The problem is John is already imagining them. He knows the set of the unknown is not empty. In his mind, he knows not only there is a set of the unknown, but that it contains unknown things.

Rather than beyond his imagination, these things have a clear presence within it, even if knows none of their details.We know it false John cannot imagine them; he just did talking about how he didn't know who or what they were.

Immanence is the reason his "in God" is not literal. A causal state of the world is defined by seperation from everything else. The electron in my phone is different to the screen it belongs, which is different to my eye which light hits, which is different to my brain that reacts and then to my experience which is generated.

The spirit of immanence cannot be closed off and cut in this manner. We cannot say: "Immanence begins and ends in this moment. It is X state of the world which causes this other distinct state Y."

Spinoza outright says he's not being literal in the passage you quoted. God is an not transitive, not some state of the world which begins and ends in sequence. God is the cause of ALL, rather than merely a state which causes another following state.

This appears to have reduced it to nothing more than a mere metaphysical relation, since even if it is expressed by those that do not exist, there must even in non-existence be assigned a cause. And why rather than others? I am unsure if you have confused prop. 3, but exactly how have you isolated totality (substance) from whatever is must be in a substance and the cause of all that exists? Even 'ideas' are in this same order. — TimeLine

They're already isolated in Spinoza's distinction between Substance and modes. For modes to literally be in Substance, it would mean Substance was a mere collection of finite states, which morphed into a distinct form ever time a state of the world was destroyed and emerged.

If Spinoza was being literal in saying "in God," he would be reducing Substance to nothing more than a finite collection of states which existed: a violation of the infinite and unchanging nature of Substance.

For non-existence (e.g. logic, possible worlds) to be included within Substance, it cannot be dependent on existing states. All that has not been caused (i.e does not exist) must be of Substance too. Substance can only be a metaphysical relation if it is to include everything-- if it were defined by existence, all non-existent things would be excluded from it.

Spinoza's expression of "modes in God" isn't precise. Speaking in literal terms, it would be described by something more along the lines of: "God (as far as a relationship to modes) is in modes."

Substance is the metaphysical reaction of totality expressed by all (existent and non-existent), which is the same no matter what exists. With respect to being in world, we might say modes speak Substance. God is not the authority which determines one state to happen rather than another, but the significance of totality which an existing state cannot be given without.

Yes. The "arbitrary" nature of any culture or human experience is sort of the point. Why does our culture exist the way it does?

Obviously, there are all the causal links we can describe of how our culture came to be, but that doesn't answer the question. Why is it that those states produced our culture as it is rather than some other possiblity?

In this sense, it's​ arbitrary. Nothing about our history necessitated our culture be one possible outcome rather than another, it just happened that way. The destiny ascribed by metanarratives is destroyed.

No longer is there any myth or value which guarantees a just world , fulfilling life or knowledge needed for life. All questions of living are turned over to ethics and power. Living with wisdom and florishing become about either doing the right thing or getting other people to do what you need. The heuristic of just partaking in belief or tradition is destroyed.

In the political context, it does mean outright maliciousness in many cases. What else can we call killing those who think differently to you to hold power? Or systematically devaluing a particular sort of person so you can just take whatever they own? Or closing a border to people fleeing conflict? Power is maliciousness a lot of the time. Do people realise at the time? Not necessarily, some just think they are doing God's will, helping savages or stopping terrorists, but that doesn't change its cruelty and malicious goal.

Not exactly, it means perspectives or things (e.g. identity, values, people, the thing-itself) lie outside the social construct of language or experience. Genetics and ancestry, for example, are not the language or category we use to talk about them (to address an topic VagabondSpectre mentioned).

A person's genes, for example, would be the same regardless or how we talked about them or how we categorised them as belonging to a particular race or not. Race is social construct not because people somehow genes, skin tones to ethnic history, but rather because none of those features are the category of race. Race is another layer of language and experience we've associated with facts like genes, skin colour and cultural heritage: descriptively race is not genetics, skin colour or ethnic history. It another idea (a category to which people belong) and states (our thoughts and culture of who belongs to which category) of the world altogether .

With respect to postmodernism and truth, there is no need to get outside the "social construct" to speak a truth. Any instance of of human language, experience or philosophy is a social construct (including postmodernism). For the postmodernist, telling truth doesn't mean getting outside the social construct, to access The Truth, to the irrelevance of meaning and experience. It just means using a social construct (human language, experiences) to speak a truth and meaning.

To an extent, they are linked. Postmodernism is more or less us grasping the metaphysical significance of our empirical being. It outlines the beginning and ending of a language, how our ideas are produced in the world, what they mean with reference to other viewpoints and their significance to power. Most of all, postmodernism is the destruction of the metanarrative, of the idea their is one particular way of thinking or existing.

God, Capitalism, Modernism, The Enlightenment, and Communism/Marxism (if we are talking post WW2 and 1960s) are dead. They were never the only meaning of the world, only myths which hid a huge array of meanings and impacts from us. A lot of the accusation of "opaque" language are more of a political nature. Postmodernism brings in concepts which amount to the destruction of metanarrative. What better way to keep your preferred metanarrative in power than claim it's opposition is not saying anything and makes no truth claim? The claim postmodernism doesn't deal in truths or claims is what it opponents wish it was.

Much of the supposed "controversies"about postmodernism misreading or misusing "scientific concepts" is just a misunderstanding of what those arguments are doing. Take the famous accusation Newton's Principia Mathematica was a "rape manual." What did that mean? The opponents of postmodernism rant and rave about it being some nonsensical claim suggesting doing math amounts to advocating rape. It never was. Metaphor was the point-- how scientific disciplines are blind to experiences and impact of individuals, to how viewing all the world as mere objects to control excludes recognition of people and whether you ought to be controlling them.

Where the analytical reduces ( "It's just only math!" ), postmodernism expands ("No, it is not just math. It's math as part of a culture and community which has particular consequences for various people and what they mean" ). A lot of the supposed "complexity" of postmodernism is just proponents upset that the postmodernist is bringing a wider scope of the meaning of the world. Despite what it opponents would claim, postmodernism is not a metanarrative. It's point is no metanarrative is adequate. We have to don't just have to do the work of describing the interactions of the world (science), but also the meaning of our world and its relationships too.

In this respect, postmodernism has roots in Kant, who points out our experience and knowledge is always our own, and Nietszche who describes how our meaning is an expression of the world, of ourselves, rather than of another realm (e.g. God, The Enlightenment, Modernist Utopia, Communist Utopia, etc.).

The point isn't about what you think about from second to second watching actors. I'm not talking about setting down, watching pornography and thinking: "Oh what a wonderful time the actors are having" at every moment. That's just distracting. Most people would get taken out of the narrative on screen. If one is watching a film, one does not jump up and down saying: "Oh what a wonderful time the actors had making it." It's effectively the audience breaking the forth wall.

My point is about something else entirely. Since we know media representations are a production and fictional, we always relate to them as more than images. We get home from a movie, talk about how great the production was, how hot the actors were, how the actors, writers and/or directors did such a great of producing media. Ideas about the status of the people who produce media we enjoyed form in our head.

We think about them in relation to ourselves and desires, whether they a skilled, how they are supposed to act given our love (or hatred) for them, what they are meant to do or do not for us, how they are meant to be treated by audiences, producers and fans. In consuming media, they are giving us something and we are taking from their efforts, so we understand and recognise as people with a status in reference to ourselves.

What is this status? Do we recognise the people we are watching have well-being that's important? Are we going to take them seriously as other people? Are we going to have concern they are treated ethically? Are we going to recognise they are people who exist beyond merely appearing on a screen to give us pleasure?

When I say objectification runs deep, I'm talking about the sort of response you've given here. You take my point, which is about how we think about the performers we watch outside of the representation on screen, and treat it like I'm some idiot confusing representations with reality. Instead of recognising you know media representations are produced, so you have thoughts regarding the people who made it and what they mean, you pretend you're only thinking about an image on a screen. Objectification. More than that even, you use the fact you are thinking about a representational image to pretend this objectification is somehow necessary or unavoidable, as if one couldn't think about a image on its own terms and then, at a different time, consider the people who produced it and their well-being.

It absolutely does matter what the viewer thinks of the performer. Not in the sense of changing or influencing something that's already made, but in terms of respect and basic decency given to other people, which impacts what other people think of the performer and the actions other take towards them going forward.

It's more than that. We are only illusionary finite beings. Even when we see sub specie aeternitatis.

We aren't a part of God at all and never will be. The best we can do is, sometimes, understand or experience the infinite. We cannot absolve the self to become a part of God, no matter what we do. In terms of sub specie aeternitatis, we are nothing. We are apart form God and always will be.

Yet, that is how our meaning is defined. Since we are illusionary finite forms apart form God (meaning, infinite), God is not dependent on any form for us to be. Be I rich or poor, sick or healthy, moral or immoral, the infinite is true. God is total. Meaning is expressed. I don't need to live forever or get what I want to be meaningful. Even if my life is nothing but suffering, I am still meaningful. My distance from infinite perfection not only means I can never become it, but it needs nothing from me to be.

Spinoza goes much further than even Ross describes. God is not as close as the jugular vein. In fact, God is not here at all, not in my existence nor anything close to me. God is always apart from me, an infinite I can never become. But this also means God is also always with anyone and everyone, for God is so no matter what finite illusions occur or happen to be doing to each other.

It's why Spinoza is materialist: God has nothing to do with defining the functions of causality. God can't enter our finite world to set or alter what happens to us. As for Sagan, the interplay of finite illusions can only be responsible for themselves. In terms of what happens to anyone in the world, the states of the Cosmos of "God," the beings of power which make one event happen rather than another. It's just these states of existence aren't God.

God can be said to "create" or "cause" (as Spinoza speaks of), but only in the sense that specific finite illusions express totality. If I say "God causes," I am not talking about how the world of causal actors works, how one event happens rather than another. Rather, I'm referring to how certain finite states are self-defined rather than others, a way of talking about how God (totality) is expressed by some actual states (those that exist) but not other ones (those which do not exist).

Although, that said, I would be wary of interpreting 'nature' in a modern way, I think for Spinoza, it is more like 'the totality': — "Wayfarer

He's actually pretty close to the modern way of interpreting nature.

God is totality, the infinite, expressed in the workings of the world. Spinoza is, metaphysically, a materialist: things are given of themselves (with the expression of totality--i.e. are of God). In this, there is no room for mysticism. Everything is accounted for. The world does (whatever that might be) and it is of God.

In recognising the infinite for what it (not reducible or captured by anything else), Spinoza sometimes sounds like a bit mystic, referring to God which cannot be reduced, categorised or explained by other terms, but he's really the antithesis of a mystic.

Spinoza's God cannot do anything in the traditional sense. God is totality, not some specific actor within the world, who causes one state rather than another. Indeed, the totality of God is what renders God incapable of being a causal mode or explanation. Spinoza understands the "mystery" of totality or infinite isn't a failure to grasp how or why the world works the way it does. Rather, it is the truth there is no outside explanation for the world-- it can only be responsible for itself.


He also has a pretty good grasp of agape. Later on in Part III of Ethics:

Prop. 39: Note
He who conceives himself to be hated by another, and believes that he has given no cause for the hatred. will hate the other in return.
Prop. 40
He who conceives, that one whom he loves hates him, will be a prey to conflicting hatred and love.
Prop. 40: Corollary 1
If a man conceives that one, whom he has hitherto regarded without emotion, has done him any injury from motives of hatred, he will forthwith seek to repay the injury in kind.
Prop. 40: Corollary 2
The endeavor to injure one whom we hate is called Anger; the endeavor to repay in kind injury done to ourselves is called Revenge.
Prop. 40: Note
If anyone conceives that he is loved by another, and believes that he has given no cause for such love, he will love that other in return.

Spinoza talking about how love is our understanding (idea) of an external cause (e.g. family) which brings us pleasure. This is a descriptive account of love. He isn't talking about the motivation or reason to act, just talking about the states involved in love. In the following sentence (which John has posted), he talks about what people do when they are in love (keep what they love present).

He's describing love and locating it's metaphysical significance-- to love is to understand an external cause which brings us pleasure (e.g. family, friends, discussing philosophy, etc.). The lover seeks to protect and keep this cause present in the world.

Objectification is ignoring that others are people whose well-being is important, in favour of understanding and using them as objects to achieve your desire. It's not about being sexually aroused be someone. Nor is it about desiring a sexual relationship. It's not even about wanting to see sexy images of someone.

The problem is when understanding and concern for another person are not present, when someone understands an exchange between two people is only about getting what they desire. In pornography and sex, this means considering other people, their desires, their well-being, rather than just arousal, activity or entertainment someone wants for themselves.

If someone is looking for a hookup, it means not just searching for someone who says "Yes," but someone else who wants to have sex with them. The goal is not for them to "get some." It's to engage in an act which benefits the well-being of someone else.

The same is true of pornography. If someone is producing or watching pornography, they ought to be concerned about the well-being of the people involved. Yes, the pornography is about making money (for the producer) and feeding desire (for viewers), but it's also (if people are ethical) about the well-being of people performing it. Both the producer and viewer ought to understand pornography is not just about making money or obtaining pleasure, but an expression of the well being of the performers.

One does not watch porn (if they are non-objectifying and ethical) just to, as you crudely put it, to "get off." They do so to engage in a mutual interaction which benefits both their well-being (which includes, in most instances, getting off) and the well-being of any actors involved. Just as hookups are defined by finding someone else whose well-being benefits, producing or watching pornography (as least the ethical sort) is about benefiting the well-being of someone else (the performers involved).

So the question here isn't legal. The law is frequently a blunt instrument. It simply can't deal with the range of issues and understanding which come in human relationships. Ethics is what matter to us.

Instead of making "bad faith" arguments that "the law says..." or "but they chose it..," we can think deeper. We can consider the other person and their well-being, rather than just what the law allows us to do and how we can manipulate the situation to gain the most personal benefit. At certain points we can say, when we recognise the other people we are dealing with: "Well, that is legal, and they might of said "yes," but in circumstances their well-being isn't going to benefit. This action I'm about considering will cause them harm, despite it being legal and them agreeing to it. It's my ethical responsibly not to harm them, even it means giving up what I want."

But people can be, and often are, used as a means to an end, and this is often quite ordinary and not immoral. There was the example given of the musician for hire, and there are plenty of other examples which could be given. Those who object in this particular case of porn actors need to explain why this is some sort of special exception. — Sapientia

When they're objectified, yes (and it's highly immoral).

This is the deep set myth of objectification I'm talking about. Is it "objectification" merely to work for someone, give something to another person or follow someone's instruction? No, it's not. Simply hiring a musician doesn't amount to objectification. Nor does hiring a sex worker. To hire someone doesn't mean objectification.

An employee is only treated as a means to an end if the employer (and consumer) understands and treats them that way. What do you think it says about your position that it reads mere employment as objectification, as if wanting, desiring or asking something or someone else amounted to treating them as a means to an end? Can you not recognise they, even if you want or demand something from them, are their own person who has a well-being that's more than just whether you reach your business goals?

A musician for hire isn't objectified unless their boss is ignoring their well-being--i.e. misleading them about the nature of the work, making false promises about what the role will gain them, setting impossible deadlines, demanding the musician work to the expense of health and relationships, etc.

So no-one is making an expectation for porn actors. People in any other line of work can be objectified just as badly (and frequently are).

My point was even the metaphysical use of "everything" is only the restricted "all of this context" usage. Just here, for example, you are not talking about "everything." You are talking about every triangle in realationship to having four sides.

When we use "everything" in talking about possible and metaphysics, it's actually playing the same sort of role as when we say: "everything in the bag is gone."

In the unrestricted "everything" is an illusion all the way down (or up). Yes, we may say: "everything may be talked about" but in that statement we have talked about anything-- our language has described no state of the world. "Everything" is nothing. We aren't​ speaking about any moment of the world.

Now one might point out the unrestricted "everything" is talking about possibilities, saying that our language may talk of anything. This is true, but what does it mean? Well, it isolates the specific possibility of what our language can say. In the sense that it talks about anything, it's restricted to a specific possibility. It not about an unrestricted "everything" at all.

But the point is there is no coherent use in either actuality or possiblity.

Either is defined be a distinction, by being NOT everything, by being a particular state or possible outcome. To speak of "everything" in either context is only incohrent and confusing. It takes away us away from what is metaphysically significant about both: that state or possibility is logically its own, rather than everything.

I'm almost inclined to say metaphysics shouldn't use the word at all.

As an expression of all things within a context, it makes sense-- "everything in my cupboard is gone."

The way metaphysics usually wants to use it though, as a reduction of all the world to a singular idea, is just incohrent. "Everything" cannot exist. To exist means to be distinct from other things, a seperate state to anything else. We might say that any state is is defined by NOT being everything.

You're are too kind Banno. There are not merely different usages of "everything". The usual "metaphysical" one is outright incohrent.

That argument makes no sense. If coercion is wrong, it doesn't matter if your eighteen or thirty-five​ or a hundred. You are treating coercion like it's the victim's responsibility, as if it were a "mistake" they made and so it's fine for it to happen.

I can't endorsed Noble Dust's infantalisation of women and sex workers, but they're right about your lack of empathy.

Consider the situation he talks about, where a women is coerced or manipulated into doing things she doesn't want, by flattery, promise of worth or riches. Is this fine? Yes, according to you, she just should have known better.

But what of the responsibility of the porn producers and audience to women who might work in the industry? Shouldn't they have been honest with this woman about what the porn industry involves, told here the truth of how far its adoration, worth or riches goes, rather than considering it just enough to get her to say "Yes."?

I wasn't saying getting off was an abstraction. My point was your understanding of sexual desire abstracts other people out.

You take sexual desire out of the context of other people, turning into something that's only between them and their own genitals.

The problem is NOT that you specifically claimed sex or porn isn't about other people. It's that your understanding of sexual desire doesn't include other people. It's what you are leaving out that's the problem.

When I suggested people ought to think of porn actors as people, you scoffed like it was disconnected from the act of watching porn. You treated like thinking about others as people was some "higher" concern, somehow conflicted with a brute desire to get off-- like my argument was suggesting an irrelevance in the face of a need to watch an object and get off.

People are never objects, not even when someone else is looking at them for pleasure.

To find someone attractive, look at them and feel aroused or desire to have sex with them is NOT objectification. There is simply never an object present, only a person. When sexual desire involves others, whether for sex or just entertainment, a person wants other people.

The mere object which brings sexual arousal doesn't exist. When watching porn, it's people getting us off, not a mere object of a hot body doing sexy things.

Isn't his concern more about people only caring for experiences of the world?

Most of the time Wayfarer comes back around to how deeply unsatisfying the world is, as if living for what is valuable in life (including sex) amounts to nihilism. For him we're supposed to aim "higher," to find the infinite not in our lives and the world around us (even in life-long committed relationships), but in the infinite of a spiritual realm above desires and worldly concerns.

In this respect, limiting sex to "holy matrimony" is important. It makes sex "higher," not for any individual's desire or well-being, but for the glory of the spiritual realm which, according to Wayfarer, makes life worthwhile.

I think Wayfarer is more worried about how, sans the authority on high, sex becomes about ourselves and our well-being, generating a secular culture in which meaning is understood to be expressed by the world.

A lot of the conflict, I think, has to do with the change of the significance of sex. Humans haven't really all changed that much in what they want out of sex in their personal lives.

The big difference is sex is accepted as recreation and/or entertainment, rather than being an activity only for married people. In a lot of cases, people seem to react more to this aspect ("Look at how the demand themselves by having casual sex and appearing in porn!" ) rather than abusive behaviour itself.

It's a bit like the objectification I just took Sapientia to task for, only instead of objectifying people for one's pleasure, it does it for the purity of society. I mean it has it's own position ("Follow this rule: only have sex and talk about sex within the context of your life long relationship. Anything else is demeaning" ), but it doesn't leave a lot to discuss with respect to people, sex, pornography and harm.

You don’t recognise sex and porn are always about other people.

Other people are actually what we think of first in any instance of pornography or sex— “Their hot.” “I’d like to fuck them.” "Watching them have sex gets me off so well.”

The idea sex or pornography is about some abstraction of individual desire, like just “getting off” or “pure physical pleasure” is a myth. In any instance, sex or pornography means means interacting with another person and their expression. Even the purest “physical,” no stings-attached, act of sex or consumption of pornography is about someone else.

It’s the defining difference between solo masturbation and either sex and pornography. People prefer sex or pornography becasue it’s about other people. Many people prefer to access the bodies and/or expressions of others, whether in a sexual relationship (sex) or pornography (entertainment).

In either sex or pornography, we are making use of someone’s “private” body and expressions. We can only do because they found it worthwhile to give us such access (unless it abuse and rape). To consider sex or pornography as only getting off to a passive object is to entirely misunderstand what’s happening. It’s to pretend other people are not involved— a foundation for abuse to occur or be ignored.

You scoff at the notion of recognising watching porn to be about anything more than getting off to an object, but it is exactly the right time for “high-minded” concerns like the fact someone is a person rather than a object. At what point could it be any more important to recognise another person is at stake than sex or pornography? How are we meant to recognise someone’s sexual expression, and it’s limits, if we don’t even recognise they are a person involved in the interaction?

Just bandying around terms like "objectification" doesn't help. Why is this supposedly wrong? One has a sexual desire, one finds an object for that desire, masturbates, ejaculates, and the desire is satisfied. Where is the wrongness? In this context, I see none. Outside of this context, I can envisage it in certain situations. So, ultimately, it seems to me, this is about having the right attitude or mindset. It is about appropriateness. It is a people problem about personal responsibility, and porn is just being scapegoated, in much the same way that alcohol or videogames or rock music has been scapegoated. — Sapientia

It's entirely wrong because it utterly misunderstands what's involved with sex or pornography. Instead realising they are about other people, it forms a myth that sexual arousal (by others) and desire is only about you and getting what you want.

The myth runs so fucking deep that many people can't even think of sex, pornography or even relationships in any other way except getting an object. You see this a lot in complaints that concerns about objectification are somehow attacking sex or sexual desire (which you are more or less suggesting here).

To recognise, for example, that porn involves other people acting to provide you entertainment, by choice to do something they consider worthwhile, is meant to be some plot to undermine sexual desire, all because it dares to point out porn is about more than oneself and getting their satisfaction.

That's a strawman.

My point wasn't there are no terms, for there are plenty of those: Meaning, infinite, worth, etc., but that you were demanding finite terms to account for the infinite.

There isn't a "how" by which one becomes Meaningful. It's not one's actions, appearance, status, wealth, politics, values, religion of philosophy which makes their life Meaningful. The worth of a sinner is not defined by any of those terms.

Even the abusive, genocidal, depressed, unrepenting slimeball's life has Meaning. They are person, whose actions are important, who are worth forgiving, with a life that matters, no matter how much they hate their life (and everyone else) and think it's all worthless. Meaning is not something gained through action in the world. Everyone, always and necessarily, has it.

Earlier I eviscerated Grace for inequality, this is why. Sure Grace claims to be equal, and it is insofar as it destroys the idea Meaning is dependent wealth, status or displays of piety, but it is only within the context of the practice of accepting Jesus.

In the end, Grace still makes Meaning dependent on what you do, on display of action for others. It's another misunderstanding of Meaning as a possession gained by particularly action world-- it just replaces wealth, status and piety with "being Christian."

Any approach which thinks Meaning is dependent on "how" is making a similar mistake.

The trouble with abuse is often doesn't happen in every case or maybe even most cases. It's makes it easy to sweep under the rug, especially when livelihoods or even companies would be put at risk.

If you're interested, two (sex positive, pro ethical porn) people I sort of know by the internet recently did a podcast on porn, with a discussion of some of the issues which can arise. It's doesn't go into a lot of specific depth, but it covers some of the issues (including the recent Kink. com scandal) which can occur and how that interacts with ethical porn consumption.

https://apptopcast.wordpress.com/2017/04/21/the-fourth-episode-of-2017-gets-nsfw-its-about-porn/ (NSFW).

Not exactly. "Lust" is usually a combination of maladaptive desire which treats others as your possessions and feelings or thoughts associated with them. Where people are attacked for "lusting," thoughts, feelings or even one's own body are attacked-- much in the way Jesus famously calls one to cut off parts of you which make one lust.

I suspect it's intended to be metaphorical in many instances, but the pull of denouncing immorality often sees to used against any thoughts or feelings associated with treating someone else as their possession. To many people to "lust," in a sexual context, means "to find someone sexually attractive" or "to want to have sex with them," rather than just thinking someone yours. In this instance, you are using a version of this definition of "lust," where it represents attraction or the desire to have sex, such that lusting has been unfairly marginalised.

Alas, it is also reductive because it sort of doesn't take the conflux of desire and objectification seriously. It sort of rehabilitates instances of objectification as mere desire, in it efforts to untangle the unjust prejudice towards desire.

We see this play out in the "It'll be fine" dismissal of criticisms of the porn industry, porn watching and even sexual behaviour. The interaction between two or more people is reduced to someone's desire. What's is it that's at stake when someone is watching porn? Only the viewers desire, or so you would have us believe. It's an objectifying way of dealing with the unjust prejudice against desire.

The expression and interactions (performing porn, watching porn of people, sexual behaviour) of people are reduced to nothing but a question of one person desire. No doubt it is effective in undoing the prejudice against desire, but it has the unfortunate effect of reducing our understanding of these exchanges to nothing more than an individual's desire.

An afterlife is worldly though, not metaphysical. For a religions claims to be true, for them to be right in some way, depends on the existence of a particular afterlife, on a relationship between existing states (our lives on Earth in the first instance, an existing afterlife in the second). It's entirely propositional. Rather than unknowable to us, it is just unknown (or rather unconfirmed), as we haven't yet got to observe the context of an afterlife.

No doubt it is fine to be motivated to live an ethical life, whether because of a belief in eternal life or not, but what does that have to do with metaphysics or religious claims about the world? It's a description of a utility to religious belief (some people are motivated to act ethically be the promise of eternal life), not of religious beliefs themselves and what they understand is so important.

You are saying to the religious person: "It's great you are motivated to be ethical by the promise of eternal life, but you don't really know what you're talking about, so we don't have to believe what your saying or act in the way you demand." It's disrespect for what makes their belief and what it is so important.

In any case, do you believe it is a good idea to be motivated to live an ethical life by a desire to attain eternal life? The notion I think comes closest to making sense of eternal life is Spinoza's idea of gaining eternity now by seeing things sub specie aeternitatis. Beyond that possibility, I don't think we have any idea what "form" an eternal life could take. — John

I think that's an error. It's a problem drawn from imagining eternal life is infinite. Considered as an infinite, it's impossible to define an afterlife because it would have to be without beginning or end. It's an outright contradiction: if an afterlife were infinite, it would have to always be around. We couldn't live on Earth and then have an (infinite) afterlife begin.

Since we are finite states, it's also impossible to define what constitutes an infinite life. It doesn't allow for the definition of any state or moment to constitute an afterlife. In an infinite afterlife, no-one could be or do anything-- it's absent everything that constitutes life.

But the infinite account is a misreading of just about every notion of the afterlife. Though afterlives are often "eternal (i.e. without end)," they are transfinite, rather than infinite. Instead of being without beginning or end, afterlives are actually finite, only endlessly emerging or repeating. After death, the individual retains their identity, their personality, their relationships, (sometimes) their property (buried with them) or some combination thereof. This is how people imagine it-- a solution to the worldly problem of death: a world (i.e. finite) in which there is no death.

Desperately holding on to an afterlife is sort of the opposite of seeing the world sub specie aeternitatis. It's an attempt to hold onto the world, to carry on the relevance of one particular subjectivity forever, rather than understand Substance or infinite which is always expressed.

To see the world sub specie aeternitatis is to understand it doesn't depend on you or anything you encounter. No matter what is happening in the world, Substance is so. Every state is expressing it, any state will express it. All states (logically) dependent only on themselves. Nihilism is dead (Meaning is necessary). God is dead (non-existent, Real, infinite). Idealism is dead (things are themselves, not logically defined by another finite state). Ethics are given in themselves (things themselves express moral value).

For someone who sees sub specie aeternitatis, an afterlife life is just another place in the Universe. Yet more instances of existence, subject to various worldly, political and ethical concerns (e.g. who gets in, are any religions right, etc.). An afterlife really has nothing to do with Substance, the infinite, Meaning or logic (i.e. metaphysics).

You are ignoring a third possibility; which is that religions are not true or false at all in any propositional sense of "truth". I do think that some religions may be more practical (in the spiritual sense) insofar as they might be in greater accordance with the actuality of the human spirit. But then, this would most likely vary historically; so that a religion which is practical at one moment in history might be impractical at another. — John

Doesn't this have much the same problem as Wayfarer's pluralism though? If no religion is true, aren't you being just as disrespectful? How can this position accept the dogmatism which is inherent in most religious beliefs?

If religion is only practical, it's more or less rendered nothing more than a cultural whim. No longer is an immoral soul at stake, the particular scared tradition needed or the worth of the world dependent on the practice of that religion. It useful or true only so long as people find it useful or truth. In that case, what differentiates your position from one of secular "flattened" values, where spirituality and religion is eschewed from metaphysics?

How is 'greater' not 'higher'? When one is converted from, say, alchoholism or some other vice, to a moral or spiritual awakening by thus 'binding oneself', is it not fair to say that this amounts to realising a 'higher truth’? — Wayfarer

In terms of ethics, for sure.

Otherwise, not really. All the truths in question are of them— how they act, how they are ethically better than before, what their life involves absent a vice, etc. In every case, these are a worldly truth, not any sort of metaphysical realm higher than themselves or the world they live in.

With respect to the infinite of Meaning (as opposed to ethics), this person who overcomes their vice has no more worth than anyone else. Indeed, their newfound ethical self is no more Meaningful then their old one beset by vice. It’s in worldly terms, in action, in ethics, in their existence, they are “higher” or “greater.” Their life hasn’t suddenly gained greater importance because they’ve abandoned vice.

In this respect, John is right about the plurality you give to religious truths being a problem. Religions are concerned with the world. They pose themselves as the solution to worldly problems, to death, to injustice, to vice, by their particular belief system and no-one else. The honest Christian cannot say: “It does not matter if you follow Jesus or not,” for it deems itself to be the only solution to these intractable worldly problems which (supposedly) need an answer.

Your pluralism of “higher” truths is disrespectful to any religion which holds itself to be a “higher” truth. To the Christian, for example, you would announce that their belief Jesus was the “higher” truth was a falsehood. You would claim other beliefs could also be a solution to the intractable worldly problems. “Higher” metaphysics always have this problem because they understand themselves as the only solution to worldly problems and meaninglessness.

Interestingly, the "flatting" actually comes out of understanding the infinite on its own terms, of the "higher" value itself.

Since the infinite is beyond the world, it does not depend on what occurs within it. The "higher state" to is not something achieved by a wordly goal or action.

Niether the greed of the consumerist nor the restraint of the ascetic creates meaning. Both confuse actions of the world with Meaning, as if Meaning were defined by making the most money or enduring the most pain.

In either case, they misunderstanding Meaning to be about what the self gets in the world.

There are no terms. Meaning is necessary, is infinite. To specify a particular "how" (e.g. go on a spiritual journey, be an atheist, accept Jesus, etc.) is incohrent. Doing so would require treating the infinite (Meaning) as if it were temporal (some state of the world, way of acting or thinking).

Meaning is beyond any instance of the temporal. It's true regardless of particular actions or states. No matter who someone is or what they are doing, their life has Meaning. The ignomy (Meaninglessness) religion assigns to us is a myth. We cannot be severed from the infinite and have never existed without it.

My use of "eternal life" isn't just literal. I'm also using it in a metaphorical sense, where it refers to gaining Meaning. Is my life only worthwhile because I get to act in a way that turns it meaningful?

Well, no. An act to help my community is, for example, has the same worth no matter my religious beliefs. I don't need to, for example, accept Jesus or go on a spiritual journey for the act or my life to have Meaning. Either way, it has Meaning.

When I say you assume meaninglessness, I'm referring to how you don't recognise Meaning itself.

Rather than understanding Meaning to be infinite, without beginning not end, you treat it like achieved with a particular "how" or action, as if Meaning were a finite state created by behaving in the correct manner.

It's more a reflection of how any philosophy involves ourselves and concern for our well being. The religious and mystics are deeply "egoistic."

Their concern is how to reach a higher truth, such they are wiser, greater and more fulfilled than anyone else. It's just they pretend not to be involved.

Here "egoism" doesn't refer to a crass notion that ethics is whatever an individual wants, but rather to how it always our status at stake in ethics, value and metaphysics.

The soul who accepts egoism is noble because they do not pretend metaphysics is not about their worth.

The better question is: What is pornography people? How is it virtuous?

Porn is form of entertainment (or it should be). It’s not the viewer’s sexual conquest, substitute for friends, romantic partners, a reflection of value outside the represented sex act(s) or sex relationships. I don’t think many can even address the question of virtues of pornography because it’s just a means to some other end. Even the often assigned purpose of “getting off” has this problem. Most people can “get off” without looking at pornography. It’s not like they are without arousal or an inability to touch genitals against something, and so need porn to do the work for them. There’s something else to pornography. We seek it in addition to “getting off.” In most popular discourse around the use of pornography, no-one pays attention to the porn itself, which kinda stops anyone addressing it in terms of virtue.

So what about porn itself? Why are people interested in spending all that time trawling the internet for videos, looking for pictures, flicking through magazines and part with hard earned cash when they might just rub one out themselves? What is it about porn that makes people interested and apparently has them thinking it’s necessary for their well-being?

Much like any from of entertainment, porn is desirable because it, itself, makes a particular moment more interesting, exciting, pleasurable or perhaps even poignant. In this respect, it can be part of the well-being of living an interesting life, at least as any other sort of relaxing or interesting time-filling activity we might engage in. It may also be a part of a well-being of sexual expression. Some people like to express their sexuality on representations other people view, either because the like showing their sexuality off or the want to show something about sex (as in the act sex and its relationships) itself. Some virtuous benefits to pornography, interesting entertainment, sexual expression and positive representations of sex itself (as opposed the sort of romantic relationship its meant to be used in), are pretty clear if you think about it.

The trouble is benefits to well-being occur where sex itself or representations of sex itself is important. For a lot of people who watch porn, this isn’t really the case. They are thinking of porn as a means to an end— getting off, seeing hot women have sex, watching the “bitches” get degraded as they deserve, a proxy for having a sexual relationships with another person or attaining a social value of having a sexual possession. To understand pornography (at least with respect to the viewer) just as an entertaining representation of sex is difficult for a lot of people.

Then again, I don’t think that’s surprising when most of our discourse around sex and relationships treat them as a question of gaining a possession of social value or individual glory. Most of the time they are only talked about in terms of getting what you desire or what is desirable. People really have to look in the right places to find stuff which distinguishes porn, relationships, sex and social value from each other, and how each relate to other people.

The difference seems to be that an atheistic seeking of the truth remains less open. The classic spiritual seeker, whether studying religions, committing to asceticism, philosophy, meditation, etc etc., is on a journey, and takes the position of a student. I don't get that sense from atheists who claim to be seeking the truth, rather they seem to feel that they've found it. This is what leads to atheistic dogmatism and fundamentalism. I'm not accusing you of that, but I do feel like I sense a little bit of it in your arguments. You seem very settled for one who claims to be seeking the truth. — Nobel Dust

Depends which atheists you are talking about. The fundamentalists (e.g. Dawkins) are desperate to find a world without religion. For them it occupies the space of Meaning which belongs to God or religion to the people he criticises. It terminates the question: "Where does meaning come from?" and replaces it with an answer of: "In the end of religion in human communities."

For atheists concerned with Meaning, they have good reason for abandoning The Journey: their knowledge of Meaning makes it irrelevant. The Journey is a quest to find out how to make the meaningless world ("temporal," in your words) into the meaningful one ("infinite,"in your words). It's pointless to the atheist who knows Meaning because they know nothing is needed to turn the world Meaningful. They understand states of the world ( "temporal" ) express Meaning ( "infinite" ) all by themselves.

Let's put it in context. How is it that any state of action is worthwhile? Is caring for your community only worthwhile because it'll get you eternal life? Is protecting your child only worthwhile becasue it will mean you will get to live forever? Is writing a symphony only worth it becasue it means endless life?

In every case, the answer is no. In each case, there is an important state, done for itself, which is worthwhile. They don't matter merely because they are a means to get eternal life. None of them are worthless or even less important if we all cease to exist at some point. All have infinite meaning of which the world would be a worse place without. What such an atheist knows is there is no "problem of Meaning to answer." Meaning is necessary, no matter who you are, no matter your culture, religion, philosophy or politics.

VagabondSpectre appears tentative because he both understands that the religious argument is bullshit (i.e. Meaning is necessary, so it doesn't need to be created) but also that the practice of any religion amounts to a Meaningful life. On the one hand, his knowledge of Meaning shows the religious argument is a falsehood, but he respects religion (where it is not ethically egregious) as the practice of a meaningful life.

You're absolutely right that the underlying atheistic position is "dogmatic." From the point of view of religion, it's even worse than the fundamental atheists. Dawkins and co. only insist religions make absurd claims about the world. To understand the world, itself, is meaningful undercuts religion on its own terms. It eliminates the "problem of Meaning" which drives The Journey and supposed need for religious belief.

But what does the end of religion really mean? Not all that much. In knowing the world is Meaningful itself, one is aware lives involved in religion are worthwhile. Despite knowing religious thought to be false about Meaning, there's no need to have everyone understand of believe it. Indeed, trying to talk about it with the religious is often unethical because it can cause them great distress-- it undermines their entire sense of self and worth.

The point was I'm a literal refutation of your assertion no-one would have an interest in BDSM without having seen porn: I was having BDSM fantasies before watching porn or even knowing all the details of sex.

My conclusion is based on how you are making an interest in violent pornography dependent on addiction. You didn't pull Arkady up for dismissing escalation and talking about something (that some people are interested in violent pornography, irrespective of how addicted to porn they are) that is more or less irrelevant to addiction and escalation.

Instead, you speak like Arkady was suggesting an implausibility, as it the presence of violent pornography was only plausibly a matter of BDSM interest generated by porn addiction. Seems to me your point of concern isn't just porn addiction, but also the mere presence of violent pornography itself and anyone has an interest in it (or the sort of sex it depicts).

Good to know I'm too implausible to exist!

I was imaging bondage scenes long before I watched any porn (before I had "the talk" actually).


Your approach here bothers me. Why is the question of whether people might like violent pornography an issue?

Addiction isn't one's sexual interests or fetish. It's a maladaptive obsession with partaking in a particular action which causes you harm. You seem desperate to equate interest in bondage or BDSM with porn addiction, as if such desires or interests were nothing more than a horror generated out of porn addiction.

What are you talking about? I wasn't saying no-one was addicted.

My point was people get bored of things if they are only consuming them for excitement (whether they are addicted or not), so escalation is driven by an underlying motive to attain ever increasing interest and consumption.

I know. I commented as I did because your analysis is shallow. It's neither interested in describing the phenomena of escalation nor in understanding the presence of violent pornography. All it's interested in doing is scoring a rhetorical point against that escalation exists or there is any sort or problem-- your argument is effectively dismissing there could be any issue by saying: "but it's really just some people are interested in violent pornography."

I don't think so. Not everyone is watching purely for excitement. Some people would happily watch couples doing missionary every day of their whole lives, much like plenty of people develop a habit of eating the same cereal for breakfast. The why someone is watching or consuming matters.

Then for the people who do become bored, it doesn't necessarily mean they will always find it boring . After some sort of break, it may be they find watching two people just having vanilla sex is interesting (or interesting enough) again.

It's just these don't hold as great promise for ever increasing interest and market.

Issues of escalation aren't really about whether people are inclined towards S&M or not. The trouble with porn, for many who are watching purely for excitement, is it gets boring. After seeing two people fucking, watching another couple do so is less interesting. With each iteration, it only gets more and more beige.

Noble Dust is mistaken to say it's a question of addiction. Even a responsible but habitual porn watcher is going to get bored of two people doing missionary, if pure excitement is their goal. Escalation is driven by differentiation and generating interest. Products have to be bigger and bolder-- bonus points if controversial-- so the audience will go: "LOOK AT THAT" and be clamouring to watch it. As with any business model entirely dedicated to generating new consumption, escalation is understood to be a necessity. Got to be the shiniest (or most degrading or violent or disgusting) one on the block.

The problem with Kant's critique is it dismisses John's approach out of hand.

John's argument holds that there are, for example, real tree and flowers. Not that, somehow, all objects are invariant or unchanging, but people that perceive others things as they are (e.g. balls, trees, dogs, etc.). John's argument is treating form like an expression of the thing-itself. The dog, for example, is itself how we perceive it, in addition to expressing many other forms.

Kant's approach is entirely dismissive of John's argument. It treats form as if it's entirely a fiction of the individual's experience, rather than being defined by the other object itself.

The trouble with that is logic is the ultimate other to oneself. Is 2+2=4 only true because it is of me? Clearly not. Even as I know it (or do not know it), it is other to myself, to my experience. If I were dead, were never born or didn't learn 2+2=4, it would still be true.

A tree, rock, colour or person is no different. All of them are other to me and, regardless of if I knew them or not, they are themselves. To be other me is for something to have its own existence, not an empirical matter of what states I know, but a metaphysical one which defines something regardless of whether I know about it-- a viewpoint or subjectivity which is regardless of whether I think about it or not.

The idealist objection to the realist argument is actually missing the point. To say: "How do you know it's there when you don't observe it?" treats the question as if it is empirical, as if the realist was making the crass and ignorant argument our world always took on the forms we have observed.

This is not really the case.

Most of the the time, the realist is making a point of metaphysics: they're pointing out the things they observe are not them. The rock? It's it own object, no matter how much they might know it by their own experience-- for the rock to be itself (including all the forms it takes) does not depend on them (or any one else) experiencing it.

Like 2+2=4, the truth of a rock stands steadfast above the whim of finite human experiences. If humans are dead, the rock may still exist (depends entirely on if the rock itself ceases or not) and its meaning (all of its expressions, past, present and future) remains untouched.

The realist argument isn't that the world must always exist as we observe, it's the existence of other things (including things we perceive) is not our own, so we cannot treat our own destruction as the end of everything we've experienced.

Since I am not the rock, my death does not mean the rock's death. How does the rock exist after I die? Well, obviously I can't observe it. But the point was never an empirical justification the rock must always be how I perceived it. Only that, given the rock is not me, my death doesn't mean its death. In the world, the rock I perceived may still exist, and it may still have the form I saw. The truth that such a rock exists does not depend on my experience.

The mistake is thinking we need to know the whole system to know what's happening. It's flawed to think of a cause as a origin point which made everything.

Is any cause an origin which destined everything? If we stop to think about this, it's pretty obviously absurd. Consider God at the beginning of the universe. God lets off the Big Bang. Is this enough to define all future events of the world? Can everything state of our world be described by those initial states of the universe triggered by God?

No, they can't. To define everything that happens, many more states are required, many more causes (which are not God's act of creation) need to occur. Before the present, many causes need to act, to form the present world.

If I'm to make the post, millions upon million of people have made specific choices, restricted others in certain ways, to cause this state. Change many of them, I wouldn't be here at all. Causality is not singular. Our world is a sum of countless causes, which are constantly emerging and triggering new states (some of which we don't expect).

So what is a cause? If it's not the origin of everything, what is it? Clearly, causes are about forming one state rather than another. We point out casualty to identify responsibility for the existence of one state rather than another. How much to we need to know to be aware of a cause? What does it take, for example, hitting someone face will cause them pain?

Hardly anything. No-one needs to understand the origin of the universe to know hitting someone causes pain. It only takes awareness of the cause (hitting someone in the face with your first) and the resulting effect (the victim feels pain). All that's required is definition of an individual state (cause) which results in another (effect). "The whole" doesn't matter. It's is irrelevant. In any case, it's individual states that do the work of causality, not "the whole."

In causality, there is no aggregation of how it is all formed. There are only individual causes and effect, each responsible for themselves. Causality is "deterministic," as is required for states to set other in motion.

But, contrary to the classical understanding, causality is also indeterministic. Since any casual relationship is a matter of an individual causal state and an individual effect state, there is no "whole" or rule that sets out what must be caused. At any time, the causality may zig rather than zag (as we expected), for each emerging causal relationship has no dependence on what happened in the past.

No. Such an account is absurd because any knowledge or observation is an experience.

If anyone is to understand anything, including what bees or other human see, it is done through their veiwpoint.

The objective is not grasped in transcending veiwpoint, but rather in being viewpoint. All truths (i.e. objective) are known in the subjective.

Determining an objective without how we see or understand is exactly what we must not do. If we are to understand what another sees, we need our own experience. We need what we see to contextualise the experience of the other (e.g. I see I red flower. When the bees looks at it, they see... ). Our experience of what the other sees or understands (e.g. Wayfarer sees a red flower like me) is also required.

Objectivity is found within subjectivity, not in escaping supposed binds of experience.