I think you are correct in where we do not have free will; see when we are born we have to construct a reality from our surroundings and therefore receive a biased view on our world and of people. So, we base decisions based on our experience and environment growing up. We do have the ability to choose though, you are correct.

But that is all we have. No one on this earth or in history has free will. I argue it doesn't even exist. — Fruitless

That depends on how you define free will. Until we understand our capacity to choose (to increase awareness, connection and collaboration) in every interaction, and then make use of it, then no - our will lacks the freedom it is capable of, and is subject to environment and experience. But that, too, is our choice.

I maintain that the potential for a will that is free does exist. It is this potential that we glimpse whenever we struggle to number all the options laid out before us.

I notice everything has such elaborate infinite detail. It doesn't matter if you increase or decrease the scope - the universe is detailed with solar systems and leaves are detailed with cells. What is the point of having so much detail?

It's all very strange if you think about it.

So why is detail necessary? — Fruitless

It seems strange to me to think otherwise, when everything in the universe starts so small. Is you question more about diversity, perhaps?

Every single person on this earth has the capacity to feel as much as the next. Everyone on this earth may or may not have the same brain. I like to assume we all have the same brain just each has different thinking processes from their environment. But aren't we all physically wired to feel to a certain extent? — Fruitless

I don’t think we can assume that everyone has the same brain beyond the most basic structure - particularly since the majority of our brain’s processes (not just thinking processes) are refined by experiences - including biochemical influences prior to birth. I think there are many experiences in life that affect what and how much we feel, but I also think the brain is more malleable than we give it credit for. I think we have much more capacity to be aware of and experience feelings, without letting them push us around as legitimised ‘emotions’, than most of us have had the courage to explore.

The amount of love we can feel...is it the same as Love? Hate, what really is hate? Is it possible to generalise emotions so much? — Fruitless

Different people have very different experiences of what we call ‘love’ and ‘hate’, so generalising emotions in this way can result in confusing discussions. Personally, I see love and hate as decisions we make that are strongly influenced by how we feel. What many people refer to as feelings of love - desire, pleasure, excitement, etc - inspire us to increase awareness, connection and collaboration, while feelings of fear, frustration and anger lead us to decrease awareness and refuse to connect or collaborate: to hate. In my view, there is a capacity for humans to feel emotions internally that need not play out in our thoughts, words or actions unless we choose.

Futuristically, could we enhance the ability to feel. I'm not talking about drugs because that already makes use of what is already in our body. But to biologically enhance our capacity to feel. Different emotions never felt before. — Fruitless

I think the more we explore our capacity to experience feelings without necessarily acting on them - that is, through self-reflection and productive expression - the more we enhance our capacity to feel.

I have noticed, within all generations, there seems to be an overwhelming amount of gossip. I've distanced myself from numerous people to avoid getting caught in it, and I wonder as to why. Why do they gossip? Why do they talk ill of others or talk about everyone else's life? What is so good about it that it must take up your precious time on this Earth?

I understand it makes you feel nicer, that you are somwhat above other people, but why is that so important? It's such an empty investment I don't see why everyone keeps on with it? Why can't they do something practical rather than gossip? — Fruitless

There's not just one reason for it. Some of it is just curiosity about other people and what their lives are like.

Sometimes it's a way to live vicariously through that person, who might have a life that's unlike any you'll ever have--a lot of celebrity gossip is of that nature. — Terrapin Station

When people do things in life or have experiences that are different to our own, it piques our interest. This is how we learn about value structures in the world. How people we value with similar experiences to us value these alternative experiences, and why, helps us to build the value structures of our reality.

So some people share this information in order to ascertain how others feel about it - how others fit into their value structures. Others share how they feel about the information in order to position themselves and/or the subject of the information in the value structures of others.

I see hatred as based on projection, infantile rage and unconscious self-loathing. When people conclude that it's ok for them to hate, they also feel justified to do whatever they want to those they hate. There's a lot of self-righteousness that characterizes hate behavior, which creates a catch-22: I don't have to stop hating because I am right to hate. I'm "protecting Southern womanhood" or I'm "keeping the world safe for democracy." Of course, that's not what's really going on at all. — uncanni

Thank you for your contribution. I think projection, infantile rage and self-loathing are forms of hate, but hate also takes other forms that some people here are less likely to condemn. The argument being presented here, which I dispute, is that hate, when generated by ‘love’, is justified. The OP question is what triggers hate - specifically, how do we go from love to hate, and is the process useful?

Anyone can choose to live without a moral code or can pretend to follow a moral code while not doing so in reality. I think those are the folks who tend to hate with the most impunity. When people feel no sense of responsibility in terms of how they relate to others, it's like an anti-ethics of anything goes--which is no ethics at all. It's fundamentally anti-social. Those who believe they have a moral responsibility to refrain from doing hateful things to others are practicing ethics. Practice is good! — uncanni

Personally I think some people’s ‘moral code’ is part of what leads them to hate, and to justify that hate. When we have a strong sense of morality that we live by, how do we respond to what is ‘immoral’ in the world? Do we accept a reality that includes people doing hateful or ‘immoral’ things - a reality where we are certainly capable of ‘immoral’ things ourselves - or do we accept only this ‘better loving reality’ where everyone does the ‘right’ thing? When we encounter someone doing something ‘immoral’ or hateful, do we strive to understand why, or do we blindly attack this threat to our ‘better loving reality’?

When we hate those who hate, are we justified?

Exactly. A negative reality, while our love biases push us to what we see as a better loving reality. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

You think you can choose what your reality is simply by preferring it a certain way - this is the problem. You can’t just block out the parts of reality you don’t like. Hate is a delusion that prevents us from understanding what it is in the world that we want to change and how we can change it in order to actualise the potential of this ‘better loving reality’ that we perceive.

Love is not a bias: it’s a capacity to perceive potential in the world and take action - by increasing awareness, connection and collaboration to manifest it gradually across spacetime. When we allow ourselves to love freely without denying our fears or the ‘negative reality’ that persists despite our preferences, then we can perceive the potential in our circumstances for positive change, regardless of how dire our current situation is in reality.

You may not see unconditional love, but the potential is there, nonetheless.

that we would support a government initiative to ‘wish them away’.
— Possibility

Which we do not. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Try reading the whole sentence. I’m not saying that we do. I’m saying that the capacity is still there, and hating Hitler is not going to protect us from that.

Our hate biases are there to protect us and you would discard them. Tsk tsk. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Protect us from what? From the hate biases of others? From our own inevitable death? From having to experience pain, humiliation or loss in our brief and relatively insignificant lives? Our hate biases protect us from nothing but reality.

Notice though that our nature, its evil side, causes us to make prohibitive laws - you can't do this, you can't do that, etc. Nowhere have I seen a law that enforces good which I infer to mean that goodness is a choice rather than a compulsion unless you happen to be like the OCD patient I met who couldn't pass a temple on the street without feeling an intense irresistible need to enter it. — TheMadFool

It is our fears that cause us to make these prohibitive laws. It’s difficult to enforce action in general - interestingly, those laws that do seem to impose monetary fines as punishment for inaction within a timeframe.

When I started the discussion I was confused by the existence and wide-spread practice of normative morals which implies necessity but it seems these apply only after a choice has been made on whether to be good or not. They tell us what we should do based on some principles but this sits in contrast with the widely-held belief that goodness must be a choice rather than an enforced code of conduct. — TheMadFool

I have a problem with discussions on morality for this reason. Normative morals set a basic requirement of human behaviour as a necessity, and fail to take into account or inspire a much greater capacity for good that we possess as humans. But there also appears to be an implication that by declaring a particular behaviour to be ‘immoral’ we somehow strike it from the set of human behaviours altogether. Anyone found to commit this ‘immoral’ behaviour is then labelled ‘inhuman’ and so revokes their right to be treated with the dignity of a human being.

There seems to be an implicit premise that choice comes first and that negates all moral philosophies which expound necessary moral actions. It's still hazy to me but moral philosophies and the moral norms derived thereof are about what to do and can never really tell us why we should be good. The choice is ours it seems. — TheMadFool

The way I see it, most of the time we don’t ‘choose to be good’, as such. We choose to be aware, to connect and to collaborate - or we choose not to - with every interaction. And while it can be a conscious choice, it isn’t necessarily so. The thing is, though - it seems to me at least that our evolution in intelligence and capacity for ‘good’ as human beings stem precisely from those three choices. And that what we see as ‘evil’ - or at least harm - stems from our choosing not to be aware, connect or collaborate in potential interactions.

Too fundamental for 'intention'. Minds are billions of years into the future. — PoeticUniverse

You’re dismissing this on the assumption that ‘mind’ is necessarily a complex system, when in fact you have no idea what mind is.

It’s all speculation, and there is enough information available and certainly plenty of reasonable speculation that mind, attention and will are more fundamental than the simplest of brain systems - even more fundamental than life itself.

I didn’t expect this level of closed-mindedness from you, PU. It’s disappointing, I must say.

Fair call.

It wouldn't have a little mind from which to intend to develop a larger system of mind. — PoeticUniverse

Must it intend to develop a larger system of mind, though? What if its intention is simply to be aware, to achieve...something? What if - from this most basic of minds, from the faintest and vaguest attention and will or determination to achieve something - an entire universe can come into being?

It wouldn't have a little mind from which to intend to develop a larger system of mind. — PoeticUniverse

I suppose that depends on how you define ‘mind’ at its most fundamental:

attention; will or determination to achieve something

It is not a factor herein that the Biblical and thus necessarily fundamentalist ‘God’ has been demolished by evolutionary science, cosmology, and self-contradiction, leaving no ‘Divine Inspiration’ in Genesis, because it still remains for us to size up what’s left for a ‘God’ who is still a Person-like Mind/Being as the basis of All or is All, with the Biblical myth-takes no longer being relevant. — PoeticUniverse

Personally, I doubt that God must be a ‘person-like mind/being’ of necessity. A mind must experience, a being must be in time. Both of these descriptors create problems in relation to limitations for God, as much as they help us to cement the existence of such a concept in our understanding of what exists. I recognise that to strip these away (or abandon them as attempts at reduction) leaves us with even less to hang our hat on, so to speak. But I don’t think it removes the possibility of existence entirely, so perhaps it’s worth considering.

1a. All that we observe proceed from the simplest realm of tiny events/things/processes to the larger composite to the more and complex, where we exist, which cascade can continue into the future, where/when we can expect beings higher than ourselves to become.

1b. The unlikely polar opposite of (1a) is an ultra complex system of mind of a ‘God’ being First as Fundamental; however systems have parts, this totally going against the fundamental arts.

2. (1) gets worse, for ‘God’ being, given that there can be no input for any specific direction going into the necessary Fundamental Eternal Capability—the basis of all, this bedrock having to be causeless, with random effects, due to no information able to come in to what has no beginning. It thus appears that it could be everything possible, although not anything in particular, which is also the way it shows, in its constant transmutation at every instant, this according to what we call the laws of nature. — PoeticUniverse

How might a necessary-fundamental-eternal-capability begin to develop a system of mind? How might it gain awareness of itself? And what is information, but a manifestation of the most basic awareness-relation-meaning?

You cannot justify hating murderers, rapists, Hitler etc., and allowing your hate to move you against such vile characters. Ok. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Exactly. That you do hate them, I also don’t consider to be wrong or immoral. But I maintain that hatred is unnecessary, ineffective and unjustifiable.

When we hate murderers and rapists, we unequivocally refuse to acknowledge that this behaviour is a very real part of the spectrum of human behaviour. ‘Lock them up and throw away the key’ or ‘take them out of the gene pool’ is how we continue to live in the delusion that human beings simply don’t behave like that - even though they do. And my suggesting that ‘rapists are humans too’ would undoubtedly make your blood boil. Ok. Take a breath.

We aren’t going to remove this behaviour simply by refusing to accept it. We actually have to recognise rape and murder as human actions before we can even hope to effect the change in human thought and behaviour that leads to it. Hating murderers and rapists actually prevents us from achieving this.

Fear, frustration and anger are very real emotions here - I get that. It’s almost impossible to think practically and rationally when every fibre of our being screams ‘NO!’ at the thought that human beings just like you and me - who live a life not entirely dissimilar to our own - are choosing to act this way. To acknowledge this is to accept our own capacity to do the same. Even worse, to acknowledge this is to recognise our neighbour’s capacity to behave this way. That’s some scary shit. Most of us don’t have the courage to admit this reality to ourselves. THIS is why we hate.

Hating Hitler and his ilk is what has us go to war. It was effective. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Ah yes, war - I know it seems like all those murders and young lives irreparably broken were ‘justified’ because Hitler and the Holocaust were brought to an end, and I’m certainly in no position to suggest there may have been a more effective or less destructive way to achieve this. But looking back now, and knowing what we know now, we would have handled it differently, wouldn’t we? We know that the whole thing was preventable at certain points in history, but we also have to acknowledge that Hitler’s role as the lynchpin in all of this doesn’t preclude the fact that he was one human being in a society and world that formed much of his thinking and behaviour. Do you honestly think that none of it would have happened at all if this one human being didn’t exist?

Hating Hitler is denying the reality that all of this can so easily happen again: that our own fear, frustration and anger can be whipped up into a collective decision to hate a group so much - to refuse to accept the reality that they are fellow human beings - that we would support a government initiative to ‘wish them away’.

Having no regard for the consequences counts as intent in my book. It is, after all, an intentional disregard of the safety of others. — Echarmion

I agree. It’s still different from an intent to harm, though.

How is that supposed to work, practically? And why are you now qualifying the intent as genuine? What's an example of a non-genuine intent? — Echarmion

Non-genuine intent is intent that you’ve assumed is there.

Optimally, one should of course take as much evidence into account as possible. But I don't quite see what option I have, when judging the morality of an act, apart from making the judgement myself. At best I can refer the case to the court of popular opinion. — Echarmion

You could speak with the person who committed the act...

If that wasn't the intent though, why would we call it "mean"? At worst it'd be careless. — Echarmion

But it’s more than careless. It’s an intentional withdrawal of kindness, but not intended to cause harm as such. A mean person has no regard for the feelings of others. There’s a difference between this and being intentionally harmful.

Refer to my first post.

Uh, why not? It's a fairly basic feature of human interaction to judge intent. — Echarmion

My argument is that it’s not a ‘right epistemic judgement’ if it’s limited to the victim’s perspective. You need to take into account the ‘mean’ person’s perspective, which includes whether or not they genuinely intended to cause harm. You won’t get accuracy from your own limited judgement - especially if you’re the one who was harmed.

The totality of the physical world or domain just is usually defined as the Universe Even if there were another separate "ideal" domain (and how would we know there was since all our means of detecting anything are physical) it would not be thought to be part of the universe, but something transcendent. — Janus

For something to be transcendent, it doesn’t need to be a separate domain from the universe - it only needs to extend beyond the four dimensions of space-time that we currently understand to be the ‘normal’ (physical) human experience. When we eventually recognise all six dimensional aspects of the universe as ‘real’, then it won’t be ‘transcendent’.

We refer to experiential qualities such as colour, texture, taste, smell and sound as part of the normal human experience, yet there is an aspect even of these qualities that is subjective in value - relative to the observer’s experience - and therefore not reducible to the ‘physical’ as such (ie. not provable). How do you prove that something is green and not blue?

Other kinds of value information that are detectable in ‘normal’ human experience - such as aesthetics, ambience, energy, will, vibe, love, etc - lose significant information when reduced even to four dimensional data. Some of these may even be considered ‘transcendent’, but they’re hardly a separate domain from the universe.

What we understand to be ‘real’ from normal human experience is already unprovable.

What if, after all, the Universe isn't actually physical? Then what?
— Wayfarer

How could that ever be tested? What could it even mean to say that the physical world is not physical? It is physical by definition. — Janus

The argument is only confusing because you’ve assumed that ‘the Universe’ = ‘the physical world’. But ‘universe’ refers to a particular sphere of activity or experience - not necessarily to the ‘physical world’. That our entire sphere of activity or experience includes more than the physical world (ie. four-dimensional spacetime) is certainly plausible. That’s what metaphysics is, isn’t it?

That we’re unable to ‘prove’ it perhaps pertains to the requirements of a proof, as such. What would it take to prove the trajectory of a photon, for instance? I think probability and potentiality waves suggest that we need to accept the relative mathematical uncertainty of the metaphysical, and find alternative ways to gain confidence in the structure of reality at the five and six dimensional levels, beyond attempting to reduce it to two dimensional information.

I’m with you on this, for the most part.

If true morality is to exist, as you say, then the legal system would be unnecessary. What makes these laws appear necessary is the fear that ‘chaos would ensue’. Yes, humans tend to be ‘naturally’ selfish, but we are also capable of much more moral ‘good’ than we tend to give each other credit for.

We set a minimum standard for human behaviour barely above that of other social animals in many respects, and we continually appeal to evolutionary theory to excuse selfish, thoughtless and even destructive behaviour towards each other. ‘We’re social mammals’, we say, as if that makes exclusion, hatred and oppression acceptable, desirable or even ‘necessary’ in certain circumstances.

But it is our capacity to understand the value and meaning of the universe beyond our own needs and existence that enables us to achieve ‘good’ well beyond this minimum standard. This capacity has nothing to do with survival value, and even renders evolutionary theory and the extensions of naturalism woefully insufficient as an explanation of human behaviour.

Note that to know what to do requires some guiding principles. We may call these "norms" or "prescriptions" of moral standards but free will is one step before that - whether we should be good or not and not what we should do which I presume is the domain of the philosophy of ethics.

Good is Unnecessary. — TheMadFool

I have argued before that free will is the step prior to initiating action - and that in order to be positioned as such it must be an interaction that occurs ‘outside’ of time. I have also argued these guiding principles to be awareness, connection and collaboration, specifically.

I agree that ‘good’ is unnecessary. It exists because the universe chooses to be aware, to connect and collaborate - to a certain extent. And all elements of the universe define and confine themselves to the extent that they have chosen against these guiding principles somewhere between potential and actual interaction.

It's a matter of right epistemic judgment on what is mean. I dont see causing undue pain as necessary. — schopenhauer1

When you’re not the one causing the undue pain, then epistemic judgement is not a call you get to make. As the one potentially experiencing pain, you get to decide whether you interact with the world or avoid experiencing pain.

I don’t see causing undue pain as necessary, either. I don’t see causing any pain as necessary. But undue pain happens - and I won’t stop it from happening just by judging that it shouldn’t happen, or even by avoiding the pain myself.

This is the problem with moral judgement - and it relates to the other discussion on what triggers hate, too. Judging something as ‘immoral’ does what, exactly? Does it make the behaviour disappear from the world? Or does it simply define the parameters of what we hate - what we refuse to accept in our reality?

People are mean - they cause undue pain - and the majority of it is from fear, ignorance and selfishness rather than actually intending harm. But you don’t get to decide whether or not someone else intended to cause harm. If you make a judgement based only on how you feel, then it’s a judgement based on your own fear, ignorance and selfishness, not on any ‘objective’ sense of the world. If you act on that judgement then you’re no better than the mean person.

Whether being a mean person is a ‘moral flaw’ or not doesn’t change the fact that people are mean and we don’t like it happening. So what? Moral judgement declares one perspective of the world to be the only one that matters. All that does is cause more pain through fear, ignorance and selfishness - unnecessarily.

Hate is created by our feelings
— Possibility

Correct. Yet you deny that it is the feeling of love that creates the hate. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Yes I do. That’s because hate is created by the feelings of fear, anger or frustration that stem from failed attempts to construct our reality only from what we ‘love’.

There is a lot more going on in between this ‘feeling of love’ and the decision to hate than you’re acknowledging here. To leap to the conclusion that love creates hate or that hate is either good or necessary ignores the complex processes that surround what we prefer, value or desire, and the capacity we have to choose not to hate.

I want to reiterate here: I’m not arguing that hate is wrong, unnatural or even evil. Hating hate is a pointless exercise. My argument is that hate is ineffective, unnecessary and unjustifiable.

It is our awareness of these feelings of what you call ‘love’ (preference, value, desire) that help us to map the fifth dimensional aspect of our reality: that of value. We locate objects or events and relate them to each other not just according to space-time values (size, shape, distance, speed, velocity, etc) but also in relation to values of experiential quality (colour, feel, taste, sound, smell), and of relational quality, or how it interacts with the rest of our world.

This awareness of a fifth dimensional aspect to our reality is a capacity that has developed to varying extent in all social animals. It is the reason why babies respond the way they did on your video, or why dogs often appear to be a good judge of character.

When we experience preference or desire towards certain combinations of these values, it inspires us to be open to further interaction with the world, to build our world around this ‘goodness’. There is no natural boundary - a feeling of ‘love’ relates to the entire experience and naturally radiates outward. But that doesn’t fit with other experiences that identify harm in the world. Fear inspires us to close ranks - to define and control the ‘object’ of our love, so that we don’t open ourselves up to potential harm. It is the extent to which we allow our fears to confine this feeling of love that leads to hate - not the feeling of love itself.

Rather, a more reasonable line of thinking is people from an early age should be taught to take any mean action with a grain of salt, ignore, get away, keep in mind what NOT to do, etc. However, the mean person is at fault here for trying to inflict some sort of pain on someone. They don't get a pass just because people should be taught to ignore mean people as much as possible. As I was saying, it depends on several things, so it is a situation by situation thing- things like intent, duration, intensity, context, place, etc. Also, as I stated, not everything is as easy as "Target can move away from Aggressor". Life isn't that simple sometimes. — schopenhauer1

I will continue to disagree that the mean person is trying to inflict some sort of pain on someone. You keep judging a person as ‘mean’ based on how you’d feel on the receiving end, as if this were the only important perspective. Discount, ignore, exclude, prevent: none of these actions take into account that there is another human being involved here - one who is currently interacting, albeit imperfectly. I recognise that the ideal situation is to interact without any experience of pain, but given that may not be possible, is the main priority here to avoid any experience of pain, or to interact?

None of what you write here justifies your judgments of strong emotional reactions. Reason has been used to justify all sorts of horrible acts. Emotions are not only natural, but part of what motivates us to do good things. Both reason and emotions can be part of processes that turn out to be negative. But there is nothing per se negative about emotions or what you judge as animalistic - empathy is also animalistic, love is, playfulness, taking care of our young and so on because we are social mammals with all that entails. — Coben

What judgements? ‘Animalistic’ refers to behaviour that we have in common with animals. Yes, we are social mammals, but our mental capacities are such that we are more than (not better than) emotional animals. That’s not to say that we are purely rational beings, either - and to give rationality full rein is just as unhealthy, in my opinion. We also have insight into the subjective experiences of others and can develop a broad understanding of the value they bring to the universe as a whole. And we have insight into our own emotional reactions - we perceive the harm that our words and behaviour can inflict on others, and we understand how it feels to have similar harm inflicted upon us. More importantly, though, we have the capacity to consciously choose how we respond despite our feelings and despite what is considered ‘rational’ - to love, hate, speak, stand, apologise, run, hide, etc.

I never said that emotions were negative at all. I said that giving full rein to our emotions - considering our capacity for rational thought, self-reflection and various other evaluative and relational tools - is unhealthy. I stand by that. ‘Love’ (as an emotion), playfulness, taking care of our young and even empathy - when given full rein - can all be unhealthy when we use their ‘natural’-ness to justify hate toward something else. Personally I don’t see love as an emotion but a decision, like hate (as I described earlier).

I suppose it seems to you like I’m criticising those who feel the fear, frustration and anger of oppression, and you’re defending their right to feel this way - but I honestly have no problem with these feelings. The feelings are justified - but hate is not the feelings themselves. Hate is specifically how we integrate those feelings as thoughts, words and actions that close down awareness, connection and collaboration - the very things that enable us to effect change.

There are many people who have been fearful, frustrated and angry at their oppression, at the hate or violence directed toward them, but used the energy of those feelings to increase awareness, to connect with others and to collaborate to effect change. You and GCB call this acting on hate, but I disagree: this is acting on love. They aren’t directing their energy toward their oppressors or the system of oppression, but toward others who feel the same, toward useful sources of information and toward those who have the capacity to help. They are perceiving the potential in the world, and increasing awareness, connection and collaboration in manifesting that potential. That has nothing at all to do with hate. They are surrounded by hate, but have the courage to love instead.

I wouldn't say that. One thing I said was that I don't consider any speech immoral. That doesn't imply that I think there's no need to ever take anyone else's feelings into consideration when speaking, however. — Terrapin Station

Fair enough - and my apologies for misrepresenting you. I agree that morality is related specifically to behaviour, and speech in itself doesn’t fit the bill. However, I do think that speech within the context of interaction is a moral issue. So while speech cannot be considered ‘immoral’ in itself, a verbal or written interaction can.

Having said that, I personally think this ‘morality’ we’re striving for is going to go the way of ‘universal time’ as an objective structure of reality, anyway - so I tend not to get too involved in discussions of ‘is it immoral?’

I also said that I think that sometimes negative feelings in response to speech are a problem with the person with the negative feelings, not a problem with the person who said whatever they did to cause the negative feelings. That's always the case in my opinion when it comes to offense, for example. — Terrapin Station

I think being offended (themselves and on behalf of others) has become a card that people play in scrambling for the moral high ground - a sort of ‘free pass’ for not just rational thinking but also relational skills to take a back seat in the interaction.

I think that leading with your emotions (positive or negative) in any interaction is a problem, but so is discounting emotion in favour of logic and rationality. So many forum discussions deteriorate because two people are arguing from an emotional and rational ‘high ground’ respectively - or more specifically from two different systems of value.

We have the capacity, as human beings, to interact in a relational space that transcends our individual value structures. We are capable of relating with each other emotionally, rationally, ideologically, etc, as well as engaging in self-reflection and evaluation - all at the same time - but to do so effectively, we need to be open to increasing awareness, connection and collaboration beyond the level of value structure. We risk experiencing humility, loss of beliefs and painful changes in knowledge structures.

Heading for the high ground - either taking offence or being mean - is a fear response, in my opinion. It turns a relationship into a war zone.

I mean, hate.
hate noun, often attributive
\ ˈhāt \
Definition of hate (Entry 1 of 2)
1a : intense hostility and aversion usually deriving from fear, anger, or sense of injury
b : extreme dislike or disgust : ANTIPATHY, LOATHING
had a great hate of hard work — Coben

Ok, let’s go with this definition:

Hate is NOT frustration and anger, but derives from these feelings (as I have said).

Hostility and aversion are not a healthy response - they involve either attacking or turning away.

Dislike, disgust, antipathy and loathing refer to opposing something that one refuses to accept.

I have no argument here.

We are social mammals. Our limbic systems are inextricably involved even in our rational thinking. — Coben

I’m not denying that. There are people who give the limbic system priority in certain situations, and then rationalise around thoughtless, emotion-driven behaviour so that it appears justified. This stimulus-response behaviour is a cop-out for those of us who have the capacity for creative thought and self-reflection.

When someone is described as being mean or as a mean person, intent to be cruel in pretty much implicit. And it is certainly in no way a contradiction.

He was mean to me, but didn't intend to be seems rather off to me.
He was blunt and it hurt my feelings, but he didn't intend to be makes sense to me. — Coben

Sorry I missed this comment.

I disagree with this. As I explained before, meanness is not an intent to be cruel - that’s just what is assumed by the person they’re being mean to, or by another observer. Meanness is a relative perspective of behaviour: it’s in the eye of the beholder, so to speak.

That was mean. You hurt my feelings.
It wasn’t mean - I was just being honest. Perhaps I was a bit blunt.

Most of the time what is mean includes actions or words that are thoughtless, ignorant or inconsiderate. Unfortunately, some people (like @Terrapin Station, perhaps?) think there’s no need to ever take anyone else’s feelings into consideration when speaking, for instance. You and I might say that this is being mean, sure - but that’s only because we expect a certain level of kindness, whereas they don’t. I still wouldn’t say they’re intending to be cruel, though - or that their behaviour is ‘immoral’.

We can’t force people to be kind - certainly not by punishing them if they don’t comply. That defeats the purpose, don’t you think? If we stoop to their level, we’re only accepting the exchange on their terms. We CAN let them know they’re being mean/ignorant/inconsiderate, and we can set the tone by our own words/behaviour. But if we refuse to interact unless they raise their behaviour to our expected level of kindness, then we can’t expect them to respond to self-righteous indignation with an ‘Okay, sorry - I’ll try to be more polite.’ That’s a choice we make to interact or not.

If I’m easily offended, then I’ll be easily offended. The world doesn’t owe me a certain level of kindness.

In a nutshell, a ‘good person’ in my view is someone who:

Chooses to be aware - with integrity, self control and patience
Chooses to connect - with kindness, generosity and gentleness
Chooses to collaborate - in peace, joy and hope...

Despite fear or threat of pain, loss, lack or humiliation.

You may think they were motivated by something other than hate for the reality they lived in, but I do not think so because hate is created by our love biases and love for the good comes before the hate for the evil that threatens that which is loved.

Equality in the cases here. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Hate is created by our feelings: fear of losing what we love, frustration or anger at the lack of what we love - but it is hate only when we refuse to accept the reality of this loss and lack.

The reality in the cases here is that not everyone loves equality. There is a very real lack of equality in the world, even now, whether we like it or not. For us to change that, we first have to accept that this is the world we live in.

When we are confronted with this fact, how do we respond? Do we attack or spit venom at anything or anyone that reminds us of this lack of equality? Or do we accept that it exists and then seek to increase awareness, connection and collaboration in order to draw attention to this lack of equality and where opportunities exist in our situation to effect real and actual change? Can we do that without hate? I say yes. Lincoln, Rosa Parks and MLK are examples of that.

And yes, hate has degrees, just as love has, so using the various degrees in discussions is kosher — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Hate varies in the degree we will go to in order to restore our illusion. It is not a degree of feeling, but of action. Love, too, has various degrees of action. Love is a decision we make to actualise our perception of potential. Love is created by our feelings, but it is love only when we choose to be aware, to connect and collaborate in manifesting the potential we see in others or in the world.

When we hate what threatens that which is loved, we are trying to define, confine and control what we claim to love, as if it is possible to make this our entire and unchanging universe - our reality - just by thinking or believing it to be so.

Does hate occur? Yes.
Is it necessary? No.
Is it effective? No.
Therefore, is it justifiable? No.

So by all means, share your frustration, talk about your anger, admit your fears - but hate will not effect change without bringing about more pain and loss, more violence, hatred, despair and oppression than you can hope to eliminate with your words or actions.

If we talk about Rosa Parks and the Civil Rights movement, we are not talking about being motivated by frustration. Of course there was frustration in there. And of course there was yearning for something better and other motivations. But there was a lot of hate in there also. — Coben

Yes, there were (and are) militant acts within the Civil Rights movement, and many who respond to racism with anger and violence and hate; who feel justified in spitting venom at those who treat others in a hateful manner. I’m not talking about them - I was arguing against the particular claim that Rosa Parks was an example of someone who acted on hate.

It is perfectly natural when one is treated as a rule in a hateful manner, over long periods of time, and this includes treatment of your children in this way, to hate back. The problem is not in that responding hate. — Coben

The problem IS in that responding hate. Natural, yes - it is an animalistic tendency. If you were incapable of abstract thought or of understanding how another person might feel, then yes - I could understand that you were unaware of the destructive nature of responding hate. But I don’t believe you are that ignorant.

Yes, sometimes this hate can lead to actions that are not ok. But the problem is not the hate, it is the cognitive elements - that revenge is good or even will help you, for exampe, is one cognitive element that can lead to acting out in certain ways. To tell those blacks that if they hate it is unhealthy and wrong, is just adding more oppression on them. — Coben

I didn’t say ‘wrong’ - I have repeatedly acknowledged that the feelings leading to hate (fear, frustration, even anger) are understandable in these situations - but I maintain that hate is unhealthy and unjustifiable.

The claim you and GCB are making here is that hatred can sometimes be justifiable, and you keep watering down your definition of hatred to include frustration and anger in order to support your argument. Frustration is a feeling, anger is a feeling, fear is a feeling - hate is a decision. When we feel afraid, frustrated or angry, our thoughts and beliefs help us try and ‘justify’ a response that is hateful - or one that is thoughtful, even loving. Sometimes the limbic system makes that decision for us - that is no excuse. We have the capacity to think it through, or to enable a thoughtless response instead.

And MLK himself was extremely pissed off towards the end of his life. Listen to his last speech in that church where he keeps saying 'If I should die...' There's rage in there. He got frustrated with the government and whites and since he was not just anti-racist but socialist he has a lot of issues that had gone from frustration to at least very strong anger. — Coben

I haven’t heard or read that speech - I’d appreciate a link to it, or a quote, if you have one. Frustration or very strong anger is not hate. MLK is NOT an example of justifiable hatred.

Hate begets hate; violence begets violence; toughness begets a greater toughness. We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love... Our aim must never be to defeat or humiliate the white man, but to win his friendship and understanding.

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy, instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate.

Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. — Martin Luther King Jr, ‘Strength to Love’

When we ‘hate slavery’ today, we have the luxury of refusing to accept a situation that is no longer part of our current reality. We don’t have to respond to it, because it isn’t there. When you claim that abolitionists had a ‘hatred for the practice of slavery’, you say that they were refusing to accept their current reality: slavery continues to occur. That’s fine as long as you can keep from being aware of or exposed to the reality. But what happens when that reality - the one you refuse to accept - is unavoidable? If you continue to reject that reality, then fear, frustration and anger turns into hate. You have two choices: be aware that slavery exists, acknowledge it and take measured and reasonable steps to eradicate it; OR continue to reject it, and fight tooth and nail against anything and anyone that points to or exposes you to that reality: in other words, hate.

The same situation applied to Rosa Parks’ situation. She sought to accept the reality of her situation. She said: "I would have to know for once and for all what rights I had as a human being and a citizen." That is not hatred.

It's a reality that we respond to certain kinds of treatment with strong anger. That is a reality. We are social mammals with limbic systems tightly involved in our reactions to treatmetn by others. THAT IS REALITY. Many people tell us that we must accept the reality of what is outside us, but the inside we must suppress, detach from, radically control, judge. But the inside is real also. I can't see how I can come to love others if I hate parts of myself as my starting point, especially in the face of mistreatment. — Coben

I’m not expecting you to hate parts of yourself at all. I have never denied that the potential for hatred is an internal reality: that it exists in our minds. But YOU choose whether or not that potential becomes actual - whether or not it determines who you are: what you think, what you say and how you act. That choice is not made by your circumstances, or by someone else’s words or actions. That our limbic systems are tightly involved in our reactions to treatment by others is real, but it is not a foregone conclusion - our limbic systems are only one input in the process of our minds. If you choose to give it full rein, that’s on you.

You can’t blame reality for being real, just because you don’t agree with it. And you won’t change external reality by hating it. Lincoln, Rosa Parks and MLK understood that.

I agree that hate is likely not the only factor, but it would be one. I don't think frustration would be the main reason either. I was contrasting hate with frustration in relation to slavery. — Coben

Hate and acting on hate - by and on behalf of slaves - did more to fuel the fear and hatred that sustained slavery, than it did to abolish slavery. You cannot argue that slaves who hated their masters and acted on it furthered the cause to abolish slavery in the US one iota.

One of the biggest fears of the slave states was a violent uprising similar to the one in Haiti from 1791 - the only ‘successful’ slave rebellion that established a free state ruled by former slaves (and was maintained by slaughtering the entire white French population in 1804 - hardly a justifiable act of hate). Hate drove all sides of the conflict in Haiti, and resulted in so much cruelty and violence.

Frustration is sufficient to motivate positive, courageous, intelligent and realistic action towards a better outcome. It may not have been the main reason for the Civil War, granted (my mention of ‘frustration’ was in reference to Rosa Parks, not to slavery) but that main reason was not hate. Hate may have been felt by some, but acting on hate does not lead to positive change, only to destruction (as in Haiti). You can try to spin it all you like, but it seems clear to me that slaves hating their owners played at best a very minor role (motivating freed or escaped slaves to fight for the Union, perhaps) in abolishing slavery in the US, and more of a role in bolstering the South’s campaign.

If you stick with any emotional reaction it isn't healthy, even the so called positive ones. — Coben

I can’t argue with you there. But I will say this: that people feel hate is ‘natural’ but not healthy, regardless of whether or not they ‘stick with’ it. It is natural to initially fear something that we’re unable to understand, avoid, control or deny - and that feeling turns to hate if we refuse to acknowledge our fear as a natural response and instead project blame on what triggers our fear. That people then act on the hate they feel is not just unhealthy - it’s unjustifiable.

It is understandible that people will hate sometimes. It is not healthy to be mistreated with regularly, but the problem is not the hatred when it arises. The problem is that we are in that situation. Of course there are unhealthy patterns of hhatred. — Coben

The situation is a problem, yes - but more so is hatred when it arises. The situation one is in may be extremely unhealthy and seem impossible to avoid. That the situation occurs is a reality, whether or not we want it to occur or think it should occur at all. We have to accept that reality first - whether we like it or not - before we can begin to address it. Hatred arises from a refusal to accept the reality as it stands. There are no healthy patterns of hatred.

Lincoln accepted the current existence of slavery in the United States, despite not wanting that to be the situation. It was the South who refused to accept the reality, who denied their fears and blamed the North (and Lincoln) for how they felt. Lincoln abolished slavery by acting (without hatred) when he had the opportunity (and the support of the people) to do so.

Come on, one of his examples was slavery: slaves did not feel just frustrated with slavery, though I am sure there was much frustration. They hated their treatment by the slave owners, quite naturally. Perhaps not all of them, but most of them.

Oh, I got so frustrated with being a slave

sounds absurd to me.

I got frustrated with a dead end job or with a boss who didn't let me engage in more creative projects, sure.

Any laws or systems or practices that as a rule dehumanize and mistreat a group are going to lead to hatred. And that hatred would be a perfectly natural and healthy response. Of course there is likely to also be fear involved and great sorrow. — Coben

I’m not denying that slaves may have hated their mistreatment, or even hated the slave owners. I’m denying hate as the reason for the change, and I’m denying ‘acting on hate’ as the cause of change. To credit hate with the abolition of slavery or civil rights is a ridiculous notion - likely driven by fears over the rise of the conservative right.

Hatred may appear to be a ‘natural’ response, but it isn’t a healthy one, and it isn’t justifiable in my book.

If you have to hate your dead end job or your boss before you will act, then you’re doing yourself a disservice.

So you would have told Rosa Parks to not hate having to sit at the back of the bus nor act on that hate.

How about the hate against slavery in the Civil war? Would you tell the north not to hate slavery or go against it?

Ignore evil if you want. I will encourage its hate so that those who can will fight evil. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

It wasn’t that Rosa Parks hated sitting at the back of the bus - plenty of other people hated sitting at the back of the bus, or giving up their seat or even their right to ride the bus. It was that she was “tired of giving in” (her words) to treatment based on skin colour that eroded her rights as a citizen. She did not act on hate - she stood her ground against hate, and if you can’t see the distinction then you’re choosing not to see it. If she had acted on hate as you say, then the outcome would have been very different.

It was not hatred that put an end to bus segregation - it was collaboration. That there were people (black and white) who supported her, who saw in her response not hatred but the dignity and courage of a fellow citizen - this led to the bus boycott and the court case that abolished bus segregation. It had nothing at all to do with hate.

The US Civil War did not come about because the North hated slavery. It came about because the South feared the extinction of their way of life in the wake of the Federation of States acknowledging the basic human dignity and freedom of black people outside the slave states. It was an attempt at co-existence that the South refused to accept - the secession was a Southern initiative and so was the war itself. Most Northern soldiers were apparently indifferent about slavery.

Stop twisting history to suit your argument. Encouraging hate is not ‘fighting evil’ - it’s contributing to it.

Oh my. The hate of slavery ended slavery in the U.S. and you seem to think that a bad thing.

How about Rosa parks?
Did her negative energy against segregation lead her the wrong way? — Gnostic Christian Bishop

It seems like you don’t really understand what hate is.

What ended slavery in the US was not the ‘hatred’ of slavery, but affirming the freedom and dignity of all human beings, regardless of skin colour.

It wasn’t hatred that inspired Rosa Parks to expect equal treatment regardless of skin colour. It was courage.

Yes, you can distort the story and make it seem like people put an end to slavery because they ‘hated’ it, or that Rosa Parks made an impact against segregation by ‘hating’ it - hijacking these examples to support your argument - but this ‘negative energy’ you’re referring to is not what hate is.

To strive to change the status quo in favour of something better is not hate. Frustration, sometimes - but not hate.

Hate, like evil, has a good and an evil side and like Yin and Yang, compliment each other. They are not in opposition.

If you look around, you will see a lot more good going on than evil and a lot more love than hate being expressed. In fact, we are too good to each other. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Hate does not have a ‘good’ side, and we are not ‘too good’ to each other, as a general rule. There is a lot more ‘good’ going on than most people realise, sure - but if you’re suggesting that we should hate more, or that there should be a more even balance of love and hate, then I cannot agree with that. Personally, I think this argument is a way to justify a destructive response to fears we refuse to acknowledge.

As the Christian hymn says, Adam's sin was a happy fault and necessary to god's plan.

Strange that Christians call furthering god's plan as a fall.

You seem to be doing the same with nature. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Personally, I don’t think there is a plan - or a fall. I think there is a formula that works (and we’ve yet to completely figure it out), but that’s not the same thing.

Hate is not a part of that formula. It is a human invention, a subjective and delusional rejection of the reality of life: that pain, humility and loss or lack are a necessary consequence of living. There is no experiencing life without this: no knowledge, no love and no achievement. The sooner humans realise this, the sooner we can get back to really living - not just trying to get through it relatively unscathed.

Fear and denial of that fear is what triggers hate. What reduces hate is the courage to be aware, to connect and collaborate despite pain, humility, loss or lack.

Ok, but waste of time because the people are known already to respond a certain way. Your posts are probably less confrontational.. People on the forum tend to like conflict, which possibly is why people tend to ignore your posts. — schopenhauer1

I have noticed this about forums, yes - ha ha. I make a living in part by removing confrontational language from written communications, so it’s a challenge for me to initiate an argument, I’ll admit.

Makes sense but the natural human tendency is to not be in a lower position, thus retaliation to gain the upper hand. So while this ideal makes sense, it's easier to respond in kind rather than taking the higher road. There's very much a "you first" mentality when meanness is responded to with meanness. Thinking about the bigger picture is lost. — schopenhauer1

Ha - I didn’t say it was easy... humility is suffering, just like pain and loss. It’s a necessary experience of living - especially for humans. Denial of our own humility adds to the suffering of others, so while it may be a ‘natural human tendency’, it is ultimately destructive, and so the ‘you first’ mentality is unjustifiable.

You don't think there is at least some intentional malice going on with certain incidences of meanness? Though, I would agree that there are other factors that may weigh more heavily- win at all costs, avoid humility, relative superiority, etc. It may be simply stress. When one is stressed, and has too much going on, one tends to lash out. So there are many causes here, and many of them are not from malicious intent. — schopenhauer1

No, I don’t. Meanness is categorically different from malicious intent. I dare say if you kindly point out the apparent withdrawal of kindness in their behaviour, their subsequent response will usually inform you of their intent. I agree that when one is stressed, they are also focused on their own feelings and tend to be less considerate of others’ feelings.

Yes, I think there is a certain discomfort confronting in general. But depending on the situation, it may be a waste of time, or just unpleasant to deal with. The mean person is hoping this will override any admonitions. — schopenhauer1

That depends on whether you need validation. What can seem from my perspective to be a ‘waste of time’ might be the only kindness that person receives that day. A large number of my posts on this forum appear to be ignored, in that no-one responds to them or a discussion ends there. Some might consider them a waste of time, but I’m not doing it for validation (although it would be nice). I have information and a perspective to be shared.

I still think you’re assuming that kindness on your part will be met with unpleasantness, or else still assuming intent on the part of the mean person in hoping their unpleasantness will somehow prevent unpleasantness in return. You might need to test your assumptions - ask the question.

Here's a question though, if someone thinks they are far superior (as you stated earlier), and that the person they show contempt and meanness to is considered incompetent, ignorant, etc. what is the proper response from this person? — schopenhauer1

I’m not sure here if you mean the proper response from the person who thinks they’re superior, or from the person they’re being mean to. I’ll try to address both.

Let's raise the stakes.. How about a manager at a job who expects a certain level of competency from their employee? Is the manager not entitled to show the worker to see their disapproval so that they can change their habits or competency level? What engenders contempt or conceit? What are the appropriate responses to situations involving competency? Is firing a "mean" event, or just something that should be taken in due course? Most people would say if the worker was not competent that indeed, firing is just an appropriate action to ensure the job is efficiently being carried out. — schopenhauer1

The manager-employee relationship often has a contract to handle entitlement, and any employee should be made aware of the expectations of the job before signing. Beyond that, showing ‘disapproval’ can take many forms, and managers often have defense mechanisms in place to conceal the fear that they may not be sufficiently competent themselves as managers. This often includes maintaining a certain relational distance from their employees that can be construed as a lack of kindness. The employee may not know the manager well enough to distinguish this from a subtle message that they’re not meeting expectations. It takes courage as an employee to ask for clarification. I would say the responsibility of a manager, though, is to make sure their employee is aware of expectations they may not be meeting, and give them the opportunity and perhaps even support to then strive to meet those expectations before taking due course. Firing is only ‘mean’ if the employee was unaware that they weren’t meeting expectations before being fired.

On the other hand, if a person is being made to feel inferior, the natural response is to try to turn the tables - to gain the upper hand. But regardless of whether or not I am inferior to them in every way possible, I need to acknowledge that they know about stuff I don’t. That will ALWAYS be true. So I don’t really need to gain the upper hand unless this is a competition or a formal debate. My aim, then, is to accept a certain inferiority, and then demonstrate what unique competence I can bring to the discussion that complements their own. If they’re no longer fighting to be superior or right, they’re less likely to be mean, and more open to learning a thing or two by accident.

Something about that other person has triggered in the mean person a response or a way of relating that involves ridiculing, demeaning, isolating, or acting with condescension towards another person. The intent is to probably hurt, and the hope is that the meanness is received negatively the target of the meanness. — schopenhauer1

I don’t believe the intention of meanness is to hurt, though. The feelings of the target are irrelevant, but it is because we expect some level of consideration (kindness) that meanness is perceived as malicious intent. In most situations, I would argue there is no intentional malice. The intent is to win, to avoid humility and reassure themselves of relative superiority at all cost. They are more often than not being led by their own fears - fears they will of course deny.

What is the appropriate response to the mean person then? Is it pointing out that meanness is taking place? Is it just ignoring it? Is it getting an apology? Silently just know that the other person is being an asshole but not letting them know? What would be the just way to handle this sort of asymmetry of attacks? — schopenhauer1

I think the person being mean should be made aware that their behaviour has fallen below an expected level of kindness and civility, without assuming it was done intentionally. The hardest thing about being the one to tell them this is that we must accept a certain amount of humility ourselves in doing so: it feels like we’re acknowledging their power or capacity to harm us, doesn’t it? But isn’t it true? Why do we need to deny that fact? What are we afraid of?

Part of being kind is giving people the benefit of the doubt, with the aim of inspiring kindness in return, regardless of past experience. It’s the whole ‘turn the other cheek’ thing. If we don’t, if we retaliate, then we give in to our own fears, and contribute to anger, hatred, oppression, etc. If we try to pretend it didn’t happen, though, we fail to prevent it from happening to others.

Justice isn’t about punishing those who fail to live up to our expectations. It’s about helping them to understand what those expectations are. We don’t need to withdraw kindness to do this - surely we’re smarter and more creative than to stoop to their level?

exactly. Because it is a delightfully abstract concept that contains everything within it, and we really don't have a clue as to what everything is...

But I have concluded that it contains evil as well. I'm pondering what that means to me. — uncanni

I don’t think God contains everything at all. That implies ‘being’ something apart from what it contains, and also implies an actual location in spacetime - albeit a very large one. The potential for what we refer to as ‘evil’ is certainly perceivable, but in my view this ‘evil’ isn’t part of the concept of God, but a conceptual passive resistance to it in its potentiality, at various levels of awareness.

It’s a rather simplified expression, but I think we resist the recognition of knowledge to avoid pain, resist the acknowledgement of power to avoid humility, and resist the awareness of goodness to avoid loss - and all of this contributes to ignorance, anger, hatred, oppression and violence. That this resistance also occurs with all matter in the universe requires a much more in-depth explanation. But to call it ‘evil’ is to deny our contribution to it by our ‘natural’ resistance and fear.

And we do have clues...

So, does this mean that hidden in the definition of God is a clue that morality actually has no justification? Even an omniscient being, God, can't find reasons to be good and therefore goodness is an additional requirement to make God good. — TheMadFool

This makes sense to me.

Personally, though, I think the biggest error in understanding God is in the assumption that God is a being: an instance of existence. Beings exist in spacetime, but God has no defined spacetime location - it exists as an abstract concept.

Knowledge, goodness and power applied in an absolute sense to the concept of God doesn’t appear to encounter the same problem. If the conceptual source of all knowledge, goodness and power existed outside of spacetime, then surely it would be up to us as beings to draw from that source, rather than expect some all-powerful being to act?

Right - they’re not the same but they do overlap in areas. However, it seems to me like you’re saying the best thing language can do is aspire to be more musical. I disagree with this, although I do think our use of language can aspire to be more like music - but in its own way.

Everything is about information and how it relates to other information - even music. I would say that music enhances our awareness, connection and collaboration in a way that we often think is more ‘emotional’ only because the information acquired cannot be reduced to language - and ‘emotion’ is how we tend to describe the gap.

But I think that language can be used to increase awareness, connection and collaboration more effectively and efficiently when we recognise firstly that this is what the aim is, and secondly that it has particular strengths and limitations as a set of value/significance structures in achieving this, just as music does.

Music often defers to language to provide more specific conceptual information about subjective experiences. Language often defers to music to provide more fundamental, intuitive or somatic connections to an experience. But this is usually because we don’t always notice how we feel in response to words. We often assume that language is only about thoughts or ideas, that it should be rational or logical, and involve only the head or brain. People who use language mainly for rational or scientific communication tend to automatically dismiss or ignore how language can make them or others feel - even as they are feeling it.

I work in marketing communications and PR - part of my job is to edit or structure communications so that emotion is not so much eliminated but accounted for. It’s a common error in written or spoken communications to ignore the emotional effect of word choice, sentence structure and sequential order. We can communicate the exact same information using words in a way that is either benign or that evokes anger, confusion or enthusiasm.