I Yam That I Yam

What is the logic to this quote? — TiredThinker

An easy life is one in which nothing much happens; little is longed-for, experienced, attained and savoured or lost and mourned; nothing is accomplished; nothing is won. Nothing to recall in the declining years when you sit staring into the fire someone else is stoking.

I'm too seasick from going around in circles.

No I meant that its society brainwashing, proving you wrong that you said it isn't so. — Darkneos

*sigh!* OK

We are properties of it and perceive other properties/creations. — EnPassant

It? What?

Certain religious teachings involve a denial of the self. — ClayG

Please elaborate on the religions that do this, and the context in which their teaching is applied.
I am not aware of any religious dogma that regards the faithful as unconscious, selfless entities and does not hold individuals responsible for their actions.

It is easily brought to mind certain religious teachings that include either form of self-denial. — ClayG

That is an entirely different matter and better understood as self-abnegation; submission of self to the higher power.
Asceticism is rejection of indulgence, creature comforts, the luxury of physical pleasures or material goods beyond what is necessary to carry out the work one is assigned by the deity.
It is not a denial of the existence of a self, but a rigorous discipline of the self. It is not a pretense that the self has no passions, but an injunction to either overpower those passions or subsume them entirely in religious zeal and dedicate them to one's calling.

this proved you wrong: — Darkneos

On the contrary: it seems to be reiterating, in less picturesque and more rigorous language, that humans are social animals, interacting in complex ways with one another, their immediate environment and larger society. Nowhere have I ever said that each emotion is isolated or uncaused.

If one starts from any assumption, however unfounded or fanciful, everything that follows is equally implausible and fantastic.

We cannot infer from God’s existence that Good and Evil exist. — ClayG

We cannot infer God's existence from anything.
We do know that good and evil exist as manifestations of human desires, thoughts, schemes and actions. They are products of the human psyche. So are gods, but there is a far wider range and content of god-concepts than concepts of either good or evil.
From which we can infer - at least provisionally - that our notions of good and evil are older, more primal and less sophisticated than our notions of deity. Therefore we may - again, provisionally - attribute the concept of gods, angels, protective spirits; demons, gremlins, ghouls etc. to our categorization of phenomena as good or evil, because the personification of phenomena and human character traits is a very sophisticated mental operation.

I'm also not really sure how society makes us feel things, if it did then why doesn't it work for everyone. — Darkneos

Because society is legion. It is diverse, has many needs and interests, contains many kinds of people, whose needs and interests are even more diverse. It works like a field a wheat: when the wind blows, most of the stalks bend in the same direction, but not to the same depth or in the same curve or at the same speed, so there are always ripples and eddies. The whole is saved by having this facility to bend and doing it more or less in unison, but there are always a few casualties - stalks that can never straighten up again. When the wind is not blowing, each plant is an individual, competing with others immediately around it for water and nutrients, yet dependent on the security of the field for its survival.
Society doesn't make us do, say or feel anything. It rewards socially constructive behaviour and penalizes antisocial behaviour. Or rather, we appoint individuals to the task of disciplining members who may be harmful to us all.

We genuinely feel basic emotions on the individual level, and we genuinely share some part of the sentiments, cultural biases and loyalties of our collective, but we are also often injured by the genuine expressions of feelings of other members, which is harmful to the collective as well as individuals. So we join a social contract (consciously at the age of majority) to curb destructive and unwelcome emotions, as well as feign, where appropriate, the ones that bolster our social solidarity.

But that can't be true because then where did society get that from? — Darkneos

Didn't I ask that about eight times since page 1?

I would think faking it would hurt more. Nothing stings more than someone who is "just being nice". — Darkneos

Stinging nettles, alcohol on a cut, wasps, lemon juice in your eye, scorpion fish.... I've actually never suffered from a kind or generous sentiment, given or received, even when it was not strictly true.

In any case, the OP question was "Do we genuinely feel things?" not "Are all the feelings we express genuine?"

'Nothing' is no (created) - thing, which can be a positive existence. — EnPassant

So, when we say, "Nothing happened," that positive existence was taking place. Could we have perceived it?

I think there is a difference between someone faking it and someone who means it. Like people who congratulate you on something, because that's what you're supposed to do. — Darkneos

Of course there is, and we all recognize the difference, even while we also go through the courteous motions, for the sake of social harmony. Even if one doesn't much care about a stranger's achievement, to refrain from congratulating them would be an insult and cause ill-feeling.

But there's saying that and meaning it, which I think is what she might be alluding to but misses the point. — Darkneos

What I read her saying is not that you deliberately fake some emotions - which we already knew with no help from meditation - but that all the ones you actually do feel are fake; manufactured and implanted by a nebulous external entity called "society".

The faithful can't agree on anything and they all think they have god's word sorted. — Tom Storm

Pray it continues so! Imagine the harm they could do if they were united.
So, rather than try to talk down individual religionists, we're better served by driving in the wedges.

There is currently no empirical evidence for the non-existence of a deity. — gevgala

How many human lifetimes would it to take to examine the evidence for the non-existence of all the things we have conceived of that don't exist?

If a deity exists, it is likely to be a transcendent, complex, and powerful being that could potentially exist beyond the limits of human comprehension. — gevgala

Then how is such an entity relevant to us, and why should we call it God?
How do you relate to something you can't comprehend?
Does it want us to eat meat or not? Does it want us to masturbate or not? Does it breathe souls into babies at conception or birth? Which day of the week does it want us to pray? Which is its favourite football team? What exactly are we supposed to believe about this deity?
Just that it exists?
Okay, maybe it exists. So what?

The book is often understood as allegorical. Certainly that's what I was taught in the Baptist tradition here in Australia. — Tom Storm

Yes, I heard that one, often, as an adult. It would have made no impression in a 12-year-old trying to come to grips with the injustices attributed to a God of Love. And when I did hear that symbolical/allegorical/metaphorical spin, it was still entirely unconvincing. Clumsy BS, actually. (Because the stories just don't work as metaphors! And because so much in them is historically accurate.)
It's far simpler to accept that the people who wrote the stories were depicting their world, its mores and practices, its legends and its beliefs.

An atheist is unconvinced there is a god. They don't find any of the arguments made on behalf of theism to be convincing. A hard atheist might make a positive claim and say there is no god. While I think this claim is accurate, I personally don't make claims about knowledge I don't believe I have. — Tom Storm

It never occurred to me to look for evidence. I rejected the god depicted in the bible on moral grounds, and since Christianity was so dominant in my culture, no other gods even came under consideration: I'd never heard of them. I just stopped believing the Christian story, and once I had a little bit of distance, it became obvious that the holy book is just a collection of stories.

I know a lot of European and American youth of my generation also turned away from Christianity, but many of them replaced it with Eastern mysticism or paganism or some fringe cult - none of which they understood to any depth or professed with any conviction: I think they just needed an alternate veneer of spirituality. I never felt a loss.

Does the fact that Athens built temples with fluted pillars make them superior to the Lakota who prioritized portability--so superior that Athens is a civilization and the Lakota are not? — BC

Not superior or inferior; different. In attitude, in priorities, in social organization, in philosophy and psychology.

Or they ARE civilization. — BC

They - science, innovation, laws, mores, beliefs and rituals are part of culture, but many cultures predate civilization.
My idea of civilization agrees roughly with National Geographic's

Civilization describes a complex way of life that came about as people began to develop networks of urban settlements....All civilizations have certain characteristics. These include: large population centers; monumental architecture and unique art styles; shared communication strategies; systems for administering territories; a complex division of labor; and the division of people into social and economic classes.

though I'm inclined to date its origins a little earlier.

Once a rigid hierarchical class system is in place, so is a prescribed religion and written law. Everyone has his or her place. You can no longer be a cobbler who dabbles in scientific experimentation: you have not enough time to spare from earning a living; the only lines of inquiry you can afford to pursue are those that might improve the treatment or dyeing of leather and thus enhance your financial prospect. Education becomes regimented and exclusive to the clerical an administrative classes; everyone else is trained in the skills pertaining to his trade, or put to work in the fields. Women, of course, are relegated to purely physical functions, no brain work.
A few exceptionally clever lads of the upper classes may become professional scientists: they design fortifications, aqueducts and cleverly concealed tombs for their aristocratic patrons. They're welcome to try turning lead into gold, improving the aim and range of projectile weapons and curing toothache, but had better not come up with any crazy ideas about life on other planets or a non-emperor-centered solar system.

Otherwise, you are an untethered New Age, mystic freak. All big picture, no analysis. All pie in the sky, no hard-nosed data. — schopenhauer1

Pie is tedious to make. You have to get the proportions right, chill the dough long enough, roll it to the right thickness, bake it at the right temperature. Getting it up into the sky is even harder. But once done, it's magical. Hell, it was in the OP, and I never claimed legitimacy.

Learning the secrets of stars, whales and cicadas involves a tremendous amount of tedious work -- work considered tedious by the people who love doing it. The exciting moments are thinly scattered. — BC

That is so in all areas of human endeavour. We celebrate the military victories, not the sloshing around in foxholes; thre political victories, not having doors slammed on campaigners' faces; the religious epiphanies, not the polishing of church pews.

Now wait a minute... one of the benefits of civilization has been the rich discoveries of science, boring details and brilliant discoveries alike. — BC

Who says? Stone-chipping and hide-tanning; canoe construction and making fire; wheels and pottery were all invented before civilization. Inquiry into how things work is far older than humanity, and human curiosity is far older than civilization.

What "magic of knowledge" did civilization shut down for so long? — BC

First, all that does not serve power; then, all that contradicts doctrine, then whatever does not generate monetary, political or military advantage.

But my point was "Science" is the tedium. Otherwise it is just more achoring myths. I'd put it really as entertainment more than myth. But we love our myths, because minutia mongering is oh so tedious. Bits, bytes, chemical reactions, equations, and the like. Sounds good until it's just bip bop boop bop bip boop bop all day all day all day..... — schopenhauer1

No, that's exactly the science I didn't mean. I mean learning the secrets of stars and clouds and oceans; learning the language of whales and cicadas; rediscovering the magic of knowledge that civilization had shut down for so long. One of the recurring myths of pre-agricultural peoples is the ability to communicate with and change places with animals, an ability we lost through some transgression against Nature. The Eden story is a reiteration of that theme. We are only just beginning to shed the constraints of the conqueror's application of natural curiosity.

I'll disabuse you of your enchantment later. — BC

Oh, please do not abuse us with disenchantment!

I mean, we might be sloppy thinkers, but there is an awful lot of slop in the topic to start with, — BC

But this, I like very much. We do always include a lot of slop in big topics; it's hard, slow work, picking out and washing the nuggets.

The myths were there so that there was a veneer of something greater than entertainment and surviving. — schopenhauer1

But we still can have Science - not the science of mere technology to which commercialism has reduced it, but Science as a quest for knowledge and mastery, just as wizardry was a quest for knowledge and control.
We still can have Philosophy - not polemics, not nit-picking pedantry, but the striving to understand our relationship to the world.
We still have ideals... some of us, who have not lost them in the tide of ideologies.

Again, while I don't disagree with your characterizations, I do think they might be compatible with my position. Having said that, I'm not really wedded to my suggestion, that these are all magic spells equivalent to Enchantment with a capital E. — Jamal

I don't think it's incompatible, either; I never meant my comments as a direct contradiction. I only question some of the categories.
But, no, I don't think either ostentation or consumerism has much relation to magic.
The emperors of China, the sun king, the pharaohs, not to mention Mansa Musa of the Mali empire, all displayed their great wealth, and it only added to their aura of sanctity. They all lived and ruled over nations with a strong sense of identity and belief that a god (or several) favoured them above other nations, and their rulers above other men.

I think most people today undervalue the pull of magic, of awe, of myth, wonderment and yearning.
There is a commercial degradation of both language and spirit when "myth" is used as a synonym for "lie" and pizza can be routinely "awesome". Again, I don't know about Europe today, but modern American jingo is not interchangeable with Nathan Hale's ideal of patriotism. Nor can televangelism be compared to the monastic zeal of the middle ages. All surface, no conviction. And no amount of baconcheeseburgers will substitute for manna.

When you stop believing that Santa Claus and his elves - or Baby Jesus and his angels - make Christmas, it doesn't matter how much tinsel you hang or money you spend of gifts - the magic is gone forever.

are people today enchanted by magic spells? — Jamal

No. Taken in, possibly, but not enchanted. And the taking-in is both conditional (Will this potion put me one up on my rival?) and temporary (a new fad will replace it; a new idol will replace him). We now have the attention-span of flies: we're all for something as long as it smells good.
Thanks to the CEO's (whom most Americans revere and value - I don't think it's the same in Europe) and their armies of ad-men, we want everything for a very short time and hate everything for only slightly longer. The magic of divine right, class privilege and noblesse oblige was longevity, stability, the security of permanence. I think we miss that. While turnstile novelty keeps the adrenaline pumping, it leaves us very anxious.

That's off-the-top and I'm aware that this enormous topic requires a good deal more thought, but I'll take a drive-by at the questions.

Are these the replacements for the old enchantments of religion and the divine right of kings? I
* Conspiracy theories
* Demagoguery, nationalism, the alt-right
* Science (as scientism)
* New Age spirituality: "I'm spiritual but not religious"
* Progress/Decline/Catastrophe
* Consumerism — Jamal

No, we always had those, and scapegoats to go with them.
No, we always had those as well. How do you get to be a god's chosen people, except though a belief in your tribe's specialness? (I don't think alt-right belongs there; the flag-carrier can as easily shout "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" as "Germany, Germany, Above All" or "For King and Country")
Yes, absolutely. Quantum Entropy has a lot of candle-power.
No, that's more personal; flakes don't do lock-step.
That's just a description of how we as a species operate.
That's a compensation for the loss of something - maybe enchantment, conviction, fulfillment, recognition, self-esteem - like gluttony and alcoholism.

So the everything is the container of all containers in which things can be said to exist—but this means it doesn’t make sense to say that this super-container itself exists, because it’s the condition of all existence. But that is a definition, which is what you’re looking for. — Jamal

Wonderful!

Its very refreshing to converse with a rigorous and measured philosopher like yourself. How you qualify your responses has depth, insight and challenge. These are the discussions i'm here for. — Benj96

Why is there no blushing emoji? Thank you.

she’s not suicidal — Darkneos

I'm so relieved!

not sure where you got that — Darkneos

here:

essentially meditation shows nothing you feel is genuine it’s causes and effect and the specificity of that response is based on what society says you ought to feel towards it. She said so so that’s the truth. — Darkneos

There:

Well if nothing we feel is genuine then why bother living? — Darkneos

and there

If feelings are all fake then there is no reason to live since you’re just a puppet of the world and not really living. — Darkneos

and thither

then why bother living? Just because we have that desire isn’t a reason. — Darkneos

and yon

so again, why bother living? — Darkneos

Whoops, I almost forgot to be a cheerful :grin: muppet. (Grover, in case you wondered)

It begs the question, is it even possible to delve into that level understanding? — Benj96

Certainly! It's not about the gold, it's about the delving.

Or is it so incomprehensible that it is innately and permanently shrouded in mystery, a mystery we may never solve. — Benj96

Probably. That's what makes it such fun to poke, probe, theorize, muse, speculate, make up stories and talk in endless tail-chewing circles about. Besides, we prefer to call reality incomprehensible rather than admit the limits of our comprehension.

And if there is no God but rather a set of physical laws, we no less crave to define them and their relationship to all things. — Benj96

That's not what gods are for. This great big creator of the whole damn universe deity is a recent, contentious and unsatisfactory innovation, and much less useful than the old gods who were so recognizable we could paint them on walls and pots; they selected their favoured people and knew exactly where to throw a thunderbolt or downpour of blood. While Zeus was busy making out with some princess, Daedalus was busy inventing flight; intellectual, practical and spiritual quests used to walk hand-in-hand.

Maybe reality is only a personal interpretation and nothing more. — Benj96

It needs to be more, because if it wasn't, there would be nothing to interpret and nobody to interpret it. We only feel as if we were each a center of the universe.

How do you define the "whole" when the act of defining is intrinsically restrictive/reductive? — Benj96

We don't. We describe and name the things with which we come into contact, events we witness, sensations we experience. We don't compartmentalize down from the whole; we find commonalities among the many specifics that we come to understand in some way and group them into larger and larger collective categories.
We, as all sentient beings, experience from the center - self - outward. The more remote from self something (anything - a heavenly body, a cosmic event, a concept, a very big number) is, the less clear its definition in our minds. My morning toast is far more real - has more shape, colour, texture, weight, significance - than Saturn, which is more real than Andromeda. The universe, or everything, is a mere nebulous idea that barely registers on my consciousness.

I never vote for anyone overtly religious. Our labour party is currently headed by a Sikh lawyer, who dresses in sharp suits and lovely coloured turbans. The Humanist cell in town* gave me every kind of hell for being a bigot when I said the turban put me off. Probably a nice guy, smart, if he didn't believe in socialist ideals, he'd run as a Liberal. I'd have dinner with him, but....

Symbols communicate identity. Anyone who displays an ethnic or religious or cultural icon is telling me what tribe he or she identifies with. That is the basis of their world-view.
I have only one vote; I must reject five out of six candidates. So I'll vote for the one who at least appears to identify with my tribe. I don't care if they go to church, temple or mosque on their own time, so long as they don't advertise for it on mine.

(* which I stopped attending, but not because of that)

No use debating about it. — Ciceronianus

Correct!

Genuine being uncaused or affected by anything else. — Darkneos

Name a few examples aside from Gawd.

Feeling is feeling, the response you get. — Darkneos

Where did I get it?

You is you, the subject. Though with meditation it could be the watcher or the experiencer. — Darkneos

I, you, and every other entity is an experiencer, whether they meditate or not, whether they will it or not, whether they know it or not.

Society is where we live. — Darkneos

I live in a house. Outside of my house and family, there is a society of other human beings, who feel, think and act very similarly to the way I feel, think and act. If every one of them has only counterfeit feelings, there are no genuine feelings in any human being, except possibly a half dozen hermits in the wilderness. And since they're not in contact with the rest of humanity, none of us ever has come into contact with a genuine feeling, nor ever will, and therefore none of us, including you, have any standard by which to judge.

Society originates from us. It influences your emotions to establish control and order. — Darkneos

Like our emails? Where did "it" get an independent mind and will of its own, and the aspiration to order and control its progenitors?

Your genuine emotions would be yours and not what society says you ought to feel over this. — Darkneos

If - what? If society didn't exist? But I am part of a society, so if it didn't exist then I wouldn't exist, and who then would feel my genuine emotions?

If feelings are all fake then there is no reason to live since you’re just a puppet of the world and not really living. — Darkneos

You have not established that 'genuine feelings' - which nobody living in a society has or can have - are the purpose of human life.

I live because suicide is painful. — Darkneos

But pain and fear of pain are feelings, and therefore unreal.

essentially meditation shows nothing you feel is genuine it’s causes and effect and the specificity of that response is based on what society says you ought to feel towards it. — Darkneos

So it's meditation that makes her suicidal. That shouldn't be too hard to avoid.

:grin:

I personally think the belief in an immanent God, who doesn't demand or respond to prayers or worship, doesn't exist "outside the universe", is not jealous, doesn't interfere in human affairs, doesn't assist certain football teams but not others, doesn't miraculously save some people from disasters but lets many others die in them, (one could go on) is far less preposterous than other such beliefs. — Ciceronianus

It's considerably more preposterous. All the rule-making, caring, interfering gods have some utility to human believers. A nebulous Something Unknowable and Indifferent has none. What's the use of believing in a useless deity?

Some dogs are more playful than others.

All dogs are playful? — praxis

Not necessarily. In casual conversation, the unstated but understood assumption would be that all dogs have a place on some scale of playfulness.
Legalistically, however, the defendant could say : "The scale starts at 0. " or "I'm considering only dogs in the average range."
The hearer was not told about this escape cause and came to a potentially incorrect conclusion.
(But I don't think, in this case, he did.)

I think upping the price only adds to the financial stress of an addict and the paradoxic irony is that this stress can compound their coping mechanism — Benj96

Equally, it may prompts them to seek help for the addiction, and push their families into the resolve to intervene. I don't think there is enough incentive for illicit cigarette and liquor trade to satisfy the market. The risk of arrest is too high for marginal profit, and if the price is raised beyond a certain point, the bootlegger can't compete with the legitimate vendors. That's why it's also not cost-effective for the government to outlaw soft recreational drugs.

I think the best approach is not to see addiction as something that needs to be fiscally penalised but rather use the revenue generated by the vice to support recovery. — Benj96

That is the standard policy by which such legislation is passed. In Ontario, it's actually only 13%, but we have publicly funded health-care, and smokers and drinkers contribute heavily to the patient-load.

In that sense all taxes from smoking and alcohol could be appropriated to rehabilitation and public health campaigns. — Benj96

A good deal of money has been spent on those, and they didn't work. What did work was some punitive legislation: banning cigarettes from public and work places* and increasing penalties for traffic offences under the influence.

* When I started smoking in the 1960's, a carton of cigarettes cost $3.50 CDN; a pack was the price of three chocolate bars. People smoked everywhere; at their desks, in their cars, in movie theaters, in hospital waiting rooms. Now they don't - and children don't see it to imitate. I didn't enjoy the process, and I still miss the hit, but I'm better off both physically and financially. (Which is just as well, because they've just whapped booze with another tax hike.)

How can you genuinely feel anything. You are taught how to feel about certain things, how certain values are good and what one ought to value. Nothing you feel is genuine because it’s all just manufactured by society. You can trust anything you feel because it’s just a nonstop spiral of manufactured emotions. — Darkneos

Round - what - five? six?
Define "genuine"
Define "feeling"
Who is "you"?
What is "society"?
Where does the concept of emotions originate?
Where does society originate?
What is society's motivation for influencing my emotions?
What does society gain from influencing my emotions?
How would my "genuine" emotions differ from the manipulated ones you posit?
What relationship is there between counterfeit feelings and reasons for living?
Why do you consider living 'a bother' someone chooses to undertake, rather than a natural process?
Are you yourself alive? If so why do you bother to live and post?
Are you yourself part of or under the influence of a society?
If so, how do you know your thoughts are genuine?
If not, how do you know anything about people who are?

I don't think so. It looks as if the guy is baiting her and she's holding her own. Gives the correct answer in spite of badgering, except maybe that last one, which would be problematic for anyone, including the voters. I don't see a problem other than that she looks about 17. Who are the others and what religion?

I agree that a monk may be susceptible to recruitment into military service due to the conditions that you mention. Fundamentally though, a monk is dedicated to renunciation. — praxis

It doesn't matter whether he joins the Knights Templar or not. The point is, he takes orders - howbeit holy ones - and dedicates his life to unquestioning obedience and service. This means that a king, or any nominally patriotic and God-fearing head of state, who has the support of the top generals and bishops also has two standing armies to back up his claim to power: one that carries big sticks that go 'bang' and one that brandishes the big carrot of eternal life. The common people have very little chance against such an institutional triad.

In the modern day, that situation is somewhat ambiguous: the armed forces pledge allegiance to the constitution, and includes women (not a universally accepted concept) and can be tried individually for war crimes (in theory), so they may not be entirely reliable. And the church has lost its monopoly, broken up into competing sects, with no appreciable monastic hierarchy - just a a gaggle of noisy preachers and a rabble of parishioners, so that they are unreliable enforcers and have to be wooed at every election like other voting blocs. Nevertheless, both religious and military institutions are still influential in politics.

I fail to see the similarity between monk and soldier. — praxis

Do you really? Formal chain of command, tradition, obedience, austere communal living, early rising, strict discipline, tightly scheduled daily rituals performed in unison, an ideal of self-denial and sacrifice for a single cause. The organization of the institutions themselves.