Hello, 180 Proof,

we h. sapiens are embodied subjects (i.e. mindbodies); our minds are more-than-minds (i.e. non-ideality)-dependent;

:up: :100:

I hope you will weigh-in.

Higher-Order Memory

... a human body ... converts ... Data into Meaning — Gnomon

When the brain converts data into meaning, do you think the process involves using one narrative (data) to generate another narrative-about-a-narrative (meaning)?

Is meaning a higher-order narrative of a baseline narrative (data)?

Is meaning a terminal lying distant from a data starting point?

If I write 2+2, that's a datum (it too has meaning, but for sake of simplicity, right now we'll only see it as a datum)?

If I go on from 2+2 to write: 2+2 = 4, that's a meaning?

Now we can ask, in order for an information processor to have higher-order meaning capacity, must it harbor an in-dwelling subjective self that endures through a continuous personal history?

A windblown rock hits a statue of a man in the face. That's a datum.

A windblown rock hits a living man in the face. Later, talking to his wife, he says, "A rock blew into my face today, and that's why I have a black eye."

Is the living man's statement to his wife the higher-order narrative, i.e., the narrative expressing meaning of the datum: a rock injured a living man's face.

So, meaning is interpretation of an event, with said interpretation operating within a personal identity who discovers meaning in events that s/he reconciles to, for specific example, its enduring interest in survival?

Does all of this suggest a higher-order memory function for spinning out narratives-of-narratives?

If so, why is this brain-centered higher-order memory function immaterial?

But we can imagine and dream of red things. So it seems to me that the color red is the form visual information takes and stored as such for future use in making predictions about the world. — Harry Hindu

...within the neuronal circuits of the brain wherein we interpret the specific wavelength for red, there's nothing therein that's red because the relativistic effect that supports our experience of red exists within the context of the visual field of our eyes, not within the neuronal circuits of the visual cortex of our brain — ucarr

Now we go deeper into the brain_mind interface. The experience of seeing red, like the experience of seeing animated graphic images on a computer screen, is an interpretation of code for the experience. The Graphical User Interface of images viewed on a computer screen is an interpretation of Java, C++, etc. When you look at the code directly, you won't see any graphic images. Likewise, when you study neuron synaptic firing rates, electric current and voltage levels in active parts of the brain, etc., you won't see any graphic images replicating the natural world. There's no analog simulation of the natural world within the databases of computers, and there's no analog simulation of the natural world within the brain.

To continue the parallel, consider the visual field of your eyes. As you scan the natural world around you within the visual field of your eyes, you're not seeing directly the actions of the rods and cones of your eyes, nor are you seeing the neural processing of your brain's visual cortex or other subsequent visual processing parts of your brain. Instead, you're seeing a composite simulation which is a product of the processing. In other words, the experience of seeing red, like all other experiences, compiles a construction that is a simulation of the natural world.

The translation from sensory processing to compiled-construction-as-experience raises gnarly questions about physico-material boundaries. This specific type of question is why we're participating in this conversation.

Consciousness is the spinner that enters the fray and sets the natural world spinning furiously through whirlpools of complex mysteries.

When you dream of red suns in galaxies light years away from you, are you lying entirely within your bed?

The hard problem is more about trying to explain how color "arises" from non-colored things, like neurons and wavelengths. — Harry Hindu

You're drawing a bead on the center of the HPoC. As I understand you, the central issue is the question: How is the subjective experience connected to the physics presumed to be the ground for it?

My first thought (for an answer to your specific question about the experience of the color red in relation to a specific wavelength within the EM visible light spectrum) says "like the experience of
motion, the experience of color is due to a relativistic effect."

Einstein tells us that we only experience motion relative to other material objects either stationary, or moving at a velocity different from ours. If we're in a spaceship traveling very fast between planetary systems, inside the ship we don't known we're moving at all. Only when we look out through a window and see our motion relative to other material objects do we perceive motion.

Likewise, when we experience seeing red, it's because that specific wavelength stands in contrast to other wavelengths of visible light. Therefore, within the neuronal circuits of the brain wherein we interpret the specific wavelength for red, there's nothing therein that's red because the relativistic effect that supports our experience of red exists within the context of the visual field of our eyes, not within the neuronal circuits of the visual cortex of our brain.

The locality of the context of the relativistic effect of experiencing the color red, being separate from the neuronal circuits interior to the visual cortex, like the interior of the spaceship being separate from the external planets it whizzes past, raises the question of the connection between the physics of the brain and the cognition of the mind.

Grab your right hand with your right hand and report back. — Wayfarer

Report: RH ≡ RH. — ucarr

This is picturing for literal sight of the ultimate self-referential grabbing. — ucarr

I’m afraid that is word salad. — Wayfarer

I'm not going to let myself confuse incomprehension with unintelligibility. I think I understand the logical connections linking grab right hand with right hand_self-reference_identity operator.* This triad might be unorthodox, but the attempt to express a logical sequence is intelligible even if incorrect.

*The three parts of the triad mirror each other as parallels.

The fact that a hand cannot grasp itself is apodictic. — Wayfarer

I think the apodicsis of your claim is context specific. Since our focus is consciousness, grab becomes "grab." Following from this, I can counter-claim that in the context of consciousness:

Grab your right hand with your right hand and report back. — Wayfarer

posits the physical dexterity of a body part into a false parallel with the cognitive dexterity of the mind.

Using your own mind, you conceive the command: "Grab your right hand with your right hand and report back." Then, you command me to carry out the command, not with my mind, as you did in conceiving the command, but instead with the body part which is my physical hand. This is a gross mis-match.

When I carried out your command with my mind, as you did in configuring the command, my cognitive dexterity easily matched your cognitive dexterity.

Furthermore, the bifurcation of: "Grab your right hand with your right hand and report back." is a feature of the mindscape, not of the landscape. You challenge me to treat one unified whole as if it's two independent wholes. In leveling your challenge, you were confident I would fail in the task. But the cheat you enacted took recourse to a feature of the mindscape not found in the landscape.

I've pointed out the false-paralleling of the two modes (mindscape vs landscape). What also needs to be pointed out is the fact you utilized your cognitive dexterity to conceptualize one unified whole as if it's two independent wholes. Your doing this is evidence you yourself don't really believe in the impossibility of reconceptualizing one unity as two independent wholes. This evidence casts doubt on any suggestion you don't understand: grab right hand with right hand_self-reference_identity operator.

Well, if you understand as well as I that the cognitive dexterity of the mind easily bifurcates hands towards word games of context-specific impossibility, then it follows your mind easily bifurcates itself into itself as subject looking at itself as object.

Now we proceed to understand your argument about the subjective self always seeing but never seen makes the same mistake of false-parallelism argued above: the physical self cannot look directly at itself; the cognitive self of the mindscape, on the other hand, has no problem doing so. Since our focus is consciousness, we're contextually concerned with the cognitive self, not the physical self.*

*This distinction is not intended to imply the cognitive self is not also physical. It is true, however, as made obvious in these arguments, that the two modes are not identical.

The subject/object duo cannot be broken apart. Each always implies the other. That's the bi-conditional, isn't it? — ucarr

I agree that subjects and objects are ‘co-arising’. This is a fundamental principle in Buddhist philosophy. Schopenhauer uses it to great effect in his arguments. — Wayfarer

Here's evidence in your own words of your belief that upon the mindscape, the subject/object duo cannot be broken apart.

Report: RH = RH. — ucarr

I’ll need photographic evidence in this case ;-) — Wayfarer

Write the math onto a marking board, put your right hand alongside the math and then take a picture. The math represents the right hand with bifurcation of its identity; this is a two-in-one of identity elaborated. This is picturing for literal sight of the ultimate self-referential grabbing.

We could say of someone, ‘she has a brilliant mind’. In that case her mind is indeed an object of conversation. — Wayfarer

You can also use ‘see’ metaphorically, as in ‘I see what you mean’. — Wayfarer

But in both cases the metaphorical sense is different to the physical sense. — Wayfarer

The radical nature of QM resides in the fact the resolution of Schrödinger's cat paradox is effected literally, not metaphorically. The observational property of consciousness as a) measurement; b) resolution of superposition to simple position is literal, not metaphorical.

These objectified claims about consciousness are not limited to an individual's subjective experience of Schrödinger's cat paradox. QM physics claims it for everyone.

Furthermore, regarding the mind's eye, since our focus is consciousness, within this context even the mind's eye is literal. We're literally talking about the observational property of consciousness and it's mathematical and experimental verification in physics: public, measurable, repeatable.

The stunning revelations of QM arise from it having already objectified consciousness.

In order to deny this objectification, you must defeat both: a) The Copenhagen Interpretation and b) The Many Worlds Interpretation of QM with counter-examples. That means doing science, not philosophy.

Since thought, language and mind do not occur apart from brain, how can you claim brain and mind are parallel?

Regarding emergent properties of the brain, they exemplify the differential circularity of the higher-orders of thermo-dynamics: morphodynamics, teleodynamics.

...the subjective elements of experience were assigned to the 'secondary qualities' of objects in the early days of modern science. — Wayfarer

It seems to me that here you're tipping into phenomenology.

But I cannot see the act of seeing (or for that matter grasp the act of grasping) as that act requires a seen object and the perceiving subject (or grasping and grasped). It is in that sense that eyes and hands may only see and grasp, respectively, what is other to them. — Wayfarer

As I claim, brain is integral to thought, language and mind, not parallel.. So, again, the mind's eye in our focus upon consciousness is literal, not figurative. You exemplify this with your prescription for perception: "eyes and hands may only see and grasp, respectively, what is other to them."

You could not deliver this prescription with authority if your perceptual eyesight were not literal. In the context of consciousness, perceptual eyesight is just as literal as optical eyesight. Were this not the case, you would not be writing declarative sentences about what perceptual eyesight can and cannot do: "...I cannot see the act of seeing." This clause, like the sentence: "This sentence is false." simultaneously declares what it denies. (At the level of perception, in order to make a declaration that you cannot see the act of seeing, you must see it.)

The modern mind-body problem arose out of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, as a direct result of the concept of objective physical reality that drove that revolution. — Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos

That is the background, if you like, that the 'hard problem' is set against. If you don't see that, you're not seeing the problem. — Wayfarer

You're trying to set boundaries for the context of the HPoC debate.

The central question of the HPoC goes as follows: How is it the case that subjective experience is associated with the physical processes of the brain?

Apparently, you accept the Galileo_Descartes binary of brain/mind as the proper structure and scope of the HPoC debate. Modern physics, with the backing of QM and the measurement problem, rejects the binary as falsity. If you want to defend immaterialism via the binary, then I think you must firstly defend it scientifically. I don't think facile references to emergent properties will be enough.

...processing that information without consciously experiencing it. — Wolfgang

Some of the earlier levels of machine learning are supposed to be examples of what you describe above, but machine data processing is connected to the conscious thinking of the human programmer.

The machine utilizes electric and mechanical power to rotely follow cyclical patterns consciously configured in terms of beginning, middle and end states by the programmer. So, when you connect the programmer to the machine, there is no processing of information without consciously experiencing it.

Information does not exist outside of patterns recognized and strategically plotted by humans. In the absence of the human will, "information" is merely brownian motion.

I see no obvious reason why consciousness cannot perceive itself as an object. — ucarr

Grab your right hand with your right hand and report back. — Wayfarer

RH = Right Hand. Now, let me file my report on my right hand grabbing itself.

Report: RH = RH.

Now, it's your turn to respond to one of my things: I say that when I make a claim about something, intending by my claim to establish an objective fact, I simultaneously treat that something as an object.

You argue in your post above that: consciousness cannot treat itself as an object.

If you're right then you're wrong because in making your claim you've established an objective fact
about consciousness. Isn't that what you're trying to do? Well, what you're trying to do is straighten me out about a certain objective fact about what consciousness cannot do. How are you able to do that outside of knowing that fact?

Conclusion: a) If you're right, then you're smack in the middle of paradox a la "This sentence is false;" b) If you're wrong, as in "Consciousness cannot treat itself as an object is wrong." then you're still smack in the middle of paradox: a) if you're right, then you're wrong; b) if you're wrong, then you're right.

Conclusion The subject/object duo cannot be broken apart. Each always implies the other. That's the bi-conditional, isn't it?

Conclusion. If the previous two conclusions are correct, then the theory the conscious is a non-intersecting parallel to the material must pursue its search for support elsewhere.

...the hard problem of consciousness is...the paradox it creates when thinking of consciousness as an object in the world. — Skalidris

...the hard problem of consciousness will always remain for those who try to visualise consciousness as an object. — Skalidris

when we ask ourselves “why are these materialistic phenomena accompanied by experience?”, we trigger a self referential explanation that has no other outcome than being circular — Skalidris

...consciousness cannot be viewed solely as an object since it has to be there for the perception of objects. — Skalidris

It’s equally true that consciousness cannot be viewed solely as a subject since objects must be acknowledged in order to establish consciousness.

I see no obvious reason why consciousness cannot perceive itself as an object.

Objects are established by descriptions of what they are and what they do apart from opinions and acts of imagination.

There is a well-known counter-example to your claim:

Consciousness can only be viewed as consciousness (cannot be broken down into something else since it is always there as a whole in our reasoning). — Skalidris

This example is the Measurement Problem.

It gives us a clear example of consciousness observing itself as an object in accord with what an object is and what an object does:

Schödinger's Cat

A thought experiment called Schrödinger's cat illustrates the measurement problem. A mechanism is arranged to kill a cat if a quantum event, such as the decay of a radioactive atom, occurs. The mechanism and the cat are enclosed in a chamber so the fate of the cat is unknown until the chamber is opened. Prior to observation, according to quantum mechanics, the atom is in a quantum superposition, a linear combination of decayed and intact states.

Any future evolution of the wave function is based on the state the system was discovered to be in when the measurement was made, meaning that the measurement "did something" to the system that is not obviously a consequence of Schrödinger evolution.
--Wikipedia

What is consciousness? In our context here, it is a measurement system. This is a fact about consciousness, thus establishing its identity as an object.

What does consciousness do? In our context here, it changes the state of superposition into the state of (well-defined) position.

Perhaps it is that post hoc reflection that makes us think we are sometimes consciously aware. It is only the moments we recall that could make us believe that. — Janus

I did see something red. And I don't need post hoc reflection on such an experience. I can look at something red right now, and reflect on the experience as I'm having it. — Patterner

There is the question whether experience of direct sensory input is incomprehensible_inexpressible stimulation_perturbation of a material_physical state, with this brute force registration of a now altered state -- perhaps somewhat parallel to an electron hit by a photon and then elevated to a higher orbital shell in its now excited state -- causing a memory circularity that is the reflection Janus refers to above.

So, by this continuity, consciousness is rooted in circularity_redundancy and, like Wayfarer's point about the meaning of a printed book being inter-relational -- as in the waveform of mass, i.e., energy as distinguished from the particle form of mass, i.e., matter -- does not possess a discretely resolved position and direction; consciousness, like in the reading of a book, does not have a discrete vector measurement possible, and so it appears as if pre-QM science cannot measure consciousness.

QM, however, can and does measure the probability clouds of energetically perturbed elementary particles. Also, the whereness of vector-measurable phenomena is addressed as waveform-like probability graphs in a theater of action that allows existential ambiguities of the physical_material. It's math that currently makes the closest approach to the physical_material status of consciousness.

We must continue to mine math's ability to measure things we can't imagine experientially.

It seems very difficulty to separate human thought from human language...animals have thoughts that don't seem connected with language. Danger. Safe. Food. Mate. Protect. We would have had at least as many before we developed language... — Patterner

All members of the animal kingdom make audible utterances in response to what they're experiencing. As cognitive capacity increases going upward along the food chain, the audible utterances in response to cognitive experiences become more complicated.

Audible utterances for a specific type of experience are repeated as that type of experience repeats. The mind of the creature takes memory impressions of a specific type of experience matched to a specific type of utterance.

At the human level, this same general process of memorization of audible utterance patterns matched to corresponding experiences generates words and sentences shared by members of the group experiencing these audible utterance_experience duets.. Language.

Human language is merely the more intricately detailed deluxe version of sound patterns matched to experiences practiced by the entire vocal subset of the animal kingdom.

Language, like human thought, is material_physical. The continuum running from the current_voltage variations of neuronal circuits to the vibrating vocal chords of utterance to the receptive hearing of listeners followed by their own symmetrical mirroring of same within themselves is material_physical.

Our current turn in the conversation is promising along the lines of further examining the relationship between subjective/objective.

What we don't know if whether the robot actually has a subjective experience of being a robot. Its does not have to be the consciousness of a human to have a subjective experience. — Philosophim

Right. Our necessarily subjective examination of the robot, like our examination of everything else, terminates in a simulation based upon what we perceive concerning its nature and behavior. Ultimately, we're compelled to put faith in the serviceable accuracy of our simulations of the agents populating the world around us.

It must be the case that our objectivity is populated by these simulations.

If a simulation necessarily differs to some degree from its referent, then we can understand that the interface linking self with other is a complicated amalgam of the two. One generalization derivable is that no sentient is totally isolated because even the sentient's own selfhood can be simulated asymmetrically, as evidenced by multiple personality disorder.

Another (unlikely) possibility is the rock subjectively experiences, but has no capability of expressing any behaviors. Maybe it's exactly what we think it is, but conscious. — Patterner

This is an intriguing conjectured phenomenon. One question raised by it that comes to mind is whether or not subjective experience counts as behavior. Usually, when a sentient experiences something, even if it's just observation, that subjective experience triggers physiological reactions that, by definition, are detectable. For example, if a sentient observers the approach of a powerful predator, typical physiological reactions include, acceleration of heartbeat and temperature, dilation of the pupils, and other symptoms of fear and stress. We don't suppose rocks can have such physiological reactions, but as soon as we imaginatively ascribe subjectivity to a rock, assumptions about fight or flight strategies for sake of survival enter the picture.

If the rock is conscious, but we don't know it, then the rock is far from being exactly what we think it is.

The difference is that a human has different behaviors that we ascribe to being conscious. But we cannot objectively know what its like for that other human to have the subjective experience of being themself. — Philosophim

If we use the Turing_Chalmers' argument to the effect: a cyborg externally programmed to behave like a conscious human will appear to be conscious i.e., have a selfhood without that actually being the case, then we cannot be certain that an observed person is really internally conscious i.e., in possession of a selfhood.

Let me reverse engineer my argument above to apply to what you also said:

We objectively do not know what its like to be that rock. What we do is look at the measurable existence of the rock and 'its behavior'. Since we do not ascribe anything the rock 'does' to an internal locus, we say it doesn't behave like its conscious. But do we objectively know it does not have a subjective experience? No. We simply assume. — Philosophim

As you say, re: the rock's possible subjective experience, we simply assume not. So, possibly (but unlikely) the rock could be suppressing it's selfhood from expressing as behavior so as to keep its selfhood hidden from observers.

This is why I claim that my selfhood and your selfhood, though non-identical, approximate each other sufficiently generically so that it's correct to say the difference between the two is by degree instead of categorical. For this reason, then, you and I do know, to some practical degree, what it's like to be the other person.

Sentient beings cannot navigate the natural world of other sentients without knowing to a practical degree what it's like to be another sentient. Of course there are many problems in our efforts to understand each other. For this reason, books both fictional and non-fictional are written in numbers counting up into the millions.

...some people are color blind. This means their subjective experience of green is so similar to another set of colors, that they can't really tell much of a difference. But can a color sighted person every objectively know what that's like? No. — Philosophim

I've underlined the part of your above quote wherein you describe what it's like to be a color blind person without being one yourself. How is it that you can do that? You have enough information, both from science and from descriptions given by color blind persons to approximate in your understanding what the experience of color blindness is like. There is presumably some degree of separation between what the actually color blind person experiences subjectively, and your cognitive simulation of that experience but, again, I claim the difference is by a navigable degree, not by an impenetrable categorical difference.

Existentialism, which is centered on “existence precedes essence,” gives us a way forward with our database of scientific disciplines and their methodologies. We, as existentialists, can assert that we don’t really know the world beyond realistic-seeming narratives that, ultimately, in the absence of epistemological certainty, we hold as true on the basis of faith. Going forward from there, we try our best to have integrity as we hold faithful to our realistic-seeming narratives. — ucarr

The undecidability of the question of an advanced cyborg having an innate unique selfhood as distinguished from a technology-based simulation of same might be insoluble.

I think AI will go forward to a technology-based simulation of selfhood. Can it somehow deviate from its programming into a unique sentience not programmed? In other words, can programming propagate an emergent and unique selfhood?

Moving towards Bladerunner 2049, can a technology-based emergent selfhood propagate another emergent selfhood in the mode of giving birth to a child? — ucarr

So, I predict that technology-based sentience will, per the above speculations, eventually spawn unique sentience not programmed which, in turn, will spawn emergent selfhood in the mode of giving birth to a child.

This tells us that the insuperabillty of subjectivity of selfhood will be preserved across objective propagation of selfhood. So, the seeming-immateriality of selfhood, preserved as technology-based selfhood, will persist, and organic humans will not be any more certain about what it's like to be an independently conscious cyborg than they are certain about what it's like to be another organic human.

There will be difficulties in the organic human_independent cyborg relationships, but these difficulties will, to some extent, parallel the human-to-human relationship problems.

We need consciousness to think, therefore we need consciousness to make any inference about consciousness, that's the problem. — Skalidris

You haven't explained why this creates a logical impossibility. — Baden

Skalidris seems to be saying that consciousness, in the form of subjectivity, holds insuperable. If so, then no objective perception of consciousness is possible, and thus the insoluble problem for developing technology that generates subjectivity.

The undecidability of the question of an advanced cyborg having an innate unique selfhood as distinguished from a technology-based simulation of same might be insoluble.

I think AI will go forward to a technology-based simulation of selfhood. Can it somehow deviate from its programming into a unique sentience not programmed? In other words, can programming propagate an emergent and unique selfhood?

Moving towards Bladerunner 2049, can a technology-based emergent selfhood propagate another emergent selfhood in the mode of giving birth to a child?

...you are...using an inaccurate definition of the HPoC. As J pointed out early on... — Patterner

The hard problem is, "Will we ever know what it is like to BE a conscious individual that isn't ourselves" — Philosophim

Just for the record, that isn't the standard way of stating the problem and it isn't David Chalmers' way (he coined the phrase). You can listen to Chalmers describe it here: He defines the problem as "how physical processes in the brain give rise to subjective experiences in the mind." — J

And I'll note again, the only reason we cannot figure out how physical processes give rise to the subjective experiences of the mind is because we have no way of objectively knowing what it is to hold that subjective experience, because you must BE that being having that subjective experience. — Philosophim

I think your point above makes an important clarification: there's something about the native point of view of the sentient that obstructs, so far, our understanding how (or if) physical processes give rise to the subjective experience.

...we have no way of objectively knowing what it is to hold that subjective experience, because you must BE that being having that subjective experience. — Philosophim

As I understand you, you're implying that the subjectivity of the sentient is insuperable i.e., it is a container which has no exit. This claim, if true, leads us into the very complicated business of examining the relationship between subjectivity and objectivity.

If it’s true that the subjectivity of the sentient is insuperable, that then calls into question the possibility of objectivity in general. If the sentient cannot know what it’s like to be beyond its own subjective being, then it follows that the sentient cannot know what it’s like for anything, other than itself, to be, whether a stone, a galaxy or another person.

Well, if objectivity in general is in doubt, then, as you all know, that lands us right back into the territory of solipsism: how can I be sure what I perceive is existentially independent of my perception of it? Indeed, how can I have such knowledge if I’m forever locked inside of my subjectivity?

So, we now see that the HPoC is another angle of view – a very complex and perhaps ultimately fruitful angle of view – focusing on the gnarly problem of the possibly inescapable self-enclosure of solipsism.

It sounds strange, but, in my context here, when we claim to know the chemical composition/interactions of a rock, we’re also claiming to know “what it’s like to be that rock.”

To be sure, knowing a rock by knowing its chemical composition/interactions is a much more simple phenomenon than knowing another person by knowing their consciousness, but the difference is a difference of degree, not a categorical difference.

If we’re locked out of objectivity because of insuperable subjectivity, then we’re thrown all the way back to securing our beliefs on the basis of faith rather than on the basis of science.

Existence precedes essence because science can only get started by assuming the existence of things prior to any possibility of analysis and its attendant logic and the subsequent scientific disciplines.

Existentialism, which is centered on “existence precedes essence,” gives us a way forward with our database of scientific disciplines and their methodologies. We, as existentialists, can assert that we don’t really know the world beyond realistic-seeming narratives that, ultimately, in the absence of epistemological certainty, we hold as true on the basis of faith. Going forward from there, we try our best to have integrity as we hold faithful to our realistic-seeming narratives.

I assert there is a reasonably accurate one-size-fits-all-what-it’s-like-to-be-selfhood, accessible to many if not all sentients, that supports the sympathy and morals essential to the peaceable animal kingdom and civilization. — ucarr

This is a nice thought, but can we demonstrate this to be something known, or will it only remain a belief? — Philosophim

There are plenty of people in life I don't understand. And I'm sure there are plenty of people in life who don't understand me. — Philosophim

It is known by you what it's like to be a person.

It is known that the transitive property can be configured with word arrangements that make valid statements: If a = b and c = b, then a = c. I can take this word arrangement and apply it to you: If Philosophim = person and Joe Blow = person, then Philosophim = Joe Blow (to the extent of the standard of measurement known as person).

Survival, or accomplishing a task together require a closeness and understanding of another person up to a point to get this done. — Philosophim

Two persons understand each other to a limited degree because they share important attributes common to personhood.

We share our stories because the bond of human identity allows us to walk a mile in each others' shoes. How much we relate to another person varies widely, but the connection rarely drops to zero.

...whether we do harm to things or not should be more than feelings. Just because I feel disgust at something doesn't mean I should kill it. Just because something makes me happy doesn't mean I should embrace it. For me, it is a respect for its agency, the fact that despite all the odds that get thrown at every life, it has survived until now. Why should I harm or end it over something as trivial as just an emotion? — Philosophim

From the above I understand the theme of your response to my first of two main conjectures to be "difference." My counter-narrative to your theme is "continuity."

So, your narrative propounds the discontinuity of extra-categorical modal difference whereas my counter-narrative propounds the continuity of intra-categorical intra-modal connectedness.

Let me attempt to translate the above sentence into plain-spoken English: with your theme, a collection of things are grouped into separate categories, with the assumption there is no connectedness between the categories. As an example, consider a group of apples in one category and a group of oranges in another category.

What you have done, I think, is equate feelings with apples for one of your categories and equate thoughts with oranges for another one of your categories.

In my counter-narrative, I claim that feelings and thoughts belong to one category: cognition. The difference between these members of one category is by degree, and therefore not by category.

To elaborate, to have a feeling about something means having thought about something with a relatively small amount of detail, or low resolution. On the other hand, to have a profound understanding about something means having reflected on something towards amassing a large amount of detail, or high resolution.

When we compare low-resolution feelings with high-resolution thoughts, it’s like comparing a low-resolution digital image of something with a high-resolution version of the same image. That they are the same image establishes their mutual membership within one category: a specific image. The difference between them is not extra-categorical and modal, but rather intra-categorical and extensional.

The fancy logical term for your theme of difference by category is “intentional:” the properties that something needs to have in order to be counted as a member of a specified category.

Your theme argues that feelings and thoughts are intentionally disconnected; my theme argues that feelings and thought are intentionally connected.

That your theme overstates the difference of feelings and thoughts by degree with respect to difference-as-disconnection is evidenced by:

There are plenty of people in life I don't understand. And I'm sure there are plenty of people in life who don't understand me. Bonding often comes from like goals. Survival, or accomplishing a task together require a closeness and understanding of another person up to a point to get this done. It does not require me to understand exactly what another person is experiencing in life. — Philosophim

I assert this is an overstatement of the degree of difference_disconnection separating feelings from thoughts in terms of people understanding each other and moreover, it is therefore an overstatement of the degree of sameness_connection necessary for a human to know what it’s like to be a bat.

As you say, you can bond with another human without knowing exactly what it’s like to be the other person. Nonetheless, to a degree, you do know what it’s like to be another person. And likewise, to a degree, you do know what it’s like to be a bat.

Highly technical, very abstract thoughts about moral principles are directly connected to intuitive feelings about how we should treat other innocent beings. Without this direct connection, moral principles become empty and therefore meaningless.

I assert there is no impenetrable membrane called what-it’s-like-to-be-an-individualized-self. It’s this mistaken belief that creates the hard problem. It's this mistaken belief that falsely divides subjective from objective. Clearly, the selfhood of the self is the object of that selfsame self's consciousness.

I assert there is a reasonably accurate one-size-fits-all-what-it’s-like-to-be-selfhood, accessible to many if not all sentients, that supports the sympathy and morals essential to the peaceable animal kingdom and civilization.

We can map the brain to your behaviors, and even note what you are thinking before you are aware of it. But we cannot know what it is like to BE you. To BE your consciousness. — Philosophim

What if there is not only individualized what-it's-like-to-be selfhoods but also a one-size-fits-all what-it's-like-to-be selfhood both universal and constant?

With this supposition, we can say that what-it's-like-to-be a bat living in a cave is the same as what-it's-like-to-be a human living in a college dorm.

Speculating about this possibility doesn't necessarily imply the sense of a world populated by individual what-it's-like-to-be selfhoods is illusory. No. It's a point-of-view that allows us to ask what's the relationship between the one-size-fits-all what-it's-like-to-be selfhood and the individual what-it's-like-to-be selfhoods.

In our speculation about the possible existence of a one-size-fits-all what-it's-like-to-be selfhood, we can ask ourselves what's going on when we sympathize with the suffering of another person. Morals are about doing no harm to other innocent beings. How can we value this principle governing our behavior if we don't have some semblance of a one-size-fits-all what-it's-like-to-be selfhood that we access and utilize to support the sympathy that fuels our moral thinking and behavior?

How is it that many humans easily shuttle between an individualized selfhood and the one-size-fits-all what-it's-like-to-be selfhood that enables the bonding of friendship and love so important in their lives?

The edifice of the arts (literature, drama, music, dance, painting, sculpture) depends upon the interpersonal identification of artist, art work and audience. Is this not, to some observable degree, a communal experience wherein the one-size-fits-all what-it's-like-to-be selfhood exerts a very useful and desirable power?

When we think about knowing what it's like to walk a mile in another man's shoes, we must acknowledge that, obviously, we're really experiencing what it's like to be ourselves being aware of what it's like to be another, separate self.

From this realization we see that, as already said here, our consciousness is, for each of us, insuperable. Well, what if the insuperability of individualized what-it's-like-to-be selfhoods can merge with all other insuperable what-it's-like-to-be selfhoods to form a universal and constant one-size-fits-all what-it's-like-to-be selfhood also insuperable?

So, after all, maybe we really do know all what-it's-like-to-be selfhoods. Isn't this access to all what-it's-like-to-be selfhoods the underlying assumption that supports the edifice of morality?

Doesn't morality lose it's existential imperative within our justice-governed lives without it?

Another, possibly important speculation, goes as follows: the foundation of consciousness is memory. Memory consists of feedback loops traversing neuronal brain circuits that empower awareness of things and events via the initial perception of things and events in themselves repeated for comparison and re-presentation so that the thing in itself becomes a perceived thing in itself and, after another, vertically stacked feedback loop creating a higher-order feedback loop tower per unit of time, we arrive at the self knowing it's perceiving a re-presentation of a thing-in-itself, as based on an original thing-in-itself.

This higher-order feedback loop tower per unit of time is the necessary circularity of consciousness examining itself. So, the circularity of consciousness examining itself is the friend of our understanding of consciousness, not its enemy.

The friendliness of the circularity of consciousness examining itself resides in the conjectured phenomenon of consciousness itself being a possibly irreducible circularity making the selfhood of consciousness possible.

If this is the case, then, of course, examination of the nature of consciousness entails circularity.

Here’s the takeaways: a) let’s not assume that individualized what-it's-like-to-be selfhoods have impenetrable membranes. Maybe the membrane of selfhood is semi-permeable, as evidenced by human sympathy; b) let’s assume that the innate circularity of the self is part of a multi-tiered tower of levels of consciousness that can merge and divide such that the individualized what-it's-like-to-be selfhoods and the one-size-fits-all what-it's-like-to-be selfhood are not mutually exclusive.

What I've learned from this conversation:

Summation

The existence of a material thing, when viewed outside the constraining scope of strategic incompletion, stands wrapped within a shroud of mystery at both ends of a continuum: neither the beginning nor the conclusion of material existence can be explained rationally because the practice of reason assumes the existence of material things as its necessary prerequisite.

Rationality and its language of logic therefore are contained within the continuity_continuum of existence. The continuity_continuum of existence being the sine qua non prerequisite for reason, it can make no start outside the material theater of action. Given this fact, there can be no rational explanation for existence-itself-in-general.

Naturalists take recourse to Deism, a doctrine that posits a cosmic creator who only actualizes material reality. In the wake of this rationally unexplainable act of creation, sentients are free to reason forward through material existence toward evolving phases of understanding and control of aspects of the material existence.

More specifically, through the powers of the arts and sciences, sentients are able to reason towards a concept of freedom post material creation. An operational presupposition claims humanity (so far as what is currently known) holds the highest position of freedom as material individuals who know both themselves and their environment.

According to this continuity, existence precedes essence. Per Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Sartre, human, through personally designed action, creates its essence, and thus is responsible for it.

This continuity, then, posits mysterious existence prior to morality and its sets and their degrees of inclusion, both of which are chosen by the individual.

The ancient scribes, who wrote the grammar of morals for the eastern and western hemispheres, by claiming inspiration from an eternal cosmic sentience, clearly worked in terms of existence precedes essence.*

*If the Deist creator is eternal, then existence is eternal. Since more than one cosmic creator is co-eternal with a material manifestation thereof, the question of priority vís-a-vís existence/essence must be examined through the lens of another question: Does any type of existence assume a material component?

If so, then within the mysterious state of being of the Deist creator, existence/essence co-exist with existence holding the overarching position of priority.

Evidence supporting this consists in the mind being grounded in the brain, and therefore the mind/brain interface dwells within the scope of the material.

As the sentient individual evolves, the complexity and absential materiality of personally designed morals will continue to approximate, at the level of the material individual, the grammar of morals assigned by the ancient scribes to the cosmic creator.

a God-bearing universe is more interesting and more fun — ucarr

• The Crusades (11th–13th Centuries)

• Spanish Inquisition (1478–1834)

• Thirty Years' War (1618–1648)

• British Colonialism and the Spread of Christianity (17th–19th Centuries)

• Partition of India (1947)

• Rwandan Genocide (1994)

• Islamic State (ISIS) and Jihadism (2010s)

• Religious Nationalism in Myanmar (2010s–2020s)

• Salem Witch Trials (1692)

What is interesting? Consider the newspaper publishers' credo: "If it bleeds it leads."

existentialism | ˌeɡzəˈsten(t)SHəˌliz(ə)m, ˌeksəˈsten(t)SHəˌliz(ə)m |
noun
•a philosophical theory or approach which emphasizes the existence of the individual person as a free
and responsible agent determining their own development through acts of the will.

In fairness, 'interesting' has no moral valence. — AmadeusD

Although I believe the opposite of the above quote: interest is the fortress of moral valence, let me nonetheless dive deeply into the modulation populating the gravity well of human experience as it specifically relates to: The Long History of Violence in the Name of Religion.

From the bullet list above, we see that () for the individual immersed within the maelstrom of this history, there looms the threat of existential overload thrice: culturally, morally and physically.

Making peace within a God-fearing culture by paying lip service to it is an example of sampling the long history of life-threatening violence in the name of adaptation for the sake of survival. Keeping faithful to this adaptation is the practice of existentialism.

The dumb show of existential compliance is mainly what religion-manipulating dictators want from their subjects. The real story is more complicated, and the existentialist concedes that.

If we position this world of roiling upheaval beside the non-events belaboring the perfections of daily life within Eden pre-fall-from-grace, then I think a case for the superior interest of the history of violence in the name of religion can be made.

So, in the case of the long history of violence in the name of religion, we have dueling narratives: there's the real situation no one understands fully because it's too much for the wee small human brain to understand beyond sampling, and there's the fiction-with-integrity of the existentialist.

Here's the fun part: the existentialist learns to play the game of "compliance" instead of practicing real compliance.

Existentialist role playing opens up a personal freedom space that forestalls the toxic boredom and shame of subjugation

What are you wanting to talk about here? — AmadeusD

My title is my guide: Art Lies Beyond Morality. This is my premise, and I see now it is related to existentialism as I understand it... — ucarr

It isn't a premise. Once again, you do not know the words you are using. — AmadeusD

premise | ˈpreməs |
noun
•an assertion or proposition which forms the basis for a work or theory: the fundamental premise of the report.

verb [with object] (premise something on/upon)
•base an argument, theory, or undertaking on: the reforms were premised on our findings.
--The Apple Dictionary

Since I'm going along with the idea a God-bearing universe is more interesting and more fun than a Godless universe, I'm saying "has."

What are you wanting to talk about here? — AmadeusD

My title is my guide: Art Lies Beyond Morality. This is my premise, and I see now it is related to existentialism as I understand it: blooming creation leads to sensory overload for human unless he filters out, morally speaking, what's excess beyond what his brain can handle. The existentialist understands he's artificially simplifying reality, and he comes to terms with this lack of authenticity by making a pact with his conscience: I know my sampled reality is a sham replica standing in for the actual state of affairs of the world, but its the best that I can do in the way of acknowledgement, so I'll stay the course of my jury-rigged reality with as much integrity as I can muster. The foundation of my reality will be personal choices and my fidelity to them.

The above journey enfolds moral choices known to be ultimately artificial, with an overview of one's personal theater of action consequently seen as a rather sincere type of stage play. Objective moral truths, you say? Here on my little stage I want to be interested in what you have to say, and perhaps even more interested in what you do. If there's any measure of cosmic logic that connects my being good with getting what I want, then I'll try to injection mold myself into the various moral strait jackets we reach agreement upon.

Your formulations make no sense to me, provide no criteria and are just picking out random, badly-defined (and, in your world, completely stretched, unrecognizable) terms... So, even if you're going to invoke language-use to support some of these readings...no one but you, it would seem, could assent to what you're trying to say. — AmadeusD

AmadeusD, I know I have a better chance of winning the lottery than persuading you with anything I write. So now I thank you for your time and attention to what you feel compelled to dismiss after an extended period of time. Soldiering on through someone else's nonsense is commendable behavior on your part.

Because of your patience and endurance on my behalf, I got a mental workout that has aided me greatly in better understanding what I think and what I want to communicate to others in writing.

Probably it won't be long before I post another conversation, and considering your helpful participation in this one, I'll be looking forward to new posts from you.

Art isn't beyond morality any more than baking or dropping a nuclear bomb.
Even if you framed the latter as performance art it would still have purpose. — praxis

So, you think morals and purpose entwined. That positions us inside the frame of goals. Things in themselves as such have no goals. Once a sentient exists, he can pursue goals. The naked fact of existence cannot be inhabited through reasoning from the outside, as if non-existence can set the goal of becoming something.

Goals can't get started without the naked fact of existence. That makes existence prior to goals.

A cosmic sentient with unlimited powers may have created humans with their purpose in mind and therefore with human purpose built into their design. This leads to a human life with every action answerable to the innate design of human nature's moral imperatives.

The cosmic sentient may have assumed flesh and blood on earth. If this life was a perfectly moral journey, as needs be if sentient life is framed by innate purpose and morals, then the question of cognitive suffocation stands forward as a debatable mystery operating under the dome of freedom illuminated but not embraced, instead dancing out at the horizon, cavorting, as if ready to fall off the edge before capture.

Cognitive suffocation is blocked by disobedience to human nature's moral imperatives? Disobedience is necessary to human freedom? It is written that the cosmic sentient doesn't block human disobedience for love of human freedom. Is cosmic suffocation unreal, or is human freedom beyond purpose not written in the earthly covenant?

I’m not following at all. It seems to me that art beyond morality would be morally inert. It might happen to be completely inline with moral norms or be completely against them, or even more incomprehensible, be with and against simultaneously. — praxis

Your statement makes it clear you are following. If I stretch the meaning of "inert" a bit and construe "inactive" as being "neutral-adjacent," then life-and-art-beyond-morality are the sources and causes of morality. We can kind of imagine life and art without morality; can we imagine morality without life and art?

Now we're looking at the question: why does the world, capable of immense good, tolerate evil?

Art perceives the world in terms of human bias towards goals. If we can imagine existence outside of the bias of goal-oriented consciousness, then we can see that the non-living undergo all possibilities without bias. Through the lens of consciousness, many of these events are deemed evil because they are life-threatening.

The lack of restraint about events and outcomes in the non-living world becomes charged with emotional and, later, moral value when events and outcomes are perceived by sentients.

In order to continue your attack, you have to attack my defense quoted above. You have to show why my thesis is still contradictory, even in light of my defense. — ucarr

...your two claims are either empty, as they are the same claim... — AmadeusD

Even if they were the same, an identity is not empty, nor is it a contradiction. They are not the same claim; they are similar claims about two different parts of a unified whole.

...or literally contradict one another, I need do nothing else. — AmadeusD

Love and War are two sets, both of which contain marriage, home, family and community as members. The members are doubled by symmetry across two countries.

The two sets are not the same because one set partitions the symmetry and the other doesn't.

A set and its members is not an example of contradiction.

I can mentally separate art for art's sake and utilitarian-based art but to say that art lies beyond morality raises it to a Godly height. How is art lived beyond morality? — praxis

Life is lived beyond morality in that it is more inclusive. I base this claim on the assumption that we as humans, existentially speaking, are more than what we know ourselves to be. For this reason, new experiences and their eventual comprehension keeps history going forward without it being a repetitious loop.

Following from this, art, being more directly linked to and concerned with what human is instead of what human should, follows human-is more closely and non-judgmentally that does establishmentarian morality (the church).

Can human be understood, as opposed to being non-judgmentally observed, outside the context of morality? Maybe not. If not, the question illuminates something important about understanding: it's dependent upon models, that is, paradigms. We say something is right or wrong based upon conformity to a model or standard.

In contrast to this, being and doing, the theater of action of humans, cannot be constrained by a suffocating adherence to an established model; adaptation to an ever-changing world authorizes this transgression. From this truth we know that each newborn child is unique and thus congenitally at odds with moral standards. The eventual social acceptance of the newborn child depends upon his success in conforming to normative standards.

If the strong individual survives moral condemnation for being and acting differently, the chance increases that the gravitational force of this singular person will bend the establishmentarian moral standards to some degree of warpage to his willful state of being.

It is by the continuum of rebellion become revolution that revolutionary social movements push history forward.

The history of world-religion founders is the history of broken moral precedents.

For these reasons, I say that life, and art, lie beyond morality.

There is politics in the conservation/construction of any way of being, wherever there are priests and parishioners (politicians and the public) who are "relating to the citizens", promoting the rules and regulation of that way of being in dialectical good will. It's complicated for sure. — Nils Loc

:up:

If you mean art-in-itself or 'art for art's sake' and art weaponized, yes I've made that separation. — praxis

I'll venture to surmise from your statement above we agree that art lies beyond morality, the central theme of this conversation.

I'd like to move on to the weaponization of religion. Can religion be meaningful and propaganda simultaneously? — praxis

I think the weaponization of religion, unlike the weaponization of art (as propaganda), lies outside of the scope of this conversation.

I have a notion that religion and politics are either nearly or even exactly the same thing. There's a Gordian knot linking religion, politics and morality.

The founding fathers of the United States did a profoundly good thing when they configured a system of government that separates church and state. However, maintaining this separation in the practice of government requires navigation of considerable complexity of statecraft with a nuanced understanding.

If any of what I'm saying here is right, then this topic needs to become its own independent conversation. Do you want to start it? If you do, I'll join with these thoughts in mind.

I think love and war are two broad categories that encompass most of the important experiences humans have. — ucarr

Likewise, marriage, home, family and community are broadly inclusive of the important human experiences. — ucarr

This is directly contradictory. If the former, not hte latter. If the latter, not hte former. — AmadeusD

In the above quote you make a claim about my [two-part] statement. Can you show that my statement is a contradiction? — ucarr

It is self evident. See:

I think love and war are two broad categories that encompass most of the important experiences humans have
— ucarr

Is in contradiction to the very next phrase:

Likewise, marriage, home, family and community are broadly inclusive of the important human experiences.
— ucarr

You cannot have both stand in the same symbolic role. They are contradictory (though, admittedly, indirectly so). — AmadeusD

I've underlined the first sentence in your quote directly above. It's the gist of your argument for refuting my two quoted statements at the top. Your refutation is false because, apparently, you've forgotten something. What you seem to have forgotten is reposted directly below:

Art and morality within the context of this thread reduce to four elements:

Love | War

Love -- Marriage, home, family, community

War -- Power & Money in service to Partisan: Marriage, home, family, community
— ucarr

As you can see, by my definition of Love and War, marriage, home, family and community are directly linked to Love and War. Therefore, making the same claim about each statement, namely that they are broadly inclusive of the important human experiences is not a contradiction because the two claims, in actuality, are about the same thing, albeit, the thing in question here is a unit articulated into two parts: concentric circles. The outer circle houses the two big parts: Love | War; the inner circle houses the smaller parts that fill in the big parts with pertinent details: marriage, home, family, community.

If I say a Swiss watch runs like a precision mechanism, and likewise, its sweep second hand runs like a precision mechanism, there's no contradiction because the two statements are talking about the attributes of two parts of one unit. — ucarr

I'm asking you to take the words in my statement and arrange them into a configuration that shows it is a contradiction. This would be an argument supporting your claim.
— ucarr

You cannot have both stand in the same symbolic role. They are contradictory (though, admittedly, indirectly so).
— AmadeusD

in your quote directly above, you make an approach to arranging my words into a configuration that shows it is a contradiction: "You cannot have both stand in the same symbolic role." But I counter-argue that statement by showing that two parts that combine to make a unified whole are not contradictory. Its the combination of the two parts that refutes your ascription of contradiction because contradictions cannot combine. — ucarr

What I've underlined immediately above is my defense of your attack:

Its the combination of the two parts that refutes your ascription of contradiction because contradictions cannot combine.[/quote]

Here's your latest reply:

It is not an argument. Your phrase contradicts itself. I've had to say nothing at all. Simply quote you. — AmadeusD

In your above quote I've underlined the gist of your latest attack; it's merely a repetition of your prior attack. Since your prior attack, I've defended my thesis. Now you have to attack my defense of my thesis. Merely repeating your attack gains you nothing.

Here's the gist of my defense of your attack based on contradiction:

Its the combination of the two parts that refutes your ascription of contradiction because contradictions cannot combine.[/quote]

In order to continue your attack, you have to attack my defense quoted above. You have to show why my thesis is still contradictory, even in light of my defense.

Can a song be musical art and propaganda simultaneously? — ucarr

Is there an aesthetics of human manipulation of context? — ucarr

Yes and yes. — praxis

Do your answers establish a separation between art-in-itself and art-in-itself weaponized?

Here's my argument; it invalidates your logic with an alternative interpretation establishing my example as a counter-example: — ucarr

So, love and war and the quartet (marriage, home, family, community) cannot be in a relationship of: If the former, not hte latter. If the latter, not hte former because they have much in common and thus there is no mutual exclusion. On the contrary, there is mutual inclusion because both sides have scarcely any important distinctions between them at all: American marriages_German marriages; American homes_German homes; American families_German families; American communities_German communities. The bone of contention creating the war consists in each side wanting to destroy the other side, and that too is something they have in common! — ucarr

By my definition, Love and War both include: marriage, home, family, community. If this is true, then they can't be contradictory when defined as I've defined them.

Can you show that, during WW2, it was not the case that there were married couples, homes, families and communities in both America and Germany? An example supporting your argument would have to show that in one country there were marriages, homes, families and communities whereas in the other country there were anti-marriages, anti-homes, anti-families and anti-communities.

I'm asking you to take the words in my statement and arrange them into a configuration that shows it is a contradiction. This would be an argument supporting your claim. — ucarr

You cannot have both stand in the same symbolic role. They are contradictory (though, admittedly, indirectly so). — AmadeusD

in your quote directly above, you make an approach to arranging my words into a configuration that shows it is a contradiction: "You cannot have both stand in the same symbolic role." But I counter-argue that statement by showing that two parts that combine to make a unified whole are not contradictory. Its the combination of the two parts that refutes your ascription of contradiction because contradictions cannot combine.

I think love and war are two broad categories that encompass most of the important experiences humans have — ucarr

Likewise, marriage, home, family and community are broadly inclusive of the important human experiences. — ucarr

You cannot have both stand in the same symbolic role. They are contradictory (though, admittedly, indirectly so). — AmadeusD

I've underlined the first sentence in your quote directly above. It's the gist of your argument for refuting my two quoted statements at the top. Your refutation is false because, apparently, you've forgotten something. What you seem to have forgotten is reposted directly below:

Art and morality within the context of this thread reduce to four elements:

Love | War

Love -- Marriage, home, family, community

War -- Power & Money in service to Partisan: Marriage, home, family, community — ucarr

As you can see, by my definition of Love and War, marriage, home, family and community are directly linked to Love and War. Therefore, making the same claim about each statement, namely that they are broadly inclusive of the important human experiences is not a contradiction because the two claims, in actuality, are about the same thing, albeit, the thing in question here is a unit articulated into two parts: concentric circles. The outer circle houses the two big parts: Love | War; the inner circle houses the smaller parts that fill in the big parts with pertinent details: marriage, home, family, community.

If I say a Swiss watch runs like a precision mechanism, and likewise, its sweep second hand runs like a precision mechanism, there's no contradiction because the two statements are talking about the attributes of two parts of one unit.

2. "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" (1861) – Julia Ward Howe
Context: Popular during the American Civil War, this song became associated with the Union Army.
Message: Its lyrics evoke a sense of divine justice and righteousness in war. It glorifies the idea of fighting for freedom, equating the Union's cause to the will of God. — Chatgpt

"With God on our side" mentality running high, battalions enter battlefields. Can a song be musical art and propaganda simultaneously?

Art can be a weapon, an olive branch, a medicine, whatever, or merely aesthetic. — praxis

Is there an aesthetics of human manipulation of context?

If ucarr is transgressing the bounds of implicit/explicit virtue/etiquette as an artist contra the philosopher, maybe he is the evil artist.

He must run back to church to give what that unanimous crowd demands, in an alignment of the sensible wills of such a peer group: good, clear, hygienic, rigorous and rational sense in selfless service. — Nils Loc

If God consciousness is a sub-division of human psychology (the savior was fully human), then I can advance an argument claiming that what the divine looks like to humanity needs continual fine tuning and updating, and that this work is the work of the artist.

Now, I've declared art being at risk of blasphemy as a natural part of the territory enclosing the artistic raison d'etre.

Are the masses of people entertained? If so, perhaps their pleasure can defuse my condemnation by the state.

I think love and war are two broad categories that encompass most of the important experiences humans have. Likewise, marriage, home, family and community are broadly inclusive of the important human experiences. — ucarr

This is directly contradictory. If the former, not hte latter. If the latter, not hte former. — AmadeusD

In the above quote you make a claim about my statement. Can you show that my statement is a contradiction? I'm asking you to take the words in my statement and arrange them into a configuration that shows it is a contradiction. This would be an argument supporting your claim.

Backing up claims with supporting arguments is the proper way of doing things here at TPF:

Here's my claim:

I think love and war are two broad categories that encompass most of the important experiences humans have. Likewise, marriage, home, family and community are broadly inclusive of the important human experiences. — ucarr

Here's my example; it takes what's abstractly expressed in my claim and fleshes it out with practical things configured according to the abstract pattern :

Example: When America went to war with Germany in 1942, both countries were fighting for the best quality of life for its citizens, and both sets of citizens consisted of married couples, their homes, their families and their communities. Both sets of citizens did similar things in the four categories. However, unlike during peacetime, which in our context here can be likened to love, during wartime, the similar ways of life of the two countries were partitioned off from each other as each side tried to slaughter the other side. — ucarr

Here's my argument; it invalidates your logic with an alternative interpretation establishing my example as a counter-example:

So, love and war and the quartet (marriage, home, family, community) cannot be in a relationship of: If the former, not hte latter. If the latter, not hte former because they have much in common and thus there is no mutual exclusion. On the contrary, there is mutual inclusion because both sides have scarcely any important distinctions between them at all: American marriages_German marriages; American homes_German homes; American families_German families; American communities_German communities. The bone of contention creating the war consists in each side wanting to destroy the other side, and that too is something they have in common! — ucarr

I think love and war are two broad categories that encompass most of the important experiences humans have. Likewise, marriage, home, family and community are broadly inclusive of the important human experiences. — ucarr

This is directly contradictory. If the former, not hte latter. If the latter, not hte former. Can you choose one? Is it love and war, or the series of personal opinions on marriage, home , family and community? — AmadeusD

As I've already stated, love and war are both about marriage, home, family and community. They share a large region of common ground. They stand apart on the issue of their approach to fellowship; love does not partition fellowship; war partitions fellowship into good and evil, with both sides demonizing the other.

Example: When America went to war with Germany in 1942, both countries were fighting for the best quality of life for its citizens, and both sets of citizens consisted of married couples, their homes, their families and their communities. Both sets of citizens did similar things in the four categories. However, unlike during peacetime, which in our context here can be likened to love, during wartime, the similar ways of life of the two countries were partitioned off from each other as each side tried to slaughter the other side.

So, love and war and the quartet (marriage, home, family, community) cannot be in a relationship of: If the former, not hte latter. If the latter, not hte former because they have much in common and thus there is no mutual exclusion. On the contrary, there is mutual inclusion because both sides have scarcely any important distinctions between them at all: American marriages_German marriages; American homes_German homes; American families_German families; American communities_German communities. The bone of contention creating the war consists in each side wanting to destroy the other side, and that too is something they have in common!