We should consider the phrase: "To the best of my knowledge". — Fooloso4

Thanks. That's the one I use, partly to get out of the burden of certainty and absolute anything. :wink:

:up:

I frequently contemplate the gloomy possibility that at the point of death, you will realise that your life has been misdirected, at the precise moment when you know you have no more chances to do anything about it. — Wayfarer

What do you mean by misdirected? Missed opportunities to learn or missed opportunities to improve life for others? Or both?

As far as Pascal was concerned, no other gods but Jehovah would come under consideration; — Vera Mont

Indeed. But for anyone thinking of using the wager today this is a problem since it begs the question.

elevated to omni-mind-reader, so you couldn't fool him with insincere belief. — Vera Mont

Yep.

I was referring to something along the lines of Pascal's wager. — Agent Smith

I've never seen how this wager is meant to work. I personally do not believe that we can cynically choose our beliefs in this way. You are either convinced, or you are not convinced. How could anyone genuinely accept and integrate 'the truth' of a metaphysical presupposition like theism because of a potential consequence of a piss-poor bet?

An additional problem is which god do we undertake this wager on? The wager has no way of informing us what god to bet upon. What if the Muslim god is the true god? Or one of the gods of Protestant Christianity (surely Christianity amounts a series of different religions, with different gods vicious or accommodating, depending on the sect). Or Hinduism; Zoroastrianism...?

A final problem of course is how do we imagine a god would regard us for choosing to believe in it just for the sake of a wager? Fake it until you make it? Seems an approach completely lacking moral integrity or fidelity to an ideal, a contemptuous exercise in shallow self-interest.

I can't believe in something I don't know to be true, even if I don't know if it is not true. Are we having fun yet? :razz:

Some theists will point to personal experiences as evidence, — Thunder

Sure. Right now we can probably find many thousands of people who claim to have been abducted by aliens and taken away for a probing... They are often well adjusted people who hold down responsible jobs. I don't think we learn anything much from anecdotes or tales of personal experience. What exactly is a personal experience?

Ah, the all-famous lack of belief. In me humble opinion, atheists shouldn't co-opt lack of belief - that position is distinct enough to deserve a separate category (would save us a lot of trouble). — Agent Smith

I can't know there is no god. I can only decide there are no reasons good enough to believe in one. I am, like many contemporary freethinkers, an agnostic atheist. Agnostic in relation to knowledge of god; atheist in terms of belief in god.

If beliefs are not based on faith or empirical evidence, what is the main root? — javi2541997

I think most people believe in god because they are brought up with the idea - evidence and faith are post hoc. Children are taught there is a god and the notion becomes absorbed as part of their socialisation and enculturation. You're much more likely to have an experience of a particular God as an adult if you are properly primed from birth.

As an example: the guy who wants to drink all day long. Not getting behind the wheel — minds his own business. Seems to me he should be free to do so — he’s harming no one but himself. But lately I think that’s somewhat wrong. The guys healthcare costs has societal effects and so on.

I have trouble determining where to draw the line between personal freedom and social responsibility, I guess. Ownership is one particular aspect that gets caught in this context. — Mikie

Interesting. I once had a chat to a surgeon friend who said that he was getting sick of spending hours operating on people who had lung cancer from smoking. Why waste his valuable time and the hospital's resources on people who don't take care of themselves? This strikes me as an authoritarian or 'right wing' formulation of responsibility and consequences. But I understand it.

The inference that the cancer was caused by smoking may not be correct either. I have lost two friends from lung cancer who never smoked. People get lung cancer.

Does private ownership entitle one to do whatever one wants to what is owned? — Mikie

I can't answer this. But suppose a billionaire purchases original and important works of art and important pieces of ancient craft just to incinerate them. Can this then be seen as a broader harm? There's the vexed question too of what do we count as ownership? Does a white Australian guy actually own Australian land just because he paid for it? Does he own the twenty thousand year-old cave paintings on his ranch?

Heritage protection laws around the world obviously say that ownership doesn't provide the right to do whatever you want with a heritage building or a cultural artifact.

But saying it's a matter of taste is again tantamount to making it a matter of opinion, which it isn't. — Wayfarer

Not opinion. I think we are drawn to forms of reasoning and inferences which appeal to our aesthetic sense. The very fact that certain ideas become the focus of our attention is itself an expression of preferences and attractions.

Is the philosopher a sophist or a statesman or something else? If something else then what? The question is left open. — Fooloso4

Thank you. How interesting.

I do not regard Plato as an idealist. The term is anachronistic. — Fooloso4

Is there a debate about whether Plato is an idealist or not?

I recently discussed why the Forms are hypothetical and why rather than being the reputed originals of which other things are said to be images they are themselves images. — Fooloso4

It becomes a carnival hall of mirrors to me.

Thank you.

We know there can be no way of definitively choosing between those two possibilities, but one or the other might seem more plausible. What seems more plausible to individuals comes down to what their grounding assumptions are, that is it is a matter of taste; and there is no way to show that it could be anything more than a matter of taste. — Janus

Your reply resonates with me. And this conclusion is one I have often suspected, as a matter of taste informed or driven by aesthetics. Some varieties of meaning making (ontology) seeming to be more aesthetically pleasing than others.

Thank you. It's been an interesting discussion. I try to keep my atheism as polite and respectful as I can. I think of it more as a case of my not having a sensus divinitatis (to borrow from Calvin). Reasons and inferences come later. I have good Christian friends (who are not dogmatic and very self-critical). Much of my criticism of Christianity comes from Christians like Bishop John Shelby Spong - rather than the Dawkins route. I have a theory that in many (but not all) instances, the more you delve into anything, the more it can seem reasonable - whether it be Islam or existentialism. Once you get to know the conceptual framework and the nomenclature, it is easy to be seduced by worldviews, especially if a few key ideas already align with some of your encultured views and preferences.

The ambiguity in this is that if the stronger argument is the most persuasive argument then the most reasonable argument can become the weaker argument. In other words, Socrates too makes sophistic arguments. The difference has to do with motivation. While the sophist seeks to profit, Socrates attempts to persuade his interlocutors of such things as it is better to be just. — Fooloso4

Thanks for this. I have sometimes wondered about this and I guess I arrived at the idea that the difference between Socrates and the sophists is good faith - a desire to uncover truth - via judgement, balance, the accumulation of wisdom.

As an aside, I haven't been following this discussion closely, but do you have any 'go to' arguments you use as a rebuttal of idealism or platonic forms? I struggle to see how concepts exist independently from human language. Would you take any cues from Plato's own act of self-criticism in the Parmenides? Or do you think that contemporary phislophy can do better with this subject?

If you have some sympathy for non-essentialism, can you assess nihilism and the range of possible identities it affords humans? — ucarr

I suspect nihilism is impossible. People always believe in something. But as an academic exercise - or a position we might claim to hold - nihilism can take many forms; it can be cheerful and buoyant, or despairing and suicidal.

Being ridiculous for a moment, let me assert humans cannot become cats. — ucarr

Sure. And cats can't become humans. I have no problem with definitions and classifications. The issue is how far can you push these to arrive at intrinsic qualities. It's these I am skeptical about. But I am not a philosopher or scientist, so I can't say I'm an anti-essentialist, I'm just an interested onlooker with a skeptical eye.

Are you an essentialist? A theist? And why?

Essence is not one of your favorite words. Other people talk about it, but such conversations have never drawn you in. — ucarr

It's not a matter of favorite or not. I don't recall a particular conversation about essence. As a would be existentialist in the 1980's, it came up a bit in relation to Sartre - the famous 'existence precedes essence'. It's a word people use in different ways. If someone is using it for soul it doesn't resonate particularly.

What about essential? Do you sometimes find practical uses for this form of the word? — ucarr

Not sure why we exploring words. It's essential one wears a seatbelt when driving a car. It's a word which can be used in a myriad of ways.

If a sarcastic and witty friend said to you, "Foolishness, fragility and spouting off are essential parts of human nature." how would you reply? — ucarr

If the comment interested me, I might ask why my friend felt that and listen to their reasoning. But of itself that is not a particularly interesting observation. I have no particular commitments to views on human nature and I am fairly certain I am not an essentialist.

A quotation from the book can serve as a nutshell summary:

A blend of semen and engine coolant. — Jamal

Sounds like many a man cave I have visited...

Have you ever read TC Boyle's Water Music? Politically incorrect, but an astonishing, enchanting use of English in the manner of Lolita (but not about young girls) also something in common with John Barth's baroque The Sot-Weed Factor but less intricate and confusing.

My understanding is that the use of the word 'will' can throw us off. Is it not the case that what S means by will is more like energy - a non-metacognitive, blind, instinctive force?

:wink: :up:

And with that…….we’re off to 450-odd pages of persuasions. — Mww

Ha... were you persuaded?

Okay. For you soul has no practical use or, at least, no practical use within scientific or philosophical contexts.

A soul is an imperishable essence, so it has no role I can think of in fragility or frailty.
— Tom Storm

I think the word human is a synonym for frailty - but also for resilience.
— Tom Storm

Given your above understandings, is it reasonable to conclude they suggest you might regard the pairing: human soul as being a contradiction, an oxymoron? — ucarr

Really I just provided 'human' as part of our ongoing conversation. This is not a formulation I generally carry around with me in my thinking. As an outcome of our conversation it seemed to me that humans are pretty vulnerable - being fragile and silly animals and all that.

Being neither a scientist or a philosopher I can't comment on how useful the word soul is but it doesn't appear useful to me. If one were an ontological idealist or a practitioner of non-dual thinking, it's likely soul would also be of no use. It's a Greek/Judeo-Christian construct and limited.

Okay. If another person uses soul to mean {something ≠ human soul}, but instead something like substance, would find such usage tolerable? — ucarr

When someone uses the word soul one interprets their meaning. Generally it will be used by a Christian, so the meaning will be fairly clear. If a literary type uses the word then one will understand it as metaphor.

Philosophy (and religion) has spent a lot of time on the notion of reality as it is in itself - 'soul' is an outcome of such speculative thinking - the religious idea that the human being is in itself a soul. A soul for saving. I am not convinced that humans ever get to capital 'T' truth or access reality as it is in itself. Or if there even is an 'in itself' to find. For me all knowledge is made by humans and has limitations. 'Soul' strikes me as a poetic or aesthetic approach to the idea of being - it posits that the ground of all people is an essence of some kind which is part of the divine reality and immutable. I don't have good reasons to accept that particular narrative.

Regarding essence, I understand the word as having two main attributes: a) unavoidable; b) invariant. What do you say? — ucarr

I don't have reason to believe in this idea of essence or even understand what it means - this was just a definition some people might use. I rarely use words like 'invariant'.

Nice.

Are you rejecting soul in favor of other words you regard as more appropriate labels for perishable human identity such as: mortal, frail, fragile, delicate, finite, terminable etc? — ucarr

I don't use the word soul or any substitute for it. It's a non starter for me, a poetic or historical term. A soul is an imperishable essence, so it has no role I can think of in fragility or frailty. I think the word human is a synonym for frailty - but also for resilience.

Is there any context, set of circumstances or the like in which soul could work as a practical label you could accept? — ucarr

I don't think so. Although I could use it ironically or archaically as in, 'Music soothes the soul'. I use Latin words too but that doesn't mean I am a Roman senator.

If a friend active within an intersubjective community to which you also belong should happen to say "Intersubjective agreement is the soul of worthy codes of conduct." would you find such usage acceptable? — ucarr

I would say, what do you mean? Perhaps what is intended in that sentence is: 'Intersubjective agreement is the substance of all codes of conduct.' An intersubjective community is simply a group that agrees about values and worldviews - whether physicists or the Mormons.

Do you see any particular nuances necessary for post-modern philosophy or versions of phenomenology?

I'm not a philosopher, but I tend to think that there is 1) reflecting on one's beliefs and values and the limits of knowledge and 2) philosophy which does this and much more. I tend to privilege the first and have never privileged philosophy as such (not because I disregard the enterprise, just that I don't think the average human brain can do much with it - time limits, capacity, access to mentors, etc.).

The idealist would maybe hold that justice exists and that some acts indeed are just and unjust. A materialist would have to either fold on the question or translate justice to some sort of material term like benefit. Such an exercise, here undertaken in a very ramshackle and shorthand way about justice, does reveal something though. It reveals the origins of our commitments and may explain different usages of the term and therefore also the miscommunications surrounding it. — Tobias

Totally agree. And this kind of reflective practice, if you like, is invaluable in understand the various frames or world views people hold and how much these shape awareness and the meanings of ideas.

Yes. I have been conditioned to always smell the whiff of Christianity and Platonism when I hear the word truth.

I was just wondering if you were going to pop up with something similar. You're right. I assumed Ucarr was referring to moral facts from a mysterious and transcendent source.

I am comfortable with the notion that causing suffering or allowing suffering to continue is morally wrong. I'm uncomfortable with the word truth.

Do you think moral truth, as perceived and understood by humans, is local to the human brain, or does it also have a presence in the world independent of human cognition? — ucarr

I don't have good reason to think there are moral truths or moral facts - just intersubjective or communities of agreement about behaviours - codes of conduct if you like, which vary according to context and culture. It seems to make sense for killing, theft and lying to be proscribed or heavily regulated amongst a social species like humans - a community is unlikely to survive or thrive in the conditions of a failed state or failed tribe.

In my earlier response to you I was referring to a person's moral or emotional nature or sense of identity — ucarr

Then the word 'soul' is of no practical use.

Clever bastard, the old Schoppie, right? Nice translation. The section from 35 reads like a more verbose Bernado Kastrup, who, unsurprisingly cites S as a key influence.

From Brief Peeks Beyond 2015

Page 28:

No ontology in the history of humankind has been or is more metaphysical than materialism. Unlike all spiritual or religious ontologies ... the strongly objective realm of materialism is, by definition, forever outside experience. It is pure abstraction. ... All the properties we attribute to reality – like solidity, palpability, concreteness – are qualities of experience and, as such, not applicable to the real world of materialism.

Page 183:

We stopped living the inner life of human beings and began living the ‘outer life’ of things and mechanisms. … All meaning must lie – we’ve come to assume – somewhere without and never within. I even dare to venture an explanation for how this came to pass: because of Western materialism, we believe that we are finite beings who will, unavoidably, eventually cease to exist. Only the ‘outside world’ will endure and have continuity.

You can see the attraction a consciousness only ontology has, particularly when physicists postulate a reality of quantum fields as the present incarnation of 'physicalism'.

I don't think we speak the same language on this subject, we certainly speak in different metaphors. What is a soul? Are you referring to an immortal/immaterial essence as per Aquinas? Or are you using it as a metaphor for conscious experience? The fact that humans, like animals, can be run over or shot or harmed emotionally points to any number of things, 'soul' not being one which springs out to me.

Soul is the part of you that truly believes
Soul-belief comes to children naturally
After childhood it threatens to slip our grasp
Soul is the heart of vulnerability — ucarr

Hmmm... I realize this is not for me, but I don't think this sentiment is accurate. I never believed in a soul as a child. And I grew up in the Baptist tradition. Soul was just a word or metaphor adults used - something from the religious conditioning of their culture - pulled out occasionally to denote a concept they didn't understand or to stand in for the word 'people'. As in '1500 souls were lost on the Titanic.'

Soul is the heart of vulnerability — ucarr

I'm not sure this means anything, unless you force it to. What, in this sentence, are the words 'heart' or 'vulnerability' referring to?

How do you imagine kicking puppies solves cooperation problems? You are just making up nonsense. — Mark S

I think the puppy kicking is just an analogue for any kind of egregious potential human behavior that can be assessed as right or wrong, regardless of any cooperative components. Humans cooperating may lead to human sacrifice, burning of witches, hanging of gay people, gassing of minority groups - all as part of a prevailing social order.

Thanks for the considered answer.

In sum what is boils down to is noting that knowledge is a tool. It is based on the most rational conclusions we can make from our inner personal experience, as well as our inductive interactions with society. I am most proud of it not only because it presents a successful deductive approach to knowledge, but a rational approach to inductive knowledge which allows a hierarchy of cogency. — Philosophim

Sounds interesting. There's not much philosophy I can make sense of, but I'll check it out. :up:

That blog was a nice clear read. Appearances and reality and the demarcation between them - 'through the Kantian wall of mystery' are a bit of a mind fuck...

I mean an objective morality that would apply regardless of being human or having a culture. — Philosophim

I'm curious what you mean by a morality regardless of being a human. Can you clarify?

because people are still looking for a soul. Its not really a philosophical discussion, but a faith based and emotional discussion. Once neuroscience ends that avenue, I'm sure people will look elsewhere. — Philosophim

Are you a physicalist?

Finally, rationality is once again, knowledge. As we can see, there is no greater need in philosophy then solving epistemology. — Philosophim

I have some sympathy for this as a potential resolution for some of our seemingly intractable questions. Any ideas for some directions? Do humans in your view have access to facts/truth beyond the quotidian (and even then...)?

Personally, I don't see any real breakthroughs happening in my lifetime and even then I wonder how much we'd understand when most of us still can't understand Kant? Possibly at some level it doesn't much matter. :wink:

Porca puttana!

Yes, that’s what I’m asking. Personally I’m not in the truth business unless it’s about mundane matters like what time the train to Sydney leaves Southern Cross Station.

Isn't this kind of thinking essentially postulating a golden era when people were closer to truth? Do you think this is an accurate assessment?

Thanks.

Speculation, on the other hand, involves a more abstract and imaginative kind of thinking. It is about exploring ideas and concepts that are not immediately concrete or tangible, and the satisfaction it provides comes from the mental stimulation and creative exploration of abstract concepts. This type of speculation often involves questioning assumptions, considering alternative perspectives, and pondering the mysteries of existence. — schopenhauer1

I'm not sure if this has been covered, but for what reason do you think this is not happening as often today?

Some fields are more privileged than others -- the arts, for example, in which artists can demonstrate their interpretation of the world through their arts. If people are inclined to actually include contemplation of the world into their working hours, and find cosmos meaning in what they do, they'd be disappointed. — L'éléphant

Fair point - also many people who work in the health sectors, psychology, education, community work, where reflective practice and questioning of assumptions about mainstream culture and values is frequently undertaken.

A walk into many bookshops in my town is to be confronted by hundreds of popular books all about philosophy and spirituality, and alternative values, etc. In my experience, the world seems far more interested and tolerant of this material today then it was 30-40 years ago.

Thanks Joshs.

An omnipotent being could make it so fire doesn't hurt you, so that your body doesn't develop diseases or cancers, so on and so forth.

If there is a creator-God, then all of physical suffering exists because God set up the universe to work that way deliberately. — Astro Cat

This is like the argument from poor design that some atheists bring out as a counter to the apologist's argument from design and the miraculous functionality of the natural world. As we all know, if we care to look, most of nature is predicated, not just on suffering but also on cruelty, as predators toy and kill their prey and insects eat each other alive.

By any reckoning it seems pretty hard to imagine a creator god that was anything other than a cruel thug by most human standards. So we don't just have degenerative diseases and diabetes and psychosis and useless appendixes and the shipwreck that is ageing, it could be said we have an entire 'creation' based around chaos, predation and agony. Still mustn't grumble... looks to be exactly the kind of world you might find if there were no designer or a plan.