@Philosophim

Debates are okay.

You know what I like better?

Running into an amazing person who has spent a lifetime becoming skilled in something.

And I have met and appreciated many such persons.

I have been a professional painter for over 40 years and painted my first house 55 years ago. This summer, I painted a cape by myself in 6 hours. My business is more than half commercial, and I painted a long hallway in Titleist last month surrounded by people, and I organized the whole thing like a ballet, so no one got in each other's way. So, I really can't learn much from other painters. Maybe something, but not much.

I do not think that it is different at all when we meet a person who has become very experienced intellectually or spiritually.

It's not insignificant that no person here so far has been curious about monastic life after meeting a person who lived in a monastery.

Perhaps you don't understand what the philosophy boards are about, which is fine. We're here to discuss claims beyond the general, beyond our every day experience. We ask each other to examine our assumptions and logic closely, trying to find flaws as well as new insights.

The person who has figured everything out, cannot do philosophy. No one can grant them greater insight, and no one can learn from them. That is because to communicate with another person, you must be willing to learn how another person thinks and see the world. It is letting a window into another aspect of the world, something only that person can provide. Sometimes seeing into that window provides nothing, but many times, in places you wouldn't expect, you find something new you've never seen before. Only a mind that realizes they have not figured everything out can do that.

If you want praise for your accomplishments as a painter, I will grant it! It is wonderful that you have worked hard on something your entire life and mastered it. But painting in itself is not philosophy. Many of the people you are reading from have accomplished great things elsewhere in their lives. It is irrelevant. Their background does not matter, only their logic and arguments.

If you would like to start a thread commenting on your life in a monastery, feel free. People here would not ask about you in your thread about your philosophical claim, because that would be considered rude. We are not here to talk about your background, we are here to talk about your philosophical claims.

There are a few masters on here who have devoted their lives to philosophy and discussion. Surely you as a painter understand that the mastery of one painting technique does not make you a master at one you've never done before? Your background with a religious view of philosophy might be well learned, but there are many aspects you have not likely encountered.

Come with humbleness, and listen as well as contribute. There is much to learn from others, as well as I'm sure much to learn from you.

Our life becomes as great as our experiences, not as we think it to be. — Joe Mello

I imagine there’s no other way for you to think of it, that great experiences, such as those involving God, make a great person.

I believe that transcendent experiences dissolve dualities like greater/lesser and that religion requires them.

@Garrett Travers

All your answers are dependent upon measurements and physical phenomenon.

You can't measure that two contradictory statements in the same sentence can both be true, but they can't.

I asked you about "powers" we possess, and you equated each power with the "seat" for that power.

A "seat" of a power is not equal to the power. No one says I brained of you today. I heart you very much.

You do not ponder a divine God, the greatest being we can comprehend. But only such a being could be responsible for the powers we possess. And he seats these divine powers in our physical bodies. And there is no evidence that our physical bodies could be capable of evolving into creators of these powers.

The physical universe, no matter how complex it can get in our heads, cannot be the author of thought itself, only the seat for thoughts to be part of a mindless physical universe.

You do not know the difference between the nature of a thing and a thing in action.

And you look for "evidence" in the second degree of abstraction when there is a higher third degree of abstraction.

You are a materialist. And materialists have always been around.

You have no real answers to human existence or even existence itself, only to physical realities that are already up and running.

As a philosopher, you have created a world for yourself tethered to mathematics and machinery, and you feel it was brilliant on your part to do so. It wasn't, and never has been.

And if there was an atheist charity coalition, it would consist of three guys in a basement passing out a dozen turkey dinners on Thanksgiving.

So you stop it.

@Philosophim

You're doing that Internet trolling thing.

Seeking to get praise by faceless people on the Internet would be pathological and stupid.

Figuring "everything out" is not the same thing as figuring "something out".

Is there a difference between a skeptic with a philosophy hobby and an academic with a Philosophy degree? And would the academic find it very difficult to read the thoughts of the skeptic because he overcame the errors in the skeptic's thinking long ago?

And can there not be threads on this forum where only persons interested in learning something should go and learn something?

I was never a fan of everyone getting a trophy, because that would not help us as a human community put each person in their proper places.

The great philosophers distinguished between opinion and knowledge.

Today's thinkers mostly don't.

You can't measure that two contradictory statements in the same sentence can both be true, but they can't. — Joe Mello

I can't read this. Clear this up for me?

I asked you about "powers" we possess, and you equated each power with the "seat" for that power. — Joe Mello

No, I equated it with the source, the generator. Not the seat. Seats are inanimate objects, not systems of literal astronomical complexity. Again, reduction. Stop it.

A "seat" of a power is not equal to the power. No one says I brained of you today. I heart you very much. — Joe Mello

People don't say "brained" of you, because we have a word for the perception of thought, a computation of that brain. But, yes, people quite literally say "I heart you." But, the heart doesn't produce thought. We associated love and hearts out of ignorance and linguistic frameworks that predate knowledge that are still in use.

You do not ponder a divine God, the greatest being we can comprehend. But only such a being could be responsible for the powers we possess. And he seats these divine powers in our physical bodies. And there is no evidence that our physical bodies could be capable of evolving into creators of these powers. — Joe Mello

Again, I'm a former Christian, and not your Sunday kind, either. I was a deep believer, even felt as though things had happened to me that I would never be able to convince people of, and thought of it as a point of pride, like I was walking the same outcast path as Christ because I meant it. It was fantasy. If there is no evidence that can be shown to me by him, then such is fine. I will walk this Earth without him, and when he meets me in heaven I'll say "You gonna explain that shit?" And if he doesn't, then he's immoral, not I. I wouldn't have generated this kind of place with his power. Again, if it's a sword he wishes to fashion for the world to live by, then may he die by it.

The physical universe, no matter how complex it can get in our heads, cannot be the author of thought itself, only the seat for thoughts to be part of a mindless physical universe. — Joe Mello

That could very well be true, and there could very well be more to all of this than what consciousness has let on, or could ever. But, that is not the path I walk. HereI am, friend, and here I remain. And I love my life, and I love yours. And consciousness is everything to me, because it allows me to be good in an evil world. And I wouldn't trade that to any god, for any reason. If there is one, friend, I promise you, he will meet my terms to gain my love, just as I will meet his in return for showing me such an honor.

You do not know the difference between the nature of a thing and a thing in action. — Joe Mello

Sure, I do. I'm an artist and a composer. I make things just because I love to. Just as I interact with all of you, even though I find some our people here to be hopelessly clueless, or their ideas to be evil. That doesn't mean I cannot tell difference between role and nature. I incorporate all elements of reality into my zeitgeist, because reality is the only place from whence my brain can retreive data to inform my actions for greater results for me and those I value. That's all.

And you look for "evidence" in the second degree of abstraction when there is a higher third degree of abstraction. — Joe Mello

I would love to know what that level is, but it is hard for me to hear you remark upon it in one sentence, after have stated that we have no access to it in another. Such is not within my purview of understandability.

As a philosopher, you have created a world for yourself tethered to mathematics and machinery, and you feel it was brilliant on your part to do so. It wasn't, and never has been. — Joe Mello

I'm open to the possibility of truth in such a statement. But, when I look at what my people have achieved in this world, the things my tradition has discovered in the blueprint of the Universe, I am breathtaken, and proud beyond reckoning. And among those things discovered, nowhere has there been any sign of the presence of an author.

And if there was an atheist charity coalition, it would consist of three guys in a basement passing out a dozen turkey dinners on Thanksgiving. — Joe Mello

Yes, I actually agree with you here. Every atheist I have met in person has been a heathen. Period. I find it very strange that atheists for some strange reason almost invariably concluded that everything is permitted. I have always held the opposite view.

So you stop it. — Joe Mello

Now, let's not be silly here.

@Garrett Travers

I honestly didn’t think I could enjoy anything you wrote, but I actually enjoyed the whole thing.

If you ever want to hear about what happens when we challenge Jesus’ promises through real sacrifice, instead of giving up on him, I have a story to tell you.

For now, I’ll just say … holy shit, the stories are all true!

Oh, and I'm a vocalist. Sang Zeppelin in the 70s with a rock band called Mordor, and Prince in the 80s with a funk band called Chill Factor. And I love singing Frank Sinatra and Teddy Pendergrass today.

It's undeniable that God is the ultimate reason we are fooling around in the muddy waters of the Earthly realms, be it here or somewhere in Andromeda. Does this realization of Him being indirectly present in everything give life a heaviness or lightness?

The great philosophers distinguished between opinion and knowledge. — Joe Mello

Where do you draw the line though?

I think it's rather curious that you were welcomed with egards and the egards changed.

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

I haven't read the thread, so if something here is repeated, apologies. Let me take a stab at it.

When speaking of things like "lesser", do you have in mind something like "less complex"? Otherwise I'm left with "inferior", and I don't think it's quite right for us to say that something in the world is superior to another inherently. We add that additional value ourselves, but not the world - the world doesn't care.

Essentially when we get a new phenomena in nature, say, experience or water or something that is quite rare, we must assume that in the stuff out of which experience and water is made of, there is the potential for these more sophisticated developments already found in the "lesser thing".

So it's not so much that something "greater" is added, its that a specific combination ignited, so to speak, what was already there unrealized, as it were.

I honestly didn’t think I could enjoy anything you wrote, but I actually enjoyed the whole thing.

If you ever want to hear about what happens when we challenge Jesus’ promises through real sacrifice, instead of giving up on him, I have a story to tell you.

For now, I’ll just say … holy shit, the stories are all true!

Oh, and I'm a vocalist. Sang Zeppelin in the 70s with a rock band called Mordor, and Prince in the 80s with a funk band called Chill Factor. And I love singing Frank Sinatra and Teddy Pendergrass today. — Joe Mello

Honestly, I may take you up on that sometime, because I've had a recent resurgence of oppositional emotion toward religion, to the point of hostility even. And, I know better than to do that. You see, I recently discovered the history of Epicurus, and what the newly powerful Christian Roman power did to his people, what they did to these peaceful, loving people. People who brought us the values that founded the U.S., for what it's still worth. They slaughtered them, man. Oppressed them into non-existence, and left their memory in darkness for a thousand years. Traded free communities of thinkers for Children's Crusades and Indulgences. It hurt. For the first time this past week I was genuinely disturbed by history again; not something to happen in a very, very long time. The last time was when I discovered Treblinka. It's left me a bit bitter to religion. So maybe I'll take you up on that.

Frank, although not a music writer, is king of that list, by the way.

I came here writing about a metaphysical principle and not about revelation

Haven't you realized yet that metaphysical principles do not find justification in logic or empirical investigation, and that they therefore have to appeal to revelation, that is they rely on rhetorical power to persuade?

To claim to have critical thinking skills is the first claim of every skeptic, not a proven reality from simply dismissing everything that can’t be mathematically or visually confirmed.

It has nothing to do with "proven reality". Metaphysical principles have to do with faith and groundless presupposition. If your critical thinking skills were up to par you would know that.

Qanon’s mantra is “do the research”.

Yes but it should be "do the "research"".

You have gravitated towards revelation in my posts for personal reasons, not because your critical thinking skills demanded it.

You know nothing about me and yet you impute "personal reasons". Again poor thinking skills are on display.

A basic metaphysical principle would be that “No two contradictory statements in the same sentence can both be true”.

Scientists couldn’t function without it.

No that's a basic logical principle; you're getting your categories mixed up.

But there are many more logical principles of ever-increasing elegance. A truly disciplined and talented intellect would be on the search for them, and would step by step from the most basic to the most elegant discover them.

You give no examples, so this is merely empty rhetoric.

When G. K. Chesterton became a scholastically trained academic, he said that doing so did not teach him what to think but how to think.

Today’s thinkers don’t even know the difference.

The irony! Here you are trying to tell us what to think. It seems you have not learned GK's lesson.

You are probably not going to convince anyone here of any metaphysical principles by argument. You would be better served to hone your poetical skills if you want to win converts. That's what really does the job in the metaphysical arena.

How convincing do you think G K Chesterton's works would be if he were not such a wonderful colourful wordsmith?

No combination of lesser things can create a greater thing without something greater than the greater thing added to the lesser things.
— Joe Mello
Sounds like knowledge – an explanatory process (e.g. historical, formal & natural sciences) – to me, Joe. It might be the worst cultural ratchet (racket?) we primates have come up with except for all the others tried in the last fifty millennia. Consider this (if you haven't already) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beginning_of_Infinity ...

Btw, welcome to our sandbox! — 180 Proof

I believe the OP is trying to open a discussion on holism (the whole is greater than the sum of its parts) and antireductionism.

I don't see why you had to bring up infinity? Is it because with infinities a part (odd/even numbers) can be equal to the whole (natural numbers)?

@Janus

You’re trolling me.

The relationship between Metaphysics and Epistemology is a fine distinction.

Equating Metaphysics with Revelation is idiotic.

And any logical principle is a metaphysical principle.

Metaphysics is a particular science.

To be metaphysical means to be outside the realms of the senses.

@Manuel

You don’t have to read back too far to get answers to most of your questions.

You’re trolling me.

The relationship between Metaphysics and Epistemology is a fine distinction.

Equating Metaphysics with Revelation is idiotic. — Joe Mello

I'm not trolling you. I gave you an argument and you return to me with an ad hominem and an unjustified rhetorical assertion, I assume because you cannot find a counterargument.

By the way, when I say "revelation" I am not referring specifically to biblical revelation, but to the kind of allusive revelation found in great poetry (of which the Bible is a sterling example).

Great poetry reveals ideas in ways that appeal to the aesthetic sensibility and the intuitive imagination, not to the discursive propositional intellect. That's what I'm talking about.

I agree with your words very much, this is a sound logical argument. Perhaps we may add it with the idea that Nothing can lead to something greater than itself. Consider that a finite object can only lead to the equivalent of itself or something lower. A finite object A may be transmuted into another finite object B using some change of arrangements, but if it has finite power, then it can only be transmuted into another finite object the equivalent of itself. The Absolutely Infinite Being which some or many or we call God cannot lead to something greater, for the Absolutely Infinite is the upper limit of all things. However, God can lead to something lesser, that is the realm of the finite.

To be metaphysical means to be outside the realms of the senses. — Joe Mello

The original meaning was "after physics" as that was Aristotle's book after his book Physics. Since then metaphysics as traditionally understood has been the "science" inquiring into the nature of reality, as opposed to the appearances studied by science. Logic is the study of valid thinking; so the two should not be conflated.

I didn't "bring up" anything, Smith. I recommended a book which expounds in great depth on my answer to the OP: knowledge. Clearly, as his subsequent posts exhibit, he incorrigibly lacks that "something greater". Once again, I've cast pearls before swine (re: this thread). :zip:

Perhaps we may add it with the idea that Nothing can lead to something greater than itself. — IP060903

How do you know that is true? It's possible that life and then consciousness emerged from nothing more than physical complexity. We just don't know, and probably never will. Logic cannot tell you it is impossible because there is no logical contradiction in the idea. On the other hand think of quantum physics; logic might seem to tell us that light cannot be both a wave and particle, and this does appear to be a contradiction, and yet it appears that light is both wave and particle. Logic cannot tell you what the nature of things is; it cannot tell you anything about the actual world.

I like your idea and honestly I am happy more than ever that someone has responded to me, especially someone who seems like a veteran to me.

My emotions aside, then what tells us all about the actual world?

Thanks for your kind words. Science tells us about the world as it appears to us. Phenomenology tells us about ourselves and the ways we experience things. Philosophy of language tells us how we use language. Logic tells us what is valid and invalid in thinking.

The arts and religion show us how we can transform ourselves and our imaginative understanding of our experience. For what it's worth that's a very rough and ready guide to how I see things. Anyway welcome to the forum.

Thanks for your welcome. I have been here for some time, but the tension of philosophical debate always messes up with my heart and mind. Only now I find some strength to face the fear of criticisms and perhaps even worse, accusations. 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?

I feel you; I know it can be intimidating to present your ideas and face criticism. But that is how we learn and develop our thinking. Wittgenstein said "Don't for heaven's sake, be afraid of talking nonsense! But you must pay attention to your nonsense.“

Kant said we can only know the world as it appears to us. But how it appears to us may tell us something about how the world is. There is no certainty there, In any case learning about how the world appears to be is a large enough task for many lifetimes; no one individual could grasp more than a fraction of modern scientific knowledge.

And then there are the other worlds of logic, phenomenology, religion and the arts; if you have an inquiring mind you won't be bored, and if you can reconcile yourself to inevitable uncertainty and not always being able to get what you want in general, then you won't be miserable.

Again that's just the way I ('ve come to) see things; I understand the yearning for certainty (and security, lack of suffering and eternal life). Things we all have to face one way or another and humans are very adept at devising different strategies.

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?

That is a very nice way of life and thinking. I had an ethical thought back then based on "acceptance", making peace with all of reality, even the worst of all, is a good way to have some joy even in the darkest of times. Honestly I've given up on true certainty, the foundational block of my entire mind, God, is no more than an object of faith, in multiple senses of that expression. It is by no means blasphemy, for God knows this Himself, that He cannot be grasped by human reason, only by faith.

Good post.

I believe access here means even fundamental knowledge of the existence of an ultimate reality. To me, knowing what the ultimate reality is "like", and whether it exists barely or not, is the best bet we can have. Then again, it depends on the definition of existence, or the perspective on what constitutes as existence. It is most likely, in my view, that one cannot access ultimate reality in a full way on this mortal life. Because the brain and body and this universe is not designed to contain ultimate reality, it will kill us.

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.

I believe we have different conceptions of what is an ultimate reality. If ultimate reality is just a human construct, then for sure it has no absolute power against us apart from that power which we grant that construct over us. The other alternative, is a bit more deadly, and I admit I am basing this line of thought from biblical thought, that human contact with God leads to the death of the man, in one way or another. If ultimate reality is something which exists outside of the human mind, with a true parallel on the outside world, then well again it does depend on what definitions are you using to define this ultimate reality. I have no idea what your views are, so I cannot say about it, but I know my own so I can say it. My view is that ultimate reality is for the very least, the union of all reality. If a man is to witness this kind of radical union directly with their own soul or body, would it not kill them, in a sense or two of the word "kill"? Though you are right, there is no real certainty as of to whether encounters with the divine, that is the ultimate, are deadly or not.