It seems to me that the problem of "something rather than nothing" only has force if matter is real. If all that exists is thought sensations, I don't see the problem applying. What do you think?

I like Woody Allen’s take on reality:

“Can we actually 'know' the universe? My God, it's hard enough finding your way around in Chinatown. The point, however, is: Is there anything out there? And why? And must they be so noisy? Finally, there can be no doubt that the one characteristic of 'reality' is that it lacks essence. That is not to say it has no essence, but merely lacks it. (The reality I speak of here is the same one Hobbes described, but a little smaller.)” — Joshs

Referring to Schelling, "On his account, we have to think of reality as an original unity (ursprüngliche Einheit) or a primordial totality (uranfängliche Ganzheit) of opposites that is internally differentiated in such a way that every particular item within reality can be seen as a partial, incomplete, or one-sided expression, manifestation, or interpretation of the most basic dynamic opposition characteristic of the whole of reality."

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/idealism/#GermIdea

This sounds like post modernism except that there is a center of comprehension to the system. The world is so relative that it comes around full circle and is absolute. This is how it must be. As Aristotle and Aquinas said, an infinity must have a ground. They may have been wrong about a physical infinity, but in terms of knowledge and systems they are correct. Contingent facts alone will always be solely a relative interrelation of instability, just like the ouroboros, unless there is truth as the anchor

I don’t regard his system as a satisfactory form of idealism, mainly because of his nominalism. — Wayfarer

I don't see how modern versions of idealism like Hoffman can be reconciled with type of realism that is opposed to nominalism (that of Anselm of Canterbury, Albertus Mangus, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, and Duns Scotus) although I see Hoffman as consistent with Kant

Maybe a segment loops around on itself in self creation as if I go North all the way until I arrive from where I started

Then you learn a trade — Bartricks

It is dangerous to desire knowledge too strongly. To say the reality consists merely in our thinking is fantastic poetry because it is so fantastical. To doubt or deny the existence of an external world is to be stuck continually reminding oneself of this. It creates one of those annoying subjective itches

Language is mysterious for me. How does a child learn to connect words to actions and objects. If i point to a vase and say "vase", how does the child know that I am referring to the material object and not the pointing action, or the color of the vase for that matter. There is something we learn about language through social action and I don't think we can put our fingers on it. Is it indeterminate? I also want to know more about how we learn ancient languages and what the philosophy of language can say about that. Let's say one generation has a word for something, and then the next generation changes the meaning. The third generation will read the first with the second generation's meaning. So how it is possible to know what old languages mean? In our present world we learn subtitles and these are the core of communication, but again they are mysterious for me in that I don't know how they work. If we are disconnected from the past, there is still the question of how we are connected to the present

I like your writing style btw

That also accounts for the regularities we perceive, the fact that we all seem to see the same things. Hegel discussed that. 'Like Kant, Hegel believed that we do not perceive the world or anything in it directly and that all our minds have access to is ideas of the world—images, perceptions, concepts. For Kant and Hegel, the only reality we know is a virtual reality. — Wayfarer

This is not exacyly true. Hegel rejects Kant's noumena as fiction and says Spirit, which is us, is noumena

"even among the most committed absolute idealists of the nineteenth century it is not always clear whether they are actually denying the existence of matter or only subordinating it to mind in one way or another)." https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/idealism/#IdeaEarlModeRati

(italics mine)

With Hegel I am sure it is the latter. Although he says that all is mind and we are all reality, this is through connection to Spirit and he explicitly rejects Berkeley in the first part of his Logic and says the world is real and concrete. He just thinks that thought is even more real and concrete. I am not as familiar with Schelling, Fitche, or Schopenhaur however

I recently found Neville Goddard and how all is one in God. It seems true, and listening to hours of Gregorian (sic) chants confirm it for me. I never understood the meditation thing but I don't doubt "reality" on a daily basis either. I find myself on my bed typing this and it all seems as real as can be. The cell phone even appears "to be" exactly as it looks, without any noumena behind it. So I get the idea of something beyond this world which engulfs it, but the regular daily things seem pretty clear and obvious to my perception. That's why it strange for me to read people saying that truth can't be found. Isn't there the truth of today? But putting all peoples' perspectives together is where the meta comes in. How is it that truth makes sense to me but others use words that contradict it? In moral questions it gets worse. I think it's wrong to ever kill another human, while others think self defense, death penalty, ect is valid. We have to ask our consciences those questions, and the truth part in prayer or meditation, as you say

To put it bluntly, Hoffman is misusing science. To set up his model he has to have preconceived notions of what is real and what isn't. Not only does his theory start with evolution then throws it out, but his theory that to perceive falsely is better than to perceive rightly (in the course of evolution) is indefensible. He is a conman who doesnt understand philosophy

I think you essentially understand Heidegger. To reject objectivity and subjectivity is to side with subjectivity

I tentatively agree with the ethical indeterminancy you mention in that everyone has to follow their conscience. Not everyone will agree on those. But we do agree that we share a world. That's how we can have this discussion. It's spirit to spirit. The unconscious and the super-ego are united parts of us, although we usually live in the ego. They show the ego has value as an identity. They mediate each other. I've struggled a lot with the idea of anatman and I think it is resolved in finding more unified states of consciousness. Who knows what it is in its essence! How we experience the soul/spirit is key (and I think overuse of the word consciousness is a problem). And I think I can know that truth is real and also that the past happened somewhat like I remember. If I eat fudge and I latter have the taste of fudge in my mouth, I know why I'm tasting it because I connect the logic with the memory.

There is also a connection to the world. We can make some sound judgment about what animals and bugs are, right? Confusing one's imagination might be a problem because it is our connection to imagination that gives us access to memories. I know the memories were formed in this world because I am still in this world. I know my thoughts come from me and also that memories come from the past. Otherwise you are just a thought floating in nowhere

Is it for Heidegger that he wanted to see existence purely by leaving to the side "objectivity and subjectivity" and perceiving life raw and apart from old categories? This would be the opposite of what you describe

I can show time by speaking of my life. I know surely that these events happen. Some people doubt this philosophically and say the world could have started last Thursday but they betray a lesser understanding of time if time is so unreal the past may never have existed

Hegel in the first chapter of his Phenomenology also says that the present cannot be settled. I don't know what he means by this. I see time as if a point traveling along a line. The line doesn't exist but the point does. It seems very unfragile to me. I'm not sure about the unconscious

Is this related to Kant?

What we deserve before others is different from what we deserve before the universe. As Chesterton wrote somewhere, a healthy mind can accept a paradox while the insane have lost everything but their reason. Gn

They don't deserve harm but rather need "harm" (trials) to grow

Yes and no. He deserves respect from humans but the universe can test him

A baby is not guilty. But it has to go through trials like we and even animals apparently have to go through. Arguing that we shouldn't reproduce is just mindless and childish

What if life is a place to learn something in order to find the meaning of life? I mean you haven't found the meaning of life if you are arguing that life is bad

Your OP isn't complicated

Are you arguing from a purely materialistic paradigm? The argument won't work with a Christian for example

The discussion was about political policies

To not derail the thread, feel free to have the last word

Philosophy of Mind, paragraph 405

In his uniquely dialectical fashion, Hegel writes, "In the ordinary course of nature the condition of the child in its mother's womb is a condition neither merely bodily nor merely mental, but psychical- a correlation of soul to soul. Here are two individuals, yet in undivided psychic unity: the one as yet self, as yet nothing impenetrable, incapable of resistance: the other its actuating subject, the single self of the two. The mother is the genius of the child; for by genius we commonly mean the total mental self-hood, as it has existence of its own, and constitutes the subjective substantiality of some one else who is externally treated as an individual and has only independence in name. The underlying essence of the genius is the sum total of existence, of life, and of character, not as a mere possibility, or capacity, or virtually, but as efficiency and realized activity, as concrete subjectivity."

This is not the place to debate abortion I guess, but consider how a mother in her soul takes care of her child, protects it, and comforts it into existence. What could be more evil than for the woman to stop this move of nature and assert a "right" to be free from the motherhood she already possesses?

The world is. I am not Catholic but one of the previous Pope's said abortion is the new Holocaust. I agree

Genocide and saving humanity are pretty far up there, ye

No, I said that saving the planet from heat death supercedes it

What did you mean? Republicans are trying to end abortion.

Well. I would still vote Democrat for the greater good

Only that your pride requires blood

Democrats murder the unborn directly while Republicans murder the world indirectly (global warming). It's ironic we have to choose between such alternatives

If a form isn't material then what is it made of?

That's good. Kant definitely wasn't Platonic. The true "realists" seem to be those who take the world as it is and doesn't bother with what is "behind it" (as if essence can permeate beyond what we sense). There is much medieval baggage in how we talk though

Defining what a human is can be difficult for sure, or rather, how to name them. Evolution and all that

Nature itself may or may not have a quiddity, nature, or essence (I think those are the same thing). "Realists" usually, contra nominalists, say that like objects in nature share something between them. And they share this not in the sense of having something in common, but actually being immersed in the same nature. Aristotle is a realist, for example, and says *humanity* is an essence we all "partake" in. This seems to me to be unprovable but we have to be careful with language here. We share humanity not by each being immersed in a universal "humanity" but by the fact that we are so similar that we can call each other by the same name ("human").

Ah but a thing's patterns is not rejected in nominalism. Computers don't seem to have a nature but they have similar patterns of construction so they share the same name. Trying to argue that two trees share something in common and meaning more to this than that they have near identical components seems to me to be the corruption of Plato, as Nietsche too would agree with

Love can be bad when you only love your country, humility can be bad when you have no self respect, kindness can be bad when severity is required, ect. They are not virtues at that point, but neither is faith still faith when you use it to blow up schools ect