Yeah so I just want mundane things, good relationships, low stress, and family that I can keep from imploding. — Wosret

That is what everyone wants, but the process or steps that you are taking to reach that goal are actually superficial; your body is not "awakening" but your subconscious is manifesting some curious physiological symptom as a false catalyst to your so-called progress that your studies in yoga calls "Kundalini" when it is not that. It is merely helping you articulate an 'excuse' that spontaneously developed to unconsciously hide a deeper issue; what you may call transcendence could actually be symptomatic of psychosis and your sleep deprivation and physical stress and anxiety only confirm this.

You are exhausted. Sleep is good. Eating healthy. Exercising. Finding a satisfactory job that gives you some meaning. Having friends you can enjoy and interact with and you don't have to be big or have hundreds of people like you. A genuine partner you really love and connect with, not just someone satisfactory. It is about the quality of your life. The worst part about this is that you have a chance to create a better life but you are not taking it.

You end up static, stuck, doing the same thing over and over and it might be satisfying, but is it really living?

The light at the end of the tunnel may be an express train bearing down on you. — Bitter Crank

The train is imaginary. It is a ghost train.

I had the same experience with two other languages I was exposed to. Turkish and Arabic. When I started to study Turkish on my own, I also had the chance to practice it in real life, so it was fast and easy (even though almost all of it is gone now). I haven't had the chance to practice Arabic and so learning was far more slow and hard. — Πετροκότσυφας

Dang it, I have been trying to translate a Sezen Aksu song for ages to no avail; we could have worked on it together until you decided to forget everything. I sang that song as a way to practice the language and I can understand the lyrics and it is amazing, but to decode the meaning into English is seriously difficult and my writing and reading comprehension is terrible. I studied Turkish at Uni as a minor years back when I was studying polsci. Good on you though for taking an independent route to learning.

Hi JustSomeGuy, welcome.

Ideology can sometimes be viewed as an unsavoury misrepresentation of reality and given the ambiguity, I will assume it to mean a system of beliefs that reflects a parallel between you and the external world. For me, ideology contains an imaginary legitimacy that conceptually represents an otherwise vague relationship between you and the external that positions the ideology almost outside of human agency, as though it exists not because we created it for some historical or material reason but rather it exists as an absolute fact. It is consciousness given to you and legitimised by a body of ideas that authenticates the overall system and thus make it immutable. That is why it is very powerful, particularly politically as a process of mobilisation. Foucault points out rather correctly that this 'power' (what he called discourse) is not only efficient but also productive and positive, that it affords pleasure just as much as it can contrast with oppression, Othering and the exercise of domination. It motivates a communal character and social cohesion. Basically, it makes us feel good knowing that we not only don't need to think for ourselves but that we are also a part of something bigger than ourselves; it forms a community of people who don't think for themselves.

It is really a shared identity where "relations become concepts" and properties are essentially fixed but it is also an exposure of our vulnerability, the doubt that we have in ourselves and the exhaustion of being independent. Why O why didn't I just take the blue pill? It's not easy being an autonomous agent because to find the same wholeness in yourself, you need to face the fear of isolation and separateness; our developmental training as children teaches us to be afraid of cutting the umbilical cord, that it is 'wrong' to disobey and that something outside of us - like our parents - are powerful, all-knowing and that we must doubt ourselves. This is transferred to the community or society, even further still to politics or religion. What we are really doing is simply re-arranging our prejudices and it is this that guides our interpretations.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel. Knowledge and learning may cause you this 'grief' and the perpetual fear that enables those moments of existential crises and even depression or anxiety, but you get through it eventually as you start to articulate your own language and acknowledge your own ideas. You get stronger and stronger as you get more and more objective, but this is about being steady in this process towards autonomy and that is not to say isolation from people or society but as Ralph Waldo Emerson said, that balance between the two where you socialise, learn and interact but go home to reflective practice, to the quiet of reading and the solitude of learning.

Just don't give up.

Perhaps, it is too much to demand from a person that they are full of compassion and self-love to be able to apply the golden rule effectively? After all, the world can be a crummy place, and things do happen that make life less fun or appealing. — Posty McPostface

It is that intrinsic moral motivation that you have that matters, the authenticity and rationale behind the judgements that you make. You could be motivated to be kind to others only because your mother is dominating and the actual reason why you are motivated to be kind is because of some unconscious fear of and desire to please your mother. The nature of "goodness" is especially puzzling, whereas ethical acts are normative or rational. The reliability of what one would call a 'moral act' depends on this nature, this consciousness and the very characteristics that motivate us to be good or virtuous.

So the world can be crummy, the people you know and are surrounded by can be nasty, you can own little or next to nothing, but if you have that intrinsic quality of "goodness" you will not sway from that compelling, intuitive force to be good and kind. My life was tipped downside once several years ago, so many bad people and so many bad things happened to me but it only compelled me to improve, to do good, to give to charity etc as I was motivated to fight the good fight. This very motivation is the guarantee but it is very difficult to ascertain the existence and authenticity of this internalism. I personally appreciate the Kantian view that our will is autonomous - or that it must be autonomous - for there to be any authenticity of moral agency, a transcendental freedom that enables reliable properties of moral judgements to manifest.

So, how does that work in terms of the laws being applied uniformly and fairly? Putting that kind of flexibility in the hands of judges increases the risk of unfairness. It also increases the possibility of punishing people less than lawmakers want. In the US, laws with minimum penalties have been popular because they take the discretion out of the hands of judges. Now that approach is falling out of favor because of the high costs of keeping people in prison. — T Clark

Depends on the judicial system but here in Australia - as mentioned - we strictly observe the separation of powers between the judicial, legislature and the executive so as to avoid corruption (working in contrast to the judicial system of the United States) and we have the Acts Interpretations Act that regulates how interpretation of this kind occurs by codifying such concerns that you mention. I am very critical of this sort of thing as I strictly adhere to and advocate Human Rights and I can say to you that I love the judicial system of my country and in particular of my state.

However, in many regards, the golden rule has been brushed aside or not taken into serious consideration in courts of law and su — Posty McPostface

Actually, statutory interpretation applies the principle in common law that enables judges to consider whether meaning in statutes are actually adequate as per the purpose of the justice system; the conditions of justice is intended for the people, to help and serve justice, yet sometimes this does not occur because of the limitations of language or ambiguity of meaning, and legal precedents are there for that reason. Judges formulate sensible conclusions that legislation may not adequately do using the golden rule thesis by determining relevant statutes, caselaw, meaning and grammatical forms by judges and other senior practitioners, explained in Australia through the Acts Interpretation Acts as to how this is done. The 'Golden Rule' avoids taking the meaning of the statutes literally instead allowing judges to consider the purpose of the law. Here is a legal precedent in Australia:

The literal rule of construction, whatever the qualifications with which it is expressed, must give way to a statutory injunction to prefer a construction which would promote the purpose of an Act to one which would not, especially where that purpose is set out in the Act....as a matter of construction to repair the defect, then this must be done. However, if the literal meaning of a provision is to be modified by reference to the purposes of the Act, the modification must be precisely identifiable as that which is necessary to effectuate those purposes and it must be consistent with the wording otherwise adopted by the draftsman. [Section 15AA] requires a court to construe an Act, not to rewrite it, in the light of its purposes.

- Mills vs. Meeking

It sounded like the Amish punishment for rape was not very severe, to say the least. And in a society where you're allowed to kill a relative because you think they've been possessed by an evil spirit, there is no recourse. — Marchesk

This kind of frames the point of the OP, methinks, that in order to apply the Golden Rule, there needs to be an equivalent capacity and so at individual level, we need to have a strong understanding of justice and goodness but how that is contrasted with our community is vital and why we have the separation of powers to ensure that the body of justice remains fair. This still occurs in many countries around the world, by the way, and I wrote about Wahhabi law and Islamic jurisprudence and it was incredibly difficult taking off my Human Rights hat and focusing on what was. Very difficult.

I think music is supposed to make learning a new language enjoyable and like what Benkei mentioned about writing words to make it stick, music and the melody does the same. You weren't allowed to be selective to when and what to listen to, which would make it more of an ordeal especially if the songs all contain the same pop reggaeton beat making them sound almost identical. I learnt a number of songs and did covers on them and it helped me understand informal language and pronunciation, but they were the songs and artists that I liked.

Music. It helped fast-track my understanding of a new language by learning the lyrics to songs. That's right. Swirl those hips with Enrique Iglesias.

If you want some specificity in the details, you could also look into the Donatist schism and the concept of purity in the church with Augustine' attempt to reconcile this vis-a-vis the Catholic Church. There is a strong discussion about what 'good' and 'evil' entails - Augustine believed that coercion should be used to force the schismatics back to Catholicism by claiming the parable of the supper is verification that salvation is only possible through the Church. Paul is another example of this, but Aug also discussed the other parables including Dragnet and the Tares where both good and evil were invited to the wedding in as much as wheat and tares grow together. Is the suggestion by Augustine that ultimately forcing Donatists to align themselves with the Catholic Church ethical - considering it did ultimately lead to their violent demise - inasmuch as it is ethical for the Donatists to claim no validity in religious practice unless the practitioner clearly exemplified a rigour of extreme purity? Also, is there any real validity in Biblical hermeneutics?

I recommend Against the Donatists.

The figures you quote are disgraceful and I'm certain there are a hundred more such examples, but I'm not seeing the link you're making between these abominations and intelligence. Are you suggesting that everyone knows what's going on but weaves elaborate deceptions to convince themselves they're not monsters for spending more money on perfume than women's health?

Whilst I'm sure such a thing goes on, it would mean that less intelligent people should be less able to deceive themselves and so act more compassionately, but I really don't think this is a pattern we actually see. — Inter Alia

Good point, Inter Alia. My intent in showcasing those huge and indeed as you say disgraceful disparities in wealth is perhaps aligned more with political deception that engage in a systemic camouflage of social and economic inequality (Keynesian economics is a really good start to this subject) that as a product of capitalism is designed to increase profit at the expense and exploitation of a vast majority. What is intelligent is the formation or development of this economic framework that elicits macro-behavioural principles of consumption and such patterns to make it easy - so to speak - to deceive.

Everyone needs the latest iPhone. Girls apparently need to pencil their eyebrows and men think they need girls that pencil their eyebrows, etc. There is this lack of consciousness of just how absurd people have become and that is a vulnerability in the system which is, in my opinion, intentionally being used. It is not that they lack intelligence (those that participate in this consumption) but rather it is too big or far from their grasp to understand their role in wealth inequality. As said by Marx:

The bourgeoisie, through its established mode of production, produces the seeds of its own destruction: the working class. — Marx

The reason for this is that we can not "feel" the connection between sacrifices today and goals 50 to 100 years into the future , even). — Bitter Crank

Without sounding suspiciously debauch, but what does this connection or 'feel' look like, exactly? Is it that isolated condition from nature that we find ourselves in because the beast of capitalism whispers delicious lies that make us believe meaning can be purchased? If you think of climate change deniers who justify their arguments using pseudoscience, are you entirely sure that it is not because we are intentionally deceiving ourselves for the sake of profit or gain and that this deception is a product of our intelligence?

But... stop eating fish and meat today so that agriculture/aquaculture will be more sustainable in 2067? Tax ourselves today to pay for a project that won't be done until 2099? Plant 1 billion trees by 2025 so that in 2125 we can cut them down and build shelters? We can imagine it, but we can't really believe in it. And we may not be able to tell whether the expensive, time-consuming project that won't be done 82 years from now will work, or will be worth it. — Bitter Crank

Amartya Sen said that the Bengal Famine where 2.1 million people died had nothing to do with food shortages; as my manager always says, it is all about "scaleability" and is a keen advocate of 5-year plans and looking forward. To have an ideal to work towards - whether you reach it or not - is motivation enough to make one work toward reaching that goal. And yet, when you think of these ideals in a much broader scale, such as the United Nations goals to eradicate abject poverty, that should not - like the Bengal Famine - exist in the first place, but it is economics and politics that create the Global South.

1. Amount of money needed each year (in addition to current expenditures) to provide reproductive health care for all women in developing countries - $12 billion

Amount of money spent annually on perfumes in Europe and the United States - $12 billion

2. Amount of money needed each year (in addition to current expenditures) to provide water and sanitation for all people in developing nations - $9 billion

Amount of money spent annually on cosmetics in the United States - $8 billion

3. Combined wealth of the world's richest 225 people - $1 trillion
Combined annual income of the world's poorest 2.5 billion people $1 trillion

So, a small portion of the world's women try to look pretty at the expense of millions of women who die from contracting preventable sexual diseases because they are uninformed with the maternal mortality rate due to little to no access to health care professionals. Sure, the United Nations has this 'goal' but the real issues are much bigger than that and the worst part is that it is preventable. We are intentionally deceiving ourselves for the sake of profit or gain and this is a product of our intelligence.

Take a spoonful of cod liver oil everyday now so your body will be healthy 60 years from now when you are 80 years old? I don't think so. — Bitter Crank

Extra Virgin Olive Oil is a healthier option, tastes fantastic in almost anything, and has a better name.

This cuts deep.

Now, a friend is in a similar situation, they did bad on a test, and you notice that they seem down and angry or frustrated. Your reaction won't (I hope) be that same as what you told yourself for getting a bad grade on your final. You would console them or tell them that next time they'll do better, or that it just wasn't a good day. — Posty McPostface

You may do that to yourself, but if at that time your friend told you that you were a failure and that you suck at the subject etc, I doubt that you would you like it. What we tell ourselves is emotionally not as powerful as when others tell us. I always call myself a moron because I am a clutz and fall over or walk into walls (I don't know, don't ask), but I would probably feel upset if someone else said it to me and being conscious of that would never do to others what I know I would not like.

Empathy is not simply understanding a situation or concern, but understanding how they feel and the type of person that they are. Your decision to console your friend is based on a number of factors and the altruistic motivation contrasts and associates an awareness of our own subjective structure or moral agency. How we deliberate ethical and moral concerns and ultimately our behaviour and responses is usually based on our interactions with others; perhaps not so much narcissists as I agree with Buxte that it may be borne out of a need for love, but certainly sociopaths lacking the capacity for empathy lack the motivation (the 'switch' in the brain) that make them incapable of understanding how another person might feel.

Note that I feminized Tyrannosaurus. Equality must be applied to Vertebrate Paleontology. Female monsters resent being erased; being rendered invisible; being silenced; being remarked upon only when they have laid an egg.

There is no end to the evils of patriarchy... — Bitter Crank

This is as awkward as watching someone vomit; is it funny or is it disturbing? Nevertheless, I must say that you are indeed correct about hubris but it is this that enables short-sightedness. It is not that we are actually incapable of ascertaining consequences - hence being intelligent - but rather our excessive pride deludes us into believing lies to justify bad actions. We make ourselves stupid not because we actually are, but because we want to.

So, it makes me remember I wrote somewhere in my book of quotes the following that thanks to you I just retrieved: "To be able to bear provocation is an argument of great reason, and to forgive it of a great mind. Ignorance and inconsideration are the two great causes of the ruin of man kind." J. Tillotson. Of course, he says mankind, but we get the gist.

I personally believe that we begin to understand 'love' as an application or process through empathy or the love that we have for others as this contrast activates our motivation - the very 'goodness' itself - and thus moral consciousness is awakened. Without empathy, that 'switch' in our brain is never on and how we apply ourselves is superficial at best. Think Ring of Gyges.

This is the Golden Rule and it originated from the Hebrew Bible: “‘Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord." Lev 19:18 but it was Jesus who claimed that the Golden Rule was 'the whole law' or what epitomised the entirety of all the prophetic teachings. I think what it essentially ameliorates is empathy or our capacity to empathise as this is foundational to moral and ethical considerations.

Are you friends with murderers? I'm not, but even so, I adopt a sense of compassion in understanding what compels a person to such extremes because that enables me to understand the broader scope - whether familial or social or political - that help shape this murderer, that, and the concept of evil.

Gender roles arent simply imposed by culture onto individuals in a top-down fashion but also make sense to many of them relative to their own larger worldviews — Joshs

I must disagree with this. I should first like to say, though, that it is good to have you here and a well-written post that I thoroughly enjoyed. I am quite keen on having more interaction with those that may possibly have some experience or interest in the philosophy of psychology. From personal experience, however, with regard to the above mentioned, I am confident that there certainly is an imposition from culture and/or social and familial environments that largely can - depending on the extremity of this environment - impact on a person' sexual development.

I grew up in a culturally paternalistic environment and it was reinforced rather violently that women were inferior for which all the women in my life accepted that thus normalised bad behaviour from men. There was always this conflict, so to speak, within me that resulted in my complete avoidance of intimacy and relationships with men because - while not conscious of it - I did not like this behaviour both from men and women that my environment reinforced. I unconsciously believed it was wrong, but since it was unconscious, I found myself having refused intimacy. My highly selective expectations were consistently not being met so that I could justify something was wrong with the men that I met and avoid relationships by remaining chaste, rather than acknowledging that something was wrong with me. Polar opposite to me was my sister who had a very promiscuous attitude and was attracted to bad men - likely because of this familiarity with bad behaviour - and believed that sex was a form of empowerment and already has had two (violent) husbands and children from each of them. She refuses to accept that something was wrong with our culture.

Several years ago, I was bullied at work by an aggressive man who presented all the qualities of this bad behaviour that was normalised during my childhood. I started to get ill, would find myself crying in the bathroom and not really knowing why, lost a lot of weight and told myself continuously that he 'had a chance' in that I believed he would become a better man and actually made an effort to do this or work with him as though my hope for him to be a good man would help me heal and recover. Wrong. When I concluded that he had no chance and that he was stuck and would never progress, I started to heal and when I saw him shopping or at the gym I became angrier and stronger because I started to consciously see the facts that what I was culturally taught to be 'normal' was not. That contrast enabled me to see what was actually normal and healthy. I am now open to men and the prospect of love because I now understand my sexuality, but it took a considerable amount of work to reach that.

So, how did this unconscious "protest" within me form and was it a signal of my own individuality? Australia is a multicultural society and so I was raised in a schism between my family' culture and the broader Australian culture where paternalism is not as strong as it was with my Mediterranean background. As a first generation migrant, the conflict was generated because I had two voices, the one that was reinforced so fervently by people that I loved and the one that educated me at school and through friends but was distant from me and not so emotional; one I knew was wrong but it just was, and the other I knew was right but it just wasn't enough. My identity was in conflict until I decided to face the facts; there was something wrong with my culture and my family and I left it completely to become 'Australian' or adopt that objective approach.

Slogans proscribing violence against women, using a voabulary of social appropriateness and norms, tend to essentialize an issue which needs a more relativistic approaches understanding. Such legalistic, moralistic approaches run the risk of being complcit in what they oppose, and may only perpetuate the problem by failing to grasp underlying causes. — Joshs

I am not keen on relativism, but I do understand the necessity to think about cultural diversity; again, here in Australia, any legislation passed through parliament must be aligned with our human rights charter to avoid the potential controversy of being complicit to perpetuating problems. While each culture has a unique freedom to define their identity as they see fit, there are universal norms - such as the wrongness of violence against women - we we need to strike a balance and say that some of what one may view as culturally appropriate behaviour actually is not. If society largely influences behavioural norms then it is vital for us to ensure that these norms are aligned to these universal, righteous views of good behaviour.

I dont see their issues in terms of a failure to be in touch with reality, but rather a need to understand themselves and others in their own terms more effectively. — Joshs

Wonderfully said! Erich Fromm stated that while Freud and others focused on serious pathological concerns, his endeavour - particularly in relation to love and sexuality as well as depression and anxiety - was really about 'normal' people with problems and who make up a vast majority.

Are there other possibilities? — anonymous66

I was about to say foundationalism instead of dogma until @Thorongil aptly mentioned this, but probably take it one step further in that relativism - but in particular existentialism - do form meaning for the individual or at the very least contrast and ameliorate this epistemic structure that enables or strengthens the formation of our identity. For instance, I personally appreciate phenomenal conservatism because it articulates a difference between propositional content from beliefs. I am not entirely sure about both nihilism and relativism; perhaps radical skepticism?

We, as individuals, are not just cogs of a community we belong it. You mentioned psychotheraeputic venues. This could imply that the difficulites individuals face in understanding themselves sand others sexually is one of pathology, although you may not have meant it in that way. To me, sexual undestanding is a subset of larger belief systems that evolve culturally. Think of cultural movements like the Rennaissance, enlightenment, modernism and the postmodern. These eras express overlapping conceptions of the world in art, literature, philosophy, science and music. They also mark changing erotic worldviews. — Joshs

I am finding it difficult to ascertain what angle you are framing your argument and while I agree with you, you appear to reference that we are individuals and yet sexuality as understood by this individual is aligned with the culture. While this is indeed correct, I think pathology of a sexual nature is arguably the conflict between this and the individual' natural and instinctual inclinations. If you look at the Freudian tripartite psyche of the Ego, Id and the Superego as an example, healthy psycho-sexual stages are disrupted when there is a misunderstood conflict between the Ego/Id - the identity of the individual and the instinctual drives - with the Superego or the moral framework that the culture or environment educates the individual. If personality has this evolutionary or historical structure, the formation of an effective social movement that embraces a positive psychology by avoiding discouragement of sexual exploration while at the same time educating - particularly on sexual health - through perhaps sexual pedagogy within the curriculum, we could reduce the likelihood of this conflict and the eventual pathology.

As for contemporary discourse on sexuality, cultural attitudes - i.e. paternalistic cultures - largely challenge the prospect of offering informed approaches to sexual behaviour. Whether unconscious or not, society and culture influence our identity and indeed widely held beliefs that are 'desirable' shapes behaviour. For instance, I am heavily involved in human rights law at international level and have long held a disdain to multinational organisations that abuse indigenous communities, the environment and local laws for profit etc. The greatest impact that stopped or reduced this unethical behaviour was the wider public becoming conscious of it and together forming a movement that stopped purchasing the commodities from these MNCs that therefore made them implement better supply-chain methods.

If the paternalistic attitude changes it is usually because people are better informed. In Australia, we had a series of campaigns aimed at children, adolescents and adults and questioned a number of problems including things like 'excuses' or 'justifications' that make violence - in all its forms - justifiable and it was and continues to be very successful. You can see one of many ads here:




It is really striking that balance where it is not so much rejecting inappropriate behaviour but by taking a positive approach would mean to promote appropriate behaviour. This broad approach would then transfer to representatives in communities and families and eventually to the individual who will be better informed and less afraid. This is at an individual level.

Quite the reverse in my opinion. I don't know where this "sexually repressive environment" of which you speak is located. Maybe among the Mormons, the Amish, and certain Muslim immigrants? Everywhere else in the U.S. and the West as a whole the ideology of sexual liberation reigns victorious. I don't know how much more "complete" it can get. — Thorongil

The question is really aligned with why - despite the sexual liberation - does sexual assault or discrimination continue and the reasoning behind that is not necessarily about sex, but rather power-relations. Jamalrob is correct in saying that power-relations are personal and the question really is about ascertaining what is healthy - I, as a woman, like equality in power but do desire strong male partners and can feel rather repulsed by cowards as much as he might like an independent woman who is feminine or whatever each individual desires - but an unhealthy power-relation, such as victims of rape, or victims of war, vulnerable persons who are unable to look after themselves, these broader patterns exemplify extreme inequalities that transcend sexuality, but can be found in gender relations, politics, the workplace, or other hierarchical environments. It is sociopsychological. I completely disagree with the OP more so because this utopia simply does not exist neither is it likely to, but complete sexual liberation is clearly not the answer to our problems. If not, then what is?

To try and keep this in line with the OP, I guess I am not surprised considering you think the brain is like an 'analog system' which leads me to think about naturalistic dualism and the ERR model vis-a-vis the 'software' and the 'hardware' of the brain. The interesting thing about the model is that it does not contain computationally efficient algorithms so does information become a property of the physical world? If you think about the double-slit and that the wave function collapses because of the observer, that would mean wave-functions never collapsed prior to humans unless consciousness is external to us and thus comparable to panpsychist notions that mental properties are injected somehow and therefore a property of the universe, which is understandable but (in my opinion) garbage.

Physicalism denies that consciousness contains physical properties as - like your analog system - records information or phenomenal experiences and the brain simply plays this back. In relation to the OP and why I mentioned it, that is a static concept like substance dualism because we do not fully understand the complexity of the brain, making the suggestion 'pseudoscience' because there appears to be no further effort for progress. Information still appears to be within the physical domain because since your analog brain is recording immaterial information, it becomes a property of the material world, thus 'property dualism'.

Can I sleep now?

Do you always write pure rubbish, or can you cite scientific research which establishes this fact? How were you made aware that the hard problem had been solved? — Galuchat

If you can explicate why this is "pure rubbish" then you may just answer the OP' concern. While I never stated that the hard problem of consciousness is solved, do I really need to explain what property dualism is?

(Y)

How both physical and phenomenal properties interact without violating the law of thermodynamics is pretty complex because of the autonomy of phenomenal experiences; do mental states have energy? Gosh, what a juicy topic!

"Nonsense on Stilts" by Pigliucci is a fun read. (Y)

Perhaps "good science" should be rooted in its consistent ability to predict future events instead of its ability to be falsifiable — MonfortS26

Like astrology? They consistently predict future events because of the broad likelihood that millions of Capricorns might feel stressed in a few days time but that they will find a day to relax and things will get better. It does show something; is 'science' here being defined rationally or sociologically as Kuhn pointed out? These predictions merely accommodate pre-existing facts or possibilities because pseudoscience is static. "Astrologers were greatly impressed, and misled, by what they believed to be confirming evidence - so much so that they were quite unimpressed by any unfavourable evidence. Moreover, by making their interpretations and prophesies sufficiently vague they were able to explain away anything that might have been a refutation of the theory had the theory and the prophesies been more precise. In order to escape falsification they destroyed the testability of their theory. It is a typical soothsayers trick to predict things so vaguely that the predictions can hardly fail: they they become irrefutable."

Consciousness does not contain physical properties and as such cannot be defined in physical terms, because consciousness is a feature of the brain and thus property dualism can be compatible to science.

A more permissive sexual cultural would be helpful, but it would have to include an active environment of sexual education, including legitimate venues and institutions for safe, serious, reflective and mindful sexual exploration. — Joshs

There are a plethora of avenues in which sexual exploration is possible, but if intended to be serious in nature would cross into a domain concerning mental health and sexual identity in a psychotherapeutic sense. How people form intimate relationships is pivotal in our understanding of behavioural disparities that ameliorate what is 'bad' and what is 'good' but this is social or environmental. If the environment is very anti-homosexuality, for instance, this can largely affect the mental health of gay men and women and how they approach sex and their sexuality and usually in the negative. I think it is not really about accessibility to programs, but rather a more holistic, sociocultural approach where we resist oppressive attitudes to all forms of consensual sexual behaviour as part of a positive psychology movement by avoiding discouragement of sexual exploration during development to prevent this 'unevolved sexual self-awareness' later in life and fostering better education on serious aspects to sexuality such as sexual health including pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, relationships etc.

I still think that we would still have sexual harassment, however, because this is largely about sexual objectification and motivated by equating worth to body (both for men and women) and while largely framed by acculturated perspectives, interventions would be much more complex. Ethical implications here are more difficult to counteract despite the interaction between the two domains.

If they're socialistic countries and if they're working then socialism does work, so the question is contradictory. What you've been told isn't true. — Michael

Are they even socialistic countries? A free market economy is not socialist, so the Nordic model is debatable.

I lived in Denmark for sometime while undertaking research at Copenhagen University and it was while I was there that the subject of Danish language used in university courses was a hot topic and they eventually legislated by no longer permitting English to be used. That was a signal for me regarding the growing nationalism, that and my comparative experience with Australia' multiculturalism where I felt the minority communities there were Othered and the sensitivity around subjects like Islam were far more heightened than I had ever experienced before. The homogeneity is really a type of nationalism.

In addition, to my everlasting dismay, people are taxed rather incredibly there. My friends told me they were paying almost 45% and other goods and services were really expensive; the cheapest food I could get was shawarma. However, in Australia we fail because of the property market while in Denmark they are very safe and economically this balances a freedom that strengthens their economy. But, it is not all wonderful there.

When you say "socialist" are you talking economically or are you attempting to convey that they are a type of social democracy, because if the former I may actually disagree with you on that one.

Hey Sophie, welcome. To be objective is to possess a type of consciousness, and as a moral agent you are directing the subjective and applying or exercising it to an external world. In Aristotle' poetics, the subject contains characteristics imitative of the ugly or beautiful, the immoral or virtuous as the aesthetic itself is this will toward moral value. A moral agent is defined as one that epitomises these virtues that imitates virtue itself. In his ethics, he outlines this imitation as a type of habitual regularity where we decisively or consciously apply a normative mimesis, but not everything, which you should know from McDowell. For instance, like goodness or love where one cannot really define the properties that make goodness or love as there are a variety. But does goodness comes before virtue? Virtue seems to explain the difference between right and wrong in terms of motivations.

I recommend The fragility of goodness by Nussbaum, personally. Good luck and feel free to throw in questions anytime as there are some who know much more than I do on VE (Y)

Evelyn Underhill, arguably the most learned scholar on Christian mysticism, disagrees. She argues to some length that mystical experiences are unitive; She says that William James' "four marks" of mysticism aren't sufficient, and she lays out her own four instead: — Noble Dust

The interpretation of a mystical experience may be unitary as the representations are not independent to the religious or cultural practice the mystic belongs to and therefore social constructed and one can even say the experience itself emerges from this; but, it is only in the mind of the individual who falsely attributes it to be formed by a duality between the two in an attempt to legitimise it.

Dreams are episodic. We all have dreams, because we all have brains and thus the cognitive tools that form remarkable and fantastic 'experiences' when we are asleep, fantasies that are shaped by the symbols of our environment that create pictures that we can interpret in an attempt to attribute meaning to it and to our unconscious mind. But, to believe in those dreams as an actual reality that exists?

Mystical experiences merely expose the depth of the individual' desperation for meaning and things like false pregnancies or hysteria are examples of how this desperation can manifest physiologically as though the mind is resisting an existential reality that is too much to bear. Loneliness really is our inability to articulate who we are and we try to find it in others, in religion, in society, new ageism etc, when all of it is in our own minds.

“There is no coming to consciousness without pain. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own Soul. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”
― C.G. Jung

So-called 'mystical experiences' are a by-product stemming from a misunderstood unconscious self and mysticism is merely one such way of interpreting yourself and your place in the external world. But, when a person actually begins to believe in astrology, who actually thinks that there is accuracy in star signs, they are not well.

For the record, I have no qualms about demeaning his beliefs, or the beliefs of anyone else here. If his beliefs are ridiculous, then ridicule is fine by me. Ridicule away! — Sapientia

You see, here is the thing. I have more of a feminine type discipline thing about me where I kind of sting people and they go 'eeouch' and afterward put a bit of pawpaw cream on the sore, stick a bandaid over it, maybe get mumsie to kiss it better. But, they recover, you know. Whereas with the masculine approach, one kind of mauls them like a rottweiler, savagely dig their jaws and shred off a large chunk of their thigh, lacerate and mutilate until they end up hospitalised for months and remain scarred for the rest of their life.

I am not sure why no one noticed, but you had a gun man. You had a gun. You pointed that gun at your ugly, stupid cat and yes it is an ugly stupid cat but that doesn't somehow make it alright that you had a gun.

You scary.

Simple - That education is not about sitting in a school room learning History and English Literature, that it can be about working at a rewarding job in a safe and nurturing environment, but that is currently illegal even if it's what a child wants. That it is a blatant denial of the child's human right by ignoring their stated wishes and instead forcing them to attend an institution, and allowing that institution to punish without trial and deny free speech just because they're children. It's not a complicated argument. — Inter Alia

I agree but when you previously stated:

but physically imprisoning then in a school building, forcing them on pain of further imprisonment to sit down and shut up (all of which does actual medically demonstrable harm to their well-being), just so that they can be force-fed some useless crap about the Roman Empire is absolutely fine is it? — Inter Alia

This came following my argument that children aged 10-13 should not be working as labourers but should instead be at school and playing. Do you feel that a child at that age is capable of understanding what he/she wants vis-a-vis this so-called 'rewarding job' that smells of a privilege not available to many people? Can you provide me with an example of what this rewarding job for a 10-13 year old is and whether such a job is the norm in relation to the millions of children currently working as laborers - particularly in the global south - where conditions are usually not safe neither nurturing? If you believe that a 10-13 year old has the cognitive capacity to ascertain their rights and responsibilities and articulate a free agreement, are you able to provide me with justification for this capacity?

While I agree that there is a threshold - in Australia, for instance, we offer optional or alternate studies such as Vocational Education and Training (VET) that combines effective TAFE studies and practical work placements for secondary school students who may not want to do further studies but prefer to work, but this is only when they reach the age 15.9 and with the full advice of careers counselor, school and their family. We have even established unique alternatives for school leavers and those in the juvenile justice system along with numerous options for traineeships and apprenticeships. But again, all after a certain age.

No you haven't shown, you stated, I've shown two studies which demonstrate no link between formal education and generalised development of brain functions such as moral reasoning or domain-general ability. You have supplied no study to support your assertion that formal education develops anything in the brain that education on a farm or at a mechanic's workshop would not. — Inter Alia

A formal education is a part of a triad of requirements that strengthen early childhood brain development as the stimulation strengthens their cognitive, social and emotional capacity among others.

What is your argument? What are you suggesting? That an education is the problem, or being sedentary? If it is the latter, as the study you show suggests, "the effectiveness of short but regular exercise breaks in offsetting the detrimental effects of uninterrupted sitting in young girls" which means you should be advocating for exercise at schools.

So what is your point?

Are you anti-education, pro-labour? The rest of your post aside from the following is not even worth responding to.

So you're suggesting that tribal cultures are socially underdeveloped because they don't have any books? That sounds like something out of Victorian colonialism.

It is outrageous to suggest that a child who isn't in school is in any way suffering the equivalent damage as a child who is the victim of such neglect as was seen in the Romanian orphanages. Plenty of people home educate, plenty adopt 'Free to learn' approaches such as advocated by Peter Gray at Sudbury School, there are thousands of children living in tribal cultures across the world who do not have a formal education but simply adopt their parent's role's as they grow up. Are you suggesting all these cultures are neglecting children to the extent seen in the Romanian orphanages? — Inter Alia

Do not try to use false ad hominems on me by purporting some connection between my argument about brain development as comparable to deriding cultures. The most pivotal aspect to early childhood health is access to good family care and a non-toxic home environment, but strengthening cognitive, social and language skills is furthered by an education due to brain development as I have already shown you. The acquisition of knowledge through an education strengthens cognitive abilities and practical skills for higher-order functioning later in life and notwithstanding your ridiculous examples (you do realise what moral reasoning is?) I am not suggesting that "tribal cultures are socially underdeveloped" as you claim as they too have access to an education - whether it is religious, cultural etc - in addition to the standard compulsory early childhood education that most governments around the world endorse - whether at home or through alternate approaches, but an education still.

So, I ask you again, what is the point of your argument?

But way more than one person has had a mystical experience. (Hey there! Now I'm back to making real arguments). — Noble Dust

Hey you! In all seriousness, though, I agree but each of those mystical experiences are individual and they do not share the same experience.

Sitting for too long causes demonstrable medical harm. Would you like me to post some of the other 20 similar studies I have available? — Inter Alia

How is that study of middle-aged related to early childhood education? I work with numerous schools and school aged children and I can assure you that they do not sit down in sedentary positions for long periods of time, on the contrary fitness and physical activity is largely incorporated in many school cultures.

Who said anything about forced labour. It school that doing the forcing, I'm talking about the child's ability to choose which is taken from them by authoritarian rules about working age and full time education. It's already illegal to force anyone to work, child or adult. It doesn't require additional draconian age restrictions. — Inter Alia

Are you suggesting that it is not a human right for a child to receive an education, on the contrary that it is authoritarianism to believe we are responsible for their brain development? So, by enabling accessibility to an early childhood education so as to strengthen their future capacity to make informed choices and empower reason, we are actually committing an evil? I am quite literally gobsmacked.

An education is critical for a childs brain development and when you read books to babies or toddlers, you may not think that you are actually doing much but evidence shows that it has a positive impact on their neurological and social development, where fibers grow between neurons and the white matter of the brain that forms neural networks that transmit information. An education assists in the maturation through further fibers and growth that strengthens the capacity to process information, reading, mathematics and logic as well as retaining better memory.

The study of childhood neglect in Romanian orphanages is an example of how neglect affects the brain. When a child experiences stress, the neural connections in areas of the brain that assist with learning pivotal later in life for either higher education or employment is damaged, whereby early preventive intervention such as the provision of an education will likely assist in a more successful future for the child,



An education is crucial for the development of a child' brain and while casual, outdoor activities with a pocket allowance is useful, being pulled out of school and forced into labour is not. If we have over 200 million children and young people out of school, then we not only fail our responsibility to protect and support children as they risk never developing the capacity to activate areas of the brain that will empower and enable them with the skills later in life, but we indirectly assist the continuity and proliferation of negative determinates that are characteristic of poor social, emotional and cognitive skills.

So having a child do healthy satisfying, and rewarding outdoor work on, say, a ranch would be a bad thing, but physically imprisoning then in a school building, forcing them on pain of further imprisonment to sit down and shut up (all of which does actual medically demonstrable harm to their well-being), just so that they can be force-fed some useless crap about the Roman Empire is absolutely fine is it? — Inter Alia

Your description of an education being "imprisoned" where people experience "medically demonstrable harm" because they sit on a chair and write, being forced to learn about useless things like history is rather interesting. Of course, forced labour to you is just rewarding outdoor activities on a ranch.

It is pretty difficult writing anything more because I am genuinely speechless.

I have been trying to make myself clear on this thread for a couple of days and have made no headway. I think that's for several reasons - 1) It's a hard thing to get across. The same words mean different things to different people. 2) I've been trying for a long time to figure out a way that I find satisfactory to describe the experiences and ideas I am talking about. I haven't been able to so far. It's probably silly of me to think that if I can just figure out to say it right everyone will see what I'm talking about. 3) The ideas are probably alien to the way people think about the world 4) I think the fact that you talk about the ideas I'm trying to get across as a type of psychopathology and Sapientia calls them "patently absurd" indicates intellectual rigidity on your parts. — T Clark

You have created the idea of 3) when you are having difficulties articulating your beliefs probably because you yourself have not yet understood it well enough. Whatever the case is, my argument is not about your beliefs and what you say makes sense and parallel to some degree with me as I myself subscribe to the belief in the interconnectedness of all things in similar vein to Spinoza. I do agree, however, with 1) as how things are interpreted is dependent on a number of factors. Take an Epicurean approach and focus on addressing them. If I say I believe in God to a Christian, it may be interpreted to be the trinity; I have to clarify further and so I say that my belief is more aligned with the monotheistic God of Judaism or Islam, but then it may be assumed that I am Jewish or Muslim, so again further still I say that I do not follow a religion nor believe in an anthropomorphic God etc etc. I noticed that some serious advocates of atheism are really just anti-Catholics because they had some bad experiences personally.

As for 4) and my intellectual rigidity, I am sorry that you feel that way and indeed we have different views, but my intention is not to demean your beliefs at all but rather to call out a concern I have that suggestions of some supernatural plane of existence simultaneously exists and is accessible somehow. If reality is shared - if everything is interconnected - and if only one person has a mystical experience, that is verification that mystical experiences themselves are individual and therefore pathological because such experiences are not real.

You have mad people like Madam Blavatsky plagiarising from Hinduism and Gnosticism and then wrap it all up by pretending it is philosophical, creating Theosophy where she believes that the devil is god and that Aryans and Atlantis actually exist, influencing people who end up influencing Hitler who end up killing millions of Jews, Romas, persons with a disability etc. There needs to be a line drawn between fantasy and reality.

It is more dangerous then simply some astrologist telling a gullible minded moron that they are a Capricorn and next week they will meet the man of their dreams or scientologists talking about having you purified and I don't know whatever heck they do. I really need you to think about 4) again, please.

I guess I don't see mystical experiences as so out of the ordinary. I don't think they are mysterious at all. I wasn't really thinking about Catholics when I talked about billions of people, I was thinking of Eastern religions and philosophies, although you are probably right to include Western religions too. I have my own idea what "mystical" means. I haven't studied comparative religion much, so maybe what I am talking about is not what others usually think of as mystical. — T Clark

There is a difference between a mystical experience and mysticism; in some Dervish Sufi orders, for instance, the practice of whirling is intended to achieve this unison with God yet possible only for a select few and only followed by this "annihilation of the self" after years of practice. They are aware that not everyone is capable of achieving this experience that is individual or distinct in its transcendental reality. In my opinion, this exemplifies that there really is no possibility of such an experience, but rather it is pathologically distinct framed within a religious exegesis in order to broadly make sense of whatever that person is experiencing. The mysticism itself, the suggestion of attaining a unison with God, the annihilation of the self, the asceticism etc is entirely sensible but I am of the opinion - except for the existence of God - that it is not meant to be taken literally; like QM and CM, it is meant to help us better understand physical reality. For people to purport simultaneity between the spiritual realm and the material world - i.e. something like 'psychics' who can reach beyond this world or that Scho. cat both exists and doesn't exist - is, in my opinion a type of pathology. It is taking lies and our imagination to a new level.

You cannot know God. This is why - for centuries - people rely on idols or turning men like Jesus into a god. Taking concepts like that literally is a cognitive issue but framed into a dogmatic system. To me, there are really only two types of people, those that believe in God and those that don't. Everything else is just trying to make sense of this.