What document is your quote referencing? — Mongrel

The book I recommended you.

Is it though? Or is it a logical sequence of steps to find the origin or absolute beginning? Logically everything must start from one point. Unless you believe in closed loop paradoxes. Where the begging of syestem is started by the ending of the same system which makes it circular. — ThinkingMatt

How are you going to recognise that the origin is the origin if you'll keep asking what's the purpose what's the purpose to everything that is said to you? What's your criteria for recognising that origin?

that's your job - by being able to disprove my logic with your own ahahah — ThinkingMatt

Logic can neither be proved nor disproved. It suffices that I point to the fact that you have no reason for questioning a final purpose based on asking what its own purpose is, for there cannot be an infinite regress of purposes in the first place. So your expectations that there will be a purpose to a final purpose is silly.

Fair statement - it essentially substitutes the contention that the purpose of life is continuing the cycle of life (reproduction). Though still leaves us questioning the purpose of why we need the continuation of life (reproduction) to happen. Or in your context, what the purpose of continuing motion is. — ThinkingMatt

Okay here's what will happen. Regardless of what purpose we tell you that life has (call it X), you'll ask "Why do we need to do X? What are we doing it for?". If it's the purpose of life, then there is no further purpose to account for it - that's precisely what makes it the purpose of life.

So you're playing a silly game with us, that we cannot win. So stop it! QUIT IT!! >:O Quit trolling us!

... I can keep going Agustino — ThinkingMatt

No, I'd rather prefer if you put an end to the BS actually... ;)

Play - is a mechanism (1) to learn (2) to reinforce and build social relationships - both are advantageous in terms of creating properous survival/ life. — ThinkingMatt

I most often play by myself. And I certainly don't "learn to reproduce" by playing the piano for example. Nor does it make me prosperous. Really, if being propserous was my goal, I should never touch the piano again, since it's wasting my time and keeping me away from activities that earn money. But to the contrary - I want to be propserous so that I can play the piano in freedom, without being disturbed by the need to work. Most of us separate our passions from our work.

Prayer - purpose of praying (1) to ensure a good relationship with god out of a fear that death will be painful. — ThinkingMatt

Absolutely not true.

Having a good relationship with god is based on the premis that he has control over whether you live or die. — ThinkingMatt

He has control anyway, whether I pray or not.

Having a good relationship with god hypothetically insinuates he will choose to either keep you alive (survival) or bring no pain with your death which is what we fear (perhaps ideas with endless pain in hell as well). — ThinkingMatt

Wrong. Job was a righteous man, highly virtuous, and God still allowed him to lose everything and suffer greatly. He was not spared, but quite the contrary.

The eternal dance of atoms in the void - remember when Democritus laughed?

Life is just a particular configuration of matter, so all there is matter and its motion. The "purpose" of life is not to sustain itself, it's to sustain motion the motion of matter. — Πετροκότσυφας

>:O >:O

When you focus right down to it, every single behavior and action conducted by not only humans but all living things can be sourced right down to a mechanism just to sustain the continuation of life. — ThinkingMatt

This is demonstrably false. There are probably an infinite number of human actions that are not conducive to living. Just stop and think about it for a moment. Human beings are a rather risky species of animal. — Thorongil

I agree with Thorongil.

What's an example? — ThinkingMatt

Play. Prayer. Art. Music. Beauty. God. Nobility.

Man The Player is, as Thorongil says, a rather risky species of animal, who quite often gambles with his future. In addition, man is also a "useless" animal if looked at strictly from the materialistic perspective. We're certainly not very efficient at reproducing.

I mean we're capable to reproduce from when we're ~14, but most of us don't have children until mid 20s or sometimes in our 30s-40s. That certainly means we're quite busy doing other things during this time. We're by all means not focused on spreading our genes - if we were, we would have organised society differently, with marriages as early as 14. I think early marriages would be better - but for many of us, society forces us to live unmarried till well into our 30s.

Severe trauma ~might~ have longer lasting effects on us than say, marriage or procreation, but that doesn't mean "the negative of pain is greater than the positive of pleasure". — VagabondSpectre

But yes, I'm talking about the negative of pain being greater than the positive of pleasure.

@Maw if you're around, can you give your input on this? I may be mistaken, but I remember you had researched and studied this phenomenon quite a bit!

Severe trauma ~might~ have longer lasting effects on us than say, marriage or procreation, but that doesn't mean "the negative of pain is greater than the positive of pleasure". — VagabondSpectre

But yes, I'm talking about the negative of pain being greater than the positive of pleasure.

@Maw if you're around, can you give your input on this? I may be mistaken, but I remember you had researched and studied this phenomenon quite a bit!

Really people don't get it but Kierkegaard is as Catholic/Orthodox as you can get in terms of a philosopher. Even Thomas Aquinas isn't as Christian as Kierkegaard in the positions he adopts. Thomas Aquinas adopts a lot of Aristotle, but Kierkegaard rejects all philosophers for Scripture.

By the way you should already be aware that merging into God is HERESY in Christian theology. So Christian mysticism is different than other forms of mysticism. Even Eckhart's mysticism is different.

Theosis - which is union with the Trinity - and is the goal of life according to Orthodox Christianity does not mean the annihilation of the self into God, but rather the self being deified and joining the Three Persons of the Trinity in communion, but still remaining separate.

Kierkegaard's emphasis upon God's transcendence could also play an important role in tempering the intimacy of the mystic's relation with God... It is only be an act of grace on God's part and not by the mystic's striving for experience of or union with the Divine that he comes into God's presence. It is in making clear these truths that the value of Kierkegaard's anti-mysticism lies.

Reference? — Mongrel

Read Sickness unto Death, or Either/Or. Also you can check out this book:

Struggling with God: Kierkegaard and the Temptation of Spiritual Trial

Anyone who spends much time contemplating union with the divine is a mystic. I'm not sure how anyone could interpret that as anti-mystical. — Mongrel

Kierkegaard thought union with the divine is impossible, in that the human self always remains separate from God, and cannot merge into God... :s

Yep. He was a mystic. My goodness... two posts attacking me. :D — Mongrel

How was he a mystic if he rejected the God of the philosophers and rather accepted the personal God who directly and literarily spoke with Abraham? :s You're the first person I hear who claims K. to be a mystic, quite a lot of the secondary literature on him that I've read finds him to be anti-mystical if anything.

Nietzsche is targeting nihilism. His philosophy is about the separation between morality and meaning. He demands honesty about values and meaning. Rather than being dedicated to identifying what people ought to do, his philosophy is about undoing the pretence it’s morality or justice which deifies meaning.

Holding Nietzsche is taking a position that “all is good” is somewhat close, but also quite mistaken. His position would be better described as all has meaning. No matter how moral or immoral the world might be, meaning obtains. The meaning or “worth” of the world cannot be ransomed to appearing in the ways we demand or only those ways “which make sense” to us.

The nihilistic fool says: “I cannot go on. Life has too much pain to have any meaning. There needs to be a transcendent force which inputs meaning.”

A depressed Ubermensch says: “I will not go on. The meaning of my life is constant pain. I ought not go on. Death (whether it be a figurative death of an action which might have occurred or the literal death of suicide) is my meaning.”

Nietzsche’s point is existence is always a creation or affirmation. Moral or immoral, wonderful or horrific, meaning obtains. To exist is to mean, no matter what happens to you, whether you enjoy it or not, whether you live a month or a hundred years. He’s not discussing how to be moral, but rather describing how meaning is present regardless of moral status (morality, no matter how true, is just a social whim, concerned with possession and origination of finite states. Often important, but never any threat to meaning).

The distinction is is also clear in Agustino misunderstanding of asceticism and Nietzsche. If one is honest about asceticism, that one endures of because the world (i.e. you, the ascetic), then Nietzsche doesn't have a problem. It actually fits pretty with Nietzsche's thought ; the treadmill of seeking feeling pleasure often constitutes nihilism, where getting the next hit is a transcendent solution to meaningless.

It's the falsehood Agustino is telling which is the problem for Nietzsche. The ascetic doesn't succeed by renouncing the world, but rather in affirming it-- "I am the existence which denies petty desires, who does not fall into just seeking my wishes and pleasure. " — TheWillowOfDarkness

Have you actually read Nietzsche while trying to be honest to what he was saying? I can see the point you're trying to make, but it has little to do with what Nietzsche actually wrote:

“To see others suffer does one good, to make others suffer even more: this is a hard saying but an ancient, mighty, human, all-too-human principle [...] Without cruelty there is no festival.”

What about stuff like this? And there's a lot of it in Nietzsche. You agree with it? :s

Interesting point. That is one of Kierkegaard's positions as well. — Mongrel

>:O >:O >:O

We're dealing with a very big ignoramus in this thread. Whoever dares to say that Kierkegaard is an atheist/mystic who thinks Christianity is dead and he isn't trying to build anything on its grave has probably NEVER read Kierkegaard. If anything Kierkegaard was a conservative Christian who thought that the only way to cure the illnesses of modernity is to return to a personal relationship with God, which is for example a subject addressed in Sickness Unto Death.

Furthermore to suggest Kierkegaard doesn't believe in a personal God is ABSOLUTE lunacy!! Kierkegaard, the man who, along with Pascal, rejected the God of the philosophers for the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob! And to suggest that most Christian mystics don't believe in a personal God - oh dear!

God is an underlying creative force... something like that. — Mongrel

>:O >:O >:O >:O Yeah right, cause Christians are New Age believers!

I think inaccurate is too strong; the label might generalize, but it does so based on shared characteristics. — Noble Dust

What I'm trying to say is really that generalizing is impossible or not helpful in such a case.

I'd also add that I'm not a Nietzschean by any stretch. I see some serious limitations in his thinking, including some pretty vulgar celebrations of things like cruelty and violence and slavery. — Erik

Yes agreed. It's starting to become unbelievable to me that some people claim that there are no such things to be found in Nietzsche. I often wonder if they're reading different texts LOL

Of course he'd consider such opinions on the matter to be shaped by Christianity's influence (even on secular culture), with its inherent hostility towards the supposedly hard truths of life as essentially will to power. — Erik

Then I would take Christianity to have had a good influence on us.

I think Heidegger was a vastly superior thinker in many ways, and he's been the primary intellectual influence for me in my journey thus far. But Nietzsche somehow got it going. — Erik

I've never finished Being and Time, but I've read a lot of Nietzsche. I was initially impressed by both, but I'm not so impressed by either of them at the moment.

But intellectual abstractions are operative in this world, aren't they? So even the otherworldy is ultimately thisworldy. — Erik

Okay, so Nietzsche's "will-to-power" is as abstract as Plato's Agathon then.

Life for us (human beings gifted with language) is almost always mediated through historical concepts, isn't it? The Being of beings is not a particular being, but the 'between' of subject and object which frames our understanding of the world and is subject to periodic shifts. — Erik

I'd be careful with identifying Being as historical consciousness. Historical consciousness reveals different aspects of Being as it moves through, but it's by no means identical to it.

True that it shouldn't make people identical, but it's also true that the states of mind those labels represent are a part of the identify of those people. — Noble Dust

My point is that the states of mind are more varied and more detailed than the label permits. Thus the label is always inaccurate.

For example Nietzsche's writings with regard to asceticism are pathetic. Asceticism is strength par excellence, not weakness. The ascetic is the man who can endure whatever it takes to achieve his goal - that's not a weak person. But the secret of the ascetic's endurance is precisely his renunciation of the world. That's why he is a master of fate, and not its slave. That's why he does not despair at setbacks.

An individual in despair despairs over something. So it seems for a moment, but only for a moment; in the same moment the true despair or despair in its true form shows itself. In despairing over something, he really despaired over himself, and now he wants to get rid of himself. For example, when the ambitious man whose slogan is "Either Caesar or nothing" does not get to be Caesar, he despairs over it. But this also means something else: precisely because he did not get to be Caesar, he now cannot bear to be himself. Consequently he does not despair because he did not get to be Caesar but despairs over himself because he did not get to be Caesar.... Consequently, to despair over something is still not despair proper.... To despair over oneself, in despair to will to be rid of oneself—this is the formula for all despair — Kierkegaard

An ascetic does not despair if he doesn't became Caesar, because he has given up becoming Caesar. This doesn't mean he doesn't want it, only that he is not attached to the want. This renunciation of the world is paradoxically that which allows him to take it all back. But to N. the ascetic is weak - instead the strong is the madman, who loses his mind because of his failures... That madman is supposed to be the one who embraces his life, who wills the eternal recurrence of the same :s

What I had in mind was the occasional exuberance he expressed towards life in its entirety, even in its darker and more questionable aspects. — Erik

Is such an exuberance a good thing, and if so why?

His dislike of Christianity, for instance, seems based upon his belief that it robs this world of its meaning and value by positing a 'better' world in the beyond. That's a fairly straightforward and uncontroversial position to take on his philosophy, I think. — Erik

Yeah but it doesn't tell us much. In my opinion there are some things of value in this life, and there will be things of value in the afterlife too. Why must everything be of value? And furthermore, how does the afterlife being more valuable than this life rob this life of its own value? :s

So by lovingly I meant that emotional pull he felt to defend this world against its many slanderers. — Erik

What's wrong with "slandering" the world where it is unjust?

What do you mean by otherwordly? — Erik

An intellectual abstraction, not life.

As to the latter question, I believe he referred to it lovingly as Life — Erik

:s Many of N. writings are quite the opposite of loving. N. often praises warriors and conquerors, and blood-thirsty men - certainly more often than he praises artists for example. I know some people have tried to disentangle his thoughts from this, but I've read his writings, and this is quite a hard job to do.

taken in a metaphysical sense as constant struggle, appropriation, excretion, etc. (Heraclitus' polemos with all in a state of constant flux)

When I say metaphysical I don't mean something like an otherworldy Platonism, but rather as Heidegger understood it 'onto-theologically': as some concept or idea (typically God) which gathers together and grounds all particular phenomena at all times. — Erik

A concept or an idea is "otherworldly".

You can do that while still acknowledging his significance as (e.g.) a psychologist--of which he has interesting things to say about this topic of post-truth--and prescient critic of many aspects of modernity. — Erik

I don't understand why people think N. was great as a psychologist. To me, Kierkegaard read him perfectly, even though he had never heard of him:

First comes despair over the earthly or over something earthly, then despair of the eternal, over oneself. Then comes defiance, which is really despair through the aid of the eternal, the despairing misuse of the eternal within the self to will in despair to be oneself.... In this form of despair, there is a rise in the consciousness of the self, and therefore a greater consciousness of what despair is and that one's state is despair. Here the despair is conscious of itself as an act.... In order to despair to will to be oneself, there must be consciousness of an infinite self. This infinite self, however, is really only the most abstract form, the most abstract possibility of the self. And this is the self that a person in despair wills to be, severing the self from any relation to a power that has established it, or severing it from the idea that there is such a power

Scintillating response. You should ask for your GED money back...:) — Thanatos Sand

What will I do with the money? :s I want my time back.

The Sanders/Progressive movement is another indicator this hasn't happened as people are rejecting corrupt, corporate politics as usual and are demanding integrity and commitment to working for Americans from their elected officials — Thanatos Sand

The Sanders/Progressive movement >:O >:O >:O

He clearly felt his was not just one perspective among many possible ones, but that it was much more aligned with truth than others (e.g. Platonic, Christian, socialist, etc.). — Erik

Yes precisely. So how are we to square with this blatant self-contradiction?

This doesn't make much sense (to me) without anchoring it in some metaphysical notion of reality which is distorted by those illusory perspectives. — Erik

What would that metaphysical notion be?

I think Nietzsche at times comes close to this. Truths are simply lies that people believe in. — Erik

N. was wrong. If "Truths are simply lies that people believe in" then what about this assertion itself?

Yes Trump is a congenital liar, and CROOKED is a world class politician - that's what you told us before >:O give me a break... Reading your posts in this thread always makes my day man (Y)

Could you explain this more in detail? — Beebert

For example, reason for Plato includes, and in fact is based on noetic truths and intuition, and the intellect is active, and not just a passive recipient of ideas as it is for Bacon. The passive, life-killing intellect that is based on pure logic that Dostoyevsky and Nietzsche criticise isn't the intellect of Plato.

This is not true in m experience... — VagabondSpectre

I'm not so sure about this. There's accumulating scientific evidence that traumatic events shape one much more than ecstatic moments do - the brain also seems to remember pain much more than pleasure. There seems to be an evolutionary reason for this, since avoiding pain ends up being more important than pleasure in terms of survival. Pain implies death and death is final, whereas pleasure has no finality. There is an asymmetry between pleasure and pain...

If you really read Nietzsche carefully, he tells you what it means. I can give you examples based on social situations and inner drives and motives within me and observations on others, but I do that tomorrow then since I am quite tired now and it is soon time for bed — Beebert

Ehmm I did read Nietzsche, the problem of course is that there's not only one way to interpret will to power. So I'm curious what your interpretation is, and why.

Furthermore, you keep claiming that N. is deep, and yet you always avoid my arguments that he's not, such as my reference to Genealogy. What do you find so great about Genealogy?

I think the biggest problem is that people are taught fake ideas about what life is like while they're growing up. Then they think there's something wrong with them because life isn't as they expect it to be (ie, as they were taught it is).

It is mainly concerned with looking at life. — Beebert

Not at all. It's concerned with how we should live life. Thinking always has a practical aim for Plato.

"If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present." — Beebert

I'm not quite sure. So long as we have a physical body we're trapped in time. After death we will be, as you say, in eternity, completely. Much more than we are in eternity by living in the present now.

I am against Plato's view here about rationality for the same reason Nietzsche praises Dionysos over Apollo — Beebert

N. misunderstood Plato's view of rationality, so he was criticising a strawman. What N. called the Dionysian element was always a part of Plato's view of rationality.

Really Michael, this Phariseeism of yours is amazing. What kind of BS is this literalist interpretation of the law? By this interpretation most people should be in prison.

compromising material on an enemy without them being indebted to me? — Michael

Yes, you can.

But it's quite simple, Agustino. The law doesn't say that things of value cannot be received from foreign nationals except in cases where there's no indebtedness. It just says that things of value cannot be received from foreign nationals. — Michael

So what? That's the letter of the law, but when you apply the law you have to take into account the spirit of the law as well. If the law says that if you hit someone's car from behind it is your fault, but in this particular case the person reverses his car to hit you, should it still be your fault? :s