For Spinoza possibility is necessary. It never ends or ceases. At any time all possibilities are possible, even when there is a necessary truth. Unlike a lot accounts of possibility, a possibility doesn’t cease when an event is determined. When the die rolls six, is it still possible any other number might have been rolled. Even though I choose to make this post, it is still possible that I could have chosen not to. And so and so on.

In Spinoza’s philosophy, the actual world (causality, determinism) is not opposed to possible worlds(possibilities, truths of what might occur). The one “inevitable” outcome (i.e. the future that will exist) is true alongside the possibility of every outcome. Possibility is always true for Spinoza. At any point, the world may be just about anything. Even though the sun rose this morning, and this is a necessary truth (the “inevitable,” the one future that occurs), every possibility where the sun doesn’t rise (e.g. it “pops” out of existence, the Earth’s orbit or rotation stops, etc.,etc.) is also true-- the didn't occur, but it's still true they are possible. "Potential" never ceases for Spinoza. With every state that occurs, event that is caused to thing that exists, there is the potential to be otherwise.

Realising the necessity of potential, Spinoza also points out potential cannot be "firstness." Why? Well, because it never begins nor ends. There is no time where a cut between a "firstness" of potential and the "secondary" or "tertiary" of actuality can be made. Potential is just as true for any time. It cannot be that which ends to form actual and discrete states of the world. The world of today must have just as much potential as any quantum foam of the distant past.

Spinoza understood the need for pure potential more than anyone else. He realised it must be beyond "firstness" (or "secondary" or "tertiary" ), finally realising potential's poisonous grip on metaphysics, where it thought to be something a force (i.e. a final cause) must "add" to the world for anything to make sense.

Only if you don't have anything you care about. For many, the mind craving something to care about amounts to the destruction existential emptiness. More specifically, it quite literally the only reason to do anything. If one wasn't driven to care, it they were caused to not care, they would not act as they do. "Reasonless" they would be, for the mere fact of their existence would mean an absence of motivation or any worthwhile outcome in their mind.

It's not about obstacles either or the "ideal society." Frequently, obstacles are what the mind cares about. People love them, so they can care about overcoming them. A lot of the time people even care about them more than what's given to them without conflict.

God has infinite attributes. To only be one would be a contradiction with God's very nature. It would be like saying: "God only has thought" or "God only has a bookcase." God's nature is always to be more than one, to never have "only a" and have everything all at once. In this respect, God is discrete. Not a "One" of a distinct and separate state, but a defined whole of many without end or beginning.

Being of infinite attributes, God cannot be accounted for by giving the singular. One gets caught neither here nor there if they try. Does God end at the computer? At the book case? In thought? In the death of the sun? No. God is infinite. God cannot be said to begin or end at any point. It's anything but vague.

The vague account comes out of trying to treat God as a singular "One." It takes the obvious truth that God has many singular attributes and try to account for God through them. In the presence of a single attribute, mode or semiotic expression, someone claims to have discovered God, after all it belongs to God. Only they can't say what God is because the singular attribute, mode or semiotic expression is clearly not enough to be God, so they claim God must be vagueness that belongs to or underpins the singular attribute, mode or semiotic expression.

In truth, they have not discovered God at all. They have confused what belongs to God (singular attribute, mode, a semiotic expression) for God itself, taken the singular that points towards God and suggested it amounts to comprehending God. God gets morphed into this "fabric of vagueness" which is prior in causality rather than realised as the discrete infinite that's true regardless of time.

It's 2.

Apo's philosophy is ignorance of self-definition. What he can't understand is logical definion in terms of itself-. For him, everything must be logically defined in terms of something else, so it's not enough for to be 2.

Yeah... I was juxtaposing constant change over a period of time against the the constant formation I'm talking about. The point being that constant change over time is what I am not talking about, as I'm referring to formation without beginning nor end.

The constant formation I'm about talking involves no period of time. It cannot be change over a period of time.

( if constant is taken to mean 'unceasing over some period of time) — John

Constant formation doesn't mean unceasing over some period of time. It means without beginning or end. There is no "period" of time because the infinite never begins nor ends. You not correcting what's been said. You're blatantly ignoring the definition I am using.

(If you mean by this that they are known only as phenomena, well yes, of course; but that would be to assert the phenomenal/noumenal distinction, a distinction which you explicitly deny. — John

I don't mean that. Nothing is known in the mode itself. Knowledge is a different state to what is known. Experiences of knowledge are always different self-defined states to any modes which are known. For the phenomenal (i.e. modes), knowledge by the mode itself impossible because any knowledge of a mode is obtained through a different mode. In the case of the noumenal (i.e. logic), knowing in the mode itself is impossible because it is not mode at all.

That's wrong. The constant formation of new modes is not known in the modes themselves. Knowing some particular mode doesn't tell you about the infinite of modes. If I notice the computer in front of me, I don't realise the constant of becoming. All I have is awareness of the computer. In that experience, I do not know there are never ending modes. Even modes aren't known in themselves. When someone knows a mode, they do so in thought (i.e. meaning and logic) as expressed by a different mode (i.e. an existing experience).

The constant of becoming is known to exceed all modes, for it is no matter the mode and modes are infinite. It's not a constant change over a finite period at all.

Indeed, a constant change over a period of time is activity of mode-- it specifies particular modes, and where they begin and end. The constant of becoming is never such a change. It is not a generalisation or extrapolation of the finite all, but being all on its own. Rather than abstraction, there is a grasping of the infinite itself.

No. That's not what I'm saying.

Substance doesn't get modified. Activity doesn't get modified. It's always the same. It never changes. The infinite set is always activity: the endless formation of new modes.

We can experience it too-- we may understand the infinite of becoming, that the infinite set never ends and the only constant is the formation of new modes. (it's just this is activity (of Substance) known, rather than us, a mode, being activity of Substance itself).

Your objections aren't addressing being argued. By definition activity of Substance (the infinite set) is other to activity of modes (the members of the infinite set) and it can be experienced.

The difference between saying one is infinite and one is finite is metaphysical. When I point out one mode is not infinite modes, I'm not only saying there are the finite and infinite, but also that it's impossible for the finite (a mode) to be infinite (the infinite set of modes).

In metaphysics this is a critical (and frequently heretical move)-- it means the transcendent is shown to be incoherent. The transcendent functions by the infinite also being finite. It is the infinite realm which nevertheless acts upon the finite, to make a difference in the finite world. Unity (the infinite set) is supposed to be this definite state, an activity of mode, which makes finite states happen one way. The infinite set is posed a member of itself.

In distinguishing activity of Substance, this is denied. Since activity of Substance cannot ever be activity of mode, the transcendent cannot function. If something is engaged in activity of mode (e.g. causing a state), it cannot be activity of Substance. There can be no infinite that defines the presence of a particular mode. "Infinite" and "finite" are fully specified. We aren't just saying "infinite and "finite." We understand them as their own positive concepts with logical significance.

You're not paying attention to the terms being used. We aren't using "activity" to describe someone acting in the world.

You do this a lot. When you have a disagreement with someone on metaphysics, you ignore what they are saying and throw in some other definition which confirms your own position. Could you be honest for once and actually address the concepts being argued?

The definition of "activity" used here refers to becoming. Since the infinite set never ends, there are always more and more members, an endless stream of modes (not a mode, but the changing of modes that never ceases), such that the only constant of the infinite set is this becoming-- "activity" which can't be specified in terms of any particular mode.

No. I'm making a logical point.

The infinite set has members (... a,b,c,d...). Take any particular member, let's say "a", which is the mode of John's experience reading this post.

Is this mode the infinite set? No. Your experience reading this post is certainly not the set of infinite modes. It's but one mode. Clearly, one mode is not infinite modes.

Now what about the infinite set? Is it the mode of your experience reading this post? Again, the answer is no. Your experience is only one mode. The infinite set cannot be this single definite mode alone.

Either of these approaches would reduce the infinite set to a finite member, so they are therefore impossible: an infinite set cannot be any of its members and any member cannot be the infinite set.

Um, modes.

Things are self-defined in Spinoza's philosophy. It doesn't use the correlationist account where everything must be logically defined by something else.

And yes, Substance has modes. That doesn't mean the modes are Substance or that Substance is the modes. It's like the infinite set. It has members, but none of the members are the infinite set and vice versa.

...God is an activity.I haven't said that God is the modes:[/quote}
— John

I have asked what He is over and above the activity ( the only activity we know) that is the modes. — John

...you say the opposite, that God (activity) is the modes, in the next clause.

God is activity and NOT the modes. God, the activity, is over and above modes. Activity is not modes.


The point is the infinite is knowable. Being self-defined, the infinite means, unsurprisingly, the infinite. To say the infinite is immanent is the finite is described-- it means, within the finite, the infinite is expressed: modes express unity, each moment expresses the infinite, within the finite world, logic has significance (e.g. states of the world have form, express meaning, are something in thought).

That God has infinite modes does not mean God is the modes. This is the point you are missing. God is not the modes (including experiences like ours). It's the infinite itself, Real and not any finite state (mode)-- or to borrow from conversation in another thread, the truth of the infinite set that is none of its members.

I was convinced long ago that the Ontological Argument has no teeth, so I don't find anything more in his philosophy than a very creative exercise in logical deduction from a set of definitions. — John

Indeed, for the very reason it fails to make Spinoza's separation between the necessary and contingent.

The problem with the Ontological Argument is it tries to justify the presence of contingent state (in one realm or another) through the logic. Obviously this doesn't work, as it is only true if it's contingent premises are true (e.g. God is good, God is a mode) and they are properly defined (e.g. what constitutes the mode of God, what amounts to greatness, to ethical action, etc.).

When you claimed God created unification-- that specifies God changes, turns from someone who has not created something to someone who has. God becomes states that are born and die. Rather than everything at once, at any time, God is limited to a mere viewpoint.

At one point, the God who is only not the creation of unification, at another poiny, the God who only has created unification.

...the point was your account violates that. Where God has a beginning, a "how," is a causal actor (causing unification), God becomes a limited finite state, a mere viewpoint. At one point, God is only that which has not unified, at another God is only that which has unified-- a contradiction with a God that is everything all at once.

The point is God is everywhere. Since the "whole" is necessary, the expression of all knowledge, all experience, all things, etc., God cannot have a beginning not end. God cannot be particular. God must be all at once, no matter the time. For God to be a viewpoint, to be a distinct moment such that we can say "God is X view but not Y view, " removes the infinite-- God becomes limited rather than limitless.

For sure, and it's that point of tautology which most metaphysics doesn't understand. In the traditions of metaphysics, the necessity of self-defintion is usually treated as either incoherent or incomplete. Say, for example, that mind and body are independently defined and parallel, and you are accused of not explaining "how" either can possibly be. Idealism, reductionism and correlationism all deny the tautology of self-defintion. Logic significance on its own, without something else, without us, without a presence of God in terms of existence, is considered nonsensical. At every turn, the challenge: "But how God ?" is issued. God in-itself is rejected. In a sense, the correlationist metaphysical tradition is the hardest form of atheism there has ever been. For them, God must always be given in something else, in us, in some finite state, rather than just being its own thing. For the correlationist metaphysician, we actually have to bring God into being, to bring the presence of God by imagining it, else that infinite isn't there or is incoherent.

The point here is tautology is significant. It is not, as the correlationist metaphysicians would have us think, meaningless. It's it own positive significance. In understanding the tautology, we intuit or imagine the necessary meaning. I know, for example, that I am Willow and you are John, without becoming confused by metaphysic impossibilities, such that I am really John too (e.g. solipsism), that I'm not really Willow (e.g. evil trickster demons) or that there are really no such people as Willow or John (e.g. nihilism, the "hard problem" ).

If there were no experiencers; which there were arguably not prior to the advent of any animal or human life; would God nonetheless have infinite experience? You say the question makes no sense, that it is logically possible that an entity without extension could have experience any more than it is logically possible that it could have existence. I say we just cannot conceive what that existence and experience could be is all, since we are finite creatures and our logic is necessarily a logic of finitude. — John

In the sense God experiences (i.e. the infinite), for sure. God is not limited to knowing one or a few things in one distinct experience at time. God is infinite, all at once, without any pause or distinction. It, by definition, cannot be a distinction of existing experience.

You aren't wrong that one cannot conceive infinite experience as anything in particular. That's the point. To be infinite is to defy being anything in particular. We cannot conceive what this experience or existence would specifically because the nature of the infinite is to be beyond such limits. There is literally no infinite to know in those terms. Your objection there is a "mystery," that somehow a hidden limit or distinct within the infinite, is incoherent. The infinite doesn't do such limits.

Aside from the metaphysical point itself, to understand self-defintion and avoid the metaphysical errors thinking otherwise produces, there is no reason. As always, one is only ever seeking an outcome itself. if metaphysical coherency or Substance doesn't matter, then there is no point in thinking about it. We don't gain anything but itself, just as it is for any goal. There's no point buying a car unless the point is to get a car. Writing a post is pointless unless you that itself is the goal. And so on and so on.

In terms of coherent metaphysics, this is why the Aristotelian way of thinking substance as multiple is a terrible. It has us thinking that, logically, actions are about achieving something other than themselves, about accessing something beyond what we end up knowing or doing.

So the infinite is personal then? I doubt Spinoza will agree with this. Does God have infinite experience of His own, just as we have finite experience? — John

Yes. The infinite is knowable. Anyone might understand Substance, might realise how thing as defined in-themselves. The question here is not whether God has infinite experience (in the sense you are asking that doesn't make sense, as God is not an entity of extension), but rather whether we, in our finite experiences, have experience of the infinite. That's what makes it personal to us.

We experience or comprehend the infinite. Our personal relationship is knowing the infinite, our finite intuiting of the infinite, of the necessary truth.

This is absolute nonsense, Willow; any finite entity is defined in terms of its attributes and relations to other entities. These definitions are formulated in terms of general categories involving similarities and differences. — John

That's what many of the metaphysical traditions say: your self is given by this other thing, by this idea, by this rule. Spinoza's point this gets it backwards. General categories come out of the self rather than creating the self.

The general of "tree," for example, is formed out of many individual selves, many objects expressing a similar meaning, rather than being a rule which forms existing trees. General categories are formed by the similarities and differences expressed by individual selves.

I know that. It's that very point which is gravely mistaken.

It's just the opposite. There is no finite state which is defined in terms of another. Self-defintion is infinite. It can never not be expressed. Not in a computer, a car, a person, a film, a instance of happiness or a falling rock. Substance cannot be undone, stopped or limited at any point. Whatever the world does, Substance maintains, is expressed by the world, with any finite states that are present. All finite states express an infinite personality.

Each finite state, no matter how it is caused , no matter how it is symbolic or parasitic with others, is it's own. No finite state has the power to terminate or end Substance, such that it would on longer be true it was its own. At no point can we take one finite state and say it is defined by another.

So, it is really the modes that mean something to you; substance can be left out of the picture altogether if it can be nothing for you in itself, independently of its modes. — John

No-one said otherwise. We've never claimed to be Substance. If Substance matters to us, it is a state of our experience, it is a mode we care about. We can, indeed, leave it out of the picture. Anyone can get on with their life without understanding Substance, just as one can get one without understanding just about anything.

But this is no longer talking about Substance itself. Now we are talking bout us, how Substance matters or does not matter to us, the truth of what we think and feel at a given moment, rather than the truth of self-defintion.

But I have read the Ethics, and Spinoza cannot explain how substance produces its attributes and modes. — John

The point is there is no "how." Nothing creates God. Self-defintion. There is no "how" to understand. It would mean claiming God was defined by something other than itself.

Alas, I cannot pus an image in front of you that can do the work of your intuition or imagination.

What else would self-defintion be? Defining someone else? Not defining anything? Any answer other than: "it defines itself" produces a contradiction with self-defintion.

That's what you are getting wrong: we do know what it means for something to define itself. Rather than "meaningless" because it doesn't specify a phenomena, it is significant metaphysical point. In it we know, for example, that it doesn't take something else to define the possible existence of anything. We know any state is defined on its own terms, rather than being dependent on some other state or being for its logical definition and potential to exist.

For Spinoza, thought is not existing experiences. It's logical meaning. Without experiencing entities, it is still around. Thought can be around without the extension of "minds." It's a necessary activity. Like extension, it cannot be annihilated. Take away one state of existence, it defines the presence of another. Stop using one logical truth, another is defined. One cannot find the world without thought. Neither are primary.

This is why the fact that existing experiences are extension is so important. If we misread them as thought, if we think logic cannot be without experience, we reduce the infinite of meaning and logic to our finite states of experience-- we are a reductionist who says there is no meaning beyond how we exist.

That's wrong. We do know what the activity is: self-definition. The activity is comprehended. Metaphysics for us (or anyone else for that matter). Your objection is based on the idea only presences in existence are anything to us. Spinoza's point is knowledge extends beyond merely the finite states we encounter in our everyday lives. It is both useful and beautiful; one understands meaning extends beyond existing states and the necessary truth.

The question of "domain" of knowledge or logical doesn't make sense. The infinite allows no such distinctions. If there was a split between "human logic" and "God logic," it would become finite. Our supposed infinite would end, would not be true, depending on who was thinking about it.

In one corner we would have human logic. Somewhere else, inaccessible to humans, we would have God logic. Rather than being the infinite without distinction, we would have a distinction, a starting and stopping place for both human logic and God logic.

The whole conflict of "logic constraining the world" is born from approaching logic and knowledge in empirical terms, where a logic rule acts (usually, unimaginative empirical accounts of future states, as specified by a popular tradition of the time) as a constraint on what can happen in the world, such that it is drawn into conflict with "intuition" or "feeling."

Spinoza's point is to eschew this approach. The distinction between intuition and thinking isn't present. Anything "rational" is, by definition, intuited-- understood be the expression of thought (e.g. the meaning of a falling rock) in our extension (our existing experience of a falling rock). Any knowledge or observation we make is formed by out intuition or "feelings."

The question you are asking doesn't make sense. Logic is not a constraint. When we use it, we are practicing our imagination and freedom, holding and understanding that which is not a state of existence. We literally imagine logical truths. They are not present objects in front of us. In this respect, there is only logic, which is why it cannot be broken. No matter what we imagine, it's always going to be itself. A truth not defined by a constraining force (e.g. "logic says you cannot to that" ) from the outside, but from the thing-itself. No matter what is true, whether it be a miracle working god in the sky, a cold universe or distant realms we cannot access, each is always itself.

If the Real is only logical does the logical then have any existence other than as thought? If you want to say it does then what kind of existence could that be.

And don't say again that I am asking for an empirical explanation of its existence; I am asking for an explanation of what kind of existence you think it has other than the merely logical, where the logical is considered to itself have no existence beyond thought. To repeat it for emphasis: if you want to say the logical does have an existence beyond thought, then you should be able to explain just what that existence consists in, or else admit that you believe in something unknowable.

Trying to get an honest straight answer from you on this is "like trying to get blood out of a stone". — John

That's just missing the point. To even ask whether the logical has existence doesn't make sense. It doesn't. Logic is true regardless of existence. You're doing worse than asking for empirical explanation of existence. Your approach are taking is trying to account for logic by claiming it exists. The objection just misses the entire context of my argument.

I say logic does not exist at all, but it is true (and knowable).

IThe question I have been asking is if it should be thought of as being real in any sense beyond our thoughts. — John

Our thoughts (like any other mode of our world) are not Real (they are finite states). The Real can only be beyond (the existence) of our thoughts. It is no state of the world, including us.

But the fact that we can think about God or substance that way is of utterly no import if it is considered to have no ontological relevance. God or substance can be consistently thought about in many other ways, too, as the history of philosophy amply shows. If none of the ways we think about God or substance can be shown to be inherently superior to any of the others, because their differences are due merely to different starting presumptions, definitions and premises, then the whole argument becomes a big "So what?". — John

Metaphysical relevance. Any other conception of God is shown to be a contradiction with an infinite nature. If we want to avoid logical incoherence (and so believing falsehood) in our metaphysics, God can only be Substance. Any other conception reduces God to a mere finite entity, be in our world or the transcendent realm.

More or less the opposite. The infinite is Real, rather than the world.

It's sort of an inversion of how we usually think about things. Usually, we think of the Real as "the world as it is," the empirical, what's happening around us, the (in Spinozian terms) the modes (particularly that affect us). Spinoza turns on its head in the context of metaphysics.

How can these finite modes, that which change and die, amount to the Real? They are only here for a moment before they pass out of existence, contingent states, never to be again. None of these modes could amount to Being, to the infinite, to that which is necessarily so. To say these were Real would be like claiming a man was God, to claim that God was born and would die.

For God to be infinite, it's the finite which must be a illusion. Modes must be a falsehood. They must masquerade as Being, only to die as the necessity of change moves-- think how any state we encounter appears present, but then is gone in a flash. The Real cannot be a measure of the world. It can only be a measure of what is other to the world, what is true regardless of modes.

The Real can only be logical (i.e. not a mode, and I suspect, in you terms "abstract"), else the infinite of Being is reduced to the finite.

Spinoza's point is that God is outside the world. God cannot be part of the world nor inhere in the world without being, on God's own terms, finite. (i.e. "God is here, not there" and "There and not here" ). In both pantheism and panenetheism, God is "something" which changes, which is a distinction of existence.

Under pantheism, we point out a distinction of the world claim it's God. With panentheism we point out points of the world and "Ah yes, God inheres THERE." In either case, we are pronouncing were God begins and ends, inconsistent with God as infinite.

Panentheism does not fit with Spinoza because it makes God into a distinction of the world. Instead of being an infinite, God becomes split and discrete across all states of existence. We look at separate objects and say "God inheres THERE," as if God were at that point in the empirical world. Spinoza's point is God is nowhere in the finite world.

In both pantheism and panentheism, God is something in the world. Not an empirical state per se, but logically of existing states, such that they say empirical states amount to God or that God specifically manifests in states if the world. If the question of "What's is God?" is asked, both give worldly answers. The pantheist says: "All the world," the panentheist says: "That which inheres in every individual state."

Spinoza rejects both these accounts. God is only God to Spinoza, Substance, the infinite of becoming. In worldly terms, Substance is nothing at all. The "What is it in existence?" question makes no sense.

If you think this is Spinoza's understanding of God or substance, as I do, then you disagree with Agustino, who seems to think that substance is not static, but becoming. — John

I don't. Remember, Agustino said becoming was changeless.

What exactly is the "truth of Substance" and what exactly does it rely upon, in your opinion? You haven't yet made either of these clear. — John

I've told you this many times now, in one form or another. Substance is the infinite, the changeless, the self-definition, the becoming (or Being). It doesn't rely on anything. Such a notion is absurd. It would be say that God relied on something else to be, as if God were a finite state of causality.

Your objection to the analogy relies on misreading it. Agustino isn't claiming that existing dreams are real and that modes (which includes existing dreams) are an illusion. He's point out there are many truths (the dream's presence, its self-definition, its meaning, etc.), even though the dream illusion.

So with respect to Substance and modes, there is a truth (Substance) even though the modes are an illusion. The point is Substance doesn't rely on existing as something (i.e. it is a mode) to be true.

In the sense you are asking, none. Substance is not a state of the world or presence of a transcedent realm. Rather it is a necessary expression of existing states rather than one itself.

This is what pantheist and panenathiest readings of Spinoza get wrong. Both argue God is in the world (in addition to anything else). Spinoza point is this contention is wrong. We might say "God is in" or "God is the Soul of the world, " but this does not entail God is something in existence, as the pantheist and panenathiest argue.

God is beyond any finite state, an infinite-- defined as the changeless which is not any existing state.The Real (infinite) as opposed to the illusion (finite). To ask what existing state it is doesn't make sense.

That's the common misreading of Spinoza as a pantheist, where God is misread as the world. It's drawn from taking Spinoza's talk of necessay self-definition of existing states (e.g. the necessary logic expression of a rock , a tree, myself or you) as emprical comment, as you are doing in you latest objection.

Spinoza is actually talking about how the logical significance of existence is necessary and determined within causality. Contingent states cause something particular to occur (e.g. I push a rock off the cliff, which crushes a toy house), so while they are never necessary, they always have a necessary consequence in terms of logic. If there is a rock I push of a cliff, that logical significance is necessary. That meaning cannot be absent from the expression of the world.

This is actually how FREE WILL works. We and our decisions are contingent states. Any decision we do take, however, has a necessary expression, that is no other action or significance. If I choose to make this post, it is necessarily the choice to make this post. It cannot be any other choice or subject be to doubt (i.e. "How do you know if you really chose to make this post? Maybe and evil demon is tricking you? Spinoza's awareness of self-definition is basically the proper refutution of Descartes' doubt. Descartes only got part of the way there; he only grasped the self-definition of the concious entity).

There is no difference between those forms of necessity. Independennce of everything places something outside existing states.

God cannot be "personal" for this reason. If God were a distinct state of the world, God would depend on others, would have things which are not God build God's world.

The second sense which you are using "necessary" here, as a reflection of the necessary presence of the distinct state of God (whether in our world or a different realm), is incohrent. Spinoza removes the whole question of God as a distinct state, recognising it as a logic error-- taking with it speculation and doubt within metaphysics.

In this respect, Spinoza TAKES OUT the equivocation of the necessary (God, infinite) with the contingent (distinct state which may or may not be), which has charactertised most metaphysics. Since God is necessary, God is beyond doubt. The move which treats God as a presence that may or may not be (i.e. contingent) is shown to be partaking in the impossible.

I don't think so. More like when pleasure is detached from anything else, where the goal is pleasure, as opposed to doing something which is pleasurable.

The former is an image which is never lived, a neverending promise ("Just get some more pleasure, then you'll have a worthwhile life" ) which never gets fulfilled, even though it's sought. It can only lead to disappointment because it never gets achived.

When discussing ethics, people often make the mistake of using this abstract notion of pleasure to define motivation and worth. It's forgotten that pleasure must be achieved by a means of living, and the nature of this means is critical. Much of the time doing something which achieves pleasure is exactly what a person does not want to do.

I wouldn't want to have sex while I was writing this post. It would just be distracting and hinder me from doing what was important. Most of our lives are defined by avoiding various actions which would bring pleasure because we have more important things to do.

Yes. It was some time ago though.

But I'm contextualising Kant with respect to others and wider metaphysical issues here, not arguing as Kant does. This is partly what I meant about your lack of imagination in our discussion the other week. When people take issue with something Kant says, for example, you act like they aren't even positing a different idea, position or significance.

It's like one has to argue as Kant does or else one isn't even making a relevant philosophical point. You act like Kant's metaphysics are the ground which required to make metaphysical comment possible (which I suppose is fitting).

Not the idea of causality per se, but the definition of our world. Kant treats the necessity of our world as if it were finite, as if its states depend on causality pre-dating them.

Rather than recognising our necessity, that we and they world are intelligible, Kant assumes we are not. For us to possibility exist, we (supposedly) need aprioi causality to pre-date us. He denies the world is necessary. When faced with it, Kant claims it makes no sense, that we are impossible unless aprioi causality predates us. Kant is trying to save the relevance of the infinite to defining the world.

Hume showed that the necessity of causality played no role in defining which states are caused (i.e. anything might happen at anytime). Causility, as envisioned by the Rationalists, is different to the emprical states which appear. The intelligiblity of any individual state is NOT dependent on the infinite of causality.

Kant is trying to rescue the link between infinite causality and intelligibility of individual states. He does so by denying any empirical state is possible without being specifed by the infinite of causality.

Previously, the Rationalist link between the infinite and empirical was logical. It was just thought an individual emprical state didn't makes sense without definition from infinite causality. Hume destroys this idea by pointing out each empirical state is its own logical entity.

Kant responds to this by ransoming the emprical world. He says we simply must have an infinite of causality which defines indivdual states, else those states simply couldn't be. Since the world, with all its individual states, is clearly here, the infinite of causality simply must be doing its work. It's the "the world would be impossible without God" circular argument.

Hume doesn't think of causality, in the "aprioi"sense, is emprical. What he does is make the distinction between the states that cause (emprical) and the logic of causality (necessary). His point is the former is not dependent on the latter. States of the world are intelligible themselves, rather than being an inevitable outcome of a logical expression.What he destroys is the idea the necessity of causality determines the intelligibility of states that are caused.

Indeed, it is necessary. In that case, we are talking about us and the world in which we live.

No pre-dated causality required, nothing is needed to enable the possibility of the world. It's necessary. Clearly, it cannot be impossible.

Kant is just trying to account for things that are already accounted for in themselves.

A Rationalist claim limited to intelligibly is actually right.

To say causality is a precondition treats it like an empirical state. Supposedly, before the world came to exist, this distinction of causality was present, which is what makes the world possible. Kant effectively claims causality predates the world. He is applying finite terms to the infinite of causality. Ironically, Kant is actually taking understanding away from causality as necessary and a priori.

Causality is not a precondition. It doesn't predate the world. Rather it is necessary to any part of the world. Pick any moment of the world and it's part of causality. Without the world, no states which are cause and effect, causality is incohrent. Causality necessary for the world to be intelligible, but it is not a precondition of the world. It's an expression of the world.

One cannot find the world without causality, but it's also true one cannot find causality without the world.

The apparent equivocatiion occurs because, at some level, the maths say something about physics we observe. I mean potential energy equations aren't a state of the world either. But can we say an engineer measurements really have nothing to do with the world because it's only a mathematical model? Are we only pretending the house won't fall down when we follow the engineers plans?

I don't think so. Mathematical models do have a significant beyond a play of numbers in our head
That's why the maths of physics aren't just counting. A limitation on what we can model in physics specifies a limitation of the world-- the world cannot express a model outside of it.

In the case of HUP, that we cannot use just a model in our head to tell what happens. We always need track the world too. Our ontology is such that it cannot be just a model, in any instance.

I would venture to say no-one. In this sense, it's one's own act, the habits one is compelled to do, where one drifts with their free time. Am I motivated and habitual in my painting? Or is it something I never quite get around to because I'm too busy rehashing Spinoza with John every second day?

It's not a police officer (though others might use a concept of "self-esteem" in that way, in an attempt to get you to behave in a way they prefer). If one is fighting with themsleves in this context, I would say self-esteem is absent. In the sense I'm taking about, it's about what you do every day.

Many people are distracted or imagine they are something they are not. I don't really think it a question of an inferiority complex in most cases, just they have interests which lie elsewhere. I don't think there's anything wrong with this per se, but if one is going to master a particular skill or hold a specific position, the dedication of self is important. I won't be a great painter if I just deadicate myself to posting on The Philosophy Forum.

Knowing and doing what you want sort of changes the game. With this sort of "self-esteem," the procrastination of "should I get around to it" or "maybe l'll get this done tomorrow" is tossed away.