I think what Nishitami failed to grasp was that will to
nothingness is still willing. Self for Nietzsche isnt an entity but a vector of change. — Joshs

:up:

Ideas are abstractions and have no material form. But they can be Causal, as in the Aryan Myth that motivated millions of people to join in a world war, and a holocaust, with devastating physical effects. — Gnomon

It may seem that an idea is definitely non-physical and yet causal (this is Descartes' problem). As Spinoza, solving this problem, would have it, I think that physical and non-physical (mental) are not two substances, but two kinds of perspective or ways of thinking about (some) things. So we can look at ideas as being non-physical (mental, semantic and so on) or physical (neural). Insofar as ideas are physical (neural) then they can of course be causative.

We have not (all of us, or most of us) agreed as to what metaphysics even is. — Manuel

That may be true; but then in light of my last reply to MU, why couldn't we say that anything that is testable is a physical, not a metaphysical, hypothesis? On the other hand don't we know what traditional or classical metaphysics is, because it is canonized in texts which are recognized as being concerned with metaphysical questions?

So, as to the idea that metaphysical ideas are untestable ideas this not to say that every untestable idea would be a metaphysical idea, but if an idea is an aesthetical, anthropological, economical, psychological or ethical one, then wouldn't that be kind of obvious? This is not to say that all hypotheses in the other disciplines I mentioned would be untestable in principle like metaphysical speculations are; I think some ideas in those other areas of inquiry are testable in principle, but very difficult or even impossible to definitively test in practice.

How could a non-physical explanation ever be tested?

I can certainly see the appeal of using "physics" as ones metaphysics, and then forget about all the other issues that will arise. Or, as is said, "shut up and calculate." — Manuel

I'm not against imaginative speculation in the metaphysical way; all I'm saying that such speculation cannot be shown to be anything more than an exercise of the creative imagination. I follow Popper in thinking that such metaphysical speculations can (and arguably have) lead to exploring avenues which lead to actual physical discoveries, which may never have happened otherwise.

Since explanations concerning the cause of material being have always been incomplete, what is wrong with pursuing an explanation which would likely require a further explanation? I don't see the merit in your rejection of such a "rabbit hole". — Metaphysician Undercover

If the explanation you are considering is a physical one then there is nothing wrong with it, Even if we can create life in the lab, showing that some physical explanation works, that still won't answer the question as to why physical substances are such as to allow the advent of life. That kind of question is not answerable in any verifiable or falsifiable manner in principle..

You reckon? :yikes: — Wayfarer

Well, what does it say apart from

"necessary being, also known as the unconditioned, unmade, uncreated and so on". — Janus

?

If we want to say something about how life arose, then we would need to investigate what were the physical conditions and then theorize from there as to what imaginable physical processes could have caused the changes in the chemical compounds such as to produce life.

As far as I know we already have some explanatory hypotheses, but as yet have been unable to create life in the laboratory. Maybe we won't ever be able to come up with a definitive explanation and will be left with various possibilities, but any explanation, whether definitive or not, will be in terms of physical processes, because anything else cannot constitute a testable explanation.

The value it gives, is to tell us that to proceed in the direction of pure chance is to go in the wrong direction. — Metaphysician Undercover

As I already said the idea of "pure chance" is incoherent. If there is an explanation of the origin of life it will be in lawlike terms. To say something arose by "pure chance" is no more an explanation than to say it arose on account of "necessary being, also known as the unconditioned, unmade, uncreated and so on".

To go down the road of "there is an explanation", even if that explanation may require a further explanation, and a further one after that, is a much more reasonable route than "there is no explanation". — Metaphysician Undercover

Sure, that's the way of science, not metaphysics (as traditionally understood) though.

I believe that something that is conspicuously absent in modern philosophy generally is the whole concept of necessary being, also known as the unconditioned, unmade, uncreated and so on. — Wayfarer

If all you want to say is that the "terminus of explanation" is

necessary being, also known as the unconditioned, unmade, uncreated and so on. — Wayfarer

then this doesn't amount to saying anything much.

So, no, I don't agree that it is pointless or meaningless, it is mainly dismissed on the basis of incomprehension. — Wayfarer

It may have possible poetic value, but what explanatory value could it have, since it posits something about which nothing can be said, other than what it isn't?

You always think that when others disagree with your assessment, that it is because they don't understand it. This is a huge blind spot in my opinion; others are not as stupid as you would like to imagine.

So that's the extent of your attempt to critique what Nietzsche writes in that passage? Just a few supercilious characterizations?

Nietzsche, if I am not mistaken, admired the Stoic spirit of acceptance of what cannot be changed, like Spinoza, but what do you say of his critique of the Stoic's belief in logos and providence?

My position is that you have an experience, and it might be caused by a variety of things, but the sensation itself ultimately was caused by your brain, or some such internal faculty that experiences. — Hanover

You're ignoring the fact that without an environment the body is sensitive to there is no sensation. Try a sensory deprivation chamber for a while. That said it's undeniable that the body can generate vivid experiences of its own (the content of which ultimately derive form experience of environments). That is exactly what happens in a sensory deprivation chamber. But you, the subject, have no control over what is experienced whether in or out of the environment. You don't impose it, you are subjected to it; that's just what it means to be a subject.

The point of metaphysics is to arrive at the terminus of explanation. Surely many will say that it can’t be done, but it’s worth spelling that out. — Wayfarer

Since it obviously can't be done, that makes metaphysics, conceived that traditional way, pointless, No doubt that is why Gautama refused to answer metaphysical questions, because when people become hooked on looking for such impossible final explanations they become lost.

Now you're just being stupidly perverse. You know that was not what I was talking about. Go troll somewhere else.

That's why I think Wittgenstein said that believing that scientific laws are the explanations of natural phenomena is illusory. — Wayfarer

Wittgenstein did not, as far as I am aware advocate asking questions about why the laws of nature, or better conditions, are as they are. As I already said, any explanation you give will then require a further explanation as to why it is as it is; if you were able to go down that rabbit hole there would be no end to it.

Determined by what? Or rather, what is it that determines? — Wayfarer

I would say conditions determine what happens, how things change.

:up: Good! We wouldn't want that; the Bard might turn over in his grave...

Asking for why is a contamination of science by human notions of purpose and meaning. — T Clark

I agree. And any explanation only brings forth more that needs explaining (which I see as a good thing).

a maelstrom of studied indifference — Tom Storm

That's an interesting, evocative, even if counter-intuitive, phrasing!

All that's to say, nature is mind-boggling. That's a good thing, to me. — Manuel

Amen! How boring would it be if it wasn't?

I think we generally do adopt metaphysics we feel good about. That said, I think we should adopt metaphysics we find most plausible, being as honest with ourselves as we can and having done our best to put what we might wish for aside.

Of course what we find most plausible will inevitably be influenced by our cultural conditioning; we have to live with who we are since living in denial of it would certainly seem to be a bad move. That said, I am not claiming we must be enslaved by our cultural conditioning; I think we can change by working through our conditioning, but not by denying it or pretending it's not there in us. It's a balancing act to be sure.

That is just another way of saying 'by chance'. The million-monkeys idea - give a million monkeys typewriters and enough time and they'll produce a manuscript. When in fact what you will get is an enormous pile of broken typewriters covered in shit. — Wayfarer

I never found the "million monkeys' idea compelling. In any case if life is inevitable then it is not by chance. That doesn't have to mean it was planned or "striven for' somehow. On the macro scale the universe appears to be deterministic, which would mean that, on that scale nothing is by chance, even if on the micro-physical level processes are uncaused and utterly random, macro processes could still be statistically determined.

Not sure if I am on board with your apparently low opinion of monkeys. :wink:

I wonder if much of these discussions about science being this or that could be alleviated by speaking of "habits", rather than "laws", as this latter term implies something of which there can be no exception. — Manuel

I think this is a good idea. If I remember rightly from long ago reading Peirce spoke this way. Hume point out there is no deductively valid reasoning to support our belief that the so-called laws of nature will continue to hold sway. On the other hand there is an enormously complex and coherent scientific picture, and no well-documented exceptions have been observed.

But we know circumstances in which such universal "laws", break down, in black holes or near the singularity. — Manuel

I could be wrong but I thought black holes were theoretical entities which were posited on account of our understanding of the laws of nature. I believe I've read that they have subsequently been observed, but I'm not sure. (I could search that but I can't be bothered).

I like Spinoza's deus sive natura ("God or nature'). For us nature is God indeed (but I don't agree with the pantheistic reading of Spinoza's idea) I agree that the great philosophers would likely have very different views if they were alive today..

I don't think what science tells us about the world should be blithely ignored or that we should believe in certain metaphysical notions just because they might "feel right" (which could just amount to serving our wishes regarding how we might like things to be).

No argument there. But what do you make of that statement 'the whole modern conception of nature is founded on the illusion that so-called laws of nature are the explanations of natural order'? Why does Wittgenstein think this is an 'illusion'? — Wayfarer

Perhaps Wittgenstein thinks it is an illusion because the laws of nature are not explanations but descriptions of natural order. I mean even if you take Einstein's explanation for gravity; that it is due to the warping of spacetime by mass, that just pushes the need for explanation back one step; we can now ask what causes mass to warp spacetime. Whatever we come up with as an explanation becomes then another phenomenon that we can seek to explain.

That's how it must seem to us in this day and age but do please notice the implicit division between 'our own natures' and 'the Universe', as if these are separable. But really they're not, as nature is not something we're outside of, or apart from. The idea of being a subject in a world of objects is just that - an idea. An idea which then becomes a condition. — Wayfarer

I don't know, I think it is more the fact that we observe a (staggering) diversity of phenomena, including ourselves. On one perspective our natures may be understood to follow the same micro-physical laws as everything else, but on another we behave very differently than other kinds of phenomena. We don't need to think we are separate from nature to acknowledge that there is a diversity of observable phenomena, that show apparent invariances on many different levels and to different kinds of observation.

His argument is that until now, scientists simply assume scientific laws, without exploring why they are the way they are. That's why he is saying science 'rests on faith' - faith in scientific laws. I think that's a hangover from science's Christian origins. (See Nancy Cartwright No God, No Laws.) — Wayfarer

I think scientific laws are formulated to describe observed invariant phenomena. So, for example, minimally,the law of gravity is just the observed invariability of unsupported objects falling until they are supported.

Explanations as to what the "mechanism" of gravity "is" are another matter; the invariant behavior of objects, at least as so far observed, is not an assumption. If matter and energy always behaves the same way, and must do so, because that is simply the nature of things, then laws are just the way we say that is the case; no need for any God.

Buddhism posits invariable laws in the form of karma, codependent origination and rebirth, for example, without positing a God who intends these things to be so.

I take it as axiomatic that the predominant belief in secular culture is that 'life arose by chance'. — Wayfarer

I don't think that is the predominant view, or at least it is not "axiomatic" in my view. Given the nature of the basic chemical elements and the inevitable diversity of conditions that can come about in an immense universe, the arising of life seems inevitable. That said, if all you mean by "chance" is that the advent of life was not planned or "programmed" by anything "outside" the natural order, then I would agree with what you say. There just doesn't seem to be any strong evidence for design, so no reason to believe in it, beyond human wishes (in some humans) that it might be so.

This is that the Universe gives rise to sentient life-forms as a way of discovering horizons of being that could not be realised any other way. You find ideas like that in Tielhard du Chardin, Henri Bergson, and others. It's neither creationist on the one side, nor materialist on the other. — Wayfarer

This seems like an anthropomorphization of the universe, as though it had some intention or wish, or at minimum, an internal striving, to bring life into being..It seems most plausible to me to think that this kind of thinking is a case of us projecting our own natures out into the universe.

On the other hand such ideas can be richly creative and imaginative, so they are not without poetic value. They can even inspire scientists to look down avenues that they otherwise wouldn't and discover unexpected things.

AAARRRGGGG!!!! — Mww

Yep, it is a bit like that!

No, I was just indulging in a little alliteration. In any case, even if it were true it would only be "rough on me" if I was bothered by it.

a smug sneer — T Clark

Accompanied, I imagine, by a snooty snort.

The one you posted is probably more "Zen". :cool:

It’s import, in accordance with the theory from which it arises, is to limit our empirical knowledge to only that which can be a phenomenon for us. Otherwise, nothing prevents us from claiming knowledge of everything there is, even without the possible experience of it. — Mww

I am in total agreement with that aim; not so much with the "making room for faith" part though (which I am not claiming you are advocating). This is the beginning of the "destruction" or deconstruction of metaphysics as it had been traditionally understood, and the accompanying idea of "rational intuition of reality".

When it comes to empirical knowledge, I would say the limits cannot be predetermined. The logical limits of what count as empirical knowledge; the logic behind " we can only know things as far as our experience of them allows" is really a tautology which could be phrased as "we can only know things as far as we can know them". I don't think anyone sensible could have any argument with that; but it really doesn't tell us much.

In other words, the laws should have an explanation from within the universe and not involve appealing to an external agency.

The specifics of that explanation are a matter for future research. But until science comes up with a testable theory of the laws of the universe, its claim to be free of faith is manifestly bogus.

The second is a strange statement,considering that science is not a matter of faith at all, but of provisional hypotheses. The idea behind science is to find things wrong with your theories so that knowledge can grow, which is the opposite of religious faith which tries to find confirmation.

:up: Local negentropic processes "steal" order at the expense of increasing global entropy.

They can only be determined to be reasonable or not, based on Logic and incomplete evidence. — Gnomon

The problem is that logic alone cannot determine plausibility only validity, and what you would count as constituting evidence, in anything beyond simple empirical observations, is controversial and depends on your presuppositions.

I'm not sure what you're getting at. — Hanover

You said

The properties experienced of the object are subjectively imposed. — Hanover

I pointed out that experienced properties of the object are not imposed by us (that is, are not subjectively imposed), then you cited the genesis of non sensorially produced phenomenal states by drugs, brain stimulation, tumors and brain dysfunction, and I pointed out that those are not imposed by us either.

So I was just purporting to refute your claim is all.

I really hope so. — Tom Storm

Perhaps Kant's tiny repertoire of jokes was the cause of the stereotypical notion of German humour.

But further, saying that we impose the properties of the experience seems to directly deny what you claimed earlier: that the noumenal is causative of the phenomenal. — Banno

Unless the claim is that the self-in-itself is part of the noumenal. :wink: But....
if the noumenal cannot have parts, then the self-in-itself must be the whole of the noumenal which means....solipsism.

I've acknowledged it's causative, but there other ways to evoke phenomenal states other than perceptual input, like chemicals, electrodes in the brain, tumors, mental dysfunction. — Hanover

Those are also imposed on us though, aren't they?

The properties experienced of the object are subjectively imposed. — Hanover

We do not impose those properties; they are imposed upon us, like it or not.

Apart from representational models another simple way of framing perception is saying that we see objects as they are revealed to us via reflected light. We can also feel objects via the skin. In that way of thinking the objects are presented, or made present, to the body via the senses. Of course we don't know the objects of the senses exhaustively, because the way we know them is only one of many possible variations on the themes of seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling and feeling that could be given to different perceptual setups. There may even be others we cannot imagine.

I agree that even beyond that range of possible ways of perceiving objects there is for us the merely logical idea of what the object could be in itself. But I'm not sure that is a coherent idea, because to be something is to manifest some attributes, and what kind of attribute could be beyond any possibility of being perceived or known?

Or what import could it have, beyond a desire to open the way for some imagined transcendent religious possibility? That would not be perceiving or knowing though, but merely faith. And I would argue that we don't need the idea of the noumenon to sustain religious faith in any case,because what we do perceive is already mystery enough, and we already know that profoundly altered states of consciousness are possible. Those altered states have nothing to do with "something" absolutely unknowable

That's my take anyhow..

Can't read it, sorry...not bad calligraphy, though... :wink:

This is more legible

Frantic Freddie had an unfortunate tendency. He enjoyed belittling others, thinking his views were unique. But they weren't entirely, and so he would from time to time borrow from other philosophers, without attribution and even while criticizing them. His Amor Fati, for example, is similar to Stoicism, though he maligned the Stoics. — Ciceronianus

Consider this from Beyond Good And Evil, (Gutenberg edition, translated by Helen Zimmern) Chapter 1, section 9 sourced from here

You desire to LIVE “according to Nature”? Oh, you noble Stoics, what fraud of words! Imagine to yourselves a being like Nature, boundlessly extravagant, boundlessly indifferent, without purpose or consideration, without pity or justice, at once fruitful and barren and uncertain: imagine to yourselves INDIFFERENCE as a power—how COULD you live in accordance with such indifference? To live—is not that just endeavouring to be otherwise than this Nature? Is not living valuing, preferring, being unjust, being limited, endeavouring to be different? And granted that your imperative, “living according to Nature,” means actually the same as “living according to life”—how could you do DIFFERENTLY? Why should you make a principle out of what you yourselves are, and must be? In reality, however, it is quite otherwise with you: while you pretend to read with rapture the canon of your law in Nature, you want something quite the contrary, you extraordinary stage-players and self-deluders! In your pride you wish to dictate your morals and ideals to Nature, to Nature herself, and to incorporate them therein; you insist that it shall be Nature “according to the Stoa,” and would like everything to be made after your own image, as a vast, eternal glorification and generalism of Stoicism! With all your love for truth, you have forced yourselves so long, so persistently, and with such hypnotic rigidity to see Nature FALSELY, that is to say, Stoically, that you are no longer able to see it otherwise—and to crown all, some unfathomable superciliousness gives you the Bedlamite hope that BECAUSE you are able to tyrannize over yourselves—Stoicism is self-tyranny—Nature will also allow herself to be tyrannized over: is not the Stoic a PART of Nature?… But this is an old and everlasting story: what happened in old times with the Stoics still happens today, as soon as ever a philosophy begins to believe in itself. It always creates the world in its own image; it cannot do otherwise; philosophy is this tyrannical impulse itself, the most spiritual Will to Power, the will to “creation of the world,” the will to the causa prima.

So mu. — praxis

Mu-tha?

All I can say is that we're worlds apart, and I'm not interested in bridging the chasm. It's too much work, and whatever reward might come of it doesn't justify it. Like I already said more than once, I'm engaged in these discussions for my own reasons and my own understanding of meta-Buddhist topics that would be impossible or inappropriate to bring up in a Buddhist setting. — baker

Fair enough, but if you look back I think you'll find that it has been predominantly you initiating these conversations by responding to posts I've made responding to others.