What you seem to be arguing is "Drinking water is immoral unless one is aware of a reason one does it". This is very problematic in itself. But I wonder how far you would take it anyway? What about raising my arm, for example. Is it immoral to raise my arm purely because it feels good? Does one have to have a conscious reason for every action to escape doing wrong? — Baden

I think you misunderstand. He's using "unnecessarily" in a non-logical sense, which is why I didn't get it at first either. If I'm starving, and I kill an animal to eat, then it is necessarily immoral because I NEED to do that action to survive. So necessary has to do with your own needs, not with a logical connection.

Do you want the poet's answer? :D — Heister Eggcart

Yes :P

Moderators are here to kick out those who don't play the game (ie. buy the values of philosophy).

Intellectuals are here to shame us kids (ie the ugly and unformed) from grown up talk (ie. refined subtle ideas that pleasure you so).

Life is constant moral posturing, vying for status, tribal virtue signaling, work, work, work. Social pressure never lets up. No wonder people are unhappy. I can't compete with this stuff.

We live in a society where you are suppose to compete for your position. Nothing is assured. It's about winning, just like dipshit Trump says.

Maybe if I had a product to make me smell smarter, like a roll on brain deodorant stick. — Nils Loc

The Chinese Daoists understood this better than everyone else. Virtue cannot fail to bring about worldly success - in the long run. Sure, you may die sooner than virtue could have brought you worldly success, but if you stick to it, you cannot fail.

People who engage in "moral posturing" and the like will be wiped out - in the long run. Their gains are the currency they contribute every day to finance their future downfall.

'tis what separates one who possesses character, and one who does not. — Heister Eggcart

What is character? Is character something one comes with at birth and stays unchanged through life, or is character grown and developed? I've been asking Thorongil something with regards to this in another thread where he quoted from Schopenhauer.

I'd say that most people only think about those things until after they've done it, and only then, perhaps, find error in their ways. Although, probably not, for few are particularly willing in entertaining the thought of being wrong. — Heister Eggcart

There's also another thing, that some people know that it is wrong and still do it. That's what Kierkegaard is digging into in the second part of Sickness unto Death - whether ignorance of the good is sin, or whether sin is more than just ignorance.

As I mentioned briefly to Agustino, most people are more concerned with how something, or someone, feels to them, what they can get out of it - if a steak tastes good, eat it, if sex feels good, fuck. Who cares about the animal one needn't have slaughtered, or the person you needn't have taken advantage of? I'd say that most people only think about those things until after they've done it, and only then, perhaps, find error in their ways. Although, probably not, for few are particularly willing in entertaining the thought of being wrong. — Heister Eggcart

Yes, this is treating others as means to an end, instead of end-in-themselves as Kant wrote.

Also it's not the same I believe with regards to food. Food isn't a person. I can choose to eat food X instead of food Y because X tastes better than Y. The fact it tastes better than Y though isn't sufficient to qualify my decision as immoral - other matters need to be attended to, such as if procuring X involves killing animals, etc. Suffice to say that you are correct and "because it feels good (to me)" can certainly not be moral (but it can be immoral).

I'm not in a position to encapsulate it in a neat definition, but apart from Kant, Martin Buber talks about it in I and Thou. It is I suppose the ignoring or denial of the uniqueness of the individual and of their sovereign agency. But don't entirely hold me to that. And note the previous comment that we now objectify ourselves. — unenlightened

It's more about treating others as means to some other end that is the problem - that's what objectification ultimately is. Treating people as tools to achieve something. And both men and women do this - now and in the past - in different manners. Women manipulate men using their physical beauty, intellect and/or political capacity - or seek to do so - and men use their physical (or economic or political) power to control women. They're both dehumanising each other. Furthermore, this is one of my main arguments against sexual promiscuity.

I'd invite you to start your life over as a female and then if you're still inclined to discuss objectification with that brain trust of the species we call The Philosophy Forum.. go for it. — Mongrel

:-} Where is Rush Limbaugh?

Women have seemingly forever been dehumanised — unenlightened

I disagree. It has largely been a matter of social class instead of gender. Poor women in the Roman Empire were dehumanised - as were poor men for the most part as well. Rich women though lived quite fine lives for the most part. Now the fact that a man abused a woman more frequently than a woman abused a man (if we're talking strictly sexually and physically here) was simply because men had such capacities available - they were generally physically stronger. If the women had been granted equal capacities, they too would have abused men. People have, and will always have a tendency towards immorality, but the moderns today don't want to accept that fact - they want to change it, which, although well-motivated, is ultimately impossible. Yes - life as a woman is definitely different than life as a man - but I don't necessarily take that to be bad - difference is only natural, it doesn't mean one is inferior or superior. Women have advantages that men don't, and men also have advantages that women don't.

Women need different skills to live happy lives than men do. That's all there is to say about it. Women depend on their social environment for example, much more than men do. The fact that some feminazis are looking for "payback" or "revenge" on men in today's world, because they have captured the reigns of power finally, seems nothing but idiocy to me. The whole scenario is in fact stupid.

Aside from that, there is also the research of children who remember their past lives, although from experience on forums, I know this is generally denied in advance. — Wayfarer

This is an interesting subject. I don't deny past lives, and I'm quite open to the possibility, just that, one life would have no bearing on the other life, for the simple reason that we forget it. So my past life - whatever it was - is of no significance to me now.

But regarding the research, if past lives exist - then why is there no concept of it in some of the world's religions - like Christianity or Islam? This fact alone seems quite strange - I mean if people remembered past lives across the entire globe, then I would expect all cultures to have the idea.

I think I would add Unenlightened, that it's not just fear that is used. The whip is just half of the equation, the other half is the carrot. He who can escape both the whip and the carrot is a free man or woman.

From what? — Wayfarer

From other people, from animals that may attack our communities, etc.

The truth is obvious to everyone. That is what you keep saying. So, why doesn't it follow that everyone simply recognises this fact and acts accordingly? — Wayfarer

Because they are ignorant, as I have said. But how would their ignorance imply or necessitate a transcendent to cure? Ignorance is an immanent issue, just as understanding is. Why do you think they are issues of transcendence?

Although, of course, according to you, nobody needs that, either, because we've already arrived. — Wayfarer

No, according to me, there is nowhere to arrive with regards to the transcendent. We can improve things in the world - for example I can improve my relationship with my wife, or with my kids, or whatever - but such improvements require worldly methods - my relationship with my wife won't improve just because I sit cross-legged 5 hours a day, would it? Where is the transcendent needed? This is my question to you - what problems would the transcendent help us solve (that nothing else can help us), and how would it help us?

Of course! That explains why there is really no need for a criminal code, or police for that matter, or the army, come to think of it. — Wayfarer

Why do you think this follows? We need a criminal code, police, army etc. for practical reasons of protecting ourselves. I honestly think that if the transcendent world mattered, we wouldn't be needing any of these because this world is an illusion and we should all be looking to transcend it anyway, so why would we even bother with it? We'd all become hermits like Buddha, abandon our family, and go live in isolated places among ascetics. But we do need them, precisely because Samsara isn't an illusion. I mean if Samsara was an illusion, maya, why would we need them?

There ought not to be any fear of harm, death, illness or disease, because these things aren't real, right? Why can't we simply see that? What is stopping us? — Wayfarer

Well what use fearing death? It's going to come whether you fear it or not. Sure, that sucks, but there isn't anything we can do about it. We can meditate until we're blue in the face, that isn't going to change whether we're going to die or not, is it? Maybe practical things will change that - research etc. but certainly not meditation. That's why I tell you that I don't understand how you expect the transcendent to help in these practical matters...

So yes, the enlightened know something that the hoi polloi don't - they know that there is no emancipation - no emancipation is needed, just understanding.

The non obvious truth that you're looking for is that there is nothing to be emancipated of, while all the hoi polloi are looking to be emancipated from something.

That is an 'urban myth' based on a misreading. It is used by lots of pseudo-gurus to sell new-age books. — Wayfarer

How could they become enlightened if they aren't so already? Do they jump from one reality to another transcendent one? They are ignorant of the fact that they are enlightened - their very seeking for something special is the problem.

Whereas you say - what 'emancipation'? There is only ordinary existence, those who think there is something beyond it are deluded — Wayfarer

Yes and rightfully so... What emancipation?! There's nothing to be emancipated of. It's their IGNORANCE which makes them think there is something to be emancipated of. They are raising the dust themselves and then complaining that they cannot see... Rather the question is how can they awaken to reality - as it is right here and now, and stop being trapped by their own ignorance? They are seeing demons because they are creating them.

In the Buddhist context, 'the Buddha' is one released from the cycle of birth, decay and death. That is what his 'awakening' consists of. Even though the Buddha's conception of Nirvāṇa is unique to him, it is arguably a form of what is called in Hinduism mokṣa, release or liberation, which is understood as the awakening from the spell of māyā and the realisation of the higher self. — Wayfarer

Yes, but given the Mahayana non-duality of Nirvana and Samsara - one is already enlightened, otherwise they could never "become" enlightened. It's just about becoming who they already are. The cycle of birth, growth, decay and death - one has already escaped the cycle, one is just ignorant of it. For if they had not escaped, there would be no possibility of escape.

Hegel's counter-argument to Kant was that to know a boundary is also to be aware of what it bounds and as such what lies beyond it – in other words, to have already transcended it. — Wayfarer

I don't buy this. It depends how the boundary is known - if the boundary is known from the inside, then one just knows the boundary - and can only use the boundary to infer what "outside" would be. Consider the eye - do you see the limits of your visual field? Of course not! You don't perceive even boundaries, I was wrong before. So I disagree with the notion that there is any such "outside".

And in this place of cognitive stillness, one discovers in a direct experiential way an ultimate reality that cannot be conceptualized or made into an object of study. — Wayfarer

But it's not just ultimate reality - it's just simple reality which is like this. Concepts are mental divisions and categorisations of phenomena - they're never the phenomena themselves - a map is never the territory.

Rather, one encounters it in the way one experiences. — Wayfarer

So ontologically there is no transcendent - nothing that is beyond this reality.

I admire Frankl, there was always a copy of that book in the home I grew up in.

Life has meaning under all circumstances, even the most miserable ones.
Our main motivation for living is our will to find meaning in life.
We have freedom to find meaning in what we do, and what we experience, or at least in the stand we take when faced with a situation of unchangeable suffering. — Wayfarer

I share your admiration

I think Frankl's philosophy is implicitly spiritual, but that it is necessary to differentiate it from religion, because of the way religion is understood, defined and fought over in Western culture. To say something is 'religious' is to immediately embody it in a particular matrix of meaning with all of the associated baggage; he had to keep it out of that domain. — Wayfarer

I disagree that the word spiritual has transcendent meaning. I do agree that there is a spiritual side to life, but it is immanent, within reality. Consider that if it wasn't so - then we would never be able to access it, for we would never be able to "escape" our own reality. We can access it precisely because Nirvana IS Samsara. That's why I don't appreciate your bashing of materialism and atheism - those two are actually not contrary to enlightenment at all... at least they aren't necessarily so. The way they are understood today in the West is a different story though - instead of trying to get rid of them, you should try to re-evaluate them, and bring back original atheism and materialism.

Right, exactly. Some people seem to be missing this point. It's not about making the world a utopia, but making it comparatively better than it is right now. We have made progress. It's not perfect and it never will be, but progress has still happened. It's ridiculous, I think, to say we haven't progressed at all. Of course we have. — darthbarracuda

Have you read John Gray's Straw Dogs? The belief that we have progressed is merely infantilism. We just have better sticks and stones today (technological advances), but otherwise no progress, maybe even a regress if you consider what is largely happening with our climate, what is happening with some people around the world who live worse than they have ever lived in history (consider for a moment people living in Syria), what is happening with certain aspects of virtue and morality, what is happening with certain animal species (disappearing), etc.

Honestly, if I am a pessimist, I'd be a Daoist Pessimist :P - the Ancient Chinese understood this probably better than anyone else. The fact that we haven't progressed isn't to say that one should resort to non-engagement with the world though - that's far from what I would hold. However, over the long-run we'll stay around the same level - we'll have periods of regress compared to this level, and periods of progress, but ultimately in the long-run we're all back to where we started from.

No, no, no. I just meant that I'm more apprehensive about the good things of the future, and less so about the bad. — Heister Eggcart

Hmm - personally I tend to just be open to the future, hopeful, but not expecting. But I would say I'm certainly hopeful in my attitude towards the future. But if it doesn't go my way, it doesn't go my way - in certain situations, there's not much you can do. I don't expect it to go my way. In fact my approach is quite strange - I hope for the best, but expect the worst :-O

You know that Augustine had a very strong sexual appetite don't you? He spoke of that a few times. — Metaphysician Undercover

Surely, but once again, at least I myself saw no indication that he was ever unfaithful to his mistress (whom he engaged in much sexual relations with before even becoming a Manichean). He was troubled by the fact the he could not give up his sexual desire, and was ruled by it - that much is for sure. Also the Neoplatonism Augustine got interested after his Manichean phase already had a Christian tinting, so I would doubt that he suddenly became promiscuous in that phase when he had never been before - and I would also doubt that that community encouraged him to be promiscuous.

(Y) Excellent post hidden in this thread! Too bad you're speaking to walls though :P

More importantly, I don't remember anything actually of Augustine being part of a Platonic commune where men and women were not limited to exclusive sex partners... that is I believe false. He was only part of a Manichean commune, and they were quite against sex.

Now even in Plato's Republic, it was ONLY the guardians that were not to be limited to one sex partner, so they had no attachments, except to serving the community. They were meant to be celibate for the whole year, except only for a short period, where they would be promiscuous merely as a way to produce future guardians. Their lack of attachement was merely a sacrifice for a greater good - and this is important to note. If a society could exist without them, and function in order, then they wouldn't be needed.

People have this tremendous confusion that Plato would advocate promiscuity as some sort of "superior" way. That's bullshit. They haven't bothered to understand the Republic - and even my explanation merely scratches the surface - in truth the Republic is a symbol for the ordering of the human being.

@Benkei You're from the Netherlands right mate?

Who the hell is Sylvie Meis? >:O

>:O I think that must be a model of Trump's hram at a 1:1000 scale

What's the point of the Nietzsche comic? Seems like nothing to do with what I wrote :P

If you're merely having sex because it feels good, then you're doing so purely out of ego. — Heister Eggcart

But in my view the ego is healthy. It only becomes unhealthy when it subdues and enslaves reason to do its bidding. If the ego merely acts in accordance with reason, then there is no issue.

My steak example assumes that slaughtering animals and eating them is always wrong, by the by :-* — Heister Eggcart

Yeah - I actually thought you may have had some religious reason for not eating steak actually :P - but alas didn't mention it because I understood what you were trying to say by the example.

I'm usually more pensive about what "better" will be than the suffering I already am experiencing, >:O — Heister Eggcart

?? What do you mean what will be "better" than the suffering you are currently experiencing?

The people who incessantly sing the praises of life have always been the most broken, shattered, and devastated of people in my experience. It has merely taken me a lot of patience and work in order to getting under someone's heart and realize that truth. — Heister Eggcart

I agree about those who "incessantly" do so - that's a defence mechanism for them. But I believe there are more balanced views - not praising, nor being overly pessimistic about life.

I believe Augustine was, for a while, a member of a Platonic commune, so men and women were not limited to exclusive sex partners, and children were children of the commune rather than children of specific parents. — Metaphysician Undercover

What indication do you have that Augustine engaged in sex with more than one woman? This is certainly not mentioned in the Confessions, but it is certainly plausible. His grief was certainly not directed towards his promiscuity but rather towards his attitude of lust towards his partner. Given his struggle and his later evaluation of monogamy, I highly doubt that he engaged in sex with more than one woman.

Richard Feynman says... "nothing is mere" — Bitter Crank

Feynamn can say what Feynman will, what does Bitter Crank say? :P

I've found that to chart and map out suffering on some list of "concentration camps>urban depression" doesn't make much sense to me, and hasn't served my understanding of the world in any productive way. — Heister Eggcart

If you mean that doing so doesn't diminish your own suffering or make it easier to handle and relate to, then yes I agree. But I only use it as an analogy - in the sense of "you never know if or when your situation may suddenly get better if you just hang on". That thought helped me the most when I was at my lowest moments in fact.

I think it's more dangerous for someone to diminish their suffering than to misattribute love, if you know what I'm meaning. — Heister Eggcart

I don't know haha - could you explain this?

To not indulge some desires is to set oneself on the slippery slope of creating future ethical dilemmas than need not be. It's an acknowledgment of the fact that masturbation (if one even needs that) is not enough for some people in sustaining a morally, and physically, healthy life. I may come to think this is false in time, but at the moment I'm attempting to give some leeway to the horny beasts out there. — Heister Eggcart

But certainly what they're looking for isn't masturbation or merely orgasm. The horny beasts out there are looking to dominate the will of their partners - seduction. They're looking to get their partners to love them - to control their will. So the physical pleasure of it is irrelevant to the psychological pleasure they get from domination.

Others - like me - are looking to have life-long intimacy and devotion with another person.

No? It isn't necessary to eat a steak merely because you might find that it tastes good. That would be unnecessarily immoral. Eating a "steak" if you're starving in the wilderness would be a necessarily immoral decision to make because doing so works against future ethical dilemmas, such as you dying! — Heister Eggcart

Okay, I think I understand.

Not sure if I should feel sorry or proud for that bish. — Heister Eggcart

Rumour has it that she was loving it more than him >:O

Not sure what you'd like me respond with, here. No one I've ever met or read about who has praised life and all its wonders are not also suffering immensely — Heister Eggcart

Well we're all suffering more or less but "immensely"? You can suffer from time to time immensely, but, at least for most people, such suffering is only temporary and it passes. Some suffer immensely for years even, and then their lives take a turn for the better (some of the Jewish people who had to spend time in concentration camps were like this - as detailed for example in Viktor Frankl's book, Man's Search for Meaning) Can you imagine having to live in concentrations camps, with no end to your torment except death in sight? And yet pleasant surprises can happen to even such people - some of them, like Viktor Frankl or Ellie Wiesel, went on to be incredibly insightful human beings.

The Heavens give and take according to their own whims. Man can do nothing but receive whatever the Heavens give in many situations. But it seems to me that life can have both suffering and joy.

Sex is a desire — Heister Eggcart

I'm sure that the act itself isn't a desire though. You may mean that a desire leads to the act though.

then such would be necessarily immoral — Heister Eggcart

Why would this be necessarily immoral? What does "necessarily" add to the meaning of the sentence?

Sex that is unnecessarily immoral would be what is acted upon on the grounds of it merely satisfying the desire for good feeling. — Heister Eggcart

But shouldn't merely the grounds for good feeling count as sex being necessarily immoral? :s I'm not sure I quite understand what you're trying to convey. If I have sex merely because it feels good, that kinda sounds like immoral to me. Whereas the former case you suggested sounds as unnecessarily immoral if anything.

I wasn't aware he directly fucked bitches, only that he lived a seedy lifestyle. I suppose one does suggest the other... — Heister Eggcart

Well I took your saying "fuck bitches" as equivalent to simply having sex with women. Augustine didn't actually fuck prostitutes. He fucked bitches though >:O - more specifically only one bitch got that honour - and many times at that :P

I have no doubts about the rarity of love in the world. I believe it was Schopenhauer who said that if one finds a truth within themselves, then they've found the truth at the heart of the world. — Heister Eggcart

Hmmm - okay but don't you think it would also be relevant to look at other people and how they also relate to the world? I mean Schopenhauer also did that - his analysis in WWR is from doing both.

That's why I asked you what you think about a few other men, who didn't experience life the same way you do - who, for example, enlarged their own love and this enabled them to disagree that love is in short supply. I do agree that many people are unloving but it's kind of what you'd expect. Everything excellent is as difficult as it is rare, as Spinoza would say :)

Wait, which one, or both, of Aquinas and Augustine fucked bitches? — Heister Eggcart

Only Augustine.

Because I suffer more than I love or am loved. — Heister Eggcart

So then it's about you - it's not really a universal situation? I mean it isn't necessarily so, or?

And by inherently I mean that sex is always immoral. — Heister Eggcart

Wait, I don't quite understand you. So sex is always immoral but it can be either necessarily or unnecessarily immoral. If it's unnecessarily immoral, then in what condition would it not be immoral? (if you cannot specify a condition, then in what sense are you saying "unnecessarily"?) And if there is some condition under which it wouldn't necessarily be immoral, then in what sense is sex always immoral?

Come now, I've offered more than just the plush pillow and poodle example. I've shown how Leopardi intentionally isolated himself and was a thorough-going egoist - "be true to oneself" was his motto; he missed an epithet, though: "by neglecting everyone else". And I've shown how Cioran was curiously drawn towards suffering and intentionally submerged himself in its depths, and analyzed suffering as an abstract notion pervading time and space. I've shown how Nietzsche's amor fati is flawed and insulting to those who are suffering. Please don't ignore these examples anymore. — darthbarracuda

Yes no doubt that some of these characters had all sorts of troubles. You would too if you had devoted your life to struggling against the same problems they have devoted their lives to struggling against. Schopenhauer abandoned a career in business and trade to become a philosopher. Just imagine if he had stuck to business - he would have probably become one of the richest men in the world, considering his intellect. He would have towered materially above everyone else, he could have surrounded himself with all the luxury he would have desired - he could have enjoyed his life while everyone else suffered. That's the amazing thing about him - as it is amazing about Wittgenstein - they gave up what they had or could have had. When you give up riches, you're not doing shit. You're giving up like the fox who cannot reach to the grapes and calls them sour. Even your renunciation sounds hollow and void. But if suddenly your situation changes - you stumble upon a great source of riches - then all your previous renunciation will go to waste, and be long forgotten.

The only real renunciation is the renunciation of one who either HAS everything, or CAN have everything. Imagine that you're in a position where you can order the Prime Minister of a country or the President of the United States to do this or that, and they do it. If from that position, you abandon it - then you have renounced something, willingly. Then your renunciation makes sense - then it proceeds from real understanding. If on the other hand, you're not in that position - there is no renunciation to make, for you simply lack even what to renounce.

"Be true to oneself" by "neglecting everyone else" can have a deeper meaning than the selfish superficial top that everyone sees. In some situations, by not neglecting everyone else, you will all fall into the pit. And it is better that you save yourself and let those who you cannot save fall into the pit, than that you yourself fall into the pit along with them. Some people are naturally stupid - there is no stopping them from heading towards their own destruction. Character is destiny.

For example, how could Nietzsche renounce anything? He didn't have anything to begin with! He was always low on money, he failed to win Salome's heart, etc. etc. Such a man doesn't want to renounce - renunciation is foolish to him! Why should he renounce?! And more importantly, what to renounce? There isn't anything to renounce...

The Schopenhauer quote is a very rich and informative passage. Let's investigate it.

For character consists of two factors: one, the will-to-live itself, blind impulse, so-called impetuosity; the other, the restraint which the will acquires when it comes to understand the world; and the world, again, is itself will.

Is this to say that one is both angel and devil?

A man may begin by following the craving of desire, until he comes to see how hollow and unreal a thing is life, how deceitful are its pleasures, what horrible aspects it possesses

Is the unreality of life equivalent with the fact that life's pleasures are deceitful, and the existence of suffering?

A really bad life cannot be changed into a virtuous one.

Why not?

The most beautiful soul, before it comes to know life from its horrible side, may eagerly drink the sweets of life and remain innocent. But it cannot commit a bad action; it cannot cause others suffering to do a pleasure to itself, for in that case it would see clearly what it would be doing; and whatever be its youth and inexperience it perceives the sufferings of others as clearly as its own pleasures. That is why one bad action is a guarantee that numberless others will be committed as soon as circumstances give occasion for them.

This is the most important bit of the passage I think. Does one bad action guarantee numberless others will be committed when circumstances permit? For example, as we grow up as children, it takes time for us to realise which actions cause suffering to ourselves and others. So I may commit a bad action, and from the suffering that entails from it, realise my sin, and thus abstain in the future. Indeed this has happened numerous times to me.

The sight of others’ suffering arouses, not only in different men, but in one and the same man, at one moment an inexhaustible sympathy, at another a certain satisfaction; and this satisfaction may increase until it becomes the cruellest delight in pain.

What makes the difference between the two modes of perception?

Is Borat right? Do you need a big hram to be a great leader? :-O

:s How does knowing logical impossibilities have any significance? We didn't need systems science to know what is logically impossible anyway.

That's nonsense because it says what conflicts can't exist. So histories lock in destinies. — apokrisis

What conflicts can't exist?

Systems science has been critiqued by a few philosophers - the problem with a system which starts from vagueness (everything) and differentiates down to particulars is that it can't ever fail to explain anything. The fact that by logical necessity it cannot fail makes it problematic, because it loses all powers of discriminating between what will actually be the case, and what may be the case. It can look in the past at all events, and it will find an explanation for all of them - and necessarily so, because it's just logically structured to include everything, and therefore nothing.

It means the experience cannot be parsed in terms of the ordered categories that belong to sensory experience. It has more in common with the less determinate sensory experience of touch, taste, sound and scent, I guess. But humans are predominately visually oriented when it comes to experience as understood empirically. The thing about sensory experience, though, however determinate it might be, is that it is understood to have its source in something empirically determinable, at least in principle. That's why it is an experience of the merely immanent.

With transcendent experience the source is not clear. This is also why aesthetic experience; of art, poetry and music for example is by no means a purely sensory, immanent matter. Aesthetic experience is spiritual as well as merely sensual; it has a mysterious, transcendental dimension. — John

But I don't see why that requires a transcendental dimension, maybe you can illustrate it for me. So you perceive the transcendent with the intuitive intellect. That means the intuitive intellect is just what the rational intellect is for rational structures and what sense experience is for the objects of the senses. So in what sense is the transcendent a separate, instead of merely different, side of existence?

Did someone mention limits????? — apokrisis

??

No, it's simply a different order of experience. Read the mystics and you might get the idea. — John

I have read the mystics, doesn't seem to help. And either way that is irrelevant to the conversation I'm seeking to have with you now. So tell me then - what does "different order of experience" mean?