a transcendent reality which, in fact, may be better described as being nothing more than a completely non-rational, thoughtless, blind Will-to-Live — charles ferraro
Even 'metaphysical idealists' are only speaking in analogies when they speak of "ultimate reality". — 180 Proof
If by "ultimate reality" you mean the most general property, that is, the property possessed by every something, it is the property called variously identity, logical consistency, or existence. — litewave
A consequence of that is that you are already, by using language, embedding yourself in a community of language users. It follows that you can set solipsism aside. — Banno
Hence, idealism doesn't set out what is going on. Mind does not build reality, but finds itself embedded therein. — Banno
... which risks conflating, or confusing, a map reason favors (i.e. reifies) with the territory encompassing reason.... the metaphysics that goes beyond either brute realism or mystery-mongering idealism. It asks about rational structure ... — apokrisis
Category mistake, my friend. — 180 Proof
"Life" – homeostasis-reflexive metabolic self-replicators – is a dissipative, entropic subsystem that's niche-adapted along a cosmic entropy-gradient. — 180 Proof
"The Big Bang", it seems to me, is just the temporal horizon of the Hubble volume. — 180 Proof
It is weak to revert to claims about never really knowing whether or not something is the case. — apokrisis
No. But "as we know it" is not remotely the same as the "everything" you stated the BB was "the start of".Can you offer good reasons to doubt the Big Bang is the start of spacetime and [matter] as we know it? — apokrisis
No. On the contrary, they were philosophers, not sophists.Hegel praised ultimate reality, while Schopenhauer condemned ultimate reality [ ... ] Was one correct and the other incorrect? Or were they both just highly sophisticated b.s. artists? — charles ferraro
Instead of talking of some ultimate property - which is a monistic concept - we can instead switch to seeking some ultimate relation, or form of interaction. — apokrisis
mattergy — apokrisis
the discussion of rational structure usually stumbles over the “mental” aspect - the place that meaning, purpose and point of view have in a structuralist metaphysics. — apokrisis
It is a perennial philosophical reflection that if one looks deeply enough into oneself, one will discover not only one’s own essence, but also the essence of the universe. For as one is a part of the universe as is everything else, the basic energies of the universe flow through oneself, as they flow through everything else. For that reason it is thought that one can come into contact with the nature of the universe if one comes into substantial contact with one’s ultimate inner being. — SEP entry on Schopenhauer
How, then, given your position, was it at all possible for so many philosophers to have tried to describe or explain ultimate reality throughout the ages? — charles ferraro
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