Thank you for your reply "Art48." I am 100% certain that I am conscious. No infinite regress is involved with this. Did you watch the Robert Sapolsky video excerpt? If so, what do you think? — Truth Seeker

OK, I'd agree about 100% certainty of my own awareness.

I watched part of the video, but it’s part 5 of 6, so I decided to watch all of part 1 of 6 at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UX7bs4uvPyc

I think that no free will and entirely free will are two extremes, and the truth is somewhere in the middle.

Does the concept of 100% certainty involve an infinite regress?
A: I know X with 100% certainty.
B: But are you 100% certain that you know X with 100% certainty?
A: Yes, I am 100% certain that I know X with 100% certainty.
B: OK, but are you 100% certain that you are 100% certain that you know X with 100% certainty?
etc.

Yeah, "nihilism" has been used as a boogeyman for a long while now. It's like the Reefer Madness of philosophy. — wonderer1

!LOL

If I really do cease to exist when I die, then I’ll never know it. If I cease to exist, there’s nothing left to know I no longer exist. — Art48

The problem that introduces is nihilism. Nihilism doesn't have to present itself in a very dramatic form, like a deep sense of foreboding or dread. It can simply manifest as the sense that nothing really matters. So if death nullifies or negates any differences between what beings do in life, that amounts to a form of nihilism — Quixodian

It is unarguable that if it's a FACT that I cease to exist, then I'll never know I'm dead.Because I no longer exist.

You seem to be taking issue with the BELIEF that I cease to exist after death and asserting the belief implies life is meaningless. That's arguable but, in any case, is not what I'm saying and an entirely different question, i.e., does life have meaning?

I suspect that there's a third Jesus - that of the religious community a person belongs to. Often based on a priest's or preacher's version. Many followers are too 'frightened' to formulate their own notions and surrender to the account of a compelling and authoritative apologist or cleric. — Tom Storm

I'd say that a person's personal Jesus incorporates some of the religious community's picture of Jesus.
I think we agree. How we decide to count the number is not important.

This is why any authentic spirituality, I contend, must necessarily be apophatic - the way of negation, the cloud of unknowing. — Quixodian

Would you agree that the idea that personal Jesus is a mask implies that at least some of personal Jesus' characteristics must be inaccurate and, thus, should be negated? (Negated in the sense that a person ceases to believe those characteristics apply to the God behind the mask?

The problem with God-behind-all-masks is the classic problem with Kant's reality-behind-all-appearence. — plaque flag

Regarding Kant, Schopenhauer noted that since we are a thing-in-itself, it should be possible to directly experience at least one thing-in-itself, i.e., our own existence. If God is our ultimate ground of existence (per Vedanta, Ekhart, & other mystics), we are capable of experiencing the God-behind-all-masks.

I suggest that appearance should not be understood as a blanket thrown over reality but simply as that reality from a perspective. Consciousness is not illusion or screen but the being of the world itself. Along these lines, God is already something we are looking it from different perspectives. — plaque flag

But some perspectives can be false, as when we see a mirage and think we are seeing water. If God is ultimate ground of all existence, then I agree that God is already something we are looking at. But most of the time, we don't see God. Rather, we see people and places and things.

A state where embarrassment, prejudice, bias, shame, guilt, hatred and resentment are no where to be seen. Because these all depend on having a sense of self consciousness, a sense of discrete and defined relationship to the external world. — Benj96

I've been watching some videos about Advaita Vedanta as presented by Swami Sarvapriyananda. I think it can be argued that Vedanta aims to help us return to that state (not 24/7, of course, unless we're ready to leave the body).

There is no counter-evidence. The truth is there is no way to know if a particular outcome is from God, it could simply be chance or even deterministic. — Sam26

I agree. If someone believes God always answers prayers but that sometimes the answer is "No" then there is no way to tell if prayer works or not.

T Clark, I agree they are trying to convey compassion and fellow-feeling, but there are many ways to convey that. I don’t see anything wrong with analyzing the particular way they select.

180 Proof, Carlin was a better theologian than some professional theologians.

Banno, “Prayer is incoherent. Like most of Christianity.”
Amen. Here’s a new book I’m reading that makes the same point.
“The Anti-Christian Book: Truth is Anti-Christian. The Bible tells Enormous Lies about God.”

Here's something to think about. Try to pinpoint the present, the exact point in time, which divides the future from past. Every time you say "now', by the time you say "now" it is in the past. — Metaphysician Undercover

A bullet at any instant is at some point in space but my perception limits me to perceiving it in some region of space in that I cannot tell exactly where it is. Ontologically, the now may be a point in time even if I perceive it as a small region of time.

As to the OP, what is important, I think, is not what we say of it, but what we do. I can imagine two outcomes. 1) Someone practices trying to often reflect on how now is always the same, until they actually see the world that way. Or 2) someone doesn't. For 2), it doesn't really matter if they agree with the OP or not; the result is the same.

This approach sees a purpose of philosophy as transformation. This may seem as aiming too high. Maybe transformation of a human being into a person more in accord with reality is better left to psychology and/or religion?

I don't mean to belittle any other purpose of philosophy but I think it's valid including transformation among those purposes.

And what's any of it to do with God? — Vera Mont

I wrote,if God exists. The point being if we are only really in the present (not the past or the future), then if God is real, our only point of contact where we could possibly meet is the present.

Frank, the chart is interesting. Can you provide a link to the IIT project?

Can you have consciousness without any content? — frank

We can see consciousness remains when the objects of consciousness change. I have a thought, then experience an emotion, then see a tree, then hear a song, then another thought. The contents change but consciousness remains. So, (for me, at least) it's easy to believe consciousness without content is possible. And, as TheMadMan points out, consciousness without content (i.e., pure consciousness) is a goal of meditation.

For me boredom is worse. And personally I think boredom is closer to depression than sadness is. Because people can feel acutely and strongly upset regularly, but would not consider themselves depressed. They might consider themselves emotionally labile, dramatic, sensitive. But not depressed.

I could well imagine a chronically bored person on the other hand saying things like everything is pointless and futile. Worthless. Meaningless. — Benj96

Of course, clinical depression exists but I've also seen some spiritual teachers say a stage of the path to enlightenment is where the world has lost its attraction (boredom) but awareness of higher truth is not yet established.

People watch sad movies but don't watch boring movies.
Apparently, sadness is more entertaining than boredom.
So maybe boredom is worse?

Do you think computer's are conscious? — wonderer1

I don't think they are now. Not sure about the future.

Consciousness is simply a bad word as it has come to build in a set of wrong beliefs about the architecture of mind. — apokrisis

You seem to say "consciousness" is a bad word for describing brain activity. If we limit consciousness to biological activity, that would imply a computer (or other silicon-based, non-biological entity) could never become consciousness. Would you agree?

Also, I've heard that psychedelics reduce brain activity but increase awareness. If true, would that suggest that consciousness and brain activity are two different phenomena. Comment?

The objection would presumably be that the brain remains receptive to some stimuli — bert1

I'd say that the brain being receptive implies consciousness

My own current view is that consciousness is always present, but psychological identity perhaps isn't. During deep sleep there are no memories, values, desires etc. The patient ceases to exist as a psychological entity. That might be consistent with your second point — bert1

It is consistent.

Why think consciousness is required to be awakened from deep sleep by a noise, rather than a subconscious process monitoring input from the ears and starting a subconscious arousal process? — wonderer1

I'm using "consciousness" in a broad way, as something that perceives, something which is aware. Under that (admittedly broad) definition, a subconscious process would be a form of awareness, i.e., consciousness.

I don't see why? I am aware of you, but you are not contained in my awareness. — unenlightened

Another person is not contained in my awareness. So, that person can be in pain or even deceased and I might not know it. But if soul is part of me, then if I can be aware of my soul it must intersect with my awareness. If soul and consciousness do not intersect, then I cannot be aware of my soul so why should I care about what is happening to it?

I have a problem with the idea that we are separate from the body. To me that's an awareness function that has gone rogue. A point of awareness is that we are the body's steward. — Philosophim

Doesn't saying awareness is our body's steward imply awareness is separate from the body?

I imagine my soul as inhabiting another realm - call it a 'higher reality', or 'heaven', or the 'spiritual realm', and voluntarily immersing itself in this particular life as an educational, or character-building exercise, or just an entertainment, as one might play an interactive game, or listen to a lecture. — unenlightened

But can we be aware of our soul, or must we accept its existence on faith? If we can't be aware of our soul, then why should we care about its eternal fate? If we can be aware of our soul, then doesn't that mean that soul can be contained in awareness?

It seems that either awareness and soul are identical, or awareness contains soul. — Art48
I don't feel this is right. — unenlightened

I'm assuming awareness and the soul exists, and say that soul must be contained in awareness. How would you describe the relationship between awareness and soul?

The Most Dangerous Superstition is a book written by Larken Rose, in which he argues that the belief in political authority, or the institution of government, is the most dangerous superstition people have been taught. He uses examples of the countless evils that have been committed in the name of political "authority" and the "law", such as genocides, acts of aggression like unprovoked wars, and oppression.

Mr. Rose also makes the argument that the belief in political authority/the institution of government is a superstition because no one can legitimately wield political authority, as no one has the right to rule or forcibly control another as if he or she were his slave. — AntonioP

Does he discuss a better social structure than political authority? If not, then his criticism may be true but it's not actionable. Simply eliminating all political authority would be a disaster. Does he describe a better system?

So the ceiling and the floor are the same. — TheMadMan

If so, it would seem we are seeing different sides of the same thing when we look down and up. Atma is Brahman?

The gamer’s dilemma was created in 2009 by the philosopher Morgan Luck and boils down to the basic argument that if in and of itself virtual murder in video games like the kind in GTA is morally permissible because no one is actually being harmed then in and of itself virtual pedophilia and rape in video games must be morally permissible also for the same reason. He argues that they’re either both morally permissible despite society finding sexual assault far more distasteful and violative than murder or they’re both impermissible. In his article he then goes on to respond to five different counter arguments that attempt to find a relevant moral difference between virtual murder and virtual sexual assault. — Captain Homicide

My take on the argument is "IF killing people in a video game is morally permissible, THEN sexually abusing people in a video game is morally permissible, too."

A practical response sidesteps the moral question. It says killing in a video game does not encourage the gamer to go kill in real life, but that gamers who get sexual satisfaction out of virtual pedophilia and rape are more likely to do those acts in real life. (I'm not interested in defending the argument. It's just a thought.)

A deeper response is that Christianity hit the big time as Rome's official religion and that almost any state religion minimizes the taking of human life so its citizens will fight the state's wars. So, killing a human being is as morally impermissible as pedophilia and rape, but centuries of state-mandated Christianity has dulled us to that fact. (Look for a list of wars Christianity has declared an unjust war and forbidden Christians from fighting. It's a very, very short list of length zero.)

I think it goes too far to say philosophy is for questioning religion. I'd say philosophy is for discovering truth and the truth it finds often conflicts with the bogus "truths" of religion. Thus philosophy by its very nature often results in questioning of religion.

.Will Science Eventually Replace Religion?

The opposite of science is art.
Religion is one form of art.

The science of knowledge vs the art of intuition.

One breaks things down. Reduction. Deduction.
The other puts together. Induction. Often narrative. — HarryHarry

One breaks things down. Reduction. Deduction. AND puts together (Relativity and quantum mechanics describe almost all known phenomena)

The other puts together often fictitious events (ex., worldwide flood, miracles) to produce a grand narrative (ex. Jesus died for our sins)

What do you think? Is it helpful and does it do anything that other informal fallacy concepts don't already do? — Jamal

I haven't heard of this fallacy before and I think it is helpful.
I think it's vaguely like the moving the goalposts fallacy.

You can't kill a religion. — Benj96

But religions can and have died, the religions of ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, etc., etc.

Monism: the idea that only one supreme reality exists. Why posit monism? — Art48

It occurs to me a tendency towards monism is built into our language when we recognize universals.

Suppose a child has a pet cat "Fluffy". If the child lives isolated, on a remote farm, for instance, the child may believe that Fluffy is unique in all the universe. But eventually the child learns that Fluffy is a cat and that there are other cats in the world. So, the child sees Fluffy as an instantiation of the class "cat." Later, the child learns that cats and dogs are instantiation of the class "pet," and that cats, dogs, elephants, and people are instantiations of the class "animal." An obvious idea is that all things are an instantiation of something deeper. Thus, positing monism is natural and understandable.

[To be explicit, I'm not claiming this proves monism, only that it makes the idea natural and obvious.]

Considering the fact that scientists are attempting to look 13,800,000,000 years into the past, I'd say they're functionally the same. — Tzeentch

1. The Bible attempts to look 10,000 years into the past, not 13.8 billion. Google to see how Christians calculate the age.
2. Science really looks. It uses sophisticated instruments (like the LHC or the James Webb) to gather data and then uses logic, reason, and math to makes sense of the data. The Bible does its looking by repeating ancient imagined tales mixed with a bit of history.
Functionally the same? No.

For example, a belief in the big bang isn't much more rational than the belief in a creation myth. — Tzeentch

Belief in the big bang, a theory supported by solid evidence, for example, the cosmic background radiation,isn't much more rational than the belief in a creation myth, for example, the Genesis stories which include a talking serpent? I have to disagree.

In general the mindset of the atheist — invicta

I've watched Christian/atheist discussions (for example, the 'atheist experience' videos on YouTube) where time and time again the atheist knew more about religion than the Christian, perhaps because many atheists were once believers who bothered to critically investigate their beliefs.

I would argue that everyone reasons their way to faith — Epicero

Imagine a seven-year-old child who in a religion class has just learned that God is a trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The child has faith in the trinity but I cannot see how reason has played any part in the child's faith. Can you?

RogueAI,

By “incremental morality,” do you mean something like the following?

• Sacrifice sick eighty-year-old Joe so that infant Pete can live. Good.
• Sacrifice sick eighty-year-old Joe so that infant Pete can avoid years of severe torture which will leave him alive but permanently damaged physical and mentally. Good, probably.
• Sacrifice sick eighty-year-old Joe so that infant Pete can avoid a few days in the hospital with Covid which will leave him permanently disabled in some not-too-serious way. Good or bad?
• Sacrifice sick eighty-year-old Joe so that Pete can have a fun 1st birthday party. Bad, definitely.

Somewhere along the line as the consequences to infant Pete become less serious, sacrificing Joe flips from good to bad. But exactly where does it flip? It seems like your OP is related to the sorites paradox.

Wayfarer,

I’ve also seen the distinction that “exists” applies to what exists in spacetime and “subsists” applies to our ideas and other abstract objects.

If we take “is” to apply to everything, then we have the idea of direct experience of “isness.” The Hindu sage Ramakrishna taught we can “taste sugar” (i.e., experience isness as something other than ourself) and we can “be sugar” (which I take to refer to unitive vision).

P.S. as you may know, the thought of Plotinus entered the West via the mistaken identification of the “Dionysius the Areopagite” (also called Pseudo-Dionysius) who wrote in the 5th or 6th century with an individual named Dionysius that St. Paul is said to have converted.

↪Art48
There is one monism: "the truth". It remains the same regardless of what we make of it. As its the truth - it doesn't change. Science is not equal to the truth as ethics, spirituality, consciousness, art, religion and philosophy also exist and aren't explicable by scientific method (one tool out of many).

However they all have overlap, and the overlap portends to the truth. — Benj96

I agree, mostly, but have one question: if there’s a truth about ethics, would that imply that moral values are objective, not subjective?

I accept Hume’s is-ought distinction which rules out objective moral values. But if we choose a goal—human flourishing, for instance—then science provides the map of reality and we can use that map to determine optimum paths to the goal. The optimum paths imply moral values, i.e., the best way to behave to bring about human flourishing.

When you read the ancient and medieval description of the divine intellect as 'beyond being', I take that to mean 'beyond the vicissitudes of coming-to-be and passing-away' - an expression that is found in both the Western and Buddhist sacred literature. — Wayfarer

Thanks for your informative response. I've seen "beyond being," i.e., beyond existence, taken to mean that the source and foundation of all existence must itself be, in some sense, independent of existence, beyond existence, vaguely similar to the idea that the messenger must be independent of the message.

Again, the key in such discussions is to refrain from objectification or reification: there is no ultimate thing, substance, entity, or anything of the kind that can be conceptually described and grasped (something especially emphasized in Buddhism) — Wayfarer

Statement 1: there is no ultimate thing, substance, entity that can be conceptually described and grasped

Statement 2: the ultimate thing, substance, entity cannot be conceptually described and grasped

I’m thinking about the difference between the two statements. Statement 2 can be understood in an obvious way in that a) ultimate reality cannot be described because it is utterly other than anything with which we are acquainted, and b) qualia in general cannot be grasped conceptually. The Mary’s Room thought experiment illustrates b). So, statement 2 allows that ultimate reality may be experienced but the experience may transcend words (i.e., be ineffable). And statement 2 points out that merely thinking about an experience is not the same as having the experience. (Only a bat really knows what it’s like to be a bat.)

Statement 1, I think, can be understood much as above, but it is also open to a very different understanding that would rule out experience of ultimate reality, that would say ultimate reality IS NOT (it does not exist; it does not occupy a state “above” existence, per Pseudo-Dionysius), or say it possibly IS but is in no way accessible to a human being.

Comment?

Russell set Kant's objection out much more clearly. this is an oversimplification, but...
Existence is taken as a second-order predicate.
First-order predicates apply to (range over) individuals, and are written using the letters f,g,h... We write "f(a)" for the predication "a is f". — Banno

I've seen this argument before but never fully understood it. Can you provide a reference which elaborates? Why can't existence be regarded as a first-order predicate?
Letting "a" stand for "exists" we have:
f(a) is false if f is "the first even prime number after 2"
f(a) is true if f is "the first odd prime number after 2"

Also, if "a" is "is green" then f(a) is true if f is "grass". But does that make "is a color" a second order predicate because we can say "green is a color"? i.e., "a" means "is a color" and f refers to green.

Monism is essentially foundationalism. You're trying to find a foundation that has no prior identity, and it is not a sub identity of anything else. Ice = water = H20 = molecules = existence. Existence is the final identity that basically describes everything that all entities can simplify down to. — Philosophim

Yes.

The abyss is the substance. — bert1

Is this like the emptiness of Buddhism?

That is exactly what I am stating. Identities are mental constructs that we as humans can create. There is no limit to what we can identify. As such, it a logical allowance to do so. — Philosophim

True, but we seem to be talking about two different things. Monism, as I understand it, requires the "supreme being" to be the ultimate ground and basis of all that exists, much as water is the basis of ice.