On the Relationship between Concepts, Subjects, and Objects
When I conceive of my physical body as a defined object in space in relation to myself as nothing but an abstract concept with no definite spatial location, I am relating in my mind and memory that which is abstract to that which is concrete. And when I perceive and conceive of bodies existing externally to my own in the world at large, I am using myself as an abstract concept to formulate a bridge between my own body and those in the world around me, so the relationship between objects, so far as I can know, is necessarily contingent upon the existence of the abstract, that is, my own subjectivity, or rather, subjectivity itself; and if the relationship between two objects is purely abstract and therefore non-spatial, well then so are the objects themselves in their truest essence;
for if sets A and B correspond to ontologically distinct entities, whether they be abstract or concrete in their nature, and part of set A is contained within set B and part of set B is contained within set A, and sets A and B thereby share a common intersection (A ? B), and set C corresponds to the set of abstract relationships that relate and intersect entities A and B, it must be the case that those abstract relationships are contained within a higher set D that not only contains sets A, B, and C, as a subset within itself, but precedes its existence in time (The Ontological Principle of Precedence and Intersection); and also, is purely abstract and non-spatial in its nature and not concrete (spatial). And that, more generally speaking that, the nature of the abstract relationships between things necessarily precede the things themselves, meaning that the essence of the object in concept, necessarily precedes the essence of the object in actuality relative to perceiver with an a priori limited sense perception, and that, paradoxically speaking, the brain as a concept necessarily precedes the brain as an object.
for if sets A and B correspond to ontologically distinct entities, whether they be abstract or concrete in their nature, and part of set A is contained within set B and part of set B is contained within set A, and sets A and B thereby share a common intersection (A ? B), and set C corresponds to the set of abstract relationships that relate and intersect entities A and B, it must be the case that those abstract relationships are contained within a higher set D that not only contains sets A, B, and C, as a subset within itself, but precedes its existence in time (The Ontological Principle of Precedence and Intersection); and also, is purely abstract and non-spatial in its nature and not concrete (spatial). And that, more generally speaking that, the nature of the abstract relationships between things necessarily precede the things themselves, meaning that the essence of the object in concept, necessarily precedes the essence of the object in actuality relative to perceiver with an a priori limited sense perception, and that, paradoxically speaking, the brain as a concept necessarily precedes the brain as an object.
Comments (157)
None of this means I disregard empiricism or physicalism as perspectives worthy of exploration. If I was to come closer to what you’ve said in the OP I guess I’d have to reframe any idea of subjective or objective as being non-absolute - they are just apparent poles, and more so of language than raw experience that is quite obviously set apart from any “object” which is solipsistically framed as a mere “concept” that is “abstracted” - yet it is not abstracted from because there is no where if there is no objective reference.
It’s a whole mishmash of words and it all gets terribly tangled so I just tend to fear get tied in knots and believing I have a grasp of what use this is.
@TheGreatArcanum I see a common interest between us but fear we’re far too far apart to be able to find any common ground to start a fruitful discussion. Who knows though? Maybe something will happen and if not we can at least try when and where we can for common ground then we can enjoy learning where we don’t have any common ground :)
there is no infinite regress, our conception of the object has its origin in our perception of the object, and our perception of the object has its origin in the original concept of the object and ourselves as an object, and those original concepts have their origin in the Absolute Subject which perpetuates their existence, and creates and destroys them.
there is an inverse relationship between object and subject, and also, a Transcendental Subject which perceives and conceives of the process. In the process there is a set of mathematical wave associated with the object of perception, and an inverse set of waves assorted with our brains, and when they meet, there is perception. then there is an awareness of that event, whether it be a sound in the form of a thought or a feeling associated with a chemical reaction, that conceives of it and gives meaning to it. This awarnesss, the Transcendental Subject, the Self (not the self) is outside of space and time in the relative sense of the word. This is the basic structure of the mind.
I suggest you examine the concept of 'existence' itself ! You may come to the conclusion that 'existence' (like all concepts denoted by a word), simply implies 'human contextual functionality', and that ' expected physicality' is merely one aspect of that functionality.
I am very well versed in the concept of being itself, and in no way to I think that existence itself is continent upon human functionality at all, but that the converse is true. that physicality itself is not eternal, and predicted upon the essence of being itself being what it is is, that which both contains, initiatites, destroys and preserves the essence of change itself.
See my Wittgenstein footnote.
I repeat...all concepts/words take their meaning from specific contexts. Nebulous (philosophical) contexts result in 'language on holiday'.
You don't appear to be familiar with the prevalent view amongst philosophers of the 'nonrepresentalist position' on language. For me, this opposes the naive realism of 'things in their own right' and is in line with 'things are thinged by human thingers' ( and that includes the thing we call 'existence' !)
On another thread I wrote...
...... 'thinghood' is what humans ascribe to some focal aspects of their perceptual interactions. In other words 'existence' is a word we use for those recurrent interactions we consider to persist in our interaction history. The naming of such functional interactions reinforces such persistence by the abstract persistence of a word or object name. And since words are socially acquired there tends to be agreement i.e. understanding about the expectancies. encasulated by 'object names'.
Simple Reference...quantum theory...'there are no 'things'....only interactions..
I’m not sure why you’re reading the work of sophists. these people may be considered intelligent to humans, but they’re idiots in the universal sense of the word. one cannot remain ignorant of the essence of being itself and be a universally intelligent being. they’re capped out at “sophist” and “metaphysical propagandist.”
Sorry, but your absolutist/naive realist stance equates merely to 'religion' for me.
If you follow my replies on other threads you will find multiple references which support my position.
Thankyou for the conversation so far.
This is in accordance with the spirit of Godel's Incompleteness Theorem' and a view of 'truth' as 'that which is good or useful to believe'. In addition, since language is. the currency of thought, and currency involves social agreement for its 'value' then philosophy which ignores those linguietic and social (paradigmatic) issues is vacuous. A final nail in the coffin of 'axioms' could be considered to be covered with Derrida's point, that every assertion is merely a 'focal privileging' which entails the backcloth of its negation for its semantic import. (His point that 'context is everything' has also been covered above)
When did it die?
Good luck with your religious mission !
Forums of course constitute soapboxes for those preachers who prefer the comfort of their armchairs !
Thanks. I guess. Dunno how anything religious got into my simple interrogative, but I do have a very comfortable, very old and well-worn, armchair, I must say.
(1) If conceiving of an object is identical to the object literally being present, then what work is the word "conceiving" doing there anyway? In other words, if a conception of an object is identical to the object, then the word "conception" appears to be completely empty and unnecessary semantically. This is especially curious given that we'd be saying that some noun and some action, some verb, performed with respect to the very same noun are supposedly identical.
Otherwise "conceiving an object" isn't actually the same thing as the object itself. A conception of an object would be something different than the object. So the fact that a conception of an object doesn't entail the object literally being present wouldn't negate that there is a conception of an object.
(There might be ways to make sense out of saying that "conceiving an object" is identical to "object" by the way--perhaps akin to my ontology of time compared to some conventional utterances about time, but you'd need to be able to explain the apparent conflicts there.)
(2) Given the above, the fact that conceiving an object has to be different than the object itself if we're not simply adding superfluous, empty words to our utterances, the fact that our conceptions aren't identical to what they're conceptions of doesn't tell us anything about the objects themselves.
My apologies. I'm new to the forum the post was to TheGreatArcanum
I consider all absolutism to be religious, (absolute truth being the mythical crock of gold at the end of the rainbow), and it is you who appears to have the learning deficit.
Lets face it, your knee jerk reaction to post-modernism, which is largely embellishment of pragmatism, is a bit of a give away! I suggest you take seriously Rorty's warning that 'philosophy' per se has zero authority in epistemological matters relative to that of the sciences. This is particularly pertinent when considering the comparative physiology of perceptual system, or the Copenhagen iinterpretation of QM in which there are no 'things', only 'interaction events'. But then you may come to understand that when you extend your learning.
No prob.
They are not one and the same just as effects are not the same as their causes. Concepts are about objects and their aboutness comes from the causal relationship between the object and the concept. Effects carry information about their causes. Effects can be representations of their causes.
I don't understand this notion of abstract concepts not having spatial properties when it is obvious that they do. If your ideas had no spatial property then how can you tell one idea from another. Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus are separate ideas and can both appear together in one's mind as distinct entities, or else how could you tell them apart in your own mind when you think of them both at the same time?
Almost every sensory impression (visual, auditory, tactile and gustatory) has a spatial property relative to the other sensory impressions and include the property of being extended from a central location (my head). I can hear something coming from behind me while only having a visual awareness of what is in front of me. If someone was coming towards me from the front to greet me and shake my hand, I would see them, hear them, and feel them all at the same location. These separate sensory impressions line up in their extended locations, which is how we end up using different senses to reinforce the location of objects relative to our own bodies.
Modern scientific discoveries in particle physics support the existence of a non-local substratum to reality, for in terms of the phenomenon of quantum entanglement, (def.) a change in particle A reflects in particle B instantaneously despite the distance that exists between them, and this is impossible unless both particle A and B are contained within some set C, a non-local medium, (A ? C) and (B ? C) which both precedes and causes the simultaneously changes in them both; that is to say that change, at the fundamental level of our reality, is born, not out of localized actuality (change and space), but out of non-localized potentiality (time and memory).
I think that the object itself, its essence and all of its changing qualities, are subsets of an 'original concept' which has become subjected to chaos, in which case, there is a dialectic between the concepts presented to the object by nature, and the original concept of the object. Man conceives of objects, he assigns words to them, to both objects and abstract relationships between objects, and those words refer to the essences of those objects; and the closer that those definitions become to the 'original concept' that is, the original essence or 'reason' for the existence of the thing, which is synonymous with its function in nature, the higher his level of knowledge is raised. That is to say that ignorance has its origin in the difference between man's conception of the essence of a thing and its original essence, as it were, and if there is too great a distinction between the two in one's mind, one believes, not in truths, but in falsehoods, and one doesn't have knowledge, but opinion. Associatively, wisdom, as distinguished from knowledge is a correct apprehension of, not the essences of particular things, but the essence of existence itself.
I'm not entirely an essentialist, because I don't believe that all original concepts are eternal, but only that some are, like specifically, Aristotle's laws of thought, which I assign actual ontological value (essence) to.
Do you have any source for that? Or is it more something that you take for granted? It seems to me that this kind of analysis is grounded in empiricism, like that of Mill and Locke, which assumes that concepts are derived from the experience of objects, but not all philosophers agree with it.
The reason I ask, is because I don't think your presentation of the idea of the 'concept' has a lot of relation to how the term is really understood in formal philosophy, for example in scholastic philosophy and its derivatives.
i use set theory applied to ontology to figure these things out. we cannot conceive of the object without perceiving it, obviously, so our conception of the object has its origin in our perception of the object, but are perception of the object isn't occurring 'out there' in the object but 'in here' in the subject. our perception of the object has its origin in what I call the "microcosmic motions" which perpetuate the the existence of the brain and therefore one's perception of the body and the world. but of course, these "microcosmic motions" aren't born out of nothingness, but something, or rather, some thing which has an Essence. According to my philosophy, the Essence, involves Subjectivity, that is, Mind, or Consciousness in the absolute sense of the word. So the idea of a thing precedes the thing which precedes our perception and conception of the thing. This is not how modern philosophers conceive of the relationship between the subjects, objects, and concepts, but philosophy is going through a dark age right now.
No they don't. Some descriptions of phenomena are consensually more useful (in terms of prediction and control) than others in particular contexts. No description is any closer to a nebulous 'reality' than any other. (Nietzsche). The 'reality debate' is rejected as futile by Pragmatists like Rorty.
What you’re talking about is mental image. What traditional philosophy means by a concept is not the same as an image. Consider for example mathematical concepts or geometric forms. You might form a mental image of a triangle, but the concept ‘triangle’ - a flat plane bounded on three sides by straight lines - is a concept rather than an image, although you can form an image of the concept. The ‘essence’ of a thing is that which defines it, that without which it could not be what it is. But that is ultimately derived from the Platonic idea or form of the thing, as modified by Aristotle. The intellect is able to discern the forms of things which is the particular ability of man ‘the rational animal’, that other animals cannot.
Quoting TheGreatArcanum
That seems to me something like Vedanta, or that aspect of German idealism which is similar to it, such as Fichte’s ‘absolute ego’. Regrettably I can’t see a justification for that notion especially depicted in such summary form.
How does your philosophical evangelism which relies on classical set theory, reconcile with aspects of QM in which classical set theory is inapplicable ?Even Einstein had trouble with that one ! David Bohm tried going down Einstein's 'underlying order' suggestion, but he was sidelined by most of the profession as being 'a mystic'.
It seems to me that your one-liner about 'philosophy being in a dark place' is merely a fear of being forced to swim without a traditional buoyancy aid.
there’s over 21 different interpretations of QM, not because they are all true, but only because so called “philosophers” like you refuse to accept the existence of a non-spatial aspect to existence. hence the reason that still, after a hundred years, the prevailing metaphysical paradigm is still materialistic. Thomas Kuhn was right in his scientific revolutions; and so was Planck saying that “new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” Stopped perpetuating falsehoods to support your preconceived bias.
Quoting Wayfarer
Yes, it is similar to Husserl’s “Transcendental Ego,” in essence, the perceiver of the perceiver of your thoughts, which is your “true Self” is beyond apace, and this is clear to see when you discover that’s its re source of the will and when you enact it while thinking and change your context in thought, you are willingly changing the patterns in which your neurons fire, and this process is a process which extends from the quantum substratum to the perceptible thought and sound inside our conscious awareness. If the Self is not outside of space, this change in context in thought would be an effect of a prior material cause and our wills could not then be free.
there are many justifications for this. if it were not true that the causal chain which supports hard determinism were not broken inside our minds, it would be impossible to experience silence of mind, and also, if we even existed as a self, we would be, not the active agents of our will, but the passive watchers of it. it’s quite clear, phenomenologically speaking, that we are the active agents of our will, so it must be the case that it is both beyond space and not bound by the causal chain.
Quoting fresco
I’m an ubermensch and a mystic, not a Christian, and especially not an evangelist. you clearly don’t understand the difference, probably because you really know nothing of the position that you criticize and you just default to the materialistic interpretation of everything out of spite or ignorance. see how you without thinking criticized mysticism? this is like the politicians criticizing left wing politics; they do so to keep people from becoming one, why? because then they cannot convince them that it’s rational to become anything in life or to not have a knowledge of being itself. they can then be controlled ideologically just like you are; a little puppet with strings!
ZFC only exists to avoid the paradox created by Russell’s Paradox, not there’s only a problem with Russell’s Paradox if the set of all sets doesn’t have ontological value, or rather, that the ground of being itself downs both contain itself and not contain itself at the same time and in the same respect; but it does, you see, you just have to be intelligent enough to see why. I’ve solved it, of course. I know the essence of the set of all sets. you’ll have to discover why it’s true for yourself or read my work when I release it to the public.
And for the record. Traditional philosophy isn’t philosophy. It’s a last ditch effort to save materialism and atheism. It’s hilarious to watch. Such fools; they same can be said for nearly all of humanity.
Terrapin Station version one million
Thankyou for explaining why are all wasting our time with you !
What would a "non-local substratum" be? The substratum isn't located where the substratum is?
Quoting fresco
You're the one quoting "Rorty;" loser...stop wasting our time. One cannot be both a philosopher and an anti-mystic. those who aren't mystics and call themselves philosophers are just playing pretend.
it's pure subjectivity. it exists everywhere that existence is.
The substratum is everywhere that existence is? What's "non-local" about it?
The substratum is everywhere, but not in space? So if we point to a spatial location, the substratum isn't there, even though it's everywhere. Is that right?
It's not in space, and it's everywhere in space (as well as time, but only in the "non-relative" sense), because the spatial is a subset of the non-spatial, and this amounts to non-locality.
Good work.
"it" is "non-local substratum"? That's what I'm asking you about. I'm asking you what "non-local substratum" would amount to. I don't know how we can talk about the things having or not having an effect on the "essence" of a "non-local substratum" when it's not even clear what a "non-local substratum" would refer to.
If you're interested in someone like me reading past what I'm quoting, it's for you to explain. You're not required to explain things, of course, but don't expect me to bother reading what appears to be endless gobbledygook in lieu of an explanation.
Re "pure subjectivity" I have no idea. I'd have to ask you. I have no idea what work the word "pure" is supposed to be performing.
What's necessary for the existence of subjectivity? The existence of a mind. Where is the evidence that mind requires body? (What does this have to do with anything else we were talking about, by the way?) All evidence we have so far, including our own and others behavior, including how brain injuries correlate with mental/behavioral changes, including things like fMRI imaging and its correlation to mental phenomena/behavior, and on and on, suggests that mind is a property of functioning brains.
Concepts are formed from perceptions. Perceptions are prior to conceptions. Perceptions are brute and vivid, while conceptions are recalled by the will and are less detailed than their related perceptions.
A conception can't be a fundamental essence of reality because they are composed of the more fundamental perceptions of colors, shapes, sounds, smells, tastes and feelings. The most fundamental essence of reality, from the perspective of a non-omniscient mind, are colors, shapes, sounds, smells, tastes and feelings. The aggregation of these fundamental essences into objects in the mind when I look at the world is a brute process. Objects are axiomatic in that the fundamental essences are not willed into these forms like I can will an imaginary object (concepts) in my mind. They are forced and then I form concepts in order to categorize my perceptions into something useful for survival and pleasure.
If you're just using it to refer to things interacting with each other that's simple enough.
Time is change and what is the fundamental essence of change? How are you aware of change?
The fact that you keep using concepts to refer to other concepts without ever getting to perceptions indicates that you don't have a mind at all. These are the types of responses one would expect from a mindless robot or zombie.
change has its origin in the will, the will has its origin in the memory; there is silence in my mind; I then will to create change within my present intuition and awareness and there is change. this process can only be pointed at with words, just like all things. first and foremost, it is a direct experience, and an experience that doesn't even necessitate a body; the body only exists to both limit and expand the potential concepts that can be conceived of towards a predetermined end...
If you're simply positing a God of some sort, why not be explicit about that?
I'm an atheist. So I don't buy that there's "a watcher of changes beyond space"
Quoting TheGreatArcanum
No, because I don't know what the heck "absolute detail" would be. Not that that matters for what's the case ontologically, whatever "absolute detail" is. You're making an epistemological request there instead.
I am analysing it differently. Actually I've developed considerable respect for (of all things) Thomism, and neo-Thomism - the philosophy of Aquinas, and some of his spiritual offspring.
The point I wish to make is articulated by the Catholic philosopher Edward Feser. I don't share his Catholicism, but I do respect the argument he presents in for example this article:
He then goes on to differentiate concepts from ideas and sensations, in a way which I find persuasive. But then, I've decided in favour of scholastic realism, which is the view that intelligible objects like numbers and universals, are real, but not real in the sense accepted by empiricism.
The mystic often makes claims that empirical facts are truths, and/or that logical truths are facts. Understanding the difference in parse is where a great many people get tangled up.
I mention this not to say you are saying otherwise, only to make an important point explicit when conversing with those happily flip-flopping and dancing between these points.
@fresco it isn’t that often a mystic rears their head and admits it. Be thankful for that at least otherwise you could’ve ended up talking to a wall for a number of pages here ;)
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/5838/essay-number-one-perceptions-of-experience-and-experiences-of-perception
It is not a doctrine, just a free flowing exploration of how to express certain ideas I like to ponder. Some parts are less coherent than others because I set myself a word limit.
It’s an offer to partake in an open discussion. You cannot really tell me I am right or wrong when the purpose of my essay was explorative and a means to express ideas meant to appeal to people whose perspectives may differ quite a lot.
You can read it and get a feel of my thoughts written there or not. Your choice. It is vaguely about consciousness, semiotics and epistemology. I also touch on a manner in which to conceive of temporality in a slightly different manner than what people may be used to (or not?).
You seem to want to converse so you can choose to make the effort or not. I wrote it primarily for myself so it’s no skin off my nose if you have nothing to read it or say anything about it if you do - although it would be appreciated and perhaps help me write my thoughts out in a more concise manner.
This is all wrong. Change does not have its origin in the will, nor does the will have its origin in the memory.
Change can occur as a result of the will, but mostly not. Mostly change in my body movements originates in the will. Change occurs in the environment that does not originate in the will. This is what helps us determine what part of our experience is our body and what isn't. Our body entails the aspect of our experience that our will influences directly as opposed to indirectly with the environment, and the length of the spatially extended property of our sensory perceptions. Our visual, auditory and tactile sensory impressions have a distinct extended nature to them that helps us locate objects relative to the body in the environment with precision. We can feel and see things touching different parts of our body. The extended property of these sensory impressions helps us define the boundaries of our bodies. Most of the time I find myself intending to change the parts I can (my behavior) in response to changes I didn't intend to happen (the environment).
The will also precedes the recalling of memories. I can intentionally recall certain memories. Sometimes memories just pop into my head, or what I am thinking of can lead to another related memory. These are not memories that are preceded with intent. I can't say that all memories originate in the will, but many do. It also seems to me that observing the world is an intentional act and making an observation entails recognition, which uses memory.
Quoting Harry Hindu
and how do you know that there aren’t two wills within you? Goethe said “two soul, alas, dwell within my breast.” how come you only think that there is one? have you not yet met your entire self? what are you waiting for? scientific evidence?:lol:
Quoting Harry Hindu
if change has its origin in will sometimes, and the will can activate neurons and therefore microcosmic change, and microcosmic change formulates the basis of the world, well then how can you say that the will cannot be the cause of the world of you have direct evidence that the will can cause microcosmic change?
if Will is not born out of memory, then memory and the will are mutually exclusive? Yet you can only will what is in you’re memory, and all of your perceptions are at the same time perceptions and contained within memory, so how is it that you’ve concluded that will and memory can be mutually exclusive?
Why would someone become a "mystic"?
Who then are the philosophers? Are the idealist philosophers materialists? Are religious philosophers atheists?
And you think that hurling personal insults is not wasting our time? :chin:
Welcome to the forum. I like seeing a fiery pragmatist join the mix.
I can dig it. But I think a person can get high on Nietzsche, Hegel, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Derrida,.... When a person is plugged in to what-you-may-call-it, there's a creation explosion of concepts. I've been there a few times. I've scribbled out manifestos of THE philosophy. When I come down, I usually still find value in the ideas but not the same supreme value.
For me these 'mystic' states were tangled up with iconoclasm. The 'illusions' and limitations of mundane thinking and even perhaps mundane morality are 'seen through.' Writing at the moment from a calm state of mind, I suggest that feeling is the heart of this experience. The apparently revolutionary thoughts vary, while the wide-eyed possession of whatever this Truth happens to be... actually lives in the blood.
there is a difference between transient mystical states and permanent mystical states. all of the greatest philosophers and scientists of all time experienced a constant mystical state of consciousness. If one does not have this experience, it is possible to become pretty good, like wittgenstein good, or Heidegger good, but not Plato good, or better than that.
So did you begin to have a mystical experience and it has continued unabated? I ask sincerely. I am curious. Maybe it really is different from my experiences.
I've been interested in the rhetorical mechanics of the mystical position for a long time. Really I could probably improvise a handful of types who appear on forums. To me all of them have their value. There's something lovably old school about the mystic. 'I, Plato, am the Truth.' It's the boldest claim. It goes for pure authority/truth without mediation. The mystic bluntly tells people that they just don't get it, that they are locked out of the secret (by a lack of faith or a cowardly conformity or...?) Why don't we get it? Are we locked out? Are you here to win us over? Enjoy your superiority? Look for the few others who are chosen ?
yes, it advanced and advanced a lot. but slowly over several years. I cannot say too much about it, but I can tell you that the will and awareness, which is generally bound to the body, becomes unbound, and the body that you once knew, in awareness, is not the same as it once was; so when I move my awareness about my body, I feel magical things, while the normal human just feels their physical body.
Quoting ghost
if you’ve read my responses to people, you will have probably noticed that I speak as if my truths are absolute, and this is because they are. I will be releasing a book with the next two years that will expound upon the truth in great detail, and if all goes as planned, it will change the world. Man has been living in darkness for long enough now, so it’s time that he poke his head outside the cave and see what he’s been missing. I am here to help make that happen. unfortunately, there are dark forces fighting against me, trying to steal their minds away from me and the truth, but they will not prevail because my mission comes from the highest of the high.
Would you say that you are still organizing that book? And that the ideas we see here will find their way into the final book?
Quoting TheGreatArcanum
That suggests to me that your perspective can indeed be communicated through concepts?
Quoting TheGreatArcanum
Do you understand the dark forces to have a grudge against your mission? Or are they ultimately well meaning people who just misunderstand the mission and accidentally oppose? Or ?
Thank you also for being open and answering my questions.
I’ve been writing, reading, and organizing for two-three years now. When I started, I basically knew nothing. Yesterday I finished the most important section of my book on ‘The First Principles of Philosophy;’ it has 10 principles of ontology and epistemology and 17 general principles or axioms of metaphysics. I have many many coherent paragraphs finished and 100s of pages of writing but nothing is really finalized yet. I’m organizing as I go though now. It’s coming together nicely. I’m working on a section on ‘The Freedom and Phenomenology of the Will’ right now which I expect will be legendary because of its profundity.
Quoting ghost
to some extent, yes. It requires an extensive knowledge of what truly is; a knowledge that most all mystics have hitherto failed to provide.
Quoting ghost
yes, all of them place the will above love, the collective will; therein lies the distinction between angels and demons; both of which are above man, and this is because he man who wills to do great things is greater than the man who wills only to exist. the demons care only about themselves, the angels put the interests of others over their own; so they oppose anyone who might get in the way of this mission, and say, let humans know that they are enslaved to them.
Quoting I like sushi
Yes, it’s altered, permanently altered. It’s been a slow development. I’ve had so many good memories, like the day back a few years ago when I discovered that I could flex my brain hemispheres for the first time, and also that they could be flexed for me; this dubstep song came on and my brain just went crazy flexing with the beat and I just smiled really wide...there are so many experiences like this that are very special to me.
You should listen to the New Agers more; there are some things that they are right about. You can approach it with a skeptical mind, that’s fine; but know that there is a way to experience this and that the Eastern traditions have known about it for thousands of years. It can be accessed through mantra mediation and philosophical contemplation, as well as the opening of the heart towards all beings; you must place love and reason up on a pedestal because these are the the qualities which the Creator values the most.
Thanks for the welcome !
I’m reasonably well read on the history of occultism and such. It’s basically a very bizarre and confusing array of purposeful self-deception - a kind of self-hypnosis. It has its uses and dangers.
By this, if it isn’t clear enough already, I mean that you flip from logical abstraction to objects of perception as if they are interchangeable. If A is a part of B and you then say both A and B are existing objects you’ve stepped outside of pure logic yet you continue as if you haven’t stepped outside of pure logic.
Claims of some mystical truth that will change the world followed by fear of plagiarism don’t add up. You mean to put your fame and pride before the benefits to humanity? That doesn’t sound like a particularly ‘loving’ or humane rationale.
If you’re coming from a phenomenological perspective then say so. The phenomenological approach is the only instance where the so called ‘real’ doesn’t matter. It is essentially a science of subjectivity and so cannot then be extended as an existent absolute.
Even if you do actually have something slightly original to say I fear your lack of attention to the concepts used will make it illegible - definitions of definitions and a requirement to address epistemic and semantic problems. It will be a very hard thing to do and require concentration and luck; and you’ll never be able to express something tangible to anyone else, ‘felt’, without physical evidence to back you up.
Humility will kill you, but clearly you need to die before you can get off that treadmill. That is my honest view (if I’m wrong then I guess we’ll see how things pan out for you over the next few years).
Thanks for the answers. I guess what I'm trying to specify is how much you associate rationality with mysticism. Clearly you are interested in concepts, so the truth as you see and value it has a conceptual aspect. So that leaves me trying to figure out where the mysticism comes in.
My take is that some 'internal' experiences are as rare as they are potent. So descriptions of that experience aren't going to mean much to most people. I'd say that people who really love Nietzsche (for example) have probably all found a mirror there for something that they suspect is missing in many others. It's a gleam in the eye. It's divine malice and golden laughter, etc.
I’ve edited quite a bit and done quite a bit of thinking about the document I sent you. When I sent it to you it was 10 pages, now it’s 17. And I’ve changed the stipulations of my principles of ontology to include universal and absolute truths only. so it doesn’t fail from the start. Of course, logic is eternal and existence has always been identical to itself so it’s always been a subset of the law of identity.
Quoting I like sushi
I use the phrase “ontologically distinct entities” meaning that they can be abstract or concrete. I say that one can refer to them (objects) as abstractions because the essence of a thing is abstract and its qualities are concrete and (quality is a subset of essence). This is why I say that quality is really just an actualized concept or set of concepts.
Quoting I like sushi
My philosophical principles and axioms are the best ever created. Spinoza’s don’t compare. I’ve found a way to bridge ontology and logic, a way that works in every case. I don’t need to use mystical truths to convince them of anything. I will release the axioms and principles just before the book comes out.
Quoting I like sushi
I am writing in phenomenology. I have man ideas that haven’t been spoken on before, but I don’t root my philosophy in it. Mostly, I’m concerned with proving that all objects are contained within the subject.
Quoting I like sushi
can’t find anyone to read it and critique it who can give constructive feedback, unfortunately, I can’t even pay anyone to critique it. I have the first principles of philosophy here and with a little help, or even a little more thought and effort on my part, they can be revolutionary. All facts require interpretation. How are we to interpret them properly without knowable of the absolute context in which they exist? My goal is to establish what must be true for science to be true, so that we can know how to give meaning to the facts.
Quoting I like sushi
Humility? Don’t you mean egotism? don’t you think I was chosen to have the experiences I have for a reason? they pretty much force me to write everyday, not because no one is going to read or be inspired by my writings, but because man are. I’m going to be the best human to ever do it., this I am sure of.
I'm surprised that your money isn't talking. Are you ambivalent about being critiqued? What kind of money have you offered?
I meant “humility”. You have expressed what I can only call arrogance more than once. I meant that part of you will have to die at the hand of humility.
As long as you know you’ll everything should go well enough.
Good luck.
Ps. If you want professional critique then post an ad somewhere with a figure and what qualifications you expect people to have. It is unusual for people to pay to have their philosophy critiqued so it’s no wonder people are unwilling to believe you’re genuine (I don’t and I’m talking to you).
Fascinating.
But...that way of looking at people, ideas, experiences (common/rare impotent/potent) leaves you liable to being dashed against the rocks, over and over. Sirens, etc. If you think most people are missing something you have, you won't blink an eye at flattering people just enough to carve a space where you can supply what they're missing. And so forth and so forth until it allsnowballs into something...what do you think?
I call my philosophy ‘rational mysticism.’ Typically the mystics avoid rational thinking because the absolute cannot e known rationally, according to them. But I think that’s baloney, and that the laws of logic extend their way back eternally, and that since the laws of logic apply to the absolute, that we can know it. the mysticism comes from the notion that consciousness precedes and contains all things and that consciousness can exist apart form bodies, and bodies only exist to both expand and limit the concepts that can be known, also, feeling is only possible with bodies, and also seeing.
Quoting ghost
Yes, some are beyond what others can understand. People must know that since the all is mind; nearly anything is possible; with expanded consciousness comes less limitations on how the mind can effect the world.
Nietzsche was a mystic but a fallen mystic; hence the reason he had such a negative attitude towards mystics; I have read many of his books; I will be incorporating his philosophy of the overman in my own book, but not much else. He’s really created a lot of chaos here on earth that I have to now fix.
Quoting ghost
Like the moon, everyone had a dark side. there is a demonic aspect to being; only because nothing can be forgotten, and all the memories that we create are stored forever. this is what creates “hell” every person, and especially the mystic, is sort of on an island, surround by demons, as it were, and these thoughts can influence people if they get depressed and the mystic if his energy is lowered. I think that people who pursue this path will eventually find more pain than joy; they all come back to love eventually.
I emailed like 20 professors from various respected universities around the country and even several from the local D3 college in my area and I got zero responses even despite offering to pay money. One thing you might not know is if you mention the word “mysticism” everyone runs as if it’s the plague or something. I keep hearing phrases like “that would be considered mysticism” from people on this forum, and when they say this they act as if it’s a contradiction or an impossible conclusion or something. little do they know that they’re dead wrong.
It's complicated. I guess it depends on how one values that missing thing. Obviously it's got to be talked about carefully. It's not far from madness in the emotional sphere. But is it really just rock and roll? Immigrant Song, Stairway to Heaven , Nativity in Black , Machine Gun? What does the scream of Hendrix's guitar mean in Machine Gun? It's not innocent, but it's not petty either. It's the magic of the king, the energy of the emperor. Patriarchal mystique perhaps.
I solved the problem of causation today. I’ve solved the problem of subjects and objects. I’ve established 10 new principles of ontology and epistemology and 17 general principles of metaphysics. I’ve done all of this in two years with no college degree. I’m doing just fine. And in ten years, I suspect that your opinion of me will have changed drastically.
Who needs professors though? Is there some validation to be had from academia? That's the tension in your position for me. If it's reason alone, then it's philosophy. If there's an appeal to rare experience, then most people will want to call it religion or mysticism.
You could always just pay a skilled writer to organize it so that it sings. That writer wouldn't even have to understand or agree with everything.
What I’m trying to have edited isn’t my prose, but my philosophical axioms, principles, and definitions, the logical basis and framework of my philosophy. I didn’t mentioned mysticism, it’s just that my ideas are so rare today in philosophy. for example, I think that objects are subsets of subsets and that all lies within; that all is contained within a non-spatial point and that therefore a non-spatial aspect to reality exists as well as two variations of time, a relative and an absolute time. I also think that the psyche is dual in the sense that there are two minds and two wills within us, and also that the source of the will is beyond space (the perceiver of the perceiver); and also that concepts precede the existence of things and things are just nested hierarchies of actualized concepts. I also think that there’s a soul and an objective basis for morality....so yeah, needless to say, post-modernism and my philosophy aren’t compatible. People usually respond the way this sushi guy does, with contempt, disbelief, and no rational counterarguments to justify them.
This reminds me of the great mystic Al Ghazali:
"Knowledge exists potentially in the human soul like the seed in the soil; by learning the potential becomes actual, loser" ~ Al-Ghazali
Ah. Well I guess you are asking for a difficult thing. It sounds like you want a co-creator of the philosophy. Even if people were willing to do it, they'd be afraid that they wouldn't know how.
Quoting TheGreatArcanum
Well your philosophy directly clashes with the basic self-conceptions of other people. If you are right, then they are wrong about fundamental things. But the reverse is also true. One of the themes that I like to focus on is our drive to project ourselves and win recognition. Others were writing about this long before I was born, but it's something that's always fascinated me. I suffer/enjoy Kierkegaardian self-consciousness, let's say. Personality is mask. There's something absurd about being attached to a finite face and finite name. Something higher wants out, wants to indeed be rootless and continually transcend its last move.
I digress. But from my perspective the angst of selling yourself is profoundly educational. We learn most from rhetorical wounds scored fairly against us and from overhearing ourselves as we try to make ourselves understood to the stranger.
It's funny you mention faith. Coincidentally, that's something I'm interested in. It is complicated. Kierkegaard, as I'm sure you know, found he could only express his faith through a hodgepodge of various personas. & That's a whole question unto itself. What is the function of a persona? How do various personas interact? Is there a difference between a collection of personas arrayed radially around a central topic as opposed to a series of personas taking different, though similar tacks? How would we understand the difference between the two approaches? What about empowerment? Can we establish an axis [momentary ego-boost] ---------[long-term benefit] that relates to concentric versus serial personas?
Along similar lines : Is it possible for a singular person to consider the relationship between the concrete and the abstract, the metaphysical and the real without integrating all of their personas? And what is the relationship between private integration and public?
It's awkward to talk about. It's mostly that one expects to be misunderstood. I enjoy talking about these things, but they push all kinds of buttons in people. Have you seen Unforgiven? Eastwood is the mystic. Hackman is the scientist. Faith is just 'always being lucky' or feeling a kind of fate/luck that is ultimately beneath all reason or justification. Or that's one spin on one kind of faith.
That's a profound question. I think usually the persona is the self one is invested in constructing, maintaining, protecting. The mask just is the face. But something happens in human consciousness, for all of us I think, especially those who live in words. The 'true' self is made of words. But words are the infinite medium. Concept is the highest manifestation of religion some might say. So a single face and a single history are a sort of absurd vessel for the infinite voice. The mind inside is a theater crammed with voices. But one of those voices understands itself as a theater crammed with voices, commanding them like Prospero.
The radial situation might just be pragmatic. Or trying to write the same poem again from scratch, just a little better, including what has been learned in the meantime. The other approach reminds me of drama. Some themes have to be exaggerated perhaps in order to shine forth. So the writer yanks out a partial self, cranks up the volume, but then needs distance from he, the sane citizen, recognizes as excessive. That none of us are quite the sane citizens it is our duty to appear to be is another issue. Comedians are allowed to confess that for all of us.
I don’t need a co-creator. I need someone very familiar with the history of metaphysics and logic to critique my first principles on their validity and soundness, mostly. It’s actually quite simple in its elegance and complexity; much more simple and straightforward than say Kant and Hegel’s philosophy.
Quoting ghost
yes. this is true. but I haven’t really found much constructive criticism here.
To bad Guattari isn't around. I think he'd get off on the gig.
Indeed, but according to Husserl , it does give us apodictic certainty and an absolute grounding.
That's a tough one. Maybe you can relate. I try to be a rounded and grounded personality. Given the sophistication of your posts, I imagine that you dress carefully, that the details matter. I think that (whatever our differences) there's a similar sense that we're at a play, and that others are perhaps more likely to forget that they are just posing, engaged in the role.
As far as private/public, I sometimes think I detect little clues in thinkers that hint at their more complex private views. Just imagine being famous and telling the whole truth.... Let's say that some part of you forgive or embraces yourself as a whole, darkness and light. Well that's a matter that must remain private, excepting the highest of friendships/relationships. And even these have their limits (have two people ever really lived in exactly the same world?)
Saying “Good luck” is not meant with malice or contempt. Neither is the above - if I’m wrong it won’t matter a jot. I’d be doing a disservice to you if I lied about what I see going on here.
Anyway, I’m going to step away from this thread now.
Thanks for your responses :)
I never read that book (I know the one you're talking about.) But if that book is like I've imagined it, you're probably right.
I have seen Unforgiven but it was a really long time ago.
But, speaking in declaratives, the 'true self' is made of actions, not words. What you are is what you do, no matter what you feel. Because everyone feels! Which doesn't flatten or normalize it. It comes out in different ways. Everyone feels stuff, and sees the gleams in different places. But what you do is what you are. On a cosmic scale? Who knows, sing! You don't need the face and history all the time. But they're still there, once the song's over. That you extend beyond your face and history doesn't mean that you don't bear the responsibility of the face and history. Feeling something very important (which literally everyone has felt) isn't a get-out-face-free card.
Even if being at TPF is a little uncomfortable or annoying, I still think it's good to expose yourself to other perspectives. At the very least you are learning about the world and what to expect from others when you bring them philosophy.
Ah, I'm a slob.
I understand this view, but let's not underestimate the power of words.
Quoting csalisbury
I don't think you get what I was getting at. And in the friendliest way that such a thing can be mentioned, aren't you falling into a moralizing role here? Or maybe this is just your unfiltered reaction. And maybe I set it up wrong.
The performance is largely for the self. So we are talking about a modification of conscience. As far as Nietzschean modes go, it's beyond the face, beyond history. So one gets to a high place, has a godlike feeling, and enjoys a post-orgasmic clarity on issues like the face and history. Nietzsche wrote some killer lines on Heraclitus, about his disdain for his own immortality or reputation. Aristotle's proud man is no angel either.
Such pride or self-satisfaction is always absurd from the outside. Who's this guy? He doesn't have billions of dollars or [idol.] And that's where faith comes in, or the secret, inner kingdom of God. So i's all just madness and vanity to prudent conformity. Note that I am largely a prudent conformist reflecting on a pilot light that flares up once in a while. I'd never just casually mention such stuff in mixed company, though jokes can do the trick. I guess I'm pretty slick socially, believe it or not. So I very much understand that Nietzsche is creepy.
So I'm saying that intense feeling is a get-out-of-everything card. Now prudent me who works at surviving and fitting in understands what I've ungenerously called moralizing. I called it out because of its mild parent-child dynamic (which didn't offend me but made me feel not quite understood, hence all this cosmic drivel.)
I'm surprised. Well, I guess I've projected. Still, there is something in your posts I relate to, despite the places where we seem to not meet up.
I'm not saying, I hope it's clear, that there's no place for post-orgasmic clarity. By all means, inner kingdom, Blake etc. I don't mean to say that everything is the company picnic. You know, the company picnic where everyone is thinking 'I'm at the company picnic, and am entirely my social role' except for the hero & one or two ladies with a glint in their eye.
But why the jump from 'action' to reputation, pride, money? Why does 'what you do is what you are' translate, reflexively, into a question of status?
'a slob, but still'. What is the 'still' doing? 'Slob' negates something, 'still' preserves something else. What, and how?
It sounds like you suffer from delusions of grandeur and mistake it for mystical insight.
Quoting TheGreatArcanum
It is quite common for professors to receive this kind of "stuff" unsolicited. It is simply not worth the time and effort to respond. Nothing good will come of it. Unless they share your opinion of what you say as coming from "the highest of the high" you will reject their help and disparage them.
I like your honesty and self-awareness as always. To answer your question, moralizing and morality are about status, about what is noble. Let me step into the Nietzschean role here and say that war is god and that no one is outside of the game. This isn't about a life of street crime. What an inspired person wants to do is make art, scream like Robert Plant about being a rock that no longer rolls. Nietzsche is (or sometimes is) just conceptual rock-and-roll. But so are Hegel and Aristotle.
We can also approach this issue in terms of what the today's academic man would on average miss or have to conceal in himself. If a person actually reads some of the great books that are used in intellectual status play (and I know that you have, to be clear), then he sees a kind of arrogance or kingly masculinity that doesn't fit very well with corporate sensitivity training. I am not railing against the times here. I'm connecting the perception of phoniness or sentimentality to the tradition.
[quote=Hegel]
This awful fact, that historical men were not what is called happy – for only private life in its manifold external circumstances can be “happy” – may serve as a consolation for those people who need it, the envious ones who cannot tolerate greatness and eminence. They strive to criticize the great and belittle greatness. Thus in modern times it has been demonstrated ad nauseam that princes are generally unhappy on their thrones. For this reason one does not begrudge them their position and finds it tolerable that they rather than oneself sit on the throne. The free man, however, is not envious, but gladly recognizes what is great and exalted and rejoices in its existence. ... But to such great men attaches a whole train of envy, which tries to demonstrate that their passion is a vice. One can indeed apply the term “passion” to the phenomenon of the great men and can judge them morally by saying that passion had driven them. They were indeed men of passion: they had the passion of their conviction and put their whole character, genius, and energy into it.
...
What schoolmaster has not demonstrated that Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar were driven by such passions and were, consequently, immoral? From which it immediately follows that he, the schoolmaster, is a better man than they because he has no such passions, and proves it by the fact that he has not conquered Asia nor vanquished Darius and porus, but enjoys life and allows others to enjoy it too. These psychologists are particularly fond of contemplating those peculiarities that belong to great historical figures as private persons. Man must eat and drink; he has relations with friends and acquaintances; he has emotions and fits of temper. “No man is a hero to his valet de chambre,” is a well-known proverb; I have added – and Goethe repeated it two years later – "but not because the former is no hero, but because the latter is a valet.” He takes off the hero’s boots, helps him into bed, knows that he prefers champagne, and the like. Historical personages fare badly in historical literature when served by such psychological valets. These attendants degrade them to their own level, or rather a few degrees below the level of their own morality, these exquisite discerners of spirits. Homer’s Thersites, who abuses the kings, is a standing figure for all times. Not in every age, it is true, does he get blows – that is, beating with a solid cudgel – as in the Homeric one. But his envy, his egotism, is the thorn that he has to carry in his flesh; and the undying worm that gnaws him is the tormenting thought that his excellent intentions and criticisms get absolutely no result in the world.
[/quote]
We also have Kant, Wittgenstein, Schopenhauer, and others....telling us with straight faces that they are the greatest to ever play the game. What's the difference between them and @TheGreatArcanum ? I'd save it's a matter of sophistication and submitting to reality in order to recoup control over it. And maybe @fresco could chime in here. I may be wrong, but I'd bet that he likes Nietzsche and feels what I'd call the rock-n-roll in philosophy that is a little bit evil, a little bit unruly and contemptuous of the intellectual who is not also a man or a warrior or...willing to wear the crown rather than outsource that evil via projections and envy. (Note that I'm not accusing you here. ) There is a violence toward sentimentality in philosophy, a machismo that's a little out of place in this age. At its worst it is of course monstrous. And that's why only a fool talks about it lightly or in the wrong situation.
Indeed, and this is where we meet. This is the Kierkegaard thing. It's as if the truth were a dark god that can't be captured in a single persona. This takes us to Feuerbach's species-essence being shattered into a million pieces. This takes us to finitude and what's false in Hegel (that someone can be everyone at once.)
My question is whether your slobbiness is ultimately an artistic decision, a costume of humility or transcendence of fashion.. Like a king in his bathrobe. I'd be surprised if you didn't walk through the world feeling tuned in to something rare.
Have you looked at Hobbes recently? I am really digging Hobbes and Bacon. Their prose is so compact. This is more on the Nietzsche theme:
[quote=Hobbes]
The secret thoughts of a man run over all things, holy, prophane, clean, obscene, grave, and light, without shame, or blame; which verball discourse cannot do, farther than the Judgement shall approve of the Time, Place, and Persons. An Anatomist, or a Physitian may speak, or write his judgement of unclean things; because it is not to please, but profit: but for another man to write his extravagant, and pleasant fancies of the same, is as if a man, from being tumbled into the dirt, should come and present himselfe before good company. And 'tis the want of Discretion that makes the difference. Again, in profest remissnesse of mind, and familiar company, a man may play with the sounds, and aequivocal significations of words; and that many times with encounters of extraordinary Fancy: but in a Sermon, or in publique, or before persons unknown, or whom we ought to reverence, there is no Gingling of words that will not be accounted folly: and the difference is onely in the want of Discretion. So that where Wit is wanting, it is not Fancy that is wanting, but Discretion. Judgement therefore without Fancy is Wit, but Fancy without Judgement not.
...
The Passions that most of all cause the differences of Wit, are principally, the more or lesse Desire of Power, of Riches, of Knowledge, and of Honour. All which may be reduced to the first, that is Desire of Power. For Riches, Knowledge and Honour are but severall sorts of Power.
...
And therefore, a man who has no great Passion for any of these things; but is as men terme it indifferent; though he may be so farre a good man, as to be free from giving offence; yet he cannot possibly have either a great Fancy, or much Judgement. For the Thoughts, are to the Desires, as Scouts, and Spies, to range abroad, and find the way to the things Desired: All Stedinesse of the minds motion, and all quicknesse of the same, proceeding from thence. For as to have no Desire, is to be Dead: so to have weak Passions, is Dulnesse; and to have Passions indifferently for every thing, GIDDINESSE, and Distraction; and to have stronger, and more vehement Passions for any thing, than is ordinarily seen in others, is that which men call MADNESSE.
...
To shew any signe of love, or feare of another, is to Honour; for both to love, and to feare, is to value. To contemne, or lesse to love or feare then he expects, is to Dishonour; for 'tis undervaluing.
To praise, magnifie, or call happy, is to Honour; because nothing but goodnesse, power, and felicity is valued. To revile, mock, or pitty, is to Dishonour.
To speak to another with consideration, to appear before him with decency, and humility, is to Honour him; as signes of fear to offend. To speak to him rashly, to do anything before him obscenely, slovenly, impudently, is to Dishonour.
To believe, to trust, to rely on another, is to Honour him; signe of opinion of his vertue and power. To distrust, or not believe, is to Dishonour.
To hearken to a mans counsell, or discourse of what kind soever, is to Honour; as a signe we think him wise, or eloquent, or witty. To sleep, or go forth, or talk the while, is to Dishonour.
To do those things to another, which he takes for signes of Honour, or which the Law or Custome makes so, is to Honour; because in approving the Honour done by others, he acknowledgeth the power which others acknowledge. To refuse to do them, is to Dishonour.
[/quote]
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3207/3207-h/3207-h.htm#link2H_4_0046
Hard and clear, for better or worse. This like phenomenology. We already know this stuff. But there's something about it being said that way.
FWIW, I don't think you've clarified your persona here. On the hand, you assert being in on something supreme. On the other hand you still mention wanting some help.
I don't mind what some might call your arrogance. Other philosophers who are now at the center of educated conversation were maybe just as arrogant. Hegel thought that God came to know himself and complete himself through a man named Hegel. Or that's one version. He was also a rational mystic.
But he figured out how to sell it. His first book was a mess, but he later wrote more clearly.
Anyway, the problem is convincing people that whatever it is that you feel and think can actually be of value to them. We live in a world of false promises. We live in a world where people lying to themselves in the rule, at least in small harmless things. So what the world-weary skeptics trust is reliable results, tools that work whether we believe in them or not. My own point of view is that, aside from occasionally bouts of illumination, the situation is more like this.
@schopenhauer1 You will like this.
[quote=Hobbes]
By MANNERS, I mean not here, Decency of behaviour; as how one man should salute another, or how a man should wash his mouth, or pick his teeth before company, and such other points of the Small Morals; But those qualities of man-kind, that concern their living together in Peace, and Unity. To which end we are to consider, that the Felicity of this life, consisteth not in the repose of a mind satisfied. For there is no such Finis Ultimus, (utmost ayme,) nor Summum Bonum, (greatest good,) as is spoken of in the Books of the old Morall Philosophers. Nor can a man any more live, whose Desires are at an end, than he, whose Senses and Imaginations are at a stand. Felicity is a continuall progresse of the desire, from one object to another; the attaining of the former, being still but the way to the later. The cause whereof is, That the object of mans desire, is not to enjoy once onely, and for one instant of time; but to assure for ever, the way of his future desire. And therefore the voluntary actions, and inclinations of all men, tend, not only to the procuring, but also to the assuring of a contented life; and differ onely in the way: which ariseth partly from the diversity of passions, in divers men; and partly from the difference of the knowledge, or opinion each one has of the causes, which produce the effect desired.
...
So that in the first place, I put for a generall inclination of all mankind, a perpetuall and restlesse desire of Power after power, that ceaseth onely in Death. And the cause of this, is not alwayes that a man hopes for a more intensive delight, than he has already attained to; or that he cannot be content with a moderate power: but because he cannot assure the power and means to live well, which he hath present, without the acquisition of more. And from hence it is, that Kings, whose power is greatest, turn their endeavours to the assuring it at home by Lawes, or abroad by Wars: and when that is done, there succeedeth a new desire; in some, of Fame from new Conquest; in others, of ease and sensuall pleasure; in others, of admiration, or being flattered for excellence in some art, or other ability of the mind.
[/quote]
We get the essence of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer in Hobbes, in clean, lean lines of real talk.
Indeed Hobbes had a bit of the pessimist about him.
Admittedly in hi final unfinished work there are points that veer away from this definition and since his first works he is constantly evolving how to explicate his ideas and correct them under criticism.
Note: I think he either goes off the rails in “Crisis” and/or made a hash of putting his ideas across with any reasonable degree of clarity (he is obtuse sometimes and dealing with an obtuse problem).
What was the “Oh dear!” Comment about?
Quoting I like sushi
You were trying to get TheGreatArcanum to elaborate on his angels and devils theme. My fear was that might lead in certain, shall we say, psychopathologic directions.
Either way, it is nice to see a little bombast and honesty (misguided by my judgement).
My rule is that if I think I’ve got an indisputable conclusion I’m either deluded, ignorant, or close-minded. Without doubt there is no room for intellectual exploration and/or understanding.
Quoting TheGreatArcanum
Quoting TheGreatArcanum
I agree with the underlined part. In first quote, though, I'd say that 'Western man' will largely grant 'the direct perception of spirit.' I don't think anyone here (?) doubts the intensity of your experience. What people do doubt is whether it is actually relevant to them. Is your experience transferable? And if the experience of others is not directly accessible to you as yours is not directly accessible to them, is your experience preferable? If it is, then how can you prove it?
IMO, this is almost impossible through this medium. If I see a sage in the flesh who walks with the serenity of a god, then perhaps my walls of cynicism are breached. As long as we are in the realm of words, your position largely echoes positions that most of us have considered and found intriguing but not controlling. In this realm we are just streams of words. We can all claim to be billionaires, professors, studs, tough guys, physicists, saints, etc. Now I think you are sincere. But consider the medium. The anonymity is great, but it also encourages caution. This is like a basement bar with the lights out. We create virtual selves out of sentences and that's it. Personally I think the future of philosophy might even be in anonymous meme-forges like these, an anonymous oral tradition in a society that less and less tolerates public personality. (?)
Quoting TheGreatArcanum
As you may know, there is an opposite philosophical/spiritual tradition that embraces eating and shitting with the animals. If one tradition flees the flesh, another enjoys a homecoming in the flesh. In another thread we were talking about Plato and Nietzsche, whether both were mystics in some sense. I'd say yes, but that people who are more 'anti-flesh' prefer the Platonic sage while others want to get nasty with Nietzsche. It's as if we have the sky sage and the bonfire sage. The sky sage has floated up above his body. The fire sage is dancing naked in a ring with women, vessels of delight, around that fire. Both are offensive perhaps to lukewarm, mundane consciousness ---which is arguably where most of us live most of the time, no matter our intense response to the poetry of the sky sage and the fire sage.
I like your way of phrasing that: giants and gods. That's poetry. For me it's the poetry that really matters. So I was never into the logic chopping on those issues.
I also like 'where the shits are made of gold.' FWIW, I think that's a good rhetorical strategy. But then maybe I'm in the corrupt giant tradition, and we are too lazy for metaphysicks in the old style....
Ah I don't know if I've read that one. I've read a few of his most famous works, but that's all.
Quoting TheGreatArcanum
I could never get into that style. I think language is more organic than that, that words don't have sharp, independent meanings, that meaning is cumulative and contextual. Basically I don't think we can do math with words. That's one of my few complaints about Hobbes. He's a little too attached to Euclid.
Quoting TheGreatArcanum
Tricky! IMV it's the moral stuff that drives metaphysicks. For me the concepts are tools in the hand of the 'will,' swords and shields, hammers and screwdrivers. For me personalities exist as wholes. But physical science was able to split off by sticking to non-controversial objects and metrics for success. We believe it because it gives us machines, etc. Those who don't know algebra still trust scientists. Hume was right. We push buttons. If milk squirts out we push them again.
Have you presented your ideas anywhere else on the internet? On other phil. forums? If so, how was the response different or similar? All other forums I've looked at are eye-sores. This one is slick.
even math isn’t absolutely objective; 1 + 1 being equal to 2 is dependent upon what the numbers represent; that is, whether coalesce is occurring or not, that is to say that 1 sperm + 1 egg = 1 embryo (and 3 persons), or if it must be so that the 1s in each case are identical, then in terms of ontology, there are no two identical things, meaning that 1 + 1 = 2 becomes 1a + 1 b ? 2ab. So I’m going to shake up the foundations of math a little bit. Playing with numbers in the abstract that do not represent things with essence, is helpful in some sense, but not in others.
But I do admit, working with words and definitions is a real pain in the ass. I spent like an hour today trying to get my wording right for my ‘principles of ontology’ and found myself struggling with the limitations of language...i’m trying to reduce things to concepts so that I can use set theory and the notion of ‘containment and non-containment’ and contingency and necessity and also precedence to deduce which concepts are necessary for others to exist and therefore precede their existence in time (i.e. contain them as subsets) so that I can find the essence that the first concept points to, that is, the essence of being itself, but I’m having some difficulties with it. essentially, if objects are at the same time both concepts and objects, and this must be so, I think, because we can only conceive of concepts and all objects and all parts of objects can be conceived of, I can just avoid the distinction between them and deal with concepts alone. I’m not sure if this is the best strategy.
Quoting ghost
no, I have not; there doesn’t seem to be many forums and the Facebook forums are worse. this one isn’t even heavily populated; I think philosophy is officially dead.
I agree. I know lots of math and have spent lots of time thinking about math. I think these guys pretty much get it right: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_Mathematics_Comes_From
I'd say that it's our shared human cognition that gives math is relative unbiasedness (objectivity). It's a particularly normalized discourse (there are clear rules for what counts as a valid move in the mathematical conversation.)
Quoting TheGreatArcanum
I used to work hard toward finding a system of words that didn't eat itself or fall apart. It was thinkers like Wittgenstein and James who convinced me that yanking words out of their practical contexts usually leads to trouble.
Quoting TheGreatArcanum
Believe it or not, I've wrestled with exactly that issue. I used the word 'ject' once. If we dissolve the subject into a system of concepts, then concepts are no longer the thoughts of the subject. The subject is one more concept. But then there are no concepts! There is no subject left to 'have' these concepts. All we have left is a system of intelligible unities that have their essences entangled. The 'ject' that we call cat ...only makes sense with the help of the 'ject' that we call mouse. Reality is one system of 'jects' or 'objects that are not for a subject.' And what is consciousness? No. We can't use that word. The subject is 'in' what we want to call consciousness. The subject is one more piece of the dream. So we have a stream of experience, a stream of entangled 'jects.' http://fair-use.org/william-james/essays-in-radical-empiricism/does-consciousness-exist
This is only one 'crazy' theory that I've borrowed from others and tinkered with. I've been very high on this stuff. It has a certain spiritual or speculative truth. But these days I'd say the ordinary 'useful illusions' of common sense are there for a reason, for their utility. And even my theory of 'jects' exists more as a work of art or the questionable solution of a puzzle than anything else. I think you said you didn't like pomo, but I think that some pomo is really psychedelic metaphysics, basically serving the same motive to beautifully violate common sense... and get away with it.
If only you'd share one.
I think that its been well established that you care more about arguing semantics to grow you beak than attaining metaphysical truths. I’m assuming your nose in real life is, gigantic?
I'll keep an eye open for one. I'll send you a cookie.
A transcendence of fashion would be nice, but its mostly exhaustion. I am familiar with the dialectics of fashion, which is just the dialectics of anything which oscillates between ideal/fallen rare/common. cool kids dress shitty, because they know (intuitively) that dressing fancy is aspirational, and that aspiration means lack. I dress shitty because (1) I can't afford to dress nice & (2) the more I try to dress nice, the more I feel I've fallen short.
But there's also this: being 'a king a bathrobe' when you're not a king, and you're in a bathrobe means you're injecting some phantasmic other-viewer (even if it's your self) into the thing. You are being to be seen - and you're supplying the seer. This seems to me like a very primal form of self-protection, a psychic self-gilding that keeps away the bad stuff. King in a bathrobe as ultimate transcendence is the same in essence as a high schooler wearing a fedora.
So to transcend that.....
But that's why I'm hammering away at action over words. You can't win, fashion or poetry or philosophy, because even king in a bathrobe may not be as king in a bathrobe as the other king in a bathrobe. And you'll never quite be sure, when you're tuned into the 'rare,' what is real and what isn't. That's the thing I would like to untune from, because the same way :
king in a bathrobe ---fedora
-
tuned-into-the-rare---everyone loves my dank weed, i have the best weed.
Buuuut
Did I feel better than hero [x] after confirming he was an asshole? No, I felt worse.
Which is to say : there's a difference between (1) getting a moral one-up on someone great to feel greater-than-Great and (2) feeling disheartened learning about the moral failings of someone you identify with, in one way or another.
To maintain the self-protective-gilding metaphor, it feels like a scratching away.
But you only do the googling, of course if there's already something biting at you. I'm tired of - tho addicted to, as my post-composition shows - the gilding. It's an inverted status, its a compensation. And any sort of gilding (rare attunement,etc) can all too easily become a carte blanche to discount the real effects of one's real actions on people. If your dad or husband was a dick, it doesn't really matter how in tune with the rare he was. Maybe its different for caesar and alexander on account of they were doing hyper realpolitik war campaigns. John Cheever ( & Hegel!) they were not.
You mentioned Nietzsche, and Nietzsche loved Dostoevsky and Dostoevsky followed the entrancing, lyrical, hyper-personal, boundary-violating turbulence of Notes From The Underground with Crime & Punishment. And the joke of crime and punishment is that once you zoom out from the thoughts and words, and look at the person thinking them, you just have a neurotic in squalor earnestly comparing himself to Napoleon in order to justify being shitty. Sure, I'm doing what people I despise do, but it's different, in this case, because its like this gilded thing.
It's meaningful that C&P came second. We're used to narratives that start with the objective, then try to 'get to the truth' by diving into the subjective. It's just the opposite - the thoughts are less important than the lived situation. (Of course the Notes narrator would know that, and agree, and work it into his monologue - what he would never allow is someone else (an objective narrator) to speak on his behalf.