All fair points, TC. I often find myself reflecting upon how most of the things we truly value in life are not rational at all - love, connection to places and people, art, music, sex, food, friendship, travel... We can talk rationally about them, but generally this ends up sounding like prattle.

Yes, evolution. We evolved to produce reason as our means of survival, rather than fangs or claws. We create concepts and frameworks of behavior through reason. To negate such an assertion, evidence will have to be provided that opposes this as a deductive conclusion, and evidence for some other processes will also have to be presented. — Garrett Travers

Thanks for clarifying. Reason does seem to separate us from the other animals but it's not as if reason has been very popular with people - politics, advertising, religion, art would not have such a massive and irrational influence on human behaviour if we used reason the way you think is right. Maybe your point is simply that reason is used? I would agree that humans have the capacity to use reason effectively - but it is just a part of how we think and act.

P2. and if it is only through this conceptual faculty of reason that humans are capable of living a life according to the values he/she develops with said faculty — Garrett Travers

I struggle with this one. Is this circular? Only through reason we can we live by reason? Or are you saying that only through reason can we develop values that are based on reason? Same thing, kind of. Or are you saying that only reason can allow us to live according to the values we construct? For me we come back to the problem that humans use reasoning, certainly, but the quality of the reasoning is not clear - it often amounts to emotion directed choices or reasons that 'make sense' to the person.

I like him a lot and I think he covers a lot of ground.

P1. if humans are generated by natural processes with reason (logic, rationality, conceptual faculty) being their means of survival.
P2. if only through this conceptual faculty of reason can humans live a live according to the values he/she develops with said faculty
C. then only moral system of society is one in which each human is free to pursue their own values to live and achieve their own goals — Garrett Travers

Is there a reason these premises are written like this, Garrett? To me it sounds like it was translated out of Swahili into broken unclear English. Sorry. :smile:

If humans are generated by natural processes with reason (logic, rationality, conceptual faculty) being their means of survival.. I can't follow what this is trying to say. Humans are rational beings as a consequence of nature?

I sometimes entertain the rather subversive idea that the role of modern culture is to make the world a safe space for the ignorant ('ignorance' in the traditional sense of the absence of wisdom or sagacity). — Wayfarer

You make that sound like a bad thing. :razz: Thanks for expanding on the topic.

Anyway - with respect to the OP, there are states of endogenous depression, which I'm sure you know, and which are properly the province of mental health and medical professionals. But there's also the dimension of existential angst. — Wayfarer

I've worked with many people who are depressed - hundreds now. Many of whom wanted to suicide and some of them have done so. I have nothing much of value to say about the matter on a forum except that Andrew Solomon wrote a very good book on the subject, an anatomy of depression called The Noonday Demon. For me the question isn't really why do people get it, it's why do some people recover.

The radical problem with modern culture is that it seeks to 'normalise' the human condition, instead of seeing it as problematical or flawed, and then can't understand why happiness is still so hard to obtain. — Wayfarer

That's a juicy morsel for us. Can you elaborate a little?

Kill us? How so? Is the idea of an 'ultimate reality' a human construct based on innate desire to create meaning? Or is there something;'out there' for us to discover? We already know the various posited solutions, from Brahman to WIll.

So, if science tells us about the world "as it appears to us", is there any way to get to know the world as it actually is, that is beyond the appearance, or is there only the appearance? — IP060903

This, it seems to me, is the question most philosophical discussions eventually come down to. Can we gain access to ultimate reality (God/idealism/consciousness) and/or is the notion of an ultimate reality just a mirage, a legacy of Greek philosophy?

:up: I'd like to see some development of philosophical ideas between members here. I'm no philosopher and am here out of a late interest in philosophy and what I might have missed. I apologise if I came off as rude when you arrived here. I often feel the need to prod people to see what they think.

Whether one looks at the idea of perfection from one religious perspective or from a purely philosophical one, one could ask what does perfection mean? Is it the absence of mistakes and is it something which can be measured at all, especially in relation to action. Is perfection more a state of mind? It can also be disputed at how it can be achieved and whether it may be arrived at intrinsically or after learning from mistakes and does this matter in how the concept of perfection is viewed? — Jack Cummins

That's exactly the right approach, I think, if you are going to ask such a question.

Average, whenever we talk it seems to me you don't engage with the points I make and go off on an unconnected tangents. Since this doesn't happen with too may others here I'm going to assume we don't connect.

highly doubt you believe success is connected to what we voluntarily chose to do. Isn’t success dependent upon objective necessity — Average

Is this what I said? Read my response. No point going further if this is your take home message. Here's a clue - you are talking about a flawless life. How is this defined?

[ Sure, but what does it mean to say a person lived a flawless life? If it only means succeeding in what they chose to succeed in - this is problematic. It means we can include thieves, racists, murderers if they achieve their objectives. And it also begs the question, what about the areas they did not choose to excel - possibly friendship, family, morality? Is someone with enormous gaps in their life flawless?

It's an astonishing work.

Hmm. Are you really asking this or just taking the piss? Most qualities you name have to be understood in relation to something, that's how it works. No debate here.

Let me ask you - what is flawlessness and who do you decide if something is flawless?

I’m not sure I understand what you mean by “as it applies to human beings”. Would you mind providing some clarification? — Average

See my first answer when I asked about flawlessness. Same thing.

:up:

You're fine. No probs. :wink:

Thanks for clarifying.

ou say that every human being is imperfect but if that’s true by definition, because you said that they’re synonymous, then it seems like circular reasoning to me. Please correct me if I’m wrong. — Average

I'm just having a bit of fun, man. It's my opinion that human beings are imperfect - all problems with induction aside. This is a presupposition I hold it does not require defending. You are welcome not to accept this view. Find me a perfect person and I will change my mind - but first define perfection as it applies to human beings. As I said the question itself is unfinished. Which brings us right back to my first response.

all swans we have seen are white, and, therefore, all swans are white? — Average

All human beings we have seen are imperfect, therefore all human beings are imperfect. Yep. I think human being is a synonym for imperfection, set aside falsifiability. I call this one a priori. :cool:

I think this is self evident. When was the last time you met a perfect human being?

Is it possible to live a life that is flawless or are we destined to live lives that are less than ideal? — Average

My take on this is that the question isn't answerable and isn't entirely coherent. What does flawless mean? Flawlessness can only be measured in relation to some agreed upon criteria. What would that be? Christianity? Rorty's postmodernism? Camus' existentialism? Your own subjective predilections?

If you are asking is it possible to be a human being and not make the wrong choices occasionally or often the answer I think is 'no'.

*

Interesting essay.

Quick reaction from a non philosopher. So often in philosophy argument seems to come down to the view that we require transcendental justification for morality or aesthetics for them to be meaningful. Values can't be coherent or even brought into being without either God and/or a version of idealism. In other words, idealism or god are the necessary requirement for ineligibility. The logical absolutes and even the existence of language could be claimed to be dependent on this too.

The idealism of our present time seems to be this notion of inter-subjective communities of agreement which help us to establish shared but subjective truths. In the era of the dead metanarrative this seems as optimistic as we are able to be about truth, beauty and goodness.

I think the latter approach resonates stronger for me but I understand the powerful narrative and tradition of the first. The first seems to say that right and wrong and notions of beauty are a kind of magic that are inaccessible to secular thought. I certainly know that there are Christians with presuppositional apologetics who would argue that atheists are indeed able to tell right from wrong, but only because God wrote this knowledge 'upon their hearts.' Perhaps another vestigial trace of the Logos in Neo-Platonist guise.

And the failure to love God and others because of this love, which is our truest purpose, is far more important than what the thoughts rattling in our head have to say about God.

Skeptics live and die in their heads. — Joe Mello

I'd be interested to hear a bit more about your ideas. Those are claims. They may well be true. but perhaps you could show us more about how they work. I have been interested in nondualist approaches and have read and appreciated work by Father Richard Rohr. Do you see him as useful in your system?

Thanks for clarifying. Glad you are ok.

is to create societies predicated on the primacy of individual human consciousness. — Garrett Travers

What are you thinking here?

So, what say you, Philosophers? Will you join me in this? — Garrett Travers

I should claim an exemption from this as I do not count myself a philosopher.

But I'd like to understand better what you are saying. The tone of the OP is grandiose and messianic. You ok? Can you summarize your idea in less apocalyptic language in a few dot points? I understand from this you want to set out key philosophic principles to help save the world from a coming crisis?

Tom, you just labeled me a newbie, crank, and dogmatist. — Joe Mello

Well I can see that 2 of the 3 fit pretty well. I myself am a crank, but I was a newbie.

You seem to like jumping to conclusions, I though that was a no-no in philosophy.

Tom, you labeled my post according to your ideas about Catholic apologists, and then told me to look up your and other's arguments against these Catholic apologists. — Joe Mello

Actually, no, that's not what I meant. I thought it might be useful as a newbie for you to see how these kinds of debates played out here, given the argument you raised comes up regularly, that's all.

There's always room for more cranks and dogmatists here.

It is unknowable, and that position is acceptable, — Mww

I hear you. I sometimes wonder how we can know if something is unknowable in perpetuity?

Thinking laterally, you were the accountant or cook? — praxis

:rofl:

Welcome.

My posts will not be huge paragraphs, Google searches, or filled with big words that will distract from what I'm simply saying. — Joe Mello

As compared to who?

And the Metaphysical Principle that I discovered long ago (and that has never been refuted by any scientific discovery, or even known by any scientist) that is the foundation under the "necessity" for the existence of an omnipotent power in the creation and evolution of our Universe is this:

No combination of lesser things can create a greater thing without something greater than the greater thing added to the lesser things. — Joe Mello

Can you connect this to an example to illustrate your point in action?

So you'll be defending the Christian/Catholic idea of god from the perspective of the traditional arguments, possibly Aquinas' Five Ways?

Perhaps do a bit of a search to see how these arguments have been explored earlier.

It isn’t a question of being a complete model, but rather, whether it is accepted as such. So it is that either the model is complete but wrong insofar as it begins from the wrong path, or it is incomplete insofar as it disregards that which doesn’t belong to it, but should. — Mww

Food for thought. It's certainly not my subject, so I defer to your reading on this. It seems to me that there are a number of things that remain unclear or incomplete (certainly to me) - the nature of the noumenal world for one (which by definition is unknowable but is this an acceptable position?) and it seems to me the nature of Big Mind not well understood in Kant or Schopenhauer. Does that make sense?

I'm sorry, this just seems like carping. I've yet to receive any substantive answers suggesting alternatives to the causal dynamics of matter as an even possible basis for any kind of reality... — Michael Sol

I'm just responding to dogmatism. I'm not saying you are wrong just that it seems odd that you have succeeded in solving one of the great mysteries of science and philosophy. Hence the Nobel Prize quip. I say this as an atheist with no superphysical beliefs.

We have a Theory and empirical evidence, to which you oppose, there are alternative theories, even if I don't know them? — Michael Sol

We don't always have all the evidence and some distinguished thinkers posit mysterianism on the subject of consciousness precisely because an account of how it came about seems to have eluded us.

And, uh, I have a completed, a priori theory that shows how consciousness was produced through evolution, a successful Thought Experiment, and the Fossil Record — Michael Sol

I guess a Nobel Prize awaits you.

And General Relativity is just another a priori imagining of the Universe - got an alternative for that one, too? — Michael Sol

It's not about alternatives. As I said that approach seems to be a fallacy from incredulity. "We don't know" is a perfectly reasonable answer. :wink:

It's pretty clear that the precise nature consciousness has not yet been resolved (tentative answers, sure - Metzinger on the left/Kastrup on the right) and it is doubtful that the true answer will be revealed on a forum for dilettantes.

Tom. I don't think there are any deliberate conspiratorial machinations or plots at work here or in any other grand materialist or idealist epistemological systems — charles ferraro

I agree, I was just satirizing one of the views out there.

I think the problem with idealism in general is that it is an incomplete model - there's a reason it hasn't reemerged (yet) as the default setting for our thinking and it isn't just down to the conspiratorial machinations of physicalism and the plot to disregard true knowledge...

Indeed. Some of my gay friends at school were 'camp' before they were 10. Pretty sure they had not been into any clubs or bars and certainly they had no models to borrow from.

As we cannot even Imagine a means of Creating a Consciousness other than by Evolution in a Material Reality, then isn't the Consciousness itself Proof of the Objective Material Universe? — Michael Sol

Isn't this just a classic fallacy from incredulity? We can't imagine any other way.... therefore X...

The absence of an alternative explanation doesn't mean the only one you are aware of is right, surely?

What do you say to those who argue that quantum mechanics demonstrates that matter only comes into existence when observed? Are you saying you are an old school materialist?

Infinite Regression is Absurd, because there is no such thing in our conception or experience that is an infinitude. — Michael Sol

Isn't this also a wonky inference? Another fallacy from incredulity, perhaps?

But the purported thing-in-itself, being transcendent to both the sensory and the transcendental, is NOTHING from the framework of human consciousness. — charles ferraro

I hear what you are saying about nothing, but what's it all mean, what's your conclusion?