it seems to me all religious teachings could use 21st century update.

Using Sigmund Freud's model of Id-Ego-Superego;
The Id is our survival part
The Superego is our moral part
The Ego is the mediator between the two — TaySan

Interesting. Do religious teachings need updating-or do you mean a re-imagining-or perhaps they could be circumvented and a more appropriate substitute found? Why choose early 20th century atheist Freud as the vehicle for a spiritual tradition's transition? A Freudian secular, re-imagining of Buddhism? I know... that's not what you said.

:up:

What grounds are there for assuming that "consciousness" is (something) "fundamental"? — 180 Proof

None. You're probably correct. Try as I might, I use words here with cavalier imprecision (and without any philosophical education) so I was just placing it in there to underscore 'consciousness' (it looked so bare on its own), without considering for a second whether there were any fundamentals involved.

Could it be communicated in the abstract, in third-person terms, like a formula or a method? Or does it require a kind of first-person participation which is different in kind to a third-person science? — Wayfarer

I hear you and I get it. And I can only imagine that you must find it somewhat frustrating to keep articulating a position that seems to be circumvented. We (or at least I) don't seem to be hearing it very well. It does seem to come down to kind of Two Cultures debate.

I appreciate hearing clearer articulations of your position. Essentially if seems to come down to what we consider to be knowledge and how this can be found. I can't find a way to a contemplative understanding of higher consciousness but I do take these ideas seriously precisely because it is not a path I would naturally take.

A smart fellow noted that an answered question does not cease to be a question when answered, it merely ceases to be an unanswered question. — tim wood

Very nice. The important questions are often the ones we think we have provided good answers to.

:up:

I'm not saying there's no altruism. I'm just contemplating the possibility that it, as a trait, maybe on its way out from the gene pool. — TheMadFool

I know. No idea about the latter part.

:100:

Which doesn't yet mean that healthy people benefit from volunteering etc. — baker

I think it does and I have seen this many times too. The healthy person often doesn't realise how much more rewarding life can be. For the self-oriented and highly successful business person, for instance, a spate of volunteering is often revelatory and beneficial and changes their entire worldview.

Also, I have doubts as to the authenticity of your claims. For instance, lamentably but not surprisingly, hospitals in general are for-profit organizations. I'll leave it at that. — TheMadFool

I get that and understand what you say. But none of it suggests that human beings do not have altruism. It simply suggest that some struggle to manifest altruism given economic systems and power.

Note! However, if it (altruism), as you say, has "...huge survival advantages..." why are there only a handful of altruists around [I'm sure you know about the top 1% who own more than then bottom 90%]? Furthermore, why is altruism so damned difficult to adopt as one's philosophy? — TheMadFool

I didn't say society was perfect - hierarchies and power are seperate matters. Nevertheless I would suggest that many of those in the top 1% do have empathy for others and also generously support philanthropic causes. Where would hospitals and charities be without philanthropy? There's a long history of the wealthy sharing resources with the poor. As for the bottom 90%; many can and do work together and pool resources for a common good. It helps them to survive. There's also self-interested altruism and reciprocal altruism - useful survival approaches.

Evolution is a dynamic process after all and if altruism is losing popularity, explaining it in terms of "...huge survival advantages..." amounts to a gross error for the simple reason that Darwinian processes may in fact be phasing out this particular feature (altruism) from the gene pool. Never thought of it that way but it does seem completely within the realm of possibility. — TheMadFool

Is it a gross error? It's clear empathy and altruism is a strong force on the planet and the marked contrast between this and selfishness is the story of the human race. Will time and changing behaviours remove altruism from humans? Who can say?

People who are proponents of evolution have a tough time explaining how altruism and evolution hang together as a coherent story of life. — TheMadFool

Untrue. That's something an apologist would argue. Altruism has significant survival advantages for tribal creatures like human beings.

just didn't see the world the same way most people did (do), and this part of my embodiment precluded a number of activities important to young men: driving, hunting, sports, military, and the like. — Bitter Crank

My sight and physical strength are good, but for whatever reason, I have also never been hunting, diving, fishing, have never taken an interest in any sport or the military, owned any weapons or watched cars racing. I have never had any interests in things people sometimes dub male pursuits. I don't listen to or enjoy rock 'n' roll or rarely watch science fiction or action movies. I have friends but no buddies I go out with for 'drinks' and my idea of horror is getting stuck with a group of men as I almost never have any interests in common. I also struggle to see or fully understand this world of male and female separation.

Is that a good thing? — Banno

My bias is not to invade countries or have military action celebrated in ways that do not interact with history, so no.

You?

Not sure, Banno.

In 1974 I went to a dawn service. There was a small group of onlookers and the conversation there was how many more years do you think this ritual has left before it is obsolete.

Today the ANZAC day dawn service is a jam-packed, vibrant circus and seems to be key part of contemporary Australian identity. It's a Grand Final and Show Day combination. And we even have an off-shoot pseudo event, Anzac Day Eve. Our version of Trump - John Howard - was instrumental in fostering a kind of retro-nativism where Don Bradman rides Pharlap along the shore of Gallipoli beach. It still seems abrasive to me. I think it all sits in the jingoistic tool box with the notion that Aussies are good soldiers who can help export civilization and mateship to the rest of the world.

think Thomas Nagel's Evolutionary Naturalism and the Fear of Religion is germane in the context. — Wayfarer

I think a concomitant fear of evolutionary naturalism and atheism propels Nagel and many others. Aesthetically and emotionally the notion of there not being a god, or some kind of higher consciousness is an anxiety and preoccupation I hear expressed more often than I can count.

He doesn't seem to understand that philosophy itself is one of the things that is dissolved in 'Darwin's dangerous idea'. He's too philosophically naive to understand the philosophical implications of his own writing. — Wayfarer

In fairness to Dawkins I suspect he is more sophisticated than this. But he has become immersed and besmirched in an anti fundamentalist warrior groove which is, by definition, brutal and unnuanced work and limits his oeuvre. I think fighting this form of harmful religion remains pretty important work and needs to be picked up by someone. Philosophy will continue regardless.

Humanism can stand apart from religions without problems. It does so without issue all over the world. Not having 'a warrant' is an old fashioned frame for this. Humans are hard wired for empathy and system building. Without empathy we couldn't raise children. From this we build social conventions and codes of conduct. Or secular humanism.

And what exactly is the Christian world view? Is it burning witches, or stoning to death gay people? Is it pogroms against Jews? Pedophilia in the Catholic church? Is it the KKK - a strong and pious Christian organization? Not sure that the 'humanism' inherent in the Gospels can be relied upon to cut though. Secularism has often saved Christianity from barbarism and prejudice.

If you argue the point that the impulse to care for our fellow creatures can only come from a place of higher consciousness, you need to demonstrate this other than by inference. The evidence suggests that people care for their fellow creatures without requiring a transcendent foundation and people who do have such a bedrock, do not seem to object to hatred, murder and genocide.

And yes, the real question - the fundamental nature of reality and consciousness - remains unanswered. If this happens during my lifetime and the results require a shift in my thinking, I will make adjustments. In the meantime I am more concerned by how people behave rather than the origins of their beliefs.

Do explain and illustrate with an example. — baker

Doing something meaningful for others often provides purpose and healing for the helper. People dealing with depression, trauma and substance issues, for instance, can find healing in volunteering and community work that they may not get from counselling or introspection. Three decades of work in the area of addictions and mental ill health has demonstrated this to me many times.

How exactly do you quantify knowledge? — Pantagruel

I don't really.

All I am doing is reporting what my memory and impressions tell me. It may well be wrong but it is all we can do.

So don't believe that modern 'secular humanism' is actually humanistic - whatever humanism it retains, is from the dying embers of the Christian culture that gave rise to it. Look to the CCP for the future of 'secular humanism'. — Wayfarer

Those arguments are regularly made but I think it would be a mistake to adopt such a reductive view of today's secular humanism. It's a well established tradition (really just progressive politics without God) with some diversity of views. And no doubt every cause has its dogmatic dick heads.

You know the Italian Renaissance is said to be the seeding ground for humanism, right? — Wayfarer

Sure. I studied Pico's Oration and that fecund period 30 years ago. But everything comes from somewhere else, just as Zoroastrian ideas influenced Judaism. Satan came to us from there too, but it didn't stop Christian theology and literature manufacturing new ideas for Old Nick. Values of empathy, justice and human dignity are as old as humanity and so 'secular' humanism is not such a big leap.. or fall.

From what you write it sometimes seems your chief gripe with scientifically derived secularism is its ugly aesthetics and sometimes brutal language. Are we just jumped up pond scum? What is fascinating to me is that people like Dawkins love their architecture, classical music and poetry and great literary works. They spend a lot of time immersed in the numinous. I don't think their scientism (which I don't and can't share) is as limited as is sometimes insinuated. I believe Dennett and Dawkins probably have significantly rich inner and cultural lives of no less a kind than say, one of the better Archbishops of Canterbury or my local Rabbi.

You point to the CCP as the future of secular humanism? Why is it not the future of capitalism? Or the future of politics? Or the future of the Democrat party? That's no more serious an insight than the future of religion being Islamic State. Actually... I think this last one may be right. :razz:

Google definition of "fact": a thing that is known or proved to be true. — TheMadFool

I think evolution is a fact too but I don't consider it capital T truth.

For what it's worth, my personal opinion is that scientisim's bedrock foundation is a firm conviction that science is a, the sole dealer/purveyor/agent of "truth" which is clearly not true. — TheMadFool

Don't know about scientism as opposed to privileging science. But there are many secular humanists - advocates of science who would argue that science provides the best models of reality based on the evidence available and makes no proclamations about truth. It is a tool, no more. To say there is no God or to say that there are no other truth sources does not fit with many secular humanist science geeks I know.

Save yourself first or you can't save someone else, — Gregory

I've actually found that by saving someone else people save themselves.

So we might as well try to learn all of the lessons that life teaches us. And wherever one experiences the greatest aversion is usually where one has the most to learn. Because there is no need for what is understood to cause an emotional response. — Pantagruel

I am heading into late middle age. I don't think I have learned anything much from the passing of time or experience. I'm not sure how I would test this. Memory? Even more fallible than emotions. What I have always thought is that our emotional reactions are unreliable and are barely understood to our own selves. We may be less influenced by our emotions as we age but that is a moot point. In making decision I look for good reasons and evidence. I may be better at doing this with age but I really can't say for certain.

Is there something it is like to be a man? — bert1

I know almost as much about what it's like to be a bat as what it's like to be a man. It sounds like the kind of question to pose to a focus group in pitching a new style of disposable razor. My own intuition is just to get on with it and be.

Nicely put on all counts. Penrose is English and aloof and mysterious compared to garrulous, amiable American Tyson. Age and culture aside, I figure they are both sages representing different schools. I have never understood much science or been particularly interested. Ultimate truth or higher truth (whatever the source) has never been a thirst of mine. I am pretty comfortable with tentative working models based on the best evidence we have for now.

I'll check it out.

Yes, it's deeply unsatisfying but it may be better than ignorance. I say this as someone who knows very little about philosophy. I'm here largely to learn and see what I have been missing.

I know some people who delight in digging up evidence as to why Jesus wasn't a real figure, while idealizing science. — csalisbury

I think ordinary people care about science because of its power. We can lump prediction and control into coping if we want, or tools that work with or without their users' faith in them (where Buddhism or Satanism or Hegelianism may or may not work.) — j0e

The ordinary people I've known are not all much interested in science to be honest. Sure, they recognize its efficacy, but they also think it gave us nuclear weapons and climate change. Science is the creator/destroyer God, if you like.

People often live unexamined lives and they might think science is more plausible than religion (only because fundamentalists' theistic claims are so inane) but when it comes to scientific positions, they don't know the Newtonian model from, say, the Copenhagen Interpretation. If there are sages these days they might as well be the likes of Roger Penrose or Neil deGrasse Tyson, talking us through the Hermetic conundrums of the initial singularity and quantum field theory. The fact is we need science elders to talk as through ideas because quite frankly much science remains as inscrutable to ordinary folk as Plato's theory of forms.

is up to the individual to determine based on his own philosophical principles. — Tex

Well, yes kind of, but it's not just a case of making up whatever you think is right or wrong. Having some personal views isn't the same thing as doing philosophy. Often people will settle on a position on morality after reviewing, to the best of their ability, a range of established positions. Philosophy offers a web of ideas and situations. During this process it isn't unusual to find that you have changed your mind.

Thank you Tom. I was purposely being non-specific because I didn't want to believe that doing the right thing is situational. So is it true in Philosophy that doing the right thing can be situational?[/quote]

Situational ethics (a form of consequentialism) is an approach to assessing right and wrong, so yes. Philosophy can provide you with many contradictory schools and approaches.

If an action is right it could be argued the system it is in is immaterial. Unless you can demonstrate that the right thing will lead to direct harm to others.

General, non-specific discussion like this are hard to respond to and generate a range of sprawling scenarios. The briefly stated specifics of a situation are the best guide to assessing a potential response. But sometimes privacy issues are more important.

If the sage did know something determinate which could be discursively demonstrated, then we would have examples of such demonstrations, as we do with science and mathematics. So, when I say the sage does not know any such thing, I mean we have no reason to believe the sage knows any such thing. — Janus

We seem to keep getting stuck on this. If the assertion is that higher truth that can only be apprehended by non-rational means, the notion of demonstration or evidence takes on a different slant. That's kind of the point of the 'sage caper' - it is beyond the fragilities of even the scientific method. To say it is bunk because it can't be demonstrated is fair enough from a physicalist perspective, but perhaps we are trying to use a ruler to measure air pollution? The test of a sage's wisdom is presumably found by doing the work - learning the lessons, following the contemplative life, etc.

This discussion has been one of definitions and suppositions which is fine to a point, But in the end we have lack specificity. Who is a sage we can explore? What can be said about this sage? Incidentally, how many female sages can we name?

But what does that mean? I understand the phrase "conscientious objector" in war time, but can't make out what it could mean in the antinatalist case. — Manuel

He is saying that it is a personal position but it should not be implemented as a Stalinist social directive.

But I just cannot project some kind of 'trans-human' status on another human being. Obviously some people are generally wiser or or more virtuous or more skilled than others, but it's an uncertain continuum. We're all still fallible, vulnerable humans. — j0e

We are not in a position to know if any sage really 'has it' as we don't know what 'it' is and presumably, following the logic of higher consciousness, the ordinary person probably also lacks the capacity to see higher truth when it appears, so how do we know if teaching is right? How can we judge them by their works if judgment is down to us? I can't even tell if my mechanic is being straight with me...

On Sages. How do we tell bogus from bonne fide?

An old associate of mine worked for L Ron Hubbard back in the 1960's when he was at Saint Hill Manor. He called Hubbard a powerful and great sage.

What was the evidence for this, I asked?

He had exceptional power and control over his own body came the response.

I asked for an example.

One day LRH's hair would be grey and the next, through sheer will power, his hair had returned to its natural red color.

Hair dye? I suggested helpfully.

Impossible! came the response.

If there's such a thing as a 'true' sage, I imagine he'd show, not say
— csalisbury

Same here. — j0e

Sure. Of course there are those 'sages' who carefully orchestrate for others to testify on their behalf. Perhaps the origins of marketing.

The figure who I would choose as a kind of archetype of the Sage is Socrates.

If Tenzin Gyatso, Fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet can claim to be a Marxist then yes.

There are numerous interpretations of quantum field theory which is still a physicalist scientific view of reality. Considering this work is still in its infancy and we here are not quantum physicists, our somewhat speculations about how this impacts upon notions of consciousness are simplistic and most likely wrong.

I guess we can argue on its validity from both side of the argument of the quote being right and wrong. — RBS

It is a simple declaration that almost matches the Christian ideal that you shouldn't do good for the bragging rights. If good acts are done for show and reputation, the 'good' is no longer the motivation.