manifesting an active personailty. If function is lost then manifestation of active personality is certainly lost, too. But I have already explained that I am not thinking of personality in terms of function. Rights are accorded not on account of the degree of active personality; otherwise some people would obviously warrant more comprehensive rights than others. Rights are accorded on account of personailty considered as personhood.
(2) Obviously corpses are not living persons, so their personality is extinguished or if it still exists, is no longer attached to the body. So, what's your point?
You could, as suggested, "ask a lot of questions", but you could not do anything with an experience like that, or the answers to your questions, unless you had the experience yourself.
Different psychological functions cause and/or sustain different types of experience. Because imagination is the psychological cause of, and belief the psychological resolve which sustains, spiritual experience, no rational explanation of its knowledge-imparting quality can be given.
William James wrote a book on the subject:
The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature. Being the Gifford Lectures on Natural Religion Delivered at Edinburgh in 1901–1902, Classics, Library of America, 2010, ISBN 978-1-59853-062-9.
https://ia600209.us.archive.org/31/items/varietiesreligi01jamegoog/varietiesreligi01jamegoog.pdf
There is the famous anecdote, related by Bertrand Russell, which also mentions James:
Mind you, many decades ago, I certainly had a glimpse of higher truth through hallucinogens (with the caveat that I don't encourage drug use). It is something I regarded as apodictic, i.e. impossible to deny. The point which struck me with great force was the inherent perfection of natural objects, like moss-covered rocks and saplings. I had this sudden realisation of the extraordinary beauty and significance of ordinary life, and felt that this feeling was something that we all should have and mainly lack. It was a sense of the holiness or sacredness of life - as many testified about such experiences. I also realised I couldn't stay in that place by artificial means but it was a powerful eye-opener.
That sounds like a typical spiritual experience, with emotional and knowledge-imparting aspects. Apparently, entheogens do induce spiritual experiences:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3050654/
I wonder if this effect could be psychologically described as imagination enhancement. In other words, could entheogens be considered to be a crutch for those who lack imagination?
So the objects of spiritual experience include the transcendentals (i.e., truth, beauty, goodness)? Anything else?
Pink elephants sometimes. Fun to chase.
Thanks for providing more information.
Does it seem like a case of being visited by an external presence or of internal communion or possession? How long do these episodes last, when and how often do they occur? Is it a pleasant or unpleasant experience?
So you have harvested this experience through introspection and deep insights? Is it an empowering experience? What is the significance of your moniker?
It's more than that. There is a William Blake line which was famous in the counterculture, 'when the doors of perception are cleansed, then everything will appear as it is - infinite.' (Aldous Huxley's famous essay on his experience with psilocybin was called 'The Doors of Perception', and it was also reputedly the inspiration for the band name, The Doors.)
But the gist is, spiritual or mystical experiences revealed the true nature of reality, which 'straights' (nowadays, 'straight' means 'not gay', but in the 60's it meant 'not hip') couldn't see. Straights were caught up in a conditioned reality which was dictated to them by straight culture, the chief influence on which was the military-industrial complex and consumer-goods manufacturers (Marcuse). Acid removed the scales from your eyes, so you could basically get a window into what enlightened sages (normally, Eastern) could only see after a lifetime of tortuous spiritual discipline.
Among the prophets of this movement were Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert, both Professors at Harvard, both expelled for advocating drug use. Leary was a rascal, but Richard Alpert morphed into Ram Dass and became an enduring presence in the global New Age and alternative spirituality scene (and indeed lives and teaches to this day.)
In reality, of course, those who engaged in this quest discovered it wasn't nearly so easy, and it often ended in addiction, alienation and disillusionment. But not always. I continued to explore such ideas through the study of comparative religion, and later Buddhist Studies, as a way to actualise higher states in the quotidian reality of day to day life.
'stonedthoughtsofnature's posts are highly resonant with the 60's sensibility.
Some sources
Doors of Perception Aldous Huxley
The Paisley Gate Erik Davis
Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream Jay Stevens
Cults and Cosmic Consciousness: Religious Vision in America in the 1960's Camille Paglia
In other words, you suspect his experiences are chemically induced, hence; artificial as opposed to natural spiritual experiences.
The point about certain classes of drugs -entheogens, they have been called - is that they really do provide an insight into the way cultural conditioning shapes experience. It is not something 'simply chemical', or at least, no more so than regular neurochemistry.
It also places the claim, "How I found God", in its proper context.
Function, quality, characteristic, attribute... whatever you call it, the burden is on you to show that these essential features of personhood are attributes of the world, or rather, before anything else, that it even makes sense to categorise the world as belonging to the same set which includes persons like you and I.
Quoting John
Is there anything at all that everyone agrees on? You don't need everyone to agree. Some people are simply wrong, regardless of whether or not they agree or disagree.
You seem to be unaware of the absurdity in what you're suggesting. There's a huge difference between inferring intentionality from a person and from nature. I think that if you're going to be intellectually honest, then you have to acknowledge that. You can try to blur the lines as much as you like, but the differences are obvious. If all you have is wild speculation, then that's simply not good enough.
No, you don't know what belief is. Belief is not an attitude and it certainly doesn't require that bit you've made up about evidence. You seem to be confusing belief and blind faith.
I think you'd have to argue for this, because it's very common in philosophy to characterize beliefs as attitudes, especially propositional attitudes.
Then what would be an attitude that accepts a proposition as true with evidence? I don't see how that wouldn't be a belief too.
That's just a colloquialism. One's attitude is one's position, or orientation, either physical or mental (or both).
That's? not right, beliefs can be based on evidence or not. Aside from fideists, most religious believers base their beliefs on various lines of evidence.
I haven't ever suggested that any such thing makes sense. On the other hand you have completely failed to cite any empirical evidence for the
Quoting Sapientia
How about outlining it for us?
Yes, you have:
Quoting John
Quoting John
If it makes no sense with regards to the world or nature, then, contrary to what you said in the first quote above, the answer would be obvious, and, with regards to what you said in the second quote, although it [i]could[/I] be argued, it wouldn't be worthy of serious consideration.
Quoting John
You only have to look at the capabilities and behaviour of people: they express or make clear their thoughts, feelings and intentions through language and actions. They are able to communicate intentionality and even when they do not intend to communicate it, it is often on show, and can be observed or inferred correctly or accurately.
This is not true of the world or nature. It wouldn't even make sense to question the world or nature in this way, because it would be a category error.
I don't think there's anything inherent about me that's superior to anyone else. I've approached a higher level of consciousness (which can be explored by just about anyone), but that doesn't make me more grandiose or anything. Perhaps it makes me different. Experiencing a dimension of reality without psychological barriers allows us to step outside ourselves into a pure state of collective existence. People exist in different dimensions of reality (states of existence), based on how they've constructed or deconstructed their egos. I don't believe any certain dimension is more or less grandiose than any other - it's simply a different form of existing. I prefer it because it connects me at all times with a presence that creates a sense of community, the same type of relationship I believe all of us are searching for on some level anyways. Could I be misinterpreting my experiences? Of course, maybe I'm just more "self aware", maybe I'm less "self aware", who knows. Part of the motivation behind posting on a philosophy forum is to hear other people's opinions and keep an open mind. Everyone has their thing that makes them spiritual, whether that's philosophy or work or your family, but those that constantly question themselves and keep an open mind are the ones that are most grounded.
No, I haven't. An infinite being (nature, being or God, or whatever) would not be in the same class as us finite beings, regardless of whether that infinite being possessed intentionality or not.
Quoting Sapientia
This is just an unsupporetd assertion. From a purely rational empirical perspective it is merely an assumption that there is intentionality behind human behavior. No such thing is directly observed in the behavior. Why don't you be honest and admit that you have no argument to support your contention? Or else explain exactly how you know it is there.
We aren't talking about a being, we're talking about the world, and the world is not a being. That's another example of the category error I've been talking about.
And you're yet again implicitly contradicting yourself, since you're raising the possibility of the world possessing intentionality as if that made sense. I haven't gotten any impression from you that you acknowledge that as the absurdity that it is.
Quoting John
Don't be ridiculous.
Quoting John
It isn't merely an assumption. It's a conclusion based upon a wealth of evidence.
Quoting John
Directness is not a condition which needs to be satisfied.
Quoting John
There's no credible alternative, so there's nothing to really argue against. If you contend that there is no way to rightly infer intentionality, then you are forced into an untenable position which must maintain that we're just completely guessing all the time, and that people could actually be empty zombies.
What is the world, if not a being? It is defined as the totality of immanent being. (Really, 'universe' is a better term because world has many uses more in keeping the phenomenological understanding of the term: 'world of business', 'world of finance', 'world of sport', 'world of entertainment' 'art world' and so on).
The question is really as to whether nature is merely a brute existence or if intentionality (telos) is behind its workings. Empirically speaking we simply don't know, and I don't believe we ever can know by means of purely rational or empirical enquiry. There doesn't seem to be any imaginable way we could know by those means.
Quoting Sapientia
And yet you are unable to say what that evidence consists in. :-}
Quoting Sapientia
Whatever is not directly observed or intuited must be inferred. It seems you are just being evasive because you are at a loss for arguments.
Quoting Sapientia
Your view just seems one-dimensional to me to be honest. I'm not at all saying "we're just completely guessing"! Humans cannot be "empty zombies". I believe this because I intuit it, not because I have any purely rationally based empirical evidence to support it; I don't, and neither do you. I also believe the world cannot be an empty zombie world for exactly the same reason. You seem to have bought into a fashionable dogma that says you cannot trust your own deepest intuitions and must rely on merely 'acceptable' views; cling to them for dear life. What an empty feeling that must be!
:’(
Are they misunderstanding me or am I misunderstanding them? Both, you exist in different dimensions. Placing yourself into another person's perspective brings you closer to the collective consciousness. The autism spectrum could be a fluctuation within the dimensions. Marijuana seems to allow people to navigate more freely, like some sort of ego teleportation. Spiritual awakening is coming out of egocentricity into a new state of being, into the collective consciousness
I agree that "universe" is a better word to use, although not for the same reason, but because "world" often means less than the universe: specifically our planet.
The universe is everything that exists, the totality of objects and phenomena. A being is a creature or organism that has in common with us certain essential features. The universe is not a creature or an organism, and it does not have in common with us the same set of essential features. The universe lacks intelligence, emotion, intentionality... it doesn't even make sense to attribute these features to the universe.
Quoting John
We can know through a combination of observation and reason in the way that I've already described. We can look, we can compare, we can see the difference, notice what is absent, understand what makes sense and what doesn't make sense, and identify category errors.
Quoting John
No, that's a lie, I've already told you. There's a difference between getting an answer and not being satisfied with that answer because you want more. Why isn't what I already said enough for you? It's enough for most. Why must I meet some special standard demanded by your unreasonable scepticism?
Quoting John
Inference has always been part of my answer, and your talk of directness has always been a red herring.
Quoting John
If you go back over our discussion, you'll notice that you're the only one who has been bringing up "direct" observation and "pure" reason. But I don't know why. Are you trying to move the goalposts? I think you are. I only need to defend my claims, not jump through your hoops.
OK, have it your way, I don't really care what a wall of glass bricks that distorts everything I say thinks anyway...my energy for and interest in this 'conversation' are now utterly depleted.
I think this is a category error actually. To speak of the world as if it were another object in the world which can contain, etc. All such words must be mere analogy or metaphor.
Quoting Sapientia
Anthropomorphise* :-}
Quoting Sapientia
This is a mistake, because you're thinking of the world as a totality. To think of it as totality is to think of it as a something with a definite existence. But the world is not something - somethings are in the world.
Quoting Sapientia
Right, because the part cannot see the whole.
Quoting John
Sure, but this is a matter of the law not the truth no?
Quoting John
Indeed.
Quoting Sapientia
I don't think being glued to a bed means not being a person. Stephen Hawking has very limited capabilities. Does it follow he's not a person in any meaningful sense? Or even that he's less of a person?
Quoting John
Right, because intentionality belongs to the realm of meaning, not the realm of facts.
Quoting Wayfarer
>:O >:O >:O
Quoting Wayfarer
>:O
Quoting Wayfarer
How do they achieve this effect (if not chemically)?
Quoting Sapientia
The way we infer intentionality is by projecting meaning onto behaviour that we observe. Intentionality consists in our own projection, it cannot be found in the world.
Quoting John
>:O
I fear you may have misunderstood 'collective consciousness' and perhaps you may be taking a Jungian approach to the subject, nevertheless this shared identification of the external world is sociological insofar as the subjective contents of an individual contain shared representations that enable a superficial alignment of values and beliefs with others. It is imagined, just like ideology and we form an identity within a community that constructs epistemic ideas through language or communication and our experiences or interactions with others, but it remains socially constructed. Jung believed the collective unconscious to be a key in the interpretative or introspective process that could delve into the psyche to understand the symbolic nature of these representations that people make through dreams or other experiences to find the root cause of their anxieties.
I believe I understand what you are trying to say but there is a very important albeit missing detail in your algorithm that is rather unexpectedly and paradoxically the most important unifying force; free-will. Just like how people drink to give them the courage to talk to the man or woman they desire, you don't need marijuana and it is quite a tantalising experience when you find that courage to transcend with a clear mind of what is imagined and what holds your identity together by forming your own reality. There is no greater feeling, nothing as empowering, because what weakens you is your ego and the fear to let go of the identity, the imagined archetypes and patterns of behaviour that have become solidified as 'reality' during childhood and remained, despite your unconscious screaming out otherwise. These 'dimensions' can collide, but the conditions are just as unique as when a star is born where all the necessary elements need to be fused at the right time and with the right balance of forces; only when one freely and willingly transcends the 'collective consciousness' where they become 'conscious' in order to actually see the collective for what it is can collide with another of the same frame of mind.
No, I think that that's reading too much into it. The world is a set, and it isn't unusual to talk of sets containing contents, although I'm not committed to using that particular word, and could swap it for, say, "includes" or "consists".
Quoting Agustino
Oh no! What have I done! :-O
Quoting Agustino
If you don't think that the world is a totality, then what do you think the world is? The word "thing" has got to be one of the broadest and most vague words in the English language, so whether the world is a thing or not seems like a rather pointless debate, but obviously if you define a thing to be in the world, then by that definition the world can't be a thing, since the world is not in the world.
Quoting Agustino
No, because it lacks the necessary features. It makes no sense for the same reason it makes no sense to wonder how an apricot feels or what the aspirations of a wardrobe are.
Quoting Agustino
I was giving a more detailed example than necessary to emphasise the point, but it comes down to certain fundamental features. No legal fiction can change reality.
Quoting Agustino
I don't think that being glued to a bed or being at the stage of motor neurone disease that Stephen Hawking is at means not being a person either. The example I gave was of someone in a permanent vegetative state.
Quoting Agustino
Wrong. There's a fact of the matter, irrespective of interpretation.
Quoting Agustino
No, it's not right to describe that as a projection. The "projection" is typically from the other, and we are more like "receivers". We either pick up on it or do not or misinterpret it. Sometimes we project our own meaning over the top, but only sometimes.
Interesting fact about the three main hallucinogens (psilocybin, mescaline, and LSD): they're not intoxicants. Particularly in the latter case, the amounts ingested are measured in micrograms, which are very small doses; the purest form of LSD was manufactured by the Swiss company Sandos, and was available on the black market under the moniker 'clear light', which was a reference to the Tibetan Book of the Dead. But the dose itself was a transparent square with sides around 1.5mm. And of the amount ingested, most was metabolised out by the liver. The remaining amount was more like a catalyst than an intoxicant, i.e. it affects the way the neuronal pathways operate, because it amounted to not more than a very minute dosage of the actual substance (unlike other intoxicants and narcotics which literally flood the metabolism.)
Incidentally, Albert Hoffman, the Swiss chemist who first isolated LSD, lived until the ripe old age of 106 (died not that long ago, actually), and went to his grave believing in the therapeutic potential of his discovery. (And note, the original derivation of 'therapeutae' was from a spiritual/religious - we might say 'theosophical' - cult which flourished in the early Christian era.) Hoffman's account of the very first acid trip is known as Bicycle Day - something which all hipsters know, of course. ;-)
Reminds me - must re-read Herman Hesse.
Fine, but then its effect isn't spiritual no? It just has a physical effect on the brain, which is experienced as a specific kind of experience, or how does it work?
I don't want to get into an argument about it, but myself and many other people had truly profound experiences by those means. Of course, the wise realise that one cannot hold onto such states by those means, and the attempt to recreate them can obviously be a trap (not a trip ;-) )
Again by saying that I am not encouraging illicit drug use. But it's also the case that there is a taboo on these specific kinds of experiences and substances because the show up the hollowness of the 'consensus reality' that most folks take for granted. Not for nothing was Leary's book called 'The Politics of Ecstasy'.
Okay, I follow you, but I'm asking you about the metaphysics of it. How is it possible for a physical substance to consistently bring about a spiritual experience? Can matter determine/force such an experience upon one? And if so, then how is this possible?
A set is a concept, referring to objects within the world. Actually not even to objects, but rather to conceptual structures which contain (or possibly contain) more than one object. I don't see how you can say the world itself is a set.
Quoting Sapientia
To affirm that the world is a totality means that you have ruled out the possibility that the world is *gasp* incomplete. What if the world isn't a thing, but a process?
Quoting Sapientia
You don't know what features the world as a whole has. Much more, you probably can't know, because to know would entail being able to see the world from outside.
Quoting Sapientia
Stephen Hawking is in a permanent vegetative state pretty much. He only is able to talk because of technology. Nevertheless, what this illustrates is that someone could be in an entirely vegetative state and still be conscious and a moral agent.
Quoting Sapientia
Okay. Say a guy has a piece of food in hand, and mimics the gesture of throwing it towards a dog. Then he actually throws it, and the dog catches eat and devours it. Physically speaking, if we are talking just about facts, he threw the food and the dog ate it. But there's something else there. His intention. He intended to feed the dog, not to punish him, for example. The intention is not part of the facts. It has to do with meaning. What do the facts mean? The meaning of the facts cannot be yet another fact.
Quoting Sapientia
Ahh it seems you actually fell in my trap by trying to negate everything I've said :D :D :D ! So you do admit that the "projection" (the meaning) comes from the other, and you can pick up on it. So there is inherent meaning in the world, which exists above and beyond the physical facts, in the sense that knowing the physical facts does not necessarily tell you the meaning.
A set is not a concept, but the concept of a set is. And I'm not using that word in a strict technical sense, but with a similar meaning to group, collection, or totality. A set has, contains, or includes, members, contents or parts. The universe is the set of everything that exists: people, animals, objects, planets, stars, and so on, and so forth.
Quoting Agustino
What does it mean to say that the world is incomplete? How could that be? And no, I don't think that the world is a process, I think that process requires a world.
Quoting Agustino
The world as a whole? How's that different from the world as a totality, which you refrained from affirming a moment ago, yet now seem to have adopted in all but name?
I know what features the world can't have and why. That's sufficient.
Quoting Agustino
Hahahaha, wow, I can't believe you just said that.
Quoting Agustino
No, it illustrates no such thing because Stephen Hawking is not in an entirely vegetative state! And if he was, then he wouldn't be expressing thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and the like, as he does now, which is one way of determining intentionality, which counts towards personhood, which was the issue being discussed.
Quoting Agustino
The intention [I]is[/I] part of the facts. It would be a fact that he intended to feed the dog. The facts mean what they mean, and that's a fact, or a truth, or the case - the precise terminology doesn't matter all that much to me.
Quoting Agustino
Where did I deny that people express meaning that other people pick up on? Where did I deny that there is meaning in the world? There is meaning in the world because we are in the world. Where did I say that physical facts are the whole story? I think you've misunderstood. Perhaps you should quote me where you think I've done these things, and then we could take it step by step.
But, the law is based on the principle, which is certainly held to be true, that we are all equal before God, don't you think?
A high-functioning person is a more interesting, more creative, more valuable (in pragmatic terms) person, for sure. Although, as your example of Hawking shows, a person is not considered less of a person in the absolute sense, even though they might be almost totally physically incapacitated. There also seems to be a spiritual sense in which a person might be more of a person; a Christ for example, or a Gautama Buddha; but the personal greatness of such people consists precisely in the fact that they view all people as being of equal value.
Simply, the human being is a mechanism in which there is an interaction between mind and matter. One can influence the other, so naturally physical narcotics will influence the mind. Likewise notions of mind can influence physical materials.
As to how this is possible, it is a question of how such an interaction is possible. Well the initial observation is that there is in a person an apparatus which can host a mind, the brain. Provided a mind is able to inhabit that mechanism, then the interaction occurs.
Well it may either be true, or it may be useful. The law isn't necessarily held around true principles, but rather around useful ones.
Quoting John
Yeah, to clarify, my previous agreement with you there was simply with the absurdity of Sappy's argument, which indeed implies that a high-functioning person is more of a person than an ordinary guy. I disagree with that. I think it's our personhood that gives us value, not the externals.
I get the sense of that, but how does this apply to a law that's assumed to be divine? A law that's not necessarily true, but is useful, is, necessarily, human. How could a divine law be untrue but useful? At least within a Christina paradigm.
The human law of our society isn't divine. We were talking about human laws that govern our societies.
John said "being equal before God", which is what I was referencing.
Our human law is written in those terms. Check the prior discussion and you'll see that it's about the actual laws of society.
No, John said:
Quoting John
Which I'm agreeing with.
Okay, our law is indeed based on that principle. Why is it based on that principle? It's either to do with truth or usefulness.
No it doesn't. If it did, then I would reject it myself. You're attacking a straw man. There's just a single line, and on one side there's person and the other not-person. Both those who are high-functioning and those who are ordinary are on the person side.
The interesting thing is that if people were valued and accorded different statuses according to their usefulness that would contradict the argument that it is useful to value people equally regardless of their usefulness. I believe the principle of the equality of all people is a deontological, not a utilitarian, one. There is no purely rational principle according to which people could be ranked as possessing different values; according to pure reason people must all be equally valuable.
This doesn't change the fact that some people are certainly more valuable, or at least considered to be more valuable, to society than others, though. If you kill, or even just beat up, the President of the US you will probably end up with a much more severe sentence than if you killed or beat up a homeless person. That is practical law at work; it is an ass.
Quoting Agustino
Oh, sounds like I misunderstood then, thanks for clarifying.
Yeah, you would if you saw it, which you obviously don't.
That's a technique to come out of the egocentricity into a higher consciousness, or an awareness of being that encompasses more than just the qualities of self.
Hypnosis may be able to prove the existence of the egocentricity we can be pulled out of.
Okay, so how do we move from talk to action? You expect us to fly over and give you an amazing one-time only experience of God? >:O
No, I'm not all talk; I'm all out of talk, because I'm faced with someone who's already decided what they think and will never, it seems, cease coming up with the same misunderstandings over and over, no matter how many times they are pointed out and corrected. The spirit of your replies do not at all seem to be given charitably, in honest "attempts to clarify", but rather seeking to defend the position you came into the discussion with at all costs and to the bitter end. That's my honest impression of you, in any case; take it or leave it; it's up to you, but it's not a game I can be bothered playing, that's for sure.
This struck me as an interesting position to take. I suppose I think of an intuition, philosophically, as a belief for which no reason comes readily to hand (if ever). As such, intuition is indispensable to get any thinking done at all. But I'm curious, because of the way you put things here, how you think of the epistemic value of intuition.
As you say, I think what is intuitively obvious to us, the self evident axioms upon which all rational thought is based, is "indispensable to get any thinking done at all", and we may have no 'pure' reasons to believe in them. When you ask about the "epistemic value of intuition" I wonder whether you have knowledge about empirical matters in mind. I don't believe intuition is always a good guide to understanding empirical phenomena. It may be, but must be corrected by observation, conjecture and experiments to verify or falsify those observations and conjectures.
The self-evident axioms of rational thought, the laws of the excluded middle and non-contradiction, for example, are relevant to the process of thought itself, to what is required so that thought be consistent and coherent. (Talking here, of course, about propositional thought, not about poetic thought).
The intuition that people are intentional beings is, I believe, without any empirical warrant. This is similar, in a way, to Hume's so-called problem of induction. We understand causation because we feel ourselves affecting, and being affected by, other bodies, not because we 'directly observe' it. Can we say this is an epistemic matter rather than an affective matter? If I am to convince you of any proposition by rational argument, I can only do so on the basis that what I want to convince you of is logically entailed by premises I know you will accept, or that it is demonstrated by empirical evidence I can present you with, that I know you will accept as valid evidence.
So the self-evidence of intentionality in myself and others, I say is like the self-evidence of causation at work in the world. I cannot show either to you as an empirical observable that will count as evidence to support belief in it. It is also not logically self-evident, as the axioms of rational thought are. So, I must appeal to your own experience, and say 'look at that experience', it is in light of that experience that these things are self-evident, and that provides the rational justification for believing in them. Also, nature would be incomprehensible to us without the idea of efficient causation (understood as the interaction of forces), just as human behavior would be incomprehensible to us without the idea of intentionality. So these two intuitions are indispensable for thought in those arenas, as the principle of non-contradiction and the excluded middle are indispensable in the sphere of pure logic.
Thanks, John! This is an excellent response. You tie together several things nicely here. I have loads to say about this, but I want to try to set my thoughts in order first.
The expected ordering of my thoughts is not coming along, so I'll just indicate a few of the things on my mind.
It seems to me there is a broad sense in which Hume and Kant give a similar explanation for what you here mark out as "self-evident," namely that it has its source in our own nature. Hume calls the principle of human nature that leads us from bare experience to cause and effect "Custom." For Kant, it's the transcendental aesthetic, yes? (Kant I have neglected.) At any rate, both, again broadly, say that we cannot help but think in such terms. We think the way we think because we do. (I'm sure that's a travesty of Kant, and welcome clarification while I continue to put off studying him.)
"Cannot help but" suggests that "self-evident" here may mean "cannot be doubted."
And yet: Quine was an anti-realist about meaning, and thus denied there was any "fact of the matter" about the correctness of a translation (among many other things). @andrewk, you'll no doubt recall, is an anti-realist about causation, so he neither affirms nor denies propositions such as "a caused b." The general form of the argument here is, as Michael Dummett explains, to deny the applicability of the law of the excluded middle to the questioned domain. That may seem a steep price to pay, but there's reason to think all of us are anti-realists about some domains. What we argue about is with regard to which domains we are willing to abandon the law of the excluded middle. Intuition will play its usual role here, though: if you can produce a proposition that the anti-realist feels compelled to consider either true or false, then he must abandon his abandonment and join you in realism about that domain.
That "feels compelled" there is odd. Compelled by what? Self-evident truth? Human nature? Custom?
I think often the sense of being compelled comes from linguistic habit. That by itself is not to say you are being steered away from or toward truth. I also think language is precisely what enables us to overcome the sense of compulsion, for good or ill.
Added: You yourself, John, espoused an anti-realism about the intentionality of the universe.
Seems like you and I agree on a lot and disagree on some. I'll tackle my "category error" here. Personification, or anthropomorphism if you like, is one way humans organize and understand the world. We project our internal experience out into the world as a metaphor for what we observe there. That's just one way we organize the world - we also come to believe that we are different from the outside world. We see the world as a place where one thing causes another. We think of the world as a lawful machine. If personification is a useful strategy for understanding the world, calling it a category error does not make it inappropriate. It can be reasonable to grant personhood to something like the world we live in.
I'm not trying to make a statement about psychological or cognitive mechanism. This is a philosophical discussion.
Despite the "expected ordering" of your thoughts not "coming along", you've managed to present me with quite a bit to think about here; so I'll try to touch on some of it.
I think you're right that what is self-evident to us is governed by our natures. It seems inescapable that we must think that our natures are part of reality, and that they also constrain how we perceive and understand the real. We cannot demonstrate discursively how it is that our natures do this, though, because we live our natures and they remain hidden, discursively speaking, from us; we cannot get 'outside of' them in order to see what is 'really going on'.
So, our natures are as much noumenal to us as the ultimate nature of the world is. we cannot really say whether it is "custom" or "transcendental aesthetic", I would say. It is for these kind of reasons that I believe Kant's Transcendental Deduction is questionable; and of course it has been vigorously questioned, and rejected by many. It is by no means as self-evident as some say it is.
So, "what cannot be doubted" for us, cannot logically, obviously, be assumed to be what is real in itself. But then on the other hand, the problem with this idea is that the only idea we have of what "real in itself' might even mean is derived from how we think the meaning of "real for us".
I'm not very familiar with Quine; but I wonder whether anti-realists such as he and andrewk are intending their antirealism to apply to the 'for us' or the 'in itself'. Kant was a Transcendental Idealist; would this be the same as being a Transcendental Antirealist?
If the antirealist is "compelled" to be a realist about some domain on account of the truth or falsity of some proposition being self-evident to them, I think that is only proper, because I believe the compulsion is a logical one of honoring our intellectual commitments by remaining consistent with them. This seems to again, evoke the principle of non-contradiction; my avowed beliefs should not contradict one another, because that would be dishonest and lead to intellectual chaos and confusion; and, if universally practiced, the break down of all intersubjective discourse.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Perhaps I shouldn't respond to this, Srap, until I am sure of which statement I made that you are referring to. Thanks for conversing. :)
.
That's the bit I had in mind. If you take the additional step of linking the truth of a statement to a conception of what could count as evidence for it, then your statement here would be a textbook antirealism about the intentionality of the universe, i.e., a denial that the law of the excluded middle applies here, so that you do not feel compelled to consider such statements true or false. Since people generally have a revulsion to messing with the "laws of thought," it's more likely you intended only to claim that whether there is a fact of the matter or not-- and the assumption is usually that there is-- we cannot know it. (But then what are you saying?) Anyway, you've got options here. I don't have a horse in this race.
I'm no expert on alternative logics, but there are lots of ways to tinker. For the stuff I'm interested in, there can be motivated restrictions of the application of the law of the excluded middle, but the law of contradiction stays put, and I can't imagine what could be gained by ditching that under any non-literary circumstances.
I'm going to pass on commenting on the rest of what you say here, interesting thought it is. I've already spent more time at this altitude than I consider healthy! I'm going to head back to earth.
Thanks for the exchange, John.
OK, but remember that I think the only possible intersubjective evidence for intentionality, human or otherwise, consists in its explanatory indispensability. And the same goes for causality.
On the other hand the subjective evidence for intentionality, human and otherwise, and causality, is individual experience; we may be utterly convinced by the evidence of our own experience. But our experience can never qualify as overwhelmingly convincing evidence for another person.
This is what I had mentioned previously, where I said these 'dimensions' can collide - that is an awareness - but the conditions are very unique, almost as difficult as the conditions required for a star to be born because cognitively one required an awareness or consciousness of reality as it is, not as we imagine it to be, only possible when one freely chooses to transcend the collective consciousness (socially speaking). They thus become conscious of the collective to become a part of it and when they meet another of the same frame of mind, the dimensions can 'collide'. But the right conditions, so you need to be careful whether you are merely projecting the idea that you have emotionally connected or whether you actually have because empathy kindles our conscience and is the source our ability to sense-experience the external world authentically rather than imaginatively. This is the same for when you say God is the centre of your psyche, because then you become God and that is yet another ego-projection. Rather, it is through God that you can understand reality and God is love.
I like the way you think, by the way. It is very similar to me, albeit mine is a bit more rationally applied. Perhaps because I am drug and alcohol free... :-O
Quoting TimeLine
Okay I understand, but you certainly are smoking something. What are you smoking? :s >:O
There is no substance to this experience because the uniformity of space and time is not merely the materially causal relationships between things; it involves an understanding of the metaphysical expressions dependent on intuitions because consciousness and by extension people are not mere things and therefore can transcend the material. So two people who have gone beyond this propensity attain the necessary cognitive conditions to form a dialectic that expose these illusions; they can 'see' the phenomenon of one another.
That condition itself, the ability to be free from the illusions caused by this subjective self-interest, is only possible through love (conscience/empathy/moral consciousness). Love is intuitive rather than logical, it involves a 'leap of faith' so to speak just as one has faith in God. God is perfection, the perfect Good, the representation of grace and love that as we seek God through this faith or intuition, we seek this perfection that we of course will never reach, but the process of reaching out to God - to love God - enables the clarity that subjective self-interest blinds us from, thus God is love.
I am not smoking anything. You are just a snotty little boy.
At least you didn't repeat this again. Thank God.
Now I don't know what to make of the illogical mess you have in there. So freedom (whose freedom, what freedom?) and empathy (towards whom?) enables you (how?) to transcend (move beyond) the illusion of subjective self-interest (so is there some objective self-interest too?) that we PROJECT to the external world (so apparently this self-interest is both subjective and projected to the external world).
Quoting TimeLine
We decide reality as it subjectively appears to us? Really? The actual activity (what activity?) of this experience (what experience, the experience of deciding reality? And what the hell does that mean?) is merely the cognition between the relationship of objects. Right, so I guess this cognition is situation BETWEEN a RELATIONSHIP of objects. I don't have a fucking clue where between a relationship of objects is situated.
So space and time are "its" (I don't know what the hell this refers to) pure forms, while sensation is its matter (in what sense? matter as in content I guess?).
This is all so messy, unclear, and incoherent that I can't but agree with you, because you're not saying anything. I cannot distinguish anything there that I could even disagree with in the first place. It's like a word salad.
Quoting TimeLine
I can't believe you're a trained lawyer and yet your statements are so darn incoherent (and repetitive, and beating around the bush, etc.) ... You should really make some effort to clarify what exactly is your message, what you're trying to say, what it means, etc. before making a post. It would help in your interactions. Don't just put together a bunch of "advanced sounding" words, and call that deep philosophy.
No, but you were trained as one, at least per your own previous admissions on the forums.
Quoting TimeLine
Look. Just look at this sentence for God's sake. So I'm projecting some RELIGIOUS illusions by attempting to falsify what you say (how am I falsifying it, and how can falsifying something project religious illusions, and why for fucks sake religious and not political, sexual or of another nature?) because it doesn't align with what I believe.
So tell me. Being a trained lawyer you should be capable to answer these questions in no uncertain and vague terms:
• What are these religious illusions that I'm projecting?
• How is attempting to falsify something a projection of illusions?
• Where have I attempted to falsify what you said and how? (as far as I'm concerned you haven't said anything - it's a word salad, as I said).
• What do I believe and how do you know that it doesn't align with these beliefs?
• List the beliefs that I hold that are contrary to what you think you've said.
Were you trained as a lawyer? Did you attend law school?
As I said, I am not a trained lawyer.
Did you attend law school? :s Or did you not? If you have attended law school, then you are trained as a lawyer, whether you've ever practiced as one or not.
Really? Apparently, you know everything and are not just some screaming lunatic.
Yes, that's what law school is for, to train you as a lawyer.
Quoting TimeLine
The statement you quoted is a logical conditional, so I'm not sure what you mean. And I'm neither a lunatic, nor screaming, I'm just asking you a few questions, which you seem to be purposefully avoiding.
Is it?
Quoting Agustino
Re-read your ridiculous posts; if you had an ounce of reason, you would see through what I was writing to ascertain the point of transcendental idealism but you are too arrogant and in your agitation and aggression say harsh and nasty things to people who are simply having a discussion. This is a forum, a place for people to talk and not to write essays and delve into topics that some people may or may not understand. I am talking to someone else, not you, and I am trying to talk as simple as I can.
Sure, I may make mistakes with my writing that can lead to being misunderstood, but having you stalk my every post and say the same thing over and over and over again about Trump and me saying 'authentic', it is not hard to think you are a lunatic. You ruin peoples threads and morale. A whinging, self-righteous little child.
No no, it totally isn't, I guess it's there to train you to be a plumber... :-}
Quoting TimeLine
What are the harsh and nasty things I've said to you?
Quoting TimeLine
First off, in a thread, especially one where I have been an active participant, I can address whatever post I want, and so can you. So yeah, your post may not have been addressed to me, but if it bullshit it is my right to call it so.
Quoting TimeLine
Look stop trying to play the victim. How was I vicious? You consider it vicious if someone tells you that your writing makes no sense? You don't know what vicious is then.
Quoting TimeLine
No that's another fantasy of yours maybe, but I most certainly don't. I've seen you post in a couple of other threads today, and I don't even know what you've posted there, as I don't follow those threads. But yes, when you do cross my path, then if I think you're saying nonsense, I am entitled to call it out. That's what a forum and free discussion is about. So far you haven't addressed my challenges, and instead prefer to play the victim as if I did I don't know what to you. Pff. Grow up.
And yes, I may have repeatedly complained about you using BS words which mean nothing like "rationally autonomous agents", "authenticity", etc. because you keep repeating them in literarily almost all posts of yours that I come across, and that's a problem. Do you really have no other ideas apart from these? :s So of course you get repeat responses if you say the same thing.
You called it a category error, not me. As for "nothing more than a metaphor," all human ideas about the world are metaphors. As for personification, it seems to me it is both an idea and an automatic, unconscious projection of internal experiences onto the world. I saw a fascinating story on 60 minutes. It showed psychologists interacting with babies as young as 2 or 3 months. The babies already showed an understanding of agency and responsibility in others, even non-human others, i.e. stuffed animals.
I'm not a psychologist or cognitive scientist, so I don't want to overstep my expertise.
These are some of the most cogent and beautiful words I have ever read. Thank you for your clarity and the depth of your thoughts. I would add some of my thoughts here as well - I hope they resonate:
Love is an act of giving.
We give to whom we cherish and cherish to whom we give.
Love is both a leap of faith because it wants to exist and a knowing that it does exist.
Love wants to persist because it is its own reward.
Love is bound by sacred honor.
Love is held at the apex of consciousness and permeates the entire being.
Love yearns for expression and strives for contact and continuation.
Love is holy.
Love is a secret dwelling on public display.
Love is a contract between two souls; extremely fragile and infinitely powerful.
Love is a bridge between the heart and desire.
Love is helpless to defend itself and at the same time indestructible.
Love lives beyond life’s boundaries.
Love is the elixir of eternal life.
Love is infinite and lives in the smallest places.
Love is a lamp in the depths of the darkest night.
Love is a guide and messenger.
Love is a dwelling in the heart of consciousness.
Love is gentle and kind.
Love is quiet and screaming for expression.
Love lives for itself and a companion.
The gift of love is beyond measure.
The measure of love is the gift of a companion.
Love has power beyond imagination.
Love can only be given, never taken.
Love hears the rhythm of the universe.
Love is a creative force.
Love is its own reward.
Love is learned from a mother.
A father, sister or friend can be a mother figure and teach love.
Love is held in consciousness.
Love is the most valuable and powerful thing in consciousness.
The amount of love one has is directly proportional to our ability to give it.
Love transcends time.
Love is accepting.
Love is patient.
Love is a sweet power.
Love is a song that the heart hears.
Love is a yearning that wants to connect.
To find love, look inside, and see outside.
Love and imagination walk hand in hand.
Love sees great distances and small places.
Love craves itself.
Love feels the others pain and delight.
Love is fragile.
Love is a force only limited by imagination.
Love is the most powerful force in the universe.
Love is held in the mind’s eye and so is the universe.
Love is what binds us to the universe.
Love is a force of nature.
Nature manifests love.
Love will give its life for the other.
Love is a gift and our quest.
Love is insecure.
Love is a yearning that may atrophy or grow.
Love is a choice.
Yes, based on my original understanding, which was based on what you said. But now you're talking about metaphors, which has made me doubt my original understanding, which I haven't yet abandoned. It's on hold, pending clarification.
Quoting T Clark
What? Maybe in some sense other than what I'm getting at. I'm contrasting metaphorical with literal, and making it clear that I'm only interested in the latter. I want to understand the world as it really is. I do not want to hear people wax poetic about it. I want to get to the truth of the matter. I do not want to lose sight of it as it is clouded with anthropomorphic projections.
Quoting T Clark
That's making it more about the subject than the subject matter. My main focus is on whether what has been said about the world is true or false, not on why people think in this way about the world.
Even realists or literalists, or whatever you want to call yourself, should recognize there is no direct experience of "the world as it really is," that can be put into words. There never has been, never will be, and can never be direct apprehension of so-called objective reality. We are left to run it through the sieve of human perception, explanation, interpretation, definition, and comprehension.
When you say "I'm contrasting metaphorical with literal, and making it clear that I'm only interested in the latter," is it your position that personification as it relates to people is somehow a literal expression of what is in the world? Personification is a human act. It is not inherent in the universe. Given that, humans are likely to use it in ways you don't find acceptable. Again - that's not a reflection of how things are, it is a reflection of how you see things.
Quoting Sapientia
The subject you and I have been discussing is whether or not it is defensible to personify the world. As I've tried to say above, it is no more or less defensible than personifying my brother or my aunt. The question is, is it useful. I say yes.
That's debatable, but even if so, there's no need to go overboard. It isn't anything goes.
Quoting T Clark
I find it hard to make sense of that question, so I'm not going to attempt to answer it. My point was simply that when it comes to the question of whether or not the world is a person, I'm only interested in the literal truth.
Quoting T Clark
Of course.
Quoting T Clark
Yes, that's virtually inevitable.
Quoting T Clark
For those who personify that which is obviously not a person, then yes, clearly: it's not a reflection of how things are, but of how they see things.
Quoting T Clark
That's absurd, as anyone can see. Merely saying so won't do. What's your argument? Unless you're talking in terms of artistic expression or what makes you feel good or something like that, which is something that I'm not at all interested in in this discussion, as I've tried to make clear, then you don't have a leg to stand on.
Quoting T Clark
No, that's not the question at all. It's irrelevant. If that's the question for you, then I think we're at great risk of talking past each other, as we've probably already been doing to some extent.
Of course it's debatable. I don't know what the rest of that statement means.
Quoting Sapientia
Human beings are animals. Mammals. Homo Sapiens. Physical objects. Their personhood is not inherent in them, it is projected onto them by someone. As I've said, that projection is something humans do before they are old enough to conceptualize what a person really is. Before they have any words. In that sense, a person is not "literally" a person.
Quoting Sapientia
Well, not everyone can see that it's absurd. I haven't merely said so, I've made an argument, which you haven't bought. It is my position that someone's personhood is a projection of someone else's internal experience of their own selfhood onto another. Whereas you seem to believe that someone's personhood is a much a part of them as their fingernails, capillaries, and skin cells. That it has some sort of independent reality. That sounds like Platonic idealism to me.
There could still be a question of whether that projection is reasonable, we could develop standards, etc.
(Phil Dick once said that true paranoia is not when you think your boss is out to get you-- he probably is-- but when you think your boss's phone is out to get you.)
It means that there's a standard for such explanations to either meet or fail to meet. My standard rules out category errors, for example.
Quoting T Clark
Human beings are all of that, and persons too, given their qualities. These qualities are inherent, and in light of them, they fit the definition of "person". This is not true of other cases, such as rocks, space or the world. In those cases, it would be appropriate to call that "projection".
Quoting T Clark
That's their problem.
Quoting T Clark
I don't recall seeing what I'd call an argument. Maybe it was implicit in what you said, and I missed it.
Quoting T Clark
The world isn't a someone or a self.
Quoting T Clark
My position is common sense realism. Whether or not someone is a person is a question of whether someone has the qualities of personhood. We could argue over the finer details of what that consists in, but if you allow for ants, rocks, space, planets, the world, etc., then you've abandoned common sense and drifted off into a fantasy of your own making.
You say "it's a category error."
I say "no it's not, and here's why not."
You say "I reject your explanation because you've made a category error."
There's a name for that.
Quoting Sapientia
You say "That's absurd, as anyone can see."
I say "Well, not everyone can see that it's absurd." I wrote that because I don't think that it's absurd and I am a member of the class "anyone."
Your statement is clearly wrong. Why is that my problem?
Quoting Sapientia
Is it your position that the following is not an argument?
Quoting T Clark
I understand that you don't accept my argument, but it takes chutzpah for you to claim you get to say what is and what isn't an argument. Here is a definition of "argument" from the web - "A reason or set of reasons given with the aim of persuading others that an action or idea is right or wrong."
Quoting Sapientia
By the definition above, calling your position "common sense" is not an argument and doesn't really mean anything. Pretty much all of Western philosophy is an examination of common sense and whether or not it should be taken seriously.
This has been a good conversation, but I don't think we're likely to get any closer to a resolution.
No, you bring up metaphors and stuff, but do not, as far as I'm aware, explicitly, plainly or directly answer that question. I'm still waiting for clarification.
Quoting T Clark
Now it is you who is the one taking things too literally. (It was an exaggeration, obviously). Although I'm still waiting on confirmation of whether I was indeed doing that (I.e. taking things too literally with regards to your original claim). Your "all ideas are metaphors" wasn't helpful in that regard.
Quoting T Clark
Okay, how about the lesser claim that it is absurd at face value, and beside the point if turns out to be just a metaphor?
Quoting T Clark
No, but we were talking about your previous posts, so quoting an argument in a subsequent post is inconsequential. And the question is, what's it an argument for?
Quoting T Clark
I never claimed or implied that calling it that is an argument, and it certainly does mean something. You could look up what it means, although that in itself would say something about you and about common sense.
Kind of snotty. Snottiness can feel good, but it doesn't support your position.
I believe I'm understanding what you're saying about ego projecting. Is it really me connecting to a dimension of reality or is my ego masking a reality that unconsciously fulfills its needs (relationships, empathy, etc..)? I feel like the two can be distinguished through having a solid understanding of the self - or, contrarily and more commonly, inappropriately confused in those that don't. Considering so many gain their sense of "spirituality" through organized religion, which conveniently seems to include many desirable wishes, it seems like most often times a sense of god comes from exactly that: unconscious projections of the self. If it seems so natural for that to emerge in other people then it's bold to say that hasn't, even in the slightest, effected me, so I'm not necessarily saying it hasn't.
It could be our subjective state of existence, the way in which we interpret reality, consists entirely of unconscious projections of the self. However, there are many people with spiritual beliefs. I think one thing that separates a lot of them from me is that I'm willing to take it one step further to see if my..."spiritual experiences" are projections of the self or tangible experiences of something, be it a god or something different, that transcends reality. Maybe one thing can be said, either I'm experiencing a higher form of consciousness that transcends my "self" - or maybe less ego-driven stated as - a supernatural force allowing me to experience it - or, I'm unconsciously projecting an image of my "self" on to a worldview to fulfill its needs. Either way you look at it, I believe that leads one into a supernatural state of existence that is outside the limitations of science, which, if true, perhaps makes either claim no more less mystical than the other.
Mysticism can overcome both of these barriers through the study of orientation.
By example, imagine looking through a kaleidoscope, all the philosophical and mystical ideas are the, or cause the, symmetrical patterns observed. However through turning the lens part of the kaleidoscope, the philosophical and mystical ideas are re-aligned, the symmetry is altered. Resulting in the experience, understanding and development of the reorientation of the self.
In the first case, by a reorientation of the thinking, personal self with the hosting, or higher self.
In the second, a realisation by orientation of concepts that there are no two or more persons(in respect of humanity). In a real way, we are the same person/s.
Well, it is clear through the anthropomorphic projections we place on God that perhaps proves the limitations of how far consciousness itself can go and this very ego-projection; it is ultimately a language of archetypes where epistemologically we require these symbols and characteristics that enable us to make sense of the external world. If there is no escape from this, if we require such 'potentials' that embody fundamental characteristics we model our identity with and pretend it to be an interaction with something outside of us, how can we tell if the experience of others is an illusion or if it is real? One quite easily becomes skeptical that an external world even exists but we need to draw a line somewhere and that would be to find the route enabling us to distinguish between appearance and reality, of seeing past the mere constructs of mental states. As you said, this solid understanding of the self. But, what is that? How can you tell me whether you have a solid understanding of yourself or whether you falsely think you have a solid understanding of yourself? Think about those people who all look and behave the same and yet materially think they are 'individuals'.
Quoting stonedthoughtsofnature
It is reasoning with yourself, a lens to our motivations, of why we feel a certain way at a given time, of the meaning to an experience and with time being linear (memory) to reflect and compare. Such introspection requires clarity, an honesty, it needs to step away from others so that it can learn to think autonomously and this requires a decision (free-will). Much of what we are is determined, as in we are epistemologically trapped by these projections so to speak, but consciousness is accessible and existentially this is perhaps the most frightening experience for people because it makes them aware that they are alone and separate from the external world, from all that they believed was real, family, friends etc, and the courage it takes to get through that is incredibly empowering. Sometimes, even the strongest of men can barely get through accepting this separateness.
I don't think it is a supernatural state as you say, rather it is just a process of mind, of training and practicing this consciousness of the 'self' by learning to be honest and it is not easy considering our identity is manufactured epistemically by these external symbols and characteristics. Platos' theory of forms shows that form of good is the most accurate representation of reality and if God is this representation of ultimate reality, of the source of self-completion that we ourselves seek, then seeking God is seeking this self-completion because striving toward 'good' or moral/virtuous enables us to abandon the ego. That process is the love of God, because in love or morality or conscience or empathy, we experience something outside of our ego. Some are driven by desires and deceive themselves by pretending it is 'love' (for instance, some may give to charity only so they can be applauded and praised, not because they actually want to give). Honesty is the key to genuine experiences.
She's right. Her point is the finite expresses infinite significance (i.e. "...people are not mere things and therefore can transcend the material." ), which we may choose to recognise or not. In recognising our own freedom, but more importantly, the freedom of others, we move beyond the hedonic/status treadmill, on which we view others (and ourselves) as means to obtain status.
Setting aside this self-interests we may finally empathise, to recognise others as significance of themselves, to recognise authentic love driven by significance of the other, rather than the ego stroking "love" which is really about one's own status or possession.
It's the opposite of the the religious persuasion. For the religious, the infinite significance expressed by the finite world is rejected, in favour of a force which can turn the insignificant finite (e.g. ourselves) into the infinite (e.g. an afterlife, worthwhile action done through God), as if people were nothing more than meaningless specks of matter. With respect to metaphysics, the religious are too busy loving God to love people.
starting to that, everything you did was to create your own little bible and write it here, glad you found god in your heart, but he then exist in this sole place.
Consciousness is not something 'deeper' but just is, a reflective practice that enables you to experience who you actually, genuinely are. If you are separating yourself from the false representations of the external world caused by the illusions of your ego, this splitting away is entirely your own doing.
I would think that one's idea of who they are is built entirely upon how they've learned to talk about themselves and others. One's initial worldview is entirely adopted. That is to say that it consists of thought/belief that belonged to others. If there is such a thing as one's genuine self, and such a thing is to be sought after and found, then the only way to do such a thing is to understand which parts of one's own self-identity are mistaken, and how they are.
I've mentioned this elsewhere:
I don't usually get into this issue, because it isn't a matter of argument, provability, or convincing anyone. I've argued for a metaphysics, but I don't argue about religion.
But I'll reply (maybe indirectly) to the initial-post's comments:
Metaphysics is the topic of what is. I know, that's called Ontology too, and hopefully we needn't get into an issue about the definitions and difference.
It has been pointed out that what is, is very good. Some say indescribably good. No, we needn't argue that. It's their impression, and maybe it isn't yours, and you have a right to your opinion.
Those people are expressing an impression. It isn't a metaphysical matter. You could say it's a supra-metaphycical impression.
Because it isn't metaphysical, it isn't about what exists ("exist" is a word that I avoid in definite statements anyway).
People have expressed gratitude for how good what is, is.
Some people, including some philosophers, have spoken of an impression of a Principle of Good.
An impression, remember,. not an assertion, or a claim about what you should believe.
As an example, the Byrds sang:
"I opened my heart to the whole universe, and found it was loving."
(No doubt they weren't referring to this physical universe, but rather to what is, in general.)
Anyway, I just wanted to add these comments, in indirect reply to the initial-post's commenst.
Michael Ossipoff