I'm not sure what it even means to be without limits? Is this a capacity we have for reinvention, redefinition and ceaseless change, or does it refer to some transcendental factor? Or something else?

Nietzsche once wrote that bad writers write ALL their thoughts rather than just the final "percolated" product.[/quote]

Not coming from a background in the subject, I find most philosophical writing either dull or incomprehensible. That's mainly on me. Wish I could do better.

I find Nietzsche fairly unreadable too - having read 4 of his works and unable to get much from them.

Hume and Schopenhauer are readable. But I don't associate readability with highest quality. That argument sounds a bit like Orwell's famous polemical essay about politics and language.

I'm suspicious of long winded writers,it's like a long list of apologies and overwrought justifications,showing how the writer is unsure of his ideas! — Swanty

There's a significant prejudice ageist writers we find difficult as we tend to assume the fault lies with them, not our abilities to comprehend.

I think John Searle quotes Foucault about Derrida's writing as a type of 'obscurantist terrorism'. The idea being that some French post structuralists wrote deliberately complex language to appear profound. This has become a worn trope and gives us an excuse not to try to understand.

But my quesion is this: how do we tell apart the complex prose that is insightful, from that which is empty bluster? All we can really do is read and provide assessments based on some other criterion of value. I don't know how tenable it is to dismiss a writer just because of baroque or highly technical language.

Sure, but we do everything based on imaginary stories in our minds. — T Clark

And sometimes even the territory and food are imaginary.

Sorry, I was merely being sardonic. But I agree with you. :wink:

Do you think that the US might one day invade the US and impose democracy, fairness and tolerance there?

:up:

Not to run an empty, establishment candidate who runs away from every popular progressive policy there is, — Mikie

Forgot to ask - what progressive policies are you referring to?

It gets tiresome having to exclusively vote AGAINST something— that’s extremely uninspiring. Despite all the gaslighting, I never felt the so-called “energy,” and I imagine millions of others didn’t either. It all felt rather bland and formal and forced and coached. Like Hillary all over again: machine-like; robotic. I still voted against the worst, as we all should, but eventually you have to offer something as well. — Mikie

That makes perfect sense to me. Thanks. Yes, I said to a friend yesterday that there wasn't a genuine bone in her body and, perversely, by contrast, Trump appeared spontaneous and real, even if he is a carny barker and quite obviously a cunt. What do they say? Shit has its own integrity...

Today’s the day we get 4 more years of the old degenerate climate-denying corporatist con man. It’ll do irreversible damage and lock in 50 years of a reactionary Supreme Court and judiciary generally— and put the brakes on the little climate policy we managed to pass— but hey, Americans are fairly stupid and easily brainwashed, and the Democrats should have known better. The lesson they’ll take away from this is that they should move farther to the right, which is insane.
— Mikie — Mikie

Some of my friends keep telling me that Trump is what happens when the liberals have lost their way. What do you think are the lessons for Democrats here?

When did Musk become a right-wing cartoon?

I went on a Buddhist retreat many years ago, and at one of the Q&A's I put my hand up, and asked a question, along the lines, 'modern life is very complex. You have relationships, financial and work obligations, bad habits develop.' And so on. The monk replied, with a broad grin, 'I know! Why do you think we're monks!' — Wayfarer

Nice anecdote. I think a lot of folk are trying to scale back their involvement in the world. Not necessarily from a higher consciousness perspective. Minimalism can be one such path. It's like being a monk, without the ritual. I know a lot of folk who are not having kids, not pursuing careers, not buying consumer goods, not playing all the games of ambition and competition and staying out of the rat race as far as they can. It's not a solution but it's a beginning.

And now he's protected by the Supreme Court decision that he's granted immunity for 'any official acts'. The Project 2025 ideologues are lined up to purge the bureaucracy and, quote, 'take down the deep state leadership.' He's promised 11 million deportations and massive tarrifs. He has a hit list of his 'enemies within'. — Wayfarer

Isn't Trump just another celebrity, virtue signalling, identity policies wanker (albeit of the right)? Do you think that he and Vance and Musk and RFK and Bannon will be able to agree on anything and not end up derailing themselves in acrimony in a few months? Seems to me that Musk, Bannon and RFK will need to take out Trump in '25 so they can get to the real work.

I’m not an American - why do you think he won?

I think he'll call it soon .

Does having the capacity for existential self-awareness imply anything further than this fact?
That is to say, does a species of animal(s) that has the ability to conceptually "know" that it exists, entail anything further, in any axiological way? — schopenhauer1

What does existential self-awareness actually consist of? Does a recognition of mortality accompany it? When I first came to this realisation as a child my primary reaction was, why did I have to be born? In reversing the usual cliché about such matters, I often thought to myself that it might be bad luck to be born - to have to go through the laborious process of learning, growing, belonging (to a culture you dislike), experiencing loss, decline and ultimately death. It's not easy to identify an inherent benefit attached to any of this. But there's a lot of noise called philosophy and religion which seeks to help us to manage our situation.

What is anarchy and where has it worked before?

:up:

We’re all caught up in the throes of this, every day. — Wayfarer

No idea - is that what the discussion in this thread is about?

If the argument is that gods and religions are 'invented' to help us manage reality in some way, I see no reason why we would only invent comforting stories. Happy bedtime stories are not the only way to make meaning.

Sounds like Calvinism to me. — Wayfarer

Could be. But knowing Calvinists, it's hard to argue that they don't derive succour and meaning and purpose from their beliefs.

He's talking about Calvinism, a religious movement which turns God into a total psychopath. — BitconnectCarlos

Know it well, it's the religion of my father's family. But execrable gods are a dime a dozen. I fail to see how this worldview doesn't provide people with purpose and explanatory power. No matter how horrendous the religion's tenets, people always find a way to integrate them into how they make sense of the world at large.

But the idea that this is an "adaptive coping mechanism," then makes no sense in terms of some later religious developments, because they make the world both terrifying and unintelligible, the result of an unfathomable God who is beyond all human notions of good and evil, totally obscured by total equivocity. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Not entirely sure why you've ended up here or which god you are thinking of but I wouldn't arrive at this conclusion. A god may be irascible or capricious and above human comprehension, but simply knowing this is the case and having an identity for this god, a knowledge of its presence and some imperfect rituals to assist us in pleasing such a god, as best we can, is surely enough?

This is not only not reassuring, it makes man entirely helpless, and it makes all of reality bottom out in the completely unintelligible and unfathomable. Through the obsession with divine sovereignty, all of existence becomes a pantheistic expression of the divine will, which is itself beyond comprehension. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Which god/s are you thinking of that work like this?

How does this explain, say, Calvinism where man has to be constantly worried about whether or not he is elect or destined to eternal damnation? Generally, in this religion, one has absolutely no ability to determine whether one will be saved or not, and one also knows that the overwhelming odds are that one is destined for eternal torment. There are also, traditionally, no ways to know for sure if one is truly elect.

Or how does it explain the many early religions in which the Gods are largely capricious and cruel? I am not sure how believing in an extremely powerful sky rapist who likes transforming into animals before committing his infamies is "reassuring." — Count Timothy von Icarus

You raise salient points. Although I don’t fully accept the original post, it could be argued that humans have an innate desire to understand and create a framework for supernatural realities—even if those frameworks are harsh. This need can provide reassurance by offering a way to make sense of our experiences and establish guiding principles for navigating the world. If our deities are perceived as cruel and unpredictable, might that not reflect the inherent harshness and unpredictability of nature itself? Our dream life doesn't have to be all sweetness and light for us to find reassurance, purpose, and a sense of predictability in the world.

There is a correlation between philosophers who reject abortion and accept only classical logic. What to make of that? — Banno

That is interesting.

Is there a correlation (from what you have seen) between those philosophers who privilege the classical tradition (ancient Greeks) and conservative politics?

Thank you.

The one area where identity might still be an issue is age. I liked being young and able much more than I like being old and unable. — BC

Yes, that's an interesting one. The kids at work now seek me out as a relic of a pervious era - 'What were the 1980's like, Tom? They must have been really cool.' I've never felt young, only inexperienced. Now I realise ignorance is forever and don't mind so much.

Was I born damned or only after I became an atheist?

Actually on reflection, from the position of some thinkers and the religion I was brought up in, the soul starts pure and good, so I guess I’m probably wrong about it’s essential nature.

. Also, immortality is an attribute, an eternal attribute. — praxis

The soul may be immortal, but that says nothing about whether it is damned or not. The soul's essential nature is subject to change - that's the bit I think you are missing. It's immortality is incidental. And for me it's the most relevant given the above discussion since the soul is not essentially saved or good. But I get your point.

To what extend do you feel you have been aware of, or preoccupied by your identity/ties over time? Is identity just a given that you don't really consciously explore, or is it something which you often think about? Personally I don't really have a strong sense of self unless I end up stuck at a function or dinner party and am made aware of how little I share with others - in terms of interests and inclinations.

Yes but the immortality is just one aspect of the soul - which can change and has no essential attributes. Freewill and all that. Anyway it doesn't much matter since I suspect neither of us actually believe in souls. Essentialism tend to mean that there are fixed attributes - such as biological essentialism on gender. The soul, if the literature is correct, can be corrupted or redeemed.

interesting- I’m not sure an immoral soul equates with essentialism unless you are saying that the nature of the soul is unchanging. Isn't the theory that souls can and do change - can be lost or redeemed, etc? I'm not in the soul business so this is entirely about the storytelling of such matters.

Psychology is no nearer related to philosophy, than is any other natural science.
The theory of knowledge is the philosophy of psychology.
Does not my study of sign-language correspond to the study of thought processes which philosophers held to be so essential to the philosophy of logic? Only they got entangled for the most part in unessential psychological investigations, and there is an analogous danger for my method. — Shawn

BTW - what is he actually saying here, it seems vague.

DKE is accurately characterized as 'the stupider a person is, the less likely they are to realize how stupid they are'
— Clearbury

Not necessarily true. I have known stupid people who admit they are stupid and don't try to compete intellectually. But it's not the definition of DKE. — jgill

Exactly. :up:

I know little about DKE, but I do know some stupid people and they are not all the same. It tends to be those who are arrogant as well as stupid, who showcase their stupidity by making 'dumb' assessments based on incomplete understanding. Lots of less smart folk are quite happy to say they don't have any expertise and 'don't know' something. I wish more people would acknowledge their ignorance.

Interesting. Thanks.

Apart from education as a formative process in the young mind, I would like to ask the reader about how does the reader suppose that knowledge can influence one's identity? My personal belief is that knowledge is a form of "memory" encoded in the brain, more specifically the hippocampus. With the process of education a person carries the memories of what they ought to do or become in a form of narrative that educators present about how the world works or latter in one's formative process what domain of knowledge a person is apt at in relation to the narrative of the educator. — Shawn

None of that really resonates with me. I have no significant sense of what I ought to do, only what I want to do or what might get me into trouble if I do it. When we actively engage with education, it often seems to be about providing ad hoc justifications for matters which already appeal to our preferences or to follow our disposition. We enjoy math - we study math. We enjoy reading - we study literature. Or in my case, don't enjoy anything at school - so I skive off and go into the city each day to smoke and look at buildings. But if you are just talking about school, say, for me it's the experiences and relationships that help shape identity, not the formal learning. My identity is based more on intuitions, attractions, repulsions and pleasure seeking than any conscious sense of knowledge.

There are so many interesting things you could describe about stimming routines. eg Baggs is pitch matching background noises with humming, but is a nonspeaking autist, why? What's the phenomenology there? What's the expressivity?

Calling it a language with a spoken component (the humming) when it's produced by someone who as a premise of the video cannot communicate in spoken language is hopelessly reductive and easily refutable. And for the purpose of normalising autism no less. — fdrake

@joshs Curious what your take on all this is given you posted it with a provocative question.

:up:

That's very funny. :wink:

think you nailed the competing interests here. Some are focused on more specific scenarios and situations, and me, I am focused on anything universal that might be gleaned from it. — Fire Ologist

Yes, this is interesting. Our values and interests are direct reflections of our dispositions. I'm not drawn towards totalizing principles or universal notions or even consistency in many cases.

Got ya. Thanks for clarifying.

So there could be reasons to value the life of an adult more than the life of a baby? — Fire Ologist

Could be. I don't know all the potential ideas/scenarios which might exist. I have certainly heard that amongst Aboriginal peoples in my country, infanticide was sometimes practiced because food was't plentiful enough to sustain babies and the adults of the tribe. But one can imagine some funky scenarios - war, crisis, famine, etc, where a baby might be assessed as being of less value than an adult. Overall situations are more significant to me than categorical imperatives.