One would think that spirituality could be expressed in many different ways; some overt, others covert. Some alone, some with others. Either in a special building, or in nature. Someone could have a mystical experience playing the piano. Not being silly, just trying to broaden the definition a little.
Reformed NihilistJuly 02, 2017 at 04:42#828930 likes
Reply to darthbarracuda I'm curious. What exactly is the meaning of "spirituality" in your formulation? I don't consider myself to be spiritual (nor homeless), and I consider the word "spiritual" to be best translated as "psuedo-religious" in most uses. You mean something else I assume?
What exactly is the meaning of "spirituality" in your formulation?
Basically just any sort of feeling of belonging in the world or serving a higher purpose that is not immediately concrete and accessible but rather overarching and "cosmic", something that permeates everything and anything. That there is some "other" order to the universe that makes it all "make sense", justifies injustices and to which the aesthetic provides access to.
It's the feeling of being almost-at-home, but not quite, as if you're approaching some big discovery and part of the deal is that it's mysterious, and that once you finally arrive it'll all make sense, including why it had to be mysterious in the first place. Most likely this understanding would seem to reside after death, in some other realm or mode of existence, and which the journey to is life.
I'd say it's a deep, primordial desire to belong and see what it "all" is about, how everything hangs together, to comprehend the necessity of every thing that exists and grasp some grand, metaphysical mosaic of meaning. It's natural and inevitable but I think it's also commonly formed from desperation. It's not just a desire but a need, a demand, that the universe be welcoming and recognize the person. Or at least "open up" to their questions.
So basically it's a feeling that one might be finally getting some answers to the questions that have haunted and plagued humanity since it first started philosophizing.
So basically it's a feeling that one might be finally getting some answers to the questions that have haunted and plagued humanity since it first started philosophizing.
Very well said. That idea of being 'at home in the Universe' is a very important one; a hallmark of a lot of 20th century art was just that sense of the lack of that. Max Weber called it the 'disenchantment of the world', saying that, by contrast, for religious cultures, the world is like a 'great enchanted garden'.
I think one difference between 'spirituality' and 'religion' is that the former is self-directed, questioning, and exploratory, whereas the latter tends towards being about the regulation and direction of such feelings according to collective norms. But they intersect at many points, so it is hard to keep them completely separate.
t's the feeling of being almost-at-home, but not quite, as if you're approaching some big discovery and part of the deal is that it's mysterious, and that once you finally arrive it'll all make sense, including why it had to be mysterious in the first place
Whitehead:Religion is the vision of something which stands beyond, behind and within the passing flux of immediate things; something which is real, and yet waiting to be realized; something which is a remote possibility, and yet the greatest of present facts; something that gives meaning to all that passes, and yet eludes apprehension; something whose possession is the final good, and yet is beyond all reach; something which is the ultimate ideal, and the hopeless quest.
from Science and the Modern World.
Reformed NihilistJuly 02, 2017 at 14:00#829570 likes
Basically just any sort of feeling of belonging in the world or serving a higher purpose that is not immediately concrete and accessible but rather overarching and "cosmic", something that permeates everything and anything. That there is some "other" order to the universe that makes it all "make sense", justifies injustices and to which the aesthetic provides access to.
It's the feeling of being almost-at-home, but not quite, as if you're approaching some big discovery and part of the deal is that it's mysterious, and that once you finally arrive it'll all make sense, including why it had to be mysterious in the first place. Most likely this understanding would seem to reside after death, in some other realm or mode of existence, and which the journey to is life.
I'd say it's a deep, primordial desire to belong and see what it "all" is about, how everything hangs together, to comprehend the necessity of every thing that exists and grasp some grand, metaphysical mosaic of meaning. It's natural and inevitable but I think it's also commonly formed from desperation. It's not just a desire but a need, a demand, that the universe be welcoming and recognize the person. Or at least "open up" to their questions.
So basically it's a feeling that one might be finally getting some answers to the questions that have haunted and plagued humanity since it first started philosophizing.
Here's the problem I have with this response.You haven't really clarified anything. When you use the word "spiritual" do you mean "feeling of belonging"? or "serving a higher purpose"? or "almost at home but not quite"(which seems to be a contradiction to "feeling of belonging")? or "a deep, primordial desire to belong and see what it "all" is about"?
With all due respect, it seems to me that you don't really know what you mean, and that the word "spiritual" has become a linguistic placeholder that has the performative function of replacing the word "religious" while escaping some of the connotations that are associated with that word.
Perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps you were trying to offer context, and in doing so obfuscated the meaning of the word. If that is the case, could you give me just your working definition of spirituality. The kind that might be found in a dictionary? You know, just a one or two sentence description, perhaps with a synonym? I can dig deeper if I need clarification from there.
To be devoid of spirituality is to be homeless. At least that's what it seems to me.
To make much ado about "spirituality" is to construct for oneself an ivory tower, paradoxically, made largely out of thin air, from which to look down upon the others below. At least that's what it seems to me.
Reformed NihilistJuly 04, 2017 at 18:35#834570 likes
To make much ado about "spirituality" is to construct for oneself an ivory tower, paradoxically, made largely out of thin air, from which to look down upon the others below. At least that's what it seems to me.
I think those of us who are not spiritual (I don't think I am anyway) are sometimes a little too dismissive. I have often asked for clarification on what people mean by spirituality, and I get two types of answer. The first is the that spirituality is an element of religious belief. Literally pertaining to one's spirit or soul. There's no use talking about spirituality with someone who believes in that sort of dualism, if you do not (and I don't), unless it is solely for the purpose of discussing the dualism itself.
The second type of response I get is like darthbarracuda's. It describes spirituality in vague terms, and always includes an appeal to mystery and the unknown. I've never had much luck in getting clarification from this type of response, so I have a few hypotheses as to why:
1) When I let go of my religious faith, I did it in steps. I was first a christian, then a doubting christian, then an agnostic, then a pantheist (I didn't even know what it was called at the time), then "spiritual but not religious", then a weak atheist, and now just an atheist. Each of these steps represented both a change in my thinking about how the universe worked, but I think more importantly, they represented the way I looked at myself, and these changes happen gradually, and on a continuum. When I considered myself "spiritual but not religious", it was not because I wanted to construct an ivory tower, but because I wasn't ready to let go of the part of my identity and worldview that believed in the possibility of magic (which I now realize is an inherently incoherent notion).
or
2) Maybe there is something to it, and no one has been able to explain it well enough for me to grasp their meaning. If it is either complex enough or subtle enough, perhaps I just missed it.
Now it's a little self serving, but I have been pretty good with complex and/or subtle ideas in the past, and my personal experience also lends weight to the first hypothesis, so that's the one I favor, but I keep my mind open to the second, or the possibility that there's another explanation that I haven't considered yet.
The root meanings of the words spirit chi and atman are all breath. The animating principle, chakra, energy, force, power, life.
Irony is a beautiful thing. The religious are the real physicalists, always tracing things back to personal experience, revalation, feeling, profession and confession, the individual, and in the case of protestantism, the complete denial of any intermediation between the individual the thr divine, the truth.The irreligious are the real immaterialists, believing first hand accounts and introspection the be worthless, the collective over the individual to take precedence (protecting the poor helpless ones from the way eviler way dumber individuals than us enlightened few) that the truth is handed down from on high, and are mouth piece repeaters of shit theyve heard from trusted authorities, that they take on pure faith in the benevolence of the process and judge your intelligence and goodness on how precisely you repeat the same things. Think how worthless flawed and wicked the individual is, and do not dare to compare oneselve with the holy geniuses and arbiters of truth, which were all just born great and predestined to do all that they do.
I laugh... and they cry.
Reformed NihilistJuly 04, 2017 at 19:13#834660 likes
Reply to Wosret And you sit outside it all, watching, but not belonging, the lonely man of insight, seeing the folly of everyone else?
I see the folly of myself, and only through that the folly of mankind. But i guess just insinuating my unbelievable arrogance is a good enough retort.
Reformed NihilistJuly 04, 2017 at 19:31#834730 likes
Reply to Wosret It wasn't necessarily meant as a retort. Just trying to get some clarity about your tone (to what degree you were speaking tongue in cheek), which wasn't apparent to me. It seems as though it wasn't meant tongue in cheek (or I'm still not getting the joke). In which case, my next response is a critique:
Your writing style uses the language of certainty on subjects that are usually, and for good reason I think, spoken of in terms of personal opinion or subjective view, or with other forms of linguistic humility. To say that you see the folly of mankind, without any modifiers, like "what seems like folly to me" or "I see X folly in Y element of mankind", implies that you have a vantage not granted to the rest of us, where you see all the folly of mankind unerringly, with perfect fidelity. Why should I believe that you possess such insight? What makes your proclamations distinct from those of a babbling fool?
Here's the problem I have with this response.You haven't really clarified anything. When you use the word "spiritual" do you mean "feeling of belonging"? or "serving a higher purpose"? or "almost at home but not quite"(which seems to be a contradiction to "feeling of belonging")? or "a deep, primordial desire to belong and see what it "all" is about"?
I don't want to speak for Reply to darthbarracuda, but I would say that all of the above are the definition that he's describing. The reason the concept might seem vague is because language has limits; human experience is wider than the scope of one single language's ability to describe experience. A concept that eludes a dead, musty dictionary definition is a concept that's more alive than most concepts.
But, if you'd like my (unsolicited) single-sentence definition of spirituality, I'd put it something like this: "the inner life of the outer experience of the world".
? Thats just more calling me an asshole man, and then taking a stand on high as the one being appealed to as if i want something from you. Im just answering the question about spirituality, and then expanding on the ironic implications. What you believe isnt my problem. I enjoyed reading you a lot when i first showed up on the philosophy forum a decade ago. I thought that you were pretty cool shit back then. I even tried to talk to you, but you werent interested, so im more pleased than anything that im getting it now. Youre only like 4 hours from me as well.
2) Maybe there is something to it, and no one has been able to explain it well enough for me to grasp their meaning. If it is either complex enough or subtle enough, perhaps I just missed it.
Now it's a little self serving, but I have been pretty good with complex and/or subtle ideas in the past, and my personal experience also lends weight to the first hypothesis, so that's the one I favor, but I keep my mind open to the second, or the possibility that there's another explanation that I haven't considered yet.
Kudos to you for that; it's rare to find atheists around here with that mindset.
Reformed NihilistJuly 04, 2017 at 19:45#834800 likes
What you believe isnt my problem. I enjoyed reading you a lot when i first showed up on the philosophy forum a decade ago. I thought that you were pretty cool shit back then. I even tried to talk to you, but you werent interested, so im more pleased than anything that im getting it now.
I actually appreciate that. I remember you from the other forum, but I don't remember having anything to talk about with you specifically. For all I know, I might have had the same impression of your writing style back then, I don't recall. I certainly don't remember thinking badly of you. Like you probably remember, I'm a pretty critical guy, so...
Youre only like 4 hours from me as well.
Cool. In Alberta? I've moved around the province, from Ft. Mac to Calgary.
Youre critiquing the way i say things rather than what i said. Saying things with confidence and authority is pretty hot you know? Thats the ideal of how the logos presets itself, and the ladies fucking love it, lol. I highly doubt that im impressing many dudes, but ill bare that horrible burden.
I doubt that you thought much of anything of me if i didnt make much of an impression. Being taken account of is better than being the good one. Im worried about being true to myself and being conscientious, not being agreeable or congenial. Being the most liked is a narcissistic ideal.
Yeah i lived in calgary for a year, then sangudo for a year then leduc for seven months then back to sangudo for two years and now ive just moved to whitecourt because my sister and her kids are out here. I like being close to family, they empower me.
What can i say to that? I ought to have sounded less confident and added more couching to avoid being perceived as too arrogant? Im not appealing to him, so i dont give a shit about that.
Reformed NihilistJuly 04, 2017 at 20:01#834860 likes
I don't want to speak for ?darthbarracuda, but I would say that all of the above are the definition that he's describing. The reason the concept might seem vague is because language has limits; human experience is wider than the scope of one single language's ability to describe experience. A concept that eludes a dead, musty dictionary definition is a concept that's more alive than most concepts.
To the appeal that there's something to describe, outside of what can be described, I can only quote Wittgenstein "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent". If it doesn't have a lexical meaning, then it is literally meaningless. If it is part of a share experience, then we should be able to indicate to each other what it is that we share, put a word like "sprituality" on it, and voila! we have a meaningful word. If, however, it is some private experience for which there is no analogous experience between people, then it isn't something that can be spoken of. Language is necessarily a shared phenomena.
As far as the "dead dictionaries" and "alive concepts", it's a nice bit of poetics, but I don't see how it is actually a reflection of any state of affairs. I'm not asking for a regurgitation of a dictionary definition, I'm asking for a dictionary style of definition. The reason I am doing that is that dictionary definitions are succinct, if not all encompassing. Seeing as though I have literally no clue what spirituality might refer to if not to a dualistic nether-world where our vaporous homunculus reside, I am asking for a definition that at least gives me a succinct and graspable starting point, and at the same time testing if whomever is answering has thought about the subject to the extent that they understand what they are proposing well enough to give such a definition. So far, I have not found that to be the case, but am always open to hearing it.
Seeing as though I have literally no clue what spirituality might reefer to if not to a dualistic nether-world where our vaporous homunculus reside, I am asking for a definition that at least gives me a succinct and graspable starting point...
Spirituality cannot be "defined" in the absence of its counterpart (materiality), and the same goes for materiality. There are many kinds of polar concepts like these (freedom:determinism, God:man, world:society, natural:artificial -- just to brush on other themes besides 'religion'). Matter:spirit is just another example.
The only way for a mind to grasp one of these poles is not to try to define it "from the viewpoint [or, vantage point] of the other"; it is rather to envisage the mindset which produced both concepts -- a mindset which experienced something compact out of which the two concepts could be developed and, centuries later, contrasted. It is not a "primitive" mindset -- primordial would be a better word.
Reformed NihilistJuly 04, 2017 at 20:14#834920 likes
Youre critiquing the way i say things rather than what i said.
They're not wholly separate things. What you say becomes apparent in how you say it. Everything you said in the first post I commented on has a morsel of truth to it, but was all presented as extremes. "The religious are the real physicalists, always tracing things back to personal experience, revalation, feeling, profession and confession" and "he irreligious are the real immaterialists, believing first hand accounts and introspection the be worthless, the collective over the individual to take precedence". In my experience, religious people act in a variety of ways, and look at the world in a variety of ways, as do the irreligious. They are not monolithic, nor are they kind enough to fit squarely into an one or two line description neatly.
If you like irony, then I guess I'm saying that there are two kinds of people in the world, those that think there are two kinds of people in the world, and people like me.
If you like irony, then I guess I'm saying that there are two kinds of people in the world, those that think there are two kinds of people in the world, and people like me.
That's brilliant! (Y)
Reformed NihilistJuly 04, 2017 at 20:18#834950 likes
Spirituality cannot be "defined" in the absence of its counterpart (materiality), and the same goes for materiality. There are many kinds of polar concepts like these (freedom:determinism, God:man, world:society, natural:artificial -- just to brush on other themes besides 'religion'). Matter:spirit is just another example.
That's the dualist definition I am familiar with and understand clearly. It is the most common use of the term by those who ascribe to a religion. I am asking about what the term means by those who don't necessarily ascribe to, or are unwilling to commit to, that sort of dualism.
Edit: At that point, I can choose to engage in a discussion about the finer points of dualist/monist/functionalist/etc. conceptions of the universe, or I can just accept that in a very real way, I live in a cognitively different world, and wish you all the best.
To the appeal that there's something to describe, outside of what can be described, I can only quote Wittgenstein "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent".
It's a nice quote, but overquoted. It's actually a tautology. But I don't know, maybe that was his point. But I'm not saying that there's something to be described that can't be described; there's something to be described that illudes proper description in the way that rational or analytic philosophy demands. If these rational demands are the demands you place on experience, then the concept of spirituality will illude you, let alone the experience of it.
If it is part of a share experience, then we should be able to indicate to each other what it is that we share, put a word like "sprituality" on it, and voila! we have a meaningful word.
We do have that; I was affirming Barri's descriptions as something I share (that may not have been obvious). That doesn't mean we can define those shared experiences in the same way we define our experience of "when I hit my knee on the table, it hurts".
As far as the "dead dictionaries" and "alive concepts", it's a nice bit of poetics, but I don't see how it is actually a reflection of any state of affairs.
We think of concepts as things (that's a metaphor) that we grasp with our minds (the mind grasping is another metaphor). When we do this, we generally begin with the assumption that concepts are like the objects we grasp with our hands (we don't think this in a literal sense, but in order to think about concepts, we have to think about them as "things", which they are not). But the meanings of words change, which is to say that concepts change. Virutally all words have their beginnings in metaphor; see Owen Barfield's History In English Words and Poetic Diction. When I say words are alive, I'm just using a further metaphor, in the same way we use metaphors to think about anything at all. So, it may be nicely poetic, but so is the entire structure of thought. That's my point about "living" words and "dead" dictionaries. I think it applies when we're trying to pin down an illusive concept like "spirituality". As Reply to Wosret mentioned, the root of the word is "breath"; another metaphor, or an original likeness?
Seeing as though I have literally no clue what spirituality might refer to if not to a dualistic nether-world where our vaporous homunculus reside, I am asking for a definition that at least gives me a succinct and graspable starting point, and at the same time testing if whomever is answering has thought about the subject to the extent that they understand what they are proposing well enough to give such a definition. So far, I have not found that to be the case, but am always open to hearing it.
I dont understand categories, and every use of them is necessarily hasty, because everything is specially unique and uncomparable, yet at the same time all meaning is lexical and always reduced to categorical reasoning... and these are just rhetorical strategies that although clearly contradict... and im agreeing with and denying both principles as it suits me... you though... youre wrong when you do it.
Yeah, when im not appealing to caesar humbly enough... and thats supposed to say anyrhing other than "i dont like what your sayin, but i got nothing so youre a bad person"?
Ignore me then. Checking my hehaviour is fun and all...
It's a nice quote, but overquoted. It's actually a tautology. But I don't know, maybe that was his point. But I'm not saying that there's something to described that can't be described; there's something to be described that illudes proper description in the way that rational or analytic philosophy demands. If these rational demands are the demands you place on experience, then the concept of spirituality will illude you, let alone the experience of it.
First, yes, I think that was his point. Maybe not in it's entirety, but encapsulated, I think it was.
Second, do you mean elude, as in evade, or illude, as in trick? Seeing as though you can't trick proper description, I'll assume you mean elude. It might not even be an important distinction.
So why are it that there are all sorts of other concepts, like the concepts of "properties" or "consciousness", slippery concepts, that people can have disagreements about the finer points of, but that can be succinctly defined in one or two sentences satisfactorily? Why would you propose that spirituality would be different? How is that not just special pleading?
We do have that; I was affirming Barri's descriptions as something I share (that may not have been obvious). That doesn't mean we can define those shared experiences in the same way we define our experience of "when I hit my knee on the table, it hurts".
How do you know that you share the experience? What specifically did he write that made you say "yup, that's the same thing for me"? Explain that to me please. Maybe I also share the experience. The way most people talk about spirituality, it seems as though it is part of the universal human condition, so I don't know what makes me such a dummy about it.
That's my point about "living" words and "dead" dictionaries. I think it applies when we're trying to pin down an illusive concept like "spirituality". As Worset mentioned, the root of the word is "breathe"; another metaphor, or an original likeness?
I understand how metaphors work, thanks. I'm asking what's so dead about asking for someone to be succinct, and what's so alive about being vague and self-contradictory? That's what I was doing when I asked about a dictionary style definition. So I guess I'm trying to point out that your metaphor wasn't apt. It wasn't relevant to my request.
Second, do you mean elude, as in evade, or illude, as in trick? Seeing as though you can't trick proper description, I'll assume you mean elude. It might not even be an important distinction.
So why are it that there are all sorts of other concepts, like the concepts of "properties" or "consciousness", slippery concepts, that people can have disagreements about the finer points of, but that can be succinctly defined in one or two sentences satisfactorily? Why would you propose that spirituality would be different? How is that not just special pleading?
You continue to ignore the definition I offered in my first response to you. Maybe you missed it? Here it is:
Spirituality: The inner life of the outer experience of the world.
From that first post, I've argued that the definition is elusive, but I then (in that same post) proceeded to offer that definition regardless. You seem to be reading past all of this, or else I wasn't clear enough.
It's the feeling of being almost-at-home, but not quite, as if you're approaching some big discovery and part of the deal is that it's mysterious, and that once you finally arrive it'll all make sense, including why it had to be mysterious in the first place.
The feeling of "almost-at-home" is an experience that I find myself having a lot, especially when writing music. I experienced it when I used to be a Christian (I have a lot of positive memories of that time as well as the negative). I've experienced it when reading other religious texts and philosophical texts, including atheist ones. I've experienced it in meditation (something I'm horrible at, but even still). I've experienced it in dreams, and, most poignantly of all, in the moments after waking up after a restorative, dreamless sleep. Laugh all you like, or analyze all you like. There's your answer.
I didn't assume you didn't; I was explaining why I was placing importance on that idea, particularly with some ideas from Barfield that I assumed you wouldn't be familiar with because most people aren't.
I'm asking what's so dead about asking for someone to be succinct, and what's so alive about being vague and self-contradictory?
If you mean "what's so dead about asking for someone to be succinct, and what's so alive about words having elusive meanings", then I'll answer, but otherwise you're setting up an annoying strawman there.
Reformed NihilistJuly 04, 2017 at 21:31#835290 likes
Spirituality: the inner life of the outer world of experience.
From that first post, I've argued that the definition is elusive, but I then (in that same post) proceeded to offer that definition regardless. You seem to be reading past all of this, or else I wasn't clear enough.
Sorry, I did miss that.
In what way do you mean "inner" and "outer"? Do you mean to make the distinction between subjective and objective, public and private, or material and immaterial?
The feeling of "almost-at-home" is an experience that I find myself having a lot, especially when writing music. I experienced it when I used to be a Christian (I have a lot of positive memories of that time as well as the negative). I've experienced it when reading other religious texts and philosophical texts, including atheist ones. I've experienced it in meditation (something I'm horrible at, but even still). I've experienced it in dreams, and, most poignantly of all, in the moments after waking up after a dreamless sleep. Laugh all you like, or analyze all you like. There's your answer.
I was a christian, I meditate, I write music (though not in a while). I dream. I have had pleasant experiences with all of those things, but "almost at home" doesn't describe those experiences in a meaningful way to me. What does being at home feel like in this metaphor? What does being far from home feel like? I would normally describe some of those feelings as feeling like being at home, as they offer comfort, like home does. I might, inversely describe them as feeling like being away from home, as they might take me out of a conscious awareness of myself and my thoughts and feelings (away from home because they are different from my baseline condition, "where I live"). So I'm missing how these things are "almost at home". Perhaps you could try to describe why that metaphor was meaningful to you? Why you think that darthbarracuda was actually talking about the feeling you get when you do those things, and not an entirely different feeling that he/she gets.
If you mean "what's so dead about asking for someone to be succinct, and what's so alive about words having elusive meanings", then I'll answer, but otherwise you're setting up an annoying strawman there.
No strawman intended. I made a specific request for succinctness, and you used a metaphor that characterized what I was asking for as negative ("dead, musty") and what you are now speaking of as elusive as good ("alive"). I'm rejecting that characterization. Succinctness is good, and vagueness is bad when discussing concepts. I will even submit that you might be making an attribution error here. Perhaps it isn't the concept that is vague, but your use of it. Can you actually make the distinction between an elusive concept and a poorly considered one (honest question)? I'm not sure I can tell the difference between my poorly considered concepts and objectively elusive concepts.
I submit that it could be that the term is a functional placeholder for it's religious precursor (of or pertaining to the spirit/soul or spirit world), and allows the user to hold onto elements of a religious worldview (mind/body dualism most obviously, but not exclusively) without making an intellectual commitment to them.
Add on edit: I wonder if it's also a placeholder for a belief in "intentionality magic", which is conceptually tied to religious mind/body dualism, but not one and the same. What I mean by intentionality magic, is the intuition that if we believe something strongly enough, desire it enough, or think/feel about it in the right way, we can cause it to happen. It's a fairly common intuition, and practices like prayer are it's religious manifestation.
In what way do you mean "inner" and "outer"? Do you mean to make the distinction between subjective and objective, public and private, or material and immaterial?
It's hard to describe. Haha, sorry, here come some more vague definitions. I'll try to make it as clear as I can. I consider the subject/object distinction to be largely misleading. It has so many connotations, and it's hard to keep track of them. Public/private is, to me, one expression of it, but neither encapsulate my idea. The same goes for material/immaterial. I like inner/outer as the metaphor for the concept because it doesn't say anything about material/immaterial; there's no difference in the philosophical sense (subject/object); and it's not limited to experience (public/private). It also doesn't describe anything in relation to our experience of time (before/after), and it doesn't place things within a hierarchy (under/over). Inner/outer works with words and their changing meanings, as I've mentioned, it works when analyzing the "inner" philosophy that drives the "outer" world of events (politics, technology, science, art). So, inner applies to both individuals, and the human condition in general.
That's the long form version that you probably found frustrating...sorry. The best succinct version for now would be: Inner/outer, subject/object, public/private, are all dualistic expressions of a single reality that exists underneath everyday perception. I still struggle with even that concept though, because I still wrestle with whether I'm a dualist of any sort.
What does being at home feel like in this metaphor?
Closer to that one reality I mentioned; closer to the truth. Closer to my own inner being, the "inner" seed that exists inside the husk of the disingenuous "outer" me. Closer to everything. All of this is apprehended through intuition, which is a spiritual faculty.
I might, inversely describe them as feeling like being away from home, as they might take me out of a conscious awareness of myself and my thoughts and feelings (away from home because they are different from my baseline condition, "where I live").
I think what you describe as far from home here might be closer to what I mean by closer to home. Or else that's where the metaphor stops working. Being "out of one's self" in the sense of meditation or what have you, is, to me, the same sort of experience that lends itself often to the metaphor of feeling close to home, but that metaphor doesn't actually encompass all instances of the feeling.
Perhaps you could try to describe why that metaphor was meaningful to you? Why you think that darthbarracuda was actually talking about the feeling you get when you do those things, and not an entirely different feeling that he/she gets.
There is a "private" nature to it as well, yes. One of the most poignant experiences of the feeling of close to home that I've had is a very private recurring vision-like experience I've had. It would be laughable to describe it, because it is a private experience that I doubt others share. Instead, I sneak it into a song whenever I can. But how do I know whether the intuitive feeling of that experience isn't like what others feel? Indeed, the feeling of the experience is the "coming home" feeling, which appears to be something others share, so whether or not the particulars (the vision-like/metaphorical elements of my own particular experience) are the same as for others isn't important. The metaphorical, vision-like elements are what describe the feeling (btw, not emotion) of the experience, and that's the significant part. That's the part we can communicate about, freeing us of having to "remain silent" about it, ala Wittgenstein. Contrary to what Witty says, we can begin by asking each other "hey, have you ever felt or experienced something like this?" One could even, ironically, take it to a scientific extreme and ask every person you can. If you find just one person who says "yes"...then, as far as I'm concerned, we don't have to "remain silent". That may have been a tangent.
I'm rejecting that characterization. Succinctness is good, and vagueness is bad when discussing concepts.
Ok, but what I'm saying is succinctness often pinpoints concepts into a changeless state within which they don't actually exist. I like succinctness too, but in my view it only has temporal value; you can't pursue succinctness to the point of total, complete accuracy, because once you pinpoint the idea like an insect unto a board, the concept, like the insect, is dead. Now you can examine it and analyze it, but that work will only tell you about how the insect/concept functioned, past tense.
Are you saying my ideas are vague? (honest question). Because I keep using the word "elusive", and you keep using the word "vague".
Perhaps it isn't the concept that is vague, but your use of it.
I would suggest that the concept of spirituality isn't vague, but that most if not all attempts to describe it end in vagueness, and I don't have a problem with this. It also doesn't stop me from trying to be less vague when I talk about it. But I place my intuitive experience of this concept above my rational analysis of it, as I do elsewhere.
Can you actually make the distinction between an elusive concept and a poorly considered one (honest question)? I'm not sure I can tell the difference between my poorly considered concepts and objectively elusive concepts.
Sure, it's hard to say. I try to think about all of these things as clearly as I'm able, but how do I know there's not an entirely other level of clearer thinking that I haven't yet or will never attain? I don't want to let this stop me from trying to think as clearly as I can about these concepts within my abilities. There's no use letting that possibility lead to inaction here.
I submit that it could be that the term is a functional placeholder for it's religious precursor (of or pertaining to the spirit/soul or spirit world), and allows the user to hold onto elements of a religious worldview (mind/body dualism most obviously, but not exclusively) without making an intellectual commitment to them.
Ok, can you make an argument about this, then? Maybe you did and I missed it.
Reformed NihilistJuly 04, 2017 at 23:37#835620 likes
That's the long form version that you probably found frustrating...sorry. The best succinct version for now would be: Inner/outer, subject/object, public/private, are all dualistic expressions of a single reality that exists underneath everyday perception. I still struggle with even that concept though, because I still wrestle with whether I'm a dualist of any sort.
Yup. because the statement "a single reality that exists underneath everyday perception" still implies a duality between "the real" and "the perceived". Dualism isn't inherently wrong, but one should consider the logical implications of adopting it.
Closer to that one reality I mentioned; closer to the truth. Closer to my own inner being, the "inner" seed that exists inside the husk of the disingenuous "outer" me. Closer to everything. All of this is apprehended through intuition, which is a spiritual faculty.
That sounds like mind/body dualism.The idea that your body isn't you (it's a husk), and that the "real" you is some sort of ephemeral being that is pulling all the levers of your meat machine body. The problem is that there is abundant evidence that suggests otherwise, and there are philosophical problems with the idea in itself. For the philosophical problems, if mind and body are distinct and separate, then there's no way to account for the mind having an effect on the body (and if they interact, why do we need the duality, why can't it all be just body?).
All of this seems to imply that all of those properties that were once ascribed to an otherworldly spirit are actually properties of a hunk of grey stuff in your skull. So just like the god of the gaps keeps shrinking, the more you know about how the universe works, it seems to me that the ephemeral spirit that runs the show shrinks the more you know about the brain.
Ok, but what I'm saying is succinctness often pinpoints concepts into a changeless state within which they don't actually exist. I like succinctness too, but in my view it only has temporal value; you can't pursue succinctness to the point of total, complete accuracy, because once you pinpoint the idea like an insect unto a board, the concept, like the insect, is dead. Now you can examine it and analyze it, but that work will only tell you about how the insect/concept functioned, past tense.
How about we use present tense and talk about what you mean right now when you're using it? I'd be happy with pinpointing it to that degree. If you really want to change your definition in mid discussion (which would be a weird thing to do), just point it out an give me a new succinct definition. I don't know why there is such a fuss over this.
Are you saying my ideas are vague? (honest question). Because I keep using the word "elusive", and you keep using the word "vague".
I don't know what your ideas are. I am saying your descriptions are vague. If clarity eludes you, that would account for the vagueness. I'm not even sure what the property of "elusiveness" would mean in regards to a concept, excepting that eludes you, which also means you don't have a firm grasp on it.
I would suggest that the concept of spirituality isn't vague, but that most if not all attempts to describe it end in vagueness, and I don't have a problem with this.
So all the descriptions people make are vague, but the concept is a clear and well defined one? What makes you arrive at that conclusion? Wouldn't it make more sense to conclude that if no one seems able to speak clearly about a concept, then the concept is ill-defined? If not, by what mechanism is the concept of spirituality immune from clarity, yet everyone believes that they are talking about the exact same thing? Is there also a form of telepathy involved, where you just know what someone is saying regardless of their vagueness?
Or might it be that people are engaging in performative language rituals? I use "spiritual" as a placeholder, and when questioned speak in vagaries, and you also want to hold onto the notion, so you see in it whatever you need to, in order to maintain some aspect of your worldview or sense of self-identity?
It also doesn't stop me from trying to be less vague when I talk about it. But I place my intuitive experience of this concept above my rational analysis of it, as I do elsewhere.
What is the difference between intuitive experience and just regular experience, and why does it offer more insight than rational analysis? Is there any way to tell the difference between intuition and self-delusion?
Sure, it's hard to say. I try to think about all of these things as clearly as I'm able, but how do I know there's not an entirely other level of clearer thinking that I haven't yet or will never attain? I don't want to let this stop me from trying to think as clearly as I can about these concepts within my abilities. There's no use letting that possibility lead to inaction here.
Inaction isn't my suggestion. My suggestion is to compare your hypothesis with mine, and evaluate them.
Your's is that there is such a thing as spirituality, but something (but you don't know what?) about the nature of that thing prevents it from being clearly described or defined. If I am correct, you seem to be saying that the elusiveness is an actual property of the thing that is spirituality. I think I have that right, but correct me if I'm wrong.
Mine is that where people find concepts difficult to describe clearly or define, in every other case I can think of, the cause for this inability was 1) the speaker in question didn't have a clear grasp on the concept, and in sometimes this is because 2) the concept is intentionally ill defined. We know that as humans, we regularly hold onto ill defined conceptions of things, and those things often only become more clearly defined, or are discarded, when we are pushed to think about them more carefully, either in discussion, or because of some event in one's life that creates a cognitive dissonance that needs to be rectified.
So given those two possible explanations for the events of this discussion, I'm asking you to rationally appraise the merits of each hypothesis. Surely in most cases my first hypothesis is correct, right? Why is this situation different?
That sounds like mind/body dualism.The idea that your body isn't you (it's a husk), and that the "real" you is some sort of ephemeral being that is pulling all the levers of your meat machine body.
I didn't mean mind/body dualism, I mean something more akin to the Hindu idea of the Self (Brahman) being higher than (i'd say inside of) the Ego, or the outer self. I've had experiences of being aware of that distinction. And so it's become one of my beliefs, because of my experience. The physical body is just a further outer husk.
(and if they interact, why do we need the duality, why can't it all be just body?).
Because "just body" doesn't account for the existential reality of our experience; It doesn't account for ethics, morality, and the whole project of conscious human life in general. "Just body" shows how without showing why.
And a counter question, if the two interact, why would it have to be just body in that case? Two things interacting doesn't equate to it really just being one thing (the one you want it to be, it seems). This is why hard either/or dualism fails for me; it's not a question of separate metaphysical realities, it's a problem of generative metaphysical realities; the materialist view you're referencing studies the brain and concludes that matter generates mind, but I find this incoherent because it's inherently hard nihilism. If matter generates mind, then nothing has content; all content is a facade. Not only is religion an ivory tower, but any belief system, including atheism or materialism, is an ivory tower. If this is the case, then debate is useless. If debating is worthwhile, it must have content, and that type of content (metaphysical content I guess I would call it) can't ultimately be a by-product of matter, because then the content has no referent other than itself, which is nihilistic. If senseless matter generated functional mind, and functional mind generated meaningful ideas, how can you say the ideas are actually meaningful? They're just meaningful in relation to each other, which means not at all. That sort of relativism doesn't lead to any agreement; it in fact assumes total nihilism and meaninglessness. Total agreement about nihilistic relativity would mean nothingness.
If you really want to change your definition in mid discussion (which would be a weird thing to do), just point it out an give me a new succinct definition. I don't know why there is such a fuss over this.
I'm not even sure what the property of "elusiveness" would mean in regards to a concept, excepting that eludes you, which also means you don't have a firm grasp on it.
You don't think there are any elusive concepts then? Earlier you referenced
So why are it that there are all sorts of other concepts, like the concepts of "properties" or "consciousness", slippery concepts, that people can have disagreements about the finer points of,
Is this also because those people don't have a firm grasp of the concepts, or is it because the concepts are elusive? Or try another word, since you don't seem to like that one: "slippery", as you said yourself. The metaphor of slippery seems to suggest something that's hard to grasp.
If not, by what mechanism is the concept of spirituality immune from clarity, yet everyone believes that they are talking about the exact same thing?
It's not immune to clarity; I said "most if not all descriptions" as a qualifier; I'm not ruling out the possibility of a clearer description, but I'm acknowledging that there's less clarity about the topic. Clarity about spirituality comes not from discursive definitions, or pinpointing things in a seemingly scientific manner; I think it can come from studying religions, practicing spiritual practices, looking for similarities between them (and differences). It's experiential, and not empirical, which I've been arguing all along.
What is the difference between intuitive experience and just regular experience, and why does it offer more insight than rational analysis? Is there any way to tell the difference between intuition and self-delusion?
Intuition is what injects anything with meaning, including the idea that "self-delusion" would be a bad thing (which you rightly insinuate here). But no, of course a self-deluded person would not know they were self-deluded. You're setting up a tautology that seems to insinuate that I'm self-deluded for having spiritual beliefs. If I were self-deluded about spirituality, I wouldn't know it, just as if you were self-deluded about your lack of belief in spirituality, you wouldn't know it.
If I am correct, you seem to be saying that the elusiveness is an actual property of the thing that is spirituality. I think I have that right, but correct me if I'm wrong.
Elusiveness may be a property of our experience of spirituality; it seems so in general, but I'm not definitively labeling it a property. But it seems to be predictably so. But the sages and teachers of religions claim to have had clear pictures, and their claims gel with the mere glimpses that I've had. It's like watching a great pianist and realizing that that same greatness could be latent in my fingers too; my experience of playing the piano somewhat badly still gives me the glimpse of what it could be like to be the virtuoso. And I fervently believe that if I practiced piano as much as the virtuoso does, I would arrive at that same level. The same applies to spirituality.
Mine is that where people find concepts difficult to describe clearly or define, in every other case I can think of, the cause for this inability was 1) the speaker in question didn't have a clear grasp on the concept, and in sometimes this is because 2) the concept is intentionally ill defined.
Again, you find no other concepts are difficult to describe clearly other than spirituality? Really?
So given those two possible explanations for the events of this discussion, I'm asking you to rationally appraise the merits of each hypothesis. Surely in most cases my first hypothesis is correct, right? Why is this situation different?
I already said I don't use rationality to appraise experience, at least not primarily. I don't play by the same rules that you do here. Can you make a case for why I have to play by your rules? Also, as to your explanations:
1) assumes that all concepts can be firmly grasped. I disagree. The development of human thought constantly reevaluates concepts and assumptions; everything from science, to theoretical physics, to diet, to theological problems, to philosophical problems, to art theory. Everything is constantly in a state of change and development. Once a concept is grasped, it seems to change (i.e. my analogy of the insect). So the assumption you make in 1) is wrong; you would need to address that assumption.
2) intentionally ill-defined as in to purposefully obfuscate meaning? Who does that in philosophical discussions? I suppose some people probably do. Are you saying religious people do that in order to hold on to their beliefs?
Reformed NihilistJuly 05, 2017 at 02:14#835850 likes
Because "just body" doesn't account for the existential reality of our experience; It doesn't account for ethics, morality, and the whole project of conscious human life in general. "Just body" shows how without showing why.
To some extent it does. No theory perfectly accounts for all phenomena, but an "all body" approach is 100% consistent with all of these phenomena. There's nothing that can't in principle be explained by it. We can account for primate ethics without appealing to a dualistic model.There are dozens, probably hundreds of models of ethics that don't require dualism.
And a counter question, if the two interact, why would it have to be just body in that case?
I doesn't have to be, but it's less parsimonious. You have to start inventing a mechanism by which the body and mind interact, yet that disallows them from being the same thing. Every layer you add just makes a more complex model that doesn't actually account for any more variables.
It also opens up an infinite regression. If there needs to be a something pulling the levers of our body, then why doesn't there need to be a something to pull it's levers? Why doesn't the self have a deeper self, and so on? Before you answer "maybe it does", I just have to point out that there is a difference between a good explanation and a bad one, and it isn't just based on which one resonates with you. The "it's all selfs, all the way down" is a bad explanation, because it adds infinite variables without adding any explanatory value. Mind body dualism is a bad explanation for the same reason, just to a lesser degree.
On top of that, you have to account for the physical evidence. I'm sure it's possible to come up with a hand waving explanation for any given bit of physical evidence, but again, it's not the most parsimonious explanation. Consider the alternatives again:
Facts: Physically affecting the brain can alter intentionality, personality, perception, self-identity, memory, and even morality and all the things that people historically associated with the soul or spirit in repeatable and predictable ways.
Hypothesis 1: The brain is actually the source of all of these things. The self is a cultural holdover from days when we didn't know what we now do about the brain.
Hypothesis 2: There is an immeasurable "self", that interacts with the body in an unknown way, using an unknown mechanism. To the best evidence, people would behave in exactly the same way wiithout it, but it exists.
Which hypothesis makes more sense? Or what is your hypothesis that accounts for all the evidence but includes mind/body dualism?
But no, of course a self-deluded person would not know they were self-deluded. You're setting up a tautology that seems to insinuate that I'm self-deluded for having spiritual beliefs. If I were self-deluded about spirituality, I wouldn't know it, just as if you were self-deluded about your lack of belief in spirituality, you wouldn't know it.
I'm not setting up a tautology, I'm asking you if you have any means to discriminate intuitions from self-delusions. I don't. That's why I don't trust intuitions. That's why I turn to structured reasoning (logic), public discourse, and empirical evidence. None of them rely on my intuitions, and if done diligently, they stand a chance to overcome the sorts of natural foibles (biases and fallacies) that I and all other people are subject to committing, and that can lead to wrong (and in some cases harmfully so) answers.
It's not immune to clarity; I said "most if not all descriptions" as a qualifier; I'm not ruling out the possibility of a clearer description, but I'm acknowledging that there's less clarity about the topic. Clarity about spirituality comes not from discursive definitions, or pinpointing things in a seemingly scientific manner; I think it can come from studying religions, practicing spiritual practices, looking for similarities between them (and differences). It's experiential, and not empirical, which I've been arguing all along.
So now we're going to have to clarify what clarity means? I'm not asking you how I can get in touch with my spirit, I'm asking you if you can clearly define the word "spirit", as you mean it, when you speak.
If you cannot clearly define it, I am left to assume that either it is your failing or a property of the thing. Either it defies definition, or you don't have a firm grasp on the word you're using. One of these explanations seems more likely to me.
Again, you find no other concepts are difficult to describe clearly other than spirituality? Really?
Only one's I don't have a firm grasp on. I generally assume that if I can't describe a concept, that's my failing, not a feature of the concept. I'm pretty sure that's true (I haven't gone through every concept I know to test that). Did you have a concept in mind?
Elusiveness may be a property of our experience of spirituality; it seems so in general, but I'm not definitively labeling it a property. But it seems to be predictably so.
Ok. So your conjecture is that it's a property of the thing, not a failure of the speaker? Then I go back to my two hypotheses and ask you to consider them.
But the sages and teachers of religions claim to have had clear pictures, and their claims gel with the mere glimpses that I've had. It's like watching a great pianist and realizing that that same greatness could be latent in my fingers too; my experience of playing the piano somewhat badly still gives me the glimpse of what it could be like to be the virtuoso. And I fervently believe that if I practiced piano as much as the virtuoso does, I would arrive at that same level.
Well, in regards to playing piano, the evidence would suggest that you are incorrect. Do you think it is wise to hold a belief "fervently" that is both contrary to the evidence, and seems to only be based on your feeling that it is the case? Mightn't it make more sense to follow the conclusions that the evidence present us with?
I already said I don't use rationality to appraise experience, at least not primarily. I don't play by the same rules that you do here. Can you make a case for why I have to play by your rules?
So that I can make a distinction between self-delusion/illusion/personal bias/wishful thinnking, and good answers. How do you do that?
1) assumes that all concepts can be firmly grasped. I disagree. The development of human thought constantly reevaluates concepts and assumptions; everything from science, to theoretical physics, to diet, to theological problems, to philosophical problems, to art theory. Everything is constantly in a state of change and development. Once a concept is grasped, it seems to change (i.e. my analogy of the insect). So the assumption you make in 1) is wrong; you would need to address that assumption.
It doesn't assume that all concepts are fixed or simple, which is what you're actually arguing against by bringing up the fact that concepts change. That's a red herring. It just assumes that it is possible to make a simple and succinct working definition for the purposes of a discussion, which it clearly is in many, if not all cases. This is just getting pedantic now.
2) intentionally ill-defined as in to purposefully obfuscate meaning? Who does that in philosophical discussions? I suppose some people probably do. Are you saying religious people do that in order to hold on to their beliefs?
Closer to the latter, but not just religious people, and "intentionally" might be a little misleading. I don't think someone is saying to themselves "I'm going to use his term in such a way as to hide the meaning, or the fact that there is no meaning". I think that the term evolves in use to serve the purpose of being ill-defined, which serves a psychological need. People do that sort of thing all the time, and often don't realize it. Did you hear how Ivanka Trump responded to suggestions that she was complicit in some of the policy decisions of her father? She clearly didn't have a grasp on what the word "complicit" meant, but for some very specific and probably obvious reasons, she chose to use the word without having a grasp of what it meant. I'm not saying it's the same thing, but the point is, it's not strange for people to treat language as a thing you do, rather than a way to convey meaning.
I'm asking you if you can clearly define the word "spirit"
I'll put this here for clarity:
I should clarify that my definition of spirituality is the state of something being spiritual; so my definition of spirit is actually what I initially said as the definition of spirituality. Spirit is the inner life of the outer world of experience. Sorry for the confusion, I'm working through the ideas myself.
You have to start inventing a mechanism by which the body and mind interact,
I'm not trying to "invent a mechanism", but one idea I've been working on is that spirit generates material. The material world is calcified spirit. Mind (consciousness) is further genesis of spirit within the material of the mind. It's clunky, but it's less clunky than the idea that consciousness is a property of the physical mind (which means consciousness is a physical substance).
Which hypothesis makes more sense? Or what is your hypothesis that accounts for all the evidence but includes mind/body dualism?
First of all, as I said, I'm not arguing mind/body dualism in the sense you're using it. But,
3) If spirit generates consciousness within the physical mind, then damage of the physical mind leads to impaired consciousness, but it doesn't follow that physical damage reaches to spirit. And yes, there is "mind within mind", in my experience, as I already said. So this is an aspect of that fact. But no, it doesn't go any deeper than that, from my experience. But my experience could be wrong.
I'm not setting up a tautology, I'm asking you if you have any means to discriminate intuitions from self-delusions. I don't. That's why I don't trust intuitions.
Really? Intuition structures all thought; logic is structured on intuition; creativity is structured on intuition, emotion, even, is structured on it. Intuition is the connective tissue that connects a human faculty to experience. Or, since you like definitions:
Intuition: the underlying human faculty that connects other human faculties to experience.
Intuition is what's leading you to make any arguments at all here. Logic alone, or empirical evidence alone can't explain WHY you, Reformed Nihilist, are making your arguments, and why you think it worthwhile to do so.
Do you think it is wise to hold a belief "fervently" that is both contrary to the evidence, and seems to only be based on your feeling that it is the case? Mightn't it make more sense to follow the conclusions that the evidence present us with?
Wait, the piano reference was an analogy to how I view spirituality; are you critiquing how I view spirituality here, or something else? You seem to be extrapolating on the piano metaphor in order to criticize something else that you think you sense in my arguments. As to there being evidence that being good at something is innate...please, there's new studies constantly that contradict themselves on those things. I can't be bothered with whatever the Daily Mail deemed worth publishing. You, like so many, bow to the orthodox authority of scientific evidence. I do not. One year the universe is a hologram, the next there are infinite universes; one year creativity is innate, the next it's learned; one year coconut oil is healthy, the next it's not. I refuse to be dragged this way and that by constant studies that not even scientists themselves can fully keep abreast of, let alone someone like myself who has tons of other interests.
It doesn't assume that all concepts are fixed or simple, which is what you're actually arguing against by bringing up the fact that concepts change. That's a red herring.
Nope; a firm grasp of a concept would no longer be firm once the concept changes.
It just assumes that it is possible to make a simple and succinct working definition for the purposes of a discussion, which it clearly is in many, if not all cases. This is just getting pedantic now.
It is getting pedantic, yes, but I gave my definition for spirituality ages ago. What's the problem? What other words do you want me to make up my own dictionary definitions for?
I largely agree with your last paragraph here. I also tried to condense my response this time because we're talking about so many things, but I didn't quite pull it off..
Reformed NihilistJuly 05, 2017 at 03:43#836040 likes
If you rely on intuition above rationality, as you claim, then you are, by definition, being irrational. You are free to be irrational, but I cannot have a rational discussion with someone who is proudly irrational. I came here for a rational discussion. Perhaps someone else can have an intuitive discussion with you.
If you rely on intuition above rationality, as you claim, then you are, by definition, being irrational. You are free to be irrational, but I cannot have a rational discussion with someone who is proudly irrational. I came here for a rational discussion.
I came here for a discussion of spirituality. If you come to a discussion of spirituality armed only with rationality, then of course your own prophecies about it will be fulfilled, and you won't be able to debate about it in more than one way.
C S Peirce: The one intelligible theory of the universe is that of objective idealism, that matter is effete mind, inveterate habits becoming physical laws.
One of the ironic things about the insistence on 'reason' - like, for example, Richard Dawkins 'Institute for Reason' (or whatever it's called), is that one of the hallmarks of 'modern thought' is the disappearance of reason from the Universe. Why? Because, traditionally, the Universe was felt to be 'animated by reason' - this was so even for the so-called 'pagan Greeks', it's not necessarily a theistic attitude. But in any case, one of the hallmarks of the advent of modernity is the conviction that 'life arises by chance'. Indeed it's an article of faith (pardon the irony) for convinced materialists such as Jacques Monod. So whenever someone demands 'a reasoned argument' about any metaphysical question - what is the nature of mind/life/reality - ask, what do you mean by 'reason'? Scientific reason doesn't go 'all the way down'.
C S Peirce:The one intelligible theory of the universe is that of objective idealism, that matter is effete mind, inveterate habits becoming physical laws.
Interesting, looks like I need to do some more reading.
So whenever someone demands 'a reasoned argument' about any metaphysical question - what is the nature of mind/life/reality - ask, what do you mean by 'reason'? Scientific reason doesn't go 'all the way down'.
Yes, I was trying to get at that in response to Reply to Reformed Nihilist, but maybe I didn't frame it quite so succinctly. The history of rationality in general is something I'm interested in studying more.
Reply to Noble Dust Have a look at the book 'the eclipse of reason', by Max Horkheimer. He and Adorno's criticism of the 'instrumentalisation of reason' are worth being acquainted with (given that they're both fairly hard-core materialists). See this blog post.
That quote is about the net sum of my knowledge of Peirce, although I find his writing generally congenial to my outlook.
Read the blog post, looks interesting. I wonder how an analysis of how those problems have developed up until the present would fair, vs. this analysis from 1947. Has anything changed or developed, positively or negatively, since then?
“Although most people never overcome the habit of berating the world for their difficulties, those who are too weak to make a stand against reality have no choice but to obliterate themselves by identifying with it. They are never rationally reconciled to civilization. Instead, they bow to it, secretly accepting the identity of reason and domination, of civilization and the ideal, however much they may shrug their shoulders. Well-informed cynicism is only another mode of conformity. These people willingly embrace or force themselves to accept the rule of the stronger as the eternal norm. Their whole life is a continuous effort to suppress and abase nature, inwardly or outwardly, and to identify themselves with its more powerful surrogates—the race, fatherland, leader, cliques, and tradition. For them, all these words mean the same thing—the irresistible reality that must be honored and obeyed. However, their own natural impulses, those antagonistic to the various demands of civilization, lead a devious undercover life within them.”
? Max Horkheimer, Eclipse of Reason
I wonder how an analysis of how those problems have developed up until the present would fair, vs. this analysis from 1947. Has anything changed or developed, positively or negatively, since then?
I don't think much has changed, because I don't think many people are aware of the problem that he's trying to articulate. I find this passage pretty compelling:
In popular Darwinism, reason is purely an organ; spirit or mind, a thing of nature. According to a current interpretation of Darwin, the struggle for life must necessarily, step by step, through natural selection, produce the reasonable out of the unreasonable. In other words, reason, while serving the function of dominating nature, is whittled down to being a part of nature; it is not an independent faculty but something organic, like tentacles or hands, developed through adaptation to natural conditions and surviving because it proves to be an adequate means of mastering them, especially in relation to acquiring food and averting danger. As a part of nature, reason is at the same time set against nature–the competitor and enemy of all life that is not its own.
The idea inherent in all idealistic metaphysics–that the world is in some sense a product of the mind–is thus turned into its opposite: the mind is a product of the world, of the processes of nature. Hence, according to popular Darwinism, nature does not need philosophy to speak for her: nature, a powerful and venerable deity, is ruler rather than ruled. Darwinism ultimately comes to the aid of rebellious nature in undermining any doctrine, theological or philosophical, that regards nature itself as expressing a truth that reason must try to recognize. The equating of reason with nature, by which reason is debased and raw nature exalted, is a typical fallacy of the era of rationalization. Instrumentalized subjective reason either eulogizes nature as pure vitality or disparages it as brute force, instead of treating it as a text to be interpreted by philosophy that, if rightly read, will unfold a tale of infinite suffering. Without committing the fallacy of equating nature and reason, mankind must try to reconcile the two.
In traditional theology and metaphysics, the natural was largely conceived as the evil, and the spiritual or supernatural as the good. In popular Darwinism, the good is the well-adapted, and the value of that to which the organism adapts itself is unquestioned or is measured only in terms of further adaptation. However, being well adapted to one’s surroundings is tantamount to being capable of coping successfully with them, of mastering the forces that beset one. Thus the theoretical denial of the spirit’s antagonism to nature–even as implied in the doctrine of interrelation between the various forms of organic life, including man–frequently amounts in practice to subscribing to the principle of man’s continuous and thoroughgoing domination of nature. Regarding reason as a natural organ does not divest it of the trend to domination or invest it with greater potentialities for reconciliation. On the contrary, the abdication of the spirit in popular Darwinism entails the rejection of any elements of the mind that transcend the function of adaptation and consequently are not instruments of self-preservation. Reason disavows its own primacy and professes to be a mere servant of natural selection. On the surface, this new empirical reason seems more humble toward nature than the reason of the metaphysical tradition. Actually, however, it is arrogant, practical mind riding roughshod over the ‘useless spiritual,’ and dismissing any view of nature in which the latter is taken to be more than a stimulus to human activity. The effects of this view are not confined to modern philosophy.
Horkheimer, Eclipse of Reason, pp. 123-127.
This can be related to a form of argument known as the 'argument from reason', with which I am entirely in sympathy. Usually it is deployed in apologetics, but I don't think it needs to be. Compare the above passage from something I often quote on the Forum, Leon Wieseltier's review of Daniel Dennett's book on trying to explain religion in terms of Darwinian theory.
[Dennett] thinks that an inquiry into belief is made superfluous by an inquiry into the belief in belief. This is a very revealing mistake. You cannot disprove a belief unless you disprove its content. If you believe that you can disprove it any other way, by describing its origins or by describing its consequences, then you do not believe in reason. In this profound sense, Dennett does not believe in reason. He will be outraged to hear this, since he regards himself as a giant of rationalism. But the reason he imputes to the human creatures depicted in his book is merely a creaturely reason. Dennett's natural history does not deny reason, it animalizes reason. It portrays reason in service to natural selection, and as a product of natural selection. But if reason is a product of natural selection, then how much confidence can we have in a rational argument for natural selection? The power of reason is owed to the independence of reason, and to nothing else. (In this respect, rationalism is closer to mysticism than it is to materialism.) Evolutionary biology cannot invoke the power of reason even as it destroys it.
I think a great deal of 'biologism', which thoroughly infects a lot of current thinking, does this all the time. In assuming that reason can be explained as a biological adaption it thoroughly undermines the sovereignty of reason - it 'explains' it, as on par with a peacock's tail.
(This is also the subject of a trenchant essay by Thomas Nagel, in his book The Last Word, called Evolutionary Naturalism and the Fear of Religion, which is a must read, in my view.)
The last point about Horkheimer, though, is that he wrote Eclipse of Reason in post-war Germany, in an attempt to account for the monstrosity of Nazism. He saw the submission to authoritarianism as one of the symptoms of the 'eclipse'.
feeling of belonging in the world or serving a higher purpose
I felt your answer, db, was very powerful. It's worth noticing that you found it right to say 'feeling' several times, and 'desire'. I'm an atheist who just accepts the notion of spiritual feelings and spiritual thoughts, although I suspect that to separate 'feelings' and 'thoughts' is inappropriate.
The parallel for me is with art that profoundly moves me. In another thread NobleDust speaks of this as 'divine', and while I don't use that language I feel we're on common ground. To respond, say, to Shostakovich's later symphonies or certain poems or Guernica or the dark musical 'Carousel' - all obviously personal examples - is to experience a marvellous mixture of the aesthetic, the rational and the emotional.
Reply to Reformed Nihilist The critique of spirituality rarely touches on 'feelings' or 'emotions'. For me this realm of emotions underlies everything, even rationality: a rational argument is only as good as its premisses, which are at bottom emotional. Mood is the way we are in the world.
I think one needs to be wary of quoting Wittgenstein as if he might agree with an anti-spiritual stance. He was very interested in religion although a non-believer. He wrote of ethics as 'Supernatural', and he didn't mean by this to write it off, but rather to say that as with aesthetics, which he bracketed with ethics, something other than 'natural' criteria apply.
He was very interested in religion although a non-believer.
I wouldn't be sure about that at all.
In September 1914, Wittgenstein, off duty [from service in WW1], visited the town of Tarnow, then in Austrian Galicia, now in southern Poland, where he went into a small shop that seemed to sell nothing but picture postcards. However, as Bertrand Russell later wrote in a letter, Wittgenstein “found that it contained just one book: [of] Tolstoy on the Gospels. He bought it merely because there was no other. He read it and re-read it, and thenceforth had it always with him, under fire and at all times.” No wonder, then, that Wittgenstein became known to his fellow soldiers as ‘the one with the Gospels’. Tolstoy’s book, however, is a single Gospel: hence its name: The Gospel in Brief. It is, as Tolstoy himself says in his Preface, “a fusion of the four Gospels into one.” Tolstoy had distilled the four biblical accounts of Christ’s life and teaching into a compelling story. Wittgenstein was so profoundly moved by it that he doubted whether the actual Gospels could possibly be better than Tolstoy’s synthesis. “If you are not acquainted with it,” he told his friend Ludwig von Ficker, “then you cannot imagine what effect it can have on a person.” It implanted a Christian faith in Wittgenstein. Before going on night-duty at the observation post, he wrote: “Perhaps the nearness of death will bring me the light of life. May God enlighten me. Through God I will become a man. God be with me. Amen.”
....
...when Wittgenstein risked his life in battle day after day, he found solace in Tolstoy’s version of the Gospels: hence his prayer ‘May God enlighten me’. By 1916 his experience of war had made him a different man to the one whom Russell had met in 1911.
The scope of the Tractatus, too, had broadened: it was no longer just about the possibility of language being logically and pictorially connected to the world. Wittgenstein had begun to feel that logic and what he strangely called ‘mysticism’ sprang from the same root. This explains the second big idea in the Tractatus – which the logical positivists ignored: the thought of there being an unutterable kind of truth that ‘makes itself manifest’.
Why did you delete the rest of our quips in this exchange when you split this thread? It looks like you made it sound as if I was complimenting your atheism and leaving it basically at that, without the finer (and funnier) shades we both insinuated in the parts you deleted. What gives?
Reformed NihilistJuly 05, 2017 at 12:51#836930 likes
Yes, I was trying to get at that in response to ?Reformed Nihilist, but maybe I didn't frame it quite so succinctly. The history of rationality in general is something I'm interested in studying more.
A baseline of commonality is required for useful discussion, and we do not share that baseline, if your claims are genuine. If you genuinely believe that your intuition, your feeling that you are correct, is sufficient grounds to believe that you are correct, and that it requires no further justification by use of reason or appeals to evidence, then I don't know how to, or why I would want to have a discussion with you.
I'd invite you to imagine in you're mind's eye for a moment, what the world would look like if everyone adopted this approach to knowing things. 1+1=5 because I intuit that it does. Your money is actually my money because my intuition tells me so. Do you really want to use those ground rules for interacting with people (rhetorical question, don't bother answering)?
I'd invite you to imagine in you're mind's eye for a moment, what the world would look like if everyone adopted this approach to knowing things. 1+1=5 because I intuit that it does. Your money is actually my money because my intuition tells me so.
This is a charicature of what I said. I'd invite you to re-read what I said if you want to comment on it.
You haven't addressed what I said about your appeal to rationality: Coming to a discussion about spirituality armed only with rationality creates a self-fulfilling prophecy for you; you already know that spirituality won't avail itself to your rationality.
Terrapin StationJuly 05, 2017 at 13:04#837000 likes
Basically just any sort of feeling of belonging in the world or serving a higher purpose that is not immediately concrete and accessible but rather overarching and "cosmic", something that permeates everything and anything. That there is some "other" order to the universe that makes it all "make sense", justifies injustices and to which the aesthetic provides access to.
It's the feeling of being almost-at-home, but not quite, as if you're approaching some big discovery and part of the deal is that it's mysterious, and that once you finally arrive it'll all make sense, including why it had to be mysterious in the first place. Most likely this understanding would seem to reside after death, in some other realm or mode of existence, and which the journey to is life.
I'd say it's a deep, primordial desire to belong and see what it "all" is about, how everything hangs together, to comprehend the necessity of every thing that exists and grasp some grand, metaphysical mosaic of meaning. It's natural and inevitable but I think it's also commonly formed from desperation. It's not just a desire but a need, a demand, that the universe be welcoming and recognize the person. Or at least "open up" to their questions.
So basically it's a feeling that one might be finally getting some answers to the questions that have haunted and plagued humanity since it first started philosophizing.
I don't know, at this point I see that basically as a combination of (a) a side-effect of us having evolved in a way that required us to use our intelligence to survive (so there's a "figuring stuff out" drive in us) and (b) combatting boredom.
Reformed NihilistJuly 05, 2017 at 13:10#837040 likes
?Reformed Nihilist The critique of spirituality rarely touches on 'feelings' or 'emotions'. For me this realm of emotions underlies everything, even rationality: a rational argument is only as good as its premisses, which are at bottom emotional. Mood is the way we are in the world.
I'm not sure what you mean when you say that a premise is emotional. I suspect that this is a false dichotomy between reason and emotion. Reason is a thing we do. Emotion is a way we are.
I think one needs to be wary of quoting Wittgenstein as if he might agree with an anti-spiritual stance. He was very interested in religion although a non-believer. He wrote of ethics as 'Supernatural', and he didn't mean by this to write it off, but rather to say that as with aesthetics, which he bracketed with ethics, something other than 'natural' criteria apply.
My quote of Wittgenstein wasn't to present his thoughts or feelings about the supernatural or spiritual specifically, but about the limits of linguistic reasoning. My thought wasn't that "Wittgenstein is a famous philosopher, so we should follow everything he said", but rather "I agree with the specific idea he had, and it seems relevant to the discussion, and rather than trying to wholesale import his work on the matter, I'll use this pithy quote that nicely sums up the point".
Reformed NihilistJuly 05, 2017 at 13:12#837050 likes
Edit: Are you proposing that you know that you're correct by the sort of intuition that Kant proposed? He was speaking about how we apprehend objects.
[quote=Kant]In whatever way and through whatever means a cognition may related to objects, that through which it relates immediately to them, and at which all thought as a means is directed as an end, is intuition.[/quote]
Why did you delete the rest of our quips in this exchange when you split this thread? It looks like you made it sound as if I was complimenting your atheism and leaving it basically at that, without the finer (and funnier) shades we both insinuated in the parts you deleted. What gives?
Sorry. I deleted them on the basis that they were a continuation of a casual digression amidst a serious discussion that didn't need to be here and could be done away with. Now you're making me somewhat regret that decision. Maybe I should have left them, but what's done is done. :-|
Edit: Are you proposing that you know that you're correct by the sort of intuition that Kant proposed? He was speaking about how we apprehend objects.
In whatever way and through whatever means a cognition may related to objects, that through which it relates immediately to them, and at which all thought as a means is directed as an end, is intuition.
— Kant
Similar to that, but in relation to things like meaning, morality, and the underlying principles of why we bother to have discussions, in place of "objects" in what Kant says here.
Similar to that, but in relation to things like meaning, morality, and the underlying principles of why we bother to have discussions, in place of "objects" in what Kant says here.
So you are making up a meaning for the word (at odds with the common english meaning), based on a conception of the world that others don't share with you, using the word in that sense, never mentioning that you are using the word unconventionally, and use it as evidence for your conception of the world? Do you not see a problem there? I could as easily say "when I use the word spirituality, I meant "nonsense", so clearly it is nonsense. I win the argument. Yay me!
Do you actually want to address my ideas? I don't respond well to being made fun of.
Reformed NihilistJuly 05, 2017 at 13:41#837210 likes
Reply to Noble Dust I'm not making fun of you. My response is honest. To the degree that you are defining intuition, you are defining it in such a way that assumes your worldview, where there is no physical or cultural intermediaries between a person and "things like meaning, morality, and the underlying principles of why we bother to have discussions". You're defining your argument into being correct, by making up your own definitions for words. That doesn't even reach the threshold of having an idea. It's just wordplay.
To the degree that you are defining intuition, you are defining it in such a way that assumes your worldview, where there is no physical or cultural intermediaries between a person and "things like meaning, morality, and the underlying principles of why we bother to have discussions".
No, this was my definition of intuition in this argument:
Intuition structures all thought; logic is structured on intuition; creativity is structured on intuition, emotion, even, is structured on it. Intuition is the connective tissue that connects a human faculty to experience. Or, since you like definitions:
Intuition: the underlying human faculty that connects other human faculties to experience.
In regards to Kant, I said my idea was similar, which it is. Your quote of Kant wasn't my definition. You continue to obfuscate what I mean by intuition, whether through misreading, assumptions about me, or I don't know what.
You're defining your argument into being correct, by making up your own definitions for words. That doesn't even reach the threshold of having an idea.
Give me a break. Philosophy is a process of having ideas, and giving them shape, by way of words. Kant gave a definition to intuition in your quote. Other philosophers give other definitions. I give mine.
No, this was my definition of intuition in this argument:
You're telling me what intuition does, and where it fits in your conception of the world. You're not telling me what it is. I'm sorry, but I really don't know how to deal with this without sounding condescending. A definition is a quick list of the properties that distinguish the meaning of a word from other words. Let me show you:
Apple: It nourishes us. It was Eve's folly. It is both the genus and product of the orchard. Apples taste good.
Apple: The round fruit of a tree of the rose family, which typically has thin red or green skin and crisp flesh.
Give me a break. Philosophy is a process of having ideas, and giving them shape, by way of words. Kant gave a definition to intuition in your quote. Other philosophers give other definitions. I give mine.
I think you're giving yourself too much credit here. Kant wasn't just spitballing his metaphysics. He developed a complete, succinct, and clearly defined, and well reasoned model of metaphysics that displayed intellectual rigour and care for clarity and precision. His notion of intuition was part of that entire model. He wasn't just defining things for shits and giggles.
The problem here is your gross misreading and charicature of what I'm saying.
Perhaps, or perhaps I am not misreading, you are misspeaking. Both valid hypotheses. The problem might be that I "don't get it", but it might also be that there is nothing to get. I've been willing to consider two hypotheses on pretty much any subject. Are you willing to? Are you willing to even consider that you don't actually have a theory, or real ideas, but rather wordplay that feels to you like ideas?
I think you're giving yourself too much credit here. Kant wasn't just spitballing his metaphysics. He developed a complete, succinct, and clearly defined, and well reasoned model of metaphysics that displayed intellectual rigour and care for clarity and precision. His notion of intuition was part of that entire model.
Maybe I am. I'm developing my own system of thought, and the role of intuition is part of my ideas. It's an incomplete system. Part of the process for me is spitballing on this forum; it sharpens my ideas, challenges them, and brings more clarity. I began this discussion with you in relation to spirituality, and intuition came up when we reached the impasse that you were insisting that I use rationality as you were doing, with relation to spirituality, which I refused to do. I then proceeded to challenge you as to why rationality should be the tool we use here, which you never addressed, and instead insisted on focusing on what I mean by intuition, and here we are. This whole thing is very tiring, partially because I'm very sleep-deprived.
Are you willing to even consider that you don't actually have...real ideas,
Why would anyone be willing to consider such an insult?
Try this, in regards to intuition:
Why do you consider having two hypotheses valuable? Why do you consider Kant's well reasoned models as admirable? Why do you consider a dictionary definition of a word valuable, and presumably assume it to be more valuable than a descriptive definition? Why do you assume that it's worthwhile to talk about spirituality despite your lack of belief in it? Why do you consider it worthwhile to try to point out, not only the holes in my argument, but your belief that I have no argument at all? Why do you consider honest responses to be important within discussion? Why do you think it's important to consider the logical implications of dualism before adopting it? Why do you consider empirical standpoints as being important to take? Why do you think making a distinction between self-delusion and good answers is important?
Reformed NihilistJuly 05, 2017 at 15:11#837370 likes
I don't want to know more about apples (at least not yet), I want to know what you mean when you say "apple". For crying out loud, that's why I'm asking for a definition!
Maybe I am. I'm developing my own system of thought, and the role of intuition is part of my ideas. It's an incomplete system. Part of the process for me is spitballing on this forum; it sharpens my ideas, challenges them, and brings more clarity. I began this discussion with you in relation to spirituality, and intuition came up when we reached the impasse that you were insisting that I use rationality as you were doing, with relation to spirituality, which I refused to do. I then proceeded to challenge you as to why rationality should be the tool we use here, which you never addressed, and instead insisted on focusing on what I mean by intuition, and here we are.
Because I'm not interested in litigating the importance or rationality in rational discourse, so instead I am saying that if you would like to engage in rational discourse, it requires that you use rationality. To do otherwise is literally irrational, and I have no interest in engaging irrationality.
Why do you consider a dictionary definition of a word valuable, and presumably assume it to be more valuable than a descriptive definition?
Because of the context. I don't know what you're talking about and I want to, so I need you to clearly and succinctly convey the meaning of the word, so that I can distinguish what you mean from 1) the conventional meaning and 2) any random meaning that might also fit your description. Do I really have to explain how communicating works, because that's all it is.
Why do you assume that it's worthwhile to talk about spirituality despite your lack of belief in it? Why do you consider it worthwhile to try to point out, not only the holes in my argument, but your belief that I have no argument at all? Why do you consider honest responses to be important within discussion? Why do you think it's important to consider the logical implications of dualism before adopting it? Why do you consider empirical standpoints as being important to take? Why do you think making a distinction between self-delusion and good answers is important?
We don't have to litigate every possible factor relating to having a belief or a discussion in order to have a discussion. Do you need to discuss the nature of coffee and the nature of wanting, and the nature of commerce with the barista when you order a cup of coffee? Of course not. As reasonable humans who actually want to have discussions, we assume that the other person holds conventional beliefs, unless we have specific reasons to believe otherwise. We don't litigate why rationality is good anymore than we litigate why goodness is good, or litigate that when I am using words, I mean them in the conventional english sense, not in an alternate or made up language. Unless it is the specific subject of the discussion, we just assume it. That is the social protocol of having a discussion. So I will say this one more time: If you don't want to have a rational discussion, you'll have to live with the fact that you're being irrational. I believe, for reasons that I don't feel like litigating here, that the best thing to do with an irrational interlocutor, if a quick appeal to the value of rationality doesn't work, is to dismiss them.
You missed my point; everything I quoted of you in that last paragraph are examples of intuitions of yours. Your intuitions are what drive your rationality. So if you're not interested in litigating that rationality, then I'm done here. That was a part of my argument early on.
Reformed NihilistJuly 05, 2017 at 15:29#837430 likes
Reply to Noble Dust Fair enough. Let me leave you with this thought to meditate on though. If you have an idea that requires that you relitigate the nature of rationality in order to make tenable, you might want to ask if you are moving the mountain to Mohammed.
That's the dualist definition I am familiar with and understand clearly. It is the most common use of the term by those who ascribe to a religion. I am asking about what the term means by those who don't necessarily ascribe to, or are unwilling to commit to, that sort of dualism.
A conceptual polarity is not an indication of ontological dualism. On the contrary, a polarity pretty much eliminates the possibility of dualism (e.g., there is no "dualism" between North and South -- these are not two different and incommunicable substances).
I was explaining how spirituality is incomprehensible if the student does not explore a time (historical or psychological, both avenues are fruitful) in which spirituality and materiality were merged in a single, unnamed concept -- before the inquirer even knew what a concept is. It is only by exploring that country that one gets a firm grasp (by contrast) on what is spirituality and what is materiality.
Reformed NihilistJuly 05, 2017 at 16:40#837540 likes
A conceptual polarity is not an indication of ontological dualism. On the contrary, a polarity pretty much eliminates the possibility of dualism (e.g., there is no "dualism" between North and South -- these are not two different and incommunicable substances).
North and south are poles of geographical direction, and conceptually cannot exist separate from each other. The notion of south is meaningless outside of the notion of cardinal directions, which by necessity includes other directions for south to be related to. It's the same way "up" or "more" work. They only make sense in contradiction to their opposite. The body, or matter, can clearly exist without spirit (we call that a corpse, or an object) and we can also conceive of the spirit existing without the body (Life's a dream, brain in vat, matrix, evil demon). The notion of polarity just isn't consistent with our conception of the body and the mind.
The body, or matter, can clearly exist without spirit (we call that a corpse, or an object) and we can also conceive of the spirit existing without the body (Life's a dream, brain in vat, matrix, evil demon). The notion of polarity just isn't consistent with our conception of the body and the mind.
I have never experienced matter without spirit, and neither have you. I have never experienced spirit without matter, and neither have you. What we can 'conceive of' is fairly irrelevant to the problem at hand -- that of understanding what is spirituality and materiality. The fact is that both spirit and matter are conjoined in our experience. And it is from that fact that we must proceed in order to apprehend what spirituality (and materiality) means.
It is for that reason that I'm talking about a polarity rather than an opposition.
Reformed NihilistJuly 05, 2017 at 17:11#837620 likes
What we can 'conceive of' is fairly irrelevant to the problem at hand -- that of understanding what is spirituality and materiality.
Spirituality and materiality are concepts. Polarity is a conceptual framework that you proposed to fit these concepts into. I pointed out that they don't actually fit coherently into the framework you suggested, and gave you a reason why.
The fact is that both spirit and matter are conjoined in our experience. And it is from that fact that we must proceed in order to apprehend what spirituality (and materiality) means.
How is that a fact? I think you mean that is your premise. That means that you're just begging the question. You are essentially saying that the spirit exists, therefore the spirit exists. Until I hear some reason to buy into your premise, I'll have to disagree, unless you have an approach that includes starting from some shared point of agreement and reasoning outward from there.
I pointed out that they don't actually fit coherently into the framework you suggested, and gave you a reason why.
But you were wrong.
When a pair of polarized concepts (north:south, natural:artificial, spirit:matter, etc.) is developed out of our still-compact experience (of spatial coordinates, of objects-for-use, of the constituents of reality, etc.), it is impossible to understand them, as a pair of concepts, without grasping the subjacent experience (space, instrumentality, substance, etc). To deal with them as "concepts" detached from the subjacent experience is to confuse the symbol with the symbolized.
No, I meant that it is a fact. Premises are used in reasoning. I'm not proposing an argument. I'm explaining to you how the concept of spirituality (and materiality) is derived from the universal human experience. No reasoning involved. The activity being explored here is that of symbolization. Matter and spirit are symbols. They become "concepts" when they are detached from experience, and this is a sure recipe for (at least) confusion and possibly serious errors.
You are essentially saying that the spirit exists, therefore the spirit exists.
No, I'm essentially saying that spirit and matter are mixed in our (quite-ordinary) experience, before we ever worry about concepts.
Just as our temporal persistence is present in our experience, our sensations are present in our experience, our fellow human beings are present in our experience, etc. Some -- actually, most -- of these experiences are developed into polarized symbols, some aren't. No one supposes that claiming those X's "exist" is tautologous. There is litte reason to single out spirit (or matter) and to explore these as "concepts" rather than aspects of our experience;
unless you have an approach that includes starting from some shared point of agreement and reasoning outward from there.
That's exactly what I'm offering. The shared point of agreement is the universal human experience (including your own). But we must beware of calling this activity "a reasoning", because if we do that, then we will be begging the question. Reasoning-as-an-activity is construed as purely mental (or, spiritual; this would be the word chosen by 17th century thinkers, and the evolution of language since then, not coincidentally, is an important piece of data for grasping the whole picture); if we try to do this by "reasoning", we'll be discarding an important aspect of the experience.
***
Observe that all of what I'm saying is equally applicable to the problem of understanding "materiality". If one thinks that materiality is simpler or more easily understood than spirituality (so much so that this thread is called Spirituality instead of Spirituality:Materiality), he is most likely being deluded by the "commonsense assumptions" of his time. A visit to the nearest quantum mechanics lab would do him well.
Understanding that spirituality is an individual exploration, for me, concretely, my spirituality is a recognition of the life force within me (variously referred to as Elan vital, qi, prana, etc.), and an awareness of its desire to explore, create, and learn. It's this awareness that helps guide me and inform me throughout my life (lives?).
Reformed NihilistJuly 05, 2017 at 18:04#837810 likes
Reply to Mariner So, if I am reading you correctly, the shared point of agreement in my experience is that I have experiences? Is this is more or less correct? I'd appreciate a fairly simple response. I feel like people want to jump ahead of me, so where we disagree, or where I misunderstand their position, gets jumped pass too.
So, if I am reading you correctly, the shared point of agreement in my experience is that I have experiences?
Yes, though it is also important that these experiences are human. It is important for our communication, but not for the exploration of matter:spirit; alien experiences, bat experiences, etc., would be equally open to that exploration.
Any experience, in effect, involves an experiencer and an experienced. And these are the seeds of spirit:matter.
Reformed NihilistJuly 05, 2017 at 18:47#837990 likes
Reply to Mariner Okay, we still agree. There is an experiencer and that which is experienced. Still in the same page. What's the next step in reasoning? One step at a time please.
The next step in symbolization, you mean. To insist on a reasoning before we straighten that out would skip the important steps.
How would one name the experiencer? How would one name the experienced? These are the questions to be addressed now. These questions are historical in nature. History can be of two kinds: personal (psychological) or social (i.e. cultural). Both processes exhibit the same structure, and so either one is sufficient to clarify the subject. What is needed now is the study of how (a) a baby learns how to develop the notions of experiencer/experienced (and what are the names given), or (b) the etymology of the words matter:spirit.
Note that this approach is prior to any questions regarding argumentation or reasoning. We are trying to understand the origin of the symbols being used, and to trace those symbols to the underlying experience.
Wayfarer:...when Wittgenstein risked his life in battle day after day, he found solace in Tolstoy’s version of the Gospels: hence his prayer ‘May God enlighten me’.
Thanks for this very interesting quote, Wayfarer. It isn't how his biographer Monk (sic) reads his view of religion. But certainly Wittgenstein was profoundly changed by his experiences in the trenches, which divided him from a Russellian view, and part of that was a greatly-enhanced sympathy for the religious point of view, thanks to Tolstoy. Certainly later on he avowed on many occasions that he couldn't find Christian belief in him, although he had great sympathy with it. Anyway, the general point stands: Wittgenstein's quote about not speaking about certain matters wasn't out of Russellian disbelief, but out of a view that a different kind of discourse was required to the approach he took to philosophy.
Reply to mcdoodle Agree, but I tend to regard W's silence ('that of which we cannot speak...') as apophatic - being circumspect in the face of a mystery, rather than (with positivism) declaring metaphysics simply meaningless. It's not that it's meaningless so much as beyond the power of speech to say anything meaningful about. And to my knowledge, he was never a church-goer, so, not 'conventionally religious'; but in a footnote in his essay Secular Philosophy and the Religious Temperament, Nagel notes that ' Wittgenstein and Rawls ...clearly had a religious attitude to life without adhering to a particular religion.' Which is actually quite germane to the topic at hand.
I'm not sure what you mean when you say that a premise is emotional. I suspect that this is a false dichotomy between reason and emotion. Reason is a thing we do. Emotion is a way we are.
Well, the dichotomy is in the language and is present in much philosophising, including yours. I believe we are constantly both reasoning and emoting and that yours is as false a dichotomy, between being and doing, as whatever you thought mine was. Certainly analytic philosophy, for instance, largely avoids the use of emotive terms, and has only in the last 20 years or so come to treat emotion seriously, e.g. through the late peter Goldie.
The general feeling I have is that many critiques of 'spirituality', including yours, fail to account for spiritual feelings and emotions. What is it that the religious are feeling when they describe profound emotions? The Dawkins/Dennett approach is largely to ignore that aspect of things, and to treat religions as if they were pseudo-sciences, with all the emotion distilled into propositions. I should like to begin with mutual respect, between atheist and believer, and such mutual respect seems to me to involve accepting that 'spiritual experience' happens, feels profound to the person it happens to, combines deep thought with deep feeling, and as such has considerable standing in one's evaluation of how things are, how the world is. Even if you're an atheist like me!
I tend to regard W's silence ('that of which we cannot speak...') as apophatic - being circumspect in the face of a mystery, rather than (with positivism) declaring metaphysics simply meaningless
I completely agree. You know when he was in Vienna in 1926 or so Feigl tried to introduce Witt to the rest of the Vienna school, thinking they'd get along famously - but they didn't and Feigl for one rapidly understood that Witt's thinking (which was anyway already shifting by then) was a long way out of kilter with the positivists. (Sorry if I've told you this story already!)
Reply to mcdoodle No, not at all. I have great respect for Wittgenstein, none whatever for those positivist pratts. They're scared of their own shadow, in my view.
Reformed NihilistJuly 06, 2017 at 15:35#840270 likes
Well, the dichotomy is in the language and is present in much philosophising, including yours. I believe we are constantly both reasoning and emoting and that yours is as false a dichotomy, between being and doing, as whatever you thought mine was.
Being and doing aren't a dichotomy, they're just two different things. That's exactly my point, and exactly why reason and emotion are also not dichotomies. You seem to also agree when you say "I believe we are constantly both reasoning and emoting". We clearly are doing both simultaneously, all the time, or at least nearly all the time.
The general feeling I have is that many critiques of 'spirituality', including yours, fail to account for spiritual feelings and emotions. What is it that the religious are feeling when they describe profound emotions?
I'm not sure that I have to account for emotions. Emotions are already accounted for. We have hormones and a brain and they interact in such a way as to produce different emotions.
Unless you are saying that inter-personally, I should be more sensitive to the feelings of those who hold a different view then mine, in which case...
The Dawkins/Dennett approach is largely to ignore that aspect of things, and to treat religions as if they were pseudo-sciences, with all the emotion distilled into propositions. I should like to begin with mutual respect, between atheist and believer, and such mutual respect seems to me to involve accepting that 'spiritual experience' happens, feels profound to the person it happens to, combines deep thought with deep feeling, and as such has considerable standing in one's evaluation of how things are, how the world is. Even if you're an atheist like me!
I'm sorry, but I feel like you've just mixed a huge pile of different things together here. The first thing is that Dawkins, Dennett, and I are three separate people, who share some beliefs about religion, but not every belief. The three of us also share vastly different interpersonal approaches (it may not feel that way to you, but I promise it is true). That is the way of the world. There are some people that are loud, over-step social boundaries, are brash. There are people who are measured and careful, and there are all sorts of people in the middle. There are also people who will mince words and not say what they truly believe for fear of hurting someone's feeling (I'm not that type of person). It takes all kinds of people to make the world go around, including the brash loudmouths. Can you see some benefit for being tolerant to people's different styles, ignoring them as much as possible, to engage in their actual arguments?
The other thing that I think needs to be addressed is the notion that people who argue against spiritualism think that they fail in "accepting that 'spiritual experience' happens, feels profound to the person it happens to, combines deep thought with deep feeling, and as such has considerable standing in one's evaluation of how things are, how the world is.". I'm sorry, but this is just factually wrong. Everyone I know, or at least anyone that is taken the least bit seriously in the world, that argues against spiritualism, publicly and repeatedly acknowledges that people have experiences which they believe to be spiritual, and that are very emotionally moving. Of course people do. Everybody knows that. It doesn't change the fact that to many of us, we believe that those experiences that people have can actually be best described in terms of material causes.
Everyone I know, or at least anyone that is taken the least bit seriously in the world, that argues against spiritualism, publicly and repeatedly acknowledges that people have experiences which they believe to be spiritual, and that are very emotionally moving. Of course people do. Everybody knows that. It doesn't change the fact that to many of us, we believe that those experiences that people have can actually be best described in terms of material causes.
Well, then you need to continue your dialogue with Mariner, for it's not clear to me that it's any *better* to describe how I feel when listening to Shostakovich or feeling a sense of oneness with the universe 'in terms of material causes'. I talk about artistic feelings in artistic terms usually, political matters in political terms, and and spiritual matters in sometimes spiritual terms and language. What your claim to 'best description' seems to involve is a rejection of the very possibility of 'spiritual terms and language', i.e. I am welcome speak on your terms, about science and stuff, but you won't speak on my terms, because you claim your terms encompass my terms. Pomos would talk about 'discourse' here and I think that's a useful term.
For myself, I can imagine there might be some sort of sociology-biology-chemistry-physics chain of explanations that could in an imaginary future universe show me the 'material causes' of my saying, say, 'I believe there are more things in heaven and hearth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' But it's a long way off, and involves a leap of faith in the scientific enterprise. It isn't here now, revealed in the fmri scans of 23 Columbia Uni students to be the basis of thought.
I disagree about emotions, incidentally, and I think that's a contributory factor here: I take emotions more seriously, as cognitive factors, than I think you do. Emotions are, under one sort of description, judgments about the world, and it's useful to talk of them in that way as well as in terms of hormones and a brain. When you argue for 'material causes' you seem to me to make a commitment to the rightness of a certain kind of scientising enterprise, and that commitment is as emotionally-based as any reasoned 'spiritual' commitment.
Reformed NihilistJuly 07, 2017 at 22:10#843350 likes
Well, then you need to continue your dialogue with Mariner, for it's not clear to me that it's any *better* to describe how I feel when listening to Shostakovich or feeling a sense of oneness with the universe 'in terms of material causes'. I talk about artistic feelings in artistic terms usually, political matters in political terms, and and spiritual matters in sometimes spiritual terms and language. What your claim to 'best description' seems to involve is a rejection of the very possibility of 'spiritual terms and language', i.e. I am welcome speak on your terms, about science and stuff, but you won't speak on my terms, because you claim your terms encompass my terms. Pomos would talk about 'discourse' here and I think that's a useful term.
That's a very fair answer, but I think it ignores that the term "spiritual" has cultural and historical baggage, and unspoken assumptions associated with it, that don't reflect a growing group's way of thinking, so it ends up being non-representative and exclusive. It's funny. I was just (10 minutes ago) speaking with a person I know on social media about traditional gender norms, and how they relate to people with non-traditional sexuality or gender identity. I, in trying to talk about this relationship, mentioned that people I knew (it's been 20 years since I had gay friends that I regularly hung out with) identified as "the wife" and "the husband". I was informed that to suggest those sorts of roles (in that manner) to a gay couple today would likely earn me a black eye. That's because there is baggage (emotional and intellectual) associated with that sort of language. To a straight guy, there's no reason for me to consider that baggage, just as to someone who doesn't reject the metaphysical idea of immaterialism, and what it implies epistemologicaly, doesn't have reason to reject the language of spiritualism. I think the value of this sort of dialogue is to examine the way we speak as a culture and society, and if there is value in doing so, change the way we speak about these things.
For myself, I can imagine there might be some sort of sociology-biology-chemistry-physics chain of explanations that could in an imaginary future universe show me the 'material causes' of my saying, say, 'I believe there are more things in heaven and hearth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' But it's a long way off, and involves a leap of faith in the scientific enterprise. It isn't here now, revealed in the fmri scans of 23 Columbia Uni students to be the basis of thought.
I'm not familiar which study you are referencing, but I'm not sure what sort of standard would have to be met to determine that virtually all of the things we have traditionally associated with a soul or spirit are actually physical/biological. I mean we don't understand the brain perfectly, nor are we ever likely too, but that doesn't mean we don't know anything. We also don't understand the universe perfectly, but we can reasonably claim some knowledge, and ideas that were previously widely accepted, we can dismiss (geocentrism, Luminiferous aether, etc). I think we can say without any scientific controversy that personality, emotions, identity (and it's locality inside or outside your body) and everything else we would identify as "cognative" are a result of brain processes. Is it theoretically possible that there is a "something else" involved? Sure, there's nothing that makes that logically incoherent. There's also no good reason to assume that there is such a thing. Or at least none that I'm aware of.
I disagree about emotions, incidentally, and I think that's a contributory factor here: I take emotions more seriously, as cognitive factors, than I think you do. Emotions are, under one sort of description, judgments about the world, and it's useful to talk of them in that way as well as in terms of hormones and a brain. When you argue for 'material causes' you seem to me to make a commitment to the rightness of a certain kind of scientising enterprise, and that commitment is as emotionally-based as any reasoned 'spiritual' commitment.
Who says I don't take emotions seriously? I'm just saying that we have a pretty good handle on the biology of emotions. Better than we do on the biology of thought. Raise epinephrine levels and you'll get anxiety, testosterone; aggression, oxytocin; caring. Those are a little bit oversimple (for the sake of discussion), but there is an undisputed causal relationship between hormones and emotions.
In regards to "scientising", I think a quote from Steven Novella encapsulates my thoughts on the matter:
Steven Novalla:“What do you think science is? There's nothing magical about science. It is simply a systematic way for carefully and thoroughly observing nature and using consistent logic to evaluate results. Which part of that exactly do you disagree with? Do you disagree with being thorough? Using careful observation? Being systematic? Or using consistent logic?”
Lastly, to say that "emotions are judgements of the world", as far as I can tell, is twisting language to a breaking point. The common use of the term "judgement" is "an opinion or conclusion". You have a considered opinion (a judgement), or after thinking about something, you come to a conclusion (make a judgement), so it makes sense to associate judgement with thought. This is different than a "reaction or predisposition", which makes sense to associate with emotions/feelings. When you have a reaction to something (you feel X way about it), or you are emotionally predisposed toward different experiences (you have feelings about a subject). Don't you think this is a more common way of using these words? I'm glad to talk about emotions in terms of reactions or predispositions, but you'll have to give me some context, a question that requires an answer, or a problem that requires a solution, whereby that's a relevant thing to talk about. If I talk about spirituality as a predisposition or reaction to an experience, then I am accused of dismissing it. I do think that with what many people think of as spiritual experiences, they are emotionally affected in such a way that causes a reaction and a predisposition toward gravitating toward whatever their cultural version of religious mythology is (or other mythology they are exposed to, like ghosts, UFOs, generic godheads, or "something greater than myself").
I'm glad to talk about emotion, or whatever you think is relevant. Normally, I'd expect you to actually propose what you think about what emotion (or whatever else) has to do with the subject though, before you accuse me of ignoring it or making light of it. I'm only talking about what seems relevant given what is presented to me by whoever is talking to me.
Edit: I'm going to state this explicitly, even though I alluded to it in the last post. You responses seem to be based on a pre-defined characterization of what you think an "angry atheist" or "evangelical atheist" looks like, and you seem to be offering critiques of that characterization. I am an empathetic, creative, caring person, who is interested in the truth. I do also sometimes come on strongly, but I'm no Richard Dawkins, and I'm 100% not what the average person who dislikes Dawkins thinks he is. I have come from a place where I thought about things lazily, and over the years, sometimes because of the rough treatment of people who had a more rigorous approach, my thinking became more rigorous (if anyone remembers Gassendi1 from the other forum, I thought he was a dickhead, but he pushed me to think more carefully. I heard he passed away a few years ago, and I'm sorry he never knew the benefit I got from him being so critical).
Reformed NihilistJuly 08, 2017 at 00:13#843840 likes
The next step in symbolization, you mean. To insist on a reasoning before we straighten that out would skip the important steps.
Well, that's not what I meant, but for the sake of argument, I'll play along for now.
BTW, I missed your post because you didn't mention me. Just as a bit of pragmatic housecleaning, would you mind making sure I get tagged in any response you make to me?
History can be of two kinds: personal (psychological) or social (i.e. cultural).
I assume that is meant to be a practical distinction, not a logically necessary one? If the latter, you'll have to explain how you come to that conclusion. If the former, I'm fine with seeing were this goes.
What is needed now is the study of how (a) a baby learns how to develop the notions of experiencer/experienced (and what are the names given), or (b) the etymology of the words matter:spirit.
Why specifically those things? Are there no other possible considerations, or are those just the one's you judge to be important? What criteria are you using to choose those questions over others?
Note that this approach is prior to any questions regarding argumentation or reasoning. We are trying to understand the origin of the symbols being used, and to trace those symbols to the underlying experience.
If you aren't presenting your reasoning to me, then what are you doing, and (honest question) why should I care?
You responses seem to be based on a pre-defined characterization of what you think an "angry atheist" or "evangelical atheist" looks like, and you seem to be offering critiques of that characterization. I am an empathetic, creative, caring person, who is interested in the truth.
I'm sorry any reply is short, I am busy for a few days. It is hard to know one another just through forums like this, and one takes shortcuts based on stereotypes. So, pardon me for doing this with you :)
What we judge of each other also comes up in your remarks about the right naming of gendery topics. I live near the lesbian capital of northern England and there's quite a variety of labels in use there, including women ironically referring to each other as the husband and the wife. I just avoid any controversy. An odd thing that happens with campaigning people is that they tend to over- generalise from their point of view. Dammit, they know what it is to Purple, they've been on a journey to be Purple, so what right has a straight like you to call Purples whatever you want?
I suppose that's what I also think happens to atheists. You must be a Dawkins/Dennett of some kind, sort of thing.
I think we can say without any scientific controversy that personality, emotions, identity (and it's locality inside or outside your body) and everything else we would identify as "cognative" are a result of brain processes. Is it theoretically possible that there is a "something else" involved? Sure, there's nothing that makes that logically incoherent. There's also no good reason to assume that there is such a thing. Or at least none that I'm aware of.
This seems to be an area worth exploring. I would tend to say 'bodily' rather than 'brain', I would worry about 'result', - but I would also say that this whole section is a 'scientific' way of speaking that slips into assuming it can represent other ways of speaking, that it can speak for us all in all contexts.
It's still much more useful, for example, to talk about 'personality, emotions and identity' in terms that aren't *reducible* to brain processes. So to argue that they are 'the result' of brain processes troubles the Humean in me: how has this been demonstrated? The models are primitive. 130 years since William James and the present-day psychological work on emotions, for instance, is amazingly primitive and lacking a secure philosophical basis, or so it seemed to me earlier this year when I was reading up about emotion.
Sorry I didn't get to spirituality and I'm out of time for now.
If you aren't presenting your reasoning to me, then what are you doing, and (honest question) why should I care?
Well, you should care because philosophers care to know about stuff they don't know, particularly when it is stuff that encompasses the entirety of reality, and even more when they are asking about it.
What I am presenting to you is a way to understand what spirituality is, by retracing its origins, historical and psychological -- I'm presenting two congruent ways because this reinforces the truth of what I'm presenting, and because you may be more inclined to pursue one of them. What I am presenting is not a reasoning, it is an exercise.
It doesn't change the fact that to many of us, we believe that those experiences that people have can actually be best described in terms of material causes.
Spiritual experiences are best described in terms of material causes;
Material experiences are best described in terms of spiritual causes;
Spiritual experiences are best described in terms of spiritual causes;
Material experiences are best described in terms of material causes.
These four options are wrong. The way out of this is to recognize (by the study of etymology or psychology) that spirit and matter are derived concepts, and to look for the primitive concepts out of which they arose.
I consider the word "spiritual" to be best translated as "psuedo-religious" in most uses. You mean something else I assume?
As distinct from non pseudo religious? It does not seem like a good place to start; it looks as though you want to translate spiritual into material, which is why I suspect, @Mariner wants to look at the distinction rather than try and 'correct' your translation.
Espirit de corps: a feeling of pride and mutual loyalty shared by the members of a group. We know that there is a real thing, because armies concern themselves with it, and they are eminently practical. So we might say, as materialists, that it is located in the brains of group members. Because we don't believe in psychic woo, we deny that feelings are literally shared, but allow that they can be 'aligned'. And because the group is always interacting, this general alignment influences each member towards the general alignment, even as their various individual experiences influence them away from it.
Spirit: anything over 40% proof. Providing proverbial courage to the Dutch. ;)
Spiritual: pertaining to the general condition of the experiencer. One might want to say that this is understood to be the condition of the brain, but as long as there is no way to read the condition of a brain in the relevant aspects, and even thereafter, it seems perfectly meaningful to talk about spiritual practices, designed to lift the spirits, for example. Perhaps you want to claim that everything spiritual arises from the material as emergent or epiphenomenal, and perhaps you find that a lot of psychic woo (mis)uses the term (these are not the same). Still it is possible to make some sense of another who might think otherwise, that spirit as the condition of the experiencer has an immaterial aspect that might outlast the material being, even if you think them mistaken.
Reformed NihilistJuly 10, 2017 at 23:00#852390 likes
This seems to be an area worth exploring. I would tend to say 'bodily' rather than 'brain', I would worry about 'result', - but I would also say that this whole section is a 'scientific' way of speaking that slips into assuming it can represent other ways of speaking, that it can speak for us all in all contexts.
It's still much more useful, for example, to talk about 'personality, emotions and identity' in terms that aren't *reducible* to brain processes. So to argue that they are 'the result' of brain processes troubles the Humean in me: how has this been demonstrated? The models are primitive. 130 years since William James and the present-day psychological work on emotions, for instance, is amazingly primitive and lacking a secure philosophical basis, or so it seemed to me earlier this year when I was reading up about emotion.
Well, nothing can be understood perfectly, and in terms of what is the best way to describe something, there is room to frame things broadly or at a very fine grain, depending on context. Having said that, using terminology like "spirutuality" has connotations, and historically those connotations include a "something else" that is not just different than the body, but different from everything we know, and the reason we even seem to have this conception is that we never used to know just how much the brain/body did in terms of our perceptions and sense of self. Have a look at some of the links in my earlier discussion in this thread, if you haven't. It is very compelling stuff regarding the brain being the source of stuff that used to cause philosophers of the mind all kinds of problems. We know more about these things than I think most people who don't follow the neuroscience realize.
Reformed NihilistJuly 10, 2017 at 23:14#852420 likes
Reply to Mariner I'm still not sure what the distinction between you presenting the reasoning why the way to look at spirituality is valuable, and what you are doing (which to me looks like you presenting your reasoning for your way of looking at spirituality). Is there a reason why you are so resistant to adopt that term? I'm very fond of it myself, because it offers a reason for me to choose between alternatives.
I guess I'm concerned that if I'm required to commit to a metaphysical model before I can even understand what is meant by the use of a word, and we can't even used philosophical shorthand to indicate the philosophical underpinnings. Is that correct? Is this something that doesn't already exist in the broader philosophical cannon? I might already know it, or could read up without having to take every small step with you. If it does, give me the origin, and we can save some possible confusion.
Reformed NihilistJuly 10, 2017 at 23:38#852450 likes
As distinct from non pseudo religious? It does not seem like a good place to start; it looks as though you want to translate spiritual into material, which is why I suspect, Mariner wants to look at the distinction rather than try and 'correct' your translation
I believe there is no factual refferent for what spiritual is historically used to speak about. That doesn't mean I'm trying to translate spiritual into material, any more than I would be translating a unicorn into a horse by saying there are no unicorns. I also believe that there is a more recent common use that is usually ill defined, sometimes incoherent, and could often be substituted for "psuedo-religious" without loosing meaning. I am open to hearing what other meanings might exist, that don't fit into these paradigms.
Spiritual: pertaining to the general condition of the experiencer.
Would that make it synonymous with "subjective"? If so, why not just use that word, which is laden with much less metaphysical baggage? Also, what would make a spiritual experience distinct from a garden variety experience?
Edit: That definition also doesn't account for the way the word gets used. By this formulation, "I listened to a Beethoven sonata, and it was a spiritual experience" is roughly equivalent to "I had a piece of cold left-over pizza, and it was a spiritual experience", and there's not much meaningful difference between just saying you listened to the sonata or ate the pizza. Isn't the word usually making a claim about the sorce or nature of the experience? That it's special and district from normal experiences in some way?
I know that if I am calling an experience spiritual, I am saying that it is as emotionally moving as a religious experience that portents to contact the experienced with the divine. I am also no doubt using hyperbole. Exactly the same way as I would use the word "divine" to describe the tiramisu at the restaurant down the street. I'm co-opting the historical meanings, but being (I hope) transparent about being metaphorical. That makes "pseudo-religous" a pretty accurate description of the use as far as I can tell. I just suspect that some people use the word without considering if they are using it historically or metaphorically, so they just use it and if they don't run into any cognitive walls, they don't ever bother to make the distinction, or they figure it's a third thing, but never take the time to figure what that thing is.
Spiritual: pertaining to the general condition of the experiencer.
— unenlightened
Would that make it synonymous with "subjective"? If so, why not just use that word, which is laden with much less metaphysical baggage? Also, what would make a spiritual experience distinct from a garden variety experience?
Edit: That definition also doesn't account for the way the word gets used. By this formulation, "I listened to a Beethoven sonata, and it was a spiritual experience" is roughly equivalent to "I had a piece of cold left-over pizza, and it was a spiritual experience", and there's not much meaningful difference between just saying you listened to the sonata or ate the pizza.
It would make sense to talk about subjective experience, if there was objective experience. But there isn't. So it is not at all synonymous. Garden variety experiences do not affect the experiencer; if you have a piece of cold left-over pizza, and it is a life-changing experience, then I would call it spiritual. Obviously, there is no absolute delineation that separates ordinary experience from spiritual, but one can say, perhaps that everyday experience accumulates as habit whereas spiritual experience disrupts.
I think this fits with the way people use the term, though it is over-used by some. A piece of music can be experienced with a depth that changes one's life, both in terms of one's understanding of one's past and in the direction of one's future. It is more than mere intensity. If one has a spiritual experience, one is not the same person after it as one was before; it is traumatic, though as I said it gets mis-used for the merely dramatic. If you are indeed re-formed, then I would think you have had a spiritual experience.
Reformed NihilistJuly 11, 2017 at 11:29#854390 likes
and it is a life-changing experience, then I would call it spiritual. Obviously, there is no absolute delineation that separates ordinary experience from spiritual, but one can say, perhaps that everyday experience accumulates as habit whereas spiritual experience disrupts.
So spiritual is synonymous with "life changing" then? Why not say that? Or "transformative"? Why cop-opt terms of religion, with all the baggage and possibility of misunderstanding that it entails? I guess if the context makes it clear that there is no implied metaphysical baggage, then communicating however you want is fair game. I'm just saying that it often isn't clear. Not to the listener, and (more controversially) to the speaker. Let me give you a few quotes from this thread to highlight this:
To be devoid of spirituality is to be homeless. At least that's what it seems to me.
spirituality is incomprehensible if the student does not explore a time (historical or psychological, both avenues are fruitful) in which spirituality and materiality were merged in a single, unnamed concept
Spirituality: The inner life of the outer experience of the world.
So it seems to me that the way it is used often includes importing metaphysical implications. Just push against it a little and they begin popping out. The other effect of pushing against it a little, is you tend to get a sort of mysterianism. Claims that there is 100%, unarguably something there, but it is something that defies explanation, definition, and rational analysis. Surely the notion that something is life changing doesn't defy rational analysis?
It is more than mere intensity. If one has a spiritual experience, one is not the same person after it as one was before; it is traumatic, though as I said it gets mis-used for the merely dramatic. If you are indeed re-formed, then I would think you have had a spiritual experience.
We are destroyed and reformed all the time. Mostly it happens so gradually, little piece by little piece, that we don't notice, but sometimes we mark a specific event on the road of our reinvention as being epiphanous, because it is great enough in it's effect to move above the background noise of the constant change. How is that not a matter of intensity? If it isn't a matter of intensity, what is it a matter of?
Is there a reason why you are so resistant to adopt that term?
I'm resistant to use a term that does not describe reality. I already presented the reasoning:
1. There is a whole family of pairs of concepts, which may be called polarized concepts (examples were given). A concept belonging to this family cannot be properly understood or employed without a full knowledge of its polarized nature.
2. Spirit:matter is one such pair.
3. Therefore, a discussion of spirituality cannot proceed without an analysis of the full pair, and without an acknowledgment that the concept of spirit, in its origin, is not a separate substance.
You rejected this reasoning, focusing on the lack of evidence for (2). To provide evidence for (2), what is necessary is not a further reasoning (because reasonings don't provide evidence). What is necessary is the gathering of data. Hence, the proposed exercises.
Is this [metaphysical model] something that doesn't already exist in the broader philosophical canon? I might already know it, or could read up without having to take every small step with you. If it does, give me the origin, and we can save some possible confusion.
Well, the entire pre-Cartesian worldview (which is more than a metaphysical model, of course) is grounded on the polarity of spirit:matter. Which means that your Plato, Aristotle, Stoics, Scholastics, falsafah, etc. are grounded on that.
If you want more modern sources: Joseph Campbell, Jungian psychology (ironically, stripped of its metaphysical model -- Jung, like Freud, was much better observing than theorizing), Mircea Eliade, Ernst Cassirer, Eric Voegelin are some of the authors I've read who, coming from very different vantage points and objectives, highlight the polarity of spirit and matter.
Reformed NihilistJuly 11, 2017 at 12:35#854810 likes
I'm resistant to use a term that does not describe reality.
So you think reasoning is just make believe? You don't think there is mental cause/effect? Do you think everyone's beliefs are arbitrary? By reasoning, I'm just talking about the reasons why you believe what you do. The mental steps you took from no belief or a different belief, to your current belief. Nothing more than that in this context.
Also, I've been pretty laid back about this because I always remembered you being someone who was fair-minded and easy to discuss with, but I really find it hard to discuss with you when you make statements in the form that present yourself as the authority on reality. Why are you any greater an authority than I am, or anyone else? So is there a problem with a change in tone regarding making absolute statements, one's you probably know I don't agree with you about, as if they were incontrovertible?
You say that like there is a singular, monolithic pre-Cartesian worldview. Throughout the entire history of recorded human thought, people have conceptualized things differently from each other. I have no reason to doubt that there were analogues to you and I at any given moment in history, discussing analogous differences in worldview. So I'm asking if there's a level of specificity somewhere between "the entire pre-Cartesian worldview" and "I'll have to explain my entire worldview in detail to you", where you can point to that contains the relevant concepts and vocabulary so that we don't have to reinvent the wheel, but I don't have to read every book ever written prior to 1600CE. So for example, if (like earlier in this thread) the concept of intuition came up, you could say something similar to "I'm referring to Kant's conception of intuition", at which point, I would know, more or less, what you mean.
So you reference Jung. He was a pantheist. Is pantheism basically the worldview you are talking about? Or a modified version of pantheism?
Also, I've been pretty laid back about this because I always remembered you being someone who was fair-minded and easy to discuss with, but I really find it hard to discuss with you when you make statements in the form that present yourself as the authority on reality.
That question of yours is being "laid back"?
Ok. Have fun. I've suggested a way out of your declared problem, of understanding spirituality. Whether you'll explore it or not is your decision.
I'm being pretty laid back here, and expecting an interlocutor who is willing to read the comments with a bare minimum of charity.
You say that like there is a singular, monolithic pre-Cartesian worldview.
Yes, on this specific question of the nature of spirit, there was a singular, monolithic pre-Cartesian worldview. So, you don't have to read every book written before 1600 AD -- pick any book you like (including Shakespeare, incidentally) and you'll see it there.
When I give you a wide gamut of sources, you complain. If I give you my personal experience, you complain. What exactly do you expect from this conversation? (Not a rhetorical question. If you tell me what you want from me, there is a greater chance that I'll be able to deliver).
Reformed NihilistJuly 11, 2017 at 13:23#854970 likes
I'm struggling to imagine a reading of my last post that reaches this conclusion.
Let me explain how I read the last few exchanges, and perhaps we can uncover where the miscommunication lies.
Here's how it looks from my point of view: I was asking you about your reasoning. You rejected that it had anything to do with reasoning. I asked why the term bothered you. You said it didn't reflect reflect reality. Those things that are not real are make believe. So It seemed like you were saying that reasoning was make believe. As little sense as it makes to me, I ask the question, hoping you'll clarify.
They're questions. I'm trying to understand. Maybe you think they're rhetorical attacks, couched in questions, but they're not. They're questions. So yes, they are laid back. Sorry if that wasn't more clear. I am absolutely getting frustrated with our apparent inability to find any common points of discussion that might lead to some understanding, and that frustration might come out more than is ideal, but I'm trying to understand.
Yes, on this specific question of the nature of spirit, there was a singular, monolithic pre-Cartesian worldview. So, you don't have to read every book written before 1600 AD -- pick any book you like (including Shakespeare, incidentally) and you'll see it there.
See, this is what I'm having a problem with. You just state authoritatively that there is a singular worldview. I say there wasn't. If you don't offer clarification, reasoning or evidence of your claim, then we are only left to "yes there was!" "no there wasn't!" like school children. Surely we can be better than that?
What exactly do you expect from this conversation? (Not a rhetorical question. If you tell me what you want from me, there is a greater chance that I'll be able to deliver).
I want to understand the steps in thought that led from either having no conception or a previous, and different conception of spirituality, to your current conception of spirituality. I want to understand mentally how you got to where you were to where you are now.
So spiritual is synonymous with "life changing" then?
No. A spiritual experience is a life changing experience. If you are happy to talk about interior, and exterior, as experience of the world and experience of oneself, then I can be a bit more specific, that a spiritual experience is one that changes interior experience. But still you need to be a little charitable in understanding that I am not talking about the change from an empty to a full stomach. Thus losing a limb is no doubt a life-changing experience of the exterior life; it may or may not be also life changing in one's relation to oneself, and in such case it is also a spiritual experience. But one also talks about a 'spiritual person', or the spirit of the times, or as I mentioned before, of a group.
So spiritual is synonymous with "life changing" then? Why not say that? Or "transformative"? Why cop-opt terms of religion, with all the baggage and possibility of misunderstanding that it entails? I guess if the context makes it clear that there is no implied metaphysical baggage, then communicating however you want is fair game. I'm just saying that it often isn't clear. Not to the listener, and (more controversially) to the speaker. Let me give you a few quotes from this thread to highlight this:
You bring your own metaphysical baggage with you, and on that basis complain about another's.
To be devoid of spirituality is to be homeless. At least that's what it seems to me.
We are destroyed and reformed all the time. Mostly it happens so gradually, little piece by little piece, that we don't notice, but sometimes we mark a specific event on the road if our reinvention as being epiphanous, because it is great enough in it's effect to move above the background noise of the constant change. How is that not a matter of intensity? If it isn't a matter of intensity, what is it a matter of?
Are you unaware of the religious metaphysical baggage of "epiphanous"? ;) But there is some confusion here. How are you aware of being destroyed and reformed all the time? Surely there needs to be a thread of constancy on which change hangs, and against which it can be compared. Or is this just a theoretical, metaphysical claim? I'm not even disagreeing with you here, except to clarify that an experience can be intense without changing the direction of one's life.
But I have the sense that you are just refusing to engage in an exploration of inner life, and in such case you can have no 'home' in which you can entertain such ideas.
Reformed NihilistJuly 11, 2017 at 14:54#855160 likes
But still you need to be a little charitable in understanding that I am not talking about the change from an empty to a full stomach. Thus losing a limb is no doubt a life-changing experience of the exterior life; it may or may not be also life changing in one's relation to oneself, and in such case it is also a spiritual experience. But one also talks about a 'spiritual person', or the spirit of the times, or as I mentioned before, of a group.
I'm trying to be charitable, which is why I keep asking questions, to make sure I do understand, or if not, to find out where the misunderstanding lies. So a spiritual experience is one that is life changing about one's sense of self? Doesn't that make it basically the same as "transformative", which wouldn't normally refer to incidental out exterior changes? If not, in what way is it distinct?
You bring your own metaphysical baggage with you, and on that basis complain about another's.
I don't think I've brought in any metaphysical assumptions beyond such brute concepts like "things are" and "communication is possible", and the sorts of things that should be uncontroversial and are necessary preconditions to meaningful discussion. What baggage are you talking about?
Something that changes the rational analyst does exactly defy rational analysis.
Agreed, but I think that I am/have been told the latter, not the former by some people in this thread, and in other discussions about the subject. Perhaps I misread/misunderstand them.
Are you unaware of the religious metaphysical baggage of "epiphanous
I was wondering if you'd pick that out. FWIW, I'm pretty sure the new sense of the term predates the challenging of spirit/body dualism/duality, so it doesn't have the same sort of baggage.
Surely there needs to be a thread of constancy on which change hangs, and against which it can be compared. Or is this just a theoretical, metaphysical claim? I'm not even disagreeing with you here, except to clarify that an experience can be intense without changing the direction of one's life.
Well, 98% of the atoms in our body are exchanged every year, yet we still consider it the same body. For some practical reasons, we seem to have to apply a sense continuity to objects and ideas that change slowly. We often feel that implies that there is a sort of "essential" "necessary" or "defining" quality, but that's just an assumption, and it doesn't add any explanatory power to things, so I didn't bring it into the discussion. Quoting unenlightened
But I have the sense that you are just refusing to engage in an exploration of inner life, and in such case you can have no 'home' in which you can entertain such ideas.
I don't know where you get that sense. I'm often accused of being too introspective and self-contemplative, so that's an odd thing for people to think about me. I don't think it's true.
So a spiritual experience is one that is life changing about one's sense of self? Doesn't that make it basically the same as "transformative", which wouldn't normally refer to incidental out exterior changes? If not, in what way is it distinct?
Yes, in that context, 'transformative' works fine. But if one were to talk of 'transformative practice' rather than 'spiritual practice', then it would be a strain; seeking is not always finding, though one seeks to find.
Well, 98% of the atoms in our body are exchanged every year, yet we still consider it the same body. For some practical reasons, we seem to have to apply a sense continuity to objects and ideas that change slowly. We often feel that implies that there is a sort of "essential" "necessary" or "defining" quality, but that's just an assumption, and it doesn't add any explanatory power to things, so I didn't bring it into the discussion.
Same thing happens to rivers, I don't think it's a problem; there is great explanatory power in noticing that there is a river in a certain place, the flow is rapid and yet one knows where to put a bridge. The river rises and falls with the seasons, and the water is ever-changing. But for a river to change its course is another kind of change that deserves its own language and understanding.
I don't know where you get that sense. I'm often accused of being too introspective and self-contemplative, so that's an odd thing for people to think about me. I don't think it's true.
Ok, my mistake.
Something that changes the rational analyst does exactly defy rational analysis.
If we can agree that there is the possibility of something real that defies analysis, then there is room in our discussion for terms that refer to it. There might be a possibility of some understanding that does not derive from analysis, but from analogy, or imagery, or whatever.
I asked why the term bothered you. You said it didn't reflect reflect reality.
.... if used to describe what I'm suggesting to you. To interpret that sentence as meaning "any and all reasoning, in every conceivable circumstance, does not reflect reality" is very curious, particularly if you read what I read right after it (I have already presented a reasoning, you disagreed and asked for evidence, reasonings don't provide evidence, etc.). Never mind though, let's proceed.
You just state authoritatively that there is a singular worldview. I say there wasn't.
Ok, and now I ask for evidence. Show me one pre-Cartesian work in which the notion of spirit is not used as a polarized concept (as explained earlier in the thread). Perhaps you can do it. If you do it, then I'll be shown to be wrong. It's no big deal to be wrong -- even if one "states authoritatively", which apparently is a criticism of style, and not of content.
I want to understand the steps in thought that led from either having no conception or a previous, and different conception of spirituality, to your current conception of spirituality. I want to understand mentally how you got to where you were to where you are now.
And the (abridged) list of pertinent authors did not help?
What I have done so far to help you understand the steps in thought from A to B:
1. Stated the thesis (polarized concepts)
2. Offered exercises to help you retrace the path, from the "universal human experience" (experience and experienced, remember? We were on the same page there) to a consistent notion of spirit:matter
3. Offered a (quite restricted) bibliography regarding how this subject is the theme of 20th century authors.
I don't know what else I can do. From my viewpoint, you appear to be budging at the idea of executing exercises from (2), but it's the best I have to offer.
Let me give you a starting point, from etymology (as I mentioned earlier, psychology is equally useful, and if you don't care about etymology it is surely more useful). "Matter" shares a common root with "mother". Try to re-enact, imaginatively, the kind of mind which dealt with matter as if it was related to mother. "Spirit", in its Latin and Greek ("pneuma") incarnations, is equivalent -- note, here it is not a matter of common roots, but of equivalence -- to "breath" or "wind".
What you should do now is the imaginative exercise of replacing references to "spirit" by "breath" or "wind" and try to put yourself in the equivalent consciousness of someone who discusses Spirituality in those terms. When, e.g., Plato wrote "spirit is X", read it as "breath is X".
This is not yet the "achieved consciousness" that must be sought after, because "breath" has a purely material connotation nowadays that it did not have in Plato's day. Ideally, when we read a Platonic reference to "spirit", we must imagine Plato's mind as dealing with "spirit+breath", the primordial concept out of which spirit and breath (as concepts) were developed.
I hope you see that what I'm suggesting to you has nothing to do with "reasonings". But if you do those imaginative exercises, it will be easier for you to observe (and it is an observation -- a direct observation -- i.e., not a conclusion from a reasoning) that spirit:matter cannot be dealt with as if they were separate substances.
If you ask me, the main vice of post-Cartesian philosophy is to deal with delicate and mostly pragmatic distinctions as if they were absolute separations.
Reformed NihilistJuly 11, 2017 at 19:06#855980 likes
Yes, in that context, 'transformative' works fine. But if one were to talk of 'transformative practice' rather than 'spiritual practice', then it would be a strain; seeking is not always finding, though one seeks to find.
You just made a jump that I'm not sire I'm following. What's a spiritual practice? Behaviours designed to change one's sense of self? To what end? Wouldn't you want to change it to whatever you preferred, and then leave it that way (practice often implies long term change from repeated iterations)? I know I'm generally good with my sense of self, so gradual, incremental change works for me. Perhaps if one were very dissatisfied with themselves and their life I could see the allure.
Same thing happens to rivers, I don't think it's a problem; there is great explanatory power in noticing that there is a river in a certain place, the flow is rapid and yet one knows where to put a bridge. The river rises and falls with the seasons, and the water is ever-changing. But for a river to change its course is another kind of change that deserves its own language and understanding.
Given enough time, the course of a river changes too. We only call it a different river when a catastrophic event causes it to change suddenly. It's the slowness of the change that gives the illusion of an element of permanence or continuity. I don't see any difference. The same is true with people. The most clear case is when someone looses all executive function. This happened to my brother, who passed a number of years ago. He was lying in a hospital bed, devoid of thought, perception, or agency, when the day before he had these things. My mother said that he was no longer there. His identity was changed to such a dramatic extent that it was essentially annihilated as something that was a result of his body, and now only exists as a memory. To a lesser extent, people who have traumatic brain injury or stroke are often characterized as no longer being their old self. So again, you can add another layer, but it doesn't explain things any better than doing without it, as far as I can see.
If we can agree that there is the possibility of something real that defies analysis, then there is room in our discussion for terms that refer to it. There might be a possibility of some understanding that does not derive from analysis, but from analogy, or imagery, or whatever.
Sorry, I think I misread you previously. I think that rational analysis and realness are 100% unrelated. You can do rational analysis on the effectiveness of Frodo's route to Mordor, and you can babble nonsensicaly about main street. I can't imagine what non-rational analysis would look like excepting irrational analysis, which I imagine we both think would be a bad idea. If you think there's something beyond or outside of that, you'll need to clarify.
You just made a jump that I'm not sire I'm following. What's a spiritual practice?
Prayer, meditation, self-flaggelation, peyote consumption, self-hypnosis, psychoanalysis, I don't want to draw an exact boundary, but people talk about spiritual practices, like retreats. It may all be nonsense in the sense of being ineffective, it may all not suit you or me, but it is a meaningful term for some effort to change oneself that has a long history and a current popularity.
Wouldn't you want to change it to whatever you preferred, and then leave it that way (practice often implies long term change from repeated iterations)? I know I'm generally good with my sense of self, so gradual, incremental change works for me.
I don't understand this. X would prefer to be Y. So perhaps X becomes Y by some gradual or sudden transformation. What does Y prefer? Not obviously what X preferred. This might even be a roundabout, where Y would prefer to be X. Is there then a possibility that X and Y can agree to get off the roundabout? Or would Y prefer to be Z? Then what would Z prefer? But if you say that Y prefers to be Y just as X preferred to be Y, then I might wonder if X has changed at all.
Sorry, I think I misread you previously. I think that rational analysis and realness are 100% unrelated. You can do rational analysis on the effectiveness of Frodo's route to Mordor, and you can babble nonsensicaly about main street. I can't imagine what non-rational analysis would look like excepting irrational analysis, which I imagine we both think would be a bad idea. If you think there's something beyond or outside of that, you'll need to clarify.
Yeah, we seem to be totally at cross purposes here, and it is crucial, on my side. Let's leave unreality out for now. I said nothing about non-rational analysis. Can the rational analyser rationally analyse a change in the rational analyser? Consider this in relation to my previous post, and then consider if there might be something that is not analysable. My suggestion is that analysis has a limit, but understanding can exceed this limit, by means that are not analytical. That is not to say that they are irrational, necessarily.
In the terms of the previous post, perhaps X,Y, Z, in some combination might understand that something else is possible, because it is necessary. And from that understanding something else comes.
Reformed NihilistJuly 11, 2017 at 21:49#856460 likes
Ok, and now I ask for evidence. Show me one pre-Cartesian work in which the notion of spirit is not used as a polarized concept (as explained earlier in the thread). Perhaps you can do it. If you do it, then I'll be shown to be wrong. It's no big deal to be wrong -- even if one "states authoritatively", which apparently is a criticism of style, and not of content.
This is where were going in circles. I think your answering a different question than I'm asking, so your appeal to the previous explanation of spirituality doesn't help me. You seem to be telling me what pedogogic techniques will best work for me. You seem to be advising me on how to learn. That's not what I'm here for, and I think I have a better handle on which methods work best for me.
So when I keep asking for your reasoning, I'm just asking for the thought process that goes on when selecting this particular conception of the way things are among the other alternatives,because that's what helps me understand concepts. Why is this one preferable to others? If you give me that, then I will have at least the starting point that I need to better understand. Is there a problem with doing that?
Reformed NihilistJuly 11, 2017 at 23:08#857000 likes
Prayer, meditation, self-flaggelation, peyote consumption, self-hypnosis, psychoanalysis, I don't want to draw an exact boundary, but people talk about spiritual practices, like retreats. It may all be nonsense in the sense of being ineffective, it may all not suit you or me, but it is a meaningful term for some effort to change oneself that has a long history and a current popularity.
I'm not currently concerned with efficacy, I'm just trying to see if what we're talking about is both coherent and isn't a sort of unintentional conceptual Trojan horse for religious ideas.
Here's my issue. First, most of the items in the list have an historical connection to religions. Second, most of these practices aren't proported to offer a dramatic, changing the course of your life, experience. If they do offer experiences that change your life, it is well understood that it is gradual, iterative change. Peyote eating is the exception, I guess. I only know what I've seen in the movies and my experiences is mushrooms and lsd.
So the concept of spiritual, as you apply it to experiences, seems to mean something different than what it means in terms of practices, and when applied to practices has some analogues to the traditional religious use of the word. Quoting unenlightened
Consider this in relation to my previous post, and then consider if there might be something that is not analysable
I don't know what it would mean to be non-analysable. Analysis is something that we do, not a property of something. I could imagine that an analysis could feel unsatisfactory or inconclusive, but I'm not convinced that wouldn't say more about the failings of the analysis than about the subject of the analysis. Saying that you can't analyse something is like saying you can't look for something.
Regarding the XYZ stuff, and the "analysing the analyser" stuff, I don't think I see the point you're making. It just seems like a needlessly complex framing of something that maybe isn't that complex.
I don't know what it would mean to be non-analysable. Analysis is something that we do, not a property of something. I could imagine that an analysis could feel unsatisfactory or inconclusive, but I'm not convinced that wouldn't say more about the failings of the analysis than about the subject of the analysis. Saying that you can't analyse something is like saying you can't look for something.
Regarding the XYZ stuff, and the "analysing the analyser" stuff, I don't think I see the point you're making. It just seems like a needlessly complex framing of something that maybe isn't that complex.
First, most of the items in the list have an historical connection to religions.
That is about the sum of your objections to many things said in this thread, isn't it? ';Sounds religious'. It's like the topography of an underground object, the part of the iceberg below the water-line - you can only sense its outlines, but anything associated with 'religious baggage' is rejected on that account. Excludes a lot of ideas.
Reformed NihilistJuly 12, 2017 at 07:25#857880 likes
That is about the sum of your objections to many things said in this thread, isn't it? ';Sounds religious'. It's like the topography of an underground object, the part of the iceberg below the water-line - you can only sense its outlines, but anything associated with 'religious baggage' is rejected on that account. Excludes a lot of ideas.
Sorry, but I'm not rejecting that there is an idea called spirituality, nor any other idea based on it being religious. I'm questioning things about they way the word is being used in a non-religious context.
I don't think it's controversial to say that the history of the word is associated with religion and religious beliefs and religious metaphysical assumptions. If someone wants to use it in that context, then it makes sense to me. I'm suggesting that the way that the word is commonly used today, in the "I'm spiritual, but not religious" sort of way, ends up not being as distinct and separate from religion as the utterer is intending. I'm saying that it's analogous to saying "he's not fat, he's full bodied". When you dig into the claim, you find that it's essentially the same thing, just without a connotation that the speaker doesn't like. So although I have them, my point here isn't to make judgments about the value of engaging in spirituality or religion, but just to clarify what, or even if, there is a meaningful distinction between the traditional, religious use of "spiritual" and the more modern, ostensibly secular meaning. I hope that clarifies, because the quoted post seems to characterize me as grinding an axe or intentionally blindfolding myself to an area of inquiry.
You could explain what it would mean for something to be non-analysable, and how that would be distinct from it being poorly analysed or nonsensical.
I'll try that. Typically, some philosophers say that truth is un-analysable. The way I understand this is that of any theory of truth that one might come up with, it can be questioned whether or not it is true. And for it to be true according to itself as a criterion of truth is circular and so inadequate. And this is the case for any conceivable theory of truth, so there is no question of replacing a poor analysis with a better one in this regard, and we hope at least, that there is no question that truth is nonsensical.
So whether you agree with this or not, it indicates a general form of radical necessary circularity that frustrates the attempt at analysis. This is what my needlessly complex framing was intended to demonstrate about your
Wouldn't you want to change it to whatever you preferred, and then leave it that way
where the circularity is hidden by referring to 'you' and 'it' as though they are different, while at the same time demanding that they not be different.
My position is that this radical circularity applies to any analysis of the analyser, that is to say to all psychology, and to all analysis of interiority and consciousness. This is not an appeal to irrationality, to nonsense, or to despair. It is simply to say that the understanding of the psyche must proceed otherwise than the understanding of the world at large.
Reformed NihilistJuly 12, 2017 at 15:33#858710 likes
It seems to me that you have concluded that because people can tie themselves up into knots of logic, that they necessarily must tie themselves up into knots of logic.
The truth isn't un-analysable. If we say that the truth is the condition of a statement, then there's nothing wrong with that statement also being true. any more than it would be wrong for a tshirt with writing on it to say "this tshirt has writing on it". There's nothing wrong with circularity in logic, because that's all logic does. All logic is circular. It tests the coherence of statements against other statements. It doesn't add anything.
So whether you agree with this or not, it indicates a general form of radical necessary circularity that frustrates the attempt at analysis. This is what my needlessly complex framing was intended to demonstrate about your
Wouldn't you want to change it to whatever you preferred, and then leave it that way
where the circularity is hidden by referring to 'you' and 'it' as though they are different, while at the same time demanding that they not be different.
No, that's not the case. You've demonstrated that logic is circular, not anything about what the motive would be for someone to constantly want to make dramatic life altering changes, or really more to the point, how the practices you talked about aren't actually supposed to be practices that lead to singular life altering experiences, but actually generally are expected to offer more gentle, gradual, iterative change. Moreover, you've failed to show how that is necessary the case with spirituality, instead of say, subjectivity.
My position is that this radical circularity applies to any analysis of the analyser, that is to say to all psychology, and to all analysis of interiority and consciousness. This is not an appeal to irrationality, to nonsense, or to despair. It is simply to say that the understanding of the psyche must proceed otherwise than the understanding of the world at large.
You made a big leap there. Even if I accepted that theories of truth are un-analyzable, (which I don't, because, among other things, you clearly are offering an analysis of theories of truth in your first paragraph), then how do you then get from there to "the understanding of the psyche must proceed otherwise than the understanding of the world at large". It is also demonstrably false that psychology isn't analyzable, as evidenced by the fact that there are libraries full of books analyzing it, as well as a field of endeavor called psychoanalysis, which putatively analyzes personal experience.
To summarize:
Both you and I have made an analysis of the circularity of logic, as it applies too truth. That demonstrates that circularity doesn't preclude analysis.
You claim some similar circularity when speaking about people, or their personal experiences. I don't see that circularity, so I can't intelligently respond beyond saying... It doesn't matter. Circularity doesn't preclude analysis. I would ask you to think about what you think analysis is. It's just looking at something closely and carefully, with an eye to gaining a better understanding. Like I say, the only thing that I can imagine would be immune to that would be nonsense, as nonsense, having no sensible content, is immune to a better understanding, no matter how hard you look at it.
If I'm wrong, point out what I missed, and we can clarify or dig deeper.
However, I want to consider consider a few things about our discussion, if you don't mind. Anyone who's had a discussion like this before has to come to one of a few ways to see this sort of conversation.
1) Rarely a person has their mind changed on the spot. Usually, it was about a belief they held "lightly". It is almost unheard of for someone to change their view on anything that is important to them, and to which they associate with their sense of identity, over the course of a discussion.
2) The other guy is outright wrong. They keep strawmanning your position, being willfully ignorant, changing the subject, making fallacious points.
3) Agree to disagree. This is mainly a way to let pressure off of the tension caused by the social urge to agree pitted against the urge to protect your views (especially concerning your identity) and to stand up for what seems to be true. It has the benefit of maintaining a nice social and emotional keel, but it leaves a question, and one that might be important, open. If your way of seeing it is really better, or is more true, then you are doing a disfavor to your interlocutor by not allowing them to see things in the right light.
I really feel that these describe pretty much all of the outcomes of these types of discussions. Is that your experience too?
People, including myself, find #2 really easy to slip into, and I have done so in this thread with other posters. I commend you for discussing in a way that has helped us both (it think) avoid getting there. I don't know if one of us is going to get to #1. AFAICS, that's sort of the El Dorado of rational discourse. A legend that is always searched for but never attained. Someone changing their mind mid-conversation about something they think is central to how they see themselves. So with that in mind, I have two thoughts. First, if either of us has to pull the plug and make it a #3, that's fair game, and I think we should just say so. Second, and I hope this doesn't become the case, I'll apologize in advance if I get into #2. I'm human, and even though my intent is to stay fair minded and even tempered, I have, more or less, the same psychology as everyone else, which leads the internet to be a very angry place. Lastly, I'd like to shoot for #1. One of us changes the way the other thinks about things. You down with that?
Having said that, using terminology like "spirutuality" has connotations, and historically those connotations include a "something else" that is not just different than the body, but different from everything we know, and the reason we even seem to have this conception is that we never used to know just how much the brain/body did in terms of our perceptions and sense of self. Have a look at some of the links in my earlier discussion in this thread, if you haven't. It is very compelling stuff regarding the brain being the source of stuff that used to cause philosophers of the mind all kinds of problems.
Here I don't agree with your argument, 'the reason we even seem to have this conception...' You're placing yourself in the Dennett/Dawkins argument here, that you the scientific sympathiser somehow know better about the origins of spiritual feelings - or 'conceptions' - than people who believe in the spiritual; and that spiritual knowing is in some way in competition with scientific knowing, so then as scientific knowing becomes supposedly more 'successful', so spiritual knowing should accept its comparative failure.
I just don't accept this at all. I don't claim, for a start, to have an understanding about how we have the conception of the spiritual, and I don't know how you justify your claim. And I don't think spirituality is some sort of competitor with neuroscience. If you take Kant, for instance, or at least one modern strand of views about Kant and religion, we can have knowledge, opinion and faith: the first two on the kantian model are empirical; the third is not, but is the sort of thing where we can make justified assertions. You can wholeheartedly commit to science as a naturalistic method, that is, and at the same time have justified religious or spiritual beliefs. In the terms of a former poster here, Landru, these are different discourses, where different rules apply.
That's all I'm stuck with, as my outlook. Science for me has much narrower limits than it does for you; I follow it pretty closely and am much more sceptical than you about how much it understands of what we do and perceive. And for me, while I'm an atheist with a strong interest in contemporary science, I feel there are other ways of talking about ourselves and the world we're in - aesthetic, ethical and spiritual - which aren't beholden to the scientific way of talking, and carry equal weight with me.
Even if I accepted that theories of truth are un-analyzable, (which I don't, because, among other things, you clearly are offering an analysis of theories of truth in your first paragraph), then how do you then get from there to "the understanding of the psyche must proceed otherwise than the understanding of the world at large".
The contention is that truth is unanalysable, not that theories of truth are unanalysable, which I am glad you reject, as I have indeed just presented an analysis of theories of truth that I claim shows that they cannot be valid analyses.
The truth isn't un-analysable. If we say that the truth is the condition of a statement, then there's nothing wrong with that statement also being true.
That is not an analysis. Here's where I scratch my head in wonder a bit. This is not some crap I made up off the top of my head to bamboozle you. https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=WqROAAAAIAAJ&lpg=PA254&ots=dDDWIDeVMK&dq=truth%20unanalysable%20Davidson&pg=PA254#v=onepage&q=truth%20unanalysable%20Davidson&f=false
I really feel that these describe pretty much all of the outcomes of these types of discussions. Is that your experience too?
Hmm. I don't really think of outcomes as having much importance. Or if I do, I am far more self-centered about them. So my outcomes, taken to mean points of departure, end of posting, or end of responding to a particular poster, are more like this:
A. I get bored, because I'm not learning anything any more.
B. I get lost, probably because I haven't worked out my ideas well enough.
C. I've said everything I have to say, as clearly as I can.
What the other chap does with his thoughts is not a great concern, though there is I suppose an ideal scenario where there is a coming together - a meeting of minds.
But variations on a theme of your 2. feed my A. And also yes to the rarity of 1. I think I have changed my mind a couple of times, and folks have let me know they have changed theirs maybe 3 times ... in God knows, about twelve years of posting?
So my first impulse in this thread was rather close to yours, that there is not much to spirituality of the non-religious sort, other than a self-indulgent sentimentality with a bit of unacknowledged magical thinking thrown in. But then I wondered whether there was at least a possible sense in which one could be seriously spiritual without having to join a club of believers. So I've been exploring, and trying to make room for something and so arrived at 'the un-analysable'. You should have picked me up on mentioning psycho-analysis as a spiritual practice, but I guess you don't give it enough credence in the first place. So here we are, and I'm not yet bored, not completely lost, and haven't said everything I can think of. So lay on, MacDuff...
I'm suggesting that the way that the word is commonly used today, in the "I'm spiritual, but not religious" sort of way, ends up not being as distinct and separate from religion as the utterer is intending. I'm saying that it's analogous to saying "he's not fat, he's full bodied". When you dig into the claim, you find that it's essentially the same thing, just without a connotation that the speaker doesn't like. So although I have them, my point here isn't to make judgments about the value of engaging in spirituality or religion, but just to clarify what, or even if, there is a meaningful distinction between the traditional, religious use of "spiritual" and the more modern, ostensibly secular meaning.
The essential distinction is between following and finding your own way, I believe.
This is a meaningful distinction because a major issue with religion is in its power to influence, and unfortunately power seems to corrupt pretty reliably.
A critique of finding your own way might be that doesn't have the power to unite people in common values and purpose.
I'm suggesting that the way that the word is commonly used today, in the "I'm spiritual, but not religious" sort of way, ends up not being as distinct and separate from religion as the utterer is intending. I'm saying that it's analogous to saying "he's not fat, he's full bodied". When you dig into the claim, you find that it's essentially the same thing, just without a connotation that the speaker doesn't like. So although I have them, my point here isn't to make judgments about the value of engaging in spirituality or religion, but just to clarify what, or even if, there is a meaningful distinction between the traditional, religious use of "spiritual" and the more modern, ostensibly secular meaning. I hope that clarifies, because the quoted post seems to characterize me as grinding an axe or intentionally blindfolding myself to an area of inquiry.
Well, I think you are, although I wouldn't phrase it in such obviously pejorative terms.
What is the motivation behind those who are 'spiritual but not religious'? As one who could fairly be characterised in those terms, I think I can answer that: to seek spiritual truth is an individual quest, it is an attempt to discover for oneself a truth or a principle that you can live by, that aligns you with a greater truth. It overlaps with 'being religious' but the latter is more often concerned with the regulative functions of community, liturgy and the instilling the normative attitudes and behaviours that are associated with a religious orthodoxy or correct belief. It's sometimes not a very clear-cut distinction (insofar as an individual might have characteristics of both) but I think it's a valid one.
But what I think your posts convey is that you're cautiously open-minded towards the possibility of there being 'spiritual truths' but that in effect they are so hard to distinguish from religious dogmas that you can't accept them on those grounds.
Here I don't agree with your argument, 'the reason we even seem to have this conception...' You're placing yourself in the Dennett/Dawkins argument here, that you the scientific sympathiser somehow know better about the origins of spiritual feelings - or 'conceptions' - than people who believe in the spiritual; and that spiritual knowing is in some way in competition with scientific knowing, so then as scientific knowing becomes supposedly more 'successful', so spiritual knowing should accept its comparative failure.
You've misunderstood me here. I'm telling you how I see the history of the idea, and within that history, what makes sense to me about how the term is now used. I'm not saying I know better, I'm just saying what makes sense to me, and trying to explain why. That's what we're doing here, right?
As for the rest, I don't know how to respond. I'm not really talking about the primacy of science, I'm just saying that there is way more evidence regarding how things like identity, personality and perception work than there was in the past, and some of it accounts for things that were previously accounted for by what was called a soul or spirit. So I don't know if you're saying the evidence is wrong, or that there's something else that takes precedence over the evidence or that there is a different way of looking at the evidence.
Reformed NihilistJuly 13, 2017 at 00:49#860070 likes
Reply to unenlightened Although I have problems with Davidson's conception of truth as it is described in that book, I'll capitulate that there are proposed models that have the truth as something unanalyzable. I suppose it would also be similar to Kant's Noumena. Either way, the logical qualities of the category exclude analysis. I'm not deeply versed in Davidson, but I assume that there are putatively good reasons proposed for conceiving of the truth in such a way that it is unanalysable. Are there similarly good reasons for conceiving of spirituality this way? If so, please elaborate.
The next hurdle is that to conceive of spirituality as unanalysable, we seem to have slipped back into a more general conception, where it roughly means "subjective", right? The fact that it's life altering doesn't make it unanalysable? Just that it's subjective or self-reflective, or something along those lines? I still don't follow how we get from "something can be unanalysable" to "spirituality is unanalysable".
Regarding psychoanalysis, I actually typed something out to that effect, and deleted it before I posted. I thought it was just a little on the rhetorical nose. X-)
Reformed NihilistJuly 13, 2017 at 00:57#860100 likes
The essential distinction is between following and finding your own way, I believe.
This is a meaningful distinction because a major issue with religion is in its power to influence, and unfortunately power seems to corrupt pretty reliably.
A critique of finding your own way might be that doesn't have the power to unite people in common values and purpose.
Ok, so I would formulate the traditional use of the term as meaning "of or relating to the spirit". How would you translate your proposed new meaning? Are you sure you aren't just making a commentary on people who claim to be spiritual but not religious (Because I agree that would be an accurate description of them).
Are you sure you aren't just making a commentary on people who claim to be spiritual but not religious (Because I agree that would be an accurate description of them).
I'm sure that I'm just commenting on that, yes.
Reformed NihilistJuly 13, 2017 at 01:12#860190 likes
Reply to Wayfarer I'm not questioning the motivations of those who think about themselves in those terms. I was one once, as were most of my friends and a great number of people I knew casually. I'm questioning the distinction, not between someone who calls themselves spiritual and someone who calls themselves religious, but rather if there is a difference between the religious conception of spirituality and the secular one. Quoting Wayfarer
But what I think your posts convey is that you're cautiously open-minded towards the possibility of there being 'spiritual truths' but that in effect they are so hard to distinguish from religious dogmas that you can't accept them on those grounds.
Well, to be transparent, everything I believe is provisional, but I currently have a high degree of confidence in my judgement concerning the value of spiritualism (at least as I conceive it) as something I am personally interested in engaging in, nor do I suspect I will find value in considering something as a "spiritual truth". I find truth without any categoricals works for me. That shouldn't matter though, as I'm not so much trying to determine the value of spiritualism as a practice, but more probing the coherence of the idea when separated from religious presuppositions.
Reformed NihilistJuly 13, 2017 at 01:13#860210 likes
I find truth without any categoricals works for me. That shouldn't matter though, as I'm not so much trying to determine the value of spiritualism as a practice, but more probing the coherence of the idea when separated from religious presuppositions.
The word 'spiritualism' always reminds me of Victorian psychic research - seances and spirit mediums. In any case, the kinds of ideas that are encountered in typical 'spiritual but not religious' literature, are not usually explained in terms of 'spiritualism'. Actually, a wikipedia entry that is nearer the mark is that on higher consciousness. What's good about it is that it makes reference to such ideas in German idealism and other philosophical sources. And I think the terminology sorrounding 'higher consciousness' is more contemporary than the vocabulary of 'spiritualism'.
A second point is that to differentiate the spiritual from the religious is a question of metaphysics. I think it is quite possible to articulate a non-religious account of metaphysics - arguably Schopenhauer comes to mind. Another less mainstream example would be Swedenborg. But in another sense, there is a considerable history of 'non-religious metaphysics', in some sense, in Western philosophy, generally, if you were to include Platonism and neo-platonism. Can the ideas found in those traditions be 'separated from religious pre-suppositions'? Surely the answer will be - depends on what you mean by religious. At which point, I think we have gone around in a circle.
Reformed NihilistJuly 13, 2017 at 13:35#861940 likes
I find it interesting that both parts of the entry refer to "spiritual but not religious", and that under the heading of contemporary spirituality reads the following:
Wikipedia:It embraces the idea of an ultimate or an alleged immaterial reality
(and that's a line with a citation).
So I'll just restate in that context that there seems to be an attempt to talk about something that is separate and distinct from religion, while still including all the foundational suppositions of religion.
Are there similarly good reasons for conceiving of spirituality this way? If so, please elaborate.
I need to take a couple of steps back. Excuse the laziness of quoting myself at length. Quoting unenlightened
So, a bit of meta- psychological pontification.
Folks have always had, and continue to have, a folk psychology, otherwise known as a 'theory of mind'. Such theories are culturally informed by religion, philosophy romantic tradition, notions of gender identity and so on. My psychological theory affects how I experience others and how I behave with them. I treat you all so badly because my theory of mind tells me you are are all as horrible and pathetic as I am, however well you hide it.
Now even without the benefit of a university course, everyone here has a notion of what Freudian is what behaviourism is and so on. It may be vague, but it enters the psyche along with all that advertising and propaganda some to be dismissed, and some absorbed. So it is not to be wondered at that the techniques of the shrinks not only enter into the schemes of advertisers and politicians but also into the interactions of philosophers in discussion forums. I started with an advert, because it is paradigmatic, but it is only a simplistic and transparent example of what has become a way of life, a pervasive form of our culture.
There is a knot here; put very simply the theory of psyche is part of the psyche. It is as if the fundamental particles of physics changed their properties according to which laws of physics they decided to adopt. Psychologists have changed the way we think, the way we see, our whole culture, and in doing so, they give rise to a new psyche which needs a new theory. Fashion in psychology mirrors the fashion of youth that always has to be different to that of the previous generation. Today one talks of neural plasticity, and it is neural plasticity that makes this talk possible.
There's a bit more elaboration further on in the thread, too, but the gist of it is here; that the scientific, analytical, cumulative theorising that works so spectacularly well when it comes to understanding and manipulating the physical world is useless and destructive when applied to the inner world.
I also develop the theme in a follow-up thread about education if you're interested.
All of which is by way of clearing a space for another way of understanding what you seem to want me to call 'subjectivity'. Now it occurs to me that subjectivity, consciousness, personal identity, psyche, all these terms seem to point to something that is not material, and whether or not one wants to claim that it must reduce to, arise from, or supervene over, the material, there is nothing linguistically objectionable about calling it 'spiritual' by way of distinguishing it from 'material'.
So to put it in one rather opaque sentence. Spirituality is un-analysable because the analysis is part of the analyser and the analyser is what is to be analysed; the whole thing is an attempt to lift oneself up by the bootstraps.
Reformed NihilistJuly 13, 2017 at 19:13#863330 likes
Reply to unenlightened I feel like you're trying to go for a "the eye cannot see itself" idea here, but if the thing (or one of the things) that the psyche does is makes conceptual models, then why can't it make one of itself? I'm still missing a step or two here.
And also still fuzzy on how the psyche relates to the previously described spirituality. Does the other thread give insight into that? I haven't had time to dig into that yet.
Edit: I feel like you've just taken a paradigm and applied it to another subject, without any reason to do so. Why would it be different than saying "the painter can't paint themselves"? Even the notion that the eye can't see itself seems to willfully ignore the existence of mirrors.
I'll just restate in that context that there seems to be an attempt to talk about something that is separate and distinct from religion, while still including all the foundational suppositions of religion.
Which simply reaffirms the point that I was making - that your reason for rejecting 'spirituality' is that it is too near religion.
Regarding the quotation 'alleged immaterial reality' - this could be understood as 'the attempt to depict something which is exceedingly hard to perceive, by those who don't perceive it, and therefore doubt it's reality.'
Even the notion that the eye can't see itself seems to willfully ignore the existence of mirrors.
The hand cannot grasp itself, but it can grasp another hand. The eye cannot see itself, but it can see another eye. It implies that 'the act of grasping' and 'the act of seeing' relies on a relationship of 'otherness' - the eye can see, and the hand grasp, something other to itself, whether that is a hand or an eye. But it can't see itself or grasp itself. This is an analogy for what is required in understanding the nature of being, as being (and incidentally, we are called 'beings') is never an object of perception. This is from the Upanisads, the canonical reference is here.
actually, casting about for ideas as to who might best represent the idea of 'spiritual but not religious', the figure that springs to mind is that of Krishnamurti. He wrote about and described his [apparent] experiences of a higher intelligence all of his life but steadfastly refused to be categorised with any religion and was consistently critical of religion, rituals and gurus.
Another figure that comes to mind is Einstein. He was scathingly critical of religion, which he referred to as childish, but nevertheless has a kind of mystical streak which came through in a lot of his autobiographical and reflective writings later in life.
Another would be Jung, who was never a member of any religious congregation but whose writings have many spiritual connotations.
I feel like you're trying to go for a "the eye cannot see itself" idea here, but if the thing (or one of the things) that the psyche does is makes conceptual models, then why can't it make one of itself? I'm still missing a step or two here.
And also still fuzzy on how the psyche relates to the previously described spirituality. Does the other thread give insight into that? I haven't had time to dig into that yet.
Yes indeed, inevitably one models others and one models oneself, and understands relations in terms of those models. That is not in question, but the status of these models. So you and I have a concept of a person as a mental model-maker and self and other conceptualiser.
Just as Davidson says that truth is un-analysable, but still seems to have a theory of truth, and Moore says that good is un-analysable but still has a lot to say about ethics. These are concepts that we cannot manage without, and that are meaningful, but that cannot be decomposed into more simple concepts. As if they are the fundamental particles of thought, that the harder one tries to tie them down with neat definitions, the more fuzzy they become.
Perhaps that is where I'm finding the discussion particularly difficult, that you want me to dispel the fuzziness, and I cannot. The eye can see an image of the eye, we know we have eyes and see things, but the more one analyses vision, into wavelengths of reflected light, light-sensitive cells, electrical impulses, and computation, the more one loses any understanding that we see the world at all; either there must be a homunculus watching a screen in our heads, or there is just a buzzing of brain cells with nobody there at all. In this case it is clear that vision emerges from all this brain-science and optics, but isn't there at all in the constituents, so the analysis inevitably misses its target, which does not mean that it isn't valuable to understand the components, but does mean that one cannot resolve vision into direct, or indirect realism or idealism, or irrealism, at least, not by analysis.
Reformed NihilistJuly 14, 2017 at 18:14#866550 likes
Which simply reaffirms the point that I was making - that your reason for rejecting 'spirituality' is that it is too near religion.
I have different reasons for rejecting spirituality, but they are not relevant to this discussion. I think you're jumping to conclusions regarding my motives with very little evidence. Do you mind if we park the question of my motivations for another time?
Regarding the quotation 'alleged immaterial reality' - this could be understood as 'the attempt to depict something which is exceedingly hard to perceive, by those who don't perceive it, and therefore doubt it's reality.'
I have no idea how you go from here to there. The first is a metaphysical model, the second is a commentary about perception and belief. I don't see how one could be understood as the other. It may be true that because if a difficulty on accurate perception, people believe a specific, and mistaken, metaphysical model, but that doesn't make one thing the other.
Reformed NihilistJuly 14, 2017 at 18:20#866560 likes
Perhaps that is where I'm finding the discussion particularly difficult, that you want me to dispel the fuzziness, and I cannot. The eye can see an image of the eye, we know we have eyes and see things, but the more one analyses vision, into wavelengths of reflected light, light-sensitive cells, electrical impulses, and computation, the more one loses any understanding that we see the world at all; either there must be a homunculus watching a screen in our heads, or there is just a buzzing of brain cells with nobody there at all. In this case it is clear that vision emerges from all this brain-science and optics, but isn't there at all in the constituents, so the analysis inevitably misses its target, which does not mean that it isn't valuable to understand the components, but does mean that one cannot resolve vision into direct, or indirect realism or idealism, or irrealism, at least, not by analysis.
We do have a choice how we frame this, and what conceptual models we accept or reject, right? Wouldn't we want to reject the ones that are fuzzy and accept the ones more clear? Unless the fuzzy one offers something we can't get from the clearer one. Do you think it does? I don't see it.
There is no objectively right way to frame something, but there are ways that can pretty universally be considered better or worse, right? You don't use QM to build a bridge, and you don't make a Higgs boson with classical physics. You frame the conception to fit the job. I just don't see what job is best suited to the framing you're proposing.
You frame the conception to fit the job. I just don't see what job is best suited to the framing you're proposing.
Education, social cohesion, politics, personal relations. We turn the analytical gaze onto the material, and we come up with all this amazing stuff, transport, communication devices, new etc etc. We turn it on ourselves and we come up with what? Increasing mental illness increasing stress and unhappiness, poorer education, less stable societies, more isolation. And these latter are all fuzzy things to the extent that they can be denied, so I won't be trying to convince you if you see things differently. But I see it so - I see a crisis of developing material control, and loss of personal control, and the proliferation of self-help coaching counselling therapeutic nonsense is symptomatic of the same depersonalising scientistic view with added advertising woo. If the job is machines, precision and no fluff; if the job is people, something very different is required.
Reformed NihilistJuly 14, 2017 at 19:06#866720 likes
Education, social cohesion, politics, personal relations. We turn the analytical gaze onto the material, and we come up with all this amazing stuff, transport, communication devices, new etc etc. We turn it on ourselves and we come up with what? Increasing mental illness increasing stress and unhappiness, poorer education, less stable societies, more isolation. And these latter are all fuzzy things to the extent that they can be denied, so I won't be trying to convince you if you see things differently.
Well, a person could make a standard by which to judge these things, and then measure reality against that standard. Then things wouldn't be so fuzzy. What does a good education constitute of? Make a list, match that against both current education and past education, and you have a very unfuzzy answer to whether education is poorer or not.
But I see it so - I see a crisis of developing material control, and loss of personal control, and the proliferation of self-help coaching counselling therapeutic nonsense is symptomatic of the same depersonalising scientistic view with added advertising woo. If the job is machines, precision and no fluff; if the job is people, something very different is required.
I never understood this implied dichotomy. We don't write novels or woo mates with scientific method, but we still write novels and woo mates. I honestly think this is just a romanticizing of days gone by, when we didn't have cold science and cold machines sucking our souls. The fact is that people have felt despair since we have records of people talking about such things. What makes you think that this is specifically is the result of a materialist worldview?
...there is way more evidence regarding how things like identity, personality and perception work than there was in the past, and some of it accounts for things that were previously accounted for by what was called a soul or spirit. So I don't know if you're saying the evidence is wrong, or that there's something else that takes precedence over the evidence or that there is a different way of looking at the evidence.
I can't say I share this view. In my 68 years of life there've been tremendous strides in some areas, including biochemistry for instance that's keeping me alive, with stents and angioplasty and beta-blockers; brilliant electronic toys and the Internet without which we wouldn't be having this debate; and so on.
I don't see modern advances in work on 'identity' and 'personality', though. What sort of thing do you mean? Could you be specific? I would tend to cite the arts - painting, sculpture, drama, novels and poetry - as influencing how I feel about identity and personality, which is not exactly 'evidence' in the way you're speaking of it. That's why I lean towards spirituality as having something to say to me, because the aesthetic has something to say to me, and for me to express through it, and the realms of understanding seem to be akin. Daniel Kahneman, for instance, has keen insights into how we think, but there aren't many of him per generation, compared to the insightful creative writers, and he does come to a sort of limit in his puzzlement over why we are the way we are. (But I've been a fiction writer, perhaps that's just my bias, I don't know)
What makes you think that this is specifically is the result of a materialist worldview?
Like I said, I'm not going to lay out a load of evidence. It's a point of view, and I'm not the only one that has it. But we do more and more woo mates with the scientific method, perhaps you've been out of the market for a while.
Reformed NihilistJuly 14, 2017 at 19:48#866870 likes
The case for personality is easy to make. People have traumatic brain injuries and their personalities change. Which part of the brain is predictive of what sort of personality change will occur. That's something that happens, and makes a pretty strong case for the brain being the sole seat of personality.
The other three links are elements of our sense of identity. The fact that "we" create memories, feel as though "we" are "within" (or outside of) our bodies, and that "we" have perceptions. The reason I use quotations around "we" is to highlight that each of these things feel like they are separate from the the physical processes, so we intuit or postulate that there is an essential element of ourselves that these things are happening to. When we look at the process, we can now understand the processes without having to postulate a separate "we".
I would tend to cite the arts - painting, sculpture, drama, novels and poetry - as influencing how I feel about identity and personality, which is not exactly 'evidence' in the way you're speaking of it. That's why I lean towards spirituality as having something to say to me, because the aesthetic has something to say to me, and for me to express through it, and the realms of understanding seem to be akin. Daniel Kahneman, for instance, has keen insights into how we think, but there aren't many of him per generation, compared to the insightful creative writers, and he does come to a sort of limit in his puzzlement over why we are the way we are. (But I've been a fiction writer, perhaps that's just my bias, I don't know)
I'm not sure what you're trying to say. Here's what I'm getting out of this: You enjoy art. You enjoy spirituality (whatever that means to you), and you anjoy the work of Daniel Kahneman. You see value in all of these things. If that's what you're saying, then good on you. I just don't see how that's relevant to what I'm saying.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say. Here's what I'm getting out of this: You enjoy art. You enjoy spirituality (whatever that means to you), and you anjoy the work of Daniel Kahneman. You see value in all of these things. If that's what you're saying, then good on you. I just don't see how that's relevant to what I'm saying.
All I'm telling you is how I weigh different considerations, in what I see as a contrast to how you weigh different things. You're not seeing it as relevant because you weigh things in a different way, which you regard as self-evident (just as I do mine!) and you're puzzled that I wouldn't accord the same weight as you do to different considerations. That's my take on that, anyway. I think you are having the same difficulty with un, because you have a sort of instinctively-scientific manner of speaking. I don't mean I and un have the same views, we are quite different, but in this respect the issues are the same.
The case for personality is easy to make. People have traumatic brain injuries and their personalities change. Which part of the brain is predictive of what sort of personality change will occur. That's something that happens, and makes a pretty strong case for the brain being the sole seat of personality.
I don't really follow. People have believed this sort of thing for thousands of years: trepanning dates back 8000 years for instance, i.e. surgery on the skull will effect changes in personality desired by the society concerned. Modern blindsight and Anton-Baninski syndrome are (a) still mysteries - why does a person invent such a story? and (b) not clear guides, at least not to me, about anything but the specific problems themselves.
But I see when you move on to identity more clearly what you mean. Here though your argument seems more to be against subjectivity than against spirituality. The transcendental 'I' isn't a spiritual/religious concoction but a philosophical one, surely? Early Wittgenstein frets over it a good deal, for instance, the latest in a long line of German philosophers fretting over it. That's why Metzinger calls his book on out-of-body experience 'the ego tunnel' because his rather odd theoretical solution seeks to solve the ego-problem as he sees it.
Perhaps it would be plainer if I just quoted Wordsworth, as a for-instance, of the sort of spirituality I'm groping to say I embrace::
Tintern Abbey:I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things..
Reformed NihilistJuly 16, 2017 at 20:52#874310 likes
All I'm telling you is how I weigh different considerations, in what I see as a contrast to how you weigh different things. You're not seeing it as relevant because you weigh things in a different way, which you regard as self-evident (just as I do mine!) and you're puzzled that I wouldn't accord the same weight as you do to different considerations. That's my take on that, anyway. I think you are having the same difficulty with un, because you have a sort of instinctively-scientific manner of speaking. I don't mean I and un have the same views, we are quite different, but in this respect the issues are the same.
It's not differing priorities. I love art too. I studied theater in college, not philosophy or science. I only know Daniel Kahneman from one interview I saw him do, but I admit I was fascinated by him too. So we actually share an outlook on two of these three things.
I'm not treating anything as being self-evident either. IMO, that's an intellectually lazy stance, and I try to avoid it. I may be assuming that people share my understanding of certain facts, or some basic underlying beliefs about the world. Nothing controversial though. Just ideas like X=X, that we all, more or less, share an experience of the world, or that making a judgement of "better" or "worse" is something it is possible to agree upon with people. I'm even open to explanation or disagreement on these points in theory, although at some point a person might have to call pedantry if we can't agree on the most basic underpinnings of conversation.
The purpose of the discussion, from my point of view, is to determine if a) there are relevant facts that either person hadn't considered or known about, b) there is flawed reasoning employed that one of the people didn't realize, or c) there is a better way to frame the issue than either or both people had considered. That pretty much requires approaching the issue from different paradigms.That should be a good thing, not a bad thing.
Modern blindsight and Anton-Baninski syndrome are (a) still mysteries - why does a person invent such a story? and (b) not clear guides, at least not to me, about anything but the specific problems themselves.
Everything is always a mystery if you keep asking why. That's the nature of the question "why?". That doesn't mean we don't know things, and the things we know indicate that the things we once thought were indicative of spirits (treppaning was alleged to let evil spirits escape through the skull), are actually indicative of the brain. Regarding Anton Babinski syndrom, the patient doesn't invent a story, they tell the truth as they believe it to be. They think they can see, and the reactions they have toward disconfirming evidence are the sorts of confabulations that mentally healthy people perform all the time when presented with cognitive dissonance.
What sort of guide do you mean? I personally assume that (among other things) having the most relevant facts, and the best possible information in any situation offers me the means to make the best decisions. Knowing that the things I feel and the impulses I have are the product of a brain that has flaws, some of which are predictable, allows me to employ personal, social and environmental mechanisms to offset my natural failings. For what it's worth, meditation and self-reflection (often associated with spirituality) are part of that.
But I see when you move on to identity more clearly what you mean. Here though your argument seems more to be against subjectivity than against spirituality.
I don't even know what it would mean to argue against subjectivity. One way to talk about the world is "from the viewpoint of the subject". No argument that there is such a viewpoint. If I am doing something close to that, it is arguing against conflating a subjective point of view with spirituality.
Perhaps it would be plainer if I just quoted Wordsworth, as a for-instance, of the sort of spirituality I'm groping to say I embrace::
So to you, spiritual is synonymous with profound? If so, why not use that term instead of one laden with metaphysical baggage (same question I asked un)?
I feel like I'm getting jumped on for saying "whatever you call spirituality is wrong and bad, because I don't like whatever it is you like", and I'm saying no such thing. I'm saying that calling those things you like "spiritual", might be a bad way to label them. Bad, because labeling it so can lead to equivocation and sloppy reasoning by importing metaphysical baggage with the label that you don't necessarily believe in or need.
Reformed NihilistJuly 16, 2017 at 21:03#874420 likes
Reply to Mariner As promised, I reviewed your posts, hopefully with a different eye. Let me see if I understand what you're saying.
Would it be fair to say that in the same way that an average Joe sees the world through the lens of "naive realism", that what you're talking about as the unified outlook on the spirit/matter question pre-Descartes might be described as "naive monism"? That people in general neither saw a distinction between the two, nor did it occur to anyone to question if there should be a distinction. Is that correct? Is that what you are suggesting I need understand before I can understand what spirituality is?
So to you, spiritual is synonymous with profound? If so, why not use that term instead of one laden with metaphysical baggage (same question I asked un)?
I feel like I'm getting jumped on for saying "whatever you call spirituality is wrong and bad, because I don't like whatever it is you like", and I'm saying no such thing.
I for one don't think I'm jumping on anyone :)
I've looked back over the thread and I don't know that there's anything more I can say. I agreed with darth barracuda's early attempt at a summary of what 'spirituality' might mean, and I thought your answer to him, like your answer here about 'profound', sought different substitutes or meanings for the word 'spirituality' because you don't like it and its connotations. I on the other hand like it for its connotations. I use the word because it expresses something I want to express. It implies, for instance, that while an atheist I'm open to talk about religious matters in a way that, I'd suggest, you're not. For a Catholic friend of mine, for instance, attending Mass is a spiritual experience. I think the world would lose subtlety if she was forced to call it 'religious' when that isn't necessarily what she means, just as my feelings about Wordsworthian Romanticism would lose subtlety if I substituted 'profound' for 'spiritual'. If you don't want to use the word, well, fine.
Reformed NihilistJuly 18, 2017 at 16:25#879610 likes
I'm open to talk about religious matters in a way that, I'd suggest, you're not.
I'm open to talking about anything in pretty much any way, depending on the context. That doesn't mean I always think that certain ways of speaking are the most useful or clear, but I'm open to them, at least in theory (with perhaps the exception of speaking literal nonsense). I wonder what conclusions you have drawn about me to make you think otherwise?
I thought your answer to him, like your answer here about 'profound', sought different substitutes or meanings for the word 'spirituality' because you don't like it and its connotations.
I have no problems with any connotation. Which connotation did you think I have a problem with, and why did you think that?
Language is a cultural activity, and use changes because people, sometimes explicitly, and sometimes more gradually and subtly, or even without any intent, negotiate what qualifies as an acceptable use of a word. Mostly, this is a non-political behavior, but at times it is political (I mean political only in the sense that it is behavior designed to persuade others). I'm contending that there are good reasons not to use the word as it has more recently come to be used (to refer to something non-specific, non-religious, inherently mysterious, and conceptually ill defined), at least, or perhaps especially, in the context of philosophy, as it leads to equivocation. That's it in a nutshell.
Would it be fair to say that in the same way that an average Joe sees the world through the lens of "naive realism", that what you're talking about as the unified outlook on the spirit/matter question pre-Descartes might be described as "naive monism"? That people in general neither saw a distinction between the two, nor did it occur to anyone to question if there should be a distinction. Is that correct? Is that what you are suggesting I need understand before I can understand what spirituality is?
Naive monism is a great expression.
But let me parse this sentence of yours:
"... people in general neither saw a distinction between the two, nor did it occur to anyone to question if there should be a distinction."
I'm with you on the first clause, but I disagree with the second one, and the reason is that the subject of the phrase is not the same in each clause. People in general did not saw a distinction between the two, and people in general, therefore, did not question whether there should be a distinction... but to say that it did not occur to anyone would be going a step too far, because it did occur to someone, or rather, someones (different someones in different cultures). The someones to which the issue presented itself were -- pretty much by definition -- extra-ordinary personalities. We know some of their names, and some of their titles. Poets. Philosophers. Prophets. These were the guys who perceived room for an unfolding of possibilities in the compact (i.e. naively monist) experience. (At least in proto-Western societies -- those same social functions would have different names in India or China, and I'm not sufficiently well versed in the history of those cultures to comment further in that direction).
The main point as regards a proper (if by proper we mean a historically and psychologically grounded) understanding of spirituality is that the plain word refers to a symbol (rather than a concept), and that this symbol was developed, by those P-guys, out of an experience. That experience was present in them (again, pretty much by definition -- no one can unfold the compact meanings of an experience if he did not have that experience); and, perhaps more importantly, they apprehended it [the experience] as universally human. The three classes of P-guys were in the business of educating their contemporaries as to what these contemporaries should be experiencing; their actions were overwhelmingly characterized as being in opposition to the "common sense" of their time.
The P-guys were successful in their endeavor, otherwise we would not be talking about this. And they still are the best conduit that leads from the compact experience to the unfolded symbols of spirit and matter, which is why one great avenue for understanding those symbols is to study them, placing yourself in the position of their interlocutors. Homer and Hesiod, Isaiah and Jeremiah, Plato and Aristotle, and their peers. It is not simply a matter of reading their works (you of course have read at least the philosophers, and perhaps also the poets and the prophets), but of re-enacting the social conflicts being addressed by those works. When Plato (to use an example that is surely well known to you) addresses Euthyphro (in the person of his Socrates), what is he arguing against? What is Euthyphro lacking? Euthyphro, to be sure, would certainly claim to understand spirituality (if he were presented to that word in its prima facie meaning), and perhaps to understand it better than Socrates... but it is up to the reader to decide whether Euthyphro's understanding of spirituality is better or worse than Socrates'. The main difference between the two is that Socrates' is open, and Euthyphro's is closed (and the Israelite prophets would achieve great clarity regarding this particular issue). While Euthyphro claims to be in possession of "knowledge" (about 'spirit'), Socrates denies it, while claiming to be able to recognize it and to yearn for it.
A psychological comparison between the fictional characters (Socrates and Euthyphro) would be greatly illuminating for the understanding of spirituality, spirituality-according-to-Plato. And this ugly construct (X-according-to-Y) becomes less ugly once we realize that the intersection of the understanding of the great Y's in the history of mankind is luminous for meaning -- that the poets, prophets and philosophers basically agree on the meaning of spirit, and that the way for us to understand it is to follow their lead.
P.S. Note that I'm using "philosophers" here as a class of thinkers that were devoted to wrestling meaning out of compact experiences, just as poets and prophets were. The term is not equivalent to the dictionary definition, and many great thinkers, particularly modern ones, who would be considered by you and I to be 'philosophers' would not fit so well into this class, because they were devoted to different problems.
I'm reading a few items relating to what is called 'radical orthodoxy'. This is a movement started by John Millbank and Catherine Pickstock which focusses on the shift from neo-Platonist metaphysics to Duns Scotus radical 'flattening' of ontology. This, they argue (and it's a book-length argument) was one of the most important precursors of modernity and scientific materialism, insofar as it asserts that the being of the Divine is of the same kind as the being of anything else. In the process of reading this title which explores these ideas.
I'm contending that there are good reasons not to use the word as it has more recently come to be used (to refer to something non-specific, non-religious, inherently mysterious, and conceptually ill defined), at least, or perhaps especially, in the context of philosophy, as it leads to equivocation. That's it in a nutshell.
Oh, right. This more particular remark drove me to the philosophers' index where I see there's much more work going on about spirituality than I'd realized.
But I've delved into a few papers and there seems to be a great effort to specify, and to define conceptually. There's a very clear paper by King and Koenig, for instance, which others seem to reference a lot, and which argues for defining spirituality from how people use the word, in relation to belief, practice, awareness and experience.
I don't immediately see that this work is any worse than other philosophy-of-psychology stuff. I read a lot about emotions earlier in the year, for instance, and the same problems seem to apply to the study of them as to spirituality: too many proposed indices, a lack of underlying consensus, arising from the lack of an agreed theoretical framework, but with some good work being done all the same.
The core issue about spirituality is, to me, that there is work being done because it's a hot topic for people, practically speaking in healthcare, and more generally, because more people than before avow that they are spiritual but not (conventionally) religious. This is the opposite of equivocation: people are using the word to clarify their feelings about the world. I recognize a change for example in the availability of funeral ceremonies. 25 years ago when an atheist relative died we faced the option either of a Christian service or of a very priggish humanist who wouldn't allow any sort of prayer, so we opted for the Unitarian, a fine person who conducted exactly the right ceremony. But nowadays in my part of the world there are a lot of 'celebrants' who will conduct all sorts of services.
Reformed NihilistJuly 19, 2017 at 14:55#881890 likes
the same problems seem to apply to the study of them as to spirituality: too many proposed indices, a lack of underlying consensus, arising from the lack of an agreed theoretical framework, but with some good work being done all the same.
Let me make a distinction here. In technical, rigorous work, it is not unusual to use terminology in a specialized way. If we were talking about emotions, I don't have a problem with a psychologist saying "in the context of this paper, 'love' means the emotional state that meets the following criteria...". I do however have a problem with transferring that specialized usage into common usage, and then using that to draw some conclusions about some other, conceptually I'll defined version of the word. That is what I am suggesting is the problem with the common use, not a specialized use of the term. Quoting mcdoodle
because more people than before avow that they are spiritual but not (conventionally) religious. This is the opposite of equivocation: people are using the word to clarify their feelings about the world
I'm not suggesting that nothing is being communicated when someone claims to be "spiritual but not religious", I'm saying that making decisions about one's life based on ill defined concepts is probably a bad idea. Language serves two functions: a means of communication, and a framework by which we can conceptualize the world we live in. "Fuzzy" concepts are a problem for the latter, not the prior.
Reformed NihilistJuly 19, 2017 at 15:51#882000 likes
Reply to Mariner Maybe this is jumping ahead. Is the central distinction you are trying to draw my attention to the one between spirituality as a concept and spirituality as a symbol (or perhaps metaphor)?
And this ugly construct (X-according-to-Y) becomes less ugly once we realize that the intersection of the understanding of the great Y's in the history of mankind is luminous for meaning -- that the poets, prophets and philosophers basically agree on the meaning of spirit, and that the way for us to understand it is to follow their lead.
Frankly, this is the sentiment that I have trouble getting on board with, and it's for a few reasons. First, what qualifies as "basically agree(ing)"? Where various thinkers differ are not important? What qualifies a thinker to fit into your paradigm of a great thinker, worthy of making the cut regarding their thoughts on spirituality? This formulation just seems a little relaxed, and like it could confirm any number of narratives that might appeal to a person.
Second, is the assertion that "the way for us to understand it is to follow their lead". Although I agree that a look at the history of a term can be instructive in understanding it's modern counterpart, I fear you may be putting too much weight on this. Why must we follow their lead? I'm open to hearing why it's a good idea, but I'm not sure I'll stipulate to it being necessarily true on its face.
the word as it has more recently come to be used (to refer to something non-specific, non-religious, inherently mysterious, and conceptually ill defined), at least, or perhaps especially, in the context of philosophy, as it leads to equivocation.
Common use just is common use. I live near an old hippy town, there's a lot of vague spirituality around there, man. Be the change that you want to see in the world. Cleanse the toxins. Manage with NLP. These things aren't my scene, I'm too pedantic and particular to tolerate the vagueness of it, but people are going to use the words they're going to use. Is it contributing to some harm? Do you think it's somehow anti-intellectual?
As I indicated in writing about changing funeral options, I've found a growing acceptance of non-religious spirituality a blessing in ways like that, because when it comes to funerals, I don't want to have to choose between the rigid alternatives of Christian and anti-religious humanist. You're sure you're not an anti-religious humanist who yearns for that lost clarity?
Reformed NihilistJuly 19, 2017 at 23:45#882860 likes
Common use just is common use. I live near an old hippy town, there's a lot of vague spirituality around there, man. Be the change that you want to see in the world. Cleanse the toxins. Manage with NLP. These things aren't my scene, I'm too pedantic and particular to tolerate the vagueness of it, but people are going to use the words they're going to use. Is it contributing to some harm? Do you think it's somehow anti-intellectual?
I'm really talking mostly about the range of use between a lowest common denominator and highly specific and technical use, which is a really big range, and I although I don't doubt that includes work done by respected philosophers, there isn't one I'm prepared to cite at the moment. If you think this equivocation doesn't occur within academic philosophy, then I can dig into it to find you some good examples (or discover none and prove myself wrong). It also encompasses the sorts of dialogue that occurs on sites like this, between people who have an interest in speaking and thinking clearly and coherently on a subject, but aren't used to, or aren't even interested in, the rigor associated with academia (or semi-academic, pseudo-academic, or peripherally academic discussion). This is where I personally find the most clear cases of this sort of equivocation, and would suggest it has occurred with at least three of the people I've discussed with on this thread.
Do I think it's anti-intellectual? I guess so. I'm not sure what implications that phrase has. I think it is a case of engaging in the practice if thinking, and doing it less than optimally. I also think that the world would be a better place if we could incrementally become better at the practice of thinking, so engaging with a subject like this has a few possible goals or benefits. If I am correct that the use of the term represents "thinking poorly", then I have at least offered those engaging in this dialogue, and those reading it, an opportunity to see the flaws in this way of thinking. If I am incorrect, then I have the same opportunity.
As I indicated in writing about changing funeral options, I've found a growing acceptance of non-religious spirituality a blessing in ways like that, because when it comes to funerals, I don't want to have to choose between the rigid alternatives of Christian and anti-religious humanist.
I don't understand why those are rigid alternatives. It seems to me, from the point of view of cultural practices, even within christianity, there is a broad range of practices, and the secular world is wide open. Personally, I've asked that whatever funeral ceremony that occurs when I die has a portion that is in respect to my family's beliefs (they're the one's mourning, after all) and one in respect to mine. It doesn't have to be complicated if you don't want it to be.
You're sure you're not an anti-religious humanist who yearns for that lost clarity?
I don't really understand this question. What clarity are you talking about? What qualifies as being "anti-religion"? The answer might be yes or no to either or both questions, but I'm pretty sure it isn't directly relevant to my posts here. For the record, I am not anti-religion if that means that I don't respect that people have the right to believe in whatever they want in their hearts and minds. As soon as their beliefs enter into public discourse, I am anti-religion to the degree that their discourse or behaviour does harm. To that standard, I am mildly anti-religion insofar as it lowers the bar on what is considered reasonable evidence to support a belief in general. I am significantly more anti-religion when religion is used as a justification of heinous acts. I think that's a reasonable and balanced approach for someone who sees no distinction between religion and mythology. I hope that clears that up, and we can stop trying to psychologize me. Fair?
“Although most people never overcome the habit of berating the world for their difficulties, those who are too weak to make a stand against reality have no choice but to obliterate themselves by identifying with it. They are never rationally reconciled to civilization. Instead, they bow to it, secretly accepting the identity of reason and domination, of civilization and the ideal, however much they may shrug their shoulders. Well-informed cynicism is only another mode of conformity. These people willingly embrace or force themselves to accept the rule of the stronger as the eternal norm. Their whole life is a continuous effort to suppress and abase nature, inwardly or outwardly, and to identify themselves with its more powerful surrogates—the race, fatherland, leader, cliques, and tradition. For them, all these words mean the same thing—the irresistible reality that must be honored and obeyed. However, their own natural impulses, those antagonistic to the various demands of civilization, lead a devious undercover life within them.”
? Max Horkheimer, Eclipse of Reason
I largely relate to well-informed cynicism, so jump in to point out some problems with this quote. To some degree cynicism is a mode of conformity. But adaptation is a mode of conformity. We conform to the nature of things so that we can eat well, flourish, etc. Non-conformity can be thought of a higher conformity to the nature of things supplanting an obsolete conformity. In the end, the cynic is selfish and personally oriented while the non-cynic or moral-political idealist is (apparently) trans-personally oriented. For the moral idealist, the cynic shirks his duty, the same duty at the heart of the moral idealist's vision of his place in the world.
As far as the "rule of the stronger" goes, there something tautologous going on here. If we view politics as central (as is common with moral idealists), then the stronger are almost by definition those who happen to rule. So we have of course an eternal norm, by definition. The cynic is guilty in the moral idealist's eyes for thinking that human's aren't going to stop being hierarchical anytime soon. The cynic accepts the life is fundamentally struggle. Give a man one thing and he immediately desires something else. The idealist hopes for a stasis over the horizon. Some day there will be a classless society, or a society in tune with nature. For the idealist the world just happens to be out joint. For the cynical, life itself is always out of joint, necessarily unstable and in motion.
The completely bogus line that gives the bias of the author away is:
Their whole life is a continuous effort to suppress and abase nature, inwardly or outwardly, and to identify themselves with its more powerful surrogates—the race, fatherland, leader, cliques, and tradition. For them, these words mean the same thing—the irresistible reality that must be honored and obeyed.
The first part about "debasing" nature is a description of life itself. Of course an organism shapes its environment so that it thrives. Life is obviously a motion against the chaos of its environment. Intellectuals beat a symbolic chaos into shape, just as Horkheimer is trying but largely failing to do here. That such a basic feature of life itself is demonized here seems to reveal the secret conformity at the heart of the quote, a desire to melt into nature. If it is "evil" to "debase" nature and the given, it most be virtuous to melt in to one's environment. Life itself is guilty.
The second part about race, fatherland, etc. is shockingly stupid. It describes the opposite of the cynic. Isn't the cynic exactly the person who scoffs at these sacred abstractions? What gets the moral idealist's goat is that his own cause is one more abstraction and duty on the chopping black. The "back to nature" or "back to a sense of community" song and dance is one more "fatherland" or "race." The cynic enjoys himself as one who does not honor these puffed-up concepts. He may indeed obey laws that he does not believe in. He may indeed play along. He may indeed selfishly adapt to the world as he finds it. In that he is truly guilty in the eyes of the world-fixing idealist. But the racist, the patriot, the ideological reactionary, etc., are not cynics. They are just idealists with a different notion of how to fix the world. The cynic is a thumb in their eyes, too.
The "eclipse of reason" is just the demystification of reason. "Instrumental" reason or pragmatism or the tool-use paradigm all offend in the same way. They make human desire central. Reason is not a replacement for God as it is with Horkheimer perhaps. Instead human desire or feeling is the replacement for God. In short, Horkheimer wants piety toward Reason and Nature. The cynic views both as resources subordinate to life, which is in some sense fundamentally anti-natural and irrational.
Noble DustSeptember 08, 2017 at 19:14#1033550 likes
It looks like you read the word "cynic" in the quote and based your entire argument from there. If you re-read the quote, "well-informed cynicism" was just one briefly mentioned aspect of the type of person Horkheimer was describing, not the basis of that type of person's views.
has anybody mentioned Romain Rolland's Oceanic Feeling yet? For me, that's as good an attempt as I've seen to capture what spirituality is about.
It appears that some people sometimes experience this feeling and others never do. FromCivilisation and Its Discontents I got the impression that Freud didn't and was maybe even a little frustrated and annoyed that others felt (or [according to him, just] thought they felt?) something that he had never felt and could not imagine.
It looks like you read the word "cynic" in the quote and based your entire argument from there. If you re-read the quote, "well-informed cynicism" was just one briefly mentioned aspect of the type of person Horkheimer was describing, not the basis of that type of person's views.
You may have a point. Maybe he was just sneaking in a jab at the "well informed cynics" ('intellectuals" too selfish to be left-wing) and the rest of the passage was aimed at a fictional ideal dummy. But there are some problems with his argument nevertheless. His fictional dummy or bad guy is "never rationally reconciled to civilization," yet I'm guessing the spirit of this book is itself as odds with the civilization that the author found himself him. His "dummies" are guilty of being too comfortable, which is to say reconciled, though perhaps not articulately. On the other hand, I completely agree that people as a rule identity with race, fatherland, etc., but I'd include communism, critique, etc., as surrogates that also belong on the list. Hork is certainly more sophisticated than the average flag-waving Joe, but he still seems wrapped up in a secular version of religion. This talk of "suppressing and abusing nature" is the give-away. It's more or less anti-human. It's one thing to defend Spaceship Earth as our habitat and life-support system and another thing to personify Nature as a victim. The magical thinking is concentrated there. (I'm more or less neutral on this go-humanity issue. My motive for reacting is largely an aesthetic distaste for the form of his rhetoric, its moves.)
Reply to Wosret There is a lot of truth in what you're saying. I see so much that disgusts me when I look at religion. However, no one is immune from group think, it's all over the place, and if you think being smart or intelligent makes you immune, think again.
I was involved with the Christian community for more than 40 years, and it's only since I've freed myself from that kind of thinking that I'm able to look at it from an outside position. It's really a feeling of freedom and release, it's like my thinking was locked into a prison.
I still think there is something more to us than just what we physically sense, but I try to base what I believe on evidence not the subjective.
has anybody mentioned Romain Rolland's Oceanic Feeling yet? For me, that's as good an attempt as I've seen to capture what spirituality is about....
...from the outside, so to speak. Rather like a metaphor for the feeling of falling in love, by one who hasn't actually done so. Freud elaborated it as follows:
Freud argues that the "oceanic feeling", if it exists, is the preserved "primitive ego-feeling" from infancy. The primitive ego-feeling precedes the creation of the ego and exists up until the mother ceases breastfeeding. Prior to this, the infant is regularly breastfed in response to its crying and has no concept that the breast does not belong to it. Therefore, the infant has no concept of a "self" or, rather, considers the breast to be part of itself. Freud argues that those experiencing an oceanic feeling as an adult are actually experiencing a preserved primitive ego-feeling.
Of course, this is the only way that Freud could interpret it, as he was a strict materialist and hated anything religious. That is the primary reason that Jung broke away from him.
Comments (168)
Basically just any sort of feeling of belonging in the world or serving a higher purpose that is not immediately concrete and accessible but rather overarching and "cosmic", something that permeates everything and anything. That there is some "other" order to the universe that makes it all "make sense", justifies injustices and to which the aesthetic provides access to.
It's the feeling of being almost-at-home, but not quite, as if you're approaching some big discovery and part of the deal is that it's mysterious, and that once you finally arrive it'll all make sense, including why it had to be mysterious in the first place. Most likely this understanding would seem to reside after death, in some other realm or mode of existence, and which the journey to is life.
I'd say it's a deep, primordial desire to belong and see what it "all" is about, how everything hangs together, to comprehend the necessity of every thing that exists and grasp some grand, metaphysical mosaic of meaning. It's natural and inevitable but I think it's also commonly formed from desperation. It's not just a desire but a need, a demand, that the universe be welcoming and recognize the person. Or at least "open up" to their questions.
So basically it's a feeling that one might be finally getting some answers to the questions that have haunted and plagued humanity since it first started philosophizing.
Very well said. That idea of being 'at home in the Universe' is a very important one; a hallmark of a lot of 20th century art was just that sense of the lack of that. Max Weber called it the 'disenchantment of the world', saying that, by contrast, for religious cultures, the world is like a 'great enchanted garden'.
I think one difference between 'spirituality' and 'religion' is that the former is self-directed, questioning, and exploratory, whereas the latter tends towards being about the regulation and direction of such feelings according to collective norms. But they intersect at many points, so it is hard to keep them completely separate.
Quoting darthbarracuda
from Science and the Modern World.
Here's the problem I have with this response.You haven't really clarified anything. When you use the word "spiritual" do you mean "feeling of belonging"? or "serving a higher purpose"? or "almost at home but not quite"(which seems to be a contradiction to "feeling of belonging")? or "a deep, primordial desire to belong and see what it "all" is about"?
With all due respect, it seems to me that you don't really know what you mean, and that the word "spiritual" has become a linguistic placeholder that has the performative function of replacing the word "religious" while escaping some of the connotations that are associated with that word.
Perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps you were trying to offer context, and in doing so obfuscated the meaning of the word. If that is the case, could you give me just your working definition of spirituality. The kind that might be found in a dictionary? You know, just a one or two sentence description, perhaps with a synonym? I can dig deeper if I need clarification from there.
To make much ado about "spirituality" is to construct for oneself an ivory tower, paradoxically, made largely out of thin air, from which to look down upon the others below. At least that's what it seems to me.
I think those of us who are not spiritual (I don't think I am anyway) are sometimes a little too dismissive. I have often asked for clarification on what people mean by spirituality, and I get two types of answer. The first is the that spirituality is an element of religious belief. Literally pertaining to one's spirit or soul. There's no use talking about spirituality with someone who believes in that sort of dualism, if you do not (and I don't), unless it is solely for the purpose of discussing the dualism itself.
The second type of response I get is like darthbarracuda's. It describes spirituality in vague terms, and always includes an appeal to mystery and the unknown. I've never had much luck in getting clarification from this type of response, so I have a few hypotheses as to why:
1) When I let go of my religious faith, I did it in steps. I was first a christian, then a doubting christian, then an agnostic, then a pantheist (I didn't even know what it was called at the time), then "spiritual but not religious", then a weak atheist, and now just an atheist. Each of these steps represented both a change in my thinking about how the universe worked, but I think more importantly, they represented the way I looked at myself, and these changes happen gradually, and on a continuum. When I considered myself "spiritual but not religious", it was not because I wanted to construct an ivory tower, but because I wasn't ready to let go of the part of my identity and worldview that believed in the possibility of magic (which I now realize is an inherently incoherent notion).
or
2) Maybe there is something to it, and no one has been able to explain it well enough for me to grasp their meaning. If it is either complex enough or subtle enough, perhaps I just missed it.
Now it's a little self serving, but I have been pretty good with complex and/or subtle ideas in the past, and my personal experience also lends weight to the first hypothesis, so that's the one I favor, but I keep my mind open to the second, or the possibility that there's another explanation that I haven't considered yet.
Irony is a beautiful thing. The religious are the real physicalists, always tracing things back to personal experience, revalation, feeling, profession and confession, the individual, and in the case of protestantism, the complete denial of any intermediation between the individual the thr divine, the truth.The irreligious are the real immaterialists, believing first hand accounts and introspection the be worthless, the collective over the individual to take precedence (protecting the poor helpless ones from the way eviler way dumber individuals than us enlightened few) that the truth is handed down from on high, and are mouth piece repeaters of shit theyve heard from trusted authorities, that they take on pure faith in the benevolence of the process and judge your intelligence and goodness on how precisely you repeat the same things. Think how worthless flawed and wicked the individual is, and do not dare to compare oneselve with the holy geniuses and arbiters of truth, which were all just born great and predestined to do all that they do.
I laugh... and they cry.
I see the folly of myself, and only through that the folly of mankind. But i guess just insinuating my unbelievable arrogance is a good enough retort.
Your writing style uses the language of certainty on subjects that are usually, and for good reason I think, spoken of in terms of personal opinion or subjective view, or with other forms of linguistic humility. To say that you see the folly of mankind, without any modifiers, like "what seems like folly to me" or "I see X folly in Y element of mankind", implies that you have a vantage not granted to the rest of us, where you see all the folly of mankind unerringly, with perfect fidelity. Why should I believe that you possess such insight? What makes your proclamations distinct from those of a babbling fool?
I don't want to speak for , but I would say that all of the above are the definition that he's describing. The reason the concept might seem vague is because language has limits; human experience is wider than the scope of one single language's ability to describe experience. A concept that eludes a dead, musty dictionary definition is a concept that's more alive than most concepts.
But, if you'd like my (unsolicited) single-sentence definition of spirituality, I'd put it something like this: "the inner life of the outer experience of the world".
? Thats just more calling me an asshole man, and then taking a stand on high as the one being appealed to as if i want something from you. Im just answering the question about spirituality, and then expanding on the ironic implications. What you believe isnt my problem. I enjoyed reading you a lot when i first showed up on the philosophy forum a decade ago. I thought that you were pretty cool shit back then. I even tried to talk to you, but you werent interested, so im more pleased than anything that im getting it now. Youre only like 4 hours from me as well.
Kudos to you for that; it's rare to find atheists around here with that mindset.
If I was calling you an asshole, I'd call you an asshole. I was critiquing your writing, not you.
Quoting Wosret
I actually appreciate that. I remember you from the other forum, but I don't remember having anything to talk about with you specifically. For all I know, I might have had the same impression of your writing style back then, I don't recall. I certainly don't remember thinking badly of you. Like you probably remember, I'm a pretty critical guy, so...
Cool. In Alberta? I've moved around the province, from Ft. Mac to Calgary.
Youre critiquing the way i say things rather than what i said. Saying things with confidence and authority is pretty hot you know? Thats the ideal of how the logos presets itself, and the ladies fucking love it, lol. I highly doubt that im impressing many dudes, but ill bare that horrible burden.
I doubt that you thought much of anything of me if i didnt make much of an impression. Being taken account of is better than being the good one. Im worried about being true to myself and being conscientious, not being agreeable or congenial. Being the most liked is a narcissistic ideal.
Yeah i lived in calgary for a year, then sangudo for a year then leduc for seven months then back to sangudo for two years and now ive just moved to whitecourt because my sister and her kids are out here. I like being close to family, they empower me.
Well, if you react like this...
Quoting Wosret
It's not about being unlikeable. I've recently been called snotty and a bully. It's that what he said deserved a better reply, in my assessment.
What can i say to that? I ought to have sounded less confident and added more couching to avoid being perceived as too arrogant? Im not appealing to him, so i dont give a shit about that.
To the appeal that there's something to describe, outside of what can be described, I can only quote Wittgenstein "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent". If it doesn't have a lexical meaning, then it is literally meaningless. If it is part of a share experience, then we should be able to indicate to each other what it is that we share, put a word like "sprituality" on it, and voila! we have a meaningful word. If, however, it is some private experience for which there is no analogous experience between people, then it isn't something that can be spoken of. Language is necessarily a shared phenomena.
As far as the "dead dictionaries" and "alive concepts", it's a nice bit of poetics, but I don't see how it is actually a reflection of any state of affairs. I'm not asking for a regurgitation of a dictionary definition, I'm asking for a dictionary style of definition. The reason I am doing that is that dictionary definitions are succinct, if not all encompassing. Seeing as though I have literally no clue what spirituality might refer to if not to a dualistic nether-world where our vaporous homunculus reside, I am asking for a definition that at least gives me a succinct and graspable starting point, and at the same time testing if whomever is answering has thought about the subject to the extent that they understand what they are proposing well enough to give such a definition. So far, I have not found that to be the case, but am always open to hearing it.
You could say: "You're right. I was wrong to hastily rush to the judgement that he was just calling me an asshole".
Spirituality cannot be "defined" in the absence of its counterpart (materiality), and the same goes for materiality. There are many kinds of polar concepts like these (freedom:determinism, God:man, world:society, natural:artificial -- just to brush on other themes besides 'religion'). Matter:spirit is just another example.
The only way for a mind to grasp one of these poles is not to try to define it "from the viewpoint [or, vantage point] of the other"; it is rather to envisage the mindset which produced both concepts -- a mindset which experienced something compact out of which the two concepts could be developed and, centuries later, contrasted. It is not a "primitive" mindset -- primordial would be a better word.
They're not wholly separate things. What you say becomes apparent in how you say it. Everything you said in the first post I commented on has a morsel of truth to it, but was all presented as extremes. "The religious are the real physicalists, always tracing things back to personal experience, revalation, feeling, profession and confession" and "he irreligious are the real immaterialists, believing first hand accounts and introspection the be worthless, the collective over the individual to take precedence". In my experience, religious people act in a variety of ways, and look at the world in a variety of ways, as do the irreligious. They are not monolithic, nor are they kind enough to fit squarely into an one or two line description neatly.
If you like irony, then I guess I'm saying that there are two kinds of people in the world, those that think there are two kinds of people in the world, and people like me.
That's brilliant! (Y)
That's the dualist definition I am familiar with and understand clearly. It is the most common use of the term by those who ascribe to a religion. I am asking about what the term means by those who don't necessarily ascribe to, or are unwilling to commit to, that sort of dualism.
Edit: At that point, I can choose to engage in a discussion about the finer points of dualist/monist/functionalist/etc. conceptions of the universe, or I can just accept that in a very real way, I live in a cognitively different world, and wish you all the best.
I was wrong that he was critizing the way i said it and not what i said?
It's a nice quote, but overquoted. It's actually a tautology. But I don't know, maybe that was his point. But I'm not saying that there's something to be described that can't be described; there's something to be described that illudes proper description in the way that rational or analytic philosophy demands. If these rational demands are the demands you place on experience, then the concept of spirituality will illude you, let alone the experience of it.
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
We do have that; I was affirming Barri's descriptions as something I share (that may not have been obvious). That doesn't mean we can define those shared experiences in the same way we define our experience of "when I hit my knee on the table, it hurts".
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
We think of concepts as things (that's a metaphor) that we grasp with our minds (the mind grasping is another metaphor). When we do this, we generally begin with the assumption that concepts are like the objects we grasp with our hands (we don't think this in a literal sense, but in order to think about concepts, we have to think about them as "things", which they are not). But the meanings of words change, which is to say that concepts change. Virutally all words have their beginnings in metaphor; see Owen Barfield's History In English Words and Poetic Diction. When I say words are alive, I'm just using a further metaphor, in the same way we use metaphors to think about anything at all. So, it may be nicely poetic, but so is the entire structure of thought. That's my point about "living" words and "dead" dictionaries. I think it applies when we're trying to pin down an illusive concept like "spirituality". As mentioned, the root of the word is "breath"; another metaphor, or an original likeness?
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
Fine, have you had a look at mine?
Is that what you consider just being an asshole to be? I wouldn't use quite so inflammatory language.
I agree with Reformed Nihilist that they're not wholly separate things in this case. What you said was notable in what it lacked.
Yeah, when im not appealing to caesar humbly enough... and thats supposed to say anyrhing other than "i dont like what your sayin, but i got nothing so youre a bad person"?
Ignore me then. Checking my hehaviour is fun and all...
I'm quite certain I don't come across as humble or open-minded as that, but I nevertheless don't go as far as ruling that out.
Ok; kudos to you too then.
You should be careful who you dish out kudos to. It might go to their head. :D
Bah, as if the kudos of a spiritual-something-a-rather-ist means anything to such a staunch atheist. :P
First, yes, I think that was his point. Maybe not in it's entirety, but encapsulated, I think it was.
Second, do you mean elude, as in evade, or illude, as in trick? Seeing as though you can't trick proper description, I'll assume you mean elude. It might not even be an important distinction.
So why are it that there are all sorts of other concepts, like the concepts of "properties" or "consciousness", slippery concepts, that people can have disagreements about the finer points of, but that can be succinctly defined in one or two sentences satisfactorily? Why would you propose that spirituality would be different? How is that not just special pleading?
Quoting Noble Dust
How do you know that you share the experience? What specifically did he write that made you say "yup, that's the same thing for me"? Explain that to me please. Maybe I also share the experience. The way most people talk about spirituality, it seems as though it is part of the universal human condition, so I don't know what makes me such a dummy about it.
Quoting Noble Dust
I understand how metaphors work, thanks. I'm asking what's so dead about asking for someone to be succinct, and what's so alive about being vague and self-contradictory? That's what I was doing when I asked about a dictionary style definition. So I guess I'm trying to point out that your metaphor wasn't apt. It wasn't relevant to my request.
Nope, must have missed it.
I meant elude, sorry.
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
You continue to ignore the definition I offered in my first response to you. Maybe you missed it? Here it is:
Spirituality: The inner life of the outer experience of the world.
From that first post, I've argued that the definition is elusive, but I then (in that same post) proceeded to offer that definition regardless. You seem to be reading past all of this, or else I wasn't clear enough.
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
Pretty much his whole post, but for instance:
Quoting darthbarracuda
The feeling of "almost-at-home" is an experience that I find myself having a lot, especially when writing music. I experienced it when I used to be a Christian (I have a lot of positive memories of that time as well as the negative). I've experienced it when reading other religious texts and philosophical texts, including atheist ones. I've experienced it in meditation (something I'm horrible at, but even still). I've experienced it in dreams, and, most poignantly of all, in the moments after waking up after a restorative, dreamless sleep. Laugh all you like, or analyze all you like. There's your answer.
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
I didn't assume you didn't; I was explaining why I was placing importance on that idea, particularly with some ideas from Barfield that I assumed you wouldn't be familiar with because most people aren't.
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
If you mean "what's so dead about asking for someone to be succinct, and what's so alive about words having elusive meanings", then I'll answer, but otherwise you're setting up an annoying strawman there.
Sorry, I did miss that.
In what way do you mean "inner" and "outer"? Do you mean to make the distinction between subjective and objective, public and private, or material and immaterial?
Quoting Noble Dust
I was a christian, I meditate, I write music (though not in a while). I dream. I have had pleasant experiences with all of those things, but "almost at home" doesn't describe those experiences in a meaningful way to me. What does being at home feel like in this metaphor? What does being far from home feel like? I would normally describe some of those feelings as feeling like being at home, as they offer comfort, like home does. I might, inversely describe them as feeling like being away from home, as they might take me out of a conscious awareness of myself and my thoughts and feelings (away from home because they are different from my baseline condition, "where I live"). So I'm missing how these things are "almost at home". Perhaps you could try to describe why that metaphor was meaningful to you? Why you think that darthbarracuda was actually talking about the feeling you get when you do those things, and not an entirely different feeling that he/she gets.
Quoting Noble Dust
No strawman intended. I made a specific request for succinctness, and you used a metaphor that characterized what I was asking for as negative ("dead, musty") and what you are now speaking of as elusive as good ("alive"). I'm rejecting that characterization. Succinctness is good, and vagueness is bad when discussing concepts. I will even submit that you might be making an attribution error here. Perhaps it isn't the concept that is vague, but your use of it. Can you actually make the distinction between an elusive concept and a poorly considered one (honest question)? I'm not sure I can tell the difference between my poorly considered concepts and objectively elusive concepts.
I submit that it could be that the term is a functional placeholder for it's religious precursor (of or pertaining to the spirit/soul or spirit world), and allows the user to hold onto elements of a religious worldview (mind/body dualism most obviously, but not exclusively) without making an intellectual commitment to them.
Add on edit: I wonder if it's also a placeholder for a belief in "intentionality magic", which is conceptually tied to religious mind/body dualism, but not one and the same. What I mean by intentionality magic, is the intuition that if we believe something strongly enough, desire it enough, or think/feel about it in the right way, we can cause it to happen. It's a fairly common intuition, and practices like prayer are it's religious manifestation.
It's hard to describe. Haha, sorry, here come some more vague definitions. I'll try to make it as clear as I can. I consider the subject/object distinction to be largely misleading. It has so many connotations, and it's hard to keep track of them. Public/private is, to me, one expression of it, but neither encapsulate my idea. The same goes for material/immaterial. I like inner/outer as the metaphor for the concept because it doesn't say anything about material/immaterial; there's no difference in the philosophical sense (subject/object); and it's not limited to experience (public/private). It also doesn't describe anything in relation to our experience of time (before/after), and it doesn't place things within a hierarchy (under/over). Inner/outer works with words and their changing meanings, as I've mentioned, it works when analyzing the "inner" philosophy that drives the "outer" world of events (politics, technology, science, art). So, inner applies to both individuals, and the human condition in general.
That's the long form version that you probably found frustrating...sorry. The best succinct version for now would be: Inner/outer, subject/object, public/private, are all dualistic expressions of a single reality that exists underneath everyday perception. I still struggle with even that concept though, because I still wrestle with whether I'm a dualist of any sort.
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
Closer to that one reality I mentioned; closer to the truth. Closer to my own inner being, the "inner" seed that exists inside the husk of the disingenuous "outer" me. Closer to everything. All of this is apprehended through intuition, which is a spiritual faculty.
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
I think what you describe as far from home here might be closer to what I mean by closer to home. Or else that's where the metaphor stops working. Being "out of one's self" in the sense of meditation or what have you, is, to me, the same sort of experience that lends itself often to the metaphor of feeling close to home, but that metaphor doesn't actually encompass all instances of the feeling.
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
There is a "private" nature to it as well, yes. One of the most poignant experiences of the feeling of close to home that I've had is a very private recurring vision-like experience I've had. It would be laughable to describe it, because it is a private experience that I doubt others share. Instead, I sneak it into a song whenever I can. But how do I know whether the intuitive feeling of that experience isn't like what others feel? Indeed, the feeling of the experience is the "coming home" feeling, which appears to be something others share, so whether or not the particulars (the vision-like/metaphorical elements of my own particular experience) are the same as for others isn't important. The metaphorical, vision-like elements are what describe the feeling (btw, not emotion) of the experience, and that's the significant part. That's the part we can communicate about, freeing us of having to "remain silent" about it, ala Wittgenstein. Contrary to what Witty says, we can begin by asking each other "hey, have you ever felt or experienced something like this?" One could even, ironically, take it to a scientific extreme and ask every person you can. If you find just one person who says "yes"...then, as far as I'm concerned, we don't have to "remain silent". That may have been a tangent.
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
Ok, but what I'm saying is succinctness often pinpoints concepts into a changeless state within which they don't actually exist. I like succinctness too, but in my view it only has temporal value; you can't pursue succinctness to the point of total, complete accuracy, because once you pinpoint the idea like an insect unto a board, the concept, like the insect, is dead. Now you can examine it and analyze it, but that work will only tell you about how the insect/concept functioned, past tense.
Are you saying my ideas are vague? (honest question). Because I keep using the word "elusive", and you keep using the word "vague".
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
I would suggest that the concept of spirituality isn't vague, but that most if not all attempts to describe it end in vagueness, and I don't have a problem with this. It also doesn't stop me from trying to be less vague when I talk about it. But I place my intuitive experience of this concept above my rational analysis of it, as I do elsewhere.
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
Sure, it's hard to say. I try to think about all of these things as clearly as I'm able, but how do I know there's not an entirely other level of clearer thinking that I haven't yet or will never attain? I don't want to let this stop me from trying to think as clearly as I can about these concepts within my abilities. There's no use letting that possibility lead to inaction here.
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
Ok, can you make an argument about this, then? Maybe you did and I missed it.
Yup. because the statement "a single reality that exists underneath everyday perception" still implies a duality between "the real" and "the perceived". Dualism isn't inherently wrong, but one should consider the logical implications of adopting it.
Quoting Noble Dust
That sounds like mind/body dualism.The idea that your body isn't you (it's a husk), and that the "real" you is some sort of ephemeral being that is pulling all the levers of your meat machine body. The problem is that there is abundant evidence that suggests otherwise, and there are philosophical problems with the idea in itself. For the philosophical problems, if mind and body are distinct and separate, then there's no way to account for the mind having an effect on the body (and if they interact, why do we need the duality, why can't it all be just body?).
From an empirical standpoint, we can prod at the meat machine in such a way as to produce predictable result in terms of perception, intentionality, self-identity and personality. All the things that go into what we consider the "real" us. Turn off one part of the brain, and we don't feel like we're in our body (LSD does that), stimulate another part of the brain and cause laughter or tears. When our brain malfunctions we can loose the ability to have empathy, believe we can see when we're actually blind. We can be tricked into thinking we are not in our bodies, or into remembering things that never occurred.
All of this seems to imply that all of those properties that were once ascribed to an otherworldly spirit are actually properties of a hunk of grey stuff in your skull. So just like the god of the gaps keeps shrinking, the more you know about how the universe works, it seems to me that the ephemeral spirit that runs the show shrinks the more you know about the brain.
Quoting Noble Dust
How about we use present tense and talk about what you mean right now when you're using it? I'd be happy with pinpointing it to that degree. If you really want to change your definition in mid discussion (which would be a weird thing to do), just point it out an give me a new succinct definition. I don't know why there is such a fuss over this.
Quoting Noble Dust
I don't know what your ideas are. I am saying your descriptions are vague. If clarity eludes you, that would account for the vagueness. I'm not even sure what the property of "elusiveness" would mean in regards to a concept, excepting that eludes you, which also means you don't have a firm grasp on it.
Quoting Noble Dust
So all the descriptions people make are vague, but the concept is a clear and well defined one? What makes you arrive at that conclusion? Wouldn't it make more sense to conclude that if no one seems able to speak clearly about a concept, then the concept is ill-defined? If not, by what mechanism is the concept of spirituality immune from clarity, yet everyone believes that they are talking about the exact same thing? Is there also a form of telepathy involved, where you just know what someone is saying regardless of their vagueness?
Or might it be that people are engaging in performative language rituals? I use "spiritual" as a placeholder, and when questioned speak in vagaries, and you also want to hold onto the notion, so you see in it whatever you need to, in order to maintain some aspect of your worldview or sense of self-identity?
Quoting Noble Dust
What is the difference between intuitive experience and just regular experience, and why does it offer more insight than rational analysis? Is there any way to tell the difference between intuition and self-delusion?
Quoting Noble Dust
Inaction isn't my suggestion. My suggestion is to compare your hypothesis with mine, and evaluate them.
Your's is that there is such a thing as spirituality, but something (but you don't know what?) about the nature of that thing prevents it from being clearly described or defined. If I am correct, you seem to be saying that the elusiveness is an actual property of the thing that is spirituality. I think I have that right, but correct me if I'm wrong.
Mine is that where people find concepts difficult to describe clearly or define, in every other case I can think of, the cause for this inability was 1) the speaker in question didn't have a clear grasp on the concept, and in sometimes this is because 2) the concept is intentionally ill defined. We know that as humans, we regularly hold onto ill defined conceptions of things, and those things often only become more clearly defined, or are discarded, when we are pushed to think about them more carefully, either in discussion, or because of some event in one's life that creates a cognitive dissonance that needs to be rectified.
So given those two possible explanations for the events of this discussion, I'm asking you to rationally appraise the merits of each hypothesis. Surely in most cases my first hypothesis is correct, right? Why is this situation different?
I didn't mean mind/body dualism, I mean something more akin to the Hindu idea of the Self (Brahman) being higher than (i'd say inside of) the Ego, or the outer self. I've had experiences of being aware of that distinction. And so it's become one of my beliefs, because of my experience. The physical body is just a further outer husk.
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
Because "just body" doesn't account for the existential reality of our experience; It doesn't account for ethics, morality, and the whole project of conscious human life in general. "Just body" shows how without showing why.
And a counter question, if the two interact, why would it have to be just body in that case? Two things interacting doesn't equate to it really just being one thing (the one you want it to be, it seems). This is why hard either/or dualism fails for me; it's not a question of separate metaphysical realities, it's a problem of generative metaphysical realities; the materialist view you're referencing studies the brain and concludes that matter generates mind, but I find this incoherent because it's inherently hard nihilism. If matter generates mind, then nothing has content; all content is a facade. Not only is religion an ivory tower, but any belief system, including atheism or materialism, is an ivory tower. If this is the case, then debate is useless. If debating is worthwhile, it must have content, and that type of content (metaphysical content I guess I would call it) can't ultimately be a by-product of matter, because then the content has no referent other than itself, which is nihilistic. If senseless matter generated functional mind, and functional mind generated meaningful ideas, how can you say the ideas are actually meaningful? They're just meaningful in relation to each other, which means not at all. That sort of relativism doesn't lead to any agreement; it in fact assumes total nihilism and meaninglessness. Total agreement about nihilistic relativity would mean nothingness.
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
When I use what? Present tense? "Succinct"? You're kind of moving the goal posts here as well; this isn't a response to what you quoted.
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
My definition of what? Where did I do this?...
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
You don't think there are any elusive concepts then? Earlier you referenced
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
Is this also because those people don't have a firm grasp of the concepts, or is it because the concepts are elusive? Or try another word, since you don't seem to like that one: "slippery", as you said yourself. The metaphor of slippery seems to suggest something that's hard to grasp.
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
It's not immune to clarity; I said "most if not all descriptions" as a qualifier; I'm not ruling out the possibility of a clearer description, but I'm acknowledging that there's less clarity about the topic. Clarity about spirituality comes not from discursive definitions, or pinpointing things in a seemingly scientific manner; I think it can come from studying religions, practicing spiritual practices, looking for similarities between them (and differences). It's experiential, and not empirical, which I've been arguing all along.
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
No, my ideas about spirituality are based in experience.
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
Intuition is what injects anything with meaning, including the idea that "self-delusion" would be a bad thing (which you rightly insinuate here). But no, of course a self-deluded person would not know they were self-deluded. You're setting up a tautology that seems to insinuate that I'm self-deluded for having spiritual beliefs. If I were self-deluded about spirituality, I wouldn't know it, just as if you were self-deluded about your lack of belief in spirituality, you wouldn't know it.
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
Elusiveness may be a property of our experience of spirituality; it seems so in general, but I'm not definitively labeling it a property. But it seems to be predictably so. But the sages and teachers of religions claim to have had clear pictures, and their claims gel with the mere glimpses that I've had. It's like watching a great pianist and realizing that that same greatness could be latent in my fingers too; my experience of playing the piano somewhat badly still gives me the glimpse of what it could be like to be the virtuoso. And I fervently believe that if I practiced piano as much as the virtuoso does, I would arrive at that same level. The same applies to spirituality.
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
Again, you find no other concepts are difficult to describe clearly other than spirituality? Really?
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
I already said I don't use rationality to appraise experience, at least not primarily. I don't play by the same rules that you do here. Can you make a case for why I have to play by your rules? Also, as to your explanations:
1) assumes that all concepts can be firmly grasped. I disagree. The development of human thought constantly reevaluates concepts and assumptions; everything from science, to theoretical physics, to diet, to theological problems, to philosophical problems, to art theory. Everything is constantly in a state of change and development. Once a concept is grasped, it seems to change (i.e. my analogy of the insect). So the assumption you make in 1) is wrong; you would need to address that assumption.
2) intentionally ill-defined as in to purposefully obfuscate meaning? Who does that in philosophical discussions? I suppose some people probably do. Are you saying religious people do that in order to hold on to their beliefs?
To some extent it does. No theory perfectly accounts for all phenomena, but an "all body" approach is 100% consistent with all of these phenomena. There's nothing that can't in principle be explained by it. We can account for primate ethics without appealing to a dualistic model.There are dozens, probably hundreds of models of ethics that don't require dualism.
Quoting Noble Dust
I doesn't have to be, but it's less parsimonious. You have to start inventing a mechanism by which the body and mind interact, yet that disallows them from being the same thing. Every layer you add just makes a more complex model that doesn't actually account for any more variables.
It also opens up an infinite regression. If there needs to be a something pulling the levers of our body, then why doesn't there need to be a something to pull it's levers? Why doesn't the self have a deeper self, and so on? Before you answer "maybe it does", I just have to point out that there is a difference between a good explanation and a bad one, and it isn't just based on which one resonates with you. The "it's all selfs, all the way down" is a bad explanation, because it adds infinite variables without adding any explanatory value. Mind body dualism is a bad explanation for the same reason, just to a lesser degree.
On top of that, you have to account for the physical evidence. I'm sure it's possible to come up with a hand waving explanation for any given bit of physical evidence, but again, it's not the most parsimonious explanation. Consider the alternatives again:
Facts: Physically affecting the brain can alter intentionality, personality, perception, self-identity, memory, and even morality and all the things that people historically associated with the soul or spirit in repeatable and predictable ways.
Hypothesis 1: The brain is actually the source of all of these things. The self is a cultural holdover from days when we didn't know what we now do about the brain.
Hypothesis 2: There is an immeasurable "self", that interacts with the body in an unknown way, using an unknown mechanism. To the best evidence, people would behave in exactly the same way wiithout it, but it exists.
Which hypothesis makes more sense? Or what is your hypothesis that accounts for all the evidence but includes mind/body dualism?
Quoting Noble Dust
Ok, can we try a simple definition again, or is this another word that magically can't be defined?
Quoting Noble Dust
I'm not setting up a tautology, I'm asking you if you have any means to discriminate intuitions from self-delusions. I don't. That's why I don't trust intuitions. That's why I turn to structured reasoning (logic), public discourse, and empirical evidence. None of them rely on my intuitions, and if done diligently, they stand a chance to overcome the sorts of natural foibles (biases and fallacies) that I and all other people are subject to committing, and that can lead to wrong (and in some cases harmfully so) answers.
Quoting Noble Dust
So now we're going to have to clarify what clarity means? I'm not asking you how I can get in touch with my spirit, I'm asking you if you can clearly define the word "spirit", as you mean it, when you speak.
If you cannot clearly define it, I am left to assume that either it is your failing or a property of the thing. Either it defies definition, or you don't have a firm grasp on the word you're using. One of these explanations seems more likely to me.
Quoting Noble Dust
Only one's I don't have a firm grasp on. I generally assume that if I can't describe a concept, that's my failing, not a feature of the concept. I'm pretty sure that's true (I haven't gone through every concept I know to test that). Did you have a concept in mind?
Quoting Noble Dust
Ok. So your conjecture is that it's a property of the thing, not a failure of the speaker? Then I go back to my two hypotheses and ask you to consider them.
Quoting Noble Dust
Well, in regards to playing piano, the evidence would suggest that you are incorrect. Do you think it is wise to hold a belief "fervently" that is both contrary to the evidence, and seems to only be based on your feeling that it is the case? Mightn't it make more sense to follow the conclusions that the evidence present us with?
Quoting Noble Dust
So that I can make a distinction between self-delusion/illusion/personal bias/wishful thinnking, and good answers. How do you do that?
Quoting Noble Dust
It doesn't assume that all concepts are fixed or simple, which is what you're actually arguing against by bringing up the fact that concepts change. That's a red herring. It just assumes that it is possible to make a simple and succinct working definition for the purposes of a discussion, which it clearly is in many, if not all cases. This is just getting pedantic now.
Quoting Noble Dust
Closer to the latter, but not just religious people, and "intentionally" might be a little misleading. I don't think someone is saying to themselves "I'm going to use his term in such a way as to hide the meaning, or the fact that there is no meaning". I think that the term evolves in use to serve the purpose of being ill-defined, which serves a psychological need. People do that sort of thing all the time, and often don't realize it. Did you hear how Ivanka Trump responded to suggestions that she was complicit in some of the policy decisions of her father? She clearly didn't have a grasp on what the word "complicit" meant, but for some very specific and probably obvious reasons, she chose to use the word without having a grasp of what it meant. I'm not saying it's the same thing, but the point is, it's not strange for people to treat language as a thing you do, rather than a way to convey meaning.
How does it account for morality?
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
I'll put this here for clarity:
I should clarify that my definition of spirituality is the state of something being spiritual; so my definition of spirit is actually what I initially said as the definition of spirituality. Spirit is the inner life of the outer world of experience. Sorry for the confusion, I'm working through the ideas myself.
So that leads to:
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
I'm not trying to "invent a mechanism", but one idea I've been working on is that spirit generates material. The material world is calcified spirit. Mind (consciousness) is further genesis of spirit within the material of the mind. It's clunky, but it's less clunky than the idea that consciousness is a property of the physical mind (which means consciousness is a physical substance).
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
Why? What does this impartiality achieve for you? What's the goal of empirical impartially?
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
First of all, as I said, I'm not arguing mind/body dualism in the sense you're using it. But,
3) If spirit generates consciousness within the physical mind, then damage of the physical mind leads to impaired consciousness, but it doesn't follow that physical damage reaches to spirit. And yes, there is "mind within mind", in my experience, as I already said. So this is an aspect of that fact. But no, it doesn't go any deeper than that, from my experience. But my experience could be wrong.
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
Lose the patronizing tone and I'll respond.
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
Really? Intuition structures all thought; logic is structured on intuition; creativity is structured on intuition, emotion, even, is structured on it. Intuition is the connective tissue that connects a human faculty to experience. Or, since you like definitions:
Intuition: the underlying human faculty that connects other human faculties to experience.
Intuition is what's leading you to make any arguments at all here. Logic alone, or empirical evidence alone can't explain WHY you, Reformed Nihilist, are making your arguments, and why you think it worthwhile to do so.
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
Wait, the piano reference was an analogy to how I view spirituality; are you critiquing how I view spirituality here, or something else? You seem to be extrapolating on the piano metaphor in order to criticize something else that you think you sense in my arguments. As to there being evidence that being good at something is innate...please, there's new studies constantly that contradict themselves on those things. I can't be bothered with whatever the Daily Mail deemed worth publishing. You, like so many, bow to the orthodox authority of scientific evidence. I do not. One year the universe is a hologram, the next there are infinite universes; one year creativity is innate, the next it's learned; one year coconut oil is healthy, the next it's not. I refuse to be dragged this way and that by constant studies that not even scientists themselves can fully keep abreast of, let alone someone like myself who has tons of other interests.
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
How do you know which answers are good?
I know through intuition.
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
Nope; a firm grasp of a concept would no longer be firm once the concept changes.
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
It is getting pedantic, yes, but I gave my definition for spirituality ages ago. What's the problem? What other words do you want me to make up my own dictionary definitions for?
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
I largely agree with your last paragraph here. I also tried to condense my response this time because we're talking about so many things, but I didn't quite pull it off..
Through the application of reasoning and evidence.
Quoting Noble Dust
If you rely on intuition above rationality, as you claim, then you are, by definition, being irrational. You are free to be irrational, but I cannot have a rational discussion with someone who is proudly irrational. I came here for a rational discussion. Perhaps someone else can have an intuitive discussion with you.
I came here for a discussion of spirituality. If you come to a discussion of spirituality armed only with rationality, then of course your own prophecies about it will be fulfilled, and you won't be able to debate about it in more than one way.
Interesting, looks like I need to do some more reading.
Quoting Wayfarer
Yes, I was trying to get at that in response to , but maybe I didn't frame it quite so succinctly. The history of rationality in general is something I'm interested in studying more.
That quote is about the net sum of my knowledge of Peirce, although I find his writing generally congenial to my outlook.
Read the blog post, looks interesting. I wonder how an analysis of how those problems have developed up until the present would fair, vs. this analysis from 1947. Has anything changed or developed, positively or negatively, since then?
“Although most people never overcome the habit of berating the world for their difficulties, those who are too weak to make a stand against reality have no choice but to obliterate themselves by identifying with it. They are never rationally reconciled to civilization. Instead, they bow to it, secretly accepting the identity of reason and domination, of civilization and the ideal, however much they may shrug their shoulders. Well-informed cynicism is only another mode of conformity. These people willingly embrace or force themselves to accept the rule of the stronger as the eternal norm. Their whole life is a continuous effort to suppress and abase nature, inwardly or outwardly, and to identify themselves with its more powerful surrogates—the race, fatherland, leader, cliques, and tradition. For them, all these words mean the same thing—the irresistible reality that must be honored and obeyed. However, their own natural impulses, those antagonistic to the various demands of civilization, lead a devious undercover life within them.”
? Max Horkheimer, Eclipse of Reason
I don't think much has changed, because I don't think many people are aware of the problem that he's trying to articulate. I find this passage pretty compelling:
Horkheimer, Eclipse of Reason, pp. 123-127.
This can be related to a form of argument known as the 'argument from reason', with which I am entirely in sympathy. Usually it is deployed in apologetics, but I don't think it needs to be. Compare the above passage from something I often quote on the Forum, Leon Wieseltier's review of Daniel Dennett's book on trying to explain religion in terms of Darwinian theory.
I think a great deal of 'biologism', which thoroughly infects a lot of current thinking, does this all the time. In assuming that reason can be explained as a biological adaption it thoroughly undermines the sovereignty of reason - it 'explains' it, as on par with a peacock's tail.
(This is also the subject of a trenchant essay by Thomas Nagel, in his book The Last Word, called Evolutionary Naturalism and the Fear of Religion, which is a must read, in my view.)
The last point about Horkheimer, though, is that he wrote Eclipse of Reason in post-war Germany, in an attempt to account for the monstrosity of Nazism. He saw the submission to authoritarianism as one of the symptoms of the 'eclipse'.
I felt your answer, db, was very powerful. It's worth noticing that you found it right to say 'feeling' several times, and 'desire'. I'm an atheist who just accepts the notion of spiritual feelings and spiritual thoughts, although I suspect that to separate 'feelings' and 'thoughts' is inappropriate.
The parallel for me is with art that profoundly moves me. In another thread NobleDust speaks of this as 'divine', and while I don't use that language I feel we're on common ground. To respond, say, to Shostakovich's later symphonies or certain poems or Guernica or the dark musical 'Carousel' - all obviously personal examples - is to experience a marvellous mixture of the aesthetic, the rational and the emotional.
The critique of spirituality rarely touches on 'feelings' or 'emotions'. For me this realm of emotions underlies everything, even rationality: a rational argument is only as good as its premisses, which are at bottom emotional. Mood is the way we are in the world.
I think one needs to be wary of quoting Wittgenstein as if he might agree with an anti-spiritual stance. He was very interested in religion although a non-believer. He wrote of ethics as 'Supernatural', and he didn't mean by this to write it off, but rather to say that as with aesthetics, which he bracketed with ethics, something other than 'natural' criteria apply.
I wouldn't be sure about that at all.
From Wittgenstein,Tolstoy and the Folly of Logical Positivism, Stuart Greenstreet.
Why did you delete the rest of our quips in this exchange when you split this thread? It looks like you made it sound as if I was complimenting your atheism and leaving it basically at that, without the finer (and funnier) shades we both insinuated in the parts you deleted. What gives?
A baseline of commonality is required for useful discussion, and we do not share that baseline, if your claims are genuine. If you genuinely believe that your intuition, your feeling that you are correct, is sufficient grounds to believe that you are correct, and that it requires no further justification by use of reason or appeals to evidence, then I don't know how to, or why I would want to have a discussion with you.
I'd invite you to imagine in you're mind's eye for a moment, what the world would look like if everyone adopted this approach to knowing things. 1+1=5 because I intuit that it does. Your money is actually my money because my intuition tells me so. Do you really want to use those ground rules for interacting with people (rhetorical question, don't bother answering)?
Nowhere here did I equate these.
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
This is a charicature of what I said. I'd invite you to re-read what I said if you want to comment on it.
You haven't addressed what I said about your appeal to rationality: Coming to a discussion about spirituality armed only with rationality creates a self-fulfilling prophecy for you; you already know that spirituality won't avail itself to your rationality.
I don't know, at this point I see that basically as a combination of (a) a side-effect of us having evolved in a way that required us to use our intelligence to survive (so there's a "figuring stuff out" drive in us) and (b) combatting boredom.
I'm not sure what you mean when you say that a premise is emotional. I suspect that this is a false dichotomy between reason and emotion. Reason is a thing we do. Emotion is a way we are.
Quoting mcdoodle
My quote of Wittgenstein wasn't to present his thoughts or feelings about the supernatural or spiritual specifically, but about the limits of linguistic reasoning. My thought wasn't that "Wittgenstein is a famous philosopher, so we should follow everything he said", but rather "I agree with the specific idea he had, and it seems relevant to the discussion, and rather than trying to wholesale import his work on the matter, I'll use this pithy quote that nicely sums up the point".
That's what the word means in English.
Edit: Are you proposing that you know that you're correct by the sort of intuition that Kant proposed? He was speaking about how we apprehend objects.
[quote=Kant]In whatever way and through whatever means a cognition may related to objects, that through which it relates immediately to them, and at which all thought as a means is directed as an end, is intuition.[/quote]
Sorry. I deleted them on the basis that they were a continuation of a casual digression amidst a serious discussion that didn't need to be here and could be done away with. Now you're making me somewhat regret that decision. Maybe I should have left them, but what's done is done. :-|
We can still cherish the memory, at least.
Similar to that, but in relation to things like meaning, morality, and the underlying principles of why we bother to have discussions, in place of "objects" in what Kant says here.
Alright no worries, I was just re-reading through the thread and was confused by that.
So you are making up a meaning for the word (at odds with the common english meaning), based on a conception of the world that others don't share with you, using the word in that sense, never mentioning that you are using the word unconventionally, and use it as evidence for your conception of the world? Do you not see a problem there? I could as easily say "when I use the word spirituality, I meant "nonsense", so clearly it is nonsense. I win the argument. Yay me!
Do you actually want to address my ideas? I don't respond well to being made fun of.
No, this was my definition of intuition in this argument:
Quoting Noble Dust
In regards to Kant, I said my idea was similar, which it is. Your quote of Kant wasn't my definition. You continue to obfuscate what I mean by intuition, whether through misreading, assumptions about me, or I don't know what.
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
Give me a break. Philosophy is a process of having ideas, and giving them shape, by way of words. Kant gave a definition to intuition in your quote. Other philosophers give other definitions. I give mine.
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
lol
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
Again, you missed my initial definition, clearly.
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
The problem here is your gross misreading and charicature of what I'm saying.
You're telling me what intuition does, and where it fits in your conception of the world. You're not telling me what it is. I'm sorry, but I really don't know how to deal with this without sounding condescending. A definition is a quick list of the properties that distinguish the meaning of a word from other words. Let me show you:
Apple: It nourishes us. It was Eve's folly. It is both the genus and product of the orchard. Apples taste good.
Apple: The round fruit of a tree of the rose family, which typically has thin red or green skin and crisp flesh.
Do you see the difference?
Quoting Noble Dust
Quoting Noble Dust
I think you're giving yourself too much credit here. Kant wasn't just spitballing his metaphysics. He developed a complete, succinct, and clearly defined, and well reasoned model of metaphysics that displayed intellectual rigour and care for clarity and precision. His notion of intuition was part of that entire model. He wasn't just defining things for shits and giggles.
Quoting Noble Dust
Perhaps, or perhaps I am not misreading, you are misspeaking. Both valid hypotheses. The problem might be that I "don't get it", but it might also be that there is nothing to get. I've been willing to consider two hypotheses on pretty much any subject. Are you willing to? Are you willing to even consider that you don't actually have a theory, or real ideas, but rather wordplay that feels to you like ideas?
Which tells you more about the apple?
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
Maybe I am. I'm developing my own system of thought, and the role of intuition is part of my ideas. It's an incomplete system. Part of the process for me is spitballing on this forum; it sharpens my ideas, challenges them, and brings more clarity. I began this discussion with you in relation to spirituality, and intuition came up when we reached the impasse that you were insisting that I use rationality as you were doing, with relation to spirituality, which I refused to do. I then proceeded to challenge you as to why rationality should be the tool we use here, which you never addressed, and instead insisted on focusing on what I mean by intuition, and here we are. This whole thing is very tiring, partially because I'm very sleep-deprived.
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
Why would anyone be willing to consider such an insult?
Try this, in regards to intuition:
Why do you consider having two hypotheses valuable? Why do you consider Kant's well reasoned models as admirable? Why do you consider a dictionary definition of a word valuable, and presumably assume it to be more valuable than a descriptive definition? Why do you assume that it's worthwhile to talk about spirituality despite your lack of belief in it? Why do you consider it worthwhile to try to point out, not only the holes in my argument, but your belief that I have no argument at all? Why do you consider honest responses to be important within discussion? Why do you think it's important to consider the logical implications of dualism before adopting it? Why do you consider empirical standpoints as being important to take? Why do you think making a distinction between self-delusion and good answers is important?
I don't want to know more about apples (at least not yet), I want to know what you mean when you say "apple". For crying out loud, that's why I'm asking for a definition!
Quoting Noble Dust
Because I'm not interested in litigating the importance or rationality in rational discourse, so instead I am saying that if you would like to engage in rational discourse, it requires that you use rationality. To do otherwise is literally irrational, and I have no interest in engaging irrationality.
Quoting Noble Dust
What insult? Everyone can mistake their own bullshit for a real idea, why not you?
Quoting Noble Dust
Again, not interested in litigating rationality. Just in engaging it.
Quoting Noble Dust
Because of the context. I don't know what you're talking about and I want to, so I need you to clearly and succinctly convey the meaning of the word, so that I can distinguish what you mean from 1) the conventional meaning and 2) any random meaning that might also fit your description. Do I really have to explain how communicating works, because that's all it is.
Quoting Noble Dust
We don't have to litigate every possible factor relating to having a belief or a discussion in order to have a discussion. Do you need to discuss the nature of coffee and the nature of wanting, and the nature of commerce with the barista when you order a cup of coffee? Of course not. As reasonable humans who actually want to have discussions, we assume that the other person holds conventional beliefs, unless we have specific reasons to believe otherwise. We don't litigate why rationality is good anymore than we litigate why goodness is good, or litigate that when I am using words, I mean them in the conventional english sense, not in an alternate or made up language. Unless it is the specific subject of the discussion, we just assume it. That is the social protocol of having a discussion. So I will say this one more time: If you don't want to have a rational discussion, you'll have to live with the fact that you're being irrational. I believe, for reasons that I don't feel like litigating here, that the best thing to do with an irrational interlocutor, if a quick appeal to the value of rationality doesn't work, is to dismiss them.
You missed my point; everything I quoted of you in that last paragraph are examples of intuitions of yours. Your intuitions are what drive your rationality. So if you're not interested in litigating that rationality, then I'm done here. That was a part of my argument early on.
And I'll leave you with this: If you're unwilling to examine the very modes of thinking by which you make arguments, are those arguments worth making?
A conceptual polarity is not an indication of ontological dualism. On the contrary, a polarity pretty much eliminates the possibility of dualism (e.g., there is no "dualism" between North and South -- these are not two different and incommunicable substances).
I was explaining how spirituality is incomprehensible if the student does not explore a time (historical or psychological, both avenues are fruitful) in which spirituality and materiality were merged in a single, unnamed concept -- before the inquirer even knew what a concept is. It is only by exploring that country that one gets a firm grasp (by contrast) on what is spirituality and what is materiality.
North and south are poles of geographical direction, and conceptually cannot exist separate from each other. The notion of south is meaningless outside of the notion of cardinal directions, which by necessity includes other directions for south to be related to. It's the same way "up" or "more" work. They only make sense in contradiction to their opposite. The body, or matter, can clearly exist without spirit (we call that a corpse, or an object) and we can also conceive of the spirit existing without the body (Life's a dream, brain in vat, matrix, evil demon). The notion of polarity just isn't consistent with our conception of the body and the mind.
I have never experienced matter without spirit, and neither have you. I have never experienced spirit without matter, and neither have you. What we can 'conceive of' is fairly irrelevant to the problem at hand -- that of understanding what is spirituality and materiality. The fact is that both spirit and matter are conjoined in our experience. And it is from that fact that we must proceed in order to apprehend what spirituality (and materiality) means.
It is for that reason that I'm talking about a polarity rather than an opposition.
Spirituality and materiality are concepts. Polarity is a conceptual framework that you proposed to fit these concepts into. I pointed out that they don't actually fit coherently into the framework you suggested, and gave you a reason why.
Quoting Mariner
How is that a fact? I think you mean that is your premise. That means that you're just begging the question. You are essentially saying that the spirit exists, therefore the spirit exists. Until I hear some reason to buy into your premise, I'll have to disagree, unless you have an approach that includes starting from some shared point of agreement and reasoning outward from there.
But you were wrong.
When a pair of polarized concepts (north:south, natural:artificial, spirit:matter, etc.) is developed out of our still-compact experience (of spatial coordinates, of objects-for-use, of the constituents of reality, etc.), it is impossible to understand them, as a pair of concepts, without grasping the subjacent experience (space, instrumentality, substance, etc). To deal with them as "concepts" detached from the subjacent experience is to confuse the symbol with the symbolized.
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
By being a fact. By happening. By being how things are. Etc.
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
No, I meant that it is a fact. Premises are used in reasoning. I'm not proposing an argument. I'm explaining to you how the concept of spirituality (and materiality) is derived from the universal human experience. No reasoning involved. The activity being explored here is that of symbolization. Matter and spirit are symbols. They become "concepts" when they are detached from experience, and this is a sure recipe for (at least) confusion and possibly serious errors.
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
No, I'm essentially saying that spirit and matter are mixed in our (quite-ordinary) experience, before we ever worry about concepts.
Just as our temporal persistence is present in our experience, our sensations are present in our experience, our fellow human beings are present in our experience, etc. Some -- actually, most -- of these experiences are developed into polarized symbols, some aren't. No one supposes that claiming those X's "exist" is tautologous. There is litte reason to single out spirit (or matter) and to explore these as "concepts" rather than aspects of our experience;
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
That's exactly what I'm offering. The shared point of agreement is the universal human experience (including your own). But we must beware of calling this activity "a reasoning", because if we do that, then we will be begging the question. Reasoning-as-an-activity is construed as purely mental (or, spiritual; this would be the word chosen by 17th century thinkers, and the evolution of language since then, not coincidentally, is an important piece of data for grasping the whole picture); if we try to do this by "reasoning", we'll be discarding an important aspect of the experience.
***
Observe that all of what I'm saying is equally applicable to the problem of understanding "materiality". If one thinks that materiality is simpler or more easily understood than spirituality (so much so that this thread is called Spirituality instead of Spirituality:Materiality), he is most likely being deluded by the "commonsense assumptions" of his time. A visit to the nearest quantum mechanics lab would do him well.
Yes, though it is also important that these experiences are human. It is important for our communication, but not for the exploration of matter:spirit; alien experiences, bat experiences, etc., would be equally open to that exploration.
Any experience, in effect, involves an experiencer and an experienced. And these are the seeds of spirit:matter.
How would one name the experiencer? How would one name the experienced? These are the questions to be addressed now. These questions are historical in nature. History can be of two kinds: personal (psychological) or social (i.e. cultural). Both processes exhibit the same structure, and so either one is sufficient to clarify the subject. What is needed now is the study of how (a) a baby learns how to develop the notions of experiencer/experienced (and what are the names given), or (b) the etymology of the words matter:spirit.
Note that this approach is prior to any questions regarding argumentation or reasoning. We are trying to understand the origin of the symbols being used, and to trace those symbols to the underlying experience.
Thanks for this very interesting quote, Wayfarer. It isn't how his biographer Monk (sic) reads his view of religion. But certainly Wittgenstein was profoundly changed by his experiences in the trenches, which divided him from a Russellian view, and part of that was a greatly-enhanced sympathy for the religious point of view, thanks to Tolstoy. Certainly later on he avowed on many occasions that he couldn't find Christian belief in him, although he had great sympathy with it. Anyway, the general point stands: Wittgenstein's quote about not speaking about certain matters wasn't out of Russellian disbelief, but out of a view that a different kind of discourse was required to the approach he took to philosophy.
Well, the dichotomy is in the language and is present in much philosophising, including yours. I believe we are constantly both reasoning and emoting and that yours is as false a dichotomy, between being and doing, as whatever you thought mine was. Certainly analytic philosophy, for instance, largely avoids the use of emotive terms, and has only in the last 20 years or so come to treat emotion seriously, e.g. through the late peter Goldie.
The general feeling I have is that many critiques of 'spirituality', including yours, fail to account for spiritual feelings and emotions. What is it that the religious are feeling when they describe profound emotions? The Dawkins/Dennett approach is largely to ignore that aspect of things, and to treat religions as if they were pseudo-sciences, with all the emotion distilled into propositions. I should like to begin with mutual respect, between atheist and believer, and such mutual respect seems to me to involve accepting that 'spiritual experience' happens, feels profound to the person it happens to, combines deep thought with deep feeling, and as such has considerable standing in one's evaluation of how things are, how the world is. Even if you're an atheist like me!
I completely agree. You know when he was in Vienna in 1926 or so Feigl tried to introduce Witt to the rest of the Vienna school, thinking they'd get along famously - but they didn't and Feigl for one rapidly understood that Witt's thinking (which was anyway already shifting by then) was a long way out of kilter with the positivists. (Sorry if I've told you this story already!)
Being and doing aren't a dichotomy, they're just two different things. That's exactly my point, and exactly why reason and emotion are also not dichotomies. You seem to also agree when you say "I believe we are constantly both reasoning and emoting". We clearly are doing both simultaneously, all the time, or at least nearly all the time.
Quoting mcdoodle
I'm not sure that I have to account for emotions. Emotions are already accounted for. We have hormones and a brain and they interact in such a way as to produce different emotions.
Unless you are saying that inter-personally, I should be more sensitive to the feelings of those who hold a different view then mine, in which case...
Quoting mcdoodle
I'm sorry, but I feel like you've just mixed a huge pile of different things together here. The first thing is that Dawkins, Dennett, and I are three separate people, who share some beliefs about religion, but not every belief. The three of us also share vastly different interpersonal approaches (it may not feel that way to you, but I promise it is true). That is the way of the world. There are some people that are loud, over-step social boundaries, are brash. There are people who are measured and careful, and there are all sorts of people in the middle. There are also people who will mince words and not say what they truly believe for fear of hurting someone's feeling (I'm not that type of person). It takes all kinds of people to make the world go around, including the brash loudmouths. Can you see some benefit for being tolerant to people's different styles, ignoring them as much as possible, to engage in their actual arguments?
The other thing that I think needs to be addressed is the notion that people who argue against spiritualism think that they fail in "accepting that 'spiritual experience' happens, feels profound to the person it happens to, combines deep thought with deep feeling, and as such has considerable standing in one's evaluation of how things are, how the world is.". I'm sorry, but this is just factually wrong. Everyone I know, or at least anyone that is taken the least bit seriously in the world, that argues against spiritualism, publicly and repeatedly acknowledges that people have experiences which they believe to be spiritual, and that are very emotionally moving. Of course people do. Everybody knows that. It doesn't change the fact that to many of us, we believe that those experiences that people have can actually be best described in terms of material causes.
Well, then you need to continue your dialogue with Mariner, for it's not clear to me that it's any *better* to describe how I feel when listening to Shostakovich or feeling a sense of oneness with the universe 'in terms of material causes'. I talk about artistic feelings in artistic terms usually, political matters in political terms, and and spiritual matters in sometimes spiritual terms and language. What your claim to 'best description' seems to involve is a rejection of the very possibility of 'spiritual terms and language', i.e. I am welcome speak on your terms, about science and stuff, but you won't speak on my terms, because you claim your terms encompass my terms. Pomos would talk about 'discourse' here and I think that's a useful term.
For myself, I can imagine there might be some sort of sociology-biology-chemistry-physics chain of explanations that could in an imaginary future universe show me the 'material causes' of my saying, say, 'I believe there are more things in heaven and hearth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' But it's a long way off, and involves a leap of faith in the scientific enterprise. It isn't here now, revealed in the fmri scans of 23 Columbia Uni students to be the basis of thought.
I disagree about emotions, incidentally, and I think that's a contributory factor here: I take emotions more seriously, as cognitive factors, than I think you do. Emotions are, under one sort of description, judgments about the world, and it's useful to talk of them in that way as well as in terms of hormones and a brain. When you argue for 'material causes' you seem to me to make a commitment to the rightness of a certain kind of scientising enterprise, and that commitment is as emotionally-based as any reasoned 'spiritual' commitment.
That's a very fair answer, but I think it ignores that the term "spiritual" has cultural and historical baggage, and unspoken assumptions associated with it, that don't reflect a growing group's way of thinking, so it ends up being non-representative and exclusive. It's funny. I was just (10 minutes ago) speaking with a person I know on social media about traditional gender norms, and how they relate to people with non-traditional sexuality or gender identity. I, in trying to talk about this relationship, mentioned that people I knew (it's been 20 years since I had gay friends that I regularly hung out with) identified as "the wife" and "the husband". I was informed that to suggest those sorts of roles (in that manner) to a gay couple today would likely earn me a black eye. That's because there is baggage (emotional and intellectual) associated with that sort of language. To a straight guy, there's no reason for me to consider that baggage, just as to someone who doesn't reject the metaphysical idea of immaterialism, and what it implies epistemologicaly, doesn't have reason to reject the language of spiritualism. I think the value of this sort of dialogue is to examine the way we speak as a culture and society, and if there is value in doing so, change the way we speak about these things.
Quoting mcdoodle
I'm not familiar which study you are referencing, but I'm not sure what sort of standard would have to be met to determine that virtually all of the things we have traditionally associated with a soul or spirit are actually physical/biological. I mean we don't understand the brain perfectly, nor are we ever likely too, but that doesn't mean we don't know anything. We also don't understand the universe perfectly, but we can reasonably claim some knowledge, and ideas that were previously widely accepted, we can dismiss (geocentrism, Luminiferous aether, etc). I think we can say without any scientific controversy that personality, emotions, identity (and it's locality inside or outside your body) and everything else we would identify as "cognative" are a result of brain processes. Is it theoretically possible that there is a "something else" involved? Sure, there's nothing that makes that logically incoherent. There's also no good reason to assume that there is such a thing. Or at least none that I'm aware of.
Quoting mcdoodle
Who says I don't take emotions seriously? I'm just saying that we have a pretty good handle on the biology of emotions. Better than we do on the biology of thought. Raise epinephrine levels and you'll get anxiety, testosterone; aggression, oxytocin; caring. Those are a little bit oversimple (for the sake of discussion), but there is an undisputed causal relationship between hormones and emotions.
In regards to "scientising", I think a quote from Steven Novella encapsulates my thoughts on the matter:
Lastly, to say that "emotions are judgements of the world", as far as I can tell, is twisting language to a breaking point. The common use of the term "judgement" is "an opinion or conclusion". You have a considered opinion (a judgement), or after thinking about something, you come to a conclusion (make a judgement), so it makes sense to associate judgement with thought. This is different than a "reaction or predisposition", which makes sense to associate with emotions/feelings. When you have a reaction to something (you feel X way about it), or you are emotionally predisposed toward different experiences (you have feelings about a subject). Don't you think this is a more common way of using these words? I'm glad to talk about emotions in terms of reactions or predispositions, but you'll have to give me some context, a question that requires an answer, or a problem that requires a solution, whereby that's a relevant thing to talk about. If I talk about spirituality as a predisposition or reaction to an experience, then I am accused of dismissing it. I do think that with what many people think of as spiritual experiences, they are emotionally affected in such a way that causes a reaction and a predisposition toward gravitating toward whatever their cultural version of religious mythology is (or other mythology they are exposed to, like ghosts, UFOs, generic godheads, or "something greater than myself").
I'm glad to talk about emotion, or whatever you think is relevant. Normally, I'd expect you to actually propose what you think about what emotion (or whatever else) has to do with the subject though, before you accuse me of ignoring it or making light of it. I'm only talking about what seems relevant given what is presented to me by whoever is talking to me.
Edit: I'm going to state this explicitly, even though I alluded to it in the last post. You responses seem to be based on a pre-defined characterization of what you think an "angry atheist" or "evangelical atheist" looks like, and you seem to be offering critiques of that characterization. I am an empathetic, creative, caring person, who is interested in the truth. I do also sometimes come on strongly, but I'm no Richard Dawkins, and I'm 100% not what the average person who dislikes Dawkins thinks he is. I have come from a place where I thought about things lazily, and over the years, sometimes because of the rough treatment of people who had a more rigorous approach, my thinking became more rigorous (if anyone remembers Gassendi1 from the other forum, I thought he was a dickhead, but he pushed me to think more carefully. I heard he passed away a few years ago, and I'm sorry he never knew the benefit I got from him being so critical).
Well, that's not what I meant, but for the sake of argument, I'll play along for now.
BTW, I missed your post because you didn't mention me. Just as a bit of pragmatic housecleaning, would you mind making sure I get tagged in any response you make to me?
Quoting Mariner
I assume that is meant to be a practical distinction, not a logically necessary one? If the latter, you'll have to explain how you come to that conclusion. If the former, I'm fine with seeing were this goes.
Quoting Mariner
Why specifically those things? Are there no other possible considerations, or are those just the one's you judge to be important? What criteria are you using to choose those questions over others?
Quoting Mariner
If you aren't presenting your reasoning to me, then what are you doing, and (honest question) why should I care?
I'm sorry any reply is short, I am busy for a few days. It is hard to know one another just through forums like this, and one takes shortcuts based on stereotypes. So, pardon me for doing this with you :)
What we judge of each other also comes up in your remarks about the right naming of gendery topics. I live near the lesbian capital of northern England and there's quite a variety of labels in use there, including women ironically referring to each other as the husband and the wife. I just avoid any controversy. An odd thing that happens with campaigning people is that they tend to over- generalise from their point of view. Dammit, they know what it is to Purple, they've been on a journey to be Purple, so what right has a straight like you to call Purples whatever you want?
I suppose that's what I also think happens to atheists. You must be a Dawkins/Dennett of some kind, sort of thing.
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
This seems to be an area worth exploring. I would tend to say 'bodily' rather than 'brain', I would worry about 'result', - but I would also say that this whole section is a 'scientific' way of speaking that slips into assuming it can represent other ways of speaking, that it can speak for us all in all contexts.
It's still much more useful, for example, to talk about 'personality, emotions and identity' in terms that aren't *reducible* to brain processes. So to argue that they are 'the result' of brain processes troubles the Humean in me: how has this been demonstrated? The models are primitive. 130 years since William James and the present-day psychological work on emotions, for instance, is amazingly primitive and lacking a secure philosophical basis, or so it seemed to me earlier this year when I was reading up about emotion.
Sorry I didn't get to spirituality and I'm out of time for now.
Well, you should care because philosophers care to know about stuff they don't know, particularly when it is stuff that encompasses the entirety of reality, and even more when they are asking about it.
What I am presenting to you is a way to understand what spirituality is, by retracing its origins, historical and psychological -- I'm presenting two congruent ways because this reinforces the truth of what I'm presenting, and because you may be more inclined to pursue one of them. What I am presenting is not a reasoning, it is an exercise.
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
Spiritual experiences are best described in terms of material causes;
Material experiences are best described in terms of spiritual causes;
Spiritual experiences are best described in terms of spiritual causes;
Material experiences are best described in terms of material causes.
These four options are wrong. The way out of this is to recognize (by the study of etymology or psychology) that spirit and matter are derived concepts, and to look for the primitive concepts out of which they arose.
But I said that already :D.
As distinct from non pseudo religious? It does not seem like a good place to start; it looks as though you want to translate spiritual into material, which is why I suspect, @Mariner wants to look at the distinction rather than try and 'correct' your translation.
Espirit de corps: a feeling of pride and mutual loyalty shared by the members of a group. We know that there is a real thing, because armies concern themselves with it, and they are eminently practical. So we might say, as materialists, that it is located in the brains of group members. Because we don't believe in psychic woo, we deny that feelings are literally shared, but allow that they can be 'aligned'. And because the group is always interacting, this general alignment influences each member towards the general alignment, even as their various individual experiences influence them away from it.
Spirit: anything over 40% proof. Providing proverbial courage to the Dutch. ;)
Spiritual: pertaining to the general condition of the experiencer. One might want to say that this is understood to be the condition of the brain, but as long as there is no way to read the condition of a brain in the relevant aspects, and even thereafter, it seems perfectly meaningful to talk about spiritual practices, designed to lift the spirits, for example. Perhaps you want to claim that everything spiritual arises from the material as emergent or epiphenomenal, and perhaps you find that a lot of psychic woo (mis)uses the term (these are not the same). Still it is possible to make some sense of another who might think otherwise, that spirit as the condition of the experiencer has an immaterial aspect that might outlast the material being, even if you think them mistaken.
Well, nothing can be understood perfectly, and in terms of what is the best way to describe something, there is room to frame things broadly or at a very fine grain, depending on context. Having said that, using terminology like "spirutuality" has connotations, and historically those connotations include a "something else" that is not just different than the body, but different from everything we know, and the reason we even seem to have this conception is that we never used to know just how much the brain/body did in terms of our perceptions and sense of self. Have a look at some of the links in my earlier discussion in this thread, if you haven't. It is very compelling stuff regarding the brain being the source of stuff that used to cause philosophers of the mind all kinds of problems. We know more about these things than I think most people who don't follow the neuroscience realize.
I guess I'm concerned that if I'm required to commit to a metaphysical model before I can even understand what is meant by the use of a word, and we can't even used philosophical shorthand to indicate the philosophical underpinnings. Is that correct? Is this something that doesn't already exist in the broader philosophical cannon? I might already know it, or could read up without having to take every small step with you. If it does, give me the origin, and we can save some possible confusion.
I believe there is no factual refferent for what spiritual is historically used to speak about. That doesn't mean I'm trying to translate spiritual into material, any more than I would be translating a unicorn into a horse by saying there are no unicorns. I also believe that there is a more recent common use that is usually ill defined, sometimes incoherent, and could often be substituted for "psuedo-religious" without loosing meaning. I am open to hearing what other meanings might exist, that don't fit into these paradigms.
Quoting unenlightened
Would that make it synonymous with "subjective"? If so, why not just use that word, which is laden with much less metaphysical baggage? Also, what would make a spiritual experience distinct from a garden variety experience?
Edit: That definition also doesn't account for the way the word gets used. By this formulation, "I listened to a Beethoven sonata, and it was a spiritual experience" is roughly equivalent to "I had a piece of cold left-over pizza, and it was a spiritual experience", and there's not much meaningful difference between just saying you listened to the sonata or ate the pizza. Isn't the word usually making a claim about the sorce or nature of the experience? That it's special and district from normal experiences in some way?
I know that if I am calling an experience spiritual, I am saying that it is as emotionally moving as a religious experience that portents to contact the experienced with the divine. I am also no doubt using hyperbole. Exactly the same way as I would use the word "divine" to describe the tiramisu at the restaurant down the street. I'm co-opting the historical meanings, but being (I hope) transparent about being metaphorical. That makes "pseudo-religous" a pretty accurate description of the use as far as I can tell. I just suspect that some people use the word without considering if they are using it historically or metaphorically, so they just use it and if they don't run into any cognitive walls, they don't ever bother to make the distinction, or they figure it's a third thing, but never take the time to figure what that thing is.
It would make sense to talk about subjective experience, if there was objective experience. But there isn't. So it is not at all synonymous. Garden variety experiences do not affect the experiencer; if you have a piece of cold left-over pizza, and it is a life-changing experience, then I would call it spiritual. Obviously, there is no absolute delineation that separates ordinary experience from spiritual, but one can say, perhaps that everyday experience accumulates as habit whereas spiritual experience disrupts.
I think this fits with the way people use the term, though it is over-used by some. A piece of music can be experienced with a depth that changes one's life, both in terms of one's understanding of one's past and in the direction of one's future. It is more than mere intensity. If one has a spiritual experience, one is not the same person after it as one was before; it is traumatic, though as I said it gets mis-used for the merely dramatic. If you are indeed re-formed, then I would think you have had a spiritual experience.
So spiritual is synonymous with "life changing" then? Why not say that? Or "transformative"? Why cop-opt terms of religion, with all the baggage and possibility of misunderstanding that it entails? I guess if the context makes it clear that there is no implied metaphysical baggage, then communicating however you want is fair game. I'm just saying that it often isn't clear. Not to the listener, and (more controversially) to the speaker. Let me give you a few quotes from this thread to highlight this:
So it seems to me that the way it is used often includes importing metaphysical implications. Just push against it a little and they begin popping out. The other effect of pushing against it a little, is you tend to get a sort of mysterianism. Claims that there is 100%, unarguably something there, but it is something that defies explanation, definition, and rational analysis. Surely the notion that something is life changing doesn't defy rational analysis?
Quoting unenlightened
We are destroyed and reformed all the time. Mostly it happens so gradually, little piece by little piece, that we don't notice, but sometimes we mark a specific event on the road of our reinvention as being epiphanous, because it is great enough in it's effect to move above the background noise of the constant change. How is that not a matter of intensity? If it isn't a matter of intensity, what is it a matter of?
I'm resistant to use a term that does not describe reality. I already presented the reasoning:
1. There is a whole family of pairs of concepts, which may be called polarized concepts (examples were given). A concept belonging to this family cannot be properly understood or employed without a full knowledge of its polarized nature.
2. Spirit:matter is one such pair.
3. Therefore, a discussion of spirituality cannot proceed without an analysis of the full pair, and without an acknowledgment that the concept of spirit, in its origin, is not a separate substance.
You rejected this reasoning, focusing on the lack of evidence for (2). To provide evidence for (2), what is necessary is not a further reasoning (because reasonings don't provide evidence). What is necessary is the gathering of data. Hence, the proposed exercises.
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
Well, the entire pre-Cartesian worldview (which is more than a metaphysical model, of course) is grounded on the polarity of spirit:matter. Which means that your Plato, Aristotle, Stoics, Scholastics, falsafah, etc. are grounded on that.
If you want more modern sources: Joseph Campbell, Jungian psychology (ironically, stripped of its metaphysical model -- Jung, like Freud, was much better observing than theorizing), Mircea Eliade, Ernst Cassirer, Eric Voegelin are some of the authors I've read who, coming from very different vantage points and objectives, highlight the polarity of spirit and matter.
So you think reasoning is just make believe? You don't think there is mental cause/effect? Do you think everyone's beliefs are arbitrary? By reasoning, I'm just talking about the reasons why you believe what you do. The mental steps you took from no belief or a different belief, to your current belief. Nothing more than that in this context.
Also, I've been pretty laid back about this because I always remembered you being someone who was fair-minded and easy to discuss with, but I really find it hard to discuss with you when you make statements in the form that present yourself as the authority on reality. Why are you any greater an authority than I am, or anyone else? So is there a problem with a change in tone regarding making absolute statements, one's you probably know I don't agree with you about, as if they were incontrovertible?
Quoting Mariner
You say that like there is a singular, monolithic pre-Cartesian worldview. Throughout the entire history of recorded human thought, people have conceptualized things differently from each other. I have no reason to doubt that there were analogues to you and I at any given moment in history, discussing analogous differences in worldview. So I'm asking if there's a level of specificity somewhere between "the entire pre-Cartesian worldview" and "I'll have to explain my entire worldview in detail to you", where you can point to that contains the relevant concepts and vocabulary so that we don't have to reinvent the wheel, but I don't have to read every book ever written prior to 1600CE. So for example, if (like earlier in this thread) the concept of intuition came up, you could say something similar to "I'm referring to Kant's conception of intuition", at which point, I would know, more or less, what you mean.
So you reference Jung. He was a pantheist. Is pantheism basically the worldview you are talking about? Or a modified version of pantheism?
I'm struggling to imagine a reading of my last post that reaches this conclusion.
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
That question of yours is being "laid back"?
Ok. Have fun. I've suggested a way out of your declared problem, of understanding spirituality. Whether you'll explore it or not is your decision.
I'm being pretty laid back here, and expecting an interlocutor who is willing to read the comments with a bare minimum of charity.
By the way...
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
Yes, on this specific question of the nature of spirit, there was a singular, monolithic pre-Cartesian worldview. So, you don't have to read every book written before 1600 AD -- pick any book you like (including Shakespeare, incidentally) and you'll see it there.
When I give you a wide gamut of sources, you complain. If I give you my personal experience, you complain. What exactly do you expect from this conversation? (Not a rhetorical question. If you tell me what you want from me, there is a greater chance that I'll be able to deliver).
Let me explain how I read the last few exchanges, and perhaps we can uncover where the miscommunication lies.
Here's how it looks from my point of view: I was asking you about your reasoning. You rejected that it had anything to do with reasoning. I asked why the term bothered you. You said it didn't reflect reflect reality. Those things that are not real are make believe. So It seemed like you were saying that reasoning was make believe. As little sense as it makes to me, I ask the question, hoping you'll clarify.
Quoting Mariner
They're questions. I'm trying to understand. Maybe you think they're rhetorical attacks, couched in questions, but they're not. They're questions. So yes, they are laid back. Sorry if that wasn't more clear. I am absolutely getting frustrated with our apparent inability to find any common points of discussion that might lead to some understanding, and that frustration might come out more than is ideal, but I'm trying to understand.
Quoting Mariner
See, this is what I'm having a problem with. You just state authoritatively that there is a singular worldview. I say there wasn't. If you don't offer clarification, reasoning or evidence of your claim, then we are only left to "yes there was!" "no there wasn't!" like school children. Surely we can be better than that?
Quoting Mariner
I want to understand the steps in thought that led from either having no conception or a previous, and different conception of spirituality, to your current conception of spirituality. I want to understand mentally how you got to where you were to where you are now.
No. A spiritual experience is a life changing experience. If you are happy to talk about interior, and exterior, as experience of the world and experience of oneself, then I can be a bit more specific, that a spiritual experience is one that changes interior experience. But still you need to be a little charitable in understanding that I am not talking about the change from an empty to a full stomach. Thus losing a limb is no doubt a life-changing experience of the exterior life; it may or may not be also life changing in one's relation to oneself, and in such case it is also a spiritual experience. But one also talks about a 'spiritual person', or the spirit of the times, or as I mentioned before, of a group.
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
You bring your own metaphysical baggage with you, and on that basis complain about another's.
Compare:
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
Something that changes the rational analyst does exactly defy rational analysis.
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
Are you unaware of the religious metaphysical baggage of "epiphanous"? ;) But there is some confusion here. How are you aware of being destroyed and reformed all the time? Surely there needs to be a thread of constancy on which change hangs, and against which it can be compared. Or is this just a theoretical, metaphysical claim? I'm not even disagreeing with you here, except to clarify that an experience can be intense without changing the direction of one's life.
But I have the sense that you are just refusing to engage in an exploration of inner life, and in such case you can have no 'home' in which you can entertain such ideas.
I'm trying to be charitable, which is why I keep asking questions, to make sure I do understand, or if not, to find out where the misunderstanding lies. So a spiritual experience is one that is life changing about one's sense of self? Doesn't that make it basically the same as "transformative", which wouldn't normally refer to incidental out exterior changes? If not, in what way is it distinct?
Quoting unenlightened
I don't think I've brought in any metaphysical assumptions beyond such brute concepts like "things are" and "communication is possible", and the sorts of things that should be uncontroversial and are necessary preconditions to meaningful discussion. What baggage are you talking about?
Quoting unenlightened
Agreed, but I think that I am/have been told the latter, not the former by some people in this thread, and in other discussions about the subject. Perhaps I misread/misunderstand them.
Quoting unenlightened
I was wondering if you'd pick that out. FWIW, I'm pretty sure the new sense of the term predates the challenging of spirit/body dualism/duality, so it doesn't have the same sort of baggage.
Quoting unenlightened
Well, 98% of the atoms in our body are exchanged every year, yet we still consider it the same body. For some practical reasons, we seem to have to apply a sense continuity to objects and ideas that change slowly. We often feel that implies that there is a sort of "essential" "necessary" or "defining" quality, but that's just an assumption, and it doesn't add any explanatory power to things, so I didn't bring it into the discussion. Quoting unenlightened
I don't know where you get that sense. I'm often accused of being too introspective and self-contemplative, so that's an odd thing for people to think about me. I don't think it's true.
Spirituality: noun
1
: something that in ecclesiastical law belongs to the church or to a cleric as such
2
: clergy
3
: sensitivity or attachment to religious values
4
: the quality or state of being spiritual
Spiritual: adjective
1
: of, relating to, consisting of, or affecting the spirit : incorporeal spiritual needs
2
a : of or relating to sacred matters spiritual songs
b : ecclesiastical rather than lay or temporal : spiritual authority : lords spiritual
3
: concerned with religious values
4
: related or joined in spirit : our spiritual home : his spiritual heir
5
a : of or relating to supernatural beings or phenomena
b : of, relating to, or involving spiritualism : spiritualistic
Yes, in that context, 'transformative' works fine. But if one were to talk of 'transformative practice' rather than 'spiritual practice', then it would be a strain; seeking is not always finding, though one seeks to find.
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
Same thing happens to rivers, I don't think it's a problem; there is great explanatory power in noticing that there is a river in a certain place, the flow is rapid and yet one knows where to put a bridge. The river rises and falls with the seasons, and the water is ever-changing. But for a river to change its course is another kind of change that deserves its own language and understanding.
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
Ok, my mistake.
If we can agree that there is the possibility of something real that defies analysis, then there is room in our discussion for terms that refer to it. There might be a possibility of some understanding that does not derive from analysis, but from analogy, or imagery, or whatever.
.... if used to describe what I'm suggesting to you. To interpret that sentence as meaning "any and all reasoning, in every conceivable circumstance, does not reflect reality" is very curious, particularly if you read what I read right after it (I have already presented a reasoning, you disagreed and asked for evidence, reasonings don't provide evidence, etc.). Never mind though, let's proceed.
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
Ok, and now I ask for evidence. Show me one pre-Cartesian work in which the notion of spirit is not used as a polarized concept (as explained earlier in the thread). Perhaps you can do it. If you do it, then I'll be shown to be wrong. It's no big deal to be wrong -- even if one "states authoritatively", which apparently is a criticism of style, and not of content.
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
And the (abridged) list of pertinent authors did not help?
What I have done so far to help you understand the steps in thought from A to B:
1. Stated the thesis (polarized concepts)
2. Offered exercises to help you retrace the path, from the "universal human experience" (experience and experienced, remember? We were on the same page there) to a consistent notion of spirit:matter
3. Offered a (quite restricted) bibliography regarding how this subject is the theme of 20th century authors.
I don't know what else I can do. From my viewpoint, you appear to be budging at the idea of executing exercises from (2), but it's the best I have to offer.
Let me give you a starting point, from etymology (as I mentioned earlier, psychology is equally useful, and if you don't care about etymology it is surely more useful). "Matter" shares a common root with "mother". Try to re-enact, imaginatively, the kind of mind which dealt with matter as if it was related to mother. "Spirit", in its Latin and Greek ("pneuma") incarnations, is equivalent -- note, here it is not a matter of common roots, but of equivalence -- to "breath" or "wind".
What you should do now is the imaginative exercise of replacing references to "spirit" by "breath" or "wind" and try to put yourself in the equivalent consciousness of someone who discusses Spirituality in those terms. When, e.g., Plato wrote "spirit is X", read it as "breath is X".
This is not yet the "achieved consciousness" that must be sought after, because "breath" has a purely material connotation nowadays that it did not have in Plato's day. Ideally, when we read a Platonic reference to "spirit", we must imagine Plato's mind as dealing with "spirit+breath", the primordial concept out of which spirit and breath (as concepts) were developed.
I hope you see that what I'm suggesting to you has nothing to do with "reasonings". But if you do those imaginative exercises, it will be easier for you to observe (and it is an observation -- a direct observation -- i.e., not a conclusion from a reasoning) that spirit:matter cannot be dealt with as if they were separate substances.
If you ask me, the main vice of post-Cartesian philosophy is to deal with delicate and mostly pragmatic distinctions as if they were absolute separations.
You just made a jump that I'm not sire I'm following. What's a spiritual practice? Behaviours designed to change one's sense of self? To what end? Wouldn't you want to change it to whatever you preferred, and then leave it that way (practice often implies long term change from repeated iterations)? I know I'm generally good with my sense of self, so gradual, incremental change works for me. Perhaps if one were very dissatisfied with themselves and their life I could see the allure.
Quoting unenlightened
Given enough time, the course of a river changes too. We only call it a different river when a catastrophic event causes it to change suddenly. It's the slowness of the change that gives the illusion of an element of permanence or continuity. I don't see any difference. The same is true with people. The most clear case is when someone looses all executive function. This happened to my brother, who passed a number of years ago. He was lying in a hospital bed, devoid of thought, perception, or agency, when the day before he had these things. My mother said that he was no longer there. His identity was changed to such a dramatic extent that it was essentially annihilated as something that was a result of his body, and now only exists as a memory. To a lesser extent, people who have traumatic brain injury or stroke are often characterized as no longer being their old self. So again, you can add another layer, but it doesn't explain things any better than doing without it, as far as I can see.
Quoting unenlightened
Sorry, I think I misread you previously. I think that rational analysis and realness are 100% unrelated. You can do rational analysis on the effectiveness of Frodo's route to Mordor, and you can babble nonsensicaly about main street. I can't imagine what non-rational analysis would look like excepting irrational analysis, which I imagine we both think would be a bad idea. If you think there's something beyond or outside of that, you'll need to clarify.
Prayer, meditation, self-flaggelation, peyote consumption, self-hypnosis, psychoanalysis, I don't want to draw an exact boundary, but people talk about spiritual practices, like retreats. It may all be nonsense in the sense of being ineffective, it may all not suit you or me, but it is a meaningful term for some effort to change oneself that has a long history and a current popularity.
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
I don't understand this. X would prefer to be Y. So perhaps X becomes Y by some gradual or sudden transformation. What does Y prefer? Not obviously what X preferred. This might even be a roundabout, where Y would prefer to be X. Is there then a possibility that X and Y can agree to get off the roundabout? Or would Y prefer to be Z? Then what would Z prefer? But if you say that Y prefers to be Y just as X preferred to be Y, then I might wonder if X has changed at all.
Yeah, we seem to be totally at cross purposes here, and it is crucial, on my side. Let's leave unreality out for now. I said nothing about non-rational analysis. Can the rational analyser rationally analyse a change in the rational analyser? Consider this in relation to my previous post, and then consider if there might be something that is not analysable. My suggestion is that analysis has a limit, but understanding can exceed this limit, by means that are not analytical. That is not to say that they are irrational, necessarily.
In the terms of the previous post, perhaps X,Y, Z, in some combination might understand that something
else is possible, because it is necessary. And from that understanding something else comes.
This is where were going in circles. I think your answering a different question than I'm asking, so your appeal to the previous explanation of spirituality doesn't help me. You seem to be telling me what pedogogic techniques will best work for me. You seem to be advising me on how to learn. That's not what I'm here for, and I think I have a better handle on which methods work best for me.
So when I keep asking for your reasoning, I'm just asking for the thought process that goes on when selecting this particular conception of the way things are among the other alternatives,because that's what helps me understand concepts. Why is this one preferable to others? If you give me that, then I will have at least the starting point that I need to better understand. Is there a problem with doing that?
I'm not currently concerned with efficacy, I'm just trying to see if what we're talking about is both coherent and isn't a sort of unintentional conceptual Trojan horse for religious ideas.
Here's my issue. First, most of the items in the list have an historical connection to religions. Second, most of these practices aren't proported to offer a dramatic, changing the course of your life, experience. If they do offer experiences that change your life, it is well understood that it is gradual, iterative change. Peyote eating is the exception, I guess. I only know what I've seen in the movies and my experiences is mushrooms and lsd.
So the concept of spiritual, as you apply it to experiences, seems to mean something different than what it means in terms of practices, and when applied to practices has some analogues to the traditional religious use of the word.
Quoting unenlightened
I don't know what it would mean to be non-analysable. Analysis is something that we do, not a property of something. I could imagine that an analysis could feel unsatisfactory or inconclusive, but I'm not convinced that wouldn't say more about the failings of the analysis than about the subject of the analysis. Saying that you can't analyse something is like saying you can't look for something.
Regarding the XYZ stuff, and the "analysing the analyser" stuff, I don't think I see the point you're making. It just seems like a needlessly complex framing of something that maybe isn't that complex.
Then I don't know how to go on, I'm afraid.
That is about the sum of your objections to many things said in this thread, isn't it? ';Sounds religious'. It's like the topography of an underground object, the part of the iceberg below the water-line - you can only sense its outlines, but anything associated with 'religious baggage' is rejected on that account. Excludes a lot of ideas.
I could make a few suggestions?
You could give me your take on the discordance between the use of "spiritual experience" and "spiritual practice" that I pointed out.
You could explain what it would mean for something to be non-analysable, and how that would be distinct from it being poorly analysed or nonsensical.
Or not. It's all good.
Sorry, but I'm not rejecting that there is an idea called spirituality, nor any other idea based on it being religious. I'm questioning things about they way the word is being used in a non-religious context.
I don't think it's controversial to say that the history of the word is associated with religion and religious beliefs and religious metaphysical assumptions. If someone wants to use it in that context, then it makes sense to me. I'm suggesting that the way that the word is commonly used today, in the "I'm spiritual, but not religious" sort of way, ends up not being as distinct and separate from religion as the utterer is intending. I'm saying that it's analogous to saying "he's not fat, he's full bodied". When you dig into the claim, you find that it's essentially the same thing, just without a connotation that the speaker doesn't like. So although I have them, my point here isn't to make judgments about the value of engaging in spirituality or religion, but just to clarify what, or even if, there is a meaningful distinction between the traditional, religious use of "spiritual" and the more modern, ostensibly secular meaning. I hope that clarifies, because the quoted post seems to characterize me as grinding an axe or intentionally blindfolding myself to an area of inquiry.
I'll try that. Typically, some philosophers say that truth is un-analysable. The way I understand this is that of any theory of truth that one might come up with, it can be questioned whether or not it is true. And for it to be true according to itself as a criterion of truth is circular and so inadequate. And this is the case for any conceivable theory of truth, so there is no question of replacing a poor analysis with a better one in this regard, and we hope at least, that there is no question that truth is nonsensical.
So whether you agree with this or not, it indicates a general form of radical necessary circularity that frustrates the attempt at analysis. This is what my needlessly complex framing was intended to demonstrate about your where the circularity is hidden by referring to 'you' and 'it' as though they are different, while at the same time demanding that they not be different.
My position is that this radical circularity applies to any analysis of the analyser, that is to say to all psychology, and to all analysis of interiority and consciousness. This is not an appeal to irrationality, to nonsense, or to despair. It is simply to say that the understanding of the psyche must proceed otherwise than the understanding of the world at large.
The truth isn't un-analysable. If we say that the truth is the condition of a statement, then there's nothing wrong with that statement also being true. any more than it would be wrong for a tshirt with writing on it to say "this tshirt has writing on it". There's nothing wrong with circularity in logic, because that's all logic does. All logic is circular. It tests the coherence of statements against other statements. It doesn't add anything.
Quoting unenlightened
No, that's not the case. You've demonstrated that logic is circular, not anything about what the motive would be for someone to constantly want to make dramatic life altering changes, or really more to the point, how the practices you talked about aren't actually supposed to be practices that lead to singular life altering experiences, but actually generally are expected to offer more gentle, gradual, iterative change. Moreover, you've failed to show how that is necessary the case with spirituality, instead of say, subjectivity.
Quoting unenlightened
You made a big leap there. Even if I accepted that theories of truth are un-analyzable, (which I don't, because, among other things, you clearly are offering an analysis of theories of truth in your first paragraph), then how do you then get from there to "the understanding of the psyche must proceed otherwise than the understanding of the world at large". It is also demonstrably false that psychology isn't analyzable, as evidenced by the fact that there are libraries full of books analyzing it, as well as a field of endeavor called psychoanalysis, which putatively analyzes personal experience.
To summarize:
Both you and I have made an analysis of the circularity of logic, as it applies too truth. That demonstrates that circularity doesn't preclude analysis.
You claim some similar circularity when speaking about people, or their personal experiences. I don't see that circularity, so I can't intelligently respond beyond saying... It doesn't matter. Circularity doesn't preclude analysis. I would ask you to think about what you think analysis is. It's just looking at something closely and carefully, with an eye to gaining a better understanding. Like I say, the only thing that I can imagine would be immune to that would be nonsense, as nonsense, having no sensible content, is immune to a better understanding, no matter how hard you look at it.
If I'm wrong, point out what I missed, and we can clarify or dig deeper.
However, I want to consider consider a few things about our discussion, if you don't mind. Anyone who's had a discussion like this before has to come to one of a few ways to see this sort of conversation.
1) Rarely a person has their mind changed on the spot. Usually, it was about a belief they held "lightly". It is almost unheard of for someone to change their view on anything that is important to them, and to which they associate with their sense of identity, over the course of a discussion.
2) The other guy is outright wrong. They keep strawmanning your position, being willfully ignorant, changing the subject, making fallacious points.
3) Agree to disagree. This is mainly a way to let pressure off of the tension caused by the social urge to agree pitted against the urge to protect your views (especially concerning your identity) and to stand up for what seems to be true. It has the benefit of maintaining a nice social and emotional keel, but it leaves a question, and one that might be important, open. If your way of seeing it is really better, or is more true, then you are doing a disfavor to your interlocutor by not allowing them to see things in the right light.
I really feel that these describe pretty much all of the outcomes of these types of discussions. Is that your experience too?
People, including myself, find #2 really easy to slip into, and I have done so in this thread with other posters. I commend you for discussing in a way that has helped us both (it think) avoid getting there. I don't know if one of us is going to get to #1. AFAICS, that's sort of the El Dorado of rational discourse. A legend that is always searched for but never attained. Someone changing their mind mid-conversation about something they think is central to how they see themselves. So with that in mind, I have two thoughts. First, if either of us has to pull the plug and make it a #3, that's fair game, and I think we should just say so. Second, and I hope this doesn't become the case, I'll apologize in advance if I get into #2. I'm human, and even though my intent is to stay fair minded and even tempered, I have, more or less, the same psychology as everyone else, which leads the internet to be a very angry place. Lastly, I'd like to shoot for #1. One of us changes the way the other thinks about things. You down with that?
Here I don't agree with your argument, 'the reason we even seem to have this conception...' You're placing yourself in the Dennett/Dawkins argument here, that you the scientific sympathiser somehow know better about the origins of spiritual feelings - or 'conceptions' - than people who believe in the spiritual; and that spiritual knowing is in some way in competition with scientific knowing, so then as scientific knowing becomes supposedly more 'successful', so spiritual knowing should accept its comparative failure.
I just don't accept this at all. I don't claim, for a start, to have an understanding about how we have the conception of the spiritual, and I don't know how you justify your claim. And I don't think spirituality is some sort of competitor with neuroscience. If you take Kant, for instance, or at least one modern strand of views about Kant and religion, we can have knowledge, opinion and faith: the first two on the kantian model are empirical; the third is not, but is the sort of thing where we can make justified assertions. You can wholeheartedly commit to science as a naturalistic method, that is, and at the same time have justified religious or spiritual beliefs. In the terms of a former poster here, Landru, these are different discourses, where different rules apply.
That's all I'm stuck with, as my outlook. Science for me has much narrower limits than it does for you; I follow it pretty closely and am much more sceptical than you about how much it understands of what we do and perceive. And for me, while I'm an atheist with a strong interest in contemporary science, I feel there are other ways of talking about ourselves and the world we're in - aesthetic, ethical and spiritual - which aren't beholden to the scientific way of talking, and carry equal weight with me.
The contention is that truth is unanalysable, not that theories of truth are unanalysable, which I am glad you reject, as I have indeed just presented an analysis of theories of truth that I claim shows that they cannot be valid analyses.
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
That is not an analysis. Here's where I scratch my head in wonder a bit. This is not some crap I made up off the top of my head to bamboozle you. https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=WqROAAAAIAAJ&lpg=PA254&ots=dDDWIDeVMK&dq=truth%20unanalysable%20Davidson&pg=PA254#v=onepage&q=truth%20unanalysable%20Davidson&f=false
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
Hmm. I don't really think of outcomes as having much importance. Or if I do, I am far more self-centered about them. So my outcomes, taken to mean points of departure, end of posting, or end of responding to a particular poster, are more like this:
A. I get bored, because I'm not learning anything any more.
B. I get lost, probably because I haven't worked out my ideas well enough.
C. I've said everything I have to say, as clearly as I can.
What the other chap does with his thoughts is not a great concern, though there is I suppose an ideal scenario where there is a coming together - a meeting of minds.
But variations on a theme of your 2. feed my A. And also yes to the rarity of 1. I think I have changed my mind a couple of times, and folks have let me know they have changed theirs maybe 3 times ... in God knows, about twelve years of posting?
So my first impulse in this thread was rather close to yours, that there is not much to spirituality of the non-religious sort, other than a self-indulgent sentimentality with a bit of unacknowledged magical thinking thrown in. But then I wondered whether there was at least a possible sense in which one could be seriously spiritual without having to join a club of believers. So I've been exploring, and trying to make room for something and so arrived at 'the un-analysable'. You should have picked me up on mentioning psycho-analysis as a spiritual practice, but I guess you don't give it enough credence in the first place. So here we are, and I'm not yet bored, not completely lost, and haven't said everything I can think of. So lay on, MacDuff...
The essential distinction is between following and finding your own way, I believe.
This is a meaningful distinction because a major issue with religion is in its power to influence, and unfortunately power seems to corrupt pretty reliably.
A critique of finding your own way might be that doesn't have the power to unite people in common values and purpose.
Well, I think you are, although I wouldn't phrase it in such obviously pejorative terms.
What is the motivation behind those who are 'spiritual but not religious'? As one who could fairly be characterised in those terms, I think I can answer that: to seek spiritual truth is an individual quest, it is an attempt to discover for oneself a truth or a principle that you can live by, that aligns you with a greater truth. It overlaps with 'being religious' but the latter is more often concerned with the regulative functions of community, liturgy and the instilling the normative attitudes and behaviours that are associated with a religious orthodoxy or correct belief. It's sometimes not a very clear-cut distinction (insofar as an individual might have characteristics of both) but I think it's a valid one.
But what I think your posts convey is that you're cautiously open-minded towards the possibility of there being 'spiritual truths' but that in effect they are so hard to distinguish from religious dogmas that you can't accept them on those grounds.
(Y)
You've misunderstood me here. I'm telling you how I see the history of the idea, and within that history, what makes sense to me about how the term is now used. I'm not saying I know better, I'm just saying what makes sense to me, and trying to explain why. That's what we're doing here, right?
As for the rest, I don't know how to respond. I'm not really talking about the primacy of science, I'm just saying that there is way more evidence regarding how things like identity, personality and perception work than there was in the past, and some of it accounts for things that were previously accounted for by what was called a soul or spirit. So I don't know if you're saying the evidence is wrong, or that there's something else that takes precedence over the evidence or that there is a different way of looking at the evidence.
The next hurdle is that to conceive of spirituality as unanalysable, we seem to have slipped back into a more general conception, where it roughly means "subjective", right? The fact that it's life altering doesn't make it unanalysable? Just that it's subjective or self-reflective, or something along those lines? I still don't follow how we get from "something can be unanalysable" to "spirituality is unanalysable".
Regarding psychoanalysis, I actually typed something out to that effect, and deleted it before I posted. I thought it was just a little on the rhetorical nose. X-)
Ok, so I would formulate the traditional use of the term as meaning "of or relating to the spirit". How would you translate your proposed new meaning? Are you sure you aren't just making a commentary on people who claim to be spiritual but not religious (Because I agree that would be an accurate description of them).
I'm sure that I'm just commenting on that, yes.
Quoting Wayfarer
Well, to be transparent, everything I believe is provisional, but I currently have a high degree of confidence in my judgement concerning the value of spiritualism (at least as I conceive it) as something I am personally interested in engaging in, nor do I suspect I will find value in considering something as a "spiritual truth". I find truth without any categoricals works for me. That shouldn't matter though, as I'm not so much trying to determine the value of spiritualism as a practice, but more probing the coherence of the idea when separated from religious presuppositions.
Then we agree.
The word 'spiritualism' always reminds me of Victorian psychic research - seances and spirit mediums. In any case, the kinds of ideas that are encountered in typical 'spiritual but not religious' literature, are not usually explained in terms of 'spiritualism'. Actually, a wikipedia entry that is nearer the mark is that on higher consciousness. What's good about it is that it makes reference to such ideas in German idealism and other philosophical sources. And I think the terminology sorrounding 'higher consciousness' is more contemporary than the vocabulary of 'spiritualism'.
A second point is that to differentiate the spiritual from the religious is a question of metaphysics. I think it is quite possible to articulate a non-religious account of metaphysics - arguably Schopenhauer comes to mind. Another less mainstream example would be Swedenborg. But in another sense, there is a considerable history of 'non-religious metaphysics', in some sense, in Western philosophy, generally, if you were to include Platonism and neo-platonism. Can the ideas found in those traditions be 'separated from religious pre-suppositions'? Surely the answer will be - depends on what you mean by religious. At which point, I think we have gone around in a circle.
I'm more talking about Contemporary spirituality and Modern spirituality. Under either or both of which Higher consciousness may or may not fall.
I find it interesting that both parts of the entry refer to "spiritual but not religious", and that under the heading of contemporary spirituality reads the following:
(and that's a line with a citation).
So I'll just restate in that context that there seems to be an attempt to talk about something that is separate and distinct from religion, while still including all the foundational suppositions of religion.
I need to take a couple of steps back. Excuse the laziness of quoting myself at length. Quoting unenlightened
There's a bit more elaboration further on in the thread, too, but the gist of it is here; that the scientific, analytical, cumulative theorising that works so spectacularly well when it comes to understanding and manipulating the physical world is useless and destructive when applied to the inner world.
I also develop the theme in a follow-up thread about education if you're interested.
All of which is by way of clearing a space for another way of understanding what you seem to want me to call 'subjectivity'. Now it occurs to me that subjectivity, consciousness, personal identity, psyche, all these terms seem to point to something that is not material, and whether or not one wants to claim that it must reduce to, arise from, or supervene over, the material, there is nothing linguistically objectionable about calling it 'spiritual' by way of distinguishing it from 'material'.
So to put it in one rather opaque sentence. Spirituality is un-analysable because the analysis is part of the analyser and the analyser is what is to be analysed; the whole thing is an attempt to lift oneself up by the bootstraps.
And also still fuzzy on how the psyche relates to the previously described spirituality. Does the other thread give insight into that? I haven't had time to dig into that yet.
Edit: I feel like you've just taken a paradigm and applied it to another subject, without any reason to do so. Why would it be different than saying "the painter can't paint themselves"? Even the notion that the eye can't see itself seems to willfully ignore the existence of mirrors.
Which simply reaffirms the point that I was making - that your reason for rejecting 'spirituality' is that it is too near religion.
Regarding the quotation 'alleged immaterial reality' - this could be understood as 'the attempt to depict something which is exceedingly hard to perceive, by those who don't perceive it, and therefore doubt it's reality.'
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
The hand cannot grasp itself, but it can grasp another hand. The eye cannot see itself, but it can see another eye. It implies that 'the act of grasping' and 'the act of seeing' relies on a relationship of 'otherness' - the eye can see, and the hand grasp, something other to itself, whether that is a hand or an eye. But it can't see itself or grasp itself. This is an analogy for what is required in understanding the nature of being, as being (and incidentally, we are called 'beings') is never an object of perception. This is from the Upanisads, the canonical reference is here.
Another figure that comes to mind is Einstein. He was scathingly critical of religion, which he referred to as childish, but nevertheless has a kind of mystical streak which came through in a lot of his autobiographical and reflective writings later in life.
Another would be Jung, who was never a member of any religious congregation but whose writings have many spiritual connotations.
Yes indeed, inevitably one models others and one models oneself, and understands relations in terms of those models. That is not in question, but the status of these models. So you and I have a concept of a person as a mental model-maker and self and other conceptualiser.
Just as Davidson says that truth is un-analysable, but still seems to have a theory of truth, and Moore says that good is un-analysable but still has a lot to say about ethics. These are concepts that we cannot manage without, and that are meaningful, but that cannot be decomposed into more simple concepts. As if they are the fundamental particles of thought, that the harder one tries to tie them down with neat definitions, the more fuzzy they become.
Perhaps that is where I'm finding the discussion particularly difficult, that you want me to dispel the fuzziness, and I cannot. The eye can see an image of the eye, we know we have eyes and see things, but the more one analyses vision, into wavelengths of reflected light, light-sensitive cells, electrical impulses, and computation, the more one loses any understanding that we see the world at all; either there must be a homunculus watching a screen in our heads, or there is just a buzzing of brain cells with nobody there at all. In this case it is clear that vision emerges from all this brain-science and optics, but isn't there at all in the constituents, so the analysis inevitably misses its target, which does not mean that it isn't valuable to understand the components, but does mean that one cannot resolve vision into direct, or indirect realism or idealism, or irrealism, at least, not by analysis.
I have different reasons for rejecting spirituality, but they are not relevant to this discussion. I think you're jumping to conclusions regarding my motives with very little evidence. Do you mind if we park the question of my motivations for another time?
Quoting Wayfarer
I have no idea how you go from here to there. The first is a metaphysical model, the second is a commentary about perception and belief. I don't see how one could be understood as the other. It may be true that because if a difficulty on accurate perception, people believe a specific, and mistaken, metaphysical model, but that doesn't make one thing the other.
We do have a choice how we frame this, and what conceptual models we accept or reject, right? Wouldn't we want to reject the ones that are fuzzy and accept the ones more clear? Unless the fuzzy one offers something we can't get from the clearer one. Do you think it does? I don't see it.
There is no objectively right way to frame something, but there are ways that can pretty universally be considered better or worse, right? You don't use QM to build a bridge, and you don't make a Higgs boson with classical physics. You frame the conception to fit the job. I just don't see what job is best suited to the framing you're proposing.
Education, social cohesion, politics, personal relations. We turn the analytical gaze onto the material, and we come up with all this amazing stuff, transport, communication devices, new etc etc. We turn it on ourselves and we come up with what? Increasing mental illness increasing stress and unhappiness, poorer education, less stable societies, more isolation. And these latter are all fuzzy things to the extent that they can be denied, so I won't be trying to convince you if you see things differently. But I see it so - I see a crisis of developing material control, and loss of personal control, and the proliferation of self-help coaching counselling therapeutic nonsense is symptomatic of the same depersonalising scientistic view with added advertising woo. If the job is machines, precision and no fluff; if the job is people, something very different is required.
Well, a person could make a standard by which to judge these things, and then measure reality against that standard. Then things wouldn't be so fuzzy. What does a good education constitute of? Make a list, match that against both current education and past education, and you have a very unfuzzy answer to whether education is poorer or not.
Quoting unenlightened
I never understood this implied dichotomy. We don't write novels or woo mates with scientific method, but we still write novels and woo mates. I honestly think this is just a romanticizing of days gone by, when we didn't have cold science and cold machines sucking our souls. The fact is that people have felt despair since we have records of people talking about such things. What makes you think that this is specifically is the result of a materialist worldview?
I can't say I share this view. In my 68 years of life there've been tremendous strides in some areas, including biochemistry for instance that's keeping me alive, with stents and angioplasty and beta-blockers; brilliant electronic toys and the Internet without which we wouldn't be having this debate; and so on.
I don't see modern advances in work on 'identity' and 'personality', though. What sort of thing do you mean? Could you be specific? I would tend to cite the arts - painting, sculpture, drama, novels and poetry - as influencing how I feel about identity and personality, which is not exactly 'evidence' in the way you're speaking of it. That's why I lean towards spirituality as having something to say to me, because the aesthetic has something to say to me, and for me to express through it, and the realms of understanding seem to be akin. Daniel Kahneman, for instance, has keen insights into how we think, but there aren't many of him per generation, compared to the insightful creative writers, and he does come to a sort of limit in his puzzlement over why we are the way we are. (But I've been a fiction writer, perhaps that's just my bias, I don't know)
Like I said, I'm not going to lay out a load of evidence. It's a point of view, and I'm not the only one that has it. But we do more and more woo mates with the scientific method, perhaps you've been out of the market for a while.
Here are four things, commonly associated with the spirit or soul, that I listed earlier in this thread:
Our sense of locality inside or outside of our body
The mediator between our perceptions and our beliefs
The mediator between the world and our memories.
and the host of our better angels
The case for personality is easy to make. People have traumatic brain injuries and their personalities change. Which part of the brain is predictive of what sort of personality change will occur. That's something that happens, and makes a pretty strong case for the brain being the sole seat of personality.
The other three links are elements of our sense of identity. The fact that "we" create memories, feel as though "we" are "within" (or outside of) our bodies, and that "we" have perceptions. The reason I use quotations around "we" is to highlight that each of these things feel like they are separate from the the physical processes, so we intuit or postulate that there is an essential element of ourselves that these things are happening to. When we look at the process, we can now understand the processes without having to postulate a separate "we".
Quoting mcdoodle
I'm not sure what you're trying to say. Here's what I'm getting out of this: You enjoy art. You enjoy spirituality (whatever that means to you), and you anjoy the work of Daniel Kahneman. You see value in all of these things. If that's what you're saying, then good on you. I just don't see how that's relevant to what I'm saying.
All I'm telling you is how I weigh different considerations, in what I see as a contrast to how you weigh different things. You're not seeing it as relevant because you weigh things in a different way, which you regard as self-evident (just as I do mine!) and you're puzzled that I wouldn't accord the same weight as you do to different considerations. That's my take on that, anyway. I think you are having the same difficulty with un, because you have a sort of instinctively-scientific manner of speaking. I don't mean I and un have the same views, we are quite different, but in this respect the issues are the same.
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
I don't really follow. People have believed this sort of thing for thousands of years: trepanning dates back 8000 years for instance, i.e. surgery on the skull will effect changes in personality desired by the society concerned. Modern blindsight and Anton-Baninski syndrome are (a) still mysteries - why does a person invent such a story? and (b) not clear guides, at least not to me, about anything but the specific problems themselves.
But I see when you move on to identity more clearly what you mean. Here though your argument seems more to be against subjectivity than against spirituality. The transcendental 'I' isn't a spiritual/religious concoction but a philosophical one, surely? Early Wittgenstein frets over it a good deal, for instance, the latest in a long line of German philosophers fretting over it. That's why Metzinger calls his book on out-of-body experience 'the ego tunnel' because his rather odd theoretical solution seeks to solve the ego-problem as he sees it.
Perhaps it would be plainer if I just quoted Wordsworth, as a for-instance, of the sort of spirituality I'm groping to say I embrace::
It's not differing priorities. I love art too. I studied theater in college, not philosophy or science. I only know Daniel Kahneman from one interview I saw him do, but I admit I was fascinated by him too. So we actually share an outlook on two of these three things.
I'm not treating anything as being self-evident either. IMO, that's an intellectually lazy stance, and I try to avoid it. I may be assuming that people share my understanding of certain facts, or some basic underlying beliefs about the world. Nothing controversial though. Just ideas like X=X, that we all, more or less, share an experience of the world, or that making a judgement of "better" or "worse" is something it is possible to agree upon with people. I'm even open to explanation or disagreement on these points in theory, although at some point a person might have to call pedantry if we can't agree on the most basic underpinnings of conversation.
The purpose of the discussion, from my point of view, is to determine if a) there are relevant facts that either person hadn't considered or known about, b) there is flawed reasoning employed that one of the people didn't realize, or c) there is a better way to frame the issue than either or both people had considered. That pretty much requires approaching the issue from different paradigms.That should be a good thing, not a bad thing.
Quoting mcdoodle
Everything is always a mystery if you keep asking why. That's the nature of the question "why?". That doesn't mean we don't know things, and the things we know indicate that the things we once thought were indicative of spirits (treppaning was alleged to let evil spirits escape through the skull), are actually indicative of the brain. Regarding Anton Babinski syndrom, the patient doesn't invent a story, they tell the truth as they believe it to be. They think they can see, and the reactions they have toward disconfirming evidence are the sorts of confabulations that mentally healthy people perform all the time when presented with cognitive dissonance.
What sort of guide do you mean? I personally assume that (among other things) having the most relevant facts, and the best possible information in any situation offers me the means to make the best decisions. Knowing that the things I feel and the impulses I have are the product of a brain that has flaws, some of which are predictable, allows me to employ personal, social and environmental mechanisms to offset my natural failings. For what it's worth, meditation and self-reflection (often associated with spirituality) are part of that.
Quoting mcdoodle
I don't even know what it would mean to argue against subjectivity. One way to talk about the world is "from the viewpoint of the subject". No argument that there is such a viewpoint. If I am doing something close to that, it is arguing against conflating a subjective point of view with spirituality.
Quoting mcdoodle
So to you, spiritual is synonymous with profound? If so, why not use that term instead of one laden with metaphysical baggage (same question I asked un)?
I feel like I'm getting jumped on for saying "whatever you call spirituality is wrong and bad, because I don't like whatever it is you like", and I'm saying no such thing. I'm saying that calling those things you like "spiritual", might be a bad way to label them. Bad, because labeling it so can lead to equivocation and sloppy reasoning by importing metaphysical baggage with the label that you don't necessarily believe in or need.
Would it be fair to say that in the same way that an average Joe sees the world through the lens of "naive realism", that what you're talking about as the unified outlook on the spirit/matter question pre-Descartes might be described as "naive monism"? That people in general neither saw a distinction between the two, nor did it occur to anyone to question if there should be a distinction. Is that correct? Is that what you are suggesting I need understand before I can understand what spirituality is?
I for one don't think I'm jumping on anyone :)
I've looked back over the thread and I don't know that there's anything more I can say. I agreed with darth barracuda's early attempt at a summary of what 'spirituality' might mean, and I thought your answer to him, like your answer here about 'profound', sought different substitutes or meanings for the word 'spirituality' because you don't like it and its connotations. I on the other hand like it for its connotations. I use the word because it expresses something I want to express. It implies, for instance, that while an atheist I'm open to talk about religious matters in a way that, I'd suggest, you're not. For a Catholic friend of mine, for instance, attending Mass is a spiritual experience. I think the world would lose subtlety if she was forced to call it 'religious' when that isn't necessarily what she means, just as my feelings about Wordsworthian Romanticism would lose subtlety if I substituted 'profound' for 'spiritual'. If you don't want to use the word, well, fine.
I'm open to talking about anything in pretty much any way, depending on the context. That doesn't mean I always think that certain ways of speaking are the most useful or clear, but I'm open to them, at least in theory (with perhaps the exception of speaking literal nonsense). I wonder what conclusions you have drawn about me to make you think otherwise?
Quoting mcdoodle
I have no problems with any connotation. Which connotation did you think I have a problem with, and why did you think that?
Quoting mcdoodle
Language is a cultural activity, and use changes because people, sometimes explicitly, and sometimes more gradually and subtly, or even without any intent, negotiate what qualifies as an acceptable use of a word. Mostly, this is a non-political behavior, but at times it is political (I mean political only in the sense that it is behavior designed to persuade others). I'm contending that there are good reasons not to use the word as it has more recently come to be used (to refer to something non-specific, non-religious, inherently mysterious, and conceptually ill defined), at least, or perhaps especially, in the context of philosophy, as it leads to equivocation. That's it in a nutshell.
Naive monism is a great expression.
But let me parse this sentence of yours:
"... people in general neither saw a distinction between the two, nor did it occur to anyone to question if there should be a distinction."
I'm with you on the first clause, but I disagree with the second one, and the reason is that the subject of the phrase is not the same in each clause. People in general did not saw a distinction between the two, and people in general, therefore, did not question whether there should be a distinction... but to say that it did not occur to anyone would be going a step too far, because it did occur to someone, or rather, someones (different someones in different cultures). The someones to which the issue presented itself were -- pretty much by definition -- extra-ordinary personalities. We know some of their names, and some of their titles. Poets. Philosophers. Prophets. These were the guys who perceived room for an unfolding of possibilities in the compact (i.e. naively monist) experience. (At least in proto-Western societies -- those same social functions would have different names in India or China, and I'm not sufficiently well versed in the history of those cultures to comment further in that direction).
The main point as regards a proper (if by proper we mean a historically and psychologically grounded) understanding of spirituality is that the plain word refers to a symbol (rather than a concept), and that this symbol was developed, by those P-guys, out of an experience. That experience was present in them (again, pretty much by definition -- no one can unfold the compact meanings of an experience if he did not have that experience); and, perhaps more importantly, they apprehended it [the experience] as universally human. The three classes of P-guys were in the business of educating their contemporaries as to what these contemporaries should be experiencing; their actions were overwhelmingly characterized as being in opposition to the "common sense" of their time.
The P-guys were successful in their endeavor, otherwise we would not be talking about this. And they still are the best conduit that leads from the compact experience to the unfolded symbols of spirit and matter, which is why one great avenue for understanding those symbols is to study them, placing yourself in the position of their interlocutors. Homer and Hesiod, Isaiah and Jeremiah, Plato and Aristotle, and their peers. It is not simply a matter of reading their works (you of course have read at least the philosophers, and perhaps also the poets and the prophets), but of re-enacting the social conflicts being addressed by those works. When Plato (to use an example that is surely well known to you) addresses Euthyphro (in the person of his Socrates), what is he arguing against? What is Euthyphro lacking? Euthyphro, to be sure, would certainly claim to understand spirituality (if he were presented to that word in its prima facie meaning), and perhaps to understand it better than Socrates... but it is up to the reader to decide whether Euthyphro's understanding of spirituality is better or worse than Socrates'. The main difference between the two is that Socrates' is open, and Euthyphro's is closed (and the Israelite prophets would achieve great clarity regarding this particular issue). While Euthyphro claims to be in possession of "knowledge" (about 'spirit'), Socrates denies it, while claiming to be able to recognize it and to yearn for it.
A psychological comparison between the fictional characters (Socrates and Euthyphro) would be greatly illuminating for the understanding of spirituality, spirituality-according-to-Plato. And this ugly construct (X-according-to-Y) becomes less ugly once we realize that the intersection of the understanding of the great Y's in the history of mankind is luminous for meaning -- that the poets, prophets and philosophers basically agree on the meaning of spirit, and that the way for us to understand it is to follow their lead.
P.S. Note that I'm using "philosophers" here as a class of thinkers that were devoted to wrestling meaning out of compact experiences, just as poets and prophets were. The term is not equivalent to the dictionary definition, and many great thinkers, particularly modern ones, who would be considered by you and I to be 'philosophers' would not fit so well into this class, because they were devoted to different problems.
and, most importantly, Platonists (although you do go on to mention him.)
Oh, right. This more particular remark drove me to the philosophers' index where I see there's much more work going on about spirituality than I'd realized.
But I've delved into a few papers and there seems to be a great effort to specify, and to define conceptually. There's a very clear paper by King and Koenig, for instance, which others seem to reference a lot, and which argues for defining spirituality from how people use the word, in relation to belief, practice, awareness and experience.
I don't immediately see that this work is any worse than other philosophy-of-psychology stuff. I read a lot about emotions earlier in the year, for instance, and the same problems seem to apply to the study of them as to spirituality: too many proposed indices, a lack of underlying consensus, arising from the lack of an agreed theoretical framework, but with some good work being done all the same.
The core issue about spirituality is, to me, that there is work being done because it's a hot topic for people, practically speaking in healthcare, and more generally, because more people than before avow that they are spiritual but not (conventionally) religious. This is the opposite of equivocation: people are using the word to clarify their feelings about the world. I recognize a change for example in the availability of funeral ceremonies. 25 years ago when an atheist relative died we faced the option either of a Christian service or of a very priggish humanist who wouldn't allow any sort of prayer, so we opted for the Unitarian, a fine person who conducted exactly the right ceremony. But nowadays in my part of the world there are a lot of 'celebrants' who will conduct all sorts of services.
Let me make a distinction here. In technical, rigorous work, it is not unusual to use terminology in a specialized way. If we were talking about emotions, I don't have a problem with a psychologist saying "in the context of this paper, 'love' means the emotional state that meets the following criteria...". I do however have a problem with transferring that specialized usage into common usage, and then using that to draw some conclusions about some other, conceptually I'll defined version of the word. That is what I am suggesting is the problem with the common use, not a specialized use of the term.
Quoting mcdoodle
I'm not suggesting that nothing is being communicated when someone claims to be "spiritual but not religious", I'm saying that making decisions about one's life based on ill defined concepts is probably a bad idea. Language serves two functions: a means of communication, and a framework by which we can conceptualize the world we live in. "Fuzzy" concepts are a problem for the latter, not the prior.
Quoting Mariner
Frankly, this is the sentiment that I have trouble getting on board with, and it's for a few reasons. First, what qualifies as "basically agree(ing)"? Where various thinkers differ are not important? What qualifies a thinker to fit into your paradigm of a great thinker, worthy of making the cut regarding their thoughts on spirituality? This formulation just seems a little relaxed, and like it could confirm any number of narratives that might appeal to a person.
Second, is the assertion that "the way for us to understand it is to follow their lead". Although I agree that a look at the history of a term can be instructive in understanding it's modern counterpart, I fear you may be putting too much weight on this. Why must we follow their lead? I'm open to hearing why it's a good idea, but I'm not sure I'll stipulate to it being necessarily true on its face.
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
...when I was responding to your concern about:
Quoting Reformed Nihilist
Common use just is common use. I live near an old hippy town, there's a lot of vague spirituality around there, man. Be the change that you want to see in the world. Cleanse the toxins. Manage with NLP. These things aren't my scene, I'm too pedantic and particular to tolerate the vagueness of it, but people are going to use the words they're going to use. Is it contributing to some harm? Do you think it's somehow anti-intellectual?
As I indicated in writing about changing funeral options, I've found a growing acceptance of non-religious spirituality a blessing in ways like that, because when it comes to funerals, I don't want to have to choose between the rigid alternatives of Christian and anti-religious humanist. You're sure you're not an anti-religious humanist who yearns for that lost clarity?
I'm really talking mostly about the range of use between a lowest common denominator and highly specific and technical use, which is a really big range, and I although I don't doubt that includes work done by respected philosophers, there isn't one I'm prepared to cite at the moment. If you think this equivocation doesn't occur within academic philosophy, then I can dig into it to find you some good examples (or discover none and prove myself wrong). It also encompasses the sorts of dialogue that occurs on sites like this, between people who have an interest in speaking and thinking clearly and coherently on a subject, but aren't used to, or aren't even interested in, the rigor associated with academia (or semi-academic, pseudo-academic, or peripherally academic discussion). This is where I personally find the most clear cases of this sort of equivocation, and would suggest it has occurred with at least three of the people I've discussed with on this thread.
Do I think it's anti-intellectual? I guess so. I'm not sure what implications that phrase has. I think it is a case of engaging in the practice if thinking, and doing it less than optimally. I also think that the world would be a better place if we could incrementally become better at the practice of thinking, so engaging with a subject like this has a few possible goals or benefits. If I am correct that the use of the term represents "thinking poorly", then I have at least offered those engaging in this dialogue, and those reading it, an opportunity to see the flaws in this way of thinking. If I am incorrect, then I have the same opportunity.
Quoting mcdoodle
I don't understand why those are rigid alternatives. It seems to me, from the point of view of cultural practices, even within christianity, there is a broad range of practices, and the secular world is wide open. Personally, I've asked that whatever funeral ceremony that occurs when I die has a portion that is in respect to my family's beliefs (they're the one's mourning, after all) and one in respect to mine. It doesn't have to be complicated if you don't want it to be.
Quoting mcdoodle
I don't really understand this question. What clarity are you talking about? What qualifies as being "anti-religion"? The answer might be yes or no to either or both questions, but I'm pretty sure it isn't directly relevant to my posts here. For the record, I am not anti-religion if that means that I don't respect that people have the right to believe in whatever they want in their hearts and minds. As soon as their beliefs enter into public discourse, I am anti-religion to the degree that their discourse or behaviour does harm. To that standard, I am mildly anti-religion insofar as it lowers the bar on what is considered reasonable evidence to support a belief in general. I am significantly more anti-religion when religion is used as a justification of heinous acts. I think that's a reasonable and balanced approach for someone who sees no distinction between religion and mythology. I hope that clears that up, and we can stop trying to psychologize me. Fair?
I largely relate to well-informed cynicism, so jump in to point out some problems with this quote. To some degree cynicism is a mode of conformity. But adaptation is a mode of conformity. We conform to the nature of things so that we can eat well, flourish, etc. Non-conformity can be thought of a higher conformity to the nature of things supplanting an obsolete conformity. In the end, the cynic is selfish and personally oriented while the non-cynic or moral-political idealist is (apparently) trans-personally oriented. For the moral idealist, the cynic shirks his duty, the same duty at the heart of the moral idealist's vision of his place in the world.
As far as the "rule of the stronger" goes, there something tautologous going on here. If we view politics as central (as is common with moral idealists), then the stronger are almost by definition those who happen to rule. So we have of course an eternal norm, by definition. The cynic is guilty in the moral idealist's eyes for thinking that human's aren't going to stop being hierarchical anytime soon. The cynic accepts the life is fundamentally struggle. Give a man one thing and he immediately desires something else. The idealist hopes for a stasis over the horizon. Some day there will be a classless society, or a society in tune with nature. For the idealist the world just happens to be out joint. For the cynical, life itself is always out of joint, necessarily unstable and in motion.
The completely bogus line that gives the bias of the author away is:
Their whole life is a continuous effort to suppress and abase nature, inwardly or outwardly, and to identify themselves with its more powerful surrogates—the race, fatherland, leader, cliques, and tradition. For them, these words mean the same thing—the irresistible reality that must be honored and obeyed.
The first part about "debasing" nature is a description of life itself. Of course an organism shapes its environment so that it thrives. Life is obviously a motion against the chaos of its environment. Intellectuals beat a symbolic chaos into shape, just as Horkheimer is trying but largely failing to do here. That such a basic feature of life itself is demonized here seems to reveal the secret conformity at the heart of the quote, a desire to melt into nature. If it is "evil" to "debase" nature and the given, it most be virtuous to melt in to one's environment. Life itself is guilty.
The second part about race, fatherland, etc. is shockingly stupid. It describes the opposite of the cynic. Isn't the cynic exactly the person who scoffs at these sacred abstractions? What gets the moral idealist's goat is that his own cause is one more abstraction and duty on the chopping black. The "back to nature" or "back to a sense of community" song and dance is one more "fatherland" or "race." The cynic enjoys himself as one who does not honor these puffed-up concepts. He may indeed obey laws that he does not believe in. He may indeed play along. He may indeed selfishly adapt to the world as he finds it. In that he is truly guilty in the eyes of the world-fixing idealist. But the racist, the patriot, the ideological reactionary, etc., are not cynics. They are just idealists with a different notion of how to fix the world. The cynic is a thumb in their eyes, too.
The "eclipse of reason" is just the demystification of reason. "Instrumental" reason or pragmatism or the tool-use paradigm all offend in the same way. They make human desire central. Reason is not a replacement for God as it is with Horkheimer perhaps. Instead human desire or feeling is the replacement for God. In short, Horkheimer wants piety toward Reason and Nature. The cynic views both as resources subordinate to life, which is in some sense fundamentally anti-natural and irrational.
It looks like you read the word "cynic" in the quote and based your entire argument from there. If you re-read the quote, "well-informed cynicism" was just one briefly mentioned aspect of the type of person Horkheimer was describing, not the basis of that type of person's views.
It appears that some people sometimes experience this feeling and others never do. FromCivilisation and Its Discontents I got the impression that Freud didn't and was maybe even a little frustrated and annoyed that others felt (or [according to him, just] thought they felt?) something that he had never felt and could not imagine.
Human diversity. Vive la différence!
You may have a point. Maybe he was just sneaking in a jab at the "well informed cynics" ('intellectuals" too selfish to be left-wing) and the rest of the passage was aimed at a fictional ideal dummy. But there are some problems with his argument nevertheless. His fictional dummy or bad guy is "never rationally reconciled to civilization," yet I'm guessing the spirit of this book is itself as odds with the civilization that the author found himself him. His "dummies" are guilty of being too comfortable, which is to say reconciled, though perhaps not articulately. On the other hand, I completely agree that people as a rule identity with race, fatherland, etc., but I'd include communism, critique, etc., as surrogates that also belong on the list. Hork is certainly more sophisticated than the average flag-waving Joe, but he still seems wrapped up in a secular version of religion. This talk of "suppressing and abusing nature" is the give-away. It's more or less anti-human. It's one thing to defend Spaceship Earth as our habitat and life-support system and another thing to personify Nature as a victim. The magical thinking is concentrated there. (I'm more or less neutral on this go-humanity issue. My motive for reacting is largely an aesthetic distaste for the form of his rhetoric, its moves.)
I was involved with the Christian community for more than 40 years, and it's only since I've freed myself from that kind of thinking that I'm able to look at it from an outside position. It's really a feeling of freedom and release, it's like my thinking was locked into a prison.
I still think there is something more to us than just what we physically sense, but I try to base what I believe on evidence not the subjective.
...from the outside, so to speak. Rather like a metaphor for the feeling of falling in love, by one who hasn't actually done so. Freud elaborated it as follows:
Of course, this is the only way that Freud could interpret it, as he was a strict materialist and hated anything religious. That is the primary reason that Jung broke away from him.
I'm not opposed to religion. Of course my super intelligence makes me immune to group think. :p