Are non-human animals aware of death? Can they fear it?
I remember as a child that my dog, if it saw someone lying on the floor unmoved, would go to them and start barking at them and trying to pull them. The same if it saw someone falling to the floor without moving. Clearly his actions are only explainable to me if he had some sense that lying unmoving on the floor is dangerous. But why would it think this unless it feared that they were actually dead? If someone just lied on the floor but they moved, the dog would quite down and not act in any way.
So are animals aware of death, and if so, do they fear death, the same as humans do? Or is fear of death a particularly human affair?
So are animals aware of death, and if so, do they fear death, the same as humans do? Or is fear of death a particularly human affair?
Comments (316)
I think fear of death is a matter of expectation. In order to fear death I think you must be capable of explicitly thinking "I will die", thinking it as an abstract proposition, so to speak. If an animal can have that kind of thought, then I think it can fear death.
I would think some of the other higher animals, particularly dogs, have some recognition of death, although I doubt that any of them truly contemplate the meaning of death in the way that humans are able to. I think the awareness of death and the transience of life is one of the peculiar attributes of humans.
But if they have some awareness of death, then to me they already know this. What they wouldn't be able to do, is to contemplate the meaning of death as you say. But that's already different from simply being aware of transience.
Obviously I don't know for sure, but I would say 'probably not'.
Why? Most people would say probably not. Why is that?
Perhaps it's a human prejudice to think that we, as linguistic beings, are the only animals capable of abstract thoughts such as 'I will die'. Can we imagine any way in which such a thought could occur to a non-linguistic being?
Quoting Wayfarer
Quoting Agustino
F. Nietzsche: "Consider the cattle, grazing as they pass you by: they do not know what is meant by yesterday or today, they leap about, eat, rest [...], fettered to the moment and its pleasure and displeasure [...] [This moment] is a matter for wonder: [...] nothing before it came, again nothing after it has gone"
E.M. Cioran: "The regret of not being plants brings us closer to paradise than any religion. One is in paradise only as a plant. But we left that stage a long time ago: we would have to destroy so much to recover paradise! Sin is the impossibility of forgetfulness. The fall - emblem of our human condition - is a nervous exacerbation of consciousness. Thus a human being can only be next to God, whereas plants sleep in him the sleep of eternal forgetfulness. The more awake we are, the greater the nostalgia that sends us in quest of paradise, the sharper the pangs of remorse that reunite us with the vegetable world"
that is the precise meaning of 'the fall of man' IMO.
No lesser lifeform has a narrative of what pain is, yet they all react to it the same way we do. So doing requires some degree of non-narrative thought on their part—this in terms of deciding between alternatives. I'd argue that choosing between alternatives is not possible without some type of forethought, i.e. best means of attaining a desired end (in conjunction with some type of memory—with which to form a contextual structure of limitations).
At least one zoo-kept elephant has been known to enjoy placing pain on canvas. Octopuses are very efficient as solving puzzles. Other examples can be given. As to communication, our common associates, cats and dogs, will communicate by tail-waiving and teeth-exposure (among a number of other means, ear-direction, body-posture, etc.). These are communications that we as humans comprehend just fine though not of a spoken narrative—and, through anecdotal evidence, I know that dogs sometimes can even (try to) deceive via their communications. Communication requires thought, such as regards the interpretation of another’s intentions/state-of-mind. The only explanation for the aforementioned is that non-linguistic, abstract thought can and does occur, imo.
Once this is accepted, then the difficulties reside in figuring out how. This “how” obviously will itself be on a cline of complexity—from less intelligent to more intelligent lesser life forms.
But, as to awareness of death:
Imo, no lesser lifeform suffers from an existential angst of what live and death signify. Many, if not most, are aware of when some other is alive and when it is no longer alive--as known via reactions. Some are aware of personal loss when another of their cohort dies, as is exemplified by signs of morning/depression/etc. And the instinct of self-preservation is built into everything that is alive—though it often enough doesn’t take the form of “my importance is greater than that of everyone else’s” (e.g. during parenting and within social species). And there’s certainly aversion to that which leads to death. Oddly, whether great apes are aware that they are mortal can be tested: this by attempts to communicate with them via sign language, etc. (Though I’m not comfortable with such attempts being recommended, this on ethical grounds.) But, as to contemplations of whether life in any way continues on after mortal death (or not), we do not have any indication of this till we arrive at Neanderthals (which buried their dead with flowers). This species of hominid, however, likely had more complex means of communication that the non-verbal communication of lesser-animal species: hence, they likely had some form of linguistic narrative.
We certainly have a harder time forgiving and forgetting …
Yes, so no.
LOL Why hide it? :P
Right. The only way is 'down', regression back to non-being, falling back into the material womb of being. (You know 'mother' and 'matter' have the same linguistic root?)
I looked him up in Wiki, he's nihilist, which figures. Sees nothing beyond.
People steal.
There was a really poignant story published about 4 years ago, about some high-flying academic who adopted a chimp and raised it as a human, convinced he could teach it language. He used to dress it and gave it meals at the table with his own children. After a few years he was getting nowhere and he lost interest. The poor creature ended up back in a lab in the midwest, with all these other lab animals. When a journalist found out, he went and saw him, the chimp was frantically signing, as if to say 'get me out of here'. He died not long after, it was a very sad story.
How interesting that your homeboy J. Krishnamurti would say precisely the same thing... destroy much (your conditioning) to recover paradise. Don't you see that you are just being biased?
Common bruv it's just a poem, we wouldn't go through all the hassle of stealing :P
It says he is nihilist which is all I need to know. It also comes through in that quotation.
And I have noticed that discussions with 'Agostino' quickly degenerate into name-calling and ad homs.
And I have noticed that discussions with you reduce to "he's a nihilist/materialist/atheist, dismissed". Really Wayfarer, you call this philosophy? Reading about Cioran on Wikipedia and taking that as sufficient to give you permission to dismiss him so that you can avoid engaging with his thought, merely because he's labelled as a "nihilist" there?
Furthermore, there wasn't even a single ad hominem in my previous post. Not a single one. So on top of everything else, you're lying as well.
It simply doesn't interest me, and I don't see the point. Philosophy is supposed to be the cure, not the disease.
Quoting Agustino
I took 'Krishnamurti as homeboy' as a slight on both myself, and him.
I haven't, though he seems like someone I'd like. What do you suggest I read first?
Quoting Wayfarer
Life's too long in my estimation!
How is that a slight on you or him? I know you've found his work interesting, I suppose that must be because he isn't labelled an atheist and a nihilist on Wikipedia, otherwise you wouldn't have bothered with his work no? :s
"The Trouble with Being Born" (if you want a more mature work) or "On the Heights of Despair" if you want an introductory work (also happens to be his first work). "Short History of Decay" and "The Fall Into Time" should be next.
You should read Seneca's "On the Brevity of Life" then :P you said you liked Roman philosophy ;)
Ah, I've heard of that first one. I'll look into it (Y)
Quoting Agustino
I have. I think that he'd agree with me that love is short and life is long. Seneca's gall is rather inspiring to me.
Really now.... really...? What if philosophy is precisely the disease that must be cured? (Wittgenstein would agree ;) ) Do you remember the story of Bodhidharma and the Chinese King coming to him, troubled by his mind, and Bodhidharma saying "I have this stick with me, show me your mind and I will quiet it", and the King, afraid - there was this bearded guy with a stick, and he was all alone with him - spent some time, and said "there is no mind, all is quiet"?
What if what Cioran, Nietzsche et al. note - that the animals have something that we don't - what if that's true? What if what we're really looking for - paradise - is what we have lost when we ceased being like the animals? We are concerned about meaning (the meaning of death for example) - always seeking something - but the animals seek nothing, they are at peace in the moment - despite their awareness of the transience of life.
I think you in particular would like him :P
Quoting Heister Eggcart
Why do you think that "love is short"? Have you read, for example, Augustine's Confessions to see how God's love plays a role in guiding his life, and ultimately changing him - always there with him even when he didn't see it?
Hmm but what would you say to folks like Augustine, Aquinas, etc. who found God's love to be sufficient for life not to "suck"? Do you think they're wrong? God's love isn't sufficient?
I am very familiar with Zen literature, but it is often quoted out of context, as it was greatly popularised by the Beat generation and their successors in the 1950's and 60's. Read that way, seems to fit comfortably with existential or nihilist philosophy, but that is far from the truth of the matter. Zen Buddhism is still Buddhism, and the 'meta-narrative' of Buddhism is transcendence of the realm of samsara. And yes, Mah?y?na Buddhism asserts the 'non-duality of Samsara and Nirv??a' but again that is something that must be interpreted carefully. It is still a religion, concerned with transcendence of mundane (worldly) existence, without that dimension the sayings of Bodhidharma and the other Zen patriarchs are just desk-calendar slogans.
Nietszche, Schopenhauer, and many others interpreted the Buddhist philosophy of ??nyat? to mean 'voidness' or 'nothingness' (indeed there is a whole book on that subject, The Cult of Nothingness: The Philosophers and the Buddha, Roger-Pol Droit), but I think this is also based on a fundamental misconception, or rather, the absence of insight into any higher truth.
You've already told me you don't accept that there is any such thing. However, without that vertical dimension, what kind of philosophy can there be? I was given the book on Plato and Aristotle for Christmas, reading that again, the origin the Platonist tradition was with the idea of higher truth.
Quoting Agustino
They're only aware of 'down'. They're not aware of anything 'up'. That is a deficiency, not a virtue.
Why do you think they ignored those in their life who supported them? For example, what would you have had St. Augustine do, for example, not to ignore those in his life who supported him?
Okay this may be so, but you haven't outlined a "correct understanding" either. If Samsara and Nirvana are non-dual - not two - how is it possible to talk of transcendence? There is no transcendence - the removal of ignorance isn't transcending anything, but merely understanding reality.
Quoting Wayfarer
I will look into this.
Quoting Wayfarer
But what if down is really up? If man lost paradise, then down (back where man came from) is exactly where he must be going.
I didn't say that they did, only that priorities can be hard to straighten out.
Quoting Agustino
fuck bitches
Sure so? This isn't to say that life is long and love is short... So I'm asking you what in particular grounds your belief regarding this.
Quoting Heister Eggcart
>:O As far as I know he really only fucked one properly >:)
Life is hollow without love. Were this not true, then I'd have long ago rolled back over and into the grave from whence I came.
Quoting Agustino
I don't get this joke. He fucked God? His hand? dafuq?
That's why it has to be interpreted carefully! If you read the early texts, the unique station of the Buddha is precisely transcendence of samsara, meaning, escape from the cycle of continued re-birth. This is stated precisely, dogmaticaly, and unequivocally.
According to Buddhist mythology, beings are continuously and unwillingly born into the six realms of existence. (This is where there is a strong parallel with Schopenhauer's 'Will' and the Buddhist 't????', the 'thirst' or 'craving' which 'drives' the wheel of life-and-death.)
In the early schools, the difference between the life of ordinary mortals and that of the Buddha was posed as an absolute duality, with nothing whatever in common. It was one of the doctrinal innovations associated with the beginning of Mah?y?na that introduced the idea that they're not really separate realms, but the same realm seen from completely different perspectives. In a memorable aphorism, 'samsara is Nirv??a grasped, Nirv??a is samsara released'. It also introduced the idea of the bodhisattva, one who can be re-born voluntarily for the benefit of all beings, rather than 'escaping' into Nirv??a for once and for all. (Scholars see a possible cross-cultural influence between Buddhism and Christianity, via the silk road, in such ideas.)
Nevertheless release, Nirv??a, is central to all Buddhist traditions, and Nirv??a is release from rebirth into the 'six realms' caused by avidya/ignorance. For that reason, a central belief of Buddhists is that being born as a human is both very rare and extremely fortunate, because only in the human realm can you hear and practice the teachings.
Quoting Agustino
Again, you say 'merely', as if 'understanding reality' is a trivial matter. Who, really, 'understands reality'?
Maybe Cioran?
Do you really believe this, that animals are at peace in the moment, seeking nothing? I conclude that you haven't spent much time observing animals. The only ones at peace, seeking nothing, are those animals bred, born, and raised for human consumption, like cattle being fattened for slaughter, we feed them into complacency.
That's the lamest excuse I've ever heard for refusing to publish one's work! :-}
In any case what makes you think your poetry is so great that anyone would be tempted to pretend it is theirs? There's little money in poetry even for those most highly regarded.
Of course, they can't talk; they can, however, communicate some things with body language, whining, barking, nose poking, pawing, biting, cuddling, the cold shoulder, snarling, and so on. We have to make guesses about what they are thinking. That dogs think about their own deaths, or ours, is a leap which I find difficult to make. I like the idea of dogs thinking about death, I just don't think that actual evidence is possible. The behavior of elephants seems more convincing to me. Elephants live much longer than dogs--40 to 70 years, rather than a dog's 10 to 15. They have more time to think, more time to socialize their children.
We know that dogs are very good observers, and an unconscious, severely injured, or dead family member would be readily noticed. Their behavior repertoire is limited for responding to the novel experience of one of us suddenly dying. It would probably be similar to one of their family being gone too long -- they would find that disturbing. I've slipped on ice while walking our dog and she didn't seem to be worried about me -- she found my accident very stimulating. (Maybe she was just an unusually vindictive bitch.)
Another angle: Dogs are a predator species. Killing or disabling another animal and eating it is part of their repertoire. Whether they can be happy about both this death (dead rabbit) and unhappy about that death (dead family member) requires more complex thinking. I just don't know that we can demonstrate them either having or not having this complexity.
Not at all.
Quoting John
It's not about whether it's good, bad, or mediocre. I have merely found it the most wise to keep my writing and "intellectual property" close to myself, and to not let it dangle out for all to see.
I am the dog you put to sleep,
as you like to call the needle of oblivion,
come back to tell you this simple thing:
I never liked you - not one bit.
When I licked your face,
I thought of biting off your nose.
When I watched you toweling yourself dry,
I wanted to leap and unman you with a snap.
I resented the way you moved,
your lack of animal grace,
the way you would sit in a chair and eat,
a napkin on your lap, knife in your hand.
I would have run away,
but I was too weak, a trick you taught me
while I was learning to sit and heel,
and - greatest of insults - shake hands without a hand.
I admit the sight of the leash
would excite me
but only because it meant I was about
to smell things you had never touched.
You do not want to believe this,
but I have no reason to lie.
I hated the car, the rubber toys,
disliked your friends and, worse, your relatives.
The jingling of my tags drove me mad.
You always scratched me in the wrong place.
All I ever wanted from you
was food and fresh water in my metal bowls.
While you slept, I watched you breathe
as the moon rose in the sky.
It took all my strength
not to raise my head and howl.
Now I am free of the collar,
the yellow raincoat, monogrammed sweater,
the absurdity of your lawn,
and that is all you need to know about this place
except what you already supposed
and are glad it did not happen sooner -
that everyone here can read and write,
the dogs in poetry, the cats and the others in prose.
Why do you say so?
I still have no idea on what basis you think this. It hasn't been my experience at all. It sounds a tad paranoid to me.
I like this poem! 8-)
It's really not of any import to me that you won't explain yourself; so nothing to deal with.
And the name's John, not Yon.
'Yon' reminds me of an electrician I used to know called Don Young; whom I nicknamed 'Yon Dung'.
In case this is still of interested …
Chimps can be the most violent lesser animal I know of. Last thing anyone would want to do is live with one.
I was thinking more in terms of Koko the gorilla and Kanzi the bonobo (benevolent species for the most part). These three youtube videos aren’t exactly philosophically minded, but they illustrate apes’ ability to understand language.
“A conversation with Koko”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNuZ4OE6vCk (I think this is a trailer for a documentary; Koko knows sign language)
“Kanzi and novel sentences”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Dhc2zePJFE
Kanzi communicates with pictorial words, not sign language, e.g.:
“Kanzi’s 1st phone call”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJ_3l1z5r0s
I’m aware of the Nim project and of his biting of assistant’s faces, etc. I'd say that chimps will do things in times of war amongst themselves that the most torturous human could hardly conceive—but, then again, humans have more imagination, as our history evidences.
Just so it’s said, there are plenty of theistic beliefs that don’t view an evolutionary continuum of life as contradictory to spirit. Most nowadays are aboriginal, but not all. It’s not a matter of denying that humans are vastly greater in degree of emotion and intelligence; it’s a matter of not divorcing being a human from nature on a metaphysical level. Oddly enough, this metaphysical division is often enough made even by atheists; Dawkins as only one example. Myself, I find that there is a continuum.
Still, my point was that it’s possible to try to teach apes such as Kanzi and Koko terms for the concepts of life and death. They already hold concepts of self. Then to ask and see if there is awareness of one’s own mortality. It would be disheartening if it were ever attempted, akin to asking a four-year-old if they’re aware that they will someday die. Only that apes have a great deal more strength if they get upset or dismayed. Not something I endorse. But it is possible to attempt.
Yon Dong then I guess; no need for the der; gratuitously obvious and doesn't rhyme with 'Don'. But then 'dong' doesn't rhyme with 'Young'...so...no... in any case he wasn't really a dick, he was more of a turd...
Okay but why do you think love is in short supply?
Quoting Heister Eggcart
Quoting Heister Eggcart
Why God or his hand when the bit that I quoted you on spoke about bitches?
I think it's a tongue-in-cheek corrective to the human tendency to believe in anthropomorphizations. What, don't you wash your dog at home?
This is nothing but anthropomorphism if you ask me, and definitely not "central" in my humble opinion.
Quoting Wayfarer
Yes but the non-duality of Samsara and Nirvana is clear - so I'm asking you, conceptually, how is it possible to speak of transcendence? Do you simply mean a transcendence of one perspective to another? The transcendence from ignorance to understanding?
Quoting Wayfarer
It's "merely" understanding reality because there is no transcendent there. Merely refers to the fact that there is nothing more than that.
With the rational intellect we understand the outer, with the intuitive intellect we understand the inner. The outer is the immanent in the sense that it is within sense experience; the inner is the transcendent in the sense that it is beyond both sense experience and rationally discursive understanding.
So the transcendent movement is not a movement upwards, but a movement inwards.
Why is it transcendent? Transcendent is an ontological category, you know that right?
Since for me ontology is phenomenology, that is an existential category, and since the transcendent experience is phenomenologically and existentially different than and beyond the merely sensory/ rational experience, then, yes, no problem.
In what sense is it "beyond" sensory/rational experience? Is it beyond them in the same sense that taste is beyond sight?
No, it's simply a different order of experience. Read the mystics and you might get the idea.
I have read the mystics, doesn't seem to help. And either way that is irrelevant to the conversation I'm seeking to have with you now. So tell me then - what does "different order of experience" mean?
It means the experience cannot be parsed in terms of the ordered categories that belong to sensory experience. It has more in common with the less determinate sensory experience of touch, taste, sound and scent, I guess. But humans are predominately visually oriented when it comes to experience as understood empirically. The thing about sensory experience, though, however determinate it might be, is that it is understood to have its source in something empirically determinable, at least in principle. That's why it is an experience of the merely immanent.
With transcendent experience the source is not clear. This is also why aesthetic experience; of art, poetry and music for example is by no means a purely sensory, immanent matter. Aesthetic experience is spiritual as well as merely sensual; it has a mysterious, transcendental dimension.
But I don't see why that requires a transcendental dimension, maybe you can illustrate it for me. So you perceive the transcendent with the intuitive intellect. That means the intuitive intellect is just what the rational intellect is for rational structures and what sense experience is for the objects of the senses. So in what sense is the transcendent a separate, instead of merely different, side of existence?
Mentalese.
Because I suffer more than I love or am loved.
Quoting Agustino
Wait, which one, or both, of Aquinas and Augustine fucked bitches?
Only Augustine.
Quoting Heister Eggcart
So then it's about you - it's not really a universal situation? I mean it isn't necessarily so, or?
I wasn't aware he directly fucked bitches, only that he lived a seedy lifestyle. I suppose one does suggest the other...
Quoting Agustino
I have no doubts about the rarity of love in the world. I believe it was Schopenhauer who said that if one finds a truth within themselves, then they've found the truth at the heart of the world. Most things I have doubts about, so I don't assert that they're truths. One of these is God, say. *shrug* I don't think I wrote this out very clearly, but it is what it is.
Well I took your saying "fuck bitches" as equivalent to simply having sex with women. Augustine didn't actually fuck prostitutes. He fucked bitches though >:O - more specifically only one bitch got that honour - and many times at that :P
Quoting Heister Eggcart
Hmmm - okay but don't you think it would also be relevant to look at other people and how they also relate to the world? I mean Schopenhauer also did that - his analysis in WWR is from doing both.
That's why I asked you what you think about a few other men, who didn't experience life the same way you do - who, for example, enlarged their own love and this enabled them to disagree that love is in short supply. I do agree that many people are unloving but it's kind of what you'd expect. Everything excellent is as difficult as it is rare, as Spinoza would say :)
Not sure if I should feel sorry or proud for that bish.
Quoting Agustino
Not sure what you'd like me to respond with, here. No one I've ever met or read about who has praised life and all its wonders have not also suffering immensely. Some prefer to retreat into delusions and build walls around them so that reality seems farther away. I probably sound very ungrateful of what I do have in my life, but don't mistake me for being a nihilist emo!
Rumour has it that she was loving it more than him >:O
Quoting Heister Eggcart
Well we're all suffering more or less but "immensely"? You can suffer from time to time immensely, but, at least for most people, such suffering is only temporary and it passes. Some suffer immensely for years even, and then their lives take a turn for the better (some of the Jewish people who had to spend time in concentration camps were like this - as detailed for example in Viktor Frankl's book, Man's Search for Meaning) Can you imagine having to live in concentrations camps, with no end to your torment except death in sight? And yet pleasant surprises can happen to even such people - some of them, like Viktor Frankl or Ellie Wiesel, went on to be incredibly insightful human beings.
The Heavens give and take according to their own whims. Man can do nothing but receive whatever the Heavens give in many situations. But it seems to me that life can have both suffering and joy.
If you mean that doing so doesn't diminish your own suffering or make it easier to handle and relate to, then yes I agree. But I only use it as an analogy - in the sense of "you never know if or when your situation may suddenly get better if you just hang on". That thought helped me the most when I was at my lowest moments in fact.
Quoting Heister Eggcart
I don't know haha - could you explain this?
Richard Feynman says... "nothing is mere"
I'm usually more pensive about what "better" will be than the suffering I already am experiencing, >:O
Quoting Agustino
The people who incessantly sing the praises of life have always been the most broken, shattered, and devastated of people in my experience. It has merely taken me a lot of patience and work in order to getting under someone's heart and realize that truth.
I believe Augustine was, for a while, a member of a Platonic commune, so men and women were not limited to exclusive sex partners, and children were children of the commune rather than children of specific parents.
?? What do you mean what will be "better" than the suffering you are currently experiencing?
Quoting Heister Eggcart
I agree about those who "incessantly" do so - that's a defence mechanism for them. But I believe there are more balanced views - not praising, nor being overly pessimistic about life.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
What indication do you have that Augustine engaged in sex with more than one woman? This is certainly not mentioned in the Confessions, but it is certainly plausible. His grief was certainly not directed towards his promiscuity but rather towards his attitude of lust towards his partner. Given his struggle and his later evaluation of monogamy, I highly doubt that he engaged in sex with more than one woman.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Feynamn can say what Feynman will, what does Bitter Crank say? :P
Now even in Plato's Republic, it was ONLY the guardians that were not to be limited to one sex partner, so they had no attachments, except to serving the community. They were meant to be celibate for the whole year, except only for a short period, where they would be promiscuous merely as a way to produce future guardians. Their lack of attachement was merely a sacrifice for a greater good - and this is important to note. If a society could exist without them, and function in order, then they wouldn't be needed.
People have this tremendous confusion that Plato would advocate promiscuity as some sort of "superior" way. That's bullshit. They haven't bothered to understand the Republic - and even my explanation merely scratches the surface - in truth the Republic is a symbol for the ordering of the human being.
No, no, no. I just meant that I'm more apprehensive about the good things of the future, and less so about the bad.
I think it was after he quit Manichaeism, and before he became a committed Christian, I believe when he was in Milan, he got involved in a Platonic commune. You know that Augustine had a very strong sexual appetite don't you? He spoke of that a few times.
In the Buddhist context, 'the Buddha' is one released from the cycle of birth, decay and death. That is what his 'awakening' consists of. Even though the Buddha's conception of Nirv??a is unique to him, it is arguably a form of what is called in Hinduism mok?a, release or liberation, which is understood as the awakening from the spell of m?y? and the realisation of the higher self.
The Buddha's awakening is expressed in verses such as:
Dhp 153-4
What is 'the Unformed'? There is another verse, a doctrinal formulation of Nirv??a,
Ud 8.3
(Both translations from Access to Insight).
Quoting Agustino
Kant denied that 'knowledge of the transcendent' was possible, on the basis that knowledge is always structured according to the categories, intuitions, and so on, and so anything transcendent is by definition over our cognitive horizon or in some sense out-of-bounds.
Hegel's counter-argument to Kant was that to know a boundary is also to be aware of what it bounds and as such what lies beyond it – in other words, to have already transcended it.
Schleiermacher identifies a distinct mode of self-consciousness, one in which all attempts to make the self into an object of consciousness—that is, all attempts to come to know the self—are set aside. When the self is made an object of study it becomes a phenomenon, and as such is treated as something that it is not, i.e. as an object of experience. But it is possible to simply be—to become quiescent, if you will - and simply be what one is rather than attempt to know what one is.
And in this place of cognitive stillness, one discovers in a direct experiential way an ultimate reality that cannot be conceptualized or made into an object of study. This is the domain of mystical experience—and even though it is ineffable (that is, even if it cannot be made into an object of knowledge) it brings with it a kind of insight or enlightenment. One may not be able to adequately put this experience into propositional terms that can be affirmed as true, but that doesn’t mean one hasn’t in some sense encountered noumenal reality. One hasn’t encountered it as an object of experience (since that would turn it into a phenomenon). Rather, one encounters it in the way one experiences.
The challenge, then, is to attempt to articulate this encounter in a way that is meaningful to us--in other words, in a way that our cognitive minds can grasp and affirm. The encounter itself is what Schleiermacher calls “religion.”( Eric Reitan)
I would say that what John is referring to is this alternative 'way' of experience. That is something found in all kinds of literature, myth, allegory, and so on. Many of the Zen anecdotes signify awakening (satori) to this other cognitive mode (seeing the world anew, etc.)
Quoting Agustino
I admire Frankl, there was always a copy of that book in the home I grew up in.
I think Frankl's philosophy is implicitly spiritual, but that it is necessary to differentiate it from religion, because of the way religion is understood, defined and fought over in Western culture. To say something is 'religious' is to immediately embody it in a particular matrix of meaning with all of the associated baggage; he had to keep it out of that domain.
Surely, but once again, at least I myself saw no indication that he was ever unfaithful to his mistress (whom he engaged in much sexual relations with before even becoming a Manichean). He was troubled by the fact the he could not give up his sexual desire, and was ruled by it - that much is for sure. Also the Neoplatonism Augustine got interested after his Manichean phase already had a Christian tinting, so I would doubt that he suddenly became promiscuous in that phase when he had never been before - and I would also doubt that that community encouraged him to be promiscuous.
Hmm - personally I tend to just be open to the future, hopeful, but not expecting. But I would say I'm certainly hopeful in my attitude towards the future. But if it doesn't go my way, it doesn't go my way - in certain situations, there's not much you can do. I don't expect it to go my way. In fact my approach is quite strange - I hope for the best, but expect the worst :-O
Here are a couple of recent pieces from national geographic about elephants, and about whales and dolphins. While there's a certain anthropomorphism in the reporting, I think it's likely that intelligent animals other than humans also ponder on death and loss.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/08/elephants-mourning-video-animal-grief/
http://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-find-whales-and-dolphins-mourn-their-dead-too
Yes, but given the Mahayana non-duality of Nirvana and Samsara - one is already enlightened, otherwise they could never "become" enlightened. It's just about becoming who they already are. The cycle of birth, growth, decay and death - one has already escaped the cycle, one is just ignorant of it. For if they had not escaped, there would be no possibility of escape.
Quoting Wayfarer
I don't buy this. It depends how the boundary is known - if the boundary is known from the inside, then one just knows the boundary - and can only use the boundary to infer what "outside" would be. Consider the eye - do you see the limits of your visual field? Of course not! You don't perceive even boundaries, I was wrong before. So I disagree with the notion that there is any such "outside".
Quoting Wayfarer
But it's not just ultimate reality - it's just simple reality which is like this. Concepts are mental divisions and categorisations of phenomena - they're never the phenomena themselves - a map is never the territory.
Quoting Wayfarer
So ontologically there is no transcendent - nothing that is beyond this reality.
Quoting Wayfarer
I share your admiration
Quoting Wayfarer
I disagree that the word spiritual has transcendent meaning. I do agree that there is a spiritual side to life, but it is immanent, within reality. Consider that if it wasn't so - then we would never be able to access it, for we would never be able to "escape" our own reality. We can access it precisely because Nirvana IS Samsara. That's why I don't appreciate your bashing of materialism and atheism - those two are actually not contrary to enlightenment at all... at least they aren't necessarily so. The way they are understood today in the West is a different story though - instead of trying to get rid of them, you should try to re-evaluate them, and bring back original atheism and materialism.
That is an 'urban myth' based on a misreading. It is used by lots of pseudo-gurus to sell new-age books.
Quoting Agustino
We plainly understand the word differently.
I am generally puzzled by your take on philosophy. To me, in basic terms, philosophy is about the discernment of a truth which is not obvious, and which not everyone knows. In traditional philosophy, those who know these truths are philosophers, and they're different from the hoi polloi. That is straight out of Plato, it is not my innovation. I know it is very non-PC.
But you find something very similar in Buddhism:
Whereas you say - what 'emancipation'? There is only ordinary existence, those who think there is something beyond it are deluded.
How could they become enlightened if they aren't so already? Do they jump from one reality to another transcendent one? They are ignorant of the fact that they are enlightened - their very seeking for something special is the problem.
Quoting Wayfarer
Yes and rightfully so... What emancipation?! There's nothing to be emancipated of. It's their IGNORANCE which makes them think there is something to be emancipated of. They are raising the dust themselves and then complaining that they cannot see... Rather the question is how can they awaken to reality - as it is right here and now, and stop being trapped by their own ignorance? They are seeing demons because they are creating them.
The non obvious truth that you're looking for is that there is nothing to be emancipated of, while all the hoi polloi are looking to be emancipated from something.
It's a question of recognising that "the beyond" is only the world, meaning expressed by the world, which is what makes relevant to us-- our own well-being, life, joy, etc., is at stake when dealing in "the beyond." One does not escape the world, even in the most audacious literal notions of life that continues after death.
The "beyond" is always a better world-- one in which we live in virtue, without suffering, with loved ones,, with something that matters to us and is just. We are "saved " not by leaving the world, but rather by living a world which was better than before. Ordinary existence is what delivers the "beyond, " be it a elimination of despair (a new understanding the world matters) or a victory over death (a God exists who acts to give a on going transfinite life).
What is perceived by the intuitive intellect is not determinate or objective in the way that what is perceived by the senses or conceived by the rational intellect is. What is determinate or objective is finite or immanent; what is indeterminate or subjective is in-finite or transcendental. It is truly another dimension of experience, a transcendent dimension, compared to what can be seen, heard, smelled, tasted, touched and measured. Of course the immanent realm of sensory experience and rational intellection is suffused with this transcendental dimension, and would be literally nothing without it, so it is certainly not a question of "separation". That is your own projection and is not inherent in anything I have said.
Of course! That explains why there is really no need for a criminal code, or police for that matter, or the army, come to think of it. There is really no need for anyone to learn anything, as they already know what there is to know, right? There ought not to be any fear of harm, death, illness or disease, because these things aren't real, right? Why can't we simply see that? What is stopping us?
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Indeed. And by what principles do we make it better? Is it simply a matter of economic and technological progress?
Why do you think this follows? We need a criminal code, police, army etc. for practical reasons of protecting ourselves. I honestly think that if the transcendent world mattered, we wouldn't be needing any of these because this world is an illusion and we should all be looking to transcend it anyway, so why would we even bother with it? We'd all become hermits like Buddha, abandon our family, and go live in isolated places among ascetics. But we do need them, precisely because Samsara isn't an illusion. I mean if Samsara was an illusion, maya, why would we need them?
Quoting Wayfarer
Well what use fearing death? It's going to come whether you fear it or not. Sure, that sucks, but there isn't anything we can do about it. We can meditate until we're blue in the face, that isn't going to change whether we're going to die or not, is it? Maybe practical things will change that - research etc. but certainly not meditation. That's why I tell you that I don't understand how you expect the transcendent to help in these practical matters...
From what? The truth is obvious to everyone. That is what you keep saying. So, why doesn't it follow that everyone simply recognises this fact and acts accordingly?
Quoting Agustino
Or, alternatively, found a world religion which became the basis of civilizations. Although, of course, according to you, nobody needs that, either, because we've already arrived.
From other people, from animals that may attack our communities, etc.
Quoting Wayfarer
Because they are ignorant, as I have said. But how would their ignorance imply or necessitate a transcendent to cure? Ignorance is an immanent issue, just as understanding is. Why do you think they are issues of transcendence?
Quoting Wayfarer
No, according to me, there is nowhere to arrive with regards to the transcendent. We can improve things in the world - for example I can improve my relationship with my wife, or with my kids, or whatever - but such improvements require worldly methods - my relationship with my wife won't improve just because I sit cross-legged 5 hours a day, would it? Where is the transcendent needed? This is my question to you - what problems would the transcendent help us solve (that nothing else can help us), and how would it help us?
'The transcendent' here is a cypher for 'the most excellent state of being'. In traditional philosophy, attainment of that state was the summum bonum, the highest good, and our 'raison d'être'. It is what all beings are striving towards, the fulfilment of existence.
Such ideas from the ancient traditions became subsumed into Christianity and thereafter depicted in accordance with dogmatic formulae of the faith. But they nevertheless were still thought to underwrite the social contract as well as individual morality.
In the Judeo-Christian tradition, man is 'imago dei' and so fulfilling the requirements of the faith was also fulfilling the divine plan, and one of the characteristics that differentiated man from animals.
So the transcendent is a state within reality then. If so, how is it transcendent?
Quoting Wayfarer
But why are they practically and pragmatically needed? What is there more in the transcendent except do good and do no evil?
I much more prefer Daoism which is this worldly. In Daoism there is no other world. The Dao isn't transcendent. The Chinese were smart. For the Chinese virtue is maximising your power and capacity in this world - not renouncing the world and your attachments (unless you have to), but making the most of them.
Why do you think the progressives are latching onto Buddhism? Because Buddhism is fertile soil for their nihilism. I mean we should be careful, lest this evil of Buddhism befall our Western world, as it seems to have already done so. Definitely this isn't an escape from nihilism, but a full plunge into it.
That is certainly true.
Quoting Agustino
Well, that's not true, and secondly, I was not speaking of Buddhism per se. I was referring to the general idea of the 'higher truth', which I know you already reject (yet, strangely, I am the one accused of 'nihilism'). I would say that the idea of such 'higher truth' is represented in various philosophical traditions - Greek, Christian, Hindu, and Buddhist amongst others. But obviously I am not being understood, and in addition, it is probably irrelevant to the topic, and another timely reminder to myself to stop wasting time arguing with strangers. So, bye for now, taking time out from Forums, may or may not be back in future.
Tell that to these Buddhists:
http://www.buddhanet.net/nutshell09.htm
http://buddhism.stackexchange.com/questions/1891/what-is-the-precise-meaning-of-anatta
https://www.quora.com/How-can-we-understand-the-nondual-nature-of-Buddhist-emptiness-sunyata
https://www.quora.com/Whats-your-understanding-of-the-Buddhist-anatta-doctrine-and-do-you-subscribe-to-it
And probably millions of others. The fact that a religion cannot clarify what it says to the point that even its followers do not know it, that's a very very big problem.
Quoting Wayfarer
What's not true? That progressives are latching onto Buddhism? Just try typing "buddhism" and "sexuality" into google, and let's have a look together in, say the top 10 results. In fact, even your favorite book "To Meet the Real Dragon" makes no notice - no notice at all - in the chapter "not to do wrong" in any of the 10 precepts of not doing wrong that it gives about sexual morality. But of course most traditional forms of Buddhism have a principle to do with sexual morality even in a list of FIVE precepts! Let's see, why is that? Is it because Buddhism is trying to appeal to a decadent mass of the public and thus doesn't want to tell the truth lest it scares them off? Is that how it is then? We'll masquerade the truth to gain adherents and followers! In fact scratch that! We'll change the truth if that's what it takes to get more followers! Sounds like a great idea to me - keep it up! (Y)
That Buddhism is fertile soil for Nihilism? Well that seems to be proven by the fact that they are joining it no?
Quoting Wayfarer
Not you personally, but some of the views you recommend.
Quoting Wayfarer
The very idea of a "higher truth" vitiates all the lower truths of meaning. That's why I say that it is nihilistic. If there is a higher truth, then these lower truths don't matter.
Quoting Wayfarer
Well let's see why are you not being understood? Is it because I'm acting in bad faith and despite your attempts to clarify and answer my questions I still refuse to engage with you? Or is it because you have repeatedly not answered even a single objection except by brushing it off?
Quoting Wayfarer
Well do as you wish, but packing your stuff and going is certainly not going to solve any of your problems. This is very childish behaviour. If your philosophy is worth anything then it needs to withstand criticism - so far it seems that at the weakest objection it's crumbling - and when it's crumbling you pack your bags and run away. I don't mean to be harsh with you, but you have to understand that these are important matters, so we have to discuss them seriously. It's not my fault that you're getting easily upset. I'm not responsible for your inability to deal with criticism. You should be upset at yourself first of all, because it is you who is failing to adequately engage with all the questions and objections that are placed to you.
So I hope you take those matters into consideration. You may have some valuable insights, but you need to defend them and prove their worth, otherwise they will only remain your insights. And you shouldn't take philosophical discussions personally regardless of how heated they get. Anyway, all the best to you!
Quoting John
Okay yes.
Quoting John
How does this follow? What does being determinate or objective have to do with (1) being finite, and (2) being immanent?
Quoting John
But in what sense is this the case? Hearing for example is also another dimension of experience compared to seeing. Why isn't one of these transcendent then?
Quoting John
Okay so if the transcendent doesn't refer to something that is ontologically separate, in what way, again, is it transcendent? And what notion of transcendence are you employing? The Cartesian one, or?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendence_(philosophy)
Wayfarer, did you plagiarise this from Wikipedia?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendence_(philosophy)
Does anyone here see a difference, because I certainly don't? No wonder that you couldn't explain it!
Quoting Wayfarer
Agu, do you even know what plagiarism is? Here, let me tell you:
Plagiarism is the "wrongful appropriation" and "stealing and publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions" and the representation of them as one's own original work.The idea remains problematic with unclear definitions and unclear rules. The modern concept of plagiarism as immoral and originality as an ideal emerged in Europe only in the 18th century, particularly with the Romantic movement.
...wait....what have I just done? :-#
I don't understand. Hasn't Wayfarer stolen the language, words, ideas and expressions found in that Wikipedia sentence and attributed it as part of his own post, without making note that it's not his?
Being determinate or objective means it is a phenomenon that be intersubjectively determined to be this or that. Phenomana which can be determined to be this or that are finite, and they are also immanent to sensory experience.
Quoting Agustino
Because both hearing and seeing generally involve determinate phenomena of the immanent kind, as explained above. Even hallucinations are generally understood to have their cause in the brain, and if this is so, then the causes of hallucinations are immanent. If a vision is caused by God though, for example, then the cause of the vision is not of this world, that is, it is a transcendent, not an immanent cause. Of course if there is no God then there are no transcendent causes.
Quoting Agustino
If this world is an expression of spirit, of God, then God is within everything, and everything is within God. There is no separation, but God does not appear in the world, and hence is not a finite, determinate, objective, immanent phenomenon.
Quoting Agustino
BTW, Agustino, you are soooo full of shit.
:-}
.
Okay so you mean it has crisp, as opposed to vague existence. Definite and stable properties can be determined about it right?
Quoting John
So finitude has to do with whether something is crisp instead of vague?
Quoting John
So I take it that transcendent experiences don't involve the senses?
Quoting John
But what if the vision is caused by God through worldly means such as altering the activity of the brain?
Quoting John
Well obviously because God is the world in this case isn't He? If so, then God is reality, and everything is immanent in God - God isn't in anyway transcendent.
Quoting John
Why mate, it's true, he said it himself! >:O
No, God is not the world. The world is in God. God is not exhausted by the world. So, in a sense God is both immanent and transcendent, as you would expect. It is not the case that there is no transcendence, but it is the case that there is no (ultimately real) separation. In different ways this idea of immanence/transcendence is also captured by the Buddhist conception that samsara is nirvana, and the Hindu notion that atman is brahman.
(Y)
Nothing is in God? If God is being in itself, how come it can have an essence of nothing?
How do get from "The world is in God" to "Nothing is in God"?
You have it backwards, Shyster Eggfart; the world is everything.
By virtue of the accepted meanings of the words 'nothung' and 'everythung'
:-x
What if it is?
God is not transcendent. Such a God is a worldy actor. Indeed, any vision can only be wordly because the caused state (the vision) is someone's experience. Without worldly mechanism (the experience which is the vision), there are no visions.
It's the nature of God which discounts the transcendent. If God does something to the world, God is worldly. On the other hand if God eshews the finite, then God is nothing, an infinite that does not exist or act-- an immanent substance only.
The twin nature of being both worldy and beyond the world is a contradiction and incohrent. God's needs as a finite or infinite preculde the transcendent. To suggest a transcendent God is to tell falsehoods about God.
Sorry, Willow, I really haven't a clue what you are talking about; so it would be pointless to respond.
Quoting John
Therefore God is nothing or doesn't exist ;) ;) ;)
QED By yours truly and very humble John
P.S: "You're sooooo full of shit Agustino" ;)
What, more precisely, don't you understand about Willow's remarks? You have to be precise, otherwise nothing can be clarified.
If it is, then the "transcendent experience" is actually not transcendent at all but immanent, taking place in the world the same way sight, or hearing or any other experience takes place, simple.
Quoting John
Stop being obscurantist.
Subtlety Agustino, is obviously not your forte: the world is everything and God is not a thing.
I cannot understand any of what she is trying to say other than her assertions.
Okay let's take it sentence by sentence Dirty John >:)
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
This means that God acts in the world, has effects in the world. Okay?
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
This means that even someone who is having a beatific vision, even that person is just having an experience. It is true that it is a different kind of experience, but it occurs via the mechanisms that exist in the world - his brain and senses, and is thus part of his more general experience.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Without the persons brain, eyes, etc. there is no such vision possible.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
The nature of God was mentioned before. God acts in the world.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
As Spinoza showed, for two things to be able to affect each other, they must be of the same Substance, and hence are part of the same existence - and necessarily so.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
If God does not act in the world, then there is no God - because what sense would it have to say something exists if it can never be encountered or related with in the world?
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
So God either acts in the world (in which case God is IN the world) or God doesn't act in the world (in which case God isn't in the world, and therefore doesn't exist)
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
The notion of transcendence as you use it is incoherent for the above reasons. Happy?
To say that an experience "takes place in the world" is just a way of speaking. You can say that events take place in the world and have some idea about what you mean, but the idea that experiences of those events take place in the world is assumed to be correct just because the experience is of the events and the events are in the world. We don't really know it is true or even what it really means to say this; it is superficial 'reasoning by definition'. This is the kind of reasoning Willow usually presents. It is telling that she often claims that things are "defined in themselves". I have no idea what this could even mean.
No, I am not happy. All of this incoherent and not worth the effort to respond to.
The crux seems to be the claim that if God acts in the world ( which is itself questionable, and needs to be precisely explained as to what it could mean) then God must be "worldly". Even if the notion that God acts in the world were accepted what does it mean to say that God is "worldly"? We know what it means to say that events and things are worldly.
And again, even if it were accepted that God is worldly if God acts in the world, what is the actual argument for that conclusion? It is nothing more than another 'argument from definition'. Otherwise show why it would be impossible for an agent who is not 'in the world' in the sense that objects and events are, to effect changes in the world. If the entire world is an expression of God how would that entail that God is a 'worldly' entity?
I refer to Willow's as a woman, because I have come to believe due to comments she has made and her avatar that she is a woman.
I have noticed that you have several times referred to Willow's as "he". What makes you think Willow is a man?
Where else do you think they could be taking place? :s
Quoting John
What does this mean?
Quoting John
Okay. Think by analogy. For me to touch you, I need to be physical, made of atoms just as you are, correct? If I'm not physical, how can I touch or interact with you? We need to be of the same substance to interact. So if God acts in the world, he must be of the same substance as the world. This substance is what we frequently use the word "world" for, and so God must be in this substance.
Quoting John
I'm not saying it would be impossible, I'm saying it is incoherent. How would we make sense of that? I can make sense of touching you for example, because we're both physical and made of the same substance - atoms - hence we can interact. That's what it means to be of the same substance - being capable of interacting. So if God isn't of the same substance, and is thus incapable of interacting with us, in what sense does he even exist? If I tell you that there exists this teapot, but you can't find it anywhere in the universe, and you can't ever interact with it in any way, shape or form, what's the difference between this teapot, and a non-existant one?
Quoting John
What comments made you believe this?
Quoting John
But for a very long time at the other forum he or she never had an avatar.
Quoting John
I'm not sure if Willow is either a man or a woman. I refer to Willow as a him more often than otherwise because he/she never indicated otherwise, and because that's the first term that comes to mind when I speak with someone whom I don't know more about on the internet.
I didn't say that experiences "take place" any where else, did I? Events take place, do experiences of events take place (in the sense of 'have a precise location')? Or is it not rather that events take place within experience. Can you explain what it would mean for an event to take place "outside experience"? What if the world just is experience, including let's say, God's experience. Then events would take place in experience and the world would be within experience. Experience is not an object or an event 'in the world'.
Quoting Agustino
It means that things and events are spatially and temporally related to one another in the world. We also generally believe that they may be causally related to one another as well.
Quoting Agustino
To say that we are "made of atoms" is just one among many other ways of thinking about our constitutions. We don't actually understand touching in terms of atoms at all, I can touch you because we both experience ourselves as embodied, material beings, whatever our "ultimate constitutions" might be. The every notion of embodiment and materiality comes from our experience, and so do all the scientific understandings of physicality.
'The world' is not a term that denotes 'substance', but 'totality'. The notion of substance itself is highly ambiguous, even incoherent.
Quoting Agustino
So, you are saying God is "made of atoms"? :s
If the world with all its objects and events is an expression of God, does it follow that God must have the same constitution as the world? If I am in your thoughts does that mean that the atoms that purportedly constitute me must be in the atoms that purportedly constitute your thoughts? Or more simply, if you see me does that mean that my atoms must be in your brain? You seem to be stuck in some Newtonian engineer's nightmare world. :-O
Quoting Agustino
That says more about you than about Willow. Who cares, anyway? It seems you like to argue just for the sake of it. Maybe you are trying to artificially resuscitate your thread?
If Willow cares enough to, then Willow can correct either you or me; if not, what does it matter?
Typically, you still have provided any of the arguments I asked for....
... No
I'm saying what whatever the basic stuff of the world is - whether this is a material substance or a spiritual substance - then everything is made of that. If the world doesn't include just atoms and void, then obviously there needs to be a substance formed of both atoms and void and whatever other spiritual things exist. The idea is that there is only one substance, a world formed of multiple substances cannot be conceived. Read Part I of Spinoza's Ethics - this is made abundantly clear by him.
Quoting John
We are always already outside of experience. We're thrown into the world, as Heidegger says.
Quoting John
No - you can touch me because we're made of the same substance - whatever that substance is, whether it is material or not.
Quoting John
I am starting to find this Kantian/Hegelian view more and more incoherent day by day. It seems to me that thought (and hence experience) presupposes an external world to even get started.
So the most you can say is that the world or our being is of one substance and God partakes of this substance, but is not necessarily constituted of it.
I have read it. I studied Spinoza for years. I eventually came to the conclusion that Spinozism is deeply and fundamentally confused. I engaged in a discussion along these lines many years ago with a poster, a self-styled expert Spinozist and "entropist", on the old forum. He claimed that God as nature (Deus sive natura) meant that God is radically immanent (which is the same as to say non-existent in the sense of 'unreal'). I pointed out that Spinoza makes a distinction between natura naturans (the self-causing priniciple) and natura naturata (the causal nexus that is the natural world) and asserts that God is the former but not the latter (to which the other poster agreed) thus saving himself from pantheism.
When I pointed out that the self-causing principle cannot be anything in the world by Spinoza's own arguments concerning the difference between necessary and contingent beings, and that from this it followed that God must be transcendent (as well as immanent, mind) the other poster became all huffy and accused me of 'refusing to learn', and would not, or more likely could not, explain himself further. What a cop out!
Quoting Agustino
This misrepresents Heidegger. He was a phenomenologist; for Heidegger phemonenology is ontology; being is experience. Heidegger was an idealist, he was one of the "correlationists" Meillassoux so desperately wanted to (and so woefully failed to) refute with his After Finitude.
Quoting Agustino
I think the very notion of substance is deeply flawed. But you obviously support it, so please explain to me exactly what a material substance is, and if you can successfully achieve that, then explain to me what an immaterial substance could be.
Quoting Agustino
If I thought there were no God then I would agree with you. Think about Berkeley. He is generally considered to be a subjective idealist. And yet he explained the seemingly very obvious independent-of-human-experience persistence of objects and invariances by positing that they are held within God's mind. So sure, on that view, there is an external (external to, or transcendent of, human experience) world. But the being of it is Gods' thought. God is not physical and God's thought is not physical, physicality is merely an idea that evolves out of embodied experience; it is not fundamental, it is not a "substance". Subjective idealism is utterly incoherent without God. The only cogent alternative is materialistic realism (although it is certainly arguable that the independent reality of things cannot be truly coherently thought); but there is really no room for God on that picture.
On this point I think it should be noted that Hegel, contra Kant, re-introduced a kind of Spinozism by claiming that the world is God (Spirit). He perhaps doesn't precisely and explicitly say this but he holds that world history is the dialectical unfolding of Spirit, and if there is no more to Spirit than this then the corollary is that Spirit ( God) is absolutely immanent, which seems to amount to the same as equating God with the world.
Hegel's philosophy is certainly a denial of transcendence; so it would actually seem to agree, rather than disagree, with what you appear to be claiming.
Berdyaev (I think rightly) criticises Hegel for objectifying Spirit, and the same criticism would apply to Spinoza, but certainly not to Kant.
Spinoza's point is exactly that the self-causing principle is NOT in the world. Immanence is not being in the world, but rather being EXPRESSESED by the world. The self-causing principle is infinte (not fintite, not a state of the world, necessary), rather than finite(a state of the world, a moment of causality, contingent).
180 Proof Ahh how I miss that man!
Quoting John
I'd be interested to see this discussion, if you could offer a link to PF via http://www.cachedpages.com/
Quoting John
180 Proof would go further and argue that Spinoza is an acosmist - only Substance is real.
Quoting John
Don't forget that according to Spinoza there also exist eternal modes (or infinite modes, can't remember how Spinoza calls them, it's been so long since I last read him). Before I say anything further, what arguments concerning the difference between necessary and contingent beings are you making reference to?
Quoting John
Many would disagree - Heidegger bridges the gap between realism/idealism or at least attempts to.
Quoting John
Why is the notion of substance flawed per your view? Material or immaterial describes the characteristic of substance. For example, for idealists, the underlying substance is mental. Now whether substance is material or non-material is besides the point of whether the notion of substance is flawed or not. So why do you think the notion is flawed? I'll get back to you in more detail, but I'll need some time to dig into Ethics again, and into the many Spinoza commentary books that I have.
Quoting John
So is there no room for God in that picture as an Aristotelian Prime Mover? Also I don't understand why realism has to be materialistic...
immanent
[im-uh-nuh nt]
Synonyms
Word Origin
adjective
1.
remaining within; indwelling; inherent.
2.
Philosophy. (of a mental act) taking place within the mind of the subject and having no effect outside of it.
Compare transeunt.
3.
Theology. (of the Deity) indwelling the universe, time, etc.
Compare transcendent (def 3).
If it is not in the world it is not immanent. I think the correct view is that it is in the world in the sense that it sustains the world, but transcendent of the world in the sense that it is not of the world, or an object in the world.
Yes, there are various interpretations of Heidegger (surprise, surprise!). But since "being-in-the-world" is primary for Heidegger and he claims that animals ( to refer tangentially to the OP) are "world poor" (meaning presumably that animals are not reallyin the world) then I think his idea must be understood in the experiential or idealist sense. For Heidegger it is not that we are in the world in some ontological sense prior to our phenomenological (experiential) being-in-the-world, for him phenomenology is ontology; Dasein is the being of the world.
I seem to recall you were arguing for idealism on these forums yourself not so long ago.
Personally I don't much miss his cryptic dribblings. But as I remember it, he certainly did occasionally come up with some original insights.
I'm not that computer savvy and I don't know how to find the stuff on the old PF; which is a pity because I would have downloaded my posts for future reference.
I don't think idealism is incoherent - I just think Aristotelian realism is more simple and seems to describe the world much better. I've been reading a lot of Thomas Aquinas recently - this shifted my impression away from people like Berkeley, Kant, Schopenhauer, etc.
Quoting John
In my opinion, the man was one of the few from whom I've learned A LOT from, even though most of the time I disagreed with him. I probably can't compare anyone else currently in this forum with him. He always brought the hardest arguments against me, and made me think. I always missed him because I don't feel as challenged without him. Most other people I can dispatch easily or see through them but 180 was hard, and he always fought back - and his responses - I could hardly predict what he will respond with, he always said something original. So I find here a few people I agree with - and I generally agree with on most important matters. And then a few that I disagree with, but those that I really disagree with, they're not that hard to deal with - I don't find their arguments plausible at all.
In a sense I agree with acosmism; I think the universe is ultimately illusory, but this is closer to idealism than to realism. The other thing is that "the world" merely denotes a logical totality, which, it might be said, has no existence over and above the transitory things that constitute it.
Okay let me teach you :P
type "site:forums.philosophyforums.com Something" without the quotes into google. This will allow you to search the domain forums.philosophyforums.com. Replace something with whatever you're looking for - the thread name, your username or whatever you would want to search PF for. So for example, I type: "site:forums.philosophyforums.com 180 proof spinoza" and the second thread that comes up is Spinoza's Critique of Cartesian Will . So I click it, and I can't access it anymore because PF is fucked. So I copy the URL/link :
http://forums.philosophyforums.com/threads/spinozas-critique-of-cartesian-will-30044-2.html
and paste it into the cachedpages.com and click first google cache, if that doesn't work, then I click archive.org
Now not all threads will be archived, but some will. So maybe it will be there. In addition, if you don't find the respective page, maybe you can find other pages from the thread. For example - in the previous example I gave, in the link, you notice the "-2" at the end of the URL right? That means you're on page 2 of that thread. So maybe there is no page 2 archived, but the previous pages are archived. So you can remove "-2" and search for: http://forums.philosophyforums.com/threads/spinozas-critique-of-cartesian-will-30044.html which might exist.
Once you're in the archived page you can just navigate it normally.
To be honest if you think your philosophical ability is superior to all of those on this forum, then I would say you are woefully deluded. I believe 180 also had an exaggerated idea of his own philosophical abilities, I found he always withdrew when I challenged his assertions; so maybe you were good for supporting each other's self-delusions.
You say you can "dispatch others easily" but I think you haven't considered the possibility that this perception is not of the reality but of your own little fantasy. I certainly don't find many of your arguments cogent or original. I would not count you as being in the top twenty percent of thinkers on this forum, for example, to be blunt. What you need if you are to develop philosophically is some humility, some honest assessment of your own abilities, and eschewing your usual practice of bluffing and trying to show off, in my opinion.
I haven't said it is superior to all those on this forum (gosh who would even think about that). I've said that amongst people I disagree with here, most aren't challenging.
Quoting John
No, I actually said that in the context of referencing people I disagree with. People I disagree with don't make me question myself. Their arguments are flimsy and weak. 180 Proof made me question myself. There are some I agree with here, and I think they have good philosophical aptitudes, and have honed in on the truth to a large degree.
The rest of the comment is just your own opinion, nothing more. Apparently you seem to be resorting to petty jealousies and the like, but that's your choice, so I wish you goodluck with that.
LOL, who do think I am being jealous of? Not yourself, surely! To be honest, your a young guy, and it shows; I see you as a philosophical pup, so to speak. I certainly think you have good potential.
Note, I said "if you think your philosophical ability is superior". I didn't say you did think that but some of your comments do make it seem so, to me at least.
Quoting Agustino
Well, yeah, that's obvious. Who else would you be "dispatching"?
Sorry man, It's really too much hassle for me. I have no recall even of what the thread was called where the exchange took place.
Sometimes I think you don't even realise how small you're becoming :)
Quoting John
:-} Right... >:O It's easy to defame people when they can't defend themselves, and when others can't defend them because you refuse to give them the chance to do it. But whatever, you defame me and 180, we'll let other people say what they think about us. Maybe you got jealous you never got more than +2 likes on PF or whatever. I don't know what's up with this attitude of yours.
Of course! Anyone who expresses an honest opinion about you that you don't like must necessarily be small, right? This is a common ploy you commonly employ. :-} Better try some arguments instead if you want to impress people.
Quoting Agustino
Is this meant to convey that you think I'm lying, or what?
Really, Agustino, I'm finding conversing with you less and less appealing. I'm really not interested in the kinds of bullshit games that you seem to be intent on playing.
Say what you really think and why, or just don't bother; otherwise it's a waste of time. :-d
An argument to do what, to show what a fool you are?
Quoting John
I did in fact write what I think and why. If you bother to read it. Really you're disappointing.
Quoting Agustino
I don't think you realize how infinitesimal you have become.
So I make a remark about how much I've learned from 180 Proof, and what a tough opponent he was (and that I have found no one like him - which is true! I haven't!), and suddenly you're up in arms about my philosophical ability and that of 180 Proof - really have you lost even the last shred of reason? Maybe you're growing too old and senile John. Who would even bother to get on the tirade that you're getting on and talk about other people's philosophical ability etc. I did indeed expect a young man to do this, not a grandfather. If you had even one shred of the wisdom you claim you have, you would never have started any of this. I really think you should be ashamed of yourself.
You should learn to respect your opponents, if even by your age you haven't yet learned it. Anyway, this is my last comment on this matter, if you want to continue satisfying your jealousies, you can do so by yourself.
You can characterize it however you want Agustino; I was simply expressing my opinion about your grandiose statements and behavior. Why not start a thread and ask others to honestly express their opinions, no holds barred, about your behavior on these forums; you might be surprised! Or I might be all alone in my view of you; I'm prepared for that, too. The fact is that I really don't care about this kind of bullshit; I'm not here to trade insults or to play boring games.
And I'm certainly not here to meet your expectations.
I didn't even mention 180 by name until after you identified him from my description. 180 is an online identity, so there is no question about "defaming". What I said would not constitute defamation in any case, even it we knew who 180 really is, because I just outlined what I remember of a discussion I had with him. I did say that I found him less than forthcoming when challenged. So what? Give it a rest, man; you're making a fool of yourself.
Welcome to the forum!
I think the problem here is whether or not fear is an innate quality in all things. Can something living have fear without either being conscious of said fear, or even what fear is in itself? Say I go and find a tribe in the south Pacific somewhere that's never had contact with modern Man, and I show them a toaster. They'll probably fear it (along with me), because they don't understand, but would you say that they feared the toaster before they knew what a toaster was? I wouldn't say so. But again, it's probably more important to decide whether fear requires consciousness. This question, like every question, only matters when one thinks about it, then tries to apply it to others. Does the zebra fear the cheetah without there being a conscious observer that analyzes the behavior and labels from there?
Yes, that sounds like a good idea. :) What's a "man period" though? I've been on a man period my whole life, as far as I can remember. Maybe it's time I started listening to my feminine side? ;)
It looks like: shoulders straightened, chest puffed up, dick out, (Agustino's imagining Borat at this point), tie straightened, fedora donned, wikipedia pages on philosophy at the ready, and then the moody slapping ensues...
Quoting John
Quoting John
Quoting John
Quoting Agustino
Quoting Agustino
Quoting John
Quoting Agustino
Quoting Agustino
Quoting Agustino
LOL, which of those comments would you count as being merely honest expressions of the one's impressions of the other, and which would you count as being 'adhominous', as imputing something that one could not possibly know about the other, or as being deliberately insulting as opposed to attempting to be a corrective to a perceived lack of humility and generally obnoxious behavior ?
And please stop with the dopey gifs...
Because none of that claptrap is on-topic.
Quoting John
I was told by a moderator to only limit my use of Star Trek gifs, so... >:)
Plus that's how I looked reading your posts. I'm just attempting to be accurate.
I agree that none of it was on-topic; that is hardly at issue. But your answer is not an answer to the question; or at least is not complete. Perhaps you forgot to say "I will not answer that" to begin the sentence. The off-topicness shouldn't bother you too much in any case, because the gifs certainly aren't on-topic, either; not to mention that they are kind of annoying.
OK, no worries. Since you took the trouble to weigh in on it, by taking the moral high ground; I thought you might have something enlightening to offer. Just in case you misunderstood I wasn't by any means asking you to 'take sides'. I'm not looking at this whole ridiculous exchange in terms of sides at all.
Also, you're projecting if you think my intention was to treat you as a "plaything" to alleviate "my boredom". But, whatever....
You reading that like a reductionist scientist. As if being an object in the would amounts to being immanent. If that were so, we wouldn't need anything more than empirical description.
To dwell in the world has a far deeper meaning than to be an object of causality. Any state of the world also has a logical expression, an infinite, which cannot be altered by changes in the finite world.
I am Willow, for example, a logical truth and expression immune to change, no matter what the finite world does. Not even my death alters it-- a necessary truth, inherent and indewelling to any world. To think the inherence and indewelling of immanence amounts to just being an object in the world is miss what it's about.
Indeed, it is to claim immanence (infinite) is only state in the world (finite), which is precisely what immanence is not.
When Spinoza makes the distinction between objects of causality (finite) and the principle of self (infinite), your response is to claim the are the same (that it's only about objects in the world). You are missing the entire point Spinoza is making and haven't even addressed the concept he is talking about.
Idealism's point is the world is not an illusion. It claims experiences, states of existence, are the extent of things.
Experience is treated as infinite and objects of existence (experiences) are the extent of everything.Idealism (and it close cousin Substance Dualism) are reductionst: there's nothing but present experiences.
The acosmist can only cohrently be a realist. For them, the world (finite states) can only be illusionary. Experiences (states of the world) cannot be Real.
Only Substance is Real for the acosmist-- the infinite, the logical necessity, which is not subject to finite change-- that which is outside the finite but never seperate from it.
You wouldn't say that objects and events are immanent in the world? Why do you think it follows that if objects are immanent in the world all we would need is empirical descriptions? Is causality immanent in the world? I would say it is not clear that it is immanent in the world as experienced, as Hume points out. Causality itself is never directly experienced; so causal relation between things remain inferences to forces which cannot themselves be detected, and are simply inferred due to their observed purported effects.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Would you say these logical expressions are real independently of our formulations of them? If they are real, then they are transcendent of the temporal world, insofar as they are timeless or eternal truths. This is not the common notion of immanence at all.
Contrary to your claims the infinite, if it is more than merely an abstraction, is the very definition of transcendence. This whole question of immanence and transcendence is extremely complex and multi-layered. You seem to want to reduce it to being subject to Willow's set of stipulated definitions, which don't accord at all with ordinary usage, as far as I can tell.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Spinoza believed the self to be utterly subject to the determinism he believed to be inherent in nature. He believed that the freedom we experience ourselves as being is an illusion due to the fact that we cannot be aware of all the causal factors determining our actions. I believe this view is deeply flawed, but there is no point arguing about it, since more than two thousand years of philosophical arguments about free will vs determinism have gotten us no closer to the truth. People show what kind they according to whether they choose to believe in free will or determinism; it cannot ever be anything more than a matter of taste, so to speak.
OK, so what is substance then? If you cannot clearly say what it is, then it would seem to be utterly senseless to claim that it is the only real.
This is incoherent - you're using a notion of substance that would be completely foreign to Spinoza, Descartes, Aristotle, and the whole philosophic corpus. Substance is what necessarily exists - God can't partake of substances - rather God can be substance. Maybe what you're saying is that God is a substance with multiple attributes, say attributes A, B, C, D and we're a substance with attributes A and B only. Now let's see, why couldn't that be the case? (Spinoza actually DOES go through this and explains why it can't be the case)
Spinoza explains that the nature of a substance is described by its attributes. Since the attributes are the essence of substance and substance is always logically prior to its modes, then that means that what we must use to distinguish two different substances are their attributes. Spinoza defends E1p5 that in nature there cannot be two or more substances having the same attribute by citing E1d3, and E1a6. Now, Spinoza following Descartes and the tradition defines substance as what is in itself and is conceived through itself (E1d3) and defines the correspondence of a true idea to its object in E1a6. Now suppose we have two substances with the different attributes as described above. Can we distinguish the two substances by the attributes they have in common? No. So it must be by the attributes they don't have in common. How do we conceive of a substance? Through its essence via E1d3 (ie through any one of its attributes E1p10). So to conceive of an extended substance, we just need to make reference to the attribute of extension and to no other attribute. But in the case we have previously mentioned, if I try to conceive substance 1 through attribute A that isn't enough, because how would it be different from conceiving substance 2 which also has attribute A? So because we cannot conceive of a substance if it shares an attribute with another substance, we know that substances cannot share attributes (E1p5). Now neither can Substances be distinguished through their modes, because the Substance is logically prior to its modes. Therefore still E1p5.
Now substance necessarily has all possible attributes (from E1d6). If you claim it doesn't, and say there's substance with attribute A, and substance with attribute B, than a substance with attributes A and B can always be conceived which incorporates both "substances" (and indeed MUST be conceived). Because, say, an extended substance only requires the attribute of extension to be conceived, the attribute of thought or any other kind of attribute is not necessary when conceiving the substance qua extended substance - and thus there's nothing in the substance being an extended substance precluding it from being a thinking substance also. Since God - or Substance - can be conceived, and God necessarily has all the attributes (because God has the most reality and power), then it follows that whatever substance that exists must have all the attributes (E1p11). From the fact that substances cannot share attributes (E1p5) and whatever substance exists must have all the attributes (E1p11) we conclude that there can only be ONE Substance and ONE God - E1p14.
After all those years of you claiming you studied Spinoza you still can't understand even the basics of his system. Have you bothered to read how Spinoza or Descartes CLEARLY define what substance is?
"By substance I understand what is in itself and is conceived through itself" (E1d3) Spinoza
OR
"By Substance we can understand nothing other than a thing which so exists that it needs no other thing to exist" (I, 51) Descartes
Quoting John
>:O Yeah maybe if you stop after reading the fourth book "On Man's Bondage", and never move to the fifth ("On Man's FREEDOM") :-d
This is the 'first cause' or 'uncaused cause'. I was, coincidentally, just reading a definition of Nirv??a in The Buddhist Dictionary, to whit:
'Nirv??a is the one dharma that exists without being the result of a cause'.
From here.
With respect to Descartes definition of substance:
From here
A lot of the confusion here rests on the notion of what constitutes 'substance'. The meaning of 'substance' in philosophy is different to our 'substance stuff or thing', the original, 'ousia', is much nearer in meaning to 'essence' or 'being' than what we take to be 'substance' in the modern lexicon.
You lack even the basic shame required of a man to avoid humiliating himself even more than he is already humiliated. It seems that in your old age you have realised that young minds have achieved far more than you have in far shorter time, and there is no possibility for you to catch up. Thus you choose to resort to ressentiment, and cast as sour and untrue all that you cannot reach up to because of your own weakness and lack of character. Accuse them of failing because they are young, and all sorts of other non-philosophical and philistinic rationalisations. You claim:
Quoting John
And on you go, post after post engaging in insults and playing boring games. You should really be ashamed of yourself, there is no greater shame than to have a man let his own jealousy conquer him. Your jealousy is so great in fact, that you even have the audacity to suggest:
Quoting John
But of course, you don't care about this kind of bullshit. Why suggest it then? I think you really do care, and the fact that you care tells the rest of us a lot about you. But again I really think you ought to meditate on this and bear the shame you have accumulated in silence instead of opening that mouth again and pushing yourself even deeper down in the pit. Shame on you John, shame on you.
This is not a very clear definition because we don't know if there exists such a thing. Spinoza ties it with Substance being in itself (not depending on other things) and requiring nothing but itself in order to be conceived. Because Spinoza makes such a distinction it ends up clear that substance is something that we MUST conceive in order to make sense of reality (and hence there definitely exists such a thing). Descartes' definition, and the definition provided by the Buddhist dictionary don't make this clear.
Quoting Wayfarer
Which is precisely how Spinoza could subvert Cartesianism ;)
Quoting Wayfarer
In philosophic discourse the notion of substance is pretty clear at least in my opinion.
And Buddhists themselves are saying this. Have a look here for example:
http://www.mysticbanana.com/i-would-really-like-to-practice-buddhism-but-will-i-be-faced-with-leftist-loons.html
Read the comment by Roshi Bill Yoshin Jordan for example. Buddhism has become corrupted, because it wasn't sufficiently structured - and therefore it has failed because it has allowed the virus to get in. Once the virus is in, it will be almost impossible to change - the preachers of Buddhism themselves become twisted. Which is a pity because Buddhism had some valuable insights and good potential - if only it hadn't formed such an alliance, we may have envisioned a different future for it. But now in the bottles with the label Buddhism we can either find poison or good wine - and how to distinguish them without drinking them - they bear the same label! ;)
The problem with what Spinoza is saying (as you have presented it), is that there are two unfounded conclusions, conclusions which cannot be supported using logic. Firstly that there is only one substance and secondly that God is this substance. It may be true, but we cannot determine it and logic is unequipped to determine it, because logic is an intellectualisation of knowledge, which are both products of the computation, of a thinking, limited, mind. A thing which is susceptible to solipsism.
You should know by now that we cannot think God into/or out of existence, or think eternity into our own guise.
You haven't understood what I've said all this time.
Quoting Punshhh
Yes and using substence in a way that doesn't follow the use of it that has been philosophically established. You're just redefining words.
Quoting Punshhh
How are they unfounded? Can you explain this when I just provided you the reasons for why there is only one substance, and the reasons for why this substance must be God? :s
Quoting Punshhh
Yes unfortunately Spinoza's ontological argument works - unlike that of Descartes or St. Anselm. Your only option is to retreat into irrationalism if you want to deny Spinoza's point. Reason itself demands that we adopt such a conception if reality is to be intelligible at all. Of course you can say "fuck it, reality isn't intelligible", but that's your only option. And if you choose that, you're not really doing philosophy anymore. So if that's what you want to do, be my guest.
Jesus, Agustino, get your head on straight; philosophy is not a competition! My intention was never to insult you. The same, it seems cannot be said about you though.
Your continued insults make it obvious that in fact it is just you projecting your own jealousies and seeking to put me down. Your upstart behavior on these forums is obnoxious and not very intelligent Agustino, at least that's the way it strikes me, and I feel no shame in honestly expressing that impression. The idea that I could be jealous ( don't you mean 'envious' ? ;) ) of you is a real laugh. Project on if you like, I won't disturb you again.
The problem with the notion of 'God as substance' and the idea that He must be constituted as we are if He is to be able to act on us is that the idea of substance being constituted is unintelligible.
If substance is what constitutes, how could substance itself be constituted? Substance is therefore a deeply confused notion. The conception of substance has never been clear and free from paradox in Western philosophy, and I think that's why the most interesting philosophy in the modern Era has been oriented to process ontology and the incoherent notion 'substance' has mostly been abandoned.
:-} Is this how Spinoza has defined Substance? Yes or no? If yes, then please cite adequate evidence. If no, then your point is a red herring or at best a strawman.
And I'm not even mentioning that even if things were as you frame them - your question, "if substance is what constitutes, how could substance itself be constituted?" is just as stupid as the question "if the Prime Mover is what moves, how could the Prime Mover itself be moved?" :s
Have you considered that it's possible you don't understand it very well? Those sources are plainly polemical. Plenty of people hate Buddhism. Anyway, the point of the post is not about Buddhism in particular, it's a cross-cultural comparison between Spinoza's and Descartes' idea of the 'uncaused' and a similar idea in Buddhist philosophy.
Of course it's a stupid question, that is the point; it is stupid to think of God as "being of a substance", which was what I was trying to point out to you earlier.
Quoting Agustino
Pretty much all metaphysics must have an idea of the uncaused, because otherwise you're stuck with an infinite regress no? So even materialism must have an uncaused cause - for Epicurus "atoms and void" are eternal. So the very attempt to make an intelligible whole out of reality leads to the idea.
Quoting Wayfarer
Whether I understand it or not is besides the point I'm trying to make to you. I may very well think highly of Buddhism, and in fact I do. However - this doesn't change the fact that many of the people who claim to be Buddhists, who go to practice Buddhism, and so forth have misinterpreted the teaching. My point is political - Buddhism has been so misinterpreted by so many people that it is beyond saving - at least in the West. It becomes a host for liberalism/progressivism, and it merely becomes another way to spread them. It has no mechanism - as far as I'm aware, to stop these misinterpretations and correct them - practically speaking, it doesn't even seem to be doing so, instead it is happy that it is gaining converts.
Those links I have given you may be polemical, but it is people of different persuasions, liberals and conservatives, noting the same trend with regards to Buddhism. These people may very well be misunderstanding Buddhism. So it is. But so what? The facts are still the facts - they are a large share of those who call themselves Buddhists, and use Buddhism to spread their beliefs. How do you, as not this kind of Buddhist, deal with this for example? Are you happy your religion is used for these purposes? If no, then what are you doing about it and how do you propose it can be corrected?
I asked you a question. Please answer it.
Quoting Agustino
Quoting John
:s No it isn't stupid. Your question is stupid. If the Prime Mover does the moving then nothing moves it, so asking how could the Prime Mover itself be moved is nonsense. That's why in Aristotelian science it is known as the Unmoved Mover.
You obviously fail to understand that I was presenting it as a stupid question, not posing it as a sensible question to which we should seek an answer. It shows that thinking of God as being constituted as we are, or in your terms as "being of a substance" is flawed. Typical lack of subtlety.
In what way is it flawed? Stop being pedantic and back-peddling. This is what you do every single time to run away. You gave your question - and the inability to answer it - as proof for the notion of substance being flawed. I've explained that given the notion of substance, your question makes no sense at all. If it makes no sense at all, that means that it's not substance that is at fault, but your question, and it can't be used as a criticism of substance. Therefore you have presented no case for how substance is flawed.
You referred to God as being constituted as we are, as "being of the same substance". But if God is the substance that constitutes, then it makes no sense to speak of God as being constituted as we are or as "being of the same substance". It makes no more more sense to say that substance is itself constituted, than it does to say the Prime Mover is moved, as you put it yourself.
I am not claiming that God is the substance that constitutes, or that God is substance at all, by the way. If you still say you don't understand what I am saying then you either lack good faith or are not very bright.
This is the last time I am going to explain it.
Right! Which is why I am of the view that physics has torpedoed materialism.
As for Buddhism - what it means to me is a practical philosophy and way, grounded in meditative insight into the nature of the self. It is at its best a meta-cognitive discipline, it is all about 'knowing how you know'. There are indeed many forms of Buddhism and Buddhist organisations that I have no interest in, there are Buddhist cults and Buddhist dogmatists and fundamentalists. There are even Buddhist atheists. Zero interest.
Have a look at the Wikipedia article on Substance (philosophy) and this article http://www.iep.utm.edu/substanc/
Instead of the question 'how many kinds of substances are there? put it like this 'how many kinds of being are there?'
The Hindu idea of ?tman and Brahman is nearer to Spinoza and Descartes conception of substance, than modern or analytical notions of substance, because they're both speaking of 'substance' in the sense of 'being' rather than as an objective reality.
Yes, I get that the idea of substance is coterminous with the idea of being for Spinoza. But the question as to what is being is no easier to answer than 'What is substance'?
In any case, it seems to me that to think of God as substance or being is to objectify God. This is not to say that God is thus thought as an object or a being, but that He is thought as nothing more than the being of objects or beings. This idea that God is being (wholly immanent) is really, without the accompanying idea that God is also transcendent of being, nothing more than pantheism. This is the salient point of my disagreement with Spinoza's philosophy.
Number 1: This means that God isn't (or rather CAN'T be) transcendent. I meant to say that the notion of transcendence is incoherent - ie there is only one substance, there can't be many.
Number 2: I never used the word constituted. (for something to be constituted requires that there is something to constitute it)
Number 3: This is what I was referring to in a post to you, where I wasn't even using Spinoza's system. Now your reply with the stupid question (and everyone knows the stupid question by now) occurred in a post replying to Punshhh who was quibbling with me over Spinoza's system. So can I know what the fuck what I said earlier in a post to you had to do with your reply to Punshhh talking to me about Spinoza's system?
Quoting John
Yeah - thanks to your lack of subtlety as you like to say, you interpret it that way. All that the statement meant is that God being transcendent is incoherent - ie there are no two substances.
Now you still haven't answered my question that I've asked you two times to answer already. If you don't answer this question this time again, and deliberately ignore it, I will ignore your post.
Quoting Agustino
In addition to this I've asked you to provide evidence for what exactly you're referencing here:
Quoting John
Quoting John
Are you lacking in reading comprehension skills by any chance?
"By substance I understand what is in itself and is conceived through itself"
Quoting John
No - you totally misunderstood Spinoza. No wonder 180 didn't want to have anything to do with you. He would usually not bother with those of low intellectual capacity and would easily break conversation with them when they couldn't keep up. "The being of objects" - get off your Heidegger and other obscurantists. The modes of substance are the waves of the ocean, and the substance is the ocean itself. Is the ocean the "being" (understood in an ACTIVE sense) of the waves? Yes, but this is an incredibly obscurantist way of putting it, because being is usually understood as a noun, and in this case it's also an activity. So the fact that "God is thought as nothing more than the being of objects or beings" is dead wrong.
Quoting John
*facepalm* - The waves of the ocean are illusory - only the ocean is real (and divine) vs the waves of the ocean are real (and divine). The former is acosmism; the latter is pantheism. Now how the fuck is Spinoza a pantheist if God is wholly immanent? You have no fucking clue what you're talking about.
Now you'll run out of here claiming victory over both myself and 180 - shamelessly like you've already done before. It's not our fault that you don't even understand Spinoza, even after "years of reading him" >:O .
Quoting Agustino
Quoting Agustino
I am well aware that Spinoza does not use the same language as Heidegger. But much of philosophy is "the same old stew, reheated". Can you explain to me what the difference between substance and being is?
For example, is being not "what is in itself" and "conceived through itself" ?
Being is taken to be static, whereas substance is active. The ocean is active - it generates waves. Anyway, I've had enough of you and your refusal to engage. You can play by yourself from now on. Your lack of tact has already been called out by others as well and you take no notice. Good luck at that.
I understood that you said there can only be one substance and that God must be that substance. This is all I have commented on, it's not difficult to understand, it amounts to Pantheism as John has pointed out. Now I don't know if Spinoza has proved this using his logic, as I have not studied his work. This is however irrelevant, because I have attacked logical intellection itself, which Spinoza relies on. So whatever argument he provides cannot in principle determine that there is one substance, or anything about God.
My point is equally valid using Spinoza's definition as you have provided it, ""By substance I understand what is in itself and is conceived through itself" (E1d3) Spinoza".
I can see of no reason why a substance that is in itself and is conceived through itself, is necessarily a universal, or absolute, unity. I.e, there can/must only be one such substance. This cannot be established, there either are more than one, or only one such substance and there is no way to determine it in the absence of a thorough understanding of the basis of our existence. Which sadly we do not have at this time.
I'm sorry but I can't see a logical justification in what you wrote. It only contained some ideas about substances and their attributes. Just because you can define a substance as Spinoza does, or that it is in some way necessary, doesn't establish that it is the only substance. This cannot be established because we are woefully ignorant of the means of our existence, so have no grounds from which to work.
So there is a proof in there, is there?
I have nothing against ontological arguments, but I do realise that they don't prove anything. They are useful thought experiments, nothing more.
Nonsense, just by accepting the degree of our ignorance does not mean that what we are ignorant of is unintelligible, merely that we are not in possession of the knowledge of it, for whatever reason.
This "reality isn't intelligible" has not been said, I don't know where you pulled it from.
Right I see how good your understanding is :-d
Quoting Punshhh
That too is evident.
Quoting Punshhh
Good if you attacked logical intellection itself, then you have resorted to unintelligibility, so there's no point of arguing with you.
Quoting Punshhh
Have you read why there cannot be more than one substance? The reasons are because a substance can be conceived through any of its attributes, there cannot be substances sharing attributes, neither can there be independent substances with different attributes - thus there must be one substance. All these reasons were provided and detailed in my reply to you. I suggest you go back and read it.
Quoting Punshhh
This is not an empirical matter - it's a strictly logical matter.
Quoting Punshhh
:-} read it again...
Quoting Punshhh
An argument IS a proof - if it's sound and valid. It remains for you to show how it is not sound or invalid.
Quoting Punshhh
Confusion of logical and empirical matters.
Quoting Punshhh
If you reject Spinoza's system, without finding fault in his arguments, that is equivalent to affirming that reality isn't intelligible. Spinoza is just drawing out the logical conclusions that ensue from the attempt to make reality intelligible.
Being is often considered as analogous to the ocean : "the ocean of being" . The waves generated by the ocean are analogous to the beings generated by being, so I'm not seeing a cogent difference. Heidegger though of being not as a noun signifying something static, but as a dynamic verb; 'a doing'.
Substance is equally often considered to be something static, that is in itself unchanging, in any case.
Who's refusing to engage now? You also haven't offered a counter-position to my point that being is in itself and is understood in itself. If you cannot do so then being corresponds to your definition of substance.
Quoting Agustino
By "engage" I presume you really mean "engage on Agustino's terms" or "agree with Agustino". You're correct in thinking that I will not engage that way. To be honest, I'm perfectly happy to have no further "engagement" with you. There's not a lot to be gained from it, it seems.
Why was physics ever necessary? If what I'm saying is right, then no physics was necessary to make the metaphysics of atoms and void possible (and indeed the metaphysics was there before the physics, already worked out). Metaphysics is a matter strictly of logic. That's why all metaphysics end up with an uncaused cause, etc. the name they give to this uncaused cause is less interesting as the fact that they end up with one.
Quoting Wayfarer
That's all good, indeed I have no problem with that :)
Quoting Wayfarer
Okay I see. Why do you have no interest in them? Don't you think it is important to guard truth and prevent it from being corrupted? Or how do you approach this matter?
By the way, this conversation is much better than before because you're attempting to answer questions directly, and so it's more enjoyable and productive. You can see I hope how avoiding questions or not answering them would anger and annoy the person you're conversing with right? That's not productive because a conversation presupposes that we're honest with each other and we'll answer each other's questions.
Bearing in mind that I think substance, unless it is simply equated with being, is an incoherent, inconsistent notion, can you answer these questions to convince me otherwise:
You say a substance can be conceived through any of its attributes, and yet earlier you said a substance can only be "conceived through itself". Seems contradictory.
What is the actual argument to support the claim that substances cannot share attributes? Isn't it only that Spinoza defines God as the one substance containing all attributes, and that therefore any other purported substance cannot possess any attribute which is not possessed by God and thus cannot be a separate substance. (That's how I remember Spinoza's argument, anyway, but it's been a very long while since I read him).
The thing I don't see is why there could not be subsidiary substances with God as the master substance, so to speak. For example, " we are made in the image of God". Why couldn't God's creation be both separate and not separate, in different senses, from God. Does "separate" have just one privileged sense? The problem I have with Spinozism is that it posits that all our notions and terms have such priveleged univocal senses, that can become axiomatic, and from which a system such as Spinoza's can be derived along analogous lines to Euclid's geometry. This is obviously not so, and Spinozism is thus really an incredibly naive philosophy, however brilliantly conceived it might be as a system.
Not always Heister, not always...
This question is loaded with correlationist expectations. Substance is thought to be a matter of properties found in the world-- something defined how might speak about a "large rock" or "tall tree"-- or else not qualify as a concept with any substance.
Spinoza's point is this correlationist account is incohrent. Substance doesn't rely on something else for its defintion. The act of a transcendent being, the presence of experience, etc., etc., are NOT required to define substance. Substance is substantial all on its own-- the logic of self, the it-in-itself, the logical truth of self-defintion.
Kant was wrong. The thing-in-itself is intelligible and we may know it perfectly. Useless to emprical description for sure, but such description was never at stake in understanding the thing-in-itself. The mistake Kant (or at least many of his followers)made was to think that the thing-in-itself was some empirical state we might to know. Since it's not (as Kant himself pointed out, that we can't know the it-in-itself in emprical description), there's no emprical description to discover about it. The appeal that we can't know the it-in-itself because it has no emprical form falls.
True enough, I guess, provided it is actually possible to talk it out in terms that are satisfactory to both parties.
Yes, but I wasn't asking for substance to be identified as some empirical phenomenon, obviously. I'm just asking for an explanation of what you say it is beyond the ordinary usages of the term, both philosophical and everyday. If you can't say what it is in terms of its philosophical significance, then what use is the concept?
I understand the ordinary logical understanding of substance as being that which predicates are predicated of, but which is not itself any kind of predicate and that which undergoes change but which remains the same 'beneath' its changing attributes. This kind of modeling of things and their relations and qualities has obvious practical significance, but that is not relevant to this discussion; which is about the ontological status of substance(s).
People have pointed out it's philosophical significance several times: self-definition. The unchanging logical expression of self. A predicatless and unchanging substance is exactly the topic of the discusion. The whole point of substace is that it doesn't exist. If it were to exist, it would be finite and subject to change. Substance cannot be "ontological" and no-one here claimed it is.
This is why I say you are giving a correlationist account that equivocates substance with states of the world. You expect substance to have "ontological" (i.e. existing) consequences.
That's incorrect, I am expecting an explanation of why we should think of substance as being real, as opposed to merely formal or imaginary. The equivocation is yours not mine, you are conflating 'ontic' with 'ontological'; ontology concerns what is real, and its scope of enquiry is not restricted to ontic or empirical entities.
The acomist's point is the ontological/ontic (finite) is illusionary. Only the infinite is Real, so any existing state is outside the Real. I'm not equating the ontic or ontological with the Real. I'm saying the opposite: existing states are never Real. The enquiry excludes ontic and emprical entities (and their realness under ontology)-- hence that which is not finite and existing (substance) is Real.
"Have you read why there cannot be more than one substance? The reasons are because a substance can be conceived through any of its attributes, there cannot be substances sharing attributes, neither can there be independent substances with different attributes - thus there must be one substance. All these reasons were provided and detailed in my reply to you. I suggest you go back and read it."
This is merely conjecture, we don't know if there is such a substance, or a multitude of substances.
Nonsense, I have said that logic can't conjecture what we are considering, that's all.
Oh so it's a thought experiment, that's ok. But what does it tell us about reality then? ( or substances, or God)
Oh, so it is a question of whether a thought experiment is logically consistent. If it is then, what can this tell us about God, for example?
There's that "isn't intelligible" again, where did you pluck that straw man from? I am rejecting the the use of logic in addressing such questions about reality. Spinoza might have come up with an amazing complex all encompassing logical theory, but what does it tell us about reality? diddly squat.
It remains firmly within the remit of ontological arguments, great thought experiments, but they don't actually answer any questions about reality etc.
So to conclude that there is only one substance and to claim that it is in some way a truth, or to conclude that God is this one substance and to claim in some way that there is any truth in the assertion doesn't follow, is unsupported and is susceptible to the charge of solipsism.
As you're no doubt aware, the term 'metaphysica' was coined by an editor of Aristotle's works, who gave that name to the volume 'after Physics' in the sequence of texts. However, as you're also aware, 'meta' is not a term for 'after' as much as 'about'. For example, if we were to have a conversation about this conversation, it would be a 'meta-conversation' - 'what do you think this conversation is about?' If you and I arrived at really different answers to that question, then we would have something resembling what most people mean when they get into a debate about 'metaphysics'. X-)
IN ANY CASE, the striking feature about 'atoms and the void, is that it is binary. Something either is, or it is not; every point in space is either occupied (=is) or not occupied (=is not). Marry that to Cartesian algebraic geometry, and you have an amazingly powerful model. I'm sure that is a large part of the intuitive appeal of materialism; that is very close to the spirit of Lucretius (an essay on which, I might add, I got a High Distinction for.)
But, notice that the whole basis of the Buddhist 'madhyamika' (middle-path) analysis, is that nothing either 'truly is' or 'truly is not'. It regards both of these as reifications or abstractions, which are beguiling but illusory. The ramifications of that analysis are profound and wide-ranging.
Quoting Agustino
My interest in Buddhism came from spiritual books I read in my youth, and also (in hindsight) a visit to Sri Lanka in late childhood. I read a lot of spiritual books and the two that had the biggest impact were First and Last Freedom, Krishnamurti, and Zen Mind Beginner's Mind, Shunryu Suzuki.
Later in life, I started to think that publicly acknowledging Buddhism was a way of making a declaration and a commitment, even though culturally I am obviously not Buddhist (I'm far more Anglican in terms of cultural archetypes). But perhaps that commitment is like a guide-rope up a mountain - some way of charting a path into unknown territory. (Interesting to reflect that in Krishnamurti's famous 'pathless land' speech, he refers to 'climbing a mountain'.)
So my view of 'religion' is instrumental - that it's the record of those who have gone before, which you can use to trace a pathway. It is only useful insofar as it guides actions, your 'footsteps on the way'. Of course, often times the record of 'those who have gone before' will either ossify into dogma, or evaporate into platitudes. But that is what motivated my search in the first place.
Now, of course, Buddhism is a global religion, with many institutions, teachings and teachers. I have no doubt that some forms of it have deteriorated or are pernicious or corrupted. But what can I do about that? I have no public platform, what I write here or say to the people I know is the only platform I have. So I will give anyone who asks fair and frank advice as to whom I think is worth knowing about in the Buddhist world. I try not to be malicious or to gossip, as those are both wrong speech. And also I try to honour the attitudes and values of the Western philosophical tradition.
Actually in Greek meta is better translated as "above" or "beyond" (in the sense of presupposed) than either after or about.
Quoting Wayfarer
>:O
The idea is that any physics (empirical) necessarily necessitates and presupposes metaphysics (logical). The further idea is that you don't need to know the contents of physics (which are empirical) to generate metaphysics (which is logical and has to apply to whatever the contents of physics happen to be).
Quoting Wayfarer
However this is to misunderstand the logical role played by "atoms and void". Atoms and void are not fundamentally two different things - they are one substance. One substance formed of "atoms and void". This is the most significant point of the metaphysics, and in this sense it is the same as Schopenhauer's, and the same as Spinoza's, and the same as Heidegger's, etc. You're busy quarrelling with the content of metaphysics (but guess what, there is no content, because it's strictly logical) - the content is the illusion. That's why Spinoza kept it as abstract, because he understood this point. Metaphysics is required to make sense of reality - for reality to be intelligible - regardless of what that reality actually is empirically. The Atomists were doing both metaphysics and physics at the same time, which is why some of the notions are intertwined and confused even to this day.
Quoting Wayfarer
Even Nirvana? X-)
Quoting Wayfarer
How did the visit to Sri Lanka draw you to Buddhism?
Quoting Wayfarer
Do you think that dogma isn't important to guide the hoi polloi towards truth? Do you think that dogma plays no important political role in society's cohesiveness?
Let me give you an example that I've used before. If I am a liberal, and I read "The Meet the Real Dragon", the chapter "Not to do Wrong", and I read all the precepts I will go on thinking that according to Buddhism there's nothing wrong with casual sex or sex between two men, and so forth. Now do you agree with that statement or not? If not, can you explain why you don't think the statement is true? Moving on, in case you agree with it - doesn't this mean then that I will be deceived in my error and will therefore proceed in it by, for example, having sex with other men with a clean conscience? If you don't agree why not? If you do agree, then does that mean that the study of Buddhism via that book has deceived me because it has failed to alert me of my own presuppositions and unquestioned assumptions?
Quoting Wayfarer
You also have a blog, which has quite a lot of content and you could probably use it as a means to spread your thoughts more easily and widely if you organised it, improved graphics, and added information to it, say, weekly. You have been a member of the community here for a long time - you are well known - some of the new people here are quite possibly looking for guidance from you, you could be actively helping them in certain issues such as overcoming nihilism and so forth. And I'm not saying this as criticism for you, but in some threads of people struggling with nihilism and nihilism produced depression you sent them to get professional help (which they probably were already getting), instead of trying to offer them a new perspective which you could have done. Personally I think you're selling yourself far too short, but that may just be me. It's one thing being prudent and humble, and being afraid to make a mistake, and it's a different thing not helping for fear that you'll do more harm than good.
Quoting Wayfarer
True - however - is there not a tension between being honest with someone and being malicious? Certainly being honest with someone could be interpreted as malicious but it isn't necessarily so. For example, when you say that you'll leave the forums and you are reminded not to talk with strangers, etc. you're obviously angry. Now you don't express that anger except in this subtle way, probably to uphold the precept of proper speech. Fair enough, but that doesn't change the fact that you were angry, and I think it would be much better if you communicated that in a non-conflictual way like "what you're saying makes me feel very angry because I feel that you're misrepresenting me" or whatever you think. That's certainly a way of being honest without improper speech - indeed when I went to mindfulness training/therapy like 3-4 years ago that was one of the things the guy taught me. You should express your emotions and let others know how you feel - without obviously creating conflict. If you just talk about the feelings that you find inside yourself and why you think they're there (focusing on anger as a whole), that's obviously a lot more useful than focusing on the content of your anger.
So you are expecting to find such a thing empirically? Don't you see that this is precisely what Substance is NOT?
Quoting Punshhh
Substance is a logical category. It doesn't correspond with anything in empirical reality. Its truth isn't granted by correspondence. So in vain you're looking for it and claiming we don't know if there is such a thing and so on so forth. Rather it is a logical category that is necessary in order to be able to conceptualise reality and make it intelligible - it's truth is granted by its function in thinking and for thought about reality. In other words, substance is the only way to think about reality coherently. You cannot think about reality coherently unless you use the concept of substance - and if you don't use the concept of substance then you'll use a concept which is almost identical to it by virtue of having the same function in your thought (indeed it is this function which makes it true). That's why you see Schopenhauer's metaphysics having an uncaused cause - the Will, and Plato's metaphysics having an uncaused cause The Agathon, and Aristotle's metaphysics having an uncaused cause - the Prime Mover, and so forth. If you're going to be pedantic and start saying "Huurr hurrr where is the prime mover?" and other such nonsense, you don't understand anything of what I'm saying. The prime mover isn't anywhere - it's a logical category of thought. If you want to explain how any kind of empirical world works, it is presupposed. There is no experiment that you can do that will reveal substance - indeed your very ability to do an experiment presupposes substance.
Quoting Punshhh
No it's not a fucking thought experiment at all.
Quoting Punshhh
If you expect it to tell you something about empirical reality you're deluded. It can't do that precisely because it can say everything about empirical reality (no empirical reality conceivable could fail to be outside of it - or could fail to be accounted by it) and thus it has no means of distinguishing how the world actually is empirically. If you want to do that, go do physics. Simple. Now this is the last time I go over this, if you can't understand it and we can't progress, then I'm just wasting my time repeating the same things that you refuse to engage with time and time again.
Well there's nothing much to talk about. John doesn't understand Spinoza, he's not interested to understand Spinoza, and on top of that he's also an arrogant prick. So there's not much point discussing anything with such a person, especially under his terms. So he's free to beg for an answer as much as he wants, he won't get it. Indeed that's the thing about him - he's used to people biting his bait. So I will educate him to behave and cooperate if he wants a proper answer.
The absence of anything to observe and test is exactly how we can conclude there is one substance. Since it is not an empirical state, the question of showing its presence through observation and measurement is incoherent. Substance is purely logical, an aspect of reality "beyond" the empirical, which cannot be identified or measured by observing the empirical world.
What you are attempting to argue here is reductionism. You take substance and insist that it is a state of the world we observe and measure-- much like the reductionist who claims the meaning of experiences are "just brains"-- as if knowledge and understanding were only about giving empirical measurements.
We can be sure about substance because we know substance is not subject to change. Since we know it's not an empirical state, not even one we don't know about, we know it is beyond the question of being an actualised possibility in the contingent world. For substance, there is no "might be" or "might not be," based upon what states of the world do. One cannot coherently "conjecture" about substance.
However I don't think we can say, it isn't anywhere(it might be somewhere in a way we can't understand), also yes we can deal with it as a logical category, but this does not mean that an actual substance isn't out there, as you say, it is "presupposed" to be out there.
I am not expecting Spinoza's metaphysics to tell me anything about reality, as such. I am more concerned about what is being denied in its name, or what Spinoza denies about reality.
The possibility of more than one substance is denied, I see no justification for this.
The possibility that God is transcendent of this substance is denied, I see no justification of this.
Well, that's the point about Spinoza's metaphysics: it tells you about metaphysics, rather than the world (for that use physics, observation, etc.,etc.).
In this respect, it's the opposite of most other metaphysics. Most metaphysics claim (or at least are understood to) to tell you about the world-- follow/believe/understand this god or force, and you will finally grasp how the world really works.
By breaking with this tradition, Spinoza takes out the transcendent because it is, more or less, the position that metaphysics describe or account for the world. The transcendent God is the metaphysical (outside the world) which nevertheless defines the world. Spinoza is pointing out this is a contradiction. Since metaphysics are never the world, they cannot give the world.
Provided it is accepted that there may be a substance out there, a necessary being, which is not necessarily being addressed, then yes it can be discussed logically. But due to our limitations we cannot conclude anything about the real substance, it might be from our perspective, illogical.
No I am not arguing reductionism, what I will argue, if we get that far is that we know this real substance, we are it.
We only know that it is not subject to change in our experience, our world. We can't necessarily say it is not in some way in this world, as I point out, we do know it, so it has some presence in this world. I agree we can't conjecture.
It's a contradiction in terms. That which is present in the world is, by definition, not transcendent. Unknown processes can't even allow this because that is just some action of the world we don't know. When is logic applied, any "transcendent" force or being merely becomes another worldly actor-- the "supernatural" is shown to be incoherent. The beings of another realm are just part of nature we don't know about. They are worldly with worldly consequences, rather than metaphysical.
How "might" it be somewhere? The same way the sun "might" not rise tomorrow? :-} Don't you see that you can't even conceive how it "might" be somewhere? If you can't even conceive it, what grounds do you have for claiming it "might" be that way?!
You need to have reasons to think that it might be somewhere, just as you need reasons to think that the sun "might" not rise tomorrow. You can't doubt in the absence of reasons to ground your doubt in. What reasons do you have for thinking this? Where could it be? You don't know. And the fact that it "might" be different is not a reason. You need positive reasons. To think that the sun will not rise tomorrow you need reasons for this. You have some reasons, however weak, for thinking that the sun will rise tomorrow (it has always been the case, you understand the laws of physics, etc) but you have utterly no reason at all to think or even conceive that the sun will not rise tomorrow. Thus you cannot suspend judgement - if you are to be rational you MUST believe it will rise tomorrow.
I've provided you with reasons why it can't be anywhere - in fact you're saying it is "out there" - where the fuck is out there? If substance is all there is, where the hell is "out there"? As if substance was "out there" and not also "in here".... as if you could look at it from outside of it...
Quoting Punshhh
There is no possibility of more than one substance. There have been reasons provided for why this isn't the case. Positive reasons. You have no reason to justify why you think this isn't the case. As you yourself have admitted you can't find fault with the argument. You say "Oh it might be otherwise"? So? That's not a reason. Until you come up with a reason - you can't protest against it. And if you can't come up with a reason, then you have to accept it, because I've provided you with positive reasons for accepting it, so you can't just suspend judgement and still be rational. If in the presence of reasons for holding a certain belief you still refuse to hold it, without having any reason for holding the opposite (and "it might be otherwise" isn't such a reason), then you're irrational.
Quoting Punshhh
There is no possibility that this is the case. If God is "transcendent", then automatically you have imagined another "bigger" substance which includes the transcendent God and this world in it. (I'm sorry that I have to so brutalise Spinoza's system but it seems you don't want to understand it otherwise, and these metaphors are useful). So you're only under the illusion that God is transcendent, even in that scenario. You're not actually conceiving a situation in which God is transcendent, because to conceive it, then you need to conceive this world, and an outside of this world. But what is that which contains both this world and the outside if not substance (the whole of reality)? And if it is so, then with reference to substance there is still no transcendence, but only immanence.
Quoting Punshhh
Spinoza doesn't deny anything about reality. Transcendence, etc. aren't denied. They're simply inconceivable. Nobody has ever conceived of transcendence, and no one ever will. You can't even imagine them, much less experience them. That's why I said the only retreat is irrationalism. Sure, the world may be such that you can't even imagine it, nor experience it, even in principle. But you have no reason, and in fact no POSSIBLE reason, for ever believing this possibility.
You seem now to be equating substance with the in-finite, and contrasting it with the empirical (the finite). I can relate, as I said earlier, to the idea that the empirical or the ontic is not ultimately real, it seems to be natural to think this and many philosophers, both Eastern and Western, have had this very thought, although they have obviously expressed it in many different forms. Substance is said to be "conceived in itself", but 'Being' and 'identity' are also conceived in themselves; they are also in-finite.
So how is what the acosmist saying different than what, for example, Kant says about the 'in itself'. The noumenal signifies what things are in themselves, which might be paraphrased (although Kant would not use this kind of language) as what is real in itself.
You have said in the past many times that metaphysics is merely a matter of logic. W use the logic of identity or substance to make sense of the world in the terms of entities which relate to one another, undergo changes, and yet remain substantially the same. Entities (which are the basis of the notion of id-entity) were thought by Aristotle as substances.
You can't say what substance is because substance is not a determinate, empirical thing; it is a logical idea. Likewise you can't say what being or identity is, because they are not determinable empirical things. So how is the notion of substance really substantially different than, as per the above example, Kant's notion of the 'in itself'? The word 'substance' seems to consist of 'sub' which suggests 'under' and 'stance' which suggests 'standing'. It is precisely this idea that we use for under-standing, as I said earlier.
But beyond our use of it to understand (as we also, in similar ways, use the notions of being and identity) what are we to say about its ultimate ontological status? If we say, with the acosmist, that only substance is ultimately real, what is it precisely that we are actually saying? The status of substance as a logical tool for understanding cannot be its status as ultimate reality can it? If it were it would follow that our own understanding is ultimate reality. If you want to say that substance has a Real (ontological) status that is more than merely its use for our understanding, then why would that not be the same as to say that the conditions of our understanding and experience are transcendent (or transcendental in Kant's sense of 'beyond the empirical) to our experience and understanding?
The problem the atomists set out to solve was that posed by Parmenides - how 'that which is', which was never changing, could account for the realm of multiplicity and change.
The atomist doctrine was, of course, set in prose-poem by Lucretius, which is the form that had considerable impact on the French philosophers of the Enlightenment - 'I see nothing but bodies in motion'.
So I think in any form of atomism, 'the void' is precisely not substance, but absence - the void. Whereas 'the atom' is the fundamental unit of everything; as I said, it's a simple binary, where atom = 1, void = 0. (Notice how materialism has now generally been re-branded as 'physicalism' because physics itself has undermined atomism. But physicalism or materialism are monistic doctrines, everything comes from matter and returns to it.)
Quoting Agustino
It's not only logical. Materialism is a metaphysical stance, which has many practical consequences, not least what is considered a valid idea. Modern science will go to amazing lengths to avoid certain kinds of ideas; I often quote a speech by Hawkings, where he resists the theory that the Universe might have had a beginning, simply because it seems to invoke a 'first cause' or 'hand of God'. Much of the speculative metaphysics about 'multiverses' is due to avoiding the 'naturalness' or 'fine-tuning' problem.
Quoting Agustino
I never saw that in that book, but then I wasn't looking for it. In my experience, most Western Buddhists who have grown up since the sixties tend to assume a pretty liberalistic attitude. The old timers didn't. It is one of the things that irks me about popular Buddhism in the west. I think traditional Buddhism was silent on many such questions because it was assumed (not always correctly) that Buddhists would not be engaged in such activities. That absence of discussion is interpreted as liberalism in my view, but it's a hot-button topic and one that I avoid.
Quoting Agustino
I think 'annoyed' is more like it. I often feel like I'm arguing at cross-purposes. (My wife also gets annoyed with me because she thinks forums are basically a waste of time). But also I wonder how much of my own motivation is sounding off and simply telling others what I think. I hope not, but I need to be mindful of that.
Quoting Agustino
Kind of you to say so. I started that blog to express my thoughts on these subjects, a couple of years before discovering forums. If I was trying to get an audience, I would take a different tack now. I might still do that. Trying to work out a way to migrate all the content off there.
No doubt that historically this was the case - they were back in those days still confusing physics and metaphysics and the boundary wasn't very clear, hence their notions became confused, having both a physical sense, and a metaphysical one.
Quoting Wayfarer
The reason why I think this is the wrong understanding is because you're not attending the definition of substance given by Spinoza which I was using:
Quoting Agustino
So the void is also in itself and conceived through itself. The notion of atom for example does not entail the notion of void. So clearly substance in Epicureanism is "atoms and void" - and necessarily so. The conceptual division in substance between atoms and void becomes helpful to explain how movement (change) is possible - how the modes of substance are possible. This does indeed form a coherent metaphysics, precisely because it fulfils the same function that substance does in Spinoza. So my quarrel isn't with your binary interpretation of the metaphysics (with which I agree, but that happens at a lower level than what I'm trying to tell you). My point is that there is something more important than that - namely this logical function that "atoms and void" performs.
Quoting Wayfarer
But certainly you realise that people like Hawkings are not philosophers, and their understanding of philosophy isn't very good. There is a first cause in materialism - it's the substance "atoms and void". So he can protest all he likes, Hawkings still has an eternal first cause, indeed - a first cause is inescapable - even if you call it the multiverse ;)
Quoting Wayfarer
Yes exactly my observation. I did however know a non-Western Buddhist (she happened to be my girlfriend) who wasn't liberalistic in attitude (neither she nor her family were for that matter).
Quoting Wayfarer
Why do you think it's useful to avoid hot-button topics? They are often the elephants in the room, precisely because they are hot buttons it becomes important to address them, at least in my view.
Quoting Wayfarer
Okay, I see, I understand! I don't think you're just sounding off, I think you're trying to help others, but as I said I feel many times you're holding back from it for some reason - like you're not doing it with your whole being if you get what I mean - your engagement isn't total when you're doing it, as if you were somehow conflicted about it.
Quoting Wayfarer
Yeah I mean you've built so much content there over the years, I've looked through awhile ago. It's a pity not to do anything with it...
Thanks, I appreciate that. I will think that over.
The acosmist doesn't confuse self for the empirical. It doesn't need to be empirical to be "determinable." As an infinite, it's is intelligible, rather than being some mystery we can never access because we don't have observation of it.
Under Kant's reasoning, the self is still understood as empirical. We (supposedly) can't say anything about it because it doesn't appear in our experiences of the world. For the acosmist, the point is the thing-in-itself not transcendent to our understanding at all. It's intelligible and Real. There's genuinely more to knowledge and understanding than the empirical. The infinite is not drawn in conflict to the finite world--i.e. unintelligible, beyond reason, a "mystery"-- but rather given with it, with meaning and significance.
Infinites are of the world. They are necessarily and so true at any point of the world, despite the infinite never being any state of the world. Logic means and matters in the world. To place the infinite in utter disconnection to the world, as the transcendent does, is to ignore what is significant about logic. It is to put unintelligibility (e.g. "mystery," "knowledge is impossible." "you can't know anything unless you observe it in the world" ) in place of intelligibility (logic).
It's not that we don't have observation for it that makes it difficult to become aware of it. It's precisely that the infinite inheres within the finite at all points that makes it difficult to become aware of - the fish isn't aware of the water in which he moves and has his being. So it's difficult to become aware of it, and make it intelligible (for many people), precisely because it is everywhere and nowhere.
In the minds of the people in question, it does. It's so difficult because people expect (and sometimes demand) knowledge empirical. Just as John has done, they will demand to know what the infinite is, in the world, as if it depended on being some observed states of the world. People find it difficult to be aware of the infinite because they are already using metaphysic that holds the finite is all there is to know. If it's not empirical, they think it is unintelligible.
Well this is why I'm not a mystic - I cannot fathom nor comprehend why people search for "the beatific vision" or any such experience - it's still an experience, what more can it be? And like all other experiences, it too will end. So what's the point of searching for it? Why are they even searching so desperately for it? Just focusing on "regular life" seems much better to me.
I would say you get caught trying to save people from "materialism." Your understanding of "help" too often reduces to fighting a spectre of materialism. At a certain point, you start crusading against this image of materialism, almost like you think turning people to the transcendent all solve all of their problems. Your discussions tend to turn more unpleasant when someone who doesn't fit this narrative comes along.
Quoting Agustino
Look at the encyclopedia entries on the 'beatific vision'. Such states are held to be more than simply experiences - they're transformative or even redemptive. The Stations of the Cross, the Bhumis of Mahayana Buddhism. (There's also distinction to be made between 'experiences' and 'realization' which is not often recognised.)
But the accounts of such states are cross-cultural - found in many different times and places.
And, not everyone who has such experience has sought for them - they happen unbidden, spontaneously and sometimes completely uninvited (like the book published by a leftie commentator a couple of years back about her 'encounter with a wild God.)
If it's 'determinable' you should be able to say something about it in terms that are not merely allusive or poetic. You're very wrong in thinking that I am demanding empirical knowledge of the infinite. I was never asking for that, I have been asking you to say something coherent about substance which amounts to more than just poetry or allusion, or logical definition.
If you can't do that, do you nonetheless want to claim that we are committed to believing in the Reality of substance in some extra way beyond our confidence in its use as a logical tool for understanding our everyday experience? If you do want to say this, then please explain why. If you don't want to say that then what do you suppose we are arguing about?
Nah, I just now commented on it. :)
It shows bad faith to be always misrepresenting those whose questions you apparently cannot answer adequately. I haven't asked for anything like you are saying. What I am asking for is set out in my other response to you, so I won't bother repeating it here. Basically, I just want to see a cogent account of what you are actually saying about the infinite, or substance, or being or the self or whatever you wish to call it.
This is incorrect for a start. Kant allows that there are empirical (finite) selves and transcendental (infinite) selves. This is so for the self just as it is for everything else, that has an empirical (for us) dimension and a transcendental (in itself) dimension. It's bad enough that you misrepresent me constantly; there is no excuse for misrepresenting Kant.
The world is in itself infinite: and I have never denied it. The infinite nature of the world, however, can only be determined by us, if it can be determined by us at all, in terms of finite models. Beyond that it can be intuited, alluded to poetically, visually, musically or mystically. You apparently don't understand that poetic, religious or mystic language is not the propositional language of the empirical; you seem to be constantly attacking such discourses, as though they somehow fail to be what you falsely believe they purport to be, or fail to achieve what you falsely think they set out to do.
It annoys me when I am being misrepresented as thinking or being this or that, while what I am actually speaking about and the questions I am asking are being ignored or avoided. Sometimes I get annoyed enough to make the mistake of honestly revealing what I really think about the philosophical understanding of those who constantly misread and misrepresent me. I am always ready to be instructed by someone who I believe genuinely understands something better than I do, however. But superior understanding needs to be clearly and patiently demonstrated; it is not enough to merely assert it. When I see others just making assertion after assertion, and changing the subject when it suits them to evade the difficult questions and issues, it doesn't cause me to have much faith in, or respect for, their philosophical understanding. If me being upfront about this makes me unpopular, then so be it; I am not going to pretend to think what I don't think just to save others' precious egos.
If we disagree with one another, and if we are both of good faith, intellectual honesty, and charitable disposition, then we should be able to come to recognize precisely where we disagree and respect each other's standpoints despite disagreeing with them. Every position comes with its own set of presuppositions that must be taken on faith; what is important is that one reasons coherently and consistently from one's presuppositions.
To be honest, sometimes I wonder whether participating on these forums is not a complete waste of time. It's helped my typing skills at least, I guess.
So please continue posting, it is not only good exercise for your typing hand, but I expect there are a bunch of posters who enjoy and gain something from it.
When I use "transcendent", I am referring to what you are referrring to when you say infinite.
For me the transcendent is present in the world and a part of nature, which we do not see. There is no supernatural, because what we label the supernatural, if present, is perfectly natural.
If it is a necessary being and is somewhere, then it can't be denied. You are denying it by stating that it is nowhere.
No I don't, I am only saying we can't in our ignorance rule out that it is somewhere, even if the logic dictates that it is nowhere.
As I have already explained, we are in a position of ignorance, as limited intellectual beings. This being the case we should be aware of what we can't assert about nature and allow nature to be illogical, or irrational in our (blinkered) eyes, from our limited perspective.
Where is it, it is here and now. Touch the end of your nose, it is there, deny its presence and it is itself asserting that denial, because it is you, your body, your thoughts, your being. You are it, if you are somewhere, so then is this substance.
Im not holding anything, I am pointing out that the assertion, there is only one substance cannot be supported in our ignorance. Even if the logic can achieve it, that might just be a peculiarity of logic(like infinity), rather than some appropriate representation of something in nature.
No that is incorrect, I have a large and extensive "mystical" philosophy which dispels this view and considers the transcendent in detail in many circumstances and from many perspectives.
For example, I consider that "the world" is a construct in eternity, in which through subtle processes, the so called "substance" of a certain kind is brought forth in concrete form and sustained in the semblance of a physical world, allowing a particular facet of being to be manifest.
Also, I have a vocabulary for conceptualising transcendent beings and worlds. Surely you have read this in the bible, it is there for those that can perceive it.
It isn't somewhere. Somewhere is a distinction from somewhere else.
Quoting Punshhh
What's the difference between something being nowhere and something being everywhere?
Quoting Punshhh
If you don't need reasons to hold a certain position, then you are irrational, end of story, and therefore there's no use arguing with you.
Quoting Punshhh
:-} "here and now" is a temporal distinction and is no different than the previous spatial distinctions you were making. Indeed, it is only from your ignorance and limited perspective that you think the present is any more real (and therefore anymore substance) than the past or future.
Quoting Punshhh
So this isn't "holding" something?
Quoting Punshhh
:s I suppose "mystical" is codename for irrational. You and John both retreat in mysticism (irrationalism) as you have no other means of supporting your views.
Quoting Punshhh
Quoting Agustino
So let us see... what is in itself and is conceived through itself is brought forth - that surely makes a lot of sense (N)
Quoting Punshhh
No I haven't read about transcendence in the Bible - I've read about a God who interacts with mankind, and therefore acts in the world.
How can they be anymore transformative than other potential experiences in the world? All experiences, are, to a certain degree, transformative. Falling in love is equally transformative - is that a mystical experience?
Because they're not of the world? Well unless, of course, you're materialist, in which case they're simply delusional or psychotic. You tell me.
It seems that you believe that one either thinks they are not of the world, and hence can be transformative, or they are of the world, and can't be transformative, but are delusions and psychotic episodes. Can I not think that they are of the world and are transformative? What's wrong with that?
If I am a materialist, I don't have to reject what obviously is the case - that they are precious and transformative. Only some dumb materialists make such a rejection, as if such experiences being properties of matter thus makes them anymore less real...
Oh, so by nowhere, you are actually saying it's everywhere?
We can't make this distinction either, it might be useful for a logical conceptual framework, but is better to consider it neither here nor there. It is your statement about what it is that I am disagreeing with. As I have said, in our ignorance we can't assert that it is nowhere.
It is a position of an acceptance of what we can't say, it is apophatic. anyway for the sake of argument, I will say there is a difference between nowhere and everywhere. If something is nowhere, it doesn't exist(perform a function), if everywhere, it can perform its function.
Think deeper, here and now can mean much more than that. I am well versed in working from the conceptual position of no extension of space or time. Remove this extension and it is still here and now.
As I said above it is not a positive position, it is more an awareness of our limits in making certain assertions. I am happy to furnish you with any examples of this if required.
The mysticism I refer to is equally as rational as philosophy. Are you reading a book by the cover?
yes, I know, but this might merely be a naive interpretation of its natural state. It stops further exploration, like a barrier.
It doesn't necessarily present as rational, or logical. Remember I pointed out, that I was referring to a different kind of language, developed to address the transcendent. I expected you to be aware of this, it is used in theology as far as I can see.
I am not a scholar, so can't easily quote the bible, but am aware that it is steeped in words specifically referring to transcendent, or eternal realities. Take Jesus for example, apparently he said "I and my father are one", does this not refer to transcendence? Or what about messages conveyed in Ezekiel, or Revelation?
Revealing it certainly isn't a mistake, it's the thinking it that's the problem, if you still haven't realised yet:
"By doing this you are like a man who wants to hit another and picks up a burning ember or excrement in his hand and so first burns himself or makes himself stink"
What use not throwing the burning coal if you have already picked it up? >:O Despite your claimed spirituality and mysticism you seem to be nothing but a selfish egomaniac John. I haven't told you that you should be ashamed of yourself for nothing. A man who feels the need to think how superior he is to another certainly is as far as he could get from the spiritual. It seems all your vain philosophy has done little to cure you of this.
Based on what grounds?
Quoting Punshhh
What ignorance are you talking about? To know the ignorance is already to transcend it.
Quoting Punshhh
This seems like an empty distinction to me.
Quoting Punshhh
In the sense of the way you experience here and now? No.
Quoting Punshhh
But to know your limits is already to - to a certain degree - be beyond them.
Quoting Punshhh
Prove it.
Quoting Punshhh
Propose an alternative definition then which accounts for all that substance accounts for and improves on it.
Quoting Punshhh
Why would you take those passages as referring to transcendence?
Spare me your supercilious projections and faux-wisdom, Agustino. You know nothing of my actual feelings, motivations and thoughts, and only succeed in making yourself look more stupid by projecting what would seem to be your own pettiness onto others.
I'm not the only one who saw this John - but alas - you keep to your own wisdom then, I see it's doing you good. :) I don't know what religion or mystical tradition advises you to harbour thoughts which shouldn't be said to others - must be something like Satanism.
When are you going to realize you actually know nothing at all about my life other than that I spend some time posting on philosophy forums? If I was wiser than I am I would ignore those who don't warrant any attention and would waste far less time and energy.
:s
I never claimed to know something of your life. I only know something about your character which results from reading your writings - just as I would know something about your character by having a conversation with you. It's not that hard to see and understand if you stop being so defensive.
Yes but don't misinterpret - I'm not claiming to be able to judge all of John's character. I just said that that's what his attitude as it emerges from those posts makes me think. I wouldn't imagine, say, a saint or a mystic saying things like he's saying, that's all. Would you? I mean Jesus would certainly not be responding in that manner, and pretty much anyone knows this. His last passive aggressive comments aren't much different either.
I don't remember making any imputations about anyone's character on here. On the other hand if I see someone constantly behaving badly, such as by imputing about the characters of others then I might form a certain opinion about that person's character. If I see someone constantly making unsubstantiated claims, lecturing and talking down to others, and then being apparently unable to adequately answer critical questions, then I might conclude that they have an exaggerated opinion about their own philosophical understanding, but that's about as far as it goes.
Which critical questions have been left unanswered? It is you who hasn't answered my questions, and who have made unsubstantiated allegations with regards to Spinoza's philosophy... :-} Every time when I ask you to answer me questions or I ask you for evidence you refuse to provide it. What the hell is that supposed to be now, if not making unsubstantiated claims, lecturing and talking down to others, and being unable to answer critical questions? (N)
The point is that "self" is "determinative" or defined. Empirical states don't have a monopoly on the definite and understandable. Rather than elusive or potetic, the self is definite. I am saying something about it : it is a logical distinction of selfhood, definite and perfectly understandable.
Self is the account in question and you are ignoring it, saying that the definite I am pointing out is only vauge beacause I haven't pointed to an experience of a state of the world.
There's nothing saintly or mystical about anything you've written either, so I don't see why you've elevated yourself to sit atop a high horse.
If you have some profound idea.. present and embrace.
I bet most of you hate Trump but watched so much CNN that you didn't think you had to vote.
Wake up.
Bye!
For logical conceptual frameworks, arriving at a logically precise statement of the status of said substance is appropriate and enables one to build a coherent framework. This is fine and is what philosophy does (although apophatic philosophy might point out that we can't determine this about the actual substance of which we are constituted). However the mystic is more concerned with this actual substance and so develops a rationale based on a study of the self and the world, rather than logic. This being the case, what a person can or cannot say about the substance under discussion is important.
An example is our ignorance of the lottery numbers which will be drawn tonight. We know almost everything else about the lottery, what numbers are in the draw, how it works, and that we don't know what numbers will be drawn tonight. There is nothing we can do to dispel this ignorance, other than to whatch the draw and observe the result.
There are many things like this about our state of existence, logical frameworks can help us to develop conceptual tools, but it can't dispel our ignorance on many of the issues of our existence. To go further other approaches are required.
If it is necessary for our being, and it is nowhere and can't perform its function we don't exist. If it is everywhere, then it naturally performs its function and we do exist. For example some philosophers say god doesn't exist, they often have elaborate logical reasons for saying it and these might be logically consistent. But it might actually be incorrect in reality, God being somewhere might be necessary for our existence, even if it appears to be illogical.
In terms of the substance of which we are constituted. Yes I know that it is not in the way that we as people experience here and now, because that is a fabrication of the extended physical structures of which our bodies or constituted.
Only in the knowledge of that ignorance, which is itself useful, but it doesn't dispel the ignorance due to those limits.
Following a rational, reasoned process is the only way in which the mystic can develop an intellectual understanding of their mystical journey. Without it, the mystic might progress, but is lacking this kind of understanding.
Substance is in itself and conceived of itself in an eternal realm in which there is a multitude of substances.
Well with the first example, Jesus is stating that he is, or has equivalence in terms of being, as god has. If God is in eternity, then Jesus is in eternity. There is a transcendence of being in him, in which God is in him and he is in God.
And have I said anything about myself for that matter? (N)
Actually I am a Trump supporter :P
How will it point out and prove this?
Quoting Punshhh
The mystic, in my view, is concerned about his relationship with the ground of being instead of with mere understanding.
Quoting Punshhh
That's an empirical matter.
Quoting Punshhh
Sure - but this has nothing to do with metaphysics. Metaphysics is not empirical, so the source of this ignorance doesn't exist.
Quoting Punshhh
It can't dispel our ignorance with regards to empirical matters. No metaphysical insight will tell someone what to do to obtain what he wants in the world for example - and no metaphysical insight could do this, even in principle.
Quoting Punshhh
Okay, so then it seems that the mystic renounces this rationality before his journey even begins
Quoting Punshhh
What is the eternal realm then? Is it not conceived of itself and in itself? If it is, then that eternal realm is substance - and the so called "multitude of substances" cannot be conceived through themselves, they must be conceived through reference to the one substance - the eternal realm.
Quoting Punshhh
Well Spinoza addresses this very point actually in Tractatus Theologico-Politicus. "I and the Father are One" = One substance (no transcendence)
Then why are you critiquing John who also hasn't thought of himself in such a way? Come on, Agu.
Because his philosophy, as he has expressed it at different junctures, would entail that someone shouldn't behave this way (and I would hope that he at least wants to follow his own philosophy). I'm just noting something that emerges out of his own thinking.
I refer you to this post for starters:
http://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/48349#Post_48349
But I'm not really afraid of being a dicklip to someone if I have no doubts about my being right. If I think that something needs to be said, I will probably say it. There's no sense being obtuse if one is bothered for good reason. And if someone takes offense without giving equally sound reasons for why they've reacted that way, then tough!
Right. And doesn't it seem to you like his insults are a red herring based on the fact that he doesn't want to address the Spinoza points I have been pressing him on, and instead prefers to take advantage of the fact that 180 isn't active here and insult him? Then when I point it out he starts insulting me. Look at all these:
Quoting John
Quoting Agustino
Quoting Agustino
Quoting John
Quoting Agustino
Quoting John
Quoting Agustino
^This last one is actually entirely false as any well-educated Spinoza scholar can tell you.
Where does John address any of this? Nowhere. Instead he again resorts to saying Spinoza's philosophy is "naive" :-! , after claiming that it's a contradiction that substance is conceived through its attributes and through itself >:O
Quoting John
Like I'm sure if he had some good faith he could figure that for himself. As an attribute is the essence of a substance (an intellectual, not an ontological distinction), in-so-far as it is, say, an extended substance, then it must be conceived through that attribute. Really if you're dealing with such an arrogant prick who is purposefully being mischievous, how can you not get angry and point out the obvious to him? :s
In fact even if you look at the fucking definition that Spinoza himself gives of attribute you'll get the point:
"By attribute I understand what the intellect perceives of a substance, as constituting its essence" And this guy apparently studied Spinoza "for years"... and he doesn't even know that basic point of his system. I don't know how he "studied" Spinoza - perhaps by reading Wikipedia.
You are right, I'll go play my flute :D
Yes with the ground of being, however there are those who seek to stimulate and develop the intellect, along with perhaps the creative faculty.
I used the example of the lottery to illustrate that we may be ignorant of aspects of our world/existence due to circumstance, as I describe above. Ignorance, that were we to know that which we were ignorant of, we would not believe that we could not have known it, figured it out, or realised the nature of our ignorance.
Metaphysics might go around in ignorance like a person in a room of profound truths written on paper, while wearing a blindfold. As soon as metaphysics is applied in some way to nature the precise impediment of the metaphorical blindfold will need to be determined to screen it out of the intellectual data considered.
Yes, but do metaphysicians consider the nature of their inherent ignorance?
I have not seen evidence of Mystics renouncing rationality. A mystic might conduct an internal enquiry within their own mind and self, in which the ego and/or personality is confronted, or challenged, the entire process being entirely rational, albeit with a psychological dynamic.
A divine realm?
I don't know, I consider that in that realm there are as many things in themselves and conceived in themselves as there are atoms in our world.
As I have already pointed out, this one substance which you refer to (and I do understand the rationale), need not be one substance in eternity, it is only in our degree of limited knowledge and understanding, or circumstance in which it appears a reasonable conclusion.
For example we might, in ignorance, be actors acting out a play, and mistake the plot (which was composed by a being in eternity for their amusement) for the true circumstances of our existence. There might by myriad systems of extension manifesting different realms of different conbinations of divine circumstances or purposes, each a differing substance. there might be other more real forms of dimensionally transcendent, synthetic systems of extension, while by comparison, our known world might be an artificial construct in a dim backwater.
Yes in the sense rather like my example were I described here and now absent extension, just the same, minus any extension. But there is a critical difference between the experience of an ordinary person, who may be one with God in this sense and a person fully cognisant of God as god is of himself. The sphere of God being immeasurably larger, or simpler than that of the physical Jesus, requiring, for such a synthesis of being as eluded to in the words of Jesus in this phrase, a immanent transcendent relation between the sphere of God and that of Jesus.
Are you telling me that in your experience and knowledge you have not come across, religious teaching, or experience of such transcendence?
It's pointing that difference is incoherent. No doubt there is a difference between the experiences in question, but that difference is worldly. It's the experience of those world people that's different, not a difference in God. And that's what makes it relevant-- it means one person knows God deeper than another, a worldly significance which makes all the difference here.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness. Exactly the same can be said for the apple, the apple is itself in this sense too, but that is only a logical definition; the definition of identity or substance, a mere generality. The relevantly determinative things that can be said about the apple are that it is, for example roughly spherical, of an average diameter of 100 mm, of a certain shape that can be fairly precisely mapped or modeled, of a certain weight that can be measured, that it shows certain colours, that it tastes sweet, that its skin is smooth, that it has a crisp texture, that it contains a certain number of seeds in the core, that it still has its stem, that it was harvested at a certain time, from a certain tree, in a certain region and so on.
That's why you are equivocating logic with empiricism. Instead of acknowledging that logic is, itself, amounts to knowing something significant, you try and say we can't ascertain knowledge unless we refer to some experience of the empirical world.
The whole point here is this view of knowledge (the correllationist one) is mistaken. Logic is determinable. In understanding logic itself, we grasp meaning and truth. Knowledge extends beyond the empirical. We know the "thing-in-itself" and it is NOT merely a pragmatic fiction.
I am not " equivocating logic with empiricism"; that's a vacuous claim, since I have just outlined the difference between the two. If you think my analysis is faulty then criticize and correct the parts of it you think are incorrect and say why you think they are incorrect. What's the point of making such vacuous accusations? Such accusations just amount to saying "No, you are wrong!". This is schoolyard philosophy
I never denied that logics are implicit in the ways we understand things, it's obvious that they are; but explicitation of those implicit logics only tells us about the general forms of our experience and understanding, it does not tell us anything about the world. It has no particular content, so to speak. I'm not criticising logic for failing to have any content; as though I think it should have content, and treating it as a kind of 'failed empiricism' or something like that.
That's the correllationist error I've pointing out form the start. Logic doesn't tell us about general forms of experience and understanding. It's the definition of the specific (the self).
Rather than being expressed in only general terms which doesn't reflect the world, logic is expressed by every single state of the world and defines its meaning. Logic, indeed, doesn't tell us about the world (e.g. which states exist). It is, however, constitutes the meaning of every single state. Without the logic of the specific apple, its self, that which distinguishes this red apple for another, one cannot not identify it in the world or in the imagination.
In a sense logic tells us everything about the world because if we didn't possess it, we wouldn't be able to distinguish individual states. We wouldn't know the meaning of anything at all.
Yes, if we did not understand the general logical concept of apple we could not know that this is an apple before us. By allowing us to understand general forms it gives us access to the specific; but it tells us nothing specific about the specific things it gives access to. It is not controversial that logic is purely formal. Look at the study of predicate logic. It shows us the what the form of a valid argument must be, but it does not tells us whether any argument is sound.
Or if, for example, because we understand the general logical concept and form of an apple and we see a very convincing plastic fake apple in front of us, we will erroneously think it is an apple until we investigate further. No amount of logic can tell us whether the object in front of us is really an apple.
Depends what you mean. If you are talking about distinguishing it as a fake apple, we aren't close nought to make that observation. No amount of logic (metaphysics) will tells us this because it something we can only learn for sure by empirical experience.
In terms of meaning though, this is not true at all. We know that it is a specific apple by logic. This is not a general rule at all. We know it is that apple. And we need this to perform any empirical investigation about it. Otherwise we couldn't be talking about that apple. Logic is specific (self) rather than general (rule, constraint, pragmatic fiction).
In other worlds, the problem here isn't whether an argument is sound, it's whether there is one in there first place. With a "general logic" there are no predicate arguments to make because nothing of meaning is specified.
This is just wrong; it is a general logical rule that any object, in order to be an object at all, must be that specific object and no other.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Again, you have it wrong. It's not even controversial; logic consists (among other things) in general rules about what constitutes specificity.
It seems you are simply confused on this issue, Willow.
That's not a "general rule." The specific nature of any object is not some approximation or vague allusion. It's definite. Any object, by definition, is itself.
Rather that a general rule which constrains objects, this is a definite logical truth. If we are talking about it, we aren't speaking about any particular object at all, but rather the singular logical truth of identity. Our object is one particular logical object-- identity or self.
For most metaphysics, yes. They are seen as rules which then define the world-- know the rules, then you will know the world.
Spinoza's point is this is backwards. The general can't constitute specificity because it doesn't specify anything else. The general "apple" doesn't tell us anything about a specific apple. In any case, the "general" is in fact specific and only amounts to the specific logical object. To talk about a "general apple" is really to speak about a specific logical object, the form "apple."
Logic is an expression rather than a constraint. Know the world (e.g. a specific apple) then you will know a rule (e.g. the form of apple). It doesn't work the other way. Knowing the rule (e.g. form of apple) doesn't amount to knowing about the world (e.g. a specific apple).
Yes, precisely, that's the general rule.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
This is exactly what I have been saying. :s
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
You can't know a specific apple, as an apple at least, until you know the "rule (e.g. the form of apple)."
Of course knowing the rule does not mean that you know anything s[specific about the world. This is exactly what I have been saying. And yet, you seem to think you are disagreeing, which is puzzling, to say the least! :-}
It's a specific logical rule--rather being defined by other objects (i.e. there being things with identity), it is itself. To say it" "general" is misunderstanding the definition of the rule as the definition of objects which express it.
The problem is not that you are saying that the "general apple" doesn't tell us about the specific, it is that you don't recognise that the specific (that apple) is distinct form the form "general apple." It's not about form telling us everything, but rather a failure to recognise the self.
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That's mistaken. Babies are aware of thing before the specific rule of language people around them use to talk about them. One can know about a specify thing before it's been sorted under a particular label or language category.
Jesus, talk about ridiculous statements; of course I recognize that; you are talking nonsense.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Did you fail to notice the "as an apple at least". In any case you have no way of knowing exactly what babies' awarenesses of things consist in.
The fact is that you haven't presented anything coherent that actually disagrees with anything i have said, which makes this whole exchange somewhat frustrating and pointless.
I presume you are of the opinion that there is no such thing as this divine realm and that there cannot be such an intervention? But as I have repeatedly pointed out, in our ignorance we cannot make this assumption, although it is generally expeditious for pragmatic reasons.
I think Willow is of this opinion; and generally mounts the the usual justification of 'immanentist' thinkers on this kind of point, which is that because we cannot give an explanation of how such an "intervention" would work, that we therefore deceive ourselves when we think that we can imagine it as a real possibility.
Worse than that: you misunderstand the divine. You mistake it for a mere "possibility" that might or might not be, like it was some empirical state.
The divine is necessary, not a realm or action which might or might not be, but rather a logical expression of the world. The divine realm is of the world. Meaning is not some mere possible state, defined by separation for the world. It is of the world: family, friends, traditions, rituals, belief, life, death, joy and grief etc., all the meaning, found to outside the world, but always through it. The world is where the infinite lives. It is intelligible. Not a Real possibility, but a Real necessity.
Quoting Heister Eggcart
Quoting Agustino
You totally misunderstand me again. I haven't denied that the divine is manifested in life. Where else, from the point of view of life, could it manifest? The argument is over the possibility of an interventionist God, a God who is actively involved in the world but not manifested as any entity in the world except for, according to Christian doctrine, His manifestation in the form of Jesus Christ. This is not to say that I believe in, or even fully understand, the doctrine of the Incarnation, but I do accept it as a possible interpretation of the historical events of Jesus' life.
From what I've said you cannot discern this, perhaps you confuse my personal stance on this with my addressing what I think we can say philosophically about the divine. I have been talking about the philosophical possibilities from the standpoint of rational minds in our predicament. So I have only been discussing what we can or can't say/determine philosophically about these subjects. The only reason that I feel justified at all in describing how I think Jesus was in communion with the divine, is from the historical record of people claiming to have had divine revelation and the descriptions of that experience. This is my evidence for the divine.
Yes I agree, indeed I have been saying just this, in this thread. Although I realise that there is no strict philosophical basis for this position, in the absence of the historical record of revelation.
Now where you use the word "infinite" here, I use the word transcendent. I don't think it is appropriate to use the word infinite, because it has a vague meaning in the minds of the people using it. Also it is directly referencing a human intellectual invention, the mathematical infinity. Something which is inappropriate to use to describe the divine in the world, it is clunky and confusing. By using the word transcendent, I am allowing the presence in the world of both an unbounded potentiality and also an unbounded reality, both which include realities beyond our limited understanding. The word "infinity" doesn't adequately provide for these avenues of thought.
I also want to address the misunderstanding this reflects. The Divine is referred to as a "possibility" only in relation to our knowing. Beyond that it is either a reality, or not. The existence, or better, reality, of God cannot be proven by logic. Leaving the question of the reality of God aside, the question as to whether the nature of the Real, as such,is necessary or not is a very human question, and one which, with all our intellectual resources alone, we can never answer with certainty. So, for us it is always going to be a matter of possibility; which means it is always going to be a matter of faith. The idea that the question can be answered by human logic alone is a chimera that results from following the way of intellectual hubris. It is on this basis that I have referred to Spinoza's philosophy as "naive".
There is growing evidence, as animal studies continue, that animals can conceive of death through social experience and learning. Elephants cry actual tears, for example, when a member of their herd dies (and they even 'give it a proper burial'), and more amazingly, they can pick out the member's tusk from a pile of tusks, and ruminate over it.
What these studies increasingly show is that animals are a lot more intelligent than we give them credit for (for example a fish outperformed a chimp and a four year old human on a certain intelligence task - so the 'intelligence' line is blurring. Note that animals can't speak, but they can understand many spoken words, so speaking is not a sole measure of intelligence.
They have central brains, like us, so not all of their actions are 'pure instinct' (reactions that do not require central processing - i.e. those that preceded the development of the brain, and which, as a consequence, are still 'quicker' reactions than reactions that have passed through the brain for consideration).
Animals definitely have fear, but on their conscious level, it is far more a mechanical (instinctive) (unconscious) self-preservation mode - that is, one that bypasses the brain, and it is far less a fear of 'death' (as a concept) then of 'impending pain' (which could be based on experience - remember the Dodo's inexperience with mindlessly-cruel humans, and the apparently inability to learn from observation).