Where is this heading - convention and behavior?

Yes, they are a separate matter. It's a question I have.

I am agnostic, but interested in reading about either positive or negative arguments for the proof of existence. — Corvus

Are you confident that arguments can establish whether or not gods exist?

Please help check if this classic allegory is inspiring for your question? — YiRu Li

No, I'm sorry I don't understand your point.

This is good stuff. Beautifully laid out. I’ll read it again and perhaps pose a question or two. Thanks.

Take religion. Feuerbach, Marx, and Freud also developed explanations for religion around the same time as Nietzsche, explanations that also nicely happened to support their particular overarching message. How do we judge between these, in some ways mutually exclusive, versions of history and why wouldn't they be subject to the same charge of "working towards a pre-existing conclusion?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

I see your point. Could it not be said that most thinkers work towards a pre-existing conclusion? I would have thought most philosophical argument is a series of post hoc justifications.

Inequality is a thinking issue. It's about how people see the world.
Will the focus on social policy block out the time for people to practice thinking about it? — YiRu Li

Social policy is a 'thinking issue'. You don't get to robust social policy without lots of thinking and conversation/discussion.

Policy is made by complicated processes and not all the people are qualified to get benefits.
But the inequality issue is serious for everyone's life, in all kinds of areas, and we often are not aware of it. — YiRu Li

Good social policy saves lives. So I think I disagree with you.

Perhaps you can provide a few examples of inequality so that we know what you mean. I am talking about poverty and lack of access to vital resources and services. What are you referring to?

The feeling of tedium... — Joshs

I've felt bored since I was a small child. The feeling has never left me...

But if we are taught that the way of moral, spiritual and empirical truth involves chaining ourselves to fixed, foundations, we will consider overcoming to be a mark of immorality, irrationality, madness, nihilism, infidelity. — Joshs

Maybe my problem is that I've always felt everything was contingent upon culture and history and that there is no foundation or immutable point of reference for humans. Perhaps I need to become a Christian fundamentalist to self-overcome.

You overcome the tedium. :smile: — Count Timothy von Icarus

I suffer from incurable ennui.

The second, more popular explanation is that "strong" have allowed their hands to be tied by a "false morality." It's here that a relation to Nietzsche's ideas is more obvious. Generally, the claim is that economic elites, the "neoliberals," or simply "the Jews," have tricked the strong into a false morality. Once the strong "wake up," and form their own morality, this age of evil will be resolved. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, we're certainly hearing variations of this one.

The other one we hear is that the silent majority is being controlled by the woke mafia.

I think it means not constantly wanking in public — bert1

Well, that is tedious, as I suspected. Why should some sickly, proto-incel and misogynist tell us what we can do and can't do in public!?

By ‘strength’ Nietzsche meant a will to continual self-overcoming ( not personal ‘growth’ as in progress toward self-actualization, but continually becoming something different). — Joshs

I've never understood the point of 'continual self-overcoming'. What does this mean (or look like) in practice when you are going about your daily business? It sounds kind of tedious.

...the supremacy of proportional logic. — Joshs

Do you mean propositional logic?

:up: The argument from contingency remains a firm favourite, even with the more refined apologists.

Interesting. And I don’t think we know enough about the entire universe to know if ‘everything’ has a cause.

Oops, I typed Morons for Mormons. Fixed. Apologies to our latter day saint friends.

I guess Jesus was hired by those missionary merchants at his age 13, to help merchants do mission works all along the silk road. — YiRu Li

The spread of Christianity along the Silk Road likely occurred through the efforts of early Christian communities, missionaries, and traders who carried the teachings of Jesus with them as they traveled. There is certainly no reason to think that a Jeshua Ben Joseph ever taught outside of Judea. It has not been established that Jesus was a real person and the gospels were written anonymously many years, decades, after the events. The Mormons beleive that Jesus settled in the Americas after the resurrection. Mythological figures can do anything.

Inequality is the root cause of dishonesty. — YiRu Li

I disagree unless you mean that inequality is caused by dishonesty. Unless you mean that rich people dishonestly help keep the poor in their place through measures like not paying tax and disparaging public services.

This world is not equal and we can’t change it externally. — YiRu Li

What does this mean? I would have thought that robust social policy (an external approach) is central in building a more equal society.

Everyone desires some advantage, some way to be better, smarter, faster, stronger, more talented, more charming or more beautiful than others of of our species. But we're not all willing to pay the same price or make the same amount of effort or take the same risks to achieve it. — Vera Mont

I'm not sure 'effort' comes into people's biological and social advantages - position, IQ beauty, charm, etc. No matter how hard most people try, they won't ever be George Clooney. It's not always possible to work your way out of disadvantage.

Many people are simply dealt a bad set of cards. I do not believe that there is much they can do without some external power (society/government) assisting them. I have had many advantages and privileges in my life. None I worked particularly hard for. It's largely a function of being born in the right zip code.

It's just that for Harry, Dick is a cunt, and for Dick, Harry is a cunt, and neither of them think of themselves as cunts. Now what? — baker

I think that's often, but not always, the case. But there's no magical pathway out of a values clash, is there? I remember talking to an old Nazi 30 years ago, "We were trying to improve the world and create a golden era. The bad guys won," he said.

Do we take the above to mean there is no point in trying to improve our moral behavior since everything is just a maelstrom of personal perspective?

Yes, you put it that way and there's a much more substantive, purposeful and, shall we say, 'objective' dimension to it.

More or less – I'd put it: 'Prevent or relieve more suffering than you cause'. — 180 Proof

Nice. I might co-opt this one.

As I've already pointed out ...
Literalism is the death of reasoning and judgment. — 180 Proof

The role of judgement in this seems critical. I have been mulling over this for some time. In work I sometimes have to make fast decisions around a person's care. Sometimes a colleague will ask me what policy I followed. I tend to answer that I used my 'practice judgement'. Of course, my intuitions here are merely part of a web of intersubjective practices that most in my field would employ, so I can't claim innovation or any paradigm shifts. Someone from another area might form entirely different intuitions. Which goes to @joshs point.

Insofar as an animal is harmless – is not causing or threatening harm or has not caused harm – "cruelty" towards that animal is clearly proscribed. — 180 Proof

One of the areas in which I have done insufficient thinking is that of the 'harmful'. I have asked for my team to not practice retribution or punishment in their approach to violent or aggressive clients. We understand that such behaviors make sense to people and that in a subculture where violence is the norm (on the streets, prison, etc) we must make some form of allowances. While we can exclude people for violence and aggression for a period of time (our cultural expectations), I generally hope we avoid a blame or punishment ethos to consequences.

Whatever is harmful to your species, by action or inaction do not do to the harmless. — 180 Proof

I like the idea of being able to crystallise moral thinking in the way you have done. I'm not sure about the 'do not do to the harmless' part of this principle. Does this mean you can do what you want to those who are harmful?

Hillel's original formulation works fine for me as a personal code. I see Josh's point about its potential failings, but it's not a perfect world. I'm not convinced that people will look at Hillel's maxim and take from it that genocide or stealing is permissible. And the kinds of folk who do wish to support such actions are probably not amenable to any principles. And yes, I make judgements about the behaviours of others and sure, these come from my own imperfect understanding of the world.

Are these sorts of maxims ultimately just variations on, 'Do not cause suffering?'

It seems that this position supports the claim that the material world would cease to exist had human consciousness ended. — Showmee

That's not quite right for most versions I am aware of. The problem with idealism is it requires some serious reading up on and can't be readily parsed in a few dot points by me. Also, I think it is possible to break down the notion of physicalism to where it seems incoherent and this appears to leave us with just consciousness to make sense of. I am no expert in this area. The fact that perhaps we don't know how it all works is a separate intellectual problem. Incidentally, I am a big fan of 'I don't know'. I see no reason why I need to arrive at a fully coherent system for making sense of my world.

Does it depend on individual consciousness (without me, the world may cease to be) or on the collective consciousness of humanity (without humans, the world may cease to be). — Showmee

As I understand it, a common account is that there is cosmic consciousness (or mind at large) of which we are all dissociated alters. No risk of solipsism, since we are all a fragment of a larger field of consciousness which is all there is and 'holds' the reality we experience. I do not subscribe to this account, but I am trying to understand it better.

So in short, your view is that we are to be content with dwelling within the subjective interpretation we as a species formulated, whilst simultaneously recognizing that the true/objective nature of the world is incomprehensible by not claiming neither the world has a meaning nor it’s devoid of meaning? — Showmee

Yes, I think that's essentially my position. But philosophy is not about 'being content' and I recognise that intellectual restlessness will always have people prodding at the 'unanswerable' questions.

My view is that language, values and beliefs are contingent - they are culturally and historically constructed. The search for foundations through one metanarrative or another is likely to be pointless and is probably a remnant of Greek philosophy. All our truths and our moral positions are products of human conversations and conventions and are not grounded in some objective reality. I also think we can continue to have conversations which can test and modify beliefs to improve them subject to our everyday goals.

On the other hand, does there exist a possibility such that consciousness has its own existence outside of nature, albeit the former has its root in the latter? — Showmee

Is nature a product of consciousness, or is consciousness a product of nature? For many philosophers, this is one of the big unresolved questions.

I'm not confident that we can point to anything existing as outside of nature.

Have you explored idealism? (It comes in many flavours, some more convincing than others.) A currently prolific thinker in this space, Bernardo Kastrup, spends significant time debunking physicalism and asserting that what we seem to take as the material world is essentially consciousness when seen from a particular perspective.

Thanks, I'll look into this futher. It's challenging stuff.

Hillel’s admonition leaves out the crucial question of how to ground determinations of justice and injustice. — Joshs

Bully for Hillel for being a non-relativist, but this doesn’t magically turn labels like crime , murder, harm and hate into universally transparent meanings. — Joshs

Interesting. I see where you are coming from. Do you think it is possible to formulate any general principles that can be used to assess actions? Or is this a pointless exercise?

When will the human race move beyond such nonsense Tom? — universeness

We seem to be hard wired to worship authority figures, from deities to certain former presidents. This impulse seems to have a powerful hold but perhaps can be overcome with time. The god idea is something that has never made sense to me, even as a small child. So I am an inadequate atheist in a sense - I never found the notion of gods coherent, attractive or useful, even before I heard any of the arguments. I wish I could say I had a deconversion experience, but it never happened.

Right. And if humans generate meaning and value, and humans are part of the universe, then in an important way the universe generates meaning and value. It is clearly not completely hostile to the existence of such things. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Humans are clever animals who use language to manage their environment - sense making (inventing narratives) is what we do. We still love our metanarratives. I would simply say all meaning is contingent and tentative - an ongoing, ever changing conversation. I make no claims about the universe (whatever that is).

Plus, if the Fine Tuning Problem and related issues give us reason to think the consciousness is not only in some way fundamental (irreducible) but also not contingent, then the "valuelessness," claim seems to run into further problems. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I leave speculations about consciousness (and QM) to others (preferably those with expertise). Whether any of those speculations are warranted or not, I can't say. I know it is contested space (from Thomas Metzinger to Bernadro Kastrup) and we seem to be waiting for a breakthrough.

Which leads to the question: "if the universe necessarily produces all this meaning and value, in what way is it meaningless and valueless?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

I do not say the universe is meaningless, that would be a claim I can't justify. As I said:

I don't think humans ever arrive at or know some external to self 'reality'. As you say, humans inhabit a world of their own making, a function of our experience, our cognitive apparatus and shared subjectivity. Do we need more than this? — Tom Storm

However, I would regard seeking an objective meaning as a natural impulse — Showmee

Sure, but everything humans do is natural by definition. From mass murder to painting pictures of Krishna. Given the hold transcendental narratives (religions) still have on people all over the world, is it any wonder many are still caught up quests for objective meaning? I suspect we may leave behind this impulse at some point.

Or as skeptics like to remind us - New York is real. New York appears in Spiderman comics. This doesn't mean that Spiderman is real. :wink:

God is just an idea that seems to function as a foundation but without objective reality. — JuanZu

Agree. The problem with theism however is that it doesn't provide an objective moral system or set of values. As is evidenced even within the one religion (let's say Christianity) wherein believers all following the word of god, commonly profess very different moral positions on everything from abortion to euthanasia, the role of women to gay rights, capital punishment to drug law reform.

We have a chaotic Christianity all over the place in these and other issues, all convinced they are following some objective view of a god whose identity and qualities they can't even agree on. I think it's a bit of a furphy when anyone claims that god provides us with a foundational guarantee of anything - instead it seems to be down to subjective interpretation in the name of an ever shifting, ever changing, incoherent deity.

Ok. I don't see it as being all that challenging. Risk is assessed to reduce or prevent harm - one such harm is spending money where it need not be spent. This is always subject to a values. Saving life, preventing injury, damage, etc, are worthwhile ethical goals. Often it is the crudity of the tool, or the lack of training of the worker, or inadequate processes that may cause unintended injury. That said, I would still separate eligibility assessment criteria from a risk mitigation framework.

Henceforth, there remains only one question to be answered, and that is: does the meaningless disposition of reality necessarily lead to the negation of the worth of living? Should individuals universally reject the pursuit of purpose in a world devoid of values and instead prefer death? — Showmee

I don't see how no transcendent meaning matters very much. Humans will always generate meaning and values and reasons for participating in life. The question 'is life worth living' is not an abstraction - the answer is found in what you do with your day. A nihilist may have a very rich and rewarding life and, ironically, a happier life than the theist, who may live in quaking fear of divine judgement and understands misery to be god's will.

Life can be meaningful, but reality cannot. — Showmee

All we have is life, this is our reality. I don't think humans ever arrive at or know some external to self 'reality'. As you say, humans inhabit a world of their own making, a function of our experience, our cognitive apparatus and shared subjectivity. Do we need more than this?

I am aware that you are in Australia and the politics of which I am speaking is in England. — Jack Cummins

Yep. We borrow a lot of welfare fraud prevention strategies from the UK. We have an equivalent to the NHS and the Jobseeker allowance. We run equivalent scam detection and debt reclamation strategies.

The assessment processes for benefits has been found to be a contributory factor in some case scenarios of suicide. — Jack Cummins

Assessment processes are closer to eligibility criteria mechanisms than true risk assessment.

We had 'mutual obligation' policies here ( to claim overpayment of welfare welfare) under the Conservatives that caused numerous suicides. There has been a public enquiry into it here. People were being targeted who did not in fact receive any overpayments and were being hounded for money. Erroneously as it turned out.

So, I would argue that the underlying basis of risk assessment is bound up with political values and biases.. — Jack Cummins

Will yes, but isn't almost everything in public life down to political values and biases? I would think in essence risk assessment stems from the value that all human life matters and with it the expectation of accountability from funded services that are entrusted to take care of others. At its crudest, if people are dying or being harmed then we can see the 'bias' and 'value' of preserving life and doing no harm have been transgressed.

In particular, risk assessment is being used in England for assessing fraud amongst benefit recipients. — Jack Cummins

There is a value here that public resources should not be squandered. The right is generally more prone to 'balanced budget' discourse than the left. But in the neoliberal realm most governments are susceptible to cost cutting based on the value that spending public money (tax revenue) on 'wasteful' enterprises is wrong. Voters tend to agree. Is there a risk management framework they are using in this process or is this more about a stringent eligibility criteria?

:up: I like it. A much more interesting frame.

How wealthy would the wealthiest person be in your ideal society?

Where would their wealth come from? — Captain Homicide

My ideal society would be orientated around a different value system to our own and the idea of personal wealth, in terms of money or belongings, would be obsolete. Access to decent housing, health services and good food would be available to all, with no special rules and privileges for some at the expense of a less privileged class.

Whose awareness is greater: the monarch butterfly's, — Patterner

The assumption would be that ours is. If by awareness we mean metacognition - which is generally the starting point from these sorts of discussions.

At what point did our ancestors not have the capacity for wisdom and understanding the true nature of reality? At what point did they have the capacity, but simply hadn't yet thought of it? — Patterner

My view is that humans do not have the capacity to access a true nature of reality. I think this is a remnant of Greek philosophy. We seem to generate stories that describe our experince as we see it and some of these narratives are more useful for certain purposes than others. But people differ on this. I see human knowledge as an evolving conversation which is contingent and subject to change over time, not necessarily leading to progress.

I didn't say it's an improvement. Just that it's more aware. — Patterner

If that's the case 'more awareness' would seem to have no (or little) significance.

There may be things we are not aware of that other creatures are. — Patterner

We have been using awareness in different ways. When people talk of a 'higher awareness' in consciousness they tend to mean something loftier (e.g., wisdom and understanding the true nature of reality), what you're referring to here as 'awareness' is more like different frame of reference.

Ok. For me this sounds more like a matter of quantity rather than quality.

Our awareness is currently greater than that of our ancestors who lived at any point in the past, or any other awareness on the planet. — Patterner

I'm reasonably certain a lot of people will find this problematic. Is the modern mind an improvement on the pre-modern? How would you measure improvement? More reason, more science, less superstition, less religion? The die hard secular humanists will agree to this.

OK. But then why does it matter? What's your demonstration of 'growing'?
— Tom Storm
There are quite a few more of us now than there used to be. — Patterner

I'm assuming this is intended as a joke and it is kind of funny.

Sorry to hear that gloomy outlook. It seems to focus on the small percentage of bad stuff that the media calls "news" — Gnomon

I don't think this is correct. Climate change is not a 'small percentage of bad stuff' it's a significant ontological concern. Who is talking about 'news'? And that’s a fairly cynical view of media.

I am neither pessimistic or optimistic - neither approach seems apropos to me. I am simply aware.

Ironically, some people seem to think that cynicism makes you appear smarter than the happy-go-lucky sheep. — Gnomon

I'm not sure about that, but I do know that people use philosophy in this way. I wonder why you have introduced cynicism when nothing I have written is cynical.

Evolutionary Progress?
How could anyone who accepts an evolutionary view of life deny that progress has occurred? — Gnomon

Why did you drop this question into your response? When did evolution come up? When did progress come up? Are you on a kind of automatic pilot of pedagogical didacticism? :wink:

With these premises or 'background', I personally believe that if I committed suicide, people would not care at all. — javi2541997

I would care a lot, Javi. And I'm sure others here would too. You are a valued member here, my friend. :smile:

In whose eyes are we a mere speck, other than our own? In the absence of any perspective there's no scale against which to make the comparison against which our physical size may be judged. — Wayfarer

Indeed. On this we can agree.