And still, what is the alternative? — Banno

For Lefebvre, liberalism isn’t an economic theory, but a moral and political framework for coordinating life among individuals with different wants, values, and needs. It’s not about GDP. It’s about decency. — Banno

And how can man turn to the spirituality of the erotic ascent if he has been taught—has been indoctrinated into—the belief that Eros is fundamentally a matter of acquisition and consumption, a laying claim to a commodity (a commodity that "dimishes when shared," and so which sets up a dialectical of competition)? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Are you comfortable having "the wise" tell you what you can and can't do? With them enforcing their view through state-sanctioned violence? — Banno

I agree that liberalism is preferable to collectivism or theocratic culture where values are imposed. But at the same time, there is a kind of hollowness at the core of the secular culture with which liberalism is entwined. — Wayfarer

Classical thought doesn’t settle the question—it opens it. — Banno

The idea inherent in all idealistic metaphysics–that the world is in some sense a product of the mind–is thus turned into its opposite: the mind is a product of the world, of the processes of nature. Hence, according to popular Darwinism, nature does not need philosophy to speak for her: nature, a powerful and venerable deity, is ruler rather than ruled. Darwinism ultimately comes to the aid of rebellious nature in undermining any doctrine, theological or philosophical, that regards nature itself as expressing a truth that reason must try to recognize. The equating of reason with nature, by which reason is debased and raw nature exalted, is a typical fallacy of the era of rationalization. Instrumentalized subjective reason either eulogizes nature as pure vitality or disparages it as brute force, instead of treating it as a text to be interpreted by philosophy that, if rightly read, will unfold a tale of infinite suffering. Without committing the fallacy of equating nature and reason, mankind must try to reconcile the two.

In traditional theology and metaphysics, the natural was largely conceived as the evil, and the spiritual or supernatural as the good. In popular Darwinism, the good is the well-adapted, and the value of that to which the organism adapts itself is unquestioned or is measured only in terms of further adaptation. However, being well adapted to one’s surroundings is tantamount to being capable of coping successfully with them, of mastering the forces that beset one. Thus the theoretical denial of the spirit’s antagonism to nature–even as implied in the doctrine of interrelation between the various forms of organic life, including man–frequently amounts in practice to subscribing to the principle of man’s continuous and thoroughgoing domination of nature. Regarding reason as a natural organ does not divest it of the trend to domination or invest it with greater potentialities for reconciliation. On the contrary, the abdication of the spirit in popular Darwinism entails the rejection of any elements of the mind that transcend the function of adaptation and consequently are not instruments of self-preservation. Reason disavows its own primacy and professes to be a mere servant of natural selection. On the surface, this new empirical reason seems more humble toward nature than the reason of the metaphysical tradition. Actually, however, it is arrogant, practical mind riding roughshod over the ‘useless spiritual,’ and dismissing any view of nature in which the latter is taken to be more than a stimulus to human activity.

The effects of this view are not confined to modern philosophy. — Max Horkheimer, The Eclipse of Reason, Pp 10-11

What do social animals need? How can a society of animals get the maximum portion of what they need with a minimum of suffering? — Vera Mont

On Monday afternoon, Harvard became the first university to refuse to comply with the administration’s requirements, setting up a showdown between the federal government and the nation’s wealthiest university. By the evening, federal officials said they would freeze $2.2 billion in multiyear grants to Harvard, along with a $60 million contract.

There's an excellent account of liberalism to be found in the work of the Professor of Politics and Philosophy at The University of Sydney, Alexander Lefebvre. Lefebvre shows how liberal ideas developed as a way of coordinating individual needs and wants, and how much of the general ethic underpinning our interpersonal relations is implicitly liberal. Liberalism is a practical ethic for life among equals. It's embedded in how we relate; in respect, consent, reciprocity. We live in liberal ways, often without noticing. Liberalism isn’t just a political system or economic ideology. It’s also a moral culture—something ordinary, even beautiful, in how we deal with one another. — Banno

The idea that the physical properties of particles are why particles combine, but are not why certain groups of particles are conscious, is not a contradiction. — Patterner

The physical properties of particles are why particles combine, and the subjective experience of particles is why certain groups of particles have a group consciousness.

There is no contradiction between the two parts of that sentence. — Patterner

The justices endorsed Judge Xinis’s previous order that required the administration to “facilitate” the return of Mr. Abrego Garcia. But they stopped short of actually ordering his return, indicating that even federal courts may not have the authority to require the executive branch to do so.

And yet Mr. Miller, in his appearance on Fox News and in the Oval Office, portrayed the ruling as an unmitigated victory for the Trump administration.

He said, for instance, that the Supreme Court’s instructions that the White House had to “facilitate” getting Mr. Abrego Garcia out of custody meant that Trump officials could assume an entirely passive stance toward his release.

“If El Salvador voluntarily sends him back,” Mr. Miller said on Fox News, “we wouldn’t block him at the airport.”

But whether that position flies with Judge Xinis remains to be seen. She has scheduled a hearing to discuss what the government should do for Tuesday in Federal District Court in Maryland.

Testing what? If Trump can follow normal practice of power under the constitution of the US, or if the guardrails of US democracy actually works? — Christoffer

Is the US too corrupt, too stupid, or too incompetent? — Christoffer

I like Dawkins, but his view is human centric — James Dean Conroy

We are survival machines—robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes. — Richard Dawkins, preface to The Selfish Gene, 2nd Edition

Mr. Bukele, who has positioned himself as a key ally to Mr. Trump, in part by opening his country’s prisons to deportees, sat next to the president and a group of cabinet officials who struck a combative tone over the case, which has reached the Supreme Court.

“Of course I’m not going to do it,” Mr. Bukele said when reporters asked if he was willing to help return the man, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a 29-year-old father of three who was deported last month. The Trump administration has acknowledged that his deportation was the result of an “administrative error.”

The message from the meeting was clear: Neither Mr. Trump nor Mr. Bukele had any intention of returning Mr. Abrego Garcia, even though the Supreme Court has ruled that he should come back to the United States. The case has come to symbolize Mr. Trump’s defiance of the courts and his willingness to deport people without due process. — NY Times

The point where religions or philosophies go wrong is where they resist evolution. — James Dean Conroy

Although human consciousness does not exist in microphysical particles, their properties cause them to combine in certain ways under certain circumstances, which cause the emergence of human consciousness — Patterner

It is not possible to derive the existence of consciousness from the physical structure of the brain in the way in which it is possible to derive the transparency of glass from the molecular structure of silicon dioxide.

The hard problem is the result of thinking the world is at it appears in your mind, rather than thinking that the way the world appears is actually a mental model of the world. — Harry Hindu

There is no ghost in the sound. — JuanZu

we cannot say that the information was contained in the USB stick as a ghost in the device. — JuanZu

Isn't the "point of the article" the same as being "objective"? If there is a point to the article that one is not seeing, isn't that the same as saying the article can be assessed (seen) objectively which you have "seen" and the other has not "seen"? How can we hope to see the point of anything if all we have to go by is "subjective" experiences? It would seem that we have both subjective and objective experiences and the issue is trying to discern which is which. — Harry Hindu

What exactly is the subjective nature of consciousness and how anyone of us can ever hope to get the point (objectivity) if the nature of consciousness is only subjective? — Harry Hindu

The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience. When we think and perceive, there is a whir of information-processing, but there is also a subjective aspect. As Nagel (1974) has put it, there is something it is like to be a conscious organism. This subjective aspect is experience. When we see, for example, we experience visual sensations: the felt quality of redness, the experience of dark and light, the quality of depth in a visual field. Other experiences go along with perception in different modalities: the sound of a clarinet, the smell of mothballs. Then there are bodily sensations, from pains to orgasms; mental images that are conjured up internally; the felt quality of emotion, and the experience of a stream of conscious thought. What unites all of these states is that there is something it is like to be in them. All of them are states of experience.

It is undeniable that some organisms are subjects of experience. But the question of how it is that these systems are subjects of experience is perplexing. Why is it that when our cognitive systems engage in visual and auditory information-processing, we have visual or auditory experience: the quality of deep blue, the sensation of middle C? How can we explain why there is something it is like to entertain a mental image, or to experience an emotion? It is widely agreed that experience arises from a physical basis, but we have no good explanation of why and how it so arises. Why should physical processing give rise to a rich inner life at all? It seems objectively unreasonable that it should, and yet it does.

If any problem qualifies as the problem of consciousness, it is this one. In this central sense of "consciousness", an organism is conscious if there is something it is like to be that organism, and a mental state is conscious if there is something it is like to be in that state. Sometimes terms such as "phenomenal consciousness" and "qualia" are also used here, but I find it more natural to speak of "conscious experience" or simply "experience".

what is collectivism according to you? — Benkei

Although religious critiques of modernity usually focus on our faith in self-sufficient human reason, that is not the central point to be explored in this article. The key issue is identity, and the security that identity provides – or the anxiety that lack of secure identity arouses.

Traditional premodern religion provided an ontological security, by grounding us in an encompassing metaphysical vision that explains the cosmos and our role within it.

Modernity and postmodernity question such transcendental narratives and therefore leave us with ontological anxiety about the apparent meaninglessness of the universe and the ungroundedness of our lives within it. The result is that we are afflicted with “a deepening condition of metaphysical homelessness,” which is psychologically difficult to bear (Berger, P. (1973). The Homeless Mind.)

By promoting secular values and goals, the modern world cannot avoid undermining the cosmic identity and therefore the ontological grounding that religion traditionally provides. Modernity offers us some other identities – as citizens, as consumers – but this-worldly alternatives cannot provide the ultimate security that we cannot help craving. Our modern identities are more obviously humanly constructed roles that can be exchanged, which therefore offer us no special place or responsibility in a meaningful Cosmos.

...If one’s self-image involves internalizing the perceptions that others have of us, the anonymity of mass society is part of modernity’s lack-of-identity problem. How to distinguish oneself, if, as DeLillo has also said, “only the lethal believer, the person who kills and dies for faith,” is taken seriously in modern society (Juergensmeyer 125)? Better to be known as someone who was willing to die for his beliefs, than not to be known at all – than to be no one at all.

This helps us to understand why terrorist attacks such as those on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, which seem strategically absurd and self-defeating, can nevertheless be desirable. They are not instrumental means to realize political goals but symbolic. ...

Transcendental struggle can provide a heroic identity that transcends even death, for death is not checkmate when you are an agent of God. What grander destiny is possible, than to be part of the cosmic forces of Good fighting against Evil?

Despite the fact that it seems obvious that all cultures indoctrinate their children into the dominant ideology, liberalism often seems to think it is excluded from this historical norm, such that any alternative form of education seems like pernicious indoctrination — Count Timothy von Icarus

The main problem with our usual understanding of secularity is that it is taken-for-granted, so we are not aware that it is a worldview. It is an ideology that pretends to be the everyday world we live in. Most of us assume that it is simply the way the world really is, once superstitious beliefs about it have been removed. ...

By privatizing an unmediated relationship between more individualized Christians and a more transcendent God, Luther’s emphasis on salvation-by-faith-alone eliminated the intricate web of mediation – priests, sacraments, canon law, pilgrimages, public penances, etc. – that in effect had constituted the sacred dimension of this world. The religiously-saturated medieval continuity between the natural and the supernatural was sundered by internalizing faith and projecting the spiritual realm far above our struggles in this world.

The newly-liberated space between them generated something new: the secular (from the Latin saeculum, “generation, age,” thus the temporal world of birth and death). The inner freedom of conscience was distinguished from our outer bondage to secular authorities. “These realms, which contained respectively religion and the world, were hermetically sealed from each other as though constituting separate universes” (Nelson 1981, 74-75). The sharp distinction between them was a radical break with the past, and it led to a new kind of person. The medieval understanding of our life as a cycle of sin and repentance was replaced by the more disciplined character-structure required in the modern world, sustained by a more internalized conscience that did not accept the need for external mediation or the validation of priests (admirably documented by Weber in The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism - wayfarer)

As God slowly disappeared above the clouds, the secular became increasingly dynamic, accelerating into the creative destruction that today we must keep readjusting to. What we tend to forget in the process is that the distinction between sacred and secular was originally a religious distinction, devised to empower a new type of Protestant spirituality: that is, a more privatized way to address our sense of lack and fill up the God-shaped hole.

By allowing the sacred pole to fade away, however, we have lost the original religious raison d’etre for that distinction. That evaporation of the sacred has left us with the secular by itself, bereft of the spiritual resources originally designed to cope with it, because secular life is increasingly liberated from any religious perspective or supervision.

Should I unpack that at all? — Patterner

I had come to see that my need was greater even than I had thought. The pain and tension deep in the core and centre of my being was so great that I felt as might some creature which had outgrown its shell, and yet could not escape. What it was I knew not, except that it was a great yearning—for freedom, for larger life—for deeper love. There seemed to be no response in nature to that infinite need. The great tide swept on uncaring, pitiless, and strength gone, every resource exhausted, nothing remained but submission. So I said: There must be a reason for it, a purpose in it, even if I cannot grasp it. The Power in whose hands I am may do with me as it will! It was several days after this resolve before the point of complete surrender was reached. Meantime, with every internal sense, I searched for that principle, whatever it was, which would hold me when I let go.

At last, subdued, with a curious, growing strength in my weakness, I let go of myself! In a short time, to my surprise, I began to feel a sense of physical comfort, of rest, as if some strain or tension was removed. Never before had I experienced such a feeling of perfect health. I wondered at it. And how bright and beautiful the day! I looked out at the sky, the hills and the river, amazed that I had never before realized how divinely beautiful the world was! The sense of lightness and expansion kept increasing, the wrinkles smoothed out of everything, there was nothing in all the world that seemed out of place. At dinner I remarked: "How strangely happy I am to-day!" If I had realized then, as I did afterwards, what a great thing was happening to me, I should doubtless have dropped my work and given myself up to the contemplation of it, but it seemed so simple and natural (with all the wonder of it) that I and my affairs went on as usual. The light and color glowed, the atmosphere seemed to quiver and vibrate around and within me. Perfect rest and peace and joy were everywhere, and, more strange than all, there came to me a sense as of some serene, magnetic presence grand and all pervading. The life and joy within me were becoming so intense that by evening I became restless and wandered about the rooms, scarcely knowing what to do with myself. Retiring early that I might be alone, soon all objective phenomena were shut out. I was seeing and comprehending the sublime meaning of things, the reasons for all that had before been hidden and dark. The great truth that life is a spiritual evolution, that this life is but a passing phase in the soul's progression, burst upon my astonished vision with overwhelming grandeur. Oh, I thought, if this is what it means, if this is the outcome, then pain is sublime! Welcome centuries, eons, of suffering if it brings us to this! And still the splendor increased. Presently what seemed to be a swift, oncoming tidal wave of splendor and glory ineffable came down upon me, and I felt myself being enveloped, swallowed up.

I felt myself going, losing myself. Then I was terrified, but with a sweet terror. I was losing my consciousness, my identity, but was powerless to hold myself. Now came a period of rapture, so intense that the universe stood still, as if amazed at the unutterable majesty of the spectacle! Only one in all the infinite universe! The All-loving, the Perfect One! The Perfect Wisdom, truth, love and purity! And with the rapture came the insight. In that same wonderful moment of what might be called supernal bliss, came illumination. I saw with intense inward vision the atoms or molecules, of which seemingly the universe is composed—I know not whether material or spiritual—rearranging themselves, as the cosmos (in its continuous, everlasting life) passes from order to order. What joy when I saw there was no break in the chain—not a link left out—everything in its place and time. Worlds, systems, all blended in one harmonious whole. Universal life, synonymous with universal love!

How long that period of intense rapture lasted I do not know—it seemed an eternity—it might have been but a few moments. Then came relaxation, the happy tears, the murmured, rapturous expression. I was safe; I was on the great highway, the upward road which humanity had trod with bleeding feet, but with deathless hope in the heart and songs of love and trust on the lips. I understood, now, the old eternal truths, yet fresh and new and sweet as the dawn. How long the vision lasted I cannot tell. In the morning I awoke with a slight headache, but with the spiritual sense so strong that what we call the actual, material things surrounding me seemed shadowy and unreal. My point of view was entirely changed. Old things had passed away and all had become new. The ideal had become real, the old real had lost its former reality and had become shadowy. This shadowy unreality of external things did not last many days. Every longing of the heart was satisfied, every question answered, the "pent-up, aching rivers" had reached the ocean—I loved infinitely and was infinitely loved! The universal tide flowed in upon me in waves of joy and gladness, pouring down over me as in torrents of fragrant balm.

This describes an actual sensation. The infinite love and tenderness seemed to really stream down over me like holy oil healing all my hurts and bruises. How foolish, how childish, now seemed petulance and discontent in presence of that serene majesty! I had learned the grand lesson, that suffering is the price which must be paid for all that is worth having; that in some mysterious way we are refined and sensitized, doubtless largely by it, so that we are made susceptible to nature's higher and finer influences—this, if true of one, is true of all.

It was in December, three months after, that I saw my sister for the first time after the experience described, and her changed appearance made such a deep impression on me that I shall never forget it. Her looks and manner were so changed that she scarcely seemed the same person. There was a clear, bright, peaceful light in her eyes, lighting her whole face, and she was so happy and contented—so satisfied with things as they were. It seemed as though some heavy weight had been lifted and she was free. As she talked to me I felt that she was living in a new world of thought and feeling unknown to me. Sincerely, P. M.

Can you explain? — Patterner

Although wetness does not exist in microphysical particles, their properties cause them to combine in certain ways under certain circumstances, which cause the emergence of wetness.

Although human consciousness does not exist in microphysical particles, their properties cause them to combine in certain ways under certain circumstances, which cause the emergence of human consciousness. — Patterner

It is not possible to derive the existence of consciousness from the physical structure of the brain in the way in which it is possible to derive the transparency of glass from the molecular structure of silicon dioxide.

For me, anything objective/existent is something that participates in causal relations. — Harry Hindu

What is a physical structure and how exactly does that differ from a non-physical structure? How are mass and charge physical and not informational? What does QM say the mass and charge, and the particle they are associated with, are when not observing them? Is a wave function physical? Is the observer and the collapse of the wave function a physical interaction? — Harry Hindu

Are there any books that discuss this specific idea? — Patterner

I do not think the physical and conscious properties of what exists can be separated. No more than the mass and charge of a particle can be separated — Patterner

And it is impossible for the physical structure to exist independently of the mind that apprehends it. — Patterner

The solution I like is that there is another property of particles, in addition to those science has discovered. — Patterner

big things are made of little things. And the big things have the characteristics they have because of the properties of the little things — Patterner

If physical and particles don't exist, why would our minds concoct this interpretation of reality, extraordinarily detailed, every second of our lives, that is all about physical and particles, rather than show us actual reality? Inventing a false reality to hide the real seems extremely odd. — Patterner

I think we should think of matter - of everything, everywhere - as both physical and conscious. From the ground up — Patterner

If more personalism is wanted, there are many spiritual paths that emphasize a relationship with an avatar or bodhisattva, Christianity being the most familiar example. — J

I’d say Vervaeke’s “meaning crisis”, for instance, is a bit vague — Tom Storm

However, at the very least, the phenomenon of a "crisis of meaning" seems to cause many people very real mental anguish...
— Count Timothy von Icarus

That, for example, is very true. There are threads on this site about this. It's something I have trouble understanding, something I'm curious about, but it's also something I'd be sort of afraid to ask about when it's acute… — Dawnstorm

it sounds like this definition of God is intended to describe a conscious being -- a person, for lack of a better term. — J

The Dharmakaya is a soul, a willing and knowing being, one that is will and intelligence, thought and action. It is not an abstract metaphysical principle like Suchness, but it is a living spirit that manifests in nature as well as in thought. Buddhists ascribe to the Dharmakaya innumerable merits and virtues and an absolute perfect intelligence, and make it an inexhaustible fountainhead of love and compassion. (from Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism as reprinted in Mahayana Buddhism by Beatrice Lane Suzuki, New York, McMillan, 1972, pg. 59)

I think we need to pose C. S. Lewis's question: Is it conscious? — J

no doubt some will argue that the word of disenchanted rationalism and modernity has allowed us to retreat into crude things like money in place of spiritual riches — Tom Storm

Still, if the Rawlsian lottery were extended to the entire Earth, I'd still pick the year 2025 — J

What is the reason for thinking matter cannot subjectively experience at one level when we know it subjectively experiences at another level? Why is it deemed impossible at the micro when it is a fact (possibly the only undeniable fact) at the macro? — Patterner

Is the world really made up of particles (naive realism) or [are] physical particles merely a mental representation of what is out there that is not physical or particles? — Harry Hindu