I'd tone it down a notch as you're the exact type of person that turns folks like Mary Ellen off in those sorts of classes. — Carbon

Perhaps some should be turned off if they're not ready yet.

Concepts do not obtain at all aside from being something in individuals' brains. If there are no individuals, there are no concepts. — Terrapin Station

Right I guess it's just about time that we open some skulls and go looking for those damn concepts.

First off, it doesn't literally describe any relation that's external to us. It's an abstraction of--a way we think about--relations we experience. — Terrapin Station

So I suppose in the absence of human beings, one atom and another atom don't form two atoms together :s

You'd have to actually present an argument that acausality is logically contradictory. — Terrapin Station

For something to be inconceivable, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's logically contradictory in-itself. For example, Spinoza's point that there exists only one Substance is undeniable - it is indeed a necessary truth once you understand the argument. But it's not so because it's logically contradictory that there's more than one substance. Rather, if we try to conceive more than one substance we fail.

So my point isn't that acausality is logically contradictory. My point is that you cannot conceive it. You claim you have conceived it by having one red ball which pops out of existence and is replaced by a green ball which pops into existence. But this sequence - if you actually experience it - isn't outside the realm of causality. Indeed, you have just another instance of state X following state Y (ie of causality, where state X is a cause for state Y).

Schopenhauer: "But time and space are not only, each by itself, presupposed by matter, but a combination of the two constitutes its essential nature, just because this, as we have shown, consists in action - in causality"

Say that we have a red ball. Randomly/acausally It disappears and is replaced by a green ball. That's a change, but it's not causal--in fact, we just stipulated that it was random or acausal. — Terrapin Station

You stipulated that it is acausal. But that doesn't mean that you have conceived it. For example, didn't you still imagine a red ball, and then imagine it disappearing and being replaced by a green ball? Didn't you therefore imagine a transition from one state to another, and thus a causal explanation in that state X was replaced/followed by state Y?

Furthermore, Elizabeth Anscombe makes this point originally - but if you imagine something disappearing, have you really imagined it going out of existence without a cause? What difference is there between conceiving something going out of existence without a cause from conceiving something going out of existence without a known cause?

There isn't any that doesn't change, at least in its relations to other things, and even science suggests that a lack if change--basically something at absolute zero--can't obtain. — Terrapin Station

Empirically it can't obtain. But, say, "1+1=2", does the relationship that this proposition describes exist even if there is no empirical world? Relationships between concepts - meaning - exists even if it has no instantiations in the world. It doesn't exist in the same sense that chairs exist - sure, but that isn't to say it doesn't exist at all. And this is just one category of things which are eternal - timeless - simply because they don't exist empirically, and thus are not subject to change.

I agree with @Thorongil and disagree with @Carbon - philosophy is more than more than mental gymnastics and mental masturbation.

Change and causality aren't the same thing. — Terrapin Station

Change is causality - how can you make sense of change except by causality? By saying this state follows the other, and thus is the cause of it? This is following the Humean notion of causality which I suppose you must share.

Values and love aren't at all eternal. They're mental (brain) phenomena that obtain in individuals. — Terrapin Station

The brain phenomena that obtain in individuals are the empirical manifestations of values. You speak exactly like a reductionist, as if the eternal and the temporal were reducible - as if the metaphysical and the physical were the same.

There can't be anything extant outside of time. — Terrapin Station

Justify it.

"Timelessness" non-poetically being what? — Terrapin Station

What makes you think that timelessness is poetic? You have to understand that concepts such as eternity do not refer to empirical states of affairs. So when you define (crudely, as you do) eternity to be infinite temporal duration, you define a non-empirical state as an empirical state. That's contradictory to the very nature of the concept you're trying to define.

Timelessness is being outside of time. What is time? Time is change - ie causality. So to be timeless, to be eternal, is to be unchanging. Values, for example, are eternal. Love is eternal - whether it has any manifestation in the empirical world or not.

Having thought about it a little more I think justice differs from vengeance in that justice involves some degree of compassion and forgiveness on the part of the victim and the law which is not the case with vengeance. Perhaps the feeling is that one should not stoop as low as the offender. To add such an approach makes justice disproportionate to the crime, the victim suffering more than the offender. Be the bigger person, so to speak. I think we can interpret this at a social level but I shall not go into that here. — TheMadFool

:-}

However eye for an eye is evidently proportionate to an offense, thus according to you, it falls under justice. Yet, generally speaking, this philosophy of justice is considered immoral. — TheMadFool

You are interpreting an eye for an eye literally. If that's the case, and a man with no eyes, plucks one of my eyes out, how shall he be punished? Either he shall not be punished, as there is no proportionate punishment, and hence justice can't be done, or justice needs to be done and he needs to be punished. If he needs to be punished somehow, then OBVIOUSLY your assumption that the proportionate punishment is equivalent to the offence is wrong - because in this case his punishment will not be equivalent to his offence.

X is eternal if x exists for all time, and time doesn't have an end point. — Terrapin Station

“If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present.” - L. Wittgenstein

Can I give you a gift? :B Let me give you a gift haha :P - let me know if you like it - few philosophers know of this man, but he's quite relevant for your interest in musicology and philosophy (it's good if you can understand french, because the conversation is much richer in french than in the English subtitles - in addition french words have a multitude of meanings in a philosophical context - for example "esprit" means mind, or it means soul, or it means psyche or it means being - and the multitude of meanings are lost in translation; likewise for example for "tempo" - which means "tempo" or "rhythmic time", or "rhythm"):

Okay I see your point.

I think I should disagree. Modern law considers an eye for an eye (or vengeance) as primitive. ?? — TheMadFool

Modern law - and liberalism itself - are highly deluded about the nature of the world.

Someone kills my wife, and the police, for whatever reason (say the person who did it is too powerful and important), does nothing about it. I hunt them down and devote my entire life to annihilating them and his family to the very last member. That is vengeance. But why have I taken vengeance on him? What provoked me to do it? Injustice. Vengeance is always a response to injustice, and thus presupposes the concept of justice.

Please clarify. — TheMadFool

Well, literally, "an eye for an eye" means if you pluck my eye out, I should pluck yours out. But obviously the deserved punishment for an action doesn't have to be proportionate in this literal sense. For example, what do you do if you have no eyes? (and hence it's impossible to pluck one of yours out?) How should you be punished then? Does it mean that in that case there is no proportionate punishment?

Well, isn't an eye for an eye ''deserved and proportional''? — TheMadFool

Symbolically yes, but literarily no.

Rather sir, it is vengeance that has evolved from the natural concept of justice.

I have doubts that Christians and Muslims, say, worship the same God, if that's what the comic is trying to claim. — Thorongil

Why? I'm genuinely curious about this, because you are a student of religion yourself, and I myself have never studied Islam. So what makes you say this? Can you cite the most significant points, in say bulletpoint format with regards to Islam that makes you say this?

We don't know that anything is eternal. — Terrapin Station

Yes we do know that something must be eternal, otherwise we're stuck with an infinite regress. Whether you're a materialist, and this something is the Multiverse, or you're an Aristotelian and this something is the Prime Mover, or you're a Spinozist and this something is Substance, or you're a Kantian/Schopenhaurian and this something is the noumenon - metaphysics is still stuck in this same form - the idea of each of those thinkers plays the same functional role in their thinking - that is, in fact, what makes it true. Truth for metaphysics isn't correspondence - but coherency and function.

Yes, I do have the unfortunate tendency to be compelled to epsilon semi-morons when the person I need is right in front of me. :-# — TimeLine

Haha I see you've been reading your Huxley (Y) :D

My only concern is the moving element in your response; is the Higgs Boson the soul and only music can enable us to capture its presence? — TimeLine

Not exactly, because you don't know the soul as object-for-a-subject (hence the Higgs Boson is an imperfect analogy) - as it is pure subjectivity. You know it by being it - through music you become what you are.

without the clarity of mind to appreciate this consciousness — TimeLine

Is that clarity of mind, or is it attention? Or is attention in fact one and the same with clarity of mind? I can listen to Beethoven inattentively - that means without being actively engaged in the act of listening. I listen to (a live performance of) Beethoven when I play a game of chess - not actively devoted to the music. Or I go to a live concert of Beethoven - what's the difference? Why does the latter feel better? Because I am absorbed in it - I become one with the music. To become one with the music is an activity of my own soul - attention isn't just listening to what is there - it's being creatively engaged with it. The affinity between music and our subjectivity is what draws us to it - that's why Schopenhauer for example viewed music as being the closest manifestation of the Will as it is in-itself (and hence of ourselves as we are). Indeed the temporary contemplation that music gives rise to - the temporary quietus of the Will - that is us becoming, sub specie durationis, what we are sub specie aeternitatis.

Philosophy provides this clarity and thus it must be that Plato was correct; philosophy is the highest music. — TimeLine

Philosophical activity provides clarity I would say, not philosophy. To be engaged in philosophical activity is different than merely to be reading words in a philosophy book or the like - you have to actively be reflecting on those words. It's similar to the act of actively listening to music :) - and philosophy may be the highest music granted that we relate with it through our reason, which is our highest faculty.

Let him be, then. No sense getting so worked up. — Heister Eggcart

You are right, I'll go play my flute :D

the question — TimeLine

The question? :s You mean "to be or not to be"? :B

Ahh right - this question >:O :

Question: Setting aside your indifference to empirical states of reality, what are the conditions that enable music to provide meaning vis-a-vis consciousness. — TimeLine

I've outlined an answer before you even asked the question I thought 8-) - but maybe I was wrong :D

Well music certainly has eternal properties, if you buy Schopenhauer's Kantian point that the in-itself of the world is revealed through man. This means that subjectivity is something that cannot be understood objectively, but only by being it - and hence this objective aspect of the world can only be revealed subjectively. This revelation breaks the barrier between noumenon and phenomenon, and thus makes the latter accessible, though not as object-for-a-subject. Music, by creating subjective movement in the soul, makes one aware of the noumenon as it is moving - for no one can be aware of something which is static. For a fish to be aware of the water in which he moves and has his being, someone has to produce a ripple in it - music performs this function for the soul. It's similar to what they do in physics, for example to discover the Higgs Boson, they need to produce sufficient energy to disturb the Higgs Field, and thus determine that it actually exists.

We call music authentic when it crystallises (ie objectifies) the creative activity of the soul - its creative struggle. All music is dead by this definition. Some music though is also empty of content; "it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing" - such is the music that is created by many modern artists, where their main aim is to sell.
Individuals create meaning in response to reality. The creation of meaning is what the Universe itself does through people. And yes, there is no doubt that meaning is subjective - it's about how you - Terrapin Station - relates to reality. It's your own response to reality.

Not all music is meaningful. Not all music is a creative expression of the individual. And it has nothing to do with me assigning meaning personally - I see the meaning of others in it. And this is so with all art - when I read The Sorrow of War by Bao Ninh, it's not me putting meaning in there. It's the author! I experience the meaning that the author has placed in there - I experience the protagonist's anguish when he sees his own girlfriend raped for example - and for a moment, he and I become one. His infinite brokenness becomes my infinite brokenness - I have creatively assimilated his meaning at that point. — Me!

No, of course you can't perceive others' meanings. We can't make mental phenomena third-person observable period. — Terrapin Station

Actually boss, I think I can. Maybe you lack in empathy, that would explain an inability to perceive others' meanings.

Because not everyone can play an instrument — TimeLine

I, like Schopenhauer, can play the flute! :D >:O

But that's what meaning is, how it works. Either someone assigns meaning personally to something or there's no meaning (for them) — Terrapin Station

:s So you cannot perceive the meaning of others? Really? If you see someone crying you cannot perceive the meaning of the act for them, even if it means nothing for you?

No, it's YOU putting meaning there. There's no meaning literally in those marks on the paper. The author has meaning in mind when he makes the marks on paper, but the meaning isn't contained in those marks. It's in persons' brains. — Terrapin Station

The meaning is contained in those marks, and someone who understands those marks can understand the meaning. That is quite self-evident. Understanding marks isn't the process of assigning meaning - it's the process of perceiving meaning.

however I disagree that it is merely butchering reality — TimeLine

Philosophical activity though is different from philosophy. I said philosophy butchers reality - I outlined a different possibility for philosophical activity.

Is music a part of or can in enable or strengthen this language? — TimeLine

Music deals with different aspects then philosophy and in different manners. Music functions by touching one's heart and soul. Philosophy cannot deal with what music deals, except abstractly - universally - but never in concreto.

languages come in a heap with one at the top — unenlightened

What would the bottom most one be sitting on? :-O

"Won't the difference be one of battle cry?" >:O Wittgenstein was just pure genius! 8-)

Philosophy is also a language, so would that make it the highest music? — TimeLine

Philosophy is the highest universal language - but universality is, paradoxically, not Reality - for what would Reality be without the particular? And the particular is exactly what the universal must exclude to be universal. And so there is a price paid to achieve universality - it's a butchering of Reality. Philosophy can achieve division - but never unity. The philosophy that comes closest to achieving unity is that which moves and moves and moves - only to, at the point when it is just about to achieve completeness, it denies itself and sees itself as nonsense - one must throw down the ladder after he has climbed as Wittgenstein put it :) - unity is realised not through philosophy - but through doing philosophy - through the philosophical activity itself, which reaches its own quietus.

Re the rest, there's no such thing as souls, what in the world is "dead" versus "alive" music — Terrapin Station

We call music authentic when it crystallises (ie objectifies) the creative activity of the soul - its creative struggle. All music is dead by this definition. Some music though is also empty of content; "it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing" - such is the music that is created by many modern artists, where their main aim is to sell.

If you stop being pedantic you'll realise that there is such a thing as soul. How did Aristotle define the soul? The activity of the body - the life of the body - the form of the body.

But individuals create meaning, and different individuals can do that in response to different things. — Terrapin Station

Individuals create meaning in response to reality. The creation of meaning is what the Universe itself does through people. And yes, there is no doubt that meaning is subjective - it's about how you - Terrapin Station - relates to reality. It's your own response to reality.

and I'm not sure what you're referring to with a capital "B" "Being." — Terrapin Station

To distinguish that I'm talking about Being - the ground/activity of Being - not any particular being.

So would you only be saying that you're referring to music that prompts you to assign more meaning to it personally? — Terrapin Station

No. I'm talking about music which is meaningful. Not all music is meaningful. Not all music is a creative expression of the individual. And it has nothing to do with me assigning meaning personally - I see the meaning of others in it. And this is so with all art - when I read The Sorrow of War by Bao Ninh, it's not me putting meaning in there. It's the author! I experience the meaning that the author has placed in there - I experience the protagonist's anguish when he sees his own girlfriend raped for example - and for a moment, he and I become one. His infinite brokenness becomes my infinite brokenness - I have creatively assimilated his meaning at that point.

Jesus Christ what a load of balderdash. — Terrapin Station

:-} I actually found TimeLine's post quite decent. Authenticity is a way of creating music creatively - to be interested in authentic music is to be interested in music which means something - on a deeper level it means to be interested in the creative activity of the soul which gave birth to the crystallised (and hence dead, not alive) music. Indeed this creative activity that is searched for through authenticity is primal - a feature of Being itself. Alas, all this is probably too "continental" for your narrow analytic sensibilities... ;)

As I understand it, John rues being an asshat even though he's just being honest about his perspective. If this is what he means, I can't fault him much. Maybe he realizes that he can be a prick, so he tries not to be a prick at all, even if he ought to be at times.

But I'm not really afraid of being a dicklip to someone if I have no doubts about my being right. If I think that something needs to be said, I will probably say it. There's no sense being obtuse if one is bothered for good reason. And if someone takes offense without giving equally sound reasons for why they've reacted that way, then tough! — Heister Eggcart

Right. And doesn't it seem to you like his insults are a red herring based on the fact that he doesn't want to address the Spinoza points I have been pressing him on, and instead prefers to take advantage of the fact that 180 isn't active here and insult him? Then when I point it out he starts insulting me. Look at all these:

This idea that God is being (wholly immanent) is really, without the accompanying idea that God is also transcendent of being, nothing more than pantheism. This is the salient point of my disagreement with Spinoza's philosophy. — John

*facepalm* - The waves of the ocean are illusory - only the ocean is real (and divine) vs the waves of the ocean are real (and divine). The former is acosmism; the latter is pantheism. Now how the fuck is Spinoza a pantheist if God is wholly immanent? — Agustino

In addition to this I've asked you to provide evidence for what exactly you're referencing here: — Agustino

Spinoza's own arguments concerning the difference between necessary and contingent beings — John

Is this how Spinoza has defined Substance? Yes or no? If yes, then please cite adequate evidence. If no, then your point is a red herring or at best a strawman. — Agustino

Spinoza believed the self to be utterly subject to the determinism he believed to be inherent in nature. He believed that the freedom we experience ourselves as being is an illusion due to the fact that we cannot be aware of all the causal factors determining our actions. — John

Yeah maybe if you stop after reading the fourth book "On Man's Bondage", and never move to the fifth ("On Man's FREEDOM") :-d — Agustino

^This last one is actually entirely false as any well-educated Spinoza scholar can tell you.

Where does John address any of this? Nowhere. Instead he again resorts to saying Spinoza's philosophy is "naive" :-! , after claiming that it's a contradiction that substance is conceived through its attributes and through itself >:O

You say a substance can be conceived through any of its attributes, and yet earlier you said a substance can only be "conceived through itself". Seems contradictory. — John

Like I'm sure if he had some good faith he could figure that for himself. As an attribute is the essence of a substance (an intellectual, not an ontological distinction), in-so-far as it is, say, an extended substance, then it must be conceived through that attribute. Really if you're dealing with such an arrogant prick who is purposefully being mischievous, how can you not get angry and point out the obvious to him? :s

In fact even if you look at the fucking definition that Spinoza himself gives of attribute you'll get the point:
"By attribute I understand what the intellect perceives of a substance, as constituting its essence" And this guy apparently studied Spinoza "for years"... and he doesn't even know that basic point of his system. I don't know how he "studied" Spinoza - perhaps by reading Wikipedia.

Well music certainly has eternal properties, if you buy Schopenhauer's Kantian point that the in-itself of the world is revealed through man. This means that subjectivity is something that cannot be understood objectively, but only by being it - and hence this objective aspect of the world can only be revealed subjectively. This revelation breaks the barrier between noumenon and phenomenon, and thus makes the latter accessible, though not as object-for-a-subject. Music, by creating subjective movement in the soul, makes one aware of the noumenon as it is moving - for no one can be aware of something which is static. For a fish to be aware of the water in which he moves and has his being, someone has to produce a ripple in it - music performs this function for the soul. It's similar to what they do in physics, for example to discover the Higgs Boson, they need to produce sufficient energy to disturb the Higgs Field, and thus determine that it actually exists.

The only point of contention I guess, is whether there really is a noumenon and a phenomenon - or whether both subjectivity and objectivity are equally real aspects. For example an Aristotelian/Spinozist who is a realist would claim that the subjectivity noted only by being it is no different than the motion of the planets - both are equally real, one isn't just phenomenon and the other noumenon.

Articulate clearly what "way" he has behaved in. — Heister Eggcart

I refer you to this post for starters:

http://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/48349#Post_48349

Then why are you critiquing John who also hasn't thought of himself in such a way? Come on, Agu. — Heister Eggcart

Because his philosophy, as he has expressed it at different junctures, would entail that someone shouldn't behave this way (and I would hope that he at least wants to follow his own philosophy). I'm just noting something that emerges out of his own thinking.

I can do without the 'blonde' cliche though, It's an insult to Trump and everyone who shares his hair colour. — unenlightened

Yeah I agree, I didn't actually mean that to be there, it was just the first image I found with the find x problem - and me being lazy I just took it

You're missing out then. — unenlightened

Maybe I am. I am quite slow to get started at something, and I don't like failure. This is a personality trait of me though - I seek to avoid failure more than I desire success. I remember being like this from a very young age. I may have learned it from playing chess, which I used to do all day long with my grandfather before I started school. One bad move costs you more than one good move gains you - so the first priority is make no mistakes. And I've adapted that through all of my life - early lessons are hard to forget :P - although I suppose that if I'm missing out on good, I'm also missing out on bad

To get from can't drive to can drive, one has to start with can't drive, and start driving, preferably somewhere quiet and with someone to intervene before one hits a tree. One overcomes the failure there; the test is not where one learns anything — unenlightened

Yes that is true. That kind of failures I have overcome, although I don't like those either, so I have to push myself through them.

A head teacher who consciously embraced failure as valuable, as part of learning and improving, and wanted teachers and pupils alike not to fear it for themselves or despise it in others. — unenlightened

Yes being capable to deal with failure I agree is important. But I'm not sure that's everything there is to it - personally I haven't really ever failed when I tried something. If I thought I was going to fail I wouldn't try. I only tried when I was quite certain I'll succeed. For example I was like this with my driving license. Many people go try to take the test immediately after they finish driving school - I was like "No, I can't do it, no point going". So I waited about 1 year until I was finally ready to take it (people were actually calling me a coward and laughing at me :P ), and I passed it from the first try. Whereas I had friends who kept failing it even after I had passed it - they just had too relaxed an attitude to failure. I was the same with my girlfriends - by the point I asked them out, I was certain that they'll accept - like it would have been a miracle by that point, considering how things were going, if they refused.

For a pass, you have to turn up but not answer any of the questions — unenlightened

Common that's too much conformity - everyone has the same non-answer. Instead everyone should have to answer with the wrong thing - that way it is underdetermined - there's many more wrong answers than correct ones, so students can develop their creativity. ;)

Then you can get answers like this :P :


That deserves distinction for being both right and wrong :-O

Dear teachers,

I teach my child respect by showing her respect, just as I taught her to speak by talking to her, and not at her. She comes to you aged 4 with an insatiable curiosity and hunger to learn about everything, with confidence and enthusiasm to relate to adults and children, with her own developing personality, and with a need to participate in the community and feel valued and appreciated.

And in a few short years, you do your best to turn here into a bored, sullen uncooperative unhappy box ticking non-entity. You do this by treating her as an object, by showing no interest in her as a person, and then you have the temerity to blame the parents. — unenlightened

Interesting points. I'd just add that in my opinion, the child needs to encounter, at some point, part of the harshness of reality - and they will inevitably encounter it. What I mean by this - not everyone will be valued and appreciated by others. Not everyone will treat you as a person - many people will treat you as an object. And so forth. If the child is kept insulated from all this by force, then they'll have a very negative reaction when they finally encounter them - think about Buddha for example, how he went so far as abandoning his own family when he finally encountered suffering. Civilisation can always collapse at any moment, and the rule of the jungle can always return. So the child needs to understand this Real Politik as I call it, and not blindingly trust that everyone will act morally. Schools are not very effective at teaching it, because they never focus on helping the person - as a unique individual - find a way to overcome these situations and reframe them. For example, school doesn't teach people who aren't valued by others to find value by themselves. In daoism there is a story - there was a crooked man who everyone laughed at and said he was useless. Then war came, and all those who laughed at him went to perish. Only he remained and lived - because he was useless. There's both advantage and disadvantage in all situations regardless of how you are. It's about (1) learning to see it, and (2) learning to use it.

Children need to be taught how to harness negative feelings - rejection, etc. These skills are very rarely, if ever actually taught. Most of the time, for most people, they are never taught - they are just expected to handle rejection well. Furthermore, another important lesson I believe, is that there's not much to be gained out of life, therefore don't expect much - live closer to the moment, rejoicing in the small things that are there. Ambition is not a problem (the Chinese Daoists realised this) - it's unrestrained ambition which impatiently demands the impossible that is a problem, because it will ultimately lead one to engage in activities which end in their own failure. These skills are really elements of strategy - how to navigate the world regardless of what it throws at you.

although apophatic philosophy might point out that we can't determine this about the actual substance of which we are constituted — Punshhh

How will it point out and prove this?

However the mystic is more concerned with this actual substance and so develops a rationale based on a study of the self and the world, rather than logic. — Punshhh

The mystic, in my view, is concerned about his relationship with the ground of being instead of with mere understanding.

An example is our ignorance of the lottery numbers which will be drawn tonight. — Punshhh

That's an empirical matter.

There is nothing we can do to dispel this ignorance, other than to whatch the draw and observe the result. — Punshhh

Sure - but this has nothing to do with metaphysics. Metaphysics is not empirical, so the source of this ignorance doesn't exist.

it can't dispel our ignorance on many of the issues of our existence — Punshhh

It can't dispel our ignorance with regards to empirical matters. No metaphysical insight will tell someone what to do to obtain what he wants in the world for example - and no metaphysical insight could do this, even in principle.

Following a rational, reasoned process is the only way in which the mystic can develop an intellectual understanding of their mystical journey. Without it, the mystic might progress, but is lacking this kind of understanding. — Punshhh

Okay, so then it seems that the mystic renounces this rationality before his journey even begins

Substance is in itself and conceived of itself in an eternal realm in which there is a multitude of substances. — Punshhh

What is the eternal realm then? Is it not conceived of itself and in itself? If it is, then that eternal realm is substance - and the so called "multitude of substances" cannot be conceived through themselves, they must be conceived through reference to the one substance - the eternal realm.

Well with the first example, Jesus is stating that he is, or has equivalence in terms of being, as god has. If God is in eternity, then Jesus is in eternity. There is a transcendence of being in him, in which God is in him and he is in God. — Punshhh

Well Spinoza addresses this very point actually in Tractatus Theologico-Politicus. "I and the Father are One" = One substance (no transcendence)

I bet most of you hate Trump but watched so much CNN that you didn't think you had to vote. — Sup3rfly

Actually I am a Trump supporter :P

There's nothing saintly or mystical about anything you've written either, so I don't see why you've elevated yourself to sit atop a high horse. — Heister Eggcart

And have I said anything about myself for that matter? (N)

apparently unable to adequately answer critical questions — John

Which critical questions have been left unanswered? It is you who hasn't answered my questions, and who have made unsubstantiated allegations with regards to Spinoza's philosophy... :-} Every time when I ask you to answer me questions or I ask you for evidence you refuse to provide it. What the hell is that supposed to be now, if not making unsubstantiated claims, lecturing and talking down to others, and being unable to answer critical questions? (N)

Well, it's a liberal meme in that, as I pointed out in the OP, post-truth dialogue is unsustainable, and so post-truth politics must eventually fail. The phrase is a rhetorical device to emphasis the inconsistency of some certain politics. — Banno

But I don't think Trump's politics for that matter are "post-truth". They do value truth - a different truth than the liberals value, that's all. Regarding climate change (on which I disagree with Trump for example) they are valuing a different kind of truth - economic gain and prosperity, and because they value this truth, they suppress the truth of global warming and call it a falsity - this is merely rhetoric to garner support for one truth instead of the other.

In fact - I think this "post-truth" is a liberal meme to rationalise their defeat, and avoid coming to terms with the fact that they (along with all their experts) are living a fantasy that they have been making themselves by blinding themselves from reality. "Post-truth" is what they use, saying "we have the truth, but reality isn't following us, thus reality has moved into 'post-truth'" - it's a way for them to go on clinging to fantasy and la-la land.